The Deets

The most emailed story of the day today on Yahoo reports on a study claiming that you’ll lose the same amount of weight by cutting 200 calories a day out of your diet as you will by burning an extra 200 calories per day:

Diet, exercise take off equal pounds, study finds - Yahoo! News

“It’s all about the calories,” said Dr. Eric Ravussin of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, part of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

“So long as the energy deficit is the same, body weight, fat weight, and abdominal fat will all decrease in the same way.”

The fact that this is news explains why fad diet books sell so well in America. People still haven’t grasped this obvious concept are susceptible to all kinds of not-necessarily-science-based theories.

Here’s a clip from the show where creationists preach against evolution and science in general to children.

More previews are available on the Friends of God HBO site.

I think just about everyone who turned out the radio in the past 20 years in America is probably gay based on this list.

It’s just after 10pm on Jan 30th, which means I have 26 hours to go on my January challenge of no alcohol. Not that I’m counting or anything.

Frankly, giving up drinking alcohol has been a lot easier than soda. Convenient access to caffeine is apparently tougher for me to overcome than the effects of beer, wine, and Boone’s.

This is probably the longest I’ve gone without drinking since I started drinking, so I think it will be interesting to see what effect one beer will have on my system.

Which brings me to this questions: Which beer should I have first in February? I like to think globally and drink locally, so I’m leaning toward something from the area. Maybe a trip up to Barley John’s to try their Extra Special Lager?

What would you do?

• Mango
• Craisin
• Raisin
• Pineapple
• Apple

Worst:

• Apricot
• Banana

I don’t know how many of you are into reading mortgage blogs, but if you are, be sure to check out Alex Stenback’s “Behind the Mortgage” blog. Alex is a Minneapolis guy. We’ve met a few times before related to some work stuff. He’s a mortgage broker, growing radio celebrity with a show on KTLK (Sunday mornings), and a blogger, among other things.

Alex is great a cutting through the financing crap that really pisses consumers off, like this:

Behind The Mortgage: The Trigger List

For those not familiar, the Triggers program is sort of the dirty little secret of the credit repositories (Equifax, Experian, Transunion.) Here’s how it works: Any time you apply for a loan, that information, along with a slew of other personal, private data is immediately sold (over and over again) to other lenders, which often use rather unsavory tactics to trick you into doing business with them.

Minneapolis runners may find this new blog by Scott Moore particularly interesting: Running Commentary.

Scott and I have met up before to talk about graffiti issues in Minneapolis. He also runs a site where he’ll sketch a picture of you.

Graffiti, drawing stuff by request for a blog, running videos. Where do the similarities end?

This is the first time I know of that Bush openly admits that global warming exists:

NPR : Full Transcript: NPR Interview with President Bush

MR. WILLIAMS: Now, also in the State of the Union, you talked about the – quote here – “the serious challenge of global climate change.” Were you talking about global warming there?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Absolutely, and it’s a serious challenge. And one of the things that I am proud of is this administration has done a lot on advancing new technologies that will enable us to do two things – strengthen our economy, and at the same time, be better stewards of the environment. In 2002, I talked about an energy efficiency standard, which says new technologies will enable us to grow our economy, and at the same time, improve the environment, and we’re meeting certain standards that I set for the country.

I’ve been working on a theory that American intellect and tolerance move to the left over time. Imagine a bell curve where people who believe scientists know what they’re talking about when it comes to global warming are on the left, and anti-science folks are on the right. At this point, I think America is well past the peak of the bell curve and moving right with Bush’s position being the dividing line today (acknowledge global warming exists but don’t actually do anything about it). To the right of Bush is right-wing radio hosts like Minneapolis’ Jason Lewis on KTLK and his listeners, Michael Crichton and people who believe the crap he wrote in his book on this subject, and Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma.

The right side of the bell curve continues to get smaller.

I’ve added TVsnacks to my blogroll. It’s surely one of the top-5 blogs in Eagan. Anne’s off to a great start in the blogosphere, leaving her hubby, Kirk, in the post volume dust.

The commentary on Hamm’s at The Nook is pretty awesome. It’s great hearing about how Anne spent her childhood singing beer commercials. Anne, this is for you:

Just about any politician could be made to look like a fool in under three minutes on YouTube with a proper agenda. However, John McCain is uniquely qualified for this honor due to the hypocrisy of the statements he’s made in an attempt to pander to conservative groups in preparation for his presidential run.