General

Passive Smoke Could Kill Kitty

Scientists have come up with yet another possible reason that smokers — at least cat-loving smokers — should kick the habit: Secondhand smoke may give cats a form of feline lymphoma.

Elizabeth Bertone of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and colleagues studied 184 cats that were treated for lymphoma or liver failure. Those exposed to any kind of tobacco smoke had more than double the risk of developing lymphoma, the most common cancer in cats. The longer they were exposed, the greater the risk, the researchers found.

Several recent studies have suggested that people who smoke cigarettes may face an increased risk of developing non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and that children of smokers may face an increased risk.

“These findings suggest that passive smoking may increase the risk of lymphoma in cats and suggests that further study of this relationship in humans is warranted,” the researchers wrote in the Aug. 1 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

I find great satisfaction in this: Charlton Heston has Alzheimer’s.

From tonight’s West meets East gathering:

swerdloff

jhames and webdaddy

brian and dan’l

I didn’t get a picture of him, but I did meet the lovely and talented mr. swill.

Is it just me, or does the cover model of HX this week remind you of Choire?

For the 2 or 3 people that probably read me, my apologies.

I’m swamped at the moment – one paid project, one volunteer project, and then I have to find time to play with my new toy: a 14″ iBook — for OS X of course. I haven’t even booted into OS 9.

I also owe leftyblog a response. I’ve written about 3 pages so far, but I haven’t had time to finish it.

Forest Fires Burn In Northern Quebec
City Gets Canada Fires’ Smoke

Spending that “mission money” we all were asked to give back when I went to church, I presume. Great headline:

Giraffe ‘jumps to death after killing priest’

Lady Thatcher’s larger-than-life status as Britain’s most loved and hated prime minister since Sir Winston Churchill was confirmed yesterday when a man decapitated the marble statue of the former Conservative leader on display at the Guildhall Art Gallery in the City of London.

I like Duncan‘s take on the story.

Update: The BBC has pictures!

Choire has Dr. Faustus, Sam has Paul Lombardi, and I have Mark Morford. I don’t even know if he’s gay, but it doesn’t matter!

A sampling from a recent newsletter:

With the blast of an artillery cannon to mark the start, President Bush ran a three-mile race at a local Army base with hundreds of White House staff members Saturday to make the point for out-of-shape Americans that they should get off the couch and into exercise, but not so much that they actually get in shape and feel in any way reinvigorated and healthy and more mentally agile, more in tune with their bodies and their minds and hence more sensitive to the ongoing decimation of their civil liberties, more attuned to the power they actually have as individuals effect change, to rebel and resist and question, more aware of just how shockingly detrimental the Bush administration has been so far to the progress of the human species, from women’s rights to the environment to oily warmongering to ravaging the budget and annihilating the surplus to causing numerous global cringes just about every single time he speaks. “I feel great,” the leader of the free world said, as aides tied his shoes. “Everyone should do this. Well OK, not everyone. Some people. Mostly those who voted for me. But probably not even them.”

He even ends with a fabulous Nietzsche quote:

At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.