It was actually a socialist piece on impoverished immigrants and their working conditions, but out of all his tripe, that was what stuck.

A lawsuit would shut them down just as effectively as the FDA does, and the lawsuits come anyway.  The FDA doesn't do real inspections either, they can't.  They do spot inspections, walk into a plant, look around, and leave.  Serious product testing is minimal an ineffective.  It's why you never hear about plants getting shut down until after they're trying to trace back the cause of a bunch of people being hospitalized.  It's after the fact in either case, but in one you're spending a few billion a year to increase the overhead on your food.  Sinclair himself could have stopped the practices much faster by simply reporting the news, instead of using such valuable and time sensitive information to instead promote socialism in a novel.  With the current overblown legal system, just a rumor of such conditions would get them shut down with a court ordered inspection to verify the claims.

Dangerous drugs kept off the market are far surpassed by life saving drugs kept off the market.  Every post approval drug ban I can remember has been for nonsense.  Take the weight loss drugs, a few people have a heart attack and they ban a drug that saves thousands of times the number from a state of severe obesity, something that causes heart attacks.  They just took darvocet off the market a few months ago, it's a fantastic, completely non addictive pain killer, for the people it works on.  Why did they take it off?  If you use it, habitually, well in excess of it's typical usage, it has a small chance of killing you.  Millions used it, dozens saw ill effects.  Tylenol on the other hand is over the counter, a significantly more dangerous.  It gets even more ridiculous too.  Cyclamates were banned for causing cancer.  How did they cause cancer?  Lab rats were fed quantities that were orders of magnitude greater than could possibly be consumed, developed bladder stones, something rats are prone to, and the stones caused bladder cancer.  People don't get bladder stones, thus can't get cancer from them.  They couldn't consume enough sweetened food to accomplish the feat anyway, not without killing themselves in a rather more immediate manner as their stomach rips open...

The FDA has probably saved a few hundred thousand from bad drug interactions, but it's killed millions by the same actions, and the death toll has been much, much higher in regards to drugs that spent a decade or more getting approval.  If someone discovers a miracle cure for cancer today, millions will die before human testing is even allowed, and millions more before the drug gets FDA approval and becomes non-experimental.

I wouldn't be surprised if Murdoch has never even spoken to the guy that was running the place.  It's a rag mag, and an affiliate of an affiliate corporation.  The guy is three layers removed from the company as a whole.  Even if the entire outfit was in on the crooked deal, the odds of it even going to the next layer is bloody unlikely.  Illegal activities aren't the sort of thing you talk about.  Murdoch buys and sells shit, he doesn't run the companies himself, he finds smart people to delegate to and moves onto the next project.  With Fox News, he picked Roger Ailes to run it, and Ailes himself picked Brit Hume to set up the news division.

If you wake up and start doing your own research, you would be able to show (or prove yourself wrong).

That is what people keep telling me - but they never provide specifics (other than to start ranting about hannity or O'Reilly).  Perhaps if you could provide some actual examples, that might help to prove what you say is accurate, and not just sour grapes.

Hacking whistleblower dies, not suspicious: police

LONDON — A whistleblower in the phone-hacking scandal, former News of the World reporter Sean Hoare, was found dead at his home Monday but there appeared to be no suspicious circumstances, police said.

Hoare alleged in interviews with The New York Times newspaper and the BBC last year that the tabloid's former editor Andy Coulson, who went on to become press chief to British Prime Minister David Cameron, knew about voicemail hacking.

He was found dead early Monday at his home in Watford, north of London, Hertfordshire Police said in a statement.

"At 10:40 am today police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for welfare of a man who lives at an address on the street," the force said.

"Upon police and ambulance arrival at a property, the body of a man was found. The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after.

"The death is currently being treated as unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing."

The Guardian newspaper said Hoare had long-term drink and drug problems.

Hoare claimed that Coulson knew about the paper's staff eavesdropping on private messages.

"Everyone was doing it," he told the US paper. "Everybody got a bit carried away with this power that they had. No one came close to catching us."

His claims were passed to Scotland Yard but they said he declined to give evidence.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jPnvO-Oeu362AwoYS4LMoQAwD92g?docId=CNG.683c48c2b56ffbdeb1682f2da8863427.6e1

I smell hoarse shit from all the way across the pond. 

Testimony IS evidence.

Charged, tried and convicted my the almighty psychoak.   I guess that only noble people deserve a defence or even to live, that leaves out all politicians, lawyers and banksters.

Can you find me your source of this "substance abuse" that was public before he died. I can't. Pretty easy to label a dead guy. I can't even find anything other than "former reporter for" in older articles. I would think if a smut reporter was fired that rival smut papers would be all over that like flies on shit. Imagine MSNBC not covering why O'Riely was fired.

Also he was not the only one to come forward, just the first. That's cooberating testimony 

Just watch the channel. All they do is show imflammatory biased opinions and rants that play the same old tired conservative right tunes. Small lean goverment, no taxes, power to the states, free-market health care or communism has taken over and such. If you watch fox on a daily basis, and i often do, you'd be convinced that every day that obama is president the usa is on the brink of disaster.  I could give you specific examples too.  You can find several on your own.  They not only peddle baselss unchecked information in an entertaining way, usually delivered by a hot blond milf, but they often just make things up.  They were brought on court on this one time too. 

Fair and Balanced in on their slogan yet their content is anything but.   There's several documented information of their factual errors on the web.  Yes, they've been around longer than obama, but they basically became the big influencial fox with the previous bush administration. Look at all their talking heads, they're all failed republican former candidates. 

When I'm watching FNC, I get tired of seeing all the closet communists bullshit their way through reality as they spin impending economic collapse into someone else' fault.  At the same time, it's not really a problem, we can keep spending!

Take the current debt talks.  Fox constantly has these lying assholes coming on and saying it's not Obama's fault that the deficits are so high.  It's because we had a recession, or the Bush tax cuts, which Obama just continued after all that bashing, and occasionally it's because of our entitlement programs.  These lying assholes are rarely even challenged with discretionary spending increases, which account for a majority of the Obama budget increases under the Democratic congress he had two years to play with.  They're also rarely challenged on the minor detail that is simple addition and subtraction.  If the deficit is a product of reduced revenue, why has revenue only fallen by 4% of GDP, while deficits have risen to over 10%?  The entitlement budgeting hasn't increased much at all over the same time span when you match it up against discretionary increases.

The truth is that our current president is an utter fucking retard of a closet communist, and couldn't grasp basic economic principles if you caved in that empty skull with them.  He makes outright lies on a regular basis without being called on them, and all Fox does is parade a cadre of sycophantic supporters with either no grasp on reality or an equal penchant for lying.  The rest of the commentators are then written off by liberal douche bags as a bunch of right wing hacks, something that typically depresses the hell out of me, as they rarely ever come anywhere near my standards.  Hell, a lot of them are registered democrats with a long history in the party and they still get labeled right wing hacks.

The outfit is as right wing as I am polite, we've just gone to crazy land is all.  Their errors are fewer and far less blatant than other stations, which is why they continue to do so well despite liberal outrage over the existence of a news station that refuses to cooperate.  There are entire outfits devoted to exposing their bias and falsehoods, but those outfits themselves tend to be far less honest, portraying commentary as reporting in nearly every case.

On the other side, you have people editing a picture of a black man carrying a rifle to claim white supremacists were armed and ready to go at a tea party event.  Nice hard news there, real accurate, not the least bit sensationalist!  But hey, at least they actually covered a rally as a result, even if it was just to paint them all as racist rednecks with guns.  Oh, and Rush is a "favorite slander goes here" because he either made an obvious joke of contextual value to the topic at hand, or quoted someone else' "favorite slander" remark.  Now there's an actual right winger, unlike Bill O'Reilly, a man with a fetish for communism whenever he doesn't like the way the free market behaves.  Damn those oil companies for selling goods on an open market when we're not producing enough to satisfy demand because we've made it illegal!

A friend just sent me this news link from Theo Spark and I thought I'd share it with you. 

WEDNESDAY, 20 JULY 2011

The Love of Scandal

 

 

By Alan Caruba

The television coverage of the British Parliament’s inquiry of the Murdoch’s, father and son, Rupert and James, was wall-to-wall on every news channel including Fox News, part of the Murdoch media empire. As an American, I found myself straining to understand what many of the MPs were saying as their accent often rendered them unintelligible to my ear. 

The Murdoch’s were most sincerely and contritely saddened by the behavior of some News of the World reporters and editors, but I doubt they were too surprised by it, nor were the British who read the now defunct trashy tabloid. Some of the reporters had hacked into the phones of people, violating their privacy in hopes of a scoop. The editors in charge pretended not to know. 

In sum, it was sordid behavior by a handful of people who had lost sight of what passes for journalistic standards. Scotland Yard had largely ignored the crimes. Top crime fighters dutifully resigned their positions. The whole mess was so incestuous, one would have to be quite blasé to ignore it.

Heads rolled. People were fired, quit their positions, and one, a reporter who blew the whistle, died though he was said to have been ill. Suicide cannot be ruled out. The police arrested an editor or two, but unless it can be proved that they were accessories to the crime, not much may come of that.

The Brits, however, love a good scandal and who doesn’t? 

Americans were recently treated to former Representative Anthony Weiner’s antics and are currently obsessing over the acquittal of Casey Anthony, alleged to have killed her child and tossing the remains in a nearby swamp. While the nation heads over the financial cliff into default and bankruptcy, the last scraps of the Anthony story are still being picked over by the news and popular culture jackals. Bill Clinton's Oval Office misconduct with an intern provided months of entertainment and political theatre.

From Oscar Wilde, a famed Irish writer of the 1880s and 90s who was sent to Reading Goal for “gross indecency” to the 1963 affair of John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War, who was sexually linked to Christine Keeler, the reputed mistress of a Russian spy, to Princess Diana who divorced Prince Charles and later died tragically in an auto accident, the Brits are no slouches when it comes to scandal.

I do my best to keep abreast of what is going on in Great Britain because they are the closest thing to a rational and dependable ally we have, save for the Canadians who always stick with us through thick and thin, despite being largely ignored. 

One of my favorite bloggers goes by the nom de plume of "Archbishop Cranmer" a pseudonym taken from the actual archbishop who was burned at the stake in 1556. Normally he comments on things theological and ecclesiastical in England, but his comments on the Murdoch’s stuck a note of rationality devoid from most coverage.

“But it’s all a bit of a show,” said Cranmer. “Rupert Murdoch owns three (non-profitable) newspapers and a minority share in BSkyB, the output of which is regulated by Ofcom. In what sense is this an ‘empire’ which exerts ‘too much power over British public life’?”

“It is about the relationship of Parliament and the media, politicians and journalists, and prime ministers and proprietors. It is about the balance between power and scrutiny, influence and manipulation. Ultimately, it is about the right to express an opinion, because if the end result is statutory regulation of the press, another liberty will have been sacrificed to the lust of the state.”

That’s worth repeating, “another liberty will have been sacrificed to the lust of the state.” We are seeing and experiencing a lot of that in America where hardly any activity of our lives, from the cars we drive, the food we eat, the light bulbs we may purchase, and the health insurance we don’t want to purchase is grinding American liberty to dust.

Rupert Murdoch is not just an Australian, British, and a naturalized American phenomenon, a media genius with a talent for acquisition that includes The Wall Street Journal. Fox News has become the go-to television channel that is indeed, “fair and balanced”, presenting a cacophony of liberal-to-conservative analysis that is often a bedlam of viewpoints.

As this has been occurring, other U.S. newspapers have been losing circulation and revenue, laying off editors and reporters, publishing thin editions of mostly syndicated gloss, and, as often as not, closing their doors. Too many have debased themselves with their liberal slanting of news and are now useful only for their obituary and sports sections.

Let us, therefore, keep an eye on the British journalism scandal to see how their politicians use it for their own gain and hope that their avaricious American counterparts do not take any lessons from it.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Murdoch has been a US citizen for a while now and News Corp is headquartered in the US as well. I'm all for having him pilloried in the courts of public opinion, but keep the facts straight.

OK, not all for. It is not cool to stoop to the tabloid level and accuse folks of serious crimes (e.g. murder) without evidence.

Then again, it is even less cool to get away with something just because you can afford a busload of skilled lawyers and a fat budget for bribery, if that's what's going on. Stinking awful mess no matter how you look at it. Too bad the man is too graceless to just retire (and maybe fire his kid). His shareholders would doubtless do better in the short term and a real change of leadership culture at the top might do both News Corp and the world media landscape a bit of good. 

Fair enough, but you still shouldn't confuse facts with your opinions or political goals. Legally, Murdoch and News Corp are 'US citizens.' I'm much more disgusted by the fact that corporations have gained a status nearly equal to that of living, human citizens than I am with any of the vagueries of immigration law. Importing rich folks like Murdoch makes economic sense, even if the man is a plutocrat leading the charge in concentration of ownership in media.

No confusion whatsoever.  I am quite clear, you seem to be the one who has a problem with what i'm stating.  You seem to think that everything i state is intended to be a fact, which is untrue.  I have an opinion which can be backed up with common sense, truth, and some facts if you want to get into the fact game.  but in all reality facts can be changed, altered, covered up, and manipulated, so I take many facts with a grain of salt unless I have some first hand knowledge about them. 

With your statement about corporations and people, it is actually the other way around and far more insidious.  People are considered corporations, if they allow themselves to be considered a corporation. Legally your name cannot be spelled by any government entity except in all capital letters(which the government IDEA then has authority over your lesser IDEA, which is held as your name, complicated, i know.), which is a legal way of stating that the this is a corporate entity, not a person.  This corporate entity with your name on it is created at birth by your birth certificate. Don't believe me?  Check it out for yourself.  Any time you state that you are the corporate entity that has this name that you believe you have, you give jurisdiction to an authority figure to take your personal rights away.  What is your real name, if you even have one? what is your date of birth?  Do you remember? its all hearsay and there is no way for you to determine if you have a name, or when you were born.

The "its tradition, everyone is doing it!" counter argument that is likely to come from this last statement is in the end going to fail, because tradition is not a viable excuse. 

There is a fact that you will no doubt debate, but in the end i've done enough primary research to know that this fact is well supported.

I don't want nor care for rupert murdoch's money, the USA is already well off, we don't need to import any wealthy citizens who will try to undermine the foundations of what our country was built upon from the inside out.

The legality argument doesn't hold water, you are just responding to my statements. in essence, its legal so its okay.  Well that shows your ignorance of how the law works.

If memory serves it was legal in the US at one point to own slaves.  I might be going out on a limb here, confusing the facts, but I do recall hearing something about how slavery became illegal.  I'm sure the slave owners at the time hid behind the "its legal, so its okay!" argument, but that doesn't change how horribly wrong it was.

Look, everyone was making a ton of money on slavery as well!  But i can't bring history into this, i'm sure, since its unfair and debatable as well.  If you want to take another look, we still have slavery today, except that now anyone can become a slave.  You don't follow some statute that was put in place by a corrupt politician and special interest with lots of money, you get thrown in jail and become a person without any rights (in theory they have rights, but in reality they have very little).  Your labor is then used and you are given a pittance wage far below minimum standards.  I for one detest ANY society that derives ANY of its prosperity from a class of individuals who have been stripped of their rights.  No person should be stripped of their rights.

Perhaps you think that this gives license for wrong doers to live in a society where they can do anything they want and get away with it because there will be no incentive to stop.  I would counter this argument with A) we already live in such a society, and B ) A society where no one can have their rights taken away is a stronger, less fearful society then what we currently have in the USA.

Rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable (that which cannot be changed) and therefore logically any law or statute made to lie to you about how it is legal to take away your rights should be considered by all as illegal because a tyranny is attempting to be placed over you.

I for one won't allow tyranny in my life, I can't really stand people who will, and If you think i'm full of crap, then I say gain some more experience in the world, say, 5-10 years (since a lot of crap is going to happen in that time period), and get back to me on that.

This sort of prescience isn't magic, I read history, and I prefer military history.

don't refer to yourself in the 3rd person, its creepy

Yeah, hate laced tirades against people because they're legal immigrants is fucking insane.

That last post you wrote is the kind of nutty shit loony toons write shortly before their rampant paranoid delusions result in a full blown psychotic break.  The deck is more than a little shy of 52.