Mood:  vegas lucky

It's Cristine, right out of the crypt...

Will it run? Tulsa to dig up car buried for 50 years

TULSA, Oklahoma -- Organizers of a coming-out party for a buried 1957 Plymouth Belvedere could use some help.

The car, which was buried in brand-new condition under the lawn of the Tulsa County Courthouse in 1957, is scheduled to be unearthed June 15 as part of the Oklahoma Centennial.

Promoters are looking for people who helped lower the car into its crypt in 1957 to perhaps shed some light on what to expect when the car is unearthed.

There's speculation the car may have turned into a pile of rust. Or that it's in pristine condition and worth thousands of dollars.

Sharon King Davis, who has chaired Tulsa's centennial efforts, looked at photos of the people responsible for burying the car in 1957 and found her grandfather.

"I wish grandpa had left me some instructions," she told the Tulsa World.

The car had been largely forgotten until Davis and her group started work on the centennial. Files on the car have vanished, so it's not clear what to expect when the lid is lifted.

What's known is that the car is on a steel pallet with jacks under the axles. Efforts were made to preserve it, but it's unclear if moisture has gotten to the metal and caused rust.

"There's a kind of Rip Van Winkle reaction," Davis says. "Most people had long ago forgotten the buried car, but as the time to dig it up nears, they are waking up and wondering about life in 1957."

Another unknown is who will be able to claim the car.

When the car was buried, a contest was announced to award the car and a $100 savings account to the person who came closest to guessing Tulsa's population in 2007.

Organizers concede that finding that person or his or her heirs may not be easy.

At the time, the guesses were recorded on microfilm and sealed in a steel container buried with the car.

Buried car Web site
CNN.com ~ Associated Press ~ Will it run? Tulsa to dig up car buried for 50 years

Posted by yaahoo_ at 2:11 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Mood:  chatty

Move to Dump Electoral College Defeated in Montana, North Dakota

A movement to essentially dump the Electoral College and give the presidency to the winner of the nationwide popular vote has been defeated in North Dakota and Montana, after opponents said it would eliminate any influence states may have in presidential contests.

Thursday's votes represented the first legislative setbacks this year for the National Popular Vote plan, said spokeswoman Breeanna Mierop. It is a proposed agreement among states to cast their electoral votes for the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote.

"If you look at the population trends ... if this were to become the law, our presidential elections would be controlled by the vote in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston," said North Dakota state Rep. Lawrence Klemin, a Bismarck Republican. "They would decide who the president was, not the rest of us."

North Dakota's House voted 60-31 Thursday to defeat the plan. In the Montana Senate, it lost 30-20.

National Popular Vote supporters say they have legislative sponsors in 46 states, and have introduced legislation in 22. The Colorado Senate approved the measure last month. The California legislature endorsed the agreement last year, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it.

The initiative asks state legislatures to adopt a contract ordering their presidential electors to cast their votes for the winner of the national popular vote for president, regardless of the candidate's results in that state.

It is being promoted as a way of guarding against a repeat of the 2000 election, in which Republican George W. Bush won the Electoral College vote for president despite losing the popular vote to Democrat Al Gore.

Under the present system, voters decide to support slates of "electors," who then meet to choose the president. The Electoral College has 538 members, with a candidate needing a majority of 270 votes to be elected.

News Max.com ~ Associated Press ** Move to Dump Electoral College Defeated in Montana, North Dakota

Posted by yaahoo_ at 5:35 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Mood:  special

Soviet monument to make way for Reagan: report

Opponents of Poland's former communist regime reportedly want to pay a posthumous homage to US President Ronald Reagan by erecting his statue in the place of a Soviet-era monument.

In an open letter to the mayor of the southwestern city of Katowice, the former anti-regime activists said that the staunchly anti-communist Reagan had been a "symbol of liberty," the Polish news agency PAP reported.

As a result, they said, he deserved to become the centrepiece of the city's Freedom Square, replacing a monument to the Soviet troops who drove out the occupying Nazis in 1945.

They also said that they wanted the site to be rebaptised "Ronald Reagan Freedom Square."

City hall spokesman Waldemar Bojarun said that Katowice's councillors would consider the issue.

Bojarun said that he had "enormous respect" for Reagan.

However, he said, the proposal could cost an estimated 500,000 zlotys (128,000 euros, 168,000 dollars) and the city had "other pressing needs."

There are already separate plans to erect a statue in memory of Reagan in the centre of the Polish capital, Warsaw, which would be paid-for from private funds.

Reagan, who dubbed the Soviet Union an "evil empire," is widely credited by Poles with having driven communism to the wall.

The conservative Republican made fighting communism the cornerstone of his 1980-1988 presidency, and backed Poland's Solidarity trade union after it went underground when the regime declared martial law in 1981.

Reagan died in June 2004 at the age of 93.

Breitbart.com ~ Agence France-Presse ** Soviet monument to make way for Reagan: report

Posted by yaahoo_ at 4:40 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Mood:  d'oh

Psychic museum closes unexpectedly

A psychic museum is closing its doors - due to unforeseen circumstances.

Astrologer Jonathan Cainer set up the York Psychic Museum in 2003 but business has been less than expected.

Mr Cainer told the York Press he had handed over the lease, with the intention of making a return in 2008.

He said: "If you are asking me for predictions when exactly it will open up again, then it is hard to say.

"Although I'm in the prediction business, I don't believe you can make predictions about things you are close to."

Mr Cainer said the museum was only seeing 100 people a week through its doors during peak times and, when he reopens, he would like to see that figure at around 100 a day.

Mr Crainer said he had reluctantly concluded the museum would never meet his expectations until he could dedicate more of his own time and energy to it.

Ananova.com UK ** Psychic museum closes unexpectedly

If he's psychic, don't you think he should've seen it coming?

Posted by yaahoo_ at 8:08 AM EST

Updated: Friday, 9 February 2007 8:19 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Mood:  chatty

The Pathology of Liberalism

From the inception of psychology over 100 years ago, conditions such as autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, narcissism and Tourette’s syndrome were thought to be psychological in origin – and that with enough therapy, enough blaming inadequate parenting, enough talk, enough delving into “feelings,” the sufferer could be treated successfully or even cured.

We now know – thanks to tools like PET scans, MRIs, and pharmaceutical advances – that these condition are all biological in nature, more receptive to medications, augmented with behavioral techniques, than to any of the other “therapies” that were inflicted so ineffectually on millions of people over the past many decades.

The scans, in fact, have revealed the specific areas of the brain that give rise to anger, revenge, anxiety, addiction, eating disorders, stuttering, pathological lying, cheating, manipulation, obsessive-compulsive behavior, depressive disorders, even cravings for chocolate!

How do we know these conditions are biological? Because in addition to the fact that medications have treated these mental disorders successfully (for example, Haldol for psychoses, lithium for bipolar disorder, Wellbutrin for depression, and Xanax for anxiety), they have identical symptoms (albeit some more severe than others) in people who are raised in luxury high-rises in Buenos Aires, slums in Los Angeles, kibbutzim in Israel, huts in rain forests, and penthouses in Manhattan. And also in people raised in both happy and dysfunctional homes.

What we also understand is that most intractable mental conditions seem to be genetically driven, rooted in centers of the brain that are still not fully understood. Perhaps this is why political affiliation – with exceptions, of course – seems to run in families.

Liberal Pathology
I suspect that at the core of liberal “thinking” is the same kind of pathology that characterizes other mental disorders, i.e., a glitch in the brain that produces “feelings” and behavior over which liberals have no control.

For instance, liberals are uniformly glum, not only in their grim demeanors and persistent anger, but also in their outlooks. Even in the flush of their midterm victory, they could hardly conceal their endemic rage, in spite of a brief moment of toothy, appliquéd smiles.

This is because their worldview is uniformly negative. When things are good, they see only the bad and invoke the Misery Index cited routinely by Jimmy Carter and resurrected by the dour wannabe president John Kerry. When things could be better, they see only that things could be worse. When their theories are refuted by hard fact, they are unable to process the true from the untrue because their feelings tell them otherwise. For instance:

▪ In an unprecedented stellar economy – with the GDP, employment, housing sales, and consumer confidence up, and inflation, the trade deficit, and crude oil down – liberals see only the “threat” of recession.

▪ In measurable improvement in education, liberals see only “too much testing.”

▪ In the face of 3,000 lives being exterminated by Islamic terrorists on September 11, 2001, liberals see a non-existent threat.

▪ In the Iraq war, which has liberated 25 million people, liberals see, to quote House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “not a war but a situation” and a “catastrophe.”

▪ Worse, the liberals among us see that all of our country’s problems are the fault of, yes, America!

Liberals are Like Children
Liberals, like children, live in a world of utopian dreaminess, clinging to a narrow, circumscribed reality and believing that if everyone would just be nice to each other – let’s talk, let’s chat – all the noisy death threats and pesky suicide bombings would go away, and all those grumpy grownups in the current administration would see the light.

And so they do what children do when they’re mad at grownups. They call names.

▪ Who but an out-of-control child – who didn’t know any better – would compare our heroic fighting troops to Nazis? Liberal Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) did.

▪ Who but a bully of a child would say that the head of his household (in this case his country) was a liar? Liberal Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) did.

▪ Who but a spoiled “princess” would call the leader of her country a failure, a fraud, and incompetent? Liberal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) did.

▪ Who but a snobby and vacuous little brat would badmouth the president on foreign soil while our troops were in harm’s way? Liberal Senator John Kerry (D-MA) did, as did liberal former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

▪ And who but a jealous tomboy would insist, again in a time of war, that the Commander in Chief is the worst president in our nation’s history? Liberal Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has done just that.

All of these children – er, politicians – have gone to great lengths to undermine President Bush, often in foreign countries and always in contradiction to the unspoken but historically honored rule to support a president in time of war – or at least to refrain from insult.

A Rage That Knows No Bounds
Children take things personally. “My father is bigger (stronger, smarter) than your father” is just about intolerable to the average child. “Is not!” “Is too!” is an exchange that inevitably results in either tears or fists. In 2000, when George W. Bush ascended to the presidency, the initial despair of liberals quickly morphed into childlike, irrational anger, which has obsessed them for the past six years.

Not only have they called names, spewed insults and stamped their feet, but they’ve also lined up like-minded friends in the liberal media and leftwing think tanks to do the same. Much worse, they’ve aligned themselves with America’s mortal enemies.

According to Vasko Kohlmayer in World Defense Review, “the affection in which [liberals] are held by our foes is neither unjustified nor surprising. They have more than earned it by systematically subverting this country’s war effort while simultaneously proffering assistance to those who have pledged to destroy us.” Kohlmayer lists some highlights of liberal treachery:

▪ They have tried to prevent us from listening in on terrorists' phone calls

▪ They have sought to stop us from properly interrogating captured terrorists

▪ They have tried to stop us from monitoring terrorists' financial transactions

▪ They have revealed the existence of secret national security programs

▪ They have opposed vital components of the Patriot Act

▪ They have sought to confer unmerited legal rights on terrorists

▪ They have opposed profiling to identify the terrorists in our midst

▪ They have impugned and demeaned our military

▪ They have insinuated that the president is a war criminal

▪ They have forced the resignation of a committed defense secretary

▪ They have repeatedly tried to de-legitimize our war effort

▪ They want to quit the battlefield in the midst of war.

If nothing else proves the rigidity – indeed the pathology – of the liberal brain, it is what Kohlmayer says of liberals today: “Almost all of the current democratic leadership was actively involved in [the Vietnam anti-war] effort. Bill and Hilary Clinton, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Nancy Pelosi were all in one way or another personally engaged in the anti-war movement. And when at last it bore its disastrous fruit, they gloated and danced in the streets. Exhilarated and jubilant, they deemed America's disgrace their finest hour. In their skewed world, America's defeat came to represent their personal triumph.”

Fathoming Liberal Rage
To understand the left’s treasonous rage, it is important to understand that the most cherished value in the life of children (read liberals) is to be “liked” by their peers, a theory that Judith Rich Harris has exhaustively documented in her best-selling and revolutionary book, The Nurture Assumption.

To be liked – according to the evangelical religion of liberalism – is not to engage in conflict, not to fight, not to judge, After all, if you fight with anyone, including Islamic terrorists, they won’t like you. And if you judge them as savages, murderers, enemies of democracy, they will fight you. So don’t judge them and they won’t fight you and everything will be hunky dory. Such are the fantastical fantasies of children (read liberals).

They are fantasies that flourish, says writer Evan Sayet, because liberals are “wedded to the childish philosophy of ‘multiculturalism’ … the fantasy that all cultures are equally good and equally right. It is why liberals “believe we should ‘celebrate diversity,’ as if all differences – say freedom of religion and massacring all infidels – are equally worthy of celebration.”

It is also why liberals, like children, are driven so compulsively by emotion that they simply don’t have the ability to apply rational thought when it comes to George W. Bush. To them, he is still the stronger father to whom they continue to insist: “Is not!”

Rage Trumps Rationality
The reason why liberals have remained so intractably unhinged about President Bush is not because of their ideological differences with his conservatism. It is because of their collective inadequate egos. This is no surprise because children have “developing” egos, not fully-fledged senses of themselves, their places in the world, and their worth. Children are wildly egocentric, seeing themselves as the center of the universe and having no appreciation of the vast world that lies outside their limited awareness. In fact, they echo a saying from the Talmud: “We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are.”

Liberals entertain the conceit that they are quite evolved and superior, both morally and intellectually. In their childlike minds, they are “good” and the people who set limits, demand accountability, expect empirical results, fight their enemies and also make judgments about what is good and bad and right and wrong are “bad.”

But Rabbi Aryeh Spero says that liberals are “morally inferior, given their lack of heartache over what grieves normal people – the actual torture of our soldiers, the real beheadings, the tearing of Israelis limb by limb, and the burning and dragging of American, British, and Israeli half-dead. Their silence shows their amorality; their selectivity proves their concern is not with human dignity but tarnishing their country’s image.” He calls this thinking “a psychological aberration.”

This, again, is no surprise, given that children cannot be expected to have fully actualized moral compasses. Or egos. Which is why it was a mortal wound to the egos of the monumentally egocentric and childlike liberals in our midst that a Southern-drawling, non-King’s-English-speaking Texan could possibly defeat – not once but twice – the collective forces of a hot-air-spewing Al Gore, the Vietnam war traitor John Kerry, and a liberal media of such great numbers that it would not even fit into the vast acreage of Guantanamo Bay!

But liberals are educated, you may say, credentialed, accomplished, smart in all areas of life – business, the arts, medicine, law, even politics. Which only goes to prove what most people know instinctively: Emotion always trumps rationality!

Symptoms of Liberal Pathology
As I’ve mentioned, liberals want to be liked. They believe that if America were not so strong, so powerful, so rich, so successful – so enviable to the rest of the world – things would be better. This is because liberals hate strength and power and wealth and success, except, that is, when they are the beneficiaries! It is interesting to note here that the richest politicians in Congress are liberal Democrats. Think Kennedy, Rockefeller, Reid, Byrd, the list goes on and on.

In our nation’s Mecca of Liberalism, Hollywood, those who announce the Oscars always refuse to say, “And the winner is …” Instead they say, “And the Oscar goes to …” This is because liberals don’t like the concept of winning or losing – someone might feel bad and get angry and pick a fight … and then they won’t like me! In the world of liberalism, it’s always all about me!

Among the many symptoms of liberal pathology is out-of-control anger. When things aren’t going their way, liberals behave much like any child who has not yet learned to debate and so resorts to his or her most primitive emotions. Here’s a very brief sample, provided by conservative columnist JB Williams:

▪ Liberal columnist Jonathan Chait: "I hate President George W. Bush. I hate the way he walks. I hate the way he talks. I even hate the things that everybody seems to like about him."

▪ Liberal DNC Chairman Howard Dean: "I hate Republicans and everything they stand for."

▪ Liberal Michael Moore: "The Patriot Act is as un-American as 'Mein Kampf.'"

▪ Liberal Al Gore: The Bush administration “works closely with a network of 'rapid response' digital brownshirts…”

Simply, the liberals’ childlike rage completely eclipses any semblance of rationality. Their opposition to and obsession with President Bush has frozen the higher centers of their brains, effectively preventing them from ever presenting any intelligent alternative to the domestic and foreign policy strategies they object to, outside of socialist let’s-all-get-together ideas that eliminate capitalism, the competitive spirit, and American exceptionalism.

Raymond S. Kraft, who has written at length about American exceptionalism, cites those who “want an American retreat, defeat, and surrender in Iraq: Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Iran, Muqtada al Sadr, and Osama bin Laden … and America's Democrats.” [Read liberals].

That is why the only liberal “plan” for Iraq is cutting and running. Hillary Clinton spoke for all liberals when she said she “resented” the president’s saying that the next president would have to withdraw troops from Iraq. In essence, she was whining: How dare he inflict me with that adult responsibility?

And on the domestic front, liberals offer no better plan for education than more unions, no better plan for the economy than raising taxes, no better plan for Supreme Court justices than more rule-from-the-bench liberals, and no better plan for healthcare than socialized medicine.

In addition, liberals are intellectually lazy. Like the children they are, their feelings supersede their self-described much-vaunted intellects, rendering them biologically incapable of objective thought or reasoned debate. So controlled are they by the emotional centers of their brains that when President Bush says we must defend our country with every means possible – diplomatic, strategic, and military – liberals figuratively say, or rather screech, “I don’t like those rules, Dad!” and then they have pathological temper tantrums.

Another symptom of liberal pathology is a deep identification with “victims,” who to liberals are all women, all African-Americans, all Hispanics, all union members, and all denizens of Third World countries, as well as anyone else they perceive as being either “victimized” by big, bad corporate America or by those subscribing to conservative ideology.

This is because suffering, or perceived suffering, animates them, makes them feel useful, like saviors, and, of course, “good.” The most dramatic example of this symptom is the left’s unanimous embrace and support of Israel when that fledgling state was born in 1948, comprising largely the bedraggled, starving, half-dead Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. When Israel won her first war against seven Arab states, liberals cheered for little David against Goliath.

But then Israel began to flourish, to prosper, to develop superior military and intelligence systems, to thrive as a capitalist society – in fact, to resemble America in ways that offended leftists, who historically have loathed anything resembling strength, because strong people are not victims!

And so today, when Israel is once again under siege, assailed by a new wave of international anti-Semitism, surrounded by sworn enemies and threatened by Iran with annihilation, American liberals are thunderingly silent.

Yet another symptom of liberal pathology is childlike insecurity. Adults, to be sure, have insecurities and go about dealing with them in adult ways, for instance taking courses or acquiring skills to become more proficient in this or that area. But adults don’t routinely ask 100 people what they think before making a decision, then act on that collective decision, then change their minds if they get a different consensus based on another 100 opinions.

Liberals do! In fact, wasn’t it Bill Clinton who elevated polling to an art form? Wasn’t it John Kerry who placed the word “flip-flopping” into the lexicon? And isn’t it Hillary Clinton who in a recent two-day time span told different audiences that (1) she was, in essence, a dove who would "end the war" in Iraq if she were elected president, and (2) she was, in essence, a hawk, who thought that Iran "cannot be allowed" to acquire nuclear weapons and that we “shouldn’t take any option off the table”?

Diagnosing Liberal Pathology
In what he calls the psychopathology of the liberal mind, Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., M.D., a psychiatrist and the author of The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness,” says:

“In his determination to control the world, [the liberal] constantly defends himself against what Karen Horney aptly described as the most basic of human fears: being alone and helpless in a dangerous, indifferent world, the nightmare of the abandoned, terrified child. Persons plagued with such fears easily conclude that it is in their greatest interest to dominate others, or to imagine that they can, and to set about achieving that goal through the manipulation of government power.”

And what does this domination and manipulation lead to? Rossiter says it is nothing less than the “liberal agenda’s principles of coercive collectivism [in which] the citizen’s choices will be influenced by ideals of entitlement, welfare dependency, state regulation [and] moral relativism.”

The liberal, Rossiter adds, is “not called to maturity but is instead invited to begin a second childhood. Like the child at play, he is given, or at least promised, ultimate economic, social and political security without having to assume responsibility for himself.”

Rossiter’s “diagnoses” complement those found in the diagnostic and statistical manual (DSM-IV) of the American Psychiatric Association.

In narcissistic personality disorder, people feel they are special and therefore entitled to the things they want at the exact moment they want them. When denied, narcissists become irrationally angry and lash out with personal attacks. But because they crave adulation, they can become irresistibly charming in the very next minute.

Sound familiar? For eight long years, President “I feel your pain” Clinton failed to pass a law to provide senior citizens with prescription drug relief, failed to muster up the morality to pass a law banning third-trimester abortions that kill fully formed babies on the very verge of birth, failed to free the black people in this country from the slavery of welfare until a Republican Congress accomplished this sea change in America’s landscape. But he did not fail cut and run from Somalia, bomb an aspirin factory or wage an air war against people who were no threat to the United States, or to ignore numerous Al Qaeda attacks on our country and throughout the world, effectively setting the stage for the devastation of September 11.

Narcissism, in fact, is at the root of liberals’ embrace of abortion. While “power to the powerless” is their anthem, no legislation has ever been more passionately embraced than the abortion-on-demand law of 1973 that allows all “caring” liberals to kill the most powerless among us. Of course, this does not conflict with their horror at the deaths of minks, because in their minds these rodents are already here while developing embryos – with heartbeats and nervous systems, eyes and ears – are simply “tissue.” Nor does it conflict with their horror at “civilian” deaths, even when they result inadvertently from American military forces.

Borderline personality disorder is characterized by a complete inability to tolerate the gray complexion of life – or politics. Liberals always cast those who disagree with them in stark shades of black and white and often resort to “scorched earth” retaliation. They also go out of their way to conceal the fact that, like other sociopaths, they have no consciences and no remorse – except for the likes of minks, of course.

Such is the nature of liberals, whose identification with and empathy for our enemies is a hopeless muddle of self-congratulatory “understanding” and hatred of authority. Instead of seeing the epic struggle we are now engaged in as an opportunity to stand with America for the spread of freedom and for defeating our enemies, liberals choose to stand against everything that is good and great and exceptional about our country.

To most people, this is self-defeating, irrational, even dangerous behavior. But remember, that’s how some children are! However, when fully grown adults act this way, in spite of the fact that they’re fixated between the ages of 6 and 12, such behavior is not only treasonous, it’s also pathological.

So the next time you’re watching or listening to a liberal, observe the symptoms I’ve mentioned. Note the anger, the pessimism, the negativity, the name-calling, the bursts of rage, the gratuitous insults, the desire to present an image of “goodness,” the transparent attempt to be liked, the willingness to change an opinion if the old one isn’t polling well, and the eagerness to placate our enemies, the better to avoid a fight so that those enemies will “like” us.

Ask yourself: Is this behavior different in any way from a child’s behavior? Then ask yourself: Do I want a child to be the President of the United States and the Commander in Chief in a time of war?

Joan Swirsky [Archive] is a New York-based author and journalist who has been a longtime health-and-science and feature writer for The New York Times Long Island section. She is the recipient of seven Long Island Press Awards.
New Media Journal.us ~ Joan Swirsky ** The Pathology of Liberalism

Posted by yaahoo_ at 12:01 AM EST

Updated: Friday, 9 February 2007 6:59 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Mood:  silly

They don't call it the velvet brick for nothing...

Sleep medication linked to bizarre behaviour

New evidence has linked a commonly prescribed sleep medication with bizarre behaviours, including a case in which a woman painted her front door in her sleep.

UK and Australian health agencies have released information about 240 cases of odd occurrences, including sleepwalking, amnesia and hallucinations among people taking the drug zolpidem.

While doctors say that zolpidem can offer much-needed relief for people with sleep disorders, they caution that these newly reported cases should prompt a closer look at its possible side effects.

Zolpidem, sold under the brand names Ambien, Stilnoct and Stilnox, is widely prescribed to treat insomnia and other disorders such as sleep apnea. Various forms of the drug, made by French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis, were prescribed 674,500 times in 2005 in the UK.

A newly published report from Australia’s Federal Health Department describes 104 cases of hallucinations and 62 cases of amnesia experienced by people taking zolpidem since marketing of the drug began there in 2000. The health department report also mentioned 16 cases of strange sleepwalking by people taking the medication.

Midnight snack
In one of these sleepwalking cases a patient woke with a paintbrush in her hand after painting the front door to her house. Another case involved a woman who gained 23 kilograms over seven months while taking zolpidem. “It was only when she was discovered in front of an open refrigerator while asleep that the problem was resolved,” according to the report.

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, meanwhile, has recorded 68 cases of adverse reactions to zolpidem from 2001 to 2005.

The newly reported cases in the UK and Australia add to a growing list of bizarre sleepwalking episodes linked to the drug in other countries, including reports of people sleep-driving while on the medication. In one case, a transatlantic flight had to be diverted after a passenger caused havoc after taking zolpidem.

Hypnotic effects
There is no biological pathway that has been proven to connect zolpidem with these behaviours. The drug is a benzodiazepine-like hypnotic that promotes deep sleep by interacting with brain receptors for a chemical called gamma-aminobutyric acid. While parts of the brain become less active during deep sleep, the body can still move, making sleepwalking a possibility.

The product information for prescribers advises that psychiatric adverse effects, including hallucinations, sleepwalking and nightmares, are more likely in the elderly, and treatment should be stopped if they occur.

Patient advocacy groups say they would like government health agencies and drug companies to take a closer look at the possible risks associated with sleep medicines. They stress that strange sleepwalking and sleep-driving behaviours can have risky consequences.

“When people do something in which they’re not in full control it’s always a danger,” says Vera Sharav of the New York-based Alliance for Human Research Protection, a US network that advocates responsible and ethical medical research practices.

Tried and tested
“The more reports that come out about the potential side effects of the drug, the more research needs to be done to understand if these are real side effects,” says sleep researcher Kenneth Wright at the University of Colorado in Boulder, US.

Millions of people have taken the drug without experiencing any strange side effects, points out Richard Millman at Brown Medical School, director of the Sleep Disorders Center of Lifespan Hospitals in Providence, Rhode Island, US. He says that unlike older types of sleep medications, zolpidem does not carry as great a risk of addiction.

And Wright notes that some of the reports of “sleep-driving” linked to zolpidem can be easily explained: some patients have wrongly taken the drug right before leaving work in hopes that the medicine will kick in by the time they reach home. Doctors stress that the medication should be taken just before going to bed.

The US Food and Drug Administration says it is continuing to "actively investigate" and collect information about cases linking zolpidem to unusual side effects.

The Ambien label currently lists strange behaviour as a “special concern” for people taking the drug. “It’s a possible rare adverse event,” says Sanofi-Aventis spokesperson Melissa Feltmann, adding that the strange sleepwalking behaviours “may not necessarily be caused by the drug” but instead result from an underlying disorder. She says that “the safety profile [of zolpidem] is well established”. The drug received approval in the US in 1993.

New Scientist.com News Srvc ~ Roxanne Khamsi ** Sleep medication linked to bizarre behaviour

Posted by yaahoo_ at 12:01 AM EST

Updated: Friday, 9 February 2007 4:07 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Mood:  chatty

History Shows Some Startling Similarities

I found this interesting letter on a website, that
appears to be dormant now, so I'm not sure of the year it was written.
Respondent's comments are in blue.

Washington Times - Letters to the Editor, June 7

Arlington, VA -- During the past several months in the American press, the Democrats have frequently denounced the Republicans as Nazis due to their attempts to control runaway federal spending. How very ironic. I remember the Nazis. Let me share a little about them and recall some of their exploits.

First of all, "Nazi" was gutter slang for the verb "to nationalize". The Bider-Mienhoff gang gave themselves this moniker during their early struggles. The official title of the Nazi Party was "The National Socialist Workers Party of Germany". Hitler and the Brownshirts advocated the nationalization of education, health care, transportation, national resources, manufacturing, distribution and law enforcement.
That sounds like much of what the Democrats are trying to do as well. If not directly nationalize, then gain control.

Hitler came to power by turning the working class, unemployed, and academic elite against the conservative republic. After Der Fuhrer's election ceased being a political conspiracy and was transformed into a fashionable social phenomenon, party membership was especially popular with educators, bureaucrats, and the press.
Again, the Democratic party sounds amazingly like the Nazi Party, doesn't it? The elitists love to gather around the Democrats, just like they did around the Nazis.

Being a Nazi was "politically correct". They called themselves "The Children of the New Age of World Order" and looked down their noses at everyone else. As Hitler acquired more power, he referred to his critics as "The Dark Forces of Anarchy and Hatred". Anyone who questioned Nazi high-handedness in the German press was branded a "Conservative Reactionary". Joseph Goebbels, minister of communications, proclaimed a "New World Order".
WOW! This sounds just like the Dems! If you dare to oppose them, or even to disagree with them, they brand you with nasty names. Some things never change, it seems.

When the Policia Bewakken, or local police, refused to take away guns from townsfolk, they themselves were disarmed and dragged out into the street and shot to death by the S.A. and the S.S. Those were Nazi versions of the B.A.T.F. and the F.B.I. When several local ministers spoke out against these atrocities, they were imprisoned and never seen again.
It hasn't happened here. Yet. I doubt that if it comes to this, the government will summarily execute "offenders". That would be going to far, even for them.

The Gestapo began to confiscate and seize the homes, businesses, bank accounts, and personal belongings of wealthy conservative citizens who had prospered in the old Republic. Pamphleteers who urged revolt against the Nazis were shot on site by national law enforcement and the military. Gypsies and Jews were detained and sent to labor camps. Mountain roads throughout central Europe were closed to prevent the escape of fugitives into the wilderness, and to prevent the movement and concealment of partisan resistance fighters.
Some of this has already occurred. At least the seizures and confiscations of property. And sometimes closure of roads in areas where these militia groups operated.

Public schools rewrote history and Hitler youth groups taught the children to report their parents to their teachers for anti-Nazi remarks. Such parents disappeared. Pagan animism became the state religion of the Third Reich and Christians were widely condemned as "right wing fanatics".
Again, the similarities are startling. Except for reporting parents for anti-Democrat remarks. That's yet to come. But the rest of it has pretty much already come to pass, except for the pagan animism, which has been replaced with New Age humanism.

Millions of books were burned first and then people. Millions of them burned in huge ovens after they were first gassed to death. Unmarried women were paid large sums of money to have babies out of wedlock and then given medals for it. Evil was declared as being good, and good was condemned as being evil. World Order was coming and the German people were going to be the "peacekeepers".
Okay, I truly doubt that the Democrats have the stomach to commit mass murder/genocide, because they know that to even attempt that would lead to their utter destruction. Even most LSD's would rise up against them if they tried it. Abortion has replaced having 'pure Aryan babies", and almost every social ill in this country can be laid at the feet of the liberal left. The real shame of all of this is that the LSD's have a far more effective propaganda machine that conservatives do.

Yes, indeed, the true history of the Nazis -- and they weren't Republicans, or "right wing", or "patriots" or "militias". They were Socialist monsters.

-- Thomas Colton Ruthford
• COMPLETE ARTICLE

Demented-crats think that the greatest enemy is here at home. Libtards' greatest enemies are fellow Americans -- not radicals or dictators from foreign nations.

Posted by yaahoo_ at 1:02 AM EST

Updated: Tuesday, 6 February 2007 3:02 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Mood:  caffeinated

Sexpresso coffee shops take Seattle by storm

At the Sweet Spot Cafe in the northern suburbs of Seattle, you get more than a foam topping on your cappucino. You get a waitress in a bikini, or maybe a tight-fitting T-shirt, and a choice of drinks with names such as Wet Dream (with caramel and white chocolate), Sexual Mix (a caramel macchiato) or Erotic Pleasure.

South of the city, in Tukwila, the baristas at Cowgirls Espresso wear sheer negligees and visible pink panties. It's the same story in any number of other suburban bars and drive-through stands, like the Natte Latte in Port Orchard or Moka Girls in Auburn - bikinis, racy lingerie, fetish clothing, and plenty of suggestively exposed flesh.

At Best Friend Espresso in Kenmore, at the northern end of Lake Washington, the outfits take their inspiration from Playboy-style sex fantasies. The staff will go for the naughty schoolgirl look one week, then don black-framed glasses the next to look like sexy secretaries.

Welcome to "sexpresso" --  the latest coffee fad to hit America, in which the country's seemingly boundless fascination for Italian-style Java is combined with its equally boundless fascination for half-naked women.

Seattle may not be the first American city to come to mind when it comes to the pleasures of the flesh, but it is super-saturated with coffee stands, all of which are battling each other - and the mighty, locally based behemoth that is Starbucks - to give morning commuters an extra reason to stop off at their particular establishment.

"Here on Aurora Avenue, there's a drive-through every 20 blocks. You have to do something to stand out," said Sarah Araujo, owner of The Sweet Spot. Ms Araujo brainstormed with her customers to come up with something new and different when she bought the cafe - then called Aurora Espresso - a couple of years ago.

Not only did her staff start removing clothing and giving suggestive new names to the drinks, they also started doing theme days - Tube Top Tuesdays, Wet T-Shirt Wednesdays and Fantasy Fridays.

The plastic coffee cups are indistinguishable in shape from those sold in any other coffee shop in north America. But they are decorated with the silhouette of a busty naked woman carrying a steaming mug of "Joe". The lid is sealed with a pink lipstick kiss.

During the summer, when the persistent Seattle rain finally lifts and the Pacific Northwest enjoys a few months of real sunshine, The Sweet Spot organises bikini car washes and takes care to post the most suggestive photographs on its website. This year, the cafe is planning a barista calendar.

Coming with a theme for a coffee bar is nothing new in America. In Los Angeles, there are cafes where you can buy second-hand books, get cut-price legal advice, throw pots, or listen to really, really bad live music provided by local bands. Strangely, nobody until now has thought of combining coffee with sex.

Ms Araujo and others say it has given an unmistakable boost to their businesses. Their staff may only receive minimum wage, but the tips can be terrific.

"Our customers may be half-asleep when they get here, but we do what it takes to wake them up," said Ms Araujo. "They always say: 'Thanks for the great cup of coffee and the smile; it made my day'."

Some local puritans have expressed disquiet - and railed at The Seattle Times newspaper after it ran a feature on the sexpresso trend 10 days ago. But law enforcement officials say there is nothing illegal about wearing scanty clothing, so the trend is almost certain to keep spreading.

Even Seattle, though, has its limits. Sexy underwear is all very well, but the city hardly has the climate of French Polynesia.

"We're not in bikinis right now," Ms Araujo conceded in the murky early hours of yesterday. "We're going more for miniskirts and boots. It's pretty cold up here."

UK Independent ~ Andrew Gumbel ** Sexpresso coffee shops take Seattle by storm
Also at: Seattle Times ~ Amy Roe ** Some coffee stands get steamier

Yeah, "Sexpresso" coffee shops might take ONE SIDE of Seattle by storm, but on the other side of NorthWest Libtard Land this week... Drug Resistant HIV Strain Spreading in Seattle.

Posted by yaahoo_ at 7:55 PM EST

Updated: Monday, 5 February 2007 8:03 PM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Mood:  d'oh

Seattle, Mike Webb Fraud Trial Conviction, KIRO 710

ENDLESS AND NEEDLESS

Host's Conviction Won't Prevent More Foolishness

After any significant legal setback resulting from criminal charges, at what point is it time to take one's lumps and move on to life's next chapter?

While most people seem to have an intuitive sense about when to quit fighting and accept their impending punishment, a few others simply don't know when to throw in the towel.

Famously, Martha Stewart handled this very well, choosing to fast- track prison rather than prolong the damage to her personal life and career.

On the other extreme lies former KIRO / Seattle liberal talk host Mike Webb, who seems determined to fight his way into increasing levels of trouble.

Newly convicted of insurance fraud (see full coverage at Blatherwatch, the Seattle Times and Seattle Post- Intelligencer), Webb vows to press on, despite a very light sentence (community service and restitution) and the overwhelming evidence against him.

We've covered this mess for a long time and have continually been amazed at how it has dragged along. While a KIRO host, your Radio Equalizer worked with him. For the full background on Webb's troubles, see this 2006 Seattle Weekly cover story.

Every aspect of this twisted tale is fascinating, from his strange ability to keep his job despite increasingly- inappropriate workplace antics, to how the car accident that led to charges actually occurred (Webb often drove to a convenience store for snacks during station breaks and was struck by another vehicle during one of these mad dashes) and his outrageous courtroom behavior that first led to a mistrial.

Now, his unbelievably stubborn inability to admit what he's done and move on has added a new chapter to this ongoing story of a talk host's sad self- destruction. As a newly- convicted felon, what's next for Mike Webb?

Technorati tags: talk radio seattle mike webb conviction mike webb trial blatherwatch seattle weekly seattle post-intelligencer seattle times kiro 710 am washington state
mike webb insurance fraud

The Radio Equalizer ~ Brian Maloney ** Seattle, Mike Webb Fraud Trial Conviction, KIRO 710

Posted by yaahoo_ at 6:56 AM EST

Updated: Monday, 5 February 2007 7:21 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

Mood:  chatty

Democrats Seek Unpaid Taxes, Setting Up Clash

By Edmund L. Andrews

WASHINGTON -- Congressional Democrats, hoping to finance an ambitious agenda without raising taxes, are on a collision course with the Bush administration about pursuing the potentially vast amount of money that people hide from the Internal Revenue Service.

House and Senate Democrats say the government could collect as much as $100 billion more a year by whittling the tax gap -- the unpaid taxes, mostly on unreported earnings, that the I.R.S. estimated was about $300 billion a year.

But the Treasury Department, which oversees the I.R.S., says it cannot realistically recover one-tenth as much as Democrats suggest.

On Monday, as part of President Bush’s budget proposal, the Treasury Department will unveil more than a dozen proposals to pursue tax cheats. But officials said those ideas would bring in less than $10 billion a year in extra revenue.

Mark W. Everson, the I.R.S. commissioner, has expressed far greater optimism. At a hearing of the Senate Budget Committee a year ago, he told lawmakers that the government could recover “between $50 billion and $100 billion without changing the dynamic between the I.R.S. and the people.”

Recouping unpaid taxes is a perennial concern in Washington. But the issue may have new urgency with the Democrats now in power and driving the considerable momentum behind it. Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, has cited the tax gap as a top priority for increasing revenue, ahead of any discussion about rolling back President Bush’s tax cuts.

Democrats badly want the money because they have adopted strict “pay as you go” budgeting rules that require Congress to pay for any new programs or tax cuts with revenue from other areas.

“The tax gap is the logical place to go,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel, Democrat of Illinois and chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “It’s also the fair thing to do. When you have a number as high as $300 billion in unreported and uncollected income taxes, that puts a burden on everybody.”

Administration officials contend that Democrats have exaggerated the amount of money they can recover.

“At this point we have to do more research to understand where this money is,” said Michele Davis, a Treasury Department spokeswoman. “We are very mindful of the compliance burden on taxpayers who do follow the law.”

The Democrats have offered only a few specific proposals, and lawmakers have conspicuously refused to comment about proposals that could raise money but also provoke a political reaction from legions of self-employed people and family businesses.

Based on an analysis of audited tax returns from 2001, the I.R.S. recently estimated that the government lost $290 billion that year as a result of underreporting and underpayment of taxes.

More than 80 percent of that loss stemmed from underreporting by individuals, not corporations.

And the biggest problems were with people in business for themselves, who earned income that was not reported to the I.R.S. on W-2 forms or on the Form 1099 that businesses file when they pay independent contractors.

The I.R.S. estimated that it lost $109 billion on unreported business income, almost all of that from sole proprietors, like painters, plumbers, dry cleaners, florists, limousine drivers and restaurant owners.

Small-business lobbying groups have begun to mobilize against proposals intended to reduce the tax gap.

Two of the biggest trade associations in Washington, the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business, organized the Coalition for Fairness in Tax Compliance in December to address lawmakers about proposals that might burden law-abiding business owners.

“I’m focused on avoiding the wrong solutions,” said Macey Davis, tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents more than 600,000 small companies, half of which have fewer than five employees. “We’re not out to protect noncompliance. We’re out to protect those who are compliant and whose businesses could be hurt.”

Small-business groups have provided powerful support to President Bush and to Republican lawmakers. But they are poised to fight at least one proposal by the Treasury Department, which would authorize the I.R.S. to obtain information about a business’s revenues from credit card companies.

The proposal would allow the I.R.S. to compare the credit card payments made to a business with the revenues the business owner reports on his or her tax return. If the credit card payments were suspiciously high compared with what the business owner reported to the government, the I.R.S. could begin an audit.

Opponents of the proposal contend that it would catch very little wrong-doing because it would not examine payments made in cash or by check. They warn that it could have disruptive side effects on business operations. (A similar idea proposed by the Bush administration last year received virtually no attention from the Republican-led Congress.)

The Democrats’ biggest obstacle is that the tax gap is in some ways as amorphous as “waste, fraud and abuse” -- everyone is against it, but no one is sure how to go about dealing with it. Many tax experts agree that increasing compliance would require an array of tactics, from increased auditing to tougher reporting requirements, to address scores of different practices.

Many such efforts would probably prompt political resistance, whether from small-business lobbying groups or from the credit card companies that might be ordered to provide the I.R.S. with transaction data at no charge. And some efforts may not yield much extra revenue. Another proposal that could lead to organized political opposition is a plan to crack down on investors who understate their profits when selling stocks.

The I.R.S. estimated that it lost about $11 billion in 2001 from people who understated their capital gains after selling stock. According to the agency’s review of tax returns that year, a year when the stock market was plunging and losses were more common than gains, about 38 percent of all people underreported their capital gains.

The problem, I.R.S. officials said, is that brokerage firms report only how much money a person receives from the sale of stock, not how much the person paid for it. Without an audit, the government has no way of verifying the profits that people report.

Nina Olson, the I.R.S.’s independent taxpayer advocate, has proposed that Congress require brokerage firms to report a person’s purchase cost as well as sales proceeds to the government. Mr. Emanuel has introduced a bill based on the idea.

The Bush administration is also planning to ask Congress to provide more money for enforcement efforts, including money for more auditors. But the I.R.S. currently audits fewer than one out of 435 tax returns. Doubling the number of auditors would mean that the I.R.S. would still audit less than 1 percent of all returns.

Democratic lawmakers contend that the Bush administration has been dragging its feet on efforts to track down underreporting.

“I know they can’t recover every dollar of the tax gap, but the I.R.S. needs to make an aggressive effort, and an honest one,” said Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee. “Treasury shouldn’t lowball their estimate.”

But in an interview last week, Mr. Baucus declined to propose any of his own ideas for reducing cheating. “I’m leaving it up to them,” he said, referring to the Treasury Department.

Some Treasury officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because President Bush had not announced his proposals, said that Democrats had exaggerated the amount of money they could recover. But in his testimony before the Senate budget committee last February, Mr. Everson said the government could recover much more than it has been collecting.

“What we’ve said is, between now and 2009, we want to get the compliance rate from 83.5 percent to 85 percent,” Mr. Everson said. “That gets you about $30 billion in improved compliance.”

Ms. Olson, the I.R.S. taxpayer advocate, said it was not implausible to recover something in the neighborhood of $100 billion a year.

“There’s no silver bullet,” Ms. Olson cautioned, noting that the government had to use an array of tactics to address scores of different compliance problems. But she added, “I think there’s a significant amount of money that’s left on the table and that’s not hard to recover.”

NY Times ~ Edmund L. Andrews ** Democrats Seek Unpaid Taxes, Setting Up Clash

Related: Latest from the Breck Girl... John "Two Americas" Edwards: 'We'll have to aise taxes for healthcare'
Reuters ** Edwards: raise taxes for healthcare --- Also at:
Yahoo News ~ Reuters ** Edwards: raise taxes for healthcare

So... Will this include illegal aliens and those that employ them? If so, I'm all for it. (But I'm not holding my breath.)

But having little faith in the democrats I see this plan as nothing more then a shakedown of all taxpayers and another "repeal Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans who don't pay their fair share" bullshit attack.

Heaven forbid demented-crats just fight to lower taxes on EVERYONE and build tax revenues the tried and true way that ALWAYS WORKS!!!

Posted by yaahoo_ at 3:40 AM EST

Updated: Monday, 5 February 2007 5:42 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink