retaliate by not working at Walmart, quit smoking, quit drinking, eat better, AND get an education. If the place you are living at cannot provide you with the jobs you need to succeed then move. Nothing hurts a business more than money leaving the economy.

>> ^bmacs27:

Every study I've seen shows that diets of that sort yield short term weight loss although subjects generally reacquire the weight within a year of stopping the diet, and report depression during the diet. Prove me wrong.


Ok...
Weight Watchers Success Stories
People failing to maintain their diets and permanently alter their eating and exercise behavior after a successful diet is behavioral.
Failing at anything can cause depression. This is not a complex phenomenon. Cessation of an activity you previously relied on for happiness is bound to make you less happy (biochemically if nothing else), and like quitting smoking will always be a difficult temptation.

He has the labored breathing of a 400 pound man, but his thin hands and wrists suggest maybe he just needs to quit smoking.

Never drank, never smoked, never did illegal substances....and I don't feel superior to people who drink and some illegal substances. I actually admire them if they can balance it into their life and it brings them some happiness.

I can't stand smoking, I grew up around it, had all but one grandparent die because of smoking giving them lung issues that either ultimately killed them or prevented them from getting procedures done to stop heart problems. Weak lungs would have guaranteed their death during surgery and no one would operate. So, I don't feel superior to them, but I'm an asthmatic it smells horrible, so I just can't be around them. Hell as I got older I had to quit hanging around with a friend of mine until he quit smoking because he just smoked more and more and I couldn't take being around him. Allergies, etc. Plus anytime he smoked I had to be away from him, so the more he smoked the less point there was to trying to hang out.

Illegal substances, mixed bag. Marijuana, not really a huge deal to me...I know too many functional people who use it. However I have a brother who is absolutely obsessed with marijuana, and it's obviously not beneficial to him due to that control it has over him. Cocaine, meth, heroin, etc....just seems like pissing money away for health issues you'll have to deal with later...plus a lot of substances age you prematurely or make your teeth fall out, etc. And teeth falling is something I've had nightmares about, so why the hell would I want to do that.

And I *KNOW* I have an addictive personality, this is why I don't try these things. Not because I feel superior, in fact I don't like not being able to try alcohol in particularly. I just know I would slowly slide into over-use on it. Plus most of it smells horrible, so as long as it smells horrible to me and I don't develop a taste for it...Im set.


I don't like Penn yelling/ranting like that to make his point, but I do think that they need to re-examine their drug policies. Because they seem less about drug control and more about people control, especially non-influential and poor people control. If it were about drug control, I think they'd be telling you that if they catch you on substances while driving you are out of a license immediately. Or if you commit a crime while on them, it's worse punishment. While if you're just on them and not doing anything of note.......then that's what you choose to do. I do get the argument on having to treat people who use substances.....but it's similar to people who overdose on scripts or over the counter stuff.

Rehabilitation does not happen anymore AFAIK, not like it used to. Now they work them for pennies on the dollar instead of paying minimum wage to regular workers. It's more for profit now than anything else, which I think is the real issue...they will find any law to enforce to get their populations and numbers up for profits.

>> ^snoozedoctor:

I completely understand that it's tough once you get there. Like you say, strenuous exercise can be very difficult and you can easily injure yourself pushing it too hard. Walking is still good though, it doesn't take a lot to ramp up the metabolism a bit.
I disagree, willpower is something you can switch on. No one quits smoking until they decide to. If you truly want to lose weight, count calories. Set a limit at whatever, say 2,000 cal/day. Then stop when you get there. Anyone CAN do it, if they want to bad enough. I just don't buy fatalistic attitudes. It's hard, it's not easy, it's not comfortable, but anyone CAN do it.


Yeah, like the only times I've succeeded in dropping loads of weight is when there has been a good reason for it, for instance I'll be getting married in the next couple of years and I have zero intention of being a fat bride so I'm not even worried about it because I know it's possible and much easier with the right motivation. The problem is for most of us who lose weight is once you get to where you want to be, it's SO easy to fall off the wagon and it's almost like every time you do it, you lose some respect for yourself and you just make it harder the next time, because you're fully aware of how difficult it was to achieve in the first place. Sigh... all I'm saying is it's not as simple as people seem quick to make it out to be. But anyone who says they can't is just lying to themselves and I find it just as pathetic as you clearly do.

I completely understand that it's tough once you get there. Like you say, strenuous exercise can be very difficult and you can easily injure yourself pushing it too hard. Walking is still good though, it doesn't take a lot to ramp up the metabolism a bit.
I disagree, willpower is something you can switch on. No one quits smoking until they decide to. If you truly want to lose weight, count calories. Set a limit at whatever, say 2,000 cal/day. Then stop when you get there. Anyone CAN do it, if they want to bad enough. I just don't buy fatalistic attitudes. It's hard, it's not easy, it's not comfortable, but anyone CAN do it.

Mostly anecdotal babble. Health outcomes are heavily influenced by cultural habits of eating, drinking (alcohol), drug abuse, physical activity, and genetics. The great majority of US citizens with private health insurance are "safe", to use her term, although certain policies may have lifetime caps on certain types of care, like mental health, which is BS in my opinion. The US leads the world in outcomes in many of the most complex diseases, such as hematologic malignancies.
She is right about a few things. The major reason health-care expenditures have greatly outpaced inflation is the rapid advancement of technology. The true health benefit of all this technology is questionable. The life expectancy in Mexico is just short of the US, despite spending about 10% of what the US spends per capita.
National Health care systems control expenditures by making budgets. Budgets = rationing. Ultimately, US citizens will have to come to grips with the fact that health care spending cannot be an open-ended account. Judging by my interactions with patients, that's not going to be anytime soon. Several things that could be done right away that would make a great difference in overall health-care spending are; eliminate coverage for any medical therapy lacking outcome data to support its efficacy, tort law reform, and PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ONE'S OWN HEALTH. Quit smoking, lose weight, and exercise. Bariatric surgery should not have to be a substitute for will power. But, such is the American way.

In reply to this comment by Issykitty:
How so? Just curious.

In reply to this comment by Stormsinger:
Wow...what a load of patronizing bullshit.


Part of it may be just me being cranky...it's been a crappy last few days.

It started when he said he wasn't going to waste time preaching at us why smoking was bad, and then going right ahead and doing so for the next 60 seconds anyway. Irritating, at the very least.

Then the whole premise of focusing on your cravings and you'll come out the other side just screams of someone who's either 1) never had an addiction, or 2) doesn't care if it works, as long as it sells a book.

Take it from a guy who kicked a 30 year, 3 pack a day smoking habit (and it only took 2 years and 12-14 attempts)...cravings do -not- go away. Five years later, I still get them. But he things he knows my body and mind better than I do... And that's pretty obnoxious in my book.

Or maybe I'm just being cranky. Ask me again in a week or two, and we'll see. LOL

How so? Just curious.

In reply to this comment by Stormsinger:
Wow...what a load of patronizing bullshit.

The best and most effective method to quit smoking was by far getting support from drug rehab programs, that's how I did it and now about about to celebrate 6 years from my last cigarette.

Yeah I realize, but they would bring food into the labs because they literally spent 8-10 hours a day in the labs. Due to all the body heat and food that place smelled like that forever.

Anecdotal, but there was a guy from I believe Israel who lived with a couple of local college students, they told him to stop cooking and eating his food in the house because it made their clothes smell. So he switched to eating what they ate, and eventually he began to notice how bad the other middle easterners smelled. He said it was because they cook that stuff and it gets in their clothes, but also because many of them didn't shower daily or wear strong deodorants. He got to the point where he couldn't stand to be around them, and he used to eat that kind of food. So I suspect it's more than just the dislike of the smell of that food but hygiene related.

Just like heavy smokers don't notice how bad they smell...and they quit smoking and notice how bad their house/car/jacket smell. It's like they are so exposed to that scent all day and night they become unable to notice it anymore. Like people who sleep soundly when the train comes if they've lived near a train track long enough.

>> ^westy:

>> ^Porksandwich:
At my college it was Indians, in hot cramped computer labs. So when the heat started to get bad the BO would be off the charts. What was the worst, you had to use those labs for your projects and it was like the Indian club house...they'd bring food with them. The place smelled like a gym locker even when it was empty. After two years of that I got access to an upper floor lab where the chairs and carpet didn't smell like someone's shoes or armpit.
I can definitely see the girls point, but this video was great. Although with Indians, they hated Indians born in the US, so........the US-born ones were some of their loudest critics.

Intresting thing with that is that Indeans dont generally have more BO than westerners , but your BO smells of what you eat , and most people are less aware of there BO or there cultures back ground BO , To Indians westerners that have a prodiminatly dairy dait smell like off milk , where as indeans to westerners tend to smell like curry / spicy BO.
I know allot of western people that complain about smell of Indians , its not something that bothers me I evan have one friend that would refuse to go into indean shops because they hated the smell of the spice so much.
Its also a scientific fact that all russans smell of vodka

24. I smoke a pack and a half a day. I quit smoking

>> ^youdiejoe:

Wow-zah! 2 Years?!? Anybody have any additions, deletions, retractions, abstractions?

How is it that people cannot defend themselves right now? We can still purchase a wide variety of weapons, including firearms. Do you need an RPG to protect your apartment?

I'm trying real hard to understand your moral vs. immoral approach to crimes. You seem to be claiming that it is immoral for the government (representatives of the collective public) to throw a person in prison for breaking the law. Tell me if I'm wrong, because I don't know how else to interpret that weird "stabbing you with a knife to quit smoking" example.

Incentivize people using fear and violence? What does that even mean? Fear is a good thing. Fear of consequences. Whether there is a government around or not, there will be consequences for actions. Either from a neutral party (like police and the courts) or from vigilantes (the family and friends of the victim). From my point of view, there's more violence in your proposed world.

Your entire argument is beginning to sound like "I can't smoke what I want where I want so let's burn this whole mutherfuker down!" and "I can't buy a guy without a three day waiting period so let's burn this whole mutherfuker down!"

You have no clue what would even happen if you got your way, and you act like we are crazy for defending a system that at least functions a little bit. We're not crazy, we have a pretty good idea how fucked up the world gets when there is no functioning government. It's like those African countries where they don't have any roads but they've all got AK-47's. Where entire villages get wiped out by roving mercenary gangs. Where hundred or thousands of women get raped and nobody does a damn thing about it. I don't want to live there, and I don't think you do either. It's fucking hell on earth, and you think everybody is suddenly going to start being nice to each other? Because there is no government to "incentivize violence"?

I'm trying real hard not to start throwing insults, so please tell me why you think I am wrong. Aside from allowing you to buy more weed and guns, how would a lack of government be better?


>> ^blankfist:

>> ^MaxWilder:
I think we're stuck on the word "prevent". Nothing can prevent crime, only discourage it and punish people who are caught committing crimes.
So the real question is: would your system do a better job discouraging people from harming one another? And when someone inevitably does, what happens when they are caught?
Currently, we have courts and police to discourage crime and attempt to punish those who commit crimes.
I see no alternative, other than vigilante justice, which in my humble opinion would suck balls. Please explain how it would be better!

Yes, "prevent" was the word dystopianfuturetoday scrawled above as some sort of ham-fisted challenge as if there's any proof the current system prevented anything. No law (no matter the number or the severity of the draconian punishment) will prevent a crime. If it did, then today we'd have no murder, no rape, theft, etc.
Would a voluntary society discourage crime? Maybe. Who knows. If you mean discouraging the more egregious crimes like murder and rape and theft, I feel confident it would help to allow people the right to self defense by allowing them to arm themselves if they chose to do so. I can guarantee a voluntary society would not have that horrible '3 strikes' rule we have here in California where receiving the third felony nets you a mandatory life sentence. Has it been successful in preventing or discouraging crime? I don't know, but people are still committing felonies.
The real difference is in having a moral vs. immoral approach to crimes. For instance, if you wanted to stop smoking I could come to your house and threaten you with a butcher knife. If I find you smoking then I stab you. Would that prevent you from smoking? Would that discourage you from smoking? And would that be moral even if I did in fact effectively stopped you from smoking?
Voluntary societies would morally deal with drug addicts, jaywalkers, etc. As long as people are not hurting others, then they won't be harmed. That's the motto. We don't want to incentivize people using fear and violence. We want to do it voluntarily.

I wouldn't disagree with her factual assertions, but I would suggest that;

1) Folks who contract AIDS are not pampered with no consequences. It's a terminal illness.
2) The numbers @Quantummushroom offered are interesting, but indicative of very little. $2.9 billion for a National Cancer Institute is less than the amount of money spent on AIDS, however we should consider the TOTAL amount of money spent on Cancer, not just the amount spent by a single Institution. $30 says it's far, far more than AIDS spending.
3) If so many people who had (or were at risk for) heart disease lost weight, exercised, and quit smoking as she claims, why are so many people still dieing of it every year? Could it be possible that morality and good common sense are not the only things that contribute to or mitigate Heart Disease? Cancer? Why is AIDS different? The only discernible difference I see is that it's sexual in nature.

It's almost as if O'Donnell doesn't want people to have sex....

he is a parody of himself

i get a paul, a paula, a peter, a pan, a pedro. oh, you know someone know paul? he loves you. he had trouble breathing as he was dying, and late in life he had backpains. but he says he loves you. and that you should quit smoking. ridicolous.

and i also like how he tries to explain it by the people not being "open", so as a last desperate move, he starts talking to the woman who looks like she is from the local aura club (and therefore likely to believe anything).. but apparently she wasnt "open" either.

i take up a big pile of bullshit and throw it in this con-man's face