Two days to go, and we may well have a winner for worst media tweet of this election.  

Here are some photos of  Climate Change/Greta Thunberg rally in Edmonton.  

I guess United We Roll was there too with counter-protestors in trucks, but they aren’t visible in these photos:

It’s increasingly complicated to untangle the potential for public health advances from a moralistic marketing scheme.

I knew the British tabloids were racist, but I had no idea how cruel they had been throughout Meghan Markle’s pregnancy.  I guess there is a documentary being done about it, and here is an excerpt:

Jesus. This just broke my heart. pic.twitter.com/13KsROklv9

— Greg Hogben (@MyDaughtersArmy) October 18, 2019

#WeLoveYouMeghan is trending today on Twitter. And its about time. Here is some of the garbage that has been selling newspapers in Britain. It reminds me of some of the crap that Michelle Obama had to put up with:

And for comparison purposes, here is how they covered Kate Middleton or other celebrities, compared to exactly the same stories about Meghan Markle.

Read time: 8 mins

Once you open your mind to the possibilities that a life without autocorrect brings, I promise you won’t miss the safety net.

“This defeat is going to be very costly for López Obrador and will probably result in the resignation of his security secretary”

The Sinaloa cartel leader’s son was detained by the Mexican military but released amid a shootout.

From the Big Kahuna burger to the $5 milkshake, Tarantino’s 25-year-old classic is a bona fide buffet of smart but accessible filmmaking.

At least four are said to be key players in the family business — and they’re continuously staving off challenges to their power.

“I’d much rather have a resistant, alive youth than a dead one.”

“What makes this such a big blow is that there is just no replacement for Elijah Cummings,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez told VICE News Friday morning.

The ‘Jojo Rabbit’ director talked to VICE about the supreme shame and embarrassment of dressing up as Hitler.

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir corrected the President, who seemed to think this was the first time women had ever performed a spacewalk, while making history.

Understanding extinction — humanity has destroyed half the life on Earth; Could we prevent arthritis by regenerating cartilage?; Building a better cyborg leg — adding a sense of touch to artificial limbs; People with autism might be suffering from an oversensitivity to touch; Why isn’t there a Lyme disease vaccine for humans?

The Indigenous language discussion between National Chief Perry Bellegarde (centre) and Wade Davis (right), moderated by Charlene Bearhead, was held last night at 50 Sussex in Ottawa. (Photo: Ben Powless/Canadian Geographic)

“Language is your identity.”

So began remarks by Perry Bellegarde, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, at an event with renowned anthropologist and author Wade Davis held Oct. 17 at 50 Sussex in Ottawa, located on the unceded territory of the Algonquin and Anishinabek Peoples.

Forum Research predicts Liberal minority govt — Liberal 133 seats, Conservative 121, NDP 46, BQ 37, Green 1.
FYI, Forum was the only pollster 2015 to correctly predict the Lib Majority, so I am going to hope that their prediction is good this time, too.
What is will come down to, as it always does, is whether the Liberals can get their vote out.
 Here’s two threads from Ed the Sock – one about Trudeau, and one about Scheer. Iits worthwhile reading the whole thing:

Candy doesn’t deliver. Since Emperor Nero sent slaves into the mountains for ice to mix with honey and nuts two thousand years ago, we’ve all enjoyed cooling off with big bowls of the sweet and icy treat. Yup, Arabs started adding milk to the mixture a thousand years later, the Chinese invented an ice cream […]

The post #392 Catching the ice cream truck as it drives down the street appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

Read time: 6 mins

Read time: 4 mins

The Liberals are just a hot mess. #Compromise2019 pic.twitter.com/uJP5MaJrv7

— 22Minutes (@22_Minutes) October 16, 2019

You waited a long time. Cruising backwards in your baby seat, strapped into your toddler chair, sharing the bench with your little brother on those long drives downtown, you spent years putting up with child locks, bad views, and barf bags. So when you finally get to ride in the front seat you deserve a […]

The post #393 When you’re finally big enough to ride in the front seat of the car appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

Read time: 8 mins

Read time: 9 mins

There’s something in the dark. Floors creak and doors squeak as furnaces click and ticking clocks tick. Fridges hum and oven burners pop as garage doors close and footsteps flip flop. Sometimes it sounds like there’s a monster hiding deep in the darkness of your room. Blind and alone, scared on your own, your ears […]

The post #394 When your dad looks under your bed and finds no monsters appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

Read time: 5 mins

Stakeholders from across Africa, including T. Idriss Tinto (foreground) of Burkina Faso, gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, in April 2019 for a three-day workshop aiming to strengthen the work of artificial intelligence researchers and policy makers. Experts believe AI can help transform societies in developing nations.

Artificial intelligence is transforming societies worldwide. In developing countries, AI’s potential to benefit local economies, healthcare, agriculture, education and other sectors is sparking optimism and investment. Matthew Smith, senior program specialist at the International Development Research Centre and lead author of the 2018 IDRC whitepaper Artificial intelligence and human development.

So what happens when you offer people with obesity the choice between 5:2 style intermittent fasting (IF) (very-low calories (VLC) 2 days weekly with 5 days of less restricted eating) and more traditional caloric restriction 7 days a week? Would encouraging people to choose between two strategies increase their likelihoods of successful weight management a year later? Would one group lose more weight than the other? Would adherence be the same?

That were the question post-doc RD Rona Antoni and colleagues set out to explore and they recently published a paper discussing their results.

197 patients with obesity presenting to the Rotherham Institute for Obesity were offered the choice between 5:2 IF (630 calories from liquid meal replacements on the VLC days), or an aimed 500 calorie continuous energy restriction (CER) 7 days per week with diet based off that recommended by the UK’s dietary guidelines. Both groups received support from specialist obesity nurses for 6 months and were also asked to return for measurements and discussion at one year. All were also provided with access to, “a variety of specialist facilities, resources and multidisciplinary specialists including exercise and talking therapists“, and all were reviewed in clinic monthly where measurements were taken (weight, total body fat, fat-free mass (FFM), waist circumference, systolic and diastolic blood pressure and an overnight fasted blood sample) and adherence was discussed.

99 patients chose IF, and 98 chose CER. 6 months later, 73% of IF patients and 61% of CER patients had dropped out. At one year, 83% of IF and 70% of CER patients were lost to follow up.

Of those who quit IF by 6 months, 18% explicitly reported they did so because they could not tolerate the diet, something that none of the CER drop outs reported, other IF drop outs reported they quit due to fainting or hypoglycemia on VLC days.

Regarding completers’ weight losses at 6 months, the IF patients lost a statistically significant, but likely clinically meaningless, 4lbs more than the CER group. All blood measures (including fasting glucose, insulin, hsCRP, and lipids) were found to be the same between groups. Blood pressure changes were also not different between groups.

At one year, the 17 remaining IF patients were found to have regained their lost weight, while the 30 CER patients were found to be maintaining their albeit small amount (3%) of weight loss.

So what to make of this study?

I think the most striking finding was the overall 66% attrition rate across both arms. Certainly this study does not suggest that IF is an easier regime to follow than CER (at least not when provided at the Rotherham Institute for Obesity – given weight management support is a service and not a product, it’s certainly possible that different providers might have seen different outcomes for both arms, but I do think this speaks to the challenge of scalability of behavioural interventions).`But what I really think this study highlights is the fact that the real-world likelihood of purely dietary interventions treating our increasing weights is very low indeed. Instead, we need more tools for treatment (certainly including medications and surgeries), and more importantly, if we’re going to see change, we’re going to need environmental level changes to turn this boat around.

As to whether IF or CER will work for you don’t forget that one person’s horribly restrictive diet is another person’s happy lifestyle. If you’re trying to find your own right road, even if the first road fails, and even if angry diet gurus and zealots try to tell you there’s no other road, keep trying different forks until you find the one that suits you best, as when it comes to diets, adherence is all that matters in the end, and if you don’t like the way you’re living, you’re not likely to keep living that way.

       

Related Stories

• Why You Should Turn Off Your TV And Holster Your Devices Before You Eat
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• The Recipe For Aging Gracefully And Adding Life To Your Years

 

Via the inimitable Dick King-Smith – you owe it to yourself to follow his tweets.  Make sure to have the sound on for this one:

I haven’t checked because I don’t want to ruin my amateur standing, but as far as I can remember, the US Constitution gives only one real job to a U.S. President — being Commander in Chief of their armed forces.And for someone who hardly works at all,…

Bouncing beltless in the backseat you’re zooming down dark streets, slick roads, and slippery lanes. Doesn’t matter if you’re cabbing back from cards, hitting the downtown bars hard, or flying home for a quick recharge. Nope, the only thing that matters is if your cabbie knows the secret sidestreet shortcuts that shave a couple minutes […]

The post #395 When your taxi driver knows all the secret routes appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

Does anyone still remember that during the Republican Convention in 2012, Clint Eastwood infamously spent 10 minutes yelling at an empty chair, wherein sat an Invisible Obama? Well, just as Eastwood’s Man With No Name represents the American West …

When I was in high school my friend Chad worked at a big-box electronics store down by the lake. He’d put on a shirt, tie, and giant clown-faced grin before selling bubble jet printers and floppy disks on Friday nights. Since the rest of us were hopeless layabouts we’d aimlessly cruise around town sipping Slurpees […]

The post #396 When the hold music is actually surprisingly good appeared first on 1000 Awesome Things.

Trudeau stands for poverty reduction, international democracy promotion, Indigenous partnership, climate change initiatives and economic development
He also stands for personal courage: 

Why did I vote Liberal? Because Justin Trudeau put on a bulletproof vest, faced a threat on his life and rallied his supporters, while Scheer bailed on a scheduled campaign stop when he saw a dozen teenagers holding protest signs and went for hotdogs instead. #cdnpoli #elxn43

— Vex Murphy (@VexMurphy) October 13, 2019

Just like the bullies couldn’t intimidate me, the Con hate mongers can’t intimidate Justin Trudeau…

Its not from today, its from a while ago, but it is a great one:

Petula Dvorak, in The Washington Post, with two incredible stories, the first about hunting for one man whose generosity and $80 helped launch an incredible career, and then the story about finding that man – Jimmy Dorsey

Amelia Boone, in Race Ipsa Loquitur, discusses her eating disorder recovery.

Tim Murphy, in Mother Jones, on the murder of New Coke.

        

Ten days to go and I expect we will soon start to see a certain degree of panic among Canadian pundits, as they realize their unrelenting negativity toward Trudeau and their horserace cynicism toward election events and platforms may well lead Canadians toward a Scheer minority government.  

Page said that closing the tax gap is a worthwhile pursuit, one that all the federal parties are pursuing. He said it was a worthy goal but it hasn’t been tried in Canada on the scale the Conservative are proposing. …”The one thing you don’t do, in any plan, if you’re saying this is about competitiveness and productivity when you are doing this, is go after infrastructure, because its so critical. That truly is an investment.” Page said that economists point to infrastructure spending as a useful tool for boosting a nation’s long-term productivity and growth rates.

“Deficit financing tax cuts? That’s consumption. If you give me a tax cut I will either spend it or I will just deal with my debt issues with that extra few hundred bucks a year. That provides a temporary boost to the economy, whereas infrastructure definitely is the longer term boost.”

Page also said that finding $5 billion in savings from operational expenses would be a challenge — that Harper tried to do it but couldn’t find the savings. He also said that cutting $1.5 billion from the foreign aid budget was doable but it would give Canada a very different personality on the world stage.

 By the way, the Liberals are talking about things that really matter to Canadians, like student loans and pharmacare  and climate change.

Fascinating NYT article about PewDiePie, whom I had heard about only because my son knew about him and about the whole new Inner YouTube culture that he represents, sort of.

Is that an approaching bus I hear? https://t.co/tyhzlyN3XD

— Joan McCarter (@joanmccarter) October 11, 2019

Hear from Canadian-born cosmologist James Peebles about his Nobel Prize; The Quirks & Quarks science and environmental policy debate