Canada does not do very well vis-a-vis our Kyoto commitment.
So here we are in Canada, which along with the States and Australia was laughed out of Nairobi for its attitudes to climate change and Kyoto, and we are off to mail a letter and what is on the current stamp from Crown Corporation Canada Post? Wind turbines. With mountains in the background. Where are the smokestacks for the coal burning power plants? Where are the giant trucks digging up the tarsands?
Good news parents. It’s not your fault!
I first heard this from Dr. Bill Sands. His recommendation came from research at the University of Utah.
I now drink chocolate milk myself after strenuous exercise.
This was great news for coaches and parents of young athletes who can be very picky about what they eat and drink.
photo emailed to me by Dave C.
Hungary is another of the dental vacation destinations. Too far away for me, i reckon.
After 10 days in this small border town, Carothers had much to smile about.
She had visited Budapest and Vienna, sampled some of Hungary’s most popular wines and enjoyed people-watching in neighborhood cafes. When she returned home to suburban Washington, D.C., she brought gifts for friends and a few souvenirs of her own, including eight new crowns.
A trip to the dentist may not be everybody’s idea of a vacation, but it paid off for Carothers. Literally. The tab for her dental work came to $2,900 — about a quarter of the $11,150 she estimates she would have paid had she gone to a preferred dentist in her employer’s insurance plan. In all, she spent just under $4,300 on dental care and travel, including a $45-a-night hotel room and last-minute airfare at a pricey $899.
USATODAY.com – The inciDENTAL tourist
I try to avoid big holiday feasts.
But I’m invited to American Thanksgiving at the Masons. That means vegetarian Thanksgiving.
I thought the statistics were — adults gain a pound a year every year, on average.
No? Yes?
Then there’s the 10 pounds you gain then lose over Christmas.
New York Times health answer man Anahad O’Connor takes hard look at the widely-held convicition that holiday eating adds up to five to ten new pounds a year. Not quite, says O’Connor. In fact, not even close. The Times reports that most studies on the subject show that the average person gains one to two pounds from (American) Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day.
… To the surprise of no one, those who were the most active had the least gain, and those who were already overweight gained the most.
SportsGeezer: Holiday Weight Gain, Facts and Fictions
A pound is nothing! Gimme another tofurkey drumstick.
I’m no wimp when it comes to nutrition.
But with my processed food diet, sounds like I won’t live long enough to read a 400 page book about food: The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.
But the Slate.com book review club delivered a terrific audiocast. Stephen Metcalf is a particularly eloquent and articulate reviewer. Listen to that podcast.
For reasons historic and political, corn is used to feed American cattle. Unfortunately a corn diet can kill a cow. Thankfully we have drugs to keep the poor beasts alive until slaughter date. (About 18-months-old, I believe.)
Consider a McDonald’s lunch. Corn feeds the cow that turns into the burgers. Corn is the oil that cooks the fries. And corn syrup sweetens the shakes and the soft drinks. Corn even makes up 13 of the 38 ingredients in Chicken McNuggets.
If you wisely avoid Rotten Ronnie’s, know that a quarter of the products in your grocery store contain corn.
Avoiding corn is as easy as avoiding things made in China.
This cannot last much longer. So much petroleum is needed to keep the corn economy running that the corn economy is not sustainable long-term. Something must change.
New Zealand was held up as a non-corn-based model. They dropped all agricultural subsidies long ago.
Sounds crazy?
Child autism rates have been rising over the past few decades. What’s causing it?
Gregg Easterbrook paints a pretty convincing argument:
Today, Cornell University researchers are reporting what appears to be a statistically significant relationship between autism rates and television watching by children under the age of 3.
The researchers studied autism incidence in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington state. They found that as cable television became common in California and Pennsylvania beginning around 1980, childhood autism rose more in the counties that had cable than in the counties that did not. They further found that in all the Western states, the more time toddlers spent in front of the television, the more likely they were to exhibit symptoms of autism disorders.
TV Really Might Cause Autism – Slate.com
I’m still shopping for a dentist in a developing country, likely Mexico.
Dental work in Canada is over-priced in my opinion. How many can afford $400 / hour for sitting in a chair?
More than 500,000 Americans traveled out of the country last year for medical or dental work, according to the National Coalition on Health Care. In those numbers are cases of heart bypasses, orthopedic surgeries and expensive dental treatments.
More on “security theatre”.
The Newark Star-Ledger reports that security screeners at Newark airport flunked 20 of 22 security tests operated by undercover federal agents last week. They failed to spot items including concealed bombs and guns at checkpoints throughout the international airport’s three terminals, according to federal officials.
Boing Boing: Airport screeners at Newark fail to find 20 of 22 “weapons”
Rick McCharles 