California has banned the use of trans fats. Good for them, I say. I wouldn’t even bother noting this though, if it hadn’t been for this quote:

“The change has been very well received by our customers,” said Carl Peschlow, owner of Sweden House Bakery in Tiburon. “Those so-called bad fats do, however, give our croissants a little oomph.”

Peschlow said that while his bakery made the change relatively early, they still use a “tiny bit” of trans fat in their croissant recipe. Otherwise, Peschlow said, “the croissants just look like fat pancakes.”

I’d have to say no one at this bakery knows how to make croissants, if they feel they must use a “tiny bit” of trans fats in order to make them look right. I’m pretty sure the French were making great croissants long before trans fats even existed. The keys to a great croissant are butter and not working the dough to death, not the addition of trans fats.

An Israeli newspaper snagged the prayer Obama placed in the Western Wall and published it. I just want to point out this is over-the-top tacky and even somewhat reprehensible. Famous person or not, everyone’s prayers to god, stuffed into that wall, are sacrosanct and not to be disturbed, read, or, most importantly, published in a freaking newspaper. I hope the newspaper that did this gets a lot of grief about it.

I griped about the plan to test all Texas athletics students for steroids as soon as the idea was conceived. The results from the first round of testing have been announced, and of the 10,000 students tested, they found exactly two who were using steroids. Seems to me I was correct, and this entire project has been one giant waste of time and money. Steroid use doesn’t appear to be nearly as highly used as the proponents of testing hypothesized it would be. But Mark Cousins, of the University Interscholastic League, continues to insist “There’s no doubt that is it out there,” regardless of the test results.

“If we get a larger sample, we think we may be better able to draw some conclusions,” Cousins said.

Ten thousand students isn’t a large enough sample? I wonder what his excuse will be after the next round of testing — involving between 30,000 and 40,000 students — doesn’t return results matching his continued claim that student athletes are using steroids in high numbers? I can’t wait to hear what he has to say about it then, because I imagine the percentages will stand firm, and they will find less than ten students in even that massive number who are using steroids. As I said before they did the testing, this has been one giant waste of time and money that could have been used for much better purposes, like education.