Long Game

Reagan in 1988 signed a major expansion of Medicare.

Republicans have continued their ritual praise of Reagan during the debt-limit fight. Rep. Trent Franks (Ariz.) claimed that the budget caps would allow America to be “that great city on a hill that Ronald Reagan spoke of.”

Most recently, Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr. (Calif.) called Reagan a “moderate former liberal . . . who would never be elected today in my opinion.”

So does reducing dietary salt reduce cardiovascular events? That’s the key question.

When it comes to clinical practice guidelines, low salt diets are the mainstays of pretty much every set of guidelines on the management of high blood pressure.

The vast majority of the salt we eat (75%) is from processed foods. Restaurants are a large source, too.

Few foods in their original state are naturally high in salt, and in general, we don’t add that much at the table.

Seven studies made up this meta-analysis, including 6,489 patients in total. Three studies looked at those with normal blood pressure, two included patients with high blood pressure, and one was a mixed population, including patients with heart failure. The overall effect? Interventions had small effects on sodium consumption, which led to small effects on blood pressure. There was insufficient information to analyze the effects on cardiovascular disease endpoints.

The authors go on to make the following point, which was ignored in the media coverage: Our findings are consistent with the belief that salt reduction is beneficial in normotensive and hypertensive people. However, the methods of achieving salt reduction in the trials included in our review, and other systematic reviews, were relatively modest in their impact on sodium excretion and on blood pressure levels, generally required considerable efforts to implement and would not be expected to have major impacts on the burden of CVD.

Despite the modest and equivocal results, the authors seem to have lost the narrative on their own research findings: Professor Rod Taylor, the lead researcher of the review, is ‘completely dismayed’ at the headlines that distort the message of his research published today. Having spoken to BBC Scotland, and to CASH, he clarified that the review looked at studies where people were advised to reduce salt intake compared to those who were not and found no differences, this is not because reduced salt doesn’t have an effect but because it’s hard to reduce salt intake for a long time. He stated that people should continue to strive to reduce their salt intake to reduce their blood pressure, but that dietary advice alone is not enough, calling for further government and industry action.

Until the data are more clear, you can find the data to support whatever narrative you believe. If you want to demonize salt and ignore other factors that contribute to poor cardiovascular outcomes, you can do that. And if you believe that interventions to reduce salt consumption are misguided and unwarranted, and symptomatic of an overreaching nanny state, then you can find data to support that position, too.

The leading explanation for the extinction invokes extended, climate-altering volcanic activity caused by splitting continental plates, but earlier research by Ruhl suggested a more nuanced and jarring narrative.

“A small release of CO2 from volcanoes triggered a small change in the global climate, raising land and ocean temperatures. That led to the release of methane from the seafloor,” said Ruhl.

Scientists have raised the possibility that rising global temperatures could release trapped methane into the atmosphere, further raising temperatures and releasing more methane in a feedback loop of warming and planetary disruption. That’s apparently what happened during the end-Triassic extinction.

Exactly how much warming would be needed to start the loop anew, and how much methane would flow forth, are open questions. “We could potentially trigger a small increase in ocean temperatures, which triggers methane release,” said Ruhl. “But it’s difficult to quantify how much methane is in the ocean these days. Maybe we have less methane in seafloors now. Maybe we have more.”

the two hemispheres have somewhat different personalities and skills -- this includes their abilities to think abstractly, create stories, draw inferences, determine the source of memory, and make good choices in a gambling game.

In alien hand syndrome, which can result from the split-brain surgeries we discussed a few pages ago, the two hands express conflicted desires. A patient's "alien" hand might pick up a cookie to put it in his mouth, while the normally behaving hand will grab it at the wrist to stop it. A struggle ensues.

If an individual, grassroots or organized domestic group with far-right or neo-Nazi leanings perpetrated the attack, the significance for the rest of Europe will not be large.

There is also the possibility that the attacks are the work of a skilled but disturbed individual with grievances against the Labor Party.

Another scenario is that the attack was carried out by an international group which may have entered the country some time ago.

The last scenario is that the attack is linked to Norway’s involvement in the campaign in Libya. If the Libyan government is somehow connected to the bombing and/or shooting, the rest of Europe will rally behind Norway and increase their efforts in Libya. This scenario would essentially close off the opening in negotiations prompted by a recent move by Paris and other European governments saying they would be open to Moammar Gadhafi’s remaining in Libya.

Homegrown resistance speeds it along its way. A molecule in the ring allows the electron to move faster along the ring than it could by hoping through the gap in the middle.

STRATFOR has said that one of the reasons China appears bent on expanding its naval capabilities relates to its shifting economic structure.

China’s economic supply lines now cross the globe.

China’s naval expansion, in that case, is not part of a strategy to engage in a naval arms race with the United States or challenge U.S. dominance of the seas. Rather, Beijing intends to build a defensive buffer around China’s maritime periphery.

the attention to China’s new aircraft carrier, deep-diving submarine, its space exploration, and similar activities also helps Beijing distract audiences domestic and global from real problems inside the country

Overseas, they somehow reinforce the perception of a rising China — and a rising China cannot be on the verge of a major economic and social crisis.

Like the Three Gorges Dam, this show of China’s capabilities is impressive for a moment, but it does not really address the country’s core needs.

What happens if China’s economic miracle faces what all economic miracles eventually face — the reality that there is no such thing as unlimited, linear, multidigit growth.

Their view of what’s happening in Washington is that President Obama, who is heading into the beginnings of the next presidential election cycle, is mired in economic problems that the U.S. president really needs to have a foreign-policy action or a foreign-policy victory.

Most people view China as really the power that can, in many ways, turn on and turn off North Korea but ultimately, North Korea perceives China as more of a potential threat to its survival than the United States.

For the Chinese, Korean reunification is not always even a good thing, because if the Koreans reunify, or in particular if the U.S. and the North Koreans sign a peace accord and maybe even move towards diplomatic relations, China loses its leverage and it potentially has the United States able to ultimately push right up to the Yalu River, something that originally brought the Chinese into the Korean War.

First, the terms are normally onerous.

Second, a bailout is only appropriate if the entity that you’re bailing out can’t in time repair its finances and get back in working order.

First, the conditions of the European Financial Stability Fund, the ESFS, that’s the bailout program, are really not all that tough.

Second, many of the states under bailout or who have been flirting with bailouts simply do not have long-term income potential.

the Germans simply have not wanted to permanently take on responsibility for these weak states that can’t grow on their own.

First, the ESFS no longer has to go back the Council of Ministers to get permission for a bailout

Second, the ESFS can really take any action it deems fit.

First is why did Germany change its mind?

Finally, European banks are some of the most unhealthy in the world

Iran is a Shiite Islamist polity that aims to become the regional hegemon by exploiting sectarian tensions and popular sentiment in the Arab world against the United States

Saudi Arabia is a conservative power that wants to contain Iran’s ambitions by keeping Tehran’s Shiite Arab allies in check, and ensuring the Islamic republic is not able to take advantage of the fault lines that run through the largely Sunni Arab states.

The Saudis are well aware that if the Iranians can successfully play games with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency

Riyadh knows that any agreement with Tehran affords the Persians time and space to enhance their position. In other words, the Saudis do not have any good options. They cannot afford to ignore the Iranians, nor can they negotiate comfortably.

The third category is the nitty-gritty, “Core Ideas in Four Disciplinary Areas,” namely “Physical Sciences,” “Life Sciences,” “Earth and Space Sciences,” and “Engineering, Technology, and the Applications of Science.”

4.  In the US this pattern has recently been hidden by health care, which is one aspect of the welfare state that was never completed in the statist era (although it was completed in all other developed countries.)

5.  During the megatrends, there are periods of consolidation, which are falsely viewed as countertrends.  They are not countertrends.  The trend is still intact.  In the US the 1920s and 1950s were falsely viewed as countertrends.  Don’t be fooled, we are only 1/3 of the way through the neoliberalism megatrend.

Scientists know that certain bits of DNA on the end of chromosomes called “telomeres” shorten each time the cell divides, playing a role in cell aging and eventual cell death

New research has uncovered how stress levels and diet can affect the biological age of an organism as opposed to chronological age, or calendar years.

For years scientists thought that sequencing DNA would uncover the “gene-for” almost everything, unraveling the mysteries of disease and resulting in new drugs and gene-specific treatments. It didn’t exactly pan out that way.

So to uncover the calculus within the genome, it might take some looking beyond the genome. Genes may contribute a few elements to the inner clock, but they interact within a larger scaffolding of cell processes and environmental factors.