This is a strange post.

1) How does this have anything to do with anything that I wrote?

2) How is this anything but agreeing with what I wrote, that it's the concentration of the methanol that matters? (note: it's a myth that only methanol causes hangovers; ethanol does also, although methanol is far worse per unit mass)

3) Methanol poisoning can be acute or chronic. A couple shots of spirits containing 10-20% methanol can cause serious optic nerve damage in one sitting. A few shots of pure methanol can kill you in one sitting.

And yes, I know how one distills liquer. :) While there's no exact rules, a general approach is to toss off anything that has a "chemical" smell (which doesn't come from methanol, but from acetone, which has a fairly similar boiling point to methanol, nearly as high), recycle anything that has a "fruity" smell (ethyl acetate, which has a boiling point very similar to ethanol and much higher than that of methanol), and keep only that which smells only like alcohol. Methanol of course also smells like alcohol but the lower boiling point leads it to get mainly tossed from the first cup.

There's also a home test one can do for methanol if you want to be really sure - you expose it to an oxidizer, such as potassium dichromate with sulfuric acid. Ethanol oxidizes to fruity-scented acetylaldehyde while methanol oxidizes to foul, pungent formaldehyde which is a very easy scent to detect even in small quantities. But that's really not necessary with proper distilling.

The amount of ethanol in fruit juice is in the dozens of ppm quantities, like the methanol. Where's your reference that several millilitres of ethanol "protects the body from methanol"?

Here, you can prove me wrong right now in just a couple weeks. We'll work on the honor system! Maintain a strict calorie count every day for the next four weeks, and do a good estimate of your caloric burn by standard formulae. Consume say 500 calories less every day than you burn. Weigh yourself before and after on an accurate scale under the same conditions (clothing, time of day, etc) - perhaps the average of a couple days of weighings at the beginning and end. Come back and tell me the results. If you didn't lose weight, I'll take you at your word and post an apology. How does that sound?

You realize that this "experiment" has been done again and again and time again, right?

" They have benefits for weight control because they help control appetite and delay hunger".

Funny, it's almost like I didn't write "Some routes may be easier to take than others, reducing cravings and the like."

getting a little regular exercise makes a huge impact on weight loss

Yes, that would be the "calories out" part of where I wrote "amount of calories in versus the amount of calories out".

It almost seems like you're having a debate with someone else.

Count your calories and estimate your calorie burn every day and make sure that you maintain a higher burn rate than consumption rate. And you will lose weight - it's really that simple. Yes, eating a lot of simple carbs and sugars will make you hungrier and sleepier - I never said it wouldn't. But that doesn't change how weight loss works. It's still "in" vs. "out".

Metabolism has been studied. It does not vary that greatly between individuals with the same activity levels. I seriously recommend that if you want to follow up your anecdote, you do actual calorie counts over a several week period between yourself and your roomate and keep track of walking distances and other forms of athletic activity. Then bring your actual data here and try to prove all of the science wrong with your two datapoints.

Your body cannot "make" you eat something. You have a brain. Different diets can cause different cravings and you may not have the willpower to override your cravings, but that's your own problem.

The facts are facts: weight loss is a matter of calories in vs. calories out, and you absolutely can lose weight eating twinkies. More to the point, this professor did it as a demonstration of this fact (he took a multivitamin, ate some celery, etc to make sure he got his essential nutrients, but the vast majority of his calories came from twinkies and other junkfood).

We have cut and cut and cut. Some kids are "gifted", and get to take Calculus; algebra is no longer standard curriculum. English grammar has been cut back. Latin and Greek are too hard for the less-special of us.

The school system is targeting "success", in that "we can all succeed", by lowering the fucking bar.

I'm ok with them watching porn, as long as they don't have to see that rampart violence that litters TV.

Let's teach our kids that if someone fucks with them, it's ok to fuck them back.

It is not a necessity. Not any more than a computer, an internet connection or a dishwasher. It's a matter of convenience and enjoyment. People want to watch their shows. And to watch them, they need to be able to do just that. They don't care that they get channels they don't want to get. What difference does it make for them?

I've watched a dog eat a half a bag of chocolate peanut butter cups, vomit, then be miserable for days. A dog eating a chocolate bar isn't nearly as fatal as you'd think.

Chocolate is like if you inhaled gasoline fumes. Xylitol for a dog is like if you inhaled Sarin nerve gas.

Hmm... couldn't we simply do away with them instead of me? I mean, it does accomplish the same purpose.

The problem is that the only real option you have is abstaining. You don't want this behaviour? No cable TV for you. Because there's no such thing as a "channel mix" that you want. Have you ever taken a look at the average "basic mix" of channels? Nobody, absolutely nobody, on this planet would choose these channels. No matter what his interests.

If you're not happy with this, your choice is to do without. Not only without the channels you don't want, but also the ones that you would want. Don't want Sports and Bible TV? Ok, no SciFi for you either.

And most people would rather grin and bear it than abstain. Essentially what it means to them is that they don't get the 100+ channels promised but actually just about 10, with 90+ more that could as well not exist.

Cable? It's the only reason for having a TV anymore.

Why make your kids cry? www.thepiratebay...