Do these tribes represent proto-local governments, or are they simply regional bands arming themselves in anticipation of a cataclysmic civil war?

They're both things, at the same time.

That's how the tribal system works. Tribal leaders impose order within the tribes -- acting as a substitute for what modern people call "government" -- while they wage an armed competition over resouces and power with other tribes.

Americans need to start learning about tribal societies, since we're running up such huge debts trying to modernize these societies using military force.

Is there really debate about the answer to that question?

Why does there HAVE to be a debate?

Look at Afghan history. You can see quite clearly that Pushtun tribes have simultaneously acted like local governments while they have engaged in a constant state of civil war that was broken only by official truces negotiated with great pains by tribal leaders.

We got rid of Saddam, but we've turned Iraq into another Afghanistan.

It's not certain that tribal Pushtuns in Afghanistan will EVER accept the modern idea of government, and it appears that we may have pushed Iraqis into that mode of existence as well.

We can help Anonymous pay for his upcoming divorce.

Since you don't respect this woman's choices or abilities, I assume you're going to divorce her soon and find a woman whose choices and abilities you DO respect, right?

One more Salon article on PTSD that avoids mentioning any science.

You'd think by now that this science was being "silenced" for some reason or other, eh?

It couldn't have anything to do with the politics of cannabis prohibition, could it?

That's what someone might think after reading about all the science that links PTSD to damage to the endocannabinoid system in the hippocampus.

Think about his poor children, Joan. There is collateral damage here. He's sucking innocent people into his swirling vortex of mendacity and denial.

So to speak...

Odd how our top self-identified as Feminist(tm) bloggers seek to minimize what Craig was doing and instead describe how what was really going on was just another example of men oppressing women.

Look on the positive side -- tattling on them gives you something to do.

It's all good, eh?

Because it's an illness that often involves differentials of power, and differentials of power always involve politics.

In the politics of PTSD, people suffering from PTSD stand as an accusation against that inequality of power.

It if were easy to treat a soldier's PTSD -- then that soldier would be less useful as an indictment of the war.

Cured PTSD is politically useless. Healed tauma can't be used to indict anyone.

That's why Americans are going to remain ignorant about the cause of PTSD.

Not because scientists don't understand PTSD. The published research into cannabinoid receptors and PTSD is growing exponentially.

Americans are going to remain ignorant by choice.

The politics of trauma works much better if PTSD can't be understood or effectively treated.

Neither the left nor the right can gain any political advantage from a scientific understanding of PTSD.

That's why the mounting science will continue to be ignored equally by both sides.

Speaking of Brits, here's an editorial from the the Guardian that asks why, when it comes to commercials for stomach-and-intestinal-tract-soothing medications, women are always the ones shown bloated and farting.

Perhaps this is because people would be more likely to change the channel if they see a man farting his butt off.

A lot of men eat huge amonts of nasty food that smells really, really bad when it turns to gas.

Perhaps people are less likely to grab the remote if they're confronted by a farting woman than by a farting man.

The company that pays for the advertisement doesn't want to waste money paying for commercial that people refuse to watch, right?

Back in 1974, the Nixon administration ordered scientists to find proof that marijuana causes breast cancer. He was hoping the War on Drugs and the War on Cancer would turn out to be the same war.

Oops -- instead those damned scientists discovered that THC KILLS breast cancer cells. Quite the opposite result from the one Nixon wanted.

Guess what happened? The scientific publication announcing this discovery was retracted by the government and not heard from again until some cancer researcher named Manuel Guzman in Madrid managed to dig it up somehow.

Research into this subject has been reinvigorated and scientists in Italy announced last year that the other major cannabinoid found in marijuana known as CBD kills breast cancer cells even faster and more thoroughly than does THC.

What kind of place is Broadsheet?

Broadsheet is the kind of place where they treat this subject just like the Nixon adminustration treated it -- by ignoring it completely.

I certainly feel sympathy towards feminism, but my Asperger's syndrome prevents me from being a good team player in feminism because I'm not that socially or politically gifted.

I regard myself as pro-feminist, but I still carry around a lot of resentment towards Broadsheet because I think it's really shocking that all of this cannabinoid science is being censored and silenced by the left.

As if Richard Nixon himself was editing Salon.

I mean -- breast cancer KILLS WOMEN.

But cannabis prohibition matters more????

So that's how I think of Broadsheet -- it's a feminist blog edited by Richard Nixon, where the political necessities of cannabis prohibition trump everything, even dying women.

But hey, have a glass of Salon wine and chill.

It's not as if alcohol ever caused problems for women!

See -- there's my resentment leaking out again. Oh well.

Nixon ordered up the science in 1973, the same year he oversaw the formation of the DEA. The science was silenced in 1974 when it didn't go the way the White House wanted it to go.

When you have to ASK people what they THOUGHT the cartoon was lampooning, the lampoon has to be declared an official failure.