Just going out an running or lifting weights generally is quite boring. What I do is get involved with physically demanding activities that I also enjoy. I coach a sports team that allows me to participate. I do certain outdoor activities (hiking, paddling etc) that I enjoy that also happen to be physically taxing. Relatively few people actually enjoy exercise for exercise sake. I just do things I enjoy that also help keep me fit as a second order effect.

It exists. I've experienced it and I can introduce you to plenty of others who've experienced it during their athletic careers. You have to be quite fit for it to happen in most cases. (much more fit than I am presently) Last time I had a runners high was back when I was competing in college. (wasn't during running but the effect was the same) You just feel like you are floating and everything you do seems almost effortless. It happens rarely - I've only experienced it four times in my life but the sensation is very real.

Nope. I've never had a drop of alcohol or other drugs that could elicit a high in my life. The smell of alcohol makes me nauseous and I feel no need to get high. I've no problem with others getting a buzz (safely) but I've never had a chemically induced buzz.

You should modify that a bit. It's actually non-water mass in minus non-water mass out. If I eat an orange that weights 1 pound then I've gained a pound for a short amount of time and the number of calories it has is irrelevant. It could have a million calories and I could not have gained more than 1 pound from that orange. Then once the digestive system gets to work the amount of the orange that gets converted into body mass is dependent on the percent of that mass that gets absorbed. Some will be water and the rest will be other matter. The amount of non-water mass we retain is a function of calories consumed minus our ability to digest them. A person's ability to absorb calories varies over time and different people have different ability to absorb calories.

If you have a digestive illness, you can eat lots of calories but often will not absorb many of them. If you haven't been eating much for a while and then you eat a lot more than normal, your body cannot digest it all and a higher percentage of calories than normal will pass through you undigested. Some people simply absorb more of what they consume than others. Presumably this is at least in part due to the gut bacteria. This is why simple calories eaten minus calories used in activity is not complete. The real equation excluding water is (calories eaten) - (calories not digested) - (calories used in activity) = (change in body mass). The calories not digested is only measurable by putting a calorimeter on your waste which is obviously problematic when trying to figure out how much of what you eat is actually staying with you.

"Need"? Strictly speaking you are correct. But people who are rich generally actually do have life insurance policies as a part of their estate plan. Violating the terms of these policies could cause them some fiscal heartburn. These policies have a price and payout terms that are based on certain expectations of the policy holder's lifespan. Things that could radically alter this expectation may void the terms of the policy or necessitate a material change in underwriting charges. Spaceflight is one of those things that falls into the category of radically adjusting risk.

If you apply for a life insurance policy of any real value, they will ask you to take a physical and you will be asked questions like whether you have a pilot's license or have flown in a non-commercial aircraft in the last 5 years. The insurance company will adjust their price accordingly if they are willing to underwrite the policy at all. Lie about it and the policy can be null and void to the detriment of you or your family.

We can only respond to what you write. What you wrote I disagree with. Your thesis was that spies should be able to monitor privileged communications and gave some proposed restrictions. I disagree with your thesis.

I do not think that lawyer client privilege is routinely violated here in the US. I know it does happen from time to time and I'm sure the NSA has picked up some phone calls and other communications but for the most part the available evidence shows that most of the time it is respected. I'm not particularly worried about my discussions with my lawyer being bugged by the government.

Yes I think they matter very much. It is the laws that allow Gitmo to exist in the first place. Congress could eliminate Gitmo with the stroke of the figurative pen if they were inclined to do so.

???? Yes bad things happen when laws are ignored. So what?

Untrue. If you remove the protections of those relationships then the government will eventually pay the price. The government that is strongest is the one that is trusted by the people. A government removes that trust at its own peril.

Disagree. Vox populi, vox Dei. If the citizens are sufficiently outraged then they will remove the leaders from office. A courtroom might help but a ballot box can fix the problem far more effectively than a jury box.

Guns aren't required for a revolution to occur. India kicked out the British largely without guns. The Civil Rights movement in the 1960s-70s was accomplished without guns. The USSR fell apart without civil war. If enough of the citizenry decides to force a change then change will happen no matter what weapons the government happens to have. Certainly you can have a revolution with guns but the notion that your little peashooter is what is keeping the most powerful military on the planet in check is pretty much laughable.

If you violate lawyer client privilege you remove someone's ability to get a fair trial.
If you violate doctor patient privilege you endanger public health as well as potentially the health of that person.
If you violate journalist source relationships you enable corruption by the state.

We protect these relationships because any minor benefit to the state achieved by violating the sanctity and trust in these relationships has follow on consequences that endanger the well being of a democratic society. Public health, fair trials, government accountability. All these things are kept in check in large part because we protect certain relationships between professionals and the groups they work with.

What serious threat are you stopping by spying on the communications of journalists and lawyers? We protect the professional actions of those groups for VERY good reasons. Reasons which far outweigh any information that might be gleaned from violating their confidential relationship. If a client cannot trust their communications to be confidential between themselves and their lawyer then there is no possible way for them to have a fair trial.

You don't need to involve a court to ruin someone's life. See Guantanamo Bay. Plenty of evidence there that would be inadmissible but the government is keeping people locked up indefinitely without charge or any opportunity to seek redress.

Which results in a rubber stamp kangaroo court like the FISA court.

Checks and balances require a separate party with equal power. No such entity exists if actions like these are perfectly legal.

Because they are idiots who have more money than sense. The game was crap 30 years ago and I don't think time has improved it any. I'm old enough to remember when it was being sold the first time and have actually played this game. Anyone who buys this game is an imbecile and if you pay more than $1 for it you need to wear a helmet to protect your soft skull.

Why would anyone pay $1 much less $50 for a game that was known to be complete crap. The game didn't get any better in the last 30 years and they buried it the first time for a reason. Now that they've dug it up it doesn't even have the benefit of being relatively rare.

No more so than any other major industrialized country.

Every state has a constitution because they are by definition sovereign over that region. It's in the name: United STATES of America. The constitutions of each state are required to be compatible with the federal constitution and if there is a conflict the federal constitution wins. Local governments do not have constitutions typically though there are some exceptions. It's actually pretty straightforward in concept though law making everywhere is a bit messy in practice.

I can introduce you to several independent recruiters that are most definitely not scum. A few I've worked with for years on both sides of the recruiting process and I know a few personally. *Some* are pretty good folks. BUT you aren't entirely wrong either. Most recruiters I've met are little more than commission whores who won't give you the time of day unless you are the perfect fit for whatever job they are currently trying to fill.

Probably a good idea. It costs nothing to be polite and ignore them and it doesn't cause you heartburn later on.

I hope you are better than most but with most recruiters unless you are a perfect on paper fit you will not get the time of day from them. I've dealt with a LOT of them over the years both as an employer and a job candidate. Recruiters ONLY want people with very deep and narrow domain expertise and (ex: 5 years experience accounts payable with a Fortune 500 manufacturing company) and make no effort whatsoever to figure out whether a person can actually do a job if they are the slightest bit non-traditional for the role. They also rarely understand anything with any significant technical content that isn't really well defined and industry standard. Worse they don't even give you the respect of telling you why they are ignoring you and most of the time they do ignore you.

Now this shouldn't be surprising because the recruiter almost always gets paid by the hiring firm so they have no incentive to give job applicants any respect unless it results in them getting a position filled. They'll be polite enough to you but mostly they will ignore you unless you happen to be the person they need right at that moment. For example I am an engineer and a certified accountant (not as weird as it sounds like). I have a resume with very diverse experience and my skill set is that of a generalist which means recruiters have NO idea what to do with me. In years past I've been blown off by more recruiters than I care to think about.

Who said it has anything to do with politics? I support gun rights and I probably would have made the same decision. The potential liability and government oversight is simply not worth it. They are making a very sane and reasonable business decision. Just because it conflicts with your political beliefs doesn't mean it is a political decision. They might even share your political beliefs but still have come to the same reasoned business decision that the downside outweighs the upside.

Plus I should point out that you are trying to foist your politics off on Stripe. Why should they be forced to share your political beliefs? Why should they be forced to pick a side?