Saturday, October 27, 2007

Pass the boiled peanuts

They help protect against disease:

Boiled nuts help protect against illness

Fri Oct 26, 3:45 PM ET

For lovers of boiled peanuts, there's some good news from the health front. A new study by a group of Huntsville researchers found that boiled peanuts bring out up to four times more chemicals that help protect against disease than raw, dry or oil-roasted nuts.

Lloyd Walker, chair of Alabama A&M University's Department of Food and Animal Sciences who co-authored the study, said these phytochemicals have antioxidant qualities that protect cells against the risk of degenerative diseases, including cancers, diabetes and heart disease.

"Boiling is a better method of preparing peanuts in order to preserve these phytochemicals," Walker said.

The study will appear in Wednesday's edition of the American Chemical Society's Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. The other co-authors in the study are A&M researchers Yvonne Chukwumah and Martha Verghese, as well as University of Alabama in Huntsville researcher Bernhard Vogler.

Walker said peanuts and other plants use phytochemicals for things such as helping avoid disease and insect attacks.

"These things are not nutrients; at the same time they have health benefits to humans," he told The Birmingham News. "The trick is to keep those health benefits, not to process them out of the foods."

According to Walker, water and heat penetrate the nuts, releasing beneficial chemicals to a certain point. Overcooking the nuts destroys the useful elements.

Alabama is third in the nation in the amount of peanuts produced with a crop valued at more than $67 million last year.

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Information from: The Birmingham News

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Note: Entire article copied here because Yahoo's news archives disappear.

Progress in the war

From Countercolumn: Zero casualties in Al Anbar last week - for the first time since 2003.

Guess these guys were wrong: Anbar province "politically lost", 9/11/2006. Heh.

Anbar background

Al Qaeda arrests around the world [from Long War Journal]:

Six in Spain
Seven in France

Best. News. Ever. - "The darkness has become pitch black" - Osama runnin' scared, lol.

Troops unite to save soldier knifed in head

Seen at Grunt Doc:

His survival relied on the Army’s top vascular neurosurgeon guiding Iraq-based U.S. military physicians via laptop, the Air Force’s third nonstop medical evacuation from Central Command to America, and the best physicians Bethesda National Naval Medical Center in Maryland could offer.
Read the whole thing at Army Times. Wow.

On horses

We've been hearing scuttlebutt about some horses that may not be well maintained - possibly inadequate shelter, poor nutrition (visible ribs), etc. So here, links to the basics on what you're lookin' at and who to call to make a complaint.

The horse's body condition is scored on a scale developed by Dr. Don Henneke, called, unsurprisingly, the Henneke Scale. This is an MS Word doc that will download and open, so you can easily save it for future reference or printing. If that bugs ya, google the phrase "Henneke Scale" for a different format.

Here are some photos of horses, rated by the author of the page. Not for the faint of heart. In a nutshell, you shouldn't be seein' ribs, overgrown hooves, wounds attracting flies, or too much fat.

Who to call? We've heard that humane enforcement by Bogalusa Police Department and the Washington Parish Sheriff's Office is spotty and inconsistent.

We recommend phoning Humane Society of Louisiana, 1.888.6 HUMANE, or fill out their online form, which can be done anonymously. They were prompt and effective at getting care for the animals at Cassidy Park.

You can also contact the Louisiana Livestock Brand Commission Crimestoppers at 1.800.558.9741.

Yon on Beauchamp

Required reading:

Some months ago, a soldier in Baghdad wrote a piece on the way war can degrade the morals and affect the judgment of combat soldiers. His story was published at face-value in The New Republic magazine. In it the soldier wrote terrible things about his unit, making the article sensational.

I was in Iraq when it first hit the stands and someone asked me about the plausibility of the events described in the article. I skimmed the story but it did not even pass a simple sniff-test. With a shooting war going on, there is no time for trivial pursuits, so my only comment was something like, “It sounds like a bunch of garbage.” Turned out it was.

The soldier’s name was Beauchamp. He’d tried to hide his identity, but poor Beauchamp had no idea that the blog world would get on his trail and tree him like a coon. Beauchamp crawled up to the top of that tree, looked down into the snarling spotlight, and suddenly knew he was caught.

Also Michelle Malkin: The New Republic Comes Out From Under Its Desk.

Oriana Fallaci, 1929-2006

Who was she? Via Wikipedia:

A former partisan during World War II, she had a long and successful journalistic career.

She has interviewed many internationally known leaders and celebrities such as the Dalai Lama, Henry Kissinger, the Shah of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, Willy Brandt, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Walter Cronkite, Omar Khadafi, Federico Fellini, Sammy Davis Jr, Nguyen Cao Ky, Yasir Arafat, Indira Gandhi, Alexandros Panagoulis, Archbishop Makarios III, Golda Meir, Nguyen Van Thieu, Haile Selassie and Sean Connery.

After retirement, she returned to the spotlight after writing a series of articles and books critical of Islam and Arabs that aroused substantial support, controversy and accusations of racism and Islamophobia.

Probably 10 percent of my readers have heard of her. And here I am trying to entice y'all to purchase one of her books via Amazon.

Michelle Malkin has an article:
She refused to candycoat her criticisms of Islam. She refused to submit to jihadi thugs. Her books, her life, her rage and her reason serve as fiery inspirations in an era of flinching dhimmitude.*

Buy her books if you haven’t yet to see why the jihadists wanted her put in jail for “insulting Islam:”

More.
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*dhimmitude: see here.

One mo' time: Buckle up!

And put those babies in car seats.

Infant dies after accident ejected him from vehicle

I dunno what year 4Runner they were driving, but the 2008 model was made to hold SEVEN. They were carrying EIGHT.

The driver oughtta be charged.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Animal neglect by the City of Bogalusa

Visitors to Cassidy Park noticed that one of the goats could barely walk - it ambulated mostly on its front knees. Its front hooves were at least six inches overgrown. Then there was the donkey with a fly-blown wound on its neck.



Some people posted about it on the Washington Parish Hard Copy board; someone else posted the video above on Youtube. One of the volunteers for Humane Society of Louisiana arrived at the discussion and promised to sort out what was happening at the park. He returned to the board on Monday, Oct. 8, to inform us that a vet had been out to care for those animals and there would be regular vet visits going forward.

In my opinion, someone at the City should be charged with neglect. This was inexcusable.

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Friday, October 05, 2007

Today's must-read

Having volunteered for Iraq, Mark Daily was killed in January by an I.E.D. Dismayed to learn that his pro-war articles helped persuade Daily to enlist, the author measures his words against a family's grief and a young man's sacrifice. Link.
via Gulf Coast Pundit