- I may have found the scariest man in the world and it probably isn't surprising to learn that this man resides in the American penitentiary system. Prison is where the scariest of the scary reside, locked up far away from the rest of society so as to remove them as potential threats to the law-abiding segment of that society. However, there is definitely an element of this man’s story that is stunning and it comes from the reason why I believe he’s the scariest dude in the world. This man is a prisoner in Nevada and he is the cellmate of none other than Orenthal James Simpson. Yes, dude is the cellie for O.J., the man who turned his wife and her friend into human Pez dispensers and got away with it only to end up in the hole for an attempted robbery and kidnapping in Las Vegas. After being sent away for that conviction, the Juice landed in a Nevada jail cell with a man he is absolutely terrified of – seriously. The guy who committed an extremely brutal and public double murder and then had the audacity to storm a Vegas hotel room with an armored posse while out on that free pass from murdering people is scared of a fellow prisoner. It’s being reported that the Juice has told friends and family that he is scared to death of his cellmate because the man has threatened to kill him because O.J. got away with murder and that cellmate is behind bars for murdering someone. Sharing a cell with a guy who skated on the same charge that got you locked up would be pretty infuriating, especially for a prison inmate. These are guys with notoriously short fuses; they wouldn’t be in prison if they were calm, rational, level-headed guys with loads of patience and understanding. So I’d imagine that having an angry cellie with an eye for offing you would be pretty frightening. After all, you’re sharing a confined space with them for the majority of every day and sleeping in that confined space with them at night. All of that being said, how terrifying do you have to be to scare O.J. freaking Simpson? He’s the worst guy ever, a dude who seemed to have a deal with the devil that allowed him to go Teflon and avoid the ramiprecussions of any crime or misdeed – until that Vegas incident. If you can scare a guy who scares the crap out of the rest of us that badly, you have to be the baddest man walking the face of this or any other planet……..
- Keep shoveling those M&Ms into your FAT faces, America! Well, keep eating the blue M&M’s; the rest of them you can do without. Why the blue ones? Well, according to a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center, injecting the compound Brilliant Blue G (BBG), i.e. the same blue food dye found in M&Ms and Gatorade, into rats suffering spinal cord injuries allowed the rodents to walk again, albeit with a limp. The idea is clearly that this compound could be used to reduce damage caused by spine injuries, offering a better chance of recovery. It’s a potentially great breakthrough and it’s even better if the person being treated doesn’t mind temporarily turning blue, which was the only reported side effect for the treated mice. Personally I’m okay with turning blue permanently if I have a spinal cord injury and I am able to walk because of this treatment. The findings out the study were published in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" and are actually a follow-up on similar research done by the same lab five years ago. In August 2004, scientists revealed how Adenosine triphosphate, which is known as, rushes to the spinal cord soon after injury occurs. Unfortunately, that the sudden influx of ATP kills off healthy cells and makes the injury worse. Researches found that injecting oxidized ATP offsets that effect and in their study, it allowed the injured rats to recover and walk again. However, those findings weren’t as encouraging as they might have seemed for lead researcher Maiken Nedergaard, professor of Neurosurgery and director of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and her team. Sticking a needle into the spinal cord of a person who has just suffered a spinal cord injury isn't going to work. Thus, their most recent study. The BBG compound blocks a molecule in the spinal cord called P2X7 that allows ATP to latch onto motor neurons and send the signals which eventually kill them and BBG is extremely similar to a blue food dye approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That gave Nedergaard the confidence to go ahead with the study and the result were pretty amazing. . The rats given BBG immediately after their injury could walk again with a limp, but those that didn't receive a dose never regained their mobility. Nedergaard is quick to point out that her team isn't touting BBG as a cure for spinal injuries, but rather as a tool that it offers a potential improvement in patients' condition. Anything that could help people who have suffered one of the most devastating injuries possible is cool with me, even if it’s also something that is used to make unhealthy, sugar-laden candy more colorful………
- School is different depending on which corner of the world you reside in. For example, here in the United States it would typically be unacceptable to test students’ pupils' karate skills by running over their outstretched arms with a motorcycle. In India…..not so much. A government school in southern India decided that the best way to test the martial arts abilities of its students was to line up in a row and stretch their arms out on the ground, then hold them in place as a motorcyclist drove over the line of arms. Pictures and videos of the event show smiling adults standing behind the children and the stunt was reportedly done with full permission from the parents of every child involved. According to K. Devarajan, the director of elementary education in Tamil Nadu state, the purpose of the event was to show the strength the students had gained from their karate classes. That’s not how state education officials saw things, because no sooner had the exhaust fumes from that bike cleared than officials were descending upon the school to speak with its leaders about what had gone on. Those authorities have now asked schools not to carry out such activities because they violate safety guidelines. Why, if I may be so bold as to ask? What could possibly go wrong when you have a powerful motorcycle being ridden over breakable body parts like the arms of children? Besides, don’t kids between six and 13 love danger? They idolize martial arts, MMA and X-Games competitors and this is their chance to emulate their heroes. Don’t deny them their dream………
- Good Lord, I hope this story is true. Previously I had no interest in the break-up of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo and ever-expanding pop tart Jessica Simpson. Celebrity dating stories don’t hold any interest for me; what do I care if Person A and Person B break up if I don’t know either of them, even if they’re famous? However, the fashion in which the break-up reportedly occurred may force me to rethink my approach to these matters. Don’t get me wrong: I still don’t give a rat’s ass who’s dating whom or if they’ve broken up. But if the fireworks explode like they allegedly did in the case of Romo and Simpson, that’s a horse of a different color. Their relationship had been on the rocks for some time and rumors of a break-up were always there, but the relationship came to an end at one of the most awesome places a break-up could ever happen: the parking lot of an IHOP. The story making the rounds is that the two of them were in a car and had been driving for several hours, arguing as people inevitably do when cooped up in a moving vehicle for any length of time. Simpson was supposedly pressing Romo to get married, throwing down ultimatums and making demands. He was in no such hurry and given the fact that his girlfriend seemed to be on the extreme version of the Rosie O’Donnell fitness plan (take two dozen doughnuts, a banana cream pie, a bag of pork rhinds, a box of Twinkies, wash it down with a gallon of YooHoo and called me in the morning), he wasn’t going to be heading that direction any time soon. So this combustible mix was jammed into a too-small car and after a couple hours of arguing, Romo had heard enough. He pulled into the parking lot of a Texas IHOP, stopped the car and demanded that she get out. Her feet had barely hit the pavement when Romo allegedly sped off, leaving here there to wait for two hours while someone else came to pick her up. Yes, it’s almost too good to believe. A needy, wants-to-get-married chick keeps pressuring her boyfriend to commit and not only does he dump her in very public fashion, he does it in the parking lot of a random IHOP. Would you like 12 different kinds of syrup and whipped cream with your break-up, Ms. Simpson? This is a cold-hearted, balls play by Romo and I like it. He dumped her and left her to bawl her eyes out for two hours in the parking lot of a pancake house in the middle of Texas. Part of me wonders whether Romo planned it out this way, driving to the middle of nowhere to leave Simpson after breaking up with her. And to top it off, he has now put up a sign near the front gate of his home declaring a “red alert” and explaining that he’s made changes in his personal life and that Simpson is no longer among the people allowed entry onto his property. In other words, dude has had enough of the drama and is developing a bona-fide mean streak. It’s a solid play, it’s ruthless and I love it……….
- Because I both hate poison ivy and like goats, this story is a real winner in my boo. The good people of Carrboro, N.C. were struggling with the issue of how to best remove poison ivy from the dog park at Hank Anderson Community Park and they arrived at a solution that is fast becoming a lawn care trend in the United States. Carrboro town officials have decided to employ the Goat Patrol to take care of the problem, following in the footsteps of other towns that have turned to goats as a way to cut grass or remove unwanted plant life. “I think this is right up their (the goats') alley,” said David Poythress, Carrboro street superintendent. “From what we understand, they eat most of the day, and one of their favorite foods is poison ivy.” Sold! I don’t need to hear any more. Poison ivy sucks and as someone who grew up in a rural area and got poison ivy nearly every summer as a kid, this is a great idea. Besides, the amusing sight of 14 goats wandering around a park and chowing down on unwanted foliage is always a nice diversion. “What they're really good for is penetrating thick brush, overgrown areas, tackling some of the tougher, tougher plants,” Alix Bowman, owner of the Goat Patrol, said. The town also reaps the obvious benefit of having the work done without causing any damage to the environment by using gas-powered machinery. All of this comes at the low, low price of $10 a day, which is what the town pays Bowman for his goats’ services. Keep up the good work, Goat Patrol, and continue to rid the world of the menace that is poison ivy, one chewy bite at a time…….
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