Those of you who submitted entries for the Name That Artist Contest, mentioned here two weeks ago, or who are simply interested in the answers, can now view the answers and the results, and some of the other sketches not used in the contest.

SAN FRANCISCO, March 21 — At a time when well-tended American dogs get braces for their teeth and Antidepressants for anxiety and attend the church of their owners' choice, it may come as no surprise
that a powerful political constituency has developed around a species once known mainly for chasing tennis balls in the backyard.

Tales of the Tai-Pan Universe issue #26 has been released. Issue #26 contains stories by Gene Breshears, Chas P.A. Melville, Mark Allen Davis, Edd Vick, Sky Rigdon, and Amy Norman with story illustrations by Tom Milliorn, Andrew Laverdiere, and David Zawitaj. The front cover is drawn by Tom Milliorn. The back cover is by Kathy R. Coleman.

A special Hugo will be awarded at the 2002 Worldcon, ConJose, for best sf/f website. Read more here at SF Wire, or at ConJose's page about the new award. So anyone going to vote for us? *grin*

Some of you who have been following the news may have noticed that the Ebay auction for the furrymuck.org, .com and .net domains has disappeared. Read on for Darrel's Exline's post to AFF in regards to what happened:

This article on Animation World Network reports the passing of the 90-year old Bill Hanna after a lengthy illness. Hanna and his partner, Joseph Barbera created such beloved cartoon characters as Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and Scooby-Doo.

After experiencing some trouble with their current DNS provider, Sofawolf Press has finally moved to sofawolf.com (from sofawolf.org). There's a new website design and more information on current projects, submissions and advertising... so check it out and pester Eddy with questions. *grin*

CNN put up an article about emergency vets. It's a short, fairly light read but interesting none the less. A few vets are interviewed about what some of their more memorable patients, how their days normally progress and why they do it. Alongside the article is a sidebar of various schools and colleges that teach vetinary medicine. If you're interested in going into the vetinary field give it a skim and then check out some of the schools that are listed. Some, such as the University of Minnesota, are very well known for their courses. Others might come as a surprise. There's also an online survey, which I found to be very oddly worded, that you might like to take.

This article on Animation World Network reports that Norma Macmillan, the voice of UNDERDOG's Sweet Polly Purebread, passed away last Friday at the age of 79. She was also the voice of Goo and other characters on THE GUMBY SHOW, Davey's sister Sally on DAVEY & GOLIATH and Kokette on MEAN MOE.

The 1947 film Bill and Coo, which won an Academy Award for novel use of the medium of motion pictures, is now available at Movies Unlimited.com. I own a copy of this film and have to say it's a real treat for the animal lover, especially if you're a fan of avians. The cast is composed entirely of trained birds, with two love birds as the stars and a crow as the villian. It has a cute storyline, a nifty setting built to scale for the birds, and actually received praise from Leonard Maltin. No small feat, that.

Slashdot recently featured a blurb referencing an article in The Daily Telegraph that discusses how cats "heal themselves" by purring. It's a rather interesting article that touches on the benefits of exposure to low-frequency sound for both felines and humans. It doesn't talk about HOW cats purr, however, so if you're looking for that you'll have to hit the vet texts. The article also references some of the extraordinary accidents that cats have been involved in and survived (for example a 45-story fall).

Florida voters have an opportunity to promote legislation that will prevent cruelty to pigs used to produce meat. If we're going to eat them, we should treat them with some dignity and respect. Visit bancruelfarms.org for more information on how you can help, and some really heart-wrenching photographs.

Animal Planet has a web page devoted to live webcam sites specifically aimed at animals. Included are a shark cam, a penguin cam, a rhino cam and more. The page also sports a link to yet more cameras listed off of Discovery.Com (parent of Animal Planet). This listing has far more links, with links to a camera in a pet shelter, a lion camera, hippos and more. Take a peek!

The Korea Animal Protection Society is an organization dedicated "to preventing cruelty to and educating people about animals." It was founded in 1991 by Sunnan Kum, who is attempting to extend the benefit of a caring shelter to animals that are still being raised in illegal "dog farms" for butchers (a 1991 law prohibits the consumption of dogs or cats). Evidentally she faces quite an uphill struggle, as her organization has had to euthanize several animals that were in the her care and termed untreatable, something that the Korean culture treats as essentially taboo, "...even if the animal is suffering. Many Koreans believe any life, however bad, is better than death."

It's strange. Less than 24 hours ago I submitted an article about how oil companies want to drill in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge. I briefly remarked that this is something we cannot permit to happen, because no matter how careful the oil companies are the risk of a spill and ecological disaster occuring is far too high. Now I find an article from the BBC News about the world's largest oil rig providing a frightening example of what I was writing about yesterday: disaster can, and will, happen at any time.