November 2003 Archives

If stem cell research eventually results in a way to radically extend the length of human life, how would our soicety change? Let's assume that it's cheap enough for everyone to afford (although you may argue that some group of elites would try to restrict access). Perhaps a constant supply of the drug is needed to stay young forever, or perhaps it's a one-shot deal. Either way, people just plain stop dying from natural causes -- but bullets and car crashes can still be lethal, of course.

So how would society change? I'll toss out a few ideas without a lot of justification (some seem obvious to me, others are mere speculation).

1. Political jobs would all be term-limited.
2. Income tax would be eliminated in favor of a wealth tax.
3. People would either stop driving, or would drive tank-like vehicles (which would be financed on 100-year terms).
4. The price of real estate would increase, at least until the supply expanded through space exploration.
5. Medical doctors would be almost entirely replaced by biologists and gene therapists.
6. Denists would need to find a way to make our teeth last longer... unless the stem cells let us grow new teeth. Maybe we'd all get artificial teeth implanted into our jaws.
7. Depending on how the stem cells worked, fertile women might become scarce. Unless the stem cells would differentiate into egg cells women would still lose their fertility in just a few decades (by running out of eggs), while men would stay fertile their whole lives. This could lead to the rich and powerful men using their influence/power to attract all the women young enough to bear children. Some women already sell their eggs and even carry babies for other people, and that would probably become more widespread.
8. Interest rates would change. Would they move up or down? I think down, because people would be willing to settle for lower returns on their money since they'd have much more time to accumulate wealth.
9. Following #8, all financial business would become more risk adverse.
10. Space exploration would be done almost entirely by robots, until space travel was nearly 100% safe.
11. Of course, people would need to leave their houses less in general, since most people would working from home (or wherever they want to be).
12. Suicide would become the number 1 cause of death.
13. We'll discover a whole host of new medical problems that can't be solved by stem cells.
14. Likewise, we'll discover a bunch of new mental diseases.
15. The vast majority of people would never be able to retire.
16. What about marriage and divorce? Would everyone eventually end up divorced at some point? Would anyone get married anymore? This may depend on #7.
17. Prison sentences would get longer.
18. Depending on #7 again, the population might increase much more quickly than current rates. People might be expected to sterilize themselves, and there may even be laws put into effect for population control purposes, depending on #4.
19. What if stem cells in the brain cause humans to revert back to their pre-adolescent mental abilities -- without concrete reasoning?
20. People would change their hobbies around, resulting in scads of awful poetry and artwork.

Just a friendly reminder that submissions to the First Annual Blog Scavenger Hunt are due December 1st!

As you can imagine, I don't like the idea of harvesting stem cells from fetal tissue. Fortunately, it looks like there may be another source of stem-cell-like cells: ordinary white blood cells.

A small company in London, UK, claims to have developed a technique that overturns scientific dogma and could revolutionise medicine. It says it can turn ordinary blood into cells capable of regenerating damaged or diseased tissues. This could transform the treatment of everything from heart disease to Parkinson's.

If the company, TriStem, really can do what it says, there would be no need to bother with conventional stem cells, currently one of the hottest fields of research. But its astounding claims have been met with bemusement and disbelief by mainstream researchers.

TriStem has been claiming for years that it can take a half a litre of anyone's blood, extract the white blood cells and make them revert to a "stem-cell-like" state within hours. The cells can be turned into beating heart cells for mending hearts, nerve cells for restoring brains and so on.

The company has now finally provided proof that at least some of its claims might be true. In collaboration with independent researchers in the US, the company has used its technique to turn white blood cells into the blood-generating stem cells found in bone marrow.

Therapy based on stem cell regeneration will possibly be able to cure the effects of every disease currently known to man, including cancer and aging. Human trials are underway.

So lets say we're all eventually given the option of living forever in perfect health, barring death by unnatural causes. Would you take the pill?

I posted some information on how to apply for a CCW permit in California, and mentioned an ongoing effort by Jim March to liberalize (in the real sense of the word) California's permit laws; via email, Mr. March sent me a pretty disturbing PDF file that contains clippings from LA Times articles detailing some abuses of the current system.

Celebrities, politicians, and millionaires are the only people granted CCWs by many (not all) of the issuing authorities in California, and it's nearly impossible for "normal folks" to get the permits that are readily supplied to these privileged few unless you're fortunate enough to live in a city with a fair-minded police chief. For instance, anti-gun Senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer fight tooth and nail to enact as many national gun restrictions as possible, and yet they both have permits to carry concealed weapons and they both employ armed bodyguards. Apparently there are different standards for the "elite" and for the rest of us. It's obviously important that they be able to defend themselves from criminals, but shouldn't we all have that right? [Corrected; used to say "should we all..." and it looked like I took the opposite position -- MW.]

As I've mentioned before, President Bush is increasing federal spending far faster than Bill Clinton ever did, even when the War on Terror tand other defense-related expenditures are factored out. The new prescription drug entitlement is just another brick in the wall, and even the conservative Washington Times is taking note: "Spending escalates under GOP watch".

Nondefense spending has skyrocketed under Republican control of Congress and the White House, and critics say the outlays will hit the stratosphere with the passage this week of a drug entitlement for seniors.

The Congressional Budget Office reported that nondefense spending rose 7 percent in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, nearly double the 4 percent discretionary spending caps that President Bush insisted Congress honor.

Since Mr. Bush took office in 2001, nondefense spending has leapt 13 percent — 21 percent if spending on the war on terrorism is included.

President Bush seems to be trying to pull our country out of a recession in the same way Reagan did in the 80s: cut taxes, increase spending. But the millenial recession wasn't nearly as severe as the one Reagan faced, and all the indicators show that it's way past over -- it's time to tighten our belts.

Chris Edwards, director of fiscal policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, said the Bush record on spending has been a major disappointment.

"My impression of Bush is that I've never seen him give a speech in which he says government is too big and we need to cut costs," Mr. Edwards said, pointing out that President Reagan vetoed 23 bills in his first three years in office, while Mr. Bush has yet to unsheathe his veto pen.

As I've also said before, we're seeing one of the great disadvantages of a united White House and Congress: everything gets through. No one wants to rock the boat and endanger their own projects, so they just sign whatever's put in front of them. One of the advantages should be that the President gets to appoint judges to his liking, but President Bush hasn't really fought for any of his rejected nominees.

As for the so-called $400 billion prescription drug entitlement, I don't think anyone will be surprised when the projected cost turns out to be low by at least 1 order of magnitude.

Brian M. Riedl, a budget analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said mandatory government spending on entitlements such as Medicare will reach 11.1 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, a record high. That number will climb exponentially, he said, once seniors begin getting government-paid drugs in 2006.

"Congress often underestimates entitlements by a lot," Mr. Riedl said. "By our calculations, it will cost $2 trillion between now and 2030."

That's assuming that the program never is expanded, he said, an unlikely scenario.

When Congress created the Medicare program in 1965, the projected cost in 1990 was $9 billion. The true cost, after several expansions that came with low-balled price tags, was $67 billion, 7.4 times higher.

Entitlements are so hard to eliminate once they're created, because their beneficiaries want to stay on the gravy train -- and eventually they feel entitled to my money. When costs swell, the money will have to be raised somehow, either through conquering more oil-rich nations (kidding) or by taxes.

"We hope that this is not the legacy of the Bush administration," Mr. Schatz said. "We hope these will be aberrations that will be corrected in coming years."

A senior Republican congressional aide said many conservatives on Capitol Hill are hoping that is the case. If it isn't, Mr. Bush and the party will have some explaining to do to their political base.

"There's only so long we can be told [by the White House], 'Just keep waiting for spending restraint,' " the aide said. "Eventually you develop a credibility problem. There's a point where people say, 'We've heard that for five years and nothing's happened.'"

The legacy of President Bush will almost certainly be the War on Terror, but I really do think it's valid to worry about the future of the Republican party. Someone has to dig their heels in for low spending, and if it's not the Republicans then I'm afraid America could still end up like Europe.

Matt Drudge has a ton of details about President Bush's secret trip to Baghdad. I think it's pretty cool, although my earlier prediction was that he wouldn't travel to Iraq until next summer as part of his presidential campaign. This was far better, however, and shows an astonishing level of concern for our troops in the region.

Some may say it was a political stunt, but I think the initial secrecy of the trip works against that. If Bush were going just to score political points, he'd want the trip to be more high-profile and better timed in the campaign cycle. I still think he will go again next summer, but this trip was probably not primarily motivated by politics.

Here's another story from the groundbreaking ceremony for the LAAFB.

The mayor of Hawthone (the city where I live) was one of the speakers, and one of the major players in getting the land-swap to happen. He put a lot of work into it, and should get a lot of the credit for the revolutionary deal.

During his speech he went on for a while about how difficult some of the meetings were between the officials at various levels of government, and then he made a joke: "I think we should all get medals of valor and purple hearts for sticking with it, even when times were tough." Now, this seemed particularly inappropriate to me considering we were at the Air Force Base and half the people in the audience were service members. There were probably people there who had earned those medals through great sacrifice, and if I had been one I might have gotten up and walked out.

James 1:17-18

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for such a warm and beautiful day. It's been a long year, but we're almost to the end of it and you've shown yourself faithful every step of the way, in every detail of my life.

Thank you for my family, and that my brother can be home with us over Thanksgiving. Please take care of my dad and step-mom who are up in Reno now, and thanks for letting them buy a house and find a place they really like. Thanks for my mom and step-dad here in Los Angeles, all my brothers, even though they're frustrating sometimes. Thank you for our health and happiness, and all the good circumstances you've blessed my family with. Please comfort my grandmother in this holiday times for the first year she's facing them without my grandfather. Work in the lives of my family to bring them to a saving knowledge of your son.

Thank you for my job and my ability to go to school, help me to work hard and honestly in everything I do, and to make the most of every opportunity you give me. Thank you for all the success you've given me, none of which would have been possible if I was working under my own power. Thank you for giving me tenacity and determination, and a modicum of wisdom. Help me to be wise and generous, caring, compassionate, gentle, kind, and humble in spirit. I have nothing to boast about, because every good thing I have is a gift from you. Use it all to glorify yourself.

Thank you for my amazing church family, who have always been there for me even when my real family hasn't. Thank you for my friends, my small group, my pastor, and all the people I serve with. There's nothing more enjoyable than serving you with people I love, and it's a great blessing to be a member of Venice Baptist Church. Give our leadership wisdom and humility, and keep us from making any decisions or pursuing any course of action other than according to your will. Thank you for all the wonderful kids and college students I get to work with. Thank you for all the wise advisors you've given me to keep me on the right path. Help our church to be a blessing to our community, to those in every kind of need, spiritual and material. Show your love for the world through us.

Thank you for my country, and all the tremendous blessings that come from being an American. Thank you for all the people who make the country possible, from the soldiers to the politicians, all working as ministers of your common grace to the world. Thank you for our President Bush, all our Senators and Representatives, the Governor and Legislature of California, the Mayor and Councilmen of Hawthorne, and everyone who labors to make the country run smoothly. Give them all wisdom and self-control, show yourself to them and make your will clear; give them to courage to do what's right. Protect our soldiers all over the world, and give them peace of mind and comfort even when they're in danger. Comfort their families as well, and give them courage. Use all these people to preserve the peace, and restore it, and to punish evildoers and protect the weak and the innocent.

Lord, I know that my innermost desires are evil and destructive, thank you for lifting me out of the pit of my own sin and depravity. Thank you for sending your son Jesus Christ to live and die as a sacrifice, to pay the penalty for my sins. Thank you for reconciling this sinner to you, for adopting me and making me your son. Thank you for loving me even when I hated you, and for calling me to be your own. Thank you for your Holy Spirit who lives within me and seals me, who sanctifies me and empowers me to do your will. Thank you for your word the Bible that teaches me, guides me, and corrects me. Thank you for the glorious hope you've given me that surpasses all earthly troubles, the knowledge and security that even when this world passes away, your love for me will never pass away. Thank you that nothing I do can ever make you love me less, and thank you that I don't have to work to earn your love, and that nothing I do can make you love me more. Give me the strength and humility to serve you all my days. Forgive my rebellion, my pride, my impatience and selfishness. Give me the power to overcome my base desires and to be an example of Christ's love to the world. Protect me and preserve me, use me however you will but never leave me. I am yours, bought with a price and redeemed from slavery to eternal freedom; no words of thanks will ever be enough to profess my love for you.

Psalm 30

1 I will exalt you, O LORD ,
for you lifted me out of the depths
and did not let my enemies gloat over me.
2 O LORD my God, I called to you for help
and you healed me.
3 O LORD , you brought me up from the grave;
you spared me from going down into the pit.

4 Sing to the LORD , you saints of his;
praise his holy name.
5 For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may remain for a night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning.

6 When I felt secure, I said,
"I will never be shaken."
7 O LORD , when you favored me,
you made my mountain stand firm;
but when you hid your face,
I was dismayed.

8 To you, O LORD , I called;
to the Lord I cried for mercy:
9 "What gain is there in my destruction,
in my going down into the pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it proclaim your faithfulness?
10 Hear, O LORD , and be merciful to me;
O LORD , be my help."

11 You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
12 that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.

Even though it's becoming a common construction, it doesn't make sense to say, e.g., I'm going to try and do it. One doesn't "try and do something", one "tries to do something". The error becomes apparent in different tenses, where verb conjugation gives sentences entirely different meanings when "and" is thus used incorrectly.

Wrong: Billy tries and scores a goal.
Right: Billy tries to score a goal.

Wrong: I'm going to try and pass the class.
Right: I'm going to try to pass the class.

Wrong: Saddam tried and hid his weapons of mass destruction.
Right: Saddam tried to hide his weapons of mass destruction.

Wrong: We're all trying and doing our best.
Right: We're all trying to do our best.

&c. I often see this strange construction in official documents, journal articles, news reports, and obviously in everyday speech. I'm sure I've used it before myself (eek), but henceforth I'm going to try and not.

SDB has a plausible take on how the War on Terror could turn nuclear if things go poorly. I've written about our use of nuclear deterrence in the past as well, and I agree that we're still playing kids' games with the Islamofacists because we're trying to keep the stakes as low as possible. If anyone sets off a nuclear weapon, the world will become a very ugly place -- but America will still come out the winner, as awful as it may be.

I went to the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Los Angeles Air Force Base this morning, and it was a pretty exciting event. There was a ton of free food... oh yeah, and the actual groundbreaking and such. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take any pictures with my digital camera, but I'll write down my impressions anyway.

First off, let me tell you all the important people I met: Congresswomen Maxine Waters and Jane Harmond; Mayor Guidi of Hawthorne (who I already knew); Lt. General Brian Arnold, the base commander; Bill Ballhaus, formerly president of Boeing Satellite Systems and now president of The Aerospace Corporation, the company that manages many of the government aerospace projects in the region; Nelson Gibbs, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment and Logistics; plus assorted pastries and sandwiches. I was hoping our new governor might be in attendance -- since keeping the Air Force Base lines up with his goal of keeping jobs in California -- but I guess he was busy.

The LAAFB was first constructed some 50 years ago, and without the major renovation that began today it was pretty likely that the base would have been condemned and moved to Arizona or New Mexico in the next round of closures, starting in 2005. Knowing that, the cities of El Segundo (where the base is actually located) and Hawthorne (the adjacent city, where I live) developed a revolutionary land-swap deal to help pay for the construction of new base facilities.

The land-swap worked like this: the Air Force sold a portion of its land (which was located in El Segundo) to developers; El Segundo ceded the land to the city of Hawthorne in exchange for property taxes for 30 years; the Air Force will now use the money it raised to build new facilities on an adjacent piece of Air Force property that is currently sparsely developed. Los Angeles city and county are also kicking in some minor money. In the end, a lot of gimmicks and magic tricks finalized a convoluted deal that basically lets the Air Force sell some land to pay for the renovation itself.

Why is it important to keep LAAFB? Mainly because of the Space and Missile Systems Center that's responsible for all the cool missile and satellite technologies that are crucial for maintaining America's military superiority. The AFB can't do it alone, and works very closely with civilian contractors in the Los Angeles region like Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed, Raytheon, and many others. If the SAMS Center moved, it would lose close contact with these corporations, and it's unlikely that the corporations (mainly their employees) would be eager to relocate east.

More selfishly, I'm glad the project is proceeding because I don't want to move anywhere, and I like my job. Moreover, it would be bad for the city and community if the thousands of high-paying jobs the AFB supplies were eliminated (or moved). That said, I've never seen my Democrat representatives stronger on national defense than when they're working to protect a base located in their districts. Everyone loves national defense when it pumps billions of dollars a year into the pockets of people who can vote for you. This isn't necessarily a great effect, and I'm sure it leads to inefficiencies, but on the whole the military is one spending program I heartily approve of, and if its spending power can buy votes which in turn work to keep it strong, so be it.

I've seen the question tossed around before, and James Taranto says the following, in the context of quoting President Bush:

Last week in Britain, a reporter asked President Bush if "Muslims worship the same Almighty" that he does. Bush replied: "I do say that freedom is the Almighty's gift to every person. I also condition it by saying freedom is not America's gift to the world. It's much greater than that, of course. And I believe we worship the same god." The Washington Post reports that the president's ecumenism prompted a kerfuffle among evangelical Christians. ...

Bush is right. Christianity, Islam and Judaism are all monotheistic religions, united in the belief in a single God. (Muslims often call God by the Arab name Allah, but then so do Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews.) The three religions conceive of God differently, and Muslims and Jews do not share the Christian belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ. A Christian may well believe that Islam's conception of God is wrong, but if you believe in only one God, it makes no logical sense to describe a fellow monotheist as worshipping a "different" God.

To an unbeliever, that may be a perfectly satisfactory answer -- since he wouldn't believe in any God, the details are inconsequential. It's true that as a monotheist I believe there is only one God, but it doesn't follow that anyone else who is also a monotheist worships the same God I do; the alternative is that they don't worship God at all, but rather a construct of their own imagination. For example, someone who woships a rock or a tree and claims it is the one and only "god" may also be a monotheist, but the characteristics of their "god" are entirely different from the characteristics of mine; we may both be monotheists, but at least one of us is wrong in believing that our god is the one and only.

Similarly with Muslims and Christians. Both are monotheists, but the two concepts of "god" are so completely divergent that they cannot both be true, and both "gods" cannot exist as conceived. At least one of the religions is wrong (and both think it's the other guys', whereas unbelievers think it's both).

Typically, only unbelievers (and functional unbelievers) are willing to make the claim that Jehovah and Allah are "the same". Why? Because they don't believe in either, and it's convenient and "enlightened" to lump everyone together. Why quibble about differences between two imaginary beings?

More:
In the next day's Best of the Web, Mr. Taranto continues:

A Bush supporter's conception of Bush's "constitutional makeup" is utterly at odds with that of a Bush hater. Not all conceptions about Bush are equally true; Paul Krugman, for example, is totally wrongheaded, while this column generally is the model of verity. But whether Krugman is writing about him or we are, George W. Bush is the same man.

By the same token, to say that all monotheistic religions worship the same God is not to say that they are all equally valid. Indeed, since Christianity and Islam make competing claims about the nature of God, it would be logically incoherent to argue that both are true. Yet to say that they worship the same God does not contradict either religion's claim to be the one true faith. As to which religion is true, that is beyond the scope of this column.

Mr. Taranto is still not seeing the big picture, because he isn't recognizing what Christians and Muslims see to be fundamental attributes of their gods.

To carry my rock-god and tree-god example further, if I believe that some specific rock is the only god, and you believe some specific tree is the only god, it's meaningless to say that we both believe in the same "god" just becuase we both believe there's only one. If you're right, then the rock I believe is god is really just a rock and my god doesn't exist; I'm so fundamentally wrong about tree-god's nature that I'm worshipping something entirely different, something that isn't real.

The belief that there is only one god is one fundamental characteristic of that god, but not the only fundamental characteristic.

Update:
The Muslim claim that they worship the "God of Abraham" is fallacious; the origin of the Muslim religion can be seen in its modern symbolism: Allah was originally the fertility-/moon-god of Muhammad's tribe, and Islam carries the crescent moon symbol even still. In my (limited) experience, most Muslims are not aware of this aspect of their history, but it is pretty well supported by official Islamic historical records.

Update 2:
Donald Sensing gives more details, with all of which I concur. ["with all of which I concur"? ick -- Ed.]

I have no idea whether or not this pseudononymous account is true, but GeekPress links to a story by a self-proclaimed mafia programmer who sets up and runs illegal book-making operations in New York City. The narrative is interesting, but what stood out most to me was near the end:

The fact remains that I could be pulling in $150,000 as a programmer on the open market. But I make a third of that. So why am I risking a prison sentence or the potential of a lifetime in witness protection for a job that doesn't make me all that rich? Simple: When you start making a lot of money, you get noticed by the biggest bullies on the block - the cops and the IRS - and I don't want that. I like living below the radar. I sublet a friend's apartment and pay his utility bills with money orders that I purchase at the post office or at one of those check-cashing storefronts. Because I get paid entirely in cash, I don't fork over any taxes. When you get right down to it, I'm an idealist. I don't condone the actions of the US government. By refusing to pay taxes, I withhold my financial support. And, truth be told, I like mobsters. They're more willing to accept you at face value. They aren't hung up on college degrees, or where you live, or how many criminal convictions you have.

The police and the IRS are, in a sense, the big dogs on the block, and this final paragraphs illustrates that they're performing their jobs adequately. Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of law enforcement isn't to completely eliminate crime -- it's to make crime unprofitable, in the aggregate. People such as "Simson Garfinkel" may still break laws due to "principle", but that's because their sense of profit is non-standard; the satisfaction they get from breaking the law is more "profitable" to them than the money they're sacrificing. Most people, however, are in it for the money, whatever it happens to be.

When society outlaws some behavior, it attempts to increase the transaction costs of that behavior and thus render it unprofitable. The purpose of law enforcement is to make the cost of breaking the law times the chance of getting caught and convicted higher than the benefit of breaking the law times the chance of getting away with it. That an illegal bookmaking operation is forced to give better odds than can be found in legitimate gambling (according to the story), and that the operator makes less money than his skills would otherwise earn, is a testament to the effectiveness of law enforcement.

Similarly, consider the War on [Some] Drugs, which props up street prices for chemicals that are relatively cheap and easy to manufacture, and thus arguably reduce their consumption. That's the theory anyway, and as long as prices are kept high enough it'll work. Obviously there are other factors involved in this form of prohibition, and as with any law society needs to weigh the costs and benefits of the law itself (but that's a different issue).

On the other hand, think about the enforcement of traffic laws. Because of the way they're enforced, it's obvious that most traffic laws are designed more as a source of revenue than for the protection of the public. For example, the vast majority of drivers decide that the benefits of speeding outweigh the costs of getting caught; almost everyone speeds. The explanation for this is pretty simple: everyone sees their time as valuable and not-to-be-wasted driving more slowly than necessary, and everyone knows there's only a miniscule chance of being caught in any particular instance. Thus, laws against speeding are ineffective and disrespected, and everyone knows it. The only reason they're kept around is to provide revenue for cities -- in a sense, they're an arbitrary, randomly collected tax. For this reason, I think speeding laws are unjust. If society really thinks it's important for people not to speed, we need to vote to increase the penalties enough so that the laws will be effective, even with sparse enforcement. For example, if the penalty for speeding was spending a year in jail, I expect speeding would be reduced dramatically.

Of course, this will never happen because no one thinks speeding is a big enough problem to punish effectively. We live in a democracy, where social right and wrong are defined (generally) by the will of the majority. If the majority doesn't believe speeding is worth discouraging effectively, and speeding laws are widely ignored and disrespected, there's no moral compulsion to obey them -- because the laws themselves are unjust. I believe we have a moral duty to drive safely, but the more restrictive legalistic details depend on the form of government any particular individual happens to live with.

In contrast, consider illegal book-making. According to the story, accepting 5 illegal bets in a single day is a felony, punishable by up to 3 years in prison. That level of punishment (times the level of enforcement) apparently leads to such ventures being unprofitable, which in turn indicates that society takes the crime seriously. Therefore, we have a obligation to obey the otherwise morally neutral restriction of our freedom (not that I think it's a great restriction).

SDB has a great post up that explains how the FDA is the root of many American health care problems, from unnaturally expensive drugs to the illegality of some "miracle cures".

The approval process is so long and so involved and requires such a mountain of data to be collected, that it is massively expensive. The total cost for development and approval can exceed $100 million per drug. And a lot of money can be consumed during the testing and approval for drugs which are ultimately rejected.

Pharmaceutical companies have to recoup that cost, and the money can only come from sales of drugs after approval. That's why drugs which are still under patent are so expensive compared to generics after patent expiration. Generics are priced based on a markup over manufacturing and distribution costs, whereas drugs under patent are priced to amortize the cost of development and regulatory approval, as well as to amortize the money spent on other drugs which were rejected.

The amortization premium paid by Americans is all the greater because most other nations in the world "free ride" on American drug development. (The majority of that development is done here, even by European pharmaceutical companies.) They pay something like the generic price even for drugs still under patent, letting the US alone pay the amortized development cost. When it comes to nations like Zambia and Botswana, I think it's reasonable, but not for nations like Germany and the UK. There's no excuse for them not paying their share of the development costs, and the only reason they don't is that we let them get away with it. If other wealthy nations did not free-ride that way, the drug companies could spread the amortized cost over a larger number of sales and reduce the price we Americans pay.

See my previous entries about the FDA, if you're interested in some specific examples of when the FDA's over-cautious policies have cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

I just wanted to say thanks to all the people who have been visiting recently, and especially to everyone who's been leaving comments and hitting the tip jar. Some of the discussions have been really great, and I feel like I've learned a lot in the process.

Over the past few weeks hits have been averaging over 1000 per day, which is pretty incredible. Even with the recent Instalanche factored out, it's been over 800 pretty consistantly. Of course, most of those hits may be from just a couple of people who like to point out when I'm an idiot, but that's ok!

Meanwhile, be sure you check out the First Annual Blog Scavenger Hunt, which I hope will serve to bring exposure to a lot of new (to me) blogs, and increase cross-linkage between different communities. The political punditry blogosphere (in which I'm most active, I suppose) is really dwarfed by the vast multitude of blogs clustered around other topics and hobbies, and I hope the Scavenger Hunt will be an opportunity to interconnect.

I wrote about outsourcing software to other countries with cheaper labor, and now it looks like Dell is having problems with its tech support call center based in India. What looks good on paper doesn't always turn out well in real life.

After an onslaught of complaints, computer maker Dell Inc. has stopped using a technical support center in India to handle calls from its corporate customers.

Some U.S. customers have complained that the Indian technical-support representatives are difficult to communicate with because of thick accents and scripted responses.

My esteemed co-Bearflagger, the BoiFromTroy, comments on my earlier post about civil unions in which I bring up a number of policy objections to the idea of civil unions. My objections largely center around the (in my mind) high likelyhood that civil unions will allow people to take advantage of the many benefits that are now (rightly or wrongly) restricted to married people, such as:

Well what's to prevent me from civilly unioning with my roommate to get free health coverage from his work and to save money on taxes? Or, for that matter, what's to keep me from unioning with a family member or a business partner for similar financial reasons? Once the financial transaction in question is completed, we could simply dissolve the union, thereby freeing ourselves to form other unions as it became advantageous.

Would civil unions convey legal spousal privilege? If so, then criminals could simply union to avoid testifying against each other. Likewise, such privilege could be used by parents unioning with their children to cover sexual abuse. The list of potential problems seems endless to me, and I don't see any clear criteria that could be used to draw a line.

Mr. BFT responds:

So first, I have to say this...so what?!?

Nothing is stopping a criminal man and a criminal woman from marrying in order to avoid the need to testify, yet no one is talking about eliminating spousal privilege...

Nothing is stopping any man from marrying a woman in order to avoid inheritance taxes...

This is entirely true, but since the vast majority of criminals are male (80%-90%), the problem of spousal privilege being used to shield criminal activity isn't very widespread. As for inheritance taxes, you can't marry a close relative (such as your daughter) to pass a large estate to her tax-free.

Actually Mike Williams' arguments AGAINST civil unions are actually a case FOR marriage. Under a civil unions regime...or domestic partnerships as it is known in California...it is sometimes hard to distinguish who can qualify for such a partnership.

When it first offered DP benefits, Princeton University was involved in a kerfuffle over whether heterosexual domestic partners also qualified for benefits.

Under California's Domestic Partner regime, the only permissible domestic partnerships among heterosexual couples are when one partner is over 65 and the other is over 18 yeard old. In order to avoid an unscrupulous May/December couple from saving on taxes, there should be no civil unions...make them get married, just like a regular heterosexual couple. Allow gay marriage and this is no longer a problem.

I don't see any distinction between gay marriage and civil unions as far as policy goes; even those touting civil unions recognize that they're just marriages under a different name. If homosexuals are allowed to marry, what's to prevent the exact same scenario I described above from happening between criminal partners, roommates, family members, and so forth? Is there going to be a "gay litmus test" that requires applicants to prove they're gay? If homosexuals can marry, why not siblings? Why not parents and children (who are of age)? The only possible objections are based on socially-recognized morality and special-benefit policy objectives, both of which gay marriage proponents want to throw out the window.

The fact of the matter is that bisecting society and limiting special-benefit couplings is critical to the practicality of maintaining those special benefits. If civil unions and/or unrestricted marriage are brought about, it will spell the eventual demise of special privilege for the married -- which may not be a bad thing; I haven't made up my mind yet. The high probability of this sea-change should be part of the debate.

I was purusing the Washington Times and came across an article that says some Democrats don't like President Bush's most recent political ad. Fine and good; one could hardly expect them to. What caught my eye however was that the AP reporter who filed the story used the title "Miss" when referring to Republican National Committee spokesman Christine Iverson.

"We have no doubt that Senator Daschle and others in his party who oppose the president's policy of pre-emptive self-defense believe that their national-security approach is in the best interests of the country," RNC spokesman Christine Iverson said. ...

The ad will air through tomorrow in Iowa, and then might run again in New Hampshire during the next Democratic debate in December, said the RNC's Miss Iverson.

She said the party plans to run ads in conjunction with the Democratic debates, but the decision hasn't been made whether to run the current ad or new ones supporting the president.

I don't see "Miss" or "Mrs." used very often these days, with "Ms." being the preferred marriage-neutral title, and I thought it was noteworthy.

Additionally, Miss Iverson was referred to as the "spokesman", despite the fact that she's a woman; this is the appropriate job title, although the more politically correct "spokeswoman" or "spokesperson" is now universally common.

A similar transformation can be seen with the ascension of "their" as a third-person singular gender-neutral pronoun. It is correct to instruct that "Each student must submit his own report.", but modern gender-neutral usage has made the incorrect "Each student must submit their own report." widely accepted. English has no proper third-person gender-neutral pronoun, but there are other ways of eliminating gender, if it's greatly desired. For instance, "All students must submit their own reports." is acceptable.

To conclude a story I first mentioned two months ago: "Girl abandons Caucasian Club effort".

The girl who tried to start a Caucasian Club at her California high school has abandoned the effort and transferred to another school, driven away, her parents say, by the harassment and name-calling she suffered from other students.

Lisa