A sea slug named Kate?

[Photo: Christian Science Monitor/Scripps Institution of Oceanography]

It's rough out there for nonprofits -- we need money, and it's getting trickier and trickier to come by. So some people are getting creative.

And by creative, I mean that you can name a sea slug for $15,000.

Apparently it's cool for scientific nonprofits to "sell" naming rights of newly discovered species to raise funds for their programs and research. Naming a species of monkey ran one company $650,000, and a naming auction for sea creatures raked in $2 million. But by far, my personal favorite...

Famous people get their share of names too. For example, a pair of US
entomologists named three slime-mold beetle species after George W. Bush, Dick
Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld, former secretary of defense. It wasn’t a joke: Mr.
Bush called to thank one of the entomologists, who said he wished to honor the
three men.

I will refrain from making any political comments here, but trust me, I'm biting my tongue. Really hard. :)