I keep seeing people posting that if they were mountain biking they'd wear a helmet due to greater perceived risk. Having done my bit of both road and mountain biking:

- It's easy to chug along at 15-20 mph on pavement with a road bike.
- On our rough trails, going 8-12mph is *fast*. Our average speeds for trail riding are generally under 6mph because a lot of the climbing is pretty slow.
- While mountain biking I've had to throw on the brakes for deer or elk or turkeys on a trail before. I've pulled over for motos I could hear coming. Cars? Sometimes on a dirt road, but generally they won't fit on what I'm riding. They sure as heck won't be doing 50mph in any case.
- I don't think anyone with even a rudimentary grasp of physics is going to argue with my anecdotal observation that falling on pavement at >25mph (and breaking a helmet FWIW) was WAY worse than landing on my hip in dirt and grass at ~15mph. And the latter was an unusual case... most of my mountain biking tip-overs have been due to stalling out on something at 5mph.

tl;dr version: non-x-games mountain biking (as 90%+ of us practice it) IS NOT more dangerous than road riding. Due to the speeds of the bike and the speeds of the vehicles encountered- if any- off road riding is most likely MORE safe.

Coyotes are endemic to most of the North American continent. They were here before long before there was a 'Public' to get hysterical about them. I would be willing to bet that animal control in nearly every major city in the lower 48 can tell you stories about coyotes making a living in urban areas- this is NOTHING NEW, but is probably noticed more frequently as fewer people in outlying areas are shooting them on sight these days.

Coyotes frequent my rural property, although I only find out about it when I find their tracks or scat or- more rarely- hear a nocturnal sing-along happening close by. Over the years I've picked apart quite bit of coyote poop with a stick, and as the article suggests there are a lot of obvious rodent bones usually included with a smattering of deer hair (I suspect they go back to road/winter/cougar kill and chew on the hide, which takes months to break down). Sometimes it's obvious they've been feasting on ripe native berries. If I happen to see one while hiking, mountain biking, driving, etc. it's usually just a flash and they're already gone, but a couple times I've been able to spot one out on a hay field obviously pouncing on mice. It's a rare treat to find "God's Dog" out and about doing it's thing, as under normal circumstances they are highly motivated to keep human interactions both infrequent and distant.

Feral cats on the other hand are NOT endemic to the North American ecosystem, and there is evidence to suggest that bird populations have been hit very hard by them. Even discounting that aspect, I can't even wrap my head around why any thoughtful person would advocate for exterminating a relatively harmless native scavenger-predator and replacing it with a non-native, domesticated scavenger-predator. This is just asking for unintended ecological consequences.

I loved the taste of beer from the first time I tried it as a kid- even after my mom told me over and over that I'd hate it as beer was an acquired taste. And the first time I tried dark beer I liked that even more. And then I got my first shot of ultra-hoppy microbrew... wow.

Would I drink something that tasted just like a microbrew without the alcohol? In a heartbeat.

People simply have different tastes. I can't stand whiskey, and I'd seriously rather eat dirt than eat a Cheeto (what the hell are they made of anyway?!?)

What if this was a petition for a law that would, say, close a legal loophole that allowed corporations to pollute/abuse workers/skate out of large quantities of taxes? We could easily be looking at signers being permanently blacklisted from employment if they sign such a petition.

Overall I'm a fan of transparency in government processes, but there are very real risks in other contexts that should be considered.

For us US-ians that's 77 lbs in 4 months, or around 4.4 pounds/week. Standard advice is to aim for 2lb/week max so I'm not surprised you're feeling crappy, and if your docs haven't caught on to this yet they should probably be replaced. Your body is trying to tell you that dropping 4.4lbs/week simply isn't sustainable in the long run.

My very non-pro opinion would be to up the calories, especially in the form of lean protein, and cut your (understandably protesting) body some slack. Weight loss will be slower but you'll keep more lean muscle and feel a whole lot more human.

I know we're all in a hurry, but the transformation you're looking for is going to require patience and a lasting lifestyle change unless you want to end up right back where you started.

Make a sensible, rational exercise and eating plan and just go for it. I recommend at least browsing through Triathloning for Ordinary Mortals by Jonas even if you have zero interest in tris per se. If you've got an hour at lunch, you can get in 45 minutes of quality exercise every work day, and you can make VERY good progress with just that + longer session(s) on the weekend if you keep them fairly high intensity. And ditto to all the posters talking about walking, stretching, doing quick body weight reps between calls in the halls or wherever. Oh, and if you're ever watching TV, you've got time- it's simply a matter of choosing not to sit.

You will have to be ruthlessly organized to get the most out of your time. Pack a bag with everything you need in the morning and leave the essentials in it all the time. Fruit, yogurt, energy bars, raw veg, etc. can be thrown down the hatch every 2-3 hours fairly unobtrusively- get stocked up on the weekend. And remember that alcohol cleaner can do more than just your hands and dries very, very quickly.

Lastly, I guess beggars can't be choosers- especially these days- so I'm sympathetic... but I just don't see how you're going to be able to keep up that schedule long term. Even if you can physically survive the grind, humans have social needs that are every bit as real as sleeping and eating, and to be honest exercise is going to be vastly easier to shoehorn in than people.

writes up reasons for reluctance with clear worst case scenarios, makes admin sign off and keeps multiple copies.

Paperwork is whipped out, meeting held with all parties simply to ask how this can be avoided in future, let PHBs dangle in their own rope without saying more

Needless to say there will be multiple later-rinse-repeat cycles until learning occurs.... but it usually does eventually.

The summary insinuates that the pope is only finally coming down on IVF now that they're selecting for certain eye and hair color, but this is not at all true from what little Catholic doctrine I'm familiar with- particularly the Humanae vitae encyclical from 1968. Quote lifted from http://www.catholicinsight.com/online/church/vatican/article_475.shtml:
"In summary, the Catholic Church condemns as gravely evil acts, both IVF in and of itself, and stem cell research performed on IVF embryos."

Obviously not everyone has to agree with this stance, but the Catholic opposition to IVF and everything that comes with it is NOT new.

"A good story beats statistics 9 times out of 10."

So what happens if the doc never bothers listening to your story? Unfortunately they are often in such a hurry they don't seem to listen beyond the 5th word out of the patient's mouth, and if the patient persists attempts to communicate they often cop an attitude and/or try to run the patient out of the room.

Thank you for referencing "Motel of the Mysteries"- I read that book years ago in grade school or jr high and have been looking for it since.

When my midwife started telling me about why I shouldn't eat too much tuna, I stopped her and asked if she wanted to know more details about what mercury does to protein structure. SHE actually learned something new that day. Medical people should definitely have at least some vestigial knowledge of O-chem et al. They don't have to remember it ALL, but they should have enough of an idea to be able to look things up, have conversations with other experts, and have some grasp of what they're discovering.