A very well done interview that lays out Dr Paul’s views in a straight forward manner
It is interesting to note that most of the questions were about people age 50+, Paul doesn’t pander but gives the same answers that he would give to any crowd. Its nice to know there are a few politicians whose opinion doesn’t change to suit the crowd they are in.
Hey all, I am not one to normally post a prayer request, but this one is somewhat close to me. And its quite unusual.
As we are all aware, abortion is a HUGE industry and its pushed to the masses (and they push amongst themselves) as a simple answer and one that will supposedly “free” you from the “horrors” of having kids. Problem is, society doesn’t much recognize that there are potentially life long physical and emotional problems that stem from an abortion. And in the rare cases that they do, any resources for healing are given to women (isn’t that always the case?)
But what about the guy? After all, it is his child as well and it is a lie that men do not care for their children. Many men WANT to be a father. Sometimes that is taken from him by the mother, or perhaps pushed on them by the family(ies). This is one of those cases and a young man out there needs some healing that cannot come from this world. He needs healing from his Heavenly Father.
Please pray for him.
You can read more on Pickle’s blog.
my previous post on gout has been, by far, my most popular post and I feel it is time to update so as to give better information out there to those searching for a remedy to an extremely painful problem.
My previous post talked about how I found some relief using alkaline raising products from plain old baking soda in a solution of water as well as alkaline drops. I did indeed get some relief from that, but it wasn’t ever enough. The attacks were coming even more frequently and I had been on a cane for months. I couldn’t really even walk without that cane, so I eventually bought a second one to ensure that I would never be without it. I would leave one in my car and one in my house so one would always be near. Even still, sometimes I had to resort to using crutches as it was just too painful to put any pressure on my feet. But what is worse, is that gout eventually attacked my knees. I thought I had already experienced the worst that gout could do, but when it hit my knees I was in for a whole new world of hurt. I couldn’t move and just wanted to throw up from the pain. (Do NOT let it get to your knees!!! My recommendations below are nothing compared to that pain, trust me.)
Well, I finally decided to get on gout medication, Allopurinol in my case. I had been putting it off because of the potential for horrendous side effects. I was on it for only three days when I became terribly ill. I wasn’t sure tho if it was the medicine as I worked in a petri dish of an office: overcrowded and with lots of sick people; tho up to that point I had stayed completely healthy (aside from the gout that is.) So I stopped the med immediately and resumed it a week after I was better. Well, I did indeed have a negative reaction to that medicine. I ended up with an itchy rash that stayed with me for almost three weeks after stopping the med. I also learned that a decreased immune system is one of the side effects so I can safely blame the illness on it as well.
So what is the update? One of the visitors to the previous post pointed me to an article on Wikipedia about Hyperuricemia.
High dietary intake of fructose contributes significantly to hyperuricemia.[11][12][13] In a large study in the United States, consumption of four or more sugar-sweetened soft drinks per day gave an odds ratio of 1.82 for hyperuricemia.[14] Increased production of uric acid is the result of interference, by a product of fructose metabolism, in purine metabolism. This interference has a dual action, both increasing the conversion of ATP to inosine and hence uric acid and increasing the synthesis of purine.[15] Fructose also inhibits the excretion of uric acid, apparently by competing with uric acid for access to the transport protein SLC2A9.[16] The effect of fructose in reducing excretion of uric acid is increased in people with a hereditary (genetic) predisposition toward hyperuricemia and/or gout.
So what I see in this article is that my consumption of fructose is destroying my bodies ability to remove uric acid from my body and at the same time, increasing the production of painful gout crystals which would end up in my joints. As I had mentioned in my previous post on the subject, I already knew that soda and gatorade caused my gout. I was sure of it, despite doctors telling me that there was no chemical transformation that would turn the ingredients in soda into uric acid. Turns out, it doesn’t need to turn to uric acid as it added to it in different ways.
So to answer the question I see all the time: YES, gatorade can cause your gout. Gatorade uses Fructose to sweeten their drinks and so consuming Gatorade (Or Powerade) can indeed cause your gout. Soda’s are probably worse though, as they use High-Fructose corn syrup for a sweetener and they are more calorically dense, meaning even more fructose per ounce consumed. Worse, any sugar can cause this problem as regular sugar (sucrose) contains fructose as well.
The best answer, is to avoid as much sugary foods and drinks as possible. This includes soda, sports drinks and candy. Its not real easy, and I still drink a real Coke from time to time, but I have had to switch to diet sodas and chocolates like a snickers bar instead of my preferred skittles and starbursts. Now, I am still, after three months, not of the opinion that diet sodas taste very good. What I have found to work for me is to have numerous types of diet sodas so that I can have a different type each time I grab a can. Whereas in the past I could have Coke or Dr Pepper in my fridge and for months never think twice about the selection, I now have Sprite Zero, Fresca, Diet Dr. Pepper, Diet Mug, Diet Cherry Pepsi, and Diet Sierra Mist in my fridge. I also buy Diet Rite as well. None of these will cause gout.
I have been three months gout free except for one weekend where (leading up to it) I had started drinking regular soda again. If you are suffering from gout, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE try this. Dietary changes are NEVER easy, but I have no doubt you have already changed your diet to try to stop the pain. This one should provide results pretty quickly.
Just so I don’t fall afoul of lawyers:
1) Its not Gatorade, Coke, or Pepsi et. al. themselves that cause gout, but the fructose which is used as a sweetener. Choose a diet variety instead.
2) “Real” sugar also contains fructose, but in lesser amounts than a High fructose corn syrup. I suggest avoiding both
3) I’m not a doctor. Duh. You should always discuss changes to your diet (and ESPECIALLY your medicine) with your medical practitioner.
Some thoughts on Casey Anthony.
I saw an article where she is refusing visits from her mother while in the pokey. Seems to me that a person in jail would be happy for the distraction from the monotony of jail but Casey would rather hide from her mother. One has to wonder why? Casey is also talking about either adopting or getting pregnant when she gets out of jail. I should hope that no adoption agency is stupid enough to place a child with her as well that no man would impregnate her. It wouldn’t be a smart move.
Here are some thoughts on the matter by MikeT over at CodeMonkeyRamblings and some additional thoughts by Pickle on the message that society sends to young women about their children. Also, somewhat related, The Damned Olde Man offers up a discussion on the Female Sentencing Discount. This picture sums it up nicely.
Vox Day posts on a mob of blacks attacking innocents, Jamila offers this in response:
The flash mobs that have been attacking innocent people this summer consist of a very specific subsection of the black population: young, unemployed, lower-class black males, with a scant number of young, unemployed, lower-class black girls tagging along with the crowd to support their boyfriends or wanna-be boyfriends.
Professor Hale takes her to task on his blog and does a fair job of destroying her argument such as it was. It was mainly the same tired claim of racism heard over and over, ad nauseum.
Also, there are a few blogs that are back from the dead, maybe.
WonderWoman recently rediscovered her blog, and Difster decided to post something this week as well.
This post has nothing to do with:
Lady Gaga being a man, Jennifer Aniston’s latest boyfriend, or Angelina Jolie’s latest foreign child adoption shopping adventure.
Jenifer Aniston has a new movie coming out today called Horrible Bosses, and well, I figure you’d enjoy her performance in this film.
I guess I am going to start blogging about making preparations for TEOTWAWKI. Its important to me at this point and I now that I am working on this I am truly worried about getting prepped. Living in the northwest there are numerous catastrophes that could befall us here, including floods, snow storms, earthquakes, and lahars or even volcanic eruptions. Not to mention all of the potential human caused problems.
It is my hope that these posts will inspire others to begin storing up food for their own families so as to minimize the effects of any disruption to life from any of the above, or whatever local conditions might throw at you.
Food Storage this week
24 cans veggies
12 small cans of mandarins
5lbs white sugar
4lbs dark brown sugar (LOVE brown sugar, great for lots of things including just plain eating!)
4lbs iodized salt
10 small packs of jello
5lbs peanut butter
1 large box powdered milk
Cost? About $45
This is in addition to approx 13lbs of canned meats (chicken, ham, salmon and tuna), one bottle of oil, and about 20 lbs of various dried beans and peas and 10lbs of rice. I’d say this puts me at about 90lbs of food specifically for storage. Obviously the beans, peas and rice expand tremendously in weight and volume but its not much right now. I have a VERY long way to go. It seems that the more I purchase the more I realize just how far I have to go. That, of course, is not a reason to stall or put it off. I’d say that if I did nothing more but store water I’d easily ride out a couple week long disruption.
And speaking of water, I really need to find a good way to store it. Preferably cheaply. I have found a nearby company called EarthWaveLiving.com that sells storage containers for what are probably a good price? I think though, that it would be best to find someone local to you as the shipping costs are (justifiably) high. Picking it up yourself would save a ton. Of course, always check Craigslist.
Remember Marco Polo? A native of Venice, he is remembered for traveling the Silk Road to China. Marco was a Christian man and his travels have been studied down through the years. Travel was difficult in that era and Marco recorded his travels and difficulties to be passed on in the annals of time.
It is said that Marco Polo was impressed with the fireworks in the country of China while he was there. Especially the rockets. He was told that when shot into the air, they would explode, making noise and creating magnificent colorful patterns.
The problem was that many Chinese people made fireworks, but not many wanted to demonstrate how they worked. Time after time he was told, yes we make fireworks but we will not shoot them in the air here.
Finally he was told of a place where the fireworks were shot in the air every night. The place was an old military stronghold at the community of “Chu Lai”.
When Marco Polo arrived there, he asked the question, Why here?
The simple answer, he was told, is that it is a Chinese tradition to set off fireworks on the “Forts of Chu Lai”
Of late I have been more and more concerned about having put some food aside for hard times. It seems that those hard times are just about upon us, so instead of just being concerned about it I am actually doing something and putting food aside. In order to assist others, I am posting from an LDS manual on preparedness that I found from Desert Cat. (READ the two pages DC has there) If you ignore the LDS scriptures its a great manual as it covers just about everything you could think of with regards to food storage. You can download the PDF here. I suggest printing it out at your local Kinko’s (or whatever you have near you) because when TSHTF you might not be able to go online to get it.
The guide is intended to get you prepared within 1 year yet only spend $40-$50 a week. Their intention is to have you spread out the purchases so that you have a variety of foods so that if only 2 months in to your preparing TEOTWAWKI occurs, you will have some foods to eat rather than maybe 500 lbs of wheat and nothing else. While it isn’t stated specifically, it appears that the below list would be for two people. Also, from my perspective, it focuses rather heavily on having wheat. I cannot eat gluten so I will obviously be substituting that for other things such as rice, beans and corn. Also, I see no mention of meats in this list. Not sure that I can go without meat, even if it is canned, so I am purchasing a variety of those as well.
___________________________________________________________________
January
Week #1 1 case canned fruit
2 #10 cans instant potatoes
Week #2
3 #10 cans dry milk
Week #3
3 #10 cans dry milk
Week #4
9 pounds yeast
Week #5
Anything you have missed from above
___________________________________________________________________
February
Week #1
Water Storage Containers – buy either 55 gallon drums, 5 gallon water containers (available at all emergency preparedness stores and some super markets) and spigot, or start to save water in pop bottles and plastic juice containers. Also purchase 100 lbs. hard white wheat and three plastic storage buckets with tight fitting lids. Check out the local mills in your area for best prices.
Week #2 25 lbs of sugar or 20 lbs of honey
5 lbs salt per person
bucket opener
Week #3
4 #10 cans shortening or 4 – 48 oz bottles oil
2 #10 cans of dry instant milk
Week #4
2 case canned beans (like re-fried pinto, black, kidney, white, pink etc.) or
25 lbs dry beans (preferable) and bucket to store them in.
50 lbs dried corn or popcorn (about $10.00 from a mill or food storage company) and a bucket to store it in.
(Can be ground into cornmeal as well as for popcorn.)
___________________________________________________________________
March
(please note that many of these items are repeats because we want to be SURE you have enough of the essentials!)
Week #1 Enough water containers for 14 gallons per person in the family.
(This was mentioned last month-but we want to be sure you have this)
(Water is your most important item!<)
If you didn’t get enough containers last month, you can get them this month.
White Rice, at least 15 pounds per person in the family and if possible buckets to store it.
(Brown Rice goes rancid faster.)
Week #2 2 jars mayonnaise
1 gallon oil
2 tubs shortening
Week #3 25 pounds sugar
1- 25 pound bag of legumes (pinto, lentils, white, pink etc.)
Week #4 Salt 5 more lbs
2 bottles of bleach
1 #10 can or 1 box of dry milk.
Week #5 Check your list for the last 8 weeks and purchase any items you fell short on.
These items are essential ones and you will need to be sure you have enough.
___________________________________________________________________
April
Week #1 100 pounds wheat
10 lbs. brown sugar
Week #2 2 #10 size cans dried fruit or 1 case canned fruit
1 pound yeast
Week #3 1 case tuna or salmon
2 #10 cans milk
3 lbs sprouting seeds
1 80 oz can Rumsford baking powder
Week #4 2 large jars peanut butter or
1 #10 can peanut butter powder (last longer)
2 cans dried whole egg (keep in a cool dry place)
___________________________________________________________________
May
Week #1 2 to 3 bottles of multi-vitamins
2 #10 cans of rolled oats
(if #10 cans are not available in your area, buy the largest packages available)
(in your local store, and also purchase a small bucket to store it in.)
Week #2 100 lbs. of wheat
3 buckets
Week #3 #10 can margarine powder – or shortening if marg. powder is unavailable
2 #10 cans rolled oats
(or equivalent, and a storage bucket)
Week #4 4 #10 cans instant potatoes
1 bottle black pepper
___________________________________________________________________
June
Week #1 2 cans dry milk, 2 boxes of Rennet
(used for making cottage cheese and other dairy products from dry milk.)
1 bottle lemon juice,
1 bottle vinegar. (also used in making dairy products from dry milk
Week #2 100 lbs wheat
25 lbs. white fl our
Week #3 Baking soda (try to buy in bulk in places like Sam’s Club or Costco) Buy about 10 lbs.
25 lbs. or legumes (choose those you are willing to eat.
Remember you can sprout legumes and almost quadruple the nutritional value of them.
Buy one large box Knox or other gelatin to be used in place of eggs in baking.
Week #4 Tomato products (try to buy them by the case in normal size cans. Spaghetti sauce, tomato
sauce, and whole and chopped tomatoes. Buy a combination of flavored and not flavored tomatoes.
Buy paste if you can get a good deal on it. It is less expensive to add water to paste to make sauce
than it is just to buy sauce sometimes. Buy three cases if possible.)
Week #5 Be on the look out for garden seeds that are NON- Hybrid.
That way you can use the seeds from the plants you grow to grow a garden the next season.
A good price for them is about $18-20 per can with about 10 varieties per can.
___________________________________________________________________
July
Week #1 200# wheat
(buckets to store it in if needed)
(keep filling pop bottles, Gallon syrup containers, etc. with water – basically no cost to this)
Week #2 20 lbs. Peanut butter
(keep filling those water containers)
Week #3 4 #10 cans shortening
2 # 10 cans dry milk
(keep filling water containers – make this a habit – when you empty something worthy of water storage, wash it and fill it right away)
Week #4 6 #10 cans dry milk
(more water!)
___________________________________________________________________
August
Week #1 25# rice
25# sugar
1 # 10 can instant potatoes
5 lbs. salt
Week #2 1 case tuna or salmon or other meat
2 # 10 cans dry milk
Week #3 2 #10 cans dry milk
2 cans shortening
1 #10 can instant potatoes
Week #4 Note* In late August and early September, many stores have sales on canned fruits and vegetables.
Ask your local store when these sales will be, and switch the weeks of this calendar as needed.
2 cases fruit
5 lbs. salt
Week #5 2 cases canned fruit
1 case misc. vegetables (green beans, peas, carrots, etc.)
___________________________________________________________________
September
Week # 1 5 – 12 cases canned fruit
1 case misc. vegetables
Week # 2 2 cases canned fruit
2 cans shortening
Week #3 2 cases fruit
1 case vegetables
Week #4 2 cans shortening
25# rice
buckets to store rice if it did not come in #10 cans
___________________________________________________________________
October
Week #1 100 lbs. wheat and 3 buckets
Week #2 1 case tuna or other meat
Week #3 25 lbs. Sugar
2 large cans fruit juice powder
Week #4 3 #10 cans dry milk
Week #5 9 #10 cans potato flakes
___________________________________________________________________
November
Week #1 4 large jars peanut butter
Week #2 1 case canned fruit
15 pounds rice
Week #3 7 #10 cans shortening
Week #4 50 pounds rice and buckets to store
___________________________________________________________________
December
Week #1 100 lbs. wheat and 3 buckets
Week #2 1 large can fruit juice powder
3 large jars peanut butter
Week #3 3 #10 cans dry milk
Week #4 50 pounds of rice, oats, or barley
buckets to store
NSFW language, but you know you have been there with some computer equipment or other. (o=
Democratic State Rep. Gordon Hintz tells a fellow State Rep. “You are F’ing dead”
So just how is it that the Dems get away with this sort of behavior? How do they get to live by such a different standard than the Repugnicans? They can overtly threaten another representative and they can flee their State to avoid the duties they were elected to perform? I of course speak of Wisconsin, but not just them. The Dems have done this numerous times over the past 5-6 years or so. It boggles the mind that they can act so childish or offensive (or both) and never get called on it. Now I realize that the media loves the Dems/Liberals, but how can it be that such overt behavior can be ignored or worse, sanctioned?
My apologies in advance, this WILL hurt your brain but it needs to be seen, especially by those with kids or who hope to have them someday.
I will only say this once (today) HOMESCHOOL if at ALL possible!
So the AP published an article titled “House passes sweeping cuts to domestic programs” In the article they later describe these cuts as “steep.”
But just what are the cuts? a “whopping” $61 billion that will likely never make it past the Senate. $61 billion is ONLY 5.2% of the DEFICIT for the fiscal year. Thats only 1.7% of the entire budget. Sweeping? Steep? Shame on you AP for misleading people.
Some more relevant numbers:
2010 Revenue: $2.381 trillion (estimated)
2010 Expenditures: $3.552 trillion (estimated)
2010 Deficit: $1.171 trillion (estimated)
House Cuts: $0.061 trillion (Actual if passed by senate and president)
Mandatory Spending $2.009 trillion
This includes:
$695 billion Social Security
$571 billion Other mandatory programs
$453 billion Medicare
$290 billion Medicaid
$164 billion Interest on National Debt
$11 billion Potential disaster costs
Discretionary Spending $1.368 Trillion
Discretionary includes the military and everything else the government does, including the Depts of Treasury, Transportation, Energy, State, Interior, Justice etc.
Republicans: If we were to cut ALL (put the name of your most hated program here) it wouldn’t get rid of the deficit.
Democrats: If we raised personal income taxes to 100% it would not cover the deficit.
Everyone:
We need to sharply re-evaluate just what it is that we want from our government. We are not the super prosperous nation we once were and can no longer afford to be the world’s policeman, nor can we afford these social programs anymore either. We need to get ourselves out of this mess before we go bankrupt, because at that point we will simply be cutting people/companies/nations off which will be far harder for everyone involved.
Saw this and thought of Feral over at Something Feral
I signed up on OKCupid some time ago. I have had no luck at all from it. But perhaps its that somehow I can “match” women who have NOTHING in common with me. I go through there and see someone that matches fairly highly and then I come across a profile like this:
My Self Summary
Don’t contact me if you can’t do 50 push-ups in a row (real, quality push-ups). I have had complaints about this, but I am at the point where I just cannot stand the prospect of yet another disappointing first date push-up contest. Do not contact me if you can’t spell “grammar”; if you do not know the difference between “your” and “you’re”; if you use the term “irregardless”; or if you’ve said “for all intensive purposes” or “should of.”I enjoy starting fights for no reason; gossiping about everyone on “The Hills” like I actually know them (Heidi is totally brainwashed by Spencer!!); and drawing anthropomorphic caricatures of rabbits. I’m an avid indoorswoman. In my spare time, I write free-verse, non-rhyming limericks. In elementary school, I was named “girl of the year” 8 years in a row.
I think perfect names for babies are Mercedes and Clooney, (f/m respectively), but this tends to change weekly based on what I read in Us!, lol
However, I think that actually HAVING kids is the ultimate tool of the patriarchy, and am hoping that Science will develop some sort of artificial womb.
To me, dating is like Fraggle Rock; specifically, the Doozers. They build and build, only to have their structures knocked down. But sometimes it’s fun to knock down people’s hard work, and I guess that’s what justifies it for me. I mean, come on. Life should be fun. That was the first sentence to my third master’s thesis, in which I mathematically proved that insult added to injury equals fun. I know what you’re thinking–how does the Coase Theorum play into this? That’s something I’ll save for our first date
What I’m doing with my life
I really enjoy my job–I get paid to think all day. I do Indian law and commercial defense litigation.I’m really good at
Casting a broad net. I’ve developed skills in SQL and asp.net, languages, law, gymnastics, fitness and nutrition (certified ACE during law school), and lolcat.I grew up in Denver, went to undergrad here in Seattle, studied abroad in Spain, worked in DC and San Fran, and went to law school in Charlottesville. I opened a champagne bottle with a saber in Slovenia.
The first things people usually notice about me
My cape.Also, I walk fast. Maybe it’s billing to the nearest 6-minute mark, but I hate inefficiencies. Why walk slow and/or block people that are actually trying to go somewhere (me)? I might “accidentally” elbow slow people when I pass, hoping that they might wonder if they shouldn’t be going a little bit faster or being more cognizant of their surroundings.
Favorite Books Movies, Etc
Books: Chief Joseph and the Flight of the Nez Perce
Movies: Rudy, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, About a Boy, Hable con Ella
Shows: Cougar Town, Arrested Development
Music: Nena Daconte, Alex Ubago, Juanes, Hilltop Hoods
Food: I like good food and good wine. I watch what I eat, but don’t have issues with indulging occasionally.
The six things I could never do without
Cats
Gym
Rhinestones
Heavy Muscle Radio
Calle Sesame
SloveniaI spend a lot of time thinking about
What is Britney up to? Will Keynesian economics work for the Obama administration? What day is it?On a typical Friday night I am
pretending I don’t speak English at a local bar.You should message me if
To limit future inquiry from, to quote Old School, “the guy who probably won’t get in,” here are answers to some of the more frequently asked questions:-yes, I can do over 50 real pushups;
-no, I don’t care or find it alluring that you feel you could beat me up;
-yes, everyone, including me, has heard of crossfit;
-Jan Tana.-I’m looking for college grads and grad degrees. Just personal preference.
Seriously? She challenges people to push up matches on a first date? Umm, how f’ing childish is that? And she is a match for me?
Life should be fun. That was the first sentence to my third master’s thesis, in which I mathematically proved that insult added to injury equals fun. I know what you’re thinking–how does the Coase Theorum play into this? That’s something I’ll save for our first date So is that before or after the push up contest? But I guess it is good for her that she likes to workout because she also states she likes to start fights.
Its not OKCupids fault really. It can only go off of answers a person supplies to the various questions and the pool of AW is what it is. However, I’ve not exactly been thrilled by the experience so far. “Matches” like that don’t leave one with much confidence that there is anything out there.
Marvel Comics teamed up with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and has put up a free Captain America comic available online that specifically addresses the issue of suicide.
There are about 33,000 suicides every year in America. Some 25,000 of these are men. That makes it the 8th leading cause of death among males. Interestingly it also seems to be a white phenomenon. 73% of all suicide deaths are white males. Not sure why that is, but it is well beyond statistical noise so it really stands out when looking at the numbers.
But as big as the numbers are, this is a largely ignored issue. Certainly the male aspect of it is. Of course the MRA corner of the blogosphere has certainly taken this up, but it is often still something seen as just an abstract concept. Sure, men commit suicide at greater rates than women. But its not like its personal right? Well, Hawaiian Libertarian was recently affected by such a tragedy. You can read his account of the death of a longtime friend here and then here. I am both glad that he posted this, as well as saddened by his loss.
About.com lists some of the risk factors as
# Using drugs and/or alcohol to help cope with emotions, relationships, pressure of work etc.
# Social isolation, living alone.
# Not being able to form or sustain meaningful relationships.
# Divorce or relationship breakdowns.
# A history of physical and sexual abuse.
# Imprisonment.
# Being bullied at school/college/work.
# unemployment.
# loss of a loved one through trauma or disease.
# mental illness, particularly where this is related to depression. painful and/or debilitating illnesses or conditions.
Obviously the divorce/relationship breakdown are a huge factor, and unemployment is also another problem with the continued lack of jobs. But I would want to point out that last line regarding depression. I’ve blogged on it previously, but want to state again that the common concept of depression is really more of the way females experience depression. Sure men can also get sad and gloomy when depressed, but a more common and unfortunately missed symptom of male depression is anger. MayoClinic lists the symptoms of male depression as
* Escapist behavior, such as spending a lot of time at work or on sports
* Alcohol or substance abuse
* Controlling, violent or abusive behavior
* Inappropriate anger
* Risky behavior, such as reckless driving
* Infidelity or unhealthy sexual relationships
Note that none of these are the standard conception of depression. Rather, they are usually just written off as stereotypical male behavior. We need, as a society, to recognize these symptoms in our men and start coming along side of them to get them past the depression, instead of just writing them off. There is a defined and knowable cost of not doing this. Its at least 25,000 needless deaths every year. Its certainly time to change this.
The statistics used for this post can be found at suicide.org
Well, not entirely wrong, just the majority of it. And this is being said by a long time, well respected medical researcher.
In an article released this month by The Atlantic titled Lies, Damned Lies and Medical Science, journalist David H. Freedman relates the story of researcher John Ioannidis (pronounced yo-NEE-dees). Ioannidis has spent most of the last two decades rebutting claims made by other researchers and has made a career out of analyzing others studies and their various findings and has come to some rather shocking conclusions. Ioannidis even released a paper, published in PLoS Medicine in 2005 stating 80 percent of non-randomized studies (by far the most common type) turn out to be wrong, as do 25 percent of supposedly gold-standard randomized trials, and as much as 10 percent of the platinum-standard large randomized trials. Ioannidis charges that as much as 90 percent of the published medical information that doctors rely on is flawed.
I am going to provide a few quotes, but really you should just read the whole thing. Freedman did an excellent job and you would be missing out by not reading this article. All bolding was done by me.
“I take all the researchers who visit me here, and almost every single one of them asks the [oak] tree [at the old Greek oracle site] the same question,” Ioannidis tells me, as we contemplate the tree the day after the team’s meeting. “‘Will my research grant be approved?’” He chuckles, but Ioannidis (pronounced yo-NEE-dees) tends to laugh not so much in mirth as to soften the sting of his attack. And sure enough, he goes on to suggest that an obsession with winning funding has gone a long way toward weakening the reliability of medical research.
That grant money affects not only the types of things that are studied but their outcomes is obvious. If you want to study squirrel mating, you can’t just say that, you have to couch it in terms that will win funding, like say the affects of Global Warming on said squirrels, and then prove that GW is affecting them. This will ensure that you get the initial funding and then that after proving the “correct” fact you will ensure further funding
But beyond the headlines, Ioannidis was shocked at the range and reach of the reversals he was seeing in everyday medical research. “Randomized controlled trials,” which compare how one group responds to a treatment against how an identical group fares without the treatment, had long been considered nearly unshakable evidence, but they, too, ended up being wrong some of the time. “I realized even our gold-standard research had a lot of problems,” he says. Baffled, he started looking for the specific ways in which studies were going wrong. And before long he discovered that the range of errors being committed was astonishing: from what questions researchers posed, to how they set up the studies, to which patients they recruited for the studies, to which measurements they took, to how they analyzed the data, to how they presented their results, to how particular studies came to be published in medical journals.This array suggested a bigger, underlying dysfunction, and Ioannidis thought he knew what it was. “The studies were biased,” he says. “Sometimes they were overtly biased. Sometimes it was difficult to see the bias, but it was there.” Researchers headed into their studies wanting certain results—and, lo and behold, they were getting them. We think of the scientific process as being objective, rigorous, and even ruthless in separating out what is true from what we merely wish to be true, but in fact it’s easy to manipulate results, even unintentionally or unconsciously. “At every step in the process, there is room to distort results, a way to make a stronger claim or to select what is going to be concluded,” says Ioannidis. “There is an intellectual conflict of interest that pressures researchers to find whatever it is that is most likely to get them funded.”
As above. If the man paying your check wants X, if you like collecting a paycheck you will give him X. Its really that simple. That happens in every job across the entire world. And as we have more scientists than funding and its been that way for some time, there is no doubt a strong sense of self preservation among those working in the field.
In the paper, Ioannidis laid out a detailed mathematical proof that, assuming modest levels of researcher bias, typically imperfect research techniques, and the well-known tendency to focus on exciting rather than highly plausible theories, researchers will come up with wrong findings most of the time. Simply put, if you’re attracted to ideas that have a good chance of being wrong, and if you’re motivated to prove them right, and if you have a little wiggle room in how you assemble the evidence, you’ll probably succeed in proving wrong theories right.
My favorite studies are those where the researcher admits that they went into the study expecting X but came out with an answer of Y. To me that means that they overcame their motivation to prove their theory right and instead followed the evidence to a conclusion. Working in IT I see similar things every week at the least. You may get a report and “know” just what the problem is, but once on the server you just have to start following the evidence or else you will be trying to fix something that isn’t the issue.
[Ioannidis] zoomed in on 49 of the most highly regarded research findings in medicine over the previous 13 years, as judged by the science community’s two standard measures: the papers had appeared in the journals most widely cited in research articles, and the 49 articles themselves were the most widely cited articles in these journals. … Of the 49 articles, 45 claimed to have uncovered effective interventions. Thirty-four of these claims had been retested, and 14 of these, or 41 percent, had been convincingly shown to be wrong or significantly exaggerated.
41% of the most widely cited studies were incorrect? That is an amazing percentage. That means that all the research that was done based upon these 49 articles was also incorrect. How many treatments were wrongly given or denied based upon this false research? And how much money was spent in the process?
“Often the claims made by studies are so extravagant that you can immediately cross them out without needing to know much about the specific problems with the studies,” Ioannidis says. But of course it’s that very extravagance of claim … that helps gets these findings into journals and then into our treatments and lifestyles, especially when the claim builds on impressive-sounding evidence. “Even when the evidence shows that a particular research idea is wrong, if you have thousands of scientists who have invested their careers in it, they’ll continue to publish papers on it,” he says. “It’s like an epidemic, in the sense that they’re infected with these wrong ideas, and they’re spreading it to other researchers through journals.”
Invested their careers. Thats key. Its not an easy thing to change course, and when you have invested your career and your name on something you want to see it succeed, even if it is incorrect (but still likely believed to be correct in that person’s mind)
Nature, the grande dame of science journals, stated in a 2006 editorial, “Scientists understand that peer review per se provides only a minimal assurance of quality, and that the public conception of peer review as a stamp of authentication is far from the truth.” What’s more, the peer-review process often pressures researchers to shy away from striking out in genuinely new directions, and instead to build on the findings of their colleagues (that is, their potential reviewers) in ways that only seem like breakthroughs—as with the exciting-sounding gene linkages (autism genes identified!) and nutritional findings (olive oil lowers blood pressure!) that are really just dubious and conflicting variations on a theme.Most journal editors don’t even claim to protect against the problems that plague these studies. University and government research overseers rarely step in to directly enforce research quality, and when they do, the science community goes ballistic over the outside interference. The ultimate protection against research error and bias is supposed to come from the way scientists constantly retest each other’s results—except they don’t. Only the most prominent findings are likely to be put to the test, because there’s likely to be publication payoff in firming up the proof, or contradicting it
Except they don’t. WOW. Science fetishists claim that “science is self correcting” and in theory it is just that. But in practice, it is not. No one goes back over the results to see if they are true. There isn’t enough money or other resources to do it. And when an “outsider” tries to point out errors or bias they get beat down by the collective “science community.” There isn’t a whole lot that the remainder of the world can say about science, in the current climate, to correct its course. If you need proof look at what happens if you dare claim that fetal stem cell research is both wrong and a waste of time? Despite nearly a 100 to 0 ratio of adult stem treatments to fetal stem cell treatments all hell will break loose. Or you could just say out loud that Anthropogenic Global Warming is a fraud, but if you do make sure you are near cover.
Perhaps worse, Ioannidis found that even when a research error is outed, it typically persists for years or even decades. He looked at three prominent health studies from the 1980s and 1990s that were each later soundly refuted, and discovered that researchers continued to cite the original results as correct more often than as flawed—in one case for at least 12 years after the results were discredited.
12 years is a long time for misinformation to be floating about. Most industries could not get away with that. That the medical community can is likely just testimony to the amazing self-healing power of the human body.
Medical research is not especially plagued with wrongness. Other meta-research experts have confirmed that similar issues distort research in all fields of science, from physics to economics (where the highly regarded economists J. Bradford DeLong and Kevin Lang once showed how a remarkably consistent paucity of strong evidence in published economics studies made it unlikely that any of them were right).
ALL fields of science? Thats quite a long way from the science fetishists view of science. But of course it does fit quite well with the view of human’s as fallible.
I suspect Vox Day will have a heyday with this article once he finds it. He has been pointing out these same problems for quite some time. Dave over at Hawaiian Libertarian has also had some things to say about medical science, particularly on the nutrition side of the house.
The following is a repeat of a post I made in August 2004.
Were I a school teacher there would be two pieces of required reading material in my classroom. Well three including good poetry. Piece number one would be Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience. The second would be Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From A Birmingham Jail.” These two pieces are essential to a proper understanding of liberty and doing what is right regardless of cost. Both men spent time in jail for their beliefs, both were misunderstood by the people of their time. Both men, thru their lives, called us to live differently.
Dr. King writes “But as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist in love… Was not Amos an extremist for justice…Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ… Was not Martin Luther an extremist- “Here I stand; I can do none other so help me G-d.” Was not John Bunyan an extremist- “I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience.” Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist… Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist… So the question is not wether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be. … Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice – or will we be extremists for the cause of justice? … So, after all, maybe the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremist.”
King also writes in the same letter upon the state of the Church. “There was a time when the church was very powerful. … In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Wherever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed… Things are different now. The contemporary church is often a weak ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. … Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are. But the judgment of G-d is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.”
The Mo, slang for moustache, and November come together each year for Movember.
Movember challenges men to change their appearance and the face of men’s health by growing a moustache. The rules are simple, start Movember 1st clean-shaven and then grow a moustache for the entire month. The moustache becomes the ribbon for men’s health, the means by which awareness and funds are raised for cancers that affect men. Much like the commitment to run or walk for charity, the men of Movember commit to growing a moustache for 30 days.
The idea for Movember was sparked in 2003 over a few beers in Melbourne, Australia. The plan was simple – to bring the moustache back as a bit of a joke and do something for men’s health. No money was raised in 2003, but the guys behind the Mo realized the potential a moustache had in generating conversations about men’s health. Inspired by the women around them and all they had done for breast cancer, the Mo Bros set themselves on a course to create a global men’s health movement.
In 2004 the campaign evolved and focused on raising awareness and funds for the number one cancer affecting men – prostate cancer. 432 Mo Bros joined the movement that year, raising $55,000 for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia – representing the single largest donation they had ever received.
The Movember moustache has continued to grow year after year, expanding to the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, Spain, South Africa, the Netherlands and Finland.
In 2009, global participation of Mo Bros and Mo Sistas climbed to 255,755, with over one million donors raising $42 Million US equivalent dollars for Movember’s global beneficiary partners.
So who is going to participate?
(No word if Jamie was involved in the creation of Movember, but as Aussies and beer were involved there is a good chance of it!)
So here are my thoughts on what a guy wants from a woman as requested by Wonder Woman
I think that perhaps the most important attribute you could look for in a woman is one who loves to give massages. And I mean ACTUALLY loves to give them, not just gives them at the beginning of a relationship or only reluctantly as a way to keep her man.
It’s pretty simple: if the girl doesn’t enjoy giving massages, then you are doomed, because she will eventually stop giving them to you as she knows that both of you are in that part of the relationship where you are willing to turn a blind eye to little, but important, details.
Ladies: Learn to love giving massages. Touch is one of the major love languages and your guy will love you for speaking to that love language.
Men: Remember to look for a woman who not only loves but is enthusiastic about massaging
And, of course, by massaging I mean BJs and cooking
Yep, you heard it right. “This year 2010 could be the most important election of our time” So says longtime conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly
This makes how many Most-Important-Election-Evers (MIEE) in a row? Personally I am beginning to lose track. Its been used so many times back to back that I am no longer sure just when it started. But yet again its being trotted out to whip up the vote. Granted, there appear to be some big stakes with this election but to be honest, even if the Repugs get both Houses nothing of substance will change. The only real surprise in this election is just how the Democrats could have screwed up so badly as to get the voters to want the Repugs back in office after so soundly rejecting them. Governing in a slightly moderate way would have meant the death of the Republicans for a good decade or even decades as was the case not all that long ago. It shows their foolishness that they could lose such a lead.
Unfortunately for me, I am in a State that picks the Top 2 in the primary regardless of party to send on to the general election. In theory this could be good for third parties. In reality it just means that there will always be only a Repug and a Democrat to vote for in the general election. Thus I am left with two choices, neither of which I approve of. So I will take the third option and not vote for numerous of these so called “races.” I learned that lesson after voting against AlGore, thereby casting “for” Bush, and I have regretted that vote since that time. And because of that lesson, I cannot be whipped into a frenzy to vote for the lesser of two evils, no matter that this is yet another MIEE.
How do you guys feel about this MIEE?
Weekly Parsha
