Author: Brian Carnell

U.S. Senate Unanimously Approves Bill to Restore Hunting at National Monument

In November 2000, President Bill Clinton expanded the Craters of the Moon National Monument. Land that had been administered by the Bureau of Land Management was taken over by the National Park Service.

Although at the time , the Clinton administration said this would not affect whether or not hunting could occur in the new areas, in fact the National Park Service barred all hunting on the areas that it took over from BLM. Before the change, the Monument had been a popular site for hunting.

On August 2, 2002 the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a bill that would change the area’s designation from a Monument to a National Preserve and restore hunting to the site.

The bill had previously been approved on a voice vote by the House of Representatives in May 2001, and now heads to the president’s desk.

Source:

Bill would restore Craters hunting rights. Spokesmanreview.Com, August 3, 2002.

PCRM and Noah Wyle Just Keep the Hypocrisy Rolling

Back in October 2000, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine not only criticized a milk ad that featured actor Noah Wyle, they filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission complaining that the ad was deceptive (see PCRM vs. Noah Wyle: Will the Real Physician Please Stand Up?).

So guess who PCRM is now using as a spokesman in an ad campaign — that’s right, Noah Wyle.

And, just by coincidence, PCRM removed from its web site its October 24, 2000 press release, “Physicians lodge complaint over misleading ad starring “ER” actor Noah Wyle.” What’s a little rewriting history between friends?

Wyle, by the way, is endorsing PCRM’s “cruelty-free charities” program and speaking out against animal research. At the same time, of course, he is also actively involved with a charity and a pharmaceutical company, neither of which meets PCRM’s definition of cruelty-free.

Wyle has been a prominent spokesman for the YWCA’s and Pfizer’s outreach efforts to combat post-traumatic stress disorder. A press release announcing the program last year announced, “Actor Noah Wyle Joins Pfizer and the YWCA of the U.S.A. to Launch PTSD Community Outreach Program.”

Why Pfizer? Because one of the common treatments for PTSD sufferers are drugs called serotonin reuptake inhibitors — drugs which were, of course, developed extensively with the sort of animal research that Wyle now says he opposes.

Apparently Wyle thinks that the pain suffered by a rape victim is severe, but not compared to what a mouse or rat in a laboratory has to go through (one has to wonder if Wyle also thinks that animal research used to develop emergency contraception drugs such as RU-486 was also immoral and improper).

Sources:

PCRM releases new PSA on cruelty-free charities. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, August 1, 2002.

Noah Wyle: There’s help for PTSD sufferers. W. Reed Moran, USA Today, August 3, 2002.

Actor Noah Wyle Joins Pfizer and the YWCA of the U.S.A. to Launch PTSD Community Outreach Program. YWCA/Pfizer Press Release, January 8, 2001.

Vegitan's Unite!

Over at VegSource.com, the debate among the “I’m more vegan than you are” crowd has become so intense that Jeff and Sabrina Nelson saw fit to try to coin a new term — vegitan. According to the Nelsons,

A vegan diet is always a vegitan diet, but a vegitan diet may not always be vegan, because a vegitan diet may or may not include honey.

Just when watching these folks debate back and forth over eating honey was getting so fascinating, the Nelsons go and try to change the terms of the debate. The new terminology is also supposed to be free of the political implications that supposedly come with “vegan”,

The key is that the word “vegitan” in and of itself connotes no political, ideological or philosophical ideals. It’s simply a word that describes a diet.

. . . Vegitan simply refers to what you eat, and does not signify any “whys” which may motivate someone to eat meat.”

And why would anyone possibly want to escape the political implications of “vegan”? Again, according to the Nelsons,

In our years of experience with running the largest and most popular vegetarian/vegan website in the world, we have seen some in the vegan community who resent another person calling herself “vegan” when she eats a “vegan diet” but does not embrace all the values, philosophies and precepts of veganism.

Vegans who are vocally intolerant of the dietary choices of others? Say it ain’t so, Jeff and Sabrina. That’s just really hard for this writer to image.

With the creation of the word “vegitan,” vegans no longer need be uncomfortable as such individuals can now refer to their “vegitan diet” and be totally clear what they mean.

Oh yeah, they really cleared that up. That will certainly placate the vegan food police.

Source:

Introducing the Vegitan Diet. Jeff and Sabrina Nelson, VegSource.Com, July 29, 2002.

Definitive Proof of Vinland Map Fraud

In the early 20th century somebody intent on bolstering the case for Norse charting and exploration of North America created a fake map that became known as the Vinland Map. The Vinland map was claimed to be a 15th century Norse map that clearly shows North America.

And it was a fake. Evidence that it was a fake has been long available since it contains a chemical — anatase — in the ink that could not have been synthesized until the 20th century.

Now a study published in Analytical Chemistry has put the nail in the coffin on map’s inauthenticity.

Like many old maps, the Vinland Map is done in black ink and the lines are surrounded by yellowish lines. In an authentic map, the yellowing is caused by iron compounds in the ink.

In hoaxed maps such as the Vinland Map, however, the ink used is modern and lacks those iron compounds. And, of course, it was made recently, so the forger draws in a yellow line. It turns out the anatase on the Vinland Map only occurs in the yellow lines. Somebody drew the lines in to make it appear to be old.

The map’s a fraud.

Source:

The Vinland Map shows its true colors; scientists say it’s a confirmed forgery. American Chemical Society, July 29, 2002.

Michigan’s Single Business Tax

Michigan is gearing up for primaries in a week or so, including for governor and other state offices (term limits prevent Republican governor, John Engler, from running again). A major issue that has emerged in the state races is the way Michigan taxes businesses: the single business tax.

Apparently the idiotic single business tax used to be quite common, but today Michigan is the only state left that uses such a backward system of taxation for businesses.

Some states tax business profits or income or some similar measure. In Michigan, we currently end up taxing total payroll. That’s right, the amount of tax a business pays is determined by the amount it spends on payroll.

So every time a company in Michigan adds a new employee, its taxes go up. Gee, couldn’t the legislature have found a better way to kill job creation?

Desktop Replacement Therapy

I needed a new computer and almost bought another desktop — until I took a good hard look at just how far laptops have come. I don’t think I’ll buy another desktop again except to use as a fileserver.

I’ve owned several laptops. In fact the first non-Apple machine I owned was a huge laptop/portable machine that sported not one, but two 3 1/2″ floppy drives. I also bought a couple of Toshiba Satellites over the years but was never satisfied with either machine. They were really toys compared to the desktops I owned.

A major drawback to laptops from my perspective has always been hard drive size. I have 9 gigabytes of personal files (and growing) and I want to take all of it with me, along with the necessary applications of course. The laptop I settled on has a 40 gig hard drive. Anything smaller and I probably would have opted for a desktop.

Of course the processor speed and memory has improved dramatically — I opted for a 1.5 ghz Pentium and 512 mb of memory which so far handles everything I can throw at it impressively. Even some games. Okay, Neverwinter Nights wouldn’t run, but I get impressive frame rates from Freedom Force. Next time around, I’ll get a machine with better 3D performance, but that wasn’t as much of an issue as speed and HD storage.

But it was the price that really got me — all of this plus a DVD/CD-RW, built-in WiFi, and a 15″ high res. LCD all for under $2,000. I was frothing like a Pavlovian dog ready to sell my soul for such a machine, and here all they wanted was a couple grand.