Obama's Epic Failures

[isobars]

My point exactly. Thanks for reinforcing it. Unlike you, I made no claims other than that "a qualified expert wrote an article." You, however, allege and claim that your facts, assumptions, and numbers trump hers. That's an almost infinite leap of credibility.

[pointster]

[isobars]

Not exactly. I pick my experts, based on the scientific evidence they cite. That evidence is not mine; it's theirs. I do so for many reasons, including:
• My life's at stake, and the $#!+ is hitting the fan.

• Oncologists who teach and wallow in the research have confirmed that I know more about the most relevant practical aspects of my cancer than most physicians and many oncologists do. And I should, simply because I've spent more time studying those aspects than most of them have. They may understand the chemistry and microbiology far better than I, but MANY of them pay little attention to stuff their PATIENTS care about.

• That's not an opinion; it's been proved many times even by the very research they cite and stated, by many of their more honest peers, and by doctors whose careers consist of fixing other doctors' mistakes.

• I'm not claiming without evidence that my chosen cancer treatment facts and choices are universally true (one patient's best treatment option may be very wrong for the next).

• OTOH, you, if I’m reading you right, are implying without solid evidence that you know more about labor cost estimates than does a retired chief economist of the Dept of Labor. I can’t say you’re wrong, but I CAN say I’m not convinced and do not care enough about it to wallow in it. I’m surely not going to quibble over the distinction between a new law and an adjustment to an old one. The effect is the same.

• I can cite thousands of peer-reviewed sources to back up my medical conclusions and findings, from the same body of research the world's physicians rely on for their "evidence-based medicine". The difference is that compared to most of the doctors I see, when it comes to the medical literature I'm more current, am more motivated, have more time to study what's most relevant to me, know more about my own life's priorities than anyone else on the planet, and was not taught BS* in medical school decades ago.

* (Obviously their med school learnin' is not all or even largely BS, but much has changed since today's practicing physicians took classes and MANY of them have not kept up, for many reasons. A simple list of the irrefutable errors I've caught doctors and nurses making just on me would fill a page, with several being potentially fatal and in my case one WILL be fatal.)

• Good oncologists don’t dictate treatments to their prostate cancer (that’s one of mine) patients. They present options, pros, and cons, and let the patients choose their poison. Any patient who gives a crap about his future owes it to himself to verify what he has been told, because far too many oncologists (and, in my experience alone, cardiologists, orthopedic surgeons, PCPs, and more) are coasting through life unwilling to keep current with the research or verify the BS they are fed by pharmaceutical reps.

• Your timing is excellent, because I need this introspection to trust myself in case I have to challenge the Mayo Clinic next week on the most fundamental tenet in all of prostate cancer: that testosterone feeds it like gasoline on a fire. Too many oncologists are now using testosterone very successfully to KILL prostate cancer to ignore their very different hypothesis, and not only my 2016 WSing season but my very life could easily hinge on which side is right.

(Much of the above goes for many aspects of nutrition (a notorious gap in medical school curricula), cholesterol, exercise physiology, and other health-related topics, for the same reasons. Many WSers’ futures, like mine, will depend on choosing the right oncologist, cardiologist, surgeon, etc. and the right science.)

Realize, too, that I took the time to lift my hind leg and spray this on your screen as much for myself as to answer your legitimate question. It’s one of several important questions I ask myself almost daily as I study these topics (and, to a lesser degree because of priorities, politics and AGWA).
Examples:
• What are their (both sides') credentials, sources, biases, etc.

• Who’s right … the doctor I’m talking to or the ones who disagree?

• What’s the evidence? The logic? The science?

• Which doctors can and will answer legitimate, relevant questions or objections, and will research ideas she hasn’t encountered yet? My sharp new PCP recently challenged me* to list some books backing up some of my beliefs concerning the whole diet/cholesterol/heart disease causal hypothesis that doctors have been taught and are still teaching today as gospel. In minutes, from three full shelves on that general topic behind me, I listed 25 such books citing thousands of peer-reviewed publications highly critical of -- apparently even thoroughly disproving -- the entire hypothesis.

* That was one of the easier homework assignments I’ve ever had. Hint: IT AIN’T GOSPEL. It’s one damned bully’s baseless HYPOTHESIS, it’s full of holes you could drive a Pfizer or Merck ship full of harmful statins through, and it’s harming hundreds of millions of people as we type. That bully faked his data and sold it to Harvard/Walter Willett and the big health agencies 50 years ago, and it’s still being taught in most medical schools.

And as soon as I figure out this oncology controversy, my PCP tells me I need to go on a medication for which one book cites 500 peer reviewed studies proving it toxic. Many of you are taking it, as it’s the most widely prescribed drug class in at least the U.S. There’s even a powerful lobby to put it in your child’s drinking water. Will Obama comply? Will you let him?

[swchandler]

"Realize, too, that I took the time to lift my hind leg and spray this on your screen as much for myself as to answer your legitimate question."


Could this be an offbeat attempt to inject some humor into his life or death struggle?

[mac]

Obama has been wrong on the war on terror. This article by Andrew Bacevich is interesting. I'll post this teaser, which gets the overall strategic conundrum right: