Eat Fat, Get Fat or Not

Once again, the views of the alarmist are tempered by scientific evidence, which, yes, once again demonstrates that the truth is somewhere between the extremes.

Vista Vision

Behold, he speaks the truth.

Four Times in the Head

The article doesn’t say so, but I’m pretty sure nobody would ever do anything like THIS except for religious reasons.

It’s bad enough to kill people, worse to kill your own daughter, still worse to kill her just because you suspect she had sex, but even then something has snapped when you have to shoot her four times in the head.

Law Review Editorial Board Position

At the meeting of the Law Review this evening I received a letter that said the following, in part:

I am pleased to announce that the San Joaquin Agricultural Law Review Board of Editors have accepted your application to serve on the 2007-2008 Editorial Board. You have been selected to serve as Assistant Editor-in-Chief. We believe you are well suited for this position and are confident that your skills will complement the other members of the new board. As a new position, you will have an opportunity to use your creative talents to best serve the review.

Sweet.

Sokath, His Eyes Uncovered

Last night I went to see Professional Bull Riders (PBR) at the Save Mart Center in Fresno, during which rodeo clown Flint Rasmussen did a bit that involved the John Denver song “Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” which includes the line “Life ain’t nothin’ but a funny, funny riddle.”

That line got me thinking about an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, called “Darmok,” in which Captain Picard must learn to communicate with an alien captain whose language uses historical allusions and metaphors. When I looked up the episode on Wikipedia, I noticed that the article there was linked to another article called “Biblespeak” (which is actually titled “Christianese”).

Which brings me back to PBR, where the show begins with a video presentation that rapidly and, to my mind rather bizarrely, intercuts footage of American soldiers, professional bull riders, the U.S. flag, and picturesque scenes from across the nation, with a quasi-religious patriotic poem in voiceover. Each couple lines are read by a different bull rider, and the whole thing is bookended with clips of John Wayne. After that, there was a prayer, which was, in my opinion, pretty poorly articulated, as it seemed that every third or fourth word was “Father,” meaning “God,” for those who don’t speak Christianese. (Seriously, if you’re publicly speaking to what you believe is the God of the Universe, shouldn’t you try harder not to sound like a fool with a limited vocabulary?) The best part of the prayer was where the guy doing the praying said something like, “Father we thank you for giving us the freedom in this country to watch these bulls and these riders.” Seriously, dude. So your freedom comes from God (not the Constitution) and God, in his benevolence, has granted you the freedom to watch a bunch of little, muscular guys hang on for dear life as a bunch of big, muscular animals try to fling them off. How God, freedom, and bull riding should all fit together like that remains a mystery to me.

Anyway, the partisans in attendance no doubt saw the video collage as reinforcement of what was already true: patriotism and Christianity go hand in hand, bull riders and soldiers belong in the same heroic category, etc. (Never mind, I suppose, that the bull riders themselves hail from all over the world.) I, however, saw the video collage as a pathetic and strained attempt to graft the obvious silliness of the sport onto Serious Business like freedom and religion and the War on Terrorismâ„¢. Why can’t we just admit that watching little guys hang on for dear life as bulls try to fling them onto the dirt is just goofy fun invented by guys who must have been trying to show off to each other and the women in attendance, not some manifestation of fundamental political rights or divine benevolence?

Of course, the religious bits slipped away pretty quickly once the event got underway. The music was loud, the beer flowed, and, according to a friend who was not seated near my party, at least one member of the audience felt the need to shove a girl who got up to go to the bathroom. But why bother trying to bridge that gap? There’s no need for Kalimash at Baha (i.e., “storytelling,” in the language of Darmok). Why do the self-proclaimed “country people” need to craft a narrative that places their entertainment event into some kind of grand cosmic scheme? Shaka, when the walls fell.

Other parts of the event were bizarrely like a political rally, too. Flint Rasmussen at one point criticized a proposed law in California that would make spanking children illegal. The crowd roared its approval of his criticism. Then he said something like, “I thought it was supposed to be majority rule, but it doesn’t sound like anybody in this arena thinks it should be illegal to spank your kids.” (That’s a paraphrase; I wasn’t taking notes.) Again, much applause. Then he mentioned another story he had seen on the TV news before the show, about trying to figure out how to keep kids from joining gangs. “I know how you keep kids from joining gangs. You spank their butts!” More cheers from the crowd.

There I was, a pilgrim in an unholy land. Seriously, what’s the deal with that kind of thing? Why do people need to believe that all the people who enjoy their favorite kind of entertainment also share their political (and religious) views? The clear but implicit message was that Professional Bull Riding is not one of those let’s-all-come-together kinds of events, but more of a you’ve-gotta-be-like-us-if-you-wanna-do-this kind of event.

(Interestingly, the televised version of the event, which I am watching right now, does not exude the same kind of proto-fascist feel. It’s just a bunch of nice guys riding bulls. Funny how the thing gets repackaged for the broader audience of NBC television.)

Yes Virginia, life is a funny, funny riddle. Khidir beneath Momouteh.

Gitmo Letters

I don’t have time to write much right now.

Check out this story from NPR, about letters from a Guantanamo detainee to his family in Maryland.

“I get two books to read here. No I don’t get newspaper so I don’t know what media is throughrng [throwing] trash on me,” Khan writes in his Oct. 17 letter. “And they don’t have single prove to link me with anything. Please reach out to International Criminal Court (ICC) lawyers to fight my case. Love…”

Meanwhile, lawyers are petitioning a federal judge to challenge the constitutionality of this guy’s detainment.

Go Lawyers, Go!

Here’s a fun news item.

Three men who accuse Catholic priests of sexually abusing them in childhood can pursue damages from the Vatican in a negligence lawsuit, a federal judge ruled.

The ruling lets the men pursue their claim that top church officials should have warned the public or authorities about priests in the Louisville Archdiocese who were suspected of abusing children.

William McMurry, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said Thursday the ruling could open the way to take depositions of Vatican officials and to obtain copies of church records and documents.

“Our whole purpose is to hold the Vatican accountable,” McMurry said.

I can’t think of many causes nobler than holding the Vatican accountable. If you want to harbor people who abuse children, then you should, at very least, be subject to public examination. If you claim to hold the ultimate truth, then no disclosure of what happens behind your doors should harm that truth in any way.

Status of Baldness Science?

Do any of the people who read this blog know about recent research on the use of stem cells to cure androgenetic alopecia? What’s the status of that stuff? I can’t find anything more recent than the linked article, which came out over two years ago.

Organic Food

A government official in the UK agrees with me: There is no evidence organic food is better for you than conventional food.

I am not convinced there is a taste-quality difference, either. (See also this article: “There is no clear evidence that conventional food is harmful or that organic food is nutritionally superior.”) Anybody know of any blind taste-tests that have been conducted? I would love to blindfold some organic food nazis and see if they can tell me the difference between a meal prepared with locally grown “organic” produce and distantly grown non-”organic” produce. From what I can tell, the only meaningful difference between the two is lifestyle and local economic engagement.

The other problem with organic food is that there are too many people and not enough land to produce all of our food supply via “organic” (i.e., non-”industrial”) methods. (Again, see this article: “[O]rganic farming produces lower yields and therefore requires more land under cultivation to produce the same amount of food. Thanks to synthetic fertilisers … global cereal production tripled between 1950 and 2000, but the amount of land used increased by only 10%. Using traditional techniques such as crop rotation, compost and manure to supply the soil with nitrogen and other minerals would have required a tripling of the area under cultivation. The more intensively you farm … the more room you have left for rainforest.”)

You want to eat locally grown organic produce? More power to you. I would, too, if I could afford to buy it and had time to cook with it. There’s just a nice happy feeling that comes with it. But objective, scientific differences? Sorry, I don’t see them. And most of the time, I can get a nice happy feeling just from eating foods that are objectively, scientifically healthier, regardless of how they were grown. A bowl of oatmeal will always be healthier than a cheeseburger, even if the cheeseburger has all organic ingredients and the oats were grown in a factory.

Yes, I am straddling political lines on this one, as I often do. It’s like the guy I saw driving on the freeway a few weeks ago. He was driving a Prius, but he had a bumper sticker that said “The Sierra Club Sucks.” Put me down for that package.

Just Some Stuff

Here’s an interesting story. Indian workers are leaving call centers for better jobs, so the call centers are importing European workers.

While you’re pondering the potential ramifications and wondering how to predict the future, watch this video. Thou shalt watch it now.