It has ceased to be customary to hit your date with a rock before mating. These days that is frowned upon.
Of course it's frowned upon. Why would you run the risk of a concussion when the far more effective and less physically harmful Ambien is readily available?
The executive branch has thought itself above the constitution since 1789
Fixed it for you.
(If you want to cut Washington a break you could say 1801. Jefferson thought the Louisiana purchase unconstitutional but did it anyway, perhaps the first "the ends justify the means" rationalization used by an American President. Then of course we have 1861 and Abe's questionable activities during the American Civil War)
You should eat a balanced diet. The point is you don't have to, at least in the short and medium term. The human body is remarkably adept at converting whatever you throw at it into useful energy, sometimes to our detriment when we eat too much.
People who left their country of origin say very little about those of those who stayed behind. Germany outproduces the Mediterranean countries. This is a fact. Spin it however you want, with whatever anecdotal examples you choose, you can't change the raw numbers.
The main reason that it is so hard to determine what the ideal diet is is that the answer is different for everyone
Ideal diet: Calories in = calories out.
It's really that straightforward. Weigh yourself once a day. Apply a moving average to the number to smooth out the daily ups and downs. If you're gaining weight scale back on the calories. If you're losing weight increase the calories (unless of course your goal is to lose weight). It's all about the trend line and long term intake.... going crazy one day won't make any appreciable impact on your weight.
Adding exercise into the equation is better for your health but it is not required simply to maintain weight. There are all sorts of reasons (endorphins are a far better anti-depressant than any pill, your cardiovascular system will thank you, and you'll be more attractive to the opposite sex) to do it, but weight loss really isn't one of them.
Broccoli tastes just fine with some salt on it. Hell, I occasionally eat it raw, though slightly steamed (still needs to be crunchy) with salt is the best way. I even have cravings for it once in awhile, if a bit "backed up" and need the bulk in my diet....
I'm skeptical of any fad diet. Speaking strictly for myself here, my cholesterol, blood pressure, and fasting glucose numbers seem to follow my weight. When I was obese (255# at 5'10", so a BMI of 36.6) they were all high. When I was less obese (220#, BMI 31.6) they were at the high end of normal/low end of bad. Then I dipped into merely overweight (190#, BMI 27.3) and the aforementioned blood tests were all in the normal range. All throughout my diet never changed, I retained my guilty pleasures (greasy pizza tops the list), just ate less of them.
I've since added exercise into the equation, training for and running distance races ranging from 5ks to full marathons. I run 20-40 miles a week with an increased caloric intake (~3,500/day) to give me the energy I need for that kind of exercise workload. Guess what? The aforementioned blood test numbers haven't changed that much. Some other ones did change, my RBC count went up, by a lot (from 4.6 million cells/mcL to 5.54), which is an exercise adaptation. Blood pressure stayed the same, though my resting heart rate dropped from the mid 70s to the high 50s, another exercise adaptation.
The human body is a pretty amazing thing and will incorporate almost anything you throw at it, so long as you exercise a reasonable amount of moderation. If you're running a huge caloric surplus at the end of the day I don't think it matters if it's coming from saturated fat, protein, or whole grains. Do it long enough and your system is going to suffer for it.
At 1% of GDP the EU would be spending $140-$160 Billion a year on defense. That's double the Russians and almost as much as China. Heck, the Germans, French, and Brits alone spend $160 Billion. Add in Italy and they've got the Chinese beat.
You seem to be operating under the delusion that:
1. China is being forthright about her levels of defense spending.
2. 1% of GDP would give the EU the ability to project hard and soft power. The United States spends close to 4% for that sort of capability, and even at those levels our capabilities are diminishing.
3. That defense spending is the final arbiter of hard power.
#1 #3 are self-explanatory. For #2, what part of "They couldn't sustain a bombing campaign without American assistance" was so hard to understand?
it's that if somebody did magically convince the Austrians to do so a) the world would be a better place, and b) the Austrians would not regret it.
Really? It's clear that both the world would be a better place and they wouldn't regret it? The man on the street already regrets the EU. The poorer countries regret it because they've lost control of their monetary policy. The rich countries regret it because they're now on the hook for the poor countries and have to accept limitless immigration from the underdeveloped east. The EU is a project of the elites, imposed on the common man, with consequences as yet unknown. From my perspective as an American with friends (local and ex-pats) all over Europe (Finland, Sweden, Italy, Greece, the UK, Germany, and Ireland) it's a house of cards waiting to fall in on itself. The sooner the better. You can't just draw borders on a map and call it a country. Well, you can, but it rarely ends well.
Really, my born and raised in Italy and emigrated to the US at age 20 grandfather has a work ethic that a very conservative American would consider exemplary.
One of my friends growing up, his father was born and raised in Greece. He emigrated to the US in his early 20s also. He seemed to share a work ethic and some other traits with my grandfather.
You do realize that nothing you said has any bearing on my point, right?
Culture is local, not ethnic. Well, that's not true either, but you should catch my meaning. It's an entirely different pace of life in the Mediterranean Countries. You can get a similar culture shock if you travel from New York City to New Orleans, and The Big Easy is positively fast paced when compared to Italy, Spain, or Greece.
Its a welfare state government not the national culture that screws things up.
Then why isn't Finland broke and begging Germany for bailouts? Finland isn't going to bring the Euro down. The aforementioned countries just may.....
1. You could wipe out bell peppers tomorrow and nobody starves to death. My example was simply to point out how centralization leaves the market more vulnerable to local disasters.
2. I can't buy a green bell pepper that's not grown in California, unless I go to the farmers market. They're simply not carried by any grocery store that I have access to, including the higher end (Wegmans) one. They'll grow almost everywhere (zones 1 through 11 if you're curious) yet California accounts for more than half of production and virtually all of the selection at the grocery store.
3. My concern with a bug is something that goes after grains, not veggies. You think our grain supply has the same genetic diversity that it did in yesteryear? You're dreaming. Do I think it would mean the end of humanity? Nope, I even said as such. I find it doubtful that the First World would even see a decrease in the obesity rate, much less have to contend with famine. The Third World on the other hand..... what do you suppose happens to them if there's a failed grain harvest and food prices skyrocket?
You ding me on allegedly not knowing American history and then suggest that France and UK would have a bigger vote than (note the letter in bold) everyone else in a Federated EU? You do realize how the United States Senate is structured right? Why exactly would the low population EU countries be willing to join a Federated EU that allowed the high population countries to dominate them? If your idea is a United States of Europe.....
The strongest powers in the EU have allowed their armed forces to atrophy to a point where they couldn't sustain a bombing campaign against a third world country without American assistance. There are over a dozen countries in the EU and NATO that can't contribute in any meaningful way to collective security. You seriously believe there's the political will to both form a genuine Federation and take a leading role on the global stage? You say conscription "could" be a problem?! Outside of Finland and Switzerland I can't think of any EU country that still practices it. But you want me to believe that all three dozen or so squabbling countries are both going to surrender their sovereignty and suddenly move forward with a common defense policy that has teeth?
Do some reading on the political crisis that was instigated by NATO's decision to deploy the Pershing II Missile in the 1980s. Then contemplate these facts:
1. NATO was a lot smaller in those days, so consensus was easier to obtain.
2. NATO had a real enemy in those days, so policy makers were more willing to take a political hit for the greater good.
3. The missiles were just a ploy to bring the Soviet Union to the negotiation table, which everybody was smart enough to realize, except the Greens.
4. European politics in the 1980s were a lot less hostile towards the defense establishment than they are today.
You're dreaming if you think European politics in this day and age would allow for any of what you're proposing. It's telling that you concede the UK and France would need to outvote the rest of the States before they could have a meaningful defense posture.
P.S., The EU and NATOs best hope is that Putin doesn't call our respective bluffs, because I find it extremely unlikely that the Baltic States could withstand the sort of subversive campaign that he has applied so successfully to the Ukraine, nor do I think anybody in NATO is truly willing to go to war with a nuclear state over them. Germany? Sure. Poland? Probably. The Baltic States? Not bloody likely.
What they spectacularly failed to accomplish with guns and tanks they're silently accomplishing with Deutschmarks, err, I mean Euros. They learned their lesson from the United States very well......
Of course, it's not Germany's fault they're so much more productive than the rest of Europe. Ever been to Italy, Greece, or Spain? The "work ethic" in those cultures is utterly foreign to an American, never mind a German. It may make for an easy going lifestyle but it's not very competitive in a global economy. Now compound that cultural predisposition with a few decades of economic mismanagement, which necessitate bailouts, and ask yourself if you'd be willing to write the check without preconditions if your last name was "Merkel".
The human race was eating GMO long before it wasn't cool. Wild grains were exploited and improved by the first hundred generations of hunter/gatherers before science knew what a genome was.
The elephant in the room is the centralization of agriculture with corresponding loss of genetic diversity in our annual harvest. When everybody's growing the exact same plant we're but one bug away from a failed harvest. The consequences (higher food prices) in the First World would be survivable, with adjustments, but the third world would be utterly fucked.
You can see this on a smaller scale at the grocery store. Bell peppers will grow just fine in most of CONUS, so prices should be fairly resistant to local disasters, right? Wrong. California suffers a massive drought and we've all got higher prices and a limited selection to contend with. Just why does California produce the lion's share of bell peppers and other crops that can grow almost anywhere? Economy of scale. Usually that's a good thing, but in this instance it's setting us up for a massive failure with some pretty dire consequences.
GMO isn't the problem, but it is symptomatic of a lot of structural flaws in the agriculture industry.
The United States has a common culture, language, and shared history. The EU has none of those things. The EU is a pet project of a handful of elites with their own agendas (some noble, some not so much) and precious little buy in from the masses at large. It started out as little more than a free trade association with the hope of building a shared economy that would make another European War harder to contemplate. The leap from that to a European version of Washington DC is a bridge too far.
The issue with the Russians is another matter entirely, but I'm not sure why the EU would have more luck deterring them than NATO would. Only four NATO members out of 28 (the US, Turkey, the UK, and France) live up to their obligation to spend 2% of their GDP on defense. You think a European Federation would have any better luck convincing the population to spend money on defense? That seems like a reach. Is there enough of a shared culture to convince the French to send their sons and daughters to die for the Latvians? That's even more of a reach. What about nukes? Will London and Paris surrender control of their nuclear arsenals to Brussels?
The United States works because it's one people, with a shared history. A Federated EU would be an artificial construct, the proverbial rotten structure that comes crashing in with one solid kick.
Because this whole "IRS is evil and seeks out ways to fuck and/or control the average taxpayer in service of XYZ political force" notion is just so fucking far from the truth I seriously wonder what kind of willful ignorance or bizarre lies someone must experience to believe it.
Taxes have long been the favorite tool of Federal Government to step outside of its originally intended boundaries. Sometimes this is done for good reasons (bringing down Al Capone), sometimes it's done for social engineering (everything from the mortgage interest deduction to the ACA's individual mandate), and other times it's done for paternalistic reasons (marijuana was originally regulated via tax stamps, similar to the way machine guns and destructive devices are currently regulated)
Regardless of which side of the political spectrum you fall on, you ought to be able to acknowledge the dangers of centralized power, for it's only a matter of time before the other side wields that power.
but the carbohydrates still raise insulin levels, which is bad for diabetics, and makes it really hard to lose weight.
They're also necessary, if you're doing any sort of meaningful cardio exercise, which you really should be. It's all well and good to maintain a healthy weight, but the cardiovascular system still needs to be challenged if it's going to remain healthy. This site has an interesting breakdown of the percentage of fat metabolism at various levels of exertion:
1. Healthy Heart Zone (Warm up) --- 50 - 60% of maximum heart rate: [snip] 85% of calories burned in this zone are fats!
2. Fitness Zone (Fat Burning) --- 60 - 70% of maximum heart rate: [snip] The percent of fat calories is still 85%.
3. Aerobic Zone (Endurance Training) --- 70 - 80% of maximum heart rate: [snip] More calories are burned with 50% from fat.
4. Anaerobic Zone (Performance Training) --- 80 - 90% of maximum heart rate: [snip] This is a high intensity zone burning more calories, 15% from fat.
In short, the body can only metabolize a certain amount of fatty acids at once. If you wish to exert yourself at a higher level you'll have to have access to glucose, which means the consumption of carbs at a reasonable level. The "reasonable" part of that statement is the part that a lot of people have a problem with.
Want a list of reasons why?
1. Dying from heart disease in your 50s sucks.
2. Injecting yourself with insulin multiple times a day sucks.
3. Being unable to walk to the far end of the parking lot or up a flight of stairs without getting winded sucks.
If you look like a Greek god, good for you; but you aren't one, so settle for admiring your abs in the mirror
It's interesting that you think it's a binary choice between looking like a Greek god or being an obese fat ass that's an emotional and financial drain on everyone around them.
I'm fat because I love food, it's one of the great pleasures of my life and I wouldn't dream to blame nature or society for my fate.
Take up distance running and you can have both food and healthy weight. There's nothing quite as satisfying as stuffing your face after a 20 mile long run. It's nearly an orgasmic experience.
Modern science says that fat utilization and storage are 100% controlled by hormones and hormones are hugely affected by diet. Everything else is superstition.
It's actually simpler than that: Calories Consumed - Calories Burned = Surplus added to fat stores/deficit removed from them.
We could dive further into a discussion about exercise metabolism and the different manner in which carbs/fats/proteins are processed, but for 90% of people it's all about the calorie deficit/surplus. A proper diet will make it easier to lose weight, since you'll feel fuller, but one could sustain themselves entirely on Snickers Bars and Big Macs and still lose weight if they had enough discipline.
I went from 240lbs to 190lbs without any exercise at all, back in the day when I was a daily pot smoker, simply by keeping my diet in the 1,700 - 1,900 calorie range. There was no special meal plan, just less of my usual diet (three slices of pizza instead of the whole pie) and the replacement of "bad" snacks with fruits/veggies. Now I train for and run marathons, so my average daily intake is closer to 3,500 calories, and I'm maintaining my weight. Actually I'm very slowly (~0.25lbs/week) taking more off, in the hopes of making myself a better runner.
Calories in, calories out. Everything else (Paleo, Atkins, low-fat, Subway Diet.....) is a marketing ploy and fad.
Cry me a river. Homo sapiens are one of the few (the only?) species that is capable of overriding our base instincts. "I had to eat the pasta, I just had to." carries no more weight with me than "I raped her because I was sexually frustrated and she wore a short skirt."
(private insurance does not cover you if you're using your car for a business).
Yes it does. It's just rated differently. Where do you think for-hire cars get their insurance from? The private sector or Uncle Sam?
I had my policy rated for business when I was working for a cheap ass consulting firm that made us use our own cars. It raised my premium less than 20%, a comparative bargain when compared to the prospect of paying a six digit bodily injury judgment. For-hire rates are a bit higher than this, but not particularly onerous, unless you live somewhere (New York City) that already has insanely high automotive insurance premiums.
1. Paying someone to have sex with you: Prostitution. Illegal.
2. Paying someone to have sex with you while you run a camera: Production of pornography. Legal.
Slashdot Mirror
Not in the United States, that's for damn sure. ;)
Can you please get a fourth-grader to at least look over your headlines for basic grammar?
Than they can look over they're and fix them before they get posted.
It has ceased to be customary to hit your date with a rock before mating. These days that is frowned upon.
Of course it's frowned upon. Why would you run the risk of a concussion when the far more effective and less physically harmful Ambien is readily available?
Hooray for science!
The executive branch has thought itself above the constitution since 1789
Fixed it for you.
(If you want to cut Washington a break you could say 1801. Jefferson thought the Louisiana purchase unconstitutional but did it anyway, perhaps the first "the ends justify the means" rationalization used by an American President. Then of course we have 1861 and Abe's questionable activities during the American Civil War)
You should eat a balanced diet. The point is you don't have to, at least in the short and medium term. The human body is remarkably adept at converting whatever you throw at it into useful energy, sometimes to our detriment when we eat too much.
It's been done before.
People who left their country of origin say very little about those of those who stayed behind. Germany outproduces the Mediterranean countries. This is a fact. Spin it however you want, with whatever anecdotal examples you choose, you can't change the raw numbers.
The main reason that it is so hard to determine what the ideal diet is is that the answer is different for everyone
Ideal diet: Calories in = calories out.
It's really that straightforward. Weigh yourself once a day. Apply a moving average to the number to smooth out the daily ups and downs. If you're gaining weight scale back on the calories. If you're losing weight increase the calories (unless of course your goal is to lose weight). It's all about the trend line and long term intake.... going crazy one day won't make any appreciable impact on your weight.
Adding exercise into the equation is better for your health but it is not required simply to maintain weight. There are all sorts of reasons (endorphins are a far better anti-depressant than any pill, your cardiovascular system will thank you, and you'll be more attractive to the opposite sex) to do it, but weight loss really isn't one of them.
Broccoli tastes just fine with some salt on it. Hell, I occasionally eat it raw, though slightly steamed (still needs to be crunchy) with salt is the best way. I even have cravings for it once in awhile, if a bit "backed up" and need the bulk in my diet....
I'm skeptical of any fad diet. Speaking strictly for myself here, my cholesterol, blood pressure, and fasting glucose numbers seem to follow my weight. When I was obese (255# at 5'10", so a BMI of 36.6) they were all high. When I was less obese (220#, BMI 31.6) they were at the high end of normal/low end of bad. Then I dipped into merely overweight (190#, BMI 27.3) and the aforementioned blood tests were all in the normal range. All throughout my diet never changed, I retained my guilty pleasures (greasy pizza tops the list), just ate less of them.
I've since added exercise into the equation, training for and running distance races ranging from 5ks to full marathons. I run 20-40 miles a week with an increased caloric intake (~3,500/day) to give me the energy I need for that kind of exercise workload. Guess what? The aforementioned blood test numbers haven't changed that much. Some other ones did change, my RBC count went up, by a lot (from 4.6 million cells/mcL to 5.54), which is an exercise adaptation. Blood pressure stayed the same, though my resting heart rate dropped from the mid 70s to the high 50s, another exercise adaptation.
The human body is a pretty amazing thing and will incorporate almost anything you throw at it, so long as you exercise a reasonable amount of moderation. If you're running a huge caloric surplus at the end of the day I don't think it matters if it's coming from saturated fat, protein, or whole grains. Do it long enough and your system is going to suffer for it.
And lets not bring in the fact that most Americans have piss poor immune systems to begin with
Huh?
At 1% of GDP the EU would be spending $140-$160 Billion a year on defense. That's double the Russians and almost as much as China. Heck, the Germans, French, and Brits alone spend $160 Billion. Add in Italy and they've got the Chinese beat.
You seem to be operating under the delusion that:
1. China is being forthright about her levels of defense spending.
2. 1% of GDP would give the EU the ability to project hard and soft power. The United States spends close to 4% for that sort of capability, and even at those levels our capabilities are diminishing.
3. That defense spending is the final arbiter of hard power.
#1 #3 are self-explanatory. For #2, what part of "They couldn't sustain a bombing campaign without American assistance" was so hard to understand?
it's that if somebody did magically convince the Austrians to do so a) the world would be a better place, and b) the Austrians would not regret it.
Really? It's clear that both the world would be a better place and they wouldn't regret it? The man on the street already regrets the EU. The poorer countries regret it because they've lost control of their monetary policy. The rich countries regret it because they're now on the hook for the poor countries and have to accept limitless immigration from the underdeveloped east. The EU is a project of the elites, imposed on the common man, with consequences as yet unknown. From my perspective as an American with friends (local and ex-pats) all over Europe (Finland, Sweden, Italy, Greece, the UK, Germany, and Ireland) it's a house of cards waiting to fall in on itself. The sooner the better. You can't just draw borders on a map and call it a country. Well, you can, but it rarely ends well.
Really, my born and raised in Italy and emigrated to the US at age 20 grandfather has a work ethic that a very conservative American would consider exemplary.
One of my friends growing up, his father was born and raised in Greece. He emigrated to the US in his early 20s also. He seemed to share a work ethic and some other traits with my grandfather.
You do realize that nothing you said has any bearing on my point, right?
Culture is local, not ethnic. Well, that's not true either, but you should catch my meaning. It's an entirely different pace of life in the Mediterranean Countries. You can get a similar culture shock if you travel from New York City to New Orleans, and The Big Easy is positively fast paced when compared to Italy, Spain, or Greece.
Its a welfare state government not the national culture that screws things up.
Then why isn't Finland broke and begging Germany for bailouts? Finland isn't going to bring the Euro down. The aforementioned countries just may.....
You've kind of missed the point:
1. You could wipe out bell peppers tomorrow and nobody starves to death. My example was simply to point out how centralization leaves the market more vulnerable to local disasters.
2. I can't buy a green bell pepper that's not grown in California, unless I go to the farmers market. They're simply not carried by any grocery store that I have access to, including the higher end (Wegmans) one. They'll grow almost everywhere (zones 1 through 11 if you're curious) yet California accounts for more than half of production and virtually all of the selection at the grocery store.
3. My concern with a bug is something that goes after grains, not veggies. You think our grain supply has the same genetic diversity that it did in yesteryear? You're dreaming. Do I think it would mean the end of humanity? Nope, I even said as such. I find it doubtful that the First World would even see a decrease in the obesity rate, much less have to contend with famine. The Third World on the other hand..... what do you suppose happens to them if there's a failed grain harvest and food prices skyrocket?
You ding me on allegedly not knowing American history and then suggest that France and UK would have a bigger vote than (note the letter in bold) everyone else in a Federated EU? You do realize how the United States Senate is structured right? Why exactly would the low population EU countries be willing to join a Federated EU that allowed the high population countries to dominate them? If your idea is a United States of Europe.....
The strongest powers in the EU have allowed their armed forces to atrophy to a point where they couldn't sustain a bombing campaign against a third world country without American assistance. There are over a dozen countries in the EU and NATO that can't contribute in any meaningful way to collective security. You seriously believe there's the political will to both form a genuine Federation and take a leading role on the global stage? You say conscription "could" be a problem?! Outside of Finland and Switzerland I can't think of any EU country that still practices it. But you want me to believe that all three dozen or so squabbling countries are both going to surrender their sovereignty and suddenly move forward with a common defense policy that has teeth?
Do some reading on the political crisis that was instigated by NATO's decision to deploy the Pershing II Missile in the 1980s. Then contemplate these facts:
1. NATO was a lot smaller in those days, so consensus was easier to obtain.
2. NATO had a real enemy in those days, so policy makers were more willing to take a political hit for the greater good.
3. The missiles were just a ploy to bring the Soviet Union to the negotiation table, which everybody was smart enough to realize, except the Greens.
4. European politics in the 1980s were a lot less hostile towards the defense establishment than they are today.
You're dreaming if you think European politics in this day and age would allow for any of what you're proposing. It's telling that you concede the UK and France would need to outvote the rest of the States before they could have a meaningful defense posture.
P.S., The EU and NATOs best hope is that Putin doesn't call our respective bluffs, because I find it extremely unlikely that the Baltic States could withstand the sort of subversive campaign that he has applied so successfully to the Ukraine, nor do I think anybody in NATO is truly willing to go to war with a nuclear state over them. Germany? Sure. Poland? Probably. The Baltic States? Not bloody likely.
What they spectacularly failed to accomplish with guns and tanks they're silently accomplishing with Deutschmarks, err, I mean Euros. They learned their lesson from the United States very well......
Of course, it's not Germany's fault they're so much more productive than the rest of Europe. Ever been to Italy, Greece, or Spain? The "work ethic" in those cultures is utterly foreign to an American, never mind a German. It may make for an easy going lifestyle but it's not very competitive in a global economy. Now compound that cultural predisposition with a few decades of economic mismanagement, which necessitate bailouts, and ask yourself if you'd be willing to write the check without preconditions if your last name was "Merkel".
The human race was eating GMO long before it wasn't cool. Wild grains were exploited and improved by the first hundred generations of hunter/gatherers before science knew what a genome was.
The elephant in the room is the centralization of agriculture with corresponding loss of genetic diversity in our annual harvest. When everybody's growing the exact same plant we're but one bug away from a failed harvest. The consequences (higher food prices) in the First World would be survivable, with adjustments, but the third world would be utterly fucked.
You can see this on a smaller scale at the grocery store. Bell peppers will grow just fine in most of CONUS, so prices should be fairly resistant to local disasters, right? Wrong. California suffers a massive drought and we've all got higher prices and a limited selection to contend with. Just why does California produce the lion's share of bell peppers and other crops that can grow almost anywhere? Economy of scale. Usually that's a good thing, but in this instance it's setting us up for a massive failure with some pretty dire consequences.
GMO isn't the problem, but it is symptomatic of a lot of structural flaws in the agriculture industry.
The United States has a common culture, language, and shared history. The EU has none of those things. The EU is a pet project of a handful of elites with their own agendas (some noble, some not so much) and precious little buy in from the masses at large. It started out as little more than a free trade association with the hope of building a shared economy that would make another European War harder to contemplate. The leap from that to a European version of Washington DC is a bridge too far.
The issue with the Russians is another matter entirely, but I'm not sure why the EU would have more luck deterring them than NATO would. Only four NATO members out of 28 (the US, Turkey, the UK, and France) live up to their obligation to spend 2% of their GDP on defense. You think a European Federation would have any better luck convincing the population to spend money on defense? That seems like a reach. Is there enough of a shared culture to convince the French to send their sons and daughters to die for the Latvians? That's even more of a reach. What about nukes? Will London and Paris surrender control of their nuclear arsenals to Brussels?
The United States works because it's one people, with a shared history. A Federated EU would be an artificial construct, the proverbial rotten structure that comes crashing in with one solid kick.
Because this whole "IRS is evil and seeks out ways to fuck and/or control the average taxpayer in service of XYZ political force" notion is just so fucking far from the truth I seriously wonder what kind of willful ignorance or bizarre lies someone must experience to believe it.
Taxes have long been the favorite tool of Federal Government to step outside of its originally intended boundaries. Sometimes this is done for good reasons (bringing down Al Capone), sometimes it's done for social engineering (everything from the mortgage interest deduction to the ACA's individual mandate), and other times it's done for paternalistic reasons (marijuana was originally regulated via tax stamps, similar to the way machine guns and destructive devices are currently regulated)
Regardless of which side of the political spectrum you fall on, you ought to be able to acknowledge the dangers of centralized power, for it's only a matter of time before the other side wields that power.
but the carbohydrates still raise insulin levels, which is bad for diabetics, and makes it really hard to lose weight.
They're also necessary, if you're doing any sort of meaningful cardio exercise, which you really should be. It's all well and good to maintain a healthy weight, but the cardiovascular system still needs to be challenged if it's going to remain healthy. This site has an interesting breakdown of the percentage of fat metabolism at various levels of exertion:
1. Healthy Heart Zone (Warm up) --- 50 - 60% of maximum heart rate: [snip] 85% of calories burned in this zone are fats!
2. Fitness Zone (Fat Burning) --- 60 - 70% of maximum heart rate: [snip] The percent of fat calories is still 85%.
3. Aerobic Zone (Endurance Training) --- 70 - 80% of maximum heart rate: [snip] More calories are burned with 50% from fat.
4. Anaerobic Zone (Performance Training) --- 80 - 90% of maximum heart rate: [snip] This is a high intensity zone burning more calories, 15% from fat.
In short, the body can only metabolize a certain amount of fatty acids at once. If you wish to exert yourself at a higher level you'll have to have access to glucose, which means the consumption of carbs at a reasonable level. The "reasonable" part of that statement is the part that a lot of people have a problem with.
And why? To fit someone else's aestetic ideal?
Want a list of reasons why?
1. Dying from heart disease in your 50s sucks.
2. Injecting yourself with insulin multiple times a day sucks.
3. Being unable to walk to the far end of the parking lot or up a flight of stairs without getting winded sucks.
If you look like a Greek god, good for you; but you aren't one, so settle for admiring your abs in the mirror
It's interesting that you think it's a binary choice between looking like a Greek god or being an obese fat ass that's an emotional and financial drain on everyone around them.
I'm fat because I love food, it's one of the great pleasures of my life and I wouldn't dream to blame nature or society for my fate.
Take up distance running and you can have both food and healthy weight. There's nothing quite as satisfying as stuffing your face after a 20 mile long run. It's nearly an orgasmic experience.
Modern science says that fat utilization and storage are 100% controlled by hormones and hormones are hugely affected by diet. Everything else is superstition.
It's actually simpler than that: Calories Consumed - Calories Burned = Surplus added to fat stores/deficit removed from them.
We could dive further into a discussion about exercise metabolism and the different manner in which carbs/fats/proteins are processed, but for 90% of people it's all about the calorie deficit/surplus. A proper diet will make it easier to lose weight, since you'll feel fuller, but one could sustain themselves entirely on Snickers Bars and Big Macs and still lose weight if they had enough discipline.
I went from 240lbs to 190lbs without any exercise at all, back in the day when I was a daily pot smoker, simply by keeping my diet in the 1,700 - 1,900 calorie range. There was no special meal plan, just less of my usual diet (three slices of pizza instead of the whole pie) and the replacement of "bad" snacks with fruits/veggies. Now I train for and run marathons, so my average daily intake is closer to 3,500 calories, and I'm maintaining my weight. Actually I'm very slowly (~0.25lbs/week) taking more off, in the hopes of making myself a better runner.
Calories in, calories out. Everything else (Paleo, Atkins, low-fat, Subway Diet.....) is a marketing ploy and fad.
Carbohydrate-laden food is physically addictive
Cry me a river. Homo sapiens are one of the few (the only?) species that is capable of overriding our base instincts. "I had to eat the pasta, I just had to." carries no more weight with me than "I raped her because I was sexually frustrated and she wore a short skirt."
(private insurance does not cover you if you're using your car for a business).
Yes it does. It's just rated differently. Where do you think for-hire cars get their insurance from? The private sector or Uncle Sam?
I had my policy rated for business when I was working for a cheap ass consulting firm that made us use our own cars. It raised my premium less than 20%, a comparative bargain when compared to the prospect of paying a six digit bodily injury judgment. For-hire rates are a bit higher than this, but not particularly onerous, unless you live somewhere (New York City) that already has insanely high automotive insurance premiums.
The first one is a prostitute
Family Guy reference:
1. Paying someone to have sex with you: Prostitution. Illegal.
2. Paying someone to have sex with you while you run a camera: Production of pornography. Legal.