Phi for All

One of the big culprits is the disposable environment of US hospitals. They don't autoclave hardly anything anymore. I'm not sure if there is a solution to this. Risk of infection is reduced dramatically when they use single-patient supplies like gloves, syringes, gowns, scalpels and masks. The disposables are touted as cheap, but they aren't as cheap as a good quality scalpel that's sterilized after every use, not by a long shot. And what makes the disposables even more expensive is the actual disposal, which has to be done by licensed hazardous materials handlers. Of course, the doctors have to minimize risks to a ridiculous point so they aren't sued for malpractice, another big culprit in why hospital stays are so expensive. Add the fact that the rates for insured people are higher than non-insured, due to slow payment practices by the medical insurance companies. It's not crazy, it'$ in$ane.

There is only a certain amount of good you'll get from celery, so more than a certain amount isn't going to make you lose weight faster. We can't process the cellulose in celery; it's not the chewing that causes an overall negative net, it's the digestion. Too much celery and you'll find your body wanting to shut down and sleep in order to devote energy to digestion. Too much celery can also cause diarrhea. Overdo celery and you won't be in any condition to exercise. Personally, I would substitute some whole grain for your potatoes (not corn), but that's just me. When I'm trying to lose weight, I don't eat any veg that's buried, like potatoes, carrot, beets, turnips, radishes, etc. They're very starchy. Like tomgwyther, 520 calories a day seems very low to me. You could double that and still be lower than most diets a doctor would give you. And you don't mention exercise at all. Of course, you probably wouldn't have the energy to exercise if you're only eating 520 calories. You're MUCH better off and will lose weight faster if you increase your caloric intake and exercise as well.

I've always been struck by that. Omnipotent, perfect God can't kill off the bad parts of humanity without killing off most of the rest of the animals and plants?! He couldn't come up with an Evil Human blaster that only targeted the problem and nothing else? Does God have another set of rules that animals have to live by? Aren't they God's creatures too? Next week, when I take out the trash, I'm going to throw EVERYTHING in my house away. When the garbage men come, I'll rush out to the street and save the stuff I want to keep.

! Moderator Note Moved from Science News (since the discussion doesn't revolve around the news story mentioned) to Speculations (since this thesis is not part of accepted science). Spammy comments about how "pretty" and "funny" this thread is have been deleted. Those who made these comments are under review as spammers. I would also like to applaud the OP for trying to make some predictions with this thesis (not quite a "theory" until it's reviewed and tested very thoroughly). It's something very few people do to help support their ideas, and it lends a lot more credibility even if an idea doesn't pan out. Scientific Method Rules!

First off, unofficially (since I'm involved in this thread), this thread points up the difficulty of discussing religion. The beliefs are so sacred and wrapped up in personal trappings that any attack on the idea seems like a personal attack to the person who believes it. This kind of bias is what science is interested in minimizing or removing altogether if possible, because it affects rational judgment. I would caution everyone to take extra care to focus on the ideas and not the people who espouse them. Second, this is a science forum, so don't be surprised when citations are challenged and hard questions are asked. If there was a science textbook that someone was using as the basis of an argument, that book is subject to the same scrutiny as ANY other book used to support an idea. A scientist would receive the same treatment here if he tried to use his own book to support his ideas the way some use the Bible to support theirs. With this in mind, if you look back through the thread honestly, you'll easily see where actual discussion is taking place, and also where circular logic creates a vortex that pulls the discussion down. Our definition of preaching is more along the lines of stating opinion as fact, which automatically precludes honest discussion. You are definitely doing this. You are claiming, on a science forum, without any predictive, testable, repeatable scientific evidence, that you have knowledge given to you by God, which you expect us to take as fact. Preaching, definitely. If you had explained your stance as a belief, as the individual opinion of one follower, used phrases like, "I believe..." or "I think...", instead of preaching your beliefs as actual fact, you would have gotten a whole different response. When you start stating scripture to scientists as if it can't be questioned, you're provoking a trained response that science is conditioned to give. You are also starting unnecessary conflict, even though you acknowledge that God's existence can't be verified. Really?! "It's just the way things work"?! I've never heard of things working this way, ever. This is such a bizarre analogy for you to use to argue what Moontanman said about eternal punishment. I don't understand it at all. Are you saying that eternal punishment for not believing in God is equally as fair as falling off a building and being saved by an enormous, super-stretchy trampoline? Great example of preaching. "It is just the way things work outside our universe." Bald assertion, a flat statement made as if it's established fact that you actually know how things work outside our universe. You keep doing this and yet you still complain when people get frustrated with your approach to scientific discussion.

Do you have any evidence to support this assertion? I've seen some new members with questionable posting habits using the PM system lately. I just wanted to know if it was one of them.

I don't know enough about plasma filaments to tell you. It depends on how... enthusiastically the glass got broken, I suppose. Could you assemble, fill and reattach the filaments to a new vacuum chamber for a lot less than $50?

A private message here at SFN? This is your first post, and someone here is targeting you with creationist PMs? I'd like to know who the member is, since preaching and abuse of the PM system are against the rules.

No. insane_alien meant buy a whole new plasma ball. I don't think they sell just the vacuum chambers by themselves.

Sure, those stores have the distribution power to push perishables further out right now. As fuel prices increase and the climate changes, the mega farm model may lose out due to higher shipping and spoilage costs. I have a couple of local grower grocery chains near me, Sunflower Farmer's Market in particular, that aren't that expensive at all. Their organics aren't any more than my local Kroger affiliate, and some of their other produce is cheaper. If they do have some things at higher price, I don't find them incredibly higher. This is changing. President Obama supports legislation that's aimed at curtailing some of the detrimental practices perpetrated by the mega farms. They're horrible polluters, whether it's a growing farm or a factory farm (Confined Animal Feeding Operation), and recent studies have shown there are many hidden costs that are being caused but not accounted for in large scale farming. It's a falsely profitable model that shifts liability from the business to the consumer and taxpayers. Sure, but we're trying to get people to eat healthier while still allowing them choices. I don't think it's just the overall price of healthy foods that keeps people from buying them. I see a tax on unhealthy foods to subsidize lower prices on healthy foods as a viable way to reach that goal. This will help people who are being responsible while penalizing those who aren't. But there are obviously people who don't shop at the grocery for other reasons than price. Lack of cooking expertise, or a perceived lack of time to prepare healthy meals are some other factors. I heard about a concept a while back where vacant commercial buildings (there are a few of those around me, even some vacant grocery stores) are leased for farmer's markets where you can buy produce that's just been freshly chopped up for you and bagged with simple instructions to make stews, soups and casseroles. They only prep the raw food there, they don't cook it, which saves a ton on inspections and venting and all the costs involved in operating an oven. I'm curious to know, from some of the members who DON'T cook or use the grocery store much, what it would take to get you to start? What are your biggest obstacles and drawbacks? Would you like to start eating healthier?

When your eating habits start to infringe on the rights of others, they become fair game for regulation and taxation. That part's really no different from your driving habits or your walking habits or your going-to-the-bathroom habits. You live in society with other people and your freedom to do as you please can't interfere with the rights of others. Not wearing your seat belt causes unnecessary deaths and higher costs to others, walking against the traffic lights is also not allowed for the same reasons, you can't defecate in public because of the unnecessary dangers and costs to others, and eating a preponderance of food that is known to be unhealthy for you also passes unnecessary dangers and costs along to other people in your society. The slippery slope leading down to your sleeping habits example is a fallacious one unless you can show how those habits might infringe on the rights of others. OTOH, if your snoring keeps enough townspeople awake at night and you fail to do anything about it.... You're bringing business into my example to make it less... better. And then you're arguing against my examples rather than the original point. A system that taxes all vehicles (personal and commercial) by their impact on existing resources (roads, in this case) by using the vehicle's weight as the parameter is almost exactly like taxing foods based on their impact on existing resources (healthcare insurance pools, in this case) by using the food's nutrition ratings as the parameter. For starters, I'd subsidize the local growers and farmers who bring produce to the grocery stores. These are the businesses that are providing the most sustainable, freshest, healthiest alternative to fast food in most communities. I'd have to think about the rest. Overall, my goal would be to make healthy food less expensive to attract more demand, increasing supply and lowering costs further.

! Moderator Note Personal attacks are still against the rules. See Maturity.

! Moderator Note homie12, your reaction here is wildly disproportionate to the situation, leading me to think you read something into swansont's post that wasn't intended. And at no point does anyone assume anything about your feelings. If you feel you've been personally attacked, please report any such posts. Please refrain from personally attacking any other members. We discuss ideas here, not the people who have them.

If they're using the insurance risk pool more often than the average person for a problem they could overcome with more responsible eating habits, then we either need to change the way they pay for healthcare or change their eating habits. Some of the other examples were just breaks, but there are plenty of examples of measures that are subsidized by a tax so the government doesn't have to make up the slack of the tax break elsewhere. States often penalize heavier vehicles because of the extra wear and tear they cause. Isn't it right that a big rig should pay more in licensing and road taxes than you in your compact car? How are you going to pay for it? Can we have some of that defense budget? Care to penalize something else that isn't to blame? What if I put it to you this way: I want to eliminate the tax on healthy foods and double the tax on fast foods to compensate. In my community, this would mean a savings of about $0.80 on my $10 purchase of produce/grains/lean meats, and it would cost me an extra $0.80 on my $10 purchase at Mooseburger's. I wasn't thinking of the alternative cigarette as a single company, but more of an industry. I don't like it when one company is set apart for lots of government consideration. *cough* Halliburton *cough* No, but it's often a good place to start. I'd rather the government use real incentives through economic means rather than spending money on advertising. There's enough spin going on in the corporate world. And again, I favor a break AND a hike. Both. You trivialize the impact by making it sound like it's just a few poor fat people. It's a big problem now that's getting bigger, literally. So yes, obviously, healthy foods could use a subsidy. Indulgence is easier to sell than wisdom. We subsidize oil and you have few choices when it comes to NOT using it. Why not subsidize a better choice of foods, where you can decide to do whatever you want as long as you're willing to pay for it?

Let me guess, homosexuals and atheists will wear red shirts, right? Set gaysers on "Shun". Enrage!

Taxes are used quite frequently as incentive programs. If the government wants to give some aid to emerging energy products, a tax break encourages people to take a chance. You get tax credits for fixing up your home or buying energy-efficient appliances. The Junk Food Tax is an example of a credit that's paid for by a balancing tax. Rather than just take money from consumers as a tax, it takes the tax from people who are abusing the healthcare system and gives it to people who aren't. Let me ask you this: If someone came up with a type of cigarette that satisfied smokers but didn't cause all the health problems, would you be against a government program that taxed regular cigarettes and gave that tax money as a subsidy to the new type of cigarette so it could compete? If health studies five years later confirmed that smoking-related health problems were declining, don't you think that program (which only came out of the pockets of those who insisted on smoking the old, known-carcinogen cigarettes) would be justified? If you read back, you brought up the nutrition label when I had said, "If it's known that a certain type of food causes health problems if too much is consumed, don't you think that knowledge is part of what a consumer should get before they are given their free-willed right to choose?" This type of information is NOT on the nutrition label. People in general have probably heard that eating too much fast food is bad for you, but they hear the company's advertising a LOT more often, telling them it's OK and available 24/7 and delicious and full of good things for you and cheaper if you buy the supersized value meal. For years it's been OK for a company to take advantage of people if they're stupid enough not to see the dangers. Now we have rampant obesity and attendant health problems. At a certain point, you're either going to have to allow for some type of publicly-funded solution, a solution from the private sector (good luck, they're making all kinds of money as it is) or better nutrition education. I'd actually prefer the education, but taxpayers don't seem to want to pay for schooling these days, and the fast food companies won't be thrilled about having their products actively challenged intellectually. A fast-food tax seems almost like the easiest solution. You argue against this incentive only as manipulation of people's behavior, but you don't see it as a counter to the manipulation of advertising. You argue against this incentive as an attempt to remove choice from the people, yet you don't seem to have the same problem with The Patriot Act. This isn't about the government MAKING your choices for you; it's about making some of the choices more/less attractive than others to influence your choice. Corporations get to do it with advertising, but you're arguing that it's not right for the government. Why is that? If you were going to do a fast food tax, it would have to be for end products, not ingredients. Sugar might be bad for you in a soft drink, but not so bad in something else. But you're correct, it's not right. And no one can tell me why the US has to charge double in order to use a system "designed to put U.S. manufacturers of sugar-containing products on a level playing field in the world market", as the US Dept of Agriculture puts it. It's also keeping us from using sugarcane as biomass for ethanol. Sugar ethanol is eight times more efficient than corn ethanol. Brazil uses sustainable sugar ethanol and they have many cars that run on nothing but, AT HALF THE PRICE OF GASOLINE! But you do have a choice not to pay this tax. Buy healthy food and you won't be charged. In fact, it could cost you less if your veg and whole grains were subsidized by the fast food eaters.

Great sound bite about the wet nurse and your arse, but inaccurate. It would be more of an incentive program paid for by a tax on the products that are causing the problem. You're so keyed on the "behavior regulation" aspect that you're ignoring the fact that people like you, who eat healthy, would have lower food bills the majority of the time. Your veg and whole grains would be subsidized by the extra tax on the half-pound fried chili-cheeseburger supermeals, encouraging you to eat healthy while preserving your right to have a half-pound fried chili-cheeseburger supermeal once in a while. Arsenic isn't listed on those labels. I didn't make an analogy here, I asked you why it's OK to give oil tax money back as subsidies but not OK to give fast food tax money back as a subsidy. It actually makes more sense to encourage healthy eating rather than giving money to already wealthy oil companies, doesn't it? Who is taxing sugar? I think the tax was for the end junk food product, not ingredients. Of course, if we were to stop subsidizing sugar companies, our price for domestic sugar might go down by half, to where the rest of the world is. There are plenty of companies waiting for that to happen so they can start using real sugar again instead of synthetics. Corporations are very big on claiming to be pro free market, but the truth is they would all jump in bed with a no-bid government contract in a heartbeat. They also want consumers to think they have complete choice, but you're only fooling yourself if you think their marketing and advertising don't work on you. Nearly every person on the planet will claim they can see through the bogus claims made by advertisers, but virtually every one of us is manipulated on a daily basis. There's a reason why US corporations spend more than most country's GNP on advertising. As a matter of fact, there are only 35 countries in the world that have a bigger GNP than what America spends on advertising alone. You may think your choice is your own but it's being tampered with psychologically, constantly.

In the picture I linked to, the ladder part is connected by toothpicks. If you build it first, then twist it, the toothpicks will help it keep its shape. If you use hard candies, you can still glue them to a piece of toothpick to stick into the licorice ladder. I think the toothpicks allow the strands to twist with the ladder and hold its shape.

We're going to start executing people as soon as our space-based laser is operable.

Business creates some natural conflicts of interests. No matter how much you level the field to create a free market, there will always be some areas where business conflicts with something of equal or greater value, such as your health or well-being. In most instances like that, when business is favored, the result is a poor one for the individual. An example is fireworks. Most places I know prohibit individuals setting off fireworks, resulting in heavy fines and even jail if you're caught. But it isn't illegal to sell them to you in the first place. The potential for skin burns, loss of sight, loss of digits, structural fire damage and more is enough to outlaw their use, but not their sale. When we see evidence that supports the idea that many businesses thrive at the expense of our overall health and well-being, what options do we have? We can let the business flourish but continue to harm us, we can shut them down, we can modify their products or we can tax the bad effects to help offset the cost of the damage done. Don't you think a portion of every penny you spend on gasoline goes to pay for their next oil spill? If it's known that a certain type of food causes health problems if too much is consumed, don't you think that knowledge is part of what a consumer should get before they are given their free-willed right to choose? And if it's OK to tax consumers and give some of that tax money to oil producers or tobacco or corn or sugar growers to subsidize their investments, why isn't it OK to give the money from a fast food tax to farmers who grow fresh produce? Business is essential to the economy, but unregulated business is NOT stronger than regulated business, no matter what businesses would like you to believe. The government isn't so much a hypothetical parent as a means to shape regulation so as to minimize the conflicts of interest. Lots of poisons already carry their own special taxes, like liquor and tobacco. It only affects those who actually use the products, unlike subsidies that tax everyone. I don't perceive it that way. I see evidence that a certain market's products are causing health problems for the consumers that use them. It's not a "You can't be trusted to make the right choice" argument, it's more of a "We let the market have it's way and it's gotten unsafe now" argument.

Anything else? How long do you have? What country, what school year? Any other requirements or restrictions?

Here's a photo.

Packaged perishables can cost more than fast food if you don't cook very often because a lot goes bad before you can use it. For people who want to eat less processed food, I recommend investing in a big pot, a casserole pan and some plastic containers for freezing, so you can take advantage of sales, and pick a day each week to cook a couple of stews or soups or casseroles for the rest of the week. The key here is to do as little actual cooking/cleaning as possible, while being able to buy thrifty bunches of fresh food, and use them all up at once so nothing goes bad. If you do it all on one day and make one mess, it'll be less hassle. I don't know about anyone else, but I think working people spend too much money on lunch, and end up eating too much at a time when being really full is counterproductive to their work. Unless your job is super physical, having a big processed lunch from a restaurant might make you feel more like napping than finishing that project. Eating a decent portion of one of your homemade casseroles or a mug of your soup might be a better, more economical choice most days.

Move quickly. Men are idiots where you live.

I find this hard to believe. Is it just because you haven't been in the US very long? Absolutely. And put a little cologne on it. Anything that engages the senses is a nice attention to detail your valentine will really appreciate. The outer planets give me gas.