A Drug-Prescribing Doctor

Here's an interesting comment thread about Dr Ratts of Bloomington, whom many people say gave out painkillers freely and supplied many of the local addicts. Eventually his license to prescribe such medications was revoked. I don't know if anything more happened to him.

More on Phthalates

Below is the law on enforcement of the phthalate regulation on selling products with phthalates in them (certification is another aspect). Phthalates are a chemical that softens plastics. There seems to be no evidence whatsoever that it causes damage in anyone but pregnant women (and that evidence is all from rats, I think), judging from what *proponents* of the regulation say. Opponents might even doubt that.

1. Guidance on the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) for Small Businesses, Resellers, Crafters and Charities.
2. National Resources Defense Council v. US Consumer Product Safety Commmission, 08 Civ. 10507, SD NY, Gardephe. J.
   
3. "The Case Against Phthalates in Children's Toys", Huffington Post, (March 24, 2008).
   
4. Human Breast Milk Contamination with Phthalates and Alterations of Endogenous Reproductive Hormones in Infants Three Months of Age , Katharina M. Main et al. , Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 114, Number 2, February 2006.
   
5. WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF LEON EARL GRAY JR, PhD* SENIOR REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGIST AND TOXICOLOGIST U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, TRADE, AND CONSUMER PROTECTION UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES (June 10, 2008).
   
6. Time’s Toy Reporting Scares Parents Trevor Butterworth, December 13, 2006.
   
7. Section 108: Products Containing Certain Phthalates, CPSC FAQ.
8. Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food
9. A National Review article that says pre-1985 children's books are illegal because of lead in the ink.
10. National Bankruptcy Day , happytobeathome.net, Jan 2nd, 2009.

Here are the ENFORCEMENT sections:

SEC. 19. [15 U.S.C. § 2068]
(a) It shall be unlawful for any person to— (1) sell, offer for sale, manufacture for sale, distribute in commerce, or import into the United States any consumer product, or other product or substance that is regulated under this Act or any other Act enforced by the Commission, that is not in conformity with an applicable consumer product safety rule under this Act, or any similar rule, regulation, standard, or ban under any other Act enforced by the Commission;

Meaning: You can't sell a toy with phthalates in it.

SEC. 20. [15 U.S.C.§ 2069] {penalties increased; see 69 FR 68884}
(a) (1) Any person who knowingly violates section 19 [15 U.S.C. § 2068] of this Act shall be subject to a civil penalty not to exceed $100,000, for each such violation....

(2) The second sentence of paragraph (1) of this subsection shall not apply to violations of paragraph (1) or (2) of section 19(a)—
(A) if the person who violated such paragraphs is not the manufacturer or private labeler or a distributor of the products involved, and
(B) if such person did not have either (i) actual knowledge that his distribution or sale of the product violated such paragraphs or (ii) notice from the Commission that such distribution or sale would be a violation of such paragraphs

Meaning: If you "knowingly" sell a toy with phthalates in it, you can be fined up to $100,000. Paragraph (2) says, by implication, that you can be fined even if you are a retailer who did not "have actual knowledge" that you were violating the law. It's unclear to me whether you're in trouble if you sell a toy with phthalates in it when you didn't know it had phthalates in it. I think you *are* in trouble, from what I could tell from the FAQs. Someone who knows criminal law would know, from the language here.

SEC. 21. [15 U.S.C. § 2070]
(a) Violation of section 19 of this Act is punishable by— (1) imprisonment for not more than 5 years for a knowing and willful violation of that section;

Meaning: If you know a toy has phthalates and you sell it anyway, you might go to jail for 5 years, if the U.S. Attorney doesn't like you. This applies even if you only sell one item, and you're a charity shop.

SEC. 24. [15 U.S.C. § 2073]
(a) IN GENERAL.--Any interested person (including any individual or nonprofit, business, or other entity) may bring an action in any United States district court for the district in which the defendant is found or transacts business to enforce a consumer product safety rule or an order under section 15 [15 U.S.C. § 2064], and to obtain appropriate injunctive relief. Not less than thirty days prior to the commencement of such action, such interested person shall give notice by registered mail to the Commission, to the Attorney General, and to the person against whom such action is directed. Such notice shall state the nature of the alleged violation of any such standard or order, the relief to be requested, and the court in which the action will be brought. No separate suit shall be brought under this section if at the time the suit is brought the same alleged violation is the subject of a pending civil or criminal action by the United States under this Act. In any action under this section the court may in the interest of justice award the costs of suit, including reasonable attorneys’ fees (determined in accordance with section 11(f)) [15 U.S.C. §2060(f)] and reasonable expert witnesses’ fees.

Meaning: Even if the U.S. Attorney doesn't go after you because it would be ridiculous to-- in fact, ONLY if the case is too stupid for them to prosecute--- a predatory law firm could do it for profit, because they get "attorneys' fees", which courts are very generous about, judges being members of the lawyer class and more sympathetic to them than to ordinary people, or, certainly, to companies.

Wealth and Power

Walter Williams writes on power:

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, with about $60 billion in assets each, are America's richest men. With all that money, what can they force us to do? Can they take our house to make room so that another person can build an auto dealership or a casino parking lot? Can they force us to pay money into the government-run retirement Ponzi scheme called Social Security? Can Buffett and Gates force us to bus our children to schools out of our neighborhood in the name of diversity? Unless they are granted power by politicians, rich people have little power to force us to do anything.

A GS-9, or a lowly municipal clerk, has far more life-and-death power over us. It's they to whom we must turn to for permission to build a house, ply a trade, open a restaurant and myriad other activities. It's government people, not rich people, who have the power to coerce and make our lives miserable.

Biofuel Subsidies

Mark Steyn on Biofuels:

The EU decreed that 5.75 percent of petrol and diesel must come from “biofuels” by 2010, rising to 10 percent by 2020. The U.S. added to its 51 cents-per-gallon ethanol subsidy by mandating a five-fold increase in “biofuels” production by 2022.

The result is that big government accomplished at a stroke what the free market could never have done: They turned the food supply into a subsidiary of the energy industry. When you divert 28 percent of U.S. grain into fuel production, and when you artificially make its value as fuel higher than its value as food, why be surprised that you’ve suddenly got less to eat? Or, to be more precise, it’s not “you” who’s got less to eat but those starving peasants in distant lands you claim to care so much about.

Heigh-ho. In the greater scheme of things, a few dead natives keeled over with distended bellies is a small price to pay for saving the planet, right? Except that turning food into fuel does nothing for the planet in the first place. That tree the U.S. Marines are raising on Iwo Jima was most likely cut down to make way for an ethanol-producing corn field: Researchers at Princeton calculate that to date the “carbon debt” created by the biofuels arboricide will take 167 years to reverse....

In order for you to put biofuel in your Prius and feel good about yourself for no reason, real actual people in faraway places have to starve to death. On April 15, the Independent, the impeccably progressive British newspaper, editorialized: “The production of biofuel is devastating huge swathes of the world’s environment. So why on earth is the Government forcing us to use more of it?”

You want the short answer? Because the government made the mistake of listening to fellows like you. Here’s the self-same Independent in November 2005:

At last, some refreshing signs of intelligent thinking on climate change are coming out of Whitehall. The Environment minister, Elliot Morley, reveals today in an interview with this newspaper that the Government is drawing up plans to impose a ‘biofuel obligation’ on oil companies... This has the potential to be the biggest green innovation in the British petrol market since the introduction of unleaded petrol…

Etc. It’s not the environmental movement’s chickenfeedhawks who’ll have to reap what they demand must be sown, ...

The Ugly Environment. Steve Sailer points us to the NY Times article, "Why Are They Greener Than We Are?". The article is about how architects are trying to design buildings that are ``green'' and "sustainable", if I may use the misleading buzzwords. What struck me, though, is how uniformly ugly they are. (The buildings, not the architects). They are eyesores, insults to their environment.

"Historically, Germany’s industrial waste flowed down the Rhine to be deposited in Rotterdam’s harbor. “We are the main collecting point for all of Europe’s pollution, its garbage dump,” he said with a smile.

Like many of his contemporaries, Neutelings doesn’t see this landscape as ugly. Nor does he see the creation of bold industrial forms and a sustainable environment as necessarily in conflict. Neutelings and Riedijk’s recently completed Shipping and Transport College, which rises at the edge of an aging industrial pier, looks perfectly at home. The building’s cantilevered top evokes a gigantic periscope; its corrugated metal skin brings to mind the stacked shipping containers still scattered around the port."