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Optional subtitle: Didn’t they discuss this on a Simpsons episode?

An FDA document obtained by Reuters yesterday has stated that milk and meat obtained from cloned animals are safe to eat.

Check out the article here

I am really not sure what I think about this. As far as I know, given current techniques, cloned organisms are pretty much identical to normal organisms except for maybe the telomeres in their DNA. That is to say… The organisms seem to have problem with old-age diseases much earlier than normal organisms might. But I’m not sure whether this applies to their progeny, which are probably the more reasonable thing to assume will enter the food chain. Even if it does… So what? In theory (and I’m saying this in theory), DNA is in pretty darn bad shape by the time it gets to your plate in a restaurant anyway….

Its all weird, I say.

What you think about Kill Bill will depend on what you expect from cinema. Is cinema a trifle, a distraction or diversion to make you forget about life? Or is it a serious art, an opportunity to hold a self-critical mirror up at the world?

If you are of the “serious art” camp, Kill Bill is best described as life viewed in a grotesque funhouse mirror. The “diversion” camp is better served — Quentin Tarantino will make you forget about life. Specifically, the lives of all the people dispatched by The Bride (Uma Thurman). This is not a movie for the squeamish. You can read on in the comments…

The plot is so thin as to be transparent. The Bride, one of a hardened group of killers, is betrayed on her wedding day. Beaten and left for dead, she awakens from a coma several years later swearing revenge on everybody.

And what a stylish revenge it is. In stunning fashion, Tarantino reminds us why his name is an adjective used to describe movies. The tale is told in short snippets, some from what serves for the present-tense and some from the past. Many of the shorts are cinematically distinct, paying homage to genres as different Chinese kung-fu, spaghetti Westerns and Japanese anime. Betrayal and revenge are the themes that tie the separate stories together.

These themes are expressed again and again as blood and death. Amazingly, The Bride does not shoot a single person to death. Instead, they are beaten, bitten, bludgeoned, or decapitated. Blood gushes freely as the movie progresses, squirting and spurting in ways that Picasso would be proud of. Vernita Green (Vivacia Fox) is the first of The Bride’s former cohorts to receive her comeuppance in a hand-to-hand combat scene that quickly sets the mood for the rest of the movie. The tone builds thru bloody flashbacks of the Bride’s betrayal, The Bride’s awakening and the story of how O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) became an assassin. This films equivalent of “The Burly Brawl” has The Bride taking on the Crazy 88, eighty-eight Yakuza bodyguards — bodily fluids and body parts fly. In comparison, the death of O-Ren Ishii is prosaic, a Zen meditation.

Strangely appropriate music also ties the scenes together, including Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang” which was eerily quiet and subdued given the visual carnage and mariachi/spaghetti Western music, which seemed quite jarring given the samurai theme of much of the movie. Was that a pan flute in the background as well?

A great waste of two hours, but not for the squeamish.

We have made it into Sienna. The driving is crazy here but lots of fun. Being hung over daily because the wine is cheaper than the water is not that fun but if you start drinking wine before leaving for the day, the headaches go away. Plus, having stocks in Advil or Tylenol would have been a bonus. Next is Firenze and Venize. Oh, and the town of Pienza was cool for its cheesewheels!

ps. damn frigin italian keyboards are stooopid!

pps. want, no neeeeed, a big juicy 20 oz bbq steak!

The new Alien Vs Predator movie trailer is out, and it capital ess Stinks. After Alien 3 and 4 and this trailer, I’m setting my expectations pretty low for this movie.

Here’s my nominee for the best photo to ever go with a news story. Classic.

And for your gaming needs, here’s a fun word game. Sort of an online solitaire scrabble. I got through the first three rounds pretty easily, so I’m hoping it gets a bit more difficult, but it’s fun anyway.

I had a friend who always bore a grudge against Sarah McLachlan cause she sent back her latte to have it reheated. Too bad this site wasn’t around back then.

Also, this is a neat little java doohickey that simulates sand falling in various ways.

today’s word is eschatological. eschatological means: having to do with THE END OF THE WORLD!!!

here is a flash cartoon about the end of the world.

the end!

So i was sitting at my friendly neighbourhood watering
hole here in Belgium when i noticed this intriguing
bottle behind the glass of the cooler. I promptly asked
the barlady what Hoegaarden Grand Cru was knowing that
i was already in love with regular Hoegaarden. She
proceeded to pour me a bottle and did it ever knock my
socks off. Absolutely delicious. I urge you all to try
the Noblest Beer in the Hoegaarden Brewery At 8.7%
and smoother than 24601’s butt after a visit to the
bikini waxer, this is officially my new favorite beer.

And my name is Dr. Franz, and we are here to pump - you - up!

(Ah, the heyday of SNL, huh?)

I spend plenty of time at the gym and see my share of really, really big guys. (And age-appropriate, body-appropriate spandex, but thats neither here nor there.) And more than once, I’ve wondered which ones have been gifted by the gene fairy and which ones have been getting some help from the pharmaceutical gods. I don’t think there’s any question that lots of bodybuilders take enhancers (steroids and other substances) that would disqualify them from a number of major sports, and lots of athletes in major sports do the same and do their best not to get caught.

But what kind of an edge does that sort of stuff give you? Higher, faster, stronger and all of that?

Outside Online sent in an amateur cyclist to find out for you:

Everybody knows that many athletes cheat by using performance-enhancing drugs like steroids, testosterone, and EPO. But what is it like to take these banned substances? Do they really help you win? To find out, we sent an amateur cyclist into the back rooms of sports medicine, where he just said yes to the most controversial chemicals in sports.

Check out the extremely scary article.