Bloggers Search for Anonymity
On Friday, 13 April, BBC published a report by David Reid about bloggers need for anonymity. Because in many countries of the world the government is trying to track and limit bloggers, he recommends a handbook published by the media rights group, Reporters Without Borders, called The Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents.
You can read the article by clicking on the blue type above. Reporters Without Borders offers the booklet as a free download when you click here.
Reporters Without Borders has it’s own website here where they summarize some of the main events of each day. They also keep a tally of the number of people worldwide who are imprisoned for blogging related activities.
Fat scan shows up ‘true’ obesity
From BBC Health News.
Given that obesity is becoming a world wide epidemic, and kills more people than the bird flu, this can be a helpful tool.
Scientists say they have developed a 3D scanner that can accurately determine if a person is truly obese.
Currently, doctors gauge fatness with a calculation of body mass index (BMI). But BMI is flawed – people with lots of muscle are considered overweight.
Instead of relying on weight and height measurements, as BMI does, the scan takes into account body shape and how much fat a person carries.
Birmingham’s Heartlands Hospital has been testing this Body Volume Index.
Muscle or fat?
One human guinea pig who has tested the BVI scanner is 19-year-old rower Ashley Granger.
He is 6ft 2ins (1.88m) tall and according to his BMI of 28 is at the top end of the overweight category, borderline obese.
Muscle weighs more than fat does. And you can hide away fat but be quite thin looking
Fitness trainer Matt Roberts
His BVI scan correctly showed that he carries very little fat and that his weight is largely down to muscle.
Fitness trainer Matt Roberts said: “Muscle weighs more than fat does. And you can hide away fat but be quite thin looking.
“So it’s important that we don’t just use BMI alone.”
Dr Asad Rahim, a consultant in the obesity and endocrinology department at Heartlands Hospital, explained the work they had done with the BVI scanner over the last two years.
“We have completed the patient evaluation stage and are currently assessing the results.
“The scanner has certainly helped motivate some patients to manage their weight more effectively but there are also patients who were not scanned who lost weight.”
The next phase of testing has now been launched – the plan is to scan at least 20,000 people over the next two years as part of the Body Benchmark Study.
Select Research, the company which makes the scanners, said it hoped to make them available to GP surgeries at an “affordable” cost.
A Male Theory
I read this op-ed piece yesterday in the Kuwait Times, and found it heartbreaking. And yet . . . I read hints of these stories in your blogs, too. I am printing this with the author’s permission. Tell me what you think – and make a copy and send it on to Fouad Al-Obaid, whose e-mail address is at the end of the article.
A Male Theory
By: Fouad Al-Obaid
In recent talks with many friends, I heard rather spine chilling revelations on how my fellow males (Kuwaiti that is) perceive their fellow Kuwaiti girl counterparts! Today I will try to rationally touch upon a matter that is highly irrational in nature. I will discuss the Kuwaiti male theory on women, dating and relating.
The average Abdallah I have noticed is a person filled with great ego, an individual who has a desire to control and manipulate others. In his desire to manipulate, often encourage by both elder relatives and society at large, seemingly has developed a tendency to project power over his friends, enemies, and concubines alike.
The desire of power is inherently something that most men aspire to. However if everyone in society was a leader then it would be hard to govern. Hence men in local custom, and to an extent projected in religion are deemed to be sovereigns of their possessions, which could be understood as leaders of their family and of the people that directly report to them. In this social order, a concubine is yet another person the average Abdallah can project his power upon.
A dilemma however constantly surrounds the average Abdallah for despite his desire to grow his “harem” he is conscious that perhaps other ill-natured people: people at the end of the day similar to him, are likewise on the look for yet another conquest.
Abdallah aware of the situation realizes that people out there could try to make any-given number of his female relatives likewise concubines in their respective “harems”. At this point if one question’s Abdallah’s rational of wanting other female yet at the same time if one transgressed his “sovereign kingdom” he would not hesitate to decapitate the fool who would have dared come close to any of his female relatives. Yet he like a lion in a jungle after a long day preying on Gulf Street and Marina, nevertheless is proud to share details of his hunt with fellow kings at their weekly roundtable or more correctly speaking “diwaniya”.
Moving to the next illogical notion that many have in recent times developed, if a girl accepts to even talk “innocently” on the phone it is seen as a big problem by many, yet most if not all people I have come to known do it on a rather consistent basis. Following the initial contact, a relationship develops usually, and more often than not, it would be an open one, unless off course prince-charming is eloquent in speech and threatening in nature. If the later is the case, then another highly illogical matter arises. Brining back the concept of power and control, guys I have noticed have this inherent nature to have the final word on most of everything. This is applied to “dating” for I have witnessed many irrational actions based on the later notion.
I recall once being with a friend cruising around when he called his “girlfriend” and asked here where she was. Upon knowing that she was out with her mother, he started to literally scream and shout at her, telling her how she disobeyed his command to not go out, and ordered her to return home immediately, he further instructed her to make an excuse in order for her mother not to doubt anything was wrong with her! I for one was shocked by the conversation and so I intriguingly asked the given friend about the rational of his action.
In all calm and serenity he replied that he had to teach her how to respect him. Furthermore he went on how it made him feel good, and that it was her fault not to ask permission from him to go out! What made the situation that much more unusual was the fact that they were “phone-dating”, needless to mention the irony of the situation!
On the one hand you have the guy ordering a girl he physically isn’t close to. On the other hand you have a girl who naively believed that the guy was overprotective and saw it as a gesture of love, or simply plainly put happened to be stupid, foolish enough to abide by the rules of a guy she barely knew; certainly a guy she will not end up having any meaningful relationship with.
For thoughts and comments fouad@kuwaittimes.net
So here is my question – would a man marry a woman who had a phone relationship with him? Is a phone relationship enough to ruin a woman’s reputation?
Djinns and Jewish Grandmothers
Two small nuggets from today’s Kuwait Times.
Black ‘Jinn’ Terrorizes Bayan Neighborhood
Kuwait: Terrified Bayan residents were unable to sleep last night from fears of being victims of an unknown creature, which attacked many of them.
Police said that they received several reports from residents of the creature, which they dubbed as ‘jinn.’ One complaintant said that the ‘jinn’ attacked his wife while she was praying; another said that his daughter had been attacked and strangled, while a third said that someone kept consistently knocking on his bedroom window but none claimed to have actually seen the ‘jinn.’
(Police captured a “ferocious black ape”.)
I love this second article:
Jewish Grandmothers Patrol Checkpoints in West Bank
Jerusalem: Hanna Barag remembers the day an Israeli soldier called her a Palestinian whore. She was 67 and she had just joined Machsomwatch, an all-women group set up to curb human rights abuses at military checkpoints in the West Bank. “It was at the Qalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah,” Barag said, “and the remark at first struck me speechless. But then I asked him two questions: ‘Do you really think a woman my age has a chance at that profession? And would you say what you said to me to YOUR grandmother?'”
The soldier said nothing, but was embarrassed, and when Barag, who was born in Israel and describes herself as a Zionist, returned for another “shift” of watchdog duty a week later, the soldier was there – and apologized.
That was in the early days of Machsomwatch, set up in 2001 by three Israeli women who were alarmed by a spate of reports of beatings and abuse of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli soldiers manning checkpoints. . .
You can read the rest of the story here.
Little old ladies in tennis shoes, volunteering to guard the guards one night a week. . . changing their world.
Bacteria Helpful, Not Harmful
You might think I am obsessed with bacteria, but I am not. I think we are overly fearful, and overly protective of ourselves. Washing hands frequently is proven to help prevent frequent colds, but disinfecting our work place, etc. on a daily basis is probably not so productive. This article says, essentially, that we can disinfect all we want; we carry the stuff with us.
Bacteria on our skin natural, so stop obsessing with the hygiene
March 17, 2007
FEAR of common bacteria stoked by incessant advertising of antimicrobial soaps and cleaners may be misplaced. Researchers say that while they have discovered nearly 200 different species of bacteria living on human skin, many of these have evolved along with us for so long that they should be considered part of us – and many are helpful rather than harmful.
Some of 182 species identified on the skin appeared to be permanently in residence, while others were temporary visitors, according to the researchers from New York University School of Medicine.
In research published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr Martin Blaser and his colleagues took swabs from the forearms of six healthy people to study the bacterial populations in human skin – our largest organ.
“We identify about 182 species,” Blaser said in an interview. “And based on those numbers, we estimate there are probably at least 250 species in the skin.
“In comparison, a good zoo might have 100 species or 200 species. So we already know that there are as many different species in our skin, just on the forearm, as there are in a good zoo.”
Bacteria are single-celled micro-organisms believed to have been the first living things on Earth.
While some cause disease, bacteria also reside normally in our bodies, for example in the digestive tract, performing useful chores.
“Without good bacteria, the body could not survive,” added Dr Zhan Gao, a scientist in Blaser’s lab involved in the study.
The researchers noted that microbes in the body actually outnumber human cells 10-to-1.
“Our microbes are actually, in essence, a part of our body,” Blaser said. “We think that many of the normal organisms are protecting the skin. So that’s why I don’t think it’s a great idea to keep washing all the time because we’re basically washing off one of our defence layers,” Blaser added.
It has long been known that bacteria reside in the skin, but Blaser and his colleagues used a sophisticated molecular technique based on DNA to conduct a rigorous census.
The inhabitants proved to be more diverse than had been thought, with about 8 per cent of the species previously unknown, the researchers found.
Some bacteria seemed to be permanent residents of the skin, with four genera – Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Propionibacteria and Corynebacteria – accounting for a bit more than half the population. Others were more transient.
In each person, the population of bacteria changed over time although a core set existed for each.
The volunteers included three men and three women, and the findings suggested the two sexes may differ in the bacteria they tote along.
The researchers previously had studied bacteria in the stomach and esophagus. With this research, they found that the insides of the body and the skin had major differences in bacterial populations.
“Microbes have been living in animals probably for a billion years. And the microbes that we have in our body are not accidental. They have evolved with us,” Blaser said.
Reuters
This article is from The Australian: Health and I found it on Google News.
Record foreclosures hit mortgage lenders
This story is from USA Today and is related to an earlier blog entry on spiraling mortgage foreclosures. The reason it caught my eye is that no-where in the article does it mention that the top two states where foreclosures occurred are Mississippi and Louisiana, the two states most recently hit – and hit hard – by hurricanes. And the reason people are failing to continue mortgage payments are that in some cases, the houses no longer exist and either they had no insurance, or the insurance company found a way NOT to pay up.
This is a big story – the record foreclosures – and evidence how in every society, when borrowing money becomes too easy, people get hurt.
It is an equally big story when the insurance companies don’t pay up. I have been told by the company insuring my Florida house that they will probably not continue insuring me. It is hard to find a company who will insure your house against hurricane damage in Florida.
By Noelle Knox, USA TODAY
The reason many mortgage lenders are in trouble became alarmingly clear Tuesday. The Mortgage Bankers Association said more than 2.1 million Americans with a home loan missed at least one payment at the end of last year — and the rate of new foreclosures hit a record.
The problem is most severe for borrowers with scuffed credit and adjustable-rate mortgages. More than 14% of them were behind on their payments. And the worst is yet to come, the MBA said. At least $300 billion in subprime ARMs will reset this year to higher interest rates. Those borrowers face higher payments and a harder time refinancing.
Blindsided by the number of loans that have already gone bad, more than two dozen lenders have gone out of business or been purchased. New Century Financial, the nation’s second-largest subprime lender, has quit making loans and is edging toward bankruptcy protection.
“There’s been a stunning erosion of mortgage quality,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “It’s primarily in the subprime market, but the entire market is weakening … and that adds to problems in the housing market, and by extension the broader economy.” Retailers are already feeling the effect, he said, because homeowners tend to spend less when they fear their homes are worth less.
To stem their losses, lenders are ending 100% financing plans, requiring better credit scores and demanding more proof of a borrower’s income. The stricter rules are squeezing first-time buyers, as well as homeowners who want to refinance.
To read the rest of the story, and to see a state-by-state list of mortgage foreclosures, Click USA Today, here.
Even Light Exercise Helps Smokers Quit
This is for my blogging friend Elijah, from Google Health News:
Even short bouts of light exercise such as strolling can help smokers quit by reducing cigarette cravings and withdrawal symptoms, say scientists at the University of Exeter in the UK.
The study is published in the April edition of the journal Addiction.
The scientists suggest that a short session of moderate exercise, lasting for as little as five minutes, is sufficient to reduce cravings for a cigarette.
“People who struggle to give up smoking could make things much easier for themselves by taking just moderate exercise,” said lead author Dr Adrian Taylor of the University of Exeter’s School of Sport and Health Sciences.
“Not only may it help prevent weight gain but it will also help control the cravings and withdrawal symptoms that often lead to relapse,” he added.
With today, 14th March, being National No Smoking Day in the UK, it is expected that one third of UK smokers (around 4 million people) will try to give up and 85,000 will do so for good.
Dr Taylor and his co-authors reviewed 12 studies on the effect of a single session of exercise compared to no exercise on three outcome measures: cigarette cravings, withdrawal symptoms and smoking behaviour. All reported beneficial impact on at least one of the three outcome measures.
The papers they reviewed covered between them nearly 1,400 people who rarely exercised and in all but one study stopped smoking during the period of the experiment.
The participants were assessed while they were doing the exercise using single and multi-item questions on cravings, symptoms of withdrawal and negative affect, the results of which reduced rapidly during exercise and remained reduced for up to 50 minutes afterwards.
Most of the studies on withdrawal symptoms showed a significant reduction in 2 of 6 symptoms: stress, restlessness, irritability, anxiety, tension and poor concentration.
Most of the studies showed increasing reductions in cravings and withdrawal symptoms with increasing duration and intensity of exercise, but even a short 5 minute seated exercise showed beneficial effects.
For the rest of the article, Click here.
Risk Taking Men Found Less Attractive
Risk-taking men ‘not attractive’ from BBC Health News.
Women are not attracted to dare-devil men, US researchers believe.
Men thought the opposite sex would be attracted by risky stunts such as bungee jumping and fast driving, a study of 48 men and 52 women found.
But in contrast, women said it was a turn-off, claiming they preferred more cautious people for partners.
However, the team from the University of Maine in Orono said those who took risks for the thrill were likely to be respected by fellow men.
Lead researcher Dr William Farthing said: “Men thought women would be impressed by pointless gambles, but women in fact preferred cautious men.”
However, Dr Farthing said women were attracted to men with a high-status, so if the risk-taking meant a man was respected by his friends they could then become attractive.
During the research, reported in New Scientist magazine, the young people were all given a series of scenarios to choose from, including saving someone’s life and fast driving.
The participants were asked to decide which they found more attractive.
The majority of women choose an altruistic action, rather than a thrill-seeking scenario.
Dr David Lewis, a member of the British Psychological Society, said in many ways the findings were not surprising.
“Previous studies have show that women are attracted to someone who acts in an altruistic way. Saving someone’s life shows a degree of empathy and sensitivity, and this is an attractive trait in men.
“On the other hand men see risk-taking as a particularly macho characteristic.
“Social norms are important and our society attaches weight to men expressing their macho qualities.
“But I think what you would find is that as men get older, they become less prepared to take risks.
“When you decide to do something you attach a cost-benefit to it, and when men are older the priorities they place on things change.”
Something in the Way She Moves . . .
From BBC Health News.
Attraction ‘determined by walk’
There really is something in the way she moves, according to researchers.
An hourglass figure has long been perceived to be the ideal figure for a woman to have.
But New York University researchers have found that to be found attractive, a woman had to move in a feminine way – swaying her hips.
Men, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper found, were more attractive if they moved with a “shoulder swagger”.
The waist-hip ratio has long been thought to be key to Western perceptions of attractiveness, with a small waist and bigger hips the ideal combination.
Marilyn Monroe, and now Beyonce and Jennifer Lopez are famous examples of women with that figure.
Its popularity may be down to media images, or because Western women do not need to have strong and muscular bodies in order to carry out manual labour, unlike women in developing countries.
But the US research suggests they would never have achieved their sex symbol status if they did not move in the right way.
Not just measurements
The team carried out a series of studies involving over 700 participants who were shown a variety of animations and videos of people moving.
Some showed shadow figures, where it was not possible to see if it was a man or a woman, while others obviously showed a man or a woman.
No matter which format was being used, the participants rated women or “female” figures as more attractive if their hips swayed as they walked, while men were more attractive if they had the characteristic shoulder movement.
The research also confirmed the waist-hip ratio assumption, with women’s attractiveness being rated higher if their waist-hip ratio was small and men’s being higher if their’s was large.
But Kerri Johnson and Louis Tassinary who led the research, say their work shows attractiveness is not as simple as the difference between two measurements.
Writing in PNAS, the researchers said: “The body’s shape and motion provoke basic social perceptions, biological sex and gender – ie masculinity or femininity respectively.
“The compatibility of these basic precepts predicts perceived attractiveness.”
The team say their findings only apply to Western cultures, and other societies will judge attractiveness depending on their most prized feminine and masculine traits.
Dr George Fieldman, principal lecturer in psychology at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College said: “This is quite plausible.
“It’s the movement which attracts, and not just the waist-hip ratio per se.”
He added: “It would be interesting to see what the ideal combination of measurements and wiggle is.”
Internet Phones Giggle
From a teeny-tiny article on page 2 of today’s Kuwait Times:
‘Phone’ Teams Honored
Kuwait: It is important to reduce charges of international calls to prevent illegal activities, Communication Minister Dr. Maasouma Al-Mubarak stressed yesterday.
In a press conference held on the occasion of honoring the team of the ministry’s telephone control department, Al-Mubarak said the department succeeded in cooperation with the Interior Ministry in locating and stopping illegal international calls dealers praising their efforts that continued despite the dangers they faced.
My comment: I’m sorry. I truly mean no disrespect. And at the same time I am having a very hard time trying to maintain a straight face. Oh, these dangerous telephone callers out there!
• Raiding brothels.
• Chasing drug dealers.
• Dealing with arrogant/immature/drunk/drugged drivers.
• Family disputes involving knives and guns.
• Protecting the borders, land and sea.
All of the above can involve serious dangers. One of the axioms in policing is that your most dangerous call is getting between a fighting husband and wife. But the bravery of raiding telephone call centers? Please. Spare me.
You can’t turn back the clock. Technology has given us a whole new way of making international calls. The MOC can spend its resources fighting a numerous enemy – people who want to make reasonably priced phone calls – or they can become a part of the solution, regulating and encouraging growths of new technologies to the greater good of all.
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