Things I missed in late November/early December 2012
My schedule got a little crazy again, so I couldn’t write as much as I wanted to. Here are a few quick thoughts on recent events:
The LA Galaxy are the 2012 MLS Cup Champions
The LA Galaxy came from behind to defeat the Houston Dynamo 3-1 in the final. This is their second consecutive championship and their fourth overall. While it was a great game, fans have been left with a bit of a cliffhanger. You see, not only was this David Beckham’s last season with the team, Landon Donovan is contemplating leaving the team as well. Stay, Landon!
Stay Healthy. Drink Beer.
Researchers at Japan’s Sapporo University have concluded that humulone, a naturally occurring compound in hops, fights pneumonia. Unfortunately, you would have to have about 30 beers to get the dosage needed for it to have an effect.
The WiiU came out
I’d love to tell you more, but I have sworn off of being an early adopter. Reviews are generally positive, but given the thick layer of dust on my Wii, I’m pretty sure I won’t be getting one anytime soon.
Dave Brubeck 1920-2012
Jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck passed away this week. Brubeck was a California man, credited with being the father of West Coast Cool. He loved performing and toured frequently. Here in the US, he was still performing until very recently. In the past, Brubeck toured universities across the country and worked with the State Department to spread jazz around the world. You see, jazz was considered the perfect cultural export. It wasn’t divisive or political. Jazz was about creativity and expressing yourself, and it helped spread a positive view of America and American culture.
Let’s give hillbilly heroin to kids
It’s weird doing two posts about pharmaceuticals in the same month, much less the same day, but here goes…
Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin (oxycodone), is seeking FDA approval to The change would allow the highly profitable (thanks in part to Florida ‘pill mills’) painkiller for use by children as young as 6 and would let Purdue Pharma to extend their patent on the drug.
Right now, studies show that 2% of eight graders in the U.S. use OxyContin recreationally, and that number goes up to 5% when you look at high school seniors. Can you imagine children putting themselves on the path to become hardcore junkies in the 8th grade? There have been almost 110,000 deaths caused by prescription opioids, and Purdue Pharma want to start giving them to children in order to keep their patent. I don’t know about you, but I would give a kid violent video games, junk food, pot and liquor before I’d let them anywhere near OxyContin.
Read more at:
GlaxoSmithKline to pay $3B in fraud settlement
In what is the largest fraud settlement in U.S. history, GlaxoSmithKline will pay $1 billion to settle criminal wrongdoing and $2 billion to cover civil liabilities, and they will plead guilty to two counts of introducing misbranded drugs in to interstate commerce (Paxil and Wellbutrin). According to the government, the drugs were marketed as treatments for conditions for which they hadn’t been approved. They also face a third count for failing to provide safety information to the FDA about the diabetes drug Avandia. As part of a 5 year compliance agreement with the government, executives face losing their bonuses if they or their subordinates engage in misconduct.
So there you have it. In America, poisoning people and lying to regulatory agencies only costs you a fine and not even a big enough fine to do real damage. I’m sure GlaxoSmithKline will be passing the cost on to the customers they lied to and poisoned by raising prices, and as of 12:00 PM PST, GlaxoSmithKline stocks were up 1.69%. That tells me the choices they made were calculated risks that put profits ahead of the health of safety of the public. Oh, it also gets you a stern warning about bonuses.
GlaxoSmithKline settles healthcare fraud case for $3 billion | Reuters
Supreme Court upholds Affordable Care Act in 5-4 ruling
About three months ago there was lots of noise about the Supreme Court hearing a case that would determine whether or not the Affordable Care Act was legal under the U.S. Constitution. The law was challenged over the individual mandate, a part of the law that forces everyone to be covered by health insurance or face a financial penalty. The federal government made an argument and a backup argument for the constitutionality of the law. The main argument was that the law as legal under the Commerce Clause. The backup was that creating a tax was well within the powers of Congress. At the time, things didn’t look good for supporters of the Affordable Care Act. Several Justices seems openly hostile right from the start, and Paul Clement did a superb job arguing against the ACA.
In the end, the court rejected the main argument, but the backup argument made the difference. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan agreed that the Affordable Care Act was constitutional because the penalty for not having insurance is a tax, and Congress has the right to create a tax to create new taxes. As such, the Affordable Care Act lives on.
Whether you support the Affordable Care Act or not, you can expect lots of sensationalism and contrived outrage on the cable news channels for at least the next few days.
End Mad Cow Disease
After hearing the news about Mad Cow disease being found in my home state of California, I decided to try to do something to stop the disease in its tracks before it became a serious problem. Given my limited resources, I thought starting with a petition and a blog post would be a good start. Please sign my petition at Change.org.
Mad Cow disease comes from feeding the remains of dead cattle to living cattle as food. Unfortunately, much of our cattle is fed a meat and bone meal made from the remains of other cattle. You see, cows are vegetarians by nature. They’ve been herbivores for as long as they’ve existed. We know that feeding beef products to cows is the cause of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, more commonly known as Mad Cow disease. If we ban this practice by requiring that all cattle is fed a 100% vegetarian diet, we should be able to greatly reduce and maybe even eliminate instances of mad cow disease.
Mad Cow disease can be transmitted to humans who eat beef products from infected livestock, causing a variety of neurological symptoms and, eventually, dementia. Given how much beef Americans consume, a requirement for all cattle to be fed 100% vegetarian diets is long overdue.
I humbly request that all of you take 30 seconds out of your day to sign my petition. Link provided below.
U.S. teen birthrates down overall, highest in religious and conservative states
Can we please stop pretending teaching abstinence instead of actual sexual education is good for anyone?
A study by the CDC has shown that the overall rate of teen pregnancies in the U.S. is decreasing. It also revealed a pretty disturbing trend: rates of teen pregnancy are highest in the religious, conservative states we call the Bible Belt. These are also the states that tend to push abstinence education instead of actual SexEd. That should be a wake up call to parents everywhere: denying reality doesn’t make it go away. The teenage brain is a mess of hormones. When you teach abstinence instead of safe sex, the only thing (most) teens abstain from is the safe part. By not teaching your kids about safe sex, or at least allowing their school to do so, you are not only increasing the chances of unintended pregnancy but of serious illness as well. That’s on you for keeping your child ignorant instead of preparing them for the world.
People are going to do what they’re going to do. If you care about them, the best thing you can do is encourage safety and good judgment by providing them with all the facts.
Image source and article: U.S. Teen Birthrates Are Down, But Still High in These States – The Atlantic Cities
Doonesbury for March 17, 2012
About a dozen newspapers across the country have chose to censor last week’s run of Doonesbury by running an old strip. Naturally, that compels me to make sure as many people as possible see the censored strip as possible.
Doonesbury for March 16, 2012
About a dozen newspapers across the country have chosen to censor today’s Doonesbury by running an old strip. Naturally, that compels me to make sure as many people as possible see the censored strip as possible. I will continue to do so for as long as it is censored.
Doonesbury for March 15, 2012
About a dozen newspapers across the country have chosen to censor today’s Doonesbury by running an old strip. Naturally, that compels me to make sure as many people as possible see the censored strip as possible. I will continue to do so for as long as it is censored.
Doonesbury for March 14, 2012
About a dozen newspapers across the country have chosen to censor today’s Doonesbury by running an old strip. Naturally, that compels me to make sure as many people as possible see the censored strip as possible. I will continue to do so for as long as it is censored.
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