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ANAESTHETIC drugs could be used to numb a different sort of pain: flushing out harrowing memories before they take hold and post-traumatic stress disorder develops. Michael Alkire and Larry Cahill at the University of California in Irvine have discovered that anaesthetics can block the formation of memories associated with emotive images. "One popular misconception about anaesthesia is that unconsciousness occurs immediately," says Alkire. In fact, low doses of anaesthetic can leave patients conscious but impede memory, he says.

An interesting recent claim about al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) says it is a totally homegrown and separate entity from the al Qaeda (AQ) that Osama bin Laden heads. Sen. Chuck Schumer, on Tuesday’s “Larry King Live” said, "The al Qaeda the president is talking about is different than the al Qaeda of Mesopotamia, which is the al Qaeda that's in Iraq. The al Qaeda that bin Laden is in charge of is a totally separate organization." And AP’s Jennifer Loven, in an article on the same day, claimed that AQI “"is mostly homegrown ... ". She further claims that,...

One in four Britons don't believe wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill existed, according to a recent survey. Churchill is compared to Florence Nightingale and Sir Walter Raleigh, seen by many survey respondents as a mythical person, the London Daily Mail reported Monday. The survey, conducted with 3,000 respondents to test their general knowledge, reported other historical figures such as Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, Cleopatra and the Duke of Wellington were made up for books and films, the Mail reported. The survey, by UKTV Gold, also found that Sherlock Holmes was a real person.

It's funny how two people can read the same thing and come away with two strikingly different conclusions of it. Like veteran columnist Georgie Anne Geyer, I, too, read the current issue of Foreign Policy magazine with its 40-year-old memo about Vietnam, which the editors suggest contains lessons about our current quagmire in Iraq. But, unlike Geyer, I have not allowed revisionist historians to impose their version of Vietnam on me. In her most recent nationally syndicated column, she writes this about Vietnam: "After the Americans withdrew, in momentary humiliation, from the coasts of Vietnam by ship and helicopter, there...

Tuesday, May 22, 2007 Nothing is more common than political "solutions" to immediate problems which create much bigger problems down the road. The current immigration bill in the Senate is a classic example. The big talking point of those who want to legalize the illegal immigrants currently in the United States is to say that it is "unrealistic" to round up and deport 12 million people. Back in 1986 it was "unrealistic" to round up and deport the 3 million illegal immigrants in the United States then. So they were given amnesty -- honestly labeled, back then -- which is...

Al Parish, a prominent economics professor at Charleston Southern University and a flamboyant fixture in the local business community, was accused Thursday of securities fraud by the federal government, which said perhaps tens of millions of dollars are missing. Parish and his Parish Economics LLC, a company owned by Parish and his wife that has invested on behalf of an estimated 300 individuals and companies, were sued for five counts of civil fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The beautiful and deeply religious Madame de Tourvel is so distraught after cheating on her husband in the 1782 novel “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” that she blacks out the betrayal altogether, arriving at a convent with no idea of what had brought her there. Soon the horror of the infidelity rushes back, in all its incriminating force. More than two centuries later, she has become part of a longstanding debate about whether the brain can block access to painful memories, like betrayals and childhood sexual abuse, and suddenly release them later on. In a paper posted online in the current issue...

Amnesia victim wandered for 25 days JAMIE STENGLE, Associated Press Writer Jan 26, 2007 DALLAS - Joe Bieger walked out his front door with his two dogs one morning last fall a beloved husband, father, grandfather and assistant high school athletic director. Minutes later, all of that, indeed, his very identity, would seemingly be wiped from his brain's hard drive. For 25 days, he wandered the streets of Dallas and its environs a lost soul, unable to remember his name, what he did for a living, or where he lived, until, finally, a contractor who was building a new house...

Windsurfing to Guantánamo Who knew that protesting American oppression could be such fun? By Clifford D. May Five years ago this month, an American facility was opened in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba to house the most dangerous combatants captured in the global war against Militant Islamism. To commemorate the anniversary, anti-Guantánamo demonstrations have been staged in more than 20 countries. In Washington last week, more than 80 protesters were arrested after they refused to leave a federal courthouse. But it is Amnesty International that has come up with the most original way to display outrage, enthusiastically (if not quite grammatically) urging...

A HUMILIATING accident. An apparent memory lapse. A sudden, emotional confession. Representative Patrick Kennedy's car crash on Capitol Hill early Thursday and a news conference a day later had a familiar rhythm, especially for those who study addiction or know it firsthand. Mr. Kennedy, a six-term Democrat from Rhode Island, said that his addiction was to prescription medication and that he planned to seek treatment at an addiction clinic, as he had done before. "I struggle every day with this disease, as do millions of Americans," said Mr. Kennedy, who is 38. But will a cure that apparently didn't take...

On the morning of July 3, 2003, a former stockbroker named Doug Bruce walked into a police station in Coney Island and told the cops that he didn't know his name. Without a wallet or identification, he'd awoken a few minutes earlier on a subway train, befuddled but unharmed, with a case of what doctors call total retrograde amnesia. He could form sentences without a problem, but remembered nothing of his past and only patchy facts about the world. He was checked into a nearby hospital, and a call was made to the only number that Bruce, then 35, had...

RUSH: At the risk of bringing this thing back up because I don't want it to start dominating the show again, I gotta talk a little bit about the port deal, because this business with Bill and Hillary is just too much. Hillary does not know that Bill is lobbying for the port deal. Bill goes to Dubai, he takes big bucks, total of 600 grand in the last four years to make speeches over there. He is advising the United Arab Emirates on how to get this deal done here. It was Clinton who told them, you go in...

'REFUSAL TO LEVEL WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE'... IS HILLARY 'KNOWNOTHING VICTIM' CLINTON'S MIDDLE NAME by Mia T, February 16, 2006     (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE) audio montage, Lincoln-pose scoop: rushlimbaugh.com "The refusal of this administration to level with the American people on matters large and small is very disturbing. HEAR hillary clinton Sen. 'KnowNothing Victim' Clinton Holds News Conference EFFECTIVELY PLEADS FIFTH BY INVOKING SPOUSAL PRIVILEGE by Mia T, February 23, 2001     ASHINGTON- February 22. Sen. KnowNothing Victim Clinton held her premiere press conference today on Capitol Hill, ostensibly to answer questions...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT: RUSH: A lot of people thought that Hillary Clinton would not weigh in on the Cheney story because she had delayed for 30 hours the releasing of the Vince Foster suicide note. The people said, "Ah, she's not going to say, because if she joins the fray here, why, she's got her own little thing to explain." Wrong-o, folks. The mainstream media is not going to hold Hillary Clinton accountable. Hillary Clinton did weigh in on this yesterday, and nobody -- nobody -- is talking about Hillary Clinton's past problems with secrecy, Travel Office firings, FBI files that...

Here we go.

Bush: Kerry Suffers 'Election Amnesia' 11 minutes ago By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer FORT MYERS, Fla. - President Bush said Saturday that Sen. John Kerry must be suffering from "election amnesia" because he has forgotten that he once viewed Saddam Hussein as a threat to America. After voting to authorize force against the former Iraqi leader, after calling it the right decision when the Bush administration sent troops into Iraq, Kerry now calls the conflict the "wrong war," Bush said. "Sen. Kerry seems to have forgotten all that as his position has evolved during the course of the campaign,"...

Remarks of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as Delivered to the National Education Association July 6, 2004 I was just in the neighborhood. I heard there were a few of my friends over in the Convention Center. I decided I’d come by and just kind of get a look at you. You’re looking really good. And you made a great decision when you decided to pledge your support and endorse John Kerry for President of the United States. Today John Kerry made a great decision in choosing John Edwards to run with him. The Kerry Edwards ticket will restore a sense...

"John Kerry's campaign trail amnesia extended today to his record of proposing intelligence cuts totaling $7.5 billion while serving on the Senate Intelligence Committee, cuts so radical even his fellow Democrats criticized them. John Kerry's attack is another example of his flailing efforts to defend a record that is out of the mainstream." - Steve Schmidt, Bush-Cheney '04 Spokesman Kerry's Dismal Intelligence Record Kerry Was On Senate Select Intelligence Committee For Eight Years (1993-2000). (Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa, The Almanac Of American Politics 2000, 1999, p. 1796; Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa, The Almanac Of American Politics 1998,...

Yesterday the NY Slimes blared the headline: Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie. Yet in 1998 the New York Slimes was reporting a different finding. The Clinton administration had just indcted bin laden and as part of the inditment's background had referenced bin Laden and al Qaeda's relationship and agreement to work together on weapon's development. The indictment was from the Clinton Justice department, under Janet Reno's authority and also State Department officials took part in the news conference announcing the indictment. Here is the Slimes article, Novemeber 8. 1998. The New York Times November 5, 1998, Thursday, Late Edition -...

(Excerpt from www.mrc.org's homepage) The liberal media now scoff at the idea that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had any kind of partnership, but back on January 14, 1999, ABC News aired a prime time report about links between the dangerous duo. Reporter Sheila MacVicar cited sources from the Clinton administration's intelligence agencies: "Almost certainly, they say, bin Laden has been told he would be welcome in Baghdad."

Man walks into doctor's office. Doctor says, I've got terrible news for you: you're suffering from terminal cancer. Also, you have amnesia. Man says, Hey, at least I don't have cancer! Amnesia is one of those rare mental conditions — like narcissism — that it's O.K. to make fun of. Maybe that's why it's such a favorite among screenwriters: since Christmas, we have had no fewer than three movies that revolve around people misplacing their memories. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet pay to have the memory of their lousy relationship erased. Paycheck was...

In the second week of September, a Gallup poll was taken to determine how much confidence the public has in the reporting of the news media compared to their confidence in how the three branches of the government are performing their jobs. The news media came in last with 54 percent of those polled saying they had "a great deal" or a "fair amount" of confidence that the media are reporting the news fully, accurately and fairly. Thirty-five percent said they had little confidence in the reporting and eleven percent said they had none at all. The government got more...

Many experiments have shown that negative reinforcement, such as electric shocks, cause normal organisms to refrain from doing things that result in pain and suffering. Thus, for example, mice in a maze return to their starting point when they are subjected to mild electric shocks while running through the maze toward food, unless they are very hungry. The greater the intensity of the shocks, the more the mice withdraw. They stop running altogether, even when extremely hungry, if the intensity of the shocks is lethal. This experiment, which has been conducted in many laboratories, and which examines psychological and physiological...

"Sub Rosa Vepres" Posted by Doc Farmer Saturday, June 28, 2003 We’re all familiar with the Latin phrase ''Sub Rosa'' (under the rose) which stands for something secret or hidden. Well, now I believe we should add a new phrase to the lexicon: ''Sub Rosa Vepres,'' or under the rose bush. Thanks to our friendly neighbourhood Iraqi Nuclear Weapons Developers, that is. Yes, you’ve read by now that one of these scientists under Saddam Hussein’s employ (see also: death threat) was ordered to hide critical atomic weapons development equipment in his back yard, under (of all things) a rose bush....

PBS, Sunday, June 30, 2002 - /Ronald Reagan was responsible for the transfer of AIDS within the gay community and beyond. The charge was made as part of a new series about blood, and said that the problem originated in cutbacks in funding for the Center for Disease Control....(snip)To read the complete article, CLICK HERE

Sunday, June 22,2002 -- Seven days, the state budget, the Sixties, Ken Kesey and the insane. People who do not live in Oregon don't know what they're missing. I almost missed it myself. Didn't catch this seminal program on its Friday, Oregon Public Broadcasting, appearance. Was trying to start my Fiat on Sunday afternoon when the show reran. But, knowing I'd get a column out of this one, the Spyder wisely refused to start...(snip) The important item on this program was their discussion about the insane. This was a classic. It was stimulated by the Supreme Court's recent decision to...