Where are your studies, smartass? Atkins has been well known for decades and there are a very large number of variations. You don't have to subscribe to Atkins itself to believe in a low carb diet.
The American government and the AMA has a vested interest in controlling the perception of the diabetes epidemic. If the truth were known, Medicare would get swamped and the fault would lie entirely on the government with it's pushing of unhealthy dietary standards (standards that they've quietly moved away from). Unfortunately, the result has been a vigorous smear campaign by the AMA against Atkins that continued dispicably after his death. The result is a bunch of buffoons such as yourself but the purpose is to save money and the reputations of those in power.
Yes, low carb diet popularity will wane because the public is fickle and stupid, but the fact will always remain that type 2 diabetes, obesity, and the myriad of health problems that come from that are a direct result of a diet heavily weighted in high glycemic index carbs. People properly on an Atkins diet (or similar) enjoy reduced incidence of heart disease unlike your silly claim.
tell that to my father whose type 2 diabetes was entirely reversed by a "proper" diet. for me it's not a fad. I've been doing it successfully for well over a decade and my longetivity doctors now prescribe a restricted carb diet. As to your assertions about the negative aspects of low carb diets, they are all easily refuted. I won't bother offering counter-evidence since you haven't bothered offering any in support of your old wives tales.
"Gartner does not get this product, which is quite relevant, discussing this article."
Gartner doesn't get the mac? You think it's some obscure computer that they haven't figured out yet? Just because you, and the original poster, believe that Gartner is wrong does not mean that they don't understand the product or even what "a product is".
I'll remind you of the what the original poster said:
"Steve doesn't need business advice from "pundits" that don't seem to understand what a product is."
You can see that your comment is not relevent to the discussion, as the discussion is about the sweeping generalization that was made, NOT about Gartner and whether they "get" the mac.
Just because someone or some company may not be right
"I'm sorry you've had a bad experience with Apple, but my own has been that their hardware is well-built and, when something does go wrong, they fix it quickly and often for free after the warranty (ie the laptop screen and the harddrive)."
I've had no problem getting Apple to fix my equipment, though I have great problems getting Genius Bar time. I did take my PowerMac to CompUSA (failed MB after 10 days) and I had loads of problems getting them to fix the machine. That's not Apple's fault, but they were certified to do the repair.
Frankly, I find all the arguments over quality tiring. I've had bad experiences with Macs and not Dells, but they are made largely out of the same parts. The fact is that fans, power supplies and hard drives are the highest failure rate items (in that order) and all manufacturers use common suppliers for these things. I don't consider Macs to be worse hardware than Dells but I don't consider them better either. The key to longevity is keeping parts cool, and now that Apple uses essentially identical logic everywhere, I think you'll find there won't be a lot of difference.
If you are going to complain that USB doesn't come close to it's theoretical throughput (which it doesn't) then recognize that firewire does not either. Firewire 400 comes nowhere near 50MB/sec though it does slightly edge out USB. The differences aren't as big as you suggest.
It's true that FW has an 800 version but it is pricey. You can now get external SATA connections that are far faster, cheaper and don't require translation boards to talk to disk drives.
"When none of the PC manufacturers jumped onto USB, Apple did. The same with Firewire."
When a lie is repeated often enough people will take it as fact.
USB had been under development by Intel (and later MS) for years. Plugfests for interoperability were ongoing and all PC manufacturers actively participated. MS wrote USB into the platform requirements and Intel integrated support into chipset and subsequently into motherboards that shipped long before MS provided Windows support. A myriad of devices were developed and tested by the PC industry, and at the last second Apple ships with OS support and claims to have established USB as a standard.
Firewire is little different, 1394 (firewire when not using Apple's name) was an abandoned technology that Sony picked up from Apple for use with the new DV format. Sony was the one to include it as standard, they gave the standard away to their competitors, and they pushed for widespread adoption (which still took years). Firewire would have come about without any Apple involvement because digital video needed the technology. Without Sony, however, it wouldn't exist.
Just because motherboards aren't interchangable doesn't mean the logic on them isn't the same. A computer is made up of parts that are largely the same now whether it's Apple or Dell. Packaging is the largest differentiator.
"Some would argure one of the reason that OS X works so well it that it does not have to support the plethora of hardware that XP or Linux supports. Apple controls their own destiny when they control their own hardware. Again, Apple isn't looking to court the BIY customer."
Absolutely, and I didn't read anything in the article that suggested that Apple stop doing that. I think it would be a mistake for Apple to try to support the BIY crowd and it's clear that Apple has no interest in doing that.
With a failure rate like that, it's hard to believe that Dell could stay in business considering its low margins. Somehow I think you're exaggerating a bit. No surprise, considering it's/.
I will say, though, that your experience is far better than the failure rate I've experienced with Apple products. The only Apple product I've owned (out of 8) that hasn't failed (yet) is my Nano. My 3 macs have each had a motherboard failure (100%), 1 hard drive failure (33%) and my only notebook both a power supply and battery failure (100% each). 4 out of my 5 iPods have failed (80%). Frankly, every iPod will fail in short order whether it's a bad battery or a bad hard drive. In contrast, I've own roughly a dozen Dell notebooks over time and have never had a failure other than addin memory not supplied by Dell. Apple has no room to throw quality stones at Dell or anyone else. When you consider all the quality issues with Apple's Intel notebooks it's laughable that people continue to argue that Apple is somehow a cut above others in quality.
"While big corporations buy tons of Dell every year, corporate buyers care only about the price and not the user experience."
No, they care about user experience. Big corporations want Windows, multiple sourcing, and suppliers who know how to sell and support in large volumes. That's the user experience they care about, not the brushed metal themes, the fancy packaging and the grammatically superior dialogs. That's why they buy Dell and not Apple.
"It's dumb, because they're proposing that to compete with Dell, they should offer the exact same product Dell ships..."
They said nothing of the sort. They said "Apple should concentrate on what it does best -- create software -- and make use of Dell's production and distribution infrastructure." In other words, don't sell the machine at all but work with Dell to provide Macs using Dell's infrastructure and distribution. They don't have to be the same Dell boxes that run only Windows.
"Steve doesn't need business advice from "pundits" that don't seem to understand what a product is."
Like their advice or not, I'm certain Gartner knows what a product is. Not sure you know what a "pundit" is though.
I performed the google search you suggested and not one of the 6 or so links I followed supported your assertion. All the articles discussed the potential benefits of a calorie restricted diet, yet not one associated faster metabolism with increased aging. In fact, one of the articles suggested that the accumulation of fats in specific cells was the cause while another noted that cause and effect were not understood.
Had you said "I have no compassion for the smoker, because it was their own doing, they know they should have quit." then I would have simply considered you uncompassionate, but when you said "Yet you can have no compassion for the smoker, because it was their own doing, they know they should have quit." you clearly demonstrated a lack of understanding of the word. The difference is clear whether you admit it or not; one is stating a personal feeling, the other an absolute.
Perhaps when one someone close to you gets lung cancer or diabetes you'll learn what compassion is and stop concerning yourself with the potential reasons for their misfortune. These illnesses kill real people, not statistics.
Sure, and a kick in the balls isn't too nice either. I'm much more worried about that than aspertame and Parkinson's, and I'm much more worried about the absolutely assured onset of type 2 diabetes from sugar.
"You shouldn't be eating white rice anyway. Brown rice does in fact contain protein and a number of other nutrients. Ideally it should be combined with beans or something similar to provide a complete protein."
I agree, but from a glycemic index point of view you shouldn't be eating rice at all. There are far better sources of complete proteins than rice and beans. Of course, that doesn't help the vegetarian. I am certainly not one of those.
"Aspartame (Nutisweet) really is listed as a poison in many countries other than the US."
I'm not aware of these countries or listings, but ethanol is a poison and yet people drink it all the time. The real question is where are the documented cases of aspertame causing specific health problems in people and how do those compare to the epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes that we suffer largely (but not exclusively) at the hands of sugar in our diets? Many artificial sweetners are believed to cause health problems; sugar is known to cause health problems.
"In fact, plain sugar or brown sugar (better) is better for you than artificial sweeteners."
I completely disagree. If you aren't going to use much of a sweetner then what difference does it make which one? The goal in any diet should be to prevent insulin spikes. You can't take sugar and meet that goal.
"Do not drink soft drinks of any kind, ever."
Certainly not sugared ones.
"Don't think you can substitute honey for sugar either because it's just as bad if not worse with regards to type 2 diabetes than plain sugar. Honey wasn't designed for human consumption and goes into your system very quickly a lot like high fructose corn syrup."
That is a fact. The highest glycemic index food I've ever seen documented, surprisingly, is a rice cake! Even worse than table sugar. The best thing anyone can do for their diet is to learn how to avoid bad carbs.
"it is _exactly_ this purchase price that entitles you to these updates. In other words, no payment, no updates."
No payment, no Windows, so no need for updates. You purchase the right to use Windows and all future updates are free. It can't be considered any other way since there's no fundamental promise of ANY updates with Windows or Ubuntu. You trust that each vendor will release fixes for problems as they occur and that they be free of charge.
As for updates to newer versions, the beauty of a totally free product is that, no matter how you look at it, you aren't paying.:-) The right way to look at Windows is that you pay for a license when you buy the machine and (hopefully) not again after that. The reality is different sometimes, but MS doesn't come out with new versions very often. What's really infuriating with Windows is having to rebuy a license due to carelessness and hardware failure.
"Yes. So the original poster mentioned ``maintain windows machines properly'' and ``Windows update is free, no?'', and these are the two things I have been talking about all this time."
Unfortunately, the original poster was unclear. He was associating the two, and as I said before, had you demonstrated the difference that would have made sense.
"It can be packaged for installing and updating through apt-get even if no source code is being made available."
Fair enough. I doubt Debian would go for that but idk. I do know that BSD's ports specifically did provide that and it was used for binary distributions.
"Ok. It depends on your definition of "3rd party", but I'll accept the above. In that case, of course Ubuntu, cannot update any 3rd party app by definition."
It is interesting to consider how things would be if Ubuntu would have the marketshare that Windows has. I feel the bulk of apps would be distributed independently simply due to matters of scale and I think that's more a differentiator between Windows and Ubuntu (distribution-wise) than anything else. No doubt you are motivated to use apps available through the distro when you use a Linux/BSD product. I certainly was when I used Linux for my work.
Sympathy and compassion aren't contingent on someone being deserving or not. This is what you said:
"Yet you can have no compassion for the smoker, because it was their own doing, they know they should have quit."
Of course I can have compassion for the smoker. Nowhere in the definition you provided does it say that the the one "stricken by misfortune" must be undeserving of it. To say otherwise demonstrates your lack of understanding of just what compassion is and demonstrates that you fundamentally aren't compassionate at all. Perhaps someone must also be beautiful to deserve compassion.
"Should I point out the widespread prevalence of obesity in America? Or should I point out how you only have to turn on a TV, go to the movies, or open a magazine to see the importance society (American and otherwise) puts on thinness?"
Do any of these things refute the fact that your comments were those of an asshole? I'm sure that anyone who's dealt with weight issues is aware of the problem. More so that you've demonstrated.
"Should I challenge your assumptions that I'm 1) thin 2) young, or 3) conceited?"
Go ahead. It's possible that you aren't thin or young, but you can't refute your conceitedness. Post a link to your pics so that we can see just who is calling people ugly.
"Nah. I'll just suggest that you go have a few cheeseburgers to cheer yourself up. It's always worked in the past, right?"
Cheeseburger are good and not too unhealthy if you remove the bun. You wouldn't know about that though. All you know is that Americans are fat and fat people are ugly. Good for you and that's for the well wishes, prick.
HFCS itself isn't the issue. A soft drink sweetened with cane sugar would be just as bad. Fruit juices aren't as bad a soft drinks but they are very good either. There is a hysteria over HFCS, and there should be because it's terrible, but eliminating it won't solve the problem. There are other products just as bad.
"My point is, instead of telling the government to 'ban HFCS instead of making the people spend more money', what about educating the people and letting them take some responsibility for their actions?"
Absolutely, since education would be far more effective against all diet enemies, not just HFCS. Besides, we don't need to ban HFCS; we only need to halt the subsidies that make it economical.
High Fructose Corn Syrup is used because it is cheap. If it were banned or more expensive, then other forms of sugar would be used instead. Those sugars would be equally damaging just as wheat flour is equally damaging. The problem isn't what the carb is or how it's sourced but rather how much of it is used and how fast it is absorbed and metabolized. A Coke made with HFCS may be gold standard of unhealthiness, but a Coke made with cane sugar is just as bad, and as it turns out, a rice cake is even worse (on a gram by gram basis).
of course, it would help if the US gevernment wouldn't be recommending a diet that causes type 2 diabetes.
It's so common to hear people recommend a "proper diet" and blame "crappy" foods. The problem is that people don't know what either of these are, even many who correctly identify them as a problem.
It's common to see someone eating a lunch consisting of nothing more than a bowl of rice. They can certainly be given credit for avoiding the Big Mac and fries, but they're still eating a meal of 0% protein and 90+% carbs.
Of all the sweetners used in soft drinks, sugar/corn syrup is the only one that's abolutely known to cause disease (that being type 2 diabetes), yet you hear all the time that people refuse to consider artificial sweetners because sugar is natural. How misguided is that?
For those that think type 2 diabetes isn't a big concern, the news is far worse than you think. Government standards for classification of the affliction are based on a sliding age scale. That's done so that most of our adult population won't qualify as diabetic. Our diets are killing us.
Slashdot Mirror
Where are your studies, smartass? Atkins has been well known for decades and there are a very large number of variations. You don't have to subscribe to Atkins itself to believe in a low carb diet.
The American government and the AMA has a vested interest in controlling the perception of the diabetes epidemic. If the truth were known, Medicare would get swamped and the fault would lie entirely on the government with it's pushing of unhealthy dietary standards (standards that they've quietly moved away from). Unfortunately, the result has been a vigorous smear campaign by the AMA against Atkins that continued dispicably after his death. The result is a bunch of buffoons such as yourself but the purpose is to save money and the reputations of those in power.
Yes, low carb diet popularity will wane because the public is fickle and stupid, but the fact will always remain that type 2 diabetes, obesity, and the myriad of health problems that come from that are a direct result of a diet heavily weighted in high glycemic index carbs. People properly on an Atkins diet (or similar) enjoy reduced incidence of heart disease unlike your silly claim.
"sorry but high protein diets don't work"
tell that to my father whose type 2 diabetes was entirely reversed by a "proper" diet. for me it's not a fad. I've been doing it successfully for well over a decade and my longetivity doctors now prescribe a restricted carb diet. As to your assertions about the negative aspects of low carb diets, they are all easily refuted. I won't bother offering counter-evidence since you haven't bothered offering any in support of your old wives tales.
"Gartner does not get this product, which is quite relevant, discussing this article."
Gartner doesn't get the mac? You think it's some obscure computer that they haven't figured out yet? Just because you, and the original poster, believe that Gartner is wrong does not mean that they don't understand the product or even what "a product is".
I'll remind you of the what the original poster said:
"Steve doesn't need business advice from "pundits" that don't seem to understand what a product is."
You can see that your comment is not relevent to the discussion, as the discussion is about the sweeping generalization that was made, NOT about Gartner and whether they "get" the mac.
Just because someone or some company may not be right
Never said they could. I can comprehend text, however, which is more than some commenters here.
Yeah, I would have posted this as an AC too.
Mod -1 stupid.
"I'm sorry you've had a bad experience with Apple, but my own has been that their hardware is well-built and, when something does go wrong, they fix it quickly and often for free after the warranty (ie the laptop screen and the harddrive)."
I've had no problem getting Apple to fix my equipment, though I have great problems getting Genius Bar time. I did take my PowerMac to CompUSA (failed MB after 10 days) and I had loads of problems getting them to fix the machine. That's not Apple's fault, but they were certified to do the repair.
Frankly, I find all the arguments over quality tiring. I've had bad experiences with Macs and not Dells, but they are made largely out of the same parts. The fact is that fans, power supplies and hard drives are the highest failure rate items (in that order) and all manufacturers use common suppliers for these things. I don't consider Macs to be worse hardware than Dells but I don't consider them better either. The key to longevity is keeping parts cool, and now that Apple uses essentially identical logic everywhere, I think you'll find there won't be a lot of difference.
If you are going to complain that USB doesn't come close to it's theoretical throughput (which it doesn't) then recognize that firewire does not either. Firewire 400 comes nowhere near 50MB/sec though it does slightly edge out USB. The differences aren't as big as you suggest.
It's true that FW has an 800 version but it is pricey. You can now get external SATA connections that are far faster, cheaper and don't require translation boards to talk to disk drives.
"Some of Apple's employees basically designed Firewire."
In the beginning, but it was not intended for the uses it ultimately provided.
"That is why they might have been the first."
Sony was the first to integrate firewire in all DV camcorders. That is what established 1394.
"Right now, the biggest reason to have it is camcorders"
and really the only reason. that's why desktop PCs don't bother.
"Plenty of companies had USB in their computers before Apple did."
Yes, all of them did. Many, as you say, depopulated the connectors.
"You can argue that the first iMac gave peripheral makers a reason to make USB devices, that I won't argue against."
Not really. They were making them anyway. It did give them reason to make colored ones though.
"When none of the PC manufacturers jumped onto USB, Apple did. The same with Firewire."
When a lie is repeated often enough people will take it as fact.
USB had been under development by Intel (and later MS) for years. Plugfests for interoperability were ongoing and all PC manufacturers actively participated. MS wrote USB into the platform requirements and Intel integrated support into chipset and subsequently into motherboards that shipped long before MS provided Windows support. A myriad of devices were developed and tested by the PC industry, and at the last second Apple ships with OS support and claims to have established USB as a standard.
Firewire is little different, 1394 (firewire when not using Apple's name) was an abandoned technology that Sony picked up from Apple for use with the new DV format. Sony was the one to include it as standard, they gave the standard away to their competitors, and they pushed for widespread adoption (which still took years). Firewire would have come about without any Apple involvement because digital video needed the technology. Without Sony, however, it wouldn't exist.
Just because motherboards aren't interchangable doesn't mean the logic on them isn't the same. A computer is made up of parts that are largely the same now whether it's Apple or Dell. Packaging is the largest differentiator.
"Some would argure one of the reason that OS X works so well it that it does not have to support the plethora of hardware that XP or Linux supports. Apple controls their own destiny when they control their own hardware. Again, Apple isn't looking to court the BIY customer."
Absolutely, and I didn't read anything in the article that suggested that Apple stop doing that. I think it would be a mistake for Apple to try to support the BIY crowd and it's clear that Apple has no interest in doing that.
With a failure rate like that, it's hard to believe that Dell could stay in business considering its low margins. Somehow I think you're exaggerating a bit. No surprise, considering it's /.
I will say, though, that your experience is far better than the failure rate I've experienced with Apple products. The only Apple product I've owned (out of 8) that hasn't failed (yet) is my Nano. My 3 macs have each had a motherboard failure (100%), 1 hard drive failure (33%) and my only notebook both a power supply and battery failure (100% each). 4 out of my 5 iPods have failed (80%). Frankly, every iPod will fail in short order whether it's a bad battery or a bad hard drive. In contrast, I've own roughly a dozen Dell notebooks over time and have never had a failure other than addin memory not supplied by Dell. Apple has no room to throw quality stones at Dell or anyone else. When you consider all the quality issues with Apple's Intel notebooks it's laughable that people continue to argue that Apple is somehow a cut above others in quality.
"While big corporations buy tons of Dell every year, corporate buyers care only about the price and not the user experience."
No, they care about user experience. Big corporations want Windows, multiple sourcing, and suppliers who know how to sell and support in large volumes. That's the user experience they care about, not the brushed metal themes, the fancy packaging and the grammatically superior dialogs. That's why they buy Dell and not Apple.
The article didn't suggest Apple become Dell, it suggested Apple work with Dell.
Who said they ahould?
"It's dumb, because they're proposing that to compete with Dell, they should offer the exact same product Dell ships..."
They said nothing of the sort. They said "Apple should concentrate on what it does best -- create software -- and make use of Dell's production and distribution infrastructure." In other words, don't sell the machine at all but work with Dell to provide Macs using Dell's infrastructure and distribution. They don't have to be the same Dell boxes that run only Windows.
"Steve doesn't need business advice from "pundits" that don't seem to understand what a product is."
Like their advice or not, I'm certain Gartner knows what a product is. Not sure you know what a "pundit" is though.
I performed the google search you suggested and not one of the 6 or so links I followed supported your assertion. All the articles discussed the potential benefits of a calorie restricted diet, yet not one associated faster metabolism with increased aging. In fact, one of the articles suggested that the accumulation of fats in specific cells was the cause while another noted that cause and effect were not understood.
real sugar is terrible for you. there's no difference between it and high fructose corn syrup.
Had you said "I have no compassion for the smoker, because it was their own doing, they know they should have quit." then I would have simply considered you uncompassionate, but when you said "Yet you can have no compassion for the smoker, because it was their own doing, they know they should have quit." you clearly demonstrated a lack of understanding of the word. The difference is clear whether you admit it or not; one is stating a personal feeling, the other an absolute.
Perhaps when one someone close to you gets lung cancer or diabetes you'll learn what compassion is and stop concerning yourself with the potential reasons for their misfortune. These illnesses kill real people, not statistics.
Sure, and a kick in the balls isn't too nice either. I'm much more worried about that than aspertame and Parkinson's, and I'm much more worried about the absolutely assured onset of type 2 diabetes from sugar.
s on.html
http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/abuse/parkin
"You shouldn't be eating white rice anyway. Brown rice does in fact contain protein and a number of other nutrients. Ideally it should be combined with beans or something similar to provide a complete protein."
I agree, but from a glycemic index point of view you shouldn't be eating rice at all. There are far better sources of complete proteins than rice and beans. Of course, that doesn't help the vegetarian. I am certainly not one of those.
"Aspartame (Nutisweet) really is listed as a poison in many countries other than the US."
I'm not aware of these countries or listings, but ethanol is a poison and yet people drink it all the time. The real question is where are the documented cases of aspertame causing specific health problems in people and how do those compare to the epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes that we suffer largely (but not exclusively) at the hands of sugar in our diets? Many artificial sweetners are believed to cause health problems; sugar is known to cause health problems.
"In fact, plain sugar or brown sugar (better) is better for you than artificial sweeteners."
I completely disagree. If you aren't going to use much of a sweetner then what difference does it make which one? The goal in any diet should be to prevent insulin spikes. You can't take sugar and meet that goal.
"Do not drink soft drinks of any kind, ever."
Certainly not sugared ones.
"Don't think you can substitute honey for sugar either because it's just as bad if not worse with regards to type 2 diabetes than plain sugar. Honey wasn't designed for human consumption and goes into your system very quickly a lot like high fructose corn syrup."
That is a fact. The highest glycemic index food I've ever seen documented, surprisingly, is a rice cake! Even worse than table sugar. The best thing anyone can do for their diet is to learn how to avoid bad carbs.
"it is _exactly_ this purchase price that entitles you to these updates. In other words, no payment, no updates."
:-) The right way to look at Windows is that you pay for a license when you buy the machine and (hopefully) not again after that. The reality is different sometimes, but MS doesn't come out with new versions very often. What's really infuriating with Windows is having to rebuy a license due to carelessness and hardware failure.
No payment, no Windows, so no need for updates. You purchase the right to use Windows and all future updates are free. It can't be considered any other way since there's no fundamental promise of ANY updates with Windows or Ubuntu. You trust that each vendor will release fixes for problems as they occur and that they be free of charge.
As for updates to newer versions, the beauty of a totally free product is that, no matter how you look at it, you aren't paying.
"Yes. So the original poster mentioned ``maintain windows machines properly'' and ``Windows update is free, no?'', and these are the two things I have been talking about all this time."
Unfortunately, the original poster was unclear. He was associating the two, and as I said before, had you demonstrated the difference that would have made sense.
"It can be packaged for installing and updating through apt-get even if no source code is being made available."
Fair enough. I doubt Debian would go for that but idk. I do know that BSD's ports specifically did provide that and it was used for binary distributions.
"Ok. It depends on your definition of "3rd party", but I'll accept the above. In that case, of course Ubuntu, cannot update any 3rd party app by definition."
It is interesting to consider how things would be if Ubuntu would have the marketshare that Windows has. I feel the bulk of apps would be distributed independently simply due to matters of scale and I think that's more a differentiator between Windows and Ubuntu (distribution-wise) than anything else. No doubt you are motivated to use apps available through the distro when you use a Linux/BSD product. I certainly was when I used Linux for my work.
Sympathy and compassion aren't contingent on someone being deserving or not. This is what you said:
"Yet you can have no compassion for the smoker, because it was their own doing, they know they should have quit."
Of course I can have compassion for the smoker. Nowhere in the definition you provided does it say that the the one "stricken by misfortune" must be undeserving of it. To say otherwise demonstrates your lack of understanding of just what compassion is and demonstrates that you fundamentally aren't compassionate at all. Perhaps someone must also be beautiful to deserve compassion.
"Should I point out the widespread prevalence of obesity in America? Or should I point out how you only have to turn on a TV, go to the movies, or open a magazine to see the importance society (American and otherwise) puts on thinness?"
Do any of these things refute the fact that your comments were those of an asshole? I'm sure that anyone who's dealt with weight issues is aware of the problem. More so that you've demonstrated.
"Should I challenge your assumptions that I'm 1) thin 2) young, or 3) conceited?"
Go ahead. It's possible that you aren't thin or young, but you can't refute your conceitedness. Post a link to your pics so that we can see just who is calling people ugly.
"Nah. I'll just suggest that you go have a few cheeseburgers to cheer yourself up. It's always worked in the past, right?"
Cheeseburger are good and not too unhealthy if you remove the bun. You wouldn't know about that though. All you know is that Americans are fat and fat people are ugly. Good for you and that's for the well wishes, prick.
HFCS itself isn't the issue. A soft drink sweetened with cane sugar would be just as bad. Fruit juices aren't as bad a soft drinks but they are very good either. There is a hysteria over HFCS, and there should be because it's terrible, but eliminating it won't solve the problem. There are other products just as bad.
"My point is, instead of telling the government to 'ban HFCS instead of making the people spend more money', what about educating the people and letting them take some responsibility for their actions?"
Absolutely, since education would be far more effective against all diet enemies, not just HFCS. Besides, we don't need to ban HFCS; we only need to halt the subsidies that make it economical.
High Fructose Corn Syrup is used because it is cheap. If it were banned or more expensive, then other forms of sugar would be used instead. Those sugars would be equally damaging just as wheat flour is equally damaging. The problem isn't what the carb is or how it's sourced but rather how much of it is used and how fast it is absorbed and metabolized. A Coke made with HFCS may be gold standard of unhealthiness, but a Coke made with cane sugar is just as bad, and as it turns out, a rice cake is even worse (on a gram by gram basis).
of course, it would help if the US gevernment wouldn't be recommending a diet that causes type 2 diabetes.
It's so common to hear people recommend a "proper diet" and blame "crappy" foods. The problem is that people don't know what either of these are, even many who correctly identify them as a problem.
It's common to see someone eating a lunch consisting of nothing more than a bowl of rice. They can certainly be given credit for avoiding the Big Mac and fries, but they're still eating a meal of 0% protein and 90+% carbs.
Of all the sweetners used in soft drinks, sugar/corn syrup is the only one that's abolutely known to cause disease (that being type 2 diabetes), yet you hear all the time that people refuse to consider artificial sweetners because sugar is natural. How misguided is that?
For those that think type 2 diabetes isn't a big concern, the news is far worse than you think. Government standards for classification of the affliction are based on a sliding age scale. That's done so that most of our adult population won't qualify as diabetic. Our diets are killing us.