|
Doggie Style
Two buddies were sharing drinks while discussing their wives. "Does your wife ever...well, you know...does she...well, let you do it
doggie style?" asked one of the two.
"Well, not exactly," his friend replied. "She's more into the trick dog aspect of it." "Oh, I see. Kinky stuff, huh?"
"Well, not exactly. Whenever I make a move, she's most likely to roll
over and play dead."
Coke as Spermicide
This is Nobel Prize season again. Last week, the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research announced this year's spoof Ig Nobel Prizes. Two of the prizes might be of special interest here. The Economics Prize went to researchers at the University of Mexico who discovered that lap dancers earn bigger tips when they are ovulating. I blogged about this study in detail last year. You can read about it here. The Chemistry Prize was awarded to Deborah Anderson of Boston University Medical Center and her colleagues for their study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that found Coca-Cola can work as a spermicide. Anderson said she conducted the study because women were using Coke in a douche as a contraceptive and, later, to try to protect themselves from the AIDS virus. "It definitely wouldn't work as a contraceptive because sperm swims so fast," Anderson said. But Coke made with sugar quickly kills sperm, probably because sperm soak it up. "The sperm just kind of explode," she said. It kills the AIDS virus too. These landmark results have strengthened my resolve to push for more scientific literacy - at least among hobbyists and providers.
Back to the Future
It's Sunday morning, and I'm watching my favorite Sunday Morning show on CBS. Unfortunately, instead of the usual bright, crisp image from digital cable, I'm looking at a faint, noisy picture received over the air. I'm caught in the middle of a dispute between the cable provider Time Warner and the company that owns many TV stations including the local CBS outlet. Apparently, the law was changed some time ago and now allows the over-the-air TV stations to negotiate with the cable providers for compensation for transmiting their signals on cable. Without such an agreement, the CBS outlet is denying Time Warner the right to transmit its signal, and is advising its viewers to switch to satellite TV or the new cable competitor, Verizon FiOS TV. For its part, Time Warner is handing out free "rabbit ears" antennas to its subscribers to receive the CBS channel over the air. Yesterday, hundreds of people lined up to get their free rabbit ears from the Time Warner store not far from my house. Lucky for me, I showed up late, missed the big early crowd, and got my rabbit ears without much waiting. The two sides seem to be digging in for a long fight. Meanwhile, the cable subscribers are fuming - especially because the Bills are playing at 4 p.m. today and people are not going to be able to watch them on cable. For this town, that's a catastrophe. 
O.J. Guilty
Leone may or may not have been blogging about this same story, because he was so subtle. I'll be more direct. I think it is really ironic that O.J. has been found guilty in the Las Vegas armed robbery and kidnapping case. The evidence against him was not as clear-cut as "the other trial". Neither the victims nor the accomplices-turned-witnesses were totally credible. There are indications that someone was out to get him. And yet the prosecution managed to throw the book at him with 12 counts and convinced the all-white jury. There will be questions about whether this case is fair, but I personally believe that, on the grand scheme of things, justice is done for O.J. - exactly 13 years to the day after his infamous acquittal.
| 
