The Breaking Time

Drug barons: we'll pay you to keep medicine expensive

Look all you want, it ain't getting any cheaper

Turns out that while vigorously defending a free market, drug companies are bribing their competitors not to bring out far cheaper, generic drugs:

Over the last few years, drug-makers have embraced a startlingly simple tactic for fending off competition from generic brands: paying them off. In a nutshell, the company that holds the patent on a profitable drug strikes a deal with the maker of the cheaper generic brand: you hold off on marketing your generic for several years, and in return, we'll give you a share of our profits on the drug.

The vehicle for these deals is patent litigation. When a generic drug is approved to come to market, the maker of the more expensive name-brand drug sues the generic for patent infringement. But instead of a conventional settlement, in which the generic pays the patent-holder to settle the claim that it infringed the patent, the payment goes the other way: the patent-holder pays the maker of the generic, in exchange for a pledge to delay bringing the generic to market. That suggests the patent-holder fears its patent wouldn't hold up in court, as many don't.

Horrific, of course, but hardly unexpected. It always amuses me when people expect companies engineered for profit — at all costs — to follow laws that would harm their windfalls. Like medieval barons genuflecting before the church, corporations will preach the free market gospel when it suits them and ignore it when it does not.

Black market drug factories are nothing new, but up until now they've been the domain of narcotics, rather than standard medicine. But if rising drug prices and corporate cartels continue, it's not hard to imagine some enterprising makers grinding away in basement factories, getting the newest shipment of antibiotics ready for the streets. It's equally easy to envision bribes paid to lower-level corporate workers to heist the formulas for new drugs, so local undergrounds can begin cranking them out. 

Ad-hoc operations like that have a nasty, ramshackle side, but I doubt the people who suddenly find needed medicine unattainable will care. The barons should remember: there is always another way.

Goldman Sachs arms for "populist uprising"

Yup, according to financial insider Alice Schroeder, employees of the well-connected mega-firm are stocking their arsenals in preparation for a popular backlash:

“I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.

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Talk of Goldman and guns plays right into the way Wall- Streeters like to think of themselves. Even those who were bailed out believe they are tough, macho Clint Eastwoods of the financial frontier, protecting the fistful of dollars in one hand with the Glock in the other. The last thing they want is to be so reasonably paid that the peasants have no interest in lynching them.

Schroeder is careful to note that the exact extent of their armament is unknown. But something's up when, by the day, the body economic increasingly resembles preparation for gang warfare.

The future is LOLspeak :-D!

It started simply, as most things do. The language was creaking: too slow, too specific and too long. Something else was needed, to turn the old bitch into a faster, sleeker creature bred for a new era.

The people should have known that something had changed when the president-elect's official victory proclamation screamed PWNED! in giant font. The doyens of proper language fumed about cultural degradation. But the purpose of language, after all, is to communicate, and everyone got the message loud and clear. The people (constantly enraged/cheering/aroused in their politics) craved color far more than the grey statesman tones of yesteryear.

Not too long after, "nom" landed in the dictionary as a proper verb (to nom, nommed, I nom your cake and you'll like it), pushing any number of older, longer charactered occupants aside into the abyss.

New generations, used to dubbing everything in their extended, networked circles "awesome" as a matter of tribal loyalty, needed new degrees of enthusiasm. OMFGroxxor! conveyed something more, and the recipient could be proud that they had received a superior compliment. The habits acquired in youth endured in strange ways, as the vulgar becomes normal, then refined. Slang is proper the second enough rich people speak it.

English was not pioneering anything in this area, of course. The Japanese had gotten there first.

Nor was it confined to the Anglo-tongues. A polyglot world needed something more. Logos had blazed the way, and few realized what omens lay in pictures of third world guerillas wearing shirts emblazoned with the Nike swoosh, cuddling next to their firearms. Not just the corporations, either, as by the end of the 20th century their direct enemies had turned the hammer and sickle into a global brand.

Then came the emoticons, sliding serpents into a longtime gap in the language. Simple words, in the hands of all but the skilled, could not convey a wink or a sarcastic tone. Yet one needed no skill, or even English, to comprehend :-) or the thousand pictograms it spawned. <3, too, was universal, and with every passing day, the demands of a million conversations further refined the symbols' use, adding nuances like a calligrapher's brushstrokes until they reflected all shades of emotion and intent.

It made sense, really, for a world with 7,000 living languages to stumble into a script with characters that encoded meaning instead of sound. The days were gone when horizons were so narrow that longer description in speech and the written word was a necessity. An ever-expanding common pool of images needed only basic references, as comprehensible in Nigeria as Chicago.

The high script still endured for refined literature or parsing deep ambiguities. But it was no longer the common word. The language that emerged a century later was coarser, boisterous and more vibrant. Perfect for a future wedded to the brutal invective and explosive enthusiasm of constant communication.

The linguistic storm crows were right: the language had degraded into a thousand pieces. But the guardians' ancestors had been right too, when they railed about the infection of foreign sound nuggets like thug, rendezvous and beef. Pure languages, like pure cultures, are ever a myth. Human tongues love to break things. But even more, they love to roll them around — for the flavor — and put them back together. They will do so until the sun goes black.

Srsly. ;-)

War shifts: Rebels defeat UN army

United Nations armored personnel carriers roll past refugees escaping the fighting in East Congo, late 2008

A 25,000 soldier United Nations force attempting to smash Hutu rebels in the Congo has suffered a major defeat:

The massive UN peacekeeping effort in eastern Congo has failed to deliver a knockout blow to Rwandan rebels while local insurgents have seized new territory under its nose, United Nations experts said today.

Far from resolving the root causes of the violence, the presence of the world's biggest peacekeeping mission has aggravated the conflict in North and South Kivu provinces, the report seen by Reuters today.

 

"Military operations have not succeeded in neutralising the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), have exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in the Kivus and have resulted in an expansion of CNDP military influence in the region," the group said, referring to Congolese Tutsi CNDP insurgents.

 

Congo's army, backed by the 25 000-strong UN force, launched an offensive against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda earlier this year as part of a deal to improve ties with neighbouring Rwanda, its enemy during a 1998-2003 war.

 

In return for Congo's pledges to stamp out the Hutu rebels, some of whom helped orchestrate Rwanda's 1994 genocide, Kigali arrested General Laurent Nkunda, whose CNDP insurgents were then integrated into the army.

 

While the UN Security Council has twice voted to continue peacekeeper support for the operations, rights groups and aid agencies have decried the displacement of more than a million villagers, thousands of rapes, and hundreds of killings.

 

Despite the surrender of more than 1200 of its estimated 6000-to-8000 fighters, the FDLR continues to replenish its ranks through the active recruitment of both Congolese and Rwandan Hutus, the group said.

 

The rebels benefit from support networks in Africa, Europe and North America, as well as financing from its control of the east's lucrative tin deposits despite the army's efforts to push them out of mining areas.

 

"The Group calculates that the FDLR could earn at least several hundred thousand dollars and up to a few million dollars a year from this trade," said the report, which is due to be discussed by the Security Council today.

Well that's not good news, to say the least. It's not exactly unsurprising when a local rebellion defeats a third world army, but a 25,000-strong UN force is something else. The most interesting aspect of this is that while the FDLR is based upon a very local ethnic grievance, it still manages to have a global support network. 

Something big has changed in warfare when a group doesn't even have to sign on with a worldwide ideology or superpower to get enough support to defeat a UN offensive. The peacekeeping mission would seem to be on the wrong side of the Guerrilla Problem; they're fighting a grievance, not a military force. As long as there are aggrieved Hutus (or Tutsis, for that matter), the guerrilla groups will be able to replenish their manpower. When raising an army is that cheap, it becomes far easier for a small rebel force with an economic racket to stand toe to toe with a much larger power. UN Peacekeepers are, after all, quite expensive.

Rwanda has somewhat successfully dealt with similar groups through a combination of generous amnesty and quick military strikes at the refugee camps where the FDLR and their allies are based. While that strategy is far from perfect, it has played a role in Rwanda's impressive recovery. The amnesty — and the subsequent push to get ex-fighters into civilian life — does grasp that to stop the guerrillas you have to end the grievance.

Dubai reaps the whirlwind

Pay no attention to the slaves behind the curtain

Oh, Dubai. Money was supposed to be enough, wasn't it? If you have infinite petro-dollars to throw around, a perfect city-state will emerge, right? In this sunny land, aristocrats both Gulf and global would be free to indulge their whims in a fantasyland without a care in the world, especially about such trifling things as slave labor, massive debt or all those travelers thrown into black holes on "drug charges."

But the wheel turns:

Just a few weeks ago, at the beginning of November, the emirate's ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, insisted at an investor conference that Dubai and its government-run businesses were in good shape. Those who were claiming otherwise should "shut up," he said in an unusually blunt outburst.

And now the emirate is unable to come up with a sum which was, at least by Dubai's standards, not that large. What is happening in Dubai is "unbelievable," says Eckart Woertz, chief economist at the Gulf Research Center.

The request to delay debt payments shocked the entire Arabian Peninsula and triggered deep concern throughout the global financial world. Stock prices on Asian and European exchanges plunged. The Dubai stock market fell by more than 7 percent on Monday, the first day of trading since the Eid al-Adha holiday, while Abu Dhabi markets slid more than 8 percent.

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Real estate prices have collapsed and are now only half of what they were a year ago. And yet new villas and luxury condominiums are still being completed every day - and are standing empty. Entire floors are deserted in the skyscrapers along sheikh Zayed Road, and giant banners with the words "To Let" are displayed across the fronts of buildings. Real estate experts estimate that only 41 percent of office space is occupied, and the vacancy rate is only expected to increase. In 2011, Dubai, a city of about 1.5 million, will have more office space available than Shanghai, which is 10 times as large as Dubai.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of tyrants. Johann Hari, rightly not pulling any punches, has Dubai pegged as a morally bankrupt dictatorship built by slave labor. The slaves, in this case, are imported workers shoved into horrendous tent cities, where conditions often prove fatal. When they try to fight back, they're beaten by Dubai's police thugs. The squalor is so bad that, according to Hari, "embassies were told to stop counting how many workers die in these conditions every year after they figured it topped more than 1,000 among the Indians alone."

On top of all that, Dubai is the most intense polluter on the face of the planet: it has the highest per capita carbon emissions, a full 250 times that of the United States.

Of course, Dubai grew as it did not just from oil revenues, but because corporations and governments from around the world poured billions into its delusions. Those same companies made billions back too, enjoying a tax free haven with cheap labor. It is depressing, but not surprising, that they did not ask too many questions, about the slavery or the debt. Dubai has acquired the reputation as an ideal city-state because, for the rich and famous, it often is. The rest of its populace don't get off so easily.

Dubai's impending bankruptcy should end the delusion that a better society can be created, whole cloth, out of wealth and technology. Those two forces dominate our discussion of globalization, to our detriment. Economic forces dictate this, we will hear, and spreading technology will bring about that. You'd think the world runs on nothing but coins and machinery.

Without anything else, those two will give you a glittering but oppressively hollow husk; exactly what Dubai has become. Missing in all this is an understanding of the power of culture. Dubai's culture was that of decadent aristocrats indoctrinated to believe in capricious power (notice how Maktoum prissily snapped when questioned) and limitless wealth. They behaved accordingly.

Not all the investors in the world can fix that. What we decide to create, every day, is shaped massively by our culture. We can change those cultures, we can create new ones, but where we choose to focus our collective energy plays a major role in what we end up with. 

The sheiks chose to focus on shiny buildings and endless luxury; the globe's aristocrats went right along with them. For a time, they got both. But, as with any culture, there is always a cost.

That is why Dubai is not the future. Dubai is Versailles, and it will suffer the same fate.

Poems for Friday: Like Coins, November

I was utterly clueless about a good poem for today. Something about greed, I figured, would be about right for Black Friday. A nice, scathing hit at our annual orgiastic devotion to Mammon. No? Then perhaps something about Autumn instead. Nothing immediately came to mind, and jumping around the internet mostly reminded me of how much terrifically bad poetry is out there.

Then I found this gem by Elizabeth Klise von Zerneck, of whom I know very little, except that she plays in Peoria and has won some poetry awards. I'll definitely keep my eye out for her work now. This is an excellent that piece combines both hard currency and the slow drift of the season perfectly. Here's a contrast to the march of the trampling crowds.

We drove past late fall fields as flat and cold

as sheets of tin and, in the distance, trees

were tossed like coins against the sky. Stunned gold

and bronze, oaks, maples stood in twos and threes:

some copper bright, a few dull brown and, now

and then, the shock of one so steeled with frost

it glittered like a dime. The autumn boughs

and blackened branches wore a somber gloss

that whispered tails to me, not heads. I read

memorial columns in their trunks; their leaves

spelled UNUM, cent; and yours, the only head . . .

in penny profile, Lincoln-like (one sleeve,

one eye) but even it was turning tails

as russet leaves lay spent across the trails.

Science fiction's world (we're living in it)

Via io9 comes this interesting 1971 video of Isaac Asimov remembering science fiction's "Golden Age," and how John Campbell's vision did create "a world of computers, of trips to outer space, of missiles, of a science-important world."

Asimov had a definite point. However, it's interesting to note that by the time he said this, Dangerous Visions (with its Asimov-penned intro) had already been published, and science fiction itself was changing into something sexier, less rational, but perhaps wiser.

Asimov was a man of reason, and to the end of his days I don't think he ever quite grasped the potency of sci-fi's future, or admitted that its new tomorrows might prove just as prophetic as the Golden Age's. If the Campbell-directed tales presaged the post-war era of science faith and moon shots, it's not hard to see the Deviant Age that followed as a harbinger of our own beautifully fractured time. Apocalypses replaced rocket ships.

Of course, it's possible that either view is artistic hubris; and both waves of science fiction were responding to the fears and hopes of their time as much as creating them. Dreams of the future are funny things like that. I have a feeling those visions are far from over.

My apologies in advance, but between holidays and a hectic journalism schedule, posting will be light this week. I'll try to stick to putting something up each day, but no promises. 

The Bubbles of Imperium

This interesting little video traces four maritime empires — France, Britain, Portugal and Spain — as they lose, bit by bit, their overseas dominions. It could use some music, but it's still worth a few minutes of your time.

The depiction is perfect: the imperial powers drift as massive blobs. Occasionally one will ripple, burp and out comes a territory! Venezuela! Canada! India! Angola! Ka-bam!

Maybe I'm too easily entertained by anything historical, but the representation of empires as bloated, creaking creatures prone to occasional tumultuous vomiting is fascinating stuff. Most remarkable of all is how quickly it occurs.

The Empire Never Ended? Maybe. But try this: The Empire is Always Ending.

Former Asheville firefighter gets 4 months for shooting cyclist

Diez, at the time of his arrest

I have a feeling the controversy over this case won't be dying down anytime soon. From my post for the Mountain Xpress:

Former Asheville firefighter Charles Alexander Diez will spend four months in prison for shooting cyclist Alan Simons in July. Diez plead guilty to assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill yesterday.

On July 26, Simons was riding with his family on Tunnel Road. According to Asheville police, Diez had stopped to argue with Simons, saying that the child seat the cyclist’s 3-year-old son was riding in was unsafe. As Simons began walking away, Diez fired his handgun, the .38-caliber bullet tearing through the back of Simons’ bike helmet, less than an inch from his head. Diez has no prior criminal record and was sober at the time. While he was originally suspended with pay at the time of the incident, on Aug. 10 he ended employment with the Asheville Fire Department.

While Diez was originally charged with attempted first-degree murder, a grand jury refused to press those charges, instead indicting him on the felony assault charge.

Convictions on such a charge result in an average 20-39 months in prison for the defendant. But in the sentencing, Superior Court Judge James Downs found that Diez’s military service, along with testimony from former colleagues about his good character, were mitigating factors, and chose to sentence him to 15-27 months instead. Downs suspended all but four months of that sentence unless Diez breaks the law again in the next 30 months. As part of his sentence, Diez is required to attend anger-management training and pay $1,200 to cover Simons’ medical costs for damage to his eardrum.

Poems for Friday: Snakes and ladders

Alan Moore turned 56 this week. Among the finest writers comics has ever produced, Moore has also flexed his creative talents in a number of other areas. While every piece of Moore's work has poetry bleeding through it, I didn't know about his more directly poetic spoken word work until recently.

Above is an excerpt from his 2003 work Snakes and ladders. This is one of those pieces that works best with minimal commentary from me. Sit back and listen. A good Friday to you all.