Zoo Animals Pig Out On Pumpkins For Halloween (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)

For millions of kids, Halloween is a time to wear wacky costumes and gobble up sweets. But for zoo animals around the world, it's a chance to pig out on pumpkins.

Zoos in cities including Seattle, Chicago, San Diego and Hanover, Germany are helping their animals get into the holiday spirit by offering up some tasty pumpkins.

Tony Franceschiello, the senior keeper at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, says handing out the seasonal squash is a great way to add some excitement into the day for the animals.

"They love them," Franceschiello said. "[The pumpkins are] a very novel item, bright in color. They never see these things throughout the year, so it's very creative to them."
Each animal species is different, so keepers like Franceschiello try to take that in account when handing out the pumpkins.

"We do spice them up a little bit with meal worms for the meerkats," he said. "The bat-eared foxes have mice and crickets crawling throughout. Elephants just pretty much crush them, because......read more

Ahmadinejad's Nightmare

Does homosexuality exist in every human society?

At a press event two weeks ago, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to elaborate on his notorious assertion from 2007 that there were no homosexuals in Iran. “My position hasn’t changed,” replied the defiant Ahmadinejad. He then acknowledged to Blitzer, begrudgingly, the tiny sliver of a possibility that there could be such monsters living amongst even the Sharia-centric Iranians. “Perhaps there are those who engage in [homosexual] activities … but these are not known elements within Iranian society. Rest assured, this is one of the ugliest behaviors in our society … but as the government, I cannot go out in the street and ask [my people] about their specific orientation.”

I’d take considerable pleasure in using this column to expound on Ahmadinejad’s intellectual deficiencies. (Let’s be honest, any leader who believes in a supernatural entity that finds gay people icky isn’t exactly the deepest thinker.) Yet this arrogant theocrat unwittingly raises a more interesting issue for us to consider:

Does homosexuality exist in every human society?

For anyone with even a modest scientific background, the answer seems obvious —hence the widespread disbelief of Ahmadinejad’s initial claim of a gay-free Iran. Although LGBT Iranians live under constant threat of severe legal and social sanctions, we do know that there is no shortage of them. Still, that doesn’t mean that homosexuality can be found in every other corner in the world. A husband-and-wife team of anthropologists at Washington State University named Barry and Bonnie Hewlett believe that they’ve found a society without gay sex—and that there other societies, too, in which................read more