"Victor Sack" > wrote in message
. ..
> 10 things to scratch from your worry list
>
> By John Tierney
>
> International Herald Tribune
>
> For most of the year, it is the duty of the press to scour the known
> universe looking for ways to ruin your day. The more fear, guilt or
> angst a news story induces, the better. But with August upon us, perhaps
> you're in the mood for a break, so I've rounded up a list of 10 things
> not to worry about on your vacation.
>
> Now, I can't guarantee you that any of these worries is groundless,
> because I can't guarantee you that anything is absolutely safe,
> including the act of reading a newspaper. With enough money, an
> enterprising researcher could surely identify a chemical in newsprint or
> keyboards that is dangerously carcinogenic for any rat that reads a
> trillion science columns every day.
>
> What I can guarantee is that I wouldn't spend a nanosecond of my
> vacation worrying about any of these 10 things:
>
> 1. Killer hot dogs. What is it about frankfurters? There was the nitrite
> scare. Then the grilling-creates-carcinogens alarm. And then, when those
> menaces ebbed, the weenie warriors fell back on that old reliable
> villain: saturated fat.
>
> But now even saturated fat isn't looking so bad, thanks to a rigorous
> experiment in Israel reported this month. The people on a low-carb,
> unrestricted-calorie diet consumed more saturated fat than another group
> forced to cut back on both fat and calories, but those fatophiles lost
> more weight and ended up with a better cholesterol profile. And this was
> just the latest in a series of studies contradicting the medical
> establishment's predictions about saturated fat.
>
> If you must worry, focus on the carbs in the bun. But when it comes to
> the fatty frank - or the fatty anything else on vacation - I'd relax.
>
> 2. Your car's planet-destroying A/C. No matter how guilty you feel about
> your carbon footprint, you don't have to swelter on the highway to the
> beach. After doing tests at 65 miles per hour, the mileage experts at
> edmunds.com report that the aerodynamic drag from opening the windows
> cancels out any fuel savings from turning off the air-conditioner.
>
> 3. Forbidden fruits from afar. Do you dare to eat a kiwi? Sure, because
> more "food miles" do not equal more greenhouse emissions. Food from
> other countries is often produced and shipped much more efficiently than
> domestic food, particularly if the local producers are hauling their
> wares around in small trucks. One study showed that apples shipped from
> New Zealand to Britain had a smaller carbon footprint than apples grown
> and sold in Britain.
>
> 4. Carcinogenic cellphones. Some prominent brain surgeons made news on
> Larry King's show this year with their fears of cellphones, thereby
> establishing once and for all that epidemiology is not brain surgery -
> it's more complicated.
>
> As my colleague Tara Parker-Pope has noted, there is no known biological
> mechanism for the phones' non-ionizing radiation to cause cancer, and
> epidemiological studies have failed to find consistent links between
> cancer and cellphones.
>
> It's always possible today's worried doctors will be vindicated, but I'd
> bet they'll be remembered more like the promoters of the old
> cancer-from-power-lines menace - or like James Thurber's grandmother,
> who covered up her wall outlets to stop electricity from leaking.
>
> Driving while talking on a phone is a definite risk, but you're better
> off worrying about other cars rather than cancer.
>
> 5. Evil plastic bags. Take it from the Environmental Protection Agency :
> paper bags are not better for the environment than plastic bags. If
> anything, the evidence from life-cycle analyses favors plastic bags.
> They require much less energy - and greenhouse emissions - to
> manufacture, ship and recycle. They generate less air and water
> pollution. And they take up much less space in landfills.
>
> 6. Toxic plastic bottles. For years panels of experts repeatedly
> approved the use of bisphenol-a, or BPA, which is used in polycarbonate
> bottles and many other plastic products. Yes, it could be harmful if
> given in huge doses to rodents, but so can the natural chemicals in
> countless foods we eat every day. Dose makes the poison.
>
> But this year, after a campaign by a few researchers and activists, one
> U.S. government panel expressed some concern about BPA in baby bottles.
> Panic ensued. Even though there was zero evidence of harm to humans,
> Wal-Mart pulled BPA-containing products from its shelves, and
> politicians began talking about BPA bans. Some experts fear product
> recalls that could make this the most expensive health scare in history.
>
> Nalgene has already announced that it will take BPA out of its
> wonderfully sturdy water bottles. Given the publicity, the company
> probably had no choice. But my old blue-capped Nalgene bottle, the one
> with BPA that survived glaciers, jungles and deserts, is still sitting
> right next to me, filled with drinking water. If they ever try recalling
> it, they'll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers.
>
> 7. Deadly sharks. Throughout the world last year, there was a grand
> total of one fatal shark attack (in the South Pacific), according to the
> International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida.
>
> 8. The Arctic's missing ice. The meltdown in the Arctic last summer was
> bad enough, but this spring there was worse news. A majority of experts
> expected even more melting this year, and some scientists created a
> media sensation by predicting that even the North Pole would be ice-free
> by the end of summer.
>
> So far, though, there's more ice than at this time last summer, and most
> experts are no longer expecting a new record. You can still fret about
> long-term trends in the Arctic, but you can set aside one worry: This
> summer it looks as if Santa can still have his drinks on the rocks.
>
> 9. The universe's missing mass. Even if the fate of the universe -
> steady expansion or cataclysmic collapse - depends on the amount of dark
> matter that is out there somewhere, you can rest assured that no one
> blames you for losing it. And most experts doubt this collapse will
> occur during your vacation.
>
> 10. Unmarked wormholes. Could your vacation be interrupted by a sudden
> plunge into a wormhole? From my limited analysis of space-time theory
> and the movie "Jumper," I would have to say that the possibility cannot
> be eliminated. I would also concede that if the wormhole led to an
> alternate universe, there's a good chance your luggage would be lost in
> transit.
>
> But I still wouldn't worry about it, In an alternate universe, you might
> not have to spend the rest of the year fretting about either dark matter
> or sickly rodents. You might even be able to buy one of those Nalgene
> bottles.

Thanks Victor.

I needed a good laugh.


--
Old Scoundrel

(AKA Dimitri)