Friday Ark #72 is online and is always the best place to find a summary of some of the week’s best animal posts (and I mean every kind of animal).

I and the Bird #16 is now available.  This is a blog carnival for bird lovers and often has some fascinating news and beautiful pictures.

A great response to the Joint Chiefs hoopla over that cartoon.  To wit:

“They should be as concerned with the soldiers in the field as they are with a cartoon in The Washington Post,” said Bennett, president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC), when reached Thursday by E&P. “Maybe they should provide the body armor soldiers need to help avoid the sort of injury shown in the cartoon.”

“It appears [the Joint Chiefs] interpret cartoons as accurately as they do pre-war intelligence,” Bennett said. The Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for The Christian Science Monitor added: “It was a tough cartoon on [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld, but he certainly deserves tough cartoons.”

This is what the anti-gay movement is creating: hatred that demonstrates by a teen using a hatchet and gun to kill patrons of a gay bar in Massachusetts.  Is that the tolerance and “hate the sin but love the sinner” mentality of the conservatives leading the charge in the war on gays?  Absolutely.  As long any government supports the premise that gays deserve fewer rights than others, this will continue — and probably get worse.  It’s America’s own state-sponsored terrorism.

She thinks this is prophetic of Islamic radicalism, but she needs to take a closer look at Christian radicalism in our own country.  To understand what I mean, see the entry above and look at the shameful persecution of gays and the increasingly militant approach of Christians trying to push their beliefs on others right here in our own country.

GruntDoc, a fellow Texan here in the DFW area, gives a very disturbing beginning-of-the-end view of medical care.  Everyone should read this.

Also regarding medical care, read Conscientious objection in medicine should not be tolerated.  I wholeheartedly agree.  If you’re in the medical profession (oh, and that includes pharmacists like those refusing to dispense the morning-after pill), your beliefs are irrelevant when providing care for others.  This is very good stuff.

Have you ever seen Signs with Mel Gibson?  If so, this’ll be funnier than it already is.  Now you too can have your own Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie, “An Effective, Low-Cost Solution To Combating Mind-Control”…  I laughed my ass off.  [via Jenny]

Giving déjà vu a second look is a fascinating discussion about the increasing interest in and study of this phenomenon.

I certainly don’t support the burning of churches like those in Alabama, but I have to wonder if the church realizes they’re bringing this war to their own doorsteps.

That’s the biggest bunny I’ve ever seen (click on the picture to see the whole thing in greater detail).  Holy moly is right.  It’s like a bad horror flick…  How cool is that?

Brokeback to the Future.  Absolutely hysterical!  Warning: includes gay themes, major actors, and is a video (warning to dial-up users).