I defy you to find anyone who knew that Boris Yeltsin was still alive.

The AP reports:

Follow-up tests on backup urine samples by Tour de France champion Floyd Landis found traces of synthetic testosterone, the French sports newspaper L’Equipe reported Monday.

At what point are we going to acknowledge that you can’t ride a frigging bike for 3 weeks unless you’re on drugs? And these obscure frigging differences between one drug and the next … I refuse to believe that all these athletes are trying to cheat the system. Can we get the people who are on the Tour de France anti-doping commission in charge of airport security? Dudes don’t miss a thing!

From psychologist Michael Welner, regarding the tape of the VA Tech killer:

“I think that’s very important for the viewing audience to understand. This is not him.These videos do not help us understand him. They distort him. He was meek. He was quiet. This is a PR tape of him trying to turn himself into a Quentin Tarantino character,” Welner said. “This is precisely why this should not be released. Parents, you should cut the pictures out of the newspaper. Do not let your children see it. Take them out of the room when these videos are shown. Because he’s paranoid and his agenda of blaming the rest of the world is unedited.”

“There’s nothing to learn from this except giving it validation. If this rambling showed up in an emergency room, my colleagues and I would listen carefully and, when we reflected that it was delusional, would go see the next patient and start the medication,” he said. “This makes it sound like he was tormented. He wasn’t.”

I totally agree. Dude should not be celebrated. All anyone is doing is making a pathetic nut job seem deeper than he really was. So that other disturbed nut jobs out there can feel as though they, too, would be vindicated by going on their murderous rampages. It is the ultimate case of Life: The Movie. Fame was more tangible to this guy than death. I don’t know what he thought he would be getting out of his sick media stunt, but he did not get it, because he is dead.

Michelle Malkin is a right-wing nutcase. Here’s her illuminating take on the VA Tech shooting:

There’s no polite way or time to say it: American college and universities have become coddle industries…. Instead of teaching students to defend their beliefs, American educators shield them from vigorous intellectual debate. Instead of encouraging autonomy, our higher institutions of learning stoke passivity and conflict-avoidance. And as the erosion of intellectual self-defense goes, so goes the erosion of physical self-defense. You want a safer campus? It begins with two words: Fight back.

I’m glad she wasn’t concerned with being polite. It’s true, though. I don’t remember having a single discussion or debate about anything in college, ever. Every Monday, we would line up for the week’s talking points. Our GPA was determined based on how many talking points we could spew over the course of the week. I am happy to report that I did quite well.

Aspy sent me a link to a video on YouTube called “Vagina Power vs. Penis Power.” It had been taken down by the user. I did some investigating, and I’m pretty sure this is what he was directing me to. I haven’t gotten through the whole thing yet, but my eyes have already been opened. Not safe for work. Let’s be honest … you probably don’t work, anyway.

Just watcho!

Q: What could be dumber than watching this over and over again?

A: Nothing. Nothing could be dumber.

Have you heard about the bees? Bees are disappearing. No one seems to know why. Now our crops might not grow and we might all die off. As usual, great news for the planet. Now, here’s the crazy and terrifying (possible) explanation:

It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world’s harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

Goddamn. That’s all I can really say about it.

Update: Don’t freak out just yet, me. This is not as unprecedented a phenomenon as the media would have us believe. Instapundit casts some doubt on the hysteria before it reaches hysterical proportions.

This is pretty awesome:

Americans may have more news outlets today than two decades ago, but they still don’t know much more about current events than they did then, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

But here’s one big difference: the survey respondents who seemed to know the most about what’s going on — who were able to identify major public figures, for example — were likely to be viewers of fake news programs like Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”; those who knew the least watched network morning news programs, Fox News or local television news.

It probably doesn’t matter, since Fox News viewers don’t believe in reality, anyway. But it sure is nice to know that we are now statistically proven to have a better grasp of what’s going on in the world.

But wait … there’s more …

Only 69 percent of people in the latest survey could come up with Dick Cheney when asked to name the vice president; in 1989, 74 percent could name Dan Quayle. Fewer could name the governor of their state (66 percent now compared with 74 percent in 1989) and fewer could name the president of Russia (36 percent now compared with 47 percent before).

I know it’s a classic liberal game to cite statistics about how stupid Americans are, but really, come on. Only 69 percent can name the Vice President. Now, there’s gotta be some accounting for senility, right? I used to work with a guy who had done telephone surveys for awhile. He said that every survey he did was disproportionately weighted toward the elderly, because they were the only ones who would actually respond. And fine, I’m willing to forgive 31% … very nearly a third of the country … for not knowing the name of the vice president. But how can only 36% name Vladimir Putin?

This is why it’s hard to care when we see polls showing that Americans have a slight aversion to the war in Iraq. Like, 54% of Americans are against it, or whatever. Well, according to this poll, in the best possible case scenario, 18% of those people couldn’t even name the president of Russia, so how informed can their opinions be?

The entire survey is pretty fascinating. Check it out here if you want to know more about your fellow Americans.

(Thanks, Xeni!)