Today's Animal News

Equality.

When we read this story from today's news, we were shocked, disturbed, outraged, shocked and disturbed. We have not seen this kind of blatant chicken prejudice since the days of Oscar De La Pollo. With Barry Obama being elected, we thought that racism and hatred would be wiped away. But no - we now have before us irrefutable proof that the world is just as bigoted today as it was when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was shot on that balcony in Memphis. But can't we take Dr. King's poignant words, professing the equality of all men, and apply them to chicken equality as well? Well, we here at HPO have had enough of this hen hatred, this poultry prejudice, this rooster racism, these Uncle Tom Turkeys!

Read for yourselves:

Ill. police take aggressive rooster into custody
BENTON, Ill. (AP) — A rooster played chicken in the wrong town. That's the word from the downstate community of Benton, where police took a rooster into custody after it allegedly confronted a woman and her child. Police Chief Mike O'Neill said the rooster has been bothering people lately, trying to keep them from getting where they want to go.
O'Neill said officers had enough on Monday and took the rooster into custody after what he described as a brief scuffle.
Nobody was injured and the rooster was thrown in an enclosed area near the police department. There, it lived on chicken feed and water until police located the owner.
Chickens aren't allowed to live in Benton and the rooster was turned over to the owner only after he promised to find it a new home in the country.

Oh, the horror! First of all, how is it even possible for a rooster to "confront" a woman and child? Was he armed? Did he want money, or simply bread crumbs? Secondly, how did police officers (plural) have a "brief scuffle" with a rooster? Was this a rooster that was trained in hand-to-beak combat? Did the rooster outweigh the cops by a couple hundred pounds? Why were multiple officers required? Why was there even a scuffle, for God's sake? This sounds suspiciously similar to the Rodney King incident back in 1991.

Hidden-camera photo of the horrid conditions in Benton Federal "Hen-itentiary."

Equally disturbing is the sentence "Chickens aren't allowed to live in Benton." That's just charming. Police law banning chickens from their town? Sounds like fascism to us!!! You know, it's funny that Benton Police claim that chickens aren't allowed in their town - because a quick internet search revealed no less than three chicken restaurants in Benton, Illinois! The proof is in the pudding.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Benton. We hear you loud and clear: If it's fajitas or hot wings, bring on the poultry. But if it's a "troublesome" rooster, you run it out of town. Well, we sincerely hope you enjoy your communism, you degenerate low-life scumbags. Next time we drive through your crap-water, one-horse, po-dunk ghost town, we will not stop and say hello. We are ashamed. The King must be rolling over in his over-sized grave.

Watch out for them foxes.

Our next animal story is downright disturbing. The headline reads "Jogger runs mile with rabid fox locked on her arm."

The headline is disturbing enough, but if you read the details of what happened, it gets worse:

The jogger, a Chino Valley resident, told the Animal Control Officer she was attacked while running a trail around 4:45 P.M. at the base of Granite Mountain. She was about a mile into her run, when she came upon a fox in a clearing adjacent to the trail. The fox did not initially appear aggressive, but as she backed away, he attacked by lunging at her feet. He bit her foot and then started towards her knee, at which time she grabbed him by the neck in an attempt to pull him away. When she did this, the fox bit into her arm and would not release his bite even as she tried to choke him. Assuming the fox was rabid and understanding that containing the animal for testing would be essential, she ran back towards car with the fox still maintaining a bite in her arm. Once at her car, she was able to pull the fox's jaw open, release his grip on her arm, and wrap the fox tightly in a sweatshirt she had been wearing. She threw the fox into the trunk of her car and drove quickly to Yavapai Regional Medical Center.

That's some scary shit right there. A pissed-off squirrel is scary enough, let alone a whoremongering fox from hell, blood-crazed and bent on revenge. Have scary stories taught us nothing? Why do you women continue jogging in the woods alone?

Whatever. This is one of the highest-rated youtube video clips of all time: