Global Warming Denialism Part 3

So enough of this denialism bullshit. If you're not a trained climatologist, I couldn't give a flying fuck at the end of a gun why you think the scientific consensus is wrong. As for Joe Blow denialist off the street-he has nothing at his disposal but a bunch of poorly understood, faith based, cherry picked arguments absorbed from the mouth of his favorite talk radio host. In short, he has the free-will of a termite.

So what do the vast majority of experts *actually* believe the deal is with AGW? Here's their main arguments and refutations with references if you care to learn about them:

(and refreshingly, Al Gore has absolutely nothing to do with any of this)

Scientific studies have shown that the current warming is not natural.

There are many basic scientific facts which can only be explained if the current global warming is being caused by an increased greenhouse effect due to carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere from humans burning fossil fuels. For example, the planet is warming as much or more during the night than day. If the warming were due to the Sun, the planet should warm a lot more during the day when the Sun has influence. Greenhouse gases trap heat all the time, so they warm the planet regardless of time of day. Another example is that the upper atmosphere is cooling because the greenhouse gases trap the heat in the lower atmosphere. If warming were due to the Sun, it would be warming all layers of the atmosphere.

We know it's warming, and we've measured how much.

Scientists have a good idea how the Sun and the Earth's natural cycles and volcanoes and all those natural effects change the global climate, so they've gone back and checked to see if they could be responsible for the current global warming. What they found is:Over the past 30 years, all solar effects on the global climate have been in the direction of (slight) cooling, not warming. This is during a very rapid period of global warming. (2) (3)

A recent study concluded:“the range of [Northern Hemisphere]-temperature reconstructions and natural forcing histories…constrain the natural contribution to 20th century warming to be <0.2°c>

You can see this in the third graph here (5), where the dotted lines are just from natural causes, and the full lines are natural + human causes.

If that’s not enough to convince you the Sun isn't responsible, consider the fact that no scientific study has ever attributed more than one-third of the warming over the past 30 years to the Sun, and most attribute just 0-10% to the Sun. So the Sun certainly isn't a large factor in the current warming. They've also looked at natural cycles, and found that we should be in the middle of a cooling period right now."An often-cited 1980 study by Imbrie and Imbrie determined that 'Ignoring anthropogenic and other possible sources of variation acting at frequencies higher than one cycle per 19,000 years, this model predicts that the long-term cooling trend which began some 6,000 years ago will continue for the next 23,000 years(6)

So it's definitely not the Earth's natural cycles. They looked at volcanoes, and found that a) volcanoes cause more global cooling than warming, because the particles they emit block sunlight b) humans emit over 150 times more CO2 than volcanoes annually So it's certainly not due to volcanoes.(7) Then they looked at human greenhouse gas emissions. We know how much atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased over the past 50 years (8)

And we know from isotope ratios that this increase is due entirely to human emissions from burning fossil fuels. We know how much of a greenhouse effect these gases like carbon dioxide have, and the increase we've seen is enough to have caused almost all of the warming we've seen over the past 30 years (about 80-90%). You can see a model of the various factors over the past century at the bottom of the page(9). The correlation with CO2 modeled temp is ridiculously close.

This is enough evidence to convince almost all climate scientists that humans are the primary cause of the current global warming.

If you think they're wrong you'd better have a good fucking reason. Because if their right, the denialist is a major part of the problem.

Global Warming Denialism Part 2

One scientist I heard made this remark concerning AGW- "When the science is on your side, you debate the science. When it's not, you attack the messenger".

Al Gore is certainly the messenger, and his name alone seems to be considered as an argument by the non-science trained denialists (who again, are almost all right wing ideologues with no science understanding who are trying desperately to protect corporate interests at the expense of truth. They are basically people rooting for their favorite football team).

So here is the long list of arguments made by the global warming denialists. I didn't make this up. This is a compilation of several other brainstormers and people with degrees studying climate science who have more knowledge and experience in debating denialists. I added one that I thought was missing from their list and I'll start with it-

From "The Top 10 Ways to Tell That a AGW Denialist Hasn't Done Any Honest Research" (warning, far more than 10)

*Attacks the sensationalist media as if the hype itself is evidence that AGW doesn't exist at all.

*Criticizes (or just mentions) Al Gore like that's a piece of evidence

*Claims that as many or more scientists doubt AGW as agree with it.

*Asks a simple question like "If humans are causing global warming, what made the planet come out of the last ice age?"

*Claims the current warming is part of a 'natural cycle' and doesn't know what causes natural cycles.

*Claims the current warming is due to the Sun even though no scientific study has come to this conclusion.

* Claims "Global warming has stalled" due to too small of a sample size in temperature data which flattens the graph and misrepresents overall trendlines.

* Makes a political remark (i.e. communist, liberal, etc.) as a refutation

* Makes a conspiracy remark (i.e. it's just the UN trying to take over the world). Or my personal favorite, "follow the money"

*Thinks scientists haven't considered the fact that climate has changed in the past, or that Mars is warming.

* Thinks the greenhouse effect is unproven

* Thinks that one volcanic eruption emits more CO2 than humans have in 5,000 years.

* "It's snowing in Vermont in the middle of winter. Where's global warming?!"

* Can't answer a simple scientific question (i.e. how is the observed increase in greenhouse gases NOT causing warming?)

* Cites JunkScience, Fox News, right-wing blog, Inhofe's site, etc..

* Makes absurd claims with zero citations

* Blames global warming on water vapor, cow farts, beer/soda carbonation, etc.

* "Models are just guesses" or "we can't predict the future"

* "Soon they're going to tax us for breathing!"

* Cites one outlying study and claims it disproves dozens of others which are in agreement

* Cites one scientist who has ignored the data and contradicted thousands of others

* "Warmer is better"

* "More CO2 is good for plants"

* "They predicted global cooling/an ice age in the 1970s"

* "They can't even predict the weather right for next week"

* "The Earth is 4.5 billion years old and we only have good data for 50/100 years"

* "Scientific consensus has been wrong before" or "the scientific consensus used to be that the Earth was flat!"

* Does not know what a peer reviewed journal is.

* Presents old theories already proven wrong as "new evidence"

* Uses a small part of an article taken out of context while the main article (complete) would contradict them

* States a political think tank as a "reliable source"

* Confuses vast timespans in the past with small windows of time in the present

* Argues that any advancement toward clean technologies will put us back to the stone age

* Quickly turns the issue to China and India and away from the science.

* Has a Christian fundamentalist worldview

* They complain about the word "consensus," as if the word did not imply that alternate theories were considered or as if the IPCC process did not include and consider skeptic opinions such as Gray, Lindzen, McKitrick, et al. They were considered, the consensus was reached. Get over it.

* Global warming science is labeled "fear-mongering," which ironically overlooks that claiming that there is a global conspiracy is the only clear fear-mongering present

* They use any variation of the glib "why is warming so bad?" line, which fails to consider the results of past warming on earth (extinction of most species on the planet; look up the Permian Triassic Extinction)

Global Warming Denialism Part 1

I love the anthropogenic global warming debate more than the evolution vs creation debate for a couple of reasons. They are both very similar in that they are science issues with large unidirectional consensus that are systematically attacked by a group of very angry people with an obvious agenda. These people, amazingly, are usually led by someone with a giant megaphone who surprise! has no degree in science.

Anthropogenic Global Warming(AGW) is more interesting in a way because it is not a wholly religious issue. It is a politically motivated debate over an issue which has already begun to have direct consequences within our lifetimes. Almost all AGW denialists who are non-scientists are right wing ideologues. Why is this? The obvious reason is that corporate interests have the most to lose over climate change policies which may restrict the way they do business.

What is fascinating is that these right wing ideologues will continually blame the left for "politicizing global warming". The main man to blame of course, is Al Gore. So you have a whole group of science uneducated right wing talk radio/Fox news listeners who jump on the global warming denialism bandwagon despite the overwhelming worldwide science consensus that AGW is true, and blame Al Gore for scaring the shit out of everyone. The obvious question is, how could anything be more of a display of "politicizing" a science issue than a bunch of armchair crackerjacks ignoring a worldwide science consensus over data they are completely incapable of understanding, and claiming that all these peer reviewed science papers in peer reviewed science journals are wrong, while their favorite talk radio guru (who has never taken a college level science class in his life, let alone one on climatology) who totally cherry picks his data and is an unashamed transparent spokesman for corporate interests just *happens* to be right.
Don't worry, I left nothing out. There are *no* peer reviewed papers in peer reviewed science journals by AGW denialists. Only debates over the *degree* at which mankind is causing warming.

Within the scientific community, the consensus is overwhelming and ever growing that mankind is responsible for the preponderance of warming. There is not one credible science agency left which is not in accord. This is not to say that every climatologist agrees. But the denialist ranks are shrinking as new evidence has come in.

None of this deters people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage-Weiner, and it certainly doesn't deter their listeners who swallow their upchuck blindly like baby chicks from their mother. They know what their ideology demands that they believe, and by Gawd they will find a way to make it so!

I have had the wonderful fortune of witnessing cross-arguments from denialists and climate experts recently and I have learned a hell of a lot about this issue. It has been highly entertaining. I mainly observed, since I am no climatologist. I didn't understand all the numbers and everything, but I learned the gist of the denialist motivation and I hope to share it in the next two entries.

Letter Avaliable at Target

I was just at my local Target store, and was astonished to notice the new paperback version of Letter to a Christian Nation. My eyes bulged out in amazement. Target doesn't exactly have a huge book selection, and this was one of them. How did Sam pull this off?!?!

I bet it's not at Walmart. If anyone goes to Walmart let me know if it's there.

The Portable Atheist

Got my copy last week and just starting reading a few entries. This is a 480 page book full of excerpts from famous writing over the ages from people like Lucretius, Conrad, Orwell, Einstein, Russell, Spinoza, Mill, Darwin, Hume, Hobbes, Marx, as well as the modern "new atheism" writers. 47 people in total.

I have yet to understand why the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is included. He was a Persian poet from 1048-1123. There are widely varying translations of this into English in volving huge disputes, and people claim Kayyam was anything from a mystic to an atheist. I haven't read it, but my preconceived notion is that he was a mystic misinterpreted as a nihilist by people who didn't understand Sufism. Don't quote me. I have a feeleing however that including Kayyam in an atheist reader would be like including a Buddhist writing as a prop for atheism. I've long suspected that Hitchens deeply misconstrues the things that Harris harps on and this may be a case in point. But I'll look at it and get back.

There were three poems I read that seriously touched me. I have yet to develop into a steadfast poetry fan, but these really hit home and I can see why they were included. Two by Philip Larkin and one by Thomas Hardy.

Church Going- Philip Larkin
Aubade- Philip Larkin
God's Funeral- Thomas Harding

Nonzero- Robert Wright

This Robert Wright book is not related to his masterpiece "The Moral Animal". It is a very well done and well researched book arguing for "directionality" of evolution in both the cultural and the biological realms. Wright uses the concept of "nonzero sum" from game theory. The idea being that greater frequency of win-win scenarios involving things like cooperation, symbiosis, and community are at the tip of the arrow of evolution. This as opposed to the zero sum win-lose game where one party wins at the expense of the other.

Wright's thesis is that the way information is transferred through evolution and natural selection pretty much guarantees a culmination of greater nonzero sum games as evolution proceeds. He even goes on to speculate that things like love are pretty much guaranteed by the process of evolution.

He then addresses the problem of consciousness and where it fits into all this. Is it epiphenomenon just coming along for the ride or something more ingrained? I believe Wright is geniunely agnostic and open minded to this question which makes his attitude very refreshing and appealing to people. He started off his career with interests in psychology, evolution and human nature just when "sociobiology" turned into "evolutionary psychology" in the 70's. His book "The Moral Animal" was one of the first popular offerings of the new ideas at the time.
I first noticed Robert Wright in an issue of What is Enlightenment? magazine. This is a good interview available online.

There is also a TED talk he gave about the concepts of his book.
He was a journalist for Slate and here he has this great site -meaningoflife.tv where he interviews famous thinkers about these topics.

The Moral Instinct

This very long article by Steven Pinker has been gaining popularity in the NY Times. I glanced at the first page when it came out, but today I finally got around to reading all 8 pages. It really is a masterpiece of an essay. It will really challenge the way most people think. But as always, those who really need to read it won't, and even if they did they wouldn't grasp it.
- Aaron, The Proud Elitist

Cheers professor Pinker.

Beck From the Dead

Right Wing tool Glenn Beck has a hemorrhoid surgery go bad and he contemplates suicide in the hospital. I can't stand Glenn Beck. He is a global warming denialist and a patsy of the religious right. Recently he said that it was good that the U.S. was 38th in healthcare because one of the parameters of quality healthcare was access for the poor. And, his reasoning goes, since the U.S. has probably the worst level of access for poor people, Glenn saw that as a good thing for our healthcare system. See, our taxes are made a miniscule fraction lower by not having to provide quality care to the losers of our society (about 1/6 who are uninsured). Thus, we have a really good system. Here's a little visual to help you out:

Beck states- "The politicians are right that we have a health care crisis in this country,". "Where they're wrong is that it's not going to be solved by government, it's not going to be solved by getting the HMOs out, it's not going to be solved by a new marbled-lobby health center," he said. "It's by hiring people that understand about caring for people."

This is utter bullshit. The workers do care, just as much as they do in any other country. That's what originally got them into the field in the first place. What Glenn will not admit and does not wish to understand is that a great cause of the problem is that healthcare is run as a big business. As long as the dough rolls in, nobody of any importance is complaining. Nobody that is... but the people.

So Glenn wants to launch a campaign to fight fight FIGHT the symptoms without acknowledging the problem. That's his job. That's why he makes the big bucks.

Matt Taibbi Telling it Like it is

What makes this doubly wonderous is that he does it right in front of white house spin secretary Tony Snowjob.

"You can send any shit up the flag pole and all these reporters will be fucking soluting right away"

Tourettes Guy Has Died

Apparently Danny was in a car crash awhile ago. He recently died in his sleep. He made millions of us feel good about ourselves for brief periods of time. He will be sorely missed. I hope he is in a better place.

Gotta Love it!

I was into the writings of Sam Harris before this whole fashionability of "atheism" came into vogue (thanks to Pat's tip). I was surprised at how much attention was received. I was accustomed to keeping up to date with the latest writings on these issues. So it took me a long time before I really realized that this was not my own selective attention, but a national and even worldwide phenomenon. I was happy to see this ad appear in the New York Times:

Mormonism

This cartoon was banned by the Mormon church, but I have it on word from an ex-Mormon that it's all true.

Now, even if there were a god of some kind, would it really matter whether you didn't believe anything at all, or you bought into this utter horseshit?

Rabbi Wolpe versus Sam Harris

Rabbi Wolpe vs. Sam Harris Debate

I thought this was a really great debate. The moderator did little to interfere, Harris and Wolpe were visibly in fighting mode with hackles raised, new territory was explored not covered so much in prior debates, and Wolpe (though not remotely convincing) handled himself pretty well and had some pretty clever things to say at times. Harris meets the challenge well, and at the end you feel the audience is sympathetic towards his views.

Judging from their reactions, I believe that the audience watching this debate was left mostly with an attitude of- "There might be something out there, but this religion shit is really not cutting the mustard", which I think is a success. The pressure being put upon the religious is working in dramatic fashion. The talking points are out and about all over the media (despite incessant attempts to distort Sam's position), and they are forcing the religious to become more honest about the meaning of their faith.

It will not collapse overnight. What happens when you change your position (as I've done a couple times), is you begin to discover on your own the points which other people have already made to you. Your own inner dialogue starts to challenge you with observations that feel as if you made them up, despite the fact that they are the same ones others have been telling you all along, you just weren't listening deeply and you weren't capable of allowing them to sink in. Finally you change your position on your own and credit yourself for having thought it through in your own unique way. Only years down the road do you realize that it was another person who really did the convincing. And you'll never admit it publicly. Give it some time, you can mark my words. The fruit of the recent books by Harris, Hitchens, and Dawkins is still about 2+ years away. Suddenly alot of people will start making an Exodus away from their faith, and it won't be clear what caused it, and the atheist books won't get the credit.

Chickenshit in NJ will enjoy seeing Harris debate a Rabbi ;-)

Edge Question of the Year

It's that time. The question posed to our EDGE science and cultural leaders this year was-

WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?

Be warned. You cannot read just one.


Sam Harris was once of a "nature knows best" mentality and has changed. He states- "Like many people, I once trusted in the wisdom of Nature. I imagined that there were real boundaries between the natural and the artificial, between one species and another, and thought that, with the advent of genetic engineering, we would be tinkering with life at our peril. I now believe that this romantic view of Nature is a stultifying and dangerous mythology."

Neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni has lost faith in the idea that people are becoming more rational.

Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll is upset that so much modern science skepticism proceeds from ignorance and not expertise.

William Calvin, professor of medicine says Greenland ice melt data changed his opinion about the urgency of global warming.

Carolyn Porco no longer believes that the obvious benefit of science and reason for dissecting truth from fiction can stand alone in a society of superstition without constant effort and defending.

Biologist Brian Goodwin Believes that pan-sentience may be necessary to account for qualia.

Philosopher Helena Cronin now believes that the preponderance of males populating the highest outlier levels of I.Q. can only be explained by sex differences and not bias.

Chris Anderson editor of wired magazine went from climate change skeptic to "carbon zealot" in 2006 after looking at the overwhelming evidence for himself.

Freeman Dyson no longer believes that the dropping of two nukes on Japan is what brought the war to an end.

Mark Pagel, evolutionary biologist now thinks that Humans are more genetically different from each other than previously thought, and these differences can be behaviorally significant.

Archaeologist Timothy Taylor is no longer the cultural relativist he once was and is more and more choosing to see the past through modern eyes.

Social psychologist david Myers has revamped his whole view over the years and has decided- we are not born blank slates, The unconscious mind dwarfs the conscious mind, sex orientation is not a hoice, among other things.

Neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky thinks reductionism can't explain many problems in neuroscience, and if you want to be a healthy primate, strive to be high ranking.

Researcher Helen Fisher found worldwide that divorce was most common after 4 years of marriage. 4 years is also the usual length of time between pregnancy in our ancestor's hunter gatherer societies, thus supporting her idea of "serial monogamy" amongst primates.

Laurence Smith, professor of geology says that 2007 gave us tremendous climate change data, and long story short, we're pretty much fucked.

Molecular biologist Lee Silver has lost faith in humanity's ability to overcome superstition.

Associate professor Scott Sampson finally concedes that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs after being a doubter.

Wired editor Kevin Kelly thought Wikipedia would never work due to human nature, and concedes he was wrong.

Computer scientist Robert Schank thinks AI can't make a machine resemble human mental complexity in his lifetime or even his grandson's lifetime.

John Horgan now believes the mind/body problem can be solved.

And Many more.....

After going through all the responses I can see there are several themes to this years question:

1) Many people are downcast over the inability of science and reason to win out over superstition despite overwhelming evidence.

2) Consciousness and brain function cannot be understood through reductionism.

3.) The science community has gotten past political correctness on moral and gender issues.

4.) Climate change is really serious and action must be taken now, end of discussion.

The U.S.S. New York

I looked up some facts about the U.S.S. New York. It served during WWI AND WWII and was considered "The Old Lady of the Fleet" during WWII.

"From America's entry into World War II, New York guarded Atlantic convoys to Iceland and Scotland when the U-boat menace was gravest. Submarine contacts were numerous, but the convoys were brought to harbor intact.

New York brought her big guns to the invasion of North Africa, providing crucial gunfire support at Safi 8 November 1942. She then stood by at Casablanca and Fedhala before returning home for convoy duty escorting critically needed men and supplies to North Africa. New York was diverted to Eniwetok to survey screw damage. Nevertheless, despite impaired speed, she joined the Iwo Jima assault force in rehearsals at Saipan. She sailed well ahead of the main body to join in pre-invasion bombardment at Iwo Jima 16 February. During the next three days, she fired more rounds than any other ship present; and, as if to show what an old-timer could do, made a spectacular direct 14"-hit on an enemy ammunition dump. Leaving Iwo Jima, New York at last repaired her propellers at Manus, and had speed restored for the assault on Okinawa, which she reached 27 March 1945 to begin 76 consecutive days of action. She fired pre-invasion and diversionary bombardments, covered landings, and gave days and nights of close support to troops advancing ashore.

She did not go unscathed; a kamikaze grazed her 14 April, demolishing her spotting plane on its catapult. She left Okinawa 11 June to regun at Pearl Harbor."

This picture shows the place Joe was standing on 14 April during the kamikaze. Click on it for full size. Needless to say, you wouldn't want to be standing underneath that gun when it went off. Now that I recall, I remember him explaining to my father on the U.S.S. Misourri in that same location on the ship what had happened. He was frantically trying to turn a wench for some reason amidst the chaos.

Grandpa Joe in Memoriam

A couple of weeks ago, my grandfather Joe died. I was waiting to take some of these photo album pictures with my new camera to share. Some I think are really amazing.



This is my great grandfather. He was a Lithuanian Pollack. This is the only picture I have of him. My grandfather never really knew him well and what memories he had of him are unknown to me. This is all because when my grandfather was very young, his father put him on a boat and sent him to a Catholic school in America for a better life. At some point later, I understand they met again, and neither could understand the others language at all.





Grandpa Joe at Catholic school. I think it was in Boston. Now that I think back, it really is sad how little I know about the specifics of his life. We never were really close. He had two sons and a daughter (my mother). My mother was his pride and joy. Before she was born, my grandfather got drunk, walking along a dock in the harbor (I think in Boston), and decided to name my mother "Cara-Lou" after a nearby bar. Fortunately for mom, she was easily able to switch it to Carole.

I can't believe how skinney he is in this picture. Luckilly I didn't get his pecs. Joe was on the U.S.S. New York during WWII. From what I have been told, the New York saw some of the heaviest fighting of any battleship in WWII. That could be my brother bullshitting again though. What I do know is that the New York got kamikaze attacked by surprise. Joe was on the deck when it happened trying to repair something. Someone fired the 20" gun right above his head. It blew his eardrums out and knocked him unconscious. An astute sailor saw Joe and dragged him to safety. He related a story once about how his ship ran out of food and they rationed the crew to the point of starvation. Joe said the hunger he endured was the worst pain of his life. I wouldn't be surprised if this picture was taken soon after that.

I've always thought this picture belongs on the cover of some book or chapter heading about WWII. Joe "Big Dick From Boston" posing on his ship. When I was a kid, Grandpa Joe came to visit and we took him to the U.S.S. Missouri which was stationed at the Bremerton naval shipyard here in Washington. There is a monument on the deck of the ship which marks the exact place where the Japanese leader signed official surrender to the United States. My grandfather cried on that spot and wanted some time alone.



He married my grandmother Dorothy after the war. They stayed together for the rest of his life, raised three kids, spoiled their grandchildren, and had many good times together






I think Joe lived a very full life, and was at peace and ready to go when he did. The slow progression towards death took a toll on my 80 year old grandmother, and was probably somewhat humiliating and demeaning. First the fall and the broken hip, then the pneumonia, then the congestive heart failure with the regular lung drainages, the pneumonia again, and then the nursing home, and then the pneumonia one final time that you just can't shake off. If there is a typical way to die in America this was it.



My lasting memory of Joe was when we were alone together watching the thoroughly depressing movie "Leaving Las Vegas". My grandfather fought and risked his life and gave all he had to save the world. After being victorious, he lived a long life watching the societal corruption develop around him, the fruits of his incredible sacrifice amounting to nothing but another generation of corrupt, wisdomless, gutless, hedonistic, usurping human beings. Saving one generation did nothing at all to save the next. The seed of the greatest generation was not another "Lamarckian style" great generation. It was merely a clean slate with the same old human nature set up to run free and corrupt once more from scratch. So my grandfather sat watching Leaving Las Vegas like the Buddha sat next to the river at the end of Herman Hesse's book "Siddhartha", resigned to his own enlightenment and unable to teach his son anything he struggled so hard to learn himself. Resigned to the eternal insignificance of everything.

We talked about this in mumbles after the depressing as hell movie. He shook his head back and forth and said a few times in a row,

"Nothin' means nothin'.
Ain't nothin' means nothin'."

And I'll never forget it because I know he really meant it.
I didn't agree at the time, and I took it as a sign of his old aged bitterness.

I agree with him now. And I am young, and I am not bitter at all.

First White Christmas in Over 26 Years

Just testing to see if the videos from this new camera are worth fooling with. This is the first white Christmas for at least 26 years in this area, as long as my family has lived here. I tried looking up when the last white christmas was in Seattle and found no information. Wikipedia gives a list of cities with odds of there being snow on the ground on Dec. 25. Seattle gets 8% odds. This is probably higher than reality if you only go by the last twenty years here. It was notably colder in this area in the mid to early 20th century. When I was a kid, you never saw rabbits or racoons around, and now they're everywhere. In the 90's my dad (being a nature buff) was astonished that we were seeing different species of birds and animals along the coast where he went fishing that normally didn't travel this far south (this was before anyone said anything about global warming, and everything was just blamed on more and more frequently occuring El Ninos). Over time he was particularly proud that his garden seemed to bloom earlier and the growing season was a bit longer (his excellent gardening skill of course). There was a periods of 2 weeks when I was a kid that the temperature didn't get above freezing here. This doesn't come close to happening anymore. There are photos in the local shops of our harbor taken from the earlier 1900's that show it completely frozen over thick enough so that cars could literally drive across it. Modern locals look at the pictures with amazement because we know that it never comes remotely close to getting cold enough to freeze salt water *that* thick (admittedly there is a fresh water stream that helps out a bit). Even this white Christmas, the temperature was actually 34, and it was only snowing at the top of our hill. It was almost all melted within hours, but we got about 3/4" and it might snow again tomorrow.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas. And let us not forget the *true* reason.... for the season.

The Reason Project

Sam Harris sets up "The Reason Project". Sounds good. In the "culture wars", victory is assured for science and reason, because it is the only thing that ultimately works. The only question is, how long? How much suffering? And how much bullshit? Where Christianists claim historical successes, it is only because they rob from the fruits of science and reason and claim credit for the results.


The Reason Project (From Sam Harris)

The Reason Project will soon be a 501(c)(3) charitable foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. The Reason Project will draw on the talents of prominent and creative thinkers in a wide range of disciplines — science, law, literature, film, journalism, information technology, etc. — to encourage critical thinking and wise public policy. It will convene conferences, produce films, sponsor scientific research and opinion polls, award grants to other non-profit organizations, and offer material support to religious dissidents and public intellectuals — all with the purpose of eroding the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world.

If you want to be notified when The Reason Project officially begins its work, or receive information about its future activities, please join the email list on this website.

Smarter than a Chimp?

I was amazed when I saw this. I heard about the study, but I truly did not realize they were this quick mentally.

Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)

Won the Nobel prize in literature in 1930. Ron Paul recently quoted Lewis on Hardball, probably from his book "It Can't Happen Here" (1925), a story about a fascist elected as American president (something which actually was a hair away from happening in the U.S. at one time).

"when fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in a flag carrying a cross."

audio is at onegoodmove.org

Oxymoron of the day: "Moderate Islam"

"Where are all the Islamic Moderates" asks Ayaan Hirsi Ali, even though she knows the answer to that question. EXCELLENT article. I hope it turns some heads. Interesting when simple truths sound like heresy.

"If moderate Muslims believe there should be no compassion shown to the girl from Qatif, then what exactly makes them so moderate?
When a “moderate” Muslim’s sense of compassion and conscience collides with matters prescribed by Allah, he should choose compassion. Unless that happens much more widely, a moderate Islam will remain wishful thinking. "

NY TIMES Article

Atonement Review

It's been awhile since I read the book, but I was shocked to noticed how everything looked just about how I pictured it. I don't know how McEwan does it, but reading his books is visual without reams of descriptive text. In ways he is minimalist with his setting descriptions but you never feel need of more description. The movie scenes were ripped straight from the book almost completely.

It could not have been made any better. Well one way. We could have seen knightly's boobs more clearly. All we get is a wet T-shirt image.

The brilliant directing scheme has the story told through Briony's eyes, misinterpreting events from afar, then flashing back to the events from Celia and Robbie's eyes at which point what really occured is revealed to the audience. It works perfectly and is believable, even more believable than the book for me.

The girl next to me was literally weeping and the ending had not even come yet. I was in a jammed packed audience in a small artsy theater. When the devastating hook came I could feel the people around me turn white. The weeping college student was now choking with her head between her knees. When the credits rolled people sat in stunned disbelief. The people around me said "that was so beautiful" and "that was so amazing".

The plot of this movie is incredibly original. It is important that it is set in WWII because one of the side-themes of the story is how much is lost in war. How war takes complex lives and relationships and rends them undone. Not just undone, but unsatisfyingly cut-off from their resolution in messy meaningless ways- a reality we avoid in our polished documentaries and reminisences of these grotesque historic events. But the audience has no idea exactly how cut off from the resolution the truth really is until McEwan lets go the molten wrecking ball right to the head.

The movie, like every McEwan thing I've read is an illustration of nihilism- the part we don't acknowledge about the truth of our lives that makes them livable. Of course you won't see that told anywhere or described that way anywhere, but that's exactly what it is. My favorite McEwan short story involves a very kind fat women who takes it upon herself to raise a couple of children who are neglected by their immature parents. The women is teased and ridiculed about her homeliness. McEwan delves into the psychology of the obese woman, her loving care for the children, the sadness and cuelty of her life and the trag and unfair way she is treated, despite her saintliness. In the end of the story, she takes the children for a leisurely boat ride. At some point they start laughing at a joke or something, I can't remember. But the fat women laughs so hard that the boat begins rocking. Her sheer girth creates havoc and as chaos erupts in the boat over her fit of choking and laughter, the balance is disturbed, the boat tips and the children drown because nobody had taught them how to swim. The end.

Atonement is much like this. And so is raw life, before a human mind comes along to organize it into patterns which don't exist.

See it.

"Atonement" by Ian McEwan- the atheist's response to Paulo Coehlo's children's story "The Alchemist"

Atonement Opens Stateside

My favorite book by my favorite author has been turned into a movie with glowing reviews and best picture nods. The story of atonement is devastating. The feeling of the ending of the book stayed with me for a week after I finished it. Apparently the movie does it justice.

It comes out today, but only in a handful of theaters. I may have to drive 50 miles to see it today, if it isn't sold out.

This is one of the year's best films, a certain best picture nominee. -Roger Ebert

It ranks with the best novel adaptations of recent times. - Hollywood reporter

Atonement is so good it redeems our faith in intelligent drama.

- Box office magazine

As close to perfection as mere mortals can aspire to - Killer movie reviews
As good a film as one could imagine having been made from a great work of contemporary fiction. -Wallstreet Journal

Atonement is everything a true lover of literature and movies could possibly hope for. It is unquestionably, without any reservations, my favorite film of the year.
-New York Observer

Naushaba and Sayaar's Brief Honeymoon

Just got these pics. They went to crater lake and decided to postpone the big honeymoon for a little later. They look well rested and Sayaar looks happy to be away from the mobs of people. I can't believe Naushaba has to work today. Otherwise they would have gone to Hawaii. So this morning Sayaar, Joeron, and me are going post thanksgiving shopping. I'd rather be dragged over hot coals slowly with my balls exposed, but it's the last time I'll see Joeron. He is inviting us all to come to Amsterdam or anywhere else in his neighborhood and I told him I would take him up on that.

Naushaba Gets Married

My best friend and favorite person on planet Earth got married this weekend.

Below, one the most interesting pictures I've ever been in. Friend from Holland Joeron couldn't get his camera to have a fast enough shutter speed so he was taking some psychedelic moving pictures. Here's me and Safoora, one of the cutest women in the world. She only eats Halal meat though (Islamic Kosher), I've tried my best. Naushaba's step-mother was trying to get her to marry me. 2 years ago she tried to get Naushaba to marry me. I thought of pleading with my wonderful advocate to simply arrange something by force.

Top Election Issues

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

Pt 7: Letting go of God and Chiropractic

If you've really read all this and care about my life enough to do so, I say thank you. This really is what I have been doing these last 10 years.

I remember going to this website full of ex-Chiropractors and a few still practicing Chiropractors who speak out about everything they went through. Many of their stories were very similar to mine. I was choked up to read a thread about ex-Chiropractors commiting suicide this morning as I researched these posts. I was fortunate enough not to have been married or with children and other responsibilities. I can only imagine the pain they went through as they began to realize they were living a lie. Here is a typical rant from a student who went to "life university"

"The threads i see here about suicides in the profession don't do the truth justice. Look back to 1984 I knew one personally. He had quit his profession as an air traffic controller to become a chiropractor. The last thing he said to me during exams before he killed himself was I feel kind of funny. It is so true that if you decide to get out so many of the people you care about will turn against you....Another was when my friend told me we had fallen for a bunch of bull shi### before he killed himself. We were young in our 20's and thinking our motives were pure we thought we had a chance. We never had a chance. Chiropractic is a circus tent. Where are the clowns?"

Eventually I was forced out of Chiropractic by a lucky event which only cost me about $2,000. I had rented an office space and was going to hire an old friend who had cerebral palsy to be my front desk person. Due to her condition she couldn't maintain her job in an ER because all the walking put too much stress on her knees. I could not afford to start the practice and she stated she had a trust fund that she would never be able to use unless she went off disability benefits. So she was going to help me out a few thousand dollars from the fund. She paid for much of the office furniture, the advertising and insurance. Looking back it wasn't much, but it seemed like it at the time. After a couple of months I started receiving bill after unpaid bill for things she "paid" for. She had lied, and I was swamped. I confronted her parents and she turned out to be a confirmed pathological liar. This was the greatest thing possible for me. I was forced out of practice. Forced to move on. I sublet the space.

Most people who I've known, if asked, would say "Aaron failed in practice, and because he couldn't be a successful Chiropractor, he got out of the profession". No string of words could be more false.

Most importanly due to this experience, it began to help me realize that there is no God. There is no plan for my life. All my tears and prayers and begging for guidance was just me talking to myself. It took a couple more years for me to say "I am an atheistic materialist", but at that moment I lost my ability to take spirituality seriously, and this opened the floodgates to the pressure cooker of the cognitive dissonance. It was an Aha! experience which brought the epiphany that no god or "Universe" or spirit, or life purpose is desiring me to save the world through Chiropractic. Over time it sunk in and I began to heal from the madness.

When I was a spiritualist I was frequently depressed. Suddenly I found myself going several weeks at a time without experiencing more than a day or two of depression, whereas before it would be classified as clinical. Although I was financially devastated, I could pull my foot out of this bear trap and start limping forward finally. I finally understood why I couldn't immerse myself into the belief systems several of my other friends accepted. I figured out why I had so many problems with what they believed and said. It wasn't because of something bad about me, it was something good! I was critical and analysing and I saw through all of their bullshit beliefs. Once I quit blaming myself for "not getting it", I felt so much better, and ceased to be depressed.

I look back at where I was and it is inconceivable that I believed many of the things I did. It was an entirely different life. After some time I became fascinated with why people believe such weird things. The people I once hated or thought were delusional- Dawkins, Shermer, Dennett, Sagan, etc... Became my heroes.

I became humble. I realized how incredibly stupid I am. I lost the ability to really take myself seriously in some ways after having fallen so deeply for things that are so demonstrably ridiculous. But I felt good about this. Being stupid and seeing clearly is better than being brilliant and delusional.

This account is nowhere near complete, and is quite lazy, but that's what blogs are for right? There is much here that is missing, and I have skipped over troubling aspects of Chiropractic that are more major than what I've remembered, but truth be told I don't think about Chiropractic much anymore until someone brings it up. As I said in the beginning, it is like having had a divorce. But in this divorce, no matter how far you have grown apart from your spouse, she always returns and someone always has to bring her back up again. You can be sitting sround a dinner table anywhere at any time enjoying your meal and someone can say something like "Now why did you divorce her again? Can you explain it to me? I would have never let someone like that slip through my fingers. Pass the mashed potatos."

Oh well. I am getting better at dealing with it, but that minimum monthly student loan payment for 22% of my monthly income never ceases to make my veins pop out. Ya, no shit. And funny thing is, if there weren't money in Chiropractic, nobody would give a shit. It's all about money and power.

I'd like to thank Chiropractic for teaching me that there is no god, no spirit, and that everything about us as human beings, from our most base and violent qualities to our most noble altruism, is purely Darwinian.

Pt 6: My Journey Pt 2

Chiropractic helps people. It's function is extremely complex. If it didn't help people it would have been simple for me to get out of it. My father has a serious L5 disc degeneration which causes demonstrable problems related to the neurology of his leg muscles, as well as pain. By merely rolling him on his side once in awhile, it dramatically improves his condition. This is where I fully support spinal manipulation. I do not speak bad about it, and if every patient were similar to my father, I would still be in practice. But they aren't. I suppose if you could single out every patient who actually responded because of the biomechanics of the adjustment and got rid of the rest, Chiropractic would collapse pretty quickly.

I bring up my father because his response to the adjustment convinces him beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am the stupidest human being alive for not being a Chiropractor. It eats me up, and I could never make him understand.

My mother and brother have major spinal issues as well, but receive only palliative results from adjustments and no lasting aid. And this is what you get from Chiropractic- a handful of people really do have a dramatic positive result. Many people have a palliative temporary relief of pain due to the release of endorphins and the subsequent muscle relaxation following the adjustment, many receive no benefit and a few get worse. When you add the very powerful placebo effect in the mix you get all sorts of interesting anecdotes. Patients will often tell the Chiropractor that they have gotten dramatically better even though they haven't and time tells that eventually. Most back and neck pain is self limiting anyways, so going to a chiropractor and receiving a temporary endorphin release by stimulation of the mechanoreceptors in the spinal joints will give the false impression to people that the adjustment helped solve the problem, even though the pain was self limiting. As they say, back pain takes a weeks to go away laying in bed and only 7 days with chiropractic.

All in all people like their chiropractors. They stay in business because they are gregarious and work on their patient care skills. They understand that making people feel good is what brings people in more than the actual adjustments they sell. This is missing in the medical field, and just the nice environment makes people love their chiropractor.

There are probably hundreds of different Chiropractice techniques, or maybe a different one for every Chiropractor. Some are hard and forceful and some don't require touching the patient at all. There is a woman in Seattle who vibrates her hands over her patient's neck without touching it. She was on Evening Magazine (a local T.V. show). She has patients lined up out the door and people who have experienced *dramatic* results from her awesome Chiropractic expertise. It must have taken her years to master this skill.

One friend of mine does a technique almost identical, but it uses a metal stylus. This is called "atlas orthogonal" technique (above picture). Using x-ray analysis, you position the stylus on the 1st vertebra just so. Then a tiny impulse imperceptibly pushes the stylus against the vertebra. You can't even feel it. Turning your neck or coughing puts more stress on the 1st vertebra than does this adjustment. This friend of mine also does traditional forceful popping style adjustments. When asked why he still does the non-force atlas orthoganal adjustment his reply was "we still do AO because it gets the best results of any of the adjustments we do".

So, if you live in my universe, this statement can be rearranged to say "generally speaking, doing absolutely nothing at all gets better results than popping the vertebra for most people".

Pt 5- My Journey

After the first trimester of Chiropractic school it dawned on me that nobody had any objectified method for practicing. At that point I thought briefly about dropping out. By the near mid-point of the curriculum I lost interest in the purely biomechanical approaches of chiropractic because I decided it was unnatural to manipulate the spine on a regular basis, and frankly, I didn't like being adjusted myself and found no reason to be. This led to a crisis for me, where I had nowhere to go but the metaphysical route. At that time I was heavy into yoga and meditation and the metaphysical realms of Chiropractic were imbedded in the same foundations of spiritualism that I was getting involved with. I paid exhorbitant sums to attend seminars on things that were so kooky I couldn't believe anyone would buy into it. I developed a sense of "groupthought" with the people I was surrounded by and blamed myself for "not getting it" instead of realizing that it was the people I was surrounded by who were delusional. But I was trapped.

I remember sitting in my apartment one incredibly hot and humid Iowa summer with the air conditioner blaring, laying on the couch in my underwear. My shirt and tie and slacks were laying on the floor and I was supposed to be at the student clinic getting credits to graduate. But I sat there in a state of bewilderment wondering what in the hell I was doing there. I was not accumulating the credits to graduate because I could not stomach the absurdity of the student clinic. I decided not to go to the clinic at all, and I eventually barely got the credits I needed.

At a talk by the school's president the huge crowd stood and roared with enthusiastic smiles and clapping. I stood just to avoid looking weird. I looked at my friend Diane and said sadly, "I don't want to be a Chiropractor". I called my friend Maria and told her that I did not want to be a Chiropractor.

For the next 3 years after graduation I was in a state of living torment and profound cognitive dissonance. I did not have any desire whatsoever to practice Chiropractic. My goals was to try to pay off my student loans as quick as possible and live like a monk to do it. I took an associateship position making good money and after 2 months found my throat muscles literally locking up from my conscious inability to continue telling people things I knew weren't true. I quit out of the blue, for my health. They offered me more money, and I declined. The guy I worked with made 600k a year, doing what a chimpanzee could do.

But I was deep into spiritualism. I lived my life as a servant of God, the universe. I blamed myself perpetually for doubting Chiropractic, believing that this profession was god's calling for my life, and I just "didn't get" something everyone else did. The only way I could keep making sense of it was to blame myself. I would call and talk to every Chiropractic friend I had and tell them that I didn't want to be a Chiropractor, and every one of them would explain to me that I "just didn't get it", that I "just needed to have faith", or needed to "trust the Universe". I believed them. Once again the cognitive dissonance was overwhelming. What I believed concerning spirituality was so at odds with the actual reality of Chiropractic that I couldn't place the two together, but I knew I had to find some way to do this or be out 100k-300k and end up on a park bench.

I tried weakly to start my own practice on the cheap. My heart was far from into it. I thought that by meditating I would get an epiphany from God that would see me through. I didn't believe in any Chiropractic techniques so I literally invented my own and got the same apparent "results" as anyone else. I remember one family I helped bring together with my care, the father was a brilliant Microsoft programmer who became an alcoholic and the wife hated her job and wanted to quit and move on. The daughter was very smart, but underperformed in school. Somehow I brought these people together by touching them and caring for them and they thought I was God. They made profound changes in their lives, and I felt so incredibly sick inside doing pure quackery and having it do such great things for people. I couldn't hold up the illusion. I couldn't live this way, but it's God's desire for my life, I thought. I have to live this way. It's all my fault that I can't.

I took menial jobs while halfheartedly trying to start a practice. I lived with my parents. The pressure and embarrassment was cooking me alive. Everyone wondered why I had such a problem with Chiropractic. Why was I such a loser? Why was I living at home when I was 27? Why didn't I just practice like everyone else did?

I contemplated suicide.

Pt 4- Chiropractic Smokescreens

This picture is of the "subluxation station". It looks fancy but is utterly worthless.

In Chiropractic College, you take a business class which tells you how to market yourself and how to do what is called a "report of findings". After doing your x-rays and whatever you do, you sit down with your patient and answer these questions: What is wrong? How does it get fixed? How long is it going to take? How much is it going to cost?

What I experienced in business class, sitting in the auditorium with about 200 of my classmates listening to the instructor, was the full transparent awareness that not a single one of us had an honest answer for any one of those questions, and we all knew it. And when you add to this the total known fraudulence of the analysis methods I mentioned, it becomes clear that the "report of findings" is nothing at all but a salesman's gimmick. And that is exactly what it is by it's very definition (as it includes findings which have been demonstrated to be invalid). Of course, there are some people who actually *believe* what they are telling their patients during these sessions and alot of these people are fundamentalist Christians or spiritualists involved in certain groups with names like "Body by God". Needless to say, these people are divorced from the need to explain anything rationally.

But can't you just practice Chiropractic like a medical doctor practices medicine and take in hurting people and help them? No. Because there are almost as many hurting people as there are Chiropractors nowadays and not enough of them just walk through your door. You have to market hard. You must be a salesman. And if someone else has an approach which scares the patient shitless and makes them feel they need to come back again and again, that bird will get the worm. Marketing includes giving talks, going to malls with booths, going to marketing groups and advertising yourself, making connections, incessantly explaining what it is you do and why. Eventually after years of this you may end up with a word of mouth practice where you can stop all the marketing.

Now for a couple more common deceptions.

One leg is shorter than the other- This is an absolute joke. I almost puke evertime I hear someone tell me this. just stand on one leg and bend it a couple of time and lay down. One leg appears shorter because the muscles are contracted. It doesn't last. Most Chiropractors know this is bullshit. Patient's don't.

Ongoing wellness care- If you get regular adjustments you will "add life to years and add years to life". There's no evidence that people who get adjusted live longer. People who care about their health certainly are healthier, so you can't make the correlation that people who decide to get regular adjustments are healthier because of it. The ongoing wellness care is certainly a good marketing tool. I don't get adjustments anymore. I have no desire to at all, and it doesn't feel natural to me.

I could write a book about all this, but why? Most of the practitioners it would be aimed at already know this stuff and simply don't care.

Pt 3: Common Chiropractic Deceptions

This is merely my own opinion after having thought about this for ages-Nearly everything that Chiropractors say about what they are doing, how, or why is baseless.

Chiropractors use three methods to find spinal misalignments:

Palpation- Feeling the spine and moving the joints. This has been shown conclusively by studies not to be effective and has no interexaminer reliability.

Intrumentation- The most common being heat sensing equipment or EEG equipment that measures and graphs heat and electrical activity of the paraspinal muscles, looking for imbalances. Chiropractors market this as a perfect science. I actually worked in an office that used this. All 3 of the Chiropractors working there agreed that it was perfectly worthless. But we charged for it, and we rationalized it all by saying that it is "good for patient education". Every Chiropractic friend I have agrees that these machines with names like "subluxation station" or "myovisions" are perfectly worthless. The studies on them are pointless and fruitless. They provide no value at all to the practitioner. The value is merely in giving the patient an artificial visual aid to show them that their body is assymetrical, and to lead them to the false assumption that this is pathological and Chiropractic care is going to improve their lives by fixing this. One practicing friend I have is irate that Palmer College (where we went to school) has incorporated these junk machines in their student clinics.

X-rays- One of the most common strategems Chiropractors are trained to use is to show a "normal" spine in comparison with an x-ray of the patient's slightly crooked spine and then claim that we can help you make this better. False. Almost nobody has a straight spine, and no amount of adjusting is going to make an adult spine straight. To make matters worse, the chiropractor telling you this knows it! It's just more "patient education". Needless to say, the x-ray analysis has been shown in studies done by Chiropractors to have a worthless degree of interexaminer reliability. Reading x-rays for pathology such as disc herniations, degeneration, fractures etc... is a different issue and is not what I'm discussing here.

When taken as individual things- X-rays, Instrumentation, and Palpation have been shown in research done by Chiropractors to be virtually worthless at informing the Chiropractor what to adjust. But Chiropractors maintain that if you combine all three worthless detection systems together, they make a good system of detection.

Since most of the Chiropractors I know are intelligent enough not to "give a shit about subluxations" anyways, it doesn't much matter. "Being a subluxation fixer is like being a deaf piano tuner", I heard one person say.

Pt 2: What is Chiropractic?

Chiropractic was started by D.D. Palmer (left) near the turn of the century and developed by his son B.J. Palmer. Palmer was a spiritualist who thought that misalignments in the spine blocked the life force from the brain to the rest of the body.

Chiropractic followed the route of the typical placebo effect. It started by focusing only on the upper cervical vertebrae. Initially, like most new placebo therapies, people claimed dramatic miraculous results. Then, like most placebo therapies, the results began to wane and the technique was tampered with again and again. Each time some change was made to the upper cervical adjustment, results improved and then waned as it became old again and the hope and expectation that drives the placebo effect diminishes. This went on and on until the placebo effect waned to the point where people decided to start tampering with the whole axial skeleton from occiput to coccyx. The idea was to restore the flow of the nerve impulse from brain to body by removing vertebral subluxations (tiny misalignments of the vertebra). Up until this point, there wasn't a word about neck or back pain. It never originally had anything to do with neck or back pain.

But by the 1950's, Chiropractors noticed that there was an effect on pain from adjusting the spine. The original placebo miracles of D.D. Palmer's adjustments were too rare now to provide effective marketing, so there was a campaign to start selling the profession based on musculoskeletal pain relief. Since then, there has been enormous confusion between the metaphysical/life force/placebo effects of Chiropractic and the musculoskeletal therapeutic effects of the adjustment.

Many Chiropractors want to focus on the metaphysical aspects of original Chiropractic while many see the metaphysical ideas of original Chiropractic as bunko and want to focus on pain relief. Most combine the two ideas and hope to draw as many patients as possible into their net.

Insurance companies hate Chiropractors. When Chiropractors bill for insurance, they mark subluxation codes no matter what the patient is coming for and no matter what the Chiropractor is doing. There is not the slightest bit of reliable evidence that tiny subluxations have any effect at all on anyone. As most of my practicing Chiropractic friends have told me personally, "I don't give a shit about sublxations". Old time Chiropractors who have been getting regular adjustments to fix "subluxations" for most of their lives are currently dropping off like flies, dying before their time.

On Chiropractic

Chiropractic is the bane of my existence.

It is like a divorce process that never entirely goes away. It lingers with me due to a gigantic student loan burden, and the inability to explain to people why I would choose not to practice Chiropractic. In any social situation I am absolutely guaranteed to be met with a crowd of astonished people who force me into admitting that I was once a Chiropractor and who ultimately think I am insane for not practicing Chiropractic- primarily because of the pay-cut and nothing else. There is not a word I can say to make them understand. In fact, there may not be a human being on this planet who really knows why I am incapable of practicing Chiropractic, because it can't be explained briefly in a way people would understand.

The next several blog posts will break down this issue in detail, allowing me to explain things and hopefully giving me a chance to refer specific people here to read this.

Let me start by saying that it is humanly impossible for me to practice Chiropractic. My goal in this series of posts is to give some idea why.