Recent Posts
This is a little old, but still funny.
But maybe there's hope. Says an AP story out of Tampa, a dwarf named Dave Flood is suing to have Florida's anti-tossing law overturned. He appears on a radio show as Dave the Dwarf, and opines as follows:
"They assume because you have some physical handicap, you can't make decisions for yourself…I don't have a mental handicap. I don't like the government telling me what I can and cannot do."
A cell phone system for almost silent conversations
When those finally come out on the market, I am buying one for my mother.
This is a little old, but still funny.
"Predatory moralism." I like this term. I may have to start using it in everyday conversation.
"The reformers had discovered predatory moralism. It gave us Prohibition and organized crime. The focus shifted from helping the downtrodden to browbeating everyone else. Virtue is the instinctive weapon of the vaguely angry. They wield it like a cosh.
Woman charge for squirting breast milk at deputy.
Lobbyists pushing for ban on fake marijuana.
Cops kill man brandishing a toy gun. *
*the original (more confusing) headline can be found here.
*the original (more confusing) headline can be found here.
If a dead man were brandishing a gun, I'd probably shoot him too. The zombie apocalypse is a survivable scenario, but if you let them learn to use guns then all bets are off.
Woman crashes while shaving bikini line
I'm not sure which is worse: the fact that she was shaving her privates while driving, or that she was taking her ex-husband on a trip to see her boyfriend...or that she told him to take the wheel and he didn't respond with a resounding "Hell, no!"
My ex-congressman is kind of insane.
He's had hours to explain his choice on TV, and I'm still not following why he resigned.
"America, I have to shoot straight with you," Beck said at the conclusion of the interview. "I think we wasted your time."
In my defense, I moved into Massa's district immediately after the 2008 elections (during the campaign season I was living in the district now represented by Chris Lee). I think because of that, I never knew what a nutcase he is (I had never heard him speak or anything). I liked his politics well enough on paper, but with his recent news coverage, I was rather stunned to hear the way he rambles on.
Christian group pushing parents to beat their kids.
Fundamentalist Christian parents beat their child to death for mispronouncing word.
(Both articles pertain to the same case.)
Henry Rollins weighs in on various issues in Vanity Fair:
We're Gonna Have a Tea Party Tonight!
The Boys Who Cried "Fort Hood Terrorist"
Good News: The World Is Finally Flat
Ann Coulter, You'll Always Be My Fantasy Cougar
Darwinius Masillae, Won't You Come Out Tonight?
Some Would Rather Hate Than Switch
Misunderestimated Type A Personality, Enjoys Mountain Biking and Denial
How Couric "Trapped" Palin Into Being Honest
If Laughing at Tea Parties Is Wrong, I Don't Want to Be Right
Fundamentalist Christian parents beat their child to death for mispronouncing word.(Both articles pertain to the same case.)
I know it shouldn't matter, but I can't help but wonder what the word was.
How the HELL do you take Thomas Jefferson out of texts on the enlightenment? That's like making s'mores without the graham crackers. You just can't f$~*ing do it!
I wonder what L. Aron Nelson is going to have to say about this. He's definitely going to say something, and you KNOW it's going to be spot-on.
Newsweek: Studies suggest that SSRI-type antidepressants are less effective than placebos.
Psychiatric Times's rebuttal, featuring a classic straw-man argument.
*sigh* SSRI's. Always giving psychotropes a black eye and a bad name with a minimum of effort.
*sigh* SSRI's. Always giving psychotropes a black eye and a bad name with a minimum of effort.Newsweek: Studies suggest that SSRI-type antidepressants are less effective than placebos.
Psychiatric Times's rebuttal, featuring a classic straw-man argument.
I tell you, SSRIs have really f!@&ed me over. I've been over this on the boards before, but I had a couple of bad episodes when I was a kid, and rather than sending me to counseling (exactly what I needed), my doctors doped me up on Mellaril and Lithium (I ditched the Lithium almost immediately, and the Mellaril was eventually changed to Lexapro). A decade later, I have a severe dependence on SSRIs, plus permanent nerve damage. Oh, yeah, and I'm impotent. Thanks, doc.
That's why I feel the article is relevant. I found this passage to be particularly damning:
"...defenders of the drugs scoff at the idea that the FDA would have approved ineffective drugs. (Simple explanation: the FDA requires two well-designed clinical trials showing a drug is more effective than a placebo. That's two, period—even if many more studies show no such effectiveness. And the size of the "more effective" doesn't much matter, as long as it is statistically significant.)"
I sent those two articles to a friend of mine who is a statistician, and he was absolutely flabbergasted that they got away with that kind of shoddy testing.
*sigh* SSRI's. Always giving psychotropes a black eye and a bad name with a minimum of effort.Newsweek: Studies suggest that SSRI-type antidepressants are less effective than placebos.
Psychiatric Times's rebuttal, featuring a classic straw-man argument.
I tell you, SSRIs have really f&%*ed me over. I've been over this on the boards before, but I had a couple of bad episodes when I was a kid, and rather than sending me to counseling (exactly what I needed), my doctors doped me up on Mellaril and Lithium (I ditched the Lithium almost immediately, and the Mellaril was eventually changed to Lexapro). A decade later, I have a severe dependence on SSRIs, plus permanent nerve damage. Oh, yeah, and I'm impotent. Thanks, doc.
That's why I feel the article is relevant. I found this passage to be particularly damning:
"...defenders of the drugs scoff at the idea that the FDA would have approved ineffective drugs. (Simple explanation: the FDA requires two well-designed clinical trials showing a drug is more effective than a placebo. That's two, period—even if many more studies show no such effectiveness. And the size of the "more effective" doesn't much matter, as long as it is statistically significant.)"
I sent those two articles to a friend of mine who is a statistician, and he was absolutely flabbergasted that they got away with that kind of shoddy testing.
Why did you drop Lithium? Fear of kidney damage, it didn't work for you, or something else? Just curious.
And why is he so surprised about the FDA? They're okay at screening out potentially deadly side effects, but little else.
Why did you drop Lithium? Fear of kidney damage, it didn't work for you, or something else? Just curious.
And why is he so surprised about the FDA? They're okay at screening out potentially deadly side effects, but little else.
The Lithium turned me into a zombie. Being on it was like a constant out-of-body experience, not quite awake, not quite asleep.
As far as the FDA goes, he's the kind of guy who puts trust in institutions and rules. He's a statistician, after all.
Why did you drop Lithium? Fear of kidney damage, it didn't work for you, or something else? Just curious.
And why is he so surprised about the FDA? They're okay at screening out potentially deadly side effects, but little else.
The Lithium turned me into a zombie. Being on it was like a constant out-of-body experience, not quite awake, not quite asleep.
As far as the FDA goes, he's the kind of guy who puts trust in institutions and rules. He's a statistician, after all.
I'm really, really sorry about that first one. When lithium is the answer, it tends to work for many years before you need to find something else.
In terms of the FDA's statutes, there is something I vaguely remember from school that makes some sense. There are a LOT of people out there that the psychopharmacological industry have hurt. And many of these people are very, very smart(or sometimes just determined). If they had a bad experience and the FDA relied on a scale of more people proving a medication works than doesn't, this could cause a problem as people who were screwed over by medication get their degrees and make a career out of debunking various medications with side effects they don't like, which could be potentially devestating for those who rely upon that medication.
However, I do think there should be more than just two tests done to prove a medication "works", and I also think it should be done on a regular basis(at least once every 4 years).