http://www.salon.com/food/kitchen_challenge/2010/11/15/chinese_sausage_and_sticky_rice_stuffing_open2010
Monday, Nov 15, 2010
Chinese sausage and sticky rice stuffing
Making a place for Chinese cuisine at Thanksgiving with this toothsome and savory rice stuffing
Linda Shiue
This entry to the Salon Kitchen Challenge comes to us from Linda Shiue. We haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but we'd love to hear about it if you do!
This is a story about Thanksgiving traditions and my hidden talent. (More on the talent later.) Those of us who can't trace our ancestry to the Mayflower are left to create our own Thanksgiving traditions. As a result, I think I had the best Thanksgivings of anyone I know. What made this holiday so special in our house was the ever-changing, motley international crew my family hosted each year. My parents were scientists at a national research laboratory. Their institution attracted scientists from around the world, who would come to work alongside their American-based (if not American-born) colleagues for any time from weeks to months or even years. While Thanksgiving at our house was not necessarily traditional, we did embrace its ideal of bringing together people from different backgrounds for friendship and mutual understanding. We also embraced the turkey. It took its rightful place as the centerpiece of the meal, complete with the ritual carving done by my father with an electric knife given to my parents on their wedding in 1965. The same knife is still being used to this day for this purpose, just once a year.
We served the turkey, but did not love it. Chinese cuisine has no place for such a big bird, and ovens are rarely used by home cooks. Still, it was understood that Thanksgiving required a turkey, so there it was. Ours was basted with a soy sauce marinade but otherwise resembled the turkeys "everyone else" had. This is where the similarities ended. Surrounding the turkey on the table would be stir-fried greens and several other Chinese dishes that my parents actually enjoyed eating, unlike the turkey. We'd have two types of stuffing, an American bread-based version, and a Chinese version, made of sticky rice, shiitake mushrooms and Chinese sausage. That was my family's contribution.
The fun really began with the various pot luck offerings our international guests would bring to share. It wasn't necessarily food of their own culture, but it was never American, either. For example, I remember the deep-fried, but somehow light, Swedish rosettes brought by Rose, who hailed from Manila but was married to a Swede. The first samosas I tasted came from Sakura, who herself had learned how to make them from an Indian visitor in Tokyo. Srinual, a native of Bangkok, made a vinegary antipasto. We'd sit around the table or wherever there was space, and share food and stories. All in English, the universal language, but in a wild variety of accents. Most of the time people understood one another, or at least, enough. The nights would be filled with fascinating tales of faraway lands, and lots of laughter.
This is where my hidden talent became important. You see, I can understand foreign-accented English, from almost any origin. I do not mean this in any disparaging way. I am proud of this skill, because it is extremely useful. I am the person who ends the discomfort that arises when two people, ostensibly speaking the same language, ask each other to repeat what the other said over and over, gaining no more clarity each time. I "translate." My talent may not be as impressive as being fluent in several foreign languages, but I think it's possibly even more helpful. Since Esperanto never really took off, most of the world has given in to learning English to speak to one another, with variable success.
In a few weeks, I'll be meeting my new niece and nephew for the first time. I know I can't expect my brother, the new dad, to make the turkey this year. In past years he has made Turducken (why?) and a deep-fried turkey, but I think his hands are otherwise occupied this Thanksgiving. We won't be hosting any international guests this year -- those twin babies will be more than enough excitement. But our family would make a pretty good U.N. delegation on its own, representing the United States, Taiwan, Trinidad, China and Korea. And while our accents may range from Chinglish to Korean to Trinidadian to "I don't have an accent" and even a bit of Long Islandese and California girl thrown into the mix, fear not. Remember, I can understand anyone's English. I'll translate.
Chinese sausage and sticky rice stuffing
This is the stuffing I hope my mom will make on Thanksgiving. Besides the toothsomeness of the sticky rice, it has the richness of mushrooms and chestnuts, the fragrance of rice wine, and the slightly sweet succulence of the Chinese sausage. The fried shallot garnish adds flavor and crunch, much like the fried onions on that other Thanksgiving staple, the green bean casserole. You can eat this rice stuffing on its own, but it is truly amazing when it's been cooked in the turkey.
Special note: This rice needs to be soaked for several hours or even overnight, so prepare in advance.
Makes about 8 cups, enough to stuff a medium-size turkey, and then some.
Ingredients
•3 cups sticky rice (also known as glutinous or sweet rice)
•1 ½ cups (about 8) dried Chinese black or shiitake mushrooms
•3 Chinese sausages, diced
•1 cup roasted chestnuts (in Asian markets, you can buy roasted and peeled chestnuts in a foil bag)
•2 tablespoons canola oil
•1 tablespoon ginger, finely minced
•2 garlic cloves, finely minced
•1/3 cup Chinese rice wine (may substitute dry sherry)
•1 tablespoon soy sauce
•1 tablespoon Chinese vegetarian stir-fry sauce or oyster sauce
•2 teaspoons sesame oil
•½ teaspoon ground white pepper
•2 cups chicken or turkey broth
•garnishes: chopped scallions and Chinese fried shallots (available in Asian markets)
Directions
1. Soak rice in cold water, about an inch more than enough to cover. Allow to soak for at least six hours or overnight. While rice is soaking, soak mushrooms in a separate bowl in very warm water for at least half an hour. When softened, remove stems and coarsely chop.
2. Drain soaked rice in a sieve and rinse with cold water.
3. Heat oil in a large, heavy pan or stock pot and stir-fry garlic and ginger for several minutes. Add diced sausage and cook for a few minutes. Add drained and rinsed rice, stir and fry for a few minutes. Add mushrooms. Add wine, broth and all seasonings and bring to a boil. Adjust seasonings to taste (may need more soy sauce or some salt). Make sure to stir periodically because sticky rice is, well, sticky. Add chopped chestnuts and gently stir into the rice mixture.
4. Lower heat to a simmer, cover pot and allow to steam, undisturbed, for 20 minutes. Resist the temptation to peek under the lid. At this point, rice should be fully cooked and can be used to stuff the turkey. If it seems too dry stir in more broth until moistened. If preparing to eat without stuffing in turkey, stir contents and then replace lid. Remove from heat and allow to sit for 10 minutes before serving.
5. Garnish with scallions and fried shallots, if desired. Excellent with turkey gravy.
Friday, November 26, 2010
How Corporate America Is Pushing Us All Off a Cliff...
a letter from Michael Moore
Friday, November 19th, 2010
Friends,
When someone talks about pushing you off a cliff, it's just human nature to be curious about them. Who are these people, you wonder, and why would they want to do such a thing?
That's what I was thinking when corporate whistleblower Wendell Potter revealed that, when "Sicko" was being released in 2007, the health insurance industry's PR firm, APCO Worldwide, discussed their Plan B: "Pushing Michael Moore off a cliff."
But after looking into it, it turns out, it's nothing personal! APCO wants to push everyone off a cliff.
APCO was hatched in 1984 as a subsidiary of the Washington, D.C. law firm Arnold & Porter -- best known for its years of representing the giant tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris. APCO set up fake "grassroots" organizations around the country to do the bidding of Big Tobacco. All of a sudden, "normal, everyday, in-no-way-employed-by-Philip Morris Americans" were popping up everywhere. And it turned out they were outraged -- outraged! -- by exactly the things APCO's clients hated (such as, the government telling tobacco companies what to do). In particular, they were "furious" that regular people had the right to sue big corporations...you know, like Philip Morris. (For details, see the 2000 report "The CALA Files" by my friends and colleagues Carl Deal and Joanne Doroshow.)
Right about now you may be wondering: how many Americans get pushed off a cliff by Big Tobacco every year? The answer is 443,000 Americans die every year due to smoking. That's a big cliff.
With this success under their belts, APCO created "The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition." TASSC, funded partly by Exxon, had a leading role in a planned campaign by the fossil fuel industry to create doubt about global warming. The problem for Big Oil speaking out against global warming, according to the campaign's own leaked documents, was that the public could see the "vested interest" that oil companies had in opposing environmental laws. APCO's job was to help conceal those oil company interests.
And boy, have they ever succeeded. Polls now show that, as the world gets hotter, Americans are getting less and less worried about it.
How big is this particular cliff? According to the World Health Organization, climate change contributes -- right now -- to the deaths of 150,000 people every year. By 2030 it may be double that. And after that...well, the sky is literally the limit! I don't think it's crazy to say APCO may rack up even bigger numbers here than they have with tobacco.
With this track record, you can see why, when the health insurance industry wanted to come after "Sicko," they went straight to APCO. The "worst case," as their leaked documents say, was that "Sicko evolves into a sustained populist movement." That simply could not be allowed to happen. Something obviously had to be done.
As Wendell Potter explains, APCO ran their standard playbook, setting up something called "Health Care America." Health Care America, according to Potter, "was received by mainstream reporters, including the New York Times, as a legitimate organization when it was nothing but a front group set up by APCO Worldwide. It was not anything approaching what it was reporting to be: a 'grassroots organization.' It was a sham group."
Health Care America showed up online in 2007 (the year "Sicko" was released) and disappeared quickly by early 2008. You can still find their website archived here. As you'll see, their "moderated forum" allowed normal, everyday, in-no-way-employed-by-the-insurance-industry Americans to speak out. For instance, here's something Nicole felt very strongly about:
"Moore shouldn't be allowed to call his film a 'documentary.' It should be called a political commercial. We need to fix our health care system, but we shouldn’t accept a Hollywood moviemaker’s political views as the starting point."
Here's what Wendell Potter revealed about the insurance industry's media strategy:
"As we would do the media training, we would always have someone refer to him as 'Hollywood entertainer' or 'Hollywood moviemaker Michael Moore.' They don't want you to think that it was a documentary that had some truth."
Thanks for your perspective, "Nicole"!
Now, how big was THAT cliff? A pretty good size -- according to a recent study, 45,000 Americans die every year because they don't have health insurance.
And here we are in 2010. A lesser PR firm might be resting on its laurels at this point, content to sit back and watch hundreds of thousands of people continue to be pushed off the various cliffs they've built. But not APCO! Right now they've taken on their biggest challenge yet: leading a giant, multi-million dollar effort to help Wall Street "earn back the trust of the American people."
We may never know the size of this particular cliff. But we can be sure it's gigantic. According to the New York Times, one of the things Wall Street's recession gave us is "the crippling of the government program that provides life-sustaining antiretroviral drugs to Americans with H.I.V. or AIDS who cannot afford them." Internationally, organizations fighting AIDS and other diseases are "hugely afraid" of cutbacks in funding.
Of course, there are the 101 ways recessions kill quietly. For instance, children's hospitals are seeing a sharp 55% rise in the abuse of babies by parents.
And that's just the previous cliff. If APCO and its Wall Street co-conspirators lull us into turning our backs on them again, we can be sure the next cliff -- the next crash -- will be much bigger.
Anyway, this is all just a way for me to say to APCO: No hard feelings! My getting mad at you would be like a chicken who's still happily pecking away getting mad at McDonald's. Compared to the millions you've already turned into McNuggets, you've actually treated me much, much BETTER! Spying on my family, planting smears and lies about me, privately badgering movie critics to give the film a poor review, scaring Americans into believing they'd be committing a near-act of treason were they to go to the theater and see my movie -- hey, ya done good, health insurance companies of America. And, most important, you stopped the nation from getting true universal health care. Good job!
There's only one problem -- I'm not one of those "liberals" you fund in Congress, the ones who fear your power.
I'm me. And that, sadly, is not good for you.
Yours in good health,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
P.S. It seems to me that APCO's discussion of pushing me off a cliff should legitimately be part of their Wikipedia page. And why not something about their role in Wall Street's new PR offensive? So I'm asking everyone interested to write something up that meets Wikipedia's guidelines and help bring the APCO Worldwide entry up to date. Post it somewhere online and send a tweet about it to @mmflint. I'll award a signed copy of "Sicko" by noon Sunday to the best entry...and then deputize you to post it on Wikipedia for real and make sure APCO's minions don't take it down. Just be sure afterward not to walk near any cliffs!
P.P.S. The late, great comedian Bill Hicks had some thoughts about marketing and the people who do it.
Friday, November 19th, 2010
Friends,
When someone talks about pushing you off a cliff, it's just human nature to be curious about them. Who are these people, you wonder, and why would they want to do such a thing?
That's what I was thinking when corporate whistleblower Wendell Potter revealed that, when "Sicko" was being released in 2007, the health insurance industry's PR firm, APCO Worldwide, discussed their Plan B: "Pushing Michael Moore off a cliff."
But after looking into it, it turns out, it's nothing personal! APCO wants to push everyone off a cliff.
APCO was hatched in 1984 as a subsidiary of the Washington, D.C. law firm Arnold & Porter -- best known for its years of representing the giant tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris. APCO set up fake "grassroots" organizations around the country to do the bidding of Big Tobacco. All of a sudden, "normal, everyday, in-no-way-employed-by-Philip Morris Americans" were popping up everywhere. And it turned out they were outraged -- outraged! -- by exactly the things APCO's clients hated (such as, the government telling tobacco companies what to do). In particular, they were "furious" that regular people had the right to sue big corporations...you know, like Philip Morris. (For details, see the 2000 report "The CALA Files" by my friends and colleagues Carl Deal and Joanne Doroshow.)
Right about now you may be wondering: how many Americans get pushed off a cliff by Big Tobacco every year? The answer is 443,000 Americans die every year due to smoking. That's a big cliff.
With this success under their belts, APCO created "The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition." TASSC, funded partly by Exxon, had a leading role in a planned campaign by the fossil fuel industry to create doubt about global warming. The problem for Big Oil speaking out against global warming, according to the campaign's own leaked documents, was that the public could see the "vested interest" that oil companies had in opposing environmental laws. APCO's job was to help conceal those oil company interests.
And boy, have they ever succeeded. Polls now show that, as the world gets hotter, Americans are getting less and less worried about it.
How big is this particular cliff? According to the World Health Organization, climate change contributes -- right now -- to the deaths of 150,000 people every year. By 2030 it may be double that. And after that...well, the sky is literally the limit! I don't think it's crazy to say APCO may rack up even bigger numbers here than they have with tobacco.
With this track record, you can see why, when the health insurance industry wanted to come after "Sicko," they went straight to APCO. The "worst case," as their leaked documents say, was that "Sicko evolves into a sustained populist movement." That simply could not be allowed to happen. Something obviously had to be done.
As Wendell Potter explains, APCO ran their standard playbook, setting up something called "Health Care America." Health Care America, according to Potter, "was received by mainstream reporters, including the New York Times, as a legitimate organization when it was nothing but a front group set up by APCO Worldwide. It was not anything approaching what it was reporting to be: a 'grassroots organization.' It was a sham group."
Health Care America showed up online in 2007 (the year "Sicko" was released) and disappeared quickly by early 2008. You can still find their website archived here. As you'll see, their "moderated forum" allowed normal, everyday, in-no-way-employed-by-the-insurance-industry Americans to speak out. For instance, here's something Nicole felt very strongly about:
"Moore shouldn't be allowed to call his film a 'documentary.' It should be called a political commercial. We need to fix our health care system, but we shouldn’t accept a Hollywood moviemaker’s political views as the starting point."
Here's what Wendell Potter revealed about the insurance industry's media strategy:
"As we would do the media training, we would always have someone refer to him as 'Hollywood entertainer' or 'Hollywood moviemaker Michael Moore.' They don't want you to think that it was a documentary that had some truth."
Thanks for your perspective, "Nicole"!
Now, how big was THAT cliff? A pretty good size -- according to a recent study, 45,000 Americans die every year because they don't have health insurance.
And here we are in 2010. A lesser PR firm might be resting on its laurels at this point, content to sit back and watch hundreds of thousands of people continue to be pushed off the various cliffs they've built. But not APCO! Right now they've taken on their biggest challenge yet: leading a giant, multi-million dollar effort to help Wall Street "earn back the trust of the American people."
We may never know the size of this particular cliff. But we can be sure it's gigantic. According to the New York Times, one of the things Wall Street's recession gave us is "the crippling of the government program that provides life-sustaining antiretroviral drugs to Americans with H.I.V. or AIDS who cannot afford them." Internationally, organizations fighting AIDS and other diseases are "hugely afraid" of cutbacks in funding.
Of course, there are the 101 ways recessions kill quietly. For instance, children's hospitals are seeing a sharp 55% rise in the abuse of babies by parents.
And that's just the previous cliff. If APCO and its Wall Street co-conspirators lull us into turning our backs on them again, we can be sure the next cliff -- the next crash -- will be much bigger.
Anyway, this is all just a way for me to say to APCO: No hard feelings! My getting mad at you would be like a chicken who's still happily pecking away getting mad at McDonald's. Compared to the millions you've already turned into McNuggets, you've actually treated me much, much BETTER! Spying on my family, planting smears and lies about me, privately badgering movie critics to give the film a poor review, scaring Americans into believing they'd be committing a near-act of treason were they to go to the theater and see my movie -- hey, ya done good, health insurance companies of America. And, most important, you stopped the nation from getting true universal health care. Good job!
There's only one problem -- I'm not one of those "liberals" you fund in Congress, the ones who fear your power.
I'm me. And that, sadly, is not good for you.
Yours in good health,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
P.S. It seems to me that APCO's discussion of pushing me off a cliff should legitimately be part of their Wikipedia page. And why not something about their role in Wall Street's new PR offensive? So I'm asking everyone interested to write something up that meets Wikipedia's guidelines and help bring the APCO Worldwide entry up to date. Post it somewhere online and send a tweet about it to @mmflint. I'll award a signed copy of "Sicko" by noon Sunday to the best entry...and then deputize you to post it on Wikipedia for real and make sure APCO's minions don't take it down. Just be sure afterward not to walk near any cliffs!
P.P.S. The late, great comedian Bill Hicks had some thoughts about marketing and the people who do it.
Wall Street quietly seeks to undo new financial rules
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/16/103833/wall-street-quietly-seeks-to-undo.html
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Wall Street quietly seeks to undo new financial rules
Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The heavy hitters of finance lost big battles earlier this year during the overhaul of financial regulation, but they're working hard to win the war. They're quietly trying to soften, if not kill, some of the more controversial provisions.
Lobbyists for Big Finance are working hardest to neutralize the so-called Volcker Rule, which would force big banks to spin off their lucrative proprietary trading operations, in which they invest their own capital in speculative deals.
The measure_ named after its proponent, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker — seeks to prevent big banks from betting against trades they made on behalf of their customers, a popular practice until the financial crisis exploded in 2008. For example, big investment banks such as Goldman Sachs sold customers overvalued mortgage bonds even as they bet secretly that those bonds would default.
Financial lobbyists also are working to soften requirements that Wall Street firms put more "skin in the game" by retaining more mortgage bonds on their books to guard against shoddy lending. They're also trying to undercut the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Through Republican lawmakers who will soon hold leadership positions in the House of Representatives, big banks are backing proposals that could lead to its being defunded or subject to conditions that weaken it.
The financial sector is also pushing to have the bureau headed by a board rather than a strong single leader.
"Taken all together, these are all proposals that were considered (by Congress) and rejected . . . these don't look like proposals that were designed to help the agency do better, but rather proposals designed to gut it," said Travis Plunkett, the director of legislative affairs for the Consumer Federation of America. "This agency hasn't opened its doors yet, and already the House Republican leadership is carrying a lot of proposals that Wall Street and big financial interests have offered to eviscerate the consumer agency."
Big global banks already succeeded in softening new global rules that would have required banks to set aside considerably more funds in reserve to guard against future losses — generally called capital requirements or loan-loss reserves.
This happened at international banking negotiations held earlier this year in Basel, Switzerland. There, powerful banks weakened a proposal for a new international standard governing how much banks must keep in reserve.
These big banks also pressured global regulators to back off a mandatory requirement that would have forced banks to set aside even more capital during good times, on the premise that economic booms lead to excessive risk taking. This so-called countercyclical reserve requirement is now voluntary.
"I think the answer is they (global regulators) caved in to the pressures of the industry," said Morris Goldstein, a former top economist at the International Monetary Fund and now a senior researcher at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "I'd like to say that things are more positive, but I have to say a lot of the momentum is fading. . . . I think on the whole, we're losing steam."
Implementing the Volcker Rule falls to the newly created Financial Stability Oversight Council, whose members include regulators over banks, stock and commodities markets. The Treasury Department is first among equals on the council, which began taking comment in October on how to implement the rule.
Big Finance argues that the new rules are job killers.
"We believe that the Volcker Rule is in fact harmful to the ability of the United States to sustain vibrant capital markets and . . . to create private sector jobs," David Hirschman, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, wrote to the council. "In its current form, the Volcker Rule will likely add to regulatory uncertainty for banking entities and will hurt the global competitiveness of the financial services industry at a time when growth is most needed."
Volcker wrote a letter to the council, urging regulators to stand pat.
"Clear and concise definitions, firmly worded prohibitions, and specificity in describing the permissible activities will be of prime importance for the regulators," he wrote. "Bankers and their lawyers and lobbyists will no doubt search for and discover seeming ambiguities within the language of the law."
Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist from Columbia University, reminded council members in a letter that proprietary trading helped cause the near meltdown of the U.S. financial system.
"Through the rise of proprietary trading at our nation's banks and the largest non-bank financial firms, firms doubled down on the accumulation of risk, much of it with little benefit to the real economy," Stiglitz wrote. He added that "the financial system in this country and around the world became disconnected from its fundamental purposes."
Some experts warn, however, that the Volcker Rule might be harmful if other countries don't echo it.
"I'm not aware of any other country, certainly of significance, that plans to follow. This is a purely American mistake," said Douglas Elliot, a researcher at Washington's center-left Brookings Institution.
Elliot, a former investment banker, supports most of the sweeping new regulation of finance, but thinks the Volcker Rule is too vague and lacks global support.
"It requires regulators to look into the hearts of bankers and see if their motive for a particular investment was pure or not," he said. "There is a huge subjective element here."
Financial firms are also fighting the requirement that they retain 5 percent of the pool of mortgage bonds that they sell as a way of discouraging excessive risk. They're trying to expand the definition of "plain vanilla" mortgages that would be exempted from the risk-retention requirements.
"I think there's a concern about what would be defined as a plain-vanilla mortgage," said Tom Deutsch, head of the American Securitization Forum, which represents companies that package pools of mortgages into complex mortgage bonds, which now are considered toxic.
The ASF and its members want to exempt interest-only mortgages, which caused many unsophisticated borrowers to lose their homes.
"Certain types of loans aren't standard, but are appropriate for high creditworthy borrowers," Deutsch said in an interview, pointing to wealthy borrowers who seek to maximize their mortgage-interest deductions at tax time.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Wall Street quietly seeks to undo new financial rules
Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The heavy hitters of finance lost big battles earlier this year during the overhaul of financial regulation, but they're working hard to win the war. They're quietly trying to soften, if not kill, some of the more controversial provisions.
Lobbyists for Big Finance are working hardest to neutralize the so-called Volcker Rule, which would force big banks to spin off their lucrative proprietary trading operations, in which they invest their own capital in speculative deals.
The measure_ named after its proponent, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker — seeks to prevent big banks from betting against trades they made on behalf of their customers, a popular practice until the financial crisis exploded in 2008. For example, big investment banks such as Goldman Sachs sold customers overvalued mortgage bonds even as they bet secretly that those bonds would default.
Financial lobbyists also are working to soften requirements that Wall Street firms put more "skin in the game" by retaining more mortgage bonds on their books to guard against shoddy lending. They're also trying to undercut the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Through Republican lawmakers who will soon hold leadership positions in the House of Representatives, big banks are backing proposals that could lead to its being defunded or subject to conditions that weaken it.
The financial sector is also pushing to have the bureau headed by a board rather than a strong single leader.
"Taken all together, these are all proposals that were considered (by Congress) and rejected . . . these don't look like proposals that were designed to help the agency do better, but rather proposals designed to gut it," said Travis Plunkett, the director of legislative affairs for the Consumer Federation of America. "This agency hasn't opened its doors yet, and already the House Republican leadership is carrying a lot of proposals that Wall Street and big financial interests have offered to eviscerate the consumer agency."
Big global banks already succeeded in softening new global rules that would have required banks to set aside considerably more funds in reserve to guard against future losses — generally called capital requirements or loan-loss reserves.
This happened at international banking negotiations held earlier this year in Basel, Switzerland. There, powerful banks weakened a proposal for a new international standard governing how much banks must keep in reserve.
These big banks also pressured global regulators to back off a mandatory requirement that would have forced banks to set aside even more capital during good times, on the premise that economic booms lead to excessive risk taking. This so-called countercyclical reserve requirement is now voluntary.
"I think the answer is they (global regulators) caved in to the pressures of the industry," said Morris Goldstein, a former top economist at the International Monetary Fund and now a senior researcher at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "I'd like to say that things are more positive, but I have to say a lot of the momentum is fading. . . . I think on the whole, we're losing steam."
Implementing the Volcker Rule falls to the newly created Financial Stability Oversight Council, whose members include regulators over banks, stock and commodities markets. The Treasury Department is first among equals on the council, which began taking comment in October on how to implement the rule.
Big Finance argues that the new rules are job killers.
"We believe that the Volcker Rule is in fact harmful to the ability of the United States to sustain vibrant capital markets and . . . to create private sector jobs," David Hirschman, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, wrote to the council. "In its current form, the Volcker Rule will likely add to regulatory uncertainty for banking entities and will hurt the global competitiveness of the financial services industry at a time when growth is most needed."
Volcker wrote a letter to the council, urging regulators to stand pat.
"Clear and concise definitions, firmly worded prohibitions, and specificity in describing the permissible activities will be of prime importance for the regulators," he wrote. "Bankers and their lawyers and lobbyists will no doubt search for and discover seeming ambiguities within the language of the law."
Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist from Columbia University, reminded council members in a letter that proprietary trading helped cause the near meltdown of the U.S. financial system.
"Through the rise of proprietary trading at our nation's banks and the largest non-bank financial firms, firms doubled down on the accumulation of risk, much of it with little benefit to the real economy," Stiglitz wrote. He added that "the financial system in this country and around the world became disconnected from its fundamental purposes."
Some experts warn, however, that the Volcker Rule might be harmful if other countries don't echo it.
"I'm not aware of any other country, certainly of significance, that plans to follow. This is a purely American mistake," said Douglas Elliot, a researcher at Washington's center-left Brookings Institution.
Elliot, a former investment banker, supports most of the sweeping new regulation of finance, but thinks the Volcker Rule is too vague and lacks global support.
"It requires regulators to look into the hearts of bankers and see if their motive for a particular investment was pure or not," he said. "There is a huge subjective element here."
Financial firms are also fighting the requirement that they retain 5 percent of the pool of mortgage bonds that they sell as a way of discouraging excessive risk. They're trying to expand the definition of "plain vanilla" mortgages that would be exempted from the risk-retention requirements.
"I think there's a concern about what would be defined as a plain-vanilla mortgage," said Tom Deutsch, head of the American Securitization Forum, which represents companies that package pools of mortgages into complex mortgage bonds, which now are considered toxic.
The ASF and its members want to exempt interest-only mortgages, which caused many unsophisticated borrowers to lose their homes.
"Certain types of loans aren't standard, but are appropriate for high creditworthy borrowers," Deutsch said in an interview, pointing to wealthy borrowers who seek to maximize their mortgage-interest deductions at tax time.
Great Quotes: James Carville
"If Hillary gave up one of her balls and gave it to Obama, he’d have two."
Does the government really deserve Buffett’s thanks for financial rescue?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20101117/bs_yblog_thelookout/does-the-government-really-deserve-buffetts-thanks-for-financial-rescue
Wed Nov 17, 2010
Does the government really deserve Buffett’s thanks for financial rescue?
Zachary Roth
In an op-ed in Wednesday's New York Times, Warren Buffett offers a belated thank-you to the U.S. government for averting a financial collapse back in 2008. "In this extraordinary emergency, you came through," writes the Oracle of Omaha. "And the world would look far different now if you had not." Buffett praises Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, current and former Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson and Tim Geithner, and FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair for acting with "courage and dispatch."
The Berkshire Hathaway founder doesn't go into detail about the costs and benefits of the government's various rescue efforts. But his piece takes another high-profile step toward bolstering the emerging consensus among experts that the bailout, despite its extreme unpopularity, was in fact remarkably successful -- saving the economy for what turned out to be a bargain price.
That stance has some merit. But it also glosses over some of the rescue effort's less tangible -- but still enormous -- costs. So it's worth taking a more detailed look at where things stand.
Right now, we simply don't have all the necessary information to do a comprehensive accounting of the final tab for the bailout -- by which we mean not just the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program for banks, but also the efforts to prop up mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as the flailing automakers at GM and Chrysler, together with additional spending programs by the Federal Reserve. But here's what we can say: To date, the government has spent, invested or loaned $546 billion, according to figures compiled by the nonprofit investigative project ProPublica. Of that amount, $251 billion has been returned. That leaves $296 billion still outstanding -- already far less than the $700 billion price tag that was bandied about for the TARP alone. And it's likely that figure will go down as more banks make repayments.
Back in May, Geithner predicted that just TARP -- including help for GM, Chrysler and homeowners facing foreclosure -- would cost $117 billion, once all repayments were in. Help for Fannie and Freddie would cost $85 billion more, he said. But the government actually stands to make money -- an estimated $115 billion -- on the Federal Reserve's creative finance programs for banks. That gave Geithner a final cost figure for all the government's rescue efforts of $87 billion.
Most people would agree that the price is a bargain for averting financial collapse, which could have caused human misery on the scale of the Great Depression. As Douglas Elliott, a former investment banker now at the Brookings Institution, told the New York Times in September: "This is the best federal program of any real size to be despised by the public like this."
But that's hardly the end of the story. As New York Times financial columnist Gretchen Morgenson has pointed out, the Treasury secretary's tally leaves out the effects of the Fed's near-zero interest rate policy, enacted as a way to spur lending. This policy benefits banks and punishes investors, because it lets the banks earn huge profits on the spread between what they pay for their deposits and what they make from their loans. There's no simple way to calculate a figure for this transfer of wealth to banks, but Morgenson calls it "enormous."
Geithner also overlooked losses suffered when the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. -- the government entity in charge of winding down failing banks -- has had to enter into loss-sharing arrangements with healthy banks, to get them to take on the troubled assets of failing ones. Again, there's no way to know how much that program might end up costing us, but one widely quoted expert, Christopher Whalen, the editor of the Institutional Risk Analyst, put the figure as high as $400 billion.
And that's not all. TARP was also designed in part to give banks a cash injection that would let them keep bad assets on their books at unrealistic levels -- a setup that Whalen calls "extend and pretend." The banks know that at some point they'll have to assess the value of those toxic assets still on their books. And that's one big reason they're still extremely hesitant to make loans -- which in turn has prolonged the economic slump. Whalen puts that cost at "trillions of dollars," though again, there's really no way to know. And, the government's defenders might say, part of that cost is built into the existence of a crisis in the first place.
You can tell from the vagueness of all these numbers that there's really no reliable way to get a dollar figure for the cost of the government's rescue efforts. And it's also worth noting that even if the cost is in the trillions, a financial Armageddon would probably have cost far more.
But if nothing else, it's worth taking blithe assessments like the government's -- implicitly backed by Buffett's congratulatory op-ed Wednesday -- with the hefty grains of salt they deserve.
Wed Nov 17, 2010
Does the government really deserve Buffett’s thanks for financial rescue?
Zachary Roth
In an op-ed in Wednesday's New York Times, Warren Buffett offers a belated thank-you to the U.S. government for averting a financial collapse back in 2008. "In this extraordinary emergency, you came through," writes the Oracle of Omaha. "And the world would look far different now if you had not." Buffett praises Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, current and former Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson and Tim Geithner, and FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair for acting with "courage and dispatch."
The Berkshire Hathaway founder doesn't go into detail about the costs and benefits of the government's various rescue efforts. But his piece takes another high-profile step toward bolstering the emerging consensus among experts that the bailout, despite its extreme unpopularity, was in fact remarkably successful -- saving the economy for what turned out to be a bargain price.
That stance has some merit. But it also glosses over some of the rescue effort's less tangible -- but still enormous -- costs. So it's worth taking a more detailed look at where things stand.
Right now, we simply don't have all the necessary information to do a comprehensive accounting of the final tab for the bailout -- by which we mean not just the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program for banks, but also the efforts to prop up mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as the flailing automakers at GM and Chrysler, together with additional spending programs by the Federal Reserve. But here's what we can say: To date, the government has spent, invested or loaned $546 billion, according to figures compiled by the nonprofit investigative project ProPublica. Of that amount, $251 billion has been returned. That leaves $296 billion still outstanding -- already far less than the $700 billion price tag that was bandied about for the TARP alone. And it's likely that figure will go down as more banks make repayments.
Back in May, Geithner predicted that just TARP -- including help for GM, Chrysler and homeowners facing foreclosure -- would cost $117 billion, once all repayments were in. Help for Fannie and Freddie would cost $85 billion more, he said. But the government actually stands to make money -- an estimated $115 billion -- on the Federal Reserve's creative finance programs for banks. That gave Geithner a final cost figure for all the government's rescue efforts of $87 billion.
Most people would agree that the price is a bargain for averting financial collapse, which could have caused human misery on the scale of the Great Depression. As Douglas Elliott, a former investment banker now at the Brookings Institution, told the New York Times in September: "This is the best federal program of any real size to be despised by the public like this."
But that's hardly the end of the story. As New York Times financial columnist Gretchen Morgenson has pointed out, the Treasury secretary's tally leaves out the effects of the Fed's near-zero interest rate policy, enacted as a way to spur lending. This policy benefits banks and punishes investors, because it lets the banks earn huge profits on the spread between what they pay for their deposits and what they make from their loans. There's no simple way to calculate a figure for this transfer of wealth to banks, but Morgenson calls it "enormous."
Geithner also overlooked losses suffered when the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. -- the government entity in charge of winding down failing banks -- has had to enter into loss-sharing arrangements with healthy banks, to get them to take on the troubled assets of failing ones. Again, there's no way to know how much that program might end up costing us, but one widely quoted expert, Christopher Whalen, the editor of the Institutional Risk Analyst, put the figure as high as $400 billion.
And that's not all. TARP was also designed in part to give banks a cash injection that would let them keep bad assets on their books at unrealistic levels -- a setup that Whalen calls "extend and pretend." The banks know that at some point they'll have to assess the value of those toxic assets still on their books. And that's one big reason they're still extremely hesitant to make loans -- which in turn has prolonged the economic slump. Whalen puts that cost at "trillions of dollars," though again, there's really no way to know. And, the government's defenders might say, part of that cost is built into the existence of a crisis in the first place.
You can tell from the vagueness of all these numbers that there's really no reliable way to get a dollar figure for the cost of the government's rescue efforts. And it's also worth noting that even if the cost is in the trillions, a financial Armageddon would probably have cost far more.
But if nothing else, it's worth taking blithe assessments like the government's -- implicitly backed by Buffett's congratulatory op-ed Wednesday -- with the hefty grains of salt they deserve.
Wesley Snipes Ordered to Serve Three Years in Prison
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/wesley-snipes-ordered-serve-three-47534
Wesley Snipes Ordered to Serve Three Years in Prison
11/19/2010
The “Blade” actor was hoping to receive a new trial after lawyers received jurors’ emails claiming other members had predetermined his fate.
A federal judge rejected actor Wesley Snipes' wish for a new trial and ordered the Blade star to serve out his three-year prison term for tax-related crimes, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
"The Defendant Snipes had a fair trial; he has had a full, fair and thorough review of his conviction and sentence by the Court of Appeals; and he has had a full, fair and thorough review of his present claims, during all of which he has remained at liberty. The time has come for the judgment to be enforced," U.S. District Court Judge William Terrell Hodges said in his 17-page order.
The Orlando-born Snipes was convicted in 2008 of failing to file federal tax returns. The prosecution said the actor attempted to avoid paying millions in taxes and obstructed the IRS.
Snipes' lawyer Daniel Meachum said in an email to the Orlando Sentinel that the decision "is just shocking," adding that his client "is very disappointed but staying strong and positive."
Two jurors sent emails to Snipes' lawyers alleging that other members made the conclusion that he was guilty before the trial officially started. Meachum also believed that one of the witnesses Kenneth Starr, who recently pleaded guilty to fraud, gave a "tainted" testimony against Snipes.
"We were hopeful that he had convinced Judge Hodges that the government's witness, Ken Starr, had perjured himself and that the government knew of his criminal activities and the predetermined minds of three jurors, but we obviously fell short in accomplishing that," Meachum said.
Snipes could challenge Hodges' ruling and ask the Supreme Court to review the case, though he would most likely be imprisoned during that period.
Hodges' order requires the actor to "surrender himself" upon receiving notice from the U.S. Marshal Service or the Bureau of Prisons, though details of when Snipes must turn himself in were not given.
TSA Launches New PERV Program
http://spnheadlines.blogspot.com/2010/03/faa-tiger-will-work-airport-security_19.html
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
TSA Launches New PERV Program
Tiger Woods Will Conduct Strip Searches
Safety Inspection today at O'Hair
International Airport in Chicago
(Washington, D.C.) by Robert Feeley - The Obama administration today announced strict new regulations regarding passenger clothing and invasive body searches for passengers boarding commercial flights in the United States. The TSA calls it the Program to Examine Random Voyagers, or PERV.
The modus operandi of Christmas Day airplane bomber Abdul Whacko al Kaboom, explosives in his underpants, prompted Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to order that all passengers must wear thong underwear and be subject to random panty inspections effective immediately.
"Please drop your pants, miss"
The announcement brought a flood of employment applications for the position of Special PERV Inspector. Disgraced golfer Tiger Woods was first in line among dozens of other horndogs this morning at TSA headquarters and was hired for duty at Orlando International Airport. Mr. Woods spoke with SPN and said, "I'm looking forward to this new challenge. They want the lines to move fast at the airport and nobody gets a skirt up or a pair of pants down faster than me!"
Several members of congress will be touring the nation's airports on taxpayer funded fact-finding vacations, and Senator Barney Frank (D-Ma.) said he will personally volunteer to be strip searched as often as possible.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
TSA Launches New PERV Program
Tiger Woods Will Conduct Strip Searches
Safety Inspection today at O'Hair
International Airport in Chicago
(Washington, D.C.) by Robert Feeley - The Obama administration today announced strict new regulations regarding passenger clothing and invasive body searches for passengers boarding commercial flights in the United States. The TSA calls it the Program to Examine Random Voyagers, or PERV.
The modus operandi of Christmas Day airplane bomber Abdul Whacko al Kaboom, explosives in his underpants, prompted Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to order that all passengers must wear thong underwear and be subject to random panty inspections effective immediately.
"Please drop your pants, miss"
The announcement brought a flood of employment applications for the position of Special PERV Inspector. Disgraced golfer Tiger Woods was first in line among dozens of other horndogs this morning at TSA headquarters and was hired for duty at Orlando International Airport. Mr. Woods spoke with SPN and said, "I'm looking forward to this new challenge. They want the lines to move fast at the airport and nobody gets a skirt up or a pair of pants down faster than me!"
Several members of congress will be touring the nation's airports on taxpayer funded fact-finding vacations, and Senator Barney Frank (D-Ma.) said he will personally volunteer to be strip searched as often as possible.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Top 25 Turkeys of the 2000s
Zeroes for the Zeroes
Robert Sterling, Konformist.com
http://robalini.blogspot.com/
11-25-2010
If there's one thing people love, it's lists. And after the end of each decade, a common thing to do is come up with a list of the greatest movies of the decade.
At The Konformist, we've decided to take the opposite tactic. Let others celebrate the best of the decade, we're going to focus on the worst. Here then, on the first Thanksgiving of the new decade, is The Konformist list of the top 25 Turkeys of the 2000s.
First, lets define this list: a Turkey movie is one that is not merely bad, but is an icon of bad film. These are movies that people cite and often seek for their innate badness. Thus, it can be argued that being a Turkey is a good thing. As the saying goes, "Love me or hate me, you can't ignore me." These are movies that can't be ignored.
Please note that this isn't a personal list, which would be quite different. Instead, this list is based on a secret mathematical formula, which includes information from IMDB.com, RottenTomatoes.com, BoxOfficeMojo.com and Razzies.com, along with Google and Yahoo searches. In cases where more than one movie in a series would make the list, the best (or worst) example of the series is cited, with the others receiving honorable mention.
Enough said. Gobble gobble!
25. 10,000 BC (2008)
Director Roland Emmerich is best known this decade for making dumb but entertaining blockbusters, such as The Patriot, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012. (This is a formula he perfected in 1996 with Independence Day.) 10,000 BC is his dumbest and least entertaining movie of the zeroes. Bonus Turkey points for not having the good sense to include a Racquel Welch lookalike prancing around half-naked.
24. Norbit (2007)
Less than a year after nearly winning an Oscar for Dreamgirls, Eddie Murphy won three Golden Rasberry Awards for his three rolls in this stinker that buried a potential career comeback.
23. Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)
One dumb action film inspired by a comic book series can be fun, but a sequel? Not so much. Wisely, 20th Century Fox chose not to screen this movie to critics.
22. Glitter (2001)
A movie so bad, it nearly destroyed Mariah Carey's career and probably fueled her emotional breakdown. A tragedy for the greatest vocal talent this side of Whitney Houston over the last 25 years, that makes the film the equivalent of Bobby Brown on crack.
21. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)
Not that the first Angels film was a masterpiece, but at least it was entertaining. This sequel wasn't, and helped cement McG as one of the most notorious hack directors around.
20. Ultraviolet (2006)
Milla Jovovich is an actress whose beauty matches her immense talent. Unfortunately, because of her beauty, she rarely gets the chance to use it in film, and this sci-fi clunker is the worst example of wasting her skills.
19. Scary Movie 2 (2001)
When did the creators of In Living Color become not funny? This is the film where the Wayan Brothers jumped the shark. A sequel for the more entertaining first movie of the series, it helped pave the way for future Wayan stinkers like White Chicks and Little Man, as well as the entire Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer Blank Movie series.
18. Pearl Harbor (2001)
The movie that has defined the career of director Michael Bay, for better and worse. Okay, for worse. Bonus Turkey points for being mocked in Team America: World Police.
17. The Happening (2008)
When the Zeroes began, M. Night Shyamalan was the hot promising director, courtesy of his clever plot twist flick The Sixth Sense. Each movie that followed was worst than the previous one, climaxing with this bomb starring Marky Mark. It now seems no plot twist can save his career.
16. Dragonball Evolution (2009)
If George Lucas earned hatred for Episodes 1-3 by Star Wars cultists, he's lucky not to face the wrath of the anime fans. Dragonball Evolution gets major bonus Turkey points for being so despised by such a large and devoted Internet community.
15. You Got Served (2004)
How did a film this lousy inspire a "Dance Movie" fad after its release? Bonus Turkey Points for including K-Fed in its cast.
14. Wicker Man (2006)
Ten years after winning the Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas, Nicholas Cage starred in this remake of a horror classic. It exemplifies how his name has become code for "respected actor trading in his cred for easy money in pure schlock."
13. Son of the Mask (2005)
Eleven years after The Mask helped make Jim Carrey a star, this sequel was released without him. Poor Jamie Kennedy was left holding the bag.
12. Crossroads (2002)
Marrying K-Fed, being singled out by Michael Moore for mockery in Fahrenheit 9/11 and her infamous VMA Awards performance certainly are lowlights of the downward spiral Britney Spears had this decade. Still, starring in one of the worst movies from the Zeroes certainly qualifies as one of her top "Jump the Shark" moments. Bonus Turkey points for singing her version of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" in the flick.
11. BloodRayne (2006)
Turkey auteur Uwe Boll just misses the top 10 with this crappy film based on a video game. Don't worry, there's more where this one came from.
10. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience (2009)
A Jonas Brothers concert? The worst use of 3D technology ever. Bonus Turkey points for the purity rings.
9. From Justin to Kelly (2003)
American Idol may be the most popular TV show of the decade, but it didn't translate well to film. In 2005, named the worst musical of the past quarter century by the Golden Raspberry Awards.
8. House of the Dead (2003)
The second Uwe Boll video game adaptation to make this list, this is the film that introduced the world to Boll's unique talents.
7. The Hottie and the Nottie (2008)
Any film starring Paris Hilton is almost begging to be put on this list. We've decided not to disappoint the makers of this dud.
6. Alone in the Dark (2005)
The third and highest ranked video game adaptation from Uwe Boll on this list. This crapperpiece can be summed it one sentence: Tara Reid as an archaeologist and museum curator. Sorry Tara, but you're no Harrison Ford.
5. Catwoman (2004)
Halle Berry won a Best Actress Oscar (the first for any African-American woman) for her performance in Monster's Ball in 2001. In 2002, she became the sexiest Bond girl this side of Ursulla Andress. Two years later, she starred in this kitty litter of a movie, and her career hasn't been the same. Bonus Turkey points for being directed by a French guy named Pitof.
4. Gigli (2003)
The movie that melded Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez into one, something that will haunt both of them for the rest of their lives. The Golden Raspberries named it the worst comedy of the past quarter century in 2005. Bonus Turkey points for the worst line of dialogue from the decade, when J.Lo attempts to seduce Ben with "Gobble gobble."
3. Twilight: New Moon (2009)
A Turkey which is unique in that nearly half of its audience didn't even want to see it. Seriously, has there ever been a movie where this many guys were dragged to by their girlfriends and forced to endure? The first Twilight was bad enough, but this one gets bonus Turkey points for the whole "Team Edward or Team Jacob" marketing plan. (Although it must be said that Taylor Lautner does have nice abs.)
Dishonorable Mention: Twilight (2008)
2. Battlefield Earth (2000)
Roger Ebert put it best: "Something historic, a film that for decades to come will be the punch line of jokes about bad movies." Nuff said. The Golden Raspberries named it the worst drama of the past quarter century in 2005 and worst film of the decade in 2010.
And finally:
1. Epic Movie (2007)
Sorry, Travolta, but you've been topped in decade stinkerdom. The winner is this entry from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer in their atrocious Blank Movie series, which has surpassed Police Academy as the worst film series in movie history. They're all terrible, but Epic Movie deserves special note as the film that made the whole Blank Movie series a fad that couldn't be ignored
Dishonorable Mention: Date Movie (2006), Meet the Spartans (2008), Disaster Movie (2008)
Hope you enjoyed this list, and feel free to watch some of these movies with some tasty turkey leftovers this weekend!
Robert Sterling, Konformist.com
http://robalini.blogspot.com/
11-25-2010
If there's one thing people love, it's lists. And after the end of each decade, a common thing to do is come up with a list of the greatest movies of the decade.
At The Konformist, we've decided to take the opposite tactic. Let others celebrate the best of the decade, we're going to focus on the worst. Here then, on the first Thanksgiving of the new decade, is The Konformist list of the top 25 Turkeys of the 2000s.
First, lets define this list: a Turkey movie is one that is not merely bad, but is an icon of bad film. These are movies that people cite and often seek for their innate badness. Thus, it can be argued that being a Turkey is a good thing. As the saying goes, "Love me or hate me, you can't ignore me." These are movies that can't be ignored.
Please note that this isn't a personal list, which would be quite different. Instead, this list is based on a secret mathematical formula, which includes information from IMDB.com, RottenTomatoes.com, BoxOfficeMojo.com and Razzies.com, along with Google and Yahoo searches. In cases where more than one movie in a series would make the list, the best (or worst) example of the series is cited, with the others receiving honorable mention.
Enough said. Gobble gobble!
25. 10,000 BC (2008)
Director Roland Emmerich is best known this decade for making dumb but entertaining blockbusters, such as The Patriot, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012. (This is a formula he perfected in 1996 with Independence Day.) 10,000 BC is his dumbest and least entertaining movie of the zeroes. Bonus Turkey points for not having the good sense to include a Racquel Welch lookalike prancing around half-naked.
24. Norbit (2007)
Less than a year after nearly winning an Oscar for Dreamgirls, Eddie Murphy won three Golden Rasberry Awards for his three rolls in this stinker that buried a potential career comeback.
23. Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)
One dumb action film inspired by a comic book series can be fun, but a sequel? Not so much. Wisely, 20th Century Fox chose not to screen this movie to critics.
22. Glitter (2001)
A movie so bad, it nearly destroyed Mariah Carey's career and probably fueled her emotional breakdown. A tragedy for the greatest vocal talent this side of Whitney Houston over the last 25 years, that makes the film the equivalent of Bobby Brown on crack.
21. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)
Not that the first Angels film was a masterpiece, but at least it was entertaining. This sequel wasn't, and helped cement McG as one of the most notorious hack directors around.
20. Ultraviolet (2006)
Milla Jovovich is an actress whose beauty matches her immense talent. Unfortunately, because of her beauty, she rarely gets the chance to use it in film, and this sci-fi clunker is the worst example of wasting her skills.
19. Scary Movie 2 (2001)
When did the creators of In Living Color become not funny? This is the film where the Wayan Brothers jumped the shark. A sequel for the more entertaining first movie of the series, it helped pave the way for future Wayan stinkers like White Chicks and Little Man, as well as the entire Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer Blank Movie series.
18. Pearl Harbor (2001)
The movie that has defined the career of director Michael Bay, for better and worse. Okay, for worse. Bonus Turkey points for being mocked in Team America: World Police.
17. The Happening (2008)
When the Zeroes began, M. Night Shyamalan was the hot promising director, courtesy of his clever plot twist flick The Sixth Sense. Each movie that followed was worst than the previous one, climaxing with this bomb starring Marky Mark. It now seems no plot twist can save his career.
16. Dragonball Evolution (2009)
If George Lucas earned hatred for Episodes 1-3 by Star Wars cultists, he's lucky not to face the wrath of the anime fans. Dragonball Evolution gets major bonus Turkey points for being so despised by such a large and devoted Internet community.
15. You Got Served (2004)
How did a film this lousy inspire a "Dance Movie" fad after its release? Bonus Turkey Points for including K-Fed in its cast.
14. Wicker Man (2006)
Ten years after winning the Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas, Nicholas Cage starred in this remake of a horror classic. It exemplifies how his name has become code for "respected actor trading in his cred for easy money in pure schlock."
13. Son of the Mask (2005)
Eleven years after The Mask helped make Jim Carrey a star, this sequel was released without him. Poor Jamie Kennedy was left holding the bag.
12. Crossroads (2002)
Marrying K-Fed, being singled out by Michael Moore for mockery in Fahrenheit 9/11 and her infamous VMA Awards performance certainly are lowlights of the downward spiral Britney Spears had this decade. Still, starring in one of the worst movies from the Zeroes certainly qualifies as one of her top "Jump the Shark" moments. Bonus Turkey points for singing her version of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" in the flick.
11. BloodRayne (2006)
Turkey auteur Uwe Boll just misses the top 10 with this crappy film based on a video game. Don't worry, there's more where this one came from.
10. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience (2009)
A Jonas Brothers concert? The worst use of 3D technology ever. Bonus Turkey points for the purity rings.
9. From Justin to Kelly (2003)
American Idol may be the most popular TV show of the decade, but it didn't translate well to film. In 2005, named the worst musical of the past quarter century by the Golden Raspberry Awards.
8. House of the Dead (2003)
The second Uwe Boll video game adaptation to make this list, this is the film that introduced the world to Boll's unique talents.
7. The Hottie and the Nottie (2008)
Any film starring Paris Hilton is almost begging to be put on this list. We've decided not to disappoint the makers of this dud.
6. Alone in the Dark (2005)
The third and highest ranked video game adaptation from Uwe Boll on this list. This crapperpiece can be summed it one sentence: Tara Reid as an archaeologist and museum curator. Sorry Tara, but you're no Harrison Ford.
5. Catwoman (2004)
Halle Berry won a Best Actress Oscar (the first for any African-American woman) for her performance in Monster's Ball in 2001. In 2002, she became the sexiest Bond girl this side of Ursulla Andress. Two years later, she starred in this kitty litter of a movie, and her career hasn't been the same. Bonus Turkey points for being directed by a French guy named Pitof.
4. Gigli (2003)
The movie that melded Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez into one, something that will haunt both of them for the rest of their lives. The Golden Raspberries named it the worst comedy of the past quarter century in 2005. Bonus Turkey points for the worst line of dialogue from the decade, when J.Lo attempts to seduce Ben with "Gobble gobble."
3. Twilight: New Moon (2009)
A Turkey which is unique in that nearly half of its audience didn't even want to see it. Seriously, has there ever been a movie where this many guys were dragged to by their girlfriends and forced to endure? The first Twilight was bad enough, but this one gets bonus Turkey points for the whole "Team Edward or Team Jacob" marketing plan. (Although it must be said that Taylor Lautner does have nice abs.)
Dishonorable Mention: Twilight (2008)
2. Battlefield Earth (2000)
Roger Ebert put it best: "Something historic, a film that for decades to come will be the punch line of jokes about bad movies." Nuff said. The Golden Raspberries named it the worst drama of the past quarter century in 2005 and worst film of the decade in 2010.
And finally:
1. Epic Movie (2007)
Sorry, Travolta, but you've been topped in decade stinkerdom. The winner is this entry from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer in their atrocious Blank Movie series, which has surpassed Police Academy as the worst film series in movie history. They're all terrible, but Epic Movie deserves special note as the film that made the whole Blank Movie series a fad that couldn't be ignored
Dishonorable Mention: Date Movie (2006), Meet the Spartans (2008), Disaster Movie (2008)
Hope you enjoyed this list, and feel free to watch some of these movies with some tasty turkey leftovers this weekend!
Friday, November 19, 2010
What Alcohol Actually Does to Your Brain and Body
http://lifehacker.com/5684996/what-alcohol-actually-does-to-your-brain-and-body
What Alcohol Actually Does to Your Brain and Body
Kevin Purdy
Nov 9, 2010
Alcohol, like caffeine, has an enormous reputation but loose understanding in popular culture. Learn how it's absorbed and how fast, why it's essential to reality TV altercations, its paradoxical sexual effects, and its life-lengthening potential, whether red wine or Bud Light.
Everyone, it seems, takes their cues on how alcohol affects the mind and body from an eclectic mix of knowledge: personal experience, pop culture, tall tales of long nights, the latest studies to make the health news wires, and second-hand tips. You might have gathered that alcohol is a depressant, that it's dehydrating, that you can drink about one drink an hour and stay relatively sober. Some of that is true. But much of it depends on a large number of factors.
Let's dig into some of things we do and don't know about alcohol. Relevant sources are linked where cited, but much of the background material comes from Buzz: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine (new-ish Kindle edition linked there). It's a science-based tome written in a clear language by Stephen Braun, and was the main reference for our take on caffeine.
We're taking a few things for granted here: that you understand some of the basics of alcohol consumption, blood alcohol content, legal limits, what it feels like when you've had too much to drink, and the serious illness of alcoholism. We're not trying to help you get loaded quicker, or drink more for longer periods. We're digging into some of the science behind how you and alcohol interact.
It Works Differently on Full Stomachs, Young Women, Some Asians, and Aspirin Takers
Your body sees alcohol as a poison, or at least as something it doesn't actually want inside it. To fight back, and sober you up, humans have evolved to produce an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase.
That enzyme gets its shot at your alcohol when it attempts to pass through the stomach lining, and when it reaches your liver, primarily. On contact, it snatches a hydrogen atom off the ethanol molecules in your drink, rendering it into non-intoxicating acetaldehyde. Humans can then use aldehyde dehydrogenase as a kind of clean-up crew, breaking down the acetaldehyde that's sometimes considered a cause of hangovers, along with dehydration. (For more on the myths versus reality of hangovers, see our guide to hangover cures). Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Seems pretty simple, no? It's a fight between how much you can drink, versus how fast your enzymes can bust down your indulgences and their byproducts. But many factors affect certain people's production of the two alcohol-crushing compounds:
• Alcohol dehydrogenase (AD) is, for reasons not wholly understood, more effective in men than in women. Young men, in fact, may have up to 70 to 80 percent greater enzyme activity in the presence of alcohol. But men's AD effectiveness also drops off with age at a faster rate than in women, such that, by around 55 or 60, men may find themselves able to handle less alcohol than their female counterparts, all other factors being equal.
• A full stomach helps break down alcohol, but not because your food "soaks up" the alcohol. When you eat a big meal, your stomach's pyloric sphincter, a kind of release valve into the small intestine, closes tightly. Your body knows that you've got food that should get a good going-over in your stomach before it heads straight to the high-absorption small intestine, so it keeps it there, and the AD in your stomach has more time to work on the alcohol. Drink on an empty stomach, and the liquid quickly makes it into the small intestine, where there's more than 200 square meters of surface area for absorption into your body. Image via peretzpup.
• Another big factor in alcohol absorption, and alcohol's effects, is genetics. Your great-great-grandparents have a say in how buzzed your Friday night gets, for sure, but for roughly one-third to half of Asian drinkers, it's more than a slight variance. Alcohol flush reaction, a flushing of the face when drinking, occurs because the enzyme "clean-up crew," aldehyde dehydrogenase, is mutated by just one amino acid. That changes how effective its molecules are in bonding with, and busting up, acetaldehyde. With excess acetaldehyde in their system, those with a flush reaction get red-faced, and can experience heart palpitations, dizziness, and severe nausea in extreme cases. Your own genetic makeup of AD and aldehyde dehydrogenase affect your ability to break down alcohol and its byproducts in similar fashion.
• Don't take aspirin before drinking, unless you love hangovers. Aspirin seriously cuts the effectiveness of your body's AD enzymes. In one 1990 study, the average blood alcohol levels of those who took two maximum strength aspirin tablets before drinking were an average of 26 percent higher than those who were aspirin-free. Other studies have suggested even more impact on your body's ability to break down alcohol. That also means more acetaldehyde in your system down the line, so you'll learn your lesson quickly if you're considering aspirin as a "helper."
Side Note: Absorption and Elimination Is a Curve, Not a Straight Line
Think you've got a handle on the basic one-drink-per-hour algorithm for your weekend nights? Check out this explainer from a forensic toxicology lab, which also links up an advanced Blood Alcohol Calculator. Your BAC moves through plateaus, responds differently to drinks higher than 20-25 percent alcohol by volume, and eliminates some alcohol in pure form—which is how police can measure it on your breath.
It Extends Your Life—Kind Of
Every few weeks, it seems, a new study suggests a glass of wine, or sometimes any old drink, lengthens your life if you don't overdo it. Plucking just one out of the pile, you'll see that in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, researchers followed 1824 people over a total of 20 years, as they aged between 55 and 65. Of those who abstained entirely, 69 percent died. Among those who drank in "moderate" amounts, 41 percent died—which was 23 percent less than the "light" drinkers. Even "heavy drinkers" fared better than abstainers, with just 61 percent passing away during the study period.
How could a substance that everybody and their five brothers tell you to go easy on extend your life? Popular theories center on the antioxidants and resveratrol compounds found in wines, or on the studies showing alcohol as increasing levels of HDL ("good") cholesterol.
But Jonah Lehrer at Wired points out the not-so-obvious: the link between a longer life and alcohol may not be direct, but it's likely very real. It relates to the long-term benefits of reducing stress, as well as alcohol's role in facilitating get-togethers and acting as a "social lubricant":
What does this have to do with longevity? In recent years, sociologists and epidemiologists have begun studying the long-term effects (Direct PDF link) of loneliness. It turns out to be really dangerous. We are social primates, and when we're cut off from the social network, we are more likely to die from just about everything (but especially heart disease). At this point, the link between abstinence and social isolation is merely hypothetical. But given the extensive history of group drinking—it's what we do when we come together—it seems likely that drinking in moderation makes it easier for us develop and nurture relationships. And it's these relationships that help keep us alive.
Theoretically, then, you might get some of the same benefits if you were a savvy, social Diet Coke drinker. But it's likely a combination of actual alcohol effects, along with their social expressions, that leads to study after study showing drinkers as getting some kind of life-extending benefit.
It Doesn't "Kill" Brain Cells, but Does Inhibit Them
It's true that at high concentrations, like the nearly 100-percent pure alcohol used in sterilizing solutions, alcohol can indeed kill cells and neurons (and nearly anything else). But given that the blood reaching your brain is only at 0.08 percent alcohol if you're legally intoxicated, or, say, 0.25 percent if you've just closed a major deal in Tokyo, it's not doing a lot of damage to your actual brain cells (liver cells and other organs, with long-term chronic abuse, are another matter).
Don't believe it? A major study by Grethe Jensen and colleagues in 1993 matched brain samples taken from both alcoholics and nonalcoholics, from groups of the two dead from non-alcohol-related causes. There were no significant differences found in either the number or density of brain cells between the groups. Misconception Junction tackles Jensen's study and the topic in more depth.
What alcohol can and does do to your brain is affect the way your neurons get their firing triggers from glutamate. It infiltrates the glutamate receptors in your synapses, hurting their ability to send off their normal "fire" messages. Alcohol has this impact all across your brain—the parts that control muscles, speech, coordination, judgement, and so on. Keep that in mind the next time you or someone else claims that they drive, golf, or otherwise perform some task better with alcohol's help. As Stephen Braun puts it in Buzz: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine:
Substances such as cocaine and LSD work like pharmacological scalpels, altering the functioning of only one or a handful of brain circuits. Alcohol is more like a pharmacological hand grenade. It affects practically everything around it.
Side Note: That's Also Why It, Uh, "Inhibits" Sex
The studies and implications are numerous, to say the least, but if you want a thumbnail understanding of how alcohol, as Shakespeare put it, "provokes the desire, but ... takes away the performance," it has to do with the firing of nerves, in the brain and elsewhere, that would relax the arteries enough to get both parties moving. It's a bit more complex than that, and drinking in moderation can be a net benefit in some cases, but alcohol, paradoxically, doesn't help one specific region of your self to "relax."
Side Note 2: Alcohol is Particularly Effective at Inhibiting Memories
Like the sexual response, the way the brain makes memories is far from comprehensively understood. But it does seem linked to N-Methyl-D-aspartic acid, or NMDA, the receptor for which alcohol seems particularly adept at interfering with, according to Braun. Studies have shown that while subjects under alcohol's influence can recall existing memories, events happening during inebriation are regularly hard to remember. It varies with the amount consumed, and seems to top out at a serious 0.2 percent blood alcohol content, but anything from flimsy recall to full-on blackouts are possible due to alcohol's unique bond with the stuff that should make memories.
It Makes Other People Seem More "Intentional"
If you'd never been raised to think things through, you'd assume that most actions people took were fairly intentional, and possibly pointed at causing you harm. The same holds when people are asked to make snap judgements about things happening. But give yourself any amount of time, and you'll generally think out all the reasons something could have happened, avoiding your natural intentionality bias and preventing heated arguments with otherwise close friends, bar altercations, and 80 percent of all reality show plots. Image via terren in Virginia.
But, as you might have guessed, that reasoned thinking gets lost when there's a night's worth of alcohol moving through your brain. In the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers detail a study with 92 men, made to go three hours without food, then given a shot of either juice, or juice with more than a shot of pure alcohol. All the glasses were rimmed with alcohol to mask the placebos. The men thought they took part in a taste test, then did unrelated tasks for 30 minutes.
After that, they were asked to determine whether a series of deliberate, accidental, or vague stated actions ("He deleted the email," "She looked for her keys," "She tripped on the jump rope," etc.) were deliberate or accidental. Ars Technica sums up the results:
Nearly all the participants, no matter what condition, judged all the unambiguous statements correctly. However, when the actions were ambiguous and could have been performed either intentionally or unintentionally, the "drunk" participants were much more likely to perceive the actions as deliberate than the sober participants were.
The study showed that it didn't much matter whether a man thought he was drunk; the jump to conclusions about an intention only took place when someone actually did have too much in them.
It's a Terrible Sleep Aid
Ever heard the term "nightcap?" People have long believed that alcohol helps you get to sleep—and that part can be true, for some. Once you're asleep, though, alcohol's interaction with your brain can lead to some fitful sleep—and no sleep at all, especially if you consumed caffeine anytime close to hitting the pillow. Image via Ella's Dad.
Just as with caffeine, your brain proves remarkably adept at adapting itself and responding to the ethanol molecules jamming up its receptors and interfering with neuron firings. It takes a bit for the brain to catch up, though, and when your brain starts kicking in and reclaiming all its nooks and crannies, it can wreak havoc on your crucial REM sleep, along with your more passive, general resting. If you've had caffeine, too, it's a drug that can take up to 5 hours to break down half a dose. If it's in your system at the same time as your brain is trying to compensate for alcohol, the combined "revenge" of both drugs can lead to some fairly restless sleep, according to Braun's Buzz.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What aspect of alcohol do you wish you had an explanation for? What's a drinking lesson you've kept in mind, whether you learned it through texts or long nights? We welcome your thoughts and responses in the comments, and we'll update the post where needed. Send an email to Kevin Purdy, the author of this post, at kevin@lifehacker.com.
What Alcohol Actually Does to Your Brain and Body
Kevin Purdy
Nov 9, 2010
Alcohol, like caffeine, has an enormous reputation but loose understanding in popular culture. Learn how it's absorbed and how fast, why it's essential to reality TV altercations, its paradoxical sexual effects, and its life-lengthening potential, whether red wine or Bud Light.
Everyone, it seems, takes their cues on how alcohol affects the mind and body from an eclectic mix of knowledge: personal experience, pop culture, tall tales of long nights, the latest studies to make the health news wires, and second-hand tips. You might have gathered that alcohol is a depressant, that it's dehydrating, that you can drink about one drink an hour and stay relatively sober. Some of that is true. But much of it depends on a large number of factors.
Let's dig into some of things we do and don't know about alcohol. Relevant sources are linked where cited, but much of the background material comes from Buzz: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine (new-ish Kindle edition linked there). It's a science-based tome written in a clear language by Stephen Braun, and was the main reference for our take on caffeine.
We're taking a few things for granted here: that you understand some of the basics of alcohol consumption, blood alcohol content, legal limits, what it feels like when you've had too much to drink, and the serious illness of alcoholism. We're not trying to help you get loaded quicker, or drink more for longer periods. We're digging into some of the science behind how you and alcohol interact.
It Works Differently on Full Stomachs, Young Women, Some Asians, and Aspirin Takers
Your body sees alcohol as a poison, or at least as something it doesn't actually want inside it. To fight back, and sober you up, humans have evolved to produce an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase.
That enzyme gets its shot at your alcohol when it attempts to pass through the stomach lining, and when it reaches your liver, primarily. On contact, it snatches a hydrogen atom off the ethanol molecules in your drink, rendering it into non-intoxicating acetaldehyde. Humans can then use aldehyde dehydrogenase as a kind of clean-up crew, breaking down the acetaldehyde that's sometimes considered a cause of hangovers, along with dehydration. (For more on the myths versus reality of hangovers, see our guide to hangover cures). Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Seems pretty simple, no? It's a fight between how much you can drink, versus how fast your enzymes can bust down your indulgences and their byproducts. But many factors affect certain people's production of the two alcohol-crushing compounds:
• Alcohol dehydrogenase (AD) is, for reasons not wholly understood, more effective in men than in women. Young men, in fact, may have up to 70 to 80 percent greater enzyme activity in the presence of alcohol. But men's AD effectiveness also drops off with age at a faster rate than in women, such that, by around 55 or 60, men may find themselves able to handle less alcohol than their female counterparts, all other factors being equal.
• A full stomach helps break down alcohol, but not because your food "soaks up" the alcohol. When you eat a big meal, your stomach's pyloric sphincter, a kind of release valve into the small intestine, closes tightly. Your body knows that you've got food that should get a good going-over in your stomach before it heads straight to the high-absorption small intestine, so it keeps it there, and the AD in your stomach has more time to work on the alcohol. Drink on an empty stomach, and the liquid quickly makes it into the small intestine, where there's more than 200 square meters of surface area for absorption into your body. Image via peretzpup.
• Another big factor in alcohol absorption, and alcohol's effects, is genetics. Your great-great-grandparents have a say in how buzzed your Friday night gets, for sure, but for roughly one-third to half of Asian drinkers, it's more than a slight variance. Alcohol flush reaction, a flushing of the face when drinking, occurs because the enzyme "clean-up crew," aldehyde dehydrogenase, is mutated by just one amino acid. That changes how effective its molecules are in bonding with, and busting up, acetaldehyde. With excess acetaldehyde in their system, those with a flush reaction get red-faced, and can experience heart palpitations, dizziness, and severe nausea in extreme cases. Your own genetic makeup of AD and aldehyde dehydrogenase affect your ability to break down alcohol and its byproducts in similar fashion.
• Don't take aspirin before drinking, unless you love hangovers. Aspirin seriously cuts the effectiveness of your body's AD enzymes. In one 1990 study, the average blood alcohol levels of those who took two maximum strength aspirin tablets before drinking were an average of 26 percent higher than those who were aspirin-free. Other studies have suggested even more impact on your body's ability to break down alcohol. That also means more acetaldehyde in your system down the line, so you'll learn your lesson quickly if you're considering aspirin as a "helper."
Side Note: Absorption and Elimination Is a Curve, Not a Straight Line
Think you've got a handle on the basic one-drink-per-hour algorithm for your weekend nights? Check out this explainer from a forensic toxicology lab, which also links up an advanced Blood Alcohol Calculator. Your BAC moves through plateaus, responds differently to drinks higher than 20-25 percent alcohol by volume, and eliminates some alcohol in pure form—which is how police can measure it on your breath.
It Extends Your Life—Kind Of
Every few weeks, it seems, a new study suggests a glass of wine, or sometimes any old drink, lengthens your life if you don't overdo it. Plucking just one out of the pile, you'll see that in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, researchers followed 1824 people over a total of 20 years, as they aged between 55 and 65. Of those who abstained entirely, 69 percent died. Among those who drank in "moderate" amounts, 41 percent died—which was 23 percent less than the "light" drinkers. Even "heavy drinkers" fared better than abstainers, with just 61 percent passing away during the study period.
How could a substance that everybody and their five brothers tell you to go easy on extend your life? Popular theories center on the antioxidants and resveratrol compounds found in wines, or on the studies showing alcohol as increasing levels of HDL ("good") cholesterol.
But Jonah Lehrer at Wired points out the not-so-obvious: the link between a longer life and alcohol may not be direct, but it's likely very real. It relates to the long-term benefits of reducing stress, as well as alcohol's role in facilitating get-togethers and acting as a "social lubricant":
What does this have to do with longevity? In recent years, sociologists and epidemiologists have begun studying the long-term effects (Direct PDF link) of loneliness. It turns out to be really dangerous. We are social primates, and when we're cut off from the social network, we are more likely to die from just about everything (but especially heart disease). At this point, the link between abstinence and social isolation is merely hypothetical. But given the extensive history of group drinking—it's what we do when we come together—it seems likely that drinking in moderation makes it easier for us develop and nurture relationships. And it's these relationships that help keep us alive.
Theoretically, then, you might get some of the same benefits if you were a savvy, social Diet Coke drinker. But it's likely a combination of actual alcohol effects, along with their social expressions, that leads to study after study showing drinkers as getting some kind of life-extending benefit.
It Doesn't "Kill" Brain Cells, but Does Inhibit Them
It's true that at high concentrations, like the nearly 100-percent pure alcohol used in sterilizing solutions, alcohol can indeed kill cells and neurons (and nearly anything else). But given that the blood reaching your brain is only at 0.08 percent alcohol if you're legally intoxicated, or, say, 0.25 percent if you've just closed a major deal in Tokyo, it's not doing a lot of damage to your actual brain cells (liver cells and other organs, with long-term chronic abuse, are another matter).
Don't believe it? A major study by Grethe Jensen and colleagues in 1993 matched brain samples taken from both alcoholics and nonalcoholics, from groups of the two dead from non-alcohol-related causes. There were no significant differences found in either the number or density of brain cells between the groups. Misconception Junction tackles Jensen's study and the topic in more depth.
What alcohol can and does do to your brain is affect the way your neurons get their firing triggers from glutamate. It infiltrates the glutamate receptors in your synapses, hurting their ability to send off their normal "fire" messages. Alcohol has this impact all across your brain—the parts that control muscles, speech, coordination, judgement, and so on. Keep that in mind the next time you or someone else claims that they drive, golf, or otherwise perform some task better with alcohol's help. As Stephen Braun puts it in Buzz: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine:
Substances such as cocaine and LSD work like pharmacological scalpels, altering the functioning of only one or a handful of brain circuits. Alcohol is more like a pharmacological hand grenade. It affects practically everything around it.
Side Note: That's Also Why It, Uh, "Inhibits" Sex
The studies and implications are numerous, to say the least, but if you want a thumbnail understanding of how alcohol, as Shakespeare put it, "provokes the desire, but ... takes away the performance," it has to do with the firing of nerves, in the brain and elsewhere, that would relax the arteries enough to get both parties moving. It's a bit more complex than that, and drinking in moderation can be a net benefit in some cases, but alcohol, paradoxically, doesn't help one specific region of your self to "relax."
Side Note 2: Alcohol is Particularly Effective at Inhibiting Memories
Like the sexual response, the way the brain makes memories is far from comprehensively understood. But it does seem linked to N-Methyl-D-aspartic acid, or NMDA, the receptor for which alcohol seems particularly adept at interfering with, according to Braun. Studies have shown that while subjects under alcohol's influence can recall existing memories, events happening during inebriation are regularly hard to remember. It varies with the amount consumed, and seems to top out at a serious 0.2 percent blood alcohol content, but anything from flimsy recall to full-on blackouts are possible due to alcohol's unique bond with the stuff that should make memories.
It Makes Other People Seem More "Intentional"
If you'd never been raised to think things through, you'd assume that most actions people took were fairly intentional, and possibly pointed at causing you harm. The same holds when people are asked to make snap judgements about things happening. But give yourself any amount of time, and you'll generally think out all the reasons something could have happened, avoiding your natural intentionality bias and preventing heated arguments with otherwise close friends, bar altercations, and 80 percent of all reality show plots. Image via terren in Virginia.
But, as you might have guessed, that reasoned thinking gets lost when there's a night's worth of alcohol moving through your brain. In the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers detail a study with 92 men, made to go three hours without food, then given a shot of either juice, or juice with more than a shot of pure alcohol. All the glasses were rimmed with alcohol to mask the placebos. The men thought they took part in a taste test, then did unrelated tasks for 30 minutes.
After that, they were asked to determine whether a series of deliberate, accidental, or vague stated actions ("He deleted the email," "She looked for her keys," "She tripped on the jump rope," etc.) were deliberate or accidental. Ars Technica sums up the results:
Nearly all the participants, no matter what condition, judged all the unambiguous statements correctly. However, when the actions were ambiguous and could have been performed either intentionally or unintentionally, the "drunk" participants were much more likely to perceive the actions as deliberate than the sober participants were.
The study showed that it didn't much matter whether a man thought he was drunk; the jump to conclusions about an intention only took place when someone actually did have too much in them.
It's a Terrible Sleep Aid
Ever heard the term "nightcap?" People have long believed that alcohol helps you get to sleep—and that part can be true, for some. Once you're asleep, though, alcohol's interaction with your brain can lead to some fitful sleep—and no sleep at all, especially if you consumed caffeine anytime close to hitting the pillow. Image via Ella's Dad.
Just as with caffeine, your brain proves remarkably adept at adapting itself and responding to the ethanol molecules jamming up its receptors and interfering with neuron firings. It takes a bit for the brain to catch up, though, and when your brain starts kicking in and reclaiming all its nooks and crannies, it can wreak havoc on your crucial REM sleep, along with your more passive, general resting. If you've had caffeine, too, it's a drug that can take up to 5 hours to break down half a dose. If it's in your system at the same time as your brain is trying to compensate for alcohol, the combined "revenge" of both drugs can lead to some fairly restless sleep, according to Braun's Buzz.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What aspect of alcohol do you wish you had an explanation for? What's a drinking lesson you've kept in mind, whether you learned it through texts or long nights? We welcome your thoughts and responses in the comments, and we'll update the post where needed. Send an email to Kevin Purdy, the author of this post, at kevin@lifehacker.com.
Will Internet censorship bill be pushed through lame-duck Congress?
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/internet-censorship-pushed-congress
Will Internet censorship bill be pushed through lame-duck Congress?
Daniel Tencer
Sunday, November 14th, 2010
A bill giving the government the power to shut down Web sites that host materials that infringe copyright is making its way quietly through the lame-duck session of Congress, raising the ire of free-speech groups and prompting a group of academics to lobby against the effort.
The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) was introduced in Congress this fall by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT). It would grant the federal government the power to block access to any Web domain that is found to host copyrighted material without permission.
Critics say the bill is both a giveaway to the movie and recording industries and a step towards widespread and unaccountable censorship of the Internet.
Opponents note that the powers given the government under the bill are very broad. Because the bill targets domain names and not specific materials, an entire Web site can be shut down. So for example, if the US determines that there are copyright-infringing materials on YouTube, it could theoretically block access to all of YouTube, whether or not particular material being accessed infringes copyright.
Activist group DemandProgress, which is running a petition against the bill, argues the powers in the bill could be used for political purposes. If the whistleblower Web site WikiLeaks is found to be hosting copyrighted material, for instance, access to WikiLeaks could be blocked for all US Internet users.
Though the bill was delayed in September after an outcry from activist groups, it now appears to be back and potentially poised for quick passage in the lame-duck session of Congress, reports DemandProgress.
A group of academics, led by Temple University law professor David Post, have signed a petition opposing COICA.
"The Act, if enacted into law, would fundamentally alter U.S. policy towards Internet speech, and would set a dangerous precedent with potentially serious consequences for free expression and global Internet freedom," Post wrote in the petition letter (PDF).
The bill is "awful on many fronts," he wrote at Volokh Conspiracy. "It would allow a court to effectively shut down a site operated out of Brazil, or France, without any adversary hearing ... or any reasoned determination that the site actually is engaged in unlawful activity."
"Even more significant and more troubling, the Act represents a retreat from the United States’ historical position as a bulwark and beacon against censorship and other threats to freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and the free exchange of information and ideas around the globe."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a list of Web sites it believes are at highest risk of being shut down under the proposed law. Included in the list are file-hosting services such as Rapidshare and Mediafire, music mash-up sites like SoundCloud and MashupTown, as well as "sites that discuss and advocate for P2P technology or for piracy," such as pirate-party.us and P2PNet.
A TOOL FOR POLITICAL CENSORSHIP?
Free speech advocates argue that Internet censorship laws are inevitably used for purposes other than the ones claimed by lawmakers.
For instance, Australia in recent years set up a "firewall" around its Internet, with the intention of blacklisting child pornography Web sites. But a list of the blocked sites, leaked to Wikileaks, showed that the Australian government was censoring more than porn: The blacklist contained religious and political Web sites.
According to the Melbourne Age:
But about half of the sites on the list are not related to child porn and include a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist.
"It seems to me as if just about anything can potentially get on the list," [University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn] Landfelt said.
As predicted by some critics, the "great Aussie firewall" ended up blocking access to parts of WikiLeaks.
Will Internet censorship bill be pushed through lame-duck Congress?
Daniel Tencer
Sunday, November 14th, 2010
A bill giving the government the power to shut down Web sites that host materials that infringe copyright is making its way quietly through the lame-duck session of Congress, raising the ire of free-speech groups and prompting a group of academics to lobby against the effort.
The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) was introduced in Congress this fall by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT). It would grant the federal government the power to block access to any Web domain that is found to host copyrighted material without permission.
Critics say the bill is both a giveaway to the movie and recording industries and a step towards widespread and unaccountable censorship of the Internet.
Opponents note that the powers given the government under the bill are very broad. Because the bill targets domain names and not specific materials, an entire Web site can be shut down. So for example, if the US determines that there are copyright-infringing materials on YouTube, it could theoretically block access to all of YouTube, whether or not particular material being accessed infringes copyright.
Activist group DemandProgress, which is running a petition against the bill, argues the powers in the bill could be used for political purposes. If the whistleblower Web site WikiLeaks is found to be hosting copyrighted material, for instance, access to WikiLeaks could be blocked for all US Internet users.
Though the bill was delayed in September after an outcry from activist groups, it now appears to be back and potentially poised for quick passage in the lame-duck session of Congress, reports DemandProgress.
A group of academics, led by Temple University law professor David Post, have signed a petition opposing COICA.
"The Act, if enacted into law, would fundamentally alter U.S. policy towards Internet speech, and would set a dangerous precedent with potentially serious consequences for free expression and global Internet freedom," Post wrote in the petition letter (PDF).
The bill is "awful on many fronts," he wrote at Volokh Conspiracy. "It would allow a court to effectively shut down a site operated out of Brazil, or France, without any adversary hearing ... or any reasoned determination that the site actually is engaged in unlawful activity."
"Even more significant and more troubling, the Act represents a retreat from the United States’ historical position as a bulwark and beacon against censorship and other threats to freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and the free exchange of information and ideas around the globe."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a list of Web sites it believes are at highest risk of being shut down under the proposed law. Included in the list are file-hosting services such as Rapidshare and Mediafire, music mash-up sites like SoundCloud and MashupTown, as well as "sites that discuss and advocate for P2P technology or for piracy," such as pirate-party.us and P2PNet.
A TOOL FOR POLITICAL CENSORSHIP?
Free speech advocates argue that Internet censorship laws are inevitably used for purposes other than the ones claimed by lawmakers.
For instance, Australia in recent years set up a "firewall" around its Internet, with the intention of blacklisting child pornography Web sites. But a list of the blocked sites, leaked to Wikileaks, showed that the Australian government was censoring more than porn: The blacklist contained religious and political Web sites.
According to the Melbourne Age:
But about half of the sites on the list are not related to child porn and include a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist.
"It seems to me as if just about anything can potentially get on the list," [University of Sydney associate professor Bjorn] Landfelt said.
As predicted by some critics, the "great Aussie firewall" ended up blocking access to parts of WikiLeaks.
Louis Pasteur vs. Antoine Bechamp: Know the True Causes of Disease
http://www.naturalnews.com/030384_Louis_Pasteur_disease.html
Louis Pasteur vs. Antoine Bechamp: Know the True Causes of Disease
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Tony Isaacs
(NaturalNews) Mainstream medicine believes that virtually all illness is caused by germs or genetic hereditary weakness, as well as deformities and trauma injuries. Their solution and strategy is to have us believe that there are over 10,000 different diseases and that each of these diseases requires outside intervention from drugs and surgery. The truth is that most illness is due to cellular malfunction caused by cellular toxicities and cellular malnutrition, both of which can be avoided and overcome naturally.
It was Louis Pasteur, the so-called "father of modern germ theory" so widely revered by mainstream medicine, who was largely responsible for germ theory being a primary precept of today`s medical practice. Few people are aware of the controversy which surrounded Pasteur in his early days or of the work of a more esteemed contemporary whose works Pasteur plagiarized and distorted. That contemporary was fellow French Academy of Sciences member Antoine Bechamp, one of France`s most prominent and active researchers and biologists whose theories and research results stood in stark opposition to Pasteur`s germ theory.
Pasteur essentially dug up the germ theory of disease and put his name on it. It wasn`t a new idea. The concept, which theorizes that many diseases are caused by germs, had actually been outlined by other people many years before. Pasteur nevertheless claimed to have "discovered" germs. Bechamp, on the other hand, proved through original research that most diseases are the result of diseased tissue and that bacteria and viruses are largely after-effects instead of causes of disease.
Antoine Bechamp was able to scientifically prove that germs are the chemical by-products and constituents of pleomorphic microorganisms enacting upon the unbalanced, malfunctioning cell metabolism and dead tissue that actually produces disease. Bechamp found that the diseased, acidic, low-oxygen cellular environment is created by a toxic/nutrient deficient diet, toxic emotions, and a toxic lifestyle. His findings demonstrate how cancer develops through the morbid changes of germs to bacteria, bacteria to viruses, viruses to fungal forms and fungal forms to cancer cells.
After some initial controversy, Pasteur`s germ theory ended up winning the day with mainstream medicine - owing in large part to the fact that the theory enabled mainstream medicine to hugely profit from the patented drugs and treatments for fighting germs. After all, had Bechamp`s discoveries been incorporated into current medical curriculum, it would likely have meant a virtual elimination of disease and the end of the pharmaceutical industry.
The germ theory of medicine stands in stark contrast to thousands of years of man looking to nature to nourish and heal it, dating back to ancient Chinese medicine which treated the whole body instead of the symptoms of illness. As Hippocrates, "the father of medicine" observed 2400 years ago, "Nature is the physician of man." Hippocrates also advised, "Leave your drugs in the chemist`s pots if you can cure your patient with food."
Though mainstream medicine might have us believe otherwise, the simple truth is that no one ever became ill due to a deficiency in pharmaceutical drugs. Lack of nutrition combined with exposure to toxins is what causes us to become ill.
Someday, germ theory and unnatural drugs will be relegated to the science junk pile where they belong and man will re-discover the value of eating a nutrient-dense organic diet, avoiding toxins and nutritional deficiencies and living a healthy lifestyle. When that happens, the words of Thomas Edison may prove to be a welcome prophesy:
"The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease."
About the author
Tony Isaacs, is a natural health author, advocate and researcher who hosts The Best Years in Life website for baby boomers and others wishing to avoid prescription drugs and mainstream managed illness and live longer, healthier and happier lives naturally. Mr. Isaacs is the author of books and articles about natural health, longevity and beating cancer including "Cancer's Natural Enemy" and is working on a major book project due to be published later this year.
Mr. Isaacs is currently residing in scenic East Texas and frequently commutes to the even more scenic Texas hill country near San Antonio and Austin to give lectures in health seminars. He also hosts the CureZone "Ask Tony Isaacs - featuring Luella May" forum as well as the Yahoo Health Group "Oleander Soup" and he serves as a consultant to the "Utopia Silver Supplement Company".
Louis Pasteur vs. Antoine Bechamp: Know the True Causes of Disease
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Tony Isaacs
(NaturalNews) Mainstream medicine believes that virtually all illness is caused by germs or genetic hereditary weakness, as well as deformities and trauma injuries. Their solution and strategy is to have us believe that there are over 10,000 different diseases and that each of these diseases requires outside intervention from drugs and surgery. The truth is that most illness is due to cellular malfunction caused by cellular toxicities and cellular malnutrition, both of which can be avoided and overcome naturally.
It was Louis Pasteur, the so-called "father of modern germ theory" so widely revered by mainstream medicine, who was largely responsible for germ theory being a primary precept of today`s medical practice. Few people are aware of the controversy which surrounded Pasteur in his early days or of the work of a more esteemed contemporary whose works Pasteur plagiarized and distorted. That contemporary was fellow French Academy of Sciences member Antoine Bechamp, one of France`s most prominent and active researchers and biologists whose theories and research results stood in stark opposition to Pasteur`s germ theory.
Pasteur essentially dug up the germ theory of disease and put his name on it. It wasn`t a new idea. The concept, which theorizes that many diseases are caused by germs, had actually been outlined by other people many years before. Pasteur nevertheless claimed to have "discovered" germs. Bechamp, on the other hand, proved through original research that most diseases are the result of diseased tissue and that bacteria and viruses are largely after-effects instead of causes of disease.
Antoine Bechamp was able to scientifically prove that germs are the chemical by-products and constituents of pleomorphic microorganisms enacting upon the unbalanced, malfunctioning cell metabolism and dead tissue that actually produces disease. Bechamp found that the diseased, acidic, low-oxygen cellular environment is created by a toxic/nutrient deficient diet, toxic emotions, and a toxic lifestyle. His findings demonstrate how cancer develops through the morbid changes of germs to bacteria, bacteria to viruses, viruses to fungal forms and fungal forms to cancer cells.
After some initial controversy, Pasteur`s germ theory ended up winning the day with mainstream medicine - owing in large part to the fact that the theory enabled mainstream medicine to hugely profit from the patented drugs and treatments for fighting germs. After all, had Bechamp`s discoveries been incorporated into current medical curriculum, it would likely have meant a virtual elimination of disease and the end of the pharmaceutical industry.
The germ theory of medicine stands in stark contrast to thousands of years of man looking to nature to nourish and heal it, dating back to ancient Chinese medicine which treated the whole body instead of the symptoms of illness. As Hippocrates, "the father of medicine" observed 2400 years ago, "Nature is the physician of man." Hippocrates also advised, "Leave your drugs in the chemist`s pots if you can cure your patient with food."
Though mainstream medicine might have us believe otherwise, the simple truth is that no one ever became ill due to a deficiency in pharmaceutical drugs. Lack of nutrition combined with exposure to toxins is what causes us to become ill.
Someday, germ theory and unnatural drugs will be relegated to the science junk pile where they belong and man will re-discover the value of eating a nutrient-dense organic diet, avoiding toxins and nutritional deficiencies and living a healthy lifestyle. When that happens, the words of Thomas Edison may prove to be a welcome prophesy:
"The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease."
About the author
Tony Isaacs, is a natural health author, advocate and researcher who hosts The Best Years in Life website for baby boomers and others wishing to avoid prescription drugs and mainstream managed illness and live longer, healthier and happier lives naturally. Mr. Isaacs is the author of books and articles about natural health, longevity and beating cancer including "Cancer's Natural Enemy" and is working on a major book project due to be published later this year.
Mr. Isaacs is currently residing in scenic East Texas and frequently commutes to the even more scenic Texas hill country near San Antonio and Austin to give lectures in health seminars. He also hosts the CureZone "Ask Tony Isaacs - featuring Luella May" forum as well as the Yahoo Health Group "Oleander Soup" and he serves as a consultant to the "Utopia Silver Supplement Company".
How a cat drinks: Feline finesse and fluid dynamics
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/11/AR2010111107897.html
How a cat drinks: Feline finesse and fluid dynamics
Marc Kaufman
Washington Post
Friday, November 12, 2010
As all cat lovers know well, Felis domestica is a marvel of balance, subtlety and other hidden elegances.
Prepare to learn of another remarkable attribute: Four researchers have painstakingly filmed, analyzed and determined how it is that a cat can drink water while (unlike a dog) keeping its chin and whiskers pleasingly dry.
The answer involves an exquisite demonstration of physics: The cat, in effect, balances the forces of gravity against the forces of inertia, and so quenches its thirst.
While a dog curls its tongue like a ladle to collect the water and then pull up what it can, a cat curves its tongue under and slightly back, leaving the top surface of the tip of the tongue to lightly touch the liquid. The cat then raises its tongue rapidly, creating an upward mini-stream of water. The cat snaps its mouth shut and the water is captured before the countervailing force of gravity pulls it down.
An average house cat, the team found, can make four of these mini-streams per second.
"What we found is that the cat uses fluid dynamics and physics in a way to absolutely optimize tongue lapping and water collection," said Jeffrey Aristoff, now at Princeton University but who was one of the four researchers who began the study out of curiosity at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Nobody had ever studied it before, so nobody knew how the water went from the bowl into the cat's mouth," he said. Not surprisingly, they found that cats lap at precisely the rate that would get them the most water for the effort expended. The team's results are described in an article released Thursday by the journal Science.
As with most basic scientific research, the ultimate usefulness of this knowledge is uncertain. But it is not, the researchers say, hard to imagine some downstream applications, perhaps in robotics.
Something as complex as a cat drinking water doesn't get unraveled and turned into a paper at the nation's top science journal overnight. It was almost four years ago that Roman Stocker, an associate professor at MIT's department of civil and environmental engineering, became interested in how his cat, Cutta Cutta (or "Stars Stars" translated from an Australian aboriginal language), drank. His enthusiasm spread to Aristoff, Sunghwan Jung, now an engineer at Virginia Tech, and Pedro Reis, a physicist who works on the nature of soft solids at MIT.
"Science allows us to look at natural processes with a different eye and to understand how things work, even if that's figuring out how my cat laps his breakfast," Stocker said. "It's a job, but also a passion, and this project for me was a high point in teamwork and creativity. We did it without any funding, without any graduate students, without much of the usual apparatus that science is done with nowadays."
The four researchers went to several zoos to observe and film tigers, jaguars, lions and ocelots, and went to YouTube to find videos of bobcats, cheetahs, leopards and lionesses drinking in the wild.
They found the same basic drinking mechanism in all the cats, though the larger ones (with larger tongues) slowed their lapping to best take advantage of the physics at play - that is, the balance between upward movement of the water set off by the cat's tongue (the inertia) and the gravity pulling the water down. A lion, Aristoff said, laps about two times per second.
"In the beginning of the project, we weren't fully confident that fluid mechanics played a role in cats' drinking," said Jung, whose research focuses on soft bodies, such as fish, and the fluids surrounding them. "But as the project went on, we were surprised and amused by the beauty of the fluid mechanics involved in this system."
Aristoff explained the dynamics at work: You're in the shower and turn on the hot water. The steam starts to rise, and that upward flow lowers the pressure levels at your knees. The result is that the inside of the shower curtain will billow in toward you, unless you have some weight attached to the curtain to stop it. That interplay of motion and pressure parallels the dynamic that quenches the cat's thirst.
Although the work on cat drinking was done for professional pleasure - it wasn't funded by a grant, and the only expense was high-quality video cameras - the researchers said there could be useful implications gleaned from their "fundamental" research.
Engineers, for example, are moving into the field of "soft robots" and are working on the basic properties of nonmetallic parts that may play a role. Aristoff said there's great interest in creating robots that can walk on water, and this research could help.
This new cat-drinking research follows by 70 years related work done by Harold "Doc" Edgerton, who first used strobe lights to capture stopped action on film. His photography, which uncovered some of the secrets of how cats drink, was featured in an Academy Award-winning short called "Quicker'n a Wink." The four current-day researchers used equipment at an MIT center for high-speed photography named after Edgerton, who was a much-honored MIT professor of electrical engineering for five decades.
How a cat drinks: Feline finesse and fluid dynamics
Marc Kaufman
Washington Post
Friday, November 12, 2010
As all cat lovers know well, Felis domestica is a marvel of balance, subtlety and other hidden elegances.
Prepare to learn of another remarkable attribute: Four researchers have painstakingly filmed, analyzed and determined how it is that a cat can drink water while (unlike a dog) keeping its chin and whiskers pleasingly dry.
The answer involves an exquisite demonstration of physics: The cat, in effect, balances the forces of gravity against the forces of inertia, and so quenches its thirst.
While a dog curls its tongue like a ladle to collect the water and then pull up what it can, a cat curves its tongue under and slightly back, leaving the top surface of the tip of the tongue to lightly touch the liquid. The cat then raises its tongue rapidly, creating an upward mini-stream of water. The cat snaps its mouth shut and the water is captured before the countervailing force of gravity pulls it down.
An average house cat, the team found, can make four of these mini-streams per second.
"What we found is that the cat uses fluid dynamics and physics in a way to absolutely optimize tongue lapping and water collection," said Jeffrey Aristoff, now at Princeton University but who was one of the four researchers who began the study out of curiosity at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Nobody had ever studied it before, so nobody knew how the water went from the bowl into the cat's mouth," he said. Not surprisingly, they found that cats lap at precisely the rate that would get them the most water for the effort expended. The team's results are described in an article released Thursday by the journal Science.
As with most basic scientific research, the ultimate usefulness of this knowledge is uncertain. But it is not, the researchers say, hard to imagine some downstream applications, perhaps in robotics.
Something as complex as a cat drinking water doesn't get unraveled and turned into a paper at the nation's top science journal overnight. It was almost four years ago that Roman Stocker, an associate professor at MIT's department of civil and environmental engineering, became interested in how his cat, Cutta Cutta (or "Stars Stars" translated from an Australian aboriginal language), drank. His enthusiasm spread to Aristoff, Sunghwan Jung, now an engineer at Virginia Tech, and Pedro Reis, a physicist who works on the nature of soft solids at MIT.
"Science allows us to look at natural processes with a different eye and to understand how things work, even if that's figuring out how my cat laps his breakfast," Stocker said. "It's a job, but also a passion, and this project for me was a high point in teamwork and creativity. We did it without any funding, without any graduate students, without much of the usual apparatus that science is done with nowadays."
The four researchers went to several zoos to observe and film tigers, jaguars, lions and ocelots, and went to YouTube to find videos of bobcats, cheetahs, leopards and lionesses drinking in the wild.
They found the same basic drinking mechanism in all the cats, though the larger ones (with larger tongues) slowed their lapping to best take advantage of the physics at play - that is, the balance between upward movement of the water set off by the cat's tongue (the inertia) and the gravity pulling the water down. A lion, Aristoff said, laps about two times per second.
"In the beginning of the project, we weren't fully confident that fluid mechanics played a role in cats' drinking," said Jung, whose research focuses on soft bodies, such as fish, and the fluids surrounding them. "But as the project went on, we were surprised and amused by the beauty of the fluid mechanics involved in this system."
Aristoff explained the dynamics at work: You're in the shower and turn on the hot water. The steam starts to rise, and that upward flow lowers the pressure levels at your knees. The result is that the inside of the shower curtain will billow in toward you, unless you have some weight attached to the curtain to stop it. That interplay of motion and pressure parallels the dynamic that quenches the cat's thirst.
Although the work on cat drinking was done for professional pleasure - it wasn't funded by a grant, and the only expense was high-quality video cameras - the researchers said there could be useful implications gleaned from their "fundamental" research.
Engineers, for example, are moving into the field of "soft robots" and are working on the basic properties of nonmetallic parts that may play a role. Aristoff said there's great interest in creating robots that can walk on water, and this research could help.
This new cat-drinking research follows by 70 years related work done by Harold "Doc" Edgerton, who first used strobe lights to capture stopped action on film. His photography, which uncovered some of the secrets of how cats drink, was featured in an Academy Award-winning short called "Quicker'n a Wink." The four current-day researchers used equipment at an MIT center for high-speed photography named after Edgerton, who was a much-honored MIT professor of electrical engineering for five decades.
Is this the first step toward a flying car?
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/11/11/flying.car/index.html
Is this the first step toward a flying car?
Doug Gross, CNN
November 11, 2010
A concept rendering of the Transformer, a roadworthy vehicle that would carry four soldiers and take off like a helicopter.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
A potential flying car is being researched and developed through a military program
Carnegie Mellon University got a $988,000 contract to develop flight system for "Transformer"
Vehicle would be able to transport troops on the ground, then take off vertically
(CNN) -- Along with the jetpack, the flying car tops the list of classic science-fiction imaginings that lead legions of fans to ask -- why don't we have this yet?
Now researchers, with some cash from the U.S. military, might be taking a step toward making these hovering vehicles -- seen in such diverse works as "Blade Runner" and "The Jetsons" -- a reality.
DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is awarding grants to scientists to help develop its Transformer program, which seeks to create a road-worthy vehicle that can take off vertically like a helicopter and fly.
This week, the robotics institute at Carnegie Mellon University was awarded a $988,000 contract to develop a flight system for the Transformer.
The institute has already worked on automated flying vehicles, which researchers say would be crucial to the success of a military craft that could go from an earthbound combat situation into the air seamlessly.
"The [Transformer] is all about flexibility of movement, and key to that concept is the idea that the vehicle could be operated by a soldier without pilot training," said Sanjiv Singh, a CMU research professor of robotics.
"In practical terms, that means the vehicle will need to be able to fly itself, or to fly with only minimal input from the operator. And this means that the vehicle has to be continuously aware of its environment and be able to automatically react in response to what it perceives."
Carnegie Mellon is one of six contractors DARPA has chosen for the Transformer, or TX, program. AAI Corp. and Lockheed Martin Co. were selected by DARPA to develop overall design concepts for the transforming vehicle.
DARPA frequently engages private-sector businesses and amateur technology buffs for for ideas on innovations that could be used on the battlefield and elsewhere.
Among them are a recurring robot race and a nationwide DARPA balloon hunt that awarded prizes to players who most efficiently used online networking to hunt down 10 weather balloons.
The vehicle DARPA is considering would be able to carry four troops and up to 1,000 pounds of equipment for 250 miles, either on land or through the air.
"Its enhanced mobility would increase survivability by making movements less predictable and would make the vehicle suitable for a wide variety of missions, such as scouting, resupply and medical evacuation," Carnegie Mellon said in a written release.
This isn't Carnegie Mellon's first outing with DARPA, or in the field of automated vehicles.
The university won DARPA's 2007 Urban Challenge robot road race with a self-driving SUV called "Boss."
They've worked on a self-driving submarine, and earlier this year had an autonomous helicopter demonstration. The Carnegie Mellon contract is for 17 months.
The Carnegie Mellon prototype follows the recent news that a Florida man built a flying car that was certified by the FAA.
Future soldiers may be wearing 'Iron Man' suits
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/11/11/iron.man.suit/index.html
Future soldiers may be wearing 'Iron Man' suits
Eric Marrapodi and Chris Lawrence, CNN
November 11, 2010
Trying on real-life 'Iron Man' suit
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Raytheon is developing a wearable robotic "Iron Man" suit for the military
The suit gives its wearer 17 times more strength and could be used to lift heavy supplies
The "Iron Man" suit is projected to cost around $150,000
Salt Lake City, Utah (CNN) -- A lunchtime crowd is gathering beside the parking lot at Raytheon Sarcos, the defense contractor, on a recent day in Salt Lake City. White-collar workers from nearby office parks stand with their yogurt cups and sandwiches, watching with quiet awe as a man in a metal suit -- sort of half-man, half-robot -- performs superhuman feats of strength.
This may be the closest these people will get to a real-life "Iron Man," the character from the comic books and hit movies.
Inside a prosthetic shell of metal and hydraulics, Raytheon test engineer Rex Jameson is putting an XOS-2 exoskeleton through its paces.
As the crowd watches, Jameson uses his robot hydraulic arm to shadowbox, break three inches of pine boards and toss around 72-pound ammunition cases like a bored contestant on the "World's Strongest Man."
The suit moves as he moves and amplifies his strength 17-fold. It doesn't fly though.
"You don't have this immense feeling of strength," Jameson says. "It's just when you go to do something that you couldn't do without it, then that's when you notice it."
Jameson is part of a team designing in real life what comic books and Hollywood have promised for years: bringing an "Iron Man"-like suit to the battlefield.
Raytheon is seeking to develop the suits to help the U.S. military carry supplies, and claims that one operator in an exoskeleton suit can do the work of two to three soldiers. If all goes as planned, the company hopes to see "Iron Man" suits deployed in the field by 2015.
"The logistics personnel in the military typically move 16,000 pounds a day, which is an awful lot of load," said Fraser Smith, vice president of operations for Raytheon Sarcos. The XOS-2 suit can be used in tight spaces where a forklift cannot.
And with the extra of strength the robot gives the operator, "that means you exert one pound, and it exerts 17. That's a major amplification of strength and that's all load the person doesn't have to carry themselves," Smith said.
Jameson may be about the furthest thing from the fictional designer of "Iron Man," playboy billionaire Tony Stark. "I roll in a minivan," said the married father of three.
The painted black, steel, aluminum and hydraulic pumps of the wearable robotic suit wrap around Jameson's slight frame, mirroring the human skeleton in form. Its structure runs up the side of Jameson's legs and arms. Its backbone carries the load of the machine, and on this day is tethered to hydraulic power and a team of engineers.
Jameson straps into the suit, stomps his feet into the exoskeleton's modified boots and straps down the snowboardlike bindings.
"I'd describe it as feeling like wearing a backpack -- a light pack -- and really big shoes. It kind of clomps around a bit," he said shortly after the power came on and the suit jerked to life.
"It reacts to the force of your feet, so you want it to react immediately," he added, pulling the bindings tight.
Jameson's hands grip actuators in a fist. Technicians can attach grips and hooks to the robot's hands, some of which look like they would be more useful for combat than for loading supplies.
Jameson said the response time from his movements to the robot reacting is less than 10 milliseconds. He marches around, balances on his tiptoes and kicks a soccer ball around. The peanut gallery at the edge of the parking lot loves it. A woman with a yogurt cup shakes her head in disbelief.
Raytheon's Smith also sees soldiers using the robot in a modified form -- from the waist down -- to help carry equipment and take the strain off their legs during long marches.
One big obstacle, however, is how to power the suit. Raytheon is working on reducing the energy load; the version demonstrated on this day runs off hydraulic power from the Sarcos shop. Smith said chemically powered batteries such as lithium ions are not powerful enough to run the suit for eight to 24 hours at a time.
Batteries also raise concerns over safety.
"If they get breached, they aren't gentle in the way they explode," Smith said. A single-cylinder gas or diesel-powered engine may do the trick instead, he said.
The wearable robotics suit is now in its second iteration. XOS-2 has all its wires and hydraulics fully enclosed, unlike the first prototype, whose innards were more exposed. That would be problematic in places such as Afghanistan or Iraq, where a sand-encrusted robot would mean a dead robot.
"Sand, water, mud are all things we like to keep out of the system, and these current [robotic suits] include sealing strategies that basically exclude them." Smith said.
While the suit has obvious military applications, Smith also sees broader commercial possibilities -- and a shorter timetable. He said if orders come in and production ramps up, within three years you could have your very own $150,000 "Iron Man" suit to help push boxes around your warehouse.
Watch The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer weekdays at 5pm to 8pm ET and Saturdays at 6pm ET.
Future soldiers may be wearing 'Iron Man' suits
Eric Marrapodi and Chris Lawrence, CNN
November 11, 2010
Trying on real-life 'Iron Man' suit
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Raytheon is developing a wearable robotic "Iron Man" suit for the military
The suit gives its wearer 17 times more strength and could be used to lift heavy supplies
The "Iron Man" suit is projected to cost around $150,000
Salt Lake City, Utah (CNN) -- A lunchtime crowd is gathering beside the parking lot at Raytheon Sarcos, the defense contractor, on a recent day in Salt Lake City. White-collar workers from nearby office parks stand with their yogurt cups and sandwiches, watching with quiet awe as a man in a metal suit -- sort of half-man, half-robot -- performs superhuman feats of strength.
This may be the closest these people will get to a real-life "Iron Man," the character from the comic books and hit movies.
Inside a prosthetic shell of metal and hydraulics, Raytheon test engineer Rex Jameson is putting an XOS-2 exoskeleton through its paces.
As the crowd watches, Jameson uses his robot hydraulic arm to shadowbox, break three inches of pine boards and toss around 72-pound ammunition cases like a bored contestant on the "World's Strongest Man."
The suit moves as he moves and amplifies his strength 17-fold. It doesn't fly though.
"You don't have this immense feeling of strength," Jameson says. "It's just when you go to do something that you couldn't do without it, then that's when you notice it."
Jameson is part of a team designing in real life what comic books and Hollywood have promised for years: bringing an "Iron Man"-like suit to the battlefield.
Raytheon is seeking to develop the suits to help the U.S. military carry supplies, and claims that one operator in an exoskeleton suit can do the work of two to three soldiers. If all goes as planned, the company hopes to see "Iron Man" suits deployed in the field by 2015.
"The logistics personnel in the military typically move 16,000 pounds a day, which is an awful lot of load," said Fraser Smith, vice president of operations for Raytheon Sarcos. The XOS-2 suit can be used in tight spaces where a forklift cannot.
And with the extra of strength the robot gives the operator, "that means you exert one pound, and it exerts 17. That's a major amplification of strength and that's all load the person doesn't have to carry themselves," Smith said.
Jameson may be about the furthest thing from the fictional designer of "Iron Man," playboy billionaire Tony Stark. "I roll in a minivan," said the married father of three.
The painted black, steel, aluminum and hydraulic pumps of the wearable robotic suit wrap around Jameson's slight frame, mirroring the human skeleton in form. Its structure runs up the side of Jameson's legs and arms. Its backbone carries the load of the machine, and on this day is tethered to hydraulic power and a team of engineers.
Jameson straps into the suit, stomps his feet into the exoskeleton's modified boots and straps down the snowboardlike bindings.
"I'd describe it as feeling like wearing a backpack -- a light pack -- and really big shoes. It kind of clomps around a bit," he said shortly after the power came on and the suit jerked to life.
"It reacts to the force of your feet, so you want it to react immediately," he added, pulling the bindings tight.
Jameson's hands grip actuators in a fist. Technicians can attach grips and hooks to the robot's hands, some of which look like they would be more useful for combat than for loading supplies.
Jameson said the response time from his movements to the robot reacting is less than 10 milliseconds. He marches around, balances on his tiptoes and kicks a soccer ball around. The peanut gallery at the edge of the parking lot loves it. A woman with a yogurt cup shakes her head in disbelief.
Raytheon's Smith also sees soldiers using the robot in a modified form -- from the waist down -- to help carry equipment and take the strain off their legs during long marches.
One big obstacle, however, is how to power the suit. Raytheon is working on reducing the energy load; the version demonstrated on this day runs off hydraulic power from the Sarcos shop. Smith said chemically powered batteries such as lithium ions are not powerful enough to run the suit for eight to 24 hours at a time.
Batteries also raise concerns over safety.
"If they get breached, they aren't gentle in the way they explode," Smith said. A single-cylinder gas or diesel-powered engine may do the trick instead, he said.
The wearable robotics suit is now in its second iteration. XOS-2 has all its wires and hydraulics fully enclosed, unlike the first prototype, whose innards were more exposed. That would be problematic in places such as Afghanistan or Iraq, where a sand-encrusted robot would mean a dead robot.
"Sand, water, mud are all things we like to keep out of the system, and these current [robotic suits] include sealing strategies that basically exclude them." Smith said.
While the suit has obvious military applications, Smith also sees broader commercial possibilities -- and a shorter timetable. He said if orders come in and production ramps up, within three years you could have your very own $150,000 "Iron Man" suit to help push boxes around your warehouse.
Watch The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer weekdays at 5pm to 8pm ET and Saturdays at 6pm ET.
Graham Hancock: The War on Consciousness
http://www.disinfo.com/2010/11/graham-hancock-the-war-on-consciousness
Graham Hancock: The War on Consciousness
November 15, 2010
Site editor’s note: This article was originally published as part of the Russ Kick-edited Disinformation anthology, You Are STILL Being Lied To. Hancock’s latest book is a novel dealing with some of the issues presented below titled ENTANGLED: The Eater of Souls.
We are told that the “War on Drugs” is being waged, on our behalf, by our governments and their armed bureaucracies and police forces, to save us from ourselves. “Potential for abuse and harm” are supposed to be the criteria by which the use of drugs is suppressed—the greater a drug’s potential for abuse and harm, the greater and more vigorous the degree of suppression, and the more draconian the penalties applied against its users.
In line with this scheme drugs are typically ranked into a hierarchy: Schedules I, II, and III in the US, Classes A, B, and C in the UK, and so on and so forth all around the world. Thus, to be arrested for possession of a Schedule I or Class A drug results in heavier penalties than possession of a Schedule III or Class C drug. Generally if a drug is deemed to have some currently accepted medical use it is likely to be placed in a lower schedule than if it has none, notwithstanding the fact that it may have potential for abuse or harm. In the absence of any recognized therapeutic effects, drugs that are highly addictive, such as heroin or crack cocaine, or drugs that are profoundly psychotropic, including hallucinogens such as LSD, psilocybin, or DMT, are almost universally placed in the highest schedules and their use attracts the heaviest penalties.
The notable exceptions to this system of ranking according to perceived “harms” are, of course, alcohol and tobacco, both highly addictive and harmful drugs—far more so than cannabis or psilocybin, for example—but yet socially accepted on the grounds of long customary use and thus not placed in any schedule at all.
The Failed War
When we look at the history of the “War on Drugs” over approximately the last 40 years, it must be asked whether the criminalization of the use of any of the prohibited substances has in any way been effective in terms of the stated goals that this “war” was supposedly mounted to achieve. Specifically, has there been a marked reduction in the use of illegal drugs over the past 40 years—as one would expect with billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money having been spent over such a long period on their suppression—and has there been a reduction in the harms that these drugs supposedly cause to the individual and to society?
It is unnecessary here to set down screeds of statistics, facts, and figures readily available from published sources to assert that in terms of its own stated objectives the “War on Drugs” has been an abject failure and a shameful and scandalous waste of public money. Indeed, it is well known, and not disputed, that the very societies that attempt most vigorously to suppress various drugs, and in which users are subject to the most stringent penalties, have seen a vast and continuous increase in the per capita consumption of these drugs. This is tacitly admitted by the vast armed bureaucracies set up to persecute drug users in our societies, which every year demand more and more public money to fund their suppressive activities; if the suppression were working, one would expect their budgets to go down, not up.
Meanwhile the social harms caused by the “War on Drugs” itself are manifest and everywhere evident. In the United States, for example, there have been more than 20 million arrests for the possession of the Schedule I drug marijuana since 1965 and 11 million since 1990. The pace of arrests is increasing year on year, bringing us to the astonishing situation where, today, a marijuana smoker is arrested every 38 seconds. 1 The result, as Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, recently observed, is that marijuana arrests outnumber arrests for “all violent crimes combined,” meaning police are spending inordinate amounts of time chasing nonviolent criminals. 2 And it goes without saying that those who are arrested for the use of marijuana and other illegal drugs do suffer immense harm as a result of the punishments inflicted on them—including, but not limited to, personal trauma, loss of freedom, loss of reputation, loss of employment prospects, and serious, long-lasting financial damage.
Inventory of Harm
Such matters are only the beginning of the long inventory of harm caused by the “War on Drugs.”
Western industrial societies, and all those cultures around the globe that increasingly seek to emulate them, teach us to venerate above all else the alert, problem-solving state of consciousness that is particularly appropriate to the conduct of science, business, war, and logical inquiry, and to such activities as driving cars, operating machinery, performing surgery, doing accounts, drawing up plans, accumulating wealth, etc., etc., etc. But there are many other states of consciousness that the amazing and mysterious human brain is capable of embracing, and it appears to be a natural human urge, as deep-rooted as our urges for food, sex, and nurturing relationships, to seek out and explore such “altered states of consciousness.” A surprisingly wide range of methods and techniques (from breathing exercises, to meditation, to fasting, to hypnosis, to rhythmic music, to extended periods of vigorous dancing, etc.) is available to help us to achieve this goal, but there is no doubt that the consumption of those plants and substances called “drugs” in our societies is amongst the most effective and efficient means available to mankind to explore these profoundly altered states of consciousness.
The result is that people naturally seek out drugs and the temporary alterations in consciousness that they produce. Not all people in every society will do this, perhaps not even a majority, but certainly a very substantial minority—for example the 2 million Britons who are known to take illegal drugs each month 3 or those 20 million people in the US who have been arrested for marijuana possession since 1965. And these of course are only the tip of the iceberg of the much larger population of American marijuana users, running into many more tens of millions, who have, by luck or care, not yet fallen foul of the law and are thus not reflected in the arrest statistics.
Needless to say, it is of course exactly the same urge to alter consciousness that also impels even larger numbers of people to use legal (and often extremely harmful) drugs such as alcohol and tobacco—which, though they may not alter consciousness as dramatically as, say, LSD, are nevertheless undoubtedly used and sought out for the limited alterations of consciousness that they do produce.
For the hundreds of millions of people around the world whose need to experience altered states is not and cannot be satisfied by drunken oblivion or the stimulant effects of tobacco, it is therefore completely natural to turn to “drugs”—and, since the “War on Drugs” means that there is no legal source of supply of these substances, the inevitable result is that those who wish to use them must resort to illegal sources of supply.
Herein lies great and enduring harm. For it is obvious, and we may all see the effects everywhere, that the criminalization of drug use has empowered and enriched a vast and truly horrible global criminal underworld by guaranteeing that it is the only source of supply of these drugs. We have, in effect, delivered our youth—the sector within our societies that most strongly feels the need to experience altered states of consciousness— into the hands of the very worst mobsters and sleazeballs on the planet. To buy drugs our sons and daughters have no choice but to approach and associate with violent and greedy criminals. And because the proceeds from illegal drug sales are so enormous, we are all caught up in the inevitable consequences of turf wars and murders amongst the gangs and cartels competing in this blackest of black markets.
It should be completely obvious to our governments, after more than 40 years of dismal failure to suppress illegal drug use, that their policies in this area do not work and will never work. It should be completely obvious, a simple logical step, to realize that by decriminalizing drug use, and making the supply of all drugs available to those adults who wish to use them through legal and properly regulated channels, we could, at a stroke, put out of business the vast criminal enterprise that presently flourishes on the supply of illegal drugs.
It ought to be obvious, but somehow it is not.
Instead the powers that be continue to pursue the same harsh and cruel policies that they have been wedded to from the outset, ever seeking to strengthen and reinforce them rather than to replace them with something better. Indeed the only “change” that the large, armed bureaucracies that enforce these policies has ever sought since the “War on Drugs” began has, year on year, been to demand even more money, even more arms, and even more draconian legislative powers to break into homes, to confiscate property, and to deprive otherwise law-abiding citizens of liberty and wreck their lives. In the process we have seen our once free and upstanding societies— which used to respect individual choice and freedom of conscience above all else—slide remorselessly down the slippery slope that leads to the police state. And all this is being done in our name, with our money, by our own governments, to “save us from ourselves”!
Winners and Losers
Who benefits from this colossal stupidity and systematic wickedness? And who loses?
The beneficiaries are easy to spot.
First, the large and ever-expanding armed bureaucracies, funded with large and ever-growing sums of public money to suppress the use of drugs, have benefited enormously. Everyone who works for them, including the PR people and spin merchants who concoct the propaganda used to sell their policies to us, including their subcontractors both public and private, and including the (often privately run) prisons stuffed to bursting point with their victims, are the beneficiaries of this catastrophic failure on the part of our governments to think laterally, generously, and creatively. Whether you are a Drug Enforcement Administration agent or a prison guard, you naturally have a deeply vested interest in maintaining the miserable status quo, justified by the “War on Drugs,” that keeps you in your job, that ensures your monthly paychecks continue to come in, and that continuously expands your budgets.
The second main category of beneficiaries is—of course!—the criminal gangs and cartels that the present misguided official policies have empowered as the sole source of drugs in our societies. Over the past 40-plus years they have earned countless billions of dollars from the sale of illegal drugs which, had they only been legal, would not have earned them a single penny.
Who are the losers? First and most directly those millions upon millions of good, nonviolent people in our societies who have been jailed or otherwise punished for the possession and use of drugs. And second (regardless of whether or not they use illegal drugs themselves), virtually everyone else in our societies as well. For the quality of life of all of us has been diminished by the growth of the police state and by the murderous activities of the criminal gangs enfranchised, and kept in business, by the blind and mindless perpetuation of this failed and bankrupt “War on Drugs.”
So, in summary, the criminalization of drug use has brought no positive effects, only negative ones, and it has not stopped or even reduced the use of dangerous and harmful drugs. On the contrary, we have been so little “saved from ourselves” by this phony war that the use of almost all illegal drugs, far from decreasing, has dramatically increased during the past 40 years.
Learning from Tobacco
A contrary example, but one that is most instructive, concerns the use of tobacco in our societies.
Tobacco has never been illegal; far from that, its use has been actively encouraged by clever advertising campaigns mounted by the multibillion-dollar tobacco industry. But the use of tobacco does undoubtedly lead to great harms, both for the health of the individual and the health of society at large, and facts about these harms have been widely and successfully disseminated without a single tobacco user ever being arrested or persecuted.
It’s interesting in this connection to compare the success of public information campaigns about the dangers of tobacco use with the utter failure of public information campaigns about the dangers of marijuana use. The reason the anti-marijuana campaigns have failed is that millions of users know from their own direct, long-term experience that marijuana does not do them any great harm and (with reference to the most recent anti- marijuana propaganda) most definitely does not drive them mad. It may well be true that very small numbers of fragile teenagers whose mental health was already compromised have had their latent schizophrenia or other similar conditions worsened by the use of marijuana—but the vast majority of marijuana users are not at all affected in this way. Likewise efforts by government agencies to persuade us that new, stronger strains of marijuana presently available on the market (e.g., “skunk”) are more dangerous to our health than traditional strains of marijuana because they deliver much more of the active ingredient THC to our systems, have not persuaded anyone. Regular marijuana users presented with a stronger strain simply adjust their consumption, consuming far less of it than they would of a weaker strain in order to achieve the same effect, and feel intuitively that smoking less of any substance has got to be better for their lungs and general health than smoking more.
The consequence of this disconnect between personal experience and “facts” purveyed by official public information campaigns is that huge numbers of people no longer believe anything that our governments have to say to us about drugs. There is an increasingly widespread recognition that tainted, unreliable, and tendentious information is being passed on—information that cannot be trusted. And this distrust of official sources of information is, of course, only worsened by the propagandistic character, witch hunts, and scare tactics of the “War on Drugs” and by the realization that the health information purveyed in anti-drug campaigns is not underwritten by caring and nurturing official policies but instead by draconian criminal sanctions and punitive authoritarian attitudes.
Where the health hazards of tobacco use are concerned, on the other hand, since there are no criminal sanctions against tobacco users, no large, armed bureaucracies to enforce them, and no special interests to serve by the dissemination of misleading information, the evidence has been accepted and believed by most rational adults freely making up their own minds, precisely as one would expect.
The result? While the use of illegal drugs has everywhere skyrocketed over the past 40 years, regardless of the violent persecution of the users of these drugs, the use of tobacco, in a climate of free choice and reliable information, has plummeted to an all-time low. The consumption of tobacco, once seen as a socially approved, even desirable, and, indeed, “stylish” habit, has come to be regarded as a pariah-creating activity that only idiots would indulge themselves in. Although there are, of course, still many tobacco users—because nicotine is intensely addictive—their numbers continue to fall dramatically year on year as more and more of us make the free choice to give up the habit for the sake of our health.
Is it not obvious that the “tobacco model” could be applied with equal success to all illegal drugs? In other words, is it not obvious, if our governments really wish us to stop using drugs, that immediate legalization of adult personal use must follow, that the giant, armed bureaucracies that persecute drug users must be closed down, and that the whole matter must be thrown open, in the way that tobacco use has been thrown open, to the effects of good, reliable information and the sound commonsense of the vast majority of the population? If that happens then we can be certain that drugs that are genuinely harmful to health and wellbeing (in the way that tobacco certainly is) will fall out of favor with their users in exactly the way that tobacco has done. And if it turns out that some of these drugs are in fact not so harmful, then it should not concern us at all if some adults make the free choice to continue to use them.
Of course, even against a backdrop of legalization and good information, some adults will make the free choice to continue to use genuinely harmful drugs as well, just as some adults today do continue to make the free choice to continue to use tobacco. But that, too, is as it should be in a truly free society. Democratic Congressman Barney Frank was spot on the truth of what a free society really means when he announced a proposal in August 2008 to end federal penalties for Americans carrying fewer than 100 grams (almost a quarter of a pound) of marijuana. “The vast amount of human activity ought to be none of the government’s business,” Frank said on Capitol Hill. “I don’t think it is the government’s business to tell you how to spend your leisure time.”
It goes without saying that Frank’s proposal is unlikely to succeed in the hysterical climate of disinformation that presently surrounds this subject, and we must ask ourselves why this should be so. Why are commonsense proposals for the legalization of drugs never adopted, or even seriously considered by our governments? Why, on the contrary, are such proposals dogmatically opposed with even more propaganda and tainted information emanating from the big, armed anti-drug bureaucracies?
That legalization of drugs would shrink the budgets of those selfsame bureaucracies, and ultimately put them out of business, is part of the answer. But to find the real engine that perpetuates the “War on Drugs” we need to look deeper and ask fundamental questions about the relationship between the individual and the state in modern Western democracies.
Freedom of Consciousness
What is Western civilization all about? What are its greatest achievements and highest aspirations?
It’s my guess that most people’s replies to these questions would touch—before all the other splendid achievements of science, literature, technology, and the economy—on the nurture and growth of freedom.
Individual freedom.
Including, but not limited to freedom from the unruly power of monarchs, freedom from the unwarranted intrusions of the state and its agents into our personal lives, freedom from the tyranny of the Church and its Inquisition, freedom from hunger and want, freedom from slavery and servitude, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of thought and speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to elect our own leaders, freedom to be homosexual—and so on and so forth.
The list of freedoms we enjoy today that were not enjoyed by our ancestors is indeed a long and impressive one. It is therefore exceedingly strange that Western civilization in the twenty- first century enjoys no real freedom of consciousness.
There can be no more intimate and elemental part of the individual than his or her own consciousness. At the deepest level, our consciousness is what we are—to the extent that if we are not sovereign over our own consciousness then we cannot in any meaningful sense be sovereign over anything else either. So it has to be highly significant that, far from encouraging freedom of consciousness, our societies in fact violently deny our right to sovereignty in this intensely personal area, and have effectively outlawed all states of consciousness other than those on a very narrowly defined and officially approved list. The “War on Drugs” has thus unexpectedly succeeded in engineering a stark reversal of the true direction of Western history by empowering faceless bureaucratic authorities to send armed agents to break into our homes, arrest us, throw us into prison, and deprive us of our income and reputation simply because we wish to explore the sometimes radical, though always temporary, alterations in our own consciousness that drugs facilitate.
Other than being against arbitrary rules that the state has imposed on us, personal drug use by adults is not a “crime” in any true moral or ethical sense and usually takes place in the privacy of our own homes, where it cannot possibly do any harm to others. For some it is a simple lifestyle choice. For others, particularly where the hallucinogens such as LSD, psilocybin, and DMT are concerned, it is a means to make contact with alternate realms and parallel dimensions, and perhaps even with the divine. For some, drugs are an aid to creativity and focussed mental effort. For others they are a means to tune out for a while from everyday cares and worries. But in all cases it seems probable that the drive to alter consciousness, from which all drug use stems, has deep genetic roots.
Other adult lifestyle choices with deep genetic roots also used to be violently persecuted by our societies.
A notable example is homosexuality, once punishable by death or long periods of imprisonment, which is now entirely legal between consenting adults—and fully recognized as being none of the state’s business—in all Western cultures. (Although approximately thirteen US states have “anti-sodomy” laws outlawing homosexuality, these statutes have rarely been enforced in recent years, and in 2003 the US Supreme Court invalidated those laws.) The legalization of homosexuality lifted a huge burden of human misery, secretiveness, paranoia, and genuine fear from our societies, and at the same time not a single one of the homophobic lobby’s fire-and-brimstone predictions about the end of Western civilization came true.
Likewise, it was not so long ago that natural seers, mediums, and healers who felt the calling to become “witches” were burned at the stake for “crimes” that we now look back on as harmless eccentricities at worst.
Perhaps it will be the same with drugs? Perhaps in a century or two, if we have not destroyed human civilization by then, our descendants will look back with disgust on the barbaric laws of our time that punished a minority so harshly (with imprisonment, financial ruin, and worse) for responsibly, quietly, and in the privacy of their own homes seeking alterations in their own consciousness through the use of drugs. Perhaps we will even end up looking back on the persecution of drug users with the same sense of shame and horror that we now view the persecution of gays and lesbians, the burning of “witches,” and the imposition of slavery on others.
Meanwhile it’s no accident that the “War on Drugs” has been accompanied by an unprecedented expansion of governmental power into the previously inviolable inner sanctum of individual consciousness. On the contrary, it seems to me that the state’s urge to power has all along been the real reason for this “war”—not an honest desire on the part of the authorities to rescue society and the individual from the harms caused by drugs, but the thin of a wedge intended to legitimize increasing bureaucratic control and intervention in almost every other area of our lives as well.
This is the way freedom is hijacked—not all at once, out in the open, but stealthily, little by little, behind closed doors, and with our own agreement. How will we be able to resist when so many of us have already willingly handed over the keys to our own consciousness to the state and accepted without protest that it is OK to be told what we may and may not do, what we may and may not explore, even what we may and may not experience, with this most precious, sapient, unique, and individual part of ourselves?
If we are willing to accept that then we can be persuaded to accept anything.
1. Legislators aim to snuff out penalties for pot use. CNN, 30 July 2008.
2. Ibid.
3. Independent, London, 15 August 2008, page 1, citing Department of Health research.
Posted in: Alternatives, Cigarettes, Civil Liberties, Consciousness, DMT, Drugs, Freedom, Graham Hancock, Marijuana, Psychedelics, War On Drugs
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