U.S. Government Protecting Heparin Killers

From the Wall St Jr, May 10, 2008:

"The Food and Drug Administration is withholding a list of Chinese heparin suppliers requested by congressional investigators looking into problems with tainted supplies of the blood thinner, saying confidentiality agreements prevent release of the companies' names."

The American Idealist simply asks this question:

What kind of government do we have in the United States when the Food and Drug Administration, who functions at the pleasure of the President of the United States, is protecting foreign companies who we suspect of deliberately contaminating a drug to increase their profits? A drug that has killed over 80 people in the United States. A drug that is commonly and widely used in surgical procedures.

The American Idealist says the Bush Administration has its head buried in the sand as it fights phantoms in Iraq, squanders our tax dollars, and resources, and protects its cronies and business partners over the security, welfare and health of citizens of the United States.

Bloggers Unite for Human Rights

The American Idealist supports "Bloggers Unite for Human Rights."

Please visit their web page: http://unite.blogcatalog.com/

The American Ideal blog has many stories on Human Rights including Myanmar and the effects of our political decisions on both our own U.S. citizen's human rights as well as those we impact around the world.

Please see our stories on Myanmar, Iraq Camp Bucca, Groom Verdict Sean Bell, and others.

Wolf Blitzer Interviews Hillary Clinton - What Should Happen to BIG Oil

Wolf Blitzer is interviewing Hillary Clinton this afternoon and the American Idealist can tell you that while I voted for Barack Obama in the primary I can get behind Hillary too.

What I liked about the interview this afternoon is that Hillary was relaxed, confident and forthcoming. Showing good leadership Clinton said something that I recently also read in Barack's book, the Audacity of Hope.

Oil companies in this country should not be receiving subsidies from taxpayers. They are making windfall profits out of all proportion to what they have invested to make those profits, and those windfall profits should be taxed and the money put into a fund for truly objective and innovative alternative energy research.

The last time I saw a bunch of lies told before Congress was with the tobacco industry executives who tried to convince us that smoking is good for you. The testimony of the oil executives in the past couple months was the same.

Who really believes BIG OIL is going to to ANYTHING other than protect their own big oil interests? The next time you watch one of those pathetic oil industry P.R. commercials telling you they are spending money in your interest to explore and find new sources of energy, think...

"We're taking your tax dollars to subsidize our outrageous profits and
lifestyles, the highest recorded profits in history - 'Exxon
Mobil's staggering $40.6 billion earnings for 2007 drive the truth home: There's
no business on the planet that gushes forth more profit than selling oil—nothing
even close,' and we're not going to anything to jeopardize that because
we now make more money than most small countries, and don't think for a New
York second, that we aren't hard at work investing them in lobbying efforts,
advertising, and promotion to convince you the people to let us keep them!"

Hoover Wind Tunnel 2 "a lot of 'hot air'"

Our home has the Hoover "Wind Tunnel" 2 vacuum cleaner. We bought it at Kohl's department store with a 30% off Kohl's catalog coupon a couple years ago, and the machine still cost about $200.

Hoover markets the vacum as the best. A competitor to the Dyson which starts at $500. As a consumer you can try to do some research on the web which we did, however, all but the most upscale department stores these days have no customer support. Certainly no one that actually has any product knowledge about various products the store sells. This is as true for Kohl's as it is for Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy etc. The possible exception is Sears and to a lessor extent JC Penny who actually do have people with some appliance product knowledge working in the stores.

What the American Idealist can tell you about the Wind Tunnel 2 is that it has great suction. That thing can suck a golf ball through a garden hose as the saying goes. Of course the operator is penalized by having to push around a machine that weighs as much as a small motorcyle and has far worse wheels and axles.

Bigger problems come into play where the "bag-less" feature and so called HEPA "self-cleaning" filter are involved. For one thing, the self-cleaning HEPA constantly clogs with pet hair even when you empty the bag-less dust catcher with every use! The stupid HEPA won't even rotate any more on our vacum and we have manually cleaned and made sure no pet hair or any other obstruction is clogging it!

Furthermore, Hoover has poorly engineered this machine because you can't even change the HEPA filter yourself. You have to take the vacum into a professional for servicing! What is that? An attempt by Hoover to try to enter the same market as computer printer manufacturers and copy machine purveyors who require you to only get your toner from them?

As my wife and I have said numerous times, "we wouldn't buy another one!"

Evil Alive and Well in Myanmar

As its people suffer and die from lack of food and water the Tribune Newspapers reported this morning that the country's military are simultaneously turning away aid and at the same time they are loading tons of good rice for export through its main port on Friday, May 8, 2008 bound for Bangladesh.

"Four of Thilawa port's five berths for oceangoing container vessels were empty, but a crane was loading large white sacks into the hold of a freighter. The sacks were
filled with rice destined for Bangladesh, according to the drivers of at least
10 transport trucks waiting to deliver several tons more rice to the docks.The
junta has a monopoly on rice exports and said this week that it plans to meet
commitments to sell rice, which has reached record-high prices on the world
market, to countries including Bangladesh and Sri Lanka even though Myanmar's
main rice-producing region suffered the worst cyclone damage. The cyclone caused
massive destruction in the Irrawaddy River delta, where farmers are now
desperate for food.Yet as rice was loaded onto a freighter for export at
Thilawa, cyclone survivors in nearby villages said authorities had handed out
rations of rotting rice, apparently from ruined stocks in the port's warehouse.
The storm soaked about 40 percent of the stored rice supplies, according to the
chief driver, who did not want to be named to avoid problems with government
officials."

For anyone that does not believe the very essence of Evil, Lucifer, or the Devil exists...you need to look no further.

Myanmar/Burma Give People a Chance

What kind of government denies its people urgent and needed help from neighbors that would save lives?

Clarification from the Jr on Oil Bubble

This blogger just corresponded with the Journal's Phil Izzo who pointed out he is

"just reporting what the economists in our survey said. The Wall Street Journal isn't declaring there's no bubble in the commodities market. The majority of the economists in this survey are," and "Only 11%"...of economists... "chose speculation, which is the only choice that would indicate the market is facing bubble conditions."

The American Idealist takes this point well, but also points out that the survey the Journal conducted appears to be complex enough that even their own article states, '"It's a combination of demand and supply issues," said Joseph Carson of AllianceBernstein."

I would still like to see more reporting on the deregulation points that CNN made.