Greenland melt "speeding up"
Now Playing: Fox News
Topic: Environment

"The meltdown of Greenland's ice sheet is speeding up, satellite measurements show. Data from a US space agency (Nasa) satellite show that the melting rate has accelerated since 2004. "

Full story.

Notable News Notes
Now Playing: Fox News
Topic: Poland

A taste of some of the news and commentary online this Sunday. Please click on the titles to read the whole article.

• Berlin exhibition stirs painful memories by Tristana Moore (BBC)

"The exhibition has been organised by a foundation closely linked to the Federation of the Expelled, which represents 12 to 14 million ethnic Germans, and their descendants, who were forced from their homes... Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has condemned the exhibition as a 'very bad, worrying and sad event,' as it 'relativised the history of the World War ll.' ... 'We think that the struggle against totalitarianism, Nazism and Communism, and the resistance movements, were the most important parts of 20th Century history. The expulsion, especially of Germans, was only a consequence of that,'" said Slawomir Tryc from the Polish embassy in Berlin."

• Mayor of Warsaw cancels trip to Berlin due to the controversial Steinbach exhibit (PAP, in Polish)

Woda na mlyn odwetowcow z Bonn, kochani. Woda na mlyn.

• Safety ops targets Polish uranium by Angus Crawford (BBC)

"Forty kilograms (88lb) of weapons-grade uranium has been taken from a reactor in Poland to stop it falling into terrorists' hands...Officials say the unused fuel was enough to make at least one crude nuclear bomb. Experts estimate just 25kg could make a nuclear weapon.  The operation was organised by the UN nuclear watchdog and Polish, Russian and US authorities were also involved."

• EU warns Poland over environment (BBC)

"Poland could face legal action and EU penalties for failing to 'adequately protect' its natural habitats, a European Commission official has said...Poland is home to rare species such as bison, wolves, bears and eagles living in river valleys, wetlands and forests. The Commission rejected Poland's proposals on Natura 2000 earlier this year, describing them as 'significantly insufficient'...Last week, Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski reignited the row by hinting at a possible downsizing of the programme. 'Natura 2000 has expanded so much that it is practically impossible to build anything,' he said. 

• Son sues Auschwitz for father's suitcase by Charles Bremner and Roger Boyle (The London Times) 

 

Review: The Maker's Diet - Part I
Now Playing: L & O: Special Victims Unit
Topic: Fitness

I just finished reading “The Maker’s Diet” by Jordan S. Rubin. I was quite intrigued during the first sections of the book but by the time I finished my initial enthusiasm was replaced by disappointment.  

 

In a nutshell, Rubin writes that when he was freshman in college he developed Crohn’s disease. He got so ill that he dropped out of school, got down to 111 pounds (he’s 6’1”) and spent two years in excruciating pain while his parents spent over $150,000 on every conceivable conventional and alternative therapy. Finally he met a nutrition guru in California that introduced him to biblical food dos and don’ts. Rubin moved to California, followed the biblical menu and started taking homeostatic soil organisms and miraculously recovered.

 

My suspicions were first aroused on page 22 of the book when Rubin’s best friend writes that Rubin never drank or tried drugs during high school or during his “brief college life.” Rubin states that he had to drop out of Florida State University during his sophomore year due to his illness. He was cured by December 1996. Rubin mentions getting married, and developing various (allegedly) potent and effective nutritional supplements and even a unique cleansing program. I found it strange that there was no mention of him triumphantly returning to FSU (or any other school) and yet his name on the book jacket is followed by the initials “N.M.D.,” (Naturopathic Medical Doctor) and “Ph.D.”  “The Maker’s Diet” was published in 2004. It is quite impressive to go from finishing up your sophomore year of college to obtaining two graduate degrees in less than 7 years.

 

A quick Google search revealed that the N.M.D. degree was awarded by Puerto Rico’s Peoples University of the Americas, a school that lacks both accreditation and a campus. The Ph.D. was awarded by the Academy of Natural Therapies a correspondence school which also lacks accreditation (and which was shut down by the state of Hawaii). See The Maker's Diet or Faker's Diet? and Quackwatch  for more details about Rubin’s degrees.

 

Apparently Rubin appears from time to time on a show called “Healthy Wealthy and Wise.” The show’s website lists the following as Rubin’s “Medical Specialties and Credits”:

 

·        “A Nationally recognized Biblical Health Coach and Nutritional Expert

·        Best Selling Health Author and Scholar

·        A Chronic Disease Survivor with a compassionate Holistic approach to Medicine

·        A Member of the National Academy of Sports Medicine

·        A Believer in Integrative Medicine from all Health Sciences focused on the Patient's overall Well-Being”

           

NOTHING about his degrees, licenses, accreditations. I recovered successfully from spinal fusion surgery. Does that make an expert in back care? Of course not. Yet apparently being a chronic disease survivor and a believer in integrative medicine is enough to qualify as a person’s medical specialties and credits. (The only prerequisites for NASM certification is being over 18 years old, paying a fee & taking a test.)

           

Rubin’s qualifications aside, the second thing that bothered me about the book was the shameless self-promotion of his other products, including his cleaning program, supplements and even something called “functional fitness.” The first three health organizations recommended in the appendix are his own: Garden of Life, Inc., Garden of Life Communications and Makersdiet.com.

           

Of course, almost all health experts have their own lines of vitamins and miracle products now adays, so the idea that Rubin is out for serious cash is not new. But the icing on the cake regarding his credibility is the fact that the FDA has ordered Rubin to stop claiming on his websites and in his previous book, “Patient Heal Thyself,” that his supplements can cure disease. (See the Quackwatch entry listed above). The FDA has its flaws, to be sure, but any time a federal agency threatens legal action based on unsubstantiated claims on websites, books, etc., it should make you think.

           

 To be continued…

Footpad update
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Dog Stories

Szarik's footpad injury seems to be healing with out a problem. He still hobbled up the stairs a little but he is not in pain most of the time. Case in point: tonight, I accidently unhooked his leash while we were down stairs and he took off like a bat out of hell. I was terrified that the sight of his hind legs running as fast as they could would be the last I ever saw of him because we live off a really busy road. Luckily, Szarik only got as far as the tennis courts. There were people trying to play tennis and the dog was desperately trying to figure out a way to join them. Luckily, one of the players was a GSD owner, too. I'm just grateful that I found him and brought him back home in one piece.

Footpad injury
Mood:  down
Topic: Dog Stories

My husband ("Elvis") and I bought a pair of tennis rackets today and we took our GSD to play a little tennis. Szarik was having a great time running around trying to catch the ball, when Elvis noticed that one of the tennis balls had a little bit of blood on it. At first we thought that Szarik had hurt his gum or lip, but it turned out his back paw was bleeding. There was blood all over the court. The dog did not not act like he was in pain until we got to stairs. He limped up to the third floor and when we got home and cleaned up his paw, we saw that he tore his footpad...

Sparking
Topic: Random Thoughts
As I was walking the dog earlier today, I realized why I like SparkPeople so much. It's not really the diet & exercise tips (they are too general and not the most effective way to lose weight, imho, but I guess they are good for very overweight people who need to drop a few pounds for health reasons). Anyway, I like it because today I had discussed seitan, dogs, ABC & NFP. I love the sheer variety of people there.

p.s. I was actually inspired to make some seitan. I used the recipe on this website.

Weight Lifting Myth
Topic: Fitness
I've become slightly addicted to Sparkpeople. Over all, the site is not hardcore enough for my tastes, but its free and it serves its purpose. Today, a woman posted that she thinks she gained a pound of muscle b/c she's been lifting weights at the Y for 2 WEEKS. She didn't seem like the type that wouldn't use the pink dumbbells. The thing that got me is that is that one of the "resident experts" replied: "Sounds like a good assumption to me." Granted he's a stress management & behavior psychology expert, but geesh! Talk about giving out bad advice, no matter how well-intentioned. And he's supposedly a certified personal trainer, too.

Evil Beagles
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Dog Stories
I just finished walking my 18-month-old German Shepherd. We encountered a couple w/a three-year-old girl and two Beagles. The child was heading right towards my pup so I made him sit on the sidewalk. While he was sitting, the Beagles came up and started sniffing him. Then one of them bit my baby and their owner just stood there without reacting. I mean the dogs were on a retractable leash and he did not pull them back, he did not tell them no, he did not call them back, nothing.

We're new to this neighborhood and I talked to another dog owner who said that those Beagles are always harassing her puppy.

When we were almost home, we ran into the Beagle family again. Once again, the Beagles started lunging at my dog. I told the owners that if their dog(s) are biting another dog that they should react - say something, do something, you know, control your animals. They didn't say a word back. Literally. They just stared at me as if I was from another planet...

Tennessee
Now Playing: What Not to Wear
My darling husband and I moved from Mississippi to Tennessee earlier this week. We actually moved on our one year wedding anniversary (hence the photo of the top layer of our wedding cake surrounded by mess).

I think that its going to be A LOT easier to be a green crunchy person here than it was back in small town Mississippi. I already discovered the joys of Method cleaning products, a good tasting veggie dog and organic tomatoes. And tomorrow we're heading out to a farmers' market. I haven't seen one of those since central NY four years ago.

Oh, and the best thing is that we now have access to cable and with it DSL and so I'll be able to blog a lot more easily!

Cartoon Riots - Update
Topic: Radical Islam
A couple of news stories you may not have come across:


1. "Pakistani Student's Funeral Draws 50,000" -"SAROKI, Pakistan - More than 50,000 people turned out Saturday for the funeral of a Pakistani student who died while under arrest in Germany for allegedly planning to attack a newspaper that published caricatures of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Amer Cheema, 28, was arrested in March as he tried to enter the office of Axel Springer, the publisher of Die Welt...According to German police, Cheema hanged himself in his Berlin cell on May 3 using a noose made from his clothes."

2. "Video calls for 'sea of blood'" and "Update 1: Al-Qaida Escapee Appears in Second Video"- In a new al-Qaeda video posted online, Mohammad Hassan/Sheikh Abu Yahia al-Libi tells his followers: "Muslims avenge your Prophet .... We deeply desire that the small state of Denmark, Norway and France ... are struck hard and destroyed...Destroy their buildings, make their ground shake and transform them into a sea of blood...Sharpen your swords, and get ready and make them drink the glass of death...We tell the state of Denmark, its sister Norway and France - the enemy of the veil, chastity and purity, which harmed the Prophet ... we wish to see you toppled." Hassan escaped from a U.S. detension facility in Afghanistan.

3. Imam who led cartoon protests to leave country - "Denmark's most prominent imam, who led criticism of the newspaper that published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, is to leave the country, the Jyllands-Posten reported yesterday. Imam Ahmed Abu Laban said he felt humiliated since the cartoon controversy, which led to riots around the world, and that he would return to Gaza with his family, the daily reported. 'I am being viewed as a simple terrorist,' he was quoted as saying. In January, police questioned Mr Abu Laban over secretly taped comments that appeared to allude to terrorism. No charges were made."