Couple of Unrelated News Items

The triple-digit/near-triple-digit weather we're enjoying experiencing seems to have tapped my ability to compose anything original, so yet again, I'll only be re-blogging (the forerunner of re-tweeting) what others have done.

The first story that prompted me to open a tab for blogger.com was one about The Church of England. Now frankly, I don't know anymore why I'm even vaguely surprised at anything the CofE does any more, but it happens sometimes.

The Church of England unveils a two-in-one wedding and baptism liturgy today as it seeks to make peace with families "living in sin."

The "hatch-and-match" service allows couples to baptise their children after the wedding ceremony. Parents can even get baptised themselves.

The aim is to encourage cohabiting parents to marry as the Church tries to become more relevant...

At the end of the day, I should just be encouraged that they're promoting marriage, but come on...

(via Christian Theology).

The second is a little more light-hearted, but still in the "what fools these mortals be" vein, according to the Omaha World-Herald:

A national vegan advocacy organization Wednesday filed a class-action lawsuit in New Jersey Superior Court against five hot dog manufacturers, including ConAgra Foods Inc., asking that they be ordered to attach warning labels to their packaging.

The Cancer Project [one blogger described them as: "a non-profit dedicated to cancer prevention, nutrition education, research, and buzzkills"], based in Washington, D.C., said in the lawsuit that a study by the American Institute for Cancer Research showed that the daily consumption of hot dogs and other processed meats can increase the risk of developing colorectal cancer by as much as 21 percent.

Other manufacturers named in the suit, filed on behalf of three New Jersey residents, are Nathan’s Famous, Kraft Foods/Oscar Mayer, Sara Lee and Marathon Enterprises.

The Cancer Project wants packages of hot dogs to carry the following words: "Warning: Consuming hot dogs and other processed meats increases the risk of cancer."

The Omaha paper contacted local company, ConAgra, about the suit. The company directed them to the president of the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (yes, there is such a thing), Janet Riley, "who calls herself the 'Queen of Wien.'" Anyone calling herself something like that should automatically win any and all arguments with tight-shoed Health Nazi groups. The World-Herald continues:

"Just as tobacco causes lung cancer, processed meats are linked to colon cancer," Dr. Neal Barnard, president of the Cancer Project, said in a press release. Riley said comparing hot dogs to cigarettes was "absurd."

"Other than pleasure, (cigarettes) offer no benefit to your health," she said. "I am the mother of two kids, and if I had any safety concerns, I would not be feeding (hot dogs) to my children."

Frankly, doesn't matter if they put those warning labels on the hot dogs (unless the government takes over health care, in which case they'll likely be banned), Denis Leary's rant about warnings on cigarette packs comes to mind:

There's a guy- I don't know if you've heard about this guy, he's been on the news a lot lately. There's a guy- he's English, I don't think we should hold that against him, but apparently this is just his life's dream because he is going from country to country. He has a senate hearing in this country coming up in a couple of weeks. And this is what he wants to do. He wants to make the warnings on the packs bigger. Yeah! He wants the whole front of the pack to be the warning. Like the problem is we just haven't noticed yet. Right? Like he's going to get his way and all of the sudden smokers around the world are going to be going, "Yeah, Bill, I've got some cigarettes.. H--- S---! These things are bad for you! S---, I thought they were good for you! I thought they had Vitamin C in them and stuff!" You f------ dolt! Doesn't matter how big the warnings are. You could have cigarettes that were called the warnings. You could have cigarrets that come in a black pack, with a skull and a cross bone on the front, called 'Tumors' and smokers would be lined up around the block going, "I can't wait to get my hands on these f------ things! I bet you get a tumor as soon as you light up! Numm Numm Numm Numm Numm

(h/t: The Hardball Times).