Accupuncture is an ancient Oriental therapy in which fine, sharp, sterile needles are gently introduced into a few highly specific locations on the body to alleviate a variety of mental and physical symptoms.

Inaccupuncture is a modern Western therapy in which large, blunt, dirty needles are hammered into numerous random locations on the body to alleviate a variety of mental and physical symptoms.

Inaccupuncture is particularly favoured as an identified highly effective treatment for Compulsive Early-Morning Door Knocking Disorder, prevalent amongst politcal canvassers.
-- 8th of 7, May 01 2010

did you mean nails?
-- po, May 01 2010


or coat hanger wire?
-- swimswim, May 01 2010


I just can't imagine [8th] doing anything as peaceful as gardening.
-- po, May 01 2010


sp; malleviate
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 01 2010


I'm canvassing right now. I wouldn't dream of knocking on a door before 11:30 am. To be honest, much of the time i'm trying to resist the temptation to run away quickly.
-- nineteenthly, May 01 2010


[po] Probably raising triffids.
-- mouseposture, May 01 2010


"Probably" ?

Actually, trying to crossbreed Triffids with our exsting Venus Fly Trap/Catnip hybrids ...

// did you mean nails? //

No. To sharp, too pointy, too painless ...

[nineteenthly], your instincts serve you well.
-- 8th of 7, May 01 2010


I was out the other day and there were JWs coming the other way. They too have certain views about the insertion of nails.
-- nineteenthly, May 01 2010


oh ho ho ho!
-- po, May 01 2010


somebody got up on the wrong side of the Cube this morning.
-- FlyingToaster, May 02 2010


Canvassing is actually a good thing, in so far as it reminds political activists just how much political inactivists despise them. This lesson is wasted if they don't survive it.

In Oz, where voting is compulsory, there is no canvassing, and I think the absence of canvassing makes politicians even more complacent and out of touch (if you can imagine that). For example, I think the delusions of grandeur which destroyed the once-promising Australian Democrats party could have been nipped in the bud if only the student activists who took charge had first spent some humbling time on doorsteps soaking up public loathing.

Good luck, [nineteenthly]. Watch out for small dogs.
-- pertinax, May 02 2010


I'm way ahead of you, [pertinax]! I have a special technique for dealing with them evolved over decades.
-- nineteenthly, May 02 2010


// This lesson is wasted if they don't survive it //

Indeed, it is essential that they survive, as long as possible, in permanent, crippilng pain, so that the message may go forth to the others ... "Knock not on the door before lunchtime on a Saturday, for the occpant may have had a heavy night on the Friday and will wreak dred vengeance upon ye".
-- 8th of 7, May 02 2010


Interestingly, I've recently been reading that acupuncture is no more effective than placebopuncture, where needles are inserted into completely made up and/or random points rather than the supposedly genuine acupuncture points. As this is much the same, [+]
-- BunsenHoneydew, May 02 2010


//placebopuncture// - I remember having a few grins-to-self while imagining how one would design a proper double-blind clinical trial...
-- lurch, May 03 2010


I have no emotional or financial investment in acupuncture, so i don't really care whether it works or not in that way. However, i've heard, and i can't quote any studies on this whatsoever, that electrical resistance across meridians is thousands of times higher than along them. Also, neurons and skin cells originate from the same germ cell layer and i wonder if there's something in that. Adjacent cells in mucosal epithelium do communicate.

I'm really not saying acupuncture does have any scientific evidence for it because i don't know, but i wonder if there's something else going on. On the basis i've just described, it would amount to the claim that some sort of signalling substance or difference in electrical potential can pass across several cell junctions in epithelium significantly better in one dimension than in another. That doesn't sound like an outrageous claim to me. The question would be how to test that hypothesis. Maybe a polygraph?
-- nineteenthly, May 03 2010


"Your skin is lying!"

No, I know that's not what you meant, but it made me smile.
-- pertinax, May 03 2010


//(accupuncture...)how to test that hypothesis//
walk into an accupuncturist with a small mallet... if it works at all, I imagine it's some sorta of nervous system balancing act where the sharp pain in your elbow balances out the migraine or something... in which case there's a fulcrum or series of, somewhere.
-- FlyingToaster, May 03 2010



random, halfbakery