Magic Statistics

Margaret Wente has not climbed on board the preventative health care bandwagon.  When it comes to personal health, her motto is: “Don’t go looking for trouble and trouble won’t go looking for you”.

I've been forgetting about mammograms, colonoscopies, Pap smears, stress tests, bone-density scans, skin screening and all the other testing you're supposed to have these days.
. . .
My friends are horrified at my negligence. They are zealous about prevention. They're proud of their latest colonoscopies. Some of them are so concerned about wellness that they (or their employers) pay thousands of dollars for regular executive-style workups that probe their body's every nook and cranny. Needless to say, they invariably find out there's something wrong with them that requires some sort of medical intervention.

Maybe there’s a connection between wellness mania and the results of a recent study which found that, although the British spend far less on health than Americans do, the Americans have higher rates of heart disease, obesity, strokes, cancer, etc.

Americans aren't really sicker than Brits. They're just more medicalized. They get far more tests, more diagnoses and more treatment. And so they're far more likely to say they have a medical condition.

This explains the most curious finding of the study, which reported that the richest Americans seem to be the sickest ones of all. This isn't really true, of course. They just have more diagnoses.

There’s much truth to this, but I think there’s more to the story.  Americans take far fewer paid vacation days than do Europeans.  Maybe they’re so stressed out from working so much that it’s affecting their health.  (It’s probably not doing their personal happiness in life much good, either.)  Does that help explain why the wealthiest Americans are as unhealthy as the poorest English?

For access to the complete column, click here.

According to former Russian economic advisor Andrei Illarionov, Europe has jeopardized its own energy security and given the increasingly illiberal Russian government immense leverage over Western political policy and institutions.  This has led to a “chilly war” not unlike the Cold War of the 1950s through the 1980s: a civilisational conflict.

“It is no surprise that Europe is facing a cold, dark future deprived of energy. In recent years, many European leaders have been obsessed with energy rationing. They intentionally have demonised energy production and use. They have claimed that hydrocarbon energy is too cheap and demanded a carbon tax. They have adopted the Kyoto Protocol – and cajoled Russia into joining,” said Illarionov.

“Now that the bear of state interventionism and central planning is out of its cave, the Russian authorities are effectively offering the energy rationing so desired by European leaders. They shouldn’t be surprised: this ‘chilly war’ is exactly what they have worked so hard to secure,” he continued.
. . .
“What we see now is a great battle unfolding in front of our eyes, one with implications similar to those of the Cold War. It is a battle not predicated on military, political or economic power. It is about the fundamental institutions that define western civilization – the market economy, liberal democracy, the rule of law – and the moral standards and values underlying these institutions,” said Illarionov.

Mr Illarionov says the next G8 meeting, scheduled for July in St Petersburg, could indicate whether Western Europe will kowtow to the new Russian “energy tsars” or defend its heritage and civilisation.

via Greenie Watch.

via UK Spectator. 

YIKES!

“Next door” as in across the territorial boundary in Alaska.

From the recently thawed tidal flats that edge Anchorage to the tundra of western Alaska, the hunt for deadly avian influenza virus is on.

Biologists and rural hunters have begun testing wild birds to search for signs of the H5N1 virus that has infected birds in Asia, Africa and Europe and caused more than 120 deaths on those continents.

Let us know if something turns up, eh?

via Drudge.

A mysterious and dramatic increase in suicides by females in southeast Turkey follows a change in the law criminalising so-called "honour killings".  Before the change, a man who killed a female relative because the woman was thought to have brought dishonour on the family could expect lenient treatment from the authorities.  Now, however, the law calls for life imprisonment in such cases.  So, women are being pressured into killing themselves or murdered anyway and alleged to have committed suicide.

Zulfinan Baycinar died from a bullet in her back. Her husband’s family went into mourning for the 27-year-old’s “tragic suicide”. She was very happy, they said, they can’t imagine what got into her.

But now Baycinar’s husband is on trial for murder. Prosecutors say she was killed because she dared to oppose against her husband’s wish to take a second wife, refusing to bow to tradition and know her place.

So far this year there have been more reported suicide attempts in the area than were seen in all of last year.

The collect for today, Ascension-Day, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do believe thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continuously dwell, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

For the Epistle: Acts 1:1-11
The Gospel: St Mark 16:14-20