Saw an article recently that mentioned if you exclude gang killings (which don't compare with the situation in European cities), the homicide rate from guns in the US is very comparable to that in Europe despite the availability of more guns.
If you take care of the poverty issues that drive desperate young men to live a life of crime due to the break down of families in the ghettos, does the violence drop to the normal for people who who aren't impoverished?
Forgot to mention this. In one of the audio clips, they say that somebody did a creeping treatment with a 60 year old stroke patient in the 1960s. Within a year he was normal, and back in school teaching. 7 years later, he died of a heart attack hiking or climbing in the mountains (can't remember which). They did an autopsy on his brain, and the damage from the stroke was still there, but the creeping therapy rebuilt his brain around the damage. So if you know of somebody affected by stroke, you might recommend they give this a try.
Look into Brain Highways for treatment for your son's condition. Look for my other post in this discussion for my long description of what Brain Highways is.
I have a daughter (7yo) who has some symptoms (flapping hands, very large blowups if she is touched, very poor motor skills, etc). My wife has searched for treatments for years. We have found something that is making significant progress. It's called Brain Highways. They have treatment centers in California and Colorado, I think. But they run a do it yourself program, which we are doing from Kansas. They use printouts, audio, and video, and questionnaires (submitted using Adobe Reader X - yuck!!) to teach the parents, who then direct the kids. This starts out being about 3-5 hours a week, and drops to an hour a week in later weeks. The program lasts for 4 months, but the child is going to be doing the physical activities for between 100-300 hours depending on how bad their symptoms are, which means up to a year. Could also help ADHD, Tourettes, or any other condition where the person has difficulty controlling their body.
How they explain these conditions is that the lower and middle portions of the brain, which are in control of unconscious body control did not fully develop while a baby. But by imitating physical motions similar to what a baby goes through, the brain development can be completed, and the person can become a fully functioning 'normal'. As it's explained in the program, your body is trying to compensate for underdeveloped lower portions of the brain by trying to use the upper centers of the brain to do the same thing, which that part of the brain is not designed to handle.
When the program starts, there are 4 physical activities to perform. Three are simple positional movements, and lasts from 5-10 minutes per day. Then the main activity is called creeping (pulling yourself across a smooth floor on your belly). This is supposed to be for at least 30 minutes per day. Each week, there are some addition physical activities recommend that help the person master new physical abilities, and these are typically done during breaks in the middle of the creeping. After 8 weeks, if the person (adults can participate) has progressed far enough in the creeping (changing arms and leg involvement), they can begin the second portion of the program which drops one position and add a new one, adds a few yoga poses, and crawling is added to the creeping, with a total combined time of 45 minutes for the creeping and crawling. This continues until brain function is normal, with you submitting video of your child creeping so they can assure you that they are progressing normally.
I think they run 3 cycles per year, so a new program will probably be starting in about a month when we will finish our fourth month. We signed up a few days before, and didn't have any problems getting in. Each half of the program is about $550, and if you want them to analyze your second child, they'll charge a couple hundred extra for that. Adults can also participate (I'm doing my own creeping, but I'm several months behind my daughter).
My daughter's progress has been pretty good. We were warned that some of her noticeable symptoms (arm flapping) would probably get worse after we started, because the lower center would start to take control of the limiting the action, but not be ready to do it, and the upper brain apparently loses the control it's developed. This has happened, a few times a week if she gets very excited, she will start vigorously flapping, which was mostly gone before. But other than that, most of her other symptoms are much better. She is getting much stronger and more physically adept. Her hand writing and drawing are significantly better than 3 months ago, her self control when touched is better but not complete. She has started shaking hands when required, and is in general much more willing to do new things. She seems much more at ease, and given a few more months, she will probably get to the point where strangers won't even notice her differences. We hope that she will be done by mid-spring, although maybe she'll be done earlier, or maybe not until later next year.
It takes commitment and hard work, but as the found says in some of her later videos. Which is more difficult, living with these limitations for a lifetime, or taking 6 months to a year to fully engage the brain so that it can work the way it's supposed to.
Think of it like this:
In the 1980s, you bought a computer from Commodore, Apple or IBM, each with it's own operating system and different programs.
In the 1990s, IBM (OS2) and Microsoft (Windows) released operating systems that would run on interchangeable hardware that anybody could sell, with MS winning over IBM. Most people then figured they had two choices, Apple with expensive hardware and limited software options, or PC that was cheaper and nearly unlimited software options. Eventually, most retail software vendors focused on developing Windows software, thus driving most new customers to Windows PCs for the next 15 years.
The mobile device battle is the same battle all over again. Apple with it's unified hardware and software, although with a much broader software selection. On the other side, you have most of the rest of the industry running Android (Google playing Microsoft's part) on interchangeable phones from a more vendors. You also have MS reprising IBM's role (unless they win over Android, then Google is IBM and Microsoft stays Microsoft).
In both cases, you have a proprietary vendor against half a dozen companies using a single standard. The question that hasn't been figured out yet is if the developers will focus on one platform or another, or code and sell to both. I don't know much about iOS, but I assume it's a Unix-y OS like OS X, in which case maybe it's easy for most developers to release on both iOS and Android, but more difficult to go to Windows. If so, Microsoft will be in a very difficult position of trying to convince thousands of app developers to port to Windows so their OS isn't seen as being deficient in the apps/features.
I would think you're going to have a chicken and egg situation here. Users will check what apps are available. App X isn't out, so they wait or go with Android or iPhone for now. Developers check Windows sales numbers, and see they are low, and decide it's not worth the effort. Windows wilts away like OS2. Firefox OS will probably be in the Linux position of just a few percentage points market share of diehards that refuse to use a closed system. Easily portable software from Android would give it a chance because some vendors might come in and use it if there are any advantages over Android, which would remain to be seen.
What about the right of the other unemployed individuals who would be glad to have that same job at the lower wage to get started and develop a work history? Is it better to have 2 employed at $12 per hour and 1 unemployed or 3 employed at $8? Shouldn't the business owner be able to make the decision of employing fewer highly skilled/quicker and more expensive workers or more lower skilled lower paid workers? If it's inefficient because of turnover and chaos in the company, the business owner is the one shooting his business in the foot, and his competitors will figure out they can make a different decision and come out ahead.
Consider this model: 10 potential workers, each equally productive if employed. The economy has $20,000 to pay the workers. Is it better to pay 10 workers $2000 or 8 workers $2500, tax the workers the $500 and pass it to the two unemployed men so they can get along? In both scenarios, each employee has $2000, but are the two situations identical? No, if each of the workers are equally productive, and each worker can produce 1000 units of goods per month, and everybody spends all of their money, then the situation with all 10 employed is better, because the economy has 10,000 units to distribute at $2/unit. In the 8 worker situation, we get 8000 units at $2.50 a unit. In the first situation, everybody gets 1000 units of economic goods available to consume and in the second you only get 800.
Think about if you started with the second situation, and tried to move to the first by cutting wages from 2500 to 2000, eliminated unemployment, and provided the economy with a productivity boost that could drive economic expansion? People would scream bloody murder about wage cutting even though eliminating unemployment would improve everybody's overall situation.
Also, the Union v. Ownership dichotomy is the wrong way to go about getting the employees a larger cut of the revenue pie. The true way toward helping the workers out is for them to become owners. Once the business is in the hands of the employees, the union is unneeded since the employees aren't likely to exploit themselves. I'd encourage a policy of preventing the owner from selling his business to a competitor or conglomerate, but instead allowing the business owner to keep his income taxes in exchange for turning the business over to his employees, although it would take several years to transfer the entire company. This would basically be the government buying the business through reduced tax revenues, although the employees union could put their dues toward purchasing the business faster if the owner were selling. Improvements under this system: More and smaller businesses, which would provide more competition both for customers, and for workers. If you aren't happy working for X, go work for Y.
Interesting. I have been working on collecting a large number of authors and books (perhaps something the guy looking for good reading material last week might be interested in?) I had zero problem moving from Libre Office on Debian to Windows 7 Office Excel 2010 using the Microsoft
You don't have to have it done by the government. In rural areas in the central U.S., power lines are often provided by co-op because of the lack of profitablit. Essentially the same owners although directly (as customer-owners) instead of indirectly (through the government). I never had any complaints with my power lines through the coop. I imagine I wouldn't have any problems with coop internet service either. And the great thing for rural folks, who already have a co-op organization, the right of way and necessary machinery are already under control. They'd just have to lay down the wiring.
Folks in town need to convince their rural neighbors to get their coop to do this, then extend their reach into town. And the coops could even connect to each other and provide a competitor to the companies that connect the various ISP networks together. Then you don't need network neutrality, because the coop will belong to and therefore serve the customers.
You might watch the movie Fathead (a counter Supersize Me), or check out marksdailyapple.com
According to the Fathead movie, the initial science concerning fat and obesity involved a 'scientist' starting with the fat intake and obesity levels, and picking a only a few points that would give a high correlation and dropping the rest of the data points that would have proven no correlation.
From there, most studies of problems with fat have been behavioral studies that ask the participants to report from memory their eating habits. And there has been no attempt to have two vegan groups, with some having grains and another group grain free, compared with a group on a high vegetable and meat but no grain diet, and another on a calorie restriction. And once you do this, you also need to control for smoking, alcohol, and exercise (after all, if your low carb participants don't exercise and smoke, how do we know that their outcome is caused by diet and not other bad habits?). Once do all of that, you will have a study that will show a true picture of which is better, low fat or low carb or calorie restriction.
As a conservative from a red state, I can assure you that almost all of the women I know do not consider this a war on women.
In fact, I, and several of my male friends, would say we were let to the anti-contraceptive/pro-life point of view by women we know, my personal friends by a few specific women we knew in college. And if you look at the statistics of the pro-life v. pro-choice based on the gender of the individuals being polled, more women are about 3% more pro-life than men, and the entire country is moving very gradually towards pro-life. That indicates that men are following women away from the pro-choice position to the pro-life position.
Maybe medicare pays less than market rates and the doctors raise prices on other patients to make up the difference?
My reforms? All patients pay the same price, minus any amount payed by their insurance (no network discounts for insurance companies, etc). Instead of prices of 30,000 for an overnight stay and appendectomy (my real bill 8 years ago) which then gets reduced by the insurance company, partially paid with the rest passed on to me, the bill would have the real price paid by every customer. No reducing the bill for insured folks and passing the cost on to other people and hiding the real billed amount.
Add on getting rid of malpractice reform which can easily run to 20-30% of a doctor's income for the year. Replace it with doctors having to cover for free the fixing of errors by their peers will encourage them to weed out bad doctors.
Turn medicare over to the county government. The local government can raise taxes similar to medicare, hire doctors and run a clinics that will compete with free market doctors and provide inexpensive or free care to those who need it.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/prolife_movement_decries_murder_of_kansas_lateterm_abortion_provider/
http://deaconchick.blogspot.com/2009/06/wichita-bishop-statement-on-george.html
Nothing but condemnations all around for several days after the fact. If we were out there constantly saying "Don't kill abortion doctors," We'd probably be accused of (*wink**wink**nudge**nudge*) encouraging it, or insincerity for constantly bringing it up.
On the other hand, when pro-choice individuals attack protesters (even protests not happening at a clinic), there is nothing but silence from the pro-abortionists concerning the violent attacks by their supporters. It seems to me that we are not being given the same consideration. Google "prolife protester killed/attacked", and look for statements from pro-choice organizations.
As for Westboro Baptist, I live in Topeka, they are constantly protesting other churches. I personally have been verbally attacked with vulgar language to the point I nearly rushed a large group of them (something they hope for since they are lawyers and are hoping to take you to court) protesting a friend of mine who was about to celebrate his first mass as a priest, and cringe every time my kids see the pornographic stick figures those people carry around. Nobody I know considers them a Christian organization. Why should we have to release a statement condemning an organization that stands across the street from our church to yell obscenities at us on a weekly basis? I'm pretty sure it's obvious we don't support them.
I have a Silver King vacuum (paid list price of 2800) with a 60 year warranty that I could pass on to one of the kids when I die. I do have to buy my filters from the manufacturer, but at $50 every other year, I'm not too concerned since that's a lot less than a $200 vacuum every two years.
The MM in the acronym MMORPG refers to Massively Multiplayer. The massively refers not to the size of the world, but the size of multiplayer, as opposed to a game like those in the Battlefield series, where a battle has a limit of fewer than a couple hundred players in a battle. The size of the world only needs to be massive in order to fit the number players.
A friend shared this with me this spring.
My wife and I have been seeing a lot of books and headlines indicating physical activity is important for brain development.
I don't know if it matters much what sort of activities are included. I was a sports playing kid myself, although I did a little time on farms owned by relatives or family friends, and camping as well.
So, for individual development, some time should be spent outside.
For leadership development, you need some activity where the person is on a team or group, and some of the time, has responsibility for directing others.
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." -- Albert Einstein
