This was in 1978. Then as now, I don’t trust purveyors of illegal drugs as far as I can throw them.

If those things had bathrooms, I’d probably enjoy the experience. At the very least, the view would be spectacular!

Every once in a while, a drug mule dies from a massive overdose after swallowing a packet of cocaine or heroin that turns out to not be as burst-proof as the mule was led to believe.

Are you by any chance lactose-intolerant? I always pop an extra-strength lactase tablet before eating pizza, and it seems to help.

Ooooh, I liked LSD when I tried it a couple of times. I remember that it did give me a funny cramping sensation in my stomach. No other GI problems, but it was mildly uncomfortable. Other than that, it was fun.

The few times I tried cocaine (late 1970s), I slightly enjoyed the effect but definitely did NOT enjoy the depressed mood that followed it. Some of my friends laughed at me and claimed that only people who were already addicted had that experience.

I stopped worrying about silly seasonal fashion rules when I realized that if I followed them, I could wear white on my birthday unless it fell on a Tuesday. (Which, I believe, uniquely identifies my birthday for those who are puzzle-inclined. Hint: It was quite recent.)

I actually heard about this the other day — from retired friends who are in the process of moving from central Missouri to the Spokane area. They’re moving there because Spokane is one of their very favorite places. And — wait for it — one of them is a long-ago Mizzou journalism grad!

They’ll occasionally prank call Boehner ...

I don’t feel sorry for her for having been fired from Mizzou; as a journalism professional, she should understand exactly why that was the university’s appropriate response. But I don’t begrudge her another teaching job in her field. Besides, being a non-tenure-track faculty member is hard work with few rewards.

With the right group of friends, that seems like it could actually be fun! And with a professional chef there, it would be a great cooking lesson.

In the early 1980s, I used to care for and feed a stroppy scanning electron microscope. One morning, while I was powering it up, it blew a fuse. So I thumbed through the manual until I found the instructions for replacing the fuse. Rifled through the lab’s stock of fuses, replaced one as directed, powered up the…

I predict that cooler heads will prevail and the company will drop the demand, but in the meantime: Holy shit, Cinemark.

Almost everything that Donald Trump ever says is either a lie or a statement of his own incompetence, so why does this surprise anyone?

That was the first thing that came to my mind. Weiner’s behavior was certainly bad parenting, poor judgment, and poor boundary setting, though not deliberate sexual abuse. But it was definitely a psychological-abuse time bomb waiting to happen. Anthony Weiner is a public figure who has made himself a laughingstock,…

I’m sure that once they sponsored a research building, the pharmaceutical company became very, very proactive about making sure that every possible bit of paperwork was done properly! As for actually interfering with other research: This is a problem when corporations get too much control over university research…

AFAIK there are regulations that cover human subjects and others that cover vertebrate animals, but you can experiment on invertebrates or plants without paperwork. However, there are also regulations for safe handling of pathogens that can cause human, animal, or plant diseases. In general, researchers and their…

This. You have to consult with an IRB even for some types of social-science research; for example, if you’re asking sensitive personal questions in surveys or interviews. The idea that the CEO of a medical research company wouldn’t know this is ridiculous. Then again, we’re talking about Elizabeth Holmes, who doesn’t…

It’s intriguing from the reviews, but I saw the trailer last week and thought it was terrible. Maybe they cherry-picked the dialogue in the trailer, but it sounded like the characters were reading out of a history book, not having a conversation.

I’ve always wondered whether LePage spends his entire workday drunk off his ass.