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(part 2):
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FOR SEVERAL YEARS NOW, YOU MAY HAVE SEEN ADVERTS IN THE GUISE OF EDITORIAL COPY FROM A BOSTON OUTFIT STYLING THEMSELVES "NATIONAL FUELSAVER CORPORATION" promoting what they stylee as "The Platinum FuelSaver."
The which is explained (and debunked) in this recent adjudication from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in Great Britain after complaints were received about the latest specimen of American Colonial Arrogance (so to speak) from between Land's End and John O'Groats:
Ad A national press ad, for a fuel saving device, stated "U.S. Consumer Protection has confirmed the fuel saving described in this advertisement. Device may increase petrol mileage by 22% BOSTON, USA - National Fuelsaver Corporation has developed a low cost automotive accessory called the Platinum Petrol Saver which is guaranteed to increase petrol mileage by 22% while meeting all emission standards. With a simple connection to a vacuum line, the Petrol Saver adds platinum vapor [sic] economically to the air and fuel entering the engine. Since platinum enables non-burning fuel to burn, the Petrol Saver's platinum increases the percentage of fuel burning inside the engine from 68% of each gallon to 90% of each gallon, a 22% increase. Since unburnt fuel leaving an engine is pollution, this 22% of each gallon normally burns when it reaches the platinum of the catalytic converter. Unfortunately, the platinum of the catalytic converter burns this fuel outside of the engine, where the heat and energy produced from this fuel cannot give you more miles per gallon. But when the air and fuel carry the platinum into the engine, 22% more of each gallon burns inside the engine so that 22% fewer gallons are required to drive the same distance. After a five year study, the U.S. government concluded: 'Independent testing shows greater fuel savings with the Petrol Saver than the 22% claimed by the developer.' In addition to the fuel savings, the Petrol Saver has received patents for cleaning out the abrasive carbon and raising octane, making the premium fuels unnecessary for most vehicles ...".
Issue 1. Four complainants challenged whether the fuel saving claims could be substantiated.
2. Two complainants also challenged whether the ad misleadingly implied the product had been endorsed by the US Government.
Response National Fuel Saver Corp (NFS) sent US Court documents from 1984 and two tables of results from fleet tests on 42 vehicles in 1980. NFS maintained that the Court documents were US federal court credentials that showed they met the highest standards of truth in advertising. They argued that the fleet tests were determined by the US courts to meet all necessary controls to be admitted as valid test data 25 years ago.
NFS argued that the platinum in their Platinum Petrol Saver performed its function inside each combustion chamber between the moment that the spark plug ignited (approximately 30 degrees before top dead centre of the compression stroke) and the moment that the exhaust valve opened 180 crankshaft degrees later (approximately 30 degrees before bottom dead centre of the power stroke). They argued that there had been no changes to petrol engines in the last 60 years regarding that part of the petrol engine's function and believed therefore that their evidence was sufficient.
NFS said their platinum process could not be demonstrated in a laboratory because the dispensing of the platinum required road vibration. They said the US courts had therefore accepted their fleet tests, which were backed up by court testimony on the controls that were applied to the baseline and the "after platinum" testing.
NFS asserted that the US court case had not been concerned with whether platinum would improve miles per gallon, which they believed everyone agreed on, but about the percentage of the fuel that burnt inside the engine and the percentage left in the engine unburnt. They said the US Government's Federal Test Procedure had proved that the perfectly tuned petrol engine burnt only 80% of its fuel, and data from the Champion Spark Plug Company had proved that the average engine was 12% worse, burning only 68% of its fuel. The US court had therefore ruled in favour of NFS test data. NFS said, once the court had accepted that only 68% of the fuel burnt in the average gasoline engine they accepted the fleet tests were consistent with the science.
NFS believed the use of platinum in catalytic converters performed the same function as their platinum inside the combustion chambers. They said platinum's function was to enable the fuel that would not normally burn inside the engine to burn there, and it was sufficiently successful to give the 22% increase in miles per gallon that they claimed.
Assessment 1. Upheld The ASA noted the evidence sent by NFS. We also noted, however, the US court documents referred to a legal case about different NFS advertising claims in the US around 25 years ago and the test data consisted of two tables of data but did not contain any details of the methodology involved. We considered that, to substantiate the fuel saving claims in the ad, we would need to see robust documentary evidence. We considered that the evidence we had seen was not sufficient to support the fuel saving claims and concluded that the ad was therefore misleading.
On this point, the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness).
2. Upheld We considered that the claims "U.S. Consumer Protection has confirmed the fuel saving described" and "U.S. government concluded: 'Independent testing shows greater fuel savings with the Petrol Saver than the 22% claimed by the developer.'" implied that the product had been endorsed by the US Government. We noted the US Court documents referred to a legal case about different NFS advertising but considered that we had seen no evidence to support either claim and concluded that the ad was therefore misleading.
On this point, the ad breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 (Truthfulness) and 14.5 (Testimonials and endorsements).
Action We told NFS to withdraw the ad and advised them to consult the CAP Copy Advice team before advertising in future.
In other words: If it won't exactly make the cut between Maine and Mauna Loa, don't expect likewise between Land's End and John O'Groats.
The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare. The primary aim of modern warfare is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living. If technical progress were allowed to flourish in directions other than war and surveillance, there would be no more need for human drudgery and human inequality would disappear.
The needs of the population are always underestimated, with the result that there is a chronic shortage of half the necessities of life; but this is looked on as an advantage. It is a deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another.
--from Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
*************
EVEN IF THERE WEREN'T SIGNS OF A POSSIBLE MEXICAN STANDOFF (SO TO SPEAK) BETWEEN OIL-EXPORTING AND OIL-IMPORTING NATIONS by way of an international forum opening today in Rome discussing the energy issue, there emerges the likelihood for what amounts to wasteful and counterproductive practices being excused, tolerated--even encouraged as official policy--in the name of "energy self-sufficency" as United States public policy.
Case in point:
This morning, Mein Innkeeper Friend was recalling where, several years back, a close relative of his was employed with Halliburton drilling oil wells in the Williston Basin of North Dakota--and capping them as soon as drilling was complete.
In effect, taking such wells out of production as soon as drilling was finished; the better, so the line of thinking went, to "stabilise prices" on the crude oil markets so that oil-company profits could be all the more maximised.
Which is enough to wonder if a similar policy will be "advised" with respect to the Bakken fields in North Dakota and Montana, notwithstanding its having an estimated 500 million barrels of crude--which, @ the current spot market price of $117/bbl. (one barrel of crude oil being 55 gallons), would be worth US$58.5 billion.
And that's not counting mineral-rights payments to landowners, property taxes paid by oil companies or even royalties which Bismarck or Helena are entitled to; how they would use their share of the oil wealth is, for want of anything better, a "state's rights" matter, and whether they would likely emulate the Alaska Permanent Fund (in which proceeds from investments made using the State of Alaska's share of oil and natural gas royalties from the North Slope fields are returned to The Last Frontier's residents) is anybody's guess.
And the excuse to be given?
Officially, "to stabilise prices."
In reality, to benefit His Fraudulency's Great Within, whose investments in crude oil, natural-gas, gasoline and heating oil futures are so substantial, methinks, they could stand to lose heavily if there were but one fatal misstep in the markets--especially so the Bakken field's going into full-on production without "waiting for the proper signs" beforehand.
(Said "proper signs" coming by way of fortune-smellers with whom the Great Within, and especially its "inside of the inside," has a special relationship. Not unlike North Korean propaganda in the fall of 1997, as reported where spontaneous, out-of-season blossoming of thousands of pear and apricot trees across North Korea, as well as a fisheries crew catching a white sea cucumber, "confirmed" the formal elevation of the heretofore "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il to "Great Leader.")
And those involved in the drilling operations being instructed to deny any and all knowledge of such "drill-and-cap" operations being carried out, especially for fear that "meddling bloggers" might expose the whole and "distort things out of proportion."
=============
FOR ITS PART, OPEC'S RELUCTANCE TO INCREASE PRODUCTION OUTPUT AHEAD OF THE SUMMER SILLY SEASON, even if to reduce prices for the benefit of the Lower Classes especially, isn't good enough for oil-consuming nations such as the "morally superior" United States.
Especially when OPEC resorts to such platitudes as suggest that demand is but one factor as controls world market prices ... and certain elements of oil-consuming nations (especially such reliant on imports) resorting to all manner of xenophobic paranoia to push for energy self-sufficency as one with national identity and cohesion.
Some specimens of xenophobic paranoia resorting to Islamophobia and anti-Semitism to make their point known for "winning of hearts and minds" (witness Pat Robertson's blatant Islamophobia packaged as "Christian Love").
In any case ... suffice it to say that there may be no royal road to energy self-sufficency.
FIRST, I SUPPOSE YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE for the sake of whom Your Correspondent addresses this memo.
In any case:
I find it rather ironic to the point of stupid your willingness to create all manner of distracting non-issues such as the "danger of homosexuals and homosexuality" upon Impressionable Children in particular ... what you would perceive as "sexual promiscuity" being the price of sex education in the public schools as is based on facts and is taught in an age-approriate context ... and the supposed "moral harm" of real or perceived "pornography or indecency" in films and television, with the obligatory dose of sugarcoated anti-Semitism for good measure.
Let alone crying that rather pathetically singsong-sounding meme of "Christian Persecution! Christian Persecution!" (in the key of "Ring around the collar!") whenever your stories are challenged as lacking factual substantiation, or are otherwise substantiated by anecdotal or otherwise discredited pseudoscience.
BUT:
It seems your ilk is amazingly silent about the revelations of enforced sexual submission among the female members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) in the recent court hearings following the removal of some 420 young women and girls, some of whom are pregnant (yes, you read that right--pregnant!) @ as young as 14 years of age. from their Texas compound.
Read carefully the following extract of an Associated Press dispatch on these same revelations (via Yahoo News):
The state argued it should be allowed to keep the children because the sect's teaching encourages girls younger than 18 to enter spiritual marriages with older men and produce as many children as possible. Its attorneys argued that the culture put all the girls at risk and potentially turned the boys into future predators.
A witness for the parents who was presented by defense lawyers as an expert on the FLDS disputed that the girls have no say in who they marry.
"I believe the girls are given a real choice," said W. John Walsh. "Girls have successfully said, 'No, this is not a good match for me,' and they remained in good standing."
But Dr. Bruce Perry, a psychiatrist who has studied children in cults, testified that the girls will not refuse marriages because they are indoctrinated to believe disobedience will lead to their damnation.
The renegade Mormon sect's belief system "is abusive. The culture is very authoritarian," he said.
Perry acknowledged that many adults at the ranch are loving parents and that the boys seemed emotionally healthy. When asked whether the belief system really endangered the older boys or young children, Perry said, "I have lost sleep over that question."
He also conceded that the children, taught from birth to believe that contact with the outside world will lead to eternal damnation, would suffer if placed in traditional foster care.
"If these children are kept in the custody of the state, there would have to be exceptional and innovative programmatic elements for these children and their families," he said. "The traditional foster care system would be destructive for these children."
CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said the department was pleased with the judge's ruling and believes that the children will now be safe.
It's not clear how quickly the children might be moved from the coliseum and fairgrounds where they are staying on cots into foster homes or other temporary housing, but they could be placed with family members if CPS determines the children will be safe, Meisner said.
Four women testified Friday, and all said they were free to make their own choices. They also said they would do whatever it took to get their children returned to them.
"We're a peaceful people," Lucille Nielson said. Life on their 1,700-acre gated ranch "is very peaceful. You can feel the peace when you are there. Very loving. We raise our children in a loving environment."
But the women also acknowledged that girls get married at ages younger than the state allows.
Equally interesting, I should like to point out, is the fact of your same ilk also being opposed to abortion, contraception and family planning ... not to mention your supporting "whatever means necessary" to "completely and finally" reverse the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling, all the while (un)consciously (un)aware of the societal and socioeconomic consequences (cf. Romania under Nicolae Ceauçescu's Communist-era regime, which was about as "pro-life" as you could imagine--even if the aim was to "hasten the final onset of Pure Socialism," seen in Marxist-Leninist thought as the Final Perfection of Communism).
Which raises some interesting questions as to why you choose not to raise the "Christian Persecution!" meme vis-a-vis the FLDS compound, in particular given the revelations that:
young girls within the compound were expected to marry and have children as soon as they reached the menarche;
many such were married with older members of the sect against their will, or otherwise with reckless and utter disregard for their free will;
marriage, in practically all instances, was carried out @ an age much lower than Texas state law allows;
a bed was kept in the "temple" @ the FLDS compound for sexual liasons as were expected to follow "marriages" so consummated;
the belief that girls were expected to be, in essence, nothing less than sex machines in G-d's Service being ingrained in members from birth; and
the psychoreligious conditioning of FLDS members into believing that any contact with The Outside World would only lead and expose them to eternal damnation.
Even weirder still is your ongoing fears about issues addressed earlier, the which you are probably familiar with thanks to being thus conditioned, Pavlov-stylee, by your movement's propaganda line, in turn raising the likelihood of doublethink on your part.
So: What do you have to say now?
Are we to accept that the FLDS, moral issues notwithstanding, is indeed a victim of "Christian Persecution!" by the standards and tests you would ordinarily use in this context?
Or what sort of doublethink are you expected to subscribe to when faced with such a scenario?
MEMO TO READERS: Your Correspondent strongly encourages your sharing this item with your friends--especially such as are hard-wired as they are in their Zealotry and True Belief about the "Christian Persecution!" meme; they especially need to see this.
Remember to share it responsibly, and not as overdone "spam."
Comments would be especially appreciated as a way to discuss the issues thus raised, subject to accepted standards of good taste.
KUDOS TO THE BRAD BLOG FOR ALERTING YOUR CORRESPONDENT TO THE FOLLOWING RAW VIDEO OFF RATTUBE showing a Fox Prolefeed reporter/producer getting a dose of his own medicine for once by a priest sympathetic to Rev. Jeremiah Wright vis-a-vis Barak Obama's Presidential campaign:
As Brad Friedman (the "Brad" of BradBlog) observes:
And that's what America really looks like. Which is why you normally don't get to see it on TV. Not sure where the video actually aired, if anywhere. Though the questioner was O'Reilly's reporter/hitman, not surprisingly, I've yet to see any clips of that interview on his show (though, admittedly, I don't get to take out the trash every day.)
Echoed by this subsequent comment from someone signing himself "Doug:"
Wow that was awsome, that fox reporter got smoked like a trout! I dont think they'll be playing that interview. If they do it'll be all chopped up and of course out of context. It takes a special person to be able to hold their ground in an interview like that. These people deliver their questions and statements like a machine gun and its so hard to follow because its 90% [N4BSK]! So your standing their reeling trying to replay their comments in your head to make sense of it and if you pause to long youve lost. Hats off to the reverend.
No wonder Fox Prolefeed got what they deserved in this segment--even if it winds up in shreds on the cutting-room floor. Hence, all the more reason to share this video across the blogosphere.
The better to show Fox Prolefeed what kind of journalistic mountebanks they have become.
