Grossman family west

I love my neighborhood: full of restaurants, bars, parks, and even a couple of delicious ice cream shops. Apparently, though, I’m walking around with my eyes closed. Here is a crime map of the last 30 days in my neighborhood (green is larceny and purple is drugs). I hope my mom doesn’t see this.

Oh yah, and red is homicide.

You can check out your own SF neighborhood here: http://gispubweb.sfgov.org/website/san_francisco_community/wizard.asp

I think I might need to move. Thanks to Sean P for opening my eyes (and then making me feel better by moving to this ‘hood too).

This isn’t as eggregious as my earlier post (Echinacea doesn’t do anything), but it turns out that there are many more “mainstream” scams out there. Here’s one I found today:

Anti-Bacterial Soap is no more effective than plain soap, just more expensive

Sheesh. Y’know, when I was 5, I was pretty convinced that a quick soapless splash under the faucet was plenty. I’ll bet I was right.

joel

I just don’t trust them.

Now you can’t blame me. Isn’t Pinky such a Loving Cat?

joel

Well, this is going to be one of the few arguments I’ve won with my girlfriend. It turns out that Echinacea really doesn’t do anything.

Does this scare anyone else? Any idea how big the market for Echinacea is? I couldn’t find it on the web–research firms wanted to charge me for that kind of data. But it’s big. The best I could do was $7.1B for “nutraceuticals,” of which Echinacea, I believe, is just one. Also, way back in 1997, the Echinacea market was $4M.

In the US, neither the FDA nor any other government body regulates Echinacea or any other dietary supplement for content, quality, or efficacy. That apparently means that I could go into my back yard, pick a few dandelions, grind them up and make a pill that I could claim cures Bad Job Doldrums. And I’d just need to buy an ad spot on TV and charge $25 per bottle and I’d have a great business.

Or, I could just sell Echinacea. Probably wouldn’t even need to advertise, then.

It’s ridiculous. As long as consumers will believe anything that they see on TV or read in an ad, the government has a responsibility to protect them. How many people will see this scientific study debunking Echinacea? Who has the motivation to publicize it (and where will the money come from)? Now who has the motivation to HIDE it?

One of these days, it will turn out that one of these dietary supplements is actually HARMFUL–something which would have been discovered if the FDA had done testing. Then we’ll see some change. In the meantime, I’m going to go work on my own ripoff pills, I mean my “All Natural Anti-Doldrum Herbal Dandelion Supplement.”

joel

Remember these poor guys… Their day was worse.

Holly and I were driving around San Francisco when we happened upon this moving truck, STUCK, on the crest of a hill. The 18-wheeler was too long and the middle of the truck bottomed out! They’re stuck–you can see the front of the trailor coming off the hitch.I laughed, then I cried when I saw these poor movers realizing that they were having the worst day on earth. Then I made Holly drive back so we could take a photo. It was so funny that I posted it to my Section Blog as well.

Hope everyone is doing well!

joel