Daily Archives: November 9, 2009

Recall (warning) : FDA coming down on flavoerd cigarette sellers

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This didn’t take long. The FDA is now pursuing online sites that are still selling flavored cigarettes. The FDA is specifically enforcing the “cigarette ban provision of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act) by issuing several warning letters to companies continuing to sell illegal flavored cigarettes to consumers in the United States through their Web sites.”

Flavored cigarettes were banned around the 22nd of September, so it’s been a good month and some change for these companies to get their products in order. Right now, pretty much any cigarettes with flavor in them are illegal. Flavored cigars may or may not be included, depending on who’s interpreting the law at the moment.

What really gets me is the justification for this ban. Lawrence R. Deyton, M.S.P.H, M.D., director of FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products said in the release that the… “FDA takes the enforcement of this flavored cigarette ban seriously. These actions should send a clear message to those who continue to break the law that FDA will take necessary actions to protect our children from initiating tobacco use.”

So…. if this is for the kids, how about a real simple solution. ID everyone buying tobacco. Wouldn’t that solve the whole problem? Leave the flavored cigs to the few adults who like them, and just bust the people selling them to children. Doesn’t that work for regular tobacco? And alcohol?

Anyhow, I ranted about this already when it first popped up. I’ll push the horse back into the closet now.

Oh, and if you look at the link that shows the sites that got the warning from the FDA about selling the flavored cigarettes? When I checked, most of them were 404… completely gone.

Here’s the link to the official FDA warning / recall.

Recall : Jelly Belly’s cylinder-style 49 Flavors jelly beans

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Jelly Belly announced today that they are voluntarily recalling the… “7.5-ounce cylinder-style packages of 49 Flavors Jelly Belly jelly beans because the package is incorrectly labeled. The mislabeled packages failed to list peanut butter and peanut flour in the ingredient statement.”

Wait… they use peanuts and peanut butter to make jellybeans? Seriously?

The recall says… “The Jelly Belly 49 Flavors cylinder packages were… packaged in a clear 7.5-ounce acetate cylinder with white label on the bottom of the package with lot codes 090925, 090928, 090929 or 091001. UPC code 071567989398”

Here’s the link to the official FDA recall.

Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar by Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein : Mini Book Review

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Plato and a Platypus

Plato and a Platypus

10 words or less: Fun. Like throwing a skipping stone over deep philosophical waters.

Long version : This book was a impulse buy at the local bookstore this weekend. Normally I only hit the bargain bins, but this book looked interesting and was reviewed well based on everything all over the jacket cover, so I grabbed at at face value.

It was a fun and breezy read. Just tapping on the cusps of philosophical ideas and ideologies, the authors take a few moments on each topic being serious, and turn right around and make a joke in contrasting boldface that illustrates the type of philosophy and/or topic being discussed.

For example, when talking about existentialism…
“The extentialists’ emphasis on facing the anxiety of death has given life to a new mini-industry, the hospice movement, founded on Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s twentieth-century bioethical philosophy that encourages the honest acceptance of death.
Customer in a restaurant: How do you prepare your chickens?
Cook: Oh, nothing special really. We just tell them they’re gonna die.”

At the end of the 215 page book, the authors gently point to “suggested reading” list for those who found the shallow end fun and want to try something a little deeper next time. Kant, Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Foucault, Hume, Locke and more are on the list, so there’s a fair chance someone starting on this book may just find something wonderful waiting for them should they choose to follow some of the abbreviated suggestions in the list.

This was a fun book that was pretty much philosophy 099. OK, maybe philosophy 101. A quick glance into the basics of philosophy, an overview of some major ideas, and a few nuggets to chew on. All easily digestible.

I’m probably going to head back and pick up their sequel “Heidegger and a Hippo walk through the pearly gates: Using Philosophy (and jokes!) to explain life, death, the afterlife, and everything else in between.” If nothing else, for the title alone!

Four out of five stars.

Apple to launch Verizon iPhone q3 2010

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Glory hallelujah! In a report posted on Apple Insider, Apple is preparing to move the iPhone to Verizon around July of 2010, as well as make the iPhone an official “global” phone by adding CDMA2000 network compatibility.

Buh bye AT&T!

For those of you who have contracts with AT&T that expire soon, DO NOT renew your contract with AT&T when your current contract ends. Just keep going month to month until July-ish of 2010. Then you can jump to Verizon free and clear when the new service (and probably some new iPhones) come out around then. You should be able to keep your iPhone and all the apps you have on it intact during the transition. Plus by staying on month to month, you won’t get popped with a $250-ish breach of contract fee from AT&T.

All I can say is that it’s about damn time. In case I haven’t mentioned it in the last two posts, I think AT&T cellular service sucks ass. I’ve never had such pathetic phone service as I have with the iPhone. Constantly dropped calls. Robotic sounding voices. Horrible coverage (1 bar most of the time. 2 bars once every blue moon). Piss poor 3g. And even a CEO who admits his company’s busted ass network can’t keep up with all the iPhone users.

The article says AT&T has… “a year to improve its 3G network and roll out the 3G MicroCell before being hit with mass defections from iPhone users irate over service issues.” Yeah. Right. AT&T spending money to improve their customer’s service? When they had all this time to get it right? That’s not gonna happen.

At least AT&T’s “busy network” problems will disappear when every iPhone subscriber jumps to Verizon. But I’m sure all the money AT&T saved by not upgrading the network to handle iPhone traffic will easily offset any losses in q3 2010. What’s the iPhone income for AT&T? 1%? 5%? It’s gotta be something ridiculously low for the service to be this bad.

Good riddance to bad rubbish!