People for the Ethical Treatment of Plants??

In terms of great places to visit, I absolutely adore Switzerland...but I'm sorry, part of their government has gone absolutely nuts:

At the request of the Swiss government, an ethics panel has weighed in on the "dignity" of plants and opined that the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong. This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called "plant rights" is being seriously debated.

A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring "account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms." No one knew exactly what it meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out. The resulting report, "The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants," is enough to short circuit the brain.

A "clear majority" of the panel adopted what it called a "biocentric" moral view, meaning that "living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive." Thus, the panel determined that we cannot claim "absolute ownership" over plants and, moreover, that "individual plants have an inherent worth." This means that "we may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily."

I wish I were kidding. Read the whole thing for even more ridiculousness. And writer Wesley J. Smith of the Weekly Standard pretty much nails the reason that things like this have come to pass:

Why is this happening? Our accelerating rejection of the Judeo-Christian world view, which upholds the unique dignity and moral worth of human beings, is driving us crazy. Once we knocked our species off its pedestal, it was only logical that we would come to see fauna and flora as entitled to rights.

And the craziness goes on and on....

And this is just plain weird: An Antarctic fur seal was captured on tape while trying to have sex with a penguin. (Said penguin would normally be dinner for the seal, which gives new meaning to the term "playing with your food.")

This is weird too, but funny: Some residents of the Greek Island of Lesbos (i.e. the original "Lesbians") have sued to stop gay groups from using the term to describe themselves.