June 7th, 2008
Rifle Scopes
S.P.O.T. - Red Dot Spotting Scope / Mark III
Code:SPO-MK3-NR6
Price: $165.00
Quantity in Basket: none
wgowerg69 -
On the Second Amendment, Don’t Believe Obama!
The presidential primary season is finally over, and it is now time for gun owners to take a careful look at just where apparent nominee Barack Obama stands on issues related to the Second Amendment.
Ohio’s Senate Passes “Castle Doctrine” Legislation!
On Thursday, May 29, Senate Bill 184, Ohio’s “Castle Doctrine” legislation passed out of the State Senate by a vote of 25 to 7. This legislation now heads to the Governor for his signature.
Preventing Alzheimer’s
Of Mice and Mazes: Do high blood pressure medications prevent Alzheimer’s? They do in mouse brains - in test tubes and in mazes:
The researchers then tested Diovan in mice that were genetically at risk for Alzheimer’s disease.
Some of the mice drank water laced with Diovan. Their Diovan dose was lower than that used for people with high blood pressure.
For comparison, other mice got ordinary water without Diovan.
After drinking their assigned water for 11 months, the mice took a memory test in which they had to learn and remember the path through a watery maze.
The mice that drank the Diovan water fared best in the maze test.
But when the researchers tested mice without the dementia gene glitch, Diovan treatment didn’t help or hurt the mice navigate the watery maze.
We’ll have to wait a while to see how this pans out. What works on mice in mazes doesn’t necessarily work on men in mazes.
Milkor USA Shorty 40mm Multi-Grenade Launchers at SHOT Show 2008
by David Crane
defrev at gmail dot com
All photographic images contained in this article were taken by DefenseReview.com at SHOT Show 2008, and they are the exclusive property of DefenseReview.com. DefenseReview.com owns the copyright on these photos. All photos were shot with a 7.2-megapixel Sony Cyber-shot digital camera (Model #: DSC-P150).
May 5, 2008
Milkor USA has some new MGL-140 / M32 MGL config shorty 40mm (40×46mm) 6-shot multi-shot grenade launchers a.k.a. multiple-grenade launchers, and DefenseReview got a chance to view and handle them at SHOT Show 2008. The new compact 6-shot grenade launchers cut some inches off the barrel and sport Mil-Std-1913 "Picatinny" rails on the barrel and optical sight/combat optic. The short forend rail tube on the barrel of one of the new shorty launchers accepts a vertical foregrip. The optical gunsight, of course, is adjustable for elevation, and the buttstock can also be angle-adjusted according to operator preference.
At present, Defense Review believes the…
Medical Sci-Fi Contest: Please Meet the Winner! - Medgadget - www.medgadget.com
Medical Science Fiction: Late to the party, but here are the winners of Medgadget’s Medical Sci-Fi Contest. Enjoy.
TDI KRISS Super-V XSMG .45 ACP Submachine Gun (SMG) Action Photos from NDIA
by David Crane
defrev at gmail.com
All photographic images contained in this article were taken by DefenseReview.com at SHOT Show 2008, and they are the exclusive property of DefenseReview.com. DefenseReview.com owns the copyright on these photos. All photos were shot with a 7.2-megapixel Sony Cyber-shot digital camera (Model #: DSC-P150).
May 12, 2008
Speaking of photos, I also found a couple of shots of me firing the TDI KRISS Super-V XSMG .45 Cal. (.45 ACP) SMG at NDIA Small Arms Systems Symposium 2007, as well. The KRISS is essentially a 21st-Century version of a Thompson submachine gun. DefenseReview enjoyed shooting the weapon, and is interested to see test data on a high-round-count/adverse conditions test of the weapon.
For the record, Defense Review is…
Trusty Dentist
Trusty Dentist: Not so trusty with music and a drill.
Veteran’s Day Remembrance
In Remembrance: 
Veteran’s Day movie recommendation - Wooden Crosses.
Veteran’s Day medical reading - the influence of World War I on heart surgery.
Oklahoma: Tax Break for NRA Events in Budget Bill
On Friday, May 23, with just a few hours remaining in the 2008 Legislative Session, the Oklahoma Legislature gave final approval to an omnibus budget bill (HB1387).
Statistics, Politics, and Medicine
Lies, Damned Lies, and, Well, You Know: The New York Times is parsing Rudy Guiliani’s prostate cancer statitistics:
“I had prostate cancer five, six years ago,” Mr. Giuliani, a Republican presidential candidate, said in a speech that has been turned into the radio commercial. “My chance of surviving prostate cancer — and, thank God, I was cured of it — in the United States? Eighty-two percent. My chance of surviving prostate cancer in England? Only 44 percent under socialized medicine.”
…. The Office for National Statistics in Britain says the five-year survival rate from prostate cancer there is 74.4 percent. And doctors also say it is unfair to compare prostate cancer statistics in Britain with those in the United States because in the United States the cancer is more likely to be diagnosed in its early stages.
“Certainly, if you intensively screen for prostate cancer, you will find early disease,” said Dr. Ian M. Thompson, chairman of the department of urology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. “And simply because you find it earlier, you will always have longer survival after the disease is diagnosed.”
One reason that prostate cancer is diagnosed earlier in the United States than in Britain is that they don’t screen for it at all in Britain - at least not at the expense of the NHS. (Which is one of the reasons they spend less on healthcare than the United States. They don’t indulge in as much screening as we do.) At any rate, his statistics don’t appear to be all that far off the mark, at least for men in their 80’s. But even the NHS admits that prostate cancer survival is increasing because more people are starting to have their PSA checked - meaning that slow growing early cancers are being added to the mix, just as happens here in the US. As it happens, even back in 2002, the five year survival rate for prostate cancer in the US was 99% - still a much better figure than the UK’s 71%.
But, as the astute bloggers point out, prostate cancer isn’t the best example of the benefits of screening. Prostate cancer is, in most cases, slow growing - and although our screening policies detect many early cancers that would never do harm if left undetected, we also end up spending a lot more money treating these same cancers. When given the choice between watchful waiting and removal, many choose removal. (Another reason why we end up spending more and being less healthy in surveys like this.)
But the Astutes take a closer look at cancer in England and cancer in the US:
See this report, entitled “Cancer Survival Rates Improving Across Europe, But Still Lagging Behind United States” (and remember that England’s rates, not broken out, are among the worst in Europe).
Taking recent figures, female five-year cancer survival rates are 62.9 per cent on average in the US and 52.7 per cent in England. To compare America’s privately insured with England’s NHS patients, you’d need to bump up that American survival rate a bit (the uninsured most likely have lower survival rates–otherwise why worry about universal coverage) and bump down the English one (because some Brits have private insurance, and so buy better care).
Nationally, American cancer survival rates are significantly better. Certainly not by the 40-point margin Giuliani implied, but still.
Looks like the truth is somewhere between Rudy and the Times.