As I understand it, clinical depression is often caused by an imbalance in brain chemicals. My godfather is, in essence, the godfather of pharmacological anti-depressants. He's a brain chemist that discovered many of the chemicals in the brain back in the 70's-80's, and how they work with each other, particularly those involved in mood regulations. This eventually led to the development of pharmacological anti-depressants.
The real issue is, there's not ONE form of 'depression', not even one single biological form...there are many, and each comes in a range from barely perceptible to extreme. That makes proper diagnosis of which problem(s) one might have probably the MOST important step in treatment. Unfortunately, the diagnosis is usually precursory, and rarely involves actually testing the brain's chemical make up, meaning it's a crap shoot for the most part. Therapy can't help if you have a biologically caused depression, and drugs usually won't help if you have a non-biologically caused depression.
I only hope that diagnosis can catch up with treatment methods...and that treatment method continue to evolve themselves. Without both, many people have no chance of proper treatment/cure.

These people are most likely suffering from poorly developed / shrunken frontal lobes, leading to diminished impulse control. Possibly the result of a bad social environment during their formative years. Fortunately, the damage is in most cases reversible, with therapy, medication and gradual exposure to offending stimuli.

*This diagnosis has been brought to you by your friendly, neighbourhood sea urchin.

You are welcome to your opinion, no matter how wrong it is. ;-)

My dogs, and almost every dog I've ever known that doesn't have medical problems causing facial deformity or paralysis, DOES smile when happy. They also wag their tails. If you can't see emotion in a dog's face, I think you need serious therapy (or a new dog). It's clearly there to see.
You picked a cat (cats, who normally don't show much facial emotion) with a facial deformity to 'prove' your point that animals don't show emotion? OK, well, then lets look at Steven Hawking (or any severe facially paralyzed stroke victim)...he never shows emotion, so that proves that people don't smile either, right? That's how I read your argument.

And again....does this... :-) ...have a smile? But it's just a drawing and has no emotion to display...so how can it smile by your definition? It can smile because a smile is upturned mouth corners, and not necessarily an anthropomorphic display of emotion through facial muscles.
EDIT: Ascribing emotional content to a smile is how YOU INTERPRET the smile. The mouth shape IS the smile.

It may look to us like this gecko is HAPPY, but that's mostly because it's mouth is smiling. I think that's the argument you may want to be making instead of the 'animals don't smile' argument.

If men of GOD trip and fall, they're usually landing penis first in other men or children.
I loathe gay clergy not for staying in their closet of self-hatred, I loathe them for actively speaking out against their own nature and therefore making it harder for those who chose not to be liars.
I chose to discard the bible because of the immoral, unethical, cruel and simply made up stuff that's written in it. That should be reason enough.
I detest christian churches for supporting pedophilia and actively covering up pedophile's crimes while having the gall to tell me what I should or should not do sexually. I detest them for claiming the authority to make up rules of morality when they refuse to obey the rule of law and human decency. The Duggars are just a recent example of that.
The reason society won't allow sexual relationships with children is simply because we recognise that children aren't able to make informed choices regarding sexual consent. That's why the world frowned on Courtney Stodden and Doug Hutchinson, because everyone knew it was a shitty idea made by weird, creepy people.
Consent is something grown ups can give. And millions of gay men do it all the time, without your approval or not. All they want is equal treatment.
If pedophiles wanted that (and they did try in the past), we tell them to go fuck themselves because the people they want to, are simply too young to make that choice. There's a legal limit for drinking, driving and fucking and it's there for a reason.
If they claim "I was born this way!", which they often are, we tell them we have therapies for that. They don't go there because their sexuality is weird, out of the norm or gross, it's because it always hurts the other people involved. Always.

You are the one ranting "But what if you take away the rule book?! Goats will rape our children!" You seem to be the one worried that all goes Mad Max if we're not threatened with eternal damnation anymore.
I for one are not worried any place turns into Sodom and Gomorrah. You want to know why? Because I have all those gay, lesbian and transgender people to remind me that everybody deserves respect. They can walk up to me and start a conversation and don't have to worry I will yell "Abomination!" and start throwing my own poop.
Maybe I can learn something from their expirience. Maybe even somebody like you could. I hope somebody you truly love turns out to be gay, it would be quite educational for you to know what they know.
And you're right, I don't know anybody called Jack. I can only offer a Johannes but he was an idiot.

The Kryptonian Mind Raper, standard issue personal retcon. It's like an emp blastwave except that it gives everyone within a mile radius crippling anxiety and false memories of rape and/or molestation.

Now Superman can change wherever he likes and no one is gonna say shit. Just slinging his super dickery dock around whenever and where ever he pleases without fear. Like dad after the midlife crisis.

The sight of Superman causes the afflicted to obey all commands, urinate uncontrollably, and even with 100 years of therapy and behavioral analysis, they will NEVER betray his most secreted lifestyle as Clark Kent, mild mannered asexual prick.

It's really an awful technology but it's either that or Superman has to be Superman all the time. Or he has to locate a photobooth or retro arcade with the Jurassic Park machine -- Para Paradise might work, but he would have to mask his intent by flapping his arms around wildly.

$400+ seems crazy expensive for glasses that offer a pseudo cure.
I think I'll wait until they can inject the cure directly into my eyeballs.

I don't think your experience is the norm, that people abuse the system to get 2 years paid time off then leave the job/career that just paid them. They would certainly not get a glowing review from the ex-employer, and the new employer would have to hire them also knowing they've been on leave for 2 years (so would have no idea what advancements had been made in that time)...which seems unlikely, especially in todays employment environment where decent paying jobs are hard to find.

Like I said to bob, in a perfect world where people think ahead, are responsible, and plan financially and sexually, I would agree with you. Since we don't live in that world, your idea only creates more mal-adjusted, unsupervised children that we pay for later with high crime, therapy, lost productivity, etc. It's way cheaper to pay for a good outcome than it is to pay more later for the bad outcome....and you get a good outcome. No brainer to me.

We had a cloudless sky yesterday, so I managed to grab a book and get a few hours in the sun.

People were vehemently opposed to these policies in the past. But now they are starving in the camps, and they are just thinking about how to survive the next day – they don't have a place to sleep, they don't have a place to be, they have lost their source of income, they have no idea how they will feed themselves in the future. So it's in that situation that the government pushes ahead with this plan. When people recover, they will find out what had been decided, but by then the damage will already be done.

Sounds just like parts of Greece, but it's from Herman Kumara, head of Sri Lanka's National Fisheries Solidarity Movement. Their government eagerly seized the moment when a tsunami layed waste to significant parts of the coastland, pressing the local plebs into a situation where they can no longer provide resistance against plans to turn their land into a Mekka for the rich.

Basic shock therapy, as seen in numerous other countries before and after. Nothing new. But it's worth remembering these cases when looking at the financial waterboarding of Greece.

I can't speak to Canada's system, but I can weigh in on Medicare quality of care. My Grandmother, the woman who raised me, was diagnosed with lung cancer in her early 70's. Since I was helping to take care of her at the time, I got to see what I have to look forward to in my later life.

Consistently we had to wait for treatments to be approved and she was often delayed for patients that were not on Medicare. Additionally, every single therapy or quality of life aid was scrutinized beyond belief.

As an example, the doctor gave her a prescription for an oxygen tank and delivery system after they removed part of her lung that was not responding to chemo. Medicare refused to cover it without an 'oxygen saturation level test'. This 'test' was horrible. She had to try to breathe without the machine for multiple minutes, struggling and gasping for air. It was fucking brutal to watch, but the people that Medicare sent to verify didn't give a shit. They basically told me that if her saturation wasn't low enough after 15 minutes, she couldn't be covered for the machine. I couldn't take it, so I told them to fuck off out of her house and paid out of my own pocket for the rental.

These are just some examples, there were others before she died that made it quite clear that Medicare is not quality care. It's basically the bare minimum they have to give you to keep you alive. So this video comparing Canada's care to Medicare doesn't reassure me in the slightest and it's almost certainly an unfair comparison to their system. I can tell you I am dreading making the swap to Medicare in 20-25 years, let alone being forced into something similar sooner. As far as ACA, I don't really care. It's probably good for people who don't have good jobs or who are unemployed, but I will be more than happy to hang onto my extremely good insurance provided through my employment.

Mental health issue.

Meds and therapy will help him more than those rounds to the chest.

Ohhh.. the therapy he is going to need when he grows up, for years telling everyone he has video proof santa exhist.

@newtboy
told ya he was pissed.
i admire this mans passion.
in fact,i applaud it.

while i do not agree with his attack therapy tactics and do not subscribe to his over-all conclusions.i absolutely ADORE how he calls out the cognitive dissonance of the american voter.

because he is right.

how can you subscribe to a law that makes prostitution illegal,yet porn legal?
or the guy who deals crack or meth as being a criminal? yet opiates are,by far,the leading cause of death in regards to controlled substances.so who is the bigger criminal?

and what,exactly,IS a criminal?is it because the state says so?if you subscribe to that,then i am a criminal.

i found his condemnation of the christian church to be the most delicious.
jesus christ was an insurrectionist,a radical,a dissident and a dissenter.a zealot in the face of the powered elite.

so how can you fight a war of aggression in jesus christs name?
how can you state that god blesses america with over 2.4 million people incarcerated?or to categorize and demonize those who may be different i.e:gay,lesbian or atheist and yet still call yourself a christian?

i giggled with delight when he pointed out that the very same people who are championing those insurrectionists,dissidents and agitators of the past as somehow being representative of their morals and ethics,are the very same people they are demonizing today for breaking the rules.

this man is so pissed off and i love it.
he says things that will make conformists extremely uncomfortable,and we NEED to be a bit uncomfortable.if only to shake off the apathy and lethargy.

as for the taxes argument..meh..i dont subscribe to the "privatize everything" ,because some things should not be profit driven,but i also do not subscribe to the 'taxes pay for essential services",unless wars of aggression,corporate welfare and big-agribusiness subsidies are considered "essential".

our democracy is broken,our government dysfunctional and serves only to keep the balance of the status quo on top..and fuck the regular dude.

can you REALLY say your government represents you?
ok,go ahead and vote.here are your choices:chocolate or vanilla but both are made by hagen daaz.

you really should watch to the end..he just gets madder and madder.
truths can often be uncomfortable,but that never changes the fact that they are truths.

and goddamn i love your optimism! just cant share it on this issue,though if you could bottle it up i am betting you would make a fortune.

ill have three bottles of newt please...to go.