Headlines

Democrats dismiss Biden as front runner in name only

US-China trade talks are in the ‘final laps,’ Treasury Secretary Mnuchin says

1 dead, 7 shot near Baltimore church ...

LePen: European Union has ‘same goal’ as Soviet Union

Dems sweat Trump’s economy: ‘We really don’t have a robust national message right now’

Boeing waited until after Lion Air crash to tell Southwest safety alert was turned off on 737 -Max

Trump’s new NAFTA faces mounting resistance...

Data: 98K illegal aliens graduating for U.S. high schools every year

Trump warns Sanders he is being cheated again

Barr threatens to skip House Judiciary Committee hearing over proposed format

Trump, once vaccine skeptic, changes tune amid measles outbreak ...

Immigration driving half of U.S. population growth

Frankenfoods

GMO stands for genetically modified organism or any living thing that has had its genetic material altered using genetic engineering techniques ... see: Wikipedia Entry for much detail about this process. The purpose of these genetic alterations in plant foodstuffs is primarily to enable them to resist disease, pesticides and insects ... or better tolerate environmental stress. Some examples of foods that have been so altered are corn (insect resistance, etc.), wheat (drought tolerance, etc.), and soybeans (survive saline conditions, etc.). Monsanto has been a leading developer of such products with its Roundup Ready line of products.

Obviously genetic engineering is akin to natural evolution only on a vastly compressed time scale. In nature, genetic mutations occur as a matter of course ... with good ones surviving and bad ones being selected out. Genetic engineering speeds up this process with (hopefully) good intentions. But as could be expected there has been a public backlash against such Darwinian tampering  ... with the term "frakenfoods" being the pejorative used to turn the public against such scientific advances.This public aversion is similar to the hysteria that now surrounds vaccinations and that which once pushed back against the use of fluoride in drinking water. In both cases there seems to be a very small risk associated with a very large public benefit. To me, this same cost-benefit trade-off also applies to GMOs.

However, GMOs have apparently now become a real bugbear ... with marketing hucksters now using the banning of foods containing GMOs as a selling advantage, The most recent example of same is Chilpolte Mexican Grill which now brags that it will phase out meals that contain GMOs ... see: Organic Connection Magazine Article. This is easier said than done as huge amounts of worldwide acreage is now devoted to growing GMO crops (see the above-referenced Wikipedia article) and many nearby non-GMO fields have also been cross-pollinated by such plants. And since the testing for GMOs is not easy and cheap, it is quite likely that much of this marketing hype is just that ... empty claims ... see: USA Today Article..

So until such time as Al Gore travels the country with his PowerPoint presentation decrying the evils of frankenfoods, I'm not going to fret too much about this newest GMO way to feed mankind.
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Hot Potato

The outbreak of measles traced to Disneyland in California is causing a bit of a ruckus. To vaccinate or not to vaccinate ... that is the latest media buzz.  If possible, politicians (should) run away from this hot potato because it's a no-win situation. But, not aspiring to any political office, lets me offer a few comments:

First, there is the question of individual freedom. There are many groups who are exempt from the state forcing this medical procedure upon them ... I think the Amish sect for one. Therefore, it seems that the government has already conceded exemptions ... and, therefore, the barn door is already open.

Second, parents who decide against vaccinating their children should be made aware of the statistical trade offs in this choice. If vaccinating brings a one in a million risk of a serious side-effect versus a one in ten thousand risk of other onerous consequences from not getting vaccinated, then they can and should act rationally. However, if the odds are reversed then this also needs to be well communicated to them. Moreover these odds obviously change as the population of un-vaccinated children grows or shrinks. Parents should also be well informed of this changing dynamic. The public policy of forcing vaccinations presupposes that many parents will not take into account these trade offs ... possibly a realistic assumption in a country that elected Barack Obama twice.

Third, and I hate to bring global warming into this discussion ... but when our government makes claims about global warming as "proven science" and anyone with a half a brain can see that this is bull hockey, additional "scientific" claims by our government are then easily discounted. The government and media-trumpeted fallacies of the dangers of butter, salt, etc.also add to the public discrediting of all such governmental pronouncements.

Fourth, I do believe that the analogy that has been made between our government quarantining suspected Ebola carriers and forcing vaccinations is a false one ... because there is now no recourse for the general public against infection by Ebola. An educated public can easily protect itself to a significant degree against contracting measles.

And lastly, the tying of vaccinations to autism by some prominent media figures ... such as Jenny McCarthy, Deidre Imus, and Robert Kennedy Jr..... were all based on very feeble scientific evidence. This really is the genesis of much of the current anti-vaccination movement. I personally think the upsurge in autism could easily be being caused by the increased use of designer drugs by one or both parents ... see: Yes We Cannabis. Now, I wouldn't be that upset if the autism-anxious parents of America started a boycott of designer drugs.

Flu Fleecers

Walgreens and CVS are selling seasonal flu shots for around $30 a pop ... and this program has proved so popular that both store chains are running out of flu vaccine (and their stock prices are moving up). See: Flu Vaccine Shortage. The purpose of my comments here is to chastise Walgreens and CVS for their sleight-of-hand in offering this program during the public panic about the H1N1 flu outbreak. These drugstores do not make it abundantly clear that these flu shots do not protect recipients against the "swine flu". I conjecture that the vast majority of the public sheep who are getting these seasonal flu shots do not realize that they are not protected against the H1N1 virus and that the vaccine against this strain of the flu virus will not be available to the general public for at least one month.

Also many of these ovines could get this very same seasonal flu shot at their workplaces, HMOs, local community clinics. or fraternal organizations for free. I welcome readers to watch these drug store's ads on TV or read their road signs and find an explicit caveat emptor that these flu shots do not protect against the swine flu. These stores may reveal this fact to those Babbitts in line to be vaccinated ... but, by then, it may to be too late. The Walgreen and CVS Judas goats have already lead these sheep into spending their $30 for something that they think they are getting ... but are not.