Yes, actually, we do. It was previously thought that only hits hard enough to cause visible concussion symptoms resulted in brain damage. Now we know that consistent low-level impacts have a far more significant impact on CTE. Another thing that was not understood was how prevalent brain damage was in the sport. Obviously in a game featuring violent impacts you're going to end up with some brain damage, but the fact is that *nearly all* professional football players show some sign of CTE, and even kids as young as 15 or 16 are showing signs of the disease. This has brought about *massive* changes to the way we practice and officiate the sport, particularly at the high school level.
True, but in the case of credit cards it really is that dramatic. If I put $20 on a credit card at a store, then maybe you have anywhere from $0.25 to $2 in transaction fees. If I pay cash, that money that would have gone to the CC companies is instead returned to the owner as pure profit. If your business operates at a 3% profit margin and you can bump that up by a percentage or two (or even less) that's a pretty big difference. You're talking about multiplying your profit by 25-50% if all your customers pay in cash.
I used to live in a small town in Colorado and many small businesses asked the customers to pay in cash whenever possible. It had become commonplace for people to shop with cash, so most people carried cash with them when they went shopping. I imagine just that simple act kept tens of thousands of dollars in the local economy. You're right that you also have to account for other factors, but a few fractions of a percent here and there become extremely powerful in aggregate.
No, it's been proven over and over again that buying from locally owned businesses keeps money in the community. At pretty dramatic rates, too. Hell, even purchasing something in cash vs. using a credit card can add 5-10% of the purchase price to your local economy because that money stays in circulation and is spent multiple times.
Are the great lakes shrinking due to climate change, and how much is man-made? Obviously they're going to be shrinking naturally since we're no longer in an ice age, but I wonder how much is due to industrial usage or other reasons vs. climate change?
Well, you said (smart) poor people couldn't afford to do it, and I disagree. You can still do it, you just have to be very disciplined.
When I was growing up in N. Nevada in the 90's we viewed Raley's as the nicest supermarket in town. It was a step up from Smith's and Safeway, and I think it's always been that way. Ralph's and Vons used to be locally/regionally owned but are owned by Kroger and Safeway now. WinCo is a cool company, but not local for most of there stores. But I'm OK with shopping there.
I'm not sure what other supermarkets are in the area (assuming you're in Cali) but there are probably lower class locally owned markets. There are certainly up-market local grocers there. It's hard to tell though. In California the (financial) markets are so damn huge that even "regional" retailers have 200+ stores and are run by a large corporation.
Well Gore was a pretty classic example of a nerd not understanding the importance of soft skills. He thought that being correct was the most important thing. But it's not. *Convincing* people you are correct is the most important thing in politics. He lost to GW Bush in large part because he came off as a pompous ass in the debates.
When you need the stupid people to help you, you have to be gracious towards the stupid people. Not condescending.
I really hate video services that won't let me pause the video and download slowly. My home internet is a rather unreliable wifi signal, and if I want to watch something while it's being finicky I like to pause it for a while and let the video player catch up. Certain video services (I'm looking at you Comedy Central) only download a small amount of the video in advance and it stutters so badly that I just close it and go do something else.
I don't really understand the reasoning behind that decision either. I'll still watch the stinking ads, just let me download it in peace!
I like to eat waaaaay too much to fast! I also workout often, and when I exercise my body sends crazy "eat now or die" signals to me. I'm not sure if I could keep up my workout schedule if I was regularly fasting.
I've figured out how to adapt to my body for the most part. The biggest thing for me has been trying to cook for myself 100% of the time and switching to a mostly vegetarian diet. I've found a lot of things like tofu stir fry that are good and allow me to eat really large servings at low calories.
This time last year I was a couple pounds heavier and probably 5% higher in body fat so it's working. I think I've figured it out at this point, it's just a matter of discipline.
Shopping local - which doesn't mean shopping at Wal-Mart - isn't something (smart) poor people can really afford to do any more
That's sort of true, but you're oversimplifying it. You can be poor and still shop local depending on where you live. You just have to value consumer ethics as a high priority in your life and put a large amount of effort into planning and cooking your own meals.
I make $12.50/hr, which puts me in something like the 30th percentile where I live. So not poor, exactly, because I'm single. But definitely working class. I also shop locally most of the time, buy fresh and organic produce a fair amount of the time.
There's a "discount" grocery chain in my city, which has about 10 stores in the area. It was started in a nearby city and is still family owned. The difference between that grocery and the regional Kroger chain? Very little, actually, except their store brands are Western Family instead of Kroger and they sell more bulk food. Prices are almost exactly the same (they vary on different products, but it averages out). Another local chain of Hispanic markets sells produce at around 10% less than the Kroger chain. But the local Kroger chain is ubiquitous and it takes a little effort to browse the weekly ads and go to the various discount stores.
In the summertime I go to the local farmer's market. I also buy beef by the side and hunt. I have a couple chest freezers and store produce and meat that I buy in season and on sale. I keep a notebook where I compare prices at the various stores in the area. That way when I see a deal I can stock up in bulk. You can save a ton of money that way, but it's not easy and requires quite a bit of planning and foresight. But if you do it correctly, it saves a *ton* of money, supports local businesses (helping to break other community members out of the poverty cycle) and allows you to live in relative luxury.
Most poor people aren't doing that, because they are making poor decisions on what and how they eat. They *think* they have to shop at Wal-Mart and all that, but what are they buying there? Pre-packaged meals and junk food. Shop at local stores, save money, and get healthier! It's a bit harder, but totally feasible and much more rewarding in the end.
Exactly. Shopping locally is a matter of ethics, much like purchasing organic food. It's not so much that the product is different or better, although oftentimes it is. But you're supporting a business model that creates healthy communities rather than destroying them.
To some people, every good is a commodity and you should try and find the cheapest good possible. But IMHO (and yours, obviously) every dollar spent is a social decision. You're not just buying a widget when you spend $10 at Wal-Mart, you are supporting a world where multinational corporations push small business around and workers are treated like minimum wage slaves, and you're building a community where big box stores and 6-lane city streets are ubiquitous and multi-use, walkable communities are disappearing.
As much as possible I try to shop at local places. That money stays in the community and it supports businesses who (for the most part) are honest, hardworking people.
Buy local. Pay cash. Give to local charities. Shop at farmer's markets and local grocery stores. Move your money into local or regional banks and credit unions. These simple decisions have massive impacts on the quality of your community when taken in aggregate.
Good people do good things and bad people do bad things; and if they happen to be religious, then they will blame both on their religion, but it doesn't mean that it is true.
With or without [religion] you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
Well, OK. How do you think pasta is healthier than apples? Fructose? Excessive fructose can be a problem, but it's pretty difficult to get an excessive amount from fruits and vegetables. I would wager a large amount of money that nearly all people who have a problem consuming excessive fructose got that problem from processed sugar, not fruits and veggies.
Whether you're overconsuming fructose or you're overconsuming glocuse,it ends up as body fat either way. And eating foods that have a high glycemic load often induces you to overconsume.
How many people have chronic liver disorders or gout from eating too many fruits vs. how many people are obese because of excessive calorie intake? Or vs. how many people suffer from diabetes? I don't have the numbers, but it has to be several orders of magnitude in difference.
No, I'm pretty well educated about nutrition and I eat extremely healthy foods and have healthy habits. I try very, very hard to live cleanly. Mostly vegetarian, whole foods, cooked in a healthy way and with lots of variety. I rarely eat any processed foods. My one health vice is alcohol, but even then it's usually moderate and I account for it in my calorie tracking.
It really is my body type. My dad, every one of my uncles, and probably 2/3 of my cousins all have the same build. We're pretty much all good athletes too, just wrestlers and football players rather than track and soccer types. Right now I'm at about 25% body fat and *slowly* dropping, but I seriously doubt it will ever get under 15-18%. The lowest weight I ever was as an adult was 205 lbs in high school, and I was a 3 sport athlete, exercising 3+ hours a day and eating very well. I don't think it really shows, though. I look like a slightly overweight guy, not an obese one. When people guess my weight they usually guess around 200 rather than 240.
When I eat unhealthy it's pretty horrifying, though. I can easily gain 5-10 lbs. a month.
You're ignoring the more important figure in that reference, which is glycemic load. Glycemic index measures how much each gram of available carbohydrate (meaning total carbs minus fiber) raises your blood sugar relative to pure glucose. It does not take into account the amount of available carbohydrate that is actually present in the food, which means that the GI by itself isn't all that helpful. No matter what the serving size or amount of fiber consumed (and fiber blocks carbohydrates from being absorbed by the body), GI will always be the same. Glycemic load takes GI into account, but also takes into account serving size and amount of available carbohydrates present in the food in order to give a much more useful measure of what the food is going to do to your blood sugar level.
Apples and pasta have similar GI values (46 for white spaghetti and 39 for apples in the link you provided) but the pasta has a much, much higher glycemic load than apples (adjusted for the same 180 gram serving it's 22 for spaghetti vs. 9 for apples). Apples have fewer total carbohydrates, and even fewer available carbohydrates due to fiber. So the pasta is going to to put much more sugar into your blood than an apple will.
Whole wheat pasta has a lower glycemic load (17 vs. 22) value than white pasta even though their GI is very similar (42 vs. 46) because whole wheat contains more fiber than white flour. It also contains many more nutrients than white flour, making it a much better choice nutritionally. You should always stick to whole foods vs. refined foods as much as possible. They're always better for you.
And apples are an incredibly nutritious food! Although I do agree with you that potatoes are probably more nutritious. You just have to leave the skins on and cook them in a healthy way. They've gotten a bad rap for being unhealthy but it's only because they're always fried or covered in butter. By themselves they're wonderful.
Starches and sugar are both types of carbohydrate chemically speaking, but the terms are used differently in food science. You can think of "carbohydrates" as they are usually referred to in food science as sugars bound in a more complex chemical arrangement.
If you eat sugar in natural form where it is mixed with fiber (like an apple, for example) then your body will digest it differently than if you eat that same amount of sugar in candy or soda. Refined sugar and processed carbohydrates provoke different responses from the body compared to whole foods even if they contain similar quantities of macronutrients, because they are more easily metabolized by the body and the sugars enter the blood stream extremely quickly. Carbohydrates in things such as pasta, white bread, etc. are turned into sugar by the body very, very quickly so the effect of eating them is very similar to to eating the same quantity of refined sugar.
Try and stick to whole foods as much as possible. Even if the macronutrient contents are similar, they will be much better for your body than the processed equivalent.
There are definitely different body types out there, but to get truly obese, you have to be eating serious amounts of crap food, and to keep eating it even after you notice that you're putting on weight.
Nope. Maybe for you, but not for everyone. I'm 5'10", 240 lbs. and I eat extremely healthy most of the time. I cook nearly all of my food myself with a scale and notebook and all of that annoying stuff (I know the exact amount of calories I eat probably 80-90% of the time). I also work out 6 days a week and engage in recreational sports a few times a week.
Yet I'm either solidly obese or borderline obese depending on the definition you choose. It takes really, really small amounts of unhealthy eating to make me gain weight, and while I gain muscle pretty effortlessly losing weight has always been struggle. I'm not sure if I'm unhealthy or not. I definitely am pretty fit, but medically speaking I am obese. I'm not sure what the medical effects of carrying around extra weight are when you're still active and healthy otherwise.
You just have the right genetics to prevent yourself from gaining too much weight. Make sure you keep a close watch on your diet as you get older. Once that old man metabolism starts to kick in you'll have to change your eating habits.
Democrats, although moderately I expect. I think it would probably work more the other way, where the presidential election brought out more people likely to approve marijuana legalization rather than the opposite.
Colorado Republicans are Western Republicans. They're a lot more libertarian than the party nationwide. I went to high school in a Republican part of CO and most folks don't give a crap about marijuana. If they're going to do it, just tax it and regulate it. Only old-timers and extremely religious folks seem to care.
I think one of the great ironies of Romney's campaign is that if he stuck to his true beliefs, which are quite obviously (IMHO of course), much more moderate and pragmatic than what he showed in the campaign, he probably would've beat Obama. But he swung hard to the right in order to win the primary (both now and in 2008), while Obama had the freedom to campaign more to the center.
I think Mitt by himself would have made a great president. Mitt + the national Republican party was an abomination waiting to happen.
I don't know why people would be offended by CS Lewis. I don't think anyone here dislikes rational religious folks, just the crazy kind. I'm a fervent atheist and Screwtape Letters is one of my favorite books.
I'm going to avoid your other points. Most of them are matters of opinion, yelling at a cloud is unproductive, but how could you possibly consider Michale Bloomberg a Democrat? The guy ran as a Republican and is now independent! And yet that somehow doesn't count, because his "beliefs" are Democratic?
Sure, the Republican party endorsed him and he ran as a Republican, but we all really know he's a Democrat! Look, he restricts freedom, and hating freedom is a Democratic value!
And banning smoking indoors was a pretty unanimous bi-partisan effort. But in your equation, Democrats are the only ones in government who impose their beliefs on the public, so s be damned! It has to be attributed to them.
Slashdot Mirror
You do, actually.
Yes, actually, we do. It was previously thought that only hits hard enough to cause visible concussion symptoms resulted in brain damage. Now we know that consistent low-level impacts have a far more significant impact on CTE. Another thing that was not understood was how prevalent brain damage was in the sport. Obviously in a game featuring violent impacts you're going to end up with some brain damage, but the fact is that *nearly all* professional football players show some sign of CTE, and even kids as young as 15 or 16 are showing signs of the disease. This has brought about *massive* changes to the way we practice and officiate the sport, particularly at the high school level.
This is a really fascinating subject for anyone that is interested:
The Women Who Would Save Football
Concussions among adolescents
Concussions in the NHL
Oh wait, I forgot this is slashdot, and the hivemind looks down on athletics. OHMAGEERRRRD, FOOTBALL IS SO STUPID.
True, but in the case of credit cards it really is that dramatic. If I put $20 on a credit card at a store, then maybe you have anywhere from $0.25 to $2 in transaction fees. If I pay cash, that money that would have gone to the CC companies is instead returned to the owner as pure profit. If your business operates at a 3% profit margin and you can bump that up by a percentage or two (or even less) that's a pretty big difference. You're talking about multiplying your profit by 25-50% if all your customers pay in cash.
I used to live in a small town in Colorado and many small businesses asked the customers to pay in cash whenever possible. It had become commonplace for people to shop with cash, so most people carried cash with them when they went shopping. I imagine just that simple act kept tens of thousands of dollars in the local economy. You're right that you also have to account for other factors, but a few fractions of a percent here and there become extremely powerful in aggregate.
And an aside to that, did you find yourself drawn to other forms of activism before you started GNU?
No, it's been proven over and over again that buying from locally owned businesses keeps money in the community. At pretty dramatic rates, too. Hell, even purchasing something in cash vs. using a credit card can add 5-10% of the purchase price to your local economy because that money stays in circulation and is spent multiple times.
Are the great lakes shrinking due to climate change, and how much is man-made? Obviously they're going to be shrinking naturally since we're no longer in an ice age, but I wonder how much is due to industrial usage or other reasons vs. climate change?
Well, you said (smart) poor people couldn't afford to do it, and I disagree. You can still do it, you just have to be very disciplined.
When I was growing up in N. Nevada in the 90's we viewed Raley's as the nicest supermarket in town. It was a step up from Smith's and Safeway, and I think it's always been that way. Ralph's and Vons used to be locally/regionally owned but are owned by Kroger and Safeway now. WinCo is a cool company, but not local for most of there stores. But I'm OK with shopping there.
I'm not sure what other supermarkets are in the area (assuming you're in Cali) but there are probably lower class locally owned markets. There are certainly up-market local grocers there. It's hard to tell though. In California the (financial) markets are so damn huge that even "regional" retailers have 200+ stores and are run by a large corporation.
I prefer to call them regressivists. Or paleo-conservatives. They want to go back to the government of the late 19th and early 20th century.
Well Gore was a pretty classic example of a nerd not understanding the importance of soft skills. He thought that being correct was the most important thing. But it's not. *Convincing* people you are correct is the most important thing in politics. He lost to GW Bush in large part because he came off as a pompous ass in the debates.
When you need the stupid people to help you, you have to be gracious towards the stupid people. Not condescending.
I really hate video services that won't let me pause the video and download slowly. My home internet is a rather unreliable wifi signal, and if I want to watch something while it's being finicky I like to pause it for a while and let the video player catch up. Certain video services (I'm looking at you Comedy Central) only download a small amount of the video in advance and it stutters so badly that I just close it and go do something else.
I don't really understand the reasoning behind that decision either. I'll still watch the stinking ads, just let me download it in peace!
I like to eat waaaaay too much to fast! I also workout often, and when I exercise my body sends crazy "eat now or die" signals to me. I'm not sure if I could keep up my workout schedule if I was regularly fasting.
I've figured out how to adapt to my body for the most part. The biggest thing for me has been trying to cook for myself 100% of the time and switching to a mostly vegetarian diet. I've found a lot of things like tofu stir fry that are good and allow me to eat really large servings at low calories.
This time last year I was a couple pounds heavier and probably 5% higher in body fat so it's working. I think I've figured it out at this point, it's just a matter of discipline.
That's sort of true, but you're oversimplifying it. You can be poor and still shop local depending on where you live. You just have to value consumer ethics as a high priority in your life and put a large amount of effort into planning and cooking your own meals.
I make $12.50/hr, which puts me in something like the 30th percentile where I live. So not poor, exactly, because I'm single. But definitely working class. I also shop locally most of the time, buy fresh and organic produce a fair amount of the time.
There's a "discount" grocery chain in my city, which has about 10 stores in the area. It was started in a nearby city and is still family owned. The difference between that grocery and the regional Kroger chain? Very little, actually, except their store brands are Western Family instead of Kroger and they sell more bulk food. Prices are almost exactly the same (they vary on different products, but it averages out). Another local chain of Hispanic markets sells produce at around 10% less than the Kroger chain. But the local Kroger chain is ubiquitous and it takes a little effort to browse the weekly ads and go to the various discount stores.
In the summertime I go to the local farmer's market. I also buy beef by the side and hunt. I have a couple chest freezers and store produce and meat that I buy in season and on sale. I keep a notebook where I compare prices at the various stores in the area. That way when I see a deal I can stock up in bulk. You can save a ton of money that way, but it's not easy and requires quite a bit of planning and foresight. But if you do it correctly, it saves a *ton* of money, supports local businesses (helping to break other community members out of the poverty cycle) and allows you to live in relative luxury.
Most poor people aren't doing that, because they are making poor decisions on what and how they eat. They *think* they have to shop at Wal-Mart and all that, but what are they buying there? Pre-packaged meals and junk food. Shop at local stores, save money, and get healthier! It's a bit harder, but totally feasible and much more rewarding in the end.
Exactly. Shopping locally is a matter of ethics, much like purchasing organic food. It's not so much that the product is different or better, although oftentimes it is. But you're supporting a business model that creates healthy communities rather than destroying them.
To some people, every good is a commodity and you should try and find the cheapest good possible. But IMHO (and yours, obviously) every dollar spent is a social decision. You're not just buying a widget when you spend $10 at Wal-Mart, you are supporting a world where multinational corporations push small business around and workers are treated like minimum wage slaves, and you're building a community where big box stores and 6-lane city streets are ubiquitous and multi-use, walkable communities are disappearing.
As much as possible I try to shop at local places. That money stays in the community and it supports businesses who (for the most part) are honest, hardworking people.
Buy local. Pay cash. Give to local charities. Shop at farmer's markets and local grocery stores. Move your money into local or regional banks and credit unions. These simple decisions have massive impacts on the quality of your community when taken in aggregate.
With or without [religion] you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
-Steven Weinberg
Well, OK. How do you think pasta is healthier than apples? Fructose? Excessive fructose can be a problem, but it's pretty difficult to get an excessive amount from fruits and vegetables. I would wager a large amount of money that nearly all people who have a problem consuming excessive fructose got that problem from processed sugar, not fruits and veggies.
Whether you're overconsuming fructose or you're overconsuming glocuse,it ends up as body fat either way. And eating foods that have a high glycemic load often induces you to overconsume.
How many people have chronic liver disorders or gout from eating too many fruits vs. how many people are obese because of excessive calorie intake? Or vs. how many people suffer from diabetes? I don't have the numbers, but it has to be several orders of magnitude in difference.
No, I'm pretty well educated about nutrition and I eat extremely healthy foods and have healthy habits. I try very, very hard to live cleanly. Mostly vegetarian, whole foods, cooked in a healthy way and with lots of variety. I rarely eat any processed foods. My one health vice is alcohol, but even then it's usually moderate and I account for it in my calorie tracking.
It really is my body type. My dad, every one of my uncles, and probably 2/3 of my cousins all have the same build. We're pretty much all good athletes too, just wrestlers and football players rather than track and soccer types. Right now I'm at about 25% body fat and *slowly* dropping, but I seriously doubt it will ever get under 15-18%. The lowest weight I ever was as an adult was 205 lbs in high school, and I was a 3 sport athlete, exercising 3+ hours a day and eating very well. I don't think it really shows, though. I look like a slightly overweight guy, not an obese one. When people guess my weight they usually guess around 200 rather than 240.
When I eat unhealthy it's pretty horrifying, though. I can easily gain 5-10 lbs. a month.
You're ignoring the more important figure in that reference, which is glycemic load. Glycemic index measures how much each gram of available carbohydrate (meaning total carbs minus fiber) raises your blood sugar relative to pure glucose. It does not take into account the amount of available carbohydrate that is actually present in the food, which means that the GI by itself isn't all that helpful. No matter what the serving size or amount of fiber consumed (and fiber blocks carbohydrates from being absorbed by the body), GI will always be the same. Glycemic load takes GI into account, but also takes into account serving size and amount of available carbohydrates present in the food in order to give a much more useful measure of what the food is going to do to your blood sugar level.
Apples and pasta have similar GI values (46 for white spaghetti and 39 for apples in the link you provided) but the pasta has a much, much higher glycemic load than apples (adjusted for the same 180 gram serving it's 22 for spaghetti vs. 9 for apples). Apples have fewer total carbohydrates, and even fewer available carbohydrates due to fiber. So the pasta is going to to put much more sugar into your blood than an apple will.
Whole wheat pasta has a lower glycemic load (17 vs. 22) value than white pasta even though their GI is very similar (42 vs. 46) because whole wheat contains more fiber than white flour. It also contains many more nutrients than white flour, making it a much better choice nutritionally. You should always stick to whole foods vs. refined foods as much as possible. They're always better for you.
And apples are an incredibly nutritious food! Although I do agree with you that potatoes are probably more nutritious. You just have to leave the skins on and cook them in a healthy way. They've gotten a bad rap for being unhealthy but it's only because they're always fried or covered in butter. By themselves they're wonderful.
Starches and sugar are both types of carbohydrate chemically speaking, but the terms are used differently in food science. You can think of "carbohydrates" as they are usually referred to in food science as sugars bound in a more complex chemical arrangement.
If you eat sugar in natural form where it is mixed with fiber (like an apple, for example) then your body will digest it differently than if you eat that same amount of sugar in candy or soda. Refined sugar and processed carbohydrates provoke different responses from the body compared to whole foods even if they contain similar quantities of macronutrients, because they are more easily metabolized by the body and the sugars enter the blood stream extremely quickly. Carbohydrates in things such as pasta, white bread, etc. are turned into sugar by the body very, very quickly so the effect of eating them is very similar to to eating the same quantity of refined sugar.
Try and stick to whole foods as much as possible. Even if the macronutrient contents are similar, they will be much better for your body than the processed equivalent.
Nope. Maybe for you, but not for everyone. I'm 5'10", 240 lbs. and I eat extremely healthy most of the time. I cook nearly all of my food myself with a scale and notebook and all of that annoying stuff (I know the exact amount of calories I eat probably 80-90% of the time). I also work out 6 days a week and engage in recreational sports a few times a week.
Yet I'm either solidly obese or borderline obese depending on the definition you choose. It takes really, really small amounts of unhealthy eating to make me gain weight, and while I gain muscle pretty effortlessly losing weight has always been struggle. I'm not sure if I'm unhealthy or not. I definitely am pretty fit, but medically speaking I am obese. I'm not sure what the medical effects of carrying around extra weight are when you're still active and healthy otherwise.
You just have the right genetics to prevent yourself from gaining too much weight. Make sure you keep a close watch on your diet as you get older. Once that old man metabolism starts to kick in you'll have to change your eating habits.
Because Starbucks doesn't sell coffee. They sell caffeinated milkshakes.
Wild arabica is already quite rare.
Democrats, although moderately I expect. I think it would probably work more the other way, where the presidential election brought out more people likely to approve marijuana legalization rather than the opposite.
Colorado Republicans are Western Republicans. They're a lot more libertarian than the party nationwide. I went to high school in a Republican part of CO and most folks don't give a crap about marijuana. If they're going to do it, just tax it and regulate it. Only old-timers and extremely religious folks seem to care.
I think one of the great ironies of Romney's campaign is that if he stuck to his true beliefs, which are quite obviously (IMHO of course), much more moderate and pragmatic than what he showed in the campaign, he probably would've beat Obama. But he swung hard to the right in order to win the primary (both now and in 2008), while Obama had the freedom to campaign more to the center.
I think Mitt by himself would have made a great president. Mitt + the national Republican party was an abomination waiting to happen.
I don't know why people would be offended by CS Lewis. I don't think anyone here dislikes rational religious folks, just the crazy kind. I'm a fervent atheist and Screwtape Letters is one of my favorite books.
I'm going to avoid your other points. Most of them are matters of opinion, yelling at a cloud is unproductive, but how could you possibly consider Michale Bloomberg a Democrat? The guy ran as a Republican and is now independent! And yet that somehow doesn't count, because his "beliefs" are Democratic?
Sure, the Republican party endorsed him and he ran as a Republican, but we all really know he's a Democrat! Look, he restricts freedom, and hating freedom is a Democratic value!
And banning smoking indoors was a pretty unanimous bi-partisan effort. But in your equation, Democrats are the only ones in government who impose their beliefs on the public, so s be damned! It has to be attributed to them.
Please.