Goal Weight: 110 lbs
Both photos are from before and during my journey… I still have 11 lbs to go! I started my journey to lose weight because one day I looked in the mirror and was horrified at what I had done to my body. I started running, hit the gym 4-5 days a week, threw out all the junky processed food in my kitchen and promised myself this would be the time I’d finally get the body I deserved. I lost about 10 lbs in 1.5 months, another 10 lbs after 2 more months, and then the last 10 lbs over the next 6 months. I still have 11 lbs to go and though I’ve plateaued a little, I’m not giving up :)"
"North Carolina sterilized 7,600 people from 1929 to 1974 who were deemed socially or mentally unfit. Victims were as young as 10 years old and nearly all were sterilized forcibly or with inadequate consent, according to the state...
The sterilizations were conducted under the authority of the Eugenics Board of North Carolina. North Carolina was one of the nations most ruthless states in pursuing the agenda of the Eugenics movement. So much so, that the state granted authority to social workers and welfare officials to petition for the sterilization of their clients. The last recorded forced sterilization was in 1981.
North Carolina is not the only state to be experiencing controversy over forced sterilization. California's prison system has come under severe criticism, after reports that close to 150 female prisoners were sterilized without their consent between the years 2006 and 2010."
"It has 390 calories. It contains 23g, or half a daily serving, of protein, plus 7% of daily fiber, 20% of daily calcium and so on. Also, you can get it in 14,000 locations in the US and it usually costs $1. Presenting one of the unsung wonders of modern life, the McDonald’s McDouble cheeseburger...
The outraged replies to the notion of McDouble supremacy — if it’s not the cheapest, most nutritious and most bountiful food in human history, it has to be pretty close — comes from the usual coalition of class snobs, locavore foodies and militant anti-corporate types. I say usual because these people are forever proclaiming their support for the poor and for higher minimum wages that would supposedly benefit McDonald’s workers. But they’re completely heartless when it comes to the other side of the equation: cost..."
"Early Saturday morning, Roy Middleton was rummaging through his mother's car in the driveway of his Warrington, Florida, home, looking for a cigarette, when he heard someone bark, "Get your hands where I can see them!" Middleton initially thought it was a neighbor playing a joke on him, but when he turned his head he saw Escambia County sheriff's deputies standing in his driveway. The next thing he knew, he says, they were shooting at him. "It was like a firing squad," Middleton told the Pensacola News Journal. "Bullets were flying everywhere." Middleton was lucky the deputies were terrible shots. His injuries were limited to a leg wound. "My mother's car is full of bullet holes though," he said. "My wife had to go and get a rental.""
"Sir Patrick Stewart is a consummate actor whose professionalism is beyond reproach.... except when Sir Patrick Stewart isn't, because Sir Patrick Stewart can't remember his damn lines. As you might guess, this blooper reel — more of which will be on the Star Trek: TNG season 4 set released tomorrow — features the latter. Additional warning: Once you see Worf giggle, you can never unsee it. From one who knows."
"George W. Bush and Dick Cheney spent eight years choking personal privacy to within an inch of its life. After they were done, Barack Obama showed up, expressed heartfelt sympathy and stood on its throat."
"Mitch Horowitz, author of the most excellent Occult America, has a new book out in around 6 months time: One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life. The book charts the history and significant impact of the positive-thinking movement, starting with its origins in the mystical philosophies of certain movements during the mid-nineteenth century, through to its manifestation in the modern day, from Ronald Reagan's speeches to the bestselling book The Secret."
"...one of the themes in Secret Six is, LIFE WILL TRY TO KICK THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF YOU. The Six are not the people to run into a burning building to save an orphan. They are much more like us, which is why people relate to them. The average person deals with betrayal and poverty and tragedy and illness and disappointment and loneliness their entire life. Where is their medal, where is their parade? They deal with that every day, many have the addition of spirit crushing jobs, and they get up every day and try to make things better. Why?"
"Either for themselves, because they have to try, or for someone they care about, that they feel responsible for. THAT is quiet heroism. It doesn’t look like Superman and it doesn’t wear a cape, but getting up out of bed when you know your entire day will be a struggle where people are throwing chains on you to weigh you down, that’s heroic. That is what the Secret Six faced—it was always fanciful and fantasy based, but those feelings of loneliness or unrequited love or lust, the feeling that no one thinks well of you, that people are actively out to keep you from rising up…that’s what I think the Secret Six faced all the time, and that’s where I think their courage showed. Not so much in defeating bad guys, but in getting up every day to put their clothes on and try to do more."
"Overall, 47% say their greater concern about government anti-terrorism policies is that they have gone too far in restricting the average person's civil liberties, while 35% say they are more concerned that policies have not gone far enough to protect the country. This is the first time in Pew Research polling that more have expressed concern over civil liberties than protection from terrorism since the question was first asked in 2004."
"At a suburban garden party how many 40+ men will tell you, that they really like 20 yr old girls with hot bodies? Not their “pride and happy plus size” wives? And when a man wants to lay you, does he says that he’d rather fuck that 19 year old waitress, but he has a better chance with you? No, people in the real world tend to tell the same Disney bullshit while in reality they want something very different...
It’s not about women over 33 being less attractive. It’s about them being more prude. They want to use sex as a weapon against men by utilizing it as a bargaining chip in exchange for resources, money, and commitment, whereas the young girls just want to fuck and have a good time, which is exactly what the older men want. So by restricting older men from messaging the younger women, the older women think they are securing the market and forcing the men into the provider role by cutting them off from those so called “slutty traitors to the sisterhood.” Then they tell themselves that they are secretly working in the younger girls’ best interests because the young ones don’t have the self esteem yet to set a price for their vaginas higher than the penis in exchange!
I think older women are super hot. I want to have sex with them and often do. Yet it’s so easy to paint men like us as pigs who think older women are ugly and simply want younger women because they’re better looking (which they often are not). The reality that many women don’t want to hear is that women over age 33 tend to be more jaded, bitchy, and prude than women under 33. Even if they have higher sex drives and a more ravenous sexual desire than younger women, they tend to have many more rules about when it’s “appropriate” for them to have sex. They will usually demand men jump through many more hoops to get to sex than women under 33... When men point out that women under 33 don’t usually do these things, these older women will imply strongly that younger women are stupid or sluts. It doesn’t occur to these older women that very attitude is part of exactly what turns men off. It’s all of THAT stuff that makes older women less attractive to strong, confident, high sex drive men. It has nothing whatsoever to do with how they look. Most older men consider older women extremely beautiful and sexy, myself included."
"A Good Samaritan snapped photos of what appeared to be two men impersonating police officers involved in a pistol-whipping and robbery outside a Citgo gas station on Detroit's east side on July 21. Once Fox 2 aired those photos, an even more disturbing picture developed. ... Now under arrest are two police sergeants, a 47-year-old officer and 20-year veteran."
"This little sub-plot was one of my favorite things in my Wonder Woman run. It was inspired by stories of kindness I had read as displayed by character actors at Disneyland, of all things. There had been several stories of the actors who play Peter Pan, the various princesses, and other characters showing extraordinary kindness and humanity to attendees who showed signs of being in crisis. When one attendee with suicidal thoughts and a substance abuse problem was cheered up by one of these actors, the actor took them aside and told them firmly, “It’ll be all right if you stop now." And it made a big difference in that person’s life, that a stranger cared enough about them to risk their job to speak to them directly like that.
Those stories of kindness have really stuck with me. I’ve seen many of these actors say remarkably kind, loving things…I understand that it’s a job, but some seem to go quite beyond their ‘duty’ to encourage people who are down in some way. In this story, Dinah is at a meeting in Hollywood on business, but when she realizes that one of the lawyers present has a drinking problem and is depressed, she forgets all selfish pursuits and speaks to the woman alone, and her quote is a direct quote from that Disneyland cast member story. “It’ll be all right if you stop now." I think Superman and Batman are wonderful, I love them. But I’ll take Wonder Woman’s compassion any day of the week."
"The University of Pennsylvania's RHex robot is an all-terrain walker that has been in development for a decade. The robot's inventors have been programming obstacle-traversing strategies derived from parkour, getting it to do "double jumps, flips, and, through a combination of moves, even pull-ups...""
"Go ahead and add this to the "Pro" column on the ever-growing list of reasons to either avoid coffee or guzzle it down wholesale: new research out of the Harvard School of Public Health concludes drinking several cups of coffee a day could reduce the risk of suicide in men and women by about 50%." The 90's were different.
"A documentary film examining the reasons behind the enormous spike in diabetes and obesity over the last three decades. Carb-Loaded: A Culture Dying to Eat is a documentary film being produced by Lathe Poland and Eric Carlsen. The film will explore the exploding diabetes epidemic. Not by coincidence, Lathe was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 2010. He always thought of himself as a healthy eater. He rarely ate sweets, never drank soda, and had no family history of diabetes. Why would a seemingly healthy thirty-something like Lathe get a disease like this? The misconception that he had, like many people, was that diabetes is either hereditary and it’s not your fault, or you eat junk food like it’s going out of style and you end up diabetic."
"According to The Journal Pediatrics, pre-diabetes and diabetes cases in children ages 12-19, grew from 9% in the year 2000 to 23% in 2008." Is our lifestyle, culture, or food ecosystem enabling the sky-rocketing increase in diabetes and obesity? Or is it the catalyst? More importantly, can this wave of momentum be reversed? These are the questions that will be answered in the film Carb-Loaded: A Culture Dying to Eat. Leading nutrition scientists, doctors and researchers will weigh in on this unparalleled epidemic. Additionally, the film will explore our connection to a food culture that may be responsible for the most expensive healthcare crisis in modern memory."
"Amid the Obama administration's crackdown against whistleblowers, Change.gov, the 2008 website of the Obama transition team laying out the candidate's promises, has disappeared from the internet. The Sunlight Foundation notes that it last could be viewed on June 8, which was two days after the first revelations from Edward Snowden (who had then not yet revealed himself) about the NSA's phone surveillance program. One of the promises Obama made on the website was on "whistleblower protections:
Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.
The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment on why the page was deleted."
You can't convince me this doesn't happen often, or that officials don't tacitly condone it - Undercover Informant Plants Crack Cocaine in Smoke Shop, Business Owner Saved by Tape - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "They sent an informant, someone facing jail time of their own, to, er, “investigate.” Here’s what happened, via the local NBC affiliate, WNYT: The second time, [Donald] Andrews's attorney Kevin Luibrand does play by play that appears to show the informant planting, then photographing crack cocaine that led to Andrews arrest. "He comes in," Luibrand narrated over video shot on in-store surveillance cameras. "Places the crack on the counter. Crack, which under federal sentencing guidelines, would get him 4 years in jail. Under New York State law would get him 2 to 7 years in jail." There are seven cameras in plain view in Andrews small store. Andrews was arrested until he was able to show police the surveillance video exonerating him. WNYT reports the county sheriff admitted procedures were not followed and blamed the informant, who has apparently gone missing."
Ming-Na Wen, being and looking awesome at age 49. Also, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. continues to look like way too much fun.
"There is only getting up and doing it all over again, smarter and harder, until something ups and fucking kills you, because that’s the only thing big enough to stop you. This is The Great Work, and all you have to do is choose it, not look back and never fucking stop until you’re in your box, under the dirt and flowers are growing between your teeth. And that is why I’ll never be asked to do motivational speaking. G’night."
"A city in Texas has been forced to change its nudity laws after topless waitresses wearing just body paint served customers. Staff at the Red Neck Heaven Bar in Lewisville have been told they are no longer allowed to wear just body paint and strategically placed pasties covering their modesty. Until recently the girls at the restaurant would hold ABC days - anything but clothes."
"For reasons I feel comfortable chalking up to divine intervention, Dennis Rodman was in the front row for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Miami yesterday where not only was he drinking beer out of a can while wearing a leather vest and jogging pants, but standing up and pointing at the ass of each and every model as they walked by. "
"One of the worst myths Democratic partisans love to tell themselves - and everyone else - is that the GOP refuses to support President Obama no matter what he does. Like its close cousin - the massively deceitful inside-DC grievance that the two parties refuse to cooperate on anything - it's hard to overstate how false this Democratic myth is. When it comes to foreign policy, war, assassinations, drones, surveillance, secrecy, and civil liberties, President Obama's most stalwart, enthusiastic defenders are often found among the most radical precincts of the Republican Party."
"...a dozen years of disastrous occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, a rough doubling of military expenditures in nominal dollars and ongoing demands for ever-greater spending, disclosures about massive covert government surveillance of U.S. citizens in America, and secret presidential kill lists really puts the hurt on whatever faith and trust folks once had in such institutions. "
"(810): Question: what's the protocol for seeing your mistress walking alongside her clueless boyfriend? If you could answer this ten minutes ago, that'd be great."
"No Doubt singer and wife of that other 90s musician from that band that nobody liked, Gwen Stefani, took her son, Zuma Rossdale, out for a stroll around Beverly Hills yesterday, and hopefully other 43-year old moms around the country took notice and issued DEFCON 1 on their own fitness routines. It’s totally unfair and borderline criminal that a mom of two is out running around looking like this while so many American men are sitting at home with wives who look more like Mama June than they do anything even remotely close to Gwen. Let’s try to get a few more bottles of Xenadrine in stockings this Christmas, fellas."
"If there’s anything Christians in America go gay for, it’s leaving shitty tips, and situations where they can pretend they’re a persecuted minority despite being the most predominant religion in the country that influences virtually every level of state, local and federal government. So imagine Kirk Cameron‘s glee when it looked like Facebook “banned” the trailer for his upcoming movie Unstoppable and not because it doesn’t have Denzel Washington driving a train. (I’ll nail to you a cross, Cameron!) Turns out the domain name Kirk’s production company bought for the movie used to host assloads of spam which naturally flagged it on Facebook’s end until they could clear it up. Which they did and even took the time to let The Christian Post (via FilmDrunk) know what happened because, amazingly, Facebook is in the business of attracting subscribers. Who saw that coming?"
Crocodile goes Crocodile. People are dumb. Man gets 30 stitches after being bitten on head by croc: "The crocodile trainer who survived a terrifying croc attack earlier this week spoke out for the first time about the near-death experience that left him with 30 stitches on his head. During a show that went horribly wrong at Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm and Zoo, the world’s biggest and Thailand’s oldest, a tourist filmed Prawit Seabmee, 27, being mauled by a croc. The amateur video, which went viral on social media, showed Prawit placing his head in a croc’s mouth as part of a stunt when, suddenly, the reptile snapped its jaws shut. Prawit told Channel 7 that he managed to pull his head out in time yet still sustained multiple bite wounds around his head. The croc trainer, who has performed with the animal for four months and over one hundred shows, said that this was the first mishap that had ever happened to him. Prawit insisted that he would return to do his beloved job after the recovery."
"Alfonso Cuaron's latest Gravity trailer will knock the wind right out of you. The simple two-minute clip — made entirely in one take — shows what happens when things fall apart for George Clooney and Sandra Bullock in space. It is simply stunning."
"I don't want to spend any more than a few minutes on this because wives of politically powerful men are not worth it so far as I'm seeing and I'll tell you why. I've spent almost 20 years and have heard the very, very rare woman condemn Hillary Clinton for what wasn't, after all, a vast, long, hard right wing conspiracy. It was your husband's cock in Monica Lewinski's mouth in the oval office—which is totally fine, private, between all y'all. And hey, all I want Anthony to do is to be honest: "Hey, I like getting a hard on, tweeting a pic of it to some random woman of opportunity...and I want to be your Mayor, New York.""
"Hanners blew the whistle on the department’s tactics and was eventually fired for refusing to comply and keep quiet. He says that each officer was required to make 100 contacts each month, which included tickets, arrests, field interviews, and warnings. This equates to 72,000 contacts a year in a 50,000 person town. His claims are backed up by audio recordings of his superiors he made. The Auburn police department declined requests to be interviewed for this story. “There are not that many speeders, there are not that many people running red lights to get those numbers, so what [the police] do is they lower their standards,” says Hanners. That led to the department encouraging officers to arrest people that Hanners “didn’t feel like had broken the law.”"
"Former Reason staffer Radley Balko, now an investigative reporter for the Huffington Post and author of the new book, Rise of the Warrior Cop, says that this isn’t just a nuisance, it infringes on public safety. “You have a policy that encourages police to create petty crimes and ignore serious crimes, and that’s clearly the opposite of what we want our police to be doing,” says Balko. Hanners repeatedly voiced his concerns through his chain of command, and the department responded that these requirements are necessary for increasing productivity. Yet Hanners firmly believes that the quotas are entirely revenue driven."
Robert Anton Wilson Explains Quantum Physics | TDG - Science, Magick, Myth and History: "Remember, we invented the lines on the map. But quantum physics seems confusing because a lot of people think we didn't invent the lines, so it seems hard to understand how a particle can be in three places at the same time without being anywhere at all. But when you remember that we invented all the boundaries, borders and lines just like the Berlin Wall, then quantum mechanics is no more mysterious than the fact that I live in three places at the same time. ...Any model we make does not describe the Universe, it describes what our brains are capable of saying at this time.
We think this is reality. In philosophy that's called naive realism: 'what I perceive is reality'. And philosophers have refuted naive realism every century for the last 2500 years, starting with Buddha and Plato, and yet most people still act on the basis of naive realism. Now the argument is 'well maybe my perceptions are inaccurate, but somewhere there is accuracy - the scientists have it with their instruments; that's how we can find out what's really real'. But relativity and quantum mechanics have demonstrated clearly that what you find out with instruments is true relative only to the instrument you're using, and where that instrument is located in space-time. So there is no vantage point from which real reality can be seen; we're all looking from the point of view of our own reality tunnels.
And when we begin to realise that we're all looking from the point of view of our own reality tunnels, we find that it's much easier to understand where other people are coming from, or the ones who don't have the same reality tunnel as us do not seem ignorant or deliberately perverse or lying or hypnotised by some mad ideology. They just have a different reality tunnel, and every reality tunnel might tell us something interesting about our world, if we're willing to listen."
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