This is not a tactical break, this is flu. Twice this year already. Aaagh!
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“The media reports stated the airliner had what looked like heavy machine gun fire consistent with a fighter jet, since the rebels have no fighter jets, who else could have shot the airliner down.”
If by media you mean the usual conspiracy blogs and unbiased sources such as RT. Of course if it looks like machine gun fire in conspiracy world it is machine gun fire and not shrapnel. The holes I’ve seen are nowhere big enough for the 20/30mm cannon fitted to aircraft these days.
“Also why would this soldier come out now against his country, when most of world already believes Putin shot down the airliner, via the rebels.”
Good question. You’d have thought he’d have spoken up straight away instead of waiting five months. Has he approached the JIT with his evidence do you know?
Resident Dissident
“My advice is listen to doctors and phamacists rather than quacks and kranks such as Herbie. Read Ben Goldacre if you want to look into these matters further.”
________________
I don’t know who Ben Goldacre is, but since you posted the reference I could imagine that he is a debunker of alternative medicine, homeopathy, and so on?
As such, he would obviously be the devil incarnate for a goodly proportion of the Eminences on here, who would deploy the following “reasoning” : Goldacre debunks the various quack theories and supports conventional medicine, therefore he is the paid vassal of Big Pharma, therefore he is the Devil incarnate.
My theory is comforted by the response which came hard on the heels of your excellent post, viz:
“Goldacre is a joke”
(from “Dr” Mary, of course, who should know better having worked in the NHS)
RD
What exactly is it about those articles that you want to highlight?
They don’t support your commentary nor do they undermine my advice to Craig.
The wiki article is quite positive on Olive leaf, for what that’s worth.
The NHS article is a critique of a Daily Telegraph article, for what that’s worth.
And the BBC article actually concludes that echinacea has a beneficial impact, for what that’s worth.
It appears you have problems processing information, and that would certainly explain the nonsense you spout on other matters on a daily basis.
So habby, produce his debunking of echinacea and olive leaf.
That would be really interesting.
Your sidekick RD is so dim he actually produced articles which are supportive of my advice.
Let’s see can you do any better.
Somehow I doubt it.
Herbie
Have you been over-indulging in herbal remedies?
““Only you can see the truth the deluded masses cannot.”
Desperately, habby tries to pretend that the masses are in possession of the full facts of the Lockerbie case, rather than just the media account.”
____________________
Not at all, Herbie, and on the contrary: I was just pointing out that various self-appointed “experts” on this blog have no greater insight into what really happened than anyone else, including those in the MSM and therefore the general public. But feel free to prove me wrong, of course.
“I was just pointing out that various self-appointed “experts” on this blog have no greater insight into what really happened than anyone else”
Surely those who study the matter are better informed than those who do not.
This is obvious.
And, since the masses don’t study the matter they will be less informed than those who do.
US vulture fund rapist bankers descend upon Ukraine
December 21, 2014.
‘Hot on the footsteps of our story (You will never believe who is in line to run the National Bank of Ukraine) yesterday about the comical characters in the race for the top job at Ukraine’s central bank comes even more farcical news. Yatsenyuk, former finance minister in a previous criminal regime, and a suspected senior member of the US-intelligence-friendly “Church of Scientology,” has named three complete foreigners as cabinet ministers in key economic posts.
And in an extraordinary act, the three have been made instant Ukrainian citizens by US picked president Petro Poroshenko in a ridiculous ceremony. Ukraine is looking more and more like the US-occupied Philippines after the Spanish-American War of 1898 and as we said yesterday, it goes to show who’s in power in Ukraine – no one from Ukraine.
The new Ukrainian Finance Minister, the one who will control the money (along with one of 4 ex US bankers and an ex IMF CEO whose Hedge Fund just went bust for $2bn are in the running for the role as central banker) and decides where it goes, is one Natalia A. Jaresko. She speaks fluent Ukrainian. Only problem—she is an American citizen, a US State Department veteran who is also a US investment banker.
The Ukrainian Constitution, prudently enough, stipulates that government ministers be Ukrainian. How then does our Ms Jaresko qualify? The President of Ukraine, another Victoria Nuland (who served under torture master Dick Cheney) favorite, the corrupt oligarch billionaire, Petro Poroshenko, made her a Ukrainian citizen in a bizarre ceremony the same day just hours before the parliament declared her Finance Minister. Forget your earlier silly schoolbook notions about how a democracy and a nation functions as Jaresko’s qualifications for the job fit the requirements of a vulture fund rapist banker as they all do.’
/..
http://4bitnews.com/world/us-vulture-fund-rapist-bankers-descend-upon-ukraine/
Herbie
“Surely those who study the matter are better informed than those who do not.
This is obvious.
And, since the masses don’t study the matter they will be less informed than those who do.”
______________________
I think you’re trying to defend some of the pro-Putin ravers on here by claiming that they’ve “studied the matter”?
Have they “studied” the matter any more than the MSM have, Herbie?
And how do you know the MSM haven’t “studied” the matter as much as the self-proclaimed experts have?
Finally, are the self-appointed experts on here really expert, Herbie, or are they in reality no more expert than the MSM?
What is your basis for claiming so?
+++++++++++++++
Mary
“US vulture fund rapist bankers descend upon Ukraine
December 21, 2014.”
_______________
You (or your cut-and-paste source) have left out a couple of words, no doubt because their misplaced indignation left you temporarily blind.
Surely the caption should have read
“US vulture fund rapist, paedophile, Zionist bankers descend upon Ukraine” ??
“Natalia A. Jaresko. She speaks fluent Ukrainian. Only problem—she is an American citizen, a US State Department veteran who is also a US investment banker.”
__________________
She sounds like an ideal candidate for the appointment as Finance Minister of Ukraine.
She has banking and foreign policy experience in a democratic and free country (I mean the US, not Russia) and speaks Ukrainian. The fact that she is also a US citizen is no doubt due to the fact that her parents fled from the clutches of that raving evil monster Joseph Stalin (blessed be his name by some on here) at the end of the War. That life experience will help her to be wary of the various duplicitous enticements which the Roooskies will no doubt dangle before the Ukraine’s nose in the months to come.
I don’t think there is any need to be quite so dismissive of herbal remedies. It is true they can involve quackery, but in principal there can be nothing wrong with this approach since a lot of drugs are, or used to be, made from plant derived compounds. Digitalis and Aspirin being two obvious ones. A drug is just a substance that alters our bio-chemistry in ways that we find helpful. Clearly, as anyone who has smoked weed will know, there are plenty of plants that do that and, during the course of history, men and women have found them. Sometimes the effects will be real and others the result of the placebo effect, but exactly the same can be said of conventional medicine, particularly in the field of psychiatry where numerous meta studies in recent years have shown the effects of Prozac style drugs to be almost entirely based on the placebo effect. This presumably also explains the efficacy of homeopathy, since undoubtedly it does ‘work’, but it is just water. The difference is probably the long consultation times that reassure the patient that his condition is being taken seriously. The efficacy of a good bedside manner may well have a basis in truth. The placebo effect is being shown more and more to be at the heart of many ‘cures’, the subtlety of the syndrome is startling: a placebo administered by a senior physician is more effective than one by a junior physician; a placebo injection is more powerful than a placebo pill; and a placebo in a branded pack works better than the same substance in a plain wrapper. Some herbal remedies quite simply work – laxatives for example – and others probably work in part due to the placebo effect and the patient’s confidence in the practitioner, but the same holds true of conventional medicine. Clearly patients can be taken for a ride by charlatans, but at heart the dispensing of herbal remedies strikes me as respectable enough. Why mock?
You’re retreating now, habby.
Not to worry. You had no choice. Your original effort was garbage.
Your original effort was based on what you claimed the masses would know.
OK. You’ve conceded that was nonsense.
Now you’re talking about what MSM would know.
What I’d say is that those journalists who study particular areas will know more than those who don’t study that particular area, just as anyone who makes a study of a particular area their interest will know more than those who don’t bother.
And that’s brings us back to where we started.
You talking nonsense and my correcting it.
I wouldn’t agree that watching television or reading the daily rag constitutes study, and that’s just common sense.
A common sense you were obviously lacking when you made the foolish statement you did at 9.10pm yesterday.
Always happy to help.
KOWN
“I don’t think there is any need to be quite so dismissive of herbal remedies.”
_________________
But there IS a need to be (very)dismissive of those who are dismissive of conventional medicine which they condemn as being merely a tool of Big Pharma…and who accordingly vaunt various forms of alternative medicine.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Some herbal remedies quite simply work – laxatives for example – and others probably work in part due to the placebo effect and the patient’s confidence in the practitioner, but the same holds true of conventional medicine.”
____________
Just to be clear when you mention conventional medicine – you mean some drugs/medicines or all drugs/medicines? I assume the former.
Herbie
yes, yes, and now you’ve got all that gargabe off your chest, perhaps you’d answer the question of where the ravers on this blog get all their special expertise from?
You see, Herbie, my starting point was that the masses (informed principally by the MSM) know as much – or as little – about Lockerbie as you and the other self-proclaimed “students” or “experts” on here (informed principally by dubious websites or errant conspiracy theorists) do.
That is incontrovertible, I’m afraid, even if it upsets you or wounds your ego.
Oh good. I’m glad you’ve now put it like this habby. You claim:
“You see, Herbie, my starting point was that the masses (informed principally by the MSM) know as much – or as little – about Lockerbie as you and the other self-proclaimed “students” or “experts” on here (informed principally by dubious websites or errant conspiracy theorists) do.”
Please explain how the nation’s TV watchers are better informed about Lockerbie than those who’ve studied Lockerbie.
Thanks.
Herbie
“Please explain how the nation’s TV watchers are better informed about Lockerbie than those who’ve studied Lockerbie.”
__________________
Where did I use the word “better”, Herbie?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By the way, where did you “study” Lockerbie? Are there lots of you “Lockerbie students” and do you hold annual get-togethers? Is there a “Journal of Lockerbie Studies” (of which you might even be the editor)?
Stop being such a pretentious, elitist chump.
Herbie
All I can say is that your reading of those articles I linked to is as selective as is your readings of most things – I wasn’t dismissive of all herbal remedies as KOWN claims – I just tried to present a rather more balanced view than Herbie’s usual definitive black and white views. The way to test these things is through normal scientific processes and then to follow the evidence – rather than making broad bush claims that are not supported.
Ben Goldacre is as much against quacks as he is against Big Pharma as anyone who follows these matters will note.
OK, habby.
Please explain how the nation’s TV watchers are equally well informed about Lockerbie as those who’ve studied Lockerbie.
Thanks.
I came across these tweets on Medialens. What evil.
Keane Bhatt @KeaneBhatt · 21h21 hours ago
’64-73 US bombing of #Laos: 580K raids,every 8min for 9ys. 270K cluster munitions dropped. 80million unexploded bombs
http://www.againstthegrain.org/program/1055/tues-120214-lethal-legacy-laos …
Keane Bhatt @KeaneBhatt · 21h21 hours ago
“Rather quick end” to US bombing of Laos in ’73 because news broke and it “became essentially public knowledge.”
Keane Bhatt @KeaneBhatt
A dozen teams remove unexploded US bombs in #Laos every day; in 40 ys only 2% of contaminated areas have been cleared.
~~
Voices from the Plain of Jars
Life under an Air War
Edited by Fred Branfman with essays and drawings by Laotian villagers; Foreword by Alfred W. McCoy
Publication Year: 2013
During the Vietnam War the United States government waged a massive, secret air war in neighboring Laos. Two million tons of bombs were dropped on one million people. Fred Branfman, an educational advisor living in Laos at the time, interviewed over 1,000 Laotian survivors. Shocked by what he heard and saw, he urged them to record their experiences in essays, poems, and pictures. Voices from the Plain of Jars was the result of that effort.
When first published in 1972, this book was instrumental in exposing the bombing. In this expanded edition, Branfman follows the story forward in time, describing the hardships that Laotians faced after the war when they returned to find their farm fields littered with cluster munitions—explosives that continue to maim and kill today.
Published by: University of Wisconsin Press
RD
Your latest effort bears absolutely no relation to your previous effort, as anyone can see by looking at yours of 9.33am.
But anyway, you’re much too stupid to be bothering with.
I’ll deal with the organ grinder directly.
Herbie
Given you are too thick to know what “well not quite” actually means per my 9:33am it is probably best if you don’t bother with me.
World Service fears losing information war as Russia Today ramps up pressure
Former director calls for more cash to fight propaganda saying BBC is being outgunned by Kremlin-backed news channel
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/dec/21/bbc-world-service-information-war-russia-today
‘We shouldn’t be pro-one side or the other, we need to provide something people can trust’ he says. Oh yes! Sounds just like the BBC output.
Horrocks is pleading underfunding when there are so many supernumeraries all claiming large salaries and expenses.
His own salary is over £249k pa plus expenses
http://www.bbc.co.uk/corporate2/insidethebbc/managementstructure/biographies/horrocks_peter#heading-salary-and-total-remuneration
RD
You’re so stupid that you cited a wiki article that is quite positive on Olive leaf.
A BBC article that actually concludes that echinacea has a beneficial impact.
And an irrelevant NHS article criticising the content of Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail articles.
There’s no “not quite” about it.
You simply are incapable of processing information to a standard to make you worth anyone’s time.
That doesn’t make you a useless person of course. Just unsuitable for debate.
I wish you every success in whatever future path in life you choose.
Herbie
The links do not make anywhere near the claims that you do for Echinacea or Olive leaf – you are either dishonest or incapable of comprehending this – the choice is yours.
Remember the context here. I’m simply offering a bit of genuine heartfelt advice to our host on his recurring flu:
I say:
“Echinacea is very good for colds and flu, and much else”
“Olive leaf is an even stronger tonic. Excellent for many other things as well”
But out of a clear blue sky, from nowhere, I get this completely unnecessary, nasty, hurtful and heartless rebuke from RD:
“Herbie has now become a medical expert
Well not quite
My advice is listen to doctors and phamacists rather than quacks and kranks such as Herbie.”
I’m shocked. What have I done to deserve this. I feel wronged, but know not why.
I turn to RD’s links fearing what I may find there.
But from his links, I learn this:
“when they pooled the results of the best studies, giving them a much larger group of people, those who took echinacea did turn out to be less likely to get a cold, even if only 10 to 20% less likely”
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20141104-does-echinacea-prevent-colds
and this:
“Researchers have found that olive leaf dilates isolated rat aorta.[5] A study conducted on monozygotic borderline hypertensive twins showed significant reduction of blood pressure in a dose related manor. [7]
Recent research in rodents has shown that olive leaf extracts may reduce infarct volume, brain edema, as well as improve blood–brain barrier permeability and neurological deficit scores after transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (stroke).[8]
Olive leaf harbours antioxidant properties that help protect the body from the continuous activity of free radicals.[3][6][9][10][11][12][13] Free radicals are highly reactive chemical substances that can cause cellular damage if left unchecked. Some recent research on the olive leaf has shown its antioxidants to be effective in treating some tumors and cancers such as liver, prostate, colon, skin and breast cancer, clinical studies lacking; Olive leaf is especially potent when used in combination with other antioxidants.[14][15][16]
A randomized controlled double-blind crossover trial in New Zealand found that olive leaf extract capsules significantly improved insulin sensitivity and pancreatic β-cell responsiveness in middle-aged overweight men.[17]”
RD’s other link is irrelevant because it deals with a critique of journalistic claims in The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail, which I need not defend.
Now, dear reader, I ask you. Is not Mr RD trifling and foolish, and dare I say it a bit of a cnut, to pursue me thus?
Not to mention misleading the assemblage here gathered.
Herbie
More selective quoting – perhaps you might wish to quote the other bits that are not supportive of your original declarations. I could help if this is too difficult or trifling for you.
As for the harsh rebukes – as you give so shall you receive – or do you wish me to quote.
RD’s other link is irrelevant because it deals with a critique of journalistic claims in The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail, which I need not defend.
No it isn’t – if you bother to read it you will find that is discussing the same trials on which you now appear to be basing your overstated case – the fact that it refers to the discussion of those trials in the Telegraph and the Mail is just an irrelevance you have introduced – and makes up a very small part of the NHS Direct posting.
I’ve quoted the conclusion from your BBC article.
They say:
“those who took echinacea did turn out to be less likely to get a cold, even if only 10 to 20% less likely””
I said:
“Echinacea is very good for colds and flu, and much else”
I’ve quoted extensively from your wiki article, and they’re positively orgasmic about olive leaf.
I said:
“Olive leaf is an even stronger tonic. Excellent for many other things as well”
But anyway, thanks for playing.
You’ve shown definitively that you are extremely poor at comprehension, and even worse at processing quite simple information.
The only point in this excercise was to demonstrate that point, that others may know you’re a waste of space, even on what are comparatively non contentious matters.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
Some medical commonsense for those genuinely looking for relief from colds and flu
http://www.healthline.com/health/cold-flu/natural-cold-remedies
As always sensible readers will always look at the balance of the evidence.
Herbie, I think your advice is sound and herbal remedies are, generally, non-toxic (cf all pharmaceuticals).
You might enjoy the following article (since I believe you already mentioned vitamin D):
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/12/22/vitamin-d-cancer.aspx?e_cid=20141222Z2_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20141222Z2&et_cid=DM62962&et_rid=771399000
“Infections, including influenza. Vitamin D also fights infections, including colds and the flu, as it regulates the expression of genes that influence your immune system to attack and destroy bacteria and viruses.
I believe it’s far more prudent, safer, less expensive, and most importantly, far more effective to optimize your vitamin D levels than to get vaccinated against the flu.”
Always ensure you supplement with D3, cholecalciferol rather than the synthetic crap, D2 ergocalciferol. It’s important that you maintain adequate levels of K2, otherwise high dose D3 can be toxic.
As for flu vaccines – see the WSJ article entitled, “Italy Investigates Novartis Flu Vaccine After 13 Deaths are Reported”:
http://blogs.wsj.com/pharmalot/2014/12/01/italy-investigates-novartis-flu-vaccine-after-12-deaths-are-reported/