McCain Senile?

During interviews in the past week McCain's talking point on Powells endorsement of Obama is that he is backed by five former Republican Secretaries of State. On Meet the Press on Sunday he couldn't remember them all.......

SEN. McCAIN: No. I'm disappointed in General Powell, but I'm very, very happy to know that five former secretaries of state who I admire enormously--Henry Kissinger, Jim Baker, Larry Eagleburger, Al Hague--Jim Baker, Henry Kissinger, Al Hague, Larry Eagleburger and one other, and over 200 retired flag general--generals and admirals are supporting my campaign. I'm very proud of their support.
MR. BROKAW: Senator, we opened today with a--how you're doing in Iowa. The Des Moines Register has endorsed...
SEN. McCAIN: George Shultz. George Shultz is the other one.
MR. BROKAW: George Shultz, right.
SEN. McCAIN: George, I'm sorry I left you out to start with. George Shultz, the great--one of the great secretaries of state in history. Anyway, go ahead. I'm sorry.

And this is not the first time poor McCain has been confused...........

Did John McCain confuse autism with Down syndrome?

Is McCain Senile? He Confuses FEC with SEC, Sunnis with Shiites ...

A mind is a terrible thing to see go to waste......

We know from a May review of some of John McCain's medical records and from previous reports that the Arizona senator has battled the most deadly form of skin cancer melanoma. His physician says McCain, who at 72 would be the oldest man ever sworn into a first term as president, has not displayed any memory problems, but she has not said whether her patient has undergone cognitive tests.

After this week perhaps its time for that cognitive test.....since he never has been given any psychological testing even after his years as a prisoner of war and his failed suicide attempt.

McCain has released more details about his health than the other three nominees, though he has done so in a phased way and has apparently not agreed to any extensive interviews about his health. A handful of reporters were allowed to view his records during his bid for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination. Another group of reporters were permitted to see newer records last May. By not allowing reporters to interview him or his doctors extensively about his entire medical history, he has made it impossible to get a complete picture of his diagnoses and treatment.In 1999, early in his first run for the presidency, McCain allowed a small number of reporters, including me, to review an estimated 1,500 pages of his medical records without photocopying or recording the information.In doing so, McCain gave the public its broadest look at the psychological profile of a presidential candidate. He released psychological records about him that were amassed as part of a Navy project to gauge the health of former prisoners of war. Assessments were based on standard psychological tests and what McCain told his doctors after his release. The records mentioned that in 1968, about eight months after his capture and after some particularly brutal beatings from his North Vietnamese captors, McCain attempted suicide, trying to hang himself with his shirt.The records and his doctors, whom I interviewed with the senator’s permission in 1999, said he had never been given a diagnosis of a mental health disorder or treated at the project’s center for a mental health disorder.

McCains mental health is the Republican 800 lb Gorrilla in the room...

The other gorilla in the room
John McCain has his own gorilla.
The Republican gorilla (Shush, he’s old. Is he senile?)
Is John McCain senile, forgetting long held principles, becoming a caricature? With all due respect to this elderly man of integrity and honor, he may not be clinically senile, suffering actual dementia, but he may be past his best years.
Senator McCain acquitted himself well at the first debate; he recalled names, places and events with sufficient clarity so as to deny any clinical disease. However, his interviews with the press have become increasingly angry and hostile. More and more observers have posited that his erratic behavior, adopting contradictory and mutually exclusive positions may be caused by the stress of the campaign and his 72 year old body not being able to get the rest that it requires to function properly. That isn't ageism—that is a simple fact of life.
There have been public comments suggesting that Senator McCain may not have the mental strength and capacity to handle the job of President. Again, just as with the “concerns” about Senator Obama’s race or faith are not well founded and are framed as worries about his “inexperience”, the shifts in John McCain’s positions, sometimes within hours, are raided as issues of senility rather than simple political opportunism. For example, on one day at 9:00 A.M., he declared that the United States economy was basically strong; later that day he called for a massive bailout that would cost our children and grandchildren close to $1 Trillion!

And let us not forget that the mere fact that Democratic VP Thomas Eagleton had been treated for clincal depression led to his resignation when the Republicans exposed it is there any wonder that McCain has not had a cognitive psych test.....

Of course depression and mental illness has not been a limitation for U.S. Presidents in the past.....49% of US Presidents suffered mental illness in Duke study

Tags
John McCain, republican, U.S.presidential election, mental health,

Policing Mental Illness

Once again we have incompetent untrained police dealing with folks who suffer from mental illness. The result is nearly always tragic. This is apparently becoming more of a problem as folks travel by air, in airports which are now modeled on old style State Security Gulags.

Vancouver RCMP uses Taser and kills man at Vancouver Airport

And this brings up again the dangers of tasers which can be another form of lethal force despite claims to the contrary.

Don’t Faze Me, Bro? Taser Business Rolls

OC inmate dies after being struck by Taser gun
A 28-year-old transient incarcerated at Orange County Jail for drinking in public has died after being subdued with a stun gun, authorities said Saturday.

"He was scheduled to be released today," said Damon Micalizzi, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department. The man's name was withheld pending notification of relatives.

The death was the county's second associated with a Taser gun in a little more than a month.

Officer injured in Taser demonstration

A police officer in the US who volunteered to be the subject of a Taser demonstration has suffered possibly lasting damage, including spine fractures after receiving a five-second discharge, according to a respected medical journal.

The 38-year-old victim was rushed by ambulance to hospital where a scan showed he suffered compression fractures in his spine caused by muscle spasms triggered by being Tasered in a training class.

Nine weeks after his injury he has continued to report significant pain.

Student shocked by school officer's Taser

Did a local school district police officer go too far by shocking an unruly student with a Taser? Some Katy ISD parents are sounding off.

Taser-happy?

The problem is a mind-set that excuses stun-gun abuse

Police Tasers, or stun guns, are the common denominator in a growing list of questionable, sometimes outrageous, incidents of police violence on individuals who appear to pose little danger, and on whom, in the same situations, the police would never take out a gun.

The case of David Shea (see box at right), whom Volusia County Sheriff's deputies Tased repeatedly, in his home, is just one such incident. The case of the University of Florida student who was Tased during a town-hall meeting last month is another. The case of a Flagler County special education student Tased for refusing to leave a classroom last year is another. The list quickly grows long. So does the list of names of victims, now longer than 200, who died when electrocuted by Tasers. The company that makes the guns, and the police agencies that use them, insist the weapons are nonlethal, that the deaths are the result of other causes -- drugs in the victims' systems, for example.

A lesson learnt from Gotbaum case – do not travel by air unless you have to and never lose your patience because they can do anything they like

Commentary: Lacking Mechanisms to Deal With the Mentally Ill

I couldn’t help being shaken by the “accidental death” of Carol Ann Gotbaum, in a holding cell at a Phoenix airport. From what I can gather, she acted in an erratic and irate manner, a similar manner to a mentally ill person in crisis. It brought back memories of friends and acquaintances who are mentally ill and who died either while being restrained or in some other way because of the illness.

It is a universal story that goes along with mental illness that police or other authorities often treat an ill person roughly, and sometimes in a humiliating or even dangerous manner. I have heard a story of a young man in custody who died in the transport van due to overheating. I can remember three other mentally ill who died of a heart attack, either because of their psychotic episode or because of the health problems associated with their medication. I know of several others who committed suicide. Mentally ill people have died while tied down on a four-point restraint table; repeated checking is legally required in California to prevent this. It doesn’t always work.

TOO MUCH DEADLY FORCE?

ANOTHER POLICE SHOOTING FATALITY - AND THE SAME QUESTIONS REMAIN

ONLY A FEW people know what really happened Monday inside Ronald Timbers' home in Crescentville.

And one of them is dead.

Did Timbers, 15, pose such a threat to police and his mother that police had to shoot him in the chest and kill him? Did they try to talk him down and de-escalate the situation? Was he shot at the top of the stairs while holding a clothes iron, or when he charged down the steps toward the police, the iron held over his head like a weapon?

Man shot by police after Aug. chase dies

L.A. police shoot, kill mentally ill man

SEE

Cops and Tasers

Ban Tasers

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Pay Back II

The Harpocrites throw some crumbs to Calgary.

Calgary home to new mental health commission

In true Orwellian style it turns out that Calgary's advantage is;

"Calgary is the only major regional health authority in the country without a specialized psychiatric hospital, and that's actually an advantage."

More P O R K.

But wait the Alberta Advantage is at play here too, the idea of further private public delivery (P3) of services. More Medicare reform through the back door.

"The Alberta Mental Health Board is a unique structure, across the country, in terms of the way they look at mental health policy without actually delivering services. I think we can learn a lot from that," Kirby said Friday.

And of course since the government doesn't deliver services it waits for the community or market to create those services after the fact. First it and closed existing hospital beds, leaving folks to fend for themselves.

It has also gone further down the road in moving away form institutional care to more community-based programs, Kirby said.

Sure which has lead to this; homelessness.

And after all since Alberta is booming it makes sense to set it up here since;

Work Is A Danger To Your Mental Health

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Work Is A Danger To Your Mental Health

I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go, and go and go....no wonder we get depressed and suffer from increasing forms of mental illness. What is interesting is that it is wage slaves who are now suffering this disease usually associated with the salaried class.

workaholics are not a happy lot, according to the study, called Time escapes me: Workaholics and time perception. The study, in the latest online edition of Canadian Social Trends, reports that 31 per cent of Canadians describe themselves as workaholics. It is based on data from the 2005 General Social Survey on time use.

Nearly 40 per cent of workaholics reported working 50 hours a week and more. They feel rushed and trapped in their routine. They have trouble sleeping and reported more health problems than Canadians who aren't workaholics. They worry that they don't spend enough time with family and friends; that they just don't have time for fun.

And, despite all the time they spend at work, they are no more likely than others to love their jobs or be satisfied with their income.

Managers and tradespeople are more likely to report they are workaholics than professionals, a finding analyst Leslie-Anne Keown found puzzling.

"Perhaps professionals such as doctors and lawyers accept that working longer hours are an integral part of their professional role, whereas managers view these conditions as uncompensated but necessary conditions of their position," she wrote in the report. "As for the higher incidence of workaholics in the trades, an overabundance of work, coupled with a labour shortage in the skilled trades, might be a contributing factor to this phenomenon."

A country of complainers

We live in one of the richest, safest countries and the economy is booming, yet we are among the whiniest people on the planet.

Overall employee morale is highest in the Netherlands, followed by Ireland and Thailand in second place and Switzerland in third, according to a survey of work attitudes in 23 countries.

Canada is near the bottom of the scale on the morale index, sharing 18th place with Portugal.

The only countries where employee morale is worse are Poland, Korea, Australia, Germany and - at the very bottom - Japan.

Canadians are also big complainers when it comes to job satisfaction, the quality of employer-employee relations and work-life balance, according to the study by market research firm FDS International.

On all three indices, we're near the bottom of the list. We score lower on the job satisfaction scale than even Russia, China and Romania, for heaven's sake. Only the Germans and the Japanese complain more about employer-worker relations than Canucks.

And only the Portuguese, the Poles, the Australians and the Japanese are in more of a snit than us over work-life balance.

More than one-third of Canadian workers are dissatisfied with their pay, 29% gripe that they don't get enough holiday time and one-quarter of us are upset at the number of hours we work.

SEE:

Mirror Mirror On The Wall

Psycho Bosses Depressed Workers

Work Sucks

Which Is True

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