Sickest. Site. Ever.

Usually when one sets up a parody website, they at least have the courtesy to indicate someplace on the site that it is in fact a parody. Unfortunately I was unable to find such a disclaimer on this one, and since there are actually people sick enough to use the internet for buying and selling underage brides, I am seriously forced to wonder even though my bullshit detector is going crazy.
Marry Our Daughter
Parody. Please. Be a parody. The tone of the testimonials suggests parody. Please. Cuz if it’s not, I seriously hope there’s a hell so that these people can burn in it.

Depression is all in your head….

…but for those who suffer from it, “in your head” can be more debilitating than other chronic, painful illnesses. A massive WHO survey study of 60 countries reported that 3.2% of people had depression over the course of a year. Interestingly, though…

This was a bit lower than for asthma (3.3 percent), arthritis (4.1 percent), and angina (4.5 percent), and higher than for diabetes (2.0 percent.)
But the results of a quality-of-life index called the “global mean health score” showed that depression was, by a significant margin, the most difficult to bear.

The most difficult to bear, and also quite prevalent.

The study, published in the British journal The Lancet, says that depression accounts for the greatest share of non-fatal disease burden, accounting for almost 12 percent of total years lived with disability worldwide.
The researchers called on doctors around the world to be more alert in the diagnosis and treatment of the condition, noting that it is fairly easy to recognize and treat.
They also note that even if the prevalence of depression is similar to the four other chronic physical diseases, the lifetime risk — the number of people who cycle in and out of depression — is five to 10 times greater.

As the article says, depression is pretty easy to identify. Educating doctors and the public about the warning signs is a simple thing, but getting people to stop looking away isn’t.
I think it’s pretty obvious that we, as a society, need to step up and remove the stigma associated with mental health issues. Not only are they as prevalent as so-called “real” diseases and disorders, more people will experience them at some point in their lives. Every facet of life is affected too, from rearing children to personal health to productivity at work, which may not necessarily be the case with a physical disorder. National health care system, I’m looking at you….

BREAKING: Christian University Censors Science!!!!!

Ha ha, fooled you!
The Discovery Institute has just issued this on their blog, the inaccurately named Evolution News and Views:

According to CSC senior fellow and leading ID theorist William Dembski, what follows is:

“[A] big story, perhaps the biggest story yet of academic suppression relating to ID. Robert Marks is a world-class expert in the field of evolutionary computing, and yet the Baylor administration, without any consideration of the actual content of Marks’s work at the Evolutionary Informatics Lab, decided to shut it down simply because there were anonymous complaints linking the lab to intelligent design.”

Read on if you care at all about academic freedom and protecting the right of scientists to freedom of scientific inquiry.

So Dembski takes a step down in status, returning to the place that canned him once already. He comes crawling back as a postdoc, and is somehow surprised when the University doesn’t want to see him around anymore? Shocking. Who does that??? When you’re a professor and you want to do research, you do it in your lab. If you can’t do it in your lab, you go on sabbatical so you can bring it to your lab someday. Then you get grants to fund said work in your lab. If your institution won’t support said work, you find one that will hire you. But stepping back into a postdoc is like going back to trade school for something you’re already certified to do. And there but for the grace of God go I.
Is this really about academic freedom, or is it about the University not wanting to deal with some flunky they already pink-slipped? Because if it’s the former, the DI is basically admitting that even devoutly Christian schools, like the esteemed Baylor University, don’t find Intelligent Design stealth creationism to be very compelling. Methinks if the DI’s strategy is actually to win people over, throwing the egomaniacal Dembski under the bus on this one might be a better option.
I mean really. Can you say “I’m hell bent on using you for the affiliation” any more clearly?