New Blog Showcase

A lot of good writing again this week. Briefly, I vote for What's Grosser than Gross from American Footprint, Howard Dean Says Something, by Flummery, and You're Stupid, by Go Dubya.

Honorable mention (which is still a vote in my rules) is Proust in his first book wrote.... I really like the writer's style, though his blog name definitely goes against him. Metastatsis. Yick. I'd prefer not to.

hln

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<themeMusic>Tales ......... Of The Bizarre</themeMusic>

Ryan sent me this today. He sits across from me at work, and he sent this via IM. Some of you might find that odd to be instant messaging the person across from you, but, really, it's not.

Okay. I'll have to pedal faster. I finished reading the Lion Attacks Bicyclist article, and I looked to the right on the web page. And that's when I saw THIS.

SAN DIEGO -- Two women have been jailed in San Diego in an alleged poisoning plot.

Authorities say the pair planned to use the poison ricin to kill the husband of one of the women to get insurance money. The husband is a Marine at Camp Pendleton.

Authorities say the two women -- both 21 -- are lovers. They allegedly used a recipe they got on the Internet to cook up a small amount of the poison out of castor beans. Authorities don't suspect any terrorism ties.

California state troopers say they found the ricin in a car the two women were riding in east of San Diego. They say the poison was in a bag.

From this point, it almost sounds like a murder novel. And then it takes a turn for the weird.

The troopers say they also found a pistol, a handwritten ricin recipe and some castor beans. They say the women were wearing shoplifted clothing -- with the sales tags still attached.

Boy, these two are some smart chickees, no? But this is what takes the cake.

Authorities say the two had also tried in the past to kill the husband.

Okay, I LAUGHED OUT LOUD. He's still "the husband" after one or more murder attempts?

Yow.

hln

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No, no, no! Legislators, Stop That! Rite-Aid, Restock Your Shelves!

PORTLAND, Maine - Bottles of nicotine-laced water were pulled from the shelves of Rite Aid drug stores in Maine as legislators considered whether to ban the product.

No! Quit it. Yahoo! has the scoop.

A Rite Aid spokeswoman said the company removed bottles of NicoWater for sale in its 80 Maine stores Wednesday night, shortly after a legislative health committee voted 6-5 for a measure to outlaw the product until it's approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites).

The bill would need full Senate and House approval to become law.

Jody Cook, a spokeswoman for Rite Aid, said the company decided to stop selling the product in Maine because it wanted to be a good corporate citizen. Rite Aid, based in Camp Hill, Pa., has 3,400 stores nationwide.

So, Jody, you're going to pull cigarettes from your shelves, you good corporate citizen, right?

State Sen. John Martin took aim at NicoWater last spring when he saw ads touting the product as a cigarette substitute for people who have nicotine cravings in non-smoking environments.

The product is sold in four-packs of half-liter bottles, each of which has 4 mg of nicotine, an amount equal to that in two cigarettes. Martin said NicoWater poses a threat, especially to children, and carries no health benefits.

No health benefits? You're a fool, Martin. It's WATER. And if it stops a smoker from smoking and gives him or her the fix, of COURSE there's a health benefit. Oh, but we're doing this for the "children," aren't we? It threatens them so. Tomorrow "it" will be a single Kit-Kat.

Free NicoWater (but I'll stick with Ice Mountain, thanks).

hln

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Blogging Update - PETA request

I'm way behind on blogroll updates and site maintenance and all of that other stuff that's supposed to gain one new readers and retain the current.

I'm sorry. I miss it. I'm just so dang busy, and it doesn't look like it'll abate until late this month or early next. I won't add a foreboding "if at all" because I'm an optimist.

Even the workouts have suffered. Only two sets of everything tonight.

I have an idea. I haven't done a PETA post in ages. But I've seen a bunch out there in passing. Please send me links to PETA posts on other blogs that you've seen (or ones you've written). And then I'll need a name for the linkfest!

hln

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My Modeling Career

Hey, boys and girls! I'm gonna try out!

Or not.

Silliness aside, I think it's a great idea. Get more people to the gym. Now, if we can just get some of the silly macho-but-not-really-in-shape men to stop grunting and lifting with obscene amounts of momentum instead of muscle, perhaps they'll stay.

hln hln

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Good Thing I'm Not a Domestic Engineer, Too

Snarky spouse Brian J. gives you a peek into his work life with his post Thank Goodness Software "Engineers" Aren't Civil Engineers.

The permalink is broken, but it's a top post. Brian forgot to sell a piece of his soul to Blogger AGAIN this month.

About the Domestic Engineer thing - I can't fold t-shirts. Enough said.

hln

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Come Dancing?

Okay, that's not funny if you've just been shot in the leg.

Please don't tell me that the lady's name is Lola.

God save the Village Green.

(Get better Ray).

hln

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Open and Closed

And so this evening, I'm on the phone with the Venerable Mother, and we're talking about jury duty. Which she has tomorrow. Here in St. Louis, it's done pretty efficiently. I actually served in September of 2002 on a two-day trial.

So we're discussing the particulars of our different Missouri counties, and somehow I mentioned the voir dire process and what they asked me. One of the questions was "Do you believe that a person can be in chronic pain?"

The answer is yes. And I believe that my answer of "yes" is the only thing that kept me on the jury panel. And the reason for the yes is that my father had some pretty bad back problems stemming from multiple things including a back surgery around 1981. He was diganosed with arachnoiditis, retired early, and had to complete a daily regimen of exercises just to slow the increase in symptoms. But this is actually a digression. My mother asked me about me and TMJ, which is a byproduct of the parotid surgery (only on the right side). "Naaaa," I said. I've really only had about one month or so where it was anywhere near chronic. Strangely, that was in 1994 - a couple of years after the surgery, so I'm not sure it makes any sense.

The point of all this, you ask? Well, I said to the Venerable Mother, "It really only hurts to the point of being excruciating when I'm at the dentist and have to keep my mouth open for an hour or more."

And she said, "Well, it hurts when I have to keep my mouth closed for an hour or more." For, you see, folks, my mother is QUITE the talker.

Much laughter ensued, and I said, "Can I quote you on that?" And she said, "sure."

And there you have it. Immortalized.

hln

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New Blog Showcase

Two votes this week - one for Robert Holcomb's "We're the Best Candidate" and one for The Surly Guy's So Your Heroes Have Always Been Serial Killers.

hln

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Give this Guy a Medal!

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - With self-refilling bowls of soup and jumbo buckets of stale popcorn, professor Brian Wansink has identified one culprit for U.S. obesity: excessive food portions.

In an article entitled "Researcher Links Obesity, Food Portions," this brilliant new discovery (and others) are set forth for our perusal and education.

In the soup experiment, participants come to the lab expecting a taste test. Some bowls are rigged with hidden tubes that keep them full, while others are not.

Over two years of the experiment, students with bottomless bowls tended to eat 40 percent more than test subjects with regular bowls.

Wow - amazing! This guy ought to move to Detroit for further studies of the obese creature. Actually, anybody who wants to look thinner compared to the population might want to consider moving to Detroit.

But back on topic:

Wansink and other researchers hope the results can help the federal government devise more user-friendly nutrition labels for packaged foods. For example, instead of stating that a handful of granola has 200 calories, the label instead could say the consumer would have to walk 2 miles to burn it off.

Uh, Dr. or Mr. Wansink, please retrieve your brain from the water closet. I mean, really. Might I remind you that humans require energy from food? And while I agree measuring food portions to the gram does point toward the absurd, just...just...just STOP!

There's more.

An experiment with Lay's Stax potato chips gave one group regular chips, a second group chips in which every seventh chip was red, and a third group chips in which every 14th chip was red.

The groups weren't told the reason for the red chips but still used them to determine how much to eat, Wansink said. The participants who ate the least had the potato chips in which every seventh chip was red, followed by the group in which every 14th chip was red.

Sesame Street for portion control. Everybody count to 14!

hln

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Leave it to New York

Hey - Happy New Year. Welcome to 2004's first rant.

And this is a rant. New York - the state this time - in time for this joyous New Year has decided to regulate carelessness. No, really, it did. I promise. And it feels good about itself.

ALBANY, N.Y. - To prevent house fires set by careless smokers, New York state has adopted the nation's first rules mandating that cigarettes sold in the state must be rolled with lower-ignition paper.

The so-called "fire-safe" cigarettes will extinguish by themselves if not puffed on, and advocates say they will prevent many of the fires now triggered by smokers who leave cigarettes unattended.

I love it - "fire-safe" cigarettes. I'm not a smoker, so perhaps I misunderstand the meaning there. Aren't cigarettes tobacco in a nice/friendly hand-holdable form intended for personal burning. Don't humans light those things on fire? Perhaps I'm missing something.

And that's just a slight eye-rolling statement. Next, there's this:

"This could be the beginning of a global standard for cigarettes," said Blair Horner, legislative director for the New York Public Interest Research Group. "If New York goes ahead, it will drive a national debate because tobacco companies are not going to make one set of cigarettes for New York and one for the rest of the U.S. And if the U.S. sets standards, those will be standards for the entire globe."

What a gargantuan victory! We have yet again outsmarted Darwin. The crowd hoorays! New York, you paragon of forerunning; you visionary!

Every year approximately 900 Americans die, 2,500 are injured and $400 million in damage is caused by fires started by cigarettes, according to the American Burn Association and the federal government.

The lower-ignition paper does nothing to reduce the toxicity of cigarettes to smokers or to reduce the health effects of smoking.

Wow - I'm certain we all would never have slept a wink last night if we knew that. And I especially love the little "disclaimer" that apparently tells those of us who list ourselves among the clueless that, hey, moron, "safer cigarette" doesn't mean "safer CIGARETTE."

You know - I have an idea. New York - why don't you just ban the damned things altogether. Next year on New Year's Eve? Okay. If you're gonna meddle in your shopkeepers' lives and tell them what they can and cannot sell, might as well REALLY regulate, no?

I'm only have joking. I'm only half serious. I suppose I should be glad that the news today is this absolutely inane. (You're not even reading anymore, are you?) Brian opened the newspaper this morning and noted the cover story. I gave him a blank look, like, so what? He said yes, nothing blew up.

Good point.

hln

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