Daily Caffiene Protects the Brain

BBC News: Daily caffeine 'protects brain'

From the article:

Coffee may cut the risk of dementia by blocking the damage cholesterol can inflict on the body, research suggests. The drink has already been linked to a lower risk of Alzheimer's Disease, and a study by a US team for the Journal of Neuroinflammation may explain why.

Given how much caffiene I consume in a given day, it is possible that my brain will NEVER die. I imagine I'm going to end up like one of those talking heads in a jar from Futurama:)

Shocking!

CNN.com: Men want hot women, study confirms

CNN is also reporting that, in a shocking finding, children like candy.

Not only is the title so obvious that you can't help but feel like it is an insult to our intelligence, I love the "story highlights":

• Men are much less choosy than women
• Women are aware of the importance of their own attractiveness to men

I'm shocked. SHOCKED I TELL YOU!

Fear Tactics to the Rescue!

Experts warn of lightning-strike injuries with iPods

Seriously? This is what CNN.com chooses to put on their front page? A story about people being injured by their iPod while being struck by lightning? I can picture just how this story got approved...

Reporter: I've got this idea for a story about people being hit by lightning.

Editor: Yawn... Lightning? Lightning?!?!? Who cares about lightning? Its been going on forever. What's new to say?

Reporter: Well, see, I've got this angle to involve the iPod and some other...

Editor: APPROVED!

The worst thing is that the article mentions a grand total of two cases of people injured by lightning while wearing iPods. Two. Two cases in the last six years and I should be even thinking about this? Why I am wasting brain cells on this again? And the article even mentions that it is nothing specific to iPods. Nothing like "iPods make it more likely you will be struck". Just the fact that having ANY electronic device nearby will make the burn worse. So why does the title focus on the iPod? Oh right, because that will get people scared. Scared enough to read this boring and pointless article.

President free to violate law as long as he is not caught

I'm baffled by the logic of this one:

Yahoo News: Court dismisses lawsuit on spying program

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled that the ACLU could not bring suit alleging that warrantless wiretapping is illegal because they can't prove that they were actually targeted by the wiretapping because by its nature it is secret. That raises the problem of course of then defining who exactly COULD challenge this program?

This despite the fact that one of the judges stated publicly that he believed the program was both unconstitutional and in violation of the FISA act of 1978.

So the lesson here is that the Bush administration can do anything they want without fear of judicial review as long as the person they are doing it to cannot prove they are specifically targeted. Lets see where that could lead:

1) Currently the program only intercepts calls from the US to foreign soil. But now that this ruling is in place, what is to stop the government from tapping US citizens at home? As long as they can ensure that no one can prove they individually were tapped they would be home free.

2) Internet snooping? No problem as long as you can't prove it.

3) Tracking via your cell phone? No problem as long as you can't prove it.

4) Your tax records? Your personal health records? check and check.

5) A camera in your bedroom? As far as I can tell, as long as no one could find the camera, they are free to do that too.

And I'll leave you with a few choice quotes:

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. ~Abraham Lincoln

Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. ~Woodrow Wilson

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it. ~William Faulkner

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

Gas Prices Make People Stupid

CNN: Fed up station owner shuts off gas pumps

I've seen this idea float around the internet from time to time. Seems like every May, someone decides that if gas companies didn't make money for a day, it would make some huge difference.

This year, some idiot in Wisconsin actually decided that closing his station would be a good way to effect the price of gas. The best quote was "Schwartz called that [price] 'outrageous' and said even he can't fill up his SUV at that price." Good. Maybe sustained high prices will finally convince people that buying a car that gets less 18 MPG that you drive everday is not a good idea.

What's the logic behind this? Sure, if no one bought gas on a given day, gas station owners will be out $3 billion for the day. But its not like we're using $3 billion less in gas. If you don't buy gas one day, that just means you are going to have to buy it some other day. That's a net $0 difference idiot.

If you want to change the price of gas, there is only method that is going to have any effect:

USE LESS GAS

www.cbssucks.blogspot.com SAVE JERICHO!

Just saw at www.nytimes.com that CBS is canceling Jericho. Now, while not as good as Heroes, Jericho is a decent TV show with an original premise that, to me examined the fascinating implications of the power grid and economy falling apart. If you want to petition to help save it, try here.

Free the Skanks!

CNN: Judge orders Paris Hilton to jail - She's going for 45 days due to driving with a suspended license.

Paris Hilton is the only person on earth who will look LESS trashy in prison garb.

Although...I have to say: I would LOVE to watch that reality show.


P.S. - I know. I owe a Friday blog.

I don't even have to make these titles up

Reuters: Duck penises show "arms race" between sexes

The article is not that interesting, but wow is that a head turning title! That should have been on the front page of every newspaper in America. No way I can just walk past a newspaper stand with THAT on the cover. No way.

And this made me hold my own phallus in sympathy for the man ducks:

What they found surprised them -- corkscrew-shaped oviducts, with plenty of potential dead-ends. "Interestingly, the male phallus is also a spiral, but it twists in the opposite, counterclockwise, direction," said Yale ornithologist Richard Prum in a statement. "So, the twists in the oviduct appear designed to exclude the opposing twists of the male phallus. It's an exquisite anti-lock-and-key system."

All I can say is that Richard Prum is a sick, sick man if he thinks that opposing rotation of genital during the copulation of ANY species is "exquisite".

Plastics come from trees

I mentioned my "post every day" warranty was valid only on weekdays between 8AM and 5PM Eastern standard time, right? :) OK, back to the program.

Yahoo News: National Survey Reveals More than 70% of Americans Don't Know Plastic is Made from Oil

Where the hell did they think it comes from? Trees? Perhaps all that plastic fruit their kids play with confused them.

Adding insult to injury, there is this unique stat:

Nearly 40% (38.1%) of respondents said plastic will biodegrade underground, in home compost, in landfills, or in the ocean.

Host: Survey says? BUZZ! Oh I'm sorry. That's incorrect. But we do have some lovely parting gifts. Bob, tell them what they've won!

Bob: It's a fifth grade science book! Yes, with this handy reference you'll be able to answer survey questions that even a fifth grader could have gotten right.

Host: Thanks for playing.

Lack of blogging

I'm not sure why, but lately my urge to blog has really been down. So to jump start it I'm going to make a real effort to write a blog every day for a month and see how it goes. I'm assuming it will be just like this blog usually is: 1/2 funny, 1/2 serious, 1/2 not being good at math:)

Today I wanted to talk about the newest unholy abomination to come out of NBC: The Real Wedding Crashers. Couples allow a group of folks to ruin part of their wedding and film the whole thing for people's amusement.

I'm not sure what's worse. The fact that:

(a) people watch this and are actually amused by it. Really? What is amusing about tricking people and intentionally ruining what would otherwise be a celebration of a union between two people for the rest of their lives?

(b) ANY couple on Earth would sign up for this. What does it say about the bond of marriage you are about to enter when you decide to auction it up on TV and intentionally ruin part of it for 15 minutes of fame. I'll tell you what it says. "I don't take this seriously", is what it says to me.

When right wing folks complain that marriage is a sacred act reserved for a man and woman, gay people should point to this show as yet more proof that marriage is nothing of the sort.