Fool’s News

The shit I have to go through just to fly on a plane, shit like this drives me insane.

On 3 June 2009, District Court Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California dismissed the consolidated lawsuits of plaintiffs against the nation’s telecommunications companies based on legislation passed by Congress during the Bush administration and based on “secret” declarations made by Bush Attorney General Mukasey. 

With a current Supreme Court leaning to the right, I am concerned that this decision is the death knell for our constitution.

In my opinion, the most troubling element in Walker’s decision is the following:

The parties’ contrasting positions highlight the tension
between the government’s concern for national security and the civil
litigant’s due process rights. While both interests are of great
importance, the United States’ argument prevails here.

Why?  Because this is a case which raises constitutional issues.  The Constitution addresses due process.  The Constitution is silent on matters of national security.   Unlike to two sides who may argue over the “right to die” where constitutional principles are triggered on both sides of the argument, since there is no constitutional exception for national security, the right which is enumerated in the constitution must prevail – always.

Moreover, the act of Congress which creates this immunity for the telecom companies must be evaluated against constitutional principles.

Aside the above, this is one of those cases that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.   It seems to me that Walker’s 46-page opinion strives very hard – using many words and killing a few trees – to convince us that it’s not a duck, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Since this protects the actions of the telecommunications companies between 1 January 2001 and 2007, since we are now in 2009, it seems incredulous to think that the impact to national security could outweigh the strong protection the constitution provides to its citizens (rather than to corporate interests and the executive branch).

View the order here.

While watching TV today, I saw an ad for IMPRUV lotion.  At the end of the ad the IMPRUV mark was followed by the ® symbol.

I am completely surprised that the USPTO permitted this mark to register.  The IMPRUV mark is phonetically identical to the actual word “improve,” as in “our lotion will improve your skin.”

In light of all of the inane merely descriptive refusals I receive from the USPTO, I can’t believe that the USPTO permitted the IMPRUV mark to register without even a first refusal.

Consistency at the USPTO has been incredibly lacking in recent years and only gets worse over time.

Celebrity gossip Perez Hilton (né Mario Lavandeira)  has won an injunction against those who operate the site PerezRevenge.  The PerezRevenge site styled itself as an antidote to Lavandiera’s mean-spiritedness.

Here’s the rub:  When Lavandeira started his blogging career he called his site PageSixSixSix (a rather obvious play on the New York Post’s Page Six gossip column).  The Post objected, and won.

Then he adopted the moniker Perez Hilton, an obvious reference to Hilton heiress, Paris Hilton.  Indeed, a good choice since both are famous for nothing.

“He also routinely doctors celebrity photos, arguing that sprinkling cocaine dots on them is a transformative use, entitling him to publish them.”  Ugh.

It is ironic that one becomes famous “borrowing” from others, but when others borrow from you when seeking fame, you object like it’s nobody’s business…  With any luck, Perez (and Paris) will just be a flash in the pan.

How ‘bout that picture?

The FDA is in a bit of a world of shit.  While I have many issues with the FDA, sometimes I do think the agency gets dumped on unfairly.

Where I take issue is that the FDA takes unreasonable and untenable positions with respect to proprietary drug names (i.e., trademarks); however, it cannot seem to inspect food preparation plants with any degree of success.  The agency likes to shift blame when it comes to drug names. 

Unfortunately, for the FDA, it cannot shift blame so easily when it comes to the inspection of plants.

Since this post began as sympathetic to the FDA, I digress.

Recent articles cast the FDA is a somewhat ineffectual light:  “it was shaken by the withdrawal from the market of Vioxx, a painkiller that turned out to have serious heart risks,” “more recently, outbreaks of foodborne illness have exposed haphazard oversight of the nation’s far-flung food supply chain,” “scientists in the medical devices center are in revolt over what they say is management interference”.  Other sources say, “The Food and Drug Administration is failing to meet its goals for auditing food-safety inspections.”

However, people need to understand that the use of any drugs – even those that have been on the market for a long time – involves risk.  Clinical trials can only try to identify risks presented by new drugs within a limited amount of time.  FDA approval simply means that no seriously adverse events were reported during the testing phases.  It is not a guarantee of no side effects.

It is, to me, ridiculous to sue pharmaceutical companies and blame the FDA when adverse events occur many years later.  This is especially true when, even with the adverse event, use of the pharmaceutical extended your life or the quality of life for any amount of time.

In other words, if you would have died of Very Bad Disease in 2001, but you began taking VBD Drug in 1999 which caused you to have heart disease in 2004, you’re still ahead of the game.  You’ve cheated death for 3 years.  Be grateful and move on.

From a legal perspective, I don’t see the damage.  If the status quo was death in 2001, I fail to see how life in 2004 (even with heart disease, liver disease or high blood pressure) or death in 2004 is damage.  It’s three years more than you would have had.

People seem to expect everything in life to be a guarantee.  Nothing is.  Everything is a trade off.  If you are going to sue the pharmaceutical company that makes your chemotherapy treatment then just die quietly in the corner out of side.

Margaret Hamburg, President Obama’s selection to head the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (“FDA”) is scheduled to face senators today as they consider her nomination.

Hamburg is a physician and a bioterrorism expert who has served as Commissioner for Health of New York City. 

The Senate is expected to grill Hamburg in light of some notable FDA failures such as salmonella outbreak in peanut products early this year, tomatoes and peppers in 2008 and spinach in 2006.

GE says it has invented a disc – the same size as a current CD or DVD – that can hold the equivalent of 100 DVDs.  Wow!

Louis Caldera (here too) should lose his job.  It is really as simple as that. 

"Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision," said Louis Caldera, director of the White House Military Office. "While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, it’s clear that the mission created confusion and disruption."

Responsibility means you should step down.  There are mistakes that are excusable and those which are not.  This is one of those cases where he should lose his job. 

As NYC Mayor Bloomberg said, "Why the Defense Department wanted to do a photo op right around the site of the World Trade Center defies the imagination.  Had we known, I would have asked them not to."

Seriously, to conduct some kind of photo op over what everyone knows to be essentially a "no-fly" zone is assanine.  Do you really need a picture of the fake Air Force One by the Statue of Liberty?  How ridiculous to authorize this "with directives to local authorities not to disclose information about it"?!?

You can check out video of the plane here.

Sen. Chuck Schumer said, "It is absolutely outrageous and appalling to think that the FAA would plan such a photo shoot and not warn the public, knowing full well New Yorkers still have the vivid memory of 9/11 sketched in their minds."

Heads must roll.  Seriously, there must be consequences for idiotic behavior – something more than a forced apology.  Otherwise, there’s no incentive to not be stupid in the future.  At the very least, Mr. Caldera must explain the rationale for directing authorities not to inform the public…at the very least. 

To those of you who believe that Yale University is some kind of bastion of liberalism:  read this.

Also, don’t forget that George W. Bush received a degree from Yale.