Interesting stuff

Deep thoughts elude me today, so I’ll just pass on to you all the interesting articles I’ve read throughout the day.

I wasn’t surprised to read that people who have migraines have different brain structures from those who don’t, especially since those differences seem centered in those areas of the brain that perceive pain, touch and temperature.  Certainly for me, and for other migraine sufferers I’ve known, extremes of all of those sensations can trigger a migraine, and migraines enhance those sensations.

As if Britain doesn’t have enough problems, British women are having their bladders explode under the strain of huge alcohol drinking binges.  Apparently the phenomenon is a combination of alcohol’s diuretic effect combined with its anesthetic effect.  It fills the bladder, but kills the urge to urinate.

As for me, I’m a tee-totaller, a decision I made long, long ago when I decided that nothing in the world will make me like the taste of alcohol.  Nevertheless, I’d sooner drink only alcohol than the rat’s milk that Paul McCartney’s estranged (or do I just mean “strange?”) wife recommends.  In any event, how in the heck do you milk a rat?

And while I’m on the subject of Britain, will it surprise you that the British police, rather than going after the violent Muslim extremists exposed in a Channel 4 document, chose instead to go after Channel 4?  Incidentally, the mosque speakers all made statements that regularly get ordinary Brits arrested in the increasingly 1984-style world that is modern Britain (such as statements denigrating people by race, sex or sexual orientation).

For a moment of something bizarre but endearing, check out the two faced cat.  I’m only surprised its owner didn’t name it Janus.

Apparently the hot gift of the holiday season is Wii, and I have to say that, for once, I understand the frenzy.  After making sporadic efforts to buy one from Toys R Us for the last 8 or 9 months, they finally had them in stock the day I was there, and I brought it home.  I was afraid that it was just going to be another of those computer games that works the kids’ thumbs, while the rest of their little bodies sit there inert.  While there are certainly game choices that give you that option, what makes Wii wonderful is that it gets you moving around.  Whether the kids are playing tennis, baseball, bowling, pool, golf or stomping around to Dance Dance Revolution, they’re up and moving.  It’s not a replacement for actually getting out of the house and engaging in an activity, but it’s a nice compromise on a rainy day or when the kids want to stay him.

Will it surprise you to learn that honor killings are on the increase amongst the Palestinians?  If there is one constant amongst the Islamists, it is their profound hatred and disrespect for women.

What did actually surprise me was Obama’s lack of insight, not about his youthful drug use, but about his decision to stop drug use — at least as reported in a rather cursory AP article on the subject.  More impressive was the gracious way in which Giuiliani handled a question about the subject, noting that we all make mistakes (which the AP reporter helpfully explained was a reference to his marriages), and reminding voters that they make a mistake seeking someone perfect.

I’m very interested in seeing the outcome of the Supreme Court’s decision to tackle Washington, D.C.’s ban on private gun ownership.  Even when I was at my most anti-gun, I had to admit that the Second Amendment, as written, does not mean that either the State or Federal governments get to deprive people of their right to bear arms.   However, I do wonder how to balance that absolute fact with the changes in gun technology that the Founders could never have envisioned.  I like the idea of self-defense; I’m less comfortable with the idea of someone owning an automatic weapon that can slice and dice a roomful of people within seconds.  Of course, the latter discomfort still doesn’t mean I can read the Constitution to reflect my personal preferences, does it?

Since I was in Rome this year, I was fascinated to read that, in the Palatine Hill, archaeologists think they’ve discovered the shrine that the ancient Roman’s believed was the natal chamber of Romulus and Remus, Rome’s mythic founders.  Those windows into the past are always exciting.

And that’s the news.