WHACK THAT BUNNY!

God bless PETA.

I'm serious. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is a godsend to people who write the kind of stuff I do. Whenever the news is slow, or whenever the news is just too tragic to make light of, you can always depend on PETA to do or say something so boneheaded that it's just too good not to write about.

Now, don't get me wrong. PETA does some good things. They've taken on some serious cases of animal cruelty, such as exposing a New Jersey veterinarian who was caught on tape abusing his charges and shutting down puppy breeding farms where the pups are born and raised in truly appalling conditions. But then they go off on some lunatic quest such as when they protested government subsidies to hog farmers by suggesting that the farmers be put in jail. Then there's the PETA shtick where they throw fake blood on people wearing fur coats. This last crusade caused Canadian humorist Red Green to comment sardonically that "People are more violently opposed to fur than leather, because it's safer to pick on rich women than biker gangs." PETA seems to be in some bizarre quest to make sure they never get taken seriously.

PETA's latest target is the United States Air Force. Seems that the USAF, as part of its survival training for downed pilots, has been teaching the young zoomies how to live off foods that can be commonly found lying, swimming, hopping or creeping around in your average wilderness. Rabbits, for example. But some of the fresh-faced young airmen are probably city boys, many of them straight out of college or Starfleet Academy or wherever. They may know how to make a snare out of their shoelaces, but they wouldn't know what to do with a rabbit if they did catch one. So the Air Force is buying live rabbits at 7 bucks a head and using them to teach pilots the best way to dispatch their dinner. The preferred method seems to be whacking Thumper on the head with a stick. Needless to say, this doesn't sit real well with the folks from PETA, who are never slow to lose sight of the big picture. "These poor creatures suffer for several minutes after being bludgeoned," said one weepy PETA spokesperson. "There must be an easier, more humane way." Well, I suppose they could drop napalm on them. I mean, the Air Force sometimes does that to human beings and PETA never lets out a peep about THAT. It tends to make the meat a little tough, though.

My first reaction, I'm sorry to say, was not to mourn for the poor little fuzzballs. My first reaction was "Seven bucks for a RABBIT?!" Then I remembered we're talking about people who paid 600 bucks for a toilet seat a few years ago, and I calmed down. They're showing some improvement, at least.

PETA also suggests that there may be a way to train soldiers and airmen to live off the land without killing animals at all. Well, I suppose we could take them to the arcade and let them play a few games of "Whack-A-Mole," but I doubt that it'll have the same gritty realism.

And if PETA wants the troops to adopt their strict vegetarian stance, let me just say that when you're fleeing for your life across a hostile landscape, you're not exactly picky about the cuisine. Not that I've ever been in that situation before, but I did have my car break down in downtown Durham once and had to live on convenience-store burritos for almost a whole afternoon. To the pilots in survival school: I feel your pain.

Please understand, I'm against needless cruelty, unless it involves politicians, pompous celebrities, or people who send me unsolicited advertisements in my e-mail. Those people better never get near me when I have a big stick in my hand. But the PETA people never seem to consider the concept of balancing the rights of animals against the needs of mankind. Sure, being beaten to death with a tree branch is an ugly way to die, but so is starving. So is getting the snot kicked out of you by some dictator's goons in a cellar in East Slobbovia. And I'm not begrudging the people who face that anything they need to train to avoid that fate.

Those guys (and girls, now) take their lives in their hands every time they go to work. Let's cut them a little slack, shall we?