Following in the hallowed footsteps of Winston Churchill, the Dalai Lama, and Mother Teresa, porn star Ron Jeremy will speak to the Oxford Union debating society on Wednesday. “Ron is the biggest and apparently the best in the business,” said Oxford Union librarian Vladimir Bermant. Hmmmm, maybe size does matter after all. If it goes well, Jenna Jamison will give the commencement address at Harvard, Peter North will address the U.N. General Assembly, and I’ll be able to convince someone that my looking up porn stars’ names on Google was work related.

With the Pope back in the hospital for the second time in two weeks, everyone’s wondering if he’s going to make it. Well you can rest easy. According to a carved marble monument to Pope Sylvester II that’s in Rome’s Basilica of Saint John Lateran, he’s going to be okay. It turns out that the carving cries and gets moist when a Pope is about to die, but on Friday a priest touched it and — voila! — it was dry. In confirming signs, the grilled cheese sandwich with the image of the Virgin Mary burned into it didn’t drip Velveeta and yesterday morning’s fried eggs didn’t stick to the frying pan with Jesus’ face on the bottom. Hey, a little corroboration never hurts.

The Swiss Federal Intellectual Property Institute ruled that Yeslam Bin Ladin, al Qaeda leader Osama’s not-so-famous half-brother, can use the Bin Laden^TM name as a trademark after all. Originally registered a month before his brother sent some planes to the World Trade Center — talk about getting in on the, uh, ground zero floor — the trademark was revoked in 2002. While Bin Laden says he has no “immediate” plans to release any products using the trademark now that he can, don’t be surprised to see Bin Laden^TM Arab Joy (“Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you are one.”), Bin Laden^TM greeting cards (“When you care enough to send the very best.”), and the BinLadenCard^TM (“Don’t leave the cave without it.”).

A new survey of Japanese students found that 25% of them couldn’t locate North Korea on a map, 44% couldn’t find Iraq, and when asked to point to the United States, some placed it in China, Brazil, or the Congo. Meanwhile every girl between the ages of 12 and 26 can find the Sanrio stores in Tokyo while blindfolded. Not to be outdone, a CNN poll a couple of years ago showed that 87% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 couldn’t find Iraq on a map, 70% couldn’t find New Jersey, and 11% couldn’t even point out the United States. Not so coincidentally, not one of them can find a library.

At a bill signing last Friday, President Bush motioned towards a Hispanic man in the front row and said, “I welcome our new attorney general.” Unfortunately the man in the front row wasn’t Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, but rather Hector V. Barreto of the Small Business Administration. He then went on to introduce Senator Carol Moseley Braun as Oprah Winfrey, Joe Lieberman as Jackie Mason, and Daniel Inouye as the new White House sushi chef.

50,000 California taxpayers opened their mail recently to find pre-filled-in tax forms from the state, including a bottom line which tells them how much to send in. It’s a test of a new tax return program called How Stupid Are You? I mean, Ready Return. The state says this will simplify tax calculations for people with simple returns, decrease the chances of making a mistake, and provide long-term employment opportunities for Dionne Warwick’s Psychic Friends and Miss Cleo. If taxpayers like the idea, look for a new check box on next year’s form that says, “Here’s my credit card, from now on just charge whatever you think I owe .”

Three men have filed false advertising lawsuits against the company that makes VigRx and Enzyte herbal penis enlargement pills, alleging they “experienced no increase in penis size.” They’re asking that it be turned into a class action suit so they can represent more than 1 million plaintiffs. Since the products claim they can add up to 3 inches to a man’s penis, the plaintiffs could contend that men have been cheated out of as much as 47 miles of additional penis. Just wait until they find out that oil companies aren’t actually leaving millions of dollars in Nigerian bank accounts, Tookie LaCrosse really isn’t emailing to wonder why you haven’t answered his messages, and Bill Gates won’t pay you $1,000 if you forward an email to test an email tracing program.

Microsoft, knowing most parents are n00bs, wants to make sure they have the m4d sk1llz to “understand how your kids communicate online to help protect them.” That’s why they’ve posted a parent’s guide to 133t5p33k. I mean, leetspeak. They explain how to substitute numbers for look-alike letters, when to use “ph” instead of “f,” and even reveal that some leetspeekers capitalize every letter except for VoWeLS! Look for their Encarta Guide to Jive, Beatnik-Rap Dictionary, and Pig Latin For Dummies to be released soon.

From the February 10th edition of the Los Angeles Times:
“An editorial Saturday about children’s literature and cartoons erroneously stated that James Dobson of Focus on the Family declared that SpongeBob SquarePants is a homosexual sponge. Instead, in a speech last month, Dobson criticized as pro-homosexual a tolerance video featuring SpongeBob, Big Bird and others.”

[more about Spongebob SwishPants ]

President Bush has asked Congress for another $81.9 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, boosting the total price to over $300 billion. Considering there are 295,475,148 people in the United States, this comes to $1015.31 per man, woman, and child. So far. At the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour, you’d have to work 197 hours — nearly five weeks — to earn enough to chip in your share. (NOTE: Actual time required for payback may vary according to your salary, trust fund, offshore bank account, and party affiliation.)

Bellagio, a Neopolitan mastiff, won Best in Breed at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York City. This is the first year this breed has been shown at the event. They were bred by putting Scooby-Doo in a 450-degree oven for 30 minutes until nicely melted. If it’s close to show time and you need a winner in a hurry, a microwave oven on high for 40 seconds should do the trick.

Forget that guy Jamie Foxx imitated, Bono’s band Us2, and Norah “Ravi who?” Jones, the big Grammy news is that Bill Clinton won his second (count ’em, 2nd!) Grammy. The first was last year when he won in the spoken word for children category. You don’t want to know what he told them. This year he won in the spoken word category for reading his memoir My Life. Funny how life turns around — when he was running for office everyone wanted to hear his sax, now all they want is to hear about is his sex.

A Norwegian real estate investor, tired of seeing ads for apartments that, well, lie, opted for truth in advertising. He placed an ad to sell an apartment in which he described it as a “gruesome two-room apartment with balcony” and a “very worn-out apartment.” He not only had people respond and check it out, he actually got an offer. If this trend catches on it won’t be long before we see ads that read: “Big gas guzzling, hard-to-park SUV for sale with more payments left than miles” and “Slightly used country for rent. Just held first election. Needs lots of renovation and love. Great fixer-upper.”

Actor Tom Sizemore, best known for being in Saving Private Ryan, went to jail for violating his probation when he failed a drug test. It seems he had a fake penis sewn into his boxer shorts that was filled with a clean urine sample kept warm by a heating pack. And to think, his probation officer thought he was just happy to see him.

In genitally related news, this week a woman in England was sentenced to two and a half years in jail for ripping off her ex-lover’s testicle with her bare hands during a drunken brawl after he refused to have sex with her, a man in California is suing a hospital and one of its surgeons claiming they made a mistake when they removed one of his testicles during surgery, and of course there’s the Welsh guy who cut his own testicles off with a knife because Wales beat England in a rugby match. I feel much safer knowing bad things happen in threes.

Starbucks announced that they’re planning to open another 1,500 stores this year. This is in addition to the 9,000 they already have in 39 countries. At this rate of growth it’s estimated that within three years there will be one in your living room.

Part I – A biologist in Pennsylvania has isolated a chemical from the sweat of young women that makes older women more affectionate. When Pheromone 10:13, which sounds more like a missing passage in the Bible than a romance inducer, was added to a perfume and given to older women, 41 percent of them said there was “more petting, kissing and affection with partners.” Don’t get any ideas. This isn’t a license to steal that woman’s towel at the gym.

Part II – A psychologist in London says lovesickness can kill and should be taken more seriously as a legitimate diagnosis, saying “People can die from a broken heart.” But it’s not always that bad. He says in lesser instances it can lead to an extreme state of physical exhaustion, drive people to take their own life, and lead to psychiatric symptoms including mania, an elevated mood, inflated self-esteem, depression, and aspects of obsessive compulsive disorder. Look for Merck or Pfizer to release a cure soon.

President Bush submitted his budget for the coming year and it includes a $427 billion deficit. That’s $1445.39 for every man, woman, and child in the country. If each one of us chipped in our share we could get the deficit down to zero tomorrow. C’mon, it’s not so bad. That’s the same amount you’d spend going to see 160 movies, eating 498 Big Macs, or buying that 22″ flat-screen TV you’ve had your eye on. It’s a small sacrifice to make, cough it up in the name of civic duty.

Welsh rugby fan Geoff Huish told pals at a social club, “If Wales wins I’ll cut my balls off.” Wales beat England 11-9. Huish went home, cut off his testicles with a knife, and walked back to the bar with them in his hand to show his mates what he’d done. That’s one gene pool Darwin would be happy to hear had dried up.

A new study funded by the Norwegian government has concluded that worms wriggling around on a fishhook aren’t doing it because they feel pain. And no, they’re not doing the Lambada either (it’s forbidden, remember?). Don’t forget though, that fish do feel pain, at least according to a study done in Scotland a couple of years ago during which they injected bee venom and acetic acid into some poor trout’s lips. Apparently the FDA (Fish Drug Association) hadn’t approved Botox yet. The conclusion? It’s cool to go fishing all you want as long as you don’t catch anything, which lets most anglers off the hook, so to speak.

There are only two sure things, taxes and the government not having a sense of humor. When city income tax forms were sent out in Middletown, OH last week the filing instructions included such bon mots as “”If we can tax it, we will” and “Free advice: if you don’t have a profit in a five-year period, you might want to consider another line of work.” Tax superintendent Linda Stubbs, the wag behind the wit, was suspended for a week for practicing humor without a license. C’mon, Linda. I don’t send my tax checks to Chris Rock, I don’t expect stand-up with my 1040-EZ.