What's in the News

From the New York Times:
Mental Illness: Far More Chinese Have Mental Disorders Than Previously Reported, Study Finds
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: June 15, 2009
The burden of mental illness in China has been seriously underestimated, the authors of a new study say. More than 17 percent of Chinese adults have a mental disorder, the study concluded — far more than the 1 to 9 percent reported in studies done between 1982 and 2004.

To do the study, published in the journal Lancet last week, researchers at Columbia University and major psychiatric hospitals in Beijing, Shandong, Zhejiang, Qinghai and Gansu screened 63,000 adults with questionnaires, and psychiatrists interviewed more than 16,000 of them, often in local dialects. The research was financed by the World Health Organization, the Shandong provincial health department and the China Medical Board of New York, an independent medical foundation begun in 1914 by the Rockefeller Foundation, which supports medical education and research across Asia.

The most disturbing aspect of their research, the authors said, was that, among those who had a diagnosable mental illness, 24 percent said they were moderately or severely disabled by it. But only 8 percent had ever sought professional help, and only 5 percent had ever seen a mental health professional.

People from rural areas were more likely to be depressed and have alcohol problems than urbanites, the study found. Mood and anxiety disorders were more common in people over 40 and among women, while alcohol abuse was much more common among men.

Although the authors did not reflect at length on the role of China’s economic rise, which has led to mass migrations of poor people to the cities, they acknowledged that they were measuring some effects.

The percentages are much higher in my classes.

The percentages are much higher in my classes.

What are you doing to your students?

From Denmark. Eric may comment...WARNING! LOTS OF BLOOD!!
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread475757/pg1

From Denmark. Eric may comment...WARNING! LOTS OF BLOOD!!
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread475757/pg1

It's cultural. They have been doing it for thousands of years. To interfere with cultural traditions is reprehensible.

The turtle kills in Indonesia are a case in point. It is just not politically correct to force people to change their culture.

Like, stopping human sacrifice with the mayans or head hunting in New Guinea.

Oh, yeah, and I am not sure what species are involved, (can't see the video, don't care to) but many cetaceans have the intelligence of small mammals like rats or cats, not human level. Only a few could be considered by ANYONE as intelligent. Some of the small open-water dolphin-type species school in such numbers (1m long, 300 per pod) are actually considered an environmental hazard and classed by some as virtually vermin, with brain power to match.

But that isn't politically correct to say either.

Didn't see the link, just replying to this from my personal experience of hundreds of hours amongst a few varieties of swimming beef in their natural enviroment, biggest pod I was in had easy couple thousand head, I've swam with them, held a males hard he presented in a way that told me to grab it, then he took me for a cool ride in a place folks swim with them daily, had another playfully slap my ass with it's tail, many others bump my carefully, I've played bait tugawar uncountable times, had at least a thousand baits taken by them but leaving me the tiny part of bait hook was attached to, but never hooked one, I've watched moms & aunties swim babies bait to bait as we trolled at 8 knots, then to my props, obviously teaching them danger, don't remember even hearing of one ever taking a lure even though it's common to have them swim & play with the lures... I learned to reconize the heard formations, starting with the young adult male scouts, then biggest bulls garding the parimiters & the well orginized groups inside the heard, the babies always secure in the middle with mom on one side & aunty on it's other & a bull always nearby, seen how they drive schools of man sized tuna like cowboys & cattle so they always have food but only eating their tuna when other food fish weren't around, they ball bait & hold the ball so the caged tuna stay well fed & healthy..


Sure, not as inteligent as humans.

but I'd put them quite a few notches higher than cats & most other animules.

but I'm not educated in uni so this is only my oponion, not science.

many cetaceans have the intelligence of small mammals like rats or cats, not human level. Only a few could be considered by ANYONE as intelligent. Some of the small open-water dolphin-type species school in such numbers (1m long, 300 per pod) are actually considered an environmental hazard and classed by some as virtually vermin, with brain power to match

I watched them often on Nauru. Once saw a pod that took 15 minutes to cross my line of sight.

Cetaceans are a family involving a range of beasties, large to small, dumb to smart. It isnt "whales" vs "dolphins". eg river dolphins, while rare and beautiful, aren't too bright.

Using primates as an analogy, our family also ranges intelligence, going from us, supposedly at the top, through chimps and other apes, through monkeys which vary considerably, down to lemurs and tarsiers, down to tree shrews about as smart as a lab rat.

If one plays with a chimpanzee, then one would say that all primates are pretty sharp, and figure that any damage they did would be worth it. If all you had to play with were tree shrews, and there were millions of them eating all the food, you wouldn't be so impressed.

Both points are true.

I was also speaking, if you note, in particular to a Pacific species about one metre long, one that is pretty dumb. I would think that DaDan was speaking of an Atlantic species, and considerably larger. The Atlantic porpoise, which is what I suspect it was, is considerably more intelligent.

   

 Ananova:
Luxury yachts offer pirate hunting cruises

Luxury ocean liners in Russia are offering pirate hunting cruises aboard armed private yachts off the Somali coast.
 Wealthy punters pay £3,500 per day to patrol the most dangerous waters in the world hoping to be attacked by raiders.
When attacked, they retaliate with grenade launchers, machine guns and rocket launchers, reports Austrian business paper Wirtschaftsblatt.

Passengers, who can pay an extra £5 a day for an AK-47 machine gun and £7 for 100 rounds of ammo, are also protected by a squad of ex special forces troops.

The yachts travel from Djibouti in Somalia to Mombasa in Kenya.

The ships deliberately cruise close to the coast at a speed of just five nautical miles in an attempt to attract the interest of pirates.

"They are worse than the pirates," said Russian yachtsman Vladimir Mironov. "At least the pirates have the decency to take hostages, these people are just paying to commit murder," he continued.

Murder of pirates, unlike the pirates, who murder innocent tourists and sailors.

Hmm.

Don't know, but so far it doesn't raise any of my hackles.

Oh, yeah, and I am not sure what species are involved,

According to the responses following the video, we're talking pilot whales.

Well, there are a few pilot whales, but I'll put in an educated guess at dog-smart.

In a way, it's poetic justice, since pilot whales reputedly led the whaling ships to the whaling pods.

um, not being closed minded. talking about tests, rather than anecdotes. Pilot whales of several species fronted up about dog smart.

you didn't say which ocean. I assumed atlantic due to bermuda coming up elsewhere, for some reason.

Pacific has the bottle nose, which fronts up as the most intelligent of the cetaceans, about the level of a chimpanzee. And despite what Peter Cook said, they aren't insects, and they don't eat bananas.

Ok. I feel obliged to comment. The vidoe does not work for me but I am familiar with the custom. Firstly, it's done on the Faroe Islands which, to all intents and purposes, is not Denmark. They don't even speak Danish there, they speak Faroese. However, some of the comments about the video, not made on this forum, got the old blood boiling. One ignoramus had the audacity to call Denmark "supposedly civilized"....he's now on the "First one to be fed to Jormundgand when Ragnarok breaks out" list.
It is a horrible custom. I have never nor will ever condone the unnecessary slaughter of animals for no practical purpose. That being said, this whole sanctimonious, pot-addled, head-in-sky-no-connection-to-reality, doped-up-to-the-gills, flower-in-hair-wearing-kumbaya-singing hippie nonsense about dolphins is getting on my tits! They're not Flipper! Flipper is dead! Some Hollywood executive probably had Flipper steak with potatoes and gravy! Ever eaten chicken, cow, veal, lamb, sheep or goat? Ever been to a feed-lot? Ever been to an industrial abattoir? The people on the Faroe Islands may be killing all those dolphins as a rite of passage, but they do actually make use of the slain beasts. They're not exactly hunting down their babies and clubbing them to death for their pelts with no added interest in their meat, a monstrous habit still practiced by some countries I might add! "Save the planet" was another comment...really??? Of all the things we could do to save the planet, our major concern should be the humane treatment of marine mammals??? I do not condone, as I have stated, mass-slaughter of animals, but if anyone can eat a steak and still argue about treating another species with decency and respect, they sorely are in need of a reality check. Now, I am going to eat my BLT, because I am a carnivore and I eat dead animals who, in appearance, look really cute and yet we slaughter them in great numbers every day and no-one seems to care, unless one of them starred in an unbearable saccharine TV-show a long, long, long, long, long time ago.