Eric Schlosser writes Make Peace With Pot: "More than 16,000 Americans die every year after taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin and ibuprofen. No one in Congress, however, has called for an all-out war on Advil. Perhaps the most dangerous drug widely consumed in the United States is the one that I use three or four times a week: alcohol. It is literally poisonous; you can die after drinking too much. It is directly linked to about one-quarter of the suicides in the United States, almost half the violent crime and two-thirds of domestic abuse. And the level of alcohol use among the young far exceeds the use of marijuana. According to the Justice Department, American children aged 11 to 13 are four times more likely to drink alcohol than to smoke pot."

And yet, as Gary Alan Fine says in his review of Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: "Fast food is, certainly, a choice, and one's food choices ought to be personal matters. There seems to be no market as open and as accessible with as many options as the restaurant industry, with thousands of choices in any mid-sized city.

The explosive growth of fast food restaurants over the course of the past several decades should tell us something: Fast food does not always satisfy one's highest aspirations -- much less the refined sensibilities of journalists. But it certainly fills one's tummy passably well."

So choose your drug and choose your food.

In her Commentary: Grades vs. Perfection on NPR : All Things Considered for Monday, April 26, 2004 we hear about a worried college professor: "Commentator Meredith Small is an anthropology professor at Cornell University and she was shocked when a student carrying a solid 'B' average came by her office to ask if she could drop her course. Small sees a rise in students for whom anything short of perfection is not enough -- and worries about what they'll find outside of school." And she says, "As a university professor, hundreds of students pass through my hands each year...." Yeeouch!

Roger Kimball writes on Political Correctness, Or The Perils of Benevolence: "Major newspapers in the United States refuse to accept advertisements for houses to let that mention that their property has 'good views' (unfair to the blind), is 'walking distance' to the train (unfair to the lame), is on a 'quiet street' (unfair to the deaf). I know it sounds mad. It is mad. Nevertheless, it is true." Gee, I hope not. Anyway, he warns against political correctness, which tends to breed unaccountability: "At its center is a union of abstract benevolence, which takes mankind as a whole for its object, with rigid moralism." He concludes that this combination, while found amongst communists,

is by no means peculiar to communists. It provides the emotional fuel for utopians from Robespierre to the politically-correct bureaucrats who preside over more and more of life in Western societies today. They mean well. They seek to boost all mankind up to their own plane of enlightenment. Inequality outrages their sense of justice. They regard conventional habits of behavior as so many obstacles to be overcome on the path to perfection. They see tradition as the enemy of innovation, which they embrace as a lifeline to moral progress. They cannot encounter a wrong without seeking to right it. The idea that some evils may be ineradicable is anathema to them. Likewise the notion that the best is the enemy of the good, that many choices are to some extent choices among evils--such proverbial, conservative wisdom outrages their sense of moral perfectibility.

Alas, the result is not paradise but a campaign to legislate virtue, to curtail eccentricity, to smother individuality, to barter truth for the current moral or political enthusiasm. For centuries, political philosophers have understood that the lust for equality is the enemy of freedom. That species of benevolence underwrote the tragedy of communist tyranny. The rise of political correctness has redistributed that lust over a new roster of issues: not the proletariat, but the environment, not the struggling masses, but "reproductive freedom", gay rights, the welfare state, the Third World, diversity training, and an end to racism and xenophobia. It looks, in Marx's famous mot, like history repeating itself not as tragedy but as farce.

It would be a rash man, however, who made no provision for a reprise of tragedy.

We saw Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958); not bad. It was the first time I'd seen it, although I'd seen Vertigo Then and Now, so several scenes looked vaguely familiar.

And La Reine Margot (1994), which we liked much better than a lot of American critics, who got all bent out of shape over the French history aspect. Too many characters at the beginning confused them. That's the way I felt about Burnt by the Sun, but this was good. Plus I had a reminder of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and 16th century religious extremism, resulting in about 70,000 killed. (I wonder how many you have to kill to call it a massacre? Here's a list.) And I finally got the context for Henry IV's "Paris is well worth a Mass." (However, I didn't see "I want every peasant to have a chicken in his pot on Sundays." Incidentally, while a similar expression is attributed to Herbert Hoover, apparently Hoover never said it; the slogan appeared in an ad paid for by "Republican Business Men, Inc.") Another thing: at one time someone (Margot?) is dismissed from someone else's room when he says "I'm taking a bath today." The funny thing was that the subtitles left out that last word. I'll take Mike Lorefice's word for it that Isabelle Adjani was around 38 at the time the film was made. Daniel Auteuil was OK.

When we watched A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), I couldn't get it out of my head that all of the women should have been played by men in drag. Clearly Blanche and Stella and even Eunice were actually toy boys like the ones in Niezi. But then watching Niezi maybe I thought all the little boy toys should have been played by women.

Now this is embarrassing. We also saw Benny & Joon (1993), which I somehow thought was going to be about Henry Miller; no, that's Henry & June (1990). Anyway, it was pleasant if a little too intent on making sure everyone got a happy ending, and being intent on showing that crazies could be really impossible to live with. (Not the first movie trying to be sympathetic to the insane.) Maybe we'll have one about how the Columbine killers were just a couple of sweet misguided kids.

Is China's Economy Overheating? By David Ignatius. Yes. Li Ruogu, the deputy governor of China's central bank

cautioned that the United States shouldn't assume that China will keep buying U.S. Treasury securities indefinitely. If the United States doesn't protect the value of the dollar so that it is a stable "anchor," China will eventually move to hold its reserves in a basket of currencies, he said.

China's debate about overheating has received relatively little attention in the West, but the issue could be the most important challenge for the global economy. The Chinese locomotive has been pulling Japan and other Asian nations into recovery. If China slowed suddenly, the global economy would feel the crunch.

China's leaders seem to understand that the world is counting on them to get economic policy right. "Neighboring countries are dependent on us," Li said. "If we have a hard landing, they will be affected."

Philip P. Pan reports on hurting the feelings of the Chinese people again: A Study Group Is Crushed in China's Grip: Beliefs Are Tested in Saga Of Sacrifice and Betrayal. Yes, it's the Chinese government.

Chinese Infants Die From Malnutrition (washingtonpost.com): "Dozens of infants in eastern China have died from malnutrition from drinking fake milk formula with virtually no nutritional value, state media reported Tuesday. "

What's wrong with the placebo effect?: "If you wanted to maximise everyone's health, then doctors would confidently lie to their patients about effectiveness of treatments, the way they did before we began championing choice and informed consent over efficacy; and people like me would stop debunking placebo alternative therapies." (via Butterflies and Wheels)

In Police Lineups Falling Out of Favor, a factoid about lineups: The members of the lineup wear the numbers 2 through 9 "because it is considered too suggestive to make anyone display the No. 1."

Gang of 12 Deaf Thieves Jailed in China:

Most of the members, who robbed scores of shops, were jobless and homeless youngsters....

Handicapped people suffer widespread discrimination in China and are often shunned by employers and offered little in the way of special education, particularly in the poor countryside....

For decades, China put deaf and disabled people to work doing menial jobs in subsidized factories but many of the factories have gone bankrupt with the decline of the state sector.

Johann Hari (via aldaily), no conservative, admits that the American invasion has saved far more lives than it has ended:

The Human Rights Centre (HRC) in Kadhimiya has been set up by Iraqis themselves from the ashes of Baathism. They have been going methodically through the massive - and previously unexplored - archives left by the regime, which document every killing in cold bureaucracy-speak. The HRC have found that if the invasion had not happened, Saddam would have killed 70,000 people in the past year. Not sanctions: Saddam's tyranny alone.

Elsewhere, he quotes an an Iraqi medical student living in London, who recently returned to Iraq:

Sama says: "If we hadn't been to Iraq, we'd be really depressed right now. I came back, saw the news and thought, 'Are they talking about the same Iraq?'" Is this, I wonder, because the media can only deal with Arabs as victims or terrorists?

The IPO members don't think so. Rather, Yasser says, there are several reasons why the reporting from Iraq is stressing the negative over the positive. "First, buildings being bombed is a much better story than the formation of the Baghdad city council to clear up the rubbish and sort out the sewers. Angry Iraqis make a better story than hopeful Iraqis.

"Second, a lot of the media was openly anti-war, so now that there are hundreds of thousands of mass graves being opened up and all the evidences shows that the Iraqis supported [the war], the media are latching on to the few things, like the looting and, of course, the weapons issue – that was always a red herring – that seem to vindicate their position. And third – I know this sounds like a petty point, but it's very important – a lot of journalists are using the same guides and translators that they used before the war, because they know them. They don't seem to realise that those people were carefully selected by the regime because of their loyalty to Saddam's line. So most journalists are getting a totally distorted picture."

3 Die in Shootout Between U.N. Police in Kosovo. (via mudvillegazette8.html)

Hmm. I haven't heard about this from NPR or the evening news; they're too busy caterwauling about American casualties in Iraq.

Taiwan's foreign minister resigns: "Two days after the resignation of Therese Shaheen, chairwoman of the American Institute in Taiwan, Foreign Minister Eugene Chien also resigned. Chien took responsibility for the ministry's role in preparing a letter of congratulations for President Chen Shui-bian from Shaheen's office after last month's election, the results of which are still contested by the opposition.
Chien's office reportedly drafted the letter for Shaheen to sign to congratulate Chen upon his re-election. Shaheen was head of the de facto U.S. mission in Taiwan. The unauthorized letter angered Beijing and upset the White House, leading to Shaheen's resignation on Wednesday."

Get a load of The Epoch Times headline: US Representative in Taiwan Quits Following Chinese Complaints. Still, they note: "State Department officials said problems with Ms. Shaheen emanated not from Chinese complaints but from concerns that her statements on the sensitive U.S.-Taiwan relationship sometimes were at variance with official U.S. policy. She is understood to have drawn internal criticism last year for telling Taiwanese reporters that the long-standing U.S. policy of 'not supporting' Taiwanese independence did not mean the United States opposes the concept."

Taiwan foreign minister resigns: "Shaheen created a stir by congratulating President Chen Shui-bian for his March 20 re-election before the White House or U.S. State Department sent messages - a departure from long-standing diplomatic tradition.
The matter was especially sensitive because the opposition has disputed Chen's narrow victory.
Shaheen conveyed early congratulations to the president by calling Taiwan's representative in Washington.
The Taiwanese diplomat passed on the message to the Foreign Ministry and it quickly became public, giving the president a boost in his postelection feud with opposition candidate Lien Chan. "

Channelnewsasia.com: "Chien's resignation followed that of Therese Shaheen, head of the de facto US diplomatic mission to the island, who quit earlier this week after voicing her support for Chen Shui-bian's re-election before the White House had issued an official statement.

Chien said he had bungled the handling of Shaheen's resignation, but declined to elaborate on his move which observers said was linked to his push for Shaheen's congratulations on President Chen's March 20 re-election."

www.uglychinese.org is an interesting site about Chinese history and the mistreatment of the peasants.

Eric Teo Chu Cheow at The Jamestown Foundation writes about

a telephone survey done in the days following the Taiwan election and stalemate. A Social Survey Institute poll of 1,263 Chinese in 12 cities had a sampling size of more than 2,000, it followed a first survey taken just before the election. 9 out of 10 Chinese polled stated that they were following the Taiwanese election closely; it had jumped from 79.1% before the polls to 93.2% after (+14%); those who were not bothered plunged from 20.9% to 1.7% (-19%).

Besides the increase in interest in Taiwan, those who opposed Taiwan's independence grew from 88.4% to 97.4% (+9%) whereas those who would not oppose it fell from 5.6% to 1.7%. What came out of these findings was the growing sense of crisis over Taiwan. But significantly, the percentage of those calling for reunification by force dropped from 42.8% to 29.1%, whereas those who advocated peaceful reunification increased from 54.9% to 70.9%. Hence, despite the sense of crisis felt over Taiwan, cool heads still prevail regarding reunification. The results of this survey clearly demonstrate a sharper division of the two sides of the Straits, as nationalism gains ground in both China and Taiwan.

Cross-Straits analyst Zhang Tongxin also highlighted the fact that the rejection of Chen's referendum meant that the Taiwanese people would not wish to see relations with China worsen. There was also a growing confidence amongst the Chinese for a peaceful reunification process despite the sharp divergence in opinion. Nevertheless, nearly 92% of all respondents agreed that China should exercise its sovereign rights to deal with chaos in Taiwan, whilst 4.6% opposed this move.

Nicholas R. Lardy asks, Testimony: Do China's Abusive Labor Practices Encourage Outsourcing and Drive Down American Wages?, and answers with a resounding NO:

• The estimate that if China were to end its persistent repression of workers' rights then the average wage would rise by 90 to 595 percent is based on a series of poorly supported assumptions.


• Labor productivity in China is too low to support the postulated wage increase. The estimated wage increase would lead to the bankruptcy of most firms.


• Despite assertions that wages have fallen since 1993, in real terms, wages have actually increased by at least 45%.


• Contrary to the contention that China's comparative advantage arises from the denial of workers' rights, which in turn provides China with an unfair cost advantage, foreign affiliates pay the highest wages in China and have better health, safety, and environmental standards than Chinese-owned firms, yet these foreign affiliates have enjoyed the greatest success in contributing to China's export performance.


• China has become far and away the fastest growing among the large export markets of US firms, contributing to US manufacturing jobs.

(via Daniel Drezner)

Cicada: The Other, Other White Meat discusses

the hard slog of the enterprising American entomophage -- the eater of insects. In many parts of the world, people ingest bugs with regularity and even delight. In Western countries, insect-eating triggers the gag reflex.

Is eating live insects a bad idea? cites Tom Turpin, an entomologist at Purdue University:

Turpin says he is prone to a spot of entomophagy (eating insects) himself, mainly as part of demonstrations to students and the public. 'Each insect is different but as a package they probably bring a better nutrient balance than almost any other single thing you could eat,' he claims.
And the taste? 'Mealworms have a taste very closely associated with whatever they've been eating,' Turpin explains. 'But take them off their food for a few days so you can really taste the mealworm, and then frankly I can't describe it.'

According to FDA/CFSAN Defect Action Level Handbook, there are present in food

Levels of natural or unavoidable defects in foods that present no health hazards for humans

(via Insects in Your Everday Foods, which exerpts the mouthwatering insect details. Geez, they left out mold, rodent hairs, mammalian excreta, and pus pockets. Well, some people like pus pockets.

On this page, click on the fish mouth picture, which brings you to the explanation:

Tongue-eating isopod, Cymothoa exigua (middle)
This isopod causes degeneration of the tongue of its host fish the rose snapper, Lutjanus guttatus, and it then attaches to the remaining tongue stub and floor of the fish's mouth by hook-like pereopods. In this position the isopod superficially resembles its host's missing tongue. Brusca & Gilligan (1983) hypothesize that these isopods serve as a mechanical replacement for the fish's tongue and represent the first known case in animals of functional replacement of a host structure by a parasite. This relationship is so-far known only from the Gulf of California.

Adam Smith has a blog. I didn't know he was still alive!

The Dubious Value of Recycling

Writing some time ago in an article on Sweden's Skeptical Environmentalist and his campaign against indiscriminate recycling, Waldemar Ingdahl wrote:

technological improvements have made incineration cleaner and the process could be used to generate electricity, cutting dependency on oil. They rejected collecting household cartons as very unprofitable and time-consuming. Used bottles and glass cost glass companies twice as much as the raw materials, and recycling plastics was uneconomical, they said. 'Plastics are made from oil and can quite simply be incinerated,' they argued. Glass mixed with household waste improved the quality of slag residue and could be used for landfill. Tin cans could be removed by magnets and sent for recycling. They stressed, though, that the collection of dangerous waste, such as batteries, electrical appliances, medicines, paint and chemicals, must be further improved. Their final point was the controversial conclusion that protection of the environment can mean economic sacrifices, but to maintain the credibility of environmental politics the gains must be worth the sacrifice.

More recently, Rob Lyons wonders:

But the question is whether recycling actually makes economic and social sense at the moment. Is it appropriate to devote more of society's energy to recycling waste on this proposed scale?

It is still cheaper in the UK to landfill or incinerate most waste, despite the levying of a landfill tax to skew the market in favour of other forms of disposal. Apart from the south east of England, there seems to be little difficulty in finding land suitable for landfill. And even with recycling, landfill will still be required for the residue....

It seems that recycling household waste is a costly distraction from more useful social priorities, and will actually make little difference to the amount of waste we produce. So why the obsession with promoting it in the UK?

The discussion about recycling has far more to do with a moral message than with economics. In the absence of any widespread belief in God, Queen or Country, the need to 'save the planet' is one of the few certainties that society has left. If we accept that human beings are wasteful and polluting, as we are clearly supposed to, then who could disagree with the notion that we should all do our bit to undo the damage we do? Recycling is a physically tangible way that individuals can express this outlook. By separating out our waste paper, cans and bottles, we offer some kind of penance for our sinful consumption (and, better still, be seen to do so).

The real aim of recycling schemes is change individuals' relationship to the rest of society. The government wants to create active, responsible citizens - in other words, people who take their lead in their everyday lives from the edicts of the authorities. Caring for the environment fits into a wider pattern of apparently non-political activities through which the government attempts in one way or another to get us to accept its authority.

He makes some good points about the inefficiency of recycling, and I'm certain that many people feel they're being virtuous, but I don't think it's really a plot by the government to make us accept their authority, even if they certainly think that's a good thing.

Indeed, Saint Cecil wrote:

Do most recycling programs lose money? Of course. So does plain old garbage collection. The question is whether disposal programs involving recycling are more expensive than the old-fashioned variety. Answer: at the outset, yes. After a few years, however, many municipalities find that recycling saves money. Some don't, and eventually those folks may want to reconsider the wisdom of their recycling program. The fact remains that recycling in response to an arbitrary government fiat is a useful exercise. Municipal waste disposal historically has been considered an unavoidable expense, with little thought given to whether it could be done more cheaply. Mandatory recycling compels you to give it that little bit of thought: do we really need to throw all this junk away?

I pretty much lost respect for him there.

Julian Morris stated the economic argument with great clarity when he wrote wrote:

Markets minimise waste

The fundamental objective of any business enterprise is to create added value - to sell goods at a price greater than the costs of production. So the entrepreneur is always vigilant for ways of improving product performance and reducing costs. Cost reductions can be made in numerous ways, including by reducing the use of raw materials and from using residuals more efficiently....

The notion that this system can be improved upon by government intervention - as many argue - is implausible. The government's (or regulator's) knowledge of what use of resources is most efficient is likely in most cases to be less complete than that of the individual manufacturers, who must day after day assess the costs of inputs and prices of outputs.