As IF Times

link Is Sitting For Long Hours At Work The New Smoking? « CBS Pittsburgh.

In most of the animal world, babies of all species are subject the cruelties and harshness of nature right from birth.  If they can manage to make it past the initial dangers posed by predators during  infancy, then they graduate to the regular garden variety of lifetime dangers of kill or be killed, eat or be eaten.

Humans are seen to be somewhat isolated from nature’s vicissitudes due to their perch on top of the food chain.  It turns out that there are many, many more dangers lurking which threaten their mortality beyond the unlikely scenario of being eaten by predators.  One of the most pervasive dangers rampant in mainly western societies is “iuris infestatione”, Latin for excess lawyers.  Oddly, a close second is “stultus research”, or stupid research, which results in dumb reactive behavior by the naïve majority.

Once somebody figured out that wearing a lab coat and getting funding from a University automatically legitimized esoteric studies, dangers to mankind of all sorts have been revealed.  It’s a wonder anyone makes it to retirement age.  We are all familiar with the dangers that are claimed to be posed by eating certain kinds of foods.  At various times in history, it has been accepted wisdom that such as coffee, eggs, butter, milk, white bread, red meats and bacon are bad for you.  Bacon.  As if.  In many cases, years later, they reverse their opinions.  At the moment, eggs are back to the good side again.

As of now, it’s popular to eat seaweed (ok kale, but it’s still seaweed) nuts, berries and legumes.  What are we, Silverbacks on the Serengeti?  But that’s not enough.  Other dangers lurk beyond food types.  Actually almost anything that’s fun to do is apparently fraught with danger according to the lab coat brigade.  Listening to loud music is not good.  Drinking hard liquor, smoking, sitting too close to the TV, staying up late,  too much sun, too little sun, too much water, too little water, eating poutine, playing with guns, motorcycling, cliff diving, sleeping too little, sleeping too much; you get the idea.  For a more thorough list of iffy things, have a look here:

sneer stuff

And now, according to a new groundbreaking study, even sitting too long is a health hazard.  It’s dawning on people that they are essentially running the gauntlet of death from the time they are first able to walk by doing…anything!  The worst part of these imagined dangers to life are when you see the convergence of “stultus research” with “iuris infestatione”.  This is usually facilitated by Politicus dufus. This is the truly dangerous combination resulting in expensive and stupid rules to govern people’s activities.  We can easily imagine a new tax on chairs in order to make them so expensive that people can’t afford to sit.  We can foresee a time when sitting is so marginalized as an acceptable behavior that they will be forced outside of buildings to do so.  Joining the throng of smokers at the entrance to office buildings will be people in chairs openly risking condescending sneers from non sitters.  Who knew that La-Z-Boy is the equivalent of Philip Morris?

We’re not really sure how long people can be expected to live if they were somehow able to manage to avoid all the hazardous activities of a normal life.   We’ll have to sit and think about that.

link New drone strike in Yemen kills Al Qaeda militants | Fox News.

Rabid and fanatical as they are, you would think that at least some of the Al Qaeda militants might get an epiphany about the future of their chosen profession.

When they consider that if taken prisoner by the Americans, they can be pretty much guaranteed a civil and protected lifestyle even if it is within the confines of a prison.  They are given clean clothes, a floor that is not dirt, indoor plumbing, regular feedings which will likely make them fat during their stay and above all, respect and support by the American media.   Even the threat of being water-boarded has been removed as a tool in the pursuit of answers to skill testing questions, since, well, that’s inhumane.  The worst that can happen is that they pipe Justin Bieber or Beyoncé music into their cells to encourage cooperation.

On the other hand, if they are just standing around in Yemen or some other middle eastern outpost plotting to do unsociable things, they are afforded no such civility.  They just hear a faint and increasingly loud whistling sound, then nothing.  No pearly gates, no 72 virgins; they become desert vapor. They are not afforded the charade of a civil trial, habeas corpus, interviews by CNN and extended incarceration.  Those kinds of niceties are reserved for militants that actually create havoc and murder people and are lucky enough to be taken prisoner for their deeds.  If you are just standing around looking guilty, you’re legitimately a pest to be wiped out as if you were a fly at a picnic.

Not being lawyers, we aren’t clear on why terrorists who are caught red handed and admit to their activities are feted and given celebrity status whereas people who are merely hanging around with undesirables get the working end of a missile.  We are not seeing the outrage which erupted around the ‘rights’ of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and the resultant turning of his military trial into a civilian show trial.   This should be a strong hint to all potential terrorist inductees.  The glamour part of their existence is over.  The political currency derived from the kabuki of protecting the rights of terrorists has been spent by this administration.  That political theater is done.  Now they’re all expendable.

In truth and for pragmatic reasons, this is a far more efficient way to rid yourself of enemies than the old fashioned of way of sending in troops, suffering casualties and creating havoc.  The previous administration should have thought of that. We can just take out people that may be threats.  Hmm, seems civilized.  Once they figure out how efficient this really is, we can see them using the same methods domestically and Miranda will just be the name of a country singer.  When that happens, people had better choose who they hang out with wisely.