We’re right to be terrified, say physicists. Children generate poltergeist activity by channelling energy into the quantum mechanical vacuum.” (New Scientist)

These statistics have sparked a widespread, sometimes rancorous debate about whether people are taking far more medication than is needed for problems that may not even be mental disorders. Studies indicate that 40% of all patients fall short of the diagnoses that doctors and psychiatrists give them, yet 200 million prescriptions are written annually in America to treat depression and anxiety. Those who defend such widespread use of prescription drugs insist that a significant part of the population is under-treated and, by inference, under-medicated. Those opposed to such rampant use of drugs note that diagnostic rates for bipolar disorder, in particular, have skyrocketed by 4,000% and that overmedication is impossible without over-diagnosis…” — Christopher Lane, professor of English at Northwestern University and author of Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness (The New York Sun op-ed)

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, ‘Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.’

The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, ‘like what’s going on here?’ Diaz says. ‘He asked me, ‘Why are you doing this?”

Diaz replied: ‘If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me … hey, you’re more than welcome.” (NPR)

Earth Hour was created by WWF in Sydney, Australia in 2007, and in one year has grown from an event in one city to a global movement. In 2008, millions of people, businesses, governments and civic organizations in nearly 200 cities around the globe will turn out for Earth Hour. More than 100 cities across North America will participate, including the US flagships–Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco and Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

We invite everyone throughout North America and around the world to turn off the lights for an hour starting at 8 p.m. (your own local time)–whether at home or at work, with friends and family or solo, in a big city or a small town.

What will you do when the lights are off? We have lots of ideas.”

Five percent.

Let’s take a look at what she’s going to put her party through for the sake of that 5 percent chance…” (New York Times op-ed)

Search boxes! With recommended search terms!

It makes sense, right? All the good domain names are gone. Getting people to a specific page in a big site is difficult (who’s going to write down anything after the first slash?). And, most tellingly, I see increasingly more users already inadvertently put complete domain names like “gmail” and “netflix” into the Search box of their browsers out of habit — and it doesn’t even register that Google pops up and they have to click to get to their destination.

But, I ask you: could this be done in the USA? Wouldn’t search spammers and/or “optimizers” ruin this within seconds? I did a few tests with major name brands and they’re almost always the top hit on Google (surprisingly, even Panic). But if Nabisco ran a nationwide ad campaign for a hot new product and told users to Google for “Burlap Thins” to learn more, wouldn’t someone sneaky get there before they do?” (cabel.name)

Anesthesia awareness – regaining some level of consciousness during surgery – is thought to occur in perhaps one or two out of 1,000 surgical patients in the United States, a total of 20,000 to 40,000 cases a year. The bulk of them do not feel pain.

Still, for some it is so disturbing that they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and must undergo counseling.

For general anesthesia, patients typically are given a mix of drugs – including one to “knock them out” and often another called a paralytic.

This relaxes the muscles to make surgery easier. But in the rare case that a patient starts to wake up – not able to speak – the paralytic effect can be horrifying.” (Philadelphia Inquirer)

I do not blame Dick Cheney for George W. Bush’s transgressions; the president needs no prompting to wrap himself in the cloak of a modern-day king. Nor do I believe that the vice president so enthusiastically supports the Iraq war out of a loyalty to the oil industry that his former employer serves. By all accounts, Cheney’s belief in “the military option” and the principle of president-as-decider predates his affiliation with Halliburton.

What, then, is the straw that causes me to finally consign a man I served with in the House Republican leadership to the category of “those about whom we should be greatly concerned”?

It is Cheney’s all-too-revealing conversation this week with ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz. On Wednesday, reminded of the public’s disapproval of the war in Iraq, now five years old, the vice president shrugged off that fact (and thus, the people themselves) with a one-word answer: “So?”

‘So,’ Mr. Vice President?” (Washington Post op-ed)

Somewhere in the Middle East, Jesus Christ is strapped to a bench, his head wrapped in clingfilm. He furiously sucks against the plastic. A hole is pierced, but only so that a filthy rag can be stuffed back into his mouth. He is turned upside down and water slowly poured into the rag. The torturer whispers religious abuse. If you are God, save yourself you fucking idiot. Fighting to pull in oxygen through the increasingly saturated rag, his lungs start to fill up with water. Someone punches him in the stomach.

Perhaps this is how we ought to be re-telling the story of Christ’s passion. For ever since the cross became a piece of jewellery, it has been drained of its power to sicken. Even before this the Romans had taken their hated instrument of torture and turned it into the logo of a new religion. Few makeovers can have been so historically significant. The very secular cross was transformed into a sort of club badge for Christians, something to be proud of.

Two weeks ago, the most powerful Christian in the world vetoed a bill that would have made it illegal for the CIA to use waterboarding on detainees. “We need to ensure our intelligence officials have all the tools they need to stop the terrorists,” said George Bush in a passable impersonation of Pontius Pilate. “This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe.”

Throughout his time in office, the president has frequently been photographed in front of the cross. Yet as his support for torture demonstrates, he has understood little of its meaning. For the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is supremely a moral story about God’s identification with victims.” (Guardian.UK)

layers of cedar and raspberry strike a sharp upfront note, while clove and creamy notes add body while contributing an exotic, sumptuous character that conveys luxury in its essence. Might there also be a trace of rubber, though?

And then there’s B, with

its aroma of underripe bananas, and the way the fruitiness opens up on my tongue with a flick of bitterness that quickly fades to reveal lush, grassy tones.

Product C, on the other hand, is

fruity (with a high-profile role for the deliciously garbagey, overripe smell of guava) plus floral (powdery rosy) plus green (neroli and oakmoss).

These are descriptions of, respectively, a chocolate, an olive oil, and a perfume, but you couldn’t possibly guess that. I’ve never caught traces of red fruit in a dark chocolate, I don’t even know what neroli is, and, as for underripe bananas in olive oil, I’m more likely to catch the Sundance Kid in Bolivia. That doesn’t mean that the people who can taste these things are bluffing; rather, they have a vocabulary of specific sense references that I haven’t acquired. (To complicate matters, sometimes these people actually are bluffing.)” (The New Yorker)

Remember that the Journal is set up to disarm its pay gate if it thinks you’re coming from Google News or Digg. In order to get free access, then, you’ve got to convince the Journal that you’ve clicked on a link on one of those sites. How to do that?

The technical name for this is ‘referer spoofing’ (with the misspelling). Spoofing is an easy thing to pull off in Firefox — all you’ve got to do is download this add-on, refspoof.

When you’ve installed that app, you’ll see a new toolbar.

Now follow these steps:

* Go to WSJ.com.

* In the refspoof toolbar’s ‘spoof:’ field, type ‘digg.com.’

* Also in the refspoof toolbar, click the R icon, and select ‘static referrer.’

* That’s it. Click around the site; the WSJ thinks each click is coming from Digg. The WSJ is now yours for free!” [via boing boing]

Pugh is almost certainly talking about children who have what are known as ‘callous-unemotional’ traits, described somewhat less politically correctly as ‘kiddie psychopathy’.

These have indeed been found to weakly predict future antisocial behaviour, but the picture is more complex than it seems and, as we’ll see, they aren’t a good basis on which to base future crime fighting efforts.” (Mind Hacks)

Unlike almost every other dinosaur fossil ever found, the Edmontosaurus named Dakota, a duckbilled dinosaur unearthed in southwestern North Dakota in 2004, is covered by fossilized skin that is hard as iron. It’s among just a few mummified dinosaurs in the world, say the researchers who are slowly freeing it from a 65-million-year-old rock tomb. (Discovery News)

The Wall Street titans have turned into a bunch of welfare clients. They are desperate to be bailed out by government from their own incompetence, and from the deregulatory regime for which they lobbied so hard.” (Washington Post op-ed)

Kouchner said he wants to discuss it with other foreign ministers from the 27-nation European Union next week. His comments opened a crack in what until now had been solid opposition to a full boycott, a stance that Kouchner said remains the official government position.” (AP )

One was the abrupt resignation of the person who has been the biggest obstacle to a U.S. military strike against Iran, Admiral William Fallon, the chief of Central Command which oversees U.S. military operations in the volatile region.

The second is the ugly direction that the Democratic presidential competition has taken, with Hillary Clinton’s campaign intensifying its harsh rhetoric against Barack Obama, reducing the likelihood that he can win the presidency – and thus raising the odds that the next president will be either John McCain or Sen. Clinton, both hawks on Iran.

Throughout the campaign, Clinton has mocked Obama as inexperienced for his desire to engage in presidential-level diplomacy with Iran and other adversarial states. And she recently judged him as unqualified to serve as Commander in Chief, while declaring that both she and Sen. McCain have crossed that “threshold.”

The cumulative effect of Clinton’s attacks on Obama’s qualifications – combined with her campaign’s efforts to turn many white voters against him as the “black candidate” – has buoyed Republican hopes for November.” (Consortium News)

One was the abrupt resignation of the person who has been the biggest obstacle to a U.S. military strike against Iran, Admiral William Fallon, the chief of Central Command which oversees U.S. military operations in the volatile region.

The second is the ugly direction that the Democratic presidential competition has taken, with Hillary Clinton’s campaign intensifying its harsh rhetoric against Barack Obama, reducing the likelihood that he can win the presidency – and thus raising the odds that the next president will be either John McCain or Sen. Clinton, both hawks on Iran.

Throughout the campaign, Clinton has mocked Obama as inexperienced for his desire to engage in presidential-level diplomacy with Iran and other adversarial states. And she recently judged him as unqualified to serve as Commander in Chief, while declaring that both she and Sen. McCain have crossed that “threshold.”

The cumulative effect of Clinton’s attacks on Obama’s qualifications – combined with her campaign’s efforts to turn many white voters against him as the “black candidate” – has buoyed Republican hopes for November.” (Consortium News)

Earlier in the week, several television stations played clips in which Mr. Wright, of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, referred to the United States as the ‘U.S. of K.K.K. A.’ and said the Sept. 11 attacks were a result of corrupt American foreign policy.” (New York Times )

‘And her reply would be, `Maybe tomorrow,” Whipple said. ‘According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom.’

The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report that ‘there was something wrong with his girlfriend,’ Whipple said, adding that he never explained why it took him two years to call.” (Yahoo! News)

Of course it’s well documented that there are already a number of right-wing smear campaigns underway to promote this idea. But I think these numbers are evidence of the success that members of his own party have had in injecting questions about his race and religious beliefs (and tying the two together) into the primary. The Clinton camp has repeatedly and unsubtly pushed his race to the center of the campaign, and is doing their best to paint him as guilty of being a white-people-hating, Louis-Farrakhan-loving, militant by association.” (The American Prospect)

Earlier in the week, several television stations played clips in which Mr. Wright, of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, referred to the United States as the ‘U.S. of K.K.K. A.’ and said the Sept. 11 attacks were a result of corrupt American foreign policy.” (New York Times )