BJean

plain we're sort of in the same neighborhood. I'm not far from Dallas. I've been to Texarkana. Nice little town. A whole lotta them banjo pickers out in the boonies around there. Gotta be careful what you say about politics in that 'hood.

Well you don't sound baffled. More like you have a pretty good grip on it. Of course I don't expect you're a sociologist doing all sorts of studies on the problem. But I always enjoy hearing about your homeland and your assessment of situations. Thanks for your response. I trust you're feeling a little better?

That's funny!

Julie my doc swears that a drop can make a significant difference. He's seen it time and again in his practice. He said that when he first started realizing it he just could hardly believe it, but as time went on, with some people, it is very accurate. So now he is very conservative with fills. He would rather take it slow and easy than get someone filled so tight that they can't swallow their own saliva. Btw, he also says that if someone is too restricted it can cause such a problem that they actually gain weight because the only foods they can keep down are ice cream and chocolate and other super high calorie stuff. This fill business is tricky and trial and error is about the only good approach, except for things like your barium swallow. Doing a barium swallow should tell you a lot and get you where you want to be. My doc avoids xrays/floroscopes, etc., if he can, but only because they're expensive. He does say that they can be an invaluable tool. Hope your test reveals all! bj

um, sorry if that was too gross. It was a kid thing. You know how gross kids can be... I'm just the messenger. :thumbup:

julie: The only reason I asked is because I have found that my band tightens when I fly. I guess if yours didn't, that has nothing to do with your problem. Good luck with your adjustment. Hope you are able to get it just exactly perfect. I'm going tomorrow too. In some ways I dread it because I usually spend a week of sporadic tight and loose episodes after an adjustment that keep me on my take-small-bites-and-chew-chew-chew toes. :thumbup:

I'm curious green. Why do you think that there is a Jamacian black teen problem? Do you think that they are really angry individuals because of their perceived plight in life in general, or are they angry because of the way they actually are treated? Or do you think that they are mimicking some of the gang behavior that is so heavily reported in the mainstream media in the U.S.? Since gangsta rap and all that are really popular now. Do you think that has anything to do with it? Or is your guess (I'm assuming a guess) that it is due to something quite different?

Talk about innappropriate, when I was a kid someone told me what a fink was. They said a fink is someone who farts in the bathtub and then bites the bubble. Geez! For a while I actually believed them. I guess it would be one way to clear out a hot tub.

Wow Becky, you're an inspiration! Way to go. I'd love to weigh what you weigh. Can you share how you did it? If you've already told your story and I missed it, I apologize. karey: you're doing it?! I hadn't read that you made the decision. I would love the details too. And how did you find your doctor? What do the 500 calories a day consist of? You sound like an ice cream freak like me. A day without ice cream for me is a day to be proud of! It's as important to my success as exercising is, I think. At least for the time being. Someday I WILL be able to have one scoop and feel satisfied!

:thumbup: Mind mentioning where you and them banjo pickers live? (That's a joke. I have nothing against banjo players. In fact, I'm crazy about Steve Martin.)

Yup, when a mother's heart beats faster, so does a baby's. kimaly: I am sorry if I offended you with my beliefs, but obviously you misunderstood. I did not equate someone ordered to murder their own child and someone choosing to get rid of the problem as being the same thing. My analogy was lost on you, for sure. I probably didn't explain it well enough. I am very strong in my belief that women should not be told that they either should have an abortion or that they should not have an abortion. The government should not have that control over a woman in our society. I do not agree that a fertilized egg is a separate entity. But whether I believe that any person who has an abortion is killing her baby is, to me, irrelevant to the debate. The debate to me, IMHO, is whether the law should be able to tell women what to do when they are faced with such a decision. There are plenty of valid reasons why a woman might need to undergo an abortion and it is not for the state to decide what those reasons are and pass judgement on a woman who makes a choice that it (the government, whoever that is) may not agree with. If you find this debate distasteful and my posts in particular to be disgusting, then by all means, opt out. This thread is definitely not for the faint of heart. You should hear some of the arguments against abortion. It gets unbelievably graphic and vile.

A great way to get some space between you and the other people at a movie! A great way to pay someone in an elevator back when they've been bad mouthing someone in the office. You let loose just before you walk out the door and leave them in your wake.

Hi ya'll. I've been needing to lose 20 lbs. for months. I apologize for not having an informative ticker, but I'm a doofus. I will tell you that I'm down to 175 and I want to be at 155 really bad. After that, I will tackle another 10 or so, but if I can just get down to 155, it will restore my confidence. I have had a devil of a time with restriction too. I am due to see the doc this week again. Sometimes just the activity of removing the liquid and replacing it, even with just a tiny bit added, does a whole lot for me. I haven't had a fill in a couple of months. I've found that I shouldn't go that long without having it checked. julie you haven't been on an airplane have you? To get the weight off, I plan to get back on the recumbent bike, do Water aerobics, and my free weight upper body routine. I have to be very careful or I overdo it and then I lose a week trying to get my knees working again. There's a fine balance I'm still trying to figure out in the exercise department. I also plan to have more salads - I can't eat much salad and it is so filling that I can lose weight that way. Also, true confession time: I have been allowing myself to occasionally share a dessert with DH when we're out. We had completely stopped that but have started talking ourselves into it again. That's over and done with! Good luck to all of you. Let's git 'er done!! It's gonna be a great feeling when we lose this sack o' lard! BJean

Plain that was a very nice post. Thank you. But hey, I believe what I believe. There's no policy here that says you have to trot out a bunch of links to prove your point. But I will say that some of what I was ranting about this morning, that you took exception to, was related to a couple of USA Today's articles and one of our local newspaper's editorials. When I mentioned the McCain "camp" I was actually trying to be respectful to another person, by not mentioning names, who posted a diatribe about how McCain's position changes were due to the fact that he's grown and learned, and how that is a commendable trait and all. I probably shouldn't have tossed it into my post to you. The street drug thing is a suggestion by some very good friends of ours (hard to believe, but true) who are extremely conservative and who are fed up with the cost of drug trafficking in the U.S. They actually think it's a good idea. They also think everyone in the U.S. should be issued a gun upon reaching the age of 18 and then taught how to use them and store them. In that way, the bad guys will know that we all have guns and will shoot back at them if they mess with us. I actually can see some wisdom in that, but I would never trust my fellow Americans enough to vote for it. They also believe that George W. Bush is a brilliant man and that his doofus antics are a clever ruse. Now these people are highly educated and very well respected members of their community. They're very active in their Southern Baptist Church. In fact he's a deacon. He is also a top-level Vice President of one of the largest defense contractors in the U.S. So these aren't just some crackpot rednecks I'm talking about. Some of the people's posts I read here at LBT on politics and laws and legislation sound like they might just embrace some of these wacky extreme right wing proposals. And I gotta tell you, it makes me kinda nuts. So I vent here when I find it impossible to vent to some of our friends and continue to stay friends. It's my therapy. So I really don't feel compelled to justify my beliefs or my declarations to anyone. However I am the first to admit that the way I write is a little confusing and since I'm so long-winded, people don't get the entire message, just parts of it here and there. Who can blame them? I'm not trying to make you crazy. I'm just working on keeping myself sane. And I honestly do believe that Obama is the better choice. And I honestly do hope that he doesn't foul it up like Carter did. But right now, to get some relief from the past couple of Bush terms, I'm certainly willing to take a chance.

And yes, I'll guarandamnteeyou that there will be some of the same folks in the White House if McCain gets elected. If you think the entire house will be cleaned from stem to stern, you're the one who's been buying the party line without thinking.

P.S. YOU'RE the one who said that Bush is the devil. I didn't. And just wondering... is your point about Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs being so incredibly wrong supposed to make us think that then it's all right if another president pulls the same type of thing? Or does it make them wrong too? Believe me I know people who believe that anything a president does in the name of national security is absolutely fine. Doesn't take them long to figure things out, does it? Right... They're the same ones who think that anytime we confiscate illegal drugs, we should lace them with lethal chemicals and put it back out on the street. They say that'll eventually take care of the drug problem. Gets the users and the pushers in one fell swoop. Nice. Real humanitarians they are.

plain I just hate it that you don't appreciate my posts. It just ruins my day. McCain actually called the Swift Boat people dishonest, dude. Sure it was for his own personal political reasons, but I certainly respected him for doing it. But he fixed that. And you're right, I've never heard McCain say the words that he supports overturning Roe v. Wade. But that's nitpicking. He went from saying he believes in women's rights to now dancing around the issue and supporting what he thinks will get those right wingers to vote for him and give him campaign money. And yeah, if Obama sells out before the election, then I probably won't vote. Doesn't that just rile you to no end? Btw, do you say that I am regurgitating political talking points because I stand by what I believe in and have done my homework? Because some of the B.S. the McCain camp comes up with to justify his flip flops over the past few years is a little vomitus maximus if you ask me.

green kinda straightened out my meaning a little. I get what you're saying Watcher and I meant to agree with your post, as green did, and there again the written word is not always interpreted as intended. My other point being that the very people who put labels on others, happen to be just as mixed racially as those they have judged to be one race or other. That one drop of blood thing that used to be in the Virginia Constitution really made my blood boil. Wonder if it is still lurking there... I believe that open forums like this that encourage these kinds of discussions can be very helpful to some people who have never really thought about it. When I lived in Canada, I did not observe the racial discrimination that I have seen in the lower states. I was in Quebec Province though. green's further west I think, if that has any bearing.

yeah I understand gadget. A few people have decided that a fertilized egg is a separate individual. But that doesn't mean that they are correct or even right. When they share a circulatory system and oxygen, among other things, a fetus sure isn't separate in any sense of the word from its' mother. Two hearts beat as one, until there are two hearts separate, meaning not sharing all the same vital stuff. You know... separate. Like in Webster's Deluxe Unabridged, Second Edition Dictionary: Separate: to set or put apart (two or more things) into parts, groups, sets, etc., to disunite, to divide, to sever, to part in any manner, to disjoin; withdraw or secede from; to part, come to draw apart, or become disconnected; to part company, to go in different directions, to cease to be associated; to become distinct or disengaged; unconnected; not united; distinct; individual; alone; withdrawn from the company or association of others; solitary; isolated; secluded; of or peculiar to one; not shared or held in common, etc.

tink the great thing about your situation was that you were able to make a choice. What if the government decided that under your circumstances, you absolutely HAD to have an abortion? You may think that sounds like an impossible scenario, but it is not. When the government gets involved, and I don't care whether it is the state or federal government, it is no longer a personal medical decision anymore. And if something happened, let's say an influx of millions of refugees after a natural disaster, and the government decided that rather than preventing abortion, they required that a woman must have an abortion unless the baby would be born into a household with two parents, do you think that would be a good thing? I don't think many people would be very happy about that. Actually I don't know anyone who would embrace a law like that. And to me, it is just absolutely wrong for the government to make these kinds of decisions for women and their unborn babies, whether the government decides that a woman must have an abortion in a particular case, or whether a woman must not have an abortion in a particular case. I think it is great that you chose to keep your child. Very admirable and a beautiful thing. I also think that those women who choose to give their children up for adoption so that their children can have a better life than they can provide, is also a wonderful thing. And in this country both of those possibilities exist and women are smart enough to make these life changing decisions based upon what they believe is best. It is completely wrong for the government to force women to do what the government (made up of who? Supreme Court justices, Presidents, Congress, Judges?) believes women faced with such decisions should do. This question is too important for a few people to make a ruling that impacts all women and their medical, perhaps life threatening, decisions. That is completely wrong. And it goes against everything that this country stands for. Whether you believe women should have abortions is beside the point. No woman is required to have an abortion against her wishes at this point in time. (Let's hope it never comes to that.) On the other hand, neither should a should woman be prevented from making a decision that she and her doctor believe are in her best interests, even if it means that she must have an abortion.

Watcher: Really? You find the premise that we are mostly all of mixed races to be irrelevant? And the idea that none of us can legitimately claim one small part as our genetic idenity is irrelevant? Why does that crack you up so much? Is it because you don't believe that it is ever going to be the norm or is it because so many of us don't have a clue what our genetic makeup is, or is it something altogether different? And obviously you agree, plain. Can you explain it to me? Or do you just extend kudos to TheWatcher because you're happy because you think he "got" me? I'm always interested in reading your posts because it seems like we definitely agree on some issues or parts of some issues but your reasoning is usually different from mine, and you don't seem to respect my posts. Any input could be enlightening for me and I would appreciate it.

This morning I am a little less generous about people's choice to vote for McCain. This race just keeps revealing more and more reasons why Obama is the only right vote in this election. I can appreciate why people are conservative and why they think that the Democrats represent more government and higher taxes. My gosh, take a hard, really honest, look at what the Republicans have done and are proposing to continue! In too many cases, they have done exactly the opposite of what they tell us they want. No well maybes, explain to me exactly how conservative or not you can honestly keep these people in the White House.

Yeah. Don't worry about the economy if we have another Republican president. Things are just fine, thank you very much. This war hasn't cost us anything. Besides, it is just so important that we found and destroyed those weapons of mass destruction that bombed the World Trade Center on 9/11. So we need to keep at it. It has been such a wonderful success story - this war in Iraq. We've nearly killed all the terrorists in the world. We've restored peace in Iraq and killed their former leader (who we helped put in place) and his sons. Now the infrastructure in Iraq is all up and running again and all the very fortunate Iraq citizens have a much, much better life because of our presence in their country. And we keep pouring billions into their country every week. Naaaaah, it has nothing to do with OUR economy. And another really swell reason to support McCain is because we can believe everything he tells us. Well, some will admit that he has done a 180 degree flip flop on some issues, but it's only because he's learned and grown. Wait, say what now? That's why he's now accepting thousands of dollars in contributions from the very people he condemned in the last election for being dishonest and dishonorable (his words) when they put out tons of lies about John Kerry's war decorations. That's why he changed his mind about supporting women's right to choose. Now he's for taking women's rights away and putting them in the hands of his fellow right wing Republicans. They didn't use to be his fellow right wing Republicans. He used to criticize them and had the gumption to buck the extremely conservative positions of his own party. Not any more. Today he needs their votes and their money in order to get elected, so the gumption and strong convictions that we're supposed to think that he got when he was a veteran, no longer applies. Say what? Yeah. That's exactly what I'm sayin'.

Well the case you mentioned that defined for us all that: it is a whole, separate, unique, living human being, is merely a sampling of things to come. (Separate? Really?) When Bush loaded the Supreme Court deck with people who clearly have an agenda to make it against the law for women to make their own choices, we knew exactly what to expect. It is just a matter of time, really. If any of you care, you should make sure you get out and vote. It certainly does make a difference. And if you want people who think it is their right, and theirs alone, to choose who lives and dies in America, in charge of making laws and interpreting them, you better not vote Republican. John McCain used to be in favor of women's right to choose. But in order to get the Republican backing he needed to be the Republican candidate for president, he had to give up that position and adopt theirs - and that's not the only very important compromise that he's made. I used to think that McCain had the gumption and fortitude that he claims from having been a veteran, but I was wrong about him. He was very vocal in his criticism of those "Swift Boat Veterans" and "POWS for Truth" who banded together to attack John Kerry and accuse him of lying about the inidents in Vietnam that led to his military decorations. McCain called the group's advertising "dishonest and dishonorable." But today McCain needs their money and votes so he has accepted nearly $70,000 from the top donors of theose groups and their relatives. To defend his acceptance of donatons from those "dishonest" people, he says that they are obviously interested in supporting his agenda of reform and peace. What? Wait. What? Seriously?

TheWatcher: Pulling hairs? Don't you mean splitting hairs? Or were you referring to the short ones? Sorry. I apologize to the serious posters. I just couldn't let that one slide. I think I wrote a long post (don't I always!) in answer to yours Elenation but I musta forgot to hit submit. So ya'll lucked out today!!