(no subject)

"...just when you start getting used to being able to walk down the street without tensing every muscle in your body, you get reports of an incoming blizzard. You brace for it, but instead of snow, it rains for 12 hours and then drops to the 20s, encasing the entire city in ice and gutting your hopes for an early spring.
...It's a killer, but Boston beats out warmer parts of the country in other ways. I'd rather be stuck in eternal winter, for example, than to have to stand for a minute in the company of Creationists and people who think the Blue Collar Comedy Tour is funny."
-Joe Keohane, editor of The Weekly Dig. (our alternative weekly paper, from this week's issue)

Can someone out there please refute this? Not because I don't believe it, but because I do. Must I choose between a comfortable social climate and a comfortable weather climate?

(no subject)

In my nutrition class last night, something weird happened. My professor stated that vitamin B12 ONLY derives from animal sources (my subsequent research throws this into doubt). A couple of my classmates latched onto this: "Wait, does that mean that the B12 added to fortified foods [like soymilk] comes from animals? Then it isn't vegan!" These students were positively gleeful that they had learned something that they could throw in the face some vegan friend (or enemy).

I'm pretty sure that it isn't even accurate (it appears to me that B12 can be obtained from microbial sources, and IS, in the case of most vegetarian food fortified with it);
But the elated smugness of these students is fascinating to me. Are the vegans they know so obnoxious that they just can't wait to tell them off? Why are vegans so hated?

Most of the vegans I know aren't strident, they're just principled

(cross-posted in vegetarians)

(no subject)

Don't forget, religious people:

"All things dull and ugly, all creatures short and squat
All things rude and nasty, the Lord God made the lot
Each little snake that poisons, each little wasp that stings
He made their brutish venom, He made their horrid wings

All things sick and cancerous, all evil great and small
All things foul and dangerous, the Lord God made them all
Each nasty little hornet, each beastly little squid
Who made the spiky urchin? Who made the shark? He did

All things scabbed and ulcerous, all pox both great and small
Putrid, foul and gangrenous, the Lord God made them all"

-Idle