Thousands of Scottish children, some as young as six, are wrongly being labelled hyperactive and given controversial drugs to stop anxious parents thinking they are to blame for unruly behaviour, a leading academic has warned.

Dr Gwynedd Lloyd says doctors are wrongly diagnosing ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) when many youngsters are just behaving badly as a normal part of growing up.

The Edinburgh University academic claims this is leading to "widespread abuse" of the controversial drug methylphenidate, commonly known as Ritalin, by doctors who over-rely on checklists when deciding on medication for children.

Ritalin, nicknamed the "chemical cosh", has been criticised amid claims it has dangerous side-effects, including abdominal pain, anxiety, dizziness, headaches and psychosis.

American Heroin

It oftentimes boggles the mind to try and understand the ease with which the Establishment can manipulate the American citizenry into another warmongering escapade, this time an ominous foray into the Persian lands of Iran, a nation rich in history, culture, location and most importantly to the Evil Empire, oil and gas. Yet upon further inspection it is easy to comprehend this phenomenon, for we live, as Gore Vidal has labeled it, inside the United States of Amnesia, a country where all semblance of the yesterday becomes but a haze of blatant forgetfulness and convenient whitewash, a black hole of Alzheimer's-like darkness from where no recollection of past lessons, mistakes, errors or history can be seen or touched.

We live in a nation of gluttonous stupor and comfortable surroundings, easily distracted by the cocktail of materialism that lines our homes. We are trained to live to work, not work to live, sacrificing love of life for love for the Almighty dollar, becoming worker bees and soldier ants, selling our souls to the demons of capitalism in exchange for the happiness and stress-free lives of yesteryear, needing pharmaceutical drugs to escape the depression of our daily lives, willingly choosing to indebt our present and future in order to possess the vast array of adult toys marketed to manipulate our emotions, wrongly thinking this or that product will reincarnate lost happiness. America is the land of plenty, where waistlines expand, stress increases, mental problems grow, work hours increase and vehicles get bigger and bigger, a land addicted to the devil's excrement, like a heroin user injecting black gold into its ever thirsty veins, becoming a violent, warmongering junkie when the perpetual case of cold turkey arises.

More than likely, you missed the display of public opinion on Bush's illegal wiretapping at Georgetown University, Washington, a few weeks ago. The reason you missed it is the same reason we missed it: the mainstream media more or less ignored it. Don't bother trying to find the story with a google news search either, it simply isn't there. Such is the state of censorship in modern-day America.

Thankfully, there are sites like Signs of the Times to bring you the news that your government feels you should be denied.

Princess Masako is so weighed down by the demands of imperial life that she wants a divorce, according to the Japanese press, as opposition grows against plans to allow her child, Princess Aiko, to sit on the Chrysanthemum Throne.

Several magazines say that, after 13 unhappy years in the Imperial Palace, the Harvard-educated former diplomat is looking for a way out of her marriage to Emperor Akihito's son, Crown Prince Naruhito. The Imperial Household dismisses the speculation.

The 42-year-old princess has spent the past two years largely out of public sight and has been diagnosed with a mental disorder that many blame on her struggle to produce a male heir.

The princess came under intense palace pressure to have another baby after giving birth to her only child, Aiko, in 2001. Her subsequent illness has sparked a succession crisis and forced the government to begin revising the Imperial House Law, which prevents females from ascending the throne.

Manila, Philippines -- A crowd of people awaiting entrance to a stadium in Manila stampeded Saturday, killing at least 73 people and injuring 322, an official said.

A report carried by the Associated Press quotes the Philippine Red Cross Chairman Senator Richard Gordon as saying the toll was at least 88 people.

Some of the 20,000 people who were lined up outside the arena had been waiting for days to gain access to the stadium, where a game show was to be videotaped, Philippines Congressman Robert Jaworski told CNN.

At 7 a.m., five hours before the show was to begin, people were being admitted to the stadium at such a slow pace that one member of the crowd apparently decided to hasten the process, he said.

"Someone shouted and and screamed that there was a bomb," Jaworski said.

"It was just a prank by one of those irresponsible people who wanted to get in first. Sadly, it caused a panic. It was a down-slope road and they started running down the hill ... they just started trampling each other."

Most of the casualties were women, he said.

Iran is not capable of building its own nuclear weapons, the former head of a nuclear power plant and current regional leader in southern Russia said Wednesday.

“In reality, the U.S. is provoking Iran, accusing it of aiming, along with the implementation of its peaceful nuclear programs, to create its own nuclear weapons,” Governor of the Saratov Region Pavel Ipatov was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying.

Paris: Why is all this pressure being mounted against Iran when both Washington and Jerusalem unofficially concede that there is nothing to be done to prevent Iran's government from continuing along its present course of nuclear development?

The contradictions in Western official and unofficial discourse about Iran and its nuclear ambitions are so blatant that one might suspect disinformation, but it probably is simply the cacophony of single-minded bureaucracies working at cross purposes, and the effect of the multiple lobbies involved and of US domestic political exploitation, and the paradox of the American policy itself, whose nonproliferation efforts actually provoke nuclear proliferation.

[Editor's note: This story first appeared in 1991 in Leisure Weekly, Keene, NH, USA, where the author was once managing editor.]

A good society is a means to a good life for those who compose it; not something having a kind of excellence on its own account. - Bertrand Russell

In a perfect world, there would be no soldiers, no police, no crime, no hatred, no oil spills. A ritually stabilized world population, structured so each person connected with an actualized family unit, would have behaviorally internalized integrity and civility and this was reflected in friendly social behavior and totally amiable international relations.

It's a dirty job, but we have to do it.

The Senate vote confirming Alito to the Supreme Court shows that those in power know that the outcome is fixed, and that if they wish to share in the power of the new tyranny, they will have to play ball.

So, what next?

There is only one possible meaning of the Senate's cloture vote on Samuel Alito's confirmation. 75% of our senators, and all of our other elected officials, KNOW that this country's elections are rigged, and that the will and voice of the people no longer matter. They KNOW that so long as they "play ball" with the dictates of the new totalitarian government, which will now ensue beyond all previously imagined levels to commit domestic terrorism of the populace and destruction of infrastructure, environment and all else, THEY will have their power, privilege and prestige assured to them regardless. They will keep their positions and all the perquisites thereof in return for providing the appearance of a democracy and of an "opposing" party. That is their sole function now, to deceive both average Americans and especially the other nations of the world, and to discourage, divert and drain away the public's efforts to seek justice and the restoration of our rights. And a few other niceties like luring any effective dissidents out to be identified and corralled later.

That is the real deal, and anyone with two neurons firing now knows a big part of the solution. They've stolen our elections, and it is up to the brightest and best of our patriotic and computer savvy people to steal them back. Every dissident needs to "see the light" and immediately get actively, personally involved in local elections. Wherever there is computerized or mechanical, black box vote scamming machinery in use, we must figure out how to access it and either hack it and stack it or else kill it so it cannot be used again, ever.

What did you do today? What are your plans for tomorrow? Normal stuff? Go to work? Pick up the kids? Preparing dinner? Maybe a drink in the bar with some friends, or stay at home with the latest blockbuster movie? If so, then you are doing pretty much the same thing as billions of other people around the world, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Life goes on after all. Or does it? I mean, will normal life go on indefinitely? You see, I was checking the news today and… well, "oh boy" is the best way I can describe it.