@ndybl0g

Missouri State Representative Cynthia Davis (R-O’Fallon) has been making a few headlines around these here parts because of her newsletter June newsletter that stated the following:

“Who’s buying dinner? Who is getting paid to serve the meal? Churches and other non-profits can do this at no cost to the taxpayer if it is warranted … Bigger governmental programs take away our connectedness to the human family, our brotherhood and our need for one another … Anyone under 18 can be eligible? Can’t they get a job during the summer by the time they are 16? Hunger can be a positive motivator. What is wrong with the idea of getting a job so you can get better meals? Tip: If you work for McDonald’s, they will feed you for free during your break.”

A variety of “liberal rags” picked up on this, including our own Riverfront Times (where she was voted “Ass Clown of the Week”…hehehehe…), and Keith Olberman’s show, “Countdown.”

For a more amusing take on it, however, I leave you with Stephen Colbert, above. He talks about her for the first minute or so and then goes on to discuss Mark Sanford (which is also funny, but not really pertinent to Rep. Davis).

Anyway, I’m just glad she’s not my representative.

Side-Note: Davis was also mentioned in an article yesterday in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch saying that she, and a few other Missouri Republicans, have been attending meetings called by a California Dentist, Orly Taitz, that calls Obama’s citizenship into question. And even if his birth certificate is genuine, she says “he can’t be president because his father was Kenyan.” Seriously.

This is just crazy talk.

According to that blurb, the FDA has voted to reduce the maximum amount of acetaminophen (Tylenol) that can be administered over-the-counter to 650 mg. For those that don’t know, “Extra Strength” falls around 1000 mg per dose. According to CNN, “a 2007 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention population-based report, that estimated that acetaminophen was the likely cause of most of the estimated 1,600 acute liver failures each year.” Also, “overdoses of acetaminophen have been linked to 56,000 emergency room visits, 26,000 hospitalizations and 458 deaths during the 1990s.”

Now, I’ve got mixed feelings about this… First of all, if I have a headache, I take the maximum dose (1000 mg) and it goes away. Simple as that. Done it for years. Regular strength usually doesn’t work as well, hence why Extra is kinda nice. Now, I’m just going to have to take three pills of Regular Strength (equaling 975 mg) to get the same efficacy.

Here’s the issue: people that have liver issues probably shouldn’t be taking acetaminophen. Alcoholics shouldn’t take acetaminophen. People that are drunk shouldn’t take acetaminophen. EVERYONE ELSE is probably okay (please correct me if I missed one there). The reason it’s a problem is because acetaminophen is metabolized in your liver by a specific enzyme, CYP2E1 (and others, but that’s the biggie here), and this enzyme also metabolizes alcohol. Problem is, it’ll take care of the alcohol first before going after the acetaminophen. Therefore, if you take acetaminophen while you have lots of alcohol in your system, it will hang around in your blood stream. If it stays in your blood too long without being metabolized by CYP2E1, it is converted to a “free radical,” which then goes on to wreak havoc to your liver, amongst other organs, causing acute organ failure. Chronic alcoholics also have less glutathione in their bodies, and that compound is very important for clearing the other dangerous metabolites of acetaminophen.

So yes, you don’t want acetaminophen hanging around all that long. And if you have liver problems, you shouldn’t take it. Or if you’re drinking, you shouldn’t take it (take naproxen or ibuprofen instead).

But making me take an extra pill, when I detest taking pills, is just dumb.

If I could describe the new movie, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” in one word, it would be: extraneous.

A sequel to 2007’s hit, “Transformers,” the sequel starts off two years later, now with the Autobots helping the U.S. military track down the remaining Decepticons. Over the course of the movie, we find out that the Transformers as a race are quite old and have visited Earth before. One guy, The Fallen, had tried to take over the planet, defying the other Transformers (essentially becoming the first Decepticon). He was exiled elsewhere…at least, until Megatron and his cronies decide to revive him in an effort to finish the job, and take down Optimus Prime and the Autobots once and for all.

Here’s my main problem with the movie: it was just too much. The flick was 150 minutes long. They could have cut 20-45 minutes out of it easily and still maintained the general story they were going for. Instead, there were plenty of extra scenes of Sam’s parents, or introduction of needless characters (specifically, Leo). The time taken to reintroduce all these old characters, let alone the new ones, could have been axed entirely without the overall story suffering (specifically, I would have tossed the entire “going off to college angle,” as it really didn’t do much. It could have been reworked to simplify the story). The actual plot involving The Fallen, the history of the Transformers, and the developing relationship between Sam and Mikaela would have been enough for the movie - all the extra fluff was pretty useless (read: extraneous).

And while the action scenes and special effects were still pretty badass, I must say that I was disappointed in that ending. I won’t go into further details, but I wanted more. The fight scenes in general were decent, but nothing on an epic scale like in the first movie. Also, all these close-up shots of the Transformers fighting each other make it really difficult to tell who is who…

So yeah, it was a fun movie that actually had some funny parts (but didn’t pull off all the jokes they tried…especially with “The Twins”…I hope bankruptcy keeps Chevy from releasing those ugly vehicles…), but it certainly wasn’t better than the first one, and kinda lost some of the magic that the first one did. I’ll still pick it up when it gets released, but the original remains the far better film.

So, I’m toying with Twitter to a very small extent. Generally, using one social networking site is plenty for my taste, but there are many folks that to use the Twitter service instead and, due to the wonders of RSS, it’s arguably easier to keep track of.

I only mention this because I’ve added a few feeds to the right-hand column of this page, kinda on a trial basis. Right now, I’ve added Stephen Colbert, Woot.com, Joystiq, GWJ and Giant Bomb (the latter three are gaming-related) to see if it works alright. I’ve only got the top two posts from each feed, but I think I can track up to 20 posts with this particular Wordpress plugin.

Anyway, I’ll be messing with it. We’ll see. I don’t plan on actually posting with Twitter often (or ever), but I have tasted the Kool-Aid and may give it a go…

By the way, I don’t know why it sometimes says “no public messages” and sometimes doesn’t. I’m still working out some kinks, obviously…