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Thanks, I've already added a couple of those sites to my bookmarks, too bad they don't have RSS feeds. Ill look at some of the rest of them in a bit.

As for me, being Canadian, (but living in Europe) and using a lot of politics with my teaching (English teacher), I try and keep a diversified list. I'll try and list them more by theme than amount visited.

Canadian:
The CBC - Dissapointing RSS feed, they don't have too much/day, but it's always good to see what they have to say on Canadian politcs.
The Globe and Mail - The best site for at least a bit thoughtful Canadian news.
The CTV - OK, pulp, but once in awhile it's interesting to see what pulp has to say about things.
TSN - Sports, got to keep up with hockey and curling, none better.
Macleans - The Canadian equivalent of Time, some of their stuff is really great.

International:
The BBC - Probably the best English language news in the world, enough said.
The Guardian - Better analysis than the BBC, but not the sheer volume.
Al Jazeera - More balanced than what you'd think, at least the English version ... well, except for the editorial cartoons.
NY Times - Amazingly crummy RSS feed, seeing as it's one of the biggest newspapers in the US (but probably still better than the CBC).
Deutche Welle - Not the best site, either, but as I'm living in Germany ...

For actually thinking:
The Christian Science Monitor - I'm not religious, and except for a few things (see their "about us"), neither are they. What they are is the most balanced news in the US I've ever seen. They are thoughtful, honest and as far as I can see don't pander to any particular point of view.
Sign and Sight - This is only if you want to spend some time actually reading, as it's not meant for the masses. It takes articles by thinking people from across Europe and translates them into English.

Others: The Register - Tech news with a British sense of humour, and people think they are biased because of it.
Neil Gaiman's Blog - Not as interesting as it used to be, but I've learnt a lot about the book/publishing world through his blog.

Yes, I'm an information hound, and I like to see as many points of view as possible. I've tried fox news a couple of times, but most of the topics I'm interested in they've just taken things off the wire, so nothing new. What I also do is search google news when I find an article I want to get more points of view on. I don't use the service itself, but they are great for finding out who is saying what about a particular topic - you might even find a new angle that hadn't been said 100 times before.

Report by consulting company hired by apple (benchmarking data between monitor sizes and ROI related info)
http://pfeifferreport.com/Cin_Disp30_Bench_Rep.pdf

New York Times Article
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/20/technology/20bas ics.html?ei=5090&en=6fc17b9bf54ea2ef&ex=1303185600 &adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1169 331633-thFPjylVxCrYamq2v9S3Vw

Microsoft Related Info
http://research.microsoft.com/displayArticle.aspx? id=433

Is this the same Jason Reindorp who said, "Mr. Jobs's call for unrestricted music sales was "irresponsible, or at the very least naïve," (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/technology/07mu sic.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5070&en=82b92ed0fed4782b& ex=1176004800)?
This is just Microsoft spin at its quickest.
(Although he did also say, ""the stars were already aligning" to loosen the restrictions." (Ibid). Nothing like CYA.

You can try to show people HOW it helps you. Like drag them over and show them how it helps you, all the stuff you do to become more productive. You can always send them this. Also this. is a pretty good one. Just some googling will bring up a swathe of articles claiming statistics, usually up to 50%, so at the very least you can use those, or figure out what studies they use.

Personally, I've got a widescreen laptop, and the added screen real state made me start wondering if I should switch to two monitors to increase it even more! Now I have an old CRT screen to the right of me, usually it has all my documentation/references open while I work. For art programs, especially, it is just unbelievably valuable, been thinking about getting an LCD screen for a while, because the CRT is currently too bulky and too small to place where I want it to be (its like 2 feet away, not quite how most people use it). Not to mention, during breaks, I just switch the secondary to watch TV on it, while I can still do small bits of work.

Yes I'm productive during my breaks as well, its easy when you do something you enjoy.

Didn't Sun already do this?.

Embrace and extend, indeed.

Lucent's recent assertion to MP3 patent rights ( http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/technology/23pat ent.html?ex=1329973200&en=6a3c7d2b220acec5&ei=5124 &partner=digg&exprod=digg ) combined with this move by Apple and EMI probably have doomed MP3 to an also-ran status.

If you're not familiar, everyone who licensed the MP3 patents is now being threatened with a lawsuit by Alcatel-Lucent because they co-own the patent rights, but weren't party to all the licensing that was going on before.

cause they've sued over block duplication before

My own personal opinion, opinion because I don't have the extensive scientific training to research and prove it, is that the increased moisture from all animals plus Man is conceivably more responsible for Global Climate Change than greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. And yet not totally rsponsible either. But when you add moisture from respiration to the moisture evaporating off the increased ocean surface the new total begins adding up into a real snowball from hell.

The good side of my opinion is that we could design a wearable mask that would remove excess moisture from human exhale so that we could quite easily lower the amount of moisture increase, launching many positive butterflies. Or clip the wings of one major negative Butterfly named Total Respiration. From what I can tell the scientists at the conference in Brussels (New York Times article > http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/05/science/earth/05 climate.html?th&emc=th ) are well aware that there are many such looming negative butterflies... but what really gets a bit scary is that butterflies group together to procreate new larger butterflies. Ultimately extrapolated out, this means we need to make a really big pre-emptive strike to a total zero emissions engine, not play around with half solution engines, because we cannot know the true size of the snowball. We can however feel confident that the size of this Mega manmade+natural snowball is larger than many asteroids.

Well I hope this holds up, I remember reading an article in the nytimes about google's transportation system: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/technology/10goo gle.html?ei=5088&en=dcb412d03d29e1f6&ex=1331182800 &pagewanted=print and in the article it states: "inside, most riders appeared to abide by the shuttle's etiquette rules. Cellphone conversations are allowed if they are work-related and sotto voce. But loud personal calls are definitely out." This reminded me of the (at the time) FCC impending decision. Technical reasons aside, if any reason should be enough to not allow people to use cellphones on the planes it would be for courtsey and etiquette.

So, gorillas are in, then?

NY Times article

Alstom's own press release, with some additional details on the train configuration and tests

Wikipedia's entry on land speed rail records

One might argue many things, but one's arguement would be for naught.

That washington monthly article is flat out wrong.

The patent office is beholden to no one. It generates profits, so much so that Congress funnels money away to fund their pork. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB 0A14F93F550C7A8DDDAF0894D8404482
The USPTO has generated profits for more than 100 years
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/csmonitor_historic/acc ess/212513212.html?dids=212513212:212513212&FMT=AB S&FMTS=ABS:AI&date=Sep+06%2C+1913&author=&pub=Chri stian+Science+Monitor&desc=PATENT+OFFICE+SHOWS+PRO FIT&pqatl=google
Just because the washingtonmonthly shares your political views doesn't mean it is based on fact.

The USPTO charges more than what it costs to examine patents, and they do not have to grant a patent. They could take the $380, and say sod off. They do this quite often really, and then if you want to appeal you have to pay them more, and they usually still tell you to go away. The additional patent maintence fees is intended to get cost inefficent patents into the public domain, if you do no pay a patent maintence fee within 6 months of the due date (3 of them) then your patent ends before its full term of 20 years. If your patent is making you money, you remember to pay the fee, if you forget your patent expires, forever.

The "explosion" of patents in the 90s was due to the Federal Circuit decision which held 'everything man made' was patentable. Before that decision only a discrete list of things could be patented, which the USPTO fiercely guarded, if the invention was not of a type on the list it was rejected as prima facie unpatentable. But the USPTO must follow the courts decision until the court changes its mind or Congress clarifies their vauge statute. (35 U.S.C. s. 101)

If you have a Bach of Sci, I encourage you to take the patent bar and change the system from within. Educate yourself so we can dispell FUD.

more info in this interesting article http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/business/yourmon ey/11archive.html?ei=5090&en=9bf0874841a9d705&ex=1 331182800&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&

Really, I remember quite good the glass in baby food (company was Gerber) in the late '80's and early '90's. I was still little back then and living in Europe, and even there we had reports of glass shards in baby food. Gerber seemed to try covering it up, but there were hundreds of reports in multiple COUNTRIES, and although the FDA said they didn't found any fractions harmful to babies, I believe that there was some heavy lobbying going on. But now we seemed to have forgotten all about it.

The NYT has this article from back in the days: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=hea lth&res=9A0DE3D71731F931A35750C0A960948260 and here is an essay on it including sources http://www.pillowrock.com/ronnie/gerber.htm

She'll be even faster than the Russian engineer who created gas powered boots. His 22 mph speed would get creamed! http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/17/business/worldbu siness/17gazshoes.html?ex=1175400000&en=67b907f48d 55accb&ei=5070

For the next harvest it looks as though central planning will lead to reduced soy and cotton in favor of corn: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/business/30wire- corn.html. Funny how the State of the Union Speech gets so many mixups.
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Solar: It's more Efficient! http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

The abuse of Wikipedia is far and wide and widely reported. As a result many universities are banning its use in class. The general reliance on Wikipedia for factual information is staggering - just because its easy to search doesn't mean it is accurate information. Instead of the abusive Turnitin service, universities should simply scan papers against the Wikipedia database and this would find 90% of all plagarism.

The bottom 90% is losing ground. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/29tax.h tml?ei=5065&en=f30aed8087a73065&ex=1175745600&part ner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

For example, did you know that A picture with a report in the National Briefing column on Saturday about a revelation by Fife Symington, the former governor of Arizona, that he saw a U.F.O. in 1997 was published in error in some copies. The photograph showed Gov. Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky, not Mr. Symington. Missed that on the BBC this morning, but there it is on the Times online corrections for the day:

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/pageoneplus/corrections .html

But feel free to miss the larger point, feh.

As for Wikipedia itself, anyone who has read much about its accuracy knows that it is relatively close to the online edition of Encylopedia Britannica, at least in terms of the areas that the British journal Nature looked at:

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900 a.html [nature.com]

However, an expert-led investigation carried out by Nature -- the first to use peer review to compare Wikipedia and Britannica's coverage of science -- suggests that such high-profile examples are the exception rather than the rule.

The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three. In other words, Wikipedia is exactly what we learned in elementary school (or should have): encyclopedias are good starting points but are not single sources. They are good to tell you who won the 1983 NCAA men's basketball championship (NC State) but not necessarily authoritive on hot-button political issues like abortion, etc., and that a resposible and careful researcher would go to that dusty old anachronism, the library.

good point, interestingly enough, this recent (like, today) article agrees with your assertion

interesting though that this article about Uranium mineral rights came out today in the NYT as well.

Here is a graph of Uranium prices adjusted for inflation:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/03/27/bus iness/0328-biz-webURANIUM.gif

What is the point of this article?

Prices for uranium have been low for a while so many mines were shut down.
That's changing. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/business/28urani um.html
So the US has domestic sources for uranium, just they have been shut down
waiting for the prices to rise so money could be made.

Actually, the immediate supply problem is coming as a result of some floods and reduced stockpiles. The stockpiles became large because of the conversion of weapons to fuel. This reduced mining activity. You can read more here http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/business/28urani um.html.

On the other hand, there is a limited suppy of ore which makes reliance on nuclear power to avoid further gloabl warming a poor proposition. Converting current power production to all nuclear runs out the recoverable fuel before the new plants end their design lifetimes so nuclear would be much more expensive than anticipated at a lower level of use.
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Get Real! Go solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

then we should make reactors out of rabbits.

the new york times has an article today about the next run of prospectors scooping up claims, curiously enough. free registration etc. required to see

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/business/28urani um.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/business/28urani um.html

There are a lot of unused uranium mines out there, is basically what its saying. That does not address the fundamental problem though, which is that easily fissile uranium 235 exists in a finite quantity, and unless the world is willing to begin building commercial breeder reactors, the supply will run out, around the same time as current fossil fuel reserves if use continues at its current rate.

The NY times reports today http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/science/27marm.h tml the marmoset family of monkeys does this.

There's actually an interesting story, almost the flip side of this rare case in humans, running now in the New York Times about marmosets, in which a form of chimerism is quite widespread:

One of the most surprising results of the study is that over half of male marmosets have chimeric sperm. Dr. Ross and her colleagues discovered cases in which the DNA of male marmosets turned up in babies supposedly fathered by their fraternal twins. In other words, the sperm came from one male, but it had the DNA of the male's brother. A paternity test would show that the baby's genetic father was actually its uncle. The scientists were not able to isolate DNA from marmoset eggs, but they did find that 2 out of 21 marmoset ovaries were chimeric. It's possible that a female marmoset can give birth to nephews and nieces.

The NY Times has an interesting opinion article that is rather highly critical of the YouTube awards. Makes for a good read. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/arts/27tube.html

p.

The best part of the Russian protest thing was the reason given for breaking it up - to protect the the children. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/world/europe/25r ussia.html

Sigh...I know I'm being trolled, but...

OK, fine. Here.

The full article is available lots of places, like here.

Sorry that you're looking to find evidence of anti-conservative bias, but, well...you're just not up to speed on the politics of the 2004 RNC. Those of us who are (both right- and left-wing) would find your defense of...Karl Rove, was it? They'd find it your straw man argument sort of laughable. Last I checked, Bloomberg, Doctoroff, and company are all high-ranking Republicans in the context discussed (NYC). The NYT article I linked to is just the tip of this iceberg, I'm afraid.

Also remember that in our system the only way to challenge a law as unconstitutional is to break it.

I don't think that's true. Four librarians from Connecticut challenged the law without breaking it and won, after which the FBI withdrew the SNL.

What I don't understand is why the FBI doesn't get a good old fashion search warrent signed by a judge in accordance with the fourth amendment. I always thought having a judge sign off on these things was part of the checks and balances designed to prevent abuse.

The why of any moral code is ultimately that which any given society feels is a social rule that is important enough to be ingrained and enforced. ... Ultimately, however, morality is the creation of the people that adhere to it

This is, of course, a very popular and fashionable view at the moment.

I find it quite interesting, however, that those who adhere to this view often make a number of rather glaring exceptions. The best illustration is the question of human rights, as commonly understood to be universal and inalienable. It is impossible, logically, for any construct of a society to be either of those things.

Abstractly and theoretically, we might assent to the idea that human rights are merely a social agreement, with no validity beyond its own adherents. But in reality, most of us do in fact go around accusing other cultures of "human rights violations," as if they had done something... wrong.

Abstractly and theoretically, we might then rationalize this as an everyday power play, imposing our arbitrary preferences upon a weaker entity. But in reality, most of us do in fact feel that we are adhering to justice rather than to self-interest. After all, slave labor enriches us with very inexpensive goods.

Abstractly and theoretically, we might congratulate ourselves for "progressing" to the understanding that slavery is "undesirable." But in reality, most of us do in fact understand that slavery was always wrong in the past, is still wrong today, and will continue to be wrong in the future, regardless of what society decides. After all, we do not say to an African-American, "You deserve freedom today, but you did not deserve it 150 years ago, prior to our deciding that you do. And you'd better hope that we don't decide differently tomorrow."

Whence relativism, then?

--
Dum de dum.

By coincidence, a NYT article seems relevant: Brain injuries affect morality:

I liked your post, and it got me thinking and googling a bit. I think you're roughly, essentially correct, though of course one can debate the minutia of these things endlessly. Here are some added observations:

Roughly 50% electricity in the US is from coal, 20% nuclear, 15% natural gas, 15% hydro and what not. (One reference.) Natural gas produce around 60% of coal's CO2, and nuclear and others are negligible in comparison (there are emissions from mining ore and uranium refinement, but they're around 2% of coal's). So overall your CO2 emissions for electricity are overstated for the average American by nearly a factor of two.

CO2 emmissions from gasoline are roughly 80% of its total emissions, if you factor in pumping, refining, and transporting the oil and gasoline. (NYTimes reference), so your vehicle emissions are understated. (There will be some CO2 emissions related to electric plant production as well, but I think considerably less.) That's an unusually power-hungry computer, and if your office's computers aren't configured to go into a sleep mode after some period of inactivity, they really should be. Hard drives should power down, energy-star monitors should idle, etc., and the remaining power consumption should be greatly reduced.

If your office is running A/C, the A/C has to continuously cool that 140W used by your computer, considerably adding to its overall energy consumption. (Similarly, the computer would help reduce heating expenses).

In general though, yeah, an average American, driving a Prius 15,000 miles a year, might save CO2 emissions equivalent to running a 200 watt lightbulb continuously for that year. It's not a big chunk of most people's total carbon footprint (heating and cooling a McMansion dwarf these numbers), but it is something. Personally, I think it's still a good choice, if the Prius otherwise fits most of your transit needs, just like you should turn off power hungry computers and 200 watt lightbulbs when you won't use them for days. But all of these things are a drop in the bucket, considering the big picture.

That is absolutely correct. Ketosis, of course, should not be compared to ketoacidosis; the latter is what the former does to some people with impaired systems. I actually wrote a fairly long article on the Atkins diet for Everything2 because the writeups under that node were largely incorrect. I got inspired to write it by a NYT article entitled What if it's all Been a Big Fat Lie? by Gary Taubes. (Especially read that last link if you are still a doubter, although it does not appear the entire article is there.)

David Byrne agrees with you -- he believes that thanks to the Internet, artists don't need the music labels as much anymore, which means if the RIAA wants to stick around, it better find a way to adapt to the times.

I blogged on this a while back. Kyoto was modeled on the Montreal Protocol and now both are in bad shape. Here's a fresh link in the NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/business/worldbu siness/15warming.html to look at if you want to read the blog which links to an older and now subscription only article http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/02/heir-of-leader ship.html.

Looks like he's spitting the dummy now that he is out of the loop. MS are not a search company

http://www.live.com/?searchonly=true&mkt=en-US

MS dont want to be a search company

• The Battle For Better Search (April 2005)
• New Microsoft Browser Raises Google's Hackles (May 1 2006)
• Microsoft Wants More Search Share (October 27 2006)
• Microsoft puts Live services into the Labs (January 26 2006)

but as is the way when you are a perceived are the dominant IT player you must be seen to 'compete' with all the 'upstarts' to keep the share holders happy

• Online Search Hits All-Time High; Google Dominant
• (March 3 2006)
• Yahoo! gives up quest for search dominance (January 24 2006)
• Does search engine's power threaten Web's independence? (October 31 2002)

so your business heads gob off about how stupid the opposition business heads are.

Right. That's why google has to be "fucking kill"ed instead of just being allowed to die on its own.

I think most people are going to be very surprised when they realise where MS see their future and while they are currently getting slaughtered in many sections of the press over Vista they are quietly laying the ground work for the next phase, which is largely why there has been so little reaction from Redmond to the adverse press.

Vista IS the groundwork for the next phase. Everything Microsoft does is intended to extend their control over the market. Not a surprise, but still true.

Here's the original NY Times article with a half dozen pictures of the contraption and on a single page:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/17/business/worldbu siness/17gazshoes.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted =all

Well, if you are curious, here is a link about how renewables fit on the chart in Germany: http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid /40568/story.htm. Yes that is 11.8% of the electric power supply. Renewables are cheaper and better. You just have to do them at scale, and doing them at scale is much easier than for nuclear power.

You may also be interested in this link: http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=2 7013. Again, it is hard to see getting a new nuclear reactor even approved in a decade, but renewables are set to surpase nuclear power in about 18 years.

This is also where the smart money is: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/technology/14val ley.html.

So, while there are some who have not thought this through very well, who look to nuclear power as an answer to global warming, there is little likelihood that nuclear power can contribute anything of significance to that effort and would really only waste time and money. Look to France for good math, good wine and good friends, but watch Germany for engineering trends. Wait, germans make good friends too though it is spooky how many hits I get from there on my blog. Hey, good physics, good beer, you know the stuff.... You're just wrong about ULIRGs....

Actually there is a link between the ozone layer and warming but it is a bit complex. The refrigerant substituted to help protect the ozone layer is also a potent greenhouse gas. And, as India and China produce more air conditioners, we are getting more of it into the atmosphere. I've blogged on it here http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/02/heir-of-leader ship.html and here is a fresher NYT link http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/business/worldbu siness/15warming.html since the one in the blog will use up one of your subscription points.

Famine is NOT worse than ever, in fact last year was the first time in which there were more obese people than malnourished people worldwide. Famine is really only a problem in nations which follow collectivist economic principles, like Zimbabwe. If people really want to save the world, they should start by hunting down socialist politicians and shooting them all dead.

Desertification is improving dramatically. The grasslands of the Sahel are expanding, pushing back the south edge of the Sahara Desert all over North Africa.

Overpopulation is a problem, but not even remotely as bad as Erlich and his acolytes predicted. And the rate of growth is decreasing, and in many places going below zero population growth, because of the improvements in health and nutrition and well-being brought about by free-market capitalism.

-ccm

Like Canadian Environment Minister Christine Stewart (a nurse by training, if you can believe that):

"No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits. . . Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."

As long as the public faces of the global warming scare are building vast energy-hogging mansions, flying around the world in private jets, and shooting down alternative-power proposals that clash with their refined aesthetic sensibilities, I will assume they are all power-crazed liars and mountebanks of the ilk of Christine Stewart.

We are being asked to overturn the very edifice of free-market capitalism, on the basis of wild speculation about the significance of mere statistical noise, teased out of scant and questionable data by grant-chasing academics, and shouted hysterically by power-mad left-wing politicians who won't abide by the same draconian regulations they advocate for the rest of us. No thanks. I'm going to keep living my life as I please.

-ccm

"Granted most of them are girls lip-synching into a webcam"

Yes, and lip-synching copyrighted songs they did not pay the statutory fee for most likely, hence copyright infringement.

And Grokster lost at the Supreme Court level and was shut down.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/08/technology/08gro kster.html?ex=1289106000&en=1065d46839f08b9f&ei=50 90&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grokster

My wife was a lawyer and now she is in her medical residency. I mention this because I want you to understand both my bias and how much previous discussion I'm likely to have had on this topic :)

First, a problem with your statistics. Some specialists are a lot more likely to be sued than others. Anyone involved with childbirth will get sued, no matter how good they are, because babies die all the time and parents often sue. Anesthesiologists get sued all the time because they sit in on every medical procedure, from the benign to the extremely risky. Every anesthesiologist gets sued, AFAIK. So here you have two specialist groups that get sued very often, and they make up less than 5% of doctors. This skews the statistics very fiercely. Also, that statistic would be less misleading if it were "5% of doctors are responsible for 54% of settlements". Get the subjective "most" out of there, because the other 46% is still a buttload of lawsuits.

In fact, a 1999 study found that the doctors with the best credentials are the ones most likely to get sued. In other words, these lawsuits are having an effect very different from what is intended.

My wife and I feel that doctors do not do enough to attack this problem. One thing that they can do, obviously, is be stronger about stripping licenses from bad doctors. The other thing that they can do is strip licenses from doctors who make a living giving bogus "expert" testimony. As my wife says, "No expert witness, no lawsuit." The problem is that doctors are loathe to self-regulate. They really need to step up and just do it - it would probably end the crisis all by itself.

However, I still find the idea of sending the punitive damages to a separate fund intriguing, and maybe applicable to other types of suits. Even if doctors fix their problems, other industries are no doubt seeing the same poisonous effects from our current tort system.

The FDA should ask the NIH to award the research to a qualified lab based on competence and independence, and the award should be funded through the NIH using the funds of the firm that needs the research.

What? You trust the NIH?

"It was Ancel Keys, paradoxically, who introduced the low-fat-is-good-health dogma in the 50's with his theory that dietary fat raises cholesterol levels and gives you heart disease. Over the next two decades, however, the scientific evidence supporting this theory remained stubbornly ambiguous. The case was eventually settled not by new science but by politics. It began in January 1977, when a Senate committee led by George McGovern published its ''Dietary Goals for the United States,'' advising that Americans significantly curb their fat intake to abate an epidemic of ''killer diseases'' supposedly sweeping the country. It peaked in late 1984, when the National Institutes of Health officially recommended that all Americans over the age of 2 eat less fat. By that time, fat had become ''this greasy killer'' in the memorable words of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and the model American breakfast of eggs and bacon was well on its way to becoming a bowl of Special K with low-fat milk, a glass of orange juice and toast, hold the butter -- a dubious feast of refined carbohydrates.

In the intervening years, the N.I.H. spent several hundred million dollars trying to demonstrate a connection between eating fat and getting heart disease and, despite what we might think, it failed. Five major studies revealed no such link. A sixth, however, costing well over $100 million alone, concluded that reducing cholesterol by drug therapy could prevent heart disease. The N.I.H. administrators then made a leap of faith. Basil Rifkind, who oversaw the relevant trials for the N.I.H., described their logic this way: they had failed to demonstrate at great expense that eating less fat had any health benefits. But if a cholesterol-lowering drug could prevent heart attacks, then a low-fat, cholesterol-lowering diet should do the same. ''It's an imperfect world,'' Rifkind told me. ''The data that would be definitive is ungettable, so you do your best with what is available.''

Some of the best scientists disagreed with this low-fat logic, suggesting that good science was incompatible with such leaps of faith, but they were effectively ignored."

(http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res= 9F04E2D61F3EF934A35754C0A9649C8B63&sec=health&spon =&pagewanted=all)

The NIH is for sale like any other government agency. If you have an agenda to push, just show up with your bag of cash and a representative will be with you shortly.