COURT RYE, - Solar Power Authority
Stephan: There are a number of new solar technologies emerging; here's one I have been particularly following.
For the past decade, the popularity of solar energy has been growing rapidly worldwide. Most people have seen solar panels being installed on houses and businesses in their community, usually in the form of large silver rectangular panels spread out across a roof or other free-standing structures, such as a parking cover, or even a car
When it comes to choice, vanity almost always yields to functionality. A few companies such as SunPower have created all black solar panels that blend in a bit more than other models, but this doesn’t change the clunky look of the panels themselves. Fortunately, recent breakthroughs in thin-film design have lead to the more integrated approach offered by solar ‘shingles
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CONNOR GIBSON, - Nation of Change
Stephan: ALEC source of most of the legislative language for the 1,100 bills the Theocratic Right has introduced in the Congress and state legislatures to undercut the rights of women, and to deny same sex marriage also serves its funding master by crafting legislative language to protect old energy's commitment to Fracking. Here's how it works. And remember ALEC is just one such Rightist workshop.
Wake up and smell the frack fluid. But don’t ask what’s in it, at least not in Ohio, cause it’s still not your right to know.
Ohio is in the final stages of making an Exxon trojan horse on hydrofracking into state law, and it appears that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) connected Exxon’s lawyers with co-sponsors of Ohio Senate Bill 315: at least 33 of the 45 Ohio legislators who co-sponsored SB 315 are ALEC members, and language from portions of the state Senate bill is similar to ALEC’s ‘Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act.
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Stephan: The insanity and fundamental wrongness of the U.S. position on marijuana just becomes more and more obvious. It will be interesting to see how this study is dealt with; it represents a direct assault -- just as effective, fewer side effects, enormously less expensive -- on the pharmaceutical portion of the illness profit system. My prediction is they will try to ignore it, then try to suppress it.
A compound found in marijuana can treat schizophrenia as effectively as antipsychotic medications, with far fewer side effects, according to a preliminary clinical trial.
Researchers led by Markus Leweke of the University of Cologne in Germany studied 39 people with schizophrenia who were hospitalized for a psychotic episode. Nineteen patients were treated with amisulpride, an antipsychotic medication that is not approved in the U.S., but is comparable to other medications that are.
The rest of the patients were given cannabidiol (CBD), a substance found in marijuana that is thought to be responsible for some of its mellowing or anxiety-reducing effects. Unlike the main ingredient in marijuana, THC, which can produce psychotic reactions and may worsen schizophrenia, CBD has antipsychotic effects, according to previous research in both animals and humans.
Neither the patients nor the scientists knew who was getting which drug. At the end of the four-week trial, both groups showed significant clinical improvement in their schizophrenic symptoms, and there was no difference between those getting CBD or amisulpride.
‘The results were amazing,
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MARSHALL ALLEN, - ProPublica
Stephan: Here you see a perfect picture of how the illness profit system corrupts everything it touches, because only profit is primary. Health, if it follows which, thankfully, it often does is lovely. But it is not essential.
Since 2010, ProPublica reporters Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber have been investigating the influence of pharmaceutical companies on medicine. Their reporting exposed the financial ties between medical societies and drug and device makers, led to the tightening of conflict-of-interest policies at universities and ignited debate over these relationships.
We asked them to share some of their findings with our recently started Patient Harm Facebook community, and we are sharing it here as well.
1. How common is it for doctors to get money from drug companies?
Until recently, drug companies considered this a trade secret and didn’t release it, other than vague disclosures in lectures or medical journals. That changed a couple years ago as companies began settling federal whistleblower lawsuits (http://bit.ly/JQfalZ) alleging that companies unlawfully marketed their products for uses not allowed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
In 2011, a dozen drug companies released some information about their payments to doctors. Although they represent about 40 percent of U.S. prescription drug sales, there are dozens or hundreds of companies out there that have yet to disclose this information. These records show that hundreds of thousands of doctors receive money, meals and educational items to speak or consult on behalf of […]
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ABIGAIL PESTA, - The Daily Beast
Stephan: I think these women are wonderful. The male side of the church is defined by financial corruption and paedophilia, and its cover up, as well highly political anti-choice, anti-contraception, anti-LGBT lobbying programs. The female side, made institutionally subordinate, since Vatican II has transcended all that by doing what Jesus told Christians to do. They work amongst the poor and distressed. They make things better. They and the laity are the living church, and everyone can see this, and knows this, but the hierarchy. The Nuns of the Roman Catholic are an example of what beingness can achieve. (See: The Beingness Doctrine http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307%2807%2900416-8/fulltext )
American Catholic nuns issued a fiery response to recent Vatican claims that they are showing signs of ‘radical feminism
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