Sorry if I sounded a bit angry in my post, but there are 2 forms of "alternative medicine" that I despise: homeopathy & naturopathy.

There have been too many cases in the Sydney coroner's court over recent years examining the deaths of children after their parents took them off the prescription medicine or medical procedures that were keeping them alive (often because of relatively minor side effects) & turned to homeopathy or naturopathy, with the result being a dead child deprived of the chance to become an adult.

I don't have a problem with other forms of complementary therapy such as acupuncture or massage, but the difference is their practitioners do not tell you to give up your medical treatment if you want to be cured. But naturopathy & homeopathy are dangerous, and have no scientific basis at all. They should be exposed for the quackery that they are.

Homeopathy is proof that the world is full of gullible people.

Not a single peer-reviewed scientific study has found it to be of any use medically. In fact, it can do untold harm if people give up their medications (or, as you recommend, stop getting medical treatment for their children) because someone who knows nothing promotes pseudo-science rubbish such as homeopathy.

Any other quackery you want to promote today? Maybe some snake oil to sell?

Geez - I don't come here to see all these rubbish topics spreading misinformation.

pindokhan123 wrote:
mosquitos are rife in hot,humid and water logged environments,not so much in the colder parts of the world.

That's one of the biggest worries about climate change for countries like mine which straddle both the temperate & tropical zones. Tropical diseases endemic to northern Australia such as Ross River fever etc are starting to gain a foothold in the sub-tropical regions, and there is a genuine fear that in 30 or so years they might take hold in some of the bigger cities such as Brisbane (which lies 450km/280 miles below the tropics) as they warm up.

It is only Australia's geographic isolation, strong quarantine/customs controls & very good luck that has prevented the more dangerous overseas diseases such as dengue fever from gaining a foothold. But the luck will run out one day, and that will have a big impact on Australia's economy & productivity.

I dunno about surveys not working - I did okay yesterday. Got a 33c bonus for completing my checklist:

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52,784,789 09 Apr 2017 21:02 EST Complete CINT (Project #163097) $0.4800
52,764,639 09 Apr 2017 03:34 EST Complete Tap Research $0.6700

tasman1 wrote:
1200–1300: to age 64
1300–1400: to age 45 (because of the bubonic plague)
1400–1500: to age 69
1500–1550: to age 71
today , not much more

Those figures are only for those who survived past the age of five. They do not include those who died before the age of five.

If you focus on life expectancy at birth, including all of those who die from common childhood diseases, you can reduce those figures by roughly 25-35 years. So an amended table might look something like this:

1200–1300: to age 35
1300–1400: to age 20 (because of the bubonic plague)
1400–1500: to age 40
1500–1550: to age 45

If you survived childhood, you could live a life of 60 or 70 years. But you probably only had a 50% or so chance of surviving childhood.

Down here the recent hot, humid weather has caused outbreaks of the mosquito-borne Ross River virus, and the authorities have been recommending that people in affected areas use those plug-in electric mosquito repellents that give an automatic burst of spray every x number of minutes. The idea is that where you are living stays mosquito-free the entire time you are asleep. Although our mozzies are only active at night, unlike many parts of the world where they are 24/7.

I guess you could use an automatic spray repellent around your home & other methods such as roll-on insecticide for when you are out & about.

Of course, you should also ensure you have a good supply of calamine lotion on hand to deal with the itchiness of bites from mosquitoes that do make it through your defenses.

pindokhan123 wrote:
even drinking infested waters or contaminated food can give you malaria i guess and definitely a mosquito bite too,if your immune system is very weak at the time.

I think you may be mixing up cholera (& other bad water bacteria) with malaria, which is a mosquito-borne parasite. A quick search on Google for "can you catch malaria from water" came up with this as the first result:

Quote:No - the malaria parasite is not transmitted via saliva. The malaria parasite can only reproduce in blood and you can't catch it from drinking water. However, dirty water can carry other dangerous diseases, such as yellow fever or typhoid.

pindokhan123 wrote: its called primitive living tasman, its how we all started b4 the sewage system of today,guess i'm back to living primitively,no option really but not a problem either, i enjoy all the perks of living in the countryside,drain or no drain

Being jailed for bringing foreign plants into Australia is nothing to do with whether we support or oppose primitive living. In fact, much of our flora & fauna is more primitive than that found in Europe, Asia, Africa & the Americas. We even have mammals that lay eggs - a very primitive method of reproduction compared to modern mammals internal (placental) reproduction.

It is because we have strict quarantine laws down here, due to the fact that Australia's geographic isolation over the past 100+ million years means most of our our plants & animals have never encountered the various diseases, fungi & other pests that are commonplace in Eurasia & have thus developed no immunity or methods to combat them.

valerie wrote:
Now they want to show ten commercials that last longer than the program. That is a big
part of the reason tv is losing it's subscribers.

Just wondering valerie - what sort of ads do they fill US TV with these days? Down here our TV stations are crying poor, and the most prominent advertising is online bookmakers (gambling), which has made watching TV so unbearable that I rarely switch on my favorite sports (NRL & AFL) anymore. I now record most other shows on a USB stick (got to buy a HDD recorder soon - USBs aren't good for recording big files over & over) & watch them later so I can skip past the ads touting for me to gamble my money on the next points-scorer or whatever. Even my Mum, who loves her AFL (Aussie rules football) & has watched the Sydney Swans games for decades said to me during the week she has switched off this year because of the in-your-face gambling ads.

But I remember reading many years ago that this sort of spruiking of gambling is not permitted in the USA, so how do your stations make money? The only thing I could imagine is that things might be easier because your much larger population means advertisers will pay more for a spot on TV, or maybe the gambling ads are replaced by prescription pharmaceutical advertising (which is legal in the USA but not in Australia).

Whatever, the TV networks seem to be shooting themselves in the foot with the very poor quality commercials they show nowadays.

valerie wrote: Oh geesh, who would want that. He will be divorced in no time.

He could program her to never argue or disagree with him, or complain about anything. Could be the secret to a long & happy marriage

Oh well. If it brings him happiness & makes him feel less lonely, then I'm okay with it.

Might even look at one for myself in the years ahead. Romance is not easy to find for shy, average-looking men in the age of Tinder when good looks & sexual prowess are the main (only?) key to getting a date.

rajukurup wrote: it is true and confirmed at least here where I am living

And exactly how many centuries has your area had a specialist oncology department that has been able to accurately diagnose & record the myriad of cancers that afflict the human species?

More cancer is being diagnosed because modern medicine is better able to detect & diagnose it. Also, because people are living for much longer these days the likelihood of cell mutation increases as they age. Many men in the olden days died of other diseases before they even had a chance to develop prostate cancer. So, of course prostate cancer was less common. Not because men were healthier, but because they did not live long enough to get it.

If someone asked me if I would prefer to live now, where my life expectancy is close to 80 years, or a few hundred years ago where my life expectancy would be mid-40s, of course I would choose to live now. Who wouldn't?

pindokhan123 wrote: seagle when your summer starts its the start of winter everywhere else,strange that,i think Australia is the only country in the world where summer and winter are opposite compared to the rest of the world.
i too cant stand heat ,ideal temp for me is between 21 and 25 degrees celsius,any higher and i'm sweating and panting.

New Zealand, Argentina, South Africa, Chile, Botswana, Zimbabwe & Namibia are also July winter countries. But there just aren't a lot of countries below the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere. And the countries in this half of the world tend to be quite large too, which is why there are so few.

You would have loved living in Sydney a couple of months ago. At one stage, my flat did not drop below 32 degrees Celsius (day or night) for nearly 2 weeks. I started wondering if I would ever feel cool air again (without standing in front of an open fridge)

Got no debts. Got no bills. Well ahead in my rent. 6 months ahead in electricity. 18 months ahead in gas (got a big credit for renewing my contract). A month ahead in my Internet.

So I just spend my earnings on whatever I feel like at the time. A night out at the pub or a restaurant (getting rarer these days as I get older), or something from eBay, or some extra groceries.

Although I might let my current earnings build up this time as I really need to buy a portable air conditioner for my flat, and that will cost a few hundred dollars. Last Summer here in Sydney was the hardest I have experienced in my 51 years. I can handle hot days, but it was the never-ending hot, very humid nights that really knocked me around. It just never got comfortably cool for 3 months. I was even getting out of bed at 3am to have cool showers before going back to bed.

So, I plan on getting at least one air-conditioner before the heat starts to arrive in October-November.

poiuy123 wrote: Mental health has gradually deteriorated since the ages and consistently so. And it includes the emotional, social and spiritual aspects as well.

Haven't you ever heard of Bedlam? Mental illness has been around forever. The difference is, in the olden days (what some here think of as the golden days), sufferers died when young after being abandoned by family, or died as street beggars, or were burnt as witches, or killed during exorcisms, or lynched by locals, or just sent to insane asylums where they would die in abject poverty and misery.

Regarding depression being a modern illness, I assume you did not study Shakespeare's Hamlet in school?

Just because medicine or society of the time did not recognise or record certain types of illnesses does not mean that those illnesses did not exist back then.

People were healthier 400 years ago? I think you are looking at the past through rose-colored spectacles.

What about smallpox, the plague, leprosy, typhoid, tuberculosis, syphilis, scurvy, polio, tetanus, diphtheria, measles and the chance of dying from any minor cut due to no antibiotics?

Nutrition was not that good back then either, with rotting food & shortages much of the time. Plus most nutritious foods are seasonal, so long periods without adequate doses of vitamins also took their toll.

mappo710 wrote: 5 straight days of rain in Ohio , "Will it ever stop ?"

5 straight days of rain? Pfft! You should have been here in Sydney last month. 23 days of rain. Mold, mildew & mosquitoes everywhere now.

I stole some money 23 years ago to feed a gambling addiction and seriously nearly ended up in prison for what would have been at least 6 months. I still clearly remember being in the the cage behind the front counter at the police station where they hold charged people in preparation for fingerprinting etc, and hoping that no-one I knew came to the station while I was in clear view. It was an experience that terrified me.

But, I was completely honest with the police, admitted full guilt, plead guilty at the court & ended up with no jail time but thousands of dollars worth of fines as well as having to pay back the money that I took. I was able to clear most of that even though I was now unemployed by moving back in with one of my parents and using every cent of my dole payments apart from rent & food to pay off the fines. I did get a job after 3 months, so all fines & compensation were paid off as soon as I could do so. Just meant no going out for about 8 months.

When in court, the solicitor told me that, if the magistrate said he was suspending sentencing (to another day), that meant I would be going to jail. So, when the magistrate said he was giving me a suspended sentence (very different to suspending sentencing), I nearly collapsed. Then the solicitor told me a suspended sentence is different to suspending sentencing, and meant I would not go to jail unless I breached a 2-year good behavior bond. I went from terrified to relieved very quickly.

Needless to say, I have been a very honest man since then. But the conviction still follows me around. Even though I was qualified for many jobs, a conviction for larceny reduced my employment prospects quite a bit, and also, because I was convicted of a crime that could have meant time in jail, if I travel overseas, some countries could deny me entry (although enough time has probably now passed for me to be okay).

My serious advice to people is, crime is not worth it. Even if you can cope with a stint in jail, a conviction follows you around for many years afterwards, and impacts your life in ways you could never imagine. I am genuinely thankful that I was caught before I got myself too deep in s**t. But it is much better to not do the crime at all than go through the hard & humiliating experiences of arrest, police charges & court appearances, and having to tick the "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?" box on various forms & applications for years & years afterwards.

I haven't had any debt (apart from the occasional small cash loan from a friend for a couple of days/weeks) for over 15 years. I don't own much, but I don't worry much either.

Sometimes I shudder when I see what levels of debt young people are getting themselves into these days. It all has to be paid back, and interest rates won't stay at historical lows forever.

Sadly, Australia is at the top of the list when it comes to household debt. Much of that can be put down to our crazy obsession with buying big houses (do 2 adults & 2 kids really need a 5-bedroom McMansion with private ensuite bathrooms for every bedroom?). Here in Sydney, house prices are increasing at a ridiculous 19% per annum! It now costs over $800,000 to buy an average home in the suburbs. Next year it will cost around $900,000 to buy a house here, and by 2020 you will need to have over a million dollars to buy a basic home in Sydney.

It is just complete NUTS!

Watched World War Z last night. Pretty much standard Hollywood disaster fare with loads of plot holes. But I did stay awake until the end.

Tried watching The Dark Knight last week - switched it off after 10 minutes. Just too much cold-blooded gun violence & the screen was so dark I couldn't see much.

Got to make a choice between The Thing (the one with Kurt Russell) or Pacific Rim (Idris Elba) tonight. Seen The Thing half a dozen times but can watch it again. Only seen Pacific Rim once & really enjoyed it too.

I think I'll have to buy a HDD recorder for my TV next week now that the cooler months are arriving here & some good movies are showing on the FTA 2nd & 3rd digital channels.