TV Watching: Dangerous to Your Health, Wealth and Moral Balance

Sharon Slater, President of Family Watch International, gives a few examples of television commercials that she's seen while watching the Olympics. They are commercials for various products: a vehicle, fast food, a bank card, another TV program. But what they have in common is what prompted Sharon to conclude:

These commercials are disturbing on two levels. They graphically illustrate how desensitized U.S. society has become to what a generation ago would have been completely unacceptable. But they are also an example of one of the mechanisms of desensitization which will facilitate the deterioration of societal values. Advertisers are conditioning us and our children to laugh at promiscuity and infidelity and to think of them as common occurrences that are no big deal.

These commercials cause me to wonder how low we can go. Parents, you may need to screen commercials and not just TV shows in order to protect your children from both the subliminal and the blatant messages that are constantly barraging them.

Again, you can read the whole column here.

Sharon's column reminded me of an anecdote Claire tells about being in the John Cavanaugh O'Keefe home many years ago. Claire was in the D.C. area to participate in a pro-life press conference and was watching over the O'Keefe kids while their parents were running errands in preparation for the conference. The parents had told Claire the kids could watch an hour of television but only particular programs.

Fine. Claire was reading, the kids were watching TV, and things were pretty peaceful when the eldest boy startled Claire by suddenly jumping up and dashing across the room to the TV set. When he got there, he turned the sound down and dramatically stood spread-eagle in front of the screen, effectively blocking the picture from the rest of the kids.

Claire's wonderment must have shown on her face as the boy noticed her, smiled and calmly said, "My Mom and Dad don't want us to watch commercials."

Television, by its very nature, has made us spectators rather than actors involved in the dramas of real life. And through commercials (the reason TV exists), we are refashioned further into consuming spectators. The O'Keefe's understood this and therefore, were rightly concerned about limiting this "double-negative" of TV's influence.

Sharon Slater would wholeheartedly agree.

Why Do Some Persist in Thinking Obama Is a Socialist?

Barack Obama proposes that we seize the profits of the oil companies and use them for $1,000 "energy rebate" checks to every working family in America. That is what he said in his speech in Lansing, Michigan on August 4, 2008, entitled "New Energy for America." Economist Donald Boudreaux pointed out that seizing all oil profits would still not be enough to fund these $1,000 giveaway checks.

If the government is going to target an industry it has vilified in the public mind, loot all its profits, and then use the money for giveaway checks to buy votes, then what has our nation become?

If the government can do that to the oil industry, then why can't it do the same to any other industry, or group of people, that it successfully paints as unpopular? What then has happened to the whole notion of private property?

Why couldn't President Obama then decree that every owner of a four bedroom home take in two homeless people? Surely there would be room for them somewhere. Why couldn't he just seize every gas guzzling SUV, sell them for scrap metal, and use that money for $1,000 rebate checks to every Democrat voter as well?

This is why people say Obama is a socialist...

(Source: Peter Ferrara's commentary in the American Spectator. Read the rest of his fine article here.)

New Study Says the Pill Messes Up One's Love Life By Messin' With One's Nose: I Smell a Problem

Straight from the "Who Knew?" Department comes a study suggesting that birth control pills can mess up your love life...by messing with your nose!

Now, I don't know how legitimate this study is. After all, I'm not a chemist and I've no idea even what an "evolutionary psychologist" is, which is the description this LiveScience.com story gives of the study's lead researcher.

And frankly, I find the argument's reliance on issues of "genetic compatibility," major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes, "sexy scents," and how they're all effected by the pill to be most unconvincing. It seems to rest on the presumption that man is nothing more than a chemical mix -- and that's about as silly and unlivable a philosophic presumption as you can have.

But do note this... I am very convinced that there are a lot of serious reasons to avoid the birth control pill and I've commented on that frequently. Some of the most recent examples being this, this, this, this and, most especially, this.

Those are reasons that, unlike this MHC stuff, really do pass the smell test.

Chicanery in China?

...When you mess with which child is singing Ode to the Motherland, offer up phantom fireworks and fake fans, have soldiers create your spectacles billed as volunteers and face allegations that some of your athletes are not eligible, it makes people wonder what is real and what is fake...

Joe Warmington, a columnist at the Toronto Sun, thinks that China owes the world an apology for what's been happening at the Olympics. Not having followed the games myself, I don't know but he makes a pretty strong case.

However, there are a whole lot of injustices more pressing and more pernicious for which the world deserves an apology from Communist China. Among them?

* Severe persecution of religious believers.

* Coercive abortion and sterilization policies.

* Harvesting and selling human body parts.

* Extensive use of slave labor and denial of worker's rights, safety and health concerns.

* A long list of other human rights abuses.

* Support of repressive governments in Burma, Belarus, and other places.

* Destruction of national economies (like our own) through cheap imports.

* Support of terrorists.

* Military aggression in Asia...and beyond.

* Extensive spy networks in their own country and many others.

* Theft of Western technology.

When you look at this list, the chicanery of underage gymnasts (though certainly an unfair ploy) seems rather tame. But it does reveal how brazenly unapologetic is China's attitude. Even when the world has come to town, even when the cameras are running, even when the coaches themselves have revealed the truth about their team breaking the rules, Communist China (and the Olympic committee too) simply shrug, smile -- and get ready for the next chicanery.

Obama's Tire Gauge Gaffe Is Nothing To Laugh At

Jim Geraghty includes in his post over at NRO's The Campaign Spot these salient notes about Barack Obama's tire gauge gaffe.

Seemingly every Republican is walking around today with a tire gauge labeled "Obama's Energy Plan."...

I hope McCain and his surrogates remember the key point in this — not that checking your tire pressure has a marginal impact and that two-thirds of drivers already have the right tire pressure, but that Obama said it would generate as much as offshore drilling — roughly 1.6 trillion gallons in the OCS.

We went over the math this Wednesday, and Obama's just not right (and that's with me using an extremely generous assessment that tire inflation would increase mileage 12.5 percent for one-third of America's drivers). It's not merely that Obama's energy policy consists of recommending the minute and mundane, but that he does so while rejecting solutions that could have a dramatic impact on energy production, oil production, and gas prices.

He's either not familiar enough with the issue, or way too careless in asserting the benefits of his policies. That's the message voters need to come away with, not just, "Ha, ha! Look, a tire gauge!"

The Power of Google

With so many of us tied into the new communicative technologies of the internet, it is justifiable to be concerned about how ideological bias, censorship, unfair competition practices, etc. could be employed to limit its usefulness. Here, for example, is a story from the International Herald Tribune that explores the potential for abuse by such extremely powerful players as Google.

...While Knol is only three weeks old and still relatively obscure, it has already rekindled fears among some media companies that Google is increasingly becoming a competitor. They foresee Google's becoming a powerful rival that not only owns a growing number of content properties, including YouTube, the top online video site, and Blogger, a leading blogging service, but also holds the keys to directing users around the Web.

"If in fact a Google property is taking money away from Google's partners, that is a real problem," said Wenda Harris Millard, the co-chief executive of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

Money, of course, is very much at issue. The lower a site ranks in search results, the less traffic it receives from search engines. With a smaller audience, the site earns less money from advertising...

Critics say each new Google initiative in this area casts more doubt on the company's claims that it is not a media company.

"Google can say they are not in the content business, but if they are paying people and distributing and archiving their work, it is getting harder to make that case," said Jason Calacanis, the chief executive of Mahalo, a search engine that relies on editors to create pages on a variety of subjects. "They are competing for talent, for advertisers and for users" with content sites, he said.

Knol has been called a potential rival to Wikipedia and other sites whose content spans a broad range of topics, including Mahalo and About.com, a property of The New York Times Company that uses experts it calls "guides" to write articles on a variety of topics...

College Coaches, Presidents and A.D.s Want Liquor Ads Dropped from College Sports

It's not unusual for those who have to deal with the effects of alcoholism, broken families, violent crime, drunk drivers, sexual assault and so on to voice concerns about the ways in which youth are targeted by alcohol advertising.

But when over a hundred college coaches (not to mention 59 college presidents and 239 athletic directors) appeal to NCAA President Myles Brand to eliminate alcohol advertising in telecasts of college sports, then you've got some heavy news.

The coaches wrote that they are “troubled by the prominence of alcohol advertising in televised college sports” and asked Brand to consider phasing out alcohol ads altogether. “We strongly urge you to take actions against all alcohol advertising—including beer advertising—on NCAA sports telecasts.”

Here's more.

The Alaskan Pipeline: A Safe, Sane Model for America's Energy Needs

Jack Yoest reminds us that the 800-mile Alaskan pipeline has been an unqualified success in its several decades of operation. And not only has it delivered the much-needed oil for America's energy, security and economy, it has also won several safety and environmental performance awards along the way.

...If the caribou like the pipeline, one would think the liberals would like it too.

But no. No oil, no nukes, no exploration, no civilization. Obama wants ten years to think of something. Like, maybe, inflate our tires to 32 psi...

Jack's post (at Reasoned Audacity, always a good site to visit as both Jack and Charmaine blog there) also includes the suggestion to sign on to the "Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less" online petition created by Newt Gingrich's team over at American Solutions. I join him in that suggestion.

Is "Going Green" Going Out of Style?

...But the problem for the green lobby isn't that it has been overrun by “toffs”: it's the chilly economic climate that has frozen the shoots of environmentalism. Espousing the green life, with its misshapen vegetables and non-disposable nappies, is increasingly being seen as a luxury by everyone.

Only a year ago, according to MORI, 15 per cent of those polled put the environment in their top three concerns. That figure has dropped by a third to 10 per cent this month. Now that people are fighting for their own survival rather than their grandchildren's, they put crime, the economy and rising prices at the top of their list.

According to Andrew Cooper, director of the research company, Populus: “There is a direct correlation between how people perceive the economy and the importance they place on the environment. When times are tough people resent paying more to salve their conscience.” This means that fewer people are now buying organic chickens from smart supermarkets when they can pay £3.99 at Lidl. With all food prices rising, the organic market is being credit-crunched. Demand for it grew by 70 per cent from 2002 to 2007; now it has stalled, according to the consultancy Organic Monitor...

Read the rest of this Times (U.K.) guest commentary right here.

Australian Economists Warning: Too Many Babies Being Born

Australia seemed to be getting over the fear of children that so affected the Western world in the last few decades. Over 285,000 births were registered last year in the country, the highest level in 25 years. Much of that came from older moms deciding that they wanted to have babies after all -- the joys of the workplace turning out to be a bit less satisfactory than previously thought.

But ideologies die hard. Even when the facts are against them. And so, natural instincts and "biological clocks" aside, the bureaucrats of Australia's "Productivity Commission," seemingly clinging to the bizarre and monumentally discredited theories of Thomas Malthus (and later, Paul Erlich), are trying to put a stop to this "having babies" thing.

Their game? Juggle the figures, ignore the long term consequences, and appeal to the citizenry's immediate selfishness -- anything to keep us from having to share our toys with those new kids.

Here's the opening of the Daily Telegraph story:

Forget those plans to have a third child for the country because further increases in the birth rate could harm the economy, the nation's productivity watchdog has warned.

A major analysis of the nation's increasing fertility rate said it was at its highest level for 25 years - but the Productivity Commission yesterday warned further increases may aggravate rather than solve the problem of the ageing of the population.

This is because it will shift women out of the workforce while they care for babies, depressing labour supply and reducing the taxation base as our population ages, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The small number of extra babies born would make little difference to the rate of population ageing, the commission said.

And the women having the babies would be exacerbating the financial impacts on the government of the ageing of the population because the tax breaks offered to parents to have children occur up front, while the cost savings of a bigger working population and bigger tax base from extra children are deferred until they are of working age...

Leading Economists Suggest Putting People First, Not Global Warming. MSM Buries the Story.

Matthew Warren, "environment writer" for The Australian, finds the time to report on a major story that everyone else in the MSM is ignoring altogether. How come? After all, it involves several elements that the MSM usually loves: leading European intellectuals (including Nobel Prize winners), the impact of science on culture, and hot-button issues like women's rights and the environment.

Oh, I get it. It seems that the conclusions of the story turn out to be politically-incorrect. That's why it's been ignored. Except by The Australian-- so kudos to them for some fair and responsible reporting.

Expensive strategies to cut greenhouse emissions, such as Australia's proposed trading scheme, will do practically nothing to reduce the impact of climate change, and the money would be better used to address malnutrition, disease and the rights of women in developing countries, according to a review by leading economists.

The Copenhagen Consensus Centre co-ordinated by Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg has ranked the pursuit of deep cuts in emissions by countries such as Australia and Europe as one of the least-effective ways of advancing global welfare.

The findings contradict the analysis by Ross Garnaut and Nicholas Stern, who argue that the high cost of mitigating greenhouse gases now is much less than the risk of inaction on climate change.

In prioritising how best to spend $75billion over the next four years to deliver the greatest good to mankind, a panel of eight economists, including five Nobel laureates, did not feature any climate change spending among their 13 priority projects...

Pelosi's "No Drill" Arrogance Means Bad News for the Planet

Charles Krauthammer explains why Nancy Pelosi's obstinate (and under-handed) actions to prohibit the Congress from even getting a fair vote on changing America's disastrous energy policy is a bad deal -- for democracy, for the economy, for national security, and, yes, even for the environment. Check it out.

Government "Trash Bin Police" Pull Secret Raid on Posh Neighborhood

And this is what it comes to? The nanny state searching our trash bins to see what recyclable articles we may have missed?

Remember the Vital Signs Blog post from last April which alerted you to the city government of Islington (United Kingdom) fining a fellow and giving him a criminal record because he had overloaded his trash bin by 4 inches? A fellow, by the way, who has to try and store his 6-member family's refuse in the one receptacle the insufferable town fathers allow him?

Well, it turns out that the snobby snoops of Islington have committed even more sinister follies. And, if it can be imagined, actions that are even more intrusive, even more unreasonable, even more weird.

Here's the Daily Mail's story about secret raids conspired over and financed by the local city government of Islington, North London. Trash bins along 53 of Islington's streets were searched, extending into the neighborhoods wherein actors, judges and even London's mayor reside. In all, over a thousand homes had their trash pawed over by the council's rubbish spies. (No, that's not fair. The council refer to them, no joke, as "waste professionals.")

Naturally, people were incensed when they learned of this remarkable invasion of privacy.

For instance, TV star Linda Robson was quoted, "That is terrible. How dare they? I recycle but there may have been private things I was throwing away. It is really intrusive. Is nothing sacred?"

Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury, Emily Thornberry, expressed worries that serious security issues could have been involved. "High Court judges and High Court appeal judges live in those streets,' she said. "I am sure they are careful but a sheet of paper can easily go amiss, and council officers could have seen them. My concerns are who authorised this and what they do with the stuff. They should have told people what they were going to do."

Su Pollard, another popular British actress lives along one of the raided streets. She was also disturbed by the unwarranted searches. "I am quite incensed. It smacks of Big Brother. One feels like a suspect in some way. There is nothing in my bins that would incriminate me in any way - it's mostly yoghurt pots - but I am terribly uneasy about it."

But the town council snobs? They merely exacerbated the controversy when they affirmed, "No permission was sought from residents as none is required."

Furthermore, it argued, "The operatives involved were waste professionals acting under a strict code of conduct which included the possibility of finding items of a personal nature such as confidential paperwork."

The above sentence is, in itself, so comical that I cant' think of anything with which to further satirize it. But it does leave one with the most vivid word picture, doesn't it?

Liberal Democrat councillor Greg Foxsmith said: 'This is not about snooping into households' bins or invading privacy. It was an investigation into rubbish to see what is being sent to landfill and how much more could be recycled. Rubbish is not looked at individually or records taken - confidentiality is taken very seriously."

Uh huh. What is obviously NOT taken seriously are such archaic ideas as privacy and freedom let alone a responsible philosophy which appreciates both the priorities of political office and the limitation of political powers.

A Swift Smattering of Salient Somethings

* Roy Spencer celebrates 2o years of Rush Limbaugh in this National Review Online article.

* Linda Chavez suggests that a high regard for President Bush will eventually be secured not only by the success in Iraq but because of his record of "compassionate conservatism" regarding Africa, education and homelessness.

* Investor's Business Daily examines Barack Obama's strange, alarming and definitely Orwellian plan to "force volunteerism" onto the American people.

* One of the leading liberals in the "Emergent Church" movement, Brian McLaren has not only joined the Matthew 25 Network and its campaign to put Barack Obama in the White House, he's found other frightening ways to dis the Lord he claims to serve. Read more here.

Obama: Drill for Oil? Naw, We Just Need to Put Air in Our Tires.

According to Barack Obama, the United States doesn't need to drill for oil. He insists Americans could do just as well by getting our cars tuned and keeping our tires inflated.

You think I'm kidding, right? You say, no one could be so dumb. Or, at least you're thinking that if a presidential contender was so silly as to make a bonehead statement like that, he would be hooted off the stage and the late night comedians would have punchlines for a week.

Well, welcome to Barack Obama's world -- a new, audaciously hopeful fantasy world where not only does he really say things like that...but then gets away with it in the bargain.

Here's the brief video clip.

Sobriety Checkpoints: A Much-Needed Tactic in the War Against Drunk Driving

It seems the time has come for legislators to realize that ignition interlock devices can be used to save lives, health and property from drunk drivers. Several states have now passed legislation requiring the devices to be used for various categories of DUI offenders. That's terrific. Some drunks will be kept from killing somebody because of these laws.

But ignition interlocks are not enough.

As a lawyer who has defended scores of DUI criminals recently told me, "Denny, these guys will get around interlocks in all kinds of ways. They'll use second cars, vehicles of friends and family, even rental cars obtained by their girlfriends or their own fake IDs. No, keeping drunks off the road will take all kinds of measures."

One of the most important of those measures, we agreed, is the use of sobriety checkpoints -- a simple, cost-effective and very successful tactic in the war against drunk driving. At such checkpoints police stop the vehicles in a determined sequence to check for possible impaired drivers. An inconvenience for most of us? To be sure. But it's more than worth it to save innocent citizens (and, for that matter, the drunks and hopheads themselves) from the various catastrophes resulting from the accidents impaired drivers invariably cause. This is why the Supreme Court ruled (Michigan v. Sitz) that sobriety checkpoints are clearly constitutional since the compelling state interest in saving lives trumps whatever inconvenience is involved.

And with proper support from law enforcement, media, churches, civic groups and businesses, the life-saving effect of sobriety checkpoints can be communicated to the general public, thus reducing that "inconvenience factor" dramatically.

Foremost in that educational campaign should be the fact that sobriety checkpoints not only pull over some drunk drivers in that particular event but, more important, they are an effective deterrent for the future. It's not just about immediate apprehension but about intensifying the fear of a DUI arrest. And that works. Several dependable studies have shown that sobriety checkpoints reduce alcohol-related crashes and fatalities by 20%. Wow.

So why, with this evidence that sobriety checkpoints are a key part in saving lives and reducing the number of devastating injuries created by DUI accidents, do 10 states still prohibit them? It can't be constitutional issues. That's been decided by the Supreme Court.

So it can only be due to 1) an irresponsible ignorance of what DUI creates. But then how can a state legislator honestly deny that he or she has already heard such frightening facts as:

* 15-18,000 people are killed annually in alcohol-related traffic crashes.
* That's about 40% of all traffic fatalities.
* On average, somebody is killed by a drunk driver every 39 minutes.

2) The only other reason legislators could fail to allow sobriety checkpoints? A heartless lack of concern for the physical wreckage and heartbreak being regularly caused by the dangerous criminals who drive drunk or stoned.

And yes, I add to this, the heartless concern displayed by lenient prosecutors and judges...and by newspaper editors and other journalists who seem ever eager to report the sordid details of DUI crashes but who do not bother with educating the public about basic steps required to seriously reduce the number of those tragedies.

Citizens of the states that do not allow sobriety checkpoints should be ashamed and alarmed enough to try and persuade their state congressmen and senators to redress this long overdue wrong. Those states are Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. (Note: you can use this page from the MADD web site to contact your representatives.)

And the rest of us? We too can contact our political representatives and ask them to pursue with ever greater diligence solutions to the calamities caused by drunk driving. And that includes a more frequent use of sobriety checkpoints.

How "Green Mania" Controls Congress

Let's face it. The average individual American has little or no clout with Congress and can be safely ignored. But it's a different story with groups such as Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club and The Nature Conservancy. When they speak, Congress listens. Unlike the average American, they are well organized, loaded with cash and well positioned to be a disobedient congressman's worse nightmare. Their political and economic success has been a near disaster for our nation...

Read the rest of Walter William's cogent analysis (and stern warnings) in his latest Town Hall column.

Uh, Before You Get Too Excited About That New Alzheimer’s Breakthrough...

There's joyful news reports all over the place today describing great news about a new Alzheimer’s drug. But, as you'll see in this Wall Street Journal report, when carefully examined the results of the study are not very impressive after all.

...The companies had already revealed data showing the drug, called bapineuzumab, helped people who were free of a form of a gene that’s a risk factor for Alzheimer’s. But patients with that form, called ApoE4, showed only a trend toward improvement — not a statistically significant one.

Now, in another tough year for Alzheimer’s drugs, the companies presented more detailed data today at a big Alzheimer’s conference. The results showed that none of the patients — with or without the genetic issue — saw more benefit from a higher dose of the drug than they did a lower dose...

WSJ reporter Sarah Rubenstein asked Ronald Petersen, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic who serves as the chairman of the medical and scientific advisory council of the Alzheimer’s Association, about the news. Responded Petersen, “I can’t tell if the compound’s efficacious or not at this point in time, but (Wyeth and Elan) learned some important information going forward about both the possible efficacy and safety.”

There are several interesting comments appended to the original story, one defending the enthusiasm over the new drug but several reflecting skepticism and even cynicism. For instance, an anonymous physician wrote in, "This will be JUST LIKE ARICEPT - a huge expense to taxpayers (ie. medicare part d) and patients (ie. copays etc.) for NO BENEFIT. Except this will be infinitely more expensive, because it ends in “mab” ie. monoclonal antibody. Any honest physician actually treating patients with dementia will attest to the total lack of efficacy of Aricept."

Most valuable in the comments section, however, was a note from David Hamilton with a link to a pretty compelling piece he had written for Pharma Industry hosted by BNET. Hamilton, by the way, wrote for the WSJ himself for a 14 years but now freelances. He most recently founded the LifeScience section of VentureBeat. Hamilton has covered many issues over his career but specializes in science and technology. He is a two-time winner of the Overseas Press Club award.

I suggest you take a look at Hamilton's review -- it's a quick read -- and you'll see that there are several important reasons to beware the hype about Bapineuzumab. Here are some excerpts:

In what is becoming a sadly common ritual, Wyeth and Elan are pressing forward with an expensive, large-scale “phase III” trial of a risky drug based on wishful thinking and shoddy statistical analysis...

Earlier today, Wyeth and Elan disclosed detailed results of the drug’s phase II trial, which found that bapineuzumab failed to improve cognitive function in a test of 234 Alzheimer’s patients after 18 months of treatment. You could be forgiven for not gleaning that from the companies’ joint press release, however, as Wyeth and Elan chose instead to highlight post-hoc analyses that purported to demonstrate the drug’s efficacy in a subset of patients who don’t have a gene variant called ApoE4, which increases the risk of Alzheimer’s.

To put it bluntly, this is magical thinking on a truly impressive scale...

Hamilton then gives four specific criticisms of the study, four points to remember when evaluating the news story about this "breakthrough."

* Prospective measures of success are the only accurate way to judge trial results. Honest clinical trials require researchers to specify in advance what they’re looking for — and by that measure, the bapineuzumab trial was a failure.

* Post-hoc subgroup analyses amount to lying with statistics. By contrast, a post-hoc analysis involves mining the trial data in order to identify some group of patients who appeared to benefit from the drug. It’s tantamount to moving the finish line after the race is over — or, as FDA’s Richard Pazdur memorably put it, firing an arrow into the wall and then drawing a target around it.

* Such subgroup analyses rarely hold up under further study. Or, as the old computer-science saying goes, “Garbage in, garbage out.”

* Drug companies will do and say almost anything to boost the promise of a potential blockbuster. Wyeth and Elan don’t expect data from the phase III trial in patients without the ApoE4 gene variant until 2010. A lot can happen in that time, including the possibility that the FDA will once again warm to the idea of approving drugs based on marginal evidence. It’s like the old joke in which a prisoner staves off execution by promising to teach the king’s horse to sing within a year, reasoning: “A year is a long time. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die. And maybe the horse will learn to sing.”...

Hamilton concludes his report with this warning, "Whenever companies start talking up after-the-fact subgroup results, it’s time to hold onto your wallet."

Having Babies Via Government-Run "Conveyor Belt"

Wesley J. Smith over at Secondhand Smoke draws our attention to this Telegraph (U.K.) article with its sad and scary report of Britain's maternity services. It is not only another glaring example of how miserable government controlled health care can get but also of the decreasing value a secular society puts upon human life.

Here's the opening paragraphs of the Telegraph story:

The Healthcare Commission report – the most detailed ever undertaken – has exposed a grim picture of women giving birth in units where there are not enough toilets or showers and women are rushed through so fast that more than one mother gives birth in each bed every day.

Consultants are not present on the wards enough of the time, midwives and doctors do not get on with each other and severe staff shortages mean women are left alone during the birth, the report found.

The investigation into every aspect of antenatal, labour, birth and postnatal care, was prompted after high death rates among new mothers were found in successive hospitals.

McDonald's: Your "Formerly Family-Friendly" Burger Joint

Matt Barber comes out swinging in this World Net Daily article about McDonald's restaurants:

I'm always mystified when allegedly intelligent, bottom-line-obsessed corporate types abandon the fiscally secure milieu of political neutrality and take sides, officially, on deeply polarizing, socio-cultural issues of the day.

That's exactly what the formerly family-friendly McDonald's Corporation recently did. In an apparent effort to pierce the hyper-demanding good graces of the radical homosexual lobby, these clowns (pun intended) have thrown the vast majority of potential Mickey D's customers, worldwide, under the bus. Because of this colossal corporate blunder, the hamburger giant is now facing an embarrassing and ever-growing international boycott...

Here's the rest.