I’m still extremely worried of a false flag crisis… Either that or dropping our guard down to such a degree that it invites a crisis to exploit (E.g., Bibi’s ignoring clear Intel reports of impending Oct 7th).

That is Ford motorcraft… It should be manufactured in America, right…?

… Right…?

Then again I ordered a DENSO (Japanese corporation and main supplier for OEM Toyota parts on their vehicles) part and it was made in China, so…

Streisand Effect lol.

Can this D-list celebrity just fuck off to Russia like steven seagal already

Haven’t watched Bob’s Burgers. Watch all the others (plus LoK) every year, so I’ll try it!

The wife and I watch this followed by LoK every year. Always a treat!

3 miles up; 3 miles down.

An annual audiobook listen for me is Winters’ memoirs, Beyond Band of Brothers. Helps keep me grounded.

If you like Green Wing do you like Black Books and IT Crowd?

Probably got advice from RFK Jr. on lobotomies.

And Milton Mayer’s They Thought They Were Free echoes through eternity…

I’ll take wins where I can get them these days, and at least Starmer seems to be fully in Ukraine’s corner. I appreciate his welcoming of Zelenskyy following the absurdity of Zelenskyy’s visit with Trump.

Great choice, and cheap compared to others!

The standard valentines is close to cholula sauce for a fraction of the price.

Frank’s (extra hot buffalo, too) and Sriracha are always on hand in my house, too.

Bonus this time around: leaded ammunition!

If they look, act, and quack like psychopaths…

It’s interesting that this strikes at the heart of left vs right mindset, at least in America. Conservatives have a tendency to romanticize the notion of free will and individual freedom; that you alone are responsible for the choices you make absent of anything else like — will over systemic forces or regions of your own brain working against you. Whereas the left has a stronger tendency to recognize these other variables that apply pressure in such a way as to shape the path of least resistance in what you may choose to do.

It’s like a story I heard about the mindset of Americans vs. Germans when they have a vehicular accident. In America, blame is often quickly pointed to the person for skidding off the road while in Germany they may send a team of engineers to assess how to reduce the environment to prohibit this from being possible in the first place (e.g., putting up a guard-rail). This is surely exaggerated and America of course has civil engineers, but you get the idea of a default state of responsibility.

Maybe the reality of executive responsibility and external forces is somewhere in the middle. Nevertheless, a systemic problem tends to require a systematic solution. So I definitely don’t fault obese people for not being able to get skinny. I agree: definitely the wrong mindset!

My main concern is that if the cost of this weight loss is a masking of symptoms and warning-signs of other poor dietary habits, could that result in even more people suffering ailments kicked under the rug just because they perceive themselves to be healthy when looking in a mirror? (e.g., the smoker arguments of old).

The recession is the point; the rich will get richer (Musk and all the oligarchs)

The volatility of the tariffs is the point; BRIC will get stronger (Tulsi Gabbard’s mission)

The erosion of liberties and the judicial system is the point; the zealots like Miller and Johnson and Flynn will consolidate power domestically.

Every part of America is being sold off, sabotaged, and stolen.

That’s fair! Comparing to statins and bp meds is a good comparison.

Loony Loomer

Your points are valid and believe it or not I largely agree. We are largely products of our environment. If there are potato chips in the house, I am more likely to eat potato chips. At scale, if there is a McDonald’s on the corner or chips in the grocery store, people are more likely to eat said junk food out of both convenience and dopamine fixation and median societal stress levels leading to elevated cortisol and so on.

I don’t think they changes the points I’m trying to raise, which are:

• Concerns for symptom masking leading to a false sense of believing you are healthy and not nutritionally deficient.

• Deflecting attention away from the root issues causing obesity: deregulation of processed foods and socioeconomic inequality and societal stressors (all which COULD and should be addressed).

Put another way: My primary concern is people being lulled into a false sense of security. If pain is a signal to change something, then looking in the mirror and seeing your weight can be a similar motivator for change all the same for people. If people taking this drug get positive feedback, they may then lack that normal feedback for motivation to change their underlying dietary habits. If this means that while obesity drops, the number of people who adopt better dietary habits overall decreases in kind, then we’re setting ourselves up for various disease epidemics down the road. Systemically, there’s no doubt you’re right that most people struggle to get through this; but that’s not to say there aren’t people who do manage to make lifestyle changes for the better. It is possible; and are so-called (as the other user called them) “miracle drugs” further impeding that? Are we losing the thread?

If all we do going through life is chasing a revolving number of symptoms and side-effects, we will never get to the heart of the root problems.

But as I wrote elsewhere, I am open to the notion that because these problems begin in a unnatural manner in the way they short-circuit our evolutionary biological circuitry, then perhaps the solutions are unnatural as well. For me to change my opinion, would need studies showing that people are more likely to adopt healthy lifestyle choices, particularly diet, following taking Ozempic for a period of time.

Nobody around me is suffering from malnutrition. Meat is very nutritious. That is why our bodies crave it.

This is going beyond the scope of our conversation probably, but this is flatly not true. My body doesn’t crave it any more than it can be programmed to crave a popsicle, soda, ultra-salty fast-food burger. One can crave heroin or meth, too; it doesn’t mean it’s good for you. Let us please not enable carnivore pseudoscience bullshit. Not to say some meat, notably cold-water fish, isn’t good for you however; in limited quantities in accordance to the Mediterranean diet, yes, it can be healthy.

Extreme malnutrition tends to have to do with deficiencies in macronutrients; raw calories. Back in the day, we didn’t live long enough for micronutrients to have such a profound impact. Macronutrients, in terms of calories, true are easy to get. But people are profoundly deficient on a variety of micro and phytonutrients, ranging from fiber to antioxidant intake to B12 (yes, even 1/3 of meat eaters are deficient), to Omega-3s, to Potassium. These are facts, and if you need sources they’re easily found.

The reason they’re too hungry is because of disruptions in signaling hormones like Ghrelin and Leptin that are not properly responding due to the consumption of unnatural ultra-processed foods. This induces a destructive feedback loop that leads to REDUCED satiety and consequently INCREASED hunger. For example, if you drink Kool-Aid with 2 cups of sugar in it, the concentration of which is a) a sugar density impossible to find in nature besides maybe honey, b) lacking other insulin-regulating and satiety-inducing nutrients — most notably fiber but also say xylitol — then you will send insulin surging which so happens to have an impact on ghrelin and leptin signaling molecules to the brain. It is extremely difficult to make this happen if you eat whole foods. I eat LOADS of healthy food all the time — as much as I want! Yet my BMI remains perfectly low. This is not the issue.

Edit: I should add in reference to my previous comment that the other factor is the feedback loop of environmental stressors, elevating cortisol and leading to an increased fixation on fast dopamine hits, which of course, if there is a potato chip bag or fries in the area, will look more appealing. In some respects, it’s little different than substance abuse of heroin albeit to a lesser degree.

It’s not “unhealthily large portions of healthy foods,” — it’s unhealthily dense portions of unhealthy foods, primarily.

Fat people aren’t suffering vitamin, mineral, or fiber deficiencies. They’re just eating too much food.

Yes, they quite often do. By the very nature of consuming unhealthy foods in high quantities leading to obesity, they are as a matter of zero-sum NOT consuming healthy nutrients, such as fiber. You don’t seem to understand the impact fiber specifically has on weight regulation, or the insulin cycle and the impacts on hormonal signaling molecules Ghrelin and Leptin. Educate yourself in these arenas and you’ll have a better understanding of the obesity epidemic. I promise you it’s not because people are eating “too much healthy food” lol.

Don’t just take it from me:

It’s also important to remember weight is only one part of the health equation. If you suppress your appetite but maintain a diet high in ultra-processed foods low in micronutrients, you could lose weight but not increase your actual nourishment. So support to improve dietary choices is needed, regardless of medication use or weight loss, for true health improvements.

https://hmri.org.au/news-and-stories/ozempic-helps-weight-loss-making-you-feel-full-certain-foods-can-do-same-thing/