A federal appeals court ruled today that it’s okay for Minute Maid to call one of their drinks “Pomegranate Blueberry” even though it’s made almost entirely from apple and grape juices and contains a pitiful 0.3% pomegranate juice and 0.2% blueberry juice. The judge said that since it’s okay that it takes more than a minute to serve it and there are no maids—or women of any type—on their Board of Directors, then they can call the juice any damned thing they like.

When a photograph of Katrina Hayman, a pig midwife who had entered the Taranaki Bride of the Year competition, ran in the newspaper showing her drinking beer out of a bottle, it caused an online uproar in her native New Zealand. One critic called the photograph “disgusting” while the contest’s organizers demanded an apology from the newspaper. A website  poll found that 62% of respondents thought drinking beer is “becoming for a bride,” 14% said “No, it’s tacky,” 24% said “OK, but out of an elegant glass please,” and 100% wondered what the hell a pig midwife is.

Scientists at the University of California San Francisco say they’ve discovered the key to how the human brain can tune out all the noises around us and focus on the one conversation that’s important at the moment, what neuroscientists call “selective hearing.” They hope this breakthrough will help unravel the secret to the other side of selective hearing—how humans can hear a pencil fall three rooms away yet not hear their spouse who is three feet away ask them to take out the trash.

Ever fumble around in the dark looking for change and have a hard time telling which one is a quarter? Your troubles will be over soon. Well, if you’re in Canada. The Royal Canadian Mint (motto: “We sound like an ice cream flavor but we’re not”) has announced that it will be issuing a glow-in-the-dark quarter soon. On one side will be Queen Elizabeth — who won’t glow — and on the other side will be an image of a dinosaur that, in the dark, will be replaced by a glowing image of its skeleton. The quarter will cost about $30 U.S. And you wondered why their one dollar coin is called a “Loonie.”

A headline on CNN.com discussing Mark Zuckerberg et. al. buying Instagram asks, “When did Facebook become so uncool?” Let’s see….could it have been the day your mother Poked you and sent a friend request?

According to a CNN Breaking News banner on their website, “President Obama clinches the Democratic presidential nomination by winning primaries in D.C. and Maryland, CNN projects.” That big gasp you just heard wasn’t people in Dallas watching a tractor-trailer get sucked up in the air by a tornado, it was the White House breathing a sigh of relief that the hard-fought battle for the nomination is finally over.

Pope Benedict, already known for his tailor-made red shoes and panama hat, has asked Italian perfume maker Silvana Casoli to create a custom scent just for him.  While a “pact of secrecy” forbids Casoli from telling what ingredients are in the fragrance, she did say the cologne is “based on his love of nature” and includes frankincense, myrrh, and lots of bullshit.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who’s running for re-election, says halal meat—the ritual way of killing animals by Muslims for human consumption—is the French people’s major concern and number one topic of conversation. Not the tanked economy. Not record unemployment. Not whether McDonald’s new McBaguette sandwich means the end of civilization as we know it. Somewhere on the American campaign trail Rick Santorum is pissed he didn’t think of it first.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Molson Coors is launching Coors Light Iced T, a citrusy iced-tea flavored beer. And to think, it only took them four years to figure out what to do with all that backstock of Zima they had sitting in the warehouse since they discontinued it.

As many as 1,000 drunk driving convictions could be thrown out in San Francisco after it was discovered that police logs claimed every breathalyzer calibration test since 2010 came out perfect. According to Public Defender Jeff Adachi at least some of the readings should have been off, meaning the machines would need to be re-calibrated. “It would be mathematically impossible for that to occur,” he said. Maybe Adachi needs to go back and retake Statistics 101, at least at United Nations University. Yesterday a UN-appointed Commission of Inquiry on Libya found that all 18,000 NATO bombing strikes in Libya were aimed at “legitimate military sites,” and if that’s statistically possible, anything is.

The latest salvo in the Hipster Wars—I call dibs on the reality TV show!—comes from Brooklyn where the new thing in coffee shops is “babyccinos,” which are mini decaf cappuccinos or cups of steamed milk and foam for about $2 a shot (so to speak). Ah, it makes you long for the good old days when baby chinos were a toddler’s first pair of pants…

There are no hearts and flowers and candy in Uzbekistan today. An official from a government agency called—True Fact Alert!—the Department for Enlightenment and Promoting Values issued a decree calling Valentine’s Day “alien to our culture” and suggesting that Uzbekis bag the evil Western ritual in favor of celebrating the Moghul emperor Babur’s birthday. All well and good, but it’s hard to fit “Happy Birthday Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur” on a conversation heart candy.

Roseanne Barr has filed the paperwork to run for president in November’s election as a Green Party candidate. Her platform, according to her tweet, is simple: “If ppl will merely do as I tell them to do just this one time, I promise everything will get a lot better quickly4 the majority.” That and a promise to not sing the Star Spangled Banner on the campaign trail might just get her a few votes.

Robert Hegyes, who played Juan Epstein, the Jewish Puerto Rican wheeler-dealer whose full name was Juan Luis Pedro Phillipo de Huevos Epstein, on Welcome Back Kotter died yesterday. The death certificate was signed by “Epstein’s Mother.” 

The Canyons School District in Utah has decided against using “Cougars” as a mascot for a new high school partly because they say it has a negative connotation. The school’s Single Mom’s PTA Group has decided to adopt it. Meanwhile the school mascot will be the “Chargers,” in spite of the fact that the local chapter of Shoppers Anonymous already uses that mascot.

Ever feel weird buying virtual tools to tend your virtual garden in Farmville? Well, a man in China has you beat—he recently paid $16,000 for a virtual sword to be used in “Age of Wulin,” a multi-player online role-playing game that hasn’t even been released yet. He probably bought it to impress his virtual girlfriend.

A survey by Poll Position found that of those people who knew about Tim Tebow, 43% believe divine intervention is at least partly responsible for his success. Forty-two percent of those polled disagreed, while 14% said they needed to pray for guidance in making up their mind.

At the American Dialect Society’s annual conference Friday, members voted for the Word of the Year. The winner? “Occupy.” Meanwhile, just a few days before, Lake Superior State University’s 37th annual List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness included “ginormous,” “man cave,” and yes, “occupy.” You know, as in, “Can’t you find a better way to occupy your time?”