This is your brain on drugs

Some pretty great stuff today.

First, roid rage hits the labs! Apparently, beta blockers and ritalin are not only used on college campuses, but amongst neuroscientists to make them smarter! Maybe they're hitting the pills to compensate for beer-induced publication lag implied in a recent Oikos article. Or maybe, they're TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD! Zort.

Apparently, scientists aren't the only people who could use a little cognitive jolt. Medical doctors may need it to try and break the shackles of legislative oppression. Talk about forcing your hand. I totally agree with the author's perspective here, which is that whatever your political/religious ideals, its probably not a good idea to force doctors to say something that they may not believe is true:

The South Dakota law requires doctors to give patients who come for an abortion a written statement telling them that "the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being," and that they have "an existing relationship with that unborn human being" that is constitutionally protected. (What does the constitutionally protected part mean? Who knows.) In addition, doctors are ordered to describe "all known medical risks of the procedure and statistically significant risk factors," including "depression and related psychological distress" and "increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide."

Yikes.

Now, lets shift gears. David Greenberg at Slate wrote one of the most interesting articles I've read in awhile, about how Republicans have been so effective at restrictively defining the meaning of patriotism to use it as a weapon. I find everything he has to say about how conservatives and liberals have tended to define patriotism to be pretty accurate. I guess its not surprising that the Republicans have won this battle, but what is most interesting is the requisite communal, unquestioning nature of Republican patriotism versus the progress-by-debate nature of Democratic patriotism. In lieu of this mentality, is it any surprise that Republican party members often sublimate their personal agendas to support the party while the Democratic party is often fractured and weakened by similar 'diversity of thought'? This point was made absolutely to perfection by Bill Bradley 3 years ago in one of the best Op-Ed pieces I've ever read.

The unity of the Republican party should be kept in mind as recent stories have revealed that interrogation techniques used in Guantanamo were based quite directly on Chinese Communist techniques used to extract false confessions from American prisoners during the Korean War. Oh, but they did remember to change the the name given in the original report on these techniques: “Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance.” Wow.

Meanwhile, I may have gone a little overboard on the Obama-hatred in my last post (for example, he is against the retroactive immunity granted to phone companies in the wiretapping bill from Congress). Still, the faith-based pandering irks me. Good thing someone is watching his centripetal progress.

And finally, the Red Sox and Yankees start a series today. This in the wake of a disastrous 3-game series in which the Sox were swept by the surging Tampa Bay Rays. So, rather than get depressed over that, I'll instead point you to an excellent study from the Hardball Times concerning how important speed differential is to the value of a change-up. Enjoy!