Scrapbook
Scrapbook World's Best Vanilla Sludge Not so long ago, Ben & Jerry's, the famous Vermont-based cult movement, made a very special announcement about the ice cream it manufactures as an offering to...
...James Campbell of the University of Buffalo also pops up in Kaiser's retread...
...Bleached paper is almost always contaminated with diox-in, you see...
...well, for example, the people who make that ice cream...
...the number of seniors who have experimented with drugs is now higher than the comparable rate for the drug-addled Class of '75...
...Gough is a scientist and the former director of a federal advisory panel on Agent Orange, the dioxin-laden defoliant used during the Vietnam War...
...In fact, this change is not statistically significant, as Shalala was forced to admit during press questions at the announcement...
...Matter of fact, "the only safe level of dioxin exposure is no exposure at all," so . . . there would be no more bleach in the vanilla package, not a drop, no siree...
...Then along came Michael Gough and Steven Milloy...
...According to the survey findings, 92 percent of Americans believe the country can move forward only if families and family values are strengthened...
...Advisory board member Rev...
...McCaffrey and Shalala were not asked to explain the apparent failure of the administration's much heralded, and taxpayer-funded, $200 million media campaign...
...The Postdicters Are Back In the May 26 Washington Post, Robert Kaiser trotted out several of the finest minds in the academic business of election forecasting to announce Al Gore's certain victory this fall over George W. Bush...
...Far from a triumph, the administration is actually facing the full collapse of its drug policy...
...The two men were curious about what Ben & Jerry's might now be selling inside its much-ballyhooed bleach-free paper...
...The result: Eighty picograms of dioxin per single serving of ice cream...
...Like the others, Holbrooke's model made its bones by correctly "postdict-ing" previous elections...
...And the Environmental Protection Agency...
...Milloy is editor of the excellent debunkery website J-^-nkscience.com...
...one-third of American children are raised without dads—leading to youth crime, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, and welfare, says director Matt Daniels...
...Wedded Bliss Newsflash to politicians: before the economy, environment, even education, come two-parent families...
...This was the message from a new Wirthlin poll released last week by the Alliance for Marriage, which touts itself as a "non-partisan, multicultural marriage coalition...
...And dioxin, Ben & Jerry's marketing material confidently asserted, causes cancer, genetic and reproductive defects, and learning disorders...
...Nonetheless, an unabashed Kaiser was at it again last week, treating Post readers to pro-Gore soothsaying from academic clairvoyants in town for the American Political Science Association's annual meeting...
...Their computer models can "predict" past elections but not future ones...
...The basis for these remarks was the finding that current (monthly) use of illicit drugs had dipped, from 9.9 to 9.0 percent for 12-17 year olds...
...7. Meanwhile, the Bush campaign may have worries, but the political scientists' forecasts shouldn't be among them...
...But as Ira Carnahan pointed out at the time in these pages—joined by skeptical pieces in Slate and the National Journal—the election forecasters have a questionable track record...
...Also touted is the work of Christopher Wlezien, who in 1996 was only two-tenths of a point too low in his prediction that Clinton would win with 54.5 percent of the two-party vote...
...Walter Fauntroy, a former D.C...
...Surely Al Gore will want to make this "toxic" dessert a major issue in his fall campaign...
...If, that is, you remain superstitiously concerned about the alarmist warnings of...
...Send resume to 1225 19th St., NW, Suite 620, Washington, DC 20036, or email CkrauRA@aol.com...
...Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey called it "extremely encouraging news...
...No, Gough and Milloy were quick to point out, there isn't actually a drop of clear evidence that dioxin—even in much higher concentrations than Ben & Jerry's contains—causes anything more serious than temporary acne...
...A couple of scoops of "World's Best Vanilla" have 200 times this much dioxin...
...The group's poll found that 87 percent of Americans want businesses to offer home-based work options and flexible hours, 78 percent support requiring counseling to married couples with children before a divorce is granted, and 76 percent back tax cuts for married couples with children...
...If you've been eating it regularly and you're reading The Scrapbook—well, you're a miracle of medicine...
...But, as the Post itself noted in 1996, Wlezien fine-tuned his numbers several times in the months leading up to the election...
...It's not even going to be close," the University of Iowa's Michael Lewis-Beck was quoted as saying...
...Several weeks ago, at a conference on dioxin in Monterey, california, Gough and Milloy updated their findings, further tweaking Ben & Jerry's for its hypocrisy about environmental responsibility and food safety...
...His model, one 1993 analysis determined, contained an 18-point margin of error—^big enough to drive a third party through...
...The Real Drug News Last Thursday, the Clinton administration released the national drug use survey for 1999 and heralded a decline in teen drug use...
...In the San Francisco Bay area, there's a petroleum refinery long targeted by the EPA and local environmentalists because the wastewater it releases contains dioxin in microscopic quantities...
...But an average-size helping of "World's Best Vanilla," Gough and Milloy reported, contains at least 2,200 times more dioxin than each liter of effluent the controversial refinery is permitted to discharge...
...HHS secretary Donna Shalala proclaimed: "We've not only turned the corner—we're heading for home plate...
...THE SCRAPBOOK, in the same spirit, will issue its scientific predictions after hearing the early exit polls on Nov...
...Fauntroy sums it up: "I love my daughter, and when she turns 13, and some guy says to her, 'Baby, I love you,' she'll say, 'I hear that everyday, what else is on your mind?'" Help Wanted Contributing editor Charles Krauthammer seeks a research assistant...
...Is that a lot...
...Scrapbook World's Best Vanilla Sludge Not so long ago, Ben & Jerry's, the famous Vermont-based cult movement, made a very special announcement about the ice cream it manufactures as an offering to the Earth Spirit...
...And by focusing on kids as young as 12, the administration press releases also mask the fact that drug use is dramatically higher among older kids, with surveys showing that 54.7 percent of high school seniors in 1999 had used an illicit drug by graduation...
...This number has actually increased in six out of the past seven years...
...Among Kaiser's savants: Thomas M. Holbrook of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee...
...World's Best Vanilla," Ben & Jerry's proclaimed, would henceforth be sold only in containers made from unbleached paper...
...Maybe the media can recycle some of the revenues from the administration's anti-drug ad campaign into reporting on its claims of success...
...Unfortunately, his model has correctly called only three of the five close elections since 1952...
...Lewis-Beck, for instance, correctly foresaw Clinton's 1996 win, but in 1992 he predicted a Bush victory...
...So they bought a pint of "World's Best Vanilla" and had it tested at an independent lab...
...But, they went on, yes, the ice cream does include quite a lot of the junk...
...delegate who organized the March on Washington for Martin Luther King Jr., says behind the youth violence and hostility in the black community are "young boys who need their fathers...
...Yes and no...
...EPA has established a "safe dose" level of daily human dioxin consumption, beyond which, the agency cautions, people run a serious, increased risk of cancer...
...Use is at high levels, and the president has been forced to "deliver" a $1.3 billion military aid package to Colombia, because cocaine and heroin coming from that country are out of control and financing a serious threat to democracy in the hemisphere...
Vol. 5 • September 2000 • No. 48
