Free Republic

A report published today in the journal Pediatrics, however, estimates the incidence of psychotic symptoms at 1.48 per 100 person-years. (Person-years is defined as total years of treatment with a drug. For example, 100 people taking a drug one year is 100 person-years.) The statistic was based on data from 49 randomized, controlled trials of ADHD medications. In those same studies, no psychotic symptoms were reported in children who did not receive medication. Moreover, an analysis of spontaneous adverse-event reports to the FDA showed more than 800 reports of psychosis or mania. Psychotic symptoms were found with every ADHD drug...

This past week, Gov. Chris Gregoire of Washington State allowed—in the spirit of multiculturalism and intellectual-immolation for which the Northwest is (in)famous—a large sign to be placed next to a Nativity scene and a Christmas holiday tree (and a menorah) in the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington: "At this season of THE WINTER SOLSTICE may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds." Yes, I am truly shocked: I cannot believe that a Nativity scene and...

The New York Times, the New York Daily News, Newsday, U.S.A Today, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, FOX News and a host of other news organizations recently reported that gun sales across the country increased 10 percent after Barack Obama defeated John McCain. Many of the gun shop owners that were interviewed on camera stated they had never seen sales increase to this level in 15 to 20 years. Those purchasing guns said they were doing so because of a growing fear that the spiraling economy will force desperate people to commit criminal acts. Others bought them because they believe an...

Although it might sound like a press release from the paranoid, prison-obsessed Center for Constitutional Rights, the Green Party's under-medicated presidential candidate is accusing the U.S. Department of Defense of executing 5,000 prisoners Chinese-style and dumping their bodies in a Louisiana swamp. FoxNews.com reports: Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney, known for her provocative statements when she was a congresswoman from Georgia, accused the Department of Defense this week of using Hurricane Katrina to cover up the slaughter of 5,000 prisoners. At a news conference in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday, McKinney claimed the Pentagon authorized the execution of the prisoners...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Researchers from Spain have found a strong and independent link between cannabis use and the onset of psychosis at a younger age. The association, they say, cannot be explained by chance, and is not related to gender or the use of other drugs. It is, however, related to the amount of cannabis used.

In June, Governor Brad Henry vetoed the “Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act,” a piece of legislature authored by Sen. James Williamson and infamous fundamentalist Rep. Sally Kern. If passed, this bill would have, among other things, guaranteed that “students may express their beliefs about religion in homework, artwork and other written and oral assignments free from discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions.” You read that correctly. Answer on a test that the universe began 6,000 years ago with a few words from the mouth of an invisible, magical entity rather than 13.73 billion years ago with the expansion...

Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election? Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government, ending his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain's senior foreign policy adviser. Previously, Scheunemann was best known as one of the neoconservatives who engineered the war in...

COLUMBIA, SC (AP) - More than 200 students and faculty members at Furman University have signed a statement protesting President Bush's visit to speak at the South Carolina school's commencement later this month. Bush is scheduled to speak at Furman's graduation ceremonies May 31. The 222 co-signers say in a statement on the school's Web site that they object to the president's visit for several reasons, including the war in Iraq. They also cite the administration's "obstructing progress on reducing greenhouse gases while favoring billions in tax breaks and subsidies to oil companies that are earning record profits." English professor...

Don Welter’s letter in the Jan. 28 Tribune contains too many errors to respond to in one letter. Although fetal tissue being human and alive is neither enlightening nor controversial, the idea such tissue is a person is an issue of Catholic superstition and not biological fact. That women, however, are persons, is a fact with which even the anti-abortionists must agree. Bernie Nathanson prostituted himself to the Catholic Church. After becoming a toady, he called himself a self-declared liar. Why in the world should we believe him now? Christopher Tietsie, a biostatistician, said the number of women killed annually...

She’s French, works in Hollywood, and has volunteered for Greenpeace. Surprise.There are some sins, my friends, that even the Pickler/Burnett rule can’t expunge. “I think we’re lied to about a number of things,” she said, singling out September 11.Referring to the two passenger jets flown into the World Trade Centre, Miss Cotillard said: “We see other towers of the same kind being hit by planes, are they burned? There was a tower, I believe it was in Spain, which burned for 24 hours.It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there [New York], in a few minutes, the whole...

Chicago, IL. -- A federal judge refused to allow enforcement of an ill-fated state law requiring teenage girls to notify their parents before getting abortions, potentially ending any chance the decades-old measure will ever take effect. Abortion rights groups on Saturday hailed the ruling on the legislation that was passed in 1984 and updated in 1995 but has never been enforced because of complex legal wrangling. "We're very pleased," said Lorie Chaiten of the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "This should be the end of that law." Anti-abortion forces decried the judge's ruling on the law, which...

The recent criticism of hate speech on campus is entirely appropriate. But we ought to make one exception to this rule: the “religious right,” a retrograde coterie of unattractive common folk who seek to impose their irrational beliefs on the rest of us. These fundamentalists lie awake at night, plotting the imposition of the truths they have received by revelation from God. God has decreed the necessity of prohibiting abortion and gay marriage, lest the land be scourged by His wrath, so the unquestioning hordes of Jesus-freaks flood the polls on election day. The few who are at Yale (here...

This post needs to be made regarding Super Tuesday. My observations include the fact the "underground" Trust Huckabee operation did its job well dividing conservative votes and enabling McCain to win Missouri. This group not officially associated with Huckabee is paving the way for McCain. It looks National Right To Life used its state affiliates endorsements of Huckabee to assist in the Establishment plan to divide conservatives and help McCain win. Romney can still fight back but he'll have to get into the Saturday events in Washington and Kansas where I think he can do well. And he'll have to...

My favorite headline of the year so far comes from the Daily Mail in Britain: "Government Renames Islamic Terrorism As anti-Islamic Activity' To Woo Muslims." Her Majesty's government is not alone in feeling it's not always helpful to link Islam and the, ah, various unpleasantnesses with suicide bombers and whatnot. Even in his cowboy Crusader heyday, President Bush liked to cool down the crowd with a lot of religion-of-peace stuff. But the British have now decided that kind of mealy-mouthed "respect" is no longer sufficient. So, henceforth, any terrorism perpetrated by persons of an Islamic persuasion will be designated "anti-Islamic...

Rangel: Only Progress in Iraq Is to 'Get the Hell Out!' By Josiah Ryan CNSNews.com Staff Writer January 18, 2008 On the Spot (CNSNews.com) - Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) told Cybercast News Service Thursday that he does not consider legislation passed last Saturday by the Iraqi Parliament, which permits former members of Saddam's Ba'ath Party to reclaim government jobs, a sign of political progress. "The only thing that is progress is to get the hell out of there," said Rangel. (Hear Audio) The legislation, which allows low-ranking Ba'athist Sunnis to participate in the new Shia-controlled government, has been cited by...

i really do loathe myself today...this blogging has got to end, Posted at 5:55 PM oh my God! I am so sorry for sounding like I don't like Oprah or Obama. I do. Oprah has been a force for good for a long time, and I just got carried away with my preference for Hilary over Obama. I think she is smarter and better than he is, but either of them is better than any Republican I am sorry Oprah, I really do admire and love you for all the good you do and have done in this country and...

Recession in the US 'has arrived' Merrill said Friday's employment figures confirmed the recession The feared recession in the US economy has already arrived, according to a report from Merrill Lynch. It said that Friday's employment report, which sent shares tumbling worldwide, confirmed that the US is in the first month of a recession. Its view is controversial, with banks such as Lehman Brothers disagreeing. But a reserve member of the committee that sets US rates warned that it could do little about the below-trend growth expected in the next six months. "I am concerned that developments on the inflation...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida has followed the lead of the ACLU of Central Florida, the ACLU of Monroe County Florida, and the ACLU of the Treasure Coast (Florida), all of which followed the lead of the ACLU of Southern California in backing impeachment and calling for the National ACLU to do the same. The ACLU was a prominent supporter of Richard Nixon’s impeachment. In 2006 an ACLU panel argued for impeachment. In recent years, the national ACLU has lobbied against numerous offenses that appear quintessentially impeachable, but refused , despite intense lobbying by its members and...

After catching Harold Meyerson's latest Washington Post hatemongering against religion in general, Christians in particular, and Republicans especially, all I could say was just WOW! This thing is nearly unhinged and if you took the word Christian out and replaced it with any of the favored, protected minorities that the MSM guards like mother hens, it would be indistinguishable from the kind of pure bigotry that would result in Meyerson's utter ostracizing should it have been written about those protected classes. Calling Republicans/Christians torturers, abusers of immigrants, members of the KKK, bigots and even mean, Meyerson skipped only the Nazi...

Chandler police will not alter their description of the Chandler Rapist despite complaints from a Valley radio station about the department’s use of the word “Hispanic” to describe the attacker. “I think this is racial profiling,” said Mayra Nieves, vice president of programming for KMYL (1190 AM). Nieves said Hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race -- and many Hispanics are white or black. She said ethnicity should not be used when describing an attacker. Instead she said she would describe the Chandler Rapist as having “dark skin.” But Chandler police spokesman Sgt. Rick Griner said his department will stand...