Are Your Children Crazy?

Here's an excellent and amusing article by Jane Orient, M.D., entitled: Are your children crazy?

I won't tell you the answer to her question, but you may well be informed that they ARE crazy (by a stranger you've never met) and that YOU are mandated to provide them with mandatory prescription psychotropic drugs for their craziness, if the mental health screening to implement the "New Freedom" mental health initiative is ever put in force. Are your kids a little behind on their math? Well, that's obviously "Math Disorder" from the psychiatric "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual" (DSM IV). You'd think by its inclusion in the DSM that Math Disorder is some disease of the brain that can be cured with one of the wonder drugs you see advertised constantly on television. But no - it turns out that the psychiatrists just used a "show of hands" to vote "Math Disorder" into existence as a disease and insert it into the DSM. That's how they add and subtract all mental illnesses from their diagnostic bible. For many years homosexuality was classified as a "mental disease" by the DSM, until the Gay lobby persuaded the psychiatrists to vote it out of the book.

It only makes sense when you learn that psychiatrists can't BILL anyone for their treatment unless it is for a "disease" they vote into existence in the DSM. If it is in the DSM, it's an "official" disease they can use for billing purposes. It's ALL about the money!

Having raised three girls, I can give you my Paleolithic take on sanity and children. Young girls aged 1 to 10 are delightful, fragile creatures. They sing, dance, draw on the cave walls, and jump around like demented midgets BUT they are very entertaining and will occasionally give you a pat on the back for your efforts to feed them. Note: Never yell at them - they will go to great lengths to get even later.

Then they smash headlong into puberty, during which they appear to be ruled by a tribal council composed entirely of hormones, with no input from the analytical (rational) mind. If you can keep them from crying themselves to death for just a few years, they will eventually turn into beautiful young women with all the skills and cunning required to make some young male capture and carry them off to his cave, where the process starts all over again. No drugs are required.

I have no experience raising young boys, but I do recall being one. Robert Heinlein said it best -- I'm paraphrasing here -- "Boys should be raised in a barrel. When they hit puberty drive in the bung."( Meaning seal the barrel.) My escapades seemed like high fun at the time. Sociopathic is probably too harsh a term to label them now, but if I had fallen into the hands of the psychiatrists, who knows?

I'll take freedom over security any time there is a choice.

New Psychiatric Education Site

Here's a new site worth mentioning in light of the recent school shootings at Red Lake MN: Mental Health Abuse.

For the uninitiated--School Shootings are always done by someone who has been prescribed psychiatric drugs that cause homicidal tendencies such as Prozac, Paxil, etc.

The site was put up by an old friend, Fred Hare. Obviously its purpose is to gather information from those who have been abused by "mental health" practitioners. Fred has been a member of CCHR even longer than I have (since 1971). CCHR has been instrumental in closing down many psychiatric institutions for barbaric practices over the years. They spend a great deal of time and energy educating lawmakers on the hoax that is modern psychiatry.


Speaking of which, I sent an email to my local congressman (4th District Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio, a Democrat) trying to get him to support HR 181 (The Parental Consent Act of 2005) - he sent back a long, glib email parroting the talking points he must have been given by the American Psychiatric Association.


One has to wonder how Rep Peter DeFazio can support the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. Read through it and you'll find it constantly refering to "treatments and supports" -- look those up and you'll find that they mandate the Texas Algorithm -- where a regimen of dangerous psychotropic drugs are mandated by law. Even the FDA knows and has issued warnings about the dangers of Paxil and Prozac and how they can make children violent, homicidal and suicidal.

"Fair Tax" Not Fair?

More insanity from Congress:

"When you have a tax, where you pay the same tax whether you're wealthy or you're poor, that's not fair."

--Congressman Charlie Rangel (Democrat, 15th District of New York)

It's hard to wrap my wits around this one. I think he's saying that if I pay the same percentage of tax as the next guy, say I pay 30% of my income and he pays 30% of his income, then it's not fair.
I think he lives in an alternate universe where "fair" means that because I am productive and work 16 hour days (on average), that I should pay a higher percentage of my income than someone who is not as productive as me and works not at all.

Thirty-four years ago I was introduced to a wild notion from L. Ron Hubbard:

"WHEN YOU REWARD DOWN STATISTICS AND PENALIZE UP STATISTICS YOU GET DOWN STATISTICS.

If you reward nonproduction you get nonproduction.

When you penalize production you get nonproduction."

--L Ron Hubbard (from a policy dated 6 March 1966)

It's funny, but in the last 34 years in running many businesses I've never had any trouble applying that bit of revolutionary thought. Of course the corollary of that is "if you reward production, you get more production". It's the kind of keen and uncommon common sense that Hubbard excelled in, actually seeing the obvious and never being afraid to state it or use it or teach it.

My favorite line from that same policy is: "No good worker owes his work. That's slavery."


And having been made at various times by bosses of one ilk or another to feel that I owed my work, I can tell you that there's a boatload of truth in that!

Poem from a friend

My friend Dean Blehert of www.blehert.com sent the following poem entitled "On The Importance Of Knowing How":

Beware of those who want to help
but don't know how,
for they will learn to hate
those they fail to help.

Plenty of truth in it -- you can feel the truth of it reverbrating when you view any groups that obviously started out trying to help and now hate those they failed to help, such as the psychiatric industry and the big drug companies, and the do-gooders in Congress throwing money at the war on drugs, trying not to leave any child behind. Educators are falling more and more into this trap as well.

Forced Psych Drugging of Schoolkids Banned by Law!

President Bush signed into law on the 3rd of December new legislation prohibiting the forced psychiatric drugging of schoolchildren. We'll see how well it works in application! For now, it's a red-letter day for those who have been active in working toward the eradication of the horrific influence of psychiatry on kids, such as my friends over at CCHR - the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. I've been a member since 1971 - the more you find out about psychiatry and what it actually does in practice, the more outraged you will become. If you know of anyone who has been the victim of psychiatric abuse, contact CCHR now!

Hats Off to a Reporter

This article in the NY Times (free subscription required to view it) brings my respect for the profession up a notch. Confronted with imprisonment for at least six months for refusing to name the source of information he used in a story, reporter Jim Taricani held fast to his principles and told the judge he took the protection of the First Amendment. The judge found him guilty of contempt and away he is going to house arrest.

Painful as it must be to Mr. Taricani, this is a much better thing to see than the demise of Dan Rather's career last month with the obviously bogus documents about President Bush.

Mr. Taricani basically says that naming that particular name would violate the confidence of his source, and since this all revolves around a bunch of racketeering in Providence, RI, would probably put his source at risk.

Tell the truth - go to jail...

My hat is off to Jim Taricani, a man standing on principal.

Foster kids overmedicated

Having been a foster child myself at times (back before the last ice age) this piece by the San Antonio Texas radio station WOAI really resonated with me: Foster Kids on Mind-Altering Drugs.

A three year old boy was given two different psychotropic drugs after a temper tantrum, plus Benadryl "to help him sleep".

Any parent can tell you that a three year old will throw temper tantrums, especially if they are upset at being separated from parents and siblings, in a strange environment with other children they do not know, and in the control of people who do not love them or care (in the long term) what happens to them.

Yeah, they are hard to handle. Even a happy, healthy 3 year old is a handful! Good food, a non-restimulative environment (including no television), no sugar, and plenty of sleep will give them a chance to find their bearings and be themselves.

What kind of deranged doctor would force mind-altering drugs on a pre-schooler?

What kind of doctor would put one child on 17 different medications at the same time?

Doctors with their own drug problems, as it turns out -- here's a brief transcript of the show:

"State records show one of the biggest prescribers in San Antonio is a radiologist. Sure it's legal, but what does a radiologist know about a child's mental health?

The Trouble Shooters also found some of these doctors have documented drug problems of their own. One case is Dr. Charles Sargent, a San Antonio psychiatrist. He's listed as one of the state's top prescribers of antidepressants to kids on Medicaid. The records we obtained show he also prescribes stimulants and powerful antipsychotics.

The Texas State Board of Medical Examiners put Dr. Sargent on probation in recent months because state records show he was busted for prescribing narcotics to himself, his girlfriend and her son. As part of his probation, he must submit to random drug testing.

He declined our request for an on-camera interview, but told me by phone the anti-depressant he prescribes is one that does have FDA approval for kids. He did not return our call questioning his suspension with the state medical board.

Another doctor who shows up as a frequent prescriber on state records is Dr. Benny Fernandez, the medical director at Laurel Ridge Psychiatric Hospital. Dr. Fernandez says his practice is primarily treating foster kids. He says psychotropics are necessary for a lot of these kids.

"I think the way we are moving now is using them as a last resort if we can," Dr. Fernandez tells Tanji Patton. Patton asks, "When you see more than 60% in one month period, that was looked at on medications, do you think it's being used as a last resort?"

Dr. Fernandez replies, "Well, those numbers seem a little bit high."

It's obviously NOT a last resort - it is the first thing the psychiatrists do.

The more you find out about what psychiatry is really up to, the more incensed you ought to become. For breaking news on this, and to report psychiatric abuses that you know about, go here: CCHR. I've been a member of CCHR since 1971 - CCHR has closed down hundreds of psychiatric hospitals for barbarities you would not believe without documents, and has gotten about 1700 psychiatrists jailed over the last 35 years for crimes against their patients. Just this last year they helped expose and pass legislation against the barbaric practice (in Italy) of bed confinement--basically wire cages around beds, in which psychiatric patients were kept for as much as a month straight.

Our Heart's Desire

Someone sent me today this quote from H.L. Mencken (1880-1956):

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."



H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

Our current President is NOT a moron. Speech-impaired, yes. But I won't call anyone with a degree from an ivy league school, an MBA, and the ability to pilot an F-14 a moron. Now Jimmy Carter - that's another story...

Science and beauty

Interesting article on www.space.com today.

The paths of most stars in our galaxy have for many years been assumed to be circular orbits around the center of the galaxy. It's not quite so simple, though. Recently some scientists found that there are "streams" of suns that are moving in toward the center, and others moving out away from the center, and one of them is actually headed our way!

It's not quite time to duck, though - it'll be 1.4 million years before it gets to its closest proximity to our sun - and it will still be about a light year away. It will pass through the "Oort Cloud" of icy, rocky debris that orbits our sun at that distance, and it will probably stir it up quite a bit. A few thousand years after that, we may see a lot more comets and asteroids heading our way.

There is a very cool 3D movie that shows the motion of our neighboring stars - you can see it here. It takes a long time to download, even on a broadband connection, so be patient. It's worth it: Star Motion Movie.

For background data, see this page.

And if you ever wondered why the similarity between the spiral shape of a galaxy and the shape of a hurricane, they do a fair job of explaining it here.

Order out of Chaos

My schedule has been full with design projects and getting the ranch I live on ready for the winter rains and snow, and building an annex onto our office, so the posts have been few and far between.

I am happy to finally have a few minutes to spend posting to my blog.

As spirits in a material world, we are continually putting order into the chaos of the physical universe. I am constantly amazed at how much order is required to be put in, so that one can merely continue to live the life one has chosen, much less get ahead! We have a fairly big ranch and lots of animals, which means fences to maintain, pens that need cleaning, water lines that break, ponds that leak, and trees that fall down where they shouldn't.

To paraphrase the Red Queen in "Through the Looking Glass", one has to run twice as fast to actually get anywhere.

No more income tax

I'm glad to see that President Bush is siding in favor of the national retail sales tax. It is my hope that over the next few years we'll see the IRS abolished and not replaced. Sales tax is already being collected by 48 states - one only has to add about 16% to the amount they are collecting and it will cover the income being collected by the IRS at this time.

What's fair about this? I'm already paying 25% in federal taxes. It shifts the burden of collection from me (a self-employed businessman), for one thing. No more keeping track of how something is going to affect my tax picture.

For another thing it taxes the whole underground economy. If a drug dealer buys a new Hummer, he's going to pay 16% federal tax on it. If a corporation buys a new headquarters, it will pay 16% on it.

The only things not taxable will be food, medicine, and perhaps rent. That way this will not impact as much on poor people, who are currently subsidized by me and millions of others like me. If someone buys an old used car from a car lot, they'll pay 16% on the car. But not if they buy it from someone who doesn't normally sell cars.

Think of it - no more temptation to lie on your tax forms!

As Will Rogers said: "The Income Tax has made more Liars out of the American people
than golf has."

No filling in 1040 forms of any kind. No keeping track of your itemizable deductions. The amount of time this will free up will cause a surge in productivity such as we've never seen before in the US.

And there will be an incentive to save money aside.

It's a beautiful concept - support it in every way you can.

Sign up here: http://www.cats.org

(I've been a member since they were founded years ago!)

Crockumentary

There's a new book that exposes the lies in Michael Moore's documentaries, called, appropriately enough, Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man, written by David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke. It is promoted as "Loaded with well-researched, solidly reasoned arguments, and laced with irreverent wit..."



You can get a copy here: Book: Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man for $22.95.

St. Pete Times

The St. Petersburg Times yesterday published a fascinating article about the expansion of the Church of Scientology in Clearwater, Florida.  Someone actually bothered to research the facts behind the articles instead of simply drawing on the stockpile of tired lies passed around by the Times newspaper chain, in which the St. Pete Times usually deals.  So it was with some surprise I read some real facts in this article:  Scientology in Clearwater.

Nice pictures of the new building in Clearwater, and some interviews of people I know that actually sound like them and don't appear to be taken out of context. 
 
Good fairly accurate news from the St. Pete Times.  Amazing, and how refreshing! 
 
 
 
 

Quran

The Quran, like the Bible, contains many prophecies and predictions.  This quote from the Quran making the rounds by email is interesting:

Quran (9:11) - For it is written that a son of Arabia  would awaken a fearsome Eagle. The wrath of the Eagle  would be felt throughout the lands of Allah and lo,  while some of the people trembled in despair still more rejoiced; for the wrath of the Eagle cleansed the lands of Allah; and there was peace.

The verse number seems fitting, too.
 
 

Michael Moore--the new Leni Riefenstahl?

Click the link to see a detailed rebuttal from Christopher Hitchens, worth reading if you've seen Michael Moore's latest propaganda film, Fahrenheit 9/11. It'll help set the record straight. The comparison of Michael Moore to Leni Riefenstahl is not misplaced -- as a film, it comes off as the same style of blatant propaganda as Leni's films did praising the virtues of the Third Reich.

It is my belief, from personal experience that Michael Moore's entire premise in his movie Roger and Me, that he couldn't ever get Roger Smith (Chairman of General Motors) to talk to him about various factory closings, was a lie. I had the good fortune to meet and talked with Roger Smith and his lovely wife Barbara, over dinner one evening. I asked Roger Smith point blank if Michael Moore had ever tried to get in touch with him, and he said that the first he heard of him was when the movie came out. He said he checked his records and could find no mention of Michael Moore ever trying to contact him. I have no reason to doubt Roger - when you meet him you learn he's a self-efacing man who would admit to the error of putting off talking to a film-maker like Michael Moore, if he had made it.

So it's no surprise to me that Michael is lying in this movie, too.

Believe what you will - what's true for you is true for you.

But read that rebuttal before you condemn President Bush for his tenuous family connections to Osama Bin Laden.

Here's another link that will open your eyes to more Michael Moore lies. Dave Koppel's List of 56 Deceits in Fahrenheit 911.

SpaceShipOne's First Flight

My old friend Stu Sjouerman of Sunbelt Software, who publishes the popular W2Knews zine for those using Windows 2000 server software, sent out some very interesting links in his newsletter. One of them was to some excellently commented photos of the first space flight of SpaceShipOne, which occurred on Monday, 2004-06-21. The site is published by Richard Seaman, a terrific roving Kiwi photographer. Here are his photos of SpaceShipOne's flight.

Two big problems on the flight got little play in the press - I read about them for the first time in Richard Seaman's comments.

As I understand it, first, the flight was nearly aborted, and the pilot nearly bailed out, when the craft rotated 90 degrees -- it went 20 miles off course in the few seconds it took for the pilot to correct the problem.

Then on the descent, the pilot described a loud bang, which probably happened when the craft re-entered the atmosphere at great speet (but not orbital speed, by a long shot!) which created a sonic boom and apparently did some damage to the rear section of the craft - you can see a crinkle in the shell of the craft just below the nozzle, in one of the pictures.

Live relay of the radio chatter to the crowd was also supposed to be piped in, but was not for reasons never explained.

The gist of it - space flight is a risky business. Even with private funds in great quantity, and plenty of testing, it's still risky.

But when they get the bugs worked out of it--which they undoubtedly will--and it goes through a few more evolutions in size, we'll have an orbital shuttle that will be cheaper, safer, and less prone to the beaurocratic errors that have led to the crash of two of the shuttles. By beaurocratic errors, I mean the beaurocracy that ignored the warnings from the engineers who warned about launching the shuttle with frozen o-rings in subfreezing temperatures, and the other engineers who warned that there could be damage to a wing from falling ice during liftoff.

Much as I hate to admit it, our shuttles are huge, overpriced, over-regulated, and over-engineered in some ways, while under-engineered in others, using antiquated technology. You know the old saw about an elephant being a mouse designed to government specs.

We may not have the technology to do this right, but we're getting there. And private industry will see it done.

Will we have "beanpoles" like those Heinlein described in his sci-fi? Long cables attached to the ground, with the other end attached to a satellite? Will we have ground-based mag-lev launch tracks that simply accelerate something like a boxcar to orbital velocity along an upward-curved track? I don't know. But rockets are risky, complex machines that have too many moving parts to work well ALL the time.

Let's go for something simpler...

Before I forget - here's a salute to the pilot -- no, make that Astronaut! -- of SpaceShipOne -- 63 year old Michael Melvill. Hats off to you!

Professionalism

Occasionally one is startled by the quiet professionalism of someone who has been patiently working on his passion or "hobby".

What got me thinking about this was stumbling across the works of Russell Croman, an "amateur" astronomer. He has a 14-inch telescope in his back yard, with which he has taken some absolutely stunning photos. Here's one he took of the Orion Nebula:

Wow!


It reminds me of an essay by L. Ron Hubbard, written in 1954, which is engraved on a plaque in my office:

Professionalism
Don't ever do anything as though you were an amateur.

Anything you do, do it as a Professional to Professional standards.

If you have the idea about anything you do that you just dabble in it, you will wind up with a dabble life. There'll be no satisfaction in it because there will be no real production you can be proud of.

There's more to that essay, which I try to apply to what I do. Russell Croman has certainly achieved professional results of which he can be proud.

"Emotional Lability"

I should stop reading the New York Times - it's just bad for my blood pressure.

Today's NYT insanity: 'emotional lability'.

Definitions of labile:

1. Open to change; adaptable: an emotionally labile person.

2. From chemistry: Constantly undergoing or likely to undergo change; unstable: a labile compound

From the New York Times today

Those children taking Paxil were reported by Glaxo-Smith-Kline's own data as follows:

In GlaxoSmithKline's trials, depressed young people given Paxil fared no better than those given placebos. It was a disappointing result for GlaxoSmithKline but had no effect on its application for the six-month extension. Still, a reviewer at the Food and Drug Administration noticed something strange about the trials: teenagers given Paxil suffered more problems of 'emotional lability,' or instability, than those given a placebo.

The reviewer, Dr. Andrew Mosholder, thought 'emotional lability' was overly broad. He asked the company to resubmit its data, this time using a separate category for suicide.

That report, given in May to both American and British health authorities, was alarming. Teenagers and younger children given Paxil were much more likely to become suicidal than those given placebos. In June, both the British and American authorities warned doctors against prescribing Paxil to youngsters. Worried that the problem could extend far beyond Paxil, the F.D.A. in July asked the makers of eight other antidepressants to submit data from their studies in youngsters.

So, now that the cat is out of the bag on the fact that children given paxil are twice as likely to have suicidal tendencies - and that there is NO BENEFIT beyond the placebo effect for the kids - the drug companies are retrenching. They are asking Columbia University to go through the data again and re-classify the "suicidal tendencies" so the drug will come up "clean" in the revised study.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, is not at all convinced this is a good thing - Give 'em hell Charlie!

Some emotional lability is a good thing. One should not be stuck in grief if one is at a birthday party or a wedding. That's mis-emotional. One should not be stuck in cheerfulness when someone close to you dies. One should be able to move on the emotional tone scale, as appropriate. (The sci-fi movie, "Equilibrium" does a good job portraying a society where everyone is required to take their drugs at specified times during the day so they never feel anything.)

Too much emotional lability is a bad thing. One should not slide wildly from exhilaration to despair to grief to apathy to rage because of ingested chemicals--whether those chemicals are angel dust supplied by the corner drug dealer, or those supplied by Glaxo-Smith-Kline and cheerfully handed you by your neighborhood pharmacist.

The kids at Columbine who shot up the school and killed themselves were on psych drugs at the time. And there are many more instances of children NOT ONLY going suicidal on these drugs, but taking their fellows with them.

If you have kids taking Paxil - get them OFF! Re-defining "suicidal tendencies" as "emotional lability" is just the latest attempt of Glaxo to wiggle off the hook.

Related articles:

NY Times (free subscription required)
SF Gate - a well done satire.

A Lament for "Deanotations"

"Deanotations", one of my all-time favorite subscribed newsletters, is putting out its last issue. Dean Blehert has published it semi-monthly for the last 15 or 20 years, and his wife, Pam Coulter, has illustrated each issue with simply amazing line drawings.

The last one is on its way to me, so says Dean. There will be no more.

Dean tells me it is the end but I don't want to believe it.

I've got a file of Deanotations that goes back to the last ice age, or so it seems. It has been growing at glacial speed no matter where or how many times I've moved in the last 20 years. After this, it will be getting no thicker. When I die (some unthinkable time in the distant future) whoever has the task of weeding through my papers will undoubtedly toss the folder, thinking it of no value. How wrong they will be!

Deanotations was usually filled with "light", funny, touching poems - Dean is a master of puns and palindromes, sestinas and limericks - he can do it all well.

I like the space he makes for readers - it is a fun place with wide horizons where people play tricks on you and you can fall down dead and spring up again like the much-abused Roadrunner.

He's moving on, says Dean.

I find I want to stow away with him to wherever Dean is going.

When I was reading more today from The Genius of Haiku, which is a condensed version of the works of R.H. Blyth, this section reminded me of Blehert's gentle humor, so ably expressed in his poems:

The fundamental thing in the Japanese character is a peculiar combination of poetry and humour, using both words in a wide and profound yet specific sense. "Poetry" means the ability to see, to know by intuition what is interesting, what is really valuable in things and persons. More exactly, it is the creating of interest, of value. "Humour" means joyful, unsentimental pathos that arises from the paradox inherent in the nature of things. Poetry and humour are thus very close; we may say that they are two different aspects of the same thing. Poetry is satori; it is seeing all things as good. Humour is laughing at all things; in Buddhist parlance, seeing that "all things are empty in their self-nature", and rejoicing in this truth.

Common Sense Government

My friend John Eberhard of www.commonsensegovernment.com has a new article posted on his website, about the failings of liberalism. John's clear and cogent style is good to read - there's little hype in it and it does make common sense. Not that there's no controversy in it - in fact he's being attacked on one of the lists I belong to for being part of the conspiracy to "re-define" the word "liberal".

That's pretty much already been done, and by the liberals themselves.

The tenets of liberals today would not be recognizable to those who called themselves "liberals" 40 or 50 years ago. Nowadays liberals have boxed themselves into a platform of support for the downtrodden victims of the world. As John explains in his article, when you spend all your time and resources helping victims - you are encouraging the self-creation of whole classes of victims who have somehow gained "rights" to their entitlements. John's article exposes what a crock this is!