Alex: LOL!  Thanks, too, for your private note!  Warn Ping Is He and
Puma that I included the URLs of some study abstracts in today's FML,
Allis!  (Allis secretly reads every study she can get; Ping and Puma
slip under the cookware.)
 
John, thank you.  Yes, I do try to be patient; thanks for letting me
know that I sometimes manage it.  I think that people here know well
enough that very few things don't have downsides as well as upsides.
Especially when the choice is unclear then to each her or his own...
 
Thanks, Marlene!  Yes, I do think that it is important that a poster
remind people of where her or his own education is not optimal.  That is
also one reason I like to so often put in the URLs of vet posts and other
expert sources.  When people know more than I, and show it with things
like having the right education or providing peer reviewed journal
articles I know to weigh their evaluations more highly; that trick helps
anyone choose to preferentially learn from sources which have a greater
chance of being accurate.
 
Hey, speaking of that, has anyone heard from Mary C?  I tended to enjoy
her herbal posts greatly.  I didn't not always reach the same conclusions
when I read more widely, but she often had a fine way of remembering to
keep things balanced -- either conversations or when she instructed, and
she had bothered to learn a full picture formally.  I thought of her the
other day because I realized that I can't find her lists of herbs to
avoid with members of carnivora and will need to dig those out of the
FML Archives when I get a chance.
 
Thanks so much, Inge.  That's the whole point, isn't it?  That people
*should* be able to discuss different viewpoints.  To newbies it may seem
that there is only one side on some topics unless they read archives
(which I suspect a number do because they were smart enough to find the
FML in the first place); to the rest of us it amounts to "Dang, there
goes the conversation again from people getting off topic and starting
attacks." It is sad when one whole side pretty much shuts up due to
repeated, escalating behaviors of a few, and deprives the membership of
true conversations that adults *should* be able to have, especially,
when the topic is one where there is not any perfect choice when all of
the data is considered.  It's fine that you and I don't agree on some
topics; we discuss them civilly and with an interest in all the points,
anyway.  It would be great if more people did so, or even felt safe
enough to do so.
 
-- Sukie (not a vet, not a doormat)
Ferret Health List co-moderator
http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth
FHL Archives fan
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
replacing
http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org
International Ferret Congress advisor
http://www.ferretcongress.org
[Posted in FML issue 5164]