Reflections, Reflections

It all started so well...

Leave it to the Dutch to help demonstrate the health benefits of chocolate.

[Yay, leaped my chocolate-lover heart with joy. Finally, we have a *scientific* study telling us what we would love to hear and not those stupid high-blood pressure, obesity pseudo-science nonsense.]

A study of older men in The Netherlands, known for its luscious chocolate, indicated those who ate the equivalent of one-third of a chocolate bar every day had lower blood pressure and a reduced risk of death.

[" a reduced risk of death" is all I payed attention to the first time I read the news, I mean who cares about the rest?]

The researchers say, however, it's too early to conclude it was chocolate that led to better health.

[What? and there was doubt??]

The men who ate more cocoa products could have shared other qualities that made them healthier.

[Nawwww. You mean, for example, they were high fibre/low-fat dieters, 60 yr old athletes who can run twice as fast as yours truly?]

Experts also point out that eating too much chocolate can make you fat _ a risk for both heart disease and high blood pressure.

[And there is where reality came crashing in. Aw, and it started so well.]

But then I read the article a second time and what do I notice??? the study refers to:

"those who ate the equivalent of one-third of a chocolate bar every day"

Who in this entire world eats one-third of a chocolate bar every day?? Was the study based on those people who had stomach reduction surgery?

So I kid, but isn't junk science wonderful? A study that presents a conclusion based on unscientific experiment design (no control of multiple variables that affect the resulting conclusion) and consequently, absolute lack of logic, and they got money for it!!! And it gets published in the WashPo, that is, MSM gives big media space to it!! OK, so you might rightly think, and since when that means minimal journalistic standards?

But now to what really matters, I don't understand why Europeans think Belgian chocolate is the best. Total inept partisan overrating, in my grand chocolate connoisseur opinion. For those with lesser chocolate expertise, please be informed that there is not one nationality that rules in the kingdom of cholocate-making. Fortunately for us chocolate lovers, there are multiple wonderful options for great chocolate from different corners of the world, including within Europe.

brings up all these interesting topics in his blog and then doesn't allow for comments.

Maybe the comment threads would just be flame-wars of opposing view-points, but then I haven't seen too many problems like that in blogs lately. Mostly, I think groups have learned not to feed troll behavior and most people are not into just spitting out profanity and vulgarity for comments.

I prefer blogs that allow people to interact, otherwise, they become like reading "old-time" news. Mainstream news blogs usually are crap though, but that's because the net is too wide usually. There are exceptions though, even in MSM. The Guardian, which opens up comments in some sections, is an example that even MSM can offer some threads which are interesting to read, even if just to see what are different people's attitudes and "readings" of particular issues. I haven't read too many threads, mainly because I don't share their politics, but the comment threads don't degenerate overall.

Argh. At least I'm better. I was getting worried when I saw that I was sleeping 10, 11, 12 hours every night last week and still waking up so tired. A cold that only developed regular cold symptons a week later.

And today was unexpectedly really cold, just to make me freeze when I had to go out. :-/

I hate the extreme division of the week. I hate having to work a lot during five days and then having to do all this concentrated leisure stuff jumbled together for two days, on and on. It feels like a prison schedule to me. Open the cells, do this. Close the cells, work. I prefer to work 6 to 7 days a week, that is, almost every day, and mix in various leisure activities all through the week. Obviously if you are into travelling every weekend, then that doesn't work. But since I can't get to travel hardly ever, snif... a mixed week works best.

I was going to copy here my favorite comments in this thread, but they just turned out to be so many, for so many reasons, it will take too much work. Great thread to read.

The nominated tune "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from "Hustle & Flow" with music and lyric by Jordan Houston ("Juicy Jay"), Cedric Coleman ("Freysier Boy") and Paul Beauregard ("Deejay Paul") has, by my count, 10 repeated words which would not pass network clearances. They are "fuck," "shit" and "niggaz."

Producer Gil Cates says when he informed the trio that those words would have to be changed, they immediately told him they'd alter 'em. Meanwhile, Cates said "bitch" and "ho's" are ok since they're already heard on network shows.

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What??!! Oh no! It seems the guy took down the entire comment thread. And I was going to go select all the great comments... not fair :-)

At the outset it should be observed that Epictetus (great stoic philosopher) holds out no false and alluring hopes to those who seek his instruction. There is no royal road to philosophy. The disciple must come prepared to "scorn delights, and live laborious days." He must be willing to be laughed at and mocked.[72] Like an athlete, he must go into training. He should count the cost ere ever he enter the lists. For Epictetus wishes no half-hearted disciples. "You must watch, you must labor; overcome certain desires; quit your familiar friends, submit to be despised by your servant, to be held in derision by them that meet you , to take the lower place in all things, in office, in positions of authority, in courts of law. Weigh these things fully, and then, if you will, lay to your hand."[73]

(by the way, related to Slavery in Rome entry - look at what wikipedia says:
Epictetus was eventually freed and lived a relatively hard life in ill health in Rome. It is known that he became crippled, owing to cruel treatment by his master, Epaphroditus, according to most reports.)

Therefore Epictetus commends to us the habit of Socrates who, upon being asked what was his native place, was wont to claim, not Athens or Corinth, but the universe.

I was making my way to a section of a bookstore the other day, and by chance I ended up in wrong section, but which yielded some interesting reading these past few days, because I had bumped into none other than a shelf of books on Roman history. I hate people who glorify Roman or Greek societies, talking about them as if they were some wonderful, "advanced," civilized societies, and not the complicated, unjust, and violent places they really were. Simply because a society musters to have a few grand orators, poets, playwrights and what have you, it does not mean it is any less violent and dysfunctional on many other levels. So I was all too happy to find a book on slavery in Roman society, which really talks about how cruel and horrible Roman society was in this respect (Slavery and Society at Rome - K. Bradley).

I have never read much about Rome and have forgotten most of what I saw of it in school, which currently results in a nebulous understanding of Roman society. So a lot of it to me is simply new discoveries (or rediscovering stuff I had long forgotten). First really shocking discovery to me was the just how huge the slave population was. A modern estimate puts the servile population in order of 2 to 3 million people!! This represents 33-40 per cent of the total population at the time period of the end of the first century BC. That's huge! I have a hazy memory of having heard about this in school, but I'm not sure.

Second discovery, not shocking but still interesting to note, was that Roman philosophy has very similar conceptions to slavery in the New World ( specially with slaves from Africa ) and how they thought of the slaves, as these sub-human creatures. And if they are sub-human, they are not entitled to any rights, they are immoral, they are all these despicable things that justify their mistreatment. And apparently all the famous philosophers (as per Western academic canons) are really a aggregate of disgusting "nazis" in their views of slaves and slavery. I say apparently because this was not a detailed subject in the book, there were just a few comments here and there. (I am sure other people must have already examined this question.) Another parallel is how Romans put into place all kinds of laws and practices to keep slaves from organizing or revolting en masse. And the book also talks a lot about how slaves were subjected to all kinds of capricious acts of violence by their masters, just like African-American slaves were.

Another amusing discovery, was this fellow, Musonius Rufus, who favored equal opportunity in education for both boys and girls, and saw no barrier to women studying philosophy as did men; and rather unconventionally he regarded marriage as a truly companionate relationship. Hey, have we actually found an ethical Roman, a real nice guy? Well, spoken way too fast, as the book explains further along, although he was one of the very few voices (of which there is a record, anyways) to question and criticize the sexual abuse female slaves experienced, he did so for very problematic reasons (and within a very Roman blame-the-victim framework.) Musonius criticized the slavery sexual abuse only as an infidelity question (he was concerned with the privileged Roman wife), he was not addressing the fundamental violence that is inherent in abuse (nor did he have concern for the effects on the victim), nor was he condemning the slavery institution that enforced this very violence. And for that, we can flush Musonius down the toilet. But as I mention below, I wonder if anyone actually criticized sexual abuse for its violence done to the enslaved, if anyone actually mustered to think outside the constraints of the Roman ideological system that everyone was conditioned to from birth? I certainly think so, because even in the worst of worlds, the human spirit fights exactly in that respect, it yearns for and seeks a justice of thought. But often these people have to fight it alone, because they find no echo in the blind idiots that swarm around them.

I always think it's interesting how much "history" erases so many dissenting voices. How many other people thought like Musonius regarding equality of the sexes, even if they were a minority? What else did they think? There are a lot of non-famous people whom I know that have some really key attitudes and values and they will never be recorded. And a lot of repellent people, who have the power to be recorded, are going down as the "voices of our times." So much for the sham that history is in that respect.

The other thing which I find amusing is how many of these philosophers went into exile or had to flee one place or another because of their teachings. I mean, this was really common, most of them had to flee for their lives and do it in a jiffy. Then they start all these politicking maneuvers to get some favor from some powerful people so that they can either return or go somewhere else. A touchy kind of society ;-) Open your mouth a little too freely and on the next boat you go! :-)

Going back to Musonius, he does remind me though of a lot of First World feminists I've met or read, that view "women's rights" from their ultra-privileged perspective, and usually can care less about racism or violence problems that are perpetrated by women, for example, since it's not something they are victimized by. There is no mention about Musonius criticizing homos and bisexual men abusing male slaves either. Which doesn't mean he didn't, just that it's not mentioned.

And the other interesting point, not that it is news, was how Christianity brought very little change for good to the Roman slavery system even as the centuries went on. Eventually...

There was a noticeable change in the course of slavery as the empire aged. The spread of the Christian church played a role, as many leading Christians were opposed to the institution. Though the church and its priests owned slaves as well, the church was at times vocal against the institution and that certainly was a factor on the psyche of the people. More importantly, however, the high cost to purchase slaves, the crumbling economic conditions, and the devalued currency, made employment of the masses a better alternative to maintaining large properties of slaves. The gradual shift from Imperial rule to feudalism and the role of the serf or peasant in middle age Europe eventually did away with the practice in name. However, the role of the serf offered little benefit over Roman slavery, as people forcibly worked for the lords or kings with little opportunity for personal advancement.

As the saying so insightfully reveals, Things must change so that...

An interesting, but self-congratulatory and highly self-serving account is at the Catholica Encyclopedia, with an example that I find just ghastly:

St. Paul recommends slaves to seek in all things to please their masters, not to contradict them, to do them no wrong, to honour them, to be loyal to them, so as to make the teaching of God Our Saviour shine forth before the eyes of all, and to prevent that name and teaching from being blasphemed (cf. 1 Timothy 6:1; Titus 2:9, 10).

[in other words, total submission to all that is wrong and which upholds a horrible system, which is also my take on what St. Paul was all about - simply disgusting and completely immoral - no wonder so many equally corrupt Church men promoted him throughout the centuries]. There is also a parallel here to what society used to tell all children regarding their parents, even those children being profoundly abused.

One real change though, is mentioned here:

Absolute religious equality, as proclaimed by Christianity, was therefore a novelty. The Church made no account of the social condition of the faithful. Bond and free received the same sacraments. Clerics of servile origin were numerous (St. Jerome, Ep. lxxxii). The very Chair of St. Peter was occupied by men who had been slaves -- Pius in the second century, Callistus in the third. So complete -- one might almost say, so levelling -- was this Christian equality that St. Paul (1 Timothy 6:2), and, later, St. Ignatius (Polyc., iv), are obliged to admonish the slave and the handmaid not to contemn their masters, "believers like them and sharing in the same benefits". In giving them a place in religious society, the Church restored to slaves the family and marriage. In Roman, law, neither legitimate marriage, nor regular paternity, nor even impediment to the most unnatural unions had existed for the slave (Digest, XXXVIII, viii, i, (sect) 2; X, 10, (sect) 5). The Apostolic Constitutions impose upon the master the duty of making his slave contract "a legitimate marriage" (III, iv; VIII, xxxii). St. John Chrysostom declares that slaves have the marital power over their wives and the paternal over their children ("In Ep. ad Ephes.", Hom. xxii, 2). He says that "he who has immoral relations with the wife of a slave is as culpable as he who has the like relations with the wife of the prince: both are adulterers, for it is not the condition of the parties that makes the crime" ("In I Thess.", Hom. v, 2; "In II Thess.", Hom. iii, 2).

Restroom’s gay review stirs the pot in Malden
By Matthew Keough/ Malden Observer

A gay Web site’s praise of bawdy bathroom behavior in Malden City Hall has sparked a tempest over the toilet.

The mayor is ordering the first-floor men’s room to remain open while city councilors want it locked up or a security plan put in place.

“The public needs these kinds of facilities and I don’t see the need of closing it,” said Malden Mayor Richard Howard, adding others are “overreacting” to the gay site.

An anonymous letter sent to the City Council alerted them to a five-star ranking on the Gay Universe site for male-on-male sexual encounters in the stalls.

The men’s room in Malden City Hall is the only municipal building listed, according to the site. It’s a desirable destination some politicians are determined to blot out.

“God forbid someone’s kids are in there when this is going on,” said Councilor John Furlong.

City Council President Michael T. Sheehan, in a letter faxed to the Herald, called on the mayor to present a “security plan” to protect those who need to use the bathroom if he intends to keep it open.

Frank Conway of the Government Center Commission, which oversees the bathrooms, said there have been arrests for trespassing and damage.

“I just hope we don’t have to hire a detail officer to stay down there,” he added.

And if guys out there don't know this, please be aware that female locker rooms are not longer safe for heterosexual women thanks to the garbage of lesbiuns and bisexuals out there. Not regarding physical attack or aggression, usually, but regarding sexual harassment type behavior (looks, stares, body language, etc).

How long before we can clean up society of this trash of people?

Lighting up a match in a room ful of kerosene

Navy Athlete Accused Of Rape

Medicare Backs Obesity Surgery

Although some insurers do not cover it, the number of people undergoing the procedures, which cost $25,000 to $40,000, has increased rapidly, jumping from about 16,000 operations in 1992 to an estimated 170,000 in 2005.

The increase is amazing. In other 10 years, will it reach a million people???

Modern society and its discontents.

With one-third of Americans obese, public health experts have become increasingly concerned about the long-term impact on the nation's health. Despite numerous efforts to get Americans to eat better and exercise more, many people find it impossible to lose significant amounts of weight and keep it off, especially those who are extremely overweight.

And the whole world seems to be going in this direction. It's sad.

Interesting to observe, though, that even with obesity rates skyrocketing as they are, and such a huge number of people being obese, they have not been able to change one iota the current drastic and inflexible thin model of beauty. Which is a complete contrast to how homosexuality is being driven down everyone's throat in society, reshaping very distorted, dysfunctional (even violent) standards of behavior, thoughts, and attitudes as normal and good. It is clear, this "reshaping" is not something new, it is just old, dysfunctional sexism with a new face. (I need to copy here some of my recent comments at Ace's to clarify). By the way, Ace and his commenters are going through one of their ugly, shallow periods right now, so I haven't read much. And don't feel like doing work right now (that is, searching for the threads I commented on that have to do with this).

Paul Marcinkus - dead [I have an impression that this guy just stank completely, criminally - if it is true, so sad that he got away with it]

a little something to laugh about. In this crappy, sexist, stupid entertainment and media world, someone actually quipped something funny:

"American Idol" contestant Becky O'Donohue is featured alongside her twin sister, Jessie, in a series of sexy photos on the Maxim magazine Web site.

The 25-year-old twins pose in bikinis, unbuttoned baseball jerseys, and glistening with sweat in a sauna-like setting, wearing only towels. [oh, how dandy]

The photos were taken two years ago for the magazine's online fantasy baseball game, said Jordan Burchette, executive editor of Maxim Online. The images "found new life" when O'Donohue became an "Idol" contestant, Burchette said.

When the twins posed for the pictures, they were models for hire.

"They were athletes in college, then models, and now they're vocalists," Burchette said. "We look forward to their political careers."

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"Democracy" is such a joke. And a failure.

encrypted, much less that it's a difficult to crack encryption.

I guess I can safely pull off that bank robbery I always wanted to do without the government listening in on my plans ;-)

Be advised that my next blog post will be from my own private island in Greece. :-D

ah technology, technology, such a Frankenstein...

So I went to talk to this professor from another department, whom at first glance seemed sooo nice and enthusiastic and talkative when he taught a class this week, and I thought, hey, here is somebody that might be able to be supportive and understanding regarding some problems in my department. Hah.

So, our conversation begins about a certain academic topic that I am researching (nothing to do with department issues) and immediately professor cuts me short and poses a question that cannot be answered in a soundbyte about said topic. So I start answering the question, and the professor does not even wait for me to finish the god-damn first sentence and cuts in again and starts blabbering something else about the topic that came to his mind. I feel flustered that I am not given space to talk. After some blabbering, said professor, now slightly impatient and irritated with me for not having answered his initial question, repeats again the first question, as if I were not listening or not politely addressing his request for an answer. So, I take a deep breath and begin the answer for the second time around. And guess what ??? The fricking professor immediately interrupts me again, saying something completely distorted, as a result that he wouldn’t let me clarify all his wrong assumptions about what he thought I was trying to say.

At this point, I was feeling like I was in quicksand, and sinking quickly. It is always a horrible experience to go talk to someone that you expect to be nice and you find yourself dealing with a horrible unexpected opposite reality. « Is this frigging idiot going to shut up and let me say anything or is he going to cut in everytime I try to open my mouth and not let me speak ?!! »

So, after like 5 rounds of trying to speak, he finally let me say two complete sentences which were not nearly enough to answer the first question adequately, but he started to comprehend something. But instead of focusing on my topic, he then enthusiastically wanted to tell me about his research, which he spent 15 minutes talking about, not in the least noticing that I had actually gone talk to him about my topic.

As if it hadn't all been enough of a total frustrating disaster up to that point, I then crowned the conversation with just the worst mistake possible. I actually attempted to casually comment on a problematic attitude most of the professors in my department have. Yes, I did it.

Guess what was professor's reaction ? He completely misconstrued my criticism to something unfair and actually defended a good attitude that professors in my department don’t have, but it’s what he gingerly imagined the « problem » I referred to was.

Argh.

Now, guess what he's going to do next time he runs into my advisor or anyone else from my dept.? "Guess who I met the other day? Yep, and she said you all are "nuls" * but, really, it was obvious to me she is the one who clueless about such unfair criticisms to us, the grand ivory tower pompous asses that we are."

* one of my favorite French words at the moment, meaning dummies.

Another fine example of the elegance of Scrappleface wit - by Scott Ott

Gay Bishop Faulted for Calling Alcoholism ‘Disease’

(2006-02-15) — V. Gene Robinson, the first openly-homosexual Episcopalian bishop, came under attack today for a recent statement in which he called his alcoholism a “disease” for which he’s getting treatment.

“Bishop Robinson has reinforced the stereotype that being a drunk is some kind of medical condition that needs a cure,” according to an unnamed spokesman for the American Drunkards Association (ADA), a non-profit group that helps people recover from Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. “Alcoholism isn’t a disease, it’s who we are. We want to be accepted for who we are. The bishop has done irreparable harm to drunken clerics everywhere, not to mention the damage done to millions of lay-drunkards.”

The American Drunkards Association also lobbies lawmakers to gain equal rights for alcoholics — “a large and growing group of Americans who face discrimination daily, especially from the department of motor vehicles.”

“Imagine not being allowed to drive just because of who you are,” said the unnamed ADA spokesman. “Police across the country engage in discriminatory profiling against drunkards, and there’s no public outcry about this civil rights abuse.”

Bishop Robinson, who left his wife to live with his homosexual partner, said he’s “humbled by the opportunity to be the denomination’s first openly-gay, openly-drunk and openly-irresponsible bishop.”

“My life sends a refreshing message to our parishioners of redemption without repentance,” he said. “It’s a real improvement on old-fashioned Biblical principles.”

and this news release just followed:

To celebrate his next alcohol binge, Bishop Robinson hopes to personally lead the creation of DrunkGay-SoberStraight Alliance networks across the nation. He is calling for sober, straight students to let go of their prejudices (and standards and values) and build bridges to embrace the Drunk-Homo-Bi-Transgendered lifestyle.

The creation of "safe" DrunkGay bathrooms on all universities and highschools is their number one priority. "We simply do not have a safe space to get totally stashed and have our Brokeback orgies on campus and it is (hic!) outrageous!" exclaimed Robert Parlin, Jr., University of San Francisco DGSS Alliance president, before he vommited and passed out. Other members could be reached for comment but were too incoherent to be able to put together a simple answer to follow-up questions.

It's been a dreary, difficult week.

But I hope that soon I will actually be able to work out a regular sports activities schedule all through my week which I miss terribly and that usually makes me feel better. And I found what seems to be a wonderful teacher to one of my most beloved hobbies. And I also think I had another good surprise, I thought a course was going to be too hard, but it seems it will be perfect for my skill level. Still waiting to hear if I can enroll.

But all of those good things didn't weigh in very much. I had a really frustrating experience during the weekend. Someone I thought was cool, whom I had recently met and thought could turn out to be a nice friend, who is married, actually showed herself to be very liberal and not heterosexual and obsessed into thinking other woman must be some closeted homo like herself. This is one stinking pigsty of a society.

be able to say all conditional tenses in French effortlessly AND correctly?

Maybe in five years, the way things are going... :-)

Three-foot-tall mom with genetic disease gives birth to healthy boy!

Eloysa and Roy Vasquez gazed down at their healthy newborn son Thursday in the neonatal ward at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, their beaming faces a reminder that every birth is a miracle.

[...]

The genetic disease makes Eloysa Vasquez's bones so brittle that a muscle move could break them. She weighs 37 pounds and has depended on a wheelchair since she was 10. Fewer than 50,000 people in the United States live with her disease.

And after two first-term miscarriages, the Vasquezes knew the odds were long for them to one day embrace Timothy. Only one out of every 25,000 deliveries involves a mom with OI, and far fewer involve moms with the severe type 3 version.

Obstetrician James Smith advised her of the dangers. ``She had no ambivalence,'' he said.

Vasquez's small stomach meant doctors had to carefully balance nutrition to keep her and the developing baby fed. Her full-size uterus expanded properly to hold her growing child, but after eight months her lungs became so compressed she could hardly breathe.

Pregnancy hormones softened her pelvis, necessary for a traditional delivery, but exactly the wrong thing for someone with fragile bones.

So mothers with OI must deliver by C-section, which means blood loss. The typical amount of blood loss would have been the equivalent of half Vasquez's circulating blood supply. So doctors prepared for that, too.

Eloysa Vasquez spent the last three months of her pregnancy at Packard. It was much easier than making the 10-hour drive twice a month from her home in the Central Valley.

She managed to gain 20 pounds, the weight gain recommended for a woman of taller stature but more than half Eloysa's normal body weight.

Finally, at 32 weeks, her doctor decided Timothy could hold his own.

And on Jan. 24, Vasquez was able to cradle all 3 pounds and 11 ounces of her long-awaited son. He filled her whole lap.

Timothy's parents, married for 2 1/2 years, have known each other since childhood.

``She's smart -- and a wonderful person,'' said Roy Vasquez, a salesman who stands 5 feet 8 inches.

``And he makes me laugh!'' said Eloysa, who praised her husband's good heart.

Roy Vasquez comes from a family of 16 children, so diapers are no big deal. He has other things on his mind as Timothy's father.

His son was born on the 24th -- the car number for NASCAR great Jeff Gordon, and therefore an auspicious day for racing devotees like Vasquez. ``The first event he'll be going to,'' Vasquez said of Timothy, ``is a NASCAR event in June.''

The Justice Department says girls between the ages of 16 and 24 are more likely than any other age-group to become victims of relationship abuse -- almost triple the national average.

One in five high school girls will become the victim of dating violence, according to a 2001 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

(complete barbarism in my opinion - sigh)

Young men can also become the victims of relationship abuse, according to the National Center for Victims of Crime.

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When will this newspaper have the gall to publish how homos perpetrate teen violence?
The omissions in propaganda...

Did ANYONE actually read how this so-called fat-diet study was conducted???

As for diehard advocates of low-fat diets, they will point, with some justice, to shortcomings in the study. All its 49,000 subjects were women ages 50 to 79, and it is possible that the disease processes begin too early to be affected by diet changes that do not start until the sixth decade.


******Also, those women in the study randomly assigned to the low-fat diet were NOT able to stick to the low levels originally envisioned. ********

(what kind of comparison is that to you?)


That plan called for a diet with no butter on bread and no oil on salads in which fat makes up just 20 percent of calories.

******As it turned out, the lower-fat women by the sixth year of the study were averaging 29 percent, versus 37 percent in the control group.

It is possible that real health gains would have shown up if the lower-fat sample had managed to get by at 20 percent.********



But the fact that those women could not be faithful to such a regimen, despite a behavioral modification program and lessons about low-fat diets, provides another, unintended lesson from this study. A truly low-fat diet is probably not salable to the US public, certainly not without ironclad evidence of substantial protection against serious diseases.

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My conclusion is the same as the last paragraph, this is a study about how eating habits are hard to change, not about low-fat diets.

I also wouldn't be surprised if the study and, more importantly, the huge hoopla in the media wasn't pushed by fast food hamburger and fries chains and others.

I also think dieting without exercising has very limited benefits compared to an extensive physical activity program. And it's not just low-fat, if you don't eat any veggies, you'll miss out on a lot, to repeat what we all know. I'm getting sidetracked here, what I really was aghast about was how NO ONE mentioned how little difference there was in this comparison, since the "altered" group failed to significantly alter their diet.

That's science for you, nowadays. I'm sticking to my lovely, delicious, magnificent 20%-fat fromage blanc.

Some of the articles I read today:

The Danish newspaper that first published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad, infuriating Muslims worldwide, previously turned down cartoons of Jesus as too offensive, the cartoonist said on Wednesday.

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Defenders of free speech who were looking to western politicians to take up the sword have been gravely disappointed.

Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, though calling attacks on diplomatic missions abroad "deplorable," also said: "The sensitive issue highlights the need for a better understanding of Islam and of Muslim communities. Respect for cultural diversity and freedom of religion is a fundamental principle in Canada."

French President Jacques Chirac condemned "overt provocations" against Muslims. "Anything that can hurt the convictions of someone else, in particular religious convictions, should be avoided," Chirac said.

Even the U.S. State Department said Washington shares "the offence that Muslims have taken at these images."

It almost seems laughable, coming from a culture in which showing disrespect and causing offence are synonymous with enlightened thought and mass entertainment; yet here it is.

Muslims are teaching westerners the forgotten virtue of respect. Even the western media, if you can imagine that.

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The Nation - In April 2003 Danish illustrator Christoffer Zieler submitted a series of unsolicited cartoons offering a lighthearted take on the resurrection of Christ to the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Zieler received an e-mail from the paper's Sunday editor, Jens Kaiser, saying: "I don't think Jyllands-Posten's readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think they will provoke an outcry. Therefore I will not use them." Two years later the same paper published twelve cartoons of Muhammad, including one with him wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a burning fuse. Predictably enough, it created an outcry. How we got from there to talk of "the Muslim threat" to the immutable European traditions of secularism and freedom of speech, while Scandinavian embassies burn in the Arab world, is illuminating.

Four months after the cartoons were published, Jyllands-Posten's editor apologized. In the intervening time Muslims engaged in mostly peaceful protests. Several Arab and Muslim nations withdrew their ambassadors from Denmark while demonstrators picketed embassies. According to Denmark's consul in Dubai, a boycott of Danish products in the Gulf would cost the country $27 million in sales.

All of this went largely unnoticed in the West, apart from critics who characterized the protests as evidence of a "clash of civilizations." In their attempt to limit free speech, went the argument, the demonstrators proved that Islam and Western democracy were incompatible.

Even on its own terms this logic is disingenuous. The right to offend must come with at least one consequent right and one subsequent responsibility. People must have the right to be offended, and those bold enough to knowingly cause offense should be bold enough to weather the consequences, so long as the aggrieved respond within the law. Muslims were in effect being vilified twice--once through the original cartoons and then again for having the gall to protest them. Such logic recalls the words of the late South African black nationalist Steve Biko: "Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked."

Nonetheless, the "clash of civilizations" rhetoric framed the discussion for the almost inevitable violence to come. For as criticism mounted, other European newspapers decided to reprint the cartoons in solidarity with Jyllands-Posten. This was clearly inflammatory. Now the flames have reached all the way to the Middle East, where Danish and Norwegian embassies have been burned down. And the violence has been characterized as evidence that Muslims are plain uncivilized.
[...]

Neither the cartoons nor the violence has emerged from a vacuum. They are steeped in and have contributed to an increasingly recriminatory atmosphere shaped by, among other things, war, intolerance and historic injustices. According to the Danish Institute for Human Rights, racially motivated crimes doubled in Denmark between 2004 and '05. These cartoons only served to compound Muslims' sense of alienation and vulnerability. The Jerusalem Post has now published the cartoons. Iranian newspaper Hamshari is calling for illustrators to ridicule the Holocaust. The race to the gutter is on.

[...]

Last year the French daily Le Monde was found guilty of "racist defamation" against Israel and the Jewish people. Madonna's book Sex was only unbanned in Ireland in 2004. Even as this debate rages, David Irving sits in jail in Austria charged with Holocaust denial over a speech he made seventeen years ago, Islamist cleric Abu Hamza has been convicted in London for incitement to murder and racial hatred and Louis Farrakhan remains banned from Britain because his arrival "would not be conducive to the public good." Even here in America school boards routinely ban the works of authors like Alice Walker and J.K. Rowling. Such actions should be opposed; but no one claims Protestant, Catholic or Jewish values are incompatible with democracy.

[...]

And so the secularists and antiracists in both the West and the Middle East find their space for maneuver limited, while dogma masquerades as principle, and Islamists and Islamophobes are confirmed in their own vile prejudices.

---

Nor are we all that different. Sen. Trent Lott was ousted as majority leader for a birthday-party compliment to 100-year-old Strom Thurmond. Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker was almost lynched for saying he considers New York a social pigsty. There were demands that Rocker undergo psychiatric counseling.

We have "speech codes" in colleges and "hate crimes" laws to protect minorities from abusive remarks. But newspapers that hail these codes throw a blanket of "artistic freedom" over scatological art that degrades religious symbols ­ from putting a figure of Christ in a jar of urine to a "painting" of the Virgin Mary surrounded by female genitalia and elephant dung that hung in a Brooklyn museum.

What has happened in Europe is that the secular press, which loves to mock the beliefs and symbols of religious faith, has now insulted a deadly serious religion that answers insults with action.

---

Another example of double standard is the fact that in 2001 the European Court of Justice ruled that the European Union could lawfully suppress political criticism of its institutions and leading figures. British blasphemy laws are restricted to "scurrilous validation of the Christian religion."

The French philosopher Roger Grady was fined $40,0000 in 1998 for statements made in his book, "The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics." In another case of double standards, Ernest Zundel, Germar Rudolf and David Irving are serving time in jail in Europe for their views on the Holocaust.

The current violent reactions to the cartoons do not follow the teaching of Prophet Muhammad. Many Muslim leaders and organizations have condemned the cartoons as well as the over-reaction of some Muslims.

It is worth noting that American Muslims have not engaged in any violent reaction to the cartoons. In fact the Washington-based Council on American Islamic Relations (a national Islamic civil Rights organization) has issued a statement condemning the violence and initiated meetings with Danish officials.

We need interfaith dialogue more than ever before.

While the cartoons are sacrilegious and very insulting to all Muslims, Prophet Muhammad told the Muslims, "You do not do evil to those who do evil to you, but you deal with them with forgiveness and kindness." (Sahih Al-Bukhari)

A billion Muslims cannot afford to let a few extremists or a few ignorant cartoonists hijack Islam, for Islam is a religion of peace.

The Guardian actually managed to write something insightful! Gasp! And hillarious at the same time! Several things I had also thought upon seeing the cover that got a tsunami of attention on the media (ugh) - If you haven't seen it yet, it's shown in the link above.

Decorously uncovered on the cover of Vanity Fair, Scarlett Johansson lolls against a black bedspread and presents her buttocks. Nestled alongside her is Keira Knightley, coyly concealing her breasts while simultaneously flashing a come-hither look at the camera. "These are such beautiful women," gushes Tom Ford, the magazine's artistic director. "Who doesn't want to see a bit of them?"

Ford, incidentally, is also featured on the cover of this month's issue, lurking in the background where he is apparently engaged in sniffing the inside of Knightley's ear. This is oddly fitting. He looks like some degenerate tourist who has been caught humping a waxwork in Madame Tussaud's.

And therein lies the problem with this Vanity Fair fleshpot. It is neither arousing enough to sate the masturbators, nor artistic enough to appeal to the aesthetes. In trying to have it both ways, it ends up falling between the (butt) crack. [heehhee too funny that he actually inserted the obvious word within parenthesis ]

Much of the problem stems from the magazine's garbled (and surely disingenuous) remit. Keira and Scarlett are, we are told, not naked but nude. Naked celebrities are the ones you see cavorting on beaches in out-of-focus paparazzi shots or resuscitating their career on the pages of Maxim or GQ. Nude ones, by contrast, are confident, empowered artists who just happen to have shed all their clothes and fallen over on a bedspread.

We can debate the semiotics of soft-core titillation until the cows come home. That doesn't alter the immediate, unedifying spectacle of a pair of chalky, corpse-like creatures being mauled by their "artistic director". [haaahhaha]

Apparently there is still more of this necrophilia-chic inside the magazine, with one photo showing Angelina Jolie in a bath-tub. Perhaps she will be depicted as bloated, bedraggled and as white as a fish's belly, like that ghost-woman in The Shining.

Tom Ford is only half-right. Yes, Jolie, Knightley and Johansson are all "beautiful women". But no, I don't want to see "a bit of them", at least not when they look as though they've just been wheeled out of a morgue. If Vanity Fair is going to peddle smut, I can't help feeling that they should be honest about it. Strip away the chill whiff of pretension. Give us long-lens shots of topless movie stars. Give us no-frills spreads of minor starlets grinning to camera. Let us have the nakeds and not the nudes.

My favorite comments (so far):

Oh and Keira Knightley should really eat a sandwich.

On the other hand, a fully-clothed 'older' man posed alongside two undressed young women is a perfect encapsulation of Hollywood.

And is it just me or is there something odd about the way Johahnssen is lying - looks very uncomfortable. And frankly it isn't a Goya, so stop trying to pretend it is. What is meant to be the point of this? Apart from 'ooh look, we have young stars on our cover.' But they all get their way - everyone is talking Vanity Fair and les stars. (But is Keira Knightly really a star? I hope not.)

Does Scarlett bear a marked, and disapointing, resemblence to Chelsea Clinton in the photo? [too funny]

At least looking at Keira Knightly is slightly less painful than listening to her accent - and yes she really does need to eat some food and get out in the sun.
And speaking as a photographer, incredibly unoriginal composition, tired old poses and Scarlett looks mighty uincomfortable.

Last week I ended up having an exchange about the Islamic cartoon controversy at Ace's. I usually don't even read the posts, much less comment on Ace's blog regarding such issues, because I don't find Ace or his readers in the least enlightened regarding all the various topics involved in the controversy. As it happened there was a post that I ended up reading and commenting on, but many of the participants had nothing to say except extremely ignorant and stereotypical rants, so it didn't go very far. And afterwards, they continued posting a series of posts repeating the same rants ad nauseum, a lot of cognitively-selected nonsense in the form of vitriol.

update Feb 8 2006

An article that also explains what the ACE crowd is in denial about.

Actually today the media seemed to swing in full gear to educate people regarding what the controversy is all about. Another good example of such an article is here:

While all of this is taking place in Europe and the Middle East, major publications in the United States have announced decisions not to publish the cartoons out of "respect for the Islam faith," while three or four others have published the drawings.

It is not at all unusual to decide not to publish an item that might be offensive to a religion. We can be loyal to our own faith while being tolerant of another, and such decisions take place here at The Times on a regular basis.

We say that their burning, destroying and killing is wrong. They say that the publication of a Muhammad's image is wrong.

This brings up another important question: How is this international controversy spreading democracy and freedom? So far, it has only strengthened the ideas of Muslim extremists.

In the same article, the author wrote, "The biggest question is: Where will it end?"

I have also asked myself, what was the real objective with this insult/provocation veiled as freedom of speech?

It made me think about how agitators and provocateurs are very dangerous people, because they don't have any regard for the destruction of innocent human lives. Their objective is to stir up violence and get people killed. And that is immoral.

A look at how dandy environmental changes will wreak some havoc in the ski industry and at favorite ski stations.

As millions of us prepare to jet off to the slopes, many resorts are finally taking responsibility for the fragile ecosystems they depend on. But, as Simon Birch reports, it may be too little too late.

Good environmentally-friendly skiing tips.

I had seen this in the news and passed by blogging it at first, but here it is:

Stating that “homosexual behaviour endangers the survival of humanity” and that “heterosexuality is morally superior to homosexuality” can cost you dearly in France. Exactly these opinions, expressed by the French politician Christian Vanneste last year, led to him being sentenced on Tuesday to payment of a heavy fine.

A court in Lille ... ruled that Mr Vanneste has to pay a fine of 3,000 euro plus 3,000 euro in damages to each of the three gay organisations that had taken him to court. The politician, a member of the French National Assembly for the governing UMP, also has to pay for the verdict to be published in the leftist Parisian newspaper Le Monde, the regional Lille daily La Voix du Nord, and the weekly magazine L’Express....

Tuesday’s verdict is the first conviction on the basis of the French anti-homophobia bill of 30 December 2004 ....

Completely on-target - from comments above:

This proves the point Tom Sowell made a while ago that the point of the "gay rights" movement is not so much to gain "rights" for gays as it is to deprive anyone of the right to object to homosexuality.

______________
Notice there isn't even the use of any insulting words here - it's all thought control.

Meanwhile women are insulted all the time in France and homos sexually harass others in every part of French society.

Oohoo - look at what the slime has to say now - he asks publicly that his wife forgive him for hiring 2 homo hookers for 6 months:

"If I've learnt nothing else in the last 10 days, it's that my personal life and my family life is the most important thing and I regret not getting the balance right over the last four years as I should have from time to time."

Don't we know, and if he hadn't been dragged from his private sewer into the limelight of public attention, not only would he have continued his little homo trash life, but probably would have expanded it to underage boys excitement.

If she says yes, then to me, at least, I begin to seriously question that she didn't know what kind of a husband she had. "Innocent" naive wives is always somewhat suspicious with homo-obsessed liberals.

The greedy little biseuxal vermin just wants his political career to swing back into escalating. "oh my family life is so important to me..."

Love the tongue-in-cheek humor that is embedded in this news article. If more news were written like this, I'd read more of it.

Apple sued for 'faulty' iPods - Man claims it could make him deaf
By Nick Farrell:

A LOUISIANA man is suing Apple for flogging an iPod which could make him deaf in the future. John Kiel Patterson thinks that his iPod may make him deaf in the future thanks to the fact that he plays it very loud.

According to Patterson’s complaint, Apple makes the iPod so that it can produce sounds of more than 115 decibels, a volume that can damage the hearing of a person exposed to the sound for more than 28 seconds per day. He wants compensation for unspecified damages and upgrades that will make iPods safer. [isn't that cute?]

Apple says that its iPods do ship with a warning that "permanent hearing loss may occur if earphones or headphones are used at high volume". However it was forced to pull the iPod from store shelves in France and upgrade software on the device to limit sound to 100 decibels. [Which only goes to show too many French are ignorant illiterates, I can attest to at least the first adjective :-) ]

Apple didn’t do that in the United States, where people are considered responsible enough to turn the things down before their ears start bleeding.

["start bleeding" - too funny ]

Fun aside, I could see a problem for kids and teens. Since I don't have an IPod, I have no idea how loud they get. And given that I don't like very loud music whether bottled up in an IPod or not, guess I'm not at risk.