Month: November 2002

Weight Training May Reduce Heart Disease

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

According to a new study of 44,000 men, weight training may reduce heart disease:

Harvard University researchers studied more than 44,000 men who participated in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study and looked at the role different types of exercise played on heart disease risk.

Not surprisingly, aerobic exercises like running and rowing were shown to be beneficial for reducing risk. But one of the biggest surprises was the effect of weight training. Those who lifted weights for 30 minutes or more a week had a risk reduction of 23 percent. [&hellip]

I can’t say that I’m terribly surprised, but I’m pleased to hear that.

Civil Liberties Voting Guide

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

In my last post, I lamented the lack of a civil-liberties based voting guide. Well, a quick search on Google lead me to the ACLU Scorecard.

Of course, like any voting guide, it has the deficiency in that it can only rate the incumbents (since, by definition, most challengers don’t have a voting record).

Still, even this voters’ guide is not infallible. For instance, they list the results of a vote on school vouchers (so far, so good). However, they note that “The ACLU opposed the amendment”, which seemed a bit odd to me since vouchers would only offer parents more choices in the education options of their children :-/.

Leave a comment below if you have any other voters guides to recommend.

High Tech Voting Guide

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

If, like me, you’re having trouble deciding who to vote for, ITIC has a High Tech Voting Guide. There, they list whether Senators and Representatives voted “pro-IT”.

According to a C|Net article on the voting guide, apparently Republicans are generally more pro-IT than Democrats (which surprised me a bit).

The trade association released only a list of how individual politicians voted, but an analysis performed by CNET News.com shows that House Republicans voted in accordance with the tech industry's views 89 percent of the time, compared with just 43 percent of the time for Democrats. […]

But then, I came across this bit which explained how the (sometimes) freedom-restricting Republicans ended up with such a pro-IT rating. Essentially, the guide ends up being pro-IT business, and not necessarily pro-technology:

Two votes that ITIC liked—on a computer crime bill and on an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)—were controversial among civil liberties and privacy groups.

In July, the House voted for a computer crime bill that would allow for life prison sentences for malicious computer hackers and expand police ability to conduct Internet or telephone eavesdropping without obtaining a court order first. The liberal Electronic Privacy Information Center and the conservative Free Congress Foundation both opposed it, but ITIC and other business groups lobbied for the measure.

Hmm, maybe this particular “high-tech guide” isn’t so great after all... Now, if only I could find a freedom-based voting guide :-/.

Enterprise: Carbon Creek

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

I watched the Enterprise episode “Carbon Creek” over the weekend. I’m quite a fan of Enterprise, and I find that many of the episodes are just as good as TNG from years back.

In this episode, T’Pol tells the story of how Vulcans made First Contact with humans in Pennsylvania back in the ’50s. Spoilers follow.

There wasn’t much plot in the episode, and it was more of a character study (but, that’s ok, as sometimes that can turn out well). T’Pol tells of how a Vulcan ship crash-lands on Earth and, with little hope of rescue, the Vulcans start living among humans.

After several weeks of human life, they hear that their distress call was received after all, and that a Vulcan ship will pick them up. At this point, one of the Earth-living Vulcans mentions to his captain (T’Mir) that he would like to stay on Earth.

Cut to the rescue-ship landing scene, and the captain of that ship asks why only two Vulcans are at the landing point. T’Mir explains that two of her comrades died in the crash and that their bodies were cremated (really, only one body was cremated). So, she was covering for the Vulcan that wanted to stay behind — but she lied. And, Vulcans can’t lie, right? Bleh.