Some counter-intuitive points about smoking

Peter Martin's article in the Sydney Morning Herald today was very interesting. Some highlights ('bold" is mine):

"Then they [2 Melbourne Institute researchers] examined the effect of the extra bans on smoking in public places introduced in some states. They found that while these encouraged older Australians and the very young to quit, people aged 18 to 24 were actually less likely to quit in those states in which a ban had been introduced.

This "rebellion" effect appears to pop up all over the place when it comes to fighting smoking. It had been thought that increasing the price of cigarettes would cut the number sold and improve the health of smokers. It certainly cuts the number sold. In Australia, a price increase of 10 per cent cuts sales by about 4 per cent. But a price increase doesn't necessarily cut the amount of nicotine taken into smokers' bodies....

She [economist researcher Francesca Cornaglia] found that while increases in cigarette taxes did cut the number of cigarettes sold, they appeared not to cut at all the level of continine in smokers' saliva. As she put it: smokers were smoking fewer cigarettes but were smoking each one "more intensively"....

Banning smoking on public transport, in shopping centres and in schools appears to improve non-smokers' health. But banning it in places where smokers "go out", such as restaurants and bars, makes the health of non-smokers worse. It pushes smokers away from those establishments and back into their homes where they pump smoke into the air breathed by their children and loved ones. Cornaglia suggested a better public health measure would be to allow the creation of special smoking establishments where smokers could breathe smoke over each other."

I guess that is what bars used to be, except that non smokers wanted to use or work in them too.
All very interesting. While I never smoked, many in my family did for at least some time in their lives, and I have never felt fanatically against it; especially as going out to bars and nightclubs during my young adulthood (at a time they were still quite smokey) was not my "thing" anyway. However, the more I read about its health consequences, and hear of relatives and friends whose health now leads them to deeply regret their past habit, the more loathesome I feel the industry really is. Has any mad dictator anywhere yet tried banning it totally? I wonder what the unforeseen consequences of that would be?

Some cautious optimism on AIDS

news @ nature.com�-�AIDS at Christmas time�

The link above is to a more or less optimistic editorial in Nature on the increasing ability to fight AIDS, even in the poorest countries, with anti viral drugs.

Note that evil capitalism has not prevented this: "The issue of drug pricing has become less acute, as mechanisms have been established to supply HIV treatments at a reasonable cost." But stupidity is not helping, especially in South Africa:

"South Africa is one of the wealthiest countries on the African continent, but less than a fifth of the nearly 700,000 people who need drugs are receiving them. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the country's health minister, meanwhile continues to emphasize herbal remedies, most recently in a speech in Durban on 1 December."

Surprisingly, the Wikipedia entry about her notes that Tshabalala-Msimang is a real doctor, with medical training from Russia and Europe. It's a wonder that Queensland Health didn't offer her a job!

More bad news on Iran

It seems somewhat ironic that the Guardian is currently running hard with the "nuclear danger from Iran" issue.

Have a look at these 3 recent Guardian stories:

"Tehran ends freeze on nuclear fuel research"

" The Iranian government has been successfully scouring Europe for the sophisticated equipment needed to develop a nuclear bomb, according to the latest western intelligence assessment of the country's weapons programmes." (The intelligence assessment is that of the Europeans, so it presumably won't be seen quite as dubiously as intelligence from the US.)

"Intelligence report claims nuclear market thriving" From this story, note the following:

"...it is not surprising that much of the document focuses on Iranian activities - not only in the nuclear field, but in bio-chemical and conventional weapons, notably its "very ambitious" missile programmes. The document lists more than 200 Iranian companies, institutes, government offices and academic outfits said to be engaged in weapons research, development and procurement, and mostly subordinate to the defence ministry in Tehran's armed forces logistics department.

Russia, which has just clinched a billion-dollar missile deal with Iran, is identified as crucial to Iran's military programmes, especially the missile development; 16 Russian companies and academic institutes are named as helping and profiting from the Iranian military effort. They range from the Glavkosmos space agency to St Petersburg's Technical University.

The Iranians, as well as the Pakistanis and the Syrians, are also benefiting from North Korean military prowess and exports, the document says, noting that "the export of arms equipment is currently reckoned to be North Korea's most important source of income."

So the "axis of evil" comment by George W Bush is seemingly given support via stories in the Guardian. How interesting...

Christopher Hitchens keeps at it

Are Elections Democratic? - Dictatorships are hardly preferable. By Christopher Hitchens

See the link for Christopher Hitchen's latest reasoned attack on the anti-war isolationists who are determined to be pessimistic about every apparent advance in Iraq.

For those who still smoke

Just One To Four Cigarettes Daily Triples Risk Of Dying Of Heart Disease Or Lung Cancer

I think I missed this one from September last year. I find this study pretty surprising too, as I think a lot of people would assume that a couple of cigarettes after dinner would do so little harm as to not be worth worrying about. Seems clearly wrong...

For those who received chocolates at Christmas

A Few Squares Of Dark Chocolate A Day May Stave Off Artery Hardening In Smokers

The above story seems to indicate a pretty remarkable effect of the consumption of dark chocolate, at least in smokers:

"After two hours, ultrasound scans revealed that dark chocolate significantly improved the smoothness of arterial flow, an effect which lasted for eight hours. Blood sample analysis also showed that dark chocolate almost halved platelet activity. Antioxidant levels rose sharply after two hours.

White chocolate had no effect on endothelial cells, platelets, or antioxidant levels.

Dark chocolate has more antioxidants per gram than other foods laden with the substances, such as red wine, green tea, and berry fruits, say the authors, who suggest that the beneficial effects of dark chocolate lie in its antioxidant content.

"...Only a small daily treat of dark chocolate may substantially increase the amount of antioxidant intake and beneficially affect vascular health," conclude the authors. "

One thing to note, though, is that this was very dark chocolate (74% cocoa solids), and from what I can gather most commonly sold dark chocolates are maybe around the 30 to 40% mark. I did try a 70 or 80% one from a specialty shop once, and it was rather on the bitter side. I think Lindt might sell a very high proportion one too; maybe it tastes better.

New Year Greetings for 2006

I hope to resume a more or less "normal" rate of blogging soon.

I note that the on-line magazines such as Slate and Salon have a fair amount of "filler" at this time of year. These are sometimes good and interesting, though, and here are some I recommend:

From Slate: a warning to all those who have a romantic idea of opening a coffee shop. (Sure it is written from a New York perspective, but I bet the same thing happens here all the time.)

Also from Slate: a woman has a go at being an inflatable mascot at a basketball game. Quite a few funny lines (and I share her mental inability to take any significant interest in team sports. Or even solo ones.)

From Salon: a writer who stumbled into being a newspaper food critic for a couple years explains how debilitating the job became.

Speaking of food critics, I have always enjoyed listening to Alan Saunders on Radio National. He seems too smart to not share the same reservations that the Salon article writer has about the whole field of "food porn", yet he keeps at it (broadcasting and sometimes writing on food in all its aspects) for years.

Some Christmas Thoughts

1. God it's hot. (I was reminded that Christmas day 2004 in Brisbane was not all that hot. Unfortunately, this has been wiped from my mind in view of the other 9 stinking hot and humid Christmas Days in the last decade.)

2. I will not have a mid life crisis that involves become a caterer. Estimating the amount of food to be consumed by 15 adults and 4 children proved to be impossible.

4. This years game of "how long can we keep eating that ham" is currently on.

5. Giving ham skin to a dog might make it vomit.

6. I just remembered now - I forgot to put out the party poppers. (That's about number 20 on a list of things we forget to serve or do on Christmas day.)

7. I now have to join the rest of the world and read "The Da Vinci Code".

8. One of the local TV stations was so desperate for something to show on the Christmas Day evening news that they went to the international terminal at the airport and filmed people arriving and being hugged by their relatives.

9. Spa pools spend most of their time broken.

10. If they moved Christmas Day to 18 December, maybe most small businesses could close for 2 weeks instead of only one. Would suit me.

More worrying news about Iran

Waiting for the rapture in Iran - Yahoo! News

Iran's president is a real worry. (See the Christian Science Monitor story above.)

Why oil rich countries can stay poor

The curse of oil | The paradox of plenty | Economist.com

An interesting article in the Economist (link above) on the "curse of oil". This kind of backgrounder is what this magazine does best.

Tell us something we didn't know already..

Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist... 12/14/2005

And you thought Qantas in flight service was bad...

In the Sydney Morning Herald:

"An off-duty pilot was sentenced to 14 years in jail today for killing Indonesia's top human rights activist in a crime judges said was politically motivated.

Judge Cicit Sutiarso did not say whether the court believed that Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto was acting on someone else's orders when he placed a lethal dose of arsenic in food served to Munir Thalib on a Garuda airlines flight to Amsterdam on September 7, 2004."

What I want for Christmas

These are all from The Red Ferret Journal :


To quote: "Ladies, spoil the man in your life this year with the LBC (Laid Back Computing) 2000 computer rig. Your cuddly couch potato will thank you with tears in his eyes as he unpacks his slob prop and accessories, just watch his cute little love handles jiggle with joy. $1600.00 says ‘I adore you’ better than any cardiac arrest machine ever will."

Next:



A 3 foot flying model rocket with a little digital video camera in its nose. Every geek needs one.

And finally:


The sound proof microphone, perfect for karaoke practice!

Your very own Bio Dome Habitat for Christmas

SmithsonianStore.com - Bio Dome Habitat

Looks sort of cool, but a little too small. An evil boy could have fun putting one sort of animal in one part, and its food in another.

Scary thoughts before Christmas

The Officers' Club: The Top 20 Nuclear Close-Calls

From the interesting Officers' Club blog, the article linked above about the top 20 times the Earth nearly went "kaboom" makes for interesting, although not exactly Christmas-y, reading.

While talking death and destruction, I am still reading more about the possible dangers of the new CERN particle accelerator, and maybe can post about it soon. (It still doesn't look good to me.)

Some bits I like on the Sydney problem

The Australian: James Morrow: Self-loathing is the newest hate crime [December 19, 2005]

James Morrow's piece in yesterday's Australia on the Left's response to the Cronulla "race riots" (linked above) was good. I like the Germaine Greer teenager analogy very much.

Gerard Henderson covered much the same ground in the Sydney Morning Herald today, but with a bit of historical perspective too.

And more on Stephen Crittenden (Radio National) watch: I missed most of it this morning, but I heard the very start of an interview with (I think) a historian who was talking about certain Australian 19th century race riots, with Stephen making the observation that, contrary to what commentators are saying, the race riots in Cronulla are not unusual in a historical context. Yes, it's just as if Australian society is exactly the same as it was in 1860. (Insert teeth grinding noises here.)

Yesterday, Stephen had on someone from St Vincent De Paul Society about their research indicating that costs of living increases hit the poor disproportionately. Funnily enough, I could find no mention of this research on Google News; but I do recall that the Society's researcher on poverty has come up with some pretty contentious reports in the past.

The Society might not be wrong about this - I don't know. But I would like some balance in the reporting, and not just the lefties and anti Howard crowd getting a free and disproportionate run during the Radio National summer. (He did give Howard's friendly critic - and Sex Discrimination Commissioner - Pru Goward a run this morning; I think maybe Stephen was disappointed that she didn't have much of a go at the Federal government ignoring her warnings on most matters this year. )

String theory query

New Scientist Nobel laureate admits string theory is in trouble - News

This snippet from New Scientist does not increase my confidence in the risk assessments of the new particle accelerator (see my post a few down on the possible risk to the Earth of running the new CERN facility.)

"Nature" says Wikipedia relatively accurate

Internet encyclopaedias go head to head : Nature

I found this story via Boing Boing. In short, in a blind review of articles by Britannica and Wikipedia by some scientist types, the Wiki was only marginally less accurate. Yay.

Sounds like a sorta fun gadget

The Fly Pentop Computer - How an educational toy became a hot holiday gadget. By Paul Boutin

Deep and meaningful...and funny

A Lazy Layman's Guide to Quantum Physics

Readers may note that the internet is an endless source of distraction for me. If I find current affairs for the day dull, I may end up checking out interpretations of quantum physics, just to see if I have missed something.

Today, I stumbled across the page linked above, which is a succinct and humorous guide to the different interpretations of quantum physics.

(Actually, I think it misses a relatively recent one called the "many minds" interpretation, but I am having trouble making any real sense out of that one at all.)