JayB

It's also worth noting that in your post one could substitute "dowsing rods" for homeopathy, and "gas deposits" for "treatment" and maintain the same level of logical and scientific rigor. I implore you to make an equally impassioned defense of dowsing as a "complimentary" method that belongs right alongside the methods of modern geology at the next conference or job interview you attend.

This is a misrepresentation. Rather, homeopathy as I understand it, as a disinterested outside observer, is that one dilutes the remedy only enough to make it safe. In New Zealand homeopathic medicine is covered under health plans, and a bunch of Kiwi climbers I met when I was down there used homeopathic remedies like arnica. They seemed to think it worked. Understanding how something works is not a prerequisite for using it in medicine. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to use anaesthetics in regular medicine - after more than a century there is still no scientifically accepted explanation for how exactly they work, just rules of thumb like "if it dissolves in olive oil, it may work". So rather than attacking homeopathy for not having a mechanism, it makes sense to me to test it and see what conditions it results in a positive outcome for. From what I understand it is successful in treating chronic conditions like allergies that regular medicine has a poor track record with alleviating. In short, a good complementary system of therapy to regular medicine, rather than a replacement - much like acupuncture, chiropractors, naturopathy etc. I have met people who swear by faith healing, and seem to think it works as well. Unfortunately for them, and for homeopaths, this isn't sufficient. I encourage you to put "Homeopathy" and "Law of Infinitessimals" into Google to see if I am actually misrepresenting the relationship between concentration and efficacy per homeopaths. The debate here isn't whether compounds contained within solutions sold as "homeopathic" remedies can produce an effect. The question is whether the fundamental principles which serve as the basis for the practice are scientifically valid and empirically testable. What differentiates the empiricism that you are making reference to in scientific medicine is that while it readily incorporates new therapies before the mechanism by which they work is understood - it has both methods and requirements for proving that they actually work. Homeopathy does not. Scientific medicine also provides a means of determining and understanding the specific mode of action of a particular drug or treatment, which makes it possible to improve the understanding of the disease process, as well as a rational framework for developing new treatments. Can you provide me with a single instance in which homeopathic methods have led to either? The other belief implicit in your statement is that scientific medicine will permanently reject treatments that have a proven efficacy - irrespective of the weight and quality of the evidence - simply because they are developed in another discipline. If something actually helps alleviate the suffering associated with a particular disease - or completely cures it - reproducibly in double blind clinical trials, you seem to be suggesting that: -Both research and practicing physicians will simply ignore it. -Pharmaceutical companies will dismiss the opportunity to profit from it. This could go on for a while, but it's getting late. When you develop a homeopathic remedy for the fat-virus, let me know.

I accept that this is the only thing that you've been led to believe about homeopathy, but what you have been led to believe about homeopathic medicine, and the principles that it's based upon are different. "Like cures like," and the more dilute the remedy, the more potent effect. Ergo, in order for a homeopathic remedy to work per the principles that the practice is based upon, in any case where a concentrated dose generates an effect - you'd have to see increasing effects at progressively lower doses. This has never happened, and will never happen - because homeopathy is based on 18th century folklore that has long since lapsed into fraud.

How do you personally define homeopathy? The two central doctrines are "Like cures like," and that the potency of a given compound is inversely proportional to its concentration. There has never been a single case where a homeopathic remedy worked according to the principles that the practice is based upon. In the rare cases where a "homeopathic" remedy has shown an effect, it's been a standard dose response to whatever the active ingredient in the compound is - just like any other drug. Dilute the "homeopathic" remedy and the effect diminishes in direct proportion to the dose, rather than increasing as you'd expect if the claims of the homeopaths were valid. Moreover - has there ever been a case where homeopaths have conducted empirical research and conclusively proven that one of their theories is wrong, or that a given remedy produces no effect? This happens in scientific medicine all of the time. If homeopaths have no empirical mechanism for determining what doesn't work, how confident are you that they have a sound basis for concluding that they know what does work? I'd note that open mindedness is one thing, credulity/gullibility is another. If you are really "open-minded" on this issue, you owe it to yourself to acquaint yourself with the most robust scientific critiques of the ideas that homeopathy is based upon, then decide whether you're still prepared to believe in it.

What in your mind differentiates someone practicing homeopathy from someone who believes that the root of all illness is demonic possession, and uses chants and incantations for treatment? The two are cannot be distinguished from one another in terms of their efficacy or their scientific basis.

You're practically sprinting backwards from your original statement, so I'll accept that as a retraction. I can work with that. Yes, addicts have a role in their recovery. And we can also agree that the sky is, occasionally, blue. Good on ya. This: "The real question, as far as I am concerned, is to what extent an absence of "willpower" or impulse control is hard-wired into us, and whether or not it's possible to overcome any inborn deficits in this area. I don't think that we have any answers that apply equally well to each and every individual, but I think that as a society we have to assume that people are responsible for their actions (unless there is a clear reason to conclude otherwise on account of profound retardation, insanity, dementia, etc), and that sane people can learn to overcome any deficits that they were born with in these areas - but that some people will require infinitely more help to do so." Was part of my original statement, but...whatever. Hopefully any addict that happens to read this will be sure to consult their homeopath before attempting any mode of addiction cessation....

"This is why addicts inevitably self destruct. Most addicts at the latter stages of their disease progression desperately want to stop, but they cannot. For the lucky few who are able to actually recover, what starts that process is usually some serious consequence, such as incarceration (which often involves medical detox) that forceably separates them from the drug of choice, then puts them on a path of gradual behavior modification, self awareness training, and group support." There are literally millions of people walking the streets who have quite smoking, for example - who quit cold turkey. How well you think that this narrative matches their experience?

I also said - right below this - that it's not clear how much impulse control, etc - that we are responsible for, and how much is inborn. It does seem clear that denying the addict any role or agency in quitting - however they became addicted - is retarded.

Despite your copious opinions, you apparently don't know shit about addiction. Thats OK. It's only been characterized as a disease state with a strong genetic component by the AMA for more than 25 years. How were you to know? Classic JayB. Always the last kid to get the memo. Calling addiction a "disease state" and recognizing that it has a genetic component doesn't preclude the addict having any role or agency in his or her recovery though, does it?

"And even if you think that's OK because head injury patients can't be assumed to be thinking straight, then it seems illogical to be charging this guy with assault." Oops. Forgot to add comments. Fine with the restrains - often warranted in cases of intoxication/head-injury, but silly to press charges since the assumption is that the guy is/was impaired.

To me it's fairly clear that an absence of willpower and/or poor impulse control is behind most unhealthy behaviors that we have absolute control over. These include what and how much we eat, what drugs we put into our bodies and when, etc. The real question, as far as I am concerned, is to what extent an absence of "willpower" or impulse control is hard-wired into us, and whether or not it's possible to overcome any inborn deficits in this area. I don't think that we have any answers that apply equally well to each and every individual, but I think that as a society we have to assume that people are responsible for their actions (unless there is a clear reason to conclude otherwise on account of profound retardation, insanity, dementia, etc), and that sane people can learn to overcome any deficits that they were born with in these areas - but that some people will require infinitely more help to do so. Insisting that people are responsible for their actions doesn't preclude helping people who are struggling to control a given behavior. However, it's hard to imagine a scenario where cultivating an element of self-control isn't part of the help that they provide, even if that's as simple as taking their medications once a day. Having said all of that - in a former job I worked with a woman who just could not seem to control her weight. She was probably one of my favorite people in the office, since as a former opera singer she brought an element of class, grace, and cultivation to the cube-farm that most of the other denizens couldn't come anywhere near. As time went on she started missing more and more work, as the health problems associated with her weight became compound and overlapping. I think that she was on permanent disability by the time I left, and the watching as a helpless bystander while she literally ate herself to death was very sad. A girl that I grew up with had the opposite problem. Between 9th and 10th grade she went from fit and althetic to skeletal, and never seemed to get better. I was one of many people who went to the school nurse urge some kind of intervention, most of her friends tried to intervene as well, but there wasn't much that anyone outside of her family could do. I'd often see her hunched over on an excerise bike when I was visiting from college and hitting the gym at the local YMCA, and she'd still there two hours later when I was leaving. Whatever she was suffering from, it clearly wasn't a lack of willpower or discipline. A friend of mine passed along word that she died a few years ago. Both were in dire need of, and deserving of help. It seems to me that any effective help would require showing them how to take the steps necessary to overcome whatever problems they had - inborn or otherwise - that were making it extremely difficult for them to eat properly and maintain the kind of weight they'd need to to survive.

Not a doctor - I work in basic research - but my wife is an ER doc. I can't claim that my conversations are entirely representative, but to a person their greatest source of exasperation is the amount of easily preventable suffering and death that rolls through their doors on a daily basis. It's not that most MD's aren't aware of the benefits of diet and excercise, or that they don't promote either to their patients - it's that human nature being what it is, there's a significant number of people who are either unwilling or unable to eat well, excercise regularly, and moderate their addictions. Most people who make the kinds of changes necessary to live a more healthy life ultimately do so not because a medical authority figure tells them to, but because they want to, so it's not clear to me that the medical community is at fault here. When one of them rolls through the door after having sustained a massive heart attack from congestive heart failure, or a stroke because of the high-blood pressure they've never gotten under control - the time for life coaching is over and their role is to keep them alive by "treating the symptoms." Unlike homeopaths - they actually have the means to do so effectively. How this state of affairs represents a profound moral failure on the part of physicians is beyond me. My main gripe with homeopathy and other bits of quackery is not their critiques of how physicians practice - it's that their "disciplnes" are the medical equivalent of creationism. The central principles that they have been founded upon are false. With the advent of techniques that are capable of empirically proving or disproving their claims, they've crossed the boundary from benign folklore into flat out frauds. If you think that an overreliance on pills and surgery is an ethical problem for physicians - then what kind of ethics are involved in charging fees to dispense concoctions formulated according to folklorish nonsense that has no scientific basis whatsoever? How about people that continue to "treat" their patients in this way even when they have a condition that can be safely and effectively treated by a proven rememedy that would require them to see a real doctor? If this is ethical conduct, then so is faith-healing.

Just don't let those allopaths near him with their autism inducing vaccines and whatnot...

I'm pretty familiar with the history of American medicine and the efforts to reform and regulate it, from the late colonial period to the advent of the Flexner Report (~1910-1912 if I remember correctly). There may have been some professional rivalries in play, and you certainly can't ever rule out greed when you are dealing with humans - but most of the efforts to impose a rigorous and uniform set of standards for anyone practicing medicine came about because "allopaths" thought that the state of medical care/training in the US was a national disgrace. Most of the impetus behind reforms came from physicians who had been trained in the leading institutes in France/Scotland (~1800-1850) and Germany (~1850-1900)and wanted to import the standards and practices that they observed while in Europe. This was also the era of the Progressive Movement, and there were quite a few people involved in medicine in some capacity or another who were inspired to apply the philosophies associated with this movement to their own field. One of the main arguments that they used to sell these changes to others in their field was that they wold provide a means by which they could more clearly differentiate themselves from the Homeopaths and every other species of professional quack selling their services at the time. I think that they also understood that the requirements that they were advocating for training, licensing, etc would put many of their rivals out of business, or at the very least put them at a disadvantage. I happen to think that this also provided a significant benefit to the public, but I can see how the various quacks might take exception to such changes. Speaking of "dirt," anyone remember the efforts to impose something vaguely resembling the regulations that drug companies have to abide by on the purveyors of homeopathic/naturopathic remedies, etc? If those folks were so confident in their remedies, you'd think they'd welcome the opportunity to demonstrate that they were both safe and effective...

I'm all for the preservation of individual freedoms, and will support the rights of consenting adults to do whatever they want to each other in private - but it seems as though this falls squarely in the realm of public spaces where there are competing perogatives that have to be reconciled. If someone wants to dress up in a Klan outfit and burn a cross on their own front yard while painting a swastika on their garage door - more power to them. If they want to do the same in a public restroom, then clearly the situation is different, as their doing so would infringe on the rights of others to use public facilities without being subject to certain nuisances, threats, acts of intimidation, etc...

ACLU: Sex in restroom stalls is private Tue Jan 15, 11:15 PM ET ST. PAUL, Minn. - In an effort to help Sen. Larry Craig, the American Civil Liberties Union is arguing that people who have sex in public bathrooms have an expectation of privacy. ADVERTISEMENT Craig, of Idaho, is asking the Minnesota Court of Appeals to let him withdraw his guilty plea to disorderly conduct stemming from a bathroom sex sting at the Minneapolis airport. The ACLU filed a brief Tuesday supporting Craig. It cited a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling 38 years ago that found that people who have sex in closed stalls in public restrooms "have a reasonable expectation of privacy." That means the state cannot prove Craig was inviting an undercover officer to have sex in public, the ACLU wrote. The Republican senator was arrested June 11 by an undercover officer who said Craig tapped his feet and swiped his hand under a stall divider in a way that signaled he wanted sex. Craig has denied that, saying his actions were misconstrued. The ACLU argued that even if Craig was inviting the officer to have sex, his actions wouldn't be illegal. "The government cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Senator Craig was inviting the undercover officer to engage in anything other than sexual intimacy that would not have called attention to itself in a closed stall in the public restroom," the ACLU wrote in its brief. The ACLU also noted that Craig was originally charged with interference with privacy, which it said was an admission by the state that people in the bathroom stall expect privacy. Craig at one point said he would resign but now says he will finish his term, which ends in January 2009." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080116/ap_on_re_us/craig_appeal_1

I think that your argument here would be quite a bit stronger if the patient populations that homeopaths and "allopaths" were treating were identical in terms of the nature of the conditions that they were presenting with, their acuity, and the nature of the medical intervention required. When people collapsing from strokes, presenting with organ failure, major trauma, life-threatening infections, etc are rushed to the homeopaths - then you'll have a valid basis for comparing the relative mortalities of homeopathy and scientific medicine.

Maybe Not.. lqMjDyHbhXk

Interesting... http://www.keepshooting.com/selfdefense/photoblocker/photoblocker-phantomplate.htm "The infamous Photoblocker manufactured by Phantomplate is now here! This New and Improved, Patent Pending Photoblocker Spray is used to reflect photo radar flash and to make your license plate invisible to cameras! It really protects you from Red Light Camera. Don't let them take your cash in a flash! For only $19.95, you CAN avoid getting tickets. Protect yourself before too late! Phantomplate's Photoblocker Spray: ›› REFLECTS photo radar flash, helping to prevent a costly ticket! ›› FAST spray-on formula is easily applied in minutes! ›› INVISIBLE to the naked eye, only you will know it is on your vehicle! ›› EXCLUSIVE formula! Good for up to FOUR plates. ›› BEST alternative for those areas where you can't use an anti-radar license plate cover! ›› One application of PhotoBlocker is good for life. Will not wash off, will not fade, nor will it dissolve away. How does "PHOTOBLOCKER" work? Photo radar cameras often utilize a strong flash to photograph the license plate on your car as it speeds by. "PHOTO BLOCKER's" special formula works to reflect the flash back to the camera. The result is an overexposed and unreadable picture, often preventing a costly ticket. Instructions: 01. Remove plate. Place flat. 02. Spray PhotoBlocker evenly until surface is totally saturated. Let dry and repeat 2-3 times until plate is very glossy. 03. Let it dry for about 2 hours. Should be good for life!"

Glimpse of the Future.... " Anger as fines from speed cameras soar By James Kirkup and David Millward Last Updated: 2:58am GMT 06/12/2007 Almost two million speeding tickets are being issued to motorists each year following Labour's vast expansion of the speed camera network, official figures disclosed last night. Since the party came to power, the number of fixed penalty notices for speeding has almost trebled from 700,000 a year to more than 1.9 million, the Government statistics showed. Coupled with an increase in the basic speeding fine, this means speeding tickets are now raising almost £120 million a year - most of which is simply ploughed back into operating the cameras. But despite the significant increase in speeding penalties in the past 10 years, road deaths have fallen only marginally, while the number of deaths from drink-driving has remained stable." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/04/nspeed104.xml

Me too, but I'd love to hear the recording....

Agreed on both points. I am looking forward to contributing to whoever runs against Licatta and whoever else on the council voted for camera surveillance when I return. It's hard to argue against red-light cameras unless one includes the near certainty that this will: -Inspire ever more invasive and dubious applications in which their effect on public safety is marginal at best. -Generate a revenue stream that the government incorporates into their budget projections. This will almost certainly encourage them to expand the size of the fines, the number of cameras, and the number of offenses subject to camera enforcement. The only thing that would convince me otherwise would be legislation stipulating that the cameras could only be used for red-light offenses, and that all revenues generated in excess of the operating expenses would have to be transferred to the citizens via a dollar-for-dollar tax or fee offset.

Word. Checking the rates online, but it seems like some outfits are better than others (from what I hear) when it comes to dealing with breakdowns, not-hosing you with extra fees, etc. Pondering bringing along chains if it'll work weight-wise.

All should feel free to chime in with all things related to car-rental though...

It's been years since I've had to rent a car, and when I did, it was from these guys: http://www.mauicruisers.net/ Awesome deal, great service, run out of a shipping container on a vacant lot featuring a legit junk-yard dog, and a one eyed mechanic. Very memorable. Insurance was included in the daily rate ($20), and there was no dicking around with upgrades and whatnot. Which car rental company do you like to do business with? Any outfits to avoid? Any outfits that provide chains? (Driving from LAX to Mammoth)