Here at SaveWRKO, we’re getting an increasing number of complaints regarding WRKO’s piped-in “news” coverage supplied by Metro Traffic (the in-house news department was fired several years ago to cover felon Tom Finneran’s bloated salary).
Here’s an excellent caught-on-tape example:
If you heard this report but knew little about Obamacare and the town hall meetings, would you be inclined to believe Barack’s opponents are little more than thugs, as opposed to worried seniors and working people?
Is this an attempt to undermine Rush Limbaugh’s audience just as the program is about to begin?
Advertisement
Yeah for the poor working stiffs! Keep trying!
They may sic dogs on you, just keep trying, they may put a fire hose on you, just keep trying! You have a right to be heard you are the poor over burdened tax paying working stiff citizens of the United States! Keep trying to exercise free speech in the peaceful harmless manner you have been doing it!
They called them a mob in Thelma, they called them a mob in Birmingham, they called them a mob in Montgomery!
Just keep trying!
The piped in news with Scott “I will never be confused with Walter Cronkite” Pike is probably my #1 complaint with WRKO.
As I have stated numerous times on this blog, the decision to can the professional in-house news staff (Listo, Rod, Marga, etc.) was the single biggest mistake of the Coffee Boy era. To make matters worse, this boneheaded move was compounded when the “savings” were plowed in to the salary of the Felon Finneran.
I will repeat my challenge to ANYONE reading this site: Listen to Scott Pike for 1 air shift and see if he can get through without a litany of mistakes. Mispronounced names of people and places are his specialty. He has no business being on the air in a major market but that’s understandable because the guy who put him on WRKO has no business running a radio station.
I remember when WRKO didn’t suck. Sadly, it is becoming a very distant memory.
Run, Howie, run!!!
I worked for Metro News in Providence before Westwood One closed the office in October. There, we strived to be fair and accurate. I have listened to Howie’s show for years, and this guy Scott Pike is the worst news source I have ever heard. In addition to his mispronunciations, misreads and downright inaccuracies, I heard a veritable endorsement of the Obama healthcare plan delivered by Pike this afternoon. He’s the absolute worst. I wonder if he’s even got a high school diploma.
By the way, I realize the above cut is not Scott Pike.
Is the news on WBZ any better? It is almost unlistenable, but I still rely on their traffic reports so I can’t avoid it. I wake up to WROR and there’s a definite bias there as well.
Selma.
(I have a lisp)
Some congresswoman said “raise your hand if you are on medicare” so they do. “now raise your hand if you like it” so they do. Then she says “see there is a government health plan and everyone likes it”
Observation #1
She sucker punched a bunch of senior citizens.
And that is not nice. Classic disrespectful liberal.
Observation #2
Total false dichotomy. It is like saying “how many here have toilet paper we give you?” so they raise there hands. “how many here like their toilet paper?” so they raise their hands. Then she says ” Therefore you will all like the steel wool from now on because that is what we are handing out!”
WBZ’s traffic reports may be on the “3′s” but they are not very accurate. I often find myself sitting in traffic and not a mention of it on WBZ’s traffic report.
Marco,
Forget about traffic on the threeeeeees.
When you are in traffic just stick your head out the window and go “Marco”!
“(the in-house news department was fired several years ago to cover felon Tom Finneran’s bloated salary).”
-Wow, maybe by the thousandth time you say it, it will miraculously become true. On the other hand, your WRKO distortions are minor league compared to the “death panels” and “rationing”.
Most of the protesters are not thugs, they are either underinformed, misinformed or ideologically opposed. They have a right to their opinions and a right to be heard, but for the sake of the country and our future, I hope they don’t carry the day.
All we have so far is one unfinished house bill that contains none of the distorted talking points that its opponents are bringing to the public discourse.
One thing you are right about is that Scott Pike is mediocre, however the Metro decision remains cash flow positive and there is no evidence that it cost the station any ratings. While it is always regrettable when good people lose their jobs, this was a stand alone business decision that made sense at the time and makes even more sense now given the economy.
Mole is looking forward to steel wool I see.
Mole, do not hack on me when you are in the federal health care line with me ok?
In fact if you give me a few dollars you can cut in line ahead of me for your appendectomy ok?
Wah? Oh! I see how it is going to work now!
I was wondering why the rich were not too worried. Why worry when you can buy a kidney for your kid. The rest of us we must accept our dispensable status. It is a brave new world.
I am not going to comment on the health care bill until I read the entire thing myself.
But in repsone to all I’m witnessing, I will say in response to “classic disrespectful liberal”, the right is displaying their own “classic” tactics……fear mongering. The last administration did it full tilt (we simply HAD to go to Iraq….WMD and all)…..and now they’re back at it with comments like “death squads” and “killing grandma”……you should all be ashamed of yourself.
Present a legit discussion, or shut the hell up. Nothing is more dangerous than ill-informed mouthpieces.
And you are one pirate, ill informed idiot that is.
I suppose you are proud of the DNC advertisement about the massive right wing conspirator? Ya, thought so. Do you really approve of how they are talking down to their constituency expecting them to buy all that rubbish?
Oh ya and pirate, what made you deaf to the lament of the over taxed, over burdened, working stiff who is fighting for individual freedom.
That poor guy that confronted Specter, did you think he was scary? Using scare tactics?
I saw someone that would rather be anywhere but there and then I saw Specter a lifetime politician with a lifetime experience in front of people staring the poor guy down. All I saw was a complete BULLY [Specter]. Open your eyes pirate!
You are brainwashed to the point you really don’t hear suffering. Maybe like many in the United States you have been conditioned to only hear in one color.
Could be possible pirate. Think about it squirt you might get somewhere then.
ps: your so cute when your angry.
You have no clue about me or my life. Taxes? My real estate taxes went up 54% in one year. Working stiff? What the hell makes you think I’m not a working stiff? Because I am. Over burdened? You haven’t a clue.
What makes you think I am exempt from all the ill effects of this economy? What have I written here that would draw you to conclude that I don’t hear suffering? You are so far off the mark.
Just to give you a little clue, my career for the past 10 years has been assisting the less than fortunate. Don’t hear suffering? I deal with it PERSONALLY EVERY DAY.
So before you go pointing fingers in my direction, and suggesting I “think about it”, trust me, I DO MORE than think about it….I ACT on it.
Man, I don’t know why I bother here.
Is that “cute” enough for you?
pirateboy, in response to the Iraq thing, practically everyone on both sides of the aisle agreed that we ‘had to go there’ at the time the decisions were made. Monday-morning quarterbacking is quite a humorous exercise from the Left. As for the media gyrations going on, it’s fascinating to watch. I see a DRUDGE Report-Rush Limbaugh tag-team going on, with Rush parroting what DRUDGE says (which is almost uniformly anti-Obama. The two together have incredible reach. The humor comes from those who might be ‘angry’ about such an alliance. These ‘outraged’ observers will conveniently fail to note the very similar tie-up between the New York Times and every network news broadcast that same evening. The Left can’t have a monopoly on this sort of thing, and they have no cause to whine about Rush and/or Drudge. They have their little duopoly and the Right has theirs. Then there’s Fox News, which no amount of Leftist whining can unseat. That’s.Too.Bad.
Hardly using Iraq as any “Monday morning quarterback” exercise. It was used as an example of how the right has used “fear mongering” as a tactic.
Deliberate preying on people’s fears is despicable. Scare the people into submission?
pirateboy
http://www.mullings.com/iraq-decade.doc
One of the very rare good things about WTKK is their traffic updates are spot on and accurate. Maybe if they just stuck to broadcasting traffic and weather in an endless loop they might get their Arbotron rating up to 13th place!
Also, go to WTKK’s website and check out the pictures from Michelle McHulk’s book release party. She is built like a pro football linebacker! And, the spray-on tan looks like her skin was peeled off of a bunch of pieces of KFC Grilled Chicken and pasted onto her!
Sorenson: BFD….everyone agreed Saddam was a monster. So instead of the deceit and using WMD as a justification, why not just take Saddam out? No one- NO ONE- would have had a problem with that. I’m not going to get into that whole argument. AGAIN, it (Iraq) was used as an example of fear mongering, OK?
Marco: OMG! She’s Michele McOrange Julius. Crayola needs to see that picture and name a new crayon, “Scary Orangey”. How could she allow WTKK to post those photos? She can’t possibly think she looks attractive, can she?
Mole – you may be right. Canning the entire news department of WRKO may have been a good move financially. I guess, with that logic, you would agree with me that Obama’s health reform plans should be tabled because they are not good financial or public health moves.
I don’t know how we veered into discussing the merits of Obamacare instead of the slanted reporting of it by his media lapdogs.
Since we are on the subject, however, let me suggest to anyone who has an open mind on the subject, that Obamacare is not about making anyone healthy. It is about controlling the health care system of this country which represents roughly 14% of our economy. Why are we so desperate to turn over an even bigger share of the economy to an inefficient government that can’t even balance it’s own books or run a used car buy back system without running out of money in one weekend? These are the “smart” people who we are going to count on to deliver healthcare to us when we are at our most vulnerable?
None of you would ever consider giving that kind of control to a private firm with the same track record as the Federal government, but we are all supposed to be in lock-step agreement with The Messiah or we risk being branded:
1. Racists – because we dare to find fault with any idea proposed by the first black President.
2. “Astroturf” activists – because we are obviously zombies following our hateful right-wing talk show masters and are thereby incapable of original thought and action on our own behalf.
3. Ingrates – because we dare question the benevolent nanny-state government that only exists to help us.
If this health care scheme is so damn good – why does the Congress exempt itself from it? Why are members of labor unions exempted from participating in it, as well?
It can not pass without noting that the very reforms these people are proposing will undoubtedly lead to the ultimate rationing of health care. Rationed care is the case in EVERY universal health care scheme in the world. It is a natural outgrowth of the need to control costs in a system in which the users have no direct connection to the payment for the services they are receiving from their health care providers. Under this plan, do you think the elderly Ted Kennedy, were he a private citizen, would warrant the huge expenditure to treat the most deadly form of brain tumor? Absolutely not. For that matter, Chris Dodd, the private citizen, would hardly be at the front of the line to receive prostate cancer treatment at his advanced age. Maybe now we know why Congress has exempted itself.
Socialized medicine is great – as long as you don’t plan on ever getting old or sick.
The government will NEVER take care of you as well as you will take care of yourself.
Heard about this on the radio and found it on the internet. This is from a Duke University professor who has taken the time to read parts of HR3200 and ‘translated’ it from the legalese to English. You can see his evaluations after each of the sections. It is interesting reading no matter what side you are on in this health care debate.
Here’s the link I forgot to include.
http://www.classicalideals.com/HR3200.htm
That is a nice link from ladyjane.
Thank you.
NHradiofan:
Your challenge addressed to “anyone who has an open mind on the subject” kinda loses the spirit of open-mindedness when Obama’s health care bill is referred to as “Obamacare” and Obama is referred to as “The Messiah”, but putting that aside, let me address a few points in your post.
I don’t think Obama has made any suggestions that this bill is about making anyone healthy. His PRIMARY purpose is to control costs and make affordable healthcare for all.
However included in the bill are items like no cost sharing for preventative care and wellness. While this does not “make (ing) anyone healthy”, it does help keep people healthy with pre-screening and those sorts of procedures.
And as far as health (and not financial) concerns, prevention and wellness programs have already been included in his American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
While you question the government’s track record and trust, how about questioning the private insurance companies? How about the pharmaceutical companies who make a drug that can keep someone alive, but is unaffordable? Here’s an example, in the late 80′s AZT was the first drug approved for prolonging life to those infected with HIV before it progressed into AIDS. Great! New hope for the hopeless! Too bad it was well over $ 2K a month making it unaffordable for the very people who needed it. The Insurance and pharmaceutical companies have been raping all of us for years.
Again, I don’t know enough about the entire bill. So, I’ll reserve my comments to what I do know. But I will say, from a very young age, as a little kid 9 or 10 years old, I always wondered why countries like Sweden provided health care for their people and we didn’t. It seemed so unfair to me. And I was right- it’s not fair and it’s time we changed that.
No way no way no way can we allow these greedy pigs in Washington to keep themselves on some sweet health care system and dump the entire rest of the country on some garbage system. Soon they’ll be plucking gold out of the teeth of the recycled corpse of your Nana (gov. property you know) and making new sex parts for prisoners out of aborted babies.
How about this new criteria for all new health legislation:
All of us or none of us!
You hear that Congress!
The motto!!
All of us or none of us!
You is us get it?
And NH don’t feel bad for speaking about the biggest issue on radio or television! This thread is even about it ok? Brian is glad for us to keep him directed properly.
piratetoby,
I think you just made my case for me. You said you “don’t think Obama has made any suggestions that this bill is about making anyone healthy.” Then why are we doing it? Because the Democrat Party sees this as the ultimate power grab and insurance for future electioneering. Who are you going to vote for in the future: The guy who is campaigning to end socialized medicine or the guy who you have been conditioned to believe is keeping your Grandma alive?
This is, and always has been, about the consolidation of political power. Just as the welfare system was never about solving poverty, the universal health “reforms” are not about making anyone healthier. They are about solidifying a voting bloc.
As to your bemoaning the high cost of life saving drugs, let me ask you this: Why do most of the drugs, including the one that you referred to, AZT, come from American manufacturers and not from countries with socialized universal medicine? It is not a coincidence. We have a profit motive in this country that spurs billions of dollars to be spent on research and development on new drugs, diagnostic techniques, surgical techniques and equipment. The vast majority of the billions spent on R&D NEVER result in a product being brought to market but it is done anyway to get to those few breakthroughs that change the entire world.
The American medical system has developed more drugs and medical techniques of every imaginable type than the rest of the world combined. More people walk this earth today because of life-saving procedures developed in our rotten, unfair system than those developed in all of the other loving, universal socialized systems combined.
When your loved one has a brain tumor – are you going to bring them to an American hospital or a Canadian hospital? The Canadians, British, Spanish, French, Irish, Scottish and every other nationality come HERE for a reason. The Saudi Arabians – who can afford to go anywhere and pay any price choose our system above all others.
As to your wailing about the unfairness of “countries like Sweden” providing universal healthcare when we do not – let me remind you that Sweden has not been the world leader in promoting democracy, has not “paid any price and opposed any foe” to free others from tyranny around the world, and, along the way, committed billions of dollars to solving AIDS in Africa. We have.
Sweden also has people who are excused from military service because of “internet addiction”. I hardly think the United States should be compared to a country that has a problem fielding an army because their conscripts can’t stand being away from World of Warcraft.
There are plenty of countries that have socialized medicine – pick one. Delta is ready when you are.
NHRF:
OK, first question, “Why are we doing it”. I’ve already answered, but here it is again: to cut costs and make quality health care affordable for everyone. While there in no indication or suggestion this reform will MAKE people healthy, it will certainly help KEEP more people healthy.
Next paragraph: who or where did you get the notion that welfare was designed to solve poverty?
Next paragraph: AZT, like the flu vaccine the Bush administration did not order enough of several years ago was NOT a drug manufactured in the US. Both were made in the UK. And all the R & D costs that allow us to find a breakthrough drug that will benefit the rest of the world. Yes, as a country we should be proud of that, however does that justify allowing us to turn our backs on our own people? Save the world and ignore our own? That is nothing to be proud of.
No argument from me, we do have the best hospitals in the world. How will the reform change them? If I understand it correctly, it should actually help hospitals and doctors. The doctors I know are so frustrated with the amount of red tape they need to go thru, they question their decision to get into the medical profession. You know, those OBY/GYN’s not being able to practice their “love” on their patients.
All of our billions did not “solve” AIDS in Africa. Our country can not take credit for a solution-there is none. While the US has invested in the treatment of curbing the spreading of the disease, Bill and Melinda Gates have invested billions of their own in the same battle.
And finally Sweden! As a young kid my little pea brain was not thinking about Sweden as a democracy, a world power or anything else, for that matter, other than another country in the world near Norway and Denmark where it was cold. The only thing that stood out to me was their health care. I WAS TEN YEARS OLD! How the hell could a 10 year old have predicted the internet? You can not possibly be serious in making a statement about me using Sweden, could you?
piratetoby -
Let’s try this again:
Point 1 – You believe these reforms will “cut costs and make quality health care affordable for everyone.” You are wrong on both counts. The government will face runaway costs because more and more people will run to the doctor every time they stub their toe or develop the slightest sniffle and “quality health care” will be a long forgotten dream when the government must face the harsh reality of being the single payer with increasing demand and decreasing funds. I cite socialized medicine as it is practiced EVERYWHERE in the world as proof that single payer health care is a dismal failure. You seem determined to take the best health care system in the world and drive it down the same road of failure that numerous other nations have traveled. Do you believe that the only reason it hasn’t worked yet is because the “right people” haven’t been in charge ? That is typical liberal delusion at work. You’ve seen the results but you refuse to believe that they will happen to you because you care more than they did. Please.
Point 2 – Where did I get the notion that welfare was supposed to solve poverty? Let me introduce you to a man named Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ to his friends) who declared a “War on Poverty” in selling his Great Society legislation to the country in the mid 1960′s. I may be mistaken, but when one declares a war on something, it is safe to assume that one wishes to prevail over that opponent. In LBJ’s case, to vanquish or “solve” poverty. You and I know this was just a ploy to make as many people dependent on the government as possible under the guise of “helping” them and it has worked fabulously in that regard. Welfare is not a helping hand offered to those who need to marshal their resources and get their act together (as it was sold to us) but rather it is a lifestyle that has seen generations of Americans become members of a permanent underclass having never held a job and being almost entirely at the mercy of government programs of every stripe. Programs, by the way, that are funded by people who actually work for a living and pay taxes. People like me, and, I presume, you.
Point 3 – Jerome Horwitz of Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute and Wayne State University School of Medicine first synthesized AZT in 1964, under a US National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant. AZT was originally intended as an anticancer drug, but was shelved after it proved insufficiently toxic to cancer tumors in mice. Burrows Wellcome, the British company you obviously give credit to for inventing the AZT treatment for HIV and, hence, your erroneous claim that the drug originated in Britain, only applied for the patent to utilize it to combat HIV after joint testing sessions with the US National Cancer Institute and Duke University. As I said, AZT is an American invention. You stand corrected.
Point 4 – You admit we have the best hospitals in the world. How can this be with such an evil and unfair health care system? You lament the red tape that causes doctors to question the wisdom of continuing their practice of medicine. This begs the question: Where does “red tape” come from? Could it grow from trying to secure payment for services rendered via the frustrating maze of the Medicare and Medicaid system (both run by the same government that you want to put in charge of all of our health care)? Could “red tape” also stem from the incessant documentation driven by our litigious society that the Democrat Party refuses to intervene in? Trial lawyers run rampant like syphilis in a bordello, yet the Democrats can’t imagine how they have any impact on the practice of medicine and the astronomical cost of malpractice insurance – these are the real reasons doctors question their choice of professions. Unless you are going to do something about doctors practicing defensive medicine to avoid lawsuits, which the Democrats will never do because they are in the hip pockets of trial lawyers, this “reform” talk is total B.S.
Point 5 – I did not claim AIDS was solved – I claimed that we have committed billions TO solve it. I am correct. Our efforts and expenditures to try to roll back the scourge of a disease spread by injudicious behavior in a part of the world that holds little national interest for the US other than simple humanitarianism, shows that we are a compassionate and generous people. I support the spending of tax dollars to help these people, especially the AIDS orphans who are the innocent victims at the intersection of a doggedly tough virus and social mores that promote the spread of that virus amongst the adult population.
Point 6 – I find it hard to buy your fascination with the health care system of a Scandinavian country when you were 10 years old. Most 10 year olds are climbing trees and playing baseball – not mulling over the global inequality of the delivery of health care. But I will grant you a childish fascination with Sweden, if you prefer. Why, I am a huge fan of the Swedish Bikini Team, for that matter, and I have been for as long as I can remember. They may be socialists, but any nation with that many hot blonde women can’t be all bad. Except, of course, their evil socialist health care system. It is of the Devil.
“And all the R & D costs that allow us to find a breakthrough drug that will benefit the rest of the world.”
while this is true in the beginning…the drug lobby works very hard to get extensions on a patented drug. This means we pay stupid prices until there is competition. Claritin is a great example of a drug that kept getting extensions, therefore had no competition with a generic well past the original patent date. At one point they were going for 20 years by saying they were testing the drug on kids under 12. It was a long hard fight but they finally lost the final request for another extension because the “people” rallied against it and went after their legislators noting who was getting money from the companies!
cricket – the problem you point out can be fixed by real restrictions on lobbyists and the flow of money to politicians through less than transparent means. You can’t fault a company – any company – for trying to maximize the profit on a product in which they invested huge amounts of money and time in bringing to the market.
NH, I agree…that’s why we went after the politicians and not the company to shoot down the next extension request.
Cricket – the only problem I see is that the public seems to believe that they have a “right” to these products (just because they are medicines). The public has no more of a claim to demand government intervention in the pricing of a drug company’s products than they do in demanding controls over bananas, dog food, tires, shampoo or pencils. I can make an argument that all of those are necessary items for me but I shouldn’t be able to use the police power of the Federal government to force the manufacturers of those products to make them more affordable to me.
This goes right back to the ideology that holds that “I have a right to whatever I want.”
If that’s the case, then I want a Mercedes Benz in my driveway, season tickets to the Red Sox and Patriots and T-bone steak for dinner every night. Don’t deny me – I NEED these things!
Yes, but the drug companies are given a LOT of money and tax breaks for R&D then they get a patent and have no competition for many years. There is competition for shampoo and pencils!
It doesn’t cost a billion dollars to come up with a new shampoo, either. Pencils are fairly easy to design and get past the FDA also.
Apparently, some people want all the things they “need” to be virtually free. Who cares what it costs to make it?
These are the same people who want to sue for millions of dollars if the drug or technique doesn’t work EXACTLY the way they want it to.
This entire debate can be solved if people will come to the realization that their health care is THEIR responsibility. Not the government’s responsibility. Not your fellow citizen’s responsibility. Your responsibility.
One other point: You have car insurance for your car, don’t you?
Your car insurance doesn’t pay for your gas. It doesn’t pay for oil changes or new tires or wiper blades, either. Those are all costs associated with operating your vehicle. Your car insurance is their ONLY when something beyond your control happens – an accident or some sort of misfortune.
Health insurance should be the same way. Your cold medicine and check-ups and physicals and flu shots and gynecological visits should be on your own dime. Health insurance should be just that – INSURANCE – against a catastrophe. Our problem arises from our desire to use “health insurance”, as we currently do, as a medical spending plan. It is akin to calling GEICO when you need new tires or another tank of gas.
We have been conditioned to believe that you have a right to health care that is subsidized by some other entity – either your employer or your fellow citizen via the government tax system. This is insanity and the cure for it is personal responsibility.
Holy crap, keep it short and simple. This is a blog and not Edward Gibbon’s “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”. If you can’t say your point in a few sentences, then don’t bother.
“You have car insurance for your car, don’t you?”
yes, but don’t get me started on that ripoff in MA.
I am not asking for free, I am asking for fair competition. I run my own business, I work hard to keep my share of the market….I don’t ask the government for anything except to stop taxing me so much to pay for those who don’t.
NH, do a little research on the drug companies and patents…either you work for one or you are not aware of the tactics. (-;
I don’t know what you are complaining about, WRKO Staffer. I wrote very slowly so that you could understand.
Cricket – I do not work for a drug company and I have never been employed in the healthcare field in any form. I do understand the drug companies and their patents.
What I don’t understand is why you think you have the right to ask the government to regulate the price that a company charges for it’s products. Would you like the government to control the price of the product or service you provide just because I “need” it?
Stop looking for the government to force people to run their business in a manner that suits you or they may get around to running your business for you someday.
______________________________________
Um, excuse me, Mr. WRKO Staffer!!! Is this post too long?
I am not asking for regulation…I am asking for fair competition! Once the patent is up there should not be extensions…that is where the government HAS been coming in right?
How is that asking the government to regulate it? I am totally missing your point or you are totally missing mine.
Since you mentioned “fair competition”, what is “fair” about putting a sunset on the exclusivity of an invention? The drug company takes all of the risk, spends all the money on R & D, waits years for the FDA approval then spends millions more on marketing only to be told, “You only have 25 years before anyone can make generic equivalents of the product that you invented and, by the way, we are going to vilify you every step of the way and blame you for “the health care crisis” while you try to recoup your costs, make a profit and fund future R & D so we can start the vilification all over again.”
It is obvious that government interference in this process is the real culprit, unless you want to believe that the EVIL drug companies make drugs only to taunt sick people. We need FAR LESS government involvement in health care. We are going in exactly the wrong direction.
good point…so how long was the patent held for the automobile? Or electricity? or the telephone?
Cricket – The automobile was developed as an outgrowth of the need to utilize the internal combustion engine (which itself was developed in various forms simultaneously to replace the steam engine) to replace the horse drawn carriage. The modern automobile was developed through trial and error with many inventors and innovators tinkering with the same general idea (The Stanley Steamer and The Puffing Devil, for example, were transitional vehicles in this regard.) Karl Benz is considered the inventor of the modern automobile but he made his first car with a self-designed 4 stroke engine. He received a patent for it, but more importantly, his invention showed others that automobile technology was achievable and this spurred the race to design and invent various interpretations of the internal combustion engine, each with their own patents in Europe and the US, giving rise to the myriad of automobile companies and engine styles we see today.
A drug company that invents a proprietary chemical formulation can receive a patent but also must acknowledge that their discovery will influence the path of R & D of other competitors. This has always happened but it does not mean that the original inventor is not protected by the patent it has secured. Any competitor would have to show a substantially different invention to qualify for a patent – if this were not the case, any chemical company could buy a bottle of a new drug, break it down in the lab, copy the formula and market their own version. The patent protects the inventor – the person or company who took the risk and did the work. Why should drug companies not enjoy the same rights as inventors of other products? The only reason we are talking about this is because the government has decided to step in and limit the patent term of drugs because….well, because the government says so.
Electricity is a natural phenomenon and the methods of producing electric current are scientific facts that are available to anyone with some copper wire and some magnets. The steam turbines invented in the 18th century to generate electricity were developed, as was the automobile, by many people, simultaneously. The Parsons steam turbine was certainly an invention of note (this technology still produces most of the worlds electricity even today) but other associated inventions, such as the transformer, had to be devised to efficiently use the turbines’ output and deliver it to the masses.
A drug company does not usually need to rely on the invention of an outside actor for the public to utilize the drug they have developed.
The telephone, like the automobile, was invented by several people simultaneously. While Alexander Graham Bell eventually received the “master” patent, which all other telephonic devices attempting a patent had to be judged against for originality, Thomas Edison, Innocenzo Manzetti, Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis & Elisha Gray were working on types of telephones simultaneously. Some used a liquid transmitter, some used a metal diaphragm with an electromagnet and some used a dynamic diaphragm with a magnetized coil that would vibrate. Each was a unique invention on a common idea and each was used in various parts of the world. The MARKET decided that Bell’s version was the one that would become dominant. Bell’s patent only lasted until 1893 (17 years).
_____________________________________
Sources:Wikipedia – automobile, electricity and telephone
If we could get back to radio for second. I find it interesting that Marco belives TTK’s traffic info is “spot on” and BZ is not, since they are all coming from the same source, Metro Traffic. Greater Media simply has their people read the traffic info that Metro supplies. In fact BZ’s info is more up to date since it takes a bit longer for it to be entered into the system that GM recieves. Everyone in the city with the exception of Kiss and Jamin use Metro for their traffic info.
Brian the next time you start to banging on about the “piped in news service” you may want to mention that if Howie Carr and Gerry Callahan didn’t fight very hard to dump AFTRA represenation, it may have been more difficult for Entercom to wipe out their entire news staff.
With the exception of a few mistakes now and then, I happen to like Metro news. I can get two or three top stories, sports, weather and traffic without a lot of filler.
Finally, I didn’t see anything wrong with Bruce Adams report on the NH Town meeting, there were protesters and he simply read a quote from an AFLCIO statement. The only thing missing was a quote from the right wing groups who have organized people into disrupting these forums.
Anti Brian (aka Scott Pike)
With the exception of a few mistakes now and then, I happen to like Metro news. I can get two or three top stories, sports, weather and traffic without a lot of filler.
Your radio must be broken or else you are getting Metro updates from some other source. Do you really think Metro is good? Really? I know you have it in for Brian & the entire existence of this site, but come on. Metro sucks and anyone who listens objectively will come to the same conclusion. The “broadcasters”on Metro can’t get through even 1 update without mispronouncing the names of people and places or stumbling through their copy because of poor reading skills. Maybe you need to buy a a new radio – this time ask for one that gets Boston stations. You obviously are listening to something the rest of us are not.
As to your comment on the “right wing groups” causing disruption in the town hall forums, are you being intentionally obtuse? I guess you think it is only “disruptive” when conservatives dare to question the government. Maybe we are complaining because we know the track record of our government when it comes to administering damn near anything it touches. I guess we are just too stupid to make the right choices for ourselves. Good thing we elected the Benevolent Dictator. He’ll take care of all the heavy thinking while we just shut up and get back to work to pay for his schemes.
Dear NH Radio fan,
Metro News is just like 90% of the other rip and read news stories you hear on every station except BZ and BUR. To say that every report is filled with mistakes and mispronuciations is a bit over the top. RKO is not where I go for news but if I am listening their news breaks provide a few headlines nothing more, nothing less.
I also have no problem with those opposed to health insurance reform questioning governmentt leaders, but organized disruptions and wild false claims like Obam’s death panel e show those right wing nuts to be nothing more than unbalanced lunatics who just don’t like our President.
All I can tell you is time and time again WBZ is off on traffic. Again sitting in dead stop and not a word on WBZ. On the rare times I catch WTKK run down the traffic it is spot on. They may be getting the updates from the same source but they are either not reading it right or are a few updates behind.