It’s Official: The Crash Of The U.S. Economy Has Begun

[His Divine Shadow]

I thought the populace was leaning pro-nuke myself? Or it being near 50/50 atleast.

[Tiriol]

I thought the populace was leaning pro-nuke myself? Or it being near 50/50 atleast.

It might be so, I have been out of touch with the development of nuclear opinion. But at least the magazines seem to be hell-bent on keeping the spectre of Tshernobyl alive and well and the propaganda about how nuclear energy is dangerous and unpredictable and unclean still affects many minds.

But I have hope for Finland and our nuclear power - the resistance against it has lessened, indeed, especially after people got scared of the prospect of being almost entirely at the mercy of Russia's energy distribution. I just thought that there were still more opponents than proponents.

[Edi]

Nuclear power isn't as much of a pariah as it used to be, but most of the people are still fucking morons about it.

My family is well educated and generally well informed and even from them I sometimes get the dismissive bullshit of the ignorant. Yeah, global warming isn't happening or is not being accelerated due to human activity because having a law degree somehow makes you an expert on the subject, for example. Or nuclear power is a bad idea, without any justification, from another lawyer (my uncles, the sources of those gems). At least the other one changed his tune quickly when he had the pros of nuclear power pointed out to him. But any glance at any public discussion venue will reveal the hordes of idiots lurking out of sight. Just try and take a look at the SMS pages of 100 and you'll see, oh, yes, you will. *shudder*

[Civil War Man]

and still others oppose it just because it reminds them of the United States and since the magazines, newspapers etc. are all but screaming how we are becoming Mini-USA, many want to reject ANYTHING that might lead us down that path.

This I find a little weird. You can practically get people in the US to start spazzing out by even saying nuclear. A lot of pop culture (cough cough Simpsons cough) has completed distorted the average American's ideas of how nuclear power works. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if a significant number of people here believe that a power plant runs the risk of exploding like an atomic bomb.

With the exception of some circles, there has been a major emphasis on using less nuclear power since Three Mile Island (which has resulted in a bit of a potential crisis as all the qualified nuclear engineers in the country are about to retire with almost no one available to replace them). So if you don't want to become a Mini-USA, you need to build all the nuclear power plants you can fit in the available land.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Have fun with that. The people will soon have a change of heart when they find the crossroads they've come to involves sticking with what they have now, but paying through the roof for electricity that's part of a rolling blackout package deal. Or accept nuclear is not as bad as some make it out to be.

You never know. You might even get a nuclear renaissance.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Have fun with that. The people will soon have a change of heart when they find the crossroads they've come to involves sticking with what they have now, but paying through the roof for electricity that's part of a rolling blackout package deal. Or accept nuclear is not as bad as some make it out to be.

You never know. You might even get a nuclear renaissance.

I notice you weren't interested in taking my bet. *grins*

[Admiral Valdemar]

I don't like betting against "a sure thing". 'Sides, I'm more a poker man.

[Broomstick]

Sorry to be dragging this up from prior pages, but I really can't let this slide because it's a symptom of a variety of things.

-While I'm not a parent I'd offer a word of caution on this front. I remember clearly how my diet suffered when I was younger due to parents with little concern for what I wanted.

First of all, it is not your parent's first duty to give children what they want - it's to give them what they need. Parents have the responsibility to feed their children a good diet. If they can do so AND appease the children's food preferences that's fantastic but if they can't then health comes before preference.

An illustrating anecdote is when I was 3 or 4 I was told to eat my green beans at daycare. I told the lady I didn't like them and would prefer not to eat them because I knew I wouldn't like them from the smell (it was implied I preferred to go hungry). She insisted that I at least try them. I was obedient and tried them only to puke them up almost immediately. I've been told that I'm an overtaster and to this day I can't stand cellory, brockely, or coffee unless it is so dilute that it's coffee ice cream.

OK, a bunch of things here.

First, I saw a program on one of the science channels hosted by Alan Alda that discussed the issue of taste and "supertasters". Over the course of the show, Mr. Alda voluteered for a variety of test that proved, medically, he was a "supertaster" (he had twice the normal number of taste buds, could taste substances 3/4 of the population couldn't, etc.) Know what one of his favorite condiments is? Hot sauce. Being a "supertaster" does not prevent you from acquiring a taste for spicy-hot, bitter, or other strongly flavored food.

Second, while broccoli and coffee certainly are among food items that "supertasters" tend to avoid in pure form, celery generally isn't among those items. Hey, it's OK to simply not like a food, such as celery, but to blame your every food dislike on being unusually taste-sensitive is just ridiculous.

Third, strongly flavored foods can be mixed with other foods or cooked in certain manners to tame those tastes. For example, many who do not like plain broccoli might find it tolerable or even pleasent in moderate amounts in soup, stew, cassaroles, etc. As a more general example, very few people would eat plain, raw garlic but most enjoy it added in moderation to many dishes, and a substantial number find roasted garlic cloves to make a fine spread for bread. Being a supertaster does not mean you MUST eliminate strong flavors from your diet.

Fourth, tastes DO change over time. In part, this is because our tasting mechanism deteriorates over time, like all other senses. But there also appears to be a correlation with state of maturity and, for women, pregnancy. One hypothesis/theory is that the bitter/sour/strong flavors in foods are often substances that, in very large amounts, can be toxic to growing cells so there might be a genetic influence for young children (who are very small) and pregnant women (whose fetus might be affected by her ingesting toxins) have a mechanism to avoid those foods and seek bland ones. On the other hand, this mechanism should not become so strong as to allow children and pregnant women to regularly starve to death during food shortages when choices are limited. In addition, some of those potentially toxic substances can also have anti-bacterial or anti-viral properties, or provide phytochemicals beneficial to older humans who cells aren't growing so fast but whose immune systems might need a little extra help. So by sticking to bland because that's what you ate as a child you might be deprieving yourself both of food that you might like now, as well as food that might be beneficial to your health.

The above illustration is to show that children's desires when it comes to food can be very accurate, and as I discovered later, strongly linked to their actual needs. My parents always wanted me to "eat my greens." While I was not adverse to having some I WANTED a much much larger portion of protein, fat, and carbohydrate. Things like meat, milk, ice cream, sugar, etc.

You have not shown how what you want = what you need = what is best for you

Of course you wanted more protein, fat, and carbohydrates - back in the bad old days those were the items that were hard to get and provided needed calories for the work everyone did. (Protein is still an expensive component of diet in almost any menu, excluding spices). But back then people often filled up on green stuff because that's what there was to eat. Except in spring in temperate climate when, after a winter of no fresh food, everyone devoured the first green stuff of spring. There are accounts of people eating grass, they were so desparate for green stuff (which must have been hell on scurvy-softened gums with loose teeth). EVERYONE wants more protein, fat, and carbs - we're biologically programmed for it. Thing is, most normal people ALSO crave things like fresh fruit and vegees occassionally.

However, I often just went hungry since all there was in the fridge was greens and other equally low calorie foods. In fact, my friend and I would work whole weekends doing manual labor just to ride to the store, buy ice cream, toppings, and milk, and then consume them in under an hour (normally I'd go through 1/2-1 gallon of stuff).

Oh, gee - you were financially able to be choosey.

Do you understand that in a Depression-level downturn you will NOT be able to be so choosey unless you are among the truly wealthy? My parents lived through the Depression of the 1930's -- mom's family was so dirt poor that one Thanksgiving all they had was gravy sandwhiches - two slices of bread per person only - because that's all they had, even with public assistance and soup kitchens. My dad's family were more middle class (they were undertakers - if there's one profession good for weathering a massive crisis it's gotta be burying the dead...) but he remembers shortages, meatless days, times of few choices. With less fuel for transportation we'll go back to strongly seasonal choices in fresh food, and more preserved/canned items. You will have fewer choices. If, when you were a kid, there was no ice cream to be bought I strongly suspect you would have learned to choke down the green stuff, maybe even learned to like some of it.

It should also be noted that when I went to the grandparents during the summer I would gain 10-15lbs in mostly muscle since they let me eat much more of what I wanted as long as I tried what they offered.

So, given the luxury of choice you were able to fatten up. This proves... what?

Look, I have a real problem with some foods - if I eat them, even a little bit, even an amount too small to taste in a dish, I can become seriously ill, trip to the ER ill, potentially even die from it. Nonetheless, I've learned to eat a wide variety of food. I've even learned to eat food I don't care for taste-wise because a broad diet is a survival trait.

What's my point? Don't let stubborn lessons on obedience get in the way of actually feeding your kids. I mean do they actually NEED all those greens if they get multivitamins and fruit?

Yeah, you still need the greens.

If nothing else, you need the fiber to keep your colon from developing constipation.

But also, vitamins/supplements do not work in isolation. They work best when taken with food because that's how the system is evolved to work - by absorbing those nutrients with food. People who, for medical reasons, subsist on a liquid diet develop all sorts of digestive problems. Those who, for medical reasons, exist on an intravenous diet - one that supplies all required nutrients to the blood stream directly - are generally dead in 5-10 years. Why? Because your body never evolved to work that way.

We are omnivores. We are healthiest when we eat a WIDE variety of things, and not too much of any one thing.

But people today are spoiled. So spoiled, in fact, that children can go outside their parents' household to make (quite possibly poor) food choices of their own. This is not, from the perspective of long-term survival, a good thing. In the old days children learned to eat what was available (although it was always known that children had preferences) so that when famine hit they'd eat what available instead of bitching their favorite goody wasn't available.