Daily Archives: September 16, 2004

Stros rebound to beat Cards

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After blowing one on Wednesday night, the Stros took advantage of four Redbird errors and two JK doubles to beat the Cards junior varsity (no Rolen, Renteria, or Walker) 8-3 on Thursday night in St. Louis.
The win allowed the the Stros to remain two games behind the Wild Card playoff-leading Giants, who beat the Brew Crew again. The other two primary competitors in the Wild Card race — the Cubs and the Marlins — also won, so the contenders are all bearing down as the race hits the home stretch.
In this game, the Stros threw their AAA pitching staff at the Cards and it was good enough to secure the win. Stros starter Backe was mediocre over four innings, but at least did not allow matters to get out of hand while the Stros built their lead. Reliever Harville was phenomenal in bailing Backe out of a jam, and Qualls, Wheeler, and Miceli all did workmanlike jobs in keeping the Redbirds under wraps for the final five frames. Given the Cards’ errors, the Stros needed only 8 hits to generate their 8 runs, four of which came home on Kent’s doubles and another on Mike Lamb‘s solo yak.
The Stros return to the Juice Box for a weekender with the Brew Crew as Roy O and the Brewers’ ace Ben Sheets match up for first game on Friday night. After three with the Brewers, the Stros then take off to San Francisco on Sunday evening for the key series of the stretch run with the Giants.

Fat but fit

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Sandy Szwarc is an editor and a prolific writer on food, health and science issues for various print and internet media. She is also a registered nurse with a science degree from the University of Texas at Austin, and over twenty years in critical-care nursing, emergency triage, and medical outreach education with a focus on nutrition, weight and eating issues, and preventative health. Ms. Szwarc is a leading advocate in debunking junk science as it pertains to food and health, and she is currently completing an upcoming book entitled “The Truth About Obesity and Dieting-Dangers and Good News We’re Never Told.”
In this Tech Central Station op-ed, Ms. Szwarc takes dead aim at the junk science industry and the mainstream media for providing muddled information to the public regading the health risks of obesity:

Consumers were left more confused than ever when the media reported on two obesity-related studies from the Journal of the American Medical Association last week. One seemed to find it was more important to be fit than thin for your heart health; the other that it was more important to be thin than fit to prevent diabetes . . .
But in fact, the controversy has already been repeatedly answered in the scientific literature. The trouble is, it’s not what a lot of people want to hear…and others without science backgrounds don’t realize.
These side-by-side JAMA studies provided an invaluable opportunity for the media to help consumers sort through medical information and come away with a very important message: not all studies are created equal.

Ms Szwarc goes on to explain how some medical researchers are misleading the public with spurious conclusions drawn from “dredge data research,” and that the conclusions of such studies are of dubious merit:

Sadly data dredge studies are increasingly being misused and misinterpreted. Most noteworthy is that [the Weinstein study correlating obesity with diabetes] findings contradict many stronger clinical and epidemiological studies that have found that exercise reduces type 2 diabetes and improves insulin resistance, unrelated to weight.
For example, researchers at the Cooper Institute in Dallas, Texas led by Timothy S. Church, MD, PhD, followed over 2,000 diabetics for 25 years, using a range of health assessments, including treadmill tests to gauge their fitness levels. They found that premature deaths from all causes were significantly lower among the fit. Weight was irrelevant. Researchers at the Veterans Affairs, Palo Alto Health Care System, Stanford University studied over 6,000 men for six years and found exercise capacity was more important in risks of dying than “known” risk factors including obesity, cholesterol, hypertension, smoking and even diabetes. Even a small clinical study at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada following 54 obese women found daily exercise, without dieting or weight loss, substantially reduced insulin resistance in just 14 weeks.

In the mainstream media’s rush to embrace the American delusion that a svelte physique equates with good health, Ms. Szwarc points out that the media ignores scientifically proven reality:

Most significant, [another recent study] is just one of dozens of clinical studies over decades which have found the exact same thing in men and women: when fitness is considered, weight is irrelevant to long-term health, heart disease, diabetes or premature death from all causes.
The list is too extensive to cite here, but clinical studies concluding ‘fitness not weight is what counts’ include the Harvard Alumni Health Study of 12,516 men followed for 16 years; the St. James Women Take Heart Project of 5,721 women studied for 8 years; and the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study, an ongoing study that includes 25,389 patients examined at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas from 1970 to 1989. Even the Women’s Health Study published findings in 2001 that found merely light to moderate activity was dramatically associated with lowered heart disease in women, including those who were overweight, had high cholesterol or smoked.

Ms. Swzarc concludes by pointing to a recent op-ed by two researchers at the Dallas-based Cooper Institute, which has an outstanding record of performing landmark research on fitness and preventative health:

[Drs. Blair and Church, the Cooper researchers] chastised today’s obesity researchers, saying that “failure to adequately quantify physical activity when examining the risks of obesity is similar to exploring risk factors for cancer and misclassifying tobacco use.”
Drs. Blair and Church emphasized that death rates and heart disease among obese people, with just moderate fitness, are half that of “normal” weight people who aren’t fit. The amount of exercise to attain this health-giving level of moderate fitness isn’t much, either, and has been proven in 24 clinical studies: it’s merely 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity a week. They say that’s equivalent to 30 minutes, 5 times a week of: walking, gardening, housework, bicycling, swimming or other activities enjoyed in daily life.

Read the entire article.

What type of insolvency did you say?

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From the always insightful Stu’s Views:
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The view from inside the CIA

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The Houston World Affairs Council was formed about 15 years ago to provide a forum for all sides of current global issues, to promote better understanding of international relations and to contribute to national and international policy debates. The Houston World Affairs Council is an affiliate of the World Affairs Councils of America and is the now fifth largest such organization with over 4,000 citizen, corporation and foundation memberships.
Ted Barlow over at Crooked Timber reports on a recent HWFC forum in which Marty Peterson, deputy executive director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was the guest speaker. Mr. Barlow’s entire post is a must read, and the following are a few of the observations that Mr. Peterson made at the forum, beginning with the CIA’s record regarding the situation in Iraq leading up to the U.S.-led invasion:

He was also defensive about the CIA record regarding missing WMDs in Iraq (Note: Mr. Barlow notes in his post that the word ?defensive? has a negative connotation that he did not mean to convey here). In his recounting, the CIA underestimated Saddam?s missile programs, which were more advanced than anyone realized; they overestimated his biological and chemical weapons programs, which he described as ?more capabilities than functioning programs?; and they were approximately right regarding his nuclear weapons programs, which hadn?t restarted. In response to a question, he said that he doubted that Saddam had smuggled out WMDs to other countries before the war.
He made the point that the CIA wasn?t involved in the policy decision to invade Iraq, without expressing an opinion about whether it was the right decison. In general, I felt that he was making a good-faith effort to be non-partisan.

And do not expect quick returns on greater governmental investment in intelligence gathering:

He felt that excessive peace dividend cuts in the 90s had starved the CIA of resources. (Interestingly, he said that the underfunding reversed in 1998.) He also said that it takes him a year to hire an agent, and six or seven years to train and season him or her to the point that they can be trusted to try to recruit a foreign intelligence source. So the hiring boom that?s currently underway won?t pay off for years to come.

And what about the CIA’s being held responsible for its misinterpretations of intelligence data:

He resented being asked to answer for policies that the CIA didn?t create, and being judged for past actions based on the standards of the day. At one point, he said that he only asked for two things- sufficient resources to do his job, and a clear set of rules that he could expect to be judged by. ?In thirty years, I?ve never had either of those.?

As with Judge Posner, Mr. Peterson is not a supporter of the proposed election year reforms being bandied about regarding intelligence gathering and analysis:

He?s not a fan of the proposed reorganization of the nation?s intelligence services. He mentioned a point when another higher-up at the CIA (I don?t remember who) was discussing the issue with Congress. The CIA guy asked, if there was another catastrophe, who would be held accountable? None of the Congressmen could answer the question. (A cynic might ask who was being held accountable for September 11th, but I suppose that that?s why the reorganization is necessary.)
A detailed discussion of his preferences in intelligence reform was probably not in the cards, as he wasn?t even allowed to say how many employees the CIA has. As general principles, he favored (a) short lines of communication and (b) taking our time to think about things. He clearly was concerned that intelligence reform was being rushed to fit an election-year schedule.

Finally, Mr. Peterson’s views on the current “hottest spots:”

He?s very concerned about China and Taiwan. He says that China is investing heavily in their military, and that we can tell that they?re doing drills that show that they?re learning how to use their new hardware. He thinks that the end result of this activity is likely to be a crisis over Taiwan.

North Korea (he says that he believes that they have at least one nuclear weapon), Pakistan (he praised Musharraf?s participation in the war on terror, but is concerned that he might be assassinated) and Saudi Arabia (he?s concerned about a coup there, too.)

Read the entire post and, if you are a Houstonian, support the The Houston World Affairs Council

TXU Energy: “After further review . . .”

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TXU Energy Co. LLC, Dallas-based TXU Corp.’s subsidiary and the largest electric utility company in Texas, has postponed implementation of its controversial pricing plan that would set electric rates for customers who live outside of North Texas based on their past credit scores.