Industry analysts said the slew of bad news reflected the difficulties of bringing effective new medicines to market and the increasingly tough regulatory environment in terms of proving safety and efficacy. The final quarter of this year has been overshadowed by fallout from the withdrawal of Vioxx, which analysts believe will make it harder for drug companies to win approval for products aimed at big patient populations.
in order to save Social Security in 75 years we have to destroy it now... makes perfect sense...like Vietnam and so forth, destory the village to save it. Who the hell is going to still be alive to retire in 75 years time that is going to pay into the SS system in the next thirteen years. This whole thing is just one giant fraudulent swindle.
The Social Security Trustees report that in 13 years, payroll taxes will no longer cover benefits. By 2042, taxes will cover only 73 percent of benefits, and that ratio will continue to fall with time. To fix the program for 75 years would require an immediate 15 percent increase in payroll taxes or 13 percent benefit cut, the trustees say. Those figures grow rapidly if the actions are delayed.
I find it pretty funny to think that these folks who are using the Bush statement that jesus is his favorite philosopher are arguing that christmas needs to be honored for that reason. It is sort of like saying that although the muslims hold jesus on the same tier or hierarchical plane as moses and abraham and mohammed, O'Reilly saying he is a philosopher trumps all that somehow. Wouldn't it be more powerful to say that maybe jesus was the son of a god or something rather than a mere, and actually not very good, philosopher? You just never know with these folks
O'Reilly responded by stating that by deeming Christmas a national holiday the United States was honoring the "philosopher" Jesus. This recognition, O'Reilly continued, was similar to the recognition afforded to Martin Luther King Jr.
The problem with this view, of course, is that, to most Christians, Jesus is not a simply a "philosopher," a thinker such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, John Locke or even St. Thomas Aquinas, for that matter. Depending upon one's theology, one sees Jesus as the Messiah, the son of God, savior of fallen humanity, the second person of the Trinity, fully man and fully God.
