Before Everybody Became Afraid of Everything

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Wed, 04 May 2005 12:00:00 GMT
# Jonathan Takiff at The Philadelphia Daily News - Get Ryan Adams' good side from 'Roses' BugMeNot - rats. [google]
As for the oft-postponed Stevie Wonder album ("A Time 2 Love") promised for release today... forgeddaboutit. Motown is now predicting June, while Amazon.com recently had the release date posted facetiously as "January 1, 2010." But one track has slipped out, the aptly named "So What the Fuss," a gritty little protesting plea featuring guest appearances by Prince and En Vogue.

# George Potter at The Claire Files Board - Wake - fiction. Another winner from Mr. Potter.

It's always the little things, she reminded herself as she opened the door, that make or break this life.

# Bill Walker at LewRockwell.com - The End Of Cancer - on the promise of telomerase inhibitors to cure most cancers, if only the a.m.a., and their gummint lackies in the f.d.a., will let us have them.

If telomerase inhibitors were a new kind of computer chip, they would have been on every Wal-Mart pharmacy shelf and selling for ten dollars a bottle by now. However, in the US it has been decided that only computers (sorry: "Silicon-Americans") may benefit from the free market. Technologies that enhance mere humans, like medicine, education, communication, transportation, etc. are kept firmly within the control of guilds and government. So before telomerase inhibitors get down to the level of your doctor, they will have to run the 19-year, $897 million regulatory gauntlet while it is decided which large pharmaceutical company will be granted a patent for something which probably came out of some pathetic starving Lebanese grad student's work.

Meanwhile, if you or your child get most types of cancer you will die a slow, agonizing (but very profitable) death. You'll be all: "Make it stop! Make it stoooop!" And the doctor will be all: "The DEA won't let me give you too many pain drugs. You don't want me to lose my license, do you?" And you'll be all: "AHHHHH! AHHHH AUUUGH!" And so on, for several years of immeasurable pain. Sound good to you?
I like his conclusion:
Cancer Delenda Est, Ergo FDA Delenda Est

# Fred Reed at Strike the Root - How We Were - Reminiscences of America before everybody became afraid of everything. [root]

The freedom we enjoyed would horrify today's worried delicates. We had guns but enough common sense not to think of them as weapons. Nobody wanted to shoot anybody, and nobody did. We just liked firearms. The first day of deer season was a school holiday because everybody knew the boys and Becky Burrell weren't going to come anyway. Country stores sold ammunition. You didn't need to be any particular age to buy it. Why would there be such a law?

# David Adam at Guardian Unlimited - US in race to unlock new energy source - methane hydrates are thought to hold more "fossil fuel" energy than all known reserves of coal, oil, and gas, put together. But of course the environazis are crowing about the harm that will come to us if we release that much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Hey! You! Numbnuts! Plants breathe carbon dioxide. If release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it doesn't stay there. You just get more plants. Now sit down and shut up until you learn to think your way out of a paper bag. [smith2004]

# Taurus USA - Thunderbolt - Taurus intends to release in the third quarter of this year a bunch of pump action western style rifles. They'll come in .357 magnum and .45 Colt, blued, case-hardened, or polished stainless finish. $475 - $525 MSRP. Hold 14 rounds in a tubular magazine. My only concern is whether there'll be enough oomph in these cartridges to effectively push a bullet through a 26" barrel. Unfortunately, a bunch of the photos are missing from the web site, but the ones that are there should give you an idea. Or order or download (4MB PDF) a catalog, which has a 4-page centerfold of the new rifles (p. 24).

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