There was a study about back pain and acupuncture that appeared in Monday’s “Archives of Internal Medicine”. Some researchers at a German university compared three methods of treating back pain:

1) Traditional acupuncture
2) Fake acupuncture
3) Medication

For the fake acupuncture, the needles were not inserted as deep as they normally would be, were not manually rotated or moved, and were not inserted into the traditional acupuncture points in the body.

The results were as follows:
47% of the patients getting traditional acupuncture improved
44% of the patients getting fake acupuncture improved
27% of the medication patients improved.

The researchers don’t know if the fake acupuncture worked due to the placebo effect (where you improve because your mind thinks you’ll improve) or if it was due to the body’s reactions to the pricks, possibly releasing natural painkillers or changing the way the brain processes pain signals. In any case, a very interesting study, and perhaps if duplicated elsewhere, it will result in people taking fewer drugs.

Another drug related story coming out this week was a National Institute of Health study on flu vaccines. It concludes they may not be of much value for people older than 70. In the past, authorities have pushed flu shots for the elderly, raising the percentage of vaccinated seniors 65 and older from 15% in 1980 to 69% in 2006. Surveys have shown winter death rates for seniors have fallen 50% or more, and that was thought to show that the vaccinations worked.

The researchers at NIH believe that previous studies did not take into account the fact that healthier seniors were more likely to get vaccinated and the infirm seniors were less likely to do so. Also, the infirm would have naturally higher death rates. When they factored these things in, the benefit from the vaccines was greatly reduced. This sort of ties in to a Dutch study done in 1992 that found vaccines were effective 57% of the time in people ages 60 to 69, but fell to 23% for those 70 and over. Apparently flu shots stir up antibodies in your system quite easily in young people but less so as you age.

While the conclusion of the study was that flu shots were questionable for 70 yrs and older, they still recommended them since there may be at least some slight benefit, which is better than nothing.

And, moving on, there was another news report out on osteoporosis (the weakening of bones). This is something 50% of elderly women have and 25% of elderly men. More than 300,000 hip fractures occur in the US each year. Roughly 1 in 5 elderly victims die within a year of breaking their hip. (This statistic really surprised me).

Most doctors tell their patients to take Fosomax and other bisphosphonates, which are a type of drug that stop bone breakdown. However, the pill can sometimes cause heartburn and other problems. In addition, you have to take it on an empty stomach in the morning and wait 1/2 hour before eating. Because of the hassle an side effects, many people stop taking the drugs. Novartis just released a study on a new once a year injectible bisphosphonate called Reclast, and found 28% fewer deaths and 35% fewer fractures in patients getting the injection. No other drug for osteoporosis has gotten results as good as this, so sounds like Novartis found a winner.

Last, but not least:
A new study released by researchers in Denmark has found a surprising link between the amount of trans fat consumed in your diet and the likelihood of changes in your sexual behavior. The study is somewhat preliminary, as it only involved 450 participants and has only been running since 1992. The researchers hope to triple the number of participants in a follow up study starting in January, and will also be continuing the original study until 2012.

The study was initially begun to study the effect of trans fats in people’s diets, and to further investigate suspicions that trans fats were actually more harmful than saturated fats. In 2005, while running various data mining checks through the results, one of the research assistants noticed a strange phenomena. Those people that consumed the highest amount of trans fats were 35% more likely to be transvestites.

This was ground breaking news, as it was the first study to link diet to sexual behavior. Only now is there proof that transvestites are the result of trans fats. Furthermore, transvestites were 47% more likely to need an organ transplant, 42% more likely to drive a Trans Am, 28% more likely to have problems transposing numbers incorrectly, 31% more likely to be able to translate a foreign language, 53% more likely to be involved in relationships with transsexuals, and 67% more likely to take public transportation to work.

(Okay, yes, the trans fat study bit is a joke, figured I’d lighten things up at the end. The other studies were real.)

Hold on to your hats, this is gonna be a long blog entry. I started with a few things, but then kept finding more and more stuff to add.

I checked out www.salon.com, which I’ve been meaning to do for awhile. It used to be a magazine way back and now is online. Was reading some articles on the middle east, and ran into one link to an article that was pretty interesting. It makes the argument that we should basically leave the middle east alone, and that some of the radicalism would die down as a result. It was interesting, so I’m posting the link below:

MiddleEast

I think some of its mentions of previous miscalculations ties in nicely to the miscalculations and ignorance that were apparently widespread in the Bush administration. I also remember reading an article recently that pointed out that despite the rhetoric coming out of Iran, there is actually widespread appreciation for the US in a significant portion of the population, and that appreciation is directly a result of the US not meddling in Iran for the last 20 or more years. The author was putting the idea forth that the best way to better relations in some cases is not to meddle so much.

There was also another article about “launching brand Petraeus”, that was reprinted on salon.com from its original posting on toms dispatch. The link is below:
TomsDispatch
Once you get to the page, scroll down to get to the “launching brand Petraeus” article.

I thought the article was fascinating. It points out the high US casualty rate from IED’s (improvised explosive devices), and also points out the cost of those is less than the cost of a pizza, plus a minor $40 labor cost for someone to plant it. What you end up with is an estimated 850 Al Quaeda members and an unknown larger amount of Sunni and Shiite extremists and gangsters, all together costing the US an estimated $3 billion dollars a day, as well as the personnel losses. In addition, if you do the math, you have the US spending perhaps 100 times as much money a day as the insurgents, and committing a force of 100 times as many people as the insurgents. Yet the US is not making progress. There is no way we’re gonna win in the near term, and it will bankrupt the country in the long run.

The article also mentions the payoffs to insurgents and the corruption in the US related contractor firms. Over 75 investigations currently active. I have another link to a whistleblower blog here on blogstream that had an interesting post on page 5 on Iraq (may be another good one on page 4 as well). Once you get to page 5, scroll down to Iraq whistleblowers.
IraqWhistleblowers

Since the current Iraq situation is over 3700 US deaths, most likely over 10K injured and mentally damaged, tens of thousands Iraqi deaths, hundreds of billions of dollars spent, and absolutely no end in sight, a relatively quick withdrawal would make sense. Unfortunately the Dems have no backbone, and Bushies want to extend it through Bush’s term in office so that more of the blame for “losing” Iraq goes to the next president (most likely a Democrat).

Mother Jones had some good articles over the last few years, detailing among other things, the special Pentagon intelligence group that was set up to twist intelligence as needed. I also have read elsewhere about the practice some officers have of heading into Iraq for a few days a month just to raise their pay to combat level, and the areas that are out of Iraq and far removed from combat that still get combat pay. Add this to the lack of proper armor and protection for the troops over the last few years, the eagerness of Bushies to praise the troops while cutting Veterans benefits and the VA budget, and you have a case of the privileged enjoying their life while those further down the food chain take the brunt of the pain.

Nina Berman is a photographer who has a nice portfolio on her website, including some photos of troops under the “Purple Heart” section. The link is below:
NinaBermanPhotos

The San Francisco Chronicle also had a piece on vets. The majority of the vets come from smaller towns, often joining due to patriotism, or due to a lack of other options. At the end of the day, you have thousands of families in hundreds of towns that either have to deal with deaths and/or disfiguring or mental trauma. In most cases, the families are not rolling in money, so you have financial struggles as well. In the meantime, many of the politicians who voted for this mess continue to draw their six figure goverment salaries, go home to meet their complete, healthy families, and bear very little brunt of the costs of war. The only politician I had a little respect for was one that writes the family of every soldier killed in Iraq. He does this once a week, on a Saturday or Sunday. I believe it was one from Virginia or one of the states around there. I don’t know if he has continued to do that, as I read about it probably in 2006.

The Republicans that evaded military combat service (Bush, Cheney, Wolfie, etc) yet send others to die, and the Dems who first vote for war then later try to deny and sidestep it, and don’t push stronger for a withdrawal for fear that would hurt the Dems politically if they are blamed for future problems (Clinton, Pelosi, Edwards, etc), all are an embarassment to the US. Maybe we’ll get lucky with more principled, honest politicians in the future, but I doubt it. In the meantime, more soldiers and civilians die.

I found a few organizations that support veterans and active personnel. Links are below:

WoundedWarriorProject

BlueStarMoms

And last but not least, I was checking out salon.com again today and there's an article about massive arms sales to Iraq, with not a lot of control and an awful lot of risk. Seems like we just do one stupid thing after another. Link is below:
IraqArmsSales

Today will be a bit of history.
The largest black slave revolt in American history was in the 1830’s in Florida. The Seminole Indians were involved as well. It’s not something that is well known, so I thought I’d blog about it.

J.B. Bird, an administrator at the University of Texas, put together a web documentary “Rebellion: John Horse and the Black Seminoles, the First Black Rebels to Beat American Slavery”. I read through most of it tonight, and it was really pretty engrossing.

Link below is to trail narrative. Once you get there, click on the black arrows to go to the next panel.
JohnHorse

Alan Greenspan, in his memoir being released today (Monday Sept 17), castigates Bush for Iraq and the deficit. He says Bush should have used his veto power more often to rein in deficit spending, and he says the Republicans in Congress lost their way, swapping principle for power.

Uh.....okay. Whatever you say Uncle Al. I guess you never heard of that bit about people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones? Greenspan was the one who helped push Bush’s tax cuts in 2001. He said Sunday night on 60 Minutes that he supported the tax cuts because he was afraid the budget surplus was getting too large. Say what? “Too large?” They should have called him on that one, as it borders on the ridiculous.

Greenspan was also the one who dumped interest rates in the gutter for so long and thus was one of the chief architects of the housing bubble. I remember him saying in 2005 that people should go out and get adjustable rate mortgages. But of course, the housing bubble had nothing to do with “deficit spending”, did it? He said tonight that he was able to keep rates low because inflation was low. He didn’t mention the fact that inflation was low because the Fed was cooking the books to come up with an inflation rate they liked. (A practice which continues today).

He also now claims that he didn’t realize the extent of the housing bubble and lending scandals until late 2005 or early 2006, a claim which is in no way believable from the chairman of the Federal Reserve. If some of the other financial commentators knew about it, there’s no way Easy Al could have been unaware. It’s as if a fireman proclaimed that he wasn’t aware that wood could burn. Greenspan also defended his decision to overrule one of the regional Fed people who had pushed for an investigation of lending practices. In the meantime, we are now in the aftermath of a bubble popping, and over 1 million people have lost homes.

It’s just amazing how irresponsible Greenspan was and how he’s trying to now be the voice of reason. He seem to be mirroring many Democrats and some Republicans in Congress, who voted for the war then claimed a few years later they were misled. Greenspan seems to be following the “it’s not my fault, I wasn’t informed” excuse. I guess it shows that he’s one of the people who will never admit their wrong . Considering all the harm he has done, it would be a shame if many people waste their money on his book.

I saw a blurb in the June 2007 issue of REASON magazine about Chinese authorities spending $62,000 to paint a mountain green. Sounded off the wall, so I poked around and found one site with pictures and some info. Turns out to be only part of a mountain, more specifically the wall of an old quarry. Never the less, it was sort of odd, and the pictures are interesting. Link is below:

GreenMountain

Now, once you painted the quarry in your neighborhood green, what else do you need to make your house a veritable palace of feng shui? Why, you need some fish in your toilet tank! Check out the link below, another proud example of American ingenuity at work:

Fish