Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015
Sarah Shourd , - The Daily Beast
Stephan: We run the world's largest gulag, and have the largest incarceration rate of any country in the world. Nothing to be proud of. And then there is this.
Credit: Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office/AP
After a half-decade and a mandate by the U.N. to investigate solitary confinement practices, U.N. torture rapporteur Juan Mendez had to find a backdoor into an American jail. Today, his findings are released in a report.
In 2010, Juan Mendez was appointed Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Degrading and Inhumane Treatment by the United Nations. His mandate is wide in size and scope—to expose and document torture wherever it exists on the planet today.Since the beginning of his mandate Mendez has made criticizing the overuse of solitary confinement a priority. In 2011, he issued a report stating that 22 or 23 hours a day alone in a prison cell for more than 15 days at a time can cause permanent, lasting psychological damage and can constitute torture.This problem, he emphasized, is particularly severe in the U.S., where prisoners are routinely held under such conditions for months, years and even decades at a time. Many have never committed a violent […]
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Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015
Eryn Brown, Reporter - Los Angeles Times
Stephan: This is not good news. And it doesn't address why this trend is going the way it is. But one thing is clear, breast cancer is increasing enormously.
• Increase in U.S. breast cancer cases will present ‘a huge challenge’ to medical providers, researcher says
• Number of new breast cancer cases in U.S. estimated to increase from 283,000 in 2011 to 441,000 in 2030
New breast cancer cases in the U.S. are forecast to rise by as much as 50% by 2030, government researchers reported Monday.( emphasis added)
Different subtypes of breast cancer are moving in different directions and on different trajectories. – Philip S. Rosenberg, National Cancer Institute’s division of cancer epidemiology and genetics
But while the surge in cases will pose “a huge challenge” to medical providers over the coming decades, coauthor Philip S. Rosenberg, of the National Cancer Institute said, the data also revealed “one silver lining”: lower incidence of the subtype known as estrogen-receptor-negative breast cancers, including difficult-to-treat HER2-positive and triple-negative types.
“Although breast cancer overall is going to increase, different subtypes of breast cancer are moving in different directions and on different trajectories,” Rosenberg said in a statement.
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What are the options for the age 70-84 group? Will palliative care and hospice be expanded? Do doctors or the government or whoever really think that most women in this age range will want chemotherapy or other painful remedies? […]
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Tuesday, April 21st, 2015
Agencé France-Presse, - The Raw Story
Stephan: When you hear people say that the U.S. created ISIS you may wonder is this just political hyperbole, or is it an actual fact? It's an actual fact, and here is one of the reasons it is true. This sad tale recounts how the utter incompetence of Paul Bremer, who was the leader chosen by the Bush-Cheney Administration to run Iraq after the occupation began, set ISIS in motion.
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants waving the trademark Jihadist flag on the Syrian-Iraqi border
Credit: Agencé France-Presse
An ex-intelligence officer under the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was “the strategic head” behind the Islamic State group and drew up the blueprints for the jihadists’ capture of northern Syria, German weekly Der Spiegel reported Sunday.
Former colonel Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi, who was better known as Haji Bakr and was killed by Syrian rebels in January 2014, “had been secretly pulling the strings at IS for years”, according to the magazine.
The weekly said it had been given exclusive access to 31 documents by Bakr, including handwritten lists and charts, after lengthy negotiations with a rebel group in Aleppo, northern Syria, which came in possession of the pages after IS fled the area.
The trove “was nothing less than a blueprint for a takeover”, according to Spiegel, detailing the creation of a caliphate in northern […]
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Tuesday, April 21st, 2015
Robert Faturechi, ProPublica, and Jonathan Stray, special to ProPublica, - Pro Publica
Stephan: Five years ago, with the decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, five aging Rightist ideologues -- Chief Justice Roberts, and Associate Justices Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, essentially ended democracy for 317 million Americans, at least as it was conceived by the Founders, and laid the legal groundwork for transforming America openly and legally into an oligarchy.
Here is where matters stand today. Essentially we now have a small group of billionaires who finance and buy U.S. elections. They don't even bother to put a happy face on it. As a result much of the 2016 election will be nothing more than Kabuki theater.
Credit: Shutterstock
The wealthiest Americans can fly on their own jets, live in gated compounds and watch movies in their own theaters.
More of them also are walling off their political contributions from other big and small players.
A growing number of political committees known as super PACs have become instruments of single donors, according to a ProPublica analysis of federal records. During the 2014 election cycle, $113 million – 16 percent of money raised by all super PACs – went to committees dominated by one donor. That was quadruple their 2012 share. (emphasis added)
The rise of single-donor groups is a new example of how changes in campaign finance law are giving outsized influence to a handful of funders.
The trend may continue into 2016. Last week, National Review reported that Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination would be boosted not by one anointed super PAC but four, each controlled by a single donor or donor family.
The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United […]
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Tuesday, April 21st, 2015
Richard Ingram, - Agence France-Presse (France)
Stephan: Yet more research on meditation/mindfulness. In this report the research shows you would do as well developing the daily discipline of meditation/mindfulness as you would taking anti-depressant medication. And you wouldn't suffer from the many side-affects associated with these drugs, most of which are no better than placebos anyway. If depression is an issue for you, or someone you care about, I recommend you consider this option.
A form of mental training which helps people recognise the onset of depression, and control it, works as well as anti-depressants in preventing relapse, researchers said Monday.
Credit: Agencé France-Presse
PARIS — A form of mental training which helps people recognise the onset of depression, and control it, works as well as anti-depressants in preventing relapse, researchers said Monday.
Dubbed Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), the method may offer a welcome alternative for people wishing to avoid long-term use of anti-depressants, which can have unpleasant side effects like insomnia, constipation and sexual problems, said a study in The Lancet medical journal.
In a two-year trial with 424 depression sufferers in England, researchers found that MBCT users faced a “similar” risk of relapse to those on anti-depressants.
The method was not more effective than drugs, as many had hoped, but the findings nevertheless suggested “a new choice for the millions […]
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