HCQ lawsuit

Summary: The FDA cannot block usage of Hydroxychloroquine

[II]

B. Whether under the APA or pre-APA review, FDA’s actions were improper... 26

- 1. FDA acted arbitrarily and capriciously... 27

- 2. FDA exceeded its statutory authority... 29

- - a. FDA lacks statutory authority for its clinical-trial requirement... 30

- - b. FDA lacks statutory authority to limit off-label uses, based on perceived safety... 31

- 3. FDA’s actions are not in accordance with the law... 32

C. AAPS states a claim under the First and Fifth Amendments... 33

- 1. Defendants’ actions chill First Amendment rights... 33

- 2. Defendants violated the Due Process Clause’s Equal Protection component... 35

D. A court can grant relief – and especially interim relief – on claims outside the pleadings... 38

III.

AAPS is entitled to a preliminary injunction... 39

A. If this Court rejects FDA’s procedural defenses, this Court should grant interim relief because FDA has not otherwise disputed AAPS’s entitlement to that relief... 40

B. FDA’s interference with HCQ correlates with anti-life policies in other countries, contrary to President Trump’s position... 45

the science is settled!

We can hope that the leftist-socialist-nihilist-postmodernist school of philosophy is doomed when an atheistic sociologist can prove it is inherently evil in just a couple of hours.

Sick Sad World

This is a prime example of the category I created (in reference to the Daria cartoons): Murder is legal, investigating murderers is not.

Happy Earth Day!

Let's check in to see how Algore celebrated.

#AllLivesMatter

(update: matt walsh expands on the concept)

"could you, for once, be consistent?"

Dennis Miller on Facebook:

You say you're a creationist, liberals cite Darwin. You then cite survival of the fittest, liberals tell you to be more Christ-like.

a good read despite the title

one of many good quotes: "If we’re searching for “global warming” culprits, we might want to look at that 27,000,000 degree ball of gas in the sky."

via imao

seen online

there are two types of countries in the world:
1) ones that use the metric system.
2) ones that have been to the moon.

the sky is not falling

no
matter
how
often,
how
loudly,
or
how
annoyingly
the
lying
con
men
tell
us
anthropogenic
global
warming
is
coming
soon,
it
has
not,
can
not,
and
will
not
come
true.
it is
a hoax
fueled
by
greed
and
envy
of
prosperity.

(inspired by and expanded from this post)

maybe there is something to this

i think that most of the food scares in the past 30 years (at least) have been blown waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of proportion, including the beef hormone issue.

but the other night i saw a ten-year-old girl with a mustache and unibrow...

and frida kahlo didn't have any kids...

star trek vs dune

no, not that "dune"

(from a comment at lileks' bleat)

nasa produced some neat images of sand dunes on mars, which were popularized and satirized on gizmodo.

then, lileks' commenter belaglik boldly went where no photoshopper had gone before!

:)

winter, again

both via dustbury, this classic rant has a new (and milder) companion this year.

three more questions

monday evening pointed to 76 questions to ask of any technology, which inspires a couple more questions:

• how much worse will things be when the government abuses it?
• when will everyone realize that technology is almost entirely neutral, and that any ethical considerations are created by the people who invent, manufacture, and use said technology?
• why do people still pay attention to french philosophers?

voyager has left the solar system again

dustbury went on one tangent from that statement, and i went on another in the comments - where i used the term "google-fu" for the first, and hopefully only, time ever.

for science! (tm)

i don't think this is what adam savage has in mind...

obliquely optometrically optimistic

update & bump: more clues

• the night-vision halos from the implant are no worse than the globby halos i've always had.
• the headaches from mismatched eyes are mild and should only last another two weeks.

i'll give you several clues - in an uncharacteristically upbeat form - to figure out what's been going on with me this week:

• legal blindness is to actual blindness as dirty windows are to concrete windows.
• medical advances can correct many vision problems, and have recently made multi-focal replacement lenses available.
• i did not waste money previously on a lasik procedure.
• the total cost of repairs will be less than 40% of the cost of my car, and those costs will be offset by less expenditures in the future on glasses.
• recovery times are far less than in the past.
• obamacare has not yet crippled the eyecare industry.

Sympathy for the Green Bean, v.2

update and bump: this article was ahead of its time - plants can talk to each other

---

Vegetable-rights activists have launched a novel campaign arguing that vegetables -- contrary to stereotype -- are intelligent, sensitive entities no more deserving of being eaten than fish. Called the 'Think Vegetatively' Project, the campaign reflects a strategy shift by People for the Ethical Treatment of Vegetables as it challenges a diet component widely viewed as nutritious and uncontroversial.

"No one would ever pull a fish out of the ground and eat it." said PETV's Fred Fennel. "Once people start to understand that vegetables are just as intelligent as we are, they'll stop eating them."

The grass roots campaign is still in the germination stage and will likely face a hailstorm of skepticism. Most established health organizations recommend vegetables as part of a healthy diet, and many academics say it is wrong to portray the intelligence and pain sensitivity of vegetables as comparable to fish. University of Seattle scientist Rose Jimson contends that "while vegetables are very complex organisms that do all sorts of amazing things, to suggest they are aware and concerned about what's happening to them, that's simply not the case."

For years, the PETV, headquartered in Greenleaf, CA., has campaigned against farming and gardening, challenging claims by Jimson and others that harvested vegetables do not feel pain. PETV is also concerned about the high levels of manure in the environment of many vegetables.

The 'Think Vegetatively' Project has two goals: to depict the common practices of farming as cruel, and to convince consumers that there are ethical reasons for not eating vegetables. The project was inspired by several recent scientific studies, which discovered that certain vegetables' intelligence actually exceeded that of the researchers.

"Vegetables are so misunderstood because they grow in such distant foreign lands, like Nebraska," said Robin Carrotson. "They're such interesting, fascinating individuals, yet they're so incredibly abused." University of Edinburgh biologist Kale Green agrees, "Most people dismiss vegetables as dimwits, but in many ways, their cognitive powers match or exceed those of 'higher' vertebrates, including activists and protestors."

"There's no doubt that vegetables of all kinds are capable of learning fairly complex tasks," Green said. "They can learn from their environment and experience." Sao Paolo University researcher Rudy Baga de Treesa, for example, reported that the Chilean cave beet is able to draw detailed mental maps of its surroundings in Photoshop and post them on the internet.

To press their argument, PETV activists plan demonstrations starting next month at selected vegan restaurants and salad bars nationwide. PETV also will propose changes to standard farming practices, such as requiring that farmers perform Broadway musical numbers for the crop before the harvest.

National Farm Institute president Larry Redcorn says "It's irresponsible to discourage people from eating vegetables at a time when doctors and dietitians advise eating them twice a day. If anything, we should be eating more vegetables." He also questioned the high level of support for sparing cute vegetables such as tomatoes and carrots yet minimal concern for species like bok choi and jicama, suspecting a root of ethnic bias in those preferences.

The PETV, ignoring such criticisms, remains undeterred. Her voice quivering with emotion, Robin Carrotson exclaimed, "Won't someone please think of the cabbage!"

---

Inspiration for this came from this article, which was so bizarre it required little editing to produce a 'Scrapplefaced' version. For a somewhat more violent take on the topic, see also the lyrics to "Carrot Juice Is Murder".

Update: Welcome Carnival of Comedy #3 visitors.

(s/quantum theory/experts)

xkcd is thinking small

algore is below sub-zero*

apparently reagan's cfc cleanup did more to slow global warming than algore's carbon credit scam ever did.

* bonus points for anyone who gets the title reference

refutation of time travel

i had read this hilarious short story elsewhere before, but recently saw it again on a site with comments, one of which is interesting:

Very entertaining to engage in the impossible paradoxes, but it's all still nonsense:

BACK TO THE NOW - Why time travel is not possible

Forget even getting to the array of unworkable paradoxes if you were to visit the past or future, there is no such thing as the past, future or any related potential to visit or interact with. By the most accurate accounting of the phenomena known as our conscious life experience, reality is only witnessed by us as individuals alone and not collectively as any universally observed form of influence we’re all being controlled by or through. We are each alone and uniquely different in how we see reality or passing time around us constantly. No such ‘universal mind’ or so documented universal account of passing time exists now, in the past or future that runs continuously, like a movie, potentially over and over again. The fact we’re all interacting with the same earthly plane of existence is somewhat deceptive in this context and in large part inadvertently serves to lend the idea that time travel can have a potential point of arrival in the past or future.

Recorded historical events, as representing the complete event from every aspect of how it was experienced by every individual who attended the event involves something that cannot be replicated or experienced in quite the same way again, even if the exact same series of actions could be observed again. Time travel is flat impossible because by definition passing time doesn't exist as another removed or detached potential destination anyway. History or the future exists strictly on record, in our memories or in our plans and dreams in our minds alone, and not as some potential real world breakthrough we can physically experience in life. It’s amazing how much energy and financial commitment from some very bright minds is being wasted on fervently attempting to find some way to make time travel in this sense a reality or proving it’s possible. I’m scarcely trying to rain on innovation, but how so many who are so very smart can appear to be so oblivious of what ought be amongst the most elementary observations of basic reality that we all experience 24/7/365 is beyond me. Just as we always hear, life is only in the progressing moment right now, and at no other time.

update: even talking about time can be difficult :)