[Non-political] News that makes you Laugh/Cry/Both...

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 11:17 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:I don't even give a fuck what tomorrow's hot new product is, because naturopathic medicine is not fucking medicine.

I hear there's actually a term for alternative medicine that is shown to work.

It's called "medicine".

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 2:30 am

Koumei wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:I don't even give a fuck what tomorrow's hot new product is, because naturopathic medicine is not fucking medicine.
I hear there's actually a term for alternative medicine that is shown to work.

It's called "medicine".

It's called "bone setting". Bone setters don't fuck around.

And I say this as someone who thinks Traditional Chinese Medicine is the Real Deal.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 4:37 am

She's quoting an Australian comedian who is really funny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0W7Jbc_Vhw

worth a watch, I strongly recommend it.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 8:14 am

CatharzGodfoot wrote: And I say this as someone who thinks Traditional Chinese Medicine is the Real Deal.

You'd take ground-up rhino horn for a headache instead of codeine?

Gnosticism Is A Hoot · Wed Feb 16, 2011 9:33 am

Koumei wrote:
CatharzGodfoot wrote: And I say this as someone who thinks Traditional Chinese Medicine is the Real Deal.
You'd take ground-up rhino horn for a headache instead of codeine?

Nowadays I think they use ground-up Tibetans instead. There are more of them, and people give less of a shit.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 5:41 pm

Koumei wrote:
CatharzGodfoot wrote: And I say this as someone who thinks Traditional Chinese Medicine is the Real Deal.
You'd take ground-up rhino horn for a headache instead of codeine?

Hell no. Rhinos are not only prohibitively expensive, they're also going extinct. But I wouldn't take codeine for a headache either.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 6:21 pm

Catharz wrote:Hell no. Rhinos are not only prohibitively expensive, they're also going extinct. But I wouldn't take codeine for a headache either.

Word.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 2:30 am

Just saying, keratin doesn't treat headaches, and that's all a rhino "horn" is. So it's measurably bullshit.

On the other hand I could draw a little diagram thing showing how codeine (or morphine or whatever, but for "a headache" you shouldn't need anything stronger than codeine - if you're lucky you could even get away with aspirin working) blocks the pain, and a scientist could look at it and say "You simplified it, but you're a layman, so I'll overlook that. Fundamentally you are in essence correct. Have a biscuit."

And it's a natural herbal remedy, too! It's secreted by a plant so it's natural!

(And as we know, all natural things are good for you - fruit, vegetables, tea, sugar, meat, opium, tobacco, nightshade, destroying angel mushrooms, serpent venom...)

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 3:12 am

The problem with chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine is that it falls under the fallacy of it's so old and has existed for so long, who are we to say it's wrong?

THis was the same shit that put us in the dark ages. The western world refused to write anything original for the most part. It was said, what could I say that is more important than Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and Aristophanes?

How are my two cents on that butterfly's wings outside better than the idea of Zeno's paradox?

Even today, when we look at alternative medicine and debunk a large part of it by western medicine, this is apocrypphic, this research debunk of ours. Who are we to put our new fangled methods of deductive reasoning to figure out what people like Aryabhattha in India did by looking at the Vedantas to realize that a tiny seed of this flower here when distilled in fresh cow's milk for 10 days (don't ask how you can keep it fresh that long) gives you a remedy to gout.

I did the whole ayurvedic thing last february. I was in India, writing some of you letters, getting massaged by big burly men with whom I didn't share a language. Being massaged while wearing a thong, and having a broth of hot oil and herbs slowly drip onto my head a la chinese water torture. Sure the massages were amazing. My physical pain did reduce. But my seizures, my PTSD flashbacks, and my migraines weren't at all touched. But every day, I was told to pray to Dhanavantari, the local deity for that school of Ayurveda, and take my medicine with full faith and it would work. WHen I mentioned the fact that I was an atheist and the idea of placebo effects, I was scoffed at. i was curious and decided to actually pray for the one month and have faith to what they said. It all came to bullshit.

BTW: Tim Minchin is awesome.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 4:10 am

Cynic wrote:THis was the same shit that put us in the dark ages.

...wait... wait... What?

What?

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 4:34 am

PhoneLobster wrote:
Cynic wrote:THis was the same shit that put us in the dark ages.
...wait... wait... What?

What?

Well, okay, the fall of Rome put us in the Middle Ages. But even after that...

People thought if Aristotle said it, and it didn't contradict the Bible, it must be true. Because obvious Aristotle was so much better than we were!

It wasn't until the 1700s that Western science even began to stop thinking the sun shone out of Aristotle's ass.

Meanwhile over in the Middle East, Islamic scientists were working out how big the world was, and inventing algebra and soap. And going "Yeah, Aristotle turns out to have been wrong on a lot of shit, and I can prove it here, see?"

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 5:08 am

Cynic wrote:It all came to bullshit.

Yeah, but in your case, so, apparently, does western medicine.

Maxus wrote:It wasn't until the 1700s that Western science even began to stop thinking the sun shone out of Aristotle's ass.

Meanwhile over in the Middle East, Islamic scientists were working out how big the world was, and inventing algebra and soap. And going "Yeah, Aristotle turns out to have been wrong on a lot of shit, and I can prove it here, see?"

Ess wrote a paper about how much he hated Aristotle. It was called One plus Zero: the Muslim Influence on the Renaissance, Or: How Aristotle Created the Dark Ages and Zero Ended Them. There's some serious resentment of Aristotle in the adult male section of this house.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 5:18 am

One of my high school English assignments was "What would you do if you had a time machine and could take back what you could carry with you?"

Two of mine were

"Bring back a DVD TV/player and the Extended versions of the Lord of the Rings movies and watch them with Tolkien" (I was a Lord of the Rings fanboy when I was 17, but I'm feeling much better now)

and "Punch Aristotle in the back of the head. Or hit him in the back of the head with something heavy I could bring back."

Even then, I would get pissed that no one had bothered to do some experimentation or fact-checking on him, ever. Assuming that OF COURSE the Ancients were so much better than we were!

Part of that is the "Fall from Grace" shit. That everything started perfect and it's been declining ever since. That people today are decadent compared to what they were then.

Fuck that noise.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 5:50 am

CatharzGodfoot wrote:
Koumei wrote:
CatharzGodfoot wrote: And I say this as someone who thinks Traditional Chinese Medicine is the Real Deal.
You'd take ground-up rhino horn for a headache instead of codeine?
Hell no. Rhinos are not only prohibitively expensive, they're also going extinct. But I wouldn't take codeine for a headache either.

Much better to take sex for that headache, anyway. Doesn't require a prescription...

That said, anyone know where I could get one? These headaches are starting to fucking kill me...

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 6:12 am

Nowadays I think they use ground-up Tibetans instead. There are more of them, and people give less of a shit.

Related News Story makes great metaphor

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 6:32 am

People give all kinds of shit about Tibetans. It's like they get funding from India's Research ad Analysis Wing and the American CIA for use in public relations.

Nah, no one gives a shit about Mongolians, Uighurs, Miao, Hui, Dong, or Tujia. Those people get oppressed and no one holds a rock concert to show how sorry they are about it even for an afternoon. That's right kids: no one cares about harsh treatment of Dong.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 7:24 am

Well, I tend to ignore Dong all the time, no matter what kind of treatment it gets. Dong is completely irrelevant to me.

I don't know what everyone else's excuse is.

Gnosticism Is A Hoot · Thu Feb 17, 2011 9:57 am

FrankTrollman wrote:People give all kinds of shit about Tibetans. It's like they get funding from India's Research ad Analysis Wing and the American CIA for use in public relations.

Nah, no one gives a shit about Mongolians, Uighurs, Miao, Hui, Dong, or Tujia. Those people get oppressed and no one holds a rock concert to show how sorry they are about it even for an afternoon. That's right kids: no one cares about harsh treatment of Dong.

-Username17

You know what makes me feel really embarrassed? I had to write a paper on PRC treatment of the Uighurs, back in the day.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 11:00 am

Uighurs were in the news late last year, so people... wait, no, people didn't give a shit, they just became aware the word existed as "Some kind of Chinese people".

At least with Mongolian they can go "Oh, like the circus/food" or think of the ancient Mongols. Uighurs... rioting.

And the article suggested they were rioting against the Han, with the PRC suggesting "They are just ingrates and bastards, but we did NOT respond by gunning them down like the animals they are. We offered them sweets and flowers but they rioted at us. Our feelings have been hurt."

I'll admit my knowledge of "Different Chinese people" includes the Han, Uighur, Mongolian, Foreigners who accidentally got mixed in, the people of Hong Kong ("No we're not!" "Yes you are!") and Tibetans. That's pretty ignorant.

And a little factoid: people in the region that Cao Cao was from get incredibly motion sick. Like, they need vomit-bags just for cars or trains, and will get sick on a ferry THAT IS DOCKED. Now consider that Cao Cao decided to chuck 800,000 troops on ships back in the day. Idiot.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 11:44 am

Speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao appears.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 3:37 pm

Koumei wrote:Just saying, keratin doesn't treat headaches, and that's all a rhino "horn" is. So it's measurably bullshit.

On the other hand I could draw a little diagram thing showing how codeine (or morphine or whatever, but for "a headache" you shouldn't need anything stronger than codeine - if you're lucky you could even get away with aspirin working) blocks the pain, and a scientist could look at it and say "You simplified it, but you're a layman, so I'll overlook that. Fundamentally you are in essence correct. Have a biscuit."

And it's a natural herbal remedy, too! It's secreted by a plant so it's natural!

(And as we know, all natural things are good for you - fruit, vegetables, tea, sugar, meat, opium, tobacco, nightshade, destroying angel mushrooms, serpent venom...)

Rhino horn is almost certainly a 'bullshit ingredient ('but they all are lol'

). Because people are stupid gits, it's standard practice to add expensive ingredients to normal formulations and then charge rich people through the nose for them. It's kinda like putting gold in vodka, except destructive like antibiotics in soap. Research has been done in China showing that the horn doesn't do shit (for fever, at least), but people are dumb and think they get what they pay for.

Codeine is a muscle relaxant, and won't work for headaches than aren't from tension. Plus, for most people it's overkill.

Prak_Anima wrote:
CatharzGodfoot wrote:
Koumei wrote:
You'd take ground-up rhino horn for a headache instead of codeine?
Hell no. Rhinos are not only prohibitively expensive, they're also going extinct. But I wouldn't take codeine for a headache either.
Much better to take sex for that headache, anyway. Doesn't require a prescription...

For me, at least, sex suppresses headaches rather than curing them. Afterwards they come back with a vengeance. I suppose the reasonable solution is to just keep fucking.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 6:56 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote: --Much better to take sex for that headache, anyway. Doesn't require a prescription...--

For me, at least, sex suppresses headaches rather than curing them. Afterwards they come back with a vengeance. I suppose the reasonable solution is to just keep fucking.

"Fuck six hookers and call me in the morning."

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 11:51 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Research has been done in China showing that the horn doesn't do shit (for fever, at least),

That's right, it was for fever. I'm smart enough to know it's NOT, as many think, prescribed for softcock syndrome.

Codeine is a muscle relaxant, and won't work for headaches than aren't from tension.

Actually, Codeine, as with all opiates, binds to the opioid receptors in the brain, which in turn:
A) Activate the Reward Centre of the brain, telling you "You did a good thing, feel good about yourself!"
and B) Basically set up road blocks in the central nervous system, inhibiting (or outright stopping, for pain weaker than the opiate) pain signals so they don't reach the brain.

Of course, the problem with road blocks in the CNS is you don't react as fast, as any signal sent in any direction is slowed down. Oh and if you take large enough amounts for enough time then you go crazy or stupid or both.

But on the other hand, you feel great about it.

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:31 am

People already feel great about being stupid too much, that isn't something we want to encourage.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 8:59 am

CBS Films wrote:Seventeen year old Kyle (Alex Pettyfer) is the spoiled, shallow and incredibly popular prince of his high school kingdom. Entirely captivated and empowered by his own physical appearance, Kyle foolishly chooses Kendra (Mary-Kate Olsen), a goth classmate rumored to be a witch, as his latest target for humiliation. Unfazed by his cruel behavior, Kendra decides to teach him a lesson - she transforms him into someone as unattractive on the outside as he is on the inside. Now he has one year to find someone who can see past the surface and love him, or he will remain “Beastly” forever. His only hope, an unassuming classmate he never noticed named Lindy (Vanessa Hudgens), may be his best chance to prove that love is never ugly.

Fucking Hollywood. I don't know about anyone else, but that's not ugly. I personally think he's still rather attractive like that. Let's not even get started on the fact that it's a (probably) shitty Beauty and the Beast retelling.