Marketing moves the goalposts again.

Posted on November 13, 2013 by The Old Wolf

To start with, let’s take a look at this ingredient label for a Nestlé’s Toll House Cookie:

Amounts per serving:

Calories 130
Fat Calories 60
Total fat 6g (9% Daily Value)
Saturated Fat 4g (20% Daily Value)
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 7g (7% Daily Value)
Sodium 100mg (4% Daily Value)
Total Carbohydrates 16g (5% Daily Value)
Fiber: Nothing
Sugars 9g
Protein 2g
And a few vitamins.
The DV (Daily Value) amounts are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

Now, what you may or may have not noticed is that these values are for one serving. Well, there’s one cookie in the pack right? But many people will gloss over the fact that there are approximately four servings per package, and that one serving is calculated at ¼ cookie.

So let’s recalculate the information if you eat the entire cookie at one sitting, which the vast majority of people will do:

Calories 520 (about ¼ of your daily total)
Fat Calories 240
Total fat 24g (36% Daily Value)
Saturated Fat 16g (80% Daily Value)
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 28g (28% Daily Value)
Sodium 400mg (16% Daily Value)
Total Carbohydrates 64g (20% Daily Value)
Fiber: Nothing
Sugars 36g
Protein 8g
And a few vitamins.
The DV (Daily Value) amounts are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

So this monster accounts for a quarter of your daily intake of calores, almost all your allowance of saturated fat, 1/3 your allowance of total fat, and 1/5 your carbohydrate intake. In other words, it’s death for your health, and Nestlé doesn’t dare admit it straight up.

Question: How can you tell when a marketer is lying?
Answer: His lips are moving

I remember when I was a kid, the candy bars you bought started getting smaller and smaller, even though the cardboard trays that were wrapped around them stayed the same size – and that was in the 50’s. Since I’ve been alive, marketing has been a neverending race to the bottom in terms of morality, ethicality and honor.

An article on KSL today highlights how the marketing bar has been lowered at least another notch: A lady was delighted when shopping at a trendy jeans store to find she had dropped a size, but when she went to the website to order another pair, she followed a link that mentioned “updated sizes;” it turns out old size 10s were now 8s, the old 6s are now 4s, and so on. The author of the article makes some good points about how marketing drives consumer spending habits, among them:

I had let the label of an article of clothing dictate not only my spending habits, but how I felt about myself. Those moments when I congratulated myself over how I looked in those new jeans were false.

I’ve mentioned the tactics of persuasion elsewhere, but consumers who want to shepherd their dollars carefully need to be constantly vigilant, because the marketeers are right on their heels, looking for new ways to separate them from their hard-earned money. If we’re not careful, we’ll return to what must be the undisputed nadir of marketing ethics:

In case you don’t grok why this advertisement is so shameful, here’s what it says in plain English

Throw away your old rabbit ears
Buy our rabbit ears, because they’re prettier!
You’re not getting satellite service, but in spite of our telling you that straight up, you’re still going to think you are.
We’ve told you nothing but the truth, but because you’re stupid and we’ve used a lot of weasel-words, you are getting a completely untruthful idea about our product.
Thanks for your money, suckers.

Be careful; it’s a jungle out there.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Veteran’s Day, 2013

Posted on November 11, 2013 by The Old Wolf

This post is dedicated to the memory of my maternal uncle, Courtney Rogers Draper, who lost his life on one of the Japanese “Hell Ships” in December of 1944.

Obituary from the Salt Lake Tribune of July 25, 1945. Courtney’s parents received the telegram the previous day.

Strike photo showing the sinking of the Enoura Maru in Takao Harbor (now Kaohsiung, Taiwan). The allies were unaware that the ship was packed to the gills with allied prisoners, as the Japanese ships were unmarked.

Painting of the Ebara Maru, a ship of the same class as the Enoura Maru. The Ebara was not used as a Hell Ship.

Monument in Memory Grove, Salt Lake City.

A photo of Lt. Draper in the Philippines before his capture, along with his purple heart ribbon.

The official POW record reads as follows:

World War II Prisoners of War, 1941-1946
Name: Courtney R Draper
Race: White
Residence State: Utah

Report Date: 7 May 1942
Latest Report Date: Jan 1945

Grade: First Lieutenant or Chief nurse or Head dietitian or Head physical therapy aides
Grade Notes: First Lieutenant or Lt. Jr. Grade
Service Branch: Army
Arm or Service: Air Corps
Arm or Service Code: Air Corps
Area Served: Southwest Pacific Theatre: Philippine Islands
Detaining Country: Japan
Camp: 502
STATUS: Executed, Died in Ship’s Sinking or Result of Ship Sinking, Shot While Attempting Escape
Notes: Enoura Maru
POW Transport Ship: December Sinkings: See code in previous field (REP). (B)DS=Brazil Maru; (E)DS=Enoura Maru; (O)DS=Oryoka Maru; (X) Died during transportation from Olongapo to San Fernando, PI.
Report Source: Individual has been reported through sources considered official.

Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, also known as Fort William McKinley Cemetery, honors the American and allied servicemen who died fighting the Japanese in World War II. The Cemetery offers repose to soldiers who died in the Pacific theatre, which included the Philippines, New Guinea, and the Pacific islands. Courtney’s last official status is “missing,” his remains “unrecoverable.”

Courtney was a promising and rising young attorney in his father’s practice before his death; his siblings, including my mother, always told me what an outstanding person he was. I’m saddened that I never knew him, but I honor his memory, as I do that of all the honored dead. May they rest in peace.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Fail to stop at a stop sign; get repeatedly raped (legally)

Posted on November 6, 2013 by The Old Wolf

This article is reblogged from TechDirt. Click through for the full article, including legal complaints and other documentation.

Edit: At least the poor guy was compensated to some degree. Hidalgo County and Deming coughed up $1.6 million to settle the suit. However, no disciplinary action was reported.

This is one of the most disgraceful abuses of power I’ve heard of in recent times, and some of them have been pretty bad.

I call for the immediate dismissal of the officers involved, and criminal charges to be filed against them, as well as against the doctors who performed these illegal, invasive procedures without the consent of the victim. Oh, and did I mention that the Gila Regional Medical Center is billing the victim for the invasive, non-consensual medical procedures and has threatened to take him to collections for non-payment?

By the holy skull of Mogg’s grandfather, this is beyond belief.

——————

Cops Subject Man To Rectal Searches, Enemas And A Colonoscopy In Futile Effort To Find Drugs They Swear He Was Hiding

from the a-vulgar-display-of-power dept

This post is going to be very short on commentary because the hideous abuse of justice has basically rendered me near speechless.

David Eckert, a resident of Deming, NM, was pulled over by police officers after failing to come to a complete stop at a stop sign. For whatever reason, the officers decided Eckert was hiding something, or perhaps they were unsatisfied that a routine stop hadn’t blown up into something bigger.

They asked him to step out of the car and then searched his vehicle (without his consent). Another officer brought in a drug dog which reacted (a relatively worthless indication of anything — drug dogs can easily be “alerted” by their controlling officers) to the driver’s seat. (Eckert’s lawyer calls into question this dog’s training, presenting documents that claim to show it hadn’t received the proper field training and recertification. See exhibits listed under docket item 27.) Then the officer “observed” that Eckert was standing “erect with his legs together” and his “buttocks clenched.” This was all the justification the Deming police needed to subject Eckert to the following horrific chain of events at a hospital in neighboring Silver City.

1. Eckert’s abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found.
2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert’s anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.
3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert’s anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.
4. Doctors penetrated Eckert’s anus to insert an enema. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
5. Doctors penetrated Eckert’s anus to insert an enema a second time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
6. Doctors penetrated Eckert’s anus to insert an enema a third time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
7. Doctors then x-rayed Eckert again; no narcotics were found.
8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert’s anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines. No narcotics were found.

At no time did Eckert give his consent to these searches. The police did obtain a warrant to rectally search Eckert but that warrant itself was problematic. For one, it was severely lacking in probable cause. For another, it was valid only for Luna County but the searches were executed inGrant County. Third, the warrant was only valid for four hours, up until 10 pm that night. Eckert was held for 14 hours and, according to medical records, prep for the colonoscopy didn’t even commence until 1 am the following day.

Why the venue shift? Because the doctor at the Deming hospital told officers the proposed search was “unethical.” Drs. Robert Wilcox and Okay Odocha of the Gila Regional Medical Center apparently had no qualms about forcibly “searching” Eckert eight times.

There’s more in Eckert’s complaint, including the fact that the second x-ray was of his chest, an area completely unrelated to the region where he was supposedly “concealing drugs.” In addition to what can be proven from medical records and police reports obtained by Eckert’s attorney, there are additional allegations that the officers Chavez and Hernandez mocked him and made derogatory comments about his “compromised position.” They also allegedly moved the privacy screen repeatedly to expose him to others in the hospital hallway. This verbal abuse apparently continued during Eckert’s ride back to the Deming police station. Understandably, Eckert now claims to be “terrified to leave the house” and does so “infrequently.”

There are many lawsuits filed where most details are alleged. This isn’t one of them. Most of what’s “alleged” by Eckert is documented by the routine paperwork that accompanies medical procedures and search warrants. And, to add insult to injury, KOB4’s news team states that the Gila Regional Medical Center is billing Eckert for the invasive, non-consensual medical procedures and has threatened to take him to collections for non-payment.

The only question that remains is why no one involved on the “law” side ever thought that anything past the first step on the list above might be excessive. These officers, along with two shamefully compliant doctors, went as far as they could to humiliate and violate someone simply because they could — in a collective effort that looks far more like making Eckert pay for the “crime” of making the cops look stupid than any sort of legitimate law enforcement effort.

The mind reels at the human corruption and institutional evil that allowed this travesty to take place.

Contact the Gila Regional Medical Center:

Complaint, send to our Patient Advocate: patientadvocate@grmc.org

Contact the Deming Police Department

700 E. Pine St. Deming NM 88030
Phone: (575)546-3012
Fax: (575)546-0503

Contact the Hidalgo County Sheriff

Saturnino Madero

720 E. 2nd Street
Lordsburg, NM 88045
575.542.3833
575.542.3143 FAX

The victim is suing for damages, and I hope he prevails beyond all expectations. A large settlement is the only thing that will make the various parties to this abomination sit up and take notice.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

12 Habits of Healthy, Happy People Who Don’t Give A Rat’s South-40 About Your Inner Peace

Posted on October 21, 2013 by The Old Wolf

Note: This has been reblogged from Yoganonamous. It has been bowdlerized for my audience (if you haven’t used that word before, it means I’ve cleaned it up a bit.) If you want to read the original in all its salty glory, you may do so at the original page. The Old Wolf approves this philosophy.

12 Habits of Healthy, Happy People Who Don’t Give A Rat’s South-40 About Your Inner Peace

By YOGANONYMOUS

Every time someone in my Facebook feed posts something like this, I click it. Every single time.

We all have this Facebook friend, right? People you genuinely love and admire. People you like hanging out with. People you invite to your birthday parties. You know. Actual friends. Until you’ve clicked links exactly like this again and again and again. For years. And all of a sudden, you start to wonder if this is some elaborate hoax, if you’ve actually just been reading the same article over and over.

It’s not like I have anything against happiness, or success, or meditation, or yoga, or being nice, or smiling more, or eating healthy, or losing weight, or being your best you, or embracing the day with a positive attitude. Those all sound great. Honestly, they do. And there are some really smart, simple truths to be found in all of those articles. There truly are.

It’s just that I have a problem with being told to do all of those things by skinny blonde ladies laughing on a beach wearing yoga pants.

Don’t believe me? Take the challenge. Next time you read one of these articles, I dare you not to play Inspirational Photo Bingo:

Don’t believe me? Compiling these photos took less than four minutes.

I can’t remember the last time I pranced around a tropical island paradise waving a white scarf around my head as a professional photographer snapped a picture, but I bet if I did, I’d be a whole lot happier too.

Below please find my version of this article, that I want to share with you, the internet. May it bring you all the inner peace you can cram into your backpacking gear right before downward dogging it atop that mountain at sunrise.

Do whatever you want.
Do whatever you want.
Seriously, do you want that burger? Then just eat a burger. Don’t be gross about it, and don’t eat a burger three meals a day. But I beg you, women and image-conscious male humans of the world, stop beating yourself up about it and just eat the burger.
Do whatever you want.
Have good friends. Call them. Complain a little. That’s what friends are for. Return the favor. Don’t be a crappy friend.
Learn how to laugh about farts. Fart more. Laugh about it.
Be incessantly curious about the world around you! Experience art, science, beauty, and nature! But stop beating yourself up on those nights when you just want to sit your ass on the couch and watch reruns of Friends.
Smile when you feel like smiling. Laugh whenever you feel like laughing. Pro tip: Being told to ‘laugh more’ is not going to make you laugh more. Being told to ‘smile more’ is not going to make you smile more.
Make time for yourself. After you’ve run that 5K, started a load of laundry, harvested your organic vegetable garden, run to the bank, paid the bills, dazzled everyone with recipes that are cost-effective, healthy, and delicious, thought of something witty and clever to share with your social networking site, caught up on current events and politics, and cleaned all of the house, that special hour set aside just for you is so critical to your well-being.*
Do whatever you want.
Don’t care what other people think. Unless they’re right. In which case, humble yourself enough to listen to them.
Do. Whatever. You Want.

Do what you want. Be your self. Don’t be a terrible person. Be nice to others. Be supportive of your friends and allow yourself to give them the benefit of the doubt when they want to try something new, like rescuing shelter dogs, or making performance art in the nude, or dating terrible people. They’re your friends and you love them, and if they suck, stop being their friend. Show up for work. Pay your bills. Find some purpose in your life, and figure out a way to share that purpose with others in a way that isn’t sanctimonious and doesn’t involve a picture of a woman laughing at an empty beach. Smile because something makes you smile. Laugh because you’ve surrounded yourself by people who make you laugh, and they’re funny people, and you’re happy to be with them. Dance because you’re drunk at a big dance party with your friends and Michael Jackson is playing, not because ‘no one is watching.’ Everyone is watching. We’re at a party. That’s how parties work.

Do whatever you want.

And the next time one of you has the kind of spare cash around to take a prancercise vacation to a tropical island, for the love of all that is holy please bring me with you. I am excellent at waving scarves around but even better at buying drinks with tiny umbrellas.

*And I don’t even have kids! Or a husband! Or a boyfriend! I can’t even imagine how condescending that advice must feel to working moms. As someone who works all the time and can barely remember which day of the week the trash gets taken out: making time for yourself seems like one of the cruelest bits of advice of all. I’ll make plenty of time for myself. Once I finish all of the things.

With massive thanks to Katherine Fritz, who has a great blog called “I Am Begging My Mother not to Read This Blog,

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Stupidity, hard at work in the White House

Posted on October 18, 2013 by The Old Wolf

The Post Office designed a new set of stamps to encourage kids to get active. Great idea, right?

Unfortunately, thanks to some on the President’s Council on Fitness, the project has now been put on hold, because it appears that these three stamps are promoting “unsafe” activities:

The stamps deemed unsafe by federal officials included illustrations of kids skateboarding without kneepads, doing a cannonball dive into a swimming pool, and doing a handstand without wearing a helmet. A handstand without wearing a helmet???

There are times I really wish I could swear. Of all the chuckleheaded, doltish, ludicrous, ill-considered, short-sighted and politically correct nonsense I have ever heard, this takes the cake. YOU BLISTERING SIMPLETONS! Yes, I’m SHOUTING! Did you get run over by the stupid truck? What, are you going to put federal monitors on every school playground and in every backyard, to make sure kids don’t run, jump, do cartwheels, tumble, climb trees, roll down hills, do somersaults, and everything kids do to enjoy life and burn off energy? ^[1]

I’ve written about the difference between safety and paranoia, but it appears the general trend continues in favor of paranoia, fueled largely by attorneys hungry for billable hours and with far too much time on their hands. For the love of anything you consider holy, every single one of those activities on the stamp sheet come with some inherent risks; we might as well curl up in a ball under our bed if we’re worried about safety to that extent. At least that way, nothing will get us but the dust mites.

I don’t believe in violence, but things like this are very stressful for me ^[2].

It was earlier reported that the entire run of stamps is being destroyed, but according to USPS spokeman Roy Betts, “The stamps are on hold and a decision would be made later.”

You can read more about this mind-boggling witlessness at ABC News.

[1] It appears stupidity is not limited to the USA. A school in Australia actually tried to ban kids from doing cartwheels.

[1] Stress: The confusion created when one’s mind overrides the body’s basic desire to choke the living daylights out of some jerk who desperately deserves it.