Cockfighting publication The Feathered Warrior forced to close its doors.

[flvegan]

Excuse me.

*ahem*

HA F'ING HA!

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - The U.S. Postal Service has proposed changing its rules to ban cockfighting advertising from being sent through the mail.

Though legal cockfighting ended in the United States last year when Louisiana, the last holdout, banned it, two magazines dedicated to the practice — The Gamecock and Grit and Steel — are still published.

The change proposed by the Postal Service this week would label publications with ads for fighting birds or accessories, such as blades attached to the birds' feet, as "unmailable."

Another cockfighting magazine, The Feathered Warrior, ceased publication with its July issue. Publisher Verna Dowd of De Queen, who bought the magazine with her husband in 1964, said they worked many years without interference.

"I didn't bother anybody. The chicken people usually don't bother people. They just want to be left alone," said Dowd.

She blames the Humane Society — which has been pushing for the Postal Service to change its rules — for pressuring her out of business, though she said that losing her account to take payments via credit card was the last straw.

The Humane Society sued the Postal Service in 2007 in an effort to have the agency conform to federal animal welfare law. Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge James Robertson of the District of Columbia ordered the Postal Service to amend its rules in light of the law.

The Postal Service says it will take comment on the proposed change, included Monday in the Federal Register, through the first week in September.

The Humane Society says The Feathered Warrior and other publications were filled with ads for contraband for an illegal blood sport, though it said Wednesday that The Gamecock and Grit & Steel have largely eliminated ads for attachable knives and other gear that would be banned under the rule change.


More:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/32305170

http://hsus.typepad.com/wayne/2009/08/postal-service.html

Thank you USPS, thank you HSUS.