Every year in the US, the Discovery Channel airs "Shark Week".

During that week everything shown is shark-related. And of course it's absolute utter bullshit.

I hate shark week. I'm not the only one, but I still seem to be in the minority.

It seems that for one week people just forget their critical judgment when they turn  the TV on. OK, they do that all the time, that's what TV is for, but the Discovery Channel is not Bravo or E! and I was expecting some science behind the shows.

There is none. Nada.

So first, let me explain how a typical Shark Week show goes: first there's an awfully shaky shot from underwater and then topside that shows a guy or a gal swimming, surfing or doing whatever in the water. Unbeknownst to him or her, there's a shark lurking in the shadows of the deep (put Jaws theme here of course), but we don't see it, just another set of crappy footage of a tail, a fin or an eye and then a crystal clear, perfectly exposed shot of a nice set of teeth. No matter if the teeth belong to a Great White, the fin to a Pacific reef shark, the tail to a whale shark and the eye to a basking shark. What matters really is the next shot where the water becomes red and bubbling like a scene right out of True Blood. That's shark week.

Of course over the years, they have tuned the program so that there's more than just blood and teeth. One show this year had survivors of shark attacks defending sharks against finning and massive extinction. OK, that was nice. Unfortunately, like everything shark-weeked, it was first half an hour describing the accidents where these people lost arms and legs, full of teeth, bloody water and neverending recounts of what happened, and then one shot of them wearing a "save the sharks" T-shirt. Now come one. If I were them, I would be pissed off. Gee, I'm not them and I *am* pissed off.

As if it was not enough, they also have a piece about the Megalodon, an extinct species of massive sharks, that still roam the oceans, probably towing in their wake the Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster. Really? Discovery Channel? The Ghost Lab and Amish Mafia were not enough?

So anyway, just to get some science today, here's a little graph that shows that your chances of being eaten by a shark, or even maimed are pretty low compared to your chance of contracting the West Nile Virus, being blown up to smithereens by a land mine, dying crushed in your car while texting, or being simply shot dead or stabbed while walking the streets in the States.

And in 2007, you had about 175,000 more chance of dying in a car crash than being eaten by a shark. I wonder if Discovery will air "Car Week" next year.

Oh, and in case you wonder, yes, that's me with the sharks in the picture above. Yes I'm crazy. But I had dive #3 in the Great Barrier Reef with sharks all around. That's my excuse. What's yours?