Phi for All

The response link from the article you provided refuted the study, called it's findings into question. That, coupled with the fact that this is not being widely shouted to the whole world, makes me believe the study failed to pass the litmus test of communication and collaboration that is so important in scientific methodology. One could also ask why the test wasn't repeated by anyone else who could filter out the questionable variables and get a count more accurate than 7 to 326 cups. Good point, but not really supportive of your position. Since we'd be doing away with all the domesticated cows, chickens and pigs, the compost used for mushrooms would hold no animal matter, and therefore no bacteria capable of producing viable B12. Nice try. The real point is, can one get enough B12 from mushrooms for everyone on the planet? You seem to think 28 cups of mushrooms every day isn't a problem, but what if the reality is closer to the average of 159 cups? That's about 8000 calories per day in mushrooms alone.

The link in your vegan article, the one to the actual study, has been disabled. I can't find the study anywhere, only mention of it, and only at vegan websites. The PMA nutrition label for button mushrooms doesn't list B12 at all. They must be three years behind in updating their analyses, which seems strange. One of the responses in your link corrected the information: http://www.veganheal.../b12/plant#mush

It seems like part of his plan is to kill off the oldest and most dependent US citizens in order to save the money not spent on them for tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate handouts. He's counting on less welfare forcing low-income citizens to work in jobs that don't currently exist. And didn't the Bush tax cuts prove that the "wealth-creators" aren't interested in employing Americans? The wealthiest are already getting unprecedented breaks and Ryan's plan gives them even more. How is giving them even more going to solve our unemployment problems? And how will we call ourselves the greatest country when Ryan's plan practically guarantees an increase in hunger, HUNGER IN THE US, reducing food stamps for poor families by 17 percent ($135 billion) over the coming decade?

I would like to further discuss Ryan's budget. From what I've seen of it, it seems destined to further undercut the middle class, and remove much of the support the lower class has for healthcare and welfare. It doesn't seem so much like an answer to entitlement spending as a godsend to the wealthy (no capital gains tax?!) and a reason to hire more police and build more prisons (since the US has hardly any of those). Would we be facing epic poverty under Ryan's budget? His Medicare vouchers only increase at a rate of about .5% per year in a healthcare system whose costs are increasing at a rate a whole order of magnitude higher. How can we justify even more tax breaks for the wealthy after seeing what they've been doing to the economy for the last 12 years? Can anyone defend this budget, or help me see why anyone who doesn't make $500,000+ per year would approve of it?

Hair and fur basically block air currents from stripping away air heated by the body. The hair creates a more or less motionless area where the air can be thermoregulated.

Well, it cost them money to get that "garbage" there in the first place, so they usually try to recoup those costs and then some. I think you're confusing an auto salvage yard with a landfill. Auto salvage yards strip everything that's still in decent condition off the cars and then either compact it or shred it to sell for scrap metal. It's a great place to go if you're looking for headlights and mechanisms like steering linkages and alternators that are often still usable even after accidents. But make no mistake, these places are in it for the money. One man's garbage is another man's treasure, especially if another man is trying to restore his classic 60's muscle car. And brand new airbags sell for upwards of $1500 just for the parts, with a couple hours labor to install.

GovTrack.us lists Raúl Grijalva (House of Representatives from AZ's 7th Congressional District) as the farthest left member of the US House according to voting records. The craziest things I can find him saying are that 1) ""Saturday is National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day — prescription drug abuse is bigger than cocaine and heroin combined", and 2) since the discrepancies involved with the 2004 presidential election, he supports a request that the United Nations observe and certify major elections in the US. The prescription drug remark caused a great deal of uproar, until fact checkers pointed out that what Grijalva said was 100% correct. Detractors on the UN vote certification can't really give a good reason why, other than our elections are our own business, not the world's. I used the top hits I got on a Google search of "crazy things Rep. Grijalva said". I'll keep searching for others, maybe in the Senate.

Weeeeell, glad we could... help. You shouldn't have any problems finding some free sodium azide, then. I wish you more luck than most.

Hold on there. B12 found in plants is from bacteria in the dung left behind by animals, and that's only in traces and is (hopefully) washed off of any fruits or vegetables it's clinging to. And the amounts of B12 in mushrooms is also very miniscule and could NOT provide an adequate supply. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12#Sources

Yellow pages, Auto Salvage Yards or Auto Junkyards. Or Google the same in your city or zip code. My state is CO. NY is one state that requires an airbag to be rebuilt to certain specs by a licensed rebuilder. I'm sure there are others, but they all assume you want the airbags to reinstall in a car. They will want to sell them to you if they've already removed them. It won't be cheap. Junkyards don't just let you come in and remove stuff without payment. They have dogs trained to prevent that. The problem with those waivers is that they're worthless against a negligence suit (you really can't waive your right to sue someone who doesn't take the proper precautions), and it would be easy to prove the junkyard was negligent if they let you go poking around airbags that explode and have noxious chemicals in them.

I could do this all day long. Unfortunately.

As long as you just hold it and don't eat it, you won't die. For the sake of argument. As a vegan, I'm absolutely devastated that all those cows are going to die horribly. It's our duty to keep them safe and fed until they die naturally, but of course that means we're going to have to live with the deliberate elimination of an endangered species. We'll literally stand by and see them go extinct, knowing we could have stopped it. I don't know how I'm going to live with myself. Hey, I was going to ask you guys, my fellow vegans, a question that's been bothering me. If our only source of vitamin B12 is from synthetically fortified cereals, how do we consider this diet natural? Oh, and that reminds me of another question. Since B12 deficiency leads to anemia, fatigue, mania, and depression, and long-term deficiency can cause permanent damage to our brains and central nervous systems, how sure are we that our vegan overlord masters were in their right minds when they decided we should all do this?

Since the research seems to support several small meals per day, I think you should focus your too-open-mind on the best way to prepare six small nutritious meals for daily consumption. They have to have all the daily dietary requirements but also be portable for modern workers, and require the same amount of preparation and time that a normal three meals require. I think the toughest part is variety. Some people don't like to eat the same things every day, and that leads to straying from the plan if you don't take it into account.

In the cities and towns?! They'd get killed by cars! They could stampede and hurt themselves and other creatures! In the rural areas?! They'd eat crops and get hit by... tractors! In the wild?! They'd get slaughtered by predators, with no one to protect them and no concept of how to survive out there! It's clear we need to think of something different. For instance, since we'd all be weak from improper protein sources and lack of B12, maybe we could strap ourselves to the back of cows to get around....

The clavicle, ribs, rib cage and hips sounds like the typical asymmetry most humans have due to the heart being on the left side and the liver on the right. I'm not sure about the jaw. I remember hearing that our legs aren't symmetrical and cause us to walk in circles if we're blindfolded. The brain also has a dominant side, so that can cause our bodies to develop differently. You can attach pictures using the Attach This File function when you reply to any post.

But your analogy assumes that more material means "warmer". And if so, how do you explain why the Bedouin wear layers of loose clothing to stay cool in the desert heat? It's the trapped air again, being cooled this time by perspiration, acting as insulation against the heat. Piloerection isn't just for insulation either. It's an arousal response, and it can happen when you get scared or angry. Again, when we had longer hair, this actually made us look bigger. It's used by many mammals for defense. It's actually what makes a porcupines quills stand up in response to danger.

Piloerection works better if the hair is longer, which it used to be on humans. When the longer hairs stand on end, they trap air which is warmed by the skin to provide an insulative barrier. It's the same effect as being colder in pants that fit tightly to your skin as opposed to pants that are looser and allow for air to be trapped and warmed by the body, from what I've heard.

For liability reasons, at least in my state in the US, no. They won't let you remove a potentially explosive part on their property since you aren't covered by their insurance. If the junkyard is licensed to remove it and allowed to sell it, it will probably won't be cheap (but cheaper than new, of course). Many US states make it illegal to sell airbags that haven't been rebuilt to certain specifications. They assume you want it to put in a vehicle, not get the chemicals out of it. You could let them know that's what you want it for, and then you would be subject to a whole different set of laws. I think they purposely hide them from people who can't figure out how to find them.

! Moderator Note The posts discussing censorship in general have been moved to the Politics section here. Further discussion of censorship by SFN Staff can continue in this thread.

! Moderator Note We're in a bit of a quandary here. If this thread is now discussing censorship in general, and not accusations aimed at SFN staff, the new posts need to be moved to Politics instead of Suggestions, Comments and Support. Most of the currently available staff is involved in the thread, however, and we normally don't like to make moderation decisions if we're involved. Does anyone have a problem with me splitting posts #32-34 off into their own thread in Politics, even though I'm involved in the current thread? ! Moderator Note OK, new topic split off, so if you still want to discuss censorship by the SFN Staff, please do so in the original thread.

! Moderator Note Please, just post your thread once in a single section. Multiple instances makes it very difficult to follow the discussion.

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To try and get this thread back on track, I think the Republicans misread the reasons behind their defeat in 2008, like they weren't "Republican" enough after the Bush years to beat Obama. I also think the Republicans have swung way too far right, similar to the way the Dems swung way too far left after losing to Reagan (anyone remember Mondale and then Dukakis?). We're seeing extremism going on here in a big way, but it's not anything new. The extremes should worry us only when, like now, they threaten to have complete control. I wasn't worried about Dennis Kucinich getting the voting age lowered to 16 when I supported his first run for the presidency, since he wouldn't have had control enough in Congress. It should worry us though that some of the radical right could hold all the cards if they win enough Senate seats and also manage to get Romney in as president. I'd hate to see four years of Democratic filibustering and no real progress just to stop the crazy from happening. Obama is enough of a moderate that I wouldn't mind seeing a clean sweep if the Dems manage to win back the House (a very big if). I think we need some change that's big enough to make a difference but not big enough to scare everyone into inaction. I'm leery of whether or not that change is going to come in the areas it really needs to. Both majors are beholden to too much corporate cash to effectively hold on to a middle class neither party seems willing to defend, but is clearly responsible for much of our former glory and prosperity.

No matter how rigid you keep your legs and ankles, I think there is some flexion that helps the feet propel you like paddles. Don't the legs do more to provide stability and lift for the swimmer than propulsion though? The scissoring of the legs pulls you to the surface as your arms try to dig you deeper in the water.

I started to laugh when I heard this one, then I just got madder and madder. To think that someone blessed enough to earn two degrees from an institution like Harvard using it as a hypocritical and derogatory term is beyond crazy. I think it's criminal.