Rutgers likes to call itself "The State University of New Jersey." Instead of a New Jersey State, we have Rutgers. I'm all for education, so it doesn't bother me that some of my tax dollars go toward public schools and universities.

But I have to chuckle when a few cents of my paychecks are helping fund research on The Simpsons.

What makes the study so amusing, in my mind, is that they needed 63 randomly chosen episodes to come up with their assessment. Granted, any scientific � or "scientific" � study needs an adequate sample size from which to draw the data, but it must be hard to keep a straight face when you tell someone you have to watch 31 hours of The Simpsons for research.

This is a great article because it gets both sides of the story � comments from those who think it's ridiculous to think that The Simpsons will influence behavior. Right, like I'm going to try to jump a gorge in a skateboard because Homer tried it. There are commercials that are more dangerous to the behavior of viewers � particularly children � than a week of Simpsons reruns on Fox.