HOW TO MAKE A Web headshot.

LOW-FAT DIETS less effective for weight control.

Although participants actually decreased their total daily calories consumed by a similar amount, net weight loss from the low-fat diet after two years was only 6.5 lbs. (2.9 kg) compared to 10 lbs. (4.4 kg) on the Mediterranean diet, and 10.3 lbs. (4.7 kg) on the low-carbohydrate diet. “These weight reduction rates are comparable to results from physician-prescribed weight loss medications,” explains Dr. Iris Shai, the lead researcher.

The low-fat diet reduced the total cholesterol to HDL ratio by only 12 percent, while the low-carbohydrate diet improved the same ratio by 20 percent. Lipids improved the most in the low-carbohydrate, with a 20% increase in the HDL (“good”) cholesterol and, 14% decrease in triglycerides. In all three diets, inflammatory and liver function biomarkers was equally improved. However, among diabetic participants, the standard low-fat diet actually increased the fasting glucose levels by 12mg/dL, while the Mediterranean diet induced a decrease in fasting glucose levels by 33mg/dL.

Also good news — I like the Mediterranean diet! (Via FuturePundit).

ALL HAT AND NO CATTLE.

IF SOMEBODY DID THIS ABOUT OBAMA it would be a national scandal and evidence of America’s incurable bigotry. But since it’s an artist named Wafaa Bilal and it’s about Bush it’s just “confrontational art:”

An artist’s video game that is being exhibited at a free-speech exhibit in Chicago challenges players to kill the president. The video game is part of a “confrontational art” exhibit by Chicago-based artist Wafaa Bilal.

In the 3-D game, “The Night of Bush Capturing; A Virtual Jihadi,” players are sent on a mission to kill President George W. Bush.

Bilal, 42, said his art is a personal attempt to deal with the deaths of citizens in the country of his birth. The artist said his brother died in Iraq in 2004 from a U.S bomb.

In an earlier age, this kind of thing would have been considered unacceptable enemy propaganda. On the other hand, this is just more proof that all the lefty bleating about George Bush’s fascism is just self-indulgent — and utterly dishonest — twaddle.

Meanwhile, Roger Kimball, et al., are pondering the real threats to free speech, an issue not confronted by the “confrontational art” community, where confrontation tends to be limited to those who don’t “confront” back.

MORE EFFICIENT DRUG DELIVERY, using nanotechnology.

HELLER’S FUTURE IN THE LOWER COURTS: Brannon Denning and I have what may be the first law-review article actually out on Heller, in the Northwestern University Law Review’s Colloquy section. You can get a nice, pretty PDF version right here, or you can read it online in HTML at the Northwestern website. By law review standards, at least, it is short and concise. . . .

UPDATE: Download button wasn’t showing at first link before; now it is. (Bumped).

ANOTHER UPDATE: D.C. just denied Dick Heller’s handgun license application. It’s obviously a campaign of “massive resistance.” Gun prohibition now, gun prohibition tomorrow, gun prohibition forever!

MORE: Reader John Tuttle writes: “Next, look for a DC Sovereignty Commission.” Heh.

OBAMA, BIDEN, AND AFGHANISTAN: Thanks for nothin’, Joe! “Biden’s letter brought attention to the fact that Obama did not attend two of those three hearings — and for the third, on March 8, 2007, Obama only asked one question, one unrelated to Afghanistan.” Looks like he’s not the only Senator who’s been asleep at the switch, though.

UPDATE: Does anybody attend these hearings? McCain Has Worse Afghanistan Hearing Record Than Obama.

MICKEY KAUS:

When I tell my liberal friends that “card check” is one of the big issues in the 2008 campaign, they tend to roll their eyes. But when I tell my conservative friends that “card check” is one of the big issues in 2008 … they roll their eyes too. Apparently the words “card check” are not enough, in themselves, to convey the fundamental shift in industrial organization that might result if workers could trigger unionization under the Wagner Act without a normal secret-ballot election.

He’s right.

MARC DANZIGER on guns at home.

WHAT WINNING A WAR looks like.

WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS: The world’s first submersible speedboat.

HOW WELL HAS CHICAGO’S DRACONIAN GUN CONTROL WORKED? This well:

Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Wednesday raised the possibility of bringing in state troopers or even the Illinois National Guard to help Chicago combat a recent increase in violent crime — an offer that Mayor Richard Daley didn’t know was coming.

They told me that if George W. Bush were re-elected, we’d see the militarization of law enforcement, and troops called out in the streets as Americans were deprived of basic constitutional liberties. And they were right!

A LOOK AT HONDA’S hybrid Prius-fighter.

IN THE MAIL: Eamonn Butler’s The Best Book on the Market: How to stop worrying and love the free economy. Quite a few people need to be reminded of the importance of a free economy.

BILL CLINTON: Gone, but not forgotten! “The collection includes a variety of tights, all of them fashionably and tastefully done. One of the items included is the ‘Mr. President’ legging that features kneepads.”

MORE PROBLEMS with Red Cross blood-banking operations:

For 15 years, the American Red Cross has been under a federal court order to improve the way it collects and processes blood. Yet, despite $21 million in fines since 2003 and repeated promises to follow procedures intended to ensure the safety of the nation’s blood supply, it continues to fall short.

The situation has proved so frustrating that in January the commissioner of food and drugs attended a Red Cross board meeting — a first for a commissioner — and warned members that they could face criminal charges for their continued failure to bring about compliance, according to three Red Cross officials who attended the meeting and requested anonymity because Red Cross policy prohibits public discussion of its meetings with regulators.

That seems rather extreme, and more likely to discourage talented people from getting involved at all, but I suppose it does suggest that the problem is serious. Here at InstaPundit, I’ve been pointing to problems that reduce the size of the donor base, but it’s not comforting to hear that there are blood-handling problems, too. People need this stuff, and it needs to be properly taken care of. Of course, even the most perfect system imaginable will have some mistakes, particularly when it’s as big as the American Red Cross — the world’s largest blood-handling system by a huge margin. But this stuff needs to be addressed.

Plus, this — an indication of the nonprofit sector’s problems in general:

The Red Cross has toyed with selling off its blood operations, or otherwise decoupling them from its disaster work, but has never done so, in part because of a belief that the billions in revenue from blood has subsidized its disaster operations. But its financial systems are so antiquated that no one really knows.

The nonprofit world suffers from inadequate accounting and oversight, even as the amount of money there skyrockets. That’s a bigger problem that needs fixing.

STRATEGYPAGE: “The war is basically over in Iraq, but the peace brings with it a return to the corruption and inefficiency that has cursed this part of the world for centuries. . . . Peace has not brought out the best in the Iraqi people.” It’s a problem I can live with, but read the whole thing.

GREG GUTFELD: Mocking the un-mockable.