Belloq: Dr. Jones. Again we see there is nothing you can possess which I cannot take away.
--Raiders of the Lost Ark of the Covenant, 1982
“Of course we should keep the Panama Canal, we stole it fair and square.”
--attributed to U.S. Senate candidate S.E. Hayakawa, 1976
Sunday will mark the holiday of Purim, in which Jews commemorate escape from annihilation – and obliteration of their enemies – in Persia long ago. One of the themes of Purim is nahafoch hu, which can be idiomatically translated, roughly, as “the tables are turned”. In that vein, and Purim being a festive and joyous holiday, I thought the news item at right from the February 21 edition of the Jerusalem Post was worth sharing. (You can click on the image for a larger version; the html version of the article can be found here, but I don’t know how long it will continue to be available for free). I’m not going to comment, but for those readers who aren’t familiar with the Israeli pharmaceutical scene and can’t figure out why the article brought the above quotes to mind, I’ll mention that the particular pharmaceutical company named in the article doesn’t have any patents. As they say in Hebrew, hameivin yavin, or as they say in Yiddish, farshtey?