Taking regular exercise, drinking only in moderation and watching what you eat makes no difference to one's chances of reaching 100, research has found.
Academics studied almost 500 people between 95 and 109 and compared them with over 3,000 others born during the same period. They found those who lived extremely long lives ate just as badly, drank and smoked just as much, took just as little exercise and were just as likely to be overweight as their long-gone friends.
The study was carried out by researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, who interviewed 477 very long lived Ashkenazi Jews.
Prof Nir Barzilai, director of the college's Institute of Ageing Research, said previous studies of this group had identified certain genes which protected them from the effects of a normal Western lifestyle. This research, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, indicates it really is the genes that matter.
"In previous studies of our centenarians, we've identified gene variants that exert particular physiology effects, such as causing significantly elevated levels of HDL or 'good' cholesterol," said Prof Barzilai.
He explained that this study provided evidence that these and other "longevity genes" helped "to buffer them against the harmful effects of an unhealthy lifestyle".
He said the first woman he interviewed, an 109-year-old, told him she had smoked 40 cigarettes a day for 90 years. While most people would have died of lung cancer or heart disease, she soldiered on.
Prof Barzilai emphasised that the research did not mean most people could live unhealthy lives and not expect to pay a price in the end. "When you're 110 years old, you will feel awful, having missed out on a lifetime of starvation, exercise, deprivation, and hypochondria!"
#3
gromky: Plenty of people in retirement homes *used* to be fat, if not as a rule obese. But after the age of about 80, the efficiency of digestion is so reduced, as are the senses of smell and taste, that few remain fat.
Oddly enough, being somewhat overweight actually contributes to longevity, and the diseases of those who are somewhat overweight are "better" than those diseases suffered by those who are underweight.
#4
Considering my great-grandfather, ate almost nothing but Reese's Cups from age 86 to 99, I'm not suprised by these findings. Pipe tobacco and Reese's Cups, truly a breakfast of champions.
The protestors of the Arab Spring are both Muslim and radical, as are the bungling jihadis of Chris Morris's movie Four Lions. And now a new film, The Taqwacores, attempts to further stretch the definition.
The film's set up sounds familiar enough -- a meek Muslim student named Yusef joins a hardcore Islamic commune in upstate New York and becomes radicalised. But this time, "hardcore" refers to punk rock.
This is a commune where one Muslim, Jahangir, sports a red mohawk and announces morning prayers with an electric guitar. Another member is gay and wears a skirt and makeup. The bands that congregate there have names such as Osama's Tunnel Diggers and Boxcutter Surprise.
They drink beer and smoke pot, and among them is a spitfire feminist in a burqa -- complete with a Dead Kennedys patch -- who freely redacts chunks of the Qur'an with a marker pen. "That ayah advises men to beat their wives," she says, about a contested verse in the holy book. "So what do I need that for?"
It's a budget production, at the cheap end of indie, and the story is simple enough. There's a fundamentalist faction in this commune that is at odds with the punk renegades such as Jahangir, and their battle comes to a head in a raucous final concert.
Even though The Taqwacores received a mixed reaction when it was released in the US last June, the Hollywood Reporter championed the film's originality, and on this front, it is out on its own. To say nothing of its extraordinary back story: a movie based on a book based on a purely fictional punk rock scene that then spawned an entire music scene from scratch.
Just as the novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk spawned actual fight clubs, The Taqwacores spawned real-life Muslim punk bands.
Bands such as The Kominas from Boston, the all-girl Secret Trial Five from Toronto, Al Thawra (The Power) from Chicago and even a few bands out in Pakistan and Indonesia. They took Knight's book as a manifesto for a new kind of Islamic youth culture that respects women and gay people and isn't afraid to challenge Islam where necessary.
A tour was organised in 2007 in which the bands -- along with Knight -- travelled through America and Pakistan. That tour became the 2009 documentary Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam.
SEOUL, Aug. 5 (Yonhap) -- The global financial market is teetering from fears of a dreaded double-dip in U.S. economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 4.31 percent and the Nasdaq 5.08 percent, the biggest fall since December 2008. European stock markets lost more than 3 percent.
Wait a minute, Obama said it was the Japanese Quake, the European Markets, and...(drum roll) ta da Bush's fault.
In South Korea, the KOSPI index plunged 154 points over the last three days. Some 86 trillion won (US$80.6 billion) went up in smoke. The financial market is in a state of panic.
So at the end of the day all the "won" gains of the recovery went up in smoke in S. Korea as well as the U.S.
Despite the last-minute deal in Washington that averted default, pessimism runs amok about the U.S. economy. A major slowdown seems inevitable under the deal that only grants a higher government debt ceiling with spending cuts. It deepens the fears caused by the news that U.S. economic growth stopped at a below-expected 1.3 percent in the second quarter and that the manufacturing index in July was the lowest in two years. Massive money circulation from two rounds of quantitative easing apparently didn't bring results.
Pessimism runs amok in the U.S. economy? Nah. Baghdad Bob Carney, BO's press mouthpiece secretary, says the recovery is on track, the economy is doing well, jobs are being created, and Prez Obama had a great birthday bash in the WH--there celebs and hip hop artists. No worry, the Prez and First Lady paid for it all. It was a grand time. Now it is time to continue to do the hard work of re-election and tap the Hollywood crowd and Marxists, Leninists, Communists, left-wing liberals, statists, Progressives for $1 billion.
More frightening is the fact that the U.S. doesn't really have many policy options to calm rattled nerves. Financial troubles are spreading throughout Europe, and should China decide to contract its economy to control inflation, the world economy will seriously suffer.
The economy is out of gas (and oil to run)? Hmmmmnnnn. What to do, what to do? Running out of taxpayers to tax? China contract its economy? China is stuck in the same swamp as the U.S.
How the U.S. economy fares is not an issue just for the U.S. A double-dip there will throw the world economy back into crisis, which is why some say Washington will eke out a recovery plan. There is already speculation that another, third round of quantitative easing is on its way.
Q3, ah yes the "printing more money solution again"? What's the price of that? Hyperinflation? More higher prices. More individual wealth down the drain.
The South Korean government doesn't believe that the U.S. will fall into a double dip. But it must stop unsubstantiated fears from shaking up the country's economy and make full efforts to pacify the rampant sense of fear. Certainly, recovery plans by Washington may have limited results and chances are high that market fears will come and go repeatedly. The government needs to monitor all movements in financial and foreign exchange markets to ward off any major shock.
Let's see my 401k became a 201k back in 2008. And now my 201k is a 160k. Oh, I feel much better. Good my unsubstantiated fears are eased. Honey, where's that Tea Party site that John Fn Kerry wasn't talking about?
Privately, however, Obamas team is concerned about the factors beyond its control, talking of an imminent need to retool their economic message and strategy heading into 2012. Absent the presidents ability to defy political gravity, one Obama adviser conceded, The numbers add up to defeat.
Based on interviews with a wide array of top government and political officials, heres why the adviser might be on the something:
How about doing something about retooling the fvcking economy? If this guy wasn't so locked into imposing his own statist view on everyone, he might figure out that the free market is not his enemy but his ally in digging the economy out of the $hitter.
#2
Just getting the EPA and the Department of the Interior out of the way of the on-land oil drilling and fracking operations would add a couple of hundred thousand well-paying jobs in under 6 months; and those would translate into a lot more low-wage service jobs in the oil production areas. One bloody change is all that is needed, thank God Zero is too f**king arrogant to take notice of that.
#3
IIRC FREEREPUBLIC ARTIC [rehash] > OBAMA: MY PRESIDENCY WILL BE A ONE-TERM PROPOSITION IFF THE ECONOMY DOESN'T TURN AROUND IN THREE YEARS.
VICTORY = SUCCESS IN WAR, DIPLOMACY in the end still comes down to "BUTTER-N-EGGS" = "POCKETBOOK ECONOMICS", aka "ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL", as the sayings go.
One thing is clear in the aftermath of the debt-limit debate: U.S. President Barack Obama has lost his glamour. The alluring icon of hope and change has become just another pol, derided by his supporters as well as his opponents. As one headline succinctly put it: Obama succumbs to the ways of Washington.
Most striking was how irrelevant the president seemed to the entire debate. Obama didnt present his own alternative to the various congressional plans or make a case for a particular policy. When he tried to address the public, he came off as condescending, self-interested and detached. His pulpit proved anything but bully.
Contrary to some of the headlines, however, the crisis didnt mark a dramatic shift in the presidents standing. Gradual disillusionment set in long before the debt-ceiling fight. Back in October, a Bloomberg National Poll asked people who had at some point been Obama supporters how they now felt about him. Forty-two percent said they were less enthusiastic than theyd once been, with 35 percent still supporting the president at least some of the time and 7 percent either no longer supportive or actively opposed to him.
That was 10 months ago. Since then, the presidents general approval ratings have been trending down, hitting a new low in Gallups survey last week. Although angry liberals are the loudest online voices, Obamas real weakness, according to Gallup, comes from eroding support among moderates. Less than half of them now approve of the job hes doing, compared with 59 percent in early June.
Lack of Enthusiasm
Obama may well win re-election -- for that, he only has to convince voters that hes the lesser of two evils -- but the enthusiasm of his 2008 campaign has certainly vanished.
What happened? In 2008, after all, not just political pundits and regular folks were expecting big things of Obama. So were certified leadership gurus. Warren Bennis of the University of Southern California and Andy Zelleke of Harvard praised Obama for possessing that magical quality known as charisma.
This charisma, they predicted, would give Obama the transformational capacity to lift the malaise that is paralyzing so many Americans today because a charismatic leader could break through the prevailing orthodoxy that the nation is permanently divided into red and blue states ... and build a broader sense of community, with a compelling new vision.
There was only one problem. Obama wasnt charismatic. He was glamorous -- powerfully, persuasively, seductively so. His glamour worked as well on Bennis and Zelleke as it did on voters.
Whats the difference? Charisma moves the audience to share a leaders vision. Glamour, on the other hand, inspires the audience to project its own desires onto the leader (or movie star or tropical resort or new car): to see in the glamorous object a symbol of escape and transformation that makes the ideal feel attainable. The meaning of glamour, in other words, lies entirely in the audiences mind.
That was certainly true of Obama as a candidate. He attracted supporters who not only disagreed with his stated positions but, what is much rarer, believed that he did, too. On issues such as same-sex marriage and free trade, the supporters projected their own views onto him and assumed he was just saying what other, less discerning voters wanted to hear.
Even well-informed observers couldnt decide whether Obama was a full-blown leftist or a market-oriented centrist. Barack has become a kind of human Rorschach test, his friend Cassandra Butts told Rolling Stone early in the campaign. People see in him what they want to see.
Defying Convention
Like John Kennedy in 1960, Obama combined youth, vigor and good looks with a vague promise of political change. Like Kennedy, Obama was both charming and self-contained. Kennedys wealth set him apart, but Obamas mystery stemmed from his exotic background -- an upbringing and ethnicity that defied conventional categories and distanced him from humdrum American life. Obama was glamorous because he was different, and his differences mirrored his audiences aspirations for the country.
He was the political equivalent of the seductive high heels described by Leora Tanenbaum in her book Bad Shoes: When you see a pair of stilettos on display in a department store or featured in a fashion magazine, you can imagine yourself wearing them and becoming the kind of person who lives a magical life, gliding around gracefully with no need for sensible, lace-up shoes. The fantasy just might become realizable by stepping into the shoes and inhabiting them.
Thats glamour.
Equally glamorous was candidate Obamas call to a broad majority of Americans -- Democrats, Republicans and independents of goodwill -- who are re-engaged in the project of national renewal. It was an invitation to the audience to entertain their own fantasies of what national renewal would look like. All voters had to do was slip on the right president.
Glamour is a beautiful illusion -- the word glamour originally meant a literal magic spell -- that makes the ideal seem effortlessly attainable. Glamour hides difficulty and distractions, creating a false and enticing sense of grace. We see the dance, not the rehearsals; the beach resort, not the luggage and jet lag. There are no bills on the kitchen counter, no freckles on the pale-skinned star, no sacrifices in the promise of change.
This illusion is hard to maintain for more than an escapist moment. Even the most beautiful shoes are never as glamorous once youve worn them and discovered they give you blisters or, at best, didnt transform your life. The same is true of presidents. Familiarity breeds discontent.
Didnt Emote Enough
Among the early signs of Obamas dissipating glamour were the complaints that he didnt emote enough over the BP oil spill -- a surprising criticism of a man whom many supporters had praised for his Spock-like demeanor. But apparently not everyone saw Spock in candidate Obama. Some saw Bill Clinton. They expected the president to feel their pain.
Clinton, with his obvious appetites and open eagerness to please, was never glamorous -- no distance or mystery for him. But Clinton was charismatic. He inspired intense loyalty, even from supporters who disagreed with him on specific policies or disapproved of his moral transgressions.
If you think of Barack Obama as a charismatic president, it is hard to explain why his supporters are so angry. He should be able to win them over. But if you understand his appeal as glamour, then his problems arent surprising.
With glamour, any specific action that stands outside the fantasy breaks the spell, alienating supporters who disagree. Even trying to remain above the fray, as Obama often does, infuriates those who want a fighter.
A well-established sales tool, glamour is a tremendous asset if youre running for office. But once you have to govern, its a problem. Although charisma can continue to inspire, glamour is guaranteed to disillusion. The only thing surprising about Obamas predicament is how few people expected it.
Continued on Page 49
What does that mean, pivot to jobs? Does that mean he stands on one leg and spins in circles like in basketball, or is it like a center-pivot irrigation, turns in a circle spraying water all over the place to try and grow crops where they shouldn't grow? Did he mean to say divot?
#2
Virginia Postrel, there is no Christmas. What a load of crap. An article about glamour and charisma of the President. Glamour and charisma was what the voting public fell for in 2008. We've got to demand more from our politicians than just being a celebrity, glib of tongue, charismatic, and glamorous. Too many voters look for rock stars and sports stars in their politicians. They never check out the previous record of achievement but instead fall for the phony promises. They sell their vote for what they think they can get from the government at the expense of their liberty.
#1
The answer is of course, both. If the lefties were simply evil, they'd be reasonably logical. But by adding stupid, you quickly get people who fit their mold. I would also add sub or non human to it, because anyone/thing that obviously hates the human race as much as they do, is clearly not part of it anymore.
Posted by: Silentbrick - Halliburton Lost Drill Bit Division ||
08/05/2011 1:35 Comments ||
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#2
Most people on the liberal-Left think and act the way they do not because they want to destroy the world but because they want to make it better
What I've noticed is that most leftists manage to make their own lives a lot better.
#7
You know me. Never one to give a blog post a provocative headline unless I absolutely have to.
Delingpole is an attention seeking jackass. Intelligence and morality have little to do with the negative behaviors exhibited by Progressives. The primary cause for their actions is "Ethics". (Or lack there of.) The steep cultural descent of Progressives can be traced to the mid '70's after Alinskey's theories were institutionalized into their everyday social interaction. Ironicly, Delingpole constantly employs the exact same Alinskey tactics to advance his dribble. (And presumably make a buck.)
#9
Knew a prog who was Iowahawk type funny, though not nearly the same level, as he was too immature to hold a job better than liquor store sales, and had some sort of sexual problem. But hey, smartest guy in the coffee dive.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
