@burdturgler

I understand your story, I have friends and family members who have similar stories. And although none claimed more than temporary relief, temporary sure beats none at all.

But please keep in mind that anecdotes are not evidence, at least as far as science is concerned. Repeatable, properly designed studies that show that chiropractic provides benefits beyond temporary relief of lower-back pain, simply do not exist. That fact means that this is not "bad medicine"...it means it's pseudo-science (at best) or scam (at worst).

No doubt there is a lot of 'bad medicine' out there. But I just want to say that I had a pinched nerve in my neck and a chiropractor treated it. I was in severe pain for almost two months. Numbness shooting down from the base of my neck through my left shoulder and down my left arm. I couldn't sleep. "Numbness" is a terrible word to describe it because although it was numb I could feel jolts of pain and the constant sensation of my arm being "asleep". Imagine how it feels to walk when your foot falls asleep ... then imagine that's a part of your spine. I had no health insurance and besides the money factor was deathly afraid of someone cutting into my body. I went to the chiropractor and long story short my neck cracked in exactly the way and direction that I felt it needed to. I had immediate and profound relief and have been pain free and able to sleep ever since. I feel like I avoided surgery. Like I said, I know there is a lot of bullshit out there and of course it won't cure a lot of what some of the crazies say it will, but there is no doubt in my mind that chiropractic can do good.

buyhisbook, buyhisbook, buyhisbook

Ho yeah, and, er, nice post and all.

No seriously, buy Bad Science, it's like 3 quids on amazon.co.uk, and apart from happily thrashing "alternative" medicine (and regular big-pharma businesses, for that matter) it actually has a chapter on the placebo effect. Its only (minor) flaws are its Brit-centrism, and the fact that it should be actually titled Bad Medicine. I bought a box of these which I distributed to my homoeopathy-loving family. I hope I don't get disowned.

socialist policies on both sides are leading this country straight into bankruptcy.

Clinton balanced the budget. It's not socialist policies, it's war and tax cuts for the top 1% that are bankrupting the United States.


Let's look at how stupid and hypocritical this is:
1. Video implies that Democrats respect the constitution. Oh, really? Is that why Obama voted for the patriot act and gun bans, both violations of the Bill of Rights.

Since then both Obama and the Democratic Party have supported removing the most heinous parts of the Patriot Act. Obama also supported an effort against telecom immunity in the wiretapping scandal. Neither Obama nor the democratic party has attempted to ban all guns outright, just certain types of guns. Don't forget to read the first half of the sentence in the 2nd amendment. The 2nd amendment is about maintaining a militia, and does not say you have to let every mentally ill person buy an M-249

Or how about joint support for easily inflatable fiat currency, in violation of Article 1, Section 10 which mandates gold backing.

Bullshit. It says: "No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility."

The states are not allowed to make their own fiat money, but the federal government is allowed to make fiat money.


How about going to war without congressional declaration in Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo and others? All illegal under the same Article and section and all started by the Democrats.

Once again, Article 1 Section 10 is about restrictions on state governments, not restrictions on the federal government. You fail.



2. Video says abortion is about respecting a woman's right to her own body. I'm not even religious and it seems rather obvious to me that abortion is murder of inconvenience. Didn't want the kid? Why did you have unprotected sex? Furthermore, why is a being one minute apart, from womb to exiting, the difference between having no rights and having rights. That makes no sense. Life has to be defined at conception.

Which would you rather save, a conscious adult or a single-celled fertilized egg? The brain of a fly has 200,000 cells. Until the fetus develops enough of a nervous system to become sentient, its only rights are with respect to preventing suffering that might happen to it in the future after it becomes sentient. I.E., causing birth defects should be illegal but early abortion should be allowable for any reason whatsoever. Birth is NOT the single point where rights are granted; the supreme court has previously upheld a ban on late-term abortions (minus a few exceptional circumstances like saving the life of the mother).



3. Video implies that allowing drugs to be chosen immediately is a bad thing because they haven't been tested. Dude, that's against freedom. If you're dying of cancer, and you want to try an experimental drug, who the fuck cares if it's unsafe? YOU'RE GOING TO DIE. Government has no right to restrict you that opportunity to research and get advice from your doctor about it. And what about all the people who die during the delays that the FDA imposes on new drugs. How can those deaths ever show up in statistics?


You can get non-FDA-approved drugs by participating in the human studies required for FDA approval, which is exactly what you would be doing if you got an experimental treatment.

We need the FDA to keep the snake oil salesmen at bay. Selling bad medicine is not just fraud, it's often manslaughter.


4. Video implies that we should continue to block domestic drilling to prevent potential harm to some wildlife. This isn't a cartoon, drilling doesn't leave an area in shambles. Have fun trying to fly planes with solar panels and meeting our power needs without emission-free nuclear, recyclable nuclear, which you've blocked for thirty years with fear-mongering campaigns about shitty soviet reactors from the 70s. Have fun watching Bush starting insane wars in the middle east and begging Saudi princes to increase production because we have to import 70% of our oil from abroad because of these insane energy policies. Say hello to peak oil and $300 a barrel oil in the coming years.

Pelosi, Clinton, Obama Favor More Nuclear Plants
The anti-nuclear fear mongering is lessening as people realize that it's better for the environment than coal. It won't do shit about dependence on foreign oil unless people buy plug-in electric cars, but it will reduce our dependence on domestic coal.


You can't lower the price by debasing your currency to pay for 60 trillion in unfunded ponzi scheme welfare promises started by FDR, blocking oil, and blocking nuclear.


Sweden's deficit is 0.01% of its GDP, and France's deficit is under 3% of its GDP, while the USA's deficit is 4% of its GDP, despite the fact that both France and Sweden have much broader welfare programs than the USA.

If Bush's tax cuts for millionaires were undone, and the Iraq war (and "homeland security" pork) never happened, the budget would be balanced. (do the math)

At the end of the piece, the narrator quotes Judge Alex Kozinski of the Federal 9th Circuit Appellate Court. I've included the extended version of that quote here. His opinions on the "right of publicity" are best summed up in his White v. Samsung Electronics Dissent. The entire opinion is worth reading, but the critical summary is found in the first section which reads:

"Saddam Hussein wants to keep advertisers from using his picture in unflattering contexts. Clint Eastwood doesn't want tabloids to write about him. Rudolf Valentino's heirs want to control his film biography. The Girl Scouts don't want their image soiled by association with certain activities. George Lucas wants to keep Strategic Defense Initiative fans from calling it "Star Wars." Pepsico doesn't want singers to use the word "Pepsi" in their songs. Guy Lombardo wants an exclusive property right to ads that show big bands playing on New Year's Eve. Uri Geller thinks he should be paid for ads showing psychics bending metal through telekinesis. Paul Prudhomme, that household name, thinks the same about ads featuring corpulent bearded chefs. And scads of copyright holders see purple when their creations are made fun of.

Something very dangerous is going on here. Private property, including intellectual property, is essential to our way of life. It provides an incentive for investment and innovation; it stimulates the flourishing of our culture; it protects the moral entitlements of people to the fruits of their labors. But reducing too much to private property can be bad medicine. Private land, for instance, is far more useful if separated from other private land by public streets, roads and highways. Public parks, utility rights-of-way and sewers reduce the amount of land in private hands, but vastly enhance the value of the property that remains.

So too it is with intellectual property. Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it. Creativity is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new: Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it's supposed to nurture.

The panel's opinion is a classic case of overprotection. Concerned about what it sees as a wrong done to Vanna White, the panel majority erects a property right of remarkable and dangerous breadth: Under the majority's opinion, it's now a tort for advertisers to remind the public of a celebrity. Not to use a celebrity's name, voice, signature or likeness; not to imply the celebrity endorses a product; but simply to evoke the celebrity's image in the public's mind. This Orwellian notion withdraws far more from the public domain than prudence and common sense allow. It conflicts with the Copyright Act and the Copyright Clause. It raises serious First Amendment problems. It's bad law, and it deserves a long, hard second look."

-- Judge Alex Kozinski

Ok, granted Gluonium's comment should not have been made about the true-believer syndrome. However, the fact still remains that personal conflicts aside, bringing up your experience as a parent has nothing to do whatsoever with the scientific or medicinal value of homeopathic remedies. Yes, it might give us some insight as to why parents would reach out to such a method of treatment that they ordinarily wouldn't, but it tells us nothing about the validity of the treatment itself.

If you think a sifter might not understand why you would try homeopathy, that's fine. But the discussion was, and should be, focused on whether or not homeopathy is a bunk treatment. A parent has nothing to do with having a handle on the science, research, and medicinal benefit behind the methods of care being administered, which is why the conversation should never have gone in the direction of parenting. The argument swings both ways, and in this case, we were discussing homeopathy as bad medicine. Feel free to debate the point scientifically, but otherwise, parental anecdotes are not adding to that particular conversation.

Hopefully we can all keep it civil from now on.