The great Randy Watson, and that crackhead Whitney Houston, once vocalized the idea that children are our future in “The Greatest Love of All.”  While this pretty much goes without saying due to the linear existence in which we live, the sentiment of course is that we should “teach them well, and let them the lead the way.”  Well, since the best way to teach is usually leading by example, I’d say we’ve pretty much screwed the future’s proverbial pooch.  If you turn on the news or follow current events, it’s easy to see the rotting fruits of our labor on Earth thus far: widespread famine, disease, apathy, economic meltdowns, wars, oil spills, reality television, racism, religious fanaticism (also known as terrorism) and many, many others.  So, the question becomes, “How will the children choose to lead the way going forward, given the awful paradigm that has been passed down to them?”  The answer is debatable, but if super genius Stephen Hawking’s views on Earth’s impending fate are correct, it looks like the future is as bright as a goth kid’s wardrobe.  The following excerpts are from an article featured on Big Think, and is one part in their “Month of Thinking Dangerously” series:

Earth’s population is expanding at an exponential rate, and the the natural resources vital to our survival are running out faster than we can replace them with sustainable alternatives.  Even if the human race manages not to push itself to the brink of nuclear extinction, it is still a foregone conclusion that our aging sun will expand and swallow the Earth in roughly 7.6 billion years.

So, according to famed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, it’s time to free ourselves from Mother Earth.  “I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space,” Hawking tells Big Think. “It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million.

Hawking says he is an optimist, but his outlook for the future of man’s existence is fairly bleak…According to the Federation of American Scientists there are still about 22,600 stockpiled nuclear weapons scattered around the planet, 7,770 of which are still operational…Even if humans manage to avoid a nuclear stand-off over the next thousand years, our fate on this planet is still pretty much certain.  University of Sussex astrophysicist Dr. Robert Smith says eventually the aging Sun will accelerate global warming to a point where all of Earth’s water will simply evaporate.

Despite what Hawking describes as humankind’s “selfish and aggressive instinct,” there may be some biological impediments to finding another planet to inhabit…”The nearest star [to Earth] is Proxima Centauri which is 4.2 light years away,” says University of Michigan astrophysicist Katherine Freese, “That means that, if you were traveling at the speed of light the whole time, it would take 4.2 years to get there.”  Unfortunately, at the moment we can only travel at about ten thousandth of light speed, which means if man were to use chemical fuel rockets similar to the those used during the Apollo mission to the moon, the journey would take about 50,000 years. (Full Story)

If there was one piece of advice I could impart to the future generations who will inevitably have to face these daunting challenges, it would be a paraphrased quote from yet another famous musician: “Get (your) kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames!” – Jim Morrison

-The sun is in the process of giving everyone on Earth the equivalent of a galactic dutch oven?  According to NASA, satellites orbiting Earth detected a solar flare on August 1, and the origin of the explosion was located on a spot that is pointed directly towards us.  Although not uncommon, this particular blast ended up turning into something called a “coronal mass ejection,” or CME – so maybe it’s more like the sun is giving us a flare facial.  This ejectulation has sent an estimated ten billion tons of plasma hurtling towards our planet at speeds reaching 1 million mph.  When it reaches us, the CME could interact with the Earth’s magnetic field and create a geomagnetic storm – I smell a Sy Fy original movie in the works.  NASA has stated that there’s a slight chance this event may also induce blackouts, affect satellites, and cause problems with various types of communication devices.  Let’s just hope this won’t prevent anyone from getting on Facebook or Twitter while using their iPhones, because if that happens, mass panic will surely engulf our entire nation.  I mean, how could I possibly go about my day without knowing that someone I used to go to school with forgot how much they liked pickles?

- Brett Favre is reportedly walking away from the NFL after 19 seasons?  I mean, who could have possibly seen this coming, right?  It does remind me of an old joke though, stop me if you’ve heard it before.  Brett Favre and Rhee Peete play on a football team together, Brett retired, who was left…

- Researchers at UCLA have found that fructose enables pancreatic cancer cells to divide and multiply?  In their experiment, they “fed” fructose and glucose to tumors, and found that the two are metabolized very differently in the body.  When you combine that with the fact that US consumption of the worst kind, high fructose corn syrup, went up 1,000% between 1970 and 1990, it sounds like the deadliest form of cancer will be bellyin’ up to our pancreas’s for years to come.  And for those of you keeping score at home, you can now add fructose to the list of 18,965 additional things that have been shown to cause some type of cancer…

- That copying U.S. Currency is illegal?  This bombshell comes courtesy of quite possibly the most worthless article about money that I have ever wasted my time reading.  According to “6 Money Habits That Are Illegal” (“Dough Don’ts For Dummies” would’ve been more fitting): “Color printers, scanners and copiers make it surprisingly easy for just about anyone to replicate U.S. or foreign currency.  But it is, in fact, illegal to print your own money and try to spend it to buy goods or services.”  I’m sure there were a lot more people who didn’t know how “surprisingly easy” it is “for just about anyone” to counterfeit money before reading this article, as opposed to those who didn’t know counterfeiting was illegal.  In case you were raised by a pack of wolves, here some other illegal money activities the story reveals: using another person’s name and personal information to obtain credit, writing bad checks, and lying on applications for home loans.  I’ve got a few more gray area-type activities they may want to consider for their follow-up article, like bank robbery, embezzlement, money laundering, and tax evasion. (Story)

Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you may miss it.”  Well, here are some recent news stories and events that have caught my attention over the past few days you might have missed – with a little bit of my opinion thrown in for good measure.

• Police in Pennsylvania discovered a 91 year-old woman who had been living with the corpses of her husband and twin sister over the last few years.  I bet she’s a Weekend at Bernie’s fan.
• There was an article on Yahoo! this morning about a junior college basketball player with an unusual name, and the headline read “How Junior College Star God’s Gift Achiuwa Got His Name.”  That’s right, his first (and middle name, I guess) is God’s Gift.  So as you can imagine, I was shocked to find out that his father is a minister, and that the name is “a reflection of the family’s devout religious beliefs.”  No shit?  I thought for sure he was named after a racehorse that won the 1995 Kentucky Deity Derby.  And can you imagine how this story would be received in America, and would we even hear about it, if the name turned out to be something like “Buddha’s Blessing,” “Allah’s Award,” or “Satan’s Souvenir?”  Sounds like wet dream material for Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.
• Lebron James is finally going to announce what team will be paying him a buttload (we’re talkin’ badonkadonk) of money over the next few years, and he has decided to announce the decision via a primetime hour-long special on ESPN.  The King is not only entering Favrean territory, it looks as though he’s also in danger of becoming the most hated person in Cleveland since Rachel Phelps.  Why in the hell would you take a whole hour to drag out a decision the sports media have been talking about incessantly for the last two years?  Much like the Favre saga, my eye has started twitching at the mere mention of Lebron’s name on any sports show; because it’s the same shit every fuckin’ time – “Well we’re hearing this, some other people are hearing this, and there’s a possibility of this happening…but we still don’t know anything for sure.  Back to you.”  This is always followed by “we will keep you up to date on any future developments.”  Thanks, I’ll still be here not giving a shit.  It’s also hard for me to picture Lebron putting on this hour long show to announce he’s going to stay in a city that’s most known for its harsh winters and steamers, but I guess we’ll have to wait until 9 PM EST tomorrow to find out if my assumption is correct.
• I think someone needs to tell the media in Texas that just because a story involves an American flag being “rescued”, it doesn’t automatically mean the incident is of the feel-good variety:

Even though it is 2010, there are still widespread signs that some people refuse to accept the fact that – to loosely quote the great Bob Dylan – the times, they have a changed.  Although I am proud to be from what some would consider to be “The South”, it’s hard to argue that quite a few people who live in this area are, well, how do I put this…ah yes, morons.  I blame a lot of things for this lack of learnedness among my fellow Southern citizens – such as poor educational systems, inherit bigotry, organized religion, The Blue Collar Comedy Tour, country music, etc.  It’s not like these type of people are confined to southern states, because there are backward bumpkins spread across the world.  However, after reading the following article, I am comforted by the fact that Robert E. Lee and his boys had their asses handed to them – because contrary to what Bocephus and some of the bumper stickers I’ve read say – I don’t think we would have it made if the South would have won.  But some people refuse to let go, as you can clearly see from this bizarre story out of Mississippi:

Forty years after a Mississippi school district was ordered to desegregate its schools, a federal judge has finally enforced the order…A US District Court judge in southern Mississippi has ordered the Walthall County school board to stop segregating students by allowing white students to transfer to a predominantly-white school outside of their residence area and by “clustering” white students into separate classrooms in predominantly black schools (I read the last sentence several times, and this still sounds like a form of subverted segregation) .

“More than 55 years after Brown v. Board of Education, it is unacceptable for school districts to act in a way that encourages or tolerates the resegregation of public schools,” said Thomas E. Perez, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, in a statement. “We will take action so that school districts subject to federal desegregation orders comply with their obligation to eliminate vestiges of separate black and white schools.

Walthall County was first issued a desegregation order in 1970, but the investigation into the school’s practices was closed in 2001 due to a “lack of activity.”…Amanda Terkel at ThinkProgress notes that the Bush administration pulled away from enforcement of civil rights legislation, hiring civil rights staffers with “strong conservative credentials” that didn’t translate into aggressive civil rights enforcement (I don’t think Dubya was ever too keen on the whole “rights” thing).

In recent years, news reports have alleged a trend towards “re-segregation” in US schools, and the phenomenon isn’t limited to rural areas in the South…”It’s getting to the point of almost absolute segregation in the worst of the segregated cities – within one or two percentage points of what the Old South used to be like,” Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project, told the CSM in 2008. “The biggest metro areas are the epicenters of segregation. It’s getting worse for both blacks and Latinos, and nothing is being done about it.” (Via Raw Story)

While that article seems to be ripped out of headline from 50 years ago, it didn’t surprise me as much after I found this clip from a local news show in Mississippi – apparently it’s a totally different world down there:

(This was actually a clip from a 2004 mockumentary titled The Confederate States of America)

I was hesitant to post anything for the rest of the afternoon just so everyone could bask in the glow of Mr. Smith’s latest masterpiece, but ultimately decided to add my own contribution on this Friday.  So here are a few odd news stories that caught my eye today, and also taught me a few mildly interesting things of which I was previously unaware (And if you haven’t read the Smith biopic below, I suggest you do so immediately).

Java Junkie – A story recounting a rock musician suffering from an overdose is nothing out of the ordinary, but I can’t recall one as softcore as this.

On top of video evidence of excessive caffeine abuse, Them Crooked Vultures drummer and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl has revealed that he really did overdose on caffeine, and that its teeth-grinding effects necessitated the aid of medical help.  “We were in the studio making a record and I was drinking a lot of coffee,” he explained…”I was doing Vultures stuff at night, Foo Fighters stuff during the day and I had a newborn at home, so I was sleeping two-three hours a night on an air mattress in a guest bedroom,” he continued.  ”And yeah, I had too much coffee, I started to get chest pains so I went to the hospital and they told me to stop drinking so much coffee.” VIA

I know caffeine is a drug, and that it is possible to overdose on it just like any other drug; but what does this type of behavior say about the current state of the rock n’ roll industry?  What happened to the days of eight balls, high balls, speed balls, and complete inebriation Jim Morrison style?  As Brian from Family Guy once said when discussing John Coltrane’s music after getting clean, “No junk, no soul.”  Plus, how embarrassed would you be if the official cause of death on your toe tag read “Double Venti Cinammon Dolce Frappuccino related”.

Baby Deathtrap – Anyone who bought this thing had to see something like this coming

More than 1 million “baby slings” made by Infantino were recalled Wednesday after claims linking them to three infant deaths.  The Consumer Product Safety Commission said babies could suffocate in the soft fabric slings.  The agency urged parents to immediately stop using the slings for babies under 4 months.   The slings wrap around the chest so on-the-go parents can carry their babies, or just stay close as they bond with their infants.  Consumer Reports raised concerns about slings back in 2008, and had called on CPSC to issue a recall of the Infantino SlingRider.  Safety advocates criticized the curved position that the baby can fall into while inside the sling.  Baby experts and breast-feeding advocates insist that not all slings are dangerous.  They say carriers that keep a newborn baby solidly against the mother’s body, in an upright position, are safe.  There are no federal safety rules for baby slings as of now. VIA

The thing that is really hard to believe about this story is that the best name the manufacturers could come up with for this thing is a “baby sling”.  When I think of the word sling, some things that come to mind would be: Bart Simpson’s weapon of choice, dislocated bones or damaged ligaments, Billy Bob Thornton with a kaiser blade, a cocktail made with gin and brandy, and throwing an object with as much force as possible.  Call me crazy, but none of those things conjure up images of child safety or comfort in my opinion.  I know that papooses similar to these have been used since the early 1900′s, but baby sling just sounds like a product Irwin Mainway would give away free with the purchase of a Teddy Chainsaw Bear or Johnny Switchblade Adventure Punk action figure.

Canine Commandos – Scooby Doo ain’t got shit on these dogs of war

The explosives sniffing pooch – a member of Austria’s version of the SAS – took part in Operation Cold Response in Norway along with British special forces and Royal Marines assault teams.  Securely strapped to his handler and with a muzzle to stop him damaging his mouth on landing, he plunged 10,000ft from a transporter plane.  “It’s something he does a lot and he’s very comfortable with.  He has a much cooler head then most recruits,” said one operation trooper.

Far from panicking at the experience of hurling themselves out of a plane at 10,000ft, the Austrians’ Belgian Shepherd dogs appear to be perfectly calm both before and during the jump.  One handler explained: “They don’t perceive height difference the same way humans do, so that doesn’t worry them. They’re more likely to be bothered by the roar of the engines, but once we’re on the way down, that doesn’t matter and they just enjoy the view.” VIA

Suck it PETA:

It’s time once again to fill your head with some useless knowledge that I recently contracted from the world wide web.  So be prepared to wow your friends with information they could have easily gone their whole lives without knowing.

• Let it Linger - One of my favorite old school rappers is Compton California’s David Blake, or DJ Quik as he is known by his many fans.  Way back in 1995, he came out with his third album, titled Safe & Sound.  One of the tracks on the CD was called “Can I Eat It?“, and in it, Quik warns of the possible consequences involved when you travel South of the Foreplay Border.  Personally, I’ve never had much of a problem with making that type of travel arrangement in the sack; but I also know a lot of guys who feel the exact same way as the Quiksta.  I look at this through the philosophy of taking the good with the bad.  For instance, let’s say the log rides are your favorite attractions at the theme park, but you also don’t like to get your clothes wet.  If you really want to do the thing you love, you’re going to have to be willing to get drenched at least once to make it happen.  As I’ve learned through experience though - but mostly by watching Summer’s Eve commercials – there are also certain times when a woman is self-conscious too, thanks to that not so fresh feeling.  To appease both sides, the good people at Sentient Products have developed a new product called Linger, which they are touting as an ”internal feminine flavoring”.  According to their website, it’s “a small, naturally sweetened flavoring, free of artificial dyes, which was created to flavor the secretions of a woman when she is sexually aroused.”  On the down side, you’d better be a fan of candy canes because it’s currently only available in mint flavor – and on an unrelated note, I think I finally figured out why Marcie referred to her “best friend” as sir, while everyone else insisted on calling her Peppermint Patty.  Linger’s official website.
• Whale of an Suv - The Dartz Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition is an armored SUV built by a Russian company named RussoBaltique – who also developed vehicles for Tsar Nicholas and Vladimir Lenin.  The company claims this $1.6 million dollar machine is the world’s most expensive SUV, which means it’s packed with unique features that few people would ever need.  Some of the most notable accessories include gold-plated bulletproof windows, gauges encrusted with diamonds and rubies, and a kevlar coating that is “rocket grenade-proof”.  Those features seem normal, however, when compared to the type of interior the company chose for the SUV.  Most high-end luxury cars are equipped with a plush leather interior, but the composition of the seats in the Dartz Prombon is head and shaft above the rest.  So what is this mystery material you ask?  The company’s official website states the interior is made from 100% whale-penis leather, which was also used on some famous yacht owned by a rich Greek shipping mogul named Aristotle Onassis.  Two things instantly came to mind when I read this: 1) Who discovered that a whale’s willy was a suitable material for seat covers, and how did they come upon this information in the first place?  2) No matter how badass or expensive it is, I don’t know if I could ever be truly comfortable driving an SUV knowing full well that I am basically sitting on Moby’s Dick the whole time.  Full write-up on the Dartz Monaco.      

We have all heard the phrase, “You learn something new every day”, and I would have to agree with this statement for the most part.  Life is chocked full of learning experiences, but that doesn’t mean that everything you learn will be useful – learning how to walk is important, finding out that “jiffy” is an actual unit of time (1/100th of second) isn’t.  While the first type of learning is important and essential to life, I actually prefer mundane, useless tidbits of information that can be picked up on a daily basis.  Here are a few things that I learned this week that are far from groundbreaking, but they still brought a smile to my face:

• Do the Puddin’ Pop -  Bill Cosby is an internationally known comic/actor who has been in the entertainment business for well over 40 years.  He was the central figure in iconic programs like Fat Albert and The Cosby Show, had top selling comedy albums like Bill Cosby: Himself, and pushed products like Kodak, Coke, and Jell-O.  Throughout all of this, Cosby maintained his family man image and accomplished everything without the use of vulgar language.  Which makes the news that he is coming out with a rap album seem somewhat peculiar.  That’s right, Bill Cosby Presents the Cosnerati: State of Emergency was released on iTunes this past Tuesday, and will sit on music store shelves nationwide beginning November 24th.  Whereas other rappers are making millions from songs about bling and pimpin’, Cosby’s profanity-free album will focus on issues like proper parenting, teen pregnancy, and the importance of flossing every day – ok, I made that last one up, but it wouldn’t surprise me.  This will be Cosby’s 35th album, and I will venture a guess and say it will be his worst seller to date.  If November is too long of a wait, you can go to his website to download the full album, or listen to the first three tracks for free.  I hope it’s as good as the Pokemon rap he released a while back, but I have my doubts.
• A Creed That Doesn’t Suck - I have said on here a few times that NBC’s The Office is one of my favorite shows – even though this season has been less than stellar so far.  While Steve Carrell is credited as being the star of the series, I would say the secondary characters are what drives the show’s success.  My personal favorite happens to be Creed Bratton, the tactless quality assurance director who is played by Creed Bratton.  I knew the character had the same name as the actor portraying him, but I didn’t know that it was a role loosely based on his life as a 60′s folk rock star.  That’s right, Creed was born into a family of musicians in Los Angeles, picked up the guitar at age 13, and was a professional musician by age 17.  He joined a group called the Young Californians in the 60′s, and they would go on to tour Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.  In 1966, he returned to the US and began playing guitar with the third incarnation of a group called The Grass Roots; the group would attain their first Top 10 hit with Bratton, and would also set a record for being on the Billboard charts for 307 consecutive weeks.  Bratton was asked to leave the band in 1969, because he felt they had abandoned their folk rock roots for a chart-friendly, pop sound.  Creed continues to play music in his free time, and has released four solo albums since 2001.  Here is a look back at Scranton’s finest in the prime of his life (he perfoms a seven second solo from 1:49-1:56):