• Speaking of Palin and "broad", the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner is really sorry for calling Sarah Palin a "broad" in a front-page headline. In their defense, it was a pun ("A Broad In Asia"), but editor Rod Boyce has apologized for printing "offensive language." • The Guardian reports there has been a sudden increase in the number of female headteachers, who often make over £100,000. However, although 70% of elementary school heads are women, the few men who do work with young children are more likely to be in senior management positions than women. • According to a recent survey, swearing is "so common" in the UK that one in three Britons claim they hear a curse word every five minutes. Maybe we're just foul-mouthed Americans, but that doesn't sound that bad. • Researchers have found that your personality type may influence your success at weight loss. This sounds totally obvious, but they also claim that more optimistic people have a harder time keeping weight off. • A new study has found that taking anti-depressants early on in pregnancy may increase the risk of giving birth to a child with a heart defect. Researchers note that the risk is still relatively small, and that Zoloft, Prozac and Celexa carry a higher danger than other drugs. • After a "disastrous marriage," Robina Niaz started Turning Point for Women and Families, an organization that helps abused Muslim women in New York. She says domestic violence is no more common among Muslims than non-Muslims, but that cultural norms can make it harder to confront. • 10% of homeless veterans are now women, and their numbers are rising — many suffer from PTSD resulting from combat or sexual assault by other service members. • If new vaccination and screening programs are implemented, some say cervical cancer could disappear within 50 years. • Tufts University has instituted a new policy instructing students not to have sex while a roommate is in the room, or to allow their sex lives to affect a roommate's "privacy, study, or sleep." Translation: don't be an asshole. • Susan Atkins, follower of Charles Manson and killer of Sharon Tate, has died of brain cancer at the age of 61. • Women have long been barred from serving on submarines, supposedly because space concerns make separate bathrooms impractical. But now an admiral thinks that should change. • Hugo Chavez says "I laugh when I see people from Fox News" that President Obama smells like hope. • A new study has found that gay parents are just as fit to adopt as heterosexuals. Children raised by same-sex couples had no more emotional problems than those raised by straight parents. •

The problem was, I liked writing. I also liked cursing. Instead of one serving as a deterrent to the other, I just continued doing both — as I do to this day. Luckily, former technology exec Christopher Lochhead is on my side. In his essay for CBS News, "In Praise of Cussing," he writes,

Ah, swearing. We love to do it. Understanding why it's so popular is less self-evident. But after four decades of first-hand trial and error, I think I'm on solid ground by saying that for most Americans, swearing is an eminently satisfying, if not authentic, mode of self-expression. With one strong cuss you can probably express every human emotion from love to hate precisely because swearing offers such a powerful release.

He goes on to say that lots of successful people (like Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel) curse, that cursing can encourage teamwork, and that, "in times of joy, cussing positively lifts hearts." However, he also warns that "there are times in business when swearing can backfire by making you appear weak as if you were trying to compensate for some deficiency."

There are times in social life when cursing can backfire too. I'm not just talking about saying fuck in front of your grandma — there can also be something pretentious about swearing. At one point in college a friend of mine pointed out that we had started cursing a lot when we were having intellectual conversations, as though trying to prove we were still cool. Talking about, say, "motherfucking post-structuralists" began to seem annoying, a facile combination of high and low that now seems like it belongs on Stuff White People Like. So as not to be assholes, we were forced to cut it out.

While I've never bought the schoolmarmy maxim that cursing is an un-creative form of verbal expression, I agree with Lochhead that "there's a time and a place for swearing." Or rather, a variety of times and places. These include, but are not limited to: driving, fighting, watching a sporting event, drinking, drinking while watching a sporting event and/or fighting, watching your candidate win an election, watching the opposing candidate win an election, watching Sarah Palin do anything, eating hot sauce, stubbing your toe, crying, finding a big bug somewhere unexpected, and anything having to do with Bill O'Reilly. And, of course, writing.

In Praise Of Cussing [CBS]

• Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid has decided that the entire Democratic caucus will vote next week whether Independent Senator Joe Lieberman will keep his seat as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee after having back John McCain and gone negative against Obama. [TPM Election Central]
• How negative did Lieberman really go? There's a video to count the ways. [Politico]
• And both the Clintons swear that — despite leaked reports that rather obviously came from Lieberman's camp — they aren't pushing to keep Lieberman at Homeland Security or in the caucus. [Politico]
• Racist Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss, who, according to the Constitution represents all the citizens of Georgia regardless of their race, knows the reason he didn't avoid a run-off election because not enough of "his" people turned out. You know, white people. That always vote for the white guy. Because they're white. [Think Progress]

• In the meantime, the Bushies are mad that the Obama folks leaked that Bush will only support an auto industry bailout if the Dems pass the Colombia FTA, as though that wasn't a legit assumption given that the Bushies already told the Hill that exact thing the day before. [Politico]
• Obama released his guidelines covering lobbyists' activities for his transition team and good government types think he is, like, so cool. [The Hill]
• And if the fact that he was able to outspend John McCain by crazy margins wasn't reason enough, it turns out that skipping public financing means Obama's campaign won't face a crazy audit. Raising tons of money means that if they did get some unlawful contributions, they would be so minor the FEC doesn't really care, either. McCain, though, gets the full accountant treatment, which is not as sexy-dirty as it sounds, sort of like how fucking an accountant isn't. [Politico]
• And Latino groups expect that Obama will appoint Latinos to the Cabinet. They are, apparently, pushing for Governor Bill "McGrabbyhands" Richardson, but I'm throwing my completely inconsiderable weight behind New York Congresswoman (and Small Business Committee Chair) Nydia Velázquez for the top spot at the Small Business Administration. LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is supposedly on the list for something (and is, strangely, one of Obama's economic transition advisers), but I think he's more likely to get a sub-Cabinet appointment than a Cabinet slot. [Washington Post]
• Alaska's verified 50,000 of its early and absentee ballots and will start counting them this week to see if convicted and corrupt Senator Ted Stevens will actually win re-election and thus give Governor Sarah Palin a shiny new Senate feather to add to her political cap. [CNN]
• The GOP has started smearing Minnesota's Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie in a misguided attempt to provoke peals of laughter from every Democrat that ever dealt with Katherine Harris and stop the legally-mandated recount in Minnesota because the margin separating Coleman and Franken is still teeny-tiny. Apparently, since 3 people heard him speak at a non-prime-time spot during the Democratic convention, Minnesotans don't need a recount. [TPM Muckraker]
• Noted cursing afficianado Joe Scarborough has earned himself a 7-second on-air delay for saying "Fuck you" earlier this week. My momma would've washed my mouth out with soap, but I could run faster. Not 7 seconds faster, though. [Politico]
• John Edwards has decided to give make his first public appearance following his admission that he fucked around on his wife. What do you think the odds are that audience members will ask him how he's coping with having cuckolded his wife the way that people seemingly insist on asking Elizabeth how she feels about it? Slim to none? [Time]
• Hopefully, the odds are better that the next Congress really will examine Bush's abuses of power next year. [Washington Independent]

One theory states that cursing is a substitute for a physical act of aggression. So it would make sense that as women become more aggressive in life, their speech patterns would match.

The most interesting thing thing in the article is the news that, after people have strokes and lose the ability to converse, they still retain the ability to swear. This has led neurologists to believe that swear words are stored in the brain's right hemisphere, where as propositional language is stored in the left, the part that gets affected by having a stroke. Here are some other tidbits:

• Cursing in groups promotes social bonding.
• "Fuck" and "shit" make up half of all swear words used.
• The seemingly benign "damn" was the "undisputed king" of swear words before "fuck" began being used
• Almost all swear words are based on sex or excretion.

Some psychologists believe that our dirty mouths are a product of evolution. It's safer for us to scream "Fuck you" from across the street at a person, without worrying about getting beaten up. But for as long as that piece was, and all the theories and facts it contained, it didn't state what seems to be the most obvious thing: People curse because it's fucking fun.

The Science Of Swearing [New Scientist]