Best of the Web - 21 May 2010

Cake-baking and environmentalism don't usually go hand in hand, but one chef has cooked up this slick masterpiece, wryly "thanking" BP for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill which continues to dominate headlines this week.

Although if US shock-jock Rush "the Republican party works for me now" Limbaugh is to be believed, the master-baker should have written "thank you environmentalist wackos" instead. Everyone's favourite voice of reason suggested this week that those "wackos" may have blown up the oil rig in an attempt to call attention to their cause ahead of the US senate debate on the proposed climate bill.

We think (hope) he was joking, but with Limbaugh it is hard to be too sure.

On a more serious note, senators released alarming footage of oil pumping into the ocean so fast that it makes you wonder if the middle of the earth is empty yet. The footage, which had to be prised out of the grip of BP, became such a web hit that the government website swiftly crashed - providing evidence that people will literally watch anything.

Meanwhile, geneticist Craig Venter had a busy week as people tried to decide whether the creation of the world's first synthetic cell made him a genius, a god, or a latter-day Dr Frankenstein.

And while we're on the topic of trick moral questions, a Chinese Zoo has defied its animal-loving facade after reportedly serving up exotic animals at its in-house restaurant.

The staff have since promised to revise the menu, which includes dishes made from scorpion, peacock, ostrich egg, shark fin soup and, somehow most disturbing of all, hippopotamus.

Back home in the UK, new housing minister Grant Shapps has been given a disorientatingly wide remit, covering local government, regeneration, climate change and sustainable development, which is rather strange given none of the ministers at the Department of Energy and Climate Change know what they are doing yet.

If Shapps is looking for inspiration as he gets down to work he should look no further than sustainable housing outfit Studio Asslinger, which has created an IKEA-style Fincube house that can be disassembled and moved to a new location. Just don't lose the allen key Grant.