Lazarus-like, the World will rise from its troubles fully healed, despite our Masters. Please ignore the side effects.
I was inspired by the following profundity in one of the paid ads presented at the bottom of the first page of a recent BC article:
Acai Berry Side Effects
Warning! Want To Try Acai Berry?
Have You Considered Side Effects?…
Article comments
26 - Dan(Miller)
There may be a small glimmer of hope that a few lemmings are looking around and wondering whether going over the cliff without glancing at a map is such a good idea after all. According to this Washington Post article,
Good for him. Although I think that U.S. policy toward Cuba needs to change, I share Senator Menendez's view that a lot more transparency is needed in the process.Dan(Miller)
27 - bliffle
First things first: Sore knees. I've come to this problem recently, maybe 6-8 months ago. But I've got it under control. Here's the prescription from Doctor Bliffle:
-every morning upon arising rub peanut oil into your knees and around the sides and underneath. Just pour a palmful in one palm and rub it in until it completely disappears. No other oil is as efficacious as peanut oil.
-have your breakfast and follow that with 3 Ibuprofen 200mg caps.
-every evening before bed repeat the peanut oil treatment.
-if you tend to awaken during the night with knee pain use a pack of Blue Ice between your knees, or augment with 3 Ibuprofens after dinner.
The worst thing about sore knees is that it cuts into your walking and hiking, so you have to make sure you have other cardio-vascular exercise, and the best thing is a stationary recumbent bicycle. I found one at the local YMCA that says "expresso.net" and has good graphical simulations to help pass the boring exercise time. They even have pacer riders and a 'ghost' rider (some kind of composite of your past rides) that make it more fun. You only need about 15-30 minutes to get some good exercise. The advantage of the recumbent is that there is no vertical load on your knees. The dreadful side-effect is that your butt gets sore and aching but it ends when you stop.
This mornings radio brings news that gout may be a factor and that there's about 50% less incidence among men who use 1500mg of Vitamin C every day.
28 - Dan(Miller)
Thanks, Bliffle
I'll give it a try. My problem is probably due to having had horses fall down on top of me too often during my pleasant but misspent youth.* The effects show up long afterwards. Riding actually seems to help now, since I avoid the situations under which having a horse fall are even remotely likely, and only thirty percent of my weight is placed in the stirrups. However, my back surgeon advises that I shouldn't ride at all. It's what I love best, so I try to ignore him.
Dan(Miller)
*No, they didn't fall on my head. Really.
29 - Cindy
Dan(Miller),
Is that common for horses to just fall on people?
Wow. And here I though they were using every trick they knew against me.
30 - Cindy
though=thought
31 - Cindy
Seriously Dan(Miller), why would horses not like me? We had a horse when I was a kid. He tried to kill me a few times. (getting insane and running into the road, charging at me in a field so I had to hide behind the only tree in the middle).
Other horses have tried to get rid of me. I was even following all the advice from the instructor. I like horses! How do they spot me in a class of twenty? It isn't like I am afraid when I get on. But it always ends with me being afraid. They just know they can do this. What is with horses?
32 - Ma r k
Have you searched for the number of the beast on your scalp, Cindy? Horses are said to be sensitive to such things...as well as to underlying insecurity.
33 - Clavos
A few years ago, my wife and I owned a Quarter horse (that's what we paid the glue factory for him), which we enjoyed very much until my wife's brother visited, and the horse took exception to being ridden by him by rolling over on him.
My wife told me then that it was either her or the horse.
I sure do miss her...
Ta-dum
34 - Cindy
I looked Mark, but I don't have any 666.
All I found was a 999.
35 - Cindy
lol Clav.
(Horses falling on people, rolling over on them. Wow! It could have been much worse.)
36 - Dan(Miller)
Cindy,
Horses don't enjoy falling, but sometimes they do anyway. It is not uncommon in polo and in jumping, both of which I enjoyed. Working with untrained or poorly trained horses can also result in falls. When a horse rears, generally out of fright, it can easily loose balance and fall on top of its rider. Ain't pleasant.
Here is an excellent site on horses, and you might enjoy going to the archives and looking at some of the topics. I have very rarely found myself in disagreement with Ms. Jahiel's opinions.
Dan(Miller)
37 - Christopher Rose
Bliffle, please delete all that crap you've stuffed in the URL box right now...
38 - Dr Dreadful
However, my back surgeon advises that I shouldn't ride at all. It's what I love best, so I try to ignore him.
It is the primary mission of the medical profession (I believe it's in the Hippocratic Oath) to find reasons why their patients can't do the things they love.
My back surgeon (who used to be the team physician for the San Francisco 49ers, so it's kind of hard to argue with him) tells me I shouldn't play badminton, and my GP just handed me a list of things I ought to avoid (with a view to lowering my cholesterol) which appears to include all foods. So I'm ambivalent as to how strenuously one ought to observe these proscriptions.
Take Jet, for example, who was advised by his doctor not to comment on Blogcritics. Now Jet, who these days is held together largely by duct tape, wisely surmised that for him, things couldn't get much worse, and so he continues to be a presence here.
So if you'll excuse me, I must now bungee jump off the top of Half Dome in pursuit of a falling shuttlecock, with my laptop tucked safely under my other arm.
39 - Cindy
Horses are said to be sensitive to such things...as well as to underlying insecurity.
Since I just realized my hands are shaking and I feel queasy just imagining a horse running away with me, I'll have to admit I might be letting them on to something. So, I guess I set the whole cascading reaction off.
That is a good site Dan. Thanks. I think I'd need a good instructor and a very easy-going horse that didn't instantly react to my fear.
40 - Cindy
Dr.D, he only said you shouldn't play Contact Badminton.
41 - Dan(Miller)
Cindy,
A good (experienced) school horse can put up with just about anything. I've heard it said, and am convinced that it's true, that if you keep an eye out for a nice place to fall off, you will (a) fall off and (b) not land there.
As to running away, horses do that sometimes. The trick is to take one rein firmly in hand, pull it back bending the horse's neck to the rear, and secure it on the pommel of your saddle. Don't tie it, just hold your fist firmly against the pommel. Since one side of the horse can't run away while the other side is immobilized, that is quite effective. Unfortunately, a horse who has gone nuts with fear and is running away is likely to fall down. Oh well. That's life. The only thing to do with a really scared horse is to calm him down. Either that or an emergency dismount.
Do find a good, experienced instructor. I think you will enjoy riding. I have for more than fifty years, and still do. Back in the late 1950's, I subscribed to Horse and Hound, a British publication. I remember the front cover one day, with a photo of a Brit winning a steeple chase race in Kenya. It was his 80th birthday, and he still trained polo ponies and played polo. I was inspired and wish that I were in that condition at 68.
Dan(Miller)
42 - Silas Kain
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, hold the horse while Rush hops on.
43 - Dan(Miller)
Silas,
I doubt that any self respecting horse would permit himself to be dealt with in that fashion. Besides, we are talking about horses, not horse's asses.
Dan(Miller)
44 - Dan(Miller)
Meanwhile, and at least to some extent back on topic, here's the latest word from New
speakweekDan(Miller)
45 - handyguy
For those interested in an actual interview with [now withdrawn nominee] Charles Freeman, Fareed Zakaria's always valuable GPS program on CNN today provided it.
My take is that it's our nation's loss that a good man was forced out on spurious charges. At the very least the interview demonstrates that he is enormously intelligent and articulate, a proud iconoclast but by no means a fire-breather.
46 - Dan(Miller)
Handyguy,
As of a few minutes ago, a video of the interview was scheduled "to be available soon." I shall listen (and watch, of course) with interest.
It should be interesting to hear what Mr. Freeman had to say about his unfortunately mischaracterized(?) remarks on the Chinese unpleasantness and what he now thinks should be done about Israel and Palestine.
Dan(Miller)
47 - handyguy
Yes, it was just broadcast a couple hours ago. The program is repeated on US cable a few times on Sundays; not sure whether that feed is available to you.
I found him very convincing, even on China [he said the out-of-context quote left off the first part of his sentence: "The opinion in Beijing is that...."], and certainly on Israel and Saudi Arabia.
I don't want to say he's a saint, but he certainly didn't come across as a nut, which is how several editorialists portrayed him.
48 - Dan(Miller)
While waiting for the GPS video, I looked at some other comments on Ambassador Freeman's withdrawal. Here are some views, from rather different perspectives, which nevertheless have a similar flavor.
May I suggest than rather withdraw in a huff, Ambassador Freeman might have done well to attempt to explain the contexts out of which he claimed that his remarks were taken?I rather liked the comments of Caroline Glick, who described:
Perhaps he does so in the GPS interview video.
In any event, Ambassador Freeman will doubtless continue to be heard in Washington; he just won't be the primary filter for President Obama's intelligence briefings.
Dan(Miller)
49 - Dan(Miller)
Handyguy,
We have neither over-the-air US based television nor a cable feed. Neither is available where we live. So, I'll just have to wait for the interview to appear on the internet.
Dan(Miller)
50 - handyguy
I believe CNN publishes a transcript as well as video excerpts. The transcript will lack Freeman's deep gravelly voice, like Kissinger without the accent.
Commentary like Caroline Glick's, at least the part you excerpted, comes across as name-calling without backup. In other words, a smear. Her full-length column published last Friday had more detail - but was a remarkably one-sided opinion piece, not an objective piece of journalism. She's fiercely right-wing and no fan of Obama.
Freeman says it is more accurate to say that the Likud lobby, rather than the Israel lobby, was out to get him, and that it is Likud/right-wing policies he has criticized [as have many Israelis], not Israel itself. Glick and others don't bother to make this distinction.
51 - bliffle
#37 â€" Christopher
Bliffle, please delete all that crap you've stuffed in the URL box right now...
Mission Accomplished, sir!
(I think)
A slip of the keys mid-paste caused it.
52 - bliffle
Seriously, Dan. Try peanut oil on your knees. It's an old tried and true remedy. I think the oil penetrates the skin and lubricates the passageways for tendons and ligaments.
I first heard of it 50 years ago (when I laughed at my 1st wife for using it, but now when needed it worked). And at $5 a bottle it's a lot cheaper than all the X-rays, doctors visits, and the special Celebrex that was made in India and shipped through Bermuda to the Canadian Pharmacy that forwarded it to me just a few short weeks after I ordered it on the Internet.
53 - Dan(Miller)
Thanks for the reminder, Bliffle. I do plan to try it as soon as I can find some. My wife hasn't seen peanut oil in the local grocery stores, but thinks that perhaps a Chinese grocery store may have some. Next time one of us is in David, where such things are, we will look.
Dan(Miller)
54 - bliffle
Peanut oil used to be a common item in the Oils And Sauces aisle at the market, but then it disappeared, and now it seems to be a gourmet item. Nevertheless, the $6 bottle I bought seems to have lasted a long time.
55 - Dan(Miller)
Senator Dodd (D. - Conn.) is now trying to unravel one of the provisions he arranged to have inserted in the $787 Billion "stimulus package."
It would be interesting to know what could possibly have changed Senator Dodd's deep thinking, only a few weeks ago, on this matter. Unlike most of his colleagues, he must have had an opportunity to read, and even understand, at least the part(s) of the bill he added.Dan(Miller)
56 - Dan(Miller)
This just in: The IRS plans to grant a tax deduction for Ponzi Scheme intestors:
No decision has yet been announced on whether this will apply to Social Security contributions.Dan(Miller)
57 - Clavos
LOL, Dan!!
58 - handyguy
The interesting thing about the bonuses clause in the stimulus bill is that the bill at one point contained an amendment that had the opposite effect:
Referring to her amendment with Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) that would have forced financial institutions receiving TARP money to repay bonuses over $100,000 or face a 35 percent excise tax on what is not immediately repaid to the treasury, Senator Snowe commented that if the provision had not been stripped out of the final stimulus package, the American people could reclaim these obscene bonuses.
"The stimulus debate presented an opportunity to enact firm restrictions on the ability of financial institutions receiving TARP funds to provide executive compensation," Snowe continued. "The Snowe-Wyden amendment would have forced AIG to either return the TARP money or pay out the bonuses and incur a 35 percent tax â€" equating to roughly $58 million. Yet my provision with Senator Wyden was inexplicably stripped out of the final package - leaving us with the unacceptable outcome we face today."
59 - Dan(Miller)
Handyguy,
We mere peasants will probably never know what happened and why. However, the article linked (and shamelessly quoted almost in its entirety) in Comment #55 might explain what happened: Senator Dodd was and is beholden to AIG. Now, he has a sense of urgency about looking good and proposing to tax the bonuses. Question is, are they to be subject to the normal income tax rates (as I assume they already are) or at a higher and perhaps confiscatory rate?
Dan(Miller)
60 - Dan(Miller)
Oh goody! Help for the beleaguered Treasury Department is on the way. Lewis Alexander, the chief economist of Citigroup, Inc., is leaving that bastion of solid judgment to become a top adviser to Secretary Geithner. He will work on "domestic financial issues." It's about time for Secretary Geithner to have expert help at the helm. Obviously, Mr. Alexander's intimate knowledge of how Citigroup, and indeed the nation's domestic economy, functions will give Secretary Geithner a big boost.
This is certain to enhance further the already elevated confidence we all have in the expertise of the Treasury Department and in its fierce commitment to master the current financial crisis well, with alacrity and in the best interests of the United States.Dan(Miller)
61 - Clavos
And if they are taxed at a confiscatory rate, will that not set a precedent that could grow into a policy of confiscatory tax wielding for whatever capricious reason the administration (and subsequent administrations, for that matter) deems in the public (read their) interest?
62 - Dan(Miller)
Clav,
Perhaps I am missing something, but if they are not to be taxed at confiscatory (oh, all right, substantially higher than normal) rates, what's the point? And if they are, your concern seems valid.
Still, it's not big deal. It's only money, and we all know that's the root of all evil. Besides, anyone who makes a lot of it is obviously wicked and should be made to suffer like the rest of us. Well, the peasants who pay taxes, anyway.
Dan(Miller)
63 - handyguy
Clavos, it's of course possible that any 'confiscatory' taxation could spread beyond firms getting TARP money, but there would be no reason for it. Politicians of both parties are scrambling over each other to show how shocked, shocked they are by the bonuses. I really don't think it seems likely to become a widespread new tax practice. But I agree with you that it's dubious in any case.
One other thing:
As Barney Frank reminded everyone yesterday, the AIG bailout began before TARP, to the tune of $85 billion. It was begun unilaterally by the Fed under Ben Bernanke and Congress was told about it after it was already done. It was done under authority first granted to the Fed in 1932 during the Hoover administration.
That's one reason even fewer restrictions are in place for AIG than for the institutions that have gotten mostly TARP money [which AIG got also, later].
64 - bliffle
Social Security may be the best investment you ever made, Dan (and Clavos). It has a $2trillion surplus and has had a surplus every year for 25 years. Compare THAT to some of your fancy Wall Street investments!