Month: August 2009

by Patrick Appel

Christina Davidson profiles a two entrepreneurs specializing in cannabis consumables:

The problem with homemade cannabis goods currently being sold through dispensaries is that they don't have any standardized dosage. "Digesting cannabis gives a different kind of buzz than smoking it," Shaz says. "It's much more mellow." That's why Shaz eats his own treats to ease the chronic pain of an old back injury. He understands the ameliorative strength of his own homemade goods, so, for example, if he eats one of his chocolate macadamia coconut truffles in the morning, he knows it will ease his pain, but not make him blotto stoned like smoking a joint would, or mentally groggy and physically tired like a pharmaceutical pain killer.

by Patrick Appel

Toy Soldiers from Alta Media Productions on Vimeo.

by Chris Bodenner

"On Faith" consults its stable of theologians. One of them, Arun Gandhi, replies in 118 characters:

No, God does not tweet nor does God have time to listen to almost seven billion people insincerely pleading for mercy.

In a video after the jump, Anderson Cooper unleashes his trademark cattiness on Heidi Montag, who recently thanked God via Twitter for her performance at the Miss Universe competition.

by Chris Bodenner

Drake Bennett explores the age-old question. He basically says yes, but only when we buy memories, not things:

Taking a friend to lunch, it turns out, makes us happier than buying a new outfit. Splurging on a vacation makes us happy in a way that splurging on a car may not. [Scientists] are beginning to offer an intriguing explanation for the poor wealth-to-happiness exchange rate: The problem isn't money, it's us. For deep-seated psychological reasons, when it comes to spending money, we tend to value goods over experiences, ourselves over others, things over people.

Jonah Lehrer jumps in:

The answer, I think, has to do with a fundamental feature of neurons: habituation. When sensory cells are exposed to the same stimulus over and over again, they quickly get bored and stop firing. (That, for instance, is why you don't feel your underwear.) This makes sense: the brain is an efficient organ, most interested in the novel and new. If we paid attention to everything, we'd quickly be overwhelmed by the intensity of reality. Unfortunately, the same logic applies to material objects. When you buy a shiny new Rolex watch, that watch might make you happy for a few days, or maybe even a week. Before long, however, that expensive piece of jewelery becomes just another shiny metal object – your pleasure neurons have habituated to the luxury good.

I couldn't agree more that experiences are far more valuable than goods. Though what if the problem is not "ourselves over others," but just the opposite: we value people too much. Specifically, we overvalue strangers and acquaintances, and purchase things to win their approval. People buy Rolexes and other expensive jewelry not to gaze at them, but to flash them for others. And we usually buy that new outfit because the old one is soo last year. Experiences, on the other hand, are purchased to please to the individual (and the loved ones sharing them). Sure, people often brag about vacations, name drop restaurants, or pontificate about a film, but the prime motivation is usually the self. In fact, the experience, through memory, becomes part of the self – something "things" can't do.

Patrick also adds two cents: "But there are material goods that facilitate better experiences. Conor's discussion this week of Yelp on the iPhone is a good example."

Personally, my laptop is the root of happiness. Patrick's just died; pray for him.

by Patrick Appel

Turns out that the death panels are real:

(Hat tip: Ezra)

by Patrick Appel

Wired says it's getting stronger:

[T]he placebo response is highly sensitive to cultural differences. Anthropologist Daniel Moerman found that Germans are high placebo reactors in trials of ulcer drugs but low in trials of drugs for hypertension—an undertreated condition in Germany, where many people pop pills for herzinsuffizienz, or low blood pressure. Moreover, a pill's shape, size, branding, and price all influence its effects on the body. Soothing blue capsules make more effective tranquilizers than angry red ones, except among Italian men, for whom the color blue is associated with their national soccer team—Forza Azzurri!

Mind Hacks parses. Another nugget:

[W]hy would the placebo effect seem to be getting stronger worldwide? Part of the answer may be found in the drug industry's own success in marketing its products.  Potential trial volunteers in the US have been deluged with ads for prescription medications since 1997, when the FDA amended its policy on direct-to-consumer advertising. The secret of running an effective campaign, Saatchi & Saatchi's Jim Joseph told a trade journal last year, is associating a particular brand-name medication with other aspects of life that promote peace of mind: "Is it time with your children? Is it a good book curled up on the couch? Is it your favorite television show? Is it a little purple pill that helps you get rid of acid reflux?" By evoking such uplifting associations, researchers say, the ads set up the kind of expectations that induce a formidable placebo response.

by Patrick Appel

Jonah Lehrer examines the cognitive biases surrounding health insurance:

We don't think about bunions or torn ligaments or strep throat unless, god forbid, the affliction happens to us. Unlike a plane accident or a shark attack, there is nothing newsworthy about ordinary suffering – kidney stones don't make the front page or the 11 o'clock news. (I've got several friends who purchased extended warranties for their computers but don't have health insurance. I'd argue that this irrational contradiction occurs for two reasons: 1) they are overvaluing their computer at the time of purchase, thanks to the endowment effect and 2) it's easier for them to imagine a broken computer than it is to imagine a broken body part.)

by Andrew

McCain doesn't want criminal prosecution of CIA employees who went even further than the torture techniques authorized by Cheney and Bush. But he does understand what torture is, how it harmed us, how it was illegal, and how it was immoral. For that I am grateful. He also refuses to follow the Cheney-NYT-Washington-Post lie that this was not torture. There is one man able to stand up against torture in the GOP. But he is lonelier than ever.

by Andrew

Here are the tough and penetrating questions asked by Chris Wallace of a man whose critics accuse of war crimes, and whose administration presided over the death of over a hundred prisoners in interrogation, who authorized torture techniques once trade-marked by the Khmer Rouge:

Why are you so concerned about the idea of one administration reviewing, investigating the actions of another one?

Do you think this was a political move not a law enforcement move?

The attorney general says this is a preliminary review, not a criminal investigation. It is just about CIA officers who went beyond their legal authorization. Why don't you think it's going to stop there? 

The inspector general's report which was just released from 2004 details some specific interrogations — mock executions, one of the detainees threatened with a handgun and with an electric drill, waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times.  First of all, did you know that was going on? 

So even these cases where they went beyond the specific legal authorization, you're OK with it?

President Obama has also decided to move interrogations from the CIA to the FBI that's under the supervision of the National Security Council, and the FBI will have to act within the boundaries of the Army Field Manual. 

What do you think that does for the nation's security? And will we now have the tools if we catch another high-value target?

Republicans have made the charge before, do you think Democrats are soft on National Security?

Do you think that it was a mistake, while you were in power, while your administration was in power, not to go after the nuclear infrastructure of Iran?

Was it a mistake for Bill Clinton, with the blessing of the Administration, to go to North Korea to bring back those two reporters? 

Now look: there are softball interviews; and then there are interviews like this. It cannot be described as journalism in any fashion. Even as propaganda, which is its point, it doesn't work – because it's far too cloying and supportive of Cheney to be convincing to anyone outside the true-believers. When it comes to Cheney, one of the most incompetent vice-presidents in the country's history, with a record of two grotesquely botched wars, war crimes and a crippling debt, Chris Wallace sounds like a teenage girl interviewing the Jonas Brothers. 

My two favorite moments:

CHENEY: I am going to — if I address that, I will address it in my book, Chris. 

WALLACE: It is going to be a hell of a book. 

CHENEY: It is going to be a great book.

And then the apology for asking the questions Cheney wanted asked:

WALLACE: Well, we want to thank you for talking with us and including in your private life putting up with an interview from the likes of me. 

CHENEY: It's all right. I enjoy your show, Chris. 

WALLACE: Thank you very much, and all the best sir. 

When future historians ask how the United States came not only to practice torture but to celebrate it and treat torturers as heroes, a special place in hell among the journalists who embraced and justified it should be reserved for Chris Wallace.

by Andrew

Here's the salient quote from the Fox "interview" with former journalist, Chris Wallace:

WALLACE: So even these cases where they went beyond the specific legal authorization, you're OK with it? 

CHENEY: I am. 

The former vice-president of the United States is here backing torture techniques that even his own hack lawyers believed were illegal. He is basically saying that the law had no salience or relevance in his program of torturing prisoners. He is attacking the rule of law in its entirety. Let that sink in: we had a vice-president who had contempt for the rule of law.

At moments like these, when a war criminal is given a totally supine platform to spew propaganda, it's worth recalling the following quote from 1863. It's from Abraham Lincoln:

"Military necessity does not admit of cruelty nor of torture to procure confessions."

From Lincoln to Cheney, from a lawyer president to a lawless thug.