Here's one way to promote the zoo: have a dog eaten by a croc

As part of their "Come to the Zoo, before the Zoo comes to You" campaign, the Neunkircher Zoological Gardens have come up with an unusual way of promoting themselves...

The croc-suit-wearing dog helped increase attendance by 15% that month.

Pentagon confirms it sought to build a "gay bomb"

Oh, dear. So much absurdity to choose from today...have a look at the "gay bomb" article here. And I'm really enjoying the thread on Fark.com that was prompted by (yet another) debate in Utah regarding bringing God back into the classroom. Someone must have revoked his diploma. The letter at left wins my absurdity award for the day. Best line: "...to all the atheists in America: Get off of our country." Made me think of the cartoon below :)

100 Words Every High-School Graduate Should Know

A pretty daunting list, but see how many you know...my favourite is still jejune. I used to work for a Head in the English Department who insisted we put an end to our jejunery during department meetings. So instead we decided to be puerile and frolicsome.

New Creationism Museum opens in Kentucky

Since I work for a museum, I'm always on the lookout for fresh new ideas in the realm of public education - it seems a new museum dedicated to the "theory" of creationism is opening in Kentucky on Monday. One of the exhibits features a replica of Noah's Ark - complete with dinosaurs.

"What we've done here is to give people an opportunity to hear information that is not readily available ... to challenge them that really you can believe the Bible's history," said Ken Ham, president of the group Answers in Genesis that founded the museum.

Yup, if there's one thing that's not readily available, it's information from the Bible. Those pesky secularists have done a splendid job of suppressing that piece of literature for the last two thousand years.

I'm LOVING the whole dinosaurs on the Ark thing, though. I still don't get how the unicorns missed the boat, though...

Birthdays and Death Stars

Had a lovely birthday weekend...spent most of it gardening and am now hurting in muscle groups I didn't know existed. I managed to re-seed the lawn and get all the annuals in at my mum's...it's a good thing I don't own my own house or I'd turn into one of those obsessives who trims the grass with manicure scissors. Actually caught myself worrying about whether I should use a checkerboard or random pattern when planting the flowers...*sigh*...Went for the checkerboard, of course.

My favourite birthday greeting is above. Simultaneously funny and profoundly pathetic. Timmy FTW!

Also noticed this in the news today: The proposed Ras al Khaimah Convention and Exhibition Centre in the UAE by Rem Koolhaas and Reinier de Graaf. The sphere holds a convention centre, hotel rooms, apartments, offices and retail space.

Any resemblance to the Death Star is entirely coincidental. Entirely.

May Two-Four

It's Victoria Day weekend, and everyone here at work is in a particularly festive mood. For those not familiar with the holiday, here's a short synopsis. It's intended as a celebration of our monarch's official birthday (and always falls on the first Monday before May 25th). But in popular parlance it's most often referred to as "Two-Four" weekend. Ask a Canadian what that means :)

Great quote from Montreal Mayor Camillien Houde, greeting King George VI in 1939:

"Your majesty, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and Madame Houde thanks you from her bottom too."

Aussies go crazy for cat poo coffee

Best headline today, by far. It's a re-hash of the "coffee-beans-harvested-from-civet-cat-droppings" story that made the rounds last year, but I just loved the quote from one consumer at the end of the article:

"It's as good as my private life is bad. This is the kind of coffee you renounce your religion and sell your child for."

The coffee is called Kopi Luwak, and is made in neighboring Indonesia from coffee beans excreted by native civet cats. The world's rarest and most expensive coffee, the beans are painstakingly extracted by hand from the animals' forest droppings.

When roasted, the beans sell for around US$1,000 a kilogram ($1365/kg) and are selling for AUS$50 a cup at the Heritage Tea Rooms, west of Townsville, Queensland.