How Far You Get With One Piece Of The Puzzle Missing

If you've got an elite quarterback, outstanding receiving corps, a fast and aggressive defense, but only a mediocre offensive line, how far do you get?  You get a wild card slot and you take the defending conference champions to overtime after your early blunders spot them two touchdowns, that's how far.  You get super high-scoring games but uncertain-until-the-end outcomes.  The deeply interesting and heart-wrenching season of the 2009 Green Bay Packers will end with this line:  "A. Rodgers sacked by M. Adams. A. Rodgers fumbled. K. Dansby recovered fumble and returned for 17 yards."  Although disappointing, it seems fitting.

I hope you took the over, Readers.

O Felice Giorno!

Sometimes, a good beer is just the thing you want.  Libertine Benjamin Franklin once said that "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."  Whether he believed in God or not depended on what point in his life you caught him, but it seems he pretty much always believed in beer.

But if you're in the mood for a tall cold one, and you're in Italy or an Italian restaurant, you're pretty much out of luck.  Just about the only Italian beer you can get anywhere, including in Italy, is Peroni, and Peroni is quite possibly the weakest, most watery barley tea ever put in a bottle and called "beer."  It makes Bud Light seem hearty by comparison.

So it's nice to see the development of Italian craft brews because hey, you can't drink wine all the time.  When the American craft brew movement built up a head twenty or so years ago it did nothing but good to the market and even the majors began to pay attention to the quality of their product again and now all offer craft brew-style upmarket alternatives.  Pay attention, Peroni Sp.A.!  Hopefully under the lead of these small brewers and pubs, Italy will take its place alongside Germany, Belgium, Czech, and England as a producer of quality brew.

Were We Vaccinated Too Late?

Friday I left work after getting the necessary things done.  Wasn't feeling right.  No one at your work wants you to be a hero and work through your illness only to infect them, too.  I don't think the people at my office feel any different about me.

Yesterday we took it easy and stayed home because both The Wife and I were suffering from periodic coughs and sore throats and general ickiness.  The only time we left home was to get more meds at the drug store.  There, for the first time, there were H1N1 vaccinations available, which we got.  But today I feel even worse than I did yesterday.

I'm only kidding in the post title.  Some flu-like symptoms are gratefully absent from the constellation of ailments we suffer and the less said about those the better.  But whatever it is that's been hanging around my throat for four days is more than welcome to settle up the bill and move on to the next phase of its travels.

This Never Happens When I Play The Sims

Three in the morning comes and my bladder tells me it's time for a short interruption in sleep.  This problem is easy to solve.  But the dogs hear me moving about and come in, demanding food.  It's earlier than their typical 4:30 a.m. feeding time but I'm still half-asleep and so I decide to feed them.  My throat is very sore and so after I let the dogs out (they are trained to go outside right after they eat) I decide that a salt-water gargle would be just the thing, so I open up the right-hand pantry door, find the salt among our baking supplies, and mix it with hot water.  The taste is disgusting, so I decide to mix myself up one of those little packets of a flavored beverage to counteract the briny ick of the salt water with something sweet-tasting.  So I open up the left-hand pantry door to get at those and

THUNK

a brand-new bottle of Spanish olive oil overbalances and falls on the floor right at my feet, its yellowy-green contents slowly oozing out all over the tile, which is now decorated with itty bitty shards of cheap, thin glass.  The dogs, fortunately, are still outside but now it's five minutes after three in the morning and I have to clean up a quart of olive oil and a broken glass bottle before I can let them in because, lacking the dignity gene, they're going to lick wherever on the floor has any aroma at all and I don't want them to hurt themselves by acting on their instincts.

A great many paper towels later and most of the oil is sopped up from the floor and I begin my hunt for stray glass, looking as best I can for places where dogs might walk or lick.  This reveals dozens of tiny, sharp fragments which I cannot pick up with my fingers, even if I don't mind a little pain and blood.  So now I've got to find a vacuum cleaner to suck up all this glass, which means making a lot of noise but what can I do?  A few minutes of that produces a sleepy, squinting Wife wondering what in the hell is going on and why I'm awake at this hour, and good Wife that she is she takes it all in and figures out that I'm probably best left to my own devices and after showing me where the wet-mop sponge is kept, goes back to sleep like any sensible person would in her sitaution.

I am, of course, wholly awake by now since removing the oleagenous waste and glass has taken a good half hour, and it takes me what feels like another hour to fall back asleep again.  Neither the dogs nor the cats have yet been bothering the kitchen floor any more than they usually do and have not indicated any pain or favoring on any of their paws, so I think that means I did the job right.

Making Ignorant Choices

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:  We all make choices based on incomplete information, all the time, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  One's choice of religion is usually not a choice at all and is certainly based on incomplete information.  That goes for atheists, too.  There's also an amusing video from the Daily Show embedded in the essay.

More After The Jump -->

Leave Tiger Woods Be And Brit Hume Too

Brit Hume, a former anchor and host and still part-time commentator on Fox News, suggested over the weekend that Tiger Woods should become a Christian.  He [Hume] is under criticism for saying he does not think that Buddhism offers the same sort of redeption and forgiveness as Christianity.  Some have called it already one of the most dumb things said in 2010, while social conservatives are quick to hold up this incident as an example of the liberal media mocking faithful Christians.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:  While I think Hume's comment was not particularly helpful and moderately ignorant, it was also mostly harmless and well-intentioned, so it's silly to criticize Hume.  The real issues confronting Tiger Woods are ones which confront everyone going through a tough time like a divorce. Woods has to work these issues out for himself and for the benefit of his children and there is no one-size-fits-all resolution to them.  While some churches offer positive and beneficial resources to their members, others sometimes do more harm than good.  So the best environment in which Tiger Woods (or any divorcing parent) can deal with the issues he inevitably must confront is one in which he gets help from appropriate professionals and is free from potentially-harmful religious teachings.

Full essay below the jump.

More After The Jump -->

Really? People Still Do This?

Ashura is going on right now, it is a religious holiday in which Shiite Muslims annually mourn the death of the Prophet's grandson Hussein, who died in battle in Karbala during the seventh century.  As things for religious festivals go, I suppose commemorating the death of a great historical leader is perfectly fine, but I can't say as I particularly approve of the way some of these folks go about it.  (Moderately disturbing image at the link.)  Beating yourself on the back in the streets with whips and blades on chains seems like a decidedly dumb thing to do, something which benefits absolutely no one.  Earlier in the picture series are Iranian folk who commemorate Ashura by immersing themselves in mud and publicly mourning the long-dead Imam in the streets.  While this seems silly to me, ruining a set of decent clothing isn't nearly as self-destructive as their Afghan counterparts literally beating themselves bloody.  Self-mortification like this seems like something from a bygone age, something primitive and violent and shocking with no place in modern society.

McDonald's Mayhem

Twenty-four year-old Melodi Dushane, of Toledo, Ohio, really wanted some Chicken McNuggets.  Don't judge her for that -- we've all been there.  But when she got to the McDonald's and found that they were out, her response was not disappointment.  It was not to take her business to Hardee's across the street.  It was not even to bad-mouth McDonald's for its inability to meet her desires as a consumer.

She punched right through the drive-through window.  My guess is she hurt herself more than she surprised the clerk.  She's been charged with felony vandalism.

Now if it had been me, I'd probably have ordered a McChicken sandwich off the dollar value menu and thought of it as a reasonable substitute.  But apparently, when you're jonesing for Chicken McNuggets, there is no substitute.

Snuck Up On Me

It's really less than 40 days to the Winter Olympics?  I've not been paying attention, clearly -- and not watching television, particularly NBC.  Or maybe the Vancouver 2010 folks have simply not established any kind of a web advertising presence anywhere I get even my sports news.

Exchange

In my experience, skipping a move in Scrabble to exchange tiles is an act of desperation, a functional concession that you are going to eventually lose the game.  Part of that is because when The Wife and I play, we are both very competitive with each other, so missing a single turn is often a big setback.  But it worked out for me this morning:

Him		Her
braze	38	whale	21
whales, dust	22	tabloid, brazed	80
(exchanged tiles)	0	cite, it, at, by	24
tabloids, stomach	74	ahu	18
gnomon	18	clover	36
gelato	8	binder	18
maxes, ma, ox, ne	39	vox	13
ingot	10	frappe	32
toga, so, net	17	dias	21
mean	27	drawn	11
qi	21	fin, qi	25
keno	16	jars	18
fee	6	mi	4
ye, yore	42	ki	6
pea	7	I, I, U, U	-4
TOTAL:	354	TOTAL:	323

The Wife had the same problem late in the game that I had early -- all vowels and no consonants. To do well, you need a good blend of both. I got lucky in being able to make a seven-tile word immediately after my exchange, and thereafter got a better blend -- leaving a vowel-heavy bank of tiles to draw on later in the game, but at that point there were no other tiles to exchange, so we both wound up having to squeeze vowels onto the existing board.

What's more, by exchanging early, there was still a lot of open board for me to place that seven-tile word at all -- it's sometimes the case that you have a seven- or eight-letter word you can make late in the game but there are no places on the grid still available with enough room to do it.

The lesson here is, if you are going to take the big gamel and exchange, it will only pay off if you do it early in the game.

Top Ten Worst Bible Stories Rebutted And Re-Argued!

A commenter, Ennis, has taken the time to respond to my post from a few weeks ago about the top ten worst Bible stories with some extensive comments on his blog.  Ennis is clearly smart, articulate, and intellectually committed to tackling the issues I raise here on their merits.  I have left a few comments on his blog (here and here), and I invite all my Readers to visit him and chime in there as well as here if they like. Our dialogue is entirely on the meritsand I am as pleased as ever at having a thoughtful "sparring partner."

Oh Yeah It Is A New Decade, Isn't It?

Hey, yeah. How come the decade ends in a year ending in "9" but a century ends in a year ending in "0"?

The Way It Ought To Be

About ten years ago, my then-law partner and I tried a personal injury case in Sacramento.  It was a difficult case to prepare because the plaintiff had treated with a great many doctors and the nature of his medical treatment was very complex, involving two separate injuries, so we had to piece out what damage had been caused by the first trauma and what had been caused by the second.  Complicating matters was the fact that the plaintiff treated with doctors in the Sacramento area, around his hometown in Lake Tahoe, and in the Reno-Carson City area.  One of the doctors had moved his practice to Santa Rosa.  All of them had to be deposed.

This was, of course, very expensive and time-consuming, especially for lawyers based in the Los Angeles area.  The plaintiff's attorney was also very busy and he enjoyed a thriving practice with a lot of clients, but he did not have a lot of staff support to help him out in his practice.  Consequently, we shouldered a lot of the administrative and logistical burden of getting these depositions lined up, and the plaintiff's attorney spent a lot of time travelling around playing catch-up with us.  Coordinating things was something of a challenge.

As is sometimes the case, the parties had dramatically different views of what the case was worth.  We were looking at a result in the mid-five figures; the plaintiff was looking at low sevens.  We came up quite a bit in settlement talks and the plaintiff came down quite a bit, too, but we never quite settled it.  It took three weeks to try the case to a jury.  The result came in numerically closer to where we were coming from as the defendants, and an order of magnitude less than the plaintiff wanted, but still an order of magnitude more than we wanted.

Since then, I've referred some cases in Northern California to this attorney.  He was always a strong advocate for his client, smart, courteous and professional to us, and took care to show respect for a couple of young guys going out on their own.  Today, my former law partner sent me an e-mail from our former adversary indicating that he had fallen on unfortunate circumstances and had to retire for a medical reason.  The odds are not wonderful for him.

I corresponded with him directly and expressed my regrets.  I'd have been willing to help him out in any way he needed to help him wind his practice down so he can concentrate on his personal issues, and told him that to this day I considered his handling of the case we litigated together to be a model of professional behavior to which I aspired.  I meant it too.  He was gracious and warm in his response.  Of course he took care of all his professional obligations already and doesn't need assistance from me in that regard or any other -- but that's not the point of making such an offer.

The point of the story is, every once in a while there comes along a reminder that law is not just a job.  It's a profession.  It's a way of life.  This fellow never once put his sword or shield down when we were litigating, and never once wanted me to, either.  And when the time for litigating was done, he was as friendly and courteous and generally pleasant to be around as anyone could possibly have asked for.  It made litigating the case pleasant and it created a mutual admiration society that I was pleased to see lasts to this day.

Every once in a while, there comes along a reminder that practicing law can be a really good way to not only earn a living, but to live a life.  I think that's as good a note as I could have hoped for to end another year in my practice.

Income Disparity

The proposition that "the rich are getting richer, the poor getting poorer, and the middle class is getting screwed" is one that has a seductive intellectual appeal to me. If it is true, it is surely the result of the socioeconomic elite of society constructing various mechanisms of income redistribution to favor themselves -- the real Golden Rule.  This notion appeals to my inner Cynic and makes him feel smug and correct and pleased with himself.  It's when I feel the tug of that kind of seduction that I put up my guard about falling into unwarranted assumptions, a trap about which I entertain no illusions of invulnerability.

I don't question that there is a wide gap between rich and poor. That's obvious. What I'm wondering is whether there really is a widening gap between rich and poor.

I keep on hearing reports about "the widening gap between rich and poor" and I've heard such reports for more than my entire adult life. If the doomsayers about this had been right the first time I'd heard it, by now I'd either be a multi-millionaire living in a gated estate with armed guards on patrol while I lolled about in Pablo Escobar-like luxury, or a homeless welfare recipient wearing fingerless gloves sleeping in a refrigerator box. As it turned out, I'm pretty much in the same sort of middle-class economic situation that my parents were in when they were at my age. I imagine that's true for most of you Readers, too, with varying degrees of comfort encompassed within that broad and admittedly ambiguous phrase "middle-class."

And in my law practice, I've encountered some very rich people and some very poor people. But mostly, I encounter people both professionally and socially whose economic situations are better than missing meals for lack of money but not comfortable enough to take spur-of-the-moment intercontinental vacations. Oh sure, maybe we could come up with other and more precise ways of defining what "middle class" means than that but exactly what multiple of the poverty line or what precise indicator of wealth we might pick isn't really what I'm talking about here.

I have no real way of gauging whether there are more of the very rich and more of the very poor than there ever were. Even a casual look at history informs us that there have always been very rich people and very poor people, and that there have always been lots more poor people than rich people, and that individual members of the middle class have always lived in a state of anxiety about lacking the generational wealth of the rich and fear of sliding into the grinding poverty of the underclass. "Thus it ever was," and there is no indication other than "thus it shall always be."

Now, I realize that both the very rich and the very poor have a tendency to be socially invisible and segregated from the middle-class society with which I am familiar. And the very nature of social class is that one rarely encounters people outside of one's own stratum. So this may be the sort of phenomenon that eludes casual observation and only reveals itself to careful study.

A survey of studies leaves me thinking that methodology and definition are hardly uniform, in part because any attempt to split all of society into three classifications necessarily involves making some arbitrary decisions about what "wealth" and "poverty" actually mean; they rarely take into account regional disparities in purchasing power, income, and accumulation of capital; do not consider that the idle rich represent huge accumulations of capital and thus material comfort even though "income" is low; and are all colored by the partisan politics of the day.  For at least two generations, whatever party is not in power in the White House has claimed that the party that is in the White House is trying to "squeeze the middle class" and if that's the case, then middle-class taxpayers have been under the government squeeze since Harry Truman said the buck stopped at his desk. And in fact, a study of tax patterns reveals that a typical middle-class taxpayer has been functionally the same since the end of the Great Depression.

Even if income disparity is actually increasing, query as to its real-world consequence. The middle class (broadly-defined) in the USA is an overwhelmingly large segment of our society. If a few people get squeezed in to the margins of the "rich" and a few more get squeezed into the margins of the "poor" every year, well, that really sucks for you if you're on the downward slope.  But considering society as a whole -- so what? There is upward and downward economic mobility in this country, perhaps less than we might idealistically think, but it is there and it doesn't seem to affect things very much one way or the other when you look at the big picture.

So in comparing the appealing proposition to my actual experience, I have to come down on the side of skepticism as to increasing income disparity. And I'm not sure that it's as big an issue as those who point to it claim it really is, at least when you look at the macro-economic picture of the country as a whole.  Since I realize there may be more to this than I can observe myself, this is a tentative skepticism, which can be convinced either way. But for now, I'm going to classify myself as an income disparity skeptic.

Sixteen Guesses For 2010

Renewing my tradition from last year, I boldly offer the following predictions for the next year.  I make no claim to psychic powers, clairvoyance, astral projection, divine or demonic information, or access to time machines.  These are SWAGs and nothing but.  As you can see from this morning's evaluation, my completion percentage is just over 50% so that's about what they're worth.

1. Jon Huntsman will resign as ambassador to China and begin to lay the groundwork for a Presidential bid in 2012.
2. Foolishly, Democrats will campaign in 2010 against George W. Bush.  This will fail and result in gains by Republicans, but more in the House than the Senate.  Congressional Republicans will realize a net gain of only two or three seats in the Senate, leaving the Democrats still firmly in control of that body and reviving talks of abolishing the filibuster.  But, net gains in the House of Representatives will be such that the Democrats' majority in the lower chamber will be roughly ten seats and Republicans will optimistically talk of re-taking the House in 2012.
3. A reconciled health care "reform" bill will not be passed out of Congress until March or maybe even early April.  Its effect will be to very moderately increase taxes on middle-class Americans, only negligibly affect their actual health care options, and substantially inflate both the governmental deficit and the profits of enterprise-level health care providers.
4. The net inflation rate of the United States for CY 2010 will be in excess of 4%.
5. President Obama will again increase the number of American troops deployed to Afghanistan.
6. Canada's government will collapse, for real this time, and new elections will result in a badly-fragmented Federal Parliament with the BQ playing the role of powerbroker.  However, the BQ will not be able to leverage this into actual autonomy.
7. An El Niño condition will manifest in the Pacific Ocean, relieving California's drought.
8. Despite the economic help of favorable (that is, "wet") weather, California will increase sales taxes to 10.5% or higher, resulting in the highest sales tax in the nation.  Despite this, functionally all incumbents in the Legislature eligible for re-election will be re-elected in November and the Democrat nominee (who right now looks like Jerry Brown) will win the Governorship.
9. A national newspaper of significant stature, I'm thinking the Boston Globe, will be liquidated.
10. 2010 will be a good year for the stock market.  The S&P 500 will realize a net gain of over 20% in CY 2010.  As of today, the S&P 500 is 1,124.57, so that means that to win this prediction, the S&P will need to be at least 1,349.48 on December 31, 2010.
11. Iron Man 2 will be the biggest box office hit of the summer.  But another much-anticipated sequel in the same general genre, Tron 2, will disappoint and lose money.  Wall Street 2 and Sex And The City 2 will both prove to be so unwatchably bad that we all would have been better off had they not been made at all.  Remakes of Clash of the Titans and Red Dawn will both prove to be convincingly entertaining.
12. In First Amendment news, the Supreme Court will decide for the government, 5-4, in the case of Salazar v. Buono, ruling that a large cross, originally built privately as a war memorial, later transferred to Federal land, then the subject of an Establishment Clause lawsuit, and then the subject of a law transferring the cross to the VFW.  The Court's decision will consider the longevity of the monument as a significant factor mitigating against the finding of an Establishment.  (I consider this a pessimistic prediction, for the record).  Justice Sonia Sotomayor will prove to be the decisive vote in favor of the government.
13. In Second Amendment news, the Supreme Court will decide, by at least 7 votes, that the individual right to own weapons articulated in District of Columbia v. Heller will be "incorporated" into the Fourteenth Amendment and thus apply to the several states as well as to the national government.  However, the Court will unanimously decline the opportunity to expand the "privileges and immunities" clause embodied in the arguments.  Watch for the decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago to be one of the last decisions announced in June.
14. Brett Favre will play his final year for the Minnesota Vikings, and then retire.  For real this time because he'll be 41 years old and in at least moderate pain almost all of the time.
15. Iran will successfully detonate a nuclear device.  This will cause much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth and many Americans and a significant number of Europeans will consider this to be an existential threat.  While all of this is going on, the Russians will hem and haw and whistle tunelessly while staring at the ceiling while trying to blend into the background and go unnoticed.  However, the Iranians will not use their newly-developed nuclear weapon against anyone, including Israel.
16. On December 31, 2010, the U.S. national unemployment rate will be somewhere between 7.5% and 8.5%.

I feel I have to renew my prediction that Britney Spears will find Jesus and become even more intensely annoying than she already is.  But I won't make that a numbered prediction anymore because I've been predicting this for four years straight and I'm beginning to wonder just when she will hit a personal bottom such that the Baby Jeebus will get called in.  She does have a very great height from which to fall and a substantial network of leeches personal supporters who will do what is in their power to keep her generating profit personally and professionally functional.  So that's not one I'm offering for credit, just consideration.

Also to be answered in the upcoming year: will TL break down and actually buy his own domain and migrate the blog to WordPress?  The magic eight-ball says...

Predictions for 2009: Mixed Report Card

A year ago, I made some predictions for what would happen in 2009.  How'd I do?

1. The United States Federal deficit for calendar year 2009 will exceed $1.5 trillion. Check.

2. A human being will be cloned. Not Yet (that we know of).

3. There will be serious attempts at coups in two of the following: Morocco, Bolivia, Colombia, Ethiopia, or Pakistan. Fortunately, No.

4. GDP for the United States will decline for at least three of the four quarters in CY 2009. In fact, US GDP declined from 2008q4 to 2009q2, rose from 2009q2 to 2009q3, but 2009q4 data is not yet available.  Incomplete.

5. California will endure a shutdown of all non-essential state government functions, and then increase state taxes. As it turned out, taxes went up, but the state government didn’t shut down to only essential functions. Instead, we got furloughs.  So, this gets Half Credit.

6. Neither the United States nor Israel will participate in an overt military attack against Iran. As I predicted, this didn't happen.  Which is good.

7. Britney Spears will "find Jesus" and make a spectacle of displaying her newfound piety. I keep on waiting for this but no, Not Yet.

8. At least once in 2009, it will take two U.S. dollars to buy one Euro. Nope, I was too pessimistic here. It got up to $1.51 for a while but never quite reached $2.00.

9. "Watchmen will gross over $1 billion, including its timed-for-Christmas DVD release." Not even close.  "However, a movie called Public Enemies will get tons of hype but lose money in theatrical release, as its cast of hot young stars fails to excite audiences about crime in the 1930’s."  Public Enemies did indeed lose money in its theatrical release, although just barely.  Guess there aren’t as many geeky fanboys as I’d thought. Half Credit.

10. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown will survive a no-confidence vote. He’s been in political hot water all year, including an inchoate challenge to his leadership from within his own party, but emerged from that with enough of the Labour Party rallied under his banner to avoid a realistic call for a no-confidence vote.  That's not enough for even half credit, so I'm grading myself "wrong" on this one.

11. The Detroit Lions will use their #1 overall draft pick to select Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford rather than the strong, fast DLB that they really need. They took Matt Stafford instead – a hot college QB, but not the exact one I predicted and certainly not the shore-up to their defensive unit that they needed (and still need) so badly. Half Credit.

12. General Motors will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Check.

13. The United States will abandon plans to re-invigorate its space program with supra-orbital manned missions. It wasn't portrayed this way, but that is the result.  Check.

14. Over vitriolic but ineffectual Republican opposition, Congress will pass a “carbon tax.” Congress got hamstrung on health care reform instead, so this gets a "not so much."  Give them another year.

15. Barack Obama will name at least one Justice to the Supreme Court of the United States. Check.

16. The average U.S. price for a gallon of 87-octane unleaded gasoline in CY 2009 will be under $2.50 a gallon. This one’s right on the margin. For the first half of 2009, it was below $2.50, and for the second half of 2009, it was over $2.50.  Let's call it Half Credit.

So, that's more right than wrong.  Next -- predictions for 2010.

Now I Know What It Sounds Like To My Cousins When I Talk To My Wife

Well, maybe not exactly what they think we sound like, but the singer is intentionally trying to sound like an English speaker, I think an American, without actually using any real English. Over at LGM, a commenter correctly identified the artist as Adriano Celentano, who is a huge Elvis fan, and you can kind of hear the influence in the song.  I think it's damn catchy.

Not Everyone Should Go To College

Source: Online Colleges and Universities

The Most Efficient Sweetener Around

Why is everything sweetened with high fructose corn syrup?  Because calorie for calorie, it's the sweetest inexpensive natural sweetener around.  If other kinds of sweeteners were used, products would be more expensive and have more calories.  Not sweetening food products is not an option because sweet products sell better than non-sweet ones.

Nature is responsible for the first rule.  The expensive chemical processes used to refine saccharine, sucralose, and aspartame (which are all much sweeter than natural sugars) are responsible for the second rule.  You, the consumer, are responsible for that last rule.

So if you think that high fructose corn syrup is slowly killing America underneath its own fat, you're simply wrong.  It isn't bad for you and if we used other kinds of sweeteners, we'd be even fatter than we already are.  Read all about it at Skeptoid and more at TechSkeptic.

Maybe It's Time To Start Taking The Train

So let me get this straight.  Dutch Security fails to identify a potential terrorist and keep him off a plane flying in to Detroit.  Then, the guy turns out to be a not very competent suicide bomber and fails to properly discharge his chemical detonator concealed within the lining of his underwear.  He is then subdued by fellow passengers and is now an existential threat to the United States from inside his cell in a Federal penitentiary in Ann Arbor.

Because of this, I will now not be allowed to leave my seat to pee for the last hour of any flight, unable to have a blanket if I somehow get to sleep, and maybe will not have the ability to use electronic devices at, well, pretty much any time during my flight.  Well, that might change with a by-your-leave from the airplane's captain.  Someone seems to have forgotten Rule One.  And that the Lockerbie bombing took place less than an hour after takeoff, not in the final hour, which pretty conclusively demonstrates that if a nutbag wants to blow up an airplane, he doesn't much care where in the flight arc he might be.

I don't see how preventing me from using my laptop or making me pee my pants is going to keep the airplane any safer.  And at some point, this increased and increasingly burdensome airline security is going to produce not just diminishing but decreasing returns in terms of both overall safety and allocation of security resources.