Comments on products can be pretty silly, but sometimes they get the Muse going.

For instance, this dainty little Swiss Army Knife:

Has spawned an hours’ reading and chuckling with the top most being:

Found this…stuck into a stone while on vacation. I’m impressed with it, generally. Unfortunately, it turns out that removing it made me the new king of Switzerland, which is a lot of responsibility.

via Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Wenger 16999 Giant Swiss Army Knife.

 

Worth the effort to read the comments. Some pretty darn creative people out there…

via Dave in Texas, on Ace.mu.nu

My yearly Christmas favorite, reposted:

Courtesy of the British National Health Service:

NSFW. Funny, but Unsafe for work, unless your work involves STD’s in which case it’s required.

It’s my seasonal favorite post, and I hope it’s one of yours.

Not the STD’s, the funny song with equally amusing illustrations. The backstory, from a previous blog post:

I have seen several searches of this blog for the British National Health Services’ “12 STI’s of Christmas“, and wondered why. The answer: the NHS site no longer carries the wonderful show, for reasons unknown to me. As for the searches, I guess the Christmas season has people thinking about sexually transmitted infections (diseases on this side of the Pond) set to Christmas tunes.

Merry Christmas!

Seems Archaic, indeed.

via @bungeechump on Twitter

I think I just found what I want for Christmas…

Welcome to The Journal of Irreproducible Results

In six funny issues a year, JIR offers spoofs, parodies, whimsies, burlesques, lampoons, and satires. JIR appeals to scientists, doctors, science teachers, and word-lovers. JIR targets hypocrisy, arrogance, and ostentatious sesquipedalian circumlocution. We’re a friendly escape from the harsh and the hassle. JIR makes you feel good :-. Subscribe

via The Journal of Irreproducible Results.

I like it when science makes fun of itself.

Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow.

Nearly $2 million worth of vehicles were wrecked in a 14-car crash in Japan on Sunday. The pileup involved eight Ferraris, a Lamborghini, three Mercedes-Benzes and two Toyotas.

via Japan freeway clogged by supercar pileup – Autoweek.

EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration

EU officials concluded that, following a three-year investigation, there was no evidence to prove the previously undisputed fact.

Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the edict, which comes into force in the UK next month.

via EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration – Telegraph.

To their credit, even Europeans aren’t buying this gibberish.

“The coverup is always worse than the crime” assumes no coverups work, which is unlikely. It does increase the penalty: nobody likes a liar.

Apropos of nothing whatsoever.

I was recently at ACEP’s Scientific Assembly in San Francisco, and once again ACEP did a very good job of getting the whole shebang organized. I think I saw that there were about 5,800 attendees, which isn’t many compared with some meetings, but for Emergency Medicine docs it was the second-most attended (after last years’ in Las Vegas).

There are exhibitors there, and while the theme of the year was ‘win an iPad’, EMR’s and Scribes, it was a good turnout and I enjoyed talking to the vendors.

I bring this up to point out an anomalous spelling that snuck through (and it’s not ACEP’s miss, I don’t think). Right inside the main doors there’s a very cool, touch screen gadget to find a particular exhibitor by name, type, etc with an interactive map. Really Cool.

And, it had this:

Aah, well.

THIS is how to rant. Follow the link to read the whole thing, but revel in this exercise in spleen venting:

3. Similarly, this case illustrates the problem with an approach to freedom of expression premised on “sensitivity” and making people feel “welcome, safe and secure.” “Sensitivity to hurt feelings” is not, in fact, a First Amendment value or a justification for censorship. In fact, stopping people from speaking because the speech hurts people’s feelings is the essence of censorship. A system in which what we can say is premised upon the likely reactions of the mentally ill and the undernourished pussywillows of the world is a system that encourages suppression of all unpopular, forceful, interesting, or challenging speech. The irrational and the morally and mentally weak are not entitled to have their feelings protected through the force of law, however prevalent they are on campus.

via University of Wisconsin-Stout Chancellor Charles W. Sorensen Defends Firefly Poster Censorship | Popehat.

I wish I had been able to write this when the whole Florida dumb-speech suppression law was announced.

MedGadget has an interesting contest going on:

Six days from today, the Nobel committee will begin announcing this year’s prize winners, starting with Physiology or Medicine on Monday, Physics on Tuesday, and Chemistry on Wednesday. Although a spectator sport, we try to turn these prizes into a competition anyone can participate in by guessing this year’s winners. Simply leave a comment at DocThink, our new site for clinicians to ask and answer medical questions, with the names of those you think should win for each category and you can win an Apple TV. If you manage to guess all three, we’ll get you a brand spanking new iPad 2.

Rules of the game:

via Announcing Guess-a-Nobel 2011.

I’m guessing you have to read different blogs than I do to have a clue what’s going on in the real Nobels…

The best bumper sticker evah! « My Strong Medicine.

Originally found and posted by @CardioNP on twitter!

Click over. It’s worth it.

It’s the future, as predicted from the ’70′s. Sure, no jetpacks, but at least Europeans can have automatic door ding protectors.

Ford officials in the United States say they have no plans right now to offer the door protector here. But they said they will watch to see how popular it is in Europe and might change their minds later.

“Any system that can reduce the risk of damage to your own or someone else’s vehicle is worthy of recognition, but one that operates so effectively without affecting the looks or performance is particularly noteworthy,” said Matthew Avery, crash and safety research manager at Thatcham, a U.K. motor-insurance repair research center.

via Ford door protector takes the sting out of dings – Autoweek.

Which I’d bet will be standard here in 3 years.

Apparently, even an open handed slap can leave a mark. If it’s public enough.

Paul Carr, one of our columnists who was hired for his grandstanding ways, has decided to fall on his own sword and quit very publicly on TechCrunch. I believe this is the second or third time he’s quit in public in the past couple weeks. I keep losing count. He thinks he is somehow being loyal to Mike and standing up for the editorial independence of the site. But he is not. He is just grandstanding.
…

via Paul, I Accept Your Resignation | TechCrunch.

Read the rest, and enjoy. I suspect this isn’t over….