Month: May 2012

A Dish reader tells her story.

A reader writes:

Scopolamine (licensed by the FDA and sold by Novartis as "Transderm Scop" sea-sickness patches) is the world's scariest drug? I learn something new every day.

Another writes:

Scopolamine is not new at all. It was the drug of choice for labor in the '50s and '60s, into the early '70s. Mom had it when she had me. When she woke up, she had no idea if I was alive or dead. You have no control over your behavior and no recollection of what has happened when you take scopolamine. I cared for patients who received it in a private hospital during medical school. It was terrifying to see nice, intelligent ladies turned into raving lunatics.

It seemed like the obstetricians enjoyed being able to do that to women. They claimed they did us a favor. Women revolted, and the drug eventually went out of favor. It is now used for induction of anesthesia, in tiny doses for certain eye problems and for motion-sickness via patch. It is indeed a very, very scary drug to be in the hands of criminals.

Another:

Scopolamine was the drug that transformed James Dean Michael Landon into a werewolf in I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957). Sometimes it is truly perplexing why we retain certain bits of information.

Or not.

It depends on the country:

There is a perception that Europe is much more liberal on [marriage equality support] than the U.S. The truth is that even within European Union (EU) countries the variation is probably greater than within the U.S. A 2006 survey puts the range from 83% in the Netherlands (much higher than in Massachusetts) to 12% in Romania and Latvia (lower than in Mississippi).

Britain and America are at the same tipping point of around 50 percent support. And both president Obama and prime minister Cameron now favor the reform (yet another thing they have in common). Cameron's coalition government has promised legislation making it a reality by 2015.

Also note how "partnerships" do not end up as a viable alternative to marriage. They are almost uniformly a mile-stone on the way.

There's a shift in black views on marriage equality in North Carolina polling since the president's announcement. On the other hand:

8% of North Carolina voters, including 13% of Republicans, think being gay should be a felony.

Nate Silver updates his Senate projections:

Currently, we project the most likely outcome to be Republicans winning 50 seats, Democrats 49, and Mr. King the seat in Maine. Under those circumstances, the Democrats would retain control of the Senate if Mr. King caucused with them and President Obama won re-election, making Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. the tiebreaking vote. Otherwise, Republicans would control the chamber.

However, it should be remembered that this is just one potential outcome out of a fairly wide range of possibilities.

I was fifteen. RIP. Disco nation mourns. Bonus (slo-mo voguing) live version of “I Feel Love” after the jump.

Is hefty:

[T]he average cost to own dogs ranges from $580 to $875 a year, a cat is about $670, and the humble fish weighs in at $35 a year. The data is aggregated from Mint.com, and only captures recurring costs of owning your pet. It doesn’t include one-time costs such as shelter, licenses and vaccinations, nor does it take into account doggie Christmas stockings or those extra expensive mice that your snake loves. I would double these estimates to to play it a little safe and account for these costs. "I recommend to all of my friends getting dogs that they set aside about $1,000 up front for ‘things I didn't even think about,'" my friend Katherine, a dog owner, says.

Then there's injury and illness. Our younger mutt-hound, Eddy, tore a ligament in her back leg while tussling with another dog while in day care when we were in England. It didn't heal on its own, and she began to limp routinely. The vet recommended an operation. The full cost of doing it was way more than I can imagine large numbers of American dog-owners can afford right now. They are faced with the horrible prospect of allowing their pet to have a permanent disability. There's pet-insurance for this, but it makes people-insurance look generous and simple.

Eddy, meanwhile, is healing slowly. We carry her up and down stairs and we have to restrict her movements. The other night we had to put a big plastic Elizabethan collar on her to prevent her licking and biting her staples and wound. She was bewildered and angry, giving us (mainly the hubby) a nightmarish night of protest, nudging and pushing him whenever he moved in bed, and then shitting and pissing all over the place when we were asleep. She's usually a wonderful, loving, amazing creature. And it's painful not being able to explain to her why suddenly, her long walks are suspended, her head surrounded by a scary new contraption, and her back leg even more vulnerable for a while than before.

But that's nothing compared with living with the knowledge that you just cannot afford to keep your pet in perfect health. My heart goes out to people in that position. And their animals.

I thought so. Scott Morgan counters:

What worries me is that Obama seems to be getting a pass on some things that I suspect would invite more vigorous outrage if carried out by Romney.

When the President claimed that the raids were focused on groups that violated their own state laws, even Andrew Sullivan, an outspoken critic of the raids, agreed it was a fair point. He later went on to say, "I also wish some states had exercized more discretion and care in allowing for medical marijuana."

I understand Andrew's concern, but let's not forget what happened when states did exercise discretion and care in attempting to regulate medical marijuana activity. Obama's DOJ threatened to arrest not only the providers, but also the state officials monitoring them to ensure compliance with state law. Federal posturing stalled efforts to regulate dispensaries in Washington and Rhode Island, and resulted in the elimination of a strict plant-tagging program in California that was becoming a model for effective regulation.

What we've got now is the functional equivalent of chasing off the code inspectors and then claiming that our restaurants are dirty. 

 

The NYT reported that Joe Ricketts was considering spending millions on anti-Obama Rev. Wright ads. Apparently, that idea has now been rejected. How Yglesias understood the proposal:

[W]hile I don't know any objective observers who think a focus on Jeremiah Wright is damaging to the president … it's obvious that a lot of hard-core Republicans do think this way. … If you're Fred Davis or any other consultant eager to help himself to a slice of Ricketts' $10 million investment, coming up with a cost-effective plan for damaging Obama's re-election campaign is pointless. What you want to do is come up with a plan that appeals to Ricketts' sensibilities and makes him want to spend the money.

Waldman is in neighboring territory:

[T]here is no magic television ad that can undo a sitting president running for re-election. That's because people have pretty well-formed opinions about him. You can make a dramatic, surprising character attack against a candidate who isn't particularly well known by the voters, but it just doesn't work for the incumbent. That isn't to say advertising can't have any impact. But it's fairly typical of a rich outsider like Ricketts to think, " The thing about the President I hate the most is the thing that will turn all Americans against him," and if we just show them, they'll all agree.