Monday, September 6th, 2010
Stephan: Physicians dating back to the Viet Nam era, when SR reader Harvard-trained MD Rick Ingrasci began to work with psycho-active formularies, have known this class of drugs helps individuals suffering from PTSD. But our insane drug policy brought this line of research and therapy to a brutal halt, causing untold suffering, and who knows how many suicides. And even now, when once again their effectiveness is being demonstrated, there is enormous resistance to following a rational policy when it comes to psycho-actives.
A pair of psychiatric experts think they’ve got the answer to the soaring number of troops coming back from war with PTSD: have them undergo intensive psychotherapy – while they’re rolling on ecstasy.
Dr. Michael Mithoefer and Anne Mithoefer, a psychiatric nurse, are the South Carolina pair who’ve been spearheading research into ecstasy, known clinically as MDMA, since 2000. After one successful study on 21 PTSD patients between 2004 and 2008, they’ve now received the final okay from FDA and DEA officials to start a study entirely devoted to former military service members.
‘My sense is that, especially after we published the results of the first study, these institutions are more open to the idea,
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Monday, September 6th, 2010
JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ, PHD and LINDA J. BILMES, PHD, - The Washington Post
Stephan: This is what George Bush, Dick Cheney, and their merry band of triumphalist neo-conversative nutbags did to America. That even more right wing candidates are currently running, whom many feel will win their races, ought to give you cause for alarm. Theses people see the world through the prism of ideology, which has little relevance to reality.
Joseph E. Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University, was chairman of President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers and winner of the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001. Linda J. Bilmes is the Daniel Patrick Moynihan senior lecturer in public policy at Harvard University. They are co-authors of 'The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict.'
Writing in these pages in early 2008, we put the total cost to the United States of the Iraq war at $3 trillion. This price tag dwarfed previous estimates, including the Bush administration’s 2003 projections of a $50 billion to $60 billion war.
But today, as the United States ends combat in Iraq, it appears that our $3 trillion estimate (which accounted for both government expenses and the war’s broader impact on the U.S. economy) was, if anything, too low. For example, the cost of diagnosing, treating and compensating disabled veterans has proved higher than we expected.
Moreover, two years on, it has become clear to us that our estimate did not capture what may have been the conflict’s most sobering expenses: those in the category of ‘might have beens,’ or what economists call opportunity costs. For instance, many have wondered aloud whether, absent the Iraq invasion, we would still be stuck in Afghanistan. And this is not the only ‘what if’ worth contemplating. We might also ask: If not for the war in Iraq, would oil prices have risen so rapidly? Would the federal debt be so high? Would the economic crisis have been so severe?
The answer to all four of […]
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Monday, September 6th, 2010
Stephan: This is the second major piece in a popular magazine in less than a week addressing quantum mechanics and consciousness. When a subject like this begins appearing frequently in the popular press it is because it is reaching consensus in the scientific community.
Jeff Tollaksen may well believe he was destined to be here at this point in time. We’re on a boat in the Atlantic, and it’s not a pleasant trip. The torrential rain obscures the otherwise majestic backdrop of the volcanic Azorean islands, and the choppy waters are causing the boat to lurch. The rough sea has little effect on Tollaksen, barely bringing color to his Nordic complexion. This is second nature to him; he grew up around boats. Everyone would agree that events in his past have prepared him for today’s excursion. But Tollaksen and his colleagues are investigating a far stranger possibility: It may be not only his past that has led him here today, but his future as well.
Tollaksen’s group is looking into the notion that time might flow backward, allowing the future to influence the past. By extension, the universe might have a destiny that reaches back and conspires with the past to bring the present into view. On a cosmic scale, this idea could help explain how life arose in the universe against tremendous odds. On a personal scale, it may make us question whether fate is pulling us forward and whether we have free will.
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Monday, September 6th, 2010
Stephan: The comments section, which has not been working properly since SR was hacked, has now been repaired and you are free to leave comments.
-- Stephan
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Monday, September 6th, 2010
Stephan: It is impossible to make a country function from the outside. Only the people who make up that nation, through their collective will, can create a government that works. My prediction is that within three years an authoritarian party and leader will emerge in Iraq, much as rules in all the other Muslim countries in this part of the world. By then all we will have achieved through the Iraq war will be to make Iran a nuclear power and the 600-pound guerrilla of the region. And not a single one of the neo-conservatives -- in my opinion war criminals -- will have suffered any consequence for what they have wrought.
US troops have been called in to help Iraqi forces battle insurgents who attacked an army base in Baghdad, killing 12 people, officials say.
It marks the first such use of US troops since the end of US combat operations five days ago.
US forces remaining in Iraq can now only participate in operations at the request of Iraqi authorities.
A US military spokesman said US forces had provided fired as Iraqis located two of the assailants inside the base.
The BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse in Baghdad says reports from the scene are still confused, but piecing together events from different sources, the attack seems to have involved at least five bombers.
He says one of the bombers detonated his explosives at an outer checkpoint leading to the Rusafa military command headquarters, blowing up a mini-van.
Then, four men – some wearing suicide vests – ran towards the base. Two were reportedly shot dead before they could pass a second checkpoint.
An Iraqi officer at the scene told the BBC that two further bombers got into the base, taking refuge inside the building, and attacking security forces with hand grenades.
The same officer said that US forces were called in to help, and exchanged gunfire with the attackers before […]
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