Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston have announced that they are engaged to be married. In announcing their engagement, the 19-year-old Bristol stated that even though they are formally engaged they will not live together and will practice abstinence from sexual relations until they are actually wed.
Bristol and Levi’s 19-month-old son, Tripp, is scheduled to be a guest on Larry King’s show to explain his mother’s interpretation of abstinence.
When did the evening TV weather report become a full-blown production adopting a style more suitable for a National Geographic feature? And, when did the TV weather people start treating me like an idiot. Do you notice how they usually start their evening telecast with a commentary on that day’s weather? Like..”well today was a beautiful day…sunny and warm…” I know what the weather was today! I don’t live in a submarine. I want to know what it’s going to be tomorrow! And I want to know what it’s going to be here…not in Casper, Wyoming or Sioux Falls, Idaho or where ever. And if it’s going to be hot tomorrow, I don’t need to know why…high pressure area over Coos Bay? Air masses? Station pressures?? I don’t care. Just tell me how hot it will be and is it going to rain?? Period.
(read more on this at www.wrysandwherefores.com)
Apparently Congressman Joe Sestak is back in good graces at the White House as Robert Gibbs incorporated the Representative’s favorite phrase into his WH jargon.
When asked if some Gulf residents weren’t over-reacting to Tony Hayward’s sailing vacation, Gibbs answered with, “Make no mistake, at the end of the day, this is a big fucking deal!!”
Just when I thought that Tuula Paajanen came up with the most obvious “duh” statement of the year, here comes Melanie Dove of the Harvard School of Public Health. Ms. Dove was the lead author in their study of the effects of cigarette smoke on young children.
After an arduous study of over 11,000 children in the US, Ms. Dove’s report concluded that children who live in non-smoking homes are much less likely to experience second-hand smoke than those children in homes where parents smoked.
At what point, I have to ask, did the researchers realize that this might not be quite as useful information as they had hoped. Did they think maybe another 11,000 children might lead to a different conclusion??
If I seem a little cranky this morning it is due to a new European scientific report that purports that short people are more prone to heart problems than tall people. In fact, the study claims that short people have a 50% higher risk of heart problems or dying of one (which certainly could be considered a “problem”) than tall people.
At 5′7″ in height, I have never considered myself short, and the authors of this study agree; they define “short” as anyone under 5′ 3″ and “tall” as anyone over 5′ 9″ . However, I have great empathy for short people ever since Randy Newman dissed them some years ago. (Don’t you love guys with speech impediments who make fun of other people!) But, my empathy aside, here is one of my problems with the study…what about us guys in-between?? The 5-foot 7-inch guys?? Or the 5-foot 4-inch, 5-foot 8- inch…etc.?? What are our odds?? They absolutely disregard the concerns of 50% of the world’s population?? (I just made up that number, but prove me wrong!) Or…what if you’re 5-foot, 3-and a half-inches tall?
Here’s another problem I have with the study…the lead author was Tuula Paajanen from Tumpere University. First, I make it a habit never to trust anyone with successive vowels in both their first and last name and, second, who the hell has ever heard of Tumpere University? My, shall I say skepicism, in her study was summed up in her attempt at consoling short people. ”Height is only one factor”, she wrote, noting that other factors like smoking and excercising and diet may come into play and suggested that short people concentrate on those issues since, “those are easier to change than your height!” Gee, Doc, do you think??
It is studies like this that make me more than ever convinced that when I’m King, I’m only going to allow scientific reports that seek to solve important issues. So, please feel free to e-mail me at john@wryontherrocks.com if you have an issue you feel worthy of government funding. Here are some issues that have been bothering me:
(This guy just realized he’s 4 foot 11)