Another Drug Flops...

It's almost like it's an epidemic. After years and years on the market, another drug is shown to be of dubious, or in this case, no benefit:

Leading doctors urged a return to older, tried-and-true treatments for high cholesterol after hearing full results Sunday of a failed trial of Vytorin.

Millions of Americans already take the drug or one of its components, Zetia. But doctors were stunned to learn that Vytorin failed to improve heart disease even though it worked as intended to reduce three key risk factors.

"People need to turn back to statins," said Yale University cardiologist Dr. Harlan Krumholz, referring to Lipitor, Crestor and other widely used brands. "We know that statins are good drugs. We know that they reduce risks."

The study was closely watched because Zetia and Vytorin have racked up $5 billion in sales despite limited proof of benefit. Two Congressional panels launched probes into why it took drugmakers nearly two years after the study's completion to release results.

A probe? A probe? You must be kidding me. The drug approval process is broken. Companies can hide poor studies and cherry pick the data while hiding behind "trade secrets" while their friends on the approval board rubber stamp the applications.

The study tested whether Vytorin was better than Zocor alone at limiting plaque buildup in the arteries of 720 people with super high cholesterol because of a gene disorder.

The results show the drug had "no result — zilch. In no subgroup, in no segment, was there any added benefit" for reducing plaque, said Dr. John Kastelein, the Dutch scientist who led the study.

Five billion is sales for nothing but an increased rate in dying and fat drug company profits.

Dr. Robert Spiegel, chief medical officer for Schering-Plough, said the study was done "with the highest integrity" and that doctors can believe the results "because of the time we took to make sure the data are right."

"We were disappointed that it was not a very balanced panel discussion" by the heart doctors who urged their peers to focus on more established treatments.

Right... Like all the rest of the over-marketed, still-under-patent drugs with little, or no benefit. Even worse, in many cases, extremely cheap old drugs are just as good. But they're not sexy. They're not new. They're not subject to heavy marketing programs built on lies. And they're not, because they're a quasi-monopoly due to the patent, extraordinarily profitable.

Dr. James Stein, director of preventive cardiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said many doctors prescribe Zetia and Vytorin because they seem to be safe ways to get cholesterol down quickly, without annoying side effects like flushing that some other medicines carry.

Stein, who has consulted for Schering-Plough, said that after six years on the market, it would have been good to see better results on a drug so many doctors believed would help, "but the reason we do research is so we don't have to rely on our 'beliefs' — we can rely on data."

Which is the way it's supposed to be done. And no hidden data. No off-the-record studies. No cherry-picking studies. And most of all, every study to be used should be monitored closely by independent agents within the FDA. There is just too much at risk and the drug companies, over the past few decades have shown us that they're not on our side.

"While these corporations profited, Americans were left in the dark," Cuomo said in a written statement Sunday. "The millions who take this drug, taxpayers who subsidize its use through the Medicaid and Medicare programs, and Merck and Schering-Plough's investors deserve to know why it took so long for the results to be made public. This new information underscores our concerns and advances our investigation, which we will pursue aggressively."

I hope it's more than a band-aid.

Sadr plays Maliki and the US...

After proving that the surge worked to the extent he allowed it work, Sadr now reverses course and declares peace:

BAGHDAD — The leader of the Mahdi Army militia on Sunday asked his fighters to stop their armed operations throughout Iraq and called on the government to stop arresting his followers and declare a general amnesty for those already in detention.

Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr issued the statement on the sixth day of a government offensive that had been intended to dislodge his supporters from their strongholds in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, but instead turned into a pitched battle in Baghdad and elsewhere in which the Mahdi Army proved a match for the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki.

In his statement, Sadr said he was ordering his followers to "call off all armed operations in in Basra and all the provinces" in an effort to preserve "the unity" of the Iraqi people.

The statement would allow Sadr to claim the role of peacemaker, though its practical impact was unclear. A Mahdi Army commander in Basra said his men would continue to defend themselves in the face of government attacks.

Without US troops and air-power, the Iraqi army was shown to be powerless to dislodge Sadr from Basra and his other strong-holds, despite YEARS of assurances of progress from the likes of Bush and Patreaus. With his brief insurgency, Sadr has shown the West and the Iraqis that Maliki is impotent and the peace belongs to Sadr.

Further, Sadr seems to be baiting Maliki to attempt dislodging him from power, knowing that it'll take US troops to accomplish the goal. Thus putting the Maliki government in a no-win situation with the Iraqi people by highlighting the inability of the Iraqi army to keep the peace, dislodge Sadr and highlighting the close ties Maliki has with the hated US presence by putting a US face on Sadr's potential destruction.

Broken Regulators...

I have, for years, complained about drug companies the FDA and the inherent, and dangerous, conflict of interest the industry-dominated approval board posed to the appropriate evaluation of clinical trials in, and subsequent approval of, medicine. Another area I've been concerned with is the publication bias of the studies used in evaluating medicine and the rampant "best-study forward" cheating in the industry.

In the area of "conflict of interest" the FDA routine allowed people with material ties to a drug to sit, and vote, on the advisory panel, claiming that to stop such practices would make it impossible to secure expert opinion. Well, despite the strenuous, and well coordinated, arguments from the apologists in industry and the overly-industry-compliant FDA, last year the line of argumentation taken by the FDA was implicitly negated by the FDA's own actions:

The Food and Drug Administration said yesterday that it plans to make extensive changes in how it selects medical experts to serve on its advisory panels after years of complaints that many of them have financial ties to the companies whose products they evaluate.

...

In recent years, concern about the composition of the panels has reached a crescendo. The FDA and others have argued that overly strict rules might eliminate many -- in some cases all -- of the panel candidates with the needed expertise.

Yesterday, officials maintained that the agency's procedures have not been biased in favor of industry, but the new guidelines implicitly acknowledge what critics have long said -- that it is possible to find enough qualified experts who do not have ties to drug and device manufacturers.

The second area of concern I have is that drug companies submit studies of medications to the FDA for approval, unfortunately, they also have a long and dishonorable past of not submitting studies that are neutral to efficacy, or even contrary to efficacy. This cherry-picking of data can lead to toxic and dangerous drugs being prescribed that, frequently, have little or no benefit. Fortunately, in 2007 the Democratic lead Congress did manage to force more disclosure. However, it's not a panacea as drug companies, like the Bush administration, like to hide behind trade "secrets" to prevent full disclosure and the current regulations allow them to hide their problems:

Lack of access to data is an ongoing problem in the United States, despite passage of the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act (FDAAA) of 2007, which was intended to make clinical trial data more transparent. The act requires most clinical trials to be registered and their results to be posted at ClinicalTrials.gov, a clinical trials registry of the National Library of Medicine. It’s an admirable first step, but the FDAAA may not reduce the likelihood of dangerous or ineffective drugs remaining on the market as much as some people might have hoped. For one thing, it fails to fully overcome the problem of publication bias, in part because some studies do not have to be registered or have their results posted (such as preclinical or toxicity trials or trials for drugs and devices that fail to win approval for any indication).

Well, at least they're incremental steps. And, over-time, we'll get some better science so we can make better decisions. But what about the past... Can we rely on the newer medicines approved under the old process? Maybe not:

Antidepressants
An untold story?

A recently published study analysing the effectiveness of some antidepressants highlights the ongoing problem of how study results may be distorted by failure to make data fully available. Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee report

New generation antidepressants aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. That seems to be the central message in the meta-analysis published this week by Irving Kirsch and colleagues in PLoS Medicine, and it was this message that made the headlines. Kirsch’s conclusion follows on the heels of similar studies showing that statins are useful in only a small subset of patients taking the drugs2 and earlier studies finding that the safety and performance of cyclo-oxygenase-2 (COX 2) inhibitors were worse than they first seemed. All of which further reinforces previous criticisms that regulators in the United Kingdom and the United States are not doing their duty to protect the public from useless or dangerous drugs. But there’s another, deeper problem here—a problem that, ironically enough, was highlighted by GlaxoSmithKline’s news release stating that Kirsch’s conclusions are "incorrect" because he evaluated only a "small subset of the total data available." How can regulators, the public, and doctors know how useful (or how potentially dangerous) drugs really are unless outside researchers have access to all the data?

Trade secrets. What a load of crap. Except for a small amount of manufacturing data, when it comes to trade-secrets for data suppression, the exception should be absolutely abolished. I'm not interested in your bullshit press release when you considered clinical trial data, that ends up with people dead, a "trade secret." It's not. It's just data. You either fully disclose, or go to hell:

Perhaps the most daunting obstacle to full access to data—and one that the FDAAA doesn’t deal with—is the trade secrecy rules that allow the FDA and industry to prevent disclosure of critical data, regardless of what they are now required to post on ClinicalTrials.gov. This aspect of drug regulation surfaced in 2005, with the death of 19 year old Traci Johnson, who committed suicide while serving as a healthy volunteer in a trial of duloxetine for a new indication, urinary incontinence. After requesting the data on duloxetine from the FDA, one of us (Lenzer) found that Johnson’s death, in addition to those of at least four other volunteers, was not included. When questioned, the FDA cited trade secrecy laws, which permit companies to withhold all information, even deaths, about drugs that do not win approval for a new indication, even when the drug is already on the market for other indications.

People are more important than profits. At least in the minds of what I would considered to be "right-thinking" people. Libnuta and Dick Cheney's of the world be damned.

The full meta-analysis is here. It is not exceptionally kind to the FDA or drug industry:

The researchers obtained data on all the clinical trials submitted to the FDA for the licensing of fluoxetine, venlafaxine, nefazodone, and paroxetine. They then used meta-analytic techniques to investigate whether the initial severity of depression affected the HRSD improvement scores for the drug and placebo groups in these trials. They confirmed first that the overall effect of these new generation of antidepressants was below the recommended criteria for clinical significance.

When the sugar pills are as effective, for most patients, as the marginally-effective, if not ineffective, expensive drugs... And forty-million people are taking them because medical practitioners have been lead to believe these pills are "magical"... Of COURSE the manufacturer is going to deny everything, the profits are huge, and who cares if:

Nefazodone hydrochloride (trade name Serzone) is an antidepressant drug marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb. Its sale was discontinued in 2003 in some countries, due to the small possibility of hepatic (liver) injury, which could lead to the need for a liver transplant, or even death.

The US Food and Drug Administration body (FDA) requires all antidepressants, including venlafaxine, to carry a black box with a generic warning about a possible suicide risk. In addition, the most recent research indicated that patients taking venlafaxine are at increased risk of suicide. A study conducted in Finland followed more than 15,000 patients for 3.4 years. Venlafaxine increased suicide risk 1.6-fold (statistically significant), as compared to no treatment. At the same time, fluoxetine (Prozac) halved the suicide risk.

With fluoxetine in addition to the less dangerous side-effects, rash or urticaria, sometimes serious, was observed in 7% patients in clinical trials; one-third of these cases resulted in discontinuation of the treatment. Postmarketing reports note several cases of complications developed in patients with rash. The symptoms included vasculitis and lupus-like syndrome. Death has been reported to occur in association with these systemic events.

December 2004 European Medicines Agency (EMEA), i.e. the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP), informed patients, prescribers and parents that paroxetine should not be prescribed to children. CHMP gave a warning to prescribers recommending close monitoring of adult patients at high risk of suicidal behaviour and/or suicidal thoughts. In other words, CHMP does not prohibit use of paroxetine with adults but stresses extreme caution in actual usage. Also withdrawal reactions upon stopping treatment is mentioned and therefore it is recommended to gradually reduce the dose over several weeks or months if decision of withdrawal is made.

I don't deny these drugs have their uses. I do question the wide-spread prescription of them, however, when they have serious side-effects and there is question to whether they're any more effective for for most depressives than a placebo. I know for certain doctors will prescribe medicine to make their patients satisfied with the care they receive, even when it's not a bona-fide medical necessary.

Really, I'm an adult. Don't sugar coat it. Don't give me snake-oil cures that don't work. Don't hide the dangers, I can't make rational decisions with bad information.

Five years later...

Iraq is still broken and we've got an impressive legacy of war-crimes, crimes-against-humanity, three-trillion dollars worth of debt and opportunity cost and no end in sight. To go with it, we've got the fourth estate showing themselves to be the worst sort of Pravda-like sycophants and cheerleaders who have, for years, been uncritically repeating whatever they're told:

Iraq's new army is "developing steadily," with "strong Iraqi leaders out front," the chief U.S. trainer said.

That was three-plus years ago, and the trainer was David H. Petraeus, now the top American commander in Iraq. Some of those Iraqi officials at the time were busy embezzling more than $1 billion allotted for the new army's weapons, according to investigators.

And the Iraqi army is STILL broken. The recent uprising around Basra was a stalemate until it was put down with American support:

The U.S. military confirmed on Sunday that its special units have joined Iraqi government troops in a crackdown against fighters loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to win control of the southern oil city of Basra.

Let the Republicans spin it as they will, peace in Iraq depends on Sadr. Sadr decides on a ceasefire, and suddenly casualties drop significantly (last three red bars). Sadr calls off his voluntary cease-fire because he wants to add Basra to his sphere of influence and, boom, the Iraqis have 120 dead and 450 wounded in a matter of hours and we're reduced to dropping bombs and hoping like hell the Iraqi Army can take the ground because we don't have the troops to pacify Basra, despite the surge.

Meanwhile, the moron in the Whitehouse tells us the fighting in Basra is a sign the surge worked. He doesn't tell you that the fighting has spread from Basra to Sadr City and other places. He doesn't tell you that the Iraqi Army is useless and couldn't make gains in any of the insurgent areas until US troops got involved.

Nope, it's just the usual neocon double-speak: lack-of-casualties mean the surge is working (even if it's an external cause, like Sadr) and casualties mean the surge is working... See, no matter what happens means we're winning. Even if, five years later, and three-years later, and one-year later, virtually everything said about Iraq, by the neocons and the war cheerleaders, has been shown to be wrong or a lie.

And our gutless press? The "Fourth Estate?" Are they going to point this out? Hell no, those gutless curs are sniffing McCain's sack... Because, 40-years-ago, he was a POW. And they like him. Even though it's pretty clear, he's gone completely off the deep end in his desire to be President and has abandoned every principle for which he once stood.

What's the Over/Under that..

Some of this crap was made in China, with it's lackadaisical regulation and consumer protection, so someone here could make more money by cutting health and safety corners:

FDA Warns Consumers about "Total Body Formula" and "Total Body Mega Formula"

Distributor recalls dietary supplement products after reports of adverse reactions

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is advising consumers not to purchase or consume Total Body Formula in the flavors of Tropical Orange and Peach Nectar, or Total Body Mega Formula in the Orange/Tangerine flavor. The liquid dietary supplement products may cause severe adverse reactions, including significant hair loss, muscle cramps, diarrhea, joint pain and fatigue.

The Total Body Formula products are sold in eight-ounce and 32-ounce plastic bottles. The Total Body Mega Formula is sold in 32-ounce plastic bottles. Both products are distributed by Total Body Essential Nutrition of Atlanta. The company is the sole distributor of the products and has voluntarily recalled Total Body Formula in the flavors of Tropical Orange and Peach Nectar and Total Body Mega Formula in Orange/Tangerine flavor.

The Florida Department of Health recently provided reports to the FDA on 23 individuals who experienced serious reactions to these products seven to 10 days after ingestion. In all cases, the reactions included significant hair loss, muscle cramps, diarrhea, joint pain and fatigue. The FDA subsequently learned and is investigating a report that some individuals in Tennessee using the same products have experienced similar reactions.

FDA laboratories are analyzing samples of the products to identify the cause of the reactions, including the possibility that the products contain excessive amounts of selenium, which is known to cause symptoms such as those described in the adverse events reported to the agency. Selenium, a trace mineral, is needed only in small amounts for good health.

The products have been distributed in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

The FDA is advising consumers in all states to avoid using the products immediately and to discard the products by placing them in a trash receptacle outside of the home.

Consumers who have been taking the products and have experienced adverse reactions should consult their health care professional. Consumers and health care professionals can also report adverse events to the FDA's MedWatch program at 800-FDA-1088 or online at www.fda.gov/medwatch/report.htm.

The FDA is working with the Florida Department of Health in its investigation.

For more information, consumers can call the FDA's toll-free Food Safety Hotline at 1-888-SAFEFOOD.

So, without the Florida Department of Health to coordinate all these cases, how would the market fix this? Probably like an exploding Pinto... Not at all.

Religious nuts in Texas seek to ban book about book banning!

Religious morons and their combined sense of entitlement and delusions of victimization will ruin this country. As it is, they've corrupted much of science and history in public education.

Recession: The Movie

I'd say enjoy. In that case though, I'd say it's better to learn than to enjoy.

It's time to regulate...

After the bank runs in the 1930's a trade-off was made: We (through the Federal Reserve) will protect the banking industry from bank runs through easy credit. The trade off is that you will be regulated. Since then, the banking system in America has been very solid.

Well, the investment banking system, running around unregulated and not learning the lessons of the past, has been sucking at the government tit at an unprecedented rate:

WASHINGTON - Big Wall Street investment companies are taking advantage of the Federal Reserve's unprecedented offer to secure emergency loans, the central bank reported Thursday.
Those firms averaged $32.9 billion in daily borrowing over the past week from the new lending facility, compared with $13.4 billion the previous week. The program, which began last Monday, is part of the Fed's effort to aid the financial system.

On Wednesday alone, lending reached $37 billion.

Almost thirty-three billion a day. To stave off bankruptcy due solely to their ill-considered actions in the "free market." The actions that, without the Federal Reserves intervention, could trigger a massive depression, wiping millions of innocents who would be "collateral" casualties of the greedy few.

To me, it's simple: if you suck at the government tit, you subject yourself to the government's regulation. Or you fail on your own decisions. Fair is fair.

And no more of the government subsidized capitalism. Really, if you're going to preach free-markets, no more subsidies. You pay for everything, no matter how indirect the connection.

Let there be light...

In the natural sciences, abiogenesis is the study of how life on Earth might have emerged from non-life. Scientific consensus is that abiogenesis occurred sometime between 4.4 billion years ago, when water vapor first liquefied, and 2.7 billion years ago, when the ratio of stable isotopes of carbon (12C and 13C ), iron and sulfur points to a biogenic origin of minerals and sediments and molecular biomarkers indicate photosynthesis.

This topic also includes panspermia and other exogenic theories regarding possible extra-planetary or extraterrestrial origins of life, thought to have possibly occurred sometime over the last 13.7 billion years in the evolution of the Universe since the Big Bang.

And now, more information for the model:

A sniff test of water vapor spewing from Saturn's moon Enceladus shows it is gushing with organic molecules, increasing the possibility of life existing somewhere in the Saturn system.

Scientists have been intrigued by the moon since the fountain of water was first spotted in 2005. Now they've identified a soup of prebiotic material there, similar to what's found in comets, from an analysis of data collected by the Cassini spacecraft.

Nobody really knows how life began, but astrobiologists guess it required chemicals like those tasted by Cassini, a little liquid water and some unknown spark.

Contrasting this rock solid, but tentative, science with the discredited Guillermo Gonzalez and his psuedo-scientific, anthropomorphically-centered book, The Privileged Planet, which both absolutely and incorrectly asserts:

By assessing the elements that compose our planet, they argue, we can tell that it was designed for multicellular organic life. The presence of carbon, oxygen and water in the right proportions makes it possible for organic life to exist; and this combination of minerals and chemical elements exists only on Earth.

Of course, what would you expect from someone who was a regular contributor to Facts for Faith magazine produced by Reasons to Believe, an old earth creationist group.

It's the End of the World as We Know it.

From Macworld:

Black Hat: Who patches security holes faster, Microsoft or Apple?
by Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service

Apple's teasing commercials that imply its software is safer than Microsoft's may not quite match the facts, according to new research revealed at the Black Hat conference on Thursday.

Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology looked at how many times over the past six years the two vendors were able to have a patch available on the day a vulnerability became publicly known, which they call the 0-day patch rate.
They analyzed 658 vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft products and 738 affecting Apple. They looked at only high- and medium-risk bugs, according to the classification used by the National Vulnerability Database, said Stefan Frei, one of the researchers involved in the study.

What they found is that, contrary to popular belief that Apple makes more secure products, Apple lags behind in patching.

This is no surprise. There is a lot of mythology surrounding Apple and it's products, and this is just one, of many, of them. It is also, I think, an outstanding example of social cognition dysfunction in bias recognition that's been documented in the literature since the mid-1950's:

First, partisans evaluated the fairness of the media's sample of facts and arguments differently: in light of their own divergent views about the objective merits of each side's case and their corresponding views about the nature of unbiased coverage. Second, partisans reported different perceptions and recollections about the program content itself; that is, each group reported more negative references to their side than positive ones, and each predicted that the coverage would sway nonpartisans in a hostile direction. Within both partisan groups, furthermore, greater knowledge of the crisis was associated with stronger perceptions of media bias. Charges of media bias, we concluded, may reflect more than self-serving attempts to secure preferential treatment. They may result from the operation of basic cognitive and perceptual mechanisms, mechanisms that should prove relevant to perceptions of fairness or objectivity in a wide range of mediation and negotiation contexts.

(foot) Once more into the mouth, dear friends. Once more...

Monday, March 24th, 2008:

Fred Kagen: The first thing I want to say is that: The Civil War in Iraq is over. And until the American domestic political debate catches up with that fact, we are going to have a very hard time discussing Iraq on the basis of reality.

Tuesday, March 25th, 2008:

BAGHDAD — With Iraq's top leaders directing the battle, Iraq's army and national police pressed a major operation Tuesday to wrest control of the southern port city of Basra from the Shiite Mahdi Army militia. Fighting between government forces and the militia quickly spread through Iraq's south and into Baghdad.

Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and his defense and interior ministers took charge of the 15,000 Iraqi army troops and police units, which were deployed for what aides said was to be a three-day operation against militias in the city.

The battle at the oil-rich port began before dawn Tuesday and lasted into the early evening before subsiding slightly as the Mahdi Army, headed by firebrand cleric Muqtada al Sadr, defended positions in several neighborhoods. In the dead of night, residents reported artillery shelling, mortar rounds and guns being fired outside their homes.

Maybe he should read The Guardian, with its excellence in reporting, instead of his Washington-Bubble press clippings:

A final all-out battle for Basra is seen as 'inevitable' as persistent violence looks set to keep British troops mired in southern Iraq longer than was expected.

An uneasy truce has been maintained between Iraqi security forces and Shia militia groups since Britain handed over control last December and moved to a base outside the city. Gordon Brown announced that the number of troops in Iraq would be cut from 4,700 to 2,500 by spring but that timetable appears increasingly optimistic.

Fellowships for world's best

This is the way to do it:

THE 1000 Future Fellowships promised to mid-career researchers will be thrown open to international competition, Kim Carr, the minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research has announced.

“We can't demand that business become internationally competitive while shielding our researchers behind protective barriers,” Senator Carr told a gathering of business leaders in Melbourne this week.

“The Australian Research Council will award Future Fellowships to the very best applicants, irrespective of nationality. We want to bring these scholars to Australia. This is how our competitors operate.”

Senator Carr said he expected the fellowships would “lure some of our gifted expatriates back to Australia” but his speech gave greater weight to internationalisation.

“Our aim is to attract the world's best - who may or may not be Australian - and to get them working here on problems that matter to us,” he said.

As opposed to our idiotic rules, regulations and institutional abuse that's driving people away.

What they mean when they say "fair"...

Remember, those tax cuts...? Unless you're making well over $100,000 they haven't really helped you. A few hundred dollars over 5 years while the war by the rich, for the rich, is not being paid for. Until they jack up your taxes because "we're all in it together."

Of course, they've jacked your social security taxes up. But you probably don't notice that. Unless you're self-employed and making more than $65,000 a year and actually pay that huge increase directly out of your own pocket.

"Hello NSA" by Roy Zimmerman

Enjoy.

Ruh-Roh!:

Today, some new data were released that support the CW. Over the last two weeks (a long sample period), Gallup surveyed more than 6,000 Democratic voters nationwide to see if they would still vote for the Democratic nominee in the general election if their preferred candidate lost. They have some bad news to report for Democrats.

Twenty-eight percent of current Hillary Clinton supporters say they would vote for John McCain over Barack Obama in the general election. Nineteen percent of Obama supporters would vote for McCain over Clinton.

And I'm not one of them. Unless it's a team-work ticket, I'm thinking Nader. :)

It's hitting the fan in Iraq...

Ironic News Flash from Crooks and Liars:

While giving one of his standard “we’re winning in Iraq…I don’t care what you say” speeches today, Senator McCain was interrupted by MSNBC with some breaking news of violence from that country. Turns out Muqtada al-Sadr, whose cease-fire agreement was a major component to the declining violence, has decided he doesn’t want to play nice anymore, with forces loyal to him clashing with Iraqi forces in Southern Iraq, leading to at least 50 deaths and 120 wounded.

I knew this would happen. The Republican party needs to go the way of the Whigs. They can't govern. They can't fight wars. They can't do anything, anymore. It's just become the party of White-Man Welfare for the Power-Mad.

Pharmacist fined for refusing to dispense pills...

He should have lost his license, not just be required to pay a fine:

WAUSAU, Wis. - A state appeals court upheld sanctions Tuesday against a pharmacist who refused to dispense birth control pills to a woman and wouldn't transfer her prescription elsewhere.

The 3rd District Court of Appeals ruled that the punishment the state Pharmacy Examining Board handed down against pharmacist Neil Noesen did not violate his state constitutional rights, specifically his "right of conscience" to religiously oppose birth control.

"Noesen abandoned even the steps necessary to perform in a minimally competent manner under any standard of care," the three-judge panel said. The decision upheld a ruling by Barron County Circuit Judge James Babler.

Once again, this is not difficult to understand: Your license to practice is granted by the State and is a privilege. The State tells you what you can and/or must do. If you don't want to do it, do something else.

In my accounting practice, the IRS has decided I need to keep records on every number on every tax return I prepare and can no longer rely on oral substantiation from my clients. That means more record keeping for me, more expense for my clients. If I don't like it, I can get into some other career field.

To make sure I remain competent, in my accountancy practice, I must take 80 hours of professional education every two years. If I don't like it, I can get into some other career field. In fact, the list of "wills" and "musts" goes on for quite some length.

Should I fail to comply, I can be penalized, suspended or even terminated from my profession. I understood that going into my profession because I was clear on the concept that being a Certified Public Accountant is a privilege the State grants to me for my demonstrated excellence in accounting. And that this license, and protected designation, serves to separate me, and protect the public, from the fly-by-night hacks that would otherwise pollute the market in some laissez-faire, libertarian-ideology-fest.

Anyway, scoundrel that he is, Noesen plays the religious card:

Noesen, 34, of St. Paul, Minn., told regulators that he is a devout Roman Catholic and refused to refill the prescription or release it to another pharmacy because he didn't want to commit a sin by "impairing the fertility of a human being."

When ever I see the religious card being played, I always wish I could dig into the life of the holy-roller. I bet dollars to donuts that he's got a venial sin list as long as my arm and, really, should have better things to do than force his religious beliefs on others.

But it simply comes down to: If your religious beliefs interfere with your practicing medicine, you need to leave the field. Last thing anyone needs is to die, or be forced to get an abortion, or be impaired for the rest of our lives because you got a holy-roller feather up your butt.

Jesus, it's the Monica question...

And Chelsea strikes back...:

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Chelsea Clinton had a quick retort Tuesday when asked whether her mother's credibility had been hurt during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

"Wow, you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question in the, I don't know maybe, 70 college campuses I've now been to, and I do not think that is any of your business," Clinton said during a campaign visit for her mother, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I like the answer, though I'm not unsympathetic to the person who asked it because he, apparently, had a different motive than the two-million wing-nuts who've harped over this for a decade or so..:

"I'm a supporter of Hillary. I love Hillary," Strange said Wednesday on CBS' "The Early Show." He said he asked the question because his friends "always bring up that scandal. It's not something I asked to cause trouble but to show those people what makes Hillary so strong."

He said that by brushing him off, Chelsea Clinton missed an opportunity to show her mother's strength.

"I was very surprised" at the rebuke, Strange said. "I can see where she'd get a little defensive because of the question and hearing Lewinsky over and over again, but I would like to hear her say something about Hillary rather than dismissing the question."

Still, just shut up. I think, like most of the rational adults, that it's so far in the past that it has no merit and only serves to illustrate the incredible double-standards to which Hillary is held.

Yes, Bill cheated on Hillary. For whatever reason she sticks with him, just like millions of other husbands and wives who've been cheated on by their spouses. And it's none of our damn business why.

And, honestly, we don't need to relive the past 16-years of Clinton bashing, it's soooooooooooo old, like Rick Dees and Top-40 Radio.

Why "the surge" worked...

It didn't. Something else happened, that I suspected, to reduce the violence for which the surge proponents claimed credit and it's finally being reported:

Sadr ordered his militia to stand down in August after clashes with a rival militia in the Shiite holy city of Karbala killed more than 50 people. The U.S. military says the order played a key part in a 60% drop in attacks nationwide since the American troop buildup reached its height in June.

Sadr renewed the cease-fire for another six months in February, but told his militia it could defend itself against attacks. Clashes have broken out during raids by security forces -- in Baghdad, Kut, Diwaniya and other areas in the southern Shiite heartland -- targeting members of Sadr's movement who, according to American and Iraqi officials, have not been respecting the truce.

Maybe someday, hopefully in my lifetime, someone will learn that the whole "empire" thing really doesn't work. Neither does going to war to prove you have a bigger dick than your father or effectively settle old political scores with the Democrats.

UPDATE -- The Christian Science Monitor reports:

"The cease-fire is over; we have been told to fight the Americans," said one Mahdi Army militiaman, who was reached by telephone in Sadr City. This same man, when interviewed in January, had stated that he was abiding by the cease-fire and that he was keeping busy running his cellular phone store.

Sadr City residents say they saw fighting Tuesday between Mahdi militiamen and US and Iraqi forces in several parts of the district. One eyewitness, in the adjacent neighborhood of Baghdad Jadida, who wished to remain anonymous, said he saw a heavy militia presence on the streets, with two fighters planting roadside bombs on a main thoroughfare.

Okay, now it's not "fire if fired upon" but just "fire." Great. A bunch of idiotic chest-beating fools pointlessly going to war in a country that has been fighting occupiers for decades -- the Ottomans, the British and now us.

Dick Cheney's Company...

We had effective unions for a reason. We had an effective FDA for a reason. We had an effective OSHA for a reason. We regulated Companies and forced them to do the right thing for a reason.

And it's because big businesses are generally run by unscrupulous Robber Barrons, like Dick Cheney. And when we don't force companies to do the right thing, they're more than happy to do the wrong thing:

WASHINGTON - When the American team arrived in Iraq in the summer of 2003 to repair the Qarmat Ali water injection plant, supervisors told them the orange, sand-like substance strewn around the looted facility was just a "mild irritant," workers recall.

The workers got it on their hands and clothing every day while racing for 2 1/2 months to meet a deadline to get the plant, a crucial part of Iraq's oil infrastructure, up and running.

But the chemical turned out to be sodium dichromate, a substance so dangerous that even limited exposure greatly increases the risk of cancer. Soon, many of the 22 Americans and 100-plus Iraqis began to complain of nosebleeds, ulcers, and shortness of breath. Within weeks, nearly 60 percent exhibited symptoms of exposure, according to the minutes of a meeting of project managers from KBR, the Houston-based construction company in charge of the repairs.

Normally, a Company like Halliburton would be immune from law suits. They'd be covered by workers compensation protections, or various statutes that limit the ability of the employee to sue. But...

But the company's own actions have undermined its case: To avoid payroll taxes for its American employees, KBR hired the workers through two subsidiaries registered in the Cayman Islands, part of a strategy that has allowed KBR to dodge hundreds of millions of dollars in Social Security and Medicare taxes.

That gives the workers' lawyer, Mike Doyle of Houston, a chance to argue to an arbitration board that KBR is not an employer protected by federal law, but a third-party that can be sued.

Poetic justice. In order to screw the government out of employment taxes, they pulled this stunt. Now they're in jeopardy of losing immunity.

You can read the full article here.

First Day of Homeschooling...

It was an interesting day. Daughter, who was at a 5th grade "magnet" school, and placed in all advanced classes (Math, Language, etc) does the 6th grade math worksheet I gave her. She comes in, pleased as punch, because she's "done her hour of math."

"Hour of math?" No, that was 15-minutes of math. And she gets two more worksheets. In 45-minutes she's done with all three. And complaining:

Life. Is. Not. Fair.

After all, she did, with the first work-sheet, an "hours worth" of work. At least if it were in her math class at school. You know, with attendance, speeches, exhortations to "work faithfully," following procedures, pointless (sometimes confusing) instruction she didn't need and all the other time-wasters and distractions.

I think the part where I told her home-schooling would be "twice as much work in one-half the time" was truncated to "one-half the time." Oh well. Life is not fair. We are not the "life is fair" family. We are the "life is not fair, get over it" family.

Today, we do the potato. 4-hours of minimally guided research, writing and an oral presentation on the potato.

Why the potato? Well, not only is it one of the most important agricultural crops (top-5) in the world, but my understanding in direct human consumption, (i.e. not indirectly through animal feed, converted to liquor or used in other industrial uses) it's the #1 food crop in the world. It's the crop that broke the very common cycle of famine in most European countries during the 1700's. It's featured in English literature. Poems and odes to the potato have been written. It's one of the most important ingredients in classic cuisine.

Potatoes come in many varieties for many purposes. Potatoes are an incredible food source, having very close to an ideal balance of complex (slow release) carbohydrates and protein. A five-ounce baked potato has as much vitamin C as half cup of tomato juice. It has seven times the iron of a glass of mild, as much thiamine and eight times as much niacin. They're cholesterol free and 99% fat free.

In short, it is a very broad subject from which the child can learn to develop research skills and interests.

Apple Malware

At the risk of the crazed Apple fans trying to burn my house down, Apple is showing us it's real corporate face with this highly disreputable behavior:


'Apple Software Update,' Apple's means of distributing iTunes updates on Windows, has previously only offered to update existing software. However, recently, Apple has decided to install its 'Safari for Windows' software as an update. Even though you probably have not installed Safari and may not want it installed on your computer.

Not to only pick on Apple, Adobe has done the same thing and installed the Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition, though I didn't want it. And I've uninstalled once, although currently have it installed because they got it back on with the Reader 8.1.2 update.

I really believe this update strategy akin to the practices of malware distributors. Forcing/sneaking things on to your computer by hiding or lying or making the installation mandatory or even just easy to fall into.

Now, if it was just an option I could choose to accept by making a positive decision, I'd be fine. But that's not what happens, instead it's a default option and installing Safari is tricked onto your as the "option selection" is automatically checked. And, frankly, chances are sooner or later they're going to install it on your computer unless you pay very close attention, at all times, to the updater. Against your wishes.

Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets

The Comic Guide To The Expelled/ScienceBlogs Kerfuffle

Ha!

With success like this, we could stand some "failure."

We reached 4000 dead. Iraq is no closer to resolving it's issues today than it was when we started this public-relations endeavour. At least Chuck Hagel refuses to compliment the Emperors New Clothes:

Chuck Hagel on This Week with George Stephanopoulos:

GS: Now as you point out, the surge has not yielded all the political progress that everybody wanted, but clearly there have been fewer American casualties and the massacres have ended. You were wrong about that, weren’t you?

CH: No, I wasn’t wrong about that. We’ve lost over 900 dead Americans since the surge. Now if you want to dismiss that as “success,” that’ll be your interpretation. The fact is, in the end, all that matters is not a military tactical victory. Of course, when you flood the zone with American firepower, which is superior to anything in the world, we have the best soldiers, the best led, the best equipped….

GS: But you didn’t think that would work at the time.

CH: That’s not what I said. That’s not what I said. I said what you will do is you will further bog yourselves down in a situation, making the Iraqis more dependent on you, making it more difficult to get out. In the end, you’re not going to be any closer to a political reconciliation. If all this is working so well, George, then why are the Bush administration now talking about keeping brigades in there at 140,000, larger than what we had when the surge started? Why did Gen. Petraeus say last week—Gen. Petraeus—that there has not been commensurate political progress? That in the end is all that’s going to matter anyway. What the surge was all about, George, was trying to buy time for the Iraqis. They’ve not used that time very well. There’s no question, just like taking Saddam Hussein out, we were going to do that, we were going to do that probably dispatch him pretty quickly. That was never the issue. The issue is what happens after he’s gone.

I think it's time for a bit of "failure" and for us to admit we've screwed up. And bring the troops home. They didn't volunteer to be killed for a lie or a vanity war.

Oh, and impeach Bush and send him, and Cheney off to The Hague. War crimes are war crimes, even when we commit them.

House of Pain - Jump Arround

Led by rapper Everlast, the group celebrated their Irish-American heritage by wearing green, drinking prodigious amounts of beer, and swearing constantly. It certainly earned them attention at the outset, particularly when it was tied to a single like "Jump Around," but the bottom quickly fell out of their career. The group's second album, 1994's Same as It Ever Was, went gold, but it failed to generate a hit single, and by the time of 1996's Truth Crushed to Earth Shall Rise Again, the band had been forgotten.

You know you loved it... :P

The Onion: Are We Giving Robots Too Much Power?

Be worried. Be very worried. And love our Robot Overlords.

Too much testosterone, too few brain cells...

Self-pity self-parody is an ugly thing. And it's purveyors, like Mr. Finkelstein, just make me shake my head in amusement and wonderment:

SNL's Anti-Ann Coulter Product Placement
By Mark Finkelstein

There's nothing into which Saturday Night Live can't work its liberal politics--even a conventional game-show sketch. NBC aired a re-run of the February 24th SNL last night, and watching it this morning I spotted what you might call an anti-Ann Coulter product placement.

In "What's That Bitch Talking About?" two contestants viewing a succession of women offering bare snippets of dialogue have to guess what they're talking about. The male contestant is consistently clueless. But Tina Fey's character gets it uncannily right every time, down to details that would in reality be impossible to guess. Sample: a woman murmuring "okay" into a phone is indeed getting directions to a margarita party to celebrate her graduation from DeVry, etc.

The male loser is sent packing, but not before he receives a lovely parting gift in the form of the home edition of "What's That Bitch Talking About?"

Cut to a quick close-up of the package featuring four women: Whitney Houston, Queen Elizabeth, a beauty queen who's presumably Miss South Carolina of "US Americans" fame, and, most prominently featured . . . Ann Coulter.

If any more proof of SNL's pro-Obama bias were needed, now we have it. Imagine dissing Hillary's most eloquent supporter like that!

Seriously, Don Quixote, do you have NOTHING better to do than tilt at windmills? Ann Coulter was on the cover, so what? She's a celebrity and a hate-mongering publicity whore and is perfectly fit for the cover. Also, considering her career seems to be tanking due to her years of hate-speech and how it's tiring out even the residents of Wingnuttia; for her, any exposure is probably better than no exposure.

Also, haven't you listened to the fevered bleatings of the Obama supporters on how SNL hates Obama and likes Clinton? Come on, if you're supposed to be a "media watchdog" maybe you should, oh, actually pay attention.

Seriously, crawl out of your cave. Pull your head out of your butt. Join the 21st century. Get an education and try to make something of yourself besides your pathetic attempts at being a professional victim. Because you're not any good at it and the only people who are going to fly with your idiotic ramblings are bound to be so delusional they're beyond help and will believe anything as long as it's vile and hateful while reinforcing their sense of victim-hood.

Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya...

Coming tomorrow in the Sunday Times:

NEW YORK - In an interview that will appear in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, controversial televangelist Rev. John Hagee declares, "It's true that [John] McCain's campaign sought my endorsement."

McCain has attempted to distance himself from some of Hagee's views, much as Barack Obama is doing in relation to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But unlike McCain, Obama has not stood on stage with Wright and accepted his accolades this year.

Well, I guess the McCain's Corkscrew Express wishes to distance itself from a minister that makes Obama's "pastor problems" look like an ill chanced comment about a merit badge at a rowdy cub scout meeting. Just a FEW of the MANY very quotable hate-moments from the mouth of John Hagee:

"All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are -- were recipients of the judgment of God for that. The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades. So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing."

A gay parade in a coastal city in hurricane season. Yet it was God's wrath. Now, I'd believe it if the hurricane struck, oh, Ontario. But New Orleans? Give me a break. Also, why the cribbing from Pat Robertson? Can't you think of your own hate speech?

Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick.

Yes. Yes. Yes. The little women whom he respects like the dickens. And if you didn't get how much he respects them from the first 8th-grade joke, we've got another for you:

Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist.

But hey, why pick on the gays and the women when you can bash EVERYONE:

"As a nation, America is under the curse of God."

You know, with Pastor's like him leading the Lamb of God's Church, I'd almost believe him.

Lead Toys, Dangerous Drugs... UPDATE

This is what you can expect from an unregulated market:

Federal drug regulators, in announcing Wednesday that the mystery contaminant in heparin was an inexpensive, unapproved ingredient altered to mimic the real thing, moved closer to concluding that Americans might be the latest victims of lethal Chinese drug counterfeiting.

The finding by the Food and Drug Administration culminated a worldwide race to identify the substance discovered early this month in certain batches of heparin, the blood-thinning drug that had been linked to 19 deaths in the United States and hundreds of allergic reactions.

The contaminant, the regulators said, is a chemically altered form of chondroitin sulfate, a dietary supplement made from animal cartilage that is widely used to treat joint pain. The agency’s announcement followed a report Wednesday in The New York Times that was the first publicly to identify the modified substance as the likely contaminant. That report was based on nearly two dozen interviews with researchers and scientists in China, the United States and Canada.

Just like I pointed out in my prior post (February 28) on this particular issue, the markets don't work like the Libertarians would have you believe. And that dangerous products are the natural and logical result of importing from a Gilded Age economy. Government has a valuable, viable place in society and the best way for it to work is to vote those who don't believe in government, and are sabotaging it, out.

Keeping the Grover Norquists of America in power is akin to deliberately marrying an "open marriage" philanderer. Sooner or later s/he will be cheating on you, no matter what kind of fantasy you have about reform. It's time for people to look at the situation honestly and deal with it appropriately. And that means fixing government, not continuing to demolish through deliberate incompetency.

Casting out the Imp...

...while you let Satan in for the full show...

In an added bit of irony to the rude expulsion of PZ Myers from the movie preview (to which he was accepted), the producers of Expelled (the Creationist movie playing at "being censored by science) failed to recognize Dawkins and exclude him, as well.

Let's face it, Paul Myers (right) is a solid teaching scientist and the University of Minnesota, Morris and I love his blog, Pharyngula. But on the left is Richard 'freaking' Dawkins who is a science rock-star having written The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype. Dawkins is also a very famous atheist, having written The God Delusion which, I believe, has sold over four million copies.

Which only serves to highlight the mendacity, ignorance and incompetence of the producers of this propaganda fest. While Myers has a good on-line following, Dawkins has a world-wide and didn't have anything nice to say about the movie:

"What surprised me is it is a really lousy film, even if you happen to agree with it," said Dawkins, who took advantage of a question-and-answer session after the screening to ask why Myers wasn't allowed in. "P.Z. is in the film extensively. If anyone had a right to see the film, it was him. The incompetence, on a public relations level, is beyond belief."

Making it even more delicious, the last bit of irony comes at the end:

In the meantime, Myers is entertained by this irony: "Expelled's" closing credits include a thank-you to him. So he knows the filmmakers are grateful for the couple of hours he gave them last year. Just not grateful enough to let him see their movie.

It's almost like it's a 4X game for these liars: explore, expand, exploit, exterminate. Fortunately, I think, in the end, the ones they exterminate will be themselves; Intelligent Design has abandoned its stealth campaign and is demonstrating its religious purpose on a national basis.

First sex discovered...

Was it good for you, too?

A LONG, thin rope-like creature standing erect on the sea floor up to 570 million years ago has been identified as the first animal on earth to have had sex.

Fossilised remains of the mysterious tubular creature have been uncovered in Australia, and put back the history of sex by up to 30 million years.

The knobbly animal, named Funisia dorothea, is thought most likely to have reproduced in a similar way to modern corals and sponges.

Researchers identified the creature's capacity for sexual rather than asexual reproduction because fossil specimens were found in groups that all appeared to be the same age. Because they had found a foothold in a sandy seabed at the same time, it was considered they must have resulted from a simultaneous spawning instead of unco-ordinated asexual reproduction.

I'd say that's a pretty good explanation. Probably the best explanation. Doesn't mean it's right, but science doesn't promise that - only that it's the best explanation based on the facts and if a better explanation comes along, we'll go with that one instead.

Continuing...

However, sex for the ancient creature would have been functional rather than a social affair, says Mary Droser, of the University of California, Riverside, in the US.

"I think they would have been way too basic to have enjoyed the sex."

Imagine that, not enjoying sex has been around 570 million years. Amazing.

Expelled, for real...

Direcetly from The Panda's Thumb :

There is a rich, deep kind of irony that must be shared. I'm blogging this from the Apple store in the Mall of America, because I'm too amused to want to wait until I get back to my hotel room.

I went to attend a screening of the creationist propaganda movie, Expelled, a few minutes ago. Well, I tried … but I was Expelled! It was kind of weird — I was standing in line, hadn't even gotten to the point where I had to sign in and show ID, and a policeman pulled me out of line and told me I could not go in. I asked why, of course, and he said that a producer of the film had specifically instructed him that I was not to be allowed to attend. The officer also told me that if I tried to go in, I would be arrested. I assured him that I wasn't going to cause any trouble.

I went back to my family and talked with them for a while, and then the officer came back with a theater manager, and I was told that not only wasn't I allowed in, but I had to leave the premises immediately. Like right that instant.

I complied.

I'm still laughing though. You don't know how hilarious this is. Not only is it the extreme hypocrisy of being expelled from their Expelled movie, but there's another layer of amusement. Deep, belly laugh funny. Yeah, I'd be rolling around on the floor right now, if I weren't so dang dignified.

You see … well, have you ever heard of a sabot? It's a kind of sleeve or lightweight carrier used to surround a piece of munition fired from a gun. It isn't the actually load intended to strike the target, but may even be discarded as it leaves the barrel.

I'm a kind of sabot right now.

They singled me out and evicted me, but they didn't notice my guest. They let him go in escorted by my wife and daughter. I guess they didn't recognize him. My guest was …

Richard Dawkins.

He's in the theater right now, watching their movie.

Tell me, are you laughing as hard as I am?

Wow, Ben Stein and his crew of fools really stepped in it now. More at PZ Myers' blog, Pharyngula.

Charbroiled Squid Ceviche

Squid is not my favorite. But I think we're going to try this at home. That includes YOU monkey-girl! Mwa-ha-ha-ha...!!!

Mal-Security...

First it was the "unbreakable" car ignitions, now the RFID credit cards:



Honestly, they should give up on this crap. It doesn't really work in the long run and the short-run is so short anymore that it's hardly worth it. Plus, if you read the linked article on the car locks, people at various levels start to rely on these non-working security features and things can get sticky.

For credit cards, it'd be far better to work on consumer protection. For example, holding the companies that take credit cards without checking your ID liable for fraudulent purchases. I'll be blunt, I've signed for tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise over my lifetime where nobody has looked at the back of the card (I don't sign it which means, from what I understand, they're REQUIRED to look at my ID to verify who I am) or at my ID.

Oh wait, the credit card companies don't give a damn. They'll just sue you for the money stolen from them instead of taking care of their vendor's irresponsibility. But that's not the way the free market works. Target is important and has lawyers. You are not and you can't afford to fight it.

If the video doesn't play, try Boing-Boing, from where it came.

Court to Bush: Really, you're not the King...

What does it take to get through the pointy heads of the Bush Administration?

WASHINGTON - A federal court on Tuesday gave White House officials three days to explain why they should not be required to make copies of all e-mails on computers in the Executive Office of the President.

In a three-page order, U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola expressed concern that a large volume of electronic messages may be missing from White House computer servers. That's the allegation made by two private groups that are suing the White House.

Facciola's proposal would require the White House to make copies of all e-mails from the period of March 2003 to October 2005.

In his order, Facciola pointed to the White House's recent acknowledgment that it recycled computer backup tapes until October 2003. Recycling raises the possibility that any missing e-mails may not be recoverable.

Recycling tapes? From the "Global Warming is BS" administration? From the wing-nut welfare administration? Sounds like "the Dog ate my homework" BS to me. I wouldn't be surprised if it were part of a plan to hide the evidence of their war-crimes in Iraq.

"The court finds the White House's defenses as incredible as we do and is trying to come up with a way to preserve what might be left," said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, which had asked the judge to act.

Regarding Facciola's latest move, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said "we have received the order, are reviewing it and will respond appropriately."

By which they mean "We won't and our new criminal AG won't make us. Neener. Neener. Neener."

Elvis is everywhere...

What?

In work to be published in the April issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, Professors Gavan Fitzsimons and Tanya Chartrand of Duke, and Gráinne Fitzsimons of Waterloo, found that even the briefest exposure to well-known brands can cause people to behave in ways that mirror those brands’ traits.

“Each of us is exposed to thousands of brand images every day, most of which are not related to paid advertising,” said Gavan Fitzsimons. “We assume that incidental brand exposures do not affect us, but our work demonstrates that even fleeting glimpses of logos can affect us quite dramatically.”

To assess the effects of brands on behavior, the researchers selected two competing brands, both well respected by consumers, with distinct and well-defined brand personalities. “Apple has worked for many years to develop a brand character associated with nonconformity, innovation and creativity,” said Chartrand, “and IBM is viewed by consumers as traditional, smart and responsible.”

The team conducted an experiment in which 341 university students completed what they believed was a visual acuity task, during which either the Apple or IBM logo was flashed so quickly that they were unaware they had been exposed to the brand logo. The participants then completed a task designed to evaluate how creative they were, listing all of the uses for a brick that they could imagine beyond building a wall.

People who were exposed to the Apple logo generated significantly more unusual uses for the brick compared with those who were primed with the IBM logo, the researchers said. In addition, the unusual uses the Apple-primed participants generated were rated as more creative by independent judges.

Are they saying that if I want my kid to be a pot-smoking hippie bass-player, I should get her an i-pod; but if I want her to be a successful, button-down accountant I should get her something made by IBM?

Or are they just saying people are shallow followers who lack the internal fortitude necessary to escape cheap and easy to manipulation in our advertising-driven materialistic society? Because, really, I'd go with the second one any day. Because I believe it, and I've got a 3-Trillion dollar war in Iraq to confirm my beliefs.

But, but, but...

Ooops. Some non-Exxon-approved news on Global Warming came out:

Glaciers Are Melting Faster Than Expected, UN Reports

ScienceDaily (Mar. 18, 2008) — The world's glaciers are continuing to melt away with the latest official figures showing record losses, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) announced today.

Data from close to 30 reference glaciers in nine mountain ranges indicate that between the years 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 the average rate of melting and thinning more than doubled.

The findings come from the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), a centre based at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and that is supported by UNEP.

Sigh. You can read the rest here.

Writer Arthur C. Clarke Dies at 90

Science Fiction Grandmaster Arthur C. Clarke passes away:

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Arthur C. Clarke, a visionary science fiction writer who won worldwide acclaim with more than 100 books on space, science and the future, died Wednesday in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, an aide said. He was 90.

Clarke, who had battled debilitating post-polio syndrome since the 1960s and sometimes used a wheelchair, died at 1:30 a.m. after suffering breathing problems, aide Rohan De Silva said.

Co-author with Stanley Kubrick of Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey," Clarke was regarded as far more than a science fiction writer.

Sam Harris: Religion is a failed science

Interesting. I've thought this many times.

And this guy ran the Federal Reserve???

For much of our country's history we've been, as a country, quite aware that businesses, without some type of regulation, will exploit, cheat & steal to gain competitive advantage. As one of the Railroad Robber Barons of the 19th Century was quoted:

"Anything that is not nailed down is mine.
Anything that can be pried loose is not nailed down."

As far as I know, at no point in time has industry ever, without at least the threat of Government regulation or some massive consumer confidence crises, successfully self-regulated. In fact, these obvious and apparent lacks in "self-correcting/self-policing" markets/industries have caused the FDA, the CPSC, the SEC and a host of other entities to be created to protect the integrity of the various markets along with the safety and well-being of the consumer.

Despite this, and while we are in a massive financial crises that could take us to depression, and is, by all signs, having us relive the days of stagflation we haven't seen since Jimmy Carter with its 15% mortgage interest rates, wide-spread unemployment and took until the mid-1980's to finally over-come in many areas of the country, bubble boy has this to say:

He added, however, that he hoped one of the casualties from the worst U.S. financial crisis since World War Two would not be the spirit of broad self-regulation within financial markets.

Although he said the Basel II international banking regulatory framework would almost definitely be revamped and financial institutions' financial models would need to be re-drafted, Greenspan warned against over-regulation.

"It is important, indeed crucial, that any reforms in, and adjustments to, the structure of markets and regulation not inhibit our most reliable and effective safeguards against cumulative economic failure: market flexibility and open competition," he said.

Financial models? What a red-herring. Financial models only work in circumstances where things are above board and people are acting rationally. Financial models, even those that have been developed by elite economists and have, and those formulas, by their predictive excellence, caused said economists to win Nobel Prizes in Economics are pretty much worthless when the market is unregulated or acting irrationally. One of the more famous recent cases was with Long-Term Capital Management which was bailed out by the Feds after it's Black-Scholes formula-based model went kaput when the market started behaving irrationally.

Also, I don't think the markets "flexibility" should be of prime concern. When these people had flexibility in the 1980s they gave us the Savings and Loan Crises. These people had plenty of freedom from regulation to get us into the mortgage crises, which isn't turning out too well. We've had LTCM and other hedge funds go belly up. Bear Sterns went belly up. I think even recent history tells us that what these financiers need is regulation and standards so people on the back-end of those transactions can make rational decisions in risk-reward trade-offs.

Much like the stock market which is highly regulated by the SEC. And works fairly well, despite the odd crap like Enron, in protecting the interests of the investor.

Just another reason why I like science...

Something interesting this way comes:

Researchers Valerie Reyna, human development professor, and Chuck Brainerd, human development and law school professor--both from Cornell University--argue that like the two-headed Roman god Janus, memory is of two minds--that is, memories are captured and recorded separately and differently in two distinct parts of the mind.

They say children depend more heavily on a part of the mind that records, "what actually happened," while adults depend more on another part of the mind that records, "the meaning of what happened." As a result, they say, adults are more susceptible to false memories, which can be extremely problematic in court cases.

That so makes sense. I know the older I get the less I trust my memories, and my interpretations of them, having caught myself in just that kind of bull crap.

Then in the 1970s, when statistics showed an increase in the number of child abuse cases, courts were forced to allow the testimony of young victims, only to reemphasize adult testimony in the 1990s, when some children's testimony was proven to be unreliable.

"Courts give witness instructions to tell the truth and nothing but the truth," says Brainerd. "This assumes witnesses will either be truthful or lie, but there is a third possibility now being recognized--false memories."

Another thing I've seen. I used to get wound-up about this. Now I realize, sometimes slowly, that what I've seen and my interpretations are just that: my interpretations which are always going to have a subjective bias of all the crap I've carried for the past 47 years.

The rest of the story: here.

Iraq: Vietnam all over again...

Even to the movements it spawns:

Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan

Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan is a public investigation organized by the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and planned for March 13 to March 16, 2008. According to the IVAW website, the investigation will be "revealing the reality of the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

In what will be history's largest gathering of U.S. veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Iraqi and Afghan survivors, eyewitnesses will share their experiences in a public investigation called Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan."

We won't, of course, being hearing from any neocon participants. Because they don't exist. Seems there's a Cheetos & Momma's Basement shortage in Iraq and a spine shortage in America.

Värttinä - Mikä miulla mielessä

Finnish folk music. Enjoy.

ABBA - Take a Chance on Me

Enjoy.

The Horror of Prison Boot Camp

I missed this when it first came out, but it needs highlighting. What you'll read is very typical of the idiotic "boot camp" prisons for youth and the culmination of the efforts of the Southern Poverty Law Center to shut this dark-age crap down:

SPLC Campaign Closes Notorious Mississippi Girls' Prison

Feb. 14, 2008 — The state of Mississippi has decided to close the state's notorious Columbia Training School, seven months after the Southern Poverty Law Center sued the state to stop the physical and sexual abuse of teenage girls confined there.

The SPLC suit exposed brutal conditions at the prison, including the painful shackling of girls for weeks at a time. It also sought to force the state to provide mental health and rehabilitative services to girls, many of whom suffer from emotional problems or mental illness.

In announcing the decision today, the state's Department of Human Services (DHS) said Gov. Haley Barbour and the DHS recognized the need to provide the best possible care and supervision of juveniles placed in state custody and the need to use taxpayer funds efficiently. The DHS also said the state seeks to decrease incarceration of juveniles and provide quality services for at-risk youth.
"We applaud the governor's wisdom in making this decision," said Bear Atwood, director of the SPLC's Mississippi Youth Justice Project. "It takes courage and foresight to change the status quo. We are heartened that Mississippi is realizing that harsh punishment for juveniles who commit minor offenses is not only ineffective but counterproductive."

The DHS said it will transfer the 37 girls at Columbia to Oakley Training School, the state's prison for boys, within the next 90 days. The legislature will be asked to permanently close Columbia.

"Most of the girls at Columbia do not belong in prison at all," Atwood said. "Most are there for very minor, nonviolent offenses. Ripping them from their families and locking them up only encourages further delinquency."

Most of the girls at Columbia could be treated far more effectively — at half the cost — in community-based programs that focus on rehabilitation and mental health treatment. In 2007, according to the state, it cost $5.8 million to house an average population of 47 girls. The facility has 109 staffers.

The sad part is not only are they horribly brutal and exploitive, even if you corrected those systemic abuse problems, they're not any more effective than regular youth prisons:

Studies conducted for the U.S. Justice Department found that the rate of repeat criminal activity for boot-camp graduates ranged from 64 to 75 percent. For those who served their time in traditional prisons, the rate ranged from 63 to 71 percent.

Two Dollar (a share) Whore...

Well, more fat-cats are being bailed out:

NEW YORK - JPMorgan Chase said Sunday it will acquire rival Bear Stearns in a deal valued at $236.2 million — or $2 a share — a stunning collapse for one of the world's largest and most venerable investment banks.

The last-minute buyout was aimed at averting a Bear Stearns bankruptcy and a spreading crisis of confidence in the global financial system.

The Federal Reserve and the U.S. government swiftly approved the all-stock deal, showing the urgency of completing the deal before world markets opened.

Bear Stearns shares close Friday at $30 a share. At their peak, the shares traded at $159.36.

You know, when Joe Six-Pack can't meet his mortgage, he loses his house. When CitiBank jacks his credit card interest to 21.4% because they're in trouble, despite not missing a payment in years because he's got auto-draft, he just has to suffer. No matter how hard he works.

The funds' collapse and subsequent problems in the credit markets called into question Bear Stearns' ability to manage its own risk and the leadership ability of then-Chief Executive James Cayne. Critics of the company said Cayne spent too much time away from the office last year playing golf and bridge as the problems unfolded.

But you act a fool, play golf and cards, what happens to you? You retire rich? Because that's what I'm betting happens. The middle class suffers and suffers and suffers - profiteering in oil, price fixing across the board, the loss of rights and protections, yet the rich get another bailout.

For all the whining about "class wars," the only war I see is the rich, allied with their bought-and-paid-for government, against the middle class.

After days of denials that it had liquidity problems, Bear was forced into a JPMorgan-led, government-backed bailout on Friday. The arrangement, the first of its kind since the 1930s, resulted in Bear getting a 28-day loan from JPMorgan with the government's guarantee that JPMorgan would not suffer any losses on the deal.

This is not the first time Bear Stearns has earned a place in Wall Street history. A decade ago, Bear Stearns refused to help bail out a hedge fund that was deemed "too big to fail." On Friday, the tables had turned, with the now-struggling investment bank in need of the same kind of aid.

So, it's sauce for the goose, but not the gander. And to think the Market-that-is-God is supposed to correct all this crap. My fat hairy butt.

Is this a torture device?

Was the question my daughter asked my wife last night on seeing the can-piercer/bottle-opener on the counter. It's a sad question, because our children know we torture, and it bothers them.

Well, except the children being enculturated to be the bullies and haters who will go through their train-wreck lives pathological and incapable of empathizing.

Hell of a thing to grow up with. No doubt the same kind of shame many, if not most, of the children of Nazis have born through-out their lives. All because a sociopath President doesn't care and a gutless congress refuses to exercise their authority and impeach him for his crimes:

LONDON: A Yemeni national has accused American secret agents of subjecting him to various forms of torture during nearly three years of CIA detention, in a statement released by Amnesty International yesterday.

Khaled Abdu Ahmed Saleh al-Maqtari was arrested by American soldiers in Fallujah, Iraq, in January 2004, along with 60 other people, he told the London-based human rights group.

He said he was transferred to the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq where he was held as a "ghost detainee", where he experienced violent beatings, intimidation by dogs, sleep deprivation, induced hypothermia and other torture.

Mr Maqtari described one occasion when he was beaten by three men and then made to stand naked on a chair in front of an air conditioner while holding up a large bottle of water. He was periodically doused in water, making him feel so cold he had trouble standing.

The 31-year-old added he was also suspended by his feet with his arms cuffed behind his back while he was lowered up and down over a water crate with a pulley.

After nine days of interrogation at Abu Ghraib, Mr Maqtari was transferred to Afghanistan in a secret CIA flight, Amnesty said. The organisation added that flight records it obtained showed a plane operated by the CIA left Baghdad for Kabul nine days after the Yemeni national's arrest.

In Afghanistan, Mr Maqtari was again subjected to torture, including prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme heat and cold and sensory deprivation.

At the end of April 2004, Mr Maqtari was transferred to another secret CIA detention centre, according to Amnesty, possibly in eastern Europe, where he was held for nearly 2 1/2 years before eventually being transferred to Yemen, where he was detained until May last year.

"At no point during his 32-month confinement was Khaled al-Maqtari told where he was or why," said Anne FitzGerald, an Amnesty senior adviser.

What makes it worse is how we'll, as a nation, be more concerned over American Idol or Elliot Spitzer and his whores. Despite we're a nation that commits war crimes and crimes against humanity.

AstroTurf - Another Phony Grass-Roots Organization

Got Milk? The recombinant bovine growth hormone, Posilac, fight goes on:

Fighting on a Battlefield the Size of a Milk Label
IT may be the last stand of Posilac.

A new advocacy group closely tied to Monsanto has started a counteroffensive to stop the proliferation of milk that comes from cows that aren’t treated with synthetic bovine growth hormone.

The group, called American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology, or Afact, says it is a grass-roots organization that came together to defend members’ right to use recombinant bovine somatotropin, also known as rBST or rBGH, an artificial hormone that stimulates milk production. It is sold by Monsanto under the brand name Posilac.

Dairy farmers are indeed part of the organization. But Afact was organized in part by Monsanto and a Colorado consultant who lists Monsanto as a client.

Yes, large Corporate Dairy farms. Because that's what's left. We're not in 1954 with nearly 3-million dairy farms having a whopping 7-Cows each. Now there are fewer than 1-hundred thousand dairy farms in the US and the market is dominated by companies like Vander Eyk and Dean/Horizon that manage herds of 10,000 cattle. That's important to understand as Monsanto plays the "farmer" card hearkening back to the old days with the independent small farmer:

Lori Hoag, a spokeswoman for the dairy unit of Monsanto, said her company did provide financial support to Afact. But Ms. Hoag asserted that the group is led by farmers, not Monsanto.

“They make all the governing decisions for their organization,” she said. “Monsanto has nothing to do with that.”

These people are not "farmers" in the romantic sense of the word people associate with the term, like your semi-hippy neighbor with a few cows producing organic milk and cheese from his/her small-farm dairy. Rather, they are college-educated corporatists who are more than willing to make the safety-cost trade-offs that could leave you sick or dead. They're as much "farmer" as the people at Ford that gave us the exploding Pinto, or at GM that gave us the deadly Corvair.

To think that these are some Skoal-dipping, wheat-chewing "good ol' boy" farmers in bib-overalls is a laugher. Dean Foods (I own stock in the Company) has sales over $10+ BILLION a year. Heck, because of the run-up in Dairy prices they're doing so well that this March they're having a special $15/share cash dividend. And they are fully invested in their "non-organic" side in this astroturf group because they're interested in making money.

One thing I find incredibly ironic is that the consumers who make up the market have rejected this practice despite assurances the milk is safe. It's an actual rational behavior considering how food safety has been severely compromised over the past thirty years and how we've found-out, often too late, that many of the things we were told safe, weren't. And while Posilac produced milk may really be perfectly safe with absolutely no undiscovered dangers, you burn the consumer long enough and, eventually, you suffer the consequences. Even if it's not "fair."