Homeopathic treatment for Divorce: voodoo flower essence

The concoction called Surprise Shock Divorce Combination essence I found here (http://rainfloweressence.com/Merchant5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=R&Category_Code=DHE) was tested by a friend at his lab's HPLC (High Pressure Liquid Chromatography) Releasing Divorce/ Loss Anger essence (http://www.alibaba.com/product-free/100905519/Chysanthemum_Flower_Extract_Herbal_Extract_Chrysanthemi.html) reveals chromatographs no different than the Shock Divorce essence above.

Homeopathy: a huge molecule of a funny flower

Using expedient generalization, I told the "doctor" about high molecular weight molecules having little chance of making it into the homeo dilutions, the "doctor', having no background in math or chemistry, conveniently abandoned the defense of the unique protein dilution, and stated that high dilutions which have no chance of retaining a single original molecule do preserve the memory of the molecule. I requested any scientific article showing experiments with water having memory. It is a very fair request: after all, scientists dedicated lifetimes to studying seemingly small, insignificant aspects of water's chemical properties. Surely, homeopathy should be basing its hydro-memory facts on years of research using at least atomic-, and ultraviolet- absorption, mass spectrometry gravity and high pressure liquid chromatography.

The homeodoctor quickly showed me to this passage "...succussion whereby the energetic blueprint or pattern of the substance is held in the remedy but without any of the original material." -no empirical data exists to substantiate this belief. from this site which is highly popular with patients. I offered a bait (a hypothetical scenario) that in the case of having to recover from mercury exposure, a patient would be given a dilution or succussion of mercury. The homeodoctor agreed(!) To which I offered that the succussion probably no longer contains a single ion (they forgot the existence of such) of mercury, and such a patient would be better off saving money and drinking municipal, (somewhat contaminated enough to contain sadi mercury) water from a kitchen faucet. He let out genuine laugh and grew thoughtful. QED. Enough said.

Homeopathy treats the individual rather than the disease so the range of conditions that can be helped is huge! Whilst a diagnosis can seem useful, in homeopathy it is rare that the same complaint is always treated with the same remedy

here is a good example:

A 30X ( 1:1000) dilution means that the original substance has been diluted 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times. Assuming that a cubic centimeter of water contains 15 drops, this number is greater than the number of drops of water that would fill a container more than 50 times the size of the Earth. Imagine placing a drop of red dye into such a container so that it disperses evenly. Homeopathy's "law of infinitesimals" is the equivalent of saying that any drop of water subsequently removed from that container will possess an essence of redness. Robert L. Park, Ph.D., a prominent physicist who is executive director of The American Physical Society, has noted that since the least amount of a substance in a solution is one molecule, a 30C solution would have to have at least one molecule of the original substance dissolved in a minimum of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of water. This would require a container more than 30,000,000,000 times the size of the Earth. Actually, the laws of chemistry state that there is a limit to the dilution that can be made without losing the original substance altogether. This limit, which is related to Avogadro's number, corresponds to homeopathic potency of 12C or 24X (1 part in 1024). Hahnemann himself realized that there is virtually no chance that even one molecule of original substance would remain after extreme dilutions. But he believed that the vigorous shaking or pulverizing with each step of dilution leaves behind a "spirit-like" essence—"no longer perceptible to the senses"—which cures by reviving the body's "vital force." Modern proponents assert that even when the last molecule is gone, a "memory" of the substance is retained. This notion is unsubstantiated. Moreover, if it were true, every substance encountered by a molecule of water might imprint an "essence" that could exert powerful (and unpredictable) medicinal effects when ingested by a person.

Skilled immigrants are returning to their native countries

The first article is from the 16 March 2009 edition of Business Week, page 68, by Vivek Wadhwa America's Immigrant Brain Drain. His discussion focuses mainly on Chinese and Indian skilled immigrants, and their reasons for returning to their native countries are simple - better quality of life (even at a lower average pay), better career prospects (China is figuring out how much it will grow this year, not whether it will grow or fall, and growth creates careers), and the comfort of family and friends. Immigrants have started 52% of Silicon Valley's tech companies, and get many of the Masters and PhDs awarded in science and engineering. And demand for their skills is growing in their home countries. So why can this be bad for America's economy? The ominous portend of this trend is discussed in the second article that appears in the March 7th edition of the Economist, in an article on page 84 Give my your scientists ... - restricting the immigration of highly skilled workers will hurt America's ability to innovate. A few paragraphs that make use of patent data in an interesting way:

Addressing these issues requires data on just how inventive immigrants are, a question that until recently was the province of educated guesswork. But William Kerr, an economist at Harvard Business School, used name-matching software to identify the ethnicity of each of the 8 million scientists who had acquired an American patent since 1975. He found that the share of patents awarded to scientists born in America fell between 1975 and 2004. The share of all patents given to scientists of Chinese and Indian descent living in America more than tripled, from 4.1% in the second half of the 1970s to 13.9% in the years between 2000 and 2004. Nearly 40% of patents filed in 2005 by Intel, a silicon chip maker, were for work done by people of Chinese or Indian origin. Some of these patents may have been awarded to American-born children of earlier immigrants, but Mr. Kerr reckons that most changes over time arise from fresh immigration. What of the criticism that these workers are displacing native scientists who would have been just as inventive? To address this, Mr. Kerr and William Lincoln, an economist at the University of Michigan, used data on how patents responded to periodic changes in the number of H1B entrants. If immigrants were merely displacing natives, increases in the H1B quota should not have let to increases in innovation. But Kerr and Lincoln found that when the federal government increased the number of people allowed in under the program by 10%, total patenting increased by around 2% in the short run. This was driven mainly by more patenting by immigrant scientists. But even patenting by native scientists increased slightly, rather than decreasing as proponents of crowding out would have predicted

Medical insurance call: a case of iridology

The economic crisis apparently has an effect on my business: the patent consultancy has been falling off, and there is a notable increase in the demand to settle alternative medicine cases. It's all logical - people have less capital to secure their intellectual property, and less capital for conventional medical treatment. Hence, they turn to the soothsayers of the alternative medicine, which in the end are as brutal on the bank account as conventional medicine. The most recent case is that of iridology. The state insurance commission called me with the case of a patient that started to combine ear-nose-and-throat MD visits with visits to an iridologist. The lab tests for the last year showed plenty of vitamins, iron and a good liver profile. The patient complained of sinusitis, which really was a reaction to dry, furnace heating-dried air. Yet the iridologist decided that the patient's iris indicated a lack of selenium (!) as well as iron, which was responsible for the stuffy nose. The patient stopped going through with the MD's prescribed, over-the-counter treatments, and made other decisions that complicated medical insurance claims, and prompted me being called onto the scene. I immediately advise the patient to start using a vaporizer, which she had (ultrasonic), and she found a good deal on a hot-water vaporizer that can be attached to the furnace. She immediately reported relief in breathing through her nose. I made an appointment with the iridologist, and made a usual request for a free advice. In the process, I asked the iridologist very basic questions, which challenged the laughable principles of the scam:

1. the founder of the iridology did not know enough about owl's eyes to start making deductions about human eye;
2. the iris is an island in the middle of the eye, relying on the air for oxygen absorption, and on the nutrients seeping through the glassy matter of the eye;
3. the only physical connection to the rest of the body is a nerve that controls dilation of the pupil.
4. iridology has had no clue of the selenium inside the human body, for the last 150 years.

The iridologist has failed to show me the presence of iridology research materials analyzing the ENT problems. Nor did the iridologist produce any publications that are peer reviewed. She referred me to many of internet web sites that brag about case stories (not studies) where diagnoses were made using the owl's eye ideology of the scam's author, with no other lab or doctor-administered tests. I also challenged the iridologist to explain the difference between the iridology assessment of the selenium and iron deficiency, and the professional alb results consistently showing the contrary. That prompted the iridologist to say that iridologists and their patients are successful "because they have faith in it." QED. Case finished.

To buy or not to buy WordLogic

BUY: J. David Stewart, Analyst and Publisher, of the The Stewart Report (see this post) - A 25-year veteran of Wall Street, J. David Stewart is also a private professional investor, stock analyst and publisher of The Stewart Report (now in its 15th year of continuous publication). His acumen as an analyst specializing in small and micro-cap securities has earned him wide media attention, including feature stories in: Money, Fortune and Entrepreneur. He's also been quoted in The Washington Post, The Financial Post, The New York Times, The Financial Digest, Investor's Business Daily, The Dick Davis Digest and Barron's. The impact of his thinking is regularly reported in wire service dispatches by CBS Market Watch, Reuters, Bloomberg and Dow Jones News Service, and he is a frequent guest on national radio and television shows, including CNN. WordLogic Corporation's chart is one of the strongest I've seen in months. Admittedly, the recent market environment has resulted in a lot of very sickly looking stock charts, so I've been seeing some pretty bad stuff - but this picture would look outstanding even if I had nothing but bull-market winners to compare it to. After giving up roughly 90 percent of its value during the broad swoon that befell the entire market during 2008, WordLogic started bucking the general trend in early November and spent the next two months building a solid base from which to launch a New Year's rally - one that easily penetrated the short- (20-day), intermediate- (40-day) and long-term (180-day) moving averages, as well as a declining trend line that had represented minor upside resistance for more than six months. Since the beginning of the year, the stock has gained more than 200 percent, culminating on January 20 with a gap opening and subsequent move that tested the major resistance around 85 cents. Given the strong recent rally, I'd look for the stock to fail in this first attempt to break through that barrier, retrace to fill the gap on some short-term profit taking, then launch a rebound that will not only crack the major resistance but carry all the way to the $1.05-$1.10 level. If that takes some time, new resistance could build beyond that point - but if the stock gets there quickly, a further move carrying back to the 52-week high should follow close behind. The former Managing Editor of The Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Larry D. Spears has served as editor for America's foremost political and economic columnists, including Pulitzer Prize-winner Art Buchwald. As Editor of the Hume MoneyLetter, he polished the works of financial luminaries ranging from J. David Stewart to Wall Street Week host Louis Rukeyser and former U.S. Treasury Secretary William Simon. He also authored and edited "The SuperInvestor Files" for Hume Publishing and created the "100 Steps to Wealth" home-study course for Money Magazine. Currently, he is Editor-in-Chief for The Stewart Report and continues to specialize in the use of technical analysis and options trading, having authored four books on those subjects.