Sunday--

Naked Capitalism had this post this morning. I have criticized the notion that government should be run as a business often. Money has no inherent morality attached to it. How it is made and what it is used for may be good or evil but the standards that determine good or bad are outside money itself or the profits money measures. So how much money is a poor person's life, especially a poor black person's life, worth? I have read that Snyder's appointed "emergency manager" was told that a treatment to prevent the corrosion and leaching of lead from the pipes would have cost $100/day. Evidently that was too much.

Monday--

Happy (Lunar) New Year, everyone!!

Weather is supposed to turn seasonally colder with snow showers through tomorrow with some accumulation possible. (Update: we are now getting the snow five hours after I wrote that first bit.) Hasn't started yet. I didn't get the seeds started yesterday so I will try to get it done after I bake some bread. Found a nice cranberry/walnut bread to try. (I said it was a "nice" recipe but I haven't like the feel all the way along. It is baking now and either works or doesn't. Either way I will find other recipes.)

Grist asks an interesting question: what is worse for women, alcohol or patronizing medical advice? I would say the patronizing advice and expand it to include the busybody political and religious types, usually men, giving women advice on how best to be women. The article does touch on that with the run down on all the actions taken to make sure women don't make any decision at all that might bruise the men's tender sensitivities.

Interesting retro development: wind powered sailing ship carrying cargo again.

The manufacturers tried to rehabilitate aspartame but this large study confirms earlier studies: drinking diet sodas with aspartame increases the chances women will have a heart attack or stroke and the chances they will die from that heart attack or stroke. And that is after the researchers accounted for other factors like obesity, diabetes, smoking, age, hormone therapy, etc.

Ah, the health Nazis are probably tearing their hair out over this article. I have been skeptical about the BMI measure of obesity since I first read, about thirty years ago, of professional athletes scoring as obese on a BMI index.