Thinking Fool

I couldn't get passed the part where you actually liked the boss' secretary. :)

So is your degenerate brother-in-law married to your sister or the brother of your wife? I think it's slightly worse if he's the first than if he's the second. I'm just saying. He sounds like a character.

I too want to get the full story on the degenerate brother-in-law. You must be more forthcoming.

As for the negotation of drug prices. The reason that "the government" doesn't want to be able to negotiate prices is because: 1. it's "bad for business" (which really means it's bad for select pharmaceutical companies, 2. They were able to pad their pockets with pharmaceutical company campaign/lobbying contributions while simultaneously creating a program which "covered prescription drugs" for seniors. 3. Those in power right now really don't give a shit about those who will have to deal with the messes they've made, and an expensive drug-coverage program is one heck of a mess, but it's a lot easier to create than a reasonable drug-coverage program.

Oh, and good call on the partial birth abortion topic. I also am not a fan of the Florida teams, since I dislike any and all dynasties which do not consist of teams/schools that I otherwise love.

I have not spoken to my degenerate EX-brother-in-law in, goodness, it's been almost three years. He was married to my sister; they're divorced, hence the whole EX-brother-in-law thing. He's a doctor ("D.O." NOT "M.D." - and sorry D.O.s, but you're a D.O. because you couldn't get into a school that grants M.D.s), and he's a prime example of how you can get somewhere by working really hard (as opposed to being blessed with raw intelligence, which to his credit is a noble quality). The moral of the story with him is this: If someone treats waiters and waitresses and other service industry people poorly, then eventually that is how the person will end up treating you.

Fool reading the venom and rage you spewed in your blog today was like watching Anakin succomb to the darkside... I'm at a loss for words, except to say, "Welcome, Brother. We've been waiting for you."

How was the UF-UCLA game like a partial birth abortion? I understand your feeling that we should not allow those procedures except to save the life of the mother, of course not touching on the discussion of abortion as a whole, but instead the easier topic of late term abortion. I of course am a proponent of post-birth abortion on minority babies.

The UF-UCLA game was an example of pure dominance, how one team can play at 75% and destroy a team with all the motivation to win. So, unless your ex-bro in law the wanna be abortion doctor can mess up these procedures while the baby is 25% trying to let itself die, then I am confused.

Please note, that I am trusting your presumption that the baby at 100% would dominate your ex-bro in law.

Did you hear about the point shaving scandal at arizona state?

I always knew you were a great humanitarian.

Fool:

Couldn't agree with you more regarding the partial-birth abortion comparison to the UCLA-Florida game. During the game, I too was thinking that the two events were quite similar, indeed, nearly identical. I also like the way you gave no explanation as to why the two are identical. I can also offer no such explanation, I just know it's true.

You're missing all my jury duty posts! Come visit ;-)

On the drug policy bit...

While I don't think their is a legitimate reason for the governemnt NOT to negotiate bulk deals, drug development is seriously FUBAR'd from the R & D side.

As someone who works (at least tangentially) in therapeutic development I can tell you that the up front capital to develop a therapeutic is enormous. To get something into Phase I (there are 3 phases) clinical trials for FDA approval costs in the neighborhood of 10 million dollars. To take a drug all the way through Phase 3 we are talking 100's of millions of dollars.

Now, folks like to poo-poo the drug industry and their massive profits, but they tend to ignore the massive sunk costs and dice-rolling that go into the process. If they are not allowed to make a large margin on the successes, then they will be losing a lot of money on the duds.

The thing is, that the U.S. is one of the last markets that does not regulate drug pricing. Other countries governments usually have price caps/regulation. The result of this is that:

1. Most drug development occurs here, or if it occurs elsewhere is designed with the U.S. market solely in mind.

2. U.S. citizens are effectively subsidizing drug development for the rest of the world.

So what happens when the U.S. decides to allow folks to import cheap drugs from Canada? The house of cards collapses and drug development grinds to a halt.

I could go on for a while on all the other things that make this whole situation fucked up, but suffice it to say R & D into life-saving drugs related to HIV and malaria pretty much have ground to a halt. Why? Because any drug company developing a cure for these diseases will have to basically give away the IP on these drugs or be forced to accept a marginal profit based on the price of production (and ignonring the several hundred million dollars of sunk R & D costs). The result: 4 different brands of Viagra entered the market in the past five years but there has been a single new anti-retroviral.

It's a VERY tough issue, because the usual cost benefit analysis goes out the window when you are dealing with life saving drugs and the "market" gets distorted. Which is worse: not being able to afford life-saving drugs, or not having them developed at all because companies refuse to invest in them? For the poor SOB with the disease, it makes little difference.