Posted 7/13/2009 08:00:00 PM by Douglas

From the latest issue of Duh! magazine, it turns out housecats are firmly in control of their human minions.

If you've ever wondered who's in control, you or your cat, a new study points to the obvious. It's your cat.

Household cats exercise this control with a certain type of urgent-sounding, high-pitched meow, according to the findings.

This meow is actually a purr mixed with a high-pitched cry. While people usually think of cat purring as a sign of happiness, some cats make this purr-cry sound when they want to be fed. The study showed that humans find these mixed calls annoying and difficult to ignore.

"The embedding of a cry within a call that we normally associate with contentment is quite a subtle means of eliciting a response," said Karen McComb of the University of Sussex. "Solicitation purring is probably more acceptable to humans than overt meowing, which is likely to get cats ejected from the bedroom."

I don't know how long or how much this "research" cost, but it could have all been settled with a quick glance here.

He knew this a long time ago. . .


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Labels: Duh

Posted 6/01/2009 05:35:00 PM by Douglas

Headline: Hurricanes and Texas: Coastline hardest hit" Cover story on the latest issue of Duh! Magazine.

Flooding and damage along the Texas Gulf Coast from major hurricanes is expected to be more severe in the coming years because of global warming, according to a study released today.

Ok, we get it, global warming blah blah blah, bad raising sea level, blah blah blah. Now, here are some numbers we pulled from deep from our asses:

The study projected that rising sea levels and more intense hurricanes, due to global warming, will increase structural damage to homes and buildings from a major hurricane in Corpus Christi by 60 percent to 100 percent in about 20 years and by more than 250 percent by the 2080s.[emphasis added]

I'm sure there's a explanation that's as concise and interesting as Al Gore explaining fractional reserve banking, but what's the correlation between global warming and hurricane intensity/frequency? How can global warming cause floods and droughts? Is it to blame for those itchy red bumps on my crotch? I should probably have that checked out.

Labels: Duh, hurricanes

Posted 2/17/2009 06:28:00 PM by Douglas

Australia charges water service based on your home's value? How stupid is that?

HOUSEHOLDERS would be charged for each flush under a radical new toilet tax designed to help beat the drought.

The scheme would replace the current system, which sees sewage charges based on a home's value - not its waste water output.

CSIRO Policy and Economic Research Unit member Jim McColl and Adelaide University Water Management Professor Mike Young plan to promote the move to state and federal politicians and experts across the country.

"It would encourage people to reduce their sewage output by taking shorter showers,recycling washing machine water or connecting rainwater tanks to internal plumbing to reduce their charges,''Professor Young said.

Well duh! If you're not charged for your usage, why would you be concerned with limiting it? This is kinda funny, coming as it does from an Australian paper:

Professor Young said a sewage pricing plan, like the one proposed, was already used in the US.

"In places like the City of Bellaire, Texas (a virtual suburb of Houston), they do it and the system seems to work,'' he said.

I'm pretty sure people in Bellaire don't flush their toilets, anyway.

Labels: Duh

Posted 10/24/2007 05:06:00 PM by Douglas

The crack staff at Duh! have released another astute study.

Teenagers who smoke are five times more likely to drink and 13 times more likely to use marijuana than those who do not smoke, according to a report issued on Tuesday.

The report by Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse presented further evidence linking youth smoking to other substance abuse and spotlighted research on how nicotine affects the adolescent brain.

"Teenage smoking can signal the fire of alcohol and drug abuse or mental illness, like depression and anxiety," Joseph Califano, who heads the center and is a former U.S. health secretary, said in a telephone interview.

Smoking: the gateway drug! Next thing you know these brainiacs will tell us that condoms cause horniness in teenagers.

Labels: Duh

Posted 8/09/2007 01:01:00 PM by Douglas

Looks like a bunch of kill-joys, also known as "the cops," want to put the kybosh on the red-neck games. What part of a drunken riot would cause a problem?

Describing the four-day event that ended Sunday as a bloated bacchanal of disorder, drunkenness and debauchery, Henderson County officials say they might charge the promoter under a state crowd control law.

"There was a lot of nudity, rowdiness, intoxication, people running wild on their four-wheelers and underage drinking," said Lt. Pat McWilliams of the county Sheriff's Department. "There was also fights and assaults, and some serious injuries."

Over the weekend, nearly 100 people were either arrested or cited for offenses that included speeding, underage possession of alcohol, driving while intoxicated and possession of marijuana.

That aside, McWilliams said the county's biggest gripe with promoter Oscar Still is that he promised that no more than 2,500 would attend.

Authorities said upwards of 8,000 people — some who traveled hundreds of miles — jammed the 300-acre Pool Ranch to run all-terrain vehicles on muddy trails and watch contests featuring everything from Spam-eating to wet T-shirts.

No!?! I'm shocked, shocked to learn this! Never underestimate stupid people in large groups. All this and more in next month's issue of Duh! magazine.

Labels: Duh

Posted 5/20/2007 12:24:00 PM by Douglas

More fodder for this month's issue of Duh! magazine.

Korea Information Society Development Institute chief Suk Ho-ick was delivering a lecture on the Korean IT industry at a breakfast meeting with 30 business figures at the Lotte Hotel in Seoul on Wednesday. Talking about the importance of the female workforce as a growth potential for the 21st century, he said, “Women are more developed creatures than men since they have one more hole.”

They can cook, too!

Labels: Duh

Posted 5/19/2007 01:15:00 PM by Douglas

It's fascinating what humans do in search of the opposite sex. Men are just as guilty at doing dumb shit, but this is downright funny:

AFTER more than two years of disheartening online dating, Charlotte Kullen resolved to spend less time pursuing men and more time pursuing her hobbies. She plunged into tennis, running, sailing, horseback riding, fitness boot camp and scuba diving classes, assuming that somewhere between the situps and the strapping on of fins she might meet some eligible prospects.

She did. They all just happened to be women.

This and other groundbreaking stories in this month's issue of Duh! magazine. Imagine, no men in a horseback riding class? Oh wait, it didn't say she was looking for straight men. It gets better:

Yet in New York City, in many (if not most) adult courses, the women are numerous and the men are few — for approximately the same reason that men behind the wheel don’t ask for directions. It goes against the male grain to acknowledge ignorance about a subject, said professionals who organize classes.

There's some truth in that, but that's not why men eschew classes: they'd just rather jump in and try something that waste time in a class.

Dustin Goodwin, 38, a member of the Manhattan Sailing Club (he does not take classes because he already knows how to sail) said that he has not found it difficult to meet women. But, he said: “I don’t think that I’ve ever thought that going to take a class would be a brilliant way to meet somebody. But now that you mention it ...”

So the word is out: Lonely women take classes looking for men. Now that the word is out, I'm sure Thai cooking, jazz appreciation and tennis classes will soon fill up with lecherous vultures looking for lonely, desperate women. Happy hunting, fellas!

Labels: Duh

Posted 7/04/2005 05:05:00 PM by Douglas

Ripped from the pages of Duh magazine, TV is bad for children's education, studies say

The more time children spend watching television the poorer they perform academically, according to three studies published on Monday.

Excessive television viewing has been blamed for increasing rates of childhood obesity and for aggressive behavior, while its impact on schooling have been inconclusive, researchers said.

There was a study done for this crap? Holy crap!

Labels: Duh

Posted 10/15/2004 05:14:00 PM by Douglas

Next week, in the latest issue of Duh! magazine. Cell phones cause brain tumors.

Ten or more years of mobile phone use increases the risk of developing acoustic neuroma, a benign tumor on the auditory nerve, according to a study released on Wednesday by Sweden's Karolinska Institute.

I can't wait to see how T-Spri-izon spins this. Analog cell phones? This study's data seems so general, and completely non-applicable to technology in wide use today.

The risk was confined to the side of the head where the phone was usually held and there were no indications of increased risk for those who have used their mobile for less than 10 years, the Karolinska Institute said in a statement.

Well shit, it's only on the side of your head where you use your phone? What are you bitching at? Buy a hat after they lop off half your head! But what of the particulars of the study?

"At the time when the study was conducted only analog mobile phones had been in use for more than 10 years and therefore we cannot determine if there results are confined to use of analog phones or if the results would be similar also after long-term use of digital (GSM) phones," it said.

Through the rapidly evolving technology of the cell-phone industry, they've put themselves in the unique position of only knowing the present dangers of last year's model. By the time any legitimate research is done on the current phones, I'm sure they'll be replaced.

But for now, the GSM phones are Ok, right? That's not the reason I crap my pants every time I walk by a microwave, is it? Is It?!?

Labels: Duh

Posted 9/26/2004 11:25:00 AM by Douglas

In next week's issuse of Duh! magazine, men and women are different.

These discoveries are part of a quiet but revolutionary change infiltrating U.S. medicine as a growing number of scientists realize there's more to women's health than just the anatomy that makes them female, and that the same diseases often affect men and women in different ways.

"Women are different than men, not only psychologically (but) physiologically, and I think we need to understand those differences," says Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Labels: Duh

Posted 7/21/2004 05:20:00 PM by Douglas

Looks like there's going to be rather large issue of Duh! magazine next month. Turns out some people in Europe drink because they want to get drunk. Who'd a thunk it?

Germans are Europe's worst binge drinkers with almost one in five believing "the point of drinking is to get drunk," according to a survey Wednesday.

"Although the Germans may not go drinking as often as the British, when they do drink, many want to get drunk," said Mintel senior consumer analyst Michelle Strutton.

The survey showed that 17 percent of German adults believe "the point of drinking is to get drunk." This was twice the proportion of adults in Britain who felt the same way.

I thought most people drink two gallons of beer at one sitting because of it's unique and diverse nutritional content.

Labels: Duh

Posted 4/05/2004 05:55:00 PM by Douglas

Extensive television viewing by young children has a connection with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder? I'm sure I'm not the only one that finds this incredibly hard to believe.

The more television children watch between the ages of 1 and 3, the greater their risk of having attention problems at age 7, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

They found that each hour of television that preschoolers watched per day increased the risk of attention problems such as attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, by almost 10 percent later on.

The study, published in the April issue of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, adds inattention to the list of harmful effects of excessive television viewing that also includes obesity and violent behavior.

This and other ground-breaking medical discoveries in this month's copy of "Duh" magazine.

But still, even with the threat of ADHD, TV is still much easier than actually caring for your children.

Labels: Duh

Posted 3/05/2004 05:54:00 PM by Douglas

Next week, from Duh Magazine. Here's a shocking headline: Americans Struggle with Credit Card Bills. No one saw this one coming.

Thirty-nine percent of the 1,000-plus people surveyed last week said they paid off their monthly balance in full, down from 43 percent a year ago, according to the survey.

39%, ya say? I find that to be surpassingly high, if anything. But wait for this blinding insight:

"The haves either don't use their credit cards at all or feel secure about paying off their credit card bills when they arrive," Jordan Goodman, a spokesman for the Cambridge group, said in a statement. "The growing number of have-nots, however, are being forced to borrow to pay for their daily necessities, and are getting deeper into debt."

Sha-Zammm! Has there ever been a time in human history when this has not been true? People with money, uh, have money, and those that don't have money, well, don't. Am I missing something that's not blatantly obvious?

Labels: Duh