OKAY PEOPLE LISTEN UP. Just because someone says it doesn’t mean it’s true. And even if it’s true, that doesn’t mean it’s relevant.
Currently listening to podcast No Agenda which breaks down as follows: 70% crackpot, 25% begging for donations, 38% entertaining me (there’s substantial entertaining/crackpot overlap). But one thing they just said really hacked me off.
They say Obama just appointed some dude to head up some agricultural trade commission. Whatever. The problem, they say, is that this new appointee used to have some other bigshot government health job where he lifted the cap on how much drug companies could charge for cancer drugs. Both show hosts are disgusted with Obama appointing this jerk who, they imply, must be beholden to Big Cancer. “And this really hits home because my aunt has cancer,” says Adam Curry.
STOP. A cap on drug prices HURTS cancer patients.
Say a drug company sees potential for a possible new cancer treatment drug, but the government puts a cap on how much they’d be allowed to charge for it. They run the numbers and realize that even if they developed a drug that actually worked, they couldn’t break even on it, let alone make a profit.
Would you want a company in your 401k portfolio if they produced drugs at a net loss? No, and neither would any other stockholder. Investments would dry up, jobs would be lost, and the company would eventually go under.
Putting price caps on cancer drugs prevent drug companies from exploring and developing innovative treatments.
What’s that you say? ..This post has nothing to do with criminology?..
Superstition and belief in magic permeate India’s culture. As someone who’s watched Aladdin on multiple occasions, I can say this with authority. YES, I know, Aladdin lives in some Arab country, not India. But I’m fairly certain both regions have brightly colored textiles and whatnot, and Disney hasn’t done any full-blown India-centric productions that I can think of off the top of my head, so we’re working with limited information here.
Anyway, like I said, superstitious people live in India. They migrate from around the globe, probably, congregating in small impoverished villages where they swap delusional hogwash around the campfire.
Enter the rationalists, evangelists of reality gospel. Sanal Edamaruku, president of Rationality International, asked a well-known guru to murder him live on television, using only his tantric superpowers. What spiritual healer could resist an opportunity like that?
Per Reuters, Hugo Chavez is outraged that false rumors about him are appearing on the internet. “It’s a crime,” cried Hugo, defiantly shaking his pudgy little finger at cameras. (Chavez made no mention of his government-run media outlets repeatedly accusing the United States of decimating Haiti with an earthquake-generating weapon.)
Comments on the Reuters site were mostly negative re: Mr Chavez’s statement. Commenter AGobbles reaveals:
Chavez is financing the next [Sean] Penn movie. Penn plays a South American dictator who undergoes a sex change operation in an attempt to become a man. Hugo will play his wife, Gordita Nalgas, a chubby water ballet member who eats nothing but milk and twinkies. The movie has tentative titles of Last of the Red Hot Banana Lovers or Hugo Before I Go.
The same article caused less of an uproar across the pond. Brits commenting on the same story in The Independent. Commenter Ash1168 says:
Slander, lies, inciting hatred.. these are all crimes. Put them in a newspaper, and you can expect to be prosecuted.
Promulgate them in a public speech, and you will be prosecuted. Disseminate them in any way they can be traced back to you – same result. Why should the internet be any different?
Why indeed? In fact, why should there be any free speech, ever, for anyone? Someone may deem it a lie, or slanderous, or hateful.
Perhaps Ash1168 needs to quit being a sniveling totalitarian pansy. (Please email for my home address where you can send the bobbies.)
From the MORNING OREGONIANprinted September 6, 1904
Seattle, Sept. 5 – Frank S. Stevenson, a saloonkeeper at Snoqualmie, Wash., was found dead in a room over his saloon last night with a bullet hole through his heart. Although it is believed by some that he committed suicide on account of ill health, it cannot be explained how the revolver with which he was shot was found on a dresser six feet from him.
When Mr Caton and two others returned to the bus to check on the victim, he said they saw the attacker “cutting the guy’s head off and gutting him”. Moments later, police surrounded the bus and arrested the man after a nearly three-hour standoff, an official said. “He was taunting police with the head in his hand out the window,” said Mr Caton.
(Nothing like witnessing a violent crime to thrust you into the spotlight where you belong, eh Mr Caton?)
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s office said Branden Allen, 18, a 16-year-old boy and a 15-year-old boy were arrested on charges of sexual battery and false imprisonment. Authorities say the two younger male teens boarded the parked bus and acted as lookouts as Allen “sexually battered the victim despite her resistance and protestations.”
BONUS!! Priceless comment left on another blog in response to this news story – Slightly edited for rambling:
May 10th, 2008 by dixiegirl
ok, no one understands. branden is a great person and friend. he had a full scholarship already. we love those boys and that girl is not an “innocent” girl. you dont go to school there and you dont understand how she really is. all you know is what the media puts out. imagine how we feel. those are OUR friends and were worried for them. when we know its not right that girl KNEW branden she liked him.
A former middle school teacher who repeatedly raped a 13-year-old male student in the school supply closet has never served a day in jail. When Mohanlal couldn’t come up with the $610k he needed to make bond, the judge let him use property owned by him and his relatives as collateral. That’s a pretty unusual exception, but if you’re going to bend the rules just be sure it’s for a good cause, like freeing a child molester.
The liens were never actually placed by the bonding agency, and last Thursday the prosecution filed a motion to haul Mohanlal’s ass (and probably the rest of him… court documents don’t specify) back to jail where he belongs.
The boy, now 18, says he “can’t understand what the judge was thinking.” Well, perhaps the judge was simply considering the nuanced shades of gray present in any criminal case. Even Mohanlal isn’t all bad; for instance, he always made sure he sent his victim back to class with a note excusing his absence.
The liens were never actually placed by the bonding agency, and last Thursday the prosecution filed a motion to haul Mohanlal’s ass (and probably the rest of him… court documents don’t specify) back to jail where he belongs.
ok, no one understands. branden is a great person and friend. he had a full scholarship already. we love those boys and that girl is not an “innocent” girl. you dont go to school there and you dont understand how she really is. all you know is what the media puts out. imagine how we feel. those are OUR friends and were worried for them. when we know its not right that girl KNEW branden she liked him.