taks

oops... that should be "mother's little helper," from the stone's tune. taks

nope, that's sort of my point. i live in a small town, relatively speaking, which has a rather biased conservative viewpoint. not my cuppa joe. my alternative is denver, which is the next san francisco. again, no fun. online news is about the best i can do. taks

i've been in two unions in my life and i hated 'em both. neither was a trade union (teamsters and oil/chemical/atomic workers aka OCAW), which are a bit different. my brother is a mechanic in some union, but i'm not sure which it is. he hates the union, too, but it's better than the alternative (shop foreman doesn't make as much money). taks

oh, i should add, not only does xanax no longer work, it actually triggered an attack last time i took it. so no, i'm not pushing it for any agenda. that's the reason i haven't taken it in two months, really. taks

not sure what your issue with xanax/alprazolam is, but the point was simply that it is either considered the best for such things, or at least the most prescribed. i specifically got the term from wiki, actually on the sertraline page (which compared it to alprazolam) and linked to a NEJM article. i'm not a subscriber and you can't get the abstract. anyway, you said: "Not even benzos as a whole, and especially not Xanax specifically." which is kinda contrary to all three of those links. heck, the original is valium... little yellow helper and all that. uh, whatever. i wouldn't be so quick to say nobody in here has a psychiatric disorder, btw. i realize that there is no 100%, at least not in general. it worked 100% for me, for a short time, then didn't work at all. oh well. CBT is also listed as helpful for about 1/3 of the people that undergo it. what i ended up having was almost post-traumatic stress. my panic attacks had very little to do with "worry," at least not that i was aware of (i was reading a technical paper online when the one hit that put me in the hospital). i have always been a anxious/fidgety person, just part of my personality. oddly, i'm also fairly laid-back in many ways, too (though you could never tell from in here). hehe, nope. like i said, none but the 2% side effects. i actually wish i had the "takes longer" problem, but alas, i do not. taks

good for her. i avoid them, too. way too biased for my tastes. i don't even watch the local news. should have the other night since a friend of mine was actually on there! his car got fire-bombed. not good news, but part of a rash going on around over near my office. taks

meshugger, i think your grandfather suffers from the best disease of all: good genes. taks

okie. apologies. the recent debates (not you, just in general) have me a bit touchier than i should be. plus, i'm bored at the office waiting for some files to copy to my winders pooter. they are terrible, aren't they? i am certain my heart is not going to explode, too. i had a nuclear stress test done and the doc said i passed with flying colors. the problem now is my stomach issues, which kick off the jittery anxiety feeling. even though i can rationalize it away to some extent, i.e., i don't think i'm going to die, i can't shake all of it. unfortunately, once that gets going it also makes the belly hurt worse. argh. i have heard that exercise helps. i'm fat (sort of) and lazy. need to backpack more. i keep telling everyone i want to camp for a living, too. walsh, why do you ask (attempt at getting back on topic!)? taks

i thought that's what you... er, hades, had said? sorry if i'm wrong. taks

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10356648 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12900305 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10622685 while none of these are indicative of usefulness per se, they are indicative of what is being used by the medical profession. to refer to something as a "gold standard" implies "what is accepted." it is certainly anecdotal w.r.t. how well it worked with me, but both times i had a severe panic attack and took one 0.5 mg tablet, said attack went away within 45 minutes. the last time i took it, however, i couldn't even tell anymore... personally, the side effects i had with xanax were minimal compared to zoloft (actually, i take neither, but some generic version). at least, what i am experiencing with zoloft sort of sucks. it works for the extreme events, but it also makes me feel nervous and jittery, even when i don't drink coffee (which i do, too much probably). taks

exactly, and i made that pretty clear, too. it is excellent for short-term, mild to moderate anxiety. it will stop panic attacks 100%, which you cannot improve upon. unfortunately, once the tolerance builds up, it's not really effective. laozi: now you're just being an ass for the sake of being an ass. taks

xanax (alprazolam) is and has always been (well, since 1981) the gold standard. just about everything i've ever read makes that claim. it does completely eliminate panic attacks and general anxiety, its just not a very long-term solution for most (there are people that take it long-term, and i even know some, but results are mixed). sometimes, unfortunately, life is just difficult to avoid. i actually started with panic attacks (ended up in the hospital thinking it was a heart attack) and was otherwise fine... then the stomach problems started and triggered attacks almost non-stop. that's getting better, a bit, but very slowly. taks

with proven problems, problems people like you keep attributing to the "untested system" that i advocate. problems that the "successful economies" supposedly are trying to avoid, yet end up creating in the first place. there's a point at which we're cutting off our hands to spite our faces. it is a joke being played on us, and we are all complicit. i disagree. repeated crises resulting in a move towards even more socialist control are pretty good evidence of "not working." again, you're pointing to "success" within a rigged system... our system is "successful" in a large part simply because it is less regulated than most, and being compared to hugely unsuccessful systems such as those implemented by the USSR, china, cuba and NK. not all regulations are designed to tinker with the economy, such as fraud protection, for example. full disclosure protections, too. there's so much, however, that it is difficult to weed out in a single statement on a message board other than saying "regulations are bad." the statements are general, and i've made that pretty clear. taks

i should add, it is the third way proponents that are hoping for some ideal or utopian way. not me. they think they can solve "the problems of a truly free market," without ever actually identifying what those problems are (other than in some abstract terms that actually apply to their third way systems, not the free market). every single argument that has ever been made is simply false. they sound convincing, but ultimately, they're based on the very rigged system that i've always been against (well, for 20 years or so anyway). taks

sigh... "evaluate an action based on its potential merit to the country/economy"... right. from within the system. you really, can't read, can you. i've never claimed it was utopian, nor perfect. i've always said that it is imperfect, but it is the only fair way to do it. no, you're just an... never mind. taks

why not? just approach it like any other learning opportunity and you should be fine. some of the best jobs i ever had were things i was convinced i wasn't capable of dealing with, but did in the end. taks

^alanschu: sounds to me like you're better off. someone that wants her cake while she eats it too can't be trusted not to do the same with you (oh my, that rhymes). i'm going to test out a new idea for a detection algorithm today. taks

except hades lives in iowa. taks

my positions are based on the opinions of people far smarter than me. i don't just "pick the cause" that i like. i do, daily. taks

which is, IMO, also unconstitutional in spite of the failed attempts to argue that in front of SCOTUS. no way to go back on that, either way. um, their independence, IMO, is an illusion, and their competence... well, we've all seen how that went. well, no, but there is no way for either of us to prove his position that the free market would solve this problem. arguing back and forth is nothing more than opinion. however, it is pretty easy to go back and see how this system does not work. adding more regulation is nothing more than the standard socialist tactic. throw money at a problem, and it gets worse, advocate more money. throw regulation on top of a problem, and it gets worse, advocate more regulation. maybe only incremental, but never ending. taks

ok, AGAIN, the regulation causes the downturns! how are my statements ironic? man... the crash in 29 was also caused by improper monetary controls. ^enoch: i am surprised at you with that, enoch. besides the fact that you probably can't name a single country with greater than 50 million that has tried to operate without a central bank, the entire system, i.e., global, is built around such a thing. it is a rigged game and you, like the rest, are comparing the system against itself telling me i'm wrong. unbelievable. has everyone lost their minds? we have this huge socialist system in place, and it fails, and we go off and blame capitalism? i'm not seeing how anyone can make that logical leap. the conclusion does not follow from the premises. what a joke. taks

there is no free market, so no, it won't be ok. only this mess we have now, which obviously isn't ok. taks

that's disingenuous on its face. a free market economic system is actually cyclical, but not to the same extremes as one that is controlled. a chaotic system does not necessarily require one that booms or busts. taks

yes, by coming in here and debating with all of you guys... yes, zoloft for anxiety. it is actually considered as effective as xanax, which is acknowledged as the gold standard for anxiety. xanax, however, is not very effective after 8 weeks or so (i built a tolerance within 6, actually). i still have some xanax left, but haven't taken any in 2 months or so. not much i can do about the stress. i had one friend refer to my situation as the "perfect storm" of stress. i won't go into details (most of which are already posted in here anyway), but the phd was probably the biggest factor and the resulting stomach issues haven't subsided yet. taks

hmm... makes one wonder whether this painfully slow process of telling us all about BG3 (regardless of opinions on the topic of BG3 itself) is related to the 4E thing? i.e., could other D&D games be in the pipe but held back simply because they started after wotc had nailed down the majority of the 4E rules and likewise, chose to schedule all new games under that banner rather than 3.5E? oh, SoZ won't be the last, even if it is the last official expansion (including premium mods)... there will always be fan content. taks