But if all the splinter third party candidates got their
    act together and mobilized themselves and developed a
    solid platform, they could certainly make a run
    themselves.

Not really. For example, the League of Women Voters used to run the US persidential debate. They've stopped, because the Democrats and Republicans demanded such unfair terms that it would have been a farce. So now the Democrats and Republicans together control the debates.

http://people.howstuffworks.com/debate4.htm

That defeats the purpose of patents for drugs.

It's convenient for drugs that have already been discovered and validated, but the difficult part of making a drug is not the chemical process to produce it, but knowing which chemical to produce in the first place. Knowing where to tap with the hammer, if you will.

If you want there to be no patents for drugs, that's an argument to make, but this type of "patent" is just a fig leaf for not having patents at all.

While that is one way of looking at it. It also encourages other companies to put in effort in finding different processes to produce the product. Whether the amount of effort involved is substantial or not is a different matter, but the end result is that drugs are very cheap in India (as it should be). Companies try to make money at scale and not by squeezing their customers dry.

My dentist recently told me about 2 drugs which are essentially the same. The drug made by the foreign company costs Rs. 200 (approx $4). On the other hand the India generic version costs Rs. 30 (approx 50cents).

> My dentist recently told me about 2 drugs which are essentially the same. The drug made by the foreign company costs Rs. 200 (approx $4). On the other hand the India generic version costs Rs. 30 (approx 50cents).

Well, sure. All the hard work's already done for the company making the generic version; even complex syntheses are trivial by comparison with the staggering amount of effort required to find and validate an effective new drug.

From your link:

    The subjects—*none of whom regularly ate or drank caffeinated products*—

Tolerance is the main reason why caffeine is a (mostly) zero sum game.

    ...almost as much of an embarrassment as...

Why is it embarrassing? It's the best we've got so far, and it's been pretty useful. We're working on making it more intrinsic to the universe. Chill.

I like the analogy, but I think SUVs were really a way to exploit a loophole in emissions regulations. Because of the technical definitions, SUVs count as trucks not cars for emissions standards.

    the records were burned because they were full of mold, a health hazard

This sounds exactly like the perfect kind of lie that the general public would believe. A plausible sounding health/safety reason. I'm not an expert, maybe it's true, but it rings false to me.

Surely historians, librarians and archaeologists have faced mold before and have methods to deal with it.

Sadly in this litigious world where states and companies have suffered huge financial claims related to mold it's not hard to understand a mid tier local government official panicking after talking with a local attorney.

Are we really entertaining the notion that this was a subversive, opportunistic political power play?

The (world famous) pianist Krystian Zimerman also had his concert grand destroyed by customs while on tour:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krystian_Zimerman#Criticism_of_...