I’ve located a hero

I'm creating a new post category called "heroes" in honor of high school student Keith Wagner, who obviously did some homework before handing this lying sack-of-shit politician his own head on a platter. This is unbelievable poise for a high school student. And then the politician, State Senator John Huppenthal of Arizona blessed the interview with a magnificent denouement: his unexplained absence. Or perhaps he had to leave because he was in the middle of a unanticipated panic-inspired bowel movement. I can only hope that mainstream journalists will note the successful formula used by Keith Wagner: Do your homework, go set up the interview, then don't let up. For full enjoyment, take a look at the comments regarding this video at Huffpo.

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A new film about origami

I haven't yet seen this new film about origami, but based on this promo, I plan to. The film is called Between the Folds. It's the winner of the 2010 Peabody Award, as well as many other awards. What's this film about in more detail?

Between the Folds chronicles the stories of ten fine artists and intrepid theoretical scientists who have abandoned careers and scoffed at hard–earned graduate degrees—all to forge unconventional lives as modern–day paperfolders. As they converge on the unlikely medium of origami, these artists and scientists reinterpret the world in paper, and bring forth a bold mix of sensibilities towards art, expressiveness, creativity and meaning. And, together these offbeat and provocative minds demonstrate the innumerable ways that art and science come to bear as we struggle to understand and honor the world around us—as artists, scientists, creators, collaborators, preservers, and simply curious beings.

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The Onion: Teach the Controversy

The Onion reports that a new Kansas Court decision requires public schools to teach both sides of the controversy: Christian Groups: Biblical Armageddon Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming If you want to display your opinion that we should teach the controversy, you can also buy one of these t-shirts from Teach the Controversy.

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Are modern anti-depressants merely placebos?

At Discover Magazine, psychologist Irving Kirsch argues that the current generation of anti-depressants don't really address specific chemical imbalances. He argues that they function at all because they are placebos:

[Current anti-depressants such as Prozac] all have different and in some cases opposite effects on brain chemistry, and yet they all show exactly the same response rate. It’s uncanny! That suggests it’s really the placebo effect that is helping the patients. In practice, all the different antidepressants have the same response rate. In a population of depressed people, they all work equally well. If they were actually correcting chemical imbalances, it would mean that the exact same number of people who are depressed have each kind of chemical imbalance: The proportion of people who have too much serotonin is exactly the same as the fraction who don’t have enough norepinephrine. The odds against that are astronomical.

I hope this makes it clear that I'm an equal opportunity skeptic. I don't merely pick on alternative, fringe and fraudulent treatments (e.g., homeopathy).

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Our technical difficulties

A few days ago we upgraded our platform, but things did not go well. It became clear over 48 hours that our platform was no long stable and we were forced to revert back to our former set-up. In the process, we lost a few days of comments, though we were able to recover most of our posts. If you were one of the dozen or so people who submitted comments over the past few days, and if you no longer see your comment, I apologize. Please feel free to resubmit your comments and I will promptly approve them. We learned some lessons about upgrading in the process, and I don't expect this problem to repeat itself. Erich

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