Pet Food Critic Nearly Canned: A well-known and respected executive of a well-known and (until now) respected animal rights organization recently spent some time in Great Britain. While there, he commented favorably and publicly on the book, Food Pets Die For [Fall '97 EIJ]. England's Pet Food Institute took umbrage. On his return to the US, he was reprimanded and demoted, his salary was frozen and funding for his work suspended. Despite 20 years of honorable service with the organization, he was advised that if he uttered one more word about the hidden ingredients in pet food, he would find himself unemployed.

Bombs Away: It's illegal to use seal bombs to harass seals in New Zealand. The crew of the New Zealand fishing trawler F. V. Endeavour was apparently violating the law. We know this because, as Forest & Bird reports, one of the illegal seal bombs "exploded in the vessel's bridge and blew off the captain's hand." The Department of Conservation is investigating but the incident "has attracted little media attention."

Teach the Children, Well ... : "Project Learning Tree" is an "Environmental Education Activity" offered to teachers across the nation. It sounds benevolent enough but, as another alert mole tips us, the presentation by the State Forest Service of Colorado did not just focus on trees, it focused "most of all [on] products derived from trees." There was no information about "the side-effects of chemicals ... [and] no mention of alternative sources of fiber, such as kenaf, hemp, etc."

The Envelope Please: Moles attending the Sundance Film Festival bring word that Dennis Hopper is planning to film a movie based on Ed Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang. Woody Harrelson's been tapped to play Hayduke. Word is the Bureau of Reclamations has already denied Hopper permission to do any filming near the Glen Canyon Dam.

Newt's for Sale: Under Congress's new "pro-corruption" rules, it's now permissible for "special interests" to pay for lawmakers' travel expenses. And so it was that House Speaker Newt Gingrich spent five days in London on the tab of Atlantic Richfield Co. Gingrich was quartered in the posh Claridge's Hotel for five days. In all, Arco ponied up $42,000 for Newt's five-day junket. All perfectly legal. What roils the Mole is the Associated Press revelation that Newt "also met privately ... with Arco Chairman Michael Bowlin, mostly to prepare [Newt's] speech."

Al Gore: Germanium Baron: Vice President Al Gore has been a major drum-beater for the fiber-optic revolution that promises a computer-in-every-classroom and a website-in-every-den. But the Washington, DC-based Communications Daily has unearthed a conflict of interest. "The Gore family farm in Smith County, Tennessee, is in an area that includes one of the largest deposits of germanium in the world" and germanium is "a key component of optical fiber." Gore explains that there is no conflict since he's been pushing his national fiber-network bill for 12 years, but he only learned about the germanium deposit in 1987.

A Ruse by Any Other Name: The US Department of Agriculture's Animal Damage Control unit spends its time and money shooting, trapping and poisoning native wildlife to make the West safe for cows. It also spends a good deal of time ducking the verbal slings and arrows of outraged enviros. Now, reports Wildlife Damage Review [PO Box 85218, Tucson, AZ 85754, (520) 884-0883], the ADC has decided to adopt a new name. The consulting firm of Peterson Productions noted that the ADC's old name contained "three negative words which the media could turn to ADC's disadvantage." ADC will now be known by the "less inflammatory" title, "Wildlife Services." Montana writer Todd Wilkinson (Track of the Coyote) avers that referring to the critter killers as Wildlife Services "is a little like the Internal Revenue Service changing its name to ‘Friends of the American Taxpayer.'"

Franken-sense: According to its advocates, bioengineering will usher in a world of friendly wonders. Instead, what really happens is that a company like Brown & Williamson secretly hires some bioengineers to gene-splice a super-potent mutant strain of tobacco with twice the addictive kick. Since it's illegal to grow these plants in the US, the DNA Plant Technology bioengineers smuggle the seeds out of the US to plant in Brazil. Science marches on ... and over us.

A CIA Plot to Murder US Sailors: Last November, the federal Assassination Records Review Board released CIA memos from the 1960s detailing secret Cold War plans to create a pretext for a US invasion of Cuba. If John Glenn had not made it into orbit, "Operation Dirty Trick" proposed blaming the Cubans for the astronaut's death. Another memo suggested: "We could develop a communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area ... and sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated)." The most chilling proposal recommended that the CIA stage "a ‘Remember the Maine' incident." (In 1898, the US government falsely accused Spain of sinking a US warship in Havana as a pretext to declaring war.) "We could blow up a US warship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," America's CIA heroes concluded.

We're Not Buying: Last November, activist Kalle Lasn tried to buy $15,000 worth of network TV airtime to promote "Buy Nothing Day," an international challenge to spend 24 hours without spending. NBC refused the ad as "inimical to our legitimate business interests" while CBS huffed that celebrating non-consumption was "in opposition to the current economic policy in the United States."

Housebroken Watchdogs: The Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration are supposed to protect US citizens from harmful food and drugs, right? Then why were USDA and FDA officials flown to Tokyo last October (at taxpayer expense) to lobby the Japanese government to allow the sales of US bioengineered agricultural goods?

Mole Kiss: To Dennis W. Brezina, a devoted eco-neatnik who laboriously collects and catalogs roadside litter. In 1996, Brezina walked down 725 miles of highway in Maryland and Delaware and covered another 8,750 miles by car. Brezina bagged 42,716 containers tossed from speeding cars — 85 percent of them beer cans. Prince George's, Maryland, was the litter king, averaging 5.7 beer cans/bottles per-mile-per-day. For all the stats, contact Aluminum Anonymous [PO Box 683, Chesapeake City, MD 21915].