Toxic Sludge, ch. 10: The Torturer's Lobby

I find the coverage of Columbian events [particularly in the beginning of this chapter] to be quite disturbing. The idea of people slaughtering members of their own community in order to appear to be doing their rightful tasks as members of the Columbian military either shows a lack of dedication to their job or a frantic scurry to cover up mistakes or sloppy work.

The other passage which stuck out when I read it was the description of Escobar's "prison". I firmly believe that if most people can't afford the luxeries of the prison you're staying at, you probably have too many privileges for one of the current condition. Then again, I never thought I'd have to set a guideline for the luxeries of prisoners. Perhaps it's my upbringing of bad American television, or my general disgust for drugs and those who make a living off of them, but I feel that even taken out of Escobar's personal offense, no prisoner should be held in a 'cell' comparable to a celebrity's summer home.
Maybe that's just me. (::shrugs::)

un*Spun Ch. 9: "staying unSpun"

Pretty much the entire last "chapter" (slash-conclusion) was dedicated to the Hoodia cactus crisis. Though I have to admit that I'm intrigued by the plant and it's possible effects on hunger control, the authors of the text make it quite clear that there is no such product that is going to be available for several years after its publication (which is still fairly recent, 2007). The Hoodia predicament is a fairly accurate example for what is seen throughout advertising all the time: agencies and companies get a whiff of a possible product which will appeal to a majority of people, then try and scheme until they can find a way to pass off their own version of the product. And, as the text shows, it's very likely that those products may be made out of nothing to do with the actual subject at hand.

A current product that comes to mind is the 5-hour-energy drinks. Not one month passed from the first time I saw the commercial til I started seeing all of the other types of 5-hour energy boost drinks, boasting their own product as the most effective, with "no crashes!" Also, even more recently, there have been commercials for "6-hour-power!", which is basically the same (perhaps bogus, I've no desire to try the) product, except it's makers added a pinch more strength, adding on a full hour to it's predecessor. I can't say I've done any background research on the products, but they sound fairly exaggerated, or perhaps faulty, altogether.