Peter CM 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (43) comment rss

  • On the post: India Finally Bows To US Pressure: Promises Not To Use Compulsory Licensing For Drugs

    Peter CM ( profile ), 12 Mar, 2016 @ 07:14pm

    Re: Does this make the US the schmeikl of the world?

    Well, it makes the US the schmekel of the world, for sure!

  • On the post: First Report From Inside Germany's New TAFTA/TTIP Reading Room Reveals Text's Dirty Secret

    Peter CM ( profile ), 10 Feb, 2016 @ 05:47pm

    Re: Re: What is the handling of TTIP supposed to be distracting us from?

    The handling of TTIP isn't so much supposed to be distracting us from anything as attempting to hide the fact that TTIP (and TISA and TTP) will accelerate the international race to the bottom in labor, environmental, public health, and social welfare standards, hobble governments' ability to engage in meaningful, beneficial regulation, and generally establish untrammeled, unanswerable supranational corporate sovereignty.

  • On the post: First Report From Inside Germany's New TAFTA/TTIP Reading Room Reveals Text's Dirty Secret

    Peter CM ( profile ), 10 Feb, 2016 @ 12:10pm

    Re: Really?

    I can't speak for European politicians, but on this side of the Atlantic there is nothing a politician (or staffer) looks more for than revolving-door payoffs ... and the corporations behind TPP, TTIP, TISA and their ilk have really deep pockets.

  • On the post: How The Redskins' Delightfully Vulgar Court Filing Won Me Over

    Peter CM ( profile ), 05 Nov, 2015 @ 12:30pm

    I can all but guarantee you that this research project was the most fun the paralegals on the Redskins' legal team will have had in their entire careers.

  • On the post: How The Redskins' Delightfully Vulgar Court Filing Won Me Over

    Peter CM ( profile ), 05 Nov, 2015 @ 12:27pm

    Obviously, body, acidity, oiliness, and depth of roast would enter into a final assessment, but I would totally give "Big Titty Blend" coffee a try.

  • On the post: Canada Wants To Cut Price Of 'World's Most Expensive Drug'; US Manufacturer Sues To Stop It

    Peter CM ( profile ), 02 Oct, 2015 @ 11:23am

    No link to pleadings?

    It would really be nice to know the legal grounds on which Alexion is challenging the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board's constitutional authority to regulate drug prices.

    A couple of observations:

    * The government's deadline for responding is apparently Monday 12 October, one week before Canadian federal elections. Stephen Harper's Conservatives are running neck and neck with the social-democratic NDP, and Harper has got to be weighing the electoral consequences of his response.

    * If the PMPRB is using US prices as a benchmark, I have to wonder if this dispute (over a 4% or 5% price difference) isn't faux-regulatory theater. It would be interesting to know what prices France, the UK, the Netherlands, and Japan have negotiated (or dictated) for Soliris.

  • On the post: The Drug War Is Creating Problems Too Big To Fix

    Peter CM ( profile ), 31 Jul, 2015 @ 12:21pm

    Re: There are LOTS of reasons to never set foot in the States

    For one, a huge number of food-service workers don't have low out-of-pocket health insurance (or any health coverage at all), and they don't have paid sick leave, so they try to hide their symptoms and come in to work sick. (A lot of them don't have enough of a financial cushion to be able to take unpaid days off and still make next month's rent.) Bon appétit!

    For another, if you come to the US as a visitor and don't have first-class emergency-medical and medevac insurance, you risk being financially ruined if you have a serious accident or fall seriously ill. American medical bills are nothing short of obscene. (Just ask the parents of Canadian skier Sarah Burke.) Hopefully, the worst symptoms of any illness you contract at an American restaurant won't kick in until you're back home.

    And you don't want to travel with very much cash -- not because of "bad guys," but because of cops. A lot of American law enforcement agencies will simply take it from you on the theory that it's inherently suspicious, and you will have to hire a lawyer, sue them, and prove that you aren't a drug trafficker in order to get it back. And no, you won't recover your attorney fees.

    But, hey! Some of our national parks are still pretty nice...

  • On the post: Seattle City Council Member Urges Grass Roots Broadband Revolution After Ten Years Of Failing To Fix Broken Broadband Duopoly

    Peter CM ( profile ), 03 Jul, 2015 @ 07:26am

    Re: Kshama Sawant

    How is Kshama Sawant a joke? She's the only reliable voice the working and lower-middle class have on the Seattle City Council and she won a citywide majority in the last election.

    As for opposing oil-drilling, whether in sensitive Arctic areas (which the Seattle rig is destined for) or generally, an overwhelming majority of climate scientists believe anthropogenic climate change poses a dire threat to the planet's current species, including humans, and that burning fossil fuels is the prime culprit.

    You say she drove to the protest alone. Well, she has a rather busy schedule -- probably too busy to organize a carpool every time she goes somewhere. I'll bet she also gets Internet service from Comcast, seeing as how they have a monopoly on broadband in most of Seattle. Attacking people who are opposed to current realities but who make necessary concessions to them in the meantime is known as the tu quoque fallacy. You often seen it used, along with ipse dixit (like calling someone a joke), by people who can't come up with a convincing substantive argument.

  • On the post: Sting Operation Shows How Full Of Crap Health Journals Are When It Comes To Dietary Studies

    Peter CM ( profile ), 30 May, 2015 @ 08:41am

    Re: "less" versus "fewer"

    Interesting fact: mistakenly using "less" in lieu of "fewer" is a common symptom of chocolate deficiency. I read about it in the news.

  • On the post: Verizon Picks The Worst Possible Person To Try To Bullshit Into Unnecessary Upgrade

    Peter CM ( profile ), 09 May, 2015 @ 12:56pm

    Re: Re: Re: It's beyond puffery; it's consumer fraud.

    "ISP's should be forced to tailor their advertising based upon the average, or median speeds that customers in a given area experience, no more of that 'Speeds up to...' crap, when the reality isn't even close to the numbers they're providing."

    Absolutely. I'm not sure how the FCC and FTC officially divide their jurisdiction over ISPs with respect to unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices, but the FTC could certainly end the near-universal misrepresentation of Internet speeds within a matter of months by adopting a rule mandating something along the lines of your suggestion.

  • On the post: Verizon Picks The Worst Possible Person To Try To Bullshit Into Unnecessary Upgrade

    Peter CM ( profile ), 09 May, 2015 @ 12:40pm

    Re: German NET NEUTRALITY KILLS video

    Even with my one year of high-school German over forty years ago -- okay, and with a lot of help from the graphics -- I was able to figure out that the title was facetious and the video a critique of ISPs' opposition to net neutrality. And if there was any doubt, the link to SaveTheInternet.eu at the end put it to rest.

  • On the post: Verizon Picks The Worst Possible Person To Try To Bullshit Into Unnecessary Upgrade

    Peter CM ( profile ), 08 May, 2015 @ 01:26pm

    Re: Re: It's beyond puffery; it's consumer fraud.

    If the magic words were, "up to #Mbps on well-known Internet speed-test sites," I'd concede the point. ;-)

  • On the post: Verizon Picks The Worst Possible Person To Try To Bullshit Into Unnecessary Upgrade

    Peter CM ( profile ), 08 May, 2015 @ 12:52pm

    It's beyond puffery; it's consumer fraud.

    I run a bandwidth monitor full time. When I subscribed to Comcast's 25Mbps downstream package, the fastest real-world download speeds I ever achieved (outside of well-known speed-test sites) were around 2.1Mbps. After complaining to my local regulatory authority about two prolonged outages, Comcast bumped me to 50Mpbs (plus a TV package for my non-existent TV) at no extra charge, supposedly for a year, and my maximum real-world download speeds jumped to 4Mbps. Who knows? With a 75Mbps package, they might actually go all the way up to 6Mbps. If the FCC, the FTC, and state AG offices were doing their jobs, ISPs wouldn't be pulling this crap. It's consumer fraud, pure and simple.

  • On the post: UK Judges Take Their Robes And Go Home After Julian Assange Added As Speaker At Legal Conference

    Peter CM ( profile ), 21 Apr, 2015 @ 11:25am

    They've either preserved their ability to sit in judgment on Assange or debarred themselves from ever doing so.

    Any judge who might conceivably be called to sit in judgment on Assange on currently known facts had cause to avoid the session featuring Assange. Any such judges who boycotted the *entire conference* because of Assange's participation is open to accusations of personal bias that might debar them from *ever* sitting in judgment on Assange. And any judges who are *not* likely to ever sit in judgment on Assange on currently known facts and who boycotted the entire conference are government toadies who, I hope, didn't let the door hit their asses on the way out.

  • On the post: Walmart Not Horsing Around With Parody Domain Site

    Peter CM ( profile ), 13 Mar, 2015 @ 02:21pm

    Re: Mr. Ed

    Glad to see I'm not the only one on this site with a firm grounding in the classics...

  • On the post: Hall & Oates Suing Breakfast Company Over Haulin' Oats Granola… And For A Pretty Good Reason

    Peter CM ( profile ), 09 Mar, 2015 @ 12:15pm

    This doesn't bode well for my new brand of Boston baked beans for kids.

    I was going to call it "Baby Beanies."

  • On the post: Wyoming Governor Vetoes Asset Forfeiture Bill, Because Asset Forfeiture 'Is Right'

    Peter CM ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2015 @ 04:38pm

    A legal question pertaining to the Fourteenth Amendment

    The Fourteenth Amendment states, "[No state shall] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . ."

    So, does "Whoa! Here's a bunch of cash! We're taking it! If you want it back, you can hire a lawyer and sue!" meet the requirements of due process? I don't have the legal acumen of Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia, and Kennedy, let alone a Wyoming governor, so I'm having a hard time figuring it out on my own.

  • On the post: TSA Not Sure If It Groped Man Before Flight, Demands To Grope Him After Flight Is Over

    Peter CM ( profile ), 15 Sep, 2014 @ 05:05pm

    Maybe Nygard just had a really sweet caboose.

    Hey, gay TSA agents are human, too! I'm just sayin'...

  • On the post: FISA Court Twists PATRIOT Act To Pretend It's Okay To Spy On Americans Based On Their Constitutionally Protected Speech

    Peter CM ( profile ), 30 Aug, 2014 @ 05:28pm

    Re: What songs will they sing about our era?

    The Horst-Wessel-Lied?

  • On the post: Guy Files Dishwasher User Manual As An FCC Comment On Net Neutrality

    Peter CM ( profile ), 19 Jul, 2014 @ 10:18am

    I have a pretty good guess as to why he did it

    The first three times I attempted to file a comment with the FCC on Comcast's proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable, I got redirected to a page for uploading documents, with no box or link for typing in comments. It wasn't until I connected via Tor Browser that I was able to get through to the correct page on the FCC's site.

    My guess is that the same thing happened to Schaake, but that he never actually managed to get through to the right page. Being unable to type in a comment, he instead uploaded an irrelevant document as a form of protest.

    I must say, by my third attempt, I was on the verge of uploading something myself. It would have to be something relevant, though -- something representative of what the FCC seemingly arranges for American consumers to do every time the country's media, cable, ISP, and telecoms oligopolies come before it with new demands. It would have to be a goatse pic. But since I was pretty sure a goatse pic wouldn't make it into the public record, I just fired up Tor Browser instead and described in a more socially palatable manner the many ways in which I felt I had been personally goatse'ed by the FCC commissioners' past and future benefactors and requesting that, if possible, the FCC consider doing something to make it stop.

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