>Need humans to search out land mines
 
LOL!!!!!!!
 
Ferret going in water bowl:  try water bottles.
 
>the role model ferret parent Tiffany Taylor
 
Personally, I did NOT find this post appropriate to the FML.  (Nor am I
going to off-handedly assume that it is true given that it came as an
insult from an anonymous person who used the entire post just to bash
someone.)  It was off-topic and seemed merely a way for someone to act
"holier-than-thou".  Annoying, and think the topic deserves dropping
unless there's a DIRECT connection for the list.  Hey, there are people
here who do things I don't agree with that are worse (like intolerance)
but those are NOT ferret aspects.  How many people do you find saying,
"Hey, guess what so-and-so does in his or her own time?" whether
unappealing or not.  For a feel of the other side insert YOUR own name
into the "so-and-so" slot as the victim of the insults and rumor mongering,
or imagine people doing it to someone you greatly admire like Bill, or Bob,
or Troy-Lynn, or Judith, or Ronnie, or Dick, or Mike, or... If it's not
meant to be a silly post which is just worded badly, then someone might
be just trying to start arguments and that's a tacky yawner.  Ho-hum...
Besides, the person signed as KFC, and I don't know about you, but I HAVE
seen midgets, and dwarfs, and just plain short people like most of my
family, and otherwise average but refrigerator shaped people like me,
and -- yes -- even big people wrestling with their meals at KFC.  Why, I
have done that myself, holding breasts and thighs (not mine except that I
paid for them) covered merely in batter -- Gadzooks, so revealing!!!!!!!
Nor have I wrestled fairly -- I used teeth!  Never knew that restaurant
was an obscene appetite for those of us who sometimes crave fried chicken,
did you?  At least the cole slaw is morally safe.
 
Did anyone hear the host of Wheel of Fortune last night say, "Well, put a
ferret in my pants and call me jiggly!" ?  It was cute.  (If I am not
recalling the right adjective it was the same meaning.)
 
Sensory Compensation: The brain is still something where a huge amount of
the "Why?" and "Hows?" are unknown.  Hey, just look at the recent new
research which indicates cell addition previously thought to be impossible.
Better to just accept this concept as a hypothesis which still needs
further study.  Science is more about questions than answers, anyway.
 
Ela informed us:
>The most interesting part is that the FDA has requested the dog food
>manufacturers *voluntarily* limit ethoxyquin to no more than 75 ppm in dog
 
That would indicate that they do not find reason for concern in low doses
while considering those lower doses fine for preserving the foods.  Doesn't
hurt to urge a logical cut-back like that.  The argument comes back to
AMOUNTS again -- many things (including water and some common foods many
here eat regularly) are dangerous and even lethal -- in amounts too high,
but almost no one is ever exposed to those amounts.  Like Deb Kemmerer (who
is a knowledgeable vet who has read such studies) mentioned, the ethoxyquin
studies were on amounts about a 100 TIMES higher than would be actually
consumed in real life.  That's a study defect which has to be taken into
account.  Have to do a risk assessment which reflects the COMPARATIVE rates
of the risks without the preservative, with alternative preservatives, with
ethoxyquin, etc.  It's not an easy call situation.  This is like the pine
thing.  There are a lot of reasons to worry about cedar with it's plicatic
acid, but the abietic acid (same as slyvic acid) in pine can be a strong
risk for sensitive (esp.  allergic) individuals but in general is a much
milder risk, and perhaps no risk at all for many.  Hey, I can be killed by
a teaspoon of potato or a penicillin shot because I am allergic to them,
but for most they are no risk at all and can even be positive.  To equate
the cedar and pine is simply illogical.  It is also illogical to assume
that ethoxyquin is a high risk in low doses when the numbers of the
diseases increased may be low to start with, the amounts needed to cause an
increase may be unattainibly high, and the risks from other preservatives
might be similar while the risks without preservatives are known to be
much, much worse.  Sure, it make sense to use the lowest amount possible
to preserve safely but that's a far cry from just avoiding it, offhand.
 
I really liked learning about those materials in Al's post.
 
Sukie
[Posted in FML issue 2856]