::whew:: I think I'm all packed. With everything. Absolutely everything imaginable. Shuttle is due in 14 minutes. I should go downstairs. I'm going downstairs.

See you from somewhere that's not West Lost Angeles, hey.

(Exchange with co-worker today: "ita, can I call you back? I'm on another line?" "But I'm on vacaaaaaation!" He called back pretty quickly.)

The problem with buying into the "BIG PHARMA IS EVIL" myth is that the alternative to "big pharma" is a supplement/alt-med industry that is equally as large and corrupt.

Well it is not necessarily a myth, and the alternative may be a more tightly regulated Big Pharma, with more of the research done publicly and less by Big Pharma. And with the FDA given the resources it needs to do everything it needs to do, something that does not happen now. Of course I'm not supporting Big Snake Oil over Big Pharma, but a larger role for the big evil awful Federal Government to do some of the stuff Big Pharma consistently screws up.

What? Regulations? REGULATIONS ARE WHAT KILLED AYN RAND.

I seriously don't get the disconnect between the complete trust in government to provide a militia to protect citizens against catastrophic invasions, but no trust in government to provide scientists to protect citizens against catastrophic illness.

Seriously, isn't the entire military industrial complex just one big regulator against Red Dawn?

Let the market decide who gets to be dictator, I say!

Ok. I'm done now.

Let the market decide who gets to be dictator, I say!

The market did decide. The winner? The market!

Allyson, marry me.

I seriously don't get the disconnect between the complete trust in government to provide a militia to protect citizens against catastrophic invasions, but no trust in government to provide scientists to protect citizens against catastrophic illness.

You clearly have not read the Constitution. In it? A militia. Not in it? Science.

I did read it! I remembered the part about the post office a couple of weeks ago!