Tuesday evening roundup

Why the military never really wanted that missile defense system, and how Secretary Gates turned against it.

As I've been trying to tell you for ages, the government gets plenty of things right.

I really should get tested for ADHD.

ARGH! NO! NO! NO! NO! The primary enabler of hunger is not complacency. Plenty of people care; plenty of people are willing to donate money for food. What we need is systemic change, and talking about "complacency" isn't going to get you that, unless you're talking about complacency with our food system. Hunger is very much a demand-side issue: adequate food supply has little impact on distribution. For example, India, under British rule, exported food while its people were starving, because of a lack of demand (well, economic demand: the people who needed the food couldn't afford to buy it).

I knew I liked Dave Matthews but now I think I love him:

Matthews: I think a lot of it has to be on the press. We give the podium to a lot of people who shouldn't have the podium. The message that's delivered the loudest and in the most entertaining way is the one that we're going to put on because that's what we want. We want ratings more than we want to deliver information. That's just where the culture's gotten.

There's no way that Walter Cronkite, as a young journalist, no way Ed Murrow would be hired to do news today. Not a chance.

CNN: Because they're too low-key? Because they're not bombastic?

Matthews: Because they're thoughtful, and they're patient, and they're tying to tell you a truly balanced story. They're trying to impart information. I don't think that's the goal [now] because it's not a good business plan. ...

Everyone's outraged all the time. Why are you outraged? There's war -- there's always been war, as long as most of us have been alive. There have always been people being abused, there's always been horrible things in the world. Why are we outraged? We should just be quiet and figure it out, and work it out together. ... There's no solution in Washington as long as people are shouting like that.

And I know I love Mark Bittman. I can't believe the doctor in the video (and in this article): he's just enabling people to make bad choices. I'm going to tell you what I had for breakfast (and note that I am not one of those bloggers who tells you what I had for breakfast just so that you know, because I think you care; this is topical). Anyway, my breakfast of slow-cooking oatmeal with cinnamon and a pear had over 16g of sugar, or more than that serving of froot loops that would have won the "Smart Choice" label between the two). Incidentally, my oatmeal tasted better than froot loops and took hardly any more time to prepare. Would you say it was less healthy? And did you know that it's established that enriching or adding vitamins and fiber into foods artificially does not provide the same nutritional value that you get when those vitamins and fiber occur naturally?

There's also the issue of serving size manipulation: if Kelloggs designates a small enough serving size, it can easily manipulate the nutritional data to meet the Smart Choices criteria.