Why some medications are so high, Big Tabacco whines about warnings, and FDA approves new skin cancer drug

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Good to see you this morning. Pull up a chair and grab a cup of my freshly brewed virtual coffee. I have a few tidbits to kick your day off with:

 

Price-gougers hike costs of vital drugs during shortage

Gray-market vendors are part of the so-called “parallel market,” in which drugs are sold outside authorized channels. Drug makers typically distribute medications through large, national suppliers. Sometimes, however, a third-party supplier is able to purchase quantities of drugs and then re-sell them, often at a higher cost, to hospital pharmacists desperate to find drugs to treat patients.

Of the drugs offered by 18 gray market providers, 96 percent were double the normal price, 45 percent were 100 times the normal price and 27 percent were at least 20 times the normal price.

The drug with the highest mark-up was labetalol, a blood pressure medication that has been in shortage for more than a year. Normally priced at $25.90 per unit, the drug was offered at $1,200 a unit, a 4,533 percent increase, the report said.

Big Tobacco sues feds over graphic warnings on cigarette labels

Tobacco companies want a judge to put a stop to new graphic cigarette labels that include the sewn-up corpse of a smoker and pictures of diseased lungs, saying they unfairly urge adults to shun their legal products and will cost millions to produce.

One of nine new warning labels cigarette makers will have to use by the fall of 2012. In the most significant change to U.S. cigarette packs in 25 years, the FDA's the new warning labels depict in graphic detail the negative health effects of tobacco use.

Four of the five largest U.S. tobacco companies sued the federal government Tuesday, saying the warnings violate their free speech rights.

 

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FDA approves gene-targeting skin cancer drug

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-its-kind drug to treat the deadliest form of skin cancer by targeting a particular genetic mutation found in about half of patients.

The pill called Zelboraf, made by Roche, is the first treatment for melanoma that targets a specific gene found in skin-cancer tumors. The FDA also approved a test to screen patients for the mutation.

Time to walk on down the road…

TV can shorten life span, Monkeys overhead trail, and worldwide tourist scams

 

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Another day in Paradise. Glad you could stop by. It’s that time again. Grab a cup of Joe and let’s go:

Study: An hour of TV can shorten your life by 22 minutes

Watching an hour of TV after the age of 25 can shorten the viewer's life by just under 22 minutes, according to researchers in Australia according to scientists at the School of Population Health at the University of Queensland.  image

Monkeys overhead! Philly Zoo unveils new Treetop Trail

A new network of stainless steel mesh tunnels allows adorable monkeys to stray far from their usual cages.

The newest attraction at the Philadelphia Zoo is called the Treetop Trail: It's a network of approximately 700 feet of flexible, transparent tubes made with stainless steel mesh connected by a series of steel rings. The result is that small primates such as blue-eyed black lemurs, Bolivian gray titi monkeys, golden lion tamarins and red-capped mangabeys get to explore up into trees, over walkways, and into closer proximity with zoo visitors. The system allows access strictly to tinier primate species — no chimps, let alone gorillas — that fit within the tubes and are light enough to ensure they won't collapse.

10 popular travel scams around the world

#1 Orlando
Here's a scam so bad even Mickey Mouse took a stand. Guests in hotels around Disney World have been finding pizza delivery menus conveniently slipped under their doors, but place an order-and make the mistake of giving your credit card number-and you'll really pay. The phone number isn't connected to a pizza parlor but to identity thieves. Disney World supported a law designed to crack down on the people handing out the fliers, but Orlando police say the problem persists.

Solution: If you're craving a slice, get a recommendation from the hotel. (Click link above for the rest.) image

Time to walk on down the road…

Maybe that's what life is... a wink of the eye and winking stars

Quote by Jack Kerouac

Warren Buffet says stop coddling the rich, weird contest week, and frozen squirrels used in crimes

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Good to see you. Grab a cup of coffee, pull up a chair, and let’s have a stare…at today’s headlines. 

Stop coddling the super-rich, Warren Buffett says

"My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It's time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice," The 80-year-old "Oracle of Omaha" wrote in an opinion article in The New York Times.

Weird Contest Week offers something to chew on

When the going gets weird, the weird get going, putting on events dedicated to the odd, the offbeat and the unusual. And they don’t get any more unusual than Weird Contest Week, in Ocean City, N.J. Running August 15–19, the event is a celebration of silliness.

How weird? Well, chew on this: On Wednesday, August 17, the featured event is “That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles,” in which contestants munch on cookies until they’re mush, disgorge them and then sculpt them into works of art.

Frozen squirrels used for criminal purposes

You may have heard of animals being used in the course of crimes, but I bet you never heard about the use of frozen squirrels to do bad things.

Three men stealing car tire rims used frozen squirrels to keep mean dogs occupied as they did their thing. There’s more nutty uses of squirrels in crime. Just go to this site (link above).

Even when the squirrels aren’t involved in crime, they can still be a hazard:

Iced squirrels are a problem too. One insurance company paid off a claim when a frozen squirrel fell out of a tree and crashed through a man’s windshield!

Time to walk on down the road…

As It Stands: Meet ALEC: a wolf in sheep's clothing

By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard
Posted: 08/14/2011 02:30:25 AM PDT
What is ALEC, and why should you care?
If you're uncomfortable with corporations writing our laws then you'll be interested in ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), a group that pairs legislators with corporate heads to pass laws favoring big business.
The Washington, D.C.-based group of conservative state legislators and corporate leaders drafts “model” legislation to be passed as state laws Recently, they've been accused of under-reporting their lobbying activities. They claim to be a nonprofit, non-partisan organization, but their actions belie that description.
Common Cause, a nonprofit government watchdog group, sent a letter to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on July 14th, alleging ALEC filed false tax returns and is engaged in lobbying despite its claims to the contrary. ALEC's tax-exempt, charitable status is on the line.
 One obvious counter to their claim of being “non-partisan” is their membership: they have one Democrat and 103 Republican legislators currently in leadership positions.
So exactly what does ALEC do? Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators changes to the law that directly benefit their bottom line, according to the Center for Media and Democracy.
It isn't just legislators who have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board. Yeah, right. And Tea Party members believe in compromise.
This partisan stalking horse that calls itself ALEC introduces over 1,000 bills every year through its overwhelmingly conservative legislative members. Consider this: One in every five bills they present is enacted into law.
According to everything I've read about lobbying, handing bills to legislators so they can introduce them is the very definition. ALEC says “no lobbying is taking place.” I'm of the opinion, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.
ALEC operates under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, which limits lobbying activity and allows corporate backers to deduct their contributions.
Fact: Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators take proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own ideas and important public policy innovations -- without disclosing that corporations crafted and approved the bills.
According to the IRS, more than 98 percent of ALEC's revenues come from sources such as corporations, corporate trade groups and corporate foundations. Getting the picture?
ALEC receives grants from some of the biggest foundations funded by corporate CEOs in the country, like the Charles G. Koch Foundation, the Koch-managed Claude R. Lambe Foundation and the Castle Rock Foundation, to name a few.
The current chairman of ALEC's corporate board is W. Preston Baldwin III, until recently a lobbyist and vice president of State Government Affairs at UST Inc., a tobacco firm now owned by Altria/Phillip Morris USA.
Guess what? Altria is advancing a very short, specific bill to change the way moist tobacco products (such as fruit-flavored “snus” by companies like Skoal) are taxed -- to make them cheaper and more attractive to young tobacco users.
Fact: 20 of the 24 corporate representatives on ALEC's “Private Enterprise Board” are lobbyists representing major firms such as Koch Industries, Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline, Wal-Mart and Johnson and Johnson.
ALEC is blatantly influencing state laws under the guise of a nonprofit, charitable organization. Their claims at promoting “educational activities” would be laughable if they weren't illegal. ALEC engages in outright power-brokering at the taxpayer's expense.

ALEC's operating model raises many ethical and legal concerns. Each state has a different set of ethics laws or rules. The presence of lobbyists alone may cause ethics problems for some state legislators.
Some examples of ALEC's alumni: Speaker of the House John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Congresswoman Michelle Bachman, Congressman Joe Wilson, Gov. Scott Walker and Gov. Jan Brewer.
Seems to me, they're part of the group of Congressional conservatives who refuse to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations. What a surprise!
As It Stands, they should at least be transparent about their past ALEC memberships. Little alumni badges would be nice, don't you think?
Websites carrying this column:
#1 Lobbyingfirms –Industry directory, news and resources. #2 Interceder – Walmart
#3 Famos - claude wolf #4 God’s Vacation #5 Snus Central #6 Swedish Snus

Allen Ginsberg: ‘Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness’

 

image source

In America we ALL have the right to pursue the religion of our choice without being proscuted

I received this email recently and am sharing it with you because it contains an important message. Muslims in America are treated harshly. It’s not easy staying true to their faith surrounded by a generally hostile public.

While I don’t belong to any organized religion, I strongly believe that everyone is entitled to pursue God in their own fashion. Or not to. I recommend taking a 2-minute break and listening to this video. It’s well done, and reminds us we are all neighbors.

Thanks for the reminder Elizabeth!

“Hello Dave,
My Fellow American is a film project in the United States devoted to recognizing that Muslims are our neighbors. I am reaching out to you because you addressed the recent events in Oslo, Norway, in As It Stands and I am hoping you will share this message of tolerance with your readers. We’ve put together a 2 minute film that I believe you will be interested in sharing, watching, and discussing:

http://myfellowamerican.us

I would love it if you could post or tweet about this and share the video. If you can, please let me know. I am here if you have any questions. Thank you so much.”

Elizabeth Potter
Unity Productions Foundation
myfellowamerican.us
facebook.com/MyFellowAmericanProject
@usmuslimstories

Watch out for ‘Grease devils’, spoilers don’t ruin films or stories, and crazed D.C. art critic strikes again at museum

Good Morning Humboldt County!

It’s that time again, when we tilt our cups of coffee and cruise through world of headlines. What a wacky world we live in. Watch out that a “grease devil” doesn’t get you!

"Grease Devil" panic grips rural Sri Lanka

Panic over nighttime assaults blamed on "grease devils" has struck across rural Sri Lanka, leading to the deaths of at least three people this week, prompting women to stay indoors and men to arm themselves, police and local media said. Historically, a "grease devil" was a thief who wore only underwear and covered his body in grease to make himself difficult to grab if chased. But lately, the "grease devil" has become a nighttime prowler who frightens and attacks women.   photo

Spoilers don't ruin stories or films?

If you are angry that someone spoiled the plot of a movie or revealed the ending of a book, don't be.

A new study by researchers from the University of California at San Diego shows spoilers may enhance enjoyment, even for suspense-driven story lines and film plots.

 

Crazed D.C. Art Critic Strikes Museum Again

Four months after she was arrested for trying to tear an $80 million Paul Gauguin painting off the wall of the National Gallery of Art, a Virginia woman returned to the museum last week and attacked a Henry Matisse oil, slamming it against the wall three times and damaging the 1919 work’s antique original frame, The Smoking Gun has learned.

According to police, Susan Burns, 53, last Friday afternoon entered the National Gallery and walked over to “The Plumed Hat,” a Matisse oil painting “valued at 2.5 million dollars.” She then “grabbed both sides of the frame holding said painting,” which measures 18 ¾" x 15".

She claimed in court, “I am from the American CIA and I have a radio in my head. I am going to kill you.”

Time to walk on down the road…

Fighting gloomy times – economy in chaos and an old friend stricken with leukemia

Let’s give credit, where credit is due. Let’s see what the Tea Party will do for you!

I had to drive to Sacramento yesterday to take my wife to the airport. When I drove back home today, I left the radio off.

I took that opportunity to reflect on the last couple of weeks. Our country has been battered by dueling ideologies, and we’ve witnessed how a minority can control the majority.

So, it’s no wonder that Surveys show sharp rise in pessimism as lawmakers grapple with debt, economy .

On the personal side, I just found out yesterday that one of my oldest and dearest friends, Tom Holloway, has leukemia. He’s also my wife’s brother. I met Tom in my freshman year at Azusa College in 1964. I hardly knew he had a sister in those days. It wasn’t until years later, and after I got out of the Army, that the love bug bit Shirley and I. Tom lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Right now, he’s in a VA hospital in Washington D.C. getting chemo treatments 24 hours after he was diagnosed. His little sister, and my wife, Shirley has gone to be at his side.

Tom has other challenging physical ailments that complicate things. He’s 61 years-old, and nine months older than I am. Much to young for this to happen. Amid all the gloom and doom out there in the media, there was one ray of light…actually it was like a beacon to me.. researchers have found a way to cure leukemia by taking a person’s white blood cells and mixing them with a safe form of the HIV virus and infusing them back into the person! That was announced yesterday.

I realize that it’ll take a while to get on the market and to be available to someone like Tom. I like to think he will fight this disease off with what methods are currently available. Who knows? Maybe in several years he will get that magic infusion in the nick of time. Meanwhile my heart is heavy, but I intend to stay positive about Tom’s new battle.

Life is too short. I’m choosing not to let this lousy economy get me down. I’m also choosing to be positive about how things will turn out for Tom. It only makes sense. The alternative is to be bummed out, and to start thinking about Tom in the past tense. He deserves more than that from his old friend.

There’s not a thing I can do about the economy, or Tom’s situation. Once, that might have overwhelmed me. Now, I take life day-by-day with no expectations of a tomorrow. I’m learning how to make every hour count. I’m also making sure that all my friends and family know that I love them.

As It Stands, onward and upward…

Statue of Liberty closed for a year, Gay caveman discovered, and man in carrot costume proposes marriage

Good Morning Humboldt County!

Good to see you here. Pull up a chair and have a cup of fresh brewed coffee with me. As usual, the world is full of interesting tidbits that pass for news. Let’s take a look at these three items. 

Statue of Liberty to close for yearlong repairs

The Statue of Liberty will close for a year at the end of October as it undergoes a $27.25 million renovation that will make the interior safer and more accessible, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced Wednesday.

Researchers Unearth 'First Gay Caveman'

The first known "gay caveman" has been unearthed in a dig outside Prague, researchers believe. Archeological team members based their conclusion on the fact that the male body was interred in a ritualistic way reserved for females. "We know people from this period took funeral rites very seriously so it is highly unlikely that this positioning was a mistake," said the lead archaeologist. "Far more likely is that he was a man with a different sexual orientation—homosexual or transsexual," she added. The body dates to as long ago as 2900 BC, reports the Telegraph, and was buried with the head pointing east and surrounded by domestic jugs. Men at the time were buried facing west and surrounded by weapons and tools.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The reports say the proposal took him three weeks to plan and cost $15,000

Dressed as one of 48 dancing carrots, he proposes

If your girlfriend's favorite color is orange and you want to propose, maybe dressing yourself and 48 friends as giant carrots is the best way to get her to say yes.

According to Chinese news reports and photos posted online, that is what one love struck Chinese man did recently for China's Valentine's Day in the center of the eastern city of Qingdao.

Time to walk on down the road…

‘Have-nots’ worldwide are rebeling against governments

It’s happened throughout history. The masses rise up and destroy oppressive governments.

Remember the so-called “Arab Spring” this year when the common people rose up against dictators throughout the Middle East?

The common man revolted against decades of tyranny. What they’ve done has galvanized the rest of the watching world. Cries for freedom continue in countries like Syria and Libya. The Have’s and the Have-not’s reached critical mass and change is happening there.

It’s not pretty. It’s bloody in most cases. Sometimes peaceful protests work, and sometimes they don’t. The growing gap between the world’s wealthy minority and the increasingly disenfranchised citizens can be seen not just in the Middle East, but throughout Europe and the United States.

Now, we’re in the “Summer of Discontent” for the West.

As riots continued for a fourth day around the U.K., supporters of the controversial far-right group English Defense League (EDL) asked followers to stay away from alcohol when forming neighborhood watches.The irony is the EDL (who have caused cops plenty of grief in the past) want the rioting to stop and are ready to defend neighborhoods under assault from the radical element riding the riots.

Even the EDL realizes that what’s happening is hurting their economy more. For every person protesting the economy peacefully, five are taking advantage of the current unstable situation and are looting stores and burning cars and buildings. I suspect there’s a combination of those who are “have-not’s” and are sick and tired of going without everything from food to medical care, to just plain criminals.

It took the shooting of a man by the police to ignite the riots, now going into their fourth day. Behind that rage, citizens are scared as they see what’s happening to their crippled economy. Fear stalks their stock markets and the streets, as the desperate need for jobs increases.

Just like here in the U.S. People need jobs. We need manufacturing. We can’t keep going on like this. When companies like GE don’t pay a cent in taxes and are showing profits while the rest of America suffers, there’s something wrong. Profitable oil companies getting outlandish tax breaks and federal money are pushing people’s patience to the brink.

I mentioned a study in my first post this morning - The rich are different — and not in a good way, studies suggest that gives a chilling insight of what the majority of Americans are up against. Psychologist and social scientist Dacher Keltner says the rich’s life experiences makes them less empathetic, less altruistic, and generally more selfish.

In fact, he says, the philosophical battle over economics, taxes, debt ceilings and defaults that are now roiling the stock market is partly rooted in an upper class "ideology of self-interest." Can you say Tea Bagger? Is it any wonder that most Americans are angry that a richly-funded minority group has hijacked democracy at least once now (during the contrived debt ceiling crisis)?

The common man in America is watching helplessly as so-called “entitlements” get slashed and corporations become more influential. No surprise. Look at our current Supreme Corporate Court’s track record during the last few years. The common man is defenseless against the mega millions and power the wealthy wield to get their way.

There’s so many organizations packed with CEO’s and legislators I couldn’t list them all in a week. But I’ll give you a real good example this coming Sunday – “Meet ALEC: a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” in my As It Stands column in The Times-Standard. 

As It Stands, it took a revolution to establish our government for ALL OF THE PEOPLE. Let’s hope it won’t take another one to regain the rights we’ve all lost to the wealthy. 

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