Maybe They Should Hire the Scientists from the Tobacco Institute September 18, 2002January 24, 2017 THE CHENEY QUOTES Bill Marris: ‘On today’s column, you know those quotes from Dick Cheney are not real, right? I am afraid people will go to your site, read them, and not click on the link to find out that they are part of a satiric article. I am a reasonably intelligent person, and the only reason I clicked on the link was because I wanted to see where that quote came from, because I just couldn’t believe it was real.’ ☞ Sorry. It never occurred to me that anyone could believe it was real. But that may be because I’m familiar with the Borowitz Report, which I have quoted here before. Other recent breaking items from the same source (they are not real, either): SADDAM DEFENDS PURCHASE OF ALUMINUM TUBES Says They Are For His Aluminum Tube Collection KATIE COURIC DEMANDS THAT ‘TODAY’ START AT NOON Would Allow Host to Sleep Late, Go to Gym U.S. ATTEMPTS TO LURE OSAMA WITH AD IN PERSONALS Evildoer Has Not Had a Date in Months, CIA Believes David Smith: ‘What exactly was the purpose of adding the Borowitz report nonsense to your page today? The Administration has acted brilliantly in bringing world pressure to bear on Iraq. I think the Bush Administration deserves immense credit.’ RESISTANCE Dana D. Dlott: ‘What I have never understood is this business of ‘resistance’ when the Dow gets near benchmarks. Newspapers say the Dow was approaching 9000 but then it encountered resistance and slipped back to 8900. Most trading is not buying the Dow so how can this happen? Do traders say to themselves, I would sure like to grab some GE at $27, It’s a bargain, but if I do that the Dow will break 9000, so never mind?‘ ☞ I think when people feel the overall market is high and likely to drop back, they hold off buying individual issues. At least some people do. But it’s true that a lot of this talk of resistance may simply be ascribing ‘motives’ to what are in fact largely random short-term movements of the market. DIDN’T YOU LEAVE ‘ERIN BROCKOVICH’ ROOTING FOR PG&E? Excerpted from THE WASHINGTON POST Sept. 17 – The Bush administration has begun a broad restructuring of the scientific advisory committees that guide federal policy . . . In the past few weeks, the Department of Health and Human Services has retired two expert committees before their work was complete. One . . . which was rethinking federal protections for human research subjects, had drawn the ire of administration supporters on the religious right, according to government sources. [Another] committee, which had been assessing the effects of environmental chemicals on human health, has been told that nearly all of its members will be replaced – in several instances by people with links to the industries that make those chemicals. One new member is a California scientist who helped defend Pacific Gas and Electric against the real-life Erin Brockovich. I would link you to the complete archive, but the Post seems now to be charging even for yesterday’s content.