Don't sully a mediocre drug by associating it with that narcissistic windbag. Talk about a brand killer!

As long as Obama doesn't prevent me from having an erection, I'm okay with the analogy.

"Obama’s not a game changer per se, but he’s changed how people feel about playing the game, or whether they even want to."

Huh. It's only a fucking game to *some* people. And that Irish geezer, O'Bama, hasn't changed my perception one iota.

Matt

Interesting point. Beside the fact that I don't really consider Obama that uplifting really, it is rather strange indeed to consider an uplifitng/optimistic spirit in any way similar to a psychotropic drug.

Well, with the annoucement today that the Bear Stearns hedge fund manager has been on Wellbutrin since the summer of 2006 and the feds are going to prosecute him, the world is faced with the deep irony of Prozac being the symbol of "feeling good" while in actual reality, Prozac & the new antidepressants contributed heavily to the stock market crash of 2008.

The Crash of 1929 was caused by "buying stocks on margin' and this practice was quickly outlawed. But the stock market crash of 2008 is still a puzzle.

There are only five cases on SSRI Stories related to the stock market crash and the SSRIs [like Prozac] but here is one article which explains it rather succintly. The hpomania, poor judgement, etc. ------------------

http://www.ssristories.com/show.php?item=3447

"The answer could well be something that market commentators rarely think about: namely the mood swings of the average investor. In other words, what is the role of specific drugs such as antidepressants in the current makeup of the market? Is it possible that the consumption of antidepressants has pushed investors to take greater (and growing) risks on the stock market?"

"Firstly, it must be acknowledged that I am on a well-trod rather than radical path here. Many years ago, a respected medical journal made the same point albeit about a different bubble. This was recounted by Michael Lewis, writing in Slate (article dated August 13, 2002) as follows:"
"When people talk about the mood in the financial markets they tend to assume that the market drives that mood. But of course it doesn't, not entirely. A few years ago a piece in the University of Michigan medical journal argued that the reason the Internet bubble reached such ridiculous heights was that huge numbers of investors were now taking drugs that lowered their inhibitions. With a third of the US investing population on Prozac or some other mood-enhancing drug, the paper concluded, it was no wonder that so many people believed the market would simply keep rising."

"Since he wrote that article, sales of antidepressants and related psychiatric-treatment drugs have increased dramatically in the US. Evidence suggests that the rapid increase in the sales of antidepressants could well have sown the seeds of the financial crisis in 2005-06 and later on. The following are excerpts from an excellent article in How Stuff Works titled 'Why are antidepressants the most prescribed drug in the US?':
"In 2007, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made an intriguing announcement. Antidepressants were the most frequently prescribed drug, overtaking the runner-up, high blood-pressure medications, by five million prescriptions.

Maybe the awarding of this NP to Obama is reflective of the urgency for change in the world. Climate change, the looming end (peak) of oil and wars simply leave less time for naval-gazing and celebration of what a leader or VIP has actually done. Maybe this award is forward-thinking, a pre-emptive push to encourage Obama to follow through on that post-Bush global good will, rather than to wait, see if he does good, then hand out an award. I like it.

As for the drug analogy, I'd take the warm fuzzy Prozac Obama over a bad acid trip Bush any day, anytime. At the best of times, life under Bush was like being slipped a date rape drug at a bad frat party and screwed over and over and over against my will.

Actually, I think Obama could be the global Seroquel of our time, I found an article from 2008 re: AstraZeneca scandalous financial ties to the Nobel Prize Foundation regarding the medicine prize...makes me question this award, because it doesn't make sense for Obama to win something he hasn't accomplished, but he sure has pharma in his bank account when he was running for President!

I've been thinking about this, and so intrigued was I (not really, just bored), that I decided to find out why, officially, O'Bama was deserving of this prestigious gong.

No, good people it wasn't because "he's not Bush". That, seemingly is not enough. It was “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people”, according to the Prize Committee, in Oslo. I'm not quite sure how it is that one may strengthen something that doesn't exist, but perhaps I'm just nitpicking. It seems that the Committee seeks nominations from "prestigious people" around the world, but the rest of the process is shrouded in secrecy, so we'll never know who nominated O'Bama, nor why.

Go on, then, Baeraech: bring us some peace, and try to do a bit more than sending that fossil to Belfast... Send Shrub, next time, and tell him that it's completely appropriate to go on a 5-mile triumphal march down the Falls Road, wearing a bowler hat and the sash.

Clueless fuckers!

Matt

"Send Shrub, next time, and tell him that it's completely appropriate to go on a 5-mile triumphal march down the Falls Road, wearing a bowler hat and the sash."

Oh my. He was so much more subtle here in the US.

Sherry (who lived and worked in Belfast in 1972, went through the 27-minute IRA Bloody Friday bomb-a-minute campaign and for whom the hymn "Onward Christian Soldiers" will never be the same since she heard one of those neighbourhood bands play it during marching season. I really have gotten to see both sides now.)

Sherry wrote:
"...He was so much more subtle here in the US."

Who? Shrub? He considers violence as an option, when solving thorny problems, but he can't be honest about it. Not my kind of guy!

It's kinda off the point of the OP, but I came across the lyrics of a song, just recently, called "The sash my father wore". It's a traditional song, supposedly (I imagine the lyrics get updated, from time to time), and it chilled my blood. Do you know what the Orange Order march for, amongst other things? The Boyne. The fucking Boyne. And William was Dutch, and only King of England because James did a runner! And James was only in Ireland because Louis of France was sponsoring him against Protestant William. So I've read, anyway!

Over three hundred years ago, and they're still rubbing the Catholics' noses in it. And that song specifically celebrates the sacrifices made by ancestors in the name of Loyalism. These people, both Catholic and Protestant, are so wed to the past that they can't escape it. I suspect that the Loyalists imagine that if they relax their grip, they'll be murdered in their beds, whilst the Republicans are convinced that they're still trying to escape the yolk of oppression.

Yeah: we should send Shrub - he'll sort it out, what with his massive intellect, and everything!

Matt

Matt,
This obsession with the Boyne (which is an amazing area, by the way, with those ancient passage tombs) is all the more astonishing when you come from a brash young country like the US. Even in New England we have such a short sense of time.

I grew up with Fenians. It was good for me to live in Belfast and see war as it really is, not as the glorious cause I'd been taught to believe it was. I will never forget the first gun battle I witnessed. I was not only terrified, but horror stricken to think human beings were taking up guns to kill one another. That summer changed my life and attitudes entirely.