Mitch Gann’s

The Flint River, placid in the morning sun, just west of downtown Flushing, along the route of my daily walk. In this case "daily" means "done during the day time." Perhaps it will someday mean "done every day." We shall see.

Today is the day Firefox 3 will be released in its “final” form (whatever that means in the world of software). I use both Firefox and IE, but have been using Firefox more and more.  By all accounts, Firefox 3 will be a faster, more efficient browser. Of course it is free.

I have pledged to download a copy today as part of the effort to set a world record for software downloads in a 24 hour period.  The challenge  begins at 1:00 pm EDT: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/.

“Life Expectancy Hits Record High in United States” (Washington Post):

The overall U.S. life expectancy of 78.1 years was up 0.3 years from 2005. Life expectancy for women was 80.7 years, and for men, 75.4 years. The disparity between the sexes — 5.3 years — has been declining since it peaked at about eight years in 1979.

White women had the longest life expectancy, at 81 years, followed by black women (76.9 years), white men (76 years) and black men (70 years). The gap between men and women is markedly greater in blacks (6.9 years) than in whites (five years).

This is good news for Hillary Clinton. She can bide her time for two Obama terms, get elected in 2016, and still have more life-span left than John McCain does now. Indeed, according to the statistics, it is unlikely that McCain will live out even one presidential term, except maybe Bush’s second. Meanwhile, if Obama were as old as McCain is now, he would have been dead three years. That would’ve been a severe blow to his chances. I would say insurmountable, but he is from Chicago.

Of course, factor in regular doses of red wine and herring, and anything could happen.

“Oily Fish Can Protect Against Rheumatoid Arthritis . . .” (Science Daily):

For the first time, the intake of oily fish has been demonstrated to have a protective effect against the development of RA, reducing an individual’s risk by 20-30%.

This is according to a large-scale study conducted in Sweden, where they know their oily fish. Apparently consuming one oily fish a week is enough to lower a person’s risk of developing Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). The same study found that smoking and experiencing psychological stress at work increase the risk of developing RA.

I don’t think anyone would be surprised that smoking and stress are bad for you; this is just one more way they are bad. It’s the oily fish that I find interesting. I’m putting together the ideal anti-aging diet. So far, it consists of red wine and oily fish. The article does not mention a particular oily fish, but I’m thinking herring.

Here are some great herring recipes. Enjoy!

Free e-books!

Check out http://www.feedbooks.com for free copies of classic books in a variety of e-book formats and in PDF format.

The books are in the public domain — at least in France where the site is registered and in many other nations of the world, if not always in the United States of America with its determination to copyright protect Mickey Mouse until the end of time plus 100 years. Generally, the authors represented on Feedbooks have been dead 50-plus years. You can download book files in the format of your choice, with or without registering at the site.

Here is the list of the Top Book Downloads for the last week:

1. 1984 — Orwell (1949)
2. The Art of War — Sun Tzu (-500)
3. I, Robot — Doctorow (2005)
4. Le Kama Sutra (fr) — Vatsyayana (500)
5. Animal Farm — Orwell (1945)
6. The Great Gatsby — Fitzgerald (1925)
7. War and Peace — Tolstoy (1869)
8. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — Carroll (1897)
9. Beyond Good and Evil — Nietzsche (1886)
10. The Divine Comedy — Dante (1306)

My friend, colleague and fellow blogger Macy Swain (Night Blind) has noted a recent outbreak of slow-driving in our community, and speculates that the other drivers “are driving slowly to save gas. Nobody ever goes the speed limit on Court Street; people usually dart from lane to lane, shooting ahead if anybody dares to dawdle, honking, gesturing, giving the stink eye. Not today. I think my mates on Court are maximizing every drop” (The Go-Slow Club).

I have slowed down some myself. On a recent trip to Ann Arbor and back, I kept the speedometer between 62 and 65. Or tried to. It wasn’t easy with behemoths flying up behind me and swerving at the last instant to pass. How much gas does an SUV suck down at 80+ mph? A lot more than my mini-van was putt-putting along. By going slower, I get 27 mpg on the X-way, an increase of five miles per gallon. It adds up. The next step is to get rid of the mini-van.

“Substance in Red Wine, Resveratrol, Found to Keep Hearts Young” (Science Daily):

How, scientists wonder, do the French get away with a clean bill of heart health despite a diet loaded with saturated fats?

The answer to the so-called “French paradox” may be found in red wine. More specifically, it may reside in small doses of resveratrol, a natural constituent of grapes, pomegranates, red wine and other foods, according to a new study by an international team of researchers.

What’s new here is the “small doses” finding. Previously, it was thought that you needed to down several buckets of red wine a day to see any heart benefits. The cost to your liver seemed to offset any heart gains. But now it looks like a glass or two of red wine each day will do the trick. As one scientist quoted in the article puts it, “This brings down the dose of resveratrol toward the consumption reality mode.”

And it looks like the benefits go beyond the heart. Low doses of resveratrol apparently give much the same general anti-aging benefits as a restricted calorie diet (a diet with 20-30% fewer calories than the norm).

Let’s see — reduce my food intake by one-fifth or drink a glass of wine every day . . . What to do, what to do . . .