assorted bits

Gregg Easterbrook in Slate asks: why do we need a permanent lunar base?

Paul Krugman: "The Great Wealth Transfer", a good(if somewhat longish) article in Rolling Stone,

Mary, at Pacific Views: "A Disintegration of Personality"

Dr Donald O. Hebb at McGill University found that he could induce a state akin to psychosis in a subject within 48 hours. Now, what had the doctor done? Hypnosis, electroshock, LSD, drugs? No. None of the above. All Dr Hebb did was take student volunteers at McGill University where he was head of Psychology, put them in comfortable airconditioned cubicles and put goggles, gloves and ear muffs on them. In 24 hours the hallucinations started. In 48 hours they suffered a complete breakdown. Dr Hebb noted they suffered a disintegration of personality. Just goggles, gloves and ear muffs and this discovered the foundation, or the key technique which has been applied under extreme conditions at Guantanamo. The technique of sensory disorientation. I've tracked down some of the original subjects in Dr Hebb's experiments of 1952 and men now in their 70s still suffer psychological damage from just two days of isolation with goggles, gloves and ear muffs. David Hicks was subjected at peak to 244 days of isolation, the most extreme isolation in the 50-year history of these CIA psychological torture techniques. David Hicks has suffered untold psychological damage that will take a great deal of care, a great deal of treatment and probably the rest of his life to move beyond.

the cartoon above is via Mark Kleiman, who describes GWB as the enabler-in-chief. Coincidentally, Kleiman discusses the murder of Ronni Moffitt. She was an American citizen killed by a car bomb(see b&w photo, below) in Washington DC, along with her boss, Chilean activist Orlando Letelier(see the brazilian cartoon in the previous post).



photos: tni, sinkers.org