I hate you, Lamisil toe fungus monster.

A few facts:

• The cash price on prescription Lamisil pills is around $13 per pill.
• Most of our patients have to take one or two pills each day for six to twelve months for it to completely remove the fungus.
• Many insurance companies won’t pay for it except in cases where a person is unable to walk on the infected foot.

In other words, somebody sees an advertisement, makes an appointment with a doctor just to ask for a specific drug some cartoon character was shilling, gets the prescription, takes it to the pharmacy, finds out insurance won’t cover it, hears the cash price, refuses to fill the prescription, then yells at me because this is somehow all my fault.  Oh, and everybody’s health insurance rises just a bit to pay for that pointless doctor’s appointment.

Most drug advertisements are for one of these three purposes:

Student expelled for gay-themed film project

Via towleroad:

Brandon Flyte, a student at West Linn High School in West Linn, Oregon, was recently expelled for airing a video project he had been assigned in class which includes a same-sex “snuggle” scene.
[...]
Flyte writes on his website: “One has to wonder if any of this would’ve happened had the two characters snuggling in my film been male and female. We’re led to believe that diversity is encouraged in schools, but when a 17 year-old straight kid makes a serious gay love story and is expelled for it, it just begs the question of exactly what kind of policy was the administration following? I recall Tim Fields, one of the vice-principals at my school, having to think for at least a minute when asked by the office lady, ‘What should I put down for ‘reason of withdrawal’?‘ If the basis of my expulsion is so unclear to them, then surely the circumstances surrounding it are extremely questionable and the grounds on which I was removed are both unfair and unexplainable.”

Reason of Withdrawal: “We don’t want no queer-lovers here.”

The CDC is another target in the War on Science

The New Yorker

The above is a link to an interview about the article in the magazine. Here’s a quote from the article (not available online):

Religious conservatives are unapologetic; not only do they believe that mass use of an HPV vaccine or the availability of emergency contraception will encourage adolescents to engage in unacceptable sexual behavior; some have even stated that they would feel similarly about an H.I.V. vaccine, if one became available. ‘We would have to look at that closely,’ Reginald Finger, an evangelical Christian and a former medical adviser to the conservative political organization Focus on the Family, said. ‘With any vaccine for H.I.V., disinhibition’ – a medical term for the absence of fear – ‘would certainly be a factor, and it is something we will have to pay attention to with a great deal of care.’ Finger sits on the Centers for Disease Control’s Immunization Committee, which makes those recommendations.

Wow. Just . . . wow.

http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/creditcard/application.shtml

Man rips up credit card application into about 20 little pieces. Then tapes it back together. Then fills it out with a different phone number and address. Credit card company doesn’t call old phone number to verify jack. New card with $5000 limit arrives in the mail to the new address listed on the ripped-up application.

Great identity theft protection, Chase. Oh, here’s the kicker:

Soldiers can’t access email, blogs, etc

Via wonkette:

Just to let you know, the US Marines have blocked access to “Wonkette” along with numerous other sites such as personal email (i.e. Yahoo, AT&T, Hotmail, etc), blogs that don’t agree with the government point of view, personal websites, and some news organizatons. This has taken effect as of the beginning of February. I have no problem with them blocking porn sites (after all it is a government network), but cutting off access to our email and possibly-not-toeing-the-government-line websites is a bit much.

Initially all web blocking was done locally at the hub sites in Iraq. If you wanted a site “unblocked” you just had to email the local administrator with a reason (like, “I’d like to read my email, please.”), and if it wasn’t porn or offensive, they’d allow it. Now, all blocking is done by desk-weenies at the USMC Network Operations Center in Quantico, VA, who really don’t care if we get our email (or gossip) out here, as they get to go to happy hour after working 9 to 5 and go home to a nice clean, warm home with a real bed! (Sorry, I’m a little peeved.)

I’ll admit I don’t know alot of the people over there right now, but every one I do know communicates with family back home almost entirely by hotmail or yahoo mail. Way to go, USMC Network Operations Center.