The cougars are coming! The cougars are coming!

First it was Google’s discrimination against a Toronto-based Web site catering to cougars. Then it was the Star‘s brief but amusing attempt to capitalize on the slang for women of a certain age when it was, in fact, talking about big cats. And now this: the first Cougar Convention is coming to Toronto.  Clearly, this city is cuckoo for cougars.

The Star, once again, has the story:

Rich Gosse, who bills himself as America’s foremost authority on finding a romantic partner, claims Demi Moore and Madonna have made dating older women so socially acceptable that men who were once afraid to be caught dead with older women are now flocking to them.

“There’s not enough cougars to go around,” says Gosse, who has held cougar events across North America and Australia. The most recent one in Chicago drew 400 men and women.

But not all is well in Cougartown: there’s a backlash a-brewin’ due to the word’s tragic over-exploitation, according to the Vancouver Sun. Of course, there are always old standbys: instead of calling them Cougar Conventions, they could go back to calling them MILF Meetups.

• Cougars wanted [Toronto Star]
• A ‘cougar’ backlash is brewing [Vancouver Sun]