Funny: None Of The Quacks Diagnosed You

"I picked up something on the plane to Nepal. So although I managed a week trekking, I was then struck down with what felt like awful flu. I couldn't stop shivering and at that high altitude I was so weak that the guide told me I could not go on.

Once home, my GP diagnosed viral pneumonia, which had left me with post-viral fatigue. He said I must take six weeks off work and sleep as much as possible.

Thankfully, I took the advice of my aunt, Baldish Bilkhu, a trained homeopathist who recommended a herbal remedy called Kali.Phos, which contains potassium phosphate. It's brilliant for boosting energy levels and is ideal for anyone feeling run-down.

I'm convinced taking it speeded up my recovery as I was well enough to return to work after four weeks.

That was when I started to take a look at the world of holistic medicine. I found a holistic retreat in Goa called Yoga Magic and booked myself in as a treat.

They had an inspirational masseur called Vishnu and a Reiki practitioner, Ramsay, whose treatments rebalance the body and helped me release pent-up tension. After my first session with him I cried for an hour.

Now I try to go back every year to rebalance as the experience made me so much more aware of my body.

I felt revitalised for a year, but then I suddenly started losing weight at a terrifying rate - a stone in a week.

My GP diagnosed an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism) and referred me to an endocrinologist. I was jumpy and irritable - classic symptoms and quite unlike the normal me.

My endocrine system was clearly in turmoil as I've since been diagnosed with an underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism) and have to take the synthetic equivalent of the hormone, thyroxine.

It's crucial for anyone with hypothyroidism to be physically active as one of the symptoms is that your metabolism can slow right up, so I've just run the London Marathon.

My Goa experience prompted me to embark on a six-month diploma in holistic massage - massage to treat the whole body."

-- Priya Kaur-Jones, a woman too stupid to be delivering the news in England, telling the usual insane story of being an ignorant NewAger who goes to doctors to discover what's wrong and deliver a cure - while also teaching her all those sciencey-sounding big words - and, then, going to quacks and giving them credit for her good health - in The Daily Mail.

To learn more about Goa's wonderful health programs, click the tag, below.

The (True) High Point Of Your (New Age) Stay

"Just as Goa attracts a lot of tourists from all over the world, it also attracts plenty of doctors, especially homeopathic, ayurvedic and dentists, who set up clinics and start treating patients without registering. The Navhind Times tried to study the functioning of such doctors.

The study revealed that most of the doctors set up practice without proper licenses and don't even mention their qualifications. It was also observed that practitioners of other systems prescribe allopathic medicines in an unlawful manner to patients, especially at hotels.

The Supreme Court has held that a person who does not have knowledge of a particular system of medicine but practices in that system is a "quack" and a mere pretender to medical knowledge or skill, or to put it differently, a "charlatan."

It was also observed that these practitioners charge the tourists exorbitantly. While Goan doctors normally charge around 1,000 to 2,000 [rupies] per visit, these doctors charge anything ranging from Rs 2500 to Rs 5000. Secondly, it has come to the notice that these doctors even charge a commission from hospitals and laboratories for referring patients to them.

Another common practice followed by these "doctors" is to prescribe very strong anti-biotic to the patient and also give a multi-vitamin along with it. As a result of the strong anti-biotic, the patient does get momentary relief but without being treated for the actual cause of the sickness.”

-- Joao Sousa, on how medical problems are dealt with in the NewAge paradise (and tourist trap) of Goa, India - which is remarkably similar to how they're dealt with at Harvard University - for The Navhind Times.

In No Mood To Play Around

Looking at the pictures of Eliot Spitzer's wife are torturous. Betrayal is such an ugly thing. You can see she hasn't been sleeping, probably not eating, as well. The poor woman. Anyone who can suggest there are "worse things than adultery" is either sick in the head or equally guilty. Without killing someone, it is, without a doubt, the ultimate way to hurt those who love you.

I hope she'll be alright and has friends who will be good for her and her daughters because, despite knowing the truth, she's still in for a rough ride ahead. Possibly years of torture because nothing will ever be the same:

She now knows she can't trust him but, more importantly, she's discovering she can't exactly trust herself - because, damn it, she trusted him.

That's the really tough part. That look in the mirror.

Moving on, the way the media is trying to portray this - as merely a male failing - when 70% of divorces are started by women, is just wrong. Oh well, the Liberals have their story line and they're sticking with it, whether it's a lie or not. When it comes to the part that's true though, I think Kathleen Parker says it best:

"Are we harder on women than we are on men? Here’s a hint: If President Hillary Clinton were caught having an affair with a male intern her daughter’s age, would she ever be received again in public except for her own funeral?"

I assure you, the answer - outside of Liberal circles - is a very-loud "no". How "feminist" Hillary helped make that statement true is a question for the ages. Stand by your man? Understandable. Cover for the cheating bastard? Attack his accusers? And then run for his job - with his help - in front of all of us? That's just sleazy NewAge insanity. Our whole country needs a shower after those two. Like Mrs. Spitzer, we didn't ask to be a part of this.

David Mamet has switched sides, politically, becoming a Conservative. (Something Liberal dreamers keep declaring is impossible in these anti-Bush times.) It happened for Mamet as it does for so many others:

"As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.

These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life. How do I know? My wife informed me. We were riding along and listening to NPR. I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind:

Shut the fuck up."

Ha! "Shut the fuck up" was such a popular phrase with me, my ex had it put on a t-shirt for one of my birthdays. It really is a magic phrase. A serious determinant of position:

Liberalism is over once you get there.

Welcome to the club, David.

Fiona MacKeown, the mother of Scarlett Keeling (above) a 15-year-old murdered in Goa, India, is being questioned about possible negligence in leaving the teenager on her own. While her mother and family were in another part of India, her daughter is said to have been drunk, and high on drugs, when she was raped and murdered on a beach. So why do I mention it? Listen up:

"Mrs MacKeown, 43, is well used to being viewed as unusual, with her brood of children by at least four fathers leading an alternative New Age lifestyle, with the help of her partner, Rob Clarke, 47."

Yep, Scarlett's mom is one of them. Speaking of them, in some parts of the world, NewAgers are being jailed for failing to vaccinate their kids, which I think is a step in the right direction: Let there be a real price for imposing this idiocy on kids. On society. On history.

Which all brings me to Kwame Kilpatrick, the embattled mayor of Detroit. Just four words:

Shut the fuck up.