Life extension through supplements -- not likely to work

CNN.com - Study: Vitamin E may do more harm than good - Nov 10, 2004

People take large doses of vitamin E in the belief that it helps counter oxidation by unstable 'free radical' molecules, which damages cells and can accelerate aging and lead to heart disease and cancer.

Miller, who was surprised by the findings of the study, said there could be several ways the vitamin supplementation is damaging the body.

While vitamin E in low doses is a powerful antioxidant, in higher doses its effects may promote oxidative damage, and may also overwhelm the body's natural antioxidants, he said.

Dr. Raymond Gibbons of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said the evidence has been building against vitamin E supplements.

'Despite this ... I see many, many patients still taking vitamin E and I have to convince them not to,' he told a separate news conference.

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I think there's a sneaking suspicion that humans in wealthy nations probably make a pretty optimal use of key nutrients. The only dietary ways to extend life are likely to be calorie restriction and maybe fat restrictions. What helps in one regard may hurt in another. Disappointingly similar to medications, but unlikely to affect supplement sales.

Pfizer/Bextra joins Merck/Vioxx on the COX2 firing line

The New York Times > Business > New Study Links Pfizer's Bextra, Similar to Vioxx, to Heart Attacks

A weak retrospective study suggests Bextra is a disaster. If it were the only such study the appropriate action would be warning labels and more studies. However, in the context of Vioxx, this suggests Bextra should be withdrawn from the market. I'd be amazed if Bextra is on the market a month from now.

So what about Celebrex? It doesn't seem to be much safer on the stomach than well known NSAIDs. It's far more expensive. It's cousins look bad.

It's hard to believe any COX2 inhibitor is going to remain on the market in a year -- at least for their primary indications (arthritis, etc). They may turn out to be good drugs for other conditions where the risk/benefit ratio is better.

There are four interesting questions:

1. Did the pharmas cover up problems? Did they follow reporting requirements? What's their moral (if not legal) culpability if they aggressively market drugs about which their own scientists may have significant reservations?

2. What's with the pharmas anyway? They did a lot to suppress the release of worrisome data on SSRIs. Has the rise of patient-focused marketing completely corrupted the industry?

3. Was the FDA corrupt? It used to be a fairly reputable agency, but now it's run by Bush appointees. Their stated mission has been to be friendlier to the manufacturers and to accelerate drug development. Now we have the SSRI scandal, the Vioxx scandal, and the flu-vaccine scandal. Maybe Eliott Spitzer needs to litigate against the FDA?

4. Will Bush put in place a liability cap to save Merck?

Microsoft unchained

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - Microsoft Buys 'Peace'

... When the Bush administration made its odious deal to let Microsoft off the legal hook in 2001, it was giving the company a free pass to do whatever it wishes in the future. Everyone understood this. Today, no one with any serious knowledge of the industry believes the company has changed its business practices in any meaningful way; a few modest noodlings at the edges don't even rise to the level of window dressing. Microsoft continues to run roughshod over its customers, 'partners' and competitors.

Nobody much cares, it seems. Journalists, taking a lead from governments, have moved onto other things. Microsoft counts on our short attention spans.

The European Union's helpful refusal to give the monopolist everything it wants may also run out of steam. Only in China is there a government with anything like the clout to stand up to Microsoft. Our government is in bed with a company that effectively wants to charge taxes in the rest of the world; as China's world economic standing rises, it surely will continue to regard that situation with some concern.

Linux and other open-source software remain the best hope for actual competition, in part because of China's moves to support it. Here again Microsoft is getting the U.S. government's assistance, via policy and inaction in dealing with a badly broken patent system. It's clear that Microsoft is getting ready to use patents to make life hard for the open source community.

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So the future of software depends on ... China. In particular , it depends on the security considerations of China's military rulers.

I've been overdosing on irony lately. This doesn't help.

It's nice, though, that someone remembers Bush's payback for Microsoft's support in 2000 [1]. I'd love to know how much money Microsoft funneled into Bush's reelection.

Microsoft's a very aggressive company that's played plenty dirty in the past. It's their unrestrained power, however, that has made them capitalism's shame. With adequate competition they'd probably play a somewhat positive role in the evolution of information technology. Heck, I do like Excel.

[1] Almost no-one, however, remembers the role Ziff-Davis played in Microsoft's ascent to power.

The countries I've visited

World66 visited countries

Here's the map I made:



create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide

God has blessed the US

beliefnet: God intervened to re-elect President Bush; George W. Bush and evangelicals; divine intervention in elections

If Kerry won, then it was clear that God had cursed the US. Since Bush won, it's obvious God has had mercy.

Sodom, Gomorra. Moral values.

Hilary, on the other hand, would be a warning that the deluge is imminent.

Feeling bitter?

F___ the South

Amidst the somewhat tongue-in-cheek scatology, dark humor, and genuine frustration are some interesting points. We've seen electoral-college-by-county maps weighted by population, but we've not seen them weighted by GNP. I suspect if one were to weight by GNP the blue states would loom large.

States' Rights.

A calm and well reasoned analysis of the vote

The Washington Monthly

Based on this, my tentative conclusion is that the 'moral values' vote is a red herring. It played no bigger a role this year than in 2000.

Terrorism played a bigger role, mostly by being a more important issue to a lot more people. Bush's actual level of support among people who based their vote primarily on world affairs increased only modestly.

And that good old mainstay the economy was the most important of all. Compared to 2000, fewer people personally think they're doing better but more people believe the economy is in good shape anyway. And Bush was overwhelmingly successful in convincing those people that his policies deserved the credit.

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Evangelicals were important, but they didn't increase their turnout beyond 2000. Very interesting. Reading the full posting terrorism was a plus for Bush.

The economic perception may be tied to a surprisingly jump in employment in the month prior to the election. If Rove engineered THAT I'm even more impressed than I was.

Another electoral college vote by county map

The Washington Monthly

Of all the maps of this type I've seen this is the most interesting. Good guide on where to live. I'd like to see one where the counties are weighted by contribution to GNP however.

The Economist on the 100,000 dead Iraqis

Economist.com | Iraq

SOME 100,000 souls—perhaps even more—may have perished in Iraq as a result of the American-led invasion in March last year. So, at any rate, says a respected British medical journal, the Lancet. If only half that figure is the true one, it is shocking....

But whatever the precise death-count since Saddam Hussein's fall and however lethal his own regime, several bitter facts cannot be denied: the rate of killing in Iraq has been far greater than those (including The Economist) who advocated war had expected. Moreover, as American and Iraqi forces steel themselves for another heavy assault on insurgents in Fallujah and maybe other rebel towns in the Sunni triangle, the politicians in charge—including a re-elected George Bush—should pause before raining down another torrent of bombs that are sure to kill many civilians as well as fighters...

... Moreover, the Pentagon is quite wrong to refuse to estimate Iraqi casualties, albeit that the margin of error is bound to be high. Reports such as the Lancet's should be taken seriously—and bolster the case for selectivity and restraint, even against the bloodiest of foes.

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In a separate article The Economist reviews the Lancet article and finds the numbers to be plausible and the reasoning sound.

The US invasion of Iraq was followed by the violent death of about 65,000 people -- largely women and children. Another 35,000 deaths, largely of children, may have resulted from the general disruption and chaos. Those who died of violence were not all killed by American forces; many died from insurgent action.

The Economist implies that had they known the death toll they would not have advocated war.

Meanwhile, conservative commentators in the US have mocked the study and made a jest of the numbers. Moral values, you know.

Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?

Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?

It's been a while since I tracked this. Looks like Bostrom has put the discussions together in one spot. I confess to finding the arguments ... persuasive.

Update 2/22/07: The nice thing about living in a simulation is that quantum entanglement and nonlocal action are less mysterious ...

See also:

• The Algebraist and the religion of the eternal simulation
• Reality, perception, Hume, the red pill - and John Tierney
• Churches of the Singularity - is Horgan truly an unbeliever?

Cluelessness in America

The New York Times > Opinion > Bob Herbert: Voting Without the Facts

I think a case could be made that ignorance played at least as big a role in the election's outcome as values. A recent survey by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland found that nearly 70 percent of President Bush's supporters believe the U.S. has come up with 'clear evidence' that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda. A third of the president's supporters believe weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. And more than a third believe that a substantial majority of world opinion supported the U.S.-led invasion.

This is scary. How do you make a rational political pitch to people who have put that part of their brain on hold? No wonder Bush won.

The survey, and an accompanying report, showed that there's a fair amount of cluelessness in the ranks of the values crowd. The report said, 'It is clear that supporters of the president are more likely to have misperceptions than those who oppose him.'

I haven't heard any of the postelection commentators talk about ignorance and its effect on the outcome. It's all values, all the time. Traumatized Democrats are wringing their hands and trying to figure out how to appeal to voters who have arrogantly claimed the moral high ground and can't stop babbling about their self-proclaimed superiority. Potential candidates are boning up on new prayers and purchasing time-shares in front-row-center pews.

A more practical approach might be for Democrats to add teach-ins to their outreach efforts. Anything that shrinks the ranks of the clueless would be helpful.

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Another op-ed piece spoke of the end of the enlightenment in America. Conversely, Google News threw up a link to a Chatanooga Times issue. There I read a piece from the other side -- proclaiming the victory of the regular folk over snobbish intellectuals.

The nuclear weapons black market

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | UN warns of nuclear terror race

Mr ElBaradei said the IAEA's investigations into Libya and Iran's suspected weapons programmes had revealed an extensive black market for radioactive materials.

There had been around 630 confirmed incidents of trafficking in nuclear or other radioactive materials since 1993, he said.

"We have a race against time because this was something we were not prepared for," he said.

"We need to do all we can to work on the new phenomenon called nuclear terrorism, which was sprung on us after 9/11 when we realised terrorists had become more sophisticated and had shown an interest in nuclear and radioactive material," he added.

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Sprung on us? Not prepared for?

ElBaradei is a smart guy, so presumably this is either diplomatic code or a translation error. The Clinton administration was very worried about this -- and they weren't the first. It is true that the public learned of the Khan operation only after 9/11 -- but of course that was Pakistani -- not Iranian or Libyan.

Yeah, it's diplomatic speak.

Is America in another great awakening?

The New York Times > Opinion > Gary Hart: When the Personal Shouldn't Be Political

If America has entered one of its periodic eras of religious revival and if that revival is having the profound impact on politics that is now presumed, to participate in a discussion of 'faith' one must qualify oneself.

This is a fascinating column, but I took particular note of the opening sentence. It's one of the first mentions by a respectable commentator that we may be in a "great awakening" ...

National Museum Of The Middle Class

The Onion | National Museum Of The Middle Class Opens In Schaumburg, IL

One of the better of the recent Onion satires. Their best stuff is always too close to the truth.

Life in the church of Bush -- a guide to rationalists

So, what should a rationalist do?

One possibility is to continue on as before. If one's historical perspective extends sixty years or so, this is perfectly reasonable. Certainly in my personal memory (25 years or so) regression to the mean is common, and the "dead" persist longer than expected (local phone companies, fax machines, McGill university ...).

Those with a longer range perspective (100 years, 1000 years) may be less sanguine.

My primary concern is demographic. As the US voting population ages along with the boomers, it will become more socially conservative. Average IQ will also fall -- that's what aging does. (Mine is not what it once was.)

This trend towards social conservatism and increasing simplicity would not have been a problem during the reign of the Pharaohs'. It will not work well in our world. Barring the collapse of civilization, our world will become more and more complex. Technologic transformations, the industrialization of China and India, climate change, petroleum exhaustion, the potential collapse of much of Africa.

The intersection of simplicity, rigidity and social conservatism with increasing complexity is not promising. We cannot necessarily be reassured by the lessons of the past 60 years.

So, what should a rationalist do?

Some initial thoughts:

1. Advocate for states' rights.
2. Live in a state that separates church and state. The role of creationism in the curriculum is a good guide. (Ironically I think there's a case to be made for a form of intelligent design -- but that case implies some novel things about the Designer.)
3. Live in a blue state. (Minnesota is a borderline case actually.)
4. If you can't live in a blue state, then participate in Republican primaries. Attempt to mitigate the damage. Do consider moving however.
5. Consider moving away from major population centers. There may be an advantage to living close to a relatively human-free vastness.