The virus that causes the common cold may be a "hit and hide" virus. It may create a cold then hide in the body for weeks. Some people may act as carriers of it, like a modern Typhoid Mary.

And...?

I mean, whaddya want us, the workaday public, to do about it? There's no cure or vaccine for the cold. We already know how to minimize spreading disease (wash your hands, don't sneeze snot on everybody). Now what? Will this information help us disease-ridden individuals out here in the real world? I can't think of any way it would.

Must our brains be inundated with useless information masquerading as "news"? I can't think of a single reason that this story needed to be published. Doctors get their information from JAMA and medical sources, not MSNBC. I feel for the poor unsuspecting masses who will read this and think they learned something, but in reality there's nothing there that is of any benefit whatsoever. Of course, these are the same people who obsess over things like Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey.

Well, here's a frightening little tidbit for all you travelers out there. Everyone knows that you shouldn't think too hard about who's been in your hotel room before you, much less what they were doing. The AP has gone and quantified those subconscious fears by telling us what the dirtiest items in that mysterious hotel room are.

The grodiest object? The remote. Of course it is, because the weirdo who was there before you was flipping between porn channels with one hand while alternately spanking the monkey and gnawing pork rinds with the other. If they're still interested in finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, why not go put a few Iraqi hotel remotes in a Petri dish. I'm sure that shit'd qualify as a WMD.

Enjoy your summer vacation. Bring body condoms!

I feel better already! Thank God NORAD has had these preparations for hijacked aircraft. I can see that their preparations did wonders. One good thing about our government's preparations, they refuse to name the building that the "hijackers" in the exercise were to crash into. That's good, protect the innocence of the building. I'm sure it would be emotionally scarred otherwise.

No wonder their little plot wouldn't work: the 9/11 hijackers flew the planes into the wrong buildings! The one building that NORAD had planned to defend against wasn't the Pentagon or the World Trade Center. Does anyone else see a problem here? Wouldn't it make sense that NORAD's plans would be a tad bit more flexible? Is it not possible to train responses based on ideas rather than exact scenarios? It seems that the current ideology doesn't seem to leave a lot of leeway in preparations. I mean, after all, what if the wind is blowing from the south on the crucial day instead of the west? Or what if there are women hijackers instead of men? Have they prepared for that? I doubt it. It is not possible to prepare for every contingency, yet that is what the government seems bound and determined to spend our tax dollars on doing. Well, at least they can protect the innocence of the buildings.

I think this is a fabulous idea! Jesse Jackson negotiating for hostages. Because, you know, perennially running for president based on rhymey slogans and international hostage negotiations are practically the same thing.

What's really great is that he, a religious representative of the The Great Satan who has a large constituency of infidels wants to confer with none other than the religious leaders in Iraq. Yes the very leaders who instigate the rage and hate against the Great Satan, America, in the first place! What irony! You can't pay for this kinda stuff!

Possibly most telling is his advanced plan for contacting the necessary parties: "They watch CNN." That's so awesome! He's relying on some Muslim cleric in Iraq to be sitting there in his living room, toking on his hookah and happens to flip to CNN just as they're broadcasting Jesse's "appeal"! I hope he's not in the bathroom or something at the crucial instant. Wouldn't it suck for Jesse if the cleric's cable was out that day? Or if he had just gone to the fridge to get some leftover hummus? Good luck, Jess!