choofnagle | October 10, 2008Gautam Naik covers an interesting development in Switzerland. Scientists there must now justify the ethics of genetic research on plants:
Dr. Keller recently sought government permission to do a field trial of genetically modified wheat that has been bred to resist a fungus. He first had to debate the finer points of plant dignity with university ethicists. Then, in a written application to the government, he tried to explain why the planned trial wouldn't "disturb the vital functions or lifestyle" of the plants. He eventually got the green light.
The rule, based on a constitutional…
choofnagle | September 30, 2008The Times is running a series of articles today that cover the basics on woo, wooish thought, and one of my favorite subjects, pre-pure-food regulation impure food. Not much new here for Sciencebloggers, but these are good resources to help individuals think through the bogus claims we see so often in the marketing of woo.
William Broad discusses the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at NIH, which is charged with bringing better standards to situations like this:
...a 2004 Harvard study identified 181 research papers on yoga therapy reporting that it could be used to…
choofnagle | September 27, 2008Why? Well, among other things, for hating billboards. Max Colchester of the Wall Street Journal reports:
On Friday, Alex Baret plans to board a train to central Paris, pull out a can of spray paint and deface a billboard, as he has done every last Friday of the month for more than two years. The slogan he prefers to leave scrawled on his targets: Harcèlement Publicitaire, or Harassment by Advertising.
How did this hate for billboards come about, you ask?
Mr. Baret says the seeds for his campaign were sewn in the spring of 1997, when he was riding the Paris subway and he looked up at an ad…
choofnagle | September 27, 2008I had the opportunity to see Felicity Barringer, the New York Times correspondent, speak on the "The Dangers of Environmental Parables" at University of Wyoming's Consumer Issues Conference. Barringer argued that simple parables, such as the greed-versus-good stories present in the seminal Silent Spring no longer capture the complex landscape of environmental issues presented today. She offered the example of the potential for wind power in the Alleghenies, which is opposed by an environmental NIMBY activist named Dan Boone who thinks that the broader environmental movement has perverse…
choofnagle | September 20, 2008Here's a bit of a surprise. In California, our Supreme Court legalized gay marriage. Opponents quickly arranged a ballot proposition to reverse the ban. Support for the ban has been slipping, from almost 50% earlier in the year, to 42% in July, and now to 38% in the latest Field Poll.
Mark Schoofs reports in today's Journal that the Mormons are large backers of the marriage ban proposition:
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have contributed more than a third of the approximately $15.4 million raised since June 1 to support Proposition 8. The ballot initiative, if…
choofnagle | September 19, 2008Friends, many of you know the miraculous benefits of Hoofnagle Brand All-Natural Pb®. Well, I am writing to tell you that today I am filing a suit against a wide range of ayurvedic herbal supplements providers for using the active ingredient of Pb® and its sister product, As33® without licensing it from me.
The New York Times reported yesterday on this widespread deception of consumers. You see, in order to make ayurvedic medicine appear efficacious, a large number of supplement providers are secretly including Pb® and As33® in their scammy supplement products:
A report in the Aug. 27 issue…
choofnagle | September 17, 2008The Journal reports this morning that:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned imports of more than 30 generic drugs made by India's Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd., citing concerns about the safety of the company's production practices.
The ban affects low-cost versions of popular medicines such as the anticholesterol drug Zocor; Acyclovir, which treats herpes; the heartburn pill Zantac; and AIDS drugs. Consumers shouldn't be affected by a medicine shortage because the drugs can be supplied by other generics makers, the agency said.
The agency said it acted because of concerns about the "…
choofnagle | September 17, 2008Yesterday, I posted about the rabid, pro-free-market rhetoric present in Washington, DC over the past decade. When Congress had the opportunity to consider privacy laws that would limit marketing of financial products, it chose to side with bank lobbyists, who invoked the idea of the "miracle of instant credit." Basically, they argued that any incursion on the free market would harm credit markets. They promised that this miracle would lower credit prices, make credit more convenient, and manage the risk involved in lending. Congress sided with the banks. As a result, many financial…
choofnagle | September 16, 2008[Update: The WSJ reports that you're now bailing out AIG.]
For years working in Washington, I listened to libertarian tripe about how privacy law would prevent free markets from operating, and how banks should be able to freely trade personal information to assign risk and create new credit products. The "Miracle of Instant Credit" was invoked as a positive force that would allow banks to move smartly into the subprime market and make more Americans homeowners. They won that battle with the 2003 passage of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act, which largely superseded state law…
choofnagle | September 10, 2008All, I'm sorry for abusing you with posts concerning the Berkeley Tree Sitters. For those of us at UC, this has been an enduring pain. And it's been embarrassing. Why? In part, because this is the type of rhetoric common to the debate:
And of course...
I promise, this is the last posting on the tree sitters. Thanks be to Zombietime.
choofnagle | September 9, 2008It's been an exciting day here at UC Berkeley. Four helicopters have been buzzing the office since about 8 AM, because the UC decided to erect a scaffold around the lone tree left in order to extricate the tree sitters. I got to watch about 12:00 today. There were probably 400 observers for the final hour, where workers assembled the scaffold and started to pick apart the encampment near the peak of the tree.
Apparently the remaining four tree sitters negotiated with UC officials, and came down voluntarily, which is good, because the risk to personal safety was very high. If the tree…
choofnagle | September 8, 2008The nerve! Carolyn Jones of the Chronicle reports:
In their most recent demand, the tree-sitters said they would come down if the university gives $6 million to environmental and Native American groups, creates a public committee on campus land use and allows protesters to use the stump from the oldest tree in the grove, which protesters dubbed "Grandma," for a Native American drum.
The university offered to give protesters the stump and allowed them three two-hour meetings with high-ranking campus officials to discuss mitigating the loss of the oak grove, long-term plans for the southeast…
choofnagle | September 6, 2008Berkeley's latest political battle may be coming to an end: the UC has won a series of decisions in cases brought by local activist groups seeking to prevent the destruction of grove of trees right next to the law school. UC wants to build a sports facility there for our athletes.
The battle over this grove of trees has created a real circus on campus. At one point, perhaps two dozen people were living in the trees. Some came down voluntarily, and when the UC started plucking them from the trees, one protester known as Dumpster Muffin climbed to the highest tree and shook the platform.…
choofnagle | September 2, 2008Regular readers of Denialism Blog are familiar with my love for the skymall catalog. I just love all the pictures of the kittens and the babes in their homes with gadgets that make their lives better.
And the quality of marketing, wow! You'd think that the makers of the SkyRest® Travel Pillow could hire a real model and do a professional shoot to advertise their highly efficacious and most excellent product! This picture looks like it was shot in-flight and they didn't even have time to find a model without a mustache!
Today I write to share with you the Innovative Health Bracelet.…
denialism | September 1, 2008Yes, there is. This time for maker of an "all natural" penis enhancer Steve Warshak (and some family members as well) who was sentenced for 25 years!
Steve Warshak, 42, founder of Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals, also was ordered to pay $93,000 in fines. He was convicted in February on 93 counts of conspiracy, fraud and money laundering.
Federal prosecutors accused the company of bilking customers out of $100 million through a series of deceptive ads, manipulated credit card transactions and refusal to accept returns or cancel orders.
U.S. District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel ordered the company…
choofnagle | August 29, 2008As PalMD has pointed out, millions of Americans use detoxification to improve their optimal health and well being. But the wisdom of detoxification has an underbelly, one not discussed in the MSM: what happens to those toxins after detoxification?
Unfortunately, those toxins do not just disappear. They are exuded from your body and circulate in your immediate environment, placing your family members and animal companions at risk. The toxins then magnify in their bodies, and if they detoxify, you can be retoxinated. This is what is called the deretoxification trap.
An additional problem…
choofnagle | August 29, 2008Sciblings, I know you all are going to run out and buy my new nutritional supplement, Pb®. Pb® is all natural. Pb® is pure. Pb® is elemental. Pb® is balanced. Pb® affects one's optimal health. Pb® is readily absorbed by the blood stream and accumulates in the body, competing with unnatural toxins that cause illness. Pb® is highly bio-available. And Hoofnagle-brand Pb® is positively charged at our all-natural bioplant facilities, meaning that it repels negative ions.
Pb® can be used by children as well as adults. There are no side effects of supplement products as they are made with all…
choofnagle | August 28, 2008Today's Journal reports on the delicate task of creating a monument to Galileo Galilei at the Vatican. But there's still some opposition. Check this out from the very end of the article:
On the other side of the barricades, meanwhile, some Roman Catholics think the church has already done more than enough to make up with Galileo.
Atila Sinke Guimarães, a conservative Catholic writer, dismisses the church's mistreatment of Galileo as a "black legend."
The scientist, he says, got what he deserved. "The Inquisition was very moderate with him. He wasn't tortured."
choofnagle | August 27, 2008The new students have arrived at UC-Berkeley, closely pursued by hordes of credit card marketers. Right by my office is a bank that literally has 12 employees out front hawking credit cards and new accounts.
Freshman friends, don't get your first credit card from the guy on the street offering you a t-shirt or worthless, plastic (likely lead filled) bauble. Be smart about credit. Credit is an incredibly powerful consumer tool, but you must wield it carefully. If you ruin your credit, you will have difficulty in life getting a job (people with bad credit look like embezzlement risks to…