"Madison Avenue, facing growing legislative threats to one of the advertising industry's most lucrative categories, is stepping up the fight to protect its freedom to pitch prescription drugs directly to consumers. Drug companies, agencies and their media allies who have benefited handsomely from the flood of ads beat back one recent measure in the House of Representatives. ... The category of direct-to-consumer ads did not even exist until five years ago. Before 1997, broad curbs prevented pharmaceutical makers from mounting any significant

Investigative journalist Dan Moldea has created a web service providing links to public-information sources for investigating members of the Bush family and their political and financial interests, including lots of information that has been under-reported in the mass media.

An Associated Press story speculates today that Wisconsin hunters, having killed deer in the area of the state known to be infected with mad cow-like Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), might have spread the disease around the state by taking carcasses back to their homes and dumping them in the environment. Yes, that is a possibility, but not the most obvious possibility. Feeding rendered byproducts is a much more obvious threat to spread CWD around the state, the nation and to other livestock.