Good: Brasil has struck a deal with drug companies which will reduce the price of HIV/AIDS anti-retroviral drugs by about a third. Brasil distributes anti-retroviral drugs to all HIV/AIDS sufferers for free, a policy credited with halving Brasil's AIDS death toll since the program began in 1996. Brasilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pledged last year to build a plant in Mozambique to produce cheap anti-retroviral drugs for Africa.
Bad: Michael Moore, director of Lying About... er, excuse me, Bowling for Columbine, has endorsed Wesley Clark for the Democratic Presidential nomination. It was a bad sign when it turned out Clark had declared as a Democrat and was being backed by the same people who'd backed Bill Clinton. Second strike was when he was endorsed by Madonna, much better known for flashing her underwear and publicly jamming microphones into her crotch than for incisive critical thinking. This endorsement is strike three; I doubt anyone with two working brain cells will vote for Clark after having his sterling character electable qualities touted by a documentable habitual liar1. (I can almost see Clark's campaign headquarters now... "No, no, Mr. Moore! Don't try to help! Please!)
Fortunately, Clark seems to have little chance of securing the Demoplican nomination. NPR was reporting this afternoon that John Kerry appears to be moving into the lead, followed by Gephardt and Edwards.
[1] Moore's Oscar-winning so-called "documentary" about Columbine was a tissue of lies, deliberate distortions and fabrications from end to end, and by all accounts, his upcoming "documentary" Fahrenheit 9/11 is shaping up to be every bit as slimy a hatchet job, if not worse.
