We love ours! She's very low maintenance, once you get the tank and lights all set up. She sleeps for days at a time during the winter, and doesn't eat much then. The rest of the year, she eats veggies and crickets. We live fairly close to a petco, and buy crickets once a week or so. She doesn't love to be handled, but tolerates it fine. We don't play with her enough, I'm afraid. :blush: We've had ours for 6 years, and the people we got her from had had her for a few years before that. Our vet says she's never seen one that old though.

Maybe you could explain that the denominator is the number of parts something is divided into, and it can't change. So if you have a pizza divided into 8ths, 3/8 is 3 of those pieces, and 1/8 is one of those pieces, so together they make 4/8. But the pizza is still in 8 pieces, not 16.

Neti pot. Around here, doctors don't even want to prescribe an antibiotic until you've tried the sinus rinses first.

Yeah, those brain biopsies are done so often. :lol: Okay, we don't have a useful test.

Ah. There's the problem. Doctors are notorious for being self righteous about their own specialty and bashing the rest. Don't listen to 'em. :D

Absolutely. And there is lots of research underway. It's just a matter of time.

Well, it depends on the symptoms and the possible causes. Most people with a very clear migraine description are not going to get neuroimaging or lab tests. There's no need. Instead, a diagnosis is made based on history and they are treated empirically. If symptoms change, or they have an abnormal exam, or if they don't get better with treatment, that's a different story. Then, a good workup is indicated. But not for a straightforward migraine. Same with reflux. Indigestion and burning after eating? Take some Pepcid. You certainly don't need an endoscopy for that. That would be an enormous waste of resources and is unnecessarily risky. There are many, many conditions like this in medicine. Of course, there are many things that DO need lab tests and xrays, but there are plenty of things that can be and should be treated empirically.

The brains of people with mental illness also have pathology, but lab and radiology tests aren't yet well developed. Hundreds of years ago, there wasn't a test for diabetes, or hypertension, or duodenal ulcers, or hypothyroidism. But those things still existed. We don't have a test for Alzheimer's, but it clearly exists. Even if we don't have a good objective test for anxiety disorders, we DO have some very effective treatments. It would be inhumane to withhold treatment because we don't yet have a good lab test.

But much of medicine is like this. There are many conditions that are treated symptomatically and depending on self report. Migraines. Reflux. Pain. Angina. If symptoms get better with treatment, then you're on the right track, and don't necessarily need any other tests. Treating mental illness is no different. If the treatment relieves the symptoms, that's still science.

I went back and read the article again, and I must be dense, because I'm not seeing how that would be considered a desire for procedure only math. He praises Saxon as "traditional" and "direct instruction" but there is plenty of concept development in Saxon. It's not my favorite curriculum, but there's good research that it's effective. If it is his use of the term "discovery" math that you don't like, I really think that's shorthand for "the crappy reform math curricula in use in most American schools". Although in general, I don't believe that most discovery math curricula would be a good idea in a school setting. It's very inefficient if you're trying to teach a group, and it's a disaster in the hands of a teacher that doesn't have a good math background.

"Fecal-Oral Route"

The reform math people certainly would have you believe this, but it's a misrepresentation. When my oldest was just starting elementary school, I organized a community group for parents interested in math ed. I created a website and communicated with numerous parent groups across the country, including the folks at Mathematically Correct, NYC Hold, and Illinois Loop. It was clear that no one was looking for "procedure only" math, and it infuriated them that that was how they were characterized. OTOH, there is a lot to be said for practice and drill. Many of the concepts I learned in grad school I only fully understood after doing problems repeatedly. The concepts had been fully explained, but they were difficult and for most people, a true understanding only develops after many, many repetitions.

This.

But is anyone really advocating that? I think most people are in agreement that you have to be able to understand what you're doing. What people are so angry about is the open hostility towards mastery in fuzzy math curricula.

Absolutely. But none of the fuzzy math programs I'm familiar with even come close to doing this.

:iagree: Although I'm not thrilled with the wrinkles and droopy eyelids either.

Suzanne

I actually think social media has helped my dd, who has always struggled with written communication, to be a better speller and writer. Until she began texting, getting her to write even a sentence was pure torture. She's much more confident and capable now.

SSRIs are used to treat depression, anxiety and panic disorders, OCD, some eating disorders, fibromyalgia, hot flashes, migraines, and PMS. I don't know the prevalence of each of these, but I do know that the prevalence of anxiety disorders is about 15% of the population. So I would not be at all surprised that 25% of women have conditions that would benefit from treatment with an SSRI.

I know one. feculent :D

Yep. Me too. Luckily my dh knows me well enough not to bother with hints.

Is that like a Tivo box? I don't watch TV so I'm a little clueless, sorry. Anyway, I have an old Tivo box that I'd be happy to send them. It's old, but it works fine, although I don't know if you have to have Tivo service to make it run.

That's just silly. I have graduate degrees in a STEM field, and although I took 3 semesters of calculus, I didn't actually need it for any of my science classes. I enjoyed it, and am glad that I took it, but in reality have never actually used it. Algebra and statistics I use all the time.

Respect for ourselves, other people, our stuff, other people's stuff, and our environment.

It is shocking what kids post. I am more alarmed at what they write on twitter though. If your kids do twitter, I highly recommend you look at their twitter time line. It is eye opening. And very sad.