cobra2411

I'm suspicious about her motivation, but taking a step back I support the general idea. If we own our bodies then it's our right to end our life as we see fit. Even if it doesn't meet someone else's criteria of acceptable behavior. Now with government involved my fear is it would become mandatory and my word for that is murder... And we know that government has no problem murdering people. But I digress. I suspect that by allowing people to make that decision with minimal interference would actually lower the rates of suicide. How many people who are in the depths of depression, etc, that see that one moment to end their lives they take it. Knowing they can do it at any time with assistance they may be more likely to talk.

I would like some help understanding the issue sometimes referred to as "the gay agenda". I was raised as tolerant and even when I personally disagree with someone's life choices I view them as their choices and if they don't affect me personally I see no reason to waste time worrying about them. Then this surfaced on my radar: http://askthebigot.com/2015/07/23/the-story-of-moira-greyland-guest-post/ I'm still a little in shock at the graphic nature of this and the pieces I recently saw about female pedopheliacs, the cult of god, etc. Now of course this is blamed on the gay agenda. Let them marry and more importantly raise children, and it is implied that they will abuse these children with the goal of turning them gay, etc. The claim is is that homosexuals are significantly more likely to be abusers than straight people. Biologically homosexuality is a defect. Survival is universal and reproduction is seen in all life. Without medical advancements, homosexuality leads to no offspring and the decline of the species. Add to that Bruce Jenner and all the transgender, etc and you have a host of people with biological defects. I guess I'm looking for some traction - some direction to head in. My first question is: Are homosextuals more likely to abuse children than straight people. I discount the claims of abuse leading to homosexuality although I suspect it can happen. Just that it's not the leading cause. Also are homosexuals more likely to have been abused as a child? I'm also curious if there is any valid work on child sexual abuse and abnormal sexual preference later in life. Is any of it "normal" in terms of role playing, BDSM, multiple partners, etc. Is there a line or just a wide gray area? And lastly, should we be worried about the push in acceptance of gays, transgenders, etc? Will ageism be next or is there no point in all this that child abuse is ok? I know there's still heated debates about how spanking teaches respect and if more kids got beaten by their father's we'd have less problems. That's certainly a false statement, but all too often you hear "I was beat and I turned out ok!" as the sole defense. Will the slippery slope argument become valid? So anyway, before I start rambling, does anyone have any insite? Or am I the troubled one because I believe that one penis and one vagina are the correct number of sexual organs in an intimate relationship?

I was speaking about the notion that counting calories has any merit in the idea that we can somehow use a calculator to control our waistline. Assuming normal metabolic function, you eat when hungry, stop when full and you'll maintain a healthy weight. As for stuffing your face and what happens, there's the interesting part. It depends on what you eat. Eat meat and drink water for 30 days and try and stuff yourself. It's been tried and it's incredibly hard. Now eat twinkies and coke and it's very easy. Food can be separated into three groups. Carbs, Protein and Fat. Two of those are needed to live, the third isn't. Ancel Keys did a study of a low fat, high carb diet in the 40's and restricted people to around 1600 cal/day. They became depressed, fixated on food and had many other health problems by the end of the 4 week study. In the 60's John Yudkin did a study on a low carb, high fat diet where people were able to choose the amount of food they ate. With no restrictions, they also settled in at around 1600 cal/day. However, they felt an increased sense of well being and didn't suffer from the same maladies. In the Keys study, at the beginning everyone ate 3200 cal/day and felt fine. Certainly isn't a smoking gun because that's not what the study was looking at, but it's interesting to see that the low carb group had similar feelings as the high carb group with half the calories. One of the criticisms of Atkins is that he says "eat all you want". Critics claim that if a person was to eat all he wanted he'd gain weight, but without the carbs you really don't want to eat as much, nor do you need to. My point is that the body processes the energy from the different sources differently and a calorie isn't a calorie. Eat the right foods and there's no need to worry about how many calories you eat, the body takes care of that for you. Eat the wrong foods and restrict them and you're in for a miserable experience. Is it any wonder that so many "diets" fail and people end up weighing more? Also, an increase in output; exercise, will lead to an increase in hunger and if allowed, an increase in food intake. To say "Eat less and exercise more" is to trivialize obesity and blame the victim. There are more people exercising today than ever and obesity is still exploding. We're still eating wrong.

**Your quotes are in bold/italics with my responses below.** " including excess salt (water retention)" That's a vague description and I assumed you were following the salt is bad meme. There is no scientific evidence that supports the idea that a person is healthier by restricting salt or that excess salt causes fluid retention. However, it has been shown that excessive restriction of salt is bad for you. I'm sure there is some amount of salt that could be consumed to cause fluid retention, but in studies where the consumption was as much as 2 to 4 times the recommended amount, fluid retention wasn't seen. Too little salt however can cause edema as fluid moves out of the bloodstream into tissue. "Are you suggesting we should all be pouring (lots of?) salt on all of our foods?" No, just that salt doesn't lead to fluid retention and should not be avoided. There is also no reason to consume an excess of salt. The current guidelines are not medically sound and were based on a flawed study. Salt to taste and enjoy. "You also make it sound like you use up all your glycogen storage simply by not eating carbs and that it remains depleted." Yes, it does as long as you continue to not eat carbs. Once you cease eating carbs it takes about 3 days to deplete all glycogen stores. It takes 1-3 weeks to sufficiently adapt to using fat vs carbs, so there is a little time where you are run down and feel like crap. After that adaption your body will make all the glucose you need and muscles will feed directly off of fat stores. "Sounds like you're saying carbs are needed for glycogen storage" When you eat carbs your body burns what it can, refills glycogen storage and converts the rest to fat. That's normal for a carb based diet. Without carbs, glycogen gets depleted and the body converts to run directly off fat. "Have you ever run a race with depleted glycogen levels before?" Yes. In fact, studies have been done showing that fat oxidation levels in no carb runners are almost twice what they are for carb fueled runners. Just don't try it while you're adapting. "You talk about glycogen like it's a toxin that is diluted resulted in weight gain when you eat carbs and weight loss when you don't eat carbs. Do you think glycogen is a toxin and is bad?" Not glycogen exactly, glucose. Do I think it's toxic in itself? No, but the food that we eat can be toxic, even if we don't immediately see the damage. High levels of glucose in the blood is bad. High levels of insulin is also bad. When glucose is released into the bloodstream via digestion the body releases insulin to control it. The more glucose the body has to deal with, the more insulin is released. After a while your body will develop a tolerance and require more insulin to achieve the same result. You may even reach the point that you can not produce enough insulin and blood sugar levels become elevated - type 2 diabetes. Insulin, among other things, is a fat storage hormone. Higher levels of insulin typically result in higher levels of stored fat, but not always. There are thin people who suffer from metabolic disorders like insulin resistance. High blood sugar kills you today, so insulin is a good thing in a way. High insulin levels kill you later. Biologically we just need to survive long enough to reproduce and raise our offspring to be self sufficient. High insulin levels will allow us to do that although we might not live to see grandkids. High carb diets can be tolerated for years, and for some they never have problems. For others problems will appear later on in life and I feel high carb diets lead to heart disease, cancer, and other diseases. The latest studies on coronary artery disease; studies which I agree with, show that thickening of the arteries is the most likely leading cause for plaque buildup and blockages. As the arteries thicken they can't oxygenate and will go through neovascularization and create new capillaries in the arterial wall. These are easily damaged. Cholesterol is used like a scab to protect them, but it cuts off the flow of oxygen once again and new capillaries have to be formed. Wash, rinse and repeat till the artery is blocked. Studies as far back as the 60's on insulin showed that, in animals at least, insulin caused the arteries to thicken. Elevated insulin leads to thickening arteries leads to neovascularization leads to plaque buildup leads to heart disease. What causes elevated insulin levels? A diet rich in insulinogenic foods. That's mostly refined carbs. Since you don't need carbs, if you are suffering from insulin resistance or any similar metabolic disease I feel it's best to simply avoid them all together. Also, I view obesity as a symptom of a metabolic disease, not as a separate disease. "What do you think your brain runs on?" Current science says that our brain needs a small amount of glucose. I'm not sure I buy that completely, but I don't have enough to refute it. Either way our bodies are quite capable of synthesising the needed glucose absent dietary glucose. There is no need to eat carbs to fuel the brain. I have gone months eating absolutely no carbs with no problems and I know people who have gone years. One person I know of ate no carbs for over 50 years with no ill effects. Your brain needing carbs is just more bunk science. "You think people who eat a lot of fruit are damaging their livers without realizing it?" I specifically stated that fructose can be abusive to the liver, not that fruit is abusive to the liver. Sugar is 50/50 glucose/fructose and high fructose corn syrup is 55% fructose. Fruit juices remove the buffer that actual fruit has - fiber, and thus they digest more rapidly. It is very easy to consume excess fructose and damage your liver over time. I know that personally as I once suffered from non-alcoholic fatty liver due to a diet of excess fructose, among other things. My point behind all this is that the human body is incredibly adapted at eating less than perfect diets. For many people eating carbs isn't a problem. My personal belief, based on studying diet and nutrition for the past 7 years to fix my own problems, is that we don't need carbs. If you are suffering from any metabolic disease, including insulin resistance, then you should not continue to eat carbs. I view obesity as a symptom of metabolic disease and believe carbs should be eliminated to address the most likely cause of the metabolic disease. I disagree that there are any carbs you should eat for their benefits as I believe that the harm they do outweighs any possible benefit.

Will the salt myth ever die? Salt is bad for you usually stems from the DASH study which reduced salt AND sugar/fructose consumption. Salt, or more speficically sodium, is an essential electrolyte that regulates among other things fluid into and out of sells. If your serum sodium levels get too low, fluid will move out of your bloodstream into tissue and cause edema. Glycogen, a storage of glucose, requires 3-4 times its volume of water to support healthy function in the body. As your body stores glycogen it is normal and healthy for it to retain more fluid. This is part of the reason behind the rapid weight loss that low carb dieters enjoy. Stop eating carbs and your body consumes all the stored glycogen and thus doesn't need to maintain as much fluid. This also explains weight gain when stopping a low carb diet. All totally normal responses. When I speak of diet I usually come from the angle of dealing with problems. Humans have the ability to eat an incredible diversity of foods, but some foods are abusive. Eaten occasionally our bodies can handle it. Eaten repetitively they can't. It just may take years to show symptoms of that abuse and by then nobody is looking at what you've eaten for the last 10 years, they want to know what's changed recently. I view obesity as a symptom of an underlying metabolic disease. So... Back to the good carbs / bad carbs argument. Since there are no essential carbohydrates, and they all digest as glucose in the body, I say there are no good carbohydrates. Fruits and sugar are especially bad because they also contain fructose which is digested along similar pathways to alcohol and can be abusive to the liver. Alcohol has a nice way of telling you that you're overdoing it - you fall down... Fructose doesn't have that and with juices and other refined products that remove fiber there's not even any buffer. I agree with you that many studies fail to mention some key piece of information and thus become very misleading. Take the refined grains vs whole grains. Avoidance of grains was never studied and in my opinion would show a vast improvement in health over either of the grains. Yet people are left feeling that they've done something healthy when they order a sandwich on whole wheat.

It took two parties to create that child. As a man, it's always in the back of my mind that I may get a girl pregnant and it should be in the minds of women that the man cheating on his wife might not be the most honest and trustworthy person in the world. In our current system the women simply shoves a gun to the father's head, even if the sperm was stolen. Women have little to no barriers when it comes to financial support for their children. In a "normal" relationship they have the largest gun in the room, in a welfare relationship they have uncle sugar who also happens to be the biggest gun in the room. With no downside other than maybe stretch marks there's little else but personal preference to stop them from having children and forcing someone to pay. Now in an anarcho-capital system I'm sure there would be mechanisms to ensure fair treatment of children. Mother's would have to be more careful and would ultimately own the responsibility of the child. If the father wants visitation then in my mind that would imply a desire to take care of the child, including financially. Any agreements made prior to sex would be enforced by something like a DRO.

Bah, portion size, calories in - calories out, eat less - exercise more, and all those other similar memes have no basis in science. A calorie is simply how much heat is expended when you burn said item. It has never been shown to be the same in the body. Lastly, the average person gains 50 lbs between 25 and 50, or about 2lbs a year. That's overeating by about 3 potato chips per day. There is no way to control energy intake to that degree. In other words calories in - calories out is so oversimplified it fails. It has also been shown there is no correlation between exercise and weight loss. That is the key. Get rid of the refined and processed foods. Not cut back, get rid of. At least for best results. I let cows transform those dark, leafy greens into something wonderful to eat... Steak Ok, jokes aside, humans have more in common digestively with carnivores than we do herbivores. A shorter, more acidic digestive tract, lack of ability to ferment cellulosic foods, mouths and teeth designed to cut and rip vs grind our food, the list goes on. There are no essential carbohydrates, but without fat and protein we'd be dead. As for organic and all that nonsense it's nothing but marketing BS. There is no evidence that organic foods are better than their conventionally grown counterparts. Pesticides are still used for example, but unlike the synthetic ones that are used on conventional foods, organic foods use "natural" pesticides that haven't been studied nearly as much as the synthetic ones. Paleo in its most general sense is a move away from the processed, refined foods that exist now. Those artificially low fat / fat free foods are typically enhanced with sugar or similar to improve taste. Also, many boxed foods are short on fiber which slows down the absorption of sugar because your body has to digest around the fiber to release the sugar. Be careful when you read those studies, many have an agenda and it's easy to get swept up in "the study says". As an example, many vegetarian studies only study vegetarian vs non-vegetarian. Vegetarians, by virtue of eliminating a whole group of foods that they deem unhealthy are eating a health conscious diet. The non-vegetarians include those that think twinkies and ho-ho's are valid nutritional sources. In one recent study I saw the rate of type 2 diabetes among the non-vegetarian group was 50%. I firmly believe that overindulgence in insulinogenic foods leads to most cases of type 2 diabetes. With no mention of what they ate other than "non-vegetarian" the conclusion drawn wasn't that vegetarians were healthier, but that those eating a health conscious diet were healthier. Also, it was a study on heart disease and the vegetarian group was in a younger age bracket than the non-vegetarian group, but no age adjustment was done. Statistically the older group is almost 100% more likely to have a coronary event than the younger group simply because of their age. The non-vegetarian group's risk for CHD was only 36% greater, much lower than what their age would suggest it should be. But it was circulated as yet more proof that a vegetarian diet is the way to go... When studies are done that compare two healthy eating styles, say paleo and vegetarianism, the outcomes of both groups are similar. My advice? Eat meat, drink water. If it's from the animal kingdom it's fair game. Eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full. Drink water when thirsty, stop when satisfied. We're still having issues with macro-nutrients, there's no need to worry about fine tuning micro-nutrients IMO. Milks and cheeses should be limited, but can be eaten and anything plant based should be avoided. Exercise if you want to. There are plenty of health benefits to exercise, but weight loss isn't one of them. I lost 30+ pounds sitting on the couch watching Dr Who reruns. Of course after I lost the weight I wanted to move and started running. Don't want to eat meat? Fine, eat foods that have the lowest impact on your blood sugar. I'd also recommend eating eggs because they're packed full of nutrition. Vegans, and to some degree vegetarians who don't supplement have nutritional deficiencies. If you eat food that is full of nutrients your body will be able to take what it needs and eliminate the rest.

I was referring to the liquid floride thorium reactor. There are versions that use graphite rods vs pebbles. The technology isn't without its obstacles, but I feel they're easy enough to overcome and that the LFTR reactor is the best source of base power we have available at the time in terms of available fuel, safety and output.

My favorite is the Thorium-Cycle type reactor. They're incredibly safe, use thorium off existing coal which can later be used in a fischer-tropsch reaction to make liquid hydrocarbons - i.e. gasoline and they don't need to be near large sources of water. The reaction slows down at high temperatures and "freeze" plugs can be added that would drain the system in the event of a power failure. The technology has been around for 50+ years. They suck for refining weapons grade nuclear materials... So... I'll leave others to ponder the US's choice in nuclear power.

Just remember that you can't outrun a bad diet... You do not need exercise to loose weight, although it does have many benefits. I am a fan of interval type training and for running one of my favorites to get back in shape is couch to 5k simply known as C25K.

When you look at the cost of wind power in economic and environmental costs from raw material to installed wind turbine, without subsidies and looking forward to later dismantling, maintenance and threats to the environment, these so called "green" energy machines are anything but and will never return the energy invested in terms of energy output. Solar is in the same boat. I agree, FB is looking for a handout.

One thing very few people are talking about is that many international investment firms are banned from selling Chinese stocks. With the decline margin calls are sure to go out. At some point they'll have to sell something to meet margin requirements... Something like US stocks...

Do I need a reason for not want to have children?

I'll add my two cents... First, I'd be very careful messing around with student loans. That, in my opinion is almost as bad as playing around with not paying taxes. If you received value through your transaction then I feel not paying is wrong. However, lets assume that you were promised unrealistic things about your degree, the job opportunities and / or the salary delivered. So if the college made a claim that they would guarantee you a job at a specific salary in exchange for specific performance and payment then I believe you have a claim. I will also assume you did everything you could to excel in your studies and received a 4.0 GPA or damn close. Promises from the school don't have to be in writing, but that would make it easier. You would then make the case that the college failed to deliver it's part and that absolves you of your obligation. In the end, if you could prove they breached their contract then a settlement rather than an all out default would likely be the outcome - i.e. what they did deliver was worth X% of what they promised and you'll pay them a discounted rate. The reality is that you likely were not overtly promised fame and fortune for your degree and you likely didn't get a 4.0 GPA therefor you end up somewhere in the middle and in this environment almost certainly at fault and the collection attempts will be biblical. Now, that covers school, but what about the banks? A few years ago when I learned that banks really didn't loan out Grandma's savings, they instead fabricated the money out of thin air with a few pecks at a keyboard and my promise to pay was the asset on their books that balanced it out I did my best to get my credit card companies to answer my questions. After repeatedly ignoring my I withheld payment in attempts to talk to them through collections. When that didn't work I sent an offer and compromise that they didn't have to answer my question and instead could accept a small fee to consider things settled. Otherwise they could return my check uncashed and answer my questions. They cashed the check and that was it. Well, not entirely, they sold the debt off to a debt buyer whom I informed that the case was settled and sent copies of the settlement agreement and canceled check. Six months later I was contacted by their attorney whom I also sent the same info to. Six months after that, a whole two years after the settlement, I was summons to court. I received a judgment in my favor and that was the end of it. I have not and will not open another credit card account and I have been steadily getting rid of my other debts. Pretty soon I will be rid of my mortgage and other that a couple thousand of student loans I'll be debt free. I do not see any moral problems with what I did as I believe I was prayed upon by the unscrupulous bankers. Once I found it out I tried to confirm, then I settled and have not engaged in debt any more. Now, if I were to get another credit card then I could not make the same claim. I know full well what I'm getting into and feel it would be morally wrong to later decide not to pay. Its also fraud to knowing take out a debt that you don't intend to pay. Defaulting on your student loans will not stop the steam roller, it will only result in you being thrown under it. If you are going to pursue this I would recommend coming from the angle that the college didn't meet it's obligations and go from there. It won't be easy, but you at least have a valid chance. Anything less and you're just whining about having a hang over despite knowing full well that boozing it up all night was likely to result in said hangover.

USA! USA! USA! We're the beast!