The Weekly Notes 2007
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Back to the Weekly Notes 2007 Archives Mannatech: We have a new pyramid
scheme that preys on people with terminal illnesses. It is so bad that it
makes Amway look like a civil service company. They use the classic tiered
marketing setup that technically divorces the production company from the
operatives. The operatives then go out and make medical claims for the
product that are absolutely false. The product is nothing more than a sugar
pill and these monstrously evil sales people claim it can cure cancer and
many other diseases. This outfit was exposed by 20-20 on ABC, but they
continue to operate. Why? Home Grown Terrorists: I don’t like that
phrase at all. It implies that we deliberately cultivate terrorists in Health Insurance: We have 9 million American
children who have no health insurance. That seems like a lot of kids to be
exposed and it is, but let us put it in perspective. When I was a kid, no one
had health insurance. Not 9 million children, but about 100 million kids were
uninsured along with their parents. That was then. This is now. Now, we can
and we should do much better. Even one kid without health insurance is
unacceptable today. We could take the resources we waste in Kevorkian: By now, everyone who is
interested knows he has been released (for good behavior?). Okay! I have no
problem with that. He says he will never do it again and I believe him. A few
years in the slammer can be very convincing. I only spent one night in the
county lockup once and I was convinced. Real prison is hell and it should be.
The only thing that ticks me off is that people like Libby will never go to a
real prison. He will go to what is called a prison for high profile
prisoners. It’s really a rest home, nothing more. It is not hard time,
but it should be. Why should a wealthy crook get better treatment than a poor
crook? On the other hand,
Kevorkian will be advocating for a law that legalizes assisted suicide. I
don’t like that at all. It is just the first step in a progression.
Eventually we will think of old age as a felony punishable by death. 1984
will be just a little late in coming. About Libby: I am sure he is guilty,
but I am also sure they are sending the wrong person to prison. Libby just
did what his boss told him to do. My guess is The Sheeny Man told him to just
lay down and not worry. I’m betting he will be pardoned by the mad king. About Cheney: Our local newspaper, The
Detroit Free Press, tells us he is still on the payroll of Halliburton. Why
is that news? I thought everyone knew that. Cheney has never worked for the
American people. He has always worked for Halliburton. VP is just the disguise
he wears. All you need do is look at how the war contracts are handed out to
know that. Air Traffic: Arrivals and departures
are being delay by as much as two hours on (normal?) days. They keep
expanding the airports. Bizarre! We have a system that stopped working two
decades ago and the only answer they have is to make the failed system
bigger. Very creative, wouldn’t you say? Helmets: There are some crazy
bikers in After the Fact: It seems many drugs are
being found to be dangerous years after the have been approved and put in
circulation. The reasons are the tests are too few and too small in the
approval process and there is no follow up testing. The FDA claims they lack
the manpower to do follow up. That’s bull! The FDA should not have to
do the follow up studies. The companies that make billions of bucks from the
drugs should be required to do them. Silent Spring: Remember Rachel Carson?
She wrote the book “Silent Spring.” It was really a tirade
against pesticides. It was a sensation at the time, but it turned out her
dire predictions were a bit overblown. The silent spring she predicted never
came. Now, however, it may be coming in a different, rather ironic, way. The
Detroit Free Press lead says it best. “ Stem Cells: Sometimes it just works
out. When the mad king blocked scientists from using embryonic stem cells in
their research, a lot of people were angry, especially people with
potentially fatal diseases. Many scientists continued working with old stem
cell cultures and bitched a lot. Now we find the scientists who stopped
bitching and started working have found new avenues of research. In mice,
they got ordinary skin cells to behave like stem cells. This is a lesson I
always have to relearn because I keep forgetting. Unless they actually kill
you, an adversary will most often make you stronger by causing you to do
something you would not have done otherwise. Kudos for the scientists.
Raspberries for the mad king. Back
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