Friday, January 09, 2004
There are only two terror threat levels
That's right, only two. There are allegedly five levels, but the level has only been orange or yellow since the system was created, so for all practical purposes there are only two.
Thursday, January 08, 2004
W's immigration proposal
On the one hand, it's not good that there are millions of workers here illegally. As you may know from reading my blogs, I am opposed to laws that are broken by millions. Yet it has NOT been made clear to me at all why we can't prevent people from crossing the Mexican border illegally. For a fraction of the costs of our war in Iraq, I'm sure we can put up an effective fence and make sure it's patrolled by.
The story that businesses can only hire foreign workers if no American's want the job is just a fiction, because there would be an American who would want the job if the salary was increased enough.
I also assume that any babies born here by guest workers would automatically be American citizens, so like it or not, this new law is going to create a huge number of new American citizens.
So after thinking about this law some more, I think it's bad idea. It also seems to me that W is trying to pander to the Hispanic vote. It further seems likely to me that W is going to lose the next election, but that's the topic of a future blog entry.
Sunday, January 04, 2004
Are Americans really fat?
I'm sure you've heard a million times that Americans are getting fatter. It will often come with a rebuke that it's because we are eating unhealthy foods.
Unfortunately, our news media just reports this stuff without attempting to find the real truth behind the story.
(1) When they say that xx% of Americans are "overweight" or "obese" compared to how it was in the past, I want to know what "overweight" or "obese" means, and if these definitions have changed over the years.
(2) Different races have different average weights. Is the changing racial compositon of America contributing to the higher percentage of Americans who are "overweight".
(3) One's weight is largely determine by genetics. Are heavier people having more children than thin people? If so, this would be contributing to the alleged increasing heaviness of Americans.
(4) Weightlifting is much more popular today than it was a generation ago. All this weightlifting is building muscles that adds to people's weight. The definition for "overweight" is based only on height/weight relationship, it ignores how much of that weight is muscle.
When you factor in all of these questions, I actually doubt that there is any problem with the American diet or anything like that. And if there is, maybe it's because Americans are doing what the health authorities are telling them. Dr. Atkins' contrarian high fat/high protein diet causes people to lose weight. Our health authorities obviously don't have a clue.
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And finally, apologies for skipping a week without writing anything. I guess I've been pre-occupied with other pursuits.
