About 35 years ago when George Carlin used to appear on TV's Sonny and Cher Show and things like that, he used to pretend he was doing a TV news anchor man reporting on quirky items - the sort of thing SNL ripped off a few years later. Once he told this joke: "Scientists have discovered that …

May two-fer. That is the level to which the legacy of England's fourth best  •  Queen has been relegated. Drunks at the cabin. I know one. He's there already.  •  While I prepare to go to my day's labour. It's going to rain all weekend, too.  •  No gardening for me and less fishing for the man in …

There must be plenty of fun around the water cooler when you work at the Vatican's observatory:  •  “Writing in the Vatican newspaper, the astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, said intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space...The official Vatican newspaper headlines his article …

May. Almost mid-May. This is the best part of the year, right? Is there anything better than the pre-black-fly world? It's like mosquitoes (is there an "e"?) don't exist, let alone wasps and hornets. It's still all about the plants but not quite yet the mowing. May is a time of imagination …

What is it about technology that makes you think your widget will solve everything? This idea is one that I trust never happens, given the foreseeable consequences variations on road rage and simple bad driving that inevitably would ensue:  •  “"Today I am talking about making aviation available …

How was your May Day? Did you think of Stalin? Didn't pop into my head once  •  but I did about seven loads of laundry. Does that count?  •  Update: photobombing...potentially  •  NSFW depending on where you work and who is watching!  •  Were you aware that India launched ten satellites with one …

Finally. A new crop farmers can grow - even in the third world - that the industrialized nations a desperate to get their hands on. But all is not well with biofuels. We should have heeded the warning of The House Martins from twenty years ago:  •  “Me and the farmer get on fine,  •  Through …

Yaks! Who knew? Much smellier than the nicest animal in the world: the red panda. The Syracuse Zoo is one of the most manageable and interesting small zoos we've been to so far. Don't believe what people say. Zoos are coming back.

Day four of Idle-fest 2008. What better time to consider the sugar beet? In PEI, a company setting up to produce biofuels may move elsewhere due to further review of their plans:  •  “The provincial environmental and renewable industries committee on Tuesday released a report recommending a new …