If you see the world in terms of Left & Right, you really aren’t seeing the world

[Blake]

here's a few, along with a few organizations that oppose:

former EPA scientist Robert Carton


DY NEWS: The public often hears that “fluoridation of water has reduced dental cavities by up to two-thirds.”

CARTON: There is no evidence that that is true. Studies have shown no reduction in tooth decay between fluoridated and unfluoridated cities.

http://www.doctoryourself.com/carton.html


Children who had always been exposed to community water fluoridation had mean DMFS scores about 18% lower than those who had never lived in fluoridated communities. When some of the "background" effect of topical fluoride was controlled, this difference increased to 25%. The results suggest that water fluoridation has played a dominant role in the decline in caries and must continue to be a major prevention methodology.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2312893

that's two down.

[Winehole23]

The same could probably describe explosive diarrhea, but I wouldn't wish for that either. :lolWhottt often expatiates at great length (and with great vehemence) on topics obscure to all but him. I feel pretty certain this is a conceit of mastery. No one else can master his material, but the great cost he pays for this victory is intelligibility.

There is such a thing as being too original, too completely one of a kind.

[Winehole23]

An idiot is a person who thinks for himself instead of letting other people think for him. He takes his own views of things and therefore not unfrequently differs from his neighbors. Any person who differs from his neighbors is an idiot ipso facto.

[Winehole23]

Lagniappe:


http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/butler.html

[Winehole23]

The arguments in favour of the deliberate development of the unreasoning faculties were much more cogent. But here they depart from the principles on which they justify their study of hypothetics; for they base the importance which they assign to hypothetics upon the fact of their being a preparation for the extraordinary, while their study of Unreason rests upon its developing those faculties which are required for the daily conduct of affairs. Hence their professorships of Inconsistency and Evasion, in both of which studies the youths are examined before being allowed to proceed to their degree in hypothetics. The more earnest and conscientious students attain to a proficiency in these subjects which is quite surprising; there is hardly any inconsistency so glaring but they soon learn to defend it, or injunction so clear that they cannot find some pretext for disregarding it.

[Winehole23]

The one bright light I see, and this has nothing to do with the particular candidates or party, but we're seeing more competitive primaries. It was very disheartening in past elections to see the incumbents running against either no one or someone that is pretty close to no one. The party would put up some 'cannon fodder' candidate that really, was no different per se, than the incumbent. There was no diversity IN the individual parties.

For the system to work, there has to be a vigorous debate WITHIN the parties instead of the 'back room deals' of 'okay this is our candidate'.

We've got to get away from these monolithic party platforms and get some more diversity of ideas WITHIN the parties individually.

Otherwise, what happens is, you hate what you have, but if you dont' vote for them you feel like you're voting for the enemy.

You have to have a healthy vigorous primary process with multiple candidates for the system to work otherwise, no one is willing to toss out the incumbents.The thread should really should have begun here, but I have nothing meaningful to add to this post.

Nice take, word.

[Winehole23]

And yet perhaps, after all, it is better for a country that its seats of learning should do more to suppress mental growth than to encourage it. Were it not for a certain priggishness which these places infuse into so great a number of their alumni, genuine work would become dangerously common. It is essential that by far the greater part of what is said or done in the world should be so ephemeral as to take itself away quickly; it should keep good for twenty-four hours, or even twice as long, but it should not be good enough a week hence to prevent people from going on to something else. No doubt the marvellous development of journalism in England, as also the fact that our seats of learning aim rather at fostering mediocrity than anything higher, is due to our subconscious recognition of the fact that it is even more necessary to check exuberance of mental development than to encourage it. There can be no doubt that this is what our academic bodies do, and they do it the more effectually because they do it only subconsciously. They think they are advancing healthy mental assimilation and digestion, whereas in reality they are little better than cancer in the stomach.

[Winehole23]

As regards the city itself, the more I saw the more enchanted I became. I dare not trust myself with any description of the exquisite beauty of the different colleges, and their walks and gardens. Truly in these things alone there must be a hallowing and refining influence which is in itself half an education, and which no amount of error can wholly spoil. I was introduced to many of the Professors, who showed me every hospitality and kindness; nevertheless I could hardly avoid a sort of suspicion that some of those whom I was taken to see had been so long engrossed in their own study of hypothetics that they had become the exact antitheses of the Athenians in the days of St. Paul; for whereas the Athenians spent their lives in nothing save to see and to hear some new thing, there were some here who seemed to devote themselves to the avoidance of every opinion with which they were not perfectly familiar, and regarded their own brains as a sort of sanctuary, to which if an opinion had once resorted, none other was to attack it.

[Winehole23]

I should warn the reader, however, that I was rarely sure what the men whom I met while staying with Mr. Thims really meant; for there was no getting anything out of them if they scented even a suspicion that they might be what they call "Giving themselves away." As there is hardly any subject on which this suspicion cannot arise, I found it difficult to get definite opinions from any of them, except on such subjects as the weather, eating and drinking, holiday excursions, or games of skill.

If they cannot wriggle out of expressing an opinion of some sort, they will commonly retail those of some one who has already written upon the subject, and conclude by saying that though they quite admit that there is an element of truth in what the writer has said, there are many points on which they are unable to agree with him. Which these points were, I invariably found myself unable to determine; indeed, it seemed to be counted the perfection of scholarship and good breeding among them to have -- much less to express -- an opinion on any subject on which it might prove later that they had been mistaken. The art of sitting gracefully on a fence has never, I should think, been brought to greater perfection than at the Erewhonian Colleges of Unreason.

[Winehole23]

However this may be, the fear-of-giving-them-selves-away disease was fatal to the intelligence of those infected by it, and almost every one at the College of Unreason had caught it to a greater or less degree. After a few years atrophy of the opinions invariably supervened, and the sufferer became stone dead to everything except the more superficial aspects of those material objects with which he came most in contact. The expression on the faces of these people was repellent; they did not, however, seem particularly unhappy, for they none of them had the faintest idea that they were in reality more dead then alive. No cure for this disgusting fear-of- giving-themselves-away disease has yet been discovered.

[LnGrrrR]

That makes two of us. This was floating around that thread and I didnt bother digging it out until today...I didnt want to bother doing the search.

Can't say I'm too surprised.


Its actually not that important, but I have informed myself on the issue, and I know where I stand: its an unnecessary practice.

Perhaps. Others look at the data and disagree. I don't see how you can claim that your knowledge is infallible.

[Parker2112]

Can't say I'm too surprised.



Perhaps. Others look at the data and disagree. I don't see how you can claim that your knowledge is infallible.

when did I claim that :lol

[Blake]

when did I claim that :lol

one claim at a time.

We are still waiting for you to back up the claim that corporations avoid bankruptcy by dumping fluoride in our waters.

Which corporation specifically does this to avoid bankruptcy?

[Parker2112]

one claim at a time.

We are still waiting for you to back up the claim that corporations avoid bankruptcy by dumping fluoride in our waters.

Which corporation specifically does this to avoid bankruptcy?

you have something waiting for you in the fluoride thread Blake.

[Blake]

you have something waiting for you in the fluoride thread Blake.

More of your failure. yay.