— Bob-a-job-alog-a-roonie

On the one hand the site says it doesn’t endorse giving “crabs” to people, saying the lice are for “novelty purposes only”. On the other hand is the lovely contradiction of where they show the true intent of the service (as if the web address wasn’t sufficient) by saying “Make that bitch itch. If you want a method of revenge that doesn’t involve permanent damage or risk of personal injury or jail time, you have come to the right place”.

I find their most expensive offering intriguing – a special breed of lice that will survive in shampoo for up to 2 weeks…

Only available in the UK, and currently you can’t pay online, because no payment company wants to do business with them.

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Scientists writing in the research journal Environmental Health asked more than 1500 women about their cleaning product usage, and found a higher breast cancer rate among women who reported using more air fresheners and products for mold and mildew control.

Women who report greater use of cleaning products may be at higher breast cancer risk than those who say they use them sparingly, a small study suggests.

The researchers at the Silent Spring Institute in Newton, Mass., and the Boston University School of Public Health conducted phone interviews with 787 female breast cancer patients and 721 comparison women.

“Women who reported the highest combined cleaning product use had a doubled risk of breast cancer compared to those with the lowest reported use,” said re searcher Julia Brody of the institute.

The article explains why these numbers might be due to factors other than cleaning products themselves, but it could still be the chemicals causing cancer. In my own experience, the children of clean freaks (i.e. get through a lot of anti-bacterial products) have the kids who get sick the most. As my Dad always tells me – if it isn’t natural, be careful.

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Two thoughts here, neither substantial enough to support a blog post on their own, but with this intro they’ll just get by…

We have security movement detectors in the main rooms of our house. Following the prompt from a fellow parent, we tell our kids that it is “SantaCam” that Santa uses to see if kids are being good. If they believe in Santa, they’ll believe anything 🙂

Everyone is getting platinum credit cards at present. I remember when I got my first gold card and all the programming from years gone by came into play, and something deep down thought it made me special. But once they’ve given everyone a platinum card, what next? They’ll run out of names that have any meaning. It’ll be like when hearing the word c*nt becomes commonplace, how on earth will we swear like a sailor?

UPDATE: My wife tells me that titanium cards are next. But then what, huh?

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It’s a little bit hard to believe, but in Bhutan they have a Yeti sanctuary, such is the strength of local belief in such beasties. And for the first time ever, this September foreign tourists will be permitted to visit. While it would unbelievably cool to visit the sanctuary and try to spot a Yeti (keeping in mind that a thick black hair found there has been DNA tested and the species is unknown…), you need to be able to handle the only way of getting there – six days of walking.

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Kiva.org is an amazing charity resource. Well, if only it was that easy. Instead of giving money and moving on, you merely loan money to people in far-off lands, so that they may start or improve a business. Micro-lending. The way forward. There are so many worthy recipients that it takes a bottle of wine to decide who gets 10 lots of $25 loans. And then 6 months, or a year later, guess what? The buggers have repaid the loans and I have to find a new lot of worthy recipients! It’s keeping me involved

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Young, in love, walking up a local mountain where the guy plans to propose to the girl – and before he does, they get hit by lightning, and she dies. It’s either just the worst luck, or God decided to intervene. Hopefully if he ever proposes again, it’ll be uneventful.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/210221-US-Woman-Killed-by-Lightning-Just-Before-Boyfriend-Was-to-Propose-in-North-Carolina

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This is rare and contrary advice, but I’ve been giving it for years (see my blog post from 2006 about suncreens) – the best way to avoid skin cancer is to stay out of the sun. Sunscreen is a poor second choice. It contains ingredients that increase the odds of you getting skin cancer, and this is a scientific fact! Make sure that you keep re-applying it, that’s the key…

Now researchers at Environmental Working Group have published a study that says they only rate 39 out of the 500 (USA) products they tested as being safe to use. The key problems are:

  • Vitamin A. Yes it stops your skin cells from ageing, but it also stimulates the growth of cancerous tumours when exposed to sunlight! Even worse, the FDA have known about this for 10 years without telling us!
  • Nanoparticles – like genetically-modified products, we are told they are safe, but they haven’t really been tested. This is a problem throughout the cosmetic industry
  • Oxybenzone, a hormone-disrupting chemical which penetrates the skin and enters the bloodstream.

Read more at Signs of the Times

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’nuff said 🙂

Well, OK, I’ll qualify it. I saw the trailer and it looked extremely unappealing, uninteresting and just silly. Looks like they are going for a Charlie’s Angels type remake, except girls being silly is easier to digest than grown men being silly. Instead I think they’ll achieve a disaster that is more like the remake of The Avengers.

My prediction is that it will make less than $20 million in its first week in the USA, and less than $10 million 2nd week, and so on… but it could fare much worse.

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According to David Preiss, lead researcher of the Lancet study, the benefits gained from taking statin drugs far outweigh their risks. For every 1,000 patients that take a statin drug for a year, one of them develops diabetes while five other avoid heart attack and death. He believes such a statistic validates the safety and effectiveness of statin drugs.”

As always, there’s more than one side to this story. Yes, if the increased risk of diabetes was the only problem with statin drugs, then it would probably be acceptable. But this is in addition to the potential for liver and kidney failure, nerve damage, amnesia, and the destruction of CoQ10 in the body.

Despite my doctor’s urging, I have given these drugs, which I would be expected to take every day for the rest of my life, a wide berth.

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Shortly after the 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook from his Harvard dorm room, he allegedly had this IM convo with a friend:

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask.

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend’s Name]: What? How’d you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don’t know why.

Zuck: They “trust me”

Zuck: Dumb fucks.

In this day and age, everything is recorded. Be a perfect citizen always!

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