The Arrow #168

Hello friends.

Greetings from Montecito.

Well, last week was certainly a screwup on my part, for which I apologize profusely. Somehow I managed to send The Arrow out the first time to only free subscribers. I went out with my bride to dinner, and when we came back I checked and noticed that the post went out to a lot fewer subscribers than normal. After a bunch of frantic clicking here and there, I discovered it did not go out to the paid subscribers. I didn’t do anything differently than I had done in the two previous weeks, but when I started clicking about, I noticed the box for Send to premium subscribers was not clicked.

I began frantically trying to figure out how to send it to the premium subscribers and realized I couldn’t do it. Once the thing was sent, there was no way to resend it. (I did figure out a way a couple of days ago, but that didn’t do me any good on that frantic night.) So I copied the entire thing, made a new post that I titled The Arrow #167-Prem and sent it to just the premium subscribers.

It couldn’t just be that easy. Life never is. I began getting comments that there wasn’t a poll. Somehow when I copied the whole thing, the poll didn’t copy.

Anyway, it was a nightmare, but, in the words of Shepard Smith from one of the great cable news screwups of all time, “Sorry about that slip up there. I have no idea how that happened, but it won’t happen again.”

On another note about this new platform, I just discovered that it is not designed for carrying on a dialogue in the comments section. A reader wrote asking me a question. I answered. The reader then took exception to my answer. Then I tried to answer back and couldn’t. There was no reply button after his reply to my answer. (If you can follow all that.) When I went up to my original reply to his comment and clicked it, a window came up asking if I wanted to delete my original reply. So, don’t expect long dialogues in the comment section. I will reach out to the folks running it and inquire if that is one of the things they intend to upgrade or not.

Broken Science Initiative Meeting

I got an email from a lady asking me about photos from the BSI meeting MD and I attended a couple of weeks ago. She said she didn’t want to see just a group photo, she wanted to see personal photos. I’m usually too busy talking with everyone to even think about photos as is MD. But in this case, MD did take some photos.

First, here is the group photo from last week. I’ve put an oval around our table. I’m on the left, then Malcolm Kendrick, then Roger Kimball, Jay Bhattacharya, and the elderly grey-headed woman on the far end next to Jay is MD. We are all listening intently to Dale Saren, who is in the little circle. Dale is a former Marine attack helicopter pilot and current attorney. He is in the middle of about a zillion lawsuits in which he is representing members of the military who were discharged without benefits for smartly refusing the Covid jabs. Dale is also an avid reader of The Arrow. At least a reader. I added the “avid” part. He also has an excellent Substack.

Here are a few photos MD took of me yakking with various attendees, whom most of you probably know.

That’s about it with an of the attendees most folks would know.

So I’ve fulfilled my obligation to provide photos.

Okay, I’m going to go for an opinion piece next. It has some political overtones, so if you don’t want to read it, skip on down to the medical stuff below. It’s just something that’s been gnawing at me since I read about it. I’ve saved a bunch of articles thinking I would write about it sometime, so sometime is now.

The Sorry State of the Judicial System in the US

First, I hate it that the judiciary has been politicized. Now, whenever you read about a federal judge coming down with any kind of ruling, the news source almost always identifies the judge by which president appointed him/her. The only time it isn’t mentioned is when the judge’s decision is aligned with that of the news source. If the decision is reported in, say, the New York Times, and if the decision doesn’t comport with the NYT’s perspective, then the judge is always identified as being appointed by Trump or Bush or whichever Republican appointed him/her. If the decision does comport with the NYT’s perspective and the judge was an Obama or Clinton appointee, then that is never mentioned.

It wasn’t until relatively recently that federal judges were identified by who appointed them. It was always described as a federal judge from whichever circuit decided this or that. It was supposed to be apolitical.

I lay the entire blame for this at the doorstep of the despicable Harry Reid, my erstwhile senator from Nevada (MD and I lived in Incline Village, NV for over 20 years). Reid was the Senate Majority leader during the waning years of the Obama administration. One of the perks of the presidency is the appointment of federal judges. Since these are lifetime appointments, the decision is a big one. A president could stack the court with judges with a similar political ideology who might sit on the bench for 30 or 40 years. To prevent this from happening, the senate has to approve each of these judges. And to really prevent the appointment of total ideologues, the appointment required the approval of 60 senators out of the 100.

In order to get a federal judge through the appointment process, presidents had to make sure their appointments weren’t too ideological, partisan, and political. Which more or less ensured the judiciary would be sort of middle of the road politically.

During Reid’s term as the senate majority leader, Obama was trying to appoint a number of judges the Republicans felt were too far left. Mitch McConnell, the senate minority leader, held up these appointments by swaying enough Republican senators not to vote for confirmation so that the 60 vote threshold wasn’t met. Reid got more and more pissed because he couldn’t get any judges through the confirmation process. And he was mainly pissed at McConnell. But he should have been pissed at Obama for trying to appoint far-left judges to the federal bench. That’s the entire reason for having the 60 vote threshold: to prevent that situation irrespective of the political leanings of the president doing the appointing. Which is what would keep the judiciary relatively apolitical.

So, Reid threatens to deploy the so-called “nuclear option” if McConnell didn’t roll over and let a bunch of far-left judges get appointed. All it takes is a majority of senators to vote for a change in rules, so voting for a change in a rule as important as this one was referred to as the nuclear option. Which means the other side will retaliate when it gets the chance. McConnell warned Reid it would be a disaster if he went through with it, but Reid did. He called a vote, and all the Democrats voted for it. (I can’t remember if all were stupid enough to vote for it, but enough did to make a majority.)

So Reid was able to win the battle, but, just as McConnell predicted, he lost the war. Reid got a few judges through before the end of Obama’s term, but when Trump got elected, McConnell (who was then the senate majority leader) and Trump got conservative judge after conservative judge through the appointment process despite the piteous cries of the Democrats.

Then, to make matters even worse for the Democrats, McConnell used the nuclear option to get Supreme Court judges through the process. The court we have today would doubtless be different than what it is had Harry Reid not shown his ass and declared the nuclear option when he did. It would still require 60 senators to get federal and supreme court justices confirmed.

Of the three new SCOTUS judges Trump appointed, only Gorsuch has pretty much hewed to his alleged conservative beliefs (he totally screwed the pooch in Oklahoma, but that’s another story), while Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett are both all over the place.

Anyway, that’s my rant on how this all happened and why it never should have. But that’s not really what I wanted to talk about here. I started out to write about a disturbing case that caught my attention, but then I thought better of it. If I wrote about it here, it would a) piss half the readers off, and b) would show what a bleeding heart I really am. Besides, something better came along that proves everything I wrote above about the politicization of the judicial system.

Here is the perp.

When you hear any president proclaim he/she is going to appoint a black female to the Supreme Court, as President Biden did, you know we’re in trouble. And it’s not because it’s a black female. When you hear any president proclaim he/she is going to appoint a […] […] to the Supreme Court, you know we’re in trouble. Unless said president fills in those blanks with the “most qualified jurist.” The most qualified could be black, white, red, or yellow. Could be a male or female. Could even be trans, I suppose. What’s important is the “most qualified” part.

But anytime you narrow the field to one of the subsections of the overall field based on race and/or gender, then you risk you are not getting the best. And when you narrow it to two, race AND gender, then you up the odds that you’re not going to get the best.

And that’s why the 60 vote margin in the senate was so important. Had that remained in place, we might still have had Gorsuch, but I doubt we would have had Kavanaugh and/or Coney Barrett. And we certainly would not have had the above pictured Ketangi Brown Jackson.

Now this person sits on the Supreme Court of the United States of America, and she has absolutely no clue as to what the Bill of Rights, probably the most profound document in the country’s history, actually means. The Bill of Rights was put in place to protect us against predations by a malign government. It prohibits all of the issues the colonists suffered under British rule. It guarantees freedom of speech, no unlawful searches and seizures, the right to bear arms, etc., etc., etc. With the right to freedom of speech being the very first and arguably the most important one.

As many of you probably know, the Supreme Court heard arguments a few days ago about the Missouri vs Biden case (now called Murthy vs Biden) in which two lower courts had found the US government to have abridged the First Amendment by coercing various social media platforms to block information the government did not want made public.

The First Amendment specifically prevents the government from prohibiting freedom of speech. Private companies are not subject to the First Amendment—only the government is. Private companies, social media behemoths, for example, can block whatever information they want to block. But the government can’t. However, the government found a workaround to get past the prohibitions of the First Amendment by leaning on the various social media behemoths to do the blocking for them. The Twitter files proved that conclusively. And it is a big First Amendment no no.

Now, given the fact that the First Amendment was written and ratified specifically to protect us from our own government, ponder on these words by the ill-educated (or perhaps totally partisan) Justice Ketangi Brown Jackson. This is copied from Matt Taibbi’s post on the hearing (paywalled).

The whole point of the First Amendment is to hamstring the government, for God’s sake. What does she think it means?

That’s what comes from getting rid of the 60 vote requirement in the senate. Even Ruth Bader Ginsberg, probably the most liberal member of SCOTUS in decades, understood the First Amendment.

Jesus wept.

Okay, politics over. Let’s move on to something more fun. And less dangerous.

RCT Shows Low-Carb Bread Reduces Both Glucose & Insulin Levels

Who doesn’t love bread? Bread and potatoes were the two things I missed most when I first started following a low-carb diet 40-some years ago. I got over the potatoes, but not the bread. Now, whenever I decide to take a little dietary vacation and eat a baked potato, I give up after just a few bites. I’ve pretty much lost my taste for spuds.

But I could go face down in bread most any time. I just choose not to…most of the time. Like all of us, I occasionally sin. But not very often.

Since I do like bread, I was keenly interested when I came across an article during one of my regular trolls through the medical literature. The study, titled Impact of a Low-Insulin-Stimulating Bread on Weight Development—A Real Life Randomised Controlled Trial, takes a look at what happens to blood insulin and glucose levels when subjects switch low-carb bread for regular bread.

The study was done in Germany, where, to my surprise, people regularly eat vastly more bread than we do here in the United States. According to the authors

I found the above amazing, because I had never thought of bread consumption in terms of pounds (or kilos) per year. If these authors are correct (I did not check their citations, which are listed in the quotes above in the paper), then Germans consume roughly 128 pounds of bread per person per year. And that’s at an average of 3.5 slices per day.

We in the US consume almost 95 pounds of bread per year. Although I occasionally succumb to a slice of bread here and there, I’m sure I don’t eat two pounds of bread a year. And MD eats absolutely zero bread per year. Which means someone else is eating an extra 188 pounds per year to average us out.

It still stuns me to think about it. The average American eats the weight of an average 13-year-old boy per year in bread. And the Germans eat the weight of a 5 ft 6 inch tall woman of average size. Incredible!

Think about that.

Since Germans eat a lot of bread, the researchers wanted to see what would happen to their German subjects metabolically if they switched from regular bread baked in German bakeries to a low-carb version that tasted the same.

They recruited 80 overweight adult volunteers and randomized them into two groups, one of which consumed either a rye or a milled whole grain bread (the control group), while the other ate a medium-carbohydrate, low-insulin-stimulating bread (the intervention group).

The researchers weighed the subjects, drew their blood, and sent them off to eat bread for three months. The subjects

Before this part of the study started, there was an earlier phase. Which is when the “triple-blind, randomized controlled trial” the authors mention occurred.

The researchers wanted to find a bread that the subjects would find appetizing, so they would eat it as they would the bread they consumed normally. They also wanted to determine what types of bread did what metabolically, so they randomized the subjects into groups to test the various breads. They assigned the members of each group to one of 10 breads.

The breads varied in type and taste. After testing, the blood profiles of the groups consuming the various breads are shown below.

And here is the chart showing the area under the glucose curves for these same breads. As you can see, it’s pretty clear that the standard bread stimulates a vastly larger glucose response as compared to the low-carb breads, which barely generate much glucose response at all.

Based on a combination of taste preference and similarity, the researchers chose two specific breads for the three-month trial. They picked the milled rye bread for the regular bread arm and the medium carbohydrate bread for the intervention group.

Here is how these two breads performed in terms of blood glucose

and insulin responses.

As you can see, both breads stimulated the expected response. Both glucose and insulin were markedly elevated by the rye bread as compared to the medium-carbohydrate bread, which didn’t provoke much of a response at all.

Once the breads were selected, the subjects went off to eat them as per their regular diet for three months. During that interim, the two groups went about their business. They filled out questionnaires at the start and at the end of the three months about their dietary and exercise activities.

At the end of the three months, the results were tabulated. Here’s what happened

The subjects on the moderate-carbohydrate bread lost an average of 1.7 kg (3.74 pounds) over the three months, while those on the regular bread didn’t lose any weight. You can see the breakdowns in the graphics below.

As you can see, some subjects in the intervention group lost a lot of weight (3kg 6.6 lb), while others not so much.

There was also a greater weight loss the older the subjects were.

According to the researchers, the breads supposedly tasted close to the same.

You may be wondering what the different breads were made of. Here is what the authors report:

I have no idea what Rhinish field beans taste like (or even what they are), but other than that, I think I would prefer the low-carb bread. It sounds hearty, and I much prefer a hearty bread if I’m going to eat bread. But usually the heartier the bread, the greater the carb content.

If we can assume that all else is equal, this is a pretty amazing study. It shows that substituting a bread with a similar calorie count for a traditional (higher carb) bread with no other lifestyle changes can bring about a ~4 pound weight loss in three months.

It gives credence to the Carbohydrate Insulin Model.

I wish I could get my hands on some of the bread. I may drop a note to the author to see where I could purchase it. My real interest wouldn’t be in losing weight, but in seeing if the intervention bread really does taste like bread.

Anyone out there from Germany? If so, the bread was baked at the Bäckerei Hinke in Düsseldorf, Germany. If you live close and can give it a try, let me know, and I’ll share your report with all.

Dietary Protein and Lean Body Mass

A few days ago, I found myself randomly scrolling through the mdpi.com website, which shows you how dreadfully, pitifully boring my life really is. Try it sometime, and you’ll see what I mean.

But in doing so, I sort of struck gold. At least gold in terms of my dreadfully, pitifully boring life. I found a paper that answered a question I had been wondering about. I really knew the answer, I just wanted to have it confirmed.

It was in a study titled Effects of Additional Protein Intake on Lean Body Mass in Patients Undergoing Multimodal Treatment for Morbid Obesity, which, like the previous study we just discussed, was done in Germany.

In this study morbidly obese subjects were monitored on a formula diet with varying amounts of protein for 12 weeks. Here is how the authors describe the set up.

Apparently, the researchers started out with the subjects on their protocol between 2013 and 2017. The subjects/patients were started on a 12 week formula diet (OPTIFAST), then converted to a multiple modality program with a reintroduction of real food. Some of the subjects underwent the insertion of a gastric balloon. Some didn’t. After 2018 the staff monitoring the program increased the protein intake in the initial 12 week formula diet.

The researchers pulled the records of these various patients to see if the additional intake of protein increased the lean body mass of those subjects who ended up getting it.

So, this is not a randomized controlled trial, but is instead a retrospective analysis of what appears to be a fairly stringent regimen in which extremely obese subjects participated.

The authors looked at the change in lean body mass after the beginning 12-week, formula diet phase to see if the difference in protein content made a difference.

The formula diet for the first couple of years contained about 15 g of protein per shake. The subjects consumed five shakes per day, providing them with 75 grams of protein daily in divided doses throughout the day. Which calculated out to about 1 g of protein per kg of what the researchers considered “normalized body weight.”

To calculate the normalized body weight, the study authors calculated what the individual subjects would weigh were they to lose enough weight to achieve a BMI of 22. In other words, a pretty significant weight loss since they all started at BMIs of 35 to 45, depending on co-morbidities.

On the subjects recruited for the years 2018 to 2020, the protein intake was increased to about 1.5 g per kg of normalized body weight. So, a 50 percent increase.

The researchers went back through the records of these subjects to determine if the increased protein intake would result in the loss of less lean body mass than the lower protein intake.

As it turned out, there was no difference. They all lost about the same amount of lean body mass irrespective of protein intake.

In their words

Those of you who have been reading me for long enough know my take on protein. You know I believe—based on a lot of experience—that protein matters. And especially where weight loss is concerned, the more the merrier.

So if all my talk on the virtues of protein intake is correct, what happened here? These folks increased their protein intake by 50 percent and still lost as much lean body mass as those on the lower dose. It doesn’t seem to make sense.

But it does. And here is why.

Although one group of the subjects in this study were consuming 50 percent more protein than the other, both were getting inadequate amounts of it.

And were getting it spread out in small bits through the day.

If you recall, the mTOR signaling complex stimulates muscle protein synthesis in those over about 30 years old, which most of these subjects were. And mTOR requires a hefty dose of the amino acid leucine for stimulation. It requires somewhere in the range of 2.5-3 g of leucine at one time to activate mTOR.

If you consume animal protein, it takes about 30 grams of animal protein in a single meal to fire off mTOR. Since there is about 7 g of protein per ounce in animal sources, that means at least one 4 to 5 ounce protein meal is required to do the job.

These higher-protein subjects in this study were getting about 20 or so grams of protein per dose spread throughout the day. And we don’t know what the protein was made of. It was a formula protein, so who knows. But in any case, they never got the 30 grams all in one dose they needed to trigger mTOR, so it’s no wonder they lost as much lean body mass as those getter the lower dose.

Neither of them got a big enough dose at one time to stimulate mTOR. They would have been better off lean body mass-wise had they gotten their formula in two doses instead of five. Then—depending on the protein composition of the formula—they would probably have seen a difference in lean body mass at the end of the 12 weeks.

Unfortunately, they didn’t. And the outcome of this study will probably be used to ‘prove’ protein intake doesn’t matter. But it really does. And it is important when it is consumed, and how much at a time, and what kind. But those nuances will be lost on those who simply look at the results of this study without the understanding of what’s really going on.

We can learn more from reviewing a couple of classic papers.

Weight Loss and Metabolic Rate

A common complaint from people who seem to have difficulty in losing weight is that they have a slow or low metabolic rate.

Is that true? Do some people have slower metabolism than others?

Absolutely. But they can do something about it.

Jules Hirsch and his group at Rockefeller University published a classic study back in 1995. MD and I saw him present this data at a meeting, and I spoke with him after. I owe him a lot for he was the one who pointed me to Max Kleiber’s great book The Fire of Life, which, in turn, led me ultimately to Leslie Aiello’s great paper The Expensive Tissue Hypothesis. I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for Dr. Hirsch (RIP).

The study, titled Changes in Energy Expenditure Resulting from Altered Body Weight, looked at what happened to metabolic rates when people either lost or gained weight. What the team discovered is that when people lose weight their metabolic rate falls, and when they gain weight, their metabolic rate increases.

So, if you want to increase your metabolic rate, all you have to do is gain weight, right?

Which would seem to defeat the whole purpose.

But it doesn’t exactly work that way.

The researchers looked at subjects who had been at the same weight for a long time. They put some of them on a weight-reduction diet and some others on a weight-gaining diet. They discovered that those who lost weight reduced their metabolic rates as well. And those who gained, increased their metabolism. It looks like the body more or less defends its stable weight.

People who lose discover it’s difficult to keep their weight from returning to its starting point, because they are fighting a lowered metabolic rate brought about by their weight loss.

Those who gain find it difficult to remain at their higher weight because their metabolic rate increases, so unless they work to keep their extra weight, it drops off fairly easily. This part of the study more or less confirmed the results of Ethan Allen Simms famous 1971 Vermont prison study (pdf).

The purpose of the Hirsch study was to determine what happened to body composition and metabolic rate after either the gain or loss of 10 percent body weight.

Here is how they set up the experiment (edited for clarity):

As you can see, the researchers went the extra mile here to check everything possible to determine where the weight loss (or gain) came from and what happened to the metabolic rate.

The paper calculates the total energy expenditure (TEE) and the various components TEE encompasses, which are resting energy expenditure (REE), which is the energy expended just in staying alive. Then there is the non-resting energy expenditure (NREE), which is the energy spent in exercise and just moving about. Finally, there is the thermic effect of food (TEF), which is the energy expended to break down and metabolize the food eaten. All these add up to the TEE.

TEE = REE + NREE + TEF

The REE ends up generating about 60 percent of TEE, the NREE about 30 percent, and the TEF the remaining 10 percent. So most of your energy expenditure arises simply from being alive. You can change TEF by changing your diet. Protein has a higher TEF than either carbs or fat, so increasing protein intake will increase your TEF, but probably not enough to make a huge difference.

The only substantial way to increase your TEE is by increasing your NREE. And that you can do with exercise. You can increase your REE if you increase your muscle mass, because muscle is more metabolically active than fat tissue. The individual metabolic rates of all of your organs contribute to the TEE, but it’s difficult to increase the metabolic rate of the various organs. I have seen studies showing an increase in kidney size and, presumably, metabolic rate with an increase in protein intake.

Which would mean that consuming more protein would increase both muscle mass and kidney size, which would increase REE. And the increased protein intake would also increase TEF. So increasing protein intake is a twofer.

The study by Hirsch et al basically showed that by losing 10 percent of body weight, subjects reduced their metabolic rate (or TEE) by about 300 calories per day. Gaining 10 percent of body weight ended up increasing metabolic rate by roughly 500 calories per day. Which tells you it’s easier to lose quickly gained weight than it is to maintain quickly lost weight.

You have to keep your caloric intake lower by 300 kcal/d just to maintain your lost weight. For those who gained in the study, they didn’t have to do squat. The increase of their TEE by 500 kcal/d did the trick for them, and they lost easily.

It ain’t fair. But that’s how the system works. In order to beat it, you’ve got to find a workaround.

Let’s look at what a later study by Dr. Hirsch’s team found to see if we can come up with a solution.

In a study titled Resistance Training Reduces Skeletal Muscle Work Efficiency in Weight-Reduced and Non–Weight-Reduced Subjects, the researchers found that the reduction in metabolic rate, or TEE, in subjects who had lost 10 percent of their body weight came about by a reduction of almost 40 percent of NREE and only ~12 percent of REE.

What does this mean?

It means that most of the reduction in metabolic rate came about from a reduction in non-resting metabolic rate. In other words from a decrease in energy expenditure from exercise and movement. Even though those who lost 10 percent of their body weight were exercising just as much as before, they weren’t burning the same number of calories as they were before.

The paper shows that this is caused by an increase in muscle efficiency.

You would think an increase in muscle efficiency would be a good thing. It means your muscles are working efficiently and generating power without requiring as many calories as before you lost weight. And, in a way, I suppose it is. If you were starving out on the savannah, you would want your muscles to burn fewer calories to generate power.

But if you’re not starving on the savannah or in the Arctic after surviving a plane crash or something, you don’t particularly want your muscles to operate at peak efficiency. You want to maintain your weight loss, and if you’re fighting against muscles that burn fewer calories, you are fighting an uphill battle.

So, how do we fix it?

A couple of ways.

First, try not to get in the situation to begin with. If you are over 30 and you want to lose weight, go on a high-protein diet. Preferably a high-animal protein diet. If you get large protein doses a couple of times per day, you’ll be getting enough protein to initiate the mTOR system and stimulate muscle growth. [Do remember that you don’t want to stimulate mTOR constantly. It should be pulsed.] In the studies above, including the one in the section before this one, the protein intake was inadequate. It’s no wonder the subjects lost so much muscle mass.

If you do go on a high-protein diet, you’ve got to cut something else. And that should be carbohydrates. Remember, carbs and fat aren’t found together in nature other than in mother’s milk, and mother’s milk is designed for growth. Fat is simply an energy source. It doesn’t stimulate an insulin response, and insulin stimulates growth.

You should also do resistance exercise. The first part of the mTOR equation is to stimulate it with plenty of leucine, which you don’t have to worry about if you’re eating plenty of good quality animal protein. The second part of the mTOR equation is to do resistance exercise which will make muscles grow under the stimulus of mTOR.

If you simply cut calories across the board, i.e., eat less, you will lose a substantial amount of muscle mass and make whatever muscle mass you have work more efficiently at low-intensity exercise.

Which is why the ‘eat less, move more’ idea is so pernicious, and why people who follow it end up gaining most of their lost weight back pretty quickly.

Most doctors, who are generally clueless, tell their patients to cut calories and start walking a bit every day. Probably the worst advice they could give.

Their patients lose muscle mass and increase the efficiency of what’s left. So they’re hit with the classic double whammy. They are setting themselves up for a regain of weight and making it even harder to stay at their previous weight because of the increase in muscle efficiency.

The recipe is to increase protein, cut the carbs, and do resistance training.

Don’t snack on protein throughout the day. Take it in a couple of big doses to fire off mTOR, which—with the help of resistance training—will increase muscle mass substantially.

I hate to keep beating this drum, but it’s what the hard scientific research shows over and over and over.

New Documentary on Climate Change

I just got this video sent to me by my friend Ivor Cummins. I started watching it, but I had to quit after about a half hour because I’ve got to get this issue of The Arrow cranked out. I’ll watch the rest tomorrow.

The documentary is very well done and has great production values. And is compelling. But, as I always tell myself when watching any kind of documentary, it makes you think exactly what the producers of the documentary want you to think. So, with that in mind, watch it critically. That’s always my advice re watching any documentary. In this case, I haven’t found any issues in the first half hour or so.

Enjoy! Or not, as the case may be.

Odds and Ends

• The 12 fruits and vegetables with the most pesticides. Some of my favs are on this list.

• Why Congress is becoming less productive. Probably a good thing, at least from my perspective.

• U.S. drops from top 20 happiest countries list in 2024 World Happiness Report for the first time since the report began. Why? I can’t imagine (sarcasm).

• Mystery among the vines: Why is the FBI probing some of Napa Valley's fanciest wineries? Because Republicans are hiding there?

• A study says intermittent fasting is making people drop dead. Give me a break.

• The definitive guide to tipping etiquette around the world. It wouldn’t bother me if tipping were eliminated altogether, and workers of various sorts were just paid a living wage.

• Snakes. The new high-protein superfood. Pretty amazing source of protein. Having eaten my share of snake, I can tell you it tastes like frogs legs.

• What 500 pounds of python looks like. A lot of good quality protein.

• While we’re on the subject of reptiles… New ancestor of modern day crocodile identified. Looks pretty formidable.

• Javier Milei delivers Argentina’s first surplus in over a decade—and US media is silent. Does this surprise anyone?

• Teacher in Taiwan draws flak for dropping his own cat in class to teach physics. The cat did land on its feet, so no actual cats were harmed in the demo.

• Divorces are finally back down to pre-pandemic levels. I guess a little too much close contact wasn’t that good for a lot of people. Absence must really make the heart grow fonder. And the opposite, too, I reckon.

• Volcano in Iceland erupts for fourth time in three months spewing God knows what into the atmosphere. Before you know it, the climate changers will be wanting to ban volcanoes.

• James Webb telescope confirms there is something seriously wrong with our understanding of the universe. Depending upon where we look, the universe is expanding at different rates.

• The Pope proves his fallibility.

• Scientists discovered a 'fear switch' in the brain, and how to turn it off. Question is, why would anyone want to turn it off. My fear switch has kept me from getting my ass beat and a lot worse. I’m glad I have it.

• Humans have been speaking for a lot longer than we originally thought.

• 1,800-year-old Roman statue discovered in parking lot.

• Neolithic boats excavated in the Mediterranean reveal advanced nautical technology.

• Strange story. How Chinese organized crime is dominating Oklahoma’s illegal medical marijuana market.

I’ve got another great weekly newsletter to introduce you to. This is one I religiously read because it is about books. And as anyone who has read my blogs and my newsletter knows, I LOVE books. Alex does a great job of ferreting out books on subjects I don’t always look for myself. His newsletter is free and goes out to a whole lot more subscribers than I have, which makes me insanely jealous. But he’s been at it longer. Click on the image below to take a look.

Now it’s time for the much anticipated and never disappointing

Video of the Week

This week’s video is outright amazing. Especially in view of what we’ve been talking about re muscle mass. Watch this 95 year-old woman perform on parallel bars. And on a mat. Absolutely stunning. Gives hope to us all. I just hope to still be on this side of the turf at 95.

You don’t even have to look closely to see that she’s got a lot more muscle mass than most 95 year-old women. There is a lesson for us all there. Your muscle mass is like money in the bank. Don’t lose it as it is difficult to get back.

Okay, time for the poll. Which this time I hope will go out to everyone.

That’s about it for this week. Thanks for hanging in there throughout the whole changeover process. And, remember, it might look a little different over the next few weeks as I get more familiar with the platform and figure out how to tweak it.

Keep in good cheer, and I’ll be back next Thursday. I got yet another email from yet another reader sending me a Dr. Mercola post. We’ll dig into it next weekend.

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