"Baby on Board" signs: Not just for humans anymore.

This bumper sticker says there is a baby on board:

What kind of baby? A baby octopus?

“Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

I was disturbed to see this sign hanging in my local grocery store to support a non-profit campaign:

They want to "END CHILDHOOD"!!! What is this world coming to?

I did a double-take and found out that they actually want to end childhood hunger. 

Wow. Someone needs to go to design school.

Bubble Soccer (or football, as they call it in the rest of the world)

Bubble soccer looks like so much fun. 

 

You could forget the soccer ball and just run around bumping into people in your bubble. It would be like bumper cars. It could be very popular at amusements parks.

Bumper Stickers

You've seen those braggy bumper stickers for people who have run a marathon or half-marathon:

But now they have stickers for the rest of us:

 This guy apparently made it a quarter of a mile before collapsing:

This one probably refers to 3.1 miles, or 5 km, but I prefer the interpretation that it refers not to a number, but to a food (pi, or 3.14159....)

Forget the marathon. I'll show up for pie.

Do you hear a faint ticking sound?

A Pittsburgh woman found a ticking package and, fearing that it was a bomb, threw it out the window. Turns out it was a metronome sent as a gift. Did she think it was a bomb from a Wile E. Coyote cartoon?

Modern bombs don’t tick. The bomb maker would have to go to an antique store to find a ticking alarm clock to make a bomb like that. 

Now who's the super genius?

Bad Housekeeping: How Not to Clean Your Toilet Seat

This paper insert came with a new toilet seat. It says that, when cleaning your toilet seat, "avoid detergents, disinfectants, or cleaning products in aerosol cans." Really, no disinfectants? This is a toilet seat for heaven's sake! Can you think of another item in your home that needs disinfectant more?

The instructions warn that chemicals "may damage the seat's finish." I didn't realize the seat had a finish. It's just a run-of-the-mill solid plastic toilet seat. 

I don't know what planet these people are from, but remind me never to use the restrooms there.

News of the Obvious

These shocking stories are in today's news:

• Swedish news source The Local reports this quote from model Kevin Montero, "The models are judged on how thin they are, which means that the fashion industry doesn't care about your personality."
• The LA times reports, "People's love for cats is unrequited, study indicates."
• UPI reports on the Massachusetts bill to designate a state sandwich, "Why the state Legislature feels the need to designate a (state) sandwich is itself questionable. There's plenty of other pressing business."
• The Daily Star reports, "Sexual assault is not cool, ladies."
• Finally, and most unbelievably, CNN reports that tornadoes are possible in the Great Plains region!

Our Interdependent Global Economy

Condoms mis-labelled in China cause condom shortage in Cuba.

A batch of condoms from China were mis-labelled with the wrong expiration date. Cuban officials are trying to re-package the condoms with the correct expiration date, but can't do it fast enough. As a result, most pharmacies are out-of-stock, and the pharmacies that have them are selling them for $1.30 each, which is an entire day's wage for the average Cuban.

UPDATE: Since this story originally broke, the Cuban Public Health Ministry has authorized the sale of the condoms with the incorrect expiration date. The correct expiration date is December 2014, but in light of the shortage, I guess the authorities figured that they will all be used up by then.

Ridiculous Product: Baby Cologne

Johnson & Johnson has made a product called "baby cologne," which will reportedly "leave your baby smelling clean and fresh."

Babies smell good naturally. They don't need cologne. If your baby smells bad, he needs a bath and a new diaper. And if that diaper is loaded, no amount of cologne is going to help.

Bibliotecariophobia: The Fear of Librarians

A book was returned to a library today, bearing a card showing that it was checked-out on February 6, 1980, and was due on Feb 20, 1980. The book was quietly placed in the outside book drop; I'm sure the guilt-ridden offender did not want to meet a librarian face-to-face. I'd hate to see the over-due fines that person is going to have to pay, with interest compounded over 34 years. He may have to declare bankruptcy.

  

 

To protect the privacy of the innocent as well as the guilty, patron names have been smudged 

out in the above picture of the actual check-out card, which is now an antique collector's item.

When life gives you rhino dung . . .

. . .  brand it as “Rhino-Grow” and sell it on eBay as “high-quality” fertilizer.

Data mining does it again

Based on Amazon’s “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” suggestions, we can determine that people who buy this digital scale are drug dealers who also buy:

• "Spice" grinders
• "Tobacco" pipe screens
• Caffeine powder (to cut heroin)
• Rolling papers
• Gelatin capsules and capsule-filling machines
• And a whole lot of plastic baggies

 

See the Atlantic web site for more about The Unintentional Amazon Guide to Dealing Drugs.

Repetitive Redundancy

Quote from CNN article about the Jesus wife papyrus fragment:

 

"The main topic of the fragment is to affirm that women who are mothers and wives can be disciples of Jesus—a topic that was hotly debated in early Christianity as celibate virginity increasingly became highly valued," King said.

“Celibate virginity”? Is there any other kind?

Appendectomy, Step 1: Remove Appendix

A man is suing his hospital for not removing his appendix during his appendectomy in 2013. This should have been the first sign:

“We have an operative report from Lawrence Hospital saying that the appendix was removed. Most importantly, we have the pathology report from Lawrence Hospital after the first operation which says what was presented to the pathology department was not the appendix.”

The man has since had another appendectomy, this time removing his appendix.

Talk about unnecessary medical interventions...

Doctors with too much time on their hands diagnose and surgically repair Rodin’s sculptures of human hands.

There is so much wrong with our health-care system.

California’s Affordable Care Act Health Exchange web site listed a phone number to call to sign up for health insurance…but it was a phone sex line.

How old is "grown up"?

I know there are age requirements for certain things: you must be 16 to drive, 18 to vote, and 21 to drink alcohol, etc. But this woman is 85. I think she has earned the right to stuff dollar bills in a dancer’s pants if she wants to.

This has got to be the worst form of birth control ever...

A woman from Pleasant Grove, Utah, is facing six counts of murder for strangulating and suffocating six babies immediately after she gave birth to them (over a period of ten years). She individually wrapped each baby (and a seventh still-born baby) in towels and plastic and stored them in cardboard boxes in her garage. Then she left them there when she moved out of the house. And she looks so surprised in her mug shot, as if she figured that no one would ever clean out the garage.

Or maybe she's surprised because someone told her that there are other forms of birth control.

The Brady Bunch meets Psycho

The Pennsylvania high school stabber’s lawyer says the stabber’s family is “like the Brady Bunch.” Sure, if the Brady Bunch were homicidal ax-wielding maniacs. 

What is with people? The kid must be mentally unstable. How else could he violently stab 21 people before being tackled to the ground? Are we going to blame this on cell phones again? Or are we going to admit that there’s a real problem here?

Correlation is Not Causation

CBS reports that a man with body dysmorphic disorder grew suicidal after spending 10 hours a day taking 200 selfies a day, trying to take the “right” selfie. The man’s doctor warns that “taking too many selfies may cause mental illness.”

If you don’t like the way you look in pictures, stop taking 200 selfies a day! This is not rocket science.

But seriously, mental illness should not be taken lightly. My problem with this article is that the doctors (including the man’s parents, who are both “mental health professionals”) are blaming the mental illness on the technology. If the selfies are causing the problem, then can’t it be solved by taking away the guy’s cell phone and digital camera? Did none of the “mental health professionals” think of that? Or does anyone think that maybe the problem is a little deeper than the technology? I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the man was already mentally ill, and that is what caused him to waste 10 hours a day taking pictures of himself. Even if you like what you look like, you would have to be mentally ill in the first place to spend that much time taking selfies. This brings us to the critical thinking lesson of the day: Correlation is not causation, no matter how convenient it would be for two mental health professionals to blame a cell phone for their son’s mental problems.