FDA action on antibiotics on farms is inadequate.

The Consumer Finance Protection Board receives anonimized credit card purchase data from a company; that company gets it with names, which might facilitate misuse of the data.

Of course, the underlying problem is that the banks and the stores get to identify their customers when they pay by credit card. Thus, it is better to use an ATM to withdraw money and pay cash.

Leaders of the protests that brought down Mubarak have been sentenced to 3 years in prison.

Mariah Carey is entertaining a dictator again.

Many telemarketer calls use canned voice recordings, and a human selects which response to give next.

I don't see telemarketing as particularly bad, just wasteful and annoying. I have never bought anything from a telemarketer, and I don't let the call go on for more than a few seconds, because I don't want to spend my time on them.

It is useful to train yourself out of applying normal ideas of politeness — for instance, that it is rude to hang up on someone — to a commercially-motivated call from a stranger.

I think it might be good to legally require telemarketing calls to start by playing a recording that says, "Stay on the line if you wish to talk with a telemarketer."