Monday, September 20, 2010
7 Tricks to a Speedier Metabolism
7 Tricks to a Speedier Metabolism
Some people are lucky: They seem to be born with a naturally high metabolism and slender physique that requires little exercise and calorie counting to maintain. My mother, God bless her, is one such person. I am not! So it’s a good thing I love to run, bike and swim. But when SELF asked experts about the habits that slow metabolism, I was surprised by some of their answers—and guilty of a few no-no’s myself (see number 1...and 2...and...). Fortunately, these habits are also totally fixable. Start paying attention to them today, and you’ll become one of the lucky ones—or at least look like one—in no time!
1. Scrimping on shut-eye
Catching zzz’s may help you stay slim, reveals research presented at the annual American Thoracic Society meeting in San Diego. In the study of more than 68,000 women, those who slept seven hours weighed 5.5 pounds less than women who slept five hours or less. Pulling frequent all-nighters may slow your metabolism, impairing your body’s ability to utilize food and nutrients as energy so they get stored as fat instead, scientists say.
2. Stressing out
When you’re on edge, you’re likely to sleep less and eat more, which can affect your thyroid, a gland that produces hormones which regulate metabolism, body temperature, heart rate and more. If your thyroid’s not producing enough of those hormones, it can slow your metabolism and other body functions, leading to weight gain, depression and fatigue. Take time for yourself daily to keep both your thyroid and metabolism humming at optimal levels.
3. Skipping breakfast
People often tell me they hate breakfast foods; I tell them, find something you can eat within an hour of waking up! Missing a morning meal is the worst thing you can do. It slows metabolism and depletes your body of the fuel it needs to function optimally, explains celebrity nutritionist Joy Bauer, R.D. But what you eat matters as much as the fact that you eat something. Simple, unrefined carbohydrates—as in a breakfast muffin or pastry—signal the brain to release serotonin, a neurotransmitter that brings on calm when you most want to be up and at ’em. Also, your body digests simple carbs quickly, sending blood sugar soaring and then plummeting, resulting in an energy crash. Try to start each day with a breakfast that contains at least 5 grams of protein, which activates the production of norepinephrine, a neurochemical that increase heart rate and alertness. The nutrient also digests slowly, so blood sugar and energy levels stay stable. Try an omelet made with 4 egg whites, 1/2 cup chopped broccoli, 1/4 cup chopped onion and 1 oz lowfat shredded cheese; it delivers an impressive 22 g protein per serving.
4. Staying seated
Get out of that chair! Staying on your feet revs metabolism and doubles your calorie burn during workdays, a study in Diabetes reports. Sitting for a few hours switches off enzymes that capture fat in the bloodstream, but standing up and getting active reignites them. Surrender your seat when possible (e.g., during phone calls) to start reaping benefits.
5. Eating junk food
I love a French cruller as much as the next gal, but it turns out doughnuts can be double diet trouble. Not only do sugary, fatty treats add calories and fat to your daily tally (a Dunkin’ Donuts cruller packs 250 calories and 20 g fat), but they can also encourage your body to store more fat. Junk food might stimulate a gene that encourages your body to store excess fat, causing you to gain weight over time, a study in The FASEB Journal reveals. (In the study, mice without the troublemaking gene had 45 percent lower body fat after eating a high-fat and high-sugar diet for 16 weeks compared to critters with the gene who ate the same diet.) Quell a sweet craving with berries or an orange: They’re high in vitamin C, a nutrient that can help you sizzle up to 30 percent more fat during exercise, suggests research from Arizona State University at Mesa.
6. Falling into a workout rut
I hear it all the time: “I’ve almost reached my goal weight, but those last 5 (stubborn!) pounds just won’t come off.” Sound familiar? Weight loss can stall along the way partly because you get smaller. As you shrink, there is less of you to provide energy for, so you actually start to need fewer calories. These plateaus can last weeks, so rather than get frustrated, try new workouts or ways to eat healthy to keep your metabolism going strong and your body burning even more calories than before.
7. Dodging the weight room
Although cardio sessions turn up the heat and burn big-time calories (which is why I run, bike or swim most mornings and still enjoy dessert!), lifting weights helps you build calorie-burning lean muscle, says Jeffrey Garber, M.D., author of The Harvard Medical School Guide to Overcoming Thyroid Problems (McGraw-Hill). And with more lean muscle, you extend the burn to when you’re just sitting at your desk or in the car. Add weight-bearing exercises like planks, lunges, squats and tricep dips to your workouts three times a week, and you’ll see toning results like you’ve never experienced before!
'Its not a Zero-Sum game Palestinians play in negotiations'
'Its not a Zero-Sum game Palestinians play in negotiations'
Restaurant dishcloths 'full of bacteria'
Restaurant dishcloths 'full of bacteria'
Experts analysed dishcloths from takeaways and restaurants Dishcloths used in restaurants and takeaways harbour unsavoury and possibly dangerous bacteria, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) has said.
The HPA visited 120 kitchens in north-east England.
The researchers found 56% of cloths tested were unacceptable, carrying faecal bacteria or in some cases dangerous bugs such as Listeria.
An environmental health expert said it was "pure luck" that spared more customers from illness.
Dishcloths may be a good way to remove food from surfaces, but they tend to hang on to some of it, even when rinsed out afterwards, making them the ideal breeding ground for all sorts of bacteria.
These are then dispersed onto whatever surface is wiped next.
How Clean is Your House? presenter Aggie MacKenzie; "It's a real wake up call"
'Unacceptable'
The recommended advice for restaurants is to use disposable cloths and change them regularly, as well as using separate cloths for areas where raw meat is processed.
The HPA team took a total of 133 cloths, and found that 86 carried faecal bacteria, 21 carried E. coli, six were host to Staphylococcus aureus, and five carried Listeria.
“Start Quote
End Quote Dr Paul Cosford Health Protection AgencyExposure to these harmful bacteria can cause food poisoning which is unpleasant for most people but for some - particularly the very young, very old, and pregnant women - it can have serious consequences.”
Although it is not clear whether the E.coli strains found would make a diner ill, the S. aureus and Listeria definitely fell into the "potentially harmful" category, with the strain of Listeria found on three of the cloths considered particularly dangerous in vulnerable groups such as the elderly and very young.
Many of the restaurants surveyed also fell down on basic good hygiene practice, with 24 of the cloths used on both raw meat and ready-to-eat food preparation areas.
Only a third of the premises used disposable cloths - the remainder had "reusable cloths" and 15% were unsure how often they were changed.
Problems
Dr John Piggott, from the HPA laboratory in Leeds which led the survey, which is being presented to the HPA's annual conference, said that all the premises visited had been issued with advice and would be revisited to see if things had improved.
He said: "Although many disinfected their cloths with bleach or other disinfectants, soaking does not remove the food on which the bacteria grow."
Dr Paul Cosford, also from the HPA, added: "The findings indicate problems with poor hygiene practices.
"Exposure to these harmful bacteria can cause food poisoning which is unpleasant for most people but for some - particularly the very young, very old, and pregnant women - it can have serious consequences."
Jenny Morris, the principal policy officer at the Chartered Institute for Environmental Health, said that many restaurants and takeaways were good at following "more complicated" requirements for good hygiene, but fell down on simple things such as dishcloths.
She said: "The problem is, that if you fail on the basics, you are relying on good luck to prevent something bad happening to the people eating at your establishment."
Can you trick your ageing body into feeling younger?
Can you trick your ageing body into feeling younger?
Liz Smith - Nana in The Royle Family - found she could walk all but unaided If elderly people dress, live and talk as they did in their heyday, does this help them feel younger and fitter? Michael Mosley explains how he tested this theory on six faces from the past.
What's your brain age?
- The Young Ones is on BBC One Tuesday to Thursday, 14-16 Sept at 2100 BST
- And test your mental agility with games such as Ugly Mugs (pictured)
Is slowing down with age all in the mind?
To find out, I recruited six celebrities aged between 76 and 88 to live in my science lab - a country house decked out like a 1970s time capsule. The project was designed as a follow-up to an experiment first done by Professor Ellen Langer of Harvard University.
In 1979, Ellen was investigating the extent to which ageing is a product of our state of mind. To find out, she and her students devised a study they called the "counter-clockwise study".
It involved taking a group of elderly men and putting them into the world of 1959. The question she wanted to answer was, if we took their minds back 20 years, would their bodies reflect this change?
Our experiment had similar ambitions; to take a group of people and make them feel younger by recreating the world they had left behind 35 years ago.
“Start Quote
End Quote Michael Mosley on the physical challengesThere were shag pile carpets to trip over, door ridges to step over and lots of slippery linoleum”
Our volunteers were actors Liz Smith (88), Sylvia Syms (76) and Lionel Blair (78), cricket umpire Dickie Bird (77), newsreader Kenneth Kendall (86) and former Daily Mirror editor Derek Jameson (80).
They agreed to live in our time capsule house for a week, during which they dressed in 1970s clothes, slept in replicas of their very own 70s bedrooms, watched television from that era, and talked about 1975 in the present tense.
It proved to be a fascinating but draining experience - for both experimenters and experimentees.
From the beginning we made it clear to our volunteers that they would be expected to look after themselves. Research in nursing homes shows clearly that giving residents control over their own lives and their own choices has a hugely beneficial impact on health and happiness.
In one study, residents who were allowed to choose a plant to care for, and when and where to receive visitors, were found 18 months later to be significantly more cheerful, active and alert. They were also far more likely to be still alive.
Another thing about our 1970s house was that it was full of physical challenges. There were shag pile carpets to trip over, door ridges to step over and lots of slippery linoleum. Research on mice has shown that those who live in a challenging environment live nearly 30% longer than those who in a secure but boring environment.
In this spirit, on their arrival, our volunteers were asked to carry their bags up a flight of stairs to their bedrooms. It was the first time they'd been forced into such physical activity in many years, and they were not happy.
But they rose to the challenge. When they started at the bottom of the stairs, a couple were adamant it would be impossible to make it to the top. Watching from a laboratory close by, it was hard to resist going to their aid.
Slowly, step by step, they succeeded. We had made them question whether, perhaps, they were more physically capable than they had given themselves credit for.
Dickie Bird's memory and stamina improved It was a tough initiation, but a core element of Ellen's original experiment was the idea that our prior beliefs play a huge part in how we perceive the world, and how we perceive ourselves. By immersing our volunteers in a 1970s world, we were hoping to make them think of themselves as younger, fitter and healthier.
For many of them, the 70s had been a golden decade, a highlight of their careers.
We took Dickie Bird back to Lords to relive the atmosphere. As he walked through the tunnel, onto the grounds, he blossomed before our eyes. Dickie had had a stroke, suffered 18 months of illness, lost confidence and come to think of himself as old. By the end of the week, his confidence was back and he showed remarkable improvement across a range of tests, including memory and stamina.
“Start Quote
End Quote Professor Ellen Langer Harvard UniversityIt's too easy to have everybody take care of us. But you can be helped to death”
Over the week we gave all the celebrities tasks to do, but we also left them to fend for themselves. For up to 12 hours a day, we observed them through our surveillance cameras and, just as Ellen had discovered all those years before, we saw great changes.
Half way through the week, Liz Smith took 148 steps with the aid of just one stick. For someone who had not walked without both sticks since her stroke - and who often relied on a wheelchair - it was a real breakthrough. She was no longer willing to be limited by the physical constraints she had imposed on herself.
At the end of the week we put our guinea pigs through the same rigorous battery of physical and psychological tests we had at the beginning. Memory, mood, flexibility, stamina and even eye sight had improved in almost all of them.
The results were not uniform, but in some cases they shed up to 20 years in their apparent biological age.
It made a compelling case for Ellen Langer's argument that opening our minds to what's possible can lead to better health, whatever our age.
Source
Are dying languages worth saving?
Are dying languages worth saving?
Why should endangered languages be saved? Delegates at the Trinity College Carmarthen conference explain - using nine different languages
Language experts are gathering at a university in the UK to discuss saving the world's endangered languages. But is it worth keeping alive dialects that are sometimes only spoken by a handful of people, asks Tom de Castella?
"Language is the dress of thought," Samuel Johnson once said.
About 6,000 different languages are spoken around the world. But the Foundation for Endangered Languages estimates that between 500 and 1,000 of those are spoken by only a handful of people. And every year the world loses around 25 mother tongues. That equates to losing 250 languages over a decade - a sad prospect for some.
This week a conference in Carmarthen, west Wales, organised by the foundation, is being attended by about 100 academics. They are discussing indigenous languages in Ireland, China, Australia and Spain.
"Different languages will have their quirks which tell us something about being human," says Nicholas Ostler, the foundation's chairman.
"And when languages are lost most of the knowledge that went with them gets lost. People do care about identity as they want to be different. Nowadays we want access to everything but we don't want to be thought of as no more than people on the other side of the world."
Apart from English, the United Kingdom has a number of other languages. Mr Ostler estimates that half a million people speak Welsh, a few thousand Scots are fluent in Gaelic, about 400 people speak Cornish, while the number of Manx speakers - the language of the Isle of Man - is perhaps as small as 100. But is there any point in learning the really minor languages?
Last speaker dies"I do think it's a good thing for a child on the Isle of Man to learn Manx. I value continuity in a community."
“Start Quote
End Quote Toots Contributor to BBC's Your Say discussion on language and identityI speak one of the endangered languages in the world - Chabakano - of which there are several dialects Zamboanga , Cotabato , Ternate, Davao and Ermita”
In Europe, Mr Ostler's view seems to command official support. There is a European Charter for Regional Languages, which every European Union member has signed, and the EU has a European Language Diversity For All programme, designed to protect the most threatened native tongues. At the end of last year the project received 2.7m euros to identify those languages most at risk.
But for some this is not just a waste of resources but a misunderstanding of how language works. The writer and broadcaster Kenan Malik says it is "irrational" to try to preserve all the world's languages.
Earlier this year, the Bo language died out when an 85-year-old member of the Bo tribe in the India-owned Andaman islands died.
While it may seem sad that the language expired, says Mr Malik, cultural change is driving the process.
"In one sense you could call it a cultural loss. But that makes no sense because cultural forms are lost all the time. To say every cultural form should exist forever is ridiculous." And when governments try to prop languages up, it shows a desire to cling to the past rather than move forwards, he says.
If people want to learn minority languages like Manx, that is up to them - it shouldn't be backed by government subsidy, he argues.
"To have a public policy that a certain culture or language should be preserved shows a fundamental misunderstanding. I don't see why it's in the public good to preserve Manx or Cornish or any other language for that matter." In the end, whether or not a language is viable is very simple. "If a language is one that people don't participate in, it's not a language anymore."
Wicked wordsThe veteran word-watcher and Times columnist Philip Howard agrees that languages are in the hands of people, not politicians. "Language is the only absolutely true democracy. It's not what professors of linguistics or academics or journalists say, but what people do. If children in the playground start using 'wicked' to mean terrific then that has a big effect."
Minority language translators at work at the National People's Congress The former Spanish dictator Franco spent decades trying to stamp out the nation's regional languages but today Catalan is stronger than ever and Basque is also popular.
And Mr Howard says politicians make a "category mistake" when they try to interfere with language, citing an experiment in Glasgow schools that he says is doomed to fail. "Offering Gaelic to children of people who don't speak it seems like a conservation of lost glories. It's very romantic to try and save a language but nonsense."
But neither is he saying that everyone should speak English. "Some people take a destructivist view and argue that everyone will soon be speaking English. But Mandarin is the most populous language in the world and Spanish the fastest growing."
There are competing forces at work that decide whether smaller languages survive, Howard argues. On the one hand globalisation will mean that many languages disappear. But some communities will always live apart, separated by sea, distance or other barriers and will therefore keep their own language. With modern communications and popular culture "you find that if enough people want to speak a language they can".
In short, there is no need for handwringing.
"Language is not a plant that rises and falls, lives and decays. It's a tool that's perfectly adapted by the people using it. Get on with living and talking."
Egyptian newspaper under fire over altered photo
Egyptian newspaper under fire over altered photo
President Mubarak leads the way in the altered al-Ahram image Egypt's state-run newspaper has come under fire for altering a photograph to suggest President Hosni Mubarak was leading the Middle East peace talks.
Al-Ahram showed Mr Mubarak walking on a red carpet ahead of US President Barack Obama as well as the Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian leaders.
The original image, taken at the White House when talks were formally re-launched, shows Mr Obama leading the way and Mr Mubarak trailing behind.
The original image from the White House, taken on 1 September Talks resumed in Egypt on Tuesday.
The manipulated photograph ran above an article on page six of al-Ahram's Tuesday edition, entitled The Way to Sharm el-Sheikh.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US peace envoy George Mitchell travelled to the Egyptian Red Sea resort to mediate the discussions, which were hosted by President Mubarak.
'Crossed the line'The opposition 6 April Youth Movement has accused al-Ahram, Egypt's biggest newspaper in terms of circulation, of being "unprofessional" for publishing the doctored image without mentioning the alteration.
"This is what the corrupt regime's media has been reduced to," it said in a statement on its website, adding that the paper had "crossed the line from being balanced and honest".
The independent daily, al-Masry al-Youm, reported that the state-run daily had "carried out surgery" on the photo "to show Mubarak leading and the rest behind".
Al-Ahram has since replaced the image on its website with a picture of the assembled leaders seated on chairs in the Red Sea resort.
Officials at the paper could not be reached for comment.
Israeli officials said Sharm el-Sheikh was chosen for Tuesday's meeting in recognition of Egypt's key role in regional peace efforts.
The negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas are the first direct talks between the two sides in almost two years.
Falling in love costs you friends
Falling in love costs you friends
Passionate relationships can leave you little time for anything else Falling in love comes at the cost of losing two close friends, a study says.
We probably all know that a passionate new relationship can leave you little time for others, but now science has put some numbers on the observation.
Oxford University researchers asked people about their inner core of friendships and how this number changed when romance entered the equation.
They found the core, which numbers about five people, dropped by two as a new lover came to dominate daily life.
"People who are in romantic relationships - instead of having the typical five [individuals] on average, they only have four in that circle," explained Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford.
"And bearing in mind that one of those is the new person that's come into your life, it means you've had to give up two others."
The research, which has only recently been submitted for publication, was presented to the British Science Festival at Aston University.
Professor Dunbar's group studies social networks and how we manage their size and composition.
He has previously shown that the maximum number of friends it is realistically possible to engage is about 150. On the social networking site Facebook, for example, people will typically have 120-130 friends.
This number can be divided into progressively smaller groups, with an inner clique numbering between four and six.
These are people who we see at least once a week; people we go to at moments of crisis. The next layer out are the people we see about once a month - the "sympathy group". They are all the people who, if they died tomorrow, we would miss and be upset about.
In the latest study, the team questioned 540 participants, aged 18 and over, about their relationships and the strain those relationships came under when a new romantic engagement was started.
The results confirmed the widely held view that love can lead to a smaller support network, with typically one family member and one friend being pushed out to accommodate the new lover.
"The intimacy of a relationship - your emotional engagement with it - correlates very tightly with the frequency of your interactions with those individuals," observed Professor Dunbar.
"If you don't see people, the emotional engagement starts to drop off, and quickly.
"What I suspect happens is that your attention is so wholly focussed on your romantic partner that you just don't get to see the other folks you have a lot to do with, and therefore some of those relationships just start to deteriorate and drop down into the layer below."
Gene therapy for blood disorder a 'success'
Gene therapy for blood disorder a 'success'
The patient suffers from an inherited disorder which affects his body's ability to create red blood cells Gene therapy has been used for the first time to treat an inherited blood disorder in what doctors say is a major step forward.
A man given pioneering treatment to correct a faulty gene has made "remarkable" progress, a US and French team has revealed.
Gene therapy is an experimental technique that manipulates genes in order to treat disease.
It has seen some successes, but also setbacks, including a patient's death.
Beta thalassaemia is an inherited blood disorder that affects the body's ability to create red blood cells.
The first gene therapy trial was in an 18-year-old man with a severe form of the condition, who had been receiving regular blood transfusions since the age of three.
Stem cells from his bone marrow were treated with a gene to correct for the faulty one.
They were then transfused back into his body, where they gradually gave rise to healthy red blood cells.
Three years after the treatment, which took place in 2007, the man remains mildly anaemic, but no longer needs blood transfusions, doctors said.
The team, led by Philippe Leboulch, of Harvard Medical School in Boston, said: "At present, approximately three years post-transplantation, the biological and clinical evolution is remarkable and the patient's quality of life is good."
Beta Thalassaemia
- Around 1,000 people in the UK live with the severe form of the disorder, with most cases found in people of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and South Asian ancestry
- It causes anaemia and other complications, including organ damage, liver disease and heart failure
- Can range from moderate to severe
- Some have only symptoms of mild anaemia while others require regular blood transfusions or a bone marrow transplant
- Source: NHS Choices
But, reporting in the science journal Nature, the doctors sounded a note of caution, saying there was a possibility that the patient could be at risk of developing leukaemia in the future due to side effects from the gene therapy.
Gene therapy has been used since the 1990s as a new approach to treating a number of incurable conditions, including inherited disorders, some cancers, and viral infections.
There have been some positive results, but in 1999 an 18-year-old US volunteer, Jesse Gelsinger, died after the treatment.
And some children given gene therapy for the immune disorder "bubble baby" syndrome have developed cancer.
Proof of principleProf Adrian Thrasher, of University College London, has carried out gene therapy on children with immune disorders.
He said the latest study was an encouraging proof of principle that gene therapy could have genuine therapeutic effects in other blood disorders.
"The good news is that technology is advancing rapidly, and it shouldn't be too long before diseases such as thalassaemia can be reliably and safely treated in this way," he said.
Dr Derek Persons, of St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, said the work was "a major step forward for the gene therapy of haemoglobin disorder".
He said further trials were planned at several centres in the US, including his own.
"This is very early days," he added. "The field will advance from people doing different trials."
Never Forget: Bad Wars Aren't Possible Unless Good People Back Them
Never Forget: Bad Wars Aren't Possible Unless Good People Back Them
Clockwise from top left: Al Franken, Howell Raines (New York Times), David Remnick (New Yorker), Peter Beinart (New Republic), Bill Keller (New York Times) and Nicholas Kristof (New York Times)
I know we've been "free" of the Iraq War for two weeks now and our minds have turned to the new football season and Fashion Week in New York. And how exciting that the new fall TV season is just days away!
But before we get too far away from something we would all just like to forget, will you please allow me to just say something plain and blunt and necessary:
We invaded Iraq because most Americans -- including good liberals like Al Franken, Nicholas Kristof & Bill Keller of the New York Times, David Remnick of the New Yorker, the editors of the Atlantic and the New Republic, Harvey Weinstein, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and John Kerry -- wanted to.
Of course the actual blame for the war goes to Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz because they ordered the "precision" bombing, the invasion, the occupation, and the theft of our national treasury. I have no doubt that history will record that they committed the undisputed Crime of the (young) Century.
But how did they get away with it, considering they'd lost the presidential election by 543,895 votes? They also knew that the majority of the country probably wouldn't back them in such a war (a Newsweek poll in October 2002 showed 61% thought it was "very important" for Bush to get formal approval from the United Nations for war -- but that never happened). So how did they pull it off?
They did it by getting liberal voices to support their war. They did it by creating the look of bipartisanship. And they convinced other countries' leaders like Tony Blair to get on board and make it look like it wasn't just our intelligence agencies cooking the evidence.
But most importantly, they made this war (and its public support) happen because Bush & Co. had brilliantly conned the New York Times into running a bunch of phony front-page stories about how Saddam Hussein had all these "weapons of mass destruction." The administration gleefully fed this false information not to Fox News or the Washington Times. They gave it to America's leading liberal newspaper. They must have had a laugh riot each morning when they'd pick up the New York Times and read the nearly word-for-word scenarios and talking points that they had concocted in the Vice President's office.
I blame the New York Times more for this war than Bush. I expected Bush and Cheney to try and get away with what they did. But the Times -- and the rest of the press -- was supposed to STOP them by doing their job: Be a relentless watchdog of government and business -- and then inform the public so we can take action.
Instead, the New York Times gave the Bush administration the cover they needed. They could -- and did -- say, 'Hey, look, even the Times says Saddam has WMD!'
With this groundwork laid, the Bush crowd ended up convincing a whopping 70% of the public to support the war -- a public that had given him less than 48% of its vote in 2000.
Early liberal support for this war was the key ingredient in selling it to a majority of the public. I realize this is something that no one in the media -- nor most of us -- really wants to discuss. Who among us wants to feel the pain of having to remember that liberals, by joining with Bush, made this war happen?
Please, before our collective memory fades, I just want us to be honest with ourselves and present an unsanitized version of how they pulled off this war. I can guarantee you the revisionists will make sure the real truth will not enter the history books.
Children born when the war began started second grade this month.
Kids who were eleven in 2003 are now old enough to join up and get killed in Iraq in a "non-combat capacity."
They'll never understand how we got here if we don't.
So let me state this clearly: This war was aided and abetted by a) liberals who were afraid to stick their necks out and thus remained silent; and b) liberals who actually said they believed Colin Powell's cartoon presentation at the U.N. and then went against their better judgment by publicly offering their support for the invasion of Iraq.
First, there were those 29 (turncoat) Democratic senators who voted for the war. Then there was the embarrassing display of reporters who couldn't wait to be "embedded" and go for a joy ride on a Bradley tank.
But my real despair lies with the people I counted on for strong opposition to this madness -- but who left the rest of us alone, out on a limb, as we tried to stop the war.
In March of 2003, to be a public figure speaking out against the war was considered instant career suicide. Take the Dixie Chicks as Exhibit A. Their lead singer, Natalie Maines, uttered just one sentence of criticism -- and their career was effectively dead and buried at that moment. Bruce Springsteen spoke out in their defense, and a Colorado DJ was fired for refusing to not play their songs. That was about it. Crickets everywhere else.
Then MSNBC fired the only nightly critic of the war -- the television legend, Phil Donahue. No one at the network -- or any network -- spoke up on his behalf. There would never again be a Phil Donahue show. (Little did GE know that, when they soon filled that 8pm hour with a sports guy by the name of Keith Olbermann, they would end up with the war's most brilliant and fiercest critic, night after night after night.) There were a few others -- Bill Maher, Janeane Garofalo, Tim Robbins and Seymour Hersh -- who weren't afraid to speak the truth. But where was everyone else? Where were all those supposed liberal voices in the media?
Instead, this is what we were treated to back in 2003 and 2004:
** Al Franken, who said he "reluctantly" was "a supporter of the war against Saddam." And six months into the war Al was still saying, "There were reasons to go to war against Iraq ... I was very ambivalent about it but I still don't know if it was necessarily wrong (to go to war)."
** Nicholas Kristof, columnist for the New York Times, who attacked me and wrote a column comparing me to the nutty right-wingers who claimed Hillary had Vince Foster killed. He said people like me were "polarizing the political cesspool," and he chastised anyone who dared call Bush's reasons for going to war in Iraq "lies."
** Howell Raines, editor-in-chief of the "liberal" New York Times, who was, according to former Times editor Doug Frantz, "eager to have articles that supported the war-mongering out of Washington ... He discouraged pieces that were at odds with the administration's position on Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction and alleged links of al-Qaeda." The book "Hard News" reported that "according to half a dozen sources within the Times, Raines wanted to prove once and for all that he wasn't editing the paper in a way that betrayed his liberal beliefs..."
** Bill Keller, at the time a New York Times columnist, who wrote: "We reluctant hawks may disagree among ourselves about the most compelling logic for war -- protecting America, relieving oppressed Iraqis or reforming the Middle East -- but we generally agree that the logic for standing pat does not hold. ... we are hard pressed to see an alternative that is not built on wishful thinking."
(The New York Times is so left-wing that when Raines retired, they replaced him with... Keller.)
** The New Yorker, the magazine for really smart liberals, found its editor-in-chief, David Remnick, supporting the war on its pages: "History will not easily excuse us if, by deciding not to decide, we defer a reckoning with an aggressive totalitarian leader who intends not only to develop weapons of mass destruction but also to use them. ... a return to a hollow pursuit of containment will be the most dangerous option of all." (To cover its ass, the New Yorker had another editor, Rick Hertzberg, write an anti-war editorial as a rebuttal.)
Some of the above have recanted their early support of the war. The Times fired its WMD correspondent and apologized to its readers. Al Franken has been a great Senator. Kristof now writes nice columns (check out last Sunday's).
But the support of the war by these leading liberals and the majority of the Democrats in the Senate made it safe for the Right to let loose a vicious and unchecked tirade of hate and threats on anyone (including myself) who dared to step out of line. It was not uncommon to hear the media describe me as "un-American," "anti-American," "aiding the terrorists," and being a "traitor."
Here are just a couple of examples of what was said about me over the airwaves by two of the nation's leading conservative commentators:
"Let me just tell you what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong? I stopped wearing my 'What Would Jesus Do' band, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, 'Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore,' and then I'd see the little band: 'What Would Jesus Do?' And then I'd realize, 'Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death.' And you know, well, I'm not sure." (Glenn Beck)
And:
"Well, I want to kill Michael Moore. Is that all right? All right. And I don't believe in capital punishment. That's just a joke on Moore." (Bill O'Reilly)
(Ironically, O'Reilly made his threat/joke the night after Janet Jackson's breast was bared at the Super Bowl -- which got CBS fined over half a million dollars because, you know, nipples are far more frightening than death threats.)
So that's how I'll personally remember the early war years: living with a real and present danger caused by the hate whipped up by right-wing radio and TV. (I've been advised not to recount certain specific incidents that happened to me, as it would only encourage other crazy people.)
So I dealt with it. And I'm still here. And I know many of you went through your own crap, standing up against the war at school, or work, or at Thanksgiving dinner, taking your own blows for simply saying what was the truth.
But how much easier it would have been for all of us if the liberal establishment had stood with us? We didn't own a daily newspaper, or a magazine with a circulation in the millions. We didn't have our own TV show or network. We weren't invited on shows like "Meet the Press," because they simply could not allow our voice to be heard.
The media watchdog group FAIR reported that in the three weeks after the war started, the CBS Evening News allowed only one anti-war voice on their show -- and that was on one night in one soundbite (and that was four seconds of me in a line from my Oscar speech) -- even though in March of 2003 our anti-war numbers were in the millions (remember the huge demonstrations in hundreds of cities?). We were around 30% of the country according to most polls (that's nearly 100 million Americans!) and yet we had no way to communicate with each other aside from through the Nation and a few websites like CommonDreams.org and Truth-Out.org.
But that was no way to build a huge mass movement of Middle Americans to oppose the war. Unless you had just lucked out and been handed an Oscar on live television in front of a gazillion people where you had 45 seconds to say something before they cut you off and booed you off the stage (hahahaha), you had no public platform. (Jeez, I sure did get booed a lot that year: simply walking through an airport, or eating dinner in a restaurant, or sitting at a Laker game where they suddenly put me up on the Jumbotron and the place went so angry-crazy that Larry David, who was sitting next to me, felt that maybe for his own safety he should perhaps slide a few seats down or go get us a couple of wieners. Instead, he stuck by my side -- and his skillful ninja moves got us out of there alive after the game.)
I know it's hard to remember, but when this war started, there was no YouTube, no Facebook, no Twitter, no way for you to bypass the media lords so you could have your own friggin' say.
Too bad for the bastards, those days are over.
The next time around, it won't be so easy to shut up a country girl band or try to silence someone while he accepts his little gold statue -- or completely ignore the millions of citizens in the streets.
So now we can hope that one of our wars is over. Too bad we lost. I hate to lose, don't you? But the fact is, we lost the very day we invaded a sovereign nation that posed absolutely no threat to us and had nothing to do with 9/11. We lost lives (over 4,400 of ours, hundreds of thousands of theirs), we lost limbs (a total of 35,000 troops came back with various wounds and disabilities and God knows how many more with mental problems). We lost the money our grandchildren were supposed to live on.
And we lost our soul, who we were, what we stood for as a once-great country -- lost it all. Can we now ask for redemption -- for forgiveness? Can we be... "America" again?
I guess we'll see. The vast majority of the country eventually came around to the Dixie Chicks' position. And we elected an anti-Iraq-war guy by the name of Barack Hussein Obama.
But, please, promise yourselves never to forget how our country went crazy 7 1/2 years ago -- even though, to many people at the time, it seemed completely normal. And I'm here to tell you, no matter how much better it's gotten, no matter how normal you may think things are now, we're still halfway nuts. Just listen to the new batch of "sensible pundits" as they start to beat the drums about what we should do to Iran. One war down, one (or two or three) to go.
C'mon, Mr. President, not one more kid needs to die overseas wearing a uniform with our flag on it. We can't win like this. Let's dig a few thousand wells in Afghanistan, build a few free mosques, leave behind some food and clothing, fix their electrical grid, issue an apology and set up a Facebook page so they can stay in touch with us -- and then let's get the hell out. Your own National Security Advisor and your CIA Director have told you there are less than 100 al-Qaeda fighters in the entire country. 100???
100,000 U.S. troops going after 100 al-Qaeda? Is this a Looney Tunes presentation? "A-ba-dee-a-ba-dee-a-ba-dee -- That's All Folks!" Let's get real. I'm glad one war is "over." But I know how we got there -- and I'm willing now to fight just as hard to stop these other wars if you won't, Mr. Obama.
Your call.
Yours,
Michael Moore
Mike@MichaelMoore.com
MichaelMoore.com
P.S. Just a thought, Mr. President. Can I ask that you go back and watch this movie I made -- "Fahrenheit 9/11." There might be some answers there. I give you my permission to download it for free by going to this site: TorrentHound.com. Don't tell the studio I said it was ok! They've only made a half a billion $$ on it so far.
P.P.S. To everyone on my list: Thanks to your thousands of generous donations, we've raised over $60,000 for the Muslim community center near Ground Zero. This has made news around the world, that there are Americans who believe in our stated American principles.
University rankings dominated by US, with Harvard top
University rankings dominated by US, with Harvard top
The UK remains the second-strongest university system in the world, says Universities UK The US accounts for 72 of the world's 200 best universities, according to an international league table.
The Times Higher Education magazine's table, based on a number of criteria, including teaching, research and staff and student mix, has Harvard top.
Only five British institutions are ranked among the top 50, with Cambridge and Oxford in joint sixth place.
However, last week a separate study in the UK ranked Cambridge as the world's top university, followed by Harvard.
University leaders say the latest table indicates the UK still has the world's second-strongest university system, but that this is under threat.
California Institute of Technology is ranked at number two in the table, with Massachusetts Institute of Technology in third place.
The only university outside of North America and the UK in the top 20 is the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, in Zurich.
In the top 10, other than Cambridge and Oxford, the only non-US university is Imperial College London, in ninth.
Mainland China has six institutions in the top 200, more than any other country in Asia.
Only two Australian institutions are in the top 50, with seven in the top 200.
“Start Quote
End Quote Steve Smith President, Universities UKThe higher education sector is one of the UK's international success stories, but it faces unprecedented competition ”
In the past, the Times Higher Education magazine had collaborated with the careers advice company QS to rank universities, but this year both organisations have produced separate lists, using different criteria.
Times Higher Education survey editor Phil Baty said a change to the way the tables had been compiled made comparisons over time difficult.
But he added: "We do contend, however, that these tables are realistic and so, in some cases, they may deliver an unpleasant wake-up call that the days of trading on reputation alone are coming to an end."
David Willetts, UK Minister for Universities and Science, said: "Our universities have demonstrated their worth against new, more rigorous criteria.
"Reputation counts for less this time, and the weight accorded to quality in teaching and learning is greater."
Professor Steve Smith, president of Universities UK, which represents vice chancellors, said: "The tables may show that the UK remains the second-strongest university system in the world, but the most unmistakeable conclusion is that this position is genuinely under threat.
"The higher education sector is one of the UK's international success stories, but it faces unprecedented competition. Our competitors are investing significant sums in their universities, just when the UK is contemplating massive cuts in its expenditure on universities and science.
UNIVERSITY RANKINGS
- 1 - Harvard University
- 2 - California Institute of Technology
- 3 - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- 4 - Stanford University
- 5 - Princeton University
- 6 - University of Cambridge
- 6 - University of Oxford
- 8 - University of California, Berkeley
- 9 - Imperial College London
- 10 - Yale University
"Clearly, league tables must always come with a health warning as they never tell the whole story, but these rankings provide a useful indicator of international trends.
"This must serve as a wake-up call before big decisions are taken on university funding next month in the form of the government's spending review and the recommendations of Lord Browne's review into university funding and fees."
This league table is one of many produced by organisations around the world.
According to a report earlier this year by the European Commission, 33 countries have some form of ranking system operated by government and accreditation agencies, higher education, research and commercial organisations, or the media.
The report says different systems favour different indicators, and the same indicators can be weighted differently by the various systems.
Experts have expressed "serious reservations" about the methodologies used by global ranking organisations, it says.
In the rankings released by QS last week, Cambridge was at the top, followed by Harvard.
The UK's University College London, Oxford and Imperial College were all in the top 10.
Are executives worth their huge pay packets?
Are executives worth their huge pay packets?
Shareholders are angry as it seems the men in suits are walking away with most of the money A disgruntled shareholder at the Cable and Wireless AGMs earlier this summer was clearly ready to voice her anger.
"All the money and all the profit seem to be going toward the salaries of the board and I didn't necessarily think that they were worth that amount of money," she says.
The woman seemed to be echoing the sentiments of many of her fellow shareholders.
And in recent years, particularly since the start of the banking crisis, her concern has been widely shared across the country too.
But why has pay for people at the top got so high? Do they really earn it? Do we need to pay it?
'Talent myth'
Management writer David Bolchover certainly does not think so. He believes high pay is sustained by an ideology that he calls the "talent myth".
"The 'talent myth' states that there are a small proportion of high flying employees who make a huge impact on their companies success and that those employees are extremely difficult to replace," he says.
But lots of people have the characteristics needed to be successful, Mr Bolchover insists, so why should they be so hard to replace?
The answer, he reasons, is that there is a whole industry consisting of other high-paid people, institutional shareholders, pay consultants, even journalists and academics who have a vested interest in sustaining high pay.
Pay to impressMany might disagree with parts of Mr Bolchover's analysis, but it seems there is also widespread acceptance of the notion that too much money is being paid out.
Yet it happens, in many different ways.
Kit Bingham, who recruits top people for executive head-hunters Odgers Berndtson, says one of the biggest problems is companies being forced to declare how much they pay their top executives.
"A chief executive can turn to his board and say 'look, I'm far better than Joe Bloggs in my peer group over there, and look he's being paid 25% more than me. Why is this? I demand an increase!'"
Moreover, Mr Bingham reasons, companies need to persuade the City that they are ambitious.
One way of doing that is to try and recruit top people, paying top salaries, even if the person is not actually a top person in reality, he explains.
'Pay bubble'Jon Terry, head of reward at Pricewaterhouse Coopers, says there are also problems within companies.
“Start Quote
End Quote Stan, Have Your SayVarying levels of pay are an essential part of the competitive capitalist system”
Weak or low-quality remuneration committees setting vague or unchallenging bonus targets can easily allow high bonuses to be paid, even when companies have performed poorly.
And company shareholders are not always interested, either.
Many are based overseas and even some of those based in the UK "do not see companies as things that are necessarily generating wealth for the economy, but as things that they just buy and sell and trade", according to Sarah Wilson, head of Manifest, which advises institutional investors on how to vote on such things as executive pay.
In other words, there is a "pay bubble", and the benchmarking, targets and bonuses that have contributed to it in the private sector are now familiar across the public and voluntary sectors.
Large bonuses
Over the last decade or so, the biggest source of the growth of high pay and wider inequality has been bonuses, according to some recent research.
And those who have benefited have been "the people [already] within the top 10%, and then even within that group the top 5% and the top 1%" of the income scale, according to Brian Bell, a Research Fellow at the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance.
Most of them are based in London where they work in the financial sector, have… essentially run away from the rest of the workers."
But bonuses do not even work as intended, according to Professor Dan Ariely, a leading behavioural economist.
His research shows that while people jump higher or perform better on manual tasks if they are offered greater rewards, "on tasks that require concentration, thinking, memory, any kind of cognitive skills… the more money we put in front of people, the worse they do".
Curbing pay
A recipe for direct intervention to curb executive pay may be emerging.
Will Hutton, who has been asked by the government to explore introducing a 20:1 pay multiple in the public sector, says if it works there it could easily be adopted elsewhere too.
"Hopefully this produces a high performance and high morale public sector," he says.
And if that happens, he predicts private sector companies might well respond by trying something similar themselves.
Can Pay, Will Pay, is on Radio 4 at 0900 BST on Thursday 16 September, and on Friday 17 September.
Scottish warning over vitamin D levels
Scottish warning over vitamin D levels
New leaflets are to be handed out urging people to make sure they get enough vitamin D.
Doctors are concerned people in Scotland are not getting enough of the vitamin from sunlight and are not topping up their levels with a healthy diet.
There is increasing evidence that a lack of vitamin D could be linked to cancer and multiple sclerosis.
Doctors are also concerned about a rise in the bone disease rickets.
Rickets is a rare condition which causes the softening and weakening of bones in children.
Pregnant and breastfeeding women are particularly at risk of vitamin D deficiency, along with children under five, the elderly, the housebound and people with darker skin.
About 10 to 15 minutes a day of sunshine is considered safe.
Analysis
There is no one-size-fits-all recommendation for how much sun you need to make enough vitamin D.
It depends on many things like time of day, time of year, location, cloud cover and more.
But the time required is typically less than the amount of time needed for skin to redden and burn.
So, enjoying the sun safely, while taking care not to burn, can help to give the benefits of vitamin D without raising the risk of skin cancer.
When it comes to sun exposure, little and often is best.
People should get to know their own skin to understand how long they can spend outside under different conditions without risking sunburn.
But in Scotland the sun is only strong enough to provide vitamin D between April and September.
If the body's reserves of vitamin D run out during the winter, they need to be topped up from oily fish, eggs, meat or a supplement.
Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said: "We know that in Scotland the winter sun is not strong enough to provide the minimum vitamin D needed for health - especially for those with darker skin.
"A significant proportion of the UK population has low vitamin D levels. This leaflet aims to ensure that those at risk are aware of the implications of vitamin D deficiency and know what they can do to prevent it."
She added: "Vitamin D is key to maintaining healthy bones. Young children have a high risk of deficiency and we are seeing an increase in reported cases of rickets in Scotland.
"These conditions are easily prevented by improving diet and taking a supplement if you are at risk.
"Recent research suggests that vitamin D deficiency may also contribute to a range of other medical conditions. The Scottish government are keen to continue to monitor this evidence."
'Shine on Scotland'
The health secretary is due to speak at the Shine on Scotland conference on Tuesday, which will bring together academics from across the world to consider the possible links between vitamin D deficiency and various health problems.
The event is taking place after schoolboy Ryan McLaughlin took a petition to the Scottish Parliament which called on ministers to produce new guidelines on vitamin D supplements for children and pregnant women, along with an awareness campaign about the issue.
Ryan took up the cause after watching his mother Kirsten suffering from MS.
He said: "It's amazing that I only launched Shine on Scotland early last year and so much has happened since.
"The petition lodged at the Scottish Parliament got great support and I'm really grateful to the Scottish government for being prepared to look at this issue.
"I hope the summit is a great success and that something positive can be done for people with MS and to prevent future generations from developing it."
Amazing New Designs For The Dollar Bill
The American dollar is in bad need of a makeover. Thanks to the Dollar ReDe$ign Project, we may now have some options.
Organized by creative strategy consultant Richard Smith, the Dollar ReDe$ign Project is soliciting ideas for the dollar bill of the future. "Our great 'rival', the Euro, looks so spanky in comparison it seems the only clear way to revive this global recession is to rebrand and redesign," the project notes on its website.
Fisher started the project in with the intent of "trying to find a catalyst to restart our economy" he told Fox News. The recent competition is now closed, and voting ends on September 30. "This has touched people's hearts," Fisher said, and "people feel the dollar touches their lives."
The leading vote-getter for this year's competition (pictured below) was submitted by British duo Dowling Duncan, which features a unique vertical design.
Why a vertical format? "When we researched how notes are used we realized people tend to handle and deal with money vertically rather than horizontally," they note on the Dollar ReDe$ign Project's website. "You tend to hold a wallet or purse vertically when searching for notes. The majority of people hand over notes vertically when making purchases. All machines accept notes vertically. Therefore a vertical note makes more sense."
Mark Gartland submitted the entry below, entitled "America Today." The $50 bill features (pictured below) Sacagawea, the native American Indian who acted as Lewis and Clark's interepreter and guide. Noting the "cosmetic drabness" of the current dollar bill, Gartland selected various historical icons from including Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln and President Obama to represent the "diverse fabric" of the U.S.
Self-taught web designer Sean Flanagan submitted "Moving Forward, Looking Back," (below) which hews to many of "base color, size and orientation" of the classic dollar bill, but offers more than a few pleasant upgrades. Flanagan also utilized only American-designed typefaces and says his design would require at least "three different layers of solid ink," a preemptive strike against counterfeiting.
If these money makeovers weren't enough, The Dollar ReDe$ign Project has even circulated a petition to get the U.S. government to seriously consider their ideas. Which of these designs is your favorite?
IN PHOTOS: View More Amazing New Designs For The Dollar Bill Here.
RELATED: Recently revamped $100 bill incorporates incredible technology
What Not to Say When Pulled Over by a Cop
What Not to Say When Pulled Over by a Cop
In what he calls an "educational video" that's widely circulated on YouTube, comedian Chris Rock offers advice on what to do when you get pulled over for a traffic violation.
"Obey the law" he says. "Stop immediately" and "stay in your car with your hands on the wheel." Finally, "if your woman is mad at you, leave her at home. There's nothing she'd like to see more than you getting your [you-know-what] kicked."
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It's a dead-on spoof of a hard truth: Respect authority. If you don't, you increase the odds of a pricey ticket.
[Click here to check auto rates in your area.]
"Everything in that video is absolutely true," said Sgt. Matthew Koep of the South Plainfield, N.J., Police Department. "It's funny, but it's accurate."
Citizens who are generally law-abiding are likely to come into contact with the police only under two circumstances: If you're a crime victim or you get pulled over for a traffic violation.
[See the Most Stolen Vehicles in the United States]
Police officers are not out to make your life miserable, but to make sure you're following the rules of the road and not endangering yourself or those around you.
With a few exceptions, and an egregious traffic violation is top among them, cops aren't mandated to write tickets. Most would rather send you on your way with a friendly warning -- that can save you time and money.
But handle the situation with an aggressive or arrogant attitude and you can expect to squeeze an expensive court date into your busy schedule.
Play Nice
First rule: don't argue.
"I get this all the time," said Karen Rittorno, a nine-year veteran with the Chicago Police Department. "'What are you stopping me for? I didn't do nothing.' If they try to take charge of the traffic stop, they're not going to get out of it without a ticket," she said. "We ask the questions, not them."
Accept that the police have caught you doing something that's against the law, such as speeding or gliding through a stop sign.
"All we do is react to what people do when you pull them over," said Dennis Fanning, a homicide detective and veteran officer with the Los Angeles Police Department. "We don't instigate the stuff, but we will react to you. The situation will escalate or de-escalate depending on how that person reacts."
To argue with cops is akin to calling them idiots. Don't do that. "That's implying that I pulled you over for no reason and that bothers me," Koep said.
Keep It Honest
Don't lie, either. Cops are trained to note the human characteristics of lying, including twitching and looking to the left, and they know the right questions to ask to suss out the truth.
Fanning estimates that nine out of 10 people lie to him. "It's an attack on our intelligence," he said.
Moreover, the truth can set you free. Koep recalled an incident when he pulled a young guy over for speeding.
"He looks straight at me and says, 'You know, officer, I wasn't even paying attention. I just had the best date of my life. I just met my future bride. I'm just on cloud nine right now.'
"The guy was completely serious," Koep said. "How are you going to write that guy up after that? Who makes that kind of stuff up?"
Of course, don't use pejoratives when addressing the police, unless you're eager for a ticket. But other words may backfire, too. Rittorno works in a crime-ridden section of Chicago where the majority of people she pulls over for traffic violations don't have licenses or insurance, she said.
"So I get a lot of, 'I'm sorry, baby. I didn't mean it, sweetheart,'" she said. "I hate being called 'baby' or 'sweetheart.' I'm 'officer' to you.''
The police don't like being talked over, either. "Be polite," said Chicago Officer Mike Thomas. "You have your rights as a citizen, too, but it doesn't do you any good to talk while he's talking."
Cops know that people are nervous when they get pulled over, and they expect a certain amount of jumpiness when they approach a car. Rittorno even admitted she's intimidated in the same situation. "I'm the police and I get scared if I get pulled over," she said.
But did you know they're on edge, too? You know who they are, but they don't know whether you're a good guy or a bad guy. "The only thing on his mind when he approaches you is safety," Thomas said. "You know you don't have a gun in your lap, but the officer doesn't know it."
Rittorno, for one, said she assumes everyone has a gun. "I'm always on 10," she said, referring to her high level of vigilance. "I take it down depending on their demeanor or what I see."
[See the Most and Least Expensive Cars to Insure ]
Stay Calm
When those headlights go on, it's best to pull the car to the right, stay in the car, turn the interior lights on if it's dark and put your hands on the steering wheel.
Don't make any quick movements, and don't turn to grab your purse or put your hands in your pocket or under your seat to retrieve your license -- until the officer instructs you to. Then, do it slowly.
Don't move to open the glove box either, until directed. And do that slowly, too. Let the police shine a light inside the box before you reach in. Many criminals hide guns in glove boxes.
"What's going to cause the situation to get worse is for the fear factor to rise in that officer," Koep said. "The officer is more likely to cut you a break as long as you can reduce that fear. …If you're friendly with me, not arguing or denying what happened, that lowers the fear factor and will make me a lot more cooperative with you."
Don't boast about who you know, either. That can infuriate cops. They consider it a veiled threat to their livelihoods. Fortunately, most municipalities have laws in place to insure that an officer is not fired or reprimanded for ticketing, say, the mayor's daughter.
Finally, never try to buy off a cop. "In those instances where they've offered me a bribe," Fanning said. "I loved making those arrests."
Jennifer Waters is a MarketWatch reporter, based in Chicago.