You can file this under the ‘why the hell not’ category.
A British novelist Nikesh Shukla and graphic artist Nick Hearne decided it would be a great idea to attach a tandoori lamb chop to a helium balloon and send the meat into space from London.
Why?
Who knows but a video camera went along for the ride and captured some strangely amazing video of the journey.
The lamb chop traveled for just over an hour and a half and made it about 32,000 feet before the balloon burst and sent it plummeting to the earth, according to Mashable. GPS contact was severed and Shukla and Hearne thought the footage was lost forever.
Lucky for them, five months later they were contacted by a farmer in Dorset who found the video and now the lamb chop flight is here for all of us to enjoy!
The experiment was to promote Shukla’s new book, Meatspace.
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A group of parents are protesting a Peterborough, Ont. bylaw that bans children from high-fiving their crossing guards while walking to school.
The bylaw suggests that students are distracting guards with the gesture of appreciation, and representatives of the city say the policy has always been in place.
The city bylaw restricts all forms of physical contact between guards and children.
Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/why-kids-can-t-high-five-in-peterborough-ont-1.2123536#ixzz3KN58cR2V
——————————————————————-
Well kids, as if AIDS from unprotected sex wasn’t bad enough, now ya can get EBOLA too!
Men who recover from Ebola should abstain from sex for three to six months to minimize the risk of passing the virus on in their semen, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
Ebola, a disease that has infected and killing thousands in a vast epidemic in West Africa, normally spreads via bodily fluids such as blood, saliva and faeces. Although sexual transmission of Ebola virus disease has never been documented, the virus has been detected in the survivors’ semen.
“Men who have recovered from Ebola virus disease should be aware that seminal fluid may be infectious for as long as three months after onset of symptoms,” the WHO said in a statement
——————————————————
If you’ve always wanted to have a pair of leather chaps owned by actor Burt Reynolds, you could soon be in luck.
Hundreds of personal items belonging to the Deliverance star will be auctioned off at The Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas next month. Julien’s Live auction house is running the event.The auction’s catalog, entitled Property From the Life and Career of Burt Reynolds, lists over 600 items, including such movie memorabilia as a jacket and shirt he wore in Smokey and the Bandit II, a football helmet from The Longest Yard and even a pair of monogrammed boots from 1996’s Striptease, for all those diehard Striptease fans out there.
Also on the block: several vehicles, a wide selection of artwork and sports collectibles and even a number of awards, including his 1991 best actor in a comedy Emmy for Evening Shade and 1998 best supporting actor Golden Globe for Boogie Nights.
Reynolds, who underwent back surgery in 2009 and a quintuple bypass the following year, has been under financial duress of late, with the Associated Press reporting in 2011 that his Florida home was facing foreclosure. Earlier this year, he announced he is writing a memoir, set to be published by Putnam in fall 2015. He has also recently been teaching acting classes in Florida.
The auction takes places Dec. 11-12, and bidding can be done live and online. Click here to see the list of merchandise and place online bids.
And by the way, if you’re serious about those leather chaps, the starting bid is set at $100, and the price is estimated to reach between $200 and $300.
Just something to think about.
https://www.yahoo.com/movies/burt-reynolds-auctioning-off-personal-items-amid-103738925282.html
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Dear Readers:
This article is of special interest to me because of my own battles with alcohol, until I was eventually able to stop for good!
Britain is turning to pills for help in what is the most drastic measure yet in the effort to curb this country’s significant drinking problem.
The drug, called Nalmefene (marketed as Selincro) simply takes the fun out of drinking by blocking the area in the brain that registers pleasure derived from it. Proponents believe it could save hundreds of lives a year under a proposed, nationally-funded scheme that critics counter will unnecessarily “medicate the middle class.”
Today, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, or NICE, recommended Nalmefene is prescribed in conjunction with counselling to help heavy drinkers reduce their intake.
“Many people have a difficult relationship with alcohol even though they have a very stable lifestyle, maintain jobs and a social life and would not automatically assume they have a problem,” Professor Carole Longson, NICE Health Technology Evaluation Centre Director, said in a statement.
“When used alongside psychosocial support nalmefene is clinically and cost effective for the [national health system] compared with psychosocial support alone.”
Tens of thousands of people qualify for the handout — one pill a day — that targets not the worst alcoholics, but those who drink enough to risk serious health consequences.
Those include women who drink the equivalent of half a bottle of wine a day, and men who drink in excess of three or four pints of beer each day.
And for those people among them who would like to cut back, there is a “frightening lack of provision out there,” says Dr. David Collier,
a proponent of the plan who conducted a clinical trial on the drug at the William Harvey Research Institute of the Barts Queen Mary University.
Trials suggest Nalmefene can reduce the number of “heavy drinking days and total alcohol consumed by more than half,” according to the National Health System (NHS).
In an interview, Collier said after his trial, he is convinced the drug works. But because it will be administered only with counselling, it may be that in some cases the counselling alone will be enough — meaning not everyone who qualifies for the drug will need to take it.
Many have long insisted Britain needed something far stiffer than its existing policy of advocating abstinence to tackle a problem that’s bad, and growing worse.
‘Epidemic’ of alcohol-related deaths
According to one NHS count, more than a quarter of the population “consume alcohol in a way that is potentially or actually harmful to their health or wellbeing.”
The U.K.’s Faculty of Public Health believes there is a growing “epidemic” of alcohol-related deaths. It also says more than 2.5 million children live with parents who “drink hazardously.”
Part of the problem, says the faculty, is alcohol’s affordability. In a manifesto released ahead of the upcoming election, it advocates setting national minimum pricing for alcohol. That alone “would save over 3,000 lives every year, reduce chronic illnesses by as much as 41,000, and cut violent crime by 11,000.”
The faculty believes the cost of providing the drug nationally— at £3 a pill, or just over $5 CDN — also outweighs the benefits.
Dr. John Middleton, vice president for health policy at the faculty, said Nalmefene can only be one tool in a range of them necessary to fight the problem.
“The level of harms that are being talked about” could be dealt with through setting minimum prices, reducing advertising for alcohol and better policing of alcohol licensing, he said in an interview.
“The middle class is being medicated instead of going through a counselling process and simply being helped to stop their drinking at harmful levels.”
NICE disagrees, pointing out today that “alcohol-related harm costs the NHS in England £3.5 billion a year.”
Joanna Duyvenvoorde, 44, once an extremely heavy drinker says she’s living proof pills can be appropriate in treating dependence on alcohol. She has been sober now for more than a year after taking a drug similar to Nalmefene.
Duyvenvoorde was so determined to quit drinking she tried every method available: including Alcoholics Anonymous, but nothing worked.
When she finally learned there was a drug, she travelled all the way to a clinic in Scotland just to get a prescription.
“I don’t think it’s lazy at all,” she says about the NHS plan. “Unfortunately in the nation, we’ve had fifty years of ‘this is the only way to do it’ and that isn’t the case now.”
“Medical science moves forward and I think we should embrace medical science moving forward.”
She says her life has been transformed, and hopes the NHS moves forward with the proposal so others might have the same experience.
“I just want to shout it from the rooftops because it’s given me my life back.”
Nalmefene is made by Lundbeck, a publicly-traded Danish company which just last week made new shares available for purchase. A day later, its stock rose by 88 cents.
Even with the drug, patients have to want to quit for it to work. But there’s no pill yet for that.
A British novelist Nikesh Shukla and graphic artist Nick Hearne decided it would be a great idea to attach a tandoori lamb chop to a helium balloon and send the meat into space from London.
Why?
Who knows but a video camera went along for the ride and captured some strangely amazing video of the journey.
The lamb chop traveled for just over an hour and a half and made it about 32,000 feet before the balloon burst and sent it plummeting to the earth, according to Mashable. GPS contact was severed and Shukla and Hearne thought the footage was lost forever.
Lucky for them, five months later they were contacted by a farmer in Dorset who found the video and now the lamb chop flight is here for all of us to enjoy!
The experiment was to promote Shukla’s new book, Meatspace.
———————————————————-
A group of parents are protesting a Peterborough, Ont. bylaw that bans children from high-fiving their crossing guards while walking to school.
The bylaw suggests that students are distracting guards with the gesture of appreciation, and representatives of the city say the policy has always been in place.
The city bylaw restricts all forms of physical contact between guards and children.
Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/why-kids-can-t-high-five-in-peterborough-ont-1.2123536#ixzz3KN58cR2V
——————————————————————-
Well kids, as if AIDS from unprotected sex wasn’t bad enough, now ya can get EBOLA too!
Men who recover from Ebola should abstain from sex for three to six months to minimize the risk of passing the virus on in their semen, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
Ebola, a disease that has infected and killing thousands in a vast epidemic in West Africa, normally spreads via bodily fluids such as blood, saliva and faeces. Although sexual transmission of Ebola virus disease has never been documented, the virus has been detected in the survivors’ semen.
“Men who have recovered from Ebola virus disease should be aware that seminal fluid may be infectious for as long as three months after onset of symptoms,” the WHO said in a statement
——————————————————
If you’ve always wanted to have a pair of leather chaps owned by actor Burt Reynolds, you could soon be in luck.
Hundreds of personal items belonging to the Deliverance star will be auctioned off at The Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas next month. Julien’s Live auction house is running the event.Also on the block: several vehicles, a wide selection of artwork and sports collectibles and even a number of awards, including his 1991 best actor in a comedy Emmy for Evening Shade and 1998 best supporting actor Golden Globe for Boogie Nights.
Reynolds, who underwent back surgery in 2009 and a quintuple bypass the following year, has been under financial duress of late, with the Associated Press reporting in 2011 that his Florida home was facing foreclosure. Earlier this year, he announced he is writing a memoir, set to be published by Putnam in fall 2015. He has also recently been teaching acting classes in Florida.
The auction takes places Dec. 11-12, and bidding can be done live and online. Click here to see the list of merchandise and place online bids.
And by the way, if you’re serious about those leather chaps, the starting bid is set at $100, and the price is estimated to reach between $200 and $300.
Just something to think about.
https://www.yahoo.com/movies/burt-reynolds-auctioning-off-personal-items-amid-103738925282.html
—————————————————
Dear Readers:
This article is of special interest to me because of my own battles with alcohol, until I was eventually able to stop for good!
Britain is turning to pills for help in what is the most drastic measure yet in the effort to curb this country’s significant drinking problem.
The drug, called Nalmefene (marketed as Selincro) simply takes the fun out of drinking by blocking the area in the brain that registers pleasure derived from it. Proponents believe it could save hundreds of lives a year under a proposed, nationally-funded scheme that critics counter will unnecessarily “medicate the middle class.”
Today, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, or NICE, recommended Nalmefene is prescribed in conjunction with counselling to help heavy drinkers reduce their intake.
“Many people have a difficult relationship with alcohol even though they have a very stable lifestyle, maintain jobs and a social life and would not automatically assume they have a problem,” Professor Carole Longson, NICE Health Technology Evaluation Centre Director, said in a statement.
“When used alongside psychosocial support nalmefene is clinically and cost effective for the [national health system] compared with psychosocial support alone.”
Tens of thousands of people qualify for the handout — one pill a day — that targets not the worst alcoholics, but those who drink enough to risk serious health consequences.
Those include women who drink the equivalent of half a bottle of wine a day, and men who drink in excess of three or four pints of beer each day.
And for those people among them who would like to cut back, there is a “frightening lack of provision out there,” says Dr. David Collier,
a proponent of the plan who conducted a clinical trial on the drug at the William Harvey Research Institute of the Barts Queen Mary University.
Trials suggest Nalmefene can reduce the number of “heavy drinking days and total alcohol consumed by more than half,” according to the National Health System (NHS).
In an interview, Collier said after his trial, he is convinced the drug works. But because it will be administered only with counselling, it may be that in some cases the counselling alone will be enough — meaning not everyone who qualifies for the drug will need to take it.
Many have long insisted Britain needed something far stiffer than its existing policy of advocating abstinence to tackle a problem that’s bad, and growing worse.
‘Epidemic’ of alcohol-related deaths
According to one NHS count, more than a quarter of the population “consume alcohol in a way that is potentially or actually harmful to their health or wellbeing.”
The U.K.’s Faculty of Public Health believes there is a growing “epidemic” of alcohol-related deaths. It also says more than 2.5 million children live with parents who “drink hazardously.”
Part of the problem, says the faculty, is alcohol’s affordability. In a manifesto released ahead of the upcoming election, it advocates setting national minimum pricing for alcohol. That alone “would save over 3,000 lives every year, reduce chronic illnesses by as much as 41,000, and cut violent crime by 11,000.”
The faculty believes the cost of providing the drug nationally— at £3 a pill, or just over $5 CDN — also outweighs the benefits.
Dr. John Middleton, vice president for health policy at the faculty, said Nalmefene can only be one tool in a range of them necessary to fight the problem.
“The level of harms that are being talked about” could be dealt with through setting minimum prices, reducing advertising for alcohol and better policing of alcohol licensing, he said in an interview.
“The middle class is being medicated instead of going through a counselling process and simply being helped to stop their drinking at harmful levels.”
NICE disagrees, pointing out today that “alcohol-related harm costs the NHS in England £3.5 billion a year.”
Joanna Duyvenvoorde, 44, once an extremely heavy drinker says she’s living proof pills can be appropriate in treating dependence on alcohol. She has been sober now for more than a year after taking a drug similar to Nalmefene.
Duyvenvoorde was so determined to quit drinking she tried every method available: including Alcoholics Anonymous, but nothing worked.
When she finally learned there was a drug, she travelled all the way to a clinic in Scotland just to get a prescription.
“I don’t think it’s lazy at all,” she says about the NHS plan. “Unfortunately in the nation, we’ve had fifty years of ‘this is the only way to do it’ and that isn’t the case now.”
“Medical science moves forward and I think we should embrace medical science moving forward.”
She says her life has been transformed, and hopes the NHS moves forward with the proposal so others might have the same experience.
“I just want to shout it from the rooftops because it’s given me my life back.”
Nalmefene is made by Lundbeck, a publicly-traded Danish company which just last week made new shares available for purchase. A day later, its stock rose by 88 cents.
Even with the drug, patients have to want to quit for it to work. But there’s no pill yet for that.
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