NP? "fantasy drugs"

[Doug Millison]

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.06/melanotan.html
[...] Being tan is healthy; ironically, people who work outdoors and see
the sun every day are at low risk for skin cancer. But getting tan is where
the danger lies. The faster it happens - worst case: a tanning booth - the
more harmful it is. The U of A team, which included endocrinologist Mac
Hadley and dermatologist Norman Levine, came upon a synthetic hormone a
thousand times more potent than the body's own tanning triggers. They
called it Melanotan and pinned high hopes on its sunless ability to
protect, beautify, and gently fleece the pale peoples of the world.

But that was only the beginning: The molecule turns out to activate five
different chemical systems throughout the body. It's a potent
anti-inflammatory, and in 1996 further tests of the drug showed that it
also promotes sexual arousal. Not simple vascular stimulation, as with
Viagra, but a direct action in the hypothalamus, the brain's emotional
switchboard. Impotence is largely an organic, mechanical problem, but here
was something that could potentially address the murkier issues of
frigidity, and even that old-time marriage killer: simple lack of
enthusiasm. (On Melanotan, female lab rodents triple their levels of
courtship behavior.) And as if that weren't enough, the molecule also
targets an appetite-suppression receptor popular with the makers of
weight-loss drugs. [...]

Melanotan is just a glimpse of the coming age of fantasy drugs - pills that
will soothe (and, in fact, reinforce) social desires. In the days before
tan was cool, overweight, depressed, bald, and impotent were merely
descriptive terms, but today in America they're considered illnesses and
are fought back with some $44 billion a year in direct medical expenses -
fast approaching the $50 billion we spend battling cancer. And as the list
of treatable disorders grows larger, so does our medical ability to reshape
both body and mind. Yesterday's drugs were about need; today's are about
desire. The unlocked human genome opens even our innermost passions to
scrutiny and tinkering, blazing the way to an entirely new class of
pharmaceutical. A more conservative, more religious culture than ours might
want "doubt blockers" or "gnostogenics" to empower their spiritual side.
But for better or worse, Americans who pay for quick-fix drugs will want
beauty, happiness, and the illusion of wealth. [...]

http://www.palatin.com/main.asp?con=5%2E2
http://www.epitan.com.au/i_comp.html


"We know how to produce real pain. Wars, obviously . . . . machnes in the
factories, industrial accidents, automobiles built to be unsafe, poisons in
food, water, and even air--these are quantities tied directly to the
economy. We know them, and we can control them. But 'addiction'? What do we
know of that? Fogs and phantoms. No two experts wll even agree on how to
define the word. 'Compulsion'? Who is not compelled? 'Tolerance'?
'Dependence'? What do they mean? All we have are the thousand, dim,
academic theories. A ratinal ecnomy cannot depend on psychological quirks.
We could not _plan_. . . ." (GR 348-349)



http://www.ucc.org/news/r072602e.htm
[...] Q: In the first book, people literally leave clothes and jewelry
behind. Do you think that's going to happen?

LaHaye: With 40,000 takeoffs and landings, whenever the Rapture occurs,
there's going to be airplanes in the air and if in America one-third to 40
percent of the population are born-again Christians then they'll all be
suddenly missing so we assume that about a third of the average airplane
passenger lists will suddenly be taken in the Rapture just as we outlined.
[...]
Q: How do you respond to people who might say that instead of focusing on
the end times, people should listen to Jesus' words, "Ye know not what hour
your Lord doth come"?

LaHaye: We believe definitely that no one knows the day nor the hour, in
fact the minute anybody specifies a day or an hour, you know they're a
heretic or a false prophet. But we do think you can know the season and we
have to anticipate the coming of Christ in our lifetime. And we think it
has a very positive effect on people to live every day as if Christ could
come that day.

Jenkins: And we're told to live in light of the imminent return, even
though nobody knows the day or the hour. ... Our mail shows that people are
not selling everything they own and sitting on a hillside waiting for it to
happen. They're more aggressive in their faith. They care more about their
friends, neighbors and loved ones. They want nobody to be left behind so
they're, in essence, more effective Christians than they've ever been.

Q: Is the effectiveness one that specifically relates to evangelism or does
it also relate to other things, like serving the poor?

LaHaye: Both. It makes some people more conscious of praying for and giving
to foreign missions and others to be more evangelistic and others to be
more conscious of living a holy life. ... [...]

Quelle surprise!
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/v-pfriendly/story/7310p-6742c.html
WASHINGTON - Harken Energy Corp. set up an offshore subsidiary in the
Cayman Islands tax haven while President Bush sat on Harken's board of
directors in 1989, the Daily News has learned.

The revelation comes as Republican lawmakers are roundly criticizing the
practice of U.S. companies setting up offshore subsidiaries, usually to
skirt American disclosure laws or corporate income taxes on foreign income.

Even White House spokesman Ari Fleischer condemned the tactic yesterday,
saying, "The President is concerned about corporations in America who take
advantage, set up operations outside of America, in an effort to lower
their taxes." [...]