tvashtarkatena

So far I've learned that: You may not be alone when climbing the Tooth on a weekend. You should pack your shovel away in such a manner that it cannot be torn off in an avalanche in case you need to dig yourself out. Some chick named Anita is, in fact, pretty cute. Private, one on one communication is usually the most effective way to resolve an issue.

It's all processed food, not just this or that chain. You don't escape if you shop the shit isles at Whole Foods. Food has been adequately labeled for many years. That is my idea of effective regulation: require disclosure, let the buyer decide. A minority of folks uses this information to become healthier. The majority have gotten porkier. It's still effective regulation. Marketing food to kids? That's purely a parenting issue. How would that regulation even work? Hint: it wouldn't. The three most effective things to do to keep kids from porking out: Eat whole foods. Learn what a human, not a bovine, portion looks like. STFU, you're not getting the toy.

Rather than railing on an obvious target like McD's, a more one stop shopping action against shitfood would be to lobby congress to end farm subsidies. The subsequent rise in corn syrup prices just might lead to less of the stuff in processed food, or a price increase to the consumer of same. Maybe. I wouldn't count on it, but at least the taxpayers wouldn't be funding the obesity epidemic in that particular manner. Another useful action would be to lobby for state legislation that keeps shitfood out of schools - while fully funding athletics programs at the same time. The recent 'health craze' has made processed food even less healthy. Food manufacturers started by fortifying foods with vitamins you wind up pissing out anyway - then power loading 'em with corn syrup to keep your ramming that shit down your gullet. Now, manufacturers are pumping up the corn syrup volume to extreme levels, but they've added SAVE THE RAINFOREST and IMMUNE BOOSTING to the box, so it's all good. Formerly comparatively healthy breakfast cereal products, Cheerios and Special K, for example, now offer a whole family of sugarfied cousins - and they're all REALLY GOOD FOR YOU!!!! Or you can buy bulk oatmeal for .79 a pound and spend the five whole minutes it takes to cook it. I'm off to Starbucks for a double tall mocha latte with a side of coffee cake. Thank god I'm a member of the Elite.

If only Teh Sheeple knew that proper diet and exercise were good for you, McD's would go out of biz. THEY JUST DON'T KNOW.

Any movement that would seek to make Caramel and Cheddar Bugles illegal, I'm against.

Doesn't matter much whether or not your shovel stays on if you're the one getting hammered. It's cool though. Your buddy won't mind holding his breath for a little longer while you dig out your well packed shovel.

I avoid border problems by ensuring none of my friends are in the car at the time.

Sure can ride like a mofo, tho. Robot killer machine thing from the future, fo sho.

Today's kids need a little hardship to toughen em up a bit. Pay up, punks.

Josh and I found ourselves skiing perfect corn in the bright spring sunshine when the deadline hit. Should we be worried? Should the kristians?

McD's I have the least problem with. They make no bones about selling cheap, fast, high calorie, high fat, low nutrition food. Their more recent claims to market 'healthier' choices should be treated with the same credibility as the black out in a can makers urging you to 'drink responsibly'. I have more of a problem with, say, the 'health food' industry (same old shit with a Koala on the box) and, more especially, the supplements industry (entirely unnecessary when you pay even the remotest attention to your diet). And how about the whole idea the fruit juice (sugar water) is good for you? Hey, it's got what your body craves. It's got electrolytes. And a panda.

You don't go to a whorehouse to find a preacher, you don't go to Macky D's to find healthy food. You are likely to find a preacher at a whorehouse, come to think of it. No shit McD's food is really bad for you. But when you need the daisy cutter of grease bombs, a Big Brekky's 1200 calories clears the runway for that tectonic turd you were planning on dropping off at their pool anyway. The only problem I have with McD's is that they don't serve breakfast all day - I always seem to get there at 11:05, and, while they NEVER get an order right, they sure as hell shut down breakfast service with military precision. That leaves me with the option of ordering coffee, a soft serve cone, and little else, cuz I sure as shit wouldn't eat anything else on their menu. If I'm craving mayo and cheeze whiz that bad, I'll hit the local mini mart for the volume discount. It's hilarious to hear folks rank on Big Food about health issues. They make PROCESSED FOOD, fuck's sake. It ain't good for you now, and never will be - cuz, like, it's processed, which is, like, their whole business. I was relieved to discover that Kellog's new Special K flavors, and there are a shitload of 'em, have as much sugar and fat as Cocoa Puffs...cuz I prefer the latter.

I can tell you're not an engineer: It's DESSERT rat.

FUCK ALL OF YOU. It's BCSKI TIME. IRON SHORTAGE is the new global warming.... Start stockpiling yer soupcanz, bitches! They're gonna be worth somethin' someday!

The only GOP potentials smart enough to have a clue are also smart enough to know what the outcome will be, and thus avoid the FAIL. Hence, the current clown show.

The GOP desperately needs a better liar The field so far...not so good at it as this guy.

Arnie fathered at least one of his children, apparently.

Ah bought a bad pad, man.

We've lost The Donald.

First extrasolar vacation destination?

???!!! The fight's not about the Endangered Species Act...at all, but nice try to tea bagg-ize the issue. Also a fantasy non issue you either made up or parroted. What scarce mineral are you referring to? Wind turbines are made primarily from composites - petroleum. I think the mining rights for that have been secured for that already. The amount of oil needed to build, say, 3 million of them is negligible compared to our daily use of the stuff. The rest is just a standard generator - common materials (you'd need one anyway, wind powered or not). 'For every windmill you build you need to build a coal fired plant'. OOOOKEE DOKEE! That's almost as good a teabagger proposal as passing a balanced budget amendment that makes the tea bagger's own budget unconstitutional. Somehow you crackers always seem to work the 'mooching' idea into every topic I've noticed. "SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE, IS SCREWING ME! I JUST KNOW IT!!!!" The 'live by the wind' comment...also awesomely stupid. The solution is a nationwide smart grid the balances intermittent with continuous supplies with demand. Some storage will undoubtedly be needed. The problem of designing transmission lines with enough capacity has been with us since day one. Intermittent power sources aren't new, nor are spikes in demand. Here's an update: Wind power doesn't 'have a future' - it's here know and growing very rapidly. It's also kind of telling that you failed to mention the most glaring economic issue with wind power....oh well. FAIL.

Yup. Our grid has three primary, relatively independent regions. One the them is 'Texas'. Good luck with that!

Hmmm...almost accurate. Cliff Claven to the rescue... Ion tails don't exactly point directly away from the sun, the ion particles themselves MOVE almost directly away from the sun with the solar wind (with the comet's velocity component thrown in at first). The ion trail bends just like the dust tail does, only the curvature is much slighter. Ionized particles leave the nucleus at near the speed of the solar wind - about a million mph, much faster than the comet's velocity of tens of thousands of mph. In addition, the visible portion of the ion tail is relatively short due to rapid dissipation - too short for this slight curvature to be noticeable. The dust trail doesn't go along the comet's path like a reverse airliner's contrail, as the above article claims (towards the direction of travel?...only if the comet is headed away from the sun, not towards). Dust particles fly off the nucleus as its ice sublimates, they are then blown away from the nucleus by by the solar wind in a vectored directly the combines the comet's and solar wind's velocity and direction. Not being ionized, however, dust particles leave the nucleus at much lower velocities that are much closer the comet's velocity. The dust tail can also be visible for millions of miles. For these two reasons, a dust tails tighter curvature is much more noticeable than for the ion tail. The comet's dust tail in the video is 'following' the nucleus because it's headed nearly directly towards the sun. If it had missed and swung around the sun in a tight elliptical orbit, the dust tail would have pointed more perpendicular to the comet's direction of travel, then more toward its direction of travel as it moved away from the sun. It's a vector thing.

Like any orbiting object, a comet is constantly changing direction - tail particles emitted sooner travel in a different direction then those emitted later. The effect is increased with elliptical orbits, because the coma is accelerating in addition to changing direction. If the comet were sitting still in space, or headed directly for the sun, the tail would point directly away from the sun in a straight line.

Now that's a Big Bang One celestial coincidence that made for some fine reality TV.