ike,

I am a retired high school principal who spent 24 years as a principal and assistant principal, retiring in 2002. I am also a former Marine who was a first mech./gunner/crew chief in HMM 770, a reserve helicopter squadron at Sand Point Naval Air Station, from 1963 to 1969. I joined the Marines in Sept., when I was 17 and a senior in high school. Both my brothers were Marines. I have always "taken action" because I have always believed that talk is cheap. You stand up for what you believe in or you just don't count.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your courage in reporting and living with a Marine battalion engaged in combat. KUDOS to you.

I deeply appreciate the positive story you tell. Your reporting, which I believe to be objective (showing good and bad) couldn't be told unless you were there enduring the hardships of the Marine Corps and the desert.

However, I go back and forth between tears and anger when I find the disproportionate number of negative news (anti war) articles in our daily papers, as well as on television which outnumber articles like yours by at least 50 to one. Do they think that there is one Marine who is pro war? The media in this country is generally so short sighted and ignorant of the impact democracy will have on the people of Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, for hundreds of years to come. There will be greater stability in the world and safety for the United States when people in Iraq are able to vote, achieve economic independence and self-actualize socially ( admittedly as per our Western standards).

Instead of bemoaning the sacrifices made in Iraq, the press (and the democrats))could be focusing on the gains, as well. They could also be focusing on the 50,000 Americans killed in auto wrecks each year or on demanding legislation to increase the penalties for drunken driving, to name two major killers. These lives are lost in vain. At least the bloodshed in Iraq has a noble purpose.

I also believe the negative press gives aid and comfort to the enemy. I hope the Marines you know are not disheartened by the Jane Fonda mentality of our national news coverage. Recent polls indicate only 41% of Americans approve of Bush and the way he's running the war. Operational mistakes will always be made. The troops need to know that this 41% is a SOLID corps of people supporting them and that many of those now opposed to the war SUPPORT them and fear for their safety. They just don't want anymore American service men to die. They simply don't understand the need for sacrifice to continue until the job is done.

Keep your body armor on and your head down.

Semper fi.

Dick Daniels
Poulsbo, Washington
(Posted 06-13-2005)

n today's Washington Post, from a Syrian jihadist fighting we infidels in Iraq: "Once the Americans bombed a bus crossing to Syria. We made a big fuss and said it was full of merchants," Abu Ibrahim said. "But actually, they were fighters." Time and again, jihadist lies effectively put the U.S. on the defensive, even though it's widely known the Al Queda manual actually instructs terrorists to make false complaints. When I was in an Iraqi hospital I was with a terrorist who was shot running away from an IED detonator but was allowed to lie his way out of it, treated, and released. A week later he was back in the hospital after again being shot running away from a detonator. THIS time he was off to prison. It's hard to blame the bad guys for lying. We use the weaponry available to us; they use that available to them. It's the media, anti-American groups like Amnesty International, and everybody else that forces us into having a "kinder, gentler military" because of these lies that are to blame.
(Posted 06-08-2005)

es, Paul Campos really is a shameless liar

He writes in his latest column defending his "fat is good for you" position:

"Physician, heal thyself! (And not only physicians – when I debated Fumento last summer, he admitted he was "overweight" according to government guidelines.) How much time, money and energy have you squandered trying and failing to achieve a scientifically bankrupt and largely unattainable goal? Has your own failed quest for thinness improved your "quality of life?" Try to answer that question honestly before you get back to hawking phony cures for an imaginary disease."

Actually, what I said is that my BMI exceed 25 because I lift weights and ride a bicycle 40 miles per week, but that my body fat content is quite low. Here is a
photo of "Fat Fumento" from two months ago. Fortunately, anybody who believes anything he says deserves what he gets.
(Posted 05-15-2005)

aniel Henninger, in the May 8 OpinionJournal, http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110006653 thoroughly confuses three studies regarding overweight and obesity. The first from the CDC itself found 400,000 premature American deaths from "poor diet and physical inactivity," and indeed as a result of a "methodological flaw" it later adjusted that downward BUT NOT to 26,000. Rather, it's new figure was 365,000 – not much of a difference really. The 26,000 comes from a BRANCH of the CDC called the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The CDC has not adopted that figure and should not because it is a complete anomaly. As I noted in my May 4 TNR Online article, decades of epidemiological studies have found a direct correlation between overweight AND obesity and early death. I specifically cited four from major journals that all found an excess risk of death in the weight category that the NCHS study says is the healthiest. It's also the category from which the NCHS study drew its 86,000 figure that it felt it could subtract from the obesity death figure to come up with that final 26,000. Just because Mr. Henninger is confused hardly means that "Science, of its nature, is always confusing." Certainly there will be contradictory findings, which is why scientists look to the "weight of the evidence" rather than simply relying on the latest study or the study that best fits one's prejudices. And the weight of the evidence is indeed that overweight and obesity are killing vast numbers of Americans and crippling far more than it kills.
(Posted 05-08-2005)

ere's another choice piece of hate mail sent to my friend Cathy Young who wrote about the late great man-hater Andrea Dworkin.

Have you actually READ Andrea Dworkin in full context? If so, your assertion that she was "a preacher of hate" – your words – belies the facts. As Catherine MacKinnon put it so precisely, "Man fucks woman. Subject verb object." Let me put it another way in order to make you understand: Man batters woman. Man rapes woman. Man serial murders woman.

Ms. Young, you need your consciousness raised beyond the doctrine of the cave.

Unless maybe you like it.

Sincerely,

Max [omitted]
(Posted 05-05-2005)

hould I be laughing about this?

From the March 03, 2005 edition of the Christian Science Monitor:
"New Research Opens a Window on the Minds of Plants"

CAPT Chris Christopher, USNR
Project Director
Program Executive Office for Information Technology

Dear Capt. Christopher:

No. I find the average plant has far more intelligence than most of my hate mailers.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento (Posted 03-04-2005)

You, and others, refer to Wilbert Rideau as black.

However, why is he not refered to as French-Canadian or Cajun. After all, his surname is a French-Canadian name therefore he must have some white European blood in him somewhere.

Just a rhetorical point. Thanks for enlightening me on his career. The local newpaper did a glowing piece on him last wekend.

Robert Wood

Dear Mr. Wood,

Actually there are a couple of aspects of slavery that contradict your assumption, but that as a Canadian you couldn't be expected to know. First, freed slaves often (probably generally) took the last names of their owners. Rideau's freed ancestors wouldn't even know any African surnames. Second, American slavers set up what's called the "one-drop" rule. That means that if a person had any black ancestry (so much as one drop of black blood) then he was considered black. That's why we don't use the term "mulatto" as they do in Latin America. To this day, if you have one black parent and one white parent, you're considered black. Fortunately, it no longer has the horrible ramifications it did just 40 years ago.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento
(Posted 02-01-2005)

ear Mr. Fumento:

I have performed over 250 evalutions as a contract psychiatrist for a civilian agency. I am board-certified and have added qualifications in forensic psychiatry. I teach how to do impairment ratings at the national level. I was thoroughly vetted by the agency to do evaluations.

This agency is paid by the VA to arrange for medical evaluations of all types. A "quality assurance" manager reviewed my work and told me yesterday that it is likely that I will no longer be doing evals because I diagnosed about 20% of the evaluees with PTSD. The VA and its agents want 80% to be diagnosed with PTSD. The criteria is adjudicated to be the DSM-IV, psychiatry's statistical and diagnostic manual. However, the REAL CRITERIA is "80%". This diagnosis entitles veterans to as much as $2100 per month for the rest of their lives.

What do you think?

I think you know what I think.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento
(Posted 01-26-2005)

ew York Post
Letter to the Editor

January 21, 2005

Dear Editor:

Michael A. Fumento's recent Post Opinion column [Fad Diets: a "Waste," Jan. 8, 2005] minimizes the benefits of losing 5-10% of body weight. While Mr. Fumento is entitled to his opinion, I think it's important for your readers to be informed about the abundance of science that proves that there are significant health benefits to be gained from a 5-10% reduction in body weight.

This past week, the latest edition of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines was released. Based on an evidence-based review (meaning that all of the recommendations must be substantiated by a pool of credible and reliable scientific studies), the Guidelines recommend that American adults who need to lose weight start with a 10% weight loss goal because this is an amount that "reduces obesity-related risk factors" like high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and the development of several forms of cancer. For example, the Diabetes Prevention Program was able to demonstrate a 58% reduction in the development of type 2 diabetes with a lifestyle program that included a 7% weight loss.

Despite the mountain of evidence that supports the benefits of a 5-10% weight loss, it remains one of our country's best kept secrets. A study in the December 2004 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine used a telephone to survey to assess the value placed on a 10% weight loss. The authors concluded that the majority of people do not yet appreciate the benefits of a weight loss of this magnitude and called on health care professionals to get the word out. This letter is intended to do just that.

Karen Miller-Kovach, M.S., R.D.
Chief Scientific Officer
Weight Watchers International
Woodbury, NY

Dear Ms. Kovach:

You write "the Guidelines recommend that American adults who need to lose weight start with a 10% weight loss." Sorry, but 5%-10% is not the same as 10%. Moreover even the lesser figure is considerably higher than what your members ultimately achieved. To quote the Annals of Internal Medicine review upon which I based my piece, "Participants in Weight Watchers lost 5.3% of their initial weight at 1 year and maintained a loss of 3.2% at 2 years." That 3.2 percent was about five pounds. Why do you feel justified in using 5%-10% as the equivalent of 3.2%? Moreover, the Guidelines suggest starting at 10% as an achievable first target on the way to losing more weight later. Your people GAINED weight as the study went on. (Quite possibly by year three they'd regained everything, but thankfully for you it ended at two years.) As if this isn't dishonest enough, you cite generalized data about the value of 5%-10% loses, again ignoring that your group had no such loss, rather than drawing directly from Weight Watchers evaluation itself. It found that compared with persons on a self-help program "differences in biological parameters were mainly non-significant by year 2." Imagine if Weight Watchers tried to recruit new members by declaring, "Pay a fortune and within two years you'll have lost about six pounds, regained three of those, and have nothing to show for it in terms of health!" You'd have to get a job with the tobacco industry.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento
(Posted 01-23-2005)

ear Mr. Fumento:
[Regarding your article on TV and childhood obesity.]

My observation:

I'm nearly 50 (and not overweight, by the way). When I was in grade school, there'd be maybe 2-3 fat kids per class.

My kids are 10 and 12 years old. They aren't overweight. There are maybe 2-3 normal-weight kids per class, and the rest are fat. Very fat.

flick
flick@starband.net
(Posted 01-18-2005)

never thought I was the only columnist in the world to receive really nasty hatemail, but my friend Michelle Malkin seems to be getting more than her share.

Here's a selection she provides from her most recent blog posting:

Hi Self hating flat nosed Filipino Bitch! As we used to refer to your kind – little brown Fucking Machines. Looks like this little LBFM learned to whore in a different way to make some pesos. How sweet. ***

Surely you are a big put-on. Did some minor Republican operative purchase a mail-order bride and train her to do this? ***

Proverbs 69:69 counsels: "Like a whore who infects those she sleeps with, so doth the ultra-republican faux columnist infect her readers with lies." While you are looking in the mirror, cursing the Left because you weren't born blond, think about the above. Amen. ***

Is is such a shame that you look like a Filipino- because your thinking, writing (if you can call that) is a disgrace to any member of the Asian community. Someday, when you are no longer motivated by greed, and when you are closer to your next life stage, you will realized what a horrible sellout you are. ***

You're a filthy whore. ***

I just hope that I am still around when the karma catches up to those of you that have spread the lies and attacked the innocent. I hope your fate is somewhat similar to the women of the Phillipines when the Japanese invaded. Then Michelle you can drop the "media" from "media whore" when someone asks your occupation. ***

You're just a Manilla whore shaking your ass and waiting for the Republican fleet to come in, aren't you? You've even got the lip gloss about right. Maybe if you love sailor long time, he bring you home to big American house? I don't think so. Just like in Manilla, Honey, they'll pass you around 'til they've all shot their load in you, and then they'll try to scrub off the stench so they can sail off in their crisp, white uniforms to the land of W.A.S.P. ***

Here's a tip. We know you are lyin' pond scum and a whore to your profession......and, not a very expensive whore at that. So............when we get rid of you neocons; how will you ever pay your rent? You're not good enough to make it as a real writer. fuck you; I hope you get cancer & die a horrible painful death all alone, with your collegues shunning you and the rest of us reading how wrong you are AND WHAT A CRUMMY WRITER YOU ARE. ***

Malkin, you're a dumb fucking whore. You're a philipino piece of shit who should be wiping my ass. Go back to the massage parlor. Sucky sucky long time. How dare you thing you have any right to express any opinions in this country. You're a joke. Go back to nursing school. Whore. ***

Young lady you should be ashamed of yourself. My husband is Filipino and is all I have met have had integrity. However, you have disgraced the Filipino Americans by spreading these awful lies and being a Bush whore. I was going to vote for Bush, but never after these dirty tricks and lies. Just like the old Marcos days' eh. Disgraceful, you family and your community are desparately ashamed of you. How much are they paying you to sell your soul. You have disgraced us all. ***

oh, mz. malkin, there are more profitable ways to whore yourself than to do it on television for the likes of the neocons. (they are even quicker to dump their whores when they are finished with them...) you would make a discreet fortune on aurora avenue here in seattle, and no one would be the wiser... ***

Say, how does it feel to be a paid prostitute for the republicans? Go get some more collagen injected in your lips, it makes you look more the part. ***

How much does the GOP pay you to be their propaganda whore?
(Posted 01-12-2005)

ear Michael,

Thank you for your very informative and encouraging article. I lost 27 pounds and kept it off for 15 years by the Diet Center diet. That diet was hard. Low fat, high fiber, portion control, exercise. Then 2 years ago, I tried Atkins. I had a pregnancy at 41 and needed to take off the 20 pounds that lingered from that. I have to be honest life was complicated so I was looking for something a lot easier. What could be easier, just protein. I lost about 15 pounds very quickly, that was fun but I felt icky, and as soon as I started to eat "normal" food, I put on 10 pounds.

So, I am starting over the right way. Joined a fitness center this week, revisited my old menus and purged the cabinets and refrig. Your article could not have been more timely.

Thank you for reminding me that nothing is easy. But that this pursuit of health is very much worth the trouble.

Sincerely,
Peggy Barranca
(Posted 01-11-2005)

arlier this week, all three major indices on the stock market were down. According to one article, the entire explanation was worry over the fallout from the tsunami. According to another, the entire explanation was a further drop in the value of the dollar. Which was it? In a sense, neither. Stocks went down because millions of people made individual decisions that can only end in one of three ways: a down market, an up market, or a mixed market. But people are terrified of that which has no explanation so they handsomely reward those who provide them – even if the explanation is anything from simply unsupported to downright idiotic. That's essentially what's behind about 50 percent of the subjects I write about. Some "authority" tells people what they want to hear or even what they don't want to hear, but either way it fills a vacuum. Those people are so relieved to have the void filled that they don't question what went into that explanation. More than that, they prefer the mysterious to the obvious. They don't want to hear that ships sink in the "Bermuda Triangle" because it's a big area with lots of shipping and "ship happens." They want to hear about UFOs and vortexes. They don't want to hear that Vietnam vets and Gulf vets get sick and die because everyone eventually gets sick and dies. They want to be regaled with tales of Agent Orange and Gulf War Syndrome. Catering to these desires often pays off in fame and fortune. But some of us would prefer to be able to look in the mirror.
(Posted 12-29-2004)

n response to "Unhealthy Hype The Myth of Gulf War Syndrome Lives On", a reader writes:

I recently heard a nurse who works closely with the Gulf War vets make a statement I found hard to believe. She stated that 30,000 vets of the 600,000 that served in the Gulf War are dead. Since I remember reading that the average age of the Gulf War soldier was 19, I find it almost unbelievable this many could die from natural causes in just 10 years.

Do you know if this statement is true or even how one could verify such a statement? I believe the nurse's name was Joyce Riley.

I hope I hear from you.

Dear Sir,

1. It wasn't 600,000 it was 700,000.
2. The average age wasn't 19 and averages are just that. Plenty of 50-year-olds went there.
3. It hasn't been ten years; it's been 14.
4. They weren't all natural deaths. Some died in accidents, some in homicides. They die from whatever kills other people.
5. If it's 30,000, that's a death rate of 4.2 percent over 14 years. As it happens, that's less 44 percent the expected rate compared to civilians. See, http://oem.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/59/12/794 :
"Finally, the mortality of Gulf veterans and non-Gulf veterans was compared separately to that of the US population, with adjustment for age, gender, race, and year of death. The results are presented as SMRs, expressing the ratio of observed deaths among veterans to the expected numbers of deaths in the general population. Any SMR whose 95% CI did not include 1.0 was considered to be statistically significant. The overall mortality of both Gulf and non-Gulf veterans was less than half that expected based on the general population (SMR 0.44, 95% CI 0.42 to 0.47 and SMR 0.38, 95% CI 0.36 to 0.40, respectively)."
6. Joyce Riley is a crackpot who says she "contracted" GWS, but can't decide whether she got it from exposure to a vet in the U.S. or while serving in the Persian Gulf – which, incidentally, she never did.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento
(Posted 12-25-2004)

eff Stahler’s cartoon carried in the Dec. 9 USA Today indicates he needs lessons in history or math or both. It depicts one U.S. soldier in Iraq telling another, “WWII might have had the longest day, but we’ve got the longest stay.” Yet in WWII and WWI draftees and enlisted servicemen, whether originally active duty or members of the Guard or Reserve, served “for the duration.” Those who enlisted the day after Pearl Harbor thus served about four years before being discharged, with very few receiving leave to return to the U.S.
(Posted 12-12-2004)

ear Mr Fumento,

I am an ardent reader of your Hate Mail pages, there are some strange people on this earth and I particularly enjoyed the rants following your Wakefield/MMR article.

As you know, the link between Wakefield and the solicitors acting for alleged vaccine damaged children has only recently become known and I was pleased to see your article pulled no punches in criticising Wakefield. You may therefore be interested in a documentary shown on British TV last night, on 'Channel Four', which further undermined Wakefield's credibility. The programme maker's website, which outlines his findings against Wakefield, can be found here:
http://briandeer.com/wakefield-deer.htm

Briefly, the programme found Wakefield and his Medical School had registered patents, the value of which would be greatly enhanced if confidence in MMR was undermined.

The irony is that until recently Wakefield was the darling of the British media, and one of the scenes in last night's documentary showed him trying to avoid British TV cameras, when not so long ago he would have been delighted that they were interested in him. A further irony is that it is a Sunday Times' journalist exposing him as the Sunday Times has in the past been one of Wakefield's favourite publicists.

Best wishes

[omitted]
Government Office for London
Local Government Team: South and Central
Riverwalk House
157-161 Millbank
London
SW1P 4RR
(Posted 12-01-2004)

I doubt if the info in the article attached [Newport News Daily Press; November 6, 2004; "Decades After Vietnam, Agent Orange Hasn't Surrendered"] below will come as a surprise to you – it rehashes the current myths about how many cancers Agent Orange "causes" and refers to exposed vets somehow passing on birth defects to their children. The mind boggles.

The "fact" I found most revealing was this statement: "According to the Agent Orange Widows Awareness Coalition, more than 2.5 million troops were exposed from 1962 to 1975. More than 250,000 have already died from known Agent Orange-related illnesses."

The VA fact sheet states that there were about 3.4 million vets who were deployed to Southeast Asia. This includes those stationed on ships in the adjacent waters who may have never set foot on shore. So we are to believe that OVER 73 PERCENT of Vietnam vets were somehow exposed to Agent Orange? Doesn't seem very likely, does it? And I don't know where they got the 250K deaths figure but I suspect it's fiction, too.

Someone is playing a little loose with the "facts" here.

As a 25-year Army veteran myself (although not a Gulf War veteran) I am much attuned to veterans' issues and support them wholeheartedly. What I want, however, is facts – not fiction.

Regards,
Frank Womble

Dear Mr. Womble:

From what I've seen, I'm surprised they didn't claim that 101 percent of Southeast Asia vets were exposed. I've also seen incredible figures for deaths among GW vets. In fact, they're dying at the same rate as matched non-GW vet controls and a rate far slower than matched civilians. Oh, and by the way, Lee Harvey Oswald could never have gotten off three shots in 8.4 seconds even though I watched a video of an 89-year-old man do it. Oswald was 30 when he shot Kennedy and had been a top Marine sharpshooter, often hitting 50 pop-up targets out of 50. (As is, one of his three shots at Kennedy missed completely.) Yes, people just make these things up.
(Posted 11-22-2004)

We all know that acupuncture involves the insertion of needles, so why did nobody question how you can do a proper acupuncture placebo study? In any event, the authors of the study, which appeared in the British Medical Journal, did not. The "placebo" as it were, comprised putting "retractable needles went into small adhesive cylinders, such that the needle was supported but did not perforate the skin." (Emphasis added.) I've had acupuncture on three occasions from three different practitioners. In no case did any of the inserted needles sting like an injection, but in every case there was a tiny twinge of pain. Not inserting the needles and calling it a placebo is like offering a patient a placebo pill but not making him swallow it. Add to this that arthritis has long been known to react positively to the power of suggestion (note such popular placebos as copper bracelets and magnets) and you have a study that's utterly worthless. We continue to witness the downward slide of the quality of published medical science.
(Posted 11-21-2004)

o the editor of the Washington Post:

It was inevitable that somebody would use the most infamous line from the Vietnam War to sully our efforts in Iraq, but maybe it says something that there's no proof that line was ever uttered. "An American general in Vietnam famously said, 'We had to destroy the village to save it,' wrote Michael Kinsley in his 21 Nov. column "It Hurts, but Don't Stop." Actually, it was attributed to an Army major and the attributor was none other than Peter Arnett. As Arnett admits in his biography, the officer always denied saying it and it was Arnett's word against his. There were other journalists present, but curiously only Arnett's ears caught the utterance. Even then Arnett had a reputation for being anti-American. But in more recent years he was let go by CNN for his work on the "Operation Tailwind" story falsely alleging the U.S. used nerve gas to kill American defectors during the Vietnam War, and was then subsequently fired by NBC and National Geographic for ripping the 2003 Iraq invasion while allegedly a neutral reporter. If Kinsley chooses to believe Arnett, that's his prerogative. But when he goes on to say, "Last week we destroyed an entire city (Falluja) to save it," he's flatly wrong. It was heavily damaged, but you wouldn't see civilians already returning to a "destroyed" city.

Michael Fumento
(Posted 11-21-2004)

ou have heard that a new federal panel has essentially reversed the course of earlier studies and has reported that there probably is a Gulf War Syndrome and that it's caused by nerve agents. Here's what you probably didn't hear. First, other than stress-related illness Gulf Vets are as healthy as matched controls who didn't deploy and far healthier than matched civilians. Gulf vets are no more likely to have died that matched control who didn't deploy and far less likely to have died than matched civilians. Second, there is no evidence of significant nerve gas exposure to any Gulf vet. That means none has exposure even one one-thousandth that known to cause harm. The VA has also announced that any researcher who want to investigate a stress-origin for so-called GWS will be ineligible for federal funding. That's science for you – government style. Meanwhile, I received this correspondence from somebody who's actually treated "GWS victims."

Dear Michael,

Delighted to have found your website. I'm a retired dermatologist who like you spent some time in the service where I saw (and sometimes examined if they had skin problems) patients with GWS or as I call it, Military ME. Neither then nor now has this group shown any compelling difference over matched controls and yet to say so leads one to be subjected to the vituperative abuse that you attract and deflect with commendable calm. One of my ideas(and this is not meant to be facetious) is that patients with ME should have as part of the diagnostic criteria that so labels them, a tendency to view their medical advisors with a venom that far exceed that which could be expected were their disease to be organic. Patients with MS for example are not accorded great priority of care in this country and yet remain generous toward those who try and usually fail to limit the progress of this ill understood disorder. ME patients are livid should one tentatively broach the subject of a functional component to their symptoms despite the fact that they would be horrified were they to they to be accused of saying that those with mental illness were not really ill. They are the same people who are obsessed with notions of holistic medicine except when its principals are directed at them. I shall add your books to my library and return with relish to your website.

Yours,
Dr. David Murray

[I then asked him what the heck "ME" is.]

Dear Michael,

ME is what used to be called in the UK "Myalgic Encephalomyelitis" a suitably portentous name that carried a an undeserved pathological authority about it as well as the unintentional but as you point out revealing initials 'ME', me, me. It's CFS/ME or 'chronic fatigue syndrome' now that extensive costly research has shown no muscle disease to justify 'myalgic', and not the remotest sign of damage to the brain or to the peripheral nerves. The usual symptoms of course: tiredness, muscle pain and tenderness, easy fatigue, sleep disturbances, headaches and lots of that old favourite 'allergies'. It's not quite as fashionable as it used to be but always to my mind seems to be accompanied by a morbid hatred of my profession that goes beyond that which one might expect as a result of a doctor's inability to find anything wrong. These patients grossly resent the implication that their illness may have a functional non organic component, a resentment which sits uncomfortably with their obsession with the world of the 'holistic', the natural caring world that we uncaring physicians are deemed to have abandoned. These people are not malingering but have a psychological illness which I find fascinating, a modern hysteria acted out not in the expensive consulting rooms of Freud and Jung, but in the newspapers and over the internet. Your critics are quite wrong. It is the cold analysis of the outsider that you bring to the debate that adds to its clarity. Those on the inside seem often to be dangerously obtuse.
(Posted 11-14-2004)

ital medical question(s) of the day from a reader:

What is the best way to enlarge or enhance the penis?

Do the pills work?

Answer:

1. Put on soft music, light some candles, and have your wife slip into sexy lingerie.
2. No.

(Posted 11-03-2004)

ear Mr. Fumento:

Regarding your piece on making flu and other diseases "disappear" by listing them by the complications they cause and not the origin of those complications, it's worth noting that as far as I know the ultimate cause of death is almost always a loss of oxygen to the brain, so why not just go with asphyxiation as cause of death?

Quite right. It sure would make things easier for people who have to track medical statistics, and coroners could do their job by phone!

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento
(Posted 10-31-2004)

o the editor:

Regarding Chris Mooney's article "Research and Destroy: How the Religious Right Promotes its Own 'Experts' to Combat Mainstream Science," the major threat to good science is medical and science journals selling out to increase their circulation and mass media coverage by publishing junk from researchers seeking larger grants and 15 minutes of fame. Nonetheless, there's nothing wrong with Mooney focusing on so minor a factor as religious beliefs and conservative ideology – if he did so fairly.

He fails this in writing, "Embryonic stem-cell research [ESC] is another issue where conservatives have latched onto fringe science in order to advance moral arguments." To the contrary, virtually everything positive about ESCs is hype from politicians, the media, or ESC researchers. The Democrats refuse to even acknowledge the existence of adult stem cells (ASCs), as shown in Ron Reagan's convention speech and John Kerry's response to a question about them in the second presidential debate. We need no reminder of John Edwards' loathsome exploitation of Christopher Reeve's death to slam Bush. Yet ESCs aren't even in clinical trials, while ASCs have been used to treat human disease since the 1950s. At [http://www.corcell.com/expectant/diseases_treated.html#current] you'll find a list, far from comprehensive, of almost 80 therapies currently using ASCs.

The only possible advantage of ESCs is potential, but here again Mooney is wrong in stating flatly: "It's well established that embryonic stem cells can generate any kind of tissue found in the body." Nobody knows that yet. Meanwhile, scientists have already discovered at least 14 types of ASCs that – even if they only have limited plasticity – could eliminate the need for a "one-size fits all" cell. I recently wrote about numerous studies that converted marrow stem cells to heart tissue in living humans, noting that MacroPore of San Diego expects to use fat stem cells to make such repairs routine in as little as two years. Further, three different labs have presented evidence that an ASC can be "teased" into all three germ lines that make up all the cells of the human body. PPL Therapeutics has taken fully mature cow skin cells, reprogrammed them to become stem cells, and then converted these to heart cells.

Mooney presents Dr. Irving Weissman as a disinterested party, identifying him only as a "Stanford pathologist." Yet he's the nation's leading cheerleader for ESC research, and director of Stanford's Institute for Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine which focuses on ESC research. Weissman has appeared in commercials urging Californians to vote for California's Proposition 71, which would funnel $3 billion only to ESC research – much of it Weissman's. Mooney quotes Weissman saying, "Scientifically, there is no independently verified evidence today that a pure stem cell of one type – adult tissue, say blood forming – can turn into another tissue at all," yet a PubMed search reveals of slew of studies having done just that in addition to the aforementioned marrow-to-heart-muscle ones. One appeared in Nature Medicine in November 2000 that converted marrow stem cells from mice into mature liver cells in the same animals. Among the co-authors: Dr. Irving Weissman.

Essentially, Mooney is saying that ESC research must be valid precisely because some conservatives find it morally repugnant. ASC research, he says, is hyped for the same reason. In fact, follow the motives and you'll find that what drives the ESC disinformation campaign is that venture capitalists are wisely avoiding ESCs, leaving ESC researchers desperate to feed from the government trough. It is they and their supporters who are "on the edges of fringe science."

Michael Fumento
(Posted 10-27-2004)

nother letter from somebody whom, believe it or not, has a disease other than AIDS.

Dear Mr. Fumento,

I did not think I would live long enough to see this in the mainstream press! [That's because I'm not part of the mainstream press!] Thank you. I was diagnosed with PBC, a rare liver disease thought to be autoimmune, which affects mainly women. I believe my mother died from this nasty affliction many years ago before there was even a name for it. I was fortunate enough to receive a liver transplant a year ago which has extended my life. Though liver disease kills many more people each year than AIDS - just pennies are distributed for research by the NIH.

I refer you to www.FAIRfoundation.org. This exists to point out the disparity of spending by the feds when it comes to the ten top killers in our country.

Thank you once again for pointing out this injustice!

Carol Waldner
Fort Pierce, FL
(Posted 10-23-2004)

ubject: CBS truth

Dear Mr. Fumento,

I spent over $2000 to replace silver fillings in my teeth because a CBS story claimed the mercury in silver fillings contributed to MS, which I had then and still have now. My doctor pointed out, rightly, that they never mentioned another side. I went ahead with the dental procedure – chronic illness makes one grasp at straws. The disease, not surprising, progressed, and I've never looked at CBS in a trustful way again.

Take care,

Martha Humphreys
Huntsville, AL
(Posted 10-13-2004)

his is a response to my piece on overspending on AIDS:

Mr. Fumento,

Good article, but people don't care! Whoever yells, whines and cries the most gets the most (funding, attention...) from our government. People like me, with no voice (literally and figuratively) get ignored. I'm not claiming to be "righteous," but even though I didn't drink, smoke, do drugs, eat poorly, never cheated on my wife... I got a terminal disease called Lou Gehrig's (ALS) that has completely paralyzed my now 44 year old body (in case you're wondering, I'm typing you with a device operated by head movements). Fortunately, I've never held the naive view of life being fair, I can thank our governments funding of disease research for confirming my view. ALS, even on a per-patient basis, gets a drop in the bucket when compared to AIDS or for that matter, every other behaviorally caused disease. Oh well, that's life (and death).

Take care,

Bill Sweeney
(Posted 10-13-2004)

ere we go again. More false information on the therapeutic uses of adult stem cells, courtesy of the American Council on Science and Health's Elizabeth Whelan and the Hoover Institution's Henry Miller.

In their piece, "Politics and the Debate over Stem Cell Research," Whelan and Miller assert:

Some commentators who clearly have a moral objection to using ESCs are now aggressively promoting the idea that adult stem cells (ASCs), rather than those from embryos, offer the greatest hope for cures. (Indeed, ASCs are already being used experimentally to treat some blood disorders, leukemias, and other conditions.) Some advocates of this position even accuse the Democrats and their allies in the media of suppressing reports of ASC successes and hyping those derived from ESC research. But why exactly would one reject ASC research if it has such great potential? (Perhaps to keep a political football in play?)

Moreover, I already pre-empted their assertion that only those with moral objections to ESCs discuss the progress with ASCs when I wrote, "Because ES and AS cell research battles for the same limited funds, the ES backers brand as a religious fanatic anyone with a kind word to say about AS cells." Just so, Whelan and Miller do not allow for the possibility that somebody, ANYBODY might actually have no moral objections to the use of ESCs but still consider the use of ASCs to be not only much further advanced (hardly arguable, insofar as no ESC has ever made into human trials) but also have more potential.

As to the current state of ASC applications, I dealt with that too. Whereas Whelan and Miller claim "ASCs are already being used experimentally (sic) to treat some blood disorders, leukemias, and other conditions," I noted that "AS cells have been used therapeutically since the 1950s. Already more than 80 different AS cell treatments are in use." These are not experiments; they are routine applications. (Stem cells from umbilical cords alone have been used in over 3,500 transplants worldwide; notwithstanding that the technology is far more recent than marrow stem cell transplants. Thirty-five hundred experiments?) Either Whelan and Miller saw that in my piece and ignored it or they simply didn't know it.

Again, they could be reacting directly to my material when they claim, "Some advocates of this position even accuse the Democrats and their allies in the media of suppressing reports of ASC successes and hyping those derived from ESC research."

I demonstrated the media aspect in my Tech Central Station piece by noting that "Ace New York Times reporter Gina Kolata wrote last month, "The problem [with AS cells] is in putting them to work to treat diseases. So far, no one has succeeded." Thus over 80 therapies, over 3,500 umbilical cord transplants, and countless applications that are still experimental but have worked in clinical trials (including the heart-repair breakthroughs that were the main subject of my piece) somehow constitutes no success. Do Whelan and Miller really think Kolata was simply ignorant of all this?

Regarding the Democratic position, my National Review Online piece about Ron Reagan's speech in which he attributed potential miracles to ESCs even as he made no mention of ASCs whatsoever, demonstrates that nicely – unless you believe that Reagan spoke merely for himself and the Party had no idea what he would say. Moreover, in the repeated Democratic accusations against the Bush Administration regarding ESC funding, try to find any reference to ASCs.

In short, Whelan and Miller didn't just discuss stem cells being turned into a political football – they demonstrated it in Super Bowl fashion.
(Posted 09-23-2004)

his is in response to an article appearing in both the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune:

How incredible that Gina Kolata would write of adult stem cells that, "There are no ethical issues in studying these cells, but the problem is in putting them to work to treat diseases. So far, no one has succeeded. ("Stem Cells: Hope and Setbacks", August 26.) In fact, the first success with marrow stem cell transplants was almost 50 years ago. Today almost 80 diseases can be treated or outright cured with these cells that are found not just in adults, as she wrote, but in umbilical cords. (See: http://www.corcell.com/expectant/diseases_treated.html#current) Insofar as Ms. Kolata is one of the nation's top science reporters, it stretches the imagination to think this is anything but yet another media effort to try to raise the perceived value of embryonic stem cells, which have yet to treat a single human disease, by ignoring the true value of the alternatives.
(Posted 08-31-2004)

"We're living in the middle of a witch hunt and fat people are the witches," Marilyn Wann of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance tells the Associate Press. "It's gotten markedly worse in the last few years because of the propaganda that fatness, a natural human characteristic, is somehow a form of disease." Well, she's partly right. She IS a witch. A few years ago I debated her on the radio about the arrest of a woman who stuffed her poor daughter until first she couldn't even get off the floor and then she died. After half an hour she quit the debate. As for fatness being a "natural human characteristic, so is cancer but that doesn't mean it's okay to have. In any event, NAAFA members tend to tip the scales at 350 pounds or more. Some weigh in at 500. How many people are going to buy that this is natural, except in the sense of "It's the natural outcome of eating four times as much each day as you should." It's one thing to have sympathy with people this fat; quite another when they claim that weighing as much as a baby hippo is a perfectly healthy and enjoyable lifestyle. Yes, Marilyn, you and Margaret Hamilton's character in the Wizard of Oz have much in common – except that she preferred green skin over hundreds of pounds of added adipose tissue.
(Posted 08-03-2004)

ying about AIDS Has Never Constituted "Lying"

"The United States ranks dead last among nations that donate to the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in terms of money given as a proportion of
gross domestic product (GDP)," wrote Kaitlin Towner in her July 26th letter [to the Washington Post]. She omits that three-fourths of the countries in the world have pledged or donated
nothing. Of the 51 countries that did so as of 2003, the US had contributed just shy
of $2 billion. That's four times as much as the next largest donor and over a third
of the total, even though our GDP is less than a third of the world's total.

Further, since her letter indicates that AIDS is the only disease she's really
concerned about, it may interest her that US contributions and pledges for combating
world AIDS specifically are twice that of the rest of the planet combined. That she
clearly wishes we were spending even more does not excuse her disinformation.

Michael Fumento
Senior Fellow
Hudson Institute
Washington, DC 20036
202-974-2406
(Posted 07-27-2004)

Subject: Beware Agrarian Utopias

Dear Michael,

As a frequent visitor to your site, my heart leaped for joy when I read this article. It succinctly and eloquently encapsulates everything that is flawed in the thinking of the organic farming lobby and Prince Charles in particular. If he eventually succeeds to the throne, I can only hope that our country will follow yours in electing a Republican party to power.

Regards,

Adrian Bradley
United Kingdom

Dear Adrian,

Thanks for the kind note. Even here we're hoping that the Queen lives to be 115 – that or Bonnie Charlie gets a plate of bad organic sprouts.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento
(Posted 07-05-2004)

Friday, July 2, 2004

Organics: The Myths, The Facts
by Debra Bokur

If you caught Dennis Avery's February 4 denunciation of organic foods as unsafe (broadcast on ABC's 20/20 and hosted by John Stossel), don't panic. Instead, consider the source: Avery, an advocate for both biotechnology industry and a proponent of food irradiation, is a spokesperson for the Hudson Institute and the author of Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic (Hudson Institute, 1995). It's also no secret that corporations including Cargill, ConAgra, DuPont, Monsanto and the National Agricultural Chemical Association fund the Hudson Institute.

Bokur's "no secret" is sleight-of-hand for saying she has no evidence. And the reason she has no evidence is that it's not true. Hudson annually lists its donors, and at least in the past year none has given a dime to Hudson. I have no idea who might be giving individual support to Avery, but it's not coming via the Hudson pipeline as she insists. Even if it did, if Hudson received money from the GOP and wrote somewhere that "George Bush is doing a good job handling the economy," would it be fair to assume that but for that donation Hudson would never have said any such thing? Likewise, that Bokur feels a need to lie to support her position doesn't necessarily mean that organic food is essentially the fraud that it is. On the other hand, if it's the best she can do, she's not doing so well.
(Posted 07-02-2004)

ubject: Hate Mail 25

Holy Schnikes --

I was pretty sure you'd kicked over the chamberpot with your vaccine article, but I didn't know all THAT would run out.

Much of the speculation on the genetic basis of autism takes note of the fact that many parents of autistic kids aren't exactly normal either. Your data certainly support the thesis. Kind of scary what happens when people wanting to make names for themselves (or just make a buck) get loose among desperate people. Sort of makes one hope there's a hell after all.

I admire your stamina.

[omitted] Jones
(Posted 04-16-2004)

ubject: God bless you!

I came across your "hate mail" on the net, quite by accident, and I can only say----BRAVO!!!!! I am so tired of hearing from the Atkins converts, and the sheep who follow them! My mother had to have her gall bladder removed after a stint on Atkins, and now weighs close to 400 lbs----and she still defends the diet with her every ounce of energy (which isn't much). It is so nice to hear someone defending common sense for a change! (Calories in versus calories out, and get up off the couch sometimes!) Just thought someone should let you know..

Warm Regards,

Natalie
(Posted 04-05-2004)

ichael,

I really feel victimized by your column. Poor, poor me. I have a house, beautiful wife, a wonderful son, but I am not getting the recognition I deserve as a victim.

Could you please suggest some victim categories I might be able to join?

I am desperate.

Brad

Dear Brad,

Not being able to proclaim victimhood is the highest category of victimization there is.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento
(Posted 04-03-2004)

March 1, 2004

To the editor of the Washington Post:

Nothing in your 29 February editorial on possible contamination of non-genetically engineered crops with DNA from genetically engineered (GE) ones deserved its horrific title: "Demon Seeds." Still, it should not have relied on an advocacy "study" from the virulently anti-biotech Union of Concerned Scientists, which despite its name is essentially a lay group. It could also have noted that since plants first developed, they have genetically "contaminated" each other, sometimes even crossing species barriers. Since the beginning of agriculture, over 10,000 years ago, the same has been true of cross-bred plants. The difference with GE crops is that, as a recent National Academy of Sciences report detailed, there are many methods under development, and some in use, to keep newly-transferred genes from escaping to other plants. For example the gene can be inserted into an area of the genome where it can't express itself in pollen.

If that's not enough, plants can always be "back-bred" to remove genes. Finally, there are massive repositories of germplasm (living tissue from which new plants can be grown) maintained all over the U.S. and the world that both aid the development of new plant strains and prevent old ones from being lost.

Michael Fumento

arolyn Sussman, a columnist with the Palm Beach Post writes, "Besides, even if [Atkins] did die obese and with heart problems, how does that prove that his diet was to blame?"

Egad, lady! Okay, if you want to believe the phony baloney stuff about the virus picked up in Turkey causing his myocardial infarction (as noted on the ME report), fine. But he either died fat (195 pounds, BMI 26.4) or downright obese at 258 pounds. His diet was supposed to make you slim. By definition, either he didn't stick to the diet because he couldn't or he did stick to the diet and was fat. Either way, invariably the diet is to blame.
(Posted 03-01-2004)

n a rambling, barely readable piece called "Synthetic Science" on something called "Alternet," Lila Rajiva goes back and forth between attacking those who have written either that silicone or saline breast implants are safe. She should have just written: "Anybody who defends the safety of breast implants is a corporate lackey. Trust me." There's no mention, for example that the Institute of Medicine gave an "all-clear" to silicone implants, which inherently also includes the saline ones. Presumably they're corporate dupes, too, but it would have been nice for readers to know the prestigious IOM had weighed in. As for moi, "Scholars like Michael Fumento of the conservative Hudson Institute, which receives agribusiness funding, likened the anti-implant evidence to snake oil . . ." The part about snake oil is correct, but just what the heck do implants have to do with agribusiness? (There was an effort to fill them with soybean oil, but it flopped.) She also never says anything about ME receiving agribusiness funding which I wasn't when I wrote the piece in question and am not now. You've heard the term, "Any port in a storm," but here there's no port at all. Apparently the "alter" in "alternet" means "alternative to the truth."
(Posted 02-27-2004)

roviding yet another method by which embryonic stem cell research may prove as superfluous and wasteful as it is controversial, chemists at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California have discovered a molecule they named "reversine." When they used the drug on mouse muscle-forming cells, they seemed to revert to a 'blank' state capable of forming other tissue types including bone and fat cells. Thus, instead of just harvesting all the various types of stem cells already present in adult tissue, umbilical cords, and placental tissue it may be possible to actually fabricate stem cells from mature ones.

It's too early to set yet whether this enzyme will also work on human muscle (though if it doesn't another may), nor whether it may cause some type of harm. But it shows once again the incredible creativity of scientists who work with regeneration via adult stem cells and mature cells.
(Posted 02-04-2004)

rom an interview with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison in the January 27th USA Today:

Q: If tech isn't the Valley's superfast growth industry, what will rule in 10 years?

A: This is just the beginning of the biotech revolution. It's going to change our world even more than computers did. I own a couple of biotech companies, and one thing that's particularly frustrating for me is the gestation time from an idea to a product.

Government regulators are very careful to make sure that no one commits an error, so they put you through all these tests. And it sounds perfectly reasonable. But if you delay a drug 10 years and 100,000 people die because you delayed the drug, that should be included in the calculus, but it isn't. They only count people that the drug killed because it came out too early. It's just fascinating to me the way we look at these things. I just think the calculus is incorrect.

Q: How will biotech change things more than computers?

A: To some degree, it already has. We're living longer. We're living healthier, which is by and large a good thing, except that Social Security is inevitably bankrupt. The social welfare system is under tremendous stress because we are living longer. This is an example of biotechnology extending life and putting social, political and economic pressure on us. That really will change our world and cause us to think about these issues more than computing.
(Posted 02-02-2004)

n a report on the downing of a U.S. Apache helicopter in Iraq, the Cuban online newspaper Granma International Digital carried this photo with caption. So much for steenking American invincibility, eh? The pilot and co-pilot are doomed, despite the armor! Too bad the piece itself stated, "The two crew members were unharmed in the attack."
(Posted 01-15-2004)

ast summer, Sandy Szwarc, famed (ahem!) author of "Real New Mexico Chile: An Insiders Guide to Cooking with Chile," wrote a big fat series (10 pieces and over 25,000 words) "Weighing Obesity" that appeared in Tech Central Station (TCS) from July 14-August 8. It was sheer propaganda for the fat acceptance movement – filled with quotes from representatives of that movement, fabricated numbers such as multiplying anorexia deaths by a factor of 1000, and making such incredible assertions as "The strongest scientific evidence indicates we'll live longest and with the fewest health problems if we're in the overweight range, especially as we get older." Also, "In addition to longer life spans, fat people have lower rates of most cancers, respiratory diseases, and osteoporosis," she insisted. All of this was readily falsifiable, and I refuted it in TCS.

Why is it therefore not surprising that she has now gone on the offensive against exercise as well, claiming you could walk the circumference of the planet without losing a dress size or pant size? Do you think I'm exaggerating? Here's what she wrote, allegedly citing a study:

It sort of flies in the face of that simplistic myth – "burn 3,500 kcalories and lose a pound" – doesn't it? "At about 80 kcal/mile [a "kcal" is what is normally referred to as a calorie] for a 77 kg person walking at a reasonable speed (3 to 4 mph), this works out to roughly 3,920 miles per pound, equivalent to walking from New York City to Seattle, and then down to San Diego - for one pound of fat!" My advice: Leave your pedometer at home, it probably can't count that many steps.

And thank goodness they didn't. Numerous readers wrote in to slam Szwarc and her fuzzy (fatty?) math. As one noted, "If you burn 80 per mile, it will take 43.75 miles to burn one pound of fat at a rate of 3,500 kcal per pound, not 3,920 miles. By Szwarc's logic, you could walk around the earth with about 7 pounds of body fat."

Truth means absolutely nothing to this woman. Fact is, for those who have lost weight and kept it off (something the fat acceptance people will tell you is impossible) exercise is not only important but practically essential. The ongoing 3,000-member National Weight Control Registry shows that over 90 percent of persons who lost substantial weight found they must exercise to keep it off. For all the arguments over high-carb and low-carb diets (in which I have certainly participated), it may well be that regular exercise, both aerobic and resistance, is the most important factor in maintaining weight loss. That and avoiding anything Sandy Szwarc writes.
(Posted 01-11-2004)

ichael,
I stumbled onto your Hate Mail page and laughed so hard! What a hoot. I love the way you nit pick (sic) the writing too. Very neat stuff. I now want to read more that you've written. I admit to being a tad concerned that one of those nutcases might try to track you down. Thanks for increasing the sanity. I'll send a pointer to several friends and push the paypal (sic) button.

Cheers,
Jon
(an IBM [omitted] engineer)

Jon,

You should have seen that coming! Thanks!

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento
(Posted 01-07-2004)

nyone my age or older remembers the notorious body counts from the Vietnam War in which the military handed out numbers of killed (or allegedly killed enemy) on an almost daily basis. Now the tables have turned 180 degrees, with the media obsessed with the body counts of American soldiers in Iraq. It seems that any time any soldier is killed by mayhem or accident; we must be given the latest tally of A) soldiers killed since the invasion, and B) soldiers killed since Pres. Bush declared the end of major hostilities. It's not that this should be kept a secret, but exactly what service do daily reminders provide?
(Posted 12-29-2003)

ewsweek Magazine
To the editor:

To know anyone serving in Iraq is to know that much of what's reported in the major news media is baloney. It's either biased towards the violence and against reconstruction and other peaceful accomplishments or is wrong because the reporters don't know what they're writing about. Thus in a piece reported from the war zone, "Lord... Just Help Us Kill 'Em," (Nov. 10, 2003) comprising merely 900 words, reporter Joshua Hammer makes four mistakes that are obvious merely to anyone with knowledge of U.S. military equipment. He refers to Staff Sgt. Paul J. Johnson having been blown up in a jeep, to U.S. troops carrying "M-4 light machine guns, fitted with laser scopes," and "two Bradley tanks." But the military replaced the jeep with the Humvee back in the 1980s, and it was a Humvee in which Johnson died. The M-4 is not a light machine gun but rather a carbine rifle, a shortened version of the venerable M-16 automatic rifle. A scope is something you look through; the laser devices attached to the M-4 are spotters, not scopes. Finally, there's no such thing as a "Bradley tank." The M2 and M3 Bradley is designated a "fighting vehicle," with the main purposes of troop transport and tank support. The only tank deployed in Iraq is the M-1 Abrams.

That any private could have corrected Hammer on all of these and that this got through at least one editor and the fact checker speaks volumes about the reliability of anything being wired back from Iraq.

Michael Fumento
(Posted 11-26-2003)

t seems like others are realizing that blogging is hardly the phenomenon it was made out to be as little as year ago, as is evident in Jennifer Howard's Washington Post piece, "It's a Little Too Cozy in the Blogosphere."

Select tidbits include:

What began as the ultimate outsider activity - a way to break the newspaper and TV stranglehold on the gathering and dissemination of information -- is turning into the same insider's game played by the old establishment media the bloggerati love to critique. The more blogs you read and the more often you read them, the more obvious it is: They've fallen in love with themselves, each other and the beauty of what they're creating.

The problem's built into the medium itself . . . Bloggers don't have to get their copy past an editor, and they can sound off at any length -- no word limits in cyberspace. They're products of a seismic cultural shift that makes someone's hangover as newsworthy as the arrival of a Harry Potter novel . . . In a Google universe, success is defined by hits: the number of visits a Web page gets. The more blogs link to each other, the more hits they all get; enough hits and a cyberstar is born.

Bloggers know what they like and what they don't like, and they aren't afraid to tell you why. And they get to use bad words that will never see print inside a family newspaper. But to get to the good stuff, you have to wade through more and more self-congratulation and mutual admiration. Call it blogrolling.