ThoughtCrimes.org

Restaurant Group Challenges Calorie-Count Law
Associated Press

An organization of restaurants across the state sued New York City yesterday, asking a court to outlaw a new city regulation that would require some of its members to list calorie counts on their menu boards.

The organization, the New York State Restaurant Association, filed the lawsuit in United States District Court in Manhattan. In the suit, the group says that the new rule would apply only to a small group of restaurants and would punish those that have made efforts to tell the public the nutritional facts about food on their menus.

The city law — to take effect July 1 — applies only to restaurants that serve standardized portion sizes and that were voluntarily making calorie information available as of March 1.

The association argues that the regulation infringes on the First Amendment rights of the affected restaurants and that it has tempered their desire to provide nutritional facts to customers. The suit asks that the regulation be declared unconstitutional and that the association be awarded unspecified damages.

Well actually, if they are going to make a claim on Constitutional grounds, then I would say the Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination is the one they need to cite. After all they wish to remain silent about facts that would make people not want to eat their food.

Stick a Pin in It
Dallas Morning News

While a number of speakers -- such as Railroad Commission chairman Michael Williams and Mike Huckabee -- have praised the advance of Barack Obama and what it means towards a colorblind society, at least one vendor hasn't gotten the message.

At the Republican state convention, a booth hosted by Republicanmarket was selling a pin Saturday that says: If Obama is President will we still call it the White House.

There were other pins that weren't necessarily conveying the positive, inclusive, united front that has been portrayed during the convention. One said, "Press 1 for English. Press 2 for Deportation" and another, "I will hold my nose when I vote for McCain"

Can we all stop pretending that the GOP is not infested with people one change of clothes from a Klan robe?


Via Pam Spaulding.

'Disposable Heroes': Veterans Used To Test Suicide-Linked Drugs
ABC News

Mentally distressed veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are being recruited for government tests on pharmaceutical drugs linked to suicide and other violent side effects, an investigation by ABC News and The Washington Times has found.

"Lab rat, guinea pig, disposable hero," said former US Army sniper James Elliott in describing how he felt he was betrayed by the Veterans Administration.

Elliott, 38, of suburban Washington, D.C., was recruited, at $30 a month, for the Chantix anti-smoking study three years after being diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He served a 15-month tour of duty in Iraq from 2003-2004.

Months after he began taking the drug, Elliott suffered a mental breakdown, experiencing a relapse of Iraq combat nightmares he blames on Chantix.

"They never told me that I was going to be suicidal, that I would cease sleeping. They never told me anything except this will help me quit smoking," Elliott told ABC News and The Washington Times.

It wasn't until three weeks later that the Veterans Administration advised the veterans in the Chantix study that the drug may cause serious side effects, including "anxiety, nervousness, tension, depression, thoughts of suicide, and attempted and completed suicide."

Just when you think this administration cannot possibly go ANY lower, they look around the sewer, and start digging deeper.

"How this study continued in the face of these difficulties is almost impossible to understand," said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Doctors at the Veterans Administration say they acted as quickly as they could.

"This didn't justify an emergency warning at that level," said Dr. Miles McFall, co-administrator of the VA study.

Dr. McFall said there is no proof that Elliott's breakdown was caused by Chantix and he sees no reason to discontinue the study. Some 140 veterans diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder continue to receive Chantix as part of a smoking cessation study.

This from the people who kept claiming that Agent Orange was perfectly benign.

Let's have some court martials all around. Anybody care to bet that when we start digging into how such a study was organized, we find a Bush crony with ties to Big Pharma?

But hey, it could just be an overreaction, right?

The FAA has prohibited commercial airline pilots from using Chantix because of its possible side effects.

Apparently Pfizer didn't pass around enough money to grease all the palms.

Stocks trade mixed as oil climbs
Associated Press

Stocks traded mixed Monday after another spike in oil prices and a decline in regional manufacturing activity touched off concerns about the ability of the economy to push ahead.

A declining dollar helped drive the price of a barrel oil to a record near $140 while retail gas prices etched a new high of $4.08 a gallon.

CEO pay chugged up in 2007 despite sagging economy and profits
Canadian Press Association

As the American economy slowed to a crawl and stockholders watched their money evaporate, CEO pay still chugged to yet more dizzying heights last year, an Associated Press analysis shows.

The AP review of compensation for the heads of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index finds the median pay package added up to nearly $8.4 million. That's a comfortable gain of about $280,000 from 2006.

The 3 1/2 per cent pay increase for CEOs came even as the landscape for both workers and shareholders darkened and the economy was choked by a housing market in free fall, layoffs and soaring prices for fuel and food.

At the top of the list: John Thain, who took the reins of Merrill Lynch on Dec. 1, 2007. His $83-million pay package was supercharged by a signing bonus and other enticements that lured him from the New York Stock Exchange to lead the investment bank as it was suffering its worst-ever losses.

Collectively, the 10 best-paid CEOs made more than half a billion dollars last year. Yet half the members of this stratospheric club were leading companies whose profits shrank dramatically.

Dollar sinks against euro, pound as oil, unemployment soar
Associated Press

The dollar plunged against the euro and the pound Friday after a leap in U.S. unemployment and as oil rose to above $139.

The 15-nation euro rose to $1.5768 in late New York trading, up from the $1.5593 late Thursday.

On Friday, the Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate rose to 5.5 percent in May from 5 percent in April. It is the biggest monthly jump since February 1986.

Oil, which surged more than $11 to touch a record above $139 Friday, also hurt the greenback. Investors have been using oil as a hedge against a slumping dollar, and as the price of the commodity rises, its inflationary pressures can make traders even more skittish on the dollar.

Despite the fact that the technology to produce a viable electric car has been around for at least a decade, automakers have dragged their feet and claimed that such a product could not be produced at a price people would pay, and that the car would have too many limitations on range and service options, making it even more undesirable to American drivers.

GM went as far as actually producing a limited run electric car, the EV-1, to further make this point, only to have the car become so wildly popular that they canceled the program and destroyed the cars.

"But why?" you ask. "Why would they do that. A car is a car and Detroit is in the business of selling cars, so what's the diff if it is filled up with gasoline or simply plugged in?"

Well, that's your first mistaken assumption. Automakers are in the business of making money, not making cars. Cars are a means to make money, and in their view, an electric car will greatly reduce the money they make.

40-50% of an automaker's profits come from the sale of spare parts, specifically the thousands of parts that wear out and must be replaced in your average car. The engine and transmission (including the cooling, lubrication, and charging systems) of an average car represent over half the cost of the car and a third of it's weight. They also represent a cornucopia of parts that wear out, break, or simply must be replaced on a regular basis. Starter motors, timing belts, radiator hoses, belts, spark plugs, fuel injectors, water pumps, generators, batteries, motor mounts, clutches, head gaskets, valve cover gaskets, fuel pumps, thermostats, oxygen sensors, crank sensors, engine speed sensors, and many, many more are sold with 200-300% markups by the manufacturer. With those types of margins, you can see why Detroit likes cars the way they are.

Trouble is, electric cars require almost none of these parts. As there is no internal combustion engine, all of the parts related to the engine vanish, as do the associated repair/replacement costs. In an electric car, the transmission is either absent, or greatly simplified. Translation: Fewer repairs for the consumer, less profit for the dealer. Oh, and since there are fewer parts, the car is more reliable and lasts longer, meaning even less money for the car maker.

With an electric car, there are no oil changes, no tune ups, no coolant flushing, no muffler repairs, no blown head gaskets requiring replacement at $1200 a pop.

Once we understand this dynamic, it is easy to see why Detroit had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to make an electric car. You also see why the first commercially "viable" electric car was a hybrid, not a pure electric car. Hybrids give Detroit all the profit of a regular gasoline car (they still have an engine and transmission) while taking on the extra complexity of a battery system that must be coordinated with the gasoline system, meaning more parts, more chances for failure, meaning more repair dollars (and they will charge you a 300-500% markup for hybrid parts, because they no longer compete with independent shops for your repair dollar).

To be fair, there are disadvantages to an electric car. Unlike a gasoline car, heat in the winter will be an additional drain on your batteries, since there is no free "waste heat" to use (internal combustion engines have LOTS of free heat). Energy wise, you must also pay full price for your A/C and any other light, radio, CD players and mobile phones. Also, the newer batteries required to run an electric car are more expensive and potentially damaging to the environment to make. The iron law of TANSTAAFL has not been revoked.

The cost of replacing batteries is also an issue, as the battery packs, especially the newer Lithium-Ion chemistries are VERY expensive. Batteries would probably need replacing every 3-5 years depending on use.

Another major drawback to an electric car is temperature. Batteries can lose power in cold weather, and degrade in hot weather.

Of course, these drawbacks will be addressed in the future. New technologies such as nano-wire batteries and ultracapacitors will address the battery problems, which also solves the A/C-heating issue (denser batteries mean more power), while some of the problems can be addressed by simply building solar panels into the roof.

Another false objection to electric cars is that we would simply be substituting one monopoly (oil companies) with another (electric companies). One of the reasons Big Oil is a monopoly is because few people can afford the expense of drilling a well, pumping out the oil, then refining the oil into usable distillates. This is not true of electrical power, since anyone with a few hundred dollars of solar cells can make his own electricity.

Internal combustion engines (ICEs) are extremely inefficient systems, losing 80% of the energy produced by a gallon of gasoline to heat and vibration. Electric motors, by comparison, convert 90%+ of the energy supplied into actual motive power, though the actual efficiency of the power plant supplying the energy must also be factored in (about 40% for the U.S.), and the efficiency of the batteries 80-90% when charged and discharged.

Electric cars are ultimately good for everyone, consumers and manufacturers, not to mention very good for the environment. Not only is the cost of fuel far cheaper (about 1-2¢ a mile versus the current 15¢ a mile for gasoline), but that car itself is more durable and easier to maintain, thanks to having thousands fewer parts to wear out or break.

Simpler cars mean fewer parts to manufacture, transport and store, which means less energy being expended for those activities, which also means less carbon being dumped into the air.

Of course, the most efficient solution to the transportation problem is mass transit. A diesel bus hauling 110 passengers is still vastly more efficient over the same distance than any electric car can ever be. 110 passengers hauled 20 miles is 2,200 passenger miles, whereas a single person in a 2-passenger electric car is only 20 passenger miles. Plus, that single bus would take about 50 cars off the road, reducing traffic congestion.

Supreme Court backs Guantanamo detainees
Associated Press

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.

In its third rebuke of the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners, the court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The court's liberal justices were in the majority.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

The dissenters were, predictably, Alito, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas. Once again, we see the damage that stupid, stupid, stupid Democrats did to this country by refusing to filibuster Alito and Roberts.

This is what happens when Democrats put "bi-partisanship" above Constitutional concerns.

Bush will, of course, ignore this ruling. The Democratic leadership will, of course, continue to look the other way, ignoring THEIR oath to defend the Constitution.

Speaking of blatantly libelous statements by Fox, we get this from deranged winger E.D. Hill:

A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab? The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently.

Hill then brings on a "body language" expert to explain to her something any seven year child found on a playground could have explained to her.

OK, here is the action in question.


Upon seeing this gesture, idiots, specifically pasty-faced, neon-white idiots afraid of anything vaguely ethnic, began to see sinister implications.

**Sigh**

How tragically unhip can you be when octogenarian George Bush SENIOR is "down wid it", but you are clueless?




So where did this terrifying (to some white people) gesture come from?

In the ensuing rush to appear relevant, many of the chattering class have undertaken explaining the ethno-significance of the gesture, calling it a "modified high five", "respect knuckles", and a variation of the "black power" gesture.

Far be it for me to question these august individuals (but somebody has to) who are paid six and seven figure salaries, but I have tracked down the actual origin and meaning of the gesture.



Michelle and Barack Obama are super heroes.

You read it here first.

I can haz a sindikated column in KNew York Tymes now?

Update: Yes, that would mean the Bush Senior was a superhero too, but then we already knew that, right?

Just so we are clear on what Fox is saying about Michele Obama, let's consult UrbanDictionary.com for a definition of "baby mama".

1) The mother of your child(ren), whom you did not marry and with whom you are not currently involved.

2) A term used to define an unmarried young woman (but can be a woman of any age) who has had a child. As mentioned before in another definition, most of the time it is used for when it was simply a sexual relationship, compared to ex-wife or girlfriend. Usually this has a negative connotation, a lot of baby mamas are seen as desperate, gold digging, emotionally starved, shady women who had a baby out of spite or to keep a man. Sometimes they may act like this because of missed child support payments, unfulfilled promises by the father, or convenient sex by the father. Either or both may exist in any situation.

An article in Slate delves further into the etymology:

The Oxford English Dictionary defines baby-daddy as "the father of a woman's child, who is not her husband or (in most cases) her current or exclusive partner." The baby-mama entry follows the same template with the genders reversed.

The OED lists baby-daddy and baby-mama as "colloquial, chiefly African-American" variants of the Jamaican terms baby-father and baby-mother; its first citation for baby-mother hails from the Kingston Daily Gleaner in 1966.

If you called your husband your "baby-father," he might be insulted—the term suggests biological fatherhood in the absence of any real parenting. The linguistics professor Peter L. Patrick, who studies Jamaican Creole, said the terms "definitely imply there is not a marriage—not even a common-law marriage—but rather that the child is an 'outside' child."

Now, are we clear what Fox is saying when it puts this on the screen?