Year: 2005

But first . . .

NTMD

Thirty-eight new prescriptions for BiDil September 13. Stock down another 48 cents yesterday, to $17.72 (company now valued at $540 million). Don’t sell your puts.

EQUAL RIGHTS

The House passed a bill yesterday, 223-199, that would expand the existing federal hate crimes law to include hate crimes based on sexual orientation. Even 30 Republicans went along with it.

With luck, the Senate will concur and the President will sign this law.

I know some of you don’t believe we should have laws against hate crimes at all – that a crime is a crime is a crime, regardless of motivation – but I would argue, first, that we should, because society has a special interest in seeing these crimes investigated and punished. (For one thing, they sometimes would otherwise get low priority, because law enforcement officials sometimes share the prejudice on which the crimes themselves are based. For another, hate crimes victimize not just the victim, as with most crimes, but the entire class to which that victim belongs. We have a collective interest in not seeing blacks attacking whites just because they are white, or whites attacking blacks, or Baptists attacking Jews or straights beating in the brains of men walking out of gay bars.) And I would argue that if you disagree, you should work to repeal the existing hate crimes statutes – but, in the meantime, don’t deny that gay bashings deserve the same consideration as race bashings or religion bashings. To exclude only gay bashings is to say that they are less worthy of our concern.

And now . . .

EINSTEIN’S BIRD

Some of you may have seen a drawing of Albert Einstein in the March 21 New Yorker, standing on stage, mike in hand, in the pose of Borscht-Belt comedian – with a parrot on his shoulder. You may also have read the quote that inspired this drawing:

‘Einstein’s 75th birthday occurred on March 14, 1954, and among the flood of presents from around the world was a parrot, sent in the mail by a medical institute. Einstein took a liking to the parrot, which he named Bibo, but he decided the bird was depressed. He tried to cheer it up by telling it bad jokes.‘ – New York Times, April 24, 2004

If so, you almost surely then went on to read the bad jokes Patricia Marx imagined Einstein might have told the parrot. Such as . . .

‘I see we have a bird in the audience. Why so down, my feathered friend? Gravity getting to you?’

And . . . ‘The other day I’m at the deli and I say, ‘Waiter, there’s a sub-atomic particle in my borscht! It’s enormous! Look at it go!’ So the waiter says, ‘I’m sorry, sir, but you know what Heisenberg says about the limitation of measuring two properties of a quantum object with infinite precision.’ So I say, ‘But Werner Heisenberg was a big fat Nazi.’ So the waiter says, ‘I’ll get the manager.”

And . . . ‘How many physicists does it take to screw in a light bulb? Two. One to screw in the light bulb and the other to sit around and say, ‘Why bother? Speed of light will beat you every time.”

(And of course . . . ‘Take Newtonian physics – please.’)

(Oh! And . . . ‘But seriously: with this hair, wouldn’t you think I’d have been the one to come up with string theory?’)

But here’s what separates this personal finance web site from what you can get at Quicken or Yahoo or Vanguard or even the Motley Fool.

At this personal finance website, because I have developed a personal relationship with Patricia Marx herself (I didn’t want you to think I was going through her garbage to get this), I can reveal the bad Einstein jokes she submitted to the New Yorker you didn’t read – the ones that had to be excised to make room for the drawing.

These included, in snare drum order:

‘You think you’ve got problems. Every time I go to a restaurant with friends, one of them gives me the check at the end of the meal and says, ‘Albert, you do the math.”

‘Have you heard the one about God? So He’s at Caesar’s Palace, standing next to the crap table and the croupier says, ‘But with all due respect, God, Albert Einstein says you don’t play dice with the universe. ‘Yeah,’ says God, ‘Wasn’t Al also wrong about the cosmological constant?”

‘You think you have it bad. My mother won’t let me bring my girlfriend home for Thanksgiving. You know why? She says, ‘It’s all relatives.’

‘How do you get an elephant into a black hole? That’s the easy part. Try getting him out.’

‘What do gravity and electromagnetism have in common? Hey, if I knew the answer to that, I’d be on my way back to Stockholm.’

And finally (my favorite) . . .

‘So anyway, a neutron walks into a bar. And the bartender says, ‘For you, no charge.”

Da-DUM-dum.

‘That’s all I got,’ Einstein concludes. ‘You’ve been a great bird.’

Have a good weekend.

1040ES

Don’t forget to send in your third quarterly estimated tax payment today, if (because you have significant taxable income not subject to withholding), you have to deal with that.

CHARLES NOLAN GOES LIVE!

Click here. And if you like the clothes, click through to SAKS to order on line. And/or come to SAKS Fifth Avenue New York – fourth floor – for a drink and a fashion show TODAY, September 15, at six o’clock.

THE NEW REPUBLICAN PARTY

Tom Friedman in yesterday’s New York Times: ‘Last year, we cut the National Science Foundation budget, while indulging absurd creationist theories in our schools . . . ‘

☞ I just want to stress that those of you who are Republicans or libertarians are welcome in the Democratic Party.

• We don’t rack up massive deficits without good purpose (the last one we racked up was to fight and win World War II).

• We find ways to topple and imprison genocidal dictators like Milosovich at relatively low cost – we would have been more effective with Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

• We would be encouraging embryonic stem cell research, not seeking a global United Nations ban (which, thankfully, we ‘lost’ most recently, 79-80).

• We don’t believe Tom DeLay should make life’s intensely difficult choices for your daughter or your dying parent.

You won’t like everything about us. But overall, isn’t it time to reevaluate?

BUT IT WILL STILL BE VOLUNTARY

Monday I told you that the California legislature passed a gay marriage bill and asked you to take 30 seconds to discourage promiscuity, strengthen the social fabric (that’s what stable, supportive relationships do), and add a little happiness to the world:

• Call Governor Schwarzenegger – 916-445-2841
• Press: 2
• Press: 1
• Press: 1 to support marriage equality

Well, yesterday, the Massachusetts legislature – which had voted unfavorably on this issue in March, 2004, by a margin of 105-92 – reversed that position by a margin of 157 to 39.

Yes, I know: Massachusetts. But this is a heavily Catholic state, and a state that has been living with gay marriage now for a little while – and look at the swing: from 105-92 ‘against’ marriage equality in 2004 to 157 to 39 ‘for’ yesterday.

So to Governor Schwarzenegger’s rationale . . . that he can’t allow the legislature to make such a law when, five years ago, the people passed an anti-gay marriage referendum . . . this adds a new data point.

The big argument was, hey – don’t you believe in representative democracy? Can’t the duly elected representatives of the people pass laws on their behalf? (If the people object, they can toss the rascals out!)

But added to that now is the argument that, hey – that was five years ago! Five years is an eternity in the evolution of the nation’s thinking on this issue. In those five years, Canada, Spain, and Massachusetts, among others, have all passed gay marriage. And in Massachusetts, in little more than one year of further cogitation, now that they’ve actually been living with it, the legislature has swung from 105-92 against to 157-39 for.

So, c’mon, Arnold. Don’t be a Girlie Man. Stand up for equal rights.

Lynn: ‘Of the ‘need to amend the United States Constitution to deny equal treatment to gay and lesbian couples,’ you said, ‘I don’t agree with that view, obviously, but I respect their right to hold it – and yours to share it, if you do.’ Well, I’m a straight woman, married to a man, and I don’t respect their right to hold their rotten views. I truly think they’re insane as well as nasty and bigoted. How in the world would it damage my marriage if gay people married? What is wrong with them? My husband agrees with me, by the way, and we’re not young. Politically, though, I do think that going for ‘civil union’ would be smarter than trying for marriage. I’ve talked to friends who aren’t wing nuts, by any means, and they seem to want that word all to themselves.’

☞ I hear you. The problem is that tens of thousands of local and federal laws and millions of contracts are written with the word ‘marriage.’ So unless you change them all, civil unions doesn’t provide equal benefits. Plus – while we have to be respectful of people’s feelings about this, and give them time to come around (look at the progress made in Massachusetts in little more than a year) – at the end of the day, ‘separate but equal’ is not this country at its best. Religious institutions should absolutely be allowed to discriminate against gay couples, condemn them, deny them salvation, issue fatwahs, and all the rest. But our taxpayer-funded institutions should not be allowed to discriminate. GLBT citizens pay a lot of taxes just like everybody else.

And it never hurts to stress: Gay weddings would be entirely voluntary. You totally would not have to have one yourself, or even send gifts.

AND WHILE I’M SUBJECTING YOU TO THIS

Listen: your American Express is up 8% since it was suggested May 11 (more, if you bought LEAPS) (don’t sell) and so far, at least, we have a nice gain on our NTMD puts (BiDil scrips for August were reported yesterday to have been 1,223, or just under 40 a day; this did not set Wall Street afire) . . . so I figure I can test your patience with just one more little piece of propaganda.

You might think we would allow gays in the military in peace time, when ‘unit cohesion’ is not a life or death matter . . . but kick them out when they might actually have to sleep in fox holes or show courage under live fire.

Instead, just the opposite is true.

It turns out that when there’s dying to do, gays not only may stay – they must. When the ‘all clear sounds,’ it’s all clear to fire them.

To wit:

SANTA BARBARA, CA, September 13, 2005 – Scholars studying military personnel policy have found a controversial regulation halting the discharge of gay soldiers in units that are about to be mobilized. The document is significant because of longstanding Pentagon denials that the military requires gays to serve during wartime, only to fire them once peacetime returns. . . .

Discrimination against gays in the military – whether in peace time or war – may be on its last legs. We’re just about the only NATO country left that does this (Bin Laden must be thrilled that we fire gay Arab linguists), and in the years since the open debate began, there has been a tremendous shift in public opinion, both within and outside the military.

President Clinton, who signed the Don’t Ask / Don’t Tell compromise after being thwarted in his effort to lift the ban, has for several years now been on record saying the policy didn’t work as intended and should be abandoned – that citizens should be allowed to serve their country irrespective of their sexual orientation. The Republican leadership, by contrast, is on record thinking it’s a fine policy, to be suspended only in wartime.

NTMD

Don: ‘I’m interested in buying NTMD puts. How do I do that? Through my Vanguard brokerage?’

☞ If your account is set up for that level of risk, yes. But PLEASE remember you really can lose every penny you bet this way, and may. I think the odds are with us (e.g., the March 25 puts selling for $830 each). But there was, obviously, more potential in this when the stock was 22 than there is now at $18.20. And even good odds sometimes lead to bad outcomes. (Take, for example, a single round of Russian roulette.) But if it turns out people and insurers are not willing to pay six or eight times as much to take one combo pill instead of its two generic components . . . and, thus, sales do not pick up sharply as the company hopes they will . . . it seems to me it will be a company with maybe $10 million or perhaps $30 million or even $50 million in revenue, but $125 million in expenses (the company’s expense estimate, not mine) – at which point I would expect the institutions that own most of the stock to run for the door and as the stock drops to $3. So, worst case, we lose our $830 (and we may!); best case, our puts are worth $2,200. Most likely case (to my mind): someplace in between.

Tomorrow (or soon): Einstein’s Bird

But first . . .

GAY MARRIAGE – THE WORKAROUND

As explained with rueful humor here, all you need do to get spousal health insurance coverage, if you’re gay, is go down to any City hall in the country with a couple of lesbian friends in the same boat and inter-marry. It’s okay that you don’t live or sleep together or love each other. The state doesn’t care about that (unless you are trying to beat the immigration laws). The way the state sees it, marriage isn’t about love, it’s about economic and legal issues. And as the Republican leadership sees it, it is so important to deny equal treatment to gay and lesbian couples when it comes to things like health insurance, Social Security, inheritance rights, and the like, that we need to amend the United States Constitution.

I don’t agree with that view, obviously, but I respect their right to hold it – and yours to share it, if you do.

And now . . .

DON’T SELL YOUR PUTS

The usual disclaimer: puts are risky, and even if we’re right and the stock drops from $22 (its price July 6 when first introduced here) to $3 or $4, you can still lose every penny you bet if that drop happens only after your puts have expired.

Still, closing at $18.42 last night, things are going in the right direction.

As you will recall, this is a company with one product, BiDil, which recently came on the market to replace its two generic components which are prescribed thousands of times a day at a small fraction of the price. The advantage is that taking one pill instead of two is – unarguably – easier, and so will lead to greater compliance and, thus, better outcomes.

With more than 30 million shares outstanding, the company is selling for nearly $600 million.

It projects expenses in 2006 of $125 million.

Prescriptions are being written at the rate of around 50 a day.

The bulls are confident that insurers and Medicare will all happily (or at least reluctantly) cover BiDil rather than switch patients to the generics. The company told me that more than four state Medicaid plans already have approved BiDil for reimbursement – but they will not say which ones. (Why not? If this is a life-saving drug, why would you want to keep that secret?)

The only state I know about for sure is Virginia, which, as noted here, has placed BiDil on its NON-approved list.

And, as reported here, BiDil has also made Public Citizen’s worstpills list.

The bulls are unfazed. One brokerage firm has recently raised its target price for the stock from $28 to $32. They believe the insurers will cover the pill, making its price largely irrelevant (though not entirely so, because of what could be a hefty co-pay, especially for someone already on five or six other prescription drugs, as most BiDil customers would be). They believe doctors will be afraid to keep prescribing the generic combo, for fear of malpractice suits. But so far, at least, sales oomph just doesn’t seem to be there.

Monday, the company made a presentation at a Bear Stearns conference. The CEO announced that things were on track and that 14,500 of the company’s 17,000 target pharmacies had Bidil in stock. But it’s one thing to get a pharmacy to stock a new drug and another to get a patient (or insurer) to swallow it. The report that follows, from Texas, is only anecdotal evidence, to be sure . . . but what would life be without anecdotes?

Bob Fyfe: ‘I was chatting this afternoon with my neighbor who is a pharmacist. I asked if he had heard of a drug called BiDil. His reply: ‘What a joke. That drug is just the combination of two old generics that cost pennies a pill wholesale.’ I asked what he would do if a patient came in with a BiDil prescription. He told me that he would check their prescription plan and almost always be able to recommend that they could save a lot of money by asking their doctor if he could substitute the two generics. Apparently this is not only cheaper for the patient but the pharmacy makes more money on the generics as well due to the vast difference in price between them and BiDil. He originally had two bottles of BiDil on the shelf but returned one when they checked and saw that a generic combination was available. They returned the second bottle a few weeks later after no one had come in with a prescription for it. So there is no BiDil on the shelf at this particular pharmacy. They have bottles of 1000’s of each of the two generics in the combination on hand.’

☞ For the week of September 2, reports IMS, the industry monitor, 383 BiDil prescriptions were written, up from 315 the week before. It’s not clear how many were filled at full price (not switched to the generics), but even assuming 100% were, it’s hard to see where $125 million in sales would come from next year, for a breakeven.

Don’t sell your puts – unless you bought them with money it would hurt to lose, in which case sell them immediately, and lash yourself with a jagged metal object.

TODAY’S FRONT PAGES FROM 37 COUNTRIES

A sort of Google Maps for the world’s newspapers. Click here. (Thanks, Alan!)

DRUGS – I

The Drug Policy Alliance turns 10 this year. Its Honorary Board includes such folks as Walter Cronkite, Harry Belafonte, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, and former United States Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach. Its president, Ira Glasser, used to run the American Civil Liberties Union. I know the ACLU strikes some, ironically, as un-American. To some, ‘civil liberties’ consist mainly of the right to carry assault weapons. But to others, they give citizens the right to pursue happiness as they see fit, so long as they don’t harm others.

The Drug Policy Alliance takes a two-fold approach. Its mission is to ‘advance those policies and attitudes that best reduce the harms of both drug misuse and drug prohibition’ [emphasis added]. You can join for $35 or less.

DRUGS – II

Vision Warrior will soon turn 10 as well. My pal Scot Anthony Robinson . . . actor turned addict – turned near-corpse – turned Vision Warrior . . . does everything he can to steer kids away from drugs. His performance changes lives. I see the e-mails . . . from teachers who marvel that he was actually able to grab and hold a normally impossible audience spellbound . . . from kids, inner city and affluent alike, who pour their hearts out to him with thanks. If you have kids in a school with a potential drug problem (name one that doesn’t), consider finding a local business or a few well-to-do parents to bring him in to do his thing.

Marijuana possession should be decriminalized, but that doesn’t mean that kids – least of all your kid – should smoke it. And marijuana, obviously, just scratches the surface of the dangers out there. Scot’s performance turns kids’ heads around. Fill up his calendar.

Tomorrow: Don’t sell your NTMD puts.

But first . . .

THE ESTATE TAX

‘If I could pick just one keepsake, I think it would be the mutual funds’
— anguished daughter at dying parent’s bedside
New Yorker cartoon

Floyd Norris, Friday:

Repealing the estate tax would reduce government revenues by about $280 billion from 2011 to 2015 – with much of that money staying in the 500 wealthiest estates each year.

It is to be hoped that when the Senate does take up the bill, advocates will explain why it is a good idea to cut taxes on the very wealthy at a time of great need for many.

☞ The simple and sensible thing to do is to let the estate tax ‘stick’ at the 2009 level and, from there, just index it to inflation. (It is currently scheduled to disappear altogether in 2010, only to roar back 12 months later at the old, more onerous levels.)

The 2009 level exempts the first $3.5 million from tax – $7 million, if a couple has used the standard ‘by-pass trust’ (which only gay couples are prevented from doing) – and would fix the top federal estate tax bracket at 45% (down from today’s 47% and the old 55% rate).

This is a reasonable compromise. It would make estate taxes a nonissue for all but a very few families, while still doing the three things the estate tax most importantly does: raise a large chunk of revenue; encourage the wealthy to make charitable bequests; lean against concentrating capital in hands noted not for the brilliance of their ideas, the vibrancy of their ambition or the wisdom with which they allocate that capital – qualities that benefit us all – but, simply, in most cases, the circumstances of their birth.

And now . . .

MARRIAGE

The California legislature passed a gay marriage bill; Governor Schwarzenegger plans to veto it. He shouldn’t. Take 30 seconds to discourage promiscuity, strengthen the social fabric (that’s what stable, supportive relationships do), and add a little happiness to the world:

• Call Governor Schwarzenegger – 916-445-2841
• Press: 2
• Press: 1
• Press: 1 to support marriage equality

It’s all automated. No need to speak to anyone. Thanks for the help.

MAHER

In case you missed HBO’s ‘Late Night with Bill Maher,’ here was his open letter to the President:

Mr. President, this job can’t be fun for you any more. There’s no more money to spend–you used up all of that. You can’t start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard’s bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one’s speaking to you. Mission accomplished.

Now it’s time to do what you’ve always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It’s time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you’re saying: there’s so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don’t. I know, I know. There’s a lot left to do. There’s a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You’ve performed so poorly I’m surprised that you haven’t given yourself a medal. You’re a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.

On your watch, we’ve lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you’re just not lucky. I’m not saying you don’t love this country. I’m just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: ‘Take a hint.’

And more . . .

BOREALIS – The Watermelon Fits

The Chorus Motors subsidiary of Borealis reports it has ‘designed an initial version of a WheelTug™ drive that can fit within the existing nose wheel hub of a 767-class aircraft, with the goal of largely eliminating the use of tow tugs and jet engines in moving aircraft on the ground.”

The stock remains speculative, of course.  But, as I have written at greater length before, it seems to me that a company with a radical new technology capable of driving a fully loaded jumbo jet with a motor the size of a watermelon . . . that might someday wind up driving everything from cranes to forklifts to locomotives to elevators to ships to golf carts to perhaps even (dare one even allow oneself to imagine it?) cars and trucks . . . is worth many times its current $90 million market cap.

Tomorrow: Drugs

More on this and other subjects later today. Column delayed on ‘ account of . . . sleepiness.

#

OK – I’m up. And technically, by posting this before midnight (even earlier, in Guam), it’s still ‘later today.’

THEY HAD TELEPHONES IN 1898?

I learn so much from writing this column. Turns out, the tax from the Spanish American War is a lot more specific than I realized when I answered Mike yesterday. Here is how the Libertarian Party explains it:

A hundred and seven years ago, in 1898, the federal government began levying a temporary 3 percent excise tax on telephones, ostensibly to fund the Spanish-American War.

Flash forward to 2005 – and every American with a telephone is still paying this “temporary” tax. The war was over after just a few months, but the tax has been in effect for over a century. On top of that, the tax does not go for any specific purpose. Rather, the funds are simply added to the general fund.

Congress attempted to repeal the tax in 2000. Both the House and the Senate passed legislation to eliminate the tax — it was a 420-2 vote in the House — but then-President Bill Clinton vetoed the bill when it reached his desk.

Once again, the House has been presented with a bill — H.R. 1898 — that would repeal the tax on telephone and other communications services. The bill was introduced in late April by Rep. Gary G. Miller of California, and has been cosponsored by 39 other congressmen. It currently sits in the House Committee on Ways and Means.

The outrage?

This tax should have been repealed more than a century ago . . .

If you’re tired of paying to support a war that ended 107 years ago, click here to join the Libertarian Party, which is working with other friends of the American taxpayer to eliminate this type of governmental lunacy.

☞ Click if you want to, but don’t you think this is silly? Why don’t we just rename it the ‘Iraq War’ tax? Or the ‘Katrina’ tax? Or the ‘We’re Running Half Trillion Dollar Deficits Each Year And It’s No Time To Cut Taxes’ tax? If we eliminate this tax, we’ll just have to cook up another tax . . . or fall that much further into debt.

And speaking of taxes . . .

THE ESTATE TAX

Jeremy Feilmeyer: ‘I thought Mike Wallin had a good point about double taxation. So, I went to a Chinese restaurant and ordered lunch. When it came there was an extra 51 cent tax on the bill. I explained to the clerk that I did not need to pay that, because I had already paid taxes when I got my paycheck. The clerk was quite insistent.’

Dennis Gallagher: ‘Much of the money subject to the estate tax was never taxed initially, since it was in the form of stock or real estate that continually grew in value and was never subjected to the capital gains tax since it was never sold.’

Paul Grade: ‘One of the best responses I’ve seen to the ‘Paris Hilton Relief Act’ is Michael Kinsley’s ‘Death-the Ultimate Free Lunch.’ It’s from 5 years ago, but still valid.’

☞ No one does it better than Kinsley – ever.

(Note that since he wrote that, the annual exemption per person per recipient has risen from $10,000 to $11,000. So a couple can give their 2 kids, 2 kids-in-law, and 4 grandkids $176,000 a year without even beginning to use the lifetime exemption – let alone pay any tax.)

And now back to the Spanish American War:

HAWAII

George Ehlers: ‘The U.S. received a lot of things from the Spanish-American war: Guam, Puerto Rico, and most of all the Philippines – but Hawaii wasn’t one of the prizes. The revolution which overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy (with U.S. military help) occurred in 1893. Formal annexation of Hawaii by the U.S. occurred in 1898, but was part of a process that began well before the Spanish-American War.’

☞ Hey, all I know about Hawaii is that you should try to get to Hanauma Bay before ten if you want good snorkeling. My history came from the timeline of the Library of Congress (see July 7 and July 8). But I clearly blew it. (Ah, but the snorkeling! Do not miss this.)

And speaking of timelines:

THE CATASTROPHE

Here is a timeline that shows Governor Blanco declaring a state of emergency the Friday before Monday’s storm . . . asking President Bush to declare a federal state of emergency the Saturday before the storm (‘I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives’) . . . and the White House issuing such a declaration, authorizing FEMA ‘to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures…” And it goes downhill from there.

SEE FOR YOURSELF

Brad: “Today, I ‘flew’ down to New Orleans on Google maps. They now have pictures of ‘before’ and ‘after,’ which lets you see right into the flooded areas. Toggle back and forth between ‘Satellite’ and ‘Katrina’ views to compare.”

IT WASN’T AN ELECTION YEAR

Don’t read this. It will just make you angry at me if you’re a Bush fan – and angry at Bush if you’re not.

CORRECTION

Craig Wiener: “It turns out that the report Laura Rozen linked you to Monday was based on an inaccurate translation. I’m no supporter of the president or the administration’s response to Katrina but I think it only fair to be accurate in any criticism.”

☞ Me, too. Thanks for the correction.

MARRIAGE

The California legislature passed a bill Tuesday giving gays and lesbians equal marriage rights. Arnold plans to veto it. “Any girlie man could veto this legislation,” said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. But it would take a governor with some cojones to sign it.

A spokesperson explained Schwarzenegger believes the bill thwarts the efforts of voters who five years ago passed Prop 22, defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. Prompting the LA Times to ask: “Does he not believe in the American system of representative democracy?” And the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to ask, “How the heck did he think this bill came to be in the first place? Lawmakers – elected ones – passed it.”

FINALLY, FOR YOUR SUNDAY READING . . .

Here is Bill Moyers, speaking at Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he and his wife received the seminary’s highest award for their contributions to faith and reason in America:

At the Central Baptist Church in Marshall, Texas, where I was baptized in the faith, we believed in a free church in a free state. I still do.

My spiritual forbears did not take kindly to living under theocrats who embraced religious liberty for themselves but denied it to others. “Forced worship stinks in God’s nostrils,” thundered the dissenter Roger Williams as he was banished from Massachusetts for denying Puritan authority over his conscience. . . .

Such revolutionary ideas made the new nation with its Constitution and Bill of Rights “a haven for the cause of conscience.” No longer could magistrates order citizens to support churches they did not attend and recite creeds that they did not believe. No longer would “the loathsome combination of church and state” – as Thomas Jefferson described it – be the settled order. Unlike the Old World that had been wracked with religious wars and persecution, the government of America would take no sides in the religious free-for-all that liberty would make possible and politics would make inevitable. The First Amendment neither inculcates religion nor inoculates against it. Americans could be loyal to the Constitution without being hostile to God, or they could pay no heed to God without fear of being mugged by an official God Squad. It has been a remarkable arrangement that guaranteed “soul freedom.”

It is at risk now . . .

I know. This is a lot for one weekend. You probably wish I had stayed asleep. Have a great weekend.

NTMD

It would appear that Virginia’s Medicaid program, for one, has nixed reimbursement for BiDil, adding it to its ‘nonformulary’ list and suggesting the generic alternative. Meanwhile, the 7-day rolling average UBS reported for the week ending September 5 dropped from 88.4 prescriptions a day to 42 the day before. (In fairness, this week did include Labor Day, when only 7 prescriptions were reported.)

Meanwhile, the stock topped $20 again on rumors of a takeover by Merck at 32. Anything is possible, of course – perhaps Nitromed will make a bid to take over Merck at 32 – but why Merck would want to pay a billion dollars for a single drug that is merely the combination of two widely prescribed generics . . . well, don’t sell your puts. And if the stock runs up some more, as it may, those of you who have not yet stuck your toe in these waters might want to – but only with money you truly can afford to lose.

THE ESTATE TAX

Mike Wallin: ‘You often put down my President for wanting to eliminate the estate tax. While it doesn’t yet affect me personally, it seems wrong to tax people twice. You paid tax when you made the money the first time; why should the government be able to tax you again just because you died? Shouldn’t you and not the government be able to decide who you want to leave YOUR money to? Also, is it true we are still paying off debt from the Spanish American War?’

☞ I’m with you. A guy makes $200 million by the sweat of his brow, he shouldn’t have to pay tax on the $20 million a year it throws off . . . and his heirs should be able to inherit the full sum without having to split it with America. What the heck did America ever do for them? Much fairer to cut the FEMA budget, raise someone else’s taxes – or just sink deeper into debt.

And, speaking of debt, yes, we are still paying interest on our accumulated National Debt, which does include whatever we may have borrowed for the Spanish American War. (Actually, we may not have borrowed for that war at all – the National Debt fell in the year from July 1, 1897, to June 30, 1898, by which time we had all but won.) The National Debt then was $2 billion – roughly $25 for every man woman and child (about $600 adjusted for inflation). Today, at $8 trillion, it’s $26,750 a head.

It’s fine to have a national debt, just as it’s fine to have a home mortgage. But ours is getting a little out of hand.

However much or little we borrowed to wage the Spanish American War (and however just or unjust that war may have been), at least we got Hawaii out of it. By contrast, the hundreds of billions we’re borrowing for Iraq has been phenomenal for the Texas oil interests, Halliburton, and the Saudi Royal Family – beyond phenomenal, really. But the benefits to the rest of us are thus far less clear.

PATTERNS

Over and over again, the Republican priority is cutting taxes for the rich and toughening bankruptcy laws for the poor – even hurricane victims. Cutting taxes for the rich and rejecting cost-of-living adjustments to the minimum wage. Cutting taxes for the rich and slashing the budget for New Orleans levee repair. I know a lot of you disagree, but to my mind it is shameful.

And speaking of shameful . . . here’s another chance to read yesterday’s transcript with Jeff Sachs.

CHARLES NOLAN GOES LIVE!

I realize most of you come here not for the money or the politics (or the recipes) but for the fashion. Click here. And if you like the clothes, click through to SAKS to order on line. And/or come to SAKS Fifth Avenue New York – 4th floor – for a drink and a fashion show Thursday, September 15 at six o’clock.

NTMD

BiDil has now been added to Public Citizen’s worstpills.org website. Their main beef seems to be that it is overpriced. They recommend taking BiDil’s generic components instead.

Prescriptions for the week ended August 26 came in at 315, up from 257 the week before. If 100% of those prescriptions are filled with full-price BiDil, then the company would appear by now to have around 1,500 customers at $1800 or so a year each.

Part of our bet in owning puts on Nitromed is that 100% of the prescriptions won’t be filled at full price, because (we think) a lot of insurers will decline to cover this pill, steering people to its generic components instead.

And part of our bet is that, even if insurers all do cover it, the eventual sales volume will not be enough to cover the $125 million or so that the company has budgeted to spend next year. (Not to mention the $115 million it expects to have spent in 2005.)

To break even, the company would need about 70,000 full-price customers. If the rate of weekly patient acquisitions rises from 315 to 1,000 and sustains that for a full year – by which time most candidates for this medication would probably have been in to see their doctor – that would be a better showing than my guru expects . . . but still leave the company well short of breakeven. Yet it currently sports a market cap of $600 million.

THE END OF THE NEOCONS?

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for pointing out this lengthy conservative blog entry, which concludes:

The collapsed levees of New Orleans will have consequences for neoconservatism just as long and deep as the collapse of the Wall in East Berlin had on Soviet Communism; for when hacks and fulminators like John Podhoretz are openly criticizing the president, the Great Leader, the ideology is on the way out. And hopefully all of those who urged the ideology on, myself included, will have a long time to consider the error of our ways.

TWO QUESTIONS FOR YOU

Read the passage below.

1. Do you think the U.S. news media should have more widely reported this offer?

2. Do you think our government was wise to ignore it? If so, why? If not, why not?

‘Discuss.’

Castro, addressing 1,586 doctors assembled to offer assistance to victims of Katrina. Havana Convention Center, September 4, 2005

Hardly 48 hours ago I . . . once again explicitly offered the United States to send a medical force with the necessary means to offer emergency assistance to the tens of thousands of Americans trapped in the flooded areas and the ruins Katrina left behind after lashing Louisiana and other southern states.

It was clear to us that those who faced the greatest danger were these huge numbers of poor, desperate people, many elderly citizens with health situations, pregnant women, mothers and children among them, all in urgent need of medical care.

In such a situation, regardless of how rich a country may be, the number of scientists it has or how great its technical breakthroughs have been, what it needs are young, well-trained and experienced professionals, who have done medical work in anomalous circumstances, and that, with a minimum of resources, can be immediately transported by air or any other available means to specific facilities or sites where the lives of human beings are in danger.

Cuba, a short distance away from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, was in a position to offer assistance to the American people. At that moment, the billions of dollars the United States could receive from countries all over the world would not have saved a single life in New Orleans and other critical areas where people were in mortal danger. Cuba would be completely powerless to help the crew of a spaceship or a nuclear submarine in distress, but it could offer the victims of hurricane Katrina, facing imminent death, substantial and crucial assistance. And this is what it’s been doing since Tuesday, August 30, at 12:45 pm, when the winds and downpours had barely ceased. We don’t regret it in the least, even if Cuba was not mentioned in the long list of countries that offered their solidarity to the US people.

Knowing that I could rely on men and women like you, I took the liberty of reiterating our offer three days later, promising that in less than 12 hours the first 100 doctors, carrying the necessary medical resources in their backpacks, could be in Houston; that an additional 500 could be there 10 hours later and that, within the next 36 hours, 500 more, for a total of 1100, could join them to save at least one of the many lives at risk from such dramatic events.

Perhaps those unaware of our people’s sense of honor and spirit of solidarity thought this was some kind of bluff or a ridiculous exaggeration. But our country never toys with matters as serious as this, and it has never dishonored itself with demagogy or deceit. That is why we proudly gather in this hall, at Havana’s Convention Center where only three days ago we observed a minute of silence for the victims of the hurricane which battered the United States, and from where our heartfelt condolences were extended to that brotherly people.

Here we are, and not 1100 but 1586 doctors, including 300 additional doctors, in response to the increasingly alarming news that keep coming in. In fact, another 300 doctors, approximately, have joined this group at the last minute. They were called in and we’ve already announced that we are willing to send thousands more if it were necessary. But these 300 doctors are in other halls of the Convention Center, taking part in this function. In just 24 hours, all of the doctors summoned to carry out this mission, coming from all parts of the country, met in the capital. We have shown the utmost punctuality and precision.

. . .

Our doctors’ backpacks contain precisely those resources needed to address in the field problems relating to dehydration, high blood pressure, diabetes Mellitus and infections in all parts of the body -lungs, bones, skin, ears, urinary tract, reproductive system- as they arise. They also carry medicine to suppress vomiting; painkillers and drugs to lower fever; medication for the immediate treatment of heart conditions, for allergies of any kind; for treating bronchial asthma and other similar complications, about forty products of proven efficiency in emergencies such as this one.

These professionals carry two backpacks containing these products; each backpack weighs 12 kilograms. Actually, this was determined when all of the backpacks were procured, since although they are quite large, only half of the supplies would fit in; it was then necessary to give each doctor two backpacks, and the small briefcase which carries diagnostic kits. These doctors have much clinical experience, this is one of their most outstanding characteristic, as they are used to offering their services in places where there isn’t even one X-ray machine, ultrasound equipment or instruments for analyzing fecal samples, blood, etc. With the increase in the number of doctors, the medications weigh a total of 36 tons. The initial figure was smaller.

Cuba has the moral authority to express its opinion on this matter and to make this offer. Today, it is the country with the highest number of doctors per capita in the world, and no other country cooperates with other nations in the field of healthcare as extensively as it does.

Of over 130 thousand healthcare professionals with a university education, 25,845 today serve in international missions in 66 different countries. They offer medical services to 85,154,748 people; 34,700,000 in Latin America and the Caribbean and 50,400,000 in Africa and Asia. Of these, 17,651 are doctors, 3,069 are dentists and 3,117 are healthcare technicians who work in optic services and other areas.

Today, more than 12 thousand young people from around the world, chiefly from Latin America and the Caribbean, are studying medicine in Cuba completely free of charge, and their numbers will continue to grow rapidly. Scores of young people from the United States study in the Latin American School of Medicine, whose doors have been opened, since the institution’s inception, to students from that country.

. . .

When our first war of independence broke out in 1868, a group of Americans joined the ranks of Cuba’s independence forces. One of them, a very young man, stood out for his exceptional courage and wrote pages of admirable heroism in Cuba’s history. It was Henry Reeve. His unforgettable name is forever etched in the heart of our people, and next to that of Lincoln and other illustrious Americans it is carved on the pillars of the Plaza built in the days of the struggle for the return of little Elián González, when the noble people of the United States played a decisive role so that justice would finally be done.

Henry Reeve, almost crippled by the wounds sustained in the course of 7 years of war, fell in combat on August 4, 1876, near Yaguaramas, today the province of Cienfuegos.

I propose that this force of Cuban doctors who have volunteered to help save the lives of Americans bear the glorious name of “Henry Reeve”.

These doctors, I mean you, could already be there, offering their services. 48 hours have passed and we have not received any response to our reiterated offer. We shall patiently await a reply, for as many days as necessary. In the meantime, our doctors shall use the time to take intensive epidemiology courses and improving their English. If, ultimately, we do not receive any reply or our cooperation —your cooperation— is not needed, we shall not be demoralized, not you, not us, not any Cuban. On the contrary, we shall feel satisfied for having complied with our duty and extremely happy knowing that no other American, of the many that suffered the painful and perfidious scourge of hurricane Katrina, shall perish from lack of medical care, if that were the reason our  doctors were not there.

The “Henry Reeve” Brigade has been created, and whatever tasks you undertake in any part of the world or our own homeland, you shall always bear the glorious distinction of having responded to the call to assistance our brothers and sisters in the United States, and that nation’s humblest children especially, with courage and dignity . . .

AND SPEAKING OF COMMIE PLOTS TO HELP THE NEEDIEST . . .

Click here to read a transcript of the latest Jeffrey Sachs telephone press briefing, the gist of which is that John Bolton has ridden in to blow up the United Nations at a pivotal time.

A small sampling of the phone call:

The UN Summit, which will take place in a couple of weeks, is not really on the American radar screen yet, but it will be the largest gathering of world leaders in history. There are more than 180 world leaders signed on to come here. They’re taking this very seriously. There has been a tremendous amount of work, for many years in fact, leading up to this meeting and that’s why virtually every leader in the world will be coming for the UN session. It is a make-or-break session in a lot of ways for global poverty.  Five years ago the world agreed to the Millennium Development Goals and five years later we know that we are suffering from pandemic diseases, a hunger crisis all over Africa, continuing massive loss of life, eight million people a year dying of their poverty. And the world, and particularly the United States and some other donor countries, have not lived up to the commitments that they made to the world’s poorest people five years ago. . . .

Now the world had worked on a document — up until a few days ago — that was winning virtually global consensus and I have met with probably 50 or 60 heads of state in the last few months to discuss this global consensus, which is very widespread. The United States came in a few days ago, essentially to try to gut this document. . . .

I believe that the U.S. government sees the worldwide political momentum behind these goals and it’s doing its best to try to stop it. I think that’s tragic for the world and for the United States and for U.S. security, because when the U.S. says, “We don’t buy into partnership with you” somehow it still expects the world to buy into partnership with the United States. . . .

Finally, the United States is trying to say that it is living up to its commitments. This is false, and I would also like to say, as I visited more than a dozen impoverished countries in Africa and many in Asia, U.S. diplomats all over the world are wringing their hands in private at the lack of attention that the United States is paying to development, because they know that with that lack of attention there are multiple dangers of instability, havens of terror, disease, conflict, violence, drug trafficking, that are running rampant without a U.S. response. And our diplomats, ambassadors and officials in our embassies know these things, but of course U.S. policy is to say we’re doing everything we can do. . . .

I want to end by saying that I believe that the global consensus for the Millennium Development Goals will hold. I actually believe that the United States will live up to its commitments. I believe that because I think that these commitments are enormously in the U.S. interest and enormously in the spirit of Americans. I do not believe what’s happened in the last few days reflect either the interests of our country or the beliefs of Americans, and I think Americans want to stand up, to not only be counted, but to help lead the fight against extreme poverty, both because they know it’s right and also because they know that it is in their enormous interest as well. And so I am optimistic that what is in the interests of America and in the interests of the world will be reflected in a global consensus and with America’s part in it. I think this is just a confused misstep that will be corrected.

☞ To help correct it, click here.  You are asked to call, fax or email the White House before five today.