Friday, December 17, 2010

Barker's Newsbites: Friday, December 17, 2010


Nope... you won't find me carrying pictures of Chairman Mao... and certainly I'm not calling for destruction... but the system as it is just ain't working, kids...

(*SIGH*)

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4 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/242051,un-mulls-internet-regulation-options.aspx

The United Nations is considering whether to set up an inter-governmental working group to "harmonize" global efforts by policy makers to regulate the internet.

* HMM... "GLOBAL EFFORTS" TO "HARMONIZE" THE INTERNET...

(*SMIRK*)

Establishment of such a group has the backing of several countries, spearheaded by Brazil. ... India, South Africa, China and Saudi Arabia appeared to favor a new possible over-arching inter-government body.

(*SNORT*) (*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

* FOLKS... IN ALL SERIOUSNESS... THE "UNITED NATIONS" AS AN ORGANIZATION DOES MORE HARM THAN GOOD IN THE WORLD FROM A U.S. PERSPECTIVE.

December 17, 2010 at 10:42 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.1c2cb5368f49a05bb35e7cee42e60bda.5b1&show_article=1

World oil prices rose on Friday as the dollar fell against the euro...

* MERRY F--KING CHRISTMAS, FOLKS...

Brent North Sea crude for delivery in February climbed 29 cents to 91.89 dollars a barrel in London trade.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for January delivery, gained 16 cents to 87.86 dollars.

The dollar fell against the euro on Friday as positive German economic data and EU efforts to safeguard the single currency helped to offset a huge ratings downgrade for Ireland and more Spanish debt problems.

A weaker dollar makes crude priced in dollars cheaper for buyers holding rival currencies, pushing up demand.

* I SERIOUSLY DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S GOING TO TAKE TO GET AMERICA'S HEAD OUT OF ITS ASS.

December 17, 2010 at 10:46 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703395204576023573876895868.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

Yesterday the Food and Drug Administration moved to revoke its regulatory approval of Avastin for metastatic breast cancer.

[P]rivate insurers are generally reluctant to reimburse for therapies that are not FDA-approved, and Medicare, which is the dominant payer in oncology, never does.

* GOD HELP WOMEN WITH BREAST CANCER. UNDERSTAND, FOLKS, RATIONING - DENIAL OF EFFECTIVE CARE - IS THE HALLMARK OF OBAMACARE.

* ASK YOURSELVES, FOLKS... IF - GOD FORBID - MICHELLE OBAMA CAME DOWN WITH BREAST CANCER, DOES ANYONE FOR ONE SECOND BELIEVE SHE'D BE DENIED AVASTIN OR DENIED REIMBURSEMENT FOR AVASTIN?

The FDA said in a statement that it is removing Avastin's breast cancer indication because the biologic does not provide "a sufficient benefit in slowing disease progression to outweigh the significant risk to patients."

Ponder that [word] "sufficient."

The agency is substituting its own judgments about clinical meaningfulness for those of practicing oncologists and terminally ill cancer patients.

Avastin improves progression-free survival by about four months on average; it allows women to live longer without their disease getting worse.

Clinical trials do not show that the drug extends life overall in the aggregate...[but] looking at the same data, the European Medicines Agency - the FDA's counterpart in the European Union - decided on Thursday that it would continue to approve Avastin for breast cancer in combination with chemotherapy.

In October, the U.S. National Comprehensive Cancer Network - a consortium of 21 leading cancer centers that issues evidence-based medical guidelines - reaffirmed its position that Avastin is valuable in some cases.

[F]inely graded distinctions are not part of the FDA's bureaucratic culture. The FDA provisionally (and reluctantly) approved Avastin for breast cancer in 2008 under an accelerated process for serious diseases. But the cancer drugs division believes that such flexibility is too friendly to industry and took extraordinary measures to rig the review process against Avastin's maker, Genentech, as we [the WSJ] reported on August 18 in "The Avastin Mugging."

Cancer treatment advances incrementally. Every year doctors are better able to pair medicines with the biomarkers pointing to the individuals who are most likely to respond and learn more about tumor angiogenesis, which is the process of cancer growth that Avastin helps to choke off. The FDA's assault will make it harder to conduct and enroll patients in further clinical studies, to say nothing of its message about the regulatory risk for drugs still in development.

The greatest tragedy will fall on the women who are suffering from an incurable disease and whose caregivers are trying to improve their quality of life in the months they have left. [Obama's] FDA is taking away one of their only options.

December 17, 2010 at 6:29 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703395204576024043465537706.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Some Americans might be under the impression that they just watched a lame duck Congress engage in a lame-o budget fight. But Senate Republicans' stunning defeat last night of the Democrats' omnibus spending bill was anything but boring. What our great nation just watched was the Democratic Party preview its political strategy for the next two years.

It also watched a united Senate GOP defeat that approach, though not before a handful of Republicans considered walking straight into the Democratic trap.

This week Democrats unveiled a $1.2 trillion omnibus, legislation as pure an insult to the electorate as it gets. It was a 1,924-page monstrosity that nobody had time to read. It took 11 spending bills that Democrats couldn't be bothered to pass individually and crammed them into one oozing ball of pork and bad policy, going beyond even the obscene budget of 2010.

Yet to this legislative Frankenstein Democrats carefully attached the spenders' equivalent of crack cocaine. To wit, omnibus author and Hawaii Democrat Daniel Inouye dug up earmark requests that Senate Republicans had made in the past year (prior to their self-imposed ban) and, unasked, included them in the bill.

He lavished special, generous attention - $1 billion worth of it - on some reliable GOP earmark junkies: Mississippi's Thad Cochran got $512 million; Utah's Bob Bennett, $226 million; Maine's Susan Collins, $114 million; Missouri's Kit Bond, $102 million; Ohio's George Voinovich, $98 million; and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, $80 million.

The effect of this dope - just sitting there, begging for a quick inhale - on earmarkers was immediate. Two seconds into the sweats and shaking hands, nine Republicans let Mr. Reid know they'd be open to this bill.

Democrats were euphoric. An omnibus victory, they knew, would subject Republicans to an ugly PR hit. True, the omnibus would pass primarily with Democratic votes. But the headlines would focus on the handful of Republicans who provided the final votes and undermined the GOP's spending message. GOP support for this bill would also tarnish what goodwill Republicans earned for their self-imposed earmark ban. Better yet, Republican earmarkers would be providing President Obama and Democrats a giant policy victory, undercutting House Republicans before they even got the gavel.

[Thank God the Democrats' plan didn't succeed], but only because Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell accomplished a mini Christmas miracle. The Kentuckian devoted yesterday to making the arguments - both principled and political - to the Spending Nine. He was ultimately persuasive enough, and the earmarkers wise enough, to pull back their support. A very unhappy Mr. Reid was forced to yank the omnibus last night.

[T]he lesson for Republicans (yet again)? Unity and principle rule. ... Republicans turned what could have been a black eye into a bitter humiliation for Mr. Reid and other supporters of an irresponsible spending blowout.

December 17, 2010 at 6:30 PM

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