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[quote name='pittpizza']
The only people who don't want thier phones tapped or e-mails read are people who have something to hide right?[/quote]

Not to pick on anybody, but I hate this line of reasoning.

There is a 4th Amendment for a reason.

I am innocent until proven guilty.

There is no reason to look at anything I own without probable cause.

Get over it or convince a judge I'm a threat.
 
[quote name='BigT']More vegetables and exercise and fewer grains and processed foods would be ideal.[/QUOTE]

Do you realize what kind of massively depressing effect such a widespread diet would have on our economy?

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it would ruin some pretty large portions of our food and beverage industry (though after reading about Hallmark foods yesterday, coupled with the Upton Sinclair-like Tyson experience recounted on Daily Kos a few days ago, I think I wholly support their downfall).

And, yes, I know bloody well Tyson is a huge Democrat-supporting corporation. fuck 'em, though, for their exploitation of labor.
 
[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']Not to pick on anybody, but I hate this line of reasoning.

There is a 4th Amendment for a reason.

I am innocent until proven guilty.

There is no reason to look at anything I own without probable cause.

Get over it or convince a judge I'm a threat.[/quote]

I agree with you, my statement was a sarcastic one (hard to tell unless you know me). Judicial oversight FTW!!

That shit with Hallmark foods is absolutely fucking disgusting. I am a huge meat eater, I just housed two pulled pork sandwiches, but seeing how those cows were treated makes eating my next burger a little more difficult. It will definitely take some doing. Just absolutely disgusting. Makes you wonder if the people working there just really really hate cows. I worked on a cow farm before. Not a big one, it was just my uncle who raised his own steers to get some cheap beef. How one could treat an animal like that just boggles the mind. fuckin sociopaths.

Perhaps an all Hindu workforce in a plant like that would help to get the cows a little better treatment, the workers would probably feel conflicted but think of how good the cows would be treated.

I have a sister who works for a Dey Pharma and a bro-in-law who works for Pfizer (I joke that in my family we have two drug dealers and a lawyer). Anyway, even they go on and on about how corrupt big-pharma is and how much influence they (via their reps and incentives) exert over doctors, who ostensibly have the patients best interests in mind (Yeah fuckin right!). There is a cat-and-mouse game between the regulators and the regulated dealign with the pharmaceutical industires, under the bush administration, big-pharma = the cat and the cat is winning.
 
While making dietary recommendations, I do not take the economy into account. :D
Lots of sugar, lots of calories + little exercise = obesity and type 2 diabetes epidemic.

Fewer calories + more exercise = more chance for health.

I have a sister who works for a Dey Pharma and a bro-in-law who works for Pfizer (I joke that in my family we have two drug dealers and a lawyer). Anyway, even they go on and on about how corrupt big-pharma is and how much influence they (via their reps and incentives) exert over doctors, who ostensibly have the patients best interests in mind (Yeah fuckin right!). There is a cat-and-mouse game between the regulators and the regulated dealign with the pharmaceutical industires, under the bush administration, big-pharma = the cat and the cat is winning.

Pharmaceutical spending accounts for about 10% of medical spending. In defense of big pharma, drug R&D is expensive and risky. Then your patent lasts for 17 years, many of which are taken up by research time before the drug is FDA approved. Even then, you risk bad results in future phase 4 trials: look at Vioxx and Avandia.

The vast majority of physicians really do have their patients' best interests in mind. Although, I do agree that there is a tendency to over medicate... this is likely a result of an innate drive to "do something."

It seems like everyone >50 is on blood pressure meds, a statin, some pain medication, a proton pump inhibitor for heartburn, etc. In many cases, I'd recommend using cheaper older off patent drugs that are just as good and better studied... or to try lifestyle modifications.
 
[quote name='BigT']While making dietary recommendations, I do not take the economy into account. :D
Lots of sugar, lots of calories + little exercise = obesity and type 2 diabetes epidemic.

Fewer calories + more exercise = more chance for health.



Pharmaceutical spending accounts for about 10% of medical spending. In defense of big pharma, drug R&D is expensive and risky. Then your patent lasts for 17 years, many of which are taken up by research time before the drug is FDA approved. Even then, you risk bad results in future phase 4 trials: look at Vioxx and Avandia.

The vast majority of physicians really do have their patients' best interests in mind. Although, I do agree that there is a tendency to over medicate... this is likely a result of an innate drive to "do something."

It seems like everyone >50 is on blood pressure meds, a statin, some pain medication, a proton pump inhibitor for heartburn, etc. In many cases, I'd recommend using cheaper older off patent drugs that are just as good and better studied... or to try lifestyle modifications.[/QUOTE]

A couple things. About the Medical School it can be more subtle. Who's writing or funding the textbooks or both?
I won't begrudge Pharma needs to make money but when you throw out tests to prove the validity of natural cures it goes deeper in a few ways. First I bet you there are a decent amount of dummy Herbal Corporations set up just to dispense something to the effect of a Placebo or dampen the effect of the cure. I mean imagine if natural cures started to get the headway they deserved, Pharmaceutical sales would plummet because they can't milk people off patents. Frankly it's amazing they've managed to convince people that I'M a loon because I believe a Natural cure can be just as effective as the drug if not more so. I mean these plants et al have been around for thousands of years and have been around our genome for quite a while. Our bodies don't usually have side effects from these one's or minimal because it's in harmony with our body, it fits, it's nature. Meanwhile that drug is something alien being introduced into our system. I'll admit I know how having to list side effects works but there's a drug to combat Diarrhea that is giving quite a bit of people Pneumonia and possibly killing them, namely this drug is for children. My friend on her talk show from 1-5 am on Tuesday on www.kkfi.org/ doled out this news.
I even got a kick when Michael Savage talked about hearing the news about this North Carolina shooting or wherever and hearing it mentioned they had the same dealer and he thought it was Pfizer. chuckles.
 
Text books are generally based off of the scientific literature: big reviews of topics in JAMA and NEJM.

The way that physicians practice is also theoretically based on a review of the literature with some anecdotal overtones mixed in. UpToDate is hugely popular with physicians and provides summaries and recommendations on many topics. It's a lifesaver at 2 am. The recommendations are largely writen by experts and supported by a literature search. Big brother also has a collection of recommendations: http://www.guideline.gov/

So it in essence boils down to: who funds the articles published in NEJM, JAMA, and other major medical journals?

Both the pharmaceutical industry and also the dietary supplement industry (all those companies in Utah) are huge businesses. The nice thing in the USA is that there is freedom to take any supplement you damn well please. Unfortunately, a lot of the "natural cures" are based on anecdotal evidence and not randomized double blinded placebo controlled trials (these cost a lot of money to carry out properly and few are willing to do them for supplements)... glucosamine, saw palmetto, and the like have had some trials done with mixed results. It's a catch-22, doctors can't really recommend natural cures because the evidence is not there and the evidence is not there because no one is willing to pay for the necessary trials...

That said, despite being trained in allopathic medicine, I am also a chemist and my hero has always been Linus Pauling, so I do take a few grams of Ascorbic Acid daily, along with a few other supplements (based on anecdotal evidence) FWIW. :)
 
[quote name='pittpizza']I agree with you, my statement was a sarcastic one (hard to tell unless you know me). Judicial oversight FTW!!

That shit with Hallmark foods is absolutely fucking disgusting. I am a huge meat eater, I just housed two pulled pork sandwiches, but seeing how those cows were treated makes eating my next burger a little more difficult. It will definitely take some doing. Just absolutely disgusting. Makes you wonder if the people working there just really really hate cows. I worked on a cow farm before. Not a big one, it was just my uncle who raised his own steers to get some cheap beef. How one could treat an animal like that just boggles the mind. fuckin sociopaths.

Perhaps an all Hindu workforce in a plant like that would help to get the cows a little better treatment, the workers would probably feel conflicted but think of how good the cows would be treated.

I have a sister who works for a Dey Pharma and a bro-in-law who works for Pfizer (I joke that in my family we have two drug dealers and a lawyer). Anyway, even they go on and on about how corrupt big-pharma is and how much influence they (via their reps and incentives) exert over doctors, who ostensibly have the patients best interests in mind (Yeah fuckin right!). There is a cat-and-mouse game between the regulators and the regulated dealign with the pharmaceutical industires, under the bush administration, big-pharma = the cat and the cat is winning.[/quote]



if you really want to learn about the food industry and how really fuckked up it is you should read this book
 
Damn, a summary of that book looked really interesting. Looks like he eats four meals that span the spectrum from hyber-processed (Micky D's) to hyber-organic (foraged and hunted). Interesting stuff.

Eh...I owe it to myself to read some Sinclair or Kitchen Confidentials before moving on to the Omnivore's dilemma.

I've really been slacking with the lit lately, too much GoW, Mass Effect and Orange box. Last night though I did get "re-captured" by my latest Dan Brown read so I'll prob finish that this week.
 
Kitchen Confidential isn't really in the same vein as these others. KC is Bourdain's autobiography of kitchen and kitchen lore, from coke and fucking in the dry stock to reasons why you shouldn't order fish on a Monday.

It's a good book, don't get me wrong (and every time I read it, I want to give up everything and go back to the kitchen) - but it's not quite what you think it is, I think.
 
I had an accurate idea of what KC was about b/c a good friend of mine (a chef) suggested it. I think I have it somewhere around and read the cover. I can see how you may have inferred I had a misimpression of it though because I lumped it in with the less story driven more documentary style works like The Jungle and The Omnivore's Dilemma. I'm sure both are informative and interesting but KC seems like a more modern approachable read for the less academic types, or as I lovingly refer to them: "half-wits."
 
[quote name='pittpizza']less story driven more documentary style works like The Jungle [/QUOTE]

:whistle2:s

The Jungle is fiction.

Kitchen Confidential is a great read, but it's autobiographical with a little bit of kitchen lore and lessons thrown in. His book "The Nasty Bits" has some better stories with regard to food, IMO - ultimately, you should watch a few episodes of "No Reservations" or "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares" (the BBC one, not the FOX one). If you like those, you may like KC or Nasty Bits as books.

Really, though, KC is more for the crowd that cheers "HEY! I fucked the hostess on the prep table, too!" than the crowd that wants to know the nitty-gritty of restaurants. The latter you can learn more from the aforementioned TV shows.
 
Beef sinclair wrote the book not to bring light into the food industry but to push his Socialist agenda. Read the Dilemma first trust me, Sinclair deals with the problems of then Pollan deals with the problems of now.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Hasn't that been pretty much ruled as a guaranteed unconstitutional item?[/quote]


Yeah, one of the first cases we read in Con Law. I forget the name but pretty much every president has tried. It's a no go. VERY unconstituional. The President can only sign/veto laws congress gives him in whole, not in part. And heavy hitter, the drafters of the US Const. and the interpreters of it (USSC) made that happen.

Huh! I'll take your word for it about The Jungle, I haven't read it (one of my MANY cliff's notes regrets) but IIRC I thought it was descriptive about the meat packing industry of the indust. rev. Is it historical fiction?

Aight Ikohn, if I do read em (like I said I have a book-back-log longer than my vid game backlog) I'll read The Dilemma first.

The last book I finished before this Dan Brown literary-formulaic-immediate-satisfaction crap wasCrime and Punishment. Seriously I read that fucker. I bet you did too eh myke, being so interested in CJ and all?? It was like 700 pages but I found it a much easier read than the classic I tried to stomach before it which was only around 200 pages: Pride and Prejudice...ugh...fucking shoot me. I tried and treid and tried but just could not get through that book. Mr. Darcy is a lil' hoity toity bitch when compared to Raskolnikov.
 
[quote name='pittpizza']...the interpreters of it (USSC) made that happen.[/QUOTE]

That part is right. And besides, do any politicians or judges really give a hang about the Constitution any longer?
 
[quote name='Heavy Hitter']I'd like to see a candidate push for the line-item veto.[/QUOTE]

Are you deluded? The line item veto is a TERRIBLE thing if you even think about it for a second. It gives the President way too much power.
Prostitute I really question your beliefs.
edit: In terms of Doestoyevsky don't bother reading "The Brothers Karamazov". All a Sentimentalist is is a player in all walks of life.
 
[quote name='Heavy Hitter']Probably so. I wonder who made that happen?[/QUOTE]

Not so much a single "who," but a unversal "no fuckin' way" from pretty much everyone each time it is suggested.

It's unconstitutional because it allows reduces checks and balances by allowing the president to "edit" a bill and then sign it into law. Which is more or less a "blank check" for the president to do what he wants and Congress couldn't do a thing about it.

Which reminds me - when is someone going to take the Bush administration to task for all of their "signing statements" (which are when something is signed into law, and the administration puts out a statement saying they may or may not follow particular parts of it)?
 
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