Unread News Stories

Snow cover over North America greatest since 1966

Materialistic society is ‘damaging’ children

Noah’s ark for crop seeds opens in Arctic Norway

Depression drugs ‘little better than placebos’

Obama raised funds for Islamic causes

US religious landscape survey

Well, I read the third one.

But that’s all, even though they all look like something I could blog about here.

However, I have something else I need to write about: The Husbands I Want for My Daughters — no, I don’t mean a blog post.

Shouldn’t every dad have a checklist like that?

And maybe even every daughter?

Chips, Dips, Lips

I know this is New York Times reporting, but still . . . .

Professor Dawson told me that he had expected to find little or no microbial transfer from mouth to chip to dip….

The team of nine students instructed volunteers to take a bite of a wheat cracker and dip the cracker for three seconds into about a tablespoon of a test dip. They then repeated the process with new crackers, for a total of either three or six double dips per dip sample. The team then analyzed the remaining dip and counted the number of aerobic bacteria in it.

[…]

On average, the students found that three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from the eater’s mouth to the remaining dip.

Each cracker picked up between one and two grams of dip. That means that sporadic double dipping in a cup of dip would transfer at least 50 to 100 bacteria from one mouth to another with every bite.

[…]

“The way I would put it is, before you have some dip at a party, look around and ask yourself, would I be willing to kiss everyone here? Because you don’t know who might be double dipping, and those who do are sharing their saliva with you.”

😯

Mennonites and Government Schools

Mennonites may flee Quebec town:

Members of Quebec’s only Mennonite community say they may move to Ontario or New Brunswick so they can keep their children in a private school that suits their religious beliefs.

Fifteen English-speaking Mennonite families in this small community in the Monteregie region say they won’t send their children to government-approved schools, balking at the teaching of evolution, the acceptance of gays and lesbians and low “morality standards.”

They say they are considering relocation out of fear that child-protection officials will seize their children.

Other townspeople here — mostly francophone Catholics — support the primarily English school, deemed illegal by Quebec’s Education Department.

The story continues:

He said about 30 members of the community — young couples and their school-aged children — will have to move before school starts. The others will follow.

News reports last year about unsanctioned schools led to a complaint to the Education Department about the Mennonite school.

Parents were warned they would face legal proceedings if their children aren’t enrolled in sanctioned schools this fall. That could lead to children being taken from families

And this:

In Roxton Falls, the vast majority of non-Mennonites strongly support the school, said the town’s Mayor, Jean-Marie Laplante. This week, he wrote letters to the education department and Education Minister Michelle Courchesne in an effort to save the school.

We’ll see how it all shakes out.

I empathize (or at least sympathize) with my fellow-Mennonites and fellow-parents, but I wonder if Mr. Goosen didn’t overstate his case with this comment:

“It boils down to intolerance to our religion” by education officials, said Ronald Goossen, who in the early 1990s was among the first Mennonites from Manitoba to move to Roxton Falls, a sleepy town on the Riviere Noire, about 100 kilometres east of Montreal.

If they truly fail to meet whatever standards the state has, then change or move or appeal, but please don’t play the intolerance card.

Thanks.

🙂

Military Draft in USA?

Bush War Adviser Says Draft Worth a Look

Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military draft, President Bush’s new war adviser said Friday.

“I think it makes sense to certainly consider it,” Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said in an interview with National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”

“And I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table. But ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation’s security by one means or another,” Lute added in his first interview since he was confirmed by the Senate in June.

President Nixon abolished the draft in 1973. Restoring it, Lute said, would be a “major policy shift” and Bush has made it clear that he doesn’t think it’s necessary.

I wonder how soon till he has to back down from those statements.

Rattler Warning

I’ve never heard of this before:

Turns out, even beheaded rattlesnakes can be dangerous.

That’s what 53-year-old Danny Anderson learned as he was feeding his horses this week when a 5-foot rattler slithered onto his central Washington property, about 50 miles southeast of Yakima.

Anderson and his 27-year-old son, Benjamin, pinned the snake with an irrigation pipe and cut off its head with a shovel. A few more strikes to the head left it sitting under a pickup truck.

“When I reached down to pick up the head, it raised around and did a backflip almost, and bit my finger,” Anderson said. “I had to shake my hand real hard to get it to let loose.”

Private
Above all, love God!