alg

Couldn't be put better. This election will have social and political ramifications for 10-20 years, long after the Bush clan has retired. Talk about a good time for the religious right to get po'ed and go vote!

Actually, we know exactly what Clinton would have done if America was attacked on his watch. If I am not mistaken, embassy's are considered an extension of a country's territory. We had multiple attacks on our territories in Africa during his watch. This on top of the original WTC bombing. People seem to forget this point. We should have been kicking a$$ and taking names even then. But no, Bubba's too busy getting a hummer and pardoning people like Mark Rich, one of the biggest thieves in US history. Sorry, but Bill was about being popular, not making the tough choices needed to become a true leader. Yet the Dem's cling to him like a pup to it's mother? They have no idea how much Rep's see Clinton as one of the key architects of the destruction of America's moral fabric...

Sometimes the role of a believer is to bring sanity to others. For example, he writes: I know first hand as a Republican just moved from conservative Texas back to left-wing Boulder, CO the difficulty of taking comfort in either position. In Texas I think some of my friends thought I was a closet Democrat. In Boulder I am probably regarded by some as a fascist. Honesty from within should be highly regarded. There are many of us who take no pride in siding with or explaining the idiocy or even the evil of fellow believers. He continues: To be left or right does not equate to being thoughtless or uncritical. Too many partisans are spending too much time doing damage control for the mistakes of the guy they support. How much more refreshing (and liberating) is it to be able to say to your comrades: Did not the Dem's once upon a time believe that they were the crusaders against evil and injustice? Has that position been abdicated to the hated right? Does not the author lament such a thing? Would he not embarrass Kerry in total if he were "also capable of saying this, but not without cheapening it or qualifying it." ? When we get to the point our blathering, foaming at the mouth fanaticism stands in the way of doing, thinking or standing up for what is right, then we essentially believe in nothing of consequence.

Where have all the Don Beebe's and Steve Tasker's gone? Long time.....

No, just making fun of the blind and mentally challenged.

"A new email titled 'The separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters' from alg suggests that too many bong hits since the Summer of Love (U.S.A, 1967) have left the vast majority of Kerry supporters engaged in a pretty cool fantasy that John Kerry really was a war hero, is fit to be CIC, is a regular guy who won't raise taxes on the middle class and further burden small businesses costing hundreds of thousands of jobs, won't ask France for permission to protect America, and above all, is someone who has a plan. "When questioned about this seeming disconnect, many of the more lucid subjects latter confessed that 'like, dude, Bushy lost the 2000 election, and...and... Bushies want to reinstate the draft!' Further follow-up also found that most Kerry supporters fell into 2 categories: 1) those who would rather die then vote for a conservative Christian Republican, and 2) those who would rather kill someone else then vote for a conservative Christian Republican. The near universal rallying cry of the Kerry supporters - 'anybody but Bush' (or ABB for short) - left the writer pondering the meaning of the old saying 'damned by faint praise...' "And, while "The Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters" may be perversely satisfying to Democrats in its confirmation of blue-state prejudices, it carries a pretty disturbing question for all rational Americans: How can arguments based on fact prevail in a nation where so many people toke so much Jamaican?

Let me get this straight. Since Airbus warned AA that it was not a good idea to use the rudder in this way, and in this given situation (which, I take it, is normal practice for a pilot trying to keep control of an airplane) they feel absolved of responsibility? Profit motive at its grimmist. Pardon me for never wanting to be on an Airbus plane again. It is not possible to give a warning to an airline, no matter how many times, that in anyway justifies the knuckleheads who made it to not fixing it outright. Airbus: 'Gee, don't do that or your tail will fall off. Pilot: 'Oh, you mean use normal flight practices?' Bleed Airbus for all they are worth, and then buy Boeing - the finest commercial aircrafts in the world.

Here here. It is amazing to hear all this talk of the loss of our freedoms and the great right-wing conspiracy. Im still waiting to meet one of its victims (or perps.) Yet where I live (Boulder, CO) there is no shortage of bongs in use during discussions of how to take down GW. ":PFFFFFFIITTTcoughcough: Give peace a chance dude...:PFFFFFFIITTTcoughcough:" Nothing gainst pot visa vie alchohol, per say, but its use does in fact create a false sence of 'harmony' for those who fail to enter into living in the real world where one must make tough decisions. And JinM, I too have long believed that our current cultural war is really a battle between religion and secular humanism. That it is somewhat a stereo type does not negate the larger truth.

AD, I think cow is saying that if you haven't drank the Kerry-Coolaid you must be against them, and, therefore, are numbered amongst the enemy. It is good to know that so many are capable of articulating a legitimate political position....

This kinda sums up what all the fuss is about, no?

What he said.

Did someone delete my post here? If so I would like to know why. I thought it was within the bounds of good tast, but would like to know the particulars so I may avoid them in the future. Of course, at this juncture I think it was uncalled for.

Dear God I hope you are not right. What's next? A civil war?

As a comedian, you are correct, he has no other obligation then to be funny. You fail to see, however, that he ceases to be a comedian when he uses his show to promote a particular political agenda. Making fun of the president is one thing, "sniffing John Kerry's throne" is entirely another. He cannot have a succession of Clinton's and Kerry's on his show, offer them his bully pulpit, and pretend he is a comedian. At that precise moment he became a partican promoting his own political agenda. He also became fair game in our little cultural war as just another 'hollywood' type who thinks he has a right to lecture the rest of us, and to use his celebrity in a way that was not intended or appreciated. What does that mean? That we may laugh at or with him is in no way to be construed as empowering him outside his small dominion.

Nope, didn't say that, and your continuing sarcasm is very counter productive. If you must use it at least be funny. Try irony... Simply said people have failed to see the many shortcoming of the healthcare industry of which there is an abunance - and often with terrible consequences. Scientific understanding is the basis for most of my comments, though you will not read them in your local doctors office, or see them on the phoney drug ads. I acknowledge the contributions, I simply do not worship at the alter of health care. Nor am I an elitist on the subject. I am just one really pissed off customer who found out how much I was being lied to. Someone who started being proactive and educated on the subject. This is my soapbox to warn others of what I found out. No way no how did I want to take precious time away from the rest of my life worring about whether someone else was doing their friggin job. After your last 2 posts I doubt that we actually disagree as much as you profess. You are personally aware of the shortcomings of the "prescription age" and have 1st hand experience w/ a particular disorder. There is much I could say on the particulars (in an anecdotal sort of way of course) but that would be too personal. Suffice to say that you agree with exactly 1/2 of my rant based on your experience with doctors. It is the shortcomings of the pharms where we seem to have our differences. I understand that, with your success in treating a disorder, that you are quite natually protective of your benefactors. Imagine what it would mean, however, if in 50 years science could tell you how it originated, why you experienced it, and what measures that would prevent it. Granted, genetics play a big part, and some things are simply outside our control, but my rant is one, ultimately, of optimism. That we are not just a bag of decease waiting to happen, and that all this stevestojan is out of our control. Oh, and that it is not always enough to find a drug to manage a condition, but to understand its source, prevention and complete elimination. Sure Im no expert on brian chemistry and all, but I know with a certainty that it constantly changes its spots based upon the multitudinal conditions of living. I will never be satisfied with the diagnosis "well, you have this decease." I do know in my experience that we are far from being victims of our condition. And that is really the bottom line here - for people to stop seeing conventional medicine as the final word on anything.

Actually you have it backwords. The ones usually spouting off are the ones overly confident in their myopic views. A case of not seeing the forest thru the trees. I spoke to a doctor last year who was equally agitated with me, and insisted my wife re-start the meds I had encouraged her to discontinue. This after telling me how well she was doing. He was indignint that a laymen would question his great learning. Much as yourself. He went on to say that there were other issues that required the drugs. Ones that were serious but naturally occuring in our age braket, ones that had no cure. He could not fathom that I challenged him on all counts. What good is learning when you see life thru the darkness of disease? Two weeks later my wife received a letter stating that she in fact did not have any other condition, and the one she did have was markedly improved. You see, I am not writing this for my benefit, but for people such as yourself that hold such arrogance around the subject that they cannot see outside their small range of understanding. For example the folowing "...written by someone who clearly does not understand the issue. Show me a case where an SSRI was "the source of suicidal behavior", and I'll show you a case where the underlying condition for which the drug was prescribed was a source of suicidal behavior" that involved either improper prescribing or improper monitoring by the prescribing physician." is so much stevestojan that I do not know where to begin. You bandy about a statement that sounds more significant then it is, but with no clue as to underlying causes of health. You are so focused on the small bead of truth that you "own" that you have paralized your capacity to actually ask the right questions. So before insulting someone else, which I have maticulously avoided until now, you may ask yourself on what planet does the issue of "improper prescribing or improper monitoring" actually come before having a clue what is wrong with someone? What went wrong? I don't want your " proper prescribing or monitoring". I want to stop eating or breathing or doing or feeling whatever the hell it is that's causing the f#@king problem in the first place. That is a concept that seems to allude all too many. So kick back and lecture us about the wonders of your drugs that only seem to go wrong when other "learned" medical practitioners give it to the wrong people, or when they forget to set their egg timers for quality and performance. You can't because the whole field of which you speak, above all others, is just now moving beyond the practice of leaching... alg

Again, given the format I am using broad strokes. Perhaps you are right, but I would suggest that you are wrong in more cases then not. And it is not so important that I am 100% right in this discusion. It is important for me, I feel, to share my research and experience as a wake up call to those who have not looked outside the conventional AMA/pharm box. Stuff/knowledge is changing dramatically, and everyone needs to begin the process of becoming proactive in their own health care issues. With what I know now, I will never again turn my health over to someone else - regardless of fancy titles. Find out about what ails you. Compare the research from many sources. Hell, try reading the research. You will be amazed at what you find. Just don't believe everything you hear. Once you discover some of the 'truisms' that have not made it into the public awareness, you will feel liberating and unafraid.

Agreed. Many a waco selling second rate stuff. That does not mean, however, that the underlying principles are incorrect. Natural remidies also generally have this wonderful side benefit of not undermining our health 10-30 years down the road.

Don't blame the doctors for this one. Yes, I am painfully aware of the fact that many "specialists" are not aware of current research - that is my personal experience. But they prescribe these drugs for the same reason they did for the intended uses. Marketing. Do you know how many lobster dinners and Carribean junkets the drug companies had to poney up to get them to use their stuff in the 1st place? Now just imagine how profitable it will be if they can come up with even more 'uses' for those drugs without the upfront R&D. A whole new lobster and cruise tour...

First of all let me say that yes, I am painting with a wide brush - given the forum. Let me also say that I do not discount the importance and efficacy of all drugs. Nor do I doubt that many in the industry beleive that they are making important contributions. As to some of your specifics: 1."What about chemotherapy? Worthless?" I watched 2 people die on chemo and believe that all it did was make death faster and more certain. So yes, I believe chemo is one of the great lies of the health industry. I would not take chemo under any circumstance, and have actually sat at a table of doctors (including 1-2 oncologists ) who said the same dang thing. What does that tell you? That your wife survived BC, thank God, does not tell the whole story. I believe we able capable of healing in spit of chemo. I have friends who have gone thru this who believe that everyone reacts differently and some things work for some but not others. I can accept that, but when did the medical community start offering wholeistic alternatives? Maybe just, because of the growing evidence of the failure of drug regimenes and increasing support of alternative medicine. 2. "My company spends $7.9 billion a year." Your company spends $7.9 billion a year searching for patentable cures to make a profit. Is profit in and of itself bad? No way. When drug companies cross-sell drugs for unintended conditions? That do not really work? Hell yeah, that's the very definition of evil. 3. "I work for a large drug company, doing research in psychotherapeutics." No doubt many good things have come of such research. But many bad things have as well. We have a bunch of drugged out kids and babies in this country, and adults for that matter, who have been given a pill to make things nice. Life isn't always about being easy or nice, and much evidence is surfacing that prozac and other drugs have actually been the source of suicidal and/or homicidal behavior. Columbine anyone? No disrepect intended NG, but the profit motive moves men in strange ways, and often in the exact opposite direction of the evidence.

He doesn't hate America. He's is just another !@#$ partisan pretending not to be an !@#$ partisan.

Im actually pretty conservative, but personal experience and research have led me in an entirely new direction. 3 times in 2003 (just in my family) drugs either exacerbated a problem or actually caused it. Alternative, non-wacka healing thru herbs and diet, and the elimination of pills in all 3 cases solved the problems. The doctor's refused to acknowledge the connection, but their own research showed that their drug regimens were not effective. Point in fact, some were actually no more effective then placebo. This from their own medical journals. So on the surface it looks like I do indeed wear a tinfoil hat, but the reality is that the medical community has been undermined and lied to by the drug companies, and wined and dined to pimp their pills. (I have docs in my family and know how it works.) I was correct in 100% of the cases (3) that my family faced, and historically I have had very poor results from the establishment for anything that was not easily diagnosed and corrected. Why is it that every friggin drug we see on TV these days (that can supposedly only help a condition by 10-25%) say that patients with liver issues should not take their pills? Because drugs are toxic to the human system outside of the small window they are intended for. They invariably put stress on the body's cleansing/elimination systems, and make us more susceptible to even larger problems. Case in point, our vet gave our cat a drug to help a skin irritation. The poor guy got a UTI and was left borderline diabetic. I took him off all meds, refused to let them treat him with more antibiotics, and returned him to better then normal health within 3 months using herbs and diet. If I had left him in the hands of the veterinary establishment, he may very well be getting insulin injections every day, or worst - be dead. BTW, the drug in question actually listed one side effect as diabetes. To cure a skin problem? One that turns out to be nothing more then an allergic reaction to flee bits? I have other, more personal stories, but they had the same results - both cause and cure. This goes on all the time, and more then likely effects someone in your immediate family. I do not want to play doctor, I have a job, but I will be damned if I sit back and let societal expectations and prejudices stand between me and my families health - including the cats. We have been sold a bill of goods, and the good that comes from the drug industry has been buried beneath a horrendous record of abuse. I know, they spend billions to find cures and aids to various conditions. What they don't tell you is that it costs this much so they can extract a patent from cures and aids already existing in nature. You see, there is no money in cures if they can't get a patent, and they cannot get a patent for something that grows freely in nature. Its about profit, people, and it is getting worst all the time. Anyone read the story of the hired 'researcher" forced to help cross-sell drugs for other conditions? That actually led to severe depresion and suicide? Yeah, I wear a tinfoil hat, and if your lucky and figure it out before a terrible incident, you will too...

I for one am glad he is doing it. In spite of his left wing politics MM has indeed done a service in going after corporate looters. Unfortunately I cannot imagine MM attacking the real threat to American health care - the greed and manipulation that has sold us a bill of goods. The lie that more and more drugs are actually making us healthy. When the drug industry pitches their drugs for outragious profits - drugs that may have meager statistical positives over placebo's, what they fail to answer for is the overall physical polution and stunting of natural healing capabilities in the human body. I believe that - someday - real medicine will acknowlege that decease is systemic, and that the vast majority of drugs, when used for any reason beyond last hope, serve to do little else then poison the takers.

Your a bright fellow, and certain enough of your 'fair' mindedness to include it in your alias. If you step back from your near rabid liberal perspective you will see that statement is EXACTLY what it has been made out to be - an indictment on Bush thru grotesque inuendo: "if we can do the work that we can do in this country -- the work we will do when John Kerry is president -- people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk" translates to: "if we can do the work that we can do in this country -- (the work that George Bush is preventing) -- people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk." Besides being a gross misrepresentaion, it suffers for other and obvious reasons. The very fact Edwards is speaking on this subject in the first place is to contrast Kerry policies from Bush's. Too suggest that he is just making happy-faced chitchat with potential voters is to refuse to see the simplist of logical decontruction. In this you are only kidding yourself. That Edwards suggests such things will be different w/ Kerry's "plan", and that people like Reeves will walk again is pandering on the most dangerous of levels. A classic apppeal that circumvents true reason and thinking, and goes directly to the great source of manipulation - the emotions. In other words, Edwards at his finest - the master ambulance chaser / trial lawyer.