Oh, that reminds me...do y'all use "WASP" for any Protestant of mostly-British descent, or does it imply a certain establishment/elite status? DH and I actually argued about this the other day--he was insisting I'm a WASP because I'm close to 75% British (multiple flavors thereof, but mostly Scots-Irish) and was raised Baptist. I was equally insistent that I wasn't, because how can you be a WASP if your ancestors lived in Appalachia and none of your grandparents finished high school? WASP is multiple generations at prep schools and Ivies, summer houses in Maine, that sort of thing. Who's right?

I would say that you are right. It definitely implies a certain establishment/elite status. However, he's right in that the AS is key. Growing up in New England, you could have the surface "background" of prep schools and summer houses but I wouldn't use WASP if you didn't also have the ethnic background. Then you'd just be preppy.

Scary.... My impression is this guy knows what he's talking about, so... scary....

Some definitive bad news about preservatives

It's nice to a see a good study every once in a while and after about 30 years of debating whether preservatives cause hyperactivity/attention deficit. I can't go into all the studies that have been done because there are too many. Suffice it to say that the methodologies were always lacking, and the results uneven (whether positive or negative).

Now a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial has been conducted and published in The Lancet (you can get it here for free!). They took 153 3-year olds and 144 8-9 year olds and gave them a sweet drink with either sodium benzoate, a common preservative, and a artificial colors/flavors mix or a placebo. The amount of preservative/color/flavor is less than what many children get in a day. They were tested on a standard hyperactivity index, as well as a attention test. The children were given different drinks on different weeks and since it was double blind, neither the children or the scorers (parents/teachers) knew which drink they got. And since the same children were tested on both, you don't have to worry about variation between children as much.

Chlidren (both the 3-yr olds and the 8--9 yr olds) given the artificial color/preservative mix had increased hyperactivity. The result was the same no matter how strict you were about inclusion criteria for analysis (e.g. we'll only look at kids that finished more than 85% of their drink). As expected for any toxicant, some kids were strongly effected and some were not. It's real, though.

WASP is very confusing. Because, it's easy to be white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant, and still not have zillions of dollars. Annoyingly easy!

I think the acronym was much more meaningful a generation or two ago than it is now. Even though, a generation or two ago, it was still possible to be W, A-S, and P, without the zillions of dollars.

he became a lifelong Communist and forbid horsemeat to ever be eaten in the house.

I am glad to know Communists have culinary standards. Not having had a war on US soil in a really long time, I think the US has a very poor idea of what wartime life is really like. The other day a [Welsh] woman [who is too young to have lived through the war itself] on my flist flew into a rage over the intimation that British rationing was some kind of "We're British, we deny ourselves for fun!" type of thing, and declared angrily that Americans wouldn't understand. Which, I think we probably wouldn't.

Although my stepfather does remember some rationing; his kid brother was an infant during the war, and allergic to cow's milk, so they used up their whole gas ration to drive to Baltimore to buy goat's milk for him once a week. But that's not nearly the same as near-malnutrition type of rationing.

Wait, the British don't deny themselves for fun?

Gosh, my illusions are being shattered left and right today.

(and your ancestors would have been spared any number of prejudices so there is a certain privlidge in that)

Oh, that's undeniably true. Being broadly in the majority group does make life easier all around, and I know that's been true in my own life. I just don't think of myself as a WASP, y'know?

Wait, the British don't deny themselves for fun?

Well, there is the eternal pastime of waiting in the Tube while something or other is broken.

"We're British, we deny ourselves for fun!"

Dude, what? What? I mean, we probably wouldn't get the whole experience of years of enforced not-having-nice-things, but self-denial?

ION, came home sick. I can blame either husband's fighting-off-a-cold ick, or the ick that has slain half the department this week. Either way, BORED and too fuzzy to be coherent but too awake to sleep through the afternoon.

Well, there is the eternal pastime of waiting in the Tube while something or other is broken.

Yeah, but don't New Yorkers have that too? famous for self-denial, those Manhattanites...

British rationing was some kind of "We're British, we deny ourselves for fun!" type of thing

Oh, dear lord. You don't have to get-get it. Just having a clue should be enough.

Female 'Ninjas' Rob Richland Gas Station With Sword, Dagger

RICHLAND TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- Police said two women dressed as ninjas were responsible for the hold-up of a Richland Township gas station Saturday morning using a samurai sword.

Police said the two women -- one with a dagger, and the other carrying the sword -- entered a Sunoco station in the 5600 block of Route 8 at about 3 a.m.

According to police, the women tied up the clerk and robbed the store of cash, cigarettes and lottery tickets.

"They were all covered in black and carrying swords, so it did appear that they were dressed like ninjas," said Chief Robert Amman of the Northern Regional Police Department. "Swords, daggers could be used to seriously harm victims, so this is a very serious crime."

Article at the link has a video of the robbery.