Hm, sounds familiar... I "met" this guy on okcupid once who had this really witty profile. In person he was as interesting as Melba toast and wouldn't stop talking about Star Trek.

It was rather awkward.

That Pete Eckhart lightpainter seems to be the only one doing something really cool and original. Everyone else appears to be smooshing things into scanners or snapping, forgive the expression, blindly.

If it makes them happy, sure... but I have a hard time taking them seriously if there is really no skill involved.

There is so much conflicting info. One expert claims >1%, while the other says "up to 100%". There just isn't enough info to take a proper side. We also don't know how long cleaned birds will survive after being released. That's a pretty big factor.

However, assuming that there is a significant rate of long term survival for cleaned birds, let's just say 25%, go for it. It is however extremely cruel to subject a bird to manhandling, forcefeeding, medication, bathing and everything else that's part of the cleaning process if nothing good is expected to come of it. Stressing them out just so they can die of liver failure in a few days instead of hypothermia in a few hours doesn't seem like a good tradeoff.

We should all remember that the best relief efforts are done in the best interests of the victims, not those that give the fortunate the best warm fuzzy feelings.

When I first saw Big Dog it actually gave me nightmares. There is just something incredibly creepy about it's constant buzzing scream and the way it kept its balance on ice after beiong kicked.

How appropriate, I am actually reading Your Inner Fish right now and got all excited even before I saw halfracer's post. He/she is right-- Inner Fish is a killer read!

...what the shit. These are so awkwardly terrible, and possibly worse than the Athens Olympics mascots.

If had to choose and I had the time/ressources/etc to properly care for either kind I'd pick a dog any day. Cats are what you get when you want a dog but can't for some reason.

Am I crazy for being more concerned about the fish?

(Ugh, Neatorama ate the rest of my post it seems)

[... ] If I submitted an article like "PET STARLING ACCIDENTALLY DEEP FRIED, LIVES TO SEE ANOTHER DAY" I'm pretty sure people would go ballistic (in a bad way). and with good reason!

Yes. Distracting drivers with weird shit is a great idea for promoting safer driving!

It's not so much the picture that disturbs me (well, it does) but we're treating some idiot's stupid mistake at the expense of his pet as "neat". I'd be more interested in this if it were an injured stray dog that was found outside or if this was truly a freak accident. Right now it just stinks of irresponsability and as we can see it's rubbing a lot of people the wrong way.

You know, there is a reason why I make sure my bird is back in her cage when I'm cooking or whatever. It's a bird. It's dumb as rocks. It doesn't understand the dangerous we humans take for granted. If I submitted an article like "PET STARLING ACCIDENTALLY DEEP FRIED, LIVES TO SEE ANOTHER DAY

When I was a kid we had a Creepy Crawlies oven with that glow in the dark goop. We also had dogs. That made our lawn look pretty cool at night, all those glowing beetle and scorpion pieces. My mom said it at least made cleaning up a little easier/more interesting.

We also had a dog that once at a soap on a rope (it was a scented one hidden in a Christmas present), so she became known as the Dope on a Rope forever after.

I'm pretty sure the only reason catnip is awesome is because it smells like the pheromones released by horny lady cats. I doubt homo sapiens would get all hot and bothered by this.

@E-fizzle

I'm not so sure I agree with math-science-writing being the limits of what a school should be able to teach. Those are very useful subjects, yes, but modern parents don't exactly have a good track record about giving kids a full range of education at home. Today's Precious Snowflake Syndrome prevents a lot of children from being properly disciplined and often shelters them about many subjects. So if a school won't do it, who will? I wouldn't want to leave that up to chance.

Besides, a school is a place of learning. Crappy food only serves to distract other children and shouldn't have a place in it. It's fine with my if Little Johnny's parents want to feed him Doritos at home, but he shouldn't be taunting all the other kids with it. I was a brown-bagger growing up, and I resented my "lame" parents for giving me "gross" leftovers and real fruit juice where all my other friends got to eat cafeteria french fries. Every. Single. Day.

Souterain, that made me chuckle XD