Ontario physicians are calling for a provincial ban on smoking in vehicles carrying children in light of recent data showing accumulation of second-hand smoke particles is greater in vehicles than indoors.

“We now have evidence showing the harmful levels of second-hand smoke in a car are even more potent than we once believed,” said Dr. Janice Willett, president of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), in a news release. “These important findings should be heard by both caregivers who smoke and our lawmakers so that children can be protected.” (more…)

Shop pulls Lolita bed for young girls | U.S. | Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - A chain of retail stores in Britain has withdrawn the sale of beds named Lolita and designed for six-year-old girls after furious parents pointed out that the name was synonymous with sexually active pre-teens.

Woolworths said staff who administer the web site selling the beds were not aware of the connection. (more…)

The 247 lb. Vegan - WSJ.com

These guys are really brave. But one thing I’ve noticed about all people who go at life full-throttle, like high level atheletes, they all go with what works. Something to think about.

By REED ALBERGOTTI
January 25, 2008; Page W1

The protein-rich bounty of the football training table is supposed to grow the biggest and strongest athletes in professional sports. Kansas City Chiefs tight-end Tony Gonzalez was afraid it was going to kill him. “It’s the Catch-22,” says Mr. Gonzalez, 31. “Am I going to be unhealthy and play football? Or be healthy and get out of the league?”

Kansas City Chiefs tight-end Tony Gonzalez

So last year, on the eve of the biggest season of his career, Mr. Gonzalez embarked on a diet resolution that smacked head-on with gridiron gospel as old as the leather helmet. He decided to try going vegan.

Living solely on plant food, a combination of nuts, fruits, vegetables, grains and the like, has long been the fringe diet of young rebels and aging nonconformists. Even the government recommends regular helpings of meat, fish and dairy. Vegans of late have gotten more hip with such best sellers as the brash “Skinny Bitch,” and its more scholarly cousin, “The China Study.” Both books argue vegans can live longer.

But could an all-star National Football League player, all 6-foot, 5-inches and 247 pounds of him, live on a vegan diet and still excel in one of the most punishing jobs in sports?

For Mr. Gonzalez, the stakes were high. He’d just signed a five-year contract, making him the game’s highest-paid tight-end. Entering the 2007 season, his 11th in the NFL, he had a shot at breaking all-time NFL records for career receptions and touchdowns at his position. To do that, he needed top performances in every game. Mr. Gonzalez knew he was out on a limb. “I was like, ‘I’m going to look like a fool if this doesn’t work out,’” he says.

Mr. Gonzalez joined a handful of elite athletes who have put the vegan diet to the test, either for their health or because they oppose using animals as food. But he was the first pro-football superstar to try. And the first to fail.

There’s no evidence a vegan diet can improve an athlete’s performance, says David Nieman, a professor of health and exercise at Appalachian State University. His 1988 study of vegetarian runners found they ran as well as their meat-eating rivals but no better. Although the vegetarian athletes in his study also ate eggs and dairy foods, he says, “there is scientific evidence that veganism, when done right, won’t hurt performance.” But, he adds, there is only anecdotal evidence that it can help.

Professional athletes, especially NFL players, need thousands of calories a day. Many enjoy a high-protein, high-fat smorgasbord of steaks, chops, burgers, pizza, ice cream and beer. Mr. Gonzalez’s tight-end job requires him to push around monstrously sized opponents. Occasionally, he gets to catch a pass. Mr. Gonzalez is famous for combining the brute power of an offensive lineman with the acrobatic skills of a nimble receiver. “My biggest thing is strength,” he says. “If you lose that strength you get your butt kicked.”

Experts say athletes in training need as much as twice the protein of an average person to rebuild muscle. Their bodies also require a big dose of minerals and vitamins, as well as the amino acids, iron and creatine packed into fish, meat and dairy foods. It’s fine to be a vegan, says sports nutritionist and dietician Nancy Clark, if you’re willing to work at it. “It’s harder to get calcium, harder to get protein, harder to get Vitamin D, harder to get iron,” she says. “You have to be committed.”

TRAINING AS A VEGAN

Read a Q&A with nutritionist Lisa Dorfman about training on a vegan diet.

DIETARY CHANGES

Compare the standard Chiefs training table menu to Tony Gonzalez’s daily diet.

“Skinny Bitch” co-author Kim Barnouin is working on another book called “Skinny Bastard.” “We want men to know that you’re not going to be some scrawny little wimp if you follow this diet,” she says. The book trashes meat, milk, eggs, cheese and sodas, saying men and women feel better and look better without them. “The more athletes who come forward and say, ‘I’m doing this for my health,’ the better,” she says.

Mr. Gonzalez had never heard of the vegan diet when he boarded a flight from New York to Los Angeles last spring, about a month before preseason training. His seatmate turned down most of the food offered in first class, and Mr. Gonzalez finally asked why. The man told Mr. Gonzalez about “The China Study,” a 2006 book by Cornell professor and nutrition researcher T. Colin Campbell that claims people who eat mostly plants have fewer deadly diseases than those who eat mostly animals. The evidence was drawn from diet surveys and blood samples of 6,500 men and women from across China.

MAC DANZIG

Mac Danzig took a diet risk four years ago. The 28-year-old mixed martial-arts fighter had long wanted to spare animals by going vegan. But he was afraid his trainers were right: that he’d lose to stronger opponents. Last month, on a diet of brown-rice protein, beans, soy, nuts and vegetables, Mr. Danzig defeated the last of his challengers in Spike TV’s “The Ultimate Fighter.” Kim Barnouin, co-author of the vegan best-seller “Skinny Bitch,” says she loves the “Ultimate Fighter” show and cheered Mr. Danzig’s win. When fight fans learned Mr. Danzig was a vegan, some said they didn’t think he’d have the strength, or the stomach, to conquer the ultra-violent sport, which combines kick-boxing and wrestling. “It’s about animal rights,” Mr. Danzig says, “not human rights.”

Mr. Gonzalez was intrigued. Earlier in the year, a bout with Bell’s Palsy, a temporary facial paralysis, had focused his attention on health. He bought the book, and after reading the first 40 pages, he says, was convinced animal foods led to chronic illness. He was an unlikely convert. Mr. Gonzalez, who grew up in Southern California, says cheeseburgers were his favorite food. But he quit them, substituting fruits, nuts and vegetables. At restaurants, he ordered pasta with tomato sauce.

Three weeks later, he walked into the weight room at the Chiefs’ training facility and got a shock. The 100-pound dumbbells he used to easily throw around felt like lead weights. “I was scared out of my mind,” he says. Standing on the scale, he learned he’d lost 10 pounds.

Mr. Gonzalez considered scrapping the diet altogether and returning to the Chiefs’ standard gut-busting menu. First, though, he called Mr. Campbell, who put him in touch with Jon Hinds, himself a vegan and the former strength coach for the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team. Mr. Hinds suggested plant foods with more protein.

SALIM STOUDAMIRE

Trainers for the Atlanta Hawks worried when shooting guard Salim Stoudamire decided to eat vegan at the end of the National Basketball Association season in 2006. Although the diet left him craving chicken, Mr. Stoudamire says, his biggest challenge was convincing coaches and teammates he could still perform on the court. Team managers forced Mr. Stoudamire onto a scale each morning of preseason training and wrote down his weight. After holding steady at 181 pounds, the bosses got off his back. Mr. Stoudamire says he felt better, and that his performance this season improved. So far, none of his teammates have joined him. “They all look at me like I’m crazy,” he says.

The Chiefs’ team nutritionist, Mitzi Dulan, a former vegetarian athlete, did not believe that was enough. With the team’s prospects and Mr. Gonzalez’s legacy at stake, she persuaded the tight-end to incorporate small amounts of meat into his plant diet. Just no beef, pork or shellfish, he said; only a few servings of fish and chicken a week.

Teammates nicknamed him China Study and razzed Mr. Gonzalez if he missed a block. But he wasn’t ready to give up his new diet completely. After a preseason practice, he accompanied Mr. Hinds to learn a skill he believed as important as blocking techniques: how to shop for groceries. Mr. Hinds showed him nutritious fish oils and how to pick out breads dense with whole grains, nuts and seeds. “The best bread for you,” says Mr. Hinds, “is if I hit you with it, it hurts.” Mr. Gonzalez also learned how to make the fruit and vegetable shake he drinks each morning. He stocked his pantry with tubs of soy protein powder and boxes of organic oatmeal; soy milk and Brazilian acai juice crowded the fridge. His favorite dessert became banana bread topped with soy whipped cream from the vegan cafe near his home in Orange County’s Huntington Beach.

Mr. Gonzalez soon recovered his lost pounds and strength, but prospects for a record-breaking season were still in doubt. The team lost its starting quarterback, Trent Green, in a trade, and the Chiefs’ star running back was tied up in a contract dispute.

As the season progressed, the team lost more games than it won. But Mr. Gonzalez managed to stick to his diet and hold onto the football. He broke the touchdown record before midseason and was within reach of the career reception record. “I was like, ‘OK, this is working,’” he says. “I have so much more energy when I’m out there.” His wife, October Gonzalez, was astonished her husband could play the season without ordering a single cheeseburger. “I thought he’d cave,” she says.

Mr. Gonzalez entered the final game against the New York Jets needing four catches to surpass the record held by former tight-end Shannon Sharpe. The contest turned into a sluggish defensive struggle with the Chiefs trailing the Jets 7 to 3. Still, Mr. Gonzalez made three receptions. With 2 minutes and 29 seconds left in the third quarter, Chiefs quarterback Brodie Croyle was fleeing defenders when he threw a 9-yard pass to Mr. Gonzalez, who scampered for a first down and a spot in the NFL record book.

Write to Reed Albergotti at reed.albergotti@wsj.com

Here is a picture of the guy. Please. Is this the kind of person paid ridiculous salaries by the UN?

His name is Yvo de Boer, diplomat from Holland. Moments earlier, Mr de Boer had been warning delegates that failure to reach an agreement on global warming could “plunge the world into conflict”.

Think about this situation. This conference brought 10,000 people to Bali to wallow in doom saying. This idiot believes that the whole world is being destroyed, all of human civilization will evaporate, science will end, culture will end, all living things will die, and wars will sweep the planet as food and resources become scarce.

What is most interesting is that in the history of the planet, as well as of human civilization, warmer periods were times of plenty, when populations grew, because food was easier to come by. As anyone with a brain knows, warmer weather gets more plants. Colder weather means fewer plants, and mass starvation.

The story of this guy breaking down is an excellent example of how a nut can become fixated in a fantasy world of his or her making. Science is supposed to mitigate against this kind of thing, but apparently, we have abandoned science. We, as a society, have embraced belief, religion, speculation, and the power of “should” or the truth. It’s pathetic. Sometimes I am very embarrassed to be part of this crap.

‘Source

An article today from Florida included this picture of a T-shirt on sale at Urban Outfitters.  A local reporter went out to interview some shoppers to get their reactions to the shirt’s message (Santa Hates You!).   The most interesting response, to me was this:

“I don’t like that shirt. I’m a child of the 60s, and I’m about as left as it gets, but I think that’s in bad taste,” a third shopper said.

What is interesting about this response is that it shows, to my mind, how so often people who should espouse  freedom, easily find themselves doubting freedom when their own precious belief system is challenged.  I would take this even further:     There is an innate tendency, built into leftist ideology, that predisposes its believers to impose their values on others.  In other words, there is an innate tendency toward tyranny.  Anyone can recognize this trait in the religious right, but it is there in so called freedom loving secular humanists as well.

When we latch on to images, conceptions, ideas, beliefs, etc., as “that which cannot be impugned”, then we are on a straight highway to the hell of tyranny.  When we entertain any conception that the world can be, or even needs to be changed, and made better, then we are also doing the same thing.  Eventually, we will have to imprison and kill people to achieve the needed improvements.  Eventually we will need an exhaustive rule book that specifically deals with every single eventuality and how to handle it.  This is not freedom.  This is tyranny.  We have seen it throughout history.

The shopper who claims to be a “child of the sixties”, should know better.

Vatican defends duty to evangelize and accept converts | Reuters

points to a problem with the way only two religions, Christianity and Islam, conduct themselves.  It is very rare for a Hindu or a Buddhist to knock on anyone’s door and try to sell them on the superiority of their religion.

There is certainly nothing wrong with wanting others to share in the joy, hope and connectedness that your spiritual practice, or your religious affiliation gives you.

However, to constantly assert the superiority of your faith, and to furthermore allege that another will burn in hell if they continue to worship a false God of the religion they were born into, is in my opinion, a violation of the integrity and autonomy of others.  This, in my opinion, is the greatest sin of all.

Try this perspective, as a part of your spiritual practice:

You have no right to teach your own religious or spiritual values unless you can explain the religion of another to them in such a way that they see, as they never had before. it reflects the highest light possible, and that leads to ultimate self realization and salvation.  Of course, if you are able to do this, you would never try to convert anyone to your own religion.

If the foregoing were your approach to everyone else’s religion, and if everyone were to follow such a value, wouldn’t the world be a much more peaceful place?

Basically, what this approach amounts to is seeing the divine in everything and everyone that you encounter.  If you see your position as superior, then you approach the world as if there is more God here or there, as if there are places or people in which there is less of God, less of the divine, than in other places or people.

This would be a weird God, would it not?

In fact, you simply don’t need fur to survive, not if you are living in the developed world. Native Inuits or any other indigenous peoples, who are living as their ancestors did, perhaps have an excuse. They are living pretty much as part of the natural environment, really not separate from the animals. (more…)

Some people have it all.  The only thing that would complete this picture is a snack vending machine in arms reach!