A MAJOR GAP BETWEEN THE PUBLIC AND THE ESTABLISHMENT: Americans OK With Leaving Syria and Afghanistan: A new poll finds widespread war-weariness. It was a mistake to leave Iraq in 2011. Nothing convinces me that it’s a comparable mistake to leave Syria or Afghanistan today. In the case of Afghanistan, it will never be over unless we stop the Pakistanis from supporting the Taliban. We’re not going to do that, for a variety of reasons, so it’s just whack-a-mole forever.
Archive for 2019
January 13, 2019
WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS: New for 2019: SIG Sauer MPX Copperhead.
THE HOWARD FAMILIES HAVE KNOWN THIS FOR A LONG TIME: Look to your aunts, uncles and parents for clues to your longevity.
AT AMAZON, save in Home and Garden.
WHY DO WE NEVER HEAR ABOUT MIKE AND CAROL’S EX-SPOUSES ON THE BRADY BUNCH? New Theory: Mike and Carol Brady Murdered Each Other’s Spouses and Married Each Other. “Another motive for murder occurred to me: How do you support six kids, two adults, and a housekeeper on one salary? You collect the insurance on two dead spouses, that’s how.”
GETTING SUN EXPOSURE — AND VITAMIN D — VERY WRONG?
But today most of us have indoor jobs, and when we do go outside, we’ve been taught to protect ourselves from dangerous UV rays, which can cause skin cancer. Sunscreen also blocks our skin from making vitamin D, but that’s OK, says the American Academy of Dermatology, which takes a zero-tolerance stance on sun exposure: “You need to protect your skin from the sun every day, even when it’s cloudy,” it advises on its website. Better to slather on sunblock, we’ve all been told, and compensate with vitamin D pills.
Yet vitamin D supplementation has failed spectacularly in clinical trials. Five years ago, researchers were already warning that it showed zero benefit, and the evidence has only grown stronger. In November, one of the largest and most rigorous trials of the vitamin ever conducted—in which 25,871 participants received high doses for five years—found no impact on cancer, heart disease, or stroke.
How did we get it so wrong? How could people with low vitamin D levels clearly suffer higher rates of so many diseases and yet not be helped by supplementation?
As it turns out, a rogue band of researchers has had an explanation all along. And if they’re right, it means that once again we have been epically misled.
These rebels argue that what made the people with high vitamin D levels so healthy was not the vitamin itself. That was just a marker. Their vitamin D levels were high because they were getting plenty of exposure to the thing that was really responsible for their good health—that big orange ball shining down from above. . . .
Weller’s doubts began around 2010, when he was researching nitric oxide, a molecule produced in the body that dilates blood vessels and lowers blood pressure. He discovered a previously unknown biological pathway by which the skin uses sunlight to make nitric oxide.
It was already well established that rates of high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and overall mortality all rise the farther you get from the sunny equator, and they all rise in the darker months. Weller put two and two together and had what he calls his “eureka moment”: Could exposing skin to sunlight lower blood pressure?
Sure enough, when he exposed volunteers to the equivalent of 30 minutes of summer sunlight without sunscreen, their nitric oxide levels went up and their blood pressure went down. Because of its connection to heart disease and strokes, blood pressure is the leading cause of premature death and disease in the world, and the reduction was of a magnitude large enough to prevent millions of deaths on a global level. . . .
Vitamin D now looks like the tip of the solar iceberg. Sunlight triggers the release of a number of other important compounds in the body, not only nitric oxide but also serotonin and endorphins. It reduces the risk of prostate, breast, colorectal, and pancreatic cancers. It improves circadian rhythms. It reduces inflammation and dampens autoimmune responses. It improves virtually every mental condition you can think of. And it’s free.
Plus: “Avoidance of sun exposure is a risk factor of a similar magnitude as smoking, in terms of life expectancy.” Rather a blot on the dermatologists’ copybook. It’s even worse if you’re dark-skinned. And it’s sad that my Vitamin D supplementation may be for naught, though we’ll see. I’ve always tried to get a reasonable amount of sun, too, on the theory that maybe the process of making Vitamin D was as important as the product. Old-time bodybuilders always thought sun exposure was good for muscle growth; maybe it was the nitric oxide; bodybuilders certainly take nitric oxide supplements today.
Beware of the toxic influence of Big Sunscreen.
“DO IT ALL, INCLUDING THE WALL:” Obama’s Border Patrol Chief Agrees With Trump, Says Build the Wall.
SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: A Letter To George F. Will.
ELIZABETH WARREN MAKES THE TOUGH CALL ON…DITCHING COLUMBUS DAY: “Despite how loaded that question sounds (particularly for Warren), she jumped into the fray on the side of ditching Columbus. You know…to support her people.
Exit question, from Jazz Shaw: “What is she thinking, and doesn’t she have anyone advising her who could steer her away from these self-inflicted wounds?”
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: University of Chicago Student Newspaper Reveals School President Voted Republican. “Oh, no! Diversity in political thought! How could it have happened on our beloved campus?”
COVERING THE IMPORTANT STORIES: Jillian Michaels Is Mad That Keto People Lose Weight Without Buying Her Products.
RULES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: School cop removed from campus after giving principal ticket for parking in handicapped spot. Nice to see our public schools giving kids an object lesson in how government really works.
HARSH, BUT FAIR:
IF YOU HAVE THE RIGHT POSITION YOU DON’T HAVE TO ACTUALLY KNOW ANYTHING: UC-Berkeley gun violence panelist has ‘no background’ on topic, instead will focus on ‘activism.’
AT AMAZON, Fresh Deals on Top Rated Products.
Plus, Shop Top Gift Ideas.
And, Shop Amazon – Best Selling Products – Updated Every Hour.
Also, browse the Kindle Deals of the Day.
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE: She Accused Him Of Rape. Text Messages Proved It Was A Lie.
SALENA ZITO: Rick Scott Chased The Hispanic Vote And Got It.
Nine years ago Rick Scott, then a Florida businessman, sat down with a group of self-described jaded Republican strategists to discuss what it would take for him to run for governor.
“You are not going to get anywhere with Hispanic voters, but we’ll try,” said Wes Anderson, founding partner and pollster for OnMessage Inc. (where my co-author Brad Todd works), who was explaining what voters were available to a Republican to win.
“Rick Scott looked at us and just shook his head. He said, ‘I reject your dismissal of Hispanic voters. We are going to pursue them, and we’re gonna pursue them hard,’” explained Anderson.
“He flat-out rejected that there was this big chunk voters that you can just write off and you’re never gonna get,” Anderson said.
It is a rejection every Republican candidate running for office should emulate.
Indeed. And if Hispanics start voting for the GOP, the Democrats will build the wall themselves. And pay for it!
THIS MAKES RATHER A LOT OF SENSE: Was Modernism Invented To Keep the Working Classes Out? “Class is always about distinctions in what you say, eat, wear, and act compared to others higher or lower on the economic rungs. In this case, it was a question of what you read. As working-class readers got deeper into the canon, Rose argues, the canon’s goalposts were moved farther away from them.”
Given the behavior of today’s intellectual class, this seems highly plausible. Intellectuals are extremely status-conscious, but intellectualism is a positional good: One enjoys it only by comparison to the unenlightened.
DEMOCRATS, THE PARTY OF THE RICH:
The Democrats are the Party of the Rich. They were swept into the House majority by a revolt of the elites. This party of Orange County, Westchester County, and Chicago’s North Shore is playing the part, wasting no time pushing policies to hand special tax breaks to their upper-middle-class constituents.
Consider Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y. As the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, former chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and in the top 10 in seniority among Democrats, Lowey is among the most powerful members of Congress.
She has introduced two bills so far. One is the appropriations measure to reopen the government. The other is a major tax cut for the rich.
Lowey’s bill would undo exactly one part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: the limit on deductibility of state and local taxes, including property taxes. The law capped the state and local tax deduction, or SALT deduction, at $10,000.
That cap doesn’t affect most tax filers. If you claim the standard deduction, as most taxpayers do, you don’t benefit from the SALT deduction. Since tax reform nearly doubled the standard deduction, about 88 percent of all taxpayers will not itemize. If your state and local taxes are at or below $10,000 per year, you also aren’t affected by the cap.
The cap on the SALT deduction mostly cut into the tax breaks of high earners in high-tax places.
Yep.
THE 21st CENTURY IS NOT WORKING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria “differs from traditional gender dysphoria, a psychological affliction that begins in early childhood and is characterized by a severe and persistent feeling that one was born the wrong sex. ROGD is a social contagion that comes on suddenly in adolescence, afflicting teens who’d never exhibited any confusion about their sex.”