Mary

I think you ought to write Dr. McCleary through his blog. He’s a really nice guy and would be the one who would know.

Mary

As for Bi-polar disorder, I suffered from this horrific, torturous disorder for 13 years, on some dozen or more different medications, never being stable for more than 3 weeks at a stretch. I never stopped questioning my doctors as to WHY this couldn’t be controlled through non-drug means, always believing that I didn’t really suffer from a drug deficiency!

Very long story short, I turned my nightmare around in less than a year, on my own, when I switched from a high carb vegetarian diet to a low carb, basically PPLP diet, adding a tablespoon of cod liver oil per day, and got off every single medication. I have taken NO medications, and had NO episodes in over 9 years now, despite having dealt with a difficult menopause, as well as some very trying personal life crises.

I thank you and MD from the bottom of my heart, for showing me the path to save my health, and maybe even my life. My biggest sadness about all this is how frustrating it’s been trying to get friends and family to listen to me.

Best,
Madeline Mason

Thanks for the kind words, Madeline.

I’m glad you’ve done so well.

MRE 

No worries.

Pareto Curve is well in effect here at DOL with 80% sitting about and waiting for the great retirements. The weird thing is that just like the top 1% of earners (where 15-20% of people believe they’re in the top 1%), probably 60% of government workers think they are in the 20% that does 80% of the work. If you troll sites that appeal to government workers (GovExec.com or Fed-something-I-can’t-remember), you read a lot of comments from people who left government, tried their hand in the private sector and apparently couldn’t hack so they came back. I’m guessing they were in the 40% who are actually lousy but don’t know it.

Any rate, I have my own passport story from 2004. Sent app in with 9 weeks to go before a trip to Asia, paid the expediting fee. In three weeks (not two), I got a form asking for 10 years of personal history. That took me two-three days to put together (it was twice as difficult as my background check for a public trust position, and 50% longer than my enhanced public trust). They took 4-5 weeks turning that around. I got my passport six days before leaving for Asia, and I still had to get a visa to go to Vietnam. Remarkably, the Vietnamese embassy was able to take a passport fed exed to them on Monday and Visa it and return it from New York to St. Louis by Thursday. Remarkable thing about communist countries… when the government wants something to get done, it seems to get done (I was in Vietnam during the Bird Flu thing… you couldn’t find a chicken ANYWHERE in Ho Chi Minh city… no restaurant, no street vendor, nothing).

Any rate, you keep on knocking em, just remember there’s a useful 10% of us.

Hey Max–

I’m sure you’re in the useful 10% even though you wouldn’t have stopped for Jonathan Bell.  Thanks for not being offended by my government rants.

Cheers–

MRE 

Not a bad idea. 

Thanks, Robb–

And, according to Seyfreid, they work to treat brain cancer.

Cheers–

MRE 

Cheers!

I suppose planning a honeymoon biking in Wales is a good rationale for plenty of pre-marital activities.

Cheers–

MRE 

Few things:
1- By public good, I’m talking in economic terms, as in “consumption of the good by one individual does not reduce the amount of the good available for consumption by others; and no one can be effectively excluded from using that good.” I’m actually talking an extended definition that covers that the cost of the good is too great for any single provider to reap a reward. Like rural electrification, national defense, environmental clean up and firemen and cops. Almost by definition, government is better suited to deliver public goods than the market (I love trotting out the example of privatized fire departments of the 19th century). The debate is really whether public health is a public good or not. I’m in the camp that thinks it is. There’s a lot of room for debate, however.

2- Recently read Beppe Severgnini’s Ciao America. He’s a Italian journalist who lived in DC for a year (he’s done it in other countries as well). He sums up the “American obsessions” thusly: Control, Comfort, Competition, community and Choreography. As far as a chemical/surgery interventive health system (rather than a cheaper preventive holistic system), it appeals to Control and Comfort (and competition too). Take two pills every day for the rest of your life and continue doing everything else the way you were doing it is all about control and comfort. Making changes (even simple ones like carb restriction) is not about comfort. It’s a little about control, but it’s about self control rather than control of the universe.

Happy to be back. Catching up on the blog.

Hi Max–

As your catching up, don’t take all my rantings on gov’t employees to seriously.  I was in a state over the angst I was thrust into with my daughter-in-law’s passport misadventure and the gov’t incompetence that created the situation.

Cheers–

MRE 

Mary Titus