What Really Happened To Your Friend Flicka?

Ewww.
Texas is killing lots of horses. Three foreign-owned slaughterhouses, two of which are in our fair state, are slaughtering healthy horses--not just the old and worn out ones many Americans assume--and sending them off to Europe, where they end up on dinner tables.

Congress may soon act to stop the industry in America, and it can't do it fast enough for the residents of Kaufman, Texas, where the Dallas Crown Plant operates. The weird thumping sounds you hear from outside the walls? Those are horses hitting the floor after they've had a steel bolt driven into their brains to kill them. (If you're so inclined, you can watch KHOU's video--we passed, ourselves.) The city of Kaufman's been working to shut down the plant, citing waste water violations among other problems, and the matter's currently pending in court. Also, the plant managed somehow to pay only $5 in federal income tax in 2004. “We’re being held hostage by a company that doesn’t pay its way. That stigmatizes my community. The development that doesn’t come here,” said Mayor Bacon of Kaufman.

Next week, Congress will vote on the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, which aims to declare horses--like dogs and cats, which despite being delecacies in other countries escape slaughter here--as companion animals rather than food sources.