Left-handed Complement

MUDGE’S Musings

Fat Tuesday

This headline just popped out at me today:

Fat People Cheaper to Treat, Study Says

So I took a look, and after reading a couple of paragraphs, as I’ll suggest you do, I asked myself a question.

Fat People Cheaper to Treat, Study Says

By MARIA CHENG | AP Medical Writer | 4:00 PM CST, February 5, 2008

LONDON – Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it doesn’t save money, researchers reported Monday. It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars.

“It was a small surprise,” said Pieter van Baal, an economist at the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, who led the study. “But it also makes sense. If you live longer, then you cost the health system more.”
In a paper published online Monday in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal, Dutch researchers found that the health costs of thin and healthy people in adulthood are more expensive than those of either fat people or smokers.

I asked myself: “This is prime Sandy Szwarc territory; I wonder what she thinks of this research?”

Sure enough, her highly informed take was featured on her wonderful blog, Junkfood Science.

So, knowing when I am overmatched, here are two links: first, the original story, from the AP by way of Chicago Tribune.

[Please click the link below for the complete article — but then please come on back!]

Fat People Cheaper to Treat, Study Says — chicagotribune.com

And now, for an expert’s take, Sandy Szwarc’s Junkfood Science:

[Please click the link below for the complete article — but then please come on back!]

Junkfood Science: Calling for a cease-fire

Skyhawks

The more buttoned up our world becomes; the more pervasive the propensity of those in power to exercise it grotesquely, as with the Star Chamber that is Guantanamo; the more habeas corpus and other birthrights disappear; the more depressed we become about the state of our nation, its institutions, and the future of democracy and liberty in this country and the world.

Then, I see a story like this one, from today’s NYTimes.

Satellite Spotters Glimpse Secrets, and Tell Them

By JOHN SCHWARTZ | Published: February 5, 2008

When the government announced last month that a top-secret spy satellite would, in the next few months, come falling out of the sky, American officials said there was little risk to people because satellites fall out of orbit fairly frequently and much of the planet is covered by oceans.

But they said precious little about the satellite itself.

Such information came instead from Ted Molczan, a hobbyist who tracks satellites from his apartment balcony in Toronto, and fellow satellite spotters around the world. They have grudgingly become accustomed to being seen as “propeller-headed geeks” who “poke their finger in the eye” of the government’s satellite spymasters, Mr. Molczan said, taking no offense. “I have a sense of humor,” he said.

These satellite spotters are pretty good at their hobby, which in the story they liken to that of guys, like yr (justifiably) humble svt, who love to watch trains.

Trainspotting (a Britishism, and a whopper of a movie a few years ago) can sometimes get in the way of the railroads, in this country mostly corporate enterprises who vigorously defend their turf with fences and private police.

Satellite spotters regularly get in the way of the governments that launch most of the birds. No fences work, and so far, no police.

[Please click the link below for the complete article — but then please come on back!]

Satellite Spotters Glimpse Secrets, and Tell Them – New York Times

And therein lies the glow one gets from this story. Some secrets aren’t meant to be kept, not if a determined guy on a balcony (doggedly pursuing his hobby, in much the same way, albeit far more comfortably, that MUDGE pursues this one) can point a hobbyist’s telescope toward the sky and find a $zillion spy satellite, and, through the wonders of the Internet, easily and instantly make it known to the world.

Before, the free press was mainly free only for the guy who owned it.

Today, just by harnessing some electrons, the truth gets out there.

It’s how we know much more about distorted mainstream medical reporting, thanks to the electrons harnessed by Sandy Szwarc and others.

And how we know about the retired spy satellites threatening to ruin our day, or our lawn, as they topple out of the heavens.

Don’t know about you, but I like knowing when to duck!

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

Share this post :

del.icio.us it!

digg it!

reddit!

technorati!

yahoo!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 9:04 pm and is filed under Health, Internet Culture, Mainstream media, Science, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.