GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Who decides what’s safe?

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

http://nutritionfacts.org/2015/03/19/food-manufacturers-get-to-decide-if-their-own-additives-are-safe/

Home > Dr. Greger’s Medical Nutrition Blog > Food Manufacturers Get to Decide if Their Own Additives Are SafeFood Manufacturers Get to Decide if Their Own Additives Are SafeWritten by: Michael Greger M.D. on March 19th, 2015

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In 2013, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced their plans to all but eliminate trans fats from processed foods, citing a CDC statistic that the elimination of partially hydrogenated oils from the food supply could prevent more than 10,000 heart attacks and thousands of deaths every year. Up until that point, trans fats enjoyed their so-called “GRAS” status: “Generally Recognized As Safe.” How did these killer fats get labeled as safe?

Who decides what’s safe? Currently, a “generally recognized as safe” determination is made when the manufacturer of a food substance evaluates the safety of the substance themselves and concludes that the use of the substance is safe. In other words, the company that manufactures the substance gets to determine if it is safe or not. This approach is commonly referred to as ”GRAS self-determination.” To make matters worse, not only do companies not have to inform the public, they don’t even have to inform the FDA. A company may voluntarily tell the FDA they just came up with a new food additive that they’ve decided is safe, but are not required to do so.

The cumulative result is that there are an estimated 6,000 current affirmative safety decisions which allow for more than an estimated 10,000 substances to be used in food (See Who Determines if Food Additives are Safe?). In addition, an estimated 1,000 manufacturer safety decisions are never reported to FDA or the public. “Manufacturers and a trade association made the remaining decisions without FDA review by concluding on their own that the substances that they themselves were selling were safe.”

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What could possibly go wrong?

Argh!

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POLITICAL: END “public” pensions

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/03/19/union-lobbyist-who-worked-one-day-as-teacher-suing-illinois-over-30000-pension/

CONTROVERSIES
Union lobbyist who worked one day as a teacher suing Illinois for $30,000 pension
By Eric BoehmPublished March 19, 2015watchdog.org

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After working one day as a substitute teacher in Illinois, David Piccioli could be entitled to an annual pension of more than $30,000.

And he’s suing the state to make sure he gets paid.

Piccioli is a retired union political activist who’s already pulling down a pair of state pensions from Illinois’ beleaguered public retirement system. But he’s taking the Teachers Retirement System to court to squeeze more money out of the state.

The Chicago Tribune reported Thursday that Piccioli is already collecting $31,000 annually from the Teacher Retirement System, but he could get an additional $36,000 annually if he wins his case. He’s also collecting a $30,000-pension from a different state retirement system for his time as a legislative aide in Springfield, according to the Tribune.

Piccioli is a retired lobbyist for the Illinois Federation of Teachers and never worked in a classroom, but he took advantage of a loophole in Illinois pension law to score his teaching pension.

In 2007, he worked one day as a substitute teacher at a Springfield school. Under Illinois pension law, that one day in the classroom allowed him to qualify for a pension that would pay him for all of his years of work as a member of the union.

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Time to END “public” pensions, PERIOD!

401k 403b IRA

Just like the mundane peons!

No need to worry about “loopholes”, “double dipping” or any other form of corruption!

Sorry, that Taxpayer is broke and the politicians and bureaucrats have hocked the “family jewels”, “seed corn”, and “mortgaged the farm to the hilt”.

Argh!

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POLITICAL: Rubio on post-ObamaCare

Monday, March 23, 2015

2015-Mar-23

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/03/23/my-three-part-plan-for-post-obamacare-era/

HEALTH CARE
My three part plan for the post-ObamaCare era
By Sen. Marco Rubio
Published March 23, 2015
FoxNews.com

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First, we should provide an advanceable, refundable tax credit that all Americans can use to purchase health insurance. The value of these credits should increase every year, and we should set the tax preference for employer-sponsored insurance on a glide path to ensure that it will equal the level of the credits at the end of the decade. This will prevent large-scale disruptions and reform one of the most significant distortions in our tax system.

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Sounds like a great idea!

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INTERESTING: Execute the Fixler maneuver?

Monday, March 23, 2015

http://www.titleneeded.com/blog/pull-a-fixler?utm_source=99U&utm_campaign=30288d64e6-Weekly_03_13_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bdabfaef00-30288d64e6-145466209

February 6, 2015
Pull a Fixler
Jesse Hertzberg

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Five or ten minutes into many meetings at Etsy, Eric Fixler, a senior software engineer at the time, would pick up his stuff and just walk out the door, mumbling something about not being useful here. If he had nothing to contribute, he went and found a better use of his, and our, time… teaching me a valuable lesson along the way.

There is no reason to sit in a meeting to which you add no value. Everyone invited should be there for a reason, and if you are there for a reason, you should be actively contributing, regardless of role or seniority. We hired you for your experience and insight, not to be a wallflower. If you can’t actively contribute to this particular discussion, there should be nothing wrong with leaving. We certainly don’t want to be wasting anyone’s time. Everyone at a startup has a million things to do.

Thus was born The Fixler, a simple and powerful rule: If you are sitting around a conference table and your presence isn’t necessary nor adds value to the others in the room, you may get up, say ‘Fixler’, and walk out without explanation or penalty.

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Astonishingly simple.

Like when I tried to decree that every meeting had to have roles assigned: Organizer, Facilitator, Scribe, Timekeeper, Wrangler, and Naysayer. 

(Note: the Naysayer was required to find and declare “it’ll never work”, “we’ve tried that before”, or “waste of time” ofter and loudly. Or any other absolutely negative comment.)

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: The FDA is an arm of Big Pharma

Sunday, March 22, 2015

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/do-antidepressant-drugs-really-work/

Do Antidepressant Drugs Really Work?

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These revelations hit in 2008—Prozac, Serzone, Paxil, and Effexor—they worked, but so did sugar pills, and the difference between the drug and placebo was small. That was 2008. Where were we by 2014? Analyses of the published data and the unpublished data that were hidden by drug companies reveals that most (if not all) of the benefits of antidepressants are due to the placebo effect.

And what’s even worse, Freedom of Information Act documents show the FDA knew about it but made an explicit decision to keep this information from the public and from prescribing physicians. How could drug companies get away with this?

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Argh!

And, I have the tin foil hat when I say that the Gooferment is immoral, ineffective, and inefficient?

OK!

Why can’t we shut down the FDA?

Make Big Pharma defend themselves in the free market. Underwriters’ Laboratory, Consumers Union, and a bunch of other free market institutions will keep us safer than the FDA has ever done.

And, look at the side effects.

Argh!

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TINFOILHAT: Do you NOT doubt the information from the government

Saturday, March 21, 2015

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/03/911-commissioners-didnt-believe-government.html

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If the 9/11 Commissioners themselves doubt the information from the government, why should we believe it?

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What makes anyone think that they “know the truth” about anything?

This blog post cited tugs at the threads of loose ends.

9/11 gave us the “Department of Homeland Security” and, of course, it’s unionized.

If airlines were not on the Federal dole, then they would be accountable for their security decisions.

Instead we get the Gooferment involved in everything.

Argh!

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INTERESTING: Why don’t traffic lights fail “safe”?

Friday, March 20, 2015

Advisory: Power Outage – Parts of Monmouth Junction Impacted; Traffic Lights Out on parts of Rt 522 and Route 1

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Just out of curiosity, why don’t traffic lights have a UPS and fail “safe”?

Seems simple enough!

Failure mode is flashing red arrow right?

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CLOUD: Have to find a cloud based text expansion utility

Friday, March 20, 2015

Does such a thing exist?

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INSPIRATIONAL: Separation of Gooferment and Education!

Friday, March 20, 2015

http://zenpencils.com/comic/kenrobinson/

162. SIR KEN ROBINSON: Full body education
By Gav on October 10, 2014

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Sir Ken Robinson is a leading authority on education and creativity. A former professor of education, he now advises governments and businesses around the world and is one of the most sought-after speakers on education. The quotes used in the comic are taken from Robinson’s now-famous 2006 TED talk How schools kill creativity. It is the most viewed TED talk ever, and also one of the funniest in my opinion (gotta love that dry British humour). If you haven’t seen it, then stop what you’re doing and go watch it.

Robinson explains that the school system was invented in the 19th century to meet the needs of rapid industrialisation and is extremely outdated, focusing way too much on left-brain academic learning. “If you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not, because the thing they were good at at school wasn’t valued, or was actually stigmatised.”

He gives the example of Gillian Lynne, a world-renowned dancer and choreographer, who as a student was terrible at school and most likely would have been diagnosed with ADHD today. Luckily, a specialist noticed that Lynne wouldn’t sit still and was naturally dancing to the music playing in the office and suggested to Lynne’s mother that she send the child to dance school. (Robinson explains it a lot better than I just typed it).

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Gooferment Skrules are for a time that has past. 

We need to separate Gooferment and Education!

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CLOUD: Move to the cloud

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Finally, I’ve going to move off the Apple and Microsoft infrastructure and on to the “cloud”.

Will be looking for alternatives to take the things I do to the cloud.

“Blundering along”

Laff.

The Chromebook and chromebox have imho won the cheap thin client hardware battle.

Have to see if there are any problems?

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