Did that fear really stop George W. Bush and co. from invading? Not really...
The above is precisely why Iran feels the need to develop actual nuclear weapons -- because a nuclear deterrent is the only sure way to keep the US from invading Iran.
While on a gut level that makes sense to the layperson, it makes no sense from a military perspective. If Iran had a few crude nuclear devices, the military impetus for either Israel or the US (if they believe nonproliferation is an important enough goal) is to strike now, rather than later. A few crude nuclear devices means that Iran has not had the capability to test and vet delivery vehicles, and the nuclear devices are likely to be fission rather than fission/fusion combinations. Which makes the situation on the ground this: Iran is nuclear-armed, but is either unable to deploy those devices effectively or likely at short range, such as within their own country. A conventional war with Iran in such a state is actually possible; Israel and/or the US is able to strike Iran likely with impunity with nuclear weapons if provoked. Israel/the US would have air superiority versus Iran making simpler bomb-delivered munitions from Iran insecure. Ballistic short- and medium-range missile defense is getting much better. Iran on the other hand is severely limited in its capabilities to use their weapons in a first strike defensively except in a scorched earth strategy that would hurt Iran more in the long run.
The reason why North Korea is untouchable is not that it has crude nuclear weapons. The reason why North Korea is untouchable is because it has 50,000 conventional artillery pieces aimed at Seoul with the intention of obliterating its civilian population of millions if war ever breaks out again.
Well, they're doing the exact opposite of what they should be doing, then.
Iraq under Saddam Hussein did the same shtick, bluffing for years that they had weapons stockpiles that really didn't exist (anymore). The US military went into the Iraq War expecting that chemical and/or biological weapons would be used against their soldiers on the ground. Did that fear really stop George W. Bush and co. from invading? Not really...
The problem with Iran's government is they're being run by two opposing camps; the religious right-wing extremists pitted against the military nationalist right-wing extremists. Buffoonery and penis length comparing naturally comes with *right-wing extremists of any sort, it seems to be a universal truth.
Sorry, missed the point of your question. Let me clarify; eventually Valor Point vendors will sell epic raiding gear that don't require Reputation levels once the next tier is reached. It's been that way with every expansion pack, all the way since Burning Crusade.
If Dailies are optional, please explain what someone that doesn't do them is supposed to do with the VP they collect from heroics, raids, and LFR.
Seriously? Valor Points buy epic raiding gear. That is why the dailies are optional - you can still get your valor points just fine through heroic dungeon runs, LFR or tagging along raids. You can get Valor Points much faster by doing the dailies along with the above-mentioned activities.
You do realize Osama Bin Laden was a Saudi, right?
What did the people of Afghanistan do to us again?
FYI, the correct answer is, "not a goddamn thing we didn't do to them first."
You make absolutely no sense.
You do realize that al Qaeda was deeply embedded in the Taliban ruling structure and supported the Taliban both financially and militarily in their war against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan?
This is like if some Irish-Americans went over to Northern Ireland in the 1980s and with IRA help blew up some British apartment buildings. If Britain is going to retaliate, do they retaliate against the United States or do they retaliate against the IRA?
I realize that Saudi Arabia is not blameless is this, being the defacto home of the Wahhabist extremists that developed these wackos in the first place. But it's a hill compared to the mountain of blame that can be assigned to al Qaeda and their allies like the Taliban.
Put another way, who did the US invade first in World War 2? If you guessed Japan or Germany, you'd be wrong.
Actually you need to check your facts. The Taliban were so eager to hand him over they invented an extradition procedure on the spot . They just needed a little prima facie evidence but that request was never answered. There is also one apparently reputable source indicating that they secretly went well beyond that offer by offering to confine Bin Laden and his people to one base and then tell the US which one it was and stand out of the way. That offer, apparently, was also never answered.
Citation, please. That sounds like prima facie bullshit invented by Taliban apologists. The Taliban would never have handed over one of their major financial and military backers in bin Laden to the United States. Al Qaeda was militarily supporting the Taliban in their war against the Northern Alliance as their outsourced zealot goon squad. The only offer I ever heard was the one in public where the Taliban said, "sure, we'd hand him over, but you don't have any proof! Nyah nyah, come and get him!" And so we did.
Those 'suspected terrorists' are only trying to protect their homeland from outside invaders. Self defense is a birthright, of everybody's, not just Americans.
Oh really? Is that why so many of the Taliban cross the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan to fight? To defend their Pakistani home?
You can't stick non-Google ads on their services...
You can't swap out Google search for Bing in Gmail...
Two very obvious examples of "forced other products to be tied to their search engine".
You have it backwards. IF Google had a monopoly in search engines, it would be abusing its monopoly position if it forced Google users to use Gmail for their webmail. Having the Google search engine used in Gmail has nothing to do with monopoly, as there is no dispute that Gmail is not in a monopoly position in the webmail market.
Not being able to stick non-Google ads on their services is likewise not a monopoly issue, as none of those services (like Gmail) are in a monopoly position in their respective markets.
Abuse of monopoly only comes into play if the company in question forces or bundles the use of its non-monopoly services or products with a monopoly position. Ex: You want to use Windows on the desktop? You have to use Internet Explorer. Ex: You want to use Google's search engine? You have to use Gmail and Google Maps.
This was an "anti-submarine exercise". What part of that do you think improves the training on either boat or ship if the "friendlies" talk to each other?
CO2 emissions aren't being reduced anywhere. So when discussing reductions of emissions it's stupid to focus on CO2, unless you have an axe to grind.
On the contrary, switching over 20% of the power consumption of your transportation fleet from burning fossil fuels directly to being sourced from nuclear and wind power should have an immediate CO2 reduction effect. Why can't we focus on all of it? I have no axe to grind.
Pilots cost $3-5 Million to train. They needs thousands of hours of recurring flight to stay sharp.
So what happens when you put that old fucker pilot who isn't safe to put in a real fighter jet because he's so old his body can't handle what the plane can do and you stick him behind the controls of a UAV?
Drones are the future, find a way to create un-jamable near instantaneous communications and suddenly their isn't a body in planes. Perfect AI planes and you've even taken the Human pilot out of it and their fallibility. Yes their are concerns, and their are nightmare scenarios. But the future of combat is taking the people out of it because no matter what you do the people are the biggest cost.
Oh, is that all you need? Un-jamable near instantaneous communications? Why don't we invent the perpetual motion machine while we're at it? All the fancy new drone toys we have are fine and dandy up to the point someone figures out the man-in-the-middle attack needed to crash them, or worse, take them over. (See: Iran & GPS spoofiing the stealth reconaissance drone.)
Until the day comes when we allow the machine to think and pull the trigger for themselves (hopefully not in my lifetime), their best use will be as force multipliers, not as your military backbone. Think a squadron of F-22s accompanied by 2 or 3 squadrons of UAVs backed up by an AWACS plane that they can call on.
The more you hang your hat on drones, the more electronic warfare is going to be devastating against you when the time comes to fight an opponent with both brains and foresight.
. . . it reminds us all to embrace the challenges of exploration and to never stop discovering.
Placed just above the submission, "Astronomy Portfolio Review Recommends Defunding US's Biggest Telescope," the combination tells you all you need to know.
That the military is the only US government entity that can see the value in continued research in the sciences? It sure isn't the Republicrat politicians.
Everything that makes use of Google's maps service says "powered by Google maps" in the lower left corner (as required by their terms and conditions), that included Apple's previous maps application. But Google was asking for increased branding within the app, which Apple declined. Indeed, this would have damaged Apple's brand, and it's understandable that they chose to make their own Maps instead.
Because the furor over the Apple Maps screw up isn't damaging Apple's brand?
When your iconic, charismatic leader passes away, the last thing you need to do as a marketing-driven luxury brand company is change the motto from "It Just Works" to "It Works OK For Most People (and we're fixing the rest real soon now)".
What Apple should have done is taken their ball and gone home with it, and then developed in-house a better Maps than Google Maps. But producing a half-assed Apple Maps or even a 90% assed Apple Maps over a continuing pissing match with Google/Android is not reflecting well on Apple.
Why the false dichotomy? You have an iPhone 3GS. Even if you don't have the money to outright buy a new handset, it sounds like you're ready for an "upgrade". Either the Maps is a dealbreaker or it isn't; if it is, maybe it's time to get an Android, where Google Maps has no crippled functionality. (I have an iPhone 3G and a Samsung Galaxy SII. The Maps integration with Android is pretty sweet.) Or, if it isn't, you can wait for Apple's upgrades and fixes.
Now, apparently the default maps app sucks - at least for the moment - in many countries overseas. China oddly enough not being one of them. The Chinese are apparently marveling at how much better Apple's map app is than Google's. Go figure.
Might have something to do with the current state of relations between Google and the Chinese government. Mainland China considers accurate maps to be state secrets, and their export is highly regulated.
And I have a feeling that Apple's policies of Walled Gardens and Don't Worry, Nothing to Upset You Here are more in tune with the Chinese government than Google's.
For a company who sells high-priced products on the idea that "It Just Works", and the idea of fire-and-forget technology where you don't have to worry about bug fixes or upgrades, to make any sort of mistake on something as high profile as the Maps function is a bad sign. You have a whole year and unlimited resources to get things working right, and more importantly, tested. And yet there are web pages devoted to all the screw ups, silly or not, that Maps has on launch.
Shrugging and proclaiming that things will be better with a fix down the road is a business attitude that Apple fanatics used to make fun of. Now they're making excuses for it.
I'm reminded of the Pentium floating-point error fiasco; just because only 1% (or less) of your customer base will be affected by your screwup does not mean your image will only take a 1% hit.
HP is the top selling PC manufacturer in the world so they have "market share", but they were trying to get rid of thier PC division.
So question, which Android manufacturer do you expect to dethrone Apple as the worlds most valuable company?
Are you dense Karlt1? You've rephrased your question three times already on this thread while avoiding the rebuttals. Let me sum it up for you:
1) Profit is good, up until you get pushed right out of the market because you've been left behind by the competition. See: Blackberry. See: iPhone 5, where the "big improvements" were all in Android devices a year ago. You can keep riding the profitability train until you realize your cash cow is dead and buried because you never invested in inventing the next big thing. Apple did very well with the iPhone and the iPad, but for the last several generations now it's been a case of sequelitis, not something thinking different.
2) HP is the top PC manufacturer in the world. Their management were morons to plan on giving up that position, and the subsequent branding/mindshare and profits, and their board of directors rightly called them out on it. Their management wanted to get out of a low-margin mature market; which would be fine if they had something better on the table to do with their resources, which they do not at this point. Not wanting to compete a la Apple is not a viable business strategy when that market is your bread and butter.
3) This King of the Hill bullshit mentality that you're espousing as a sign of continuing business success is laughable. See: American carmakers in the 1970s-80s, Microsoft in its current condition poised for a decline, and any pharmaceutical company that sat on a blockbuster drug without coming up with anything new or useful in 7 years. Welcome to business. Success should be, and is, well-rewarded at the time of success. But the only way to ensure continuing success is to actually continue to work, invent or innovate; stalling tactics like suing your biggest competitors will only work so long to hide the fact that you're now playing catch up.
15-20 years ago, doctors were written up and called out for not treating enough pain. As a profession, we understand intimately the inherent dangers of opioid pain medication, and we were hesitant to use them. But patients were hurting, articles were written, and I'm sure somewhere doctors were sued. So practices changed, "pain management" is now standard curriculum at medical schools and now look, deaths and hospitalizations from prescription pain medication are at all-time highs. Purdue was likely riding the wave of the change in pain management philosophy at the time when they introduced OxyContin. The right drug at the right time, etc.
I don't know how hard is was to introduce that time-release element. However easy it is to defeat it, it might just be a bit harder to come up with than "xyz with rounded corners" or "abc, but on teh interwebz", thus worthy of a patent. And if they indeed patented their proprietary time-release coating rather than the idea of applying such a coating to this specific ingredient, it would seem trivial for other pharma companies to circumvent the patent.
The patent is not on oxycodone itself - there are a million and one generic variants out in the market already of immediate release oxycodone. The patent is the time-release mechanism. All a pharmaceutical company needs to do to "circumvent" that is to invent their own time-release mechanism for a pill of oxycodone.
Generally, a spokesperson for a group of interest would be approached calmly, not raided (which makes it news).
The spokespeople of multinational crime syndicates tend not to be well-regarded by law enforcement. I know, it's confusing.
Was Barrett armed? Was he dangerous? Was there any reason to believe he was a threat to the officers' personal safety whatsoever? People get taken into custody all the time without being raided. This was an excuse by the police to let out some steam by bashing down the door and busting heads.
How the fuck is this insightful? FTFA, in Barrett Brown's own words:
"It’s toward the end of the video that Brown makes his threat: “Robert Smith’s life is over. So when I say life is over, I don’t say I’m going to kill him. But I’m going to ruin his life and look into his [expletive] kids because Aaron Barr did the same thing and he didn’t get raided for it. How do you like them apples?”
Barr is the former HBGary Federal CEO whose email was hacked by Anonymous in February.
He goes on: “Any armed officials of the U.S. government, particularly the FBI, will be regarded as potential Zeta assassin squads and they know that I’m armed and I will shoot all of them and kill them if they come and do anything because they are engaged in a criminal conspiracy and I have reason to fear for my life, not just from the zetas but from the U.S. government.”"
Hmm. Publicly threatening to shoot anyone that approaches him that's wearing a police uniform. Gee, I don't know why they arrested him with a SWAT team.
Just because there isn't a proven causal relationship, doesn't mean that there isn't one.
More to the point... has circumcision ever been shown to be linked to something harmful?
Yes.
Circumcision is an unnecessary and mainly cosmetic surgery picked by parents because of tradition and/or religion. Recent attempts to find medical justification for its existence are both new and almost laughable. It's a penile "nose job" for a baby so the baby isn't potentially made fun of for being "different" later on.
Unfortunately, circumcision is a surgical procedure. And no matter how "routine" and "minor" a surgical procedure is, it's only "routine" and "minor" until something inevitably goes wrong. Rare, but horrible when it happens.
Promoting circumcisions to prevent STD transmission is the worst sort of self-serving justification. Why not promote mastectomies at puberty for girls to avoid the 1 in 7 chance of getting breast cancer during their lifetime? Or appendectomies for everyone? If your STD prevention strategy consists of promoting circumcision, instead of promoting safe sex education and prophylactic barrier distribution, your priorities are wildly skewed.
You really want your baby circumcised? Wait until he's 18, and give him the choice.
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Did that fear really stop George W. Bush and co. from invading? Not really...
The above is precisely why Iran feels the need to develop actual nuclear weapons -- because a nuclear deterrent is the only sure way to keep the US from invading Iran.
While on a gut level that makes sense to the layperson, it makes no sense from a military perspective. If Iran had a few crude nuclear devices, the military impetus for either Israel or the US (if they believe nonproliferation is an important enough goal) is to strike now, rather than later. A few crude nuclear devices means that Iran has not had the capability to test and vet delivery vehicles, and the nuclear devices are likely to be fission rather than fission/fusion combinations. Which makes the situation on the ground this: Iran is nuclear-armed, but is either unable to deploy those devices effectively or likely at short range, such as within their own country. A conventional war with Iran in such a state is actually possible; Israel and/or the US is able to strike Iran likely with impunity with nuclear weapons if provoked. Israel/the US would have air superiority versus Iran making simpler bomb-delivered munitions from Iran insecure. Ballistic short- and medium-range missile defense is getting much better. Iran on the other hand is severely limited in its capabilities to use their weapons in a first strike defensively except in a scorched earth strategy that would hurt Iran more in the long run.
The reason why North Korea is untouchable is not that it has crude nuclear weapons. The reason why North Korea is untouchable is because it has 50,000 conventional artillery pieces aimed at Seoul with the intention of obliterating its civilian population of millions if war ever breaks out again.
Well, they're doing the exact opposite of what they should be doing, then.
Iraq under Saddam Hussein did the same shtick, bluffing for years that they had weapons stockpiles that really didn't exist (anymore). The US military went into the Iraq War expecting that chemical and/or biological weapons would be used against their soldiers on the ground. Did that fear really stop George W. Bush and co. from invading? Not really...
The problem with Iran's government is they're being run by two opposing camps; the religious right-wing extremists pitted against the military nationalist right-wing extremists. Buffoonery and penis length comparing naturally comes with *right-wing extremists of any sort, it seems to be a universal truth.
Sorry, missed the point of your question. Let me clarify; eventually Valor Point vendors will sell epic raiding gear that don't require Reputation levels once the next tier is reached. It's been that way with every expansion pack, all the way since Burning Crusade.
Dailies are not required, they are optional.
Wrong. You've been indoctrinated.
If Dailies are optional, please explain what someone that doesn't do them is supposed to do with the VP they collect from heroics, raids, and LFR.
Seriously? Valor Points buy epic raiding gear. That is why the dailies are optional - you can still get your valor points just fine through heroic dungeon runs, LFR or tagging along raids. You can get Valor Points much faster by doing the dailies along with the above-mentioned activities.
Because we weren't in Afghanistan and they attacked us.
You do realize the highjackers on September 11, 2001 were pretty much all Saudi Arabian, right?
You do realize Osama Bin Laden was a Saudi, right?
What did the people of Afghanistan do to us again?
FYI, the correct answer is, "not a goddamn thing we didn't do to them first."
You make absolutely no sense.
You do realize that al Qaeda was deeply embedded in the Taliban ruling structure and supported the Taliban both financially and militarily in their war against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan?
This is like if some Irish-Americans went over to Northern Ireland in the 1980s and with IRA help blew up some British apartment buildings. If Britain is going to retaliate, do they retaliate against the United States or do they retaliate against the IRA?
I realize that Saudi Arabia is not blameless is this, being the defacto home of the Wahhabist extremists that developed these wackos in the first place. But it's a hill compared to the mountain of blame that can be assigned to al Qaeda and their allies like the Taliban.
Put another way, who did the US invade first in World War 2? If you guessed Japan or Germany, you'd be wrong.
Actually you need to check your facts. The Taliban were so eager to hand him over they invented an extradition procedure on the spot . They just needed a little prima facie evidence but that request was never answered. There is also one apparently reputable source indicating that they secretly went well beyond that offer by offering to confine Bin Laden and his people to one base and then tell the US which one it was and stand out of the way. That offer, apparently, was also never answered.
Citation, please. That sounds like prima facie bullshit invented by Taliban apologists. The Taliban would never have handed over one of their major financial and military backers in bin Laden to the United States. Al Qaeda was militarily supporting the Taliban in their war against the Northern Alliance as their outsourced zealot goon squad. The only offer I ever heard was the one in public where the Taliban said, "sure, we'd hand him over, but you don't have any proof! Nyah nyah, come and get him!" And so we did.
Those 'suspected terrorists' are only trying to protect their homeland from outside invaders. Self defense is a birthright, of everybody's, not just Americans.
Oh really? Is that why so many of the Taliban cross the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan to fight? To defend their Pakistani home?
You can't stick non-Google ads on their services...
You can't swap out Google search for Bing in Gmail...
Two very obvious examples of "forced other products to be tied to their search engine".
You have it backwards. IF Google had a monopoly in search engines, it would be abusing its monopoly position if it forced Google users to use Gmail for their webmail. Having the Google search engine used in Gmail has nothing to do with monopoly, as there is no dispute that Gmail is not in a monopoly position in the webmail market.
Not being able to stick non-Google ads on their services is likewise not a monopoly issue, as none of those services (like Gmail) are in a monopoly position in their respective markets.
Abuse of monopoly only comes into play if the company in question forces or bundles the use of its non-monopoly services or products with a monopoly position. Ex: You want to use Windows on the desktop? You have to use Internet Explorer. Ex: You want to use Google's search engine? You have to use Gmail and Google Maps.
This was an "anti-submarine exercise". What part of that do you think improves the training on either boat or ship if the "friendlies" talk to each other?
The hypocrisy of the people praising the idea of a hereditary monarch with absolute power being some sort of protector or haven for human rights.
I guess it fits into the mythos of the "wise, benevolent leader who will not screw you over later because they're too nice".
I'm sure Apple's working on it. It will be called the iPad Maxi.
Too many syllables, not enough flow. I think switching it around and calling it the "Max iPad" is much more elegant.
CO2 emissions aren't being reduced anywhere. So when discussing reductions of emissions it's stupid to focus on CO2, unless you have an axe to grind.
On the contrary, switching over 20% of the power consumption of your transportation fleet from burning fossil fuels directly to being sourced from nuclear and wind power should have an immediate CO2 reduction effect. Why can't we focus on all of it? I have no axe to grind.
Pilots cost $3-5 Million to train. They needs thousands of hours of recurring flight to stay sharp.
So what happens when you put that old fucker pilot who isn't safe to put in a real fighter jet because he's so old his body can't handle what the plane can do and you stick him behind the controls of a UAV?
Drones are the future, find a way to create un-jamable near instantaneous communications and suddenly their isn't a body in planes. Perfect AI planes and you've even taken the Human pilot out of it and their fallibility. Yes their are concerns, and their are nightmare scenarios. But the future of combat is taking the people out of it because no matter what you do the people are the biggest cost.
Oh, is that all you need? Un-jamable near instantaneous communications? Why don't we invent the perpetual motion machine while we're at it? All the fancy new drone toys we have are fine and dandy up to the point someone figures out the man-in-the-middle attack needed to crash them, or worse, take them over. (See: Iran & GPS spoofiing the stealth reconaissance drone.)
Until the day comes when we allow the machine to think and pull the trigger for themselves (hopefully not in my lifetime), their best use will be as force multipliers, not as your military backbone. Think a squadron of F-22s accompanied by 2 or 3 squadrons of UAVs backed up by an AWACS plane that they can call on.
The more you hang your hat on drones, the more electronic warfare is going to be devastating against you when the time comes to fight an opponent with both brains and foresight.
. . . it reminds us all to embrace the challenges of exploration and to never stop discovering.
Placed just above the submission, "Astronomy Portfolio Review Recommends Defunding US's Biggest Telescope," the combination tells you all you need to know.
That the military is the only US government entity that can see the value in continued research in the sciences? It sure isn't the Republicrat politicians.
Everything that makes use of Google's maps service says "powered by Google maps" in the lower left corner (as required by their terms and conditions), that included Apple's previous maps application. But Google was asking for increased branding within the app, which Apple declined. Indeed, this would have damaged Apple's brand, and it's understandable that they chose to make their own Maps instead.
Because the furor over the Apple Maps screw up isn't damaging Apple's brand?
When your iconic, charismatic leader passes away, the last thing you need to do as a marketing-driven luxury brand company is change the motto from "It Just Works" to "It Works OK For Most People (and we're fixing the rest real soon now)".
What Apple should have done is taken their ball and gone home with it, and then developed in-house a better Maps than Google Maps. But producing a half-assed Apple Maps or even a 90% assed Apple Maps over a continuing pissing match with Google/Android is not reflecting well on Apple.
Why the false dichotomy? You have an iPhone 3GS. Even if you don't have the money to outright buy a new handset, it sounds like you're ready for an "upgrade". Either the Maps is a dealbreaker or it isn't; if it is, maybe it's time to get an Android, where Google Maps has no crippled functionality. (I have an iPhone 3G and a Samsung Galaxy SII. The Maps integration with Android is pretty sweet.) Or, if it isn't, you can wait for Apple's upgrades and fixes.
Now, apparently the default maps app sucks - at least for the moment - in many countries overseas. China oddly enough not being one of them. The Chinese are apparently marveling at how much better Apple's map app is than Google's. Go figure.
Might have something to do with the current state of relations between Google and the Chinese government. Mainland China considers accurate maps to be state secrets, and their export is highly regulated.
And I have a feeling that Apple's policies of Walled Gardens and Don't Worry, Nothing to Upset You Here are more in tune with the Chinese government than Google's.
For a company who sells high-priced products on the idea that "It Just Works", and the idea of fire-and-forget technology where you don't have to worry about bug fixes or upgrades, to make any sort of mistake on something as high profile as the Maps function is a bad sign. You have a whole year and unlimited resources to get things working right, and more importantly, tested. And yet there are web pages devoted to all the screw ups, silly or not, that Maps has on launch.
Shrugging and proclaiming that things will be better with a fix down the road is a business attitude that Apple fanatics used to make fun of. Now they're making excuses for it.
I'm reminded of the Pentium floating-point error fiasco; just because only 1% (or less) of your customer base will be affected by your screwup does not mean your image will only take a 1% hit.
HP is the top selling PC manufacturer in the world so they have "market share", but they were trying to get rid of thier PC division.
So question, which Android manufacturer do you expect to dethrone Apple as the worlds most valuable company?
Are you dense Karlt1? You've rephrased your question three times already on this thread while avoiding the rebuttals. Let me sum it up for you:
1) Profit is good, up until you get pushed right out of the market because you've been left behind by the competition. See: Blackberry. See: iPhone 5, where the "big improvements" were all in Android devices a year ago. You can keep riding the profitability train until you realize your cash cow is dead and buried because you never invested in inventing the next big thing. Apple did very well with the iPhone and the iPad, but for the last several generations now it's been a case of sequelitis, not something thinking different.
2) HP is the top PC manufacturer in the world. Their management were morons to plan on giving up that position, and the subsequent branding/mindshare and profits, and their board of directors rightly called them out on it. Their management wanted to get out of a low-margin mature market; which would be fine if they had something better on the table to do with their resources, which they do not at this point. Not wanting to compete a la Apple is not a viable business strategy when that market is your bread and butter.
3) This King of the Hill bullshit mentality that you're espousing as a sign of continuing business success is laughable. See: American carmakers in the 1970s-80s, Microsoft in its current condition poised for a decline, and any pharmaceutical company that sat on a blockbuster drug without coming up with anything new or useful in 7 years. Welcome to business. Success should be, and is, well-rewarded at the time of success. But the only way to ensure continuing success is to actually continue to work, invent or innovate; stalling tactics like suing your biggest competitors will only work so long to hide the fact that you're now playing catch up.
15-20 years ago, doctors were written up and called out for not treating enough pain. As a profession, we understand intimately the inherent dangers of opioid pain medication, and we were hesitant to use them. But patients were hurting, articles were written, and I'm sure somewhere doctors were sued. So practices changed, "pain management" is now standard curriculum at medical schools and now look, deaths and hospitalizations from prescription pain medication are at all-time highs. Purdue was likely riding the wave of the change in pain management philosophy at the time when they introduced OxyContin. The right drug at the right time, etc.
I don't know how hard is was to introduce that time-release element. However easy it is to defeat it, it might just be a bit harder to come up with than "xyz with rounded corners" or "abc, but on teh interwebz", thus worthy of a patent. And if they indeed patented their proprietary time-release coating rather than the idea of applying such a coating to this specific ingredient, it would seem trivial for other pharma companies to circumvent the patent.
The patent is not on oxycodone itself - there are a million and one generic variants out in the market already of immediate release oxycodone. The patent is the time-release mechanism. All a pharmaceutical company needs to do to "circumvent" that is to invent their own time-release mechanism for a pill of oxycodone.
They keep the cost low even though other drugs have increased considerably in cost.
Why is that, one might ask.
Low cost? OxyContin is one of the most expensive PO pain medicines doctors use.
I have insurance companies tell me all the time that they would rather I use one of the cheaper alternatives if OxyContin comes up.
Generally, a spokesperson for a group of interest would be approached calmly, not raided (which makes it news).
The spokespeople of multinational crime syndicates tend not to be well-regarded by law enforcement. I know, it's confusing.
Was Barrett armed? Was he dangerous? Was there any reason to believe he was a threat to the officers' personal safety whatsoever? People get taken into custody all the time without being raided. This was an excuse by the police to let out some steam by bashing down the door and busting heads.
How the fuck is this insightful? FTFA, in Barrett Brown's own words:
"It’s toward the end of the video that Brown makes his threat: “Robert Smith’s life is over. So when I say life is over, I don’t say I’m going to kill him. But I’m going to ruin his life and look into his [expletive] kids because Aaron Barr did the same thing and he didn’t get raided for it. How do you like them apples?”
Barr is the former HBGary Federal CEO whose email was hacked by Anonymous in February.
He goes on: “Any armed officials of the U.S. government, particularly the FBI, will be regarded as potential Zeta assassin squads and they know that I’m armed and I will shoot all of them and kill them if they come and do anything because they are engaged in a criminal conspiracy and I have reason to fear for my life, not just from the zetas but from the U.S. government.”"
Hmm. Publicly threatening to shoot anyone that approaches him that's wearing a police uniform. Gee, I don't know why they arrested him with a SWAT team.
Absurd analogy. Last I checked, you couldn't scrub cancer away with good hygiene.
False. Penile cancer almost entirely happens in the case of poor hygiene of the penis.
Just because there isn't a proven causal relationship, doesn't mean that there isn't one.
More to the point... has circumcision ever been shown to be linked to something harmful?
Yes.
Circumcision is an unnecessary and mainly cosmetic surgery picked by parents because of tradition and/or religion. Recent attempts to find medical justification for its existence are both new and almost laughable. It's a penile "nose job" for a baby so the baby isn't potentially made fun of for being "different" later on.
Unfortunately, circumcision is a surgical procedure. And no matter how "routine" and "minor" a surgical procedure is, it's only "routine" and "minor" until something inevitably goes wrong. Rare, but horrible when it happens.
Promoting circumcisions to prevent STD transmission is the worst sort of self-serving justification. Why not promote mastectomies at puberty for girls to avoid the 1 in 7 chance of getting breast cancer during their lifetime? Or appendectomies for everyone? If your STD prevention strategy consists of promoting circumcision, instead of promoting safe sex education and prophylactic barrier distribution, your priorities are wildly skewed.
You really want your baby circumcised? Wait until he's 18, and give him the choice.