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Quote: FIFE’S addiction to giving drugs to kids with ADHD will turn a generation into addicts hooked on presciption medication.

Fortunately, that’s the view of politicians who are misinformed.

Science shows that the drugs are not habit-forming.

But yet again, more irresponsible misinformation goes out.

Makes me angry.

I guess you can tell.

The children drugged for being naughty | the Daily Mail

Quote: Countless children labelled hyperactive are being subdued with drugs like Ritalin. But many experts think they’re just naturally boisterous – and those needless pills are causing terrifying side-effects.

This is just irresponsible journalism.

Attention-grabbing, inaccurate headline – technically hard to argue against, but extremely pejorative… I won’t bother going into it from there, but see this if you’re not convinced yet:

Quote: See related articles …
• Does ADHD really exist?

Come on!

Is is overdiagnosed? Possibly. That’s hard to tell.

People are already afraid about the “drugs” (you’ll notice that’s the word we use for illegal substances – they could have chosen to use “medicine”, which has a positive connotation).

This crappy lack-of-journalism scare-tactic bullshit doesn’t help.

Well… I take that back. It does help sell papers.

CITIZEN-TIMES.com: No shortage of column topics to explore, but alas, my time on this page is over

Quote: the diagnostic criteria for ADHD are so vague nearly all of us fit the descriptions

Only to someone who knows nothing about ADHD.

If you go out and read the symptoms of nearly any disease or condition, you’ll find that many of them overlap, and if you have a cold, you might well fit many of them…. does that mean you have any of them? Not necessarily.

Thank goodness we have doctors to do the diagnoses instead of ignorant column writers.

sigh

So every resource I’ve found so far online about ADHD falls within one (or more) of these categories:

– Lots of people saying “ZOMG I haev ADHD!” “OZMG, meee toooo! lollerz!”—I mean, community is nice, and really, I hope this helps them… but… it’s not for me. – Spam sites. Lots of them. – Medical and Pseudo-medical sites that give basics, like “ADHD is a disorder affecting the brain” or some stupid crap… Stuff I know pretty well by now.

Add to all of that that my Google automated search for “ADHD” has thus far turned up articles about how ADHD is overdiagnosed, medication has OZMG horrible side effects and we should warn everyone, with the occasional misuse or some idiot saying “everyone has ADHD” and crap like that….........

I’m beginning to wonder if there’s intelligent life out there…..

ABC News: Gingrich Tells Christian Group of Affair

Quote: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.

“The honest answer is yes,” Gingrich, a potential 2008 Republican presidential candidate,

So all you Republican holier-than-thou morons, you can STFU.

Oh, and I’m not a Democrat. I hate both parties with a strong passion. I am a liberal, although self-proclaimed conservatives may well get the wrong idea about me. But hey, I’ll give you credit for not being a moron if you’ll give me that same credit…

Disclaimer: I’m not “attacking” all Republicans, just those who think that Republicans are better than anyone else. Again: Both parties suck.

The Blog | Andrei Cherny: A New American Democracy | The Huffington Post

Quote: But now we all know that America is changing yet again. We’re moving from cities to suburbs and exurbs, from a national economy to a global economy, from the top-down hierarchies of the industrial age to the bottom-up workplaces of the information age, from assembly lines to iPods.

Not everyone is part of that shift, but with each passing day more and more are. And again, American democracy is at risk.

We once again have a corrupt bargain between powerful interests and pliant politicians. Energy policy is set not by citizens or their elected representatives, but behind closed doors by lobbyists and industry. Congress prohibits Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices. The number of registered lobbyists in Washington has doubled since 2000 and the amount these lobbyists charge their clients has increased 100 percent – and those clients are getting every cent of their money’s worth. You don’t have to look much further than this week’s headlines to see that the voice of everyday people in our government is getting drowned out by the desires of a few.

Social equality is disappearing once again, in ways unseen since the last time our economy changed, back in the Gilded Age. Thirty years ago the top 100 CEOs made 39 times the wage of the average worker. Now it is more than 1,000 times higher. And the top 1% holds a third of the country’s net worth. The days of “the President is Mister and I am Mister, too” are disappearing. And yet, Congress is clamoring to eliminate the estate tax with what might as well be called “the American Aristocrats Protection Act of 2006.” Right now the fight is whether or not to cut off the estate tax at seven million dollars or higher.

Opportunity – the idea that in a democracy each person should have an equal chance at success – is also at risk. A 1978 study showed that 23% of the adult men born in the bottom fifth made it to the top fifth. When they did the study over again a few years ago, that number had dropped to 10%.

Class lines are becoming hardened and the avenues of democracy are being closed off. At the country’s top 146 colleges, 75% of the students come from the top 1/4th and only 3% from the bottom 1/4th. You are 25 times as likely to sit next to a rich student as you are a poor one. The days of Bob Crachit and Ebenezer Scrooge sitting down together are vanishing before our eyes.

And where the richest in our country can choose their children’s schools and their family doctor and how to save for their retirement, most middle class and poor Americans have little to no say on most aspects of their lives, little ability to make decisions for themselves.

Those of us who believe in American democracy now have a choice to make – and it is just like the choice a hundred years ago. We can try to hold back change: say no to globalization or no to technology replacing manufacturing jobs and bank tellers being replaced by ATMs.

A good read. It doesn’t address detailed solutions, but please check it out.

I think things in this country are coming to a head. Something is going to have to change.

Politicians are out of touch, and extremists from all sides are polarizing the country—which is stupid. The vast majority of Americans can work out our differences. I’m sure we could come up with some compromises on all these issues that are being blown out of proportion…

We need to reboot democracy in this country—excellent way to put it. That’s now my new motto. It expresses exactly what I feel.

So-called democracy here is dead—but it doesn’t have to stay that way.

Wired News: Boycott Sony

Quote: After weeks of criticism, Sony has finally agreed to temporarily stand down on an abusive and likely illegal copy restriction practice. Hold the applause.

On Friday, the world’s second-biggest record label pledged to temporarily stop making CDs that leave computers vulnerable to security breaches. This is a step in the right direction, but it does not go nearly far enough toward correcting a serious ethical lapse. In fact, it is proof positive that Sony is unworthy of our trust or our business.

Haven’t decided to boycott Sony yet? Take a gander at this Wired article and join the boycott.

Sony has made a HUGE mistake here, and the continue to make it worse and worse…

Boater Rescued From Sharks Off Fla. Coast

Quote: A man whose boat capsized in rough seas off the Florida coast treaded water for six hours, watching his friend die, while two boaters refused to pick him up apparently thinking he was an illegal immigrant from Haiti.

...because he was black.

Thanks to the racist asshats on those two boats that didn’t stop—you’re a real credit to the nation. I hope you read the article and feel the full impact of it, and realize that (depending on circumstances not clea from the article) you may be partially responsible for the death of the second person…

Morons.

Capitol Hill Blue: GOP memo touts new terror attack as way to reverse party’s decline

Quote: GOP insiders who have seen the memo admit it’s a risky strategy[...]

Really?

Ya freakin’ think?

Okay, I grant you, the Democratic party, for the most part nationally, has sat on their thumbs while they could have done SO many things to provide good, solid leadership that our nation is dying for (literally, if you count our innocent soldiers being slain in Iraq).....

I’m not so much Democrat as I am Anti-Republican…

And things like this scare me. These are the people in power—who have the power to allow another 9/11 to happen.

Think Progress » O’Reilly Responds: “What I Said Isn’t Controversial. What I Said Needed to Be Said.”

Quote: They feel that we’re the problem, we’re the evildoers, that al Qaeda is created because of us. That’s the hallmark of the radical left. It’s always America’s fault.

I was almost agreeing with him until the last bit…

No, Bill, it’s not America’s fault, it’s radicals like you.

I don’t like the radical left, but when I see idiots like you, I keep getting pushed farther and farther that way. It’s easy to forget that most people in this country are mostly reasonable. But people like you keep pushing people towards the fringes—towards radicalism, which only serves to reinforce the push towards radicalism…

Bush is seeing a lot of political fallout for the crap he’s pulled while in office. Do I see a nation going against conservative values? Not so much, when his much-spouted “mandate” was barely more than half the population—you can’t just look and say “barely more than half voted for me!”—to declared a ‘mandate’ should require taking away one person who voted for you for each person who voted against. Then you can truly see how divided this nation is.

But it’s not “red states” and “blue states”—if you look at how people voted on a county level, assigning shades of red/purple/blue to match the percentage that voted for each candidate, you’d see bluish metro areas and reddish rural areas—and a lot of purple a lot of places.

But these idiots don’t feel they’re being served by looking at it reasonably- they like extremists. Extremists on their own side, of course; but extremists on the opposite side because that pushes more people to extremism on their own side.

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Language (Crass Transportation)

Quote: 8. Give every girl an adequate number of rest periods during the day. Companies that are already using large numbers of women stress the fact that you have to make some allowances for feminine psychology. A girl has more confidence and consequently is more efficient if she can keep her hair tidied, apply fresh lipstick and wash her hands several times a day.

1943. The United States of America.

It’s real, folks. This is from a pamphlet giving advice on hiring and utilizing female employees.

Because everyone knows women are inferior to men. anger, anger Good grief, were we really this stupid?! sigh

BBC NEWS | Africa | ‘Iron lady’ set for Liberia win

Quote: Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf is set to be Africa’s first elected female leader.

Sweet.

And it’s a shame (hint, hint) when we haven’t had one yet (hint, hint)—so all you qualified ladies, come on, let’s go—surely we can find SOME sort of decent candidate.

Well, okay, hell, I’d take a decent candidate no matter what the gender; but we are long overdue for women and minority presidents.

Techdirt:Sony: Rootkits Are Okay, Because No One Knows What They Are

Quote: Thomas Hesse, President of Sony’s Global Digital Business, literally says: “Most people, I think, don’t even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?”

The gall.

The absolute gall.

Using this logic, we should throw out all the asbestos claims—at least, they could have, before people knew it was harming them. After all, people didn’t know asbestos was bad, so why should they care about it?

Ladies and gents, if you don’t know what a rootkit is, I’ll tell you why you should care: A rootkit is basically software you didn’t authorize (like a virus) that hides itself from the system.

I’m a geek. I can typically tell when a virus has infected a computer. And even if I can’t, typically anti-virus software eventually can.

But a rootkit is able to hide itself from the operating system. It’s a virus gone stealthy.

Now, let’s back up a moment, because many people associate “virus” with “destructive”. That’s simply not true. It’s like a gun—by its very existence, it has the possible capability to cause harm, but it might be innocuous—consider that a “toy gun” that fires no bullets is still technically a “gun”. For this analogy, that’s very much appropos. Not all virii necessarily cause harm. (Except that some might cause harm by their very existence, much like pointing a toy gun at a police officer might not have the most positive outcome)

So, not all rootkits themselves might cause harm. And, in fact, Sony’s rootkit is not designed to do harm.

However, it won’t be long, now that knowledge of it is trickling out, that real virus writers will be writing things to exploit the Sony rootkit—because it’s not even a well-designed rootkit: it’s very poorly written, and allows for exploits…

If you’re infected with Sony’s rootkit, if someone is able to write a file that starts with “$sys$” as the name (i.e. instead of somedocument.doc, they call it $sys$somedocument.doc), it is hidden from Windows. Which is how they hide the rootkit from you. But with something as simple as that, it means it’s very easy to write something that exploits it…

This is an outrage.

I am personally boycotting Sony until such time as they completely disavow this entire method, and offer true, complete, and workable solutions to systems they have infected.

WOAI: San Antonio News – Online Terror Threat Hits Local High School

Quote: “It just seems to me that if you put up a public web site, and you allow students, teeangers, minors to post their thoughts and ideas, and not monitor it in an adult manner, you are asking for trouble,” Gonzales said. “This particular web site has been a pain for all Bexar County schools for a long time now, and it just seems that the owners of MySpace-dot-com should be held accountable.”

And if students, teeangers [sic], minors send emails with their thoughts and ideas, and it’s not monitored in an adult manner (what the hell is “an adult manner”—or does he mean “*by* an adult”?), we should hold the ISPs accountable?

And if students, teeangers [sic], minors send snail mails with their thoughts and ideas, and it’s not monitored in an adult manner, should we hold the post office accountable?

Rape victim: ‘Morning after’ pill denied | The Arizona Daily Star ®

Quote: When she finally did find a pharmacy with it, she said she was told the pharmacist on duty would not dispense it because of religious and moral objections.

I despise abortion. I truly, honestly, no-jokes 100% seriously do.

For many years, I considered myself an extremely ardent Pro-Life supporter.

And I still am, according to my own definition. I abhor abortion.

But I abhor the government taking away choices like that from citizens even more, and it’s cases like this that have changed me into a Pro-Choice-first, Pro-Life-close-second person.

This is utter and complete bullshit.

That pharmacist has no justification for refusing the drug—and if they can’t do their job (as is made clear here), then they need to be forcefully removed, and have all their relevant authorizations revoked with prejudice.

The Blog | Alec Baldwin: What Happened to the Party of Lincoln? | The Huffington Post

Quote: My question for today is: Why are contemporary Republicans so full of shit?

My personal answer: Hey, who cares? They’re the only thing making the Democrats look like the better of the two parties… bah-dum-ching.

My question is: How did our two-party system get this deeply [profanity]ed?

And by “two party system” I mean “a system made up of two parties that are very different in rhetoric, but virtually alike when you get down to it – made up of moronic self-serving asshats”...

(Oh, I’m sure there are plenty of exceptional politicians out there, but they sure are rare, aren’t they?)

(Hey, three rants in a row! Do I win a prize? )

New York Daily News – Home – Daily News Exclusive: Bushies feeling the boss’ wrath

Quote: Facing the darkest days of his presidency, President Bush is frustrated, sometimes angry and even bitter, his associates say.

I realize that some of my distaste for this buffoon is probably the result of misinformation and misunderstanding, and that there is a hell of a lot that has to be done that makes our leaders look bad…

But this dude has singlehandedly put us into Vietman II: Hurt The Man That Made My Daddy Look Bad (not really, btw – no need to mess with Hussein on Bush I’s account – I mean, there were no WMDs, so one must assume it was a family affair), screwed our foreign policy around the world, built a coalition of the willing, consisting of ourselves, and oh, we conned the UK (Don’t forget Poland!)............................

At least Clinton’s failings were things that didn’t screw up the nation nearly so badly…

Letters Show Frist Notified Of Stocks in ‘Blind’ Trusts

Quote: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) was given considerable information about his stake in his family’s hospital company, according to records that are at odds with his past statements that he did not know what was in his stock holdings.

Ugh…

Am I surprised by this? No. Not really.

Am I excited by the fact that he’s a Repulican? No—although I am always glad when it’s not a Democrat, there are plenty of asshats on both sides of that picture… Although I admit to taking a small joy that so MANY Republicans are in trouble at the moment… Although I don’t believe the Democrats are good enough to be conspiring to make it happen, so…... I have very mixed feelings on it all, as you can see…

Do I believe the trust was truly blind? I tend not to…

Do I believe this report that the trust wasn’t blind? Well, I am cynical about politicians, so I tend to believe it more than not, but I’m well aware that there’s always more to the story than we plebes get…

Still, all in all, the scale of my emotion tips ever so slightly towards a minor cheer that maybe another asshat will get their comeuppance… even as I sympathize with the hell he’ll be going through over this until everyone forgets…

Not that any of my reaction is unusual… I just decided to write it all out for you… Sort of an anti-rant, since it’s lack of emotion that characterizes this…

VeriSign to control ‘.com’ domain until 2012 | CNET News.com

Quote: “It really hits the reset button on the relationship between VeriSign and ICANN and allows everybody to get focussed on more important things, like security and stability and the globalization of the Internet,” VeriSign Senior Vice President Mark McLaughlin said in an interview.

ICANN President Paul Twomey said the settlement shows that issues involving the domain-name system are best resolved within ICANN, rather than through an international bureaucratic body.

Well. I’m glad you both are all lovey-dovey now, so can you PLEASE QUIT SCREWING THINGS UP?

Hmm… I need to make an “unlikely” category, I think…

Can you tell I dislike both Verisign and ICANN? Yeah… They’re doing a well-below-average job in my book…

Christian group wants to ‘redeem’ US states – Yahoo! News

Quote: Cory Burnell wants to set up a Christian nation within the United States where abortion is illegal, gay marriage is banned, schools cannot teach evolution, children can pray to Jesus in public schools and the Ten Commandments are posted publicly.

This is what keeps me up at night.

They’re fringe for now, but the day might come when we have a Christian Taliban in this country… That scares me like nothing else can…

It’s not just these fringe idiots that scare me, it’s the Religious Reich that’s already out there that scare me. And everytime Bush blathers on about Jesus, it excludes everyone who isn’t a fundie… Do you think the Muslims or the Athiests want to hear that stuff? If we did manage to have a Muslim president, would the Christians want him praying to Allah publicly like Bush does to Jesus? I think not.

Niall Kennedy’s Weblog: Google spam suite primer

Quote: Google provides a full suite of services for the entry-level blog spammer.

You know what I’m sick of?

Google-bashing. This has just tipped my low-grade irritation over into actual, full-blown angst.

Look, people, this is bullshit. I bet you most of the Googlebashers have been bitching about Microsoft for years… “Microsoft is teh ev1lz0rz! Z0mg! Adn so is teh G00glz0rz!”

Come off it…

And gamers are all murderers, and all goths just want to sacrifice your dog to the devil….

Get. A. Freaking. Clue.

Dimwits.

Next storm for Katrina victims: Bad credit score – The Red Tape Chronicles – MSNBC.com

Quote: Consumers who can’t make their house payments any more – even if that house has been completely swept away by the storm – may face the ultimate penalty in America’s credit-driven society: A credit score so low they won’t qualify for the loans they need to start rebuilding.

How stupid is this?

I have very little love for the current method of scoring… It’s better than nothing in many cases, but worse than nothing in many more…

Ugh.

Thank you, stupid methods of doing things.