The other day one of the images had some problem, so I went to the site rather than just looking at it through my RSS reader. I noticed that even though it was just posted, it already had 90 comments. As a blogger, I knew how rampant spam was and since this was one of the most popular sites on the web, I figured the bots were all zeroed in. I took a peak because I wanted to see this sad state of affairs.

Um. Whoa. What tha?

No spam. Instead, it was a very long thread by real people all speaking LOLcat talk! Page after page! On every post! In less than 15 minutes from post to my reader getting it, 90 comments by these people!

I have never seen a more sickening display of a waste of time in my life! I was sure I was looking at a convergence of all those crazy cat ladies, coming together in one common obsession.

Good Lord. If “Get a life” ever had meaning, this is it! This was all fun, and now it somehow makes me sick…

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People are born gay or straight. Many people grow up hiding their sexuality for various reasons, but the fact that they announce they are gay after they are adults, or even after they have had spouses and children does not change the fact that they were gay when they were born. They don’t get converted or victimized into it. Nor do they choose it. It is a very difficult thing they usually struggle with for years before they admit it. They choose when they call themselves gay, but not when they are gay.

This is extremely difficult for many to deal with because it means God created gay people as gay and yet, we are all told God hates homosexuality. To believe people are born gay is to believe that God is a liar or something. What do you do?

The answer is that we live in a very different time than when the Bible was written.  Some things are as true today as they were 4,000 years ago, but many things are not. We don’t take laws set down by God concerning donkeys to literally apply only to donkeys. Things change. In this case, we now know that homosexuality is an inherited trait as much as red hair or black skin. They didn’t know that a couple thousand years ago. Times change. Things change. We have knowledge they didn’t. It doesn’t nullify God’s Law, it amends it. And it gives us the chance to be more righteous and good than the saints and the prophets.

The good news is, homophobic men don’t have to worry any longer that they will turn gay from a hit on the head or perhaps a drunken fling with another gay. You’re straight, get over it.

A lot of very dumb things are perpetrated because of this lack of understanding. Many people are trying to limit knowledge of homosexuality as a means to limit homosexuality itself. They think that if people know about it, it creates it. The truth is, people are gay, and some know what they are and some don’t. When they find out that what they are is gay and there are millions of other gay people, they are relieved and announce what they have always been. To the paranoid outsider they imagine that the knowledge created the homosexuality. That’s as true as finding out that there is something called hiccups and realizing you have them and they are normal. Knowing about hiccups didn’t cause hiccups, it gave it a name and a context.

This is the issue of our time. It is the Jim Crowe era for gay people. They can’t have the legal protections and rights others take for granted. They are ridiculed without consideration. They are mistreated. They are discriminated against. They can work their entire lives with a partner and end up with no rights to share in their life in terms of inheritence, etc. as they would were they straight and married. All these things happen because of the way they were born. Same as skin color. They had no choice and would likely have made a different one if they could. And so they are mistreated because of how God made them.

Be glad you were not born gay in these times. Just as there was a time when simply being born black in this country was going to be a struggle against society, today, being born gay makes you an instant victim.

And much as in those segregation times, the people who have the strongest feelings against gay people, have not been around them. My growing up with black people in my schools and churchs and as my peers and friends made it impossible for me to be a racist as my parents generation was. Having many gay friends lets me see how normal it is and I can’t imagine a reason to treat them as less than equal humans and citizens. But for those who live where no one dares come out of the closet, they are free to continue to imagine that gay people are some monster to be fought. It’s the same way in the all white counties of this country where racism continues to be passed down without being contradicted by the existence of people of color in their lives.

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I got my blood tested again recently and was thinking all would be good. I have been on a low carb diet for months now, lost lots of fat and was thinner and eating much better. Well, my cholesterol was now 269 and all the results were in the “very high” range, except for blood glucose. I have not had any sugar in a long time, so, that should be low. Now the doctor is saying that I may need to get on medication for my cholesterol.

So I did more reading and now I am fairly convinced it is a lot of crap. I read this article which sums up a lot of things. Basically, the cause of heart disease and heart attack and stroke isn’t cholesterol, but stress. The emphasis on cholesterol is perhaps more about selling you a drug you must take every day for the rest of your life.

Study after study shows no link between a low fat diet and lowered risk of heart disease. Study after study shows that lowering cholesterol does not lower the risk of heart disease. But it sells a lot of pills! If cholesterol was bad for you, why does your body make it? New studies are showing serious risks with the extremely low cholestrol levers due to statins. Low cholesterol used to mean under 400.

Stress causes heart disease. That seems simple right? The C Reactive Protien is the better indicator. It also explains the “French Paradox.” This is the fact that although French people eat way more fat and have higher cholesterol, they have a lower incidence of heart disease. The cholesterol obsessed Americans decide this was due to their consumption of red wine. The real truth is that its due to their relaxed lifestyles. Two months of vacation a year. Shorter work weeks. More sick leave and fully insured. Less stress is the answer. The simple and obvious answer.

The other thing that was interesting to discover is that the optimum amount of exercise to strengthen the heart is 8-12 minutes. That’s right 8-12 minutes! Exercising a lot more is stressing your body, which is harmful. But that’s the American way. If 10 minutes is good 3 times a week, 2 hours twice a day is better! Wrong!

I am not going to worry about my high cholesterol. Unfortunately, this myth is so prevalent that my life insurance policy ended up at a much higher rate due to my cholesterol level. I wish I could get a lawyer to sue them over that! Class action!

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But there are crazy effects to this ban I never saw coming. When we went to dinner the other night, on a weekend night, there was but one person at the bar, and looking around at the tables circling the bar, you would have thought it was a day care! Lots of very small children. It seems that either, the smoking ban has meant the baby laden are going out to dinner now, or, they are not being shunted off to the non-smoking section. It’s just horrible. I now propose a “Kids Section” and a “Non-Kids Section” to make up for it.

This might be good for business. More people eating out. But, if you ever waited tables, you know that a table with kids is a nightmare to serve and they make a huge mess and they usually tip like crap. But will they drink? Will the drinkers want to hang out and unwind? That hurts the profit margin a lot, even if it helps get more people in.

For me, it makes me want to get drunk and rowdy and talk about anal sex really loud so the table of kids next to me is not brought back.

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Last summer was a real barn burner as the dogcats took out scores of bunnies, mice, birds, and squirrels, along with attacking people, Poodles and a Rottweiler.

They moved to a new house this year and I’m still not sure how things will stack up. The first bunnies appeared in the yard last week. The dogcats must have been pretty excited about it judging by the carnage.

The toll so far in bodies found is:

• 4 mice/rats
• 1 bird
• 1 flying squirel
• 1 bunny
• 1 baby bird 7-4-007

A slow start. I’m also unsure of the mouse count as there were parts and I can only guess at the number of actual bodies… Oh, and they attempted to attack a guy on a bicycle.

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