Kids getting you down?

Are the  domestic chores getting you down? How about a shot of Dexedrine?[Brand name for dextroamphetamine].  The advertisement claims that "Many housewives -- are crushed under a load of dull, routine duties that leave them in a state of mental and emotional fatigue...Dexedrine will give them a feeling of energy and well-being, renewing their interest in life and living."

Maybe the kids are the problem. don't worry, there are ways of rendering them more compliant.

How about a shot of morphine?

 

It's good for all kinds of problems.

 

  

If Mrs Winslow's magic ingredient does not work perhaps a shot of cocaine might keep the little darlings quiet.

Are the little bastards sweethearts still not getting the message. Maybe a good dose of Nembutal up the ass will slow them down.

Still not 'tranquille'?  Why don't you take a dose of  Nervine?

 

Maybe the kids have set the house on fire but after a good shot of potassium bromide you will not  care what they do.

Cigarette product placements in US films and TV

Have you noticed the increasing number of on-screen smokers in US films and TV series?

I recently watched an episode of a US TV series in which almost everybody lit up a cigarette at every opportunity. That seemed  strange since less than 16% of Americans now smoke tobacco.

I suspect we see so many on-screen smokers because the tobacco industry is paying for product placements. Presumably they are spending their money because they think on-screen smokers make smoking look cool and to persuade the young and gullible to take up this stupid, expensive and very dangerous habit.

The UK has effective legislation on tobacco advertising. These product placements are subverting that legislation.

There is not much that the British government can do to stop this product placement in the US. What it could do is stop smoking scenes being shown in the UK by insisting on the deletion of such scenes from any production being shown in UK cinemas or on UK television. The BBC could take the lead by adopting this policy now, without waiting for government action. [The government might be slow to act because it would have to ask for permission from the US Viceroy Ambassador.]

If a no on-screen smoking policy was in place many US productions could not be shown here. US producers would then have to weigh the money they get from product placement against the loss of UK revenue.

The CIA's criminal stupidity

"In its zeal to identify bin Laden or his family, the CIA used a sham hepatitis B vaccination project to collect DNA in the neighbourhood where he was hiding. The effort apparently failed, but the violation of trust threatens to set back global public health efforts by decades.

The deadly consequences have already begun. Villagers along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border chased off legitimate vaccine workers, accusing them of being spies. Taliban commanders banned polio vaccinations in parts of Pakistan, specifically citing the bin Laden ruse as justification. Then, last December, nine vaccine workers were murdered in Pakistan, eventually prompting the United Nations to withdraw its vaccination teams. Two months later gunmen killed 10 polio workers in Nigeria—a sign that the violence against vaccinators may be spreading."

Full Scientific American story here

The CIA scheme was grossly irresponsible.  It has already lead to dozens of deaths amongst health workers. In the future it will kill or cripple  thousands of unvaccinated children.

Presumably the scheme was thought up by some wannabe who didn't think or care about the consequences. He or she probably just wanted to earn some brownie points with their bosses.

Another reason for the USA to be ashamed.

How they produce tinned grapefruit

Grapefruit

Have you ever eaten tinned grapefruit segments?

Have you ever wondered how the produced those nice clean segments?  How they peeled each grapefruit, separated the segments and removed all the pith?

They must be using some clever machinery, right?

Last night a new TV programme called Food Unwrapped on the UK's Channel Four went to a grapefruit canning factory in Swaziland to see how they really do it?

When the grapefruit arrive at the factory they are steam blanched to soften their skins. Then they go to the peeling and segmenting process.

This turned out not to involve really ingenious machinery but 250 African ladies and their fingernails.
 

The grapefruit were now segmented but still had their pith. To removed that they soaked the segments in what was described as food grade [wtf?] hydrochloric acid. This did the job but left the segments contaminated with the acid.

To get rid of the acid they then washed the grapefruit in caustic soda, another powerful corrosive.

We were told the alkaline caustic soda neutralised the hydrochloric acid and left the segments safe to eat.

Should we believe that?  Well, if I lived  in a  country with a government that took food quality and safety seriously, and the interests of its citizens carried more weight than  the bribes of food industry lobbyists, I might.

Unfortunately, the UK is not such a country and so I do not.

I wonder if the same technique of  hydrochloric acid and caustic soda washes is used to produce other tinned fruit, such as orange segments.

Pro-biotic

The second half of the programme was on the pro-biotic industry.  Where do they get the bacteria they add to products to make them pro-biotic?  I don't think many people who saw the programme will be buying pro-biotic products in the future.

Supplying heroin on prescription

Ken Jones, the president of the UK’s Association of Chief Police Officers, has suggested that more heroin addicts should be able to receive their drug on prescription from the NHS. This used to be the situation in the 1960s, and it worked very well. There were only 5,000 heroin addicts in the UK. Then some tabloid newspapers frightened a weak government with hysterical headlines and we found ourselves in the present war on drugs.

There are now “327,466 hardcore "problem drug users" who are regularly using heroin, crack or cocaine”. An estimated 200,000 of these are addicted to heroin. The average heroin addict commits 423 crimes per year to fund their habit. That’s a total of 8,460,000 crimes each year. The cost to society is huge. If pharmaceutical quality heroin was available free on prescription there would be a reduction in the number of addicts dying each year, and enormous financial savings from reducing the amounts spend on policing, imprisonment and welfare. The costs of supplying the heroin would be trivial compared to the savings.

Jones is to be applauded for his remarks. Of course, heroin should be widely available on prescription. The only obstacle to doing so is the cowardly Labour government who fear the tabloid hysteria that would result if they changed their current failing policies. The Labour government likes to prate about its concern for poor people on council estates who are affected by crime, and have produced lots of half arsed measures such as ASBOs.

It is the people living on council estates who are the main victims of junkies. If the government really wanted to help them then it would eliminate the junkie’s incentive to steal by giving them their drugs free of charge. If it really wanted to destroy drug dealers then the easiest way to do that would be to take away their market.

The Flu Epidemic of 1918

"A bout of the flu can be mild. In young, healthy adults, many infections pass unnoticed. But sometimes the influenza virus evolves into a strain that decimates its victims. The worst known strain swept the world in the Fall of 1918, infecting 500-1000 million and killing 40-100 million, about 2-5% of people."

The World Health Organisation is forecasting another major flu epidemic in the near future.