Category: Wasting your time

An oped in today’s Journal by Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace, argues that he left the organization because it abandoned scientific justifications for its advocacy. Moore argues:

At first, many of the causes we championed, such as opposition to nuclear testing and protection of whales, stemmed from our scientific knowledge of nuclear physics and marine biology. But after six years as one of five directors of Greenpeace International, I observed that none of my fellow directors had any formal science education. They were either political activists or environmental entrepreneurs. Ultimately, a trend toward abandoning scientific objectivity in favor of political agendas forced me to leave Greenpeace in 1986.

The breaking point was a Greenpeace decision to support a world-wide ban on chlorine. Science shows that adding chlorine to drinking water was the biggest advance in the history of public health, virtually eradicating water-borne diseases such as cholera. And the majority of our pharmaceuticals are based on chlorine chemistry. Simply put, chlorine is essential for our health.

Having no formal science education myself, I don’t know what to think of where he goes next: to a discussion of banning phthalates in consumer products. In both California and the European Union, regulators have acted to prohibit phthalates in some consumer products. In other areas of consumer protection, California and the EU are ahead of other political bodies, and so, I’ve always assumed that the ban was justified by some finding of consumer risk. Moore seems to think the bans aren’t justified, and that Israel and the EU are going back on the bans:

Phthalates are the new bogeyman. These chemicals make easy targets since they are hard to understand and difficult to pronounce. Commonly used phthalates, such as diisononyl phthalate (DINP), have been used in everyday products for decades with no evidence of human harm. DINP is the primary plasticizer used in toys. It has been tested by multiple government and independent evaluators, and found to be safe.

[…]

The antiphthalate activists are running a campaign of fear to implement their political agenda. They have seen success in California, with a state ban on the use of phthalates in infant products, and are pushing for a national ban. This fear campaign merely distracts the public from real environmental threats.

We all have a responsibility to be environmental stewards. But that stewardship requires that science, not political agendas, drive our public policy.

Well, since we first wrote about losing Plan9, Higher Grounds, Satellite Ballroom and Just Curry for a worthless CVS, the C-Ville has picked up the story (here too) as well as the Hook. Good for them. I take back my sniping comments about them ignoring the Corner district.

A few things are clear from these articles. One is that Terry Vassalos is using weasel-talk. He says in the C-Ville article:

“They look at the space, yes,” says Vassalos. “I cannot go into the details. There are a lot of people involved, the people that are there, the new people, and I cannot say anything about the details of the contracts.”

Weasel words if I’ve ever seen them. If Just Curry is already moving out it’s clear he’s made them unwelcome in that space, with or without a worthless CVS moving in. Second, he says:

Vassalos says he understands that some people might be upset about Plan 9, Satellite, and Just Curry loosing their leases, and points out that he’s been a steward of small business on the Corner for years. “But as a business man…,” he says with a shrug and a smile. Indeed, considering that CVS would probably pay a hefty price for the space, and would likely renovate extensively, a deal with the chain might be too good to pass up.

“Besides, I don’t think the Corner should be all bars and restaurants,” Vassalos adds, echoing his past statements. “…more retail will be good for the Corner.”

This makes no sense. It should be perfectly possible for a store to move into the Plan 9 space and not displace the best music venue in town (where I saw TMBG last Sunday and it rocked). Why not divide the space up and lease them separately? The Plan9 space is completely separate from Satellite and Just Curry and there is more than enough room in Plan9 for a convenience store.

It’s clear that CVS or not, this isn’t just a business decision. Vassalos wants these businesses that Plan9 sublet to out of his building. And does CVS really qualify as “retail”? Sure, they sell crap, but it’s the same stuff that’s at the 3 convenience stores and student bookstore already on the Corner. All this will do is hurt local businesses – the three businesses already in the space, the three local convenience stores on the corner that will have to compete with a national chain, and the restaurants and bars that benefit from having a music venue to draw people other than students to the Corner.

I’m irritated that a small-minded landlord like Vassalos is willing to do so much damage to the culture of the Corner, and just shrug it off as a business decision. I call bullshit. As long as I live I won’t frequent what he moves in there, or his other businesses like Tip Top Diner or the College Inn. I’ll also encourage everyone I know to do the same. We don’t need to encourage landlords like Vassalos to hurt our community for an easy buck by frequenting his establishments.

I’ve lived in Charlottesville Virginia now for about 8 years and one of the great things I love about it is the Corner community. I have a bar I like, there is a good music at the Satellite Ballroom where I plan on seeing They Might Be Giants this month. We’ve got lots of local businesses and restaurants where you feel like you’re experiencing something unique and your money goes to local people you know and like.

Then you hear crappy news like 4 local businesses are going to get shut down to put in a national chain store like a CVS and it’s like a punch in the gut. In this case, the Corner is losing Plan9 (our local record store), Higher Grounds (the non-Starbucks coffee joint), the Satellite Ballroom (the last remaining music venue on the corner), and Just Curry (the best meal you can get in under a minute not to mention the source of my favorite local ad).

This just breaks my heart. 4 local businesses gone, and probably a couple more after CVS drives out the local competition. I realize this is just capitalism at work. The landlord will surely enjoy a regular check from a national corporation rather than rely on 4 locals whose business may fluctuate with the economy. But still, just the complete absence of consideration of what this will do to the community, to these local business owners, and just for the culture of the Corner is so disappointing. After all, what do we get out of this move? Another convenience store to join the 3 others on the corner (which likely will also sink)? Another CVS to join the half-dozen others scattered about town? And what do we lose? We’re losing what I think is the best music venue in town in terms of cost, variety (everything from local to national bands), and location (the only one on the corner), a great independent music store with wifi access and coffee shop that’s fun to hang out in, and an awesome little restaurant. I wish the landowners involved would think a little more about what impact their decisions have on the community rather than just their individual self-interest as naive as that sounds.

Worse yet, since it is the Corner our local news magazines the C-Ville and the Hook will likely ignore it since they rarely pay attention to what happens in the Corner/student district. I hope they decide to slum it for a while, come down here, and start reporting on this disaster because once businesses like this leave, they’re gone forever. Otherwise one day I’ll return to Charlottesville and the culture that once made it so interesting will be gone. If we don’t stand up for our local businesses our little community will one day consist of nothing but Starbucks and Applebee’s. I’ve lived in towns like that before, it sucks, trust me.

I’ve been AWOL from Denialism Blog because one of my UC-Berkeley projects has become all-consuming.

I’m interested in sparking a market for identity theft protection. A real one. One where consumers can actually make choices among banks based on their actual ability to address security attacks. Last year, I published Identity Theft: Making the Unknown Knowns Known, (PDF) an article making a legal and policy argument in favor of mandated public disclosure of identity theft statistics by banks.

In this vein, today, I’m releasing “Measuring Identity Theft at Top Banks (Version 1.0),” my first attempt to rank the top 25 US banks according to their relative incidence of identity theft. It is based on consumer-submitted complaints to the FTC where the victim identified an institution. The data show that some institutions have a far greater incidence of identity theft than others. If you don’t want to open the PDF, check out the Times coverage and peek at this chart!

I’ve spent the last few months working with an excellent journalist on the Anonymity Experiment, which will appear in this month’s Popular Science magazine. In it, Catherine Price attempts to live a normal life without revealing personal data:

…when this magazine suggested I try my own privacy experiment, I eagerly agreed. We decided that I would spend a week trying to be as anonymous as possible while still living a normal life. I would attempt what many believe is now impossible: to hide in plain sight.

[…]

Tall and friendly, Hoofnagle has an enthusiastic way of talking about privacy violations that could best be described as “cheerful outrage.” He laid out my basic tasks: Pay for everything in cash. Don’t use my regular cellphone, landline or e-mail account. Use an anonymizing service to mask my Web surfing. Stay away from government buildings and airports (too many surveillance cameras), and wear a hat and sunglasses to foil cameras I can’t avoid. Don’t use automatic toll lanes. Get a confetti-cut paper shredder for sensitive documents and junk mail. Sign up for the national do-not-call registry (ignoring, if you can, the irony of revealing your phone number and e-mail address to prevent people from contacting you), and opt out of prescreened credit offers. Don’t buy a plane ticket, rent a car, get married, have a baby, purchase land, start a business, go to a casino, use a supermarket loyalty card, or buy nasal decongestant. By the time I left Hoofnagle’s office, a week was beginning to sound like a very long time.

Her week is very interesting, and she experiences some funny anecdotes in buying a wireless phone anonymously, getting to and from San Francisco, and using the internet with anonymous proxies. Worth a read!

Today, I joined about 100 hooligans in the anti-scientology protest in San Francisco, as part of Project Chanology, a large-scale effort to call attention to abuses committed by the cult of Scientology. Many protestors had serious signs that called attention to the various ways in which Scientology censors speech and defrauds people. But after watching this crazy video of Tom Cruise, the Viking and I decided that the real victim of all this craziness is Katie Holmes. Poor Katie.

Life often imitates art.

For the benefit of Teresa and her son, here’s a description of a day in the life. This may not be all medstudents on the surgical rotation, but at the moment it’s what I’m doing.

I wake up around 4AM, put on scrubs (usually, but on clinic day you dress nice), and go to work. I spend about an hour going over labs, checking vitals from overnight, in and outs as they say, and visiting with patients to ask them how their night was as well as performing a brief physical exam. I then round with my team for about half an hour, and for the patients I track, I try to present them to the residents without making a total hash of it. A historical note, several medical terms come from Johns Hopkins, including “rounding” and “residents”. Rounds came from the fact that their hospital was circular, so you literally did a round of each floor when you visited each patient. Resident came from the fact that the doctors-in-training were worked so hard they lived in the hospital during this period. Hooray for the new hours rules.

6AM – morning report, a hand-off from the night shift of the cases from the last evening. Usually a great learning experience as the residents’ presentation is an opportunity to see how experienced docs present cases, patient histories, and make diagnoses.

7AM – class, a clinician visits the medstudents and gives us a lecture on something they know a lot about. This is often my favorite part of the day since the professor teaching is usually describing their job, and since they tend to love their jobs, they love teaching us about their jobs. Also you can eat breakfast.

8AM – unless it’s a clinic day, you head to the OR for cases. You observe, help in any way you can, and see what surgery is all about.

3-7PM – usually I’ve been out by 7 at the latest, but it’s hard at first staying on your feet for so long. After about 10 days you’re acclimated though and don’t mind anymore. You find your team, see your patients again, prepare for the next day’s cases and then usually go home unless you’re on call. Any time you have to spare you read.

You can try to study when you get home but more often then not I just fall asleep immediately. I tried watching the Sarah Connor Chronicles this week. It was an error. I fell asleep during the first 15 minutes then had nightmares all night that I would never amount to anything because no one has bothered to send a robot back in time to kill me. How’s that for low self esteem?

Weed via vending machine.

No I’m not kidding.