On Meddling

“Is it not in the nature of complex social systems to go wrong, all by themselves, without external cause? Look at overpopulation, look at Calhoun’s famous model, those overcrowded colonies of rats and their malignant social pathology, all due to their own skewed behavior. Not at all, is my answer. All you have to do is find the meddler, in this case Professor Calhoun himself, and the system will put itself right. The trouble with those rats is not the innate tendency of crowded rats to go wrong, but the scientists who took them out of the world at large and put them in too small a box.”

Lewis Thomas
“On Meddling,” Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher.

Animals As Intelligent Beings

Tuning into your pet’s needs – BlogPaws

My cat turned me on to a new blog for pet owners called BlogPaws. There is some mention of a conference for bloggers, writers and pet supply companies. The first emphasis brought to my attention was the SEO aspect of writing a blog.

kittehboi.com is a fun blog, and though we make sure to mention others’ blogs, etc. for google juice, I don’t want it to end up looking like a Peruvian circus, full of multicolored flashing and dancing adverts.

The first requirement for SEO is to have content that brings readers back. I’m trying to wrap my brain around it, to come up with an idea that goes further than “funny pictures of cats.”

I have a personal interest in evolutionary psychology and neuropsychology, so my personal focus is on animals as intelligent, rational beings. Cats and dogs have the IQ of young children, but much more impulse control.

“C’mon, admit it – we all do it. Some of us talk to them as if they can actually understand us (I’m one of those).”

Did you catch that? The writer said “as if they can actually understand us.” Apparently this person has some doubts.

Eagle is EXTINCT. So what?

Dogs (and probably cats) have a Broca’s brain or Wernicke’s area, meaning they are capable of understanding speech. In practice cats have a vocabulary of around 20-30 words while dogs may be able to understand 100 or more. Animal behaviorists will tell you it’s “training.” 40 years ago human psychologists were behaviorists too, and explained all human behavior as learned responses to stimuli. How different *are* training and learning?

AK-47, The Official Assault Weapon of the Mentally Ill

Gun Sales: Will The “Loophole” Close?

In an interview with Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes on April 12, 2009, Sen. Diane Feinstein (D) firmly equated mental illness with criminal insanity by repeatedly using the phrase “criminals and the mentally ill.”

If it wasn’t bad enough that she did irreparable damage to the reputations of hundreds of thousands of folks, Sen. Feinstein stated that the AK-47 is the weapon of choice for the mentally ill.

Does the mentally ill community have an official gun? Perhaps they have an endorsement deal with Kalashnikov… “AK-47, The Official Assault Weapon of the Mentally Ill.” Or “Just Do Them.”

AKs [rifles] and other firearms, once forbidden under the ban, now fill entire tables at gun shows; you can buy them from private sellers without a background check.

“These assault weapons are essentially designed and made to kill numbers of people in close combat,” Senator Dianne Feinstein of California told Stahl.

Sen. Feinstein was the author and champion of the assault weapons ban in 1994. “They become the guns of choice of drug cartels, of gangs, of people who are mentally incompetent.”

– 60 Minutes, April 12, 2009
“Gun Sales: Will The “Loophole” Close?”

Et tu, Sen. Feinstein?

Please fill out the complaint form on the CBS site.

Mental Health Parity in the Bailout Boondoggle H. R. 1424

This refers to a previous bailout, not to the latest ripoff.

H. R. 1424: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008

Here is the full text, and I suggest that everybody read this bill. It was pushed through with only a couple of days debate by lawyers who have little understanding of the workings of Wall Street or The Fed, and who have huge financial interest in the institutions that will benefit from it. To add insult to injury, they tacked a lot of pork barrel spending onto it to BRIBE Congress to agree to it.
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/financialsvcs_dem/essabill.pdf

Some comments:

“To amend section 712 of the Employee Retirement Income
Security Act of 1974, section 2705 of the Public Health
Service Act, section 9812 of the Internal Revenue Code
of 1986 to require equity in the provision of mental
health and substance-related disorder benefits under
group health plans, to prohibit discrimination on the
basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance
and employment, and for other purposes.”

This means that you only get parity if your employer provides your insurance AND that insurance already has mental health coverage. It doesn’t seem to require them to cover it. How many of you all work full-time?

There is a cost exemption so to limit mental health coverage if it increases costs by some undetermined amount. The insurance companies can still deny claims bases on their definition of “medical necessity” or by their definition of “reasonable and customary” services.

‘‘(2) COST EXEMPTION.—
6 ‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—With respect to a
7 group health plan (or health insurance coverage
8 offered in connection with such a plan), if the
9 application of this section to such plan (or cov
10 erage) results in an increase for the plan year
11 involved of the actual total costs of coverage
12 with respect to medical and surgical benefits
13 and mental health and substance use disorder
14 benefits under the plan (as determined and cer
15 tified under subparagraph (C)) by an amount
16 that exceeds the applicable percentage described
17 in subparagraph (B) of the actual total plan
18 costs, the provisions of this section shall not
19 apply to such plan (or coverage) during the fol
20 lowing plan year, and such exemption shall
21 apply to the plan (or coverage) for 1 plan year.”

Discrimination on the basis of genetic information only affects illnesses for which genetic tests have been developed. This bill ignores a lot of of the provisions of the ADA, while modifying ERISA in ways that are completely meaningless. I am concerned that this will weaken the ADA by tightening the definitions to exclude non-genetic diseases.

Specific diagnoses this bill applies to will be determined by the GAO, which has 3 years to study it and present a report.

“(h) GAO STUDY ON COVERAGE AND EXCLUSION OF
4 MENTAL HEALTH AND SUBSTANCE USE DISORDER DIAG5
NOSES.—
6 (1) IN GENERAL.—The Comptroller General of
7 the United States shall conduct a study that ana8
lyzes the specific rates, patterns, and trends in cov9
erage and exclusion of specific mental health and
10 substance use disorder diagnoses by health plans
11 and health insurance.”

Congress can continue to modify this Act.

I doubt this will change anything in the near future.

A few years from now you’re going to hear Congressdroids bitching because they didn’t have enough time to collect the facts before enacting this bill. Listen to them whine about how they were boondoggled into exercising the Bush Doctrine on Iraq.

Paying Down Our Debt

Impermanence of Money

The total national debt as of this morning, Nov. 17th, 2008 is $10,617,806,584,635.27.

The population of the US as of 22:40 GMT (EST+5) Nov 17, 2008 is 305,679,024.

THEREFORE each and every US citizen owes $34,735.15.

Cough it up, people. Make your check payable to the Bureau of the Public Debt, and in the memo section, notate that it is a Gift to reduce the Debt Held by the Public. Mail your check to:

Attn Dept G
Bureau Of the Public Debt
P. O. Box 2188
Parkersburg, WV 26106-2188

Note: Perhaps we can borrow some? The world population is 6,737,570,334. If they’ll fork over $1575.91 each we’ll be out of this mess in no time.

Mental Health Rules Put in Bailout

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/financialsvcs_dem/essabill.pdf

The above link is to the full text of the bailout bill, and I suggest that everybody read this bill. It was pushed through with only a couple of days debate by lawyers who have little understanding of the workings of Wall Street or The Fed. And they tacked a lot of pork barrel spending onto it to BRIBE Congress to agree to it. Unfortunately, mental health parity verbiage was tacked onto the bill with the pork. NAMI, of course, is celebrating the bill for its own sake without regard to what effect it will have, or when. Having appeased the mental health lobby, congress is off the hook as far as enacting any further legislation. Way to go!
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/financialsvcs_dem/essabill.pdf

“To amend section 712 of the Employee Retirement Income
Security Act of 1974, section 2705 of the Public Health
Service Act, section 9812 of the Internal Revenue Code
of 1986 to require equity in the provision of mental
health and substance-related disorder benefits under
group health plans, to prohibit discrimination on the
basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance
and employment, and for other purposes.”

This means that you only get parity if your employer provides your insurance AND that insurance already has mental health coverage. It doesn’t seem to require them to cover it in the first place. It also doesn’t appear to apply to private health insurance.

There is a cost exemption so to limit mental health coverage if it increases costs by some undetermined amount. The insurance companies can still deny claims bases on their definition of “medical necessity” or by their definition of “reasonable and customary” services.

??(2) COST EXEMPTION.?
6 ??(A) IN GENERAL.?With respect to a
7 group health plan (or health insurance coverage
8 offered in connection with such a plan), if the
9 application of this section to such plan (or cov
10 erage) results in an increase for the plan year
11 involved of the actual total costs of coverage
12 with respect to medical and surgical benefits
13 and mental health and substance use disorder
14 benefits under the plan (as determined and cer
15 tified under subparagraph (C)) by an amount
16 that exceeds the applicable percentage described
17 in subparagraph (B) of the actual total plan
18 costs, the provisions of this section shall not
19 apply to such plan (or coverage) during the fol
20 lowing plan year, and such exemption shall
21 apply to the plan (or coverage) for 1 plan year.”

Discrimination on the basis of genetic information only affects illnesses for which genetic tests have been developed. This bill ignores a lot of of the provisions of the ADA, while modifying ERISA quite a bit. I am concerned that this will weaken the ADA by tightening the definitions to exclude non-genetic diseases.

Specific diagnoses this bill applies to will be determined by the GAO, which has 3 years to study it and present a report. Once the beancounters are through will this bill, we’ll have no more than we had the day before the bill passed.

(h) GAO STUDY ON COVERAGE AND EXCLUSION OF
4 MENTAL HEALTH AND SUBSTANCE USE DISORDER DIAG5
NOSES.?
6 (1) IN GENERAL.?The Comptroller General of
7 the United States shall conduct a study that ana8
lyzes the specific rates, patterns, and trends in cov9
erage and exclusion of specific mental health and
10 substance use disorder diagnoses by health plans
11 and health insurance.”

I doubt this will change anything in the near future.

A few years from now you’re going to hear Congressdroids bitching because they didn’t have enough time to collect the facts before enacting this bill.

TFTD: Objectify Your Mental Processes

In order to recognize our self-image, we can no longer identify with it. In other words, we have to learn how to objectify our own mental processes.
-Matthew Flickstein, Journey to the Center
Reprinted in Daily Wisdom: 365 Buddhist Inspirations, edited by Josh Bartok.
www.wisdompubs.org

Photo Source – Flickr
Author *Gabisa Motonia

Pharmaceutical Chastity Belt

Pretty much any psych med by itself will affect sex drive. I see folks taking a half a dozen of them, and then another med or two to counteract the side effects. The pdocs tell us that they DON’T because they don’t want us to quit taking them.

Perhaps we should refer to our meds as a “pharmaceutical chastity belt.”

Anything that tweaks your dopamine down is going to get rid of the emotional spark required to have something resembling a sex life. And anything that tweaks UP serotonin receptors does so at the expense of dopamine receptors. See this article, Notes on Anhedonia and SAD.

For men, there’s also the problem of peripheral blood flow – a strictly mechanical problem. Can’t get the old hydraulics to run, eh? Viagra and Cialis work by improving blood flow. Heck, coffee dilates the blood vessels too, and if you brew it at home it’s way cheaper than an ED pill. Diabetes is common cause of ED, so antipsychotics that affect blood sugar (most of the atypicals) might contribute to it.

Maybe the whole idea is to give us drugs that prevent us from breeding lots of little bipolars.

TFTD: Hallucination

RealMagick Article: The Seven Shaman Principles by Serge Kahill King

Thought for the Day:

Hallucination means “your dream doesn’t match my dream.”

The Zucchini Patch » A Slave to Cigarettes

The Zucchini Patch » A Slave to Cigarettes

Jessica of The Zucchini Patch wants to quit smoking. This is my comment. It deals mostly with the money aspect of smoking. They don’t talk about that much in the anti-smoking ads. They talk about cancer only in very vague terms. They show little pictures of the particulate matter that coats the lungs. They don’t talk so much about the reality of drowning in your own putrefying lungs.

Oddly enough, they also don’t talk about the 20% of women with lung cancer who never smoked at all. The politics of the anti-tobacco movement is another story for another day.

Wow. I remember in 1979 saying I’d quit when cigarettes reached 75¢ a pack.

Let’s see…
$3.50/pack × 2 packs/day × 365days/year?
Thats over $2500 a year!

So your first year’s savings are the down payment on a new subcompact car. Each monthly savings after that is the car payment.

Not sure how much daycare costs. Save your savings in a college fund for Marco. In 15 years at 9% interest, the long-term average growth for the stock market, you’d have $65,536.67. (Don’t worry, he’ll get loans and grants for the rest of the cost.)

Or how about taking a week-long yoga retreat at the Omega Institute? Mmmmmmm…

A trip to Paris even with the abysmal exchange rate!

20 steak dinners. Real, digestible steak, not the USDA Choice shoeleather they sell at the supermarket. If you don’t eat meat, give the steak to the dog and enjoy a decadent dessert, a mango souffle perhaps. Heck, fly me up there and I’ll eat your steak. I’m not proud.

See, this is what the cigarette habit is denying you.

I’m having a brain bubble over where you live. I’ll do the tax numbers based on my locale. Federal tax on cigarettes is 39¢ a pack so I’d pay around $280 a year. I wonder whether I can deduct that on my income tax? If Congress manages to raise the tax to $1 a pack (to fund children’s health insurance, they claim) then I’d be paying $730 a year. Hey, it’s “for the chillrun.” My state cigarette tax is $1.35 per pack, for a whopping $980 or so per year. My state income tax is less than that!

Does it seem to you that if the government actually banned cigarettes they’d be losing a big source of income? Hmmmm… almosts makes you want to think.

Ok, now for the real problem with quitting smoking. Nicotine is a powerful anxiolytic and antidepressant. When you quit, you’re not only back to your pre-smoking anxiety levels, but you also have a rebound effect. The HedWeb Good Drug Guide has a lot of excellent information on brain chemical tweaks in general, and nicotine in particular. Here’s a good place to start:
Biopsychiatry.com:: Antidepressants : Nicotine

Both major depression and depressive symptoms are associated with a high rate of nicotine dependence, and a history of major depression has an adverse impact on smoking cessation.

In other words, when you quit smoking it will feel as if you’ve quit psych meds cold turkey. Have you ever made that mistake?

So please don’t beat yourself up if it takes several tries for you to quit. It’s not a moral failing, it is brain chemicals. I’d wait until after the stressful holidays to quit.

I could go into the nuts-and-bolts of how I finally quit in 1986 or so – lots of crying, mostly – but there is plenty of good information available on the web. Email me if you want to hear about it.