Thank You (Insert Slash) Eff You

I’m trying a new thing. It’s a ”cheers and jeers”-like thing. enjoy it.

Thank You
25 (of 100) Iowa House of Representatives have opted to go paperless. The House Journal, the daily record of the chamber’s proceedings can be read online. Saving $30,000 a year and saving the environment, that’s why I say, Thank You, Iowa House of Representatives.

Eff You
Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, is contemplating raising parking meters from one dollar to two whole dollars. That’s a 100% increase! Councilman Paul Kuhns says it willl help pay for parking machines that accept credit cards. Fuck That. and Fuck you, Rehoboth Beach.

Thank You
Last year the North Dakota Legislature set aside money to pay for medical exams for women who have been sexually assaulted. Lawmakers makde it illegal for victims to be billed directly or through their health insurance coverage, ensuring privacy and encouraging reporting. Thank You Bismarck, North Dakota Lawmakers. Especially those who passed it. Which happens to be 91 Lawmakers. of 91. that’s 100%. Thank You, North Dakota.

Eff You
Michael Van Boening, 23, made bail for his fourth DUI in five weeks. A York County sheriff’s spokeswoman says Van Boening has yet to be prosecuted on other charges filed since January 20. Fuck You, Michael Van Boening. Fuck Grand Island Court Systems.

Thank You
Thank You Thon Participants at the Pennsylvania State University. Students raised $6.6 million dollars for pediatric cancer research and care. Thank You, Pennsylvania State University. You Rock.

Facts Via USA Today: LINK

What Worries Me is, What Happens if the Jury is Wrong?

 Court Considers Protecting Drug Makers From Lawsuits
New York Times: LINK 

If you can’t sue drug makers, can you sue the government or FDA for approving it? or does the warning label merit a risk? who reads warning labels anyways? I do. I don’t want to die, so you should too.

WASHINGTON — Less than a week after issuing a sweeping ruling that bars most lawsuits against medical device makers, the Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in the first of two cases that could determine whether drug makers receive similar protection.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer said the fundamental question in the cases was who should make the decisions that will determine whether a drug is “on balance, going to save people or, on balance, going to hurt people?”

“An expert agency on the one hand or 12 people pulled randomly for a jury role who see before them only the people whom the drug hurt and don’t see those who need the drug to cure them?” Justice Breyer asked.

Normally a member of the court’s liberal wing, Justice Breyer came down squarely on the industry’s side when he answered his own question, saying Congress left the role of policing the medicine market exclusively to the Food and Drug Administration.

“What worries me is, what happens if the jury is wrong?” he said.

If the justice’s view prevails, most lawsuits against drug makers, thousands of which have been filed in recent years and settled in some cases for billions of dollars, would be barred. But the Supreme Court is likely to wait until next year to answer Justice Breyer’s question completely.

That is because the question before the court Monday in Warner-Lambert v. Kent was in part restricted to the effects of a Michigan statute that bars personal injury suits against drug makers unless injured patients can show that the company deliberately withheld information from the F.D.A. that would have led the government to block the medicine from being sold.

The case was brought by 27 Michigan plaintiffs who claim they were injured as a result of taking a Warner-Lambert diabetes pill, Rezulin, which has since been withdrawn from the market. The plaintiffs claim the company withheld from the F.D.A. evidence of Rezulin’s dangers to the liver that would have led the agency to deny an approval.

But in a 2001 case involving the Buckman Company, the Supreme Court held that plaintiffs cannot sue based upon claims that a manufacturer defrauded the F.D.A…

Freedom from Speech

Thomas: No Questions in 2 Years
Associated Press: LINK 

WASHINGTON — Two years and 144 cases have passed since Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas last spoke up at oral arguments. It is a period of unbroken silence that contrasts with the rest of the court’s unceasing inquiries.

Hardly a case goes by, including two appeals that were argued Monday, without eight justices peppering lawyers with questions. Oral arguments offer justices the chance to resolve nagging doubts about a case, probe its weaknesses or make a point to their colleagues.

Left, right and center, the justices ask and they ask and they ask. Sometimes they debate each other, leaving the lawyer at the podium helpless to jump in. “I think you’re handling these questions very well,” Chief Justice John Roberts quipped to a lawyer recently in the midst of one such exchange.

Leaning back in his leather chair, often looking up at the ceiling, Thomas takes it all in, but he never joins in.

Monday was no different. Thomas said nothing.

He occasionally leans to his right to share a comment or a laugh with Justice Stephen Breyer. Less often, he talks to Justice Anthony Kennedy, to his immediate left.

Thomas, characteristically, declined to comment for this article. But in the course of his publicity tour for his autobiography, “My Grandfather’s Son,” the 59-year-old justice discussed his reticence on the bench on several occasions.

The questions may be helpful to the others, Thomas said, but not to him.

“One thing I’ve demonstrated often in 16 years is you can do this job without asking a single question,” he told an adoring crowd at the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.

The book tour showed that the topic comes up even among friendly audiences.

Indeed, Thomas’ comment was provoked by this question: Why do your colleagues ask so many questions?

His response: “I did not plant that question. That’s a fine question. When you figure out the answer, you let me know,” he said…

Forum Warz: RPG About the Internet

New Game Parodies Internet Stereotypes, But It’s Not For Those Easily Offended

Digital Journal: LINK 

A new role-playing game (RPG) mocking Internet culture is staking its own piece of the gaming pie. Forumwarz satirizes the flamewars, comment trolls and gibberish phraseology you’re bound to see in every corner of the Web.

Digital Journal — You may have heard of role-playing games on the Internet but what about role-playing games about the Internet? A new game called Forumwarz should appeal to anyone familiar with comment threads: interact on forums to generate random comments to gain points, and play as either as a Troll, Camwhore or Emo Kid. Each has their own abilities: the Emo Kid, for example, “turns otherwise agreeable forums into dumping grounds for her depressing rants, false-alarm suicide notes and side-splittingly morbid poetry.”

Developed by Toronto-based Crotch Zombie Productions, this online game about online culture is a needle in a haystack of role-playing games about the same-old themes. But Forumwarz differentiates itself by mocking stereotypical comment hounds, giving a satirical twist to inserting quick phrases into threads. And a warning to anyone easily offended: This site is designed for a mature audience and it holds nothing back.

Robin Ward, Forumwarz’s developer and designer, says the game “parodies almost every aspect of the Internet that these people spend so much time in. The basic thought behind it is: what if the Internet were a game?”

He compares the game (released in beta Oct. 31 and now open to everyone) to another popular hub of insider geek jokes: “It’s like one of my favorite TV shows, Futurama, which does a great job of being funny to the casual viewer but also manages to squeeze in all these obscure jokes for the nerd audience who will appreciate them.”

Selective Memory: Cars and Kisses

News.com.au: LINK
THE MAJORITY of men remember their first car better than their first kiss, while younger gents think getting behind the wheel is better than getting a lover, a survey reveals. But 12 per cent of respondents to a survey carried out by the organisers of the British International Motor Show said they felt more attractive to the opposite sex when they got their licence.
The UK’s Daily Mail reported reported that 60 per cent of survey respondents regarded their first car as being female and a quarter gave it a name. The newspaper also reported that a majority of respondents said owning their first car ranked higher their initial embrace, their first boyfriend or girlfriend and their 18th birthday. About 40 per cent of respondents said they could even remember their first registration plate in full. More than a third said they had sex in their first vehicle.
Show organiser Kirsty Perkinson said people develop “strong bonds” with their first car. “First cars represent an explosion of independence and a gateway to untold adventures, which is why they are so special,” Ms Perkinson said.

Kraft to Fill Bagels With Creamy White Substance

Cream-Cheese-Filled Bagels Still Not As Good As Creme-Filled Hot Dogs
Market Watch: LINK

^^^^ (Futurama Reference). Post Title via SoGood.com

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Kraft Foods Inc. which has been working to reignite growth in its cheese business, plans to launch a new line of frozen breakfast offerings called Bagel-Fuls.
The food giant is expected to unveil that new line at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York Conference Tuesday morning. Kraft’s efforts come at a time when the company has been fighting commodity price increases and looking for ways to energize its brands in the face of competition from cheaper private-label products.
Kraft’s new Bagel-Fuls brand are frozen bagels, which come stuffed with Philadelphia cream cheese. Kraft sells everything from Maxwell House coffee to Oscar Mayer meats, but cheese is still a key part of its business. Last year the company’s North America cheese and food-service business had revenue of $6.4 billion.
The company has faced some challenges in its cheese business. Dairy costs have been soaring, hurting Kraft’s margins and forcing it to raise prices for its cheese products. Cheaper private label, or store brands, also have also been trying to build up the offering of cheese products. In recent quarters, marketing and new products has helped Kraft build share in categories like snacking cheeses…

Students Learn to Cultivate and Cook with Cannabis

Oakland trade school teaches people how to grow pot
The Houston Chronicle: LINK 

Old News: Marijuana Vending Machine Debuts in California >>>>

OAKLAND, Calif. — You know you’re in a different kind of college when a teaching assistant sets five marijuana plants down in the middle of a lab and no one blinks a bloodshot eye.
Welcome to Oaksterdam University, a new trade school where higher education takes on a whole new meaning.
The school prepares people for jobs in California’s thriving medical marijuana industry. For $200 and the cost of two required textbooks, students learn how to cultivate and cook with cannabis, study which strains of pot are best for certain ailments, and are instructed in the legalities of a business that is against the law in the eyes of the federal government.
“My basic idea is to try to professionalize the industry and have it taken seriously as a real industry, just like beer and distilling hard alcohol,” said Richard Lee, 45, an activist and pot-dispensary owner who founded the school in a downtown storefront last fall.
So far, 60 students have completed the two-day weekend course, which is sold out through May. At the end of the class, students are given a take-home test, with the highest scorer — make that “top scorer” — earning the title of class valedictorian.
Before getting to Horticulture 101, the hands-on highlight of Oaksterdam U, the 20 budding botanists, entrepreneurs and political activists at a recent weekend session sat politely through two law lectures and a visiting professor’s history talk.
In the lab, Lee measured plant food into a plastic garbage can and explained how, with common sense, upgraded electrical outlets, a fan and an air filter, students can grow pot at home for fun, health, public service — or profit…

Video Overload!

I love Devo. and NIN. Trent Reznor. His politics are great – on the opening of music. Me, being a Libertarian, loves the idea. LINK Also, you all know about Fight Club, the musical right? well get this, Trent Reznor Might do the Music. LINK.

Soulja Boy By Inmates

Source: Jacki Isett. Thank You!

Death of a Culture

Kenya: Plastic Makers Comply With Ban On Light Bags – Business Daily: LINK
KILL PLASTIC BAGS WITH TAXES: look to Ireland – Inhabitant: LINK
China targets plastic bags – Los Angeles Times: LINK
Bagging the plastic – Jerusalem Post: LINK

I forgot to do an article about this about 2 months ago. Countries are doing different things to stop the production and use of plastic bags. Taxes on consumers, producers, and outright bans are stopping people from using these wastes. Reusable bags have been in use the every time I had visited Poland, except lately. Weird, isn’t it? Yeah, they are conservative a-holes in power. Green Party Represent! Go Green, Go Nader. >>>>>>>>>