On Tue, 13 Aug 2013 14:40:53 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> On 8/12/2013 4:09 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Mon, 12 Aug 2013 15:30:24 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>
>>> ... Right.. Because it was so clear this is what was being talked
>>> about.
>>> Seriously though.. At the bare minimum, I would say, if you plan to
>>> not put pressure on other nations to do something sane, then you need
>>> to make sure you a) never have anyone sneaking in, b) your own people
>>> *are*
>>> vaccinated, and c) that to even enter the country "requires" they meet
>>> the same basic medical requirements to even get in.
>>
>> The problem here is that you're aiming for a 100% solution.  But
>> nothing is ever 100% certain - that's life.
>>
>> As evidenced by the current state of "homeland security" in US
>> airports.
>>
> Wow.. And now we have someone else telling me what I think.

If the stated goal is the total eradication of a particular disease, then 
yes, it's a 100% solution that you're looking for.

If I've misunderstood, please, clarify rather than claim that I'm telling 
you what you think.

> And, BTW, the problem with "homeland security" period, never mind in
> airports, is that its all fucking puppet theater. 

Yep, absolutely agree.

> If you think that I am looking for some sort of 100% solution, then what
> the frak does it say that you think we need to merely, somehow,
> "improve", with more theater, and false security, something that isn't
> even a 10% solution?

Um, no, I didn't say anything of the sort.  Please go back and re-read 
what I wrote and then tell me where I even came close to claiming that.

> I must be talking a foreign language, because you and Shay keep reading
> things into what I am saying that have jack all to do with what I
> actually meant. Or, you are just so, stupidly, scared to death of
> anything involved in government that you can't help but imagine that
> anyone trying to fix it, instead of destroy it, wants a damned
> dictatorship, with perfect solutions. Either way... at this point you
> have both lost all respect from me on this issue, in no small part
> because you keep claiming I said things I never bloody did, because that
> is purely what **you** want to believe I meant.

Patrick, you need to calm down.  Seriously, dude, take a chill pill or 
something.

You get so worked up about stuff that you're reading something that's not 
there.  I generally *agree* with you on a lot of stuff, but really - I'm 
not claiming that you've said things.  I've interpreted what you've said 
and have attempted to engage in what is known as "active listening".  So 
if I've misunderstood something, please clarify.

But I would ask that you do it without frakking swearing at me.  OK? :)

Jim

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On Tue, 13 Aug 2013 14:47:05 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> On 8/12/2013 4:14 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> We need term limits, and restrictions on leaving government and working
>> for governmental lobbies.  Such a high percentage of people in elected
>> office go on to become lobbyists that while they're legislating,
>> they're thinking about their own future jobs and appeasing their future
>> bosses.
>>
> You are forgetting: Kill 'Citizens United'. It doesn't matter if you fix
> the rest, if some corpseration can funnel shit loads of money at bribing
> them into office.

Absolutely agree that CU needs to go away.  I really think the supreme 
court got it wrong - that money = speech and corporations = people is 
just ridiculous.  People on both sides of the political aisle agree.

> I mean, what is it with radicals anyway, that they always have to call
> something the total opposite of what it is. If they had a, "Save The
> Fuzzy Bunnies", bill, it would actually contain legislation that
> provided open, year round, licenses to kill people's pet rabbits. I
> suppose, we can add "citizens" to the list, along with "family", and
> "values" as a near certainty that they people behind it are full of
> shit, and believe in none of the things listed.

I don't know - I see this all the time and wonder myself what it is about 
cutesy naming on legislation, as if "PATRIOT Act" were some sort of 
marketing name so people could say of those who don't support it that 
they're "not patriotic".  Stupid BS way of drafting legislation - but 
then again, legal documents always are overblown, wordy, and often 
written to obfuscate what's actually in them.

> Hmm. Probably get a kick out of this:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx9eH3qOJXw

Yep, that was what I would describe as a "very funny bit" that John 
Oliver did. :)

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> Which is, as unfortunate as it is idiotic. WHO determines its actions
> based on the statistical odds that something bad is likely to happen.
> The math told them, "There is a bloody high probability that this mix of
> genes could prove to be a serious problem, if it became wide spread."
> Turned out not to be accurate. But, the average person always seems to
> assume that the "experts" are omniscient.

I know people who think the experts are wrong every time they predict 
20% chance of rain and it doesn't rain. It also doesn't help when 
journalists publicise their incorrect analysis of statistics as if they 
were fact.

> the case of, for example, Katrina, you had some "expert" claiming that
> the sea level rise was "within" acceptable statistical ranges, with
> respect to spilling over the levees, and they actually **lied**,
> claiming that the maximum level was a few feet under the max levee
> height, without including the "statistical" factor, that it might be
> something like 10 feet higher or lower than that.

IIRC sea/wave heights are characterised by how often you would expect 
(in a statistical sense) to see a particular height. eg above 10 metres 
would be once in 10 years, above 15 metres once in 100 years etc. 
Obviously if you design your structure to cope with 15 metres that 
doesn't mean you won't see a 16 metre wave tomorrow and it will be 
destroyed, but many people seem to think this way, and the journalist 
would write that the engineer was incompetent as the structure should 
have lasted at least 100 years.

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On 14-8-2013 11:17, scott wrote:
>> Which is, as unfortunate as it is idiotic. WHO determines its actions
>> based on the statistical odds that something bad is likely to happen.
>> The math told them, "There is a bloody high probability that this mix of
>> genes could prove to be a serious problem, if it became wide spread."
>> Turned out not to be accurate. But, the average person always seems to
>> assume that the "experts" are omniscient.
>
> I know people who think the experts are wrong every time they predict
> 20% chance of rain and it doesn't rain. It also doesn't help when
> journalists publicise their incorrect analysis of statistics as if they
> were fact.
>
>> the case of, for example, Katrina, you had some "expert" claiming that
>> the sea level rise was "within" acceptable statistical ranges, with
>> respect to spilling over the levees, and they actually **lied**,
>> claiming that the maximum level was a few feet under the max levee
>> height, without including the "statistical" factor, that it might be
>> something like 10 feet higher or lower than that.
>
> IIRC sea/wave heights are characterised by how often you would expect
> (in a statistical sense) to see a particular height. eg above 10 metres
> would be once in 10 years, above 15 metres once in 100 years etc.
> Obviously if you design your structure to cope with 15 metres that
> doesn't mean you won't see a 16 metre wave tomorrow and it will be
> destroyed, but many people seem to think this way, and the journalist
> would write that the engineer was incompetent as the structure should
> have lasted at least 100 years.

Yes, and that is why geologists were tried and condemned to jail 
sentences recently in Italy for not predicting the L'Aquila earthquake 
correctly.

Thomas

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On 8/13/2013 3:25 PM, Shay wrote:
>
>
> "Patrick Elliott" <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message
> news:520aa599$1@news.povray.org...
>
>> Aaaargghh! You honestly think you get "less" corruption, and less
>> authoritarianism, when your 3-4 extra departments have to "negotiate"
>> with each other to get things done, and you can sneak things in,
>> without the public knowing, so that agency A has its power extended,
>> while the public is being distracted with something that B, C, D and E
>> are doing?
>
> Again, you're arguing against Libertarianism by criticizing government!!!
>
>>
>> Its hardly a bloody wonder libertarians don't have any answers, they
>> can't even grasp how things are screwed up as they are now, never mind
>> how to actually fix them, without f-ing over literally everyone that
>> does need a service, in the process "of" fixing them.
>
> Libertarians don't want to fix ANYONE. That's the entire *point* of
> Libertarianism. I think you need to do some reading.
>
>>
>> I think I have had about enough at this point. You seem to have
>> endless complaints, fears, and endless distrust, but your solution
>> amounts to nothing more than, "Get rid of it all, and everything
>> somehow magically fixes itself." It wasn't even "good" science
>> fiction, but its supposed to apply to the real world? lol
>
> We're better off with less authority in the hands of more people.
> There's nothing magical about it. This is the principal America was
> founded on before we all started trying to "fix" each other. And I don't
> fear government, I fear an unrestrained majority of people who "know
> better than I do."
>
> ps. The regulation you're so fond of? What you don't know--and may never
> fully realize unless you run a business--is that regulation is like a
> poll tax: it's a speed bump to the rich, a road block to the middle
> class, and a BRICK WALL to the poor. Regulation is necessary to protect
> our shared resources, but regulation has to be minimal because it
> INCREASES INCOME INEQUALITY. Think some of these things through before
> you start deciding what's best for your neighbors.

Sigh.. You need to read more, and better. You keep coming up with 
assumptions about what I am saying, and why, that bare no resemblance at 
all, to anything other than what you *want* me to have said.

Still.. How the hell is "regulation" what causes income equality? Pretty 
damn sure that sound a lot like the total bullshit you get where someone 
making more money that bloody god says, "Oh, waaaah! I am making more 
than anyone else ever has, and cheating my way out of more taxes in the 
process, than the robber barons of the industrial revolution ever did, 
but all those regulations are **forcing** me to take a $10 million 
dollar bonus, while firing 10,000 people, cutting the hours of the rest, 
and lowering their pay caps!" Its weapons grade bullshit, and, at this 
point, I really don't care what imaginary justifications you have for 
thinking otherwise, since, like above, with the whole, "how is current 
government a problem with libertarianism", BS, you won't bother to 
understand my point, or maybe just can't.

Hint: My attack on libertarianism wasn't about having 3-4 agencies are 
stumbling all over each other, it was the bloody stupid ass "fix" people 
like you would support, which is to gut them all, so they can't even do 
as piss poor a job as they already do, then point fingers at someone 
else, and whine, "It wasn't me!", when that screws things up even worse.

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On 8/13/2013 4:13 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> I don't know - I see this all the time and wonder myself what it is about
> cutesy naming on legislation, as if "PATRIOT Act" were some sort of
> marketing name so people could say of those who don't support it that
> they're "not patriotic".  Stupid BS way of drafting legislation - but
> then again, legal documents always are overblown, wordy, and often
> written to obfuscate what's actually in them.
>
Not to mention business contracts, legal documents in general, and the 
part of most employee handbooks that explain just how totally screwed 
you are, now that you where dumb enough to get hired by someone.

Post a reply to this message

On 8/14/2013 2:17 AM, scott wrote:
>> Which is, as unfortunate as it is idiotic. WHO determines its actions
>> based on the statistical odds that something bad is likely to happen.
>> The math told them, "There is a bloody high probability that this mix of
>> genes could prove to be a serious problem, if it became wide spread."
>> Turned out not to be accurate. But, the average person always seems to
>> assume that the "experts" are omniscient.
>
> I know people who think the experts are wrong every time they predict
> 20% chance of rain and it doesn't rain. It also doesn't help when
> journalists publicise their incorrect analysis of statistics as if they
> were fact.
>
Much of this is intentional, like.. if its a 50% chance, always report 
it as 60%, instead, so that, when it isn't true, the public has an 
"unexpected" good day.

>> the case of, for example, Katrina, you had some "expert" claiming that
>> the sea level rise was "within" acceptable statistical ranges, with
>> respect to spilling over the levees, and they actually **lied**,
>> claiming that the maximum level was a few feet under the max levee
>> height, without including the "statistical" factor, that it might be
>> something like 10 feet higher or lower than that.
>
> IIRC sea/wave heights are characterised by how often you would expect
> (in a statistical sense) to see a particular height. eg above 10 metres
> would be once in 10 years, above 15 metres once in 100 years etc.
> Obviously if you design your structure to cope with 15 metres that
> doesn't mean you won't see a 16 metre wave tomorrow and it will be
> destroyed, but many people seem to think this way, and the journalist
> would write that the engineer was incompetent as the structure should
> have lasted at least 100 years.

Except, that isn't what actually happened. I don't remember the actual 
numbers, but, roughly, it was like this:

Levee height - 45 feet.
Expected "average" water height - 36 feet.
**Known** variation, during storms - +-15 feet

Again, not the exact numbers. However, it was **not** the press that 
reported it as 46 feet "maximum", it was the climatologist **on sight**, 
who told the mayor that it would *only* reach 46 feet, when, in reality, 
the actually level could have been, based on the known storm surge data, 
which he flat out ignored, between 32 feet, and 51 feet, a *huge* range 
of error, which only becomes a problem if the storm "surges" to the 
higher end of the probable numbers.

This is a bit like playing Russian roulette, your "odds" might be 5 in 6 
of not getting the bullet, but.. if you do, then it doesn't bloody 
matter, at all, what the odds where, at that point of "not" getting it. 
Yeah, there might have been, say, a 10% chance if the storm surging 
enough to make it over 45 feet, and a, say, 90% change that it would be 
"much" lower, but, it doesn't mean jack all if you are wrong, and jumps 
over into the 10% range of things that, "Probably won't happen."

The actual, supposed, scientist, himself, simply ignored the odds of 
being wrong, and reported, "I see no reason to believe, at all, that it 
will rise higher than the 'average'."

A book I read a while back stated that this was a bit like a common joke 
among statisticians: A statistician drowned in a river. The river had an 
'average' yearly depth of only 0.5 inches." The point of the joke being 
that the river might be dead dry 3 weeks out of the year, and 50 feet 
deep, in a flash flood, during the middle of the rainy season, but the 
"average" is only 0.5 inches. The moron that told the mayor his "expert" 
opinion used the "average", and totally failed to mention what the 
"maximum" might end up being. By the time *someone else* got around to 
pointing out this was dangerously wrong, there where hours, instead of 
days, to try to evacuate anyone.

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On Wed, 14 Aug 2013 20:55:21 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> On 8/13/2013 4:13 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I don't know - I see this all the time and wonder myself what it is
>> about cutesy naming on legislation, as if "PATRIOT Act" were some sort
>> of marketing name so people could say of those who don't support it
>> that they're "not patriotic".  Stupid BS way of drafting legislation -
>> but then again, legal documents always are overblown, wordy, and often
>> written to obfuscate what's actually in them.
>>
> Not to mention business contracts, legal documents in general, and the
> part of most employee handbooks that explain just how totally screwed
> you are, now that you where dumb enough to get hired by someone.

Well, yeah - I'm having to review a couple of NDAs I'm under right now, 
just to be able to talk intelligently about them during a couple 
interviews I have coming up later in the week.

I've been told by people in the legal profession that I have a pretty 
good instinct for that stuff - if I had more ambition, I'd probably go to 
law school myself, but I don't want to work *that* hard. ;)

Jim

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> Levee height - 45 feet.
> Expected "average" water height - 36 feet.
> **Known** variation, during storms - +-15 feet

That's just what I was talking about. There is no such thing as a 
"known" variation. That 15 feet you mention (I know it's just an 
example) will represent some kind of statistical distribution. Does the 
water get to 36+15 feet *every* storm, 1 in 5 storms, 1 in 20 storms or 
what? The designers *will* have figured this out, in most developed 
countries it's illegal not to.

> This is a bit like playing Russian roulette, your "odds" might be 5 in 6
> of not getting the bullet, but.. if you do, then it doesn't bloody
> matter, at all, what the odds where, at that point of "not" getting it.

It does matter if you are expecting 500 storms over the next 50 years, 
it matters a lot whether you get flooded 250 times, 25 times, or twice.

> Yeah, there might have been, say, a 10% chance if the storm surging
> enough to make it over 45 feet, and a, say, 90% change that it would be
> "much" lower, but, it doesn't mean jack all if you are wrong, and jumps
> over into the 10% range of things that, "Probably won't happen."

If the engineer states that 90% of storms will not breach the levee, 
then he is not "wrong" when one does. If a statistically significant 
number of storms do breach the levee (ie not just 1 or 2 storms), and 
it's more than 10% *then* he is wrong.

> The actual, supposed, scientist, himself, simply ignored the odds of
> being wrong, and reported, "I see no reason to believe, at all, that it
> will rise higher than the 'average'."

And nobody questioned this ridiculous statement? Did this person 
actually have any qualifications?

> A book I read a while back stated that this was a bit like a common joke
> among statisticians: A statistician drowned in a river. The river had an
> 'average' yearly depth of only 0.5 inches." The point of the joke being
> that the river might be dead dry 3 weeks out of the year, and 50 feet
> deep, in a flash flood, during the middle of the rainy season, but the
> "average" is only 0.5 inches.

A statistician would obviously know to also look at the distribution and 
not just the average :-)

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On 8/15/2013 12:42 AM, scott wrote:
>> The actual, supposed, scientist, himself, simply ignored the odds of
>> being wrong, and reported, "I see no reason to believe, at all, that it
>> will rise higher than the 'average'."
>
> And nobody questioned this ridiculous statement? Did this person
> actually have any qualifications?
>
Sadly, the whole reason he "was" listened to was the fact that, 
apparently, he was the "expert on the scene", and had been working there 
locally, as the "expert" on this subject for years. Its not like this 
sort of thing doesn't happen, and way too often in many cases. Even 
experts will only, sometimes, see what they want to see, or they think 
their boss wants to see, and will convince themselves that, if the boss 
wouldn't like the truth, the truth can't be anything other than what the 
boss would want it to be.

Oh, on a sideline, and more to the point of the whole argument we have 
been having here.. Been reading a new book "Do you Believe in Magic?" by 
Paul A. Offit. In the current chapter he has a timeline of regulation on 
"patent" medicine. It goes like this:

1906 - Its strongly suggested, on lots of good evidence, that there 
needs to be regulation of patent medicines. Products containing 
everything from opium, to hashish, to even morphine, and who knows what 
all else, are being marketed to literally "everyone" including children, 
and its killing people, who have no idea how dangerous any of it is. 
Some of these products contained, in the cases of those with alcohol in 
them, proofs (i.e., percent content of alcohol) which where **higher** 
than many hard liquors, like Whiskey.

Around the same time, a hard core socialist, who wanted "less" 
government, instead of more, ends up writing "The Jungle". It horrifies 
the public so much they demand something be done to make their food 
safer. One of the notable things - rats everyplace, including in the 
food being sold, along with, obviously, their droppings, urine, and who 
knows what else. (This point I make because it comes up later, all over 
again.)

The Pure Food and Drug act, as watered down version of what one of the 
proponents of changing things wanted, required that, *gasp* if it 
contained a drug, you have to label that it did, and how much. There was 
no requirement that they prove it did what they claimed, or where safe 
to use.

1927 - A new agency was formed, Food, Drug and Insecticide 
Administration (it was previously the USDA Bureau of Chemistry who 
handled it), three years later, it was renamed the FDA.

Early 1930s - Squibb, Merck, Winthrop, Eli Lilly, Parke-Davis, and S. E. 
Massengill Company of Bristol, all start making a product, for children, 
which is a lovely purple color, tasted like raspberry, and contained as 
much as 72% of diethylene glycol. Less than 3% was shown, in their own 
tests, to cause kidney failure in rats.

1937 - Massengill ships 240 gallons of the stuff, while ignoring the 
signs that it is dangerous. 350 people drank it, all of them suffering 
numerous symptoms, and over 100 of them died from kidney failure, 34 of 
them children. It was the first, and last, batch ever sold.

1938 - The Food, Drug and Cosmetic act passes, requiring that a new 
product "must" be proven safe ***before*** you sell it, that plants had 
to be kept clean, and inspected, etc. Again - they still didn't need to 
prove that it actually **worked**.

1957 - A German company Chemie Grunenthal, releases a sedative called 
thalidomide, declaring it safe, even for pregnant women. This lead to a 
birth defect called phocomelia, and damaged the at least 24,000 unborn 
children, half of which died before birth. An attempt to license it in 
the US was turned down by the US FDA.

1961 - A new law was added, again, it required that they not only prove, 
before sale, that the drug was "safe", but also "effective", before it 
was allowed to market.

So far, so good, right.. Well..

1972 - Linus Pauling goes nutso, and stops doing sound science, and 
instead starts promoting "megavitamins". The FDA states, "We have no 
evidence, that massive doses of these things are safe, as such, we need 
to consider testing them first, before allowing them to continue being 
sold on the market." Some of these things contain 150 percent of the 
"recommended" amounts. At this time, its only a $700 million dollar 
industry.

1974 - Senator William Proxmire proposes that this is unreasonable, and 
has the NHF behind him (the guys making money selling this stuff, and 
whose board is made up of:

	Harry Hxosey - made his fortune selling arsnic, pepsin, potassium 
iodide and laxitive to "treat cancer", then fled to Tijuana, to avoid jail.

	Fred Hart - president of the Electrical Medical Foundation, a maker of 
useless devices, which he claimed could cure diseases (a precursor to, 
basically things like the "bomb detectors" someone else was recently 
charged with selling, which where basically a dowsing rod).

	Royal Lee - Owner of one of the big vitamin companies, and claimed 
polio was curable via "diet alone".

	Kirkpatrick Drilling - The lawyer, and also layer to a quack cancer 
cure group, called Cancer Control Society.

	Bruce Halstead - convicted of 24 counts of fraud, for claiming that an 
herbal tea called ADS could cure cancer, and which was made from 
bacteria found in human feces, and sold at #125 - $150 a quart.

	Victor Earl Irons - maker if Vit-Ra-Tox, which he sold door to door, 
and claimed would cure nearly *everything* you can imagine. He was also 
one of the "coffee enema" nuts.

1975 - Proximere's bill passes. It goes into effect 1976. It denies the 
FDA the right to regulate how much of any sort of vitamins someone puts 
in to a product.

1991 - Pauling is even, himself, taking insane amounts, and promoting 
others do so, of vitamin C, in doses up to 10,000 milligrams (he later 
dies, month after his wife, both of them from cancer, likely caused by 
vitamin C poisoning, which has 'already' been shown to likely be 
dangerous, even as he is promoting taking more of it). There is no 
research, no facts, no information, and no one, other than the 
manufactures think its a good idea for this to continue, and they love 
it because they can literally claim that vitamins will do everything 
from cure every disease known to man, to possibly make you fly (assuming 
they could manage to make the commercial convincing enough). A 
proposition is made to allow recall of any food, drug, device, or 
cosmetic, which violated the law, represents a significant risk to 
humans, or animals, **or** constituted fraud.

The industry immediately began a campaign to convince the public that 
the government wanted to not just regulate, or determine the safety, of 
products, but the ban them, and arrest the people buying them, like they 
where raiding drug labs, or arresting purchasers of illegal products. 
They insisted that we, the public, needed to stop this from happening. 
And, we fell for it, hook, line and sinker.

1992 - 100 people develop kidney failure, due to a "slimming" new 
product, containing a plant extract. 70 of them had to have kidney 
transplants or dialysis, and many later developed bladder cancers. This 
is only one of the most notable signs that things are seriously wrong.

1993 - Despite evidence already appearing that there where safety issues 
already known, and unanswered questions, and a complete lack of 
information on "any" of it, as well as opposition from every medical 
college, doctor's organization, agency, and other group of experts on 
the planet, they passed the Supplement Health and Education Act. The 
times calls it the "Snake Oil Protection Act". The test of the bill does 
several things - 1. It denies the FDA any right to require testing on 
either vitamins, or, now, anything at all labelled a "food supplement". 
2. It allows companies to, for the first time since 1906 for them to not 
tell you what everything is *actually* in it. 3. They do not need to 
prove it works, ever. And, 4. They do not need to prove it is safe. The 
public had spoken, with a bit of prompting from a lot of propaganda, and 
declared, "We don't want to know, just let us buy it!"

1994 - The bill becomes law, and the industry is worth $4 billion dollars.

2007 - A year before one of the bigger disasters which this bill causes, 
its worth $28 billion.

2008 - More than 200 people, including a 4 year old, are, again, due to 
a new product, poisoned with Selenium in the products Total Body Formula 
and Total Body Mega. They where suppose to have only 200 micrograms, but 
had 40,800 micrograms. Since the industry is now 100% unregulated, only 
170 out of 51,000 new products have *ever* been tested for safety, since 
1994. Third party tests show that not only may the "listed" contents be 
harmful, but as much as 20% of them may contain dangerous levels of 
lead, mercury and arsenic.

2009 - A recall does happen, on 15 thousand bottles of a supplement 
given to autistic kids, which is found to contain undeclared levels of 
antimony.

Betwee 1983 and 2004, 1.3 million actual reports are filed, about bad 
reactions, of which 175,268 required medical treatment, and 139 died. By 
2012, the FDA, last year, its estimated that the number of adverse 
reactions, reported or otherwise, are close to 50,000 a year.

68% of the public believe that the government requires reporting of side 
effects. 58% that the FDA has to approve supplements, and 55% believe 
that the manufacturers of these things cannot out right lie about how 
safe they are, or what they do. All of which is, thanks to the "Snake 
Oil Protection Act", completely wrong.

Oh, and, here is where those rats come in. In 2007, they decided to 
finally let the FDA do the standard inspections of the labs/factories 
that make the stuff. They can't stop them selling it (unless its 
contaminated, of course), require they test it for safety, or prove that 
it actually does what it is supposed to, but they where allowed to make 
sure it wasn't, for example, mixed in a toilet, or something. It might 
as well have been. Of 450 manufacturers of supplements, roughly half had 
"major" health violations, or just plain.. wtf issues. On the relatively 
sane end, where the ones that either just randomly tossed in ingredients 
(they didn't even have recipes they followed), or changed what they 
contained, without bothering to relabel them. On the sick and horrifying 
end, was the ones whose product where mixed in places infested with 
rats, which contained everything from feces, to urine, to, in some 
cases, dead rat.

2012 - As of last year, and this one, no new law exists to fix this, and 
the industry is worth $34 billion. Also - third party studies, after 
study, after study, show that herbs often do not do what they claim, at 
all, or do entirely different things, or cause cancer, instead of curing 
it, and on, and on. The evidence mounts that a medical disaster looms, 
and its killing people, but, its "natural", and the public demanded the 
right to buy it untested, unproven, possibly unsafe, and not even 
required, if it is found unsafe, to inform them of it. Some big pharma 
drug has side effects, they spend half the commercial telling you. A 
"bioidentical" extract, which is the same, identical, chemical, probably 
even, in some cases, made in the same lab, and there doesn't even need 
to be a warning label, as long as it marketed as a "supplement", not a 
medicine. And, because of this, the public **believes** that "natural is 
safer than stuff made in a lab".

Yeah, effectively "deregulating" the industry definitely improved 
business for these people, growing, in 1972 from a $700 million dollar 
'vitamin' industry, to a $34 billion dollar, "Magical Miracle Cure" 
industry, but.. you know.. I don't think it made the world better (never 
mind safer), people healthier, the public "more informed" (as apposed to 
ignorant of the facts, and not legally required to be told them), and.. 
I have a damn hard time seeing how the "market" is going to fix the 
problem, instead of the government changing them mind and letting the 
FDA do what they, and every other medical expert on the bloody planet, 
who wasn't a total nutcase, suggested in the first place, and make them 
test the stuff, just like any other drug, before being allowed to sell 
it, never mind claim that it cures, or treats, an actual disease.

And, yeah, it was a bloody Democrat that put the final nail in the 
coffin of safety and common sense on this one. Which just goes to show 
that its not which side you are on that determines how dangerous the 
things you promote are, but purely **what things**. And, that, no matter 
what some people might claim about their own political views, goes for 
*anyone* that thinks a particular political theory can, "solve all our 
problems", instead of applying the ones that work for a specific problem 
to that problem, and *not* to all the other ones. Sometimes, that means 
the market does best. Sometimes.. it means the market is an idiot. 
Figuring out which one is which matters. Claiming, as some people might, 
that not even trying to figure it out, or put in safety 
nets/valves/etc., in the mean time, to keep the whole thing from 
exploding, while we try to figure it out.. is insane, and no different 
than one other, "My system can cure everything." Its the political 
version of the mess I presented above. But, no one, to date, and 
proposed an Fools and Dogma Administration, to make sure people bloody 
test their wild theories, and both prove what they will do, as well as 
if they are "safe", before selling them to the public.

And.. I am pretty sure they would refuse warning labels, if someone 
tried to insist they list ingredients, and side effects, too.

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