Ab ovo usque ad mala

"You say that you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeable to His mind. And if we do not take hold of the religion which you white people teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter. You say that you are right, and we are lost. How do you know this to be true? We understand that your religion is written in a book. If it was intended for us as well as for you, why has not the Great Spirit given it to us, and not only to us, but why did He not give to our forefathers knowledge of that book, with the means of understanding it rightly? We only know what you tell us about it. How shall we know when to believe, being so often deceived by the white man? "Brother, you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agree, as you can all read the book? "Brother, we do not understand these things. We are told that your religion was given to your forefathers ...

So I'm reading the news and I see something about kidney stones in Chinese babies. It's been traced back to melamine-tainted baby formula. Hold on. Melamine?!? I have mixing bowls made of melamine. Like, hard plastic stuff. Okay, (universally recognized authoritative source) Wikipedia says that there's a difference between melamine and melamine resin (made with melamine and formaldehyde...much safer!). It also says melamine is useful as a fire retardant and pesticide. Goody. The most interesting part about this was here , in a post by David Goldstein. I found this when I googled "why would manufacturers put melamine." So apparently the melamine inexpensively beefs up the "protein analysis" in food products (including pet food, which was the source of the recall last year). But the weirdest thing is where they get this stuff: it's a byproduct of burnt coal. So...David Goldstein says a lot about this, including that food with melamine in it has been f...