Senator Grassley Takes on Evil Doctors

The Wall Street Journal (4/28, Rockoff) reported:

The Institute of Medicine recommended Tuesday that
doctors, medical schools,professional groups and drug makers
make far-reaching changes to prevent industry gifts and payments
from influencing patient care and research.The IOM, part of the
National Academy of Sciences, proposed the elimination of many
now-common practices. It said doctors, for example, shouldn't
accept meals,trips or other gifts from companies. Nor should
physicians participate in clinical trials if they have a financial
interest in the outcome, or sign on to ghost-written articles.
The IOM also said professional societies shouldn't accept direct
industry funding for the development of guidelines on treating
patients. And it recommended that companies disclose payments
publicly, and in a central place.
The recommendations, contained in a 353-page report,come amid
heightened concern and investigations -- often led by Iowa
Republican Sen. Charles Grassley -- about the impact that industry
gifts and payments have on doctors, medical schools, professional
groups and journals

.



I would like to re-write this little tidbit, to aim it, if you will, where it should really be aimed:

The American
Taxpayer recommended Tuesday that senators, congressmen, lobbyists, and other industry representatives, and make far-reaching changes to prevent industry gifts and payments from influencing the legislative process. The American Taxpayer, who elects funds and tolerates members of
Congress, proposed the elimination of many now-common
practices. It said legislators, for example,shouldn't accept meals, trips or other gifts from companies or lobbyists. Nor should legislators participate in junkets or golf outings if they have a financial interest in the outcome. The IOM also said legislators shouldn't accept direct industry funding for the development of guidelines having to do with the same industry. And it recommended that companies and legislators disclose payments publicly, and in a central place.
The recommendations, contained in a 353-page report, come amid
heightened concern and investigations -- often led by the American Taxpayer-- about the impact that industry gifts and payments have on Senators, Congressman, their aides, and family members as well.

See also, "Reforming Medical Ethics," my blog published on 7 March 2009

Matt Taibbi's True/Color

Matt Taibbi's True Color is blue, as in blue state. And he needs to brush up on his econo-terminology. In his post today on True/Slant he asks the following questions of "tea-baggers":

1. If you’re so horrified by debt and spending, where
were your tea parties when George Bush was adding $4 trillion
to the federal deficit?

2. If you’re so outraged by the bailouts, where were your tea
parties when the bailouts werefirst instituted by Henry Paulson
and George Bush last fall?

3. If you’re so troubled by pork, where were your tea parties
when the number and cost of congressional earmarks rose
spectacularly in each year of Republican congressional rule between
1996 and the end of the Republican majority in 2006?

First of all, "tea-baggers" is a sophomoric epithet, not worthy of a writer who is supposed to be a legitimate journalist. Second, why don't you learn the difference between the deficit and national debt. Even under the great borrower Obama, the deficit is not $4 trillion. Under Bush, the maximum deficit was around $450 billion, so even if the deficit were that large all 8 years, and it was not, the national debt would have been increased by less than $4 trillion. Obama is already way past the $4 trillion mark, and he has been president for less than 100 days. Third, we were outraged by the Bush/Paulson bailouts; you can ask Sen. Charles U. Schumer and Cong. John Hall about the emails I sent to them back then if you do not believe me. Fourth, we were and are outraged by republican pork. Why do you think they lost the Congress in 2006 and the Presidency in 2008?

However, Matt, when it comes to deficits and pork (and power grabs and prostration before petty potentates), the republicans are pikers. Put that in your pipe and puff it, Matt.

P.s. The tea parties were not just about bailouts, pork and taxes, although that is about as much as I can expect a liberal to understand. The tea perties, and the movement they represent, are about massive expansion of the federal government, and erosion of individual freedom that used to be guaranteed by the Constitution.

The first words of the Constitution are "We, the People of the United States of America," not "We, the Congress," or "We, the President."

Nato Outmaneuvered by Somali Teenagers

This excerpt is from "Nato Forces Thwart Somali Pirate Attack," by Katherine Houreld, AP, posted on AOL News 4/19/09

The pirates' release underscores the difficulties
navies have in fighting rampant piracy off the coast of lawless
Somalia. Most of the time foreign navies simply disarm and
release the pirates they catch due to legal complications and
logistical difficulties in transporting pirates and witnesses to
court.

Sounds like it's NATO that is lawless. Piracy with impunity is the new Law of the Sea. In Somalia, they have Sharia law. Does anyone think an Islamic court would just let them go, or would they amputate their hands or their heads? I am sure Roxana Saberi, who is a victim of Sharia law in Iran, longs for the treatment these pirates are getting.

Photo credit: BBC News online, 19 April 2009

Boo Hoo, No More Global Warming :(

The following is from an article written by Greg Roberts for The Australian, April 18, 2009:

A paper to be published soon by the British
Antarctic Survey in the journal Geophysical Research Letters
is expected to confirm that over the past 30 years,the area
of sea ice around the continent has expanded.

Roberts reports that the recent publicity about loss of ice from the Wilkins Ice Shelf, which is in western Antarctica, is misleading. Eastern Antarctica, which is much larger than western, has had an increase in ice mass over the last 10 years or more. Nevertheless, says Roberts, the Australian Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, continues to maintain that Antarctica is losing ice rapidly, and continues to make exaggerated predictions about the effect on world sea levels. Garrett is certainly aware of the findings to be pulished in Geophysical Research Letters, since the study originated in Australia. Q: Why would he say something so contrary to compelling scientific evidence? A: Peter Garrett is the Australian equivalent of Stephen L. Johnson and Christine Whitman, the current and former heads of the EPA; i.e., Garrett is a political appointee, his words are politically motivated, and therefore he is not to be trusted.

Additional evidence is easily seen in the above NASA photos of the Amery ice shelf: between 2001 and 2002 there was growth, not shrinkage of this eastern Antarctica ice. This is hardly indicative of warming.

I wish to state for the record my own scientific observation that the sea level is not rising. I have made this observation in Delray Beach, Florida, where my in-laws live. I have been visiting them from time to time over the past 15 years, and the beach is exactly the same size now as it was in the 1990s, when the Clintons were warning about warming. Rush Limbaugh, as you know, owns a compound in Palm Beach, a stone's throw from the Kennedy compound, and slightly up the coast from Delray. I will start worrying about global warming when Rush and the Kennedys build levees around their properties, and not before.

Anyway, I am in favor of global warming, because it would mean a longer golf season in New York.

Photo credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, arrows added.