It's counter-intuitive that hurting oneself could make a person feel better but, based on the assumption that no one truly wants to hurt themselves without a benefit, researchers have taken reports from people who compulsively harm themselves and sought a way where cutting or burning could provide relief from emotional distress. 

Individuals with borderline personality disorder experience intense emotions and often show a deficiency of emotion regulation skills. This group also displays high prevalence rates of self-injurious behavior, which they claim helps them to reduce negative emotional states.

'Dry' water, which resembles powdered sugar yet consists of 95 percent water, was discovered in 1968 and got attention in the cosmetics industry.   Each powder particle contains a water droplet surrounded by modified silica, which is much like ordinary beach sand. The silica coating prevents the water droplets from combining and turning back into a liquid so the result is a fine powder that can soak up liquids - or gases - which chemically combine with the water molecules to form a hydrate. 
 

The great thing about being a bureaucrat in a dictatorship is you can take credit for everything that happens in your personal fiefdom and treat people like garbage and there is no recourse.   Well, almost no recourse.   Those guys working for Saddam Hussein didn't fare all that well when their boss started floating rumors he had weapons of mass destruction, but generally the life of a senior guy in a dictatorship is pretty good.

Yesterday I posted a couple splendid instances of people driving nails into their brains. And here, for those of you that think (as I do) that the only thing better than nails-in-the-brain stories is MORE nails-in-the-brain stories, are a couple more. Stay tuned tomorrow for things other than nails that've been surgically removed from brains of the unfortunate.

Politics is funny business because there will always be a conflict between freedom, democracy and the Constitution and political winds blow decisions in various directions - that's the way it was written and part of why it works.   Given the power of the courts to determine which part wins there will also be competition between the three branches of the federal government and it's a reason why various sides of the political spectrum should hope for balance rather than stacking the court with like-minded judges.   If it becomes okay to stack the court your way it will be okay to stack the court against you too.