Daily Archives: February 14, 2004

Plan B

This entry was posted in Business US Capitalism Constitution Economics Federal Government Health Care Libertarianism US Politics on by

For the FDA it appears that ‘B’ stands for babies. Why else would the FDA ignore the 23-4 vote of its scientific advisory panel and continue to withhold the morning after drug ‘Plan B’ from the over the counter retail market?
Well, perhaps babies and, as Mark Kleiman suggests, politics:

I’m prepared to bet that the FDA will eventually do the right thing. But how many unwanted pregnancies, leading to how many abortions, will result from this obviously political decision?

Yep, politics, and one more example of why such decisions should not be in the hands of political hacks.
Mark also says:

Once again, we can expect a deafening silence from the libertarians, whose sincerity about personal liberty I keep doing my level best not to doubt.

I don’t know if there will be a deafening silence or not. However, I suspect that most real libertarians not only would object to this decision but also argue that the FDA should not have any say in the matter at all, that it should not even exist as a government function.

For your Valentine

This entry was posted in Astronomy Humor on by

A small diamond as a token of your love.
Though it might just squish her. As Scott at AMCGLTD notes:

At that density and size, it should be noted, the thing has a gravitational field about three thousand times stronger than the earth’s.

And Michael at Discount Blogger reports that on hearing the news:

… the simultaneous orgasm experienced by worldwide employees of De Beers very nearly registered on the Richter scale.

Cult of w

This entry was posted in bush on by

Krugman hammers away at w and company for including 27 pictures of w in the fiscal 2005 budget document:

By my count, this year’s budget contains 27 glossy photos of Mr. Bush. …
It was not ever thus. Bill Clinton’s budgets were illustrated with tables and charts, not with worshipful photos of the president being presidential.
The issue here goes beyond using the Government Printing Office to publish campaign brochures. In this budget, as in almost everything it does, the Bush administration tries to blur the line between reverence for the office of president and reverence for the person who currently holds that office.

My knee jerk reaction to Krugman’s column was that the budget document was something worthy of saddam or the great leader.
Well, a ‘quick’ look shows that there are 16-17 pictures of bush in the first 191 pages of the document (I got bored at that point…there was still a way to go until the end). And there were more pictures of others along with at least a few charts and graphs. As much as I’m tired of looking at bush this document seems more like a corporate marketing piece then a glorification of bush (of course I reserve my right to change my mind on this once I’ve read a few sections).
I suspect that the primary readers of the document will be economists, a few journalists and congressional staffers devoted to whoever is paying their salary. I’d rather the bushies had saved our money and simply given them the text and the numbers.