In Unrelated News….

‘Shark Week’ starts off with another Cape Cod beach closing:

As viewers around the country begin to sink their teeth into Discovery’s annual “Shark Week,” the aquatic predators continue to lurk around the Cape, causing numerous beach closures over the weekend.

Another shark sighting shut down a Cape Cod beach Sunday, this time at Marconi when a lifeguard saw a shark fin about 40 yards from the shore. The beach was then shut down for an hour starting at 11:45 a.m., per the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy’s Sharktivity app.

Cape Cod rentals are having an unexpectedly slow summer:

Happen to have this week off and no plans? You might still find a vacancy on Cape Cod.

A Truro cottage set atop a coastal bluff with stairs to a private beach was still available on Friday — at a $1,100 discount. It was the first time in three decades that a summer week at the cottage went unclaimed, the owner said, and it’s not the only week still available.

A mystery for the ages!

Actually, the second article does mention the shark sightings.

Me, I’m worried because shark attacks were all in the news during the summer of 2001. Then some people did something that knocked the sharks out of the headlines.

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Headline Gives Wrong Impression

I know it’s unexpected that a headline gives the completely wrong impression, but on the home page of the Springfield News-Leader, we get this:

“Hawley will review Springfield Catholic files”.

The headline on the actual story page is much clearer: Springfield-Cape Girardeau diocese to cooperate with Hawley’s clergy abuse investigation.

What’s the problem?

Springfield Catholic generally refers to the Catholic high school in town, as this other News-Leader story shows: Tyson Riley’s heroics give Springfield Catholic a thrilling win over Seneca.

The short, pretty headline on the home page makes it sound like the state Attorney General is reviewing the school’s files in particular, which it is not.

Poor form, Peter.

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Dr. Johnson Not Cited

Internet hoaxers aren’t even trying any more.

An article on the Daily Mail (UK) Web site linked by Instapundit bears the headline Women DO judge men on their penis size: Researchers say it is ‘as important as a man’s height’.

However, one the Internet one should be skeptical of everything, especially those sourced like this:

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (a journal commonly known by its initials as PNAS), Brian Mautz, Bob Wong, Richard Peters and Michael Jennions use a clever experimental manipulation of computer-generated imagery – CGI – to test the effects of variation in penis size relative to height and torso shape (shoulder width relative to waist width) on the attractiveness of male bodies to women.

This cannot be real, can it?

I’ve looked at the universities listed with the authors, and only Richard Peters actually is at the place where it says he works (but he’s not in the Department of Zoology).

However, the study (and the news article) are three years old. So perhaps they moved on. If they ever existed.

You’re saying to yourself, Brian J. sure is working hard to discredit this study. Does it make him feel bad about himself?.

I’m not going to dignify that with a response.

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