For about 10 years now i've had severe stomach problems, to the point of sometimes being all but housebound. At some point in my attempts to try and find some resolution, i came across the idea of a gut flora transplant.

I never did it because you've got to find someone healthy with a great diet and i suppose bowel regularity, which is difficult in itself because those people are rare and the subject is embarrassing.

But if you're crippled with stomach aches, woken up 7 times a night going to the toilet (and then not even doing anything), then putting someone else's shit into your own bum is nothing. As Terry Pratchett once said about Alzheimer's - it's a desperate situation, and he'd eat the rotting arsehole out of a dead mole if it meant a fighting chance.

For anyone interested, i stopped eating gluten for a while and had minor improvement. When i ate gluten, i'd get feverish and flu-like, joint pain, headaches, sweats and excruciating stomach pain. I figured it was coeliac disease and hoped i would fully recover before long. I didn't, but 2 weeks ago i also cut potato (nightshade vegetable) from my diet and i have been stomach ache free since (that is, 75%+ of the time my stomach feels painless). Apparently lectins are problematic.

If anyone has ever had severe pain for a very long time, they'll know the utter relief and joy of being pain free. It's hard to describe, but for a few days to a week, it's a euphoric feeling.

I don't agree that this statement is relevant to Apple.

Jobs is arguing that when you have a monopoly, your product people take a back seat to your sales/marketing guys. Fair enough, but that assumes Apple have a monopoly.
Far from it, they have:
- 13% of the smartphone market
- 24% of the tablet market (and that market is in decline)
- and a whopping 4% of the desktop market

How on any planet is that even close to a monopoly?

Don't get me wrong, I think Apple are in a bit of a creative slump at the moment. They desperately need new design blood.

You'll float, too!

Do I hate him for fleecing the ignorantly desperate? Yes, I actually do. Damn him to the hell in his imagination.

Poor idiot liberals so desperate laughing at a childs name and his having the honor of mowing the Whitehouse lawn.
Mueller looks constipated.....
Pathetic attempt to slander the bestest and most honest president ever.

"That's what mature people would do.."

For some reason, in my head all i can see is a posh woman sat in one of Titanic's lifeboats, which is tipping side to side as desperate, freezing people try to climb in. "If they tip the lifeboat over we'll all die, why can't they be more mature about it?"

Trump is shit for the US and for the world, but it's a bit of an own goal to blame people who Hillary Clinton & her political supporters couldn't convince that either a) the US would be significantly better off with her over Trump for it to matter or b) they individually would benefit from what she had to offer. They don't owe you votes, you have to win their support by making them believe they'll be better off.

This is more of the same shit that we've been shoveled for years - neoliberalism is the ONLY way. Compromise, grow up, be mature, *agree with us or you're to blame for what happens*. What's the end game of a political system where the blame for the result goes to anyone who didn't vote for the two largest parties?

Look, the centre can't energise people because they don't have anything hopeful or interesting to offer. If you want a message that carries well, if you want the energy and positivity to overcome trump then it HAS to come from the left. Anti-fascist protests have attracted so many thousands of people from a position of love & togetherness, largely organised by socialist women. See Kristian Hernandez for example.

You can't get people out and marching and waving signs saying "We Want More Austerity" or "We Want Tough Talk On Minimum Wage But No Real Action" - you need a message and a hope that will inspire kids from universities to come out in droves and have those difficult conversations with friends, strangers, and their families. Have them out in the streets with music & activity spreading a positive message and showing people that there IS strength and love in a community that comes together. You need something that will inspire an entire population of forgotten black communities. YOU FIGHT HATE WITH LOVE, NOT THE COMPROMISE OF THE CENTRE. You know what the compromise of the centre gets you? It gets you a man who thinks adding "on many sides, on many sides" is how you present a balanced statement, and an audience who agrees.

The chattering classes like Maher have done very well for a very long time out of neoliberalism. He's been on the TV for years talking about the results of that ideology, earning a good livelihood off it. He has a very nice suit, looks healthy and happy, probably a nice house, looking forward to pension and good healthcare. He's calling people who have sickness and exhaustion, living in rented apartments in rough areas, looking forward to the sweet release of death, immature.

So pardon me if i say fuck off Maher; stop asking people with nothing to keep compromising your way. If you want their support, compromise their way. And if you want their energy and fire, you're going to have to share control of the reins because talk is cheap. Give them a Bernie.

Sorry for the rant.

Interesting, but geography doesn't protect from ballistic and or guided missiles, the most likely weapons of choice.

In the event of a nuclear attack, is being a vault dweller really what you want? It's something to consider....I don't want to be a Morlok.

I would feel far safer in Iceland. Who's going to nuke anything anywhere near Iceland? Europe, on the other hand, has plenty of targets...and would probably have plenty of desperate dying people to deal with. They're as scary to me as the bombs if not more.

So

I don't know how it is in the states, but in this country if you want to go through gender reassignment you will get it for free on the NHS. Its a long road, it isn't easy, they make it hard etc, but like anything else that poses a risk to somebodies health it is paid for by the state. I feel like a lot of people consider reassignment a sort of frivolous sex thing but being unable to escape the body in which you are born is, you know, desperately depressing. I don't think I am exaggerating when I say that surgery and hormone treatment are potentially lifesaving, and certainly greatly improve the quality of life in most cases.

Couple of things I don't understand - Is this the military saying they will no longer pay for treatments associated with gender reassignment, or is this a blanket ban on transgender men and women from serving in the military? One wonders why the military can't spend even a fraction of the amount is spends on toys on its servicemen/women...

Anyhoo. It's a distraction. Not trying to suggest that it is a minor thing for those affected, but I really think this is to divert the left and win back support from the right. It sucks dreadfully that a minority group is again used as target for political maneuvering and it is worthy of resistance but I can't help but feel we are playing into their hand by doing so.

@bobknight33 I pity you.

@bobknight33 it seems you are becoming increasingly unhinged in your defence of your guy in here. To people reading, it might look a bit like desperation, so if you're gonna spin this then you need to turn the intensity down a few notches.

I didn't catch all of it as there's a lot of UK politics going on, but from what i saw, he seemed very precise and forthcoming with detail. I cannot imagine for one second that this guy has any doubt in his mind what lying under oath would mean for him. He doesn't have a history of lying that i could find, and Trump himself praised him highly on selection. Combination of these things make me very skeptical that he's lying.

I can't rule it out, but there's an easy way to test this, surely? You have Trump go through the same thing, same consequences, and let his truth come out. It would clear this whole mess up, simple. In the past bob has said of fleeing black suspects "nothing to hide, nothing to fear", so i suppose he'd be supportive of this?

You know, I went on a roller coaster of emotions watching this.

First, I felt mildly amused by the lady who claims to be able to see angels.

Then I felt pity for everyone up there that seems to believe her.

After that I felt a bit of anger, because I remembered that this guy Bakker is an ex-con who swindled his congregation and possibly raped one of his secretaries and yet somehow here he is on TV again preying on people desperate to find meaning and hope in their lives.

Then I felt disgust as I remembered the news from the other day about the teen denied birth control from her Walgreens pharmacist because he claimed a religious objection to filling the prescription and that in many places in the U.S. it is perfectly legal for pharmacists to do so.

The only thing that eased my mind after this is that young people in the U.S. are non-religious in record numbers and that these numbers have steadily increased and will likely continue to increase going into the future. The quicker organized religion dies out, the better off we'll all be.

But.. it didn't help? It did help? This video was confusing as hell.

The roll-on seemed to help her but that sounded like the equivalent of a menthol rub.

The charlotte's web tincture looked like it helped, but it has 0.03% THC. She smoked the flowers which only helped with headaches/migraines, but that has a higher concentration of THC wouldn't it? The entire video makes it seem like "hey great this is what we need" but at the end she sneaks in that "this is not the solution" and follows it up with a bright happy smile. Cmon now.

So, regarding your reply:

Sorry, but STOP. People die because of this stupid fucking philosophy. People also make millions off desperate folks like this lady in the video because of that mindset. 120$ for a bottle of sugary mint chocolate chip flavored water and 0.03% THC? Isn't that just diluted to no effectiveness like homeopathic tinctures? We can't use the homeopathic approach for medicine where, "oh if it doesn't work and there are no side effects than all is fine."

No, it is dangerous to think that way because many people focus ONLY on non-medical treatments. They either continue suffering or die like my dad.

@newtboy
i like the 'failing liver" analogy.
appropriate and easily understood.

and i can understand where milkmandan is coming from,but my perspective is more aligned with yours newt.

what consistently baffles me,is how so many people are willing to simply accept this short term strategy from our politicians.

there is no surprise when corporations push for this,they are just focusing on their own interests and bottom line,which is short term profit.

or the politicians who bow to their neoliberal masters to receive those tasty campaign contributions.

or even the banks,who again focus on their short term gains.

these players are all behaving as they always have:for their own self interest.so there should be no shock or surprise when they act exactly as they have always acted.

but when i see everyday,normal people defend the behavior and actions of oliticians,financial institutions and multi-national corporations.it baffles me as to why they would choose to do such a thing.

we can understand why those players seek to retain a system which benefits them,their shareholders and their bottom line,but that system no longer serves the interests of the people,community and society as a whole.

so why make arguments defending it?

it is,quite frankly,killing us slowly as a species.

look at germany.
that country has slowly been recruiting,educating and now poised to corner the market in:new energy,renewable energy and are leading the world in breakthrough technologies in all energy fields.

germany has long played the long game.
they now dominate the entire EU in finance,and are now focusing on dominating the globe with new energy technology.

and what are we doing here in america?
pushing through more and more neoliberal policies that immiserate the working poor,both here and abroad.desperately continuing our destruction of entire ecosystems to exploit our natural resources for:oil and gas.military conflicts,which only make this country less safe,all to exploit other nations and extract THEIR oil and gas,and the cost in human lives is absolutely indefensible.

all of it.
every single bit of it for short term gains for an extremely small minority.

and here we are,with trump opening the flood gates to further exploit and destroy our natural resources with no thought or plan for the future.no investment in our communities,nor our society as a whole.

and for those who wish to make an argument that hillary would be better.i will only concede that on a domestic level this may have been true,but hillary is a neoliberal corporatist,and she would have pushed for even MORE military intervention in the middle east.MORE sanctions against countries unwilling to play ball,in order to politically squeeze them out,and even MORE of this countries policy of "regime change" to exploit and extract from those countries their precious resources.

i strongly suspect Iran would have been next on her agenda.

so when are some of these people going to step up,and realize that both trump AND clinton are (or would have been) disasterous for us as a community,a nation and as a species?

because they both only offer short term solutions to long term problems.and those short term solutions only benefit a minority of the population.

we could turn this ship around TODAY,right now,if we so choose.
we need more politicians like elizabeth warren and tulsi gabbard.we need more integrity in our media and journalists willing to do their job and criticize power,not bow to it just for access.we need the people to become engaged and confront their representatives,and make them uncomfortable,not treat them as celebrities.

and we need to reject the system where rich people choose who we get to vote for,and begin to dismantle this two party duopoly.

because trump vs hillary?
this election cycle has just revealed that both these candidates are not the disease,but rather the symptom of a very broken,and dysfunctional political system.

we need to begin to invest in the future.
and reject the status quo as no longer being viable for the continued existence of the human species.

and with the newly energized american public,who are growing in numbers daily,and is a direct response to the unmitigated disaster that is trump.there may be hope for us yet.

because if we stay on this trajectory,we are fucking doomed.

how did this thread steer into climate change waters?
heh...god i love this site,and i love all you fuckers as well!

i don't really understand the rehashing of the election,trump is president.it is a done deal.

which is probably why i am struggling with the hillary diehards.politics is not a binary equation,so stop acting like it IS,and for the love of god stop with the condescension directed at people who did not vote YOUR way.ya'all are acting like we are your wayward dog who just took a giant dump on your carpet.

just LOOK at what you have done! LOOK at it! bad dog..baaaad dog.

@Stormsinger and @MilkmanDan were kind enough to share who they voted for,but they should not be put in a position to defend their vote.their vote,their choice and their right.

you may disagree,and that is fine,but to place all the blame on them,and their "like-minded compatriots" is arrogant,presumptuous and condescending.the reason hillary lost is not simply due to a few small holdouts.there are a myriad of reasons,and in my opinion,hillary should take most of the blame.

and what is this purity test @bareboards2 ?
do you mean a person standing by their principles?
remaining steadfast in their moral values?
showing us all that they would rather lose,than give up one ounce of integrity?

are you seriously criticizing people for holding to their own standards of morality and decency?

politics is not binary,there a many mitigating factors and political affilliation is only one aspect.

i have seen friends who voted for trump,and were extremely vocal about their support in the run up to election day,only to become eerily silent the further we got into trumps presidency.many of these people had voted for obama..TWICE..they wanted change.were desperate for change,and now they are finding out,that change may not be what they were expecting.

because the trump presidency is going to one helluva horror show,but there are also positives to consider.it is not a total loss.

i have the seen the very same people who have ridiculed and berated fundamentalist christians for being ideologically rigid,and philosophically immovable.turn around and express the exact same rigidity,and binary thought processes when it comes to their girl hillary clinton.

i was talking the other day with a man i highly respect and admire,who flippantly and casually called me a racist.
my crime?
i had the audacity to criticize obama.
which he doubled down and accused me of being sexist for not supporting hillary,and being critical of her as well.

how is this NOT ideological rigidity?
that to critically examine two prominent public figures automatically equates to:racism and sexism.

this is the metric that i see so many hillary supporters use when dealing with someone that they may disagree.this is a cheap,ill thought and ultimately WEAK counter to valid criticisms.

at what point do hillary supporters stop labeling other people the most vile of terms,simply because they did not step into line with THEIR thinking,and begin to examine the very REAL problems that both the hillary campaign,and the DNC,created for themselves?

or is everybody simply a racist and sexist?
that's it..no discussion.

this is akin to the fundamentalist christian labeling anybody who disagrees with their religion,or has brought up solid criticisms,as being an agent of satan.

" i do not like what you are saying about hillary,so therefore you must be a sexist".

the easiest,and most human,thing we do when faced with information and/or criticism that is in direct opposition to our long held beliefs.is to demonize the person making those claims,and therefore silence any further disruption to our own subjective belief system.

so when i talk about "insulated bubbles",and "echo chambers".that right there is what i am referring to,and it is dangerous.

i refuse to judge anybody on how they voted.they had their reasons,and i may even disagree with those reasons,but they have a right to their vote and who am i to judge them?

rehashing the election,or assigning blame based on ideological differences,accomplishes nothing.the REAL work starts now.trump is in office,and he is gearing up to be an unmitigated disaster.

so get involved.head to your next town hall meeting and speak your piece.start to connect with the political movements in your area and start to put pressure on your local representative.

i think we can all agree that trump is awful on so many levels,but to witness the american people become so politically engaged,so politically active,more active than they have been in decades.it really is inspiring,and all this is due to trump.

if hillary had won,would we see the same kind of newly energized,and politically active public?

i don't think so.

so let us stop with the rehashing.
stop with the blaming.
and get off our asses,step outside our own little,insulated echo chamber and start to engage.

don't know how to step outside your own bubble?
there is an app for that:
https://videosift.com/video/it-is-time-to-pop-your-social-media-echo-chamber-bubble

*oh,and even though i may have alluded to who i voted for.let me state clearly that i voted for hillary.i stick by my dislike of the "lesser of two evils" but come on...trump in the white house?

yeeesh....

i have to agree that when the election was nearing the end,and it was time to vote.the choice was pretty clear.

i never liked the "lesser of two evils" argument,but when faced with a choice of:

soft fascist,narcissistic used car salesman,who spoke in bombastic and racially charged rhetoric,but really said nothing.

or...

a war-mongering corporatist,who never saw a war she didn't want to send your kids to go die in,or a corporation she didn't want to extract donations from for political favors and who basically said nothing as well.except for 'well,at least i am not that THAT guy"--->points to trump.

i am still gonna say...go with the corporatist.

because in the end,at least on domestic policy,hillary would have been adequate.oh she would have signed the TPP,and fucked millions of american workers,and she would have most likely expanded the drone campaign,and continued with the american empires policy of "regime change",but she had/has the knowledge and capabilities to actual lead a government.

hillary knows how to politic,and understands how shit gets done in washinton,and things would have remained relatively unchanged here in america.maybe..maybe.... some incremental change due to the political pressure the sanders campaign brought.

so i get it,and maher is not exactly wrong per se",but i think he is missing the bigger picture that so many in the beltway have missed,and CONTINUE to miss,because they reside in their own,tiny and insulated bubble.

the american people were desperate for change,and they have been for decades.after obama's campaign of 2008,and his "hope and change" platform,which ignited the american people,only to see,not "hope and change" but rather "more of the same".

and what was hillary offering?
a new message or vision? a new path for america that would include everybody to blaze a new path of invention,creativity and imagination to create an america everyone could be proud of? and feel a part of?

nope..she was offering "more of the same".

well,americans had already had their fill of "more of the same".they had lost faith in a system that appeared to no longer represent them.so they chose the nuclear option for change.terrifying and horrifying change.

so go ahead and blame the "bernie bros".feel free to slap responsibility on those "uneducated and redneck hillbillies".cry and whine and point the finger at those liberals who refused to abandon their principles,and by all means bask in the glory of your own self-righteous moralizing,and condescendingly condemn anyone who voted for trump,or who refused to vote at all.

you can sit in a small room with everybody else who voted for hillary,and self-righteously smell each others farts and call it a rose,because you are obviously a better quality human being than the rest of us.

and by all means,refuse to examine the fact that hillary ran a shit campaign,and had no real message,vision or path to the future.ignore the corruption and blatant,and politically motivated shenanigans of the DNC.god forbid you experienced a moment of honesty.

is trump going to be a disaster of presidency?
well,it sure is shaping up to look that way isn't it?
but we have survived horrible presidents before,and we shall survive trump.

and on a positive note:
trump has brought many people out of their apathetic slumber,and they are scrutinizing everything he does with a fine toothed comb.the amount people who are becoming politically engaged is quite impressive.

there is nothing in our representative democracy quite as powerful as people gathering together to put pressure on our elected representatives.

town hall meetings,that used to be wastelands,are now being packed to over-flowing.with citizens calling out their representatives..to their FACE..on how unhappy they are.

so go ahead and ridicule those who voted for trump,but it is due to trump that so many have gotten off their couches and are taking it to their congressmen and senators.

just a non-controversial,and easily predicted side effect,when you put someone like trump in power.

man,the politics in my country is getting really fucking interesting!i cannot WAIT to see what happens in the next episode!

what do you guys think?
/end rant

*promote

Its like so many of these... the people who desperately need to listen to this won't turn off fox long enough to be bothered.

@bcglorf

i don't think using @drradon 's example of anarchy a good use as a rebuttal.

now may be larken rose's vision is an extreme example,taken from the von mises institute,and where they dreamily offer a counter to police with a "non-aggression principle".while cute and adorable,humans tend to be far more vicious and violent in nature,especially when desperate.

but again,i think our respective approaches to authority will not find common ground here.

i do not seek a leader,but i am ok with a representative,though i do not seem to have any in my government at the moment.

i find it curious,amazing and not a little disturbing just how easily people will quietly,and tacitly accept a police that has become more and more draconian,violent and aggressive while SIMULTANEOUSLY decreasing the citizens rights to protect themselves,defend themselves and resist unlawful police practices.

because they simply change the law to make what WAS illegal...legal.with a stroke of a pen.

and i simply cannot respect when an american says,without any sense of justice or history,to just sit down,shut up and do what you are told.

while claiming they are a patriot,waving their american flag made in china.

the history of law enforcement in this country reveals that their main job,their main focus and duty is NOT to the poor,the dispossessed or the marginalized.

the police's job is to protect those who hold assets,who have money and wield political power.

and before you say anything,i am quite aware that there are some,and they are the majority,who do their job with honor and distinction.my argument is not about singular police officers but rather the systematic problems inherent in the system.

lets take my city for example.
i am blessed enough to live adjacent to a very wealthy and influential housing development.

average police response time?=7 minutes.

right down the street,not 10 miles down the road,is a depressed area of town.industry and manufacturing abandoned that area 20 years ago.it is stricken with prostitution,heroin addicts and abject poverty.

average police response time?=22 minutes

yet the main police station is in THAT area.

or should i bring up the history of american labor movement?
where the coal miners in west virginia decided to strike,and because the owners of the mines were politically connected.the governor sent in the state police to...and this should send chills down your spine...shoot any miners unwilling to go back to work.

and they did.
they murdered any coal miner still willing to stand up against the owners of the mine,and this included women and children.

now lets examine that for a minute.
workers for a coal mine decided to strike for better working conditions (which were horrible) and actually have a day off,besides sunday (because:god).

the owner of the mine,who was losing immense of amount of money due to zero production of coal,called the governor to have the state police,a civil institution,sent in to put those people down.to force them to either get back to work or face violence.

*now the owner brought in his own mercenary group to assist in the process of intimidation,strong arm tactics and violence.

i will add one more story that is personal,and comes from my own family,and may possibly explain my attitude towards police in general.

my father was born in 1930,in alton illinois.
now that small town had been hit particularly hard during the depression.my father spoke of not having indoor plumbing until he went into the navy,and how the floors in his childhood home were simple boards over dirt.

he grew up extremely poor,and my grandfather struggled to find steady work,and i gather from what my father told me.my grandpa made bootleg beer out of the bathtub.so he and his 6 brothers and 1 sister had to bathe in the mississippi river while grandpa tried to make money by selling illegal hooch.

my father also regaled me with stories of the chores he had as the youngest of 8 kids.it was his job every morning to head to the train tracks and pick the coal that dropped from the coal carts.(which he admitted to being lazy and stole directly from the very full coal cart itself while his brother kept an eye out for the station master).

my point is that my father grew up in desperate and poor times.

but one story always stood out,and i think it is because it has a wild west feel to it that always transfixed me,and i made him tell me the story over and over as a child.

when times are tough,people will do whatever they have to in order to survive,so my grandfather making illegal hooch was not the only illegalities being played out in that small town.neighbor upon neighbor did what they had to,and most were considered criminals in the eyes of the state.

so i guess one of my grandpa's friends was on the run from the law,and sought refuge at my grandpa's home.which he allowed,because neighbors take care of neighbors,at least they used to.

well,in a small town everybody knows everybody,and eventually three police officers showed up at my grandpa's house,and demanded that he turn over (i forgot the guys name).

and i remember the pride on my fathers face whenever he retold this story....

my grandfather stood tall on the top of his stairs facing his front door,holding his gun he was given during WW1 and told the police officers (which he knew.small town remember?),that if they took one step into his home..he would blow their heads off.

now this is a story retold from a childs perspective many years later.i am sure my fathers memory was a tad....biased..but i would bet the meaty parts were accurate.

now my question is this:
how would that exact same scenario play out in todays climate?

well,we would see on the 6 o'clock news how a family was tragically shot to death for harboring a criminal and that the police had done EVERYTHING in their power to avoid this kind of violence.

i know this is long,and i hope i didn't lose you along the way,but i think we should not dismiss the very real slow decent into a society that silently obeys,quietly accepts more and more authoritarian powers all in the name of "safety",and that any form of resistance is to be viewed as "criminal" and "troublesome".

so while i agree that "when should we shoot a cop" should be in the realm of:let us try to never do that.

i also cannot agree to placing cops on a hero platform as if their job is somehow sacrosanct and beyond reproach.they are human beings,of limited intellect,whose main job it is to protect those who own property,have wealth and wield political power.

and with the current disparity and blatant inequality their job has been more and more focused on keeping those 30% undesirables down.

the poor,the destitute,the marginalized,the addict and the junkie and the petty criminals.

those are a threat to the "better" citizens.they are a blight on a community that should be cleansed from the tender eyes of those who are deemed more "worthy".

rich folk may wring their hands,and lament the plight of the poor and wretched,but for GOD's sakes! they don't want to actually SEE them!

so a police officer can do all the mental gymnastics they want in order to justify their place in society,but at the end of the day,they serve the elites.

and they always have.