News in a nutshell

Sound smart
Scientists have discovered how the brain detects sarcasm. Like anyone cares. (Yes, that was sarcasm for any of you with damage to the right frontal lobe. And yes, this will be a theme for this week's brief wrap-up.)


Boring, but important
On Monday night, a bipartisan group of 14 senators reached an agreement to avoid a vote on banning filibusters against judicial nominees. The agreement cleared the way for some of President Bush's nominees to be approved and stipulated that Democrats would only use filibusters in "extreme circumstances," though it left it up to each party to decide what that means. So I'm sure the arguing in the Senate is over.

On Thursday, the Senate delayed a vote on whether to confirm John Bolton as U.N. ambassador until at least next month, calling him a "no-talent, ass clown." Oh wait, that's the other Bolton. Never mind.


And now for some good news
Carrie Underwood won the latest "American Idol." I don't really care, but it's good news for her. And as long as she doesn't pair up with any other "Idol" stars to make a movie, I figure it can't be too bad for the rest of us.


What the ...?!?
A woman in a California park restroom gave her attacker the slip because she had put on so much sunscreen he couldn't grab hold of her. Sunscreen companies quickly began promoting their products as a deterrent against skin cancer and assault.

A 56-hour standoff in Atlanta ended early Saturday after a man accused of killing his ex-girlfriend in Florida reached for a drink of water offered by police, who got close enough to zap him with a stun gun. The standoff began when he climbed an 18-story-high crane Wednesday and threatened to jump, prompting one of the officers to say (I kid you not): "When he's ready to come down, he'll come down -- one way or the other."

It was discovered that 14 states had been providing nearly 800 convicted sex offenders with Viagara and other impotence drugs paid for through Medicaid. Next on the list of state initiatives: Free drinks for everyone at AA meetings! Yay!!!!

Speaking of such things, reports indicate there may be a link between the use of impotence drugs and blindness. Meanwhile, numerous mothers and nuns issued a public "I told you so."

The week in a nutshell

I'm looking for a good title for this thing -- any suggestions?

Impress your friends
Alcoholics everywhere rejoiced Monday when the Supreme Court ruled that state laws restricting the shipment of wine from out-of-state businesses are unconstitutional. This also means that not all of us will have to leave home and go on some crazy journey like those guys in "Sideways" just to get sloshed.

Newsweek did a bad, bad thing, relying on one anonymous source for a story saying that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed the Quran down a toilet to get prisoners to talk. On Monday, the magazine retracted the article, which has been blamed for causing Muslim protests and violence that left 15 people dead and many more injured. The White House immediately began berating Newsweek and the media in general for creating problems between the United States and the Muslim world.
Because clearly things had been going soooo smoothly up until the Newsweek article...

Frank Gorshin, best known as the Riddler on the "Batman" TV series in the '60s (and in perennial reruns after that) died Tuesday at age 72. May he Riddle in Peace.

In other obituary news, Henry Corden, the voice of Fred Flintstone, also died last week. He was 85.

The Sun in London and the New York Post on Friday and Saturday published pictures of Saddam Hussein in his underwear in his cell in Iraq. The pictures caused an uproar over whether they violate the Geneva Conventions (one aspect of which requires protecting prisoners of war from "public curiosity"), but on the bright side they eliminated one more place that Saddam might be hiding those supposed weapons of mass destruction.

Just, like, a week after scientists were saying that the discovery of the rock rat could very well be the last discovery of a new mammal species, they announce that they've found a new kind of monkey. I think they're just holding out on us. By the end of the month, we're going to find out that unicorns are real.


Boring, but you should know about it
The government is looking to put defensive, and possibly offensive, weapons into space. No word on when they'll start replacing the moon with a Death Star.

Scientists are also working on creating the world's most powerful laser, which would generate the heat of the sun. And you thought I was just joking in the previous item.

A South Korean says that he again cloned human embryos, creating stem cells tailored to an individual. You're probably either very supportive of this kind of research and its possible benfits or staunchly opposed to it for moral reasons, so ... umm ... I'm just going to quietly slip into the next item...


It wasn't all bad
Los Angeles residents on Tuesday elected the city's first Hispanic mayor -- Antonio Villaraigosa -- in 133 years. Let the name mispronunciation begin...

Afleet Alex stumbled to his knees after being cut off by another horse but recovered to win the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, proving you can't keep a good horse down.

The force is strong with this one: "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" made more than $50 million when it opened Thursday, breaking box office records for a single day.

Britney Spears' new "reality" TV show debuted Tuesday to a paltry 3.4 million viewers, finishing last in its time slot and giving me hope for humanity.


What the ...?!?
A kid in Indiana crawled into one of those toy vending machines with the crane. His parents tried to get him out, but the crane kept bumping into the glass and dropping him before they could get him over the hole. Eventually, they ran out of quarters.

5k -- OK!

I ran a 5k this morning. I signed up for it a few weeks ago because it was sponsored by my work and because I thought it would be a good impetus to run a little and get in shape.

Number of days to prepare: About 21
Number of days I actually ran: 0

But I figured if Christa can run a marathon on an exercise regimen of cigarette smoking and binge drinking, surely I could manage a mere five kilometers after just a few months of not going to the gym. (The cheaper one I want to go to doesn't open until next month.)

It didn't help that the race was at 8:30 in the morning and I had to leave about an hour before the race to get out there, find a parking spot, get signed in, etc. So I had to wake up at 6:45 a.m. after working until 1 a.m.

I'm glad to say I finished in a somewhat respectable 37 minutes. I walked more than I cared to, but I admittedly wasn't really pushing myself either. BUT the important things are:
1) It was along the oceanfront, which was quite nice.
2) I did not make a fool of myself in front of my co-workers by falling, puking or crawling at any point during the race.

Of course, now I can't really walk without limping, but I can think of worse ways to spend a Saturday morning.

I scream, you scream, we all scream, "HAIL!"

The big news in the geek world, where I often reside, is the unveiling of the next-gen consoles from Sony and Nintendo (following the earlier announcements about the Xbox 360, which I already wrote about). You can see my friends' take on the systems at Gig Matrix, along with my review of the movie "Unleashed." (Yes, I'm still cross-promoting. Get used to it.)

Oh, and if you haven't already heard, Fox is going to renew "Arrested Development." Praise the TV gods!

In anecdotal news, I was at work on Sunday and had a craving for ice cream, so I decided to make a DQ run. So I headed out under what had become cloudy skies. Shortly after leaving DQ, I began to see lightning. I saw a few drops appear on my windshield and began to close the sunroof. As soon as it closed ... WHOOSH! The rain began pouring from the heavens in a manner that made me consider building an ark. And then came the quarter-sized hail. It soon looked like it had snowed outside and I was seriously afraid for my car with all this ice loudly bouncing off it. (The hail actually broke a window of a car in the office parking lot, but everyone else's cars seemed OK.) And apparently, small ponds form quickly in the low-lying area in which I now live. Not fun. But I finally made it back to the parking lot and dashed inside, becoming a drowned, ice-pelted rat in the process.

Just imagine what I would do (oo-ooo) for a Klondike bar...

On the coincidental side, I had been thoroughly cleaning my desk at work earlier in the evening and felt kind of yucky afterward. I thought, "Gee, I sure wish I could take a quick shower."

Apparently, I need to watch what I wish for.

What you missed this week

I'm going to try something new, and we'll see if anyone likes it and if it sticks. (This could also be, in Christa's words, a ploy to get more hits on my site. Jealous yet, C.L.?)


Impress your friends
On Wednesday, a small plane caused pandemonium in Washington, D.C., and was almost shot down after it wandered deep into restricted airspace. People ran for cover, the first lady and other high-ranking officials were swept away to secure locations, and the president was left to his bike riding, undisturbed.

President Bush visited Russia on Monday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory over the Nazis. It was also intended to smooth over some ruffled feathers that had been caused by Bush's recent remarks while visiting former Soviet republics. There was no hand-holding, but there were flowers . Perhaps the new diplomatic strategy is flirting?

Pope Benedict XVI put John Paul II on the fast track to beatification. Vatican officials are hoping to soon put up the sign: "Over 1 billion sainted"


Boring, but you should know about it
On Wednesday, Republican Sen. George Voinovich said of the controversial John Bolton, President Bush's nominee for U.N. ambassador: "This is not behavior that should be endorsed as the face of the United States to the world community at the United Nations. It is my opinion that John Bolton is the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be." Voinovich, a member of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, then did the next logical thing: He gave the go-ahead vote to advance Bolton's nomination to the Senate, where he will most likely be approved along party lines.

On Friday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld released his recommendations for military base closings and realignments. If you live in a military town, check your local listings. If you don't, you probably don't much care.


It wasn't all bad
Giacomo, a 50-1 long shot, won the Kentucky Derby last Saturday. Left eating Giacomo's dust but secure knowing they had much cooler names: Closing Argument, Don't Get Mad, Buzzards Bay, Andromeda's Hero and Going Wild.

On Wednesday, scientists announced the discovery a new family of mammals -- the rock rat. Because what the world really needs is more rodents.

On Thursday, Xbox, in conjunction with MTV, unveiled its next-gen console -- the Xbox 360. Geeks everywhere, already salivating in anticipation of the final "Star Wars" movie, spontaneously combust from the excitement.

Powerball officials had suspected fraud in the March 30 drawing, when 110 people correctly picked five of six numbers (usually only four or five people get that many numbers right), but finally got to the bottom of the mystery. The lucky numbers came from fortune cookies. This also helped explain the fortune a lottery official had gotten earlier: "You will be glad we didn't get all six numbers right."


What the ...?!?
The paintings of renowned artist Congo will be auctioned at a London auction house next month and are expected to sell for $1,130 to $1,500. Never heard of Congo? Maybe that's because he's a chimpanzee.

A California deputy issued a jaywalking ticket for a chicken that did what chickens do -- cross the road.

Proving that Lassie's legacy lives, an abandoned baby in Kenya was believed to have been saved by a stray dog last week and was discovered Monday.

Renee Zellweger and Kenny Chesney tied the knot Monday. Apparently, she thinks his tractor's sexy.

Pepsi has said it will stop making its low-calorie, 50-percent-less-sugar soda Pepsi Edge. Oh, Edge, we barely had ever heard of ye...

The finger that a woman claimed to have found in her Wendy's chili is believed to belong to a friend of the woman's husband. He apparently lost it in an industrial accident and then gave it to the woman's husband. Yeah, that's right. He gave him the finger.

And Tiger Woods missed the cut at a golf tournament Friday for the first time in seven years and 142 tournaments. Truly, the end of times must be near.

Oh, the hyperbole!

Aaron has already written about this on Gig Matrix, but I'm throwing in my two cents. If you watched MTV on Thursday night, you saw the unveiling of the next-gen Xbox console -- the Xbox 360.

The show was mostly hype, hyperbole and hotties. If I'm to understand what was said, the Xbox 360 will be totally wireless (no cords -- woohoo!), involve a lot more online features (including a lot of customization for sale) and solve the problem of world hunger. And the graphics are, of course, gorgeous.

But I'm with Aaron. I just don't know if I'm ready to give up my first-gen Xbox yet. Granted, the Xbox 360 isn't coming out until the end of the year, but how many games will come out with it? Probably not many. And the fact that they're rushing to be the first one in to the market of next-gen consoles worries me. (Anyone other early adapters still live in fear of the "Dirty Disc" error?) I figure I can hold off for a while, but sooner or later, they're gonna stop making games for the Xbox and then I'll have to make the switch.

But for now, I've got a backlog of great games to play.

Building a better birdcage bottom

We're looking at tinkering some things at my newspaper and, as these discussions always do, the goal of attracting younger readers (particularly the much lauded 18-34 demographic) is playing a large role.

I know there are some of you who read newspapers -- many because you're in the business -- and there are many that don't. So today I'm posing a few question, mostly just for the benefit of my curiosity:

1) If you don't read a paper, is there anything that newspapers could do that would get you to pick one up? (If there's not, tell me that, too.)

2) If you do read a paper, what do you like or dislike? What would you like to see more/less of? What do you find most useful?

3) Magazines are often ahead of the curve on a lot of things, and I think a fair amount of younger people do read magazines on a regular basis, even if they don't pick up a paper. What do you like about the magazines you read? Is it just that it's a niche that you have an interest in, or are there particular features that you like? (Give magazine names, please.)

So if you've got some time, please post your comments -- any and all ideas are welcome -- and tell your friends to post, too. The more the merrier, as they say.

And thanks for the input. :-)

You say "to-may-to," I say "partisan politics"

Weirdest story of the day: Whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable has become quite a source of contention in New Jersey and -- surprise, surprise in this day and age -- the issue splits down political party lines.

It seems that Republicans and independents in New Jersey think the tomato is a fruit, and Democrats think it's a vegetable.

The confusion comes because, botanically, it's a fruit. But legally, it's a vegetable, as ruled by the Supreme Court a long time ago when, apparently, they didn't have a lot of other cases on the docket. (It had to do with tariffs.) No doubt this will lead to even more claims of activist judges.

At any rate, you can read the whole story here.

Here's to your health

So a little while ago, the Department of Agriculture finally released its updated food pyramid. For all the conservatives out there who have long claimed that homosexuals are trying to force their agenda into mainstream society, it seems that they've begun with the food pyramid.

It's no longer so much a pyramid as a multicolored triangle with a guy running up the side of it. An icon based on colors? Really?? Didn't we learn anything from the color-coded terrorism alert?

I guess not.

As totally unhelpful as the new gay-pride pyramid is, the Ag Department has also launched a Web site, www.mypyramid.gov, which actually IS rather useful. You can personalize it, to a degree, and it will tell you how much of each food group you should be eating based on your age, gender and activity level. Even better, though, is the My Pyramid Tracker section, for which you can register for free. It lets you input and track, pretty specifically, what food you eat in a day, what activities you do and how that all pans out with what you should be doing. It takes a bit of work, especially when you first set it up, but if you're interested in keeping track of what you eat and changing overall eating habits, I think it's well worth it.

Today, for instance, I was surprised to find I did alright with the veggies (yeah for ketchup, I guess) and good with the grain and fruit, but crappy with the milk and meat and beans. I can tell all of this through easy to read emoticons. It also breaks down how you did with cholesterol, sodium, saturated fat, etc.

So if you want a little push to eat better or just want to know what you're missing in your diet, check it out.