Thursday, December 23, 2010
Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, December 23, 2010
Well, folks... it's the day before Christmas Eve!
(By the way... today's newsbites theme song has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with Christmas, but it's one of my favorites... so that's that.)
Anyone still have shopping to do?
Me? I've got one, maybe two gifts left and then I'm done!
Speaking of the Christmas Spirit...
I HATE FRIGG'N WALMART AND THEIR CHINESE MADE CRAP MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD...!!!
We're running a bit late this year and while we picked up our tree on Monday we still haven't decorated it.
So... yesterday on my rounds I stop at a few places looking for lights. Believe it or not, most places are apparently sold out! So, anyway, I finally stop at Walmart and lo and behold, I find one box of 100 colored mini-lights still on the shelf! I test it right there at the store... the entire string works... but this morning when Mary went to trim the tree only half the string worked.
I think we should nuke those bloody bastards! Kill 'em all... let God sort 'em out!
(Ho...! Ho...! Ho...!)
MacArthur had the right idea! (Frigg'n Truman... wimp!)
(*PAUSE*)
(*DEEP BREATH*)
O.K.... O.K... I'm calming down now....
So, folks... on to the newsbites!
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* LET'S START OFF WITH A TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704034804576025981869663212.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
This year, the Food and Drug Administration rejected the only medicine capable of treating the rare and fatal lung disease known as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
Pirfenidone, which has been available in Japan since 2008 and was just approved in Europe, was spurned by the FDA because the drug only showed efficacy in a single big trial - not the two large studies the FDA now requires.
The decision to ban the drug is one of a rash of recent decisions that shows the FDA is making it more and more difficult for promising drugs to reach severely ill patients.
* HOPE... (*SIGH*)... CHANGE... (*SIGH*)... HOPE... (*SIGH*)... CHANGE... (*SIGH*)... HOPE... (*SIGH*)... CHANGE... (*SIGH*)...
Last week, the FDA revoked an approval for the cancer drug Avastin because it said that evidence supporting its use in breast cancer wasn't strong enough. (The drug was judged ineffective because it merely stalls the spread of tumors.)
European regulators, looking at the same data, made the opposite decision.
* HOPE... (*SIGH*)... CHANGE... (*SIGH*)... HOPE... (*SIGH*)... CHANGE... (*SIGH*)... HOPE... (*SIGH*)... CHANGE... (*SIGH*)...
It wasn't supposed to be this way.
(*SAD NOD*)
* To be continued...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)
In 1997, Congress passed the FDA Modernization Act, which gave the FDA broad discretion to reduce the quantity and rigor of clinical data needed to approve drugs targeting grave illnesses. The purpose of the law was to save lives by reducing the cost and time needed to launch such medicines.
But the FDA has steadily disregarded many of the law's provisions.
Longer, larger trials that require drug makers to evaluate "hard" endpoints (like how long a cancer patient lives) rather than "surrogate" endpoints (like a drug's ability to shrink tumors) give FDA reviewers more statistical confidence. Reviewers prefer these drawn-out trials because they insulate the FDA from critics who say that it isn't focused enough on safety. But bigger trials increase the time needed to develop a drug, keeping it out of the hands of patients.
The Modernization Act also allowed the FDA to conduct drug trials in which patients are treated with an experimental medicine in a single group or "arm," and the trial can be completed in less than a year. But the FDA doesn't often opt for such trials. The agency commonly requests more complex, "multi-arm" and "placebo controlled" studies, which can take three years to finish and are much more expensive. Each patient enrolled in a trial adds over $30,000 to drug-development costs.
* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... GOVERNMENT IS OUT OF CONTROL. (AND THE BUCK STOPS AT OBAMA'S DESK!)
Of 76 cancer drugs approved since 2005, the FDA gave only 13 "accelerated approval" - another process created under the Modernization Act to expedite drug development. From 2001 to 2003, 78% of the novel cancer drugs approved were granted accelerated approval. Since then only 32% got the designation.
* THE MORE PERTINENT COMPARISON WOULD BE 1993-2000 vs. 2001-2006 vs. 2007-2008 vs. 2009 THRU THE PRESENT.
What's more, the clinical trial requirements that the FDA is imposing on cancer drugs with accelerated approval are now as burdensome as the requirements imposed on regular drugs. So, practically speaking, having "accelerated approval" doesn't mean anything.
Europeans are now approving novel drugs an average of three months more rapidly than we do.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Of 82 novel drugs that were submitted for approval in both the U.S. and Europe between 2006 to 2009, 11 were approved only in Europe. One is for relapsed ovarian cancer, another for bone cancer.
* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... OBAMA's FDA IS CLEARLY OUT OF CONTROL...!!!
To reverse these discouraging trends, Congress should reaffirm the provisions of the Modernization Act. It should spell out in legislation that the FDA "shall" - rather than "may" - approve drugs for severe conditions on the basis of a single study, or a more lenient statistical orthodoxy than "two, randomized, placebo controlled trials."
(*NOD*) AMEN!
The next Congress will reauthorize a user fee program that funds the FDA's review process. It should use this legislation to revive the FDA's fundamental mission: giving very sick Americans the best medical options available.
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
http://www.suntimes.com/3002497-417/emanuel-morris-chicago-election-board.html
Rahm Emanuel is a Chicago resident and therefore can run for mayor, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners ruled Thursday.
(*SNORT*)
* FOLKS... SERIOUSLY... IT'S NOT FUNNY. WE'RE BEING MORE AND MORE LIKE A THIRD WORLD NATION EACH DAY AS THE RULE OF LAW IS BENT, BROKEN, AND IGNORED.
The unanimous ruling in favor of the former White House chief of staff comes after a board hearing officer ruled early Thursday morning that Emanuel’s name should remain on the ballot.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
The decisions by the officer and full board come even though Emanuel moved his family to Washington D.C. and rented out his Ravenswood home to a tenant who refused to leave.
The decisions set the stage for a court challenge that will almost certainly end up before the Illinois Supreme Court.
(*SIGH*) LET'S HOPE THAT THE ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT IS LESS CORRUPT THAN THE ILLINOIS BOARD OF ELECTIONS.
State law requires mayoral candidates to “have resided” in the city for the year prior to Election Day. The only exception is for active-duty members of the military.
Even after renting out his Chicago home, Emanuel, a former congressman, continued to pay the property tax bill...
* AND THE POINT BEING...??? I OWN PROPERTY IN NEW MEXICO. I PAY TAXES ON IT EVERY YEAR. THIS DOESN'T MAKE ME A RESIDENT OF NEW MEXICO! EMANUEL CLEARLY DID NOT LIVE IN ILLINOIS WHILE WORKING FOR OBAMA IN WASHINGTON D.C.! HE WAS NOT COMMUTING...!!! HE AND HIS WIFE LIVED ON THE EAST COAST - SAME AS HIS EMPLOYER THE PRESIDENT!
Burt Odelson, the main attorney for the objectors, said he always expected he would have to win the case in court. “It was not unexpected. We will have to get into court system to prevail where there is no fear of repercussions.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/40791768
This struggling small city on the outskirts of Mobile [Alabama] was warned for years that if it did nothing, its pension fund would run out of money by 2009.
Right on schedule, its fund ran dry.
Then Prichard did something that pension experts say they have never seen before: it stopped sending monthly pension checks to its 150 retired workers, breaking a state law requiring it to pay its promised retirement benefits in full.
(*SNORT*)
[T]he "unthinkable" can, in fact, sometimes happen. And it stands as a warning to cities like Philadelphia and states like Illinois, whose pension funds are under great strain: if nothing changes, the money eventually does run out...
(*SHRUG*)
Many cities and states are struggling to keep their pension plans adequately funded, with varying success. New York City plans to put $8.3 billion into its pension fund next year, twice what it paid five years ago. Maryland is considering a proposal to raise the retirement age to 62 for all public workers with fewer than five years of service.
Illinois keeps borrowing money to invest in its pension funds, gambling that the funds’ investments will earn enough to pay back the debt with interest. New Jersey simply decided not to pay the $3.1 billion that was due its pension plan this year.
Colorado, Minnesota and South Dakota have all taken the unusual step of reducing the benefits they pay their current retirees by cutting cost-of-living increases...
“Prichard is the future,” said Michael Aguirre, the former San Diego city attorney, who has called for San Diego to declare bankruptcy and restructure its own outsize pension obligations. “We’re all on the same conveyor belt. Prichard is just a little further down the road.”
http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/local/school-sends-home-permission-slips-for-pledge-of-allegiance-20101222
A Brookline [Massachusetts] school is now saying permission slips won’t be necessary for students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
(*DOUBLE-TAKE*)
* "NOW" SAYING...???
The Edward Devotion School, which has not recited the Pledge of Allegiance in seven years, will say the Pledge over the school's intercom once a week beginning next month.
* BUT... BUT... BUT...
It is state law for teachers to lead their classes in daily pledges at the start of school.
* O.K.
Under Brookline school policy, the recitation may take place weekly...
(*SCRATCHING MY HEAD*)
* "YES, OFFICER, I REALIZE THAT THE POSTED SPEED LIMIT IS 65 mph, BUT IT IS BARKER POLICY TO DRIVE AT 90 mph OR ABOVE..."
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5inrwjyNYWhsKH0nhG3c7yFUVYpAg?docId=CNG.e836e4c62736a2b3b44a8631bd54cd97.dc1
Angry Haitian mobs have lynched at least 45 people in recent weeks, accusing them of spreading a cholera outbreak that has killed over 2,500 people across the country, officials said Wednesday.
The number included at least 14 suspected sorcerers previously known to have been lynched in the far southwestern region of Grand'Anse as local people feared they were spreading cholera with a magical substance.
* HMM... I WONDER HOW MUCH MONEY THE AMERICAN PEOPLE VIA TAXES, INVOLUNTARY GOVERNMENT LOANS, AND PRIVATE CHARITY HAVE PISSED AWAY ON HAITI SINCE... OH... THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION.
"We have counted 40 people dead in Grand'Anse department alone, where people are attacking natural healers they accuse of cholera-linked witchcraft," said communications ministry official Moise Fritz Evens.
Five other people were killed in similar circumstances elsewhere in the country.
"The victims - most of them voodoo priests - were stoned or hacked with machetes before being burned in the street," added the official, who was presenting the results of an investigation conducted in Grand'Anse earlier this month.
* STONED OR HACKED TO DEATH WITH MACHETES... (*SIGH*)
The cholera outbreak led to deadly anti-UN riots last month as a desperate populace turned its anger on peacekeepers from Nepal accused of bringing the disease into the country.
The first lynching cases date back to late last month, when mobs hacked or stoned to death their victims.
About half of Haiti's population is believed to practice the voodoo religion in some form...
* STOP! JUST STOP...!!! (*MASSIVE MIGRAINE HEADACHE COMING ON*)
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-weather-snow-accumulations-785039.html
A strong storm system churning its way through the desert Southwest early Thursday will bring metro Atlanta a good chance for a white Christmas, with accumulating snow possible as far south as the Columbus and Macon areas, forecasters said.
If the current forecast holds, it’ll be the first snow to fall on Christmas in Atlanta since a trace in 1993. The last time there was measurable snow on Christmas Day was more than a century earlier, in 1882, when .3 inch accumulated.
* SO, FOLKS... (*SNICKER*)... GLOBAL WARMING, HUH... (*LAUGHING OUT LOUD*)
http://www.news10.net/news/article.aspx?storyid=113529&provider=top&catid=188
An airline pilot is being disciplined by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for posting video on YouTube pointing out what he believes are serious flaws in airport security.
* "DISCIPLINED...???" BY TSA...??? BY WHAT RIGHT; BY WHAT AUTHORITY? IF A CRIME WAS COMMITTED THAT'S FOR THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM TO DETERMINE. HAS THE FIRST AMENDMENT BEEN REPEALED AND NO ONE HAS BOTHERED TO INFORM ME...???
The 50-year-old pilot, who lives outside Sacramento, asked that neither he nor his airline be identified. He has worked for the airline for more than a decade and was deputized by the TSA to carry a gun in the cockpit.
* SO... LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT: THE GOVERNMENT TRUSTS HIM TO CARRY A GUN, BUT NOT TO POST VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE...???
He is also a helicopter test pilot in the Army Reserve and flew missions for the United Nations in Macedonia.
* SOUNDS LIKE SOMEONE AT THE TSA REALLY SCREWED UP HERE...
Three days after he posted a series of six video clips recorded with a cell phone camera at San Francisco International Airport, four federal air marshals and two sheriff's deputies arrived at his house to confiscate his federally-issued firearm. The pilot recorded that event as well and provided all the video to News10.
* THIS IS INSANITY!
At the same time as the federal marshals took the pilot's gun, a deputy sheriff asked him to surrender his state-issued permit to carry a concealed weapon.
* SO, FOLKS... HOW DO YOU LIKE OBAMA'S AMERICA SO FAR?
The YouTube videos, posted Nov. 28, show what the pilot calls the irony of flight crews being forced to go through TSA screening while ground crew who service the aircraft are able to access secure areas simply by swiping a card.
"As you can see, airport security is kind of a farce. It's only smoke and mirrors so you people believe there is actually something going on here," the pilot narrates.
* IT SEEMS THAT TELLING THE TRUTH DURING THE AGE OF OBAMA IS NOW A FEDERAL OFFENSE...
A letter from the TSA dated Dec. 6 informed the pilot that..."The content and subject of these videos may have violated regulations concerning disclosure of sensitive security information."
(*RAISED EYEBROWS*)
* FOLKS... SERIOUSLY... YOU'RE READING WHAT I'M READING, RIGHT...?
The pilot's attorney, Don Werno of Santa Ana, said he believed the federal government sent six people to the house to send a message.
"And the message was you've angered us by telling the truth and by showing America that there are major security problems despite the fact that we've spent billions of dollars allegedly to improve airline safety," Werno said.
* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... WE'RE LOSING OUR COUNTRY - BIT BY BIT... STEP BY STEP.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/23/napolitano-scolds-reporter-airing-complaints-dead-border-agents-family/
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, leaving the funeral of a murdered Border Patrol agent Wednesday, scolded a reporter for asking her to address the victim's family's concerns that not enough is being done to secure the southern border.
The family of agent Brian Terry had complained that Napolitano had offered them "empty words" when she called to express her condolences.
Terry's father, Kent Terry, in an interview with ABC affiliate KGUN, said he told Napolitano to "wake your man up in the White House," to which she replied that he's done more in two years than any president.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* FOLKS. YOU READ NEWSBITES. YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON. YES, UNDER OBAMA DEPORTATIONS ARE UP, BUT WE'RE TALKING DEPORTING ILLEGAL ALIENS AFTER THEY'VE COMMITTED THEIR VIOLENT CRIMES! ON BORDER SECURITY AND DEFENDING U.S. SOVEREIGN TERRITORY HALF THE TIME YOU DON'T KNOW WHOSE SIDE THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS ON!
Napolitano attended the Detroit funeral Wednesday where she vowed "swift justice" for Terry's killers.
* YEAH...? I'LL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT. BEYOND THAT, THOUGH, THESE MURDEROUS SCUM SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN IN OUR COUNTRY TO BEGIN WITH!
After being told the concerns came from [the victim's] father, mother and stepmother, [Napolitano] continued: "Listen, we are here today, the commissioner is here today, the chief of the Border Patrol is here today and we are here...
* A MAN IS DEAD! AN AMERICAN IS DEAD! THE SECRETARY NEEDS TO FOCUS ON PREVENTING OTHER AMERICANS FROM BEING MURDERED BY ILLEGAL ALIENS RATHER THAN FOCUSING ON SELF-CONGRATULATIONS.
http://www.usni.org/vice-admiral-obama-was-outmaneuvered-russians-start
President Barack Obama was outmaneuvered by the Russians and should have abandoned the New START negotiations instead of seeking a political victory, says former nuclear plans monitor Vice Admiral Jerry Miller, USN (Ret).
“The Obama administration is continuing a dated policy in which we cannot even unilaterally reduce our own inventory of weapons and delivery systems without being on parity with the Russians,” Miller told the U.S. Naval Institute in Annapolis, Md. “We could give up plenty of deployed delivery systems and not adversely affect our national security one bit, but New START prohibits such action - so we are now stuck with some outmoded and useless elements in our nuke force.”
* GREAT! JUST FRIGG'N GREAT...
“The Soviets/Russians were done in by Reagan and our missile defense program because they cannot afford to build such a system,” said Miller. “They instead try to counter our program with rhetoric at the bargaining table. And they won by outmaneuvering Obama. START plays right into their hands.”
(*SIGH*)
“We have always been superior in quality of our nuclear force, so we did not have to negotiate with a party we do not trust,” said Miller. “If Obama wanted to save some money and improve national defense, he should have gotten out of the nuke negations and acted unilaterally. START is simply a political victory for Obama.”
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Miller, who helped prepare the National Strategic Target List and Single Integrated Operational Plan for waging nuclear war and later participated in arms control meetings with the Soviet government, expressed concern that START could leave the United States vulnerable to other emerging threats.
“The treaty prohibits the conversion of an existing ballistic missile system into a missile defense system,” said Miller. “We might want to do that with a Trident or an ICBM sometime in the future, particularly if the Chinese alleged threat materializes.”
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... OBVIOUSLY THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO ANY DISCUSSION, BUT VICE ADMIRAL MILLER SURE HAS THE RESUME TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101223/ap_on_re_us/us_wilderness_rules
The Obama administration plans to reverse a Bush-era policy and make millions of undeveloped acres of land once again eligible for federal wilderness "protection," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Thursday.
Congressional Republicans [criticized] the "Wild Lands" announcement as an attempt by the Obama administration to close land to development without congressional approval.
* WHICH IS WHAT IT IS!
"This backdoor approach is intended to circumvent both the people who will be directly affected and Congress," said Washington Rep. Doc Hastings, a Republican tapped to lead the House Natural Resources Committee when the GOP takes control of the House in January.
(*NOD*)
The Congressional Western Caucus, an all-Republican group, also blasted the decision. "This is little more than an early Christmas present to the far Left extremists who oppose the multiple use of our nation's public lands," Utah Rep. Rob Bishop said in a statement.
Ranchers, oil men and others have been suspicious of federal plans to lock up land in the West, worrying that taking the BLM land out of production would kill rural economies that rely on ranchers and the oil and gas business.
Their suspicions have been heightened since memos leaked in February revealed the Obama administration was considering 14 sites in nine states for possible presidential monument declarations.
That included 2.5 million acres of northeastern Montana prairie land proposed as a possible bison range, along with sites in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, California, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon and Washington.
* FOLKS... THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SEES ITSELF AS AN IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY THE LIKES OF WHICH THIS NATION HAS NEVER SEEN AND WHICH THE CONSTITUTIONAL SEPARATION OF POWERS WAS SPECIFICALLY MEANT TO GUARD AGAINST!
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46695.html
Lisa Murkowski isn’t gunning down caribou on national TV like that other famous Alaskan, but the Republican [in name only] lawmaker is going rogue in the Senate...
* UNDERSTAND, FOLKS, THE RINOs STILL LARGELY CONTROL THE SENATE REPUBLICAN CAUCUS.
Murkowski is already showing a fierce "independent" streak, becoming the only Republican to cast votes on all four items on President Barack Obama’s wish list: a repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” a tax-cut compromise, the START deal and cloture for the DREAM Act.
* SHE WAS CORRECT ON "DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL," BUT WAS WRONG ON THE BUDGET VOTE AND THE IMMIGRATION VOTE. AS TO START... I'M AMBIVALENT.
Murkowski’s willingness to defy Republican top brass after a bitter fight to keep her seat...
* SHOWS THAT SHE'S WILLING TO STAB EVEN HER OWN RINO CRONIES IN THE BACK.
“She's a person who makes up her own mind, does what she thinks is right and always keeps the concerns of her state at the forefront,” moderate Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told POLITICO of Murkowski...
* AND DOESN'T THAT JUST TELL YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW?! (OH... AND AIN'T IT FUNNY HOW THE LIBS AT POLITICO REFER TO COLLINS AS A "MODERATE.") (*SMIRK*)
Murkowski’s lame-duck votes are not without precedent. She sided with Democrats in nearly 20% of votes in the 110th Congress, the cycle before she was up for reelection.
* AND YET THE NATIONAL RINO ESTABLISHMENT SUPPORTED HER RE-ELECTION IN THE FACE OF THE ALASKA REPUBLICAN ELECTORATE REFUSING TO RE-NOMINATE HER.
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