Something came up that made me think it would be a good idea to mention a couple of features of the new WordPress template, just in case anyone missed them when I mentioned them before. I apologize to any who might find this repetitive, but there do appear to be some newbies here; so I think it's worth a quick repeat.
A commenter who borders on trollish wrote:
One thing I forgot. I wanted to congratulate you and the team for closing ‘Evolution and Medicine’ just when you did, leaving the impression that I am EXTREMELY dangerous. Well, I’m not in the least little bit dangerous, but it’s perceptions that count and being seen as HORRIFICALLY dangerous suits my current ambitions as only then will the global community sit up and take notice. I am currently contemplating emailing MI5, CIA, ASIO etc. to let them enjoy your blogs, depending on how things pan out.
Mr. Hill is referring to this post on medicine and evolution.
Let me just assure Mr. Hill that I do not consider him the least bit "dangerous." Annoying? Sure. Persistent. Yes. Trollish? Definitely. Dangerous? No. What happened has nothing to do with Mr. Hill's "dangerousness" or lack thereof. It's simply a feature of the new setup that allows me to set a time after which comments for a post automatically close. In the case of this blog, I set that time to 90 days, which in the vast majority of cases is more than enough time for legitimate discussion. After 90 days, the vast majority of comments tend to be comment spam or necromancers resurrecting dead threads. Mr. Hill clearly has an inflated view of his own importance.
The second thing that I think to be worth mentioning is another useful feature that new commenters will encounter that a reader wrote to me to ask about. All first time commenters will see their comments go to moderation. Once I approve the comment, the new commenter will be able to comment freely without moderation (unless, of course, he somehow trips up a spam filter). The reason for my having activated this feature, once again, is to cut down on sock puppets and morphing trolls, and it's worked spectacularly—even better than I had hoped. There are currently at least three regular trolls who kept throwing up sock puppets to annoy us all on the old Movable Type version of the blog who from time to time try to get comments posted here and get shot down every time. I'm sure that sooner or later one of them will manage to get a comment through, but thus far it's been a lovely thing not to have them around to irritate legitimate commenters. Long may it continue.
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More like this
MESSAGE BEGINS---------------
Sock Puppets. Aren't they dreadful? My science advisor informes me that they form spontaneously when suddenly separated from their mate in a laundry mishap. Finding themselves suddenly alone, they "go bad" and spend their lives ruining everyone else's good time whenever possible. Of course, we have no such term in the Glaxxon tongue, seeing as our claws would swiftly do in any pair of socks that might have the misfortune of meeting with our lower extremities. Nevermind, subjugation and polemics are my stock and trade, this is clearly a topic for a philosopher.
LDZ VH7iHL
Foreward Mavoon of the Great Fleet, Pharmaca Magna of Terra, Victor of Canasta VII
Sector Flagship::coordinates undisclosed
001011010111
------------------------MESSAGE ENDS
While it is interesting to see Dr. Greg talk to himself as he pretended to be two people (Emily and Pegasus), it is quite annoying.
Orac please could you cast your respectful and insolent eye over this character...goes by the name of Dr Peter Glidden.? Peter has a video titled 'Chemotherapy is a waste of money'. I read your headline and stumbled on this simultaneously.
This guy is a serious loon..
@Orac - you mean we will no longer have various tone trolls & wackos resurrecting two year old threads to slam our "smear" campaign against Andrew Wakefield or Dr. B?
Perish the thought!
first off, all of those organizations Hill mentioned -- CIA, MI5, ASIO etc . . . they're all intelligence organizations with absolutely no law enforcement brief whatever. MI5 has to ask Special Branch to do their arresting for them. So, what does he expect them to do, send James Bond to Orac's to carry out a Sanction ? Should I expect visits from men in black suits because I made a dismissive comment ?
oh, and on a side note: Dr Oz (appropriately named) was in the news again, this time due to his skill as a cardiac surgeon. Given his proclivities, I don't know if I would want him cutting me.
DLC'
Who wants to be sane? I'd be bored shitless.
Borders on trollish? Really?
Hill is way over that border. He can't even see the border from where he abuses his keyboard.
The more people read Orac's blog, the better.
Go for it!
@Delurked - yikes - he's already been on Alex Jones! Hubby has to have heard of him then...
A blurb about him before another recorded interview with all of his wisdom:
Sadly, though, he is like so many others. "Big Pharma is there to make you sick," "chelation," "bioidentical hormones," "classical homeopathy," "naturopathic medicine."
This, however is a fascinating quote from nexus2012info.ca:
Hmmm... when was homeopathy clinically verified as effective?
I have a template recommendation: make the comment link jump to the BOTTOM of the comments instead of the top. Two reasons
1) Note that the comment field is at the bottom of the comments and
2) It would make it far easier to follow on my blackberry instead of always having to scroll through old comments
Chris - who's Dr Greg? I remember Emily/Pegasus, kept me very entertained when I was recovering.
My partner thought I was joking when I told her we had a germ-denialist troll.
Reading through Mr Hill's material, I thought that I might offer a little insight:
people sometimes develop a system of delusions wherein real events or observations become confabulated and expanded; in a way, we all do this a bit when we speculate, trying to understanding someone else's motivation or why particular events happened. Writers utilise this when they set the scene and continue onward: I once read a great piece by Stephen King who said ( paraphrase) "If you drive past an old house on a farm, you might wonder what happened there long ago or who lives there now, *I* would automatically envision a series of grisly murders and ghoulish perpetrators- just like that."
In SMI, this tendency is unaffected by concerns about how realistic the stream of ideas is ( a trait that sometimes shows up in diminished fashion at woo-drenched websites)- there is no evaluation of what others might think of its feasibility. Instead elaborative links are constructed and embellished, details filled in, transforming as time progresses.
I found a site that discusses a guy's experience of what he calls his 'persistent delusions', as seen through the clearing lens of recovery via meds: it's called the Experience of Schizophrenia ( Chovil.ca) and Ian writes about his delusions and discusses his earlier education ( bio and social sci) which often provides the ground for the figures he draws. He makes earth-shattering discoveries- he gets down to he secret mechanations of life, history and culture.
Grandiosity is usually part of the territory: the person does and says what's never been done or said. Enemies arise to stop this great work. No small change here. ( Later, Ian worked as an educator about mental illness for his city and/or province)
Serious writing and great art make constant appeals to the readers through realistic speculations about their reactions: common themes are explored and if the experience/ idea being written about is unique or odd, a great deal of background is involved in bringing the reader up to speed. Skill to manage these tasks are develop around the time of adolescence and emcompass what psychologists call social cognition and executive functioning- especially "taking the role of the other" and recursive thought.
why make it so hard for the trolls to post? i have a whole 50 lb bag of Purina Troll Food that is going to go to waste.
Trolls can still post. They just aren't allowed to morph into various sock puppet identities to make it look as though there are people agreeing with them. As long as trolls stick to one identity, I usually still let them post. True, sometimes I'll put particularly annoying and prolific trolls into the "always moderate" filter, so that their posts have to be approved by me before they go live, but I do that mainly for trolls who flood comment threads with dozens of posts, drowning out other commenters. I figure a several hour delay in their posts going live will slow down the proverbial fire hose spew of comments. It usually works.
Regular readers know who these trolls commenters are.
eburto:
He is an anti-vax chiropractor in Australia who pretended to be several people in the thread I linked to. As near the end of the thread you can see commenter OccamsLaser say (with links):
"Pegasus aka Emily aka Gardener aka Dr. Greg aka Dr. Greg Fitzgerald "
Re: Peter Glidden
He holds an ND degree from Bastyr! His "wellness contract" insists his clients all see a licensed MD, DO or DC while under his "care". That contract is one big quack Miranda. It's a pdf you can find on this page:
http://www.drglidden.com/home
Nice to see he charges $180 an hour for phone consultations.
Why is he allowed to call himself a "doctor"? I thought NDs were not real doctors.
Delurked lurker @445 AM --
I googled the good Dr. Glidden and found he was listed as
Peter Glidden, BS, ND
The final comma in his credentials appears to have been a typo.
Re:
(who flood comment threads with dozens of posts, drowning out other commenters. I figure a several hour delay in their posts going live will slow down the proverbial fire hose spew of comments. It usually works.)
I'm guilty of this and I apologize. It was never my intention to stifle other commentators.
@DLC - the fact that he mentions ASIO might be telling. I honestly wouldn't expect anyone outside of OZ to know who they are.
Any news on getting the preview feature back, or is that just not possible with WP?
I must say that I am enormously flattered that out highly esteemed host has set up a blog especially for the express purpose of analyzing my formidable intellect. I must admit that at first I mistook it for some form of denigration arising from a poor level of self esteem on his part, heaven forbid jealousy even. However, I must confess that I do have periods of megalomania, which is perfectly understandable, by me at least, given my extraordinary brilliance. It is often said in my town and abroad that I suffer a Jesus Christ complex, however I would like to correct this ludicrous misconception which denigrates me enormously as it was HE who suffered a Paul Hill complex.
Mind you there is an, albeit remote, possibility that I present a brand new and extremely interesting psychopathology, a unique form of multiple personality syndrome, in which I am actually a Dr Peter Glidden and a Dr Greg and possibly others, perhaps an entire pantheon of vastly inferior mere mortals. I must say that I find this suggestion extremely confusing and frightening, responses which I suppose would symptomatic of said syndrome. As I am the most brilliant shrink in the entire multiverse only I would be qualified to analyze myself and qualify the syndrome for entry into the DMS as well as exploit any copyrights, to a blockbuster movie and book.
I would like to clarify my assertion that I was contemplating sending links to these blogs to various intelligence organizations throughout the world. The reason for this is their own designation of themselves as 'intelligent' so that one has to assume that they are just that. This would be in extreme contrast to the level of intelligence on these blogs, which close to zero.
Admittedly intelligence organizations do get into more esoteric research, ie the paranormal such as psychokinesis, ESP etc. However in contrast to these blogs this is vastly more intelligent. Then there is their role as counterterrorist organizations which is perfectly appropriate as these blogs set out deliberately to terrorize EVERYTHING that the esteemed host does not agree with, which is ABSOLUTELY everything else, including fellow allopaths. So, if anyone has an inflated sense of his own importance it is he by a country mile.
This is pure terrorism in that it deludes people suffering from cancer into believing that all forms of therapy other than cut, poison and burn are pure quackery, delusional, fraudulent and criminal in intent, leaving them no other option than to suffer this barbarism. I was of the opinion that cancer research was limited to molecular biology only. Now I must admit that this was wrong in that EVEN THAT has gone, to be replaced by technology, ie genome sequencing, PCR etc. so that even the understanding of the structure and function of tumors themselves has disappeared, even the structure and function of the cell.
Thus a new classification of terrorism must be formulated, every bit as criminal and dangerous as suicide bombings, with a response to it every bit as robust as it is toward said suicide bombings, 'EVIDENCE BASED SCIENCE TERRORISM'. I bid you adieu.
Mr. Hill, I don't have a violin that small.
Has to wonder how a hotel heads east at any type of speed...
Sadly, Mr Hill, I see nothing unique in your psychopathology. It's been "done."
Hello manic phase!
@Mrs Woo
By being attached to a rotating planet.
Rate of speed however, is a superfluous unnecessary redundancy.
Oh, it's possible.
Jesus, the bloody comments are getting a bit wimpish. Ya reckon I'm bonkers. What's all this shit about violins and hotels and rotating planets. Always manic phase, monopolar manic. Does militant agnostic mean you beat up religious nutters. You mob need to loosen up a bit. Have a bit of a giggle. I am. Pissing myself laughing. This is my blog you are on after all, compliments of our esteemed host. Must away as I've got more carnage to wreak elsewhere.
Mr. Hill,
When people make such claims I generally refer them to this website. Some complain that Dr. Moran, a fellow countryman of yours, is too kind to alternative cancer treatments, but I think he takes an open-minded and balanced look at the performance of various CAM approaches to cancer and the inevitable, and in some ways sad, conclusion is that none of it really works as well as conventional treatment.
Please bring back preview! I'll try that again. This website.
Good grief. Third time lucky. This website.
Okay, I'll bite: please indicate exactly which forms of therapy other than that you 've characterized as "cut poison and burn'" being labeled as pure quackery are actually as or more safe, and as or more effective, than current evidence based standards of care, and indcate exaclty what evidence demonstrates they're as or more safe and effective.
Be as specific as possible.
@Militant Agnostic - Thank you!
JGC,
You want it specific. A complete change in lifestyle to a healthy one as obviously undertaken Mr D'Angelo in Rosenberg's book, 'The Transformed Cell', and as with Mr D'Angelo the tumor/s will break down and disappear. Go howl with derision at that. Please no crap about how his immune system suddenly recognized the tumors as 'not self' and destroyed them, because the recognition came a bit late. Why was it so slack before, having a bit of a bludge was it. There is bugger all documented evidence because those that are getting somewhere in achieving remission get right out of the clutches of the medical profession that does EVERYTHING to ridicule and demoralize them with the sort of ridicule you are bucketing on me. Mr D'Angelo never got a word in edgewise past Rosenberg's blind dogma and that constitutes ABUSE. Go read the book. It's still available, Amazon I think.
I forgot. Evidence Based Care eh! In my town alone I can think of perhaps a dozen cases of cancer in which the victims of 'Evidence Based Care' were dead within a few weeks in some cases to a few months in others. Lung cancer, liver, breast mostly. A mate of mine, lung cancer, morphine to start off with, gets constipated as a result, pancreatitis as a result of the constipation plus all the piss he had drunk over many years, an antibiotic for the pancreatitis, another analgesic and then I lose track till he's on about ten different drugs within a fortnight. He stopped smoking and drinking immediately on diagnoses. Thing is he just wanted to put his life in the hands of the doctor without changing his life. Ate shit, did no exercise. About 8 weeks, dead. I've seen the same thing over and over, scared to get out of the clutches of the local quack GP who puts shit on people like me then MURDERED him. Oh but he would have only lasted a couple of weeks without the GP. Bullshit.
You do know that lung cancer is often detected late, and metastasizes fast, don't you? Probably not, since it seems that most of what you "know" about cancer is in fact pulled out of your ass.
Breast cancer used to be the same, but the improved screening rate has cut the numbers of fatalities. However, populations that do not have access to early screenings (African American women, poor women, Hispanic women) have worse rates of survival than the general population.
"Mr. Hill clearly has an inflated view of his own importance."
Psychologists refer to this as a narcissistic personality disorder. Or being an arsehole. I forget which... it's 3.15am and I'm battling a very nasty Finnish flu...
I have moved from here.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/06/15/more-on-integrating-pseudo…
And before that here.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/04/09/medicine-and-evolution-par…
Politicalguineapig,
I would like to apologies profusely to you for being a bloke, and therefore a pretend feminist.. When I realized this, to my horror, in the womb I did everything I could to self abort, chewing through my umbilical cord, but without teeth this was impossible. However there may be a solution. If I shave off my beard, get ponced up in drag, sniff nitrous oxide to raise the pitch of my voice this could be a start.
No good? Okay. The local butcher is a real dab hand with the knife. So I thought that he might be able to perform the appropriate surgery, then cauterize the wound with a branding iron as done on male calves. A bottle of whiskey for the anesthetic.
I could then shoot up big doses of estrogen to grow boobs. Trouble is the risk of breast cancer. However I could be my own research subject on the disorder, as not having ovaries could be a plus as I'd be able to monitor my estradiol 'production' by how much I shoot up.
I could then set out to become a firebrand feminist, the likes of which has never been seen before. I'd have no trouble being butch, as a good militant feminist must be, because genetically I'd still be a bloke. I'd have to forget about a vagina, clitoris transplant I suppose. What thinkest thou??
Krebiozen,
I have to clear up this misconception PLEASE. I have never associated lactic acidosis with epilepsy. THE OPPOSITE in fact. This is the original in my comment on Panic Attacks, Epilepsy etc. CONVULSIONS PUMP LACTIC ACID OUT OF THE SKELETAL MUSCLES. I tried to clear this up when you challenged it much further down the page but you obviously didn't read it.
The major problem here with misconceptions on BOTH sides is this rotten Science Blog. It is the worst set up blog/forum I have ever used. It is ATROCIOUS. 1. For a start there are no multiple tabbed pages so that pages don't get impossibly long. 2. There are no reply buttons so that you can reply directly below the comment, the reply being narrower than the original so that is obviously a reply. then another reply below the reply. 3 There are no edit buttons so that you can clear up misconceptions by rephrasing, fix spelling mistakes, the edit having taken place recorded and the date it was edited. 4 There is no (red colored) REPORT button so that one can report abusive comments and have them removed. These are a complete hindrance and deter people coming in that might support someone like me but are put off out of fear of being ridiculed themselves. I post a long comment for you to respond to, next day there are half a dozen totally vacuous comments in the way so that you or I or anyone else has to scroll up and down the page which is a bloody mile long. I'm NOT talking about abusive comment that have substance, just meaningless drivel.
The way this blog is set up it SUPPORTS the status quo. eHealth.forums has all of these features but comments are scanned for swear words and abusive slang words and go into moderation, not appearing until clearing up the problem up by messaging the administrator who is religious. I put a comment in which had the word 'fag' in it, meaning cigarette. The filter took it as the slang for homosexual and that took days to clear up.
I want to clear up this misconception about epilepsy, especially as it relates to schizophrenia, as it is a MAJOR impediment to any further discussion. Trouble is finding the bloody thing on a page which has around 250 comments on it.
I must say I am fascinated with all of the psychoanalysis of my person. On the one hand I display much of the ideation of schizophrenia but am too lucid to be one. I don't seem to comply to the profile of any known psychopathology unless it's something so rare as to be unrecorded. If so many psychologists and psychiatrists would salivate at the idea of being able to do analysis on me, writing a bestseller taking out a Nobel. Just as when Laing found multiple personality schizophrenic Julie. (I have no doubt that Julie was very disturbed but was just going along with Laing by acting as various relatives just to please him).
There is another possibility, however, something really excitingly rare.. Could it possibly be that I am what I actually CLAIM to be, an individual who has gone through BOTH major psychopathologies, first manic depression (I don't use the term bipolar as everybody is bipolar to one degree or another) AND schizophrenia and emerged out the other side into another dimension. That is one of mutually complementary opposites, ie Yin and Yang and seeing everything in Nature as a myriad of cybernetic mechanisms.
This is totally different to the fragmented psyche of western dualism in which opposites are in conflict with each other ie good versus evil, or acidity having nothing to do with alkalinity. Can a light be seen in the light the same as it is on a pitch black night.
Having said that I will now say this. If someone is deemed to be mad, why is that individual then subject to a barrage of ridicule and sometimes very hostile abuse from those who hold themselves to be the very bastions of sanity, a yardstick by which it is measured, a global benchmark.
Is this approach therapeutic for a paranoid individual or could it be the very reverse ie having a lot to do with the etiology of paranoid schizophrenia (is there any other kind.)
If I WAS a schizophrenic I would not be coming onto this blog untreated or treated as the antiphychotics are not exactly the flavor of the month in being able to piece together long dissertations in a coherent way. If I did manage to compel myself to come on just what effect would all of the ridicule and abuse have on me. Would it make me 'Snap out of it' Grow up' 'Get real', etc. or would it have the opposite effect and possibly tip me into suicide.
If I was a paranoid schizophrenic I would assume a massive conspiracy among posters, that many were in email contact with each other, devising strategies to push me over the edge. One individual would be assuming several identities, using different computers and email addresses. Many of you could be in the medical profession colluding with our esteemed host to do a hatchet job on me. The idea would be to create the most amount of confusion and with it extreme paranoia so that I would assume the conspiracy in this blog could be linked up with a myriad other conspiracies, including members of my own family, acquaintances etc.
As the paranoia increases it could include hostile aliens in flying dinner plates hovering overhead unseen, hidden security cameras right through the forest watching me. Bugs everywhere listening. ALL global security organizations now part of the conspiracy. Now spreading intergalactically, drones are heading this way launched from the George Washington now standing off Apollo bay. I'm now freezing in terror as animals rivers mountains, molecules, atoms, subatomic particles join in all communicating with other JUST TO GET ME.
Difficult breathing. The cops are coming to blow me away. Quick, grab the axe to protect myself. A visitor I know comes in the door. No it's an alien disguised as him, come to take me out.. Sounds are really loud and fragmented. Everything looks and sounds extremely threatening.
I really enjoyed that. I'll leave to to provide the ending.
*Eyeroll* I'd like you to shut up about things which you know nothing about. Unfortunately, that seems to include just about every subject in the universe.
I said you were a 'pretend feminist' because you revictimized a young woman who had quite rightly cut her abuser out of her life. You read Greer, but, unsurprisingly, only absorbed her remarks at a superficial level, and didn't bother with bell hooks, whose works are much more worthwhile. I'd tell you to go hang out at the feminist blogs, but I don't want women I like and respect to have to put up with the long trains of crazy that are your comments. Fair warning: they are much less patient than Orac. Although I'd love to see a trans woman put you in your place.
Now, see that question about cancer up there? Answer that. Also, would you like to explain how wild animals manage to get cancer and gout? Bonus points if you can do it without the racist remarks.
N2O lowers your voice, psychonaut.
Right, it's helium to raise the pitch of one's voice. I didn't know laughing gas had any effect on pitch. Guess it's because I wasn't doing much talking after I was exposed to it. (Dental surgery-eyouch!)
Apparently, it's actually the catch-all "timbre" that changes; the change in speed of sound in the gas modifies the available cavity harmonics (f = nv/4L for a half-open tube).
I did read it, but you don't appear to understand the physiology of muscles or the biochemistry of lactate very well. Firstly you assume that epileptics have a dysfunction in glucose metabolism and accumulate lactic acid in their muscles, for which you have no evidence. Then you assume that the seizures in epilepsy have a function (rather than being the result of "abnormal excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain" (Fisher 2005 Epileptic Seizures and Epilepsy: Definitions Proposed by the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) and the International Bureau for Epilepsy (IBE). Epilepsia. 46:470–472.), for which you have no evidence. A major cause of epilepsy is brain damage, and your model doesn't seem to explain why this would result in seizures, it also it also doesn't explain why flickering lights can trigger seizures in epilepsy, and are used in diagnosis during an EEG. During intense exercise lactic acid accumulates in muscles as it is produced faster than it can be removed. This is believed to be one reason for the muscle pain prolonged exercise can cause (though there is some debate about this). Why don't athletes suffer seizures, to pump lactic acid out of their muscles? There seems to be a lot of evidence that contradicts your model, and very little that supports it.
I moved this from the previous page.
Krebiozen
6:04 am
I’m not sure why I bother, but anyway…
To cuppa coffee with six heaped teaspoons of sucrose. All enzymes do is dramatically speed up chemical reactions that would take place anyway, even in cold water, over time. In boiling water, assuming that the hydrolysis of sucrose is an endothermic reaction, I’d expect it to be hydrolyzed to glucose: fructose fairly quickly.
This is just one example of something you “reckon” or “assume” that is incorrect. Instead of checking your facts you charge off into a wild fantasy based on something that is demonstrably untrue. You can boil sucrose for hours and it will remian sucrose, unless you add an acid to it. The half life of sucrose in aqueous solution at 25C is 440 years. It took me all of 30 seconds to find that information.
paul hill
apollo bay vic australia
7:07 am
Krebiozen’
I don’t know how long it took me to find this information as I didn’t time it.
When using the Benedict’s solution on the sucrose, Test tube 1 showed no change with sucrose still being read as negative for monosaccharides or disaccharides. This is the normal result because Benedict’s doesn’t react with all small sugars, including sucrose; however, in Tube 2 after being in the hot water bath for 2-3 minutes, the Benedict reagent reacted with the broken down sucrose to produce an orange solution that indicates it’s positive for monosaccharides. Hydrolysis proved effective in this case as we went from a negative reading to a positive reading after using hydrolysis to break down sucrose. The remaining sugar is either fructose or glucose.
Acid. Isn’t that something that is in the stomach, HCL as I recall, with some H2SO4, a pH of around 2. No food in the girls stomach to neutralize the acid then I’d imagine that all of that sucrose would have been hydrolyzed to monosaccharides by the time they reach the duodenum. I’ve been checking your ‘facts’ and finding many serious anomalies old cock. Many!!! Next?
I'll deal with the epilepsy tomorrow. You've made a lot of balls ups there too my son. Athletes are exercising, eg the running sprinter. It's that running that pumps the lactic acid out. Simple eh. I'd suggest that you go back and read my stuff again before you get yourself deeper and deeper into the shit.
Politicalguineapig'
Can I be of any assistance in providing therapy. Or this just another demonstration of your less than subtle tongue in cheek. My ONLY crime seems to be having been born a bloke and I can honestly say that I had no say in it.
A lot of you are demonstrating fairly severe schizophrenia as you oscillate from being relatively pleasant to downright obnoxious. Not to worry as I can provide therapy for a nominal fee.
Sorry, that should have read "it will remain mostly sucrose". The speed at which it breaks down to glucose and fructose is really immaterial, since my point is that a baked potato, and various other starchy foods have a higher glycemic index than sucrose and thus produce, by definition, a larger spike in blood glucose than sucrose does.
I have read your stuff and most of it is nonsense that contradicts everything I learned studying biochemistry and working in clinical biochemistry. Either all my professors and all the textbooks were wrong, and I hallucinated thousands of results if blood and other tests on thousands of patients over several decades or you are wrong.
One comment in moderation for quoting one of PH's profanities. I'm posting this here as well as the other thread.
Let me try that again with the blockquote formatted correctly.
One comment in moderation for quoting one of PH's profanities. I'm posting this here as well as the other thread.
SFX Me bashing my head repeatedly on keyboard.
Doesn’t matter. My original comment was only a guess anyway. The main thing is that stomach HCl does the same thing so that monosaccharides end up in the duodenum which is what I wanted to find out. Monosacharrides must elicit a GIP axis effect because I just remembered that when rats are INJECTED glucose there is no insulin response. Must go through GI tract.
Why did you have to waste so much space just stating that and why are MY comments in moderation when I am the least abusive poster on this blog. Never say F++++.
PH: A lot of you are demonstrating fairly severe schizophrenia as you oscillate from being relatively pleasant to downright obnoxious.
Oh, please. Another demonstration of ignorance. That's not what schizophrenia is at all. The 'obnoxiousness' is a result of a lot of people running out of patience with you. No one here needs therapy, and the only way you could provide therapy is by serving as a human punching bag.
My ONLY crime seems to be having been born a bloke.
Wrong again. Your main crime is being an ignorant blowhard. At your age, I'm not sure that can be fixed.
I read PH's stuff too much longer and you'll all be convinced that I, at least need therapy.
The whole suggestion of emasculating himself to be a better feminist was nothing more than childish manipulation.
In the end, Mr Hill, you ap
Ugh! Doggone laptop!
*you appear, to me, to be an intelligent, but rather lonely person posting spam on a science blog (that you spend a great deal of time critiquing - if you don't like its layout, go find a blog you like and paste your stuff up there) in hopes of attracting as much attention as possible, because intelligent people discussing your ideas, whether they like them or not, makes you feel validated.
Krebiozen'
Silly me, forgetting that tap water can have a very low pH. First their is carbonic acid from CO2 in the atmosphere, which is increasing with industrial pollution. Then there is acid rain which is very widespead. This from the US EPA.
"Acid rain" is a broad term referring to a mixture of wet and dry deposition (deposited material) from the atmosphere containing higher than normal amounts of nitric and sulfuric acids. The precursors, or chemical forerunners, of acid rain formation result from both natural sources, such as volcanoes and decaying vegetation, and man-made sources, primarily emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) resulting from fossil fuel combustion. In the United States, roughly 2/3 of all SO2 and 1/4 of all NOx come from electric power generation that relies on burning fossil fuels, like coal. Acid rain occurs when these gases react in the atmosphere with water, oxygen, and other chemicals to form various acidic compounds. The result is a mild solution of sulfuric acid and nitric acid.
Then there is water treatment with chlorination, which produces HCL and HOCL, hydrochloric and hypochlorous acid. Admittedly these can dissociate and come back out as chlorine gas CL2, however from a friend who lived in Dandenong, she told me that her bathwater was a greenish colour after chorination
Krebiozen
You.
'I have read your stuff and most of it is nonsense that contradicts everything I learned studying biochemistry and working in clinical biochemistry. Either all my professors and all the textbooks were wrong, and I hallucinated thousands of results if blood and other tests on thousands of patients over several decades or you are wrong."
Me.
My stuff is all mostly nonsense, a very objective statement, precisely quantified. That's what you tell us along with all your experience and credentials which you were a long time 'revealing'. As long as you hide behind a pseudonym to slag me your word is not worth two bob. Why not reveal who you are so that everyone here can CHECK YOU OUT, MATE.
As to the rest of you why are you taking his side whilst he remains incognito. Wet behind the ears maybe or is this some sort of CONSPIRACY to maintain the status quo..
The last post submitted spontaneously. I was getting around to suggesting copper chloride in the bathwater from HCL in the water reacting with the copper hot water tank and pipes. So why don't you all test the pH of your tap water, a garden pH meter, pH sticks, pool pH meter or would you rather believe in fairies. Might be some more simple experiments you can do.
Mrs Woo
*you appear, to me, to be an intelligent, but rather lonely person posting spam on a science blog (that you spend a great deal of time critiquing – if you don’t like its layout, go find a blog you like and paste your stuff up there) in hopes of attracting as much attention as possible, because intelligent people discussing your ideas, whether they like them or not, makes you feel validated'
SPAM on A SCIENCE BLOG. My stuff is spam is it. This is nothing like a science blog, it the antithesis of SCIENCE. I'll tell you why I don't go elsewhere. Because when I began on this blog I EMAILED ALL OF THE WORLD'S NATIONAL MAJOR RADIO AND TELEVISION BROADCASTERS, MAJOR US NEWSPAPERS, ALL PRESENTERS ON THE AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING COMMISSION, AN INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST, A RANGE OF GENOME CONFERENCE DELEGATES, PROVIDING LINKS AND A COMMENT TO WHET THEIR APPETITES. So you are all stars in a major drama. So why don't you all 'out' too, become megastars.
Krebiozen'
EPILEPSY PART 1
YOU.
'I don’t buy your theories about seizures pumping lactic acid out of muscles either. People in lactic acidosis don’t generally go into seizures, and epileptics are not generally suffering from lactic acidosis. Muscle spasms are more characteristic of alkalosis due to its effects on ionized calcium levels'.
ME
Jesus wept, you are validating what I am saying. People in lactic acidosis don't experience fits because there is heaps of lactic acid in the bloodstream available for gluconeogenesis. I'm saying that the convulsions are to pump the lactic acid OUT of the muscles as quickly as possible as there is INSUFFICIENT in the bloodstream and thus available to the liver. Another point is the the fall in pH with the accumulation in the muscles of lactic acid inhibits anaerobic glycolysis, thereby limiting lactic acid PRODUCTION in muscle cells. The convulsions both increase lactic acid production and make it more available. You may be aware that a form of horse race doping is to give the horse sodium bicarb to raise the pH of it's blood, thereby enhancing anaerobic glycolysis. The horse doesn't need to have fits to pump out the lactic acid from it's muscles as running does the job perfectly.
I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with the physiology of the muscles at all with epilepsy. The muscles simply CANNOT release glucose from muscle glycogen as muscle cells do not express Glucose-6-phosphatase as does the liver. Therefore adrenalin and NORADRENALIN have to be released by the adrenals to act on the muscles to produce lactic acid AS IT IS DESPERATELY NEEDED FOR GLUCONEOGENESIS. You claim that a test for albumin and bilirubin is all that is needed to test for general liver health which is, by definition, it's glycogen storage capacity. Not good enough. I was trying to speculate on how that could be tested for but got ridiculed by you when you didn't know what I was getting at, plus got stymied by the usual background din from the mob.
Lactic acidosis is generally associated with untreated Diabetes I combined with liver failure and often combines with Keto acidosis complicated by renal failure. Metabolic acidosis. Arterial pH can fall as low as a life threatening 6.8, very heavy breathing to blow off CO2 thereby lowering carbonic acid level in bloodstream.
The convulsions are probably triggered by a very high muscle tone rate, measured by on of those stupid gadgets I was building an EMG or electromyogram. FROM MEMORY muscle tone rate varies from 100 hz when relaxed to 600 when in a panic eg cerebral hypoglycaemia and DEATH if not rectified
In the case of brain injury causing the fit, don't believe that it is the injury that triggers the fit but the anxiety resulting from a partial recall of the events leading up to and including the accident itself, a recall only of the FEAR component. An amnesia block of the accident just like that of the subsequent fits which might not start till years later. Arthur Yanov, another ratbag like Laing, said that the experience of the accident was like the core of an onion, each subsequent fit a layer. From memory he triggered GENTLE fits using a strobe operating at around 9.5 hz so that the epileptic was conscious during the fit and began to recall the events of previous fits. He might then take the epileptic to the scene of the accident GENTLY to finally trigger a recall of the accident itself. Cause of fits resolved, no more fits, no money for bloodsucking parasite drug companies. So Yanov 'discredited' by your mob. ANYONE WHO GETS TO THE TRUTH IS DISCREDITED.
Part 2, calcium ion ports, strobe light, my fits etc.
@ Paul Hill:
A very serious question:
you might write speculatively on several issues- mental health, physical illness, the government - do you also ADVISE people about stopping treatments that their doctors recommend? Or taking alternate treatments? If so, would you be so kind as to describe which you would discard and why. I am specifically referring to breast cancer patients on another website.
Do you think that this is fair to them? Do you truly believe that you have irrevocable insight that would overturn medical consensus? Is this backed by data?
Honestly, why are we continuing to feed this particular troll?
@ Denice: can you actually follow what he's saying? I get about 4 sentences in and I'm totally confused by his Wall O'Text. And he makes little or no sense to me. If you get him, my hat is tipped to you!
@ Lawrence:
I thought we should clear up what one of the women from BC.org stated about him. Then, I'll leave him to Krebiozen.
@ MI Dawn:
I can follow some of it although I don't see why it's necessary because we already understand what causes epileptic seizures which has led to ways to control them.
As I've said before, I have a great tolerance which enables me to wend my way through tons of uh.... material. I'm sure it's a gift ...and probably hereditary since my father was rather spectacularly adept at this- and it has really paid off for many of us.
Denice Walter,
BC. Been there done that. I got nowhere on that subject because of the din of the rabble. Go read it all, I've been quite specific. The subject at the moment is epilepsy. As to doctors, if I needed one I'd go to New Guinea and see a witch doctor and be far more confident in him than a quack.. Trying to trap me are you.
I'm not talking about CONTROLLING epileptic seizure I'm talking about ELIMINATING THEM. Great source of authority, some unknown woman on BC. org.
MI Dawn,
Being on antipsychotics does make it very difficult to string sentences together. I can help you to get off them.
Lawrence,
You could always go elsewhere. Nobody is twisting your arm. Just searching for someone to slag is symptomatic of a profound psychopathology called being all bitter and twisted.
Next?
An odd choice, since you claim to be living in the woods in Australia like a bunny rabbit. SO2 cap-and-trade has worked pretty well hereabouts.
Lawrence: It's fun. I'm beginning to understand why my cats torment chipmunks.
PH: So why don’t you all ‘out’ too, become megastars.
1. We're not interested in being megastars.
2. We like our present jobs, or our anonymity, and dislike death threats or having pressure being put on us so we can't do our jobs anymore.
3. Says the guy who could be any one of a few thousand Paul Hills.
4. Psuedonyms ensure that no one can.. say, track down one's physical location and injure or kill that someone.
PH: In the case of brain injury causing the fit, don’t believe that it is the injury that triggers the fit but the anxiety resulting from a partial recall of the events leading up to and including the accident itself, a recall only of the FEAR component.
Remember what I said about simple answers always being wrong? That. Brains are delicate pieces of machinery. A brain injury has nothing to do with what you were feeling at the time, and any after-effects have very little to do with emotions. (Stress isn't really an emotion, more of a physical sensation.)
Yanuv sounds like yet another case of g.i.g.o.- garbage in, garbage out. People at the time actually knew very little about how the brain worked, and all sorts of wild and wooly theories proliferated. Again, you really should brush up on neurology- or better yet, just shut up until you stop being wrong about EVERYTHING.
P.S. STOP SHOUTING.
Does Mr Hill use any simple modification of text like bold or italics? If he doesn't know them, the easiest way to emphasize one or two words in a sentence is to capitalize them (I've done it).
That being said, the whole paragraphs are definitely nothing more than shouting.
@PH - I have no interest in fame for debating people and/or questioning thinking or assertions that seem to be a bit off of the accepted norm that have no data behind them. I'm kind of content with the life I have now. Would like to be a bit more like the superwoman I was ten years ago, but life changes and one adapts.
I have been wondering, too, about the BCO thing and whether or not he has been advocating his treatments over scientifically researched ones.
I'm also fascinated that he seems to believe he knows everything about everything. A long, long time ago in a chat forum far far away I ran into another "Paul" who believed he knew everything and was planning to become a doctor. Strangely, he was a severe bipolar possible schizophrenic. Sometimes I hear echos of him in Mr Hill's long internet soliloquies.
Politicalguineapig
'Psuedonyms ensure that no one can.. say, track down one’s physical location and injure or kill that someone'.
Well I don't use a pseudonym and I'm totally up front about everything, put myself under a global spotlight by emailing so much media, can have my medical, any criminal, etc. record scrutinized, security concerns and my address.
Now I'll go one step further and give you my email address so that anyone who is a bit timid to comment here can email me, or who knows Krebiozen and thinks that he is over the top can send me info on him so I can check him out online. He is the sort of person who just couldn't help himself by telling acquaintances to watch this post whilst he demolishes this dickhead no nothing amateur 'scientist' not realizing that it is HE they think is the dickhead, whilst I, the underdog, is putting up a great performance. That way there will be a level playing field because I think a pseudonym is a coward's castle from which to rubbish someone and claim qualifications which could be completely bogus.
noddyblacksheep@hotmail.co.uk
Now I'll go one step further still and give you the web links to a doco. maker, and the doco. he made on me so you can watch a short or download the DVD called 'Road to Apollo'.
The film.
http://vimeo.com/10453827
Now I can get death threats.
Politicalguineapig
‘Psuedonyms ensure that no one can.. say, track down one’s physical location and injure or kill that someone’.
Well I don’t use a pseudonym and I’m totally up front about everything, put myself under a global spotlight by emailing so much media, can have my medical, any criminal, etc. record scrutinized, security concerns and my address.
Now I’ll go one step further and give you my email address so that anyone who is a bit timid to comment here can email me, or who knows Krebiozen and thinks that he is over the top can send me info on him so I can check him out online. He is the sort of person who just couldn’t help himself by telling acquaintances to watch this post whilst he demolishes this dickhead no nothing amateur ‘scientist’ not realizing that it is HE they think is the dickhead, whilst I, the underdog, is putting up a great performance. That way there will be a level playing field because I think a pseudonym is a coward’s castle from which to rubbish someone and claim qualifications which could be completely bogus.
noddyblacksheep@hotmail.co.uk
Now I’ll go one step further still and give you the web links to a doco. maker, and the doco. he made on me so you can watch a short or download the DVD called ‘Road to Apollo’.
Won’t post links.
Now I can get death threats
PH,
That is my personal opinion.
I'm not asking anyone to take my word for what I say, I have posted links to accurate information and try to make my opinions distinct from information I can support with evidence. Please feel free to ignore my personal opinions. As for remaining anonymous, I used to use my real name and be open about where I trained and where I live and work on forums like this. Then I received some death threats against myself and my family (from someone who knew where I live and lived in the same country) for speaking out about some bogus information. Since then I choose to remain anonymous.
Tap water is normally slightly alkaline, mine is about pH 8. The EPA specifies it should be between 6.5 and 8.5. This is a side issue. The point that I have been making, and I'm sorry to repeat it yet again, is that the GI of a baked potato is higher than that of sucrose. Take a look at this study in which they used instant mashed potato which had a GI of almost twice that of a granola bar.
PH,
On epilepsy, let me see if I follow your argument. You are suggesting that epileptics have a glycogen storage disorder, so when their blood glucose drops too low, the only way of increasing it is to produce lactic acid in the muscles, via seizures, which is then supplied to the liver which converts it to glucose via gluconeogenesis. Correct?
I see a few problems with this idea.
Firstly and most importantly, muscles make lactic acid out of pyruvate which is made from glucose. So epileptic seizures consume glucose, and would lower blood glucose still further. The process you suggest makes glucose by consuming glucose.
Secondly, there are several glycogen storage diseases, and as far as I know none of them are associated with epilepsy (or schizophrenia and migraine come to that). Hypoglycemic seizures, which do occur in some glycogen storage diseases, are not the same thing as epilepsy. These diseases can be diagnosed definitively by liver biopsy.
Thirdly, the liver has many functions; conjugation and excretion of toxic substances (both ingested and from normal metabolism), glycogen storage, albumin and triglyceride synthesis, and bile production to name a few. EIther you are talking about an inborn error of metabolism, like the glycogen diseases I mentioned, or liver damage leading to impaired glycogen storage or conversion to glucose. An inability to convert glycogen to glucose leads to serious metabolic dysfunction, and to hepatomegaly. Also an inborn error of metabolism cannot be acquired, and epilepsy most definittely can. You would expect liver damage that impaired gluconeogenesis from glycogen to also damage the liver's other functions which would be picked up by standard liver function tests. I don't see how such selective damage could occur.
Have I misunderstood you again?
Here's an on-line book'Traumatic Brain Injury and Posttraumatic Epilepsy' that has more information than anyone interested is ever likely to need about post traumatic epilepsy.
Krebiozen,
No I'm NOT suggesting that the seizures are to make lactic acid. It is the release of adrenalin and NORADRENALIN that makes lactic acid in the muscles. An emergency reaction that has to juggle between two opposite extremes, the metabolism raising effect of adrenalin and the vasoconstricting effect of noradrenalin which has no metabolic effect on muscle cells. Adrenalin is a vasodilator in skeletal muscle so too much oxygen for anaerobic metabolism hence the noradenalin release, swinging from one to the other. Hence the hot and cold flushes. Perhaps myoglobin exhaustion might play a part as well.
The seizures are to pump the lactic acid out of the muscles. Of COURSE this process uses a lot of energy, as does the fear in a panic attack use a lot of energy in the brain, hence the prolonged catatonia of yesterday before the anti psychotics.
What I'm saying is that there simply is NO OTHER WAY in the face of glycogen storage in the liver being exhausted and that net gain only just exceeds net loss. Otherwise death OR ketosis kicking in because genes are unregulated thoughout the body due to constant swings in and out of ketosis as part of the reactive hypoglycaemia. The exhaustion of liver glycogen could simply be due to constant reactive hypoglycaemia swings, just as the pancreas loses the first insulin release of the normal biphasic release which EXACERBATES THE SWINGS and VICE VERSA. The liver just never gets a chance to be topped up, no storage disease needed. Alternatively general liver pathology could be widespread in epilepsy but not tested for. The liver does get a belting after all, especially from acetaldehyde.
We know that insulinomas and a diabetic injecting too much insulin triggers fits which obviously result from the hypoglycaemia. Are they a different type of fit? The bottom line is that I have had 3 fits myself and I haven't had any brain injury, although doubtless you would beg to differ on that score (sic).
Does anyone think I've been "over the top" with PH and behaved like a dickhead? That was not my intention..
As for the idea that PH "is the underdog, putting up a great performance", I don't really think that posting a link to an experiment that contradicts his own claims about the hydrolysis of sucrose is a great performance. Neither is suggesting that an epileptic's body uses seizures to get muscles to convert glucose into lactate for the liver to turn back into glucose. What's the point of that?
@Krebiozen: No, I think you've been much more patient with PH than I would ever be. You at least try to address his points. I currently skip his posts because I can't stand how wrong he is.
@Krebiozen - I have been incredibly impressed at how polite you have remained. I know only enough to know that his ideas sound "off," but not enough of the biochemistry to explain it. If I had the knowledge you did, there is a good chance that sooner or later (definitely by now) I would have lost patience with the man and either quit talking to him entirely or have just unloaded on him.
The only reason he might dare to insinuate that you are anything other than polite and respectful would be because you have yet to assure him that he is the genius he imagines he is.
Reading his post (I've kind of gotten to the point he is lucky if I skim them, but I like reading your responses - my ex had pyschomotor epilepsy as a result of a brain injury) it sounds like he's implying that you think he is the "dickhead," not that you are. I don't think any of us think of him in that kind of parlance (though it is more likely once he brings it up), but most of us think of him in the internet type of definitions, i.e., troll, etc.
Again expressing my unsupported personal opinion, I think PH is an extremely intelligent and creative man, with a vivid imagination. If he could discipline his mind and rein it in a bit more he would be a force to be reckoned with. He seems to have a tendency to seize upon an idea and run away with it, without pausing to check its feasibility. He clearly falls in love with his own ideas, and sees any criticism of them as a personal attack on him. In Isiah Berlin's terms he's a hedgehog who could benefit from becoming more of a fox. I rather like him, to be honest, though I wish he wouldn't advise people to reject conventional cancer treatment.
I meant Isaiah Berlin.
Krebiozen,
'Neither is suggesting that an epileptic’s body uses seizures to get muscles to convert glucose into lactate for the liver to turn back into glucose. What’s the point of that?'
CHRIST ALMIGHTY, if this is not a deliberate attempt to discredit me or ignorance on your part I don't know what. The bloody glucose is in the muscles where it is NOT needed and not in the rest of the body, especially in the brain where it is DESPERATELY NEEDED. The process that I have articulated is the ONLY way that I can think of to get it from the muscles to the brain.
If you can get around to finish with the grandstanding, there might be a basis for further conversation. The world's media is watching this and previous blogs and must be coming to the obvious conclusion that I was enticed on to them with the sole aim of discrediting my ideas on breast cancer,as they were seen as a threat to the status quo as everything since I started validates it. You Krebiozen, would appear to be a part of that. I WAS getting around to the sugar and the spud, as I desperately want to, but so far I've been forced to respond to vacuous shit in a never ending tide and unable to.
THE CONSPIRACY.
Seeing conspiracies is allegedly symptomatic of paranoid delusions. However they DO exist outside the realm of fantasy, eg Watergate and Kennedy's assassination.. Anyone who came into 'Medicine and Evolution' not long after it started would be aware that there were a number of posts on it before I began putting mine on. Most of it went way off topic but there were a few relevant ones. I posted a couple and waited for replies but nothing for several weeks.
Then one day I checked and all of the posts except mine and one short comment before mine had been removed This comment referred to French research that claimed there were 10 different types of breast cancer. My first comment was a reference to that, then one on hypoxia. Weeks passed and nothing.
So I came to the reasonable assumption that Orac liked my stuff and wanted to see more. It had been set up for me. So I posted one very critical, but not abusive, on Stephen Rosenberg, New York surgeon and 'researcher'. Then another one immediately below it.
Then all of a sudden the ridicule started and has continued 'till now. Ok, I posted the same one on Rosenberg on breastcancerorg, "A Case of Total Remission" and it was removed within hours with no explanation from the 'Community'. There was plenty of ridicule there too and I would have to expect that some ridiculing there are the same as some here using different pseudonyms. A desperate attempt to discredit me, even drive me to suicide because if my ideas spread bot Rosenberg and Orac would be out of business. Both are New York surgeons, both researchers and both Jewish I assume by Orac's stuff on anti Semitism. Thus it is MOST unlikely they don't know each other. I am NOT anti-Semitic in case anyone wants to jump onto that angle.
PH
The only reason I've even come over to this thread and read any of your rants and raves is because I saw the number of responses from Krebiozen. I too majored biochem (and..oh the horror...molec bio) and know from past discussions at RI that Krebiozen, to put it colloquially, knows his shit. I also know that when he is unfamiliar with a particular area, he says so, has the research skills and makes the effort to obtain relevant information. I can't decide whether his patience with you, and your attacks when you're shown to be simply guessing or making it up as you go along, is commendable or masochistic
@Krebiozen (6:12)
From what I have read of PH, I'd have to pretty much agree with your comment above. Seems he is willing to make the effort only if he gets to dictate what information he will indulge.
The Australian term for that is: "wanker". I personally have little to no patience for them.
THE CONSPIRACY PART 2.
Many years ago I wrote a little booklet called simply 'Cancer' subtitled 'Immunotherapy and the Lourdes Phenomenon'. It was a critique of Stephen Rosenberg's book 'The Transformed Cell' and an explanation of a so called 'miracle' cure at Lourdes of a massive benign tumor of a fallopian tube. I handed out dozens of copies of it at the Lorne Cancer and Genome Conferences.
Now as my booklets went back with delegates to all over the world, I assume now that Rosenberg was given a copy of it and realizing that this booklet was now distributed world wide among the cancer researching community, he was less than amused.
A couple of years after handing these booklets out I mentioned Rosenberg to Ashley Dunn, convener of the Lorne Cancer Conference. He replied 'Yes I know Stephen, he's been a lecturer here at this conference.' It was about this time that things were cooling toward me at the Conference DESPITE being given 3 FREE conferences in a row worth around $2,100 starting the year after my first, a joint AACR Lorne Conference. (See details in HYPOXIA on 'Medicine and Evolution') Now to criticize a delegate as 'prestigious' as Rosenberg at either conference is a mortal sin as they are drawcards, ensuring that registrations are full and the cash and prestige comes in .
THE CONSPIRACY PART 3
Thus I can only conclude, given what has happened since, that Orac didn't set things up because he was interested in my stuff but to demolish my ideas and that all of the abusive drivel is coming from people colluding with him, some possibly oncologists, surgeons etc.
Further evidence is the fact that I have been put in moderation for some time, despite NOT being abusive, cannot post web links at all at the moment, not even ONE.
It was a suspicion that I was being set up that motivated me early in the peace to send emails to BBC, Canadian National Broadcaster, ABC ALL presenters, CNN, New york Times, Wall St Journal, Washington Post, an investigate journalist, many researchers that I know and ones I don't with a comment that was very enticing for them to check the links I provided. I have been saving all my pages as evidence should Orac have ideas about removing these threads. I will articulate my terms and conditions for continuing on this thread later.
THE HACKER.
I'm sure that given the hacking skills of young computer nerds these days it would be quite possible for them to hack into Science Blogs and discover the identity and addresses of posters hiding behind pseudonyms, and thus determine their motives to be as disruptive and malicious as ones ALL OVER Orac's Blogs. Everyone is woo according to Orac. Maybe he's got it the wrong way round and is also incredibly naive as well. Maybe it's him who has an inflated sense of his self-importance.
Krebozien: Actually, you've been remarkably patient. You aren't the dick in this thread.
PH: Krebozien actually knows quite a bit about what xi's talking about. And knows how to break it down to a layman, which is a bit tougher than making up gobblygook. The resources xi's cited are also fairly clear-and fact based, unlike the resources you've cited, which are basically pulled out of nether regions.
As for the whole nym' thing: well, you have no job, and no worries that someone would steal your identity. That isn't true of the rest of the posters- me included. I'm not very far along in my career, so I have to be fairly careful.
There has been a lot of speculation here about just what constitutes a schizophrenic. I'm happy to pronounce that they are VERY easy to find. Just go to your nearest mirror, look in it and presto, a schizophrenic. You might not be suffering any of the more overt symptoms yet, however before much longer they will materialize. Nevertheless there is a way of alleviating them, not eliminating them as they are an inevitable part of going through full blown psychosis, a path you chose when going onto these blogs, to denigate
The first thing you must do is entirely eliminate refined sugar from your diet. This will dramatically reduce a variety of symptoms such as moodswing, panic, depression, sweats, shakes, migraines etc. I t would also be a damn good idea to get yourself a good blood glucose monitor and a tube of Diastix with which you can test your urine for ketones and glucose. Then do 5 hr GTT's on yourself. Learning about how your body works is great way to find out how refined sugar is the worst poison on Earth, one which kills slowly, making a HUGE contribution to degenerative disease. Taking this advice could make the difference between being institutionalized and NOT being institutionalized in the very near future. I'm sure that Krebiozen will be only to glad to help out here as he has done MILLIONS of GTT's, unless of course he is too debilitated himself to do so. Let me know how you are going and I'll be only too glad to pass on the next lot of tips.
THE IMMEDIATE APOCALYPSE.
The world is presently confronted with an enormous threat to global security, one which could be terminal for personkind. However, not to worry as I have the answer as to how it can be averted, for a not inconsiderable fee of course. As the solution is very complex, articulating it on this blog will involve WP upgrading it as suggested above, PLUS each comment having a number for quick reference, and an email sent to a poster when a reply is posted. Thus Science Blog will indeed be suitable for Science and not as it is at the moment the very antithesis of same. Now, I must stress the dire urgency of this as time is running out fast, very fast. Further instructions are coming. Should Science Blog decide to ignore this advice I will simply cut off all communications and disappear underground to look after my own survival.
Krebiozen,
I was of the opinion that you had not comprehended my post on seizures above or not read it. However now I am totally convinced that you, how can I put it politely, were less than careful with the truth in order to ingratiate yourself with the rest of the herd as the very bastion of tolerance and courtesy. Well it doesn't wash with ME mate and it is I you are gonna have to convince and all of the reasonable people watching these blogs right now. You came in with both guns blazing, referring to my stuff as 'nonsense'. If that ain't denigration then I don't know what is. If you think you are just using friendly tongue in cheek then you have a vast way to go in understanding sensitivity. Grandstanding or pulling rank is the way I'd describe it.
I am beginning (?) to feel uncomfortably like I'm tormenting someone who is not entirely well.
I don't understand what you mean by "the bloody glucose is in the muscles". The glucose is in the blood that is being constantly pumped around the body supplying every organ in the body, including the muscles and the brain, with oxygen and glucose. Muscles convert chemical energy into force and motion, with lactic acid being a waste product. There is glycogen in muscles that can be converted to glucose, but that is used locally. I simply don't see why, if the brain is low on glucose, the body would send glucose to the muscles to be converted to lactic acid which then travels to the liver to be converted back into glucose which then travels to the brain. Why not just send the glucose to the brain in the first place and avoid the seizures?
I call it as I see it. I'm not going to patronize you and pretend what you write makes sense when I don't think it does. Sorry to hurt your feelings, but I'm insulting your models, not you personally.
Sauceress,
You and me both.
Krebozien: Yeah, I've been feeling like that too.
PH: Just go to your nearest mirror, look in it and presto, a schizophrenic. You might not be suffering any of the more overt symptoms yet, however before much longer they will materialize. Nevertheless there is a way of alleviating them, not eliminating them as they are an inevitable part of going through full blown psychosis, a path you chose when going onto these blogs, to denigate.
Do you ever get tired of being wrong? That's not how schizophrenia- or indeed any mental illness-works. It's made up of many factors including genetics and stress. Thinking happy thoughts or avoiding sugar won't do anything for mental illness.
Furthermore, I don't think you can assume anything from Orac's posts.Here in the US, white people have always been active in anti-racism/civil rights movements, a lot of straight people are combating homophobia, and a lot of gentiles hate anti-semitism and combat it at every opportunity. Plus, it's very satisfying to take down the slimy pieces of shit that make up the holocaust denial movement.
Promises, promises.
@Paul Hill
I read your posts and his posts - and came to the conclusion that perhaps, just perhaps, Krebiozen knows more than you do about this topic. Your temperamental outburst does nothing to improve your credibility, I'm afraid.
"Worst" is a value judgement word, as it has a strong subjective component. I consider polonium a far worse poison, personally. Hydrogen cyanide is another candidate for worse, though it is not as lingering as polonium.
As Peter Sagal once put it, can you imagine a Bond villain saying "I expect you to Die-abetes."
@Krebiozen - it is painfully obvious that PH is not a well individual. Having experienced my fair share of mentally-ill individuals, it is abundantly clear that PH is probably suffering from at least one, perhaps several mental illnesses.
His behavior is classic paranoid-delusional, along with belief in so-called "secret knowledge" that only he can fully comprehend and deliver to the masses. It is unfortunate that he is using RI as the outlet for his delusions - because these types of individuals feed on the attention, and sometimes, paradoxically, the lack of attention, that people pay to them.
If he did, in fact, send emails out to the media outlets he says he did, I'm sure they either ended up in spam filters or were immediately deleted as the ravings of a lunatic (probably similar to many other attempts at such contact they receive on a daily basis). He assumes that his "ideas" are either intriguing or dangerous enough to warrant such attention, as this mistaken belief of "self-importance" is another mechanism of the mental illness.
Unlike some of our other trolls that are just douchebags, PH is most likely seriously ill - and continuing all or any discussions with him is potentially hazardous.
Lawrence,
Agreed. I shall desist forthwith, and this time I shall stick the flounce.
Krebiozen
" the body would send glucose to the muscles to be converted to lactic acid which then travels to the liver to be converted back into glucose"
I don't know if this is ignorance on your part or deliberate. If you can go back to the original post it is clearly explained. The major stores of glucose AS GLYCOGEN are in the skeletal muscles and liver. Normally the liver maintains blood glucose homeostasis in the body, taking it up when there is too much, and releasing when there is not enough. I'll leave out the hormones involved to keep it simple for you.
If blood glucose falls to an abnormal low and the liver is unable to release sufficient glucose FROM IT'S STORE OF GLYCOGEN, for whatever reason, then the only other
source is the skeletal muscles. Okay, the body has ALREADY sent glucose to the muscles, now it's got to get it back out again because of a hypoglycaemia crisis.
However, the muscles were not 'designed' for this role because they do not express the enzyme Glucose-6-phosphatase, necessary to release glucose from the breakdown of STORED muscle glycogen. The liver DOES express this enzyme. Are you with me so far.
So the only alternative for the muscles is to break the glucose (as glucose-6-phosphate----fructose-6-phosphate---fructose 1,6-phosphate etc.) to pyruvate which is then hydrogenate with the enzyme pyruvate hydrogenase, to lactic acid which is then released from the muscle cells and into the bloodstream. This is a fermentation process called anaerobic glycolysis.
If you wish any further instruction in biochemistry and endocrinology please feel free to ask and I'll be only too willing to oblige as that's what I'm here for.
Lawrence,
'Unlike some of our other trolls that are just douchebags, PH is most likely seriously ill – and continuing all or any discussions with him is potentially hazardous'
Surely you are not admitting that a sane person such as yourself could be contaminated by an insane person like me. This is what Laing called 'The reverse transference' which means that instead of the shrink transferring his sanity to the patient the patient transfers his INSANITY to the shrink. The shrink listens to the patient describe his past and thinks 'Shit, that's just like my past' and it starts to get at him. Bet he persists, as treating patients is his job and is convinced that he'll work his way through it. But he doesn't work his way through it and becomes increasingly bonkers which is what you'd expect from a shrink.
Should you need further psychiatric help I'm only to willing to oblige.
@ Lawrence:
@ Krebiozen:
Agreed. Over and out.
Krebiozen
Lawrence says.
'Unlike some of our other trolls that are just douchebags, PH is most likely seriously ill – and continuing all or any discussions with him is potentially hazardous'.
You reply.
Agreed. I shall desist forthwith, and this time I shall stick the flounce.
No you won't. You won't be able to help yourself. After all, nobody is watching you. You'll be terrified that I finally get through to my other patients just what I mean about all manner of things. If you have a boss he'll be watching this and thinking. Hmmm, Krebiozen is not shaping up too well in this discussion, far too dogmatic and ignorant. I might have to let him go and find someone more suitable. If self employed, customers will be having serious misgivings.
Mephistopheles O'Brien
Another patient.
ME.
'refined sugar is the worst poison on Earth'
YOU.
“Worst” is a value judgement word, as it has a strong subjective component. I consider polonium a far worse poison, personally. Hydrogen cyanide is another candidate for worse, though it is not as lingering as polonium.
Of course they are. Don't think I'm that ignorant. Thing is we avoid those poisons if possible. But with sugar, we (well not me) tip the stuff down our throats like there was no tomorrow, eg Coca Cola. It's the LONG TERM effects that sugar has whilst being blissfully ignorant of the cause, an ignorance supported by the sawbones and the shrink. If it was polonium or hydrogen cyanide poisoning there'd be blood tests to determine the cause.
Nurse, can you show the next patient in please.
Narad
Mmmm. Let's see his record. Lotta problems this bloke.
He says.
' Should Science Blog decide to ignore this advice I will simply cut off all communications and disappear underground to look after my own survival.
Promises, promises.'
Me.
Why then do you persist in coming back in. You could do something else on your computer, like look at some riveting porn on a more frequent basis than you do now.
This sort of contradictory behavior is most definitely symptomatic of a latent, if not, overt psychosis.
Have you had your creosote enema today.
His reasoning about some of this was kind of interesting to watch. Kind of relieved this is over, though disappointed to not read more of your responses, Krebiozen. I love learning more - always have.
Too bad I can't afford more college!
Mephistopheles O'Brien
You back again already ?
Paul Hill
' I was of the opinion that you had not comprehended my post on seizures above or not read it.'
YOU.
'I read your posts and his posts – and came to the conclusion that perhaps, just perhaps, Krebiozen knows more than you do about this topic. Your temperamental outburst does nothing to improve your credibility, I’m afraid'.
ME.
It remains to be seen about the first half'.
WHAT BLOODY @#$#@&% TEMPERAMENTAL *&$@# OUTBURSTS. The next mongrel *&^%## BASTARD that says that I'll rip his $#&^$$ intestines out.
ONE outburst after the most extra ordinary provocation of what'sis name pretending to not understand what I've explained several times or just plain ignorance.
Krebiozen says that he has had death threats in the past. I find this perfectly understandable. The victim of his extreme provocation has my deepest sympathy.
Nurse, better close up now as I'm feeling a bit spun out dealing with all of this extreme mental illness today.
For what it's worth, I don't think engaging or not engaging Mr. Hill makes a tinker's damn. He may be as nutty as a fruitcake (and I say this having spent far too much of my life in the task of trying to "talk down" paranoid-delusional episodes), but he is to all appearances in a comfortably familiar zone.
Mr. Hill - ah, humor. Ar ar ar ar ar.
Fascinating. He is interesting to watch as he seems to slip from one approach to the other. He really, seriously reminds me of a lot of other "alternative" thinkers, to be honest. When approached with evidence that might counter their pet theory, they develop this disdainful "you obviously don't know what you're talking about or you would know I am right," then resort to tantrums and rants and intimidation, if they can. They also usually (of course) have one answer that cures everything. I think someone even wrote a book about their pet theory and called it something like "The Cure to All Diseases"
Gotta love that Hulda Clark...
Promises, promises.
Is it possible that Krebiozen simply doesn't know what I am talking about on the subject of seizures? He claimed to be a biochemist, endocrinologist, and heamatologist or at least had studied these subjects but had done just one of them at Uni. I say this because it is MOST unusual for anyone in the biological sciences to have done more than one discipline and even to study others in their own time. The idea is that you collaborate with specialists in other disciplines to work out complex problems needing a multidisciplinary approach. A great idea which doesn't work, unfortunately do to too much jingoism. By what he says I'd say that he is a biochemist only. That is HOPELESSLY inadequate to understand just the convulsions, let alone the entire pathology which also involves neurology, physiology, anatomy, gastroenterology etc. I studied all of these out of the ignorance of believing that this was the way to understand a human being. Getting all defensive is a dead give away for someone out of their depth. Trouble is they just compound their problem by continuing to bluster when it is increasingly obvious they are, well, a lot less than right. Thus I'd say the death threat claim is male bovine feces.
An example of K's deceptiveness was pointing to his tap water having a pH of between 6.8? and 8 as if EVERY TAP IN THE WORLD was the same. For those unfamiliar in basic inorganic chemistry, pH ranges from 14 (very acidic) to 1 (very alkaline) 7 being neutral pH. His tap water is obviously dam water, having had time to react with mostly limestone (calcium carbonate) and dolomite (calcium and magnesium carbonate) in the water streams and dam.
If however you have tank water, especially if the tank is fibreglass or plastic and have plastic pipes, so there is no metal to react with your water, and are downwind of a coal fired power station, bushfires etc. then it can be a different story entirely.
'In some areas of the United States, the pH of rainwater can be 3.0 or lower, approximately 1000 times more acidic than normal rainwater. In 1982, the pH of a fog on the West Coast of the United States was measured at 1.8! That IS acidic!!!!'
ADAPT Congress.
Rain water on average now in 2009 has a pH between 4.3 and 5.6.
Even a pH in this range is probably sufficient to hydrolyse the sugar in the boiling coffee, which is what this discussion was all about in the first place. This is conclusive. Go online and check. Thus if you lot continue to take sides in on this blog your motivation is obviously suspect. Why DON'T you test YOUR tapwater? Afraid I might just be right?
Mephistopheles: I consider polonium a far worse poison, personally.
Oh, god. I'm severely phobic about radiation, in the first place, due to a history of cancer in the family. My grandfather was a physicist back in the wild and wooly days of WW2- he died of leukemia because of exposure to radioactive items. I freak out around x-ray machines.
That case in the U.K. gave me the creeping horrors for weeks. And then I found out that in the early days of the 20th century, people used to carry polonium in their pockets. *shiver*
Ignore me, I'm still a little high from a rum and coke I had while I was out n' about. (I'm awfully well for a person who was drinking pure poison:) )
STOP PRESS
I made an awful gaff in my last post I said pH 14 was very acidic and 1 was very alkaline. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE OTHER WAY 'ROUND. pH 1 very acidic, pH 14 very alkaline. More reason for a bloody EDIT button.
DEATH THREATS, DEATH THREATS, DEATH THREATS.
By the most amazing coincidence thousands of text message death threats were sent out across Australia, commencing 8:30 our time today, demanding $5,000 or else. Now I got to thinking, given all of the talk on this blog in the last couple of days, would it be possible if some naughty individual on this blog had done this in a desperate attempt to discredit me and shut me up. Going by a comment recently I have a suspect.
Politicalguineapig,
' I’m still a little high from a rum and coke I had while I was out n’ about. (I’m awfully well for a person who was drinking pure poison.'
You don't sound awfully well to me dear. Pop into the surgery tomorrow and I'll see if it can fit you in, in a manner of speaking.
Politicalguineapig,
You don't think alternative medicine has completely abandoned a wacky idea like that do you? Check out this website where they sell healing radioactive stones.
Sauceress
July 21, 8:27 pm
PH
As to the rest of you why are you taking his side whilst he remains incognito. Wet behind the ears maybe or is this some sort of CONSPIRACY to maintain the status quo..
Sauceress
The only reason I’ve even come over to this thread and read any of your rants and raves is because I saw the number of responses from Krebiozen. I too majored biochem (and..oh the horror…molec bio) and know from past discussions at RI that Krebiozen, to put it colloquially, knows his shit. I also know that when he is unfamiliar with a particular area, he says so, has the research skills and makes the effort to obtain relevant information. I can’t decide whether his patience with you, and your attacks when you’re shown to be simply guessing or making it up as you go along, is commendable or masochistic.
Now as Randy Mice Davies said when Profumo and Co denied they had been having sex with her and Christine Keeler, 'They would say that wouldn't they.' Now it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that Sauceress is actually K in disguise, having had a gender change. "He knows his shit does he," according to your commendation. Why don't you weigh into the conversation then as K is having a nervous breakdown at the moment.
Another saying. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". " you’re shown to be simply guessing or making it up as you go" Do you actually know if I'm geissing or making it up. In the present discussion biochem and endocrinology would be a better match but still hopelessly inadequate.
Politicalguineapig,
Do you ever get tired of being wrong? That’s not how schizophrenia- or indeed any mental illness-works. It’s made up of many factors including genetics and stress. Thinking happy thoughts or avoiding sugar won’t do anything for mental illness.
Furthermore, I don’t think you can assume anything from Orac’s posts.Here in the US, white people have always been active in anti-racism/civil rights movements, a lot of straight people are combating homophobia, and a lot of gentiles hate anti-semitism and combat it at every opportunity. Plus, it’s very satisfying to take down the slimy pieces of shit that make up the holocaust denial movement.
ME
I thought I'd deal with Politicalguineapig, when there was a slack period in the surgery as she needs a lot of attention. A couple of characteristic stand out. A pathological hatred of men, something which must keep her busy as half the population are blokes. I won't speculate as to why. She admits to mild depression as they all do lest people start getting alarmed that it could be more than mild. She is obsessed with psychiatry which is definitely a sign of psychopathology. She is what we call in Australia a Chardonne (middle class) Socialist'. They go out of their way to prove they are not racists by getting stuck into anyone using a word like Jew or black. If you use the word Jew instead of Jewish, according to this set, you are automatically a neo-Nazi holocaust denier.
HER
'Plus, it’s very satisfying to take down the slimy pieces of shit that make up the holocaust denial movement'. 'Slimy pieces of shit'. Using such extreme language PROVES beyond a shadow of doubt that she is no racist. All I was suggesting that Rosenberg an Orac probably knew each other because went to some similar fraternity, (hardly a synagogue) and from that she extrapolates that I'm a holocaust denier. You cant use the word black any more or Afro-American as not all blacks are Afro-American. So 'A person of colour' is the appropriate term today, VERY patronizing but not racist. If I try to be friendly that's WAY OUT of bounds, to be seen to be friendly with me would expose her to a torrent of ridicule, make her seem conciliatory shudder, shudder. Oscillations between being conciliatory (shit I've overdone the agro) and aggression (what the hell am i doing grovelling) are symptomatic.
We've got one like her in the Bay. No matter what ANY bloke says it's wrong. Say one thing now, it's wrong, the opposite later, it's wrong. I'm fixing her computer for nothing and she's bucketing bile on to me at the same time.
So I stop going around to her place and I'm an arsehole for avoiding her. You just can't win.
However It's the more extreme pathologies that are the most challenging and interesting, so I'll persist. (I'm really gonna cop it after this. No, she'll say I'm not worth talking to probably.)
Krebiozen,
What are you doing back here? You said you were staying away for the sake of your mental well being. Why aren't you putting shit on me.? How dare you not put shit on me. This blog was set up by Orac for the express purpose of having people put shit on me. Please put shit on me mate, please. Have I said something to offend you?
I really don't know how I'd cope if everybody stopped putting shit on me as it's never happened before, ever. Bloody Hell, imagine if people started being NICE to me. AAAAAGH! I'd die of shear boredom with noone to take the piss out off. ( I shouldna said that, as that'll be the new ploy to tip me over the edge). I know, I'll be nice back. That'll REALLY give them the shits and they'll rip right back into me again and I'll be okay.
Hang on, this might be the latest ploy. Everybody totally ignore me so that I'll start to wonder if actually exist or worse, am TOTALLY INSIGNIFICANT. Yeah, that's it. That's what they are up to. Gotta think about this.
Mrs Woo,
Sorry I didn't see you out in the waiting room dear. Let's check her out by the things she says. Try and get a profile on her.
She says.
Fascinating. He is interesting to watch as he seems to slip from one approach to the other. He really, seriously reminds me of a lot of other “alternative” thinkers, to be honest. When approached with evidence that might counter their pet theory, they develop this disdainful “you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about or you would know I am right,” then resort to tantrums and rants and intimidation, if they can. They also usually (of course) have one answer that cures everything. I think someone even wrote a book about their pet theory and called it something like “The Cure to All Diseases”
Me.
This is truly amazing stuff. Tantrums, rants, intimidation, one cure fits all, 'alternative'. Who the hell is she talking about. Very severe delusions this one. Mild ECT? Abilify? No better keep away from the antipsychotics. Have to think about her for a while. Isn't woo bullshit in Aussie? Ah, that's it. She telling us that she is bullshit, well cowshit.
I'm gonna have to close the surgery now as I'm starting to feel a bit sane.
I think it is about time to ignore this deranged troll. It craves attention...even if the attention is only to point out what an ignoramus it is.
lilady
'I think it is about time to ignore this deranged troll. It craves attention…even if the attention is only to point out what an ignoramus it is'.
This one is an extremely well balanced individual no matter what her detractors might say, got a chip on BOTH shoulders. Has not just got both guns blazing, got both TANKS blazing. Must be a yank. They are a bit like that, you know. Actually the US is one giant bin, a maximum security one. That's what border security is all about, to keep them IN. The rest of the world subsidizes the US government to keep them away. The 1% schizophrenics are the sane ones.
Actually she's got a good point. If I was totally ignored, ie had no patients to treat I might be able to get on with a bit of SCIENCE which is what I came here for.
@Lilady - his story is evolving a pace - he now discusses his "surgery" when at the beginning he was a persecuted innocent person squatting in the middle of a national forest in Australia living in a handmade shack. How in the world would someone in those conditions also manage to have their own medical office?
*Sticks out tongue at the creep*
I avoid male doctors as much as possible. And you're not licensed to practice on anyone or anything.
I'm interested in psychiatry only because I have a passing interest in the brain. Haven't studied it for real, but I always like to read the neuroscience stuff that gets published. Brain injuries are just..really fascinating because each one is unique and there are many workarounds that develop to bypass the injured areas.
As for psychiatrists and psychologists, I'm only interested in them for the laughs. The psychiatrists have been wrong since Freud and shall be wrong forever and ever. The psychologists get things right once in a blue moon, and evolutionary psychology is hilariously half-baked and wrong.
Since I dislike having lies spread about me, I should clear up a few things. First of all, I don't really hate men. I just try and avoid any involvement with them. I hate the idea of getting murdered. Plus, they have a whole lot of trip-wires; saying the wrong thing or acting the wrong thing lands a woman in a world of hurt. Saying nothing is best.
PH: ‘Plus, it’s very satisfying to take down the slimy pieces of shit that make up the holocaust denial movement’. ‘Slimy pieces of shit’. Using such extreme language PROVES beyond a shadow of doubt that she is no racist. All I was suggesting that Rosenberg an Orac probably knew each other because went to some similar fraternity, (hardly a synagogue) and from that she extrapolates that I’m a holocaust denier.
If it's not about you, don't make it about you. I never ever said you were a holocaust denier.(A bit racist for believing the lies your government told you about the aborigines, but thinking for yourself doesn't appear to be your strong suit.)
As for the 'slimy pieces of shit' remark- well, I've never met one who didn't sound like a terrible person. We had one denier here who actually said the Jews were responsible for allowing the holocaust to occur. Sounds like a pleasant person, doesn't he? Go check the 'Holocaust Denial' tag and decide for yourself.
Krebozien: For real? Gahhhh. I can only hope any sucker that bought those didn't reproduce.
*acting the wrong way* Shouldn't post when I'm half-awake.
Mrs Woo,
Politicalguineapig,
Let's clear this up once and for all shall we. I have lived in the National Park by MYSELF for the entire 15 years. I have NEVER practiced as anything. No medical office, nothing. I called the camp that got smashed up 'Placebo Park' to symbolize the healing power of the peace and tranquility of the wild AND being away from the temptations pf booze, fags, junk food shops etc. 28 km from town and no car meant that it was impossible to get to town if I was hanging out for a drink or fag.
But the thing is, I didn't FEEL like a fag or a drink because of the peace of mind, the freedom of being there. I was a heavy smoker when I first went there. The smoke I liked most was when I went to bed. I used to go to friends place on the weekend when someone came out to pick me up. I decided to leave the fags back at their place to try to break the habit knowing that there was no way I could get a fag out there. I figured I was gonna have a very hard time of it when I went back, especially the fag in bed and wouldn't sleep at all that night hanging out.
Know what, I DIDN'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT and slept like a log. It did not enter my mind. It wasn't until next day that I realized that I hadn't thought about a fag the night before. I was in another world out there, as I am here. That's why I called the place 'Placebo Park' no signs anywhere, no gates or fences, nothing whatsoever that made my camp any sort of institute, just a vision in my head.
I began to realize what the 'miracles' of Jesus were all about, nothing to do with religion as I do NOT believe that he was religious. Has been, but came out the other side of it. He came to understand the Placebo Effect because of HIS stays in the wilderness. The New Testament is a construct of Constantine in the fourth century, dominated by the 13 books of Paul who was the Adolph Eichman of the time, the Inquisitor, before his so called conversion. Not ONE single word written by Jesus in the NT, because his beliefs were considered blasphemous, seditious and subversive to BOTH Romans and Jews and destroyed. The following is an idea of what one of his called 'miracles'.
THE HEALING OF LEGION.
What if the miraculous cures that Jesus was supposed to have performed were not miracles at all but cures brought about by a psychological catharsis, rebirth if you like, based on his understanding of the placebo effect. Let's say that these were disorders resulting from extreme persistent stress. Two major factors causing the stress, the horrific repression from both Romans, AND Jews upon each other, eg stoning. In 0004 a rebellion by one Judas of Galilee was put down by the Romans and he and 3,000 of his followers were crucified, with the crosses stretching all the way from Jerusalem to Damascus. Imagine the shock, arbitrary arrest and crucifixion being common. Now add belief in sin and with it demon possession.
Now consider that when Jesus said that he came to take away sin he meant the BELIEF in sin, that it didn't exist and thus that demons also didn't exist. Lets take a case in point, Legion, obviously suffering Grand Mal epilepsy with schizophrenia, hence auditory hallucinations ie voices (of 'demons'). The convulsion of Grand Mal epilepsy are so bizarre there had to be some bizarre reason for them, MANY demons, ie a LEGION of them. He cuts himself with stones to let the demons out. Normally NOONE would go near him lest the demons jump out of him and into those who get close. People feeding him would leave his food some distance away the take off quick. Thus his social isolation would be TOTAL. People considered to be demon possessed and that included just about ANY illness were thrown out of cities and towns and had to fend for themselves, but were fed and helped by charitable people but who kept their distance..
However, along comes Jesus with 'disciples' and is not afraid. But Legion is very frightened of these approaching strangers, thinking they are going to stone him to death. This fear is so extreme it induces a very severe fit and he falls to the ground thrashing around convulsing and cutting himself. He cries out “I am Legion for we are many.” Jesus kneels down beside him, tears pouring down his cheeks at the horrific torment of this poor individual. He's had his OWN torment, years of it, before finding his own rebirth. Jesus says 'It's okay Legion, there ARE no demons, there is no sin'. Legion cries out so loud that it frightens a herd of pigs which rush down into the river and drown, then he lets go and weeps, his body relaxing completely as he enters a profoundly euphoric state. Reborn. He looks into Jesus eyes and sees something he's NEVER seen before, real love.
Love is understanding and thus having empathy. Love heals. 'Perfect love casteth out all fear.' Sin is fear and is totally illogical. Whether antisocial behaviour is natured or nurtured or BOTH one is NOT responsible for it, Sadam Hussein, Slobadan Malosovitch or Adolph Hitler.. It is a consequence of inequality and that arises from the illusion that wealth brings happiness. It doesn't. It just creates inequality. INEQUALITY is the root of all 'evil' and without money there can be little inequality. I believe that a severed spinal cord can be regenerated naturally given the right conditions. No medical intervention whatsoever. First the 'Sin' has to go. Details are on Background Briefing
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2012-06…
FINANCIAL CRISIS.
There have been heavy falls on global financial markets overnight due to Spain's bond rate going over 7%. There are only 7 days left before Obama's ultimatum on raising the US debt ceiling runs out. As I understand the situation from a friend of mine, the Reserve Bank governor Ben Brenanski wants quantitative easing to match Obama's target but faces a lot of opposition from the board of governors, Republican appointees I dunno as I haven't had time to check online to understand the setup. My concern is of the European debt crisis coinciding with the debt ceiling target on August 2. I posted the following some months ago but it is still relevant to day except for the dates.
The Coming Financial Apocalypse..
I wrote this several months ago and both key events have been deferred but haven't gone away. Two very dangerous events are coming up in March, the possibility of a Greek default on it's loan repayments coinciding with the strong possibility of an attack by Israel on Iran's nuclear facilities, US gets involved, there's an escalation, a blockage of the Straights of Hormuz to oil tankers, the oil price rockets up just as a Greek default sends world stock exchanges into a tailspin. Both events are interlocked. If Israel uses a nuclear bunker buster to penetrate deep enough into the mountain housing Iran's key facilities, it's centrifuges, this could escalate into a nuclear war.
GREECE FIRST. There is growing optimism that Greece is going to come to the party and accept Germany's (IMF. ECB) demands and slash it's public service, cut pensions, basic wages etc. Okay the Greek gov't might cave in but the Greek people might have entirely different ideas and the gov't knows it only too well. Those people expected to cop the austerity packages are outraged for two main reasons. They have to cop it the neck as a result of financial speculation by the rich, who pay little or no tax, huge bonuses paid to ceo's and so on; plus being dominated by WW2 enemy Germany. Push the people much harder and they'll go shopping with bricks in their hands and cigarette lighters in one pocket and accelerant in the other.
Please the ordinary person in the street and you displease the investor and vice versa. The only other alternative is quantitative easing, a very cute euphemism for cranking up the printing presses and blowing out the money supply, already blown out too far as it is. Germany is well aware of the danger of that course and I would wager that it knows they it has already gone past the point at which an outbreak of violence and looting would trigger panic buying, shortages of essential goods and begin the process of hyperinflation. The European Bank deposit put together by a number of EU members is there to bail out any banks that have runs on deposits. It is not a SRD (statutory reserve deposit) which is put together from a percentage of deposits and which has been abolished world wide (brilliant!!!). Thus any use of the ECF is inflationary. The banks might squeeze credit but they have to pay out if there is a run on deposits (the CONTAGION) otherwise people lose those deposits which can be their life savings.
The banks only have cash reserves of around 10% of deposits and once that's gone then they have to draw on the ECB deposit if there is a run. That's where the hyperinflation begins. They have no other choice. Don't payout and panic withdrawals spread like wildfire and done goes the banking system. Germany has been through all this before up to 1923. Once hyperinflation begins there is no alternative to just pour more and more money into the banking system and pray for a miracle. It doesn't have to begin in Germany. Hyperinflation in any country in Europe that is locked in to the Euro is European hyperinflation. Greece first, then Portugal Spain, Italy and the whole of Europe goes up in flames, literally.
There is only one possible way out, a MASSIVE global redistribution of wealth, downward. It rebalances Say's law (see below) and removes the hatred and class polarisation that feeds all violence Now I don't want to get into a step by step appraisal of the lead up to the Great Depression but I want to to discuss briefly the fundamental building block of any economy and one which is immutable, i.e. Say's Law.
Say was a French economist who proposed a Law which is so simple it almost beggars belief. Get a pencil and draw two equal sized rectangles spaced a bit apart from each other, write in one CONSUMER and in the other one PRODUCER. Now draw an arrow from the consumer box to the producer box and write above it CONSUMPTION and one the other way from the producer to the consumer and call it WAGES. The consumer works for the producer, gets wages from the producer, with which he or she purchases the goods made by the producer.. Now let's assume that every country in the world lowers tariffs in the name of free markets and its obvious that the country that can produce those goods the cheapest (China) will have the advantage and out compete everybody else. China does it because it has such a low wage rate, thereby forcing other countries to lower their wages to compete. Okay now draw a smaller box in the consumer box and its evident that in lowering the aggregate global wages bill there there is not enough money to purchase the global aggregate industrial output of goods and services. Now shade in the space between the little box and the big box and call it credit or better still debt.
You get the picture The only way you can lower wages to compete on export markets whilst maintaining local consumer demand is to allow the consumer to go deeper into debt. Then take away payment for overtime. Lower wages plus force workers into deeper debt that becomes impossible to pay off and you have a very stressed out and belligerent workforce. If you lower wages lower than they already are, whilst making savage cuts to the public sector workforce, cut pensions, etc. you simply further depress an economy and reduce further it's chances of growing and paying of its debt. It cannot work, it's impossible and a perfect formula for a breakdown in law and order and eventually civil war.
SPECULATION. Speculation produces no real wealth. It merely redistributes wealth from the poor to the rich via the Hood Robin effect, i.e. the crumbs jump up off the floor onto the table, thereby starving the dogs down below. The little speculator loses out to the big one, the small taxpayer increasingly subsidizes the rich, wages go down whilst ceo's remuneration goes up. So to keep it simple for now the only way out is that the rich have to pour money into that shaded area in the CONSUMERS box or else the entire banking system goes down and the rich go down with it. A bad run on a big bank starts a chain reaction? Ok, that'll do for Greece. Next Israel after I edit it.
As it'll take me a while to edit the post on Israel I'll put this in first. I wrote this as a comment on taxation historically.
A FAILED REDISTRIBUTION.
One hour of Christians sprouting about equality in the distribution of wealth, plenty of quotes from Thomas Aquinas, yet not one single word uttered by Jesus who was probably the greatest champion of equality who ever lived, that's if you take his word's literally.
“Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” (a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.) “By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread.” (Not by speculation.) From Socialist Luke, “He who hath much from him shall be taken and he who hath little from him shall be given.” (redistributionist Jesus predicting his policy on taxation if he won the election.} From Conservative Mathew “Unto him who hath much shall be given more whilst he who hath little, even that which he hath shall be taken away.” (By he who hath much via speculation. This is the way it is and what will be reformed.) “Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, ye lay upon widows burdens ye yourselves would not attempt to lift.” (Being dispossessed with all of the inheritance going to the eldest son or the state if there is no eldest son. Thus the widow (Mary Magdalene?) is forced into prostitution to feed herself. Then when she gets found out is stoned to death. Great stuff!!)
Now to the daddy of them all. “A certain man came unto Jesus and said “What must I do to enter the Kingdom of God.” (Jesus' Party or Heaven on Earth as we'd say today.) Jesus replies “Go sell ALL that that thou hast, give the money to the poor, take up thy cross and follow me.” (ALL that thou hast is based on the fact that almost all great wealth is unearned income, derived by some form of speculation. The rich man could doubtless keep enough to live on.)
Let's assume that on the road to becoming the Monarch the individual would have to become Governor of a State, eg Ronnie Reagan, Governor of California, then Jesus would have to become Governor of Galilee and as there was no separation between Church and State he would be the chief Rabbi of the Pharisee Party of Galilee, his constituency. Thus in his three year ministry he was on the hustings. He was forced into this position because his half brother, Judas, head of the Scribes Party, contested his right to the monarchy as Jesus had NO blood line. Joseph was NOT his father but WAS the father of Judas who was the same Iscariot (Iscarie, the Knife Assassin.) So Jesus, champion of fairness, suggested putting the leadership to a vote, the very beginning of democracy, our two party system. (The line went via the Gnostics of Southern France and emerged with the beginning of the Reformation in 1513.) Those tax collectors hanging around were working for Jesus in his caretaker role.
Judas, having the 'bag' was the Treasurer of the Party. This was an (illegal) provisional future Gov't of Israel. The 12 were the provisional upper house or 'Little Sanhedrin' and the 70 disciples referred to in Mathew were the Provisional Lower house or big Sanhedrin. Judas's campaigning was hidden indoors, because he was promoting violent revolution against the Romans, whilst secretly doing deals with them.
I was wondering when religion was going to get dragged in. Funny thing; a shitload of the Biblical miracles were dragged in from pagan religions. For the crowd: How many gods were believed to be born of virgin mothers? Anyone? I'll answer that sometime tomorrow.
ISRAEL.
Since writing this segment on Israel the Syrian civil war has erupted which considerably complicates the situation. Presumably the Sunni majority will come out on top, which puts the Christians and Assad's Alawite minority nowhere to go, not likely to be welcome in Iraq or Turkey. Going into Lebanon might destabilise it. The Syrian Sunni's and Iran's Shi'ite majority won't have any love for each other, which means a disconnect between Iran and Syria, a plus for Israel not having this alliance to worry about any more, especially with Syria right on Israel's North Easter border, the Golan Heights.
Would the Syrian Sunni's allow the flow of weapons through Syria from Iran to Iran's ally Lebanon's Hezbollah. Doubtful. Israel doesn't want the spectre of rocket attacks coming simultaneously and coordinated from the Palestinian Gaza strip and southern Lebanon at the same time again. Both Syria AND Israel have fallen out badly with Turkey. Israel, desperately short of water was hoping that one day it could pipe water from Turkey's upper Euphrates dam, but as it would have had to come through Syria that is now very much a pipe dream. Sunni's are usually pro American, although I don't think Iraqu's Sunni Ba'athists would have a lot of love for the US, so an alliance between Syria's Sunni's and Iraq's Sunni's could be complicated and a worry for Israel if they did.
But then who would a new Sunni Gov't in Syria get financial assistance from, not that the US is in much of a financial position to help. France is a possibility as Syria was a French colony and France was making considerable investments in Syria as well as supplying Mirage Fighter jets to Assad. But Russia might have muscled France out as it's HUGE concern is it's naval base at Tartus, it's only naval base in the Mediterranean. It has a naval base in the Black Sea at Crimea, but needs access through the Ukrain to get to it, with it's warships having to pass through the Bosphorous with NATO Turkey on one side and NATO Greece on the other. Then there is the British naval base in Cyrus close to the mouth of the Bosphorous to worry about. I'm saying this because at the moment with Russia backing Assad an escalation of conflict in the region could bring the US and Russia into direct conflict with each other, Israel being a complicating factor..
Israel has already taken out Iraq's and Syria's nuclear reactors, so there is no reason to claim that it won't do likewise with Iran before Iran has made enough fissile material for at least one atomic bomb. However, taking out Iran's nuclear facilities is a vastly more difficult than Iraq's and Syria's which were single reactors above ground and on the same land mass as Israel. Only in the case of Iraq did Israel have to fly over another country, i.e. Jordan and what could little Jordan do about that, besides Israel and Jordan have some sort of peace agreement. So depending where Iran's nuclear facilities are Israel is gonna have to fly over Jordan then Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, all mates of the US so that puts the US's backside out of joint. But now the US seems to be proposing a joint US, Israeli strike on Iran with the US providing mid air refuelling for Israel's fighter bombers.
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are both big oil producers and the US well remembers the oil embargo slapped on it by Persian Gulf dominated OPEC in 1973 following the Yom Kippur war between Israel, Syria and Egypt, for supporting Israel. Admittedly the US has a fairly substantial military presence in Saudi Arabia now, however if all the Gulf states combined forces, meaning rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, at the moment bitter enemies because Wahhabi Saudi Arabia accuses Shi'ite Iran of fomenting unrest among Saudi Arabia's poor Shi'ite community. Someone is gonna have to broker a peace arrangement for their own mutual protection from Israel. Egypt's Moslem Brotherhood has a policy of trying to get rapproacment between Sunni's and Shi'ites, to stop killing each other and instead focus their attention on mutual enemy Israel. I'll get into that later.
Because Iran's centrifuges and other facilities are now deep underground Israel will have to use bunker busters, not any old bunker busters, but nuclear bunker busters to penetrate anywhere deep enough under the ground. A few years ago bunker busters were found in a Scottish port en route from the US to Israel. As far as I know they continued on to Israel. (Since writing this I've been told that the US has recently supplied Israel with newer bunker busters, presumably more powerful.) No warheads or just conventional warheads, but that's no problem for Israel. It has plenty of nuclear warheads. No other choice, a NUCLEAR attack on Iran by Israel the first nuclear attack on a nation since Japan in 1945.
How is Pakistan going to react to that, what about tensions between Pakistan and India. Could the political instability in Pakistan leading up to the attack trigger a Taliban backed coup d'etat considering that there already is Taliban sympathy/presence in the Pakistan military. India supports the Shi'ite dominated Northern Alliance in Afghanistan because it is the enemy of the Afghani Pashtuns from which it's Taliban derives. How would that drive up tensions between nuclear India and Taliban governed Pakistan now controlling Packistan's atomic arsenal.. Shi'ite Iran also supports the Northern Alliance.
I'll have to leave it at that for now. These are just musings for now to highlight some of the complications that could escalate the situation. Next I want to get into Israel's mistrust of the US.
.
ISRAEL AND THE US Part 1.
Israel does not trust the US one iota. Israel knows that the only reason that the US supports it is because evangelical Christians in the US, which are THE most politically powerful group, believe that Jesus won't come until the state of Israel has come into being and is a viable state. It was evangelical Christians in Britain (and Zionist Jews of course) that supported Lord Balfour in 1914?, himself a Zionist, in the proposal to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, then a part of the Ottoman Empire. But these same Christians believe that when the battle of Armageddon takes place Israel will be under total siege, bombarded by atomic bombs foe 7 years. Really now!!!! Little Israel would pull up a bit rough after that and where is Uncle Sam while this is going.. Israel cops US largesse but knows that it comes with huge strings attached and that one day Unc will pull the plug when confronted with an ultimatum. (More on the plug later)
Mind you Israel is in a hugely strategic geographical position as the landbridge between Africa and Asia, it's proximity to the Suez Canal, Gulf of Aquaba, Gulf of Suez, Red sea, Mediterranean, Cyrus with it's British naval base and Persian Gulf to the East. Strategically the most important lump of dirt on the face of the Earth BAR NONE. The Silk road once came through Israel and terminated at the heavily fortified port of Ceasarea, built by Herod the Great for the Romans. Considering that the Silk road went all the way to China, he who held the Silk Road had a much better chance of building a Mediterranean Empire and hanging onto it. No Israel, no Silk road, no movement by land from Asia to Africa. No small degree of significance. Thus Jews certainly plonked their asses in a very difficult place indeed, guaranteed to be run over by every empire builder going.
Where was Uncle Sam whilst the holocaust was taking place? Didn't know about it?. The second biggest Fascist party in the world then was in the US. As Stalin entered Germany General Sherman reckoned that the US should have been supporting Hitler against Stalin and he was not alone. Stalin would not have stopped in East Germany had not Uncle Sam and the Poms been parked on the west side of the Elbe river ready to blow all it's bridges should Stalin have kept going west. By letting Soviet Russian troops do all the fighting in East Germany, they would suffer such heavy casualties and loss of equipment they'd be in no shape to go anywhere let alone sweep across Western Europe.
It wasn't appeasement when Neville Chamberlain stitched up the 1936 agreement for Hitler to take the Sudentanland of Czechoslovakia.. The Sudentanland mountain range is a formidable barrier to land attack coming from either side. Stalin was trying to get Benes, PM of Czechoslovakia, to let let him put Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia to protect it from Hitler whilst Hitler was trying to convince Benes to let him put German troops in to protect it from Stalin. Benes told both of them to shove off. The whole of Eastern Europe was caught in vice between the two. For Chamberlain Hitler was a Capitalist and Stalin a Communists. Commos pinch all foreign assets in their country by nationalising them and doubtless lots of British assets had been nationalised in Soviet Russia.
Let Hitler take the Sudentenland and Stalin would be snookered. Hitler had brought unemployment down dramatically in Germany whereas Britain couldn't get it below 10% between the wars, a dangerous level in the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution and sympathy toward it by British war vets and unions. Chamberlain admired Hitler. I'd have to suspect that Chamberlain was more than a bit anti-Semitic as well, after all Hitler did make his attitude toward the Jews perfectly clear in Mien Kampf which he wrote in prison in 1924.
Germany didn't need to go through Czechoslovakia anyway, it could punch straight through Poland into Russia but couldn't do that without securing it's western flank, France. But if Britain didn't honour its military alliance with Poland then France wouldn't have to worry as it knew that Hitler was gonna have to make his move east into Russia before Stalin rolled into Germany through Poland. Stalin alternatively had to worry about Japan to the East and British India to the south. He could see a big blue coming up between the US and Japan that would remove that threat.
Meanwhile an alliance with Britain removed Stalin's threat of India. Now it all hinged on Neville Chamberlain, hoping that he could persuade his party and the opposition to just keep out of it. Hitler and Stalin would tear each other to bit's, Germany and Soviet Russia would lay in ruins and everyone else could pick up the spoils. Trouble was all of Eastern Europe, as the meat in the sandwich, would also lay in ruins and that would be grossly unfair. Sob, sob.
On 29th August 1939 Germany and Soviet Russia signed the Molotov-Ribentropp pact in which they agreed to have half of Poland each with a clear dividing line between them and each grab various countries around Poland. That way both of them wouldn't have to worry about the other, until they saw how their opposite flanks reacted. Hitler's thinking, 'Neville for God's sake. please keep out of it'. Then, not trusting Stalin to honour the agreement he invaded Poland on 1st September 1939, just 3 days after signing the pact. Now the Heat is on Chamberlain and he gives Hitler an ultimatum to withdraw by noon on the 3rd Come noon and Chamberlain is obfuscating. However for many members of the Tories and opposition, honouring a military alliance is immutable. Britain could not hold it's head up ever again if it abandoned little Poland and the house starts chanting, 'Shame, shame, shame......', Chamberlain caves in and declares war on Germany and WW2 begins.
Unfortunately for the Jews of Europe they were gonna be the pawns in this very convoluted power play, in which it was very convenient to pretend that nobody had any idea that what was going on in Germany whilst a number of countries were all to keen to rail their Jews off to the death camps. From then on Jews would trust NOBODY, the US included, and nothing has changed. Use Uncle Sam whilst it's possible but get ready to be betrayed one day when the big Arab oil producers say, 'It's oil or Israel, you can't have both.' just as the price is rocketing sending the markets rocketing down.
When Obama told Mehenyatu a few months ago that Israel would have to pull back to pre 1967 borders NOTHING could arouse Jewish paranoia and mistrust more. Have a look at the map. Pre '67 means giving the Golan Heights back to Syria and withdraw from the West bank and thus desert Jerusalem. Give up the Golan and expose oneself to Syrian fighter bombers flying low and unseen, then up over the Heights and sweeping down into Gallilee. Of course Israel has satellites. But on the heights there are radar and missile emplacements, a heavily fortified fence between the Heights and Syria. It is a buffer zone and fortification against Syrian tank attack. Then there are lots of (Russian?) Jewish immigrants that have been plonked there as political pawns, knowing that they will squeal so loud at the prospect of enforced relocation that Israel will just say to Uncle Sam, 'You see, it's just not politically possible.' Jews now using Jews as pawns. Next, the West bank and very probable reoccupation of the Sinai.
Politicalguineapig,
Religion is NOT getting dragged into it AT ALL. This is an entirely different Jesus, an IRRELIGIOUS one, a Spinosarist is the closest I can come to, one who says God IS the Universe and we humans are the godheads, including YOU. Just read it. I'm putting this stuff in to throw light on the situation today which is getting EXTREMELY dangerous both financially and militarily.
I'm gonna take a day to put the next piece ISRAEL AND THE US Part 2 together. So this in the meantime.
INSURRECTION IN GALILEE.
Socrates said that a slave-based economy made no sense as the slave community was not a market for the goods they made as they received no income to purchase said goods. Jesus, being in a Hellenistic world, would have been well aware of this fact. When he said 'Whatsover a man soweth that shall he also reap,' he wasn't just talking about fairness, he was talking about what made economic sense. Today it's called Say's Law, named after the French economist, yet as basic as it is is NOT understood by economists. Before Keynes it was orthodoxy, but not practiced, otherwise there would not have been a Great Depression or any other depression. The consumer works for the producer, gets wages from the producer with which he or she purchases the goods made by the producer. Lower wages to reduce manufacturing costs to compete on export markets, with every nation doing likewise, you are lowering the aggregate global wages bill and thus shrinking the size of the global market for it's industrial output. The Roman Empire was very much a trading Empire. The only way to compensate is to free up credit so that the worker goes deeper and deeper into debt with all of its social consequences.
Jesus may have also been talking about the little business person growing crops or making something on his or her OWN LAND, ie. self employed, in his case as a carpenter. Did he go bust at some time, 'He became poor for our sakes', and even homeless, 'The birds of the air have their nests, the foxes their lairs, but the son of man has nowhere to lay down his head' and thus be acutely aware of the enormous injustices of his time. Galilee was a center of an emerging petty bourgeoisie, self employed individuals clamoring for land reform. The Pharisees were a middle class party. No more master and slave. They bought slaves and allowed them to buy their freedom by working off their cost. No other party did this.
However, as a bread basket, Galilee was secretly supplying food to the insurgency based at or around Qumran - rocky, hilly land protected by guerilla warfare and inaccessible to the Roman's heavy conventional weapons. If a farmer got found out, his house was burned down and his land seized. As well, the Sadducee aristocracy colluded with the Romans in seizing land around the Sea of Galilee to to build spas, i.e. holiday resorts. Many of the dispossessed joined the insurgency if they weren't executed.
Thus we find so many in Jesus' party self employed, doctors, lawyers, tradesmen, fishermen etc. THIS WAS FREEDOM and almost unique in the entire Empire, but unsustainable given the rapacious greed of the Sadducee Roman pact, the insecurity and horrific anxiety, violence, high inflation and debt. Thus the ONLY way out of this situation was to start a non-violent revolution to reform the ENTIRE Empire, the model being Galilee, based on 'What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world but lose his soul (peace of mind).' What indeed!
@Politicalguineapig - not sure of the number, but know that the myth of Mithras is very (almost entirely) similar to Jesus Christ and that when the mass of Christ (Christ mass) was given a set date they made it on Mithras' birthday so the pagans could continue their pagan celebrations, just in honor of a new god. Most of today's Christianity has little resemblance to first century Christianity, which was more like first century worship of the Israelites with promised resurrection and further explanation of the kingdom of God.
Was reading a fascinating book that made me even more curious about understanding both religions during that time period. At that point the Talmud hadn't been written yet, though parts of the Mishnah were most likely in existence in oral tradition by then. Some of these opinions regarding how God's law should be applied were probably part of what Jesus railed against when he complained about the Pharisees.
Isis is another virgin mother of sorts, I believe, and "Queen of Heaven" worship was common in Rome at the time. Of course, if you go back far enough in history, it is speculated that "El" (the Hebrew God) very likely had a companion goddess in Asherah, but that as the Hebrew concept of God, etc., continued to change, she was abandoned as a pagan concept as they moved to a "one invisible God, only" construct in worship. Some historians/archaeologists believe that it was one of the reasons that Asherah worship remained a consistent problem for some of the Hebrews - at one point she was an acceptable goddess.
@Orac - PH is completely off the reservation. I move for moderation of everything that isn't topic related.
A book I read, 'The Rise and Fall Of the Peacock Throne' referring the Shah of Iran, reckoned that when the Jews were in Babylon, the second exile about 200 BC, they were exposed to the idea of a coming messiah who would be born of a virgin. It was based on Zarathustra's prediction that he would be reincarnated, by a virgin impregnated from on high. Cyrus the great Liberated the Jews when he captured Babylon so they took this stuff back to Palestine with them. Later we find Persia actually supporting the Jewish insurrection against Rome, just like China supporting the VC in Vietnam, the Romans being the US.
So Persia wanted a HO Chi Min to lead a guerrilla war from within Palestine against Rome, backed by Persian forces coming in to support the insurrection when the time arrived (the day of the Passover). Jesus has the blood line to the Monarchy (a stitched up blood line), so it is he who is seen as the reincarnation of Zarathustra. Hence the 3 Wise Men, astronomers from the Ziggeraut at Ur of the Chaldeas, following a star that Zarathustra claimed would announce his reincarnation, around 4 BC to anoint the baby Zarathustra and help him build a power base.
Hence the threat to Herod the great who was put onto the throne by Mark Anthony in 41 BC, and who threw the Persians out of Palestine with mercenaries supplied by Rome. Rome had lost Palestine to Persia some time before. Thus the massacre of the innocents was a desperate attempt to destroy baby Ho Zara Jesus. Sounds very plausible to me. According to the Koran Jesus father was actually Zacharias, father of John the Baptist, who had the blood line to the provisional high priesthood. Barbara Theiring, Dead Sea Scroll translator, reckons the nickname of the High Priest was the Holy Ghost. Now there is some connection between Mithra and Zarathustra. Mithraism became popular among low ranking Roman soldiers which Rome saw as very alarming.
Lawrence,
What is the topic Lawrence. It is 'An inflated sense of my importance'. Is this stuff blasphemous? Seditious?
@Lawrence, I second your motion!
I said ignore him days ago. I second, or is it third, the motion to put this jerk in moderation purdah.
Mrs. Woo: I was thinking of Mithras and Horus too. The parallels are just fascinating. Also, the tale of Noah in the Old Testament is very similar to a Sumerian story about Utnapishtam and the Greek Myth of Deucalion. Actually, it is the Utnapishtam story with the serial numbers rubbed off.
Lilady, thenewme and Lawrence: Aww,can't we play with him for a bit longer? He's reminding me more and more of those dumb chipmunks all the time. The cats chase them, they hide, and just when the cats have given up, they squeak and the whole thing starts all over again.
PH: This is an entirely different Jesus, an IRRELIGIOUS one, a Spinosarist is the closest I can come to, one who says God IS the Universe and we humans are the godheads, including YOU.
That's not in the New Testament, and you know it. You can't seperate Jesus from religion, and you can't pretend God is love. If God is love, then he is weak. Jesus was a great philosopher, but he was also a faithful Jewish man; saying he wasn't religious is like saying the sky is green.
Also, just stop with the posting about history. Okay? You know just enough history to get everything twisted. The silk road went through Turkey, Chamberlain was a stupid, weak little man who worked for a stupid anti-semitic King, and the correct spelling is Netanyahu.
I don't think Chamberlain had many opinions of his own and Edward VIII didn't spend much-if any- time reading. Notice that Britain started taking the Nazis seriously only after he abdicated? Yeah, I didn't think you did.
Politicalguineapig,
The New Testament is not only not the only source of information, as there as a huge range, mainly the Gnostic Gospels, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Koran etc etc.
THE ASSEMBLY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT AND WHY.
The New Testament was put together by one Bishop Arrenius of Rome in the 4th century AD. He was commissioned by Constantine who was about to, or already had, made himself both Emperor and Pope. Monarch and High Priest. Thus the NT was in every sense of the word his political and theological constitution which gave him unlimited power in both senses, a military sense to coerce his subjects physically but also in a theological sense to coerce them spiritually. That is threaten them with excommunication and eternal damnation if they were not obedient to the Church and therefore to him. Thus a resurrected Christ was mandatory to his power as well as for his own personal salvation a very important reason for his lust for power. What did Constantine have on his conscience? What had he done to gain such power?
He would be the vicar, the sole vicar, of Jesus Christ on Earth so that ultimately all communications to Jesus and, by definition, the Father via the Holy Ghost, the Trinity also presumably being a concoction of Constantine as that too was mandatory to ultimate power, (in his subject's interest of course). His subjects paying tithes to the Church was mandatory for salvation thus guaranteeing a good cash flow to build the physical power structure. Thus without Jesus having been resurrected from the dead Constantine's power was limited to physical coercion, difficult when the military becomes divided and turns on itself, sides with the people etc. during an uprising. Torture AND Hell.
From my readings there was very little idea of a resurrected Jesus before Constantine, especially among the Nazarene Church's which moved to the East. However, there were thousands of documents to choose from portraying Jesus as every sort of individual imaginable, socialist, conservative, anarchist, homosexual etc. each one to justify the belief systems of the sect from which they came. Those that concentrated on a resurrected Jesus were obviously chosen and their major promulgator was Paul, 13 books by Paul who had a Helluva lot on HIS conscience, literally, having been the inquisitor working for the Romans and thus responsible for the death of thousands of Christian 'terrorists'. 'Who can rescue me from this body of death, oh wretched man that I am. All my righteousnesses are but as filthy rags.' Hardly the outbursts of a man at peace with himself.
How many words written by Jesus in the NT. NOT ONE SINGLE ONE. A bit odd considering that, being groomed for Monarch, he must have been literate, speaking 3 languages at least, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. I suspect that what he had to say would have totally contradicted Paul and have been considered by both Jews of all sects and the Romans who said that even Caligula was God was considered blasphemous in the extreme and thus burned. He said 'Love thy neighbour as thyself' as a damn good idea, not a commandment as he didn't believe in pushing people around at all
WAS THERE A RESURRECTION?
Readers of the NT will know that in none of the sightings of Jesus after his death was he at first recognized by his disciples. I would suggest that the reason for this was that the person was NOT Jesus but one or both of the following. The disciples were in a very frightened state as they too were fearful of arrest and crucifixion and thus hypersuggestible. Clutching at straws at being leaderless they felt extremely vulnerable and desperate for Jesus to be risen. Thus the individual who they 'recognized' as being Jesus, frightened of their hysteria, went along with the role until he could escape their clutches. The other, more probable reason is that the 'recognised' individual was in fact a Jesus look alike actor set up by the Romans to get the disciples to lead them back to their hiding place so that everyone there could be arrested as suspected insurgents 'terrorists'. Many people, even Romans, believed that people could be resurrected but didn't look exactly like their former selves. A clue here is when 'Jesus' said “Touch me not for I have not yet received my mortal body.” knowing that if anyone got that close and maybe hugged him they would realize that it was NOT him.
The very last thing that the Romans would have wanted was a funeral cortage on the Day of the Passover, the day of Jewish ultra nationalism when tempers would have been at their hottest, with the possibility of riots that could have escalated out of control and even spread to other parts of the Empire. So they stole his body from the tomb and disposed of it. Jesus was primarily executed because they feared that he would lead such an insurrection, having planned it well before. The reason that he was whipped and bashed before being executed was to force him to reveal the whereabouts of the other disciples who had gone into hiding as there could be one or more alternate leaders among them. This was what Judas was most terrified of, hence swapping sides to curry favour with the Romans when he lost his leadership challenge at the Last Supper which was held in a secret location. There was reason for this suspicion by the Romans as Jesus' Party was a Provisional Govt with a military wing as well as political. Simon the Zealot, who cut off the ear of a Roman soldier at Jesus arrest, was an example. This militarism was not something that Jesus wanted but what he inherited from his step father Joseph. Jesus, as peacemaker, was trying to negotiate a peaceful settlement between ALL of the insurgent groups and the Romans with a Roman withdrawal to follow and no barriers to trade along the Silk Road.
Judas had other plans, with Jesus to be the bait to draw all of the Jewish leaders into a trap by coming to his trial to judge him. His rebels would surround the Little Sanhedrin, capture it and execute all of the leaders whilst Jesus would 'accidently' be killed. Pilate and other Roman leaders would be executed simultaneously. A classic coup d'etat of the time. Jesus wasn't interested.
Please ignore this deranged troll...he craves engagement...even if it is only the well-deserved derision that is heaped upon him.
lilady,
Politicalguineapig,
There is phrase in Australia for your sort of attitude. It's called the 'Tall Poppy Syndrome'. I have vastly more extreme phrases to describe it, however these would not be palatable even for these blogs. Have you nothing better to do with your time than spew your poison onto those who try to create something. You are obviously extremely embittered people to devote yourselves to searching out creative people to deride. You are not discrediting me one iota. It is you who are being discredited. It's not as if you HAVE to be on this blog. There are a myriad others. Set up your own vomit blog.
At the moment I'm writing WHY RUSSIA IS STILL A THREAT TO GLOBAL PEACE, looking at it's reason for so vehemently supporting the Assad regime in Syria, ie the Russian, formerly Soviet, naval port Tartus, on the Syrian coast. This is Russia's only direct access into the Mediterranean, then only able to be supplied by air or sea and both those being vulnerable. The collapse of the Soviet Union has left Russia desperately exposed to being landlocked, as well as being encircled by NATO as more nations consider membership. Membership by the Ukraine poses the most feared threat, cutting off Russian access to the big naval base on the Black Sea at Crimea.
The US and some NATO allies are playing an extremely dangerous game in promoting NATO encirclement of Russia, especially with the prospect of it losing Tartus.
As this project is so complex, looking at all of the nations involved, marine choke points, military alliances etc. it might take a couple more days. Then I want to consider Israel's strategic nightmare and it US alliance.
Has anyone made any progress adapting a Greasemonkey killfile script for this blog?
@orac - seriously, can we do something about PH?
He is spamming the blog with his inanities.
One easy thing to do is just to quit commenting on him. This is "his" thread. If visitorship and comments end he will likely attempt to take over another thread. If he is ignored often enough, he'll lose interest. I agree with Lilady. We can always just stop this ourselves.
Mrs Woo,
What's your problem? I made a perfectly reasonable response to your reasonable comment on Mithras. I'll not complain in the least if all the knockers go away, as I have a global media audience which is what I set out to do to, ie articulate a case for the very real possibility of a collapse in the world economy simultaneous to a nuclear holocaust. Now I can get on with it and possibly some intelligent courteous people can post without fear of being subject to the sort of overt abuse and ridicule (which I have just imagined) that I've copped over three Science Blogs. I wish you all Nodspeed.
CAN ISRAEL TRUST THE US.
In 1967 during the so called October War a US electronic eavesdropping warship was standing, by itself, in the Mediterranean just off Egypt's Sinai desert, and close to the Israeli border, Suddenly, coming in low, Israeli fighter jets attacked it, dropping airborne torpedoes, one of which dropped onto the deck of the ship killing a number of US marines and damaging the ship. Profuse apologies from the Israeli government, a case of mistaken identity they claimed. But was it? Israel was about to launch a surprise pre-emptive attack on Syria. Why was this ship alone where it was when the rest of it's fleet was off Cyprus.
I read about this in a little booklet called 'Born in Battle' printed in TEL AVIV and it claimed that the Israeli gov't and military suspected the US of warning Syria that the attack was coming. Why the Hell then would a staunch ally of Israel do such a thing? Well for a start the US's long history of duplicity and betrayal of numerous countries and governments. In later years I'd refer to the betrayal of Diem in Vietnam, the Shi'ites of Southern Iraq in the Desert Storm attack.
Israel is a tiny little country surrounded by a sea of states containing 500 million Arab which have been backed by the Soviet union in many cases. It could be completely overwhelmed and wiped off the map, everyone dead in a matter of hours if they didn't get their foreign policy exactly right. She has an extremely well trained military, first by the British, using TACTICAL rather than strategic warfare methods, ie being highly maneuverable, able to change plans at a moments notice, a lot of autonomy given to field commanders in case the original plan has gone awry and very tight integration between the different arms of the military ie army, navy and air force. In the '67 war Israel took the Golan Heights, West bank, including Jerusalem, Gaza and the Sinai Desert right through to the Eastern side of the Suez Canal. At last Israel had both secure borders and oil in the SW Sinai.
Now a lot of people familiar with Israel's modern history might say, okay then how did she get it so horribly, horribly wrong in the '73 Yom Kippur war with it's personnel abandoning the Suez Canal zone, including the Milta and Giddi passes from the Canal zone into the Sinai, for the Yom Kippur celebrations back home, when a Soviet backed Egyptian attack force was amassing which would make 22 pontoon crossings of the Canal, fireboats hosing holes in the sand rampart Israel had built, then 2,500 tanks, trucks, rocket launchers etc. crossing over and establishing a huge wall of fire along the edge of the Sinai. Well, Israel's excuse was deep divisions within Mossad and factions not talking to each other, just like the US's exc—reason for Sept 11, CIA and FBI not talking to each other.. Yeah but this was no little terrorist attack, this was a monstrously huge, gargantuan attack.
However, what if Israel reckoned that the attack was gonna happen one day anyway. So why not lull Egypt into thinking she was religious enough to be as stupid as them in letting herself be wide open to complete annihilation? So let all of this very useful hardware cross over into the Israeli held Sinai, make one single pontoon crossing up in the north back over to the Egyptian side of the canal then whiz south and cut all 22 supply lines, which is what they did, thereby isolating the attack force. An extremely risky strategy, with poor air support, got hammered by Egyptian planes, out gunned FIVE TO ONE in armor. But it worked and now instead of the Gypo's having all those nice Soviet goodies, Israel now had them, all in mint condition. BRILLIANT.
Now I am very, extremely, horrifically anti war, but I have to take my hat of to great tactics. Why blow all their stuff up and lose your own stuff at the same time, when you can lose a fair bit of stuff but have all theirs and at the same time deprive them of the stuff they need to wipe out all your stuff. Bear in mind that this victory came straight after wiping out the Syrian attack on the Golan heights, same numbers, 500 Israeli tanks vs 2,500 Syrian, supplied and backed by the Soviet Union. Many Israeli tanks had to travel on their tracks all the way from the Golan as there weren't enough transporters so they were shaken around a lot, bits half falling off them a lot of quick maintenance needed.
THE MOTIVE OF THE SOVIET UNION.
Why did the Soviet back Egypt and Syria. This is clear, It was to break the strangle hold the West had on the Soviet's access to the open ocean. Wiping out Israel would secure the Soviet Naval base at Tartus in Syria, thus being able to bypass the Bosphorous and Dardanelles and have secure passage through the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea.
ISRAEL'S FOREIGN POLICY.
What makes perfect sense militarily, and SECULAR. No room at all for mumbo jumbo for such a tiny little country so vulnerable, ie a Mediterranean coastline with the Gulf of Aqaba in the south and Suez Canal able to be blockaded just locally by Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Not much at all in the way of raw materials.
US FOREIGN POLICY.
THE BOOK OF REVELATIONS a foreign policy document which states that Israel will be supported until it becomes a viable state because Jesus won't come out of the sky to rule from where the Dome of the Rock is now until it is. Then to fulfill the rest of prophecy Israel must be abandoned by all, with Gog and Magog coming from the north to chuck atomic bombs on it for 7 bloody years, a battle of Armageddon to wage on Israel's soil between God and the Devil. Then there's Billy Graham as the Rasputin of the military industrial complex and a Republican White House. With the KKK, not exactly being pro Semitic, an offshoot of Billy's Baptist Church having input into US foreign policy, then little Israel does not have a lot to inspire it's confidence and trust in it's big mate.
Then there is the fact that the US is a huge land mass with friendly neighbors North and South, most raw materials, a great long coastline East and West, the Atlantic and the Pacific protecting it, 11 aircraft carrier fleets, when combined with thousands of ICBM's has enough firepower to blow the world up many times over. Thus the US can indulge itself in any military adventure it likes and stuff it up, which it manages to do around 120% of the time, eg Iraq. Thus little Israel has even less to inspire confidence in it's totally deranged mate to look after it or even WANT to look after it.
paul hill, your comments are off-topic, irrelevant and boring. Ironically, you show an inflated sense of your own importance. Kindly go away.
Please ignore this deranged troll…he craves engagement…even if it is only the well-deserved derision that is heaped upon him.
Not I. The basic XPath patterns are fine, so either I'm being a complete bonehead or there's something more complicated going on in the way the page is delivered. (My money is on the former.)
Sure thing, Paul.