Skip to content

Guy claims Boy George kidnapped him. I'm not sure I could imagine a worse nightmare.
__________

D-Day for cancer?

A four-year clinical trial involving 1,200 women found those taking vitamin D pills had about a 60-per-cent reduction in cancer incidence, compared with those who didn't take it, a drop so large ”“ twice the impact on cancer attributed to smoking ”“ it almost looks like a typographical error. . . .
Skin cancer mortality rates didn't rise steeply till 1971 when Americans were advised to use sunscreen lotions that blocked the vitamin D”“producing UV-B sun rays. This permitted the deep penetrating UV-A sun rays to attack the skin without the protection of vitamin D. Only recently have researchers conceded that UV-A rays cause skin cancer.
As for the idea that environmental pollutants cause cancer, Reinhold Vieth, professor at the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto and one of the world's top vitamin D experts, says those who try to brand contaminants as the key factor behind cancer in the West are "looking for a bogeyman that doesn't exist." Instead, he says, the critical factor "is more likely a lack of vitamin D."

Another link on same subject.
__________

"Human ashes were used to grit icy pathways outside a Co-op funeral home, staff claimed last night." A co-op funeral home? Never heard of such a thing. Maybe the workers don't care as much as normal morticians because they're not getting paid as much.
__________

At my local Kiwanis meeting two weeks ago, the speaker asked the audience, "Who believes in global warming?" No one raised their hand. It appears that a counter-movement against the alarm of global warming is growing (did I read that Michael Crichton is organizing a conference against the "scientific consensus"? If I did, I can't find the link now).

Awhile back, I observed that I wouldn't make up my mind on the issue until the Vatican spoke. A friend sent a long this link, showing that the Vatican rep to the UN believes in global warming. B16 has taken an interest in ecological issues, but I don't think he has spoken on the topic of global warming (feel free to use the comments section, if you know otherwise). This person thinks the Vatican will host a global warming summit. (What is a "summit," incidentally? I usually think "lofty discussion," but summits don't really discuss, they come with conclusions in mind and pontificate--I don't mean this as an insult to a Vatican summit; it's just a general observation.) The U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops is concerned about GW, but I think the administration behind the USCCB is about as reliable as Pravda circa 1968.

Let the debate continue to roar. The greens have racked up an impressive amount of expert support for global warming. But whenever I start to believe, I'm reminded that the average guy on the street doesn't believe the experts. I trust the average man's nose for sensibility more than I do the expert's finger for pointing. I also don't like the green tendency to shout down the opposition. It reminds me of condescending campus leftists, who are consistently wrong on everything (nothing is more wrongheaded than a self-righteous 22-year-old).

Until further notice, I'm still riding the fence . . . and enjoying stories like this one:

Flogging the British release of his film "Wild Hogs" recently, John Travolta urged everyone to "do their bit" to combat global warming, reported London's Daily Mail, which quickly calculated that Travolta -- who it says owns at least five aircraft of various sizes, which he parks at his private home/airport in Florida -- leaves an annual "carbon footprint" of pollution nearly 100 times greater than that of the average British citizen.

Latest