IF I WERE A BILLIONAIRE, I’D BECOME A SORT OF LOW-GRADE BOND VILLAIN, HIRING EX-SPECIAL FORCES GUYS FOR LIGHTNING-QUICK TAR-AND-FEATHERS MISSIONS: Student Could Get 8 Years for Sharing Paper Online.
Archive for 2014
August 1, 2014
AT AMAZON, New Markdowns on Men’s Shoes.
FROM THE INSTA-WIFE: How Deadlifts and Squats Changed My Life: Or at least made me feel a little better.
THINK OF IT AS EVOLUTION IN ACTION: Setting Yourself On Fire Because It Looks Fun On Facebook.
MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: “Feminism: ruining everyone’s sex lives one relationship at a time.”
MINE’S CUPCAKES. CHICKS DIG CUPCAKES, AND POST-APOCALYPSE I’LL HAVE NO COMPETITION. What’s Your Post-Apocalypse Game Plan?
Okay, it’s actually about The Knowledge: How To Rebuild Our World From Scratch.
AT AMAZON: Off To College: Dorm And Apartment Essentials. Some are pretty good for post-college, too.
Plus, up to 50% off on InSinkerator Evolution Garbage Disposals.
REIHAN SALAM: It’s Time For Legalized Prostitution.
TEST-DRIVING THE 2014 Infiniti Q50S Hybrid AWD.
CLEVELAND, LE BRON, and the evolution of collective shame.
BECAUSE, AS DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES, THEY APPROVE OF HER WORDS, AND HER CONDUCT? Howard Kurtz: Lois Lerner ripping ‘crazies’ on right: Why some media folks don’t care.
THE STRANGE CASE OF U.S. Confusion Over Kurdish Crude.
THIS IS INTERESTING: West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey Files Lawsuit Challenging President Obama’s Refusal to Faithfully Execute the Law. “The lawsuit alleges the President and his Administration have repeatedly demonstrated that they will change or ignore certain laws or statutes in order to promote or protect their political agenda. The lawsuit cites several instances where the Administration has ignored the law on immigration matters, environmental and mining regulations, and the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.”
Here’s more from Bloomberg: West Virginia Suit Says Obama Health-Law Waiver Illegal. The best way to secure repeal of a bad law is to demand strict enforcement.
CHASING DOWN A BURGLAR IN A $1,600 MIATA: Car chases are a bad idea. This one turned out okay.
JUST BECAUSE THEY’RE STUPID DOESN’T MEAN THEY CAN’T BE THUGS: Exclusive: Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s Staff Threatens Taxpayer For Asking About Her Impeachment Claims.
K.C. JOHNSON: Marco Rubio Doesn’t Care About Campus Due Process. He chose poorly.
AND, SOON, PROBABLY BUSIER: The Tomahawk Missile Gets Smarter—and Deadlier.
IN THE MAIL: Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine.
Also, today only: 50% Off Fossil Handbags.
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 449. The White House no doubt hopes that these will get shorter, but on Day 449, there’s an awful lot in this one.
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Senate report details how EPA officials divert millions of tax dollars to activist groups. It’s all about recycling taxpayer money into astroturf groups that help you get re-elected and advance your agenda.
Just last week, Mark Levin and his vigilant Landmark Legal Foundation went to court to ask federal district judge Royce Lamberth to sanction the EPA “for destroying or failing to preserve emails and text messages that may have helped document suspected agency efforts to influence the 2012 presidential election.” The motion is part of a larger Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to force EPA to release emails and related records from former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and others “who may have delayed the release dates for hot-button environmental regulations until after the Nov. 6, 2012, presidential election.”
Like I said. And you can see why the lawfare gap on the right needs to be addressed.
AMERICA’S HEALTH CARE SYSTEM: The Global Sugar Daddy.
A new pill for hepatitis C is unmasking a huge global inequality in pharmaceutical costs—one that disproportionately burdens the United States. The FT has a must-read report on Solvadi, a drug developed by Gilead Sciences that costs $84,000 for a 12-week course of treatment for American patients, but sells for a song in other countries—as low as $11 per pill in Egypt, for example. As a result, an increasingly noisy movement in America is starting to ask why this is. . . .
“Sovaldi has shone a light on the fact America is subsidising healthcare innovation for the rest of the world.”
It’s a hairy and complicated issue, and the FT article provides a detailed and nuanced look at it from many angles—it’s very much worth reading in full. But one important fact in particular stuck out at us: pharmaceutical costs account for just one out of every ten dollars spent on health care. As we don’t tire of saying, there’s much more we can do to bring down costs clean across the system, none of which involves explicit price controls.
None of these measures will address the ethical problem of other rich countries (like France, Switzerland and the UK) free-riding off of innovation financed by the more dynamic American marketplace for medicine. But picking the other, lower-hanging fruits may well make our own ailing system better and more sustainable for all Americans—something that must be our first priority anyway.
The world has been free-riding off of America for decades on many fronts; Barack Obama’s legacy may be to put an end to that. . . .
FEWER PEOPLE WOULD DIE IF IT WERE THE OTHER WAY AROUND: Why is the West so afraid of Islam? Fear of Islamic radicalism cows the West into silence on Christian persecution. Also, a lot of Western “thought leaders” really don’t mind the persecution of Christians.
LIFE AMONG THE BARBARIANS: Anti-Israel Protestor Proudly Admits Palestinian Organizations Kidnap Israelis.
A TALE OF TWO HOSPITALS.