I call that stuff Hummingbird food, pretty sure that's what it is ;)

i just got back from the army hospital.  they had me drink the nastiest, 
sweetest, syrupy (is that a word?) vile version of kool-aid and then took 
blood samples every half hour for about four hours to test me.

they thought i might be border-line diabetic because one of my A1C tests came 
back 6.8 and 7.0 is the line you cross to be type II, at least.

even though i had three physicals in the last two years, for this and my last 
fasting A1C was 5.2, which is a VERY good number.

being in my 29th year of service (reserve, with 4 years of combat tours) you 
would think i could no longer be suprised at the silly stuff the army does to 
spend money and waste time.  took a full day of travel back to my old post, do 
the test and generally wasted one of my personal days in the process.

-sarge

my 15 year old cat became diabetic. He would drink a ton of water. Took him to 
the vet, and the vet said we needed to get a urine sample. I could not teach 
tiger matthew to pee in a bottle for me. I started to look for tricks on the 
internet, and I read two different vets that said, between 1/3 to 1/2 of their 
diabetic patients (cats), when they were taken off regular catfood (including 
dry) and put on a high protein, low carb (after all cats are caranvoirs (meat 
eaters), they required no insulin shots.

I thought what do I have to lose? So I studied how to figure the carb levels of 
catfood and got some grainfree high protein low carb catfood.

Can't believe the changes, quit losing weight, hair became soft again, no more 
drinking tons of water, etc. etc. etc.  My point is diet can make a difference.

I am borderline diabetic, have my blood pressure up a bit, and have asthma/bad 
sinus/nasal polyps problems, and I use a steriod nose spray and was reading 
that side effects from using a nose spray like that (even though low dosage) 
includes cataracts (had them), diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.

oddly enough, it's not the sugars themselves that get you, it's the carbs, 
when it comes to diabetes.

with diabetes, the body does not process sugars properly, but that is an 
effect of the pancreas not producing insulin in proper amounts to allow the 
body to absorb the sugars and turn them into energy, properly...if i remember 
my grandmother's doctor from years (decades) ago when he explained it.

-sarge

Just a comment from the American Diabetes Association website:
http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/diabetes-myths/

Myth: Eating too much sugar causes diabetes. 

Fact: No, it does not.  Type 1 diabetes is caused by genetics and unknown
factors that trigger the onset of the disease; type 2 diabetes is caused by
genetics and lifestyle factors.  Being overweight does increase your risk for
developing type 2 diabetes, and a diet high in calories, whether from sugar or
from fat, can contribute to weight gain.  If you have a history of diabetes in
your family, eating a healthy meal plan and regular exercise are recommended to
manage your weight.

Aren't they already doin' that ?

Although, now that I think about it, it would probably be more massive if we
simply dumped $1 bills into the hole to clog it up--cheaper anyway.

Okay, "Wall St. Financial works who work for a big bank that failed and then got
a bail out." Just to clarify.

I too am a former Financial Industry Worker (actually, we were more of a 
technologies company)...and while I would be more than happy to sacrifise 
myself if it would save the Gulf, I would rather see politicians jamed into the 
hole!

As a former Financial Industry Worker I would suggest that the vast majority 
of folks employed by financial institutions have little to do with (or say in) 
the current financial mess that the world is in.

You know what, as much as we like to believe we are a country of modern day 
politics - the more you look at it you see it's still all founded on 
feudalism.  The rich control everything, politicians are exempt from many of 
the laws of the land (insider trading is a nice corrupt example), and us serfs 
get to live in the mess.

Right, this is the only country that is law suit happy. Its an industry of
necessity. What I mean is its like the Corn industry--we really don't need that
much corn, but its easy to grow and we have way too much of it. So they create
excuses why its needed and jam it into food where it isn't needed, feed it to
cattle, which are not meant to eat it, and add it to candy so our kids all get
diabetes. So I guess this mean Lawyers are the cause of diabetes.

Thanks for attending Bob Cozzi's "Specious Logic" class

Sarge,
You gave me an idea, we get 1000 lawyers and jam them into the hole spilling
out the oil in the Gulf. If that doesn't work, try another 1000 lawyers. If that
still doesn't stop the leak, try 10,000 Financial Industry workers.

the last pistol i purchased (before the next ones i buy, that is) had such a 
disclaimer that you very nearly agreed not to discharge the round at the 
person who was beating you with a baseball bat after breaking and entering 
your home with the intent to kill you, your family, the cat, the dog and the 
goldfish.

just about making you promise to always keep the pistol locked up, away from 
the magazine (locked in another location) and separate from the ammunition 
which should be locked up as well, and stored in another location.

-sarge

Basticar - "Remove sunscreen before driving"

I stopped wearing sunscreen because it was so difficult to scrape off before 
getting into the car. 

the only people who win in lawsuits, are the lawyers.

-sarge

Back when gas was 40 cents per gallon, fresh out of college, I was car #3 in a
13 car pileup in PA. That's when I learned about law suits. The bad news: my
insurance company got sued by the two other car's insurance companies in front
of me, the good news; my insurance company got to sue the 10 car's insurance
companies behind me. I can just imagine all the lawyers involved in that one
sitting around a bar, laughing all the way to the bank.

my wife was injured in a LEGITIMATE slip and fall incident at a national 
chain. the fault was easily the store's, as they had recently painted the 
front walk of the store with an oil based paint. area was wet, she did the 
splits and hit her back on the curb, which caused a cyst to form on the spinal 
cord causing lots of pain and some minor paralysys.

folks thought we were stupid because we got enough money from our lawsuit to 
pay for our lawyer, her surgery and rehab. all total, less than 100k. we were 
able to pocket about 10k, after everything was paid off, including paying back 
the insurance companies, which is a law we did not know existed.

in our conversations with the lawyer, he let me know that i was one of those 
people he would "Wah-Deer" (my cousin vinni) and get rid of, because i thought 
in absolutes and hold people resonsible for their own actions.

-sarge

I think lawsuites like that should go through some sort of review committee 
(not a committee of lawyers, but a committee of people selected much like a 
jury is selected) that reviews the claims/charges and evidence to see if it's 
frivolous or not.

I was shocked at the price when I had to purchase a couple of ladders recently,
a step-style and an extension. I was told they got to be so expensive because
the companies that make these are constantly being sued by end users who fall
from them.

Gee whiz, it sure crosses my mind when I get up on a ladder that I need to be
careful not fall off. I could understand suing over a poorly built ladder that
collapsed, but if you fall because you reached for the last holiday light that's
out of reach, tough, get smarter next time.

a couple of years after that little ol' lady sued macdonald's, there was a 
very similar case in england where a lady attempted to sue macdonald's there, 
because her HOT coffee spilled on her.

the judge threw the case out, citing that an inteligent person would 
understand that "hot coffee is going to be hot."

now, there was a fair verdict, in my opinion.

-sarge

Sad but true Fish
And ya know what's even worse.... look at the ones who are doing the suing ! 
Slugs... all of them... Slugs

This doesn't speak to the stupidity of man, but the greed of man.  In this 
country you can sue anyone for anything!  Probably one of the biggest flaws of 
this country if you ask me.

Because of past frivolous lawsuites (people simply wanting something for 
nothing), companies have added such stupid warnings to their products to reduce 
their liability.

You'll never remove all the Darwin award peeps; I am stunned over and over by 
things supposedly intelligent beings actually do.

I found my favorite all time ridiculous warning on a sunshield I had for the 
windshield of my car, which read as follows:  "Remove sunscreen before 
driving" 

. . . ya THINK?!

No. It just means you should keep the salve handy. :)

I am a strong supporter for less warning labels...

"Contents may be hot" - what part of HOT COFFEE don't you understand?

"Do not touch moving chain" - look a chain saw is designed to cut through 
wood, your soft fleshy arm is going to be no problem for it to cut through.  
Same goes for one of those wood chipper things!!

"Risk of electrocution" - them power lines are carrying enough electricity to 
make a 100 ton train move at 100mph, what makes you think that touching them 
won't make you all toasty?


The sooner those folks who don't understand the simple things in life remove 
themselves from the gene pool......  Of course the downside is, that we would 
eliminate that great source of amusement - the Darwin Awards.

sooooo . . . does that mean you aren't coming to my get together?

scary stuff....

when i came back from iraq in 1991 (yes, Desert Shield/Storm) i had a rash 
that developed on my neck and chest.

the army said it was just a rash...the va said it was just a form of 
ringworm.  this went on for two years.

one of my civilian doctors called his buddies in to look at me one day, they 
did some research and took skin samples...two weeks later, i was officially 
diagnosed (by civilians) as having leishmaniasis, a parasite passed from the 
(generally) dead rat to the sand-fly to the human host.

i went to the va for my check up...said "do you think it could be this? to 
which they replied..."No.  our tests have already ruled that out."

i then gave them the test results from the civilian doctor. without taking a 
skin sample, he came back in about 20 minutes later and  confirmed that i had 
leishmaniasis, AFTER he did more tests....without new samples, mind you.

later that month i faced a disciplinary charge for using an outside medical 
provider without having a proper military referral.

it's a good thing i love this country and our constitution, because everyday 
gives me more reason to believe that there are not as many people in this 
country worth protecting as there once was.

-sarge

p.s. for those of you who dont know, i'm serving in my 29th year of RESERVE 
(army) service and have deployed throughout the world for 9 1/2 years in 
various combat/hazardous duty assignments, and i just signed up for 6 more 
years of service.

got a great country here, but some of the people and institutions are just 
plain jerks.

Thanks John . . . I feared I went too far in voicing my thoughts and became 
the dreaded "thread killer"  O...o

Sarge - you will love this ;)

http://bit.ly/ce1B5z

Edit:
PS - I went solar last year and we are having a little open house/solar party 
at noon on June 26th - you are all invited :D 

Beer, wine, softdrinks and assorted snacks provided.

whether it is a genetic predisposition, a life choice or someone's own desire 
for experimentation, gay is gay.  i doubt that inejecting hormones into food 
passes a "gayness" to those who consume the food.

that is not to say that "man-boobs" are not the result of passing hormones 
into the bovine and fowl to produce bigger and "better" food sources. :\

more likely we would see an increase in early menstration in girls. i.e. a 
younger age of "becoming a woman", although still a child. the injection of 
hormones affects puberty. 

the low dose antibiotics that are passed from the bovine to human are not 
sufficient to "kill" a bacterial infection, but it is enough to weaken it, so 
that the bacterial infection effectively grows immune to the antibiotics and 
larger, potentially harmful doses of antibiotics are required for humans to 
fight off the infection...that is, if it has not become immune, already.

-sarge

I have heard of chickens being injected with female horemones so that it will 
grow big. However the effect is that after sometime in years, you will notice 
that you will become more feminine like or become gay. And also there is a 
great chance that your child will become gay. 

I don't know how  true is this though.

One of my favorite movies is Idiocracy. it explains the entire problem.

http://www.amazon.com/Idiocracy-Luke-Wilson/dp/B000K7VHOG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1274797807&sr=1-1

Well, I never thought I would agree with Basticar on anything - but I must say 
that is the most succinct and clear description of the problem I have ever 
read in over 25 years of reading such things.

Bill Gates is supposedly working on population control (without advertising it 
too much I believe).  It would be very exciting to be a member of that team 
(if they are serious).

It's because of the volume we now require to feed everyone.  You 
cannot "naturally" feed the massive populations found in our cities today; 
just can't be done.  They need the preservatives, pesticides and other 
chemicals to keep the food edible long enough to get it distributed and 
consumed.

We now pay the piper, so to speak, for being such a successful species.  Never 
before has the population of any species been able to exceed the natural limit 
of resources required to sustain life.  We have and we live on this artificial 
bubble that uses whatever it takes to keep itself inflated.

Will it pop?  Yes.  Why?  Because the illiterate poverty stricken masses are 
growing faster than the educated middle classes, forming a socialist type of 
government that strips the resources from those that could progress and fix 
the problems, to instead feed the growing malignamcy of humanity that will 
only consume and inevitably destroy our entire civilization.

/considers she probably needs one of those new happy pills designed to help 
those of any mind get through the destruction of humanity 

. . . or not ;)

I AGREE 100%!!!

I don't think we need to be careful with chemicals--we need to completely 
avoid using them in food creation. 

Not sure if they're doing this in the States, but you might like this:
http://pr-canada.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=202632&Itemid=59

in the 60's and 70's they started taking the LEAD out of the paint used in 
painting houses, because it potentially caused slow mental growth in children.

then in the 80's and 90's we find a great resurgence of violent gangs and 
crimes, children drop out of school at an alarming rate and children are 
failing more and more ofthen in their schoolwork.

perhaps the lead in the paint was what kept us calm and allowed all of the 
mentally deficient children of the 30's and 40's to design the SR-71 and U2 
aircraft when the Cad/Cam system was a desk, a ruler, a pencil and a slide 
rule.

in the 60's and 70's they took the DDT out of the pesticides because it 
potentially contaminated ground water and caused slow mental growth in 
children.

then in the 70's, 80's and 90's there was a great resurgence of mosquitos 
carrying malaria and other diseases.

just seems like man cannot win when going against nature....

"History shows again and again;
 how Nature points out the folly of man!"

-"Godzilla" by BOC  
(Blue Oyster Cult, for you youngsters who don't appreciate good music...yet)

reminds me of something I was told to at Vicksburg MS when going thru the 
colonial homes.  They would at night close up the houses not to let in 
the "nasty" air outside but would burn benzine laterns which the benzine caused 
them a much shortened life.

They thought they were doing good, but they weren't.

It's impossible to eat, or drink, healthy these days.  Our water supply is 
contaminated with chemicals.  We all know that the meats we eat these days are 
not good for us, and even much of the fruits and vegetables we buy in stores 
today are not as healthy as they once were.

Salt seems to be added to everything we buy these days.  It's good for you, but 
like most things, in moderation. 

Another important factor to our health is breathing clear air...where in this 
world can we find clean air?

When we destory natural resources and harm our environment we ultimately are 
doing harm to ourselves.

ClBirk is correct that behaviour is a big part of the problem, however, we 
cannot discount food placed in our bodies.  The chemicals may even be one 
factor in the cause of the behaviour. 

Everything Neil says is correct, and Bob is correct about HF corn syrup and 
pesticides.

The thing is though, what can we really do about it?  I have been troubled and 
thinking about these issues for over 25 years.  The only thing I have come up 
with is not to have children.  I don't have any, and do not plan/expect to 
have any.  The world is unfit for human habitation.

However, maybe there is more that can be done.  But would any group that gets 
too large, just be obliterated by the media?  I mean let's say some of us on 
here got together on yahoo groups or something, and hashed out some ideas and 
came up with one or two really good things that could be done and also thought 
of a brilliant way to convince our fellow man to follow suit.  Wouldn't we 
just be stopped in our tracks before we got "too far"??  I mean wouldn't we 
just be labelled as "terrorists", or "extremists", or "anti-government", 
or "anarchists", or maybe we might even rise to the level where they would 
come up with a brand new label just for us?  That might be an honor, but it 
wouldn't solve the problem.

I think Government's control of the media would (probably) be the biggest 
obstacle facing any kind of movement toward a better world.

Notice how the media has successfully done that with climate change.  People 
are now referred to as a "climate change denier" with almost the same 
contempt/disgust as a "holocaust denier".  Isn't that amazing?  And it's 
happened in just the last year.

Hows about that yahoo group?  LOL.

Rhode Island won't get away with that.  You can't take on the big corps.  Gov 
Blagoijavich (sp?) tried that with Bank of America when those workers at the 
warehouse were hold-up in there and said they wouldn't come out until thier 
loan was reinstated.

The Governor held a press conference and said he would move that his state 
(Illinois?) would not do any more business with Bank of America.

LESS THAN 24 HOURS LATER he was arrested for some conspiracy thing that the 
feds claimed they had been investigating for like 18 months or 3 years or 
something.

The timing (at least to me) was more than suspect.

If Rhode Island tries something against Coke (Paramount Picture???) and Pepsi 
(KFC, etc) - whoever does it will be arrested for some kind of nonsense.  If 
they do it, watch, and see if I'm right.  Somebody will suddenly be a 
terrorist or be charged with funneling money or licking stamps upside down, 
whatever.

To solve the obesity problem the State of Rhod Island is thinking about 
placing a tax on suggery drinks, 5 cents on a can of Soda under 20oz and 25 
cents over 20oz.  they say it for the kids health but is really a way of 
raising more revenue.  Ya got to love these politicans !! (not)

Have you ever tried to eat healthy?

Our meat is full of hormones, fed on stuff that it wasn't designed to digest 
(WhoTF thought it was a good idea to feed cows diseased sheep brain??!!).  Our 
fruit and veg is covered is crap (sometimes literally).  Almost everything is 
processed in some way - usually to add chemicals to prolong shelf life and 
trash our bodies chemical balance.

Not to mention the amount of salt in most foods!  I've hd high blood pressure 
for many years, I just don't add salt to anything I eat.  Trouble is, have you 
looked at a tin of soup?  Regular tins, 1 serving contains upwards of 60% of 
recommended daily intake of salt.  And these new "low sodium salt" tins are 
typically 10% less than a regular tin.

Needless to say, I'm not surprised kids are fat, hyperactive, and allergic to 
almost everything - not when 90% of the foods you buy in a grocery store are 
just flat unhealthy for you.


When I was a small kid I used to like turkey, but I pretty much gave up turkey 
over 20 years ago - the modern bird is flavourless.  Sadly over the last 5+ 
years I've noticed chicken is headed the same way - yes folks, even chicken 
doesn't taste like chicken anymore, it's just white flavourless protein.  
Guess I should take up shooting my own foul.

It seems that the substance that we really need to be concerned about is 
hydrogen monoxide.  Apparently, this chemical is very prevalent, affecting all 
of us and our lives every day, but public knowledge of hydrogen monoxide is not 
widespread.  This is a scary substance!  It can be dangerous!  Why do we not 
hear about hydrogen monoxide like we obviously should be?

Here's the website: http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html



(Shame on you if you fall for this...)

Every person who has ever gotten diabetes, cancer, been mugged, raped or 
murdered, etc. has drank water.

Do we ban water?

I am not saying that we should not be careful with chemicals and we should not 
feed our children a ton of sugar but what about bad parenting? There is alot of 
that going around too, and I don't see anybody on a bandwagon for that to stop??

Back shortly after the dinosaurs left the earth, if a kid was a bit 
hyperactive, he was a bit hyperactive. Now they pump them full of adderal and 
ridlin, etc. 

You know when I was a kid (I was born 1958), there were not vaccines for mumps, 
measles (both of them), chicken pox, etc. One kid came to school with them and 
we all got them. 

As I tell kids today, when I was your age, we had to get up and change channels 
by hand.

And when I was small, all day long, I and my younger brother would be outside 
playing cowboys and indians, or a ton of other active games. None of this 
sitting in the house, being on the computer or texting all my friends that I 
just saw 15 minutes earlier when I left school.

No wonder fat kids are a problem, they don't do anything. 

Back when I was in scouts, we camped out in tents, we pissed in the woods and 
we cooked over an open fire. Today at scout camp, we have to provide air 
conditioned dining halls, we have to provide nice restrooms and most would 
prefer to camp out in a "building".  America has gotten soft.  Maybe because my 
leaders were men who had fought in WWII, and had went thru the depression and 
things were not always easy for them.

I won't get started, so I will stop.