Should we even mention the latest case of human-animal sexual interaction?
Oh, OK. We should.
Michael Leffler, 27, of Syracuse, N.Y., has been charged with misdemeanor sexual misconduct after his wife told police that she caught him having sex with one of his mother's dogs, for whom the couple was dog-sitting.
The dog, a short-haired terrier-beagle mix named Gin-Gin, reportedly has undergone a rape-kit test and is receiving counseling.
Leffler, who also has been accused of neglecting one of his children, reportedly has said the sex was consensual, that Gin-Gin plied him with liquor and lascivious looks and lured him to bed with promises of things he'd only imagined before.
And we believe him. Because dogs, human and otherwise, come in both genders, don't they?

PETA (still not a bread) has begun a campaign to convince consumers that fish are smart and sensitive and shouldn't be eaten any more than should a dog or a cat.
Couple of questions for those animal-rights nuts, whom we respect to the utmost:
Don't people in some countries eat dogs and cats? And in all those places don't they say dogs and cats taste just like chicken?
OK, three questions.
If fish are so smart, why is it so easy to catch them, clean them, cook them and eat them?
Speaking of fish, is it just a coincidence that PETA, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are based in Virginia?
OK, four questions.
But you get our drift.

Those of you who have been waiting patiently for your supply of honey bee semen from New Zealand, your time has come.
According to those who probably know, negotiators have settled a 26-year-old trade dispute, and the semen can start flowing later this month.
You can imagine how excited the bees are. After all, 26 years without relief ...
"Sorry, honey, not tonight. I have a trade ban."

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get away from the crocodiles.
A chicken farm in the Czech Republic, which has found it difficult to sell its smaller birds, has decided to build a croc farm next door to use to get rid of the worthless chickens.
It also will sell the skin of the crocodiles.
Definitely a win-win situation, eh?
That is, until the animal rights nuts, whom we respect immensely, get rolling.

Now that the election is over, we return our attention to more mundane matters.
To wit:
Cooks from everywhere gathered recently in Serbia for the World Testicle Cooking Championship.
Serbs apparently love testicles and want to develop the dish as an export item.
Ljubomir Erovic (pronounced "John Smith") of the Serbian Tourism Board, who organized the cookoff, said, "The best cooked b---s come from Serbia, and we wanted to stage this contest to show the world what great dishes can be cooked using testicles."
Known to many of us as Rocky Mountain oysters, the testicles of cows, buffalo, pigs, lamb, sheep and turkey can be prepared in numerous ways, including fried, roasted and parboiled.
But Erovic noted an exception:
"All testicles can be eaten, except human of course -- we don't want any cannibals here."
Cannibals are invited to go to Washington, D.C., where they eat opponents'
b---s for breakfast.

Good news for those who like to track down animals and kill them for sport: A Wisconsin man has created a chewing gum that he says hides human breath smells and allows hunters to get even closer to their prey.
Apparently deer hunters already have special soaps, shampoos and clothing detergent that mask the human scent. We guess these products allow the armed men to get so close they can put their barrels right to the heads of the animals.
We haven't whiffed any of these products, and we don't go around smelling people (well, not guys, anyway), but we think the whole thing stinks.
Nothing personal, you gun-toting (or in the case of Ted Nugent, bow-and-arrow-carrying) woodsmen.

We've never seen a Romanian man's penis, but we would have thought it looked about like any other man's. And let's not dicker about details.
Apparently, however, Romanians' members look like chickens.
We assume that's what got a 67-year-old Romanian man confused.
Constantin Mocanu was quoted as saying he ran outside in his underwear to kill a chicken that was bugging him. He somehow got his penis confused with the chicken's neck and cut it off.
His penis. Cut it right off. And his dog ate it.
Mocanu is reportedly out of danger.
When asked, the dog said his master's member tasted like ...
You got it. Chicken.

We have great respect for you animal rights nuts.
But we have to wonder why you would object to goats licking honey off a Penthouse model.
Such is the case in Germany, where model Kader Loth received the tongue lashing for a German TV show.
The German Animal Protection Federation has demanded that the show be canceled.
But, we ask, was anyone really hurt? We say, Hell no!
Well, there was the turkey that got slaughtered in one episode, and the pig that almost got sacrificed to the god of TV ratings.
But as far as the goats are concerned, we say let them be. Soon enough they'll be a hangover cure (Goat's head soup) for all those drunken Oktoberfesters.

We're not anti-vegan. Some of our best friends are vegetables.
But we were scanning the news for important stuff when we ran across an item about a young Pennsylvania vegan who works at a McDonald's.
Amandah Povilitus has demonstrated at a nearby KFC, protesting the company's treatment of its chickens.
She doesn't demonstrate at her store because, as she says, she has to have a job, and anywhere she worked would have something she disliked.
So anyway. In a question-and-answer session, Amandah talked about the ill treatment of chickens and how the KFC folks drop chickens into boiling water to get the feathers off. Ick.
And then she said (and we couldn't have said it better): "They should at least be dead before they're scalded alive."
We think she's going to be president someday.
If you want to know more about dead chickens and lively activists, just go
here.

The greatest rhetorical question of all time, in our estimation:
Does a bear s--- in the woods?
You know why it's rhetorical, right? We are not really expecting an answer. We already know.
Yes. Of course a bear poops in the great outdoors.
But now that great question has a challenger:
Does a bear get bombed in the woods?
And we know the answer to that one, too, don't we?
Everyone has heard of the black bear in Washington that downed several cans of Rainier Beer and then passed out on the lawn of Baker Lake Resort.
And we've heard a great hoo-hah about the whole thing. "Hey, d'ja hear about the black bear that blacked out at Baker Lake? Hoo-hah!"
Wildlife agents even used beer as bait to lure the hungover beast into a cage to move it.
Which brings us to rhetorical question No. 3. We know a bear takes a dump in the woods. And we know it takes a drink in the woods.
But does a bear take a whiz in the woods?
The answer to that is in rhetorical question No. 4:
Is the pope Catholic?

We Philly-stines have our sickos. Witness the brainless bozo who set fire to a young pit bull the other day.
But these little freaks in Tennessee take the proverbial cake.
Two boys, 14 and 11, put a puppy on a barbecue grill and cooked it.
That was after they'd tried to drown the poor creature.
Dregis Freeman, 10, tried to rescue the dog but was too late. Dregis said the boys told him they just wanted to see how the tail-wagger tasted.
The two heathens face charges of cruelty to animals.
Police didn't release their names, but we'll call them Jeffrey and John, after Dahmer and Gacy.
The worst human killers always start out with small animals. Let's not forget Robert Ramirez, the Night Stalker; David Berkowitz, Son of Sam; and many, many others.
And the best human beings care about their fellow creatures and try to make life better for one and all.
Thank you, Dregis Freeman, for caring.

Let's see now. We've had complaints about mice in beer. A "toad" in a McDonald's salad. Chewing gum in a completely different McDonald's salad.
Now comes Russell L. Long (not the son of Huey Long and longtime senator, who happens to be dead), suing over milk he received at a Denny's in Virginia that Long says was filled with maggots.
Maggots, as you probably know, are those puny Marine recruits who get abused by their drill sergeants until they become men. Or die. Whichever.
But for our purposes, they are, as per dictionary.com, "the legless, soft-bodied, wormlike larva of any of various flies of the order Diptera, often found in decaying matter."
Yummy? You bet!
The lawsuit, however, says Long can no longer eat comfortably at restaurants and can no longer enjoy daily family meals or special occasions. The guy just can't get along with food and drink these days.
And he wants $1 million to compensate for his starvation.
Denny's has denied the allegation. It also has said that if maggots were in the milk, it was the fault of the milk provider, Marva Maid Maggoty Milk.
Just playing, Marvy.
At this point we should tell diners that many creepy-crawly creatures, including cockroaches, spiders, worms and old shoes, are filled with nutrients and should be consumed heartily, not condemned in lawsuits.
So get out there and eat a bee for better health!
(The above advice is based strictly on one man's crackpot epidemiology and has no bearing on real life. Caveat emptor.)

Word comes from Fiji that social workers are trying to humanize a 32-year-old man who was raised by chickens.
The guy reportedly was locked in a chicken coop when he was a kid and now behaves like a chicken.
He apparently escaped the coop and later was taken to a hospital. Workers there, buffaloed by the man's actions, locked him in a room and tied him to a bed, where he roosted for more than 20 years.
Now social worker Elizabeth Clayton is treating him.
Clayton was quoted as saying the man (we'll call him Funky) "had ... imprinted with the chicken."
"He was perching, he was picking at his food, he was hopping around like a chicken.
"He'd keep his hands in a chickenlike fashion, and he'd make a noise which was like the calling of a chicken - which he still has."
If the treatments don't work, the islanders will have a feast of finger food followed by fried Funky.

An ocean watchdog group, whatever that means, has criticized the type of hooks some fisherpeople use because they are a danger to sea turtles.
Longline fisherpeople, whoever they are, have been told they need to use circle-shaped hooks rather than J-shaped hooks in their fishering.
We're not fisherpeople, but we think that a circular hook would let the fish, or turtle, slide right off, defeating the purpose of the hook itself.
But we support the circular hooks for one reason: We assume they won't hook a bystander's head when the master caster misfires.
Ever felt one of those things sink into your flesh? Hey, it ain't fun.
One question, however: Will a change in hooks affect the master baiters out there?
Stay tuned.

You like cats? Well, this stirring tail of survival beats anything that Burnett guy can turn out on TV.
And it really is real.
Bubbles, a cat who lives in Scotland, was trapped for eight weeks after neighbors nailed her under a deck they built.
Bubbles' owner, 7-year-old Emma Dearie (ain't that just the perfect name for this sobfest?), looked and looked for her cat, asking people far and wide if they'd seen sweet Bubbles.
But no. Bubbles, for all intents and purposes, had burst.
Then the neighbors heard what they thought was a mewling sound coming from under their deck. They called an animal rescue service, and shortly thereafter Bubbles was reunited with Emma.
At least one vet said that the cat probably subsisted on rainwater and bugs and that her survival was truly a "miracle."
Emma's mom says the girl now spends all her time with the recovering cat.
And, in a statement that could apply to all lost souls looking for that elusive thing called love, Emma said, "I can't believe she was just over the fence all this time."

A marathon runner has become the first human being to defeat a horse in a marathon race.
Huw Lobb, 27, did the deed in Wales. He won 25,000 pounds, or about $2.98 in American money.
But remember the turtle that defeated the hare?
We beat that turtle.
We think that was a first, too.

Remember the Virginia woman who said, "Waiter, there's a mouse in my soup"?
Now Carla Patterson, 36, and her son, Ricky Patterson, 20, have been accused of putting the mouse in the vegetable soup and then trying to extort Cracker Barrel restaurants. They also were charged with conspiracy to commit a felony.
A Cracker Barrel spokesman said, "We learned that the mouse died from a fractured skull before it entered the soup."
Also, the mouse had no soup in its lungs and it hadn't been cooked. (Just like an episode of "CSI," doncha think? How exciting.)
The Pattersons had sought $500,000 from Cracker Barrel.
We expect PETA to file murder charges soon in the case. In PETA court they would face a life sentence of eating only lettuce.

A "medical man" in China is being sued by a patient over a prescription the patient got from the "doc."
The prescription: Eat raw frog six times a day. (Doesn't that bring back fond memories of high school biology class, when we got to pin frogs down and cut them up? Does that make us sound like nascent serial killers? So be it.)
The patient, named Chen, made it through 130 frogs before he almost croaked. He was then found to have parasites crawling through his body, little critters that had been feeding off the frogs.
Very much like the patient. But the parasites didn't sue.

A wild hare attacked a motor bike and a German fellow in Bargfeld recently.
The hare first seized the back wheel of the bike, biting into it and refusing to let go.
When the rider began yelling, Juergen Marwedel responded.
Bad move.
The rabbit turned from the bike to Marwedel's foot, biting through his shoe and into his flesh.
Marwedel finally had to beat the hare to death. It later proved not to be rabid.
It was a matter of hare today, carrion tomorrow.
The case, of course, reminds us of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." What a movie.

If you saw Smarty Jones' recent editorial in the Daily News, you know that Smarty hates flies.
Well, it turns out that someone else may hate flies even more than Smarty.
A Chinese businessman, Hu Xilin, has been on a fly-squashing rampage for 10 years. It began with a fly squatting in his soup, which ruined Hu's business party. Actually, the official Chinese news agency didn't specify soup, but hey, give us a little room for poetic license, OK?
So Hu's been at war with the pesky insects ever since. Now he's recruiting a "swat" team (not our pun, thank you very much) of fly killers.
If Hu can rid the world of flies, we're sure Smarty will be quite pleased.
The ecological ramifications, however, could be severe. It could mean ... the end of the world.
Eek.

First it was the 2000 election. Now it's drug-sniffing dogs.
What's going on with Florida anyway?
The Florida attorney general has been asked to look into allegations that racing greyhounds at tracks across the state are taking cocaine.

No, really. Dogs. Taking cocaine.

Ten dogs have tested positive thus far.
A dog-track owner, Juan Fra, reiterated his track's zero-tolerance policy on drug use.
Christine A. Dorchak, vice president of the national GREY2K USA greyhound protection organization based in Somerville, Mass., (again with Massachusetts?) was the animal-rights nut advocate who prompted the probe.
Dorchak said no studies had been done to indicate whether cocaine makes the dogs run faster or slower.
We conclude that the dogs were doing the drugs just for kicks.
We will continue following this tragic tail, here at "Would We Lie?"

Plenty of gator news lately: You’ve heard, no doubt, about the kid whose head ended up in an alligator’s mouth. The kid punched the gator, which ran away.
Let that be a lesson to you people in Florida. If you’re ever confronted by a gator, hit it really hard in the face. Gators are just chickens in disguise.
Also in Florida, a woman found a 7-foot gator catching some shade under her car. When a trapper tried to remove the gator, it bit the car’s bumper. Maybe you’ve seen the video.
The gator was finally pulled loose, taken out and killed.
When asked by an insurance agent who owned the gator, Carolyn Christian, the car’s owner, said, “I guess God does.”
Christian also said the insurance employee told her this was the first report of gator bite car damage she had received.
According to one gator expert we talked to, another way to get a gator from under your car is to dangle an infant in front of it. That kind of bait, you know, is irresistible to most any big animal.

Ok, so Smarty Jones wants to win the Triple Crown instead of frolic with the mares. Who knew he was that smart?
So we're 0-1 in horse race predictions.
Congrats, Smarty. And answer a question for us when you have the time:
Is it true that Rock Hard Ten, your runner-up, was named after Ron Jeremy?

Got cod?
If you answered yes, thank your lucky stars. Because according to the WWF — either the World Wrestling Federation of the World Wide Fund for Nature — cod stocks are being wiped out by greedy anglers and oil companies.
The cod supply could be wiped out in 15 years or so.
So we say, “Hey, you guys, cut it out!”
This cod piece was brought to you by the Cod is Alive! movement, Dan D. Wiggs, president and sole member. (Sole, get it?)

A prediction from two guys with plenty of horse sense, Jack Nissel and Jack Jr. of Southwest Philly:
Smarty Jones will throw the Preakness.
Their logic: If Smarty wins, he has to go through another trip, another race, more annoyance.
If he loses? He gets to go home, kick back, eat plenty and have a lot of sex.
Which would you choose? A lot of running in circles, or all the food and sex you can get.
You who would choose the former, please write in and tell us when you will be released from your hospital.

Women have divorced men because the hubbies are dogs.

But a woman in China just wanted her hubby’s dog dead.

So she hired four hit men to rub out the pooch while hubby was away.

The wife was afraid the wolfhound would ruin their newly furnished apartment.

So Wolfie was hit, and hubby, when he found out, hit the roof.

The wife, Xiao Fang, is now free of the dog.

Or should we say: Dogs.

It’s gotta be an evil Nazi scheme.

Raccoons that Hermann Goering released in Germany in 1934 to “enrich the Reich's fauna” are now overwhelming Europe.

Maybe Robert Ludlum will write a novel about it. “The Coon Vendetta”? Austria is considering putting a bounty on raccoon pelts.

Reminds us of the days of yore when we were young, innocent children. We were dragged out of bed before sunrise, dragged into the woods and directed on a forced march, listening to dogs bark and worrying that vicious raccoons would drop on our heads at any moment.

In case you wondered, we did not become raccoon food.