And another thing that Hatch is responsible for is the deaths of hundreds if not thousands.  He is the main sponsor of the Food classication of natural herbs.  That means that many extremely dangerous substances, which are natural, are allowed to make health and fitness claims without FDA clearance.

Hundreds?  Fen-Phen....  Thank Orrin for that.

i like pete ashdown a lot, but i think it's interesting to note, you being a fierce advocate of "net neutrality", that pete ashdown appears to oppose it:

WN: So speaking of people in Congress and how much they understand about the internet, where do you stand on the whole "net neutrality" issue? What do you make of that? Do you think that the internet is fragile, like Larry Lessig says, and (that) it only exists because of careful planning, or is it kind of a naturally occurring thing that will just survive no matter what the rules are?

Ashdown: I tend to take more of the latter viewpoint. I've been doing XMission since 1993, which makes it one of the oldest internet companies in the country. And what I have seen is, you know, back in 1993 the internet was controlled by the National Science Foundation. And when they turned it over to private enterprise there was this idea that they would set up neutral peering points for entities to come together and exchange traffic. Now I'm in some of those peering points, and what I have seen, they're far from neutral, (and) that this idea of net neutrality has been long lost, in that if I try and exchange traffic with, say, a carrier on the level of MCI, they're going to put down all sorts of crazy requirements that there's no way a small provider of my size can meet. So I am forced to go another route to get into their network.

Now the thing is that the bureaucrats and the executives of these big telcos don't seem to realize is that they have as much need to reach my network as I have a need to reach theirs, even more so when you have an entity like Google. You have this guy just stomping around from SBC, I forget his name, but he's saying, "Google should be paying me money to traverse my network." Well, he receives as much benefit from having the connectivity to Google as Google receives and vice versa, in return. So if he decides to lower Google's traffic because they're not paying his extortion fee, his customers are going to react to that. "Why can't I get to Google? Why is it slow?" And so I think that this kind of balances out in the end.

I tend more to take an anti-regulation standpoint on the internet, and (though) it is very easy to say, "We don't want the government censoring the internet," it becomes a much more complex issue when we're talking about net neutrality. "Well we should have the government confirm that neutrality, and guarantee it." But does that mean that I can't prioritize video traffic and voice traffic in my own network, (which) is obviously needed, that has to be more of a real-time situation? You know, for a long time I prioritized gaming traffic, because that's what my customers desire.

So I tend to think that the government getting involved with more regulation on the internet is a bad thing. And so some of these calls for enforced net neutrality I don't support, because I believe that these situations will work themselves out in the end with the market that we have. Now you have the other question of, well, if you're a smaller player, if you're not a Google, if you're a mom and pop shop and you're on the rise, is your traffic going to be discounted in the face of these other entities that are able to pay for good traffic, say an eBay. And I argue again that there is enough customer draw on these major networks to say, "Hey, I can't get to this small entity; what's wrong with your network? What is breaking with your network?" that the customers of these large telcos are forced into net neutrality on their own.

though it almost seems to me that he misunderstands the question. nobody on the side of "net neutrality" that i know of is pushing the notion that you can't prioritize streaming video. i also think the last paragraph in his answer is a bit naive.

In regards to "net neutrality" you may be interested in reading my blog from yesterday.