Archive for July 2nd, 2008
Uh-oh. The DEA’s going to after us.
Scientists from Hungary, Germany and the U.K. have discovered that our own body not only makes chemical compounds similar to the active ingredient in marijuana (THC), but these play an important part in maintaining healthy skin. This finding on “endocannabinoids” just published online in, and scheduled for the October 2008 print issue of, The FASEB Journal could lead to new drugs that treat skin conditions ranging from acne to dry skin, and even skin-related tumors. “Our preclinical data encourage one to explore whether endocannabinoid system-acting agents can be exploited in the management of common skin disorders,” said Tamás Biró, MD, PhD, a senior scientist involved in the research. “It is also suggested that these agents can be efficiently applied locally to the skin in the form of a cream.”
Biró and colleagues came to this conclusion by treating cell cultures from human sebaceous glands (the glands that make the oil on our skin) with various concentrations of endocannabinoids (substances produced by the body that are similar to the active ingredient in marijuana). Then they measured the production of lipids (fat cells, such as those in skin oil), cell survival and death, and changes in gene expression and compared these outcomes to those in an untreated control group.
“This research shows that we may have something in common with the marijuana plant,” said Gerald Weissmann, MD. “Just as THC is believed to protect the marijuana plants from pathogens, our own cannabinoids may be necessary for us to maintain healthy skin and to protect us from pathogens .”
Maybe that’s why marijuana slows the growth of lung and cervical cancer and shrinks tumors.
Fascinating: instant origami
Via Download Squad, a new (and easier) approach the ancient art of origami.
Uh-oh. Watch out for the hamburger this weekend
Good post by Natasha Chart on the latest episode of E. coli contamination in hamburgers. She’s been able to identify the states most at risk. Her post begins:
Planning on eating a hamburger this weekend? If you bought ground beef at a Kroger store (and they’re the parent company for several grocery chains across the country, listed below the fold), you might want to think twice about that. The company is recalling beef included in a 523,000 lb recall by Nebraska Beef, with all participants down the line stonewalling, or lacking information, about where it went.
The E. coli alarm, a Class I recall, first sounded for Ohio and Michigan Kroger customers is branching out to 20 states, according to CNN, a Nebraska supplier has been identified as the source of the contamination.
The USDA’s Food Safety & Inspection Service’s Roger Sockman just told me that he “can’t confirm or deny” the story that a New Albany woman was sickened in relation to the outbreak, and that he hadn’t heard that city mentioned in epidemiologists’ discussions. He listed seven states as being known to him to be involved in the recall: CO, IL, MI, NE, NY, PA and TX.
Sockman didn’t mention Ohio, one of the states listed prominently in many news reports as being among the first to have a recall issued.
Until I can get a complete, official listing, there are news reports of contaminated meat or Kroger recalls in (and there’s some repetition and overlap from the FSIS list) these states: …
Obama’s position makes no sense
Good column by Greenwald on the incoherence of Obama’s position on the FISA bill. From the column (but read the entire thing:
Greg Craig, a Washington lawyer who advises the Obama campaign, said Tuesday in an interview that Mr. Obama had decided to support the compromise FISA legislation only after concluding it was the best deal possible.”This was a deliberative process, and not something that was shooting from the hip,” Mr. Craig said. “Obviously, there was an element of what’s possible here. But he concluded that with FISA expiring, that it was better to get a compromise than letting the law expire.”
Craig’s statement is flat-out false. FISA — enacted in 1978 and amended many times to accommodate modern communications technology — has no expiration date. The Protect America Act, which Congress enacted last August to legalize warrantless eavesdropping on Americas, had a 6-month sunset provision and thus already expired back in February, restoring FISA as the governing law. Thus, if Congress does nothing now, FISA will continue indefinitely to govern the Government’s power to spy on the communications of Americans. It doesn’t expire. What Craig said in defense of Obama is just wrong.
Greenwald is able to talk directly to Craig, and he recounts the conversation in his column. Nothing is mentioned about Obama’s vow to filibuster the bill, which he promised last October. Just another broken promise.
Learn healthy living in Second Life
Cool: Cigna Launches Virtual Health Community To Promote Healthy Lives
The pilot program, located in a three-dimensional virtual world called Second Life, will offer virtual seminars, interactive displays and educational games to encourage preventive care and health care behavior changes.
How to find Amazon deals on stuff you want
Very instructive post on The Simple Dollar.
Bittman’s 101 20-minute picnic items
Very useful list, which begins:
There is something both innocent and exciting about a picnic, even if you are only packing a few things at the last minute and heading down the street to the park. It may be nothing fancier than bologna or tuna salad on white bread, but you’re still likely to have a good time, which is probably why many of us remain devoted to the same picnic foods we’ve eaten all our lives.
But at some point, you may get the urge to vary the menu a bit. With that in mind, I’d like to make a few — or, actually, 101 — suggestions, ranging from snacks to dessert. With a little shopping, a little effort, and 20 minutes or less for assembly, you can create the kind of carry-out food that will put the local prepared food shops to shame while saving you a small fortune. No matter how faithful you are to your old favorites, I’ll bet you will find something intriguing here.
1 BEET SALAD Peel beets and grate them (a food processor will keep the juice contained). Add pistachios or hazelnuts; dress with orange zest and juice, and olive oil. Add bits of goat cheese and chopped parsley.
2 PESTO CHICKEN ROLLS Season and grill chicken cutlets. Brush lavash or any other wrap-type bread with pesto; layer with the chicken, sun-dried tomatoes and arugula; roll up and cut on the bias.
3 CURRIED EGG SALAD Make egg salad with hard-cooked eggs, mayo, curry powder, Dijon mustard, fresh lime juice, salt, pepper, cilantro, red onion and, if you like, diced apple.
Weight loss: muscle or fat?
In the first study of its kind, using sophisticated methods to measure body composition, the nationally known commercial weight loss program, Weight Watchers, was compared to gym membership programs to find out which method wins in the game of good health. A University of Missouri researcher examined the real-life experiences of participants to determine which program helps people lose pounds, reduce body fat and gain health benefits. The answer is that both have pros and cons and that a combination of the two produces the best results. Participants who attended Weight Watchers for 12 weeks lost an average of 5 percent of their body weight, or about nine pounds. However, Steve Ball, assistant professor of exercise physiology in the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences, found that a large percentage of the lost weight was lean tissue and not fat.
“Participants’ body fat percentage did not improve at all because they lost a much higher percentage than expected of lean tissue,” said Ball, MU Extension state fitness specialist. “It is advantageous to keep lean tissue because it is correlated with higher metabolism. Losing lean tissue often slows metabolism. What your body is made of is more important than what you weigh.”
The majority of other Weight Watcher studies had not considered body fat percentage change and only focused on body weight.
“This is one aspect of our study that makes it unique,” Ball said. “We used a sophisticated measure of body composition – the Bod Pod – to look at what type of weight was lost: lean or fat.”
In addition, Ball said the study was novel because Computer Tomography (CT scans) were used to investigate changes in abdominal fat, which is more predictive of cardiovascular disease. Although the fitness center group lost very little weight, they probably improved their health because they lost a significant amount of intraabdominal fat (fat around vital organs). These results imply that exercise may have positive influence on the metabolic syndrome despite the number on the scale, Ball concluded.
Ball also found that group support is very important. Most of the Weight Watchers participants stuck with the program during the duration of the study, while many of the fitness center participants quit.
“These results imply that overweight, sedentary women joining a fitness center with the intent of weight loss or body fat change will likely fail without support and without altering their diets,” Ball said. “Nearly 50 percent of people who start an exercise program will quit within six months.”
“This study attempted to discover what takes place in the real world when overweight women attempt to lose weight.” Ball said. “I think the outcome of the study speaks volumes about the necessity for a multi-pronged approach in order to lose weight, body fat and gain health benefits. I hope that this will be the first in a series of studies investigating commercial weight-loss programs.”
Good example of “correlation is not causation”
Interesting report that erectile dysfunction is lower in guys who have intercourse more often. Hmmm. So guys with erectile dysfunction don’t have intercourse as much as guys who don’t have erectile dysfunction? Amazing! But it’s not that simple. It turns out that there is causation, and it goes from lack of frequent intercourse toward erectile dysfunction:
Having intercourse more often may help prevent the development of erectile dysfunction (ED). A new study reports that researchers have found that men who had intercourse more often were less likely to develop ED.
Analyzing a five-year study of 989 men aged 55 to 75 years from Pirkanmaa, Finland, the investigators observed that men reporting intercourse less than once per week at baseline had twice the incidence of erectile dysfunction compared with those reporting intercourse once per week. Further, the risk of erectile dysfunction was inversely related to the frequency of intercourse.
Other factors that may affect the incidence of ED, such as age, chronic medical conditions (diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, cerebrovascular disease and depression), body mass index and smoking were included in the analysis of the data.
Erectile dysfunction incidence was 79 cases per 1000 in men who had reported sexual intercourse less than once per week, dropping to 32 cases per 1000 in men reporting intercourse once per week and falling further to 16 per 1000 in those reporting intercourse 3 or more times per week.
In addition, the frequency of morning erections predicted the development of complete erectile dysfunction, with an approximate 2.5-fold risk among those with less than 1 morning erection per week compared with 2 to 3 morning erections per week
Writing in the article, Juha Koskimäki, MD, PhD, Tampere University Hospital, Department of Urology, Tampere, Finland, states; “Regular intercourse has an important role in preserving erectile function among elderly men, whereas morning erection does not exert a similar effect. Continued sexual activity decreases the incidence of erectile dysfunction in direct proportion to coital frequency.”
The study clearly indicates that regular intercourse protects men from the development of erectile dysfunction, which may, in turn, impact general health and quality of life. The investigators advise clinicians to support the sexual activity of their patients.
Journal reference:
- Koskimäki et al. Regular Intercourse Protects Against Erectile Dysfunction: Tampere Aging Male Urologic Study. The American Journal of Medicine, 2008; 121 (7): 592 DOI: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2008.02.042
Department of Justice failing at its job
Carrie Johnson has an important story in the Washington Post today:
More than 900 cases alleging that government contractors and drugmakers have defrauded taxpayers out of billions of dollars are languishing in a backlog that has built up over the past decade because the Justice Department cannot keep pace with the surge in charges brought by whistle-blowers, according to lawyers involved in the disputes.
The issue is drawing renewed interest among lawmakers and nonprofit groups because many of the cases involve the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, rising health-care payouts, and privatization of government functions — all of which offer rich new opportunities to swindle taxpayers.
Since 2001, 300 to 400 civil cases have been filed each year by employees charging that their companies defrauded the government. But under the cumbersome process that governs these cases, Justice Department lawyers must review them under seal, and whistle-blowers routinely wait 14 months or longer just to learn whether the department will get involved. The government rejects about three-quarters of the cases it receives, saying that the vast majority have little merit.
Disputes can stay buried for years more while the government investigates the allegations.
“Even if no new cases are filed, it might take 10 years for the Department of Justice to clear its desk. Cases in the backlog represent a lot of money being left on the table,” said Patrick Burns, a spokesman for Taxpayers Against Fraud, which advocates for Justice to receive more funding to support cases by whistle-blowers and their attorneys.
Supporters of federal intervention in the cases say the dividends are substantial: In recent years, verdicts and settlements have returned nearly $13 billion to the U.S. government.
At issue in most of the cases is whether companies knowingly sold defective products or overcharged federal agencies for items sold at home or offered to U.S. troops overseas. Under the Civil War-era False Claims Act, workers who file lawsuits alleging such schemes cannot discuss them or even disclose their existence until Justice decides whether to step in.
By its own account, the 75-lawyer unit in Washington that reviews the sensitive lawsuits is overloaded and understaffed. Only about 100 cases a year are investigated by the team, which works out of the commercial litigation branch of Justice’s civil division.
Critics argue that the delays are at least partly the result of foot-dragging by Justice and the federal agencies whose position it represents, especially in the touchy area of suppliers that may have overbilled the government for equipment, food and other items used by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Electronic voting machines
Via Schneier on Security, this informative post by Dan Wallach on the specious arguments presented by manufacturers of electronic voting machines. Post begins:
Last week, I testified before the Texas House Committee on Elections (you can read my testimony). I’ve done this many times before, but I figured this time would be different. This time, I was armed with the research from the California “Top to Bottom” reports and the Ohio EVEREST reports. I was part of the Hart InterCivic source code team for California’s analysis. I knew the problems. I was prepared to discuss them at length.
Wow, was I disappointed. Here’s a quote from Peter Lichtenheld, speaking on behalf of Hart InterCivic:
Security reviews of the Hart system as tested in California, Colorado, and Ohio were conducted by people who were given unfettered access to code, equipment, tools and time and they had no threat model. While this may provide some information about system architecture in a way that casts light on questions of security, it should not be mistaken for a realistic approximation of what happens in an election environment. In a realistic election environment, the technology is enhanced by elections professionals and procedures, and those professionals safeguard equipment and passwords, and physical barriers are there to inhibit tampering. Additionally, jurisdiction ballot count, audit, and reconciliation processes safeguard against voter fraud.
You can find the whole hearing online (via RealAudio streaming), where you will hear the Diebold/Premier representative, as well as David Beirne, the director of their trade organization, saying essentially the same thing. Since this seems to be the voting system vendors’ party line, let’s spend some time analyzing it.
Did our work cast light on questions of security? Our work found a wide variety of flaws, most notably the possibility of “viral” attacks, where a single corrupted voting machine could spread that corruption, as part of regular processes and procedures, to every other voting system. In effect, one attacker, corrupting one machine, could arrange for every voting system in the county to be corrupt in the subsequent election. That’s a big deal.
At this point, the scientific evidence is in, it’s overwhelming, and it’s indisputable. The current generation of DRE voting systems have a wide variety of dangerous security flaws. There’s simply no justification for the vendors to be making excuses or otherwise downplaying the clear scientific consensus on the quality of their products.
Were we given unfettered access? …
Coercive interrogations based on Communist model
Formerly, Communists were the enemy; now they are our teachers, at least so far as torture is concerned. Under Bush, the US has embraced the torture techniques that our enemies once used. Scott Shane has the story in the NY Times:
The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”
What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners. [Note the Bush Administration adopted techniques that elicits false confessions—and indeed, we did get false confessions and bad information that vitiated our fight against the terrors by misdirecting resources. – LG]
The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Some methods were used against a small number of prisoners at Guantánamo before 2005, when Congress banned the use of coercion by the military. The C.I.A. is still authorized by President Bush to use a number of secret “alternative” interrogation methods.
Several Guantánamo documents, including the chart outlining coercive methods, were made public at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing June 17 that examined how such tactics came to be employed.
But committee investigators were not aware of the chart’s source in the half-century-old journal article, a connection pointed out to The New York Times by an independent expert on interrogation who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The 1957 article from which the chart was copied was entitled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War” and written by Albert D. Biderman, a sociologist then working for the Air Force, who died in 2003. Mr. Biderman had interviewed American prisoners returning from North Korea, some of whom had been filmed by their Chinese interrogators confessing to germ warfare and other atrocities.
Is waterboarding torture? Ask the man who’s been waterboarded.
Conservatives generally think waterboarding is almost pleasant—they refer to it as “swimming lessons,” for example. Notably, none of those who say such things have experienced waterboarding themselves. Christopher Hitchens decided to try it:
Here is the most chilling way I can find of stating the matter. Until recently, “waterboarding” was something that Americans did to other Americans. It was inflicted, and endured, by those members of the Special Forces who underwent the advanced form of training known as sere (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). In these harsh exercises, brave men and women were introduced to the sorts of barbarism that they might expect to meet at the hands of a lawless foe who disregarded the Geneva Conventions. But it was something that Americans were being trained to resist, not to inflict.
Exploring this narrow but deep distinction, on a gorgeous day last May I found myself deep in the hill country of western North Carolina, preparing to be surprised by a team of extremely hardened veterans who had confronted their country’s enemies in highly arduous terrain all over the world. They knew about everything from unarmed combat to enhanced interrogation and, in exchange for anonymity, were going to show me as nearly as possible what real waterboarding might be like.
WATCH THE VIDEO of the actual waterboarding.
It goes without saying that I knew I could stop the process at any time, and that when it was all over I would be released into happy daylight rather than returned to a darkened cell.
Diabetes: a very bad disease to have
Diabetes is worse than some people seem to think (so watch your weight, eat well, and exercise: prevention is worth sixteen times a cure). Tara Parker-Pope writes in the NY Times:
In a set of recent focus groups, participants were asked to rank the severity of various health problems, including cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
On a scale of 1 to 10, cancer and heart disease consistently ranked as 9s and 10s. But diabetes scored only 4s and 5s.
“The general consensus seems to be, ‘There’s medication,’ ‘Look how good people look with diabetes’ or ‘I’ve never heard of anybody dying of diabetes,’ ” said Larry Hausner, chief executive of the American Diabetes Association, which held the focus groups. “There was so little understanding about everything that dealt with diabetes.”
But diabetes is anything but minor. It wreaks havoc on the entire body, affecting everything from hearing and vision to sexual function, mental health and sleep. It is the leading cause of blindness, amputations and kidney failure, and it can triple the risk for heart attack and stroke.
“It is a disease that does have the ability to eat you alive,” said Dr. John B. Buse, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine who is the diabetes association’s president for medicine and science. “It can be just awful — it’s almost unimaginable how bad it can be.”
Diabetes results …
Consumer safety
Graham Steele has an important post on the Watchdog Blog:
Anyone who has been following the progress of the consumer product safety reform legislation, H.R. 4040, closely knows that a proposed database housing consumer complaints has been one of the major points of contention during the legislative process. (We have previously discussed the database here.) While the conference committee negotiates the contours of the safety database, we have this story:
In 2002, engineers from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) privately warned nail gun makers that the nail gun industry’s efforts to reduce the rising number of injuries with its tools wouldn’t really work; this, according to recently disclosed federal documents.
For some reason, the CPSC engineers’ views, warnings, and requests for additional study of nail guns safety features, were not addressed or disclosed publicly to US consumers. Meanwhile, thousands of workers and home consumers continued to buy or rent nail guns at giant hardware stores nationwide during the country’s most recent housing boom. Because of this, those sent to hospitals—both workers and home consumers—with hand, foot, knee, and head injuries that were caused by air-powered nail guns climbed to 42,000 in 2005, up significantly from 12,982 in 2000, according to federal hospital injury data.
This is a perfect example of the necessity of a public repository of consumer safety complaints. If the proposed database had existed at the time of these nail-gun injuries, the hospital injury data would have been entered in the database and available to the public. Consumers could have seen the upward trend in nail gun-related injuries and known to avoid that particular product. This is not a one-time story. As one of our recent reports demonstrates, industry and the CPSC are failing drastically to warn consumers promptly about serious product hazards.
With a product safety database available on the Internet, consumers will not have to rely as much on the manufacturers or the CPSC to protect them. They will be able to help themselves by doing their own research. A free exchange of information will save government resources and make everyone safer.
Three big amendments on spying
Mike Lillis has an important story in the Washington Independent, which begins:
For privacy advocates and civil libertarians, June (not April) was the cruelest month.
First, House Democratic leaders passed a long-negotiated compromise bill expanding the Bush administration’s electronic surveillance authority, including legal immunity for any wrongdoing that the phone companies might have committed in cooperating without court oversight. Days later, the Senate moved overwhelmingly toward passage of the same bill, which stalled last week due more to time constraints than to lawmaker opposition.
Somewhere in the mix, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) — the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and a fierce opponent of telecom immunity in the past — announced his support for the compromise bill (albeit with the hedge that he would later work to remove the immunity language). The flurry of activity has led liberal voters to skewer Democratic leaders for placing campaign-trail fears above constitutional rights — and to wonder who in Washington remains willing to fight for civil liberties within the thorny context of national security.
Next week, they will have their answer.
The Senate on Tuesday is expected to take up three amendments to the House-passed compromise that expands White House spying powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. All three aim to hold the telecom companies to account for their cooperation in the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which, in the name of fighting terrorism, allowed the National Security Agency to intercept some domestic communications without a court order. The program was launched shortly after the 9/11 attacks, but wasn’t exposed until The New York Times broke the story in late 2005.
Under one amendment, …
Method shaving without the brush
The Shavemaster brush is somewhat expensive and thus presents a barrier to trying out Method shaving. (The brush is, however, good and especially appreciated by men with large hands.) Now Charles Roberts has a way to try Method shaving without the brush. From an email:
July 2008
Welcome to Enchante
This month we are covering the newest innovation in Method Shaving. Over the years we have found that many men are interested in Method Shaving, but are wary of making the investment in a brush without knowing whether this system is for them. We finally have the solution – not only does it allow you to become an immediate Method Shaver without investing in a brush right away, you will be able to get a fabulous single blade shave using all the Hydrolast products!
Read on, and contact us with any questions. We’ll be discussing this in our next Skypecast (the first Saturday of each month; the next Skypecast will be July 5 at 1 p.m. CST).
Until then, happy shaving!
Charles & Jean Roberts
We are excited to share with you our newest innovation – The Shave Cloth. This natural fiber cloth actually can temporarily replace the need for a brush in Method Shaving. It is highly water absorbent and when using the Hydrolast line it produces an amazing mix for single blade shaving. Additionally, The Shave Cloth has enough texture to raise the beard without pulling, so it works extremely well in those areas where the beard is heavy or grows in odd directions.
The Shave Cloth dries out quickly, eliminating worries about mildew and bacteria growth – and is especially handy for travel.
How is it used? See below.
How to use The Shave Cloth
Using your shave cloth is very simple and works similarly to a brush. Follow these steps to a fabulous shave – and if you have questions, please, let us know.
1. Fill your sink with comfortably hot water and let The Shave Cloth soak for one minute – long enough for it to absorb plenty of water.
2. While the cloth is soaking, work up some lather from your shave cube or round (by hand) and add a small amount of paste. Finger mix the primer and paste then put that up on your already moistened skin like you are washing, spreading it evenly across your face and neck. Don’t rinse – leave this on the skin.
3. Pick up the Shave Cloth and work the soap into the cloth until you have a nice amount of lather/slag. Add some paste to the mix and a few drops of cutting balm or finishing balm if you like – work that all together to form a nice wet saturate (mix).
4. Fold the cloth over and work it with a gentle massaging motion on your face and neck moving clockwise and counter-clockwise to apply the saturate/wet mix to the shaving terrain.
5. Pick up that razor and cut the 3 form model in the usual way.
6. Hot rinse everything off the face, leave it wet, gently massage face and neck one more time with the saturated cloth and blade it down one more time to pick up any beard hairs you may have missed in the reduction process (step 5).
Helpful Hint
If you find The Shave Cloth a bit rough at first, use it in the shower for a few days to soften it up. The more you use it, the better it gets!
A gentleman’s shave
This morning I used Mama Bear’s Gentleman’s Blend shaving soap and the Rooney Style 2. A fine lather with a faint fragrance, and the Gillette NEW (NOS, BTW) with an Astra Superior Platinum blade of several shaves did a very smooth job of whisking whiskers away. My own blend for the oil pass, and finished with TOBS Mr. Taylor’s aftershave, “A Superb Gentleman’s Aftershave.” Now I feel quite gentlemanly and smooth.
Later On 