JayB

Whether it's a primary causal factor or a causal factor, it's clear that diet an excercise override any effect this particular virus could have. Take the infected twin, then cut one twin's diet in half and put him on a treadmill for an hour a day, and eventually he'll weigh less than his identical twin who's not infected. Take the virus out of this scenario and nothing changes. Its still a massive leap of faith to posit the virus as a causal factor in the mounting obesity epidemic in humans when the distribution of obesity is clearly much more closely correlated with dietary and lifestyle habits. I hate to bring up these poor folks again, but Google the Pima indians and check out their genetically identical kinsmen in Mexico, then compare rates of obesity. All things being equal, there should be equal rates of obesity amongst the two populations as they are bound to be equal in their susceptibility to a particular viral infection. The virus may be correlated with a variety of things in Chickens that result in a lower BMR, but noting that a viral infection alters a chicken's activity level, which results in entirely predictable changes in body composition, is quite a bit less earth-shattering a claim than "Virus Causes Obesity!" This is all getting a bit tiresome, so I will pull up the original article and see what they actually claim, and what they posit for a mechanism.

Seems like an easy $100 to me.

So then claim is that the virus permanently lowers the basal metabolic rate of the host? Is this what they measured in the study? BMR? Even if this is true in chickens, you are confident that this explains the variations in obesity throughout the world in genetically identical populations better than variations diet or excercise? Maybe the virus is spread through deep fat friers, and this explains the geographic distribution in the United States, which is heavily skewed towards the south. Maybe it also proliferates in the material in pews in Baptist Churches? There is a correlation there. Must be a cause.

I really don't have the time to do the point by point thing here, but I'd be glad to bet $100 that in 5 years, the notion that the primary causal factor in increasing obesity is a contagious virus, will have been thoroughly discredited. You send me a signed, undated check for $100, I'll do the same, and the winner can cash it in 5 years or when this claim is refuted - whichever comes first. Still didn't hear anything convincing with respect to the curious respect that this virus has for arbitrary geographic borders. Genetically identical populations, equally susceptible to any given virus, yet vastly different rates of obesity. Put the Pima on the Rez south of the border in a situation where they have to work in the field and live off of beans and rice and they'll suddenly kick the virus and become immune to it for as long as they stay in the field. With regards to the chicken study, I guarantee you if they put these chickens in calorimeters, and quantify the total calories consumed by each bird, and then account for heat loss, waste excreted in every form - liquid, solid, gas - and then weigh the chickens, they'll find that the law of conservation of energy is still in effect. They clearly didn't do this, so much hunch is that the virus did something to alter the energy expenditure in the infected bird, perhaps it made them more lethargic so they moved less or whatever. I imagine you could do a human trial where you took identical twins and infected one of the two with mono, the one with mono would probably gain more weight even though their diet was identical. Were the laws of physics turned on their head, or did the one with mono expend less energy? Even if you were able to demonstrate a statistically solid link between mono and weight gain, going on to claim that mono is a primary determinant of obesity and explains the hitherto unparalleled climb in rates of obesity would be just a bit much. Ignoring changes in diet and activity and claiming a virus is the primary determinant of escalating rates of obesity is about as convincing as arguing that one can explain the dramatic increases in literacy by means of a virus that's endemic to school-houses. It's also funny that you are reverting to the "you get all of your knowlegde about science from Rush Limbaugh" business, when I have a BS in Biochem and work in basic research, in virology, and your expertise is in statistics.

Sounds like you are the one trying to discredit the vast body of research into obesity, which consists of far more than a single paper in a middling journal, because it doesn't conform to your disposition to believe that society is always to blame for the problems of individuals.

I don't know that it's always necessary to immerse oneself in the minutia of a particular claim to doubt it's validity. The first problem with the fat-virus claim lies with thermodynamics. The only way in which it is physically possible to gain weight is to consume more calories than one expends. End of story. The second is that it seems rather unlikely that such a virus would lie dormant for all of recorded history, and suddenly make it's only known appearance amongst populations who have access to a massive food surplus and lead incredibly sedentary lives. One would have to assume that this virus wasn't around when my parents were growing up (just after WWII), when food scarcity simply wasn't a problem. One would also have to explain the peculiar distribution of the virus amongst people who live in the same area, have access to the same food, and have roughly the same genetic heritage. All the normal biological variables are the same, but the fat virus somehow manages to preferentially infect the poor and the sedentary. It must also pay a hitherto unnoticed regard to arbitrary geographic borders, and affect the English and the Germans far more than the French, despite the massive commingling of the populations on a daily basis. The Pima indians on the Rez in Arizona are the most obese people in the world, yet a biologically idenitical population just across the border are rail thin? Virus or diet and lifestyle? Then there's the fact that humans are rather unlike most other animals in that we have the capacity to regulate our behavior. Presumably, if two people are infected by the virus, they are equally likely to overeat. Yet we know that the propensity to overeat is correlated with a host of other factors that have much more to do with character and personality than biology. There's also the matter of people who manage to lose weight and keep it off with diet and excercise. Is this the result of their immune system kicking in and clearing the virus at precisely the moment that they decided to make these changes in their lives? Does stomach stapling also trigger an immune response that gets rid of the virus? Then there's also the possibility that in humans that the virus has the tendency to replicate and localize in adipose tissue, or thrives in people who are borderline diabetic, or who are borderline diabetic and have tons of adipose tissue, etc, etc, etc. This will be conclusively debunked as a causal factor for obesity in five years or less.

Anyone know if the late 80's/early 90's had especially cold winters relative to the average?

He clearly needs to choose his words more carefully if he's going to get all of the world's socialist daytraders behind him.

The answer is on p.264 of "Dianetics," by L. Ron Hubbard. Make sure you get the edition that has the erupting volcano on the front.

Someone get a shot of Jim and PP shaking hands over a pitcher....

29 months... you got a long haul ahead of you... True. But it's less than the three-year sentence that I was looking at this summer....

My wife rode a lift with a woman who's four-year old son was knocked into a coma after a collision like this. I'm continuously amazed by the number of dumbasses that haul ass down groomers packed with scores of people, and quite a few kids. Must be because if you can ski fast down groomers you are X-Treme. The dude's rage was way out of line, but I get kind of irked when I see people flying down packed groomers, narrowly missing the four and five year olds doing the "pizza-fries-pizza-fries" drill. It doesn't help that their skill-to-speed ratio is not terribly impressive either.

The sad thing is that is only a partial listing of the things that I hate about Boston. The funniest thing about living here is that while people who have never lived anywhere else seem to get passionate to the point of violence when defending the place, most people who have moved here from somewhere else are eager to tell you how much they hate the place when they find out that you are also from elsewhere. Get the degree and get the hell out seems to be the going mantra - and the negative population growth stats tell the rest of the story.

Jesus Christ I'm going to puke. When I moved to Colorado in 1998 I had to suffer the indignity of watching Baker set the world snowfall record while CO was sporting bases in the sub 20" range - in February. Now this. Not to mention the fact that I'm going to miss out on the best paddling season in years in the spring, not to mention all of the incredible spring skiing. Not to mention that by the time the crappy weather ends back here it's Africa-hot, as humid as the Mississippi Delta, and buggy as all hell. When I leave Boston that'll definitely be one of the happiest days of my life. T-29 months and counting. Now that I'm below 30 months I need to get one of those advent calendars and substitute months for days...

So does anyone know the cumulative snowfall stats for January (in the Cascades)? I think that most resorts on the Least Coast are reporting a whopping 10" or so for the month.

Sad News. Isn't he the guy who survived a horrible incident elsewhere in the Himlayas where his partner fell to his death while rapelling off of a pounded-in tent pole, taking the ropes with him? If I remember correctly, the survivor (J.C. LaFaille, I think) was hit by a falling rock or piece of ice which broke his arm while he was making the horrendously difficult descent, and when it was all said and done he promised himself that he'd never return to the mountains? After surviving something like that I'm not sure if I'd feel invincible or swear-off anything dangerous for the rest of my life. Anyway - sorry to learn about the demise of a gifted climber.

MacClean's Column on the Oprah Memoir Hoax. Pretty funny.

So Double_E, uh, are you the author of that particular anecdote, or is someone else responsible for that little misunderstanding? I'd hate to borrow that guy's car. Use 1/2 tank of gas and he'd be hysterical. "WTF! You just used HALF THE WORKING LIFE of my vehicle!!!!!!! Sorry, but you owe me $10,000...."

Good profile/story on the guy here: http://www.skiingmag.com/skiing/adventure/article/0,12910,1140855,00.html

I think that you are probably talking about Paul Ruff. Skiing article: I met skier Jamie Pierre for the first time on a Thursday morning last March. Within 90 minutes, I saw him flip off a 40-foot cliff at Snowbird and land on a tree buried in the snow. It hurt him like hell, but he broke no bones nor punctured any internal organs. Two hours later, at Alta, he got into a screaming argument with his friend and photographer Lee Cohen before popping off a 50-footer. Eight minutes after that, he tried to board a midmountain chair without showing his season pass. When a lift supervisor demanded to see it, Pierre snarled, "Do you know who I am?" The supervisor, who naturally found Pierre's comment rude, answered, "No, asshole, do you know who I am?" A sneering Pierre tore open his coat and thrust the pass toward the liftie in a manner that could have led to blows, but didn't. Early the next morning, Pierre hiked from Brighton to a cliff above Wolverine Cirque. As Cohen and I aimed cameras from an aerie above the Alta side of the cirque, Pierre attempted an American cliff-jumping record of 160 feet. During his stunningly long free fall, he pulled a Lincoln loop-reaching toward his tips and cartwheeling forward from the takeoff while somehow managing to rotate his torso. He stuck the landing. It was by far the biggest, most impressive air I've ever seen. Fifteen minutes later, while hiking out, Pierre had a seizure, likely due to the minor concussion he suffered on the landing. "I've averaged at least one concussion per year since the early '90s," Pierre tells me. He seldom wears a helmet: "If it's a matter of my body going instantly from terminal velocity to zero, a helmet isn't gonna help much." Pierre goes bigger than anyone alive, but I wonder what good it does him. Is hurling your meat off massive cliffs any way to make a name in skiing? It's hard to say. Pierre's 160-vertical-foot Lincoln loop occurred almost 10 years to the day after Tahoe bartender Paul Ruff died in an attempt to set the world-record cliff jump. At the time, the recognized record of 140 feet was shared by two skiers: soft-spoken John Tremann, who later left extreme skiing to become a born-again Christian, and Chuck "Huck" Patterson, who has since become better known for his big-wave surfing. After inviting friends, photographers, and cinematographers to a 160-foot cliff near Kirkwood, California, Ruff, and his dream of selling the footage to tabloid TV, splattered on some volcanic rocks. Nonetheless, skiers have spent the last decade going bigger and bigger. Canadian Jeff Holden became an immediate cover boy with a gargantuan 150-footer in Alaska a few years back. But just going big isn't enough-huckers keep tweaking the inhuman art of leaping into a void by throwing spins, tricks, and crotch grabs. A recent Nissan ad sells Pathfinders with footage of hospital-air flips by Micah Black, Kent Kreitler, and Shane McConkey. The sport's obsession with catching air long ago brought us V-legged Finns yumping Nordic style in the Olympics and, more recently, rubbery teens flipping about in terrain parks. But executing practiced jumps off man-made ramps doesn't send a shiver up skiers' collective spine like feral cliffs do. Unlike jibbers and Olympic ski jumpers, cliff huckers never know if their leaps are makeable. It's skiing's ultimate mind game. Ruff's friends, for instance, had reservations about his plan. But they hesitated to tell him so, fearing they'd cloud the positive attitude he'd need for his attempt. Still, Ruff's brains interfered anyway. Right before popping off the lip, he appeared to heed a basic human instinct and made an inexplicable, certainly unplanned, check turn. It was a "Whoa! What the hell am I doing?" hesitation. And it crimped his trajectory. Without the check turn, he might have cleared the murderous rocks... and survived to see his jump surpassed by some other loon. These days, the world record belongs to Paul Ahern of New Zealand. In 1995, Ahern jumped an astounding 225 feet into wind-packed snow, cushioning the blow by filling his backpack with Styrofoam. The fact that jibbers such as Tanner Hall make six figures a year while virtually no one even knows who Paul Ahern is suggests that cliff hucking is in no way a ticket to stardom. It gets you short-term attention, sure, but it's a dangerously poor way to make a career.

Seems to be wholly absent from sub-Saharan Africa as well. Can't think of any other viruses that are a problem there, so maybe the climate keeps them at bay. At some point in the 90's - I think it was after the woman who drank a fifth of JD a day sued JD because her baby has FAS - I joked about obese people suing McDonalds and other fast-food joints for making them fat. It seemed so rediculous at the time that I never thought it would happen. A few years later I joked about the obese waging a successful campaing to have their condition classified as a disability, and went onto state that as a consequence millions of people who were in the extremely-overweight category would eat their way into mortal-obesity in order to hop on this literal-and-figurative gravy-train. This already happens with people who want bariatric surgery, but can't quite qualify because their BMI is just below the threshhold. A side prediction is that we'll see quite a bit more research of this sort bein cited fervently by the National Association for Fat Acceptance (really exists) aforementioned campaign to qualify obesity as a disability on-par with Parkinson's disease. This will only intensify as more insurers attempt to use BMI as a tool to increase premiums in the face of spiraling outlays for medical expenses associated with obesity.

I am going to make it a point to bust a double daffy in the terrain park next weekend in order to taunt les enfants with some unrepentant old-school steeze.

I also give myself high marks for misspelling the magazine that I was mocking no less than three times during the troll...

If you can Troll the conscience of the Great White North with the guy he's okay by me. Actually I think I discovered the guy through the Wall Street Journal's editorial page quite a while ago, but it appears he's permeating the anglosphere these days. And now Mac...gasp! hahahaha It will probably come as no surprise that I thought the piece was both dead-on and hillarious, as is the case for most of his stuff that I run across. Read More: www.steynonline.com