If We Sell The National Center For Complementary And Alternative Medicine We Can Give The Money To Blacks

Think about it: This nice white lady will have to get a real job.

TMR proposes renaming it The National Center For The Study Of How White Folks Can Pay Off They Debts!

That Curve I'm Ahead Of? (Far Off In The Distance Now)

I think, it's safe to say, when it comes to NewAge quackery - the former focus of TMR - the battle is (almost) won:

"The US National Institutes of Health’s Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), a perennial punching bag, no longer wants to be ‘alternative’." 

Now, when it comes to stopping white guys from celebrating their graduation by making banners saying "NIGGA WE MADE IT"? 

 That battle has just begun,…

 

Passing Thoughts (2U) Without Ever Moving My Mouth

Alright, let's open our minds a little bit, enough to accept tech workers getting weird "on the path":

“It’s going to be a place on Earth that becomes a sacred space for growth and development. The people who need love will end up here. We want the world to be a part of this. It’s not a secret journey, but you still have to go on that journey to get here.”

If you need a refresher before you take off, here's more on how we got here from wherever there was:

“In the United States, similar elite lobbying efforts to institutionalise nonsense were firmly launched in 1991 (a couple of years before the Prince formed the Foundation for Integrated Health) when the Senate Appropriations Committee -- which is responsible for funding the National Institutes of Health (NIH) -- set in motion a chain of events that led to the formation of the Office of Alternative Medicine. The 'prime mover' behind this momentous turn of events was Appropriations Committee chair, Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, who 'had been urged to take this legislative step by two constituents, Berkley Bedell and Frank Wiewel.' All three men having personally witnessed the alleged curative power of alternative medicine, and were therefore keen to use their political clout to advance their wacky personal beliefs. 

So it was that a Congressional mandate forced mysticism upon the very heart of the medical establishment, with initial members of the Office of Alternative Medicine's advisory panel including best-selling New Age authors Deepak Chopra and Bernie Siegel, not to mention Bedell and Wiewel. Unfortunately the Office of Alternative Medicine has gone from strength-to-strength, and in 1999 was re-established as a full NIH center known as the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). This is not, however, to say that they have done anything useful (yet), other than prove that the utility of alternative therapies have no material basis. On this matter a recent study actually demonstrated that after distributing some $2 billion of funding the Center had made 'no discoveries in alternative medicine that would justify the current annual expenditure of $134 million' to maintain its existence.”

Speaking of things we can get rid of, I don't see how Peggy Noonan's winning anything (except in the Charlie Sheen sense) but everything else seems accurate:

"What’s strange about the column is that Noonan somehow takes the evident toll of the allegations against the IRS as proof that the Obama administration has gotten away with something: that this was a real and damaging scandal that is being dismissed by the media as overhyped. But what she is describing is in fact proof of the exact opposite: the allegations have taken a great toll on the agency (and, polls suggest, on Obama himself) precisely because they were overhyped and not dismissed by the media. In other words, Peggy Noonan won. She just doesn’t seem able or willing to admit it. 

The fact is, the more we learn about the scandal, the more egregiously and irresponsibly overwrought the initial coverage of it appears."

Fuck Peggy. I've got my own problems. One of 'em is everybody needs to grow up. Here's but one of the topics I'm struggling with - and, I think, the fact I so rarely see it addressed can have multiple meanings, good and bad:

"Where is the diversity of popular voices in Rap that give voice to being/acting like an adult? Perhaps I’m asking for too much. Maybe Rap is supposed to stay young—it’s a youth movement. Maybe I’m supposed to outgrow Rap as an art form while maintaining my love for Hip-Hop culture. I refuse to believe that’s true, though. But is Rap ready for the “' take care of my family and it’s difficult at times/I’m trying to pay my bills while simultaneously writing these rhymes'” record?"

I just don't know. Consider the man I mentioned in one of my songs, appearing (for the umpteenth time) to validate every word I said:

“Hip hop star DMX was arrested for driving under the influence in South Carolina this past week. Despite attempts by the rapper's publicist to deny reports of his arrest, it has been confirmed that X reportedly failed a sobriety test after being stopped by state troopers on July 25th. 

The South Carolina Highway Patrol told HipHipWired that DMX was arrested after being identified as a "possible DUI driver" in a 1978 Plymouth station wagon and was stopped for driving erratically. He failed a field sobriety test. He was also charged with not having a driver's license and not wearing a seat belt. 

Footage also surfaced of the arrest.”

 

I can't wait. Just as I can't wait for a new book out with a very provocative title:

“My Life in a Love Cult: A Warning to All Young Girls, My True Life Story by Marion Dockerill, High Priestess of Oom, 1928.”

1928? Wow. She was obviously a member of the NEW NewAge,...

 

The Best And Brightest (At Wasting Time And Money)

Some scams can't be more clear: 

First we discover homeopathy isn't a cure for malaria - the original problem it was "invented" (and claimed) to treat - and now comes news there are allergy-related health risks associated with bee pollen, which, specifically, was the basis for President Bill Clinton's (and especially Senator Tom Harkin's) multi-billion dollar "alternative" medicine boondoggle, The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM).

It should also be noted that, despite years of our taxes being blown on it's anti-science "research" agenda - and Washington D.C.'s supposed interest in this all-important honey of a topic - bee pollen's health risk wasn't even discovered by NCCAM.

Correct-o-mundo, Einstein.

Now once again, repeat after me, despite the pain and embarrassment: 

 We are NOT failing from individual laziness, but from collective stupidity,…

A Crippled Black Cat Crosses Our Sacred Path

Here's another post, real quick, to point out another aspect of NewAge in our lives - the homeopathic principal. Let's start, again, with Thomas Sowell:

"All the current political theater about 'international sanctions' is unlikely to make the slightest difference to Iran. Nor is the administration itself likely to expect it to. What then is its purpose? To fool the American people into thinking that they are doing something serious when all that they are doing is putting on a charade by lining up countries to agree to actions that they all know will not have any real effect."

Doesn't that sound familiar to "Here - drink this glass of water, America, in the total belief it'll cure your cancer"? Or, more to the point, how about this:

"NCCAM has spent $3.1 million supporting studies of Reiki, an 'energy healing' method. Not surprisingly, the $3.1 million has so far failed to produce any evidence that Reiki works. But because there was never any evidence in the first place, we should never have spent precious research dollars looking into it."

How many times are we going to keep doing things that are already acknowledged not to work? And how many more times will we run across articles, written by people who ought to know this shit doesn't work, asking - no: demanding - we do more shit that we already know doesn't work?

I say, as long as we have a NewAge based-culture, driving us insane.

A New Approach (Before Anybody Walks Away)

I've been trying, for the longest, to get Glenn Reynolds to see the wisdom of The Macho Response to politics, but he still wants to play like I'm crazy, or so naive, I can't understand it on his level.

Well, maybe this'll show him:

"CARSON CITY — Surging Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle has had to defend her support of a prison program that her opponents linked to Scientology. Trying to head off that theme, Angle has eliminated from her campaign website mention of prominent members of the church, whom she worked with on other legislative efforts.

Angle has removed the claim that she, along with actresses Kelly Preston and Jenna Elfman, approached Sen. John Ensign to sponsor legislation prohibiting school employees from requiring students to take psychotropic drugs, such as anti-depressants.

Preston and Elfman are high-profile members of the Church of Scientology, which does not believe in the use of psychiatric drugs.

The apparent scrubbing of her website of the potentially controversial issue — critics of Scientology call it a cult — comes as Angle gains ground in the Republican primary, which has narrowed to a three-way race to take on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid."

Isn't that special? Openly tie a politician to their cultish endeavors and - BAM! - you get a response. And that response is, invariably, to hide and lie.

Not-cool.

Actually - it seems to me - an angry grassroots political movement, determined to take the country back, could use that.

Seems to me, if one wanted to purify the American political scene (as the Tea Party seems intent on doing) this would be like shooting fish in a barrel; much easier than the way it's being done now.

For instance: want to get rid of a powerful Democratic senator, like Tom Harkin? Then tie him directly to his NewAge quackery, his NewAge fruitcake friends, and NCCAM. It ain't hard to do - Harkin's been at it for over a decade.

Here, I'll let the late, great Martin Gardner supply some ammo, from all the way back in 2001:

"Elizabeth Targ is now the acting director of the Complementary Medicine Research Institute (CMRI). It is part of the California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC), in turn part of the University of California School of Medicine. Her institute is devoted to investigating such alternative forms of healing as acupuncture, acupressure, remote healing, therapeutic touch, herbal remedies, meditation, yoga, chi gong, guided imagery, and prayer. The institute’s literature does not mention homeopathy, reflexology, iridology, urine therapy, magnet therapy, and other extreme forms of alternative healing. Apparently they are too outlandish to merit investigation.

The NIH, through its National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), has provided funding for Ms. Targ to conduct a three-year study of distant healing on 150 HIV patients. The funding for the first year alone is $243,228, with a starting date of July 1, 2000. The NCCAM has also funded a four-year project to study the effect of distant healing on persons with a brain tumor called glioblastoma. The starting date was September 18, 2000, with a first-year grant of $202,596. Both studies, Ms. Targ said, will be double blind. It looks as though Ms. Targ, over the next few years, will be receiving more than two million dollars of government funds for her research on remote healing, the cash coming from our taxes."

That's money this quack (now deceased) got from one of our most nutty senators, all because Harkin thought bee pollen cured his asthma.

Not only that, but he's now spent almost a billion of our tax dollars on this foolishness.

I'd think, with the Taxed Enough Already crowd, that would make this weirdo ripe for the picking.

If that's not enough, how about Harkin's bullshit guidelines regarding herbal supplements - which he drew up with Utah's Republican senator, Orrin Hatch?

Both politicians were told, when they first drew the guidelines up, the rules weren't strong enough, and the manufacturers were crooks who would break the guidelines with impunity - but without penalty - which they've been doing with abandon. Now we read:

"Hatch said existing regulations, many of which he helped write, are adequate to handle any rogue supplement companies that want to make claims they cannot back up with science. The senator said the problem is that the FDA doesn't have enough resources to implement dietary-supplement laws or to aggressively pursue wrongdoers.

On Tuesday, Hatch introduced his latest dietary-supplement bill, which would boost FDA funding in this area and require the agency to provide Congress with an annual report about the progress made. The bill is co-sponsored by Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin."

Yea, yea. Sure, sure.

Does anyone in the Tea Party think - with exposure of the fact these two creeps are taking billions of our tax dollars and giving them to cranks and criminals to rip us off - the American people need these two foxes guarding the political henhouse any longer? I don't.

And there's tons of woo-woo out there to use against them.

I'm talking about the kinds of nonsense that, when grilled precisely, it's impossible for them to have a responsible explanation - so they're gone - without months of rallying or even waiting for an election.

Like Gandhi said of the British, they'll,...just,...leave.

Or am I so crazy, and naive, I'm not ready for politics in the big leagues?

Spell It Out (Because Few Can Willingly Say It)

I'm not sure, but in all my days of watching and participating in American politics - which started back around 1979 - I don't think I'd ever heard anyone mentioning anything about cult involvement before, had you? I mean, was anybody discussing "The Cult of Nixon" during the feverish days of Watergate? Yet check out today's quote from Gawker's sources about the followers of John Edwards:

"[Andrew] Young's devotion was typical of the 'cultish' fervor Edwards brought out in his staffers. This is why, says our source, who is close to [Rielle] Hunter, major media organizations could not stand up the affair story despite well-intentioned efforts. 'They [staffers] would do anything to stop it coming out — they lied, they bullied, they called reporters' editors and bad-mouthed them, they exchanged access.'"

Even further, take a look at another of today's quotes, this time from James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal:

"One can see why Obama might have been overly impressed with himself. Here's a guy who became president of the United States just four years out of the Illinois Senate, and along the way developed a cultlike following. It sounds as though Obama became a follower as well as figurehead of his own cult of personality."

In the same column, Taranto describes Barack Obama's reaction to a challenge as the same as Edwards' "cultish" staff: "Obama spoils for a 'fight' when self-reflection is in order." Is that knee-jerk behavior the result of cultish thinking? It's exactly the same reaction one gets when they go against the "church" of Scientology,...

Anyone who's been following this blog knows I've got lots of quotes regarding the president and cultism. What I don't have is a lot of quotes from folks attempting to get to the cultural heart of the matter. They're not even interested. Oh, they'll gladly describe all the signifiers of cultism and/or cultish thinking, but they can't be bothered to ask what's going on within our society to produce such large dollops of this phenomena. They'll gladly lay it out there, but there's been absolutely no follow-up - from anybody - as far as I can tell. Let's look at another interesting quote from today, this one from Bret Stephens and also from The Wall Street Journal:

"Stockholm Syndrome: 'A term used to describe the positive bond some kidnap victims develop with their captor.'

Copenhagen Syndrome: The peculiar psychology of Barack Obama's first year in office.

Let's expand on that a bit. In September, Mr. Obama paid a semi-impromptu visit to Copenhagen to make a personal appeal for Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid. It failed. The nice way to think about it: The president was trying to win one for Team America. Less nice: It was a feckless and unpresidential errand on behalf of the Chicago political machine to which he remains beholden.

And then there's the possibility that Mr. Obama really believed that he alone could pull the rabbit out of the hat. Not Dick Daley, not the First Lady. This one would require the full Barack abracadabra."

Hmmm. That third suggestion - an even worse one, coming totally out of the blue - clearly says The Wall Street Journal thinks the President of the United States might be engaging in magical thinking ("the full Barack abracadabra") but, still, no alarm bells go off in anyone's mind that magical thinking (or delusional thinking) is a key component of all this cultism everyone's mentioning in passing. They definitely aren't responding like they did when Tom Cruise was discovered on video saying that only a Scientology cultist, like Cruise, could really respond in a crisis. Same thinking as Obama's, totally different response from observers - even though everyone's aware Obama was assisted into office by Oprah Winfrey, a known NewAger, who not only specializes in selling magical thinking, but also famously brought us The Secret, the "spiritual" musings of the mentally disturbed Eckhart Tolle, and, of course, James Arthur Ray, the NewAge leader, now under investigation for multiple murders. Is this all a coincidence? Including the fact no one's talking about what it means, in light of the decline we see happening in our country? Considering what we know of Oprah's beliefs, why was her endorsement of Obama, as "The One", credible?

Last night, as I was driving home, I was listening to a conversation some radio personality was having with Ram Dass, and at one point, while discussing the effects of LSD, Dass started talking about how we're all capable of becoming one with everything - including trees. "Look, I'm a tree" he said, but the announcer he was discussing his drug use with never said that's crazytalk. No, they just went right on talking in this vein, like it's totally normal and logical for two adults to think Ram Dass is a plant that lives by the process of photosynthesis.

Think about how much of this nonsense our society is inundated with. Since the '60's - let's say, starting with The Beatles infatuation with the "teachings" of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, which, by the way, has led many to jump around on their behinds declaring they're "flying" - American society has been bombarded with this stuff: is it really that outlandish to think that now - as the Baby Boomers have finally attained power - all that muddled thinking has had an effect? That one of the "mantras" of Werner Erhard's est, "What's So is also So What?" (which was taught to many major corporations and government agencies throughout the western world, to motivate they're workers) could've reduced our current leader's minds to a state that would make their social contributions worthless? I mean, is it just me, or (beyond gobs of government control - with already-indoctrinated Boomers in charge) don't they seem to have run out of practical ideas? And the groupthink (now labeled as partisanship because such lunacy has received a negative reaction) is incredible. Again: is this just an accident - or is it the natural progression of a decades old ideology, known as NewAge, running amok on, and through, American society?

Senator Tom Harkin was led to think bee pollen cured his asthma - and he still can't be talked out of it. So he and Bill Clinton (another Boomer enamoured with NewAge ideas) have since saddled us with the $29 billion (but, based on their results, still almost worthless) National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. [Kimball C. Atwood IV, M.D., via Wikipedia again:] "The NCCAM continues to fund and promote pseudoscience."

And, in case you don't know it already, pseudoscience plays a very big role in the world of NewAge cultism.

Even more startling than knowing our leaders are keeping this money-sucking House of Malarkey going, even during a recession, is the fact that so few saw anything wrong with it from the beginning. But why should they? Even Yale University has spoken of constructing a "more fluid concept of evidence" for the "magic water" known as Homeopathy. (Sold in fine NewAge-oriented stores, like Whole Foods, nation wide.) The New York Times writes credulously of NewAge "Pet Psychics". The entire culture is saturated with it. TIME Magazine (which has been known to promote more-than-a-bit of NewAge nonsense themselves) wondered if Jim Carrey had lost his mind by the time cultish thinking got him. Now he's acknowledged as one of the leaders - along with Jenny McCarthy, his porn star girlfriend - of the dangerous and wrong-headed movement to stop children from receiving vaccines.

"There was nothing legit,...about [Reille] Hunter’s behavior. It was freaky, wildly inappropriate, and all too visible. She flirted outlandishly with every man she met. She spouted New Age babble, rambled on about astrology and reincarnation, and announced to people she had just met, 'I’m a witch.'"

But for some reason - out of all the women in the world - this is the charmer John Edwards cheated on his wife with, while also sacrificing a first tier political career. The quote, above, is from John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's book, Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime . [Wikipedia:] "According to the book, Edwards angrily rejected requests by his advisers to distance himself from Hunter." Given the description, above, such devotion between two Boomers begs the question: why - exactly? Considering the many foolish precepts supporting NewAge beliefs, is it really too "out there" to suggest that astrology, reincarnation, and witches are '60's occult affectations that John Edwards - and many, many others - have grown so comfortable with, such foolishness can slip right by the critical faculties, just as easily as Ram Dass' imagining he's a tree?

This is Madness

"Americans spend about $34 billion annually on alternative medicine, according to the first national estimate of such out-of-pocket spending in more than a decade.

Chiropractors, acupuncturists and herbal remedies are commanding more consumer dollars as people seek high-touch care in a high-tech society, the report released Thursday by the government shows.

'We are talking about a very wide range of health practices that range from promising and sensible to potentially harmful,' said Dr. Josephine Briggs, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the federal agency that leads research in this field.

More research into which therapies work is critically needed, because the spending on them is 'substantial,' she said.

Some consumer advocates say people are wasting money on some products that rigorous studies already have shown don't work.

'Even in these recessionary times, a great deal of money is being spent on some forms of complementary and alternative medicine whose efficacy is questionable,' said Bruce Silverglade, director of legal affairs for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group.

The last government estimate out-of-pocket spending on alternative medicine came from a 1997 survey. That research estimated $27 billion was being spent.

The new report concludes that 38 million adults visited alternative medicine practitioners in 2007. They paid less than $50 per visit on average, but many paid $75 or more for services such as acupuncture, homeopathy and hypnosis therapy.

The average annual spending per person to see practitioners was about $122, and the average spending on products was $177.

A whopping $3 billion was spent on homeopathy,..."

-- Marilynn Marchione and Mike Stobbe, on why those "crazy people in government" shouldn't be looked upon as the only Americans hell-bent on wasting our money by the bucketful: they've got lots of help in the private sector - and I don't mean "Big Pharma" - but the idiots who aren't capable of understanding The Associated Press.

UPDATE: I did find some good news in all this nonsense - the "practitioners" are going broke! - from The Los Angeles Times:

"The survey found CAM makes up just 1.5% of U.S. healthcare expenditures. However, it accounts for 11.2% of total out-of-pocket expenditures. Of the $33.9 billion spent out of pocket on CAM, most of it was for self-care products, such as classes, products and materials. Compared with the last survey of CAM practices in the U.S., in 1997, visits to CAM practitioners have plunged 50%." [Underlined emphasis TMR's]

O.K., so the NewAgers are catching on that these people are con men and not doctors. Great. The next step?

Convincing the NewAgers that they're not doctors either,...

Stop This Man (Before He Kills Again)

"Senator Tom Harkin is up to his old shenanigans again, trying at ever turn to do for the actual practice of quackery what he did for the research of quackery by creating the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and what he still does to promote quackery by berating NCCAM for in essence being too scientific in not having validated enough of his cherished woo. In essence, Harkin has slipped a provision into the Senate version of the 600+ page health care reform bill that is currently taking shape in Congress that included funding for 'community wellness programs,' which, if science-based, would be a good thing, but which, when sponsored by a quackery supporter like Tom Harkin, is usually woo-speak for including all manner of unscientific 'alternative' medical modalities and dubious dietary advice, usually with supplements. As I've characterized it before, you can look at it as a 'bait and switch,' in which CAM advocates appropriate sensible, science-based modalities like diet and exercise as being 'alternative' (the bait) and then use that to argue that the woo they associate with such modalities (up to even pure woo like reiki or homeopathy) is effective (the switch).

Another provision that laid bare Harkin's true plans, however, was the one he also slipped into the bill that includes 'alternative' medicine practitioners as part of the bill's definition of the 'health care workforce.' That's part of the Trojan Horse aspect of what Harkin's trying to do. In the belly of a sturdy-looking offering lurks a whole lot of pseudoscience. It doesn't take too much consideration to realize that the reason for this provision is almost certainly to lay the groundwork for requiring the government to pay for 'alternative' medicine services, and, as the government goes, so too goes the private health insurance industry, at least when it comes to what health care services will be funded."

-- Orac, catching the bee pollen man - as he tries to sting the rest of us - on Respectful Insolence.

Heads Up: Anybody Lose A Wallet?

"NCCAM is no longer funding trials of homeopathy."

-- Orac, with more good news on the "healing energy" and "vital force" fronts, and Respectful Insolence.

Nonsense: Let The Cards Fall Where They May

"Ten years ago the government set out to test herbal and other alternative health remedies to find the ones that work. After spending $2.5 billion, the disappointing answer seems to be that almost none of them do.

Echinacea for colds. Ginkgo biloba for memory. Glucosamine and chondroitin for arthritis. Black cohosh for menopausal hot flashes. Saw palmetto for prostate problems. Shark cartilage for cancer. All proved no better than dummy pills in big studies funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The lone exception: ginger capsules may help chemotherapy nausea.

As for therapies, acupuncture has been shown to help certain conditions, and yoga, massage, meditation and other relaxation methods may relieve symptoms like pain, anxiety and fatigue.

However, the government also is funding studies of purported energy fields, distance healing and other approaches that have little if any biological plausibility or scientific evidence.

Taxpayers are bankrolling studies of whether pressing various spots on your head can help with weight loss, whether brain waves emitted from a special 'master' can help break cocaine addiction, and whether wearing magnets can help the painful wrist problem, carpal tunnel syndrome.

The acupressure weight-loss technique won a $2 million grant even though a small trial of it on 60 people found no statistically significant benefit -- only an encouraging trend that could have occurred by chance. The researcher says the pilot study was just to see if the technique was feasible.

'You expect scientific thinking' at a federal science agency, said R. Barker Bausell, author of 'Snake Oil Science' and a research methods expert at the University of Maryland, one of the agency's top-funded research sites. 'It's become politically correct to investigate nonsense.'"

-- Marilynn Marchione, on the $2.5 billion the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has wasted to court NewAge cultists' health claims, so says The Associated Press.

The Message: "It's All About Money/Ain't A Damn Thing Funny - You Got To Have A Con/In This Land Of Milk And Honey" (Ain't That The Truth?)

"The impending national discussion about broadening access to health care, improving medical practice and saving money is giving a group of scientists an opening to make a once-unthinkable proposal: Shut down the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health.

The notion that the world's best-known medical research agency sponsors studies of homeopathy, acupuncture, therapeutic touch and herbal medicine has always rankled many scientists. That the idea for its creation 17 years ago came from a U.S. senator newly converted to alternative medicine's promise didn't help."

-- David Brown, clearly not aware of what one of our NewAge senators, Tom Harkin, has actually been "converted" into, in The Washington Post.