NO COMMENT!

OH

shiver me timbers, tis another tuesday and i’m not dead yet.

http://digg.com/political_opin.....ad_And_Die

thanks nahant

Oh, yeah. Forgot I was supposed to be pushing up daisies by now.
How’s the weather, Suz?

Any time :>) gotta keep he hole dug!

Who won?

tis wonderful - we hit the 60’s today and its forecast to be nice all week. sunshine tis a lovely thing

rbg,

pete sez “hi, loving the beautiful weather, the sun, hating Seattle…”

smells like Spring Fever to me….

got my fingers and toes crossed for one of those perfect spring days for sunday.

Dugg. Cute tune!

Maybe “cute” wasn’t the best word. How ’bout clever?

I love the Austin Lounge Lizards. Haven’t been able to find a utube of their song ‘industrial strength tranquilizers’ nor another fav of mine ‘jesus loves me but he can’t stand you’. The link in their name in my post goes to their web site where (iirc) you can listen to some of their music.

He always was reality based….or at least almost always.

loved it, Suz -

and a perfect match for the news box article - on the Supreme Corporation.

may every Justice who votes to exempt BigPharma be Impeached.

and then have their Federal and private pensions expropriated, their lifetime Fedral healthcare revoked, and be sentenced to spend the rest of their once-pampered lives as human footstools in an inner-city ER waiting room.

naked, kneeling on broken glass - the sort of torture the craven Supremes have already declined to strike down for the rest of us.

all under due Federal authority, of course.

So I’m not advocating violence against Federal officers…merely advocating they be subject to the violence they have loosed upon us.

in the nicest “legal” way, of course.

Fucking corporate tools - all who vote to exempt BigPharma.

Stains in robes.

WASHINGTON — Less than a week after issuing a sweeping ruling that bars most lawsuits against medical device makers, the Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in the first of two cases that could determine whether drug makers receive similar protection.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer said the fundamental question in the cases was who should make the decisions that will determine whether a drug is “on balance, going to save people or, on balance, going to hurt people?”

“An expert agency on the one hand or 12 people pulled randomly for a jury role who see before them only the people whom the drug hurt and don’t see those who need the drug to cure them?” Justice Breyer asked.

Normally a member of the court’s liberal wing, Justice Breyer came down squarely on the industry’s side when he answered his own question, saying Congress left the role of policing the medicine market exclusively to the Food and Drug Administration.

“What worries me is, what happens if the jury is wrong?” he said.

If the justice’s view prevails, most lawsuits against drug makers, thousands of which have been filed in recent years and settled in some cases for billions of dollars, would be barred. But the Supreme Court is likely to wait until next year to answer Justice Breyer’s question completely.

Hey, Suzanne
Hope your spine has forgiven you for the floor-waxing.

Speaking of not dead yet…maybe I should see if there’s a YouTube of that scene in Python’s Holy Grail.

FunnyDiva
I feel happy! I feel happy!

I was dead but that rousing debate brought me back to life.

That is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. Fuckery. Fuckery again.

thanks funny - the showing today was for an engineer from santa barbara who is looking for a second place up here. was here for almost an hour

that must have been the part where they debated the difference between denounced and repudiated, or not.

suz - that’s great!

for more fuckery, check what just went into the news box

Now for more rousing debate on the PPA :)

kirk, what kinda cookies are ya thinking of making for the meetup?

ntu–

any comment on the debate? Just askin’?

Suz, fingers and toes crossed for you. Hopefully that Santa Barbara engineer fell in love with your place!

chocolate - of course!

whatcha bringing for everyone else (wink)

Just keep the candidates kids out of it, would be all.

Makes me wonder if once a drug is approved by the FDA if there are follow-up spot checks to see if the drug formula changes.

pete “ROFL….” he’s trying to set up a web site this week. went to the Kalakala bankruptcy hearing last week, and they kicked him out, even though he hadn’t said or done a thing.

Fingers and toes crossed. Santa Barbara’s nice, but there’s nothing like a cottage by the creek in the redwoods for relaxing on a hot summer day.
FunnyD

with the lack of oversight and transparency in all levels of government, i do not have confidence in the fda’s ability to police anything.

Good vid, Suzanne, I loves me dem lizards. I found one that deals with the constant evasion of the L word.

uhh….non-chocolate cookies?

yeah, dunno why i even asked, lol.

dood was here for almost an hour. of course, he asked his agent to ask my agent before the showing if there were blueprints or architectural drawings for the place.

we got a good snicker out of that. i figure he brought a fine toothed comb with him - i was told he was driving back to santa barbara today so… time will tell. my agent will call his agent in a couple of days for feedback.

oooh, i like that l word one. thanks kevin

Josh Marshall has posted a full-blown denunciation of Timmeh’s race-baiting.

speaking of cookies… has anyone seen tex?

Yer velcome. I like his song ‘Sleep Neat’ too.

Suz, yes — she just turned in for the night.

any comment on the debate? Just askin’?

Both did quite well, considering some of the silly questions that were asked. Obviously, Hillary was playing catchup and Barack was initially sort of running out that clock. Later he warmed up and was his usual self.

All in all, I suspect that Hillary diminished his momentum a tad, perhaps enough to hold onto Ohio but not enough to win Texas.

hmmm, i’m gonna have to rustle up a snack. dayam, let me see what’s in the pantry.

how about a brandy pineapple upside down cake pantry is kinda bare

Yep. I’m hungry again.

Oh boy Suz, that looks great.

So we are going to let political appointees make these decisions? Now then just who has more motive to lie?
An honest jury whose only fault is they don’t know the issues involved yet can learn the issues just like we learn new subjects here at the Lake when they come up. Justice Breyer apparently does not trusts the intelligence of a Jury.
Instead Breyer suggests that we trust the political hacks who run government agencies and whose job’s depend on keeping the big Pharma donors to the GOP happy.
We have to start impeaching the Supremes, BAD lies like this embarrass our nation. Its like the Supreme Court does not even care anymore about pretending to follow the law.

doesn’t it look yummy. i’m gonna have to hunt down that recipe.

hey things - they are just following boosh’s lead about no longer even pretending to follow the law.

My mom used to make them all the time (not with brandy, though) — wish I had her recipe.

I have to move to Canada unless we get better healthcare.

I can’t trust the American Drug companies anymore thanks to the Supremes.

i must sadly admit that the thought of moving out of my country has crossed my mind more and more lately.

don’t know about canada tho. i hear they have that ’snow’ stuff up there.

may every Justice who votes to exempt BigPharma be Impeached.

naked, kneeling on broken glass - the sort of torture the craven Supremes have already declined to strike down for the rest of us.

These judges or in this case justices, and their law clerks don’t think at all like you do in a medical situation. They have next to no experience in them. That’s why they shouldn’t be making these decisions.

Here’s the thing Kirk. It’s up to the medical profession to set up a platform so that the Supremes or any other appellate panel aren’t making medical decisions for you. Doctors are the ones with clinical experience who worry about patients for much of their waking moments. They are the ones trained in the nuances of the meds, the side effects, the procedures,and use of the devices. They are the only ones who should be really making these decisions. And when the Supremes rule, and I’ve watched this closely for years, they can make a helluva sea change in medical situations once they do.

These kinds of opinions are in the cards now that Alito and Roberts have settled in. Believe me, it is a huge wave or trend on this S.Ct. I saw it coming, but in fairness, they were confirmed 10-9 by a strictly party vote because the thugs controlled Senate Judy.

As with most things, it is up to doctors to control safety in medical devices and as to meds. Maybe you’ve seen them, but I could show you a whole line of Med Tronics cases for the last 10 years in your circuit the 9th and others that wouldn’t make you very happy.

My philosophy is simply that no offense to anyone–lawyers should not be deciding what is medically safe for people.

Doctors should always be making those decisions. I don’t want whether a drug/device can be regulated hinging on a standard or review, or parsing of the Federal Rules of Evidence or “legislative history” parsed in an appelate opinion by some law clerk a year or two out of law school–and believe me that’s who writes the opinions in any Circuit and with the Supremes– who doesn’t have a clue about clinical medicine and hasn’t seen patients. It’s that damn simple IMHO Kirk.

Alito has a guy for a clerk that was a lawyer for years but that’s an exception, and he hasn’t practiced medicine.

Skim these. Compare what they look for and what you’d be looking for and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

Transcript Warner Lambert v. Kent Oral Argument

Analysis of Riegel v. Medtronic

Because § 360k(a) prohibits the imposition of “requirements” that are either different from or in addition to those established by the federal government, the first question the Court addressed was whether the FDA pre-market approval (PMA) process for medical devices establishes “requirements.” Distinguishing the 1996 case of Medtronic v. Lohr, in which preemption was not found for devices that had been approved under a grandfathering process, the Court found that the PMA process constitutes a “rigorous” review “specific to individual devices,” thereby imposingfederal “requirements” on the devices so approved.

Not exactly the way you were trained to look at things at UCLA or wherever is it?

I agree with Josh. I was appalled by Russert’s line of questioning regarding Farakahn. Even though Obama dad said that he denounced he denounced the things that Farakahn had said about Judaism, Russert insisted on quoting them and insisting Obama give a yes/no answere to the question “Do you reject them?” Somehow “denounce” wasn’t good enough, he had to jump through the hoop of “rejecting,” which to my disappointment he did.

Doctors should always be making those decisions

that has always been my basic argument for being pro choice. it is a decision best left to the patient and the doctor.

I must have really been asleep at the switch. Those questions hugely inflamed everyone and have caused tons of Russert emnity on blogs, and I missed them but I had the debate on. Maybe it was because I was expecting Hillary to mud wrestle–kitchen sink and all– and it didn’t happen.

Didn’t blip my radar either but I shrugged at an endorsement by Farakahn too.

I gotta admit - i laid down to take a nap at 4pm (having to get up at the unheard of hour of 10am today) expecting to be up before KO started. I woke up at 7pm and missed not only KO but the debate.

I wonder if those questions were Timmeh’s own, or were they at someone else’s behest? Pretty reprehensible either way.

Still why push for this now…unless something big is coming down the road.
I wonder if or how we can find out if the Supremes have any advanced knowledge of any future lawsuit trouble for Big Pharma?
That or do any of the Justices have any stock in these companies?
Funny how the Supremes are the only court in the Country where a judge does not have to remove themselves from cases where they have such obvious conflicts of interests.
I look forward to reading real history books on the Supreme Court of this time period in the future.

What little I saw of the debate left me with no small affection for Hillary - I wish her well in Ohio and Texas. David Schuster post debate comments about Hillary reveal his misogyny quite dramatically, imho.

what was that disclosure during the libby trial about cheney liking to go onto meet the press because they can control the message.

hey npb

Belize warm living is cheap they speak English

Yep Suz, that’s like Teddy always says!

I couldn’t agree more. And make no mistake Suzanne, state legislatures are setting up laws that would make your hair stand on end including the death penalty for docs who perform abortions even when the safety of the mother is crucial. They are doing this because they want Roe to get in front of this current S. Ct. so it can finish choice. Laws that are now before state legislatures this year are unbelievable.

What has bothered me tremendously is that we are losing a lot of ground in embryonic stem research for cancer cures, new organ development, and hopefully spinal paralysis because of the argument that stem research promotes abortions by the evangelical base and their puppet Boosh. We have lost about 20 of the top stem cell researchers in this country to Singapore including a Dean from one of your California med schools and his wife who were among the top stem cell people in the country.

It wasn’t the money as I said a while ago–it was the supportive climate for research in Singapore compared with here. And two of them left California which if I remember did pass a stem cell initiative, but I’ve read it hasn’t made that much difference. I’d have to pull those articles.

I think Karl has been writing for the media all the media.

I’ll have to go back and look at it but I thought I heard Obama refuted Russert pretty well.

the TMP link above dissects it well.

TPM*

Josh’s article at TPM said he did but Russert kept going.

And HRC sorta piled on later, saying that all the Middle East is at odds with Israel in a violent way, not in any way due to Israel’s past or present actions or policies.

But there was a subtext to what HRC was doing in her statement.

Tomorrow’s - Wednesday’s papers will carry articles about a meeting Obama had with 100 Cleveland Jews. The WaPo carried a blog about the meeting earlier today, but, apparently, it has since been removed.

Phil Weiss is on it, though.

What is most interesting to me about the way Obama answered questions in the meeting, is his combination of knowledge about the history of Israel’s relationship with South Africa and his ideas about solutions for this tricky and fatal paradigm Zionist neoconservatives have us trapped within:

“Frankly some of the commentary that I’ve seen which suggests guilt by association or the notion that unless we are never ever going to ask any difficult questions about how we move peace forward or secure Israel that is non military or non belligerent or doesn’t talk about just crushing the opposition that that somehow is being soft or anti-Israel, I think we’re going to have problems moving forward.”

and:

“There was a very honest, thoughtful debate taking place inside Israel. All of you, I’m sure, have experienced this when you travel there. Understandably, because of the pressure that Israel is under, I think the U.S. pro-Israel community is sometimes a little more protective or concerned about opening up that conversation. But all I’m saying though is that actually ultimately should be our goal, to have that same clear-eyed view about how we approach these issues.”

Must. get. sleep. Good night all.

g’nite LL

That or do any of the Justices have any stock in these companies?

Funny how the Supremes are the only court in the Country where a judge does not have to remove themselves from cases where they have such obvious conflicts of interests.

The S. Ct. is the only federal court where the judges have the final decision on that but believe me they recuse themselves when they have stock in a company that is remotely close to a litigant.

As to their philosophy and an agenda they take to the court–well that’s a whole other thing.

They have been pretty meticulous about recusing when they do have stock in companies that are litigants. They know the appearance can be devistating. It wasn’t so with Scalia hunting with Cheney and the energy iformation decision, but as to stock holdings they’ll recuse very quickly.

There is a Blackwater investigation on the Discovery channel I think?

Interestingly though, a few months ago the Judicial Conference tightened rules over what they have to financially disclose to the public on the web/filings about their holdings allegedly because of security considerations after their was violence against a federal judge’s husband.

” It wasn’t so with Scalia hunting with Cheney and the energy iformation decision, but as to stock holdings they’ll recuse very quickly.
reply “

Under Bush maybe the Supremes are feeing like they can get away with more after all Bush owes them EVERYTHING.

Good thinking LoudounLib and sleep well. I’m off to bed too - have an awfully early meeting in the morning. Looking forward to the Sunday Boulder Creek pup meetup. Be there or be square! ;~)

Probably Tim has a staff who helps write his questions.

g’nite npb

i believe his question writer is named dick cheney’s staff

I gotta say, pups - after having an iPhone now for 12 days - there’s no turning back.

Seems like a thoughtful approach to minefield topic to me.

I denounce and repudiate Farrakhan’s anti-semitic remarks, Obama’s minister’s praise of Farrakhan, Timmeh’s stupid questions on the subject, and Sen. Clinton’s adding fuel to the fire with her comments.

et, its a gateway drug

That reminds me suz, i rsvp’d on facebook but i think i should have started driving yesterday to make it time :)

ET, do you mind my asking what your monthly bill is for the service?

so’s the lake, suz….

hahahahahaha

Showoff!
Congrats, ET!
I’ve heard the ATT bill comes in a box.

YES, perhaps if they directly own the gilts. but, if their family members own them, not such alacrity to recuse.

and of course, that is how the grafting works.the family members get the stock stake. perhaps via nominee accounts. if not outright.

it is the reason that many pols like having large families. it allows for more graft to be disbursed within a family, leaving the family paterfamilias to appear untainted.

i think of fdr in this regard. he was able to see to it that his sons wet their beaks.

the most interesting crooked son of fdr was jimmy. who became the acolyte of ios, bernie cornfeld.

the press really doesn’t care to follow the money. why would that be? as far as the roosevelt family is concerned, i think it could be because so many owners of the influential press where also players in the game of corruption.

john kwitny wrote about this at length before his death. i recommend his investigative books to you.

Here is a link to the transcript of that meeting: http://elections.jta.org/2008/.....-leaders//

And here is the money quote by Obama:

I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says
unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that
you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship
with Israel. If we cannot have a honest dialogue about how do we
achieve these goals, then we’re not going to make progress. And
frankly some of the commentary that I’ve seen which suggests guilt
by association or the notion that unless we are never ever going to
ask any difficult questions about how we move peace forward or
secure Israel that is non military or non belligerent or doesn’t
talk about just crushing the opposition that that somehow is being
soft or anti-Israel, I think we’re going to have problems moving
forward. And that I think is something we have to have an honest
dialogue about. None of these emails talk about the fact that on the
other side, members of my national finance committee, like Lester
Crown, are considered about has hawkish and tough when it comes to
Israel as anybody in the country. So, there’s got to be some balance
here. I?ve got a range of perspectives and a range of advisors who
approach this issue. They would all be considered well within the
mainstream of that bipartisan consensus that I raised or that we
talked about in terms of being pro-Israel. There’s never been any of
my advisors who questioned the need for us to provide Israel with
security, with military aid, with economic aid. That there has to be
a two state solution, that Israel has to remain a Jewish state. None
of my advisors would suggest that, so I think its important to keep
some of these things in perspective. I understand people’s concern
with Brzezinski given how much offense the Israeli lobby raised, but
he’s not one of my central advisers.

I found it very interesting because I had a rare argument with one of myss main political correspondents this afternoon on the topic of whether or not Obama will get coopted by and start pandering to the Israel Lobby. His claim was that Obama had bowed to The Lobby’s pressure in taking Brzezinski off his list of advisors.

yeah, crossing the rockies takes time no matter which way ya go

I miss SnarKassandra.
Hugs across the miles to Snarky!

for two iPhones, 700 minutes a month worldwide, unlimited data access, 7p.m. to 7a.m. and weekends free, rollover - $110.00. The free unlimited data seemed OK before we got the phones. but I didn’t realize then that they automatically go to satellite for web or e-mail if you can’t hook up to a faster local wifi - for free. They do.

So far, our experience with the tech people has been excellent.

i hear she is having a life offline margot.

Pete,, I sure agree with you. (and yep, the text you quote is the antithesis of what I was taught in traning).

FDA used to be staffed by MD’s/PhDs who really understood the science - I’m told teh legal folks simply established the decision-making structure (implementing legislation) and then stood back.

Now at FDA/CDC/NMFS/NWS/EPA/DOI et al - the intrinsic scientific/medical context is just shuntewd aside - the decisions are made on politics ( a fancy way of saying delivery on campaign/contribution bribes), and the data/concepts are simply excluded.

Our regulatory agencies have simply become captives of teh