Tanning: Don’t Look Like A Carrot, You’ll Get Cancer

We have, my Dear Readers, all seen it; a white girl tanned to a carrot-orange with black lines around her eyes from the goofy eye protection pieces in the indoor tanning bed. It looks terrible, but thousands of young women aspiring to be the next Snooki (yes, they are a misguided youth) duck into tanning beds each day. What parents and teens do not understand is the unnatural concentration of ultraviolet rays at such a young age almost assures tanners to develop melanoma. While the effects may not arise as tumors until years later, the damage done to skin during the teen years leaves melanoma extra time to develop and to spread as cancer to other parts of the body. Compared to natural midday sunlight, tanning beds are 10 to 15 times more powerful than the sun. To combat the risk, state legislators in Virginia are working to ban tanning by minors, in addition to the 10% tax levied on tanning salons last year. Around the country, state governments are looking at the health risks of tanning and over-tanning by young people. Many states have laws stipulating a specific age, usually 14 or 16, in order to tan without adult consent. By tanning once a week, the risk of contracting melanoma rises. At the very least, teens age their skin by tanning once a week 10-20 years faster. The Indoor Tanning Association, obviously, says all these proven facts are speculation. They are idiots. Don’t tan, and if you do, do not tan more than twice a week. You don’t want to look like Snooki.

You don’t really want to look like this.

How Many Planets Do You Know Of?

Quick, how many planets do you know of? Eight? Are you way behind the astro-times and are counting Pluto, the disgraced loser on the edge of our solar system, as the ninth? Well, you’d still be off by about 1,242 if you were. As far back as 1995, (ancient days when you’re a spritely twenty-two like the Bohunk) astronomers began detecting some anomalous wobbles in the orbits of distant stars. The cause, they supposed, and quite intelligently, too, was gigantic, Jupiter sized “exo-planets”  too far for us to see. The Kepler satellite, or space based super telescope, was launched in March of 2009 and is now being used to discover these invisible behemoths deep in space. The device has found roughly 1,235 potential planets in a particular segment of the Milky Way. The satellite is only focused on an area that makes up only about one-four hundredth of the sky. Scientists believe that, should the satellite have the capacity to adjust its focus, it could discover other planets, even some we don’t expect to find based on gravitational anomalies. That could be up to 400,000 planets, according to researches involved with the project. Of even the supposed planets, 54 would be in an inhabitable zone, like earth- just far enough away from the star to not be scorched, but close enough to ensure water would remain in liquid form on the planet’s surface.

A not-very-clear drawing of the wobble effect of exoplanets.

However, even if we could answer these questions, and even if we could somehow find out if life was developing on that planet (and we can’t, not even close; we can’t even see these planets yet) it would still take over 300,000 years of space travel to get there. To note, differing species of man, including both homo sapiens and homo erectus only have fossil records dating back roughly the same amount of time, 300,000 years. Could there be life on these far off rocks? We don’t know everything, we know almost nothing'. The universe, my friends, is the greatest mystery.     

NFL Hypocrisy, Snooki (again?), and "Free Bird"....

Remember when the NFL vowed to crack down on helmet-to-helmet hits, promising flags, fines and suspensions? That it would work to end the culture of malicious, cruel victimization of unprotected wide receivers and running backs exposed in the process of making a catch? Well, that began and ended yesterday. Seems like forever ago, as analysts and league officials are already backing down. Talking heads on ESPN, for example, now say that the regulations take away from the game and make "big hits illegal". No, these regulations, which had always been in place but rarely enforced, make head-hunting a point of examination by officials. These are not new rules; these are rules that, supposedly, will now actually be followed. ESPNers are already saying these make the game "softer"... please go tell that to your teammates who spent much of Sunday twitching on the field and being carted off to the hospital. This culture of violence and misplaced machoism is hurting not the owners or officials but the PLAYERS who are getting injured and suffered major neurological damage.

In technology, scientists have found a way to end Lou Holtz's incessant slurring of words and pointless stammering...Not really....

However, Steve Jobs has declared the Nerdiest War Ever on Google, saying the search engine giant is "disingenuous" and puts volume in front of customer service and quality. Jobs vowed, hand on the Service Agreement from iTunes, to continue to beat Google (haha, saying Google a lot is fun, how can you hate this company?) in smart phones and tablets, which Google has slowly creeped into selling via the Google Nexus One and an unreleased tablet. Why does this matter? Cause they will fight, and we, the consumer, will reap the benefits! This will make products better and prices lower for all! Exclamation point! Now, if we apply this theory to Megan Fox and Angelina Jolie, neither would wear clothes and would continue to jump on wet trampolines until the other admitted defeat. That should be a movie...

On this day in 1977, three members of the Southern rock group Lynard Skynard were killed in a plane crash. Strike up "Free Bird" today in their honor, just stop screaming for bands to play it at EVERY live concert you've been to (I'm looking at you, everyone in Grawn).

The Tour de France route has been announced, and it's a climbers Tour to win. It features only ten flat stages, which, I would contest, is roughly ten too many. Make those chaps climb every day! This isn't likely, but it's the most entertaining. The French riders would have none of it, riding off in the opposite direction the moment Jens Voight headed towrd Paris. Get it? Cause the French run from the Germans? It's a common theme...Expect the Schlecks' "We Swear We Have A Team Made, Honest!" squad tto dominate the last two weeks, with numerous Alpine stage and no Alberto Contador in the race. The 2 or 3 time Tour champ is still awaiting a ruling in his doping case from a positive test July 24th. It seems as though he will be suspended at least one year, and Contador has hinted he may retire if he receives any ban. If you can't take your punishment, dont't eat the tainted Spanish meat, Al.

Word has it the number one custom for Halloween is "Snooki", followed by Dora the Explorer for kids... Which supports my claim that Snooki is, in fact, a cartoon, which would explain the orange coloring...


Thanks, enjoy "Modern Family" tonight on ABC, I'm going to go buy photos of the illegal hit on Josh Cribbs that the NFL, who fined James Harrison for the hit, is selling on their website. Go HYPOCRISY!