Rule that patients must finish antibiotics course is wrong, study says - "the idea that stopping antibiotic treatment early encourages antibiotic resistance is not supported by evidence, while taking antibiotics for longer than necessary increases the risk of resistance"
The one fact about the Queen that will make you like her even more - "she indulges in six standard units of alcohol a day... prior to lunch she has a gin and Dubonnet, served with a slice of lemon and ice. During lunch she enjoys a glass of wine and, once evening arrives, the Queen sips on a dry martini, followed by a glass of Champagne"
These college students lost access to legal pot — and started getting better grades - The Washington Post - "those who lost access to legal marijuana showed substantial improvement in their grades. Specifically, those banned from cannabis cafes had a more than 5 percent increase in their odds of passing their courses. Low performing students benefited even more, which the researchers noted is particularly important because these students are at high-risk of dropping out. The researchers attribute their results to the students who were denied legal access to marijuana being less likely to use it and to suffer cognitive impairments (e.g., in concentration and memory) as a result."
My Feminist Boyfriend Isn’t Working Until The Wage Gap Is Fixed - "I’ve had plenty of boyfriends who’ve gone above and beyond in their willingness to take on sexist stereotypes, from stealing my hoodie because they were cold to letting me move an entire couch by myself. But I’ve finally found The One who knows what it means to be a real ally: My feminist boyfriend is so committed to fighting the patriarchy that he hasn’t had a paying job in five years."
'Smelly Bombs' Imported From Israel Are Not Stinky Enough To Work In India, Says CRPF - "The bombs, which can be sprayed from water cannons, smell like decomposed bodies and raw sewage. Yup. Try imagining that... Most ordinary Indians are surrounded by all kinds of foul smell since the day they are born and spend a lifetime negotiating various odours -- at home, on the streets, on public transport, sometimes even at workplaces. No surprise they have a very high tolerance for stench."
“Download or get charged” – NSFs forced to download SGSecure App give it scathing 1-star reviews - "The SGSecure mobile application has drawn flak from men serving their National Service after they were reportedly forced to download the app for face punitive action. A flurry of NS men left the app 1-star reviews in response, after allegedly being threatened that they will be charged, will have to do extra duty or that their IC won’t be returned to them after they end their 2-year service."
Alt-right commentator gets 'schooled' by historian over diversity in Roman Britain - "PJW hit back in a video post, responding : “The BBC released an educational documentary about Roman Britain depicting what they said was an ‘exploration of life in Roman Britain shown through the eyes of a typical family’. “I tweeted it was historically inaccurate to depict Roman Britain as ethnically diverse, making the point that this was obviously the BBC engaging in politically correct tokenism.”"
Something is Broken in the UK Intellectual Sphere. - "The BBC did some kind of educational cartoon on Roman Britain and represented “diversity” in terms of someone looking African in the show as representative of “diversity” at the time. The BBC was effectively applying quotas retroactively (I mean, really retroactively). Any dissent from the statistical errors made by the politically correct police is treated as apostasy. Effectively, scholarship is dead in the U.K... Even the researchers who deal with physical remains miss the point that people from North Africa looked no different from Spaniards, S. Italians, and Greeks... “feminists” were upset that I could disagree with a woman (I should not treat a woman as I would a man, yet they manage to find no contradiction.) So they used the excuse that I call Mary Beard Ms Beard simply because I will never call a historian with a PhD “Doctor”, particulary if the person, like Ms Beard has shown evidence of being a BS vendor (I only call medical doctors doctors). That was sufficient to trigger the inquisition (they could not use my contradicting a woman as official grounds for that)"
Here’s What Really Happened With The ‘Missing’ LGBT White House Page - "The Bush site shows that when he was president, there was a page titled, whitehouse.gov/kids. During the Obama years, going to that site would bring up the same 404 error as can be seen now. Reporters did not suggest that Obama hated children."
What the MCST Does for Your Condo (and How to Spot the Good Ones) - "The Management Corporation Strata Title (MCST) refers to the managing body of your condo. It’s formed under the Building Management and Strata Management Act (BMSM), Chapter 30C. The name of the managing body is always presented as MCST No. XXXX, where the serial number is issued by the Building Control Authority (BCA). For new condos, the property developer finds a condo management company within two months of the Temporary Occupancy Permit (TOP). After the first Annual General Meeting (AGM), control of the management committee is turned over to the property owners."
The California boy, 11, who is undergoing hormone blocking treatment - "The lesbian parents of an 11-year-old boy who is undergoing the process of becoming a girl last night defended the decision, claiming it was better for a child to have a sex change when young. Thomas Lobel, who now calls himself Tammy, is undergoing controversial hormone blocking treatment in Berkeley, California to stop him going through puberty as a boy. But Pauline Moreno and Debra Lobel warn that children with gender identity disorder forced to postpone transitioning could face a higher risk of suicide."
Controversial Therapy for Pre-Teen Transgender Patient Raises Questions - ""Most transgender patients will say that they knew at 6 years old. But what we don't know is how many others had those thoughts and feelings that went away once they hit puberty," said Dr. Jeffrey Spiegel, a professor at Boston University and a plastic surgeon who specializes in facial feminization operations for transgender men. "While it may be a good therapy for those who've committed to transgender, it may not be good for those who might have changed their mind once they hit puberty and beyond." Walt Heyer, whose book "Paper Genders" details his own experience transitioning from a man to a woman and back again, agreed. "The blockers should NOT be introduced to a child," Heyer said. "If they are going to make a transition, they should wait to do so when they reach 18 to 20 years old. When you start the therapy at that age you are not dealing with the fact that the mind is not fully developed." Heyer also cited a Dutch study that said 61 percent of individuals who desire a gender change are found to have secondary psychiatric disorders, such as depression or dissociative disorder, which he suffered from."
Same-sex sexuality and psychiatric disorders in the second Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study - "Between 2.0% and 2.5% of the participants reported same-sex sexual behavior in the preceding year or same-sex attraction. Homosexually active persons and persons with same-sex attraction reported a higher prevalence of disorders than heterosexual persons. There were more disparities in the prevalence of disorders based on sexual attraction than based on sexual behavior. Comparing these results with a previous study, showed that no significant changes over time have occurred in the pattern of health disparities... Given the increasing acceptance of homosexuality in Western societies, one might expect that that sexual orientation-related mental health disparities have diminished over time. In the Netherlands, social acceptance of homosexuality has increased since the first NEMESIS study was conducted in 1996. A recent study concluded that the proportion of the population that could be considered “homonegative” decreased between 2006 and 2010 from 15% to 7%. This change in social climate has brought about changes regarding the legal status of gay and lesbian persons, which in turn will have reinforced the acceptance of homosexuality. In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country where persons of the same sex could legally marry... several studies suggest that other mechanisms than prejudice and discrimination also affect the observed disparities, including genetic and environmental factors associated with both sexual orientation and psychiatric morbidity. Zietsch and colleagues, for instance, found that genetic factors accounted for 60% of the correlation between sexual orientation and depression, while childhood sexual abuse and risky family environment also were predictors of both sexual orientation and depression
Looks like even 5% as an estimate of homosexuality is inflated - given that this measures same sex behavior as well as attraction (and includes bisexuals too).
This is more confirmatory evidence that social discrimination is not responsible for gay people's mental disorders (if smoking more cigarettes didn't increase one's risk for lung cancer one would conclude that cigarettes were not linked to lung cancer)
Do shared etiological factors contribute to the relationship between sexual orientation and depression? - "No significant effects were found for parental physical abuse, maternal or paternal age, or number of older brothers, so we did not consider these variables in subsequent analyses. However, in both males and females, significantly higher rates of nonheterosexuality were found in participants who experienced childhood sexual abuse and in those with a risky childhood family environment. We examined whether a particular item in the risky family environment variable was driving the effect, but each individual item was significantly associated with sexual orientation. Furthermore, nonheterosexual women tended to have fewer close friends than did heterosexual women, but there was no such effect in men."
This is the intriguing research referenced above on how sexual orientation is affected by childhood sexual abuse and a risky family environment (which is supposed to be a bigoted right wing lie). Physical abuse is not linked to that though
Psychiatric Comorbidity of Gender Identity Disorders: A Survey Among Dutch Psychiatrists - "These respondents reported on 584 patients with cross-gender identification. In 225 patients (39%), gender identity disorder was regarded as the primary diagnosis. For the remaining 359 patients (61%), cross-gender identification was comorbid with other psychiatric disorders. In 270 (75%) of these 359 patients, cross-gender identification was interpreted as an epiphenomenon of other psychiatric illnesses, notably personality, mood, dissociative, and psychotic disorders. These data suggest that there is little consensus, at least among Dutch psychiatrists, about diagnostic features of gender identity disorder or about the minimum age at which sex reassignment therapy is a safe option. Therapy options proposed to patients with gender identity disorder appear to depend on personal preferences of psychiatrists."
A plurality of supposedly transgender individuals were not really transsexual
Singapore uses 'modern fairytales' to warn women of declining fertility - "With her blond bob, convertible car, cigarette in hand and cropped top emblazoned with the letters YOLO ("You Only Live Once"), this is an Alice in Wonderland the world has not seen before. Like Lewis Carroll's original, this cartoon Alice is curious about the world – "she gives up her cash to fly around rash" – but the moral here is that this twentysomething Singaporean is so busy being "wild and reckless" that she stands to lose her chance of starting a family. Welcome to adult education in marriage and fertility, Singapore-style. "Alice" is one of 15 fairytales revamped for a new government-backed scheme to encourage Singaporeans to get married and start having babies earlier... Aimed at 21- to 30-year-olds, the "Singaporean Fairytale" was created by four final-year university students who wanted to "find an interesting way to connect with young adults … on what it takes to start, live and be a family in Singapore", says the project manager, Chan Luo Er, 23... "It entrenches all the stereotypes and it's unfortunate that it's supported by the government," says Corinna Lim of Singapore's Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) of the similarly outdated fairytale advice."
Ironically I suspect those who claim that state funding sends sinister signals about government policy, like the uproar here many years back are usually the same as those who say the state should support art, so they're trying to have it both ways. After all a lot of artists are anti government (even if not to the extent of The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye), so one could say that the government is schizophrenically undermining itself.
This Is What Worries Me About 'Game Of Thrones' After Last Night's Episode - "Martin is a great writer who cares deeply about carefully plotting his stories in a way that is consistent and makes sense. The last two books aren't as good as the first three, but even so, they are consistent. His characters are consistent and believable. The time it takes to travel from point A to point B is realistic. Perhaps more importantly, the bad things that happen in Martin's books are always, without fail, consequences... Such is not the case in the show...at least not as consistently."
It looks like, unlike feminists, the writer doesn't understand that in fantasy you can write anything you want (like designing a perfect society) even if it doesn't make sense because you have dragons so you don't need to be logical or consistent