So Edison *Was* A Hack?

That's what Nikola Tesla would have told you. But now it comes out that the first recorded human voice pre-dates Edison's phonograph by about 20 years. Of course, Edison's invention was the complete package, both sound recording and playback, which wins him the golden crown. But Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville will now have to be credited with making the first recording of a human voice (....at least for now), but it took 150 years to figure out how to play it back. All in all, one of the most interesting stories I've read in a long time. <Link - along with audio of the 1860 recording>

British Regulators Are Upset That GlaxoSmithKline Hid Paxil Study

UK drug regulators are upset after finding out that drug maker GlaxoSmithKline withheld a study from the public that showed their own anti-depressant Seroxat (AKA Paxil) increased the risk of suicide in teenagers by an amazing 6 TIMES! GlaxoSmithKline conducted the study in the hopes of being able to prescribe the drug to teens, but then filed it off in a dark corner of the company's library when the horrendous results appeared. British law only requires drug companies to show a drug study if it impacts any group for which the drug is or will be recommended. Since GlaxoSmithKline had not (yet) suggested that Seroxat/Paxil be prescribed to teens, they were free to shred the study. However, in the UK as in the US, doctors can prescribe drugs 'off-label' to anyone they think might benefit. It's unclear how many teens have been prescribed the drug, but the number is likely in the tens of thousands.

UK regulators are preparing to change the law to make all studies available to regulators. We'll see. Something tells me the lobbyists will have their say (Link to AP story).

Bad Problem Solving Skills: The Virginia Legislature Presents Example #3

If you were the Virginia Legislature, what would you do in this situation?

You pass a law in 2002 requiring all local courts to post their land records on the Internet by July 2008. Then, a concerned citizen alerts you to the fact that many of those documents contain people's social security numbers and are now published on the net for the world to see (and identity thieves to use).

Do you:

1. Immediately shut down the document websites until the SSNs can be redacted.
2. Force the localities to handle (and pay for) the fix as they see fit, with a strict deadline.
   
3. Make it illegal for any citizen to point out that there are SSNs posted on the web, but do nothing about the fact that there are now SSNs posted on the web.

If you said #3, amazingly you'd be right. The concerned citizen in this case is Betty Ostergren who runs The Virginia Watchdog website. The law the legislature passed was know colloquially as "The BJ Ostergren Law" but is officially an amendment to The Personal Information Privacy Act. How does this act protect your privacy? Well, in a nutshell, it protects you from criminals who might want to post your SSN on a website. Of course, the fact that they already have criminal intent clouds that logic, but hey, why be a buzz-kill with the whole "logic" thing?

What Betty was doing that got her noticed, was posting the SSN's of famous/political people on her website in order to draw attention to the fact that those very SSNs were available on a government website. So rather than fix the privacy problem, Virginia has opted to pretend like there is no problem. And anyone who says there is a problem, is a fool, a Communist (to paraphrase Bill Hicks) and now, a criminal. Betty's method may not have been the most subtle way of getting attention, but clearly it worked. However, the legislature can't seem to think their way out of a paper bag long enough to see that REMOVING the SSNs is the ONLY solution to this problem

So now, we're left with this uniquely 'Virginia' legislative solution. The state publishes public information (many with SSNs) on a public website, but the public is not allowed to use that information in any way that might be construed as 'communicating' it, lest they be convicted of breaking this new law. So the Virginia Freedom of Information Act has essentially been 'amended' to say "Here's the public information, you can't talk to anyone about it". Nice.

And as if the irony wasn't thick enough, the patron of the bill was Sen. R. Edward Houck, (D-Spotsylvania), who is also chairman of the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council. Sen Houck offered this very anemic analogy of Ms. Ostergren's attention getting tactics:

"That would be like trying to make it illegal to shoot someone with a firearm and the way you do that is to go out an get an AK-47 and mow down a bunch of people in a parking lot."

Allow me to offer a better analogy.

Sen. Houck's bill is like trying to prevent house fires by disabling smoke alarms. Because if there's no alarm, there's no fire!

Genius! Now I know why we pay these people!

Oh, and Senator Houck? You do know the Internet is global right? So what happens if a Russian organized crime group gets the SSNs?

Butter Flavored Popcorn Ingredient Causes Lung Cancer

The FDA announced that Diacetyl, the ingredient in microwave popcorn that gives it its buttery taste, does cause lung cancer. Multiple workers in factories that produce butter-flavored popcorn have come down with the life threatening lung disease (now known as 'popcorn lung') and at least one consumer has as well.

Many people don't know that the bag used in microwave popcorn also contains a suspected carcinogen, Perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA. PFOA is a primary ingredient in Teflon and is also used to coat the inside of microwave popcorn bags as well as fast food packaging materials to make them grease resistant (typically these packaging items have a glossy, wax-like surface).

These two chemicals highlight some of the dangers of eating pre-packaged foods. If you love microwave popcorn, there is a way to make it with a plain paper bag, popcorn, a couple of staples and some oil. Check out this recipe. I use this all the time in order to avoid all the salt in pre-packaged microwave popcorn and this works very well.

Breathalizer Battle Heats Up In Minnesota

One of the more novel legal defenses to be used recently has centered around DUI cases. All over the country, from Florida, to Minnesota, people accused of DUI on the basis of a 'breath test' have requested that the court allow them to closely examine the device that said they were drunk. In most cases, the device is some version of the Intoxilizer made by CMI of Owensboro, KY. The Intoxilizer is probably the most popular 'breathalizer' in the US and as it's use has grown, it's scientific validity has been largely taken for granted. Until now.

Scores of DUI defendants have asked to see the source code of these devices to see what makes them tick, and more importantly, to see if there are any bugs or flaws in the device's programing code. Any bug could be used to instill doubt that the device has accurately recorded the blood alcohol level of a defendant. Additionally, if the device seemed at all capricious about how it determines if someone is, say a .07 vs. a .08 BAC, it would be a 'get out of jail free' card for all these DUI defendants.

Which leads us to the latest development in Minnesota. Multiple courts in Minnesota (including the Minnesota Supreme Court) agreed that the defendants had a right to view the code and asked CMI to turn it over to the defendant's lawyers. CMI refused, stating that the source code was proprietary. This was in spite of the fact that the state contract to purchase the Intoxilizer devices mandated that CMI would provide the source code to the state if asked. Of course, they never did until now, which means it's likely that no one outside of CMI has any idea how the device actually works.

On Monday, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety sued CMI in U.S. District Court to force them to turn over the source code. The DPS needs to code or else they will face a court backlash (which has already begun) in which judges wholesale dismiss DUI cases. CMI for their part, has held fast, but this is the first time that CMI has been the target of a suit.

The more CMI delays and looks reluctant, the more it looks like there might be something really wrong with that source code. No doubt, CMI has a lot to lose. One small bug and DUI cases get thrown out all over the country...and their product becomes the new Quadro Tracker. Refuse to give up the code (or get the court to say they don't have to) and the device becomes questionable in court and useless to their biggest customer, law enforcement agencies.

The $600 billion Housing Fraud

Today an analyst, Geraud Charpin, who is the head of European credit strategy at UBS in London, predicted the losses from the sub prime mortgage collapse will reach at least $600 billion. This, after AIG, the world's largest insurer announced they lost $5.3 billion in the last quarter, in no small part due to the $11 billion in write downs they took last year on mortgage backed (read:sub-prime) assets they held.

And the write-downs are just starting, as more and more companies come out of the closet and fess up to owning sub-prime junk. $600 billion....just vanished somewhere in the market. How will the world's economy cope with this one?

I fear that somewhere out there, right now, a major retirement fund manager is wringing his hands wondering when would be the 'right' time to announce the huge write down. The DJIA lost 315 points today. Soon that will seem minor.

Virginia Supreme Court Says 'No' To Regional Taxes

The Supreme Court of Virginia, which is known (by me at least) for or it's no-nonsense rationality, struck down the power of the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) and the Hampton Roads Transportation Authority (HRTA) to tax without representation by 'the people'. The opinion can be found here (PDF)

The Virginia Legislature should take notes from the VASC on how to read....and start with the Virginia Constitution.

See: A few Lucky Virginians Have Another Nasty Surprise In Store -- Compliments Of The Legislature

New Meta-Analyses Shows Anti-Depressants Are Not Much Better Than Placebo

In spite of the known negative side effects (pdf) of modifying the reuptake of serotonin in people's bodies, a new meta analysis of multiple SSRI drug trials shows the drugs are not really any better than placebo for most people. The conclusion of this meta analysis is telling:

Drug–placebo differences in antidepressant efficacy increase as a function of baseline severity, but are relatively small even for severely depressed patients. The relationship between initial severity and antidepressant efficacy is attributable to decreased responsiveness to placebo among very severely depressed patients, rather than to increased responsiveness to medication.

So the differences in effectiveness of the drugs between severely and moderately depressed people was not due to the drugs effectiveness, but due to the ineffectiveness of placebo in severely depressed people.

With all this bad news, it's no wonder the drug companies are now trying to sell these drugs to your dog and cat.

Economy In Peril - Starbucks Goes For The Hard-Sell

You Know the economy is in trouble when Starbucks resorts to the hard-sell. I was at a Starbucks a week ago and as I was getting ready to pay for my latte, the 'barrista' told me that I could get the coffee "for free" if I bought a pound of coffee. I said no thanks, and then he proceeded to try to hard-sell me the coffee by asking me over and over if I was interested. At one point he even offered to "send the coffee to the troops" if I wasn't interested in using it myself. This is the sort of BS that really annoys me. If Starbucks thinks it would be a good idea to send some free coffee to the troops, then they should do it. They're in a much better position to do so than me. But, oh yeah...this was about increasing their profit, not doing something 'for the troops'. Using 'the troops' to make a sale is just distasteful.

Annoying your customers who want to buy something from you is a really bad idea. Just ask Radio Shack.

Mass Murders Linked To Antidepressant Use

The drug dealers have already started their offensive, so to balance their propaganda, I present this list.

This will (tragically) be a running archive of mass murders who have been linked to antidepressant use. Does this seem like quite a coincidence or what? Even though this Chicago Tribune article quotes psychiatrists as saying that antidepressants are "rarely linked to violence toward others", the FDA's Black Box warning (the most serious type of warning in prescription drug labeling) says that aggression and violence are side effects. Read the whole FDA warning below the list.

Dr. Michael Stone, a clinical psychiatry professor at Columbia and best known for his 'most evil' scale, allegedly maintains a 'database' of violent crimes and says that he only can find “...a handful of cases where the person was on an antidepressant.” Well to help you out with your database Dr. Stone, check out the site in the NY Times article. It has more than just a handful.

1. Kip Kinkel (Thurston High School Shootings 5/20/1998) [Was taking Prozac]
   
2. Eric Harris (Columbine High School Shootings 4/20/1999) [Was taking Luvox]. The medical records of Dylan Klebold (co-conspirator) have been sealed.
3. Mamoru Takuma (Osaka school massacre 6/8/2001) [Was taking an unnamed antidepressant]
   
4. Andrea Yates (Murdered her 5 children in a bathtub 6/20/2001) [Was taking Effexor]
   
5. Cho Seung-hui (Virginia Tech Shootings 4/16/2007 ) [Was taking an unnammed antidrepressant]
6. Robert Hawkins (Westroads Mall shootings Omaha 12/5/2007) [Was taking an unnammed antidrepressant, Most likely Prozac].
7. Steven Kazmierczak (Northern Illinois University Shootings 2/14/2008) [Was taking Xanax, Ambien, & Prozac] Apparently stopped taking Prozac days before after complaining of feeling like a 'zombie'.

Here is the FDA Black Box warning on antidepressants:

Suicidality in Children and Adolescents (pdf)

Antidepressants increased the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in short-term studies in children and adolescents with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders. Anyone considering the use of [Insert established name] or any other antidepressant in a child or adolescent must balance this risk with the clinical need. Patients who are started on therapy should be observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, or unusual changes in behavior. Families and caregivers should be advised of the need for close observation and communication with the prescriber.

You Should Watch for Certain Signs If Your Child is Taking an Antidepressant
• Thoughts about suicide or dying
• Attempts to commit suicide
• New or worse depression
• New or worse anxiety
• Feeling very agitated or restless
• Panic attacks
• Difficulty sleeping (insomnia)
• New or worse irritability
• Acting aggressive, being angry, or violent
• Acting on dangerous impulses
• An extreme increase in activity and talking
• Other unusual changes in behavior or mood

US Civil War Claims Another Victim

A US Civil War relics dealer was killed Monday when what appears to be Civil War era ordinance exploded while he was cleaning it. The man, Sam White of Chesterfield County Virginia was killed when the (suspected) cannon ball detonated in his garage. Sam apparently had a decent business doing this sort of thing and must have been very skilled.

It's quite a bizarre tragedy to think of that shell, possibly being fired sometime around 1864, not detonating and instead disappearing into a muddy field. Then nearly 150 years later being found and sent to Sam for cleaning where it would finally detonate and exact its toll. I suppose it was that strange connection to the past that drove Sam to collect Civil War relics in the first place. RIP.

NIU Shooter's Girlfriend Confirms He Was On Antidepressants

And that he had recently stopped taking them. Big surprise.

She (Jessica Baty) confirmed that he had stopped taking an antidepressant about three weeks ago because "it made him feel like a zombie," but she denied that his recent behavior was unusual.

Another Mass Shooting Linked To "Medication"

It should come as no surprise by now that the recent Illinois shooter was taking some (as of yet) unnamed medication and became erratic when he stopped taking them. This is a pattern we have seen time and time again, and unfortunately, are doomed to see it continue to happen. Why? Because there's still too much money to be made. I can only guess what kinds of medication this killer was on....

Did Mitt Romney Have Help At The Florida Debate?

When I watched the Florida debate, Romney was asked if he would do the same thing that Ronald Regan did for social security (which was apparently, raising taxes). Right after the question was asked, I heard what appeared to someone whisper near Romney "raise taxes". I brushed it o ff as a whisper from one of the other candidates...but that does seem unlikely. Apparently everyone else heard it too, and now this story is getting a lot of press on the internet. Watch the video for yourself and see what you think. Was Romney getting help with his questions??

On another note, there's a lot of talk about how that the 'talk time' of the candidates was anything but equal. Here's the breakdown:

Total Times

Romney: 21:11, during 13 times
McCain: 16:00, during 13 times
Giuliani: 13:50, during 11 times
Huckabee: 12:11, during nine times
Paul: 6:31, during six times

So with Mitt Romney getting almost (3) times the 'face time' as Ron Paul, Romney 'won' the debate according to many analysts. Much of this was out of his control however, as the segment where candidates were allowed to ask each other questions, Romney was questioned more than once.

TSA Arrests And Searches A 5-Year Old (And His Mother) At SEA-TAC Airport

....because someone with his same name was on the no fly list. How many people in the world share the same name? Is this really all that they're using to check people??

This is the same organization that arrested (they call it 'detained', same thing....don't let the name fool you) Senator Ted Kennedy because someone had put a "T. Kennedy" on the list (that's no joke). That should make you feel really secure, especially now that the TSA will be arresting people for having the wrong facial expressions. Wonder what's next?

Link to Video News Story

Abusive Driver Fees Are Not Just For Cars

As Kajuan Cornish found out. He was issued a $1,050 fine for recklessly ridding his bicycle in Newport News, VA. Cited on 12/27/2007 for misdemeanor "Reckless Driving - Bicycle" under VA Code 46.2-852, he was eligible for the same abusive driver fees as everyone else. He was convicted in district court but appealed his conviction to circuit court on 1/10/2008.

I'll follow this one to see where it ends up.

Paul Begala Says Fox News Lied To The Public, Even After Knowing It was A Lie

Fox takes the lead in sucking after getting caught red handed (knowingly) pushing false information.

I think I've figured out what they mean by "We report, you decide." You get to decide if they're feeding you B.S. or not.

National Media Wakes Up To The Polling Problem

As I predicted, the polling error issue is becoming a big issue in 2008. Amazingly, the pollsters blew the Democratic vote for New Hampshire.

Candidate	Predicted % Of Vote (Rasmussen)	% of NH Vote	Within Margin of Error (95% confidence)?	% Difference
Barack Obama	37%	36%	Yes	-2.7%
Hillary Clinton	30%	39%	No	30.0%
John Edwards	19%	17%	Yes	-10.5%
Bill Richardson	8%	5%	No	-37.5%
Dennis Kucinich	3%	1%	Yes	-66.7%
Mike Gravel	0%	0%	Yes	0.0%

Generic OTC Omeprazole (Prilosec) Coming in 2008

Israeli pharmaceutical company Dexcel Pharma Technologies, has announced they will be producing generic Prilosec in 2008. The product will be exclusively marketed in the US by Perrigo, (PRGO) a major manufacturer of over-the-counter (OTC) generics for major retalilers (Wal-Mart, Target, etc)

Polling Results Vs. Real Results For The First Primary

Look at the predictions from Rasmussen (a highly respected pollster), versus the actual results. The margin of sampling error for this poll was +/-4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Candidate	Rasmussen Poll 12/17/2007 (%)	Actual Result (%)	% Difference
Mike Huckabee	28	34	21.43
Mitt Romney	27	25	-7.41
John McCain	14	13	-7.14
Rudy Giuliani	8	3	-62.50
Fred Thompson	8	13	62.50
Ron Paul	6	10	66.67
Tom Tancredo	2	0	-100.00
Duncan Hunter	1	0	-100.00

Giuliani's, Huckabee's, and Thompson's results all fell outside of the margin of error. Paul was on the very edge of it.