Breakthrough Discovery! Starvation Does NOT Make You Live Longer!

There is at least one human scientist who has put himself on a starvation diet to extend his life span.  His decision was based on research which showed that such a severe caloric restriction extends the lives of lab rats.  Now we discover that:

From the Huff Post --  New research published on Wednesday, however, shows the extreme, emaciating diet doesn't increase lifespan in rhesus monkeys, the closest human relatives to try it in a rigorous, long-running study. While caveats remain, outside experts regarded the findings as definitive, particularly when combined with those from a similar study.

"If there's a way to manipulate the human diet to let us live longer, we haven't figured it out yet and it may not exist," said biologist Steven Austad of the University of Texas Health Science Center's Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies, who wrote an analysis of the study in Nature. --

Ooops.  Years of misery and poor nutrition, only to discover that it was pointless

Which brings me to the conclusion that I get to eat any way I want to.  Fast food, get ready to hit the accelerator!  Unnamed person who nags me about my eating habits out of a concern for extending my lifespan, see what happens when you don't wait for more research?  

NOTE:  The last question does not apply to global warming, aka, climate change, or evolution., or gravity, or related matters.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/29/longevity-diet-restrict-calories-_n_1840197.html?ir=Science

Barshop Institute?  Are they hiring?  I wouldn't mind working there. Sounds like a fun place.

The stimulus that could...(I just can't call it little!)

From the LATimes: --  WASHINGTON — Without the unprecedented stimulus actions by the   federal government triggered by the 2008 financial crisis, the Great   Recession might still be going on, according to a study by Fitch   Ratings -- 

 The report goes on to identify negative effects of the stimulus, but it is clear that these pale in comparison to the negative effects which would have resulted from inaction.  So why do Republican candidates and officials continue to attack these successful actions?  The answer is because they: 

 1.  ...don't believe in reality.  Ideology is real, facts are not.  This gives believers a sense of absolute security in a confused and uncertain world.  Facts are not simple and unchanging. Reality is messy and difficult.  Practicing mindless ideology means never being wrong, never having to change your mind, and never having to say you're sorry.

 2.  ...care about the Party more than they care about their country.  This is partly true of the membership of any party, imagine a Democrat saying his party's candidate isn't as good for the country as the Republican would be.  This sometimes happens, as with so called Reagan Democrats, but it is unusual among voters and unheard of among either Party's leadership.  Due to the increasing radicalism of the GOP, Republicans who even might consider voting for the better man have been declared Rinos and are now independents. 

 3.  ...have turned membership in the Republican Party into a religious movement.  It is an article of faith, an unassailable religious doctrine that Democrats are evil by nature.  It follows that nothing done by Democrats can be good.  This is true even when Democrats enact a Republican plan, like Health Care. This extremism will not last.  The GOP will either turn back from extremism, or will go the way of the Whigs, the Mugwumps, and the Know Nothings. 

Do Not Feed The Animals!

From the Huff Post -- Two attendees at the Republican National Convention were thrown out of the convention center in Tampa on Tuesday after throwing nuts at a black CNN camerawoman and saying, "this is how we feed the animals." --

The good news is that RNC officials promptly expelled the offenders.  That is the action which the Tea Party has failed to demonstrate.  Their usual response was to wait until they were criticized, then to complain that the Liberal Media were making it up.   When shown the videos proving it HAD happened, they usually responded with a variation of, "Well, we can't be held accountable for a few extremists!"

In fact, you are responsible if you tolerate or even ignore those extremists.  The RNC took prompt and clear action.  Your organization rarely does so.  Clean  your own yard, or be judged according to its appearance.

Coca-Cola and the "Young Republicans"

Jonathan Martin, from Poitico, referring to the "Young Republicans" like Paul Ryan -- ...these children of the 80's want to dispense for good with New Coke and return to Coca-Cola Classic.--

I can't agree with this assessment.  Yes, Ryan's record is at odds with his current rhetoric, but I am taking him at his word.  He has seen the light and has converted.  If he is not being honest, then I am wrong, but if he is speaking the truth about his current attitudes, and if this is also true of his fellow Young Republicans, they are aiming at a return, not to the 1980's, but to the 1880's.

The Coca-Cola Classic version of Republican conservatism was tolerant, worked well with others, believed in compromise, and was not rigidly doctrinaire.  What these Radical Reactionary Republicans want is is a return to the original formula, Cocaine Coke.  After all, requiring the manufacturer to eliminate the stimulant was regulation; and we all know how regulations strangle free enterprise.  Don't we?

Political Correctness and Black Trench Coat Laws

A Huff Post reports that a well intentioned bill to reduce official use of the term "retarded" is awaiting Governor Brown's signature.  As always, the purpose is to eliminate what has become a pejorative with a value neutral term.  The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wasted his brilliant mind confusing words describing reality with reality itself.  It is easy to do.  It is also a futile, sterile effort.

Changing the term does not change the attitudes of the users of that term.  Consider the familiar history of an equally well intentioned effort. "Crippled" became "handicapped" became "disabled" became "alternatively enabled" and soon will become..what?  Who knows?  All that is clear is that it will change because changing the term just gives the  contemptuous and the hateful a new word to turn into an epithet.

In honesty, I must admit that incorporating the word, "swamp" into the much more inclusive "wetlands" allowed environmentalists to preserve wild areas previously regarded as vile.  However, I regard this as an unusual case; one which proofs the rule

From the article.-- "Mental retardation" was not always a pejorative term. It was introduced in medical texts more than a century ago, replacing words like "imbecile," "moron" and "idiot" that had developed negative connotations. --

I would add that those terms were adopted as value neutral replacements for "mentally defective".  That worked well, didn't it?

What we must do is educate individuals and prevent bullying.  Changing terms is a Black Trench Coat Law.

OK, my term, so I need to explain it.  When a group of bullied students took revenge by murdering their peers at Columbine, the school board was under intense pressure to do SOMETHING to increase student safety NOW!  What could they do?  In terms of an instant cure, little if anything that would be effective.  Yet, terrified parents demanded action.  Since the killers had favored black trench coats, the board banned black trench coats on campus.  That was simply sad.

So the term, "Black Trench Coat Law" refers to any law which has good intentions, but is pointless to the level of complete futility.  I applaud and support the efforts of many to put and end to the bullying of the developmentally delayed...oops, sorry!  That term became pejorative about 30 years ago...  However, I cannot support Black Trench Coat Laws, no matter how much I wish that they would work.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/28/intellectual-disability-bill-replace-retarded_n_1837476.html

Another Austrian making trouble with confused ideology?  Let's see...Wittgenstein, Austrian Economics, Hitler....I think the Austrians are determined to destroy the world.

Note:  the last comment is a joke, if you took it seriously, you need some help.

Book Burning! Why it's better than burning witches!

From the Huff Post, a charity group intends to burn copies of Fifty Shades of Grey.  Great!  I had zero interest in this seres.  It seemed to me to be just another mess of  romance fluff. (Think hair ball-- without the hair.)  However, if some group thinks it's bad enough to burn, I feel a moral obligation to at least read it.  Then I can make a judgement.  Note: even literature I despise, such as Mein Kamph or Waiting for Godot or Ulysses, shouldn't be burned.  If you don't like like it, don't read it.

I suppose I can get a cheap used set through Amazon, skim it, then pass it onto someone who LIKES romances...Hmmmmm... I must know someone who likes romances...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/27/fifty-shades-of-grey-burning_n_1833457.html

Family

A post to my middle daughter:

Family is the most basic and essential element of who and what we are.  Individuals are themselves due to many factors, but the first is their inheritance from their family.  If physically related, the very genes that form your body and personality are shared, and even this is not so, the  most formative elements of our very selves, good or bad, come from our family.

Family can be a joy or a burden, but it is a part of us.  We can accept, embrace, reject or deny our family, but they are always with us and within us.  I often quote Robert Frost's Death of the Hired Man.  -- Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. --  Sometimes even this essential reality is denied, but in doing so, one rejects parts of himself or of herself.  You can keep your family physically away from you, but their influence  and their presence in your soul are permanent.

Ideally, family is our joy and our refuge, our reason for being and our fulfillment.  No family is perfect, but each family is the possession and the personal nation of the individual.

Family is the foundation of our existence, the road to meaning in our lives, the reason to continue to live, the expression of our faith.  Family is the skeleton that gives us form, the heart that circulates our love, the brain that gives us purpose, the soul that makes us human.  Family is why I live and why I will keep on living.  

To deny your family is to deny yourself.