peta

Inspired by the iconic and cute Hello Kitty wraps for the Smart ForTwo, the People of the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is asking for "Hello Doggy" wraps, too.

In a letter to Smart USA President Jill Lajdziak, PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said that the animal rights organization wants to partner with Smart USA to offer "a 'Hello Doggy' Smart ForTwo wrap--in the same cute style as your recently introduced Hello Kitty wrap, but this wrap would be a public service," the letter said.

In the letter, PETA reports that 6 million to 8 … Read more

Facebook followers of the Coach leather goods company were treated to some unpleasant imagery on Thursday when dozens of anti-fur activists flooded the Coach Facebook wall with graphic photographs of caged and skinned animals.

They were likely followers of an ongoing campaign on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which is well-known for heavy shock value in an attempt to get its message across (as well as its sometime affinity for robot groundhogs), to convince Coach to dump fur products.

Coach has more than 1 million Facebook fans--as far as luxury brands go, it's been … Read more

Virtual meat hooks, flame throwers, and propane bombs are OK, but attack dogs are not: social-gaming behemoth Zynga has removed pit bulls from its roster of virtual weaponry in the Mafia Wars game after a complaint last month on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

PETA's reasoning is that promoting a domestic animal as a weapon will only encourage misunderstanding and abuse of pit bulls, which have been routinely used in illegal dog-fighting activities and are often subject to horrific conditions as their owners attempt to toughen them up. The breed of dog has gotten bad … Read more

You guys filled up our voice mail box over the weekend with your thoughts on the new Apple iPad, but we have to spread the hate around with a quick chat about last night's Grammy Awards, PETA's robotic groundhogs, and high school reunions. We've also got plenty of your sticker pictures to show off, including one that might be NSFW....big surprise, 404!

The Grammy Awards are becoming less and less significant to our personal music tastes, but something has to be said about a show that nominates NICKELBACK for Best Hard Rock Performance. To make matters worse, the show paired together some of the worst collaborations in the history of live performance.

To quickly recap the night, all you need to know is that Lady Gaga won two well-deserved awards and performed Speechless with Sir Elton John, Green Day took the award for Best Rock Album, poor Stevie Nicks looked pissed to be singing about locker room romance with 16-year-old darling Taylor Swift, and the live studio audience got treated to a 3D clip from Michael Jackson's "This Is It" while the rest of us settled for 2Ds and a subsequent headache.

Speaking of bad news, we've got some bad news about the Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, the new Broadway musical coming soon to New York. We just found out that the entire musical soundtrack is composed by U2's Bono and The Edge. Don't get us wrong, the three of us all have a special place in our hearts for U2, but their music just doesn't evoke images of a masked web-crawler slinging his way about town snapping photos of criminals and taking down a few in the process.

Finally, much thanks to everyone for sending in their sticker pictures! We've sent out hundreds of envelopes so far, so keep them coming; send a photo of where you put the stickers and tattoos to the404(at)cnet(dot)com!

For all I know, the folks who run PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, are fine, upstanding individuals.

I imagine that at times, they get a little over-excited about their cause. But at least they care about something.

For example, Monday, PETA's blog celebrated the organization's success in persuading a hospital in Missouri to stop shoving plastic pipes down cats' windpipes.

I can't be sure if the hospital was searching for a cure for hay fever or merely allowing its internists to have some rather unpleasant fun. Because I was struck momentarily insensate by … Read more

It's been criticized for contributing to the obesity epidemic and condemned by PETA, but now a Burger King franchise in the New York metro area has announced that it wants in on the green movement. The high-traffic restaurant in Hillside, N.J., will install a speed bump designed to harness the kinetic energy produced by the hundreds of cars that pass through the drive-thru daily.

As they wait for their Double Whopper, customers will roll through a section of the drive-thru lane lined with metal plates that move down and up as cars head to the next window. The … Read more

Caroline McCarthy and Tim Geisenheimer join The 404 today, while Jeff pretends to celebrate the Passover with his family. The ace reporter brings in cupcakes made with bacon cream-cheese frosting and beer. Sounds incredibly healthy. Here's the recipe.

On today's show, we cover the news that Yelp is finally letting businesses respond to negative reviews that users write. Did you know that The 404 has a Yelp page? Wilson discovers that you can actually write reviews for almost anything, including homeless people. In the same vein, feel free to write Yelp reviews for your favorite 404 hosts.

In more outrageous news today, PETA is holding an animal protest rally in World of Warcraft. WoW players are slaughtering baby seals in the "Howling Fjord." We think PETA should spend its time trying to stop Tim from killing baby seals on the weekends, rather than virtual seals. Also, a man in Texas got stabbed for farting in the room with his buddies. This happens on a daily basis in Wilson's office. More from Texas: a state legislator says that Asian American names are too confusing. And South of the border, Mexican drug dealers are sending blatant death threats on YouTube.

Thanks for sending in your survival stories. Keep them coming. E-mail them or call us at the usual number. And be sure to RSVP for the upcoming 404 meetup on April 16 next week. Here's the link. Jennifer Love Hewitt and Megan Fox will be there! (Not really, but Natali Del Conte will be.)

Justin kicks off the show with some fresh haterade for Fox "personality" Bill O'Reilly and his views on the godless liberal city of San Francisco. Also on the show, Wilson goes hands on with the Blackberry Storm, an inmate gets $300 K for his lost genitals, NASA installs a fart detector in the space station, same sex couples can join eHarmony and PETA releases "Cooking Mama: Mama kills animals." We conclude with a geeked out discussion about X-Men.

Dan the Mantern here. In case you haven't seen it already, you should check out the above "documentary" from the O'Reilly Factor that claims that, should the Christian right not remain vigilant, all of America will begin to resemble San Francisco, the modern-day Sodom. If you analyze the video, you'll notice that several interviews were conducted with homeless people and burnt-out hippies, precisely the type of people who would make any city seem like an undesirable place to live. Obviously O'Reilly is running out of material. You better watch your back, Bill, because I know a 130-lb. Asian man who loves skinny jeans and ass-whupping, and his skinny jeans are in the wash...

UPDATE: If you're having problems listening to today's episode of the show, please re-download the episode. We apologize, but there was an error in the MP3 encoding, which caused the file to not play passed the 7 minute mark.

On today's show, we reveal our favorite fragrances, briefly touch on the new Apple offerings, disappear into e-Ink, rip into the Geek Squad and Microsoft's new "gurus," send text messages to inanimate household objects, and try to convince Wilson to take a shower in public in the name of animal rights.

Don't bust out that checkbook yet, my friends, contrary to popular belief, Natali Del Conte's hair is not on eBay...yet. We'll be the first ones to break that news, but until then you'll just have to listen to our show to get your NDC fix. Lots of news to talk about today, which we get to right after we guess each other's favorite eau de liquid smells. No surprise here, but Jeff's is the sweet scent of Natali's hair that he creepily compares to a cherry lollipop. Anyway, we also get the scoop on a few more tech-related gems, including a story about energy companies testing a program that will send you a text message on behalf of your thermostat if you forget to turn it off when you leave the house. Hey, I'm all for energy conversation, but are ya kidding me!? So now, on top of ignoring text messages from my close friends and family members, I have to deal with spam from my household appliances, too!? I guess I can see it being useful when I forget to turn off the oven, but I'd prefer to get the news by driving up to a burning apartment rather than getting a text from my oven that says "Hey, dummy--you forgot to turn me off, so now I'm spitting hot fire at all your physical possessions. See you at home!" No thanks, gas company, you can keep the service--I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.