God, I just don't feel like updating my stupid FB pic with the French flag, okay?? I meant to say: Poor Paris. How horrific. What will happen next?

I knew AA was largely bogus, but I had no idea there was a cheap, safe, effective opioid antagonist - naltrexone - that we're just not bothering to use because we're so hung up on the idea that alcoholism has to be about virtue and shit:

Subsequent studies found that an opioid antagonist called naltrexone was safe and effective for humans, and Sinclair began working with clinicians in Finland. He suggested prescribing naltrexone for patients to take an hour before drinking. As their cravings subsided, they could then learn to control their consumption. Numerous clinical trials have confirmed that the method is effective, and in 2001 Sinclair published a paper in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism reporting a 78 percent success rate in helping patients reduce their drinking to about 10 drinks a week. Some stopped drinking entirely...In the past 18 years, more than 5,000 Finns have gone to the Contral Clinics for help with a drinking problem. Seventy-five percent of them have had success reducing their consumption to a safe level.

Why must we be so blockheaded about everything.

Maybe what the world has always needed: something like Jacobin magazine with an 800 words-per-piece limit and writers with a sense of humor.

I had my pre-op appointment yesterday. My surgeon is a prick. Are all surgeons pricks? (No. I had a very nice surgeon who had been monitoring me for the past decade, but she had a stroke over the summer, so now I have a new one.) Are most surgeons pricks?

I don't really understand how you can forgo your right to the courts when you sign on to an arbitration agreement. I understand how arbitration can produce a binding contract to resolve a matter, but I don't get how an unhappy party can't be allowed leave-mid-process and turn to the courts. But then there's religious arbitration, which seems extra-ripe for problems.

Cootchie-coo, baby Hitler. I laughed.

Via you all, over at the other place

Sometimes being a journalist is fun.

The United States Soccer Federation is nixing headers on all kids below 11 years old.

The direct act of heading the ball isn't necessarily a problem. The study found that only 4.7% of boys' concussions and 8.2% of girls' concussions were due to head contact with the ball. But overall 30.6% of boys' concussions and 25.3% of girls' concussions occurred on headers, mostly from banging heads with another player, but also from hitting the turf.

That matches my experience: that the biggest problem is two people going up for the same ball and clanging skulls. I'm surprised and also curious as to what the other 70% of soccer concussions are from, though.

Via Jammies

Something else happening at the University of Missouri is the conflict between protestors, who have made a tent city on the university quad (which is a public space), and reporters who want to see/photograph what's going on there. Here's a video that's gotten a lot of attention of a photographer being bullied away from the area (the woman at the very end is a media studies prof) and here's a shorter version of the sentiment.

When I hear @mbyhoff is nearby I whip out one of these pic.twitter.com/SCOtrCusHJ

— David Weiner (@daweiner) November 10, 2015

There's a lot of talk on Twitter about the justified mistrust that minority groups have for the press, but...I just can't get on board with excluding the press from a public space, whether you're the cops, or an oppressed minority group.

The case for the Amazon bookstore is the case for any retail store. It's a curated collection of items available for immediate purchase. If that doesn't sound revolutionary, it's because it isn't! It's how stores have worked for decades now …

How about that jerky Mizzou president resigning. Kudos to the striking football players (and all the protesting students).

Rumblr is like Tindr and Cuddlr and Flickr insofar as it is missing an 'e', but it is unlike them in that you punch the people you meet. You swipe and fight. As E. Messily put it, "It's like Fight Club, except you're supposed to talk about it." Who will try it out and report back?

(Via E.M.)