No. 473 - October 2, 2008
The Many Benefits of Sex and Sexism

ANOTHER MAN IS LIVING YOUR WET DREAM
While the biggest excitement in your life is the start of a new television season the King of Swaziland spent most of last week trying to choose a new wife out of 20,000 bare-breasted teenage girls who danced before him in that country’s annual Reed Dance Festival. Poor guy. Despite attempts to modernize that country’s archaic attitudes towards women the King continues to wield absolute power and the tradition of picking a new wife each year from Swaziland’s thousands of virgin girls continues. King Mswati III has taken 14 wives since he came to power in 1986, following in the footsteps of the previous monarch who ended his reign with 70 wives and 400 children. In 2002 the mother of the king’s new wife began a lawsuit alleging that the king had kidnapped her daughter but the court ruled that the king has the right to select wives in the traditional way. Last year the king even took back the one small step toward his culture’s enlightenment by abolishing the law against having sex with teenage girls. The king himself initiated the rule in 2001, but has since repeatedly broken his own law and been forced to pay the fine of several cows. (Reuters)

SEXISM PAYS
Speaking of Male Chauvinist Pigs (bet you haven’t heard that phrase in quite some time) a study from the University of Florida found that men who believe in “traditional roles for women” earn an average of about $8,500 more annually than men with more enlightened attitudes towards equality for women. Oddly enough, the reverse was true for women, as the research discovered that women with more traditional views about gender roles made an average of $1,500 less annually than women who believe in equality between the sexes. (ScientificBlogging.com)

THE PRICE OF GOOD SEX
A team of economists from the U.S. and Britain have finished a study which claims that having a good sex life is worth about $50,000 a year to the average person while being married brings almost as much happiness as $100,000. Their research involved interviews with almost 100,000 subjects and tried to establish what value people place on their sex lives and marriages. “The financial values that we calculated are what it would cost to compensate someone for a happy marriage in money terms," said Dartmouth College economist David Blanchflower. Their results showed that most people would need about an extra $50,000 in yearly income to equal the contentment they receive from their sex lives. Sex psychologist Petruska Clarkson added, "I think that figure is an underestimate. [Sex] reduces stress, increases our immune system and reduces pain. Regular sex improves not only your physical health but your mental health." (Sunday Times)

WE’VE FINALLY FOUND A PLACE WHERE WHITE IS COOLER THAN BLACK
While we wait for the engineering geniuses of the world to figure out how to beat global warming we might want to consider some lo-tech solutions in the meantime. For example, the LA Times reports that if the world’s 100 largest cities painted the roofs of all the buildings white and used a more reflective materials on their roads the global cooling effect would offset ten years of emissions growth in only one year. “I call it win-win-win,” said Hashem Akbari, a physicist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “First, a cooler environment not only saves energy but improves comfort. Second, cooling a city by a few degrees dramatically reduces smog. And the third win is offsetting global warming.”

FUNNY MONEY
Someone once said “you’ll never go broke overestimating the stupidity of other people” and a man in North Carolina has proven it once again as he successfully used an obviously bogus $200 bill to buy $150 worth of groceries at a supermarket last week. The bill was decorated with a portrait of George W. Bush and a drawing of the White House complete with lawn signs reading “We like ice cream” and “USA deserves a tax cut.” (NCWanted.com)

THE SIZE OF MY GUN COMPENSATES FOR THE SIZE OF MY PENIS
I guess it’s time to remind you once again not to insult the size of a drunk man’s penis after a gunfight in a South African bar which left three men dead and two others injured. According to the police report the argument started when an Indian man standing next to a Caucasian at a urinal claimed that the men of his race had much larger penises. (Sify.com)

ISN’T THIS HOW DARTH VADER GOT STARTED?
By 2010 paraplegics with an extra $20,000 lying around will be able to walk again thanks to the ReWalk, a wearable robotic suit that will enable those paralyzed below the waist to stand, walk and climb stairs. Created by a company called Argo Medical Technologies, the suit is activated by a remote control device on the wrist band and then controlled by the user with the help of a pair of crutches. (Argomedtec.com)

OCTOBERFESTS
Along with the old classic Halloween the month of October also supplies a slew of holidays which you probably don’t yet celebrate. Try these on for size: Name Your Car Day (Oct. 2), Moldy Cheese Day (Oct. 9), International Moment of Frustration Scream Day (Oct. 12), INTERNATIONAL CAPSLOCK DAY (Oct 22), and don’t miss the most fun of all, Punk For a Day Day (Oct. 25).

I-READ-IT-ON-THE-INTERNET-SO-IT-MUST-BE-TRUE FACT OF THE WEEK
Termites eat wood twice as fast when listening to heavy metal.

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