In 1999 the US Food and Drug Administration changed the rules regulating “Direct to Consumer” or DTC advertising of prescription drugs. You are almost certainly familiar with these ads. It is almost possible to read a magazine or watch commercial TV without encountering them. There are still sizable restrictions on the content of these ads, including the mandatory description of side effects.

The United States has some of the most lax regulations on direct to consumer pharmaceutical marketing. In fact, most countries simply do not permit mass market advertising of prescription drugs. The reasoning for restricting direct to consumer advertising is clear from the ads we view today. They market prescription drugs as a panacea for life’s problems. By encouraging potential patients to “ask their doctor” about a particular medication they introduce bias and prejudice into medical diagnosis. Furthermore, frequently people end up taking medications they don’t really need, which drives up the cost of health care and medical insurance.

Between 1989 and 1999 spending on DTC pharmaceutical advertising increased from $12 million to $1.58 billion (source). By 2005, DTC spending increased to $4.2 billion. But you don’t even need to look at the dollar expenditures to know that prescription drug advertising is out of control - just flip on prime time TV. Complicating matters, many of the drugs advertised are psychiatric drugs, arguably some of the least well understood pharmaceuticals.

There is also a secondary affect from the direct to consumer advertising binge. It has driven which areas of health care drug companies are willing to pursue. Instead of targeting the most life threatening or dangerous diseases there is instead a huge interest in developing drugs which will be easy to market to consumers. This has also driven development of new derived from older drugs but with marginal improvement. Many people have questioned the need for Esomeprazole, extremely heavily marketed as Nexium. Esomeprazole is an updated version of Omeprazole (Prilosec). Both drugs were created by AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, but Omeprazole is now available in generic form. Despite the controversy surrounding its efficacy, in 2005 Nexium was the third best selling drug in the world.

There are many solutions to this. Generally I tend to prefer avoiding government regulation when possible. But this is an example where it is very important to restrict commercial activity in order to ensure it doesn’t affect the safety of health care. I think at this point there is at least a need to return to the more restrictive rules in place before 1999. Going further, the US could also choose to align themselves with the EU and ban direct to consumer advertising. A good compromise solution might be to restrict television advertising but allow print advertising, which currently provides significantly more information about the side effects and mechanism of the drug.

Back in October 2006 I became the proud owner of the 1992 Honda Accord I learned to drive on many years ago. Obviously it is getting to be an old car at this point, although it only has 151k miles on it. Although I don’t have perfectly complete service records for the car, I knew it had been around 30k miles since the spark plugs were last changed. Thus I replaced the four spark plugs with new NGK ZFR5F-11 plugs. These were identical to the removed plugs, which you can see below.

Since the old spark plugs have been directly in the combustion chamber, it is possible to discern things about the condition of the engine from the used spark plugs. Unfortunately there is an issue with some of the seals on the spark plug tubes on my car, and this causes some oil to leak into the tubes. The quantity is not significant but as a consequence the plugs do come out with some oil on them. However, you can still get a good look at the electrodes. NGK provides some spark plug reading images which you can use to diagnose.

This is one of my old plug ends. I believe this represents relatively normal wear for the change interval. The new plugs have that characteristic “V” groove in the center electrode — the groove is not from wear. The only worrisome thing is the small deposits on the ground electrode, but I think those are normal. Wear seems to be acceptable. I did notice that the car seemed a bit more lively in the upper RPM range (4,000+) compared to before, but there is a good chance this just represents the placebo effect.

Next up for the “150k mile service” is to replace the distributor cap and rotor and recheck/adjust the ignition timing. I’ll also be removing the valve cover to adjust the valve clearances (”valve lash”). Hopefully this should also yield some interesting photos of the condition of the valve train. And, replacing the valve cover gasket might fix the oil in spark plug tubes problem.

Working on this engine is very nice, especially compared with the Chrysler 3.3L in the van we had before. On a 4-cylinder there is a lot more room in the engine bay, and with a transverse mounted V-6 the read spark plugs are often extremely difficult to reach. Plus, the ignition service will be simple with a distributor instead of electronic coil packs. The engine itself is in very good condition, and I haven’t had to add any oil between oil changes (although I’ve been running short intervals due to an engine flush regimen).

Unfortunately the suspension is 15 years old and on the unscheduled maintenance list is a clicking CV joint. The best repair for that is usually to replace the half-axle. Since the car is already so old and we use road salt here, I’ll probably just try to put a remanufacturered half-axle on which will probably buy enough time to outlast the slowly rusting body. If I manage to gather the cojones to do the half axle, I’ll post pics of that too.

A View of Earth from Saturn

I started going through some old photos, including my photos from backpacking in the White Mountain National Forest last August (2006). The current blog header photo is from there. None of these photos have been posted here before.

This is the AMC Lakes of the Clouds hut stationed at 5050 ft. near Mt. Washington’s summit cone. Wind and solar power are used here to provide electricity for the hut (radio, minimal lighting, refrigeration). Lakes of the Clouds has had problems losing wind turbines due to the high winds seen at this location.

This was taken around the same time as the previous picture from the Lakes of the Clouds area. You can see some weather monitoring equipment to the left. The area to the left forms the Ammonosuc Ravine.

I took this earlier on our trip from the summit of Mt. Garfield. Traversing the Garfield Ridge was one of our longest days. The ridge runs along the northern rim of the Pemigewasset Wilderness, seen here. The Pemigewasset River drains this large basin. The woody mountain in the middle is Owl’s Head, bane of peakbaggers.

The evening after climbing Mt. Garfield we were at Zealand falls. The Zealand Falls hut is not far from here. It is the only of the huts to use hydroelectric power. Water is taken from the river and used to run a mechanically interesting well water pump for fresh water at the hut and a second water feed goes to a homebuilt turbine for electricity. Zealand is also one of the huts open on a minimal basis in the winter. We had hoped to go this winter, but conditions and busyness unfortunately delayed that project.

You can find larger versions of these and more in the gallery.

A senior Justice Department Official, Robert E. Coughlin II, has resigned over involvement in the Abramoff lobbying scandal. This alone would hardly be newsworthy. But Coughlin was deputy chief of staff for the division of the Justice Department that was investigating Abramoff.

“Making the situation more awkward for the embattled Department, the official, Robert E. Coughlin II, was deputy chief of staff for the criminal division, which is overseeing the Department’s probe of Abramoff.

“He stepped down effective April 6 as investigators in Coughlin’s own division ratcheted up their investigation of lobbyist Kevin Ring, Coughlin’s long-time friend and a key associate of Abramoff.”

It is now painfully apparent that the Bush Administration Department of Justice was so corrupt they actually put people in charge of their own investigations. And even if you have enough confidence left in the Administration to believe these are innocent mistakes, they still point to a massive level of incompetence at the Justice Department. And the Abramoff investigation keeps getting bigger — Ex-Representative J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) is under renewed investigation over ties to Abramoff. He joins several prominent Republican congressman who are now under investigation over ties to the Abramoff scheme.

How to write a spelling corrector in 21 lines of Python

Using statistics to detect and correct spelling errors and typos.

Many people wonder whether they really need to use premium gasoline. The truth is it depends on your vehicle. However, most modern vehicles can take regular (although some may benefit from premium).

The octane of motor gasoline refers to its resistance to detonation - spontaneous ignition of the fuel without the spark from the spark plug. This results in a “knocking” or “pinging” sound and will result in engine damage. Engines which have higher compression typically require higher octane fuel. The compression ratio refers to the amount the fuel/air mixture is compressed by on each stroke of the piston. More compression will obtain higher performance and efficiency from the engine, but will require higher octane fuel. When the pressure in the cylinder increases during compression the air/fuel mixture heats up and will spontaneously ignite unless the fuel has sufficient octane rating.

Turbocharging and supercharging also affect the octane requirement. When you force additional air into the engine using a turbocharger or supercharger you increase the maximum cylinder pressures and thus the heat. This means that the effective compression ratio is higher. Again, there is more performance and efficiency, but a higher octane is required.

Modern fuel injected vehicles typically have a “knock sensor” which can detect engine knock if it occurs. The knock sensor is simply a microphone positioned in the engine block. If the engine computer detects knocking, it acts to slightly retard (slow) the ignition timing. This helps reduce the knocking, at a slight performance cost. Alternatively, turbocharged vehicles may simply open the wastegate or reduce boost, which will again stop the knocking at a cost to performance.

The upshot to this is that most modern vehicles which “recommend” premium fuel in the owner’s manual can be run perfectly well on regular gasoline and the engine computer will adjust automatically. The key distinction to look for is “recommended” as opposed to “required.” If the owner’s manual says “required” you must use premium fuel to prevent knocking and engine damage. On antique or older cars you should use whatever grade is necessary to prevent knocking.

There is an additional difference sometimes present in premium gasoline. Premium gas sometimes contains more additives designed to keep the fuel injection system clean. Generally the additives found in regular are sufficient, unless you are having issues with rough running. You can always add concentrated fuel system cleaner (Chevron Techron is well known as being a good product) if you need it.

Fast hosting with Lighttpd+Chroot

I use lightttpd for some things on colobus.isomerica.net, notable xkcd hosting (not currently active) and some trac sites. It is a worthy competitor to apache for many applications.

In the process of trying to clean up some directories on my systems, I banged out a quick python script for searching recursively beneath a particular path and printing the largest files located. You can configure how many items are printed. They will always be printed in descending order (largest first) with the file’s path and a human readable size.

You can probably do this with other tools (du comes to mind, although it doesn’t do exactly the same thing, and the output of du -h is harder to sort). But this works reasonably well and is fairly fast. If you add the -v option, additional info is printed about the program’s run.

Interestingly enough when I was working on this I was originally planning to use the Python heapq priority queue. But it wasn’t really flexible enough for my needs and apparently it is often slower than the Python built in list sort. I’m pretty sure that the built in Python sort is now using an adaptive mergesort called timsort. I’ve found that most of the bottleneck is in the stat() calls to determine file size anyway. The time difference on subsequent runs makes this very clear. Operating system caching means that the later runs are considerably quicker.

Sample Run

dpn@colobus:~/Common/scripts$ python bigfiles.py -vn 10 /usr/portage
Processing ... Called stat() on 146116 files in 6.805681 seconds
Sorting ... Sorted in 0.617009 seconds

46.71 MB /usr/portage/distfiles/jdk-1_5_0_06-linux-i586.bin
44.05 MB /usr/portage/distfiles/jdk-1_5_0-doc-r1.zip
42.32 MB /usr/portage/distfiles/X11R6.8.2-src.tar.bz2
40.75 MB /usr/portage/distfiles/linux-2.6.19.tar.bz2
39.36 MB /usr/portage/distfiles/linux-2.6.17.tar.bz2
38.95 MB /usr/portage/distfiles/linux-2.6.16.tar.bz2
37.36 MB /usr/portage/distfiles/gcc-4.1.1.tar.bz2
26.95 MB /usr/portage/distfiles/gcc-3.4.5.tar.bz2
19.05 MB /usr/portage/distfiles/mono-1.2.2.1.tar.gz
17.21 MB /usr/portage/distfiles/mono-1.1.13.2.tar.gz

You can download the script here. I would appreciate it if you sent any modifications back to me so I can incorporate them and post them here. Thanks! Enjoy…

Bruce Schneier says that expertise makes the difference between the scared citizen reports and the useful reports. I agree. We need to weigh the response accordingly when receiving responses. And, instead of deploying security personnel who confiscate harmless materials based on stupid standards, we need to employ fewer people with more training.

Dog owners ‘fleeced’ in poodle scam

Lambs were shipped from the UK and Australia to Japanese buyers who thought the lambs were poodles.

Earlier, I discussed the Hatch Act and the potential ramifications for the White House. During the congressional investigation into the US Attorney firings, General Services Administration Administrator Lurita Doan revealed that the GSA had held “team building” meetings on government property in which a Power Point presentation was shown giving the Republican Party’s plans for defeating democrats in 2008. This is prohibited by the Hatch Act.

Now, the White House has admitted that similar activity has occurred 20 times in at least 15 government agencies leading up to the 2006 elections. Is anyone surprised? The Bush Administration has long been seen to inject politics at the level of micromanagement. So far we have seen this at the Department of Justice, and the partisan activity at the GSA. While these agencies are under executive control, partisan politics is not supposed to affect the actions of these agencies. When you talk about the DoJ you need to realize that those fired attorneys are the people responsible for enforcing and prosecuting our federal laws. And, of course, we’ve only heard about the attorneys who didn’t bow to the Administration’s wishes.

First Successful Demonstration of Carbon Dioxide Air Capture Technology Achieved

House Committee Authorizes Subpoena for Monica Goodling

Goodling previously refused to testify on 5th ammendment groups. Now she has been granted immunity in exchange for her testimony.

Culture of Fear: Poetry Professor Becomes Terror Suspect

A poetry professor in a small college in the Northeast decides to recycle old manuscripts and becomes an object of suspicion.

As some of my long-term visitors may have noticed (or not if you read the RSS feed :), I have once again changed the site design here. I am using a slightly modified version of the MistyLooks Wordpress theme. The image at the top is from my backpacking trip last August. It was taken near the dam on Lonesome Lake, west of Franconia Notch, NH. This where the AMC Lonesome Lake Hut is.

In the photo we are looking beyond the lake, across Franconia Notch. Behind you can see the far ridge of the Notch rising up to a green knob. Slightly farther up is the AMC Greenleaf Hut. The high rocky peak is Mt. Lafayette. The next night we stayed at the Greenleaf Hut, after hiking up Cannon Mtn (west side of Franconia Notch), down into the notch, and up to the hut.

Earlier I wrote about a new investigation being launched against Karl Rove by the Office of Special Counsel, an arm of the executive branch. Today some new news has been revealed regarding this investigation. Fired US Attorney David Inglesias filed a complaint against Rove on April 3, alleging violations of the Federal Hatch Act. Specifically, Inglesias alleged that firing him for not engaging in political prosecutions was a violation of the act on the part of Rove and others.

But it looks like the OSC may not be entirely neutral in this manner. several people have pointed out that the OSC under the Bush Administration has proven to be highly political. In fact, Scott Bloch, the head of the OSC, is himself under investigation for politicizing the office.

The Office of Special Counsel investigation might be a smokescreen designed to shield Rove from testimony before congress or in court. On the other hand, the current investigation into the OSC is coming to a close and the office may be desiring to distance itself from the White House and eliminate criticism by investigating the Bush Administration. The Office of Special Counsel is chiefly designated with the task of enforcing three laws, one of which is the Hatch Act. It seems that the Hatch act is the law that has been violated most plainly and clearly by the Bush Administration at this point. David Inglesias did express confidence in the OSC’s ability to conduct an independent investigation.

Either way, things do not look good for certain administration officials. With multiple investigations coming from Congress, the Office of Special Counsel, and the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel, the administration is feeling legal pressure from all sides. I think if you see anybody attempt a sham investigation as a cover up it will most likely be discovered in the course of the other investigations. My hope is that at that point people would not be shy about pursuing impeachment and legal action for obstruction of justice.

From the LA Times, Karl Rove is under investigation by the Office of Special Counsel:

The new investigation, which will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities, could create a substantial new problem for the Bush White House.

First, the inquiry comes from inside the administration, not from Democrats in Congress. Second, unlike the splintered inquiries being pressed on Capitol Hill, it is expected to be a unified investigation covering many facets of the political operation in which Rove played a leading part.

Once again, the Bush Administration has systematically politicized the entire executive branch, from investigations to justice to improper funds allocation. During Lurita Doan’s testimony before congress it was revealed that Rove had held powerpoint presentations detailing Republican political plans in GSA buildings during normal work hours. Once again, a clear violation of the Hatch Act.

Some officials have said they understood that they were expected to seek opportunities to help Republicans in these races, through federal grants, policy decisions or in other ways.

Even scarier, apparently portions of our tax dollars are basically going into the elect-a-Republican fund. It’ll be interesting to see what comes of this. On the one hand, this investigation will force things out into the open. On the other hand, the investigation is being performed by an arm of the executive branch itself. This worries me in this Administration has seen incredible increases in executive power. However, combined with Congressional investigations and public inquiry, we may see the downfall of Bush Administration officials as high as Rove.

Update: The Moderate Voice has some more information on the ramifications of this investigation

Now that the weather has started to get warmer (high of 86F today!) the cats are starting to shed much of their winter fur. But they still have a lot. I snapped this picture of Smithers in the inbox he stole using eminent feline domain:

He is really a big cat.

Amazingly, the box is one of his favorite spots for napping.

I haven’t written much about politics here since the 2004 election. However, I’ve been following along with the Fired US Attorney scandal since Talking Points Memo first broke the story in late 2006. The saga has continued, and on April 19 Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary committee.

The Attorney General’s testimony was not pretty. I watched several video clips of the testimony and Gonzales was definitely in the hot seat. He explained over 60 times that he “could not recall” what his actions or decisions had been within the last three months. Other members of his staff have taken a similar line, including DoJ Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson. The way I see it there are two possible explanations:

1. The DoJ is completely incompetent and mismanaged. AG Gonzales admitted during testimony that he simply didn’t know the reasons for firing two of the eight attorneys when he approved their firing. In other cases he stated that he no longer recalled the reasons for firing attorneys. From this we must draw the conclusion that Gonzales is so mentally faded that he is incapable of running the DoJ, and clearly the management of the DoJ has suffered.
2. The DoJ has been operating as a partisan political wing of the White House, in violation of the Hatch Act. Gonzales was competent in his management, but unethical in policy. We now understand that several of the attorneys were fired for giving up on “voter fraud” allegations against democrats (the cases were not prosecuted due to lack of evidence). Gonzales lied about his involvement before congress, committing perjury.

Either way, it doesn’t look good for the Bush White House and the Department of Justice. Furthermore, additional attorneys which were fired during the purge were actively involved in lengthy federal investigations against Republican politicians and corrupts lobbyists. But the White House doesn’t seem to realize just how serious this is. President Bush released a statement saying that he was “pleased” with Gonzales’s testimony. Of course, perhaps the goal is to have Gonzales go down in flames as a sacrificial lamb, in which case I’m sure the President was pleased. Senator Leahy responded to the White House statement by saying that the “the president has set a very low bar, indeed.” Later, the White House released an additional statement:

“The Attorney General went up and gave a very candid assessment, and answered every question he could possibly answer, honestly answer, in a way that increased my confidence in his ability to do the job….[A]s the investigation, the hearings went forward, it was clear that the Attorney General broke no law, did no wrongdoing. And some senators didn’t like his explanation, but he answered as honestly as he could. This is an honest, honorable man, in whom I have confidence.” — White House Press Release

This further suggests that either President Bush is lying to cover up what has really been going on at the DoJ or he himself is so out of touch with reality to think that Gonzales’s testimony was a confidence boost. Quite the contrary, many prominent Republicans have called for the AG’s resignation.

Ultimately I think the Bush Administration has created one of the most political Justice Departments in the history of the department. It is important to realize that the Justice Department and the AG are charged with prosecuting and upholding the law. Instead, they appear to have made a habit of breaking laws, including the Hatch Act, the Presidential Records Act, potential charges of perjury relating to testimony under oath, and the strong possibility that some attorney firings were conducted in order to interfere with existing investigations for political reasons. I would call that Obstruction of Justice, and it is a very serious crime. I expect that the very branch of government sworn to uphold our laws takes them seriously. But I have found that the Bush Administration has once again shattered this expectation.