kagoscuba

I agree. I hate driving to and from work in the dark and sitting in an office building in "cubicle hell" where I have no windows to see the sun. During the winter I average about one hour of visible sunlight during the workday. It could literally be raining cats and dogs outside, and the only way I'd know is by the occasional yelp or meow. I especially hate the lack of the extra hour of sun for golf in the winter. It's going to be 53 this Sunday, but if I can't get a tee-time by noon, I'll never be able to finish 18 holes.

If God is in control, then there shouldn't be a problem with allowing the overdose. If God is in control and wants the person to live, then they will survive the overdose. However, since we all know that is folly, then logic tells us he is NOT in control and never has been of individuals.

Yeah? and Palestinians in Gaza and Paterson, NJ had similar posters and celebrated too...it doesn't mean they had anything to do with it. It makes them people with despicable views. That's just a propoganda photo for Saddam to placate his base. Like I said, he deserved a shot to the head; the entire country did not need to be embroiled in conflict. Some here may have misread my intent. I don't like war, but if pushed to it, then don't do it half-assed. Torture? There shouldn't be anyone left to torture. If they stand on the battlefield, then they die. No prisoners. Non-combatant fatalities? Don't want to die? Flee...our declaration of war should have been warning enough. Having a half-assed war is like having sex with a wetsuit on. Get down and dirty or don't bother. That's what I have a major problem with, and that's what is different from the Iraq occupation (not a war) and our greatest generations' war. They were given the go-ahead for unfettered military force because they had the moral high ground...they had war declared on them, by a country, not a band of radical a-holes, not the other way around. We've got guys on the ground today who can't fire into a mosque after watching combatants run into it. Look at some pictures of some of the churches of WWII...not a lot of them came out unscathed. Combatants run into a mosque? Shell the entire grid square. Fighting a war with one hand tied behind your back is asinine, therefore it should not happen.

So, people aren't true Americans, if they don't stand idly by while their leaders pump them full of lies about WMD, in order to rush their country into war with another country THAT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11????!!! The closest Saddam Hussein came to terrorism, other than his own people, was giving a $25k bounty to the families of Hamas suicide bombers. That's still not worth killing thousands of people (it's worth killing him over though). I remember 9/11 plenty. I remember having friends killed, I remember the numb feeling of driving by that day on the NJ side of the river and not seeing the towers there and the smoke rising, and I remember the acrid smell of those still burning twin towers, when I visited downwind from the area a week later. I remember it so freaking much; I HATE THE FACT WE STOPPED MAJOR OPERATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN WHERE THE REAL TERRORISTS STILL ARE. What do you mean who stood behind the man who instigated it all? You don't possibly mean Saddam Hussein supporting Bin Laden do you? Bin Laden HATED Hussein for being an infidel and wouldn't have pissed on him, if he was on fire. We should have single shot Saddam Hussein with a Barrett .50 and been done with it, if we wanted him gone so bad. However, it has been proven again and again that he had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. Now, our "buddies" the Saudis? That's a whole different story.

I guess that gives a new meaning to "his magical wand!" Even though I'm pretty sure I'd not enjoy being hit by his congealeum. Besides, every married couple is a same-sex couple. Every night, it's the same sex.

He's from Texas (well kind of); the context is easy - Hook 'em Horns!

That's pretty cool. I lack a propensity to start a war over false pretenses, since that is what I am cynical about.

I'm a runner, and I'm always having to take grief from people (especially my wife) who happily point out that you'll get the same benefit walking three miles as you will running the same distance, and you won't risk crippling arthritis of all your major body parts. So the other day I had a flash! Going back to high school auto mechanics and some hot-rod magazines, I explained to my wife that since I'm exerting the same force to move the same mass the same distance, I'm doing the same amount of work--but since I'm doing it twice as fast, I'm exerting two times the power and probably using twice the calories. My wife is pretty bright, though: she pointed out that if I run and exert twice the power in half the time, and then sit on my butt desperately trying to catch my breath for the other half of the time, then average power exerted is a wash. Is she right? Does running have any calorie advantage over walking, or am I really being that dumb (not like it would be the first time)? --Peter Prout, Winchester, Virginia Cecil replies: A complicated question, often answered wrong even by those who ought to know. We'll take it by steps: 1. The unschooled view, which springs from the ancient instinct that pain = gain, is that running is better than walking because afterward you're sweating like a horse and gasping for breath. 2. Those with a semester or two of physics under their belts, on the other hand, reason that since the amount of work involved is the same, running a mile has the same impact as walking an equal distance. 3. However, this assumes that running and walking are equally efficient means of locomotion. Generally speaking they're not--running requires substantially more energy per unit of distance. Several factors contribute to this. Shall we start with entropy and the second law of thermodynamics? Eh, maybe not. How about aerodynamic drag, which increases with the square of the speed? Probably not something you need to worry about unless you've really been hitting the steroids. Here's something a little more relevant: Analyses of the biomechanics of walking vs. running suggest that walking is a more efficient gait except at higher speeds. The crossover point is somewhere around 5 mph, varying with the individual. At that speed, walking and running are equally efficient. Below the crossover point, running is less efficient, apparently because you lose energy absorbing the impact of the ground with your bent knees. Above it, walking falls behind because of the awkwardness of the racewalking gait. Gait is the critical issue, incidentally--running speed is irrelevant. Subtracting out the energy required just to keep you breathing, you'll use about the same amount of juice finishing the marathon in two hours or four. 4. To return to our main point, running consumes more calories per unit of distance than walking. For a person who weighs 70 kilograms (about 154 pounds), walking at 5 kilometers per hour (3.1 miles per hour) consumes 50 calories per kilometer, whereas running at 10 kph (6.2 mph) consumes 78 calories per kilometer. 5. Aha, you say, running is better than walking! Not necessarily, even if we narrowly define "better" as "consumes more calories." When you begin a workout your body is metabolizing carbohydrates, but as the minutes tick by you start burning fat--at minute 50 of light exercise, you're chugging along on a 75/25 fat/carb mix. Sixty percent of your maximum aerobic capacity (reached at roughly 75 percent of maximal heart rate, which is generally calculated as 220 minus your age) is optimal for fat burning; as exercise becomes increasingly strenuous you start burning more carbs. Some have seized on these facts to claim that sustained low- to moderate-intensity exercise is a better way to shed flab than going all out. The point is hotly disputed; I merely note that for the significantly overweight, walking can be easier on the heart, joints, etc. 6. At any rate, calorie consumption isn't the chief goal of exercise; cardiovascular fitness is. The American College of Sports Medicine says you should exercise three to five times a week in 20- to 60-minute sessions intense enough to raise your pulse to between 60 and 90 percent of your maximal heart rate. Such exercise should be aerobic, meaning something like running, brisk walking, biking, swimming, or cross-country skiing, as opposed to, say, weight training. Is running better than walking for this purpose? Depends. Running is certainly more of a workout per unit of time, but if your idea is that 15 minutes of running equals 30 minutes of walking, forget it--sustained exertion is the key. Then again, while any exercise is better than none, if your wife thinks a no-sweat half-hour amble around the neighborhood is the equivalent of your three-mile run, she's kidding herself too.

Bruce Lee in the "Tao of Jeet Kun Do" says: "Those who desire fiscal notions only do not see their ignobility, as their internal indoctrination is already ethically corrupt." I'd say that's pretty fitting of those who start wars for oil.

The old "let's compare Iraq to WWII" argument again. Well, let's compare at the most basic level. Japan, Germany, and Italy declared war against us. Iraq did not. If Iraq had declared war against us, I'm sure it would not have been too hard to gather up enough support to use military force. However, the Bush administration does have one thing in common with World War II...they seem to think Nazi and Japanese torture methods are ok: During World War II, Japanese troops, especially the Kempeitai, as well the Gestapo, the German secret police, used waterboarding as a method of torture. The German technique was called the German equivalent of "u-boat". During the Double Tenth Incident, waterboarding consisted of binding or holding down the victim on his back, placing a cloth over his mouth and nose, and pouring Water onto the cloth. In this version, interrogation continued during the torture, with the interrogators beating the victim if he did not reply and the victim swallowing water if he opened his mouth to answer or breathe; when the victim could ingest no more water, the interrogators would beat or jump on his distended stomach. The practice garnered renewed attention and notoriety in September 2006 when further reports charged that the Bush administration had authorized the use of waterboarding on extrajudicial prisoners of the United States, often referred to as "detainees" in the U.S. war on terror. Personally, I dig facts more than a diatribe on how things "used to be" and using such quaint terms as Sodom and Gomorrah..

So, yesterday was the first time I've touched real weights (anything over 20 pounds) in about 6 months. I was banded 9/27, and yesterday was my green-light day from my doctor. Wow...what a difference. I was struggling to bench-press 135 pounds for a set of 12. Between the layoff and losing a ton of weight, my strength definitely got sapped. I'm not upset though. This will just give me another reason to push harder. The workout was about 45 minutes involving mostly chest and arms, and it felt great the entire time. Today is for legs and back, and in a couple of weeks I see a good routine being settled into. Considering I've been doing cardio for almost three weeks, the legs should not be as tough as the upper body for the first day of weightlifting. I LOVE IT!! :biggrin1:

Even if the Dems did want the US to be like old Mother Russia, the Republican leadership has in reality taken us closer to that model. Electronic eavesdropping on citizens without warrants. Secret investigations without recourse. Suspension of Habeas Corpus. The use of water-boarding and not calling it torture. Spending money like it grows on trees. What happened to the Republican party I grew up with, which cared about smaller government and fiscal responsibility? When people start using loose terms like dems and neo-cons or liberals and conservatives, they are taking a narrow view without the benefit of objective thought. The right answer is typically somewhere in the middle.

Hi all, I'm very happy with my weight loss so far, but in completing my online food journal I've noticed I'm averaging about 6 grams of Fiber a day, whereas the amount I am allowed is 29 grams. Is anyone else having trouble getting enough fiber into their diet? On the other hand, I did set a personal best on Protein today...134 grams! :boink:

As them if it is cheating that they take a car to work, instead of walking. All it takes is a little willpower to get their feet moving, after all.

You are probably correct that 80% of the population agreed it was a good thing to do, based upon flat-out lies by the current administration. It got so bad that one of my commanders from the first Gulf War, who I truly admire, Colin Powell, left in barely disguised disgust with what was happening. He just couldn’t lie anymore. Withdrawing from a completed conflict (war has been over for years) is not cutting and running. It’s called not occupying a country who didn’t want you there anyway. The examples of Japan, Korea, and Germany were used…I would hazard a guess less than 500 US soldiers combined were killed by those populaces after the cessation of military operations. Why? Culture perhaps, and also those places were bombed into complacency. The media today groans about 20 civilians killed by a stray bomb. We killed over 100,000 German civilians in a week by firebombing Dresden, and no one shed a tear. Why? Because they were the enemy, and we fought them like they were one. That’s what I meant earlier by cracking open a book and reading about real war. Iraq is not a war; it’s a barely contained riot. If it was a war, then we should fight it like one and not with kid-gloves on. That’s why war should be such a grave decision. The administration of today thinks they can launch a couple of surgical strikes and walk in like heroes. Not only that, they think they can fool their own people by saying things like, “torture is ok, as an official US Government policy.” WTF?! Being an ex-soldier, I understand there are isolated instances where this is needed but as official policy to make it commonplace? Go read Bravo 2-0 about a British SAS soldier tortured by the Iraqis during Gulf War I and see if you want us to follow their lead. Like he said at the end of his book “I’d slot (kill) them all, if I had the chance.” I personally don’t want a generation of people being treated poorly to give birth to a new generation who’s sole mission is to avenge them. Oh, and you can bet oil was the reason, two-fold. Iraq had it and more importantly the Saudis had it and were threatened by a militarily powerful Iraq. The Bush’s just happened to be bed-buddies with the royal family of Saudi Arabia, so here we are today. Just so you don’t think I am too fluffy about the previous administration, go read about the shop of horrors Bill Clinton walked the US into in Somalia. I was on active duty then, saw what was happening and couldn’t have given two $hits about those people. After reading “Me Against My Brother,” which is about that conflict and others I found out I was right. Those people are barely human. Me against my brother is from an old Somali saying which goes: “Me against my brother, my brother and me against our family, our family against our clan, our clan against the world.” That is the hierarchy of violence as it is accepted by the Somali culture. It’s been ingrained for thousands of years, and we walked straight into it as clueless as could be. Thanks Bill.

I love my brothers in arms, and wish them godspeed home. We invaded a sovreign country without a clear reason to do so. I said it the day it happened, and I'll say it until the day I expire from this earth. The current administration has destroyed our international reputation for no good reason. We should have stuck to Afghanistan, and if we wanted to expand it: Syria (was building a nuclear plant from 2001 until 2006, when the Israelis blew the $hit out of it, because we wouldn't), North Korea (still technically at war with them, so still kind of confused why we allowed them to build nuclear technology), and our good buddies in Iran (444 days, and still nothing in reparations, and they are killing Americans in Iraq). Now, Saddam was a bad guy, but that's nothing a single shot from a Barrett .50 couldn't have helped. If we can break all of the protocols we have for the last few years, we could have easily broken the one concerning assassinating a foreign leader. I also hate it when the administration and the media refer to Iraq and use the word "war." It isn't a war over there. Someone needs to crack open a history book and find out what real war consists of.

People tend to vote more on their impulses or party lines than anything else. 80% of American voters vote their affiliated party line, no matter the candidate. That is a fact, supported by years of research. Bill Clinton wasn't perfect, but he was a good president. His wife is a walking nightmare. Give her a few years, and we'll all be comrades.

Two ways of dealing with it for me... 1. Because I am passive aggressive, I would have just ignored this obnoxious bit@h for the rest of the day. 2. If I'd had a little alcohol and my inhibitions were loosened, I would have probably said something along the lines of "I don't know; how did you let yourself get so rude?" I had my best friend's mom say the same thing to me, almost word for word, as what this lady said to you. I feel for you, because it's a horrible feeling. Just think about it this way: that's one less person you need to worry about for anything ever again. Forget about her; you are doing what you need to do.

Anytime someone tries to bring the abortion issue down to a Biblical argument, it immediately loses its value, Why? Well, for example in Leviticus the Bible says not to eat catfish, as that is a sin...well just about every Southern church would be having at least one day of sin per summer. Masturbation is also forbidden...I think just for men though (seed cannot touch the ground). I wonder how many men screaming for an end to abortion have a stack of Playboys at home they get their rocks off to? Oh, and do I really have to go into how the Bible was written hundreds of years after Jesus died, vetted at the council of Nicene (that's where the Apostle's Creed comes from by the way), had a few chapters thrown out of it, translated, then given out? Nice book...lots of righteous stuff in it, but the infallible word of God? Please. The modern translation doesn't even get one of the Ten Commandments right...Thou Shalt Not Kill is actually Thou Shalt Not Murder in the original Hebrew. There is not too subtle difference in those two meanings. To me a life is a life when it can be sustained by itself or medical personnel. I think the earliest I've heard of is 26 weeks. However, I would not be opposed to abortion being limited to the first 8 weeks. Definitely a tough moral decision, but not one to be debated religiously.

Forgetting to put your hand over your heart is lot less unsettling than forgetting: The Geneva Convention, Constitutional Separation of Executive Branches, the general consensus of our forefathers about the separation of church and state (this is actually not in The Constitution), the US is not historically in the business of starting wars, that zero tolerence in school matters equals zero intelligence (NCLB), how to be fiscally responsible equitably, and leadership by fear-mongering is akin to fascism.

Nope you sure can't. That's $9k less than I paid.

Oh, and just because I have a bit of a nerdy streak, so far the average weight loss is 27 pounds, the median is 23, and the standard deviation is 9.2.

I was banded 9/27 and have lost 37 pounds so far: Stacy 73… 40 TulipStar…22 Mdicurn…20 time4me…27.8 Magooz07…11 Caresarn…16 Klpdbl…31 Lapband4me...32 Sirusman…23 Allisarin…23 Tishamarie…49 EL1…23 Juliacleone…14 Kimmie…43 dsmit13…23 ScareDcat…22 Lapitup…22.5 mandi78…23 andrea71…28 Thinmom…23 Kellymovingon...35 flipper64...30 kagoscuba...37

I work out daily (except Sunday) at lunch for cardio and M-Thursday I do weights after work. The lunch cardio is awesome for getting me ready for the afternoon doldrums.

He could also be holding in his laughter of making a mockery of the United States Constitution, UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice), and the original goals of the Republican Party (less government and less spending).