News You Can Use

Here at FunMurphys.com, we don't believe in scaring you during sweeps week. No stories about flesh eating bacteria, just important news you can use.

First up, Marvel Comics is putting their catalog of comics on the internet. No downloads, just access to titles like X-Men, Amazing Spider Man, and as the Marvel Marketer put it, hot recent series and so much more! Looks like I waited too long to put my collection up for sale.

Researchers at Texas Tech have created a new drought resistant wildflower, "Raider Amethyst". That's the kind of plant I need around my house. I just love that phrase, researchers created a new wildflower.

Jay Rosen wants to improve reporting by having beat reports meet Facebook. Put another way, he wants to support beat reporters with what he terms a social network, but what I'd call a team of experts, but then I'm so last millennium.

I'm sorry, but I think polls like this are fun but meaningless: Zogby poll shows liberals play more games than conservatives. Just for the record, I've been playing strategy games since I was 9, video games since they were invented, and I don't play Madden NFL, Mario, or the Sims.

The Fed will make four expanded forecasts instead of the current two. What that really means is that the Fed will explain what they're thinking more often, because nobody, even the Fed, can make economic forecasts that are accurate - even figuring out what happened can be mighty hard.

My town, St. Louis, has a dubious distinction - we're tops in STD rates. So let's be careful out there.

In related news, it's now scientifically established that bars cause drinking -- Bars and nightclubs, but not liquor stores, are linked with excessive alcohol consumption and heavy episodic drinking in adults who live nearby, according to a new study from the Pardee RAND Graduate School in Santa Monica, California. I loved this line from the report: "The investigators were not surprised with the results, they write, because bars, taverns, and night clubs, especially those that do not allow minors, are where social and cultural norms are more likely to accept, if not encourage, excess drinking."

I'm sorry, but this strikes me as a gag: What’s in a Name? Initials Linked to Success, Study Shows. And not just success, but failure, too. "Students whose names began with ‘C’ or ‘D’ earned lower GPAs than students whose names began with ‘A’ or ‘B.’ Students with the initial ‘C’ or ‘D,’ presumably because of an unconscious fondness for these letters, were slightly less successful at achieving their conscious academic goals." One has to wonder just how large this effect is and thus how significant it is. Just remember, just because you read it somewhere, or somebody in a white coat with more education than you says so doesn't necessarily make it true.