check your toothpaste for antifreeze

http://scienceblogs.com/drcharles/2007/06/some_toothpaste_from_china_fou.php

which does a pretty good job of explaining the problem and its history (apparently a similar concern caused the FDA to be created in the first place)

and the FDA report, which lists the toothpaste brands that have been identified to have this additive:

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01646.html

(If this sort of thing keeps happening, I wonder whether China is going to continue to maintain its favorable trade imbalance. First pet food, now this...)

music storage and movie moments

I'm listening to "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel right now. Those people who saw the 1980s movie "Say Anything" may recall the scene in which John Cusack's character is standing outside his girlfriend's window, holding a boom box above his head which is playing this song.

It just occurred to me how incomprehensible this scene is going to be to my children, technologically speaking. I mean, the _tape_ in the boom box is about the size of the larger iPods today, and it holds about a thousandth as much music (of much lower fidelity). As for the speakers, while I don't know if there is current R&D on making good speakers the size of quarters (turning the scene into one in which the character is holding his apparently empty hands up outside his girlfriend's window), I can easily imagine that playing music for one's friends will be done by wireless broadcast to personal headphones, i.e., a mobile version of what iTunes/Airport does now.

*ponder*

military judge dismisses case against non-unlawful "enemy combatant"

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070604.wkhadr0604_1/BNStory/International/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20070604.wkhadr0604_1

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10443657

What I find most encouraging about this is that the judge in charge of this tribunal made this decision, it appears, independently. I've little doubt that there will now be a flurry of hearings to reclassify some detainees as "unlawful enemy combatants" (and not simply "enemy combatants", as opposed, presumably, to "friendly combatants [against which we have nevertheless preferred charges]"). But the point is that the military at least appears to be trying to police itself.