Mission Statement: In order to form a more perfect union...
There Goes the Neighborhood: We are invited to believe in miracles. The current Greek bailout imagines that billions in budget cuts enforced by years of on-site supervision by the EU/ECB/IMF will result in a strong and growing economy (with a 4.5% budget surplus!) that will cut Greece's debts to 121 percent of GDP by 2020. The deal won't last much over a month, if it ever gets signed by the various national parliaments. The Greek electorate will see to that, unless the EU puts off the elections. The Orwellian (and unconstitutional under Greek law) insistence that some (ECB held) bonds are more equal than other (privately held and much haircut) bonds ensures that Portugal, Spain and Italy will find fewer takers for their bonds once the they succumb to imposed austerity.. Did April come early this year?
A Famous Victory: The Dow Jones finally reached (and fell back from) 13,000, entirely on the back of $7 trillion printed by the world's central banks in the last 4 years. The market in the Weimar Republic had similar gains. For a while. But priced in gold the dow is down 50% since 2008.
Deja Vu All Over Again: Strauss-Kahn is being held by French police in a prostitution probe, although he claims he didn't know the women at orgies were prostitutes. He thought they were IMF groupies.
Another Silly Question: Is fructose causing the obesity epidemic? No, one calorie is the same as another and we consume too many of them.
Noted: In the spirit of Alfred E. Newman we note that the spread between S&P earnings yield and 10-year Treasury notes has not been higher since 1962. What, me worry?
Officer Krupke: Seriously delinquent and in-foreclosure FHA loans increased to 9.9% - 732,775 homes - in January up from 8.8% a year earlier.
Thus Always Tyrants: Virginia took time out from passing a bill that would insist that women undergo rape by an ultrasound wand before having an abortion to pass a bill banning adoption by LBGT citizens.
Dumb Question #834: Will rising gasoline prices derail the economic recovery? (a) What recovery? and (b) Do bears and the Pope do those sorts of thing?
Overcoming the Odds: Scientists continue to accumulate data that shows that humans are not competitive, aggressive and brutish by nature. Some seem predisposed to learn it as they age.
Budgeting Tip: One of the main reasons Americans health care costs are increasing is because Americans are fat and getting fatter waistlines are increasing. Make that the main reason...
Elsie Call Home: Cows are being fitted with monitors which call up the farmer and tell him how the cow is doing.
Swampland: Florida state Republican Senator Jack Latvala has introduced a bill to prevent homeowners from challenging the loss of their home, even if the foreclosure was fraudulent. This would mean that someone can buy a foreclosed property with clear title, even if the foreclosing party didn’t own the home.
Dew Line: No major Chinese city reported real estate price increases in January.
Daily Dose: Repulsive Republican Indiana state representative Bob Morris topped his complaint about "honorary president Michelle Obama's pro-abortion viewpoint" by revealing that the Girl Scouts is a radical organization that "promotes homosexual lifestyles" and that 47 of 50 Girl Scout role models are " feminists, lesbians, or Communists".
Porn O'Graph: Find the nugget.
5 comments:
Dollars and Pounds - I've been reading stuff recently that says the scientific evidence that we are eating the wrong kind of stuff is piling up, but we are not told about because those selling us the wrong kind of stuff (and medicines that treat the diseases that result) are making money at it and want to continue to do so. The wrong stuff to eat: meat, dairy, high fat foods. Health consequences: obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, increased risk for some kinds of cancer. For more info see the website of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and the DVD and book Forks Over Knives.
charley - thanks for the resources. I've always thought we should eat what we were designed for, back in the hunter gatherer days. Agriculture and civilization was - and is - a health hazard.
ckm
I highly suggest reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals". It looks at the production of food and how it impacts the environment all the way to those who eat it.
I did a bit of research into the obesity epidemic a few years ago and it appeared to me at the time that fructose was different from glucose/sucrose in one very important way: the consumption of it did not lead to the consumer becoming sated. (i.e. they never got as full as when it was simply sucrose or glucose)
The second thing I discovered was that the caloric intake for meals stayed roughly constant during the trend of increasing obesity and a majority of the overall increase is consumed in the form of snacks, which in the United States, are very much made out of substantial qualities of unfilling high fructose corn syrup.
In my preliminary investigation it appeared to me that the three main causes of obesity were: high consumption of high fructose corn syrup, short meal times leading the consumption of meals keeping people sated for shorter periods of time and a lack of exercise.
cheers
Anony 12.56 - "short meal times" is one I hadn't put my finger on, but I think it has merit. Certainly snacking and not exercising are culprits, especially in that the snacks are generally nutritionally empty starch and sugar things.
As cook, it bothers me a bunch when I spend 45 minutes putting together a meal that is wolfed down in 12 minutes... or less. But that leads to another discussion - the one about the lack of civility in our society and our homes...
ckm
Hey, State Rep Bob, blow out your aorta on this news from the Boy Scouts:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2057595/Boy-Scouts-America-grow-beards-rugged-new-campaign.html
What next, a badge for pot growing?
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