"A list of recent clinical trials of psychedelics and related illegal drugs:
Ayahuasca Depression: Brazil (upcoming)
Psilocybin Depression: UK (pending),
Smoking cessation: US (ongoing)
MDMA PTSD: Switzerland (completed), Spain (completed), Israel (ongoing), US (ongoing), Canada (upcoming)
LSD End of life anxiety: Switzerland (completed)
Ibogaine Addiction: Mexico, New Zealand (ongoing)
...As one scientist quoted in the story says, “The illegality of these drugs has profoundly distorted research and continues to do so....It’s one of the greatest scandals in modern research.”"
"The outcry about the “Girls” episode truly startled me. I was surprised when several bright writers whose work I admire labeled the scene rape, because to me and to so many other bright writers whose work I admire, it so clearly was not rape. Categorizing it as such is an intellectually unsound discrediting of women’s power. Natalia was not raped and to call the sex she consented to rape is to demean actual victims of sexual assault and devalue the crime. Further, it is paternalistic in its approach to women, as though women are helpless beings incapable of voicing their wants, and, absent violence and/or threats of violence, can’t or won’t say no. If we want to argue that women are so limited by the patriarchy that they can’t say no, how do we counter the arguments that women can’t handle jobs in the military or working as police officers? If they can’t escape the narrow roles that a male-dominated society allows them (which some offer as a reason why a woman can’t say no in bed), how will they be able to embrace their power as a soldier or law enforcement officer?
It’s sad to me that we are still buying into a puritanical vision of women and saying that when they willingly participate in something and don’t like it they have been assaulted. It’s sad to me that we are teaching kids that if someone is too emotionally immature to give proper consent, it’s rape, as the generally terrific site Scarlteen does. (So now it’s up to our partners to determine if we have the emotional maturity to give consent? Or is it just that we want them to roll the dice that after the fact we won’t turn around and say, “I wasn’t mature enough to give consent, so you raped me.”) So much of victim blaming relies on these outmoded views of women’s sexuality.
...it is not helpful to label every murky sexual encounter as rape or to say that anything any woman states is rape is, in fact, rape. To say so is to render the word meaningless. I agree with the notion of “enthusiastic consent” advanced by Jessica Valenti and Jaclyn Friedman in the landmark collection they edited, “Yes Means Yes.” As Jill Filipovic says there: ”Women are not empty vessels to be fucked or not fucked; we’re sexual actors who should absolutely have the ability to say yes when we want it.”
Defining regret over a consensual experience as rape conveys the message that women who experiment with something sexually and do not like it means that a traumatic crime has been committed. Nonsense.
Discussing these issues over the past week, I have been reminded of how fraught with divisiveness they can be. When I shared some of my opinions – in both real-life discussions with friends and Facebook conversations – I was told that I needed to “talk to some actual survivors,” that I didn’t understand what rape was, that I was distracting from the “real” point of convincing men to stop raping, that I had no right to say what was rape and what wasn’t. In fact, I worked at an urban rape crisis center and helped launch the U.S.’s only nationwide sexual assault hotline, RAINN. I am a survivor of childhood sexual assault and have written about that in assorted publications, including here in Salon, but for my various opinions, I was told that I was not a feminist.
...Twenty years ago, it was argued by some inside the rape crisis movement that estimates of prison rape and of boys being sexually abused were wrong and that it was merely a diversionary tactic to move attention from women. Of course, now we know those numbers were far too low. We should look at how we’ve evolved over the last 40 years and acknowledge that we will evolve over the next 40."
"The true red pill... makes you see that everything and everyone in your life and society is grooming you... to be someone who does work for other people’s benefits, to give your money and LIFE for some cause that is not your own."
"...we are all actually emotional (and selfish) decision-makers, and that our logical mind spends most of its time finding reasons and justifications for what our emotions have already concluded about a situation.
...we’re terribly ineffective at measuring the cost/benefit of most situations, ESPECIALLY when emotions get involved. We suck at making apples-to-oranges comparisons. We suck at evaluating potential downsides to situations we like. We over-estimate the value of things that come with high costs.
...we’re terrible at both a) predicting what will make us happy/unhappy in the future and b) judging how we actually felt in the past...
We think we’re constructing expectations to lead ourselves into a better future. But usually our expectations are designed to protect us from the present.
BELIEVING YOUR OWN BULLSHIT
There’s that old self help saying that goes, “If you keep doing the same things you’ve always done, then you’ll keep getting the same results you’ve always gotten.” The problem is that our mind has always constructed really good reasons for doing what we’ve always done. That’s why we do them! But the Three Dan’s show us that just because our mind believes something or gives us a reason, doesn’t mean it’s right or useful. In fact, sometimes it’s harmful. Any time you want to change yourself, you are going to have to dismantle the reasoning your mind constructed to justify your past behaviors. As the Three Dan’s have taught us, most of our reasons for unhelpful behavior are bullshit. Most of our reasoning for our behavior is to justify our prior emotional decisions. And many of our emotional decisions are based on fear or anxiety or avoiding dealing with some sort of past trauma...
The “Why?” Game is great because it immediately gets at what actually matters: emotional motivations. And from there, prior beliefs, prior traumas, poor decisions, etc. Here’s an example of the “Why?” Game with my awkward sex avoidance above: Why do I keep passing up on these sexual situations and keep regretting it? Because when in that situation I become more focused on something else and less motivated by sex. Why? Because I don’t want to deal with all of the expectations and drama that comes from sex. Why? Because I’m not emotionally prepared for that kind of thing. I don’t want it. Why? Because I feel like my only girlfriend had expectations I couldn’t live up to (whoa). Why? Because I guess I never felt good enough for her, especially after she dumped me. Why? Because I don’t feel like I’m good enough to receive sex and affection from women (double whoa). Why? Because I grew up in a family where emotional connections were seen as part of transactions and obligations and not freely given. Why? Because my parents had trouble with many of these same intimacy issues in their own lives."
"A Second Circuit Appeals Court judge has handed down a landmark fair use decision in Cariou v. Prince. Prince, a collagist, remixed some of Cariou's photos and sold them for large sums. Cariou argued that the new works were not fair because Prince did not create his collages as a comment on the original (one of the factors judges can consider in fair use cases is whether the new work is a commentary or parody). The lower court agreed, and ordered destruction of the show catalogs and a ban on hanging the new works. But the appeals court overturned, and held that a use can be fair even when it doesn't comment on the original."
The White House Correspondents' Dinner is the worst example of the incestuous, star-fucking relationship between politics and the media that's supposed to be holding them accountable. That being said, this is pretty funny.
Red 2 looks pretty damn good. Helen Mirrin makes a great bad guy.
"The entire point of Tila Tequila posting this video is to draw attention to Tila Tequila, so yes, I know I fell right into her trap. But after watching this video, not only will you wish I shot your children right in front of your eyes instead, you’ll also realize I was useless to resist because, my god, look at all that POWER. Sparkles are coming out of her fingertips. Sparkles! We should probably sacrifice a goat before she destroys the harvest. To the high priest!"
The first Red Pill I took was religion. The Global Warming/Climate Change hits a lot of the same buttons, for me too. Comforting to see I'm not the only one...
"A finely honed bullshit detector is an invaluable tool in any man’s arsenal, one that has served me well over the years, keeping me clear of scams, shysters, and preventing myself looking foolish when the latest fad that everyone has been raving on about turns out to be a crock of shit. I recall the first such cultural frenzy that set my firmly on my path to red pill indoctrination was that of global warming, no less, in my early 20s. At some point, I noticed that it had gone from merely being a scientific issue to one that was now firmly mired in the realms of the social and political. People became more and more rabid in their protestations of the veracity of the issue, less and less willing to listen to any kind of debate.
"Trofim Lysenko became the Director of the Soviet Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences in the 1930s under Josef Stalin. He was an advocate of the theory that characteristics acquired by plants during their lives could be inherited by later generations stemming from the changed plants, which sharply contradicted Mendelian genetics. As a result, Lysenko became a fierce critic of theories of the then rising modern genetics.
Lysenko was consequently embraced and lionized by the Soviet media propaganda machine. Scientists who promoted Lysenkoism with faked data and destroyed counterevidence were favored with government funding and official recognition and award. Lysenko and his followers and media acolytes responded to critics by impugning their motives, and denouncing them as bourgeois fascists resisting the advance of the new modern Marxism.
The V.I. Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences announced on August 7, 1948 that thenceforth Lysenkoism would be taught as the only correct theory...
This same practice of Lysenkoism has long been under way in western science in regard to the politically correct theory of man caused, catastrophic, global warming.
All the climate alarmist organizations simply rubber stamp the irregular Assessment Reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). None of them do any original science on the theory of anthropogenic catastrophic global warming. But the United Nations is a proven, corrupt, power grabbing institution. The science of their Assessment Reports has been thoroughly rebutted by the hundreds of pages of science in Climate Change Reconsidered, and Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report, both written by dozens of scientists with the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, and published by the Heartland Institute, the international headquarters of the skeptics of the theory of anthropogenic catastrophic global warming.
Indeed, 31,487 U.S. scientists (including 9,000 Ph.Ds) with degrees in atmospheric Earth sciences, physics, chemistry, biology and computer science have signed a statement that reads: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” See here. Some consensus.
The alarmist claims of the UN’s IPCC are ultimately based not on scientific observations, but on unvalidated climate models and their projections of future global temperatures on assumptions of continued increases in carbon dioxide emissions resulting from the burning and use of fossil fuels. The alarmists are increasingly in panic because the past projections of the models are increasingly divergent from the accumulating actual temperature records. Those models are not real science, but made up science. And no way we are abandoning the industrial revolution as the Sierra Club is hoping based on model fantasies and fairy tales..."
You've got to be fucking kidding me.
"...walking down the street looking for things to be offended by when she saw this sign outside Oatmeals NY: ... and she complained until it got taken down. Wtf? What kind of pathetic, hypersensitive world are we living in where people can be 'offended' by this and publicly complain about it. ...Chloe Angyal, called the sign "fatshamey and gross" and accused Oatmeals NY of contributing to eating disorders. Okay, first, how about trying to communicate like an adult; 'fatshamey' is not a word, it sounds like something a child might say. It's not cute when supposedly adult women do it."
"It's an insult to anyone who has worked hard on their body, health and fitness to suggest otherwise. I eat oatmeal for its health benefits; I watch the rest of what I eat too, to make sure my diet is high in protein, high in the right kind of fats, and low in carbs (though some foods high in carbs are better than others e.g. boiled potatoes, brown rice, vegetables). I also make sure I do regular resistance and cardio training. All of this requires effort. I could just sit around and eat junk food, but then I wouldn't be as fit or healthy. I have earned what I have, therefore it's insulting for anyone to say that fatness is just as valid, just as healthy, just as attractive (it's really not), etc.
...When I checked the page last night, the comments were flooded by people calling Chloe out on her bullshit, including fat people who are trying to lose weight and appreciate the sign because it tells them what would be a better option. This woman was clearly looking to be offended by something, and thinks the whole world should cater to her emotional tantrums."
Western society is getting fatter and fatter, I swear.
"7.5lbs Waist size grown from 27 inches 60 years ago to 34 inches now 38 per cent of women now classed as overweight Difference between the bust and hips to the waistline was 10in in 1950s In 2013 figures are much flatter at only 4in difference from bust to waistline British women weigh 7.5lbs more than in 1951 and are 1.5in taller Growing numbers opting for clinical procedures to achieve shapely figures..."
This is a damn shame.
Mr. Silverman closed his shelter last month, saying he could no longer afford its upkeep. He long sought funding from provincial and federal governments to help run his hybrid shelter and home, but believed he was always refused because the space was dedicated to helping male victims and their children. He said he was unable to pay for heat and grocery bills.
"Family violence is a constant problem, but the discussion is often limited to female victims. Many men also deal with violence and abuse, but perhaps lack access to the same resources. Does our approach to this issue need to change? Are solutions to family violence gender-specific? We talk to Dustin Tkachuk, from Legal Aid Alberta and Earl Silverman, from the Family of Men Support Society."
| "Men who suffer abuse from women, in particular, are — out of gallantry or embarrassment — ashamed to publicly admit they have been physically victimized by a woman. |
Which doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. It happens with virtually the same frequency and almost always the same level of violence that women experience from men. We have been down this road many times before, but the myth persists that only women can be victims of domestic violence, and that when they do become violent, it is only in self-defence or from repeated provocation.
But to return to the letter-writer’s question, and her allusion to the feminists in the 1970s who organized women’s shelters. I wonder if she is familiar with the name of the woman who inspired that Canadian shelter system for “battered wives,” as they were then called.
Her name is Erin Pizzey. Pizzey set up the world’s first refuge for abused women in London, England 1971, and devoted her life to promoting an international movement for victims of domestic abuse. Shouldn’t she be famous for this watershed contribution to women’s empowerment? Yes, she should be. But I am going to bet that the Post’s letter writer never heard of her, and further bet that Pizzey’s name is a blank to 99% of Western women.
Why?
Because Erin Pizzey had assumed, when she opened her first shelter, that only women would apply for refuge, she found that boys and men also needed her help, and she did not turn them away. Through experience and countless candid conversations with the women who sought her help, she came to realize that many of her abused female clientele were dishing it out as much as they were receiving it — and not because they were provoked or in self-defence. In other words she committed the sin of even-handedness, of recognizing that women can be as abusive to their partners — and certainly as or more abusive to their children — as men.
No matter who runs the data, as long as the methodology is sound, researchers keep coming to exactly the same conclusions. In Canada, 8% of Canadian women report being physically abused annually; and 7% of men report the same. Abused men need places of refuge and it is a disgrace that there are none for them. But until Erin Pizzey’s name becomes honoured amongst feminists, the myth that men cannot be victims of domestic violence will live on."
"The Inuit aren't just suffering from some polar bear fever that's iced up their judgment. Take a look at the facts: A serving of lamb spleen has as much Vitamin C as a tangerine. And a beef lung has 50% more Vitamin C than a tangerine. But let's stick with liver since it's something all of us are familiar with. Look at this comparison between the Vitamin C content of 100 grams of apple, 100 grams of carrots, 100 grams of red meat, and 100 grams of beef liver. The apple has 7.0 grams of Vitamin C, the carrots have 6.0 grams, the red meat has 0 grams, and the beef liver has 27.0 grams. Let's do the same thing with Vitamin B12. The apple has no measurable B12 and neither do the carrots. The red meat has 1.84 mcg., but the beef liver has 111.3 mcg. It's no contest. And it's not much different when you look at other nutrients like phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, iron, zinc, copper, Vitamins A, D, and E, thiamin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, folic acid, biotin, and Vitamin B6 – beef liver beats them all almost every time.
...Do you, like most Americans, just eat what you want – which turns you into an unhealthy and likely overweight medical liability – or do you make the conscious choice to eat what you need? Those who fall into the latter category will want to try liver."
"Emotionally healthy people who don’t have problems aren’t mean to strangers.
Emotionally unhealthy people who do have problems are mean to strangers.
It has nothing to do with you."
Thank god I've avoided "responsibility" and "respect." This sounds fairly horrible.
"Probably the most common story I experienced when I did peer counseling back in Nevada was the disillusioned married guy. Most of these guys were professionals, mid to late 30′s and all their stories were the same; “I feel like I’ve done everything anyone ever expected of me for the past 10-15 years and I get no appreciation for it.” These guys “did the right thing” and either their wive’s were unresponsive to them or they still viewed these men as a “fixer upper” project that they were constantly working on.
This experience is what helped me to better understand the myth of the Mid-Life Crisis. Men, in most western culture’s do in fact experience a mid-life crisis, but this isn’t due to the trivialized and oft ridiculed by pop culture reasoning... that would have us believe that men experiencing a mid-life crisis need to buy a sports car or divorce their wives in favor of a ‘trophy wife’ due to some repressed need to recapture their lost youth. This of course fits into the myth that men are egoisitic, simple creatures and masculinity is infantile in nature...
The truth about men’s mid-life crises isn’t about recapturing youth, it’s about finally understanding the trappings they’ve been sold into through their 20′s and 30′s and coming to terms with that often horrible truth. Some men do in fact buy the sports car, get the new hottie wife or act in some fashion that appears reckless and irresponsible. This isn’t due to infantilism, but rather new understanding of their own position as men. They’ve “lived responsibly” for so long and for so little appreciation that when that true realization is made they feel the need to move. They’ve become respected, put in the hours, the sacrifice, the censoring of their own views. They realize now that they’ve sold off true passions in favor of maintaining what others have told him was his responsibility – whether it was his choice or not. And all for what?"
Of course.
"All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader. “We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.”"
"“The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan,” one American official said, “was the United States.”"
"Nearly every month since the war began in 2001, the CIA has sent a guy over to Afghan President Hamid Karzai with a bag — sometimes a suitcase, sometimes a backpack, sometimes a shopping bag — full of cash. His former chief of staff says they used to call it “ghost money,” and it totals tens of millions of dollars, according to an eye-opening New York Times story. Quite the hypocritical twist from a sponsor country that so frequently hectors Karzai about corruption.
...When Iran pays off Karzai, it’s disruptive foreign meddling. But when the CIA does it, it’s supposed to be an insurance policy to entrench U.S. influence in the president’s office."
"In a statement, Karzai admits to getting the money, but insists it’s not what it looks like. The BBC reports: The president said the money was for projects such as helping the sick. "It was used for different purposes: operational, assistance to injured people, rental costs and other goals. This was efficient assistance and we appreciate it," he said in a statement."
America really isn't, anymore.
"As it turns out, though, Tsarnaev wasn't Mirandized because the DOJ decided he should be. Instead, that happened only because a federal magistrate, on her own, scheduled a hospital-room hearing, interrupted the FBI's interrogation which had been proceeding at that point for a full 16 hours, and advised him of his right to remain silent and appointed him a lawyer. Since then, Tsarnaev ceased answering the FBI's questions. But that controversy was merely about whether he would be advised of his Miranda rights. Now, the Los Angeles Times, almost in passing, reports something which, if true, would be a much more serious violation of core rights than delaying Miranda warnings - namely, that prior to the magistrate's visit to his hospital room, Tsarnaev had repeatedly asked for a lawyer, but the FBI simply ignored those requests, instead allowing the interagency High Value Detainee Interrogation Group to continue to interrogate him alone...
Delaying Miranda warnings under the "public safety exception" - including under the Obama DOJ's radically expanded version of it - is one thing. But denying him the right to a lawyer after he repeatedly requests one is another thing entirely: as fundamental a violation of crucial guaranteed rights as can be imagined. As the lawyer bmaz comprehensively details in this excellent post, it is virtually unheard of for the "public safety" exception to be used to deny someone their right to a lawyer as opposed to delaying a Miranda warning."
"Miss Sputnick, Paris striptease, 1957."
Pacific Rim just went from "kinda cool" to "Must See."
What that means is that lots of people had a strong profit motive to get the bee population back up to snuff every spring. What's more, replacing a hive can be as simple as splitting a healthy hive and adding a new mated queen. New queens are cheap and the supply is very elastic. All of which adds up to: Pretty cheap and rapid bee replacement."
"In a trial that focuses on the New York City Police Department's controversial practice of promoting "stop and frisk" — approaching and shaking down people, without specific cause, who officers think might be up to no good — police department officials have come up with a novel explanation: officers are leaned on to "produce" because they're too damned lazy to do their jobs otherwise. Without necessarily conceding that "performance goals" are the same as quotas, the brass insists that they have to set minimum standards to get cops out of their cars and ... err ... interacting with the public or they'd doze and eat doughnuts all day."
My Unitarian Jihad name is Brother Crossbow of Moderation.
I laughed, because I'm a bad person. Still funny/kinda true. You have to pay attention to quality & quantity of food in order to be and and to look fit, healthy and attractive.
Open Letter To Fat Girls:
"When I was 21, I remember sitting at the Trevi Fountain in Rome having gelato and noticing that all these Italian girls around me were so damn skinny. And they were all having gelato. How is this possible? What about all the sugar/carbs that goes hand in hand with desserts and ice cream and makes you fat? Well it didn’t take long to find out this gelato is not preceded with a large creamy pasta dish, or calorie dense supposedly healthy turkey sandwich with aioli, cheddar and bacon...
How many times have you heard a chunkster say something along the lines of “Ugh, I hate her! Look how skinny she is and she’s having cake! If only I had her genes. Well nothing I can do, I’m just unlucky to be fat.”
Bullshit. I lived with a model for a week. A legit runway model. I saw what she ate on a daily basis. Banana nut muffins. Chocolate. Candy. Ice Cream. Basically anything she wanted. But—and it’s a big but—it was in small amounts. I’ll never forget her walking into the kitchen at lunch time, cutting half a muffin, and going “it’s time for lunch!” Again, it didn’t matter what she ate, just how much she ate. It’s not magic or genetics that she is thin. Compare that to my other roommate. She is one of these chunksters. She has organic eggs fried in olive oil with turkey bacon for breakfast, along with whole wheat bread and some fruit. For lunch she will have some whole wheat pasta with tomato sauce or a turkey sandwich and maybe some yogurt on the side. She will have a subway sandwich for herself and snack on various things throughout the day, such as the other half of the muffin the model didn’t eat. Overall a “healthy” diet, but she eats a lot. Probably over 2000 calories a day. See the difference?"
Not. Fucking. Around. [No excuses.]
"Poor cognitive test performance, enlargement of ventricles and low brain weight were each significantly and independently associated with higher midlife tofu consumption. A similar association of midlife tofu intake with poor late life cognitive test scores was also observed among wives of cohort members, using the husband’s answers to food frequency questions as proxy for the wife’s consumption. Statistically significant associations were consistently demonstrated in linear and logistic multivariate regression models. Odds ratios comparing endpoints among “high-high” with “low-low” consumers were mostly in the range of 1.6 to 2.0. Conclusions: In this population, higher midlife tofu consumption was independently associated with indicators of cognitive impairment and brain atrophy in late life."
