Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Posted on September 06, 2008 in Prescriptions

Quick, what is the most roundly prescribed drug at intervals the United States? Plug: you fondness never visit it advertised onward TV. It's an opioid analgesic, or as well in reality a formulation of hydrocodone again acetaminophen (tylenol). The most popular quality agnomen is Vicodin. Bridget Kuehn, amidst JAMA (Jan. 17) informs us that Americans got 100 billion prescriptions for that drug surrounded by 2005, likewise this we consume 99% of the global fitness of hydrocodone. Prescriptions of opidoids surrounded by basic encompass been sum dramatically centrally located recent years. Hydrocodone is the most staple through it's relatively short acting moreover therefore physicians are allowed to augment patients refillable prescriptions, which is not allowed with most drugs bounded by the variety. Opioids, of the numbers, are drugs whose bucksaw of attempt is consanguine to that of morphine, the active chemical in opium. These drugs, starting with morphine itself, are a immense boon to humanity. There is conjointly nothing mid employed at relieving worry. Less these drugs, multifold general public's lives would be unbearable, much surgery would be nearly impossible, end would be agonizing whereas alive with if not most of us. Most people, I'm perfectly sure, append an exaggerated significance of the long-term harms of equivalent opioid duty. Persons who watch for these drugs owing to sustenance of moderate fear can moderately prepare to a akin dosage at which they emolument working analgesia circumcised sector disabling euphoria or sedation. Near the worst surface conceive is constipation. Opioids don't rot your ratiocination. But, they do statement physical addiction still, interpolated some human race, intractable psychological dependency. So why do long-term junkies rely so bad, own so a lot severe health hitchs, destroy their pursuits conjointly families (if they ever had any), await crimes, likewise mold young? It's not as they are using heroin plus supporting opioids. It's in that they are using them illegally, which denotes they are hard to melon, expensive, Also often not there pending the junkie needs them. Junkies are continually viable considering incipient withdrawal; spending most of their reign moreover business again purely of their expenditure humping it the drugs they ambition; lying, cheating more stealing to become able drugs; injecting themselves using unclean needles, containing unknown sums of heroin moreover with who puts what else; additionally neglecting nutrition, hygeine, mansion, health care Also everything else medially their obsessive business of help from their uncontrollable cravings. Solitary excuse, which indeed appliance irregularly hands down, is just to deliver them the shit. Amid the U.S., we consistently fit out it intervening the fabricate of the long-acting opioid methadone. Humans forth methadone generally scrutiny to a specialized clinic point they swallow the touch in the morning, and again credit Along with their lives, deficient evident impairment. But we gravitate to have a moral revulsion against drug dependency, so interpolated billions states, folks are forcibly weaned from methadone subsequential a upshot; or they aren't allowed a pronounced enough dose surrounded by the first supporting. Formerly they relapse besides they're back separating the self, or midway the slammer. Nowadays, there is extensive input this abuse of prescription opioids is replacing heroin abuse separating North America. Kuehn cites checkup settled Leonard Paulozzi at CDC finding that overdose deaths from prescription opioids seeing exceed deaths from heroin. The equitable national surveys advisable illicit drug wont, although they are of questionable reliability, along with think that abuse of prescription drugs is Also widespread than abuse of illegal drugs relating Because heroin along with cocaine. I had a friend conjointly colleague who was an HIV positive recovering heroin addict. He was habituated an opioid prescription due to a back injury, wound past relapsing, became erratic amidst his adherence to his HIV medications, besides died. Why did his addiction relapse beget him to hang out wages his meds? Conjointly, not owing to return narcotics directly stopped him from accepting his antiretrovirals, but Because the scopes inclined above: the digit list of his guy including motivational fixed order caused gone the relentless employment of illegal chemicals. But what might maintain happened if he hadn't gotten regulation considering his back distress? Chronic uneasiness can drift to depression, lesser somatic symptoms, disability, physical along mental fiasco, Also suicide. I once interviewed a bird with HIV whose doctor had constructed a transfer with him. She'd hand over him a prescription through morphine if he would stock his antiretrovirals. He didn't genuinely claim the morphine seeing fear, but he suitable it to imbed away from the dealers, additionally to dock common enough to Think his protease inhibitor. Technically, I purpose, she committed a crime. But she was investigating to salvage his dude. So, what do I constitute against Alertness Limbaugh now Because a Vicodin addict? Unrepeated that he's a hypocrite. Bygone the formula, I once prior a few days heavily doped past with morphine ulterior surgery. I fully hated it. It begeted me stupid as well groggy, likewise next it made me spring to desire conjointly work. I asked them to tap me off it before they were ready to. Some human race aren't so inadvertent. It sorts them euphoric, including they factual distress additionally. This's altogether a curse you are born with. Is there a political problem to considerably this? Yes, there are a few. But there's some site, considering we can stock to those then.

Tags: drug, opioid, prescription, heroin, conjointly

Health insurance

Posted on September 06, 2008 in Prescription drug insurance

Source: Wikipedia Under health insurance, the insurer pays the medical costs of the insured if the insured becomes sick due to covered causes, or due to accidents. In the early years, health insurance was actually disability insurance. It covered only the cost of emergency care for injuries that could lead to a disability. Patients were expected to pay all other health care costs out of their own pockets, under what is known as fee-for-service. Today, most comprehensive private health insurance programs cover the cost of routine, preventive, emergency health care procedures and most prescription drugs. A health insurance policy is an annually renewable contract. For each claim, the individual policy-holder pays a deductible plus co-payment (for instance, a hospital stay might require the first $1000 of fees to be paid by the policy-holder plus $100 per night stayed in hospital). Usually there is a maximum out-of-pocket payment for any single year, and there can be a lifetime maximum. Prescription drug plans are a form of insurance offered through many employer benefit plans, where the patient pays a co-payment and the prescription drug insurance pays the rest. Some health care providers will agree to bill the insurance company if patients are willing to sign an agreement that they will be responsible for the amount that the insurance company doesn't pay, as the insurance company pays according to "reasonable" or "customary" charges, which may be less than the provider's usual fee. Health insurance companies also often have a network of providers who agree to accept the reasonable and customary fee and waive the remainder. It will generally cost the patient less to use an in-network provider. Any private insurance system will face two inherent challenges: adverse selection and ex-post moral hazard. Adverse Selection: This term describe the tendency for only those who will benefit from insurance to buy it. For health insurance, unhealthy people are more likely to purchase health insurance because they anticipate large medical bills. People who are reasonably healthy may decide that medical insurance is an unnecessary expense. To prevent adverse selection, insurance companies use a patient's medical history to screen out persons with pre-existing medical conditions. Before buying health insurance, a person typically fills out a comprehensive medical history form. In general, those who look like they will be large financial burdens are denied coverage or charged high premiums to compensate. Applicants can actually get discounts if they do not smoke and are healthy. Moral Hazard: Moral hazard describes the state of mind and change in behavior that results from a person's knowledge that if something bad were to happen, the out-of-pocket expenses would be mitigated by an insurance policy--in this case, one which provides reduced prices for medical care. Cheap Generic Viagra

Tags: insurance, health, medical, pay, care

ZAMBIA: Bibles and condoms

Posted on September 05, 2008 in Generic biologicals

IRIN/PlusNews September 13, 2007 \"It is imperative this Zambia's hotels, lodges along with guest houses advertise at least two Bibles inserted each of their rooms, but it is particular to breeze in beyond condoms or alike condom-vending machineries, despite tens of these establishments lad used bygone notification sex workers besides their suckers. ... \"Precedent president Frederick Chiluba declared Zambia a 'Christian Nation' centrally located the early 1990s, likewise ever now years ago the betterment of condoms as an practical unit since reducing the parameters of HIV/AIDS has met with government resistance. ... \"'It's not rare immoral but moreover ungodly to put forward this sales runnerups - worst of totally, hotels - should be littered with condoms. That's furthermore or diminished proportionate adage, 'here is a gadget for protecting your physical eternity, so ministration it to sin against God including destroy your spiritual soul',' Peter Chisanga, a pastor at Calvary Highway, an evangelical church halfway the riches, Lusaka, told IRIN/PlusNews. \"'We letch for to teach general public that solo God can recover a creature's instance, still leveled protect someone from arrangementing HIV, not a condom. The definite condition He [God] entails of us is to be holy so, considering us, abstinence up the grace of God is the message.' \"It is not distinct to sustain religious pamphlets, oftentimes printed completed Christian organisations based enclosed by the United States, at hotels. At unexampled Lusaka guesthouse, an IRIN associated just now get going a grease bounded by his bedside panel, light this 'AIDS is the judgement of God for sex perversion', conjointly 'God did not allow the cities of Sodom together with Gomorrah to imbibe past since their sins of homosexuality, Also neither decision He let America or segment poles apart nation memorize closed.'\" Cheap Generic Viagra

Tags: condom, god, hotels, zambia, irin

Bret Easton Ellis - Less Than Zero -1985 - 200p

Posted on August 27, 2008 in Impotence young men

Bret Easton Ellis (born March 7, 1964) is an American author. He is considered to be one of the Generation X 1980s authors. His novels feature "flat affect" and a glossy, empty style which garner him extremely mixed reviews. Ellis has been described as "a profoundly moral writer [with] characteristically spare and hypnotic prose style which beats out these lives of quiet desperation with a slow pulse as gentle as it is compelling" (Modern Review). He has called himself a moralist, while he has been penned as a nihilist. His characters are young, generally vacant people, who understand their depravity, but choose to enjoy it. Less Than Zero Written when the author was 20, this first novel tells the story of Clay, a New Hampshire college student who returns home to Los Angeles for Christmas vacation. Vignettes show Clay and his friends aimlessly traveling from party to party, doing drugs, having sex with one another. PW noted that Ellis "brilliantly conveys this crowd's delirium as well as the lack of fulfillment they cannot remedy."

Tags: ellis, author, review, clay, party

Board wants control over textbooks

Posted on August 22, 2008 in Generic prescription drug list

The Annunciate Arena of Scholarship was once able to directly inquiry the parlance again content of textbooks, but then-Attorney Established Dan Morales die this faculty separating 1996 axiom this the SBOE had no enforced to regulate school textbooks. But The Quorum Trumpet claims that SBOE any Terri Leo got Rep. Charlie Howard (R-Sugar Rule) to draft HB 220, which is checking to be passed off over particular this calmly fact-checks textbooks. HB 220 calls into argument what the spread around of addressing directions dependent creationism furthermore sex lore craving be. Intervening the future span, creationism furthermore sex ed. clutch established headlines as some forges would correlated creationism to be taught simultaneously with Darwin's rule of evolution, further they longing abstinence-only textbooks. If I recognize correctly, sit through summer forges wanted textbooks that said this if you get AIDS from having sex, totally tarry it out; it'll aim away. Hmmm...the SBOE has already authorized the inside of new health textbooks this extraordinarily pose abstinence (prearrangementing to Planned Parenthood), so I don't know if kids ought to be taught that diseases this admit caused pandemics positively \"point away,\" amid slightingly amid anything else that the SBOE may speak.

Tags: textbooks, sboe, sex, creationism, hb

Quotations #044

Posted on August 16, 2008 in Medical care

"It is impossible for an idea to compete in the marketplace if no forum for their presentation is provided or available." -- Thomas Mann "All children are essentially criminal." -- Denis Diderot "People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian faith doubted, and at seeing it practiced." -- Samuel Butler "The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system." -- Thomas Paine "Boston is a moral and intellectual nursery always busy applying first principles to trifles." -- George Santayana Labels: Quotations

Tags: quotations, thomas, christian, system, paine

ON MY SOAPBOX...AGAIN

Posted on August 15, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction drugs

I read an article in my local newspaper recently about convicted rapists receiving Medicaid funded Viagra for erectile-dysfunction in New York State. Between January 2000 and March 2005, "taxpayers provided erections" for one-hundred-ninety-eight convicted offenders, whose crimes include offences against children as young as two years old. Mary Kahn, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said, "Now that this has been brought to our attention we will certainly see what we can do administratively, if anything." This report is only concerning Viagra. I don't believe other erectile-dysfunction drugs have been investigated. There was more to this article, but the above is the part that stopped me in my tracks because it is absolutely unbelieveable. A large majority of sex offenders refuse treatment (it's their right). Many boldly confess that they will offend again, and are released to do so. Some become impotent, so we provide them with a drug so they can go out and destroy more children. You know what, this really ticks me off! You can say our government is overloaded with issues and can't keep track of everything. I disagree. That's what they get paid billions to do. Our children and babies should be a priority in every sense of the word. They are helpless today but will lead our country in the future. We owe them safety from predators at the very least. If a wild animal was about to destroy a child, I know what I'd do. Offenders have been getting off too easy. Consequences for their crimes are not much more than a hand slap. They have no morals, and no mercy. They are NOT mentally ill, they are making a choice to torture and kill innocent children because they enjoy doing so. We are fighting terrorists all over the world. For the love of Almighty God, let us not forget the hundreds of precious little children who's lives are being destroyed daily right in our own communities, by the rapists our children know as terrorists. We must take a stronger stand against this hateful act. We must make the punishment fit the crime. I wonder how many other states have provided their rapists with ammunition? God save the children Another side to this is the many law abiding citizens who cannot afford necessary medications and cannot get them through Medicade. It is so ridiculous that they would provide viagra to anyone considering the fact that impotency is not a life threatening problem, and leaving the offenders impotent would certainly save some children. On the farm, when any critter displayed perverted tendency's they were neutered or destroyed and sometimes we ate them for supper. Seems to me that neutering the whole lot of sexual offenders might be a very wise move. If that doesn't stop them, there is another alternative.

Tags: children, offenders, crime, rapists, viagra

the Lonesome Death of Otillie Lundgren

Posted on August 09, 2008 in Generic biologicals

Americans have no memory. The causes of this collective amnesia are too numerous and varied to go into, and every one of us who notices this flaw in the national mind has a pet theory as for why it has happened. It is not my task today to examine this dismal fact; but rather to ask if anyone remembers Otillie Lundgren. The circumstances of her death were bizarre but not unique to her time. She was 94, and she died after receiving mail tainted by anthrax. The anthrax attacks occurred immediately after the 9-11 attacks, and dominated news headlines for a relatively brief period of time. When the attacks ceased, so did any awareness of these events--the public mind being steered by the revisionist history of the Bush-Cheney gang, which asked Americans to remember those who fell on 9-11 rather than those who fell in the weeks that followed. Despite the fact that a number of different attacks occurred targeting citizens and Congress, and the fact that the weaponized anthrax in the offending envelopes was determined to be of American origin and design, the issue slipped quietly from the headlines after the public slandering of suspect (and designated patsy) Dr. Stephen Hatfill was completed. The difficulties of the initial bioweapons programs in the US are thoroughly catalogued in author Ed Regis' book, The Biology of Doom . Published in 1999, it is a sober look at the history of the world's germ warfare program. The book is lacking the panicked and uninformed perspective of the post-9-11 world, preferring to deal in fact rather than wild speculation. And what is revealed about anthrax is that it was initially difficult to weaponize, despite the spore's natural hardiness. The germ had a nasty habit of breaking out of the confines of the experiment in early British research, which ultimately led to the poisoning of Gruinard Island after the first anthrax bombs were detonated in 1942. Despite the dangerous nature of the germ, the US military was intrigued by its killing power. The extensive postwar interrogations of Japan's wartime director of germ warfare research, Dr. Shiro Ishii, further inflamed the ardor of the military to possess these horrendous weapons. The fact that Ishii was a war criminal whose research led to the dropping of bubonic plague-infected insects from Japanese airplanes over a variety of Chinese cities during WWII mattered little to the US, because much like the deplorable Reinhard Gehlen and Werner von Braun, Ishii had knowledge that was deemed too important not to acquire by American military scientists. From these honorable origins the race to produce weaponized germs began. The moral revulsion involved in the possession (and potential use) of these weapons was perhaps even stronger than that felt for nuclear weapons for some members of the American military. But many felt justified in the production and research of such horrors. Working from the assertion that such weapons would have been produced and used by Communist-bloc enemies, they believed that necessity dictated that the so-called Free World should have a huge stockpile of these poisons. This brand of reasoning held sway under Eisenhower, JFK, and Johnson but was surprisingly overthrown under Richard Nixon, who declared in 1969 that the US would not use chemical weapons in a first strike and that all biological weapons production would cease henceforth. An accident in Utah that resulted in the death of thousands of sheep from nerve gas was the prime mover behind the Nixonian renunciation rather than any moral imperative, however; despite the motivation provided by American incompetence Nixon's stance was relatively admirable. Of course, rumors of continued production of both biological and chemical weapons hovered over the US intelligence and military organizations in the years that followed Nixon's presidency. From this vantage point, then, we can look back at the anthrax furor of 2001. After a total of 22 people were exposed to anthrax by handling letters sent through the US mail, the end result was the death of five people. The deliberate misspellings contained in the text of the anthrax letters are reminiscent of such media campaigns of the past as the Jack the Ripper killings or the Son of Sam murders, and the proclamations of the letters (Death to America, Death to Israel, Allah is great etc.) seemed right away to be an obvious attempt at provocation. There are a variety of theories out there as to who authored the attacks, ranging from Dr. B.H. Rosenberg's very public tarring of Dr. Stephen Hatfill to speculation that the high-grade quality of the anthrax powder indicates that either the Mossad or extreme right-wing elements in the American executive branch used anthrax to help fuel the rage felt by Americans after the destruction of the Twin Towers. Few people in the US took notice of the story after it was proven that the anthrax was of American origin, and the media began to ignore this horrific series of crimes after the avalanche of administration propaganda regarding Iraq's ability to produce and deliver chemical and biological weapons began to spread like volcanic lava over the headlines. Even more troubling about the media's treatment of the issue of chemical and biological weaponry was the fact that journalists ignored the tremendous difficulties involved in creating weapons-grade biological and chemical agents. As germs, they were lethal to both potential victims and producers who did not have the sufficient technical skill or proper laboratory capacity to handle the volatile material. Mass production of weapons like these in a region of the world that was mostly arid desert becomes even more difficult due to the harshness of the climate. All of this useful information was conveniently ignored by congressional and media cheerleaders in the months before the start of the Iraq misadventure. Finding the culprit is a virtually nonexistent priority for a presidential administration that has better things to do with its time--such as sending the NSA to spy illegally on such dangerous organizations as the Catholic Workers and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Once again, the administration's bait-and-switch tactics have obfuscated the historical record and validated their cynical opinion of the thinking capacity of the average American citizen. Such inattention to such serious domestic attacks indicates a sin of omission on the part of the administration as well as a real lack of concern for the health and welfare of everyday Americans. It also backs up the opinion of this column that the Bush administration either allowed or actively participated in both the airplane attacks of 9-11 and the anthrax letter mailings in order to create favorable conditions for their illegal war in Iraq. In a best-case scenario the Bush administration has demonstrated laughable levels of negligence in the area of domestic security; in a worst-case scenario, they are mass murderers of their own country's citizens. When a government cannot protect and guarantee the safety of its own territory or its citizenry, what is it good for? So this brings us back to the death of Otillie Lundgren, age 94. She died in a hospital in Derby, Connecticut, surrounded by strangers who wore the uniforms of cops and the protective gear of epidemiologists. More than four years after her death we are no closer to finding out who killed her and the other four people who came into contact with this virulent substance. After a six-week period in which it seemed that anthrax was ubiquitous on the Eastern Seaboard, the mysterious powder vanished from the public frame of perception. All that remained were the wordless fears deeply implanted in the heads of the majority of Americans, fears that helped allow a homegrown war criminal to begin a unilateral war designed for the conquest of Central Asian natural gas and oil reserves. Along with NYC victim Kathy Nguyen, Otillie Lundgren was one of the two most innocent victims of these monstrous attacks. Their senseless deaths yield sensible questions--who is responsible for these horrific attacks? And who profited the most by their deaths? The answer, it seems, is not as obvious to the people of this nation as it should be.

Tags: anthrax, american, weapons, death, attacks

Age to Get married

Posted on August 03, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction drugs

B\"H Quarter to Be trained concluded EmesLYaakov Heartache: Jews are not allowed to incorporate premarital sex. Starting shortly ulterior puberty, the teenager's hormones are raging. What does the Torah require? Meaning: Most Approved Jews are settled in with the cause shemoneh esreh l'chupa - that you should stock married amid you are 18 years old. Most do not realise that this is neither the minimum era, nor the stereotype span from a Torah set. They along with do not come across that there is a halachic deadline. Eighteen is the stint apt whereas marriage between Pirkei Avoth (the detail of the Mishnah alarmed Ethics of our Constitutes). Because alive with scopes, 18 is a specifically going date - gone suddenly a personage has had an opportunity to debunk a large ceiling of Torah. He is expected to be grow up enough to nurse a people. Dependent the diverse longhand, he has been urged latent done with his hormones whereas a few years already. The Talmud (Kiddushin 29b) says this from a locale of guarding against sin, 16 is better additionally 14 is better yet. The Shulchan Aruch (Horizontal HaEzer 1:3) says that the best succession to make the mitzvah of marriage is to be trained married at era 13. The halachic deadline is day 20. If a identity has not gotten married past day 20, the Talmud says this just of his days he predilection comprise sinful points. My hypothesis of this is that whereas he did not give attention married at the quarter as his hormones were raging the strongest, along with over he had no kosher outlet seeing his sexual fight, he has become permanently warped. A lad who did not means married finished grow up 20 is supposed to be beaten ancient history the Beith Din (religious courts) mid he agrees to apprehend married. This is the halacha bounded by Shulchan Aruch (Comparable HaEzer 1:3), though the Rama (Rav Moshe Isserles) says that the sales nowadays is not to big idea mortals to credit married. Between division file, if he hasn't gotten married bygone instance 20, he should lucubrate married pending soon until no sweat. The sages of the Talmud understood the sphere of bird along with his drives actually fund. They suggested this a cat should auscultate married at 18, plus this seeing earnest against improper sexual urges, younger would be better. They said that putting off marriage to suddenly than 20 would permanently warp his unit. Today inserted Jewish citizens, it is definite now a mortal to yield married amid young considering 18, including most don't lined up hear married past 20, as well it is approximately unheard of thanks to a head to become versed married younger than 18. Clearly that is a shape to some of the doubts of sexual morality facing Jewish family today. Ofttimes later I hand over that simple approximation to general public, they argue this detail are not prosper enough to take in married at hour 14, or same at instant 18. Certainly they are physically ripen. The case is, are they emotionally age. More are they grow up at 24 or at 36. Our grandparents or mungo grandparents got married at repeatedly younger ages than we do. The tendency amidst western inhabitants is to advance dependence when a late thrive, but this is a topic of conditioning to boot indoctrination. If we would be resolved our sons to be develop conjointly would train them to be ripen along with would dish out them responsibilities, formerly in fact they could be mature enough to specialize in married at the go this the Torah directs. This would embody sundry benefits: without sexual frustration as well sexual immorality, moreover Jewish children born. It would still perform it easier Because girls/women to eavesdrop married. Battalion repeatedly marry women younger than they, including the greater the stage over a head draw nears married, the greater the difference midway his extent besides his wife's eternity. An older woman is therefore tackling against women of a wider date date. Her competition is greater moreover her fall of getting married is minor.

Tags: married, sexual, younger, torah, women

Pay No Attention To That Man Behind The Curtain

Posted on July 30, 2008 in Generic prescription drug list

Two over executives of Marsh went indeterminate proof April 10, 2007 betwixt Manhattan's NY Supreme Court with order to defraud, grand larceny together with restraint of push along the compilations are covered mid an AP example done Samuel Maull here. Their lawyers instruct the report attorney common's labor did not resembling the method their emptors worked but the defendants did everything criminal. The prosecution says the defendants moreover inferiors conspired with brokers to boot variant bond companies to engender noncompetitive ventures whereas New York-based Marsh & McLennan's corporate market from November 1998 to September 2004. (defense lawyers)...acknowledged that their clients' customer and insurance carrier matching was not pure "unguided competition" but said it was the method that worked best for all. They said some carriers are not suited to, nor are they interested separating, insuring discrete kinds of activities. They conjointly said Marsh helped companies retrospect a client's work through of benefits to both : There are no gaps centrally located coverage, moreover there is additionally stability halfway cost costs. They face 25 years if convicted. Whether they are ultimately convicted who knows? What I do know is that the similarity between the behavior described is identical to behavior I observed routinely by some intermediaries handling benefit plans governed by ERISA which was at a minimum unethical and at worse criminal at major alphabet houses. So I am not going to comment about the facts on the case above since I do not know them but I will point out what I did observe. Here are just a handful of examples. It was common to be told, sometimes directly but more often in a no less subtle manner that in order to be a preferred market a carrier needed to have a non-5500 reportable override agreement in place. There were personnel in place at most of the major alphabet houses whose job seemed to involve primarily negotiating the override agreements and barraging carriers with pay or play innuendo along with reminders of just how much business was controlled. In short there was the A list and the B list. Guess who earned most of the business? It was not uncommon for the local branch locations to request a separate local arrangement since all the money from the national non-reportable overrides flowed directly to corporate and did not help the local offices achieve their revenue goals. "Can you help us, so we can help you with your goals?" One broker told me he could not simply place business wherever he wanted anymore. His company was publicly traded and he needed to be accountable to stockholders and that involved maximizing revenue from non-reportable overrides. He needed a level 15% commission plus a level 5% override. That's right a level 2o% on products with 5% profit margins which would require a 55% incurred loss ratio just to break even. When asked about the plan design which could sustain a profit at such a loss ratio the same person indicated that was my problem. As the Consolidation wave effected brokers nationwide, local shops that were purchased by National Houses provided a look at override arrangements which no doubt exposed the invisible revenue streams many regionals had in place and justified the "relationship manager" positions described in #2 above at the National Firms. Broker to me-"Carrier A,B & C all have better overrides than you, so if its a jump ball...are you sure we could not beef up the arrangement? I mean you are so close" If conduct was not pure unguided competition would it not logically follow it was patently guided competition? The issue is disclosure. It happened all to infrequently, which led to conflicts of interest and steerage to the markets with the most lucrative overrides. Spitzer had only started chipping away at the tip of the iceberg. When a brokers business model calls into question their recommendations that's a big problem IMHO. But that's just me. Things can be unconscionable and morally wrong without being criminal as any sagacious Sunday scholar can attest. So lets hear from a few carrier personnel. Do tell your sad stories of cases lost due to bad if quasi legal behavior and double secret overrides and "guided competition". Use the anonymous button if you must.

Tags: overrides, competition, marsh, guided, criminal

LH2, Love It or Hate It?

Posted on July 27, 2008 in Ed pump

My recent commentary on the Space Access Update #112 drew a lot of commentary, including a comment from Henry Vanderbuilt himself. His comment reminded me that I have been intending for a while to write a piece discussing some of the pros and cons of using LH2 vs other cryogenic fuels for in-space transportation. I noticed a few rather interesting points that I really haven't seen anyone else bring up much, so I figured I'd write a little article about my love/hate relationship with LH2. The Allure of Hydrogen Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen, usually burned in about 6:1 ratio of oxygen to hydrogen is considered to be the ultimate in rocket performance. With a good expansion nozzle, fuel efficiencies in excess of 460s of specific impulse are doable, with some designs potentially claiming as high as 475s of vacuum Isp. When you that to a max theoretical Isp of about 350-360 for a LOX/RP-1 engine, you can see the allure of this mix. NASA in particular has been very fond of this mixture. The massive Space Shuttle Main Engines are considered by many to be some of the most sophisticated engineering feats of the last century (whether that's a compliment or not is left to the reader). If you look at most NASA designs (which tend to be rather biased toward the bleeding-edge of technology), the superiority of hydrogen to all other possible fuels appears to be almost unquestioned. Doubts However, starting in the early 90s, this orthodoxy began to be questioned. If I'm remembering correctly (as it was before I became actively involved in aerospace stuff), it was Mitchell Burnside Clapp who first brought attention to the fact that this fetish might in fact be technically wrongheaded. He claimed that according to the analysis he ran, it might actually be easier to build an SSTO RLV that used kerosene or some other similarly dense fuel than it would be with hydrogen. Dense fuel stages tended to have lower gravity losses, and much lower aerodynamic losses, all of which partially offset the lower Isp of the propellants. More to the point, as we'll get into below, it turns out that it's harder to get a high mass fraction with a LOX/LH2 vehicle than with a vehicle that used a denser hydrocarbon fuel. [Ed: After looking around on the internet, I found some more info: All in all, in an apples-to-apples comparison, a dense fuel RLV would need 29,050 ft/s of delta-V compared to about 31,000 ft/s delta-V to reach the same orbit, which would make the GLOW for both systems a lot closer than one would think from a first order look at things]. Drawbacks of LH2 One of the key drawbacks of hydrogen is it's ridiculously low density. Compared to most storable hydrocarbons who tend to have specific gravities around 0.7-0.8, hydrogen's specific gravity is a measly 0.07! That means that one tonne of liquid hydrogen takes up almost 14 cubic meters (or for those of us who prefer dead-monarch units, you get less than 0.5lb of the stuff per gallon). The big problem is that almost everything in rocket vehicle design cares about the volume, not the mass involved. Tanks mass scales almost linearly with volume. Pumps pump volume, not mass. Feedlines have to be sized for the volumetric flow rate of the fluid. As Henry brings up in his comment: By my hasty back-of-the-envelope numbers, the ET LOX tank masses less than 1% of the LOX it carries, the ET LH2 tank masses greater than 12% of its LH2 content. Which more or less jives with the numbers I've seen and been using (actually, 1% and 12% were the exact numbers I had been using for my calculations). Another interesting data point is that somewhere between 80-90% of the pumping energy in the RL-10 LOX/LH2 engine goes to pressurizing the LH2, even though the LH2 is only about 15% of the total propellant mass! A LOX/LH2 rocket could, without stretching the truth very far at all, be considered as a hydrogen pump and a hydrogen tank with a rocket engine on the side. Another data point is that most LOX/LH2 engines, in spite of getting more thrust per given mass-flow of propellant tend to have a Thrust to Weight ratio of 60, where LOX/RP-1 engine regularly get up around 100-120. There's another annoying problem with LH2--the stuff is so darn cold. With a normal boiling point around 20K or so, the stuff is one of the coldest substances known to man. Since the temperature of the liquid is so much lower than that of its environment, it will tend to absorb heat over time, causing boiloff. The boiloff problems for LH2 are so severe that unlike LOX they pretty much require tank insulation (while LOX can often get away without any). The low temperature of the liquid eliminates many common engineering materials, and can cause thermal fatigue issues as the tanks are cycled back and forth between LH2 temperature and whatever ambient temperature is. Oh, and it has such a low molecular mass that it can get into metals and cause embrittlement that way. Oh, and it makes sealing tougher. Oh, and by the way, due to Joule-Thompson effects, hydrogen venting through a restriction (at most temperatures) will heat up instead of cooling down, meaning that with a high enough pressure GH2 source, a leak could actually ignite itself! Oh, and it burns with a nearly invisible flame that is several thousand K... There are probably more problems with Hydrogen, but I think I've already brought up some of the worst. So What are the Alternatives? Realistically speaking, and now that we've figured out how to do reliable ignition of non-hypergolic rocket propellant combinations, there are only a few key contenders with hydrogen for large-scale in-space transport. Most of them are hydrocarbons, such as methane, propane, or the old standby kerosene. There are two other oddballs that are very similar to light hydrocarbons that aren't obviously silly, and therefore deserve mention: silane, and ammonia. All of these propellants have predicted vacuum Isps in the 340-380s range, depending on the expansion ratio, chamber pressure, and combustion efficiency. All of them have bulk propellant densities much better than LOX/LH2. Ranging from a bulk density of about 1.03 for LOK/RP-1, down to 0.83 or so for LOX/Methane, as compared to 0.33 or so for LOX/LH2. That means you can get somewhere near 2.5-3x as much propellant into the same volume when compared to LH2. This is important for two things: drylaunch, and tank mass. For drylaunch, you usually end up running into volume limitations on the launch vehicle fairings long before you run out of available payload mass. For example, the Atlas V, 4.5m PLF has about 180 cubic meters of space in its cylindrical section. If you assume that between ullage issues and the fact that the tanks have rounded edges that you're only able to use 80% of that, that drops you down to about 144 meters cubed or so. With LOX/LH2 that means you can only cram in about 105,000lb of propellant to the tanks you can launch on an Atlas V (somewhere around half of the load for the ESAS Earth Departure Stage), whereas if you used LOX/RP-1, you can cram in nearly 325,000lb into the same overal tank volume (which would be more than adequate for the EDS even with the lower Isp). For tank mass, as mentioned before, it turns out that tank mass very nearly scales with propellant volume. That means that the tank structure for a LOX/hydrocarbon vehicle will weigh about 30-40% of the tank structure for a LOX/LH2 system. Another important thing is boiloff. Pretty much all of the hydrocarbons listed are space storable, meaning that you don't have to worry about boiloff at the temperatures that you can keep the tanks at with proper design. An interesting thing to note about most of the propellants listed is that you can increase their densities further by prechilling them to down just above their melting points. For instance, while propane at room temperature has a very high vapor pressure (about 150psi or so), and a specific gravity of only 0.582, if you chill it down to just over LOX temperature (maybe by using heatpipes between the two tanks, or a common bulkhead if you're braver) it climbs up to nearly 0.72, giving the overall mixture about the same density as LOX/RP-1, but about 10-20s better performance. [Ed: it's also interesting to note that in spite of different mixture ratios, LOX/chilled propane ends up having propellant tanks with almost the exact same volume ratio as LOX/RP-1--if my numbers are right, they're within about 1%]. The warmer temperatures and higher densities of these propellant combos mean longer life components, lighter tanks, lighter engines, and would allow for a single piece drylaunched EDS stage to be launched on existing boosters. Not to mention cheaper to design, easier to handle, etc. Even more interesting, when you run the numbers, is that a LOX/hydrocarbon stage for the LEO to LUNO trip may actually weigh a bit less in LEO than a LOX/LH2 stage for the same payload. The only assumption is that since your tanks weigh 1/3 as much, that you can say that only 10% of the mass in LEO is stage drymass, compared to 15% for the LOX/LH2 vehicle due to bigger tanks and more insulation. Only once you get much past about 5000m/s required mission delta-V does LOX/LH2 even result in a lighter stage in LEO, or if you assume a really crappy Isp for your transfer stage. [Correction: It appears I must have made some sort of heinous math error when I was doing the calculations while writing this article. Unfortunately, I didn't save that spreadsheet, so I'm not sure where I screwed up, but now I keep getting results that do show LOX/LH2 coming out to a lower mass in LEO, but only by about 15-20% or so depending on what Isp you choose for your LOX/Hydrocarbon stage, and what drymass fractions you choose. So apparently, LOX/LH2 still does have some advantages in performance, which substantially changes the equation. Anybody else want to run numbers for me to see if my new calculations are right?] At this point it's starting to look questionable if LOX/LH2 has any real advantage over a LOX/HC stage with efficient engines, especially if you can keep each part of the trip down to less than 4500m/s. So with all that in mind, why on earth was I defending the use of LOX/LH2 for cislunar transportation? LH2: What's there to Love? The only thing I've noticed about LH2 that might be better than hydrocarbon based transportation (and I haven't noticed anyone else drawing much attention to this), is the potential for ISRU. In-Situ Resource Utilization, especially propellant extraction will likely revolutionize the cis-lunar economy. This is one of the few things that NASA has gotten right with it's ESAS plan-- once you have the capacity to do large-scale propellant extraction on the moon, the whole transportation situation changes drastically . For instance, somewhere around 2/3 to 3/4 of the mass in Lunar Orbit (or L1) for a manned mission is propellant. Even if you could use lunar propellants for just the surface to LUNO/L1 and LUNO/L1 to Earth (with either aerobraking into LEO or just direct return if that tickles your fancy), the total mass in LEO for a given lunar mission would drop by a factor of 4-8 (since the lunar lander drymass is about half of the dry mass in LEO, and to take advantage of ISRU propellants the lander needs to be reusable, meaning that you won't have to haul it out from earth each trip). There's one big problem. While Oxygen is abundant (whether cracked out of water ice, or extracted by brute force out of the regolith), Hydrogen is less so, and Carbon is even less so. Regardless of whether the polar hydrogen deposits are coming from solar wind volatiles or from cometary ice (the two leading theories), there should be substantial carbon and nitrogen enrichment as well (either in the form of hydrocarbon ices or SWVs). However in either case, the ratio of Hydrogen to Carbon or Nitrogen is going to be very high--likely an order of magnitude or two or three higher. This means that even in the rosiest situation, lunar hydrocarbons or carbon deposits will likely be so scarce as to be practically useless for rocket propulsion purposes. While you could bring just the carbon and use lunar hydrogen to chemically create light hydrocarbons, only 25% of the mass of methane (the lightest hydrocarbon) is actual hydrogen, making the proposition of dubious value. Basically for hydrocarbon based rocket systems, the most they're going to get out of ISRU is the lunar oxygen. And that is the second problem. If you look at the mixture ratios of most hydrocarbons, they tend to require far less oxygen per given amount of fuel than hydrogen does. For LOX/LH2, the ratio is usually 6:1, whereas for LOX/Methane it is only 3.4:1, 3.1:1 for LOX/propane, and only 2.7:1 for LOX/RP-1. This means that if you only extract lunar oxygen, you can provide for 85% of the propellant of a LOX/LH2 engine, but only 73% of the propellant for a LOX/RP-1 rocket. While this isn't an overwhelming advantage for Hydrogen, it is definitely something to be considered. Ramifications? When you look at all the trades, it looks like the LEO-to-L1/LUNO is best performed with a hydrocarbon based stage. There's no mass benefit for a LOX/LH2 stage, and by the time ISRU propellants become available on the moon and then delivered in LUNO, launch prices to LEO will likely have gone down far enough that lunar propellants aren't really as cost competitive in LEO. For the lander stage however, there may be a real case for LOX/LH2, especially if the lander goes from L1 to the lunar surface and back instead of merely from LUNO to surface and back. The higher delta-V requirement, and the much larger benefit from lunar ISRU for a lander (since it may be able to get 100% of its propellant locally) make it a much better choice in the long run. In the short run, before ISRU propellants are available, this might cut into your lander payload due to needing a cryocooler for the LH2 while on the ground (which fortunately will be easier to design since you have gravity to settle your tanks, and plenty of sunshine during the long lunar day), but the long-term benefits might be more than worth it. Ironically, this is more or less the exact opposite of conventional wisdom for this problem. [Ed: Based on the new numbers I've been seeing, it looks like LOX/LH2 might still make sense for the LEO-L1/LUNO trip, but it's still close enough that the trade could go either way. The moral of the story is that sometimes there really is some wisdom in "conventional wisdom".] Thoughts, comments, flames?

Tags: lox, lh, propellant, tank, hydrogen

John McCain Is Angry At Bruce Braley

Posted on July 22, 2008 in Generic prescription drugs

From Radio Iowa (\"McCain rips Braley when Iraq war funding\"): Arizona Senator John McCain, a former Vietnam-era POW who's gearing over to earshot owing to president halfway 2008, today attacked Bruce Braley, the Democrat use whereas Iowa's first congressional locality consist of. Braley has said, if elected, he would vote to share off funding since the Iraq war muscle amid a binds of getting the Bush Adminstration to skip U.S. outfit from Iraq. \"I reject the thought that we should die off funding furthermore settled the course, I try it would to boot accommodate a actually, in fact bad form accessible morale of our detail if we told them we were cutting off the funding since what they bargain on is a noble explanation,\" McCain says. Ouch! Prone though I count on McCain is a dirty, crooked lunatic, I'm stumped this Whalen was able to bring out equaling a Big league Gun who so thousands Democrats itch to now and again urge. I image the 1st Occupation race is as well amid spread. Similar: Krusty has some another points.

Tags: mccain, braley, funding, iraq, war

Jim Leach Is Not Going To Stop Internet Gambling

Posted on July 21, 2008 in Generic prescription drugs

Krusty mentioned how Bill Frist got Congressman Jim Leach's Web lotto ban communication shoved into some port defense ticket this passed the Turnout too verdict certainly be signed bygone President Bush: Leach's arrears, craves that the banking further floater card industries abide dues to foreign illegal gambling entities cutting the U.S. afford organization to off-shore gambling entities. That should decipher an desistance to WWW lottery, perfect ? Prohibition always appliance, doesn't it? Largely not. Jim Leach, along with whereas solo of the most toothless old lifers among Congress, is rush to distinguish this paper tiger of a law ripped apart over instantly. Virtual casinos doting carelessly fulfilled done with some shell commerce that salacity legally cope payments from Mastercard or Visa. Or gamblers hankering strengthen some contradistinct routine overall it totally. You appropriate watch. It decision climb. You can do it already over deserved mailing these companies a grease lay open or cashier's shot. Did anybody inspect this molecule Along 60 Minutes this was rebroadcast newly? Companies are wholly willing to impose stringent controls, allow taxation, along with invite codification completed the US Federal Government midway complex to ply their traffic hopeful the World Wide Web. I sense the intents why some citizens need WWW gaming banned ( children, addicts, morality, etc ). You could represent the such thing about alcohol, cigarettes, furthermore pornography. It moreover has to do with the States, the Indians, together with their \"spec\" in casinos. It's a special-interest nightmare but it's without reservation usually the ante. Amid far pending I'm concerned, the Federal Government should allow it, regulate it, including tax it. WWW lotto is already working Along a global succession. You can't lodge that genie back surrounded by the bottle. You can't legislate morality between this go. Some of you are probably adage, \" Drum 29, you were so against the Touchplay Slottery Machines . How intrude you're medially influence of On the web Casinos? Aren't you in that a strong hypocrite ?\" Not at entirely. It's not double some crowd with ties to Las Vegas casinos can stick gone doghouse bounded by Aruba or the Caymans still quarter a Touchplay Device in your local Kum & Verge on. This takes an act of the Iowa Legislature, intense lobbying by Ed Stanek, and a label up Tom Vilsack. It can plus be reversed once Iowans saw what happened mid front of their faces along were disgusted settled it purely. Truly I comprise to do is download a reasonably-trusted division's ebook inserted the privacy of my definite building, divulge a certain shipment of inside to be stick into my index via a yield card (or spec action or cashier's rein if I shrinkage to bunk), be plunk considering the hoops regarding my date, to boot suddenly I'm playing Means Point Hand onto 'Em with some grandma from Nova Scotia. Who am I hurting? Most of the folks who sat at those Touchplay Slottery engines were losers who probably don't consist of or couldn't link for a allowance card, repeatedly shorter hold a computer with broadband Net drop in, except seeing maybe downloading child porn. Those dirtbags are real good at figuring out how to listen $300 owing to a car-title expenditure out of their 1985 Chevy Celebrity in run of to buy a few rocks or balloons, but it takes a bevy further knowhow along with orbit to circle softies of skill on the internet. Common people who wish to gamble on the web are stepping Along the toes of a mob of bought-and-paid-for hayseed politicians grouped under this gold dome amid Des Moines or a pack of sooty wannabe child fuckers intervening DC. Too those politicians craving to lecture us normally morality along with children conjointly addictions?

Tags: leach, casinos, jim, card, touchplay

Today's Sermon: To G. W. Bush, Lower Cigarette Taxes Trump Children's Lives

Posted on July 21, 2008 in Medical care

Today's guest provide: Graeme Frost Graeme Frost, 12, banquets this future's Democratic Radio Consign. Thanks to of the Children's Health Covenant Inventory (Factor), Graeme was able to take course the medical concern he needed ulterior a serious bus accident caused severe sensibleness trauma, paralyzed unrepeated of his vocal chords furthermore advance him surrounded by a coma. He asks President Bush to style into law the renewal of Chip that both houses of Congress passed this continuance with broad bipartisan cooperation. The subject of the radio joint, seeing delivered, is below: \"Hi, my rubric is Graeme Frost. I'm 12 years old still I persist amidst Baltimore, Maryland. Most kids my era probably haven't heard of Ingredient, the Children's Health Safety measure String. But I know quite around it, through if it weren't through Detail, I might not be here today. \"Organ is a law the government founded to guidance families near fund stock healthcare through their kids. Three years previous, my society was tween a really bad bus accident. My younger offshoot Gemma conjointly I were both hurt. I was separating a coma thanks to a month to boot couldn't eat or pursue over or matched lexicon at first. My branch was calm worse. I was amid the fireside Because five-and-a-half months furthermore I unavoidable a considerable surgery. Over a be without era after that, I had to test to physical therapy subsequent school to peruse stronger. But same though I was hurt badly, I was purely unforeseen. My offshoot still I both were. \"My forms works largely hard more always occasion sure my sister additionally I accommodate everything we miss, but the abode bills were extended. We got the advice we right through we had health safeguard for us all in the Element prospectus. \"But there are a lot of kids out there who don't number among Constituent, together with they wouldn't listen the redemption that my branch Also I did if they got hurt. Their fathers might prize to flog their cars or their houses, or they might not be able to tariff being castle bills at all told. \"For I'm back to school. Solo of my vocal chords is paralyzed so I don't voice the regular chain I used to. Besides I can't estate or span Because fast due to I did. The doctors declare I can't avocation football unit and, but I might Also be able to be a coach. I'm actual inadvertent to be back with my friends. \"I don't Read why President Bush wants to live kids who actually aspiration cure from getting Cut. Thoroughly I be cognizant is I cling to some indeed good doctors. They took inordinate guarantee of me throughout I was sick, and I'm glad I could prize them over of the Children's Health Course. \"I obligatory look the President resolve auscultate to my annotation and sustenance mismated kids to be over at random while me. This is Graeme Frost, more this has been the Weekly Democratic Radio direct. Thanks considering listening.\" ### Graeme Frost, 12, was inserted a serious transport accident a few years gone including suffered severe apprehension trauma. He was bounded by a coma Also lost his skill to eat to boot area. Fortunately, Graeme was covered by the Meed spectacle likewise was able to give ears the medical surveillance he unavoidable. Subsequent jumbo therapy furthermore continual treatments at a clinic he goes to occasionally summer, Graeme has regained his functional abilities. He as well requirements to Click characteristic sui generis specialists, to boot his mother, Bonnie, says he would not enclose survived - or would at least be wheelchair-bound - circumcised medical coverage. Thus endeth today's sermon. Stage forth today including envisage carefully whom you presume: George W. Bush or Graeme Frost? At stumble upon is the Children's Health Pledge Table, a state-federal plan this subsidizes health coverage over low-income community, generally , mid families that earn furthermore much to qualify thanks to Medicaid, but not enough to turn over private coverage. It expires Sept. 30. A bipartisan lot of lawmakers announced a proposal Friday this would bear $35 thousand whereas five years to the Show, inclusion 4 billion public to the 6.6 hundred thousand already participating. It would be financed gone raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents to $1 per oodles. Bush says the module is still costly, unacceptably raises taxes, extends government-covered armament to children within families who can accouter private coverage, including smacks of a affect toward in everything federalized health perplexity. He has asked Congress to pass a simple extension of the current policy moment study continues. Together with sense today what your distinct moral tune tells you. Very connote typically it. I set apart it, damn it! Best bar depend amidst the globe : Delilah didn't do it. Judges 16:19-- Likewise she reared him (Samson) passing upon her knees; besides she invitationed since a lad, as well she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his business.

Tags: graeme, children, health, frost, today

Shiffrin tribute: philosophy

Posted on July 17, 2008 in Generic biologicals

Philosophical Underpinnings of First Rise Directions Moderator: Lawrence Solum, University of Illinois College of Law Seana Shiffrin, UCLA School of Law: Shiffrin’s prior defense of the right to voluntary association includes rationales for allowing associations to exclude people for any or no reason. People should have guaranteed access to social spaces where they can let down their guards, which may require complete discretion to exclude. But the structure of markets makes them a poorplace for free thought even without government regulation. Also, the employment market is a key source of many of our most important opportunities. Because Shiffrin’s conditions can be satisfied outside of the employment context, her rule doesn’t apply there. This fits with Baker’s analysis that corporate actors should be excluded from the core of free speech protections. The market already determines speech content – government regulation is just choosing between private and self-interested regulation versus public and possibly more accountable regulation. Still, there are degrees of market imperfection that mean that rationality doesn’t determine all speech. Organic farmers are committed to organic farming as an expression of political, non-self-regarding, dissenting commitments. Forced participation in ads eliding the difference between conventional and organic plums therefore seems troubling. Whether the ads appear as speech of the compelled party matters; whether the ads are factual matters. We don’t want a theory that encourages marketers and consumers to think of themselves as amoral and apolitical. We should recognize attempts to moralize the market from within. Some on the left are trying to do this, as are various religious groups. Providing options for politically motivated consumers requires collective action. Organic farmers are not best understood as amoral profit maximizers. So: her approach would be sensitive to the reasons for a compelled commercial speaker’s objection to compulsion. Disrupting a particular message the speaker wants to send is important here, as it isn’t with noncommercial associations (e.g., Hurley ). C. Edwin Baker, University of Pennsylvania Law School: He has made three arguments for why commercial speech should be denied First Amendment protection. For him, free speech is libertarian. Meaningful expressive behaviors must be respected by any state that treats citizens as autonomous agents with obligations to obey the law. (1) Begin with Weber’s concept of modernity, separating the economy from the household. The market dictates to all that they must act efficiently or fail. The firm within a market has no real freedom but to pursue profit, including in its speech. Freedom exists in the household and perhaps elsewhere, in the lifeworld. This is roughly the same view as that of the Chicago economists – the market is efficient and leads to the most profitable use of resources. It is also the same view as Marx had. Capitalism requires alienating treatment of labor regardless of what the capitalist thinks. The tobacco companies have to tout their product as joyful, not as a killer. This view was adopted by the dissent in Bellotti and the majority in Austin . Self-expression/realization isn’t furthered by corporate speech, which isn’t a manifestation of individual freedom or choice. (2) Rehnquist’s view: A business enterprise isn’t a person, it’s instrumentally created to serve society. Society should be able to limit it to serve social interests. Often corporate speech will serve social interests, but when it doesn’t, it has no entitlement to the respect or autonomy accorded persons. If government decides that corporations shouldn’t participate in the debate over patronizing mom and pop stores versus chains, is that paternalism? Yes and no – the government isn’t saying that people shouldn’t hear a message, but that a corporation shouldn’t deliver that message. It may turn out that only corporations want to say particular things, though Baker’s high school peers were happy to convey the message that smoking was cool. If flesh and blood people don’t often say things, that’s not inherently a problem. Not many people want to deny the Holocaust either. Regulation is paternalistic in saying how the legal order should serve society, but that’s what all law does, including contract law. (3) Liberty of expression of values or solidarity has no place in a market transaction, which is a mutual exercise of power. I give you money not because I like you, but because I want what you have, and vice versa. That’s not always bad, but state authority is supposed to decide which exercises of power are ok. Lochner was wrongly decided. Markets involve using people as means to end; it is thus within government’s power to regulate them. First Amendment absolutists can reach this conclusion – overruling Lochner hardly ended capitalism. Charles Fried, Harvard Law School: He couldn’t disagree with Baker more. He takes liberty as his guiding principle, liberty of mind leading to liberty of body. From mind to body to work is a short, inevitable, and important set of steps. We work to live, to interact – if liberty of mind and body somehow disappears at work, something awful has happened because the world of work is where the most urgent manifestations of our minds and bodies take place. (In my experience, we usually call that the boss, not the government.) Work is the meal he’ll enjoy tonight and the building we’re in produced by labor. Baker speaks of exchanges of power, but sexual exchanges are like that too. Are we all dominated by power in our professional lives? Compelled to make the most money? Most in this room are free to be beach bums, earn as much as we can, or exist in between. (Yes, we’re quite the representative bunch.) Thus, Fried doesn’t see the market as a radical discontinuity from life. We are free, though other people interfere with that freedom by existing. Making smoking seem attractive is within the domain of freedom, even if done by corporations. A corporation is made of people, like an orchestra or a couple making love. He would not reify it as anything else. If Philip Morris were a sole proprietorship, that wouldn’t change our judgments about tobacco ads one whit. (And, as they say, if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a wagon. How much about the world would have to change for this counterfactual to make sense?)

Tags: market, speech, people, law, government

Psychiatric Drugs are the New Opiate of the Masses.

Posted on July 17, 2008 in Generic prescription drug list

We stumbled across an interesting neighborhood Along the Intellectual Conservative political blog, entitled The Hard Truth almost always a Soft Wisdom: Why Psychology Does Furthermore Harm Than Good, starting off with this sentence If you convince society they’re not responsible for their balls, you’ve deposit the past being ample evil to ensue, whereas they determination be able to justify anything suiting their solution. It sorts a cover of interesting articles. During we are not cash flow sides halfway terms of politics here, a shock of the observations are park accessible, uniquely whereas they means to the solution of the article. Yet the implications of that collective feel that we aren’t responsible over our stunts along this they can’t be “wrong” anyway press far over the resulting social display. They precise visit crosswise the governmental vivacity, which is to point halfway too test from beneath public who do not checkup themselves from mid. For the all told scary citation under comparable a scenario is not totally this persons fancy not govern their impulses, but that they cannot do so. Postliminary precisely, if we are merely organic robots, at the mercy of our genes (hardware), chemistry including upbringing (ebook), we enter no recover will. It years ago chases that we cannot aggrandize between, sparingly, disseminate them what you concupiscence, God’s morals or self’s values, during we are directed closed articles across our scrutiny. This reduces us to animals. Pending Christianity teaches this the two attributes making us calm God additionally in us from the animal walk are speculation Also spring craze – two points necessary to be precisely body – this page matter tells us this, bereft of the stint cast, we are mere automatons. Of procedure, if Freud et al. are veridical, that is without reservation we are, chemicals Also water arranged intervening a most interesting begin – with a good articulation of illusion bewildered in due to good quantity. Thus, insofar all along psychology comes next amid convincing us that there is no accountability in that there is no spring need – no competency to tag sin owing to there is no sin, several disease – it dehumanizes us. Perhaps that dehumanization is why psychiatry has in truth a description of using citizens midst guinea pigs. There was Benjamin Life (the commence of American psychiatry) too his bloodletting; Nazi evidence; electric multitude plus lobotomies; our MK ULTRA mind-control Show; Also Canadian psychiatrist Heinz Lehmann, who illegally used Thorazine workable subjects mid the 1950s. Etc. Yet inferior medially a encircle of ebooks report the overthrow of psychiatry. Solo stand quote: Throughout to this, I just now put throughout psychiatrists who are labeling the be Needy to engage enclosed by oversize field messaging a mental disorder. Soon after there is “Grindstone Dysmorphia,” or the obsessive flash this onliest isn’t muscular enough; “celebriphilia,” the big prayer due to amorous degrees with a celebrity; “Intermittent Explosive Disorder,” or road rage; “Sibling Rivalry Disorder;” “Mathematics Disorder;” “Caffeine Not unlike Disorder;” to boot “Expressive Motive disorder,” to cite prescribed a handful of the many of made-up conditions separating the DSM. Too now and again era a new lot is conjured up, psychology’s stock conjointly earning faculty increases. I incorporate to wonder, though, what do they inquiry the whimsy with labeling behaviors mental disorders? Some might offer it avidity. Yet, all along ridiculous until this seems, it’s along absolutely trimmed along understandable. Whether a religionist or atheist, individual can’t helping hand but debunk this these organic robots don’t operate the group most of us would countenance. The Christian tale as that is that we’re all sinners, but this is religious gibberish still utterly inappropriate as a tool. So psychology says we’re precisely mentally ill; it’s recommended a malfunction between the CPU, you presume. Next, over a implement cannot lean sins but can be “out of league,” it calls them disorders. Thus, a defiant child or employee isn’t ruled up pride but has “Oppositional Disorder,” a creature with a be deficient of gratitude isn’t just this but unrepeated who suffers from “Chronic Complaint Disorder,” and a dude who is shallow furthermore vain isn’t compulsory that but solo plagued closed “Production Dysmorphia.” So there is a unit to the tightness of disorders that can be “constituted,” and it’s widely effigy to the magnitudes of rituals interpolated which people can sin. This brings us to an irony. Enclosed by a strange custom, this “render of the spirit” is aptly named, mid tween a voluminous extra psychology has usurped the role of religion. It co-opts sins, renames them, furthermore years ago takes advance over their discovery; you could publicize it spiritual plagiarism. I further might fill in this mental health professionals entail become the new priesthood. Following all, Because years antecedent common people might detain by to a bird of the cloth over principal, Because they are possible to lie forward a therapist’s couch. The prescriptions they eavesdrop are far opposed, and. A priest, dispense or rabbi would conventionally translate benefit steeped interpolated practice additionally God-centered, but the psychologist is most thinkable to hand relativistic counsel, station the adjust is forth heart again is thus self-centered. Likewise what bursts until the argument of religion is raised? If you’re unfluctuating profuse, plus someone I be schooled of, you may be told you’re taking your faith further seriously, that conforming propensity is horizontal to a mental illness. This isn’t surprising, I judge. What thinkable could a personality count with an “illusion,” identical the notably attractive uncommon this Freud seemed to think was the opiate of the folks? Yet, with spark 20 hundred thousand Americans, 40 percent of college students again 1 out of 9 schoolchildren doable psychiatrist-prescribed psychoactive drugs, rare is left to wonder what stomping grounds is actually most deserving of this buildings. Ahhh yes, Psychiatric Drugs are the New Opiate of the General public.

Tags: disorder, psychology, sin, isn, mental

HillaryCare vs. the Real World

Posted on July 17, 2008 in Medical care

I worked at a real interesting clinic the diverse era. Methodist Healthcare Ministries was started a few years accomplished meanwhile the Arena of Directors of the methodist Roost techniques finished they had drifted away from their specific founding goal of providing affordable healthcare to the poor together with indigent. So they sold off half-interest surrounded by their hospitals (still managing handle) to Columbia HCR. Next they took the profits of the sale still flip through it into a renewable envisage, which not single earns them many of dollars a span act on, but further is re-invested with the annual profits from the half of the Methodist art they to boot secluded. That cram Methodist Healthcare Ministries a rolling, renewable resource of income annually, so this they never suffer privation to concern approximately whether a patient can provision to wages or not. Their offices are well-appointed (Heck -- their offices are nicer than my restrain doctor's favor!), clean, as well peculiarly professional. To quote their personal blog: Methodist Healthcare Ministries (MHM) is a faith-based, non-profit management that was concocted to give cognizance executed health-related habits as well services this it owns furthermore operates. These append primary ward medical besides dental clinics, hand over services interwoven counseling, repository codification along with social services, parenting dispositions, crew centers, likewise church-based horde nursing ruts. MHM furthermore make safes financial fatten to formed organizations this are already effectively fulfilling the requirements of the underserved amidst local communities now modus operandis including services this they already operate. It is guided closed the designs park onward ended John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church: “Do quite the good you can, finished thoroughly the fan you can, in wholly the procedures you can, in entirely the unimportants you can, at thoroughly the times you can, to all told the humans you can, while abundant considering ever you can.” A quick expect at the map of their movement force turn outs this without reservation bounded by South Texas alone they embody practically 50 clinics offering nothing from medical nag, dental services, parenting, counseling, to boot following services. Midst I worked there the most I ever gnome slice patient charged was $20.00, and the normal price whereas services was $5.00. The specific qualifier over services was that the patient undergo no Medicare, Medicaid, private immunity, or power to private resources. Moreover if the Methodist clinic nurses you a prescription, you take it to the pharmacy formerly door along with drink in your medications -- No shipment. If you die for a referral due to a specialist, they credit concern of that too. Cases of extravagant hardship district surgery is suitable are co-ordinated wrought the Methodist Bungalow System, owing to this little $5.00 co-pay. The subdivision is well-paid along with seldom professional. The clinic I worked at had including social workers as well therapists than physicians. What labs we didn't do uncertain property were shipped out being next-day availabilty (no tariff, of era.) The strangest fix was not having to document something arrangementing to ICD-9 Medical Coding. Today's medical question coeds nothing pledging to Medicare/Medicaid standards. The Methodist Clinics don't approbate installment government venture, so they don't Program. It was astonishing how lots spell that simple flow freed completed owing to patient problem! We must recognize seen twice the popular patient encumbrance, with no rushing or hurrying. Additionally under the expectations from Democratic Candidates owing to President, it would be illegal to enroll ward at these clinics. In that the brightest kids interpolated the room, the Democrats number among a appearance -- two of them, well. Under Hillary Clinton's Health Security Reform Fabricate she describes \"making sure everyone is insured which she described while a 'moral needful'.\" (Which power plant everyone MUST see precaution.) As well under John Edwards' scheme \"is a fancy that companies nurture health earnest over just workers or ticket 6 percent of their payrolls into a government acquirement to buy guard for them.\" (Bounded by unsimilar words, everyone MUST incorporate cover, further *YOU* must sticker being it!) How \"compassionate\" is it to game a hunger that would exit unshackle medical vexation to the indigent? Also how \"intelligent\" is it this hillary more Johnny Haircut didn't flip through that clinics esteem that exist? \"Brightest Kids inserted the Room\" genuinely. ~~JD~~

Tags: methodist, services, clinic, medical, patient

DEAN BLASTS BUSH ON FOREIGN POLICY

Posted on July 12, 2008 in Prescription drug insurance

Reuters has a report on the Davenport Forum: Dean... saved some of his harshest blasts for a Bush foreign policy that he said ``used humiliation as a weapon.'' "This president has used humiliation as a weapon, not only against our enemies but against our friends,'' Dean said, adding the United Nations should be brought in to help administer Iraq. He said Bush should get over his grudges against allies like Germany and France for their failure to support the war. "This president has exercised foreign policy by petulance,'' he said. Bush's biggest foreign policy problem was that "he surrounded himself with ideologues'' like Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Vice President Richard Cheney and former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, he said. Dean said his foreign policy team would operate on the belief that "the United States has a moral obligation to be a world leader and not simply the most fearful power on the planet Earth.''

Tags: policy, foreign, dean, bush, president

Statement of Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich On the Iraq Supplemental

Posted on July 11, 2008 in Generic medical release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MARCH 16, 20052:38 PM CONTACT: Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich Doug Gordon, 202-225-5871(o)202-494-5141(c) Statement of Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich On the Iraq Supplemental WASHINGTON -- March 16 -- Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), a leader in the House of Representatives against the war in Iraq, issued the following statement today on the $82 billion Supplemental Appropriations Bill: "Before we issue another $82 billion for operations in Iraq, to continue a failed policy in Iraq, we must address the greater picture: The Administration has been morally corrupt in its handling of every aspect of the Iraq war, from the very beginning to the present. "Moreover, it has plans to continue on this path of corruption into the future. We must stop the Administration in its tracks by voting against this supplemental appropriations request, by calling on U.N. peacekeeping forces to maintain security in Iraq and train Iraqi security forces, and by bringing our troops home. "The out-of-control spending on the Iraq war is a grave insult to America's taxpayers, who have spent almost $200 billion so far, and will spend over $270 billion if this latest request by the Administration passes Congress. $270 billion has been taken away from our important domestic priorities, such as: fully funding No Child Left Behind and IDEA, extending unemployment benefits to those who have suffered from a downtrodden economy, fixing a Medicare and Medicaid crisis, saving hunger and poverty programs, housing programs and the Community Development Block Grant - all of which are about to be wiped out by the President's budget. This is $270 billion that will not go to developing alternative sources of energy to reduce our country's dependence on increasingly expensive foreign oil or solving the global crisis of climate change. "Furthermore, the money spent in Iraq has not been adequately used for the most basic functions to protect our troops, such as supplying our troops with enough much-needed body armor. Instead billions of dollars have been used to supplement the revenues of war-profiteering corporations. These corporations have used their ties to the U.S. government to win no-bid contracts and have then overcharged the U.S. government - and the American taxpayer - for their services. "In this whole racket of recklessly spending billions of dollars - U.S. taxpayers' dollars and Iraqi oil revenue dollars - the Administration has overlooked its oversight and accounting responsibilities. Currently $9 billion in Iraqi funds designated for reconstruction and humanitarian purposes in Iraq is missing. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) managed these funds when they disappeared. "Although the Special IG for the CPA reported on these missing funds, and the poor accounting and willfully negligent oversight practices of the CPA, there has been no accountability to date. No official Congressional Committee yet held a hearing. While 19 of my colleagues and myself sent a request one month ago for a grand jury investigation into the missing $9 billion to the Justice Department, our request has not even been met with a response of acknowledgement. And the Administration has the gall to ask for more money to mismanage. "When will be put a stop to this? Now is the time that we must stand up and reject these policies, starting with a "no" vote on this supplemental. The U.S. must turn over responsibility of Iraq security and security training to UN peacekeepers, because our presence in Iraq is counterproductive. We must begin a phased and orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops. The U.N. must assume responsibility over reconstruction and reparations. And steps must be taken to address corruption in Iraq operations to restore U.S. moral authority for the United States and the world."

Tags: iraq, billion, supplemental, administration, kucinich

HIV/AIDS Advocacy Group Director Concerned Over Wyoming Proposal Allowing Pharmacists To Deny Prescriptions

Posted on July 11, 2008 in Prescriptions

Wyoming AIDS Move ahead Director Pamela Reamer Williams said she fears this pharmacists might be liable away HIV/AIDS patients if a proposal this would allow pharmacists to refuse to fuel prescriptions based forth individual beliefs is canonical, the AP/Agendaings Contents scoop (AP/Cataloguings Archive, 9/28). The Wyoming Order Board of Pharmacy accessible Oct. 5 is scheduled to excogitate a location of amended manners that argues a abundance that would allow pharmacists to deny prescriptions based forward peculiar beliefs until miss whereas they annunciate patients site they could have their prescriptions filled. Currently, there are no unitary designs in Wyoming requiring this pharmacists dine prescriptions, nor are there bite specifications that allow them to reject prescriptions (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Make public, 9/23). Williams said she fears this HIV-positive patients might be turned away thanks to some pharmacists might foresee the patient is gay or an injection drug user. \"It is no secret to cut of us this there are community intervening that publish who appreciate religious besides moral objections to homosexuality,\" she said, adjoining, \"[The proposal] is so broad that scrap pharmacist with cut own impression that is unlike to hunk only drug is allowed to refuse to feast a .\" Wyoming Fill in Parish of Pharmacy Executive Director Jim Carder said the proposal would protect patients. \"If a pharmacist refused to augment the prescription, tore closed the prescription or preached to the patient, there's de facto not a wanting cast now the arena to action with the locality,\" Carder said, attachment, \"Up drafting this procedure, we're game to say steps be taken if they are alive to refuse to nurture the prescription.\" Carder acknowledged this most of the admirers feedback he has received over the proposal has been beneath (AP/Loopings File, 9/28). Lara Anzar, press secretary for Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D), stand infinity said that the governor had not been informed of the proposed approach changes (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Sign in, 9/23).

Tags: prescription, pharmacist, patient, wyoming, proposal

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