teslabox

The Medical Guild didn't have much to offer in the early part of the 20th century. The Osteopaths [possibly] had much better results at their hospitals during the Great Flu of 1918, for example.

Science started to make some progress figuring things out, but then the snake oil salesmen regrouped and used the cloak of 'science' to sell their 'prescriptions'. For example, Statin drugs might prevent a few heart attacks, but just cause side effects for 90+% of the patients who take them.

Pfizer, et al, are trying to restore estrogen/Premarin (a prescription derived from PREgnant MARes' urIN [1]) to its former glory, even though estrogen treatment was always known by actual scientists to be harmful [2].

Robert Whitaker has provided an indictment of conventional psychiatry's use of 'snake oil' [3], and a science writer recently voted to indict [4].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premarin [2] http://web.archive.org/web/20110719210324/http://leda.law.ha... [3] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/are-psychia... [4] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/psychiatris...

From the article:

> Rockefeller upheld the family’s philanthropic tradition, giving away more than $900 million during his lifetime. In 1940, he joined the board of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, established in 1901 by his grandfather, and a decade later succeeded his father as board chairman, serving for 25 years.

Rich people don't give money away no-strings-attached, they channel it for their purposes. This "institute for medical research" - now Rockefeller University - was their way of guiding the development of medicine into a profitable industry for "investors".

"The first director of laboratories was Simon Flexner" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_University

Simon Flexner's younger brother was Abraham Flexner, who helped the medical guild reduce the number of medical schools [2], thereby making sure that there's always been a shortage of doctors.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report

The Osteopathic profession was the only group that was organized enough to survive the Medical Guild's purge of non-Rockefeller-approved approaches to medicine. Today D.O.s are more likely to take up Primary Care, where doctors take time to get to know their patients and figure out what's actually causing their complaints. See The Heroism of Incremental Care, [3] for example.

[3] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/23/the-heroism-of-...

> Now, an AAMC-accredited education, on the other hand, provides a lot more parity out of the gate when it comes to opportunity.

The medical guild used The Flexner Report (1910) [1] to eliminate opportunities for people to train as doctors:

  The Report (also called Carnegie Foundation 
  Bulletin Number Four) called on American medical 
  schools to enact higher admission and graduation 
  standards, and to adhere strictly to the 
  protocols of mainstream science in their teaching 
  and research. Many American medical schools fell 
  short of the standard advocated in the Flexner 
  Report and, subsequent to its publication, nearly 
  half of such schools merged or were closed 
  outright. Colleges in electrotherapy were closed. 

  The Report also concluded that there were too 
  many medical schools in the USA, and that too 
  many doctors were being trained. A repercussion 
  of the Flexner Report, resulting from the closure 
  or consolidation of university training, was 
  reversion of American universities to male-only 
  admittance programs to accommodate a smaller 
  admission pool. 

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report

The Guild has been fairly successful at keeping the number of doctors educated just below the number of needed. Foreign-educated doctors are imported to fill the gap.

What could you grow in your area that isn't corn and soybeans [c&s]?

How does the profitability of c&s compare to, say, silage? I was friends with a grass fed beef farmer in teh college, and learned from him that many weeds are actually a pretty good source of protein for cattle.

Have you thought about farming fruit or trees? My grandmother was going to devote some of her acres (Illinois) to black walnut trees (iirc), but she'd moved away from her parents' farm in the 1940's and just managed it from afar after her parents passed away.

Glyphosate/Roundup is basically the amino acid glycine with a phosphorous structure tacked on [0]. Glycine is the simplest possible amino acid.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate#Chemistry

One theory is that glyphosate causes harm because it gets weaved into protein chains instead of glycine. Proteins made with roundup don't work the same as proteins with glycine. Experiments to figure out if this is what's happening would be relatively simple and cheap.

Now that lots of weed are resistant, farmers will have to figure out how to farm without this shortcut. Roundup is obsolete, so nothing of value will be lost.

> I'm always worried about my eyes getting worse, and they have been, year after year.

Sometimes people's vision prescriptions are too strong. I started going to a 'developmental optometrist' about 12 years ago. While I don't see 20/20 with my current glasses, I tried stronger lenses from a conventional optometrist 7 years ago and found them intolerable. When he wanted to charge me for another office visit for the contact prescription, I just ordered the prescription I wanted from an internet contacts store.

I had a package 'fall off the truck' a few scans after it entered the USPS system. A month later it scanned at a Chicago sorting center, and was delivered a few days later.

Another recent package was said to have been delivered, but wasn't actually in my mailbox until the following day. Maybe my neighbor redelivered it for me.

The phenomenon is called 'lipid peroxidation'. The search term 'drying oil' is also helpful.

I try to avoid eating vegetable oil. I understand that the polyunsaturated oils are preferentially stored to protect the body from these unstable oils.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest needs to eat some crow.

> He doesn't address the concern that this particular Executive Order victimizes a broad swath of minorities for no justifiable reason other than to please a large section of society.

This point was addressed in his prior blog post (same day):

>> [...] Are Trump’s temporary immigration plans chaotic? Yes. Do they hurt innocent people who were minding their own business? Yes, temporarily at least. Did he scare the pants off of half the country? Yes. Will there be lots of unintended damage from Trump’s immigration orders? Yes. No honest person should deny the cost component of the equation. It’s ugly. But don’t stop with a half-pinion. If you want a full opinion on immigration you have to compare those costs to the potential benefits that include fewer terrorist acts and avoiding Europe’s refugee problems. Are people making that comparison? >> >> No. [...]

- http://blog.dilbert.com/post/156532225711/the-persuasion-fil...

The first post is much better than its followup.

I appreciate Scott Adams' take because he provides a deeper reason for why the candidate/president does what he does.

> Same for milk. I can drink German milk without problems but American milk gives me stomach problems.

There are many different kinds of 'American milk'. A primary difference is what the different farmers feed their cows.

A few years ago I suffered through the History Channel's Modern Marvels episode about cotton. There's a bit towards the about how cottonseed meal (a waste product of the cotton industry) is commonly used as feed for the dairy industry.

Someone commented about how they taste a difference for the week after farmers switch their cows from summer rations to silage -- it takes a week for the cows' bacteria to adjust. I should find that comment & favorite it... Ah, here:

  You can always tell when the cows switch 
  between grass and silage in the spring 
  and fall. Milk tastes like garbage for a 
  week or two until they get sorted out.

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12893287

> Could it be one reason that, with less obesity, French people are more healthy to start with, so they require less care?

French people eat fine cheese, and other fine foods. Americans are fed imitation cheese, and told that it's better for them because it doesn't have 'bad fat'.

The experts call this a "paradox" [1]. I think we're being swindled.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_paradox

My favorite domain that I own was inspired by the macklemore song "Thrift Shop" [1]: http://SwindledAndPimped.org/. Originally someone had registered the .com, but they let it expire after Macklemore's song was no longer trending, so now my .com just redirects to the .org.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8mJJJvaes&feature=youtu.be...

The lines go, "... They be like, 'oh that gucci is hella-tight'. I'm like, yo, that's $50 for a t-shirt. Limited edition, lets do some simple addition, $50 for a t-shirt that's just some ignorant bitch shit. I call that getting swindled and pimped, I call that getting tricked by a business..."

I think the Swindle is the food industry's substitution of bleached & deodorized seed oils for humanity's evolutionarily-approriate fats & oils. (Before the 1950's, soybean oil was used to make paint.)

The pimping is putting women on fake hormones to suppress their menstrual cycles. My ex-wife didn't like birth control because it took her libido away. After we had gone our separate ways, she called to complain that she was still losing 1/2 her month to PMS, and did I have any ideas? I found something for her to try, which she has found remarkably effective.

All the women I've talked to dislike the status quo for women's health. Though some do think that anything is better than getting knocked up...

I try to not buy new domains. I've let a few expire, but there are others that I keep renewing, with the intention to get to them some day.

> Oils, fats, nuts should be primary components of ones diet.

One is not like the others.

Refined vegetable oil is not appropriate for human consumption. Butter and coconut oil are not refined with hexane, or steam deodorized, and are stable at room temperature (and human temperature). Refined vegetable oil can still be used as biodiesel, though.

Small amounts of nuts are okay, but their oils are not exactly stable either.

I'm trying to convince my keto-devoted friend to eat more fruits, to get her metabolism up. She has lost a lot of weight by watching her carb intake. But she's not "well".

Interest is the largest single expense of any debt-financed infrastructure project. Ellen Brown, author of Web of Debt [1], has advocated a public infrastructure bank for several years now.

[1] http://www.webofdebt.com/

These are all good points about supplements vs. food.

> Now I do selectively take two supplements: D1 and EPA+DHA

niacinamide helps protect us from having excess amounts of the polyunsaturated oils in circulation. These aren't so stable at human-temperature...

I think it is usually better to get one's nutrients from food, but Niacinamide is one supplement that I take regularly. A friend finds that it reduces her need for tobacco.

There are lots of nutrients in the foods that aren't in supplements.

> They found that when they fed older mice drinking water with a high dose of a natural compound called nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), which is found in [...]

This is basically Niacinamide/Nicotinamide, a form of Vitamin B3. I understand that this vitamin helps keep the inflammatory oils from being released (edit: from storage). Niacin causes a flush; Niacinamide doesn't have this effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinamide_mononucleotide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinamide

From the second wikipedia link:

  Anxiety
  
  Studies show that nicotinamide has anxiolytic
  (anti-anxiety) properties. It may work in a
  way similar to benzodiazepines.

I experienced dyslexia once. I'd assumed an odd posture and tried to read - it was almost like my neural pathways got short circuited. I don't try to read like that anymore.

Who will cast doubt on the safety of starch? After all, starch, as long chains of glucose, provokes twice the release of insulin as sugar (50/50 glucose/fructose).

Sugar is mostly safe, as long as one's liver is healthy.

Soybean oil is much more dangerous than sugar: http://swindledandpimped.org/obesity-epidemic/

The water towers on top of NYC buildings tend to not be maintained especially well:

  With their quaint barrel-like contours and weathered 
  cedar-plank sides, rooftop water towers are a constant on 
  the New York City skyline. And though they may look like 
  relics of a past age, millions of residents get their 
  drinking water from the tanks every day.

  But inside these rustic-looking vessels, there are often 
  thick layers of muddy sediment. Many have not been 
  cleaned or inspected in years. And regulations governing 
  water tanks are rarely enforced, an examination by The 
  New York Times shows.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/nyregion/inside-citys-wat... (warning: autoplay video)

Malcolm Gladwell (author of Blink, Tipping Point, etc) has an interesting podcast about Leonard Cohen's song, and how it took a couple of fortuitous happenings before the original was reinterpreted into a popular song.

http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/07-hallelujah

> Be careful, sarcasm, facts, or the inconvenient truth can cause downvotes.

Is there a way to figure out a comment's ratio of upvotes to downvotes? Sometimes I see my comment's score oscillating...

> Obesity rates have tripled in 3 decades, I don't think we can blame Soylent for that, but clearly something major has gone terribly wrong with the industrial food system

We can blame the paint industry and the cotton industry for the food industry's mistakes. Paints & stains used to be made from "drying oils" (soybean oil, linseed oil, etc), now they're made from petroleum. Cotton production creates a lot of cotton seed as a waste product.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drying_oil

Instead of going quietly into the night, the seed oil industry now sells "vegetable oil" for human consumption. Crisco was made from hydrogenated cottonseed oil until it was reformulated in 2007. IMHO, Crisco is still not appropriate for human consumption.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisco

Charlatanism: it's what's for dinner.

My father was tired of having to run the dryer 3 times to get his clothes dry. The local independent applianc store guy said "I sell speed queens", and showed the difference between cheap washers and Speed Queen's home products.

https://speedqueen.com/products/top-load-washers.aspx

The owner said that the motor from a modern speed queen washer could be put in the 30-year old model. He showed how the speed queen springs are heavy-duty, while the Samsung and modern maytag springs are very light.

My dad took his old dryer to the store for disposal. When he went back a few days later, he saw his old dryer for sale. It'd been opened it up, the block that none of the Sears warranty servicers could find was removed, and it was perfectly usable. Someone else had recently abandoned a kenmore front loader into the store's possession - it needed a circuit board, and wasn't worth fixing.

> I also like that they lead with an image of Coke Zero, which has no sugar nor calories

This is sweetened with sucralose. In a recent study, fruit flies fed sucralose consumed more total calories than those fed sugar:

http://abc.net.au/news/2016-07-13/research-shows-artificial-...

Fruit juices have vitamins and minerals that soda does not. With that said, there's also a huge difference between the old herbal beverages (Cocaine & kola nut flavorings, "root beer", 21 natural plant flavors, etc), and modern artificially-colored and artificially-flavored concoctions.

> Some lucky folks can take hormones with very little effects.

There aren't any actual 'hormones' in birth control. These drugs are supposedly hormone-analogues, but they are only partial replacements for genuine ("bio-identical") hormones.

The Apple Store matches prices, up to 10% iirc. Fry's electronics email prices are about the same 15% discount as the refurbished apple products at your link.

> Am I the only one somewhat concerned over the absolutely blatant declarations that Russia is now our enemy again?

Something's definitely fishy about the resurgence of the anti-Russia propaganda in the United States.

I recently found a copy of The Soviet Achievement (1967) [1] in a library's discarded booksale. From the jacket:

"... This is a study of the deliberate creation of a new industrial society from a relatively backward, underdeveloped and basically rural country. Mr. Nettl illustrates the shifting balance between theory and practice, the attempt to apply Marxist ideology to practical problems, and the evolution of those distinctively Soviet solutions which have made the USSR one of the two dominating world powers. ..."

[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=z81BAAAAIAAJ

My impression is that the Soviets were never the villains that they were portrayed to be in the West. They knew they were behind, couldn't keep up with the US, and were quite afraid of western efforts to subjugate them.

I like Scott Adams' take on 'blaming the Russians':

  When Clinton’s surrogates respond to questions about 
  Wikileaks by saying the Russians are behind it, that’s an 
  acknowledgment of guilt. Guilty people almost always 
  question the source of the information first. Innocent 
  people start with a clear denial, or sometimes confusion 
  as to why the question is being asked.

- http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151933602961/lie-detection-and-...

> Perhaps it was sabotage. Then there is no means of ever explaining it.

Their e-coli problems started soon after pledging to go GMO-free... The GMO-railroad might not have appreciated a little business taking a nail out of their tracks.