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Oh God! Lyrica vs. Ecstasy

Here are a few fascinating news items which caught my attention this week and I wanted to share.

Guess which drug is illegal?
One deadens nerves, barely works, has foul side effects. The other helps you feel God

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, January 18, 2008


As reported by the Washington Post and the Guardian, as far as PTSD alone is concerned, some docs already see MDMA as potentially life-saving, a true wonder drug, which might even be administered to all our traumatized U.S. soldiers. Which could be good news indeed, given how an estimated 24 million Americans suffer from PTSD, whereas only a fraction of that number claim to have fibromyalgia.

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Um... how fucking broken and downright unfair is the entire banking system?

Baltimore Finds Subprime Crisis Snags Women

Published: January 15, 2008

... Though women and men have roughly the same credit scores, the Consumer Federation of America found that women were 32 percent more likely to receive subprime loans than men. The disparity existed within every income and ethnic group. Blacks and Latinos are also more likely to get subprime loans than comparable white borrowers.

In another study, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition found that women received 37 percent of high-cost home loans in 2005, compared with just 28 percent of prime loans. Preliminary research by the organization suggests that this gap may have tightened as subprime loans crested in 2006.
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Carrol Lloyd's Surreal Estate, is a column that I love to hate. Here is her latest illustration of how fucked up Bay Area real estate is. Revealing that a lot of new construction is in places that nobody actually wants to live. She makes an interesting (class related) remark in the last sentence.

Old home, new home: What can you get for the same price?

By Carol Lloyd, Special to SF Gate
Friday, January 18, 2008

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