Reputable clinical drug trials always have at least two groups of people in similar circumstances; in the case of just drug X versus no treatment, 1/2 of of the group get drug X and the other half get a placebo. The experimenters record the anecdotal accounts of side effects from each group. If the the same percentage of each group have the same side effect, then that effect is probably not due to drug X.

Sorry about your 2004 experience; hurricane season that should not be in anyone's change schedule.

Well, I'm stuck here in Central Florida, which includes everything from Daytona over through the Orlando area and here to the Tampa Bay Area. My mother has assured me for years that there are definite seasons, but I've sure never seen much difference. If we're lucky the temperature goes down some in the "winter" and in a good year the winter humidity is occasionally lower than the temperature. The good news is that summer temperatures tend to stay under 100F so that the humidity can always be higher than the temp.

As to the last item on your list, it's frustrating to find an apparent link to the discussion of a scientific subject in which I'm interested and then notice that the link takes me to Springerlink or Elsevier or one of those other sites that will allow me 24-hour access to the article for a mere $24.50. I thought that legislation had been passed a few years back that entitled the public the right to access scientific articles where federal monies had paid for the research. If so, it must require 100% federal money -- the 2% kicked in by CorporationX must disqualify the public's right.

I hate to break this to you but Sarasota is on the west coast of Florida and Bermuda is off the east coast. The Everglades, which is full of alligators and pythons, lies between them.

What does Loving v. Virginia have to do with having parties? I think you've been ingesting far too many unknown substances at the parties you attend.

Folks better not try "hitting the streets" anywhere except the bike lanes. 13mph seems to be about par with the average golf cart and we all know they're not street legal. In fact, I'd guess that a nice Amish horse and buggy could pass this Yike, except that it would probably break that old rule about "don't scare the horses."

Interesting that many agree with you that Trademarks are "mostly useful" when they, unlike all the other forms of "intellectual property," have infinite duration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark. IMHO, the difference is that copyrights and patents prevent consumers from the free use of the invention or ideas covered while Trademarks are used to give consumers confidence that the product that they're purchasing or using is indeed the genuine article (or, in recent years, a facsimile of a product that they wanted to purchase or use).

Okay, we all agree that we have a right of free speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution. However, this case seems to fall within a clear exception to that rule, as enunciated by Justice Holmes in Schenk v. United States. "the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic." In other words, your right to free speech ends at the point where it's likely to put me in danger. This woman was trying to make it impossible to keep the police from doing their drug enforcement duties and her method of doing so put the police officers and their families in danger.