Saline Vindication

Paging New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the various public health Nazis at all levels of government: a new finding indicates that salt does not adversely affect cardiovascular health.

People who ate lots of salt were not more likely to get high blood pressure, and were less likely to die of heart disease than those with a low salt intake, in a new European study.

The findings "certainly do not support the current recommendation to lower salt intake in the general population," study author Dr. Jan Staessen, of the University of Leuven in Belgium, told Reuters Health.

Oh wait, it gets even better! The individuals who participated in the low-salt-intake group in the study? They had the highest instance of heart disease.

The chance of getting heart and blood vessel diseases did not differ in the three groups. However, participants with the lowest salt intake had the highest rate of death from heart disease during the follow up (4 percent), and people who ate the most salt had the lowest (less than 1 percent).

Across all three salt-intake groups, about one in four study participants who started out with normal blood pressure were diagnosed with high blood pressure during follow up.

The researchers did find that one measure of blood pressure, systolic blood pressure, increased as salt intake increased over time - but the change was very small, so it may not be important to health outcomes, Staessen said.

Well, as someone who infamously ate a bowl of salt for dinner in college because I was too poor to afford real food, this is quite comforting news, indeed.

It's also further proof that, as scientists and researchers, we have no idea what the hell we are talking about. First came the calls for high-carbohydrate, low-fat diets. Then, turns out the opposite might be a more healthy alternative (the former, in fact, leading to the onset of Type 2 Diabetes). Then they went after salt, to no apparent avail. What's next? A study showing a correllation between smoking and healthy lungs?

H/t Right Wing News

Getting the MTA Back on Track

This is one of those posts that could be part of a series called, "Campaign Platforms I'd Have If Anyone Was Ever Stupid Enough to Support My Run for Office."  See also my radical theory on having New York City purchase back overdeveloped properties, only to bulldoze and send them back into the wild as one-family homes.

There is no greater sign of the decline and fall of New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg than how our public transportation infrastructure has started to return to its broken down, constantly delayed, overcrowded, unsafe and dirty 1970s roots. Granted, it's not his fault per se -- the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is a quasi-state agency with its own multi-billion dollar budget -- but as the City's visible and nominal leader of course it is difficult to not tie developments that occur under his reign to his legacy, for better or worse.

But this post isn't about Mayor Mike, it's about my own radical idea for getting the MTA back on track.

Two of my recent commutes have proven less than stellar. Last evening, for unknown reasons, many Long Island Railroad lines featured the phenomenon known as "combined service." Of course, there is nothing actually combined about the service -- rather, it's a euphemism for cancelling certain scheduled departures and then "combining" all of the remaining aggravated passengers onto a super-slow, super-crowded local train.

Then, this morning, the train mysteriously pulled into my home station two cars shorter than usual. Where did the other two cars go? Did they call out sick? Were they playing hide and seek? How did they decide to magically uncouple from their train? All humor aside, as a result, again passengers were forced to cram into much less real estate, and I enjoyed a lovely ride to work sandwiched between two rather large and fragrant gentlemen. But at least I had a seat, of course, which is more than I can say for hundreds of folks on the jam-packed line.

These issues are, of course, a failure to provide a service that has been paid for, not only fares but also through taxes and other fees -- and such failures are only acceptable in the unaccountable world of Big Government. In the real world, a private company would offer you your money back for far less. So, to bring back a little bit of that spirit of accountability, I modestly propose the following: when the MTA fails to provide an appropriate paid service, all riders can and should receive an immediate refund for that trip. The time for excuses has passed us by. Only by instituting a reverse-Pavlovian punishment for failure to provide service can we end the vicious cycle of runaway spending with little tangible return.

I know what you are thinking: already facing hundreds of millions of dollars in deficit spending, how can the MTA possibly afford to start returning collected/counted revenues? The answer is simple. The refunds come out of the pay of every single MTA employee -- from the Chairman and CEO Jay Walder to the lowest-wage members of the Transportation Workers of America union. The deductions will be taken on a percentage basis, not by dollar amount, to ensure the "fairness" of the incentive (meaning, the CEO and a motorman both lose a theoretical 0.1% of their salary, two possibly very different numbers based on what they make but still an "equal" burden...call it a bizarro flat tax!).

Simultaneously, you could also reward good service. Crews and maintenance yards with the highest percentage of on-time trains, or with trains that require the least time out of revenue service at the end of the year, would receive bonuses at the end of the year for a job well done. Incentivizing productivity in a government/union endeavor! What a concept!

The policy wouldn't even be that difficult to implement with current technology. We all swipe or show passes to gain access to the transit system, those records imported into a database and mashed up with information on the when's and where's of system outages and delays should be more than feasible. And with a robust system of revolutionary accountability in place, do you think perhaps all functions in the agency -- from maintenance to cleanliness to timeliness -- might become a bigger priority?

This concludes today's pipe dream.

Links:

• "$400 Million Deficit Has MTA Budget Off Rails" (Daily News)
• "Congratulations, New York, This Is Your Mayoral Candidate" (Geek Soap Box)

Planting the Flag: How One Mosque May Change Life as We Know It

Various aspects of this post have been mulling around in my head for days or even weeks now; in many ways, it will be the perfect encapsulation of the story of the Death of the West, a tale of appeasement and surrender in the disguised name of freedom, both of speech and religion. I can barely even bring myself to write about it, as the emotions brought forth are still so raw and brutal that, ten years later, they still shape my every nightmare and paranoia.

Issue #1 -- War and the Conquering Religion

To borrow one of the president's favorite phrases, let's be clear right off the bat: the Park 51 mosque and community center has absolutely nothing to do with promoting tolerance or taking advantage of underutilized office space in Lower Manhattan. The building is located one block from the site of the most deadly and successful Islamic terror attack in history, one that was responsible for the murder of thousands. It's also scheduled to open on the very tenth anniversary of the attack, to the exact day. If that isn't deliberate provocation and of an incendiary mindset it will be hard to locate any in history.

This building is going up as a landmark, a deliberate sign of a perceived victory, and as another gateway into the eventual conquest of the infidel in the name of jihad.

"Oh, but we've always been just as bad...look at the Crusades!," someone remarked to me just this week. Firstly, the Crusades occurred over 500 years ago, get over it. It's not a Christian cathedral that stands in Jerusalem on the arguably holiest site on earth, it's the Dome of the Rock, a mosque built over the original Temple Mount with the express purpose of celebrating the conquering of the Middle East by Muslim forces. Only one religion still looks to convert the unwashed masses by force or death.

Let's just start calling it for what it is, and not pretend otherwise with some absurd prehistoric moral equivilence mental gymnastics. That mentality is going to only, literally, get us killed.

Issue #2 -- Our Mayor Is Full of Shit

I guess, for writing this post, I should be ashamed of myself.

Opponents of the proposed construction of a controversial mosque just blocks from Ground Zero "ought to be ashamed of themselves" for opposing it, Mayor Bloomberg said this morning.

Bloomberg said he also doesn't care where the people behind the mosque and Islamic cultural center will get the money to build.

"People say, 'Do they have the money? Can they raise the money? Where does it come from?' " Bloomberg said during an appearance on his WOR-AM radio show. "I don't know and government shouldn't. Do you really want every time they pass the basket in your church and you throw a buck in, they run over and say, 'OK, now, you know, where do you come from? Who are your parents? Where'd you get this money?'

Bloomberg then added, "A handful of people ought to be ashamed of themselves."

Earlier this week, with the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop, Bloomberg gave an impassioned plea in support of the mosque for what he said was trampling on religious freedom. "I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state -- as important a test as we may see in our lifetimes -- and it is critically important that we get it right," the mayor said.

It should come as little surprise that a self-loathing Napoleonic figure such as the current mayor of New York would feel this way. After all, in many aspects Mike Bloomberg's worldview dovetails nicely with the entire scenario. For starters, he is a totalitarian elitist unconcerned with the will of the electorate, having undone the popularly elected mandate for term limits in a naked grab for a third term in office. His administration and cronies are among the most plausibly corrupt since the days of Tammany Hall. His unconditional love for real estate developers and passion for tearing down every classical landmark and one- or two-family home in favor of gaudy monstrosities that overwhelm and destroy what's left the City's neighborhoods will forever serve as his undying legacy. It's no wonder that a mega-million dollar development deal perpetrated by a fascist faux religion would be right up his alley.

How ironic it will be that, when sharia law is imposed in NY, the Jewish Bloomberg will be among the first led off to the concentration/stoning camps.

Issue #3 -- Our President Is Even More Full of Shit

First, it was a local issue, and he was going to stay out of it (a classic example of voting "present" that has always been his hallmark). But not it turns out that President Barack Hussein Obama is actually full-on in favor of the development, and touted once again his absolutely absurd belief that "Islam has always been a part of America."

Obama said that Ramadan is a reminder that Islam has always been part of America.

"The first Muslim ambassador to the United States, from Tunisia, was hosted by President Jefferson, who arranged a sunset dinner for his guest because it was Ramadan — making it the first known iftar at the White House, more than 200 years ago."

Well, sure, if by that you mean our way of life has been at war with it since the days of the Barbary Pirates, then sure. Is it lost on the Commander in Chief that there's only one unifying characteristic behind the two wars the United States is currently prosecuting in Iraq and Afghanistan? Much like his obsession with submission and bowing, does he not believe that the entire world is watching every time he speaks?

And what's up with the annual shout-outs to Islam as part of our way of life? I don't recall the President giving similar praise and reminders for all sects of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, or even Zoroastrianism. The man doth protest too much, doesn't he?

In coming out so completely and publicly in favor of Park 51, though, the President has actually wound up making what will turn out to be the gravest political mistake of his life. Individuals I never even considered as political are coming out every day on sites such as Facebook and Twitter expressing their disgust with this entire turn of events. In one swift move, Obama has exposed himself and his political party as the enemy of the American Way of Life, more than any bailouts, stimulus packages, or socialized healthcare bills ever could. He has also rekindled every unfair and inaccurate accusation against him -- that he's a closet Muslim, wasn't born in the United States, etc. -- and given all of his most fanatical opponents the causus belli they could only previously dream of.

Obama has inadvertantly cultivated a groundswell of popular revolt and unrest, and in doing so has set himself up for one of the great midterm electoral defeats in American history. So, in this regard, I guess I should offer the President a hearty "thank you" for destroying his own political career and potentially setting up a return to power of the party I nominally support. Provided the Republicans don't fuck it up, of course.

Issue #4 -- Right, So We Can't Do Anything About It, Now What?

It should never have even come to this. Forget talk about freedom, when our leaders first heard about the Park 51 plan -- and believe me, they knew long before we likely did -- it should have immediately been kiboshed by any means necessary. But now that it's here, and will be built, our Constitution and law reign supreme and the Islamic Community Center can and will and should be built.

But that doesn't mean we can't have a lot of fun along the way. That's why Greg Gutfeld, of FOX News' Red Eye, is proving himself to be my total hero. His concepts for the first Muslim Gay Bar, Heaven and Halal, located right next door to Park 51 is a work of sheer genius. If our leaders want to hold up this building as a teaching moment, and a shining example of our committment to tolerance and diversity, let's see how and if they welcome Gutfeld's project with open arms. After all, isn't provocation an important and integral part of free speech?

Greg, I love you in a totally masculine and macho way. Keep up the great work, and thank you.

Let's keep this up. Let's build on Gutfeld's momentum and do everything we can to capitalize on our rights and freedoms. Let's hold routine protests every time a Muslim allegedly murders a daughter in an honor killing. Let's celebrate every Saudi Arabian woman stoned to death for daring to expose an ankle. Let's post videos of every instance of Pakastani goat/human sexual intercourse on YouTube and link them across Facebook, Twitter and the whole world. Let's have weekly contests depicting the human form / portrait of the Prophet Muhammed at his most noble and magnificent.

I mean, we are free to do so, right? It's not like we aren't reminded of every failure of a Roman Catholic Church ultimately run and composed of flawed human beings, right? This is all in the name of education and awareness.

Last Exit Question

Where the hell is Rudy Giuliani throughout this mess?  His silence is positively deafening, and almost worrisome.

Links:

• "Mayor Bloomberg Says Ground Zero Mosque Opponents Should Be 'Ashamed' of Themselves" (New York Post)
• "Expensive People in Unnecessary Jobs" (Queens Crap)
• "Obama Votes Present, Continues Failure as Alleged Leader of America" (Riehl World View)
• "Terror Ties: Ground Zero Imam Attended Hizb-ut Tahrir Conference" (Pajamas Media)
• "The Stunning Decline of Barack Obama" (Big Government)
• "Collapse: The Left Is Unpopular, Undisciplined, and Ill-Tempered" (Weekly Standard)
• "Crist Backs Obama on Controversial Islamic Center" (CNN)
• "Muslim Gay Bar: Why Are the Intolerant Preaching Tolerance?" (Big Hollywood)
• "Obama on Islam in America" (Ace of Spades HQ)