Eideard

Broadcom Corp. co-founder Henry T. Nicholas III is in custody on charges that he slipped ecstasy into the drinks of technology executives, maintained a warehouse to store cocaine and tried to conceal his illegal conduct with bribes and death threats.

The billionaire also is accused of committing conspiracy, securities fraud and other violations while he led the Irvine-based computer chip company.

A pair of indictments unsealed Thursday, one addressing the drug charges and the other allegations related to improper handling of backdated stock options, paint a bizarre picture. A successful entrepreneur, Nicholas is accused of using much of his fortune to fund drug parties in airplanes and luxury homes and to build a secret tunnel and room beneath his mansion in Laguna Hills.

Much of that allegedly happened at the same time as the alleged backdating scheme, which forced Broadcom to write down its profits by $2.2 billion in January 2007. That is believed to be the largest-ever accounting restatement related to improperly accounting for backdated options…

The 18-page indictment on drug charges alleges that Nicholas kept four properties in Orange County and Las Vegas, including a warehouse in Laguna Niguel, Calif., where he stashed and distributed cocaine, methamphetamine and ecstasy…

In 2001, Nicholas smoked so much marijuana during a flight on a private jet between Orange County and Las Vegas that the pilot had to put on an oxygen mask, the indictment states…

Ruehle could face up to 370 years if convicted of all the charges against him.

Life in the fast lane, eh?

The number of bacteria living within the body of the average healthy adult human are estimated to outnumber human cells 10 to 1. Changes in these microbial communities may be responsible for digestive disorders, skin diseases, gum disease and even obesity. Despite their vital imporance in human health and disease, these communities residing within us remain largely unstudied and a concerted research effort needs to be made to better understand them.

“This could be the basis of a whole new way of looking at disease. In order to understand how changes in normal bacterial populations affect or are affected by disease we first have to establish what normal is or if normal even exists.”

It won’t change how I look at politicians – at all.

There was nothing very interesting in Katherine Rankin’s study of sarcasm — at least, nothing worth your important time. All she did was use an M.R.I. to find the place in the brain where the ability to detect sarcasm resides. But then, you probably already knew it was in the right parahippocampal gyrus.

What you may not have realized is that perceiving sarcasm, the smirking put-down that buries its barb by stating the opposite, requires a nifty mental trick that lies at the heart of social relations: figuring out what others are thinking. Those who lose the ability, whether through a head injury or the frontotemporal dementias afflicting the patients in Rankin’s study, just do not get it when someone says during a hurricane, “Nice weather we’re having…”

So is it possible that Jon Stewart, who wields sarcasm like a machete on “The Daily Show,” has an unusually large right parahippocampal gyrus?

“His is probably just normal,” Rankin said. “The right parahippocampal gyrus is involved in detecting sarcasm, not being sarcastic.”

But, she quickly added, “I bet Jon Stewart has a huge right frontal lobe; that’s where the sense of humor is detected on M.R.I.”

A spokesman for Stewart said he would have no comment — not that a big-shot television star like Jon Stewart would care about the size of his neuroanatomy.

Good thing my readers always click through to each and every article to read and understand the details of what I post instead of blurting out the first nutball hack remark that comes to mind.

The nation’s campaign to get more teenagers to delay sex and to use condoms is faltering, threatening to undermine the highly successful effort to reduce teen pregnancy and protect young people from sexually transmitted diseases.

New data from a large government survey show that by every measure, a decade-long decline in sexual activity among high school students leveled off between 2001 and 2007, and that the rise in condom use by teens flattened out in 2003.

Moreover, the survey found disturbing hints that teen sexual activity may have begun creeping up and that condom use among high school students might be edging downward, though those trend lines have not yet reached a point where statisticians can be sure, officials said.

“The bottom line is: In all these areas, we don’t seem to be making the progress we were making before,” said Howell Wechsler, acting director of the division of adolescent and school health at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducts the survey. “It’s very troubling.”

It also was predictable.

Removing 460 children from a polygamist sect compound and then reuniting them with their families will cost Texas $7 million.

The children were ordered returned to their families this week after the Texas Supreme Court found that the state did not have enough evidence to show that abuse was happening at the Yearning for Zion ranch near Eldorado.

Most of that burden falls on Tom Green County, where the district court hearings were taking place, and Schleicher County, where the ranch is located, said Judge Ben Woodward, according to a Senate statement.

Neither county, Woodward said, has the money to cover the legal costs. “We’re at a point now where we’re going to start limping along pretty badly,” he said…

“I said from the word go, if there’s sex with underage girls, nail their butt,” Curtis Griffin, owner of the local fuel depot, told the Los Angeles Times. “But nail the right people. We’re going to wind up with a $30 million bill here in this little county because these people didn’t have their ducks in a row.”

Politics has been part of every move leading up to these arrests. Even the state law raising the age of consent was premised on getting arrests and convictions at the YFZ Ranch. And the local yokel cops and prosecutors haven’t yet accomplished diddly-squat.

Of all the drugs young people can use at clubs, the latest trend in New York may be the least hip among all circles: Preparation H.

New York bouncer, blogger and author Rob Fitzgerald has noticed a trend among many of the macho young men waiting outside his clubs. He says the guys are slathering up their torsos with the hemorrhoid cream Preparation H to make themselves look “ripped” for the ladies.

Fitzgerald asked one of these guys to describe the practice for his blog, Clublife, “The way you use it is to take your shirt off and rub it all over yourself before you go to the club,” a man who gave the alias, Peter Minichiello, says. “If you want to get [lucky], you have to know how to dance, and if you want girls to dance with you, you have to look ripped.”

Human beings are fracking hilarious.

Starbucks has launched its customer loyalty program that brings with it free Wi-Fi via AT&T. The deal offers two hours each day starting from when you log in that day for 30 days following a purchase of any amount with a Starbucks Card, or after you add more money to a card…

The terms of service that AT&T offers for its free flavor of Wi-Fi:

“You agree that all connections to the Internet via ATTIS’s connectivity shall be for the limited purposes of accessing electronic mail, operating a basic web browser such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer, or downloading files via the ‘ftp’ protocol typically implemented in web browser programs.”

This is to laugh for a few reasons. First, they’re asking us in exchange for limited free service as a loyalty offering to use email, a Web browser, and FTP for download only. That means that you can’t stream video, make a phone call, use Skype, instant message, run a freestanding Internet program of any kind, or upload a photo–or even upload a small document. That’s rather absurd. Why include terms that are patently either offensive to the kind of user this service is designed for or ridiculous to enforce?

And “Netscape Navigator”? Is there a time-warp hooked up to AT&T?

An outbreak of salmonella food poisoning first linked to uncooked tomatoes has now been reported in nine states, U.S. health officials said Tuesday.

Lab tests have confirmed 40 illnesses in Texas and New Mexico as the same type of salmonella, right down to the genetic fingerprint.

An investigation by Texas and New Mexico health authorities and the Indian Health Service tied those cases to uncooked large tomatoes.

At least 17 people in Texas and New Mexico have been hospitalized. None have died…

No farm, distributor or grocery chain has been identified as the main source, said Casey Barton Behravesh, a CDC epidemiologist working on the investigation.

C’mon, guys. We’re just getting into that time of year when fresh, ripe tomatoes are a weekly treat. Don’t make me nervous!