anonemouse

Oh, and by the way, this thread on LBT debates evolution, if anyone is interested in reading it instead of debating in this thread. It's rather long (24 pages), but pretty interesting. Not all of it is about evolution, but the topic kind of evolves into it (pun intended).

While we're posting websites, my very favorite evolution vs. creationism website is TalkOrigins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution Controversy. It's awesome. It goes through just about every single creationist claim and debunks it and/or defends against it.

I'm a fellow teacher (I teach university biology), so take this with a grain of salt... Things about GOOD teachers that I love: willingness to help knowledge of the material the way they care for their students willingness to learn different teaching methods for different students Things about BAD teachers that I hate: ignorance of the material picking and choosing what to teach (my high school bio teacher absolutely REFUSED to teach evolution) giving busy-work that doesn't actually teach anything inability to control a class favoritism towards certain students

And the fact is, evolution is anything BUT "accidental." Selection is the opposite of chance, people.

You're assuming that people that don't believe haven't read the Bible, gone to church, etc., and that's far from the case, in most situations. In fact, most Atheists that I've been in contact with are far more educated about religion than most religious people are. The reason for that is because they want to understand why people actually believe it, so they try and gather as much information as they can. They just don't believe it. Not because they've not read or educated themselves, but just because they don't believe it. Period. A baby is not created by chance. A zygote is. A baby is created by millions and billions of cellular divisions. How is it unreasonable to think that when a couple has sex, there is a likelihood of a sperm coming into contact with an egg? Chance is all it is. A woman doesn't get pregnant every time she has sex, does she? When you have unprotected sex, you are taking the chance that you just might be ovulating.

I would LOVE to be able to share the lap-band with every fat person I see. In fact, I have a student right now that I would love to share my story with, because I think she could benefit. But then I think about how I would have reacted if, before the band, a person came up to me and said something along the lines of, "Hey, I just wanted to share with you the benefits of exercise. I lost X pounds exercizing every day, and I bet you could too if you exercised! Please, look into exercise, you could lose a lot of weight with it!" I would have been humiliated, pissed off, hurt, you name it. It doesn't matter how well-meaning the people are, they're still sticking their noses where they don't belong.

But isn't a matter of semantics, really? I mean, what's the difference between someone that says, "I am Christian," and someone that says, "I am a Christian?" Both statements basically say, "I believe that Christ is the savior blah blah blah." Both statements have the same meaning, just slightly different wording. It doesn't matter whether you put a or an in front of your label, you're still labeling yourself. Or am I completely misunderstanding you?

That's probably because blue and red are major gang colors. It may not seem like it, but that regulation is probably just to protect the kids. If they allowed those colors, there'd probably be kids getting attacked or killed. I mean, I've heard many stories of innocent kids being killed because they accidentally wore the wrong colors in the wrong areas. Years ago, I remember hearing about a very young child (around 4, I think) being killed by gang members in a drive-by shooting because he was wearing a jacket that happened to be the rival gang's color. Here's an article from the Houston area that talks about gang signs.

I'm not sure how to do that. Maybe just click on the links and then copy/paste the URL from the actual website into the email? I dunno. When I posted the links, I just typed in the actual address. I'm not sure why LBT decided to not show the actual address. Oh! I just played around a bit, and if you right click on the link and select "copy link location," you can then paste it into an email.

I like the one with the Ebenezer Scrooge quote on it.

Not bad at all! Anything is fine in moderation! After all, it wasn't eating a single piece of cake that got us fat, but eating the ENTIRE cake!

I decided to celebrate tonight, being through with two of my three comprehensive exams, so I got take-away from Outback (yes, I know, celebrating with food is how I got fat, but I still wanted a million fucking calories, sue me). So, I'm sitting here, having finished my french onion soup (very good, btw) and nawed on a few bites of roasted garlic mashed potatoes, and I try a few bites of my blooming onion (is it TOO obvious that I like onions?). It doesn't taste like I remember it! I used to LOVE blooming onions, even though they're like a million and a half calories per onion. Damn it, I wanted to pig out (or at least, pig out as much as a banded person can) on my former favorite bad habit, and I can't because it doesn't taste right! :angry

I live to annoy! :biggrin1: Heck, I'm the type of person who can't stop staring at picture frames that are hung even a fraction of an inch off level. In fact, the more subtle it is, the more it bugs me. My parents' house has a bunch of side-by-side windows in the living room that have curtains hung on tension rods in each window. I had to have my dad (I'm too short to reach it) fix one of them because the tension rod in that window was placed about 1/2-3/4 of an inch lower than the ones in the other windows. I couldn't stop staring at it.

I THINK I've heard someone say before that Starbucks has protein that they can add to their drinks, but I'm not sure if it's true or not. If you do try it, though, I wouldn't add it to the hot drinks, since protein curdles at high temperatures. I found that out the hard way. It's nasty.

You can also get their lattes iced, too, if you don't like hot ones.

I looked them up on their website, and they've got what they call Frapuccino Lights, which have fewer calories (no whipped cream, for one) than the regular. A grande mocha FL has 140 calories, compared to 380 for the regular mocha frap. In the summer, I also like getting their iced coffee with vanilla syrup and a little cream or milk in it. It's not bad on calories.

I've got mine set to where I don't see her. She's got a ghost arm that bugged the crap out of me once I noticed it. It was like I couldn't see anything else. :phanvan

Starbucks doesn't have to be bad! They've got a lot of stuff that you can get non-fat and sugar-free, although I usually just get a vanilla latte with 2% milk and regular syrup. As long as you work it into your daily calories, you'll be fine! And the lattes actually have a decent amount of protein, too.

Ditto, all the way. I find it very amusing that people who don't understand Atheism somehow expect us to be different than every other person in the world. We're people, just like everyone else. We're prone to doing stupid things, just like everyone else. There are bad Atheists as well as good Atheists (after all, we ARE people), and it's moronic to paint us all with the same brush, just like I don't paint all Christians as ignorant and hateful (even though there are some that fit the bill).

I've been wanting to, but I haven't wanted to buy a whole canister of it unless I've tried it, and I can't find samples of it anywhere. I have tried their milk chocolate flavor, though, and it tastes like cardboard. The orange creamsicle flavor is nearly as bad.

Remind your friend that 96% of obese or morbidly obese people who try to lose weight (and keep it off) through diet and exercise alone fail miserably. Also tell her that unless you can lose weight, you are guaranteed to get some form of obesity-related condition (heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, etc.). Finally, tell her that while you value her opinion, you have to do what is best for yourself and your family, that the methods that you choose may not be something that she approves of or understands (and she can't, really, until she's in the position of having her very life threatened by her weight), and you hope that she can support that even if she doesn't fully agree with your decision.

Plus, why waste the little space we've got on icky, greasy, fatty substandard cuts? I'f you're only going to be eating a very small amount, you might as well go for the best!

One thing I LOVE about Christmas is that I get to do a ton of cooking (and it's typically fattening stuff that I usually don't eat anyway). What's sad is that I usually don't eat it myself. I'll make tons of cookies and breads (zucchini, pumpkin, banana) and bars (lemon bars, lime bars, cheesecake bars, butterscotch brownies), but I usually just have a few pieces and give the rest to my family. Heck, some of it is stuff that I absolutely hate, but make anyway because my family likes it.

So, my brother got married at the end of June. I need gift ideas for his inlaws. They are into organic food and are very much "green." They own a restaurant and the FIL is a chef. I'm stumped, to be honest. I'm wary about getting them food stuff since they seem to be rather picky, but I don't know them well enough to know of something more personal that I could get them.

I called my SIL to see what her dad likes, and apparently he's a fan of classic movies. I went to Amazon and found a couple of DVD sets that he'll probably like. One set has The Pink Panther, A Fistful of Dollars, Dr. No, and the Magnificent Seven. The other set has The Great Escape, Rocky, West Side Story, and The Thomas Crown Affair. They were pretty cheap, so I just got both of them.