Thanks for this additional clarification. The talk was given before a gathering of environmentalists, so I think the conspiracy tone, i.e., "they" are doing this or that, is directed at corporate polluters and creators of toxins in general.
Marta Russell
Greg Nowell wrote:
> I was very intrigued by this post.
>
> 1. It is very true that diet drinks do raise methanol
> levels in the body. I'm not sure whether it matters if
> the drink is at 86 degrees or not, since the body will
> raise the temperature to 98.6.
>
> 2. It is also true that the body has methanol in it is
> as a normal byproduct of metabolic processes. Unclear
> to me whether all these claims could be true.
>
> 3. Probably a good idea not to drink this shit. One
> could make an equally impressive case against
> softdrinks, artifical sugars or otherwise, on the basis
> of what the phosophorous does to bones. I think the
> epidemic of osteoporosis is due in no small part to
> this. It doesn't matter age you are when you drink it:
> if you drink it as a teen you will interfere with
> calcium buildup which constitutes the "main reserve" of
> calcium throughout your life. Supplmenets taken in
> later years tend to slow decline rather than re-build
> lost bone.
>
> 4. The post on methanol nonetheless had a kind of
> "conspiracy theory" quality to it, i.e., whereby a
> multitude of sins are imputed to one cause, and "they"
> are behind it.
>
> 5. Nonetheles regarding the commercialization of all
> available space I was interested to see that my
> university had agreed to give its soft drink marketing
> to Coke (bye bye Pepsi) for a fairly major sum. I
> forget just what it is, but my back-of-the-envelope
> showed that the royalty paid to the university amounted
> to something like 3 softdrinks per person (faculty &
> staff) per week; and obviously Coke intends to make
> money beyond that. Since I drink maybe 3 per month, I
> can only stand amazed. Similarly with McDonald's
> Burgers. Since I don't eat any, somewhere there are
> people really stuffing them down, in order to get
> "billions and billions" sold.
>
> --
> Gregory P. Nowell
> Associate Professor
> Department of Political Science, Milne 100
> State University of New York
> 135 Western Ave.
> Albany, New York 12222
>
> Fax 518-442-5298