Thursday, July 6, 2017
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
Self-preservation...
Between issuing fiery threats to immolate the United States and being ridiculed in various Hollywood films, North Korea is often caricatured as irrational and ridiculous.
But for all its apocalyptic bluster, the country's pursuit of a nuclear weapons program including its first intercontinental ballistic missile launch Tuesday is based on what it believes are a rational set of goals.
The most important of these is self-preservation. The country says it wants a nuclear bomb because it saw what happened when Iraq, Syria and Libya surrendered their weapons of mass destruction and their regimes were toppled or being toppled by Western-backed interventions.
It wants to stop others, namely the administration of President Donald Trump, from toppling its totalitarian regime.
"They learned their lesson from Libya, Syria and Iraq that the sure-fire way to prevent an attack is to have weapons of mass destruction, rather than just bragging about it," said John Nilsson-Wright, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.
That's why. Just a thought.
Common...
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| Megan Rondini |
Megan Rondini’s friends and family remember her as having an ironclad sense of right and wrong. Her childhood nickname was “Rules Rondini” because she was such a principled board game player.
As an honors student, Megan offered rides to drunk girls walking alone at night, even after one threw up in her backseat.
When Megan was in that very situation one night in July 2015, a well-to-do businessman offered her a ride home because he and a friend saw her leaving downtown Tuscaloosa alone.
Megan couldn’t remember how she got in the white Mercedes on the way to his mansion. But she told the police, she was sober enough by the time he pointed her toward his bedroom to know she didn’t want to have sex with him and, he should’ve known it, too.
A sad story indeed, and very common.
Saxenda...
A drug that treats type 2 diabetes has gotten FDA approval for another use: weight loss.
Saxenda is already available in a lower dose as Victoza for type 2 diabetes.
Researchers began to study it as an obesity treatment after people on Victoza reported weight loss.
Saxenda is injected daily. It's approved for people with a body mass index (BMI) of 30, considered obese, or a BMI of 27 with weight-related conditions such as high blood pressure.
It's meant to be used with exercise and a reduced-calorie diet.
"Clinical trials show that [more than] 60% of patients getting a daily 3-milligram injection lost at least 5% of their weight and 31% lost more than 10%,".
In comparison, 34% of those on placebo lost at least 5% of their body weight, according to the FDA.
Serious side effects can include pancreatitis, gallbladder disease, kidney problems, and suicidal thoughts. It can also raise heart rate. So good luck with it.
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