For 2007, a review and update of the Getting Things Done methodology.

From the National Geographic:

Awareness of the centuries of discrimination against the Roma—the ethnic group often mistakenly called Gypsies—is on the rise in Eastern Europe, according to a leading scholar.

The people’s plight has been one of neglect and discrimination since arriving in Eastern Europe in the 1300s, said Carol Silverman, an anthropologist at the University of Oregon in Eugene who studies the Roma.

Often mischaracterized as free-spirited travelers who lie and steal their way around the world, the Roma have been enslaved, persecuted, and left to fend for themselves on the margins of society, she said.

Though an official count is impossible to determine, at least hundreds of thousands were killed during the Holocaust alongside an estimated six million Jews.

Today most Roma live in shantytowns isolated from education, health care, and secure employment, Silverman said.

But with the fall of Communism in much of Eastern Europe, a new generation of Romani leaders has emerged to advocate social integration and legal protection.

“And the way to do that is to call attention to long patterns of discrimination, lack of access to education, lack of access to jobs, systematic discrimination in jobs, and so on,” Silverman said today in broadcast of the Pulse of the Planet radio program.

Voice of Millions

A key agenda for Romani activists is to document the true number of Roma living in Europe.

“Trying to get a full picture of Roma presence and number is very, very hard all across Eastern Europe,” Silverman told National Geographic News.

“Official numbers are about half the scholarly estimate.”

Read the rest of this entry »

As an obese (but not for long) and type 2 diabetic guy, I found this story interesting:

Chinese researchers may have found the key to an oral drug that could treat both type 2 diabetes and obesity.

They are focusing on a compound called Boc5 by Ming-Wei Wang, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the National Center for Drug Screening and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, China. Boc5 is not powerful enough to become a diabetes or weight loss drug. But Wang and colleagues suggest that daughter compounds could join the latest generation of diabetes drugs, called “incretin mimetics.”

The first FDA-approved incretin mimetic was Byetta. A second such drug, with the generic name liraglutide, is in clinical trials. These drugs mimic an intestinal peptide, glucagon-like peptide, or GLP-1. The drugs help people with type 2 diabetes normalize their blood sugar, lose weight, and perhaps even gain new insulin-making cells.

The problem is that they are large molecules. This means they can’t be used as oral drugs, but have to be given by injection. That’s what makes Boc5 different. It’s a small molecule and therefore promises to sire a new family of more powerful oral drugs for diabetes.

New Diabetes, Weight Loss Drug?

To find Boc5, Wang and colleagues screened 48,160 compounds for GLP-1-like activity. They found two. Eventually, these compounds led them to the molecule now called Boc5.

The scientists tested the Boc5 drugs in a strain of mice bred with a defect that makes them overeat. This overeating, coupled with insulin resistance and defective insulin production, makes the mice diabetic.

Mice given Boc5 began to eat less; and daily doses reduced the animals’ blood-sugar levels to normal. Also, when GLP-1 activity was blocked, these Boc5 effects were blocked as well.

“Although the observed effects point to a potential anti-diabetic, anti-obesity utility, a practical drug will likely require greater potency,” Wang and colleagues conclude. But, they add, “The findings reported here … have the potential to spawn a new class of orally available [drugs] for treatment of metabolic diseases.”

Wang and colleagues report their findings in the Jan. 5 early online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Amazon guarantees their price for 30 days. If, within 30 days, the price drops below what you paid, you will be refunded the extra that you paid. The only catch is, of course, keeping track—and a hell of a catch it has been.

No more. Via Lifehacker, check out RefundPlease.com.

From ThinkProgress:

It is no surprise to hear that the U.S. health care system is in shambles. Health care costs are increasing faster than wages and nearly 47 million Americans — 8 million of whom are children — are uninsured. Millions more are underinsured.

Yet, we continue to spend more on health care per person than any other country, including countries that provide health care coverage to its entire citizenry. According to a new report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2003 alone, health spending per person was at least 24 percent higher than that of Luxembourg (the second highest spending country) and over 90 percent higher than countries considered global competitors.

But our health care system spending is not buying us superior health:

– Americans on average die at a younger age compared to the average age of death of comparable nations. Japan has the highest life expectancy.

– The U.S. infant mortality rate is 6.9 deaths per 1,000 live births, while Japan and Sweden have rates below 3.5 deaths per 1,000 live births.

– The obesity rate among adults in the U.S. is 30.6 percent; the highest rate of developed countries. This rate is nearly 21 percent higher than the rate of the second highest country, Mexico.

Nor does it buy us better health care or more resources:

– About 70 percent of deaths and health costs in the U.S. are attributable to chronic disease, which are largely preventable. Yet, only half of recommended preventive services are provided to adults.

– The U.S. has fewer practicing physicians and nurses per 1,000 people than comparable countries.

Instead, our health care system is pushing millions of hardworking Americans into relentless financial constraints and sends thousands to early graves.

With new policy leaders, the impetus for real health reform is now: we can afford to provide every American affordable health care that emphasizes prevention, while controlling costs and maintaining individuals’ choice of doctors and plans.

From Morton Mintz:

Simply by installing “two digital cameras in every committee and subcommittee room,” the House could let citizens go on the Web to view all committee and subcommittee meetings–including oversight hearings–and thus erode “the power of K Street lobbyists who use ‘insider’ information gleaned from committee meetings to justify their fees.”

The House could also easily publish its finances online and make them fully searchable.

As Speaker of the House, Congresswoman Pelosi, will you seek to implement these reforms, and if not, why not?

Same nonpartisan question for every Democratic and Republican leader, every Democratic committee chairman and senior Republican member, and every rank-and-file Congressman.

The questions arise from a recent New York Times op-ed by a person who witnessed the inner workings of the House first-hand. He is Scot M. Faulkner, chief administrative officer of the House of Representatives from 1995 to 1997. [On the "more" page - LG]

“[I]f the new Democratic majority functions anything like the old one, they — and we — are in for trouble,” Faulkner wrote. “The Democrats’ previous administration of Congress was amazingly dysfunctional — an operation that allowed the least ethically inclined members to rob the place blind,…

“During the 104th Congress, from 1995 to 1997, a bipartisan reform effort cleaned up some of the worst abuses….

“However, as revolutionary passion faded and incumbency extended, the Republican majority backed away from the ultimate reform: true transparency of House operations.”

I’ll throw in a nonpartisan question I’d love to see asked of the Speaker-to-be, et al:

The counterparts of our Freedom of Information Act in several other countries cover their legislative as well as their executive branches. Why shouldn’t the FOIA do the same?

Read the rest of this entry »

From Scientific American:

Researchers have discovered dangerous levels of the neurotoxin mercury (Hg) in the muscle tissue of perch and in the blood and eggs of the common loon in aquatic ecosystems of the northeastern U.S. and southern Canada. The finding led them to identify five “hot spots” of mercury contamination that pose serious health risks to animals as well as humans. In addition, elevated concentrations of the neurotoxin were found in nine other regions labeled as “areas of concern” in the report published in the January issue of Bioscience. High concentrations of mercury, which accumulate in the food chain, can cause brain and nerve damage in developing fetuses and young children.

In some areas the team of U.S. and Canadian researchers, led by David Evers of the BioDiversity Research Institute in Gorham, Maine, found perch containing mercury levels as high as 20 times greater than the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recommended limits. A survey of other ecosystem members discovered that 75 percent of bass and trout sampled contained mercury levels exceeding the federal limits.

The northeastern hot spots—which include the western Adirondacks and the middle and lower Merrimack River—share several characteristics: most can track much of their mercury deposition to local sources such as waste incinerators and coal-fired electricity plants. Each area contains landscape components—like tree canopies that suck up airborne mercury particles or wetlands that facilitate the methylation of mercury to the toxic compound methylmercury—that concentrate the pollutant in aquatic environments, sometimes up to one million times greater than its ambient levels. Water manipulation, such as reservoirs, can also ratchet up methylmercury levels, causing a decrease in the viability of wildlife offspring. In addition, soil contamination from legacy mercury use is another major indicator of a hot spot.

Read the rest of this entry »

Being both, of course, is even better. From WebMD:

When reaching for the key to happiness, it’s better to go for the golden ring than the greenback. A new Gallup poll of 1,010 adults shows most Americans are generally satisfied with the way their personal life is going.

But those with higher personal incomes and especially those who are married are more likely to say they’re very happy with their personal life. Married adults at any income level were as likely, if not more likely, to report being happy than even the wealthiest unmarried adults.

Overall, the poll shows more than nine in 10 Americans describe themselves as “happy” and just 4% are “not too happy.” About 64% of married people said they are very satisfied with the way their personal life is going, compared with 43% of singles.

And while 72% of respondents with incomes of $75,000 or higher reported being very satisfied with their personal life, a mere 36% of those with an annual income of $30,000 or less did.

Money, Marriage, and Happiness

Researchers say Americans have always reported a high level of personal satisfaction, with at least eight in 10 adults saying they’re happy with their personal life in polls since 1993.

In the current poll, conducted by telephone Dec. 11-14, 2006, 84% of Americans 18 and older said they were satisfied with the way things were going in their personal life, despite being in a nation at war. Only 15% said they were dissatisfied with their personal life.

Although the vast majority of Americans were satisfied with their personal life, researchers found money and marriage appeared to go hand in hand with higher levels of personal satisfaction and happiness.

Combining the results of the 2006 poll with those from 2005 and 2004, researchers say marriage may be more strongly associated with personal happiness than money. For example, 56% of married adults in the lowest income bracket reported being very happy, compared with 50% of unmarried adults in the highest bracket.

But marriage and money seemed to be even better — 67% of married adults in the highest income group said they are very happy.

Personal vs. National Happiness

However, when it comes to the way their country is faring, only 30% said they are satisfied — 54 points below the 84% satisfied with their personal life.

Researchers say it’s not the first time such a large gap has been found between personal and national satisfaction. The largest gap (64 points) was in January 1981, a time of record gasoline prices and the humiliation of Americans held hostage in Iran from 1979 until their release that month.

The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3%.

First, I enter my standard breakfast:

• “Breakfast” (a custom food: 1/3 cup oat groats, 1/2 tsp olive oil, salt, pepper, 1 Tbsp pepper sauce, 1/2 oz walnuts, 32 oz coffee)
• “Daily Vitamins” (a custom food compiled of a list of my vitamins and supplements with quantities of micronutrients entered from the labels, which comes out to 60 calories, all from fat (the fish oil, etc.))
• 1 large orange (lately—not included in standard breakfast definition because I don’t always have it)

That uses 392 calories: 46% Fat, 46% Carb, 7% Protein, 9g Fiber. The balance comes in the next two meals.

The custom foods, BTW, allow you to tinker with the ingredients for a given meal. For example, this morning I changed the 1/2 oz walnuts to 1/2 oz pecans (which raised the calorie count very slightly).

Then I add my Cranberry-Pomegranate drink: 115 calories, and the carb count goes up.

Then I work out the meal: first add the protein—fish, chicken, turkey, whatever. I enter, say, 6 oz. Then other ingredients I have on hand, estimating quantity: kale 11 oz, onion 6 oz, garlic 0.8 oz, summer squash 8 oz, fresh black-eyed peas 1 1/2 cup, a whole (Meyer) lemon cut up, 2 oz, and (say) baby string beans 10 oz.

I look at the totals and adjust. In this case, I cut the fish fillet in half to cut back on protein (and calories) and cut the black-eyed peas to 1 1/4 cup. That made the day totals okay: 1479 calories, 16% from fat, 57% from carbs, 24% from protein, and 45g fiber.

I print this out as a guide, and in the kitchen I weigh and measure as I add the ingredients and note any deviations on the printout. Then I return and enter the actual amounts so that the record is accurate as well as precise.

The meal I thus work out serves for both lunch and dinner: I eat half at noon, half in the evening. I can, of course, eat half one day and half the other, or just make half as much, but I like to cook once and eat twice.

Via Steve Gilliard’s News Blog, I just read this interview published at BuzzFlash.com. Let me get you started with just the beginning, but by all means read the entire thing.

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

I think what he does is he turns everybody who disagrees with him into his father. It doesn’t matter whether it’s actually the concrete representation of his father, like Baker, or the voters who vote against staying in Iraq. We have become his father. We are the people he is now defying. He will turn everybody, any authority, anybody who disagrees with him, into a father figure who he’d have to defy. — Justin A. Frank, M.D.

Years after Bush announced, like a toy soldier, “Mission Accomplished” and “Major Combat Operations” over in Iraq, he is preparing to escalate the conflict yet again, sure to result in the loss of even more than the grim milestone of 3,000 GI lives currently gone from their families. He is reportedly going to base his escalation on a “plan” from the Bushevik right wing American Enterprise Institute, the most prominent last refuge of neo-con scoundrels, scamps and losers.

There are many explanations for Dick Cheney’s character. He can be understood through characteristics like greed, evil, and cunning.

But Bush, stereotyped as an “aw shucks” All-American everyman, is, in reality, the more psychologically complicated one. Indeed, Bush’s behavior is far more understandable when seen through the filter of psychiatric analysis than through the analysis of foreign policy or political perspective.

Virtually every major military figure with combat experience — except for the toadies willing to tout the party line — opposes his Iraq insanity of continuing to up the ante of death in a conflict that long ago became a Civil War in which American GIs are helpless ducks in a row to both sides.

Why is this a nightmare without end, in which Bush only increases our losses in life and financially as a nation?

That is best explained through a psychiatric model. Many diagnostic categories may be applied to Bush (and we can only speculate on them since one of his psychological obstacles is that he has no interest in or inclination towards introspection). But perhaps the most accurate and telling one is that he is indeed a sociopath.

A sociopath is someone (to grossly generalize) who exhibits external and surface empathy and amiability, but internally cannot actually empathize with the pain and suffering of others. In fact, a sociopath may take hidden pleasure in being able to cause emotional distress, suffering, and even death to others, while — on a day to day basis — appearing as Mr. Affability.

That, you might say, fits Bush to a “T.” And that, you might say, is why he is willing to have everyone sacrifice for his own sociopathological “goals” (as unarticulated as they may be to even Bush) except for himself, his family, and friends.

On December 27 of 2006, we interviewed the author of a book, Bush on the Couch, that has kept haunting us over the past couple of years because it is a kind of Rosetta Stone to the Bush psyche. Written by a nationally prominent psychiatrist/psychoanalyst, it gets to the core of Bush more accurately and perceptively than a thousand blathering books on foreign policy and political science.

Bush on the Couch, by Justin A. Frank, M.D., deserves a wide audience.

Because when Bush holds a PR press gathering, we don’t need reporters, we need a room full of psychiatrists to analyze him.

We have a sociopath who has his hands on the steering wheel of America — and that is a very dangerous thing indeed.
* * *

BuzzFlash: You are a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst. What is the precedent and what are the limitations of applying a psychoanalytic model to a figure that you don’t know, a public figure?

Justin A. Frank, M.D.: There’s a long tradition of what’s called applied psychoanalysis. There’s an actual discipline of it. And what that is is the intense study of a historical figure or even of a fictional character in a novel, but an intense study of everything you can find when you can’t have that person in your consulting room, and then applying psychoanalytic principles to an understanding of their life history. One looks for patterns of behavior. One looks for congruencies in their life story that you can begin to see from different sources. And with the case of Bush, or in studying any historical figure, one looks at their own writings and their own behavior that’s available to the public at large. The other thing that makes it very useful to be able to study someone like Bush is the tremendous number of press conferences and public appearances that he’s made. There’s a lot of chance to observe him in public arenas.

The limitations, however, of doing it without knowing the person personally is that I don’t get to use a firsthand relationship with the patient, which is really essential to a good psychoanalysis. Also, I don’t get to use my own counter-transference directly, meaning my feelings towards the patient that get evoked throughout the time of the sessions. I was concerned that I had built in antipathy towards President Bush that I worried would make it much harder for me to do a balanced psychoanalytic approach to him. So I was worried about being a prisoner of my counter-transference, if you will.

That proved to be a very interesting experience intellectually and psychologically for me. As I got to know him better, and as I saw different pictures of him — including a movie of his 2000 campaign made by Alexandra Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s daughter — he became much more alive to me as an affable, charming person who really was good at making people feel happy, good, and well-cared-for. I learned a lot by watching him and getting to know him.

In terms of psychoanalysis, the classical approach of looking at transference and counter-transference was denied me. But the other side of it was that I had a tremendous amount of material to pay attention to. And there’s a long tradition of doing this in my field. Freud did it. In more recent years, the CIA has done psychoanalytic studies or psychological profiling of every foreign leader, with an attempt to help them understand how to negotiate with them and how to predict their responses.

Continue reading.

It’s totally against the law, but the law is nothing to George W. Bush. Using one of his infamous signing statements, Bush has given himself the power to open and inspect domestic mail, in spite of all laws to the contrary.

Does this guy want to be impeached?

From The Daily News:

President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans’ mail without a judge’s warrant, the Daily News has learned.

The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a “signing statement” that declared his right to open people’s mail under emergency conditions.

That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.

Bush’s move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.

“Despite the President’s statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people’s mail without a warrant,” said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.

Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail.

“The [Bush] signing statement claims authority to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite alarming,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington.

“The danger is they’re reading Americans’ mail,” she said.

“You have to be concerned,” agreed a career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush’s claim. “It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we’ve ever known.”

A top Senate Intelligence Committee aide promised, “It’s something we’re going to look into.”

Most of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act deals with mundane reform measures. But it also explicitly reinforced protections of first-class mail from searches without a court’s approval.

Yet in his statement Bush said he will “construe” an exception, “which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection in a manner consistent … with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Pandora has many virtues, and one that I’ve noticed this morning: I created a Tierney Sutton (jazz vocalist) station, and this morning I’ve paid attention to each song. I’ve given a thumbs-up to a host of vocalists I’ve never heard of:

• Mila Drumke
• Lynn Bush
• Crystal Gale
• Andrea Marcovicci
• Karen Akers
• Holly Cole Trio
• Hinda Hoffman
• Judith Owen
• Gwen Hughes
• Clairdee
• Flora Purim
• Greta Matassa
• Sherry Petta
• Janis Siegel
• Pamela York

And, of course, I heard quite a few whom I knew and liked already:

• Patricia Barber
• Nancy Lamott
• Nancy Wilson
• Nina Simone
• Shirley Horn
• Sarah Vaughn
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Margaret Whiting
• Doris Day
• Diane Schuur
• Jane Monheit
• Ute Lemper

Very nice to make new discoveries.

A regular reader sends this:

I’m drinking this smoothie every morning. It lasts me till lunchtime and tastes good too.

• 1 cup each chocolate and vanilla non-fat almond milk
• 1 scoop each choc and van protein powder
• 1/2 bag frozen no-sugar-added mixed fruit
• dash of Just Cranberry juice
• sprinkle of ground flaxseeds

I’ve now added Just Cranberry to my pomegranate juice drink, so it’s half pomegranate and half cranberry.

I’ve blogged a few times about the glycemic index/load of foods. (A blog search on “glycemic” will find those posts.) When last we left the topic, it seemed as though glycemic load was not a useful datum, though my endocrinologist had said I should avoid refined sugar and starches, which seemed to be about the glycemic load.

Now I just got the Harvard Healthy Eating PDF (you can download at the site or buy a printed copy — $16 either way, or get both for $24). They offer this:

Foods with low glycemic load

Building your meals and snacks around foods with a low glycemic load appears to have many health benefits. It may help you maintain a normal weight and protect you against heart disease, diabetes, and some forms of cancer. As a rule, carbohydrates have higher glycemic loads than do proteins and fats. But the good carbohydrates, such as legumes, nuts, and whole grains, usually have lower glycemic loads than the bad, starchy carbohydrates, such as potatoes.

Use this list as a guide to selecting healthy carbohydrates. There’s no magic number that separates a low glycemic load from a high one, but Harvard nutrition experts recommend that you eat more of the foods with the lowest glycemic loads than those with the highest.

Glycemic load: High or low?

High glycemic load -	Low glycemic load
crackers	barley
french fries	bran
honey	brown rice
potatoes	bulgur wheat
refined cereals	lentils
soft drinks	oatmeal
sugar	whole fruits
white bread	whole-grain cereals
white rice	whole-wheat products

Interestingly, the book is also not so averse to a high-protein diet as other advice I’ve read. Their recommendations, as a percentage of calories:

• Fats — 20%-35%, with saturated fats less than 10% and trans fats eliminated as much as possible.
• Protein — 10%-35%
• Carbohydrates — 45%-65%, with no more than 25% from added sugar [or, I presume, other high-glycemic carbs - LG]
• Fiber: Men 50 & younger, 38g/day; over 50, 30g/day — Women 50 & younger, 30g/day; over 50; 21g/day. [I presume that these are minima - LG]

They offer three example diets, and the proportions are interesting:

• High-carb: Fat 27%, Protein 15%, Carbs 58%
• High-unsaturated-fat: Fat 37%, Protein 15%, Carbs 48%
• High-protein: Fat 27%, Protein 25%, Carbs 48%

I can see that from my targets (Fat 25%, Protein 20%, Carbs 55%), I am perhaps closes to the High-carb diet. I’ll have to ask my endocrinologist about this on my next visit.

I hadn’t browsed much at Becks & Posh, usually just reading the newest post. Mistake. Scroll down a little more and look at the richness on the right—in particular, for me, the recipe collection. Click “Nibbles,” for example, and down drops a list of links to her recipes for nibbles. Great collection, and fun to browse.

Sophie taking her ease on the arm of the chaise. She’s being a calm kitty, but you can tell she’s looking around for something to do. LOTS more energy than little Miss Megs.

I used to have a superfood smoothie regularly for breakfast. Perhaps you enjoy them as well. Here’s a great collection of recipes for a wide variety of smoothies.

The ShaveMyFace.com member Bargepole, he of the delightful ode to the Slant Bar, has come up with an interesting shaving tactic:

Right. I don’t normally do experiments — I futz around, which is a different matter altogether — but the stars were in conjunction on this one:

(1) A thread in the Soaps forum about single-pass shaves;

(2) the instructions in my NEW IN BOX TOGGLE hahaha which referred to the “once-over-quickly”, and

(3) someone linking to the Cary Grant Shaving clip, which I’d forgotten about.

First off, we can be sure that Grant (a) knew how to shave well — back in the day, a movie star was always well-groomed — and (b) knew how most men shaved.

It wasn’t the luxury three- or four-pass number we luxuriate in here, with re-lathering in between passes. That would have been thought a bit effeminate back then: too much attention to appearance, marks a chap as a bounder what what.

Nor was it particularly systematic, if you look at the clip.

But of course it was what men did. (Couldn’t have someone watching the film & thinking “Lord, that Cary Grant don’t know how ter SHAVE! That be the last 30¢ *I* ever spend on his dang movies.”)

So we have pointers to The Old-Style Everyday Shave.

Read the rest of this entry »

It even protects against skin cancer.

Generally I’m inclined to create my own recipes, but it’s also fun to browse recipe collections and cookbooks for ideas. Here’s a good recipe collection that’s organized for browsing by category.