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Topics - heretik

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16
Tacitus' Realm / Thoughts about Egypt and America's relationship
« on: February 11, 2011, 07:25:33 PM »
Wait wait, let me get this straight: Mubarak, a known American Stooge, gets run out of power by his own people and now we're going to proclaim victory for the forces of Democracy. We support the cruelest dictators for the sake of American business interests & when the shit hits the fan we try to seize the moral high ground. I feel an attack of Deja Moo? (the feeling that I've heard this bullshit before).

17
Feed Your Head / Lover or Fighter/ Passive and Agression Control
« on: February 09, 2011, 09:19:49 PM »
Lover or Fighter/ Passivity or Agression Control
From reading posts here from several survivors I could not help but think that these programs had somehow tapped into this region and control the impulses. I would not go so far as top say we were are dealing with amorous emotions necessarily but maybe just passivity. I am just throwing this out there for possible discussion.


http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-sci ... ssion.html

Scientists discover a tangle of neurons that control aggression
February 9, 2011

(PhysOrg.com) -- In a tiny region buried deep in the brain, neurons that control two disparate behaviors – aggression and mating – are closely intertwined, Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have revealed. The study, conducted in mice, suggests that the association between these two classes of neurons may help to suppress aggressive behaviors during mating.
 
Scientists have long known that stimulating a particular region of the brain could trigger aggressive behavior. But the methods used in those studies, which date back to the 1920s, were far cruder than the sophisticated tools available to neuroscientists today, and they left scientists uncertain as to precisely where the neurons that control aggression are located in the brain, says Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator David Anderson.

In a study reported February 10, 2011, in the journal Nature, Anderson and his colleagues decided to see if they could answer those questions using more modern approaches. They focused their efforts on a region of the brain’s hypothalamus called the ventromedial nucleus. Both mating and fighting appeared to activate neurons in the very deepest part of this region, in a tiny area about 300 microns in diameter, called VMHv1.

To record activity in this region, the researchers inserted tiny bundles of electrodes into the brains of 30 male mice. Because the VMHv1 region is so tiny and buried so deeply within the brain, getting the electrodes positioned correctly was exceedingly difficult. But Dayu Lin, a postdoctoral fellow in Anderson’s lab who is now a professor at New York University, managed to hit the target (and only the target) in five of the mice. The electrodes enabled the researchers to record the activity of 104 individual neurons as the mice fought and mated, over a period of several months.

While a male mouse was alone in its cage, these neurons remained quiet. But mice are territorial, so when the researchers put a strange male into the cage, the mouse already in the cage attacked, thrashing its head and biting. Whenever this behavior occurred, the researchers observed that a subset of the cells near the implanted electrodes began firing. While some neurons began firing the moment a male entered the cage, others fired only once the mouse attacked.

When researchers placed a female mouse into the cage instead of a second male, the male mouse became amorous. Researchers could see that neurons in VMHv1 fired in this situation, too – but they were not the same neurons that became active in the presence of another male. As the mice began mating, the activity of neurons in the VMHv1 waned. Surprisingly, “many of the neurons that were activated during a male-male encounter became actively suppressed, as if beauty calmed the savage beast,” says Anderson, a neurobiologist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

That experiment didn’t prove that the neurons in VMHv1were causally involved in the mating or aggression, however. To prove that, the researchers needed to show that they could control mating or aggression by stimulating or suppressing the activity of those neurons.

So they used a virus to insert a gene into the neurons that encoded an ion channel that could be controlled using light. Once the virus had infected the neurons and inserted its genetic cargo, the researchers used a fiber optic cable to light up this region of the brain. Turning the light on caused the neurons to fire. The mice attacked not just males, but also females and inanimate objects, including an inflated latex glove. “The light goes on and the animal attacks the glove. The light goes off and the animal stops attacking,” Anderson says. “That result is pretty remarkable.”

Anderson and his colleagues then used a similar method to prevent the neurons from firing. When the researchers turned neurons in VMHv1 off, the mice refused to fight, even in the presence of a strange male. “That indicated that neurons in that part of the brain are not only sufficient to produce an attack, but they’re also necessary for normal aggressive behavior,” Anderson says. “That finding moves the research from correlation to causation,” he says. The results suggest that aggressive behaviors are localized to this particular region of the brain, and not as broadly distributed in the hypothalamus as previous studies suggested.

Neither stimulating nor inhibiting the neurons appeared to have much of an impact on mating. However, mating did influence aggression. When the researchers allowed the male mice to mount a female before turning the light on, they failed to provoke an attack. Only when the mice had finished mating could the researchers again trigger aggression.

One possibility, says Anderson, is that the neurons in VMHv1 that are activated by a female inhibit fighting rather than promoting mating. The neurons might be intermingled for a reason. “The animal should not be trying to mate with an enemy when it’s supposed to attack it,” Anderson says, “and it should not be trying to attack a female when it’s supposed to be mating.”

The next step will be to determine which neurons in VMHv1 control which behavior. The hypothalamus is the most evolutionarily ancient part of brain. So the neural connections that exist in mice likely exist in a wide variety of other species as well, including humans, Anderson says.

More information: Nature paper online: http://www.nature. … re09736.html

Provided by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (news : web)

18
The Troubled Teen Industry / The Family Foundation School Truth Campaign
« on: February 08, 2011, 11:32:51 PM »
The Family Foundation School Truth Campaign
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?filter ... choolTRUTH

This site has their shit together. They are actually helping their own, one instance I noticed was ex-survivors trying to get their transcripts so they can begin to get into to college and FFS balking at handing over the transcripts. So this site I guess was able to hire a Law Firm/Lawyer to deal with problems such as this. This was offered right on the site. I was impressed.

19
The Troubled Teen Industry / St.Judes Treatment Center
« on: January 29, 2011, 06:22:14 PM »
Does anyone have any info on this center. I searched here and found zip so far, any help would do.

Thanks in advance.

20
Tacitus' Realm / Does Big Beer Fear Big Bud?
« on: January 26, 2011, 09:15:49 PM »
http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/16/d ... r-big-bud/

Does Big Beer Fear Big Bud?

The California Beer and Beverage Distributors association, which describes itself on its website as "a nonprofit trade association representing over 100 beer distributors and brewer/vendor members," has donated $10,000 to a group aimed at defeating Proposition 19, the ballot initiative to legalize recreational use of marijuana, according to  a recent filing with the California secretary of state.

Are beverage distributors worried that buds will beat Budweiser, or that peoples' munchie budgets will edge out their beer tabs? Either way, it's rather peculiar for the purveyors of one psychoactive substance to campaign to keep locking up sellers and users of another.

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/16/d ... z1CCKtGrSU

21
Tacitus' Realm / Appellate Court Bounces Rahm
« on: January 24, 2011, 01:22:00 PM »
Now WTF!!!!! am I going to do :on phone:  :waaaa:  :wall:  :flame:
Hey Rahmmy light one up.  :rasta:
Now he is like a lot of people, "out of a job and nothing on the horizon".


Appellate Court Bounces Rahm

Rahm Emanuel's residency fight just took a turn for the worse.

The Illinois Appellate Court ruled 2-1 to overturn a Chicago Board of Elections decision to allow Rahm Emanuel on the mayoral ballot.

Emanuel's Attorney Kevin Forde says "its a surprise."

The candidate's residency has been questioned since he announced his intention to leave the White House and pursue public office in Chicago.

Opponents say Emanuel gave up his residency when he moved his family to Washington D.C. to serve as the White House Chief of Staff. During his abscence he rented his home to Rod Halpin.

Emanuel endured a lengthy questioning by citizen objectors in December after which the Chicago Board of Elections said Emanuel belonged on the ballot.

Lead opposition attorney Burt Odelson then filed a motion in Cook County Circuit court, which upheld the Board of Election decision to allow him on the ballot.

Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-ro ... z1ByhmcnYZ

22
The Seed Discussion Forum / The Seed, Inc., a second generation Synanon for kids-only.
« on: January 22, 2011, 09:39:26 PM »
http://thestraights.net/theprogram/synanon-story2.htm

Quote
You aren?t old enough to know what to do with it. You probably couldn?t even do it with a coke bottle.
A Seedling oldcomer confronting a 12 or 13 year-old girl in GROUP. [New Times, 9/6/74]

Criminal!!!!

Quote
Some had warned of the potential dangers of using synanons on adults. Professor David Bellis was one. He wrote that, "High discipline programs usually employ the confrontive 'Synanon game'-a leaderless group encounter session to create aggressive and provocative interchange, using ridicule, cross examination and hostile attack. During these group assaults on individual residents in the 'hot seat,' especially newcomers, any castigation and ridicule appear to come from the whole community of clients. One either plays the game and is rewarded with privilege and favorable discharge, or one 'splits' from the program. Experience indicates that when these counselors use an especially intrusive, aggressive approach, frequently debasing and harshly confronting clients, they may do more harm than good. . . This intrusive, assertive therapeutic style works well for a few clients but may injure many more." Professor Bellis noted that, "A number of clients. . .relinquish all independence and subjugate themselves to these staff and senior residents, accepting humiliation and total control of their lives even to the extent of accepting complete direction of their sex lives. . ." And he told of the case of one TC therapist who forced female clients to perform fellatio on him while he talked on the phone to their probation officers.(14)

This is beyond sick.

Quote
Others like Dr. Roger Meyer and psychotherapists Thomas Bratter and Gary Forrest warned about using synanons on kids. Dr. Roger Meyer, a professor of psychiatry at Boston University, and formerly the Acting Chief of the Center for Studies of Narcotics and Drug Abuse at NIMH, was one of the first to question the wisdom of subjecting kids to the brutality of the Synanon Game. In 1972 he reported on the case of a 12 year old boy who had been admitted, along with older clients, to a second generation Synanon called The Odyssey House in New York City. He noted that the child seemed lost in the "rigid hierarchy and confrontation tactics of the program."
He wrote:
As a clinician I am concerned about the effects of intense, violent verbal interaction upon young teenagers engaged in a sensitive process of identity formation. The effects of this type of interaction upon a fragile self-image and upon later impulse control in the world at large have not been determined. This issue obviously needs further elaboration and research, but there are suggestions that there are age limits below which this form of treatment is contraindicated. Arbitrarily, I would say that young persons under 16 years of age should be excluded from these programs and that careful evaluation be given admitting persons between 16 and 18 years of age . . .It is also clear that the psychological effects of this modality upon different age groups have not been adequately studied.(15)

If all these doctors were warning about using "synanons" on kids why was the Seed allowed to open and operate, (trying not to sound ignorant)???

Quote
In 1974 Arnold Rachman and M. Heller warned about using the Game with kids when they wrote: "There is a serious shortcoming within the theory and the practice of the T.C. in the understanding and treatment of adolescents. The experiences with the original population of adult addicts still pervade the thinking and functioning of most T.C.'s. Many programs report a high dropout rate with younger adolescents, which is directly related to this factor.... In addition, group practice becomes an anti-therapeutic factor with the T.C. when the uniqueness of adolescent psychological development is not understood and incorporated into clinical practice.(16) In 1985 psychotherapists Thomas Bratter and Gary Forrest echoed the conclusion of Rachman and Heller and added a caution of their own when they wrote that "such a treatment [for self-destructive drug abusers] may not be necessary or appropriate for other treatment populations, i.e. borderline schizophrenic patients, schizoid personalities, and acutely anxious, neurotic adolescents.(17)

Hello....

Quote
The evidence has shown that brutal, verbal confrontation sessions are no more effective in controlling drug abuse among adult hard-core heroin addicts than other methods of control. Some have shown that synanon confrontations can potentially be psychologically damaging and may not be suitable for all audiences-especially for adolescents. In 1974 Rachman and Heller had noted that many youths had dropped out of TCs because the methods were geared to curing adult addicts. S. B. Sells noted in 1976 that, "The more strict the program the lower the percentage of clients retained in the [TC] program.."(18) Current magazine had noted that clients in TCs give up all rights--except the right to leave. Former Synanite Dr. David Deitch, then a Phoenix House director, has stated, "A client must have the choice of leaving treatment, even if the youngster is on probation and the alternative is jail."(19) Richard Ashley wrote in Heroin that, "The only power of decision the member retains once he enters a TC is the decision to leave."(20) Dr. Efren Ramirez, founder of Phoenix House, has said that "you don't rehabilitate a person against his will."(21)


I love these comments from Deitch, Ramirez and Ashley clients on the ability for clients to leave. I guess the Seed, Straight, Cedu, Elan and the other programs must have missed those seminars these (3) attended. They must be different programs. ("even if the youngster is on probation and the alternative is jail") fucked choice but I guess it is still a choice.


Quote
Dr. Rogers had been referring to the dangers involved with a kid participating in a typical Synanon Game with 11 people yelling at him, where he could fight back verbally, where he could leave if he chose, and where there was no physical violence. But nobody, especially Dr. Rogers, ever imagined children sitting in one continuous synanon 12 hours a day, 5 ½ days a week for several years--with 200 kids screaming and spitting at him, where the child could not verbally defend himself against his indicters, where he would be beaten and physically restrained, and, most importantly, where he could not leave--namely Straight, Inc.

Nope, they never saw this coming.  ::)  ::)

Quote
In other words Straight took a program that had been designed (and poorly so) to control hard-core adult heroin addicts and used it to control kids who had experimented with pot and alcohol--sometimes worse, but sometimes no drugs at all. Straight used Synanon's vaginal and anal searches to search for contraband for years even though they never found any. Kids were assaulted and restrained without cause and all the rest. In short Straight took a bad treatment modality, made it worse, and then force their young subjects to endure it. And when former clients sued Straight for holding them against their will, Straight pressured parents into letting Straight fight for them for the right to force their kids into treatment with the force of a court order.

Can there ever be a reasonable restitution or apology for these crimes. WTF
My heart goes out to you all.

23
Tacitus' Realm / Government debt surged to an all-time high, topping $14 tril
« on: January 16, 2011, 12:31:01 PM »
http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/b7538a1 ... 4b042c2862

Record $14 trillion-plus debt weighs on Congress

TOM RAUM, Associated Press THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STATEMENT OF NEWS VALUES AND PRINCIPLES
 
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States just passed a dubious milestone: Government debt surged to an all-time high, topping $14 trillion — $45,300 for each and everyone in the country.

That means Congress soon will have to lift the legal debt limit to give the nearly maxed-out government an even higher credit limit or dramatically cut spending to stay within the current cap. Either way, a fight is ahead on Capitol Hill, inflamed by the passions of tea party activists and deficit hawks.

Already, both sides are blaming each other for an approaching economic train wreck as Washington wrestles over how to keep the government in business and avoid default on global financial obligations.

Bills increasing the debt limit are among the most unpopular to come before Congress, serving as pawns for decades in high-stakes bargaining games. Every time until now, the ending has been the same: We go to the brink before raising the ceiling.

All bets may be off, however, in this charged political environment, despite some signs the partisan rhetoric is softening after the Arizona shootings.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says failure to increase borrowing authority would be "a catastrophe," perhaps rivaling the financial meltdown of 2008-2009.

Congressional Republicans, flexing muscle after November's victories, say the election results show that people are weary of big government and deficit spending, and that it's time to draw the line against more borrowing.

Defeating a new debt limit increase has become a priority for the tea party movement and other small-government conservatives.

So far, the new GOP majority has proved accommodating. Republicans are moving to make good on their promise to cut $100 billion from domestic spending this year. They adopted a rules change by House Speaker John Boehner that should make it easier to block a debt-limit increase.

The national debt is the accumulation of years of deficit spending going back to the days of George Washington. The debt usually advances in times of war and retreats in peace.

Remarkably, nearly half of today's national debt was run up in just the past six years. It soared from $7.6 trillion in January 2005 as President George W. Bush began his second term to $10.6 trillion the day Obama was inaugurated and to $14.02 trillion now. The period has seen two major wars and the deepest economic downturn since the 1930s.

With a $1.7 trillion deficit in budget year 2010 alone, and the government on track to spend $1.3 trillion more this year than it takes in, annual budget deficits are adding roughly $4 billion a day to the national debt. Put another way, the government is borrowing 41 cents for every dollar it spends.

In a letter to Congress, Geithner said the current statutory debt ceiling of $14.3 trillion, set just last year, may be reached by the end of March — and hit no later than May 16. He warned that holding it hostage to skirmishes over spending could lead the country to default on its obligations, "an event that has no precedent in American history."

Debt-level brinkmanship doesn't wear a party label.  No Shit!!!!

Here's what then-Sen. Barack Obama said on the Senate floor in 2006: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance the government's reckless fiscal policies."

It was a blast by the freshman lawmaker against a Bush request to raise the debt limit to $8.96 trillion.

Bush won on a 52-48 party-line vote. Not a single Senate Democrat voted to raise the limit, opposition that's now complicating White House efforts to rally bipartisan support for a higher ceiling.

Democrats have use doomsday rhetoric about a looming government shutdown and comparing the U.S. plight to financial crises in Greece and Portugal. It's all a bit of a stretch.

"We can't do as the Gingrich crowd did a few years ago, close the government," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., referring to government shutdowns in 1995 when Georgia Republican Newt Gingrich was House speaker.

But those shutdowns had nothing to do with the debt limit. They were caused by failure of Congress to appropriate funds to keep federal agencies running.

And there are many temporary ways around the debt limit.

Hitting it does not automatically mean a default on existing debt. It only stops the government from new borrowing, forcing it to rely on other ways to finance its activities.

In a 1995 debt-limit crisis, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin borrowed $60 billion from federal pension funds to keep the government going. It wasn't popular, but it helped get the job done. A decade earlier, James Baker, President Ronald Reagan's treasury secretary, delayed payments to the Civil Service and Social Security trust funds and used other bookkeeping tricks to keep money in the federal till.

Baker and Rubin "found money in pockets no one knew existed before," said former congressional budget analyst Stanley Collender.

Collender, author of "Guide to the Federal Budget," cites a slew of other things the government can do to delay a crisis. They include leasing out government-owned properties, "the federal equivalent of renting out a room in your home," or slowing down payments to government contractors.

Now partner-director of Qorvis Communications, a Washington consulting firm, Collender said such stopgap measures buy the White House time to resist GOP pressure for concessions.

"My guess is they can go months after the debt ceiling is not raised and still be able to come up with the cash they need. But at some point, it will catch up," and raising the debt limit will become an imperative, he suggested.

Republican leaders seem to acknowledge as much, but first want to force big concessions. "Do I want to see this nation default? No. But I want to make sure we get substantial spending cuts and controls in exchange for raising the debt ceiling," said the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Clearly, the tea party types in Congress will be given an up-and-down vote on raising the debt limit before any final deal is struck, even if the measure ultimately passes.

"At some point you run out of accounting gimmicks and resources. Eventually the government is going to have to start shutting down certain operations," said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics.

"If we get into a heated, protracted debate over the debt ceiling, global investors are going to grow nervous, and start driving up interest rates. It will all become negatively self-re-enforcing," said Zandi. "No good will come of it."

The overall national debt rose above $14 trillion for the first time the last week in December. The part subject to the debt limit stood at $13.95 trillion on Friday and was expected to break above $14 trillion within days.

24
Tacitus' Realm / Government debt surged to an all-time high, topping $14 tril
« on: January 16, 2011, 12:27:04 PM »
http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/b7538a1 ... 4b042c2862

Record $14 trillion-plus debt weighs on Congress

TOM RAUM, Associated Press THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STATEMENT OF NEWS VALUES AND PRINCIPLES
 
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States just passed a dubious milestone: Government debt surged to an all-time high, topping $14 trillion — $45,300 for each and everyone in the country.

That means Congress soon will have to lift the legal debt limit to give the nearly maxed-out government an even higher credit limit or dramatically cut spending to stay within the current cap. Either way, a fight is ahead on Capitol Hill, inflamed by the passions of tea party activists and deficit hawks.

Already, both sides are blaming each other for an approaching economic train wreck as Washington wrestles over how to keep the government in business and avoid default on global financial obligations.

Bills increasing the debt limit are among the most unpopular to come before Congress, serving as pawns for decades in high-stakes bargaining games. Every time until now, the ending has been the same: We go to the brink before raising the ceiling.

All bets may be off, however, in this charged political environment, despite some signs the partisan rhetoric is softening after the Arizona shootings.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says failure to increase borrowing authority would be "a catastrophe," perhaps rivaling the financial meltdown of 2008-2009.

Congressional Republicans, flexing muscle after November's victories, say the election results show that people are weary of big government and deficit spending, and that it's time to draw the line against more borrowing.

Defeating a new debt limit increase has become a priority for the tea party movement and other small-government conservatives.

So far, the new GOP majority has proved accommodating. Republicans are moving to make good on their promise to cut $100 billion from domestic spending this year. They adopted a rules change by House Speaker John Boehner that should make it easier to block a debt-limit increase.

The national debt is the accumulation of years of deficit spending going back to the days of George Washington. The debt usually advances in times of war and retreats in peace.

Remarkably, nearly half of today's national debt was run up in just the past six years. It soared from $7.6 trillion in January 2005 as President George W. Bush began his second term to $10.6 trillion the day Obama was inaugurated and to $14.02 trillion now. The period has seen two major wars and the deepest economic downturn since the 1930s.

With a $1.7 trillion deficit in budget year 2010 alone, and the government on track to spend $1.3 trillion more this year than it takes in, annual budget deficits are adding roughly $4 billion a day to the national debt. Put another way, the government is borrowing 41 cents for every dollar it spends.

In a letter to Congress, Geithner said the current statutory debt ceiling of $14.3 trillion, set just last year, may be reached by the end of March — and hit no later than May 16. He warned that holding it hostage to skirmishes over spending could lead the country to default on its obligations, "an event that has no precedent in American history."

Debt-level brinkmanship doesn't wear a party label.  No Shit!!!!

Here's what then-Sen. Barack Obama said on the Senate floor in 2006: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance the government's reckless fiscal policies."

It was a blast by the freshman lawmaker against a Bush request to raise the debt limit to $8.96 trillion.

Bush won on a 52-48 party-line vote. Not a single Senate Democrat voted to raise the limit, opposition that's now complicating White House efforts to rally bipartisan support for a higher ceiling.

Democrats have use doomsday rhetoric about a looming government shutdown and comparing the U.S. plight to financial crises in Greece and Portugal. It's all a bit of a stretch.

"We can't do as the Gingrich crowd did a few years ago, close the government," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., referring to government shutdowns in 1995 when Georgia Republican Newt Gingrich was House speaker.

But those shutdowns had nothing to do with the debt limit. They were caused by failure of Congress to appropriate funds to keep federal agencies running.

And there are many temporary ways around the debt limit.

Hitting it does not automatically mean a default on existing debt. It only stops the government from new borrowing, forcing it to rely on other ways to finance its activities.

In a 1995 debt-limit crisis, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin borrowed $60 billion from federal pension funds to keep the government going. It wasn't popular, but it helped get the job done. A decade earlier, James Baker, President Ronald Reagan's treasury secretary, delayed payments to the Civil Service and Social Security trust funds and used other bookkeeping tricks to keep money in the federal till.

Baker and Rubin "found money in pockets no one knew existed before," said former congressional budget analyst Stanley Collender.

Collender, author of "Guide to the Federal Budget," cites a slew of other things the government can do to delay a crisis. They include leasing out government-owned properties, "the federal equivalent of renting out a room in your home," or slowing down payments to government contractors.

Now partner-director of Qorvis Communications, a Washington consulting firm, Collender said such stopgap measures buy the White House time to resist GOP pressure for concessions.

"My guess is they can go months after the debt ceiling is not raised and still be able to come up with the cash they need. But at some point, it will catch up," and raising the debt limit will become an imperative, he suggested.

Republican leaders seem to acknowledge as much, but first want to force big concessions. "Do I want to see this nation default? No. But I want to make sure we get substantial spending cuts and controls in exchange for raising the debt ceiling," said the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Clearly, the tea party types in Congress will be given an up-and-down vote on raising the debt limit before any final deal is struck, even if the measure ultimately passes.

"At some point you run out of accounting gimmicks and resources. Eventually the government is going to have to start shutting down certain operations," said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics.

"If we get into a heated, protracted debate over the debt ceiling, global investors are going to grow nervous, and start driving up interest rates. It will all become negatively self-re-enforcing," said Zandi. "No good will come of it."

The overall national debt rose above $14 trillion for the first time the last week in December. The part subject to the debt limit stood at $13.95 trillion on Friday and was expected to break above $14 trillion within days.

25
Tacitus' Realm / The Great Republican Purge
« on: January 14, 2011, 06:06:24 PM »

Why does the Republican Party have a problem with America?????



http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/01/gre ... ican-purge

The Great Republican Purge

— By Stephanie Mencimer
| Fri Jan. 14, 2011 11:13 AM PST
 

UPDATE 5:24 PM: Wisconsin Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus won the nomination for the RNC chair.

UPDATE 4:40 PM: Michael Steele dropped out of the chairman's race on Friday afternoon and endorsed Maria Cino as his replacment. In the next round of voting, Wisconsin Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus pulled ahead of the pack with 80 votes, needing 85 to win.

ORIGINAL POST: Officially, Republicans are meeting today to select a new chairman of the Republican National Committee. Unofficially, they are about to finally purge the party of any last vestiges of moderation.

The RNC's 168 members will decide the fate of Michael Steele in a major vote to select their next chairman. The election has been closely watched, as Steele has been highly unpopular in many corners of the party. The race is also drawing a lot of attention because, for the first time, outside groups like the tea party-allied FreedomWorks have sought to influence the outcome.

It wasn't so long ago that the RNC was headed up by former tobacco lobbyist and current Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, who irked social conservatives recently by suggesting that there was room in the party for pro-choice candidates. Ken Mehlman, the RNC chair during the second term of George W. Bush, turned out to be a closeted gay man who has come out in support of gay marriage. But it was clear even last month at two debates for the chairman's race that neither Barbour nor Mehlman would have a prayer of winning back their old jobs today. In the last RNC chair debate, Steele, the lone black man, was the only one of six candidates who rejected a narrow view of the Republican Party. He argued the GOP has room for some ideological diversity and that it might actually need those voices to appeal to the larger American public. He's likely to go down in flames today, toppled by someone who has supported platform purity. Steele's ouster is being engineered by a host of conservatives, most notably Indiana RNC represenative and GOP legal eagle James Bopp.
 
Last month, Bopp, the longtime counsel to the National Right to Life, joined with the tea party group FreedomWorks to host a forum for RNC chairman candidates in a very public effort to help unseat Steele. Bopp did not support Steele in the last election because of his involvement with the Republican Leadership Council, a political action committee co-founded by pro-choice former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman and other moderate Republicans who sought to make the party more socially inclusive.

Bopp has been on the forefront of a movement to shrink the GOP's big tent and ensure that it only supports candidates who commit to a fairly limited conservative agenda, and who notably also don't support positions in conflict with the RNC platform on issues like abortion. His activism in the RNC chairman's race is as much an anti-moderate movement as it is an anti-Steele campaign.

Last year at this meeting, Bopp attempted to pass a resolution, commonly called the "purity pledge," though he insists that it really should be called an "80 percent pure" test or the Reagan Doctrine. This, he explained to me, refers to the principle that if someone agrees with you 80 percent of the time, he's your friend. The resolution would have required a viable candidate to hold positions in line with at least eight out of the 10 laid out by the RNC. Bopp's resolution failed, but a similar measure succeeded.

The tea party has also spurred efforts to purge the party of moderate Republicans, and those are on public display in the fight over the next RNC chairman. (Those sentiments have also prompted a rules change that might be called the "Arlen Specter resolution," which will force RNC-backed candidates to sign a contract requiring them to give back any committee money if they change parties down the road.)

Bopp didn't offer up any resolutions this year, but he was at the RNC meeting this week working behind the scenes to elect a slate of candidates for RNC offices who would make sure that the RNC didn't back any candidates who strayed too far outside the social conservative platform. Publicly, he is backing former Wisconsin GOP chairman Reince Priebus, who is leading in the votes to become the next chair. Bopp told me he decided to endorse Priebus, who had been the RNC general counsel under Steele, because he had been assured by many of his pro-life clients in Wisconsin that Priebus is a true conservative who played a key role in merging the state's Republican Party with the tea party movement.

But Bopp could have pretty much supported anyone running for chairman this year aside from Steele. At a recent debate, it was clear that the slate of candidates challenging Steele was almost entirely homogeneous, all white but also universally committed to a narrow view of Republican orthodoxy. Bopp, who was at Friday’s event wearing a suit decorated with a host of campaign stickers for his various candidates, explained that the Barbour/Steele days are pretty much over. "The last three elections have demonstrated we must adhere to principle," he said. "The last election showed that conservatism is universally popular. We tried moderate—nominating McCain [in 2008]—and we got the shit kicked out of us."

26
Feed Your Head / Aaron Bacon AARON BACON will be out on DVD January, 25th 201
« on: January 06, 2011, 04:11:15 PM »
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Aaron-Bac ... 727?v=wall

"Aaron Bacon" made its world premiere in 35mm at this year's Shanghai International Film Festival from June 13-21.
Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) was chair of the international jury! SIFF is Asia's top A-list film festival.

Starring:
    Stephen Michael Kane, George Gallagher, Kether Donohue, & Joey Reynolds
Directed By:
    Nick Gaglia
Plot Outline:
    Inspired by the book "Help at Any Cost" by Maia Szalavitz, this film is based on the true story of a 16-year-old boy who dies as a result of malpractice and abuse in a tough-love, wilderness, drug-treatment facility. Directed by Nick Gaglia.
Screenplay:  Nick Gaglia

Websites:
    http://www.myspace.com/aaronbaconfilm
    http://www.helpatanycost.com/
    http://www.overthegw.com/

27
Tacitus' Realm / Gov. Christie signs 'Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights'
« on: January 06, 2011, 11:58:03 AM »
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/0 ... ullyi.html
gov-christie-speaks.JPGAmanda Brown/The Star-LedgerNJ Gov. Chris Christie today signed what advocates call the strictest anti-bullying law in the country.
By Matt Friedman/Statehouse Bureau

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie has signed a bill advocates say gives New Jersey the toughest anti-bullying law in the nation.

Christie signed the “Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights,” according to a press release from Garden State Equality, the state’s largest gay rights organization, which advocated for the bill.

The new law is intended to eliminate loopholes in the state’s first anti-bullying law, passed in 2002, that encouraged school districts to set up anti-bullying programs but did not mandate it.

It will require training for most public school teachers, administrators and other employees on how to spot bullying and mandate that all districts form a "school safety team" to review complaints. School districts would be graded by the state on their efforts to combat the problem.

Administrators who do not investigate reported incidents of bullying would be disciplined, while students who bully could be suspended or expelled. School employees would also be required to report all incidents they learn of, whether they took place in or outside of school.

The bill sailed through the Assembly and Senate in November. It passed 73-1, with 5 abstentions, in the Assembly. It passed the Senate 30-0.

Christie signed the bill Wednesday, spokesman Michael Drewniak said.

"He signed it, and we're overjoyed," said state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), one of the bill's prime sponsors.

State Sen. Diane Allen (R-Burlington), also a prime sponsor, said while the law won't end bullying, school employees will know how to better deal with it.

"While we cannot change human nature, we can change how government and school officials respond to unacceptable behavior," she said.

The bill, in the works for almost a year, gained publicity and momentum after the suicide of Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi, whose roommate streamed a romantic encounter between him and another man over the internet.


Previous coverage:

• N.J. Assembly, Senate pass 'Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights' in wake of Tyler Clementi's death

• Anti-bullying Bill of Rights sails through N.J. Assembly, Senate education committees

• N.J. Senate advances stricter anti-bullying law following suicide of Tyler Clementi

• N.J. lawmakers to hold hearings on proposed anti-bullying laws following Rutgers suicide

• Uncertainty looms over whether anti-bullying measures may have played role in Tyler Clementi's death

• N.J. proposal to toughen anti-bullying laws follows Rutgers student suicide

• N.J. lawmakers introduce 'Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights' in wake of Tyler Clementi suicide

• Complete coverage of Tyler Clementi's suicide case

28
The Troubled Teen Industry / Multi-systemic family therapy
« on: December 30, 2010, 07:16:52 PM »
This thread was inspired by a thread Ursus originated; viewtopic.php?f=44&t=32376  from this News Site I gathered this information, from a related article.
Thanks Ursus


http://www.independentmail.com/news/201 ... perts-say/

Home-based therapy best for troubled teens, experts say
Multi-systemic family therapy:

 * By Kirk Brown
 * Anderson Independent Mail
 * Posted December 17, 2010 at 5:28 p.m.

 Experts say parents need to find answers to the following questions before sending their child to a boarding school.

Key Questions
 
-- How often can parents contact and visit their children?

-- What are the qualifications of the school’s treatment staff?

-- What is the school’s policy on isolating and restraining students?

-- What is the school’s policy for medical care and medications?

Tough-love boarding schools have become a popular option for parents seeking to straighten out their unruly children.

But critics say that these schools are not always the best or safest option.

“There is absolutely no evidence that tough love works,” said Maia Szalavitz, a journalist who scrutinized the troubled-teen industry in her 2006 book “Help at Any Cost.”

Data gathered by the United States Government Accountability Office in 2005 revealed 1,503 incidents in which students were mistreated by staff members at boarding schools and wilderness programs.

In 2006, 28 states reported at least one death in residential facilities for troubled teens, according to GAO official Kay Brown’s testimony at a 2008 congressional hearing. Less than a year after this hearing, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a measure intended to better protect teens at residential programs. However, the legislation never came up for a vote in the Senate.

Szalavitz said parents should consider home-based treatment options before sending their children away to a boarding school.

“The best treatments for teenagers involve the family,” she said. “The idea that you can fix a relationship by exiling someone doesn’t pass the common-sense test.”

One highly regarded alternative to boarding schools is called multi-systemic family therapy. This approach, which was developed by faculty members at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, focuses on reshaping virtually every aspect a juvenile offender’s life. This includes the youth’s relationship with parents, school officials and peers.

“We work with all of these risk factors in the kids’ everyday natural environment,” said Sonja Schoenwald, a psychiatry professor at MUSC.

Clinicians, who are on call 24 hours a day, work with juveniles and their parents in the home for a period of several months.

A number of studies have shown youths who take part in this intensive form of therapy are less likely to be arrested and more likely to stay in school. At an average daily cost of $59, the therapy also is less expensive than most boarding schools.

Multi-systemic therapy programs have been created in 31 different states and 12 nations. In South Carolina, the state Department of Mental Health has placed multi-systemic therapy teams in five different counties. The newest team has worked with about 50 families since it was formed in Greenville County in 2008.

“We are getting better outcomes” said Gregory Wright, the multi-systemic therapy supervisor for Greenville County.

Practitioner review:  Practitioner Review: The effectiveness of systemic family therapy for children and adolescents
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 00047/full

Evidence-based practice in family therapy and systemic consultation
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 7/abstract

The effectiveness of family therapy and systemic interventions for child-focused problems
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 451.x/full

29
Tacitus' Realm / Why Shouldn’t Freedom of the Press Apply to WikiLeaks?
« on: December 26, 2010, 09:12:20 PM »
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... s-20101215

Why Shouldn’t Freedom of the Press Apply to WikiLeaks?

Dan Kitwood/Getty
By Tim Dickinson
December 15, 2010 5:07 PM EDT


Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that the quarter of a million secret government cables from the State Department had been leaked, not to Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, but to Bill Keller, the executive editor of the New York Times.

First, let’s state the obvious: The Times would never have returned the confidential files to the Obama administration. Most likely, the newspaper would have attempted to engage with State to try to scrub life- and source- threatening details from the cables — as Assange and his lawyers did.

And if the administration had refused to participate in that effort -- as it did with WikiLeaks? The Times would have done what any serious news organization has the imperative to do: It would have published, at a pacing of its own choosing, any cable it deemed to be in the public interest. In this digital age, it’s likely the Times would have even created a massive searchable database of the cables.

The optics of the information dump would likely have been very different -- overlaid with the Times’ newspaper-of-record gravitas. But the effect would have been identical: Information that the U.S. government finds embarrassing, damning, and even damaging would have seen the light of day.

Now let’s extend the thought experiment:

How would you react if top American conservatives were today baying for Bill Keller’s blood? If Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had called on Keller to be prosecuted as a “high-tech terrorist”? If Sarah Palin were demanding that Keller be hunted down like a member of Al Qaeda? If Newt Gingrich were calling for the Times editor to be assassinated as an “enemy combatant.”

What if Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, had successfully pressured the Times’ web hosting company to boot the newspaper off its servers? What if Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal suddenly stopped processing subscriptions for the paper?

Imagine that students at Columbia University’s graduate school of international affairs had been warned not to Tweet about the New York Times if they had any hopes of ever working at the State Department.

Imagine U.S. soldiers abroad being told that they’d be breaking the law if they read even other news outlets’ coverage of the Times’ exclusives.

Imagine that the Library of Congress had simply blocked all access to the New York Times site.

You can’t imagine this actually happening to the New York Times. Yet this has been has been exactly the federal and corporate response to Assange and WikiLeaks.

The behavior is outrageous on its face and totalitarian in its impulse. Indeed, we should all be alarmed at the Orwellian coloring of the Obama administration’s official response to the publishing of the cables:

“President Obama supports responsible, accountable, and open government at home and around the world, but this reckless and dangerous action runs counter to that goal.”

Secrecy is openness. What the fuck?!

Listen: You don’t have to approve of Assange or his political views; you can even believe he’s a sex criminal. It doesn’t matter. What’s at stake here isn’t the right of one flouncy Australian expat to embarrass a superpower. It’s freedom of the press. And it’s a dark day for journalists everywhere when the imperatives of government secrecy begin to triumph over our First Amendment.

30
Elan School / Elan resident peril documented.
« on: December 07, 2010, 03:19:28 PM »
I did not go to Elan a friend of mine alerted me to this site. I have never seen it before (found it on the facebook Elan Site). Thought it would be of some use here.
Check out the over 200 comments. (I did not post them here for longevity reasons)
This site is interesting.
I would like to post their comments from this site but I am questioning if this is ethical since they laid it down there but not here. Make any sense? Funny though I didn't have any problem posting this dudes story. I don't know maybe I am reading more into this then I should.


http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/e ... your_mind/

DATE: Leaked documents which have been posted publicly for the first time EVER. These were written in 1991 by an author trying to expose the school. The author had to flee the country. All major points have been highlighted and set in larger type depending on the seriousness of the allegations. http://www.scribd.com/doc/44635665/Scribd

edit: to show double support, click here next

summary- Google: the elan school (this will basically open Pandora's box)

This place only still exist because so many people believe that it doesn't or that it can't. I believe that the internet is our #1 tool for exposing these horrid blind spots for what they are. Help me Reddit!

I was sent to a place called The Elan School in 1998 and I was only 16. The scary thing is that Elan is still open, kids aged 13-20 are there right now. Normal kids, many whom may have smoked a joint or two, or who swore at their parents. Of course there were also real criminals there, but they did not make up the majority.

The "school" accepted anyone and then held them as long as they possibly could depending on the age of the child. If you were sent at 14 (many were) you may have been looking at 3-4 years. This is because The Elan School collects $50,000 a year per child, either from the child's state, school, or parents. And, of course, money was the only motivation of the staff and directors. These were the people in charge of your "progress" in the program.

I could write for hours about it, instead I ask you to skim the following bullet points and to understand that I am telling the truth.

    *

      We were forced to participate in staff-organized fight clubs, none of which were fair, all were designed to humiliate one child who would be put up against at least 3 others. So even the children who "followed the rules" were forced to fight: in the name of "good".
    *

      Children who tried to rebel or be free-thinking were thrown into an isolation room where they had to stay for months at a time, they had to sleep at night on a dirty mattress on the floor of the isolation room The mattress was brought to them at midnight and they were woken up around 7am.
    *

      We were all forced to perform in a ritual called a "General Meeting" where the entire house (60 or more boys and girls) screamed at one child who stood behind a broomstick. Many times they were forcibly held up by two other students so they would have to accept the punishment.
    *

      Education was considered a right, but those of us who earned the right were still robbed of an education. School was from 7pm-11pm: no homework, no test, no projects. Ex: math class consisted of grabbing a math book and handing the teacher at least one page of work.
    *

      The other 12 hours of the day consisted of constant conditioning and brainwashing. In the beginning you obviously rejected it, but then you would be "dealt with". You would not be able to rise through the ranks of the program to earn more 'rights' until you could prove yourself to be a good candidate for more brainwashing. Eventually it became your responsibility to begin indoctrinating the newer residents (basically you, six month earlier). You had Strength and Non-Strength. Non-Strength's were not allowed to talk, interact, or communicate in any way with other Non-Strengths. It took a minimum of 6 months to earn the title of "Strength". It took some kids years to earn "Strength". Some kids never did.
    *

      Elan made money based on the amount of time it took for you to graduate "the program". You had to have a minimum of 7 promotions before you were a candidate for "graduation". Each promotion took a minimum of 3 months, and 90% of the kids never made it past the 5th promotion. These kids had to wait until they turned 18 and could legally sign themselves out. Other kids stayed past their 18th birthday, which is a true testament to the effectiveness of the brainwashing, I remember one dude was 23.
    *

      Your level of high-school had no reflection whatsoever on your ability to leave Elan. I was forced to do my senior year of high school twice, even though I was technically done after the first senior year.
    *

      The staff members were primarily former students who were hired by Elan after graduating from the program. Many arrived in BMW's and clearly made 6 figure incomes. None of them had degree's in psychology, education, social work, etc... Many of them never went to college at all.
    *

      All outgoing letters to parents were screened, many of us having to write many different drafts until they were accepted. All phone calls to our parents were monitored, we were allowed about 15 minutes a week and the person who monitored the call would have their hand hovering over the hang-up button as a constant reminder of our reality.
    *

      We were not allowed to write or receive letters until we earned the right (this could take 8 months or more). When someone found out where I was and wrote me, my unopened letters were ripped up in front of me as motivation to move up in the program.

I feel like I am beginning to write too much and I do not want to overwhelm anyone who made it this far. Because most of the bullet points honestly require further explanation to give the full impact of what Elan truly was.

The most important thing that anyone can do is to be aware of this place and make sure that nobody you know ever gets sent there for any reason. If you are a parent then do not send your child there. If you know someone who is there now then beg the parents to do more research.

The amount of suicides and tragic deaths of former Elan students is reason enough to take this post seriously.

***if you want to help then Google: the elan school.....dig through the links, learn about it, know that it exist

please

email: [email protected]

Edit: And I started this IAMa to answer specific questions:

Subscribe here for infrequent action alerts about the effort to close Elan.

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