But OF COURSE outsourcing creates jobs! It just creates them "over there."

Huh? I thought it was my Thetans that needed defragging.

I never understood Hubbard's *hack* "theology") *barf* but maybe it's good that I don't understand...

It's because Google Ads are driven by keywords on whatever page it's attached to, so that the ads are more "targeted" than just coming up at random. We're discussing Scientology, and Scientology has Google Ads, so the (ahem) "appropriate" *cough* ads show up.

A religion does two things: Prays to God, and passes the collection basket.

Scientology is not a religion.

Alcoholics Anonymous is a religion.

I saw "treatment" in this article title and was immediately interested for many reasons, but I expected alcohol/drug abuse problems to come up. My main "hobby horse" is that MAINSTREAM alcohol and drug treatment consists of, and is run by, members of 12-step groups (Alcholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, etc.), which are interently religious (despite the "spiritual, not religious" claim) and have no scientific basis. The influence of "steppism" is so pervasive that it strongly influences addiction research in the USA to the point of looking for genetic causes of addictive behaviors and for other evidence that such behaviors are "diseases" (ideas promoted by the step groups, whose members' PR efforts through front groups such as NCADD and CASA have been so effective that much of the general public believes these things). Any research that involves attempting to REDUCE drinking or drug use, rather than demanding abstinence from its subjects, is verboten and regarded as dangerous!

AC, you're very lucky you didn't get sucked into Al-Anon or ACOA or some such (or maybe you did and you immediately rejected it and/or didn't tell that part of your story). Twelve step groups are the LEAST trustworthy environment I can think of. I was in AA and was a "true believer" for two years (see Box 1980/letters section, April 1990 AA Grapevine magazine for how "grateful" I was), but then I started seeing the cracks in the "perfect" program and started analyzing (going against the slogan "utilize, don't analyze) the step programs, and it took several more years to deprogram myself, verify that these things had NO basis in science or logic, and finally stop going to meetings. Meanwhile I saw too many people commit suicide due to the cognitive dissonance and conflicting messages, with their action always being blamed on "this disease," "he could not be honest with himself" or "he could not see our way of life."

There's much more info about the step group phenomenon and its dangers online at these links:
http://www.morerevealed.com/
http://www.orange-papers.org/
http://www.peele.net/

Just so people know, Alcoholics Anonymous isn't the answer either.

The reason one of every hundred US citizens is in prison is MOSTLY due to the War On Drugs. Furthermore, drug offendors get "good behavior points" toward earlier release for attending religious (not just "spiritual") 12-step based groups in prison, clearly against the First Amendment (even those on death row are guaranteed freedom of religion, yet many are required to attend Alcoholics Aonymous and other groups by Government agents), yet the ACLU wants every prisoner to have access an electrical power outlet.

Really, most bottled water is just tap water, a plastic bottle, and marketing. I put my tap water through a tabletop filter pitcher before drinking it. Yeah, I'm a little bit paranoid about what might be in tap water.

And I can't stand that these news articles use a comparison such as "three light bulbs" (which in the middle of the growing popularity of CF bulbs is more vague than ever - 7W? 11? 13? 25? 50? 60? 75? 100??? What's an order of magnitude between friends, anyway?) instead of just stating the number of watts of electric power the thing consumes.

One thing I do to help keep my mind sharp is the "SAT Question Of The Day" at collegeboard.com - you can set it up to email the URL for the new one every day. I've been doing this for years, but I've only had the site keeping track of my answer percentages for the last half year or so. My percentages of correct answers in in the 92-93 percent range (most questions are simple and easy, but some can be tricky), but no doubt many Slashdotters of all ages can do better than me.

There are surely similar "questions of the day" out there. I've heard of one for nursing students. Does anyone know of any more that general Slashdotters would enjoy?

There are also "word of the day" emails you can sign up for from m-w.com and other dictionary sites.

On the physical side, I take a multivitamin once a day and 500mG of Vitamin C twice a day. I think that (and the Quaker 5-minute oatmeal every morning) helps mentally as well as physically.

Fifteen years ago I quit smoking, and around ten years ago I did sprint triathlons and on Olympic-distance tri, but I'm not nearly as active now (but I've still quit smoking). Also, I quit drinking 20 years ago. I don't know what damage I did to my brain in my 20's, but I'm just trying not to add to it.

As far as "doing even more" for diet (and exercise, which also matters but somewhat less, compared to a good diet vs. junk food) there are several stages of what you can do (I've been wanting to do the Walford/CRON thing for a while now, but it hasn't been easy):

Light-Duty is the book "Younger Next Year." It's aimed at those of us 50 and above, but much younger people can learn from it.

Medium to Heavy Duty is "Beyond the 120 Year Diet" by (the late) Roy Walford. It's CRON: Caloric Reduction (eating substantially fewer calories) with Optimal Nutrition (carefully choosing food for its nutritional values as well as "supplements" - vitamins and such). Excellent stuff for mind and body.

Extreme Duty is Ray Kurzweil's book "Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever" in which he not only does CRON but many other things such as taking 150 pills a day and weekly intravenous stuff. It looks a little 'out there' even compared to Walford's stuff, but Kurzweil just might be onto something.

One photo is worth a thousand proofs:
http://greggsutter.com/mt/archives/manWomanControlPanel.jpg