Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Online Bunny Boiling for Fun and Profit

There's a report on MSNBC this morning that renews a man's faith in this Age of the Simple Minded. Two students have a pet rabbit called Toby, and they will eat Toby on June 30th, unless they collect $50,000 to save the life of this particular lagomorph.

The details can be investigated online at the Save Toby website, and and it provides some marvellous links, including my own favorite, which is the page with the recipes. The recipe for Lapin Braisé begins with the chilling line "cut Toby into serving-size pieces."

Animal rights people are going ballistic about this, unsurprisingly, including sending the entrepreneurs death threats on a daily basis - it seems to be an article of faith with these people that it doesn't matter how many human beings suffer so long as one bunny is saved.

The students have had their ability to collect via Paypal stopped after the notoriously gutless online payment processors were deluged by the animal rights people, but the scheme proceeds nonetheless, and it is with his hat doffed and head bowed that An Spailpín is pleased to announce that, at time of writing, the entrepreneurs have raised twenty-four grand, the price of a brand new, straight from the showroom, Chevrolet Impala or Pontiac Grand Am, with money left over for gas, just by threatening to do something that's entirely legal and has been done by humanity since we evolved from the water. Genius. Sheer genius.