I will be away from the computer, in parts unknown, and not posting until September. I hope FmHers enjoy the rest of your summer! Thanks for your continued readership.

I will be away from the computer, in parts unknown, and not posting until September. I hope FmHers enjoy the rest of your summer! Thanks for your continued readership.

FDA approves viruses as food additive. They will supposedly kill most of the bacteria that cause food-borne illnesses. (CNN)

Sad reflection on the treatment of the Maori that, despite as many towns in which this street name exists, only one town council is acknowledging and fixing the problem…

Here’s a question I just posted to “Ask MetaFilter” about a minor, but vexing, problem I have. It is sometimes maddening to be a nonprogrammer and know how simple this would be to solve if I could write trivial code. FmH readers are welcome to take a stab at this one too…

Best advertising use of squid yet [requires Flash]

Claims for alternative and complementary remedies in healthcare have always been undercut by the fact that, whatever they are, they are not shown effective in double blind placebo-controlled studies, the touchstone of clinical research. Adherents have often reached to outlandish and tortured explanations of why the failure of empirical validation is irrelevant, often using quasi-mystical pseudoscientific applications of quantum uncertainty. Here we learn that, because of quantum entanglement, the placebo and the active treatment get enmeshed, as do the observer/investigator and the experimental subjects. So there is no such thing as either placebo-controlled or double-blind, Virginia. (Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine – 12(3):271)

“Caroline has helpfully decreed that the name of the recent quasi-terrorist non-event is The Exploding Shampoo Plot. It’s a fine memorable descriptive name. Everyone should use it.” (Making Light)

The study, authored by Bruce Dohrenwend from Columbia University and associates, and published in Science, cross-referenced veterans’ combat records against claims of disability, based on data the Veterans’ Administration had collected to search for fraudulent claims. There has long been a sense that the reported prevalence of PTSD in Vietnam veterans was implausibly high. Some studies place the rate above 30% despite the fact that only an extimated 15% of Vietnam-era veterans saw frontline combat. The new study estimates the overall prevalence rate at around 19% instead. It agrees with earlier studies estimating that half of diagnosed PTSD sufferers remain disabled by their symptoms.

However, for several reasons we should not leap to the conclusion that the overdiagnosis was the fault of exaggerated or fraudulent claims, although I am sure that veterans’ anger at their abandonment by American society upon their return certainly fueled an attitude in some of exploiting the disability system. It is ridiculous to say that war traumatizes only those who saw grunt combat. This first of ‘modern wars’ did not have conventional front lines or easy ways of distinguishing enemy combatants from civilians (as in Iraq). As the study authors point out in rejecting the idea that veterans have consistently exaggerated their claims, there was broad traumatic exposure to ambushes and shellings as well as treating casualties. Also, this was the first war with a high degree of efficient depersonalized remote-control killing by carpet bombing, which traumatizes participants and observers in a different but often no less profound way. As in the Iraqi action, a widespread sense of cynical disaffection and betrayal by their country came with the realization that the war was based on disingenuous intentions and lies and that the soldiers were cannon fodder for immoral and misguided old men.

But there are other reasons that previous estimates about the prevalence of PTSD have been inflated. First of all, as readers of FmH have heard me opine before, the label is often applied in a fast and loose manner rather than diagnosed by rigorous criteria. There really is a disease state that arises from exposure to overwhelming trauma threatening one’s survival or bodily integrity or that of those around you, with lasting psychological and physiological damage and substantial resulting impairment of functioning, sometimes for the rest of the sufferer’s life. But it takes an experience outside the pale of what can reasonably be expected in human experience, and outside of the stress parameters our nervous systems evolved to cope with. It does not happen after any ol’ upsetting experience. So I place the fault for the overdiagnosis of PTSD as much on the shoulders of naive and unsystematic practitioners as I do with exaggerating complainants (whether we are talking about combat trauma or alleged sexual abuse victims, the other segment of the society with epidemic PTSD diagnosis rates). Dohrenwend’s group applied tight criteria in making the diagnosis, which I favor. Furthermore, the study also, quite rightly, excluded trauma disability claims in veterans which originated with events prior or subsequent to their military service, e.g. devastating auto accidents etc.

Of course there are implications from this study for the estimated rates of combat trauma with which Iraq veterans will come home, and planning for mental health services for them. Despite my pet peeve about ‘formal’ PTSD being overdiagnosed in modern American mental health practice, the numbers of those returning from the Middle East who will be psychically devastated and their ability to function in civilian society impaired will be more extensive, not less, than the services the Veterans’ Administration has planned to provide. The debate over the legitimacy and extent of the PTSD diagnosis should not mislead us into thinking that only those with ‘official’ PTSD need services. Let us hope the sophists do not use this study to justify withholding any chances of recovery and resumption of civilian functioning to tens of thousands of decommissioned soldiers returning from the Middle Eastern actions.

Ghost Riding the Whip: “…leaving the wheel of a moving car and walking, running, or dancing beside it….” (ABC News)

New York Times news analysis: “The fate of the cease-fire may lie in whether the Lebanese regard the conflict as a victory or blame Hezbollah for the destruction.” And which do you suppose is more likely? Here is an interactive map of the toll of the war day-by-day.

More on Morgellons , the ‘internet syndrome’ about which I wrote a derisive piece in May. This caught my attention:

I suspected that Leitao’s vested interest in the condition might have aspects other than the quest for scientific truth, and so it seems does her board.

The article also has some discussion suggesting that forensic lab analysis of the strange fibers, which sufferers report sprout from their skin in the condition, do not match any common fibrous materials. This stands at odds with other sources I have reviewed, as I mentioned in the May post.

“Homegrown U.K. terror is a growing threat, multicultural ‘tolerance’ can’t combat it, and the war in Iraq will only make it worse.” — Andrew Brown (Salon)

And: Inside the Iraqi Forces Fiasco: “The U.S. effort to train Iraqi forces — and bring our troops home — is mired in bureaucratic mismanagement, inept recruits and astonishing shortages of equipment.” (Salon)

Eat turmuric, avoid Alzheimers. I love curry; I may be doing my brain alot of good. On the other hand, I have hayfever; my brain may be in trouble. (New Scientist)

Seymour Hersh on the real reasons for US support of the Israeli air war. Essentially, given that Iran has helped Hezbollah with underground munitions installations and ‘hardening’ of targets, this may be a practice run for the US preemptive strike on Iranian buried weapons complexes, Hersh says. And all evidence indicates that the plans for this strike on Hezbollah were drawn up, with US knowledge, support and probably assistance, long before the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers which sparked off the conflict.

The dysadministration feels they will advance both its simple-mindedly conceived goal of democratization in the Middle East and the TWoT® (timeless war on terror). There have been cross-border incidents before; the kidnapping of the soldiers just happened at the right time, which also seems to have had some relationship to Hamas’ inching closer to resuming terrorist activity, feeling that their transition to a legitimate political force was not going well and that they were losing standing with the Palestinian people.

A major bombing campaign targeting Lebanese civilian infrastructure was supposed to turn the Lebanese Sunnis and Christians against Hezbollah, an idea similar to one US scenario for an air war against Iran. Interestingly, Hersh notes, the war in Kosovo was closely studied as a model for their Lebanon scenario as well.

Intelligence about Israel and Hezbollah, according to Hersh’s sources, is being ‘manhandled’ in the same way that the Bush administration distorted pre-war intelligence about Iraq to suit its preordained purposes. The strength of Hezbollah’s resistance, and the miscalculation of its resources, may or may not be a setback for US neocon hopes against Iran. More likely, the lesson, like all other recent lessons, will never be grasped by the hardliners. There is evidence that Cheney believes the war against Hezbollah is working and should not be halted. In the post-Iraq era, however, as Hersh’s article ends, one cannot avoid considerably less unanimity of outlook, and more fractiousness, either within the US administration, between the US and Blair’s UK, or within Blair’s government. This parallels a similar process within Israeli debate. (The New Yorker)

The article cites research suggesting that a high proportion of so-called ‘sinus headache’ sufferers may really have migraines. If migraines are more common than recognized, is there a spectrum of severity from the utterly disabling attacks which most of us understand as migraines to something in the milder, merely inconveniencing, range, akin to a common tension headache? I know that the vast majority of the chronically depressed women, especially the personality-disordered ones, I see in my psychiatric practice, no matter what the severity or frequency of their headaches, have either been diagnosed with migraines or adopt that label themselves. Should there be a severity criterion for diagnosing someone with a migraine?

Do human intestinal microorganisms make their hosts fat? (New York Times Magazine)

“Homegrown U.K. terror is a growing threat, multicultural ‘tolerance’ can’t combat it, and the war in Iraq will only make it worse.” — Andrew Brown (Salon)

And: Inside the Iraqi Forces Fiasco: “The U.S. effort to train Iraqi forces — and bring our troops home — is mired in bureaucratic mismanagement, inept recruits and astonishing shortages of equipment.” (Salon)

Start out by wondering if our universe could be a membrane floating in higher dimensional space and repeatedly smashing into a neighboring universe. Go from there. I favor no. 10 as the explanation for much I have experienced of the universe. (New Scientist)

If the scheme emanated from the UK, why are the US and the EU cancelling flights into Heathrow??

This should not be so addictive. Block falling streams of sand, salt, water and oil by building walls, planting plants, sowing fire, etc. I was clearly among that class of little boys who loved building dams across little streams in the woods or rivulets of draining water in the streets after rainstorms; this is the net version. File in the major net timewasters dept.

The powerful skill set that is eye contact. (Smart Money)

Update:

Debunked?

John Rogers is a TV and filmwriter, standup comic and former bartender. His comments on Dershowitz come with the authority of having served him at a Harvard Square restaurant (now defunct and sorely missed by me and my family). A lengthy anecdote about a Saudi prince which precedes this conclusion explains the epithet.

The neocons’ next war: Sidney Blumenthal writes in Salon that the Lebanese conflict is being supported by US provision of signal intelligence to Israel as part of the neocon proxy war on Iran and Syria, emanating as it does from the office of the vice-president-in-chief. The ineffectual and bumbling Condoleezza Rice has been ‘briefed’ on these activities but, as of her first big international crisis as secretary of state, is already marginalized because of neocon opposition to her intentions to pursue diplomatic as opposed to interventionist options regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Blumenthal says. He is certainly one of those who sees evidence that the neocon shadow government continues to dictate US foreign policy. I am not sure, however, that Rice started to arouse neocon ire by proposing to negotiate with Iran. It is more likely that the choice of an ineffectual bumbler to head the State Dept. was engineered from the first — as it was in Bush’s first term with Powell and, indeed, as it was in the choice of Cheney’s running mate in the first place in the lead-up to 2000.

Meanwhile: others find the Lebanese war to be the first trumpet blast of Armageddon. Can apocalyptic vision be driving US encouragement of our Israeli proxies? After all, the other wing of the rabid right, along with the craven neocons, are the evangelicals. But, by and large, the born-again wing of the Republican constituency is being played for patsies by the men who believe in doing their damndest during their first and only life.

The famous notebook maker shows pages from the notebooks of the famous.

I highlighted Watada’s case here awhile ago. As FmH readers know, I feel publicizing the war resistance among the military is crucially important. Forward this to those you know in the service, or post it where they might see it.

Stop those witches’ knickers flapping: Discussion of various approaches to cutting use of plastic shopping bags in Europe. Evocative title. (Guardian.UK)

Did I miss something? Here is a Der Spiegel report on an incident at a nuclear plant in Forsmark, Sweden last week triggered by an electrical short. A power outage compounded by the failure of two out of four backup generators ultimately led to the closure of the plant (and, as a “precautionary measure”, half the nuclear plants in Sweden) in what plant workers described to Swedish media as a near-meltdown. Assessments call it the worst nuclear mishap since Chernobyl. Did this get any coverage at the time in the US press? If not, why not?

Could this be a career-ending mistake? While we hear from time to time about a surgeon removing the wrong kidney or amputating the contralateral limb, the argument from symmetry makes those simpler errors to understand. Misidentifying the organ, though??

Bruce Sterling in Wired on the threat of the “two technologies that have shaped the life I lead today”:

His concern about ‘stateless aliens’ and ‘stage 4 warfare’ —

— is, somewhat paradoxically and, one might say inexplicably, counterbalanced by faith that we can ‘outthink the marauders’ and think of ways to reintegrate the Vandals.