The Most Painful Thing Megan Has Ever Done

She admitted she was wrong!

OK, well, not really. She is almost unequivocal... but... then she equivocates.

So it looks like I got taken, at least in the sense that there's probably no way to come up with an estimate that I would find acceptable

Megan was lied to and swallowed it like a dog eating a pill wrapped in baloney but it doesn't matter because it's impossible to know the actual, right answer. Therefor, Megan could, in theory, be correct.

I'm now adding this to my long list of "dark numbers", with the best available proxy being the global sales of New Chemical Entities. Two thirds of those, not more than three quarters, occur in the United States, versus about a quarter in Europe. You can argue about what the fixed costs are in various places, but as my correspondent implies, given how much cross border activity there is, the problem seems to be indeterminate, so I'll stick with a number we know. This doesn't really change my assessment of the problem, since 2/3 is still pretty overwhelming, but statistics matter.

Statistics matter; That is why Megan bases her argument on statistics that she just fucking makes up on the spot. Statistics are so important that -- if real ones aren't around -- one must substitute fake ones and count on the idiocy of one's readers.

On a side note, the reason I said 80% was a hypothetical in the Washington Post chat is that . . . well, I didn't. I forgot that conversation, and thought the commenter was referring to this post.

Um, huh? I think I know what she's trying to say here but I'll be fucked if that has anything to do with her writing. She seems to be saying that she didn't say that pharma makes 80% of its revenue in the US. She claims, instead, that she said pharma makes 80% of its profits. Frankly that doesn't change a damn thing, but it's interesting to note how nonsensical her defense is, regardless. She claims to have stated that something was a hypothetical because she didn't remember saying it, but if she couldn't remember saying it how did she know that she was talking about profit and not revenue? When someone asks me about something I don't remember saying I don't just wing it and say "Well, really I was referring to the letter "u" and not the pronoun "you." Instead, I say "I don't remember saying that."

These are the perils of typing thousands of words a week, and also, of getting old.

Dang, she's getting old. I know, right? All the 37 (or whatever) year olds I know are all leaving their fucking dentures in their fucking car ashtrays by accident, and shit, so, like, how can we blame her?

Hey Megan, maybe it's time to fucking retire.