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]