Medicine is all about science - most of the time.

Medicines, treatments, even devices get put through a rigorous placebo-controlled, double-blind study process before they are declared fit for use in medicine. Anecdotal tales of how something worked for someone, no matter how much that someone is convinced a particular treatment, drug, or device worked for him, are considered unscientific, and therefore not sufficient evidence to support whatever it might be.

This is true, with the exception of one particular treatment, where anecdotal tales are the only evidence supporting that treatment, because there has never been a single placebo-controlled, double-blind study of that treatment, during the entire time it has been used in medicine.

Does that treatment work? It might. The problem is, as far as scientific evidence goes, that particular treatment has just as much support as prayers to Khonsu, holding a rabbit's foot, or sacrifices to Talona.

The treatment I'm talking about is vaccination. Regardless of what you may believe about its efficacy, the fact remains that it has never been subjected to what is considered the gold standard of proof in medicine, and any attempts to suggest that maybe it should be subjected to that standard result in the person making the suggestion being branded a kook, a radical, "antivax" (whatever that is), and various other terms that are synonyms for "crazy", and the person making the suggestion is informed that a placebo-controlled, double-blind study of vaccination is "unethical" - which makes it the only form of medical treatment to hold that status. In every other form of medical treatment, it is considered unethical to not perform such a study.

Why is it crazy to want a medicine that is being injected into your body - or your child's body - to have been put through the same degree of testing that your migraine medicine had to survive before being approved? For that matter, why is it crazy to want to know that your doctor is relying on something more than anecdotal tales when recommending that you receive a particular medication?

Is it really so bad to question the efficacy of a treatment that has never been subjected to a single placebo-controlled, double-blind study, especially when its supporters respond to questions about such a study with the same hostility that an Inquisitioner responds to questions about the legitimacy of the Church?

Think about it. If there is scientific evidence supporting the treatment, all those questions could be satisfied by simply producing the study. Responding to those questions as if one's religion had been blasphemed against does nothing to advance a claim of credibility.

For that matter, why is it that every other form of medical treatment demands placebo-controlled, double-blind studies to be considered ethical, yet suggesting the same standard for vaccination is considered unethical?

Dear FTC: Go Fuck Yourself

This is not your blog. This is my blog. Until the day you put me in jail for my writing, I will write whatever I damned well please, whenever I damned well please, for whatever reasons I damned well please.

Regardless of any authority you may claim (which, as we both know, is unlawful under the United States Constitution), I do not recognize your authority over my writing, nor do I recognize your authority over my thoughts, associations, or any other form of expression.

I will continue to write whatever I damned well please, whenever I damned well please, for whatever reasons I damned well please, and I'll disclose, if I choose to disclose, whatever I damned well please.

If you want to try to get your $11,000 out of me for my writing, you're going to have to do it the same way every other mugger does: at the point of a gun. Don't be surprised if I respond to you the same way I would to any other mugger.

If you want to shut me up, you're going to have to either kidnap me or kill me. Either way, you will be behaving as pirates, bandits, highwaymen and muggers have done through the centuries. I know I'm just a small fish in the blogging universe, but even a small fish knows one or two other fish, and those one or two other fish each know one or two more, and so on, ad infinitum.

Kidnap or kill one blogger, the news gets out, no matter how small a fish that blogger is. All you'll be doing is pissing off the rest of the blogging universe, and making it more likely that more bloggers will respond to you as the scum-sucking low-life maggots you are. Who knows? Maybe the gene pool will be improved by the response. One can only hope.

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America's National Health Care System

Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I would not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything--except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the "welfare" of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, only "to serve." . . . I have often wondered at the smugness with which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind--yet what is it that they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands?
— Dr. Thomas Hendricks, Neurosurgeon, explaining why he chose to cease practicing medicine

I suspect that we'll soon be seeing a lot of doctors following in Dr. Hendricks' foosteps, until all that are left are one of two groups:

1. Those who are so devoted to their patients that they would continue practicing, even in a concentration camp, or
2. Those who are so incompetent that the only way they could get patients is at the point of a gun.

And we're supposed to be grateful for the government's "management" of health care?

Computer Death

Well, my computer has reached the point of giving me a

KERNEL_APC_PENDING_DURING_EXIT 

message whenever I exit a large program (OpenOffice, Thunderbird, Firefox, World of Warcraft, whatever), and the BIOS has ceased to recognize the existence of my DVD drives, which means I won't even be able to restore my system when Windows craps out.

Looks like I'm going to be learning how to do my writing with a pen and paper again, real soon now, unless a miracle happens and I manage to find money to buy a refurb or used computer somewhere.

Yay. Hurray. Whatever.

An Open Letter to the New Hampshire Victory Fund

When I originally posted this, I erroneously believed that the New Hampshire Victory Fund was affiliated with the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund. I have since been informed that the Gay & Lesbian Victory fund DOES NOT have any affiliation with the NH Victory Fund - in fact, they do not have state affiliates of any kind. Not only that, they do not conduct polling, and they are not involved in the Presidential election. Thanks to Denis Dison, from the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, for giving me the correct information, so I could address this more accurately.

I am writing because I received a phone call this evening from a poller who claimed to represent the New Hampshire Victory Fund. The phone call is one I found insulting.

The reason I found the phone call insulting is that your caller began by asking whether I intended to vote for Obama, McCain, or Undecided. The very content of the question is an insult to every single voter who has examined the candidates and determined that he is not willing to give his vote to either, but prefers, instead, to vote for someone else. Ralph Nader, for instance, or George Phillies, or any of the other candidates who DO NOT represent either the fascists from Denver or the socialists from St. Paul.

Not only was your caller's question on the Presidential race an insult to intelligent voters, he followed it up with identical questions on the race for Sununu's Senate seat and my district's House seat. In all three cases, his question identified ONLY the Republican and Democrat candidates, and offered "Undecided" as the ONLY alternative for voters who reject the Republican or Democrat alternatives.

Was it your intention to insult voters in this way, or did you simply not consider that intelligent voters might possibly choose to refuse to throw away their votes by voting for either of the two corporate candidates? You might want to consider that possibility when performing polls in the future, if you want to avoid insulting voters in the future.

File this under: I should know better...

I made the mistake of reading talk.politics.guns today, and am reminded why I unsubscribed from pretty much all usenet news a long time ago. The pro-gun posters were just as bigoted, just as arrogant, and just as obnoxious as the anti-gun posters. Sure, it's easy to forget that the people reading your posts are people, but is that any excuse for making yourself look like an utter ass? Apparently, it is - at least, it is for the people who post on newsgroups.

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Oh, the irony...

NEVER talk to the police!

Professor James Duane (a law professor in Virginia) explains reasons why you should NEVER talk to the police, under ANY circumstances.

Did you know?

In times of war, the U.S. Constitution gives the President the power to ignore the Constitution? Including wars that are not declared, as required under Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution? Apparently, the people who published the copy of the Constitution that I've read neglected to include the portion that gives the President that power. Or maybe it's in a classified section of the Constitution, that's only available to members of the Executive Branch?

Did you know that the President does not condone or authorize torture or inhumane treatment of prisoners? I guess that means that Manadel al-Jamadi, Abed Hamed Mowhoush, and Nagem Sadoon Hatab, among nearly a hundred others, are still alive and well and being treated with basic human dignity? And I guess that means that those photos from Abu Ghraib were just Photoshop jobs? Oh, that's right, that's neither torture nor inhumane treatment - it's "enhanced interrogation techniques." After all, America doesn't torture its prisoners. Never mind that when other countries used the exact same techniques, their officials were charged - by America - with war crimes.

Did you know that the President insists on the preservation of the human rights of all American prisoners? But then again, habeas corpus isn't a human right, apparently.

How do I know all this is true? Because I've been assured so by Nancy Theis, Special Assistant to the President and Director of Presidential Correspondence.

So, from now on, when someone tries to tell me that America is engaged in an illegal war, I'll just point them at that super-secret, classified portion of the Constitution that only the President has access to, that gives him the power to engage in war without the need for a pesky Declaration of War, and without the need to obey any of those pesky rules in the public portion of the Constitution.

And when anyone tells me that America tortures and mistreats its prisoners, I'll just point out to them that it's not torture when America does it - only when other countries do it.

And when anyone tells me that America violates human rights, I'll just point out to them that little things like habeas corpus aren't really human rights after all.

After all, I have been assured this is so by the Assistant to the President. And she wouldn't lie, would she?