A controversial zoo in Argentina allows tourists to have extremely close encounters with some of the most dangerous predators in the world.

The Lujan Zoo, which is about 70km away from downtown Buenos Aires, has an entrance fee of $7 (£5) and allows its guests to 'interact' with all of its animals from rabbits to adult male lions.

It claims to be dedicated to the conservation of endangered species.

Animal protection charity, The Born Free Foundation, has condemned the zoo and issued a statement to urge tourists not to visit it

Will Travers, CEO of The Born Free Foundation said: "Based on what I have seen displayed on the Lujan Zoo website, I am fearful that a terrible accident is going to happen".

A blogger on www.travbuddy.com describes how she and her travel companion were supposedly allowed to play with the animals even more closely after the zoo had closed: "I love Argentina. People aren't hung up on safety. They don't have as many fears as the rest of the world. The zoo closed and we kept going to the cages because we had a little bravery in us. Since it was only us, the guys who worked at the zoo let us take goofy pictures with the animals. I sat on a lion's back, haha."

The new oceanarium, which will be named “Duman,” in Moscow will be a perfect center for learning about undersea life and entertainment.

The Duman Oceanarium will be part of a huge entertainment complex known as Poseidon Park, each of which will have its own particular theme. These different zones will include: the Oceanarium, 3D-Cinema, a network of cafes and trading halls. The central zone will be used for walks and rest, an Amusement “Jungle”, bowling, a multipurpose hall and a hotel complex. The mayor embraced the idea for the oceanarium when it was first presented to him some six years ago. Unequalled anywhere in Russia, both in terms of scale and concept, the Duman Oceanarium will be the only one in Russia and the largest ever seen in Eastern Europe.

Total floor space will spread over 44 acres of land, which will include some 58,000 square meters (14.33 acres) underground. The aquarium will hold around 11 million liters of water and will be 12.5 meters (almost 44 feet) deep. Ingress will be via a see-through acrylic tunnel that spans 800 meters (2,800 feet) as it meanders along a man-made seabed. An excursion through the tunnel where visitors can observe sea creatures and species of fish from northern and tropical seas, the remnant of vessels and sunken forests can take anywhere from one and one-half hour to two hours.

Without a doubt, one of the most exciting features of the new oceanarium will be the “touch pool” area where underwater species can not only be observed up front and personal, so to speak, they can even be touched by hand. Watching the feeding of the sharks is a thrilling spectacle to behold (especially when visitors are not the intended meal). The displays are also educational as they explain how seabed creatures lived a millennium ago and what their fate will be if environmental and ecological forces are not dealt with properly.

The expertise of more than 2,000 foreign specialists will be called upon to create and maintain this fantastic illusion; including divers, handlers, microbiologists and veterinarians from America, England and New Zealand, just to name a few countries. In addition, a code of laws must be established to maintain the oceanarium’s natural marine habitat. For example, the fish must always be fed on time and never be hungry or the food chain can be traumatized by fish hunting and seizing other smaller fish for food.

More than 6,000 fish and sea creatures will comprise Moscow’s oceanarium. The delivery of these sea creatures is very complicated and will not begin until the construction is almost over. Not only are special transport facilities with life support systems required, there are also quotas for catching certain types of fish and strict licensing procedures. No insurance is currently available for the long-haul transportation of fish, which is amazing considering that one tiger shark costs at a minimum $10,000 and up to 20 percent of the fish die in transit.

Poseidon Park will include walks along the ocean floor via underwater tunnels and visitors can enter underwater classrooms and listen to lectures. It is expected when completed to be a Disneyland sort of experience except on a smaller scale. Adults can bowl, play billiards or American pool, watch a movie or eat at a choice of restaurants. An underground parking facility for 2,000 cars will be built on the park’s territory.

Construction has begun and will be completed in 2011. It is estimated that 4 million people will visit the oceanarium during the first year of operation. The doors will be open to all and discounts on the 300 rubles ($12) adult tickets and 150 rubles ($6) for children will be available for certain categories of citizens and children from orphanages.

Dress Code:

1) You are advised to come to work dressed according to your salary.

2) If we see you wearing Prada shoes and carrying a Gucci bag, we will assume you are doing well financially and therefore do not need a raise.

3) If you dress poorly, you need to learn to manage your money better, so that you may buy nicer clothes, and therefore you do not need a raise.

4) If you dress just right, you are right where you need to be and therefore you do not need a raise.

Sick Days:
We will no longer accept a doctor’s statement as proof of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work.

Personal Days:
Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year. They are called Saturdays & Sundays.


Bereavement Leave:
This is no excuse for missing work. There is nothing you can do for dead friends, relatives or co-workers. Every effort should be made to have non-employees attend the funeral arrangements in your place. In rare cases where employee involvement is necessary, the funeral should be scheduled in the late afternoon. We will be glad to allow you to work through your lunch hour and subsequently leave one hour early.

Bathroom Breaks:
Entirely too much time is being spent in the toilet. There is now a strict three-minute time limit in the stalls. At the end of three minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper roll will retract, the stall door will open, and a picture will be taken. After your second offense, your picture will be posted on the company bulletin board under the ‘Chronic Offenders’ category. Anyone caught smiling in the picture will be sectioned under the company’s mental health policy.

Lunch Break:
* Skinny people get 30 minutes for lunch, as they need to eat more, so that they can look healthy.

* Normal size people get 15 minutes for lunch to get a balanced meal to maintain their average figure.

* Chubby people get 5 minutes for lunch, because that’s all the time needed to drink a Slim-Fast.

Thank you for your loyalty to our company. We are here to provide a positive employment experience. Therefore, all questions, comments, concerns, complaints, frustrations, irritations, aggravations, insinuations, allegations, accusations, contemplations, consternation and input should be directed elsewhere.

World Wildlife Fund creates what is called Earth Hour on Saturday, March 28th 2009. It's unrelated to Earth Day (so, don't be mistaken), because Earth Day is April 22nd.

This year, one billion people from 2000 cities across the world will turn out the lights of their homes and offices to tell the world leaders that climate change is real. That it is happening in their cities and it is happening now. And they want something done!

Join Earth Hour on Saturday 28 March 2009, 8:30PM-9:30 local time, wherever you live on planet earth.

Be part of the Earth Hour - tell your friends. Make a difference!


Earth Hour-Turn off your lights for Earth Hour, record your vote and share it with the world! Here's how

In the most obese country in the world, this fat-packed burger should be the last thing on the menu.

Loaded with around 4,800 calories, twice the daily recommended limit for men, the Fifth Third Burger has five beef patties, five slices of cheese, sour cream, a cup of chilli salsa and corn chips.

The burger, named after the West Michigan Whitecaps's ball park and the meal's five beef patties, which each weigh one third of a pound (136 grams), also contains a whopping 300 grams of fat, 744 milligrams of cholesterol and more than 10,000 milligrams of salt.

The West Michigan Whitecaps are offering fans the eight-inch gut-busting meal for $20 (£10) - and a free t-shirt for anyone who can finish it in one sitting.

World's biggest burger: The artery-busting 'snack' that packs a whopping 4,800 calories

They also come with a palm sized portable digital video recorder (imagine that...) so you can have a memoir of your peeping at 470 lines of resolution-in color. This device hooks up to the glasses through a thin cable. A wireless version is available as well.And with a battery time of about 5 hours, you'll be able to get plenty of video to incriminate yourself.


And if those pictures are accurate, these glasses do what they're supposed to do.

Not every country allows optics of this type. So if you buy these whoppers, make sure that you won't be spending the rest of your life in a "Midnight Express" kind of setting. Personally, I find no appeal in a Turkish-prison lifestyle.

These suckers run $2400.00. The wireless version runs $400.00 more. If a kid could afford that... well that kid would either be the best entrepreneur on the planet or the demon spawn of a very well off family that simply doesn't monitor what their child is doing.

You can grab these glasses on Advance-intelligence.

Let’s get right to the point. Misusing words makes you look less intelligent than you really are. If you misuse words in your writing, it can damage your credibility and diminish the point you’re trying to make. Even worse, it could completely change the meaning of the sentence.

2. Affect/Effect- The way you “affect” someone can have an “effect” on them. “Affect” is usually a verb and “Effect” is a noun.

3. Alright- If you use “alright,” go to the chalkboard and write “Alright is not a word” 100 times.

4. Capital/Capitol- “Capitol” generally refers to an official building. “Capital” can mean the city which serves as a seat of government or money or property owned by a company. “Capital” can also mean “punishable by death.”

5. Complement/Compliment- I often must compliment my wife on how her love for cooking perfectly complements my love for grocery shopping.

6. Comprise/Compose- 32 parts comprise the article I am composing.

7. Could Of- Of the 32 mistakes on this list, this is the one that bothers me most. It’s “could have” not “could of.” When you hear people talking, they’re saying “could’ve.” Got it?

8. Desert/Dessert- A desert is a hot, dry patch of sand. Dessert, on the other hand, is the sweet, fatty substance you eat at the end of your meal.

9. Discreet/Discrete- We can break people into two discrete (separate) groups, the discreet (secretive) and indiscreet.

10. Emigrate/Immigrate- If I leave this country to move to Europe, the leaving is emigrating and the arriving is immigrating.

11. Elicit/Illicit- Some people post illicit things on message boards to elicit outrageous reactions from others.

12. Farther/Further- Farther is used for physical distance, where as further means to a greater degree.

13. Fewer/Less- Use fewer when referring to something that can be counted one-by-one. Use less when it’s something that doesn’t lend itself to a simple numeric amount.

14. Flair/Flare- A flair is a talent, while a flare is a burst (of anger, fire, etc.)

15. i.e/e.g- I.e. is used to say “in other words.” E.g. is used in place of “for example.”

16. Inflammable- Don’t let the prefix confuse you, if something is inflammable it can catch on fire.

17. It’s/Its- It’s= it is. Its=a possessive pronoun meaning of it or belonging to. Whatever you do, please don’t use its’.

18. Imply/Infer- A reader infers what an author implies. In other words, when you imply something, you hint at it. When you infer something, you draw a conclusion based on clues.

19. Literally- If you say “His head literally exploded because he was so mad!” then we should see brains splattered on the ceiling.

20. Lose/Loose- If your pants are too loose you may lose them. That would be almost as embarrassing as misusing these two words.

21. Moral/Morale- Morals are something you want to teach your kids. If your team’s morale is low, you need to do something to boost their confidence.

22. Percent/Percentage- The word “percent” should only be used when a specific number is given. “Percentage” is more of a general term.

23. Stationary/Stationery- You are stationary when you aren’t moving. Stationery is something you write on.

24. Then/Than- “Then” is another word for “after.” Incidentally, the word “then” makes for boring writing. “Than” is a comparative word (e.g. I am smarter than you).

25. There/Their/They’re- There are few things as frustrating as when I look at my students’ writing and they’re misusing these words in their writing.

26. Unique- Something can’t be “kind of unique” or even “very unique.” It’s either one-of-a-kind or it isn’t. There is no in between when it comes to unique.

27. Your/You’re- If I had a nickel for every time I saw this one… yeah, you know the rest. “Your” shows ownership and you’re is a contraction meaning “you are.” Get it right.

28. To/Too/Two- Two is a number. “To” is used in instances such as, “I am going to the store.” If you are supposed to use the word “too,” try inserting the word “extra” or “also.” If one of those fits, you need to also add the extra “o” to make “too.”

29. Lie/Lay- After you lay the books on the table, go lie down on the couch.

30. Sit/Set- Set your drink on the table and sit in your chair. Got it?

31. Whose/Who’s- Whose is the possesive form of who. Who’s is a contraction meaning “who is.”

32. Allude/Elude- When someone alludes to something in conversation (indirectly references), if you aren’t paying attention the meaning may elude you (escape you).

Which misused words drive you crazy? Share them in the comments.