Day: August 20, 2003

Michael Fumento Loses It Over Bloggers

I’ve always been a fan of Michael Fumento, even when I disagreed with him, so it’s extremely disappointing to see Fumento lose his cool in this fallacy-filled attack on bloggers and blogging.

Fumento has a legitimate complaint about a handful of bloggers, but choses to react with ad hominems and hasty generalizations about bloggers in general.

It’s interesting that he uses the exact same tactics against bloggers that people on the Left have tried to use against him over the years.

Fumento really has a blind spot when it comes to weight loss issues. His entire career, for example, has been spent pointing out that epidemiological studies that find very small increased risks aren’t all that reliable. But when it comes to weight gain, his book on the topic includes charts pushing claims of very small risk factors for being slightly above a person’s ideal BMI. A few years ago, Reason published my letter-to-the-editor making exactly this point,

Weighty Questions

Jacob Sullum’s review of Michael Fumento’s Fat of the Land and Richard Klein’s Eat Fat (“Fat Chances,” February) was disappointing since it didn’t address head on the dispute between Fumento and Klein over the evidence that obesity contributes to increased mortality. This is important because in his zeal to attack gluttony, Fumento appears to directly contradict previous claims he has made about the reliability of epidemiological studies to measure increased mortality.

In a 1995 op-ed piece, for example, Fumento refers to a study that found secondhand smoke was associated with a 19 percent increase in mortality and concludes, “At the time, many people including myself criticized the EPA report, saying [with] such a small apparently increased risk (so tiny, in fact, that the medical community has rejected much larger ratios as being conclusive on other potential carcinogens)…that the tiniest problem could throw the whole thing off.”

But now Fumento apparently accepts American Cancer Society claims that men 19 percent overweight have a 15 percent increased likelihood of death. What ever happened to the difficulty with “such a small apparently increased risk”?

Fumento also repeats the claim that 300,000 people die every year from obesity, but as Marcia Angell wrote in a recent New England Journal of Medicine editorial, “[A]lthough some claim that every year 300,000 deaths in the United States are caused by obesity, that figure is by no means well established. Not only is it derived from weak or incomplete data, but it is also called into question by the methodological difficulties of determining which of many factors contribute to premature death.”

As Steve Milloy of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition put it, the 300,000 figure is “classic junk science.” Apparently the limitations and difficulties of epidemiology, which Fumento discusses so well in his book Science Under Siege, are irrelevant when one strikes out on a crusade to save people from themselves.

Go, Lisa, Go!

About six weeks ago, my wife Lisa started a weight loss program. So far she’s lost 17 pounds and counting. I lost 12 pounds during the same period.

Our secret? Weight lifting three times a week, cardio two to three times a week, and keeping calorie intake at moderate levels. We really wanted something we could to do lose weight at a reasonable pace and not fall into the trap of losing a ton of weight quickly on some fad diet and then gain it all back later (like most of our friends who have gone the high-protein diet route have done).

Coronado Says the Planet and the Animals Talk to Him

Another one of these hilarious interviews with Rodney Coronado was posted at IndyMedia earlier this month. Coronado’s a lot like Ingrid Newkirk — the more he talks, the better it is for those of us opposed to animal rights.

Coronado expands on his rather unique and expansive view of rights,

My world view isn’t founded on philosophy or ideology. It’s based on one that sees all other living beings and aspects of nature, including plants, animals and rocks, as just as important as all others. My family raised me to believe that not only humans but all living beings and natural things deserve respect.

Every rock is sacred, and “just as important” as a human being. Despite Coronado’s claim, that is most certainly an ideological position and an extremely hideous one at that. I can’t wait for PETA to pick up on this, since they’re such big supporters of Coronado, and start a Holocaust-In-A-Quarry campaign.

Much of this view, by the way, expresses it in an odd religious view that the planet is literally talking to Coronado. Describing being on the run after being indicted for the arson of a Michigan State University laboratory, Coronado said,

? I decided I was sick of running, I would get rid of the gun I was carrying, and I would die. I heard all the plants and animals speaking to me through the wind and they said, “We are here for you, but we can only help you if you believe in us more than you believe in them.”

Similarly, Coronado believes that animals were seeking him out while he was in prison for that crime,

Even in prison, he said, “the spirits of the animals didn’t forget me.” He said he would see coyotes come to the prison fence and howl greetings to him when he was in the yard, and when he was working in the prison garden hummingbirds would fly towards him.

Instead of giving speeches, Coronado might want to seek professional help.

Coronado also has an odd philosophy related to the goal of ELF/ALF terrorist actions,

Last night in San Diego a bunch of townhouses were burned down, and reporters from two corporate TV stations just asked me, “What good does that do your movement?” I said, “If that hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t be here tonight.” People willing to risk their lives to protect the environment by destroying buildings built on the habitat of endangered species make people take notice.

So the ends justify the means if it results in a lot of media coverage. This is, of course, the Eric Rudolph school of media theory.

Coronado also has a Beavis and Butthead like worship of fire that borders on self-parody,

Fire is a very sacred power, one of the key elements of our planet. We use fire to cleanse ourselves, and when we address buildings and institutions that have no other purpose but to destroy life, fire is the only way to stop them. When people ask if someday someone might get hurt by one of our actions, I ask them why they don’t get so concerned about the people who are killing animals for a living. That is what the terrorism in this society is. Destroying property to protect life is the most sacred thing we can do.

Arson-as-sacred-duty. The wind and plants talking to him. Hummingbirds being drawn to him. Keep on talking, Rodney.

Source:

Rod Coronado Speaks in Hillcrest Aug. 1. Mark Gabrish Conlan, August 2, 2003.

PETA Brings Holocaust Campaign to Europe

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has brought its Holocaust-On-A-Plate campaign to Warsaw, Poland, where so many Jews were slaughtered by Nazi Germany. Needless to say, the campaign isn’t going over well with local Jewish leaders.

PETA is running an advertisement that the Associated Press describes thusly,

The television ads, showing the outside world as seen through the slates of a boxcar, with a voice describing the plight of being transported with no food and water . . .

Organizers say they hope to protest against the brutality of transporting live animals for slaughter by invoking the suffering of hundreds of thousands of Jews carried in inhumane conditions to death camps in Europe and chose Warsaw for their launch because so many Polish Jews perished in the Holocaust.

According to the Associated Press, PETA hopes that MTV Poland will run the ad in order to target the youth market.

The kicker to the entire story, however, was PETA’s Dan Mathews telling the Associated Press,

I know the ad is provocative. But for me, one of the lessons of the Holocaust is to recognize other atrocities.

Mathews forgot to mention the other lesson he learned from the Holocaust — his admiration for serial killers.

Source:

Animal rights ad evokes Holocaust. Associated Press, July 15, 2003.

Indiana Couple Challenges State's Hunter Harassment Law

Frederick and Rosanne Shuger are appealing an Indiana judge’s ruling on that state’s hunter harassment law, arguing that the law is unconstitutionally vague.

The Shugers stand accused of interfering with a deer cull on property owned by the town of Beverly Shores, Indiana, numerous times over the past couple years. According to the Northwest Indiana Times, the couple show up in their car prior at the beginning of the deer cull and,

They allegedly yelled obscenities, slammed car doors, belw the vehicle’s horn and alowed a dog to bark, all actions that could scare away the prey.

The Shugers’ attorney, Garry Weiss, argued before Superior Court Judge Julia Jent that the charges should be dismissed on constitutional grounds, but the judge denied the motion. Weiss has now appealed that decision to the Indiana Court of Appeals. The Shugers also claim their right to free speech is violated by the statute.

The Indiana statute looks pretty solid, saying that anyone who

knowingly or intentionally interferes with the legal taking of a game animal by another person with intent to prevent the taking commits a Class C misdemeanor.

So the Shugers could show up outside the cull and hold up signs protesting the hunt, they could hand out leaflets opposing the cull — but they can’t knowingly or intentionally make a lot of noise in order to scare off animals. That seems like a pretty straightforward definition.

Weiss’ claim that the the statute is vague makes about as much sense as a poacher claiming that Indiana’s statutes don’t adequately define what it means to illegally “possess” an endangered animal.

The full text of Indiana’s hunter harrassment law is available here.

Sources:

Hunter harassment law faces challenge. Bob Kasarda, Northwest Indiana Times, May 6, 2003.

Deer culls must proceed unhindered. Northwest Indiana Times, May 9, 2003.

Indiana Hunter Harassment Law

IC 14-22-37

    

Chapter 37. Harassment of Hunters, Trappers, and Fishermen

IC 14-22-37-1

“Game animal” defined

    

Sec. 1. As used in this chapter, “game animal” means an animal
that may be legally taken under this article.

As added by P.L.1-1995, SEC.15.

IC 14-22-37-2

Violations

    

Sec. 2. (a) A person who knowingly or intentionally interferes
with the legal taking of a game animal by another person with intent
to prevent the taking commits a Class C misdemeanor.

    (b) A person who knowingly or intentionally:

        (1) disturbs a game animal; or

        (2) engages in an activity or places an object or substance that
will tend to disturb or otherwise affect the behavior of a game
animal;

with intent to prevent or hinder the legal taking commits a Class C
misdemeanor.

    (c) A person who knowingly or intentionally enters or remains:

        (1) upon public land; or

        (2) upon private land without permission of the owner or the
owner’s agent;

with intent to violate this section commits a Class C misdemeanor.

As added by P.L.1-1995, SEC.15.

IC 14-22-37-3

Failure to obey orders of law enforcement officer

    

Sec. 3. A person who fails to obey the order of a law enforcement
officer to desist from conduct in violation of section 2 of this chapter
commits a Class B misdemeanor if the law enforcement officer:

        (1) observed the person engaged in conduct that violates section
2 of this chapter; or

        (2) has reasonable grounds to believe that the person:

            (A) has engaged in the conduct that day; or

            (B) plans or intends to engage in the conduct that day on
specific premises.

As added by P.L.1-1995, SEC.15.