Between us, there are some random thoughts floating around. Maybe they're mine; I think they are. But maybe they are yours as well.

Israel's Growth

The Bush administration really POed the Muslim world. The Muslim world was already POed at the fact that we automatically frogged whenever Israel yelled "Jump" during the prior fifty years.

So our veep goes to the mideast, and Israel announces that they're going to build a lot of new communities in territory where the Muslims think Palestinians ought to live, and our veep, good joe that he is, condemns Israel for doing that.

Now, there are two possibilities. One is that the Israeli government is a bunch of bumbling fools, and they announced this at the worst possible time, and accidentally offended our government. The other possibility is that they deliberately made the announcement so that we could condemn them, and thus gain points in the Muslim world.

I don't think there are idiots running the government in Tel Aviv. I don't think there are idiots running the government in DC. So do I think it fooled the Muslim world? No - but I think they appreciate the fact that we're trying to reform our ways. Obviously, it took the cooperation of Tel Aviv to pull this off - but they still appreciate it.

The Elections

When a president is elected, people often vote for the Representative (and Senator, if one is running) of the same party. The president is elected for four years; the people that went to the polls specifically to vote for the president aren't all going to show up two years later. The president's party, consequently, tends to lose seats in the mid-term elections.

In fact, it's only happened twice in modern years that the president's party has gained seats in the midterm elections. It was pretty clear in 2006 that the GOP was likely to lose the White House, and that the democratic candidate, whoever it would be, would probably win in 2008. It was also pretty obvious that this would lead to the Democrats losing seats in 2024.

If you can predict the loss of seats in 2006, it's pretty silly to blame it on the job being done by a president who wasn't even nominated until fairly late in the primaries in 2008.

And when congress has an approval rating of 17% and the president has an approval rating of 48%, it's not silly to blame the loss of seats on the president, it's downright stupid.

But if the democrat running against local congressman Joe Pitts doesn't hammer it home to voters that Pitts voted against unemployment compensation, they deserve to lose, because that's pretty simple to understand. Unemployment compensation goes to people who want to work, and can't, through no fault of their own. Which part of through no fault of their own does Pitts fail to comprehend?

Another Look at Obesity

A study at the Researchers of University of Rochester Medical Center says that the risk of sudden cardiac death is 99% higher if you are normal weight or underweight, as opposed to morbidly overweight (which is generally defined as 100 pounds overweight or more.) The results were presented at the American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session in Atlanta.

But if you have a bad lipid profile, shouldn't you be eating a low fat diet? Well, according to a new report from the Women's Health Initiative, it isn't going to help. Barbara V. Howard of Georgetown University said that according to the fifteen-year Dietary Modification Trial, "This diet did not raise triglycerides and didn't lower HDL cholesterol."

It might be a good idea, according to Howard, to go on the diet anyway, given the "epidemic" of obesity. The problem with that argument, however, is that there's never been a diet shown to result in permanent weight loss. Those who went on diets on this day in 2005 weigh at least ten pounds more now than they did then, in 90% of the cases. About 2% of the population experiences significant permanent weight loss in any given year - but it's both 2% of those trying to lose weight, and 2% of those making no effort to lose weight.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
health benefits - Israel - Joe Biden - mid-term elections - Obama - obesity