ABC News is reporting that Viagra could be the potential cure to jet lag:

Perhaps Viagra Can Soften Jet Lag’s Impact

Erectile Dysfunction Drug Shows Promise in Animal Study

By JOSEPH BROWNSTEIN, ABC News Medical Unit

May 21, 2007 —

The little blue pill known for making time in the bed more enjoyable may also help weary jet travelers roll out of it in the morning.

New research shows Viagra may be the solution for travelers who suddenly find themselves needing to rise hours earlier as they cross time zones, at least if those travelers are hamsters.

A study at the Universidad Nacional de Quilmes in Buenos Aires showed that male hamsters who received an injection of sildenafil along with a 15-minute stimulation of light were able to adjust their internal clocks by six hours in roughly half the time that hamsters who did not receive the treatment took.

…

You might notice some very amusing headings:

• Rise and Shine
• Study Arouses Interest
• Will Results Stand Up to Scrutiny

That’s right, my college roommate Joseph Brownstein is now reporting for ABC News! Congratulations Joe, I expect a lot more hilarity to come!

Straight from Jim Zhuang @ Google China comes one of the more hilarious education fraud stories that has come across my IM window.

IMPOSTER CAUGHT

High school graduate pretends to be a Stanford student, even living in the dorms, buying textbooks and ‘studying’ for exams

Azia Kim was like any other Stanford freshman. She graduated from one of California’s most competitive high schools last June, moved into the dorms during New Student Orientation, talked about upcoming tests and spent her free time with friends.

Azia Kim allegedly climbed through this first-floor window in Okada to sleep during spring quarter. The 18-year-old was evicted after her ruse was uncovered Monday night.

The only problem is that Azia Kim was never a Stanford student.

Kim, an 18-year-old from Orange County who graduated from Fullerton’s Troy High School, lived in Kimball throughout fall and winter quarter. She lived in Okada, the Asian-American theme dorm, until Monday night, when University staff finally caught onto her ruse.

…

I always knew that this was possible, given how lax security is on college campuses. I just didn’t think someone would actually carry this through! Now let’s hope Stanford doesn’t over-react in its response.

I am a big proponent of colleges having “open classrooms”. By that I mean, anyone who wants to attend class, whether a student or not, should be allow to attend. The students are really paying for the diploma anyway. Afterall, colleges are suppose to spread knowledge and produce our next generation of leaders, why not let those who want to learn.. learn?

Unfortunately, Azia Kim went overboard when she decided to move into University Housing. Her “roommate” is actually pretty cute:

But seriously, how do you not know something is amiss.. when she’s going through windows every day.

Still, Kim had neither a Stanford ID nor a key, forcing her to sneak into meals and enter her room through its window, which overlooked the Munger construction pit, the Wilbur parking lot and a dumpster, three feet off the ground. Zhou never noticed, as she spent nearly all her nights in her boyfriend’s room.

The Stanford Daily later posted another article poking fun at the situation. There’s some prized quotes in this one as well.

Dear Ms. Azia Kim . . .

I tip my hat to you. Many of us actual Stanford students read your story in awed delight yesterday, but I for one saw through the carefully orchestrated deceit to the underlying genius of your plan. You are an American heroine for managing to pull a fast one on so many of us who considered ourselves the best and the brightest. Turning lemons into lemonade — or rather, I should say, a free college education — is no easy feat, but you, Ms. Azia Kim are a mastermind, deserving to be ranked up there with Frank Abagnale and D.B. Cooper as one of the greatest con artists of the 20th century.

…

The only drawbacks to your plan were the potential ramifications for your roommate from Okada — her parents just found out that their daughter was sleeping with her boyfriend so much that she practically wasn’t even in the room they were paying for. Oy. I know my parents would kill me. I can’t even imagine what hers will do to her.

…

That . is . just . priceless .

UPDATE: Since someone asked, here’s the PDF copy of “Dear Ms. Azia Kim” from Google Cache, since the actual article got taken down.

UPDATE 2: It seems like the Stanford Daily didn’t completely take down Dear. Ms. Azia Kim, but rather updated the article with the new title “Dear Ms. Kim“

Students often complain they are treated as nothing more than a collection of standardized scores and their GPAs. Well, it turns out adults are similarly judged by numbers, the most prominent of which is the credit score. Everyone from employers, banks to landlords use credit scores to get a quantiative measure of one’s “trustworthiness”. Even medical schools are beginning to use credit scores to evaluate applicants. When this single number is of such pervasive influence in everyday life, one might have expected strong government oversight… but you’d be wrong.

Until recently, most consumers have no idea what’s in their credit report. The information within it can be completely wrong and they wouldn’t even know! It wasn’t until 2003 that US Congress passed the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACTA). It finally guaranteed consumers access to one annual credit report from each of the 3 major consumer credit agencies: TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax. Exparian, of course just couldn’t wait to create some confusion for consumers. While the government mandated credit reports can be obtained here:

http://www.annualcreditreport.com

Experian decided they would operate a PAID credit viewing service here:

http://www.freecreditreport.com

When a service charges 13 dollars a month to view credit reports, how exactly does that qualify as free? MSNBC has even written an article on this most blatant deceptive marketing scam.

Don’t fall for FreeCreditReport.com

Also one year ago, credit bureau Experian was also slapped on the wrist by the Federal Trade Commission for misleading consumers at its FreeCreditReport.com Web site. The FTC said Experian didn’t make clear to consumers that they would be charged $79 for an annual subscription after they signed up at FreeCreditReport.com.

What the FTC didn’t say (but was abundantly clear to anyone with a brain) was that FreeCreditReport.com and Experian were benefiting from confusion over news stories telling consumers were entitled to a free copy of their credit report every year. And the site was designed to add to the confusion.

While not admitting wrongdoing, Experian agreed last August to give consumers refunds and make the terms of its product clearer.

….

Given all the confusion, and the legal action, it’s amazing that FreeCreditReport.com is allowed to continue operating. I know it continues to cause mix-ups. Earlier this year, during the hubbub about the missing Veterans Administration laptop, I heard experts testifying before Congress point to the wrong site by accident.

Exparian has even recruited other websites (including movie ticket websites!) to sign up unsuspecting consumers onto their service, hoping they wouldn’t look hard enough at their credit cards bills to notice this recurring charge:

CIC*Triple Advantage877-4816825

The few times we actually need lawyers for a class action lawsuit and they are nowhere to be found!

I’m sure most people have gone on at least one god awful date, but this just takes the cake. Peter Shankman recently posted a blog entry about one Mr. Darren Sherman who just cannot stand rejection. When Mr. Sherman’s date doesn’t call him back for a second date, he decides to get half of his expenses back. Read the blog entry and tell me if your horror stories can match that!

In the last several months, the United States has been embroiled in controversy over illegal immigration. Mass protests were staged by predominantly Hispanic populations all across the US (see BBC reporting here) to put pressure on Congress to allow the estimated 11.5 MM illegal immigrants to begin applying for citizenship. Though it is clear that major immigration reform is needed and many of the illegal immigrants in the United States should be able to apply for citizenship, it is not clear to me that we can continue to allow our porous southern border and thus, an ever increasing influx of illegal immigrants from the south to exist. President Bush addressed that exact point in his national address several days ago, saying:

First, the United States must secure its borders. This is a basic responsibility of a sovereign nation. It is also an urgent requirement of our national security. Our objective is straightforward: The border should be open to trade and lawful immigration, and shut to illegal immigrants, as well as criminals, drug dealers, and terrorists. [...]

[...] Training thousands of new Border Patrol agents and bringing the most advanced technology to the border will take time. Yet the need to secure our border is urgent. So I’m announcing several immediate steps to strengthen border enforcement during this period of transition:

One way to help during this transition is to use the National Guard. So, in coordination with governors, up to 6,000 Guard members will be deployed to our southern border. [...]

You can read the national address in its entirety here.

Interestingly, Mexico is quite unhappy with the U.S. tightening its borders. In fact, it expressed its anger in the most American way possible, lawsuits! Yahoo News is currently reporting that Mexico plans to file lawsuits in U.S. Courts against the United States if National Guard is actually used to protect the Southern border.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Mexico said Tuesday that it would file lawsuits in U.S. courts if National Guard troops on the border become directly involved in detaining migrants.

Mexican border officials also said they worried that sending troops to heavily trafficked regions would push illegal migrants into more perilous areas of the U.S.-Mexican border to avoid detection.

President Bush announced Monday that he would send 6,000 National Guard troops to the 2,000-mile border, but they would provide intelligence and surveillance support to Border Patrol agents, not catch and detain illegal immigrants.

“If there is a real wave of rights abuses, if we see the National Guard starting to directly participate in detaining people … we would immediately start filing lawsuits through our consulates,” Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez told a Mexico City radio station. He did not offer further details.

Read the rest of the story here.

That is among the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard in a while. The Mexican government seems to think that our government is accountable to them in some way.

“This is not a natural disaster, and this is not a military conflict, and [the Guard] is not trained for this. The is a very difficult situation,” said Mr. Quijano (deputy editor at the Ciudad Juárez newspaper Norte). “The Border Patrol is much more prudent. But these troops are taught to use force as the first option.”

I personally fail to see why force isn’t being used as a first option.  What exactly does Mexico expect us to do?  Roll out the red carpet for illegal immigrants?  Write manuals for illegal immigrants on how to cross our borders?  After all, Mexico uses the military to guard its own southern border with Guatemala…

Emulating Geoff Arnold, who is emulating Gene Bob:

Go to Wikipedia and look up your birth day (excluding the year). List three neat facts/events, two births and one death in your journal, including the year.

Events:

• 1214 – University of Oxford receives its charter.
• 1782 – The U.S. Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States.
• 1963 – The so-called “red telephone” was established between Soviet Union and United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Births:

• 1756 – Joseph Martin Kraus, Swedish composer (d. 1792)
• 1819 – Jacques Offenbach, German composer (d. 1880)

Deaths:

• 1866 – Bernhard Riemann, German mathematician (b. 1826)

“Scientific Jargon” by Dyrk Schingman, Oregon State University

After several years of studying and hard work, I have finally learned scientific jargon. The following list of phrases and their definitions will help you to understand that mysterious language of science and medicine.

“IT HAS LONG BEEN KNOWN”… I didn’t look up the original reference.

“A DEFINITE TREND IS EVIDENT”…These data are practically meaningless.

“WHILE IT HAS NOT BEEN POSSIBLE TO PROVIDE DEFINITE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS”… An unsuccessful experiment, but I still hope to get it published

“THREE OF THE SAMPLES WERE CHOOSEN FOR DETAILED STUDY”… The other results didn’t make any sense.

“TYPICAL RESULTS ARE SHOWN”… This is the prettiest graph.

“THESE RESULTS WILL BE IN A SUBSEQUENT REPORT”… I might get around to this sometime, if pushed/funded.

“THE MOST RELIABLE RESULTS ARE OBTAINED BY JONES”… He was my graduate student; his grade depended on this.

“IN MY EXPERINCE”… once

“IN CASE AFTER CASE”… Twice

“IN A SERIES OF CASES”… Thrice

“IT IS BELIEVED THAT”… I think.

“IT IS GENERALLY BELIEVED THAT”… A couple of other guys think so too.

“CORRECT WITHIN AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE”… Wrong.

“ACCORDING TO STATISTICAL ANALYSIS”… Rumor has it.

“A STATISTICALLY ORIENTED PROJETION OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THESE FINDINGS”… A wild guess.

“A CAREFUL ANALYSIS OF OBTAINABLE DATA”… Three pages of notes were obliterated when I knocked over a glass of beer.

“IT IS CLEAR THAT MUCH ADDITIONAL WORK WILL BE REQUIRED BEFORE A COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF THIS PHENOMENA OCCURS”… I don’t understand it.

“AFTER ADDITIONAL STUDY BY MY COLLEAGUES”… They don’t understand it either.

“THANKS ARE DUE TO JOE BLOTZ FOR ASSITANCE WITH THE EXPERIMENT AND TO ANDREA SCHAEFFER FOR VALUABLE DISCUSSIONS”… Mr. Boltz did the work and Ms. Shaeffer explained to me what it meant.

“A HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT AREA FOR EXPLORATORY STUDY”… A totally useless topic selected by my committee.

“IT IS HOPED THAT THIS STUDY WILL STIMULATE FURTHER INVESTIGATION IN THIS FIELD”… I quit.

The article likens Linux to the proverbial tortoise, and that gets me to thinking that we should update the famous Aesop fable of the tortoise and the hare to reflect today’s reality.

How about this…

Just as the tortoise has crossed the finish line, the hare, waking up and realizing he’s lost the race as a result of his own indolence and brash overconfidence, files suit against the tortoise for infringing on his intellectual property, foremost of which is the hare’s exclusive rights to using one’s legs for forward movement.

The tortoise, facing mounting legal bills and declining support from the other animals, nearly all of whom think the hare’s claims are overly broad and invalid but are afraid of being similarly targeted by the hare’s legal campaign for the use of their own legs, is forced to settle out of court, concede defeat in the race, and to pay a nominal licensing fee to continue using his own legs.

The hare, and his lawyers, win the race after all.

New Rule: If we really want to stop terrorism, we have to get Muslim men laid. Five British Muslims who were recently sent home from our prison at Guantanamo, charge that their American captors brought in prostitutes to taunt them, because most had never even seen a naked woman before.

And it made me wonder how many members of Al Qaeda have even dated a girl? We should hire women to infiltrate Al Qaeda cells and fuck them. Things would change quickly because young Muslim men don’t really hate America. They’re jealous of America. We have rap videos and the Hilton sisters and magazines with titles like Barely Legal. You know what’s “barely legal” in Afghanistan? Everything!

Young men need sex, and if they don’t get it for month and after month after month, they wind up cursing the day they ever decided to go to Cornell.

–Bill Maher here