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National Institute of Mental Health abandoning the DSM Mind Hacks

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Sun, 05 May 2013 08:44

In a potentially seismic move, the National Institute of Mental Health '' the world's biggest mental health research funder, has announced only two weeks before the launch of the DSM-5 diagnostic manual that it will be ''re-orienting its research away from DSM categories''.

In the announcement, NIMH Director Thomas Insel says the DSM lacks validity and that ''patients with mental disorders deserve better''.

This is something that will make very uncomfortable reading for the American Psychiatric Association as they trumpet what they claim is the 'future of psychiatric diagnosis' only two weeks before it hits the shelves.

As a result the NIMH will now be preferentially funding research that does not stick to DSM categories:

Going forward, we will be supporting research projects that look across current categories '' or sub-divide current categories '' to begin to develop a better system. What does this mean for applicants? Clinical trials might study all patients in a mood clinic rather than those meeting strict major depressive disorder criteria. Studies of biomarkers for ''depression'' might begin by looking across many disorders with anhedonia or emotional appraisal bias or psychomotor retardation to understand the circuitry underlying these symptoms. What does this mean for patients? We are committed to new and better treatments, but we feel this will only happen by developing a more precise diagnostic system.

As an alternative approach, Insel suggests the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project, which aims to uncover what it sees as the 'component parts' of psychological dysregulation by understanding difficulties in terms of cognitive, neural and genetic differences.

For example, difficulties with regulating the arousal system might be equally as involved in generating anxiety in PTSD as generating manic states in bipolar disorder.

Of course, this 'component part' approach is already a large part of mental health research but the RDoC project aims to combine this into a system that allows these to be mapped out and integrated.

It's worth saying that this won't be changing how psychiatrists treat their patients any time soon. DSM-style disorders will still be the order of the day, not least because a great deal of the evidence for the effectiveness of medication is based on giving people standard diagnoses.

It is also true to say that RDoC is currently little more than a plan at the moment '' a bit like the Mars mission: you can see how it would be feasible but actually getting there seems a long way off. In fact, until now, the RDoC project has largely been considered to be an experimental project in thinking up alternative approaches.

The project was partly thought to be radical because it has many similarities to the approach taken by scientific critics of mainstream psychiatry who have argued for a symptom-based approach to understanding mental health difficulties that has often been rejected by the 'diagnoses represent distinct diseases' camp.

The NIMH has often been one of the most staunch supporters of the latter view, so the fact that it has put the RDoC front and centre is not only a slap in the face for the American Psychiatric Association and the DSM, it also heralds a massive change in how we might think of mental disorders in decades to come.

Link to NIMH announcement 'Transforming Diagnosis'.

NIMH · Transforming Diagnosis

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Fri, 03 May 2013 11:54

In a few weeks, the American Psychiatric Association will release its new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). This volume will tweak several current diagnostic categories, from autism spectrum disorders to mood disorders. While many of these changes have been contentious, the final product involves mostly modest alterations of the previous edition, based on new insights emerging from research since 1990 when DSM-IV was published. Sometimes this research recommended new categories (e.g., mood dysregulation disorder) or that previous categories could be dropped (e.g., Asperger's syndrome).1

The goal of this new manual, as with all previous editions, is to provide a common language for describing psychopathology. While DSM has been described as a ''Bible'' for the field, it is, at best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each. The strength of each of the editions of DSM has been ''reliability'' '' each edition has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity. Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure. In the rest of medicine, this would be equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain or the quality of fever. Indeed, symptom-based diagnosis, once common in other areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we have understood that symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment.

Patients with mental disorders deserve better. NIMH has launched the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project to transform diagnosis by incorporating genetics, imaging, cognitive science, and other levels of information to lay the foundation for a new classification system. Through a series of workshops over the past 18 months, we have tried to define several major categories for a new nosology (see below). This approach began with several assumptions:

A diagnostic approach based on the biology as well as the symptoms must not be constrained by the current DSM categories,Mental disorders are biological disorders involving brain circuits that implicate specific domains of cognition, emotion, or behavior,Each level of analysis needs to be understood across a dimension of function,Mapping the cognitive, circuit, and genetic aspects of mental disorders will yield new and better targets for treatment.It became immediately clear that we cannot design a system based on biomarkers or cognitive performance because we lack the data. In this sense, RDoC is a framework for collecting the data needed for a new nosology. But it is critical to realize that we cannot succeed if we use DSM categories as the ''gold standard.''2 The diagnostic system has to be based on the emerging research data, not on the current symptom-based categories. Imagine deciding that EKGs were not useful because many patients with chest pain did not have EKG changes. That is what we have been doing for decades when we reject a biomarker because it does not detect a DSM category. We need to begin collecting the genetic, imaging, physiologic, and cognitive data to see how all the data '' not just the symptoms '' cluster and how these clusters relate to treatment response.

That is why NIMH will be re-orienting its research away from DSM categories. Going forward, we will be supporting research projects that look across current categories '' or sub-divide current categories '' to begin to develop a better system. What does this mean for applicants? Clinical trials might study all patients in a mood clinic rather than those meeting strict major depressive disorder criteria. Studies of biomarkers for ''depression'' might begin by looking across many disorders with anhedonia or emotional appraisal bias or psychomotor retardation to understand the circuitry underlying these symptoms. What does this mean for patients? We are committed to new and better treatments, but we feel this will only happen by developing a more precise diagnostic system. The best reason to develop RDoC is to seek better outcomes.

RDoC, for now, is a research framework, not a clinical tool. This is a decade-long project that is just beginning. Many NIMH researchers, already stressed by budget cuts and tough competition for research funding, will not welcome this change. Some will see RDoC as an academic exercise divorced from clinical practice. But patients and families should welcome this change as a first step towards "precision medicine,'' the movement that has transformed cancer diagnosis and treatment. RDoC is nothing less than a plan to transform clinical practice by bringing a new generation of research to inform how we diagnose and treat mental disorders. As two eminent psychiatric geneticists recently concluded, ''At the end of the 19th century, it was logical to use a simple diagnostic approach that offered reasonable prognostic validity. At the beginning of the 21st century, we must set our sights higher.''3

The major RDoC research domains:

Negative Valence SystemsPositive Valence SystemsCognitive SystemsSystems for Social ProcessesArousal/Modulatory Systems

1Mental health: On the spectrum. Adam D. Nature. 2013 Apr 25;496(7446):416-8. doi: 10.1038/496416a. No abstract available. PMID: 23619674

2Why has it taken so long for biological psychiatry to develop clinical tests and what to do about it? Kapur S, Phillips AG, Insel TR. Mol Psychiatry. 2012 Dec;17(12):1174-9. doi: 10.1038/mp.2012.105. Epub 2012 Aug 7.PMID:22869033

3The Kraepelinian dichotomy - going, going... but still not gone. Craddock N, Owen MJ. Br J Psychiatry. 2010 Feb;196(2):92-5. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.109.073429. PMID: 20118450

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NIMH · NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC)

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Fri, 03 May 2013 16:15

Draft 3.1: June, 2011Over the past several decades, an increasingly comprehensive body of research in genetics, neuroscience, and behavioral science has transformed our understanding of how the brain produces adaptive behavior, and the ways in which normal functioning becomes disrupted in various forms of mental disorders. In order to speed the translation of this new knowledge to clinical issues, the NIMH included in its new strategic plan Strategy 1.4: ''Develop, for research purposes, new ways of classifying mental disorders based on dimensions of observable behavior and neurobiological measures.'' (For the full text, see http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/strategic-planning-reports/index.shtml#strategic-objective1). The implementation of this strategy has been named the Research Domain Criteria Project (RDoC). The purpose of this document is to describe the RDoC project in order to acquaint the field with its nature and direction, and to facilitate commentary from scientists and other interested stakeholders regarding both general and specific aspects of the RDoC approach.

BackgroundAcross all areas of medicine, research in genomics, cell biology, and pathophysiology is revolutionizing diagnosis and treatment. In disorders as diverse as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and inflammatory bowel disease, the discovery of identifiable subtypes within broad clinical phenotypes has led to more specific, more effective treatments or identification of new targets for prevention. Research in mental disorders is also developing quickly: Novel data about genomic factors and the role of particular brain circuits are reported almost monthly. However, new findings on mental disorders have had limited clinical impact, partly because they map only moderately onto current diagnostic categories for mental illness. Thus, some of the risk genes for psychotic disorders appear to be associated with both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and the same prefrontal region has been implicated in depression and PTSD. In contrast to cancer and heart disease, where research has identified subtypes of common disease, it appears that the biological findings with mental disorders are relatively non-specific; could specificity in fact exist, but not for the currently recognized clinical categories? This question leads to a consideration of how current categories were derived.

Currently, diagnosis in mental disorders is based on clinical observation and patients' phenomenological symptom reports. This system, implemented with the innovative Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-III (DSM-III) in 1980 and refined in the current DSM-IV-TR (Text Revision), has served well to improve diagnostic reliability in both clinical practice and research. The diagnostic categories represented in the DSM-IV and the International Classification of Diseases-10 (ICD-10, containing virtually identical disorder codes) remain the contemporary consensus standard for how mental disorders are diagnosed and treated, and are formally implemented in insurance billing, FDA requirements for drug trials, and many other institutional usages. By default, current diagnoses have also become the predominant standard for reviewing and awarding research grants.

However, in antedating contemporary neuroscience research, the current diagnostic system is not informed by recent breakthroughs in genetics; and molecular, cellular and systems neuroscience. Indeed, it would have been surprising if the clusters of complex behaviors identified clinically were to map on a one-to-one basis onto specific genes or neurobiological systems. As it turns out, most genetic findings and neural circuit maps appear either to link to many different currently recognized syndromes or to distinct subgroups within syndromes. If we assume that the clinical syndromes based on subjective symptoms are unique and unitary disorders, we undercut the power of biology to identify illnesses linked to pathophysiology and we limit the development of more specific treatments. Imagine treating all chest pain as a single syndrome without the advantage of EKG, imaging, and plasma enzymes. In the diagnosis of mental disorders when all we had were subjective complaints (cf. chest pain), a diagnostic system limited to clinical presentation could confer reliability and consistency but not validity. To date, there has been general consensus that the science is not yet well enough developed to permit neuroscience-based classification. However, at some point, it is necessary to instantiate such approaches if the field is ever to reach the point where advances in genomics, pathophysiology, and behavioral science can inform diagnosis in a meaningful way. RDoC represents the beginning of such a long-term project.

RDoC is intended as a framework to guide classification of patients for research studies, not as an immediately useful clinical tool. While the hope is that a new way forward for clinical diagnosis will emerge sooner rather than later, the initial steps must be to build a sufficient research foundation that can eventually inform the best approaches for clinical diagnosis and treatment. It is hoped that by creating a framework that interfaces directly with genomics, neuroscience, and behavioral science, progress in explicating etiology and suggesting new treatments will be markedly facilitated.

MethodRDoC will follow three guiding principles, all diverging from current diagnostic approaches.

First, RDoC is conceived as a dimensional system (reflecting, e.g., circuit-level measurements, behavioral activity, etc.) spanning the range from normal to abnormal. As with dimensions like hypertension or cholesterolemia in other areas of medicine, this approach incurs both the problem and advantage of defining cutpoints for the definition and extent of pathology '' e.g., mild, moderate, and severe. (To the extent that DSM-V introduces dimensions in addition to classes, the crosswalks to RDoC dimensions may be enhanced.)Second, RDoC is agnostic about current disorder categories. The intent is to generate classifications stemming from basic behavioral neuroscience. Rather than starting with an illness definition and seeking its neurobiological underpinnings, RDoC begins with current understandings of behavior-brain relationships and links them to clinical phenomena.Third, RDoC will use several different units of analysis in defining constructs for study (e.g., imaging, physiological activity, behavior, and self-reports of symptoms). Indeed, RDoC, as a research framework, has been developed with the explicit goal of permitting investigators to choose an independent variable from one of several different units of analysis. The details of this approach are explained next.The RDoC research framework can be considered as a matrix whose rows correspond to specified dimensions of function; these are explicitly termed ''Constructs,'' i.e., a concept summarizing data about a specified functional dimension of behavior (and implementing genes and circuits) that is subject to continual refinement with advances in science. Constructs represent the fundamental unit of analysis in this system, and it is anticipated that most studies would focus on one construct (or perhaps compare two constructs on relevant measures). Related constructs are grouped into major Domains of functioning, reflecting contemporary thinking about major aspects of motivation, cognition, and social behavior; the five domains are Negative Valence Systems (i.e., systems for aversive motivation), Positive Valence Systems, Cognitive Systems, Systems for Social Processes, and Arousal/Regulatory Systems. The columns of the matrix represent different classes of variables (or units of analysis) used to study the domains/constructs. Seven such classes have been specified; these are genes, molecules, cells, neural circuits, physiology (e.g. cortisol, heart rate, startle reflex), behaviors, and self-reports. Circuits represent the core aspect of these classes of variables '' both because they are central to the various biological and behavioral levels of analysis, and because they are used to constrain the number of constructs that are defined. Investigators can select any level of analysis to be the independent variable for classification (or multiple levels in some cases, e.g., behavioral functioning stratified by a genetic polymorphism), and dependent variables can be selected from multiple columns. In addition, since constructs are typically studied in the context of particular scientific paradigms, a column for ''paradigms'' has been added; obviously, however, paradigms do not represent units of analysis.

Three criteria guided the selection of the draft list of candidate constructs presented here. First, the inclusion of a construct was constrained by whether a particular brain circuit or area could reasonably be specified that implements that dimension of behavior. Given the complexity of the brain and of behavior, this was more ambiguous in some cases than others; some constructs, such as attention, reflect activity spread relatively diffusely over many brain areas, while attachment behavior may similarly reflect neurotransmitter and hormonal functions (e.g., oxytocin) acting at disparate locations throughout the brain. Second, an attempt was made to maintain a reasonable ''grain size'' that would permit a tractable listing of the major functional dimensions of behavior. While it is recognized that there may be important and meaningful sub-constructs that could be considered (e.g., various types of aggression), an overly specified list could result in an unwieldy and excessively long listing. Third, the constructs are based on current literatures that have provided a neurobehavioral research base for each of the entries.

The draft RDoC matrix is listed in the table below, followed by examples of how the classification system might be used and several points of clarification. Dimensional constructs are listed in the rows. Below the matrix, several constructs are listed to provide examples of brain circuits and/or neurotransmitters that help define and constrain each one, along with a brief indication, where appropriate, of constructs representing the dimension's opposite pole; note that listings of circuit components and neurotransmitters are meant to be illustrative, not exhaustive. Constructs are grouped into five major domain areas as listed above. It is important to emphasize that these particular domains and constructs are simply starting points that are not definitive or set in concrete. We expect these to change dynamically with input from the field, and as future research is conducted. The keys here are the overall framework that we are suggesting, and the process for its development.

Draft Research Domain Criteria MatrixNotes regarding the Units of Analysis''Circuits'' can refer to measurements of particular circuits as studied by neuroimaging techniques, and/or other measures validated by animal models or functional neuroimaging (e.g., emotion-modulated startle, event-related potentials).''Physiology'' refers to measures that are well-established indices of certain constructs, but that do necessarily not tap circuits directly (e.g., heart rate, event-related potentials).''Behavior'' can refer variously to behavioral tasks (e.g., a working memory task), or to behavioral observations.''Self-reports'' refer to interview scales, questionnaires, or other instruments that may encompass normal-range and/or abnormal aspects of the dimension of interest.Examples of Constructs (individual entries) within Domains (boldface)Negative Valence SystemsFear (opposite pole, '' fearlessness): amygdala, hippocampus, interactions with ventromedial PFCPotential threat: HPA axis, BNST, hippocampus; CRF, cortisolPositive Valence SystemsApproach motivation (opposite pole '' anhedonia): mesolimbic dopamine pathwayHabit-based behavior (including OCD spectrum): orbitofrontal cortex, thalamus, dorsal striatumCognitive SystemsWorking memory: dorsolateral PFC, other areas in PFCCognitive (Effortful) control (opposite pole '' impulsivity, disinhibition, externalizing): anterior cingulate gyrus, various areas of medial and lateral PFCSystems for Social ProcessesSocial dominance: distributed cortical activity, mesolimbic dopamine systems; testosterone, serotoninFacial expression recognition: ventral visual stream, fusiform gyrusSelf-representational circuits: dorsal & posterior ACC, insulaArousal/Regulatory ProcessesStress regulation: raphe nuclei circuits; serotoninFacilitated stimulus processing: locus coeruleus circuit; norepinephrineReadiness for stimulus processing and responding: brain resting state networkAbbreviations:PFC: Pre-frontal cortexHPA: hypothalamic-pituitary axisBNST: bed nucleus of the stria terminalisCRF: corticotrophin releasing factorOCD: obsessive-compulsive disorderACC: anterior cingulate cortexGiven that RDoC is a classification framework, how might the scheme work in actual practice, given the goals of (1) permitting widely differing independent variables and (2) implementing a dimensional system that allows variance extending down into what would be regarded as sub-threshold psychopathology? Two general approaches are as follows. The first is to include all patients presenting for treatment at a given type of treatment facility, as in the second example below; the statistical approach then becomes one of regression. The second approach is to specify a particular criterion for selecting multiple groups '' e.g., patients who score more than one standard deviation below the mean on a cognitive task, patients who show significant activation in a specified brain area on a neuroimaging task '' and compare these to other patients not meeting the criterion and/or to a non-clinical control group. In any case, exclusions for co-morbid conditions would be expected to be much less stringent (although the usual exclusions such as other medical or neurological disorders, extreme substance abuse, etc. could still apply). Manuscripts submitted under RDoC will be expected to state how many patients were screened for inclusion in the study, and the reasons for exclusion.

Example StudiesTwo example studies are listed in order to illustrate the types of studies that might be conducted within the RDoC framework. For clarity, the variables used to classify subjects are reiterated at the end of each example.

Recent studies have shown that a number of genes reported to confer risk for schizophrenia, such as DISC1 (''Disrupted in schizophrenia'') and neuregulin, actually appear to be similar in risk for unipolar and bipolar mood disorders. These findings are consistent with a number of recent papers questioning the classical Kraepelinian distinction between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; however, little data are available to evaluate psychotic disorders as a spectrum since studies almost always focus on one or the other, and patients falling short of DSM/ICD criteria are excluded. Thus, in one potential design, inclusion criteria might simply consist of all patients seen for evaluation at a psychotic disorders treatment unit. The independent variable might comprise two groups of patients: One group would be positive and the other negative for one or more risk gene configurations (SNP or CNV), with the groups matched on demographics such as age, sex, and education. Dependent variables could be responses to a set of cognitive paradigms, and clinical status on a variety of symptom measures. Analyses would be conducted to compare the pattern of differences in responses to the cognitive or emotional tasks in patients who are positive and negative for the risk configurations. The results of studies of this type could contribute to knowledge about the particular types and severity of behavioral and/or neurobiological deficits that tend to be associated with a given risk gene; in turn, such results could help build a foundation to study mechanisms by which a particular candidate gene contributes to adverse effects. Eventually such research might lead to redefining how psychotic disorders are conceptualized. Classification variables: In this example, the domain under study is Cognition (possibly comparing two to three constructs such as working memory versus declarative memory). The independent variable for classification is the risk gene configuration(s), and the dependent variables comprise performance on the various cognitive tasks. (It is possible that DSM diagnosis, or some other set of psychiatric symptoms, might serve as a second independent, between-subjects variable; however, an emphasis on studying mechanisms would dictate that the sample not be constrained to patients with only schizophrenia or bipolar disorder '' i.e., inclusion criteria should incorporate those with schizoaffective disorder, delusional disorder, psychotic disorder NOS, etc.)A large number of studies have examined neuroimaging responses to various types of emotional challenges in patients with a particular mood or anxiety disorder, compared to non-clinical controls. Frequently, the conclusion is that disorder X is characterized by an abnormality in task Y '' such as emotion regulation, activation of a particular circuit or brain area (e.g., amygdala, ventromedial PFC), or response to some emotion-related task. However, such abnormal mechanisms appear to be involved in many different disorders, while on the other hand, not all patients with a given diagnosis necessarily show the abnormality '' suggesting that there are fundamental mechanisms in common across these disorders. A design to study fear circuitry might thus have as inclusion criteria all patients presenting at an anxiety disorders clinic. Classification variables: The construct of interest is Fear/extinction, in the domain of Negative Affect. The independent variable for grouping would be the extent of responding to fearful stimuli using a measure such as amygdala response (from fMRI) or fear-potentiated startle (i.e., a circuit-level variable). Dependent variables would be symptom measures on various fear and distress measures, in order to test hypotheses about mechanisms by which hyper-reactivity and hypo-reactivity to threat cues affect the nature and severity of presenting symptoms. As an outcome of such research, these results might generate predictive validity studies leading to improved treatment selection or new pharmacological targets for intervention.Developmental and Environmental AspectsThe RDoC concept is organized around basic neural circuits, their genetic and molecular/cellular building blocks, and the dimensions of functioning that they implement. There are two highly important areas of mental disorders research that are thus not represented in the matrix per se, but are considered to be critical elements in research fostered by RDoC. These two areas are developmental aspects and interactions with the environment. The intent is that the RDoC matrix will enhance the study of both areas by promoting a systematic focus on their relationship to specific circuits and functions.

Developmental aspects. Mental disorders are increasingly viewed as neurodevelopmental disorders in one way or another. Therefore, addressing development issues across various phases of the life span represents a critical consideration that is implicit to the RDoC framework, and might be considered as a third dimension in the matrix. The types of constructs typically found in the child temperament literature are (not coincidentally) similar to the RDoC domains, and many areas of the child psychopathology literature (e.g., broadly addressed to Internalizing or Externalizing problems) serve as a more compatible model for a dimensionally-based approach compared to the highly specified categories of adult psychopathology. Four brief examples might be given of life-span goals that could be addressed within the RDoC framework: (1) Further explicate the longitudinal course of adolescent brain maturation and synaptic pruning to identify genes and circuit development factors associated with departures from normal developmental functioning, and points in prodromal stages where intervention might particularly be targeted; (2) Evaluate the extent to which the recruitment of additional cortical areas during task performance or emotional challenge in elderly subjects predicts resilience against onset or deterioration of course in mental disorders; (3) Generate improved explication of the construct of cognitive control (or effortful control), relative to disentangling current controversies regarding ADHD, juvenile bipolar disorder, conduct disorder, etc.; (4) Specify the mechanisms regarding developmental changes in systems for fear and distress across puberty (including the effects of the social environment), that could explain clinical data indicating that adolescent anxiety disorders often precede depression.

Environmental aspects. The central nervous system is exquisitely sensitive to interactions with various elements of its environment virtually from the moment of conception. The social and physical environment comprises sources of both risk and protection for many different disorders occurring at all points along the life span, and methods for studying such phenomena as gene expression, neural plasticity, and various types of learning are rapidly advancing. As with developmental aspects, environmental influences may thus be considered as another critical dimension of the RDoC matrix. The effects of a particular interaction with the environment, e.g., the effects of early child abuse, may pose risk for a wide variety of disorders. As another example, illicit drug use may cause sensitization of mesolimbic dopamine circuits that generalizes to other drugs of abuse and addictive behaviors. Thus, it is hoped that a research program organized around the relevant circuit-based dimensions that are affected, independent of a particular disorder, will accelerate knowledge regarding such environmental influences along the entire range of analysis from genes to behavior.

DiscussionAs mentioned above, the current organization is focused on (and constrained by) circuit definitions in order to (1) avoid an over-specification and proliferation of constructs, and (2) provide an organizing point that facilitates the integration both of genetic, molecular, and cellular levels of analysis regarding sub-components of circuits, and of behavioral and self-report levels of analysis regarding the kinds of behaviors that circuits implement. The intent is not to arbitrarily exclude constructs, but rather to foster thinking about how constructs are related at various levels of analysis. For example, extraversion is not listed in the draft matrix, but might be considered to represent another aspect of social dominance -- in that they are both typically described in terms of activity in mesolimbic dopamine systems, and thus may reflect different aspects of what is fundamentally the same dimension.The framework is directed toward constructs most germane to mental disorders, and makes no claim to span the entire gamut of functional behavior. For instance, circuits relevant to thermoregulation and reproductive behavior are not included.The number of constructs might well be viewed as sparse by many scientists. The attempt has been to include relatively high-level constructs in order to avoid an over-specification of functions that could become unwieldy and also necessitate unnecessarily frequent revisions to the list as research progresses. However, the framework is meant to foster, not discourage, research that explicates mechanisms within and across the constructs as listed. As stated above, the current framework should be viewed as a starting point and part of a work in progress.The complexity of the brain is such that circuits and constructs will necessarily have considerable overlap, and arbitrary separations are unavoidable. For instance, the basolateral amygdala is well-known to be involved with both threat and appetitive processing. This reflects the hierarchical nature of the nervous system, and the difficulty of creating a system that encompasses various levels in one framework. It should also be noted that some constructs, such as emotional regulation or homeostasis, are not listed here; these are considered superordinate principles of nervous system activity that operate across many different circuits.Research with post-mortem tissue samples may be appropriate for studies within the RDoC framework, where the hypotheses and other variables are conceived in terms of relevant domains and constructs.The RDoC framework is explicitly agnostic with respect to current definitions of disorders. For instance, depression as a clinical syndrome has been related to abnormal activity in the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, nucleus accumbens, and multiple monoamine systems, while also strongly comorbid with multiple anxiety disorders, eating disorders, etc. The idea is that studying the individual mechanisms may lead to better understanding of current disorders, or perhaps new and novel definitions of disorders, but in either case improved information about treatment choices.As mentioned above, the aim of RDoC is to create a framework for grouping participants in research studies, in order to create a foundational research literature that informs future versions of nosologies based upon genetics and behavioral neuroscience. RDoC is not intended for clinical diagnosis at the current time. In the future, research supported by RDoC could inform diagnostic approaches using new laboratory procedures, behavioral assessments, and novel instruments to provide enhanced treatment and prevention interventions. It is also hoped that RDoC will support enhanced development of new pharmacological and psychosocial interventions based upon neurobiological and behavioral mechanisms.Process and Final ProductThe NIMH intends that the RDoC process be as transparent as possible. An internal NIMH steering group, advised by a small group of external experts, has created the initial RDoC framework and devised the list of candidate domains, constructs, and classes of variables. NIMH issued a companion Request for Information (RFI) in the NIH Guide to seek input about all aspects of this first draft of the RDoC matrix and process. These comments were taken into account in further refining the initial version of the matrix.

A series of workshops is currently in progress as an initial step in defining the specifications for each construct. At a minimum, one workshop will be held for each of the five domains. However, in order to gain experience with the process, the first workshop focused on the construct of working memory. Each workshop involves experts from various areas that span the RDoC's units of analysis. Participants are asked to discuss and decide upon current findings, paradigms, and procedures relevant to each level of analysis, along with critical research questions. Proceedings of each workshop are posted on the RDoC page of the NIMH web site for continuing commentary and suggestions for changes. Depending on the nature and extent of comments, a second workshop may be held to achieve consensus on final specifications.

The final specification for each construct will consist of:

A definition of the construct's functional aspects, summary of relevant circuitry, and relationship to other constructs;A list of current state-of-the art measures, paradigms, and procedures at each level of analysis;Current pressing research questions and issues pertaining to the construct, including one or two salient examples of the groupings of DSM/ICD categories that might be included in studies addressing these questions.The intent of the RDoC is to accelerate the pace of new discoveries by fostering research that translates findings from basic science into new treatments addressing fundamental mechanisms that cut across current diagnostic categories. The research specifications are intended to guide investigators in conducting such integrative research by including cutting-edge variables in research applications. However, since RDoC is a research framework, use of such variables is not required; indeed, one goal is to speed the pace of new information at all levels of analysis. For this reason, RDoC will incorporate a mechanism for continual evaluation of new findings, and inclusion into the domain/construct specifications. While the exact procedures remain to be worked out, it is anticipated that the NIMH steering group will work together with subject-area experts from each of the relevant domains to accept nominations (from the evaluation team or from scientists in the field) for modifications and additional listings.

Although the formal period for commenting under the RFI has terminated, NIMH welcomes continuing commentary regarding any aspect of the RDoC project, including, but not limited to, the following points. Comments may be emailed to rdoc@mail.nih.gov.

The overall RDoC framework, including the organization of the Domains and Constructs, and the Units of Analysis.Particular constructs that should be added, deleted, merged, or changed.Criteria for determining what constructs should be included or modified.''Grain size'' of the constructs.Criteria for making changes to the domain and construct specifications.NIMH staff look forward to working with all groups of interested stakeholders as the RDoC project is developed.

The Real Problems With Psychiatry - Atlantic Mobile

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Wed, 08 May 2013 11:23

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On May 22, the American Psychiatric Association will release the fifth Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-5. It classifies psychiatric diagnoses and the criteria required to meet them. Gary Greenberg, one of the book's biggest critics, claims these disorders aren't real -- they're invented. Author of Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease and contributor to The New Yorker, Mother Jones, The New York Times and other publications, Greenberg is a practicing psychotherapist. The Book of Woe: The Making of the DSM-5 and the Unmaking of Psychiatry is his expos(C) of the business behind the creation of the new manual.

Can you talk about how the first DSM, published in 1952, was conceived?

One of the reasons was to count people. The first collections of diagnoses were called the "statistical manual," not the "diagnostic and statistical manual." There were also parochial reasons. As the rest of medicine became oriented toward diagnosing illnesses by seeking their causes in biochemistry, in the late 19th, early 20th century, the claim to authority of any medical specialty hinged on its ability to diagnose suffering. To say "okay, your sore throat and fever are strep throat." But psychiatry was unable to do that and was in danger of being discredited. As early as 1886, prominent psychiatrists worried that they would be left behind, or written out of the medical kingdom. For reasons not entirely clear, the government turned to the American Medico-Psychological Association, (later the American Psychiatric Association, or APA), to tell them how many mentally ill people were out there. The APA used it as an opportunity to establish its credibility.

How has the DSM evolved to become seen as the "authoritative medical guide to all of mental suffering"?

The credibility of psychiatry is tied to its nosology. What developed over time is the number of diagnoses, and, more importantly, the method by which diagnostic categories are established.

You're a practicing psychotherapist. Can you define "mental illness"?

No. Nobody can.

It's circular -- thinking that anybody who commits suicide is depressed; anybody who goes into a school with a loaded gun and shoots people must have a mental illness.

The DSM lists "disorders." How are disorders different from diseases or illnesses?

The difference between disease and disorder is an attempt on the part of psychiatry to evade the problem they're presented with. Disease is a kind of suffering that's caused by a bio-chemical pathology. Something that can be discovered and targeted with magic bullets. But in many cases our suffering can't be diagnosed that way. Psychiatry was in a crisis in the 1970s over questions like "what is a mental illness?" and "what mental illnesses exist?" One of the first things they did was try to finesse the problem that no mental illness met that definition of a disease. They had yet to identify what the pathogen was, what the disease process consisted of, and how to cure it. So they created a category called "disorder." It's a rhetorical device. It's saying "it's sort of like a disease," but not calling it a disease because all the other doctors will jump down their throats asking, "where's your blood test?" The reason there haven't been any sensible findings tying genetics or any kind of molecular biology to DSM categories is not only that our instruments are crude, but also that the DSM categories aren't real. It's like using a map of the moon to find your way around Russia.

So would you say that these terms -- disorder, disease, illness -- are just different names for the same concept?

I would. Psychiatrists wouldn't. Well, psychiatrists would say it sometimes but wouldn't say it other times. They will say it when it comes to claiming that they belong squarely in the field of medicine. But if you press them and ask if these disorders exist in the same way that cancer and diabetes exist, they'll say no. It's not that there are no biological correlates to any mental suffering -- of course there are. But the specificity and sensitivity that we require to distinguish pneumonia from lung cancer, even that kind of distinction, it just doesn't exist.

What are the most common misconceptions about the scientific nature of diseases such as depression?

I guarantee you that in the course of our conversation a doctor is telling a patient, "you have a chemical imbalance -- that's why you're depressed. Take Prozac." Despite the fact that every doctor who knows anything knows that there is no biochemical imbalance that causes depression, and most doctors understand that a diagnosis of depression doesn't really tell you anything other than what you already knew, that doesn't stop them from saying it.

Research on the brain is still in its infancy. Do you think we will ever know enough about the brain to prove that certain psychiatric diagnoses have a direct biological cause?

I'd be willing to bet everything that whenever it happens, whatever we find out about the brain and mental suffering is not going to map, at all, onto the DSM categories. Let's say we can elucidate the entire structure of a given kind of mental suffering. We're not going to be able to say, "here's Major Depressive Disorder, and here's what it looks like in the brain." If there's any success, it will involve a whole remapping of the terrain of mental disorders. And psychiatry may very likely take very small findings and trump them up into something they aren't. But the most honest outcome would be to go back to the old days and just look at symptoms. They might get good at elucidating the circuitry of fear or anxiety or these kinds of things.

What is the difference between a disorder and distress that is a normal occurrence in our lives?

That distinction is made by a clinician, whether it's a family doctor or a psychiatrist or whoever. But nobody knows exactly how to make that determination. There are no established thresholds. Even if you could imagine how that would work, it would have to be a subjective analysis of the extent to which the person's functioning is impaired. How are you going to measure that? Doctors are supposed to measure "clinical significance." What's that? For many people, the fact that someone shows up in their office is clinical significance. I'm not going to say that's wrong, but it's not scientific. And there's a conflict of interest -- if I don't determine clinical significance, I don't get paid.

You say one of the issues with taking these categories too seriously is that it eliminates the moral aspect behind certain behaviors.

Homosexuality was deleted from the DSM by a referendum. A straight up vote: yes or no

It's our characteristic way of chalking up what we think is "evil" to what we think of as mental disease. Our gut reaction is always "that was really sick. Those guys in Boston -- they were really sick." But how do we know? Unless you decide in advance that anybody who does anything heinous is sick. This society is very wary of using the term "evil." But I firmly believe there is such a thing as evil. It's circular -- thinking that anybody who commits suicide is depressed; anybody who goes into a school with a loaded gun and shoots people must have a mental illness. There's a certain kind of comfort in that, but there's no indication for it, particularly because we don't know what mental illness is.

How do diagnoses affect people?

One of the overlooked ways is that diagnoses can change people's lives for the better. Asperger's Syndrome is probably the most successful psychiatric disorder ever in this respect. It created a community. It gave people whose primary symptom was isolation a way to belong and provided resources to those who were diagnosed. It can also have bad effects. A depression diagnosis gives people an identity formed around having a disease that we know doesn't exist, and how that can divert resources from where they might be needed. Imagine how much less depression there would be if people weren't worried about tuition, health care, and retirement. Those are all things that aren't provided by Prozac.

What are the dangers of over-diagnosing a population? Are false positives worse than false negatives?

I believe that false positives, people who are diagnosed because there's a diagnosis for them and they show up in a doctor's office, is a much bigger problem. It changes people's identities, it encourages the use of drugs whose side effects and long-term effects are unknown, and main effects are poorly understood.

In 1850, doctor Samuel Cartwright invented "drapetomania" -- a disease causing slaves to run away. How do social and historical context affect our understanding of mental illness?

Cartwright was a slaveholder's doctor from New Orleans -- he believed in the inferiority of what he called the "African races." He believed that abolitionism was based on a misguided notion that black people and white people were essentially equal. He thought that the desire for freedom in a black person was pathological because black people were born to be enslaved. To aspire to freedom was a betrayal of their nature, a disease. He invented "drapetomania," the impulse to run away from slavery. Assuming there wasn't horrible cruelty being inflicted on the slaves, they were "sick." He came up with a few diagnostic criteria and presented it to his colleagues.

So we corrected our notion of what counts as a "disease." Is there a modern equivalent?

Homosexuality is the most obvious example. Until 1973, it was listed as a disease. It's very easy to see what's wrong with "drapetomania," but it's easier to see the balancing act involved in saying homosexuality is or isn't a disease -- how something has to shift in society. The people who called homosexuality a disease weren't necessarily bigots or homophobes -- they were just trying to understand people who wanted to love people of their own sex. Disease is a way to understand difference that includes compassion. What has to shift is the idea that same-sex love is acceptable. Once that idea is there, it doesn't make sense to call homosexuality a disease.

Who was involved in the creation of the DSM-5?

The American Psychiatric Association owns the DSM. They aren't only responsible for it: they own it, sell it, and license it. The DSM is created by a group of committees. It's a bureaucratic process. In place of scientific findings, the DSM uses expert consensus to determine what mental disorders exist and how you can recognize them. Disorders come into the book the same way a law becomes part of the book of statutes. People suggest it, discuss it, and vote on it. Homosexuality was deleted from the DSM by a referendum. A straight up vote: yes or no. It's not always that explicit, and the votes are not public. In the case of the DSM-5, committee members were forbidden to talk about it, so we'll never really know what the deliberations were. They all signed non-disclosure agreements.

You can't just ask for special services for a student who is awkward. You have to get special services for a student with autism.

What are the important changes made in the new DSM, and how will they affect patients?

It's going to cause a lot of trouble when Asperger's Syndrome disappears. It may cause some trouble when the bereavement exclusion disappears. That's a good example of why the APA's going to be in trouble. It was so unnecessary, so stupid. They've made the absurd statement that they know the difference, two weeks after someone's wife dies, whether that person is "depressed," or just "in mourning." Come on! Who are these guys?

The APA released a series of drafts of the DSM-5 before publication. Why?

They solicited public input, to their great credit. But they never said what they were doing with it. They said "we got this number of responses" but not what the responses were. How they influenced the process, if at all. The other problem with the drafts is that they deleted them. The history of how these things developed will be difficult to trace unless you happened to make copies of the website, which was in explicit violation of the APA's copyright. They also tried to prevent people from using the draft criteria in any kind of academic paper -- an unprecedented move. They demanded that anybody who wanted to use the criteria would have to seek and obtain their permission for academic publication. Nobody's ever done that. There were a couple of high profile, embarrassing studies that were conducted with the draft criteria, and once that happened, the APA asserted copyright over the draft criteria.

The APA considers the DSM-5 a "living document." What do you think they mean by this?

It's one of those rhetorical flourishes that, if you dig into it, you realize is a real problem. There's a difference between a constitution and a book of medical diagnoses. It's not entirely clear what they mean by "living document," but it appears that they want to update as evidence comes in. That's not a bad idea -- they don't want to go through one of these massive, expensive, embarrassing overhauls of the diagnostic manual every five or ten or fifteen years, they want to update as they go. But in the meantime, people are getting diagnosed, drugs are getting developed and prescribed, research is being done, and nobody knows to what extent things will get revised as time goes on. The APA is trying to say it's always in flux. But if that's the case, why should we let it have so much power?

Can you talk about that? What does the DSM has power over?

To get an indication from the FDA, a drug company has to tie its drug to a DSM disorder. You can't just develop a drug for anxiety. You have to develop the drug for Generalized Anxiety Disorder or Major Depressive Disorder. You can't just ask for special services for a student who is awkward. You have to get special services for a student with autism. In court, mental illnesses come from the DSM. If you want insurance to pay for your therapy, you have to be diagnosed with a mental illness. Whatever future contact you have with the health care system will be affected by the fact that a mental illness is in your dossier. If you call it a living document, what happens to all the people who are diagnosed with Asperger's when that's thrown out? Will it be chaotic? Maybe.

Al Frances chaired the task force for the DSM-IV and has become one of the biggest critics of the DSM-5. What do you think of his arguments?

We agree that the DSM does not capture real illnesses, that it's a set of constructs. We disagree over what that means. He believes that that doesn't matter to the overall enterprise of psychiatry and its authority to diagnose and treat our mental illnesses. I believe it constitutes a flaw at the foundation of psychiatry. If they don't have real diseases, they don't belong in real medicine. Al's attack is overdone. I think he's really trying to keep scrutiny off of the whole DSM enterprise. That's why he's been so adamant that you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater -- he believes that the DSM-IV, for all of its flaws, its still worthwhile. I disagree.

Frances also worries that your criticisms are anti-psychiatry.

It's the universal paranoia of psychiatry that everybody who disagrees with them is pathological. You can't disagree with a psychiatrist without getting a diagnosis. I've been writing critically about psychiatry for ten years and I've always encountered that. Psychiatry is a defensive profession. They have a lot to protect and they know their weakness. To repel criticism in the strongest way possible, from their point of view, you diagnose the critic.

Can you talk about the intersection between psychiatry and psychology? How does the DSM relate to both fields?

Psychiatry's in charge of the DSM. Psychologists and other mental health professionals use the DSM. But psychiatrists have the power and money. I'm critical of the mental health professions in general, including my own practice. But the APA has appropriated this business to themselves. They guard it jealousy, they protect it with ruthless tactics, and yes, they take a disproportionate amount of the heat for this thing, but it's their baby. They make hundreds of millions of dollars off of this deal.

Will the APA lose credibility?

Of course it will. The DSM-5 will come out on May 22 and people will take their pot shots at it -- like shooting fish in a barrel. I had to be convinced to write this book, though. How hard is it to criticize an organization that seriously thinks that it's okay to call "Internet Use Disorder" a mental illness? They're going to take shot after shot. And the response will be ineffectual and weak. They'll bob and weave, talk about the "living document," and unleash their line of bullshit.

Is there a solution?

The solution is to take the thing away from them. The APA owns these diagnoses. I didn't ask permission because I don't care -- let them sue me. But if anyone wants to put diagnostic criteria into this book, they have to pay the APA. That's absurd. And if you add the vacuousness of the document and the incompetence with which the revision was carried out -- take the damn thing away from them.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Next ArticleHope Reese is a freelance writer and editor based in Louisville, Kentucky. Her website is hopereese.com.

''The Book of Woe'': Psychiatry's last stand - Salon.com

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Mon, 06 May 2013 12:40

''Psychiatric diagnosis is built on fiction and sold to the public as fact.'' So writes psychotherapist Gary Greenberg in ''The Book of Woe: The Making of the DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry.'' That's an explosive assertion but also one that doesn't quite mean what most of you are probably thinking. Scientologists, settle down: Greenberg is not on your side. And talk-therapy pooh-poohers, spare us all those chortles of vindicated scorn; he doesn't agree with you, either.

''The Book of Woe'' is an account of the compiling of the fifth edition of the ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.'' The DSM was first published in 1952, and in the years since it has been subject to epochal revisions in which the foundations of the mental health professions have been reconceived and revamped. The DSM-5, plans for which were begun as early as 1999, is set to be published this month. The process of assembling it has been anything but smooth, as ''The Book of Woe'' relates.

Not that controversy is anything new for the DSM, for despite its dull, acronymic title and the eye-glazing professional jargon in which it is written, this manual has always been a battleground. The most famous war fought in its territory pitted old-school shrinks against gay-rights activists over the issue of whether homosexuality ought to be categorized as a mental illness. In a feat of diplomacy brokered by the legendary psychiatrist Robert Spitzer, the ''disorder'' once dubbed ''sexual orientation disturbance'' was removed from the DSM-III, published in 1980.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, the DSM's publisher, the bold new DSM-5 will be ''based on sound scientific data'' derived from a ''comprehensive review of scientific advances.'' This sounds good, and as everyone knows, a wealth of new research in neuroscience as well as revolutionary developments in psychopharmacology have placed our understanding of the biological basis of the human mind on ever-firmer empirical footing '-- right?

Wrong. According to Greenberg, despite these much-ballyhooed advances, there is still ''not one biological test for a DSM disorder.'' The terms that many of us bandy about so blithely (for the DSM has always had a significant lay readership) '-- major depressive disorder, borderline personality disorder, even schizophrenia '-- are not actually diseases with detectable causes or origins. They're collections of symptoms that may or may not respond to any one (or more) of a spectrum of treatments. Not all clinicians can even agree on which diagnosis to bestow on any given individual's symptoms, and certainly there is no test to substantiate their diagnoses, ''nothing,'' as Greenberg puts it, ''like the CT scan that confirms that the patient with a persistent cough and fatigue has a tumor in his lung.''

Greenberg argues '-- persuasively '-- that this fifth edition of the DSM arises not out of any new scientific understanding but from one of the periodic crises of psychiatry. In the most notorious recent scandal, Joseph Biederman, a child psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital, decided in the late 1990s that some children he'd been asked to treat for particularly severe attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder were in fact suffering from bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder, a serious, probably genetic and lifelong condition, had previously been thought to emerge in early adulthood.

BD can be managed with powerful, mood stabilizing drugs, but those drugs have significant side effects. Although there were no substantive studies supporting the existence of pediatric BD, and his child patients did not display one of the key symptoms (manic episodes), Biederman used his considerable prestige to advance his theory. The 2000s saw a boom in pediatric diagnoses of BD and the prescription, to young children, of medication that carried risks of cataracts, diabetes, obesity and a spastic-movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia.

In 2006, a scathing front-page expos(C) in the New York Times revealed Biederman to be, as one of Greenberg's psychiatrist sources bluntly put it, ''a crook.'' He had received $1.6 million from drug companies in exchange for promoting his diagnosis and solicited even more to fund research that he promised would ''support the safety and effectiveness'' of their drugs. These and many other revelations of Big Pharma subsidies to the psychiatric profession led to a series of Senate hearings and, eventually, a purge of drug-money funding from the APA. The organization's revenues plummeted, which left it, as Greenberg points out, not only in the midst of a credibility crisis but also in sore need of income. A new edition of that cash cow, the DSM, would solve both.

So the APA heralded a DSM-5 that would represent a ''paradigm shift'' away from the DSM-IV. The new edition would offer a scientifically based system to quantify the degree of a patient's disorder or suffering while providing a more precise and accurate category for her condition. The only problem with this excellent plan is that there was no impetus for it beyond the self-serving needs of the APA and no real body of evidence to support such claims. As another of Greenberg's sources remarks, a paradigm shift cannot be ''forced.''

Several of the psychiatrists who worked on the DSM-IV were shut out of the project, and the most prominent among them, Allen Frances, became a relentless critic of the new edition. Much of ''The Book of Woe'' consists of clashes and duels between the various interested parties, with Greenberg's own skepticism of the ''claim that psychological suffering is best understood as a medical illness'' as a persistent drumbeat. The specialist and bureaucratic intricacies of these debates can be hard to follow, but their impact is very real; Frances' greatest anxiety about the DSM-5, as he protested over and over again, was that it would lead to overdiagnosis and overmedication. Rumors leaked from the secretive APA suggested that the new DSM would label such ordinary experiences as bereavement or childhood temper tantrums as disorders requiring the administration of potentially dangerous drugs.

Greenberg characterizes himself as a working ''talk therapist,'' but he also seems to aspire to the philosophical psychology of William James. ''The line between health and illness,'' he writes, ''can't be drawn without deciding how a human life is supposed to go, how it ought to feel and what it is for '-- questions for which science, no matter how robust, is no match.'' That's aptly put, but Greenberg's sentences can also sometimes lapse into Jamesian abstraction and generality as they unfold over multiple clauses and must be worked out like equations. Since so much of what he's writing about involves specialist jargon or outright obfuscation, there are times when more simplicity and clarity in making his own points '-- or explaining the meanings of others' '-- would have been welcome.

Nevertheless, seeing how this particular sausage got made is invaluable enough to merit the extra effort demanded. Much of the public regards the DSM as a body of proven medical knowledge, rather than, as Greenberg puts it, a collection of ''useful constructs that capture the ways people suffer.'' Those constructs, however provisional (and, among themselves, most psychiatrists acknowledge the DSM to be just that), can help a patient to a sense of certainty, provide a community of fellow sufferers (as was the case with the diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome, deleted from the DSM-5), inspire confidence in the therapist and '-- last but far from least '-- justify insurance coverage for any treatment. But the disorders that trip so authoritatively off of everyone's tongues are not diseases in the same way that cancer or strep throat are, and until and unless we learn a whole lot more about the human brain and its workings, they never will be.

'Automobilist moet ziekte melden' | nu.nl/binnenland | Het laatste nieuws het eerst op nu.nl

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Wed, 08 May 2013 11:24

Automobilisten die lijden aan een psychische of lichamelijke aandoening, zouden dit verplicht moeten melden bij het CBR, dat rijvaardigheid beoordeelt.Nu kunnen patinten op eigen houtje bepalen of ze achter het stuur kruipen, terwijl dit soms niet verantwoord is. Dat zegt het Openbaar Ministerie (OM) in Breda woensdag.

Het OM doet deze uitspraak naar aanleiding van een dodelijk ongeval in Werkendam in 2011, veroorzaakt door een automobilist met epilepsie. Het ongeval leidde tot een rechtszaak. De rechter doet over 2 weken uitspraak in deze zaak.

Een woordvoerster van het OM in Breda, dat de zaak behandelt, spreekt van een ''maas in de wet'' omdat patinten zich nu niet verplicht hoeven te melden.

MeldingsplichtHet ministerie van Infrastructuur en Milieu meldt dat de mogelijkheid om een meldingsplicht in te voeren wordt meegenomen in een lopend onderzoek naar alternatieven voor de seniorenkeuring.

Volgens een woordvoerster van het ministerie stuitte het idee eerder op een aantal bezwaren. Zo zou de vertrouwensrelatie tussen arts en patint in het geding komen bij een meldingsplicht.

Ook zette het ministerie al vraagtekens bij de controleerbaarheid en handhaving ervan.

Door: ANP

Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill

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Thu, 09 May 2013 08:48

(Note: Read Bruce Levine's latest post: Anti-Authoritarians and Schizophrenia: Do Rebels Who Defy Treatment Do Better?

In my career as a psychologist, I have talked with hundreds of people previously diagnosed by other professionals with oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, anxiety disorder and other psychiatric illnesses, and I am struck by (1) how many of those diagnosed are essentially anti-authoritarians, and (2) how those professionals who have diagnosed them are not.

Anti-authoritarians question whether an authority is a legitimate one before taking that authority seriously. Evaluating the legitimacy of authorities includes assessing whether or not authorities actually know what they are talking about, are honest, and care about those people who are respecting their authority. And when anti-authoritarians assess an authority to be illegitimate, they challenge and resist that authority'--sometimes aggressively and sometimes passive-aggressively, sometimes wisely and sometimes not.

Some activists lament how few anti-authoritarians there appear to be in the United States. One reason could be that many natural anti-authoritarians are now psychopathologized and medicated before they achieve political consciousness of society's most oppressive authorities.

Why Mental Health Professionals Diagnose Anti-Authoritarians with Mental Illness

Gaining acceptance into graduate school or medical school and achieving a PhD or MD and becoming a psychologist or psychiatrist means jumping through many hoops, all of which require much behavioral and attentional compliance to authorities, even to those authorities that one lacks respect for. The selection and socialization of mental health professionals tends to breed out many anti-authoritarians. Having steered the higher-education terrain for a decade of my life, I know that degrees and credentials are primarily badges of compliance. Those with extended schooling have lived for many years in a world where one routinely conforms to the demands of authorities. Thus for many MDs and PhDs, people different from them who reject this attentional and behavioral compliance appear to be from another world'--a diagnosable one.

I have found that most psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals are not only extraordinarily compliant with authorities but also unaware of the magnitude of their obedience. And it also has become clear to me that the anti-authoritarianism of their patients creates enormous anxiety for these professionals, and their anxiety fuels diagnoses and treatments.

In graduate school, I discovered that all it took to be labeled as having ''issues with authority'' was to not kiss up to a director of clinical training whose personality was a combination of Donald Trump, Newt Gingrich, and Howard Cosell. When I was told by some faculty that I had ''issues with authority,'' I had mixed feelings about being so labeled. On the one hand, I found it quite amusing, because among the working-class kids whom I had grown up with, I was considered relatively compliant with authorities. After all, I had done my homework, studied, and received good grades. However, while my new ''issues with authority'' label made me grin because I was now being seen as a ''bad boy,'' it also very much concerned me about just what kind of a profession that I had entered. Specifically, if somebody such as myself was being labeled with ''issues with authority,'' what were they calling the kids I grew up with who paid attention to many things that they cared about but didn't care enough about school to comply there? Well, the answer soon became clear.

Mental Illness Diagnoses for Anti-Authoritarians

A 2009 Psychiatric Times article titled ''ADHD & ODD: Confronting the Challenges of Disruptive Behavior'' reports that ''disruptive disorders,'' which include attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and opposition defiant disorder (ODD), are the most common mental health problem of children and teenagers. ADHD is defined by poor attention and distractibility, poor self-control and impulsivity, and hyperactivity. ODD is defined as a ''a pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior without the more serious violations of the basic rights of others that are seen in conduct disorder''; and ODD symptoms include ''often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules'' and ''often argues with adults.''

Psychologist Russell Barkley, one of mainstream mental health's leading authorities on ADHD, says that those afflicted with ADHD have deficits in what he calls ''rule-governed behavior,'' as they are less responsive to rules of established authorities and less sensitive to positive or negative consequences. ODD young people, according to mainstream mental health authorities, also have these so-called deficits in rule-governed behavior, and so it is extremely common for young people to have a ''duel diagnosis'' of AHDH and ODD.

Do we really want to diagnose and medicate everyone with ''deficits in rule-governed behavior''?

Albert Einstein, as a youth, would have likely received an ADHD diagnosis, and maybe an ODD one as well. Albert didn't pay attention to his teachers, failed his college entrance examinations twice, and had difficulty holding jobs. However, Einstein biographer Ronald Clark (Einstein: The Life and Times) asserts that Albert's problems did not stem from attention deficits but rather from his hatred of authoritarian, Prussian discipline in his schools. Einstein said, ''The teachers in the elementary school appeared to me like sergeants and in the Gymnasium the teachers were like lieutenants.'' At age 13, Einstein read Kant's difficult Critique of Pure Reason'--because Albert was interested in it. Clark also tells us Einstein refused to prepare himself for his college admissions as a rebellion against his father's ''unbearable'' path of a ''practical profession.'' After he did enter college, one professor told Einstein, ''You have one fault; one can't tell you anything.'' The very characteristics of Einstein that upset authorities so much were exactly the ones that allowed him to excel.

By today's standards, Saul Alinsky, the legendary organizer and author of Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals, would have certainly been diagnosed with one or more disruptive disorders. Recalling his childhood, Alinsky said, ''I never thought of walking on the grass until I saw a sign saying 'Keep off the grass.' Then I would stomp all over it.'' Alinsky also recalls a time when he was ten or eleven and his rabbi was tutoring him in Hebrew:

One particular day I read three pages in a row without any errors in pronunciation, and suddenly a penny fell onto the Bible . . . Then the next day the rabbi turned up and he told me to start reading. And I wouldn't; I just sat there in silence, refusing to read. He asked me why I was so quiet, and I said, ''This time it's a nickel or nothing.'' He threw back his arm and slammed me across the room.

Many people with severe anxiety and/or depression are also anti-authoritarians. Often a major pain of their lives that fuels their anxiety and/or depression is fear that their contempt for illegitimate authorities will cause them to be financially and socially marginalized; but they fear that compliance with such illegitimate authorities will cause them existential death.

I have also spent a great deal of time with people who had at one time in their lives had thoughts and behavior that were so bizarre that they were extremely frightening for their families and even themselves; they were diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychoses, but have fully recovered and have been, for many years, leading productive lives. Among this population, I have not met one person whom I would not consider a major anti-authoritarian. Once recovered, they have learned to channel their anti-authoritarianism into more constructive political ends, including reforming mental health treatment.

Many anti-authoritarians who earlier in their lives were diagnosed with mental illness tell me that once they were labeled with a psychiatric diagnosis, they got caught in a dilemma. Authoritarians, by definition, demand unquestioning obedience, and so any resistance to their diagnosis and treatment created enormous anxiety for authoritarian mental health professionals; and professionals, feeling out of control, labeled them ''noncompliant with treatment,'' increased the severity of their diagnosis, and jacked up their medications. This was enraging for these anti-authoritarians, sometimes so much so that they reacted in ways that made them appear even more frightening to their families.

There are anti-authoritarians who use psychiatric drugs to help them function, but they often reject psychiatric authorities' explanations for why they have difficulty functioning. So, for example, they may take Adderall (an amphetamine prescribed for ADHD), but they know that their attentional problem is not a result of a biochemical brain imbalance but rather caused by a boring job. And similarly, many anti-authoritarians in highly stressful environments will occasionally take prescribed benzodiazepines such as Xanax even though they believe it would be safer to occasionally use marijuana but can't because of drug testing on their job

It has been my experience that many anti-authoritarians labeled with psychiatric diagnoses usually don't reject all authorities, simply those they've assessed to be illegitimate ones, which just happens to be a great deal of society's authorities.

Maintaining the Societal Status Quo

Americans have been increasingly socialized to equate inattention, anger, anxiety, and immobilizing despair with a medical condition, and to seek medical treatment rather than political remedies. What better way to maintain the status quo than to view inattention, anger, anxiety, and depression as biochemical problems of those who are mentally ill rather than normal reactions to an increasingly authoritarian society.

The reality is that depression is highly associated with societal and financial pains. One is much more likely to be depressed if one is unemployed, underemployed, on public assistance, or in debt (for documentation, see ''400% Rise in Anti-Depressant Pill Use''). And ADHD labeled kids do pay attention when they are getting paid, or when an activity is novel, interests them, or is chosen by them (documented in my book Commonsense Rebellion).

In an earlier dark age, authoritarian monarchies partnered with authoritarian religious institutions. When the world exited from this dark age and entered the Enlightenment, there was a burst of energy. Much of this revitalization had to do with risking skepticism about authoritarian and corrupt institutions and regaining confidence in one's own mind. We are now in another dark age, only the institutions have changed. Americans desperately need anti-authoritarians to question, challenge, and resist new illegitimate authorities and regain confidence in their own common sense.

In every generation there will be authoritarians and anti-authoritarians. While it is unusual in American history for anti-authoritarians to take the kind of effective action that inspires others to successfully revolt, every once in a while a Tom Paine, Crazy Horse, or Malcolm X come along. So authoritarians financially marginalize those who buck the system, they criminalize anti-authoritarianism, they psychopathologize anti-authoritarians, and they market drugs for their ''cure.''

Related Items:

Related ResearchThe Vermont Longitudinal Study & Correction of Seven MythsCompulsory Hospitalization Does Not Improve OutcomesPeople With Schizophrenia Diagnoses Actually Do Listen

Bruce LevineAnti-Authoritarians and Schizophrenia: Do Rebels Who Defy Treatment Do Better?How Technology Worship Keeps Americans Ignorant about Depression Treatment How the ''Brain Defect'' Theory of Depression Stigmatizes Depression SufferersMarginalization and the Mental Health Industry Racket (video)

Michael CornwallAre Some Psychiatrists Addicted to Deference?I Don't Believe in Mental Illness, Do You?

Corinna WestWhy Can't They Hear Our Truth? We Have a Cure10 Reasons Survivors Might Know More Medicine Than Psychiatrists

This entry was posted in Blogs, Popular by Bruce Levine, Ph.D.. Bookmark the permalink.

Benghazi

Greg Hicks: I briefed Hillary on Benghazi that night; Clinton continued to blame video

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Source: Twitchy » US Politics

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:42

After the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, after four Americans were slaughtered, Hillary Clinton looked the American public in the eye and claimed that a YouTube video was responsible. There were cracks in that narrative from the very beginning. But this morning, Gregory Hicks, Deputy Chief of Mission at the embassy, delivered a final, devastating blow.

Hicks testified that Clinton had called him at 2 a.m., while the attacks were underway.

That's right. Clinton knew what was going on. She knew.

It's also worth noting that Hicks said Ansar al-Sharia had claimed responsibility for the attacks on Twitter:

And, after all that, she, Susan Rice, and others continued to push a bogus narrative.

Yep. But the truth will not say buried. Not anymore.

Benghazi Whistleblower Says He Was Told Not To Talk To Congressmen Investigating Attack, Top Clinton Adviser Called To Intimidate '' Update: State Department Had Minder Follow Him During Congressional Visit'...

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Archived Version

Source: Weasel Zippers

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:38

But don't worry, the Obama regime has nothing to hide.

Update: Nothing to see here folks, move along.

(click image for video)

Via BuzzFeed:

Deputy chief of mission for the U.S. in Libya Gregory Hicks testified Wednesday that he was told not personally meet with a congressman sent to investigate the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. Hicks said a State Department lawyer accompanied the delegation and attempted to be in every single meeting he was involved in

Who's tweeting about #Benghazi THE SURVEY

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Wed, 08 May 2013 16:51

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Whos tweeting about Benghazi WaPo

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Wed, 08 May 2013 16:51

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is holding a hearing Wednesday on the deaths last September of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

Three State Department officials are set to testify in an investigation of what Republicans leading the investigation contend was a deliberate attempt to mislead the American people about what happened that day.

A major subplot of it all, as The Post's Philip Rucker reported this morning, is what role former secretary of state Hillary Clinton played in all of it.

Stay tuned to this live blog for regular updates. The hearing begins at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time.

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It's Dishonest to Talk about Benghazi Without Talking About the Syrian War

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Source: Washington's Blog

Wed, 08 May 2013 16:35

Both Parties Are Trying to Sweep the Bigger Story Under the RugAccording to Democrats, today's Congressional hearings on Benghazi are nothing but a partisan witch hunt.

According to Republicans, the Obama administration committed treason in it's handling of Benghazi '... and then tried to cover it up.

Both parties are avoiding the bigger picture '... The fact that Democrats and Republicans alike have been using Benghazi as the center of U.S. efforts to arm the Al Qaeda-affiliated Syrian rebels.

Specifically, the U.S. supported opposition which overthrew Libya's Gadaffi was largely comprised of Al Qaeda terrorists.

According to a 2007 report by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center's center, the Libyan city of Benghazi was one of Al Qaeda's main headquarters '' and bases for sending Al Qaeda fighters into Iraq '' prior to the overthrow of Gaddafi:The Hindustan Times reported in 2011:

''There is no question that al Qaeda's Libyan franchise, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is a part of the opposition,'' Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer and a leading expert on terrorism, told Hindustan Times.

It has always been Qaddafi's biggest enemy and its stronghold is Benghazi.

Al Qaeda is now largely in control of Libya. Indeed, Al Qaeda flags were flown over the Benghazi courthouse once Gaddafi was toppled.

(Incidentally, Gaddafi was on the verge of invading Benghazi in 2011, 4 years after the West Point report cited Benghazi as a hotbed of Al Qaeda terrorists. Gaddafi claimed '' rightly it turns out '' that Benghazi was an Al Qaeda stronghold and a main source of the Libyan rebellion. But NATO planes stopped him, and protected Benghazi.)

CNN, the Telegraph, the Washington Times, and many other mainstream sources confirm that Al Qaeda terrorists from Libya have since flooded into Syria to fight the Assad regime.

Mainstream sources also confirm that the Syrian opposition is largely comprised of Al Qaeda terrorists. (Indeed, the New York Times reported last week that virtually all of the rebel fighters are Al Qaeda terrorists.)

The U.S. has been arming the Syrian opposition since 2006. The post-Gaddafi Libyan government is also itself a top funder and arms supplier of the Syrian opposition.

This brings us to the murder of ambassador Stevens '...

The Wall Street Journal, Telegraph and other sources confirm that the US consulate in Benghazi was mainly being used for a secret CIA operation.

They say that the State Department presence in Benghazi ''provided diplomatic cover'' for the previously hidden CIA mission. (WND alleges that it was not a real consulate.)

Reuters notes that the CIA mission involved finding and repurchasing heavy weaponry looted from Libyan government arsenals.

Business Insider reports that Stevens may have been linked with Syrian terrorists:

There's growing evidence that U.S. agents'--particularly murdered ambassador Chris Stevens'--were at least aware of heavy weapons moving from Libya to jihadist Syrian rebels.

In March 2011 Stevens became the official U.S. liaison to the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan opposition, working directly with Abdelhakim Belhadj of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group'--a group that has now disbanded, with some fighters reportedly participating in the attack that took Stevens' life.

In November 2011 TheTelegraph reported that Belhadj, acting as head of the Tripoli Military Council, ''met with Free Syrian Army [FSA] leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey'' in an effort by the new Libyan government to provide money and weapons to the growing insurgency in Syria.

Last month The Times of London reported that a Libyan ship ''carrying the largest consignment of weapons for Syria '... has docked in Turkey.'' The shipment reportedly weighed 400 tons and included SA-7 surface-to-air anti-craft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.

***

Reuters reports that Syrian rebels have been using those heavy weapons to shoot down Syrian helicopters and fighter jets.

The ship's captain was ''a Libyan from Benghazi and the head of an organization called the Libyan National Council for Relief and Support,'' which was presumably established by the new government.

That means that Ambassador Stevens had only one person'--Belhadj'--between himself and the Benghazi man who brought heavy weapons to Syria.

Furthermore, we know that jihadists are the best fighters in the Syrian opposition, but where did they come from?

Last week The Telegraph reported that a FSA commander called them ''Libyans'' when he explained that the FSA doesn't ''want these extremist people here.''

And if the new Libyan government was sending seasoned Islamic fighters and 400 tons of heavy weapons to Syria through a port in southern Turkey'--a deal brokered by Stevens' primary Libyan contact during the Libyan revolution'--then the governments of Turkey and the U.S. surely knew about it.

Furthermore there was a CIA post in Benghazi, located 1.2 miles from the U.S. consulate, used as ''a base for, among other things, collecting information on the proliferation of weaponry looted from Libyan government arsenals, including surface-to-air missiles'' '... and that its security features ''were more advanced than those at rented villa where Stevens died.''

And we know that the CIA has been funneling weapons to the rebels in southern Turkey. The question is whether the CIA has been involved in handing out the heavy weapons from Libya.

In other words, ambassador Stevens may have been a key player in deploying Libyan terrorists and arms to fight the Syrian government.

Other sources also claim that the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was mainly being used as a CIA operation to ship fighters and arms to Syria.

Many have speculated that '' if normal security measures weren't taken to protect the Benghazi consulate or to rescue ambassador Stevens '' it was because the CIA was trying to keep an extremely low profile to protect its cover of being a normal State Department operation.

That is what I think really happened at Benghazi.

Was CIA Chief David Petraeus' Firing Due to Benghazi?CIA boss David Petraeus suddenly resigned, admitting to an affair. But Petraeus was scheduled to testify under oath the next week before power House and Senate committees regarding the Benghazi consulate. Many speculate that it wasn't an affair '' but the desire to avoid testifying on Benghazi '' which was the real reason for Petraeus' sudden resignation. (A self-described Pentagon whistleblower contacted us to confirm this theory.)

The Big PictureWhatever the scope of the CIA's operation in Benghazi '' and whatever the real reason for the resignation of the CIA chief '' the key is our historical and ongoing foreign policy.

For decades, the U.S. has backed terrorists for geopolitical ends. For decades, the U.S. has backed the most radical, fundamentalist, violent Muslims.

The U.S. government has been consistently planning regime change in Syria, Libya and Iran for 20 years, and dreamed of regime change '' using false flag terror '' for 50 years.

Obama has simply re-packaged Bush and the Neocons' ''war on terror'' as a series of humanitarian wars.

Liberals rightfully lambast Bush for getting us into the disastrous Iraq war.

But Obama has in fact launched wars in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan '... and up to 35 African nations (and see this).

Obama '' citing a Nixon administration official's justification for invading Cambodia '' has claimed his power extends into every country in the world '... well beyond those where we are engaged in hostilities.

Obama has dramatically escalated the use of drone assassinations, which are creating many more terrorists than they are killing. The former chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo says that Obama's drone surge is as damaging to our country as Bush's torture program. I think he's actually underestimating damage from the program, as drones have become the number 1 recruiting tool for Al Qaeda (especially since children are now being targeted for drone assassination '... Oh, and torture is still happening on Obama's watch; background).

And the Obama administration has probably supported even more terrorists '' in Libya, Syria and elsewhere '' than Bush. See this, this, this, this and this.

In other words, both GOP and Dem politicians are supporting instability, terrorism and war.

Those are the deeper truths regarding Benghazi.

Carney Spins Furiously: Editing Terrorism Out Out Benghazi Talking Points Was For ''Stylistic'' Purposes'...

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Archived Version

Source: Weasel Zippers

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:53

How friggen stupid does he think we are?

Via Washington Examiner:

Any White House edits made to talking points about the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya were merely ''stylistic,'' Obama spokesman Jay Carney insisted on Wednesday amid congressional hearings about the Sept. 11 strike that killed four Americans.

''The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this,'' Carney said. ''Edits made by anyone at the White House were stylistic and not substantive. They corrected the description of the building'... from consulate to diplomatic facility. Ultimately, this all has been discussed and reviewed and provided in enormous levels of detail by the administration to congressional investigators. The attempt to politicize the talking points again is part of an effort to chase after what isn't the substance here.''

The White House has been hammered for initially blaming the violence on a spontaneous protest to an anti-Islam YouTube video and a Sunday show appearance in which former United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice trumpeted that false narrative.

Keep reading'...

Obama Nation

Obama May Back F.B.I. Plan to Wiretap Web Users - NYTimes.com

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Archived Version

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:56

WASHINGTON '-- The Obama administration, resolving years of internal debate, is on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.

The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau's ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is ''going dark'' as communications technology evolves, and since 2010 has pushed for a legal mandate requiring companies like Facebook and Google to build into their instant-messaging and other such systems a capacity to comply with wiretap orders. That proposal, however, bogged down amid concerns by other agencies, like the Commerce Department, about quashing Silicon Valley innovation.

While the F.B.I.'s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to each build in a wiretapping capacity, the revised one, which must now be reviewed by the White House, focuses on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders. The difference, officials say, means that start-ups with a small number of users would have fewer worries about wiretapping issues unless the companies became popular enough to come to the Justice Department's attention.

Still, the plan is likely to set off a debate over the future of the Internet if the White House submits it to Congress, according to lawyers for technology companies and advocates of Internet privacy and freedom.

''I think the F.B.I.'s proposal would render Internet communications less secure and more vulnerable to hackers and identity thieves,'' said Gregory T. Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology. ''It would also mean that innovators who want to avoid new and expensive mandates will take their innovations abroad and develop them there, where there aren't the same mandates.''

Andrew Weissmann, the general counsel of the F.B.I., said in a statement that the proposal was aimed only at preserving law enforcement officials' longstanding ability to investigate suspected criminals, spies and terrorists subject to a court's permission.

''This doesn't create any new legal surveillance authority,'' he said. ''This always requires a court order. None of the 'going dark' solutions would do anything except update the law given means of modern communications.''

A central element of the F.B.I.'s 2010 proposal was to expand the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act '-- a 1994 law that already requires phone and network carriers to build interception capabilities into their systems '-- so that it would also cover Internet-based services that allow people to converse. But the bureau has now largely moved away from that one-size-fits-all mandate.

Instead, the new proposal focuses on strengthening wiretap orders issued by judges. Currently, such orders instruct recipients to provide technical assistance to law enforcement agencies, leaving wiggle room for companies to say they tried but could not make the technology work. Under the new proposal, providers could be ordered to comply, and judges could impose fines if they did not. The shift in thinking toward the judicial fines was first reported by The Washington Post, and additional details were described to The New York Times by several officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Under the proposal, officials said, for a company to be eligible for the strictest deadlines and fines '-- starting at $25,000 a day '-- it must first have been put on notice that it needed surveillance capabilities, triggering a 30-day period to consult with the government on any technical problems.

Such notice could be the receipt of its first wiretap order or a warning from the attorney general that it might receive a surveillance request in the future, officials said, arguing that most small start-ups would never receive either.

Michael Sussmann, a former Justice Department lawyer who advises communications providers, said that aspect of the plan appeared to be modeled on a British law, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000.

Foreign-based communications services that do business in the United States would be subject to the same procedures, and would be required to have a point of contact on domestic soil who could be served with a wiretap order, officials said.

Albert Gidari Jr., who represents technology companies on law enforcement matters, criticized that proposed procedure. He argued that if the United States started imposing fines on foreign Internet firms, it would encourage other countries, some of which may be looking for political dissidents, to penalize American companies if they refused to turn over users' information.

''We'll look a lot more like China than America after this,'' Mr. Gidari said.

The expanded fines would also apply to phone and network carriers, like Verizon and AT&T, which are separately subject to the 1994 wiretapping capacity law. The FBI has argued that such companies sometimes roll out system upgrades without making sure that their wiretap capabilities will keep working.

The 1994 law would be expanded to cover peer-to-peer voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP '-- calls between computers that do not connect to the regular phone network. Such services typically do not route data packets through any central hub, making them difficult to intercept.

The F.B.I. has abandoned a component of its original proposal that would have required companies that facilitate the encryption of users' messages to always have a key to unscramble them if presented with a court order. Critics had charged that such a law would create back doors for hackers. The current proposal would allow services that fully encrypt messages between users to keep operating, officials said.

In November 2010, Mr. Mueller toured Silicon Valley and briefed executives on the proposal as it then existed, urging them not to lobby against it, but the firms have adopted a cautious stance. In February 2011, the F.B.I.'s top lawyer at the time testified about the ''going dark'' problem at a House hearing, emphasizing that there was no administration proposal yet. Still, several top lawmakers at the hearing expressed skepticism, raising fears about innovation and security.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 8, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of a former Justice Department lawyer who advises communications providers and commented on one aspect of the F.B.I.'s plan to overhaul surveillance laws. He is Michael Sussmann, not Sussman.

Obama May Separate Facebook and the Fourth Amendment

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Archived Version

Source: Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:59

Obama May Separate Facebook and the Fourth AmendmentPosted on May 8, 2013The Obama administration is on the verge of backing an FBI plan that would require websites that receive a wiretap order to comply by building surveillance capabilities into their communication services, officials say. Fines for those targeted companies that fail to add such functions would start at $25,000 a day.

Critics of the proposal contend it runs afoul of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizures.

Both the public and Congress reacted with protest when after the 9/11 attacks the Bush administration revealed a mass surveillance plan known as Total Information Awareness. Congress defunded the program in 2003, but as prescient critics noted at the time, officials who wanted to closely monitor Americans would eventually acquire the means to do so by breaking up surveillance practices into numerous different offices. The White House-backed FBI plan is the latest iteration of that effort.

'--Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

The New York Times:

The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau's ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is ''going dark'' as communications technology evolves, and since 2010 has pushed for a legal mandate requiring companies like Facebook and Google to build into their instant-messaging and other such systems a capacity to comply with wiretap orders.

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New CDC Report Finds Stunning Suicide Increases Among Middle-Aged Americans | PBS NewsHour | May 3, 2013

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Mon, 06 May 2013 01:05

JUDY WOODRUFF: There's been a stunning increase in the suicide rate among middle-aged Americans. The finding is part of a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that spells out how much suicide is a growing public health concern in the U.S.

Ray Suarez has more.

RAY SUAREZ: The analysis looked at data compiled over a little more than a decade, a period ending in 2010 that included the financial crisis and the great recession. In 2010, there were more suicides in the U.S., 38,000-plus, than there were fatal motor vehicle accidents.

Most disturbing, that spike among the middle-aged, a 28 percent rise overall, a 40 percent jump among white Americans, and among men in their 50s, suicides increased by more than 48 percent. Guns remained the leading method used in all suicides, followed by poisoning, overdoses and suffocation.

Some perspective on all this from Dr. Thomas Frieden, the director of the CDC.

And, Dr. Frieden, the Morbidity and Mortality Report is a pretty technical document. But, from reading it, can you tease out what stressors might explain this tremendous spike in the number of people taking their own lives?

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: We don't know what specifically is causing it, but the trend has been consistent, and if anything our numbers would underestimate the gravity of the problem.

And, of course, even one death from suicide is a terrible tragedy and many of them are preventable. We know that in times of financial stress, there's generally an increase in suicides. We also know that this is a generation that grew up at a time when they expected more than some have been able to achieve in their lives, and also that they're stressed with what their kids are going through and what their parents are going through, so in some ways, the sandwiched generation.

And, furthermore, they have access to things like prescription opiates that can be so deadly and that are a big part of an increase like this.

RAY SUAREZ: So does this trend happen to coincide with higher use and abuse of prescription medication?

THOMAS FRIEDEN: We have seen an increase of almost 500 percent in deaths from prescription opiates. Some of those are unintentional overdoses and some of those are suicides.

As more prescription opiates have been prescribed, more of them have been abused and more people have died, either intentionally or unintentionally, from prescription opiates.

RAY SUAREZ: And what about abuse of non-prescription drugs, illegal or illicit drugs? Have we seen -- do we know whether those deaths are intentional from things like cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine?

THOMAS FRIEDEN: Well, one thing that's quite striking is that, today, there are more people who die from prescription opiates than from heroin and cocaine combined, so a major problem.

And one thing that also isn't always recognized is that alcohol is a significant contributor to depression and to mental health problems. That binge drinking and problem drinking can really exacerbate mental health problems. So for people to cut down, never more than four for men, never more than three for women at one sitting, makes a big difference.

There's a lot that people can do to take care of themselves and to take care of their families and friends to reduce the risk of suicide. But we know that this is a challenging problem, and for the families dealing with suicide of a family member, it's devastating.

RAY SUAREZ: A big part of the CDC brief, Doctor, is prevention. And I'm wondering how you craft a response to these numbers when you see in certain groups that the problem is acute, among more elderly women, among white men of a certain age. You see a number that pops out like that, what do you do in return?

THOMAS FRIEDEN: We think about what works, what really makes a difference.

Now we put things into two broad categories. The first is social connectedness, being involved, whether it's book clubs or walking clubs or with family or friends or teams or sports. Being involved with others, it makes a big difference. And the second are caring for your mental health.

And I would highlight three particular areas: treatment, physical activity, and avoiding excess alcohol and drugs. For each of those things, there is something that everyone can do to be healthy or help others being healthier in terms of their mental status.

RAY SUAREZ: But can people in the health care professions be warned by these numbers to be on the lookout for people who may be entering a stage where they may have suicidal thoughts, where they may have the means or the access to the kind of things they might use to end their lives?

THOMAS FRIEDEN: It's very important that doctors and other health care workers are aware of the risk of suicide and are attentive to clues or hints that patients can give.

Study after study shows that many patients who commit suicide had seen a health care professional in the preceding month. And often there was a warning sign. So it's important for doctors and others to ask about depression, to ask about thoughts of suicide, and to refer people or provide treatment right away, because treatment does make a difference.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Dr. Frieden, I hear what you're suggesting, but at the same time, this is the sort of thing that someone does often in a way to mask things that are going on in their lives.

For a clinician, aren't these things kind of hard to root out? Aren't these things kind of hard to watch for, these precursors to an attempt of suicide?

THOMAS FRIEDEN: Actually, there are important things that doctors can do and other health professionals can do to open the dialogue.

Often, patients want to talk, asking about depression, asking about feelings of hopelessness, asking, frankly, if patients have had thoughts of hurting themselves. It's been shown that asking that doesn't increase the likelihood that patients will hurt themselves, but it greatly increases the likelihood that doctors will be able to help the patient.

RAY SUAREZ: And we can do that in a way that doesn't seem intrusive or, let's say, is appropriate for a medical professional to do?

THOMAS FRIEDEN: It's very important that all health care professionals become more comfortable with mental health issues. Addressing mental health issues just as naturally as we address physical health issues is really important.

We say that someone has a broken leg, but they are depressed. There's something about mental health issues, mental health problems that create attitudes that often lead us to make it more difficult to talk about those conditions. But mental health problems are health problems, and health care workers need to address them.

RAY SUAREZ: Dr. Thomas Frieden is the director of the Centers for Disease Control.

Thanks for joining us.

THOMAS FRIEDEN: Thank you for putting attention to this important issue.

JUDY WOODRUFF: There is a national suicide prevention hot line if you know someone who is in distress. That number is 1-800-273-TALK.

And, online, we have more on the CDC's report, including charts that break down the numbers.

Agenda 21

99 One-Liners That Rebut Climate Change Denier Talking Points | Alternet

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Thu, 09 May 2013 08:16

Progressives should know the disinformers' most commonly used arguments '-- and how to answer them crisply.

May 7, 2013 |

Progressives should know the disinformers' most commonly used arguments '-- and how to answer them crisply. Those arguments have been repeated so many times by the fossil-fuel-funded disinformation campaign that almost everyone has heard them '-- and that means you'll have to deal with them in almost any setting, from a public talk to a dinner party.

You should also know as much of the science behind those rebuttals as possible, and a great place to start is SkepticalScience.com.

BUT most of the time your best response is to give the pithiest response possible, and then refer people to a specific website that has a more detailed scientific explanation with links to the original science. That's because usually those you are talking to are rarely in a position to adjudicate scientific arguments. Indeed, they would probably tune out. Also, unless you know the science cold, you are as likely as not to make a misstatement.

Physicist John Cook has done us a great service by posting good one-line responses and then updating them as the science evolves and as people offer better ways of phrasing. Below I have reposted the top 99 with links to the science. You can find even more here. Everybody should know the first 20 or so.

For instance, if somebody raises the standard talking point (#1 on the list) that the ''climate's changed before,'' you can say, '' Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing.'' That is actually quite similar to what was my standard response, ''The climate changes when it is forced to change, and now humans are forcing it to change far more rapidly than it did in the past'' (see '' Humans boosting CO2 14,000 times faster than nature, overwhelming slow negative feedbacks'' and '' New Science Study Confirms 'Hockey Stick': The Rate Of Warming Since 1900 Is 50 Times Greater Than The Rate Of Cooling In Previous 5000 Years ''). Working in the ''humans are now the dominant forcing'' part is a good idea.

Cook explains the origin of these one-liners in a 2010 post, '' Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line.'' I have included the longer 'paragraph' rebuttals, which any CP reader who plans to speak out on this subject '-- in public or just with friends and associates '-- should also be familiar with.

Skeptic Rebuttal One Liners Skeptic ArgumentOne LinerParagraph1''Climate's changed before''Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing.Natural climate change in the past proves that climate is sensitive to an energy imbalance. If the planet accumulates heat, global temperatures will go up. Currently, CO2 is imposing an energy imbalance due to the enhanced greenhouse effect. Past climate change actually provides evidence for our climate's sensitivity to CO2.2''It's the sun''In the last 35 years of global warming, sun and climate have been going in opposite directionsIn the last 35 years of global warming, the sun has shown a slight cooling trend. Sun and climate have been going in opposite directions.3''It's not bad''Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any positives.The negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health, economy and environment far outweigh any positives.4''There is no consensus''97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming.That humans are causing global warming is the position of the Academies of Science from 19 countries plus many scientific organizations that study climate science. More specifically, around 95% of active climate researchers actively publishing climate papers endorse the consensus position.5''It's cooling''The last decade 2000-2009 was the hottest on record.Empirical measurements of the Earth's heat content show the planet is still accumulating heat and global warming is still happening. Surface temperatures can show short-term cooling when heat is exchanged between the atmosphere and the ocean, which has a much greater heat capacity than the air.6''Models are unreliable''Models successfully reproduce temperatures since 1900 globally, by land, in the air and the ocean.While there are uncertainties with climate models, they successfully reproduce the past and have made predictions that have been subsequently confirmed by observations.7''Temp record is unreliable''The warming trend is the same in rural and urban areas, measured by thermometers and satellites.Numerous studies into the effect of urban heat island effect and microsite influences find they have negligible effect on long-term trends, particularly when averaged over large regions.8''Animals and plants can adapt''Global warming will cause mass extinctions of species that cannot adapt on short time scales.A large number of ancient mass extinction events have been strongly linked to global climate change. Because current climate change is so rapid, the way species typically adapt (eg '' migration) is, in most cases, simply not be possible. Global change is simply too pervasive and occurring too rapidly.9''It hasn't warmed since 1998'"For global records, 2010 is the hottest year on record, tied with 2005.The planet has continued to accumulate heat since 1998 '' global warming is still happening. Nevertheless, surface temperatures show much internal variability due to heat exchange between the ocean and atmosphere. 1998 was an unusually hot year due to a strong El Nino.10''Antarctica is gaining ice''Satellites measure Antarctica losing land ice at an accelerating rate.While the interior of East Antarctica is gaining land ice, overall Antarctica is losing land ice at an accelerating rate. Antarctic sea ice is growing despitea strongly warming Southern Ocean.11''Ice age predicted in the 70s''The vast majority of climate papers in the 1970s predicted warming.1970s ice age predictions were predominantly media based. The majority of peer reviewed research at the time predicted warming due to increasing CO2.12''CO2 lags temperature''CO2 didn't initiate warming from past ice ages but it did amplify the warming.When the Earth comes out of an ice age, the warming is not initiated by CO2 but by changes in the Earth's orbit. The warming causes the oceans to give up CO2. The CO2 amplifies the warming and mixes through the atmosphere, spreading warming throughout the planet. So CO2 causes warming ANDrising temperature causes CO2 rise.13''Climate sensitivity is low''Net positive feedback is confirmed by many different lines of evidence.Climate sensitivity can be calculated empirically by comparing past temperature change to natural forcings at the time. Various periods of Earth's past have been examined in this manner and find broad agreement of a climate sensitivity of around 3°C.14''We're heading into an ice age''Worry about global warming impacts in the next 100 years, not an ice age in over 10,000 years.The warming effect from more CO2 greatly outstrips the influence from changes in the Earth's orbit or solar activity, even if solar levels were to drop to Maunder Minimum levels.15''Ocean acidification isn't serious''Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains.Past history shows that when CO2 rose sharply, this corresponded with mass extinctions of coral reefs. Currently, CO2 levels are rising faster than any other time in known history. The change in seawater pH over the 21st Century is projected to be faster than anytime over the last 800,000 years and will create conditions not seen on Earth for at least 40 million years.

To establish a position of Science Laureate of the United States. (H.R. 1891)

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 09 May 2013 07:24

GovTrack's Bill SummaryWe don't have a summary available yet.

Library of Congress SummaryThe summary below was written by the Congressional Research Service, which is a nonpartisan division of the Library of Congress.

No summary available.

House Republican Conference SummaryThe summary below was written by the House Republican Conference, which is the caucus of Republicans in the House of Representatives.

No summary available.

House Democratic Caucus SummaryThe House Democratic Caucus does not provide summaries of bills.

So, yes, we display the House Republican Conference's summaries when available even if we do not have a Democratic summary available. That's because we feel it is better to give you as much information as possible, even if we cannot provide every viewpoint.

We'll be looking for a source of summaries from the other side in the meanwhile.

Higher Temperatures lead to increased Cooling from Plant Emissions - Climate Change Weather Blog

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 06 May 2013 17:29

Higher Temperatures lead to increased Cooling from Plant EmissionsApril 30, 2013; 9:51 PMA negative feedback loop has been identified by a new study published in Nature Geoscience.

Researchers found that plants release a higher amount of certain gases as temperatures warm. As this gas oxidizes in the atmosphere it sticks to aerosol particles, growing them into the larger-sized particles that reflect sunlight and also serve as the basis for cloud droplets. Just like aerosols from man-made emissions and volcanic eruptions, these biogenic aerosols have a cooling effect on the atmosphere.

The scientists collected data at 11 different sites around the world, measuring the concentrations of aerosol particles in the atmosphere, along with the concentrations of plant gases, the temperature, and estimates for the height of the boundary layer.

"Everyone knows the scent of the forest," says Ari Asmi, University of Helsinki researcher who also worked on the study. "That scent is made up of these gases." While previous research had predicted the feedback effect, until now nobody had been able to prove its existence except for case studies limited to single sites and short time periods, according to a report from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.

The effect of this increase in plant emissions only reduces warming by 1 percent on global scale.

However, the study showed that the effect was much larger on a regional scale, counteracting possibly up to 30% of warming in more rural, forested areas where anthropogenic emissions of aerosols were much lower in comparison to the natural aerosols, according to the report.

The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of AccuWeather, Inc. or AccuWeather.com

Rain will get more extreme thanks to global warming, says NASA study

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Archived Version

Mon, 06 May 2013 09:17

The forecast for the future of rainfall on Earth is in: over the next hundred years, areas that receive lots of precipitation right now are only going to get wetter, and dry areas will go for longer periods without seeing a drop, according to a new NASA-led study on global warming. "We looked at rainfall of different types," said William Lau, NASA's deputy director of atmospheric studies and the lead author of the study, in a phone interview with The Verge. "The extreme heavy rain end the prolonged drought side both increase drastically and are also connected physically."

"The new part is looking at the entire global rainfall system."

The NASA rainfall studystudy, which is due to be published in an upcoming edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, examined data from 14 different leading global climate models. Although each one previously predicted rainfall increases in rain-prone areas such as the tropics, and droughts in drier regions including the American Southwest, the study by Lau and his colleagues is said to be the first to look at rainfall from a global perspective, including over unpopulated areas like the middle of the oceans. "The new part is looking at the entire global rainfall system from a basic science perspective, and what we're finding is amazing" Lau said.

NASA animation showing rainfall projections over a 140 year period. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.

Specifically, the new study found that although the 14 climate models differ when it comes to the amount of rainfall in individual locations such as cities, over larger areas, they all point to the same average picture. That is, for every single degree Fahrenheit the global average temperature climbs, heavy rainfall will increase in wet areas by 3.9 percent, while dry areas will experience a 2.6 percent increase in time periods without any rainfall.

"Dust Bowl levels by the end of the century."

"The projected Mediterranean and southwestern US droughts forced by CO2 [carbon dioxide] increases alone exceed Dust Bowl levels by the end of the century," said Dargan Frierson, associate professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington, who was not involved in the study. The reason for the shift is thought to be due to the fact that as the globe warms, the atmosphere is able to hold more water vapor as moisture, but this moisture clusters in the already wet areas, depriving the dry areas of moisture and exacerbating their droughts. Just how quickly the change happens depends on how much CO2 gets pumped into the atmosphere, but Lau said his study was applicable to the next century.

Elon Musk's SolarCity Sues Government For More Subsidies

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: Zero Hedge

Wed, 08 May 2013 17:39

When you donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to re-election campaigns and push more hundreds of thousands of dollars through lobbying, you expect a little more back than the measly $95.6 million that SolarCity received in stimulus grants. The company, chaired by none other than Elon Musk, had applied for $325 million in federal aid in the same program that 'helped' Solyndra (and Tesla) and is now, according to the Wall Street Journal, suing the government for underpayment of green-energy subsidies. It seems SolarCity are using the M.A.D. defense, claiming that "they could lose millions more," if the government fails to provide the subsidies they asked for. As National Review details, SolarCity is one of the solar companies that is being investigated by the IRS after Treasury found that it "repeatedly overstated the value of its investments." So far the Treasury has paid out over $17 billion in green-energy stimulus grants and this case is not without precedent as a number of other renewable-energy firms are set to file suit.

Via National Review,

...

A look at the Department of Treasury Section 1603 data shows that SolarCity received 27 awards across 15 states amounting to $95.6 million in cash from a long-standing tax credit for renewable-energy investment turned into a direct grant in the stimulus bill. SolarCity has applied for approximately $325 million in these stimulus grants, according to the SEC filing.

There are a few things to note here.

First, ... SolarCity ... is being investigated by the IRS after Treasury found that it "repeatedly overstated the value of its investments, the SEC filings indicate." Since the dollar amount of the grant is a set percentage of the value of the project, the benefit of overstating one's value is that it leads to more taxpayers' cash.

...

Second, the chairman of SolarCity is Elon Musk, who is also a large owner in the company. In addition to being the chairman of SolarCity, he is also CEO of the automobile company Tesla. Tesla received $465 million from the ATVM loan-guarantee program, the DOE program that gave us the Fisker scandal.

...

Third, it is worth noting that Elon Musk is a generous political donor. Why does this matter? Because it's one thing for the government to mismanage taxpayers' money (as it may have with 1603 payments to SolarCity); it's another when the mismanagement happens to heavily benefit some of the administration's large donors.

...

Fourth, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, SolarCity spent $535,000 in 2009 and 2010 to lobby Congress and the Department of Energy on climate legislation, theRecovery Act, ''green workforce training and development,'' and provisions in various legislation ''relevant to solar development.''

...

Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 5(3 votes)

Shut Up Slave!

Facebook causes 'psychotic episodes and delusions', claims study

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: WTF RLY REPORT

Mon, 06 May 2013 00:49

Daily Mail

>>Although these relationships were positive at first, they eventually led to feelings of hurt, betrayal, and invasion of privacy.

Dr Nitzan said: 'The patients shared some crucial characteristics, including loneliness or vulnerability due to the loss of or separation from a loved one, relative inexperience with technology, and no prior history of psychosis or substance abuse.

'In each case, a connection was found between the gradual development and exacerbation of psychotic symptoms, including delusions, anxiety, confusion, and intensified use of computer communications.

'...

A study from the University of Gothenberg found that people with low income and low-educated people spend the most time on Facebook.

And within this group, those who spent the most time on the site were less happy and less content with their lives.

Up to 85 percent of Facebook users surveyed said they logged into the social networking site on a daily basis.

And 26 percent of them felt 'uneasy' if they didn't log in regularly.

Read More

Facebook slave jail

Lauryn Hill Blames Slavery as She's Jailed for $500,000 Unpaid Tax Bill - Entertainment & Stars

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Archived Version

Wed, 08 May 2013 16:42

Lauryn Hill outside Newark court in New Jersey

Reclusive soul superstar Lauryn Hill has been jailed over an enormous unpaid tax bill.

Fugees singer Hill, 37, was sentenced to three months' jail followed by three months' home confinement for failing to pay $500,000 to the taxman in the United States.

Hill claimed the sum was outstanding because she had "withdrawn from society" after alleged threats against her family.

She was imprisoned after failing to pay the amount within the stipulated two-week timeframe.

During her trial, Hill was ordered by the judge in Newark, New Jersey to undergo counselling because of her conspiracy theories - including that artists are being oppressed by a plot involving the military and media.

Hill pleaded guilty to charges of tax evasion last year. Her lawyers said she had paid more than $970,000 of an outstanding tax bill which amounted to more than $2m.

Hill vanished from public life to raise her five children by Rohan Marley - the son of acclaimed reggae singer Bob - following the success of her album 'The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill' in 1998.

Shortly before she was arrested last year, Hill penned a diatribe declaiming the music industry.

In the rant, Hill blasted pop music for a "climate of hostility, false entitlement, manipulation, racial prejudice, sexism and ageism.

"Over-commercialisation and its resulting restrictions and limitations can be very damaging and distorting to the inherent nature of the individual."

During her trial, Hill claimed she is still forced to live under the pernicious economic hierarchy imposed by the slave trade.

She told the court: "I am a child of former slaves who had a system imposed on them. I had an economic system imposed on me."

Hill became internationally famous in the mid-1990s as a member of The Fugees. The band's second album The Score sold almost 20m copies worldwide and spawned smash hit single Killing me Softly.

After the band split up, Hill released 'The Miseducation' which won six Grammy awards. At the time of beng sentenced, she was working on the long-awaited follow-up entitled 'The Return.'

READ: Tupac Shakur's Aunt Joanne Chesimard on FBI Most Wanted List

The Fight Against Tax Evasion: Data Management is Key

To report problems or to leave feedback about this article, e-mail: To contact the editor, e-mail:

Haldol email

Hey Adam,

My brother hit me in the mouth a while ago and he suggested I should email you after my run-in with haldol. You brought it up again in the last episode so I feel compelled to tell my story. You guys are absolutely 100% right about that shit.

I got really drunk on New Years, ended up in the hospital after getting beat up by staff at a club in the backroom. I don't remember any of it but I woke up the next day in the hospital after they had injected me with haldol. After a few hours I started getting INSANE side effects. My neck was contorting to the left as far as it could go, and my teeth would not stop grinding, I think I even chipped some teeth after hearing then start cracking. I kid you not, I wanted to die. It lasted DAYS. I had to call out of work for 3 days because of the side effects. I was also extremely dizzy for those 3 days, and I couldn't drive because I was so dizzy.

Haldol should be illegal. I would not wish it upon my worst enemy.

After the doctors told me they had injected me with haldol, I proceeded to explain that they should NEVER give anyone that shit, and I told them I knew all about the side effects from a podcast that I listen to, no agenda!

Anyway, thank you for giving me the best news and entertainment.

Thank you,

Garrett

TASER

"In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Jack Cover, a NASA researcher,

developed a non-lethal electronic weapon he envisioned as the law

enforcement tool of the future. This device fired a pair of electrified

probes which, when attached to the target, sent pulses of nervous-system

disrupting energy.

Cover named the device after his childhood hero and early 20th century

Science Fiction character Tom Swift. The device, Thomas A. Swift’s Electric

Rifle, or TASER, went on to become an indispensable part of the modern

police officer’s toolkit." - howtogeek.com

Slave Training

Oregon Teachers Traumatized by Unannounced Shooter Drill

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: Dprogram.net

Wed, 01 May 2013 19:50

(DailySheeple) '' Panic erupted on Friday at Pine Eagle Charter school in rural Oregon when two masked men carrying handguns burst into a teachers' lounge and opened fire.

After the initial chaos, the terrified teachers realized the guns were firing blanks and that they were the subject of an unannounced shooter drill.

The little school in Halfway, Oregon was having an in-service day, so the children were at home at the time of the drill. The terrifying action has drawn criticism from many but Principal Cammie DeCastro has defended it, saying, ''For us not to know how we were going to respond is leaving us open''.

Principal Cammie DeCastro said it became clear very quickly just how many of the school's 15 teachers would have survived. The answer: ''Not many,'' she said.

Elementary teacher Morgan Gover, 31, said only two teachers would have lived to tell the tale. She admitted being scared, and also acknowledged she would have been among the casualties, having taken several fake direct hits from the shooters.

''I'll tell you, the whole situation was horrible,'' she said. ''I got a couple in the front and a couple in the back.''

The surprised staff had received training from the Union County Sheriff's Office on active shooter scenarios. They had been told they had some options, such as not rushing out of their classrooms when gunfire erupted, and locking and barricading their doors.

They weren't expecting a drill like this, and they were caught by surp

rise when the two men entered and began firing.

''There was some commotion,'' DeCastro said.

The goal of the drill was to learn how people would react, so better emergency plans could be made, she said. (source)

In light of the fear-mongering by the mainstream media after the Sandy Hook school shooting last December, some people feel that this ''drill'' increases fearfulness.

The school administration plans to take what they've learned from the drill to better prepare.

The district's Safety Committee and the School Board now will critically evaluate policies and procedures and decide what to do next, said DeCastro.

Armed teachers is one possible outcome, she said. Or the district may get armed and trained volunteers from the community to watch over the school in shifts, she said. Tougher doors and better locks are other options.

Had one of the teachers in that lounge already taken the time to prepare, the unannounced drill could have had tragic results.

Delivered by The Daily Sheeple

Slave Training - Lockdown

Adam,

I was listening to show 508 this morning and thought I would relay a

story to you about lock-down drills.

They are not something new. I hope you find the story "entertaining" at

some level.

I first became aware of these drills five years ago, when my youngest

daughter was in Kindergarten and my oldest daughter was in Fourth Grade.

They were attending classes at the same school in Mercer County New Jersey.

At the dinner table one night, I asked my oldest about her day. Had

anything interesting happened.

"No. Nothing." was her reply. Not unexpected from a seasoned school aged

child.

So I then asked my youngest the same question, who being a

Kindergartener loved school.

(What's not to like about a day filled with naps, snacks, and stories!)

"We had a drill." She said.

"A fire drill?" Was the the alarm really loud?" I asked.

"No, a lock it up drill. We had to hide."

"A what?"

"The teacher told us to hide and she shut the door and closed the

windows. We had to be very quiet."

Then my older daughter interrupted, yelling, "You're not supposed to

tell them about that. It is a secret!"

"What do you mean a secret?" I asked.

"The teachers told us that we aren't supposed to say anything about the

drill. And it is a lock-down drill. For in case someone comes into the

school to do something bad. We are not supposed to tell people about

where we hide, because they might find us."

Well I was floored. I told them both that it was ok to tell us about it

and they should tell us when they do them. There is no reason for it to

be a secret.

I contacted the school the next day and spoke to the principal. I was

told that it was something that the school district had instituted. The

children should have not be told not to talk about it; that would be

corrected.

So these drills nothing new, at least in my school district.

Now the schools boast about the drills and the security measures they

have in place. We just attended a Parent Orientation Night for parents

of children entering middle school next year. During that meeting, the

principal mentioned that the wake of Newton, the school district was

looking into additional security measures and procedures for next year.

Your tax dollars at work!

ITM!

Mike

Blind Slave Training

Hello Adam when I was in the United States of Gitmo nation we had a monthly lock down. When I was 11 I expeariance the first one the teacher said shut up or you will die. I then freeked out because all the kids started to run in all different directions. Me being blind and autistic I didn't know how to respond I just sat in my desk still working on my math work on my pirkenz Braille writer. This device looks and sounds like a manual type writer with only 9 keys The teacher said nothing when the police slamed on the door I started to cryed after the lock down the police and teacher yelled at me saying I could of gotten the whole class killed me being a no agenda listener I asked the police what they are dressed like and what he was carrieing on his belt. They said none of my business and I pressed and said if I was sited I would know but sence I was blind I deserved a discription after this the officer said a taiser and an ak47 I new that the school was not there to teach for our good but to re educate us to be government robots

By the way I run a Ubuntu server and am happy to setup a team talk server for you

This would give you the ability to run stario audio and vidio

David Thomas

Wag The Dog

CNN anchors pretend they're having a ''satellite interview'' even though they're in the same parking lot

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: BlackListedNews.com

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:54

Source: Happy Place

''Sorry, we're experiencing a delay in the broadcast while we both wait for this bus to go by.''

Yes, those are all the same cars. Apparently they thought we wouldn't notice because Nancy is on the right side of the screen, when in reality she is to Asleigh Banfield's left.

See The Atlantic Wire's excellent breakdown of the shots to see exactly what happened.

Tricky, CNN, very tricky. We understand, though. When a major crime story like the Cleveland Kidnapping breaks, you have to send in Nancy Grace. However, since Nancy Grace is a poorly-medicated vengeance demon who's always just a bad morning away from ending up on her own show, you also send in a real anchor with whom she can ''correspond.''

Unfortunately, it's hard to get shooting permits in Cleveland on short notice, so you set up in the same parking lot. Do us a favor, CNN, just put them next to each other and have them talk into each other's faces instead of relaying their words through satellites to come back down 30 feet away like we're idiots.

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Syria

Syria blames Internet outage on technical problem

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories

Wed, 08 May 2013 16:40

Syria blames Internet outage on technical problemJavascript is currently disabled in your web browser. For full site functionality, it is necessary to enable Javascript. In order to enable it, please see these instructions.1 hour ago by Bassem MroueA problem with a fiber optics cable was responsible for an Internet outage that cut off civil war-ravaged Syria from the rest of the world for nearly 20 hours, state media said Wednesday.

Internet service stopped abruptly Tuesday evening, prompting speculation that the regime had pulled the plug, possibly as a cover for military action. However, no large-scale military offensives were reported Wednesday and the opposition did not accuse the regime of sabotage.

In the past, the regime halted Internet service in selected areas during government offensives to disrupt communication among rebel fighters. The last nationwide outage, for two days in November, coincided with a major military operation near the capital, Damascus, and its international airport.

A U.S.-based Web watcher said the problem would have to occur somewhere inside Syria for the entire country to be affected, although it was impossible to tell from a distance exactly what happened.

Jim Cowie of Renesys, a company that monitors online traffic, said Syria is serviced by three underwater cables, but a problem in one of those would not be sufficient to cut off Internet nationwide.

Preventing Internet access has become a tool of last resort for governments trying to suppress unrest, particularly during the Arab Spring protests that eventually toppled leaders in four countries.

Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring, experienced frequent Internet disruptions during its period of mass protests, while service in Egypt was shut down for almost a week ahead of the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

The Internet has also been an important tool in the bloody battle to topple Assad, now in its third year. With the Syrian government restricting foreign media access to the country, anti-regime activists talking on Skype and amateur videos posted online became important sources of information.

In rebel-controlled areas in the north and east of Syria, the regime cut off Internet service early in the uprising, forcing activists to use more expensive satellite phones.

Ahmad al-Khatib, an activist in the Jabal al-Zawiya region in the northwestern province of Idlib, said Internet has been down in his area for more than a year.

"It was normal news for us yesterday. It did not affect us," he said via Skype. "Those who were affected are activists who use 3G and they are mostly activist in regime-controlled areas."

He said that although 3G can be monitored by authorities, activists in Damascus still rely on it since those owning a satellite phone risk being flagged as potential rebel sympathizers.

Also Wednesday, the leader of the radical rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra was wounded by regime shelling in southern Damascus, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Several other fighters were injured in the incident, the Observatory said. The leader was identified by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Golani.

Al-Nusra, which has pledged allegiance to the al-Qaida terror network, is one of the dominant forces in the civil war, and its fighters are often found on the front lines.

On the diplomatic front, the international envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, welcomed a new U.S-Russian initiative to end the 26-month-old Syria conflict through negotiations.

A decision to convene an international conference later this month to build on a transition plan for Syria is "the first hopeful news" concerning Syria "in a very long time," Brahimi said Wednesday.

The goal of the plan, set out in Geneva last year, is to bring the Assad regime and opposition representatives together for talks on an interim government. Each side would be allowed to veto candidates it finds unacceptable.

The proposal also calls for an open-ended cease-fire and the formation of a transitional government to run the country until new elections can be held.

Brahimi has repeatedly expressed frustration over the failure to find a political solution in Syria, and has lamented the divisions on the U.N. Security Council that have prevented any international action.

The main opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, said Wednesday it welcomes efforts to reach a political solution, but said any transition must begin with the departure of Assad and officials in his regime. Syrian officials have said that Assad will stay in his post until his seven-year term ends next year and he will run again.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials said the Obama administration is providing $100 million in new Syria aid, but the money is for humanitarian purposes only and not linked to any decision on arming Syrian rebels.

The announcement will be made by Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday in Rome, where his diplomacy includes a meeting with Jordan's foreign minister, the officials said.

The new funds will help support 1.4 million Syrian refugees, including many in U.S. ally Jordan, and hundreds of thousands of other civilians still trapped by the violence inside Syria's border. Total U.S. humanitarian assistance in the two-year war will climb to $510 million.

The U.S. officials weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter ahead of Kerry's announcement and demanded anonymity.

The Obama administration has said it is considering providing weapons to vetted units in the armed opposition, among other military options, following last week's revelation that U.S. intelligence suggests the Assad regime has used chemical weapons. The U.S. also is looking for ways to halt the violence that has killed more than 70,000 people.

But the U.S. maintains deep reservations about providing direct military assistance, given the growing presence of al-Qaida-linked and other extremists in the rebel ranks.

Explore further:Syria Internet 'restored' after blackout

(C) 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Laughter perception networks in brain different for mocking, joyful or ticklish laughterA laugh may signal mockery, humor, joy or simply be a response to tickling, but each kind of laughter conveys a wealth of auditory and social information. These different kinds of laughter also spark different connections ...

(C) Phys.org' 2003-2013

Syria blames Internet outage on technical problemJavascript is currently disabled in your web browser. For full site functionality, it is necessary to enable Javascript. In order to enable it, please see these instructions.1 hour ago by Bassem MroueA problem with a fiber optics cable was responsible for an Internet outage that cut off civil war-ravaged Syria from the rest of the world for nearly 20 hours, state media said Wednesday.

Internet service stopped abruptly Tuesday evening, prompting speculation that the regime had pulled the plug, possibly as a cover for military action. However, no large-scale military offensives were reported Wednesday and the opposition did not accuse the regime of sabotage.

In the past, the regime halted Internet service in selected areas during government offensives to disrupt communication among rebel fighters. The last nationwide outage, for two days in November, coincided with a major military operation near the capital, Damascus, and its international airport.

A U.S.-based Web watcher said the problem would have to occur somewhere inside Syria for the entire country to be affected, although it was impossible to tell from a distance exactly what happened.

Jim Cowie of Renesys, a company that monitors online traffic, said Syria is serviced by three underwater cables, but a problem in one of those would not be sufficient to cut off Internet nationwide.

Preventing Internet access has become a tool of last resort for governments trying to suppress unrest, particularly during the Arab Spring protests that eventually toppled leaders in four countries.

Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring, experienced frequent Internet disruptions during its period of mass protests, while service in Egypt was shut down for almost a week ahead of the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

The Internet has also been an important tool in the bloody battle to topple Assad, now in its third year. With the Syrian government restricting foreign media access to the country, anti-regime activists talking on Skype and amateur videos posted online became important sources of information.

In rebel-controlled areas in the north and east of Syria, the regime cut off Internet service early in the uprising, forcing activists to use more expensive satellite phones.

Ahmad al-Khatib, an activist in the Jabal al-Zawiya region in the northwestern province of Idlib, said Internet has been down in his area for more than a year.

"It was normal news for us yesterday. It did not affect us," he said via Skype. "Those who were affected are activists who use 3G and they are mostly activist in regime-controlled areas."

He said that although 3G can be monitored by authorities, activists in Damascus still rely on it since those owning a satellite phone risk being flagged as potential rebel sympathizers.

Also Wednesday, the leader of the radical rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra was wounded by regime shelling in southern Damascus, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Several other fighters were injured in the incident, the Observatory said. The leader was identified by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Golani.

Al-Nusra, which has pledged allegiance to the al-Qaida terror network, is one of the dominant forces in the civil war, and its fighters are often found on the front lines.

On the diplomatic front, the international envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, welcomed a new U.S-Russian initiative to end the 26-month-old Syria conflict through negotiations.

A decision to convene an international conference later this month to build on a transition plan for Syria is "the first hopeful news" concerning Syria "in a very long time," Brahimi said Wednesday.

The goal of the plan, set out in Geneva last year, is to bring the Assad regime and opposition representatives together for talks on an interim government. Each side would be allowed to veto candidates it finds unacceptable.

The proposal also calls for an open-ended cease-fire and the formation of a transitional government to run the country until new elections can be held.

Brahimi has repeatedly expressed frustration over the failure to find a political solution in Syria, and has lamented the divisions on the U.N. Security Council that have prevented any international action.

The main opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, said Wednesday it welcomes efforts to reach a political solution, but said any transition must begin with the departure of Assad and officials in his regime. Syrian officials have said that Assad will stay in his post until his seven-year term ends next year and he will run again.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials said the Obama administration is providing $100 million in new Syria aid, but the money is for humanitarian purposes only and not linked to any decision on arming Syrian rebels.

The announcement will be made by Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday in Rome, where his diplomacy includes a meeting with Jordan's foreign minister, the officials said.

The new funds will help support 1.4 million Syrian refugees, including many in U.S. ally Jordan, and hundreds of thousands of other civilians still trapped by the violence inside Syria's border. Total U.S. humanitarian assistance in the two-year war will climb to $510 million.

The U.S. officials weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter ahead of Kerry's announcement and demanded anonymity.

The Obama administration has said it is considering providing weapons to vetted units in the armed opposition, among other military options, following last week's revelation that U.S. intelligence suggests the Assad regime has used chemical weapons. The U.S. also is looking for ways to halt the violence that has killed more than 70,000 people.

But the U.S. maintains deep reservations about providing direct military assistance, given the growing presence of al-Qaida-linked and other extremists in the rebel ranks.

Explore further:Syria Internet 'restored' after blackout

(C) 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Notice -- Continuation of the National Emergency with respect to the Actions of the Government of Syria

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed

Wed, 08 May 2013 01:59

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

May 07, 2013

NOTICE

- - - - - - -

CONTINUATION OF THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY WITH RESPECT

TO THE ACTIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT OF SYRIA

On May 11, 2004, pursuant to his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 50 U.S.C. 1701- 1706, and the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, Public Law 108-175, the President issued Executive Order 13338, in which he declared a national emergency with respect to the actions of the Government of Syria. To deal with this national emergency, Executive Order 13338 authorized the blocking of property of certain persons and prohibited the exportation or re-exportation of certain goods to Syria. The national emergency was modified in scope and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13399 of April 25, 2006, Executive Order 13460 of February 13, 2008, Executive Order 13572 of April 29, 2011, Executive Order 13573 of May 18, 2011, Executive Order 13582 of August 17, 2011, Executive Order 13606 of April 22, 2012, and Executive Order 13608 of May 1, 2012.

The President took these actions to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by the actions of the Government of Syria in supporting terrorism, maintaining its then-existing occupation of Lebanon, pursuing weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, and undermining U.S. and international efforts with respect to the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq.

While the Syrian regime has reduced the number of foreign fighters bound for Iraq, the regime's brutal war on the Syrian people, who have been calling for freedom and a representative government, endangers not only the Syrian people themselves, but could yield greater instability throughout the region. The Syrian regime's actions and policies, including pursuing chemical and biological weapons, supporting terrorist organizations, and obstructing the Lebanese government's ability to function effectively, continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. As a result, the national emergency declared on May 11, 2004, and the measures to deal with that emergency adopted on that date in Executive Order 13338; on April 25, 2006, in Executive Order 13399; on February 13, 2008, in Executive Order 13460; on April 29, 2011, in Executive Order 13572; on May 18, 2011, in Executive Order 13573; on August 17, 2011, in Executive Order 13582; on April 22, 2012, in Executive Order 13606; and on May 1, 2012, in Executive Order 13608; must continue in effect beyond May 11, 2013. Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. 1622(d), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency declared with respect to the actions of the Government of Syria.

In addition, the United States condemns the Asad regime's use of brutal violence and human rights abuses and calls on the Asad regime to stop its violent war and step aside to allow a political transition in Syria that will forge a credible path to a future of greater freedom, democracy, opportunity, and justice.

The United States will consider changes in the composition, policies, and actions of the Government of Syria in determining whether to continue or terminate this national emergency in the future.

This notice shall be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress.

BARACK OBAMA

THE WHITE HOUSE,

May 7, 2013.

Message -- Continuation of the National Emergency with respect to the Actions of the Government of Syria

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed

Wed, 08 May 2013 01:59

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

May 07, 2013

TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES:

Section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. 1622(d), provides for the automatic termination of a national emergency, unless, within 90 days prior to the anniversary date of its declaration, the President publishes in the Federal Register and transmits to the Congress a notice stating that the emergency is to continue in effect beyond the anniversary date. In accordance with this provision, I have sent to the Federal Register for publication the enclosed notice stating that the national emergency with respect to the actions of the Government of Syria declared in Executive Order 13338 of May 11, 2004 -- as modified in scope and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13399 of April 25, 2006, Executive Order 13460 of February 13, 2008, Executive Order 13572 of April 29, 2011, Executive Order 13573 of May 18, 2011, Executive Order 13582 of August 17, 2011, Executive Order 13606 of April 22, 2012, and Executive Order 13608 of May 1, 2012 -- is to continue in effect beyond May 11, 2013.

While the Syrian regime has reduced the number of foreign fighters bound for Iraq, the regime's brutal war on the Syrian people, who have been calling for freedom and a representative government, endangers not only the Syrian people themselves, but could yield greater instability throughout the region. The Syrian regime's actions and policies, including pursuing chemical and biological weapons, supporting terrorist organizations, and obstructing the Lebanese government's ability to function effectively, continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. For these reasons, I have determined that it is necessary to continue in effect the national emergency declared with respect to this threat and to maintain in force the sanctions to address this national emergency.

In addition, the United States condemns the Asad regime's use of brutal violence and human rights abuses and calls on the Asad regime to stop its violent war and step aside to allow a political transition in Syria that will forge a credible path to a future of greater freedom, democracy, opportunity, and justice.

The United States will consider changes in the composition, policies, and actions of the Government of Syria in determining whether to continue or terminate this national emergency in the future.

BARACK OBAMA

THE WHITE HOUSE,

May 7, 2013.

Tekkim | THE POPULIST

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 07 May 2013 08:24

This video show a group of individuals wearing camouflage clothing and chemical protective gear in a lab. There are vials of chemicals marked ''Tekkim'', a Turkish chemical company. And there are two rabbits, in a glass cage'...

WARNING! This video shows the two rabbits dying a gruesome death after they are exposed to a deadly [...]

Elite$

Obama Did It For the Money | Common Dreams

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 08 May 2013 21:56

The love fest between Barack Obama and his top fundraiser Penny Pritzker that has led to her being nominated as Commerce secretary would not be so unseemly if they both just confessed that they did it for the money. Her money, not his, financed his rise to the White House from less promising days back in Chicago.President Barack Obama looks to longtime fundraiser Penny Pritzker, right, as she laughs in the Rose Garden of the White House, where he announced he would nominate Pritzker to run the Commerce Department and economic adviser Michael Froman, left, as the next U.S. Trade Representative. (Photo: AP/Carolyn Kaster)

''Without Penny Pritzker, it is unlikely that Barack Obama ever would have been elected to the United States Senate or the presidency,'' according to a gushing New York Times report last year that read like the soaring jacket copy of a steamy romance novel. ''When she first backed him during his 2004 Senate run, she was No. 152 on the Forbes list of the wealthiest Americans. He was a long-shot candidate who needed her support and imprimatur. Mr. Obama and Ms. Pritzker grew close, sometimes spending weekends with their families at her summer home.''

But don't sell the lady short; she wasn't swept along on some kind of celebrity joyride. Pritzker, the billionaire heir to part of the Hyatt Hotels fortune, has long been first off an avaricious capitalist, and if she backed Obama, it wasn't for his looks. Never one to rest on the laurels of her immense inherited wealth, Pritzker has always wanted more. That's what drove her to run Superior Bank into the subprime housing swamp that drowned the institution's homeowners and depositors alike before she emerged richer than before.

Pritzker and her family had acquired the savings and loan with the help of $600 million in tax credits. She became the new bank's chairwoman and ended up as a director of the holding company that owned it. Under her leadership, Superior specialized in subprime lending, hustling folks with meager means and poor credit into high interest loans that were bundled into the toxic securities that wrecked the U.S. economy.

As federal regulators began to move in on her bank after it had dangerously inflated the value of its toxic assets, Pritzker assured its employees: ''Our commitment to subprime has never been stronger.'' Two months later, the bank was pronounced insolvent. At the time, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s inspector general report concluded, ''The failure of Superior Bank was directly attributable to the board of directors and executive management ignoring sound risk diversification principles, as evidenced by excessive concentration in residual assets related to subprime lending. ..."

No biggie. In announcing her appointment, Obama joked, ''For your birthday present, you get to go through confirmation. It's going to be great.'' It's the same sort of joke he could have cracked in appointing Citigroup alum Jack Lew to be Treasury secretary.

It is deeply revealing that in the midst of the continuing cycle of misery brought on by the chicanery of the financial community two key Cabinet positions dealing with business practices will likely be occupied by people who specialized in those financial rip-offs.

For Pritzker, as with the confirmation of Lew, the fix is in. The Republicans don't dare push back too hard on shady business practices that their deregulation legislation endorsed, and Democrats will go along with anything the president wants.

The same restraint will be exhibited in exploring the offshore tax havens that have protected the Pritzker family's immense wealth. Back in 2008, when she had been rumored for this same Cabinet post, Pritzker was queried about avoiding the sort of taxes most ordinary folks are obligated to pay, and she replied in writing: ''I am a beneficiary of some non-U.S. situs trusts which were established about 50 years ago (when I was a child) and are administered by a non-U.S.''based financial institution as trustee. I do not control how those assets are administered.'' If the Republicans challenge that canard, the Democrats will smugly remind them of Mitt Romney's tax havens, as if that excuses tax avoidance within their own ranks.

Certainly the Republicans will not raise questions about the anti-union practices that helped create the Hyatt fortune in the first place and continue to this day. Nor will the Democrats, who embrace unions only at national convention time.

''There is a huge unresolved set of issues in the Democratic Party between people of wealth and people who work,'' noted Andy Stern, former president of the Service Employees International Union, which attempts to organize the miserably paid workers that produced Pritzker's wealth. ''Penny is a living example of that issue.''

But it's payback time, and even normally progressive Democrats like Pritzker's home state Sen. Dick Durbin are prepared to roll over. Treating the appointment of billionaire Pritzker as a victory for women everywhere, the senator said she'd ''broken through the glass ceiling with her extraordinary intelligence and business acumen.''

Right, Pritzker will be a fine role model for those women working at the Asian factories that she'll be touring as Commerce secretary extolling the virtues of the American business model.

(C) 2013 TruthDig.com

Robert Scheer is editor of Truthdig.com and a regular columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle.

hyatt hotels workers dispute - Google Search

Why Boycott Hyatt? | Hyatt Hurts

Enron's Skilling May Be Free As Soon As 2017 Or 11 Years Early

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: Zero Hedge

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:30

As we reported a month ago, when we reported that Enron CEO Jeff Skilling may be released from prison early, moments ago we just learned that, to nobody's real surprise, the mastermind of the biggest US bankruptcy in the early 21st century may be behind bars for just four more years, cutting his total sentence, which was scheduled to expire in 2028, by 11 years. From Bloomberg:

ENRON'S SKILLING AND JUSTICE DEPARTMENT REACH SENTENCE DEALENRON'S SKILLING MAY BE RELEASED IN 4 YEARS, LAWYER SAYSENRON'S SKILLING WAS SENTENCED TO MORE THAN 23 YEARS IN PRISONENRON SENTENCE DEAL ALLOWS OVER $40 MLN RESTITUTION PAYOUTENRON'S SKILLING HELPED MASTERMIND MASSIVE FRAUD AT ENERGY FIRMIndeed he did: which is why it is surprising he served any prison time at all.

So in brief: justice for all, except for those who have $40 million set aside for "restitution payments."

Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 3.8(5 votes)

Google Gestapo

>> Google Falsely Accuses Infowars, Drudge of Malware Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 08 May 2013 12:22

Google has committed more hacking and Internet crimes than any other institution in history

Kurt NimmoInfowars.comMay 7, 2013

Editor's note: Infowars.com's IT department has scanned our system and reports that we do not carry content from um.eqads.com as Google tells visitors to the site.

How best to scare people away from alternative media? Make them think Drudge Report and Infowars.com web pages contain malicious software.

In April, White House Senior Advisor Dan Pfeiffer tried to steer traffic away from the Drudge Report. His effort directed more traffic to the website.

During a news conference last year, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney instructed a reporter to ''be mindful of your sources'' when asked about the Drudge Report and a rumor about Mitt Romney.

More traffic flowed to Drudge.

Despite the best efforts of Obamaites and Democrats to diss Drudge and put a dent in the web site's popularity, millions of folks peruse the site daily.

Back in March of 2010, the Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works sent out an email stating Drudge's website was ''responsible for the many viruses popping up throughout the Senate,'' according to a CNet report.

No appreciable drop in viewership ensued.

Ditto Infowars.com. In recent weeks, a large number of critics led by spurious reports posted on the Southern Poverty Law Center's website and elsewhere have posted stories accusing Alex Jones and Infowars.com of fomenting some kind of rightwing terror campaign and distributing baseless conspiracy theories.

No matter. Following the attack, millions of people flocked to the website to get the other side of the story on everything from Sandy Hook to the Boston bombings.

Now Google Chrome tags Infowars.com as a malware distributor.

It is a tactic destined to failure.

The CNet article posted on March 9, 2010 reported that the malware allegedly distributed by the Drudge Report actually came from DoubleClick, a subsidiary of Google which develops and provides internet ad serving services. It serves customers like Microsoft, General Motors, Coca-Cola, Motorola, Apple Inc., Visa USA, Nike and dozen of others.

So, when are we going to hear that large transnational corporations are purveyors of malware?

Is it possible Google will advise web travelers to avoid their websites?

Google Engaged in Massive Data Theft

Google should take a look at its own track record before trying to frighten off visitors to Infowars.com and Drudge.

In 2012, a Federal Communications Commission document disclosed that Google's Street View '' an effort to photograph streets around the world '' deliberately collected massive amounts of Wi-Fi payload data and the information was illegally stored at an Oregon Storage facility. Google attempted to hide the theft from the public.

The pilfered data includes telephone numbers, URLs, passwords, email, text messages, medical records, video and audio files, according to Wired.

The government then said the transnational communications corporation would not be criminally charged with wiretapping, in essence giving Google free reign to engage in additional theft.

Moreover, the government complied with a Google request to redact portions of the FCC document.

Google shares a cozy relationship with the intelligence community. In 2011, Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy group, asked the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa, to investigate Google's relationship with the NSA and other government agencies.

''The group asked Issa to investigate contracts at several U.S. agencies for Google technology and services, the 'secretive' relationship between Google and the U.S. National Security Agency, and the company's use of a U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration airfield in California,'' writes Grant Gross for PCWorld.

''Federal agencies have also taken 'insufficient' action in response to revelations last year that Google Street View cars were collecting data from open Wi-Fi connections they passed, Consumer Watchdog said in the letter.''

In 2010, it was reported that Google and the CIA jointly backed a company engaged in real time surveillance of the web. The company, Recorded Future, ''scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents '-- both present and still-to-come,'' writes Noah Shachtman.

This article was posted: Tuesday, May 7, 2013 at 10:17 am

Tags: domestic news, internet, mainstream media, technology

From Kris

Adam,

Not only does Google restrict firearms related

items in their shopping listings, but they will not even allow us to

promote Security Guard Training or any other type of training using

their system. We tried several times for two years to let them know

that we were focused on training folks to safely use firearms and other

tools to defend themselves, but to no avail. It would seem that Google

is now in a position to set policy where even the Congress is not

willing to tread.

What's the policy?

Google Shopping doesn't allow the promotion of weapons or devices

designed to cause serious harm or injury. The promotion of weapons

includes guns, gun parts or hardware, ammunition, bombs, knives,

throwing stars, and brass knuckles.

Bank$ters

JP Morgan Has Zero Trading Losses In The First Quarter

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: Zero Hedge

Wed, 08 May 2013 17:39

Earlier it was Bank of America reporting a perfect trading quarter, with profitability on 60 out of 60 trading days, and now it is JPMorgan's turn. Moments ago, Jamie Dimon's firm filed a 10-Q in which, among other things, it announced than in the quarter ended March 31, it was profitable on 63 out of 63 trading days and had one day in which it gained more than $200 million, or said simply another case of trading perfection unmatched anywhere in the known universe except perhaps by sellers of newsletters on Twitter. It was not immediately clear why JPM got a freebie of three extra profitable trading days in the quarter compared to BofA, although we suspect Jamie Dimon's presidential cufflinks may have something to do with it. What is clear is that the probability of one firm trading without error for an entire quarter, let alone two (and soon more as other banks file their 10-Qs) is slim to quite slim. Although not nearly as slim as whoever the hot chick is on Dancing with the Stars this season, which we are confident is the only thing the bulk of the population cares about. For everyone else, there's E(rror free)-trade.

Going further back in time, we find that JPM had a winning trading accuracy of:

84.3% in 201289.6% in 201195.0% in 201083.9% in 2009This compares to Bank of America's:

97.6% in 201285.6% in 201190.0% in 201088.0% in 2009Or, since 2009, BAC's winning trade hit rate is somehow even better than that of JPM, at 90.8% compared to 88.9% for the firm that is in charge of Tri-Party repo. The chances of this occurring, considering the traders at Bank of America (including those from Merrill) are the butt of every joke on Wall Street and certainly far inferior to the traders from a firm which until the London Whale assumed it had an unlimited balance sheet, are also slim to quite slim.

Perhaps related to all of the above, and for those curious if the recent reports of regulatory action against Blythe Masters will lead to anything, this is what the firm had to say about its ongoing legal entanglement with FERC:

FERC Matters. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (the ''FERC'') is investigating the Firm's bidding practices in certain organized power markets. In March 2013, the Firm received a Wells-type notice that the FERC staff intends to recommend that the Commission bring a possible enforcement action against J.P. Morgan Ventures Energy Corp. (''JPMVEC''), JPMorgan Chase & Co. and certain Firm personnel relating to alleged violations of FERC rules and the rules of certain independent system operators. Additionally, in November 2012, the FERC issued an Order suspending JPMVEC's market-based rate authority for six months commencing on April 1, 2013, based on its finding that statements concerning discovery obligations made in submissions related to the FERC investigation violated FERC rules regarding misleading information.

The first to figure out what a "Wells-type" notice is (a Wells notice that is not really a Wells notice if one has presidential cufflinks perhaps?) gets a tour of the JPMorgan gold vault. As for anyone harboring any hope that Blythe Masters may spend even a minute in prison, your chance of seeing the JPM gold vault first hand is equally high.

Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 4.7(3 votes)

MIC

America's Unspoken Civil War - Smedley Butler

EXTENDED WARRATY Federal Register | 36(b)(1) Arms Sales Notification

Link to Article

Archived Version

Sat, 04 May 2013 16:09

Ms. B. English, DSCA/DBO/CFM, (703) 601-3740.

The following is a copy of a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Transmittals 13-09 with attached transmittal, and policy justification.

Dated: May 1, 2013.

Aaron Siegel,

Alternate OSD Federal Register Liaison Officer,Department of Defense.

BILLING CODE 5001-06-P

Transmittal No. 13-09Notice of Proposed Issuance of Letter of Offer Pursuant to Section 36(b)(1) of the Arms Export Control Act, as amended(i) Prospective Purchaser: United Kingdom

(ii) TotalEstimated Value:

Major Defense Equipment *$0 millionOther$170 millionTOTAL$170 million(iii) Description and Quantity or Quantities of Articles or Services under Consideration for Purchase: follow-on support for the Tomahawk Weapon System (TWS) including missile modifications, maintenance, spare and repair parts, system and test equipment, engineering support, communications equipment, technical assistance, personnel training/equipment, and other related elements of logistics support.

(iv) Military Department: Navy (FAY).

(v) Prior Related Cases, if any:

FMS Case AGS-$154M-16Oct95

FMS Case AHA-$32M-26Aug99

FMS Case AHE-$36M-14Dec01

FMS Case GWY-$6M-20Jan00

FMS Case GYU-$33M-21Jan02

FMS Case LIS-$49M-18Jan04

FMS Case GXQ-$122M-27Nov00

FMS Case AHJ-$118M-26Mar04

FMS Case GEK-$122M-20Feb08.

(vi) Sales Commission, Fee, etc., Paid, Offered, or Agreed to be Paid: None.

(vii) Sensitivity of Technology Contained in the Defense Article orDefense Services Proposed to be Sold: None.

(viii) Date Report Delivered to Congress: 16 April 2013.

POLICY JUSTIFICATIONUnited Kingdom'--Follow-On Support for Tomahawk Weapon System (TWS)The United Kingdom (UK) has requested a possible sale of follow-on support for the Tomahawk Weapon System (TWS) to include missile modifications, maintenance, spare and repair parts, system and test equipment, engineering support, communications equipment, technical assistance, personnel training/equipment, and other related elements of logistics support. The estimated cost is $170 million.

The United Kingdom is a major political and economic power and a key democratic partner of the U.S. in ensuring peace and stability around the world.

The proposed sale of follow-on support will allow the United Kingdom to continue life cycle support of its TWS and maintain operational effectiveness. The United Kingdom requests support for this capability to provide for the safety of its deployed troops, regional security, and interoperability with the United States. The United Kingdom will have no difficulty absorbing this follow-on support into its armed forces.

The proposed sale of this follow-on support and equipment will not alter the basic military balance in the region.

The principal contractors will be Raytheon Missile Systems Company in Tucson, Arizona; Lockheed Martin in Manassas, Virginia, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and Marlton, New Jersey; The Boeing Company in St. Louis, Missouri; BAE North America in San Diego, California; COMGLOBAL in San Jose, California; and SAIC in Springfield, Virginia and Patuxent River, Maryland. There are no known offset agreements proposed in connection with this potential sale.

Implementation of this proposed sale will require the assignment of one (1) U.S. Government and two (2) contractor representatives to the United Kingdom for the duration of this case.

There will be no adverse impact on U.S. defense readiness as a result of this proposed sale.

[FR Doc. 2013-10631 Filed 5-3-13; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 5001-06-C

Navy Seal Team VI Families To Hold Presser To Reveal Government Culpability In Fatal Helicopter Crash

IED

California man arrested for trying to return pipe bomb at gun buyback '-- RT USA

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: BadChad's ThoughtPile

Wed, 08 May 2013 01:58

During a gun buyback event in Los Angeles, one man surrendered a homemade pipe bomb, explaining that he has no more desire to use it. California police then immediately proceeded to arrest the man for owning it in the first place.

''This is not a pipe bomb buyback. This is a gun buyback,'' Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck told CBS Los Angeles. ''Pipe bombs are illegal to possess, illegal to manufacture.''

The police chief explained that people can turn in their firearms with no questions asked, but that this does not apply to bombs. This past weekend's sixth LA gun buyback event yielded about 1,200 surrendered firearms, most of which were handguns, rifles and shotguns. Among the surrounded firearms were also 49 assault-style weapons. California residents who turned in their guns were given gift cards in exchange for their weapons. The city spent $250,000 for the event held this past weekend.

''Some of the assault weapons that were collected, these are weapons of war,'' Beck said, adding that ''a couple of AK-47s'' and an antique ''Tommy Gun''-style weapon were turned in.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonia Villaraigosa said that ''each gun that gets off the street represents one less opportunity for tragedy, one less weapon that can lead to the loss of life.''

But the man who turned in his pipe bomb would have been better off discarding it on his own. In many countries '' including the US '' possession of a homemade pipe bomb is a crime, regardless of a person's intended use for it.

And although the man who turned it in had no intent to use it that day, he admitted that he once planned to detonate the Hollywood sign.

''[The man] told the officers in the line that he had spoken to God that day, and God no longer wanted him to use that bomb to blow up the Hollywood sign, now he wanted him to turn it in,'' Beck said.

Upon receiving the bomb, police safely detonated the device and arrested the man who dropped it off.

California's penal code prohibits the possession of ''any destructive device'' other than ''fixed ammunition'', and punishes violators with incarceration and/or substantial fines. Violators who are in possession of such a device can be convicted of a misdemeanor, face one year in county jail and a maximum fine of $10,000. Violators convicted of a felony face the same fine and up to three years in California State Prison.

Police have not yet revealed any details about the charges this man faces. But if he receives a fine or jail time, his good intentions in surrendering the bomb will have been more costly than discarding it on his own.

BAustin

Distraction of the Week

McDonald's to Ohio man: 'We'll be in touch' - Business - Boston.com

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:56

Neighbor Charles Ramsey speaks to media near the home on the 2200 block of Seymour Avenue, where three missing women were rescued in Cleveland, on Monday, May 6, 2013. Cheering crowds gathered on the street where police said Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michele Knight, who went missing about a decade ago and were found earlier in the day. (AP Photo/The Plain Dealer, Scott Shaw) MANDATORY CREDIT CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER

CLEVELAND BROTHEL PROTECTED BY POLICE?

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 08 May 2013 08:47

Between 2002 and 2004, in Cleveland Ohio, three girls were kidnapped.The three girls were held prisoner for ten years - at 2207 Seymour Avenue.2207 Seymour Avenue is owned by Ariel Castro.In 2004, the police were made aware that Ariel Castro had temporarily abducted a boy. Castro imprisoned the boy on his school bus for two hours.In 2004, the police came to visit 2207 Seymour Avenue."They left when no one answered the door."Reportedly, the three girls were kept in rooms with chains, tape and other bondage devices.It sounds as though 2207 Seymour Avenue was a brothel, being protected by agents of the US government.

Amanda Berry (Centre) one of the three who were kidnappedJuan Perez, 27, has known Ariel Castro since he was five.Juan Perez says that Ariel Castro 'groomed the whole neighborhood' over the years.Perez says that three years ago he and his sister heard a woman's scream that 'gave them goosebumps' that went on for 10 seconds.

They called the police but the police took no action.

Israel Lugo, 39, lives three houses down from Ariel Castro's house.Lugo says that in 2011 he heard what he thought was a girl banging on a window.He says: 'The cops came but they never did anything'.

dailymail.

Nina Samoylicz, a neighbour of Ariel Castro, says she saw three naked young girls crawling in the backyard of his house on all fours with dog leashes around their necks and three men controlling them.

But the police never responded to her call.

The police also failed to respond to calls from two other neighbours.dailymail.The Dutroux gang supplied girls to the elite, to be tortured and murdered.

Marc Dutroux's lawyer, Xavier Magnee, said Dutroux, was part of a criminal network supplying the sex trade.

Magnee said Dutroux was a "small fish" working for a network with links to the police.

Magnee pointed out the failure of the police to process all the forensic samples discovered in a basement cellar in which Dutroux kept four of his captives.

Magnee said that some 6,000 hair samples found in the basement cellar where some of the victims were held had led to the discovery of 25 "unknown" DNA profiles.

"There were people in that cellar that are not now accused," said Magnee.

M. Magnee said prosecutors had ignored evidence that might have linked the ring to a Satanic cult called Abrasax, which is suspected of performing human sacrifices. - Dutroux says he abducted girls with police help - Europe, News ...

Regina Louf mentioned a number of girls that she had witnessed being murdered. (The Belgian X-Files) (Belgium's X-Files - An Olenka Frenkiel Investigation - BBC)

Marc Dutroux insisted that he was not a "lone predator" but part of a wider paedophile ring.

Dutroux described himself as a victim, a "puppet in a show trial" who had to be put away to "hide the truth" and serve the interests of "organised corruption".

Dutroux said only 10% of the case had been examined. He asked why independent-minded policemen had been removed from the investigating team.

Dutroux insists he was part of paedophile ring When Dutroux was convicted in 2004 of raping and murdering a string of young girls - two of whom had starved to death in his cellar - he said he was part of a widespread paedophile ring that included policemen and elite members of Belgian society." -Secrets and terror of Jersey care home - Telegraph

"Belgian police were told of the whereabouts of one of the victims of alleged child murderer and pedophile Marc Dutroux one year before she was found dead, a court in Belgium heard."

"Throughout the Dutroux investigation and trial there have were allegations of police collusion..."

Mac & Cheese

Hot Chicken Hot Pot

First off, yeah, there may be some problems with WF but the chicken, at

least in our region (The Southern Pacific), is fine; in fact it's good.

I have no reason to believe the buyer in the flagship region is chincing.

Second, just cause I work for whole foods doesn't mean I can't cook. It

means I am getting old and long hours with no benefits for the glory

isn't cool anymore.

Know your pot AND your oven (Get that fucker calibrated). John's advice

is fine but I would start with a hot pot. I'd also butter the outside

of the bird after I seasoned underneath the skin and filled the cavity

with citrus and herbs and trussed it

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3bieEEYEAk). That guy is perfect. By

the way, chicken more than any meat, other than turkey, can stand heavy

seasoning (more salt than usual). Do remember that salt inhibits

browning and also leeches moisture especially if it's not cooked right.

Hot oven. Hot pot.

Hot oven 425

Hot pot, barely smoking.

Canola Oil

Buttered seasoned trussed chicken

Hit the pot with oil. It should smoke slightly more than it was, too

much isn't great but keep going unless a fire starts. Lay the bird on

it's right side in the pot and put it straight in the oven with no lid.

Wait 20 minutes and move the bird to the other side.

Wait 20 minutes and move the bird breast side up. (I find if you can

use some sort of chicken suspension at this point it's better than

direct contact. Either way, press on for 20 more minutes.)

Lower the heat to 375 and pull the bird out.

If it's small, it's probably done and you can turn the oven off. Make

sure by putting a thermometer in the deepest part of the thigh and

reading at least 165. Once you've done this several times you can ditch

the thermometer. You get used to "right". If it's bigger it might need

another 10 minutes or so in the lower oven.

Let it rest for 10 minutes on a plate that rests on another plate. Like,

get a small plate and rest the ass end of the chicken on that to allow

the juices to drain toward the breast as the whole chicken and the

smaller plate sit atop a larger plate. Know what I mean?

Carve. (http://www.cooks.com/rec/story/69/). I'd video myself doing it

but I am just getting by with M&C today. Maybe next week at work I can

get someone to video me doing it and we can send it to you.

Love the show. On a 12.12 monthly and throwing more when I can.

Bruce

GOLD

U.S. Mint Sales of Gold Coins Jump to Highest in Three Years

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: EconomicPolicyJournal.com

Wed, 01 May 2013 15:58

The public is not buying into the MSM fear mongering about gold, such as this Business Insider doozy:No One Can Call Gold A Safe Haven Ever Again

In April, sales of gold coins by the U.S. Mint rose to the highest since December 2009.April sales totaled 209,500 ounces, up from 62,000 ounces in March, data on the mint's website show.

The amount for December 2009 was 231,500 ounces. Silver-coin sales rose to 4.2 million ounces from 3.36 million in March.

''People are flocking to buy physical gold,'' Todd Dutkevitch, a senior account executive at Los Angeles-based American Bullion Inc., said in a phone interview with Bloomberg news. ''The price drop has made it possible for many retail buyers to add gold.''

Are We On The Verge Of Witnessing The Death Of The Paper Gold Scam?

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: BlackListedNews.com

Wed, 08 May 2013 16:24

>>The legal claims on physical gold far exceed the amount of physical gold that the banks actually have by a very, very wide margin. And right now the bankers are scared out of their wits because their warehouses are being drained of physical gold at a frightening rate. So what happens when their physical gold is gone but they still have lots and lots of people with legal claims to gold? When that moment arrives, it will represent the end of the paper gold scam. Many believe that the recent takedown of the price of paper gold was a desperate attempt by the bankers to put off that day of reckoning, but it appears to have greatly backfired on them. Instead of cooling off demand for precious metals, it has unleashed a massive "gold rush" all over the globe. Meanwhile, word has been spreading among wealthy families in both North America and Europe that they had better grab their physical gold out of the banks while they still can. This is creating havoc in the financial community, and at least one major international bank has already declared that it will only be settling those accounts in cash from now on. The paper gold scam is starting to unravel, and by the time this is all over it is going to be a complete and total nightmare for global financial markets.

For years it has been widely known that the promises that banks have made regarding their gold far exceed their actual ability to deliver, but we have never reached a moment of such crisis before.

Posted below are quotes from people that know precious metals far better than I do. What these experts are saying is more than a little bit disturbing...

-CME President Terry Duffy: What's interesting about gold, when we had that big break two weeks ago we saw all the gold stocks trade down significantly, we saw all the gold products trade down significantly, but one thing that did not trade down, was gold coins, tangible real gold. That's going to show you, people don't want certificates, they don't want anything else. They want the real product.

-Billionaire Eric Sprott: So we see all of these paper (trading) volumes going through that bear absolutely no relationship to what's going on in the physical markets. As you know I have always been a proponent of the fact that supply in the gold market was way less than demand, and by a very large factor. I think demand exceeds supply by at least 60%. The central banks are surreptitiously supplying that gold, and ultimately they will be running on fumes.

When we hear about the LBMA not willing to deliver gold, and JP Morgan's inventories at the COMEX have gone from 2.4 million (ounces) down to 160,000 ounces, it just makes you realize that all of this paper trading means nothing. It's the real physical market that you have to rely on.

-JS Kim: FACT #1: COMEX gold vaults were recently drained of 2 million ounces of physical gold in one quarter, the largest withdrawal of physical gold bullion from COMEX vaults in one quarter during this entire 12-year gold and silver bull. There has been speculation about the reasons that spurred these massive withdrawals of gold from COMEX vaults, but the most reasonable speculation is that no one trusts the bankers to hold on to their physical gold anymore, especially in light of Fact #2. Note below, that both registered AND eligible stocks of gold had heavily declined in recent months. Such an event signals a general distrust of the banking system from everyone holding gold in registered COMEX vaults.

FACT #2: One of the largest European banks, ABN Amro, defaulted on their gold contracts and informed their clients that they would only settle their gold bullion contracts in cash and not in physical. So much for the supposed legality of financial contracts as a "binding" contract. So whether Fact #1 caused Fact #2 or vice versa is irrelevant. What IS apparent is that the level of trust in bankers to safekeep physical gold and physical silver is disappearing, as it should be, and as it should have already been for years now. But truth always takes some time to catch up to banker spread lies and that is what is happening now. I have been warning people never to trust bankers in deals involving gold and silver for years now, as in this article I wrote nearly four years ago informing the public that the SLV and GLD are likely a banker invented scam as well.

FACT #3: Silver fraud whistleblower and London trader Andrew Maguire stated that the LBMA was having trouble settling gold contracts in bullion as well and stated that institutions that asked for physical settlement ''were told they would be cash settled instead by a bullion bank.'' In plain English, this is a default. So Andrew Maguire reported that the LBMA had already gone into default. In light of Fact #1 and Fact #2, the dominoes were starting to tumble and the house of cards that the bankers had built in gold and silver paper derivatives to deceive and hide the true fundamentals of the physical gold and physical markets from the entire world was rapidly starting to crumble. A financial earthquake of magnitude 2.5 was quickly threatening to evolve into one of the biggest financial earthquakes of all time in which the world's confidence in all global fiat currencies would effectively have a well-deserved funeral.

-Jim Sinclair: I think the reality is the supply situation is extremely volatile at this point, and even discussing it is like rubbing a raw nerve to the people who are in charge. The amount of discussion on the subject of warehouse supply, supply that is represented by the gold leases, indicated to the central planners that the demand for physical was going to continue to effect the exchanges.

Although they did not expect any grandstand delivery, the mere continued draining of physical inventories was threatening the very functioning of the paper exchange. That threatening of the paper exchange and its ability to continue functioning is really taking off the blinders and revealing the truth behind the critical question, 'Where is the gold?'

The question now is, 'Where has the gold gone?' Who has all of this gold? Because of the nature of gold leasing, all of this gold has been purchased and it has gone somewhere. The reality of the empty vaults reveal that the gold has gone missing.

-Ronald Stoeferle: We're seeing this rush to physical gold not only in the retail market, but also for the institutional players...[it's] just overwhelming'...I [estimate] a 130-to-1 [ratio of paper to physical gold]'...and I think in the last week we were really close to [triggering] a default of the paper market.

-Gerhard Schubert, head of Precious Metals at Emirates NBD: I have not seen in my 35 years in precious metals such a determined and strong global physical demand for gold. The UAE physical markets have been cleared out by buyers from all walks of life. The premiums, which have been asked for and which have been paid have been the cornerstone of the gold price recovery. It is very rare that physical markets can have a serious impact on market prices, which are normally driven solely by derivatives and futures contracts'...

I did speak during the week with several refineries in the world, of course including the UAE refineries, and the waiting period for 995 kilo bars is easily 2-3 weeks and goes into June in some cases. A large portion of the 995 kilo bars in the UAE goes normally into the Indian market, but a lot of the available 995 kilo bars are destined for Turkey, at this time. We heard that premiums paid in Turkey have reached anything between US $ 20 and US $ 35 per ounce.

-James Turk: Another indication of the demand for large bars is the huge drawdown in the gold stock in COMEX warehouses. It is noteworthy that COMEX reports show the drawdown is largely the result of dealers removing their inventory, their working stock. When that happens, you know the availability of supply is constrained.

What all of this means, Eric, is one thing. If the central planners want to keep the precious metals at these low prices, to meet the demand for physical metal they will need to empty more metal from central bank vaults, or borrow metal from the ETFs as some have suggested is happening. Otherwise, the central planners will have to step back and stop their intervention, thereby letting the price of gold and silver rise so that demand tapers off, bringing demand and supply of physical metal back toward some kind of balance.

We've seen this same situation several times over the last twelve years. It is what I have been calling a ''managed retreat.'' Despite the current weakness, I firmly believe we have again entered a critical period where the central planners will need to retreat once again in order to let the gold and silver prices climb higher.

-The Golden Truth: And then I get a call from a close friend in NYC last Friday. His career has been in private wealth management in the private bank department of the Too Big To Fail banks. He's been looking for work and chats with old colleagues all the time. He called my Friday and told me he just got off the phone with a very high level private banker from a big Euro-based TBTF bullion bank, but who was at JP Morgan until about six months ago.

This guy told my friend that there is a scramble by many very wealthy European families/entities to get their 400 oz bars out of the big bank vaults. He knows this personally, for a fact. He said the private banker community is small over there and the big wealthy families all talk to each other and act on the same rumors/sentiment. The Bundesbank/Fed and the ABN/Amro situations triggered this move. He knows for a fact JPM tried to calm fears about 3 months ago by sending a letter to it's very wealthy clients assuring them their bars were safe, in allocated accounts. He said right now those same families are walking into the big banks like JPM and demanding delivery of their bars or threatening to take their $100's of millions in investment portfolios to competitors. His wording was "these people are putting a gun to the heads of private banks and demanding their gold."

I know this information is good because I know my friend's background and when he tells me his source is plugged in, the guy is plugged in. Not only that, my friend's source said that there's no doubt that someone like a John Paulson, not necessarily specifically him, but entities like him or it may include him, have held a gun to GLD and demanded delivery of physical in exchange for their shares.

Regarding the Bundesbank/Fed situation, recall that the Bundesbank asked to have some portion of its gold sitting - supposedly - in the NY Fed vault in NYC sent back Germany. The total amount is 1800 tonnes. After behind the scenes negotiations, the Fed agreed to ship 300 tonnes back over seven years. To this day, the time required for that shipment has never been explained. Venezuela demanded the return of its 200 tonnes held in London, NYC and Switzerland and received it all within about four months.

And regarding the ABN/Amro situation. ABN/Amro offered a gold investment account product that offered physical delivery of the gold in the investment account when the investor cashes out. About a week before the gold price smash, ABN sent a letter to its clients informing that the physical delivery of the bullion was no longer available and that all accounts would be settled with cash at redemption.

I believe it was these two events that triggered the big scramble for physical gold by wealthy families/entities who were suspicious of the integrity of their bank vault custodial arrangement anyway.

*****

So what does all of this mean?

It means that we are entering a period when there will be unprecedented volatility for precious metals. There will be tremendous ups and downs as this crisis plays out and the bankers try to keep the paper gold scam from completely unraveling.

Meanwhile, nations such as China continue to stockpile gold as if the end of the world was coming.

According to Zero Hedge, Chinese gold imports set a brand new all-time record high in March...

Quite the contrary: as export data released by the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department overnight showed, Chinese gold imports in March exploded to an all time record high of 223.5 tons.

And the number for April is expected to be even higher.

Does China know something that the rest of us do not?

We are also seeing a rapid decoupling between spot prices and physical prices. In fact, it is quickly getting to the point where the spot price of gold and the spot price of silver are becoming irrelevant.

For example, demand for silver coins has become so intense that some dealers are charging premiums of up to 30 percent over spot price for silver eagles.

That would have been regarded as insane a few years ago, but people are now willing to pay these kinds of premiums. People are recognizing the importance of actually having physical gold and silver in their possession and they are willing to pay a significant premium in order to get it.

We are moving into uncharted territory. The paper gold scam is rapidly coming to an end. In the long-term, this will greatly benefit those that are holding significant amounts of physical gold and silver.

Random Dudes

.In

recent years, Dr. Brown was able to repeat the experiment with

“automatic writing” and go much further with this research. Among other

things, Brown learned that Sirhan had been a ham radio enthusiast, going

on air nearly every evening prior to the assassination—and would often

enter a hypnotic state while doing so. This gave rise to the possibility

that Sirhan received hypnotic suggestions via short wave radio. In a

test, Brown was able to get Sirhan, while in a trance, to write

incriminating things—which he denied writing when out of the trance.

To The Cloud!

How greedy is Adobe's Creative Cloud subscription? Not very

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: CNET News

Thu, 09 May 2013 07:37

While haters are hating Adobe's shift to subscription-only software, a price comparison shows plenty of customers won't be gouged by the Cloud.

Over a three-year period, Adobe's Creative Suite products can be more expensive than a Creative Cloud subscription. This price calculation assumes one new version and one upgrade of the CS suites on the one hand and no first-year promotional pricing discount for the subscription.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)Plenty of people are outraged that Adobe is moving to subscription plans and scrapping perpetual licenses. But should they be?

To shed some light on the situation, CNET broke out the spreadsheet software, dug into pricing information from Adobe and retail outlets, and put together some actual comparisons to see whether that wrath is deserved.

The answer, as with all things complicated, is that it depends. But at least in some reasonable situations -- not just power users but also middle-end customers who upgrade to Adobe's latest releases -- the Creative Cloud isn't a bad deal at all.

For example, imagine a customer planning on three years' use of the Design Standard version of CS6, which includes Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat Pro. That customer would pay about $1,648 for the original product and one upgrade at going rates.

With the Creative Cloud, $1,800 pays for three years' worth of that software. But for that extra $152, the customer also gets Premiere Pro, After Effects, Flash Pro, Edge Animate, Muse, Lightroom, Dreamweaver, Audition, and various online services.

Choosing the Creative Cloud is a no-brainer when looking at the CS6 Production Premium package, which is like CS6 Design Standard but also with Premiere Pro, After Effects, Speedgrade, Audition, and Flash Professional. The premium package price is $2,273 for an original version and update -- $625 more than the subscription, but with less software and no online services.

Adobe's Creative Cloud subscription includes software, services, and tools for social networking and collaboration.

(Credit: Adobe Systems)12.8 million subscribers so farA sizable number of customers seems to agree: Adobe has sold 12.8 million software subscriptions compared to 5.6 million CS6 product licenses, according to Jefferies analyst Ross MacMillan.

Perhaps Microsoft is right to assert that Adobe is premature to go whole hog for subscriptions, but plenty of customers are voting that way with their feet.

"From my conversations with agencies and small shops, the price is compelling," said IDC analyst Al Hilwa. "Most small shops are likely to find the subscription more palatable than large outlays of funds."

The Creative Cloud subscription costs $50 a month for those who sign up for a year's commitment, and it grants access to Adobe's entire software suite and an expanding range of online services as long as customers keep paying. Adobe introduced it last year as a complement to its Creative Suite products, for which the company sold licenses that permit perpetual use of the software.

Adobe said the Creative Cloud adoption went faster than it expected and so decided to scrap the perpetual licenses. That means it avoids the expense and complication of maintaining a separate version. It also means the company can deliver new features as they arrive to all new customers, not to subscribers only as has been the case for the past year.

Adobe plans to sell CS6 products "indefinitely," but all the new action is with the new Creative Cloud product line. For details about what's coming in the big update in June, check my colleague Lori Grunin's Creative Cloud coverage.

The more active a customer is with Adobe products, the more compelling the Creative Cloud is. Adobe offers subscriptions to individual programs, such as Photoshop and Premiere Pro, too, for $20 a month. But it's clear Adobe is hoping to lure people into paying the somewhat higher price and delve into software they might not have been able to justify buying through the traditional perpetual-license model.

Cost comparisonFor our analysis, we looked at three situations with costs over three years. In all of them, there were two cases to compare: (1) a subscription that includes the lower first-year promotional pricing Adobe offers, and (2) perpetual license purchases based on CS products today and the one upgrade at the price Adobe charged to upgrade from CS5 to CS6 products. In the past few years, Adobe has released CS updates at intervals ranging from 12 to 24 months, so one upgrade would arrive over a typical three-year period.

Over a three-year period, Photoshop -- a new version and an update -- is more expensive than a subscription to Photoshop Creative Cloud. This calculation doesn't include the subscription's first-year promotional pricing discount for existing CS customers.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)We looked at the prices new customers would get. Adobe has offered lower upgrade prices for existing customers for years, and now they get a lower first-year promotional price for subscriptions -- $30 per month for the whole Creative Cloud (instead of $50) and $10 per month for the individual products (rather than $20).

Of course, those assumptions won't apply to everybody. Perhaps the biggest one is the rate at which perpetual-license customers upgrade. Many customers cut costs by skipping some upgrades.

On the other hand, buying CS6 products won't get you access to online extras, such as file-sharing services, Web fonts, Behance social networking, and iPad publishing. Not even Master Collection, which is Adobe's top-of-the-line CS6 suite, has the new Muse and Edge products.

How might a Master Collection customer look at Adobe software? Probably pretty favorably.

Over that three-year period, Master Collection and an upgrade would be about $2,644. The Creative Cloud subscription is $1,800. Slam dunk.

Another case is someone who uses just a single title -- Photoshop, most obviously.

That costs $818 for a new version and an upgrade, compared to $720 for a single-product subscription over three years.

So who would be better off with the traditional CS approach?

Someone who plans to upgrade rarely. Somebody who doesn't trust Adobe's promises to regularly release useful updates and new services. Somebody who takes issue with not "owning" software. (Of course, customers really only own licenses to use it).

Creative Cloud isn't cheap, and neither were the CS products that came before. But just on the basis of pricing, it's hard to conclude Adobe is gouging customers much more than it has in recent years.

Vaccine$

United States Accused of Planting Avian Flu in Recent H7N9 Outbreak

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: Activist Post

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:47

Janet C. PhelanActivist PostAmidst allegations by a highly placed Colonel in the Chinese army that the U.S. has released a bioweapon in Mainland China, concerns are ramping up that this year's version of the avian flu, H7N9, may turn into a major pandemic.

The last few years have seen several false alarms on the pandemic front. Neither the bird flu of 2004 nor the swine flu of 2009-2010 ended up being of much concern, although agencies from the WHO on down certainly created quite a flurry around both of these flu bugs.

H7N9 has already shown itself to have a high mortality rate, higher in fact than the Spanish flu of 1918, which caused 50 million deaths worldwide. The latest figures show H7N9 as having a mortality rate of 21- 24%. Out of 131 reported cases, thirty-one have died and most remain on the critical list. The bug has already jumped from Mainland China to Taiwan and a number of articles on H7N9 have nervously published the flight paths out of China to the rest of the world, which show how quickly an infected person or persons could create a global pandemic.

According to Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director-general for health, security and the environment, "This is definitely one of the most lethal influenza viruses that we have seen so far."Already, there are questions as to whether H7N9 has mutated and is now transmissible from human to human. Of those who have been documented as infected with this flu, several are family members of others who have been infected. As quoted in Quartz on April 18, ''The Chinese National Health and Family Planning Commission said on Thursday it could not rule out human-to-human transmission in the case of a Shanghai family'--two brothers, at least one of whom has the virus, and their 87-year-old father, who was the first confirmed H7N9 fatality. A husband and wife in Shanghai also both contracted H7N9.'' (Source)

In a carefully worded statement, WHO has declared: ''So far, there is no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission.'' So the fact is that while H7N9 may have already mutated to afford the leap to human-to-human transmission, this has not yet been noted as a regular event.H7N9 is made up of four strains, which have been delineated as coming from a migratory bird in East Asia, a duck from the Yangtze River Delta and then subsequently mixed with poultry. Its novel gene sequence is already considered to have enabled it to adapt to human hosts.

H7N9 is considered to be resistant to the popular flu countermeasure, Tamiflu.

After Chinese PLA Colonel Dai Xu posted a scathing attack on the United States, accusing the primary global power of releasing H7N9 as a bioweapon on the mainland of China, the U.S. was quick to respond, denying the allegations. However, Dai Xu's accusation, posted on the Chinese microblog Sina Weibu, brings up an inconvenient fact. The United States has already been documented as violating the international biological weapons treaty, known as the BWC and has launched a covert program of offensive biological warfare research.

Should the U.S. intend to launch a global pandemic for the purposes of population reduction and/or genocide, what better mechanism than to plant a bug in a faraway country, to obscure the genesis of the initiating event and to make this appear as if this were out of the U.S.'s control and jurisdiction?

The fact that several selective delivery systems for biological/chemical warfare have already been documented within the borders of the United States adds credence to the perception that a flu planted in another country could be used as a cover for a selective devastation of certain demographic groups within the First World. The declaration of a global pandemic gives the WHO the power to mandate vaccinations, overriding sovereign national law concerning the right of refusal.

Vaccines, imposter pharmaceuticals, the double line water system -- any and all of these mechanisms could be used to launch a bio/chem attack under the cover of a global pandemic.

Speaking under conditions of anonymity in a recent interview, a well-connected U.S. microbiologist stated that he believed that the United States was launching a covert program of biological warfare which would selectively impact designated target groups. He also stated concerns as to H7N9 being one of the tools which could be used to accomplish a genocidal agenda.

China, he also pointed out, has possibly the largest depository of rare earth minerals in the world. ''You can't get at them with all these billions of people living right on top of them,'' he said.

A number of insiders, including Dr. Daniel Gerstein of the Department of Homeland Security, former Senators Bill Talent and Bob Graham of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Center in Washington, D.C. and vaccine manufacturer, Dr. J. Joseph Kim of Inovio Pharmaceuticals, have stated that a major global pandemic is likely to take place before the end of 2013. (Source)

Janet Phelan is an investigative journalist whose articles have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The San Bernardino County Sentinel, The Santa Monica Daily Press, The Long Beach Press Telegram, Oui Magazine and other regional and national publications. Janet specializes in issues pertaining to legal corruption and addresses the heated subject of adult conservatorship, revealing shocking information about the relationships between courts and shady financial consultants. She also covers issues relating to international bioweapons treaties. Her poetry has been published in Gambit, Libera, Applezaba Review, Nausea One and other magazines. Her first book, The Hitler Poems, was published in 2005. She currently resides abroad. You may browse through her articles (and poetry) at janetphelan.com

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VIDEO-IMF's Lagarde interrupted by student protest - YouTube

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Wed, 08 May 2013 22:15

VIDEO-Cleveland Hero Charles Ramsey Turns Into Viral Video Superstar | Radar Online

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Wed, 08 May 2013 10:53

Humorous, quotable and full of personality, the Internet has gobbled up Charles Ramsey like a Big Mac and fries, and we've got a full recap of his busy week, including his appearance on Good Morning America on Wednesday.

Ramsey '-- who helped Amanda Berry escape from the Cleveland House of Horrors and alerted 911 operators to the situation '-- has become a veritable viral sensation after his heroic actions Monday unfurled a ghastly tale that has gripped the nation's collective consciousness.

Ramsey, who dropped a number of humorous soundbites in follow-up interviews '-- claiming suspect Ariel Castro had ''big testicles,'' in one instance '-- became the topic of several auto-tunes nearly instantly, as news of the story spread.

In what's become perhaps his catchphrase, Ramsey, who is African American, told a local reporter, he ''knew something was wrong when a pretty little white girl ran into a black man's arms.''

In another instance of unintended hilarity, Ramsey said of Castro, ''There's nothing exciting about him '-- well, until today.''

Naturally, his name became a top trending Twitter topic, with celebrity shout-outs from Artie Lange, Valerie Bertinelli and Patton Oswalt.

On GMA Wednesday, a much-more subdued Ramsey, sipping Red Bull, told George Stephanopoulos, of his busy week: ''I'm, you know, pushing through the level, here.

''It's going to be a while, bro. No, no, I mean I'm just '-- I'm speechless,'' he said. ''Not only '... I didn't see nothing, apparently my neighbors haven't seen anything either. I've been there a year. She's been right there next door to me for a year.''

In an ironic twist, Stephanopoulos pointed out to Ramsey that they went to rival high schools in Cleveland.

Ramsey also mused on being bamboozled by his neighbor, who he viewed as an average Joe.

Watch the video on RadarOnline.com

''I eat his food when he feels like barbecuing. When he feels like playing salsa music, I try to, you know, merengue. Had I known that, it would be a whole different interview, wouldn't it?'' he said. ''So I'm that stupid or his kind are that good.''

VIDEO-Obama To Grads: Reject Voices That Warn About Government Tyranny | RealClearPolitics

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U.S. President Barack Obama gives the commencement address to the graduating class of The Ohio State University at Ohio Stadium on May 5, 2013 in Columbus, Ohio.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Unfortunately, you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, and creative, and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can't be trusted.

We have never been a people who place all our faith in government to solve our problems. We shouldn't want to. But we don't think the government is the source of all our problems, either. Because we understand that this democracy is ours. And as citizens, we understand that it's not about what America can do for us, it's about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government. And class of 2013, you have to be involved in that process.

NBC: Printable Plastic Guns A 'Game Changer,' Need for 'Much More Stringent' Gun Laws

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Teasing an upcoming panel discussion on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer proclaimed: "Today's Professionals are going to weigh in on what could be a game changer in the gun debate, a plastic pistol undetectable by most security systems that almost anyone can make at home using some modern technology."

Fretting over details being released on how to construct the weapon using a 3D printer, Lauer posed this questions to the usual group of liberal pundits: "What do we do about it?" Attorney Star Jones admitted that there wasn't much that could be done under existing law, "other than really step up our efforts at gun control....if you make the behavior, the penalty for the behavior, the possession of a gun, no matter how it's manufactured, much more stringent."

More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.

VIDEO-Obama 200710 Questions: Warrantless Wiretaps - YouTube

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VIDEO-DRUNK OR NOT DRUNK-Obama Supporter Chevy Chase Justifies Gitmo - YouTube

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Tue, 07 May 2013 21:02

VIDEO-BBC News - UN's Del Ponte says evidence Syria rebels 'used sarin'

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6 May 2013Last updated at11:06 ETPlease turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Carla Del Ponte: "I was a little bit stupefied by the first indication of the use of nerve gas by the opposition"

Testimony from victims of the conflict in Syria suggests rebels have used the nerve agent, sarin, a leading member of a UN commission of inquiry has said.

Carla Del Ponte told Swiss TV that there were "strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof".

Ms Del Ponte did not rule out the possibility that government forces might also have used chemical weapons.

Later, the commission stressed that it had "not reached conclusive findings" as to their use by any parties.

"As a result, the commission is not in a position to further comment on the allegations at this time," a statement added.

The BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says the statement was terse and shows that the UN was taken by surprise at Ms Del Ponte's remarks.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria was established in August 2011 to examine alleged violations of human rights in the Syrian uprising. It is due to issue its latest report next month.

'Unsupported'In an interview with Swiss-Italian TV on Sunday, Ms Del Ponte, who serves as a commissioner on the panel, said: "Our investigators have been in neighbouring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals.

Continue reading the main storyAnalysisThis is not the first time rebel forces in Syria have come under suspicion for using chemical weapons.

The Syrian government has accused them, and some independent commentators have speculated some groups could conceivably have got hold of stocks when storming government facilities.

But allegations about sarin gas use, possibly by Syrian rebels, coming from a senior UN official is a different matter. Carla del Ponte is a former war crimes prosecutor and serves on a UN commission looking into human rights abuses in Syria. So any comments from her carry weight.

However, this is hardly a formal UN position. She was speaking informally in TV and radio interviews, and freely admits that looking at the use of chemical weapons in Syria is not part of her remit.

All her team did was collect testimony, which they will now, no doubt, pass on to the separate UN team of weapons inspectors waiting in Cyprus for permission to enter Syria to make a full investigation.

In the meantime her comments are likely to make Western governments even more cautious in their preliminary assessments.

"According to their report of last week, which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated."

Sarin, a colourless, odourless gas which can cause respiratory arrest and death, is classed as a weapon of mass destruction and is banned under international law.

Ms Del Ponte, a former Swiss attorney-general and prosecutor with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), did not rule out the possibility that troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad might also have used chemical weapons, but said further investigation was needed.

"I was a little bit stupefied by the first indications we got... they were about the use of nerve gas by the opposition," she said.

Ms Del Ponte gave no details of when or where sarin may have been used.

However, a member of the main Syrian opposition alliance, the National Coalition, denied rebel fighters had done so.

"The claim is unsupported," Molham al-Droubi told the Reuters news agency. "There is no objective evidence."

US officials also said Washington had no information to suggest Syrian rebels had the capability or intention to use Sarin.

Continue reading the main story''Start QuoteSigns that world public opinion is being prepared for possible military intervention in the Syrian Arab Republic cause great concern''

End QuoteAlexander LukashevichRussian Foreign Ministry spokesmanLast week, the US and UK have said their own investigations suggest government forces have used chemical weapons. British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said the evidence was quite compelling, but that it would need to be incontrovertible before the case for an international response could be made at the UN.

On Monday, Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said it was deeply concerned by "signs that world public opinion is being prepared for possible military intervention" in Syria.

On the question of whether chemical weapons had been used, he called for an "end to the politicisation of this issue" and to the "whipping up of an anti-Syrian atmosphere".

Ms Del Ponte's comments might therefore complicate matters for the US Secretary of State John Kerry ahead of his visit to Moscow this week, says BBC diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall.

If Mr Kerry was hoping to cite fears that the Assad regime was now using chemical warfare as a reason why the Russians should shift their position, that argument will not be so easy to make, our correspondent adds.

Mutual accusationsContinue reading the main storyWhat is Sarin?One of a group of nerve gas agents invented by German scientists as part of Hitler's preparations for World War IIHuge secret stockpiles built up by superpowers during Cold War20 times more deadly than cyanide: A drop the size of a pin-head can kill a personCalled "the poor man's atomic bomb" due to large number of people that can be killed by a small amountKills by crippling the nervous system through blocking the action of an enzymeCan only be manufactured in a laboratoryVery dangerous to manufactureA separate United Nations team was established to look specifically into the issue of chemical weapons.

It is ready to go to Syria but wants unconditional access with the right to inquire into all credible allegations.

Both the Syrian government and the rebels have in the past accused each other using chemical weapons.

The US and the UK have said there is emerging evidence of Syrian government forces having used sarin, with Washington saying it had "varying degrees of confidence" that chemical weapons had been deployed.

President Barack Obama called in April for a "vigorous investigation", saying the use of such weapons would be a "game changer" if verified.

President Assad's government says the claims do not have any credibility, denouncing them as "lies".

Israeli raidsMs Del Ponte's allegations concerning the use of sarin by rebels came after Israel carried out a series of air strikes on Syrian military targets early on Sunday.

Continue reading the main story''Start QuoteIsrael, whether intentionally or not, has made itself a perceived ally of the Syrian rebels''

End QuoteHaaretz newspaper, IsraelThe Israeli government made no official comment, but security sources said the strikes were aimed at preventing the transfer of advanced Iranian-made missiles to Lebanon's Shia Islamist movement, Hezbollah.

The Syrian government said the Jamraya military research centre, north-west of Damascus, was hit.

A later statement gave more details, saying military positions in the Jamraya area were struck along with other facilities at Maysaloun, near the Lebanese border, and a military airport at Dimass.

The statement said there was massive damage at those locations and nearby civilian areas with many people killed or injured. It also denied that the targets had included missiles for Hezbollah.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Miqdad said the Israeli air strikes amounted to a "declaration of war" and threatened retaliation.

The New York Times quotes an unnamed senior Syrian official as saying dozens of elite troops stationed near the presidential palace had been killed. The AFP news agency quoted the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group, as saying 42 soldiers had died and another 100 were unaccounted for.

Images on state TV showed large areas of rubble with many buildings destroyed or badly damaged.

The Arab League condemned the raids and UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon expressed concern.

He said all sides should "exercise maximum calm and restraint" and "act with a sense of responsibility to prevent an escalation of what is already a devastating and highly dangerous conflict".

Russia's foreign ministry warned that the "further whipping-up of armed confrontation" sharply increased the risk of "pockets of tension" in Syria and Lebanon, and along their shared border.

Chuck Todd: 'Very Rational' Not To Have Sent More Special Ops to Benghazi

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On Morning Joe, Chuck Todd says it was "very rational" for the Obama administration not to have sent more than two special ops to the US facility in Benghazi.

VIDEO-The Goodman Chronicle: Revolutionary Singer Lauryn Hill Sentenced To Three Months in Jail, and Psychiatric Counselling Over Conspiracy Theories

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Wed, 08 May 2013 16:42

Lauryn Hill was sentenced to three months in jail over "tax evasion", and the judge orders her to see a therapist because Hill believes there is a "conspiracy" to control the music industry. People, it's time to wake up, and understand what is happening in this world. Lauryn Hill was a beautiful soul, with talent to change the world, with her music, and was DESTROYED by the evil people in control of the music industry. Just like Micheal Jackson, Katt Williams, Dave Chappelle, and everyone else who attempted to expose the truth behind the entertainment industry. Understand that Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Drake, Katy Perry, Rihanna, etc., are all ALLOWED to be big stars, because they are promoting DESTRUCTIVE lifestyles. Turn off the radio, and find intelligent, positive, artists for you, and your children, to listen to, because music has too much of a powerful effect on our brains, to allow some nonsensical poison into our subconscious brain.Listen to this song "Lauryn Hill - I Get Out" (below), and really listen to what she is saying. If you have an understanding of what she is speaking on, this song could bring tears to your eyes. And FUCK THE IRS!!! They are nothing but a bunch of criminals, who selectively enforce the tax law on anyone who opposes this corrupt government.

VIDEO-Housekeeper finds bomb device in Ariz. teen's bedroom

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Wed, 08 May 2013 16:26

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A Marcos De Niza High School senior is accused of having an improvised explosive device in his bedroom in Tempe, Ariz.

Joshua Prater, 18, is taken into custody on suspicion of misconduct involving weapons and possessing a prohibited weapon and improvised explosive device, or IED in Tempe, Ariz. on May 7.(Photo: KPNX-TV)

Story HighlightsTeen was arrested on suspicion of possessing an improvised explosive deviceHousekeeper was cleaning teen's home when she found device that looked like a bombTeen's parents were cleared of any involvementTEMPE, Ariz. -- A Marcos De Niza High School senior was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of possessing an improvised explosive device, authorities said.

Joshua Prater, 18, was taken into custody on suspicion of misconduct involving weapons and possessing a prohibited weapon and improvised explosive device, or IED, said Sgt. Mike Pooley, a Tempe Police Department spokesman.

A woman was cleaning Prater's family's house when she found a device that looked like a bomb. She took it to a Tempe Fire Station to have it checked out about 2:30 p.m., Pooley said.

Firefighters immediately notified Tempe police, who responded to the scene and deemed the device as a legitimate IED, which was disabled, Pooley said.

The woman told police that there were more materials in Prater's bedroom at the house she was cleaning. She had taken photos of the materials, which showed items used for making more IEDs, Pooley said.

Police were searching the house Tuesday evening, Pooley said.

Police haven't found any threats to Prater's school but have taken precautionary measures by notifying officials there. Police also plan to check the school for any threats, Pooley said.

Prater lives with his mother and father, who were interviewed by police cleared of any involvement, Pooley said.

USA NOWJodi Arias guilty, what's next? | USA NOW videoMay 08, 2013

Congressman Moves To Make 3D Printable Guns Illegal

VIDEO-FLASHBACK-White House says attack in Libya against U.S. was not a planned attack - YouTube

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Wed, 08 May 2013 11:02

Pentagon Officially Accuses Chinese Government Of Cyber Attacks On U.S. Businesses

Man Arrested On Terrorism Charges In Minneapolis NOT A Threat To Public! Planned To Attack Police

FBI Says They Stopped ANOTHER Terror Plot Arresting Man With Ties To An American Militia Group

Sen Elizabeth Warren Introduces Bill That Allows Student Loans At Same Rate Banks Can Borrow At

Wow: Hicks 'effectively demoted' after questioning State; Did Rep. Speier offer him a bribe? [Video]

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Source: Twitchy » US Politics

Wed, 08 May 2013 16:55

The truth is evidently too inconvenient for the State Department.

This afternoon, Gregory Hicks testified that after he questioned Susan Rice and the State Department's post-Benghazi talking points, he has ''effectively been demoted from deputy chief of mission to desk officer.''

Hicks said he was demoted from deputy chief of mission to a desk officer, said sudden criticism happened after Qs of Rice #Benghazi'--Tasha Diakides (@TashaCNN) May 08, 2013

Hicks notes that he was effectively demoted to desk officer after challenging false State narratives. #benghazi'--Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) May 08, 2013

Hicks: Not interviewed by FBI. Told not to meet w Congress. Attacked by StateDept for questioning Rice's claims. Was "effectively demoted."'--Josh Relkin (@JLRelkin) May 08, 2013

Hicks: I have been demoted over this. #Benghazi'--Rachael (@Miss_Wisconsin) May 08, 2013

Is this what future whistleblowers should expect from the Obama Administration?

So liar Hillary gets to make millions from speaking and books before running for president, and truth-teller Hicks got demoted.'--Razor (@hale_razor) May 08, 2013

Hicks was first praised by EVERYone, including @BarackObama then suddenly demoted when he ?'d blaming the video.How could that NOT be shady'--Kira Ayn Davis (@KiraAynDavis) May 08, 2013

Extremely shady.

Hicks went from Highly Decorated Diplomat to Desk Jockey for questioning the "video" talking points. #Benghazi'--RB (@RBPundit) May 08, 2013

Demoted? Thrown under the bus so others can pull a CYA? That sounds familiar. #Benghazi'--Amy Marie, Esq. (@amyvrwc) May 08, 2013

@RBPundit "Nice career ya got there. Be a shame if something else happened to it'..."'--Phineas Fahrquar (@irishspy) May 08, 2013

More from Ace of Spades:

The neat thing about retaliating against a whistleblower with a demotion is that now you can accuse him of #HavingAnAxeToGrind'--DepressiveBlogger69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) May 08, 2013

I wonder who demoted Hicks. It just so happens this occurred after his criticism of the false talking points. #GeeWhosInvolvedInEveryStep'--DepressiveBlogger69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) May 08, 2013

So they demote Hicks in retaliation for his speaking the truth; next, they accuse him of #HavingAnAxeToGrind#CrazyManOutforVengeance'--DepressiveBlogger69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) May 08, 2013

Headline: Disgruntled Employee Makes Up Lies About Selfless, Heroic Boss'--DepressiveBlogger69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) May 08, 2013

.@KiraAynDavis @BarackObama NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ON! YOU HAVE YOUR ORDERS, CITIZEN!'--DepressiveBlogger69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) May 08, 2013

"What difference, at this point, could it possibly make?" Apparently it made difference enough to demote a valued employee.'--DepressiveBlogger69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) May 08, 2013

HRC flack Nuland changes TP

HRC but Rice delivers TP

HRC lawyer Mills blockades discussion of TP

HRC's Dept demotes diplomat over TP'--DepressiveBlogger69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) May 08, 2013

What difference does it make? It sure would seem to make a great deal of difference to Hillary Rodham Clinton'--DepressiveBlogger69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) May 08, 2013

I can't believe these lies about HRC. She's had nothing in her past to suggest she'd lie to investigators and engage in political cover-up.'--DepressiveBlogger69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) May 08, 2013

She has absolutely no history, ever, of punishing federal employees who grew inconvenient. #IWantTheirPeopleOutandOurPeopleIn'--DepressiveBlogger69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) May 08, 2013

It's totally not a scandal if you demote a highly praised outstanding non-political bureaucrat just because he squeals on you #allaboveboard'--DepressiveBlogger69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) May 08, 2013

Gregory Hicks' management skills came into question after he questioned the false talking points. #NoScandalHere#NoVictims'--DepressiveBlogger69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) May 08, 2013

Don't think the situation could possibly get any shadier? Let California Democrat, Rep. Jackie Speier, show you you're wrong:

Yep. Bribes, right out in the open. RT @talkradio200 Did Speier really ask Hicks what country he'd like to be assigned to? #Benghazi'--Tish (@KamaainaInOC) May 08, 2013

Bribery? Rep. Jackie Speier asks Gregory Hicks where he'd most like to be posted j.mp/YuY8iU'--Right Scoop (@trscoop) May 08, 2013

Oh yes. That happened.

Are you offering Mr. Hicks a bribe, Representative Speier?'--Moe Lane (@moelane) May 08, 2013

Sure sounded like it.

Whuuut? MT @hotlinejosh: Speier says Greg Hicks should get first dibs on what country he shd be reassigned to. Asks where he wants to go.'--Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) May 08, 2013

Ummm. Isn't this a strange question from Speier to Hicks?? Where would you like to be posted? #wow#Benghazi'--Konni Burton (@KonniBurton) May 08, 2013

Speier promises to help get Hicks a desirable post. Phony. #benghazi'--Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) May 08, 2013

ROFL! Ms. Speier attemps to mislead the witness and attempts to bribe Mr. Hicks in the middle of the hearing with a new post!'--Keith Goody (@good4politics) May 08, 2013

Yep. Pathetic. RT @RBPundit: A Democrat Congresswoman tried to bribe Hicks with a nice post DURING the #Benghazi hearing.'--Michelle Lancaster (@SkiGarmisch) May 08, 2013

Really amazing. RT @RBPundit: A Democrat Congresswoman tried to bribe Hicks with a nice post DURING the #Benghazi hearing.'--Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 08, 2013

It takes a *special* lack of ethics to offer a plum post to a diplomat WHILE HE'S TESTIFYING. #Benghazi'--Razor (@hale_razor) May 08, 2013

No shame.

***

Related:

Whistleblower Greg Hicks on military being told to stand down: 'They were furious'

Greg Hicks: I briefed Hillary on Benghazi that night; Clinton continued to blame video

Boom! Gregory Hicks: YouTube video was a 'non-event in Libya'; Scapegoated filmmaker still in prison

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