Wow! People really do whine a lot about what is essentially a harmless act.

I've seen my own child make similar faces and reactions to some of the jarred/pureed/mass-produced shit that people happily feed their infants. Maybe we should get angry at them as well.

Also, there is this misconception that baby food must be bland and free of spices and herbs until the child is a toddler. That is just ridiculous. After about 6 months, a baby's digestive system can handle pretty much anything that you would put in your own food. The longer you wait to expose your child to those flavors and tastes, the more likely they are to reject foods when you try to introduce them at a later age.

Parents in a culture whose common foods are heavily spiced (e.g. India, South-east Asia, Mexico) have a duty to introduce these tastes to their children at some point. Why not start when they are young, more tolerant and less resistant?

I teared up. Bravo, Herb Cain. Bravo.

>> ^Psychologic:

>> ^Boise_Lib:
>> ^Psychologic:
One of the dangers inherent in these products is that you don't know what is in them. It's a manufactured chemical, so what kinds of byproducts and unreacted ingredients are present? It isn't regulated and the originating labs are generally unknown.
The active chemicals may be safe; just realize there may be other stuff in there with it.

Exactly my thoughts on this Psycologic.
I'll take herb over laboratory anytime.

Even in that case there is the possibility that pesticides were sprayed on it, but that can be mitigated by knowing the grower or growing your own (and hopefully not getting arrested).


Yepers,

I was around for Paraquat Pot. That shit's some nasty, deadly shit.

We got a batch that I'm sure had this crap on it (Thanks, US Government).
I threw mine away after just one hit, and five minutes of coughing.

>> ^Boise_Lib:

>> ^Psychologic:
One of the dangers inherent in these products is that you don't know what is in them. It's a manufactured chemical, so what kinds of byproducts and unreacted ingredients are present? It isn't regulated and the originating labs are generally unknown.
The active chemicals may be safe; just realize there may be other stuff in there with it.

Exactly my thoughts on this Psycologic.
I'll take herb over laboratory anytime.


Even in that case there is the possibility that pesticides were sprayed on it, but that can be mitigated by knowing the grower or growing your own (and hopefully not getting arrested).

>> ^Psychologic:

One of the dangers inherent in these products is that you don't know what is in them. It's a manufactured chemical, so what kinds of byproducts and unreacted ingredients are present? It isn't regulated and the originating labs are generally unknown.
The active chemicals may be safe; just realize there may be other stuff in there with it.


Exactly my thoughts on this Psycologic.

I'll take herb over laboratory anytime.

And for the frenchies:
Manau - La Tribu De Dana lyrics

Le vent souffle sur les plaines de la Bretagne armoricaine,
je jette un dernier regard sur ma femme, mon fils et mon domaine.
Akim, le fils du forgeron est venu me chercher, les druides ont décidé de mener le combat dans la vallée.
Là, où tous nos ancêtres, de géants guerriers celtes, après de grandes batailles, se sont imposés en maîtres, c'est l'heure maintenant de défendre notre terre contre une armée de Simeriens prête à croiser le fer.
Toute la tribu s'est réunie autour de grands menhirs, pour invoquer les dieux afin qu'ils puissent nous bénir. Après cette prière avec mes frères sans faire état de zèle, les chefs nous ont donné à tous des gorgées d'hydromel, pour le courage, pour pas qu'il y ait de faille, pour rester grand set fiers quand nous serons dans la bataille car c'est la première fois pour moi que je pars au combat et j'espère être digne de la tribu de Dana.

REFRAIN
Dans la vallée de DAna La lilala.
Dans la vallée j'ai pu entendre les échos.
Dans la vallée de Dana La lilala.
Dans la vallée des chants de guerre près des tombeaux.

Après quelques incantations de druides et de magie, toute la tribu, le glaive en main courait vers l'ennemi, la lutte était terrible et je ne voyais que les ombres, tranchant l'ennemi qui revenait toujours en surnombre.
Mes frères tombaient l'un après l'autre devant mon regard, sous le poids des armes que possédaient tous ces barbares, des lances, des haches et des épées dans le jardin d'Eden qui écoulait du sang sur l'herbe verte de la plaine. Comme ces jours de peine où l'homme se traîne à la limite du règne du mal et de la haine, fallait-il continuer ce combat déjà perdu, mais telle était la fierté de toute la tribu, la lutte a continué comme ça jusqu'au soleil couchant, de férocité extrême en plus d'acharnement, fallait défendre la terre de nos ancêtres enterrés là et pour toutes les lois de la tribu de Dana.

REFRAIN

Au bout de la vallée on entendait le son d'une corne, d'un chef ennemi qui appelait toute sa horde, avait-il compris qu'on lutterait même en enfer et qu'à la tribu de Dana appartenaient ces terres. Les guerriers repartaient, je ne comprenais pas tout le chemin qu'ils avaient fait pour en arriver là,quand mon regard se posa tout autour de moi, j'étais le seul debout de la tribu voilà pourquoi. Mes doigts se sont écartés tout en lâchant mes arme set le long de mes joues se sont mises à couler des larmes, je n'ai jamais compris pourquoi les dieux m'ont épargné de ce jour noir de notre histoire que j'ai contée.
Le vent souffle toujours sur la Bretagne armoricaine et j'ai rejoins ma femme, mon fils et mon domaine, j'ai tout reconstruit de mes mains pour en arriver là, je suis devenu roi de la tribu de Dana.

REFRAIN

>> ^quantumushroom:

You know even those numbers are lies, NR. For chrissakes, the liars switched from "jobs created" to "lives touched" late last year.

Hey, you're the one that put that article forward, not me.

I think it's impossible to actually track specific jobs created by the stimulus. You can make estimates based on theory, but that's not really evidence, either for or against.

What's a bit easier to measure is the overall employment trend. You'll love that these are Nancy Pelosi's charts, but they're based on BLS statistics (what the whole economic world uses as the source for data on employment, BTW).

Here's the chart of the recession through to May's jobs report (June's report will probably come out this week). The stimulus bill was passed in February of 2009. The trend changed immediately, with the job losses slowing, and then turning into gains.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Government jobs are not real jobs as they do not reflect market needs.

That's my point, the stimulus wasn't about creating "government" jobs, it was an attempt to reverse the unemployment trend in the private sector. Right now the biggest drag on the jobs reports coming out is job losses in the public sector.

Here's a chart showing the last year in the ongoing march of Obama's supposed socialist revival. Private sector jobs up, public sector jobs down.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Here's a RADICAL idea: let people keep more of their own money, across the board.

I know it was another thread, but that idea's been tried. Hell, it's still being done to a greater degree than it's been done since well before I was born. That idea has clearly and unambiguously been tried, and has utterly failed to produce anything like what Republicans from Reagan forward have claimed it would.

>> ^quantumushroom:
And lay off Herb Hoover, moonbats, he was an unwilling or ignorant ally of yours.
wiki:
<long quote about things FDR said on the campaign trail>

A couple paragraphs above that, you find a description of Hoover's actual policies:

Calls for greater government assistance increased as the U.S. economy continued to decline. Hoover rejected direct federal relief payments to individuals, as he believed that a dole would be addictive, and reduce the incentive to work. He was also a firm believer in balanced budgets, and was unwilling to run a budget deficit to fund welfare programs.[45] However, Hoover did pursue many policies in an attempt to pull the country out of depression. In 1929, Hoover authorized the Mexican Repatriation program to combat rampant unemployment, reduce the burden on municipal aid services, and remove people seen as usurpers of American jobs. The program was largely a forced migration of approximately 500,000 Mexicans and Mexican Americans to Mexico, and continued until 1937. In June 1930, over the objection of many economists, Congress approved and Hoover signed into law the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. The legislation raised tariffs on thousands of imported items. The intent of the Act was to encourage the purchase of American-made products by increasing the cost of imported goods, while raising revenue for the federal government and protecting farmers. However, economic depression now spread through much of the world, and other nations increased tariffs on American-made goods in retaliation, reducing international trade, and worsening the Depression.[46]

In 1931, Hoover issued the Hoover Moratorium, calling for a one-year halt in reparation payments by Germany to France and in the payment of Allied war debts to the United States. The plan was met with much opposition, especially from France, who saw significant losses to Germany during World War I. The Moratorium did little to ease economic declines. As the moratorium neared its expiration the following year, an attempt to find a permanent solution was made at the Lausanne Conference of 1932. A working compromise was never established, and by the start of World War II, reparations payments had stopped completely.[47][48] Hoover in 1931 urged the major banks in the country to form a consortium known as the National Credit Corporation (NCC).[49] The NCC was an example of Hoover's belief in volunteerism as a mechanism in aiding the economy. Hoover encouraged NCC member banks to provide loans to smaller banks to prevent them from collapsing. The banks within the NCC were often reluctant to provide loans, usually requiring banks to provide their largest assets as collateral. It quickly became apparent that the NCC would be incapable of fixing the problems it was designed to solve, and it was replaced by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

That all sounds very familiar to me as modern-day Republican policy proposals -- eschew direct assistance to the unemployed, try to boost employment by deporting Mexicans, attempt to defer interest payments on foreign debts, and ask banks to put in place their own policies to fix their own shortcomings rather than resort to regulation, and stick to preserving the gold standard at all costs. The only thing out of place is tariffs, but I've seen those mentioned from the conservative rank and file in discussions about what our response to China's ascendance should be.

In the election year of 1932, with unemployment at 25% and with people throwing things at his motorcade everywhere he went, he did start engaging in a little attempt at mortgage loan stabilization and fiscal stimulus, and they did seem to make a positive impact, but were too little too late, but they weren't policies that were the centerpiece of his administration, they were things he tried to do out of desperation.

It's also quite true that FDR in 1932 ran on a platform that included promises to balance the budget, but that's because it'd been the Democratic that had always been scolds on that topic up to that point. Besides, FDR was no student of Keynes; General Theory wasn't even published until 1936. I don't really know where the ideas for FDR's New Deal came from. I'm guessing just simple populism, and maybe some Keynesian influence amongst his economic advisers.

You know even those numbers are lies, NR. For chrissakes, the liars switched from "jobs created" to "lives touched" late last year.

Sorry Dudes, I know you mean well, but you are defending the indefensible. Obama has failed, just like those of us who know socialism (or semi-socialism) fails knew he would. Couldn't care less that the moonbats hate him for not being Marx enough, His Earness has failed.

Government jobs are not real jobs as they do not reflect market needs. With government, when 30 desk jockeys can replace 300, the other 270 stay on board for the ride (and pensions). No wonder we're headed for Greece.

Here's a RADICAL idea: let people keep more of their own money, across the board. Recognize it's not the government's money, even if it prints the sh1t.

Another wonderful side effect of letting people keep the lion's share of what they earn: you get a properly-restrained government too small to rape and plunder in the name of "social justice" or any other bullsh1t of the day.

And lay off Herb Hoover, moonbats, he was an unwilling or ignorant ally of yours.

wiki:

Franklin D. Roosevelt blasted (Hoover) for spending and taxing too much, increasing national debt, raising tariffs and blocking trade, as well as placing millions on the dole of the government. Roosevelt attacked Hoover for "reckless and extravagant" spending, of thinking "that we ought to center control of everything in Washington as rapidly as possible."[54] Roosevelt's running mate, John Nance Garner, accused the Republican of "leading the country down the path of socialism".[55]

Ironically, these policies pale beside the more drastic steps taken under Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration later as part of the New Deal. Hoover's opponents charge that his policies came too little, and too late, and did not work. Even as he asked Congress for legislation, he reiterated his view that while people must not suffer from hunger and cold, caring for them must be primarily a local and voluntary responsibility.

Even so, New Dealer Rexford Tugwell[56] later remarked that although no one would say so at the time, "practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started."




>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^quantumushroom:
And yet here we are with our current SCAMULUS not helping at all.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-s-eco
nomists-stimulus-has-cost-278000-job_576014.html
I'm calling FOUL, Keynes! You hear me? KEEEEYYYYNNNEEEEEESSSS!

That article says it created 2.4 million jobs. Its main point was that if you take the number of jobs it's estimated to have created, and divide it by the total sum of the bill, it was expensive per job. But it wasn't buying jobs, it was buying goods and services.
Of course you can get more jobs per dollar if the government just directly hires people, and puts them to work doing what needs to be done (like build cars, sweep floors, grow corn, etc.). But that's socialism, so instead we just buy stuff from the market, and let the market decide how many (and which) jobs get created.

man, first it was your pronunciation of the word "herb", and now this? you guys got everything backwards!

he's thinking "i wonder if now's the right time to smoke that sacred herb the witchdoctor gave me?"

My garden is powered by a 150 watts high pressure sodium light gutted from a Security light. It works very well, last I heard of Led technology was from years ago, its very nice to see it going into such high production and applications. I have four month old big herb plants ready for outside, I had to take down my 3 foot brandywine tomato plant because it was just to damn big !

Indoor garden = FTW !

>> ^Deano:

Major cheese. There's not actually much of a tune in here...


You're obviously not a golfer.

and the answer is: because i work in the field, somewhere in the middle of alt treatment and mainstream treatment. i'm quite mainstream in many parts of the world, alt in others. it's really pretty stupid.
i work mostly with fairly severe spinal issues. i'm particularly fond of somatic theory, from a structural perspective, and i practice and teach manual therapy utilizing a neurological approach focusing on rotational distortion. On the whole, what is often dismissed as alternative in treatment turns out to be the most innovative, that pushes mainstream treatments into new and more effective territory. "Touching" a person was pretty out of style in the accepted medical practice until late, -- PT's are actually starting to get a clue.

i'm quite aware of the fluff that is out there, the weird, the barbaric, the hippy dippy, the downright stupid. both the alt side of things, as you might define it, and the mainstream side of things, often fall into these categories. There are however, powerful lobbies that make one form of treatment more acceptable than others.... Big pharma is insanely powerful, and insanely profitable... we're drugging our kids for fucks sake.
and lets put it this way, the profit margin is very small in what i do. it's just too time consuming and labor intensive.

And while the business side of things has thoroughly poisoned mainstream medicine, there tends to be more, but not necessarily all, of "alt" providers, who purposely shy away from it. we'd all be better off in a socialist medicine system that was not for profit. In every socialist system, some form of what i do is commonplace, mainstream, accepted science...goddamn common sense.
anyhoo..., would you like some figures on iatrogenic death?

I worked in an acupuncture clinic for a bit, mostly treating cancer and HIV. The acupuncture was most effective for treating nausea, pain, and other symptoms that came with the chemo.
In china it is combined with herbs to treat the cancer. I don't know the success rates. i know they take their acupuncture very seriously, and very scientifically... and western docs are starting to wake up to it.
For chronic pain issues (back, neck, pain) etc...i probably bat somewhere in 80-90%. That destroys mainstream. I'm an anomaly, but i shouldn't be. more talented people should be in this field. and being able to spot and work with spinal issues at young ages would save billions of dollars in lost labor, workers comp, SSI, medical expenses, drugs...a shit ton of pain and suffering.

foresight. preventative medicine.

>> ^FlowersInHisHair:

I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing, I'm arguing because you seem to think "alternative medicine" is superior to medicine. What point are you trying to make about chemotherapy, exactly? In many cases it's a very effective treatment. Do you know what the success rate of, say, acupuncture is for treating cancer? How about therapeutic touch? Or chakra realignment? Or ground turtle shell? Or homeopathy? Or vitamin megadosing? Or evening primrose oil supplements? Or magnetic wristbands? Nil. Nothing. No demonstrable effect. And there's a reason for that. There is no alternative to medicine. There's medicine, and there's "crap that doesn't work".
You're right that the major difference between scientific medicine and "alternative medicine" is the degree that it is run purely as profit generating business. Except that you have it completely the wrong way round. "Alternative medicine" has no chance of curing you, and costs money. Medicine has a chance of curing you, using products and medicines backed up by science, and costs money. I know which I'd rather go for. "Western medicine" (as you call it, though you should note that the practice of science-based medicine isn't limited to the Western world, thank goodness) is interested in cures because the effective interventions are the ones that get used, thereby generating income. It's only in the field of "alternative medicine" that "crap that doesn't work" can be sold for a profit without anyone ever questioning it. If a medical intervention or treatment doesn't work, the scientific method roots it out eventually, but tellingly there is no such self-regulatory framework in place when it comes to "alternative medicine", and the practitioners don't care.
Put it this way: if it were true that science-based medicine didn't "know their ass from a hole in the ground" when it comes to chronic pain then what the hell would make you think that the pseudoscientific bullshitfest that is "alternative medicine" would stand a chance at solving the problem?
>> ^criticalthud:
alright there. not really getting the gist of the statement, are you?
you're arguing for the sake of arguing.
do you know what the success rate of chemo is for curing cancer? pretty much the same as not having it
back surgery? the same
there's plenty of crap out there, and no "medicine" is immune from it. the one major difference between what is labeled as alt and what isn't is the degree that it is run purely as profit generating business. Do you get it? western medicine isn't necessarily interested in cures. doctors might be, but the biz side of it ain't. it's quick fix, in and out, write the latest scrip that has been peddled to you by big pharma, and do the treatments and tests that you are allowed to do by the insurance company.
western medicine doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to chronic pain, because treating something that typically has it's roots in the structure of the body isn't profitable.

omg i didn't even think about herbs!!! that would be amazing to dry and store my own herbs and not have to buy that expensive shit at the grocery store.

yeah so, my family and i are on very limited budget and eat about 75-85% of our food raw and unprocessed (because it's completely awesome). so i'm very interested in ways to get the most out of my produce. also, i might be trail mixes #1 fan and my son is dried fruits #1 fan. like, if there was a competitive eating competition for trail mix, i'd totally compete in that. i eat some sort of trail mix at least once a day. i think we'd use it a lot. unless it was difficult to work or the dried fruits/veggies/herbs tasted bad or didn't consistently come out right.

in your experience was the end result adequate quality? was the process user friendly?

>> ^BoneRemake:

>> ^peggedbea:
i've also been thinking about investing in a dehydrator this year and making my own trail mix out the apples and berries and bananas that are "soon to go bad". has anyone ever used a dehydrator before? what do you think?

They are worth the money, IF you use them. If you only plan to make a couple batches of trail mix, then it will not be worth the money spent, If you are asking for a comparison of models I cannot help you, I am only giving personal experience, and that is using it for as you said " using up degrading fruit" but it is also a preservative means, honestly , if you can find a use for it, then they are worth the 60 or so dollars spent, but if it is just for a couple novelty dried fruit trail mix expenditures, then no, it is not worth the money.
They are excellent for storing over produced fruit/vegetables from warm months, herbs especially, you just have to have a means to make it worth the money spent, and usually with herbs, within two seasons you can justify it easily.

>> ^peggedbea:

i've also been thinking about investing in a dehydrator this year and making my own trail mix out the apples and berries and bananas that are "soon to go bad". has anyone ever used a dehydrator before? what do you think?


They are worth the money, IF you use them. If you only plan to make a couple batches of trail mix, then it will not be worth the money spent, If you are asking for a comparison of models I cannot help you, I am only giving personal experience, and that is using it for as you said " using up degrading fruit" but it is also a preservative means, honestly , if you can find a use for it, then they are worth the 60 or so dollars spent, but if it is just for a couple novelty dried fruit trail mix expenditures, then no, it is not worth the money.

They are excellent for storing over produced fruit/vegetables from warm months, herbs especially, you just have to have a means to make it worth the money spent, and usually with herbs, within two seasons you can justify it easily.