[Quote:]

A federal review of a 2005 Italian study found no data to support the conclusion the sugar substitute aspartame causes cancer, a health official said Friday.

The Food and Drug Administration has not seen scientific information that would support a change in its conclusions about the safety of aspartame, said Laura Tarantino, director of the agency’s Office of Food Additive Safety. In 1981, the FDA determined that aspartame was safe for use in food.

The Italian study concluded aspartame led to higher rates of lymphoma and leukemia in rats. However, the European Food Safety Authority reviewed the data and said it did not support the study’s conclusions. The European agency reiterated its previously held position that the low-calorie sweetener is safe.

The FDA then conducted its own review of the study, despite not receiving additional data it had requested.

It wouldn’t surprise me if they did receive the additional funding they had requested…

“On Capitol Hill, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales raised his right hand, swore to tell the truth, and then everybody had a good laugh and went back to what they were doing.”
—Jay Leno

“News has just broke that the administration is seeking a high-powered “war czar” to oversee the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. So there you have it folks—five years into the global war on terror the president believes it is now time for someone to be in charge of it.”
—Jon Stewart

“Rudy Giuliani got in trouble because, y’know that presidential question they ask: “What’s the price of a gallon of milk?” He didn’t know. That doesn’t bother me, really, if a president doesn’t know. What I want to know [is], does the president know the price of a war with Iraq?”
—Craig Ferguson

“After weeks of mock testimony, there you have it. Alberto Gonzales doesn’t know what happened, but he assures you, what he doesn’t remember was handled properly.”
–Jon Stewart

“Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter has filed papers to run for president. But in his official filing, he misspelled the word ‘president.’ Political experts say it’s all part of Hunter’s plan to attract Bush supporters.”
—Conan O’Brien

“In 200 years, we’ve gone from “We the people,” to “Up With People.” From “the best and the brightest” to “dumb and dumber.” And where better to find people dumb enough to believe in George Bush than Pat Robertson’s law school? The problem here in America isn’t that the country is being run by “elites.” It’s that it’s being run by a bunch of hayseeds. And, by the way, the lawyer Monica Goodling just hired to keep her ass out of jail…went to a real law school.”
—Bill Maher

“Because of the storms back East, over 250,000 people still without power. In fact, it was so bad in Washington, D.C., Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had to resort to destroying e-mails by hand.”
–Jay Leno

“A lot of people are asking for extensions this year … even President Bush. He got an extension because he’s still deciding whether or not to write off Alberto Gonzales.”
–Jay Leno, on taxes

[Quote:]

The Roman Catholic Church has effectively buried the concept of limbo, the place where centuries of tradition and teaching held that babies who die without baptism went.

In a long-awaited document, the Church’s International Theological Commission said limbo reflected an “unduly restrictive view of salvation.”

The 41-page document was published on Friday by Origins, the documentary service of the U.S.-based Catholic News Service, which is part of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Pope Benedict, himself a top theologian who before his election in 2005 expressed doubts about limbo, authorized the publication of the document, called “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised.”

The verdict that limbo could now rest in peace had been expected for years. The document was seen as most likely the final word since limbo was never part of Church doctrine, even though it was taught to Catholics well into the 20th century.

It’s like they just made the shit up

then *poof* its gone, and I can just see the pearly gates opening up now, letting in hordes of unbaptised babies. St Peter, smiling serenely, telling them that their long wait is over. The babies, crawling in on all fours and gurgling, having no idea what the hell is going on.

[Quote:]

Because it’s Saturday. Because it has been a long week. Because taxes are due in two days. Because you’ve heard the expression many more times than you would ever have to. Because, today, it won’t be the last time you hear it. Because of these, and many more reasons, we are presenting our most lighthearted, silly post in years: Two minutes and thirty-six seconds of the rockingest rendition of Make the Logo Bigger

And if you think that’s fun, try the The Art Department Triathlon:

This is a timed event: At the beginning of each leg, each contestant is handed an 8 oz. styrofoam cup of scalding hot coffee, which must be held in the left hand throughout the event. Any spillage results in a tenth of a second penalty. Spillage directly onto the keyboard or the client’s color inkjet proof results in a half second penalty.

First Leg:
Explain to the nervous administrative assistant why a Powerpoint graphic placed in a Microsoft word.doc cannot be used to print her boss’s “mission critical” eight spot color rush order, while simultaneously attempting to open said file in every graphic program available for the Macintosh, while the client looks over your shoulder and offers helpful advice, like “Right click! Right click!”

Second Leg:

Explain to secretary of nervous administrative assistant why the one-inch by two-inch 72 dpi jpeg that she just downloaded from their website and e-mailed you cannot be printed at twelve by twelve on their t-shirt. Hold for 3 way conference call, and repeat what you just said to an arrogant 23-year-old Webmaster who interrupts you repeatedly with admonitions to “Get into the 21st century!” This stage includes two compulsory moves: 1. Explain CMYK gamut in third grade english. Must include the phrase “The human eye can see millions of colors…” 2. Explain why you cant “just print it in RGB.”

Third Leg:
Recreate from scratch entire $10,000.00 corporate identity package in less than 100.00 dollars worth of billable art time, including three revisions, one each proofed by fax, e-mail and local courier. Print film, and forward to production dept. Winner is first to hand job folder over to next department head.

[Quote:]

Weary of answering late-night alerts and troubleshooting calls, Bethany King finally had enough. Six months ago, she closed the book on a 12-year stretch as an IT storage administration professional to become an IT auditor.

“I had a 14-year-old daughter that I didn’t want to leave alone at 3 a.m.,” said King, who was allowed to shift to the more flexible IT job at The Empire District Electric Co., a Joplin, Mo.-based electricity supplier.

“That really was one of the reasons I got out. I could’ve made it work, but it’s just a choice that I made not to,” she added, noting that her husband is a firefighter who works various shifts.

King, who attended this week’s Storage Networking World (SNW) conference, co-sponsored by Computerworld and the Storage Networking Industry Association, is one example of what some attendees said could become a major problem for organizations – the alarming number of women who are currently abandoning IT jobs like storage administration that require workers to be on-call at virtually all hours.

[..]

Dot Brunette, network and storage manager at Meijer Inc., a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based retailer and a 30-year IT veteran, said that women are tending to migrate out of IT-related storage jobs because of their long hours and the demands that users of such technology can place upon them.

“IT is very much a culture and it consumes a lot of time,” said Brunette. ”I think women in that regard are at a real disadvantage.”

So you’ve got some jobs that suck so bad people don’t want them, you’re losing valuable employees for those jobs, and somehow the people who are leaving are at fault? Methinks you’ve got things backwards…

[Quote:]

A New York-based security researcher spent less than 12 hours to identify and exploit a zero-day vulnerability in Apple’s Safari browser that allowed him to remotely gain full user rights to the hacked machine. The feat came during the second and final day of the CanSecWest “pwn-2-own” contest in which participants are able to walk away with a fully-patched MacBook Pro if they are first able to hack it.

The exploit means that Dino Dai Zovi is the rightful owner of the 2.3Ghz 15-inch MacBook Pro and a $10,000 prize offered by Tipping Point, which runs the Zero Day Initiative bug bounty program. More importantly, his work effectively throws cold water on tired claims from Apple and its many lackeys that the Mac is all but immune from the kind of security attacks more regularly perpetrated against Windows-based machines.