Category: News

(NaturalNews) Mesothelioma doesn’t have to be fatal. This rare form of lung cancer has long been feared by workers exposed to asbestos in their work environments, and much of that fear is justified: This form of cancer can be deadly. But it doesn’t always have to be.

There are natural ways to greatly extend life, even for those suffering from mesothelioma. Most are based on nutritional therapies, as you’ll see below. It may seem counterintuitive to suppose that nutrition could play a role in a disease caused by a physical substance (asbestos), but in fact, antioxidants and phytonutrients that support healthy cellular protection can play a substantial role in preventing the onset of cancer.

Below, we’ve collected research from a number of noted natural health authors who explain more about what really causes mesothelioma and how to better protect yourself against it using nutritional therapies. It’s not a huge collection of solutions, but the information you’ll find here should provide more clues for further research.

This is a unique collection of research exclusive to NaturalNews. If you use any quotes from this research, please provide proper credit to both NaturalNews and the original author of the quote.

Natural remedies to help prevent mesothelioma
Asbestos causes cancer, particularly lung cancer and mesothelioma, a rare cancer of the membrane lining the chest or abdominal wall. Exposure to asbestos has also been shown to cause cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, stomach, intestines, rectum, and kidney. Smoking greatly increases the likelihood of lung cancer in people exposed to asbestos. One study found that asbestos-exposed smokers have ten times the death rate from lung cancer as exposed nonsmokers. Kidney cancer and gastrointestinal cancers also have been associated with asbestos.
– Staying Healthy in a Risky Environment: The New York University Medical Center Family Guide by Arthur C. Upton, M.D.

In a 1998 study done in Western Australia, 1024 blue asbestos workers known to be at high risk of diseases such as mesothelioma and lung cancer, were enrolled in a cancer prevention program using vitamin A. Half the subjects were given 30 mg per day of beta carotene and the other half 7500 mcg (25,000 IU) of retinol. The workers were followed up from the start of the study in June 1990 until May 1995. Four cases of lung cancer and three cases of mesothelioma were observed in those in the vitamin A group, and six cases of lung cancer and 12 cases of mesothelioma in the beta carotene group.
– The New Encyclopedia of Vitamins, Minerals, Supplements and Herbs by Nicola Reavley

In Louisiana, a study of lung cancer showed fruit intake to be protective, while a small study of mesothelioma suggested that vegetable and carotenoid intake lowers the risk (NCI, 1988). The National Cancer Institute also announced that it had awarded over half a million dollars to the New York Botanical Garden to undertake a worldwide search for natural plant substances that might fight cancer. At the same time, NCI has established a Cancer Nutrition Laboratory and worked out elaborate plans to study “dietary factors associated with cancer risk”.
– The Cancer Industry by Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D.

Today, nine years after his “death sentence” diagnosis, Mr. Kraus is alive with a good quality of life. He has written a book about his healing journey Surviving Mesothelioma and Other Cancers: A Patient’s Guide. He also holds free bi-monthly teleconferences so that other mesothelioma patients can speak directly to him and ask questions. Mr. Kraus is not a doctor and does not provide medical advice, but as a patient he is able to share his own insights into how he has healed and managed his mesothelioma.
– World’s Longest Living Mesothelioma Survivor

Cigarette smoke is the major cause of the common bronchogenic carcinoma of the lung, but it does not cause the less common mesothelioma of the lung. Asbestos causes both mesotheliomas and bronchogenic carcinomas. Certain aniline dyes (especially 2-naphthylamine) cause bladder cancer, but little of any other kind of cancer. A similar specificity probably also applies to cancers whose cause or causes have not yet been identified, because the incidences of the different kinds of cancer tend to vary independently.
– Diet, Nutrition and Cancer by Committee on Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer, Assembly of Life Sciences National Research Council

Even cancers that were once thought to be caused by mechanical injury (such as asbestos-caused mesothelioma) now turn out to have a free radical component. In the last decade, research on antioxidants has come to the fore as an important component of any anticancer program. Antioxidants fight cancer at every level and every stage. Along with other plant-based nutrients, they are our first and strongest defense against cancers of many kinds.
– Antioxidants Against Cancer: How to activate your bod natural healing powers with today’s most protective and immune-boosting supplements and foods by Ralph Moss, PhD

Asbestos workers have increased risk of developing an unusual form of lung cancer called mesothelioma. Smoking and secondary smoke are the main reasons lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths. Radiation, charcoal steaks, too much fat in our diet, saccharin, and the many other chemicals found in herbicides and pesticides are what medical literature refers to as carcinogens, or those things that increase our risk of developing cancer.
– What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know About Nutritional Medicine May Be Killing You by Ray D. Strand

The highest frequency of mutations reported in human cancers are lung, 56%; colon, 50%; esophagus, 45%; ovary, pancreas, and skin, 44%; stomach, 41%; head and neck, 37%; bladder, 34%; prostate, 30%; and breast, endometrium, and mesothelioma, 22% (Greenblatt et al. 1994). Nearly 20% of women treated for ovarian cancer develop other tumors beyond the abdomen. A mutation in the tumor suppressor gene appears to predispose some women with ovarian cancer to distant and rapid tumor spread, according to data from the University of Iowa Health Care Study.
– Disease Prevention and Treatment by The Life Extension Editorial Staff

This is called mesothelioma. Once a rare disease, it has now become common among asbestos workers. Other kinds of cancer are also typical results of asbestos exposure. It was once thought that only asbestos workers were in danger of these diseases. It is now known, however, that people who have worked near asbestos, and even people who have lived in proximity to it, are also in danger. Since these diseases take a long time to reveal themselves, often as long as thirty years, the millions of workers exposed during and after World War II are only now beginning to show up in the cancer clinics.
– The Cancer Industry by Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D.

Burton submitted to OTA a case study of 11 patients who had been treated at his clinic for a deadly form of cancer called mesothelioma. This small study claimed that patients treated with IAT lived three to four times the national average of conventionally-treated patients. Some were in fact long-term survivors. This was important news, for mesothelioma is almost uniformly and rapidly fatal. But OTA never even commented on these findings.
– The Cancer Industry by Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D.

Asbestos exposure can cause a variety of illnesses, including lung cancer, asbestosis, and mesothelioma, a type of tumor. Cancers of the larynx, oral cavity, kidney, and colon are sometimes attributed to asbestos as well. Only qualified contractors should do asbestos removal. One household item that can cause a lot of problems is carpeting. Some of the chemicals commonly used in carpeting have been shown to have an adverse effect on health. One suspect chemical is 4-phenylcyclohexene (4-PC), a by-product of the production of styrene-butadiene.
– Prescription for Nutritional Healing, 4th Edition: A Practical A-to-Z Reference to Drug-Free Remedies Using Vitamins, Minerals, Herbs and Food Supplements by Phyllis A. Balch, CNC

Ironically, humans exposed to fine particle zeolites in their lungs may develop a form of cancer called mesothelioma. [Journal National Cancer Institute 98: 414-17, 2006] Zeolites have metal chelating, toxin-removing, even oxygen-removing properties, which means they will act to reduce oxidation of tissues when taken internally. Zeolites have been tested in animals and have performed favorably without toxicity to reduce the number and size of tumors.
– You Don’t Have to be Afraid of Cancer Anymore by Bill Sardi

In 2004, Tom was diagnosed with a rare cancer, called mesothelioma, which is most often associated with exposure to asbestos, and from which virtually no one survives. He was told by his doctors that he had only a few months to live. While going about his work of raising marine phytoplankton to feed the shellfish, as an experiment, Tom began consuming half a teaspoon of the concentrated microalgae each day along with a drink of water. Within a few weeks he astounded his doctors with his recovery. A subsequent biopsy examination found no malignancy evident in his body.
– Conscious Health: A Complete Guide to Wellness Through Natural Means by Ron Garner

Of pivotal importance is the question of whether the companies concerned knew about the hazards of asbestos products prior to the 1964 report by Selikoff on the high incidence of lung cancer, mesothelioma, and asbestosis in insulation workers, when they claimed they were first made aware of this, and what use if any they then made of this information. The primary defense in such cases is that there was no medical or scientific information on risks from asbestos-containing products prior to 1964.
– The Politics of Cancer Revisited by Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.

Other ailments include the respiratory disease asbestosis and mesothelioma. There also is a 300 to 400 percent increase in gastrointestinal cancer due to the fact that those who inhale the fibers also swallow them. The situation is all the more tragic in light of the fact that the asbestos industry has been aware of the deadliness of their product since the 1930s and has done nothing about it. Finally, in the late 1960s, the U.S. government began regulating the asbestos industry.
– 20 Years of Censored News by Carl Jensen

Even today epidemiologists are being hired by brake manufacturers to convince the courts that the data collected on asbestos from brakes and mesothelioma point to no causal connection. Look again at how Evarts Graham chided the skeptics on the hazards of tobacco smoking in his Lancet commentary. For agents that can cause cancer two decades after exposures begin, is it fair to insist that we must have proof that such harm has happened in many groups?
– The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Devra Davis

Asbestosis, a chronic lung disease; and mesothelioma, an often fatal form of cancer. Asbestos diseases can result from very brief exposures and even exposure to other people who have been exposed (who may have asbestos fibers in their hair or clothing), and may take up to forty years to appear. The EPA announced in 1972 that there is no safe level of asbestos exposure, as any exposure to the fibers involves some health risk.
– Nontoxic, Natural and Earthwise by Debra Lynn Dadd

The world-famous Harvard geologist Stephen Jay Gould says that marijuana helped to save his life when he came down with a rare kind of cancer, abdominal mesothelioma. “When I started intravenous chemotherapy, absolutely nothing in the available arsenal of antiemetics worked at all. I was miserable, and came to dread the frequent treatments with an almost perverse intensity. I had heard that marijuana often worked well against nausea. I was reluctant to try it, because I have never smoked any substance habitually (and didn’t even know how to inhale).
– Reclaiming Our Health: Exploding the Medical Myth and Embracing the True Source of Healing by John Robbins

(NaturalNews) From a sitting position, how far can you reach past your toes? Especially if you are middle-aged or older, the answer could indicate how flexible you are — and also how flexible your arteries are. However, if you are stiff and can’t reach too far, don’t despair. New research suggests stretching exercises that increase flexibility could prevent or reverse stiffening of arteries.

In a study entitled “Poor trunk flexibility is associated with arterial stiffening”, just published in the October edition of the American Journal of Physiology, researchers found that how well people age 40 and older performed on a sit-and-reach-past-their-toes test was an accurate way to assess the flexibility of their arteries. So, because arterial stiffness often precedes cardiovascular disease, this simple, non-drug, non-invasive test could become a quick measure of a person’s risk for early death from heart attack or stroke.

“Our findings have potentially important clinical implications because trunk flexibility can be easily evaluated,” scientist Kenta Yamamoto of the University of North Texas and the National Institute of Health and Nutrition in Japan said in a statement to the media. “This simple test might help to prevent age-related arterial stiffening.”

Healthy blood vessels are elastic and that flexibility helps to moderate blood pressure. But as we age, arterial stiffness often increases, upping the risk for cardiovascular disease. In previous studies, scientists have documented that physical fitness can delay age-related arterial stiffness, although exactly how that happens in the body is not understood. Because people who exercise and are fit are usually more flexible than those who are out of shape, the researchers hypothesized that a flexible body could be a quick way to check for arterial flexibility.

To test this idea, the scientists investigated 526 healthy, non-smoking adults between the ages of 20 and 83 who had a body mass index (BMI) of less than 30. Then the research subjects were divided into three age groups: the young (20 to 39 years old), middle-aged (40 to 59 years old) and the elder (60 to 83 years old).

The research participants were asked to perform a sit-and-reach test by sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall and legs straight. The volunteers bent at the waist and slowly stretched, reaching their arms forward. Depending on how far they could reach, the research subjects’ flexibility was rated by the scientists. The research team also recorded the participants’ blood pressure and measured how long the pulse took to travel between the arm and the ankle and between the neck and the leg. Other measurements were collected from some of the research subjects, too, including their cardiorespiratory fitness, endurance and muscle strength.

Overall, the scientists discovered that trunk flexibility was the best predictor of artery stiffness among those who were middle-aged and older but not among the younger participants. In the middle-aged and older groups, the systolic blood pressure (the top number of a blood pressure measurement that indicates the pressure as the heart contracts) was higher in those with poor flexibility than in the people with good flexibility.

Why is arterial flexibility related to the flexibility of the body in middle-aged and older people? The scientists say that remains unclear but one possibility is that stretching exercises like yoga and Pilates may put into motion physiological reactions that slow down age-related stiffening of the arteries. Moreover, they cited additional recent research that found middle-aged and older adults who began a regular stretching exercise program significantly improved the flexibility of the carotid arteries in their necks.

“Together with our results, these findings suggest a possibility that improving flexibility induced by the stretching exercise may be capable of modifying age-related arterial stiffening in middle-aged and older adults,” Dr. Yamamoto said in the press statement. “We believe that flexibility exercise, such as stretching, yoga and Pilates, should be integrated as a new recommendation into the known cardiovascular benefits of regular exercise.”

For more information:
http://www.the-aps.org/press/releases/09/41.htm

(NaturalNews) According to the CDC, swine flu infections have already peaked, and the pandemic is on its way out. Peak infection time was the middle of October, where one in five U.S. children experienced the flu, says the CDC. Out of nearly 14,000 suspected flu cases tested during the week ending on October 10, 2009, 99.6% of those were influenza A, and the vast majority of those were confirmed as H1N1 swine flu infections. (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/)

Even though the H1N1 pandemic appears to have peaked out, U.S. President Barack Obama has now declared a national emergency over swine flu infections. The reasoning behind such a declaration? According to the White House, it’s designed to “allow hospitals to better handle the surge in patients” by allowing them to bypass certain federal laws.

Emergency powers trump the Bill of Rights
That’s the public explanation for this, but the real agenda behind this declaration may be far more sinister. Declaring a national emergency immediately gives federal authorities dangerous new powers that can now be enforced at gunpoint, including:

• The power to force mandatory swine flu vaccinations on the entire population.

• The power to arrest, quarantine or “involuntarily transport” anyone who refuses a swine flu vaccination.

• The power to quarantine an entire city and halt all travel in or out of that city.

• The power to enter any home or office without a search warrant and order the destruction of any belongings or structures deemed to be a threat to public health.

• The effective nullification of the Bill of Rights. Your right to due process, to being safe from government search and seizure, and to remain silent to avoid self-incrimination are all null and void under a Presidential declaration of a national emergency.

None of this means that federal agents are going to march door to door arresting people at gunpoint if they refuse the vaccine, but they could if they wanted to. Your rights as an American are no longer recognized under this national emergency declaration.

What emergency?
The declaration of this national emergency seems suspicious from the start. Where’s the emergency? The number of people killed by swine flu in the United States is far smaller than the number of people killed each year from seasonal flu, according to CDC statistics. People obviously aren’t dropping dead by the millions from H1N1 influenza. Most people are just getting mild flu symptoms and a few days later they’re fine.

So where’s the emergency?

The only emergency I can see is the emergency fabricated by Big Pharma to sell more vaccines. By declaring a national emergency over the H1N1 pandemic, Obama is playing right into their hands.

I find the timing of all this curious. Two days ago, New York gave up on its efforts to require mandatory vaccinations of health care workers. This was designed to defuse a large number of planned protests from health freedom-conscious people who don’t want government-mandated chemicals pumped into their veins.

The planned protests in New York would have fueled yet more resistance among health care workers across the country, and had it been allowed to continue, it could have resulted in a huge nationwide backlash against swine flu vaccines. By backing off the vaccine mandate and blaming it on a vaccine shortage (http://www.naturalnews.com/027313_New_York_health_care.html), and then having Obama declare a national emergency, our state and national leaders have halted the protests and put in place a pro-vaccine Big Brother mandate that can be enforced at gunpoint.

Big Pharma must be pleased with all this. With these emergency powers in place, all that’s necessary to force vaccinations upon the entire population is a larger supply of the vaccines — and that’s coming in November.

The article reviewed here is ‘Cognitive Impairment in Multiple Sclerosis: Evidence-based Analysis and Recommendations’ by Jeffrey Rogers and Peter Panegyres. While the review is highly structured, there is no methodology outlined, which might be useful for instance for those wanting to update the review. In the introduction the authors outline some of the associations of cognitive dysfunction in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) including those in the area of employment and rehabilitation. The authors then look at the neuropsychological profile of MS covering processing speed, memory retrieval and attention amongst others. Neuroanatomical considerations are addressed briefly before the authors turn to factors which influence cognitive dysfunction. This was a useful section examining factors such as disease subtype and duration. They then look at screening tools for cognitive dysfunction in MS drawing attention to the performances of the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task and the Clock Drawing Test. Although there are a number of reviews of cognitive dysfunction in MS and this one is now 2 years old, the subject is sufficiently broad for this to be useful and I found the section on screening to be particularly informative.

References

Jeffrey M Rogers and Peter K Panegyres. Cognitive Impairment in Multiple Sclerosis: Evidence-based analysis and recommendations. Journal of Clinical Neuroscience. 14. 2007. 919-927.

Twitter

You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link

Podcast

You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast).

Responses

If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail [email protected]

Disclaimer

The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog

 With the holidays fast approaching and the recession still ongoing, we here at QJ.NET decided to do another round of bargain hunting at Amazon…

Viral videos are, well, everywhere these days. You hire a media company, they come up with a clever idea, upload it, and hope that it gets tagged on YouTube. Which is exactly what Vodaphone NZ did.

Of course, Vodaphone isn’t here in the US, but internet video in universal, and this is pretty damn cool. So sit back, turn up the speakers, click play, and see what happens when some very clever people get 1000 cellphones together in one place and decide to make a viral video.

Here’s the making of video too, it’s definitely worth a viewing:

[via Mashable]

Mamiya announced two new DSLR cameras today, the DM22 and DM28. Pushing the megapixel wall again, DM22 is 22 megapixel, and the DM28 is, you guessed it, a 28 megapixel. Both cameras use the stock Mamiya lenses so if you are already a Mamiya shooter, you’re set.

Don’t expect to get this level of megapixel madness for cheap. The DM22 has an estimated street price of $9995, and the DM28 will sell for $14,990. This is one of those cases where it’s the only camera for the job, and you need one, no other camera will do.

For all the details, hit up Mamiya’s site.

The President restates his commitment to small business as key to economic recovery — from the Recovery Act to Financial Stability to Health Reform — and pledges more to come.

download .mp3 |download .mp4 (125 MB) | read the transcript

Reader Brad sent in a fascinating post from a little while back by Steve Streeting, a software developer who created an open source 3D rendering engine called OGRE. In the post, Streeting describes his evolving view on open source licenses. He basically points out that that open source licensing — the kind that forces anyone who uses the code to open up and contribute back their code — is actually creating an unnecessary restriction on developers as well, and it often doesn’t make sense to have such restrictions. It’s really quite a fascinating post, that brings up a number of issues I hadn’t really thought about too much. For example, he points out that the restrictions aren’t very helpful for code, because the best code contributions are from those who are contributing code willingly anyway — so the restrictions are meaningless for them. Separately, he points out that the restrictions on licenses, such as the LGPL, simply are too complex and too restrictive for some developers, and the end result is fewer developers, which is the last thing you should want:

It was at this point that I realised that my previous opinions about permissive licenses not providing enough safeguards against exploitation for an open source project were off-base. In practice, open source projects don’t really need protection, because their best contributors are going to be there regardless (yes, I realise the GPL provides more protection to end users who want to get at the source code, that’s not what I’m considering here). ‘Freeloaders’ — people who use or modify the open source project for their own ends but give no code or community contribution back — are always going to exist; even under the GPL it’s easy to freeload, if you make your money from hosting services for example, and thus license choice has little impact on the scale (if not the nature) of the freeloading. Besides the annoyance of ‘that guy took my work and made some money out of it’ — which you have to accept as an inevitable outcome of going open source, so stick to making proprietary software if that bugs you — freeloaders have little negative effect on an open source project, and actually their use can contribute positively to [publicity for the project]. The key is to recognise that in practice you can really just ignore freeloaders, and instead concentrate on maximising the positive contributors in your community.

So, if we acknowledge that the people whose contributions we actually want are those who contribute voluntarily, regardless of license, we quickly come to the conclusion that all that really matters is the size of the community. It’s a fair assumption that for a given project there is a relatively stable percentage of users who will choose to contribute back (the percentage itself varies per project, but is fairly stable per project in my experience), therefore the easiest way to increase your contributors is to just increase your user base. Forget about trying to coerce people into being ‘good’ members of the community, just trust that the percentage will be there and will track your overall numbers.

One way in which to attract more users is to make the licensing simpler and more easier to understand. Programmers hate legalese, and a simple, clear license is bound to be more attractive than our LGPL (with static link exclusion), plus OUL option. It’s for this reason that from OGRE 1.7 we’re switching to the MIT License.

I find this fascinating on a number of different levels. The argument he’s making — within the open source world — pretty much mirrors the arguments we make to copyright maximalists: that focusing so much on “freeloaders” is pointless, they’re going to exist. Instead, focus on building your overall community, adding value, and setting up a model that works for those people. It’s amazing to think that the excess restrictions in some open source licenses creates something of a parallel world, with parallel issues.

Once again, it all seems to come down to the same thing: restricting what others do is rarely a good strategy. Let people do what they want, and focus on providing the most value for the largest community that wants to be a part of what you’re doing.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Doug Lichtman’s latest “IP Colloquium” podcast is on the question of whether or not “content can survive online.” Specifically, it’s a discussion about “online content business models.” Oddly, though, rather than having business model experts, it’s a conversation with four lawyers, starting with Doug, and including Brad Smith, General Counsel, Microsoft; Scott Martin, Executive Vice President, Intellectual Property, Paramount Pictures; and Dan Cooper, Vice President, Legal & Business Affairs, MySpace. Lichtman starts it off, oddly, by stating — as if fact — that talking about business models online is depressing because there’s just not much in the way of business models online for content. I think that’s damning things a bit early in the process — something that comes up again later.

While I realize that the podcast is a legal podcast, it still strikes me as odd to bring together four lawyers to have them discuss business models, when their expertise is not in business at all, but in the law.

The podcast starts out with a discussion on the Google Book search and settlement, but oddly no one even seems to give any credit to the fair use question. But, again, since these are lawyers we’re talking about, there really isn’t much of a discussion on business models around Google Book Search, but on legal questions — including a hope that Congress steps in to solve it. Amusingly, Microsoft’s Smith early on suggests that it’s a question Congress could solve “if the industry got behind it; if copyright holders got behind it.” Striking, huh? He basically admits how copyright law works in this country. It’s not about what’s best for the overall society or economy. It’s not about the politicians fixing things where they see a problem. It’s not about consumers. It’ll happen if the industry gets behind it. Welcome to the way things work in DC. The rest of this part of the discussion is interesting — and it’s one (rare) case where I mostly agree with Lichtman, that as a resource, Google’s Book search is incredibly useful, and we should figure out some way for it to happen.

From there, the discussion moves on to other business models, and quickly seems to head off in directions that I don’t think are accurate from a business model standpoint. It starts off with two premises set forth by Lichtman, each of which I think is suspect. First, he claims that piracy is a problem because “you can’t compete with free.” Frankly, I’m sick of this argument because it makes no sense economically or from a business standpoint. Economically, saying that you “can’t compete with free” is the same thing as saying you can’t compete — period. It assumes, falsely, that the only way to compete is on price, but the history of the economy shows that’s not true. You compete on price or you compete on benefits, and competing on price is often a losing battle anyway. Saying “you can’t compete with free” just means you only know how to compete on price. If that’s the case, you shouldn’t be in business.

And, to make that point clear, tons of companies compete on benefits, and allow other companies to offer lower priced offerings. The popular example, of course, is “water,” whereby it’s free (or near free) to drink out of the tap, but the bottled water business is a multi-billion dollar business. Why? It tries to compete on other factors — such as convenience, quality or safety (though, there are arguments that many of these benefits are perceived rather than real). But it’s true in just about any other business as well. In the automobile business, a BMW costs more than an entry level Ford, and that’s because BMW is seen to have a lot more scarce value. Ford could “copy” BMW, but BMW has its reputation and some amount of prestige that Ford simply can’t copy.

Anyone who’s in business recognizes that you don’t just compete on price. So why is it that so many seem to assume that the only way to compete in the content market is on price?

Lichtman’s second premise is that online business models don’t work. He says that Hulu hasn’t been a success because it doesn’t make as much as TV, and that if Hulu displaces TV we “won’t have the money to pay for” expensive TV show production. He claims that even if Hulu is really successful, it’ll never make enough money to pay for the production of a show like Battlestar Galactica. First off, huh? How does he know that? If Hulu is successful, it absolutely could pay for such production. Already, we’re seeing that some of the online ad rates are higher than TV ad rates. Hulu’s barely been around for two years at this point. I’d be willing to bet that Hulu’s revenue today greatly exceeds the revenue of television two years after it was invented. Give it time, Doug!

He then jumps on Redbox — sarcastically saying “we’re renting movies at a dollar per day?” Suggesting that this will never sustain the development of movies. Really? I always find it amusing when people insist that problems in the DVD market will mean the death of Hollywood. It really was just 25 years ago that Hollywood insisted that the VCR would kill the industry (Boston Strangler, anyone?). Now they finally get their “original” wish, and find that putting movies on recordable media is going away, and it’s the worst thing in the world?

Either way, the economic fallacy that Doug seems to be relying on here is twofold. First, he assumes that early business model experiments are set in place and no further innovation will occur that allows them to flourish. He assumes that the markets won’t grow, and some of these experiments won’t click and get much bigger. Second, he seems to assume that the old revenue numbers for these industries need to be sustained. He doesn’t consider that the old revenue numbers may have been a result of monopoly rents, limited competition or technological limits. Markets change all the time, and usually what comes out in the end is much better (subjective, I know, but I’m a believer that the world is a better place today than it was 25 years ago — and that it will be even better 25 years from now).

But, of course, no one challenges him on this. Scott Martin at Paramount, of course, worries quite a bit about piracy of movies. While he admits (finally!) that he’s just the lawyer, rather than the business guy, he discusses it in the terms of adding more windows to movie releases, rather than any discussion of adding more value to the product, or giving people reasons to buy beyond just the content. Then Martin repeats the myth that you can’t compete with free, but leads in with a different myth — claiming that the “copyleft” people say that piracy would go away if they just priced their movies better. That’s a strawman argument. Perhaps someone out there made that argument, but it’s hardly common. Then he says that “the idea that if we charged $2 a download instead of $10 a download, we’d get rid of piracy is a myth.” Sure, it’s a myth, but no one said that. You can’t get rid of piracy. No one thinks you can get rid of piracy. No one suggested anything you do would “get rid of piracy.” What many of us are suggesting is that you can build business models where that piracy isn’t a problem. Even the people suggesting you just charge $2 instead of $10 aren’t saying it would “get rid of piracy,” but that at $2, enough people would pay for it that it would increase profits beyond what the $10 DRM’d version gets you.

Anyway, the discussion goes on from there, including a discussion of the DMCA that again doesn’t make much sense to me, but the business/economic analysis throughout doesn’t strike me as accurate at all. It’s still an interesting discussion, but frustrating because I wish there were at least someone on the panel who would challenge a lot of the “accepted wisdom,” put forth by everyone, that doesn’t seem to be accurate. Brad Smith, at one point, does point out that this is all a “revenue” problem, and does a pretty good job describing the revenue problem… but then falls into the trap of saying the law needs to “fix the piracy problem” because without that, business models can’t be built up.

The last analysis I’ll talk about that is again faulty from an economics standpoint again comes from Scott Martin at Paramount, where he tries to defend the importance of DRM, noting that if he flies into JFK he has various price options on transportation: he can buy a car, rent a car, take a cab or take a train. So there are price differentials. He says that without DRM, content is like saying his only option is to buy a car. That is, if he had DRM, they could offer different “rental options” for content, with “one day pricing or one week pricing.” But that’s totally wrong again. There’s a reason for the differential pricing in the transportation options: it’s related to the marginal cost of each option and the competitiveness of the market. That’s what sets the prices. But with content, the marginal costs are zero, so what he’s doing is trying to set up an artificial barrier to pretend the markets are the same.

While I like listening to these discussions, I just find the economic fallacies frustrating.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

With all the talk about the nook lately, you might have forgotten that this is ending up as being the year of the e-book reader. Just to remind you, pricing leaked today on the IREX DR 800SG reader.

Now please remember that Best Buy’s system has been known to have incorrect pricing, and this might be the case with the IREX. For their sake I hope that is the case here, because pricing yourself above the Kindle DX and the nook is pretty much suicide at this point. So, $499. Gonna rush right out and buy that anybody?

[via Engadget]

I’m throwing up a quick post just so you all won’t think I’ve been captured and sold into slavery.  MD and I are on the coast-to-coast Sous Vide Supreme introduction tour, which  ends today.  I thought I would have plenty of time to blog and Tweet on this tour, but it has ended up being a huge time gobbler.  What with getting all the stuff set up, checking in and out of hotels, running for flights and flying all over heck and gone, there has been barely any time to keep up with emails let alone fiddling with the blog.

As I type these words, we’re at 37,000 feet somewhere between Chicago and New York.  After all the complaining I’ve done in previous posts about my disastrous experiences with a multitude of airlines, I’ve got to say that this tour has gone without a hitch.  We’ve flown U.S. Air, American, Alaskan Airlines, and now Delta, and all flights have been on time on both ends.  We’re traveling with a crew of nine, so I am thankful for all the airlines we’ve flown and the weather gods for allowing all this to come off on schedule.

I planned to post about the different venues as we went from city to city, but as I said, the time constraints have been such that I really couldn’t do it.  I’ve got a zillion photos that I’ll post in due course and a lot of info about cooking that I’ve learned from the best.

Richard Nikoley, of the Free the Animal blog, came to the San Francisco event and posted on it, so you can read his take, complete with photos, here.

Another writer who attended the San Francisco event wrote about it after.  It’s a good article but I object to the word ‘shilled.’  In my obviously biased view, ‘touted’ or ‘promoted’ or ‘recommended’ would have been much better choices.  Other press reports that are much better (from my perspective, at least) are here, here and here.

As you can see from the above articles and blog, Heston Blumenthal, chef of The Fat Duck, one of the world’s best restaurants, is traveling with us and helping us introduce the Sous Vide Supreme to the world.  Heston and team (several of whom are with us, too) did the testing of the Sous Vide Supreme in The Fat Duck Experimental Kitchen in the UK.  As one of the preeminent and most knowledgeable sous vide chefs in the world, Heston is also doing cooking and teaching demos with the unit on this tour.

At this point in my narrative breakfast arrived.  It is pictured below.  You can see to what depths airline food has fallen.

Low-fat yogurt, 2% milk, Raisin Bran, fruit, a bagel and coffee.  How nauseating.  I will admit, however, that I ate almost all of it, middle-aged middle be damned.  I did leave over half the bagel because it was totally tasteless, much like eating cardboard and as cold as stone.  I haven’t worried much about diet on this tour because we’ve been eating one meal a day – if we’re lucky – so I’ve been viewing the experience as an intermittent fast.  We get little shards of the foods prepared for the demo, but that’s about it.  The rest of the time we’re on the run and haven’t eaten much at all.

So you can see how the demo events are set up, I’ve put up the schedule and menu to the left below.

MD and I introduce ourselves and talk about how the Sous Vide Supreme was developed, much as I did in a recent blog post.  We then introduce Heston, who shows a video of the preparation of Mock Turtle Soup, which I also blogged about not too long ago.  He follows that with a short video of a dessert composed of all the essences of smoke, apples, leather and tobacco and four different whiskies – all incorporated into a flaming sorbet.  He then talks about how he started The Fat Duck with just himself, a dishwasher and a couple of waiters.  Then he moves into the different foods prepared using the Sous Vide Supreme and talks about all the extensive testing he did of the unit at The Fat Duck.  The staff passes around tasting plates of the food selections to the guests, most of whom are media people, food writers or chefs.  The food is absolutely beyond compare.  When I have more time, I’ll post a description of how each different food is prepared and show photos, of which I have a multitude.

After the event in New York is over today, MD and I have to do a little Middle-Aged Middle promotion tomorrow with some radio, then it’s off to Las Vegas (of all places) for a couple of days.  My niece is getting married there on Sunday (she lives there and is a graphic artist for one of the casino operations), so we’re stopping on the way back to attend.  Then, finally, home on Monday.  At which point, after going through all the mail and other stuff that has stacked up while we’ve been on the road, I’ll get back to more regular posting.

I got word yesterday that the 6-Week Cure blog is set up and ready to go, but so far we haven’t been able to post anything to it.  If you’ve got a 6-Week Cure question or comment, hold it for just a couple more days ‘til we get that blog up.  And if you’ve had a question languishing in the emails, we’re working on that, too.  We had an unexpected glitch, when the new email contact points got mistakenly routed to an email that we never use by the web gurus.  There they sat for about a month before we realized that was why we weren’t getting any emails from the new site.  We apologize and as soon as we get back to Casa Eades we’ll get busy answering those we can answer.

I’m working on another fun post that I’ll maybe be able to get up before we get back, but I can’t promise.  At any rate, it’ll be up soon after we’re home if not before.

Thanks for hanging in there during my absence.

Karl Bode, over at Broadband Reports, wrote up a great article a little while back about why Google Voice was more disruptive than anyone (especially the telcos) were willing to give it credit for being. The key underlying point: voice is just a form of data. Once you realize that, you realize that no one needs to be tied to any telco’s own dialing system. Your mobile phone service provider really could just be a dumb pipe.

For years, I’ve always felt that the calls for “triple play” or “quadruple play” was incredibly misleading. All of the different “plays” (voice, video, data) were actually all just data. And when things are all just data, and its on an open network, then anyone can provide the services on top of that data. The telcos recognize this, somewhat — which is why they’ve tried to block out others from offering certain telco services (it’s why Google Voice was blocked on the iPhone), but it could be really game changing. Imagine if you could just buy a mobile phone that had no calling plan at all — but it was all in the software? You could even use different dialers (with different numbers?) depending on what made the most sense or was cheapest.

The telcos hate thinking of themselves as dumb pipes, but there’s something to be said for focusing on the pipes and making them as strong as possible, while letting everyone else innovate at the service level, and just selling good data plans. The more others innovate, the more valuable those data connections become.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Paul Alan Levy writes in to let us know about how a New Jersey School Board is trying to get around the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which limits what information the government can get about online speakers, in order to find out the identity of some anonymous commenters on a series of newspaper stories about teachers in the district using questionable diploma mills to get “degrees” and qualify for higher salaries.

I contacted Marc Zitomer, the School Board’s lawyer, to get his explanation for the subpoena.

His explanation was that the Board, as a body corporate, has the authority to file suit against members of the public who defame or threaten its staff.  I rather doubt that a school board could file suit for defamatory words that are not “of and concerning” the school board – the of and concerning requirement, after all, is a constitutional requirement under New York Times v. Sullivan.  Moreover, Zitomer conceded that he could not identify any cases in New Jersey where a school board had filed such an action on behalf of its staff.  When I pressed him on these issues, Zitomer claimed that an additional reason for the subpoena was that the Board could take disciplinary action against any of the bloggers who were members of its staff.  But even assuming that the criticism is a proper basis for discipline consistent with the First Amendment, the Board cannot compel the identification of bloggers on that theory without putting forward an evidentiary basis for believing that the bloggers are employees.  It remains to be seen whether Zitomer will be able to do that.

Board member William Bruno has been quoted as justifying its subpoena on the theory that “If they have nothing to hide, what’s the problem?”

You always know there’s something bad going on when someone busts out the “nothing to hide” line. But, once again, this seems like attempts by thin-skinned officials who can’t take the heat trying to expose anonymous commenters as an intimidation technique.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Citing “officials who disclosed details on condition of anonymity,” The Associated Press reports that “health care legislation taking shape in the House carries a price tag of at least $1 trillion over a decade, significantly higher than the target President Barack Obama has set … Democrats have touted an unreleased Congressional Budget Office estimate of $871 billion in recent days, a total that numerous officials acknowledge understates the bill’s true cost by $150 billion or more. That figure excludes several items designed to improve benefits for Medicare and Medicaid recipients and providers, as well as public health programs and more, they added.” 

“Obama also said he would not sign a bill that raised deficits, and the CBO estimates the emerging House bill meets that objective. Officials said the measure would reduce deficits by at least $50 billion over 10 years and perhaps as much as $120 billion” (Espo, 10/23). 

The Associated Press in a separate story:  “Democratic leaders in Congress scrambled Friday to round up votes for allowing the government to sell health insurance in competition with private industry as they struggled to finalize a health care bill that meets President Barack Obama’s goals.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spent Friday “calling and talking with wavering Democrats to test support for different versions of the plan.”

“A similar process was under way in the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi was scratching for votes in favor of her preferred version of the so-called public option” (Werner, 10/23).

Roll Call: Pelosi’s remarks came as her staff pushed back on Friday reports that she has decided to ditch a public insurance option pegged to Medicare rates — the approach preferred by liberals — after a three-day whip effort revealed it lacks the necessary support” (Newmyer, 10/23).

The Wall Street Journal: “Ms. Pelosi said there is ‘no philosophical difference’ between the robust public option and other versions. She said it is less important now for the House to include a strong public option, than it was several weeks ago when it looked like a Senate health bill might omit the public option all together. ‘The atmosphere has changed. When we were dealing with the idea that the Senate had nothing, it was really important, again, to go in with the most muscle for the middle class with a robust public option,’ Ms. Pelosi said at the news conference. ‘This is about the endgame now,’ she said” (Vaughan and Yoest, 10/23).

Politico: “The ‘atmosphere’ she’s referring to is that in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid seems to be giving some ground on a public option – which was long thought to be dead in the Upper Chamber. Now that the Senate is giving optional government-sponsored coverage a serious look, Pelosi seems to be open to their suggestions … ‘There’s no philosophical difference between a robust public option and negotiated rates. It’s just a difference in money,’ (she said). …  Pelosi, who had just emerged from a difficult closed-door caucus meeting with her rank-and-file, rarely shows her cards in public. So these concessions are noteworthy (O’Connor, 10/23).

Bloomberg reports on the various public option approaches that are getting attention. “Senate Democrats are leaning toward including a government-run insurance plan in U.S. health-care legislation, and House leaders signaled there may be room for compromise on the issue, one of the most divisive in Congress.”

In order to keep Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, the only Republican so far to support health overhaul legislation, and “pacify” some Democrats, “lawmakers are weighing whether to embrace [Snowe’s] idea of only triggering a public option if insurance rates aren’t low enough. Another possibility is to start with a public option that would pay higher rates than Medicare and allow states to opt out. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today said she doesn’t see ‘much problem with that.’ Pelosi also said at a press conference today that “At the end of the day, we will have a public option in our legislation,” Pelosi said (Jensen and Rowley, 10/23).

On a lighter note, CBS News reports from the health insurers meeting in Washington: “Insurance industry pollster Bill McInturff was giving a speech Friday when he was interrupted at first with cheers of praise from people who seemingly belonged at the conference, given their business attire. The cheers turned into a song about the ‘public option,’ or government-run health insurance, performed to the tune of ‘Tomorrow’ from the musical Annie. The singers, who were eventually escorted out of the conference, belonged to a group that calls itself Billionaires for Wealthcare” (Condon, 10/23).

BioWare and Electronic Arts has announced that Dragon Age: Origins (PS3, PC, Xbox 360) has officially gone gold and is now currently in manufacturing …

It’s almost like someone got their Top Gear in my Mythbusters lately. First the duct tape holding up a car, and now the ‘golf ball’ effect on mileage. So what exactly does happen when you cover a car with clay, and then dimple it like a golf ball?

You can watch the video and find out, or just scroll past the picture of the lovely Kari Byron. The car part is about 40 minutes in.

Yes. Apparently, covering your car in clay and dimpling it like a golf ball will result in a significant increase in gas mileage. Who would of thunk it? The real trick it to make sure the dimples are scaled up to the proper size. I could get into the science, but it’s easier to let Jamie and Adam tell you all about it.

As various newspapers continue to think about new business models, Adam points us to the news of a community newspaper in New Zealand that experimented with a special 3D issue, including various 3D images and (of course) special 3D glasses. The idea is to get people to spend more time looking at the newspaper. While it does seem like a neat gimmick, it doesn’t seem like it is a sustainable idea on its own (they expect to do it again, but probably not for another year, due to the effort it takes). But, of course, no single gimmick needs to be sustainable by itself. It’s neat to see publications recognizing that they at least should be trying out other things to add value that people will appreciate.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

2009Oct23: Madagascar has experienced a 10% increase in temperature and 10% decrease in rainfall in the past 50 years, according to the World Bank (Guardian.co.uk).

Reference: Guardian.co.uk http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/23/madagascar-drought

Image Description: Ampefy, Madagascar. Photo by dada bob, 2006May25. Image Location: Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chute_de_la_Lili_%281%29.jpg Image Permission: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.