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Started by Kai, July 30, 2008, 10:04:06 PM

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Requia ☣

My favorite part about the big internet vuln is that its apparently been known since before I was born, people just now got around to caring  :lulz:
Inflatable dolls are not recognized flotation devices.

Triple Zero

Quote from: Requiem on August 02, 2008, 11:07:11 PMMy favorite part about the big internet vuln is that its apparently been known since before I was born, people just now got around to caring  :lulz:

no it's been around since the early days of the internet (which may have been before you were born), but it hasn't been discovered until about 6 months ago.

personally i'm more surprised by the fact that nobody ever noticed that Debian Linux never generated more than 32,768 distinct SSH keys for all these years (should have been into the several zillion billion trillions, but they made a bug. making everything very vulnerable. heh. it's fixed now.)
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Kai

August 4, 2008
Anthrax Case Renews Questions on Bioterror Effort

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON—Until the anthrax attacks of 2001, Bruce E. Ivins was one of just a few dozen American bioterrorism researchers working with the most lethal biological pathogens, almost all at high-security military laboratories.

Today, there are hundreds of such researchers in scores of laboratories at universities and other institutions around the United States, preparing for the next bioattack.

But the revelation that F.B.I. investigators believe that the anthrax attacks were carried out by Dr. Ivins, an Army biodefense scientist who committed suicide last week after he learned that he was about to be indicted for murder, has already re-ignited a debate: Has the unprecedented boom in biodefense research made the country less secure by multiplying the places and people with access to dangerous germs?

http://snipurl.com/3aimh

Instant-Messagers Really Are About Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

Turns out, it is a small world.  The "small world theory," embodied in the old saw that there are just "six degrees of separation" between any two strangers on Earth, has been largely corroborated by a massive study of electronic communication.

With records of 30 billion electronic conversations among 180 million people from around the world, researchers have concluded that any two people on average are distanced by just 6.6 degrees of separation, meaning that they could be linked by a string of seven or fewer acquaintances.

The database covered all of the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging network in June 2006, or roughly half the world's instant-messaging traffic at that time, researchers said.

http://snipurl.com/3aju6

Sweet Peas Make a Second Skin

from the Guardian (UK)

Might sweet peas and a polymer help reduce disfiguring skin contractions after a skin graft? Sheila MacNeil, professor of tissue engineering at the University of Sheffield, thinks so. Thanks to a compound called beta-aminopropionitrile found in sweet peas, plastic surgeons may soon replace uncomfortable pressure garments with a drug-containing polymer gel.

MacNeil is also behind the development of an artificial skin scaffold. Now, she and her colleagues have turned to an ages-old problem with skin grafts that shrink, become lumpy and, for children with burns, give real problems as they grow.

She's combining polymer chemistry with tissue engineering—a technical challenge in itself—along with a desire to do something clinically useful.

http://snipurl.com/38g89

Stinging Tentacles Offer Hint of Oceans' Decline

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

BARCELONA, Spain—Blue patrol boats crisscross the swimming areas of beaches here with their huge nets skimming the water's surface. The yellow flags that urge caution and the red flags that prohibit swimming because of risky currents are sometimes topped now with blue ones warning of a new danger: swarms of jellyfish.

In a period of hours during a day a couple of weeks ago, 300 people on Barcelona's bustling beaches were treated for stings, and 11 were taken to hospitals.

From Spain to New York, to Australia, Japan and Hawaii, jellyfish are becoming more numerous and more widespread, and they are showing up in places where they have rarely been seen before, scientists say. ...
But while jellyfish invasions are a nuisance to tourists and a hardship to fishermen, for scientists they are a source of more profound alarm, a signal of the declining health of the world's oceans.

http://snipurl.com/3aimo

Inventors Flock to File Patents in U.S.

from the San Diego Union-Tribune (Registration Required)

GENEVA (Associated Press)—The United States is again the favored destination to patent inventions after 43 years in which Japan and the now-defunct Soviet Union held the lead, a U.N. report said Thursday.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office received nearly a quarter of the 1.76 million patents filed worldwide in 2006—the latest years for which figures are available—according to the World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO.

The Soviet Union briefly overtook the U.S. in 1964 at a time when technology was seen as the key to winning the space race—not to mention more mundane battles back on Earth. By 1970 Japan eclipsed both the superpowers, holding onto its lead until 2005.

http://snipurl.com/38gec

Genetically Modified Olympians?

from the Economist

For as long as people have vied for sporting glory, they have also sought shortcuts to the champion's rostrum. Often, those shortcuts have relied on the assistance of doctors. After all, most doping involves little more than applying existing therapies to healthy bodies.

These days, however, the competition is so intense that existing therapies are not enough. Now, athletes in search of the physiological enhancement they need to take them a stride ahead of their opponents are scanning medicine's future, as well as its present. In particular, they are interested in a field known as gene therapy.

Gene therapy works by inserting extra copies of particular genes into the body. These extra copies, known as "transgenes," may cover for a broken gene or regulate gene activity. Though gene therapy has yet to yield a reliable medical treatment, more than 1,300 clinical trials are now under way. As that number suggests, the field is reckoned to be full of promise.

http://snipurl.com/38ggc

Rescued Dog Blazes a Surgical Trail

from the (Raleigh, N.C.) News and Observer

Three years ago, Cassidy Posovsky was a three-legged German shepherd mix hobbling homeless around the Bronx. Thursday morning, he was a medical pioneer getting fitted with a cutting-edge prosthetic that could one day help thousands of veterans and others who lose limbs in trauma.

If all goes well, Cassidy's artificial leg will fuse into his bone, and he should be on all fours in months—paving the way for veterinary orthopedic surgeons at N.C. State University to start working with doctors for human implantation.

With more than 1.3 million veterans seeking prosthetics from the Department of Veterans Affairs each year, and more service members in Iraq and Afghanistan wounded every day, the need for improved limb-replacement technology is becoming more acute. Futuristic technologies such as computerized legs, microprocessor knees and bionic nerve systems have become top priorities of VA research.

http://snipurl.com/38x2c

Light Goes Out on Pioneer Machine

from BBC News Online

The pioneering Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS) based at the Daresbury Laboratory in Warrington, UK, will be switched off on Monday.

The machine, which probed the structure of materials down to the molecular and atomic level, developed the technology now used in some 60 centres worldwide. Its X-ray science has been behind new drugs and electronics, and was used in Nobel-winning research on cell energy.

UK synchrotron studies have now moved to the Diamond centre in Oxfordshire. Daresbury's future is envisioned as an innovation super-centre, where scientific ideas can better make the leap to business.

http://snipurl.com/3aira

AIDS Survey Signals 'Downturn in Treatment'

from USA Today

Half of AIDS patients worldwide appear to be stopping their medication or failing to begin treatment because of side effects from therapy, researchers will report today.

The survey of nearly 3,000 patients from 18 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas represents a sweeping effort to track patient attitudes about their social concerns and treatment, with side effects ranging from disfiguring fatty deposits to drug toxicity to clogged arteries.

... A separate study, released over the weekend, shows that thousands more people are getting HIV each year than experts realized. "The epidemic is—and has been—worse than was previously known," says Kevin Fenton, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The government's tally of the year-by-year impact of the AIDS epidemic offers the first clear picture of HIV in the USA. It appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

http://snipurl.com/3aivg

World's Smallest Snake Discovered, Study Says

from National Geographic News

The world's smallest snake—and perhaps the smallest possible snake—has been discovered on the Caribbean island of Barbados, a new study says.

At about ten centimeters long (less than four inches), the diminutive reptile might easily be mistaken for an earthworm, and could comfortably curl up on a U.S. quarter, researchers say.

A second new species, only slightly larger, was found on the neighboring island of St. Lucia. Genetic tests and studies of the snakes' physical features identified the animals as new species, said biologist Blair Hedges of Penn State university, who led the study team.

http://snipurl.com/3aize 
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

LMNO

Quote from: Kai on August 04, 2008, 04:10:03 PM

Stinging Tentacles Offer Hint of Oceans' Decline

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

BARCELONA, Spain—Blue patrol boats crisscross the swimming areas of beaches here with their huge nets skimming the water's surface. The yellow flags that urge caution and the red flags that prohibit swimming because of risky currents are sometimes topped now with blue ones warning of a new danger: swarms of jellyfish.

In a period of hours during a day a couple of weeks ago, 300 people on Barcelona's bustling beaches were treated for stings, and 11 were taken to hospitals.

From Spain to New York, to Australia, Japan and Hawaii, jellyfish are becoming more numerous and more widespread, and they are showing up in places where they have rarely been seen before, scientists say. ...
But while jellyfish invasions are a nuisance to tourists and a hardship to fishermen, for scientists they are a source of more profound alarm, a signal of the declining health of the world's oceans.

http://snipurl.com/3aimo


For some reason, the thought of swarms of jellyfish is awesome to me.  Yes, I know it sucks to be stung by one... I've been a victim.

So I dunno why, but... yeah.  I'd love to watch this happen.

Daruko

Quote from: Kai on August 04, 2008, 04:10:03 PM
Instant-Messagers Really Are About Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

Turns out, it is a small world.  The "small world theory," embodied in the old saw that there are just "six degrees of separation" between any two strangers on Earth, has been largely corroborated by a massive study of electronic communication.

With records of 30 billion electronic conversations among 180 million people from around the world, researchers have concluded that any two people on average are distanced by just 6.6 degrees of separation, meaning that they could be linked by a string of seven or fewer acquaintances.

The database covered all of the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging network in June 2006, or roughly half the world's instant-messaging traffic at that time, researchers said.

http://snipurl.com/3aju6
RELATED:

In the "largest social network constructed and analyzed to date," Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University researchers investigated Maximise Your Easy Hyper Links - Video Tutorials Plus Free Link Cloaker  on a planetary scale the oft-cited report that people are separated by "six degrees of separation."

Based on 30 billion Microsoft Messenger instant-message conversations among 240 million people, the study found that the average path length among Messenger users was 6.6.

"Researchers have concluded that any two people on average are distanced by just 6.6 degrees of separation, meaning that they could be linked by a string of seven or fewer acquaintances," a Washington Post article stated.

However, one publication, eFluxMedia, suggested the study was "heavily misinterpreted" by the media.

"MSN Messenger users are not a random group of people. Their use of the Redmond company's instant messaging tool is already a selection which raises chances they can connect to each other in fewer hops. Furthermore, instant messaging itself is not a measure of real life connections. Also, somebody can have many contacts in their instant messenger client, without actually knowing them. Microsoft researchers considered acquaintances people who sent each other at least one message. But with the mass messages going around, that's hardly an accurate way of determining connections between people."

In a related story, questioning the validity of inferences from potentially skewed or incomplete data, last week, Microsoft posted videos of a test involving about 140 randomly chosen computer users who had low opinions of Vista viewing a demo of a "new operating system" called "Mojave" (actually Vista), finding they liked it.

Nevertheless, the New York Time stated, "many bloggers had problems with how the Mojave Experiment was conducted. The main complaint was: is 10 minutes of watching an expert demonstrate Vista a valid basis on which to assess it?"




SOURCE: Berkeley Lab news release
An international group of scientists has produced two of the brightest, sharpest x-ray holograms of microscopic objects ever made, thousands of times more efficiently than previous x-ray-holographic methods.

The two experiments demonstrate that massively parallel holographic x-ray images with nanometer-scale resolution can be made of objects measured in microns, in times as brief as femtoseconds, using a pinhole array.

By knowing the precise layout of a pinhole array, including the different sizes of the different pinholes, a computer can recover a bright, high-resolution image numerically.

The researchers believe the holograms could be pushed to only a few nanometers, or, using computer refinement, even better.




SOURCE: Wired Science
Rumors are flying this weekend that Mars Phoenix has made a major discovery relating to the potential for life on Mars.

The White House has been alerted by NASA about plans to make an announcement soon on major new Phoenix lander discoveries concerning the "potential for life" on Mars, scientists told Aviation Week & Space Technology.

Kai

http://scienceblogs.com/zooillogix/2008/08/glow_in_the_dark_mollusk_used.php

Glowing gastropods allow detection of human sickness before onset of symptoms.

How cool is that?
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Daruko

Screensaver reveals new test for synaesthesia

Caltech scientist Melissa Saenz has found that with certain visual stimuli, from moving dots to flashes of light, people described simple abstract sounds such as tapping, thumping, whirring or whooshing.

I tried it, and it didn't work on me.  I'd be curious to hear it work on someone here.
Synesthesia test

Original Article



Invention: Exoskeleton for grannies

Yoshiyuki Sankai at the University of Tsukuba has developed an exoskeleton for a single arm that can improve the strength and utility of aging limbs.

The device consists of a tabard worn over the shoulders with a motorized exoskeleton for one arm attached. The exoskeleton senses the angle, torque and nerve impulses in the arm and then assists the user to move his or her shoulder and elbow joints accordingly.

Original Article



A first in integrated nanowire sensor circuitry

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have created the world's first all-integrated sensor circuit based on nanowire arrays, combining light sensors and electronics made of different crystalline materials.

Their method can be used to reproduce numerous such devices with high uniformity.

Original Article

Kai

August 5, 2008
Medication Increasingly Replaces Psychotherapy, Study Finds

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

Wider use of antidepressants and other prescription medications has reduced the role of psychotherapy, once the defining characteristic of psychiatric care, according to an analysis published today.

The percentage of patients who received psychotherapy fell to 28.9 percent in 2004-05 from 44.4 percent in 1996-97, the report in Archives of General Psychiatry said.

Researchers attributed the shift to insurance reimbursement policies that favor short medication visits compared with longer psychotherapy sessions, and to the introduction of a new generation of psychotropic medications with fewer side effects.

http://snipurl.com/3b3xi

Male Dominance Is No Guarantee of Genetic Success

from New Scientist

Genghis Khan spread his seed so liberally that nearly a tenth of men now living in the former Mongolian empire trace their ancestry back to the 13th-century warrior. However, a new analysis suggests that most socially dominant males contribute no more to the genetic pool than do their supposed inferiors.

"An individual really doesn't have the opportunity to set up things so their genetic information pervades the gene pool a long time in the future," says mathematician Joseph Watkins, of the University of Arizona in Tucson. "It could happen because life is chaotic."

Theories on how genes flow through populations of organisms generally support this idea, which has been dubbed neutrality. But some anthropologists argue that cultural dominance can seal a man's legacy. For instance, a rich and powerful father can ensure the status of his sons and grandsons.

http://snipurl.com/3b4l5

To Heal the Wounded

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

The pictures show shredded limbs, burned faces, profusely bleeding wounds. The subjects are mostly American G.I.'s, but they include Iraqis and Afghans, some of them young children.

They appear in a new book, "War Surgery in Afghanistan and Iraq: A Series of Cases, 2003-2007," quietly issued by the United States Army—the first guidebook of new techniques for American battlefield surgeons to be published while the wars it analyzes are still being fought.

Its 83 case descriptions from 53 battlefield doctors are clinical and bone dry, but the gruesome photographs illustrate the grim nature of today's wars, in which more are hurt by explosions than by bullets, and body armor leaves many alive but maimed. And the cases detail important advances in treating blast amputations, massive bleeding, bomb concussions and other front-line trauma.

http://snipurl.com/3b3wj

Soil Tests on Mars Spawn a Mystery

from the Arizona Daily Star

If you plant asparagus in Martian soil, will it grow? That's the question perplexing scientists with the UA-led Phoenix Mars Mission, who are trying to comprehend contradictory results from a series of soil tests that show the red planet's surface to be both friendly and unfriendly to life.

The seeming paradox was announced just days after mission scientists confirmed the presence of water in Mars' northern arctic region, a key finding as officials try to determine whether the red planet could support life.

Chemistry test results announced on Monday show that soil recently collected for the lander's wet chemistry lab contained perchlorate, an oxidizing agent that's the primary ingredient for jet fuel. The presence of perchlorate in the soil would be hazardous to plant life and undermine a preliminary hypothesis supported by test results from the same chemistry lab.

http://snipurl.com/3b44b

U.S. Panel Questions Prostate Screening

from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

The blood test that millions of men undergo each year to check for prostate cancer leads to so much unnecessary anxiety, surgery and complications that doctors should stop testing elderly men, and it remains unclear whether the screening is worthwhile for younger men, a federal task force concluded yesterday.

In the first update of its recommendations for prostate cancer screening in five years, the panel that sets government policy on preventive medicine said that the evidence that the test reduces the cancer's death toll is too uncertain to endorse routine use for men at any age, and that the potential harm clearly outweighs any benefits for men age 75 and older.

"The benefit of screening at this time is uncertain, and if there is a benefit, it's likely to be small," said Ned Calonge, who chairs the 16-member U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. It published the new guidelines today in the Annals of Internal Medicine. "And on the other side, the risks are large and dramatic."

http://snipurl.com/3b3tw

A Dance of Environment and Economics in the Everglades

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.—When Florida officials announced a plan last month to save the Everglades by buying United States Sugar and its 187,000 acres, they knew that the success of their plan could be defined by Alfonso Fanjul and his brother J. Pepe Fanjul.

The Fanjuls' family-run sugar company, Florida Crystals, owns what the state wants: about 35,000 acres needed to recreate the River of Grass's historic water flow from Lake Okeechobee south to the Everglades.

State officials have said they hope to trade some of United States Sugar's assets for the Fanjuls' property, and in their first interview since the deal was announced, the Fanjuls said they were "on board"—but with a few caveats.

http://snipurl.com/38fy9

Primates 'Face Extinction Crisis'

from BBC News Online

A global review of the world's primates says 48 percent of species face extinction, an outlook described as "depressing" by conservationists. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species says the main threat is habitat loss, primarily through the burning and clearing of tropical forests.

More than 70 percent of primates in Asia are now listed as Endangered, it adds. The findings form part of the most detailed survey of the Earth's mammals, which will be published in October.

Other threats include hunting of primates for food and the illegal wildlife trade, explained Russell Mittermeier, chairman of global conservation group IUCN's Primate Specialist Group and president of Conservation International.

http://snipurl.com/3b461

Superbugs

from the New Yorker

In August, 2000, Dr. Roger Wetherbee, an infectious-disease expert at New York University's Tisch Hospital, received a disturbing call from the hospital's microbiology laboratory.

At the time, Wetherbee was in charge of handling outbreaks of dangerous microbes in the hospital, and the laboratory had isolated a bacterium called Klebsiella pneumoniae from a patient in an intensive-care unit.

"It was literally resistant to every meaningful antibiotic that we had," Wetherbee recalled recently. The microbe was sensitive only to a drug called colistin, which had been developed decades earlier and largely abandoned as a systemic treatment, because it can severely damage the kidneys. "So we had this report, and I looked at it and said to myself, 'My God, this is an organism that basically we can't treat.'"

http://snipurl.com/3aj0d

Ancient Moss, Insects Found in Antarctica

from the San Diego Union-Tribune (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON (Associated Press)—Mosses once grew and insects crawled in what are now barren valleys in Antarctica, according to scientists who have recovered remains of life from that frozen continent.

Fourteen million years ago the now lifeless valleys were tundra, similar to parts of Alaska, Canada and Siberia—cold but able to support life, researchers report.

Geoscientist Adam Lewis of North Dakota State University was studying the ice cover of the continent when he and co-workers came across the remains of moss on a valley floor. "We knew we shouldn't expect to see something like that," Lewis said in a telephone interview.

http://snipurl.com/3b4hp

Study: Kids Meals Pack It On

from the Chicago Tribune (Registration Required)

It's 7 p.m. and your tots are cranky and hungry. Where can you go for a fast kids meal that won't make you feel like a bad parent?

Not many restaurant chains, according to a report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest that was released Monday. The CSPI study found a whopping 93 percent of all kids meals offered by 13 top chains contain too many calories. In fact, several meals hover around the 1,000-calorie mark, far above the roughly 430-calorie-a-meal recommendation from the Institute of Medicine for sedentary children 4 to 8 years old.

With so many restaurants called out for heavy use of soft drinks and fried foods on so many of their children's meals, it can be tough to guide your child's dining choices. But at least one dietitian points out that there are smart ways to eat at chain restaurants.

http://snipurl.com/3b4co
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

LMNO

Quote from: Kai on August 07, 2008, 11:42:33 PM
August 5, 2008
Medication Increasingly Replaces Psychotherapy, Study Finds

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

Wider use of antidepressants and other prescription medications has reduced the role of psychotherapy, once the defining characteristic of psychiatric care, according to an analysis published today.

The percentage of patients who received psychotherapy fell to 28.9 percent in 2004-05 from 44.4 percent in 1996-97, the report in Archives of General Psychiatry said.

Researchers attributed the shift to insurance reimbursement policies that favor short medication visits compared with longer psychotherapy sessions, and to the introduction of a new generation of psychotropic medications with fewer side effects.

http://snipurl.com/3b3xi

I'm no Scientologist, but this kind of freaks me out.

Kai

Its faster, geared towards instant gratification, and means that people don't have to work through their problems and see reality.

In other words, sign of the times.
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Daruko

Quote from: Kai on August 08, 2008, 03:16:34 PM
Its faster, geared towards instant gratification, and means that people don't have to work through their problems and see reality.

In other words, sign of the times.

Scanner Darkly anyone?

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Kai on August 07, 2008, 11:42:33 PM

It's 7 p.m. and your tots are cranky and hungry. Where can you go for a fast kids meal that won't make you feel like a bad parent?

Not many restaurant chains, according to a report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest that was released Monday. The CSPI study found a whopping 93 percent of all kids meals offered by 13 top chains contain too many calories. In fact, several meals hover around the 1,000-calorie mark, far above the roughly 430-calorie-a-meal recommendation from the Institute of Medicine for sedentary children 4 to 8 years old.

With so many restaurants called out for heavy use of soft drinks and fried foods on so many of their children's meals, it can be tough to guide your child's dining choices. But at least one dietitian points out that there are smart ways to eat at chain restaurants.

http://snipurl.com/3b4co

Why the hell can't parents either plan their day so they're home at dinnertime, or plan ahead and carry snacks? What the fuck is wrong with them? It's just not that hard to do. Also there are these things called "Grocery stores" that sell "food". I guess some parents are just tooooo busy socializing at the Mall to remember to make arrangements to feed their fucking children something that won't kill them.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


LMNO

Quote from: Nigel on August 08, 2008, 06:23:37 PM
Quote from: Kai on August 07, 2008, 11:42:33 PM

It's 7 p.m. and your tots are cranky and hungry. Where can you go for a fast kids meal that won't make you feel like a bad parent?

Not many restaurant chains, according to a report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest that was released Monday. The CSPI study found a whopping 93 percent of all kids meals offered by 13 top chains contain too many calories. In fact, several meals hover around the 1,000-calorie mark, far above the roughly 430-calorie-a-meal recommendation from the Institute of Medicine for sedentary children 4 to 8 years old.

With so many restaurants called out for heavy use of soft drinks and fried foods on so many of their children's meals, it can be tough to guide your child's dining choices. But at least one dietitian points out that there are smart ways to eat at chain restaurants.

http://snipurl.com/3b4co

Why the hell can't parents either plan their day so they're home at dinnertime, or plan ahead and carry snacks? What the fuck is wrong with them? It's just not that hard to do. Also there are these things called "Grocery stores" that sell "food". I guess some parents are just tooooo busy working two jobs each, so they can pay their home heating bills and stay off welfare to remember to make arrangements to feed their fucking children something that won't kill them.

Here we go again...

AFK

Cynicism is a blank check for failure.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: LMNO on August 08, 2008, 06:25:02 PM
Quote from: Nigel on August 08, 2008, 06:23:37 PM
Quote from: Kai on August 07, 2008, 11:42:33 PM

It's 7 p.m. and your tots are cranky and hungry. Where can you go for a fast kids meal that won't make you feel like a bad parent?

Not many restaurant chains, according to a report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest that was released Monday. The CSPI study found a whopping 93 percent of all kids meals offered by 13 top chains contain too many calories. In fact, several meals hover around the 1,000-calorie mark, far above the roughly 430-calorie-a-meal recommendation from the Institute of Medicine for sedentary children 4 to 8 years old.

With so many restaurants called out for heavy use of soft drinks and fried foods on so many of their children's meals, it can be tough to guide your child's dining choices. But at least one dietitian points out that there are smart ways to eat at chain restaurants.

http://snipurl.com/3b4co

Why the hell can't parents either plan their day so they're home at dinnertime, or plan ahead and carry snacks? What the fuck is wrong with them? It's just not that hard to do. Also there are these things called "Grocery stores" that sell "food". I guess some parents are just tooooo busy working two jobs each, so they can pay their home heating bills and stay off welfare to remember to make arrangements to feed their fucking children something that won't kill them.

Here we go again...

I figured someone would bring in the "They're soooo poor and working soooo hard that they can't afford to have beans and rice prepared at home, they can only afford to spend ten times as much on fast food!" argument. Bullfuckingshit. I grew up POOR, fucking starvation-poor, so poor that at 12 I had stretch marks all over my undersized runt body from growing on an inadequate diet, eating OTHER PEOPLE's restaurant leftovers poor. And then I learned to work, buy my own food, and cook, because nobody was doing it for me, and things got a lot better.

I've also been a single mom working such long hours that I was getting up at 5:30, trekking to the next town over (two buses and a light-rail, 45 minutes EACH WAY) to drop off my six-month-old and my two-year-old at my ex's mom's house because I couldn't afford daycare, then working until 7, back out to Beaverton to pick them up, home by 9, feed the kids, go to bed. EVERY DAY. I'm not some mollycoddled suburbanite housewife; the last couple of years have been the most plushly prosperous I've been in my life, and I'm grateful for that, but I know EXACTLY what it's like to be a low-income single working parent, and you don't fucking go to MacDonald's because you can't afford it. You pack a bag of Cheerios and crackers and some baby carrots everywhere you go. Fast food is for poor planners, and then they bitch about how it's not all nutritionally balanced and shit. Well, FUCKING MAKE FOOD AT HOME, you worthless sack of shit, and quit bitching because at least you can afford to blow $30 on take-out.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."