It turns out the Pentagon, contrary to the rest of the Shrub administration, believes that global warming not only exists, but is a major threat to the security of the United States.

See article here.

Download report here.

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An Illinois couple has filed a lawsuit alleging that the federal government's ban on the importation of medicines from Canada is unconstitutional.

This goes hand in hand with the recent passage of the Medicare "reform" bill, which includes a prescription drug benefit of dubious value to anyone who might have to buy drugs when it comes into effect next year. That same bill also explicitly prevented Medicare, the largest single buyer of drugs in the US, from negotiating the price of drugs with the pharmaceutical industry. This segment of the legislation was an unabashed giveaway to the drug companies, since other federal agencies, like the Veteran's Administration, routinely negotiate the price of prescription drugs for sale in their own pharmacies.

Some cities and states are challenging the prohibition against reimportation of drugs from Canada. Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty has created a website specifically to provide information on Canadian pharmacies that sell into the United States. Pawlenty testified before a Congressional panel that met while the Medicare legislation was being written in secret by Republicans and their lobbyist friends from the pharmaceutical companies. Pawlenty said he'd be willing to go to jail over this issue if the Food And Drug Administration wanted to press the case. FDA has held to its position that drugs reimported from Canada are unsafe. This is false, as Canadian quality control of drugs and their pharmacy system are just as tight as those here in the US. The second claim is that some of the online pharmacies are scam operations that my not even be operating from Canada. This is likely true, which is why programs like the one in Minnesota, where individual Canadian pharmacies are checked out, then recommended by state government.

This is a very serious issue. The couple who have filed the lawsuit said they did so because they cannot keep up with their monthly costs for drug, which is over $1,000 per month. I can tell you from my own experiences that the anti-convulsives I am taking cost me almost 80% less when purchased from Canada. Americans pay the highest prices in the world for American manufactured drugs, which are sold through a very small number of national distributors. That choke point in the supply chain is one of the reasons prices remain so high.

Over the last 15 years drug prices have risen by a fairly steady rate of close to 18% per year, far outstripping the rate of inflation. Despite the many methods of socialization of the costs of research, the industry continues to trot out the tired canard of research and development costs as the source of high prices, even while they sell into price-controlled foreign markets at deeply discounted prices.

It is no accident that over the same fifteen year period, the pharmaceutical industry has been the most profitable in the world.

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Clare Short, British Cabinet Minister in Tony Blair's government, has alleged her government bugged UN General Secretary Kofi Annan's office prior to the war in Iraq. Short claimed to have seen printed transcripts of conversations that took place in Annan's office during the heated back and forth between Britain, the US, and the UN.

Such surveillance would be illegal, and Annan is quoted as saying that if anyone wanted his opinion on any issue, they need "only have asked him directly."

Blair refused to confirm or deny her allegations, going only so far as to say that her comments are "deeply irresponsible." It remains to be seen whether Short, a Labor Party MP, will face party discipline.

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Howard Stern has been booted off several Clear Channel Communications owned radio stations for alleged indecency and insensitivity during one of his radio broadcasts. I'm not a fan of Stern's at all - I find him dull, nasty, and extraordinarily self-centered - but this sort of ploy is obviously Clear Channel's response to the recent hearings held on Capitol Hill over indecency on television and radio. Clear Channel has a lot of business that regularly comes before Congress and federal regulatory agencies, and the message from politician's during the hearings was hard to miss: clean up your act, or we will attempt to hinder your ability to reap profits at the expense of the public.

This is no different to the cravenly cave-in of CBS over the Reagan "docudrama" a number of months ago.

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Thanks to my AZ friend for the following link.

Send a letter to Mary Cheney asking her to speak with Daddy, Vice President Cheney, about his puppet's proposed constitutional amendment to "defend marriage."