Today we shed a tear for the butterstick

Back in 2005, the long-ago days of yore when this blog was actually funny, I got some good mileage out of a panda born at the National Zoo in Washington. His name was Tai Shan, but I called him "butterstick," a monikor referring to his size at birth, popularized by Wonkette.

He was adorable, but that didn't stop me from giving the 'stick some tough love:

"Here's some free advice," I wrote to the little booger. "Learn a skill and quick, because you can only trade on being cute for so long before you end up sad and broken on reality TV."

Well, it's time for the U.S. to pay the piper on the Butterstick -- he's being shipped home to China, per our agreement that lets the U.S. showcase pandas, but makes their spawn Communist property. It's a sad day for butter lovers, but a sadder day for natural selection, which would have caused these monsters to die out years ago.

I don't want what you're selling, pink dolphin

With all due respect to those who come before me, I need to write about the freaking pink dolphin that's been spotted in Lake Calcasieu in Louisiana.


First of all, I'll go on the record as saying I think this is a hoax. Second of all, if it's not a hoax, it's got to be part of a sinister dolphin plot that ends with domination of not just the sea but of land as well.

Move along, pink dolphin, or I'll do to you what Beat Ettlin did to that kangaroo in Garran, Australia.

Socks the Cat, RIP

I wrote a few months back that my favorite former first feline Sock the cat was near death, and it's with a heavy heart I tell you he passed away last week at age 20 (or maybe 19).

Socks won America's heart when freedom-hating liberal media types coaxed him out of the White House in order to take his picture, angering the President and first family.



According to this creepily detailed obituary, Socks fame spanned the globe after he was featured on a set of collectors’ stamps in the Central African Republic.

Buddy the Dog displaced Socks as the favorite pet in the White House, and upon the end of the Clinton Administration Socks went to live with former Clinton secretary Betty Currie in Maryland.

It's reported Currie will have him cremated. It's unclear if he has any survivors.

Ugliest Dog Redux

It's become something of an annual tradition on the NaturalBlog. About this time each year, I document the World's Ugliest Dog contest at the Sonoma-Marin fair in California.

I'm pleased to report that the Chinese Crested breed has again resumed its rightful place on the throne of ugly, after a crested-chihuahua mix usurped the honor last year.

But give me the goods already. What does this beast look like?


Ladies and gentleman, I present Gus, of St. Petersburg, Fla. He has just three legs and just one eye.

I guess he's pretty ugly, but I stand by my contention that Gus and all the rest are just pretenders. There is only one ugly dog, the late great Sam.

Hooray beagles!

I enjoyed watching the Westminster Dog Show last night. I like to think of it as a chance to take a look at the dog menu and figure out which ones I might like, if Mrs. N-B and I ever get a dog.

There was history made, as Uno the beagle became the first beagle to ever win Best in Show. Harlan Pepper couldn't be reached for comment. Beagles everywhere rejoiced.

Maybe he's just resting

Alex the Parrot, a smarty pants know-it-all bird who recognized shapes and colors, understood the concept of zero, and even made fun of bad grammar, has died, apparently of natural causes. He was 31.

Alex was considered the smartest parrot in the world, with the intellect of a five-year-old child, but the emotional development of a two-year-old, which would explain all the tantrums. The parrot once starred alongside Alan Alda on a PBS show. He used to admonish the scientists in his lab to "talk better."

Researcher Irene Pepperberg of Brandeis and Harvard Universities bought Alex in 1977, apparently unaware that she was purchasing the Einstein of birds. There is a creepy divergence in the reporting surrounding Alex's final conversation with Pepperberg.

The New York Times says:

As she put him into his cage for the night last Thursday, she recalled, Alex looked at her and said: “You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you.”

But the Boston Globe reports more ominously:

Pepperberg said she and Alex went through their good-night routine, in which she told him it was time to go in the cage and said: "You be good. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow."

To which Alex said, "You'll be in tomorrow."

The emphasis is my own, but the point stands. Was the bird trying to tell Pepperberg he was dying?

Unsatisfied with the reporting, I contacted Pepperberg and she told me via email that Alex's chilling final words came in unrhymed iambs:

Ask for me tomorrow, and / you shall find me a grave man.

J/K. The bird did not quote from Romeo and Juliet, Act III, scene i.

Pepperberg's actual response was cryptic. Asked which version was true, she said "Alex said most of it...I told him I loved him, too..." I think she's covering for the dead bird. Fortunately, an eagle-eyed NaturalBlog coworker managed to find this video of Alex's final moments:

Mmmm, Puffins.

I was happy to see puffins in the news this week, when the Boston Globe reported that a puffin sanctuary in Maine set a new record in its efforts to restore the birds' population.


I've never really understood how puffins ended up as the inspiration for the tasty breakfast at top right, but I have always lamented that the cereal lacks the tender sweetness of puffin meat. C'est la vie.

NaturalBlog News Update

Not even The King can save you. A totally reasonable man beat a peacock so viciously in a Staten Island Burger King parking lot that the bird had to be euthanized. When asked what he was doing, he said "I'm killing a vampire." What was a peacock doing in a BK parking lot? I guess NBC sent it's mascot out for food.

Hold it! The lawyer for 1/3 of the NASA love triangle says the oft-told story about his client wearing diapers during her 950-mile revenge trek from Texas to Florida is a lie. Lisa Nowak's attorney says the diapers were leftovers from when her kids were toddlers, and they just happened to be in the car when she was arrested for threatening her love interest's girlfriend. Perhaps tellingly, the attorney did not dispute the parts of the story alleging the pepper spray, steel mallet, buck knife, BB pistol and garbage bags Nowak had with her.

Annual ugly dog appreciation

A Chinese Crested-Chihuahua mix with an abnormally large tongue has been crowned this year's ugliest dog in an annual competition in California.

It's true that two-year-old Elwood, seen at right, is a vast improvement over last year's champ. But the victory must be bittersweet -- not only because he's so ugly but because even despite his hideous appearance he is probably only about one-eighth as ugly as Sam the Chinese Crested who won the contest three years running before dying of fear after he spotted himself in a mirror.

I respect you, Elwood, but you'll never be as great as Sam.

NaturalBlog News Update: Too good to be true edition

Thanks to my well-read regulars who sent in these news items.

I thought dropping the gay bomb meant something else entirely. Back in the early 1990s, right around the time Bill Clinton and his right-wing cronies enacted the don't ask-don't tell policy, the military flirted with building a "gay bomb" that would turn enemy troops homosexual. According a BBC report, it would strike a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale. Also discarded: The plan to make a bomb that would make soldiers fart. I'm not making this up.

I always knew Seymour's daughter would end up in trouble. A woman in Iowa is facing a few years in prison for allegedly stealing toilet paper from a courthouse. I can't imagine it was two-ply, so I have no idea what her motive was. The woman's name was Suzanne Butts. I'm not making this up.

Apocalypse Soon. The Rev. Jerry Falwell once told me that God is expressing his anger at liberals by turning lobsters all colors of the rainbow.

Polar opposites

I've become addicted lately to seltzer. I'm drinking it like it's water.

It got me to wondering, which is the better polar -- Polar Seltzer or Knut the polar bear. You decide.

NaturalBlog Animal Roundup

Maybe it's global warming, but there is some freaky stuff happening with aquatic life these days.

First up, you've got the crazy case of horny manatees. Never before have I seen something so innocent and wonderful twisted into something so base and evil. Thanks, Conan.

But that's not nearly as freaky as the 7-foot-9 Chinese herdsman tapped to save dolphins because of his long arms. You can't make this stuff up. Two things to say here: Doesn't his arm look fake in this picture? Also, how glad do you bet he is that he got to go through their mouths, instead of the other way.

Goodbye, new friend

If you're along the East Coast this week, keep your eyes peeled for my new best friend, a Manatee nicknamed Marvin who made a trip this summer to Cape Cod.

I wish I had been on the Cape this week, because then I could've lassoed him and rode him all the way back down to Florida, like a cowboy of the sea.

And if you're reading this, Marvin and you decide you'd like to winter up here, you can stay at my house. I'll flood the basement for you, but I don't know how I'll come up with the 150 pounds of aquatic plants you eat each day.

Animal News Update

Jockey is horses ass. A jockey named Paul O'Neill head-butted his horse after the animal bucked him. He faces a ban. I guess all Paul O'Neills are a little hot-headed.

The thief comes on little cat feet. Willy, a one-year-old cat from New York, has a glove fetish -- he steals garden gloves from the neighbors, then deposits them dutifully on his owners' porch. He's snagged 23 total gloves, but only three human hands.

Your candle burned out long before the ugly ever did.

The passing last fall of the three-time champion of the world's ugliest dog contest left the field in this year's competition wide open, but it appears there were only pretenders to the throne of the late hell-hound that masqueraded as Sam the dog.

Take a look for yourself:


The new champ (left) is a purebread Chinese crested from Arizona named Archie.

The organizers should have taken one look at the field, canceled the competition, and given Sam the award in posthumous perpetuity.

Back to the Panda

Since the New York Times is devoting more than 2,000 words to what makes baby pandas so freaking cute, I figured it would be okay to revisit little Tai Shan at the National Zoo in Washington.

I've learned some important new facts since I wrote about this little booger last time.

His nickname is Butterstick, after his approximate size at birth. So cute and shaped like butter? It's a miracle his mother didn't eat him up on the first night.

Second, once you go visit the panda cam, any productivity you hoped to have that day is gone. Just surrender to the overpowering adorability of the Butterstick. He is in control, and all you can do is watch.

And if you do check the panda cam as often as I do, you'll see that he plays with a Nike ball. The little guy heeded my advice and found a way to make money -- endorsements. And speaking of money, look how this guy is profiting from His Cuteness.

Lastly, and most awfully, I have learned that per our panda agreement with China, we must send the Butterstick back to the Communists when he turns two. This is simply unacceptable. Let me be the first to say I shall do everything in my power not to let this come to pass. I'm thinking that means an underground railroad, by which we sneak Butterstick to freedom in my basement, or possibly Canada. Fortunately, the rule of law means little to America the last couple of years, so I'm sure I'm find allies and panda fans in the highest levels of government.

It's the panda's world, really

I'll just go ahead and list off the puns and jokes that I'm contractually required to make. "It's Pandamonium!" "It's pandemic!" "He's so adorable I just can't bear it!" "Pretty, pretty dancing."

Ok. That feels better. Now on to the screed.

The panda has gotten a lot of love lately. CNN can't go an hour without panda B-roll. Some 13,000 tickets for the opportunity to wait in a long line and maybe see the panda sold out in just two hours. Some people are even promising to do untoward things for the chance to wait in that line.

And for what? Not much, likely. All this little booger does is curl up in a ball -- an adorable ball, yes -- and sleep, in his little jail cell out of vistors' view, all the time. Look for yourself, Truman. And, as I understand it, they're not even going to give visitors a stick with which to motivate the panda to do something interesting. Does he even fetch? No. I don't even think he eats, shoots and leaves.

Here's some free advice, Tai Shan. Learn a skill and quick, because you can only trade on being cute for so long before you end up sad and broken on reality TV.

Heavy was the head that wore the crown

Sam, the hideous alien-like beast that was named the World's Ugliest Dog three years running, has died of a failing heart in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 14.

Sam, a pedigreed Chinese crested, was mostly hairless, with crooked teeth and eyes as vacant as anything in Satan's army, but twice as evil. He is pictured at right but miniaturized, so that you might not spit out your coffee should you read the NaturalBlog at breakfast.

He is survived by his owner, who had the mercy to euthanize him when she found out his heart was failing. He is now seated in the ugly part of heaven.