>> ^Ti_Moth:

Oh man... Cutting a brain in half with a bread knife? That has totally weirded me out.


Exactly, brains should be served with a spoon! Okay, a spork would do too. A knife? Common!

In emergent airway algorithms, cricothyrotomy is the choice of last resort, so paramedics would have exhausted all other options. One other study, I can't remember where it was done, found that over half of the surgical airways that had been performed in the field were unsatisfactory airways on presentation to the ER, i.e. only around half were actually successful. I don't think anyone can fault someone for following suggested algorithms. As an old and wise surgeon once told me, "son, you can't get much deader than dead." The statistics merely point to the dismal prognosis, should one be required. "Meaningful neurologic outcome" just means there wasn't a severe brain injury, such that the patient could have some quality of life.

[redacted]

>> ^Mcboinkens:

>> ^MaxWilder:
There is a lot of debate about helmets. Some claim there is no reduction in injury where helmets are mandatory. Some even claim that helmets increase certain risks. I can't find the video/article I recently saw, but you can see the controversy on the wikipedia page.


Yeah, that's why athletes don't wear helmets, right?

The argument in that article is absolutely stupid. Of course a helmet may not save you if a car crashed into you. That wasn't what it was meant for. It was meant to provide protection for your skull, in any sort of calamity. Yeah, a child may die from being strangled by the helmet, but if you would rather them risk getting a head-smash into concrete that's your own parenting decision.
There isn't "a lot" of debate, and "some" people just spout crap to get more funding.
Millions of dollars go into research on helmets every year, you really think we'd be using them if they weren't useful?

Also: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12333783

"The most obvious reason to wear a helmet is that doing so protects you in the event of an accident. But by how much?
Back in 2001, Australian experts set out to determine just this by trawling medical literature published in the past decade.
Their analysis found that wearing a helmet cut the risk of head injury and brain injury by half, and facial injury by nearly a third."
source: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001457500000488



http://videosift.com/video/TEDxCopenhagen-Why-We-Shouldn-t-Bike-with-a-Helmet

[redacted]

1. The logic is simple; The only true God could be the being that no one else created. If a God was created by something else, then he wouldnt be a God. This points to one true God.

The Universe had an absolute beginning, including all matter energy time and space. Therefore this points to a reality beyond the Universe, a transcendent non physical immaterial reality beyond space and time. This points to a supernatural cause.

How could something come from nothing? Only nothing can come from nothing. Therefore there had always had to have been something for there to be anything. This points to an eternal cause.

The Universe appears to be designed. The are dozens of physical constants which, if altered even slighty, would result in a lifeless Universe.

Two good examples:

Imagine a ruler 14 billion light years wide, which is the length of the Universe. It's divided into one inch increments, which is the range of settings for the strength of gravity. It just happens to be set in just the right place for life. If you move the setting one inch life to any other setting as compared to the length of the ruler, life becomes basically impossible.

The cosmological constant is finetuned to 1:1 with 53 zeros behind it. It has been compared to throwing a dart at the earth from orbit and hitting a bullseyes 1 trillion trillionth of an inch.

Taken together, their level of fine tuning is to a precision of 1 in one hundred million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion. Which is like one atom out of the entire universe.

That's just the periphery of it..

2. Sounds like you were a pretty terrible Christian..you did as you were told and prayed a lot. lol. This a Christian does not make. The total actual knowledge you seem to have about Gods will, or what is in the bible, could probably fit on the head of a pin with room to spare. You ever stop to think that you never saw God because didn't have any real faith to begin with? Sounds like your parents didn't understand their own faith, therefore raised you in ignorance..you became worldly..and tada, you're an atheist. For the record, every ex-christian atheist I meet never knows shit about the bible..they're also usually ex-catholic.

3. It's not really your fault..you're just totally disillusioned. I wasn't raised Christian so I was never disappointed by it. I made an informed decision to become a Christian after God showed me definitively He is the God of the bible. Otherwise I would just be a theist.
Because you used to be a Christian, it's in Gods hands if He wants you back. Nothing I say to you is going to make any difference what so ever. All I can tell you is that I'll pray that God has mercy on you, though with comments like "non-existant facist dictator" I can tell you you aren't helping your case.


>> ^MaxWilder:
1. You have "stated" that there can be only one God, but you have not put any logic into it. Things are created by individuals, by teams of individuals, and by natural forces without any outside assistance. There is no reason to believe that the universe could only have been created by a single force, much less a single conscious entity. It is an unknown, and you don't have a shred of evidence or logic to indicate otherwise.
2. As I have already explained here and here, I was raised a Christian. I went to church. I did as I was told. I prayed for strength and guidance. And when my natural curiosity began to reveal the flaws in Christianity and the Bible, I prayed about it quite a bit. Over the course of many years. I got no response. God never revealed himself to me. So you can shove that "God will reveal Himself to you if you seek Him out" crap. It simply isn't true. You may think that God has revealed himself to you, but as far as I know that was a total hallucination brought on by some sort of temporary brain trauma. Unless the same thing happens to me, there is absolutely no reason for me to trust your word on the matter.
3. As far as spirituality in atheists goes, there is a huge spectrum. I can only speak for myself. I often find myself wishing for some sort of insight or revelation about the nature of the universe. But for the most part I am ok with not knowing. I understand that nobody really knows, and that comforts me a little. I still hope that there is something more to life after we die, but there's no way of knowing until after it's over, and I'm not going to waste my life hoping that there's something better afterward. So yeah, occasionally I still find myself in a "prayer-like" moment, hoping that there is some force out there that may help me solve a problem I'm facing. Then I get over it and start working on the task myself. Even if there was some sort of "miracle" that fixed what I was thinking about, that wouldn't mean it was Jesus! Again, there would still be no link between what I experience and the Bible, unless like you I had a hallucination about Jesus revealing the secrets behind the curtain. Heck, even if that happened I'd probably assume I had a brain injury and go see a doctor about it as soon as possible.
By the way, your little jabs like "It's obvious you don't really know anything about the bible, or even comparative religion." and "your viewpoint is not very sophisticated" are called Ad Hominem attacks. They fail to make any point. I know I occasionally will throw in an insult when I'm feeling weak, so I don't take it personally. Just be clear that you are dodging my points without answering them whenever you dismiss them like that. To quote you, "you're just making yourself look foolish", "childish at best", and "not very sophisticated". Sheesh, this coming from a guy who seriously thinks satanists on a website are throwing spells around. Holy crap. Keep it up man, you are making my case for me.

1. You have "stated" that there can be only one God, but you have not put any logic into it. Things are created by individuals, by teams of individuals, and by natural forces without any outside assistance. There is no reason to believe that the universe could only have been created by a single force, much less a single conscious entity. It is an unknown, and you don't have a shred of evidence or logic to indicate otherwise.

2. As I have already explained here and here, I was raised a Christian. I went to church. I did as I was told. I prayed for strength and guidance. And when my natural curiosity began to reveal the flaws in Christianity and the Bible, I prayed about it quite a bit. Over the course of many years. I got no response. God never revealed himself to me. So you can shove that "God will reveal Himself to you if you seek Him out" crap. It simply isn't true. You may think that God has revealed himself to you, but as far as I know that was a total hallucination brought on by some sort of temporary brain trauma. Unless the same thing happens to me, there is absolutely no reason for me to trust your word on the matter.

3. As far as spirituality in atheists goes, there is a huge spectrum. I can only speak for myself. I often find myself wishing for some sort of insight or revelation about the nature of the universe. But for the most part I am ok with not knowing. I understand that nobody really knows, and that comforts me a little. I still hope that there is something more to life after we die, but there's no way of knowing until after it's over, and I'm not going to waste my life hoping that there's something better afterward. So yeah, occasionally I still find myself in a "prayer-like" moment, hoping that there is some force out there that may help me solve a problem I'm facing. Then I get over it and start working on the task myself. Even if there was some sort of "miracle" that fixed what I was thinking about, that wouldn't mean it was Jesus! Again, there would still be no link between what I experience and the Bible, unless like you I had a hallucination about Jesus revealing the secrets behind the curtain. Heck, even if that happened I'd probably assume I had a brain injury and go see a doctor about it as soon as possible.

By the way, your little jabs like "It's obvious you don't really know anything about the bible, or even comparative religion." and "your viewpoint is not very sophisticated" are called Ad Hominem attacks. They fail to make any point. I know I occasionally will throw in an insult when I'm feeling weak, so I don't take it personally. Just be clear that you are dodging my points without answering them whenever you dismiss them like that. To quote you, "you're just making yourself look foolish", "childish at best", and "not very sophisticated". Sheesh, this coming from a guy who seriously thinks satanists on a website are throwing spells around. Holy crap. Keep it up man, you are making my case for me.

Well, if you have a soul then obviously the brain isn't the center and it doesn't really matter what happens to it.


Well, that's just the point - it sure does seem like the brain matters. If you damage a certain area of the brain, you forget, say, the names of animals. Does your soul remember the names of the animals? If so, then how come you don't? If not, then why do you know the names of animals again when you die?

I'll put this simpler: somewhere, you (your brain, mind, soul, whatever) recognizes Grandma. It seems like the part doing this is your brain, since we can make you fail at it by breaking the brain. But, if you still remember Grandma when your brain is completely dead, then it must be in the soul.

And it's not just remembering things. People have had their personalities changed, and pretty much everything about them changed through brain injury. And you can even turn some of these functions on and off at whim with powerful magnets.

The "damaged receiver" theory doesn't really make sense either. I mean, sure we can imagine the soul being on the other end of a broken telephone line - but the way people behave doesn't fit this model unless the "soul" is forgetting stuff too. We could imagine all sorts of ways we could distinguish between "not communicating perfectly with someone who's still all there" and "communicating OK with someone who is not all there" - and they all point towards the latter.

Now of course God could still manage. He could let your brain do it while you're alive, but then move these functions to your soul when you die. He could simulate things such that things behave just how they would as though your brain was in control, but really your soul is. He could do anything I guess.

But, unless we already believed in God and souls, we'd never come to that kind of conclusion because it's much simpler (and more fitting with all the evidence we have) to believe that this stuff is all done by the brain.

>> ^highdileeho:

Lomu was the most dominant athelete in all of sport..no debate, and rugby has and always will be the most physical game in the history of sport.


Most physical probably. But I'm sick of hearing Rugby fans talk bad about American Football when they have no idea what the extent of brain injuries and back problems they have. If you want a sport that destroys the human body...it's American Football.

This was kinda obviously the very first two rooms of co-op. If you judged Portal 1 by the first two rooms alone, it would have looked like it was designed for people with brain injuries.

For those who forgot, the solution to Rooms #1 and #2 on Portal are:

Room 1: Walk through portal, put box on button
Room 2: Wait for portal to open in room with box, get box, go back, wait for portal to open to button, put box on button.

You can't even open two portals until Room 11 in the original. Here you start with each person having two, and you need to cooperate to execute a fling.

>> ^chtierna:
beg


What is her excuse now when she speaks? I am a republican in principle if not policy--I mean the republican ideals and not how republicans truly act.

I find her continously ignorant. Honestly, it was quit watching her or have a brain injury...

oh and this has been on my mind lately, i got an awesome new job working with severely disabled adults.
i'm not talking about all those notorious ethnic medicaid scammers. my clients are very severely disabled, most of them since birth.
from very low functioning autism to spina bifida and traumatic brain injuries. the services i provide are paid for by a waiver of medicaid, presently there is a 7 year long waiting list to receive medicaid waiver benefits in my state. which is appalling. some of my clients have been without physical or occupational therapy or the funds to help make their homes accessible for 10 years because of low availability of funds.

what is the libertarian solution to making sure these people are cared for and have the highest quality of life possible?
i obviously believe that a society is responsible for taking care of its most vulnerable members.
but milton friedman and ayn rand say i'm wrong.
so what is the solution? sometimes people with disabilities are born into poverty too. and i refuse to accept that their dignity, health and quality of life just aren't as important as your bank statement.

>> ^JiggaJonson:
"Billy Mays' autopsy results show death from apparent heart disease, not bump to head"
from cnnbrk twitter



Is that conclusive? I remember CNN mentioning his heart disease as a "likely cause", but I haven't heard anything about the physical examination being concluded.

Either way, at least he died in his sleep. There are far worse ways to go.


Edit: The coroner just said that there was no visible trauma to either the exterior or interior of his head, so it is unlikely that the cause of death was a brain injury. They hadn't confirmed heart disease as the cause, but it appears to be the most likely cause at this point.

Don't bother checking for BRAIN INJURY.

--At 2:30 PM this afternoon the U.S. Senate began debate of the Department of Defense appropriations for FY 2007.
--Already on the docket was Senator Dick Durbin, who was scheduled to introduce an amendment to the bill providing $19 million in additional funding for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center program, which provides treatment care and research for veterans suffering from traumatic brain injuries. That meant that Durbin’s amendment had already been written, printed and prepared for introduction by Durbin.
--Yet, before Durbin could take the floor to introduce his amendment, George Allen entered the Senate Chamber and asked for permission to speak before Durbin. When permission was granted ahead of Durbin, lo and behold, Allen introduced an amendment to the DOD appropriations bill that, how could this be, was identical in language to Durbin’s bill with the exception of one word – the word “will” was changed in Allen’s amendment and replaced with the word “shall.” Other than that, the amendments were identical – Durbin’s amendment had been printed and set to be formally introduced, Allen’s bill had not been written or been placed on the docket to be introduced.
(Tues, Sept 05, 2006)http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4286