February, 2001

  1. FDA’s Ban on Lotronex Completely Irrational

    In January the New York Times profiled the controversy over the withdrawal of GlaxoSmithKline drug Lotronex. Lotronex had been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug administration in February 2000 as a treatment for women who suffered from chronic diarrhea brought on by irritable bowel syndrome. Doctors quickly began writing off-label prescriptions for men as…

  2. Putting the U.S. Economic Slowdown Into Perspective

    The American economy is slowing and there’s been some doom and gloom reports, though for the most part it doesn’t look like the coming recession will be very deep or very long. That said, lets put the news into perspective. Across the waters, France’s Prime Minister Lionel Jospin is practically jumping with joy over the…

  3. The Single Best Thing That Ever Happened to Microsoft

    During the Microsoft trial that eventually ended up in an order for the company to be broken up, a lot of anti-Microsoft folks (I’m thinking specifically of the wonderful folks at Slashdot) were thrilled that Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson understood their anti-MS arguments so well and would stick it to the company. I felt like…

  4. What if Luke Misses?

    I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan in the world, but beginning in May, Darkhorse Comics starts a 4-issue miniseries, Star Wars: Infinities, that looks at what happens if Luke Skywalker’s missiles miss and the Death Star remains intact.

  5. Dark Dungeons Parodies

    The last couple days, Steve Jackson has been posting links to parodies of The Dark Dungeons Chick tract. The MS3TK takeoff is hilarious, and this spoof making fun of complaints about the 3rd edition D&D rules is pretty good too (though the latter is a lot funnier if you’re familiar with the new rules and…

  6. Slashdot Drops the Ball Again

    According to a post on Slashdot from last night, this story means that, Blizzard Entertainment is suing New Line for using the word Diablo as the title of a movie release. Blizzard wants to make a movie of their own with the same title and feel New Line is only using the word to cash…

  7. Sailing Takes Me Away…Just Not Very Quickly

    Reuters reports that a private U.S. group is preparing to launch into space what would be the first spacecraft using solar sails. Basically, the sails reflect light and the action of photons hitting it causes the vehicle to accelerate. It sounds very sci-fi, but there is no reason in principle that it shouldn’t work. On…

  8. Congress Overstepped Bounds In Grilling Media

    The Chicago Tribune’s Steve Chapman wrote an excellent summary of one an extremely appalling episode that happened earlier this month — the House Energy and Commerce Committee grilled officials from all the major television networks and the Associated Press over their mistakes in calling the election. Certainly the media isn’t exactly to be admired for…