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“Basically,
I’m here to announce that we’re building Iron Man,” President
Barack Obama joked last February at a press conference for
his high-tech manufacturing hubs plan.

“I’m going to blast off in a second,” he went on. “This has been
a secret project we’ve been working on for a long time. Not really.
Maybe. It’s classified.”

There is a bit of truth in the president’s jest about the Marvel
character. As
reported by The Wall Street Journal, the military is
creating a “suit to protect and propel elite U.S. troops by
encasing them in body armor equipped with an agile exoskeleton to
enable troops to carry hundreds of pounds of gear.” The
project is called TALOS, which stands for Tactical Assault Light
Operator Suit but its nickname is the Iron Man suit. 

And the project is indeed not so secret.
In fact, the nickname Iron Man suit was picked precisely “to
attract the attention and excitement of the industry and academia
and, yes, the media,” Mike Fieldson, TALOS project manager told
Defense News.

That attention may have something to do with diverting eyes away
from the project’s hefty price tag. U.S. Special Operations Command
has spent $10 million so far on the high-tech suit. But there is no
fixed budget because it isn’t an official Pentagon
program. And
at least one defense firm official has said, “To do it right,
they need about a billion dollars.”

The military’s plan certainty
is ambitious:

Exactly what capabilities the TALOs will deliver is not yet
clear, explained Michael Fieldson. The goal is to provide operators
lighter, more efficient full-body ballistics protection and
super-human strength. Antennas and computers embedded into the suit
will increase the wearer’s situational awareness by providing
user-friendly and real-time battlefield information.

And the military has enlisted a large range of groups for help:
56 corporations, 16 government agencies, 13 universities, and 10
national laboratories. These numbers include
Legacy Effects, the special effects team that made the
Iron Man costume for the movie. They’ll be using 3D printers to
create prototypes of the body armor designs. Other groups
involved:

A Canadian company that is studying how sumo wrestlers fight
while carrying so much weight, researchers in Florida studying
medieval suits of armor, and Ekso Bionics, known for designing an
exoskeleton that enables paraplegics to walk.

But skeptical military veterans such as Peter Nealen have pointed
out that the U.S. doesn’t have the best record for developing
smart-soldier technology.

The U.S. military has, especially over the last couple of
decades, become convinced that high-tech is the solution to all
problems. Any battlefield or tactical problem can be solved with
the latest piece of kit. The result has been the F-22 (only 195
built at a unit cost of $150 million, and a program cost of $66.7
billion), the Crusader howitzer system (cancelled due to a
projected unit cost of $23 million each, minimum), the
Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (cancelled after over 10 years, at
an estimated unit price of $22.3 million, and a total program cost
of over $15 billion), to name but a few.

Early prototypes of Iron Man suit haven’t been very successful.
Currently, researchers say they’ll need about
365 pounds of batteries to power the suit that the millitary has
envisioned because unlike Tony Stark, they don’t have an arc
reactor. 

Looks like Robert Downey Jr. will be the only person to be
wearing an Iron Man suit for the foreseeable future.

Reason-Rupe has a new survey and report
out on millennials—find the report
here.

Reason-Rupe’s latest study of millennials finds that
whilemillennials support government action; however, they also
believe government comes with its own problems. They have come to
view government as wasteful and inefficient, recognize the
potential for regulatory
capture and also agency corruption.

66 Percent of Millennials Think Government Is Wasteful

The perception that government is wasteful and inefficient has
surged among millennials in the past five years.

In 2009, the Pew Research Center found that only
42 percent of millennials thought government was “usually
inefficient and wasteful,” compared to six in 10 among Americans
over 30. This number hascrept
up in recent polls. By 2014, using the exact same wording
as the question Pew asked in 2009, we found the share of
millennials who agree the government is wasteful and inefficient
has shot up to 66 percent, while 32 percent disagree.

Even millennials who favor a broader role for government view it
as wasteful. Fully 57 percent of millennial Democrats say
government is wasteful, as do 69 percent of independents and 81
percent of Republicans.

63 Percent Say Regulators Favor Special Interests Over the
Public

Millennials generally favor government regulation of business to
protect the public interest. However, nearly two-thirds (63%) say
that when government regulators write and implement regulations,
they generally act on behalf of narrow special interests, not the
public. Only 18 percent think regulators generally have the public
interest in mind when deciding how to regulate businesses, and
another 19 percent aren’t sure. While liberal and moderate
millennials are more trusting of regulators, majorities of liberals
(56%) and moderates (59%) still expect special interests to benefit
more than the public from regulations. Conservatives (82%) and
libertarians (85%) are the most likely to say special interests
benefit the most.

58 Percent Say Government Agencies Generally Abuse Their
Power

In the aftermath of government contractor Edward Snowden’s
revelations about the federal government’s surveillance programs,
the American people have been essentially asked to trust government
officials to do what is right. However, Reason-Rupe data reveal
that millennials don’t believe government agencies generally do the
right thing.

The Pew Research Center found that
young people were more supportive than older cohorts of Edward
Snowden’s choice to release classified information about the
existence of government surveillance: 60 percent said it served the
public interest and 34 percent said it harmed it. Moreover, they
were the only age group to disapprove (55%) of the data collection
program.

The Reason-Rupe millennial poll finds one driver of support for
Edward Snowden is that 58 percent of millennials think “government
agencies generally abuse their power” while only 25 percent think
they “generally do the right thing.”

Concern extends beyond partisanship. Majorities of Democrats
(53%), independents (53%), and Republicans (73%) worry government
agencies abuse their power. Nevertheless, Democrats (33%) are
nearly twice as likely as Republicans (16%) to believe these
agencies do the right thing. There are only small differences
across race/ethnicity, although African-American millennials (66%)
are slightly more likely than their peers (56%) to believe
government agencies abuse their power.

To learn more about millennials, check
out Reason-Rupe’s new report.

• Read
  the full report here
• Read
  the toplines here
• 
  10 Findings About the Millennial Generation, found here
• Read detailed
  tables/crosstabs of the results here
• Survey methodology described
  here

The White House has opted not to renovate
its bowling alley after all—a tell-tale sign of the
moral decay of our once great nation.

The bowling alley, which is reportedly nigh unusable
(unbowlable?) due to its shamefully “chipped lanes and worn-out
shoes,” has not been fixed up in 15 years. Post-9/11 America has
never had a respectable White House bowling alley. Now it never
will.

Media scrutiny (read: sabotage) of the proposal to spend money
on a fancier bowling alley—at a time when government purports to be
cutting back—ultimately doomed the renovation, according to

The Washington Times.

Without a better alley, how will President Obama improve his
abysmal bowling game? Answer: he won’t. Woe to the American
people.

Some
women and men shouldn’t be trusted with a loaded gun in public, and
some shouldn’t be allowed to board a plane. But the only reliable
way to separate the worthy from the unworthy is in a public forum
where people can learn why they’re excluded and offer
rebuttals.

Providing this opportunity is crucial for individuals who
otherwise might suffer unwarranted deprivation of rights that are
available to others. But it’s also important for the rest of us, if
only to reveal whether policies adopted by our elected officials
are being carried out with even a minimum level of fairness and
competence, writes Steve Chapman.

The alternative is to expect people given power to use it wisely
in the absence of public accountability, writes Chapman. It assumes
what Orwell’s Ministry of Truth proclaimed: Ignorance is
strength.

View this article.

I’m not sure if the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) is especially good at empire-building or it’s just that I pay
more attention to this federal agency than others. But the FDA
seems to spend a significant amount of its time trying to extend
its reach.

Recently it has taken a manifest destiny mindset toward the
digital landscape, attempting to broaden its regulatory
jurisdiction to include Twitter, Facebook, message boards, blog
comments, and more. Here are three absurd (and possibly
unconstitutional) ways that the FDA is now policing food, drug, and
other companies online. 

Facebook Micromanagement

On June 27, the
FDA sent a warning later to Zarbee’s Naturals, a line of cough
syrup, sleep aids, and seasonal-allergy remedies. Zarbee’s products
rely on active ingredients such as buckwheat honey, Butterbur leaf
extract, and the sleep hormone melatonin. The FDA scolded Zarbee’s
for saying its products treat conditions such as coughs and
congestion, as treating these conditions would “cause the products
to be drugs.” That’s right—if your all-natural product does the
same thing as a drug, that makes the product a “new drug” to the
FDA. 

“New drugs may not be legally introduced or delivered for
introduction into interstate commerce without prior approval from
the FDA,” the agency warned Zarbee’s. FDA drug approval is a
lengthy and expensive process, of course (and no real guarantee of
a drug’s safety at all). 

As examples of Zarbee’s illegal promotion of its “new drugs”,
the FDA cited several Facebook posts from the company as well as
personal testimonials that customers had posted to its Facebook
page. Zarbee’s “liking” these comments was considered “endorsing or
promoting” them. From the FDA warning letter: 

Zarbees “liked” the following comment made on February 4, 2014:
“…I received your…Zarbee’s Naturals Children’s Sleep Product. I
have a daughter…born with cerebral palsy and she suffers from
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome… [s]he took the samples you sent and
slept through the night…best sleep she has had in years…”

On February 4, 2014: Zarbees commented “Mary, Thank you for
writing this!!! We love to hear that we have helped people…” on
this claim.

Zarbees “liked” the following comment made on January 7, 2014:
“I’ve been battling either bronchitis or pneumonia for the last 18
days and have tried everything…your Children’s Cough Syrup and
mucus relief got rid of…my hoarsness [sic]…[m]y throat and chest
are beginning to feel so much better…”

Zarbees “liked” the following comment made on October 30, 2013:
“Love Zarbee’s this is the only medicine we use for our 2 year old.
Colds and congestion clear up in 2 days.”

Zarbees “liked” the following comment made on October 15, 2013:
“Received the sample for allergy relief and my husband had a
terrible problem with allergies…he was very impressed on how well
it worked for him…”

Good thing the FDA is going to step in and pull this dangerous
product off the market until it gets a permission slip, or at least
stop Zarbee’s from making honest, accurate, non-FDA approved
claims. These customers may think Zarbee’s cold remedies
are working for them and their children, but clearly that’s only
because they’ve been duped by the company’s manipulative
advertising (like this February tweet the FDA cites: “Try @Zarbees
#naturalremedies for Cold and Cough Season”).

The FDA must step in to break this false consciousness brought
on by lived experience and not an external authority—for the
ignorant masses’ own good!, obviously. Coughs and colds, after all,
“are not amenable to self-diagnosis and treatment by individuals
who are not medical practitioners,” the FDA states. “Therefore,
adequate directions for use cannot be written so that a layperson
can use these drugs safely for their intended purposes.” 

(h/t Tristyn
Bloom/The
Daily Caller)

Tweet Police 

Zarbee’s Naturals was also cited for several tweets. It’s not
the first company to come under FDA scrutiny on Twitter, and it
certainly won’t be the last:
Draft guidelines released by the agency in June instructed drug
companies that
any pro-pharmaceutical tweet would also have to list product
risks and side effects.

Because Twitter users only have 140 characters to convey a
message, this would effectively make tweeting about prescription
drugs (and perhaps honey) illegal. And this may be what the FDA
intends: “If a firm concludes that adequate benefit and risk
information, as well as other required information, cannot all be
communicated within the same character-space-limited communication,
then the firm should reconsider using that platform for the
intended promotional message,” the agency states.

If the FDA’s attitude toward Facebook liking is any indication,
companies may also want to reconsider what they retweet and
“favorite” on Twitter, too, lest that be considered a form of
criminal endorsement. (It’s a good thing the FDA doesn’t regulate
beer—Tecate recently favorited an Instagram photo of my kitten
getting curious about a can, thereby tacitly endorsing my
unscientifically-tested caption, “even kittens love
Tecate”.) 

“It’s been very challenging for companies to use Twitter in a
way that the FDA prescribes,” Jeffrey K. Francer, vice president
and senior counsel with Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers
of America (PhRMA),
told biotechnology publication GEN.

“If the FDA is going to require the same type of fine print that
you see in a magazine ad to be in a tweet, then the FDA is
essentially taking that tool away from patients who may want to
hear from companies as well as healthcare professionals.”

Francer said PhRMA has proposed in the past that companies be
allowed to use graphic symbols to indicate risk, with a short
statement about what the drug does, and a link to more detailed
risk-benefit information. Such character-limited messages would be
along the lines of the FDA’s (new drug approval tweets), which
include links with the details about risks and benefits rather than
embedding info within the tweets.

“The companies want to provide information that’s useful to
physicians and that’s useful to patients, and they should be able
to use all the different media that the government uses itself,”
Francer said. “I assume that the FDA believes that its own tweets
are truthful and not misleading. If they believe that, then why
couldn’t a company use Twitter in the same way that the FDA is
using Twitter?”

Francer said it raised First Amendment concerns that the
government is restricting the speech of a particular group while
engaging in that same type of speech itself. In a January 2014
letter to the FDA, PhRMA said the agency’s proposed rules for drug
companies on social media, podcasts, and blogs “could chill
truthful and nonmisleading communication protected by the First
Amendment.” 

And as we see with Zarbee’s Naturals, it’s not just
pharmaceutical companies who should worry about FDA oversight on
social media. Any company marketing a remedy for something that
could also be treated with drugs is apparently on notice. 

All Your Social Medias Are Belong to Us

Under the FDA’s new draft guidelines, pharmaceutical companies
must submit monthly reports to the agency listing “all
non-restricted sites for which it is responsible or in which it
remains an active participant” if these sites involve real-time
communications. In other words, every company must keep the FDA
abreast of any and all of its social media accounts, and resubmit
this information on an ongoing basis.

“Firms need not submit screenshots or other visual
representations of the actual interactive or real-time
communications with the monthly updates” if the site is public, the
FDA oh-so-generously offers. Just let it know where you are online
and the FDA is more than capable of monitoring your every comment
and like, thanks. 

Brittany La Couture, a health policy analyst with the American
Action Forum, nicely sums up the damage these
kind of FDA policies can do. “With each additional regulation
limiting free speech in marketing, producers are under more
pressure to refrain from any advertising at all for fear of harsh
repercussions for inadvertently crossing an invisible line,” writes
La Couture. “When drug and device manufacturers are afraid to use
the latest and most popular technologies to market their products,
companies and patients both pay the price.” 

Here are the relevant FDA draft guidelines: 

January 2014: Fulfilling
Regulatory Requirements for Postmarketing Submissions of
Interactive Promotional Media for Prescription Human and Animal
Drugs and Biologics

June 2014: Internet/Social
Media Platforms with Character Space Limitations— Presenting Risk
and Benefit Information for Prescription Drugs and Medical
Devices

June 2014:
Internet/Social Media Platforms: Correcting Independent Third-Party
Misinformation About Prescription Drugs and Medical
Devices

Tennessee has just made it legal
to break into a
car if you see a child in there and have a “good
faith belief” that he or she will suffer harm if not immediately
removed.

In other words, feel free to get out the crowbar.

This would make sense if we had a realistic sense of when kids
are truly in danger. But we don’t. We have been told by the media
and the government that kids are in danger absolutely any time they
are waiting in the car, even for a single minute. Look
at this
story, for instance: a mom found guilty of neglect for not
hauling her sleeping kid into the store with her on a 10 minute
errand. Or this
one—a four-minute errand. Or this
one, a mom berated by a “Good Samaritan” for a
20-second errand.

I hear from moms who got yelled at for returning their shopping
cart to the corral after first getting their kids into their car
seats, as if this put their kids in mortal peril.

We have become so hyper sensitized to the danger of kids waiting
in cars, we can no longer see the difference between a child
waiting while mom picks up the pizza and a child locked in the car
all day while mom plays the slots.

But there is a big difference. I can find no instance of a child
dying in a car who was there for the duration of a short
errand. Of
the 30-40 kids who died in parked cars, 86 percent perished
because their parents forgot they were in the car and didn’t come
back for hours, or the children got into the car unbeknownst to the
parents and then couldn’t get out. (That wouldn’t be the case in a
parking lot.)

The Tennessee law
requires that before a would-be Samaritan crowbars the car they try
actually opening the door, and also call 911. But that immediately
involves the police in a parenting decision. A far better course of
action would be to simply stand by the car for a while and wait for
the parent to return.

Smashing the window or prying open the door without waiting a
while for the parent is extreme. It’s acting as if every time a
child is waiting in a car he’s in danger, when—thank
goodness—that’s not the case. We know that because most of us often
waited in the car as kids.

That practice simply was not labeled negligence back then,
because it wasn’t and still isn’t. It’s a decision that decent,
rational parents who love their kids make every day.

Sometimes it makes sense to bring a child in while running
an errand, sometimes it doesn’t. Parents should be allowed to make
that choice without the law breathing down their necks.