Links

• The headline, with my emphasis, is
  

  Bagged salad safety: Rising threat of food-borne illness lurks in convenient packages of leafy greens. Leafy greens are the riskiest food regulated by the FDA, researchers for nonprofit center say.

  That’s contradicted by the second paragraph of the article, “Though beef and poultry are a more frequent source of food-related outbreaks than produce, the number of outbreaks tied to lettuce, spinach and other leafy greens, whether fresh-cut or whole, has been rising over the last two decades, according to the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest.”

• Judge expunges Mel Gibson’s drunk-driving conviction Never mind.
• Opting Out of Medicare? “The response of the Obama Administration to this lawsuit is revealing about its principles, as opposed to its rhetoric.”
• Placebos work better than they used to, but for some things see a doctor: What To Do If You Get Sick: 2009 H1N1 and Seasonal Flu

Amazing

Carbon-free sugar

What could possibly go wrong?

I have no idea…

Raise productive, low-stress animals at home? Maybe if I can ever reliably grow tomatoes I’ll think about keeping goats.

Malthusian collapse:

Twenty years away for the last two hundred years

Here’s a great short video about overpopulation. Like P.J. O’Rourke says, for the far left it’s “Just Enough of Me, Way Too Much of You.”

Free-market liberals

Grandmothers and health care

It’s a misconception that Democrats oppose a free market in health care. In fact, they’ve been amazingly innovative.

End-of-life care eats up a huge slice of spending but we can’t change that, except by, um, counseling. So what’s to become of us? Well, Barrack Obama cut Grandma’s social security (hey, that’s what they would have said about George Bush). But that’s because the cost of living has gone down. So thanks to Barrack Obama (See? It all works out) Grandma’s nominal dollars will buy more Big Macs.

Especially in Chicago, but that’s just a coincidence.

Two all-beef patties…

I mean, put it all together. Social Security is in trouble, and Medicare is almost bankrupt. Eating a Big Mac improves your quality of life. At the same time, science (recall how Bush hated science) teaches us (No Child Left Behind) that a diet high in fat is associated with decreased longevity. So the real-dollar price of Big Macs goes down, the price old folks pay for their Statins goes up, and the problem is solved — Older Americas get a shorter and higher-quality life, Medicare is saved, and the economy gets a stimulus.

The Democrats took end-of-life counseling out of the health care bill because public-spirited corporations stepped up and met that need, spreading the word through their marketing departments.

Snorkels, et al.

• Video appears in paper magazines – ad-blocking glasses soon to follow, I hope.
• Even after more than 1250773200 seconds, “Unix is the best screwdriver ever built.” — 40 years of Unix
• Snorkel rice could feed millions. The snorkels grow out of the internodes.

“The salted pork is particularly good”

Warning: contains salt and rich, fatty pork

Scientists Agree: Denny’s Is Dangerous, says the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The plaintiff (because of course there is a plaintiff; there’s always a plaintiff) says the food he regularly ordered contained more salt than he should eat.

“Denny’s Meat Lover’s Scramble, which has two eggs with chopped bacon, diced ham, crumbled sausage, Cheddar cheese, plus two bacon strips, two sausage links, hash browns, and two pancakes has 5,690 mg sodium, or 379 percent of the advised daily limit.” And so a lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey.

Denny’s should have checked the patient’s chart to see what he was allowed to eat. Turns out the Meat Lover’s Scramble is not suitable for a low-sodium diet. But that girl who brings it? She’s not a Registered Nurse. The guy at the grill isn’t a dietitian. Denny’s isn’t a hospital. The whole country, however, is well on its way to becoming an old folks home.

Next time drive through

Customer: Yeah, I’ll have this Meat Lover’s Scramble, and coffee.

Waitress: “Now Grandpa, you can’t eat like that at your age! Have a nice bowl of oatmeal, and I’ll bring out some applesauce and a cup of decaf.”

Customer: “What? Get the manager!”

Manager: “Yes Sir, is there a problem?”

Customer: “Not if you bring me a Meat Lover’s Scramble.”

Manager: “With your body-mass index? No way! They’d lock me up.”

Customer: “What is this, the Twilight Zone?”

Manager: “And what’s this I hear from nurse about you not eating your oatmeal?”

Customer: “Why you little…”

That’s why you can’t carry a gun in a restaurant. First they take our guns, then they come for our bacon and eggs.

More coffee

Coffee “may reverse Alzheimer’s”? Then maybe apple pie prevents heart disease, and ice cream reduces the incidence of strokes. It’d be nice, but it seems like the kind of thing someone would have noticed before now. Anyway, more study is needed, and that’s fine with me.

If it turns out to be true (or if it doesn’t) maybe President Obama will send us some stimulus coupons. It wouldn’t bust the budget – the Treasury would just print up the coupons, and the coffee shops would honor them. It wouldn’t cost the coffee shops anything – they would just pass on the cost to their customers. And it wouldn’t cost the customers, because they’ll just pass on the incremental cost by charging more for their labor. It’s free; it reduces medical costs; it makes everybody richer; and at least a cup of coffee would actually be stimulative.

Hot or iced mocha beverages

Presumably these contain coffee

Usually I order “small coffee black.” The other day at the bookstore I had a mocha, with whipped cream on top, and a little stick of dark chocolate. When I have a coupon, the sky’s the limit. McDonald’s coffee isn’t my favorite, but it’s okay, and I’ll often stop there if I’m traveling. I haven’t tried any of their McCafe offerings, but in an article about McDonald’s coffee supplier this caught my attention: “An espresso marketing push beginning July 13 features free hot or iced mocha beverages each Monday for a month.” I’ll stop in since it’s free, but the bookstore is (usually) quiet, with comfy chairs.

Words, numbers, and pictures

• At the store the other day I scanned the shelves for prunes. It took a few extra seconds, my eyes first passing over the “dried plums.” The next marketing frontier is lard. It may be poised for a comeback, like eggs years ago. Remember eggs? “Poison! A heart attack in a shell! Oh, no, they’re okay; never mind.” So lard could return to respectability, except for its name, “Lard“; that disgusts even me. “Bacon butter” is worse. I can’t imagine what the marketeers will come up with, but American ingenuity will triumph.
• Does Wolfram|Alpha make the graphing calculator obsolete? Considering how easy it was to type in 0.125x^2-2y^2=1, we can hope so. — Wolfram|Alpha and the shrinking future of the graphing calculator
• Now we’re paying lobbyists to lobby us? At Government Motors, the adventure begins.
• Obama reaches out to the Muslim world? Words fail me.