Top Ten Violence Inducing Drugs

A survey of the FDA adverse reactions database has produced a list of the top ten prescription drugs linked to violent behavior. You can see the list here: Study reveals top ten violence-inducing prescription drugs.

Not surprisingly the majority of the top ten are anti-depressants and all but one of the rest are psychiatric or psychiatric type drugs.

So next time you see an ad for the latest wonder drug that will save you from some terrible mental problem (addiction to cigarettes, depression, ADHD, etc.) realize that it's an ad. It's not reality. The reality is the FDA adverse reactions database.

Trouble with Google

This is bad news and possible good news at the same time.

Google has a virtual monopoly on search. One sign of this is that there are people who blog exclusively about how to SEO Google and ignore everyone else because "everyone else" has such a low market share.

But last year, Google's search results began to deteriorate and it has been noticed: Trouble In the House of Google.

I sort of noticed it myself because a month or so ago I got fed up with not finding what I wanted on Google and I switched to Bing as my primary search provider.

So on the one hand, it is bad news that search results from "the" search engine are deteriorating but on the other hand maybe it will mean the end of the Google monopoly and the start of more options. Personally I'd like to see more choices.

Invictus

I just saw the movie Invictus. The name is Latin for "unconquered, unconquerable, undefeated" and is the title of the very inspiring poem that helped Nelson Mandela survive 30 years of imprisonment by the apartheid regime in South Africa. The movie is very inspiring also.

I knew that Nelson Mandela was a remarkable man, but after seeing this movie I realize that he is not only an amazing statesman but also an incredible human being.

For me, one line in particular from the movie sums up Nelson Mandela: The night after visiting the prison where Mandela was held for 30 years and seeing the tiny cell he lived in and the yard where he did hard labor, the captain of the South African Rugby Team is staring out of his hotel window when his wife asks him what he is thinking about and he says, "I was thinking how a man could spend thirty years in prison, and come out and forgive the men who did it to him..."

I highly recommend the movie.

Oh, and the poem, Invictus:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley 1849 - 1902

Big Pharma is lower key, but still in control at Psychiatric Convention

As reported in the article, No Free Pens But Pharma Influence Still Felt at Psychiatric Meeting, Big Pharma is trying to be less noticeable, but is still in control of the psychiatric industry.

Google getting in more trouble over privacy violations

I'm not particularly anti-Google, but when a for-profit company tries to put itself forward as primarily a public benefit entity, then I don't like it.

For many years the persona that has been promoted for Google has been one of anti-corporate and pro-user. They try to make themselves seem like "one of the boys". But the truth is that Google is in it for the money. An alarming example of this is the personal data harvesting activities that the Google Maps Street Scenes photographing cars were engaged in. Many countries around the world are now investigating Google for this.

So don't fall for it. If a company wants to be a public benefit entity then they need to change to a non-profit status and act accordingly.

Google's Wi-Fi data harvest facing more probes, lawsuits

And you thought "Men who stare at goats" was bad

The movie "Men who stare at goats" was not very good. It had great potential - based on a true story of the military trying out "psychic warriors" - but it never delivered on the humor. However, we find that reality - what the military and the CIA were really up to - is even weirder and far worse than anything in the movie.

New documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that "human experiments … not easily justifiable on medical-therapeutic grounds" were not a problem for the CIA and its willing accomplices in the psychiatric community. Experimenting on unwitting subjects? No problemo. Pentagon officials are said to have “work[ed] directly with the CIA” and dosed “thousands” of military subjects with LSD and other drugs.

And what has changed to make us think they ever stopped?

Read more at: Chemical Concussions and Secret LSD: Pentagon Details Cold War Mind-Control Tests

Don't get complacent about Privacy

Google is in the news again for privacy violations. Seems their cars that went around photographing your neighborhood so they could show them on Google Maps were also recording your personal Wi-Fi traffic.

Now that they have been found out they are very apologetic, but the point is that they did it.

It just goes to show that you can't relax when it come to privacy on the Internet. And you can't regard any company as totally trustworthy.

Google apologizes for grabbing personal info off of Wi-Fi networks

How to screw up a scientific study

All too often the media publicizes the findings of a study without any sort of thought or logical analysis. A scientist says "this study shows that ..." and the press mindlessly repeats it. Never mind that the interpretation of the data is incorrect, a scientist said it, therefore it is gospel.

It reminds me of the middle ages where anything a priest said was blindly believed.

What this is all leading to is my comment on the recent idiotic media reports that fruits and vegetables provide only modest protection from cancer. Despite 50 years of research and over 15,000 studies that prove that fruits and vegetables provide major protection from cancer, a single, poorly executed and poorly interpreted study says otherwise and the media trumpets it. It just goes to show that you really have to pay attention and question everything.

For an accurate analysis of that recent study: Fruits and vegetables provide only modest protection from cancer?

Food: Healthy or Unhealthy

Which foods promote health and which don't? Here is an article that gives you some accurate, science based data. I think you will be surprised.

What are true health-promoting and disease-promoting foods?

The big question: Organic or Conventional?

Some people swear by organic produce, others say there is little or no difference between organic and conventional. Here is an article that helps clarify the issue: Which foods should we buy organic?