Andymatic

Month: August 2009

  • Depression Isn't What is Used to Be

    The litmus test of drug efficacy in antidepressant trials is a questionnaire called the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale. The HAM-D was created nearly 50 years ago based on a study of major depressive disorder in patients confined to asylums. Few trial volunteers now suffer from that level of illness. In fact, many experts are starting […]

  • Un-Medicated Americans Are Hard to Find

    The success of those ads in selling blockbuster drugs like antidepressants and statins also pushed trials offshore as therapeutic virgins—potential volunteers who were not already medicated with one or another drug—became harder to find via Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why

  • Texas Admits Executing Innocent Man

    Both of them were killed because of an accidental fire. Amber and her two sisters died in the blaze. Cameron was wrongfully executed by the state of Texas for setting it. Today, Texas took the first big step in admitting it murdered an innocent man in its death chamber. And the implications are huge. via […]

  • Social Networking for Felons

    Many courts have stopped mandating attendance at 12 Step meetings. Doug Marlowe, the criminal justice research expert I mentioned earlier, explained in his talk that somewhere along the way they figured out that 12 Step meetings are unsupervised settings and sending groups of felons to congregate unsupervised settings is not advisable, unless you are in […]

  • Whither ACORN?

    See, when you throw that little bit of conspiratorial nonsense out there because it’s useful for you in the short term, politically, it just festers and grows until it becomes part of the mythology of an entire subculture of people. And then they start to wonder why no one is doing anything about this grave […]

  • Roger Ebert on AA

    Sometimes funny things happened. In those days I was on a 10 p.m. newscast on one of the local stations. The anchor was an A.A. member. So was one of the reporters. After we got off work, we went to the 11 p.m. meeting at the Mustard Seed. There were maybe a dozen others. The […]

  • America Has a Mean Streak

    The point is that, when on “normal”, the needle of the US barometer is not only quite a way to the political right of where it would be in Europe, but showing a very different atmospheric level, too. For there is a mean and merciless streak in mainstream US attitudes, which tolerates much more in […]

  • Beijing IKEA Is a Theme Park and Hotel

    Every weekend, thousands of looky-loos pour into the massive showroom to use the displays. Some hop into bed, slide under the covers and sneak a nap; others bring cameras and pose with the decor. Families while away the afternoon in the store for no other reason than to enjoy the air conditioning. via latimes.com

  • Rapper 'Roxanne's Revenge' Gets Warner Music to Fund Her Ph.D

    Her prognosis wasn’t as bright in the years after the ’80s icon scored a smash hit at age 14: “Roxanne’s Revenge,” a razor-tongued response to rap group UTFO’s mega-hit “Roxanne, Roxanne.” The 1984 single sold 250,000 copies in New York City alone, making Shante (born Lolita Gooden) hip hop’s first female celebrity. She blazed a […]

  • Federal Reserve Loses Bloomberg FOIA Lawsuit

    This is a large blow against the Fed and specifically against organizations using FOIA loopholes from providing critical information, particularly in cases involving trillions of taxpayer dollars bailing out huge, systematically and politically embedded financial organizations (which lately is pretty much all of them). via zero hedge