Rotundus.com

What can I say other than that I really don't like traditional Christmas music.

This year I've been debating whether or not to go try something a little bit different and take in something that I've never caught before - Handel's Messiah. There's at least one amateur production of this going on in the next few weeks as well as more professional renditions.

I'm sort of torn. On one hand, it seems like something of a bit more substance than the sort of Christmas music that you'd typically hear on radio stations and it's

one of the last distinctly Christian cultural events. Think about it: every year thousands and thousands of people pack concert halls to hear people sing Scripture set to music. They hear prophecies of a coming Messiah, they hear of his birth, they hear of his death and resurrection and they hear of his coming return. It is a remarkable thing. (src)

On the other hand it's even more annoying than random Christian music in certain ways, one with an annoying number of "traditions associated it, such as knowing (or thinking they know) when to stand and why." (src). And is there really a decent reason as to why to stand? To quote one conductor cited there to pauses to motion the audience to rise:

... because what really bothers [him] is all the commotion which takes place in the first 10-15 bars of the piece (when you don't make them rise) while they decide to rise and take their noisy time getting up.

Decisions, decisions, decision...

The 57,000 Page Tax Return

"GE’s tax bill illustrates both why our corporate tax rate is too high and too low. The nominal rate is too high which encourages a real rate which is too low. Consider the resources that GE spends to lowers its tax bill, not just the many millions spent on clever accounting and accountants and the many millions spent on lobbying but also the many inefficient ways that GE structures its businesses"

Marketers adapt menus to eat-what-I-want-when-I-want trend

"Eating weird is the new normal" (Shawn LaPean, executive director of Cal Dining at the University of California- Berkeley). I approve.

Thirsty Power Plants Threaten Watersheds, Study Finds

"Texas may offer a preview of what happens in a warming world. In 2007, there were blackouts in parts of North Carolina because a drought affected the Catawba River. “The thirst of the region’s power plants became incompatible with what the river had to give,” the report said." I recently read The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl and wonder if we'll see a recurrence of that sort of thing. Per the original article, power plants account for >40% of freshwater consumption, albeit much of this is recycled and returned to the source. (Wouldn't it be more effective just to use evaporative cooling in homes directly instead of the added overhead of power plants doing the same thing less efficiently?)

Fertility math? Most women flunk, survey finds

Biological clocks are ticking faster than most expect - "The poll of 1,000 women ages 25 to 35 who had talked to doctors about fertility found that participants could correctly answer seven out of 10 basic questions less than half the time. The Fertility IQ 2011 Survey found that women were wrong most often about how long it takes to get pregnant — and about how much fertility declines at various ages."

On Les Stroud's facebook page today:

well the cat got let out of the bag

but here it is....yep: SURVIVORMAN RETURNS!!!!

and I am upping the anty: i will be heading out for TEN days this time (instead of seven)

I have been in talks with the networks for some time to make this a reality and it all happened on Friday...in fact in three weeks I head out for the first one

What can I say other than that I like the show; got the existing three seasons of Survivorman on DVD.

New Canadian guidelines call for less breast cancer screening

"The guidelines for average-risk women — updated for the first time in a decade — recommend no routine mammography screening for women aged 40 to 49 and lengthen the screening window for women ages 50 to 74 from every other year, to every two to three years. ... No evidence was found to show that routine breast examinations by doctors in women who have no symptoms of disease prevent deaths from breast cancer. If anything, it can lead to unnecessary biopsies and procedures." (This is pretty similar to the direction prostate cancer screening is taking, which "offers men 50 and older little if any survival benefit, yet raises risk of harms caused by treatment")

As New Graduates Return to Nest, Economy Also Feels the Pain

A bit of a follup to the Generation Boomerang thing: "In other words, Ms. Romanelli, 22, saved a lot of money. But she deprived the economy of a lot of potential activity, too." This is looking at those with jobs, who continue to live with their parents primarily, it seems, to save up money, such that not as large a mortgage might be needed later. Doesn't sound like a terrible idea to me - although this increased efficiency as the article outlines means that such folks aren't purchasing as much crap - the estimated $145,000 of increased GDP as spending trickles a few layers through the economy.

Fast-Food Intake Most Frequent in Middle-Class, not Poor: Study

"A new national study from UC Davis researchers of restaurant dining as related to income conveys that fast-food dining and consumption become more frequent as wages increase from low- to middle-class individuals and families. The study, of the dining habits of nearly 5,000 Americans, dispelled the commonly accepted sentiment that fast-food restaurants like McDonald's and Burger King are the main contributor to higher obesity rates among the poor."

The false promise of cheap wine

"At best, the result from vineyards that produce 10 or 15 tons per acre of grapes is neutral wine that requires significant manufacturing (wood chips, Mega Purple and so on) to approximate flavors that wine drinkers claim to like. And that, ultimately, is what the “Drink Cheap Wine” brigade is advocating: industrial wine that is the equivalent of a Big Mac or Velveeta."