Eideard

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

A Belgian man who stunned the world last year by apparently communicating after 23 years in a coma cannot in fact do so, researchers say.

The doctor who believed that Rom Houben was communicating through a facilitator now says the method does not work.

Dr Steven Laureys told the BBC: “The story of Rom is about the diagnosis of consciousness, not communication…”

Dr Laureys, a neurologist at Liege University Hospital in Belgium, had earlier established that Mr Houben, was more conscious than doctors had previously thought – and that is still thought to be the case.

But he also believed that his interaction with the speech therapist was genuine. Following further study, however, Dr Laureys says the method does not work.

He told the BBC that a series of tests on a group of coma patients, including Mr Houben, had concluded that the method was after all false…

“It’s like using an Ouija board,” Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, told Associated Press…

“I hope Rom and his family will stay as an example” of how hard it is to pick up the signs of consciousness, Dr Laureys told the Associated Press. “Even when we know that patients are conscious, we don’t know if there is pain or suffering or what they are feeling.”

First, credit Dr. Laurys for the integrity to challenge his initial conclusions. Introducing sophisticated testing proved his hopes incorrect – and he’s offered that updated information to the medical community and the world at large.

Finally, understand that science always demands reproducible, verifiable results before data is accepted as fact. There is significant difference between this process and the “political” skepticism in fashion among those usually one step removed from creationism in their anti-science ideology.

A dozen French winemakers and traders have been found guilty of a massive scam to sell 18 million bottles of fake Pinot Noir to a leading US buyer.

The judge in Carcassonne, south-west France, said the producers and traders had severely damaged the reputation of the Languedoc region.

The 12 more than doubled profits passing off the wine to E and J Gallo under its Red Bicyclette brand.

The court ruled the 12 had deliberately and repeatedly mislabelled the wine as one of the more expensive varieties of grape in order to get a better price from E and J Gallo.

The Red Bicyclette Pinot Noir single grape wine is hugely popular in the United States.

French Customs officers spotted the swindle and called in investigators. They found the amount of Pinot Noir being sold to Gallo was far more than the region produced. Some of those in the scandal were not even Pinot Noir producers.

The judge handed out suspended jail sentences ranging from one month to six months for the most prominent wine trader and ordered all the defendants to pay fines.

The judge said: “The scale of the fraud caused severe damage for the wines of the Languedoc for which the United States is an important outlet.”

Bravo for the customs officers who spotted the swindle – and their pride in a national product.

I have to chuckle over how many supposedly knowledgeable pundits from the geek world think this is something unheard of. Remind me to ignore their stock tips.

Google won approval from U.S. energy regulators to act as a power marketer, which will make it easier for the Internet search giant to obtain renewable energy to run its huge data centers…

In its approval order, FERC pointed out that Google does not own or control any facilities that generate electricity to sell in the wholesale markets.

Google says the extent of its electric generation ownership is to provide power solely to the company’s facilities and for emergency backup power.

Other companies that consume a lot of electricity have been given similar power marketing authority by FERC to help control their energy costs.

The agency lists on its website about 1,500 companies that have subsidiaries with the same market-based rate authority, including Alcoa, the Safeway grocery store chain and Walmart.

There has to be at least a couple of paranoid vegan Google-panic geeks who will now fear being electrocuted if they use the Chrome browser.

Should’ve dunked him in the water, first

Air travelers already have to deal with unruly passengers, excessively talkative ones and many other types who make flying miserable.

But a new low may just have been reached for weary road warriors: The overwhelmingly smelly passenger.

A man on Jazz Air, a regional airline in Canada that also serves U.S. cities, was reportedly kicked off a plane earlier this month because of his strong body odor.

“People were just mumbling and staring at him,” said a woman who sat near the man, according to The Guardian, a newspaper in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, where the flight originated on February 6. It was a very uncomfortable situation, she added.

Another passenger described the smell as “brutal.”

The man was an American visiting Prince Edward Island, the CBC reported.

Jazz Air spokeswoman Manon Stuart confirmed that a passenger was “deplaned” from the flight, but she could not provide specific information about the person involved or the reason why he was asked to leave because of privacy issues.

“It’s important to understand that our crew members make every effort to resolve a situation before it becomes an issue. Unfortunately, in some circumstances, it may become necessary for our crew to remove passengers.”

Har!

Thanks, Cinaedh

The act of killing is as fundamental to war as oxygen is to fire. Yet it is also the one thing many combat veterans avoid discussing when they return home, whether out of shame, guilt or a deep fear of being misunderstood.

But a new study of Iraq war veterans by researchers in San Francisco suggests that more discussion of killing may help veterans cope with an array of mental health problems stemming from war.

The study, published in The Journal of Traumatic Stress, found that soldiers who reported having killed in combat, or who gave orders that led to killing, were more likely to report the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, alcohol abuse, anger and relationship problems…

Shira Maguen…the principal investigator on the study, said the results suggested that mental health professionals need to incorporate killing more explicitly into their assessments and treatment plans for veterans. That would include finding ways to discuss the impact of killing, in public forums and in private treatment, to reduce the stigma and shame, she argued…

Mental health experts said the new study confirmed findings from research on Vietnam veterans and did not break much new ground. But they said it underscored that treating stress disorder among veterans is often very different from treating it in people who, say, have been raped or have been in car accidents.

“People don’t understand the moral ambiguity of combat and why it is so hard to get over it,” said Rachel Yehuda, a professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. “What makes combat veterans ill is not always about being a victim, but, in some instances, feeling very much both a perpetrator and a victim at the same time…”

Some experts said military law had also complicated therapy by having unclear rules about when a soldier’s conversations with a therapist are protected from legal action. The mere threat that those conversations could be used in war crimes prosecutions discourages many troops and veterans from seeking counseling, those experts say.

My closest friend was our home state’s most decorated soldier in WW2.

Something we revisited time and again.

It’s only been six days since NATO launched a major assault against the Taliban and some Afghans are already asking Marines when they can reopen their shops.

But it’s hard to say whether that’s a sign the Taliban had faded away, or just a false sense of security in Marjah, the heart of the last Taliban stronghold in Helmand, Afghanistan’s most violent province…

NATO’s largest assault in Afghanistan since the start of the war is aimed at driving the Taliban from their stronghold to make way for Afghan authorities to take over.

NATO said in a statement that a number of enemy fighters remaining in Marjah were engaging in direct combat, although combined forces have taken key areas…

But the Taliban are not far away. And they have only one objective — killing foreign forces to hold on to what Western countries say is a poppy cultivation center that funds their insurgency…

Marines are now comfortable enough to mount foot patrols. But the Taliban are unpredictable.

“As our company continues to increase its security in one area we will work to secure the rest of our battlespace,” said Marine Lieutenant Mark Greenlief.

No solutions to a work in progress. But, knowing this much, seeing what’s coming out of Marjah in the world press – not just network talking heads – is positive.

A common bacteria found in many healthy adult females that can cause life-threatening infections when passed to newborns could be introduced to some women through frequent contact with cows, according to a research team led by a Michigan State University pediatrician.

The recently published findings that Group B streptococcus could be a zoonotic disease — transmitted between different species — may have significant public health implications, said Dele Davies, chairperson of MSU’s Department of Pediatrics and Human Development.

Isn’t this how HIV got started among humans?

GBS, first recognized as a bacterium that leads to infections in the breasts of cows, is now found in up to 36 percent of pregnant women in their digestive or genital tracts. When passed to newborns during pregnancy, the infection can be severe — leading to death — though not all infants become sick…

“The possibility of ongoing transmission between humans and their livestock has not been systematically examined, and future studies are needed.”

Uh, oh. Got milk? may become a completely different kind of slogan.

The government in the Indian state of Meghalaya has confiscated textbooks showing pictures of Jesus Christ holding a cigarette and a can of beer.

The book has been used for primary classes and has caused a furore in the north-eastern state, where more than 70% of the population are Christians.

State Education Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh said legal action against the publishers was being contemplated.

The controversial picture of Jesus was discovered in cursive writing exercise books being used at a private school in the state capital, Shillong…

The minister said that…his government has taken speedy action by seizing all the copies of the textbook from schools and bookshops.

“We are deeply hurt by the insensitivity of the publisher. How can one show such total disrespect for a religion?” asked Dominic Jala, the Archbishop of Shillong…

The Catholic Church in India has banned all textbooks by Skyline Publications from all its schools.

Doesn’t it warm the cockles of your heart to see such understanding and tolerance for all rational religious points of view?

[Wiping away the drool]
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

I was asked yesterday whether I would be going to CPAC, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, which is currently being held a half-hour’s walk from my office in D.C. It was a logical question, not only since the meetings are so close at hand but also because for five years I chaired CPAC.

CPAC brings together conservative activists from every corner of America. As national chairman of the American Conservative Union, a founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation, and director of the policy task forces for Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign, speaking at CPAC and shaping the program were high priorities on my personal agenda every year, even while serving in Congress.

But the answer to yesterday’s question was “no.” No, I’m not going to CPAC. And, truth be told, most of the folks there wouldn’t want me there. They wouldn’t think I’m a conservative; many wouldn’t think Barry Goldwater was a conservative; many, had this been three decades ago, might have been seeking a “true” conservative to run against Ronald Reagan. I don’t begrudge these activists their views and they are entitled to use the term “conservative” to describe themselves if they so choose. But the views many of them profess have little in common with the distinctly American kind of conservatism that gave birth to CPAC and the modern American conservative movement…

I’m not at CPAC because I believe in America. I believe in liberty. I believe that governments should be held in check. I believe people matter. I believe in the flag not because of its shape or color but because of the principles it stands for–the principles in the Constitution, the principles repeated and underlined and highlighted and boldfaced and italicized in the Bill of Rights. The George W. whose presidency and precedents I admire was the first president, not the 43d. It is James Madison I admire, not John Yoo. Thomas Paine, not Glenn Beck. Jefferson, not Limbaugh.

Ronald Reagan would not have been welcome at today’s CPAC or a tea party rally, but he would not have wanted to be there, either. Neither do I.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have friends and family who left the Republican Party after 50 years dedicated membership. Most left during the reign of King George W.. None would be inclined to return to the fold as designed and led by Dick Cheney, Dick Armey and the Birchers. Traditional American conservatism never marched to goosestep drums.