Meth-a-demic Follow-up

After reading a story in today's Washington Post regarding "Mexican smugglers" importing crystal meth into the US, I was reminded of the fact that when the Sudafed restriction laws fail to to solve the "meth crisis" (as I predicted), politicians and law enforcement will have to find a good reason why their plan didn't work. Looks like they're starting to form a consensus on what that excuse will be.

The Meth-a-demic

One of the biggest problems with the meth story is the lack of hard evidence. Sure there are photos of drug labs and scary photos of addicts who have replaced their teeth with oozing sores. But where are the numbers? Frequently you get facts like this:

“While only one methamphetamine lab was seized in Virginia four years ago, 61 were seized in 2004;”

The reference for that was piece of data was “(CESAR Briefing, March 2005).” That CESAR briefing gave “DEA 2005” as a reference for that information. Pretty vague, eh?. But on their own website, the DEA shows that in 2004 they busted 75 labs. Hard to tell where the numbers are coming from. But the real issue is that no one seems to care. The facts of this problem is not nearly as important as the rhetoric.

Another thing that annoys me is the fact that many OTC cold relief products have been reformulated with phenylephrine, which, if you haven’t realized it yet, is a very poor replacement.

In a recent peer-reviewed letter published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, researches found that 7 of the 11 studies done years ago (which form the basis for the FDA’s approval for over-the-counter phenylephrine) showed that at the allowable 10 mg dose phenylephrine was not effective [Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology. 2006 Jul;118(1):279-80. Epub 2006 May 2]. An updated study (available here) comes up with the same conclusion: “There is insufficient evidence that oral phenylephrine is effective for nonprescription use as a decongestant. The Food and Drug Administration should require additional studies to show the safety and efficacy of phenylephrine.”

One of the researches, Leslie Hendeles was quoted as saying, “At the maximum 10 milligram dose, phenylephrine is no more effective than a placebo. It's like shooting blanks,"

One of the required precursors to making meth, along with psuedoephedrine is red phosphorus. A logical question (I would think) is, how inconvenienced would the average person be if we implemented restrictions on the sale of red phosphorus rather than Sudafed? Probably not much.

Does Consumer Reports have *Any* Credibility Left?

Following on the heals of their bogus car seat panic, Consumer Reports is now telling us that Mcdonalds has the best coffee. Eh...Mcdonalds? I'm sure it's OK, but could they really beat out such coffee masters as Burger King and Dunkin’ Donuts? Not to mention, Starbucks?

After the recent retraction of the car seat story, the February 1998 dog food debacle in which they smeared Iams dog food in error (did they ever print a corrected 'study'?) and their rigged tests against the Isuzu Trooper, I'll wait patiently to see if Consumer Reports figures out if something was wrong with this test as well before I have Ronald brew me a cup.

Virginia's Dirty Secret

Virginia has a vehicle emissions program that requires vehicle owners in Northern Virginia to get their cars/trucks inspected every 2 years. The idea is to prevent someone from driving around with a car/truck that is spewing high levels of toxic pollution into the air. You would think this was to keep the air clean. But you would have to be wrong. That's because anyone who owns a diesel vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of 8,500 lbs or more (some of the greatest polluters out there) don't have to get an inspection. Go figure. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that so many diesel vehicles are owned by businesses and local governments (buses)? Hmmmmm....

The real estate market is bad...but that's the good news!

Gotta love Realtors. A month ago they were predicting that we had already found the "bottom" of the real estate market. Now they're telling us, that *right now* is the bottom. This new reassessment is due to the fact that in December 2006, the market for existing housing fell by 8.4%, the biggest decline since in 17 years (or as some of the stories claim, "since 1982" [eh..one of those is wrong I guess].

Note the textbook use of "weasel words" in the following examples:

But economists said they believe the low point for housing has been reached and they are forecasting a slow rebound in 2007.

Just who are these "economists"? Surely not all economists are saying this. In fact, the article cites *just one* economist (David Lereah), who conveniently works for The National Association of Realtors.

And this one:

Because of that optimism, analysts don't believe the slump in housing will drag the overall economy into a recession.

Who are these "analysts"? No mention is made. But apparently they caution us from reading too much into the bad news (the 80% higher than predicted jump in jobless claims), and yet because of the optimism of unknown economists, they don't think we're headed for a recession ("Because of that optimism, analysts don't believe the slump in housing will drag the overall economy into a recession").

Ah..now that's reassuring. Let's all go out and buy a half million dollar closet condo.

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.

Coffee again linked to lower diabetes risk

A new study published today in the journal, Diabetes Care, once again shows a strong correlation between coffee consumption and a reduced risk of type-2 diabetes. In this study, the risk was 60% lower(!)

Another Study Says Antidepressants cause Violent Behavior

Regular readers might remember a post I did awhile back on antidepressants and how they've been shown to increase suicidal behavior. Today brings news of a new study (to be published in the Public Library of Science) that shows that the drug Paxil causes an increase in violent behavior over placebo. In the study, users of Paxil were twice as likely to have a violent episode than people who were given placebo. Unfortunately, it's the rest of society that has to pay for these violent outbursts.

Meteorology is the New Astrology

I'm not sure when it happened, or if it's always been this way, but meteorology is now resorting to cold reading techniques like those used in astrology, palm reading and lie detector tests. After issuing dire warnings about the 2006 hurricane season (and scaring the crap out of everyone within 200 miles of a coast) the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has quietly "revised" their prediction.

This of course, calls into question the value of a prediction that is constantly 'revised' to reflect the current reality. Now NOAA is saying that the hurricane season won't be that bad after all, however they made sure to throw a "but hey, watch your back!" comment just to cover them in case there's a Katrina Part II ("...we are not off the hook by any means").

So here's my "horoscope" reading of the 2006 hurricane season:

It will be a mild year for Hurricanes, but watch for the full moon! It can cause unpredictable results. September's rain will bring about a tempest in a teacup, and New Orleans will breathe a sigh of relief when the sun shines on Bourbon Street.

New WiFi virus?

Yesterday I was at a conference and pulled out my laptop to see if the building had any free wireless available. There was one, with an SSID of "Free public wifi" I tried to connect, then noticed that it was a peer-to peer wireless network. I thought that was odd...and it didn't work anyway. I closed my laptop and forgot about it. Then tonight, my girlfriend and I are both on the couch using our laptops with my wireless router and low and behold, the SSID "Free Public wifi" shows up again on both of our machines, with a very strong signal. This made me a bit concerned. It was the same SSID I had seen earlier, and was (on both machines) a peer-to-peer connection type. My machine automatically connected (for some reason my router dropped its connection at this time) to the "free public wifi". I disconnected it and after getting my router back up and running, did some research. Turns out there are a few other people who have noticed this same phenomenon. Also today, this story came out. Odd coincidence, or are we about to see a wildfire of wifi viruses?

Is this a new virus that's infecting machines via wireless connections? If so, this might be ugly. Let me know if you've seen anything like this, or if you know what this is.

A Greater Evil Than.....Evil

There are only a few things I really hate in the world and few of those rank up there with valet parking. I know many people just love it. You don't have to worry about finding a parking spot in a crowded area, etc. That's a nice thing, I agree. But the part I hate is what you have to do to get that convenience.

Primarily, you have to give your keys to a complete stranger, who very easily could have a lengthy (violent?) criminal record. Not only that, but if anything happens to your car, they're not responsible (they tell you that on the ticket). So you pay a psychopath $20 to park your car, which may be scratched, wrecked, stolen, have its spare tire stolen (yeah...make sure you check that, especially if you have a nice rim on the spare...trust me...it happens) etc...and it's your fault. Or even worse, you could have the valet make a copy of your keys, then break into your house, set up hidden video cameras then hide under your bed for two days. Sound crazy? Well, That's exactly what happened to this poor woman.

Why on earth would you give a complete stranger your keys!??? OH YEAH! They're a "valet". Dumb....but everybody's doing it.

Here's an idea for all those stolen laptops with 'sensitive info'

Go to this site, read and understand. It's freaking free people!!! It would stop all of this concern with stolen laptops/data. You can even carry it along with you on a flash drive.

Nelson Mandella says the blood diamond has been washed

Apparently, according to Nelson Mandela, you are free to buy African diamonds again. It's best not to ask about the fat check he's getting from De Beers via the PR firm Sitrick and Company.

Another day, Another reason not to use debit cards

As I mentioned earlier, there are lots of reasons not to use debit cards. Today, Visa mentioned that thousands of customers might be at risk due to a "data breach", whatever that is.

I think it's going to take some hacker buying $30,000 worth of pencils with every senator and congressman's credit card before anyone in Washington pays attention.

Awww yeah. I called it (Chinese Urban Legend)

It turns out the "pregnant" Chinese woman was in fact a prank.  Quoting the China Daily:

"As people are widely concerned about the health of Qiao Yubo and her five babies in her phenomenally big belly, the super pregnant woman confessed Wednesday to the local reporters and doctors that the whole thing was made up. Qiao Yubo, an ordinary woman in Ningjiang District of Songyuan city, northeast China's Jilin Province, has been put into the spotlight since Jilin News' report on her quintuplets and 175-centimeter waistline earlier this week. However, when a hospital in the capital city of Changchun offered a free medical check-up, the woman and her husband taken flee from a window, thus unfolding the true story behind, reported Jinlin News. When the doctors finally found her in a washing room in her sister's house, Qiao knelt down, cried out, and told them she was not carrying quintuplets, Mr Li, chief of the hospital, told the newspaper." 

Here's my favorite part:

"Surprisingly enough, even Qiao's husband had no idea Qiao was having a fake belly until the arrival of the hospital staff, and he was the first to inform of media of the quintuplets. I was thinking I could not afford five babies, so I hoped the media exposure would arouse the society's attention and some people might give a helping hand." the paper quoted her husband as saying."

Bah....wait until he finds out "she" is a man.

Chinese urban legend?

Maybe it's just me, but this looks totally fake.

"Doctors" discover new Disease; Shareholders Applaud.

All of the sudden the news is filled with stories about Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED - and no, that's apparently not an incredibly ironic pun). And how, OMG, 7.3% of all adults have it. Basically IED means you lose your temper. And guess what? They have a solution all ready for you. The shareholders are applauding. This has to be the most ridiculous thing I've read in a long time (Oh man, I'm about to go "IED" on you). The 'not a magic bullet' quick-fix is SSRIs which have been shown to cause suicidal behavior and thinking in teens. The answer to your problems is that you're not taking enough pills.