Conspiracies are being flung around concerning the firing of New York Post entertainment reporter Nikki Finke after her scathing story concerning document shredding by Disney to dodge a Winnie the Pooh ownership lawsuit. Foremost is the theory that Disney pressured the Post management to sack the bearer of bad news.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0212/cotts.php

Sure, Ice Age is just a silly, furry, animated flick full of jokes, but some scientists feel the need to tell you the real thing wasn't all tae kwon dodos and sabretoothed squirrels.
As if we didn't know.

BBC's new series, Weird Nature has been three years in production, and in that time producer John Downer has seen some odd creatures. But he's convinced for all the hallucinogenic mushroom eating reindeer and slime covered hagfish he's seen, humans are still the strangest beasts on the planet.

The co-star of "Romeo Must Die" was found guilty of 13 counts of animal cruelty, as well as several other unpleasant charges. You can read read up on it in this somewhat brief article over at CNN.com.

theonion.com, a popular news parody site, has posted a very funny story about "sexism among animals in nature." There is heavy anthropomorphication (if that's a word) of natural animal behavior on the part of some "scientists" conducting thier "research."

Not strictly furry, but VERY funny and apropos for those interested in behavioral aspects of anthropomorphics.

Cartoon Network, which holds the exclusive rights to broadcast any and all Looney Tunes cartoons, has decided to cease broadcasting any and all Speedy Gonzales cartoons.

http://www.hispaniconline.com/a&e/people/speedy.html

From Jeff Novotny on alt.fan.furry: "We are now only a little over five months away from CACE, so it's a good time to start with our monthly progress reports. You can look to these progress reports (a tradition we've borrowed from SF conventions) to find out what's new in the last while as well as receive reminders about important dates and information. Remember that our web site is located at http://www.c-ace.org if you need more detailed information about anything mentioned here."

The long awaited Circles #2 is finally out and available from Rabbit Valley Comics. See the cover and order a copy at the store.

This year's winner of the Iditarod dogsled race is Martin Buser. Buser set a new Iditarod record of 8 days, 22 hours, and 46 minutes, once again continuing the trend of breaking the previous year's finishing record. This is Buser's 4th Iditarod victory.

Read this book several years ago, but just recently obtained a copy of it and its sequel, Piper at the Gate. Unfortunately, both are out of print, but if you see a copy of either, I recommend picking it up, especially this one.

Posted by Darrel Exline to alt.fan.furry: "The pre-registration deadline [for Confurence] is fast-approaching and this is also the deadline for voting on the Ursa Major awards."

Most Flayrah users are already familiar with The Belfry, particulary their Comics Page. But if you who haven't been there lately, check it out. There have been a number of new features added recently to the comics page. Among the features now available:

• More options to tailor your lists;
• Ability to "subscribe" to comics (convenient for viewing comics using frames mode);
• Lists of the most popular comics based on subscriptions;
• A Clean mode for those who prefer to see only family-firendly comics;

Kudos to Foxen for all the recent efforts to improve the site.

Here is a collection of editorial cartoon tributes to the late, great Chuck Jones.

http://cagle.slate.msn.com/news/ChuckJones/main.asp

Bill Berg, the Disney cartoonist who gave us the memorable educational cartoons such as "Donald in Mathmagic Land" and "How to Catch a Cold," died at 84. He was also responsible for writing many "Mickey Mouse Club" and "Wonderful World of Disney" episodes.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-000017804mar10.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dobituaries

McDonald's is promoting a year-long celebration of Disney with character figurines in their Happy Meals. Many are obscure, such as Practical Pig, Panchito, Jaq, Lucky, etc. This is significant in that this is the first time in decades that many of these characters (many of which are furry) are seeing the light of day, much less being featured. A full checklist of all toys to be released is at:

http://www.mcdonalds.com/countries/usa/whatsnew/happy_meal/check/index.html