Sean Burke's Science and Reason

posting to this

2008-03-29T07:47:00.000-07:00

It has been about a year since I put anything up here. I started this blog when I was recovering from my knee injury and had tons of time to sit around on my butt. I was gonna delete it, but decided I might start it up again, as I has ( what I thought) was some really cool stuff posted. Anyway... maybe more to com e later

The NAtional Association of Broadcatsers will do anything it can to kill satellite radio.

2007-04-19T16:55:00.000-07:00

The NAtional Association of Broadcatsers will do anything it can to kill satellite radio.

From Reason.com:

While satellite radio still seems to be figuring out how to make a profit, it's soaring in popularity, winning over 14 million paid subscribers in just a few years. Of course, that may not be a reflection of XM or Sirius' quality so much as the mundanity and drollery of Clear Channel America. With only two business models to choose from, it's unlikely that satellite radio has come anywhere close to fulfilling its potential.
So when XM and Sirius announced a highly-publicized merger this year, everything changed for the NAB. Clearly, the two startups it so feared for so long were floundering. And with no other licensed satellite providers around, the NAB's position on the merger became clear: What's bad for satellite is good for the NAB. So the NAB would oppose an XM-Sirius alliance.
Problem is, the only colorable argument against the merger that it would create a monopoly for satellite radio. XM and Sirius cleverly (and probably accurately) headed that objection off by noting that satellite radio competes with a variety of technologies for the listerner's ear. This put the NAB in an awkward position. The lobby would have to argue that despite its 15-year effort to derail satellite radio, satellite radio was not a competitor. Of course, the harder the NAB fights and the more money the NAB spends to promote this message, the clearer it becomes that the NAB fears the competition posed by an XM-Sirius alliance. In effect, the more the NAB fights the merger, the more it undermines its own argument against it.

Read the whole thing: Dinosaurs vs. Satellites

Lower the drinking age?

2007-04-12T20:39:00.001-07:00

IMO, the number one reason to lower the drinking age is that a person that is old enough to marry, enter into a contracr, or go to war should be able to choose whether or not to have a drink.

More reasons:

Straight Talk: Time to Rethink the Drinking Age

Hydrogen fuel isn't all it's cracked up to be

2007-04-10T16:10:00.000-07:00

Basically, using hydrogen in incredibly expensive, and yields very little energy after you consider the energy costs to create, contain, and transport it, and then the total pollution created is equal to or more than if you burned fossil fuels

From an article in The New Atlantis:
The wholesale cost of commercial grade liquid hydrogen (made the cheap way, from hydrocarbons) shipped to large customers in the United States is about $6 per kilogram. High purity hydrogen made from electrolysis for scientific applications costs considerably more. Dispensed in compressed gas cylinders to retail customers, the current price of commercial grade hydrogen is about $100 per kilogram. For comparison, a kilogram of hydrogen contains about the same amount of energy as a gallon of gasoline. This means that even if hydrogen cars were available and hydrogen stations existed to fuel them, no one with the power to choose otherwise would ever buy such vehicles. This fact alone makes the hydrogen economy a non-starter in a free society....Because hydrogen is actually made by reforming hydrocarbons, its use as fuel would not reduce greenhouse gas emissions at all. In fact, it would greatly increase them....So for the same amount of carbon dioxide released, less useful energy has been produced....The situation is much worse than this, however, because before the hydrogen can be transported anywhere, it needs to be either compressed or liquefied. To liquefy it, it must be refrigerated down to a temperature of 20 K (20 degrees above absolute zero, or -253 degrees Celsius). At these temperatures, the fundamental laws of thermodynamics make refrigerators extremely inefficient. As a result, about 40 percent of the energy in the hydrogen must be spent to liquefy it. This reduces the actual net energy content of our product fuel to 792 kilocalories. In addition, because it is a cryogenic liquid, still more energy could be expected to be lost as the hydrogen boils away during transport and storage....No, we would get no benefit at all. As discussed above, hydrogen is actually produced commercially using fossil fuel energy, much of which is lost in the process, meaning that more fossil fuels need to be burned, and thus more carbon dioxide produced, to provide a vehicle with a given amount of energy using hydrogen than if the vehicle were allowed to burn fossil fuels directly. Even if we ignore costs completely and generate hydrogen for vehicle fuel using water electrolysis, that would also increase pollution, since most electricity is actually generated by burning coal and natural gas. Even if the electricity in question came from nuclear, hydro, wind, or solar power, wasting it on hydrogen generation would still increase overall carbon dioxide emissions relative to the alternative of simply putting the power into the grid.

Read thew whole thing: The Hydrogen Hoax

Candiru fish can actually swim into your urethra

2007-04-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

No kidding. A fish actually swam into this guy's penis:

Candiru Fish

Small dogs share "small dog" gene

2007-04-05T13:30:00.000-07:00

no comments from me here. Just kinda cool

What Makes Small Dogs Small
Small breeds share a gene variant that limits their growth

Key stem cell patents revoked

2007-04-03T08:24:00.000-07:00

In 1998, a university of Wisconsin researcher was granted patents on several stem cell lines. Those patents were recently revoked by the US patent office. The issue was pushed by researchers to say that innovation and research was being stifled because of the fees charged by the patent owners.
IMO, the real issue here is: Can someone really own stem cells? I'm not sure if i think anyone should be able to own a naturally occurring substance or biological building block, even if the methods used to extract the substance is novel. If you find a new species of ant, along with a unique way of catching that ant, then do you own all the rights to the ant?
This is actually an issue with microbes found in the ocean. Companies that discover new deep sea organisms claim to own the organisms and the chemical compounds that may be extracted or made from them. Can you really own something that you discovered but did not create?
Patents were originally given out to unique inventions rather than processes, and his seems to make the most sense. On the other hand, companies will be reluctant to spend money on research if they think they have to share the rewards with someone else and this may stifle research considerably.

Key stem cell patents revoked

De -bunking bad stats on Pot

2007-03-29T08:53:00.000-07:00

Trevor Butterworth of George Mason University debunks a recent article in recent newspapers:

First of all. the issue that weed is more potent than it used to be:
The issue of whether “skunk” is cracked up to be, well, almost as potent as crack was taken on by the Guardian’s “Bad Science” column, which is written by Dr. Ben Goldacre:

“There is exceptionally strong cannabis to be found in some parts of the UK market today: but there always has been. The UN Drug Control Programme has detailed vintage data for the UK online. In 1975 the LGC analysed 50 seized samples of herbal cannabis: 10 were from Thailand, with an average potency of -7.8%, the highest 17%. In 1975 they analysed 11 samples of seized resin, six from Morocco, average strength 9%, with a range from 4% to 16%.

To get their scare figure, the Independent compared the worst cannabis from the past with the best cannabis of today. But you could have cooked the books the same way 30 years ago: in 1975 the weakest herbal cannabis analysed was 0.2%; in 1978 the strongest was 12%. Oh my god: in just three years herbal cannabis has become 60 times stronger.”

-Even if it WERE stronger, the effect would probably be similar to that of tobacco cigarettes. If you reduce the amount of tobacco in a cig, smokers puff longer and harder to get the desired amount of drug, the opposite happens when you increase the potency. Taking fewer and less weaker puffs, would probably reduce the inhaled amount of other bad stuff that the anti drug folks claim is found in pot. That means stronger pot, requiring less inhalation or in gestion would be a good thing.

Butterworth goes on to debunk this stuff about schizophrenia. Do some pot users self medicate because of other issues? Probably, but they are within their rights to self medicate rather than go see a shrink. Additionally, I have known plenty of pot smokers who seem to have no underlying emotional issues but just like the relaxation THC provides. THC is just their choice, there are plenty of folks out there who come home most days and have a beer, or a gin and tonic at the end of the day. I see no difference between them and a THC user, except that the THC user can potentially be put in jail for his preferred method of relaxation.

Do “Skunk” Stats Stink?

Artificial food coloring is better than natural stuff

2007-03-20T19:21:00.000-07:00

The Scarlet BatterWhy our aversion to artificial coloring makes no sense.

Statistics can mislead as easily as they can enlighten

2007-03-18T08:22:00.001-07:00

Statistics can mislead as easily as they can enlighten

Can't smoke in your condo

2007-03-18T08:13:00.000-07:00

I can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke. Still, you should be able to smoke in your own friggen house. If the city of Belmont CA has its way, It will be ilegal to smoke in your condo, apartment, or duplex. Failing to report someone for smoking in their own home is apperentyl an even more henious crime.

Smoking in a prohibited location would be an "infraction" punishable by a $100 fine, "causing, permitting, aiding, abetting, or concealing" such smoking would be a misdemeanor, raising the possibility of larger fines, jail, and a criminal record. Failing to report illicit smoking could be treated as a misdemeanor.

Proposed Belmont Smoking Ban Would Criminalize Citizens for Failing to Report People Smoking; Would Ban Smoking on All Streets and Sidewalks to Boot

Belmont City Council Meeting agenda

Florida Supreme Court rejects disabled man's drug appeal

2007-03-13T09:31:00.000-07:00

HEre's the deal. Richard Paey has a very painful disease, and in an effort to self medicate via prescription drugs, he is now spending 25 years in prison. In prison he is being given TWICE THE DOSAGE HE WAS GIVING HIMSELF. This is what the war and drugs brings us.

Florida Supreme Court rejects disabled man's drug appeal

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Supreme Court refused to hear a wheelchair-bound man's appeal of a drug trafficking conviction for obtaining large amounts of prescription drugs he said were to control severe pain. Richard Paey, now serving a 25-year minimum mandatory prison sentence, had previously said an appellate court misapplied the state's drug trafficking law when it upheld his conviction in December even though there was no evidence he ever sold or distributed the painkillers.
A ruling by the state Supreme Court yesterday said the court will not hear the case.
The Pasco County man has said he was not part of any trafficking scheme and possessed the drugs strictly for medical use.
and
Cruel and Disgusting: Pain Patient Appeal Denied
Richard Paey-- who suffers both multiple sclerosis and from the aftermath of a disastrous and barbaric back surgery that resulted in multiple major malpractice judgments--now receives virtually twice as much morphine in prison than the equivalent in opioid medications for which he was convicted of forging prescriptions.

He had previously been given legitimate prescriptions for the same doses of pain medicine-- but made the mistake of moving to Florida from New Jersey, where he could not find a physician to treat his pain adequately. Each of his medical conditions alone can produce agony. Paey has described his pain as constantly feeling like his legs had been "dipped into a furnace."

San Diego Police keeping liquor licenses bottled up

2007-03-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

om the San Diego Union Tribune:

Since September, the San Diego Police Department, which weighs in on every liquor-license application, has derailed nearly half of them. Citing a shortage of officers, Police Chief William Lansdowne said the department has been taking a closer look at liquor licenses throughout the city. Previously, the department would sign off on most licenses with conditions; now it's not as willing to do so.

This shift has extended the liquor-license process from 80 days to an estimated nine months, leaving dozens of restaurateurs, from mom-and-pop operators to national chains, in financial limbo.

Why do these assholes get to decide who gets a liquor license and who doesn't?

Thankfully, someone over at the CA ABC has a little sense:
ABC officials say the police stance has forced them to grant liquor licenses over the department's objections, if an establishment meets the state criteria for a license. Since September, the ABC has issued two temporary licenses – to Royal India downtown and Joe's Pizza in Clairemont. Those are the first applications to make it through the mound of paperwork it takes for the ABC to grant a license without police agreement.

But the bureaucracy is costing businesses loads of cash:
“We told them (the police) we are hurting financially, we have taken loans and we're behind in rent. The only answer we got is, 'We're not concerned.' ”

If you live in San Diego and care about legitimate bussiness getting screwed by the SDPD, take a few minutes to write your city council person:
http://www.sandiego.gov/citycouncil/

he French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting....

2007-03-07T10:10:00.000-08:00

WOW!. THIS IS REALLY SCARY!
Pretty soon the nanny state over here will be trying to do the same thing. But... of course it's for the children and if we don't do it, then the terrorists have won.

The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

France bans citizen journalists from reporting violence

Are illegals draining our healthcare system?

2007-03-07T10:06:00.000-08:00

The Answer is no.

From Ronald Baily at Reason magazine:

Illegals Push Native-Born Little Old Ladies and Children Out of Their Hospital Beds

That's what some nativists would have you believe. Similar, but less extreme claims, are made by Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado) who asserts :

"While illegal immigration isn’t generally the first thing Americans think of when they think about health care, it has a significant impact on the cost, availability and quality of health care available to Americans."

Significant? A short item in the March/April issue of Foreign Policy (not available online) based on a Rand Corporation study takes look at the claim. The FP notes that U.S.-born residents make up 86.9 percent of the population; legal immigrants 9.9 percent and illegals 3.2 percent. Their respective shares of healthcare spending are 91.5 percent, 7 percent and 1.5 percent.
Based on that data, the FP concludes: "You can no longer argue that illegal immigrants are an excessive burden on U.S. healthcare."

Want to Donate your body to help others?

2007-03-06T21:30:00.000-08:00

You can donate it, but neither you nor your heirs can make any money from it. It is perfectly acceptable for complete strangers to make plenty of money from your cracas though. Is that f'ed up or what?

Big business in body parts
Biotech firms make healthy profits from tissue sales. Why not the rest of us?

Never forget Boston 1/31/07

2007-03-06T09:23:00.000-08:00

Virginia: Cops Given Financial Incentive Write More Tickets

2007-03-06T09:18:00.000-08:00

Ok, this is just wrong. We all know that people respond to incentives. These cops are supposed to be out there protecting people, not trying top put more cash in their pockets.

Speed traps on the interstate bring a cash bonus to Washington County, Virginia cops.

Washington County, VAAfter the Washington County, Virginia Board of Supervisors voted in 2004 to allow the county sheriff's office to keep 80 percent of revenue generated from traffic tickets, the number of speeding citations written has skyrocketed. The revenue splitting arrangement allows the sheriff to direct revenue windfall toward overtime pay for deputies as well as a "salary supplement" of $2400 for those who perform well.

In 2004, just prior to the new policy, the sheriff's office wrote 1602 traffic tickets. The following year, the sheriff's office wrote 10,018 tickets. Most of the tickets were issued to motorists traveling on Interstate 81 with the average charge being 79 MPH -- just under the threshold for reckless driving under state law, a charge requiring significant court time and effort to prosecute.

The total amount taken from motorists totaled $516,072 in the first year-and-a-half under the revenue sharing deal. This has nearly doubled the county's cut from from around $60,000 to $135,214 while allowing the sheriff to divvy up $166,000 of the bounty among his deputies.

About half of Virginia counties have adopted a similar revenue sharing arrangement encouraging local police to run speed traps on interstate highways.

Deputies say speeding tickets worth the effort

American Academy of Pediatrics doesn;t want to see your kid's urine

2007-03-06T09:06:00.000-08:00

The American Academy of Pediatricians believes that drug testing in schools does more harm then good:

The American Academy of Pediatrics continues to believe that adolescents should not be drug tested without their knowledge and consent. Recent US Supreme Court decisions and market forces have resulted in recommendations for drug testing of adolescents at school and products for parents to use to test adolescents at home. The American Academy of Pediatrics has strong reservations about testing adolescents at school or at home and believes that more research is needed on both safety and efficacy before school-based testing programs are implemented. The American Academy of Pediatrics also believes that more adolescent-specific substance abuse treatment resources are needed to ensure that testing leads to early rehabilitation rather than to punitive measures only.

Proponents of drug testing also claim that the existence of a school- or home-based drug-testing program will help adolescents refuse drugs and provide legitimate reasons to resist peer pressure to use drugs, although these claims are not yet proven. On the negative side, drug testing poses substantial risks—in particular, the risk of harming the parent-child and school-child relationships by creating an environment of resentment, distrust, and suspicion.4 In addition to the effects on the individual adolescent, the safety and efficacy of random drug testing requires additional scientific evaluation

Testing for Drugs of Abuse in Children and Adolescents: Addendum—Testing in Schools and at Home
Committee on Substance Abuse and Council on School Health

Sea squirt fragment regenerates entire body

2007-03-06T08:58:00.001-08:00

Ok, thi is just cool. No reason for me to comment:
Sea squirt fragment regenerates entire body

NYC Banning more stuff

2007-03-06T08:45:00.000-08:00

Well, Not really banning, just over regulating and creating artificial shortage. There seems to be no logical reason to put these all sorts of restrictions on pedicabs. They are a clean, reliable, environmentally friendly way to get from one place to another:

It will likely soon be the last ride for about half of the city's freewheeling pedicabs after the City Council voted to start licensing the drivers Wednesday, allowing just 325 in the city.

"When you craft an agreement where everyone is a little unhappy, then you know you've done a good job," said Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-Queens),after the vote that reined in the city's newest, cleanest and most controversial mode of transportation.

City puts the brakes on pedicabs

XM and Sirius radio are attempting to merge

2007-02-21T19:28:00.000-08:00

These companies want to merge in order to cut costs. If they have both lost Billions of dollars, and if they don't merge there may not be satellite radio at all. The problem is the FCC might be able to prohibit the merger, because then they would have a monopoly on sat radio.
if there is a monopoly over sat radio...who cares? We don;t need it, and can live without it. Besides, the easiest way to solve that problem is for the FCC to stop stifling competition and innovation by giving out more permits to broadcast.

Read on:
XM + Sirius = Good Deal (for the Companies and Consumers)

The land based radio stations oppose the deal, but they are only protecting their own interests:
The Associated Press reports on the regulatory barriers to the XM-Sirius merger:

DDT does not harm bald eagles, but banning it harms people

2007-02-19T13:44:00.000-08:00

I remember seeing all of the anti DDT propoganda when I was a young kid, hearing about how horrible the stuff was. Even if it does kill some fish, I'd rather save the life of the African humans. I'll give you 3 guesses as to what the Africans them selves think:

AFRICAN AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTALIST ASSOCIATION

DDT Did Not Harm Eagles

Africans Urge Congress to Fulfill DDT Promise to Fight Malaria

This is from 2002, ut still relevant
THE DDT BAN TURNS 30 — Millions Dead of Malaria Because of Ban

Market forces and capatilism at work in philanthropy

2007-02-19T12:08:00.000-08:00

People are more likely to give if they know that that gifts are going EXACTLY where they want them to go, and that a percentage won;t be taken directly off the top for pencil pushing and executive salaries. The donors feel as if their donations are buying something truly tangible, and they get lots of nice letters from kids that say " thanks for the telescope"

...teacher proposals, which are posted on donorschoose.org in informal, non-grants-proposal language by the teachers themselves. So for example, this week a teacher in Richton, Mo., posted a request for a $392 camcorder for her kids to act out stories they're reading; a teacher in New York City asked for a rug on which to read stories to kindergarteners ($474); and a teacher in a 100 percent low-income school in Los Angeles wants a $414 telescope to teach astronomy to her students. Donors scroll through the hundreds of proposals (searchable by region, subject, level of school poverty, etc.) and fund them in whole or in part with a couple of clicks. If there's no market for the proposal, it doesn't get funded, though most eventually do. The transaction is totally transparent: If you fund a proposal and want to see the bill of sale for the materials, you get it.

...some well-meaning but clueless Harvard Business School graduates instructed us that DonorsChoose had to automatically take 15 percent off the top of every gift for overhead. Otherwise, the HBS team warned, our organization would never sustain itself. In fact, these gents withdrew a large gift because they thought our business plan didn't work without the automatic deduction. We said we wanted to offer DonorsChoose donors the option of whether to give us additional money for overhead at checkout.....How many of the thousands of DonorsChoose donors give us 15 percent extra to fund ongoing operations? Try 93 percent.

A nonprofit uses the Web to work marketplace magic.

AZ Legislature Upholds Freedom of Speech

2007-02-18T11:17:00.000-08:00

The AZ State House rejected and amendment that would have banned mud flaps with images that are "obscene or hateful"

The amendment's sponsor, Rep. Ed Ableser of Tempe, said he'd seen a splash guard that used the word "pickaninny" — a derogatory term for black children — and said his proposal was intended "to make sure those individuals that have hateful motives don't express or push those images upon others in our communities.

OF course the problem here is determining what is hateful or derogatory. Is "Stop following so close or I'll flick a booger on your windshield" hateful? Mr Ableser might also consider the walking Darwin fish hateful. Thankfully most of the legislators were smart enough to see the many problems with such a proposal, and it never made it into the final bill.

Ariz. to still allow racist images on trucks
Lawmakers reject ban on splash guards with offensive terms, pictures

Why I am glad I don't live in the bible belt

2007-02-17T11:49:00.000-08:00

Just when you think the wackos can't get any crazier, we find out that the powerful chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee, Warren Chisum, doesn't even believe that the earth revolves around the sun. This idiot.....distributed to legislators a memo pitching folks who believe the earth stands still -- doesn't spin on its axis or revolve around the Sun --

http://capitolinside.com/

The memo here:
http://www.burntorangereport.com/upload/Chisum.pdf

People who actually believe the earth stands still:
http://www.fixedearth.com/

Confliting studies on pregnancy and fish

2007-02-16T13:02:00.000-08:00

An October 2006 study suggested that women whose babies were born 2 weeks or more premature(~4% of the women in the study) were three times as likely to have higher mercury levels in their hair. This DOES NOT mean that women with higher mercury levels were more likely to have premature babies.
Maternal Fish Consumption, Mercury Levels, and Risk of Preterm Delivery

But wait! Don't limit your fish intake! Women who ate no seafood during pregnancy were more likely to have dumb babies!
After controlling for confounding factors, such as socioeconomic status, the scientists found that children whose mothers ate the least amount of seafood during pregnancy showed the worst performance on tests of social development and verbal IQ.

How about using a little common sense huh? Everything in moderation sounds like the best choice to me

The FCC wants more powers ( it's for the children!)

2007-02-16T12:35:00.000-08:00

You are a shitty parent who can't control what your kids watch on tv, and all those violent TV shows you allow them to watch are going to make them act out in a violent manner. So of course the FCC wants to protect your children. Via Yahoo news via AP: Congress could craft a law that would let the agency regulate violent programming much like it regulates sexual content and profanity — by barring it from being aired during hours when children may be watching, for example.
May be watching? I am willing to bet that some kid, somewhere is watching TV every minute of every day.
Of course another problem is deciding what is too violent, and what isn't. this next part makes me physically ill. Any organization with the "Morality" in their name is got to be run by a bunch of religious wackos:
First, the FCC or Congress would have to define excessive violence. The agency is mulling several possibilities, including one devised by Morality in Media Inc., a group whose motto is "promoting decent society through law."
The AP article goes on to explain some of the problems, such as violence on TV news or fistfights in hockey games.
The next thing you know, these morality media folks will want to block images of gay couples, because in their minds homosexuality is amoral. Just back off, and don't tell me what I can or can't watch on my TV, and any given time of the day.

Report urges FCC to limit TV violence

Selling your own organs

2007-02-16T12:17:00.000-08:00

Ok, I admit it, I am an ER fan. I've been watching the show on and off since college.
It is a little bit soapy, but what an I say. Anyway, last night they tackled the issue of someone taking money for donating their kidney to someone else. In the US, when someone donates and organ, it is illegal for anyone to take ANY reimbursement other than the costs of the medical procedure. The doctors get paid, the hospital gets paid, and all the other medical staff gets paid. These people deserve to get paid for their time and expertise, but what about eh donor? When someone donates a kidney, there are substantial risks and costs; including risks of infection, time away from work, and the possibility that if their remaining kidney is somehow damaged that they could die from kidney failure. If I want to "donate" (or sell) my kidney to someone who needs it, then who are you to tell me I can't do it?! Everybody makes out! Someone who needs a kidney receives a lifesaving organ, and I get compensated for my time, as well as any potential risks. In the show, Neela ( a surgical resident) refuses to take part in the surgery, because she believes the donor is receiving compensation. Her attending physician basically tells her" why not let the market forces work it out", and then tells her if she doesn't want to take part in the surgery, then that is fine with him. Amen brother. There is is no reason you shouldn't be able to sell something that you an give away. I guarantee that if people were able to be reimbursed for potential risks of kidney and bone marrow donation, that there would be alot fewer people on those waiting lists.

Want to read about how you can't even decide who your organs go to when you donate them? go her:
Who Owns Your Organs?
So You Can't Sell Your Kidneys. Can You Give Them Away?

Tom Cuburn the voice of reason?

2007-02-15T16:54:00.001-08:00

I would never expect to agree with Tom Coburn. I would typically characterize the guy as a religious zealot and grade A asshole, when Tom Coburn is the one making sense, you know our legislative branch is a mess. Basically, the guy has been fighting pork barrel projects left and right..and everyone hates him for it.
. As the 2006 transportation budget passed through the Senate process, Coburn noticed something odd: $200 million to pay for a bridge in Stevens’s home state—a bridge almost as long as the Golden Gate and taller than the Brooklyn Bridge, connecting an island of fifty people to the coast. In the Senate, these kinds of giveaways are not unusual; members, and especially those in a position of influence, are frequently given millions of dollars for personal spending projects back home, items that bypass the normal review process and are quietly ushered in by their peers (whose own projects get the same deal). But to Coburn, who hadn’t spent forty years in the Senate and didn’t have any of his own special projects and didn’t particularly care about keeping pacts with his new colleagues, $200 million seemed like a lot to spend on a bridge for fifty people. So he tried to take the earmark out.Almost as soon as Coburn proposed to eliminate the bridge, Ted Stevens came tearing down to the floor of the Senate with his face red and his fists clenched, bellowing that he would not be treated with such disrespectAlmost as soon as Coburn proposed to eliminate the bridge, Ted Stevens came tearing down to the floor of the Senate with his face red and his fists clenched, bellowing that he would not be treated with such disrespect
So now there’s all this hullabaloo about the Democrats taking over—Tom Coburn is supposed to care? He’s supposed to get excited now that the peanut butter is on top and the jelly is on the bottom instead of the other way around? This is a revolution? It’s a revolution that Ted Stevens has been pushed aside as chairman of the defense-appropriations subcommittee and that in his place the Democrats have installed…Daniel Inouye of Hawaii? A man who inserted $900 million of his own personal projects into the budget last year—and who happens to be one of Ted Stevens’s best friends in the Senate? It’s a revolution that the Democrats have cleaned out the subcommittee behind the Bridge to Nowhere and replaced the chairman with…Patty Murray of Washington? A woman who personally led a campaign for the bridge and who threatened revenge against any Democrat who opposed it? It’s a revolution that Thad Cochran has been deposed as the most powerful budgetary overlord in the Senate and is being replaced with…Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia? A man who has single-handedly converted his state into a federally funded monument to himself, with no less than thirty projects named in his own honor, including the Robert C. Byrd Expressway and the Robert C. Byrd National Technology Transfer and the two Robert C. Byrd federal buildings and the Robert C. Byrd Center for Hospitality and Tourism—not to mention the actual statue of Robert C. Byrd that stands in the rotunda of the state capitol?

HI, I’M SENATOR COBURN, AND I DON’T WANT YOUR VOTE

Red light cameras cause accidents

2007-02-13T20:31:00.000-08:00

Well, they don't cause them per se. Only people cause accidents, but people's reactions to the cameras cause accidents. I have thought this was true for a long time. I get nervous around those cameras, and I am concerned that I may accidentally get in situation where I get stuck in the intersection or have to run the light. SOMETIMES, running the light may actually be safer than stopping short.

1/27/2005
Virginia DOT Study Shows Cameras Increase Injury Accidents
The Virginia Transportation Research Council studied all of the state red light camera programs and found an overall increase in injury accidents.

The cities claim they install the cameras to reduce crashes, when the cameras actually increase crashes. In fact, adding a one more second of yellow decreases the number of crashes by 40%. We all know what those cameras are truly installed. Cash generation.
Study: Longer Yellows Reduce Crashes (Texas Transportation Institute)
The Texas Transportation Institute shows that engineering improvements are an effective alternative to cameras.

The feds want to enforce(ridiculous) US laws in other countries

2007-02-13T17:01:00.000-08:00

MLB pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka stars in commercial for Asahi beer and is depicted drinking a tall glass of the stuff. US law prohibits consuming alcoholic beverages in commercials, so Matzuka may be in trouble. Any sane person would this this a a stupid thing for the feds to get worked up over....right? Well here's the real kicker. THE AD ONLY RUNS IN JAPAN!! So the feds want to punish someone for doing something that is perfectly legal in another country, just because our dumbass morality laws outlaw it here. Next thing you know, they'll be arresting every kid who smoked pot in Amsterdam while he was on a European backpacking trip!

Red Sox and the Manny Nanny State

or

Read here about how the feds have arrested the founders of a UK based, completely legal, publicly traded company because they have allowed their US customers deposit funds into offshore gambling accounts. Of course the feds have also siezed as much of the funds as possible

Or watch the Matzuka Commercial:

Govt funded research study shows that Cannibis DOES help with pain

2007-02-12T15:05:00.000-08:00

This NIH funded study shows that smoking cannabis: ...effectively relieved chronic neuropathic pain
...No serious adverse events were reported...cannabis was well tolerated....
The study was placebo controlled, which means the pateints did not know if they were smoking a marijuana with THC present, or with the THC chemically removed.
Cannabis in painful HIV-associated sensory neuropathy
A randomized placebo-controlled trial \
In the posting below I have a link govt's ridiculous claim that cannabis has been proven to have no medical benefit.

Even Tuker Carlson understands that ONDCP ads don't work

2007-02-10T10:18:00.000-08:00

Even conservative pundits relaize this crap doesn't work. Carlson tells pro drug war idiot Rep Mark Souder how it is.
Souder says Marijuana is more like coke than the Marijuan from the 70s.
Souder also claims that 1000s of people die from MJ, but can't back it up with any facts.
Money for programs that increase drug use?

MORE EXAMPLES OF HOW DRUG WARRIORS ARE FULL OF IT:Slate's Sydney Spiesel debunks the FDA's absurd claims that it has "definitively established that marijuana has no medical use or value"
All Smoke
The FDA's statement on medical marijuana isn't about science.

Daniel Forbes calls Bullshit on the fed's 2002 claim that pot is 30 times more poteent than it used to be.

The Myth of Potent Pot
The drug czar's latest reefer madness: He claims that marijuana is 30 times more powerful than it used to be

And finally Jack Shafer explains how multiple media outlets jumped on one Mexican general's claims about a new "Draucuweed" that was almost impossible to kill, matures in 1/6 of the time of regular weed, and yields much much more than the crops of just a few years ago. Shafer basically shows how journalists will believe anything they hear, and value sensationalisim over fact checking.
The Stupidest Drug Stories of the Week
International reefer madness!!!!

Fruit that makes sour stuff taste sweet had been banned since the 1970s

2007-02-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

It appears that the FDA banned the fruit just because they could.

.....a small, red berry from West Africa with a strange and wonderful property: It makes sour things taste sweet....The secret is a glycoprotein called Miraculin (yes, that's actually what it's called) that attaches itself to your taste buds. No one seems to be quite sure how it turns sour and bitter to sweet. The effect lasts for about 90 to 120 minutes....The fruit is heavily marketed in Japan, where it's used in fruit form....The Miracle Fruit has been used for centuries, now. And there have been quite a few studies of it, with no known ill-effects...

Free the Miracle Fruit!

Don't believe what you see

2007-02-08T08:56:00.000-08:00

In the digital age, you simply can't trust a photo. I don't just mean the stupid photos your friends forward via email. This includes photos in USA today, Newsweek, and scientific journals.
Digital Tampering in the Media, Politics and Law

The untrustworthiness of news photography.

One academic's perspective on how to fix this country's drug policy

2007-02-07T15:00:00.000-08:00

Mark Kleinman is a proffessor of public policy for UCLA, and editor of Drug Policy Analysis Bulletin. for the Federation of American Scientists. Read what he has to say about the war on drugs:

First, the potential for drug abuse is built into the human brain. Left to their own devices, and subject to the sway of fashion and the blandishments of advertising, many people will wind up ruining their lives and the lives of those around them by falling under the spell of one drug or another. Second, any laws—prohibitions, regulations or taxes—stringent enough to substantially reduce the number of addicts will be defied and evaded, and those who use drugs in defiance of the laws will generally wind up poorer, sicker and more likely to be criminally active than they would otherwise have been.

Most drug use is harmless, and much of it is beneficial—at least if harmless pleasure and relaxation count as benefits. But drug abuse is a real problem all the same because some drug users—typically a fairly small minority among consumers of any given drug—lose control of their behavior when under the influence and do foolish or wicked things. Another overlapping and even smaller group loses control over drug-taking itself. Loss of control in these two forms marks out substance abuse, a diagnosable disease, from non-problem drug use, which may be unconventional but is not pathological.......For most people who fall into its grip, drug abuse is relatively transient. But some drug abusers have a chronic, relapsing form of that disorder: “addiction.” Drug addicts, though a minority of a minority among drug users, constitute the bulk of the drug problem due to the frequency of their misbehavior (both under the influence of drugs and in search of money to acquire drugs), the volume of their drug purchases, and the violence and disorder of the illicit markets they support

All the more reason to offer treatment for addicts, and while non- addicts do as they wish with their own bodies

Drug-use prevention efforts are very cost-effective because they’re very cheap. But they aren’t very effective; even the best programs, combining school-based and community-based efforts, reduce the rate of initiation by no more than a quarter, with no assurance that spending more would produce bigger effects. Most of those initiations are postponed rather than avoided entirely, and there is no direct evidence that deferring drug initiation reduces future addiction. The DARE program, by far the most widespread, is also demonstrably the least effective, with an impact on student drug use indistinguishable from zero after dozens of evaluations.

Our prevention methods as they stand currently, are a miserable failure.

.....Most substance abuse disorders resolve “spontaneously”....victims of substance abuse disorders whose attempts to quit or moderate their drug use fail will usually benefit from professional help if they seek it and persist in it. But most people who “need” treatment in the sense that they meet the clinical criteria for substance abuse disorder do not want treatment enough to enter and remain in treatment, even if it is available...

Drug addicts will quit when they are damn well good and ready.

.....five principles might reasonably guide our policy choices. First, the overarching goal of policy should be to minimize the damage done to drug users and to others from the risks of the drugs themselves (toxicity, intoxicated behavior and addiction) and from control measures and efforts to evade them.

That implies a second principle: No harm, no foul. Mere use of an abusable drug does not constitute a problem demanding public intervention. “Drug users” are not the enemy, and a achieving a “drug-free society” is not only impossible but unnecessary to achieve the purposes for which the drug laws were enacted.

Third, one size does not fit all: Drugs, users, markets and dealers all differ, and policies need to be as differentiated as the situations they address.

Fourth, all drug control policies, including enforcement, should be subjected to cost-benefit tests: We should act only when we can do more good than harm, not merely to express our righteousness. Since lawbreakers and their families are human beings, their suffering counts, too: Arrests and prison terms are costs, not benefits, of policy.

Lock up dealers based on nastiness, not on volume. All drug dealers supply drugs; only some use violence....Pressure drug-using offenders to stop. The relatively small number of offenders (no more than three million all together) who are frequent, high-dose users of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine accounts for a large proportion both of theft and of the money spent on illicit drugs. Getting a handle on their behavior is inseparable from getting a handle on street crime and the drug markets.

Why put someone in jail for selling something to someone who wants to buy itor for putting something into their own body? DO put them in jail if they directly harm people by being violence, stealing, or commiting other crimes that have victims

Let pot-smokers grow their own. Marijuana is an outlier among currently illicit drugs. Its risks are markedly smaller, its consumption is enormously more widespread, and it leads to more arrests than all the others combined—mostly for misdemeanor possession. It is also the one illicit drug that consumers could practically produce themselves. Current cannabis laws criminalize millions of otherwise law-abiding individuals and create a multibillion-dollar illicit market.

Again, there is no victim here.
Read the whole thing here:
Dopey, Boozy, Smoky—and Stupid

No Link to autism and vaccines

2007-02-07T11:02:00.000-08:00

This article debunks the urban legend that vaccines cause autism:
Fact: No link of vaccine, autism

An explaination of why there is no autism epedemic to start with

The Autism Numbers Why there's no epidemic.

NYC want to ban cell phones etc, in cross walks

2007-02-07T10:53:00.000-08:00

Apparently some idiot failed to look before using a crosswalk and got creamed by a car. He was wearing and ipods when he got hit, so therefore ipods are dangerous. The city wants th ban them in crosswalks to protect you from yourself:

Ban Proposed On Cell Phones, iPods In Crosswalk

I heard another guy got hit by a car because he was looking the other way at a billboard. Maybe they should be illegal too.

List of things NYC banned or tried to ban it citizens from last year(for their own good of course)

* The purchase of spray paint an markers by 18-21 year olds You can go dies in Iraq, but can't buy a magic marker?! ( fortunately this was overturned in the courts)
* Trans-fats.

* Aluminum baseball bats.

* The purchase of tobacco by 18- to 20-year-olds.

* Foie gras.

* Pedicabs in parks.

* New fast-food restaurants (but only in poor neighborhoods).

* Lobbyists from the floor of council chambers.

* Lobbying city agencies after working at the same agency.

* Vehicles in Central and Prospect parks.

* Cell phones in upscale restaurants.

* The sale of pork products made in a processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., because of a unionization dispute.

* Mail-order pharmaceutical plans.

* Candy-flavored cigarettes.

* Gas-station operators adjusting prices more than once daily.

* Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

* Wal-Mart.

Teenager has the guts to stand up to police

2007-02-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

19 year old Brett Darrow was harassed by police when he was stopped at a DUI roadblock. He had nothing to drink, and nothing to hide, but didn't want to discuss private information with the police. They harrased him for a while just becuase they could. Then they backpedaled big time when they found out they were being taped. Good on ya Brett.

The video is long, and slow at times. You can find a transcript of the important parts here: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/15/1522.asp

More reasons not to buy "organic" foods

2007-02-07T08:33:00.000-08:00

People think they are being eco- friendly when they buy "organic food" but in fact shiiping these foods top market may contribute additional pollution:

Let's say you live in New York City and want to buy a pound of tomatoes in season. Say you can choose between conventionally grown New Jersey tomatoes or organic ones grown in Chile. Of course, the New Jersey tomatoes will be cheaper. They will also almost certainly be fresher, having traveled a fraction of the distance. But which is the more eco-conscious choice? In terms of energy savings, there's no contest: Just think of the fossil fuels expended getting those organic tomatoes from Chile.

The whole thing here:

Is Whole Foods Wholesome? The dark secrets of the organic-food movement

DUI roadblocks are Cash Generators for police

2007-02-06T09:07:00.000-08:00

In Michigan vs. Sitz, the Supreme Court okayed roadblocks only for use in detecting and apprehending drunk drivers. Are we really surprised that they are being used for more than that?
From and exposes in a small NorCal Paper back in 2005:

Records show that at the Sacramento Police Department's last five DUI checkpoints, officers arrested 22 suspected drunken drivers. But they also wrote 315 citations and impounded 259 vehicles belonging to people arrested for driving without a license or driving on a suspended license."It's misrepresentation. It's almost a fraudulent use of resources," state Sen. Gilbert Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, said.The concern is that police are not only using the checkpoints as a way to enforce other laws but also as a way to make money -- especially since cities such as Sacramento make $70 every time they impound a car at a DUI checkpoint, even if that car's driver was not suspected of drinking and driving

Often, these checkpoints apprehend very few actual drunk drivers: Road blocks for fun and profit

Evidence that homosexuality is nature rather than nuture

2007-02-05T12:51:00.000-08:00

Basically some rams ( male sheep) prefer to hump other rams, rather than hump ewes (female sheep). The males that prefer other males have certain brain parts that more like female brains than the "straight" male brains.

The original research article is here:
Sexual partner preference, hypothalamic morphology and aromatase in rams.

Some possible implications of the research here:

Yet more infomation to suggest that "organic" foods are more than just a waste of money.

2007-02-05T12:28:00.000-08:00

Ok, so we know that "organic" crops have the same nutritional value as crops grown using technological advances. organic crops also contribute more to air pollution than GM crops. Basicaly the farmers of GM crops spend much less time out on tractors plowing and maintaining the fields. This saves fossil fuels, as well as prevents pollution. The whole story here:
GM crops may reduce greenhouse gases

Bleeding, pregnant woman is taken to jail rather than the hospital

2007-02-02T12:12:00.000-08:00

A bleeding pregnant woman is pulled over for having fake tags, that she apparently put on to driver herself to the hospital. She repeatedly and politely told the cops the needed to go to the hospital. Unfortunately she wad a warrants so they took her to jail. She miscarried the next day. This woman is obviously a piece of work, but she still deserves to be treated with some human decency. Those heartless assholes should not only lose their jobs, but go to jail

More of the story Here

Longer prison sentences may not deter crime

2007-02-02T10:56:00.000-08:00

A study suggests that the threat of a jail time does not deter crime. The imprisonment itself prevent crime, by physically isolating likely offenders. What exactly does this mean as far as prison sentences? I'm not sure, but it is interesting.

The Irrational 18-Year-Old Criminal-Evidence that prison doesn't deter crime.

Tips on protecting yourself during police encounters

2007-02-02T08:43:00.000-08:00

Here are some great tips on how to protect yourself during a police encounter. This video is a bit long and slow to start, but you should take the time to watch it. It gives you some tips on how to preserve your own civil rights.

BTW, I never thought I would have use for a camera or video phone, but with all the police abuses being caught on video lately, I am thinking of getting one for my own protection.

How drug companies misrepresent the usefuleness of their drugs

2007-02-02T08:25:00.000-08:00

If I told you that taking a particular drug would cut your risk of heart attack by 31%, then you might consider taking it. Right? What if I told you that the same drug would only prevent a heart attack in 1 out of every 50 people that take the drug? This explains how drug companies misrepresent their statistics to make their drugs more appealing:

Treat Me?The crucial health stat you've never heard of.

Why organic farming is bad for small farmers

2007-02-02T08:16:00.000-08:00

"Organic" food is no healthier than food that is farmed with modern technologies and is nutritional indistinguishable from non"organic" food. Not only that, but it is bad for small farmers. The Junk Science Article Here:

Organic Milk Industry Reveals Hypocrisy