Pharmacy and cost of healthcare rant

Via reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Brand-name drug makers are striking more deals with generic rivals to restrict the introduction of cheaper generic drugs, antitrust authorities said on Monday.
[...]
The FTC has monitored drug patent settlements closely since 2004, when Congress passed a law requiring drug companies to notify the FTC about them in advance.

This explains everything.

One of the things I do for a little income now is editing transcripts, meaning I listen to an audio file while going over the first draft of a transcript and I fix any errors. Usually these are interesting interviews or medical courses, but sometimes I get stuck with a sermon. And, once in awhile, somebody says something in one of these sermons that makes me laugh hysterically. The lady asking for Jesus to bless and anoint everyone’s blogs, for example, had me rolling. “Anoint my blog, oh Lord.”

Okay, so I just did a transcript for a sermon about the Affirmation, and it contained this quote:

“But there’s certain people that you’re around and when you walk away, you say, “Boy weren’t they smart?” And there’s other people that you’re around, and you walk away and you go, “Wow, I’m smarter than I thought.” We should be that kind of person. That the people feel smarter when they’ve been with us. That’s the affirmation.”

This explains so much. I just had an epiphany. Hallelujah and anoint my blog.

An interview that failed to elicit my sympathy

So I was just watching NBC news (which was my first mistake), and they were doing a story about rising gasoline prices. They interviewed a young woman at the pump about how the prices were effecting her, and she said, I kid you not, “I, like, can’t go as many places and, like, I can’t order dessert sometimes when I go out to eat.”

Oh the horror. I guess I’m supposed to feel sorry for her, except I haven’t been out to eat in months, and I never order a dessert if I’m ordering an entree. Seriously, NBC couldn’t have waited at the pump for an extra ten minutes to find a better example of someone hurt by rising gas prices? Not being able to order dessert when you’re paying someone else to cook your dinner isn’t exactly making me cry a river over here.

Couple pretend they had sextuplets so they could get free stuff

Via newsday:

The Eversons — Sarah, 45, and Kris, 33 — claimed to have given birth to four boys and two girls on March 8. The babies were apparently in intensive care.

The tale exploded in the local spotlight Monday when The Examiner in Independence ran on its front page a photograph of the couple holding six one-piece baby outfits and announcing the births.

Those who heard the Eversons’ sad story of tight finances set up a Web site to solicit contributions — including a van, washer and dryer, cash and gift certificates. A real estate agent was even working to find the family new housing.

I’m just surprised scams like this didn’t start happening much sooner, what with that family in my home state getting a van and about sixty grand worth of stuff for free just for having a shitload of kids all at once.  Hey, can we give some corporate sponsorships to a working poor person who’s working 45 hours a week at three part time jobs that don’t provide health insurance, and isn’t having kids yet out of a sense of responsibility, only to be told by our lovely government that they don’t qualify for health care because they haven’t popped out a kid yet?

Easy way to donate $5 to orphans

http://www.pinkpanel.com/

You take four surveys per year about beauty products you use and $5 (per set of 4 surveys) will be donated to The Orphan Foundation of America to give college scholarships to teenage girls who aged out of foster care without being adopted. This is the only safety net a lot of these young girls get tossed their way when they’ve aged out of the system, so $5 can go a long way in helping these kids become stable, responsible, self-sufficient adults.

The Orphan Foundation of America provides education to foster children who have aged out of the system. 98% of donations go to programs. You can see this charity’s rating at Charity Navigator.

Bush Authorized Plamegate Leak

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0406061libby1.html

A former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney told a federal grand jury that President George W. Bush authorized him to leak information from a classified intelligence report to a New York Times reporter. Details of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s testimony were included in a court filing made yesterday by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is prosecuting Libby for perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements in connection with the probe into the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity. According to Fitzgerald’s filing, an excerpt of which you’ll find below, Libby, 55, testified in 2003 that he provided reporter Judith Miller with information from a classified National Intelligence Estimate after being told by Cheney that Bush “specifically had authorized” him to “disclose certain information in the NIE.” Libby also testified that Cheney specifically directed him to speak to other reporters about information in the classified NIE (which addressed Iraq’s purported weapons of mass destruction programs) as well as a cable authored by Plame’s husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson.

Brief generic drug update

Common drugs that have been available for awhile but I forgot to post an update:

Amaryl (Glimepiride)

Zithromax (azithromycin) in 250 mg (Zpack) and 500 mg (Tripack) tablets (not sure if the liquids are out yet)

Floxin (Oflaxacin)

Available as generic just recently:

This is hardc0re

http://xboxfor100.ytmnd.com/

(there’s audio, so mute it if you’re at work)

I think this may qualify as irony

Via hamptonroads:

GuideOne, a major church insurer based in Iowa, estimated that 85 percent of the company’s 45,000 church clients chose terrorism insurance.

“These are churches across the country, not concentrated in specific areas,” spokeswoman Emily Abbas said in an e-mail.

To James Valverde , a risk management expert at the Insurance Information Institute in New York City , the religious xenophobia of Islamic terrorists is reason to worry.

“Given the religious fervor and underlying ideology in which this jihad is being pursued, it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility to assume that Christian churches would be on the receiving end of terrorist attacks,” he said. “It hasn’t occurred yet, but that’s not to say it couldn’t happen.”

A bunch of little midwest churches in overwhelmingly Christian towns worried about religious fervor? So am I. I’m living in rural Iowa right now, and it’s not Muslim extremists I’m wary of. I don’t think any cornfields are going to be attacked by al Qaeda, but the evangelical movement is exploding around here, and a lot of these people honestly believe athiests like me worship Satan and gays like me are out to ruin their marriages and pimp out their kids or something. It’s hard out here for a pimp.