j7uy5 | September 23, 2008Ever since the inception of the Global and Perpetual War on Terror,
there has been concern about the role of professionals with training in
psychology and psychiatry in the design, conduct, and interpretation of
torture programs.
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) banned such participation in
May 2006. The American Medical Association (AMA) followed a
few weeks later.
These associations do not have any regulatory authority.
Nonetheless, their proclamations and highly influential.
Oddly, the American Psychological Association [the other APA,
call it AP'A, (p-prime)] did not follow…
j7uy5 | September 22, 2008No, this is not a conspiracy hypothesis. There really is a
href="http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/27/news/newsmakers/gross_banking.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2007112810">shadow
banking system. There is even a
href="https://www.aei.org/research/projectID.15/project.asp">Shadow
Financial Regulatory Committee (although the Committee is
really a study group, not a regulatory body of any sort).
The System is said to be falling apart. This might explain
why the Fed and the Treasury decided to
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/21/AR2008092102060.html…
j7uy5 | September 22, 2008This is a nice photo, with a Creative Commons license. It's a
female Anna's
Hummingbird, Calypte anna.
href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/grandpamikey/2365843288/sizes/l/">
alt="clickto see Flickr page" title="clickto see Flickr page"
src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3231/2365843288_77385c6211.jpg"
border="0" height="357" width="500">
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/"
title="Click this link to find out details of the Creative Commons license associated with this image.">
src="http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights20.gif"
alt="There is…
j7uy5 | September 21, 2008USNORTHCOM is the organizational unit of the US military that
is
assigned to North America. They are the ones who are
responsible
for defense of the homeland.
href="http://www.northcom.mil/News/2008/091308I.html">Religious
Support Teams providing hope after Ike
September 13, 2008
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. – For the first time, military
chaplains and the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster
are collaborating their efforts to provide cohesive spiritual response
to those affected by the next hurricane.
“During [Hurricane] Katrina, chaplains and religious…
j7uy5 | September 21, 2008The economic crisis is reported to be responsible for a recent increase
in calls for mental health services:
href="http://delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080920/BUSINESS/809200314">Economy
worries driving more people to seek help
By ROB WATERS and DAVID OLMOS
September 20, 2008
A tidal wave of anxiety is washing over America, from
Wall Street's concrete canyons to the lettuce fields of California,
propelled by the mortgage industry collapse, high gas prices, tight
credit and rising unemployment.
Operators of telephone help lines, insurers, hospital administrators…
j7uy5 | September 19, 2008A prominent political candidate had her email account pilfered.
It is not known, openly, how this was done.
Reportedly, it was a simple password, a word that could be
found in any English dictionary. That was a mistake.
Still, it was wrong for people to do it. Period.
Yes, the act does make some points. But they are all points
that could be made without doing something wrong.
j7uy5 | September 17, 2008Within the past few days, I've noticed quite a few bloggers and news
writers make comparisons between the hurricanes and the financial
meltdown. It just occurred to be that there is another facet
to this analogy. This has to do with a very real problem that
has been stirred up, literally.
In addition to the analogy noted above, another analogy that I've been
seeing is to liken innovative financial products to toxic waste, as in
this Bloomberg article:
href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&refer=home&sid=aW5vEJn3LpVw">Banks
Sell 'Toxic Waste' CDOs to Calpers,…
j7uy5 | September 14, 2008One important concept in psychotherapy studies is the concept of
href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Efamlygrf/units/ambiguous.html">ambiguous
loss. This is a loss that is, in some
way, less than definitive. If you are at the hospital
visiting an ill beloved family member, and see the death, it is
perfectly clear that a specific loved one has in fact died.
If you are mature enough to grasp the permanence of the loss,
is it unambiguous.
Many losses, however, are ambiguous. Examples include
infertility, when the loss is a loss of opportunity, as opposed to the
loss of a specific person; a…
j7uy5 | September 13, 2008As
href="http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2008/09/nasa_views_ike.php">noted
on Dynamics of Cats, The Oil Drum
has some details about loss of production of oil, natural gas, and
refined oil products, due to hurricanes
href="http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4525">Ike and
Gustav.
(They've been updated since the link first went up, so you
might want to check them again.)
Perhaps more importantly, they also have a post that contains an
analysis of the implications for the supply of fuel (gasoline, diesel,
and jet fuel).
href="http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4526#more">…
j7uy5 | September 12, 2008Here is a photo from the space station, showing some really big
thunderheads:
It is an inset from a high-resolution photo of Ike, courtesy of NASA:
href="http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/272686main_ISS017E015708_hi.jpg">
The photo posted on the NASA site is 2098x3072 pixels. Click (twice)
on the image to get the full effect. More
href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/multimedia/hurr_ike091008.html">here.
j7uy5 | September 12, 2008There have already been several posts about
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091100263.html">hurricane
Ike on Scienceblogs (
href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/09/ike_texas.php">1
href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/09/ike_friday_pm_texas_as_categor.php">2
href="http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2008/09/hurricane_ike_storm_surge_in_p.php">3
href="http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2008/09/hurricanes_bad_scenarios.php">4
href="http://scienceblogs.com/deepseanews/2008/09/hurricane_websites_getting_coo.php"…
j7uy5 | September 11, 2008Geophysicists have
href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/whoi-m2e091008.php">issued
a warning, that the May earthquake in China has increased the
risk of a follow-up quake.
Geophysicists used computer models to calculate the
changes in stress along the Xianshuihe, Kunlun, and Min Jiang
faults—strike-slip faults like the San
Andreas—which lie about 150 to 450 kilometers (90 to 280
miles) from the Longmen Shan rupture that caused the devastating quake.
The research team also examined seismic activity in the region over the
past decade.
They found that the May 12 event…
j7uy5 | September 10, 2008Probably everyone has seen it by now, but the NYT has a headline about
the "culture of ethical failure" at the Department of the Interior.
In a way it is not news; I, among others,
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2006/08/culture_of_corruption_part_ii.php">wrote
about it two years ago.
Back then, I referred to it as a culture of corruption. Now,
the
department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, has expanded
that.
Instead of a culture of corruption, it is now a culture of complete
ethical failure. Corruption is only part of it.
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/…
j7uy5 | September 8, 2008Toward the end of last week, the
href="http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gHs5OM3gFG_DytQQZFbWfgPT08MAD9303VJ01">US
stock market declined precipitously. Within the
space of a few days, we learned that
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/business/economy/06econ.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all">unemployment
is way up, more than
href="http://www.housingwire.com/2008/09/05/prime-arms-set-tone-for-troubled-mortgages-in-q2-mba/">nine
percent of U.S. mortgages were delinquent or in foreclosure,
the
href="http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/…
j7uy5 | September 7, 2008One of the controversies about VP candidate Sarah Palin has to do with
the sale of the gubernatorial jet. She attempts to bolster
her claim, that she is a fiscal conservative, by saying that she sold
the State's jet, claiming it was an unnecessary expense.
She sold the 2.7 million dollar jet for 2.1 million.
She sold it to one of her campaign contributors.
Pretty good deal for the contributor.
Angry Bear
href="http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2008/09/palins-plane-and-mccains-fuzzy-math.html">describes
the controversy. This reminds me of two things, one
trivial, the other potentially…
j7uy5 | September 3, 2008
href="http://www.researchblogging.org">
alt="ResearchBlogging.org"
src="http://www.researchblogging.org/public/citation_icons/rb2_large_gray.png"
style="border: 0pt none ;">
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_brain_stimulation"
rel="tag">Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) currently
is under investigation for treatment of sever, treatment-resistant
depression (TRD). It is not really news. I
href="http://trots.blogspot.com/2005/03/implantable-devices-for-major.html">wrote
about it in 2005. The background information in the
earlier post still is pertinent, so I won't…
j7uy5 | September 2, 2008Within the past year, public sentiment has shifted. It has
been changing slowly, but steadily. Sometime in the past
year, it
reached the crossover point. Now there is a simple majority
who think that religious groups should stay out of politics.
From the Pew
Research Center for the People & the Press
class="l">:
alt="" title="click"
src="http://people-press.org/reports/images/445-1.gif"
border="0" height="288" width="285">
href="http://people-press.org/report/445/religion-politics">More
Americans Question Religion's Role In Politics
Some Social Conservative…
j7uy5 | September 1, 2008First, I learn that sheriffs in Minneapolis are engaging in
href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/30/police_raids/index.html">preemptive
detention of persons suspected of planning protests.
Then I learn that the Federal government
href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/31/raids/index.html">is
involved. Then I learn that the FBI was recruiting
informants (plants) to, among other things,
href="http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/05/21/in-minneapolis-vegan-terrorist/">attend
vegan potlucks.
Imagine that, the FBI sending a plant to a vegan
potluck…
j7uy5 | August 31, 2008Many denture adhesive creams contain zinc. This has always
been known. The zinc is harmless, or so we thought.
The problem is thought to be rare. The peculiar thing about
this finding is that no amount of safety testing on the zinc itself
could have detected the problem. That's because the problem
does not come directly from zinc. Rather, is in the effect
that zinc has upon the absorption of copper.
From a recent issue of Neurology ($ for full access):
href="http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/abstract/71/9/639">Denture
cream
An unusual source of excess zinc, leading to…
j7uy5 | August 30, 2008McCain has explained his choice of running mate, saying it will "shake
up the status quo in Washington."
It's time for a fact check, comparing Palin to the status quo...
width="480">
FEATURE
CHENEY
PALIN
Anti-environment
Yes
Yes
Anti-science
Yes
Yes
Oil Industry
Supports
Supports
Foreign
Policy expertise
None
None
Military
Experience
None
None
Shoots people in face
Yes
Unknown
Qualified to be President
No: bad heart
No: bad grammar
Miss Congeniality
Not quite
Yes
Anti-abortion
Yes
Yes
Right, a proponent of oil companies in the White House.
That's sure to shake…