I think the likelihood of you becoming eskimo brothers with someone you know increases exponentially each year you’re in college together.

I typed that last sentence for the sole purpose of having a few hundred people look up what an eskimo brother was. 

California is in the throes of the worst whooping cough outbreak in 60 years. Part of that blame is going to Jenny McCarthy being an idiot and throwing a fit about the mercury level of the antiseptic that used to be used in vaccines — Thiomersal. Apparently posing on the cover of Playboy doesn’t make you privy to the knowledge that the trace amounts of ethylmercury found in Thiomersal is chemically different form the methylmercury found in fish, which is toxic in huge doses, but still not responsible for autism. Then there’s the part where the author of the study linking Thiomersal to autism rates fiddled with the data, but let’s forget that part. I guess if you’d rather have your child drown in their own snot based on your opinion of junk science, that’s awesome. I don’t go to school or know about these things. 

RJ’s one-word movie review of the week — “Jackass 3D”: Wieners.

This thing about hard hits in the NFL is antithetical to football. I can understand the helmet-to-helmet contact being frowned upon, and concussions suck, but hitting hard is part of the game. If you want to slow the game down, get rid of the pads. Holding would be blatantly obvious, everyone would have to wrap their tackles and nobody would pull half the crap they’d try decked out in gear.

I still think hockey is probably the most badass of the big organized sports. The amount of coordination alone is commendable, but the fact that they’re doing it all on ice skates is ridiculous. Most of those guys don’t even wear face guards. They might as well put spikes on the pads and set the goals on fire, and maybe put alligators somewhere? The best part about that last sentence is how tame their implementation into hockey seems compared to almost any other sport.

Although, if there is one sport that does need pads, it’s soccer. Maxipads. Did you watch the World Cup? You can try to hate on football, but at least they’re trying to run into each other, not prancing around like a bunch of sissies in a contest to see who can pretend to fall down first. I’ll tell you where you can stick that vuv … er … vulva … valulv … vbzfbrthbp … I’M GOING TO BEAT YOU TO DEATH WITH IT IS WHAT I’M GONNA DO!

Vuvuzela.

RJ’s one-sentence book review: If you haven’t been sad lately, read Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.” 

AXE body fragrance dropped T.I. from promotional campaigns thanks to violating his probation stemming from federal weapon charges. Apparently, dudes in Ed Hardy shirts have strong opinions about these things, especially when it comes to deodorant. 

I don’t understand the rule about soccer kicks in American MMA. How is kicking someone in the face while they’re on the ground worse than doing it while they’re standing? I get the “no stomps” rule, but it’d definitely change the sprawl-and-brawl tactics. The Japanese love the soccer kicks, and they don’t ever cheer during the match. They also have a “no elbows” rule, not because of safety, but because they don’t want cuts to stop fights. Why? The Japanese are awesome, that’s why. 

North Korea is detonating a third atomic bomb — atomic as in “fission” — isn’t that cute? The last test those crazies did was 15 kilotons of TNT — the equivalent of the Hiroshima blast. We blew up the first hydrogen bomb in 1952. We have single-shot nukes in the 1,500-kiloton range strapped to fighter jets, sure, but allow me to tell you the kind of awesome our grandparents spent their tax dollars on: Single-shot nukes are old and busted. Our submarines carry missiles with MIRV warheads. These can rain up to 12 500-kiloton explosions, but we pinky-promised we’d only shoot five at a time in the latest nuke treaty. I condescend to our nuclear arms treaty, because MIRVs were our way of getting around the first treaties to reduce the number of missiles. Go America. 

There’s a Facebook algorithm that doesn’t show photos of your exes in that stupid memories thing you forgot existed on the top right-hand side of pages. Seriously.

Things exist thanks to the gullibility of people: herbal suppliments, vitamin suppliments, GNC, televangelism/Fox News — they’re the same thing, astrology, this column, chiropractic, D.A.R.E., scientology, political correctness, undergraduate science degrees, this column, half of all children, intelligent design, marriage, the TSA, Cracker Barrel, the recession and congress. Oh snap.