alanschu

Fair enough. Just to make sure we're clear though, only 10,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with it each year. So the level of effectiveness of the Texas initiative declines immensely. Who said that they were against the vaccine being available? Don't play that card. I'd say the same thing if it was addressing a condition that may lead to prostate cancer. There's one big problem with that number though. HPV has many, many different types. Only a few of which cause cancer. So no, those numbers in particularly are not as significant as you'd think. Given the vaccine only target 4 specific types, I doubt you'll see these numbers you posted change at all. To make things clear, the vaccine does not cure cancer, nor does it target cancer. It targets a disease believed to cause cancer. Furthermore, the trials done were only done to show a reduction in symptoms at precancerous stages. The trial did not go on long enough (as stated by the FDA) to see if it actually prevented the cancer (though I suspect it probably will. I'm not a biologist nor a Medical Doctor). There have been no studies done to see how it reacts to women that are unknowingly pregnant. I suppose that this is an advantage to giving it to 9 year old girls, since they likely will not be pregnant. At the same time, the only studies done with girls aged 9-15 included an injection of vaccine, and a comparison to the immune system. Unless other cancers are caused by a virus similar to HPV, I wouldn't hold my breath that this is a huge breakthrough for the future of other cancer vaccines. It may be a breakthrough for fighting cancer because it prevents the causation of cancer by a particular disease, I don't know how helpful it will be for other cancer research or other cancer vaccinations.

I don't believe it. Actually, according to their schedule, I believe they play every Saturday. http://origin.www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/hnic/tvschedule.html

Here we go again..... Yeah what the hell Calson says. We don't need that old 2nd amendment, and so to get rid of it lets also throw out the 1st, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th and 10th amendments. It's quite a country you want to create there Calson. I'm glad I won't live to see it. Slippery Slope fallacy.

Goddammit, I just _had_ to click on that link..... EDIT: Anyone else think this game would be super sweet with a co-op multiplayer

I was wondering about the Battlefield element as well Mr. Elite. According to the two reviews I read yesterday (CNET and IGN), most of the time in the single player game is actually spent viewing a tactical map and giving out orders (depending on which stage you're at in the single player game, since you start off as a lowly PT boat skipper up to Captain of the USS Yorktown at Midway). I guess the big difference between the two from a Battlefield perspective is that you have control over AI units. Here's a shot of some tactical map views: EDIT: Also, if it's anything like Pacific Storm, you can still watch all the action unfold and give orders despite not being at a map view. Just because it's an action shot, doesn't mean it is an "in unit" shot. Speaking of Pacific Storm, some people over at the War in the Pacific Forums compared Battlestations to it, but because of Battlestations smaller scope, feel they executed the muliple gameplay elements better.

The Oilers finish the season I believe with 6 road games. 5 road games in a row seems like the standard road trip. I think it might seem odd, because the Maple Laffs typically return to Toronto for a home game every Saturday for Hockey Night in Canada.

I'm most intrigued how you knew I was going "Hagagagaga" while I typed that though.

That is Jagged Alliance 2

Wow, Montana sure did well when in the Superbowl!

I'm thinking more your standards are different. I have played computer games since the Apple IIe.

Alas, the demo is a multiplayer demo. Since I do not feel like testing out the demo against strange people on the internet, I won't be able to give it a playthrough unless you also want to download it. If you talk appropriately to Nick, we can make arrangements to gang up on him and kill him. But it's a bit disappointing.

I'm installing the demo right now, so we'll see how it is.

I don't think it's that simple, because it assumes that the rest of the league remained static, and that the skills of all players involved have also remained static.

Suddenly I feel a whole lot less bad about the whole thing :D

Unfortunately, it's going to cost the same amount as a Grade 7 student that probably still won't be having sex for a few years.

Also, by offering the vaccine to grade 6 students, you still leave a very viable market open to make billions more dollars on teenagers and young adults, that will still have to purchase the drug for themselves. It's more profitable (especially short term) to offer the drug for "free" (government subsidized) to those that won't need it for probably at least 5 years (unless times have really changed in the past decade), and longer for the majority. So that 18 year old teenager still has to fork over the money so they can make even more short term profits. Offering the vaccine to say, 15 year olds, would still cover an extreme majority of people that have not had sex yet (or at least limited sexual experience), but it would hurt Merck's bottom line. They wouldn't make as much money.

The cost really isn't that much of an issue. It's the mandatory vaccination to be given to those that are (hopefully) still a few years away from such a vaccine even having a purpose, simply because they are at the lower bound of when they are available. The other issue is that the governor decided to sidestep the entire legislature to throw this in. Other issues involve the relationship the governor has with the creator of this drug. He has close ties with lobbyists involved with the drug company, and the drug company also donated money to his election campaign. I'd be perfectly content if the government were to offer free innocuations to young women in the age group of the sample size given that sought to obtain the innocuation. My schools didn't have mandatory Hepatitis innocuations, but when I was planning on going to the Dominican Republic. On the plus side, the current plan is allowing for those to opt out of optimizations for philosophical or religious differences. Hopefully the terms for doing so are less than complicated. Again, I'd rather the funding be put towards a compound that has shown results against all types of cancer (which would therefore also include the ability to cure cervical cancer caused by HPV) at a fraction of the costs since the compound is not patented and can be manufacturered by whomever wanted to manufacture it. Unfortunately, there's no big money involved in it, so you'll get lobbyists from this very same company that wants to help all these 9 and 10 year old girls not get cervical cancer fighting against it since their client stands to lose billions of dollars. Talk about awesome. Just to make sure things are clear, I have no problems with pharmaceutical companies making lots of money selling patented drugs that cure and vaccinate serious diseases. I understand that research on these cost gigantic amounts of money, and that if there were no patent protections, none of them would bother doing any of this research. But when governments start giving drug companies a whole heck of a lot of money, especially when said government was helped voted into power because of this drug company, it doesn't exactly give me warm fuzzy feelings. Double so when other, less profitable ventures have recently come on to the horizon that would cover not only the problem that the drug company will solve, but so much more. Unfortunately, lobbyists are very powerful, and elections are not cheap.

Do you feel you have $55 to spare, and will spending it now significantly impact your ability to upgrade in the near future?

I'm just curious if anyone out there named Llyranor has heard of this game. IGN had a good review, Gamespot not so much. Seems a big issue with the game is the length of the single player game, though both reviews comment about a really fun coop experience. Hopefully it's not "coop" in terms of "coop against other human players" so I figured I'd send the jerk an inquiry. EDIT: There is a demo which I'll probably get around to playing sometime this evening. I'll post impressions on the game then.

How is Shanahan responsible for your team's lack of success?

The issue I have is through the means by which the HPV disease is contracted. An important part of getting kids early with a polio vaccine is that they could come from poor families that don't have access to clean food and water, and other basic needs that may not be met. Given that executive powers were also used to skip over the entire legislative process, leads me to think that something fishy is going on here.

Okay:

I was thinking something that doesn't come with a lot of preconceived notions about it. Besides, the NRA already exists. It is a bit late to go and start it. Why?

Besides, as long as review is made based on the experience playing the game, and not the hype, no problems. I'm sure we've all been super stoked about a game, only to have it come out and be a complete turd and we were pretty pissed off.

Yes, but the law is the law. :confused: You once had a goal of becoming involved in politics. Start a lobby group.