Ancient Fish was First to Have Two Nostrils, Leading the Way for Vertebrates with Faces Nature
How Breast Milk Engineers a Baby’s Gut (and Gut Microbes) National Geographic. Thanks, Nestlé!
Restore Louisiana Now: Harry Shearer interviews John Barry Corrente. Transcript covering “the lawsuit that [the New Orleans East Bank Levee Authority] has filed against more than 90 oil companies and petroleum companies and oil servicing firms, seeking damages for the destruction they have wrought on the coastal wetlands of southern Louisiana, with more than 10,000 miles of pipelines and canals they dug into the wetlands allowing salt water to intrude.”
Number of chemicals linked to problems such as autism DOUBLES in just seven years Daily Mail
West Virginia water after the spill: ‘We do not drink it. My pets do not drink it’ Guardian
Fracking brings oil boom to south Texas town, for a price LA Times
Freezing Out the Bigger Picture Times. Stupid climate change denialists.
Dunn convicted of attempted murder; hung jury on murder in ‘loud-music’ trial CNN
Foreclosure Filings Jump as Investors Eye Exits Counterpunch
Anti-Union Vote Will Kill New Tennessee Production Line Moon of Alabama
With Fewer New Firms, the High-Tech Sector is Losing its Dynamism HBR
A lesson in Lego Gillian Tett, FT
Why the economy isn’t doomed WaPo
The Social Value of Finance Baseline Scenario. If any.
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
Spying by N.S.A. Ally Entangled U.S. Law Firm Times. So long, attorney-client privilege!
NSA: Obama to get call data ideas next week Politco
NSA Surveillance Lawsuit Tracker Pro Publica
Linking to free web content is legal, says EU Court BBC
Bitcoin Now Accounts for 10% of Sales at Porn.com Coindesk
German Left (Die Linke) VP Claims “Euro Divides Europe, No Benefit to EU” Global Economic Analysis
Merkel, Hollande to discuss European communication network avoiding U.S. Reuters
How Airbus Is Debugging the A350 Businessweek. “De-risking,” not “debugging.”
Brazil housing bubble fears as economy teeters FT
Brazil’s World Cup courts disaster as delays, protests and deaths mount Guardian
Mediator apologizes to Syrians for lack of peace progress Reuters
Indian anti-graft crusader Arvind Kejriwal quits Delhi government AP
Unaffordable cities: Singapore workers tread water on millionaires’ island Guardian
Some Reasons for Guaranteeing Both an Income and Job Heteconomist
Content economics, part 5: news Felix Salmon, Reuters
John Maynard Keynes, Investment Innovator Journal of Economic Perspectives
The incredible hulks: Jonathan Meades’ A-Z of brutalism Guardian
World War I Guilt: Culpability Question Divides Historians Today Der Spiegel
The French way of cancer treatment Reuters. What a first-world health care system looks like, as opposed to our own.
The Moral Is the Practical Marginal Revolution
Antidote du jour (Stupid Flickr mouseover action because I’m getting a “Failed to write file to disk” message uploading Antidotes to the server):
90 comments
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Pravda carefully avoids any actual reporting about TPP issues.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/us/politics/biden-remark-casts-doubt-on-pillar-of-us-trade-agenda.html?ref=politics&_r=0
Paul Krugman is still doing his homework on TPP—deafening silence for two months since Dean Baker nailed his head to the floor.
…and as if that weren’t enough, The Moustache Of Understanding has decided to weigh in, too.
“I was speaking out in Minnesota — my hometown, in fact — and a guy stood up in the audience, said, ‘Mr. Friedman, is there any free trade agreement you’d oppose?’ I said, ‘No, absolutely not.’ I said, ‘You know what, sir? I wrote a column supporting the CAFTA, the Caribbean Free Trade initiative. I didn’t even know what was in it. I just knew two words: free trade.’”
Friedman is a Pavlovian neoliberal, who drools involuntarily when Wall Street or AIPAC whistle. Such a public display of ignorance exposes Freidman as a highly useful idiot who’s proud of it.
Friedman is a multi-millionaire Pavlovian neoliberal. Believe he married into his multi-millions.
Strip malls.
Well said!
Link? to Baker’s nailing. Or perhaps the date, publication and name of the article.
I was referring to Doug T’s post about Krugman.
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/paul-krugman-and-tpp
I appreciate your tactful evisceration of Krugman, something I can no longer do.
I see Krugman as a serious part of the propaganda problem that keeps semi-enlightened folk from out and out rebellion. One wonders how he sleeps at night….maybe since he is such a good supporter of big pharma they give him his daily fix at reduced rates.
Indeed. Tools like Krugman must feel a little nervous walking past lampposts after a while, wondering if his name is on one of them. He’s certainly sharp enough to know better about the TPP, O-Care, and about Obama’s persistent duplicity, so I’m guessing his long silence is a pang of residual conscience. There’s always a slender hope someone in his position will rediscover real integrity.
Maybe a drip feed?
http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/krugman/2013/12/14/tpp-and-ip-a-brief-note/
Thanks for that link. Comments section is worth a look. Check out the contrast in “reader’s picks” vs. “NYT editors’ picks”. Pretty funny how commenters are giving this article the Krugman treatment from awhile back when he wrote his “what’s the big deal?” article on the subject.
Antidote Caption: “Hey! That was my spot! Why I otter…”
There were four in the bed
And the little one said,
“Roll over! Roll over!”
The French healthcare story reminded me that Americans routinely over-rate their own healthcare. But one question: is this a story about French taxpayers, including poor ones, subsidising a wealthy, dying American? Was it possible because he had retained French citizenship, or are French taxpayers mugs on a wider scale?
The article says the wife “showed their card” or whatnot. That means the father was insured with the “Sécu.” (NHS.) So, he was a resident of France (the criteria is residency). Of course, if he (or his wife) had a French or possibly EU passport he could have arrived in France and on day 1 established himself there and then been automatically affiliated.
About the French system, the Secu, one should know that it pays only about 75% of health care. The definition though of HC is very broad, and includes, e.g. glasses, orthodontia, false teeth, prosthetics, wheelchairs and the like, pregnancy, mobility lessons, ambulance, elder care, and just about anything you can think of… The rest is paid by the patient: about 50 euros per year for the bulk, with at the top of the scale, 3 million patients paying *more* than 1,500, per year. How much that makes idk, but the remainder is paid through private insurance (of a ‘mutual’ type), which is very common, to cover the cost not paid by the Secu, or pay private care (spa treatment, own room in fancy private clinic, etc.)
So, there are co-pays and the like, within the Secu. However, the Secu has a provision that waives these co-pays under certain conditions: catastrophic / long-term / incurable illness or disability (diabetes, cancer, handicap…); end of life care in some cases; dire poverty, indigence. This gentleman, with incurable cancer, would have paid not one cent, not even for cabs and neck massage.
Thank you, Andrea. I take it that if he had residency, he paid French income tax so that he had earned the right to be a beneficiary of the system. Britons who live, or travel, in France seem to rate the French health system more highly than the NHS.
How do we get from here to there?
Is ACA going to be it? Was ACA designed so that it would be it, that we would not bother again about going over there?
Andre Schiffrin (the patient) was born in France; thus was a French citizen. Being a ‘resident’ is not the same thing. One might be a resident and be covered by French insurance but only if one has paid income taxes in France. A close friend has a house in France, is married to a French citizen (by birth), and has himself become a French citizen–BUT is not eligible for state healthcare because he has earned all his income and paid his taxes in the U.S.
I live much of the time in Italy where healthcare is mostly excellent. We are residents but not citizens. Until recently we were able for a nominal fee (350 euros) to buy into the Italian healthcare system. This has suddenly changed (for the obvious reasons) and the charge is based on one’s income–in our case, in the U.S.–and for us would be quite high. We will thus buy private insurance (with deductible). One can, however, simply go to doctors ‘privately,’ which means one pays for the visit or treatment (say, x-ray or sonogram) out of pocket. This sort of private doctor visit is usually around 100 euros.
One nice feature: Our town operates an emergency clinic with 24-hour doctor, no fee at all–to anyone! tourists included.
The French way of cancer treatment Reuters. What a first-world health care system looks like, as opposed to our own.
Great article. It’s hard to use simplicity in the same sentence with Obamacare.
“Every time I sit on hold now with the billing department of my New York doctors and insurance company, I think back to all the things French healthcare got right. The simplicity of that system meant that all our energy could be spent on one thing: caring for my father.”
The ‘humane’ aspect arises from the ‘single payer’ organization (though it is not quite that single, see my post above), of course.
But also from a traditional pov that sees the patient as a ‘whole person’ someone with a particular, individual make-up, position, with its own difficulties, desires, needs, and not just a body with a tumor up there somewhere.
This means that the definition of ‘health care’ is not ‘sick care’ (as it is in the US), but closer to ‘promoting well-being’, in situations (cancer, say) that are unfavorable. Not to imply that high-end expertise / technology is neglected, nor that the F system is ‘tops.’
Seen in this way, wait times, travel, mobility, conversation, listening, involving family, providing perks that aid comfort, augmenting autonomy, are all part of care, or at the very least should be taken into account, even if the problems are frustrating and can’t be solved “pour l’instant.”
Definition of “person” might have something to do with definition of “health care.” If this comment from 2009 is still true, in France only “natural persons” can donate to campaigns, and “legal entities” cannot. (I think that means there is no such thing as “corporate persons” in France?)
A few weeks ago, hundreds of millions of Americans watched Seattle beat Denver in the Super Bowl. Presumably, they watched the post-game interview of Russell Wilson, Seattle’s young quarterback.
In the interview, Wilson credited his success, in part, to his father’s inspiring words–“WHY NOT YOU?”
It never ceases to amaze that Americans, when they are made aware of how much better healthcare is in other, less “wealthy” countries, never seem to ask, “WHY NOT US?”
Why not us?
So true.
We lose when we rob ourselves of our greatness, thinking only ‘others’ are entitled or capable.
Why can’t money be created through the (little) people spending it in existence?
Why must it be that only the government can spend it into existence? Is it because the government is wiser than the people?
Why not us (the little people)?
‘Searching for Leopoldo Lopez’ in the bolivarian Workers Paradise:
At least 17 protesters were injured yesterday in Venezuela’s capital as opposition student groups marched for the fourth day.
Venezuela is searching for Leopoldo Lopez, the leader of the Voluntad Popular opposition political party, National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello said yesterday on state television.
“Leopoldo is hiding,” Cabello said. “There’s an arrest order for that fascist, and we’re going to work to put him in jail.”
President Nick Maduro accused opposition factions of trying to incite a coup. “I’m not going to step down,” Maduro said yesterday. “No one will remove me from the path of building the Bolivarian revolution.”
Inflation more than doubled in Venezuela in the past year to 56.3 percent in January, according to the central bank.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-16/venezuela-protests-leave-5-injured-in-fourth-day-of-unrest.html
————
As Comrade Nick said a few weeks ago, ‘I’m a socialist, and I know what I’m doing.’
Anytime a mob is attempting regime change, one’s mind goes back to the CIA financed NGOs that have been exposed over the years. It’s probably a routine, now, going from a rent-a-crowd to a rent-a-mob.
And it’s not provable every street action is directed. But in a world where so many conspiracy theories show up as conspiracy fact, it’s a safer bet than the outcome of the Super Bowl.
http://www.jar2.com/2/Intel/CIA/CIA%20Fronts.htm
Busy little fingers, prodding, prodding, prodding…
The CIA is a little busy in Ukraine right now, but they are rather good at multitasking. Could Venezuela’s oil have anything to do with the right wing making its economy scream?
Exactamundo!
That and one can’t have another example of some aspiring socialist society…must kill it at any cost….right Jim Haygood?
Thanks for the article on French health care, it’s an eye opener.
As a 70 y/o retired Federal employee, I have no complaints so far about my healthcare, as I have medicaid plus BCBS for a modest monthly fee, but I have no way of knowing what might happen if I get really ill.
And of course, no healthcare here matches nurses/doctors making multiple free house calls under an circumstance.
“…but I have no way of knowing what might happen if I get really ill.”
Yet others, who HAVE gotten “really ill” DO KNOW, and have warned you. Repeatedly.
So how is it that you and others like you ignore the realities of US “healthcare” as experienced by those who have actually needed to use it? Why the complacency?
It is this complacency, on the basis of lack of experience, that stymies true reform. You doom yourself, and others, to find out only when it is too late.
And, by the way, as a 70-year-old, you should be eligible for Medicare, which is supposed to be much better that Medicaid.
From ‘Maynard Keynes, Investment Innovator’:
The majority of his UK equity holdings were concentrated in just two sectors — tin mining stocks in the 1920s and gold mining stocks in the following decade [1930s] — and commercial and industrial firms.
Keynes’ large overweighting of mining relative to the market was similar in magnitude to his underweighting of the second-largest sector, banking. Banking carried an index weight of 20 percent, and Keynes had little or no exposure to this sector.
————
Keynes may have denounced gold as a ‘barbarous relic.’ But when it came to making money for Kings College, in the mid-Thirties he had half his portfolio concentrated in gold miners during their monster bull run. [In the U.S., Homestake delivered a ten-bagger return from the late 1920s to 1936.]
Equally ironic for the man who proposed the never-implemented ‘Bancor’ supranational currency, he shunned investing in the banksters who would have issued and traded it. Smart!
Most economists are lousy investors. So he might’ve had insider knowledge.
Just sayin’. He was friends with a lot of influential people after all.
he might have been a lousy economist and a good speculator!
This could be the year to get rich quick in metals and mining. last year didn’t work out so well, but “once bitten twice shy” is not for those whose fortune is written in the stars.
When you get to 100 bagger land, everything will make sense, even economics! Of course, when you’re loafing on in the deck salon of your 48 foot blue water cruising sailboat, you won’t care about economics. So it’s all only theoretical anyway.
How dare you sir! If Lord Keynes was here he would surely challenge either one of us to a duel to defend his sacred honor. It would surely not besmirch his manliness to smite two impertinent knaves.
So did Keynes ever discuss what the value of an international currency would be pegged to? Was it gold for him? The dumbest of all delusions? So he invested in gold. And now we see gold becoming irrelevant, right? Because sovereign nations provide the only value a currency can have and that is the cooperation and agreement of the people who use it. What can a supranational currency claim as its value? The forced imprisonment and/or impoverishment of the people who refuse to use it?
Here’s a pretty nuanced report on the Tennessee VW union vote:
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/after_uaw_defeat_at_volkswagen_in_tennessee_theories_abound
interesting that the deeply unfair two-tier contracts bit the UAW in the ***. As Social Security being worse the younger you get would bite the Dems, if the Republicans weren’t dumb as stumps.
“…deeply unfair two-tier contracts bit the UAW in the ***.
As did their unquestioning but unrequited love for the current corporatist donkey in the white house, and all the corporatist donkeys who lived there before him.
Bingo, Katniss scores again.
This comment from an anti-UAW worker should put the standard “ignorant and voting against their own interests” explanations to rest:
Yep.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPZPxGoNnn0
Mantis Parable
RE: Number of chemicals linked to problems such as autism DOUBLES in just seven years
Autism has not been scientifically proven to be caused by chemical exposure. There are a variety of rare genes that can be found among autistic people. That’s how they are identified early on in their life cycle. Evolution is a more plausible explanation. If toxic chemicals are the cause of decreased intelligence and autism why are autistic people routinely testing brighter than the norm?
Silly humans! The non-verbal autistics are further on their evolutionary way to developing telepathy. That’s awesome!
RE: German Left (Die Linke) VP Claims “Euro Divides Europe, No Benefit to EU”
Where the European far-left meets the far-right. Can the center hold?
History (who’s a real b@#$% btw) says “no”.
Re: the moral is the practical:
MLK said in the civil rights struggle that “the most formidable weapon of all was the conviction that we were right”. I think this is also the power of satyagraha; men of good will react strongly when they perceive moral truth. That’s why I believe the struggle for economic justice must be framed in moral terms — in terms of the equality of all human beings, and the dignity they merit.
Progressives cannot be afraid of using the language of morality. This is not sanctimonious cant. It is to call economic oppression and subjugation by its proper name, and to insist we have an obligation as a society to do better. The waste of human life in the status quo is shameful. It is, quite simply, wrong.
“Progressives cannot be afraid of using the language of morality.”
Unless you don’t really believe what you’re saying. Then such language can be dangerous.
People are beginning to catch on.
I agree with you. I think that’s why true revolutionaries so rarely spring from the political mainstream.
Marginal Revolution’s The Moral is the Practical sounded a little too rationalized. What is practical? Whatever perpetuates the present model of capitalism (which nobody understands anymore but nevermind)? Well efficiency is practical. Kinda like efficiency is the application of the practical. Or vice versa for that matter – not too circular! So, efficiency of what? Well it turns out they are talking about “open borders” – all the better to receive your poor downtrodden… etc. This must be because the globalization that worked so well for our big corporations who offshored our birthright to Asia can no longer make a living, or justify it. Their crumbling model of modern day mercantilism – of an obfuscated carry trade on the backs of the poorest laborers – which they considered the apex of efficiency turns out not to be either efficient or moral. But nevermind again. It is much better to make trafficking in cheap third-world labor legal; to bring all those dispossesed wretches here to dispossess the rest of us. After all the black marketeering of labor up to now has profited only the underground entrepreneurs, not the big corporations.
Its funny how all the open border people – freedom is so important……all of sudden think that the absolute foundation of capitalism rests on trademarks, copyright, and patents – – that is All sorts of laws, rules, regulations, implementing interpretations, etc., the HEAVY, HEAVY hand of government…. And periods for holding these rules, regulations, and laws have been extended FAR, FAR beyond the terms originally laid out in the constitution. (gee the rules aren’t the result of fraud and corruption of the rule making process….are they??????)
So the freedom to make or import a drug has to be restricted, or its ok to restrict someone from working in a factory that makes clothes or items that appear similar to items with trademarks…..
FUNNY….freedom for people to come into the country, but not the stuff people make, to come into the country….
All the talk about freedom for people to choose who they want to work for. But somehow, my freedom to buy drugs from another country….THE HORROR!
Funny who gets freedom…..poor people to work at low paying jobs get all the freedom they can stomach.
But somehow my freedom to buy Chinese videotapes….on NOs!!!!! Because…FREEDOM…wait….uh, er, consumers have to be …”protected” YEAH, that’s it!!!!
Nicely presented piece of critical thinking, thanks!
Here are some things I’ve noticed in the housing market. Homes with prices of around $150,000 and under in “good” markets are being bought with cash by investors. Homepath houses in certain locations are not listed to the general public until the end of (or past) the public waiting period. Other govt. program houses have evidently been left to rot. I have seen homes where you have to sign a mold disclosure before you can even set foot in the house. I saw several listings where they mentioned blooms of growth. I saw this information just looking through zillow.
I think the market is going to crash again. People are losing jobs so they can not keep their homes, let alone purchase a new one. I figured it must be investors buying the properties because the sales figures just didn’t make sense to me otherwise. It looked to me like groups of investors would cherry pick properties, having been notified “in network” by their buddies as properties became available. Properties not worth picking are left to rot. Yes, what a fabulous way of doing things. Throwing people from their homes, cherry picking from those homes and letting the rest go to hell. And now, more to come.
MOLD! And another industry is born. It used to be called mildew. It’s pretty common in a lot of houses and areas.
But MOLD! BLACK MOLD! (Stachybotrys) You’ll have to test that…at $300 a test. Oh, and by the way, the testing is close to useless. If it is “deadly black mold” it has to be in a very special place (dying off) to release spores that A) are the dangerous part and B) can be picked up by the test. 99% of the time, there is no way to test for it.
Yeah, it might be deadly black mold. But it’s probably just mildew.
Who is rich enough to buy from the private equity funds?
Twelve percent gain in a year, before the six percent commission…if you can find a buyer.
RE: West Virginia water after the spill
” There is virtually nothing that is known for certain about the toxicity of MCHM or its effect on humans.”
Enough said.
How Airbus Is Debugging the A350 Businessweek. “De-risking,” not “debugging.”
pretty much synonyms in this case These are nested computer algorithms in a composite case w/ wings.. It will literally be many years (if ever) before they plow through all possible permutations leading to “hull loss”. fortunately it normally takes something like four serious failures to take out a passenger jet which invariably includes “human factors” (http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Pilot-Factor-Aircraft-Accidents/dp/1853104825 Naked Pilot: The Human Factor in Aircraft Accidents excellent book that delves into how the human brain functions).
In the industry, Airbus does have a historically (disconcerting IMO) reputation for the aircraft having authority over the pilot. When things are working it enhances efficiency, when things go awry, that’s when a plane lands itself in a forest beyond the runway or shuts down engines when a pitot tube ices over due to a failed heating element and the plane decides its not moving! In the former case the demonstration crew died, in the latter case, mercifully after loosing most of it’s altitude the ice melted and the aircraft realized it was indeed moving and allowed the engine to relight!
In general, a childhood friend who is soon a retiring senior Captain for a major domestic carrier finds the younger crop of pilots often tend to want to be flight managers rather than pilots, not wanting to manually takeoff/land beyond the regulatory requirement (intimidated by the aircraft? don’t want to fkup?). Also, they tend to demure to rank, not necessarily a desirable quality if there is a developing series of bad decisions occurring.
BTW, yes he did windowpane acid in college if anyone remembers that stuff…wow.
Dear optimader;
Yes I do. That and good old Mr. Natural, and Owsley, of course. Windowpane, now that was intense. I hope he had some good friends/shamans to help guide him through.
I always recommend Huxleys’ “The Doors of Perception” to those interested in the Psychoactives.
Ambrit
we were goofy kids at the top of our game (we thought). A whole group of us would have a four-way hit of WP or blotter.. Someone in charge? no way, we would sit around and giggle, then go to a bar or the movies. Two memorable experiences were Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein (in 3-D) and Frank Zappas and the Mothers of Invention 200 motels (in 3-D). Yikes.
Ambrit, our society has pounded in risk adversity into the younger generations I really wonder how it will play out?
Those alkaloids were really something, would love a bag of mushrooms for this weather.
http://www.seattlemag.com/article/forage-mushrooms-lake-quinault
A beautiful place, the good ones grow in the cow pasture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castaneda
Approved reading in HS honors English. A different place and time that was.
Dear optimader;
Oh yes, 200 Motels! That, and going to see Genesis, with Peter Gabriel, play at Miamis’ Gusman Hall. Is it just me, or are todays kids really a lot more dour and melancholy? I do remember having a sense that everything was going to turn out grand for everyone in the world. Steely Dans’ “I.G.Y.” sums it up quite well.
Keep the Faith, Baby!
File Under: Police State USA
Good Samaritan Backfire
Long, but worth the read. Man stops to assist injured bikers in SF. Calls 911, officers arrive and arrest him.
The fact of the matter is that American representative government no longer capable of restraining tight knit in-groups – whether bankers or police – it is totally corrupted. Whether it was the recent Sacramento Bee article that reported that prison guards yell “stop resisting” ……to inmates that are already unconscious from a beating so as to give justification in the event that any surveillance cameras may capture the incident, or to the incident in Southern CA where an 80 year man was shot dead in his bed, and the justification for the raid was that a police officer smelled Meth a day before when driving around the residence….when it turns out there was no meth found on the property. Is that cop fired for his incompetence…….OUCH!!!! I hurt myself laughing….they don’t get fired for killing people (of course, they usually don’t get prosecuted. And when they are prosecuted, are they prosecuted incompetently as part of the scheme????)
I can’t find that Sacramento Bee article. Got a link?
I favour the death penalty for SUV drivers and noise polluters. Sadly we can’t take such matters into our own hands. I would find a world in which people felt too much shame to drive the gas-guzzlers or let their music reach the ears of others where it was unwanted a better place. My proposed legislation would no doubt lead to a rash of ‘wrong tune defences’. Clearly all this behaviour is tragic and we should not allow any of it. The answer is not to allow the public guns. The rest follows from there.
Worked for a company in the suburbs outside of Seattle were many of my co-workers drove SUV’s–in team meetings, I would refer to vehicles as gas-guzzling blunderbusses and godzilla’s. A couple of people eventually proceeded to drive smaller economy cars to work. I’m not totally sure if my ragging on those vehicles made the difference, but at the very least, I got a kick out of bending their ears on such a wasteful driving indulgence.
At the very least, I would propose a VAT on SUV/luxury car owners to pay for highway construction and maintenance as well as public transportation.
I call the big box machines gassholes.
They hold a special place in my heart as I got sideswiped by one while riding my bicycle and took the side mirror off with the back of my helmeted head. My PI attorney had to move quickly to capture the damage to it because the gasshole driver had it in for $2K of repair before I even was out of the hospital. The gasshole driver died of other causes, intestate, two weeks before the court date….I got what was left of insurance limits.
Gassholes are the epitome of the car culture.
Death penalty for “noise polluters”?
Gee, I guess you’d fit right in with Mr. Dunn. Kid plays car stereo too loud, you’d shoot him. Or would a trial be required first? (Actually, I hate it when kids and others crank up the volume as if they own the world, and would favor some strong action being legal. Maybe shooting the radio instead of the driver?)
Death penalty is too severe.
Sticking something into another person’s body without permission is rape.
In this case, it should be called ‘acoustic rape’ – a crime deserving prosecution, not vigilante punishment.
Victims are usually ignored, left alone in the aftermath to deal with emotional, psychological and physical (the death cries of cells known as ringing in the ears) wounds without any professional help – another sign we are not ‘civilized.’
Family fights to get drug for dying boy
BY MONIFA THOMAS Staff Reporter February 15, 2014 1:26AM
Should a dying child receive an unproven experimental drug even if the patient doesn’t fit within a carefully designed clinical trial?
More than 53,000 people who have signed an online petition on behalf of a Mundelein boy say yes, absolutely. But Shire, the Ireland-based pharmaceutical company that owns the drug, says it’s a complicated matter and has refused to make the drug available to the child.
At the heart of this moral and ethical dilemma is 6-year-old Jack Fowler. Jack has a rare disorder called Hunter syndrome, or MPS II, that is expected to kill him because he lacks the enzyme needed to break down cellular waste in his body. Ten to 20 years is the usual life expectancy of someone with the disease, but Jack’s more severe type means he may have less time.
An estimated 2,000 patients — nearly all boys — are affected by the disease worldwide.
The hope is that the drug in question, SHP-609, can for the first time slow or halt the progression of the disease in the brain. It is going through clinical trials, which means it hasn’t been approved by the Food and Drug Administration yet. The Phase II/III stages are just starting, and FDA approval happens after Phase III.
So Jack’s parents, Jason and Jamie Fowler, have been trying to get a “compassionate use” approval for Jack, which the FDA allows on a case-by-case basis. Clearance for such use means Jack’s case would not influence outcomes in the clinical trial, so an adverse reaction by Jack, for example, would not count against the drug.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/25304460-418/family-fights-to-get-drug-for-dying-boy.html
if you want to help sign petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/506/718/178/demand-jack-fowler-a-6-year-old-receive-the-life-sustaining-treatment-he-so-desperately-needs/
You certainly wouldn’t want to do anything to risk not getting your new drug approved by the FDA, although if you are a drug company with campaign cash, I don’t think that’s even possible.
“Last year, 11 of the 12 new-to-market drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration were priced above $100,000 per-patient per-year.”
http://www.alternet.org/11-major-drug-companies-raked-85-billion-last-year-and-left-many-die-who-couldnt-buy-their-pricey?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark
WaPo “Why the Economy isn’t Doomed”
is filled with lots of nasty mind manipulation, hidden assumptions, and propaganda.
Dripping from every paragraph almost.
Not sure I want to try to explicate it all, that’s just my unsupported take on it.
ENE News on the otherwise unreported disastrous effect of Fukushima. A bit about the plutonium release via explosions and meltdowns. Plutonium not good. A map of radiation contamination all along the US westcoast and into the western states, and following the curve of the jetstream down into northern Texas and back up into New England. Sobering. And even more sobering is that this referenced “government report” came from France, the EU.
And also Mish linked to Die Zeit on die Linke and Wagenknecht on capital controls and stable exchange rates if the EU is to survive the monetary union. She sounded perfectly rational and Mish sounded like he just invested all his cash in Bitcoin. Why is the ever-conflicted Mish never chagrined about his own comments? Because he wants to deflect his advocacy for pure speculation-capitalism. Mish is a throwback to the Gilded Age. No one in their right mind would deny that the EU needs stable exchange rates and capital controls – except Mish.
With all of the snow we’ve gotten this winter in northern New England, I just happened to wonder this afternoon about the radiation level of it. Does anyone know if there is tracking of the radioactivity of snow occurring?
Try http://www.blackcatsystems.com/RadMap/map.html
2nd attempt at this post. Assuming I punched the wrong key, but if it double-posts that’s why — my fault for impatience.
Neat! Thank you!
Advocating Bitcoin on the internet is like telling an audience of burglars you like to keep all your cash in a mattress in your house, and by the way your street address is…
http://aeon.co/magazine/world-views/should-we-trust-scientific-models-to-tell-us-what-to-do/
A model world
In economics, climate science and public health, computer models help us decide how to act. But can we trust them?
“The computer models of economists have to use equations that represent human behaviour; by common consent, they do it amazingly badly…
Tony Lawson, an economic theorist at the University of Cambridge, argues more forcefully that the whole enterprise of mathematical description is so flawed that economics would be improved if it found other ways of analysing the system. In other words, no models at all might be better than the current models. This is where uncertainty maxes out.”
http://www.cottonexpressions.com/media/ecom/prodsm/500-39sml.jpg
The article about the “caged dogs” (humans) in Hong Kong is very upsetting. I’ve seen pictures of those “apartments” before; it’s truly tragic that the number of people living this way is increasing.
It may not be inevitable, but this is the likely consequence of overpopulation combined with severe economic inequality.
Hong Kong – the birth place of the 1911 Chinese Revolution and where ‘real patron saint of the (Chinese) republic’ was buried in a grave marked only with the serial number 6348, until 2011.
“The party must have this picture and the negative at any price. They must be destroyed as soon as possible. It would be embarrassing to have our Father of the Chinese Republic shown in a subordinate position”. The generalissimo said, referring to a photo ‘that had been taken in Japan in around 1895 or 1898. It showed members of the Revive China Society, with Yeung presiding and Sun, as secretary, on the back row, along with members of the Japanese Chapter of the Revive China Society.’
That man was Yeung Ku-Wan. You can see the photo Chiang unsuccessfully tried to buy for one million dollars (along with its negative, not sure which currency) at his Wikipedia page.
Overpopulation + severe inequality = revolutions…at least in China.
There’s loud and quiet revolutions. Loud = combat. Quiet = collapse.
We’re in revolutionary times?
I want to call it evolutionary times.
Revolutions in the past have not rid the world of the class system or the global plutocrats that we have now, they seem to just shuffle the “leaders”, bought off the masses with promises and some lip stick facade changes, but left the control of capital in the same hands.
IMO, to save humanity, we need evolutionary change….and sooner rather than later.
In the U.S., we got some promises of “hope and change” in 2008!
German Left (Die Linke) VP Claims “Euro Divides Europe, No Benefit to EU”
always with the hedge monkeys, gold infomercants & freeze dried food moguls drooling puddles in front of all potential euro exits. The SPD promises a place for Die Linke at the table in 2017? How formidable. The SPD is itself currently in danger of losing its contingent seat at the child’s table, due to a complicated scandal involving a matrix of tiny dominoes & pictures of naked underage boys. Really, viva Die Linke but it’s a bit like making heralds of US Green Party leaders.
Reason # 2,435 not to live in Florida..
“…Dunn, meanwhile, had just left his son’s wedding with his fiancee, who’d gone inside the convenience store for wine and chips…”
Ok, a class act to begin with.
“But prosecutors asserted that it was Dunn who lost control, firing three volleys of shots — 10 bullets total — at the SUV over music he didn’t like.”
I am amazed apparently bad marksmen these gun freaks are?
He left the gas station and drove 40 miles away to a bed and breakfast in St. Augustine. There, Dunn walked his dog, ordered a pizza, then drank rum and cola — “stunned and horrified, (shocked how) things escalated the way they did over a common courtesy….experiencing stomach problems for about four hours before taking a nap.”
Walking a dog , eatin pizza w/ rum an coke and taking a nap after too much crappy pizza…”
The FL trailer trash version of the four stages of grief?
Such an event usually is the culmination of lifetime of bad decisions. Why this case is framed as “a red button issue” is beyond my cynical comprehension.
The douchebag shot 10 TIMES into a vehicle filled with goofy teenagers, executing one of them.
What’s to contemplate on sentencing here? Just another coward summarily deciding a kid deserves to be executed that day.
One thing for sure, that will make a unique wedding day album.
Did you see this story of a neighbor of the douchebag saying he talked about wanting to shoot somebody….
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/02/shocking-interview-michael-dunns-neighbor
Satan in america-
http://www.dailyitem.com/0100_news/x1708329322/BODY-COUNT-AT-22/?state=taberU
“She left Alaska as a high-ranking official in the satanic world, leaving the father of her second pregnancy, a man named Forest, the No. 2 leader in their cult, who was murdered.”
Do they get golden parachutes? High ranking official…
A “New Yorker” article on Amazon: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/02/17/140217fa_fact_packer
regarding ” ‘…a tiny little business, selling to a bunch of odd people who read.’ ” not Amazon, but book publishing.
An article from the “New Yorker” by George Packer about Amazon:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/02/17/140217fa_fact_packer
regarding ” ‘…a tiny little business, selling to a bunch of odd people who read.’ ” not Amazon, but book publishing
The French way of cancer treatment Reuters. What a first-world health care system looks like, as opposed to our own.
As my dad said, “It turns out there are solutions for the all the things we put up with in New York and accept as normal.”
DARE I SAY It???????
……
Quelle surprise!!!!
Is this the typical quality of crap that gets posted to FDL? It could make a journeyman cipher at Faux News blush
#MH370: Are impenetrable radar defenses in SE and Central Asia vulnerable? FDL