Dead Island

Released: September 2011
First person melee combat
Rated: Mature (lots and lots of gore and blood)

The breakdown: This is a fun game where you get to kill zombies up close and personal.

Ahh, the island of Banoi.  A beautiful tropical island in the South Pacific where you can lay out on the beach all day, explore, or get killed by a whole bunch of zombies.

So you wake up and discover your vacation is over.  People are all infected with a virus that turns them into zombies, but somehow you are immune.  For the most part, you run around the island tracking down objects, helping people, and of course, killing zombies. 
The weapon I felt best with was a home made combination of a electrocution element with something with a blade.  You had a lot of choices for weapons between knifes, guns, pipes, bats, shovels, sticks, and then you can modify them into maces, flaming weapons, and electrical zappers.  So I thought the most fun for the game was making a new weapon and trying it out.  My least favorite thing was getting lost on the island with no idea of where to find what I was looking for.  It's an open world so you can explore as much as you like and it certainly looked beautiful and peaceful when you weren't being chased by walking dead people.
You have your choice of being 4 different people.  I picked the British woman who used to be a police officer to be better with guns, but I discovered I liked knives better.
Overall, it was fun and very bloody.  Sometimes scary, and sometimes hysterical (especially when you get to run down zombies with a car).  The inner city was FILLED with tough zombies and human bad guys so that was my least favorite place to play because it was so damn hard to survive.
I think most people would be better off just renting it and playing it through once because I don't see much enjoyment in playing it repeatedly.

Here's a trailer for it:
http://youtu.be/YEzM2psna_o

I give it 3 out of 5 joysticks as it can be really fun sometimes, but also once through is good enough.

Boardwalk Empire

Released: Current tv show airing on HBO on Sunday nights
Drama
Starring: Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Kelly MacDonald
Directors: There's a lot of them but one includes Martin Scorsese
Running Time: about 1 hour

The breakdown:  During the 1920's prohibition some criminals really made a name for themselves.


What a fantastic show!  I totally didn't think I would like this show, but I really got hooked.  It has a TON of violence, sex, swearing, nudity, you name it, they have it, so put the kids to bed before you start watching this show.
It's based on some real people and others are fictional.  Some events happened, but a lot did not.  At this point in the second season it's so good you almost don't even care if something's true or not.  In all honesty other than some of the absolute basics and some of the characters, most of the work is fiction now.  Either way, it's a phenomenal show.
It's not a show that I thought I would enjoy but it hypnotizes you right at the beginning and you have to keep watching.  There's something to be said when all this talent on screen and behind the camera come together to make one show.  The acting is some of the highest quality I've ever seen for a television show, and the production values are amazing.  The tiniest little details are authentic to the time and the budget is to die for.  The writing is so fantastic, and the storylines just keep you coming back for more.  It's better than a movie just because there's so much more show to watch, week after week.  I cannot say enough good things about this show....You've gotta' see it!  Plus don't get me started on the special effects, make-up, and wardrobe!

There's a ton of characters so I'll try to introduce you quickly.

Enoch "Nucky" Thompson - Played by Steve Buscemi.  This is our main character based on an actual person.  He's a politician and guess what?  He's crooked!  His brother, Eli Thompson is the city's police chief so Nucky has it made.  He starts sneaking alcohol into the city once prohibition starts and makes a killing (literally and figuratively).  He's ruthless, coldblooded, but also loyal to his family, but also does what's needed for each situation.  Sometimes, he lies, sometimes, he's there for you, but you almost always can't imagine what he's about to do.  The best way to sum up this character is that he's part time gangster and part time politician.  Aren't they all?

Eddie Kessler - Played by Anthony Laciura.  Nucky's butler and helper around his office.  He's not in the show too too much, but he has some great one liners.  He's very likable and down to Earth.  The actor is actually a very accomplished opera singer so they've used that talent at least one time on the show so far.  I think he's great for comic relief. 

James "Jimmy" Darmody - Played by Michael Pitt.  This is a complicated character at times.  A war vet that got sent home after an injury has nothing to fall back on for work.  He meets up with Nucky and begins working for him.  Nucky kinda' helped raise Jimmy and has been a strong father figure to him his whole life.  When he needs help he turns to Nucky.  He has a wife and child at home to take care of and he really does what he can to provide for them.  He has a very young and sexy mother who does burlesque style dance, and is at times, sisterly towards him, and motherly at others.  She obviously was was too young to have Jimmy and take good care of him, but she looks out for him now, though she's also very nosey and controlling.  Jimmy's father is the Commodore.  Someone who basically sexually assaulted Jimmy's mom when she was a very young girl who was brought to him like a gift.  His parents had a relationship to some degree, but it certainly wasn't love.  He makes friends with Richard Harrow and brings him into our story much later in the season.  Jimmy also makes friends with Al Capone, and is a dangerous man himself even without Nucky pulling the strings.

Margaret Schroeder - Kelly MacDonald.  This lady is such a good actress.  The only other role I've seen her in is the wife of James Brolin in No Country for Old Men where she played a southern woman with a strong southern accent.  She's really Irish and has a strong Irish accent so here she gets to use it as she plays an Irish Immigrant.  Her character has really changed this season from the first one so I'm not liking her so much anymore.  The more they show of her behavior and attitude the more you see she isn't the nice person they portrayed her as in the beginning.

Agent Nelson Van Alden - Played by chameleon-like Michael Shannon.  Everytime I see this guy, he IS his character, no matter what show or movie.  He's really very good.  In this role his character is SO not what he seems.  He works for the FBI, is married, is very repressed, and is after Nucky big time!  He is one seriously messed up son of a bitch.  He tells his extremely religious wife that they shouldn't have a baby if God doesn't want it (in fact, he is the one who doesn't really love her and doesn't want a baby.)  He cheats on his wife.  He kills people he just doesn't like.  He skirts the law and does just about anything he can to get the bad guy.  Look out for this one!  He could fool just about anyone into thinking he's this nice family man who upholds and protects the law instead of breaking it.  He's absolutely mad, but so interesting to watch lose control.

Elias "Eli" Thompson - Played by Shea Whigham.  This character is not very intelligent when he makes decisions.  He always gets into situations he shouldn't and sticks his nose into things he shouldn't.  Nucky has to bail him out a lot and sometimes Eli really doesn't appreciate the help of his brother.  Very well acted and well written.

Al Capone - Played by Stephen Graham.  This guy IS Al Capone.  He does a great job, but they haven't delved into his character as much as the others.  He's kinda' a side player for now.  But the actor is Irish with a heavy accent to match so when I heard him speak with a very authentic Italian accent I was floored.  He's so good!

Angela Darmody - Played by Aleksa Palladino.  This is a complicated character.  So complicated that I don't want to ruin the surprises she reveals, but she is certainly not as she seems to be.  Very well acted you totally believe the actress playing her.

Lucky Luciano - Played by Vincent Piazza.  Everything you expect of this well known gangster is here in this show.  Another well acted and well written character but like Al Capone, he's a side player for now.

Lucy Danziger - Played by Paz de la Huerta.  I've never seen this actress in anything else, but I think she was born to play this role.  She's basically a prostitute, but she stays with Nucky as much as she can for his level of money.  She thinks she's high class, but she really isn't.  She's very threatened by other women and is very untrustworthy and willing to turn on anyone in a second if there's revenge to be had or money to be made.  She's a very damaging and dangerous character in the sense that she will expose anyone if she can profit from it, and she knows a LOT of things about people that shouldn't get out.

Chalky White - Michael Kenneth Williams.  Wow this guy is good!  This character is friend to almost all in his black community.  He tries to watch out for his own and takes good care of his family, but he's a loaded cannon ready to fire whenever there's trouble.  He's ready to overreact in most situations, but he listens to Nucky and does what's best for both.  Usually he's cooled off before he does anything very rash.

Arnold Rothstein - Michael Stuhlbarg.  Man this actor totally nails this role.  He plays a cool cunning character based on a real person.  You might not recognize his name at first, but this was the guy that tried to fix the 1919 world series with the Chicago White Sox.  Always looking for opportunity this guy knew when to hold 'em, fold 'em, and walk away.  This actor is so brilliant in this role you can't take your eyes off him.  He's that interesting, so smart, and so calm no matter what.  But don't cross him or try to pull one over on him.

Commodore Louis Kaestner - played by Dabney Coleman.  He's such a great bad guy and a great actor.  He sinks into this role and it seems like he was born to do it.  This is Jimmy's real father, and someone who had control over Atlantic City years before Nucky ever came along.  He's slowly building a relationship with his son and Gillian Darmody (Jimmy's mom), but it's awkward and strange at times.  He's bed ridden at the beginning of the series but that changes in a way you don't expect later on.  He has big dreams of being on top again somehow, but Nucky's in his way.

Gillian Darmody - played by Gretchen Mol.  This is a character that really gets under my skin.  As a young girl the Commodore impregnated her with Jimmy and she couldn't barely take care of him and herself so she turned to Nucky.  She works as a burlesque dancer and still doesn't act like a good mother should.  She's sometimes controlling, but always playing the angle that fits her needs the most.  Wonderful actress, but the role is just so manipulating.  Her and her son have a relationship that goes beyond healthy, but they are both damaged people.

Richard Harrow - Played incredibly by Jack Huston.  This is one of the most interesting characters and the one I'm most intrigued with.  He is a war vet that lost half of his face to an explosion.  Back in the 20's of course, they didn't have the level of reconstructive surgery we do today, so they made people like this wear tin masks to recreate their faces.  This character has a balance of sadness, sensitivity, and tenderness, but also he is an amazing sniper, so he has to be cold blooded to kill whoever he is told to.  You feel sorry for him because underneath you can tell all he wants is to have a normal life and have someone love him the way he is.  He's smart and kind (strange to say of a killer I know) and tortured by how he looks and how people shy away from him. SO thoroughly interesting!!!  I've completely fallen in love with the character (though the actor is pretty darn cute too) and I can identify, in part, with his emotional struggles.  There is something about Richard that draws you in and you can't help but feel something for him.  My favorite character by far!

If you love a good story with amazing characters you gotta' see this show!

I give it 5 out of 5 remote controls because it quite possibly is the BEST television show I have ever seen.

Battle: Los Angeles

Released: 2011
This one really doesn't fit into any category except for the crappy movie category but it's supposed to be action/sci-fi
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Bridget Moynahan
Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Running Time: 116 minutes
Rated: PG-13

The breakdown:  The world is being invaded by aggressive aliens and a lot of major cities have fallen.  Los Angeles, United States of America is the last city standing where the military has to make humanities final stand.


Anytime you have a person named something like "Ne-Yo" in your film you know it's gonna' be bad.
I am so glad I didn't pay to watch this movie.  Not only are the characters generic and boring, the dialogue is painful, and the story so uninteresting.  The only way I got through it was to listen for cliche military movie phrases like "this is not a drill", "I didn't sign up for this!" "We've got company!" etc. 
So the plot.....Meteors are falling to Earth but slowing down upon entry.  People realize too late that these are not really meteors.  They are aliens getting ready to invade Earth.  The aliens are very aggressive and well armed.  They start killing people left and right and destroying all major cities across the world.  Los Angeles is the last big city in the world standing and the military is somehow supposed to go in there and kick some alien ass!?
Anyway, Eckhart plays a sergeant that just got his retirement approved but goes back into active service when he realizes he has to save the world (because without him - the world would fall!  I'm being sarcastic here.)  He gets assigned a new troop and they are supposed to save some dumb civilians who locked themselves in a police station.  Military gets there, saves the innocents and fights the bad guys.  They eventually kill the alien mother ship.  The End.
There's really not a lot to this movie.  I guess it's supposed to be a war movie then it's supposed to be a science fiction movie too.  Somewhere along the way all the people involved with the movie forgot that it was supposed to be entertaining to watch. 
This movie is so so bad.  Do not watch it.  Do not waste time off your life watching.  Please....Really, PLEASE don't see it and waste your time on this piece of theatrical crap.

I give it 0 out 5 stubs, I think my worst movie rating EVER!  (Even Splice got more than 0!)

Babies and kids on planes

Here's an article I read the other week on Yahoo about small children on airplanes.
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Flying With Little Children? Go to the Back of the Plane

By Scott McCartney | Mon, Nov 21, 2011

Babies on airplanes. It's enough to make parents—and all the passengers around them—cry.

Parents are complaining of airline seating policies that create "baby ghettos" in the back of planes. Even worse, families are increasingly split up, leaving small children in middle seats in the company of strangers unless passengers arrange seat swaps on board.

Michael Lyon booked seats together for his family for a trip from Washington, D.C., to Bangkok on United Airlines in July and checked his reservation frequently to make sure the seat assignments didn't change. But when he checked in, all three had been split up, and his 6-year-old son was moved to the back of the wide-body plane by himself for the 13-hour trip.

A United gate agent told Mr. Lyon there were no seats and nothing could be done. He protested, ultimately getting a supervisor who found two seats together so he could sit with his son. "Not only did the United gate staff not seem to understand the importance of having him next to us, they were hostile," Mr. Lyon said.

Even during peak holiday travel periods, adults, of course, outnumber children on planes, and airlines have to balance the needs of parents with other passengers whose nightmare is a long, crowded flight next to a noisy child.

Several factors are at play. First, many seats on flights are reserved for elite-level frequent fliers or full-fare business travelers. Routinely full flights have less seat-assignment flexibility. Also, airlines are increasingly selling choice seat assignments for extra fees, an expensive option for families. And bulkhead rows at the front of coach cabins that used to be ideal for traveling with infants, offering more privacy for diaper changes and more space for restless toddlers, now have to be reserved for passengers with disabilities. As a result, families often end up separated or at the back of the plane.

In Mr. Lyon's case, United says its systems are set up to keep groups together, but his seat assignments may have been altered because of a change in aircraft for his trip. After he complained, including sending United the names of passengers who witnessed the confrontation, the airline said it conducted an investigation and apologized to him.

Baltimore mom Teresa Toth-Fejel flies AirTran occasionally and has been told by airline agents that if she wants seats together with her kids—ages 1, 2 and 6—she should pay extra for reserved seat assignments. She sets alarms for 24 hours before departure to check-in online. "I'm so freakishly worried about it," she said.

When that doesn't work, she has been able to take the free seat assignments in different rows and trade with willing fellow passengers—who likely don't want to be caring for a toddler on their own.

"I feel like it's discrimination against families. For us, it is not an option to not be by my 2-year-old," she said.

Summer Smith Hull, who blogs about frequent-flier miles for families, checks over and over for seat assignments if she doesn't get them right away, grabbing seats that open up when travelers cancel or get upgraded to first class. "The No. 1 way you set yourself up for trouble is if you go to the airport without seat assignments," she said. A recent flight didn't have seat assignments, so she kept calling the airline until she finally got seats.

Adding to the complexity: Several airlines, including American and United, don't let travelers add children flying free on a parent's lap to reservations online. Instead, they must call the airline or get an airport agent to add a lap child to their reservation. Southwest Airlines requires taking a lap child to a ticket counter with a birth certificate on the day of travel to verify the child is younger than 2 years old.

The plane's configuration can also affect placement. On smaller regional jets, for example, some rows don't have an extra oxygen mask to be used on an infant traveling on an adult's lap. That means someone who reserved a seat and has a lap child must be relocated, splitting up a family. (SeatGuru.com has information about location of oxygen masks.)

For their part, airlines say they try to keep families seated together, encourage gate agents to rearrange seating to accommodate families and still provide some kid-friendly amenities. While microwave ovens have been removed from many planes since airlines no longer serve hot food, carriers say flight attendants still warm bottles with hot water. Wide-body jets still have diaper-changing areas.

American recently installed new software that attempts to seat together families with children 12 years and younger who don't have seat assignments 72 hours before departure, significantly ahead of most other customers.

Other carriers suggest families should pay for seat assignments to make sure they stay together since it's harder to get seat assignments in advance, free of charge. US Airways has no restrictions on families reserving seats in advance, but "we do encourage families to take advantage of Choice seats to ensure seating together," a spokesman said.

Overall increased stress of travel due to luggage charges and security procedures has made travelers less tolerant of kids, some parents say.

"Sometimes other passengers are willing to help you out. But others look at you like you are the devil for bringing a child on an airplane," said Alecia Hoobing, who works for a technology company from her home in Boise, Idaho. The evil eyes are more acute when families upgrade to first class, she and Ms. Hull agree. Malaysia Airlines decided this year to ban babies from first-class cabins of its Boeing 747 jets and next year in its new Airbus A380 super-jumbos because of passenger complaints of crying children in the expensive seats.

Ms. Hoobing thinks the hardest part of travel with kids is boarding. Airlines typically no longer let families with small children board first on flights. Instead, they often come after first class and top-tier frequent fliers. Kids and parents—lugging car seats, diaper bags, videogames and toys—clog the aisles and delay general boarding. Though airlines provide leniency, such as exempting diaper bags for carry-on bag limits and waiving checked-baggage fees for car seats and strollers, they have tightened restrictions.

On June 1, for example, American stopped letting parents check jogging strollers, non-collapsible strollers or strollers heavier than 20 pounds at the gate. United already bans gate-checking strollers that don't collapse.

For Families, Rules Vary

Some airline rules that families say make travel challenging:

Strollers

• Airlines now have restrictions on the size of strollers, which have been getting bigger and fancier. American won't gate-check jogging strollers. United will only gate-check collapsible strollers.

Baggage/Carry-Ons

• Diaper bags don't count toward carry-on baggage allowance on Continental and American flights. Not so on many other carriers.
• If you have a car seat and a stroller, Continental will only check one free.
• Lap children usually get no baggage allowance—any bags count against allotments for parents. One mother traveling with one lap child and two checked bags pays fees on both bags, totaling $120 round-trip. A third bag would add $250 round-trip on Delta.

Fares

• Most airlines charge lap-child fares for international flights, typically 10% of the fare the adult pays for the seat, plus taxes and fees.
• Southwest Airlines requires a copy of a birth certificate before giving a lap child permission to board free.
• If an infant turns 2 while traveling, United requires the purchase of a ticket for the return flight home.

Security

• The Transportation Security Administration requires all equipment to go through metal detectors. Parents must carry infants through metal detectors as well. Baby formula and breast milk (which are specially scanned), as well as medications and juice are exempt from 3.4-ounce limits in 'reasonable quantities.' Liquids, gels and aerosols still must comply. Children can now leave shoes on and TSA has eased up on pat-down procedures for kids.

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Well I felt like leaving a comment so I did.  It said this:

"My husband and I are dying for an airline to ban children all together from flying and when that happens they will get all of our money. We can't stand children."

It's not that I can stand all children.  I should've said I can't stand ill-behaved children.  I've actually spent time with some kids throughout my life and the ones that are well behaved aren't that bad.  Some of them have been pretty ok to talk to and be around. 

Anyway for this comment I got 11 thumbs up and 3 thumbs down and a couple of replies.

Well I see going back more than a week in the comments that I cannot locate someone called Lanzz's original comment.  She might've pulled it herself, or Yahoo! did but I'll try to sum up what she said and how she said it.  It went something like this:

"You must've never been a child yourself.  It's not that you can't stand children, it's that children can't stand you because they can see right through you.  What a miserable and awful person you must be.  I hope that you and your husband are saving up a lot of money for a retirement home some day because you won't have anyone to love you or take care of you when you're elderly."

I wish I would've copied this article sooner so I could've caught her original statement but it's just not there anymore.  I have done the best I could to capture what she said and in what tone.  She was very aggressive and judgemental with her comments.  The others I have here:

crystal 

Please be sure to use birth control. How sad for you that you will go your whole life without realizing the joy children bring. I didn't know what I was missing until I saw the precious face of my daughter. Now every holiday and milestone are the greatest blessing I could ever have imagined. Poor, poor, you.

Caroline M. 

Crystal and Lanzz, you are both idiots. Some people don't want kids, nor do they want to be around them. Some people want more from life than procreation, which is way overrated...mostly by nitwits.

Which then I responded to my replies with this:

Vivianna 

"Lanzz -
Have you ever read the comment guidelines? I think the one that applies to you the most is -

•Please be considerate and respectful of your fellow posters

Wow, thanks for judging me! I don't judge you for wanting to have kids. People, including children, are naturally attracted to me because I feel fulfilled and happy without needing to add another person to the already overloaded world population of 7 BILLION people. I have no hole or void inside of me that I have to fill with a child. My life is complete and I am very happy with my decision to never have children. What I'm not happy with is the CONSTANT battle with people like you who tell me I have to have children to be complete. My career is my choice, getting married or staying single is my choice, having children (newsflash!) is also MY CHOICE, not yours. I have nothing to prove to the world, and I certainly am not going to succumb to heavy American societal pressure to push out a kid. Just because I am living does not mean I need to procreate. I think most people will agree with me that if you're having a child now only to ensure that you avoid going to a nursing home later (which could happen anyway) you're choosing to have kids for the wrong reason. What a selfish reason for having children - to ensure YOU don't suffer later or feel lonely. I'm not telling anyone else that they SHOULDN'T have kids, I'm merely saying, I do not want any.

Crystal -
See above and also
Yes, poor, poor me - I can sleep all night through because I don't need to feed a baby who won't sleep at 3 am. Poor me - I can sex whenever I want. Poor me - I can drop everything and run off on vacation, go shopping, go out with friends, have a normal phone conversation without being interrupted that my child is about to set my house on fire, travel around the world, and a million other things that I enjoy without having a child in my life. Poor, poor me.

Lanzz and Crystal -
I have had countless conversations with parents that say I've made the right choice. They've told me, given the chance to live their life over they would choose NOT to have kids. I know PLENTY of people that are terrible parents. Some people should not have children because they cannot take care of them (mentally, financially, physically, emotionally) the way they deserve. Somehow saying that I don't want children (can't stand kids) makes me a bad miserable person? And then when I give reasons for why I don't want children people always try to tell me I'll change my mind or that I'm dysfunctional? That somehow something is wrong with me because I am fulfilled without having kids? I am truly happy in my own life and only hope that other people can expand their minds to accept someday that not every single person on this planet has to squeeze a kid out of their loins as some sort of "validation."

Caroline M. -
I love you! Thank you for being one of the few people (it seems, but hopefully there are many more) that can see that there is more to life than just having kids to take care of. Truly, life can be beautiful, rewarding, and complete with or without children."

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I KNEW that when I left a comment like the original one to expect a lot of backlash, but I am still surprised to see how mean people are when they don't have to face who they are talking to on the internet.  Bill Maher said it best when he was speaking about the comment section after articles.  Someone says an opinion, person B says they're wrong, person A insults person B, person B insults person A - the end.  Nothing good ever comes of the comments sections really.  I'm not even sure why Yahoo! lets the user comment on news.

Essentially my beliefs about children and procreation are very strong and have been my whole life.
I don't want kids.  I've almost gone my whole life (with the exception of one single day) knowing for sure I don't want kids.  They are just not for me.  There's nothing wrong with me, I am fully capable of having children, but I choose not to.  The world at 7 billion is a scary statistic to me.  When people in all sorts of countries are consuming so much energy and resources and then giving back pollutants into the air and water and don't care...we have a problem.  The people that live on this planet are not taking care of it and they don't seem to care what happens to it as long as they get their cars, electricity, food, water, etc.  I'm not perfect, but I'm trying to reduce my footprint on this Earth.  She just doesn't need any more trouble or more people right now.  Adding people to the equation just seems wrong to me.  We need to take care of Earth first, we need alternative energy sources for the masses first, we need to feed all the people we have here already first. 
Kids just aren't for me, but I'm also not telling other people they shouldn't have kids if they can take really good care of them.  I am saying that third world countries need to be better educated about birth control though.  In India's impoverished areas women have a lot of kids because they know that a lot of their children will die young....so they have more to have a better chance that some of them will grow up into adults.  But sometimes, all of them survive and then the parents have a hard time taking care of them because they didn't plan on 5 kids surviving.

It's a long and difficult discussion.  No easy answers, and I don't pretend to have them.

I'm sure I would be a great parent.  I wish I could say the same for a lot of other people who are already parents. 
But with teenage single mothers, drug addicts moms, welfare mothers, people who are children hoarders like that family on the TLC channel that are having their 20th child, and the octomom, I am justifiably concerned with how many people are having kids that shouldn't.  And then these kids are just suffering with terrible parents.
I could go on and on, but I'll stop for now.
My final word.  If someone tells you they don't want kids, that's ok....not everyone has to have them.  Don't make them feel bad or as if something is wrong with them for making that choice.

This was way too important not to repost.

Arsenic in your juice

How much is too much? Federal limits don’t exist.

Consumer Reports Magazine: January 2012

Arsenic has long been recognized as a poison and a contaminant in drinking water, but now concerns are growing about arsenic in foods, especially in fruit juices that are a mainstay for children.

Controversy over arsenic in apple juice made headlines as the school year began when Mehmet Oz, M.D., host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” told viewers that tests he’d commissioned found 10 of three dozen apple-juice samples with total arsenic levels exceeding 10 parts per billion (ppb). There’s no federal arsenic threshold for juice or most foods, though the limit for bottled and public water is 10 ppb. The Food and Drug Administration, trying to reassure consumers about the safety of apple juice, claimed that most arsenic in juices and other foods is of the organic type that is “essentially harmless.”

But an investigation by Consumer Reports shows otherwise. Our study, including tests of apple and grape juice (download a PDF of our complete test results), a scientific analysis of federal health data, a consumer poll, and interviews with doctors and other experts, finds the following: 

• Roughly 10 percent of our juice samples, from five brands, had total arsenic levels that exceeded federal drinking-water standards. Most of that arsenic was inorganic arsenic, a known carcinogen.
• One in four samples had lead levels higher than the FDA’s bottled-water limit of 5 ppb. As with arsenic, no federal limit exists for lead in juice.
• Apple and grape juice constitute a significant source of dietary exposure to arsenic, according to our analysis of federal health data from 2003 through 2008.
• Children drink a lot of juice. Thirty-five percent of children 5 and younger drink juice in quantities exceeding pediatricians’ recommendations, our poll of parents shows.
• Mounting scientific evidence suggests that chronic exposure to arsenic and lead even at levels below water standards can result in serious health problems.
• Inorganic arsenic has been detected at disturbing levels in other foods, too, which suggests that more must be done to reduce overall dietary exposure.

Our findings have prompted Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, to urge the FDA to set arsenic and lead standards for apple and grape juice. Our scientists believe that juice should at least meet the 5 ppb lead limit for bottled water. They recommend an even lower arsenic limit for juice: 3 ppb.

“People sometimes say, ‘If arsenic exposure is so bad, why don’t you see more people sick or dying from it?’ But the many diseases likely to be increased by exposure even at relatively low levels are so common already that its effects are overlooked simply because no one has looked carefully for the connection,” says Joshua Hamilton, Ph.D., a toxicologist specializing in arsenic research and the chief academic and scientific officer at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.

As our investigation found, when scientists and doctors do look, the connections they’ve found underscore the need to protect public health by reducing Americans’ exposure to this potent toxin.

Many sources of exposure

Arsenic is a naturally occurring element that can contaminate groundwater used for drinking and irrigation in areas where it’s abundant, such as parts of New England, the Midwest, and the Southwest. See the map from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) showing test results of arsenic levels in groundwater throughout the United States.

But the public’s exposure to arsenic extends beyond those areas because since 1910, the United States has used roughly 1.6 million tons of it for agricultural and other industrial uses. About half of that cumulative total has been used since only the mid-1960s. Lead-arsenate insecticides were widely used in cotton fields, orchards, and vineyards until their use was banned in the 1980s. But residues in the soil can still contaminate crops.

For decades, arsenic was also used in a preservative for pressure-treated lumber commonly used for decks and playground equipment. In 2003 that use was banned, (as was most residential use) but the wood can contribute to arsenic in groundwater when it’s recycled as mulch.

Other sources of exposure include coal-fired power plants and smelters that heat arsenic-containing ores to process copper or lead. Today the quantity of arsenic released into the environment in the United States by human activities is three times more than that released from natural sources, says the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

The form of arsenic in the examples above is inorganic arsenic. It’s a carcinogen known to cause bladder, lung, and skin cancer in people and to increase risks of cardiovascular disease, immunodeficiencies, and type 2 diabetes.

The other form that arsenic takes is organic arsenic, created when arsenic binds to molecules containing carbon. Fish can contain an organic form of arsenic called arsenobetaine, generally considered nontoxic to humans. But questions have been raised about the human health effects of other types of organic arsenic in foods, including juice.

Use of organic arsenic in agricultural products has also caused concern. For instance, the EPA in 2006 took steps to stop the use of herbicides containing organic arsenic because of their potential to turn into inorganic arsenic in soil and contaminate drinking water. And in 2011, working with the FDA, drug company Alpharma agreed to suspend the sale of Roxarsone, a poultry-feed additive, because it contained an organic form of arsenic that could convert into inorganic arsenic inside the bird, potentially contaminating the meat. Or it could contaminate soil when chicken droppings are used as fertilizer. Other arsenic feed additives are still being used.

What our tests found

Juice samples
We tested juice from bottles, cans, and juice boxes that we bought in three states.

We went shopping in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York in August and September, buying 28 apple juices and three grape juices. Our samples came from ready-to-drink bottles, juice boxes, and cans of concentrate. For most juices, we bought three different lot numbers to assess variability. (For some juices, we couldn’t find three lots, so we tested one or two.) In all, we tested 88 samples.

Five samples of apple juice and four of grape juice had total arsenic levels exceeding the 10 ppb federal limit for bottled and drinking water. Levels in the apple juices ranged from 1.1 to 13.9 ppb, and grape-juice levels were even higher, 5.9 to 24.7 ppb. Most of the total arsenic in our samples was inorganic, our tests showed.

As for lead, about one fourth of all juice samples had levels at or above the 5-ppb limit for bottled water. The top lead level for apple juice was 13.6 ppb; for grape juice, 15.9 ppb.

The following brands had at least one sample of apple juice that exceeded 10 ppb: Apple & Eve, Great Value (Walmart), and Mott’s. For grape juice, at least one sample from Walgreens and Welch’s exceeded that threshold. And these brands had one or more samples of apple juice that exceeded 5 ppb of lead: America’s Choice (A&P), Gerber, Gold Emblem (CVS), Great Value, Joe’s Kids (Trader Joe’s), Minute Maid, Seneca, and Walgreens. At least one sample of grape juice exceeding 5 ppb of lead came from Gold Emblem, Walgreens, and Welch’s. Our findings provide a spot check of a number of local juice aisles, but they can’t be used to draw general conclusions about arsenic or lead levels in any particular brand. Even within a single tested brand, levels of arsenic and lead sometimes varied widely. To see our complete test results for all 88 samples, download this PDF.

Arsenic-tainted soil in U.S. orchards is a likely source of contamination for apples, and finding lead with arsenic in juices that we tested is not surprising. Even with a ban on lead-arsenate insecticides, “we are finding problems with some Washington state apples, not because of irresponsible farming practices now but because lead-arsenate pesticides that were used here decades ago remain in the soil,” says Denise Wilson, Ph.D., an associate professor at the University of Washington who has tested apple juices and discovered elevated arsenic levels even in brands labeled organic.

Over the years, a shift has occurred in how juice sold in America is produced. To make apple juice, manufacturers often blend water with apple-juice concentrate from multiple sources. For the past decade, most concentrate has come from China (PDF). Concerns have been raised about the possible continuing use of arsenical pesticides there, and several Chinese provinces that are primary apple-growing regions are known to have high arsenic concentrations in groundwater.

A much bigger test than ours would be needed to establish any correlation between elevated arsenic or lead levels and the juice concentrate’s country of origin. Samples we tested included some made from concentrate from multiple countries including Argentina, China, New Zealand, South Africa, and Turkey; others came from a single country. A few samples solely from the United States had elevated levels of lead or arsenic, and others did not. The same was true for samples containing only Chinese concentrate.

The FDA has been collecting its own data to see whether it should set guidelines to continue to ensure the safety of apple juice, a spokeswoman told us.

The Juice Products Association said, “We are committed to providing nutritious and safe fruit juices to consumers and will comply with limits established by the agency.”

Answering a crucial question

We also wanted to know whether people who drink juice end up being exposed to more arsenic than those who don’t.

So we commissioned an analysis of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), conducted annually by the National Center for Health Statistics. Information is collected on the health and nutrition of a nationally representative sample of the U.S. population, based on interviews and physical exams that may include a blood or urine test. Officials and researchers often use the data to determine risk factors for major diseases and develop public health policy. In fact, data on lead in the blood of NHANES participants were instrumental in developing policies that have successfully resulted in lead being removed from gasoline.

Our analysis was led by Richard Stahlhut, M.D., M.P.H., an environmental health researcher at the University of Rochester with expertise in NHANES data, working with Consumer Reports statisticians. Ana Navas-Acien, M.D., Ph.D., a physician—epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, also provided guidance. She was the lead author of a 2008 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (PDF) that first linked low-level arsenic exposure with the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the United States.

Stahlhut reviewed NHANES data from 2003 through 2008 from participants tested for total urinary arsenic who reported their food and drink consumption for 24 hours the day before their NHANES visit. Because most ingested arsenic is excreted in urine, the best measure of recent exposure is a urine test.

Following Navas-Acien’s advice, we excluded from our NHANES analysis anyone with results showing detectable levels of arsenobetaine, the organic arsenic in seafood. That made the results we analyzed more likely to represent inorganic arsenic, of greatest concern in terms of potential health risks.

The resulting analysis of almost 3,000 study participants found that those reporting apple-juice consumption had on average 19 percent greater levels of total urinary arsenic than those subjects who did not, and those who reported drinking grape juice had 20 percent higher levels. The results might understate the correlation between juice consumption and urinary arsenic levels because NHANES urinary data exclude children younger than 6, who tend to be big juice drinkers.

“The current analysis suggests that these juices may be an important contributor to dietary arsenic exposure,” says Keeve Nachman, Ph.D., a risk scientist at the Center for a Livable Future and the Bloomberg School of Public Health, both at Johns Hopkins University. “It would be prudent to pursue measures to understand and limit young children’s exposures to arsenic in juice.”

Robert Wright, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of pediatrics and environmental health at Harvard University who specializes in research on the effect of heavy-metals exposure in children, says that findings from our juice tests and database analysis concern him: “Because of their small size, a child drinking a box of juice would consume a larger per-body-weight dose of arsenic than an adult drinking the exact same box of juice. Those brands with elevated arsenic should investigate the source and eliminate it.”

A chronic problem

Arsenic has been notoriously used as a poison since ancient times. A fatal poisoning would require a single dose of inorganic arsenic about the weight of a postage stamp. But chronic toxicity can result from long-term exposure to much lower levels in food, and even to water that meets the 10-ppb drinking-water limit.

A 2004 study of children in Bangladesh (PDF) suggested diminished intelligence based on test scores in children exposed to arsenic in drinking water at levels above 5 ppb, says study author Joseph Graziano, Ph.D., a professor of environmental health sciences and pharmacology at Columbia University. He’s now conducting similar research with children living in New Hampshire and Maine, where arsenic levels of 10 to 100 ppb are commonly found in well water, to determine whether better nutrition in the United States affects the results.

People with private wells may face greater risks than those on public systems because they’re responsible for testing and treating their own water. In Maine, where almost half the population relies on private wells, the USGS found arsenic levels in well water as high as 3,100 ppb.

And a study published in 2011 (PDF) in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health examined the long-term effects of low-level exposure on more than 300 rural Texans whose groundwater was estimated to have arsenic at median levels below the federal drinking-water standard. It found that exposure was related to poor scores in language, memory, and other brain functions.

“I suspect there is an awful lot of chronic, low-level arsenic poisoning going on that’s never properly diagnosed.”—Michael Harbut, M.D.

Symptoms of chronic exposure

Chronic arsenic exposure can initially cause gastrointestinal problems and skin discoloration or lesions. Exposure over time, which the World Health Organization says could be five to 20 years, could increase the risk of various cancers and high blood pressure, diabetes, and reproductive problems.

Signs of chronic low-level arsenic exposure can be mistaken for other ailments such as chronic fatigue syndrome. Usually the connection to arsenic exposure is not made immediately, as Sharyn Duffy of Geneseo, N.Y., discovered. She visited a doctor in 2007 about pain and skin changes on the sole of her left foot. She was referred to a podiatrist and eventually received a diagnosis of hyperkeratosis, in which lesions develop or thick skin forms on the palms or soles of the feet. It can be among the earliest symptoms of chronic arsenic poisoning. But she says it was roughly two years before she was finally referred to a neurologist, who suggested testing for arsenic. She had double the typical levels.

“Testing for arsenic isn’t part of a routine checkup,” says Duffy, a retiree. “When you come in with symptoms like I had, ordering that kind of test probably wouldn’t even occur to most doctors.”

Michael Harbut, M.D., chief of the environmental cancer program at Karmanos Institute in Detroit, says, “Given what we know about the wide range of arsenic exposure sources we have in this country, I suspect there is an awful lot of chronic, low-level arsenic poisoning going on that’s never properly diagnosed.”

Emerging research suggests that when arsenic exposure occurs in the womb or in early childhood, it not only increases cancer risks later in life but also can cause lasting harm to children’s developing brains and endocrine and immune systems, leading to other diseases, too.

Case in point: From 1958 through 1970, residents of Antofagasta, Chile, were exposed to naturally occurring arsenic in drinking water (PDF) that peaked at almost 1,000 ppb before an arsenic removal plant was installed. Studies led by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley found that people born during that period who had probable exposure in the womb and during early childhood had a lung-cancer death rate six times higher than those in their age group elsewhere in Chile. Their rate of death in their 30s and 40s from another form of lung disease was almost 50 times higher than for people without that arsenic exposure.

“Recent studies have shown that early-childhood exposure to arsenic carries the most serious long-term risk,” says Joshua Hamilton of the Marine Biological Laboratory. “So even though reducing arsenic exposure is important for everyone, we need to pay special attention to protecting pregnant moms, babies, and young kids.”

Other dietary exposures

In addition to juice, foods including chicken, rice, and even baby food have been found to contain arsenic—sometimes at higher levels than the amounts found in juice. Brian Jackson, Ph.D., an analytical chemist and research associate professor at Dartmouth College, presented his findings at a June 2011 scientific conference in Aberdeen, Scotland. He reported finding up to 23 ppb of arsenic in lab tests of name-brand jars of baby food, with inorganic arsenic representing 70 to 90 percent of those total amounts.

Similar results turned up in a 2004 study conducted by FDA scientists in Cincinnati, who found arsenic levels of up to 24 ppb in baby food, with sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, and peaches containing only the inorganic form. A United Kingdom study published in 2008 (PDF) found that the levels of inorganic arsenic in 20-ounce packets of dried infant rice cereals ranged from 60 to 160 ppb. Rice-based infant cereals are often the first solid food that babies eat.

Rice frequently contains high levels of inorganic arsenic because it is among plants that are unusually efficient at taking up arsenic from the soil and incorporating it in the grains people eat. Moreover, much of the rice produced in the U.S. is grown in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas, on land formerly used to grow cotton, where arsenical pesticides were used for decades.

“Initially, in some regions rice planted there produced little grain due to these arsenical pesticides, but farmers then bred a type of rice specifically designed to produce high yields on the contaminated soil,” says Andrew Meharg, professor of biogeochemistry at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland. Meharg studies human exposures to arsenic in the environment. His research over the past six years has shown that U.S. rice has among the highest average inorganic arsenic levels in the world—almost three times higher than levels in Basmati rice imported from low-arsenic areas of Nepal, India, and Pakistan. Rice from Egypt has the lowest levels of all.

Infant rice cereal for the U.S. market is generally made from U.S. rice, Meharg says, but labeling usually doesn’t specify country of origin. He says exposure to arsenic through infant rice cereals could be reduced greatly if cereal makers used techniques that don’t require growing rice in water-flooded paddies or if they obtained rice from low-arsenic areas. His 2007 study (PDF) found that median arsenic levels in California rice were 41 percent lower than levels in rice from the south-central U.S.

Setting federal standards

Evidence of arsenic's ability to cause cancer and other life-threatening illnesses has surged because some of the diseases linked to it have latency periods of several decades. Only recently have scientists been able to more fully measure the effects in populations that were exposed to elevated levels of arsenic in drinking water many years ago.

The Environmental Protection Agency periodically revises its assessment of the toxicity of various chemicals to offer guidance on drinking-water standards. Based on such a review, the agency changed the water standard for arsenic to 10 ppb, effective in 2006, from the 50-ppb limit it set in 1975. The EPA had proposed a 5-ppb limit in 2000, so the current limit is a compromise that came only after years of haggling over the costs of removing arsenic. Since 2006, New Jersey has had a 5-ppb threshold, advising residents that water with arsenic levels above that shouldn't be used for drinking or cooking.

For known human carcinogens such as inorganic arsenic, the EPA assumes there's actually no "safe" level of exposure, so it normally sets exposure limits that include a margin of safety to ideally allow for only one additional case of cancer in a million people, or at worst, no more than one in 10,000. For water with 10 ppb of arsenic, the excess cancer risk is one in 500.

Debate over that standard is likely to begin anew. The agency's latest draft report, from February 2010, proposes that the number used to calculate the cancer risk posed by ingesting inorganic arsenic be increased 17-fold to reflect arsenic's role in causing bladder and lung cancer. The proposal "suggests that arsenic's carcinogenic properties have been underestimated for a long time and that the federal drinking-water standard is underprotective based on current science," says Keeve Nachman, the Johns Hopkins scientist.

Each year the FDA tests a variety of foods and beverages for arsenic and other contaminants. It also started a program in 2005 to test for specific toxins such as arsenic and lead in domestic and imported products. As of late November, that program had published results for 160 samples of apple juice and concentrate. And the agency can alert inspectors at U.S. ports to conduct increased surveillance for products suspected to pose risks. Currently there's an alert for increased surveillance of apple concentrate from China and six other countries "where we have a suspicion there may be high levels of arsenic in their products," says FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Yao. But in fiscal 2010, the agency conducted physical inspections of only 2 percent of imported food shipments. For more about the FDA's tests, read our update and download a PDF of our complete test results.

Consumers Union urges federal officials to set a standard for total arsenic in apple and grape juice. Our research suggests that the standard should be 3 ppb. Concerning lead, juice should at least meet the bottled-water standard of 5 ppb. Such standards would better protect children, who are most vulnerable to the effects of arsenic and lead. And they're achievable levels: 41 percent of the samples we tested met both thresholds.

Moreover, the EPA should impose stricter drinking-water standards for arsenic, Consumers Union believes. (The drinking-water threshold for lead is 15 ppb, which acknowledges that many older homes have water pipes or solder with lead.) Officials should also ban arsenic in pesticides, animal-feed additives, and fertilizers.

As our tests show, sources of lead haven't been eliminated, but dramatic progress has been made: Since the 1970s, average blood lead levels in children younger than 6 have dropped by about 90 percent, thanks to a federal ban on lead in house paint and gas. The U.S. should be equally aggressive with arsenic, suggests Joseph Graziano at Columbia University. "We tackled every source, from gasoline to paint to solder in food cans," he says, "and we should be just as vigilant in preventing arsenic from entering our food and water because the consequences of exposure are enormous for adults as well as children."

How much juice do children drink?

Too many children drink too much juice, according to our poll of parents. One in four toddlers 2 and younger and 45 percent of children ages 3 to 5 drink 7 or more ounces of juice a day. The American Academy of Pediatrics cautions that to help prevent obesity and tooth decay, children younger than 6 should drink no more than 6 ounces a day, about the size of a juice box. (Infants younger than 6 months shouldn't drink any.) The possible presence of arsenic or lead in juices is all the more reason to stick with those nutrition-based limits.

Our findings are from 555 telephone interviews in October with parents, who were asked about children's juice consumption the previous day. Totals don't equal 100 percent because some said they didn't know how much juice their kids drank.

Amount of juice consumed	Children 2 and under	Children 3 to 5	Total children 5 or younger
None	40%	22%	31%
1 to 6 oz.	28	26	27
7 to 12 oz.	18	29	23
16 oz. or more	8	16	12

Find out how much arsenic is in your groundwater

Arsenic can contaminate groundwater used for drinking and irrigation in areas where it is geologically abundant and in other areas where chemical conditions are likely to cause it to dissolve into water. Levels can vary widely throughout the United States, as illustrated in the map at right showing arsenic measurements for groundwater samples from about 31,000 wells and springs in 49 states compiled by the USGS. Click on the word "Interactive" on the map to learn about arsenic levels where you live. (To view the map, your computer or other device requires Flash.)

Orange or red symbols on the map indicate areas where samples contained arsenic at levels exceeding the federal limit of 10 micrograms per liter, or 10 parts per billion (ppb) for public drinking water.

Public-water-supply systems are required to treat water that tests high in arsenic so that it meets federal limits before delivering it to consumers. And in New Jersey, public water systems must meet an even stricter limit of 5 ppb. But if you have a private well rather than a public system, you are responsible for testing and treating it.

To learn more about why it's so important to reduce your exposure to even relatively low levels of arsenic in your drinking water, check out this helpful video produced by the Dartmouth Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program. And for tips on how to get your water tested and how to select a home treatment system, read "Ways to Reduce Your Family's Risk."

The 31,000 groundwater samples represented in this map were collected for studies on potable groundwater resources by the USGS, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the Texas Water Development Commission, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the six New England states. Estimation of the arsenic concentration in groundwater in any specific area must consider the following limitations and sources of variability:

• The data include a variety of well types, including private wells, public-supply wells, and monitoring wells not used for water supply.

• These groundwater samples do not represent drinking water served by public-water-supply systems because these utilities may treat or mix groundwater with high arsenic concentrations from individual wells with water containing lower arsenic levels in order to meet drinking water standards before delivering it to consumers.

• The appearance of the arsenic distribution is influenced by the order in which wells are plotted. In this map, wells with higher concentrations are drawn on top of those with more moderate concentrations. This overplotting may exaggerate the frequency of high values in areas where wells are close together. But given the risks posed by arsenic exposure, we opted in favor of making areas with elevated arsenic visible whenever possible to encourage private well owners in those areas to test and treat their water to reduce exposure risks.

• Arsenic concentration may vary with depth within the same aquifer, or between aquifers that are stacked vertically—for example, a shallow sand and gravel aquifer can overlie a deeper bedrock aquifer. The map does not show the vertical distribution of arsenic.

• Many of the wells were sampled more than once, but evaluation of the data indicates that there is no relation between arsenic concentration and time tested for most of the wells.

With these qualifications in mind, the data above provides an estimate of arsenic occurrence in the groundwater resource in general. Visit the USGS for additional information on the studies behind the map, along with more detailed maps for various portions of the country.

Ways to reduce your family’s risk

Test your water. If your home or a home you’re considering buying isn’t on a public water system, have the home’s water tested for arsenic and lead. To find a certified lab, contact your local health department or call the federal Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 800-426-4791. You can get information for your public-water system from the EPA.

Limit children’s juice consumption. Nutrition guidelines set by the American Academy of Pediatrics can help. The academy recommends that infants younger than 6 months shouldn’t drink juice; children up to 6 years old should consume no more than four to six ounces a day and older children, no more than 8 to 12 ounces a day. Diluting juice with distilled or purified water can help meet those goals.

Consider your food. Buying certified organic chicken makes sense because organic standards don’t allow the use of chicken feed containing arsenic. But for juice and other foods, it’s not so certain. Organic standards prohibit the use of synthetic fertilizers and most pesticides, but organic juices still may contain arsenic if they’re made from fruit grown in soil where arsenical insecticides were used.

Need a home-treatment system? Contact NSF International (800-673-8010) for info on systems certified to lower arsenic levels to no more than 10 ppb. The University of Georgia Cooperative Extension discusses treatment technologies; click on “Removal of Arsenic from Household Water.”

If you’re concerned, get tested. Ask your doctor for a urine test for you or your child to determine arsenic levels. Don’t eat seafood for 48 to 72 hours before being tested to avoid misleadingly high levels from “fish arsenic.” For a medical toxicologist in your area who can interpret results, call the American Association of Poison Control Centers at 800-222-1222.
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As someone who has a strong family history of early heart attack I really want to do what's best for my heart.  Drinking Welch's purple grape juice is supposed to be really good for me with the levels of anti-oxidants and things that can help my heart that can only be found in grape (purple alone) juice.

Reading this article makes me want to drink red wine instead, as long as that doesn't have high levels of lead or arsenic too.  And why hasn't the FDA made regulations for all kinds of food and drink for levels of lead and arsenic?!  Not a priority?  Geez, I won't want to eat anything but what comes out of my back yard garden soon.

Follow up....customer reviewers

How to spot fake online product reviews

By Herb Weisbaum, The ConsumerMan

You hear the advice all the time: Before you buy something, especially a big-ticket item, go online and check the user reviews. It makes sense to learn what people who bought a product think about it.

But can these comments be trusted? In most cases they can, but not always. Some are written by manufacturers, retailers or salespeople trying to drum up business. Others are posted by people who are paid to write phony reviews.

Fake reviews not easy to spot Chances are you think you can spot a review that isn’t legit. But a recent study by researchers at Cornell University found that most of us aren’t very good at it.

“We have these very strong feelings that we can tell when someone is lying, but the research suggests we’re actually quite bad at it,” says Jeff Hancock, an associate professor of communication at Cornell.

To prove this point, the study lists two reviews of a Chicago hotel. Which one is real? Which one is fake? (Note: in both examples, the typos appear as they did online.)

1. I have stayed at many hotels traveling for both business and pleasure and I can honestly stay that The James is tops. The service at the hotel is first class. The rooms are modern and very comfortable. The location is perfect within walking distance to all of the great sights and restaurants. Highly recommend to both business travelers and couples.

2. My husband and I stayed at the James Chicago Hotel for our anniversary. This place is fantastic! We knew as soon as we arrived we made the right choice! The rooms are BEAUTIFUL and the staff very attentive and wonderful!! The area of the hotel is great, since I love to shop I couldn’t ask for more!! We will definatly be back to Chicago and we will for sure be back to the James Chicago.

Are you ready? The first one is real. The second is fake. Clearly, a good shill writer can fake you out.

That’s why Hancock says don’t waste your time trying to spot what he calls “opinion spam.” How widespread is the problem? Hancock believes between 5 and 10 percent of user-written reviews are deceptive. Not an outrageous percentage, but clearly a real problem.

Hancock says you can reduce the chance of reading phony reviews by going to sites (such as Amazon.com) that only accept reviews from people who have actually purchased the products.

How to for the warning signs No matter where you look, you should “be skeptical and take everything with a grain of salt,” cautions Andrea Woroch, consumer savings adviser for the website Coupon Sherpa. “You have to dissect those reviews to make sure they don’t have false information.”

Christine Frietchen is editor-in-chief of ConsumerSearch.com, a website that recommends products based on user and expert reviews. She says fake reviews are often “over the top” and urge you to “go out and buy the product right now.”

Frietchen doesn’t worry much about misspelled words. That’s a common problem with user reviews. For her, the red flags are glowing comments that make the product sound perfect in every way and lots of exclamation marks.

“Look for detail in the review,” she advises. “Somebody who is not very knowledgeable about the product, someone who doesn’t use specific examples or tell you how they used it or how they tried to use it and it didn’t work out, those could possibly be fakes.”

The Consumerist, a website run by the folks behind Consumer Reports, lists four warning signs that online reviews have been written by corporate shills:

• They have zero caveats and are full of empty adjectives and pure glowing praise with no downsides.
• All are left within a short period of time of each other.
• They’re mainly a list of product features. (Real users talk more about performance, reliability, and overall value.)
• The reviewer’s names are variations of one another, such as happykat1234, happykat7593, happykat6687.

Chris Morran, senior editor at The Consumerist, says when it comes to reviews of electronic products, watch out for marketing language – very specific terms or model numbers that the average person wouldn’t use.

“For instance, if you’re looking for a modem and you see ‘explosive speed.’ No one talks like that, even if they love the product.”

So what should you do? Look for reviews from experts and consumers. Don't rely on a review from one site or even lots of opinions for one site. Check a number of sites and you'll get a more balanced view. For expert reviews I rely on Consumer Reports and CNET (for electronics). Other sites you might want to check: Buzzillions, Epinions and ConsumerSearch.

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Well since the other day I was talking about how I loved to leave comments on things I had purchased, I figured this would be a good follow up article and an interesting read.

It's the End of the World as We Know It

Expert: Mexico glyphs don't predict apocalypse

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON | AP 

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The end is not near.

At least that's according to a German expert who says his decoding of a Mayan tablet with a reference to a 2012 date denotes a transition to a new era and not a possible end of the world as others have read it.

The interpretation of the hieroglyphs by Sven Gronemeyer of La Trobe University in Australia was presented for the first time Wednesday at the archaeological site of Palenque in southern Mexico.

His comments came less than a week after Mexico's archaeology institute acknowledged there was a second reference to the 2012 date in Mayan inscriptions, touching of another round of talk about whether it predicts the end of the world.

Gronemeyer has been studying the stone tablet found years ago at the archaeological site of Tortuguero in Mexico's Gulf coast state of Tabasco.

He said the inscription describes the return of mysterious Mayan god Bolon Yokte at the end of a 13th period of 400 years, known as Baktuns, on the equivalent of Dec. 21, 2012. Mayans considered 13 a sacred number. There's nothing apocalyptic in the date, he said.
The text was carved about 1,300 years ago. The stone has cracked, which has made the end of the passage almost illegible.
Gronemeyer said the inscription refers to the end of a cycle of 5,125 years since the beginning of the Mayan Long Count calendar in 3113 B.C.

The fragment was a prophecy of then ruler Bahlam Ajaw, who wanted to plan the passage of the god, Gronemeyer said.

"For the elite of Tortuguero, it was clear they had to prepare the land for the return of the god and for Bahlam Ajaw to be the host of this initiation," he said.

Bolon Yokte, god of creation and war, was to prevail that day in a sanctuary of Tortuguero.
"The date acquired a symbolic value because it is seen as a reflection of the day of creation," Gronemeyer said. "It is the passage of a god and not necessarily a great leap for humanity."

Last week, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology said a second inscription mentioning the 2012 date is on the carved or molded face of a brick found at the Comalcalco ruin, near the Tortuguero site. It is being kept at the institute and is not on display.

Many experts doubt the second inscription is a definite reference to the date cited as the possible end of the world, saying there is no future tense marking like there is in the Tortuguero tablet.

The institute has tried to dispel talk of a 2012 apocalypse, the subject of numerous postings and stories on the Internet. Its latest step was to arrange a special round table of Mayan experts this week at Palenque, which is where Gronemeyer made his comments.

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I am usually obsessed with end of the world stories.  I love them in fiction and I also pay very close attention to them in real life.  Most "prophets" or religious nuts come along and say the end's coming on such and such date and I can easily laugh them off.  Most of the people say that God spoke to them or they "calculated" something from scriptures and everyone should give him their money and maybe they will get a special place in Heaven or on a spaceship or something.....most of these "predictions" are just funny. 
I have taken this Dec 21st 2012 prophecy a lot more seriously.  I'm not a complete believer but I do feel concerned about it.  I think as the time gets closer more and more people will admit to doing little things to prepare for it.  Even if it's only buying a few extra cans of food or water, batteries, the usual you know. 
I've talked with a lot of people about this subject and we all kinda' feel the same way.  The economy's in the crapper, people aren't taking care of the Earth the way it needs to be, wars rage, everything feels upside down to me.  I know there's always floods and earthquakes and all that, but you put it all together and if you were watching a movie this is the point where you would say this is all foreshadowing.  I think some people want to alleviate people's worries now and are saying things like what this fellow said.  "Relax people, it's not saying we're all going to die or go into some of apocalypse, we just read it wrong."
Collective sigh of relief from society.
But I don't buy it.
I'll be watching and waiting to see what happens next year.