Author: SDG

Diet Soda Dilemma

I think I’ll pretend I didn’t see the following story until another group of experts announces that the exact opposite is true:

"People who drink diet soft drinks don’t lose weight. In fact, they gain weight, a new study shows.

"The findings come from eight years of data collected by Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio. Fowler reported the data at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Diego.

"’What didn’t surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity,’ Fowler tells WebMD. ‘What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher.’"

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to the friend who sent me the link.)

Of course, this kind of thing is probably why the diet-soft-drink industry chooses advertising slogans such as "Just for the taste of it."

JIMMY ADDS: Actually, there are a couple of theories I’m aware of that may explain this. The first is that most folks who drink diet cokes think that they are saving more calories than they actually are and thus give themselves liberty for too much extra calorie intake, resulting in more net calories (e.g., "I didn’t drink that 180 calorie glass of Coke–I had Diet Coke instead–so it’s okay if I eat this 300 calorie piece of cake").

Another theory that may play a role is that most artificial sweeteners still have a very high glycemic index–higher even than sugar–and this may result in your brain thinking that you’ve just drunk a whole mess of sugar. The brain then gets ready to digest sugar and causes the insulin spike that inhibits weight loss.

My own conjecture is that the former conjecture may play a larger role than the latter. I lost a great deal of weight over a long period of time while drinking diet coke the whole time. The diff was that I had cut out almost all carbohydrates out of my diet and so wasn’t giving my body much to generate an insulin spike, even if the Nutrasweet in the diet coke was giving me a bit of one.

Peeking At Potter

Hpbritcover_1 Did you know that the latest installment in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince is on store shelves already?  Fourteen people managed to snag copies of The Half-Blood Prince before a Canadian store realized its mistake in selling before the July 16 release date and pulled the copies.

You’d think that this wouldn’t be an earth-shattering event.  After all, I’ve seen books sold in bookstores before their release date all the time.  It’s not kosher, but it’s routinely done.  Only if you’re a publishing industry superstar do you rate an iron-clad "no sale" prior to the official date.  When you’re J. K. Rowling, you rate a Canadian judge ordering the fourteen early-buyers to keep their mouths shut about the book’s contents:

"A handful of people in Canada got a sneak peak of the latest Harry Potter book, but a British Columbia Supreme Court judge ordered them to keep it a secret.

"The book was sold to 14 people who snagged a copy of J. K. Rowlings’ much anticipated Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, when it landed on shelves last Thursday at a local grocery store.

"The book, officially set for release this coming Saturday, has been shrouded in secrecy and its debut has been highly orchestrated to enable everyone — readers, reviewers, even publishers — to crack it open all at once. It’s the sixth in Rowling’s seven-book fantasy series on the young wizard.

"But the store slipped up and sold 14 copies before realizing its mistake."

GET THE STORY.

The individuals involved should be grateful that all that happened was that they were legally gagged by a Muggle judge.  A Wizard court would probably have made them drink one of Snape’s potions.

The Forbidden Flavor

When I was a kid, a childhood fad was those scratch-‘n-sniff stickers; you know, you scratch a picture of a chocolate bar and lean close and smell chocolate. There was a whole range of flavors — everything from orange and lemon to gasoline and motor oil.

It was those last two fragrances that caused an uproar among activist groups, eventually culminating in the end of scratch-‘n-sniff gasoline and motor oil stickers for fear that a slight sniff of manufactured "fumes" would lead gullible children to huff the real thing. (As a personal note, I collected a few of those stickers in my youth and was never tempted to huff gas or oil fumes.)

Well, now another novelty item is apparently going the way of the scratch-‘n-sniff stickers of gas and motor oil: Suck-‘n-taste marijuana-flavored candy is being targeted for prohibitive legislation around the country:

"The [Chicago] City Council passed a law Wednesday banning the sale of marijuana-flavored lollipops, gumdrops and other treats, becoming the first major city to prohibit the confections that have appeared in convenience stores nationwide.

"The candies are legal because they are made with hemp oil, an ingredient used in health foods and some household products. The oil imparts marijuana’s grassy taste but not the high.

"’I can’t imagine the degree and the extent to which people will go to make a buck — and to make a buck on kids, trying to get them to experiment with something that is going to be a lead-in to the use of marijuana,’ said Alderman Edward Burke, who sponsored the measure.

"Chicago is not the only city weighing the issue. A New York City councilwoman plans to hold hearings on the candies this summer, and an Atlanta suburb passed a resolution opposing them, which caused merchants there to remove the treats from their shelves."

GET THE STORY.

While such legislation may indeed be proper, I long for the day when such novelties will die by the Law of Supply and Demand: Enough parents will refuse to purchase — and refuse to allow their children to purchase — such items that the supply of the product will dry up because there is no demand for it.

I’ve Been Paged!

… By Christopher over at Against the Grain in his page over the Harry Potter novels and Pope Benedict XVI’s alleged disapproval of them.

Since the Holy Father’s election, Potter naysayers have been having a field day with a German-language article that claimed that the then-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger had denounced J. K. Rowling’s mega-popular children’s series.  As the release date for the latest installment draws near, the frenzy has become even more strident.  So, the question is, did the Pope disapprove of the series?  The answer:  No, because no such statement has been offered by Pope Benedict during his pontificate.  Well, what about the alleged disapproval of Cardinal Ratzinger?  Here’s my response:

  • As far as I know, the letter sent to the German critic Gabriele Kuby has not been published.  According to Lifesite.net (the site that offers an article that blares "Pope Benedict Opposes Harry Potter Novels"), Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter was quoted by Kuby in a German-language interview she gave to the Zenit news agency.  If the letter has been published, then I would have to read it in order to determine whether the Cardinal had been giving a private opinion or was speaking in his capacity as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
  • According to Kuby, as mediated through the Zenit report, Ratzinger said: "It is good that you shed light and inform us on the Harry Potter matter, for these are subtle seductions that are barely noticeable and precisely because of that deeply affect (children) and corrupt the Christian faith in souls even before it (the Faith) could properly grow."  Please note that the glosses in parentheses are probably not Cardinal Ratzinger’s.  One would have to see the letter itself to confirm the context of the glosses.  Even if accurate, there is still a lot of context missing.  What exactly does the "these" in the clause that starts "for these are subtle seductions" refer to?  As of yet, there is no way to know.
  • Cardinal Ratzinger may simply be giving a politely general response to the concerns of a correspondent, affirming that her concerns for the faith of children are valid without necessarily affirming that the series itself indeed causes such dangers.  If the intriguing "these" simply refers to the concerns she raised and not to alleged problems in the Potter series, then the quote says nothing of the Cardinal’s opinion of the series.  Analogously, if someone wrote to Catholic Answers asking me if such-and-so liturgical abuse was a legitimate concern, I could say yes without saying anything about the particular circumstances at the correspondent’s parish. 
  • Let’s say for the sake of argument that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger has read the Harry Potter novels and agrees with the Potter critics that they are bad.  What does that prove?  If he was speaking privately as an independent literary critic, not much beyond the fact that they are not his cup of tea.  If he was speaking privately as a theologian troubled by theological issues in the series, then his opinion would carry the weight of the private analysis by an orthodox and well-respected Christian theologian.  Only if he had been writing as head of the CDF would magisterial authority begin to be a question.

The trouble with articles like the one on Lifesite is that they cause a lot of controversy without much substance.  The same was true a couple of years ago when Roman exorcist Fr. Gabriele Amorth nixed the Potter series.  Naysayers pounced on this and trumpeted it to fans of the series while failing to mention that Fr. Amorth was only speaking on his own authority and not the Church’s.  Now that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger has become Pope Benedict XVI, naysayers are hoping to stir the cauldron again.  Granted, the remarks should be discussed, even investigated, to ascertain what was said and the context in which it was said.  But misleading headlines and sensationalistic articles are not the way to foster calm and reasoned inquiry.

Caped Bible Crusader

Bibleman2_2

No, it’s not a bird, or a plane, or even Superman. It’s the Evangelical world’s superhero, Bibleman! When he is not busy battling superscum Rapscallion P. Sinister, he can be found evangelizing with Billy Graham and introducing children to the superpower that can be found in knowing their Bibles:

He fights bad guys for a living! He’s got a light saber! He wears a silver spandex suit and a shiny yellow helmet! No wonder kids were enthralled by the masked superhero Saturday morning, even though he also sings ballads, quotes Bible verses and has no real superpowers — just the ‘armor of God.’

"Bibleman, the Christian superhero, swooped into Queens’ Flushing Meadows Park to help that other Crusader — evangelist Billy Graham — spread the message of God. Graham’s three-day crusade will be his last in the United States, and he has drawn record crowds.

"Thousands braved the sweltering heat to see Bibleman, including children decked out in purple and yellow Bibleman outfits, and a few curious adults.

"’I’m finding myself enjoying it,’ said Greg Packer, 41, of Huntington, N.Y. ‘It’s like a religious version of Star Wars.’"

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to Holy Weblog! for the link.)

I found myself wistfully thinking that Bibleman should team up with Tradition Man and Magisterial Man to fight off the evil Sola-Scriptura Man. But then I remembered! The Curt Jester was on the case and showcased the results!

Cliff Divers

In a scene eerily reminiscent of the demon-possessed swine who stampeded over a cliff to their deaths (cf. Matt. 8:28-33), a herd of sheep startled their Turkish shepherds by hurling themselves over a cliff:

"First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff, Turkish media reported.

"In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile, the Aksam newspaper said. Those who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and the fall more cushioned, Aksam reported.

"’There’s nothing we can do. They’re all wasted,’ Nevzat Bayhan, a member of one of 26 families whose sheep were grazing together in the herd, was quoted as saying by Aksam."

GET THE STORY.

Tempting as it is to be amused by this story, the loss of the sheep will be a difficult hardship for the local shepherds who lost over $100,000 in livestock.

Motion Picture Conclave

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — you know, the group that passes out that shiny gold statue called, uh, uh, Oscar!, every year — has elevated 112 artists and executives to voting member status.

"The invitees range from such recent Oscar winners as best actor Jamie Foxx, original score composer Jan A. P. Kaczmarek and animated short-film creator Chris Landreth to such executives as newly installed Paramount Pictures chairman and CEO Brad Grey, Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman and CEO Michael Lynton, and Pixar Animation Studios chairman and CEO Steve Jobs.

"While the Academy adopted a new policy last year to slow the growth to a maximum of 30 new members annually, it was able to issue more than 100 invitations because of deaths and members opting for retired (nonvoting) status.

[…]

"Candidates for Academy membership are normally proposed by members and then considered by committees made up of representatives of each of the organization’s 14 branches."

GET THE STORY.

In case you were wondering how Hollywood’s most elite yearly conclave works, now you know.