Peta

THE EAGLES are about to start their new season, and I just can't wait for those hypocrites from PETA to show up and protest Michael Vick. Who finances these vultures to gain media attention? And with all the pelicans, fish and endangered sea turtles getting murdered by the BP oil spill, where are they? That's right, nowhere to be found. I rest my case. Ralph P. Goldsborough, Yeadon

My dad and I have been fishing together for 25 years. These outings have produced some of my fondest childhood memories: muggy summers and muted autumn morns; salty hair and burnished skin; bright, red-and-white bobbers, emerald waters and cerulean skies; seagulls circling, minnows wriggling, bare feet dangling off our seaweed-strewn pier on the Jersey shore; the whirrrr and click of our side-by-side casts; the shared rite of silent anticipation and...

'HEY, didja hear about the PETA thing?" someone snickers, and I cringe. Now what? The "Holocaust on Your Plate" campaign, which is as offensive as it sounds, or the appeal to Yasser Arafat to exclude animals from terrorist missions, or the Easter-week billboard showing a pig and the phrase "He died for your sins," or one of the other shock-value stunts PETA's pulled lately? Unlike most PETA critics, I share the "extremist" goal behind these moves: bringing to public attention the injustices animals suffer.

RE Michelle Malkin ("Gone Fishin' - Guilt Free," Aug. 18) on recreational fishing and certain environmental zealots who criticize the sport: I wholehearetedly agree with Ms. Malkin. Not only do these radical groups, like PETA, reject sport fishing, they are now lobbying to have large areas of the ocean closed to recreational fishing. These areas, known as MPAs (marine protected area), are supposed to rebuild fish stocks in areas where the fish population has been depleted. In reality, there is no evidence that this is occuring, as National Marine Fisheries Service data shows that many coastal fish populations targeted by recreational anglers, such as summer flounder, are actually on the rise.

FAKE CHICKEN could now be worth $1 million. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals gas announced that it will present a $1 million prize to anyone who can demonstrate a major breakthrough in the technology of lab-grown meat: Contestants have until 2012 to produce a commercially viable in-vitro chicken substitute that tastes like the real thing. The X-Poultry Prize has already generated high expectations. In its press release, PETA suggests that in-vitro farms will spare the "more than 40 billion chickens, fish, pigs, and cows" killed every year in the United States.

Sir Paul McCartney, who urged fans saddened by the death of his wife Linda to "go veggie" in her honor, says he's taking up her fervor for animal rights. "I want people to be reassured that we're going to keep this torch burning," he said. To show he's serious, the former Beatle gave his first interview since Linda's April death to Animal Times, a magazine published by the fringe-y People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. "Over the years, because I had the luxury of Linda taking the front role on animal issues, some people would occasionally make out that I wasn't really committed and that I was a secret meat-eater in the background," the musician told the mag. "Just to prove that's not the case, I thought, rather than do some general interviews about how much I miss her, which the newspapers would like, I should do it with the PETA magazine, because that's where it's at. " Earlier this week, McCartney complained publicly about research being done on animals at the University of California in San Francisco.

It's been a tough year for many Americans - and if it were up to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Pennsylvania's Punxsutawney Phil would be out of a job, too. PETA says that the nation's most famous groundhog, the center of the annual Groundhog Day celebration who yesterday predicted another six weeks of winter, should be replaced by an animatronic groundhog. Phil's yearly weatherman duties and his regular home in captivity are cruel, said PETA spokeswoman Lisa Wathne.

I could tell it was a parody. "Dear Warden Lappin," began the letter to the director of the federal pen in Terre Haute, Ind., where Timothy McVeigh is being held, "On behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), I am writing to ask that you make Timothy McVeigh's final meals vegetarian ones. . . . Mr. McVeigh should not be allowed to take even one more life. " It had to be a spoof. To suggest that murdering a human being in an act of terrorism is on the same moral plane as killing a cow for food is so obtuse and heartless that no feeling person could write such words except in satire.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is seeking the suspension of Eight Belles' jockey after the filly had to be euthanized following her second-place finish in the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. Gabriel Saez was riding Eight Belles when she broke both front ankles while galloping out a quarter of a mile past the wire. She was euthanized on the track. PETA faxed a letter yesterday to Kentucky's racing authority claiming the filly was "doubtlessly injured before the finish" and asked that Saez be suspended while Eight Belles' death is investigated.

THE AWARDS keep piling up like discarded boyfriends for Paris Hilton. A few days ago she was named the nation's worst puppy parent by readers of two dog magazines. Yesterday, she was named the year's worst-dressed celebrity by the animal-rights group PETA. Those darn fur coats. Hilton is followed on the 2005 worst-dressed list by her pal Kimberly Stewart ("she and best bud Paris are so clueless about animals," writes PETA), Lisa Gastineau, Victoria Gotti and Tara Reid.

Dick Clark, who died Wednesday at 82 of a heart attack, has been cremated, rep Paul Shefrin tells USA Today. Entertainment Tonight reports the ashes will be scattered in the Pacific Ocean, but Shefrin says Clark's family had not yet decided what to do with them. Plans for a public memorial hadn't been finalized. Simon Cowell: Not gay Simon Cowell, whose sexuality has been the subject of not a few gossip items, tells biographer Tom Bower in a new book he is straight.

In a bid to shock Center City passersby, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals placed a doll of a human baby in the center of table surrounded with all the traditional Thanksgiving fixings Monday to protest eating turkey on the holiday. But with Salvation Army bells ringing in the background at the corner of Ninth and Market Streets, hardly anyone seemed disturbed by the display. The message, said Virginia Fort, a PETA senior campaigner, was that "everybody's somebody's baby, including turkeys.

You could have expected to hear an obscenity or two during the Grammy Awards. But for a bomb to drop during a recorded opera on public radio on a Saturday afternoon? In the Metropolitan Opera's staging of John C. Adams' Nixon in China , soprano Kathleen Kim , in full voice playing Madame Mao , sang: "We'll teach these motherf- ers how to dance. " Dave Conant of WRTI-FM (90.1), one of 60 affiliates that aired Saturday's performance, said he fielded two complaints Monday: one from someone who objected to the salty language, the other from someone suggesting that the Met stick to standard repertory.

"I want what Miley's smoking!" So chant the nation's youth, gripped by a new, intoxicating fever spread by that - very cute - corrupter of the young, Miley Cyrus . It's called salvia. It's a drug. And Miley totally digs it. In a video that went viral late last week, the 18-year-old Hannah Montana alum is shown smoking a bong at a party, whereupon she's seized by a storm of cackling, giggling, grimacing, and grinning. TMZ says Miley fans have been rushing to their local head shops following reports that the substance she was smoking was not pot but the psychoactive plant salvia divinorum , which is legal in 35 states.

A scientist studying retinal disease in dogs falsified research data while he was at the University of Pennsylvania, investigators said this week. University officials said the misconduct by Gerardo L. Paez was first discovered by the school and then confirmed by the Office of Research Integrity of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A postdoctoral fellow at Penn, Paez left in 2007 and is now listed as a faculty member of the University of Michigan-Flint. He did not return requests for comment.

Each year, for decades now, fur-maker Blackglama has chosen a big lady star to be its spokes-clotheshorse. Think Kate Hepburn , Audrey Hepburn , Marlene Dietrich , Judy Garland , Sophia Loren . This year? Janet Jackson in a pert new short 'do and furs up to her nostrils. PETA, of course, had a mink about it. With reason: Janet's been on record against real fur in photo shoots. Too bad, PETA! That was then, this is cash! Girl's gonna be in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and W, and on a big Times Square billboard.

THE EAGLES are about to start their new season, and I just can't wait for those hypocrites from PETA to show up and protest Michael Vick. Who finances these vultures to gain media attention? And with all the pelicans, fish and endangered sea turtles getting murdered by the BP oil spill, where are they? That's right, nowhere to be found. I rest my case. Ralph P. Goldsborough, Yeadon

Yo, ump, not so fast Houston pitcher Roy Oswalt is off the hook after getting the hook from umpire Bill Hohn. Thing is Hohn is on it. Hohn tossed the Astros ace after a confrontation in the third inning of Monday's 14-3 loss to the Nationals for arguing. Now a MLB official is saying the ump will be addressed "in a very stern way. " Bob Watson, the vice president in charge of discipline, rules and on-field operations for MLB, told Houston television station KRIV that Oswalt will not be penalized further after Monday's incident but Hohn will get a phone call from Mike Port, baseball's vice president in charge of umpires.

RE PATRICE Batysky's letter on Dick Cheney: I was reading the DN with my coffee and cereal and almost threw up! How soon you and too many other Americans have forgotten Sept. 11. If waterboarding or any other method gets answers or tips that save one innocent life, so be it. You write, "Yes, they're terrorists and most assuredly do not play by the rules. " Are you kidding? These terrorists would not only not think twice about blowing a plane out of the air with any American on board, but would love it. How soon you have forgotten the images of 9/11.

It's been a tough year for many Americans - and if it were up to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Pennsylvania's Punxsutawney Phil would be out of a job, too. PETA says that the nation's most famous groundhog, the center of the annual Groundhog Day celebration who yesterday predicted another six weeks of winter, should be replaced by an animatronic groundhog. Phil's yearly weatherman duties and his regular home in captivity are cruel, said PETA spokeswoman Lisa Wathne.