EAT! DRINK! BE WARY!

Today is my luckiest day and must be a day of rejoicing for people the world over. First, the news that it's okay to eat fat. The "scientific" data we've been reading for years is incorrect! Dead wrong! It turns out that the so-called sound scientific research on which it was based was incorrect! The first thing I did after reading it was to search out an Argentine barbecue recipe - here it is:
http://bbq.about.com/od/beefrecipes/r/bl60622c.htm
Enjoy!

This article explains that some food scientists for years have been claiming that beliefs that fat caused premature heart disease and death did not have a sound
scientific foundation, but were voices crying in the wilderness.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09tier.html?
pagewanted=1&ei=
5087&em&en=9f36687fe8aef756

The then Surgeon General Koop informed America that the proof that a diet of high-fat food caused deadly diseases was based on excellent science. But this was a false assumption, as an author
"...demonstrates in his new book meticulously debunking diet myths, “Good Calories, Bad Calories” (Knopf, 2007). The notion that fatty foods shorten your life began as a hypothesis based on dubious assumptions and data; when scientists tried to confirm it they failed repeatedly. The evidence against Häagen-Dazs was nothing like the evidence against Marlboros."

But in my opinion the most fascinating part is the explanation of how false or mistaken beliefs are propagated. It seems to be caused by something called Cascade Theory. According to this quote from the abstract of an article*:

"An informational cascade occurs when it is optimal for an individual, having observed the actions of those ahead of him, to follow the behavior of the preceding individual without regard to his own information. We argue that localized conformity of behavior and the fragility of mass behaviors can be explained by informational cascades."

A quote included below the above is extremely apt:

Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind
lead the blind, both fall into the ditch. [Matthew 15:14]

Certainly our health is important to us but so is the well being of our nation. Do our leaders deliberately mislead the public, or are they too suffering from the cascade effect? If so, who feeds them misleading information? The public surely is blinded by the informational cascade on many vital issues. In such a situation even critical thinking will be of no avail (although I recommend that more people start exercising it) when the facts are simply not accessible to most people. Who can we believe? How do we avoid being victims of the cascade effect?


As for freedom from fear of alcohol beverages, I wish...... But read this amusing parody to learn that alcohol is good for you and will even enhance your cognitive processes.
http://chocolatecity2.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E3A5A45BAC8F91AD!290.trak



*Full article is from The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 100, No. 5 (Oct. 1992} but only the abstract is available to the general public on the website. The author of the article is Sushil Bikhchandani et al.

Open Letter to Presidential Candidates

Dear Candidate:

I am thoughtfully providing you with a list of issues which I'd like you to address. If your answers satisfy me then I believe will show me and the rest of the country that you have the right stuff to lead the U. S. A.:

1. > Do not prattle about Family Values. We don't need any lying, cheating politicians teaching us about family values. Please overlook the statement about "lying, cheating" -- you may seem to have a clean record now but who knows what may turn up in the future? Anyway, even if you're pure of heart you probably don't even know anything about the subject. In today's world, what is a family? What is a value? If you are looking for the roar of the crowd and the blessing of the clergy by talking about "nuclear" families, traditional mom/dad/kids, forget it. My ears are deaf to you. Today any conglomeration of people which provides stability, nourishes the development of the individual, pays its own way and is law abiding, is acceptable. If there is a mom and a dad that's great. Hey, we do the best we can.

Furthermore I must ask, what is a value? If you are preaching God's Law, quoting from the Bible about what God doesn't care for, my ears are deaf to you. You should be talking about which values matter most not only to the American family but to America and all Americans, no matter what their creed. Here are only a few:

2. >A work ethic, the need to raise and educate children to be self-supporting;

3. >An understanding of cause and effect -- be prepared for the consequences of your actions;

4. >Put off doing what you want today until the time is right for you -- i.e. losers always seek instant gratification;

5. >Honor your god(s) all you want but don't render only unto him/her what you owe to your country -- your love, your taxes, your service, your life if necessary. You have the freedom of worship only as long as our country is free, get it? Our enemies are not the people who worship other gods or who dress differently, but those who insist that America is or should be a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or any other kind of country. Obey your country's laws and not only those of your religion, especially if they are illegal. That's right, they do not supersede criminal and civil law. Here's a good example: your religion may encourage infanticide -- what's a good defense in a court of law, that child sacrifice is for the good of the people?


6. >And please, Mr./Ms Candidate, tell us your plans, if you have any, for dealing with global warming*. If you don't have any idea then now is the time to hire some really smart non-political people to draft a plan to present to the American public. Otherwise I wish you'd change your mind about running for president.



That's all for now Mr/Ms Candidate. Rest assured that I think of anything else I will immediately communicate it to your campaign headquarters.


*http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/opinion/15krugman.html?em&ex
=1192766400&en=c5e1aa67f8266958&ei=5087%0A

I recommend this article, "Gore Derangement Syndrome" -- it includes a great explanation of why the Republicans hate Gore so much. It seems that anything and anyone trying to take measures against global warming is anathema to them.

Also, today an article, "Global Warming Starts to Divide G.O.P. contenders appeared here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/us/politics/17climate.html?th&emc=th

Katie, Please Don't Hate Me for Loving America

I've always found it hard to enjoy watching and listening to Katie Couric. I feel that the beauty queen who wanted a career like couric's but wanted to be taken seriously. Sure, she angered KC, but there's something that feels right about an opinion that Katie takes herself more seriously than others do.

I checked out this site
http://www.mrc.org/projects/couric/welcome.asp
to see if others agree with me and to see if she's as lightweight as I think. Katie seems to make foolish or outrageous statements in a naively self-assured way that shows she does expect to be taken seriously. Here's an example of her seemingly unaware that historians through the years will always have a new take on old subjects:

I can’t think of anyone more qualified to write another book about Ronald Reagan. The question is, do we need another book about Ronald Reagan?"
— First question to former Washington Post reporter and Reagan biographer Lou Cannon on the November 26, 2001.

Then there was the time she lavished praise on the socialist economy of France, an economy then steadily growing weaker, and which finally welcomed a leader recently who is trying to give the economy a healthy dose of capitalism... and oh, yeah, convince the labor force that it takes work to earn profits:

Keith Miller: "Break out the band, bring on the drinks. The French are calling it a miracle. A government-mandated 35-hour work week is changing the French way of life. Two years ago, in an effort to create more jobs, the government imposed a shorter work week on large companies, forcing them to hire more workers....Sixty percent of those on the job say their lives have improved. These American women, all working in France, have time for lunch and a life."
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox: "More Americans should be more aware that an economy as successful as the French one managed to be successful without giving up everything else in life."

Katie Couric, following the end of Miller’s taped piece: "So great that young mother being able to come home at three every day and spend that time with her child. Isn’t that nice? The French, they’ve got it right, don’t they?"
— August 1, 2001.

But what irritates me most about Katie is her assumption that nationalism and patriotism are dirty words and people should just stop already with that flag waving. Her *National Press Club remarks recently were odious - at least to me. She said she was annoyed by, "The whole culture of wearing flags on our lapel and saying 'we' when referring to the United States."

Now, I actually agree with her about that. I've never been thrilled by the flag-wearing (although I'd prefer to say "a flag on your lapel" or "flags on our lapels" but listen carefully, she's often sloppy about speech, even though it is her stock in trade, along with the perkiness). I don't have flags pasted or flying on my car - I would fly one from my home if I had one (a flag, not a home). But I can't say "we" without annoying her? Sorry, Katie, the USA is the only club I belong to. You can't stop Americans from saying (whether at times proudly or sadly), "we". You go ahead and say "they" when referring to Americans.

Countries where people seem embarrassed to openly appreciate and shelter their national heritage, as in Western Europe, have had to hear it reviled and attacked by those immigrants from the Middle East whom they have given the freedom they lacked in their native lands -- people who despise and attack the land that shelters them.

If it annoys Katie perhaps I should start wearing a flag lapel pin -- except that I don't have a lapel.


*Article by Johah Goldberg,
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=M2I1NzI2ZGMzZDE2NzNiZjQ5MjVkMDZkNTQzZjJmZDQ=