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Ever 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…

No, 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…

This 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/…

USNORTHCOM 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…

The 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,…

A 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…

Within 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…

One 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…

As 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…

Here 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 (…

There 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/…

Geophysicists 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…

Probably 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…

Toward 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…

One 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…

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…

Within 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…

First, 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/…

Many 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…

McCain 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…

JAMA has an article on the history of continuing medical education (CME).  Annoyingly, they did not make it one of the open-access articles, so they don't get a link.  However, there are some telling excerpts and some good commentary over at href="http://carlatpsychiatry.blogspot.com/2008/08/new-…

href="http://www.blackboxvoting.org/">Black Box Voting has sent out emails, suggesting that technologically-astute persons consider signing up for temporary tech support jobs, to provide support for the election process.  Oddly, the message is not on the front page of their website, but href…

Speaking of art, Rodger Payne has a href="http://rpayne.blogspot.com/2008/08/hypocrisy-watch-georgia-edition.html">beautiful post highlighting the hypocrisy of the US Government's responses to Russia's actions in Georgia.  

There have been many collections and compendia of artistic works by persons with psychiatric illness.  They are interesting.  In fact, it was a chance encounter with such a book that first got me interested in psychology. Thre is a story there, which I won't tell here, other than to say that it is…

Republicans see that they are losing on this issue, so they just make the issue go away: href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/21/AR2008082100310.html">U.S., Iraqi Negotiators Agree on 2011 Withdrawal Withdrawal from Iaq is one of Obama's stronger points.  So it…

Just in case you thought you were having a good day, here is a href="http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BOGNONBR?cid=123">graph from the Fed that shows how much money the banks have: Don't panic.  The final number is from 1 July 2008.  I'm sure they've fixed the problem by now. HT…

In the late '60's - early '70's, is was commonplace for bands to write songs that were utterly meaningless, then pass them off as great works of art.  The products of pure genius.   I head one such song on the way home from work: href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Horse_with_No_Name">A…

href="http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/huntington/huntington.htm" rel="tag">Huntington's Disease is a serious, progressive disease that involves degeneration of part of the brain.  In particular, there is loss of neurons and development of gliosis in the striatum.  The disease is named…

This seems very odd.  The Internet -- including web sites and email -- has been found to have a very serious security flaw.  Civilized places such as Sweden and Puerto Rico are already fixing the problem.  There are plans to improve security for US .gov and .mil sites (government and military ,…

I am wondering if the USA, as a whole, is more prosperous now that it was in 2000.   We are told that the GDP has gone up every year.  Population growth has been modest.  The published per-capita GDP has gone up, from $33,000 to $46,000 (as of 1 January 2008).  That seems positive... From CIA…