spinline.net: The Blog

Look! It’s a graph of US real estate prices plotted to an animation of a roller coaster.

Unfortunately the data ends at the end of 2006. But I guess it’s pretty easy to imagine.

Read it. Obamanomics satire!

Free sample:

WASHINGTON — President-Elect Barack Obama called on Congress to quickly pass a new fiscal stimulus package that would provide nearly $100,000 trazillion gaquillion frijillion in an effort to revive the U.S. economy, which some experts believe has entered a recession.

“Every economist I’ve ever heard of agrees what we need now is significantly more government investment to offset the negative effects of whatever it is that is happening,” Obama said at his Monday press conference. “Accordingly, I and my team of advisors have developed a comprehensive plan that will shore up our financial institutions, put jobless Americans back to work, allow everyone in a house to keep it no matter what, rescue any failing bank or business, provide a hot meal to anyone who is hungry, improve the well being of all citizens, and give a puppy or kitten to every child who wants one.”

Hi, everyone! Have you all missed my blogging? Hello? Well, I’m back with a little roundup of some health tidbits culled from the healthblogosphere (by which I mean the three or so blogs I visit).

• Dental roundup! Tooth decay is a disease of civilization, following the modern diet, says Stephan of Whole Health Source. And Jenny at Diabetes Update writes on the connection between periodontal disease, elevated blood sugar, diabetes, and heart disease. It seems that gum disease may be a cause for the latter conditions. Insane!
• Getting out in the cold is good for your health! Apparently it promotes “brown” (versus “white”) fat. And who wouldn’t want that? Cold baths for everyone! UPDATE: After posting this item, I decided to try to take a cold shower for these purported health benefits and to see if I could stand it. It was really horrible for about three seconds but then it became bearable, pleasant even, probably because that’s when I turned on the hot water. What kind of idiot takes a cold shower? Afterwards I knocked a bottle of moisturizer into the toilet. That had nothing to do with the experment. It was just an accident. END OF UPDATE
• Another couple of posts from Whole Health Source — these on omega-6 fats. Much of the omega-3/omega-6 advice out there concerns increasing the former, but it seems like omega-6 fats (like corn and soybean oil) may have harmful effects independent of the amount of omega-3′s consumed. See here and here.
• This excellent John Schwenkler piece on the war on raw milk should be read in tandem with this Junkfood Science post on same. spinline.net The Blog executive summary: The federal government is a bunch of jackbooted thugs for trying to prevent people from consuming raw (unpasteurized) milk if they want it. Then again, raw milk doesn’t confer any health benefit versus pasteurized, and, of course, might contain pathogens. Then again, factory farms are pretty filthy places, pasteurization notwithstanding. Guess you can’t win…
• That’s all for now.