If you don’t know of these talented and funny ladies, allow me to introduce you.
In Closing: Good enough for Israel but not good enough for you; How many times must I point out that the 9/11 terrorists were frequent fliers??; socialism; tell me something new; yeah; beware of a new scam; and government regulations put fishermen out of business!!! Oh wait, no, it turns out that government regulations made fishermen both safer and more profitable.
A couple of weeks ago I read this Forbes article called “Why Amazon Can’t Make A Kindle In the USA.” I was looking for the two tired and mostly false arguments that usually get trotted out:
I was pleasantly surprised to find that instead, the article focused on the fact that too many of the components of high-tech gadgetry aren’t available from American suppliers, therefore we can’t really put together the whole product here. It’s a problem that has gotten worse over the years as Americans have shifted from a manufacturing economy to an information economy to the Latte Economy.
So then I didn’t really know what to do when I read about a little problem over at Gibson Guitars. It seems that federal agents raided Gibson, confiscating millions of dollars worth of woods such as ebony and rosewood, instruments, and electronic records. Apparently this was done in violation of the law: “US officials have actually refused to tell Gibson what it allegedly did wrong, and why the raid was conducted. The company was never notified of any potential violations prior to the raid, and no official charges were ever filed. By all appearances, the government simply decided one day to unlawfully storm the company’s manufacturing units with loaded weapons, and is now attempting to destroy one of the last honest American manufacturers in existence.”
Such heavy handed — and potentially politically motivated — enforcement of the law could leave legitimate owners of antique instruments in deep doo-doo too.
But wait! This gets even messier! Apparently, there would be no problem with this wood having been imported if it had been finished by workers in India. So let me get this straight: the feds would rather that wood was finished by poorly paid laborers in India — possibly child laborers — than finished by highly paid craftsmen in Tennessee. And moreover, if it wasn’t legal to import this wood in the first place, how did it make it through customs in the first place? For the first time, I wonder if it is practical to make guitars in the United States.
Make no mistake. I am for reasonable regulations that protect the world’s resources and prevent tyrants/terrorists from profiting on the suffering of their people. But clearly we have highly arbitrary regulations when it comes to some products: Does finishing a piece of ebony mean anything about how it was harvested? Does finishing a diamond mean no warlords made a profit? Or does the regulation just protect the profit of the plunderer? These regulations have been handed down from both Democratic and Republican administrations — go ahead and read that link about diamonds if you don’t believe me — so it is clear that neither party has any respect for American workers. And since our economy is currently creating no jobs, that’s just despicable.
There’s clearly more to the Gibson story. So if you have information to add, please put it in comments.
International No Diet Day is May 6. I know some of my readers practice “No Diet Day” every day, and I mean them no offense by this post. I recognize that there is a small minority of people — mostly people with a decades long history of dieting and failing and/or people recovering from eating disorders — for whom dieting is a detrimental if not downright pathological activity.
I first learned of the existence of this day from this defacement of their Wikipedia entry. As a result, I took a look at their website. It makes my brain hurt. From it’s whimsical use of Comic Sans in a serious document to it’s chronic misuse of scientific information, I just can’t imagine taking International No Diet Day seriously.
One of the goals of the occasion is to “Recognize how dieting perpetuates violence against women”. Excuse me? There are people who assault women over the issue of dieting? Failing to “recognize” that, here! I’m sorry for the narrow-minded viewpoint that “violence” implies “physically hurting someone,” but Merriam-Webster’s got my back on this one. Am I seriously missing news stories about women being beaten up for eating a donut? For not eating a donut?? To add insult to imagined injury, I can’t find any information on their site that would support or clarify this goal. If they want to argue that there are people who make fun of dieters and people who make fun of fat people, I can agree with that. Calling it “violence” undermines their movement.
Let’s move on to their “facts” and figures about dieting. Between “90 and 99%” of diets don’t work forever? Pretty big range there! Sure would have been nice to link to a study or two, preferably ones that use those numbers. There’s reasons for diet failure, of course, and most of them can be controlled. Then “virtually all” dieters gain it back? That’s a big shock to me, my family, my friends, and many people on the internet.
Yes, it’s true that the “diet industry” and diet scams earn a lot of money from people who desperately want to get thin, but can’t get the hang of eating healthy foods in reasonable quantities and engaging in physical activity. Want to have a “Boycott Diet Industry Vultures Day”? A “Say No To Crappy Diet Food Day,” or “No Diet Shakes for Me Day”? Perhaps just simply a “Don’t Waste Money On Stuff That Doesn’t Work Day”? I’m there.
In the end, the “facts” and figures section has a lot of statistics and mentions studies, but provides no data or links or actual scientific papers to back them up. 5% of college aged women are anorexic or bulimic? Seriously? Based on what information? Almost a third of women in their 20s and early 30s have bone mass problems? Really? Tell me, did the makers of Boniva do that study? Where did the data on 9 and 10 year olds dieting come from, a child modeling agency? How hard is it to find citations online? There’s these miracle things called “search engines” now. An English teacher would have a “Field Day” with “International No Diet Day.”
There is one more “goal” that needs mentioning, one apparently too controversial for the frontpage of their site or the Wikipedia entry: “To educate the public about the dangers of weight-loss surgery, diet drugs, and size-biased medical treatment.” By “size-biased medical treatment,” they mean the idea that your doctor thinks you will be healthier in the long run if you lose some weight and keep it off. Here’s the facts: study after study shows that obese people are at higher risk for a variety of cancers (oh look, I used a search engine to find a gaggle of studies!); obesity is a major risk factor for heart disease; obesity is a risk factor for osteoarthritis in the joints of the lower body; obesity is a risk factor for diabetes (at least one doctor I know insists that if you are overweight, you will eventually become diabetic. Sobering stuff). If it is “size-biased medical treatment” to point these things out, I hope all doctors are so biased.
In Closing: TV ownership in America on the decline, both due to poverty and internet delivery of video; FDA getting ability to do something about food safety; flashmob robbery; waaah; small business hiring disappointing; we’ve all gone crazy; Orwell would be proud indeed; propaganda; “Dude, I need, like, about 250 sliders, man”; thank you, anti-vax morons; and an interesting view of 2012.
Seriously. If I write about any of the crap spewing from Washington — whether from Congress, Timmy Geithner, or our gutless President who is more conservative than Nixon or Reagan — I’m likely to say something regrettable. So here’s what some other people have to say. As it is, I use a little more salty language than normal, so deal with it.
Here’s something on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. You know, the group of fatcat businessmen that President Obama was begging to create jobs? What a bunch of “greedy fucks.”
Here’s what an 11 year old girl has to say about Gitmo. Notice where she admits that some of her information may be biased? I have hope for the critical thinking skills of the next generation, somewhat less hope that the War on Terror will ever end.
There’s a lot to be said about Egypt today. How about we start with a picture:
But really, this sums up my thoughts well.
There’s really a lot to say about the Anti-Woman forces calling themselves “Pro-Life”, but I’ll let Nancy start the parade. Remember, HR3 has a much wider reach than most people know. That’s even before we start talking about conscience clauses that would allow ignorant ******* to turn people away whose pregnancies can kill them. That’s before we talk about the fact that if these ******** had their way, women whose “babies” would be born with fatal birth defects would be forced to carry that corpse to term, endure dozens of well meaning people asking “Is it a boy or a girl? Have you picked a name??”, go through all the complications of pregnancy including the possibility of death in labor, all so some ******** can pretend he — and I do mean HE — is preventing abortions. People who think that is acceptable can rot in hell. Republicans want to cut family planning too, so we know they don’t really give a damn about preventing abortions.
Here’s something on states declaring bankruptcy to get out of paying people the retirement funds they were promised — and remember, state employees pay no Social Security taxes, so those pensions may be all they’ve got.
Speaking of bankruptcy, here’s something on how the bankruptcy “reform” of a few years back contributed to the foreclosure mess.
Nobody seems to remember that almost all regulations are put in place to protect somebody. Of course it’s dumb to say that regulations are automatically “job killing.” If the people whining about “job killing” gave a shit about jobs, maybe they wouldn’t be trying to cut and gut jobs programs! Here’s an urgent message for our elected officials: JOBS are still the number one issue on Americans’ minds. Put people to work, and some of the other problems — national deficit, social security, foreclosures — might start to fix themselves.
But this one really makes me mad. Ornery has it right when he calls the move to cut emergency funding for heating in the middle of a colder than average winter “so fucking tone deaf it boggles my fucking mind.” Heaven forbid we should raise taxes on people making, say, a million dollars a year when we can just freeze Granny to death! Who needs a death panel when you’ve got a blizzard? Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot!
See how mad I am, and all I’m really doing is quoting other people? Over the weekend I promise to have something happier to say… about something.
In Closing: Kafka-san; tip of the iceberg?; junk fees and foreclosure; too lazy; secret air travel; pot of gold; is it snarky if it’s true?; the status quo is bad; on conservatives and the Bible; city-states; zero tolerance means zero thinking; vaccinate; the budget.
Banks Always Make Their Own Rules, and this has been a banner week for demonstrating it!
You’ve heard of course about the lady who arrived at her second home to discover new locks and all her stuff missing, including her late husband’s ashes, right?
What about Deutsche Bank agreeing to pay a bunch of fines for helping wealthy Americans dodge their taxes?
Arizona and Nevada are both suing Bank of America over loan adjustments, and the Nevada AG has evidence that B of A has engaged in massive deceptive trade practices.
In California, Wells Fargo has been forced to admit that “pick a payment” was a bad idea and strongarmed into modifying a whopping 15,000 homeowners (sounds much more impressive if you say $2 billion in mortgages, doesn’t it?).
Meanwhile, the federal agencies that should be regulating the banks and protecting the citizens are protecting the banks from the citizens. The Federal Reserve has actually blocked new foreclosure regulations.
Even MarketWatch suggests that the banks have pulled on over on all of us.
We don’t just need rules for Big Banks, we need them to be forced to follow the law. Put a few bankers in jail, and I imagine the rest will be more likely to resist criminal activity.
In Closing: less American Pie; when Pat Robertson says to decriminalize pot, you know the War on Drugs is a failure; duh; security threat; Schneier; look, there’s never going to be a “get out of the security line free” card, so stop wishing for one!; gee, whoda thought?; good idea, wish somebody thought of it during the Clinton Administration; and idiot motorists drove through wet cement, getting stuck and delaying a project that would have been open in time for Christmas until probably Easter. Hope they’re real proud of themselves.