Let’s start with the waste of air.
The European Union assembled a bunch of their best scientists who spent a lot of other people’s money to come to the conclusion that water doesn’t provide hydration.
EU officials concluded that, following a three-year investigation, there was no evidence to prove the previously undisputed fact.
Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the edict, which comes into force in the UK next month.
Last night, critics claimed the EU was at odds with both science and common sense. Conservative MEP Roger Helmer said: “This is stupidity writ large.
“The euro is burning, the EU is falling apart and yet here they are: highly-paid, highly-pensioned officials worrying about the obvious qualities of water and trying to deny us the right to say what is patently true.
“If ever there were an episode which demonstrates the folly of the great European project then this is it.”
NHS health guidelines state clearly that drinking water helps avoid dehydration, and that Britons should drink at least 1.2 litres per day.
The Department for Health disputed the wisdom of the new law. A spokesman said: “Of course water hydrates. While we support the EU in preventing false claims about products, we need to exercise common sense as far as possible.”
German professors Dr Andreas Hahn and Dr Moritz Hagenmeyer, who advise food manufacturers on how to advertise their products, asked the European Commission if the claim could be made on labels.
They compiled what they assumed was an uncontroversial statement in order to test new laws which allow products to claim they can reduce the risk of disease, subject to EU approval.
They applied for the right to state that “regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration” as well as preventing a decrease in performance.
However, last February, the European Food Standards Authority (EFSA) refused to approve the statement.
A meeting of 21 scientists in Parma, Italy, concluded that reduced water content in the body was a symptom of dehydration and not something that drinking water could subsequently control.
Now the EFSA verdict has been turned into an EU directive which was issued on Wednesday.
In other words, according to these morons, curing the symptom isn’t good enough. Tell that to anyone who’s had malaria. Quinine doesn’t cure malaria, it cures the symptoms. And, by so doing, allows the patient to live. Without curing the symptoms the patient dies. It’s that simple.
It’s not that hard people. We learned this in 4th grade.
Oh well, this next guy sounds nuts but you have to follow along to understand what he’s saying. A Peruvian mayor claims that drinking water can make men homosexual.
And, he may be right.
In one of the most unusual claims about homosexuality to emerge in some time, a Peruvian mayor is blaming the high mineral levels in the area’s drinking water for a perceived increase in the number of gay men residing in his town.
As Pink News is reporting, Huarmey Mayor Jose Benitez made the bizarre comments at the launch of a local water access project, where he noted high levels of strontium in the tap water. The drinking water comes from Tabalosos, a town which a Lima-based television station once claimed was inhabited by 14,000 gay men.
“Unfortunately strontium reduces male hormones and suddenly we’ll be as Tabalosos, as other towns, where the percentages are increasing of homosexuality,” Benitez is quoted by LGBT Asylum News as saying. “Young people have low self-esteem by this stigma.”
Dr. Robert Castro Rodriguez, dean of the College of Pharmaceutical Chemistry of Lima, quickly dismissed Benitez’s claims, telling Peruvian radio that large amounts of strontium in the body eventually lead to bone cancer, anemia and cardiovascular complications –- but not homosexuality.
It’s not the first eyebrow-raising claim about homosexuality to emerge out of Peru. In 2009, Peruvian Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas announced it would ban homosexuals from the police force for damaging the image of the institution, reports the BBC.
Similarly, Bolivian President Evo Morales decried chicken producers who inject female hormones into their fowl, “and because of that, men who consume them have problems being men,” reports The Los Angeles Times.
He probably should have said that “drinking Peruvian water” has the adverse side effects but that may have gotten lost in the translation. And the nice aside that the polluted water will only cause ” bone cancer, anemia and cardiovascular complications” is not as helpful as it may seem.
Also, the Bolivian president’s concerns about genetically modified foods mirror those of me and millions of others. Speaking as someone who has lived on a farm I can tell you that the differences between the foods you eat and the ones they raise are scarily different.
And that doesn’t even begin to consider the crap people are forced to eat if they buy “fast food.” To put it simply, the ingredients in a McRib are the same as those in a yoga mat.
YUMMY!
Also, in the “I knew this would happen” department, there is now a porno based on the Occupy movement. And, much to everyone’s surprise, I haven’t seen it.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/21403547 w=501&h=301]
Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!