Later On

Interesting study. Tami Dennis in the LA Times:

The introduction, from researchers at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, states: "We hypothesise that excessive confectionery consumption increases the likelihood of violence in adulthood."

To test this hypothesis, the researchers used the British Cohort Study to obtain information on the frequency of sweets consumption at age 10 and on violence convictions by age 34.

They found that 69% of people convicted of violence had in fact eaten sweets nearly every day when they were younger. Only 42% of those who had been nonviolent until age 34 reported such daily consumption.

The study concludes: "One plausible mechanism is that persistently using confectionery to control childhood behaviour might prevent children from learning to defer gratification, in turn biasing decision processes towards more impulsive behaviour, biases that are strongly associated with delinquency. Furthermore, childhood confectionery consumption may nurture a taste that is maintained into adulthood, exposing adults to the effects of additives often found in sweetened food, the consumption of which may also contribute towards adult aggression. Moreover, although parental attitudes were associated with adult violence, the effect of diet was robust having controlled for these attitudinal variables. Irrespective of the causal mechanism, which warrants further attention, targeting resources at improving childhood diet may improve health and reduce aggression."

Here’s the study [behind a subscription wall – LG]. It was published in the October issue of British Journal of Psychiatry.

Spencer Ackerman in the Washington Independent:

Via Justin Elliott, Greg Sargent and Tim Fernholz, the aforementioned Republican members of Congress are incensed that the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a lobby group for the American Muslim community, would … lobby Congress. They’ve ordered the House sergeant-at-arms to investigate whether CAIR “is connected to or supports terrorists [and] is running influence operations or planting spies in key national security-related offices.” The group has no actual evidence any such thing is happening aside from a book published by birther Website WorldNetDaily. Let’s call this what it is: bigotry.

It’s worth remembering that this sort of hysteria from GOPers is nothing new. In 2006, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), then the chairman of the House intelligence committee, publicly asserted without any evidence that al-Qaeda had infiltrated the CIA. He paid no price for such an incendiary charge. You can apparently say these sorts of things if you’re a Republican.

Not only is this shameful stereotyping of millions of law-abiding Americans McCarthyite and un-American, it’s actively counterproductive to real vigilance against terrorism. Fernholz:

These four fools have lined up to say they think any Muslim who might want to peacefully advocate their interests should be investigated for terrorist connections, simply by dint of their religion, which could send the message to Muslim Americans that they aren’t welcome in the democratic process. I hope that isn’t the result of these misguided demands for an investigation. Muslim Americans deserve to have their civil rights respected and should be encouraged to exercise their privilege of participating in our government.

In 2005 I spent months researching and writing a long piece about how American religious tolerance and liberal openness to persecuted minorities had allowed the U.S. to avoid the radicalization of Muslims occurring in Europe. Weakening that prophylactic on the strength of slanders sponsored by the same people who say President Obama is not an American is beneath the dignity of anyone who professes loyalty to the Constitution.

From the Center for American Progress:

Politico reports today that the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy (ACCCE) — a leading coal industry front group — spent nearly $10 million over the past 18 months on lobbying efforts that ran through a scandal-ridden lobbying firm. ACCCE hired the Hawthorn Group, which used some of its money to hire Bonner & Associates, a lobbying firm that runs astroturf campaigns. Bonner was recently caught in a scandal in which it admitted that an employee forged 13 letters sent to Congress, purporting to represent groups like the NAACP that supposedly supported coal interests. The Associated Press reports that ACCCE knew that Bonner’s letters were forged, but Bonner didn’t alert lawmakers until afterward. The forgeries scandal is simply the latest in a spree of bad behavior by Bonner & Associates. The firm was caught defrauding the U.S. government, was paid millions to shill on behalf of Big Tobacco, and teamed up with the drug industry’s lobbying group PhRMA to scuttle prescription drug legislation. The Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming is currently investigating ACCCE, Hawthorn, and Bonner. Jack Bonner, the president and founder of Bonner & Associates, and ACCCE head Steve Miller will testify before the committee on Thursday.

Although Col. Conk is quite popular, I’ve never quite grown attached to it—perhaps it’s the packaging. I got a good lather this morning, using the Rooney Style 3 Size 1 Super, and the Mühle razor I’m getting to like a lot. With a previously used Astra Keramik Blade, it delivered a fine shave. And Paul Sebastian aftershave is a favorite. Great shave!

I just made dinner using this method. When you dry-fry the tofu, I suggest that your turn your electric range to medium, let the Teflon-coated griddle get hot, put down the tofu slices, and set the timer for 15 minutes. Let them just cook, check to see how they are, and cook more if needed. Then turn, set time to 12 minutes, and let them cook.

I dumped them hot from the griddle into the Thai marinade and let them sit for 30 minutes, then used half of them in a stir-fry. They were delicious. The other half will marinate until tomorrow.

Good technique.

Your Netflix Watch Instantly queue wraps on Roku: go past the end, and you’re at the beginning, and vice versa.

Katharine Seelye has traditionally given a conservative slant to her stories, and this latest is no exception.

Source: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, October 13, 2009

The media analysis group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) issued an action alert September 22 titled "NYT Slams Single-Payer" that described lopsided reporting in a New York Times article about "Medicare for all," a form of a single-payer health care system. FAIR noted that the article, titled "Medicare for All? ‘Crazy,’ ‘Socialized’ and Unlikely", laid out a list of arguments against single-payer while failing to include any balancing responses from the option’s supporters. In explaining the slant, article author Katharine Seelye said she was trying to explain why Medicare-for-all was "not going anywhere." "I thought the substance of [single-payer] had been dealt with elsewhere many times," she said. On October 13, Times public editor Clark Hoyt conceded that FAIR "had a point," and agreed that the article excluded the point of view of single-payer health care system supporters. FAIR said it finds Seelye’s defense "alarming," and points out that the Times, like the rest of the corporate-owned media, has given the issue of single-payer health care "scant attention."

Useful info:

While the American public, politicians, and pundits locked horns this year during the hotly debated national discussion on healthcare reform, the dialogue took a passionate (and sometimes ugly) turn at the mention of alleged “death panels for Grandma”— understandably so as eldercare in America is one of the country’s most challenging and emotional topics with long-reaching impact both socially and economically.

Nearly 120 million Americans (six out of every ten adults) are either providing, or have provided, unpaid care for an elderly loved one. Approximately two-thirds of the American public recently surveyed expect to be caregivers of elderly family members or friends in the future.1 The number of individuals engaged in some form of eldercare is expected to sharply increase as longevity in living continues to become the norm.

According to a June 2009 population estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau, the world’s population of individuals aged 65 and older will triple from 516 million in 2009 to 1.53 billion in 2050. In the United States, 89 million Americans will be aged 65 and older by 2050 up from 39 million today.2

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Since I’m into soup these days (I’m buying more stuff for Hot & Sour Soup today), I was attracted to this soup, and I’ll buy also its ingredients:

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped (about 2 cups)
2 large or 3 small garlic cloves, finely chopped [I'll go with 6 large – LG]
8 ounces chorizo sausage, casing removed (if you’re using fully cooked chorizo, dice it before adding it to the soup)
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 1/2 pounds winter squash, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (Butternut, Red Kuri, or Buttercup are good varieties to use)
8 cups chicken broth [I suggest chicken stock – LG]
1 1/2 pounds kale, stemmed, torn and chopped into small pieces or ribbons (about 2 small to medium bunches)

salt and pepper to taste

Mike Lillis in the Washington Independent:

Last week, Senate Democratic leaders rolled out a proposal to extend unemployment insurance by 14 weeks — with an extra six weeks thrown in for those states where jobless figures have topped 8.5 percent — only to have Republicans block the measure on the chamber floor.

Well, today it happened again.

According to the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Democrats on Tuesday asked for consent to pass the bill, only to be shot down by GOP leaders.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Republicans aren’t objecting to the extension, but to how it’s funded. (The Democrats’ plan would tap an expiring surtax on businesses, while the Republicans want to use unspent money from the stimulus bill.)

The House has already passed its version of the extension. With unemployment numbers creeping up each month, the pressure’s on the Senate to work out a deal quickly.

Sounds fascinating. Ryan Hagen in the NY Times:

What’s more dangerous: a playground jungle gym or your office chair? As it happens, one in every 3,759 fatal accidental falls starts from a piece of playground equipment. You’re 85 times more likely, meanwhile, to fall to your death from a chair. That’s one of the many odd pairings waiting to be discovered in The Book of Odds, an online statistical encyclopedia launching tomorrow.

Some other probabilistic tidbits I found digging through the site:

• The average American is more likely to live without ever visiting a dentist than to live without a TV in her home.
• A married man is about as likely to cheat on his wife as he is to experience a flight delay.
• You’re eight times more likely to have your ashes abandoned at a crematorium than to see a new book on personal finance be published in a given year.

The Book of Odds is a searchable online database of “odds statements,” the probabilities of everyday life. You can search it by keyword or by the odds themselves — for instance, how many things stand a 1 in 142 chance of happening to to you. As a special treat for Freakonomics readers, you can try the beta version of the site by clicking here and entering the username “brownian” and password “motion.”

The site’s founder, Amram Shapiro, says he wants to create a reference tool for better understanding the endless stream of odds that confront us: …

Continue reading.

The best way to reduce the number of abortions is to provide sound sex education and make contraception freely available. Making abortions illegal turns out NOT to reduce the number of abortions. Ted McLaughlin in The Rag Blog:

It has recently been shown that teaching "abstinence only" does not prevent teen sex, but it does increase the number of teen pregnancies by preventing the use of contraceptive methods. Now there is a new study that shows banning abortions does not decrease the number of abortions.

The Guttmacher Institute did a survey of 197 countries regarding abortion. They found "roughly equal rates" of women seeking abortions in both countries with legal abortion and countries that had banned abortions.

In other words, banning abortion not only didn’t eliminate abortions, it didn’t even lower the number of abortions.

In countries without legal abortion, women just go to a country where it is legal (as Irish women go to Europe) or they seek illegal (and dangerous) abortions (as women in Africa and South America do). In fact, illegal abortions kill at least 70,000 women each year — leaving nearly a quarter of a million children without mothers. Another 5 million women develop serious complications.

Oddly enough, there is a proven way to lower the rate of abortions — contraception. The Guttmacher Institute found that there were 45.5 million abortions in 1995. By 2003, that number had dropped to 41.6 million in spite of an increase in population. The change is due to a wider use of contraceptive methods.

Just look at what contraception has done in the Netherlands — where abortion is legal and contraceptive use is encouraged and taught. Worldwide, the abortion rate is about 29 per 1000 people, but in the Netherlands it is only 10 per 1000 people. Young people there commonly use two forms of contraception, and that has radically lowered the abortion rate.

The facts are clear…

Continue reading.

This is undoubtedly a spin-off of the Dyson Airblade hand dryer. You can read about the fan at Treehugger:

The Air Multiplier fan from Dyson has no visible blades–just a ring, one-foot across, mounted on a circular base–but out of it flows a strong, turbulence-free cylinder of cooling air. Vacuum magnate Sir James Dyson has done it again, or so it seems. The Air Multiplier fan is a piece of home cooling technology with a potent wow factor and, quite likely, the potential to save quite a lot of energy…

Continue reading.

Continuing to buy and try foods new to me, I brought home what I thought was canned yucca. The instructions said to heat it and then to dress it with a warm sauce of olive oil, garlic, lime juice, and a dash of vinegar. That seemed odd—I was thinking it would be along the lines of heart of palm—but in the event was quite tasty. It was, to my surprise, sort of potato-like, and it tasted a lot like olive oil, garlic, lime juice, and a dash of vinegar. Come to find out that it was not yucca, but yuca—that is, cassava, a tropical food like a potato but without as much nutritional value.

It’s really too bad that the financial industry now owns Congress. Mary Kane in the Washington Independent:

As a House committee begins tackling major financial regulatory reform, consumer advocates find themselves shaking their heads over why something that should have been a slam dunk — reining in the financial industry in the wake of the subprime crisis — has turned into a hard-fought battle instead.

Proposals for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, a new federal authority to regulate mortgages and other financial products, and for oversight of the private and unregulated market for derivatives, risky financial instruments cited in the subprime collapse, are under debate by the House Financial Services Committee this week. In the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis, it seemed to many consumer advocates that those proposals, and other efforts at financial regulatory reform, would have been already been in place by now.

But what seemed back in 2007 like a clear path ahead was upstaged by the health care battle, which stalled momentum on the biggest overhaul of financial regulations since the Great Depression. Yet there’s even more to the reform slowdown, noted Kathleen Engel, a Suffolk University law professor who specializes in predatory lending and subprime securitization.

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It will be released next week, but here’s a sneak preview.

Coconut oil shaving soap and extract of West Indian limes aftershave—what could be more tropical? The tiny Simpsons Classic brush generated ample lather for three passes and had more if I wanted it—and the coconut oil fragrance was very nice. The Apollo Mikron, still using a Swedish Gillette razor of many shaves, did a fine job: a smooth face to greet the day, with a little lime fragrance hovering over it.

Sounds like an interesting book. From a post at Climate Progress:

In early 2008, Saudi Arabia announced that, after being self-sufficient in wheat for over 20 years, the non-replenishable aquifer it had been pumping for irrigation was largely depleted.

In response, officials said they would reduce their wheat harvest by one eighth each year until production would cease entirely in 2016. The Saudis would then import virtually all the grain consumed by their Canada-sized population of nearly 30 million people.

The Saudis are unique in being so wholly dependent on irrigation.  But other, far larger, grain producers such as India and China are facing irrigation water losses and could face grain production declines.

Water Shortages Undermining Food Security

Fifteen percent of India’s grain harvest is produced by overpumping its groundwater. [See this post — they pump 54 cubic kilometers per year – LG] In human terms, 175 million Indians are being fed with grain produced from wells that will be going dry. The comparable number for China is 130 million. Among the many other countries facing harvest reductions from groundwater depletion are Pakistan, Iran, and Yemen.

The tripling of world wheat, rice, and corn prices between mid-2006 and mid-2008 signaled our growing vulnerability to food shortages. It took the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression to lower grain prices.

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From the YouTube description:

Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine head to the ends of the earth in search of animals on the edge of extinction.

In New Zealand the travellers make their way through one of the most dramatic landscapes in the world. They are on a journey to find the last remaining kakapo, a fat, flightless parrot which, when threatened with attack, adopts a strategy of standing very still indeed.

In the NY Times Nicholas Wade reviews The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, by Richard Dawkins:

The theory of evolution really does explain everything in biology. The phenomena that Darwin understood in broad brush strokes can now be accounted for in the precise language of DNA. And though biological systems have attained extraordinary levels of complexity over the passage of time, no serious biologist doubts that evolutionary explanations exist or will be found for every jot and tittle in the grand script.

To biologists and others, it is a source of amazement and embarrassment that many Americans repudiate Darwin’s theory and that some even espouse counter­theories like creationism or intelligent design. How can such willful ignorance thrive in today’s seas of knowledge? In the hope of diminishing such obscurantism, the prolific English biology writer Richard Dawkins has devoted his latest book to demonstrating the explanatory power of evolutionary ideas while hammering the creationists at every turn.

Dawkins invites the reader to share the frustration of an imaginary history teacher, some of whose students refuse to accept that the Roman Empire ever existed, or that Latin is the mother tongue from which the Romance languages evolved. Instead of concentrating on how Western culture emerged from the institutions of the Roman state, the teacher must spend time combating a school board that insists he give equal time to their alternative view that French has been spoken from time immemorial and that Caesar never came or saw or conquered. This is exactly analogous to the plight of the biology teacher trying to acquaint students with the richness of modern biology in states where fundamentalist opponents of evolution hold sway.

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