January 8, 2006

The Twelve Days of Christmas

In 567 AD, the Council of Tours ended a dispute. Western Europe celebrated Christmas, December 25, and Eastern Europe celebrated Epiphany, JANUARY 6, recalling the Wise Men's visit and Jesus' baptism.

The Council made all 12 days from December 25 to January 6 "holy days" or "holidays," thus the "Twelve Days of Christmas."

www.americanminute.com

Bride's Joke Breaks Off Austrian Wedding

1/5/7 VIENNA -- Wedding jokes aren't always funny. When a bride in Austria jokingly answered "no" instead of "yes" when asked if she wanted to marry her husband-to-be, the official performing the civil wedding promptly broke off the ceremony.

Not even the bride's sobs could reverse the decision and the couple had to wait two and a half months . . .

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2007/01/05/international/i063541S87.DTL

Full fat milk makes you thinner - Swedish study

The Local ^ | January 8 "Full fat dairy products are more likely to keep you slim than comparable low fat foods. That's the apparently topsy-turvy conclusion of a new Swedish study, which shows that the fat encourages calcium uptake.

Researchers at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute now reckon that daily consumption of full fat dairy products will lead to a reduction of obesity, reported Svenska Dagbladet.

The startling result was based on interviews with almost 20,000 women whose dietary habits have been tracked since 1987.

When the study began, the women had an average body mass index (BMI) of 23.7. Ten years later, the women who had regularly consumed full fat milk or cheese had a lower BMI than the rest of the group.

A glass of full fat milk every day will, according to the researchers, result in 15 percent less weight gain. But full fat cheese was an even more effective slimming product: one portion a day resulted in 30 percent less weight gain.

http://www.thelocal.se/6019/20070108/

TV ban on adverts for cheese, the latest 'junk food'

England- Cheese is to be treated as junk food under new advertising rules for children's television.

Commercials promoting it will be banned during children's TV programmes and those with a large proportion of young viewers…

The Food Standards Agency model assesses the fat, sugar and salt content in a 100g or 100ml serving of food or drink.

But the British Cheese Board points out that a typical portion of cheese was 30 to 40g - not the 100g used in the agency's model.

Most cheese would be exempt from the ban if a typical portion had been used in the calculations, according to the board. It pointed out that cheese was one of the most 'nutritionally complete' foods.

Mary Quicke, who runs Quickes Cheese in Devon, producing handmade cheddar, said the rules had left her 'speechless'. ' Frankly, it's bonkers,' she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

She said the FSA's decision to assess cheese using a 100g portion was ridiculous. 'Imagine eating 100 grams of cheese - that's four ounces. You would have to be a pretty dedicated eater of cheese to get around that.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=426083&in_page_id=1770

U.S. employers to boost offers to new hires: poll
Jan 4, NEW YORK - …nearly half of employers plan to boost the salaries offered to new hires this year, said a survey released on Thursday...The survey said 49 percent of employers will raise the salaries offered to new hires this year.

Forty percent of employers say they have positions they have been unable to fill, CareerBuilder also said...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070104/us_nm/usa_work_hires_dc

Russian Rocket Comes Down Over Wyo.

Jan 04 PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (AP) -- A spent Russian booster rocket re-entered the atmosphere Thursday over Colorado and Wyoming, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said.

Eyewitnesses reported seeing flaming objects in the sky at the time the rocket was re-entering, NORAD spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Sean Kelly said.

No damage was reported, and any debris that may have hit the ground was not believed to be hazardous, NORAD said.

NORAD identified the rocket as an SL-4 that had been used to launch a French space telescope in December, and Kelly said U.S. spacewatchers knew the rocket was coming down.

"Objects falling from space are almost an everyday occurrence," Kelly said.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/04/D8MEOIBO0.html

Human stem cells found in amniotic fluid: report

1/7/07- Stem cells nearly as powerful as embryonic stem cells can be found in the amniotic fluid that protects babies in the womb, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday.

They used them to create muscle, bone, fat, blood vessel, nerve and liver cells in the laboratory and said they believe the placenta and amniotic fluid can provide one more source of the valued cells, which scientists hope will someday transform medicine...

...Writing in the journal Nature Biotechnology, Atala and colleagues described how they have spent seven years proving the properties of these cells.

"It has been known for decades that both the placenta and amniotic fluid contain multiple progenitor cell types from the developing embryo, including fat, bone, and muscle," Atala said...

(Hmmm... why hasn't Michael J Fox told us about this if it's been known for so long...?)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070107/hl_nm/stemcells_fluid_dc

DEM VOW ALREADY BROKEN: HOUSE SETS 4-DAY WORK WEEK

Sun Jan 07 2007

Democrats ran to expand the work week in the House to 5 days. But guess how long that lasted?

Not even one week!

"Culture Shock on Capitol Hill: House to Work 5 Days a Week" front-paged the WASHINGTON POST in December: Majority leader Steny Hoyer said members of the House will be expected in the Capitol for votes each week by 6:30 p.m. Monday and will finish their business about 2 p.m. Friday.

Explained the POST: "Forget the minimum wage. Or outsourcing jobs overseas. The labor issue most on the minds of members of Congress yesterday was their own: They will have to work five days a week starting in January."

But on the morning after the night before, on the first full week of the new congress, Hoyer has pulled back from his vow.

The House is taking Monday 'off' this week, because of the championship football game between Ohio State and the University of Florida.

http://drudgereport.com/flash7.htm

Eco hysteria over polar bears unjustified:

They are not in danger, insists Nunavut biologist who knows the animals

The Edmonton Journal, Sun 31 Dec 2006

"No evidence exists that suggests that both [polar] bears and the conservation systems that regulate them will not adapt and respond to the new conditions. Polar bears have persisted through many similar climate cycles."

There's a lot in that two-sentence statement from Dr. Mitch Taylor, polar bear biologist for the government of Nunavut, and one of the leading experts in the world on Ursus maritimus.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1761001/posts

Drought NOT Caused by Global Warning

The Australian ^ | December 29, 2006

Strange weather is situation normal

Summer snow is no tipping point for climate change

CSIRO research fellow Barrie Hunt has done everyone a service by blowing the whistle on the pessimistic hand-wringing that accompanies too much of the discussion on climate change and its relationship to the drought now gripping southeast Australia. As the retired head of the CSIRO's climate modelling program, Mr Hunt says there is nothing historically unusual about Australia's predicament, contrary to much of today's political blather. According to the CSIRO's model of 10,000 years of natural climate variability, the drought can be explained by natural variations in climate rather than global warming. Those looking to the drought or southern Australia's unseasonable summer snow as proof that global warming has wrecked the world's weather should take a cold shower.

Oil Prices Fall on Mild Weather Concerns

January 8, Oil prices dropped by $1 a barrel Monday, resuming last week's plunge as ample heating oil supplies go unused due to mild weather in the Northeast United States...

...U.S. supplies of crude oil remain well above normal, and U.S. heating oil supplies are also at the upper end of the average range for this time of year...

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070108/oil_prices.html?.v=14

David Bennett <>< http://www.freewill-predestination.com