Month: April 2007

Guy claims Boy George kidnapped him. I’m not sure I could imagine a worse nightmare.
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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.
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“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.
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At my local Kiwanis meeting two weeks ago, the speaker asked the audience, “Who believes in global warming?” No one raised their hand. It … Read the rest

“If we were truly Christian, there would not be a single pagan left.”

St. John Chrysostom… Read the rest

Deadlines and fires. That’s my life in a nutshell right now. Not much today. Just a few Brews You Can Use.

Producer caters to homosexual woman crowd:

Anheuser-Busch has rolled out three fruit-flavored versions of its Michelob Ultra brand.

The three flavors – Pomegranate Raspberry, Lime Cactus and Tuscan Orange Grapefruit – will be available through Labor Day.

I don’t recognize any of those fruits. I think that’s a good thing.
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Thumbs up to the nerds:

Mathematicians have come up with a formula that predicts how the head on a pint of beer will change after pouring.

Their advance could shed light on why the foam on a pint of lager quickly disappears, but the froth on a pint of Guinness sticks around.

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And here we thought it was just for the Norms of the world: New research into Britain’s drinking habits finds “Beer is the drink of style and sophistication.”
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Great quote: “We had to pour our first brew down the sewer. We left it in the fermenter too long and it soured – it was like putting your dog to sleep.”… Read the rest

No real blogging today. I went to 300 last night, got to bed late, and now I’m scrambling.

I enjoyed the movie, incidentally, but it wasn’t great. I’d give it a 6. Possibly the most violent thing I’ve seen (and I include The Passion in my grading). Two graphic sexual encounters as well.

I wouldn’t recommend it for its historical value, incidentally. The Spartans killed the Persian emissaries and they relied on mystics to make decisions (hence they arrived late to Marathon a decade earlier, to their great shame), but the whole set up for the battle at Thermopylae was bogus. A confederation of nearly 6,000 Greeks battled the Persians. When Ephialtes showed the Persians how to get around the narrow pass, the Greeks knew they were doomed. It was then that Leonidas stayed behind with 300 Spartans and 700 Thebans.

Their efforts bought the rest of Greece valuable time, though. Athens was able to evacuate, for instance. The rest of Greece mobilized, and the Persians were eventually defeated. The relevance? The rest of European history. Instead of being an adjunct of one great Asian power after another, Europe stood on its own. It gave Rome room to grow, and Rome gave Christianity room to grow. We can’t re-create historical consequences with any certainty, of course, but we know we owe a lot to the valiant stand at Thermopylae.
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An interesting item from my bank of material that I save for no-blogging days:

The early years of the mail-order catalogue business were heady indeed. From Daniel Boorstin’s The Americans: The Democratic Experience:

Mr. Ward received hundreds of letters annually from men seeking wives

The Vatican appears to be heating up under the lead of its octogenarian leader: The Vatican’s second-highest ranking doctrinal official on Monday forcefully branded homosexual marriage an evil and denounced abortion and euthanasia as forms of “terrorism with a human face.” I like it. We might lose the culture war, but at least we’ll go down swinging.
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If you want to read a disturbing story about erectile dysfunction, click here, but don’t blame me.
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Alright, I’m confused. This story says Cho hired an escort service. He paid for an hour of service, but the woman says she left when he tried to touch her. “I started dancing and that’s when he you know, touched me and tried to get on me and that’s when I pushed him away.”

I always thought “escort service” was a euphemism for a quean-type service. If anyone can shed light on this, go ahead.
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CBS merely suspended these shock jocks:

In the [prank telephone call] skit, a series of apparently unsuspecting employees of a Chinese restaurant are berated by a caller who tells one woman he would like to “come to your restaurant” to see her naked, especially a part of her body he refers to as “hot, Asian, spicy.” The caller also attempts to order “flied lice,” brags of his prowess in kung fu and repeatedly curses at several employees.

The Asian community won’t stand for it. “They don’t think they’re going to get any backlash from the Asian-American community,” [the president of the Organization of Chinese Americans] said. “They’re definitely wrong.” Do I smell competition, which ethnic group can mount the greatest protest? … Read the rest

The priest at Mass today reminded me that it’s St. George’s Day. I am, accordingly, obliged to re-produce Chesterton’s great poem, The Englishman:

St George he was for England,
And before he killed the dragon
He drank a pint of English ale
Out of an English flagon.
For though he fast right readily
In hair-shirt or in mail,
It isn’t safe to give him cakes
Unless you give him ale.

St George he was for England,
And right gallantly set free
The lady left for dragon’s meat
And tied up to a tree;
But since he stood for England
And knew what England means,
Unless you give him bacon
You mustn’t give him beans.

St George he is for England,
And shall wear the shield he wore
When we go out in armour
With battle-cross before.
But though he is jolly company
And very pleased to dine,
It isn’t safe to give him nuts
Unless you give him wine. … Read the rest