Some seriously good news for a change

Dr. Michelle Hauser, a Stanford University physician who trained first as a cook and worked at Berkeley's famous "Chez Panisse" restaurant,  is spearheading efforts to help use cuisine as a bulwark against heart disease.  Now since a lot of fine cuisine is, a la Julia Child, a lot of foie gras, butter, and eggs, it's somewhat counter-intuitive that fine cuisine would help with heart disease and the like, but what I've found as an avid amateur cook is that when I cook from Child's cookbooks, I lose weight.

How so?  Well, one explanation comes from the "Journal of the American Dietetic Association" magazines I'd peek at as a teenager back in the 1980s (my mother was a dietician and ADA , now AND, member), and one of the theories for weight loss back in the day was that a lot of overeaters were seeking not a certain amount of food, but a certain amount of taste.  And so the herbs, spices, vegetables, wine, and yes, butter and eggs have a big place in giving eaters that satisfaction, helping with obesity and, transitively, heart disease.

Heart disease?  Yes.  Beyond the reality of obesity's link, there's a fact that my mom taught me as a child; you don't need to worry about getting cholesterol in your diet, because your body will make it for you.  In the same way, your body also makes a fair amount of fat from excess carbohydrates in your diet.  

And so we would infer that to some degree, it matters less what kinds of fats and cholesterol you get in your diet, and more whether your diet is pushing your own body to fill your own arteries.  

Reading, writing, and....what??????

Apparently a book containing graphic depictions of oral sex, sex toys, and the like is seen as having "Literary value" and is "aligned with Common Core Standards."   I guess my generation owes Larry Flynt a big apology for not getting every school library a subscription to his magazines.

Or not.  I'm reminded of a friend I used to work with who commented that his church's youth group generally couldn't read well or do mathematics, but they knew that abortion was a right and that they might be gay.  Priorities, I guess, not including actual "education".

Along the same lines, our next door neighbor boy (7 years old) walked in while Mrs. Bubba was running through some things by Bach and just loved it.  There is hope if we don't forget where we've been.

Get your TP ready!

Regular readers of this site will know well that this author is a huge fan of the British royal family, writing consistently about their lives and adventures, and hence it is of great interest that  the crown prince and his family are moving to Adalaide Cottage, a more humble abode with not as many gilded dolphins on ceiling of the master bedrooms as usual.   What humility, as I realize the huge number (a perfectly round number) of gilded dolphins on the ceiling of the bedroom Mrs. Bubba and I share.  It makes me want to welcome them to their new neighborhood by an old fashioned TP party.

OK, yes, I'm guessing one would not be allowed to show such traditional hospitality to them, and more's the pity.

Dream until your dreams come true

The song by Aerosmith comes to mind as I consider Janet Yellen's dictate that the IRS will come up with a modernization plan within six months, as if the same agency hasn't had several abortive attempts at the same in the past few decades.  

You would figure an old DC hand would know better than to suggest this is possible, but apparently not.  And yes, if you're curious, the big boost in IRS funding terrifies me, too.  It's clearly intended for the middle class, with a hefty helping of "we're coming after conservatives" as well.  Remember, the decision with Lois Lerner ended up with the conclusion that the IRS's criminal activities were "mismanagement", but there were no management changes made.  So they're primed and ready for a repeat.

Looks appropriate to me

Well, with most long range artillery targeting civilian targets, and most Russian air attacks also attacking the same, and with the whole war predicated on the nonsense idea that a nation with a Jewish President somehow needed to be "de-Nazified", I've known since March that pretty much every commissioned officer in the Russian Army, Air Force, and Navy, along with their diplomatic service, belongs in jail.

So if all the higher-ups belong in jail, I guess it was only a matter of time before the privates, corporals, and sergeants were the same, and Russia has delivered by opening up enlistment in their army to convicted criminals.  My guess is that they'll be driving T-34s and will be issued Mosin-Nagants.  It's still to be determined whether they'll be given rations or ammunition.

Seriously, what it means it that public support for the war is paper thin, available soldiers are rapidly assuming wheat field temperature (over 42000 by Ukraine's estimate), and Moscow is pulling out all the stops to get willing soldiers cannon fodder to keep the war effort going.  At the same time, Ukraine is sending volunteers to be trained by NATO soldiers in Poland, Denmark, and the United Kingdom.  It does not bode well for Russia's war effort, especially given the generally horrendous performance of conscripts and criminals in battle.  Conscript batallions will form weak points that the Ukrainians will destroy, using the space they filled to pull a Hindenburg envelopment a la Tannenberg.

I know Russian jails are awful, but if I were a Russian criminal, I might just stay where I was.  Also: if I were a Russian citizen who knew that thousands of dangerous criminals might soon be on the streets because they'd survived half a year in Ukraine, I would consider emigration.  This is bad news on all fronts.

Shades of the late 1980s

An epidemiologist who noted, apparently correctly, that monkeypox is predominantly a disease of the homosexual community appears to have been reassigned to a different division.  Because if you're hoping to reduce a disease that is disfiguring to lethal, pointing out the current demographics is of course the very last thing you'll do.

If you're politically correct in Gotham, that is.  It is not clear whether the powers that be hate honest men more, or those likely to contract monkeypox.  I'm calling it a tie.

One other thing that comes to mind is that, as monkeypox leaves a pattern of lesions that resembles little so much as its related smallpox, it's unclear to me why anyone would decide to sleep with someone with signs of the disease.