Dutchrudder

DTC advertising - I saw one bill about removing the tax credits for pharma advertising - No Tax Breaks for Drug Ads Act submitted by a Democrat. All advertising and marketing ads, for whatever reason, are tax deductible, but removing it from Phama would help curb the use of them. Another, The End Taxpayer Subsidies for Drug Ads Act, was sponsored by a bunch of Democrat Senators in 2019, but I don't think it went anywhere. There was another proposal named the Banning Misleading Drug Ads Act, which was sponsored by Dems, to help reign in some of the messaging around drug ads and highlight the negatives. Pharma Pricing - Medicare, which cost $747 billion in 2022, was not allowed to negotiate drug prices prior to the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. Of course Big Pharma is pushing back on this, and doesn't want any further drugs to be added to that list, but that's their war against taxpayers and American citizens right now. I'm not aware of any Republicans that support any effort to reduce drug prices, and zero voted for the IRA. I love this quote, "Gilead Sciences that asserted the industry would lose $455 billion over seven years if companies negotiated with Medicare." You want to talk about reigning in Pharma pricing for the masses, well there you go, that's the way forward and Dems are the only party even attempting to forge it. You may not like it, but that's progress in the Pharma pricing arena, and there's still more to be done. Then there's the $35 price cap on Insulin for Medicare Part D users, also part of Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. The original intent was to cap insulin costs for everyone in America, but that was negotiated back to just Medicare recipients. Wanna guess who was pushing back? 27 million Americans have diabetes, saving them all $100-200 a month would be billions in savings. Why not make Insulin cheap and remove that profit margin from the Big Pharma industry for a necessary treatment? Other countries pay even less than the $35 price cap the US is instituting, yet we are wasting billions on it. HSAs are just treating a symptom of the problem with the system, and are typically associated with high deductible plans. Putting away money for healthcare is a nice idea, but it falls apart when the person's costs greatly exceed what they are able to save in advance. Why bother making people guess what they are going to need to spend in the future? Again, healthcare is not a situation where we want people to say to themselves, "Ahhhh that's too expensive, I'll get it fixed next year..." It's better to have healthcare covered than to hope everyone has excess income to save for a rainy (or bloody) day. Economic Analyses often say the US spends way too much on healthcare, and again I come back to, what are Republicans doing about it? Trump is still 2 weeks away from getting us his plan. He made campaign promises about allowing insurers to operate across state lines, but never went through with it. We need an entire overhaul of the system, and the only viable solution I see thrown out there is Medicare for all. The US Health Insurance industry was over 1.25 Trillion in revenue last year and made somewhere around 40+ billion in profits off of it. The best way to return that money to taxpayers and put it to good use is to remove the middleman and expand Medicare.

What the hell? What 7 Dems didn't vote to expel him???

~112 GOP spouses should be very concerned about their partner's vote...

Quick, appoint someone to SCOTUS before they realize she wasn't still on the court!

Can I get some clarification on the keeper rules? I haven't seen anything definitive on here. A few things that need to be addressed in any keeper league: Number of keepers per team (only 2?) Round penalty per keeper based on draft position (I believe it was 1 round up this year) Keeper rights are transferred with a player through trade. Also with waiver wire? What round is the cutoff for keepers? (typically the 3rd and higher cannot be kept, although in a 10 team league this should probably be 4th) Is there a limit to the number of years a keeper can be kept? (typically 2-3 years is the limit, but you guys are using keepers made from an 8 team draft, so your keepers this year are way more valuable than normal) If two keepers are kept from the same round, what happens? (typically the second keeper must move up a draft round) Where do UDFAs start as keepers?

If you were going to send thankful letters to the Astros, which players would get one and why?

Not looking great in Denver so far. Jamal Murray is back, but not doing great. MPJ is hitting every fucking shot and it's making the difference. 15 points down midway through the 3rd.

Is any political party trying to actively address these issues and provide more healthcare to everyone? Is one party trying to address at least some of the issues more than the other? Is one party focusing on providing that preventative care to as many people as possible, while the other is actively removing access, funding and basic coverage? Would one party's plan for healthcare significantly reduce the over-use and abuse of our Emergency Rooms as free clinics? Is one party attempting to criminalize medical procedures, which would have otherwise been perfectly legal a couple years ago, and therefore driving up costs for providers and the costs for everyone? If you think we need something more akin to the Single Payer style system that the UK has (due to the cost benefits, pooling of resources, negotiating power, etc), who or what party would get us closer to that? I normally wouldn't advocate for so much government control in a public industry sector, but the nature of the care and necessity to control costs requires a Big Brother type presence for many without the means to advocate on their own behalf. The Free Market approach simply doesn't work when the consumer often doesn't have choices, and there are a million stories of people riddled with debt out there for examples. After a car accident, the ambulance driver isn't going to ask you what hospital is in-network for your insurance. You don't get to shop around your emergency care, you generally don't get to pick and choose what you pay for at the hospital, because they want to ensure a base level of care. Plus medical providers have a duty to ensure a certain level of care that often does require sometimes excessive caution, but it's necessary to ensure the highest level of success for all patients. The Free Market works great when ordering a burger, but in the medical cases you're often only able to choose whether you want ketchup or mustard, and the burger still costs $5,000 either way. A lot of prescription drugs don't have good alternatives for a variety of reasons, which can cause people to have to choose between medicating and basic necessities. It's a captive audience in a lot of these cases, and some are where the cost is so much that the person afflicted could be thrown into a debt spiral that weighs them and their family down for years. The more government can do to help everyone survive unexpected catastrophes, get healthy, recover successfully and do so without ruining their lives financially, is a significant benefit to society. It's not just the wellbeing of the individual, but also the the family, their home life, their children, etc. That's part of having a functioning society, advocating for the little guy, and to do so would require replacing the gigantic worthless middle-man that is Health Insurance industry of America (they made over 22 billion in PROFITS last year!).

I had to look it up to understand, but now it makes sense. 6 division winners and 2 wild cards make up the bracket. The main tie breaker is Point Differential in the 4 tournament games played, which is why several 3-1 teams were left out. The Knicks blew out the Hornets last night by 24 points, which is why they jumped the Cavs, Magic and Nets in the East. The Kings needed to win last night to ensure they make the tournament with a 3-1 record and avoid tiebreakers in the division. They were able to pull out a win and get a clean 4-0 record, knock out the Warriors, and get to host game 1. The Suns and Twolves went to tiebreakers, and the Suns had a +34 vs Twolves +/- 0. Really dumb to go with that tiebreaker when the teams they played were completely different levels. The Suns got to play the LAL, UTAH, POR and MEM vs the Twolves played SAS, OKC,GSW and SAC. Luck of the draw, but they probably need to expand the brackets to allow more 3-1 teams next year. Clearly some of these divisions are not nearly equal competition. This is a breakdown of the Wild Card standings: https://www.nba.com/in-season-tournament/2023/standings?root=in-season-tournament&root=2023&root=standings&Section=wildcard

Interesting partnership starting here. The Adelson family is very involved in Vegas businesses, I would have thought they would be bidding for the expansion team that will inevitably go there, but maybe this is just a precursor to get them into the NBA Ownership circle before that happens. Cuban makes some big money off this, it's estimated to be about a 2 billion investment by the Adelsons.

Just ridiculous that this got reviewed and was upheld:

I saw a stat that said 20% of total US pharma spending is made up of mostly generic drugs, and the other 80% is all these fancy new ones that have commercials and huge ad campaigns. I'm sure the 2023 numbers will be astounding once the data on the fat blocking drugs like Ozempic are made available. I can't watch anything without seeing ads for them. And if you look into the purpose and requirements of those drugs, they really don't do what people think they will do. It's truly sad how misleading they are, or how they lie by omission of who would normally qualify for a prescription. The US and New Zealand are the only modern countries I know of. The problem with making it illegal is that politically you would not only be fighting against Big Pharma, but also all the companies that rely on those advertising dollars. There would be quite a coalition of companies pushing back from all directions.

That's definitely part of it, now see if you can put the pieces together some of the solution, and then figure out which party might actually make some effort and have success in bringing down the costs. Hint: Government funded and mandated healthcare that covers preventative care (checkups, vaccines, early screenings, etc) is estimated to potentially save billions of dollars. (also people wouldn't suffer as much, if that matters to you) Letting Medicare and Medicaid negotiate medicine prices would reduce costs significantly for the US Gov. Mandating lower costs for life saving drugs, some that are 8 times higher than other countries, is another way of doing it for everyone. Eliminating the ability of drug companies to market their drugs to "consumers" would reduce pharma costs across the board. Over 8 billion was spent within the US in 2022 on ads.

I have to admit, I have been listening to some of Maher's Club Random podcasts and listened to several of them. I thought he was an interesting guy and had some interesting guests listed, so I gave it a try. I was a little skeptical given the guests he's had on there, people like RFK, Jordan Peterson, Candace Owens, Rob Schneider, etc, but he also had people I love to listen to like Neil De Grasse Tyson (Startalk is an excellent pod), Sam Harris (Making Sense pod is great), Jim Gaffigan and Bryan Cranston. I listened to some on a lark, but I will say they are not great pods. He's literally drunk and high while doing these interviews, which sounds fun in theory, but amounts to shitty stoner theories being thrown at guests who probably deserve better. I haven't really watched his TV show in years, so I didn't realize what his views had become. I saw a podcast of him interviewing Richard Dawkins, and I thought that would be great because Dawkins is awesome. This was the worst interview of Dawkins I could ever imagine, Bill didn't bother asking him about biology or evolution education, didn't bother discussing philosophy, and didn't really get into his numerous books. I couldn't believe the dumb topics he brought up with man like Dawkins, who is world renowned for so many interesting things. Dawkins was very reserved and unengaged much of the time, because many of the topics had nothing to do with him. Lots of Bill trying to setup some conversation like Trans issues or possible American Civil War, and Dawkins doesn't have much to say about it. The most science-y topic they covered was Covid, and it was mostly Bill complaining about things that were societal and not scientific. Dawkins tried to explain a lot of it, like MRNA vaccine development, herd immunity, etc, while Bill was going after things like "what about metal in the shot? what about cancer rates? the virus only killed old people!" Things Dawkins isn't really an expert on and trying to have an intelligent conversation with a drunk layman. At one point Dawkins used the word "homeopathy" and had to explain to Bill what that means. Bill has to explain to Dawkins what Twitch is, while decrying the invention of the smart phone and blaming it for many of the ills of society. There was a funny bit where Dawkins says he's always disappointed when he meets a fan and they say "I love you! I watched all your videos!" and they never read any of his books. He implores them to go read his books instead, because they are so much better. I watched a few more of these with people I thought might be interesting, the NDGT one was pretty good. Sam Harris was much better at countering some of Bill's dumb thoughts, but they did agree a lot about religion. I watched the Candace Owens one, and he was such an unbelievable pushover on some topics where she was clearly lying about facts, so it's hard not to see him as a tool of the Right even if he won't claim them and hates Trump. So here's a quick summary of topics that Bill thinks makes him a self-ascribed "Libertarian/Centrist" now: Woke-ism is insane - Calls it the worst part of the Left, but isn't actually "Liberal" like he is. Claims Woke and Liberals are often opposites. Higher Education is dumb and worthless - Constantly attacks higher education, says going to college is a waste of money. Questions the motives of higher education, and blames a lot of the Woke-ism issues on Universities. He also stopped doing comedy at universities due to woke backlash, people taking his jokes too seriously, or being unable to make jokes like he used to. Trans stuff - He's very against discussing non-binary options for children. Is against trans athletes. IMO, he seems to imply that the Left is creating more trans people by discussing it so much, but doesn't say those words. Covid stuff - He's very upset by the way Covid was handled, transmission rates, thinks the lab leak story is true and China covered it up, hates Fauci and how confident the CDC was in their directives of masks/COVID vaccines/business shutdowns. Vaccine choice - He thinks everyone should have the option to get any or no vaccines, and schools shouldn't be able to impose requirements on most of them. Claims they are just a "tool" in the medicine box. Repeats the claim that we have "too many vaccines" and compares it to the early 80s. Really likes RFK Jr and thinks he has valuable ideas about personal choice in medicine. There are probably more opinions of his that suck, but those are the ones that come to mind after listening to a few of his pods. I wouldn't really recommend the pod, but if you have listened or watched 1 of these pods, there is an excellent parody of it by Tim Heidecker interviewing Fred Armisen. It's so uncomfortable, unprepared, off-key, slightly contentious and is completely sarcastic. The parody of the way Tim/Bill asserts himself, sits in his chair, drinks a ton of liquor and jumps around unrelated topics with no proper segue; is all top notch work. He nails the smug asshole-ness of Bill.

Yeah, this show should be called "The Cringe." I grit my teeth and curl my toes through most of it. I don't like or care about any of the characters, and I'm kind of hoping it devolves into some sort of horror show.

I only made it about 20 minutes in before turning it off, but that's the most surprising part. They said the Astros won game 5 to take a 3-2 lead over the A's after winning 3 in a row. I thought it might have been predicting the future...

I consider myself a good person, but if you gave me 42 million dollars guaranteed, I'll get up on that stage, sing songs and say whatever the fuck you want to put in that teleprompter, so long as it doesn't get me fired with cause. Elko knows the business, he's in the "hopes and dreams" phase right now, shoot for the moon, and if you only hit Louisiana you get millions of dollars as a parting gift. In about 3.5 years, he's going to be shown the door and get to leave with 21 million still owed to him.

There's no money to be made selling Starlink to Palestinians, it seems Israel is the cash cow he wants to start milking. Elon fanboys aren't thinking about this like a billionaire, but I'm sure they will come around to support him like they always do.

I'm sure Sexton did the math and thought, "You're saying I can get Mike fucking Elko 42 million guaranteed??? Sign me the fuck up!" Compare that to Stoops already having 9m a year guaranteed through 2030, while Elko only had 3.5m through 2029. Sexton made the right call, and he may have had something to do with it. Elko just doubled his guaranteed money, and has some unlikely but significant escalators.

In all fairness, they actually did not go with the Plan B. By the way, does anyone know what the 30th letter of the alphabet is?

For reference: Fernando Tatis Jr. signed a 14 year / $340,000,000 contract with the San Diego Padres, including a $10,000,000 signing bonus, $340,000,000 guaranteed, and an annual average salary of $24,285,714. In 2024, Tatis Jr. will earn a base salary of $11,000,000, while carrying a total salary of $11,714,285. LINK The per year cost is insanely backloaded too, even with inflation considered, 36m per over the last 6 years seems crazy to me.

Random thought: I wonder how much campaign money Texas Republicans will lose due to A&M BMDs diverting 10s of millions of dollars to the athletic program. It would be so awesome if Jimbo's firing helps rid our state of Ted Cruz.

Yeah, that's the approach I have taken the last couple years, because there is no salvaging it at this point. They aren't changing anything, and I don't want worry about my kids being unsupervised around people like that. I was there by myself for just a little bit, and there were other awful things were said, but that one was the most comical. It's sad what Fox news has done to people, it is constantly warping their brains with fear, hate and ignorance. Oh and the question of "healthy" was less of concern, and more of "did the vaccinations kill your kids yet?" kind of question based on our history.

I rarely see my parents any more due to many years of shittiness towards myself and my wife over the last decade. Dad is a typical Fox News drone who spends hours every day watching it and loves to talk about politics and religion. I saw my dad for a little bit at my brother's house and shortly into the conversation about my 2 and 4 year old it went like this: Dad: So how are the kids are they healthy? Me: yeah, they are doing great, enjoying school and such. Dad: Are they still a boy and a girl? Me: .... (flabbergasted)... what the fuck? Why would you ask that??? Dad: Well.. you know... some people are changing their kids genders... I don't even recall how the rest of this conversation went, because I was so stunned that the second question. I have no clue how someone can be so brainwashed to the point they suspect that "The Gay Agenda" is lurking around every corner. It's like these people intentionally hook themselves up to The Matrix every night, but instead of learning cool stuff like Kung Fu and how to shoot guns, they learn how to be hateful assholes. It was a good reminder why we don't invite them to holiday gatherings.

Why would Elko be scared? He's probably going to get 30 million guaranteed, and only have to serve 3 years of that sentence. If he does somehow succeed with a couple of 8-9 win seasons, he will get another 50 million guaranteed before the program nosedives back into mediocrity.