People for the Ethi¢al Treatment of Animal$™

What Might Have Been:

PETA Spokesman Michal Vick Launches
a Yorkie Into Orbit at a PETA Fundraiser

I probably shouldn't be surprised, but it looks like our supposedly saintly friends at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have been caught with their hands in the corruption cookie jar.

Over at Townhall.com, Dwayne Horner has a piece up detailing how the animal rights group seems to have developed a bit of a pay-to-play operation. Or, maybe it was just a coincidence that they launched a campaign against MasterCard while cutting a deal with VISA to issue a special PETA VISA card (with one percent of all purchases made with said card going into PETA's coffers). It's probably also true that everyone's favorite animal lovers had perfectly righteous motives in accusing the IAMS pet food company of animal cruelty - it had nothing to do with the fact that they were getting an 8 percent cut from the sales of a new "holistic" dog food.

Nope - nothing at all is amiss at PETA...and in other news, pigs are sprouting wings and taking to the skies.

Writing for Big Hollywood, Ken Blackwell exposes another potential sellout opportunity for PETA - although luckily this one fell through. Apparently, the dog-lovers were working on a deal with convicted dog-abuser (and former NFL QB) Michael Vick, in which he would film public service announcements condemning dog-fighting. With all due respect to our well-intentioned friends at PETA - rehabilitation is a noble goal, but putting a just-released mutt-murderer in an animal rights PSA is a bit of a stretch...unless you're after money and free publicity, in which case it makes perfect sense.

Listen, I'm sure there are many wonderful (if misguided) people working for PETA, but something definitely smells a little fishy.

Oh...and just in case you were about to mention all of the animals that PETA saves - Horner also pointed out that they only manage to find homes for one out of every 300 animals they take in, with 95 percent being euthanized.

If you to donate money to save animals, I would suggest a reputable conservationist organization like Trout Unlimited - because PETA is obviously not cutting the mustard when it comes to looking out for our furry, feathered, and fishy friends.

Note: Vick photo listed as licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 on Wikipedia - Yorkie photo listed as public domain.