Don't cry for Percy the Pelican

Mr Percival, the pelican that starred in the 1976 Australian movie Storm Boy has fallen off his perch. Who knew that pelicans lived so long?

But before you go and get all sentimental about this, you should know that old Percy had more than a few skeletons in his nest. Just like the others of his kind, Percy was almost certainly a chick molesting, murderous jerk.

Other species of animals that are known to kill their own include chimpanzees, lions, gorillas, wolves, chickens, dragonflies, monitor lizards, cheetahs, crows, barred owls, lions, baboons, crocodiles, hedgehogs, swine, gerbils, mice, octopus, cats, rats, bats, toads, fish, crustaceans, salamanders, spiders, praying mantises, scorpions, herons, boobies, egrets, ground squirrels, lemmings, hamsters, mice, voles, muskrats, gerbils, prairie dogs, kangaroos, butterflies, marmots, eagles, falcons, bears, rabbits, stags, wild horses, cobras, hammerhead sharks (in utero) and hyenas.

However pelicans are unique because of their added penchant for pelican paedophilia.

Fishermen for global warming

This bumper sticker was spotted on the back of an SUV in Sydney today....

Question They Won't Ask

Each week, The ShadowLands submits an insulting question to ABC television's interactive Q and A program with the aim of having it not published on their website. This week we are putting on the line our perfect two from two rejection record:

Question for Anne Summers:

In your Q and A biography, you say you have written numerous best selling books, however, nobody I know has heard of more than one. Do you think the fact that we have never heard of these numerous best-selling books is a part of a conspiracy by the male-dominated military-industrial complex, or are you just a lying liar?

UPDATE: Someone has submitted an even better question directed at noone in particular: "How come only the left gets the clap."

UPDATE UPDATE: Three out of three rejected! We're on a roll.

What happens when...

you put vampires in charge of the blood bank...

Better take cover (here come the lawyers)

Sony BMG and EMI are currently facing legal proceedings from a group who claim that the Men at Work classic, Down Under is a rip off of the equally classic Australian children's song, Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree.

By the way, if you ever wanted to design a way cool bird, you would give it a raucous laughing call, a fervent disregard for the welfare of snakes, and a tendency to hang out on your balcony. Countries that don't have kookaburras really ought to have a long hard look at themselves.

(More kookaburra trivia: the noise used by Flipper the dolphin is actually a kookaburra call on fast forward.)

They really had us going there for a while

The truth finally emerges.

Passing shadows

* A cool map of the seven deadly sins in the US.

* A fine example of bad science reporting - a prediction that kids will live two years fewer than their parents surely fails to take account of other medical advancements.

* Maybe the headline got lost somewhere in translation.

* Looks like Australia's winter stole all the heat from North America's summer.

* At last - the Swine Flu stuffed toy.

Postcard from Britain, 2014

Thanks to the concerns of enviro-nutjobs, Britain is allowing its coal fired and nuclear power stations to close. The above illustration is an artist's impression of the likely result.

Media gets scandal all wrong

The New South Wales Health Minister, John Della Bosca has resigned following a sex scandal.

However we believe the scandal is not that John Della Bosca had sex with somebody, it's that somebody had sex with John Della Bosca. The ShadowLands hereby calls on their resignation from whatever it is that they do.

However, unfortunately for Mr Della Bosca, he cannot possibly be reinstated on the scandalous grounds that he had sex with Belinda Neal.