We could start with a few federal TLA's that want to (and are getting increasing legal abilities as well as technological abilities to do so) monitor U.S. citizens, but don't want the citizenry to monitor what they are doing with the large chunks of federal money (read: tax dollars) they want each year, much less any real monitoring of their actions.
Seven years ago I acquired a 1978 ford fiesta for cheap. It was a crappy little thing -- someone had decided that a porsche clutch cable was the right thing to use (it wasn't) to replace the original clutch cable, and had bent things all out of place, but it did run. Other than that, it had an AM mono (it sure wasn't a stereo) and did 0-60 in about five minutes. It was also a disturbing shade of orange.
So I was looking about for technical information on the thing, and ran across groups of people in the U.S. who were fixing and racing them. *NOT* the more recent models sold in Europe (I have no idea what the similarities and differences between those and those sold in the U.S. between 1978-1981), but the old ones sold in the U.S. And they were apparently doing quite the same thing -- some of these cars were amazing.
(Previous comment, reformatted so as to be readable)
I'm glad you agree that the meds are problematic and that a med only solution is not such a good idea. I've also seen meds really help people -- mostly people with depression or bipolar or anxiety or something else (i.e. PTSD) which is causing depression or anxiety, though it still doesn't fix the original problem, it makes their lives livable while they are working on the problem, and that's good too.
I worry, because the American Psychiatric Association and NAMI both are much into the idea of how wonderful meds are, and tend to overstate the positives of meds and understate the negatives. That alone is troubling, given that they are trusted information sources for professionals, patients (I *refuse* to say consumer, dammit) and other interested parties.
But they are also pushing for more expansive court ordered medication models. Instead of the "danger to one's self and others" model used now, they would prefer to force medication on anyone who cannot reliably feed, clothe, or house oneself, or maintain personal hygeine, due to mental illness.
Now, *if* the meds were as safe and effective as they generally claim, this would still be a human rights issue (when does the state have the right to force you to accept medical treatment?), but since they aren't, this is a seriously dangerous possibility. It's a personal one for me. I've been homeless about two years out of the last eight. There's a really good argument that the fact that I have Asperger's (or at least ASD of some sort) has a lot to do with that. Even I'll admit that. But medicating me generally makes things much worse. And hospitals (or any setting that isn't 'mine' -- I do better living in my truck than in a shelter) don't help either. Hospitals are good for crisis management, but not for dealing with hunger and homelessness amoung the mentally ill. Meds can seriously help some people, but forcing meds that have nasty side effects (some of them fatal, some of them not, but permanant and serious, like tardive dyskinesia) and may or may not be helpful is a pretty harsh thing. And as long as the prevailing attitude is "the meds are safe and effective", the general public is going to view forced medication fairly positively. Some of this is because of prevailing attitudes about mental illness that aren't factually correct (most/all mentally ill people are violent or dangerous) and some of this is a sincere wish to help people who are mentally ill. Of course, NAMI is trying very hard to 'destigmatize' mental illness, but their "a drugged mentally ill person is a safe mentally ill person" approach to it leaves me unimpressed.
The thing about (nearly) all of the things that we class under 'mental illness' is that we really don't have any clue of how a 'healthy' brain works, much less one that isn't working within specs. It's an awful lot like physical illnesses in the middle ages -- we have catalogged groups of symptoms that seem to occur together, given them names, and we can treat the symptoms with varying degrees of success. But we really don't know the underlying reasons for the symptoms. With schizophrenia (and autism incidently, which is one of the reasons I've kept up with researching schizophrenia, even after it was ruled out in my case) we've got a fair bit of evidence that it is biological and that it is (as you noted) partially genetically predetermined, but that it is not entirely genetically predetermined. Which is one of my other beefs with the APA and NAMI, who insist that if this is the case (there are some other disorders which have similar evidence, but not all of them) then all mental illness must be physically based. And if you have a physical illness, then you must need medication. The fact that there are many illnesses, ones that are absolutely, undeniably physical, for which the treatment does not involve medication, apparently slips right past them.
Of course we have to start out knowing fairly little. And it will take a great deal of t
I'm glad you agree that the meds are problematic and that a med only solution is not such a good idea. I've also seen meds really help people -- mostly people with depression or bipolar or anxiety or something else (i.e. PTSD) which is causing depression or anxiety, though it still doesn't fix the original problem, it makes their lives livable while they are working on the problem, and that's good too. I worry, because the American Psychiatric Association and NAMI both are much into the idea of how wonderful meds are, and tend to overstate the positives of meds and understate the negatives. That alone is troubling, given that they are trusted information sources for professionals, patients (I *refuse* to say consumer, dammit) and other interested parties. But they are also pushing for more expansive court ordered medication models. Instead of the "danger to one's self and others" model used now, they would prefer to force medication on anyone who cannot reliably feed, clothe, or house oneself, or maintain personal hygeine, due to mental illness.
Now, *if* the meds were as safe and effective as they generally claim, this would still be a human rights issue (when does the state have the right to force you to accept medical treatment?), but since they aren't, this is a seriously dangerous possibility. It's a personal one for me. I've been homeless about two years out of the last eight. There's a really good argument that the fact that I have Asperger's (or at least ASD of some sort) has a lot to do with that. Even I'll admit that. But medicating me generally makes things much worse. And hospitals (or any setting that isn't 'mine' -- I do better living in my truck than in a shelter) don't help either. Hospitals are good for crisis management, but not for dealing with hunger and homelessness amoung the mentally ill. Meds can seriously help some people, but forcing meds that have nasty side effects (some of them fatal, some of them not, but permanant and serious, like tardive dyskinesia) and may or may not be helpful is a pretty harsh thing.
And as long as the prevailing attitude is "the meds are safe and effective", the general public is going to view forced medication fairly positively. Some of this is because of prevailing attitudes about mental illness that aren't factually correct (most/all mentally ill people are violent or dangerous) and some of this is a sincere wish to help people who are mentally ill. Of course, NAMI is trying very hard to 'destigmatize' mental illness, but their "a drugged mentally ill person is a safe mentally ill person" approach to it leaves me unimpressed.
The thing about (nearly) all of the things that we class under 'mental illness' is that we really don't have any clue of how a 'healthy' brain works, much less one that isn't working within specs. It's an awful lot like physical illnesses in the middle ages -- we have catalogged groups of symptoms that seem to occur together, given them names, and we can treat the symptoms with varying degrees of success. But we really don't know the underlying reasons for the symptoms. With schizophrenia (and autism incidently, which is one of the reasons I've kept up with researching schizophrenia, even after it was ruled out in my case) we've got a fair bit of evidence that it is biological and that it is (as you noted) partially genetically predetermined, but that it is not entirely genetically predetermined. Which is one of my other beefs with the APA and NAMI, who insist that if this is the case (there are some other disorders which have similar evidence, but not all of them) then all mental illness must be physically based. And if you have a physical illness, then you must need medication. The fact that there are many illnesses, ones that are absolutely, undeniably physical, for which the treatment does not involve medication, apparently slips right past them.
Of course we have to start out knowing fairly little. And it will take a great deal of time and new knowledge and quite probably better technology before we *can* know any better. I just hate
Of course, this is why his co-workers will continue getting away with their bullshit.
This is also why various abuses of psychiatric patients continue -- because it's assumed that their reports of abuse are symptoms of psychosis, rather than truth.
Schizophrenia misdiags happen. They happen a lot. And they are hard to shake. Eight years later, I still spend the first few weeks or months convincing new members of my stable of professionals that no, I'm not psychotic. This is even though there are numerous references in my records from previous and current members of that stable attesting to my complete lack of psychotic symptoms. Sometimes they happen because the diagnosing professional has some stake in the misdiagnosis (in this case, to prevent detection of embezzelment. In my case, because the psychiatrist in question was being paid $400/hour to diagnose me, adjust my meds, and sleep for the rest of the hour, by my parents, who were benefitting by preventing detection of abuse), sometimes it's because of lack of time for decent diagnostic procedures, or missing something like drug use (also, antipsychotics can cause psychotic symptoms when administered to people who did not previously have psychotic symptoms, so the practice of giving everyone anti-psychotics first, and then asking questions, that some doctors and hospitals use, is just asking for a few misdiags right there), and sometimes it's diagnosis based purely on the negative symptoms (withdrawal, flat affect, etc) with the assumption that the positive (psychotic) symptoms are simply in temporary remission. The latter is particularly nasty because several other conditions (noteably autistic spectrum disorders) have similar symptoms but lack the psychotic features of schizophrenia. I know a number of Auties and Aspies who have been misdiaged with schizophrenia based on negative symptoms only (amazingly, some by doctors who *knew* of the AS disorder..many by doctors who didn't, though) and it probably figured into my situation, though I don't think enough to have prevented it.
Medication is sometimes effective. It's also truely awful, and unless you've ever taken an anti-psychotic, you really don't know how awful it can be (try imagining wrapping your brain in thick wool and wearing a fifty pound weight vest and ten pound weights on your legs). During the time I was on medication, I went from an AP Calculus BC student, to someone who was unable to do simple sums. I had been programming for two years, I was unable to write code for two years after I came off the meds. I lost a great deal of language (this seems to be an AS issue, and not so much of a problem for people without an AS disorder) and went from having a small writing career to being unable to write anything original at all. Schizophrenia can destroy lives, but so can the psych meds. Not to mention, even by the best numbers, they aren't nearly 100% effective. When one adds in the fact that the common side effects can be as disabling (or moreso) than the original disease, the current meds are, at best, a stop gap measure.
First (and the only 'official' time) was because I was having 'delusions' that my parents were abusing me when I was a kid. And they got a psychiatrist to agree with them and level me on anti-psychotics. I very nearly did not graduate high school because of this (anyone who has never actually been on anti-psychotics has no clue how evil the meds actually are. I can actually see arguments for hallucinations being less debilitating).
Eight years after leaving them (and coming off the drugs), it's funny...I haven't had problems with delusions or hallucinations. In fact, there's only been four times when my sanity was called into question. In all four cases it was done by people who knew my history and were being abusive (three towards me and one towards a child) and sadly, all four times I allowed myself to believe that I was hallucinating and delusional and thus the abusive situation continued until someone else stepped in and pointed out to me (or, the first two times, spent quite a bit of time convincing me...) that I was not crazy, and they had seen the exact same things I had (even though I was being told that these things had not happened).
In all four cases physical evidence that I was correct in my viewing of the situation also existed. In all four cases, the person accusing me of being schizophrenic also did things other than the actual abusive behavior to convince me I was crazy, like moving things around or changing things and denying it, or claiming that I did things that I didn't and that I must have forgotten or been in some sort of psychotic fugue state, or hiding a radio and claiming they coudln't hear and and thus I must be 'hearing voices' (maybe the first person in history to have one's voices announce callsigns and read advertisements:) ).
It *royally* pisses me off that people who are doing things they shouldn't be (whether that's abusing a child or adult, or embezzeling, or a million other ways humans screw up) can completely discredit people who are trying to blow the whistle on them by getting them labled as 'crazy' -- either directly (mental health agencies, psych hospitals and the doctors and therapists themselves are in the best position to do this, and sometimes they do) or indirectly (as abusive parents and spouses sometimes do. I really do wish that I was the only person that this had ever happened to, but I'm not). Particularly when they then use tactics that emulate actual mental illness.
Schizophrenia is an awful disease. Statements to the effect of 'it can be treated now, with minimal side effects' are inaccurate. Anti-psychotics are harsh meds that shut down thought and make it difficult to move, and can have lasting effects. They are also not nearly 100% effective, closer to 60%-80%, generally, and I don't entirely trust those numbers, as many of the studies I have read tend not to take into account the fact that schizophrenia is an episodic disease. An untreated schizophrenic has a good likelihood of no longer being symptomatic after several weeks, though there is a good chance that symptoms will return. OTOH, there's also a good chance that symptoms will return even with meds, and most of the schizophrenics I know (a fairly large number, because I socialize in some odd spots and because I've been researching schizophrenia for years, though I am not a professional) are still delusional on their meds, though they don't seem to hallucinate nearly as much and the delusions are 'more likely' (believing that, say, anti-spammers are hacking into one's computer and putting viruses on it that report one's free speech activist activities back to them -- actual example here:) vs believing that the NSA is forcing one to think particular thoughts -- the former is at least sort of physically possible). But these folks are medication 'success stories'.
At best, anti-psychotics are probably a more humane way of dealing with those who become violent due
This seems to me to be one of the bigger risks. The website says that the report that they return is the student paper with matches highlighted and links to their sources. Presumably this does have a prayer of being a bit more obviously "human must read and interperate" than a report that says "This paper has a 35% chance of being plagerized"
And I think you've hit on the important bit -- as a tool, it's great. It's not a replacement for human brains.
The argument that using this service is akin to accusing students of cheating seems specious to me. It's no more accusatory than the various permutations of "keep your eyes on your own paper" that are said at every level from kindergarten to undergrad (can't comment on post grad yet). Though making students run their own papers through is just bad practice.
I have to admit some ethical qualms about using student papers for profit in this way, but, presuming the usual "all your papers are belong to us" agreement between the school and the student and appropriate legalese between the school and turnitin (and I assume their lawyers have inserted appropriate legalese) it would seem to be legally quite sound.
1. Canada is not the 51st state./. is U.S. centric. Most of the time, when an article fails to mention where something is, it's in the U.S. Assuming this occured in the U.S. could lead to significantly incorrect conclusions. If you were observant enough to note that this article did not reference the U.S. without my help, feel free to ignore it;)
2. I've found the answers to "who is doing this in the U.S.?" quite interesting. Thank you.
Well, I'm writing from Boston, and it doesn't seem to me that geographic area (within the U.S. at least) would matter all that much.
However, Canada is not the U.S. and has a completely different government (something about the definition of a separate nation, there)judicial system and constitution. The original article is not clear on the scope of the 'win' (school appeal or court ruling) but if it were a court ruling, that court ruling would have absolutely nothing to do with anything in the U.S. If it had been a court ruling in the U.S. then it could be referenced in similar court cases as a previous ruling.
If it's a school level ruling, then it's power isn't much no matter what, granted.
But Canada has a different view on civil rights than the U.S. has, as well. Not as different as some places, but that's not the same as not different at all.
> The site is owned by an organization with a > known Dun and Bradstreet number. (If a site is > selling something, and its Whois info doesn't > match the DNB corporation database, it should > be downgraded in search position. This would > encourage honest Whois info.)
This may be a question born of serious ignorance. If so, I'd really appreciate some enlightenment.
This is also not so theoretical for me, as I am currently privately developing a product that I will eventually be selling online.
However, until your post, I had not heard of Dun and Bradstreet. I have gone to their website, and they apparently provide a number of services, which can be broadly catagorized as marketing advice/consulting and credit advice/consulting. For my particular small business, neither of these services are useful. I'm funding out of pocket (so my business's credit is not of interest) and I don't plan on extending credit to my customers (there's no need for it) and the market for my product is very small and specialized and I'm fairly confident in stating that I know as much about it as Dun and Bradstreet or pretty much anyone else, modulo a few other people within the same community.
So my analysis, as a prospective small business owner, is that a Dun and Bradstreet number would be useless. Why would I want to get one?
Now, this would be utterly offtopic, except that you suggest that a Dun and Bradstreet number would be a reliable way of confirming whois info. When I get a domain name for this venture (not there yet) I do intend to provide accurate whois info and I generally agree that accurate whois info is a good thing and fairly important. However, for me, a DNB number would be a useless expense (actually, it appears it may be free? I distrust anyone who requires me to give out personal info before giving me prices, and apparently they want my email address first. However, if it's free, than one considers questioning the reliability of their information) and, while I'm not the majority case, I'm also not entirely unique.
If one were to implement this, this would mean that many businesses who were quite legitimate and had accurate whois information would be classed as if they did not have accurate whois information. This strikes me as a serious weakness.
Huh? How does the act of deconstruction imply that the product of the deconstruction is objectively valid? If reality is subjective (and I actually agree that it is, but the rest of post modernism has failed to follow that, for me) than the product of the deconstruction is (as part of reality) subjective. In fact, I'd argue that there is no such thing as objective validity, any appearance of objective validity is a problem of scope. Get the scope far out enough (or far in enough), and nothing has objective validity. In other words, everything is relative.
Additionally, (and fortunately for us, since otherwise there'd be no point in doing anything) there is reason to produce deconstructions that are subjectively valid. As I said before, at certain scopes, some things appear objective and can be treated as such in some situations. The key to practical evaluation of these things (not that the postmodernists seem much into practical evaluation, from what I've seen) is to remember what scope at which the product appears objectively valid. As long as you remain within that scope, it will continue to be objectively valid. Moving outside of that scope will show it to be objectively invalid.
And I still fail to see why a subjectively but not objectively valid deconstruction would be completely pointless.
Wish I could get my cat to learn what you've taught your dog. She just seems to think it's another good sleeping box.
Fuzzy family members not withstanding, I'm rather fond of the "information dump" tactic in this case, simply becase, instead of having to decide if someone is potential geek material, it just sorts 'em out. The non-geeks will walk away puzzled or run away screaming. Either way, they are out of my hair. The potential geeks will sit down and listen, thus removing annoyance as well.
Incidently, I spent years being told I was a hypochondriac, my 'allergy' to wheat was psychosomatic, etc, before getting diagnosed with celiac. And I wouldn't have been diagnosed if a friend of mine (with celiac) hadn't noticed that I had all the right symptoms.
Also, I've been flat out told, within the last five years, that celiac was a made up disease and anyone who treated it was a quack. By an MD. I finally started making that one of my test questions -- anyone who tells me that my food sensitivities (I have a bunch, all IGG and food challenge proven, but IGG testing is quackery in the U.S. [not in england, which is where the test was done, I mailed off the sample to them airmail and they mailed the results to me] and food challenge doesn't prove that it's not psychosomatic) is automatically not my doctor. Avoiding these things is too important to my health to let them have their way.
The problem with MCS, fibro, CFS, etc is that instead of saying "This person has real symptoms that I can't figure out, maybe they've got something I don't know about. Maybe I should go do some research or refer them to a specialist, or even just admit I don't know" doctors seem a lot more likely to say "I can't figure it out, thus it must not exist and this person must be crazy and anyone who can help them must be a quack"
The money for studies only exists for things that will make people money. This is not 100% true, but is largely true. Because the treatment of MCS will probably not make anyone enough money to justify it, the money for studies is not out there. Drug companies manage to invent illnesses, or more often, exaggerate the incidence and ramifications of a condition, and minimize what the symptoms are, if they can make money off of them (and this is not considered quackery). But unless you can figure out how to make someone a lot of money with a disease, forget about having the money for double blind studies.
This is not 100% true, but for the relatively small amount of funding available for things that aren't going to make someone bunches of cash, there are a lot of people researching a lot of different conditions competing for funding.
In the case of MCS and a few other things (of which celiac is occasionally one, though not to the same degree), there are entities who would really be economically hit, in a bad way, if it turned out that what MCS appears to be is what it is, and esspecially if it the cases we are seeing now are the tip of the iceberg -- if the canary in the coal mine theory is correct. These folks do have money to fund studies and most of the studies I've seen on MCS that say it doesn't exist are funded by them. I find that quite suspicious.
But then, I also can't understand why we don't call quackery when drug companies fund the studies that prove their drugs are safe and effective -- even when later studies (funded from other sources) prove that the drug in question is not as safe or as effective (or both) as originally thought.
Actually, allergies are pretty damn contraversial in the mainstream medical community, too.
Amoung other things, I was told for years that my reactions to dairy, eggs and wheat were in my head by doctors. Because instead of triggering my asthma and eczema (I had eczema all the time, but not obviously in relation to what I was eating), or breaking out in hives, they gave me massive gastric disturbances and weird mental symptoms. And standard allergy testing didn't confirm them.
As it turned out, *years* after I started having symptoms, a friend of mine, who happened to have celiac disease, told me that the symptoms looked about right, and I got tested and sure enough, that's what I had. A dozen doctors couldn't figure out what my friend did. That explains the wheat (and other gluten bearing grains). For milk, eggs, tree nuts, soy, etc I still have no clinical proof of allergy that is considered legitimate in this country. Even so, they'll make me sick, even if I wasn't aware they were in the food I was eating.
Oddly enough, people with celiac disease are more likely to have an autistic spectrum disorder than people from the general population. And the 'mental symptoms' I spoke of are exactly that -- going gluten free hasn't made me 'normal' (and I don't think I'd want it if it did) but has made it easier for me to function. A fair number of other people have noticed the gluten-autism link. There's a great deal of information about gluten free/caesin free diets and autistic kids. I would love to see a good study to see if the kids who are helped by GF/CF diets (only a fraction are) also have celiac disease.
But, because GF/CF diets are considered 'quackery', I doubt I'll see such a study soon.
I do have IGG reaction results (from England) that clearly show that these foods (the specific list I compiled from trial and error) do cause a reaction . But IGG testing is considered "quack" medicine in this country.
Scarily, some doctors in the states consider celiac disease to be quackery. The incidence of it in the U.S. is still underreported.
The thing that pisses me off about this whole issue is that while multiple politically and financially motivated groups argue over whether MCS exists, a whole lot of people (and thankfully, I'm not one, but my research into my own problems brought me into contact with this one) are severely disabled, and suffering real symptoms that have been proven not to improve with psychological counsoling. The usual medical response to this is along the lines of "take two prozac and don't call me in the morning". A whole sub industry of quacks *has* sprung up, because the medical establishment won't deal with this (and a number of related issues -- chronic fatigue, IBS [medical establishment is better with this, but misdiags a number of other things as this too often], etc) and people want answers and more, want to feel better so they can live their lives. The AMA can lay the blame for all the quacks in this field squarely on their own doorstep. If they'd stop pandering to political interests and started actually treating patients, people would be less likely to support quacks.
On MCS causing allergies to almost all chemicals -- two thoughts: 1. In practice, it seems that each individual has their own set of chemicals that set them off, and they can and do differ widely from person to person. It's also very difficult for an individual to test which chemicals are setting them off -- it's not as if you can go down to the corner store and buy little vials of every chemical used in manufacturing (or even the most common ones, or the ones that would likely outgas) and then go do a sniff test on each. So in absence of knowing exactly which chemicals are problematic, given the severity of the symptoms, the decision to avoid all possible triggers seems intelligent.
2. I have been of the opinion for awhile that what is referred to as 'autism' (and the whole autistic spectrum) is actually a number of conditions, but we lack the knowledg
> And although the symptoms they experience are so > inconsistent they defy proper assessment
Beep, wrong. Granted, there's no blood test or similar test for MCS, but the symptoms are at least as consistant as those of many other, recognized, diseases.
> protocols, Washington University medical > professor H. James Wedner has detected one > dominant feature: most are middle-class white > women, financially able to exit the environment > that's making them sick.
Beep, wrong. If his study shows this, then his is the only one I know of to do so (women do seem to be slightly more affected, but class has nothing to do with it, and if anything poor people seem more affected as well) and probably has issues with the way he procured his sample. For instance, in recruiting subjects.
> Evidently, poor folks can't afford to suffer > from this illness.
Beep, wrong. Though poor folks generally can't afford treatment, so may be underrepresented if you pull your samples only from people being treated at specialty clinics.
> If we really cared about MCS sufferers, we'd > stop feeding their delusions, and tell them the > truth. Kindness isn't doing them, or us, any > favours.
You know, given that most MCS sufferers are ill for *years* before they find out what's wrong, and given that most MCS sufferers are told, by friends , family and medical professionals, both before and after they are diagnosed, that they are malingering, hypochondriacal, or suffering from psychosomatic symptoms, and that they still feel ill, this statement completely flies in the face of logic.
On the surface of it, it looks like this guy is just pissed that he can't wear his fragrances. I do wonder who is funding him, however.
I can't get at the site, it's apparently slashdotted.
That said, I know a fair amount about MCS. A lot of people (none of whom actually have MCS, that I've been able to tell) seem to think it's psychological. Thus far, no one's been able to prove it and many attempts at "shrinking" the problem away have failed.
Speaking as someone with far milder chemical sensitivities (asthma attacks in response to certain perfumes and fragrances, mostly), I seriously doubt that it's psychological -- at least not primarily.
The problem with wood (and why not buying plywood and pressboard isn't the answer it might seem) is that in the U.S. it's exceedingly difficult and expensive to buy untreated wood appropriate for building a house. Treated wood has formeldehyde and arsenic and plenty of other chemicals that can set people off. Also, in many areas, building codes prohibit building parts of the house (generally external and/or parts that touch the ground) with untreated wood. Even using treated wood for those parts and untreated wood for the rest won't be sufficient for some very sensitive people.
In terms of psychological weirdness, I haven't gotten to read the site yet, but I'd point out that in most humans, isolation tends to make them a little whack. Humans are social animals that are meant to move about, not solitary cage animals (hmm..is any animal naturally a cage animal?) Also, people with MCS often have difficulty with friends, family, doctors, etc not believing them. If you had an illness that nobody believed you had -- if you were stuck in a house because every time you left you got sick because of things that everyone else seems to handle okay -- the chances of you slipping from psychological norms would be pretty good.
The thing that somewhat scares me is that I find myself wondering if people with MCS (and to a lesser extent, people like me, with my many food allergies and milder chemical sensitivities) are the canary in the coal mine. None of these chemicals are particularly good for humans, it's just that most people don't react noticiably to them in doses as small as the ones that are outgassed. I find myself wondering if the combination of our lifestyle (everything from the food we eat to air pollution to applying chemicals to ourselves [check out some of the ingredients in cosmetics, esspecially]) is slowly destroying us. Add in the increase in children with diagnosed learning disabilities, autism, asthma and other conditions (even with improvements in access to health care and diagnosis, I'm having a hard time believing that 3/4ths [more or less, the numbers vary, but by anyone's numbers, a majority] of kids with autism in the last generation were completely missed) and an apparent increase in food allergies and sensitivities, and, well, you get the idea.
But near as I can tell, no one will profit from studies on this, and much industry in the U.S. would lose profits if this turned up to be true, so research on it is and will probably remain quite minimal.
Technically, you do still face your accusers in court, in the U.S. currently, even if an anonymous tip (or several of them) was involved.
Because you can't be convicted on the basis of an anonymous tip. I'm not entirely sure they can even get a court order to search your house or similar on just an anonymous tip. The police can (and do) use anonymous tips to choose who to look more closely at, but they still have to find evidence that you did whatever you said you did. The person calling in the anonymous tip is not accusing you. The police are.
Though recent legislation and legislation attempts seem to be interested in eroding this away.
In the case of crimes that really are bad (murder, rape, etc) the increased ability of police to detect and apprehend perpetrators when anonymous tips are used is a significant argument for the system.
In the case of crimes that aren't (drug laws and the like), the problem isn't the anonymous tips, it's the entire existance of the law.
Eh, I think that's a rather short sighted view, and that internet access can help get people out of public housing projects and off of needing subsidies. But I ranted about that elsewhere.
A mercedes would be nice, but transportation to work is a necessity, if one intends to support onesself. Public transport and cheaper cars fit this niche.
The bit I really wanted to comment on was about public housing being better than some other housing. It's because in order to get tax money, landlords have to meet certain standards. In general, other than withholding subsidies, the government can't force landlords to do anythign that isn't a clear safety issue. In some ways it would be nice if we all had some of the protections that people in subsidized housing (landlords accepting section 8 have to meet standards as well) have. Though I suspect you'd disagree with that, as well.
I won't flame you, but I will call your statement short sighted.
In order to live in public housing, you have to make less than a certain amount of money (which is calculated as percentage of poverty level, and is considered by family, not by individual, though one individual can be considered a family).
There's a few reasons why people make that little money.
1. They have few or no job skills, and thus can only get very low paying unskilled jobs.
2. They are on welfare. With very few exceptions, the only people who can be on welfare are parents with children. The amount you get on welfare is so little (you want to try to house, clothe and feed yourself and a child on $120 cash assistance and $130 in food stamps a month? I did, for a very short time. I'm not entirely sure how people do it long term) that nearly anything is better. In general, people are on welfare because there is no other choice. The myth of the lazy welfare queen is exactly that. The option other than welfare or charity is death from starvation or exposure.
3. They are disabled by the SSA definition (incapable of sustaining useful job related activity for more than a year) and on social security.
There are a few people not covered by the above, but these three situations probably account for 80%-90% of folks in public housing.
In the case of 1 and 2, internet access can significantly increase the chances that they get training so that they can work at a job that will pay enough for necessities. Both because it allows them to research education opportunities (for a broad definition -- including at home training) and it allows them to train for many things at home. It also allows them to potentially apply for jobs at any time -- which is of use if one is working all day at a very low paying job and can't afford to quit it until they get a better one.
In the case of 3, all of the above are true, plus it may give them the ability to research career options, accomodations for work, the ADA, etc
And any of these people may have children.
Going to the library is not necessarily an option.
If there is a library with internet access (not a given, though there are a number of libraries with internet access in boston) it may not be usable (i.e. it may be so locked down that you can only use notepad and internet exploder and can't possibly run any other application, like a training program, and may have difficulty seeing websites because of local security policies. This is also an issue in boston), or a person may not be able to reasonably get to it, esspecially on any kind of regular basis. If one is working a low paying job, or has to care for kids (you can't afford to pay the local teenager to watch the kids on welfare), or has a disability that makes getting around town difficult, this is significant.
So it is about helping these people get to the point where they support themselves.
Yes, esspecially the ones that would have been cast by the people who were fraudulantly prevented from voting.
Of course, if even more people came out to vote, that might have been migitated.
I vote, have voted every election since I turned 18 except for the very last one (Nov 2002). My only excuse is that I had lived in four states in the past year and didn't know where I was going to be living as of November until about October 15. Way too late to register locally or have an absentee ballot from the last state I was registered to vote in sent to me. And absentee ballots require mailing addresses, and I didn't have one at the time. So I claim exceptional circumstances for that one. I figure if everyone who had hurdles *that* high to jump didn't vote, it would have little effect on the system (simply because it's not going to be that difficult for most people to vote).
At the same time, I look at the entire system -- everything from the electoral college to accessibility of polling places, the entire machine debate, decades of gerrymandering, corruption, etc and have a really hard time feeling optimistic.
Actually, if your going to go for 'crime is crime' than I'd be more inclined to analyze it this way (which is not too far removed from how the justice system does it)
Our bank robber: Threatened four people with violence Threatened four people with fear of death (since if I threaten to hit you with my fist, it's still violence, but the odds of it killing you are small, the odds of being killed by a bullet at close range are much larger) Stole $300
(thats nine counts of three different crimes)
our cracker: bypassed computer security (and maybe did some other things -- i.e. identity theft or fraud to do this, but that's not specified) stole $300
(two counts of two crimes, with possibilities of others, but field too wide for reasonable speculation)
So it *can* be broken out like that. You can say "You both took x from the bank, so you'll do y time."
You just have to do it for each crime, not just each incident. Each incident can contain any number of crimes. Which is what our justice system does, though I think it gets applied unevenly.
And, you know, I'd walk my drawer out to their car if they had a gun, too.
Slashdot Mirror
We could start with a few federal TLA's that want to (and are getting increasing legal abilities as well as technological abilities to do so) monitor U.S. citizens, but don't want the citizenry to monitor what they are doing with the large chunks of federal money (read: tax dollars) they want each year, much less any real monitoring of their actions.
Seven years ago I acquired a 1978 ford fiesta for cheap. It was a crappy little thing -- someone had decided that a porsche clutch cable was the right thing to use (it wasn't) to replace the original clutch cable, and had bent things all out of place, but it did run. Other than that, it had an AM mono (it sure wasn't a stereo) and did 0-60 in about five minutes. It was also a disturbing shade of orange.
So I was looking about for technical information on the thing, and ran across groups of people in the U.S. who were fixing and racing them. *NOT* the more recent models sold in Europe (I have no idea what the similarities and differences between those and those sold in the U.S. between 1978-1981), but the old ones sold in the U.S. And they were apparently doing quite the same thing -- some of these cars were amazing.
rark
(Previous comment, reformatted so as to be readable)
I'm glad you agree that the meds are problematic and that a med only solution is not such a good idea. I've also seen meds really help people -- mostly people with depression or bipolar or anxiety or something else (i.e. PTSD) which is causing depression or anxiety, though it still doesn't fix the original problem, it makes their lives livable while they are working on the problem, and that's good too.
I worry, because the American Psychiatric Association and NAMI both are much into the idea of how wonderful meds are, and tend to overstate the positives of meds and understate the negatives. That alone is troubling, given that they are trusted information sources for professionals, patients (I *refuse* to say consumer, dammit) and other interested parties.
But they are also pushing for more expansive court ordered medication models. Instead of the "danger to one's self and others" model used now, they would prefer to force medication on anyone who cannot reliably feed, clothe, or house oneself, or maintain personal hygeine, due to mental illness.
Now, *if* the meds were as safe and effective as they generally claim, this would still be a human rights issue (when does the state have the right to force you to accept medical treatment?), but since they aren't, this is a seriously dangerous possibility. It's a personal one for me. I've been homeless about two years out of the last eight. There's a really good argument that the fact that I have Asperger's (or at least ASD of some sort) has a lot to do with that. Even I'll admit that. But medicating me generally makes things much worse. And hospitals (or any setting that isn't 'mine' -- I do better living in my truck than in a shelter) don't help either. Hospitals are good for crisis management, but not for dealing with hunger and homelessness amoung the mentally ill. Meds can seriously help some people, but forcing meds that have nasty side effects (some of them fatal, some of them not, but permanant and serious, like tardive dyskinesia) and may or may not be helpful is a pretty harsh thing. And as long as the prevailing attitude is "the meds are safe and effective", the general public is going to view forced medication fairly positively. Some of this is because of prevailing attitudes about mental illness that aren't factually correct (most/all mentally ill people are violent or dangerous) and some of this is a sincere wish to help people who are mentally ill. Of course, NAMI is trying very hard to 'destigmatize' mental illness, but their "a drugged mentally ill person is a safe mentally ill person" approach to it leaves me unimpressed.
The thing about (nearly) all of the things that we class under 'mental illness' is that we really don't have any clue of how a 'healthy' brain works, much less one that isn't working within specs. It's an awful lot like physical illnesses in the middle ages -- we have catalogged groups of symptoms that seem to occur together, given them names, and we can treat the symptoms with varying degrees of success. But we really don't know the underlying reasons for the symptoms. With schizophrenia (and autism incidently, which is one of the reasons I've kept up with researching schizophrenia, even after it was ruled out in my case) we've got a fair bit of evidence that it is biological and that it is (as you noted) partially genetically predetermined, but that it is not entirely genetically predetermined. Which is one of my other beefs with the APA and NAMI, who insist that if this is the case (there are some other disorders which have similar evidence, but not all of them) then all mental illness must be physically based. And if you have a physical illness, then you must need medication. The fact that there are many illnesses, ones that are absolutely, undeniably physical, for which the treatment does not involve medication, apparently slips right past them.
Of course we have to start out knowing fairly little. And it will take a great deal of t
I'm glad you agree that the meds are problematic and that a med only solution is not such a good idea. I've also seen meds really help people -- mostly people with depression or bipolar or anxiety or something else (i.e. PTSD) which is causing depression or anxiety, though it still doesn't fix the original problem, it makes their lives livable while they are working on the problem, and that's good too. I worry, because the American Psychiatric Association and NAMI both are much into the idea of how wonderful meds are, and tend to overstate the positives of meds and understate the negatives. That alone is troubling, given that they are trusted information sources for professionals, patients (I *refuse* to say consumer, dammit) and other interested parties. But they are also pushing for more expansive court ordered medication models. Instead of the "danger to one's self and others" model used now, they would prefer to force medication on anyone who cannot reliably feed, clothe, or house oneself, or maintain personal hygeine, due to mental illness. Now, *if* the meds were as safe and effective as they generally claim, this would still be a human rights issue (when does the state have the right to force you to accept medical treatment?), but since they aren't, this is a seriously dangerous possibility. It's a personal one for me. I've been homeless about two years out of the last eight. There's a really good argument that the fact that I have Asperger's (or at least ASD of some sort) has a lot to do with that. Even I'll admit that. But medicating me generally makes things much worse. And hospitals (or any setting that isn't 'mine' -- I do better living in my truck than in a shelter) don't help either. Hospitals are good for crisis management, but not for dealing with hunger and homelessness amoung the mentally ill. Meds can seriously help some people, but forcing meds that have nasty side effects (some of them fatal, some of them not, but permanant and serious, like tardive dyskinesia) and may or may not be helpful is a pretty harsh thing. And as long as the prevailing attitude is "the meds are safe and effective", the general public is going to view forced medication fairly positively. Some of this is because of prevailing attitudes about mental illness that aren't factually correct (most/all mentally ill people are violent or dangerous) and some of this is a sincere wish to help people who are mentally ill. Of course, NAMI is trying very hard to 'destigmatize' mental illness, but their "a drugged mentally ill person is a safe mentally ill person" approach to it leaves me unimpressed. The thing about (nearly) all of the things that we class under 'mental illness' is that we really don't have any clue of how a 'healthy' brain works, much less one that isn't working within specs. It's an awful lot like physical illnesses in the middle ages -- we have catalogged groups of symptoms that seem to occur together, given them names, and we can treat the symptoms with varying degrees of success. But we really don't know the underlying reasons for the symptoms. With schizophrenia (and autism incidently, which is one of the reasons I've kept up with researching schizophrenia, even after it was ruled out in my case) we've got a fair bit of evidence that it is biological and that it is (as you noted) partially genetically predetermined, but that it is not entirely genetically predetermined. Which is one of my other beefs with the APA and NAMI, who insist that if this is the case (there are some other disorders which have similar evidence, but not all of them) then all mental illness must be physically based. And if you have a physical illness, then you must need medication. The fact that there are many illnesses, ones that are absolutely, undeniably physical, for which the treatment does not involve medication, apparently slips right past them. Of course we have to start out knowing fairly little. And it will take a great deal of time and new knowledge and quite probably better technology before we *can* know any better. I just hate
Of course, this is why his co-workers will continue getting away with their bullshit.
This is also why various abuses of psychiatric patients continue -- because it's assumed that their reports of abuse are symptoms of psychosis, rather than truth.
Schizophrenia misdiags happen. They happen a lot. And they are hard to shake. Eight years later, I still spend the first few weeks or months convincing new members of my stable of professionals that no, I'm not psychotic. This is even though there are numerous references in my records from previous and current members of that stable attesting to my complete lack of psychotic symptoms. Sometimes they happen because the diagnosing professional has some stake in the misdiagnosis (in this case, to prevent detection of embezzelment. In my case, because the psychiatrist in question was being paid $400/hour to diagnose me, adjust my meds, and sleep for the rest of the hour, by my parents, who were benefitting by preventing detection of abuse), sometimes it's because of lack of time for decent diagnostic procedures, or missing something like drug use (also, antipsychotics can cause psychotic symptoms when administered to people who did not previously have psychotic symptoms, so the practice of giving everyone anti-psychotics first, and then asking questions, that some doctors and hospitals use, is just asking for a few misdiags right there), and sometimes it's diagnosis based purely on the negative symptoms (withdrawal, flat affect, etc) with the assumption that the positive (psychotic) symptoms are simply in temporary remission. The latter is particularly nasty because several other conditions (noteably autistic spectrum disorders) have similar symptoms but lack the psychotic features of schizophrenia. I know a number of Auties and Aspies who have been misdiaged with schizophrenia based on negative symptoms only (amazingly, some by doctors who *knew* of the AS disorder..many by doctors who didn't, though) and it probably figured into my situation, though I don't think enough to have prevented it.
Medication is sometimes effective. It's also truely awful, and unless you've ever taken an anti-psychotic, you really don't know how awful it can be (try imagining wrapping your brain in thick wool and wearing a fifty pound weight vest and ten pound weights on your legs). During the time I was on medication, I went from an AP Calculus BC student, to someone who was unable to do simple sums. I had been programming for two years, I was unable to write code for two years after I came off the meds. I lost a great deal of language (this seems to be an AS issue, and not so much of a problem for people without an AS disorder) and went from having a small writing career to being unable to write anything original at all. Schizophrenia can destroy lives, but so can the psych meds. Not to mention, even by the best numbers, they aren't nearly 100% effective. When one adds in the fact that the common side effects can be as disabling (or moreso) than the original disease, the current meds are, at best, a stop gap measure.
rantrant.
rark!
Gaslighting
:) ).
:) vs believing that the NSA is forcing one to think particular thoughts -- the former is at least sort of physically possible). But these folks are medication 'success stories'.
from the movie
Been there, done that.
First (and the only 'official' time) was because I was having 'delusions' that my parents were abusing me when I was a kid. And they got a psychiatrist to agree with them and level me on anti-psychotics. I very nearly did not graduate high school because of this (anyone who has never actually been on anti-psychotics has no clue how evil the meds actually are. I can actually see arguments for hallucinations being less debilitating).
Eight years after leaving them (and coming off the drugs), it's funny...I haven't had problems with delusions or hallucinations. In fact, there's only been four times when my sanity was called into question. In all four cases it was done by people who knew my history and were being abusive (three towards me and one towards a child) and sadly, all four times I allowed myself to believe that I was hallucinating and delusional and thus the abusive situation continued until someone else stepped in and pointed out to me (or, the first two times, spent quite a bit of time convincing me...) that I was not crazy, and they had seen the exact same things I had (even though I was being told that these things had not happened).
In all four cases physical evidence that I was correct in my viewing of the situation also existed. In all four cases, the person accusing me of being schizophrenic also did things other than the actual abusive behavior to convince me I was crazy, like moving things around or changing things and denying it, or claiming that I did things that I didn't and that I must have forgotten or been in some sort of psychotic fugue state, or hiding a radio and claiming they coudln't hear and and thus I must be 'hearing voices' (maybe the first person in history to have one's voices announce callsigns and read advertisements
It *royally* pisses me off that people who are doing things they shouldn't be (whether that's abusing a child or adult, or embezzeling, or a million other ways humans screw up) can completely discredit people who are trying to blow the whistle on them by getting them labled as 'crazy' -- either directly (mental health agencies, psych hospitals and the doctors and therapists themselves are in the best position to do this, and sometimes they do) or indirectly (as abusive parents and spouses sometimes do. I really do wish that I was the only person that this had ever happened to, but I'm not). Particularly when they then use tactics that emulate actual mental illness.
Schizophrenia is an awful disease. Statements to the effect of 'it can be treated now, with minimal side effects' are inaccurate. Anti-psychotics are harsh meds that shut down thought and make it difficult to move, and can have lasting effects. They are also not nearly 100% effective, closer to 60%-80%, generally, and I don't entirely trust those numbers, as many of the studies I have read tend not to take into account the fact that schizophrenia is an episodic disease. An untreated schizophrenic has a good likelihood of no longer being symptomatic after several weeks, though there is a good chance that symptoms will return. OTOH, there's also a good chance that symptoms will return even with meds, and most of the schizophrenics I know (a fairly large number, because I socialize in some odd spots and because I've been researching schizophrenia for years, though I am not a professional) are still delusional on their meds, though they don't seem to hallucinate nearly as much and the delusions are 'more likely' (believing that, say, anti-spammers are hacking into one's computer and putting viruses on it that report one's free speech activist activities back to them -- actual example here
At best, anti-psychotics are probably a more humane way of dealing with those who become violent due
This seems to me to be one of the bigger risks. The website says that the report that they return is the student paper with matches highlighted and links to their sources. Presumably this does have a prayer of being a bit more obviously "human must read and interperate" than a report that says "This paper has a 35% chance of being plagerized"
And I think you've hit on the important bit -- as a tool, it's great. It's not a replacement for human brains.
The argument that using this service is akin to accusing students of cheating seems specious to me. It's no more accusatory than the various permutations of "keep your eyes on your own paper" that are said at every level from kindergarten to undergrad (can't comment on post grad yet). Though making students run their own papers through is just bad practice.
I have to admit some ethical qualms about using student papers for profit in this way, but, presuming the usual "all your papers are belong to us" agreement between the school and the student and appropriate legalese between the school and turnitin (and I assume their lawyers have inserted appropriate legalese) it would seem to be legally quite sound.
but then, IANAL.
1. Canada is not the 51st state. /. is U.S. centric. Most of the time, when an article fails to mention where something is, it's in the U.S. Assuming this occured in the U.S. could lead to significantly incorrect conclusions. If you were observant enough to note that this article did not reference the U.S. without my help, feel free to ignore it ;)
2. I've found the answers to "who is doing this in the U.S.?" quite interesting. Thank you.
Well, I'm writing from Boston, and it doesn't seem to me that geographic area (within the U.S. at least) would matter all that much.
However, Canada is not the U.S. and has a completely different government (something about the definition of a separate nation, there)judicial system and constitution. The original article is not clear on the scope of the 'win' (school appeal or court ruling) but if it were a court ruling, that court ruling would have absolutely nothing to do with anything in the U.S. If it had been a court ruling in the U.S. then it could be referenced in similar court cases as a previous ruling.
If it's a school level ruling, then it's power isn't much no matter what, granted.
But Canada has a different view on civil rights than the U.S. has, as well. Not as different as some places, but that's not the same as not different at all.
1. This is in Canada, not the U.S. (/. is pretty US-centric, so it seems important to note this)
2. The article does note that, in addition to being used at 29 schools in Canada, it's used in 'several' schools in the U.S. Anyone know of any?
> The site is owned by an organization with a
> known Dun and Bradstreet number. (If a site is
> selling something, and its Whois info doesn't
> match the DNB corporation database, it should
> be downgraded in search position. This would
> encourage honest Whois info.)
This may be a question born of serious ignorance. If so, I'd really appreciate some enlightenment.
This is also not so theoretical for me, as I am currently privately developing a product that I will eventually be selling online.
However, until your post, I had not heard of Dun and Bradstreet. I have gone to their website, and they apparently provide a number of services, which can be broadly catagorized as marketing advice/consulting and credit advice/consulting. For my particular small business, neither of these services are useful. I'm funding out of pocket (so my business's credit is not of interest) and I don't plan on extending credit to my customers (there's no need for it) and the market for my product is very small and specialized and I'm fairly confident in stating that I know as much about it as Dun and Bradstreet or pretty much anyone else, modulo a few other people within the same community.
So my analysis, as a prospective small business owner, is that a Dun and Bradstreet number would be useless. Why would I want to get one?
Now, this would be utterly offtopic, except that you suggest that a Dun and Bradstreet number would be a reliable way of confirming whois info. When I get a domain name for this venture (not there yet) I do intend to provide accurate whois info and I generally agree that accurate whois info is a good thing and fairly important. However, for me, a DNB number would be a useless expense (actually, it appears it may be free? I distrust anyone who requires me to give out personal info before giving me prices, and apparently they want my email address first. However, if it's free, than one considers questioning the reliability of their information) and, while I'm not the majority case, I'm also not entirely unique.
If one were to implement this, this would mean that many businesses who were quite legitimate and had accurate whois information would be classed as if they did not have accurate whois information. This strikes me as a serious weakness.
Huh? How does the act of deconstruction imply that the product of the deconstruction is objectively valid? If reality is subjective (and I actually agree that it is, but the rest of post modernism has failed to follow that, for me) than the product of the deconstruction is (as part of reality) subjective. In fact, I'd argue that there is no such thing as objective validity, any appearance of objective validity is a problem of scope. Get the scope far out enough (or far in enough), and nothing has objective validity. In other words, everything is relative.
Additionally, (and fortunately for us, since otherwise there'd be no point in doing anything) there is reason to produce deconstructions that are subjectively valid. As I said before, at certain scopes, some things appear objective and can be treated as such in some situations. The key to practical evaluation of these things (not that the postmodernists seem much into practical evaluation, from what I've seen) is to remember what scope at which the product appears objectively valid. As long as you remain within that scope, it will continue to be objectively valid. Moving outside of that scope will show it to be objectively invalid.
And I still fail to see why a subjectively but not objectively valid deconstruction would be completely pointless.
well, if you define $GOD as 'an entity on which all things can be blamed, when one needs such a thing' then it does rather fit....
Wish I could get my cat to learn what you've taught your dog. She just seems to think it's another good sleeping box.
Fuzzy family members not withstanding, I'm rather fond of the "information dump" tactic in this case, simply becase, instead of having to decide if someone is potential geek material, it just sorts 'em out. The non-geeks will walk away puzzled or run away screaming. Either way, they are out of my hair. The potential geeks will sit down and listen, thus removing annoyance as well.
I love efficient solutions.
Sure, I'd love some double blind studies.
Incidently, I spent years being told I was a hypochondriac, my 'allergy' to wheat was psychosomatic, etc, before getting diagnosed with celiac. And I wouldn't have been diagnosed if a friend of mine (with celiac) hadn't noticed that I had all the right symptoms.
Also, I've been flat out told, within the last five years, that celiac was a made up disease and anyone who treated it was a quack. By an MD. I finally started making that one of my test questions -- anyone who tells me that my food sensitivities (I have a bunch, all IGG and food challenge proven, but IGG testing is quackery in the U.S. [not in england, which is where the test was done, I mailed off the sample to them airmail and they mailed the results to me] and food challenge doesn't prove that it's not psychosomatic) is automatically not my doctor. Avoiding these things is too important to my health to let them have their way.
The problem with MCS, fibro, CFS, etc is that instead of saying "This person has real symptoms that I can't figure out, maybe they've got something I don't know about. Maybe I should go do some research or refer them to a specialist, or even just admit I don't know" doctors seem a lot more likely to say "I can't figure it out, thus it must not exist and this person must be crazy and anyone who can help them must be a quack"
The money for studies only exists for things that will make people money. This is not 100% true, but is largely true. Because the treatment of MCS will probably not make anyone enough money to justify it, the money for studies is not out there. Drug companies manage to invent illnesses, or more often, exaggerate the incidence and ramifications of a condition, and minimize what the symptoms are, if they can make money off of them (and this is not considered quackery). But unless you can figure out how to make someone a lot of money with a disease, forget about having the money for double blind studies.
This is not 100% true, but for the relatively small amount of funding available for things that aren't going to make someone bunches of cash, there are a lot of people researching a lot of different conditions competing for funding.
In the case of MCS and a few other things (of which celiac is occasionally one, though not to the same degree), there are entities who would really be economically hit, in a bad way, if it turned out that what MCS appears to be is what it is, and esspecially if it the cases we are seeing now are the tip of the iceberg -- if the canary in the coal mine theory is correct. These folks do have money to fund studies and most of the studies I've seen on MCS that say it doesn't exist are funded by them. I find that quite suspicious.
But then, I also can't understand why we don't call quackery when drug companies fund the studies that prove their drugs are safe and effective -- even when later studies (funded from other sources) prove that the drug in question is not as safe or as effective (or both) as originally thought.
Actually, allergies are pretty damn contraversial in the mainstream medical community, too.
Amoung other things, I was told for years that my reactions to dairy, eggs and wheat were in my head by doctors. Because instead of triggering my asthma and eczema (I had eczema all the time, but not obviously in relation to what I was eating), or breaking out in hives, they gave me massive gastric disturbances and weird mental symptoms. And standard allergy testing didn't confirm them.
As it turned out, *years* after I started having symptoms, a friend of mine, who happened to have celiac disease, told me that the symptoms looked about right, and I got tested and sure enough, that's what I had. A dozen doctors couldn't figure out what my friend did. That explains the wheat (and other gluten bearing grains). For milk, eggs, tree nuts, soy, etc I still have no clinical proof of allergy that is considered legitimate in this country. Even so, they'll make me sick, even if I wasn't aware they were in the food I was eating.
Oddly enough, people with celiac disease are more likely to have an autistic spectrum disorder than people from the general population. And the 'mental symptoms' I spoke of are exactly that -- going gluten free hasn't made me 'normal' (and I don't think I'd want it if it did) but has made it easier for me to function. A fair number of other people have noticed the gluten-autism link. There's a great deal of information about gluten free/caesin free diets and autistic kids. I would love to see a good study to see if the kids who are helped by GF/CF diets (only a fraction are) also have celiac disease.
But, because GF/CF diets are considered 'quackery', I doubt I'll see such a study soon.
I do have IGG reaction results (from England) that clearly show that these foods (the specific list I compiled from trial and error) do cause a reaction . But IGG testing is considered "quack" medicine in this country.
Scarily, some doctors in the states consider celiac disease to be quackery. The incidence of it in the U.S. is still underreported.
The thing that pisses me off about this whole issue is that while multiple politically and financially motivated groups argue over whether MCS exists, a whole lot of people (and thankfully, I'm not one, but my research into my own problems brought me into contact with this one) are severely disabled, and suffering real symptoms that have been proven not to improve with psychological counsoling. The usual medical response to this is along the lines of "take two prozac and don't call me in the morning". A whole sub industry of quacks *has* sprung up, because the medical establishment won't deal with this (and a number of related issues -- chronic fatigue, IBS [medical establishment is better with this, but misdiags a number of other things as this too often], etc) and people want answers and more, want to feel better so they can live their lives. The AMA can lay the blame for all the quacks in this field squarely on their own doorstep. If they'd stop pandering to political interests and started actually treating patients, people would be less likely to support quacks.
On MCS causing allergies to almost all chemicals -- two thoughts:
1. In practice, it seems that each individual has their own set of chemicals that set them off, and they can and do differ widely from person to person. It's also very difficult for an individual to test which chemicals are setting them off -- it's not as if you can go down to the corner store and buy little vials of every chemical used in manufacturing (or even the most common ones, or the ones that would likely outgas) and then go do a sniff test on each. So in absence of knowing exactly which chemicals are problematic, given the severity of the symptoms, the decision to avoid all possible triggers seems intelligent.
2. I have been of the opinion for awhile that what is referred to as 'autism' (and the whole autistic spectrum) is actually a number of conditions, but we lack the knowledg
> And although the symptoms they experience are so
> inconsistent they defy proper assessment
Beep, wrong. Granted, there's no blood test or similar test for MCS, but the symptoms are at least as consistant as those of many other, recognized, diseases.
> protocols, Washington University medical
> professor H. James Wedner has detected one
> dominant feature: most are middle-class white
> women, financially able to exit the environment
> that's making them sick.
Beep, wrong. If his study shows this, then his is the only one I know of to do so (women do seem to be slightly more affected, but class has nothing to do with it, and if anything poor people seem more affected as well) and probably has issues with the way he procured his sample. For instance, in recruiting subjects.
> Evidently, poor folks can't afford to suffer
> from this illness.
Beep, wrong. Though poor folks generally can't afford treatment, so may be underrepresented if you pull your samples only from people being treated at specialty clinics.
> If we really cared about MCS sufferers, we'd
> stop feeding their delusions, and tell them the
> truth. Kindness isn't doing them, or us, any
> favours.
You know, given that most MCS sufferers are ill for *years* before they find out what's wrong, and given that most MCS sufferers are told, by friends , family and medical professionals, both before and after they are diagnosed, that they are malingering, hypochondriacal, or suffering from psychosomatic symptoms, and that they still feel ill, this statement completely flies in the face of logic.
On the surface of it, it looks like this guy is just pissed that he can't wear his fragrances. I do wonder who is funding him, however.
I can't get at the site, it's apparently slashdotted.
That said, I know a fair amount about MCS. A lot of people (none of whom actually have MCS, that I've been able to tell) seem to think it's psychological. Thus far, no one's been able to prove it and many attempts at "shrinking" the problem away have failed.
Speaking as someone with far milder chemical sensitivities (asthma attacks in response to certain perfumes and fragrances, mostly), I seriously doubt that it's psychological -- at least not primarily.
The problem with wood (and why not buying plywood and pressboard isn't the answer it might seem) is that in the U.S. it's exceedingly difficult and expensive to buy untreated wood appropriate for building a house. Treated wood has formeldehyde and arsenic and plenty of other chemicals that can set people off. Also, in many areas, building codes prohibit building parts of the house (generally external and/or parts that touch the ground) with untreated wood. Even using treated wood for those parts and untreated wood for the rest won't be sufficient for some very sensitive people.
In terms of psychological weirdness, I haven't gotten to read the site yet, but I'd point out that in most humans, isolation tends to make them a little whack. Humans are social animals that are meant to move about, not solitary cage animals (hmm..is any animal naturally a cage animal?) Also, people with MCS often have difficulty with friends, family, doctors, etc not believing them. If you had an illness that nobody believed you had -- if you were stuck in a house because every time you left you got sick because of things that everyone else seems to handle okay -- the chances of you slipping from psychological norms would be pretty good.
The thing that somewhat scares me is that I find myself wondering if people with MCS (and to a lesser extent, people like me, with my many food allergies and milder chemical sensitivities) are the canary in the coal mine. None of these chemicals are particularly good for humans, it's just that most people don't react noticiably to them in doses as small as the ones that are outgassed. I find myself wondering if the combination of our lifestyle (everything from the food we eat to air pollution to applying chemicals to ourselves [check out some of the ingredients in cosmetics, esspecially]) is slowly destroying us. Add in the increase in children with diagnosed learning disabilities, autism, asthma and other conditions (even with improvements in access to health care and diagnosis, I'm having a hard time believing that 3/4ths [more or less, the numbers vary, but by anyone's numbers, a majority] of kids with autism in the last generation were completely missed) and an apparent increase in food allergies and sensitivities, and, well, you get the idea.
But near as I can tell, no one will profit from studies on this, and much industry in the U.S. would lose profits if this turned up to be true, so research on it is and will probably remain quite minimal.
Technically, you do still face your accusers in court, in the U.S. currently, even if an anonymous tip (or several of them) was involved.
Because you can't be convicted on the basis of an anonymous tip. I'm not entirely sure they can even get a court order to search your house or similar on just an anonymous tip. The police can (and do) use anonymous tips to choose who to look more closely at, but they still have to find evidence that you did whatever you said you did. The person calling in the anonymous tip is not accusing you. The police are.
Though recent legislation and legislation attempts seem to be interested in eroding this away.
In the case of crimes that really are bad (murder, rape, etc) the increased ability of police to detect and apprehend perpetrators when anonymous tips are used is a significant argument for the system.
In the case of crimes that aren't (drug laws and the like), the problem isn't the anonymous tips, it's the entire existance of the law.
Eh, I think that's a rather short sighted view, and that internet access can help get people out of public housing projects and off of needing subsidies. But I ranted about that elsewhere.
A mercedes would be nice, but transportation to work is a necessity, if one intends to support onesself. Public transport and cheaper cars fit this niche.
The bit I really wanted to comment on was about public housing being better than some other housing. It's because in order to get tax money, landlords have to meet certain standards. In general, other than withholding subsidies, the government can't force landlords to do anythign that isn't a clear safety issue. In some ways it would be nice if we all had some of the protections that people in subsidized housing (landlords accepting section 8 have to meet standards as well) have. Though I suspect you'd disagree with that, as well.
I won't flame you, but I will call your statement short sighted.
In order to live in public housing, you have to make less than a certain amount of money (which is calculated as percentage of poverty level, and is considered by family, not by individual, though one individual can be considered a family).
There's a few reasons why people make that little money.
1. They have few or no job skills, and thus can only get very low paying unskilled jobs.
2. They are on welfare. With very few exceptions, the only people who can be on welfare are parents with children. The amount you get on welfare is so little (you want to try to house, clothe and feed yourself and a child on $120 cash assistance and $130 in food stamps a month? I did, for a very short time. I'm not entirely sure how people do it long term) that nearly anything is better. In general, people are on welfare because there is no other choice. The myth of the lazy welfare queen is exactly that. The option other than welfare or charity is death from starvation or exposure.
3. They are disabled by the SSA definition (incapable of sustaining useful job related activity for more than a year) and on social security.
There are a few people not covered by the above, but these three situations probably account for 80%-90% of folks in public housing.
In the case of 1 and 2, internet access can significantly increase the chances that they get training so that they can work at a job that will pay enough for necessities. Both because it allows them to research education opportunities (for a broad definition -- including at home training) and it allows them to train for many things at home. It also allows them to potentially apply for jobs at any time -- which is of use if one is working all day at a very low paying job and can't afford to quit it until they get a better one.
In the case of 3, all of the above are true, plus it may give them the ability to research career options, accomodations for work, the ADA, etc
And any of these people may have children.
Going to the library is not necessarily an option.
If there is a library with internet access (not a given, though there are a number of libraries with internet access in boston) it may not be usable (i.e. it may be so locked down that you can only use notepad and internet exploder and can't possibly run any other application, like a training program, and may have difficulty seeing websites because of local security policies. This is also an issue in boston), or a person may not be able to reasonably get to it, esspecially on any kind of regular basis. If one is working a low paying job, or has to care for kids (you can't afford to pay the local teenager to watch the kids on welfare), or has a disability that makes getting around town difficult, this is significant.
So it is about helping these people get to the point where they support themselves.
> I guess as long as people don't start making a lot
> of money at it?
Not exactly. As long as none of the copyright holders don't see a way for them to make a lot of money at it.
Yes, esspecially the ones that would have been cast by the people who were fraudulantly prevented from voting.
Of course, if even more people came out to vote, that might have been migitated.
I vote, have voted every election since I turned 18 except for the very last one (Nov 2002). My only excuse is that I had lived in four states in the past year and didn't know where I was going to be living as of November until about October 15. Way too late to register locally or have an absentee ballot from the last state I was registered to vote in sent to me. And absentee ballots require mailing addresses, and I didn't have one at the time. So I claim exceptional circumstances for that one. I figure if everyone who had hurdles *that* high to jump didn't vote, it would have little effect on the system (simply because it's not going to be that difficult for most people to vote).
At the same time, I look at the entire system -- everything from the electoral college to accessibility of polling places, the entire machine debate, decades of gerrymandering, corruption, etc and have a really hard time feeling optimistic.
But that's just me.
Actually, if your going to go for 'crime is crime' than I'd be more inclined to analyze it this way (which is not too far removed from how the justice system does it)
Our bank robber:
Threatened four people with violence
Threatened four people with fear of death (since if I threaten to hit you with my fist, it's still violence, but the odds of it killing you are small, the odds of being killed by a bullet at close range are much larger)
Stole $300
(thats nine counts of three different crimes)
our cracker:
bypassed computer security (and maybe did some other things -- i.e. identity theft or fraud to do this, but that's not specified)
stole $300
(two counts of two crimes, with possibilities of others, but field too wide for reasonable speculation)
So it *can* be broken out like that. You can say "You both took x from the bank, so you'll do y time."
You just have to do it for each crime, not just each incident. Each incident can contain any number of crimes. Which is what our justice system does, though I think it gets applied unevenly.
And, you know, I'd walk my drawer out to their car if they had a gun, too.
Er, how did it do that?