Quote

"You are not your bank account. You are not the clothes you wear. You are not the contents of your wallet. You are not your bowel cancer. You are not your grande latte. You are not the car you drive. You are not your fu**ing khakis… I say, let me never be complete. I say, may I never be content. I say, deliver me from Swedish furniture. I say, deliver me from clever art. I say, deliver me from clear skin and perfect teeth… I say, evolve, and let the chips fall where they may."

~Chuck Palahniuk

Smog Alerts

So I move from the air pollution ground zero of Seoul, South Korea to rural Southwestern Ontario hoping to get more milage out of my sandblasted lungs. Am I able to escape air pollution? Nope. Thanks, Detroit. Thanks, Windsor. Thanks environmental policy-gutting republicans and 'progressive conservatives'. I curse your lack of concern for our environment with each bronchitis-blob I cough up in the morning. A plague on both your households!


Here's a history of smog from a Californian perspective...
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Gouging Canada

A Canadian watchdog group is blasting oil companies and gasoline retailers for allegedly gouging consumers to the tune of millions of dollars.

Researcher and economist Hugh Mackenzie with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives said gasoline prices in Canada are between 16 cents and 21 cents per liter higher than they should be.

With approximately 3.8 liters in a U.S. gallon, that’s an unexplained “gouging” of 60 cents to 80 cents per gallon, MacKenzie’s report suggests.

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Something Else For Mom To Feel Guilty About

Food for thought (and neurosis), from Wired magazine:

...Modern humans are bacteria-killing machines. We assassinate microbes with hand soap, mouthwash and bathroom cleaners. It feels clean and right.

But some scientists say we're overdoing it. All this killing may actually cause diseases like eczema, irritable bowel syndrome and even diabetes. The answer, they say, is counterintuitive: Feed patients bacteria.

"Probiotics (pills containing bacteria) have resulted in complete elimination of eczema in 80 percent of the people we've treated," says Dr. Joseph E. Pizzorno Jr., a practicing physician and former member of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy. Pizzorno says he's used probiotics to treat irritable bowel disease, acne and even premenstrual syndrome. "It's unusual for me to see a patient with a chronic disease that doesn't respond to probiotics."


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...'cleanliness is next to Godliness'? Only if God is in the stall next to you working through his irritable bowel syndrome or shooting up his insulin. I would've been just fine if you hadn't kept me so clean as a child, mom!

Time For A Pesticide Ban

....Dr. Robert LaCamera, a professor of pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine, also held up the report when asked which cancers are associated with chemical pesticides. He read off a list: childhood leukemia, soft tissue sarcomas, cancers of the brain and testes, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

LaCamera cited a 1997 Minnesota study that found pesticide traces in more than 90 percent of urine samples taken from children between 3 and 13 years old.

"If you can find detectable levels in urine it means it's almost universal," he said. Many practicing pediatricians "don't understand there is an epidemic of pesticides in the bodies of most children in this country."

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http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-ctpoisons0419.artapr19,0,5546626.story?coll=hc-headlines-local

In Canada, there are currently 125 communities that ban the use of cosmetic pesticides. It will happen here. I'm willing to bet that there are more people in this town willing to fight for cancer-free kids than people willing to fight for dandelion-free lawns.

There's A Joke In This Somewhere

Tell me where...

...The duck was quietly resting upside-down against the stomach of Ian Gereg, an aviculturist here at the Livingston Ripley Waterfowl Sanctuary. Dr. Brennan, a post-doctoral researcher at Yale University and the University of Sheffield, visits the sanctuary every two weeks to measure the phalluses of six species of ducks.

When she first visited in January, the phalluses were the size of rice grains. Now many of them are growing rapidly. The champion phallus from this Meller’s duck is a long, spiraling tentacle. Some ducks grow phalluses as long as their entire body. In the fall, the genitalia will disappear, only to reappear next spring.

The anatomy of ducks is especially bizarre considering that 97 percent of all bird species have no phallus at all. Most male birds just deliver their sperm through an opening. Dr. Brennan is investigating how this sexual wonder of the world came to be.

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