PETA will unveil its controversial anti-McDonald's chicken statue in Raleigh tomorrow, and the group is hoping it will have residents declaring, "I'm hatin' it."
PETA to unveil anti-McDonald's statue in downtown Raleigh
Submitted by paigemaxwell on 03/01/2011 - 12:23Smithfield Foods' shareholders vote down more humane agenda
Submitted by marycornatzer on 09/02/2010 - 09:08Smithfield Foods defeated two shareholder resolutions aimed at making the company "greener" and more humane, according to a report this morning in the Virginian-Pilot.
At the company's annual meeting Wednesday, 96 percent of the voters opposed a shareholder resolution requesting specific goals for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions at Smithfield's operations, the paper reported.
Slightly more — 97 percent — voted down efforts by the Humane Society of the United States to get the company to switch to "controlled-atmosphere killing," using inert gases, of turkeys at Butterball.
Before the meeting, Smithfield executives hard argued that the company was only a minority owner of Butterball and didn't control operations at Butterball facilities.
Butterball is based in Garner and employs about 2,500 people at a facility in Mount Olive. The majority owner is privately owned Maxwell Farms of Goldsboro.
In June, Smithfield offered $200 million to buy out Maxwell Farms. According to the Virginian-Pilot report, Pope told shareholders that Maxwell Farms had still not responded to its offer. Maxwell Farms' deadline is Sept. 11. If it rejects the offer or does not respond, Pope has said that Smithfield will pull out of Butterball.
The newspaper also reported that after two years of deep losses, the company was again profitable.
Pope's only concern, according to the paper, were overseas grain shortages, which could drive up feed costs. He was less worried about the possibility of a double-dip recession.
"Recessions are usually good for the company," Pope said, according to the paper's report. "We're in the protein sector, where people have to eat, and we're in the moderately priced protein sector."
Michael Vick to get a reality show on BET
Submitted by adriennj on 10/06/2009 - 21:29

When you're a celebrity who has messed up or is in need of a career boost, the antidote is the reality show.
So it shouldn't be a surprise that Michael Vick is partnering with BET for an eight-part docu-series scheduled to air early next year, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Tentatively titled "The Michael Vick Project" the show willl spotlight his comeback with the Philadelphia Eagles and deal with his past, including his childhood and his 2007 arrest for funding a dogfighting ring.


