Day: June 28, 2007
Romney Strapped Dog in Carrier to Roof of Car, Drove 12 Hours
He should have gone to jail in 1983:
Romney strapped a dog carrier — with the family dog Seamus, an Irish Setter, in it — to the roof of the family station wagon for a twelve hour drive from Boston to Ontario, which the family apparently completed, despite Seamus’s rather visceral protest. [The dog beshat himself.]
Massachusetts’s animal cruelty laws specifically prohibit anyone from carrying an animal “in or upon a vehicle, or otherwise, in an unnecessarily cruel or inhuman manner or in a way and manner which might endanger the animal carried thereon.” An officer for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals responded to a description of the situation saying “it’s definitely something I’d want to check out.” The officer, Nadia Branca, declined to give a definitive opinion on whether Romney broke the law but did note that it’s against state law to have a dog in an open bed of a pick-up truck, and “if the dog was being carried in a way that endangers it, that would be illegal.”
DoD: More Concerned with Appropriations than Appropriate Medical Care for Soldiers
So what happens if you develop a software system that enables Army physicians in Iraq to seamlessly track medical information on a wounded soldier through the Army’s medical system and into the Veterans Affairs medical system? And what if that software solved the problems that plagued Walter Reed Army Hospital and its treatment of wounded veterans? And what if you developed it on the cheap? And what if your software was lauded by the highest of the higher-ups in the Army and VA?
Answer: You get transferred to the equivalent of “bureacratic Siberia.”
Such was the fate of Lt. Col. Mike Fravell, who developed the patient-tracking system in 2003 and created a Web-based version last year while on a fellowship at VA.
The ability to transfer electronic medical information between DoD and the VA is critical to providing the highest quality health care to the men and women who have been wounded in combat .
— David Gorman, executive director of Disabled American Veterans
— David Gorman, executive director of Disabled American Veterans
The transfer was in retaliation for Fravell’s public criticism of the two Defense health agencies, a congressional source said. At a hearing in May of the House Veteran Affairs Committee, Fravell spoke highly of the two patient-tracking systems he developed and criticized MHS’ reluctance to work with VA on the two systems. “I think on the DoD side, things are very territorial,” Fravell told the committee.
The transfer occurred despite widespread praise for Fravell’s systems. Army Chief of Staff George Casey said this month they provided the Army with “improved visibility on location, medical status and progress of soldiers’ care.” David Gorman, executive director of Disabled American Veterans, said, “The ability to transfer electronic medical information between DoD and the VA is critical to providing the highest quality health care to the men and women who have been wounded in combat or otherwise require medical care after serving in the military.”
Now why would the Department of Defense transfer a guy who had created a cheap, effective, popular tool that aids the medical treatment and care of sick and wonded soldiers? Can you spell money?
At stake are billions of dollars. Through fiscal 2006, AHLTA [Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application] alone cost Defense $775 million to develop and deploy. The system’s fiscal 2007 budget is $392 million. By comparison, [Fravell’s] Joint Patient Tracking Application system cost less than $1 million to develop and $2 million a year to maintain.
“Warrantless Wiretaps” Now Spun into “Warrant-Free Eavesdropping”
This reeks of classic Rove.
The AP — and therefore official mainstream media — wording for Bush/Cheney’s warrantless wiring taping program is suddenly the new and improved “warrant-free program” or alternatively, “warrant-free eavesdropping.”
“Warrantless” wiring taping sounds as if what you did was without a warrant, which would make it illegal. “Warrant-free” just means you were unfettered by warrants. That sounds so much nicer.
Think about it. Warrantless wiring taping sounds as if what you did was without a warrant, which would make it illegal. Warrant-free just means you were unfettered by warrants. That sounds so much nicer, doesn’t it? Like sugar-free is superior to sugarless, or law-free is better than illegal.
And eavesdropping is what Lucy did to Ethel when she was trying to find out what Ricky was getting for her birthday. Wiring tapping…well, that makes makes you think of Watergate.
Here was yesterday’s debut usage, picked up by CNN:
The Senate subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s office Wednesday, demanding documents and elevating the confrontation with President Bush over the administration’s warrant-free eavesdropping on Americans.
And here’s today’s, picked up by newspapers everywhere:
Just Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, demanding documents pertaining to terrorism-era warrant-free eavesdropping. “It’s an outrageous request,” White House press secretary Tony Snow said.
I like that “terrorism-era” tacked in front. That tells you these are dangerous times we’re living in, and they call for desperate measures. Which it’s really not AP’s job to tell you.
Meanwhile at trustworthy Reuters, it’s still warrantless, plus it’s domestic spying:
The assertion of executive privilege to the congressional subpoenas for material related to the probe on the firings of the prosecutors comes one day after Leahy’s committee subpoenaed the White House for documents related to the administration’s warrantless domestic spying program.
Right on, Reuters.
Quote du Jour
Film is not part of the real world. This is why people will have sex on film, commit suicide on film, die of some wasting disease on film, commit murder on film. They’re adding material to the public dream. There’s a sense in which film is independent of the filmmaker, independent of the people who appear.
— Don DeLillo (1936- ), American writer
Despite Cancer Risk, Rumsfeld Rammed NutraSweet Through FDA in 1980s; New Study Appears to Confirm Cancer Connection
A study by a team of Italian scientists reportedly concludes that there is a link between the sweetner aspartame, which is sold under the brand NutraSweet, and cancer. According to a report in the Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal, the study found that aparstame is “particularly potent when animals are exposed in utero and during development. The rats were exposed to the sweetener at levels above and below the recommended daily maximums for people.”
The fact that Donald Rumsfeld’s fingerprints are all over the approval of this chemical additive, may cause regular users — especially diabetics — to give it a second look.
Results of the study were published this month in Environmental Health Perspectives, a U.S. government sponsored, peer-reviewed journal.
Studies linking aspartame and cancer are not new. In fact, a connection was detected in testing soon after the chemical additive was discovered by a chemist working for G.D. Searle & Company, in 1965. As a result of the early studies, the FDA refused to approve aspartame as a food additive throughout the 1970s.
That changed in 1981 when Ronald Reagan won the White House and his Republican appointees took control of the FDA:
The head of the FDA, Jere E. Goyan, who had not approved legalization of aspartame, due to the brain cancer in rats issue, was fired on the first day Ronald Reagan was president… Reagan hired Arthur Hayes MD [a former defense contractor], who legalized aspartame a year later.
According to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now:
[Aspartame] was approved in the early 1980s after intense lobbying efforts by Donald Rumsfeld when he worked as CEO for the pharmaceutical company GD Searle. Rumsfeld is said to have engineered the firing of [Jere Goyan] the FDA commissioner who had held up aspartame’s release following studies showing possible links to brain cancer.
This source says Hayes manipulated FDA findings on the additive:
The new commissioner of the FDA, a Reagan Rumsfeld appointee named Arthur Hayes Hull, Jr. [sic], named a five-person Scientific Committee to review the earlier findings. When the vote went 3-2 against approval of aspartame, Hayes did what any fair-minded citizen might do, and appointed a sixth committee member. The committee voted 3-3, leaving Hull to cast the deciding vote, approving aspartame for use in dry products. Aspartame was then approved for use in soft drinks in 1983.
Hayes was later rewarded for approving the drug with a job at Searle:
In November 1983 Hayes was under fire for accepting corporate gifts. He quit [and was appointed dean of the New York Medical College and then in 1986] joined Searle’s public-relations firm as senior medical advisor.
Before it was over Rumsfeld also took a bonus for his role in aspartame’s approval:
Searle lawyer Robert B. Shapiro, renamed aspartame NutraSweet. Monsanto purchased Searle. Rumsfeld received a $12 million bonus. Shapiro later became Monsanto president.
The fact that Donald Rumsfeld’s fingerprints are all over the approval of this chemical additive, may cause regular users — especially diabetics — to give it a second look.
