Madison Avenue Is Eating Your Brain

They Warned Us that allowing the pharmaceutical companies to advertise their products would end up like this.

The $ are just too tempting to turn away from.

So now, it turns out, the advertising for "Two widely prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs" convinces people that a pill is the solution to their problems. When, in fact, an actual study of what happens to these drug users shows that Vytorin and Zetia might make things worse for them! A perfect example of my main thesis:
Good Idea; Too Bad It's Wrong.
The amazing thing one finds in the report Here: is that the "testing" for these drugs was woefully insufficient, even purposeless - mainly aimed at determining if they could alter the blood chemistry. I gotta say, so, big whoop! How about my health? If I'm gonna pay a fortune for fancy and heavily advertised drugs, I want to be sure they do something positive for me: like the drugs Rush Limbaugh got so many prescriptions for. I heard those are pretty spectacular. Now, before the current President started hiring his cronys to essentially dismantle the federal government, the basic requirement for FDA licensing of a drug was that it had to be "proven safe and efficacious". The testing as described in the New York Times article did no such thing. Nor did it even attempt to do anything of the sort. It was basically a smokescreen; some "testing" that could be cited with some obscure numbers regarding cholesterol levels in blood. Of course, I can't say for sure; this kind of rancid oversight of the drug industry might have been the Food & Drug Administration's standard of regulation for some time now. It kind of defeats the purpose of the whole thing though. If there's no real difference between an "FDA appoved" drug and Dr. Toad's Snake Oil, why bother? Toss 'em out, and go back to the old Caveat Emptor standard.
Come to think of it, that's pretty much the way things are now.
Just witness the way the Finance and Lending Industry has been looked after since George W. Bush was selected president.

Mine Is Bigger

Than Yours!

Yes! Thrusting proudly above the Chicago skyline, the Spire, the worlds biggest penis, some 2000 feet tall, has a planned 2011 opening date. If you hurry, you can become the proud owner of the glans for only $40,000,000.00.



As phallic symbols go, the Twisted Penis puts the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal, set about with as many as a score of penises, in the shade. Yes, the Spire is bigger than all the penises of Shah Jahan's Taj Mahal combined. We may be willing to outsource many things to India, but we will definitely not give up our claim to leadership in the (ahem) manhood category.



If you act quickly, you can, in the not-too-distant future, proudly say: I'm the biggest dick in the world!

Are You Insane!

Now, there's a way you can insure you will never get lost: "Beating Traffic By Joining the Network - New System Takes and Shares Data From Cars"; (Washington Post, March 24). You can read it here: Never Get Lost
To which I say Are You Insane?! With this nifty system, you can insure you will never be off the grid. It's a puzzlement to me, though. Before the days of cheap navigation receivers nobody seemed to have a problem finding their destinations on the roads of North America. It is a little different on the ocean - signage gets a little scarce fifty or 100 miles offshore. A lat/long reading is a nice thing to have. Onshore, I'd think a nav aid showing you a map readout, or talking to you telling you where to turn, would be somewhat more distracting than those mobile phone chats the legislators are trying to make illegal.
Be that as it may; here is a way to insure that everyone knows where you are at all times. As is often said (as a wry irony I tend to think) "If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear." Now I am sure you never exceed the speed limit; nor would you make an illegal turn. Certainly, you are not the kind of person who would ever find yourself with an arrest warrant out for neglecting to pay a parking ticket. Nor would you ever be likely to find yourself served because of an unpaid debt. And never never would you have a bulletin issued for "kidnapping" your child in a custody dispute. So, as I said, you have nothing to fear. Unless you should end up on a Terrorist Watch List; when somebody in the Department of Homeland Fearmongering recognizes your name as an alias for Osama bin Laden's lieutenant in charge of terrorism in Montana, for instance. Hey, if it could happen to Ted Kennedy, it could happen to you!
All this wouldn't be too bad, if you still had any other civil rights; like habeas corpus, or the right to be treated as a prisoner under the Geneva Convention. But those rights have been suspended now, so you can expect some pretty unpleasant times.
Now, Of Course! as it says in the story; your personal information will always be kept confidential. Dash Navigation would nevernever let anybody discover your identification. Unless asked to do so by the aforementioned Department of Homeland Fearmongering. Then you can be pretty certain they'll cave. If TPC(The Phone Company) gave up the info, why do you suppose the just-as-patriotic folk at Dash to be any different. Hopefully, they'll get the same immunity as TPC, but in any case, you'll be hosed.
And I still have not figured out how the American Driver, that paragon of self-reliance, got sold on the idea he needed a Navigation Aid to tell him how to get from home to work!

There Oughtta Be...

An Exam...

Statement One: The United States attacks a Middle-east country, claiming it possesses weapons of mass destruction (WMD) (it doesn't). Dick Cheney says this is to promote Peace, Freedom, Democracy.
Statement Two: Hamas attacks a Middle-east country, claiming it possesses WMD (it does). Dick Cheney says this "torpedoes Peace...".
I think there ought to be a written (essay; not multiple guess!) examination required for all who seek national elected office. Question One might be something like this: Read the above statements. Applying simple rules of logic, explain why these two statements are mutually incompatible. Or, in other words, why they are Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.
As some said in the days of the late lamented Vietnam War: Fighting For Peace Is Like (ahem) "Fornicating" For Chastity. My guess is, we'd all be better off if the estimable Vice President (the President as well, come to think of it) would do more of the latter and less of the former.

An Issue About...

Well, I'm not really sure. I think it may be beyond my understanding. Still, I's a Good Thing that Israel is a Democracy (the middle-east's only democracy, as some like to say). Considering all the foofaraw over genealogical antecedents, as we see Here; just imagine if Israel were a Theocracy instead! I'm being a little judgmental here, of course. Israel is by no means the only state where such wierd ideas are sanctified. In Malaysia, by contrast, one must prove the opposite: in order to marry a non-Muslim, one must prove that she is not a Muslim. Muslims are required to remain so, and cannot leave the Mosque nor Sharia law for another religious or social identity.
So! Which should it be? Is the Israeli model, where you can't be unless you can prove you are: or the Malaysian model, where you must be unless you can prove you aren't the way to go? This may be an important question for the future, here in the USA, considering how increasingly important it seems to be to have the Correct Religious Affiliation in order to be accepted.