Labels: ins, Iran

To the casual observer, Europeans — who often seemed short, even to me (I’m 5-foot-7), when I first began traveling a lot in the 1970s — now often seem tall by American standards. And that casual observation matches what careful researchers have found.

The data show that Americans, who in the words of a recent paper by the economic historian John Komlos and Benjamin Lauderdale in Social Science Quarterly, were “tallest in the world between colonial times and the middle of the 20th century,” have now “become shorter (and fatter) than Western and Northern Europeans. In fact, the U.S. population is currently at the bottom end of the height distribution in advanced industrial countries.”

[snip]

So what is America’s modern height lag telling us?

There is normally a strong association between per capita income and a country’s average height. By that standard, Americans should be taller than Europeans: U.S. per capita G.D.P. is higher than that of any other major economy. But since the middle of the 20th century, something has caused Americans to grow richer without growing significantly taller.

It’s not the population’s changing ethnic mix due to immigration: the stagnation of American heights is clear even if you restrict the comparison to non-Hispanic, native-born whites.

And although the Komlos-Lauderdale paper suggests that growing income and social inequality in America might be one culprit, the remarkable thing is that, as the authors themselves point out, even high-status Americans are falling short: “rich Americans are shorter than rich Western Europeans and poor white Americans are shorter than poor Western Europeans.”

We seem to be left with two main possible explanations of the height gap.

One is that America really has turned into “Fast Food Nation.”

“U.S. children,” write Mr. Komlos and Mr. Lauderdale, “consume more meals prepared outside the home, more fast food rich in fat, high in energy density and low in essential micronutrients, than do European children.” Our reliance on fast food, in turn, may reflect lack of family time because we work too much: U.S. G.D.P. per capita is high partly because employed Americans work many more hours than their European counterparts.

A broader explanation would be that contemporary America is a society that, in a variety of ways, doesn’t take very good care of its children. Recently, Unicef issued a report comparing a number of measures of child well-being in 21 rich countries, including health and safety, family and peer relationships and such things as whether children eat fruit and are physically active. The report put the Netherlands at the top; sure enough, the Dutch are now the world’s tallest people, almost 3 inches taller, on average, than non-Hispanic American whites. The U.S. ended up in 20th place, below Poland, Portugal and Hungary, but ahead of Britain.

Whatever the full explanation for America’s stature deficit, our relative shortness, like our low life expectancy, suggests that something is amiss with our way of life. A critical European might say that America is a land of harried parents and neglected children, of expensive health care that misses those who need it most, a society that for all its wealth somehow manages to be nasty, brutish — and short.

Labels: food industry, nutrition, weight

Labels: bloggers, food industry, weight

Labels: bloggers

The shift at the Justice Department has significantly altered the government’s civil rights mission, said Brian K. Landsberg, a law professor at the University of the Pacific and a former Justice Department lawyer under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

“Not until recently has anyone in the department considered religious discrimination such a high priority,” Professor Landsberg said. “No one had ever considered it to be of the same magnitude as race or national origin.”

Cynthia Magnuson, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said in a statement that the agency had “worked diligently to enforce the federal laws that prohibit discrimination based on religion.”

The changes are evident in a variety of actions:

¶Intervening in federal court cases on behalf of religion-based groups like the Salvation Army that assert they have the right to discriminate in hiring in favor of people who share their beliefs even though they are running charitable programs with federal money.

¶Supporting groups that want to send home religious literature with schoolchildren; in one case, the government helped win the right of a group in Massachusetts to distribute candy canes as part of a religious message that the red stripes represented the blood of Christ.

¶Vigorously enforcing a law enacted by Congress in 2000 that allows churches and other places of worship to be free of some local zoning restrictions. The division has brought more than two dozen lawsuits on behalf of churches, synagogues and mosques.

Taking on far fewer hate crimes and cases in which local law enforcement officers may have violated someone’s civil rights. The resources for these traditional cases have instead been used to investigate trafficking cases, typically involving foreign women used in the sex trade, a favored issue of the religious right.

¶Sharply reducing the complex lawsuits that challenge voting plans that might dilute the strength of black voters. The department initiated only one such case through the early part of this year, compared with eight in a comparable period in the Clinton administration.

Along with its changed civil rights mission, the department has also tried to overhaul the roster of government lawyers who deal with civil rights. The agency has transferred or demoted some experienced civil rights litigators while bringing in lawyers, including graduates of religious-affiliated law schools and some people vocal about their faith, who favor the new priorities. That has created some unease, with some career lawyers disdainfully referring to the newcomers as “holy hires.”

Labels: Christofascist Zombie Brigade

Labels: comedy, hypocrisy, Stephen Colbert, tabloid journalism

...if you’re 18 and closeted and gay and politically active, as Whitney was, you’re old enough and savvy enough to know that aligning yourself with anti-gay politicians, marching with assholes that carry “Straight Power!” signs at anti-gay rallies, and being best buds with a guy that thinks gays should be imprisoned is as good as painting a bulls eye on your back. You not only risk being outed, you invite it.

Hell, you’ve earned it.

Labels: homophobia, hypocrisy

As Palast points out—and Griffin himself has observed—the American media barely touched this story, and Griffin has yet to explain the e-mails or the lists. He did tell The New Yorker's Jane Mayer last March that "caging is not a derogatory term. ... [I]t's a direct-mail term. It derives from caging categories of mail in steel shelves and files." Still, that hardly explains why he was allegedly caging only transient African-American voters in those shelves or files, which would likely violate the Voting Rights Act.

Labels: corruption, Republic Party, vote suppression

The symptoms to watch out for are bloating, pelvic or abdominal pain, difficulty eating or feeling full quickly and feeling a frequent or urgent need to urinate. A woman who has any of those problems nearly every day for more than two or three weeks is advised to see a gynecologist, especially if the symptoms are new and quite different from her usual state of health.

[snip]

“The majority of the time this won’t be ovarian cancer, but it’s just something that should be considered,” said Dr. Barbara Goff, the director of gynecologic oncology at the University of Washington in Seattle and an author of several studies that helped identify the relevant symptoms.

In a number of studies by Dr. Goff and other researchers, these symptoms stood out in women with ovarian cancer as compared with other women.

“We don’t want to scare people, but we also want to arm people with the appropriate information,” said Dr. Goff, who is also a spokeswoman for the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation.

She emphasized that relatively new and persistent problems were the most important ones. So, the transient bloating that often accompanies menstrual periods would not qualify, nor would a lifelong history of indigestion.

Dr. Goff also acknowledged that the urinary problems on the list were classic symptoms of bladder infections, which is common in women. But it still makes sense to consult a doctor, she said, because bladder infections should be treated. Urinary trouble that persists despite treatment is a particular cause for concern, she said.

With ovarian cancer, even a few months’ delay in making the diagnosis may make a difference in survival, because the tumors can grow and spread quickly through the abdomen to the intestines, liver, diaphragm and other organs, Dr. Goff said.

“If you let it go for three months, you can wind up with disease everywhere,” she said

Dr. Thomas J. Herzog, director of gynecologic oncology at the Columbia University Medical Center, said the recommendations were important because the medical profession had until now told women that there were no specific early symptoms.

“If women were more pro-active at recognizing these symptoms, we’d be better at making the diagnosis at an earlier stage,” Dr. Herzog said.

[snip]

Although the American Cancer Society agreed to the recommendations, it did so with some reservations, said Debbie Saslow, director of breast and gynecologic cancer at the society.

“We don’t have any consensus about what doctors should do once the women come to them,” Dr. Saslow said. “There was a lot of hope that we’d be able to say, ‘Go to your doctor, and they will give you this standardized work-up.’ But we can’t do that.”


[snip]

In a survey of 1,700 women with ovarian cancer, Dr. Goff and other researchers found that 36 percent had initially been given a wrong diagnosis, with conditions like depression or irritable bowel syndrome.

“Twelve percent were told there was nothing wrong with them, and it was all in their heads,” Dr. Goff said.

Dr. Goff and other specialists said women with the listed symptoms should see a gynecologist for a pelvic and rectal examination. (The best way for a doctor to feel the ovaries is through the rectum.) If there is a question of cancer, the next step is probably a test called a transvaginal ultrasound to check the ovaries for abnormal growths, enlargement or telltale pockets of fluid that can signal cancer. The ultrasound costs $150 to $300 and can be performed in a doctor’s office or a radiology center. A $100 blood test should also be conducted for CA125, a substance called a tumor marker that is often elevated in women with ovarian cancer.

Cancer specialists say any woman with suspicious findings on the tests should be referred to a gynecologic oncologist, a surgeon who specializes in cancers of the female reproductive system.

An unresolved question is what exactly should be done if the test results are normal and yet the woman continues to have symptoms, Dr. Saslow said.

“Do you do exploratory surgery, which has side effects, which are sometimes even fatal?” she asked. “What do you do? We don’t have the answer to that.”

Depending on the test results, the woman may just be monitored for a while or advised to undergo a CT scan or an MRI. But if cancer is strongly suspected, she will probably be urged to go straight to surgery. A needle biopsy, commonly used for breast lumps, cannot be safely performed to check for ovarian cancer because it runs a risk of rupturing the tumor and spreading malignant cells in the abdomen. Instead, the surgeon must carefully remove the entire ovary or the abnormal growth on it and examine the rest of the abdomen for cancer.

While the patient is still on the operating table, biopsies are performed on the tissue that was removed, so that if cancer is found, the surgeon can operate more extensively. Experts say such an operation should be carried out just by gynecologic oncologists, who have special training in meticulously removing as much of the cancerous tissue as possible. This procedure, called debulking, lets chemotherapy work better and greatly improves survival.

Dr. Carol L. Brown, a gynecologic oncologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, said, “Ideally, we need to develop a screening tool or a test to find ovarian cancer before it has symptoms.”

At the same time, Dr. Saslow said, the cancer society recognized that in some cases doctors had disregarded symptoms in women who were later found to have ovarian cancer, telling the women instead that they were just growing old or going through menopause.

“There are so many horror stories of doctors who have told women to ignore these symptoms or have even belittled them on top of that,” Dr. Saslow said.

Labels: health care

Labels: music, pop culture

The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. This suggests that when three Republican presidential candidates at a May debate stated they did not believe in evolution, they were generally in sync with the bulk of the rank-and-file Republicans whose nomination they are seeking to obtain.

Independents and Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe in the theory of evolution. But even among non-Republicans there appears to be a significant minority who doubt that evolution adequately explains where humans came from.

The data from several recent Gallup studies suggest that Americans' religious behavior is highly correlated with beliefs about evolution. Those who attend church frequently are much less likely to believe in evolution than are those who seldom or never attend. That Republicans tend to be frequent churchgoers helps explain their doubts about evolution.

The data indicate some seeming confusion on the part of Americans on this issue. About a quarter of Americans say they believe both in evolution's explanation that humans evolved over millions of years and in the creationist explanation that humans were created as is about 10,000 years ago.

Labels: idiocy

Labels: greed, Supreme Court

Predicting that Iran will obtain a nuclear weapon within three years and claiming to have a strike plan in place, senior American military officers have told The Jerusalem Post they support President George W. Bush's stance to do everything necessary to stop the Islamic Republic's race for nuclear power.

Bush has repeatedly said the United States would not allow Iran to "go nuclear."

A high-ranking American military officer told the Post that senior officers in the US armed forces had thrown their support behind Bush and believed that additional steps needed to be taken to stop Iran.

Predictions within the US military are that Bush will do what is needed to stop Teheran before he leaves office in 2009, including possibly launching a military strike against its nuclear facilities.

On Sunday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut said the US should consider a military strike against Iran over its support of Iraqi insurgents.

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," he said. "And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."

According to a high-ranking American military officer, the US Navy and Air Force would play the primary roles in any military action taken against Iran. One idea under consideration is a naval blockade designed to cut off Iran's oil exports.

The officer said that if the US government or the UN Security Council decided on this course of action, the US Navy would most probably not block the Strait of Hormuz - a step that would definitely draw an Iranian military response - but would patrol farther out and turn away tankers on their way to load oil.

On Sunday, the Israel Air Force held joint exercises with visiting US pilots, but IDF sources dismissed speculation that the drills were connected to an attack on Iran.

The Bush administration is studying options for military strikes against Iran as part of a broader strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear development program, according to U.S. officials and independent analysts.

No attack appears likely in the short term, and many specialists inside and outside the U.S. government harbor serious doubts about whether an armed response would be effective. But administration officials are preparing for it as a possible option and using the threat "to convince them this is more and more serious," as a senior official put it.

According to current and former officials, Pentagon and CIA planners have been exploring possible targets, such as the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan. Although a land invasion is not contemplated, military officers are weighing alternatives ranging from a limited airstrike aimed at key nuclear sites, to a more extensive bombing campaign designed to destroy an array of military and political targets.

Preparations for confrontation with Iran underscore how the issue has vaulted to the front of President Bush's agenda even as he struggles with a relentless war in next-door Iraq. Bush views Tehran as a serious menace that must be dealt with before his presidency ends, aides said, and the White House, in its new National Security Strategy, last month labeled Iran the most serious challenge to the United States posed by any country.

Many military officers and specialists, however, view the saber rattling with alarm. A strike at Iran, they warn, would at best just delay its nuclear program by a few years but could inflame international opinion against the United States, particularly in the Muslim world and especially within Iran, while making U.S. troops in Iraq targets for retaliation.

Labels: George W. Bush, insanity, Iran

I'm livid. I agreed to conduct a last-minute interview with MSNBC about the case of missing Stepha Henry, the 22-year-old college grad who went missing May 29 from Miami-Dade. I rushed to MSNBC's studio but a few minutes before the interview, I was told that it was off -- Paris Hilton coverage was more important.

Turns out, I'm not the only one. Miami-Dade police lead spokeswoman Linda O'Brien was canceled by MSNBC the hour before me. She tells me:

"I am upset because MSNBC called me and asked me to go to their studio in Broward County, 30 miles away from my office. I was there for a total of 45 minutes, was already seated and had the mic ready for the interview. As I waiting to be interviewed, I was listening to the Paris Hilton coverage to include discussion to the effect if anybody had seen or knew the whereabouts of her Chihuahua.

"Then they tell me they have to cut the piece, cut my interview because they’re doing constant coverage of Paris Hilton. I’m appalled that a missing woman cannot get even 60 seconds of air time because the priorities of MSNBC was to have footage of the front gates of Paris Hilton’s house. They asked me to come to the interview and I’m going out of my way to do every interview to keep in the public eye that Stepha Henry, a bright beautiful woman, is missing and we need help in this case."

I’m through with cable TV news. It’s a joke.

For her part, O'Brien tells me she will be on NBC's Today Show at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow with reporter Kerry Sanders. Part of the story will focus on TV media coverage of this missing black woman.

Labels: Stepha Henry, tabloid journalism

Labels: The Sopranos

With the four-month-old increase in American troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups that have promised to fight militants linked with Al Qaeda who have been their allies in the past.

American commanders say they have successfully tested the strategy in Anbar Province west of Baghdad and have held talks with Sunni groups in at least four areas of central and north-central Iraq where the insurgency has been strong. In some cases, the American commanders say, the Sunni groups are suspected of involvement in past attacks on American troops or of having links to such groups. Some of these groups, they say, have been provided, usually through Iraqi military units allied with the Americans, with arms, ammunition, cash, fuel and supplies.

American officers who have engaged in what they call outreach to the Sunni groups say many of them have had past links to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia but grew disillusioned with the Islamic militants’ extremist tactics, particularly suicide bombings that have killed thousands of Iraqi civilians. In exchange for American backing, these officials say, the Sunni groups have agreed to fight Al Qaeda and halt attacks on American units. Commanders who have undertaken these negotiations say that in some cases, Sunni groups have agreed to alert American troops to the location of roadside bombs and other lethal booby traps.

But critics of the strategy, including some American officers, say it could amount to the Americans’ arming both sides in a future civil war. The United States has spent more than $15 billion in building up Iraq’s army and police force, whose manpower of 350,000 is heavily Shiite. With an American troop drawdown increasingly likely in the next year, and little sign of a political accommodation between Shiite and Sunni politicians in Baghdad, the critics say, there is a risk that any weapons given to Sunni groups will eventually be used against Shiites. There is also the possibility the weapons could be used against the Americans themselves.

Labels: Iraq

Labels: The Sopranos

Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Sunday the United States should consider a military strike against Iran because of Tehran's involvement in Iraq.

''I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq,'' Lieberman said. ''And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers.''

[snip]

''We've said so publicly that the Iranians have a base in Iran at which they are training Iraqis who are coming in and killing Americans. By some estimates, they have killed as many as 200 American soldiers,'' Lieberman said. ''Well, we can tell them we want them to stop that. But if there's any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping, for instance, their nuclear weapons development, we can't just talk to them.''

He added, ''If they don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force, and to me, that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing.''

Lieberman said much of the action could probably be done by air, although he would leave the strategy to the generals in charge. ''I want to make clear I'm not talking about a massive ground invasion of Iran,'' Lieberman said.

''They can't believe that they have immunity for training and equipping people to come in and kill Americans,'' he said. ''We cannot let them get away with it. If we do, they'll take that as a sign of weakness on our part and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region and ultimately right here at home.

Lieberman spoke on ''Face the Nation'' on CBS.

Labels: insanity, Joe Lieberman, war hawks

Congratulations to President Bush and his team on foiling the plot at JFK International Airport. I guess the liberal Democrats are running for cover or will try to put a spin on this.

Bush's efforts have saved thousands of Americans lives. So the government should keep on checking those phone calls, e-mails and whatever other methods are being used, and don't listen to all those who cry that suspects have rights. It is nice that we can go to sleep at night knowing that Bush has got our backs covered.

Labels: domestic terrorism, insanity