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Big Pharma superstar Pfizer’s arthritis pain drug, the heavily advertised Celebrex, was found responsible for a signficant increase in heart problems, according to a Pfizer study of other applications for the drug. Well, well, well. What we have is just part of the vicious cycle now operating in America’s so-called health care apparatus: big pharma develops a drug for some use, then advertises the &^%$ out of it, people go to their doctors demanding the neat new drug they saw on t.v., doctors are under pressure to satisfy their patients (and as an added benefit, the insurance companies are much...

Contracts to develop a couple of minor Iraqi oil fields were let to Canadian and Turkish bidders. The contracts, totalling under $500 million, were notable for their smallness, i.e., no major oil companies (or Bechtel, Halliburton or the usual favored suspects) seemed to have an interest in them. The contracts are of note because they are, of course, the first “post-war” contracts let by “the sovereign” (albeit illegitimate) government of Iraq. The announcement of these contracts comes just as former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was allowed to meet with his defense lawyers (for the first time). Relationship between the two?...

One of the funniest television shticks I’ve ever seen was but a moment: on an NBC television special hosted by Don Rickles in the early 1970’s, the network decided to feature another of its stars, and asked Rickles to point him out. Rickles did so, as follows: “Ladies and gentlemen, its Mr. Bob Hope! I guess the war must be over!” [It wasn’t.] Fast forward to a less funny moment in what has now moved into the ranks of bloodiest American military adventures, and what now passes for “entertaining the troops”, an event attended by around 1,000 service personnel (same...

Amidst reports of successive attacks on gates leading to the protected American suburb in the center of Baghdad affectionately (and, interestingly, accurately so) called “the Green Zone”, interim premier (and, I suppose, the front runner in next month’s show elections in Iraq) Iyad Allawi has announced that starting next week, proceedings will commence vis a vis trials of former members of the Saddam Hussein Tikriti regime. Now, those irritating defendants and their irritating attorneys are kvetching about things like not being able to have counsel present during interrogations and proceedings, or having, you know, formal charges and shit for like,...

This week’s visit to our friends at Beijing’s People’s Daily gives us this account of the PRC having joined the big boys, with over one trillion U.S. dollars worth of annual international trade. That would put China up there with only the United States, Japan, and whoever is in third place (Germany, maybe… the EU as a whole?). To put this in perspective, the entire American annual GDP is in the ten trillion dollar range. China holds over $500 billion in foreign exchange reserves (mostly yankee dollars, mostly in funny paper like T-bills). Further, China observes that it employs around...

This week’s visit to Pravda discusses this week’s NATO-Russia summit at Brussels, and how both sides have no intention of returning to the Cold War, and how the Ukraine “disagreement” does not signify a return to prior rivalries, etc. and so forth. Hugs and kissees all around. No mention, of course, is made of the poisoning of Ukrainian opposition candidate Victor Yuschenko, which has just been confirmed by doctors in Austria. I mean, just because an autocrat in the Kremlin really wanted the other guy to win, doesn’t make you think that… Bygones…

Almost on cue (commenter Miss Authoritiva questioned if “the corporatists” who run the world might want to knock the Bushmen down a notch or two lest they take the nation over the edge, and hence, be bad for business) Homeland Security Secretary nominee Bernard Kerik abruptly withdrew his name from nomination. The stated reason is that he was a middle class person who had children. Therefore, he had domestic help, and therefore, said domestic help was (1) off the books and (2) of “questionable” immigration status. And therefore, Kerik can’t be a cabinet officer. Kerik becomes the first man of...

The President continued his policy to destroy the financial underpinnings of this country (see “mandate”) more or less unabated, today “taking payroll tax increases off the table” to fund his (insane) social security privatization scam… scheme. Obviously, if we (1) won’t raise payroll taxes and (2) won’t reduce social security (or medicare) benefits, and (3) won’t increase other federal taxes, then that pretty much leaves (4) massive borrowing as the only available option to fund proposed increased costs of social security administration envisioned by the private account gifts to Wall Street… er, younger workers. The issue, of course (the real...

That would, of course, be the Bush Administration’s announcement (along with the resignation of VA Secretary Anthony Principi) of the retention of Treasury Secretary John Snow. As you will recall, Snow replaced ousted SecTreas Paul O’Neill immediately after the mid-term elections. He did so not merely because O’Neill actually wanted to implement responsible economic policies whereas Snow prefers to adopt the “Sergeant Schultz” (I know NOTHING) attitude so desirable in a Bush cabinet officer. Far worse than that, O’Neill risked upstaging the President, by touring Africa with Bono. Hence, he had to go, and was promptly shown the door (the...

That would be the latest damage inflicted on our nation by “the 9-11 families”, a group that I kind of wish would shut up already, especially when they won’t leave well enough alone and force the nation into crap like “the intelligence reform bill” that just (finally) passed the House of Representatives. For whatever reason, people like me, who only had the good fortune to have seen the events of September 11th from a block away, rather than to have lost a family member, have no standing whatsoever, whereas the now-millionaire-families of the 2,800 or so killed… get a disproportionate...