This young man is going to do some great things, I predict. I’ve got some early morning plans so here’s an open thread.
Read a fucking book.
mistermix has been a Balloon Juice writer since 2010.
Another Free Market Success Story
There’s a shortage of some chemo drugs and antibiotics this year:
More than half the recent shortages have resulted because government or company inspectors found problems like microbial contamination that can be lethal on injection. Others have occurred because of capacity problems at drug plants or lack of interest because of low profits, according to the F.D.A. […] “The race to the bottom has led to an increase of products coming from plants in China and India that may have uncertain supply and may have never been inspected,” Ms. Bresch said. “If the F.D.A. was required to inspect foreign drug plants at the same rate it does domestic ones, we might not have so many of these shortages.”
One example: Johnson & Johnson, whose cancer drug Doxil is in short supply says that “Our third-party manufacturer has had some manufacturing issues related to capacity.” J&J made $2.8 billion last quarter, with a yearly profit margin a bit over 20%, but that’s still not enough.
Perry Can’t Pull Out When Confronted With Abstinence Statistics
Steve Benen highlights this three minutes of stupidity from Rick Perry. The guy just repeats his belief (“abstinence works”) when faced with statistics showing that Texas has the third-highest teen pregnancy rate in the country. Steve adds:
In a case like education and lessons on sexual health, the left tends to look at this in terms of results: what works in preventing teen pregnancies and the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases? For the right, the question is philosophical: what’s consistent with their morality.
This is basically right, but I’ll add that the elusive and oft-courted “center” is also concerned with, and will vote for, pragmatism, if it’s presented to them in the right package with the right kind of bow on top. That’s a huge and sometimes under-appreciated part of the Obama administration’s rhetoric and style.
Also, too: I haven’t watched much Perry on video, but after watching this one, I’m struck with the force of will that it must take the DC Perry-fluffing contingent to ignore just how much he looks, talks and thinks like Bush.
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HP
When I need to do some calculating, I pull out my 20-year-old HP calculator and calculate the fuck out of whatever needs calculation. When I need some marks on paper, my five-year-old HP laser printer prints the living shit out of that piece of paper, and I expect it will be fusing toner for many years to come. I’ve also got a couple of HP computers that work just fine, and they’re a slight cut above the usual commodity crap you get at Best Buy — that is, they appear to be the product of an engineering team that had a little more on their mind than wringing every last, single penny of optimization from their PC design.
So, it’s hard to watch yet another American company that is clearly capable of producing decent products get run into the ground by the morons in charge. First, Cara Carleton Fiorina bought Compaq with a big flourish, and all that got HP was two of everything in its PC line. HP never integrated Compaq, so it ended up selling PCs that looked like HP PCs, and PCs that looked like Compaq PCs. That’s death in a commodity business where making a lot of one thing is the key to profitability.
Then, Leo Apotheker flew in and bought Palm (WedbOS) almost exactly a year ago. Yesterday, he announced that they’re killing the Palm unit they just bought, in part because the rushed-to-market, crap Touchpad that was introduced a couple of months ago was a flop. From what I’ve seen, WebOS had a lot of potential if it was running on the right hardware. It takes more than a year to get that right, so Leo might as well have invited Carly to a bonfire and burned the $1.2 billion he paid for Palm.
I get that the commodity PC business is morphing into a non-commodity device business, and that Apple is eating everyone’s lunch because they’re building 30 million of one thing instead of one million of 30 things, but weak management at companies like HP is making it really easy for them. The rumbling sound being heard around Palo Alto today is Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard spinning in their graves.
Underachievers Please Try Harder
Here’s one of the ACLU’s advocacy efforts for the week:
Here’s one from Reason:
August 20 is Lemonade Freedom Day! In response to a rash of kids’ lemonade stands shut down for lack of licenses, permits, or other bureaucratic devices, father-of-two Robert Fernandes launched a site to promote a big citrusy celebration this Saturday. So go find some young ‘uns and get ready to help them set up a lemonade stand for liberty.
If anyone ever asks why we use the term “glibertarian” around here, give them a link to this post.
(Both via EDK)
Update: Just in case it isn’t clear, the point is that the ACLU is doing their usual excellent advocacy job on a substantive issue, while Reason picked some sideshow to highlight.
If I Were a Conspiracy Theorist
A more suspicious person than me could well wonder whether part of S&P’s motivation for the debt downgrade was innoculation against this:
The Justice Department is investigating whether the nation’s largest credit ratings agency, Standard & Poor’s, improperly rated dozens of mortgage securities in the years leading up to the financial crisis, according to two people interviewed by the government and another briefed on such interviews.
The investigation began before Standard & Poor’s cut the United States’ AAA credit rating this month, but it is likely to add fuel to the political firestorm that has surrounded that action. Lawmakers and some administration officials have since questioned the agency’s secretive process, its credibility and the competence of its analysts, claiming to have found an error in its debt calculations.
An indictment would look like retaliation at this moment, wouldn’t it?
Also, too: FSM save us from innumerate reporters and/or chickenshit editors. Isn’t it established fact that S&P made a huge error in its original writeup? Shorter NYT: “Some claim that 2+2 = 4. Others disagree.”
Even-Keeled Progressive
This Dan Savage interview in Salon is worth a read. His take on the mixed Obama record on gay rights is, well, mixed — as well as nuanced. And this is the opposite of “primary Obama now”:
You see the polls on marriage equality moving in our favor. Unfortunately, you know, some people say therefore the president should come out in favor of marriage equality. Fifty-one, 52 percent of Americans aren’t for marriage equality in every state. And the overwhelming support for marriage equality in California and New York, and blue states, isn’t going to add up to a victory. I’ve actually written and think that if the president came out for marriage equality now, I don’t think Republicans who are for marriage equality are going to vote for him on that basis, but I do think Democrats who oppose it will vote against him, for that reason. So politically, I don’t think it’s unwise for the president to evolve at the pace he’s evolving right now. But I don’t believe him.
What’s refreshing about the interview is the lack of black-and-white thinking and resentment/betrayal emotions. Instead, there’s dissatisfaction where Obama hasn’t gone far enough, satisfaction and pride about the victories, and a sharp pragmatic recognition of what’s possible, politically.