It is amazing to me how many web sites for large restaurant chains have absolutely no nutritional information about their menu. I mean, if McDonald’s isn’t afraid to let people know just how calorie and fat filled their food is, I can’t quite understand why there isn’t a “Nutritional Information” page on every resturant chain’s site.
Day: July 17, 2001
More Nader Censorship Schemes
The Associated Press reports that Ralph Nader’s group Commercial Alert has filed a complained with the Federal Trade Commission about search engines that sell search rankings. According to Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert,
Search engines have become central in the quest for learning and knowledge in our society. The ability to skew the results in favor of hucksters without telling consumers is a serious problem.
From the looks of things, Ruskin is a putz with nothing better to do. For example, one of the search engines Commercial Alert complained about was AltaVista (which I was surprised to learn was still around — who uses this anymore?) Here’s a screenshot of a search I did a while ago on the word “automobile.”
Now maybe it goes right over Ruskin’s head, but it was obvious to me that “Partner Listings” is AltaVista-speak for “these people paid to be included here.” Placing the “We found 1,913,925 results” after the Partner Listings further delineates the paid-for listings from the “objective” search results.
The really scary thing about Nader’s groups is that what they really want long-term is for all rules that apply to traditional broadcasting to apply to the web as well. As the Associated Press sums it up,
In its complaint, Commercial Alert alleges that the search engines’ misleading paid listings are equivalent to television infomercials masquerading as independent programming. In the past, the FTC has cracked down on infomercials that weren’t adequately labeled as advertising.
Applying the bloated rules and bureaucracy that governs television to the web would be an unmitigated disaster, not the least of which because it would open the door for demagogues like Nader who made no bones about his desire to use the FTC to censor media — such as the video game industry — that are largely beyond the reach of government censors. In fact, Nader referred to the video game industries as “electronic child molesters” in an October 1999 campaign press release.
Thanks Ralph, but no thanks.
The Worldwide Traffic in Human Beings
The U.S. State Department recently released the first of a series of annual reports on the worldwide trafficking of human beings. According to the “Trafficking in Persons Report,” about 700,000 people — mostly women and children — are pressed into this modern form of slavery every year.
The report grades countries around the world based on their compliance with international treaties designed to prevent such trafficking. The report divides countries into three tiers, with Tier 3 being countries whose legal systems do not comply and are not making significant progress to achieving compliance. The list of Tier 3 countries includes Albania, Bahrain, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burma, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Greece, Indonesia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Pakistan, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sudan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Several of the countries on that list, of course, are close allies of the United States.
The victims of such trafficking end up working as cheap labor in construction sites or clothing factories, while many of the women involved in the trade are forced into prostitution. At a press conference announcing the release of the report, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called the ongoing trafficking in human beings an “abomination against humanity.”
Source:
US decries ‘modern-day slavery’. The BBC, July 12, 2001.
Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000: Trafficking in Persons Report. The United States Department of State, 2001.
Huntingdon in the Crosshairs
Scripps Howard News Service recently ran a brief, but thorough, story outlining the ongoing animal rights campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences.
Writer Lance Gay notes that HLS is fighting back both legally and with public relations efforts.
“We can’t afford to be silent,” said Michael Caulfield, vice president for operations. “We can’t let the intimidation win.”
Still, Gay writes,
Caulfield admits it is tough to persuade the public that drug tests on beagles and monkeys are needed, but those animals are sued because they are easy to handle and there’s a long history on how they react to drugs that provides a guide on how new drugs are going to affect human cardiovascular systems.
Meanwhile activists see their efforts to shut down HLS as merely the first salvo in efforts to end all animal testing.
Barbara Stagno, Northeast director of In Defense of Animals, says the ultimate goal of the campaign is to stop researchers from using animals for either drug or cosmetic testing.
And, of course, the activists are more than willing to use violence, with Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty spokesman Kevin Jonas saying, “Windows will be broke, and cars will be flipped, an animals will be taken. HLS will close down. That’s a promise I will make to you.”
Source:
A dogfight over animal testing. Lance Gay, Scripps Howard News Service, July 2001.
Help Conservation Efforts: Eat More Fish
In their anti-fishing arguments, animal rights activists occasionally argue that fish consumption leads to over fishing, and if consumers would stop eating fish, this problem could be solved. In a recent op-ed for The Toronto Star, for example, Barry Kent McCay wrote,
I haven’t eaten a fish in 25 years nor caught in fish in more than 40. Extreme? Not as extreme as the damage fishing does to the only planet I have to live on.
Many environmental groups, including the World Wildlife Fund take a different view — consumption of fish is an important part of conservation efforts.
For example, in discussing the depleted cod stocks in the United Kingdom, a recent report by the WWF said,
Not eating fish would only encourage a spiral of decline. Instead, we should aim at supporting our fishing communities and the wider marine environment by continuing to eat fish and by making informed decisions about the fish we choose.
The WWF does have a number of recommendations for consumers, including avoiding immature fish, buying locally caught fish to support local fishing industries, and buying farmed fish that is reared in open sea conditions.
But contrary to some animal rights activists, abandoning fish consumption would be a counterproductive strategy that would likely lead to deterioration of fisheries.
Source:
Eat a fish, save a species. The BBC, July 12, 2001.
There aren’t plenty of fish in the sea anymore. Barry Kent MacKay, The Toronto Starr, July 8, 2001.
The Death of Feminism?
A few years ago, the National Organization for Women published an essay by author Jennifer Coburn attacking the Independent Women’s Forum. The article, Don’t cry for feminism: It’s still alive, dismissed feminist critiques such as “Christina Hoff-Sommers [who] say they are more in touch with the needs of today’s woman than feminists,” citing NOW’s much-inflated claim that it has 250,000 members. Coburn suggested that “Anti-feminist women should also return any credit cards, checks, property deeds, savings accounts, money market accounts, mutual funds and investments in their name. They can have them all back, mind you — just as soon as they get their husbands’ written permission.”
But a recent poll by Gallup contradicts this message — feminism is, in fact, dead. While NOW continues to rail about the “anti-feminist” administration of George W. Bush, only 25 percent of women in the Gallup poll said that they are feminists. This applied equally to older and younger women, with only 26 percent of younger women identifying themselves as feminists compared with 24 percent for women over 50.
But these women who say they aren’t feminists are hardly conservative traditionalists either. Over two-thirds said disagreed with the statement that men and women have equal job opportunities in the United States. Thirty-seven percent said they are dissatisfied with society’s treatment of women. So why the disdain for the feminism label?
I’d guess that it is because the term “feminism” in the United States today largely means the sort of ideology that groups like NOW push. In fact, this seems to be the way that NOW wants it as they consistently any woman who has a slight different ideological approach to women’s freedom — such as Christina Hoff Sommers — is quickly labeled an anti-feminist, faux feminist, or some similarly derogatory term.
The problem with this approach is that it is self-destructive. The result of NOW and other groups’ ideological rigidity and exclusionary views has not been to create a powerful women’s movement, but rather to fracture and divide individuals and groups who would otherwise form a united front to defend women’s rights.
This is part of the reason why NOW and other feminist groups are losing substantial ground to anti-abortion groups. While NOW is busy deciding who is and is not ideologically correct enough to count as a feminist (and unleashing blistering attacks against those who don’t get to join the club), anti-abortion groups are making important headway by building coalitions that are effectively chipping away at abortion in the United States.
Apparently NOW is happier to be the self-appointed vanguard of a failing movement rather than just one voice in a more robust, effective movement.
Sources:
Women See Room for Improvement in Job Equity. Lydia Saad, Gallup Poll News Service, June 29, 2001.
Don’t cry for feminism: It’s still alive. Jennifer Coburn, National Organization for Women web site, August 24, 1997.