This was the story YKWIA told me about

I remember it was awful, and that we discussed something about what should happen to the people involved, but I tried to block it out of my mind because it was just, well, awful:

German artists under fire for guillotine sheep online poll: Two German artists risk prosecution on animal cruelty charges after constructing a guillotine and asking people to vote online on whether to behead a sheep

German artists spark uproar with sheep execution vote

In a video posted online, the two men - dressed in white overalls - held the terrified sheep behind the killing machine as its deadly blade repeatedly chopped downward.

On the "Die Guillotine" project's website, the public was invited to vote on whether the sheep gets to live or die

If the vote goes against the sheep, they plan to kill it with the guillotine live on the Internet. That's just sick, to taunt the sheep with the guillotine. And I'm sure that many well meaning people have voted against doing this to the sheep (so far they are leading those voting for death), but by voting, they're feeding into this. This is not art. This is animal cruelty, and if they follow through, I think they should definitely prosecute to the full extent of the law. Poor sheep. And while several animal rights groups have expressed doubt that they will carry it out, these two men seem to give no thought to the well-being of the animal. There's no guarantee they wouldn't just go through with it anyway.

I wonder how these two people would feel if the tables were turned and their fate was left to a vote? But that would be a reality show taken too far, right?

PS 5/3/12: What is it about German artists? There was this story just a few days later:

Court stops German artist strangling puppies to death on stage: Scrapped performance at Berlin theatre was said by its creator to be a protest against killing of dogs in Alaska and Spain

Titled Death and Metamorphosis, the performance was to take place this week at a small theatre in Spandau. The artist – who has not been identified – planned to use cable ties to strangle the dogs, followed by a brief meditation accompanied by funeral procession music and a giant gong.