Woo-hoo, finally some good news for all of us caffeine-addicted, incredibly pink, high-noon joggers out there.

Two of our predilections actually help prevent skin cancer!

According to a team of researchers at Rutgers University, lab mice who drank caffeine drinks and voluntarily exercised had an increased destruction of precancerous cells that had been damaged by the sun’s ultraviolet-B radiation.

So, I guess I can stop feeling guilty about the two insanely strong black coffees I have after my morning jog. It is actually good for me!

You can’t tell from the black and white photo, but I’m even more excited about this than many would be because my hair (or what remains of a once great society of follicles) is ginger (or red, to you North Americans).

Go caffeine joggers!

(But you should still use sunscreen, according to this report: Exercise, caffeine, fight cancer).

This masterpiece from The Minister’s Quartet is not so terrible. It’s more a problem of context, really, than anything else.

Clearly, they are referring to Jesus, and what could be more natural than a man of the cloth wanting to “touch” the Savior and Messiah — metaphorically, you pervs!

Of course, here at The Skwib, we are not completely unaware of the news media, and so, have heard some of the stories about clergy abusing the younger members of their congregation. Did you know that as many as one in four clergymen is likely to sexually abuse a member of their church? We don’t want to get into the business of trying to parse those odds, but if that is an accurate figure (which it probably isn’t) our money is on this guy:

The only way this cover could be worse? They could be wearing liturgical vestments.

Sorry, we didn’t mean “worse” — we meant more accurate.

For more excruciation, join Paul Zon at his Museum of Bad Album Cover Art.

The Storyblogging Carnival is available at Back of the Envelope.

The Carnival of the Insanities is up!

Boozy Rocket Jockeys

There is a bit of a brew-ha-ha around NASA this week, as word that (in the past) astronauts have been a little blasted before they blasted off.

Can you really blame them, I mean the ones that aren’t driving? You’re strapped onto a tube filled with 2 million liters of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and you’re about the light a match. Plus, you don’t even have anything to do, just sit there.

I think a little nip is in order.

The O-Rama

Speaking of spaceflight, The Skwib launched itself at the Carnival of Space this week. And while you’re up there, pirouetting in slow motion, perhaps you could also check out the Carnival of Music.

And we’re a week too late on this, but we found this Harry Potter parody from SNL. It’s kind of one note humor (or should that be two note), but it’s still fun.

Is it appropriate to use a Taser on non-violent protesters?

The best thing about this question is the use of the word “appropriate”. Tasering a non-violent protester is so far beyond “appropriate” that you have to question the very sanity of the reporter. Then again, if you’d just talked to Detective Eric Johnson, perhaps you might start questioning your sanity. According to the Brattleboro Reformer story about the hippie tasering :

“We are a very busy department,” said Johnson, who said he sympathized with the protesters but disagreed with their decision to not leave the property when ordered to by police.

“If we go to a scene and ask you to please leave, just leave and move to a public place,” he said. “Our responsibility is to enforce the law,” adding “if I ask them to leave and they don’t, what am I to do?”

How about arrest them? Drag them off the property and put them in the cooler for a couple of hours, while they consider the next victim of their civil disobedience Jones?

The video shows the aftereffect, though it’s not too illuminating, except for the end when the taseree comes round and smiles at the camera.

Welcome to our regular roundup of satire on the blogosphere (or the part of it that submitted something, anyway). We have some great stuff this week, beginning (predictably, for you regulars) with a post that has the word “monkey” in it:

Ahistoricality found this gem, The Monkey’s Paw, at Bouphonia.

It’s the dawning of the Age of the iPhone, and just in time, alejna has a review of the iPhone: good features, but falls short of design expectations.

However, this modest technology solution to the fairness issue, provided by Divided We Stand United We Fall, looks like a winner!

Madeleine Begun Kane is always a little controversial, but this week she wants us to Pity The Poor Lawyer (Limerick).

Continue reading…

According to a new study, if you’ve got fat friends, then you’re more likely to be fat yourself.

The research from James Fowler at University of California in San Diego and Nicholas Christakis at the Harvard Medical School in Boston suggests that there is a 60 percent higher chance of becoming obese if your friends also fit in the category. According to the New Scientist:

The finding has prompted researchers to call obesity a “socially contagious” disease in which a sense of what constitutes a normal body weight passes from one person to the next.

Of course, if you’re already fat, then the best thing to do is seek out thin people and become their friend, because the study also suggest the relationship works the other way.

But you’ll have to be fast. Those thin people will be running — screaming — the other direction the minute they see your gargantuan carcass heave into view.

New Scientist story: Is Obesity Contagious?

I’m not sure if you can get them here on Earth, but on my home world, I was fond of employing two species.

For covert strikes, it’s really hard to top the Veefnovian Ninja Beetle. The exoskeleton of the beetle is the hardest material this side of the Diamond Nebula, and it has most easily annoyed temperament in the galaxy (except for some Hollywood stars and “princesses” found here on Earth.) The best way to engage the beetle is to put it in a matchbox with a small amount of genetic material from your target (for some reason nasal hair or ear wax works best), and shake it around.

The Ninja Beetle will be homicidally irritated, and wrongly blame your target as the source of its vexation.

Also, the beetle is a master with nun chucks, shuriken and an insect-scaled kusari-gama. (Not that these are necessary — it usually kills its victims by burrowing into its brain through a convenient cranial opening.) Just make sure that it doesn’t get stepped on — despite its tough carapace, it’s still just a bug.

What about surveillance though?

Oh, squirrels, definitely.

The Merovingian Paparazzi Rodent (from 5Leaze, I believe) is my favorite species. Just make sure you have an iron-clad contract with them before you send them out — if they think they can earn a quick buck by selling your surveillance photos to Time or Die Welt, they will.

P.S. Mental_floss has a nice roundup of other Earth animals used for spying. Hat tip to Old Is the New New for breaking this important story.

Next time: I’m pretty sure my cat is writing snide comments about me on Facebook — how do I get it to stop?

“Can’t sleep, clown will eat me.”
–Bart Simpson

I always used to think one of the silliest phobias was coulrophobia — the fear of clowns — until I saw this album cover.

This thing is terrifying. I mean, it just reeks of menace! Mr. Bat is wearing some kind of traditional Pagliacci-type of outfit, and though I do find the color scheme kind of foreboding, it’s not so bad. And he has your usual whiteface on, but instead of a nice happy red smile, he has a black frown painted over his mouth. And a tiny red soul patch underneath. (Or is that just a glob of human flesh?)

Then there are the glasses. I know Mr. Bat can’t help it if he’s short-sighted, but he might want to invest in some contacts for his clowning around. Wait a minute. . . wait . . . is that Dick Cheney?

That would explain why he’s holding up his left hand as though he was going to pummel us with his meaty Vice-Presidential fists of anguish. Maybe he’s called Mr. Bat because that’s what beats the children with. Then again, if Mr. Bat is Dick Cheney’s alter-ego, then he probably wasn’t ever holding a bat in that fist — it was probably a shotgun and they decided later to airbrush it out. (An easy enough feat, given the brooding black background — the pitch of evil that spawns malevolent Mr. Bat.)

“Hey kids, I’ve booked Mr. Bat to come and sing at your birthday party!”

“Aiiiiii!”

No, the kiddies wouldn’t scream and run. They’d be too paralyzed by their dread to run. And certainly not scream.

First a whimper, and then the awful wet sound of Mr. Bat “singing”.

For more excruciation, join Paul Zon at his Museum of Bad Album Cover Art. Wikipedia entry on coulrophobia, and if that doesn’t help, here is a collection of evil clown pictures.

A few Carnivals to check out first:

Carnival of the Godless

Carnival of the Insanities

Carnivalesque!

Friday Ark

Carnival of Observations on Life

Archer has news about Bush embracing the Geneva Convention. Then there’s this story about a role-playing gamer and his ability to keep his cool, even when Brazilian gangsters put a gun to his head for his game password. (Clearly, this guy has a wisdom score of 18, and possibly +5 Underwear of Bravery/ -5 Gitch of Stupidity.

Speaking of stupidity, here is a quiz to help you determine which lolcat you are.