I just read this. To think, our heroic friends in China are fighting against the evil forces of Cat-buggery. Just send $10 to me, and it will be enough to keep a cat restaurant open for one day!

Animal rights protest shuts restaurant
Mon Jun 19, 2006 9:14 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - Banner-wielding animal rights protesters swarmed into a restaurant serving cat meat in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen and forced it to shut, Xinhua news agency said Sunday.

The 40 or so, mainly female demonstrators -- holding banners reading "cats and dogs are friends of human beings" -- entered the Fangji Cat Meatball restaurant and demanded the owner free any live cats on the premises, Xinhua said.

There were none in the building, as the owner had already moved them out, it said. But some burst into tears upon finding a skinned cat in a fridge.

"I cannot go on with my business, and I will not sell cat meat any more," the restaurant owner was quoted as saying, though he defended his trade by saying eating cat in Guangdong province was a tradition.

The organizer of the protest, identified only as Isobel, the founder of a cat protection Web site, said the restaurant had been chosen because it killed cats in the street and it was "very bad for the students from nearby schools."

A local beauty queen, Miss Shenzhen 2005, also took part, calling on people to "stop eating cats and dogs and become civilized," Xinhua said.

Many Chinese, particularly in the south, believe eating dogs and cats are good warming foods to eat during the winter.

But China is developing a nascent animal rights movement as more people raise pets, which during the country's Communist heyday was frowned upon as a bourgeois activity.

Time to cut wages, they'll go back to eating fluffy instead of feeding it.

That's great! We could meet at a local branch of the Guangdong Take-Away and have a couple of beers, wait for D.Dan to show, and sample some authentic cuisine. Better yet, send me the $10 and I'll send you a cat. I've a surplus of neighborhood puss around again and have been getting my "Save a Cat" 8"X8" ready for action starting this evening. (Save it for the pound) I wonder if Miss Shenzhen takes part protesting in the nude like our peta poster twit here in the U.S.. I'll bet not.

I wonder if Miss Shenzhen would protest 200 or so pro-democracy patriots being gunned down in Tianamen Square.

I guess it's about priorities.

No doubt she is handsomely paid by the peoples party to help focus the masses attention on topics not relating to the gubmint. I notice she does not protest the harvesting of body parts from exercise practitioners or underground church-goers..