The Biker and God

A man was riding his Harley along a California beach when suddenly the sky clouded above his head and the Lord spoke to him from above and in a booming voice said,' Because you have been a good man and TRIED to be faithful to me in all ways, I will grant you one wish.'

The biker pulled over and said, 'Build a bridge to Hawaii so I can ride over anytime I want'.

The Lord said, 'Your request is materialistic, think of the enormous challenges for that kind of undertaking; the size of the pylons required to reach to the bottom of the Pacific and the concrete and steel it would take to construct them! Imagine the impact on the environment to undertake such a monumental construction.

I can do it, but it is hard for me to justify your desire for such worldly things. Take a little more time and think of something that could possibly help mankind.'

The biker thought about it for a long time. Finally, he said, 'Lord, I wish that I and all men, could understand our wives and girlfriends; I want to know how she feels inside, what she's thinking when she gives me the silent treatment, why she cries, what she means when she says nothings wrong, and how I can make a woman truly happy.'

The Lord replied, 'You want 4 or 6 lanes on that bridge?'

Solved: the riddle of executed First World War soldier Robert Digby

Ben Macintyre thought he knew who condemned a fugitive British soldier to death in France in 1916, and wrote a book about it. Now, ten years later, an e-mail out of the blue has convinced him that he had the wrong man. Here, he sets the record straight.

How one ordinary woman solved a murder

The techniques of an investigative reporter and the tenacity of one woman turned private detective solved a murder.

At the age of 40 Susan Galbreath’s life had spiralled into a dull purposelessness, with no fixed ambitions, targets or goals. By the year 2000, she had two failed marriages behind her, one son, and had moved south from Chicago to Mayfield, Kentucky. Her third husband was an alcoholic and the marriage was in atrophy. She had not worked since an illness in 1998 and anyway had a background without any fixed skills or training. It was a dead end-life in a near dead-end town.

On the morning of August 1 she was having coffee in the local café and the waitress mentioned that a body had been found in the school playing fields nearby. It was a discovery that would change her life irrevocably.

bait

"Simon Wesseley is the problem not the solution"

indie_view_one wrote:
Wednesday, 29 April 2009 at 06:17 pm (UTC)

Is Jeremy Laurance aware that Simon Wesseley has also written papers stating that illness due to the Camelford Water Poisoning was due to hysteria? A slight problem with his theory has been that autopsies of some who were seriously ill from this event have show extremely elevated levels of Aluminium in their brains. Perhaps it was worry they were ill which sucked all the aluminium into the brain or perhaps it was drinking from a water supply contaminated with 20 tonnes of Aluminium Sulphate.

The Independent would be acting like proper journalists if they investigated whether it is appropriate for psychiatrists like Simon Wesseley to act as Government advisors on illnesses like ME/CFS while working as consultants for the medical insurance industry. The insurance industry have an interest in classifying such illneses as psychiatric conditions (despite the WHO classification of ME as a neurological condition) since they have to pay out on far fewer policies.

Is the Independent aware that no Biomedical research on ME/CFS has been funded by the Medical Research Council in the last 12 years? All projects have been funded by charity - even work by Dr Jonathan Kerr on gene expression which may lead to a diagnostic test. Between 2002 and 2008, at least thirty-three Biomedical research projects into ME/CFS were turned down by the Medical Research Council because psychiatrists like Simon Wesseley were among those deciding which projects were funded and turned down any which did not look at ME/CFS from a psycho-social approach.

What's wrong with you? It depends where you live

CINDERELLA DISNEY, professor of psychiatry at THE MAGIC CBT KINGDOM, London, who has studied her own beliefs in illness somatisation when she broke her mind in 3 places, yet the scan only showed broccoli for a brain, says: "People want psychiatrists to deny illnesses as we are the all knowing wizards who section people who disagree with us. MIRZA, SOPHIA? NICE doesn't mention her, so why should we Mr Jeremy Laurance?"

the newscientist, the professor and ME ...

Myalgic Encepahalomyelitis is not fatigue, or 'CFS'

The new paper Myalgic Encephalomyelitis is not fatigue, or 'CFS' explains why M.E. is not defined by mere 'chronic fatigue' and why M.E. and 'CFS' are not synonymous terms, as well as why a diagnosis of CFS based on any of the definitions of CFS can only ever be a misdiagnosis.

Just a village professor with different beliefs ...

TIME for CBT ....

‘Life-changing benefits’ for patients using addiction drug

A drug which is normally used to treat heroin addiction can deliver "life-changing" results for a range of medical conditions, sparking calls for it to be offered more widely to patients.

Medical experts claim that low-dose naltrexone (LDN) has been used successfully for people with a variety of conditions which affect the immune system, including multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease and chronic fatigue syndrome.

At the first European conference into the drug which was initially prescribed in larger doses to block the effects of heroin use, speakers from around the world, including America and Israel, will hear results of trials into the drug and will call on GPs and other health professionals to prescribe it more widely.

It has since been used in doses of between 1mg and around 4.5mg to treat patients with multiple sclerosis and other conditions affecting the immune system.

It is given in a liquid form and patients currently tend to pay privately for the drug, which costs around £15 a month.

Dr Gilhooly said that around half of his patients who receive LDN had been prescribed it for chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, a similar condition in with patients suffer from fatigue and chronic pain in their muscles.

Is this the secret of eternal life?

Most centenarians attribute their great age to some magic elixir or other. The longevity of the Italian scientist Rita Levi-Montalcini, who this week became the first Nobel Prize-winner to reach the age of 100, might be the result of a potion that is a little out of the ordinary: Professor Levi-Montalcini, it is said, puts her undiminished mental vigour down to regular doses of nerve growth factor (NGF) – the discovery that made her famous.

She was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize for Medicine jointly with an American, Stanley Cohen, for her research into NGF: the proteins and amino-acids which enable the cells of the nervous system to grow and take on specialised tasks. Despite her age, Dr Levi-Montalcini, a neurologist and development biologist, still works every day at the European Brain Research Institute, which she founded in Rome.

Warning ...

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Professor Stephen Hawking's medical condition

BBC NEWS | Health |

Professor Stephen Hawking suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the most common form of motor neurone disease.

What causes it?

ALS, which accounts for more than 90% of all cases of motor neurone disease, causes nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord called motor neurones to degenerate and eventually die.

Around one in 10 cases of ALS are thought to be due to genetics, but the trigger for the other 90% of cases remains a mystery.

What is the prognosis?

Poor. The average life expectancy for somebody with ALS is just two to five years from the time symptoms first appear.

However, not all people with ALS have the same symptoms, and the rate of progression of the disease can vary greatly

Professor Hawking first developed the disease when he was just 21 years old, and has lived with it for more than 40 years.

The fact that he has lived for long with the condition has been described as remarkable. BBC NEWS | Health |