Magic Statistics

Sounds like a plan worth trying.

Lack of sleep affects hormones that control appetite. So if you stay tucked up in bed, you may lose weight.
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We’re sleeping less than we used to. For instance, a survey of the sleep habits of more than a million Americans in 1960 showed that most people slept between eight and nine hours a night. But polls conducted in 2000 by the National Sleep Foundation in the US showed that average sleep duration had fallen to seven hours a night, a similar fall to that in Britain. At the same time, the incidence of obesity has nearly doubled.

At first sight, the two seem unrelated. Why should researchers link two such apparently disparate things as sleep and obesity? Here are some facts that provide clues. When we are sleep-deprived we become voraciously hungry and during times of food starvation we sleep less. This is because the hormones that sharpen appetite and regulate metabolism are modified by sleep. Studies have shown that those who get the least sleep have, on average, the highest body mass index.

Lack of sleep elevates levels of hormones that signal hunger. So, if you're trying to lose weight, be sure you get lots of sleep.

Pakistan is the latest nation to impose censorship on the internet, using its blasphemy laws which have often been used in the past to justify attacks on Christians. The Supreme Court of Pakistan has ordered the government to block internet sites that contain blasphemy against Islam. At the same time, the court criticised the government for not blocking such sites already–especially sites exhibiting the Danish cartoons–and summoned authorities to explain their failure to do so.

Pakistan's Supreme Court has directed the government to block internet sites displaying the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed and has summoned Pakistan's attorney general Makhdoom Ali Khan, the chairmen of the Pakistan Electronic Media and Regulatory Authority (Pemra) and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on March 13 to explain why the sites had not been blocked earlier.

“We will not accept any excuse or any technical objection on this issue as it concerns sentiments of entire Muslim Ummah [the worldwide Muslim community],” said Pakistan's Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry adding that all the authorities would have to appear in the court with a report of concrete measures for the implementation of the court’s order.

The list of agencies ordered to appear before the court on 13 March also includes Yahoo Incorporation USA. Yahoo recently caved in to Chinese demands for information on a dissident.

Yahoo has suffered a good deal of opprobrium since it was revealed last month [September 2005] that, when government officials came calling, the company's Hong Kong division simply surrendered information on a Chinese citizen who had presumably sought refuge, anonymity and a bit of freedom in the bosom of a Yahoo e-mail address: huoyan1989@yahoo.com.cn.

Shi Tao, the journalist using that address, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for sharing with foreigners a message that his newspaper had received from Chinese authorities, warning it not to overplay the 15th anniversary in June of the killing of pro-democracy demonstrators near Tiananmen Square.

Let's see if Yahoo co-operates with another oppressive foreign government's attempt to shut down views it does not approve of.

President Bush begins a state visit to Pakistan tomorrow. Will he raise concerns about freedom of speech, or persecution of Christians and other religious minorities?

via Western Resistance.

Megalomania's breaking out all over. Yesterday it was Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty telling Prime Minister Stephen Harper what to do about issues under federal jurisdiction; today it's Jimmy Carter having a hissy fit because the US government will not live up to promises he made to foreign diplomats. So, he has called on the UN to vote against American policy regarding the composition of the UN's Human Rights Council.

Mr. Carter said he made a personal promise to ambassadors from Egypt, Pakistan, and Cuba on the U.N. change issue [from the former Human Rights Commision to the new Human Rights Council] that was undermined by America's ambassador, John Bolton. "My hope is that when the vote is taken," he told the Council on Foreign Relations, "the other members will outvote the United States."
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The story, as Mr. Carter recalled, began with a recent dinner for 17 he attended in New York, where the guests included the president of the U.N. General Assembly, Jan Eliasson; an unidentified American representative, and other U.N. ambassadors from "powerful" countries at Turtle Bay, of which he mentioned only three: Cuba, Egypt, and Pakistan. The topic was the ongoing negotiations on an attempt to replace the widely discredited Geneva-based Human Rights Commission with a more accountable Human Rights Council.

"One of the things I assured them of was that the United States was not going to dominate all the other nations of the world in the Human Rights Council," Mr. Carter said. However, on the next day, Mr. Carter said, Mr. Bolton publicly "demanded" that the five permanent members of the Security Council will have permanent seats on the new council as well, "which subverted exactly what I have promised them," Mr. Carter said.

Why does Mr Carter think he has the authority to make assurances on behalf of the US government to representatives of foreign countries about anything? He was voted out of office way back in 1980 and not held federal elective office since. His party isn't even occupying the White House. And why would foreign diplomats take seriously assurances about US policy received from someone who has no official standing in the US government?

Dalton McGuinty at least has the excuse that voters somewhere in the country have elected him to office (even though that office doesn't have the power to make the decisions he's calling for). Mr Carter can't even claim that much. Mr Carter also seized the opportunity to take an incoherent jab at President Bush's religious beliefs:

Asked yesterday about his views on religion, Mr. Carter said, "The essence of my faith is one of peace." In a clear swipe at Mr. Bush's faith, and to a round of applause, he then added, "We worship the prince of peace, not of pre-emptive war."

Non sequitur.

via little green footballs.

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