Meth problem solved?

Virginia police say that meth lab busts have declined 70% between October 2005 - October 2006. They're claiming this decline is due to the decision to remove Sudafed and pseudoephedrine containing products from drugstore shelves. Strange, since pseudoephedrine products weren't removed from the shelves until April 2006. That means a 70% drop in only 6 months. That sounds hard to believe. Somehow I doubt the meth problem will be this easy to solve.

FDA says aspirin is bad, (and oh, acetaminophen might kill you)

This week the FDA announced that it was proposing new changes to the labeling of over the counter (OTC) pain relievers. Included in the list of pain relievers are the following:

• Products with Acetaminophen/Paracetamol (Brand name: Tylenol)
• NSAIDs (Aspirin, Ibuprofen (Brand name: Advil) , Naproxen Sodium (Brand Name: Aleve)

The FDA says the change is needed because Acetaminophen can cause liver problems and NSAIDs can cause gastrointestinal bleeding. However, I think FDA is really trying to warn the public about the dangers of Acetaminophen while taking some of the spotlight off the Acetaminophen containing products by throwing out the NSAID warning at the same time.

You should know that Acetaminophen is a relatively risky OTC pain reliever. It is so risky, that Acetaminophen overdose is now the #1 cause of liver failure in the United States. Multiple liver transplants and deaths have been caused by taking too much Acetaminophen. And overdosing is not that hard when you consider how many other "cold & flu" type products contain Acetaminophen. Tylenol has long been touted as a "safe" drug, especially for children after aspirin and salicylate containing products were tenuously linked (PDF) to Reye's syndrome. However, in light of the high risk of liver damage, the use of Acetaminophen containing products should be discouraged.

Unfortunately, the FDA has opted to warn people about the relatively low NSAID risk of gastrointestinal bleeding (compared to liver failure) at the same time, thereby obscuring from the public where the real risk lies.

CNN Officially Blows

As I write this, Glen beck is on CNN Headline news (sandwiched between two hours of Nancy (dis) Grace) doing some sort of stand-up routine...speaking in falsetto.

CNN is offering the droning Larry King Live with Jonbenet Ramsey's dad. This, on top of the CNN website now offering about 1/2 of it's stories in streaming video....which doesn't work on my Firefox (requires Windows Media Player). Add to that the fact that at work, I can't look at streaming content...so CNN is now about as useful for news as a freaking brick.

Look at CNN Headline NEWS' line up for tonight:

• 7-8pm - Glen Beck
• 8-9pm - Nancy (dis)Grace
• 9-10pm - Glen Beck AGAIN
• 10-11pm - Nancy (dis)Grace AGAIN
• 11-12pm - Showbiz Tonight (WhooHOooo...tabloid news!)
• 12-1am - Glen Beck (in case you missed it)
• 1-2am - Nancy (dis)Grace AGAIN In case you're tired of jabbing your eye with shards of glass.
• 2-3 - Headline News - Oh look, news - when everyone's gone to sleep.

CNN has a nice rotation of Anderson Cooper (MY GOD...RUN ANDERSON...RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN TO ANOTHER NETWORK!) and Larry King. Has there ever been a worse interviewer in history? I think not. At least Larry is good for about 5-10 uncomfortable silences for each hour of interviews. I'm just waiting for someone to ask "Larry? Are you sleeping??"

And to think it all started out so promising....

OMG! Did you lock the door?

I have a college memory that has stuck with me to this day (and probably will for the rest of my life). I had just finished up a class and was walking down a very busy street on campus when I came upon a pedestrian traffic jam. It seems that some unlucky guy had lost the key to his (very expensive) bike’s Kryptonite lock. I’m sure he tried everything he could think of to get the lock off his bike, but had now resigned himself to hacksawing through the hardened steel. It was probably 100+ degrees and this guy was just sawing away, sweating and blocking part of the sidewalk causing everyone to have to step around/over him. This scene has stuck with me so long because at the time I remember thinking “He's probably stealing that bike, and everyone is going to, for at least a second, think that same thought." Then that thought would be followed up by a secondary thought of “…nahh…no one would steal a bike by hacksawing the lock right here in broad daylight!” To this day I still think that guy was stealing the bike.

Then a couple of years ago, it came out that all of those U-Locks were easily defeated. Not with some high-tech device, but by the barrel of a Bic Round Stic™ pen . You know, the $.10 pens that are everywhere? Well apparently if you jam the barrel of one of those pens over the tubular keyhole of the U-lock and twist, it opens just like you had the key. When I found out about that, I immediately flashed back to the guy hacksawing and thought “I bet he’s laughing about that now”.

It was a shock for everyone to find out that the security offered by the “Microsoft” of bike locks, the Kryptonite lock, was a complete illusion. More troubling, It had been an illusion since day one, but no one (or not many) knew it.

Now the facade has been dropped on another ubiquitous piece of security hardware: Your front door lock. Recently a slew of information has been published on the Internet (documents, videos, how-to's, etc) regarding the bump key. What is it you ask? It's a generic key that can be made in about 30 mins by an 11 year old and any old spare key. And with this key, that same 11 year old, with no experience what-so-ever, can open your front door lock (yes, and your deadbolt too) in about 5 seconds. Don't you feel secure now? Here's a video of an 11 year old girl with no locksmithing experience opening a Kwikset lock in about 5 seconds.

Oh, and in case you missed it, Master locks can be defeated with a beer can.

Maybe it's time to bring back the moat.