[ba-ohs-talk] Eric Running for Office
Eric, (01)
Just another thought, you will have my vote for all the reasons in
your exegesis, if you will expand your plank to fix the traffic mess.
There has to be a million hours wasted everyday just getting to work
and home. Has anyone noticed how people are willing to work hard,
getting up earlier and earlier and getting home later and later, but
working smarter is a sore subject? (02)
How about a couple of tunnels between SF and the North Bay, and one to
the East Bay, like Bechtel constructed between France and England? (03)
Some will hasten to point out that when the DKR is built, everyone can
stay home, etc., but just in case that project gets delayed, it would
be great to have a fall back plan, and Eric is our man. (04)
Eric for senator on the Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green
ticket, anything, so long as something gets done. (05)
Rod (06)
************** (07)
Eric Armstrong wrote:
>
> Hit send before I got to the big finish....
>
> Eric Armstrong wrote:
>
> > Do I want to see people make a profit? You bet! It's the number
> > one social mechanism in the world for getting what we need,
> > when we need it, at the lowest possible cost, in the highest
> > possible volume.
>
> BUT...
>
> That profit has to be based on providing real value. When a
> manufacturer sells a swing set that breaks and harms children,
> we take away their profits. When an automobile manufacturer
> sells a defective product that kills people, they are forced to
> pay damages and issue recalls. (I'm always astonished, a few
> weeks later, to see the ads telling us how much they care about
> us, after dragging their feet for years in court and in the legislature.)
>
> In short, we make sure darn near everyone *except* food
> producers and drug manufacturers have our best interests at
> heart. It's time we enforced the same rules on them.
>
> And it's not because we don't want to (most of the time). It's
> just that science moves a lot more rapidly than our laws can
> keep up with.
>
> For example, early last century, the only test for anemia was
> ineffective if a person was taking folic acid supplements.
> (Folic acid, or folacin, is a B-vitamin that controls the
> adsorption of other B vitamins.) The FDA's response was
> to limit the amount of folic acid you could put into a supplement.
>
> Result? When you take a B-vitamin supplement, you really
> are creating "expensive urine", because the B-vitamins are
> synergistic. You can only take in and use as much as you
> have of the least one. So if you are taking a 50 mg B supplement,
> and it only has 400 or 800 micrograms of folacin, the other
> 49.2 mg goes down the drain!
>
> The impact? Vitamins get an undeserved bad rap in general ,
> B-vitamin supplements are useless in general (so take brewer's
> yeast, instead), and public health suffers.
>
> But guess what? There have been better tests for anemia for
> the last 50 years!! (More like 60, now.) No one even *uses*
> that old test anymore.
>
> So why hasn't the FDA changed its rules? You tell me. Or better
> yet, let's get a discovery motion and FIND OUT why.
>
> Pardon my intensity, please. But I've been trying to figure out how
> to improve public health for a very long time. It is frustrating to
> have learned so much, and yet know that anyone who does not
> invest the same amount of time and effort is a doomed victim of
> a system that feeds them great tasing, poisonous junk in a shiny
> wrapper with lots of feel-good advertising. (And even with what
> I know, I get victimized by what I don't know, and by the fact
> that the junk is so readily available.)
>
> I'll continue to do what I can to educate. This diatribe (for any
> who get this far) has been one step in that direction. But it is
> a very small step.
>
> I've considered running for office. But that's a narrow platform
> to run on, and there is a huge collection of entrenched interests
> in the way.
>
> Executive decree from the surgeon general would be great. But
> where somehow Surgeon General Koop was able to get the
> public's attention and make a difference, the warnings given by
> Clinton's surgeon general (I can't even remember his name!) on
> the subject of partial hyrdrogenation went almost totally unnoticed.
>
> That leaves the judicial system. I am fortunate to have observed
> Rusty Day fighting in Superior Court for the right of the Java
> platform to remain unadulterated by Redmond's machinations.
> I was expecting an intellectual struggle, with interesting arguments on
> both sides. What I saw instead was a knight, devoted to bring out
> the truth, and defending the truth. I saw a lot of maneuvering and
> sophistic ploys on the other side, which helped turn what I expected
> to be an even match into a white knight/black knight contest, but I
> was totally taken with the image of a knight standing up to do battle
> for those unable to defend themselves.
>
> But it takes a *really* strong knight. It's no place for the faint of
> heart. If logic were a requirement, the matter would have been
> decided in a couple of hours. There was a tenuous thread of logic
> on the one side (not totally obvious, I grant, but it was there). On
> the other side, there was argument ad hominum, argument by
> derision, argument by reinterpreting what was said and knowing
> down that straw man, attempts to change the subject, and any
> other form of verbal chicanery, I suspect, that the practioners
> thought they could get away with. I waited for a counter to
> the real argument that had been laid at their doorstep, but I waited
> in vain -- it never came.
>
> And that was only a few days! Cases like those I'm suggesting could
> go on for years. It takes a really intelligent lawyer, with great a
> collection of experts, superb preparation, and a remarkable ability
> to think on their feet. In other words, it takes someone who can make
> one hell of a living at anything they should choose to do.
>
> But if we can someone of that caliber to focus on the public good,
> we make an enormous difference in our public welfare, by providing
> the one MAJOR "check and balance" that our system is missing --
> one that allows people to make a profit by killing people and siphoning
> their money slowly, by degrees, rather than all at once like an honest
> crook. (08)