Texas Independence Day

Texas Independence is March 2. Here are a few interesting facts about the great state of Texas.

• El Paso is closer to California than to Dallas.
• World’s first rodeo was in Pecos, Texas, July 4, 1883.
• The Flagship Hotel in Galveston is the only hotel in North America built over water. It was destroyed by Hurricane Ike in 2008.
• Brazoria County, Texas has more species of birds than any other area in North America.
• Aransas Wildlife Refuge is the winter home of North America’s only remaining flock of whooping cranes.
• Jalapeno jelly originated in Lake Jackson, Texas in 1978.
• The worst natural disaster in U.S. history was in 1900, caused by a hurricane in which over 8,000 lives were lost on Galveston Island.
• The first word spoken from the moon on July 20, 1969 was “Houston,” but the Space Center was actually in Clear Lake City at the time.
• The King Ranch in South Texas is larger than Rhode Island.
• Texas is the only state to enter the US by treaty, (known as the Constitution of 1845 by the Republic of Texas to enter the Union) instead of by annexation. This allows the Texas Flag to fly at the same height as the US Flag, and Texas may choose to divide into five states.
• Dr Pepper was invented in Waco in 1885. There is no period in Dr Pepper.
• The Capitol Dome in Austin is the only dome in the US which is taller than the Capitol Building in Washington, DC (by 7 feet).
• The name ‘Texas’ comes from the Hasini Indian word ‘tejas’ meaning 'friends'. Tejas is not Spanish for Texas.

Cholesterol and Salt

Hooray, bring on the bacon and eggs! Two recent reports are shaking up the food industry. Salt has recently been vindicated by scientists. "Cardiovascular disease, heart failure, or death in older Americans are not linked to salt intake", according to research published in JAMA Internal Medicine on January 19, 2015. This follows last year’s Institute of Medicine report, which also raised questions about sodium recommendations. The IOM committee found that there was no clear evidence to support limiting sodium to 1,500 milligrams or less per day.

The New England Journal of Medicine published a study in August 2014 which reported that people who consume less 1,500 milligrams of sodium are more likely to die than people who eat between 3,000 to 6,000 milligrams of sodium per day.

Now this new report says, cholesterol is no longer a "nutrient of concern," according to the US leading nutritional panel in February 2015.

In its 2015 version of the guidelines from the US Department of Agriculture, it will no longer place an upper limit on cholesterol, "because available evidence shows no appreciable relationship between consumption of dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol." The draft report said, "Cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern for over consumption." The recommended changes were compiled by 14 nationally recognized nutrition, medicine, and public health experts. It makes Dr. Adkins appear absolutely prescient.

Health experts agreed it is no longer necessary to consider a food's cholesterol content when making dietary decisions. The committee’s new report also advised eliminating 'lean meat'  as well as 'cutting back on red and processed meats' from the list of recommended healthy foods. The panel also said it OK to have three to five cups of coffee per day.

The science connecting high-cholesterol foods to the accumulation of bad cholesterol in the blood is lacking - not conclusive enough to warrant federal intake recommendations. Even the predictive value of bad cholesterol levels in looking at heart attack risk has shown to be weak by recent studies.

The new enemy is increased carbohydrates, according the current analysis of government data. It says that, "over the past 50 years, we cut fat intake by 25 percent and increased carbohydrates by more than 30 percent." That is what has led to the increase in obesity.

Other countries that offer dietary guidelines have long abandoned specific caps on cholesterol. According to David Klurfeld, a nutritional scientist at the USDA, "The US is the last country in the world to set a specific limit on dietary cholesterol." Finally science begins to trump headlines. Many of my friends know I have been a Cassandra of cholesterol for years. I wonder how long it will take for 'artery clogging' to be banished from the lexicon.

Nitrates and Nitrites

While it is true that nitrates and nitrites are unhealthy for your body, what most pro-veggie, chicken, and fish nutritionists fail to tell us is that we can easily avoid nitrates and nitrites by simply not burning, charring, and over cooking bacon. It can also be avoided by baking bacon in the oven.

If you include some dairy and citrus with your bacon meal, vitamins A, D and E work to effectively prevent conversion of nitrates and nitrites into toxic nitrosamines in the stomach, rendering them harmless to the body.

BPA Update

More good news. The FDA has reached a conclusion about BPA, the chemical that first made consumers worried about plastics that could act like hormones. Late in 2014, the agency issued a statement reiterating its position that products made with BPA are safe.

Crumpet, Muffin, and Pikelet

Most websites and cookbooks agree that crumpets and English muffins are different, although they all disagree exactly how.

Crumpets and English muffins are both griddle cakes - meaning they were originally made on the stove top in a cast-iron griddle pan. They are both round and generally biscuit-sized. They both have a spongy texture full of nooks and crannies for absorbing melted butter and other toppings. They are also both considered to be a breakfast, brunch, or tea food, but not the kind of bread you would serve with dinner.

Crumpets are always made with milk, but English muffins are not.
Crumpet batter is a loose batter. English muffins are usually made from a more firm dough.
Crumpets are made only using baking soda. English muffins are usually made with yeast or sourdough.
Crumpets are cooked only on one side, so the bottom is flat and toasted while the top is speckled with holes. English muffins are more bread-like and toasted on both sides.
Crumpets are served whole with jam and butter spread on top. English muffins are usually split before coating and serving.

A regional variation of the crumpet is the pikelet, whose name comes from the Welsh bara piglydd or "pitchy [dark or sticky] bread", later shortened simply to piglydd. This spread initially to the West Midlands, where it became anglicized as "pikelet", and subsequently to Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and other areas of the north. The main distinguishing feature of the Welsh or West Midlands pikelet is that it was traditionally cooked without a ring, with an end result rather flatter or thinner than a crumpet.

Free Friday Double Smile

Happy Friday

Life is like a kite, the higher it goes, the softer the wind.

I am always high on having a Happy Friday!

Robot Reporters

Quarterly business earnings reports are dull and boring to read. That makes them ripe for automation. The Associated Press has been using an automated system since last year to write its stories and few readers noticed. AP implemented the system six months ago. It now publishes 3,000 such stories every quarter and that number is poised to grow.

AP says the automated system is now logging in fewer errors than the human-produced equivalents from years past. Of the estimated 3,000 such reports each quarter, about one hundred will have an added human touch, either by updating the original story or doing a separate follow-up piece.

The giveaway is that there is no byline and at the end of the article we see, "This story was generated by Automated Insights." The Wordsmith platform also generates millions of articles per week for other companies, such as Allstate, Comcast, and Yahoo, whose fantasy football reports are automated.

Four Vaccine Myths Debunked

They cause autism: The origin of the myth was from a study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. Most of Dr. Andrew Wakefield's co-authors withdrew their names from the study in 2004 after learning he had been paid by a law firm that intended to sue vaccine manufacturers. The same year, the Institute of Medicine reviewed evidence from the US, Denmark, Sweden, and the UK and found no connection between vaccines and autism. Around 2010, another British medical journal concluded Wakefield's study misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of his study.

The Lancet retracted Wakefield's paper in 2010 and he lost his medical license.

They contain poison: The cause was from a preservative and Thimerosal is no longer used in vaccines. In 2001, the FDA stopped issuing licenses for children's vaccines containing it. The preservative has been used for decades and still is in adult vaccines. There have been many studies and none of them show a correlation with autism or other serious side effects, the FDA says.

Doctors and insurance companies promote vaccinations to drive profits: Some insurers pay the cost of vaccinations to prevent paying more later, when a patient gets sick. A 2009 study found that up to a third of doctors actually lose money when giving vaccines.

The diseases they help prevent are long gone: One example of this effect is before the measles vaccine was introduced in the 1960s, there were between 3 to 4 million cases a year, resulting in 400 to 500 US deaths. Measles vaccination in the US has reduced the rate of infection in the population by 99% when compared to times when no vaccine was available. Measles has been on an uptick this year, because so many children have not been vaccinated against it.

Rhino Sex

Not much is known about certain rhino ovulation cycles, but it has been confirmed that some do not have set mating seasons and may become sexually active two times per year. Most seem to mate in the summer and fall seasons, likely due to the availability of food.

Female rhinos put on weight and become irritable if they do not reproduce, according to a study. Experts also discovered that, although they are ready and willing to copulate, they show no outward signs, so males do not realize that they are in heat.

Researchers at Chester Zoo teamed up with Manchester and Liverpool universities to carry out the first comprehensive study into reproduction among black rhinos. They performed hormone analysis on animals from eleven European zoos. A total of 9,743 samples were analyzed by Chester Zoo’s wildlife endocrinology laboratory. Dr Katie Edwards, from the University of Liverpool, who led the research, said females that had never bred were found to be heavier than those that had. Non-breeding females were also found to have “unpredictable” temperaments. The results were published in the Journal of General and Comparative Endocrinology.

The male Rhinoceros is ready for mating between the ages of 7 and 8 years old. However, if there are other males to compete with, it can be much older before it is able to find females that are receptive to advances. The bigger and stronger males are the ones that have the best success when it comes to mating. For females mating can begin from the ages of 5 and 6.

It is common for fierce fights to occur between males and females, because the male will not take no for an answer when it comes to mating. The male usually does get his way and then will leave after mating.

The fact that the mother carries the young in her body for more than one year and she may keep it with her for several years is a problem when it comes to increasing their numbers. The females may take three years to mate again.

Bee Fact

Honey bees, a very small minority of bee species die after stinging, because their stingers have barbs at the ends and get lodged into their target. When the bees fly off, they are basically ripping themselves in half. Most other species of bees have a smooth stinger that can go in and out of the target with no problems.

More Drinking Terminology

Bootleg comes from the late 19th century smugglers' practice of concealing bottles in their boots. In football, "bootleg" means the quarterback fakes a hand-off and runs while concealing the ball, ostensibly on his leg.

Touching glasses, as in toasting, comes from ancient Greeks, who clanked their cups in order to purposefully spill some alcohol, which was an offering to the gods. It also follows a medieval custom of clinking goblets together in order to frighten the demons out of the spirits, because it sounded like church bells.

Shot glasses serve two functions: to measure liquor for a cocktail or to consume straight liquor in a quick manner. The first printed use of the term “shot glass” occurred in the 1940s in a news story discussing ways to regulate the size of a shot of liquor in the restaurants and bars of New York City, US. Before it was called a shot glass, it was referred to as a jigger or pony. A jigger is a measuring glass of varying volume, while pony means one US liquid ounce.

The cocktail glass pre-dates the drink for which it is named. It was developed as a way to keep chilled drinks from being warmed by a drinker’s hands. During the early 20th century the martini glass, which is wider and less rounded, became distinct from the cocktail glass.

The earliest reference to a corkscrew was in 1681 where it was called a 'steel worm used for the drawing of corks out of bottles'. The term 'steel worm' was derived by gunsmiths, who had crafted similar tools by the same name for cleaning the barrel of a musket.

Blotto and blackout are British slang from the early 1900s. To blot can mean both to soak up a liquid and to erase something, which is what happens to your memory when you blackout.

Three sheets to the wind comes from sailing terminology. If all three sheets (on a three-sail rig) are released and allowed to go slack, the sail will flap about sloppily, the boat will lose speed, and control. Another theory comes from the Dutch windmill industry. The mills generally had four blades that were just frames. When a miller wanted to grind grain he would put material over the frames of the blades, so that the wind would propel them. If the miller only put three sheets on before it started spinning, it would be lopsided. As the unbalanced blades spun it would cause the entire mill to sway back and forth, much like a drunken person.

The first documented use of hangover or hang-over was in 1894, and it meant a survival or a thing left over from before. The term was also associated with the 1929 US stock market crash often written about as if it were a hangover from the wild 1920s.

The verbal short form of '86' to mean to dismiss or quash, to bar entry or further service to, and even to kill. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first verifiable use of 86 for 'refuse service' dates to a 1944 book about John Barrymore, a movie star of the 1920s and infamous for his drinking. "There was a bar in the Belasco building, but Barrymore was known there as an 'eighty-six'. An 'eighty-six', in the language of western dispensers, means do not serve him." There are many other theories, but this seems to be the most accepted.

Send Money in Gmail

If you are in the US or UK, you can exchange money with friends and family quickly and safely using Google Wallet. You can also do this directly from Gmail.

If it is your first time sending, receiving, or requesting money, you may need to verify your identity. Once you verify your identity, any money someone sends to you will automatically go into your Wallet Balance.

Receiving money, and transferring it to your bank account, is always free no matter which payment source the sender uses. Sending money is also free using a bank account or debit card, but has a 2.9% fee if you use a credit card. Most transactions are completed within 2 business days or less.

Wordology, By Hook or By Crook

This was first used during the 14th century, it refers to peasants pulling down branches for firewood using either a bill-hook (long handle saw with curved blade) or a shepherd’s crook (walking staff with curved handle). It is an old phrase that describes any means possible, but it has no relation to criminals.