Another Carrington has gone to the Great Land of Primetime Soap Operas in the Sky.
Christopher Cazenove, the British actor best known for his role as Ben Carrington in the 1980’s soap Dynasty, died Wednesday after a month-long battle with the blood infection septicaemia. He was 64. Cazenove’s death comes just days after Dynasty patriarch John Forsythe succumb to cancer at age 92.
Lynne Kiesling
Last week I was honored to spend a couple of days at St. Lawrence University with Steve Horwitz and his students and colleagues. In addition to giving a talk on regulation and technological change in the electricity industry, I gave a guest lecture in an environmental economics class and participated in a reading group that Steve and Jeremy Horpedahl have organized this semester.
In that reading group we discussed Part I of Democracy in Deficit by James Buchanan and Richard Wagner (note if you go to that link you can read the book online, although the hardcover version is quite lovely and high quality). As a non-macroeconomist I have always struggled with the underlying logic of macroeconomics at an aggregate level, and in particular with the logic of Keynesian macroeconomics. I have always had an intuitive sense of my interpretation of macroeconomic models and policy implications, but have never worked through them deeply enough to feel comfortable having a conversation with a macroeconomist (for example, debating Keynesian macroeconomics with my colleague Bob Gordon). The arguments that Buchanan and Wagner develop in Democracy in Deficit give logic and voice to my inchoate ideas.
Steve wrote a concise summary of the Buchanan and Wagner argument in his column in the Freeman today; here’s the nub of the gist:
What Buchanan and Wagner argue is that the legacy of Keynes, whether intended or not, has been to disrupt the old tacitly accepted “fiscal constitution,” by which politicians treated the federal budget largely like a household budget. Debt was justified for only two basic reasons: war or similar emergencies and long-term capital expenditures that required large upfront costs. Such debts were expected to be repaid as soon as possible because long-term indebtedness was considered both economically imprudent and immoral. Why immoral? Because the cost was a burden on future generations that had no say in the matter.
Keynesian economics changed all this by constructing an intellectual justification for viewing the federal budget as a tool for managing the economy rather than a constraint under which politicians operate. Keynesianism argued that in recessions budget deficits could stimulate aggregate demand and lead to recovery, while in good times surpluses would both prevent excessive growth and pay back the debt.
While plausible in theory, the Keynesian model is institutionally sterile; in other words, Keynesian models and policy recommendations do not take into account how such models and policies are likely to be implemented in a democratic republic like the U.S. In other words, Democracy in Deficit provides a public choice macroeconomic analysis of Keynesian models and policies. A public choice analysis of Keynesian macroeconomics incorporates (dare I say endogenizes) the objective functions of policymakers, in particular the “vote-seeking” objectives of politicians. That vote seeking means that fiscal constraints are not in the interests of politicians, so they enact deficit-inducing policies to a degree beyond what an institutionally sterile Keynesian model would suggest.
If you combine that incentive with the change in the federal budget from a constraint on politicians to an administrative management tool, you end up with a pretty good model of our current political economy — perpetual deficits instead of counter-cyclical deficits, increasing indebtedness, and an apparent unwillingness among politicians to engage in fiscal responsibility that would reduce our burdens “on future generations that have no say in the matter”.
If you are interested in an accessible analysis of our macro policies, I recommend Democracy in Deficit, as did Will Wilkinson late last week; I echo Will’s conclusion that “Even if you disagree with Buchanan and Wagner about particulars, this book will leave you with a much-improved ability to think through the political economics of fiscal policy.”
Following the horrific explosion at a West Virginia coal mine Monday, a strange thing has happened on Capitol Hill: Everyone seems to be treating the disaster as an issue peculiar to West Virginia.
Indeed, while we’ve seen plenty of statements and public interviews from West Virginia’s congressional delegation in recent days, we’re not hearing anything at all from the other Appalachian lawmakers, some of whom represent districts that are home to other active, underground, Massey-owned coal mines that together have racked up hundreds of safety violations this year alone.
Pike County, Ky., for example, is home to Freedom Mine #1, a Massey-owned project that’s tallied 187 citations this year. Among the violations are a number involving problems with mine ventilation systems and the accumulation of combustible materials — the same combination suspected to have caused Monday’s explosion in West Virginia. Rep. Hal Rogers (R) represents that district, yet there’s no mention of the West Virginia incident on his Website. And calls and emails to his office this week haven’t been returned.
Another example: Rep. Rick Boucher (D) represents Tazewell County, Va., which is home to the Tiller No. 1 Mine. That Massey-controlled project has been cited 56 times this year for safety infractions, including vent problems, accumulations of combustibles and a failure to maintain escapeways. Boucher’s Website this week recognizes a new water system in his district, but doesn’t mention Monday’s accident. A Boucher spokeswoman emailed today to clarify that he hasn’t made any public statements on the event.
Similar silence is coming form the offices of Virginia Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb, and Kentucky Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning. (Both McConnell and Bunning are featuring statements about how the Obama administration’s recent mountaintop mining restrictions will cripple the coal industry.)
Yes, Congress is on recess, and the lawmakers are bouncing around their districts doing whatever it is they do at home. But this was the most significant mining disaster in 26 years. It’s a bit surprising we’re not seeing more reaction from Capitol Hill.
Nokia Chairman, CEO and President Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo has the second-toughest job in the mobile industry — that of turning the decades-old, set-in-its-ways, $58-billion-a-year mobile handset maker into a services-driven, Internet-oriented monster that not only catches up to but surpasses new upstart rivals Apple and Google. The good news is that unlike Palm CEO Jon Rubenstein (who has the toughest mobile gig), he doesn’t have to worry about running out of money anytime soon.
“You can’t really call it a mobile industry. Things are quite blurry. The Internet and mobile are converging and the PC and cell phone are merging,” said Kallasvuo when I met him for a brief conversation earlier this week. If sales of the iPhone and Google’s Android-based smartphones are any indication, the mobile industry is indeed overhauling itself for the future — one that revolves around the Internet, and the content and services that come with persistent connectivity to it.
“Today consumers expect more from the device than just hardware. They want hardware along with services such as music and navigation built into the price of the device,” Kallasvuo said. So while in the past Nokia competed with other handset makers on hardware features, now it’s competing on new ways of doing business. “The industry competition now is about ecosystem and business models.”
The Rise of the Mobile Internet
The tragic part, of course, is that Nokia was the first one to see this change coming — long before Apple started working on the iPhone. I’ve followed the Espoo, Finland-based company for a long time, nearly a decade and a half. My first cell phone, in 1995, was from Nokia; it was the device that exposed me to the potential of wireless. It was the phone I used to call my parents in India, so for me, Nokia represented a way to connect with the people I love. What excited me even more back then was Nokia’s vision of phones as a “multimedia computers” that put the Internet in your pocket. The company was talking about disrupting not only the industry it already dominated, but itself.
And then Nokia blew it. Rather than disrupting anything, the company started going down the path of incremental evolution. It sacrificed its boldness at the altar of scale and commoditization. It became the Dell of the handset business. And then, in 2007, the iPhone was launched, and cell phones stopped being just about hardware and instead became all about services, content and developers. The stock prices of the two companies tell the whole story.
When I outlined this — not in as many words, of course — Kallasvuo listened to me patiently and then responded by pointing out that over the past two years, Nokia has been trying to move in this direction, mostly by acquiring companies and by launching new mapping and music-related services. “We have made investments in adding these capabilities,” he said. “Others,” he said, “have not made it clear in their value.” By others he means Nokia’s hardware-focused handset rivals.
“We have been transforming the company from a hardware company to a more value-added services company,” he said. “We have brought in new people with new processes and are doing things in a new way. This change has been extremely complex and time-consuming.”
To that end, Kallasvuo candidly admitted that while the “direction is very clear” for Nokia, the key will be executing on that vision. He’s confident Nokia can do it, pointing, by way of example, to its Ovi services, which it’s been localizing for countries around the world. “From 2008 to 2010 we have made a lot of progress and in 2010 you are going to see the results of that,” he said.
Symbian…Why Why Why?
When I asked him why Nokia still hadn’t introduced a great touchscreen phone, he would only say that the company was working on new products, refusing to get into details. I’ve been pretty tough on Nokia when it comes to this point, as most of its touchphones have been extremely disappointing (at least to me). However, Kallasvuo was willing to talk about Nokia’s reliance on Symbian , a mobile operating system that’s long in the tooth.
“Symbian has a lot of positive telecom-centric legacy which allows it to scale really well,” Kallasvuo said. The new version of the OS, he added, has improvements — said to include better graphics, multitouch, support of multiple home pages and a better music store, amongst other things — that will speak for themselves. I’m not holding my breath, however, mostly because I think the guys at Apple and Android are innovating at Internet speed. Plus the new Symbian isn’t likely to make it to the market until late June.
Kallasvuo also pointed out that Nokia sells an enormous number of feature phones (reasonably priced devices that aren’t as powerful as smartphones), and can bring the Internet to those devices. Hence the company’s recent purchase of Novarra. I think this could end up being Nokia’s big opportunity. With Apple and Google succeeding at the top end of the market, Nokia would do well to shore up its bread-and-butter business and even try and take market share from rivals such as the beleaguered Sony Ericsson.
Location Gives the Internet Relevance
One of the things that gets Kallasvuo excited is location — or more specifically, location-based services. “Location is not an app, instead it adds a whole new dimension (and value) to the Internet,” he said, explaining why his company has made huge investments in location, including its $8 billion purchase of mapping company Navteq. Nokia earlier this year released a new Ovi Maps application that allows it to compete in markets such as India, Brazil and Russia, places where Google and Apple haven’t made inroads just yet.
“Putting location elements into different type of services is a big opportunity which makes the Internet more exciting,” Kallasvuo said. (I’ve written about Nokia’s location-oriented strategy in the past.) Location, along with different types of sensors and augmented reality, will open the mobile world up to different possibilities, he said.
If there was one point Nokia’s big boss wanted to make before we ended our conversation, it was that the Nokia in 2010 is going to be a lot different from the Nokia of the past. The company has its work cut out for it. The good news, if you can call it that, is that its CEO knows what to do. Acceptance is the first step toward recovery. And for me that’s a good start. I look forward to falling in love with Nokia all over again.
Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):
The man who’s suspected of planting thirty-six bomb-like devices in and around mailboxes in East Texas may have had a beef with the US government. Investigators arrested 52-year old Larry Eugene North yesterday after they say they spotted him planting a device near a shopping center in Tyler. North had been under 24 hour surveillance for about a week. After police arrested North, they found a second explosive device inside North’s van.
More than thirty different devices have been found since just the beginning of the year. Some of them were pipe-bombs. Others were Molotov cocktails. Some had been planted inside U.S. mail collection boxes. Others had been left outside businesses. No one was hurt by the devices. The big question that remains is why? Investigators aren’t telling because the case is ongoing- but they offered some clues. First Assistant US Attorney Brit Featherstone said it was obvious North “…did not particularly care for the U.S. government” based on what he wrote on the explosive devices themselves. Featherstone also said North had been defrauded of money he had come into because of a lawsuit. Featherston said, “It’s fair to say he was irritated with the individuals he thought were responsible for the loss of that money.”
What’s also interesting to note is who’s involved in this case. The Treasury Inspector General of the Tax Administration played some kind of role. That office is responsible for the protection of IRS employees. No one at the press conference would say exactly how or why the Treasury Inspector General was involved. Investigators also wouldn’t talk about why they first started looking at North.
North’s first court appearance is today. Investigators say he’s the only one involved in the case.
Apple’s been eying mobile advertising ever since as early as January. Today, as part of their iPhone OS 4.0 announcement, comes iAd: Apple’s plans for in-app ads that are about to get a lot more interactive—possibly even fun. More »
Shares of Palm Inc. stock gained 20% in trading yesterday on a rumor that China based Lenovo Group was interested in the company. The stock closed Wednesday up 77 cents to close at $4.62.
While Palm’s stock is no stranger to M&A rumors and insider trading moves, this latest bit of wall street speculation was kicked into high gear by a mention by CNBC anchor Jon “option monster” Najarian. He remarked that the play would be a “very nice cheap shot for Lenovo” and in the same sentence mentions U2’s Bono should just do the deal himself.
On the serious side, Lenovo made no official comment, however this MarketWatch article mentions that the Lenovo CEO has mentioned in recent interviews that the company is looking into making more acquisitions to build out their mobile Internet business.
Something is afoot in the land. An ossified pall hardens like cement over our Western women. Armies of bony, chiseled, jutting mandibles of maxillofacial transsexuality following in formation behind blitzkrieging boffo chins are mowing down reserves of beauty and femininity.
The horror!
Run for your lives!
It shoots friggin’ laser beams from its chin!
Her jaw is a geometric proof.
Overdeveloped blowjob muscles?
What is happening to our ladies? Their collective femininity is disappearing before our eyes. First come the manjaws, then come the newlywed chicks who sign up for internet cuckold-making services offering endless discreet trysts and humps in the alley behind Wawa. The traditional domain of women — their softness and erotic vulnerability — is yielding to a Grrl Brigade who look like they chew nails for fun. I half expect AskMen’s next Top 100 Babes to sport stubble.
The manjaw plague didn’t happen overnight, though it seems that way. It’s been in the works for a couple of generations now. Reasons abound.
On my occasional forays into the ghetto, I recurrently note just how beastly the local girls look. Huge jaws and brows that could sprout Wolverine claws when roused to anger. Maybe this is the end result of a mating market where generations of women have spread for the most violent, thuggish men in the hood. If so, is there a trickle up effect to the rest of society? Are redneck girls getting manlier also? Will the upper classes figuratively and literally barricade themselves from the manjaw invasion, creating not only a cognitive elite but a neotenous elite? I can imagine the pendulum swinging back in time, as legions of red-blooded American men become so turned off by the Lara Croftian trannies in their midst that a price premium is placed on the pixies, nymphs and sprites. Perhaps all this masculinization of our women will render their wombs barren, restricting their ability to contribute to the next generation. Demographic shift happens.
We must return to the old ways before beauty and sublime femininity all but disappear from the land. We must find a way to bring back the dainty, feminine jawline. I’ll do my part by banging only flaky, neurotic waifs who don’t have an ambitious delicate bone in their bodies.
Filed under: Girls, Goodbye America 
The Apple “iPhone OS 4.0” event is going to start in just a few minutes now. As usual the expectations are high from this event. Many iPhone users are hoping that the new version of iPhone OS will support multi-tasking and bring in battery life enhancements as well. Apple had recently released the Apple iPad which has got ravishing reviews all over the net. Apple said that they have managed to sell 300k iPad in the first couple of days.
It is not confirmed but users are also expecting Apple to release iPhone HD or iPhone 4G. Rumors also say that Apple will launch a refreshed line-up of the Macbook series.
Live Updates –:
The event started a few minutes ago. Sorry for the delay in the live update guys!
10:00AM : Steve Jobs enters!
10:01AM – 10:10AM : Steve Jobs before introducing us to the iPhone OS 4.0, tells us about the enormous success of the iPad. Steve said that over 250k books have been downloaded from the iBook store until date. He also said that Apple has managed to sell 450k iPad within a few days of its release. Steve also says that currently the App Store has 3.5k apps for the iPad and the number is increasing at a tremendous rate.
10:12 AM : Steve finally announces the iPhone OS 4.0. He says that the OS will ship this summer and a preview version for developers will be released today.
by David Roberts
“I knew that we’d be buddies when I met her when she said, ‘Drill here, drill now.’ And then I replied, ‘Drill, baby, drill’ and then we both said, ‘You betcha!’”
—former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, on meeting Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.)
Related Links:
Filling our short-term fossil-fuel needs
Senate climate bill to fund Utah tar sands development
Understanding the allure of ‘drill baby drill’
Three people, including a six-month-old baby, were discovered dead of gunshot wounds inside an Alhambra home Thursday morning in what investigators suspect is a murder-suicide.
Alhambra Police Lt. Edith Lopez said officers received a call about 4:30 a.m. of a possible suicide at a house in the 800 block of South Sierra Vista Avenue.
Inside the home, officers found the bodies of a man, a woman and the baby. All three had been shot, she said.
Lopez said evidence led investigators to believe it was a “murder-suicide.” Detectives were not yet saying which adult might have done the shootings.
Coroner’s officials will determine the cause of the deaths. Authorities were withholding the victims’ names until their relatives could be notified.
— Richard Winton
Map: The location of the incident. There have been four homicides within two miles of this location since Jan. 1, 2007, according to the Times’ Homicide Report database.
It’s no secret cities, counties and states across the nation are deep in the red and desperate to raise some cash….and that means raising taxes.
Everything from candy and soda to blueberries are being targeted. In Washington State they really want to soak it to Joe Six-pack with a proposal to TRIPPLE the beer tax!
Even though they’re not calling them “TAXES” – your local government is likely hard at work taking more money out of your pocket.
Jospeh Henchman from the Tax Foundation in Washington says,
“Americans have an historical antipathy towards taxes so politicans are always looking for ways to avoid being called a tax raiser, so one way to do that is to not raise taxes and another way to do that is call things non-taxes, call them fees.”
There’s been a hike in registration “fees” for retailers who sell noisemakers in West Virginia. And in Kentucky they’re proposing a additional “fees” on golf and hot air balloon rides. Other states are charging extra for visits to the hair salon and the bowling alley.
Tax advocates suggest that the sales tax is simply too narrow.
Lenny Goldberg of the Tax Reform Assoication says it had a commission on tax policy and pretty much everybody agreed that the sales tax wasn’t enough and the question was posed should they go heavily on services?
In fact the federal government is now taxing services.
Hidden in the new healthcare bill is a 10 percent tax on tanning salons. That’s expected to raise a whopping 2.7 billion dollars to help defray some of the costs associated with the healthcare legislation.
In Del Mar, California, the city council is asking voters to allow the 11.5 percent hotel tax to apply to summer cottage rentals.
The town’s mayor says every town has a way of extracting or getting expenses paid one way or another, “whether it’s sales tax or transient occupancy or parking or whatever it is we all have to pay our bills.” says Richard Earnest.
But even small fees can raise big money for your local government to spend. In the Golden State a proposed soda tax could raise an extra 1.5 billion dollars a year….and that’s hardly pocket change.
After performing her new single “Rockstar 101″ on American Idol last night, superstar singer Rihanna stopped by “On Air with Ryan Seacrest” early Thursday, where she spilled the deets on her much talked about romance with Los Angeles Dodger outfielder Matt Kemp and chatted about planning BFF Katy Perry’s upcoming bachelorette party.
Rihanna Finally Confesses To Romance With Matt Kemp: “Ummm…he’s my boyfriend. It’s new and it’s fun and it’s nothing too serious. I don’t want anything that’s going to take up so much of my energy and time right now in a bad way. I just want to have fun and that’s what it’s about.”
Rihanna On Planning Katy Perry’s Bachelorette Party: “She put that on me last week. Now I have to come up with something cool because she’s getting married in India, so I’m like ‘ok, now what do I do to match that for a bachelorette party.’”
CLICK HERE To Listen To Audio Of Rihanna’s Interview With Ryan…..
Swiss startup Kooaba is trying to bring the worlds of printed news and virtual content closer together with its Paperboy iPhone app. This app, which is currently only available in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, allows users to take pictures of articles from a range of popular magazines and papers and then see additional content about these articles on their iPhones. Paperboy will also make a digital version of the article available in your Kooaba archive and users can then share this article with their friends by email and on Facebook and Twitter.
Sponsor
Note: Paperboy isn’t available in the U.S. version of Apple’s App Store. In the U.S., only Kooaba’s app for recognizing books, DVD covers and other physical objects is currently available. Kooaba also worked with Wired last year to make some of the magazine’s advertisements more interactive.
Kooaba, which specializes in image recognition and already offers similar recognition tools for book and CDs, is working directly with a number of magazine publishers in the German-speaking world. The company plans to bring its services to other countries as well. Sadly, the service doesn’t work for papers and magazines that don’t work directly with Kooaba to get their content featured on the app. Kooaba needs a PDF version of the magazine to train the service’s image recognition software.
Besides making the article available for online reading and sharing, Paperboy’s partners can also include links to their Facebook and Twitter profiles, as well as links to related articles and videos.
Magazines and papers can also choose to charge their users for accessing extra content through Paperboy. In addition, advertisers can embed related links to their web sites whenever somebody scans a relevant article or print ad.
Overall, this looks like an interesting concept. Even though the newspaper and magazine business is in the middle of a deep crisis, print won’t go away for a while and applications like Paperboy can help print publishers to bridge the gap between their traditional publications and their online presence. The question, however, is if other technologies like QR codes aren’t easier to use for publishers who just want to embed a link into an article for example.
Via: Netzwertig
Our iPad Accessories Series focuses on cases for the new slate from Apple. Case manufacturers are coming out of the woodwork almost hourly; we’ve gathered up all we could find at the time of publication. The cases run the gamut from simple cloth bags to expensive leather covers for your precious. If you can’t find a case you like out of these 20+ cases, then you’d be better off leaving your iPad naked.
Apple. The Apple case for the iPad is made of a rubbery material that adds little bulk or weight to the thin device. It has the ability to form a stand to prop the iPad up in either landscape or portrait orientation. $39.
Be.ez. Case maker be.ez has the LA Robe sleeve for the iPad. The Robe is fitted to the iPad specifically, and available in a number of colors/ patterns. $29.99.
Belkin. Belkin has an entire line of cases for the iPad, ranging from simple sleeves to leather folios. $39.99 – $59.99.
Booq. Booq has long been a favorite bag maker and now has a couple of sleeves for the iPad. The Boa Skin comes in several colors and is sized for the iPad. The Taipan Sneak is a zippered neoprene case. $24.95 – $29.95.
ColcaSac. ColcaSac products are hand-made out of environmentally friendly materials. The iPad Sleeve is available in a number of colors and patterns. $34.95.
Griffin. Griffin has a line of four cases for the iPad, including a couple of sleeves and a folio. $29.99 – $49.99.
Hard Candy. The Hard Candy line of iPad cases is designed to protect the device like few others. Some of the cases are hard shells while others are unique “bubble wrap” designs. $39.95 – $49.95.
Hip Handmaids iMaxi. You may have seen the iMaxi case for the iPad and did a quick double-take. It is the only iPad case that brings to mind the phrase “ultra-absorbent.” ‘Nuff said. $30.
i-Luv. The i-Luv line of cases for the iPad contains a unique assortment of cases. There are cases that are clear to show off the iPad, and others made of cloth, silicon or leather. $24.99 0 $39.99.
incase. Case maker incase has stepped up to the plate with a number of cases for the iPad. The company’s web site shows no fewer than 6 different cases, and Apple stores carry them too. $39.95 – $59.95.
Macally. When you think of accessories for Apple products, the name Macally is one of the first that comes to mind. They have a handful of cases for the iPad that includes an innovative snap-on cover to keep things nice and thin. $19.99 – $49.99.
ModulR. The ModulR case is part of a system of components that extends the utility of the case. The components available consist of a stand to prop up and the iPad while in the case, a shoulder strap and even a car mount. No price available.
Orbino. The Padova case from Orbino is one of the best cases we found. The rich leather case used in the Padova is gorgeous, and the case also works as a stand. That beauty isn’t cheap. $209.
Scosche. The Scosche is a case that almost made our stand roundup as the Kickback fills both roles. The iPad snaps into the Kickback and can be used while in the case. $44.99.
Skooba Design. Skooba was one of the first companies to make TSA-friendly laptop bags. The neoprene iPad sleeve has a zippered pocket on the outside for carrying little things along with the iPad. $19.95.
Tom Bihn. Tom Bihn bags are always first-rate, and the Cache sleeve for the iPad looks to be no exception. It is a padded sleeve for the iPad that is available in various colors. $30.
Vaja. Spanish leather case maker Vaja is the Cadillac of case makers, and the iPad line proves that once again. All of the Vaja cases are drop-dead gorgeous, but that beauty will cost you. $120 – $170.
Waterfield Designs. San Francisco-based SFbags produces the Waterfield Designs line of bags and sleeves custom-fitted for just about every laptop ever made. The new iPad line already consists of 4 cases, from simple sleeves to cases with flap covers. $19 – $59.
There are no doubt cases I missed and there will be others appearing every day. If you know of a good case for the iPad leave details in the comments.
The dismissal of a diabetes Seroquel lawsuit that was originally set for trial in February 2009 has been upheld by a federal appeals court. The decision comes as a mediator continues to try to bring plaintiffs and defendants to a settlement agreement for thousands of other cases that allege plaintiffs developed injuries from side effects of Seroquel.
On Wednesday, the Eleventh Circuit Appellate Court upheld the decision of a trial court to dismiss a Seroquel lawsuit brought by Linda Guinn, which alleged that the drug maker failed to adequately warn about the risk of weight gain and diabetes. At the time of the original dismissal, the case was slated to be the first diabetes Seroquel trial in the federal multidistrict litigation (MDL).
U.S. District Judge Anne Conway, who is presiding over pretrial litigation for all of the federal lawsuits over Seroquel, dismissed Guinn’s lawsuit in January 2009 after excluding expert testimony that was necessary to establish she developed diabetes from Seroquel. The Court of Appeals rejected Guinn’s appeal, finding that her expert witness, Dr. Jennifer Marks, failed to adequately consider possible alternative causes for weight gain and diabetes.
The decision comes as a court appointed mediator is working to determine if a settlement agreement can be reached between AstraZeneca and an estimated 22,000 different plaintiffs. Earlier this month, Stephen A. Saltzburg, the court-assigned mediator, reported that the ability to reach a settlement could hinge on the plaintiffs’ ability to provide complete medical records.
In November, Judge Conway ordered lawyers for both sides to meet with Saltzburg to see if there is any possibility for a Seroquel settlement before as many as 6,000 cases are sent back to the districts where they were originally filed for trial.
Last week, Saltzburg filed a status report with Judge Conway indicating that the Court’s encouragement of prompt submission of medical records by plaintiff firms might help get medical records in more quickly, allowing AstraZeneca to make a realistic estimate of what the universe of claims actually is and enter discussions on the value of claims.
Seroquel (quetiapine fumarate) is an atypical-antipsychotic that is a top selling drug for AstraZeneca, generating nearly $5 billion a year in sales. Approved by the FDA in 1997 for the treatment of schizophrenia, it is also commonly used off-label for treatment of anxiety, obsessive dementia, compulsive disorders and autism. Seroquel has been used by more than 19 million people worldwide.
That’s according to a just-released statement from Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
The White House has indicated that the full treaty will be completed and submitted to the Senate in early May. I plan to begin hearings on the treaty in the coming weeks, and then report a proposed resolution of advice and consent to ratification out of the Foreign Relations Committee for approval by the full Senate as soon as possible.
by David Roberts
Yesterday I took issue with this quote from Senate Energy Committee spokesperson Bill Wicker, about the mine accident in West Virginia:
“This is a mining accident,” says Bill Wicker, communications director for the Senate Energy Committee. “This issue involves the health and safety of our miners, not our energy future.”
As I wrote, it seems to me the dangers of coal mining should very much be part of our discussion about our energy future. I was puzzled, so I wrote Wicker to seek clarification. He (promptly and courteously) sent a response, which he said I could share:
Mining coal is a dirty, dangerous business. And you’re right—too many people die doing it. The coal industry needs to clean up its act (every pun intended) in many ways, including safety.
But people die regularly in car accidents. I don’t hear folks saying that traffic fatalities should be part of conversations about clean, green cars of the future. Automobile fatalities are seen mostly as a safety issue.
This weekend, five people died in an explosion at a refinery near Seattle. I haven’t heard of anyone suggesting that our nation stop making transportation fuels. However, people are saying that the oil industry needs to do a lot more to protect the safety and health of its workers and the communities in which it operates.
Closer to home, several people have died this year in multiple accidents on Metro. Does Metro’s track record call into question the role that public transportation can play in a cleaner energy future for our country … or is it more of a local management/safety problem?
I could go on and on with the examples, David, but won’t. Thanks for asking, and I hope this helps.
I think I better understand where Wicker’s coming from, but if anything, I disagree even more strongly now.
To put it in his terms: The fact that millions die every year from auto accidents should very much be part of conversations about the future of transportation. Driving two-ton machines around—even “clean, green” two-ton machines—is inherently dangerous. Road accidents take a horrible toll on American families and the economy. Should that not inform our decisions about what transportation options we want to pursue in the future? And the rate of injuries and fatalities on public transit should also be part of the discussion. How common are they relative to automobile injuries? What are the prospects for minimizing them? Could they be reduced at a reasonable cost? These questions are core to our transportation decisions, not peripheral. Creating more sustainable communities means creating safer communities, and that means, among other things, creating communities with fewer cars and more spaces devoted to people.
And yes, people regularly die in refinery accidents (and in coal mines). We can and should try to make them safer, but ultimately, working with fossil fuels is dangerous, not just to the public that suffers from the pollution but to the workers involved. It may not be a particularly compelling reason to leave fossil fuels behind—perhaps we think the benefits outweigh the suffering—but it should absolutely be part of the conversation.
Putting these kind of issues in a silo doesn’t help. Well, no, scratch that: it helps the fossil-fuel industry for the public to think of every incident of maiming and death, every oil spill or coal-ash-impoundment failure, as an unforeseeable “accident” that’s a “safety issue” incidental to larger policy choices. But it doesn’t help the clarity of our public dialogue or the quality of our policy choices.
Fossil fuels are dangerous. They have always killed people and will always kill people, no matter what safety measures we undertake. Confronting that fact clearly ought to be the first step we take in grappling with our energy future.
Related Links:
What does coal mining have to do with geoengineering?
World Bank vote gives billions to coal
Another Tragic Iceberg Awaiting Massey’s Titanic Violations: Brushy Fork Dam
For those thinking that I fell off a cliff and stopped posting, I would like like to direct you to a nearly 1000 word guest post on The Digerati Life about airline baggage fees. If Spirit Airlines new carry-on fee is your bag, lug yourself to The Digerati Life (ridiculously bad puns intended).
[P.S. I did mean to work in the concept that one could perhaps save more money by just buying new clothes at Wal-Mart and donating them at the end of your trip. (I owe credit to a commenter on Lifehacker.com for that one.)]
Related posts:
I put together the following “Twitter Cheat Sheet” for a client, and thought it might be also helpful for others who are still struggling with how to get started with Twitter. It provides some gentle guidelines that should help to keep emerging best practices in mind.
There are many reasons to use Twitter, but here are my top three.
When you first open up Twitter each day, here are a few key things you’ll want to do to make the most of your “tweeting time.”
Twitter limits the length of tweets to 140 characters. In order to make your tweets “retweetable” (to make it possible for others to retweet you without having to edit the tweet), you need to reduce the the maximum length even further. Add five to the number of letters in your Twittername, then subtract that from 140. So, for example, there are 12 letters in “alizasherman” — adding five to that is 17. So I subtract 17 from 140, which equals 123. That is the maximum length of my “retweetable” tweet.
There are two standard ways to retweet – adding “RT @Twittername” at the start of the tweet, and adding “via @Twittername” at the end of the tweet. Either is acceptable, but the latter takes up more valuable “character real estate” — it’s longer, so you can fit less into the retweet. It is acceptable to change spellings of words to make a retweet fit the character limit.
You can also use Twitter’s built-in retweet button, but this is a newer feature has not been adopted by everyone, and it’s not the ideal way to retweet as it seems less “personal.” You can personalize retweets by adding a comment at the beginning or end.
Here’s a screenshot showing all three types of retweet:
There are many ways to tweet. Here are a few examples of different types of tweets to give you some ideas.
Hashtags are simply words prefixed with a hash sign (#) added to your tweet. Hashtags provide ways to group and find topically-related or conversationally related tweets — readers can click the hashtag in your tweet to find related discussions on the same topic. For example, if you tweet about wine, the best hashtag for wine discussion is “#wine.” By using it strategically, you could attract more followers.
Here are some example tweets using the #wine hashtag:
There is an organic Twitter-wide event called “Follow Friday” where people recognize their favorite Twitterers by referencing them in a list and then adding the hashtag “#followfriday” or “#ff.” Note that you should make sure your Follow Friday list is retweetable.
Follow Friday is a great way to give kudos, help others discover new and relevant Twitterers and to attract the attention of people you follow who may not follow you back yet.
It’s a good idea to thank people when they give you kudos or list you in a Follow Friday tweet, but don’t thank everyone one by one as this can be annoying to your followers.
What are some of your favorite Twitter tips?
Photo by Flickr user Mr_Stein, licensed under Creative Commons
