Diet vs. Exercise: And the Winner Is . . .

. . . Not all that surprising, really. The secret to a long, healthy life is just common sense. Plus, it can be fun, if done right.

Minority Report is Here!

Not the Pre-crime Unit technology (thank goodness), but the large interactive computer screen. Panasonic demo’d a prototype at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Be sure to watch the video at the bottom of the article. Prepare to be wowed.

Are We Really Ready for This?

Christopher Hitchens, writing in Slate, takes us on a little trip down memory lane, reminding us of all the sleaze, dishonesty, and shameless pandering of the Clinton years, and asks,

What would it take to break this cheap little spell and make us wake up and inquire what on earth we are doing when we make the Clinton family drama—yet again—a central part of our own politics?

One does not have to dig very deep in the current campaign to see evidence that nothing has changed.  Bill and Hillary both are busy fudging facts, rewriting history, sliming opponents, weaving and dodging on issues — whatever it takes to fool the electorate and seize the power.

The case against Hillary Clinton for president is open-and-shut. Of course, against all these considerations you might prefer the newly fashionable and more media-weighty notion that if you don’t show her enough appreciation, and after all she’s done for us, she may cry.

Iraq: Setting the Record Straight

In October 2006, The Lancet, a respected British medical journal, published a shocking article claiming that over 600,000 Iraqis had been killed in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion. The article–curiously released just before midterm elections in the U.S.–helped fuel the public outcry against the war that hurt the Republicans in the election.

Now we learn it was all bogus.  Jeff Jacoby summarizes the details here. The statistical methodology used to gather and analyze the data was badly flawed, and the funding for the study carried serious doubts about it’s political objectivity. The authors clearly had a political agenda in view in conducting the study. Jacoby concludes:

The claim that the US-led invasion of Iraq had triggered a slaughter of almost Rwandan proportions was a gross and outlandish exaggeration; it should have been greeted with extreme skepticism.

But because it served the interests of those eager to discredit the war as a moral catastrophe, common-sense standards were ignored. “In our view, the Hopkins study stands until someone knocks it down,” editorialized the Baltimore Sun.

Now someone has, devastatingly. But will the debunking be trumpeted as loudly and clearly as the original report? Don’t hold your breath.

There was a day when journalists could get by with this kind of slanted reporting. But those days are gone now. The more this kind of shoddy research is offered as “news,” and exposed as fraudulent, the less confidence the public has in the media’s product.

Transformation of the U. S. Military in Iraq

Whatever else one might say about the U.S. experience in Iraq, the good news is that our military has learned some valuable lessons on how to wage asymmetrical warfare. That’s the evaluation of Erik Swabb in the WSJ.

The Iraq war is also dramatically improving the military’s understanding, training and capabilities in irregular warfare. Since this is the preferred method of Islamic extremists, the experience in Iraq is transforming the military into the force required to help win the Long War.

He offers the recent experience of his old Marine unit in Anbar Province as an example:

Soon after occupying its forward outpost, the company met heavy insurgent attacks. But it did not over-react with mass detentions and other alienating tactics. Instead, the Marines took a patient approach to win the support of the population and eject the extremists hiding among them. They partnered with Iraqi police, established a pervasive security presence throughout the city, and worked with local leaders to improve basic services, governance and the economy. Such tactics used to be rare, but are now increasingly the norm, thanks to Gen. David Petraeus’s dogged emphasis on seeing counterinsurgency conducted by all units.

The war in Iraq is not over, and could still be lost — if politicians in Washington force a precipitous pullout. But events of the last year prove that the U.S. military is still the most resilient, most capable fighting force in the world.

UPDATE: Sadly, as CNN’s Tom Foreman notes, this good news is being deliberately downplayed by the politicians in this election year.

On the whole, both parties are shelving the issue because it contains too many uncertainties that could upset their plans for political power.

Most Americans — and all the politicians — have insisted that no matter how we feel about the war, we should support our troops while they are there.

It is hard to imagine how ignoring something for political expedience translates into support.

Here’s an inconvenient truth: Our fellow citizens are risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan to carry out a difficult scheme, which was approved by both Republicans and Democrats; yet our political leaders will not even risk even their careers to talk about it now.