The Digger

Summary:  Researchers conclude many psychiatric diagnoses are scientifically worthless as tools for identifying discrete mental health disorders. Source:  University of Liverpool A new study, published in  Psychiatry Research , has concluded that psychiatric diagnoses are scientifically worthless as tools to identify discrete mental health disorders. The study, led by researchers from the University of Liverpool, involved a detailed analysis of five key chapters of the latest edition of the widely used Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), on ‘schizophrenia’, ‘bipolar disorder’, ‘depressive disorders’, ‘anxiety disorders’ and ‘trauma-related disorders’. Diagnostic manuals such as the DSM were created to provide a common diagnostic language for mental health professionals and attempt to provide a definitive list of mental health problems, including their symptoms. The main findings of the research were: Psychiatric diagnoses all use different decision-making rules

Hysteria won't solve anything. We've created a politicized immigration system and we need to fix it. July 12, 2019   How did we end up with kids in cages? We put them there, across multiple administrations, creating a politicized immigration and asylum system that constrains better options. It’s time to stop saying this isn’t who we are and it’s time to start looking beyond the hysteria. Bill Clinton’s 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act set  new records  for immigrants detained. Next up was George W. Bush’s 2005  Operation Streamline , a zero-tolerance plan to prosecute all illegal entrants. But to avoid the logistics and negative optics, the program made exceptions not written into the law for adults traveling with children. Nature finds a way, and more and more economic migrants arrived with somebody’s child in hand as a Get Out of Jail Free card. Fewer kids in cages, but more illegals. Obama initially prosecuted only those found il

CLUB ORLOV TUESDAY, JULY 09, 2019 The Five Stages of Collapse in Colorado It’s been a while since I ran a guest post, due to a lack of good candidates, but this article by user h_h from ZeroHedge caught my eye. It uses my book The Five Stages of Collapse as a jumping point and nicely outlines the case studies I used to examine each stage of collapse. Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in “business as usual” is lost. In the case of financial collapse, the example is Iceland—the only country so far that had successfully fought off international efforts to saddle its people with the debts incurred by its defunct private banks, allowing it to recover economically even as the US and the EU, which bailed out their failed banks, continue to sink deeper and deeper. Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that “the market shall provide” is lost. Commercial collapse is shown as seen through the eyes of the Russian mafia and criminal syndicates, explaining how “the free ma

World Socialist Web Site 13 July 2019 Thursday marked three months since WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange was dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy and into London’s Belmarsh Prison, where he is being held pending extradition to the United States and a drumhead trial on Espionage Act charges that carry a prison sentence of 175 years. Assange’s only “crime” is exposing war crimes, subversion and corruption by the US and British governments. Chelsea Manning, the courageous whistleblower who leaked the information to WikiLeaks, has been sent back to jail for refusing to give false testimony against Assange before a US grand jury. Assange’s jailing by the government of Prime Minister Theresa May, at the behest of the United States, has been followed by a near-total media blackout, including the burying of a United Nations statement calling his treatment a form of torture. It was against the backdrop of this grim milestone that the British government convened a two-day “Glo

Dear Friends, Greetings from the desk of the  Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research . "The largest delegation from outside Russia at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in early June came from China. The Chinese team was led by the country’s President, Xi Jinping. In this 23 rd  Forum, Mandarin joined Russian and English as one of the languages on signs and in conversations. Xi and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin seemed comfortable with each other, the bonhomie between the two states clear. During the Forum, the two countries hosted a gala concert to celebrate the seventieth anniversary for the re-establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Russia. Putin  said  that the links between the two countries have reached an ‘unprecedented level’, with deals struck for trade and military alignment. Why have Russia and China cemented this new arrangement? First, they have been brought together by the long-term push by the United States and its allies t

There Will Come Soft Rains By: Ray Bradbury In the living room the voice-clock sang, Tick-tock, seven o'clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o 'clock! as if it were afraid that nobody would. The morning house lay empty. The clock ticked on, repeating and repeating its sounds into the emptiness. Seven-nine, breakfast time, seven-nine! In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh and ejected from its warm interior eight pieces of perfectly browned toast, eight eggs sunny side up, sixteen slices of bacon, two coffees, and two cool glasses of milk. "Today is August 4, 2026," said a second voice from the kitchen ceiling, "in the city of Allendale, California." It repeated the date three times for memory's sake. "Today is Mr. Featherstone's birthday. Today is the anniversary of Tilita's marriage. Insurance is payable, as are the water, gas, and light bills." Somewhere in the walls, relays clicked, memo

From  Clusterfuck Nation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Where are Clintons, these dog days of summer? The Hamptons? Salty, sunny Martha’s Vineyard? Under a rock somewhere in the Chappaqua woods? Fate is turning in more than one uncomfortable way for the once-charmed couple of Boomerdom. There is, of course, the freshly re-issued Jeffrey Epstein underage sex scandal, come ‘round again with a vengeance this time because there are fewer Clinton partisans left in the Department of Justice where the  matter  has festered for decades like a fistula slowly seeping its rot through the body politic. The vengeance emanates from the Clinton’s nemesis, the uppity Golden Golem of Greatness who dared to “steal” Hillary’s place in the Oval Office (and history). To put it plainly, Mr. Trump had enough of the two-year-plus persecution he endured from the Clinton-inspired Mueller investigation into the Clinton-propagated  Russia Collusion  flim-flam. And having patiently survived this audacious, seditious effro