The News Thread

[Dak]

I haven't looked too much into this Corcept thing but I don't understand the conspiracy.

Smaller pharma companies find private investment quite frequently; while there is a lot of risk in a totally new start-up, Corcept was working with a drug that was already approved by the FDA, they apparently just use a somewhat higher dose and for a different treatment. Anecdotally, my advisor's post-doctoral advisor founded a pharma start-up for a completely new drug with a completely new mechanism of action, and despite the higher risk still managed to secure 9 figures of private investment prior to clinical approval. Drugs can be an extremely lucrative source of private investment because the government grants monopolies to the victors. Just looking at the Wikipedia article on Corcept, they charge substantially more than Danco does for the exact same drug. This is why Warren Buffet infamously only buys companies that provide him a monopoly.

I don't understand what Ford's employment has to do with anything. So she worked there from 2006-2012 as a statistician, beginning 8 years after Corcept's founding and 6 years after the drug was initially approved for abortion. It sounds like she was ultimately an employee rather than someone that was absolutely critical to the drug's development and success. She's listed as an author on six pages on the company site, though four of the six are for an unrelated drug, and for its effects on weight loss/gain. She probably was given some CORT stock options, which she may or may not still hold. How does any of that feed into abortion? From what I can find online, their monopoly on the drug's use to treat the rare disease ends next year; THAT'S the kind of thing CORT-holders are going to be concerned about, not whether or not an abortion ban will effect anything. In fact, if anything a ban of the drug for use in abortions should excite investors because it means Danco presumably changes business/shuts down and Corcept remains the sole producer of the drug in the USA.

Is 9 figures enough for 14 years? I'm not saying they couldn't, but Politifact doesn't address it. Also, like I said, changes now likely have no effect on her bank account. But we're talking a much more proximal connection than some vague memories from the 80s.

You know how poorly legislation can be written. Korlym could be at risk because it is the same drug and I don't think it's the only treatment option. It could be banned so as not to be used for "off label use". Not that I think that would happen anyway but the left is hysterical right now.

BO: Learn the difference between a conspiracy (involves a group, planning, etc) and the idea that individuals respond to incentives (psychological, financial, etc).

 

[The Ozzman]

What a condescending douchebag thing to say

Consider the source

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Is 9 figures enough for 14 years. I'm not saying they couldn't, but Politifact doesn't address it. Also, like I said, changes now likely have now effect on her bank account. But we're talking a much more proximal connection than some vague memories from the 80s.

You know poorly legislation can be written. Korlym could be at risk because it is the same drug and I don't think it's the only treatment option. It could be banned so as not to be used for "off label use". Not that I think that would happen anyway but the left is hysterical right now.

BO: Learn the difference between a conspiracy (involves a group, planning, etc) and the idea that individuals respond to incentives (psychological, financial, etc).

They're a public company. Here's their quarterly reports, feel free to point out the point in time that they received a blank check from the George Soros and Margaret Sanger's ghost. People have no obligation to disprove every unfounded batshit rumor that gets invented on /pol/. The claim that a statistician having six-years-prior worked for a company that sells a diease-treating drug that can also be used for abortions is inventing rape claims to undermine a conservative Supreme Court nominee to prevent Roe v Wade's overturning leading to an eventual total national ban on abortions is as retarded as conspiracies go. It has no factual basis, the essential facts claimed do not hold up, there is no logic to it, therefore there is no reason that an employee of a company completely unrelated to abortion services needs to prove that she or the company isn't being funded by abortionists.

And of course it's only the left that's hysterical right now, lmao.

 

[Dak]

Who said anything about being funded "by abortionists"?

I would say that's a nice strawman but you would likely find it in the comments at infowars or something. I think it's much less complicated of a process. Ford, like most psychologists, is a raging liberal. She's afraid of the loss "reproductive Rights". Also, having worked at this company, knows that former and maybe current colleagues may be at career risk if TRUMP DECLARES REPRODUCTIVE MARTIAL LAW. Now, in the "MeToo era", she alone has the power to stop Kavanaugh and stand against the forces of patriarchal evil! She will be hailed as the savior, and go down in the history books as standing up for truth and justice. #brave #gofundme #metoo

Edit: Found Corcept's original IPO announcement from 2004. That's all Politifact needed. Interestingly enough it looks like their initial product failed.

 

[CiG]

I can agree with this, as I have received death threats over anime reviews.

When GTA V online was at peak activity I'd get death threats in my inbox like every week. I don't even acknowledge they happen anymore, I usually insult them and move on, if even that much. I bet people who review shit in general get it constantly.

Hell, I even got death threats here from sloughfegkiller or whatever that Aussie dude's name is. I just lol'd.

Consider the source

BO isn't usually like this, he's been going full Mort lately IMO.

 

[Einherjar86]

More boomers acting like online threats aren't just what happens to everyone every day over any old bullshit. So sick of the "muh death threats" narrative with these fucking people. Someone sent me multiple death threats just the other day because I was shit talking a Men's Rights Activist on Youtube and his fans got buttrammed.

Fuck outta here with that. Anybody who acts like online death threats are a "women's issue" is a fucking douche.

It's not a women's issue, and men can absolutely get death threats. I'm not sure how that fact somehow refutes what I've said...?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Who said anything about being funded "by abortionists"?

I would say that's a nice strawman but you would likely find it in the comments at infowars or something. I think it's much less complicated of a process. Ford, like most psychologists, is a raging liberal. She's afraid of the loss "reproductive Rights". Also, having worked at this company, knows that former and maybe current colleagues may be at career risk if TRUMP DECLARES REPRODUCTIVE MARTIAL LAW. Now, in the "MeToo era", she alone has the power to stop Kavanaugh and stand against the forces of patriarchal evil! She will be hailed as the savior, and go down in the history books as standing up for truth and justice. #brave #gofundme #metoo

Edit: Found Corcept's original IPO announcement from 2004. That's all Politifact needed. Interestingly enough it looks like their initial product failed.

Well you weren't very clear about the funding question to begin with, except to insinuate that there had to be some kind of shady source of funding somewhere.

Saying that she has a conflict of interest because she might have friends in the abortion industry is kind of silly when she (and any female friends she might have) are already affected by potential reproductive regulations. There's nothing illegal about conflicts of interest anyways as long as they're properly reported, and having a friend financially impacted by a law is not any kind of meaningful conflict of interest unless the friend is paying her under the table as a lobbyist.

 

[CiG]

It's not a women's issue, and men can absolutely get death threats. I'm not sure how that fact somehow refutes what I've said...?

Sorry that bit at the end wasn't directed at you, just at the general modern narrative that online harassment is distinctly a women's issue, often buttressed by claims that women receive more of it etc.

That said, any idea that online threats are specifically a reason why victims won't come forward and accuse somewhat implies that online threats are some rare thing saved for people who come forward and expose people.

 

[Einherjar86]

I don't think they're rare, but I do think that someone with a family and who's nationally (and internationally) visible in a high-profile case probably has more reasons to pause over death threats.

 

[Dak]

Well you weren't very clear about the funding question to begin with, except to insinuate that there had to be some kind of shady source of funding somewhere.

Saying that she has a conflict of interest because she might have friends in the abortion industry is kind of silly when she (and any female friends she might have) are already affected by potential reproductive regulations. There's nothing illegal about conflicts of interest anyways as long as they're properly reported, and having a friend financially impacted by a law is not any kind of meaningful conflict of interest unless the friend is paying her under the table as a lobbyist.

Well they aren't necessarily illegal, although yeah they have to be reported and in relevant cases sometimes steps have to be taken to create some degree of separation. I don't think she's getting paid for this (well, now she is through her GoFundMe - at least having legal bills covered, whatever they will amount to) by Soros or some such stupid shit. I'm just saying there's plenty of plausible features of Ford that would call her motivations into question, and this belief in her putting her life on the line or whatever bs can feed into that motivation. People blow themselves up for arguably less potential gain.

A completely unrelated issue that irritates me about her is how she threw her therapist under the bus as soon as the requested notes weren't completely corroborative, even when those notes were closer temporally to the alleged event. Maybe she had a shitty therapist, because no good therapist is going to be flippant about getting details of a sexual assault if it was a key factor in resolving an issue one was in therapy for. If it was a shitty therapist, wouldn't a psychology professor be able to tell that? I mean, I know she's a research psychologist not clinical, but still. Pat gets on me for a lack of solidarity with academics but this is throwing a fellow psychologist and therapist under the bus for basically the same error she's being accused of.

 

[CiG]

I don't think they're rare, but I do think that someone with a family and who's nationally (and internationally) visible in a high-profile case probably has more reasons to pause over death threats.

High visibility can be a double-edged sword, sure it could mean the threat could be serious as people do actually try and even succeed at assassinating public figures, on the other hand public figures get tons of bullshit hoax threats and weird messages and it would be a huge risk to genuinely threaten a public figure.

If it's a bunch of anonymous Twitter eggs, cry me a fucking river. Anybody at any time can use online threats to generate sympathy for themselves. It's the Internet age, this shit happens.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

BO isn't usually like this, he's been going full Mort lately IMO.

I'm just stressed with grad apps tbh, and my opinions on American politics become a little more sharp when I'm not living with the daily normalizing noise in the US. My constant diet of C-Span when I'm in the DC area tends to make me slightly--ever so slightly--more immune to reacting to wacky ideas that pop up on the other side of the political spectrum.

 

[CiG]

Figured it was something like that.

 

[Dak]

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Kavanaugh-accuser-Christine-Blasey-Ford-moved-13249844.php

So this was a good writeup on Ford. This is the more specific part:

In her Post interview, Ford said a group of boys from Georgetown Prep was at one of the beer-drinking sessions in an unsupervised house near Columbia Country Club, possibly in the summer of 1982. One of them was Kavanaugh, who she described as an acquaintance. At the time, she was 15, and he was 17.

Kavanaugh and his classmate Mark Judge had started drinking earlier than others, she said, and the two were "stumbling drunk" when they pushed her into a bedroom. She alleges that Kavanaugh laid on top of her, fumbling with her clothes and pressing his hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. Only when Judge jumped on top of them was she able to run from the room and hide until she could flee the house, she said.

Her biggest fear afterward, she recalled 37 years later, was looking as if she had just been attacked. So she carried herself as if she wasn't. Down the stairs. Out the door. Onto the rest of her high school years, she said. On graduation day, she wore the required white dress and carried red roses. She told no one.

Assuming this story is true, can anyone else posit why Kavanaugh and Judge both emphatically deny it or anything like it ever happened and mean it/believe it?

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/alcohol-blackout-brain_us_5ba941dfe4b0375f8f9fa658

Koob added that as the alcohol in your blood is increasing, you may also be compelled to act out of character, thanks to the chemical changes in your brain.

“In the blackout zone, you could be dancing on a table in front of your boss, but the next day you’re not going to remember a thing,” he explained. But, and this is important to know, he said a blackout is “not permanent damage to the brain, but rather a gap in time” where the brain is not producing any memory.

Let's say this was the situation in 1982. How are we supposed to adjudicate that now?

 

[The Ozzman]

Something that doesn't deal with Kavanaugh:

The US is bankrupt

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/26/as-...nd-more-on-interest-than-on-the-military.html

 

[Dak]

Old news but no one seems to care outside of maybe the "Freedom Caucus". As long as the US remains safer than other currencies they can just continue to inflate along, and then worst case scenario force lenders to take an overt haircut.

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

Setting aside everything else in this clip, take heed of Trump's hypothetical situation where if Kavanaugh isn't confirmed or has to withdraw his nomination that he could "pick a woman". Chances are that woman would be Amy Barrett and if the left thinks Kavanaugh is too far to the right then Barrett will really have them shitting their collective adult diapers.

 

[Dak]

http://www.stopamyconeybarrett.com

It's just waiting.

 

[Bloopy]

Newly Erected Building in China Looks Like a Huge Penis that Shoots Out Fireworks

 

[HamburgerBoy]

To be fair, they seem pretty prudish in China, I bet it was an innocent mistake.