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.

Diving Tiger

Not absurd. Just cool. This photo was featured in Pravda today.

"[Tigers] are powerful swimmers and along with the jaguar are quite at home in the water. They can easily cross rivers 6-8 kms wide and have even been known to swim distances of up to 29 km.

In southeast Asia tigers are semi-aquatic, spending much of their time in rivers or swamps and feeding on fish or turtles. Some zoologists believe that the tiger swam the channel between Java and Bali to colonise the latter island. Both of the subspecies which used to occupy these islands are now considered extinct."

Company markets adult diapers to casino gamblers

There's a company in Kitchener, Ontario that is selling adult diapers aimed at gamblers who frequent all-night casinos:

"The diapers hold nine cups of fluid, are made of six layers of cotton and micro-fibre, dry in an hour, are reusable and come stylishly in white or burgundy with Velcro closures."

They're being advertised on the Internet for $35 each - two for $60. A bargain for those who can't tear themselves away from the slots for a potty break.

The article also quotes a Prof. Tim Pelton, of the University of Victoria's Centres for Addiction Research. Apparently he's alarmed by this trend. I guess it "depends" on your point of view. They'd also come in handy if you played craps.

OK. I'll stop now.

A Baffling Banning of Bombs

My Aussie friend Justin has alerted me to this new absurdity: Shots and bombs of alcohol have been banned in Newscastle, New South Wales in an attempt to "crack down on drunken louts."

Hmm...this strikes me as a bit draconian. I was recently introduced to something yummy known as a "Jaegerbomb" (shot of Jaegermeister dropped into a glass of Red Bull), and the thought of legions of thirsty Aussies deprived of this pleasure saddens me. It's just wrong. Wrongedy wrong.

Next thing you know, they'll be banning Starbucks in order to crack down on pretentious yuppies. Well, they can have my Venti low-fat no-foam vanilla latte when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.









Drunken louts prior to ban.

Absurdity Alert

George Lucas announces that he plans on making two new Star Wars movies. For television. 'Nuff said.

Fanning the Flames

Best headline I read today:

"Firefighters responding to alarm at male strip club mobbed by female patrons who thought they were part of the act."

Apparently one of the patrons was heard to comment: "Ooo, we've got our money's worth here."

Flying the Furry Skies

Am continuing the absurd cat theme today. Apparently a ginger tabby hid in the luggage of a woman travelling by plane from St. John's to Toronto this week. Best quote from the article:

"They had asked me, when they put ... the luggage through the X-ray, whether I had a turkey," she said.
"(Airport security) kept going back and forth with(the suitcase)," Martell said. "I was adamant: 'Look, I have no turkey.'"

Awesome. Truly.

I'm particularly fond of airports and airlines at the moment because I spent a fair chunk of time last night dealing with the craziness that is online booking at British Airways. When attempting to book a flight to Germany, I couldn't get the website to accept the second leg from Heathrow to Munich. When I finally managed to snare a live person on the phone, I entered the Kafkaesque world of the off-shore tech support person who kept telling me (and this is a direct quote)..."I'm so sorry I can't help you in this matter. But I have been most pleased to help you today." That made my head hurt. So I drank more coffee.

Dead Mice and Funny Cats

Fark.com has a cat thread today. Which almost makes up for the fact that I spent a good part of my morning searching for dead mice in one of the exhibit halls. Some of my favourites:

Crap. Why didn't I think of this?

Researchers at the University of Guelph have developed a video game that aims to get younger kids interested in Shakespeare.

While zapping enemy spaceships players have to help recover the stolen text of Romeo and Juliet by memorizing lines from the famous play, learning facts about Shakespeare's life and devising synonyms and homonyms for parts of the text.

Hmmm...always wanted to do something like this for Macbeth. There's more than enough gore and violence there to make Grand Theft Auto look like a teddy bears' picnic.

Are multiculturalism and women's rights mutually exclusive?

Interesting article in today's The Independent by Johann Ari called "How multiculturalism is betraying women". He cites a number of German court cases where judges have considered a woman's cultural background when trying men for spousal abuse:

A Lebanese-German who strangled his daughter Ibthahale and then beat her unconscious with a bludgeon because she didn't want to marry the man he had picked out for her was sentenced to mere probation. His "cultural background" was cited by the judge as a mitigating factor.

Bit of a false dichotomy, I think. Asshat judges aside, there are a lot of benefits to multiculturalism, as evidenced in Canada. But the question of accomodating cultural values that differ from established mainstream is a thorny one. The article highlights an issue that has gained a lot of media attention, especially since the proposed inclusion of Sharia law here in Ontario. What I don't like about Ari's article is that it fuels anti-Muslim sentiment by failing to address that the problem is not a religious one per se, but the result of biased cultural interpretation of religious doctrine. It's no different from right-wing Christians cherry-picking Biblical references to support their personal political viewpoints regarding abortion or gays. I agree, however, that the members of various Muslim communities need to take a more proactive role in condemning discrimination and violence against women, and speaking out against those who would justify that behaviour on religious and cultural grounds.

Are you a credulous animal?

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970), Unpopular Essays (1950), "Outline of Intellectual Rubbish"

Oh, and speaking of animals (credulous or otherwise)...pic is from a great site I found today that archives old photographs.