And so the shit hits the fan

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

You must've all heard about it by now. The Guardian and WashPo already blew the whistle about this top-secret surveillance program that provided the NSA with access to user data on the servers of companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Skype, Youtube, Apple, Dropbox, etc, etc. Some of those have been involved in the program for years (Microsoft since 2007, Apple a bit more recently). Curiously, Twitter is absent from the list.

Most of them of course hastened to come out with statements denying any knowledge of this PRISM program, like for example Apple:

"We have never heard of PRISM. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order."

Their VP Al Gore tweeted:

"In digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?"

( This looks more beautiful, the more you look into it )

The Politics of Neuromania: Under the Hood of the Psychiatric Machine‏

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The movie Quills presents us with a fictional perspective on the state of the psychiatric profession under the reign of Emperor Napoleon. Michael Caine plays a criminally insane alienist (the old word for psychiatrist) who takes over an asylum run by clerics. He proceeds to convert the asylum into a modern "scientific" madhouse. In his efforts to "treat" a popular pornographer, he drives the man further into the depths of depravity.

The movie is a darkly comic caricature of the psychiatric profession, but it contains a kernel of truth. Mental asylums were places of both voluntary retreat and involuntary incarceration. The latter role too frequently served the interests of members of the landed gentry who desired to rid themselves of bothersome spouses. A woman who grew belligerent over her husband's philandering could find herself confined in such a facility.

The casual observer might say, "But things are so much different today. The excesses of the past no longer occur." That is right. The formerly "hysterical" spouse is now seen as suffering from a "medical" condition that must be treated "humanely" and with sympathy. It is not her husband's philandering that caused her outburst but a "chemical imbalance." Once she has agreed to a strict regimen of sedatives she can see her children again. In the mean time her husband has legally separated her from her share of the family assets. Things are far better today than they were back in the dark ages of the back ward and the dunking chair. Pharmaceutical manufacturers have even figured our how to reduce the more obvious symptoms of brain damage caused by their crippling sedatives. Oh, the miracles of modern science!

Neural scientists have studied the effects of stress on the biochemistry of the nervous system to the point that they recognize distinct biochemical changes in the nervous system that take a significant amount of time to wear off. The psychiatric manual, DSM IV, mentions stressors as possible causes for certain mental conditions. Despite these understandings psychiatrists insist on "stabilizing" a stressed out patient with addictive drugs that are known to permanently modify the patient's nervous system in a deleterious way. Rather than informing the patient that their condition will dissipate naturally after stress reduction, psychiatrists treat the patient in a way that can be quite stressful until the patient either agrees to drugs or is so stressed out that she can be declared legally incompetent and forced into drug addiction.

It is a simple machine and it works quite well to the profit of some at the expense of others.

Do you see this as a humane way to "treat" people when they go through a difficult transition? Do you agree that it is perfectly legitimate for a spouse to defraud his or her children of their rights to contact with their other parent using the practice of psychiatry? Would a rational public health policy have a place for a reformed psychiatry, or will the profession go the way of the dodo bird?

Links: Trailer for the movie Quills. Francisco Mora, et al, on the physiology of stress. Robert Whitaker on Psychiatric history in the US. Erving Goffman on the state of psychiatry before the Szasz reforms. Christoph Correll, et al, on the reduced risk of overt brain damage symptoms with newer psyche drugs.

"Obama administration begins training homosexual activists around the world" (c)

[papasha-mueller.livejournal.com]

I guess, they know what they do, though, I admit, I'd love to have a look down at their business plan...

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/obama-administration-begins-training-homosexual-activists-around-the-world

I take that at least some members of this group are from countries, where gay marriage is already adopted or is just about to be. And some support it, too.

I just wonder if anybody can tell me why man marrying another man is better than a man marrying a donkey. Or why marrying man is OK and marrying a child is prohibited. Or how did it happen that two women can make up a family, joining efforts to raise a child. Well, I mean why two and not three or four - we easily can see that three or four women can spend better efforts?

Why we need marriage at all - today genetic engineering, sperm banks, surrogate 'mothership' et al are all available and make a family of ONE possible...

Anyone from Obama regime, sorry, administration around to clarify?


UPDATE.

Folks, willya please stop bullshitting about 'consent'?
A donkey may eeyor or just wave his tail, it's a matter whether priests and layers take it as a sign of consent, as they do take a nod from human being...

Okay, you animal and children-haters.
Can man marry computer? It DOES have intelligence, it plays chess and strip poker better than human being.
It can express the consent you're in search for, you just ask..
And I AM taking care of it; I install all software upgrades and pay electricity bills.