Blah, Blah, Blahg

I’ve got to get one of these.  Please.

This is brief.  Another article from tingilinde.  Read more about what makes Apple somewhat unique (yes, somewhat and unique can’t really go together, but work with me here).

No, it’s nothing dirty.  Get your mind out of the gutter.  Thanks to the fantastic site tingilinde, I saw this little article on the effect of working night shift on a woman’s body.  In particular, the increased risk of breast cancer.  Very briefly, the study mentioned in the article suggests that nighttime exposure to light interferes with the body’s production of melatonin, since this primarily occurs at night.  This alteration in melatonin production might increase the risk of breast cancer.

A woman’s blood provides better sustenance for breast cancer just after she’s been exposed to bright light than when she’s been in steady darkness, researchers led by David E. Blask of the Bassett Research Institute in Cooperstown, N.Y., report.

“Light at night is now clearly a risk factor for breast cancer,” Blask says. “Breast tumors are awake during the day, and melatonin puts them to sleep at night.” Add artificial light to the night environment, and “cancer cells become insomniacs,” he says.

“Sleep per se is not important for melatonin,” says Russel J. Reiter, a neuroendocrinologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. “But darkness is.”

Read the whole article for more details.  Very interesting reading.

This list of rules for driving sounds a lot like something I would write.  In fact, I wish I had written this list.

OK, how’s this for bad? A judge sentenced a man to 60 days in prison for repeatedly raping a young girl over a four year period from when she was 7 until she was 10. His reasoning? Well, let’s get a quote from the fine judge:

“The one message I want to get through is that anger doesn’t solve anything. It just corrodes your soul.”

Apparently, Mark Hulett, the offender, is considered low-risk for repeat offense. Let me just say, that if I had a daughter, I’d never want him to babysit for me, no matter how unlikely he is to offend again. I’m sure someone will tell me how wrong I am to hold a person’s past against them, and blah, blah, blah, and so on. I don’t care. You want to make this scumbag unlikely to repeat the offense, you castrate him and lock him up for 10, 20, maybe 30 years. Rape is a horrid thing. Child abuse is almost unspeakably bad. Put the two together and you can just write the offender out of the books, in my opinion.

Odd thing is, the judge use to give harsh punishment for crap like this. He doesn’t believe in it any more, though. Are you wondering why? Well, let’s just give the fine gentleman a chance to speak again:

“I discovered it accomplishes nothing of value;it doesn’t make anything better;it costs us a lot of money; we create a lot of expectation, and we feed on anger.”

Not good enough for me. If you are interested in letting the judge know how you feel about his sentencing, try writing him at:

Edward J Cashman
29 Lamoille St
Essex Junction, VT 05452-3729
(802) 872-0615