I like BPA because it's good for my baby!

What do you do when your industry depends on a much-maligned chemical, feared by the public and in danger of government regulation? Apparently you and your colleagues meet at the Cosmos Club and talk strategy. Not surprising, but this time the Post obtained a copy of the notes:

According to internal notes of a private meeting, obtained by The Washington Post, frustrated industry executives huddled for hours Thursday trying to figure out how to tamp down public concerns over the chemical bisphenol A, or BPA. The notes said the executives are particularly concerned about the views of young mothers, who often make purchasing decisions for households and who are most likely to be focused on health concerns.

...

Industry representatives weighed a range of ideas, including "using fear tactics [e.g. "Do you want to have access to baby food anymore?" as well as giving control back to consumers (e.g. you have a choice between the more expensive product that is frozen or fresh or foods packaged in cans) as ways to dissuade people from choosing BPA-free packaging," the notes said.

The attendees estimated it would cost $500,000 to craft a message for a public relations campaign, according to the notes. "Their 'holy grail' spokesperson would be a 'pregnant young mother who would be willing to speak around the country about the benefits of BPA,' " the notes said.

Those in attendance said the mainstream media are ignoring their side of the controversy, and attendees talked about how the group is focusing on "legislative battles and befriending people that are able to manipulate the legislative process," the document said."

To be honest, I don't know enough about the science, but the article goes on to summarize some of the research.

Old Age ...

"... the slow failing of the soft machine."   — Salman Rushdie

Skaffa Review

IKEA is known for providing affordable design to the masses. Or is that Target? In any case, IKEA appears to be proud of the design that goes its products. Walk into any IKEA and there on the wall you will find enormous portraits of the bespectacled, sweater-clad Swedes responsible for the sleek couches, bookcases, tables, desks, chairs, lighting fixtures, colanders, and egg timers found in each warehouse-store. If the photographs could speak they might say, "That $15 Lerberg shelving unit that you are seeing there? Yes, I produced that in in my office one frigid, overcast day in December over a large glass of Julmust."

This emphasis on design makes it all the more difficult to understand the shoddy performance of my Skaffa vacuum flask, purchased some months ago (for a very reasonable sum). As I see it, a vessel such as this should, at a minimum, fulfill the following functional requirements:

1. Keep coffee hot
2. Reliably decant coffee into cup

The Skaffa succeeds admirably in the former case, but fails miserably in the latter. The first and second cups pour elegantly from the spout in a compact, reliable stream. But beyond that, getting coffee in your mug, and not on your newspaper, is remarkably challenging. It is as if one has purchased a gag item from a novelty store. "Watch their faces as the coffee splatters unpredictably in all directions!"

As best I can tell, there is a critical parameter involving the angle of inclination needed for the liquid to reach the spout. Beyond that angle the fluid overshoots the spout, hits the bottom of the screw-on cap, and then leaves the Skaffa in what can only be described as a stochastic process. The defect may be intimately related to the shape of the curve forming the inner profile of the thermos, but that is a guess.

If anyone can recommend a better product, available in the United States, I would be most grateful.

2002

The Obama administration has released four classified Justice Department memos used during the Bush administration to justify "enhanced" interrogation techniques, including this newly revealed practice:

You would like to place Zubaydah in a cramped confinement box with an insect. You have informed us that he appears to have a fear of insects. In particular, you would like to tell Zubaydah that you intend to place a stinging insect into the box with him. You would, however, place a harmless insect in the box. You have orally informed us that you would in fact place a harmless insect such as a caterpillar in the box with him.

Somewhere in the upper reaches of the CIA there is, perhaps, a fan of George Orwell's 1984: [SPOILER ALERT]:

"The worst thing in the world", said O'Brien, "varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal."

He had moved a little to one side, so that Winston had a better view of the thing on the table. It was an oblong wire cage with a handle on top for carrying it by. Fixed to the front of it was something that looked like a fencing mask, with the concave side outwards. Although it was three or four metres away from him, he could see that the cage was divided lengthways into two compartments, and that there was some kind of creature in each. They were rats.

"In your case", said O'Brien, "the worst thing in the world happens to be rats."

A sort of premonitory tremor, a fear of he was not certain what, had passed through Winston as soon as he caught his first glimpse of the cage. But at this moment the meaning of the mask-like attachment in front of it suddenly sank into him. His bowels seemed to turn to water.

You can almost hear Zubayda screaming "Do it to Osama! Do it to Osama!".

James Glassman

So it turns out James Glassman was right after all. Modulo 30,000, that is:

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks saw losses accelerate in the final minutes of trade on Monday, with the Dow industrials losing more than 300 points to trade at fresh 12-year lows. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 300 points, or 3.4%, to 6,761, a level it last traded in January of 1997.