Noteworthy 17-Dec-04

1. Ouch. Pfizer finds increased heart risk with Celebrex. Shares are down 15%. Celebrex is the same of painkiller as Merck's Vioxx which was pulled in September.

2. Washington governor recount update: 36/39 counties in; Republican Dino Rossi leads by 74 votes.

3. The Big Unit could be on his way to the Yankees. Unit, Pavano, Mussina, Wright, Brown/Duque/Halsey. Like it.

4. Miserable ingrates - ANC accuses US of using Africans as guinea pigs. This is the thanks we get for President Bush's $15 billion push to combat AIDS in Africa.

Studies have shown that a single dose of nevirapine to an infected woman during labor and another dose to her newborn baby can reduce the chances of HIV transmission by up to 50 percent. Nevirapine is also used in combination with other drugs to prolong the lives of AIDS patients.

Horrible.

5. The extended edition of the The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King is on sale. It adds 50 minutes to the film for a total of 250 minutes. Jonathan Last of the Weekly Standard gives it a solid review:

This week the extended version of Return of the King comes to DVD. The four-disc set is loaded with features and commentaries and, most important, 50 extra minutes of footage which has been woven into the film. This extra footage addresses, I'm happy to say, nearly every defect which I reported on a year ago.