Two Very Obese Videos

Below are 2 YouTube videos. In the first video you'll meet several extremely obese people, shockingly so. One of them is named Lisa. You'll see much more about Lisa in the second video. I've seen the type of lack of self-control exhibited by these people up close and personal. It totally perplexes me. It's a sad sad thing....



And now the video that is all about Lisa...

Opinionated Over Obesity

I thought my opinions on the Obesity Epidemic were a tad on the harsh and judgmental side. And then I heard from someone regarding my blogging earlier today where I verbalized how appalled I am that people let themselves get so big.

Well, this person, far more harsh in the opinion department than I, opined that there should be laws passed. That if the government can control what drugs adults can buy due to certain drugs being detrimental to a person's well-being, then the same principle should apply to what a person is allowed to buy that is contributing to our nation's #1 health problem.

So, this anti-obesity fanatic suggested that obese persons should not be allowed to buy and consume certain foods, like cookies, donuts, pies, well, basically anything that is high caloric, high fat and empty of nutrition.

The fanatic thinks anyone who helps an obese person get around the Food Prohibition by buying them their donuts, that that enabling person should be charged with the crime of aiding and abetting an obese person.

The fanatic thinks obese people should have to pay more to fly. Why should the healthy weighted subsidize the obese person's flight? It costs more airplane fuel to haul those extra pounds.

Obviously obese people should not be allowed in buffets. That would have cut Zorro's Buffet's business by about 25% today. But once again, how is it fair that an obese person pays the same at a buffet as a healthy-weighted person? I doubt Zorro's makes much money off the obese people. I should have taken a picture of some of the mounds of food on the obese people's plates. But that would have been a little tacky.

Now, I know there is a school of thought that maintains that the obese are doing a heroic thing, contributing to our National Strategic Fat Preserve. If times get tough the obese can live off their stored reserves while the rest of us go hungry. I think this school of thought is ridiculous.

Sarah Palin in the Oval Office

This is amusing. Go here and move your mouse around and do some clicking. Supposedly this is updated daily til November 4. Be sure to click the phone....

Fort Worth Gas Price, Rats & Zorro's Buffet

Earlier today I blogged about obesity. And then a few hours after that I found myself talked into going to the biggest buffet in Texas. That being Zorro's Buffet.

I've blogged about Zorro's Buffet before. Sadly, for Zorro's Buffet, their official website is badly designed, so my blog shows up before their website when someone Googles "zorros buffet fort worth."

The Race Way gas station next to Zorro's had gas at $2.64. There was no line. You can get the stuff in the $2.60 range all over this zone now.

A large percentage of the Zorro's Buffet customers today were obese. One sat near me. Obese people can really eat a lot of food.

Today was Mexican food day at Zorro's. Which included chile rellenos, which is my favorite Mexican food. I had 5 rellenos. They were good. I always judge the quality of a Mexican restaurant by the quality of their rellenos. Zorro's was not quite as good as Esperanza's, but like I said, I had 5 of them.

Two guys sitting behind me, judging from overhearing their conversation, were exterminators. They were having their best extermination year ever. Getting rid of rats.

And now the weird part. One of them said the rats were on the move due to all the gas drilling disturbing their habitat. So, the rats move into people's homes and garages.

Now, as much as I find much to be disturbed about regarding all the urban gas drilling, I find it hard to believe that it has caused a mass exodus of rats.

I've not seen any rats in my neighborhood and I've got a gas operation going on right across the street.

Morbid Obesity Kills Me

Okay. I know I've made no secret of the fact that I think there are way too many way too big people. Particularly here in Texas. I have no understanding of why a person would let themselves get in such a condition. When you get so big you have trouble putting on your shoes why do you decide to eat another cookie slathered with frosting? It seems, to me, such an act of self-destruction combined with child-like self-indulgence. I don't see how an obese person could have any self-esteem, they must be constantly in a state of extreme self-loathing.

I've really only known, personally, one morbidly obese person. The behaviors that caused the obesity were bizarrely self-indulgent, almost arrogantly so. I just don't understand why one would continue to eat like a pig when ones upper body has grown so fat that you no longer have a neck and your head sits atop a mound of flesh like a ball on top of a blob.

Looking at it clinically, obesity is a condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to such an extent that ones health is negatively affected. Excessive body weight is associated with various diseases, particularly cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, sleep apnea, cancers and osteoarthritis. As a result, obesity reduces life expectancy. The primary treatment for obesity is dieting and physical exercise. If dieting and exercise fails, anti-obesity drugs and surgery can be tried.

Obesity is the result from too much energy intake overwhelming a person's basal metabolic rate and level of physical exercise. Excessive caloric intake and a lack of physical activity in genetically susceptible individuals is thought to explain most cases of obesity. With rates of adult and childhood obesity increasing, it is currently viewed as a serious public health problem.

Most obesity experts agree that a combination of excessive calorie consumption and a sedentary lifestyle are the primary causes of obesity. In a minority of cases, increased food consumption can be attributed to genetic, medical, or psychiatric illness. The rising prevalence of obesity is attributed to the availability of an easily accessible highly caloric variety of bad things to eat.

Certain physical and mental illnesses and the pharmaceutical substances used to treat them can increase risk of obesity. However, obesity is currently not regarded as a psychiatric disorder.

Personally. I think it should be. Just as any other form of self-destructiveness is considered a mental illness. The morbidly obese person who's casual acquaintance it was my misfortune to make has serious mental health issues in addition to the morbid obesity. It seems to me that the morbid obesity is just another manifestation of the underlying mental health issues. And should be treated as such.

Dow Jones, Debates & Icy Water

It is now the Ides of October, as in October 16. I continue to go swimming early in the morning. At midnight it was 59 degrees here. When I went swimming this morning it was 56. I continue to be amazed that this is doable, to swim when the water is so cold.

I've gotten so many problems fixed this week that I'm feeling sort of relieved. And then I opened the morning paper to see that the Stock Market crashed again. Just when I thought things were starting to look up.

I tried to watch last night's debate, really I did. I am truly perplexed as to what has gone wrong with me. I used to watch all things political religiously. Conventions beginning to end. All the debates. I made it through several of the primary debates. But I've only made it through one of the current string of debates, that being the Palin/Biden debate.

Maybe it has something to do with I already know who I'm voting for. But that hasn't stopped me from watching a debate previously. Maybe I'm turning into a cranky old man. Just way too easily annoyed. I think I made it past maybe 4 instances of rolling my eyes and thinking I was hearing pure idiocy and then turned off the TV and went to bed.

McCain was embarrassing. Obama seemed like the grown-up in the room. We live in scary times.

WaMu Finally Not KuKu

It's been almost a month since WaMu melted down and caused me woes due to taking way too long to credit a couple checks that'd been deposited.

Today, WaMu finally made good on their mistakes, re-imbursing me for what their mistakes had cost me. And sending letters to those with whom WaMu had caused a problem for me, explaining it was their problem, not mine.

So, I felt better about WaMu this afternoon. And so I deposited the first check since the WaMu Meltdown Debacle.

Was there anything odd about this deposit? Yes. There was. This time the receipt says the full amount of the deposit is available. I'll hold onto that receipt.

Texas Home Invasion Saves Energy

I've had me 2 days in a row of my peace being disturbed by home invasions. It has not been quite as bad as being at my little sister's in Tacoma when roofers ripped off her roof and put a new one on to the loud disapproval of a pair of highly vigilant poodles.

Yesterday I had those AT & T people in here doing all sorts of things. While that was going on there were people in the attic making a racket doing stuff with seals and insulation.

This morning the doors got attacked from the outside with this thick insulation that makes it hard to shut and lock the door. By noon the interior of this place was invaded by a crew of 4 or 5. I came back here, at that time, to find all the lights on, a guy standing in my tub, another on a ladder in the kitchen, all vents and plug covers off and another guy stuck halfway inside the vent hole under the furnace/AC unit.

I had to get out of here, so I went over to Miss Puerto Rico's and used her computer and sat on her balcony watching humanity pass below me. And then a downpour started up that lasted over an hour. I was trapped. When the rain finally let up I ran back here to find 3 people still in here. But they were soon gone.

I thought it was over. But then about 3pm there was a loud knocking on the door. I opened it to find 2 guys with all sorts of paraphernalia. A huge fun, several meters, ladders and, most disturbing, a giant bright orange plastic thing with a hole in it. You can see the two tester guys and their giant bright orange plastic thing in the photo, as well as some of their paraphernalia.

They were in here to seal off the place and then test it for leaks to make sure the previous crew got everything airtight and energy efficient. So, the tester guys sealed up all the vents and then put the big orange plastic thing with a hole in it covering the door.

When they got everything sealed up then the fun started. The first test created a vacuum as this big fan thing sucked the air out of here and out the hole in the big orange plastic thing. That test passed.

Then it was reversed and the big fan thing pressurized the air in here. It passed that test too. The tester guy told me if I opened the sliding patio door there'd be a big whoosh. So I opened it and there was a big whoosh.

As far as I know this was the last of the home invasions. I hope.

This home invasion, energy saving improvement was brought courtesy TXU/Oncor. I'm sure I'll be very grateful when I find it easier to stay warm this winter.

A Beautiful Child's Horror

I've long liked reading true crime books, with Ann Rule being my favorite true crime writer. But, sometimes it is way too disturbing reading these type books.

With Ann Rule's books part of what made them interesting to me is so many of her books are about murders about which I am familiar due to living in the northwest where many of the crimes Ann Rule details take place.

Ironically, parts of the story in the latest true crime book I've read took place here in Texas and Oklahoma, at locations with which I am familiar. The book I'm referring to is titled "A Beautiful Child" by Matt Birkbeck.

It tells the disturbing story of the girl you see in the photo. In the late '80s, that girl, who went by many names, but who for most of her life was known as "Sharon Marshall" was a bright and beautiful high-school senior in Florida. Top of her class and the leader of her ROTC unit who scored well on the SATs, earning a full scholarship to Georgia Tech.

A few years later, she would be dead and the details of her life would gradually come to light, to the shock of the people investigating her death.

In the early '70s, "Sharon" had been kidnapped at the age of 4 or 5 by a psychopath named Franklin Delano Floyd. Floyd raised her as his daughter. But, as the police and FBI investigating her death would come to find out, he was molesting her for her entire life.

A few years after Sharon graduated high school, Floyd took her to Louisiana and married her.

Soon afterward, Sharon gave birth to a son, Michael. Later, DNA testing would prove Floyd was not the father.

In 1990, Sharon was killed by a hit-and-run driver (most suspect Floyd). Sharon did not die from her injuries and was coming out of her coma when she received a late night hospital visit from Floyd. She was dead the next morning.

Later, Floyd kidnapped Michael from his school, and killed him a few days later. Following the kidnapping, photos were discovered in a vehicle Floyd had stolen in Dallas which revealed the true horror that had been Sharon’s life. Photos of Sharon being sexually abused and molested from the age of 4 or 5 til her early teens.

Floyd is now on death row in Florida for the murder of an exotic dancer in the mid '90s, a conviction made possible due to other photos discovered at the same time as Sharon’s molestation photos.

Floyd had been convicted of and imprisoned for the rape of a 4 year old girl in the early 60s. He was let out of prison a few years later. To me that is as great a crime as any other part of the story. Child molestation should get the death penalty in my Draconian world view.

"Sharon's" true identity is still unknown. Somewhere in America there may be a mom and dad still wondering what happened to their little girl. They would not be wondering and "Sharon" would still be alive, if Floyd had never been allowed back out of prison. Appalling. And it happens way too often.

401 Keg Retirement Plan For The Bad Economy

Port Aransas's #1 Song Bird, Alma, sent me some amusing retirement advice this morning. This is likely old advice for a lot of people, but I'd not seen it before.

I think this is a plan I can get behind.....

If you had purchased $1,000.00 of Delta Air Lines stock one year ago you would have $49.00 left.

With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the original $1,000.00.

With WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00 left.

But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.00.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

It's called the 401-Keg.