^Good move.
I must have been in a rather bad mood that day a year ago. I have a tendency to get pissed when people blame everything on weakness when there are other factors that are hard to understand by those not afflicted by them.

They filmed a lot of this near my home town because the weather is so depressing... I don't know if I should be happy or sad about that.

Swans are even worse. Stay the hell away from those things. They'll kick your ass.

THE OUTRAGE!!
WHERE'S PETJ WHEN YOU NEED THEM!?
They must have killed or maimed at least 15 jeeps making this!!

Nice Avatar PuSH.

I have a feeling Nader didn't have all the facts. Only an idiot would hand over a drug without patenting the formula. I know at least that academic scientists and universities, at least, always patent their drug formulas, and they're the ones that do the majority of research by a landslide. I don't know about the Taxol situation, but it's more likely an exception if it is even that. I've got a couple collegues with drug patents and if I asked them if they would have been willing to give up the formulas and trial data to a company with no benefit to themselves, they'd laugh.
However, if that research he's referring to was done AT the NIH or another purely gov't research center, than I don't know. They might have different rules. I'll ask around.

>> ^rougy:
>> ^Doc_M:
>> ^manfromx:
Why then do drug companies get a monopoly on their product for so long. Especially since after R&D these things are pretty cheap to make.

I can answer that one. First, patent law. Second, a single cancer drug, from the ground to the pharmacy, can cost as much as $500,000,000. ... and many of the drugs fail in trials.

I think that most of the costs for research are done in government labs and then the successes are just flat-out given to the drug companies.
Pharma is screwing America rotten.


You're partially right. The foundational science behind the drugs is often done at the university level, but the expense I quoted is that which is spent by pharm or biotech companies. Money spent before that level isn't really estimable. It does irk basic scientists that they don't always benefit monetarily from research that leads to these drugs, but without the company itself, the drug wouldn't be made... Try getting a 500 million dollar grant in an academic lab... Venture capitalists are far more willing to make enormous investments in risky drug development endeavors.

I should say however that some drugs DO come out of academia. In those cases, the scientists involved get the patent (along with the university); they get some cash out of that at least.

>> ^manfromx:
Why then do drug companies get a monopoly on their product for so long. Especially since after R&D these things are pretty cheap to make.


I can answer that one. First, patent law. Second, a single cancer drug, from the ground to the pharmacy, can cost as much as $500,000,000. ... and many of the drugs fail in trials.

"I'd rather see the Republicans and Democrats pass their legislative agendas, and let the American people hold them accountable for the results, without letting our representatives wiggle out of their promises with "but the minority party we crushed in the last election wouldn't let us do it!" I think it would moderate the campaign promises, as well as break us out of this cycle that keeps us perpetually saddled with a status quo that few are happy with."

That's probably one of the better arguments on this topic in quite a while. Perhaps dangerous, but a good argument.

Two men walk into a bar. They ordered drinks.

Once he got to Saget, it turned fantastic! Best funny unfunny delivery of totally unfunny jokes ever.

Had a typo when I added Khalifa... the new name of the building. Sorry for the siftbot spam.

*promote

What I'm reading here is that what you really want is a purely democrat government with no possibility of Republicans blocking anything. I don't see that as the intentional design of the American government. Checks and balances are needed either way no matter who has a majority. I'm in favor of the option of a filibuster for this very reason. You say this option, when executed prevents any real reform from getting done, but that's an oversimplification. The point of the filibuster is to demand that bills and laws that are acceptable to more than just one party and that sufficient debate occurs before passing a bill.

If the republicans have the option to do it and decide not to do it, than in my eyes, that is fulfilling the requirements of a proper bill to be passed. Equally, if enough of both parties can agree to vote on cloture, than the bill can potentially pass. Democrats have used this filibuster often in the past to block bills that Republicans tried to ram through the governmental system without due consideration. It's a great option to have in place even if it tends to piss some people off in some cases. "What do you mean we don't get everything we want no matter what?!" is what that anger boils down to. I've frequently and openly opposed the idea of either party having a monopoly in our government and frankly I don't know how anyone here could think otherwise, because when the opposite party has that power, they must regret having ever thought that way. It seems to me that liberal Democrats are feeling upset that after 8 years of a republican president--4-5 of which were under pure republican rule (none in which they had the universal ban-hammer that is the 60 vote supermajority)--they didn't get everything that they wanted when the power changed hands. Of course they didn't. Now, they can. With 60 votes, cloture is imminent on any filibuster.

I'm not doing what you have said above by any means. I'm not opposing everything to be left in the right when anything fails. I'm supporting something and opposing parts of it... as are many. The intention is not to block legislation. The intention is to pass quality legislation.

I suspect that the supermajority that the Democrats possess is not going to last... Their simple majority likely will however.

^

Not me.