Odds 'N Ends For The Fourth

Image credit: Cujo359

Just a few things around the 'Net that might be of interest...

First of all, Liz Ditz of I Speak Of Dreams has written a terrific post that links to my article about DDI and Quackwatch. There's an executive summary:

The very, very short version: an independent health-care-fraud muckraking association is being intimidated, via a law suit with a $10 million dollar claim. The suit has been filed on behalf of a for-profit laboratory that does millions of dollars of business providing tests that enable quack or questionable "therapies" for heart disease, autism, and other conditions.

The for-profit laboratory has deep pockets and has associates with even deeper pockets.

If you want to support health-care-fraud muckraking, go here to donate. If you are a skeptic or dislike legal bullying, you should donate.

Health Consumer Activist Group Subject to Legal Threats -- Send Help

[link from original]

This article goes into a lot of detail that I skipped in mine. It's worth a read, I think. It turns out there's now a petition to sign as well. That's the link to the text of the petition. You do read the text of petitions before you sign, don't you?

The second bit of business is this article by Ian Welsh on what it ought to mean to be American:

On this, the 4th of July, I, a Canadian, want to talk to Americans about their values. Perhaps that’s presumptuous. Perhaps I should just shut it and say “it’s none of my business.”

I could argue that it’s my business on purely pragmatic grounds: where goes the US, Canada often follows. We are a US subject state in all but name, and your failure to fix your problems makes it much harder and sometimes impossible to fix our problems.

But forget that. I don’t primarily care about the US because of Canadian interests, I care about the US because I care about the American dream.

America Cannot Be America At Perpetual War

I think that the best way to remember what has made America great, and what's really worth fighting for, is to learn what foreigners say about what America means to them. What makes us great isn't baseball, Disneyland, or our military, it's that tradition of citizens being involved in their country, and having a framework that allows them to do so without fear. We're losing that, and with it we're losing the only thing that makes us special.

So if you want to get fighting mad, go read.

Finally, Dana Hunter wrote yesterday about her trip to Lincoln Park:

Like many parks around these parts, it has interesting rocks. I encountered one almost immediately upon hitting the beach, which meant the beach got neglected[.]

Lincoln Park

So here you are, some Lincoln Park beach:
Image credit: Cujo359

Click to enlarge. I know sometimes it's hard to see the beach for the driftwood, and the rocks.

Have a good Sunday. If you're anywhere near America, enjoy the fireworks.