SONICFROG DOT NET

Executive Order Allows Govt To Ban Some Alternative Medicine?

It sure looks that way.

On June 22nd, Obama stealth-fully did an end-around Congress and signed an executive order allowing the CDC and Dept of Health and Human Services to regulate alternative medicines. Congress had been trying to accomplish this for the last five years, but had never had much in the way of success. McCain I think was the last to try and push legislation in this direction, and it got shot down in a hurry.

My understanding of the order is that it allows the CDC and HHS to implement policy concerning alternative medicines based on the Codex Alimentaruis, a UN based entity that provides a standard to determine whether consumed foods and drugs as safe or unsafe. They will be able to ban certain vitamins or treatments based on the recommendations of the Codex Alimentarius, which would be effectively doing an end-around the FDA, which by law cannot regulate certain alternative medicines.

Radio host Dr. Dean Edell has been a long time advocate for the regulation of alternative medicines, as have the guys over at the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. They note the re are two dangers when using alternative medicines. First, because they are not regulated, there is no quality control and no documented testing need before putting them on the market. You could be buying something that has not been thoroughly test and may be damaging to your health. Zicam nose spray falls in the later category. The alternative medicine may have cause permanent damage to at least 130 users who have lost their sense of smell by using this alternative medicine. The FDA could not recall the spray, and it was only taken off the market by the after they found they were facing serious lawsuits over the product. Turns out there was too much zinc in the product. Zinc has been shown in some studies to be effective in decreasing cold symptoms, but others show it provides no help.

You can also buy something that has, basically, no medicine in it at all, aka homeopathy. Zicam is still on the market, but now as an exclusively homeopathic product; it doesn’t have any active ingredients in it. The irony here is that, in order to be able to sell product and make money, the good folks at Zicam are selling a remedy that has the only ingredient show to have any tangible effect on cold symptoms removed from the product.

The worst aspect of alternative medicines are lives that are lost due to a patient forgoing proven treatments for ailments such as cancer, in favor of using alternative medical treatments. Danny Houser is one of the lucky ones, only because the courts intervened. Here is one web site that documents the plight of those who were not so fortunate. You may scoff at the that web site, but keep this in mind, the operators of alternative treatment centers, especially those run in foreign countries, don’t have to keep track of how many patients fail to respond to their treatments. Unlike traditional hospitals, they have no incentive to count the dead. That would be bad for business.

Now that I’ve made my position clear concerning alternative medicines, I must ask a question. Was it legal for the the President to use an executive order in this fashion? Is this type of blatant sidestepping of Congress really what the executive order should be used for??? Since I love a good baseless but fun conspiracy theory, I’ll throw this out there; I wonder if Obama promised big pharma he would take this action in order to buy their silence on the health care bill, though they were going to make money off that anyway, so maybe not.

PS. Alternative medicines can be very dangerous when you consider that many of them are manufactured overseas. You literally have no idea if what you’re taking even has the ingredient in them that you’re buying them for, or that they don’t have an unwanted ingredient that could harm you. Anyone remember the incidence of lead contained in children’s toys. To be fair, TTBOMK, I can’t think of a case where this has happened, but you do run the risk.

Kaus And Newsweek, A Match Made In Heaven?

Ann Althouse is already disappointed by the move of  mega blogger (and former Senatorial candidate) Mickey Kaus from Slate to Newsweek. Newsweek, as she notes, does not have a the greatest reputation lately.  The general train of though judging from the comments is that Kaus has made a mistake signing on to the incompetent magazine that is Newsweek…

Kaus is an idiot to sign up with those leftists.

I say “Hardly”. He still gets to write what he wants, all in all has better on-line circulation, and will, I assume, be getting paid more than he did at Slate. Newsweek is replicating the model used by The Atlantic when they lured internet star Andrew Sullivan over to write for them. You may or may not like Sully, but he single handedly put The Atlantic back on the map.

The Republican “Pledge To America” Is Out.

Yawn…. A party regurgitating old material, pretending that it’s new.

And what’s with the term pledge? Feels squishy. Too much like a promise, which are made to be broken. Couldn’t they have found a more solid term to use? At least a contract seems like it has some weight to it… unless you’re dealing with sports.

And no, I’m not linking to it. It will be easy enough to find if you really want to read it.

“End Of Summer” Song Contest.

Well, it’s September 21st and summer is officially over. There are two great songs that capture the narrative nicely. The first is the more popular “Boys Of Summer”, released by Don Henley in 1984. Classic tune, about a guy who loses his girl to the boys of summer, but not that summer is over he’s going to try to win her back. Toward the end of the song, Henley sings:

I never will forget those nights
i wonder if it was a dream
remember how you drove me crazy?
remember how i made you scream?

now i don’t understand what happed to our love
now baby gonna get you back
gonna show you what i’m made of…

i can see you
your brown skin shining in the sun
you got your top pulled down,
radio on baby

and i can tell you
my love for you will still be strong
after the boys of summer have gone.

The video got tons of play on MTV.

The next song on my list is not nearly as well know, but it’s fantastic just the same. It’s Squeezes “Footprints” from their 1987 album Babylonandon. As is the usual from Squeeze, it’s a very clever and superbly crafted tune. The subject of the song is not a broken love affair, but simply the end of the party.

I spent too much money, I looked far too glad
Now I have so little of what I once had
I had too many parties, I had too much time
I got so lazy and fell well behind

Now the summer is over, I can count the cost
Footprints on the beaches are now footprints in the frost
The summer is over, I can count the cost
Footprints on the beaches are now footprints in the frost

We did so much damage deep in our insides
The party’s over it’s goin’ home time
The cathedral is empty, no one’s at home
Winter’s approachin’ paradise postponed…

This song really speaks to me as I spent many a summer during my 20’s on the beach while living in San Diego. I didn’t party as much as some of my friends (or my little brother) but I do remember more than a few nights hanging out at one beach house or another in Pacific or Mission Beach! Renting a beach house is not cheap, and the cost of all the beer consumed I can’t even imagine. And then, the summers would end, and “poof” no more endless all night socials. Back to school, or work, or just life.

Here is a video. The music quality is crappy. I’ll try and add a better version of the song to the post. That’s better. I put this together in a hurry, pulling pictures from my computer. It features Avila and Shell beach, the dogs – Odo and Judy, Sloan & Ashley, Wayne & Em, some snow, random people on the beach, the spaceship from 1999, and some festivities. That’s the Sonic-Mate on the beach… and posing by the gold Mercedes.

So, which song better captures the end of summer for you?

“[Gays] are basically the battered wife of the Democratic Party establishment”

Andrew Sullivan wakes up. The quote is at 3 minutes in.

My friend Dan at gay Patriot notes that a lot of people are pinning this latest failure squarely at the feet of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Man, this is going to be such a fun election. Too bad I can’t blog about it.

My One Political Cigarette

Yesterday, I swore that I would not devote any more time to politics at Sonicfrog Dot Net…

Well, like any recovering addict, there is bound to be a few slip-ups. Here is just such an example. I find I simply must respond to Obama’s lame answer to a question asked at a town hall type thing yesterday. Here is the question:

Here’s the jist of the response:

“Your children will be able to put themselves in dept easier in order to finance their education, even though there aren’t any jobs for them when they come out of college… Oh, except for green jobs of course”

“We’ve created new rule to make sure credit card companies find new innovative ways to screw you”

“We are providing ladders to get to the middle class….. especially if you are rich.”

Jebus H! She’s a freaking CFO. She’s handled more financial responsibilities than he had all the way up to getting elected. And all th could give was this rambling answer? I wonder if he looked as much a fool in her eyes as he did in mine.

Here is the video of his rambling answer.

Keynesians / Liberals – Relent

Cash for clunkers didn’t work. Neither did much of the stimulus. OK? Game over.

PS. This is economics, not politics (so says I).

Well, As Steve Lukather said, “All’s Well That End Well”.

If you’re into music, and keep up with the comings and goings of your favorite artists, and one of your favorite artists happens to be Steve Lukather, then you know the reference is to the title of his forthcoming album. If you don’t keep up with the comings and goings of your favorite artists, and one of your favorite artists happens to not be Steve Lukather, then you probably don’t know the reference is to the title of his forthcoming album.

The title of this post could also be “Turn The Lights Out, The Party’s Over” sung by either the original writer / performer Willie Nelson or Dandy Don Meridith.

OK. Now you’re thinking… “What the hell is he going on about now”?????

Well. I have made a decision concerning my life’s direction, at least as far as it concerns my blogging life. When I started to blog over five years ago, my intent was to improve my writing / organizational skills. I can say, though I don’t take the time to proofread as much as I should, I am a much better writer than I was five years ago. My typing speed is much much better than it was before I started blogging. Even my horrible spelling abilities are greatly improved*. Just ask my blog-pal Jeff Alberts, my personal spelling czar, who hasn’t had to correct me in quite a while.

[* Back in my college days, in a time before the World Wide Web, you had to type everything out on a type writer, which did not have spell check. One of my college instructors told me my spelling skill were atrocious, and I needed to make a dictionary my best friend. I got her point, but she could have been more tactful (with one “l”), maybe. Me and that instructor did not get along well. But I did get a B in the class.]

As a blogger, you often feel compelled to find something interesting to write about. I find one of the funnest and easiest things to scribble about is politics. With the exception of the short lags between campaign seasons, which are getting shorter all the time, there is always something fun going on. A few years ago, I was having a blast writing about the disdain, disaffection and disillusionment of the Republican party as it fell gloriously from power. Though I identify closer to conservative leanings than to liberal ones, I none-the-less took great joy in watching the Conservative house of cards come crashing down. And today, things are more exciting than ever. I am currently giddy watching the Democrats, as President Obama would say, drive their car into a ditch with Obama at the wheel. At the same time you have a revolt within the Conservative establishment with the advent of the Tea Party movement, creating the potential for a massive political purging not seen in generations.

Which makes what I’m about to do so incredibly difficult.

I’m getting out of politics…..

Huh?

I have to. Here’s why.

In the past year, I have struggle to find work as a full time teacher. To keep me distracted from that misery, I have used my blog for comfort. Sounds OK. But I am realizing that this has taken time away from other things that I want to… and need to do. You see, in order to write stuff about politics, you have to do research and be well informed. This means spending a ton of time on the web finding an interesting topic to write about, or finding a way to flesh out an interesting twist on a current story that no one else is talking about. That takes time. This is a classic Opportunity Cost situation. Opportunity Cost is a principle often used in economics that says simply, basically, if you use a resource on one thing, then you don’t have that resource to use toward another thing. In my case, that resource is time. I use so much time trying to write about political stuff, that I don’t have time for other things.

What things?

When I started my blog, my intentions were to also start recording some of my songs that I have written over the years and post them on the web. I have had the equipment to do so since even before I started blogging, and I certainly have a backlog of already complete or mostly complete songs to flesh out. But I haven’t. When ever I get in front of the computer, even if my intent is to do music, I always find myself reading a researching political stuff. This week end, I had two gigs, both on the same night, with my two Fresno bands (had to rush from one venue to the other). After I was done, I was exhilarated, and marveled at how much fun I had that night. I LOVE playing and singing music.

I want to become a better musician. I want to record some of my songs, even if the recordings will be only a sketch of what I want. I need to devote more time to expanding the business, or, getting a second job to help pay down my enormous debt. acquired while pursuing my teaching credentials.

So, for now, today’s post will be the last one about politics for a while. It won’t be easy, as there is even now there is so much fun stuff going on. But, I will let it all flow behind me, and take a different path down the river that is life. I don’t intend to stop blogging, as I like to write. But the focus will be different.

See ya soon.

How The Worm Turns.

The NYT has published an article describing how the Obama administration and Democrats are trying to devise a political strategy to minimize the expected losses in the upcoming elections. I do find it interesting that, as the political crisis builds today, the constant theme in the press is that the Dems must find a way to reunite, gather strength against the political foe, and reignite the passions that led to the Obama / Democrat victory in 2008. Two and four years ago, when the press was writing about Republicans, the ruling party at the time facing a similar voter revolt, the headlines were heralding the demise of the GOP. How many times did we read “The GOP brand is dying”, or “The Republicans MUST CHANGE if they ever expect to be relevant in todays society”. Well, guess what, they changed, but it wasn’t the change you were hoping for.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the candidate that you refused to vet, to turn a critical eye toward, is now President, and, coming on two years later, his flaws, the ones you so convenient avoided during the campaign, are clear for the world to see. To any journalists who may stumble upon this post…. This is what happens WHEN YOU DON’T DO YOUR JOB!

Hat Tip: Althouse.

What The…..

Did I just see Bill O’Reily, at about 1:25 in, trying to get advise about being able to persuade independent voters from… Sarah Palin????

Why yes, I did!

Bill, have you seen her polling numbers with independents lately? (hint.. indies are not exactly burning a path to her door). Asking Sarah Palin’s advise about increasing appeal to the independents is like asking a lion’s advise about how to be more popular with the zebra crowd.

And, as pointed out elsewhere on the intertubes, she doesn’t seem to know the name of the guy she endorsed in the New Hampshire primaries. Classic.