![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 18 to 42 of 135. Go back in thread:
Posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 22:21:56
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 21:29:07
https://potatoesnz.co.nz/education/potato-know-how/
yup. potatoes and milk.
deja vu.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 22:23:15
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 22:21:56
chips usually, of course.
i remember we used to say 'cheap as chips' but now it's like, four bucks for chips that aren't a nasty flavour.
of course you can cook your own...
but, yeah.
let them eat potato.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 23:57:58
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 6, 2018, at 19:55:37
> ...According to the Continuous Mortality Investigation, life expectancy for a 45-year-old man has declined from an anticipated 43 years of extra life to 42, for a 45-year-old woman from 45.1 more years to 44. Theres a decline for pensioners too. We had gained ten years of extra life since 1960, and weve just given one year back. These data are new and are not fully understood yet, but it seems pretty clear that the decline is linked to austerity, perhaps not so much to the squeeze on NHS spending though the longest spending squeeze, adjusted for inflation and demographics, since the foundation of the NHS has obviously had some effect but to the impacts of austerity on social services, which in the case of such services as Meals on Wheels and house visits function as an early warning system for illness among the elderly. As a result, mortality rates are up, an increase that began in 2011 after decades in which they had fallen under both parties, and its this that is causing the decline in life expectancy.
> Life expectancy in the United States is also falling, with the first consecutive-year drop since 1962-63; infant mortality, the generally accepted benchmark for a societys development, is rising too. The principal driver of the decline in life expectancy seems to be the opioid epidemic, which took 64,000 lives in 2016, many more than guns (39,000), cars (40,000) or breast cancer (41,000). At the same time, the income of the typical worker, the real median hourly income, is about the same as it was in 1971. Anyone time-travelling back to the early 1970s would have great difficulty explaining why the richest and most powerful country in the history of the world had four and a half decades without pandemic, countrywide disaster or world war, accompanied by unprecedented growth in corporate profits, and yet ordinary peoples pay remained the same. I think people would react with amazement and want to know why. Things have been getting consistently better for the ordinary worker, they would say, so why is that process about to stop?
Okay, wow. That's the first I've heard of any of that. The 'Continuous Mortality Investigation'... Huh. Actuary data. Huh. Subscription only. Of course... Hmm... And this is the UK... The 'decline in home visits' thing seems reasonable...
Maybe I should look a little more into actuary data. I was only looking at the WHO... But insurance company data, if you can get it, for sure...
Opoid epidemic? First I've heard of that. Holy crap. I'd really love to find the references for these stats...
How is your opiate stuff? You are / were mostly recreational, yeah? Or a bit more than that?
Posted by sigismund on July 11, 2018, at 17:42:13
In reply to Re: Paul Jay » sigismund, posted by alexandra_k on July 10, 2018, at 23:57:58
>How is your opiate stuff?
I like opiates. (Perhaps I suffer from an endorphin deficiency? The opiate receptor is the devil's receptor?) But this world does not permit them, and the consequences of running out are such that I don't seek them out. It's just a question of how you choose to eat your sh*t sandwich, so it doesn't matter.
What I do not understand about the US figures is the death rate. Given dependence and standardised doses opiates should not be causing this death rate. Therefore these users are not adequately maintained with stable tolerances (of course not), or the supply is very variable. Fentanyl in fake Rx opioids?
Posted by sigismund on July 12, 2018, at 2:17:16
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 11, 2018, at 17:42:13
My favourite US actor, Philip Seymore Hoffman overdosed on heroin, which given his history seemed unlikely unless fentanyl was involved.
Then there was Prince. As far as I know he thought he was taking oxycodone. Not so easy to OD on that IMO. Then there was Heath Ledger, the same. Certainly lots of oxycodone is not fun.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 14, 2018, at 0:30:59
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 11, 2018, at 17:42:13
> I like opiates. (Perhaps I suffer from an endorphin deficiency?
Maybe. Or maybe you have lots of receptors for them, or something, so their presence is especially nice for you. I don't know.
I have tried opiates in several forms and I never really got them. I mean, I mostly felt like I wasn't high at all and would be 'I think I need some more because I'm just not feeling it' after having comperable amounts to others who felt it alright. Amphetamines really hit my pleasure centres, though. Amphetamines and mushrooms all together were quite the trip :) Ah, the good old days...
> the consequences of running out are such that I don't seek them out.
Right. I've sort of thought about getting up early in the morning to go mushroom hunting and I similarly have just decided that it isn't really worth it. The consequences of getting into trouble over it... It's just not worth it for me, anymore.
I'm glad I got the chance to have experimented with an awful lot of things in my lifetime, though. I think it makes me more resiliant / less corruptible now.
> What I do not understand about the US figures is the death rate. Given dependence and standardised doses opiates should not be causing this death rate. Therefore these users are not adequately maintained with stable tolerances (of course not), or the supply is very variable. Fentanyl in fake Rx opioids?
I don't know.
I suspect there is a lot of variability in supply / that doses are not standardised at all. For example, as supply dwindles suppliers bulk it out with contaminants and end users need to use more to get the same effect. Then a new shipment comes in and people start selling purer stuff which can lead to overdoses for end users.
There is a prepratory response with IV users of opiates, too. The body expects the drug as part of a standardised preparation / injection ritual and alterations to that process can result in overdoses. So if, for example, someone else prepares the needle for the person whereas they usaully did that themself, or if they rushed part of the process because someone was banging on the bathroom door.
I don't know why there is a particular epidemic for them now. Surprised to hear that. To hear those stats.
I've been studying a little public health, you see. And we learn about stats. Only the stats we learn about are different stats.
The trouble with NZ stats is I know a little something about how they are collected. For example, I know the unemployment rate only looks so low because they put security guards outside Work and Income doors to prevent people from entering the building to prevent people from applying for unemployment.
There was even something about how census data is altered by the government so it falls in line with administrative data. In other words, if more people say they are unemployed by census than by those who were registered as unemployed by local Work and Income offices they will choose to display the Work and Income office data.
It's not even worth the money it's not even printed on. It's a complete and utter sham.
I really don't see another way to view that.
What makes me think the actuary people will release actual stats? I think they probably release 'useful' stats for their purposes. They are probably interested to see what the up and coming hopefuls might make of what they have offered them to play with...
Would be my guess.
But it is interesting that someone is out and saying that things are objectively worse (mortality is falling) in the UK and USA. I hadn't heard that before.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 14, 2018, at 0:47:10
In reply to Re: Paul Jay » sigismund, posted by alexandra_k on July 14, 2018, at 0:30:59
I read the Wiki article on the Irish Potato Famine because I had heard the population of Ireland was lower today than it was pre-famine and I thought that that just didn't sound plausible to me, at all... But it's actually true. Wow. I mean true by millions of people.
Mostly not death by famine - but immigration.
About the landowners in England... And then you don't want to have to travel to Ireland to collect rent from the farmers leasing the land so you employ middle-men who are located in Ireland. Reasonable enough...
But then the middle-men get greedy. They divide the plots of land up smaller and smaller and smaller and the prices are artificially increased. Instead of farmers having enough land to produce a diversity of crops for their family and for sale the increased intensification results in 1 acre of potato which (with the milk of a cow) can apparently provide a nutritionally adequate diet for a single family (as in people aren't appearing to drop dead or get sick from some kind of nutritional deficiency). If you have a little extra potato you might have enough to feed a piglet so it grows up to be a pig. Then you can take your pig to market... Or you can have baked potato with bacon mmmm...
But then there was enough food for the people in Ireland that was still being produced in Ireland when the potato famine hit. But it was all marked for export and they continued to export it instead of sending it to the poor houses.
At some point the situation for the middle men was about getting as much money as they could (it's only temporary) and using that to buy passage to America or wherever for a 'better life'. And they fled... By millions. Most of the people fled Ireland.
A sustainable life.
Or something.
People just decided to abandon Ireland.
It's all very sad. Maybe we should change our name to New Ireland. Or maybe I should look into what happened to the old Zealand.
Our population just keeps on increasing due to immigration. It doesnt' seem to matter how badly we treat our people they just keep on flocking to us.
That's the trouble, really. The middle men / managers. Scraping together all they can for their exit strategy. Like the people did who made it here, I guess.
Why are people so awful?? Most of them. Seems to me. Why do people buy into these strategies / play these games??
Posted by alexandra_k on July 14, 2018, at 0:56:26
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 14, 2018, at 0:47:10
oh. zeeland a dutch province sort of island sea-land. new sea-land and australia was new holland haha.
Posted by sigismund on July 14, 2018, at 15:32:31
In reply to Re: Paul Jay » sigismund, posted by alexandra_k on July 14, 2018, at 0:30:59
The falling premium on whiteness seems to be associated with opiate use.
Posted by sigismund on July 14, 2018, at 15:37:51
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 14, 2018, at 0:56:26
So Western Australia was New Holland? And New South Wales was the rest? I don't know how the British allowed such a thing.
Down in and around Tasmania there are lots of French names. Pre-revolution explorers were down there, and that morphed into the Napoleonic wars, and so the British hot footed it down south and established a military garrison, leaving signs of history more obvious than further north, good architecture necessary for the unspeakable process.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 15, 2018, at 21:13:14
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 14, 2018, at 15:32:31
I guess drug overdose would be suicide route of choice for people who had the means to get sufficient amount. I mean, it's the closest thing to drifing off in a painless state, than anything else I can think of.
I suppose drug overdose and motor vehicle fatalities are where we put a bunch of people in order to keep our suicide rates down.
It's not that bad. It's only temporary, after all.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 16, 2018, at 2:21:39
In reply to Re: Paul Jay » sigismund, posted by alexandra_k on July 15, 2018, at 21:13:14
And guns, of coure, for the rural folk. Not so much the Australians because of the whole... I can't remember mass shooting thing that resulted in better gun laws than most places... But gun 'accidents'.
Posted by sigismund on July 16, 2018, at 15:14:24
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 16, 2018, at 2:21:39
That was at Port Arthur in Tasmania.
Nice colonial architecture. As a humane improvement for the time they had introduced isolation cells in which you can sit as I did. the idea was sensory deprivation. No light in any case in there.
There is a ser of photos of men who suffered there. The only place worse was Norfolk Island. One was of a young man taken in for 'sodomy'. Homosexuality was finally legalised in 1997 there. 1924 in Peru.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 17, 2018, at 0:37:21
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 16, 2018, at 15:14:24
> That was at Port Arthur in Tasmania.
Yes.
> There is a ser of photos of men who suffered there. The only place worse was Norfolk Island. One was of a young man taken in for 'sodomy'. Homosexuality was finally legalised in 1997 there. 1924 in Peru.
My Father's first wife was from Norfolk Island. I think he may have lived out there, for a time. Not sure... We vistited when I was fairly young. Around 3 or 4. I don't remember very much of it. Only odd kid-things. Picking mushrooms on the side of the road and riding the only Shetland Pony on the Island. Well, being led around, a bit.
Posted by sigismund on July 17, 2018, at 0:39:04
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 16, 2018, at 15:14:24
One possible reason for the difference between Australia and NZ is the relative unimportance of Rupert Murdoch there. New Zealand feels like a 70s beer garden to me, rather than an armed camp.
Murdoch has been stoking resentment for generations and made a fortune out of it, debasing cultures of which he has been envious, otherwise known, so tiredly these days, as the 'elites'.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 17, 2018, at 0:49:49
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 17, 2018, at 0:39:04
And bananas. We brought a few crates of them back with us. Someone had them growing out in their back yard, a couple rows of banana trees. And the bananas were much smaller than the ones you see in the supermarkets these days. Much more vibrant yellow. Much more vibrant flavour. We would split them down the middle and put marshmellows and chocolate in them and wrap them in tin foil and throw them on the bbq.
Sigh. No wonder I need to sleep so much, with all these things I remember. I mean, really, not from photographs or chatting with my parents about any of this, ever...
> One possible reason for the difference between Australia and NZ is the relative unimportance of Rupert Murdoch there. New Zealand feels like a 70s beer garden to me, rather than an armed camp.
It depends on where you are at, in it.
That's what I've learned in recent years. It is hard to convey the totally distinct worlds people live in. In the same city. Trekking the same roads, even. Just the different schedules people are on and how packed or not they are etc.
Our policemen don't walk around with visible guns, sure. But we have plenty of 'security guards' throwing their weight around...
Most of the worst of it is covert. Psychological.
From people getting their jollies off insinuating that they have the power to do this, that, and the other.
From people living cowed and in fear and so on...
From what choices people make about the role they want to take up / play.
The whole victim / persecuter thing, I guess.
Every now and then I feel like I'm getting tested by people. To see whether I'll take some sort of 'bait'. A willingness to turn on others if they insinuate possible threat to me (just imply it a little bit).
I suppose the worst of it really is of our own making.
That's why I liked the hallucinogen experience. It taught me something of the power of the mind when it comes to constructing our reality. The way we see the world. Such a singificant amount of that is a contribution from our own mind. It really does show you something of the potential power for people to see things differently. TO really change ones whole experience of the world by seeing things differently.
Of course this doesn't... Condone? The atrocities that some people commit against others. The genuine abuses and horrors and so on...
But it is important. Yeah.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 18, 2018, at 3:46:07
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 17, 2018, at 0:49:49
There was something really bothering me about those stats and I've worked out what it is...
We keep hearing that life expectancy is increasing, increasing, increasing in developed nations. People are living for longer and longer and longer... With increased disability (because disability becomes more prevalent in later years).
But this denies that. It is saying that life expectancy isn't increasing in developed nations, anymore. It is decreasing. It came down (just a little - like, around a year on average). But the point is it's a complete denial of the... Uh... Party line.
All the planning over here is for aged care facilities.
Because the slum lords start with a single house and then a boarding house and then a tenament block and then an aged care facility / private hospital...
That's where all the public money goes. To 'contracting out' to them / to people doing that kind of thing.
Posted by sigismund on July 18, 2018, at 5:35:22
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by alexandra_k on July 18, 2018, at 3:46:07
Move to a third world country where lack of advanced health care leads to a faster deliverance. Within 500 km of the latest war zone might be the place. Vietnam? Somewhere civilsed, as long as they will leave you alone. Could be fun teaching English in exchange for something. Why live in an aged people's home? As a sort of religious humiliation it makes sense I guess.....life is like this, you end up wearing paper party hats and repressing your 'pride'. Joe Pageant returned to the US from Belize to die. I guess eventually pain becomes a problem. Maybe that stuff I said about Joe Pageant was wrong?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Bageant
Oh yes, public money for contracting, yes indeedy.
Posted by sigismund on July 18, 2018, at 5:43:43
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 18, 2018, at 5:35:22
I don't know if you would find this interesting, Alex?
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/18/politics-and-psychiatry-the-cost-of-the-trauma-cover-up/
Posted by beckett2 on July 18, 2018, at 19:50:39
In reply to Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 4, 2018, at 18:32:12
Hello Alex and Sigi, how are you? I'm feeling lonely atm. Our president is bashing NATO. How are you all?
I see AU is further limiting immigration. Smart in many ways-- if it can be done without the cruelty. The UN has almost been involved in the US situation. Maybe because it's the US, there is hesitation to sanction or single us out.
I would live in AU or NZ in a heartbeat, as much as I love CA. Or WA State, which looks like NZ in some areas. All those islands. I might go bonkers somewhere that only a ferry can take you, but I don't think so. Many decades ago I lived there for a short time, and the ferry was magic. But I wasn't a parent then. Maybe my kid wouldn't have the same experience.
Sigi, I thought I posted a reply, but I don't see it here. Something dismal was happening (which I can't recall), and sometimes I can get headaches and can't think. I think that was the gist. Just overload.
Posted by sigismund on July 18, 2018, at 20:31:56
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by beckett2 on July 18, 2018, at 19:50:39
>Smart in many ways-- if it can be done without the cruelty.
Oh no, we do both and punch above our weight en nuestra fortaleza imperialista. We have ministers to match, a small l PM who made his money deforesting the Solomon Islands. Cruelty is not a side effect, cruelty is the point, as long as we can convince ourselves it is to be kind. They say they don't believe in climate change but strict attention is being paid to the borders. What is it about anglo saxon culture that it so highly values cruelty? It might be Murdoch and the shock jocks I guess. I come from Qld, Dutton is a Red Hill drug squad cop with, as his mother said, a 'strong sense of right and wrong'. A punisher and a straightener.
Maybe I was wrong about Bolton, the right to carry arms and Russia. Looks like the money may have flowed through the NRA. If they think toddlers should be armed, why not the left and all the minorities?
Once in a lifetime this. Once will have been enough.
Posted by sigismund on July 18, 2018, at 20:37:24
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 18, 2018, at 20:31:56
You can see it on Fox, to which I am fairly unexposed. The jaw line of O'Reilly, the straight blond hair of all the fascist young women, the glass desks, just made for bl*w j*bs out of sight.
After Las Vegas he said 'This is the price of freedom'
Posted by sigismund on July 18, 2018, at 20:38:29
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 18, 2018, at 20:37:24
Surely anyone would draw the line at Roger?
Posted by beckett2 on July 18, 2018, at 22:56:28
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 18, 2018, at 20:31:56
I always thought it was greed. Doesn't that make people crazy? To be greedy is to be willing to deny someone else, and that is cruel.
Climate deniers are liars.
Who is Roger?
Posted by beckett2 on July 18, 2018, at 23:23:48
In reply to Re: Paul Jay, posted by sigismund on July 18, 2018, at 20:38:29
"The world might be broken, but it can be repaired. We are all born with human dignity." Jeff Rosen concluding his TED Talk on Germany.. His parents were camp survivors. True or not, I feel better hearing him say this.
Go forward in thread:
Psycho-Babble Politics | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.