Human health NOW valued at 1.7 billion dollars

Life. We all need it (well, most of us). However, what we don’t need to know, typically, is the amount that it’s worth.

Well, thanks to a lawsuit that’s been filed in Santa Monica, we now know an approximation: 1.7 billion dollars.

At least, this is how much Denise Barton thinks her life is worth. She’s filed the suit, claiming that the wireless parking meters used in the city have interfered and ruined her life. Apparently some people think you can fight city hall. Sometime back, the World Health Organization stated that low-level radiation may cause cancer and maladies in humans. Extrapolating from this, Barton thinks that the city is trying to kill her. Tin-foils hats ON.

The thing, what happens if she wins the lawsuit? Just how much would her life be worth if the parking meters were removed? More? Less? These are the intriguing thoughts we have that aren’t morbid at all and don’t imply a termination contract for her. Nope. Not at all. No. Ummm … next subject!

The bald and the beautiful

Much like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom we celebrate today, Rebecca Sypin of Lancaster, Calif., and friend Jane Bingham of New Jersey also have a dream.

That dream is of a “beautiful and bald” Barbie doll. Not satisfied with destroying the body images of little girls with hair, the two have launched a Facebook campaign to convince Mattell (or, less desirably, another toy company) to add a hairless Barbie to their line.

Mattell has, to date, not committed to the doll, saying they receive “hundreds of passionate requests for various dolls” and will keep their application on file. If that response sounds political, it’s probably because of a rival request from the Little Brothers of America, whose Facebook group claims that an already bald Barbie will put millions of younger siblings out of work.

Now it’s cancer rather than hair growing on palms

Okay, remember how in Back to the Future, plutonium was needed to power the DeLorean, but the Libyan terrorists wanted it back?

Now swap in tissue boxes with DeLorean and Bed, Bath & Beyond with Libyan terrorists and you’ve got this story.

A shipment of tissues box covers making their way to the California corner of Bed, Bath & Beyond (if they’ve got time, Saturday’s looking busy) were delayed in their travels. At a truck scale, the radiation sensor was set off, probably setting off tornado sirens and klaxons left and right. The box covers apparently had been coated in low levels of cobalt-60. Triple B is now offering a recall on the products.

The radiation is reportedly not too dangerous to people if they left them in their bathroom, but I have a feeling my old suitemate from college, Sploosh, might have a bad case of testicular cancer if he bought them.

At least one teenager has justified the snotty attitude

It’s official: Angela Zhang is better than you. And me. And you and you and you.

At just 17 years old, the Wunderkind has managed to win a 100 grand grant from the Siemens Competition. What will the money be used for? Nothing short of developing a possible cure for cancer through the power of nanotechnology. Her project has been nicknamed “the Swiss army knife of cancer treatment” for the multi-purpose approach it takes with both cancer cells and cell imaging.

There’s only one problem, the name:

Her project was entitled “Design of Image-guided, Photo-thermal Controlled Drug Releasing Multifunctional Nanosystem for the Treatment of Cancer Stem Cells.”

That doesn’t exactly lend itself to a kick-ass acronym. We at SG suggest the project being renamed “C.A.N.C.E.R.P.U.N.C.H.” We don’t actually what it breaks down to, but at least the acronym tells you what the project does.

Better living with radiation

It’s like the circle of life for science: The dawn rises. Purple llamas in pink pajamas prance about.

Radiation is used. This grants superpowers. Superpowers are used. In the process, more radiation is used.

Superpowers are lost. More radiation is used. Cancer is obtained. More radiation is used.

Cancer is in remission. Radiation is used again to conquer the lingering bits of cancer. Cancer arises from Tokyo Harbor.

Radiation is now used near your sac of berries. This manages to not kill your berries but does put a pounding on the cancer.

Berries are now broken and spread upon the face of a newborn child. Please note these are different berries than from before.

Men just do cancer better than women

The battle of the sexes has finally been settled, and–suprise, suprise–men won.

Oh, sure. Maybe women multitask and empathize with non-groin-related injuries better than men, but the boys in the Secret Man Lab got together and cooked up a dilly of a game-changer: better cancer.

Women may get cancer, but men get cancer so hard that they die from it more. So, next time your wife, girlfriend or beard are whining about their breast cancer, tell them to Komen walk it off because your balls are killing you.

The future looms closer, and I’m left unhappy

I love the future. Everything about it sounded awesome when I was a kid. Everything about it looked awesome when I was a kid. I bet that everything about even would have smelled awesome when I was a kid.

But now, as an adult, I’m left downtrodden.

Oh, sure, we can have marvels here and there. I mean, just recently, a group of Swedish surgeons transplanted a windpipe that was artificially grown. Fantastic! We’re now officially one step closer to having a completely donor-less organ replacement society. Guys, that means you’ll no longer have to check that box when renewing your license just so you can brag about it to a girl in hopes of getting laid.

But we’re not in the future yet. Why? Because I don’t have access to my very own jet-pack. You lied to me, science! THIS IS THE FUTURE! I WANT MY GODDAMN JET-PACK!

Your mouth is a cancer zone

Bet you won’t hear John Mayer singing that song.

Everything will kill you. Often, this consists of the stuff you don’t like. More often, though, it consists of the stuff that you do like. And the stuff that you do like? It turns out it may kill you slowly, it may kill you quickly, it all depends on what other contributing factors you want to include.

We don’t want to alarm anyone, nor do we want to jump to conclusions-but we do suspect that prostitutes may be nothing more than pustules wearing skin suits.

Wal-Mart fires inept employees?

You wouldn’t know it by walking in one, but Wal-Mart has employment standards. They proved it by firing Joseph Casias, 2008’s Associate of the Year.

How had Casias fallen so far in only a year? Marijuana.

Well, also cancer, living in Michigan and a prescription for marijuana from his doctor.

But still: Joseph Casias is a reefer addict, and The Store That Sam Built can’t abide junkies jeopardizing “the safety of its customers and associates.” (They will continue to sell three-day old hot dogs to stoner customers, however.)

And just in case you aren’t on the exploitative global corporations’ side yet, guess who’s leading the fight against them? The ACLU. We’re not saying you’re wrong for agreeing with the ACLU per se, just that God may not be able to tell the difference when you die.

Stupak is as Stupak does

Just when Democrats are showing signs of finally working around obstructionist Republicans over health care reform, Democrats are tripping over their own shoes again. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., wants the reform bill to ban all funding for abortion–including by private insurers–or he and 11 other reps won’t vote for it.

Abortion, a legal medical procedure, isn’t popular. We’re with Supak: we don’t like it. Let’s force people to pay for it out of their own pockets.

But that’s not the only procedure we have a problem with. We’d also like to see stringent language ban funding for:

  • Gynecology: In a way, isn’t it just gloved finger-rape of our wives and girlfriends?
  • Chemotherapy: Bald, sickly people give us the heebie-jeebies.
  • All Cancer Treatment in General: Almost all cancers are lifestyle-induced. How can we know if someone didn’t get cancer from smoking or kicking puppies?

As you can see, we are very morally opposed to these treatments. We’re so opposed, in fact, that rather than introduce a bill to make them illegal, we’d rather just charge the people who get them.