Comments on The Morning News

re: faith healing.

This isn't any different than all the seattlites (who will tut tut over this) who buy their herbal remedy or homeopathic therapy or whatever bullshit, anti-science solutions that people here think are a good idea. If you'd just listened to Ayn Rand...

Yes it is.

For one thing, alternative medicine providers are trained, and they're specifically trained to recognize serious medical conditions, and refer to proper doctors when they see them. These faith healers aren't trained AT ALL, IN ANYTHING.

And they're not practicing alternative medicine; they're praying for divine intervention: fundamentally a different thing. If the miracle doesn't come, then just wait -- maybe it will soon, and if it doesn't, God wants the child to die. No alternative-medicine provider would ever say or think such a thing.

If any "alternative medicine" provider was properly trained, there wouldn't be anything for them to cure. Every case would immediately be recommended for proper care by a doctor. What usually happens is the provider waits until the situation is so far gone that there is very little a real doctor can do to help.

Next patient please, send in another victim of new-age disease?

Faith healing comes in many forms. AA practices faith healing by lying to people that they are "powerless" and must turn themselves over to a "higher power." Homeopathy is essintally faith healing since homeopathic "medicine" is nothing but distilled water. There is help from:
www.gulligo.com/

what leverage could the bear shareholders possibly have? even if they declared bankruptcy, they wouldn't get much more than $2.00 from their creditors. that would not grow over time, and that wouldn't include the $30 billion in government assistance. they set the price at $2 so it wouldn't look like a bailout... $10 looks like a bailout.

Advocates of alternative medicine become annoying when they act like modern medicine is the enemy. Whatever problems it has, modern medicine has improved and saved more lives than all other forms of medicine combined over all of history. Modern medicine has to prove itself thru experiments and tests. Some alternative medicine practioners would have us just take their word for it. In the northwest alternative charlatns are a dime a dozen, just check out "Healing Arts Fairs" if you want to see b.s. in action.

Yes, yes, yes, but the little creams and emollients that alternative medicine peddles to the gullible are not intended to fight serious disease. They might say "this prevents cancer", but if you actually get cancer, they're going to send you to a real doctor pronto. That's the difference; faith healers use faith to combat REAL SERIOUS MEDICAL PROBLEMS; alternative medicine doesn't, for the most part. It's a big difference.

If "modern medicine" was nothing but objective science operating aloof from the rest of the world, you could say it is based only on experiments and tests. But the reality of how medicine is practiced is that medical decisions are based as much on which drug salesmen charmed your doctor the most, or which treatments the insurance companies prefer to pay for.

And then there's the pig headed arrogance of doctors. It took until 1997 for the American Academy of Pediatrics, in their scientific wisdom, to figure out that breastfeeding is "normal" and not "alternative." What does that tell you?

My understanding is that the $30 billion was a guarantee that loans from the Fed wouldn't need to be paid back if the collateral Bears gave for loans became worthless. The collateral is not on a dollar to dollar basis so some percentage of the mortages could go bad and the loans would still be covered.

The dollar price doesn't really mean anything - $2 $4 $10 $20 - what matters more is the total capitalization and the original at under 1/4 billion did seem low, particularly with the Fed backing.

On the whole this is good news

There are quacks in alternative medicine and there are practitioners who use clinical research for their treatments. My former employers (all naturopaths) had been testing for inflammation for years, something that any medical doctor would have dismissed as having no link to chronic illness.

In Spring 2004, Time had a front page article on the link between inflammation and such chronic illnesses as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

Alternative medicine bears no relationship to faith healing. Period.

@1, @3 - Our state certifies Naturopathic Practioners and they are trained. NP, OD, LMP, they all know when to forward people to other disciplines.

Heck, some of our doctors at the UW and Group Health and other medical practices have both MD as well as the other naturopathic disciplines.

Stop spreading fear. It's un-American.

@ #8, The issue of breastfeeding seems to be a difficult one beyond the medical professionals. We still have people who actually think they can control where mothers choose breastfeed their baby. Society still needs to grow up a lot about that issue.

@ #8, The issue of breastfeeding seems to be a difficult one beyond the medical professionals. We still have people who actually think they can control where mothers choose breastfeed their baby. Society still needs to grow up a lot about that issue.

I hope that torch gets pissed out by some angry Tibetan protestor.

the price does mean something. it means how much stock a bear shareholder will be entitled to after the deal is finalized.

the gov decided to enable this deal (with the safeguards you mention) not to help bear investors, but in order to try and prevent more widespread problems. basically, bear should have sadly just gone down the drain, shareholders and all.

but they decided to act under the condition that it was to help the economy, not bear investors specifically. then, the bear shareholders decided they should get a better deal, and that they'd rather declare bankruptcy then agree to the buyout terms. that is a thinly veiled threat, but it won them a five fold increase in the value of their shares.

this could work out fine. but if the collateral goes south, and the feds have to kick in $29 billion, then that affects people like you and me.