Interesting tidbits from my email inbox and life in general:<\/p>\n
USDA back off on Meatless Mondays<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Leave it to the USDA to both hand out advice and then retract it for all the wrong reasons.<\/p>\n The message seemed innocuous enough, coming as it did from the federal agency tasked with promoting sustainable agriculture and dietary health: \u201cOne simple way to reduce your environmental impact while dining at our cafeterias,\u201d read a United States Department of Agriculture interoffice newsletter published on its Web site this week, \u201cis to participate in the \u2018Meatless Monday\u2019 initiative.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Hmmm, I think the writer for the New York Times might be showing a teensy bit of bias here.\u00a0 The message may be \u201cinnocuous\u201d to her, but to me it\u2019s just plain stupid.\u00a0 The idea that raising cattle causes global warming is even more bogus than the \u201cscience\u201d produced by the ClimateGate crowd.\u00a0 And just because the USDA is \u201ctasked\u201d with promoting sustainable agriculture and dietary health, that doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re actually doing either.\u00a0 Is subsidizing farmers to overproduce wheat and corn sustainable?\u00a0 Are the USDA dietary guidelines based on actual science?\u00a0 No and no.\u00a0 I\u2019m surprised the writer doesn\u2019t argue that Meatless Mondays must be a good idea just because so many people are going with it.<\/p>\n Thousands of corporate cafeterias, restaurants and schools have embraced the idea of skipping meat on Mondays in favor of vegetarian options, an initiative of the nonprofit Monday Campaign Inc. and the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.<\/span><\/p>\n Look, lady, just because a bunch of goofs embrace <\/em>an idea, that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s a good one.\u00a0 Countless cafeterias, restaurants and schools also embraced the low-fat diet.\u00a0 Look where that got us.<\/p>\n But by Tuesday afternoon, amid outraged Twitter messages by livestock producers and at least one member of Congress, the agency\u2019s \u201cGreening Headquarters Update\u201d had been removed. \u201cU.S.D.A. does not endorse Meatless Monday,\u201d a spokeswoman said in a statement. The newsletter, which covered topics like the installation of energy-efficient lights on the Ag Promenade and recycling goals, \u201cwas posted without proper clearance,\u201d the statement said.<\/span><\/p>\n Let me interpret that:\u00a0 some vegetarian zealot at the USDA posted the article without checking with the boss first.\u00a0 Then the USDA caved because of political pressure, which is the wrong reason to cave on anything.\u00a0 Bad advice, withdrawn for the wrong reason.<\/p>\n PETA rooting for meat-eating senator to die<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The folks at PETA reacted to the USDA brouhaha by cementing their reputation as a bunch of vegan lunatics:<\/p>\n PETA upped the ante Thursday, jumping headfirst into a feud involving the Department of Agriculture, the meat lobby and Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.<\/span><\/p>\n In response to a controversial tweet — now retracted — by the USDA in support of the “Meatless Mondays” program, Grassley Tweeted he was planning on eating an extra helping of meat in order to “compensate for stupid USDA recommendation about a meatless Monday.”<\/span><\/p>\n But on Thursday, PETA posted a scathing missive on its website, bemoaning the fact that the senior senator is apparently “anxious to show his campaign contributors that he will fight to the death (literally, perhaps) over Americans’ right to be sick and fat.”<\/span><\/p>\n I used to be fat and sick.\u00a0 That was during my vegetarian phase.<\/p>\n The post, written by Alisa Mullins, continues on to say: “We’re taking bets (place yours in the comments section below) on how long it will take Sen. Grassley to succumb to heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or some other meat-related disease.”<\/span><\/p>\n So those are all meat-related diseases, are they?\u00a0 Well, let\u2019s see \u2026 Senator Grassley is 78 years old and hasn\u2019t succumbed to a meat-related disease yet.\u00a0 I wonder if PETA would mind if we had placed bets on when these vegetarian celebrities would die:<\/p>\n George Harrison \u2013 died of lung cancer at age 58 Apparently it\u2019s not necessary to actually eat meat to die of a meat-related disease.<\/p>\n Scientists Are Freakin\u2019 Liars<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve read about plenty of\u00a0 bad scientists, but this guy should win some sort of prize:<\/p>\n Dr. Yoshitaka Fujii seems well on his way to becoming the patron saint of scientific fraudsters, setting a record for the most extensive output of fake data. As near as anyone can work out, Fujii started making up data with abandon some time in the 1990s. By 2000, his fellow researchers were already on to him, publishing a comment in which they noted, “We became skeptical when we realized that side effects were almost always identical in all groups.”<\/span><\/p>\n But you can’t let such skepticism from your peers slow you down\u2014and Fujii certainly didn’t. Even after the comment was published, two different medical schools hired him as a faculty member. He continued to publish, generally using faked data, racking up an eventual record of 200+ bogus papers.<\/span><\/p>\n An investigation later determined that out of 212 studies published by Fujii, only three were based on actual data.\u00a0 His specialty was anesthesia.\u00a0 With such an amazing ability to simply fabricate research, I\u2019m surprised he wasn\u2019t in the nutrition field.<\/p>\n
\nRobin Gibb \u2013 died of liver and colon cancer at age 62
\nLinda McCartney \u2013 died of breast cancer at age 56
\nDavey Jones \u2013 died of heart disease at age 66
\nSteve Jobs \u2013 died of pancreatic cancer at age 56
\nBob Marley \u2013 died of malignant melanoma at age 36<\/p>\n