it's not

I recommend that fracking techniques be employed on the limbaugh shale

where there's gas there's oil amirite

pacino wrote:The US is now an net oil exporter. we export more than we import. first time since 1949. damn obama.

That absolutely cannot be true. What about all that stuff Santorum said in his speech after his Michigan "win":

"We can put millions of Americans -- and that’s under-scoring -- millions of Americans back to work if we would unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of -- of our energy sector of our economy. We can drive down prices, decrease our dependency on foreign oil. We can do it all, but we have a president who says no. We have a president who, when the opportunity to open up federal lands for mining and oil and gas drilling, says no. We have a president who’s -- we have an opportunity to open up offshore, he says no, deepwater, he says no, Alaska, he says no, build a pipeline, he says no."


Linkage:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-2 ... -2011.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ele ... _blog.html

Its true because we have capacity to refine oil and others do not. Past that, it has been wrongly reported that the US exports gasoline. This is not the case, we export refine oil that is converted into other petrol products (all that China plastic). I suspect that gas is not really exportable because it is not terribly stable.

In all this I did wonder if Marcus Hook might be purchased by the Chinese. Sunoco got out because they say that refining is too expensive for what it is, and that makes it unprofitable versus the purchase and resale.

America is also producing at an all time high. Also, a fact is that our biggest supplier is Canada. Too bad it all slowly has destroyed the eocology of the planet (now get back to your 70 degree Februaries in the mid-Atlantic).

It's not exactly a revelation that big business pretty much runs the show in the U.S., but if you want an illustration, look at something going on in the industry I work in, pharmaceuticals.

Currently in Washington and elsewhere, there is a lot of debate about something called Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR). Federal funding and dissemmination of PCOR was approved as part of the Obama health care reform law a couple years back - except at the time, PCOR was known by the more controversial term: Comparative Research.

What's comparative research? Exactly what it sounds like - studies in which two or more drugs for the same indication (disease) are tested head-to-head to see which has the best efficacy, is the safest, etc.

You probably assumed that is already done, right? Well, no. Sometimes, after a drug reaches market, a head-to-head study is done with a competitive product but not very often. In the meantime, if you have a condition for which there are, say, eight approved drugs, your doctor likely has no data available to him or her to suggest which might work best (or be easiest to tolerate) in your specific condition.

As someone who has battled clinical depression off and on, I experienced this "roulette wheel" approach to therapy a few years ago. For more than a decade, a small daily dose of Paxil kept me depression-free, but your body can built up a tolerance over time to a drug that is effective. Eventually, I was getting little or no therapeutic benefit from Paxil. As I spent the next 18 months or so working my way out of depression, then rebounding back into it, my doctors tried to find a suitable replacement for Paxil. Zoloft? No effect in me. Cymbalta? That was fun. I got no benefit from it, but it did give me a tremor.

Finally, after some pleading on my part, my doctor prescribed me a prescription for Prozac. She was skeptical because, like Paxil, it was an SSRI. Well, it turned out an SSRI was just what I needed, only a different one. Two-and-a-half years later, so far, so good.

Anyway, the fact that the very name of comparative research had to be changed to PCOR, after significant business pressure, kind of tells you all you need to know. Now, while PCOR programs are finally being put in place, the federal committees appointed to discuss this are dealing with all aspects of PCOR but for head-to-head trials - making it seems as if they may never become standard in the U.S.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. And if you found it boring, I hope you skipped over it. I know I only read about one-third of the posts in this thread.

TenuredVulture wrote:Has anyone else noted a sort of defeatism among many Republicans--George Will, some of the people on Redstate, and probably elsewhere too. Seems to me it's simply another example of right wing crazy talk. Given everything, I'd say Obama is no more than 50-50 to win in November.

Is this another "blame moderates for the loss" cycle? Or is it just a party that has embraced a sort of weird dark not quite real universe?

The activists in both parties do this. Read what the left has to say about Obama. It takes a rare twist of fate for the choice of either party's base to actually be electable in November. I would put Obama/Romney at 50-50. Neither is loved by their base. One of them would have to win.

Leftwingers who think someone more leftwing than Obama would have a better chance are probably a little crazier than right wingers who think Romney is too moderate to get elected.

That being said, there is some evidence that left wing policy ideas (ie single payer health care) might be more popular than insurance reform with individual mandates.

allentown wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Has anyone else noted a sort of defeatism among many Republicans--George Will, some of the people on Redstate, and probably elsewhere too. Seems to me it's simply another example of right wing crazy talk. Given everything, I'd say Obama is no more than 50-50 to win in November.

Is this another "blame moderates for the loss" cycle? Or is it just a party that has embraced a sort of weird dark not quite real universe?

The activists in both parties do this. Read what the left has to say about Obama. It takes a rare twist of fate for the choice of either party's base to actually be electable in November. I would put Obama/Romney at 50-50. Neither is loved by their base. One of them would have to win.

A good friend of mine in New York, who over the 20+ years I have known her, has moved from the political right to the political left (kind of Arianna Huffington without the money) believes Obama is a tool of the right. There is left-wing antipathy towards Obama, but I think he is solidifying his position with moderates day by day.

i'm curious. i hear all these terms thrown around about activists and left-wingers, etc...

what am i considered by fellow posters?

A union apologist, obviously

comic book stealer

you forgot a verb in that sentence.

Rick Santorum's Ohio Delegate Problems Pile Up - Running for president without a campaign is tricky

"it’s not the language I would have used"

Oh Mittens

Gas is easily exportable.

You have a ton of pipelines in the US alone:
http://www.eia.gov/pub/oil_gas/natural_ ... s_map.html

Here's a map of Russian pipelines into Europe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Major ... europe.png

Here's a map of Middle Eastern gas pipelines:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arab_Gas_Pipeline.svg

The oil and gasoline storage facilities have been maximized for a very long time in the US. Probably going on 4-5 years...there are refineries closing in the US, especially ones that crack light, sweet crude:

http://www.hovensa.com/
http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2012/01/19 ... n-islands/

This one is why gas prices in the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic are rising, it's the transportation costs...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/ ... QQ20120224

An overview of it why prices are rising:
http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/201 ... ob-losses/

thephan wrote:Its true because we have capacity to refine oil and others do not. Past that, it has been wrongly reported that the US exports gasoline. This is not the case, we export refine oil that is converted into other petrol products (all that China plastic). I suspect that gas is not really exportable because it is not terribly stable.

In all this I did wonder if Marcus Hook might be purchased by the Chinese. Sunoco got out because they say that refining is too expensive for what it is, and that makes it unprofitable versus the purchase and resale.

America is also producing at an all time high. Also, a fact is that our biggest supplier is Canada. Too bad it all slowly has destroyed the eocology of the planet (now get back to your 70 degree Februaries in the mid-Atlantic).

BuddyGroom wrote:It's not exactly a revelation that big business pretty much runs the show in the U.S., but if you want an illustration, look at something going on in the industry I work in, pharmaceuticals.

Currently in Washington and elsewhere, there is a lot of debate about something called Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR). Federal funding and dissemmination of PCOR was approved as part of the Obama health care reform law a couple years back - except at the time, PCOR was known by the more controversial term: Comparative Research.

What's comparative research? Exactly what it sounds like - studies in which two or more drugs for the same indication (disease) are tested head-to-head to see which has the best efficacy, is the safest, etc.

You probably assumed that is already done, right? Well, no. Sometimes, after a drug reaches market, a head-to-head study is done with a competitive product but not very often. ....

Anyway, sorry for the long post. And if you found it boring, I hope you skipped over it. I know I only read about one-third of the posts in this thread.

Buddy, great post. People take for granted that "someone" takes steps to test the efficacy of a therapy - especially medicines - relative to other therapies meant to treat the same condition. As you point out, that is not at all true, and in fact efforts to accomplish that are actively thwarted.

I'm not sure that safety or health concerns dictate that doing so becomes a function we want governments to carry out. I know I don't want governments, or self-interested companies, obstructing the doing of it either. On the other hand, the actual doing of it runs into a thicket of challenges ethical, practical, and otherwise.

May I quote your post over into the health reform thread?

"you're not going to persuade rick santorum with facts." - james carville

"rush limabugh likes sex and drugs." - bill maher

BuddyGroom wrote:It's not exactly a revelation that big business pretty much runs the show in the U.S., but if you want an illustration, look at something going on in the industry I work in, pharmaceuticals.

Currently in Washington and elsewhere, there is a lot of debate about something called Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR). Federal funding and dissemmination of PCOR was approved as part of the Obama health care reform law a couple years back - except at the time, PCOR was known by the more controversial term: Comparative Research.

What's comparative research? Exactly what it sounds like - studies in which two or more drugs for the same indication (disease) are tested head-to-head to see which has the best efficacy, is the safest, etc.

You probably assumed that is already done, right? Well, no. Sometimes, after a drug reaches market, a head-to-head study is done with a competitive product but not very often. In the meantime, if you have a condition for which there are, say, eight approved drugs, your doctor likely has no data available to him or her to suggest which might work best (or be easiest to tolerate) in your specific condition.

As someone who has battled clinical depression off and on, I experienced this "roulette wheel" approach to therapy a few years ago. For more than a decade, a small daily dose of Paxil kept me depression-free, but your body can built up a tolerance over time to a drug that is effective. Eventually, I was getting little or no therapeutic benefit from Paxil. As I spent the next 18 months or so working my way out of depression, then rebounding back into it, my doctors tried to find a suitable replacement for Paxil. Zoloft? No effect in me. Cymbalta? That was fun. I got no benefit from it, but it did give me a tremor.

Finally, after some pleading on my part, my doctor prescribed me a prescription for Prozac. She was skeptical because, like Paxil, it was an SSRI. Well, it turned out an SSRI was just what I needed, only a different one. Two-and-a-half years later, so far, so good.

Anyway, the fact that the very name of comparative research had to be changed to PCOR, after significant business pressure, kind of tells you all you need to know. Now, while PCOR programs are finally being put in place, the federal committees appointed to discuss this are dealing with all aspects of PCOR but for head-to-head trials - making it seems as if they may never become standard in the U.S.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. And if you found it boring, I hope you skipped over it. I know I only read about one-third of the posts in this thread.

This is one of the most interesting posts I've read in the politics or any other thread. I've been trying to figure out the distinction between PCOR and CER and now I'm realizing that there isn't really a difference.

phdave wrote:

BuddyGroom wrote:It's not exactly a revelation that big business pretty much runs the show in the U.S., but if you want an illustration, look at something going on in the industry I work in, pharmaceuticals.

Currently in Washington and elsewhere, there is a lot of debate about something called Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR). Federal funding and dissemmination of PCOR was approved as part of the Obama health care reform law a couple years back - except at the time, PCOR was known by the more controversial term: Comparative Research.

What's comparative research? Exactly what it sounds like - studies in which two or more drugs for the same indication (disease) are tested head-to-head to see which has the best efficacy, is the safest, etc.

You probably assumed that is already done, right? Well, no. Sometimes, after a drug reaches market, a head-to-head study is done with a competitive product but not very often. In the meantime, if you have a condition for which there are, say, eight approved drugs, your doctor likely has no data available to him or her to suggest which might work best (or be easiest to tolerate) in your specific condition.

As someone who has battled clinical depression off and on, I experienced this "roulette wheel" approach to therapy a few years ago. For more than a decade, a small daily dose of Paxil kept me depression-free, but your body can built up a tolerance over time to a drug that is effective. Eventually, I was getting little or no therapeutic benefit from Paxil. As I spent the next 18 months or so working my way out of depression, then rebounding back into it, my doctors tried to find a suitable replacement for Paxil. Zoloft? No effect in me. Cymbalta? That was fun. I got no benefit from it, but it did give me a tremor.

Finally, after some pleading on my part, my doctor prescribed me a prescription for Prozac. She was skeptical because, like Paxil, it was an SSRI. Well, it turned out an SSRI was just what I needed, only a different one. Two-and-a-half years later, so far, so good.

Anyway, the fact that the very name of comparative research had to be changed to PCOR, after significant business pressure, kind of tells you all you need to know. Now, while PCOR programs are finally being put in place, the federal committees appointed to discuss this are dealing with all aspects of PCOR but for head-to-head trials - making it seems as if they may never become standard in the U.S.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. And if you found it boring, I hope you skipped over it. I know I only read about one-third of the posts in this thread.

This is one of the most interesting posts I've read in the politics or any other thread. I've been trying to figure out the distinction between PCOR and CER and now I'm realizing that there isn't really a difference.

PCOR is probably one of the most interesting things to come out of the PPACA that no one knows about. It makes perfect sense but I can see why pharma would be apprehensive. Also due to the slight genetic variation in everyone, different drugs may work better in different people so it's not like you can pick a clear "winner" in these trials.

I'm surprised there's no org like Gartner who covers the industry and does something like the "Gartner Magic Quadrant" for drugs. Every other business in the world thrives on competitive comparison; why would pharma not?

But JLBurton's point is very relevant, too. And even is evidenced in BuddyGroom's predecessor quote. There are many people getting benefits from Zoloft and Cimbalta; I suspect it's specific genetics, and not any readily identifiable condition that someone can look at and pick from the different available therapies.