Free Republic

I just sent a link to the article to the managers of all our pawn shops. Could be we'll get down to treating diamonds just like we do sapphires and rubies--as a pretty stone with no value whatsoever (since differentiating between real and synthetic is more trouble than it's worth).

"The National Council of Churches was in on this atrocity too. The United Methodist Church, which I left as a result of this travesty, was in it up to their elbows as well."

As well as the bogging down (in the courts) of Minnesota's new concealed-carry law.

Right. I can't even keep track of next *week*, much less 2 years from now.

I'm just saying that if you look at a nice monthly chart for commodities, the price goes up and down, up and down. The talking heads generally don't start their hystrionics until after the movement is well underway.

What if the chart wasn't crude? What if it was corn? Or aluminum? Would you also assert that the price would never return (for longer than a brief period) to where it was just one year ago today?

Per the article: "Other factors contributing to higher prices were the strong dollar..."

Maybe they meant the "weak" dollar. Oh, what the heck, it's only journalism--not like a real job.

Well, ya better go long then.

Remember, oil only broke $40 for the first time about 9 months ago. For the last 100 years, it's been at 39.99 or below.

And it shall go there again.

This article is just the warm-up. When "experts" start predicting 75 or 80 oil, that pretty much guarantees that the market will tank within a few weeks.

"Esa Ramasamy, oil editorial manager at Platts, said: 'I'm doubtful that it will even go to the $40 mark, there's just too much market support for these prices.'"

Calling all suckers! The oil market can't drop below $40, you just heard it from an expert! Mortgage the house and go long 10 contracts!

Proclamations like this make me want to buy some puts.

"When have the Scientologists gone around slamming airliners into buildings? They may be a touch odd, but I haven't noticed them becoming homicidal....."

They do have their own navy, though (or at least they DID). L. Ron was pretty much persona non grata in most civilized countries (in our own for tax evasion), and spent his last days on the high seas with his fleet.

My uncle, Sen. Jim Vickerman (D), is head of the MN State Gambling Committee. He says no freakin' way is the state going to force the Indians to give them a cut. "Pawlenty got the state into this, and he can get the state out". And that's a quote.

[Meaning, of course, that Pawlenty can go suck eggs].

"Doctors Are The Third Leading Cause of Death
in the US, Causing 250,000 Deaths Every Year

This article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is the best article I have ever seen written in the published literature documenting the tragedy of the traditional medical paradigm.
If you want to keep updated on issues like this click here to sign up for my free newsletter.

This information is a followup of the Institute of Medicine report which hit the papers in December of last year, but the data was hard to reference as it was not in peer-reviewed journal. Now it is published in JAMA which is the most widely circulated medical periodical in the world.

The author is Dr. Barbara Starfield of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and she desribes how the US health care system may contribute to poor health.

ALL THESE ARE DEATHS PER YEAR:

12,000 -- unnecessary surgery 8
7,000 -- medication errors in hospitals 9
20,000 -- other errors in hospitals 10
80,000 -- infections in hospitals 10
106,000 -- non-error, negative effects of drugs 2
These total to 250,000 deaths per year from iatrogenic causes!!
What does the word iatrogenic mean? This term is defined as induced in a patient by a physician's activity, manner, or therapy. Used especially of a complication of treatment.

Dr. Starfield offers several warnings in interpreting these numbers:

First, most of the data are derived from studies in hospitalized patients.
Second, these estimates are for deaths only and do not include negative effects that are associated with disability or discomfort.
Third, the estimates of death due to error are lower than those in the IOM report.1
If the higher estimates are used, the deaths due to iatrogenic causes would range from 230,000 to 284,000. In any case, 225,000 deaths per year constitutes the third leading cause of death in the United States, after deaths from heart disease and cancer. Even if these figures are overestimated, there is a wide margin between these numbers of deaths and the next leading cause of death (cerebrovascular disease).

Another analysis concluded that between 4% and 18% of consecutive patients experience negative effects in outpatient settings,with:

116 million extra physician visits
77 million extra prescriptions
17 million emergency department visits
8 million hospitalizations
3 million long-term admissions
199,000 additional deaths
$77 billion in extra costs"

So let's say "modern medicine kills people, rather than doctors." Happy now?

Or are they letting just anybody post goofy stuff in JAMA nowadays?

Ever since we've been taking credit cards as payment, 8 years now and running. There's no way I'd wait 30 to 60 days for payment. I could sell the same widget 4 times by then.

"It's really the merchant getting hosed. He has to loan the purchase price, interest free to the customer for a month, then to the CC company for another month, AND pay 3% for the privelige."

Not so, at least not in standard retail. When we make a CC sale, we have the money in our account in about 3 days.

You sound like a Ken Roberts/Ted Warren graduate...

Congrats to you for not aiming for a 12 percent return!

"Several are in areas with large minority populations, including the Phillips neighborhood in Minneapolis,..."

I used to live in the Phillips neighborhood. I usually had trouble getting to sleep, especially around welfare day. Then winter came, and the Indians beat their wives indoors, rather than out in the street. Six months of shut-eye!

Whoever's renting those signs ain't targeting the winos in THAT neighborhood.

"May I ask your opinion of this kids story? I practised witchcraft in the 70's but am now a Born-Again. Having been on both sides, I, personally, don't buy it."

Uhh, the story's entirely possible, I guess, but then again (as I'm sure you know), many Wiccans live their lives as a long cry for help. Might not be that much different than an, uh, African-American painting swastikas on their own car to draw attention.

Your guess is as good as mine. G'nite.

Naaah, pray away--the more the merrier, right?

Besides, if hell does exist, being a pawnbroker and a witch, I should at least qualify for branch manager status!

G'nite.

"My impression from a discussion I heard recently is that Wicca is just old-fashioned paganism revived---nature worship."

Actually, we follow (not worship) a god and goddess of our choosing (or do they choose us?), and we see their presence in nature. We do not worship nature per se.

There are white Wiccans like there are white, uh, lawyers, I guess--those sworn to seeking out justice for the downtrodden and always fighting the good fight.

Then there are those Wiccans (like me), who are more pragmatic.

"i'm not buying into that crap... it's about time the moral majority stand and be heard... i'm not religious and i only go to church for weddings and funerals... but i'm sick and tired of the moral decay... the parent asked for it, the kid got it...(true or untrue story)"

Hey, Archie Bunker speaks up--good for you.

Whether or not a self-professed "wedding-or-funeral" Christian buys my story is irrelevant to me.

"So the term "witch" has nothing to do with wicca?"

Oh, man. Let me get out my Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

Wiccans familiarly call themselves "witches", whether male or female. Some author (I confess I'm too lazy to look it up) said that "Wicca" comes from "wicce", meaning "to turn [or] to bend" in Anglo-Saxon or some other proto-English dialect. Another author said that theory was BS. It'll be a couple of years of research to prove a connection. You first.

"You don't read that sign off every day."

I've led an interesting life.

You also don't read it every day because this is the first time I've posted on FR in 9 months or so. I've been irritating people at LP lately.

Just give me a windmill--I'll joust it! I swear I will!

"...but would it be fair to call it non-traditional religion?"

According to some, Wicca was invented in about 1957 by an English perv/occultist named Gerald Gardner. According to others, it has existed in an unbroken line since Europe's pagan days. Then there are the Heathens, who usually bitterly resent being lumped in with Wiccans and pagans, who research ancient texts and try to recreate our ancestral religions as they were 1,000 years ago or more. I tend to believe the Gardnerian-invention theory.

Nevertheless, it does work (if "work" is defined as "giving people something to believe in and providing a moral code" or "asking your gods for something and they give it to you".

Believe me. I'm as tired of meeting high-level magicians that work in the video store as you are.