Category: In the News

warnings for hot dogs?

There’s a vegan advocacy group that is suing 5 of the major hot dog manufacturers, wanting a cancer-risk warning label to be placed on all hot dog packages sold in New Jersey.  (Only New Jersey?)  The lawsuit is on behalf of 3 New Jersey residents who bought hot dogs without knowing that they are (supposedly) a cause of colorectal cancer.  Well, the reason there’s no such warning is that such a claim has never been proven scientifically.  (And that seems like a valid reason.)

The president of the Cancer Project (who filed this lawsuit) compares the health risk of eating hot dogs to the lung cancer risk of smoking cigarettes.   I’m thinking WHATEVER.  Only when science backs that up will I believe such a claim.

If they start putting these warning labels on hot dogs, then we might as well throw the whole bathtub out with the bathwater.  How about this?   I think certain restaurants need a warning label for potential flatulence.   If a particular restaurant tends to give you gas (for example, Taco Bell), that could put your social status at risk.  Suppose you’re about to go in for a major job interview, but you’ve got a rumbly in your tumbly because of eating a few double cheesy beefy burritos.  It happens!  (Sadly, in today’s over-the-top “politically correct” society, I could see such a thing passing…)

talking smack without backing it up

The competitiveness of sports leads to some great smack-talking sometimes.  You may not hear it as much on the professional level, but sometimes it’s there.  Today we got to witness that, at the 2009 Wimbledon.

To set up the story, Roger Federer played Robin Soderling in the final at the 2009 French Open less than a month ago.  Before that match, Soderling had joked with his coach that nobody beats him 10 times in a row, because he was 0-9 against Federer.  As you know, Federer won that match fairly easily.  After the match, Soderling told everyone about that conversation, even saying it to Federer, and then joked that nobody beats him 11 times in a row.  Which leads us to today’s match, where they met again.

Soderling’s game translates better to grass, so one would expect this match to be closer.  The score was close, even though Federer won in straight sets.  I’m curious what Soderling will say this time…  🙂

You can decide how the world will end!

Recently I came across a news article called Five Ways the World Can End.  (No, I wasn’t searching for it on purpose!   I just happened across it while surfing around. The title drew me in.)

Earth melting from the SunThe picture represents what may happen in about 5 billion years, when the Sun grows so large that it’ll be this close to Earth.   Obviously this will cause the ultimate global warming, and all life will end.  (Ironically, there are scientists already working on this problem, even though we have 5 billion years before it’s an issue.  While it’s good to prepare for the future, there are some other issues we might ought to work on first…)

The article lists some of the standard hypotheses, like a massive asteroid impact, massive volcanic eruptions, nuclear war, black holes, and the expanding sun.  Most of those sound like natural disasters which we would have little control over, except nuclear war, which hopefully won’t ever happen.  But then the article really surprised me.  There’s a link in the article that says:

YOU DECIDE: How Do You Think the World Will End?

We get to decide?!?  Awesome!   I always figured the end of the world would happen when God brings His final judgment to humanity.  Plus, I thought the end of the world was detailed in the book of Revelation in the Bible.  But this is on a news site, so it must be factual, right?  On a side note, I wonder how FOX News got exclusive access to let us vote on how the world will end…  They must’ve paid a LOT of money for the rights to that!

Anyway, I wanted to cast my vote, so I clicked on that link, but unfortunately the comments were already closed.  So I suppose the fate of the world has already been decided…  And that page didn’t even tell us what the winning option was!  Now we’re just left to wonder…

scientists discover a skinny gene

I saw something quite interesting in the news recently : scientists discover “skinny” gene.  If that’s true, then it should be made into a vitamin I can take.   I really miss the days when I had a metabolism, when I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain weight.  But since I got out of college and started working in a cubicle farm, that’s no longer the case.

Now, I know, some of you are thinking I should just eat less and exercise more.   If that’s what I wanted to do, I’d be skinny.  But I enjoy eating.   And while I enjoy some forms of exercise, there’s not always time to do enough of it.  If only I was genetically predisposed to be skinny, then I could eat fried chicken with biscuits & gravy more often.   Oh, and include mashed taters, too, covered with gravy.  Yeah, that’s the stuff.  And I’d order pizza a whole lot more.  I’d definitely eat much better if I was unable to gain weight.  And then I wouldn’t have to rearrange my schedule, giving up fun activities, to make more time for exercise.   And who knows, maybe if I wasn’t overweight and thus had more energy, I’d do more exercise-type activities.  As it is now, exercise makes me feel tired.

So I’m looking forward to being transformed into a skinny person by the benefits of cutting-edge science.  They need to hurry up with it, because I think a lot of people need this.