Nutrition: Who Made it so Difficult?
Jul 07, 2008

Dr. Stacia Kelly has an excellent article in Primer this week exploring what I consider the most foundational, practical, and most abandoned nutritional concepts of our age. Today everyone is looking for a gimmick. Everyone wants a once-a-day pill that will make life easy, or a faddish diet plan like Atkins or South Beach. Here's a tip: if you're “on a diet” then you should just throw in the towel today and save yourself some time, because diets don't last-lifestyles last. Nutrition is simple. To dovetail on what Dr. Kelly says in the article, here are my general rules:

• Eat right 75% of the time. The remaining 25% is for eating out with friends, having ice cream with your spouse, and generally enjoying life.
• Eat the right mix of protein/carbs/fat. Contrary to gimmick diets and junk science, carbs and fat are not your enemy. You need them both in the right proportions.
• Eat the right portions. Don't feel obligated to finish your plate, either at home or at restaurants. Take it home in a box or throw it away. Better in the trash than attached to your ass. Your mother was not correct on this one.
• Necessary portions change as you age. During high school I often ate two school lunches and drank nearly a quart of whole milk. These days a Lean Cuisine gets me 80% of the way through lunch, and they're not very generous. Perhaps this levels off after 30, but every few years I'm consistently surprised at how little food I need compared to just five years prior. I suppose this has to level off sometime, else at age 50 I'll be eating a protein bar for dinner.
• Stop eating when you begin to feel full. In 20 minutes you'll feel completely full and happy you stopped.
• If practical, eat several small meals a day. If this isn't practical then three meals a day will do.
• Whatever you do, don't skip a meal. Skipping meals just deprives your body of needed fuel. You have to get that fuel somehow. You'll probably overindulge at your next meal or find junk snacks to fill the void.
• Fresh foods are exponentially better than processed foods. Choose fresh vegetables over frozen. I think that freshly cooked red meat is even better than a gravy-fest from the freezer. This gets expensive, and 100% compliance isn't practical, but do it when you can.
• Exercise. Nay, thrash yourself! It's hard to gain weight when your pulse spends 20+ minutes per day at 180 beats/minute. When I exercise more intensely I can allow myself more slack without ill-effects.

Nutrition is simple. Having the discipline and control to practice these simple tenets is difficult. I'm certainly not perfect. I break one of these tenets almost every day. However, you don't have to be perfect unless you're training to be Mr. Universe. Most of us can get away with the 75% solution and be pretty pleased with the results. If you really want to change your body then implement some of these simple ideas and stick with them for a couple months. You'll slowly figure out where you can allow yourself more or less slack and how you can mold the changes into your lifestyle. Unless sound nutrition is a pattern of your life then you'll always be chasing the dream with the next fad diet or diet pill. There is no magic bullet. A lifestyle that values nutrition is the only answer.

Supreme Court 2nd Amendment Ruling Analysis
Jul 07, 2008

Today the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) delivered its ruling on District of Columbia v. Heller. This case challenged Washington D.C.’s ban on the possession of handguns and its requirement that guns be stored locked or disassembled. In a 5-4 split decision the court affirmed Heller and ruled the ban unconstitutional. Justice Scalia delivered the court’s opinion which went on to clarify many disputed attributes of the Second Amendment while leaving others open to litigation. Justices Stevens and Breyer delivered separate dissenting opinions. The entire text of the opinion is available here.

This ruling is a huge victory for those who interpret the Second Amendment like the other nine in the Bill of Rights: an individual and inalienable right. Among other things the court held:

 The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

One of the few things the court clarified without room for interpretation is that the Second Amendment is an individual right. Justice Scalia delivered an impressive argument for the ruling consisting of textual criticism, historical precedent, and context within the Constitution.

Comparing the phrase “right of the people” to its usage in other parts of the Constitution, he writes

Nowhere else in the Constitution does a “right” attributed to “the people” refer to anything other than an individual right.

Addressing concerns about the Second Amendment’s application to modern weapons he writes:

Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment.  We do not interpret constitutional rights that way.  Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding. 

Examining individual state interpretations from history he cites this example:

A Report of the Commission of the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1866 stated plainly: “[T]he civil law [of Kentucky] prohibits the colored man from bearing arms. . . .  Their arms are taken from them by the civil authorities. . . .  Thus, the right of the people to keep and bear arms as provided in the Constitution is infringed.”

After this Justice Scalia sets out to address what types of weapons are protected under this individual right. This is where the rubber meets the road. For years vague and nonsensically written laws have left interpretation of this up to the BATF. This has created the ridiculous situation where letters of opinion from the BATFE have essentially served as law in determining allowable configurations of imported weaponry and so-called “assault rifles” (the latter case until the “Assault Weapons” ban expired in 2004). Check out the below jewel of an example. Are my shoelaces machineguns?

With much anticipation and hanging upon every word I read:

This holding is not only consistent with, but positively suggests, that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to keep and bear arms (though only arms that “have some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia”). 

Whoa…what happened there? He confirms that the Second Amendment applies as an individual right, but the types of weapons permissible are tied to the prefatory clause (A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…)? Who is going to decide what this “reasonable relationship” consists of?  He goes on, referencing US v. Miller:

We therefore read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns.  That accords with the historical understanding of the scope of the right…

What in the world is “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes?” The only concrete definition we have here is that short-barreled shotguns and machineguns (from text not quoted) are definitely not protected. However, the opinion seems to indicate that these are only not protected because the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 that made them illegal. Does anyone else see the irony here? How can the SCOTUS make a decision about law based upon an existing law that it has not examined?  The reasoning is circular, as Justice Breyer points out in his dissent:

In essence, the majority determines what regulations are permissible by looking to see what existing regulations permit.  There is no basis for believing that the Framers intended such circular reasoning.

I would have preferred a much more thorough examination of protected weapons. I think this would have necessitated a thorough scrub of the NFA, and possibly resulted in an enumeration of generally protected weapon types. I believe that strictly interpreted this would have resulted in enumerating weapons as protected (such as machineguns) with which even the majority Justices might be uncomfortable. I won’t go so far as to call the omission cowardly, but it is indeed disappointing, and the reasoning used to avoid the issue if flawed.

Another minor loss for advocates of individual rights was the failure of Heller to press the issue of licensing. The court opinion states:

Respondent conceded at oral argument that he does not “have a problem with . . . licensing” and that the District’s law is permissible so long as it is “not enforced in an arbitrary and capricious manner.”  We therefore assume that petitioners’ issuance of a license will satisfy respondent’s prayer for relief and do not address the licensing requirement.

We could have had an opinion rendered on gun licensing, and likely an opinion that views licensing unfavorably, but the issue will have to wait for another day.

Shortly after this Justice Breyer began his dissent. He began by examining the idea that we can use historical precedent of English common-law to help discern the intent of the Framer’s:

Specifically, there is no indication that the Framers of the Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution.

Justice Stevens admits that the right to individual self-defense existed in English common-law. It is also widely known that our Constitution was heavily influenced by English common-law. That leaves us with the notion that the Framers knew of this cherished individual right but chose to exclude it from our Constitution. That is quite unlikely.

Justice Stevens goes on to offer textual criticism on the phrase “to keep and bear”:

The Amendment’s use of the term “keep” in no way contradicts the military meaning conveyed by the phrase “bear arms” and the Amendment’s preamble.  To the contrary, a number of state militia laws in effect at the time of the Second Amendment’s drafting used the term “keep” to describe the requirement that militia members store their arms at their homes, ready to be used for service when necessary.

Let’s assume he’s right for just a moment. The phrase “to keep and bear” is strictly military in meaning and only applies to militias.  First, what is a militia? Your state National Guard? Nope, SCOTUS ruled in US v. Miller and upheld today that at the time of the founding

“the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.”

According to Justice Stevens’ interpretation “militia members” should be keeping their weapons at home anyway. Yep, PFC Snuffy gets to take his M249 Squad Automatic Weapon home when he’s done with drill on the weekend. Look at the can of worms that opens! Neither Justice Stevens nor Justice Breyer addresses this fundamental problem with their arguments. The very same historical information and context that leads them to a “collective right of the militia” interpretation leads directly to the conclusion that the militia is essentially the entire population. Unsurprisingly, they remain silent on this.

In his footnotes Justice Stevens references the parable of the “Six Blind Men and the Elephant.” I thought this was particularly interesting because it is a flawed parable. The narrator of the parable can see everything that is happening. He can see that the blind men are, ahem, fondling an elephant. None of the blind men have the luxury of knowing this. The common use of this parable is to show someone that he cannot know a particular absolute, as it can be viewed differently from different perspectives. Unsurprisingly, the person who uses it to advocate a lack of absolutes is really saying that he indeed sees the entire elephant, but his opponent does not. If I close my eyes and you hand me a telephone I’ll handle it for a few minutes and then I’ll guaran-damn-tee that it’s a telephone. It’s not a snake, an elephant turd, or anything else. It’s a telephone, and I know it’s a telephone. A is A. Absolutes exist.

Another flawed idea advocated by Justice Stevens is that SCOTUS precedent should be respected except in light of new evidence. He writes:

“…respect for the well-settled views of all of our predecessors on this Court, and for the rule of law itself would prevent most jurists from endorsing such a dramatic upheaval in the law.”

 I’m guessing he doesn’t want to make that case for Dred Scott v. Sandford or Plessy v. Ferguson- both cases where the SCOTUS upheld egregious civil rights violations. What new information surfaced between those landmark decisions and the rulings that overturned them? Nothing. The court simply found the fortitude to render a more upright ruling. The court should never be afraid to correct itself when it finds a previous ruling in error.

Then Justice Breyer began his dissenting opinion:

I shall not assume that the Amendment contains a specific untouchable right to keep guns in the house to shoot burglars.

This struck me as odd simply because it came from a Supreme Court Justice and not mediocre North Alabama talk radio. “Keep guns in the house to shoot burglars???” You’re writing a dissent that will be read for ages and that’s the best wording you can produce? He then goes on to quote a volume of D.C. gun statistics, many of which he admits do not support the logic of a ban. I find recent statistics an interesting necessity for the interpretation of a 220 year old document.

The statistics do show a soaring District crime rate.  And the District’s crime rate went up after the District adopted its handgun ban.  But, as students of elementary logic know, after it does not mean because of it.  What would the District’s crime rate have looked like without the ban?  Higher? Lower? The same?  Experts differ; and we, as judges, cannot say.

Sure, “after therefore because” is a logical fallacy. However, ignoring the information altogether is similarly ridiculous. Ignoring the volumes of information on this phenomenon (banning guns increases violent crime) is simply sticking one’s head in the sand. Nothing can concretely cause anything, huh? I guess there are no absolutes. That's a little too much elephant fondling for my tastes.

The SCOTUS actually got it right today. While it didn’t go far enough in defining the Constitutionality of the many nuances of America’s hippie-feel-good gun laws, it took an important first step in concretely removing the cornerstone of the anti-Second Amendment argument. In short, the court affirmed that our Second Amendment right does exist as an individual right. It is a travesty that today’s decision was necessary at all, but it could not be more welcome or timely. The Second Amendment states “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Today “the right of the people” was upheld.

Full Review of War Journal by Richard Engel
Jul 07, 2008

My review of Richard Engel's book was published earlier this month in the New York Post, but very heavily edited for length. Below is the full version.

“I have found that no matter how war-torn a country becomes, liquor, Marlboros, prostitutes, guns and pornography are never in short supply.” So writes NBC News’ senior Middle East correspondent Richard Engel in his new memoir, War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq.

And perhaps the most telling attribute of Engel’s account of covering the Iraq war is that it is unashamedly real. As a former Marine officer who spent seven months in Iraq in 2006 I identified with many of his stories. I laughed, winced, choked-up and became angry as he told story after story that sometimes closely reflected my own experiences. “I liked the jargon,” Engel admits, “cursing, bad coffee in the TOC, and all the macho brotherhood. I was happy to be back out with the Marines. There was no spin, bullshit or talking points, just business.”

Engel shares his own evolving emotions and psychological state at each stage of the conflict. Divorce, feeling detached, identifying the war as “home,” anger, apathy, and changing states of mind over the course of a deployment are all things I observed in others or experienced first-hand. It is actually uncanny how closely Engel’s psychological state parallels that of many combat veterans. Describing his feelings during his third year in Iraq Engel writes, “I was jittery, cold, wired, hungry, and most of all detached.”

Engel also offers an uncensored look at the Iraqi population that doesn’t often make the evening news, through his exploits with local Iraqi members of the NBC bureau in the Red Zone of Baghdad. He provides intriguing background on the struggles of his Iraqi associates Ali, Zohair, and Ashraf. ”Zohair didn’t support Saddam and doesn’t want an Islamic regime.” Engel recounts. “Zohair doesn’t want to die fighting for Iraq’s honor and dignity…He wants to buy a house. His young attractive wife…wants a baby and has been struggling to get pregnant.”

“Out of the Humvee’s left window, I saw the mutilated body of an Iraqi man who’d been bound, executed, run over by a tank, and picked at by a dog chewing organs out of his anus,” Engel reports. Kidnappings, suicide bombings, murders, beheadings and other acts of violence are all recounted in graphic detail. But Engel’s intent is not really to shock or entertain the reader with gruesome mental images, but instead to describe the monumental costs of war.

Engel addresses public misconceptions about reporting from Iraq, specifically focusing on the accusation that reporters intentionally ignore positive stories. Engel essentially claims that he objectively reported whatever relevant stories he uncovered. But he’s also trying to play both sides of the argument, since in June 2005 he told Marine Colonel Stephen Davis “I hope we’re not out here to watch Marines hand out soccer balls and lollipops.”

This book is not aimed at convincing you of the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the war, though Engel has his own opinion. He reveals it candidly in a few places. “The invasion of Iraq was always a war of opportunity,” he claims, “a preemptive strike that was only possible because the American people were so angry and scared by the atrocities of 9/11 that they gave President Bush carte blanche to punish anyone remotely responsible.”

He is a harsh critic of U.S. motivations for the war, but he also clearly presents evidence of al Qaeda operating in Iraq as early as 2002 and recounts personally witnessing foreign terrorists training in Iraq that same year. “Saddam embraced al-Qaeda-style foreign fighters and even set up training camps for them near Baghdad. I know this because I saw the fighters.”

While he is critical of President Bush’s handling of the war, writing that he “had no idea how to deal with Arabs.” Engel also describes Bush as having “earned two Ph.D.’s worth of information about the country and the Middle East.” and praises him for speaking in “decisive, short, muscular sentences with engaging confidence.”

Fluent in Arabic, Engel is exceptionally informed on the various political, cultural and religious forces that continue to shape Iraq. He explores Iranian influence on the Iraqi democratic process that can only be described as disturbing. Speaking of the January 2005 Iraqi elections Engel writes, “Iran helped choose the 169 list, approving the candidates and the order in which they appeared on the ballot.” Highlighting the unique challenges of uniting a country with numerous competing sectarian conflicts Engel sums the situation, “Iraqi officials, clerics, militia groups, Syria, Iran, and al-Qaeda were all struggling and dying to get a job done in Iraq, it just wasn’t the same job the White House wanted them to be doing.”

“War Journal” is a must-read for anyone desiring a more complete knowledge of the war in Iraq. Weaving together parts of personal memoirs, history lessons, informative anecdotes and shocking details of atrocities, Engel succeeds in telling his story — and it is a valuable story to tell.