That's great that you found a medication that works. Really, I mean that. I'm a big fan of "whatever works" when it comes to mental health -- although there are some extremely unethical goings on with pharmaceutical companies and the FDA, readily spelled out in this brief piece. I especially like that the FDA man has a fundamental misunderstanding of basic statistics -- and then said it was basic statistics. Facepalm!

Data are data, and anecdotes are anecdotes. And with anecdotes, there is a distinct lack of control over extraneous variables.

Also, at the end of the report, and in the companion piece, they state explicitly that you should not stop taking your anti-depressants.

I encourage you to look further into this story and the science behind it, rather than dismissing it simply because it doesn't match your experience.

>> ^DuoJet:

This is total, f cking, bullsh t. I tried a number of different medications before I found the right one for me. Some of the medications I tried did nothing, some caused unwanted side effects, only one got me where I wanted to be.
For me the difference has not been modest, but life-changing.
Friends have described the similar experiences.
Do not stop taking your anti-depressants based on this report.

This is total, f*cking, bullsh*t. I tried a number of different medications before I found the right one for me. Some of the medications I tried did nothing, some caused unwanted side effects, only one got me where I wanted to be.

For me the difference has not been modest, but life-changing.

Friends have described the similar experiences.

Do not stop taking your anti-depressants based on this report.

Why the double standard with climate change?

Surely you don't consider those the same thing?

Toxicity is pretty simple. You run a test feeding creatures cyanide, and they always die if you give them enough.

By comparison, climate change involves interdependent processes that span virtually every branch of known science. I work in an academic environment and have seen what frequently comes out of inter-disciplinary studies. It comes out with stuff like the first link I gave above. Some climate guys who aren't very good with math go ahead and use a misapply a statistical method. That misuse is KNOWN and EXPECTED to give a falsely zero-biased result in the situation the climatologists misapplied. The climatologists then unknowingly went ahead and declared the zero-biased results they received as unique and important evidence that past climate change had little variance from zero. The reality, as evidenced in the article I linked, shows that the truth of the matter is that much better statistical methods exist for the application, and when they were applied by the climatologists, low and behold the historic variation leapt up, so much so as to make the last 100 years no longer look anything like the anomaly they did before.

With climate change there are a million variations and possibilities. The most important question to answer is just how imminent and severe are the effects we are facing. The most straight forward test is the one that Mann et al wowed the IPCC and the world with, showing that the temperature change over the last 100 years was unlike anything in the last 2 thousand. It turns out though that in truth, Mann's original results were an artifact not of human emissions, but of human error in math. Mann's new results show that the earth has been as warm as today multiple times over the last 2k years, and that in that time temperature has previously dropped just as fast as it rose in the last hundred.


As to what to do with unknowns, it still depends on the assumptions you come in with. What percentage do you want to lower emissions by? How much of a difference will that make to future temperature? What is the cost of lowering emissions by that much? What are the costs of dealing the increased temperature instead?

It's not a simply problem with some easy logical answer that is independent of those questions. What's worse, is now those questions not only span scientific fields, but they bleed over into economics and political science as well.

Your assessment before marks the cost of lowering CO2 emissions as moderate and the costs of not lowering them as potential huge. If the cost of lowering CO2 emissions is to be kept moderate, it means not lowering them by very much or not lowering them very quickly. Either way, it means if the effects of CO2 are drastic, we are STILL going to have to adapt significantly in addition to the money spent on reducing emissions. It sounds to me like just a variation on my own suggestion to be honest. A modest investment in battery and nuclear infrastructure, and adapt accordingly with the impacts that doesn't cover or accommodate. The most dire and immediate adaptations are ones that need to be made anyways, so I again don't see the risk as severe as others claim. It's not as though New Orleans was all peachy and good until things got warmer. A city on the coast below sea level, or islands a few feet above sea level could use a lot of dollars spent on adaptation even if we lowered emissions to the point of lowering sea levels by a foot.

>> ^oritteropo:

Does he touch on what led to the gathering arms and subsequent storming of the Bastille? I read a book on the forbidden literature of pre-revolutionary France, and one of the opinions on the Revolution passed on by the author was that at the decision to storm the Bastille, the terror was already a foregone conclusion.
>> ^Ornthoron:
I just finished this book about the French Revolution. [...] lays out the important events during the 12 year period between the fall of the Bastille and [...]



I expressed myself a bit unclear: The book starts of course with some background and overview of the general condition of french society before 1789. The first big event described is not the fall of the Bastille, but the Day Of The Tennis Court Oath at Versaille, one month earlier. What struck me as I read the book was how it was not really a people's revolution, but a conflict between the bourgoise on one side and the nobility and clergy on the other.

Like so many other events during the revolution, the storming of the Bastille was not really one decision; it was merely a modest confrontation that escalated out of control due to miscommunication. As such it is a good metaphor for the revolution as a whole, which started out relatively moderate and in cooperation with the king, and subsequently was taken over by more and more radical voices culminating in the Days of Terror, after which there was a backlash to more conservative policies again. I wouldn't say The Terror was a foregone conclusion, but it did seem to me that the revolution took on some kind of life of its own and started on a slippery slide outside of any one person's imagination.

Requiring the application of historical standards to fascism is like claiming a country that allows women to vote isn't a real democracy. How the athenians did things, or how the italians did things shouldn't matter to us; we live in the real world, not the past.

I can't allow comparative politics. Whether other states are more or less militaristic, more or less authoritarian than the US doesn't concern us. Let's look at what it actually is.

The US is smotheringly authoritarian. Try walking down the street without modestly covering your genitalia, try openly using unapproved drugs. Obama believes the state owns your body chemistry, and has the sole authority to decide how you may or may not alter it. This is one of the most authoritarian principles imaginable.

The US overflows with militaristic sentiment - everywhere there is glorification of the armed forces. Politicians regularly campaign on US military strength. Military culture indoctrinates recruits to believe those who haven't served aren't real citizens, ask them, they'll tell you.

All language is metaphor (this is literally true). I don't have a particular grudge against fascists; it's any authoritarian or tribalist I hate. I'm going to continue to refer to modern political figures as fascists, because the term does fit and because the associations it produces are fitting.

I love the way he says in modest understatement that it's very rare, as though it's some sort of expert observation about canines rather than plain common sense.

Let's compare her salary/contract value to John Bennett's modest earnings as executive director of Sierra Club -- who is making a killing here?

I should have clarified. The absolute definition of "millionaire" would describe anyone whose net worth is greater than $999,999.99. Many people who have barely over the $1,000,000 threshold lead rather reasonable lives, as in they don't drive Lamborghinis or own private islands or have yachts.

The frugality of millionaires (and multi-millionaires) is explored and discussed in the book The Millionaire Next Door (first chapter available here), in which the authors Stanley and Danko collected data from a sample of 1100 millionaires and multi-millionaires. They apparently found common threads of "wealth accumulation" that allows people with strong salaries to put themselves over that million-dollar threshold over the course of years of saving and frugal living.

The short of it being that the vast majority of modest millionaires are not amoral hedge fund managers who lord his or her wealth over the hoi polloi. They're fastidious, industrious workers who have full-time jobs like me, although they typically get paid more (doctors, lawyers, etc.), have families and homes, and save a lot.

>> ^00Scud00:

>> ^HaricotVert:
It bears mentioning that most millionaires live very frugal lives themselves, anyhow.
I don't suppose you can cite any credible sources for that statement, and while we're at it, what's your definition of "frugal"?

>> ^cosmovitelli:

I read your stuff Yogi!
FWIW Involving the US in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan is all about money and power. Oil, minerals, rate earth shit etc etc.
In Iran they got rid of a benevolent democratically elected progressive who tried to return the oil wealth of the country to its people and replaced him with a foreign sponsored greedy foolish puppet.
When it swung back the other way the clerics took over. Doh!
They used Afghanistan as a proxy war with the soviets, training the mujahideen / aka Taliban fighters in improvised explosives, insurgency warfare and basically how to fuck up a mechanised invading army. Then they invaded. Doh!
In Iraq they supported Saddam despite his demented paranoid savagery until the Iraqi oilfields became too tasty to ignore.
Duck Cheney said it couldn't be done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I&sns=em
But they upped his end via massive Haliburton projects and installed a puppet moron to keep blaming Iraq for the Saudi attacks on 9/11.
Then they invaded, killing thousands of civilians, and dismantled the police and social services while fucking up the food and water supply. Just for good measure they disbanded the army and sent 375,000 heavily armed young men off to find food for their own families. Doh!
Never mind about panama, chile, Vietnam, Cuba, Russia, Pakistan etc etc.


I'd pretty much agree with your facts. I'm a little less sure on your point.

America helped train and support the Islamic fighter in Afghanistan to chase out the Soviets. America supported Saddam while he was using chemical weapons against Iran and even Iraqi Kurds. America propped up a strong man of their choosing in Iran which backfired and led to the current theocracy.

You needn't look far or very hard to find examples where almost any and every nation has selfishly done very bad things, or things with terrible consequences. America, Russia and China being such large nations, the examples for them are much bigger and numerous. It makes for great propaganda, and all 3 continually make heavy use of it to tarnish each other. America is characterized by the genocide of native americans and Vietnam, Russia by Stalin and China by Mao. It's great propaganda, but it's not insightful or helpful analysis.

Pretend you get be President when Bush Jr. was president. America's narrow self interests are being threatened by terrorism. Bin Laden has extremely close ties with Islamists not only in Afghanistan, but throughout nuclear armed Pakistan. AQ Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, is going around selling nuclear secrets and equipment to the highest bidder. That's an uncomfortably short path from Pakistan's nuclear arsenal to the hands of a very credible terrorist network. Do you demand Pakistan break it's ties with the Taliban, or just let it slide? Do you demand the Afghan Taliban break ties with Al Qaeda, or just let it slide? I think selfish American interest DID dictate making those two demands, and being willing to launch a war if they were refused.

I think that is a strong argument that the Afghan war was indeed a good thing from the perspective of America's narrow self-interest.

What about the Afghan people though? Their self interest depends on what the end game is, and nobody can predict that. What we DO know is that the formerly ruling Taliban hated women's rights, and we fought against them. What we DO know is that the formerly ruling Taliban burnt off more of Afghanistan's vineyards than even the Russians had, because making wine was anathema to their cult. What we DO know is that the Taliban was one of the most brutal, backwards and hateful organizations around.

I can not say that the Afghan war ensured a better future for Afghanistan's people. What I CAN say is that leaving the Taliban in power in Afghanistan ensured a dark, bleak and miserable future for Afghanistan's people. I would modestly propose that a chance at something better was a good thing.

Good luck on the revolution front. Not only do we need a new foundation on how we deal with corporations, police, military, science, religion/state, prisons, health-care, lawmaking, politics, policy foreign/domestic, executive functions state or country, emergency response systems, logistics roads/bridges/railroad, infrastructure, welfare and societal needs, energy, money/goods, trade, etc...

Like he said, we need a new foundation on our psychology. What we teach our children is bunk, it will make the majority of them happy for a few fleeting moments and unhappy the rest of their lives. We need to find a new foundation to help find happiness for everyone for the majority of their entire life--without resorting to competition and instead combining our strengths and creating a great community.

I'd wager the closest you'll get is to literally do education completely different than what we do now. Start at an early age and give the children a glimpse of ALL trades to be used and learned in the world. Over time find what they excel at and LIKE doing and help them achieve their goal in that field. Then continually narrow the field as they get older so they can truly become a master at something, like a chemical engineer. Education would, graphically, look more like a giant plinko board that students slowly make their way down and filter themselves into the field THEY want. If we supported students all the way PASS college to the point they were job ready (and in fact you could perhaps harmonize corporations into the mix, so that when you get your degree not only have you most likely interned/researched at the place you will work gaining practical knowledge you are ready day one out of school to start a job you LOVE and excel at.

I know you'll get clumps and pools of people in places you may not have uses for them, but if we truly put our minds to it I bet we could find a way to still get the method to work (I know corporations won't necessarily do what I said except in--most likely-- the science fields, but having just a few large companies do it would help). Then if we lived a slower paced life, with more time off to OURSELVES than in slavery to someone else you might see a change in the overall attitude of our community and maybe civilization. Help people pay for modest houses and maybe even some furniture. Cover healthcare needs for each other, maybe even other social services as well. Tone the military down to a defensive one, one that can defend us, but can only truly become a real war machine like what happened in WWII.

Granted, there would be a lot to work out, but I highly doubt it's impossible to create a GREAT life here on this planet if we all work together to make it happen. Hell, we walked on the fucking moon! I know most of this will require not only leaps in science and with those leaps, hopefully ,soon, some of those bring about leaps in the psychology fields helping us to genetically weed out sociopaths, psychopaths, unipolar, bipolar, borderline, Asperger's, sever depression/anxiety, OCDs, addictions, etc... Plus with expanded bio-engineering, especially in genetics, if we could make sure people atleast have an IQ of say 120 (hell if you truly find the master switch--just turn it up), get rid of all genetic diseases and birth imperfections, rid us of deafness, blindness, baldness, etc... Then add in the advancements in bio-engineering on the mechanical, nanotechnological, electronics, and computers and we'll have one hell of a ride (of course if we haven't solved the psychological issues by then, we will almost certainly kill ourselves off). But, that stuff is 50 years away with some probably 150-200 years away. If we can help stabilize our humanity, through engineering and perfecting our psychology, I really believe we'll have a chance one day to see some sort of Utopian society.

Everything he talked about most likely leads to something that MIGHT be better than what we had. But, it won't be here in the U.S. and I doubt it'll even be in Asia (China, South Korea, and Japan). Europe, excluding the U.K. has a chance, with northern Europe having a better chance. You never quite know who history will choose next to bring the next big leap in progress to the human civilization.

/I didn't think I'd write something so long about that. Oh well, I just felt like sharing a little more optimistic view on what could happen to we humans.

I'll get the ball rolling with one of my favorite albums "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" by Modest Mouse.

I picked this album for this list specifically because I think this album shows a wide range of the sounds the band is capable of. There are other albums they have that are a bit more on the morose/twangy sounding spectrum that I enjoy more; but intermingled in each of those albums is a variety of songs that seem more like experimental tracks rather than part of the collective piece of work. This album of theirs, I think, represents their best mosaic where every track still fits snugly together and doesn't fight for control. It's a pretty safe album for me in terms of "I need music just pick something already!" So I hope you enjoy!

No. Title
1. "March into the Sea"
2. "Dashboard"

3. "Fire It Up"
4. "Florida"
5. "Parting of the Sensory"
6. "Missed the Boat"

7. "We've Got Everything"
8. "Fly Trapped in a Jar"
9. "Education"

10. "Little Motel"
11. "Steam Engenius"
12. "Spitting Venom"
<object width="420" height="25<a rel="nofollow" href="http://image.lyricspond.com/image/m/artist-modest-mouse/album-we-were-dead-before-the-ship-even-sank/cd-cover.jpg">Your text to link...">
13. "People as Places as People"
14. "Invisible"

>> ^hpqp:

Yay, maybe I'll be able to play this game in three years time, when I can afford a computer to run it. sighs


Mashiki is right. PC gaming today is nothing like what it was in the 90s-00s. The graphics requirements for PC games today are limited by the maximum of what the consoles (Playstation 3, Xbox 360) can do. Those consoles are several generations behind what even a modest PC can do. In short, you probably already can run Skyrim.

And you should.

>> ^hpqp:

I wholly agree that I detest these once atheists that have literally taken what is normally a balanced "naught" position as to God(s) existence barring evidence and instead these anti-theists ditch that stance and deem that not only is all religion a wash, but any God is as well. They're very "militant" in nature and seem to draw in those that are less secure about their own opinions; kind of like the Westboro Baptists. Unfortunately, they are also very pro-active, boisterous, and vitriolic in nature--worse of all they call themselves atheists still, giving the rest of us a bad rap.
Care to give some examples?



This is from our dear atheist, Christopher Hitchins. (I was fairly sure Hitchins was like this, but i couldn't remember specific points like you said; well i found a much better source for the matter: a small letter by him over this exact matter).

Christopher Hitchins little note (this drew some fire too it looks like when it came out):

------
You seem to have guessed, from some remarks I have already made in passing, that I am not a religious believer. In order to be absolutely honest, I should not leave you with the impression that I am part of the generalized agnosticism of our culture. I'm not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion I do not wish, as some sentimental agnostics affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually the case.

Why do I say that? Well, there may be people who wish to live their lives under a cradle-to-grave divine supervision; a permanent surveillance and [around the clock] monitoring [a celestial North Korea]. But I cannot [personally] imagine anything more horrible or grotesque. It would be worse, in a way, if the supervision was benign...

I think that this conviction does bear on the mental and moral resources that are necessary if one hopes to live [on the contrary, if one hopes to live in dissent or if one hopes to live] "as if" one were free. In a much-quoted reflection on America's original sin [of slavery], Thomas Jefferson said, "I tremble for my country when I remember that god is just." However, if there really was a god and he really was just, then there would be little enough for believers to tremble about; it would be a consolation that infinitely outweighed any imaginable earthly care.

I have met many brave men and women, morally superior to myself, whose courage in adversity derives from their faith. But whenever they have chosen to speak or write about it, I find myself appalled by the instant decline of their intellectual and moral standards. They want god on their side and they believe they are doing his work - what is this, even at it's very best, but an extreme form of solipsism? [In other words "don't mind me I'm just doing god's work, I'm very modest." A poor syllogism, or a very humble humility, is defined by them.] They proceed from conclusion to evidence; our greatest resource is the mind, and the mind is not well-trained by being taught to assume what has to be proved.

This arrogance and illogic is inseparable even from the meekest and most altruistic religious affirmations. A true believer must believe that he or she is here for a purpose and is an object of real interest to a Supreme Being; he or she must also claim to have at least an inkling of what that Supreme Being desires. I have been called arrogant myself in my time, and hope to earn the title again, but to claim that I am privy to the secrets of the universe and its creator - that's beyond my conceit. I therefore have no choice but to find something suspect even in the humblest believer, let alone in the great law-givers and edict-makers of whose "flock" (and what a revealing word that is) they form a part.
------------------------
It might sound provincial and (oh dear) Eurocentric to say this, but not even those of us who had taken the gloomiest view of the arms race and the Cold War had ever expected to see a full-dress reprise, in Europe, of internment camps, the mass murder of civilians, the reinstitution of torture and rape and deportation as acts of policy. This was the sort of thing we had read about from six decades before; some of us (including myself) had met and got to know some survivors of that period. And of course, in a recess of our minds we had played the imaginary game: what would I do about the knock on the door; how would I react if the neighbors were being marched off to the station?

That tired analogy turned out to be uncomfortably useful, because when all this ghastliness did get under way again, the political class in Europe and America behaved for the most part with the same wretched combination of complacency and complicity that it had exhibited when Fascism first came to call.
------

Here is one example. I do know that there are also a few more writers out there that are self-described, some not, ant-theists. Hopefully, this is the exact kind of thing you are looking for @hpqp . I'm just not terribly sure their ferocity over this right now is the right call. But, as I point out it certainly SHOULD be expected as many people in religion have done nothing, but callously call these once only atheists the living devil, the worst people alive, plus every demonic curse that can be called upon a person. Then they went further and threatened them with bodily harm; from individual members to actual leaders amongst these communities. Your house is vandalized and disgraced, your telephones ring non-stop to the rhythm of a religious battle hymn. These are things you wouldn't expect from good natured, Christ loving, religious people. I'm sure @shinyblurry will make sure it's known that these people are not Christians (and I would agree to an extent)--the problem with using this to literally sweep the whole problem under the carpet is that there is NO lesson learned. No one is harassed by the police as they should be or the media--it becomes a living nightmare to fight these people. Soon all you have left is to move out of town. But, in Christopher Hitchins example he is simply too famous to escape this.

what about the federal reserve and the 7 trillion created out of thin air! ive heard claims our country has been bankrupt since the depression... if they create money out of thin air at modest rates and loaned to banks (with the banks making a modest profit of.... 13 billion?) then how can our currency be honored? wars? i guess we can pretend for longer and go play skyrim! $60!

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

A person who spends a good deal of his time taking care of his body may find it slightly repulsive to pay for the care of someone whom has not taken care of himself, and perhaps rightly so.

But what's the real root of that objection? Is it that they think it'd be more helpful overall if there was also money going into programs designed to encourage people to take better care of themselves? Or is it just a fundamental rejection of the idea that they should bear any responsibility for other people?

The former I'm sympathetic to, the latter not so much.
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
For instance, if I were mad about jobs, the last thing I would do is OWS, I would instead seek to create a job fair.

Right, but job fairs don't fix anything if the problem is that you have more people who want a job than there are openings. It's not that we have 10 million job openings, and 10 million unemployed people, and all we need to do is help them find each other. The problem is that we've got 10 million unemployed, and barely 1 million openings (or maybe the ratio is even worse).

I suppose the unemployed could try giving each other jobs, but they don't really have any money to hire people -- that's why they're looking for jobs in the first place. And the people who do have money have been laying people off rather than hiring more people -- that's why we have so many unemployed people. And the people with money are doing that because their sales are down, and their sales are down because people don't have any money because they lost their jobs...

The people who're suffering need help from the people who aren't. And the people who aren't suffering are saying "don't blame us, blame yourselves," and generally lashing out at anyone who implies they have a moral obligation to help.

So of course there are protests. Hell, in the grand sweep of history, this kind of protest has rarely ended peacefully.

These people aren't just whining about having to pay taxes, they're incensed about having worked all their lives to get a modest amount of prosperity, and lost it all for reasons that were beyond their control. They're mad as hell and they're not gonna take it anymore.