to anyone. You have probably seen these signs in restaurants and other businesses. But in today's world, can a business owner really refuse to serve someone? The answer is it depends.

The Federal Civil Rights Act guarantees: "full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.". The Americans with Disabilities Act extends this to include people with disabilities. So currently, federal law does not extend these rights to sexual preference.

Some states, such as California, have extended the Civil rights act to include sexual preference. It passed something called the Unruh Civil Rights Act which makes it illegal to discriminate based on sexual preference and what it calls "unconventional dress". Other states have done similar things.

The point here is that currently it is a State's rights issue, not a Federal issue. So states are free to adopt the Federal Civil Rights Act as is or they can extend it to include other things, like California has done.

What Tim Cook and others are trying to do is have it become a Federal issue so that the Federal Civil Rights Act is amended to include sexual preference. Much like gay marriage proponents are attempting to do. Then states will be powerless to invoke their own individual standards.

We can debate whether or not it is the right thing to do but at the heart of it is a Federal vs. States rights struggle.

It does stave off hunger. Think of your stomach as a big balloon. It can only hold a given volume. Fiber expands when it mixes with the liquids in your stomach, thus filling you up sooner. There are receptors on the inside of the stomach wall that send signals to your brain telling it when you are full. Basically, when you think you're full, you're full.

In my example above I noted that I use Flaxseed as my source of fiber. To claim that this has no nutritional value is flatly false. The fiber in it will help to regulate your insulin levels which helps to control how quickly energies are burned up, with sugars being the quickest. It's also good for your digestive system. The flaxseed itself contains a lot of Omega-3 which helps you in a variety of ways: lowers blood pressure, lowers LDL cholesterol levels, helps reduce arterial plaque. It contains something called Lignans which contain antioxidant properties.

Flaxseed is one of the healthiest things you can consume.

Thanks for the tip. I'll try that.

Yeah you make a fair point. Keeping it off is the main reason that these fad diets don't work long term. They all deprive you of something that, in the short term, will allow you to drop pounds but it's not sustainable for most people. That's why I think it's so important to eat healthy when we can. I think it puts our bodies in better balance and better able to regulate weight at a healthy level over a sustained period of time. Just my 2 cents.

First off - congrats on losing the weight. 30lbs is nothing to scoff at.

Here's my take on it....

There are three pilers to good health - nutrition, exercise and rest. A lot of people forget about the rest part but it's important. Exercise will make you feel better, and probably look better.

For me nutrition is the most important factor. It's the fuel your body uses and the first line of defense on disease prevention. Eating the right foods can prevent things like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, even some cancers.

So what to eat? Supermarkets are full of unhealthy products with little or no nutritional value. I try to stay away from the "white stuff" - white sugar, white flour, white rice, white bread, etc. and substitute whole wheat where possible. Whole wheat has a lot of fiber in it and that is essential for weight loss. Fiber sort of expands in your stomach so that you feel more full eating less food. It's also good for your digestive track.

More fruits and vegetables are always good. If you're not big on that then get a juice machine.

Here's my recipe for a morning smoothie:

1 banana (organic if you can get it)
3-4 strawberries
A hand full of Kale (that dark leafy green vegetable. it's full of Omega-3 - great stuff)
1 egg (or egg white if you are more health conscious. eggs are one of the best sources of protein you can get)
1 teaspoon of ground flax seed (excellent source of fiber)
1 cup of water ( substitute juice if you like)

It's filling and really good for you. If you drink one of those a day it will contain all the fruits and vegetables you need.

Keep up the good work!

"The people who tend not to vote are young, they're lower income, they're skewed more heavily towards immigrant groups and minority groups" - How convenient. Sounds like it's smack dab in the middle of the Democrat demographic.

"Failure to vote is punishable by a fine in countries such as Australia and Belgium; if you fail to pay your fine in Belgium, you could go to prison" - So we're going to punish lower income groups and minorities by fining them or throwing them in jail? Yeah...great plan.

"There's a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls" - Really? That's a pretty loaded statement. Typical wedge politics.

"Less than 37% of eligible voters actually voted in the 2014 midterm elections" - Yeah, you know why? Because people are fed up with the whole political process, both Democrat and Republican alike.

The last time I checked America was still a democracy. Choosing not to vote, while not a great choice, is our choice to make.

One PlusOne comes to mind https://oneplus.net/

The reviews I have read say that it's a very good phone, and an amazing phone for the price. It starts at $299 for 16 GB of storage and only $50 more for 64GB of storage. I'm pretty sure this is going to be my next phone.

When you see "Swiss Made" at the 6 o'clock position on a watch it can mean several things. The lower end "Swiss" watches, like Swatch, are actually built largely in China. They are allowed to call it Swiss Made because the watch movement was designed in Switzerland. The higher end Swiss watches like Rolex are designed and built entirely in Switzerland. That makes them more expensive to build and, arguably, of higher quality.

You can bet that Rolex is not happy that cheaper watches are allowed to claim they are Swiss Made when they are really not made there at all. It's kind of like when the orange juice carton says "100% Juice" when it is really only about 10% juice from oranges and 90% other stuff.

Some of the sort of mid level Swiss watches, Tissot for example, are what I would call high quality Chinese built Swiss watches. It doesn't have the cachet of a "pure" Swiss watch but you can get one for well under $1,000. I have a Tissot 1851 in my collection which is a quartz (battery) movement. It is well built, looks good and keeps good time. I think I paid around $200 for it.

If you want a high end Swiss watch most people immediately think of Rolex. It's a very good watch and will probably last you a lifetime. But you can pick up an Omega for about half the price. I have an Omega Seamaster with the GMT complication (allows you to set a secondary time zone). It has a beautifully built automatic movement, it's very rugged, and it's a true "dive watch".

By the way, if you are scuba diving you definitely want a watch with an automatic movement rather than a battery. Why? The battery can die at any time whereas the automatic movement will generally run for about 24 hours (or more) once it is wound. Trust me - you don't want a dead watch when you are 50 meters below the surface and trying to time your assent :-)

Most jewelry is a terrible investment. But some watches are actually a very good investment. I'm thinking vintage Rolex and Patek Philippe watches, some of which are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars or even more. Eric Clapton is a noted Rolex collector.

The Apple gold watch most certainly does not fall in this category. Some of the early ones will get hawked on eBay at big markups but the price will plummet after that.

Vintage watches are collectible because they are works of art, not because they are toys.

"You buy a rolex for one reason. To show others you have money." - It wasn't always that way. Just like BMW, it has become the "rich prick" ID card. But way back when, Rolex made it's name by being a superbly built watch. Still is. But it's also become equal parts status symbol. They also tightly control the supply and price. That is why you will never see a Rolex on sale. Dealers are forbidden to do so. A used one, sure, but never a new one on sale.

Typical politician. The fact of the matter is that it was a violation of the Federal Records Act. Clinton, by federal law, was required to use a State department email address for all official business. She not only didn't use the state department email - she didn't even have one set up. Since it is policy to do so she must have expressly ordered it NOT to be set up.

Next point - how do we know which emails were deleted and which were not? Remember - Hillary controls the server. Had it been on a government server there would have been records and such. Do we really want to set a precedent where politicians get to decide what records get kept and which ones don't? Remember, Richard Nixon tried this with the Watergate tapes. He didn't want to turn over the tapes themselves, just edited transcripts of the tapes.

Thirdly - other government officials, including Obama, knew she was doing this. She was Secretary of State for 4 years. You can be sure that they traded emails somewhere along the way. Wasn't Obama the one that promised a more transparent government?

Finally - why would someone go to the trouble and expense to set up their own domain and email server? Something to hide perhaps? Now I don't know that she was up to no good but it sure smells fishy. And her track record of slippery half-truths sure don't help.

As much technology perhaps. But high end watches are much more labor intensive to manufacture. Many of the better watches are assembled largely, or even completely, by hand. And they are assembled by skilled craftsmen. It can take years of training to learn how to assemble a high end watch like a Rolex or Patek Philippe. So the cost of manufacture, and hence, the cost of the watch is higher.

Breitling and Tag Heuer are not fashion watches. They are high end timepieces and built extremely well. Most of the Breitlings, and many of the Tags, have very complex and accurate automatic movements. For the non-watch crowd, automatic movements do not use batteries. Some of them have hundreds of moving parts and take great skill to assemble. That is part of the reason that they cost so much money. It takes a long time but design and build them and they tend to last a very long time. Some of them also have very good investment potential.

it doesn't appear that he was actually charged with any crime prior to be asked to divulge his phone password. It seems to me that there needs to be some sort of "probable cause" here and it doesn't appear that there is. There could be a very dangerous precedent set if police officers or boarder patrol or whomever are allowed to conduct an unlawful search for no apparent reason.Papers, comrade.

This one doesn't pass the smell test for me. If there wasn't something fishy going on it sure looks like there was. Why would she not only choose to use a private email account but not even have an official government email address during that four year period?

Not only that but "no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act". I suspect that "no actions" is really 'we were told expressly by Ms. Clinton not to back up any of her email messages'. Everything that passes through State department servers should be backed up routinely. How can it be that for four years none of her emails were backed up anywhere?

This whole thing reminds me of the recent IRS scandal where email backups were suddenly just gone and nobody knows why.

Hillary has a long string of "things that make you go hmmmm...", all the way back to when Slick Willy was in the White House. This is just the most recent example. Politics aside, she is just a person that appears to be slippery and dishonest. What Bill has, that she never will, is a likability that allows some to look past imperfections. She is not to be trusted and will not get my vote.