I don't avoid them and sometimes I look for them. He likes reading about school but he prefers to read about independent kids like Artemis Fowl. He loves Artemis Fowl - and I think he secretly thinks he can be Artemis Fowl! :)

So let me get this straight...she was not licensed when she could have been, she (I assume) charged money for a medical service, she performed certain "acts" which she knew she was not allowed to do, she carried medications (with full intent to use them) that she was not allowed to administer, and she allowed a high risk pregnant woman to "convince" her to take a risk with her and her baby's life. And she knew all this going in? Yeah, sorry but she did just about everything wrong in this case and while I'm not against home birth at all, I think that if you want to take risks with other people's lives then you have to be willing to stand up and take the responsibility when it all goes to crap. I'm not sure she deserves jail time, but I'd definitely have to hear all the evidence before I could say that for sure. I think if she was not charging money for her services she would not be prosecuted because then she'd just be someone helping out with a home birth. But when you label yourself an expert in something as serious as childbirth and then allow a woman who was told multiple times that she needed a more emergency ready setting to talk her into doing something she inherently knew could go very wrong, well...she should not have been be surprised when the worst case scenario happened. And yes, childbirth is completely natural and has never been safer than it is today, but 100 years ago every 1 out of 100 women died in childbirth. People feel it's natural and safe because, well it is. But that's not because childbirth is naturally safe, it's because pregnancy care and medical care during childbirth have greatly improved. And for the record I refused a C-section and no one berated me or refused to give me drugs or birth my baby.

Yeah, she said fat is a far superior "brain food". Leaving out her comment on glycogen, which is really only used in short term energy bursts for muscles, her comment that fat can be used by the brain is incorrect, as are many other things said in this thread. As far as this HGC diet goes, I'd be willing to bet money that if I got anyone on a 500 calorie a day diet I'd make them lose weight too. Why don't you guys just do the starvation diet and save yourself the money?

You have it backwards. In a ketogenic state your body eats muscle and produces ketones which are a VERY short term energy for brain function. You cannot in any shape way or form convert fat to glucose because the acetyl-CoA made from glycerol or fatty acids enters the TCA cycle and is not able to go back UP the pathway to create pyruvate to form glucose. Biochemistry 101. Fat gives you energy - but NEVER EVER EVER glucose. It isn't metabolically possible in humans.

Wow - that makes me sick. This is why I have no use for this Ham guy. I don't know who he is, or who that other guy is either - but when you must attack others in order to lift yourself up, then you've got a BIG problem. I mean, is it really part of being a "good Christian" to tear apart the life's work of others just because they disagree with you? Because to me, that sounds like the antithesis of Christianity.

I love it! Isn't it nice to just have something FUN in this crazy world. :lol:

He's got 75,000 followers (including me!) :lol:

Ditto. And I'm not really one or the other - I'm quite happy using Christian stuff or secular stuff. And to be honest - I think there are just as many zealots on the other extreme too - which is why I prefer to stay in the middle. But this whole thing is...unsavory. :ack2:

Hmmmm....I'm northeast of Elizabeth I guess I should turn on the local news... (The wind is south east today so we should be fine.)

Are horses expensive? I spat out my soda on the monitor. :lol: But as a horse lover and and English rider, it is worth it. You figure out real fast if this is where your slush money goes or not - because you'll be spending a lot of it on horses and related stuff. When I was a kid I worked at our show barn two nights a week feeding and watering. I got one lesson free and paid for the other. And I got to ride the show horses which belonged to the (rich) kids, instead of the lesson horses, because we were poor and could not afford to buy a horse let alone the boarding fees. It was hard work, especially in the Ohio winters, but I loved every second of it.

Not only that - it is a total write off for taxes.

Pretty much all of Colorado! :D I even enjoy the plains becasue of the antelope and historical significance, but most people prefer the mountains or front range. You don't really need a destination - just drive. It's all breath-taking.

I'd actually LOVE to be a vendor at my state convention since it's right down the road - but unfortunately I am not Christian enough and must sign a declaration of faith. Here's the thing that really ticks me off - I can either lie and say yeah I believe all that stuff, or not go because I have a few disagreements on what they feel I should believe. So I stay home. I've been a homeschooler in Colorado for 10 years and I've never joined a group or gone to a convention because of this and you know what? It's their loss. I spend thousands of dollars on stuff every year and if they don't want my money, someone else does. I do enjoy my HSLDA membership and I will continue to be a member, but honestly I wish HSDLA would point out that not welcoming those who don't subscribe to your very narrow particular belief system is what is hurting them, not those of us who decide to purchase elsewhere. And as far as Amazon goes, hey - if they put it on Amazon they know they won't make any money. It's the trade-off for massive exposure and sales. You make squat. If you don't want your product discounted like that - then don't sell it on Amazon. I always go to Amazon first because I have premium membership and get free 2-day shipping. I pay $80 a year for that - so it only makes sense to buy from them when I have a need. OTOH - I LOVE to use PayPal and since Amazon doesn't take PayPal I will also search out smaller stores that will take my PayPal money before I actually make a decision. So - it all evens out. :001_smile:

My son was an anti-reader at that age too - then we started reading Percy Jackson. He really turned around after that and has read quite a few adventure series about boy heroes. Right now he's reading the fourth Artemis Fowl book. Other books he really enjoyed at that age were: Where the Red Fern Grows Call of the Wild The Alchemist series Alex and the Ironic Gentleman Timothy and the Dragon's Gate Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

Yeah, I have to go with this too. I think you should celebrate your mom's unique quirks and be happy she's there to enhance your life.

Yes it does. It has sugar in it and I personally worked in a pediatric dentist office for three years and saw the results of parents who didn't understand this. It's called baby bottle rot, and YES it does happen to breast-fed babies too.

I raise: Blue, black, splash Jersey giants Partridge cochins Cuckoo marans Plus my ducks: Saxonies White calls Mandarins And my geese: Giant dewlap Toulouse

:D It made me a little sad at the end when they talked about how they should thank "Nuclear Boy" for the power he's provided as well as the workers who are risking their lives to try and cool the rods.

Leave it to the Japanese to explain things with anime! :D We get the Genki-Japan newsletter because it's our foreign language for school and I thought this was worth posting. It's very kid friendly...maybe too kid friendly! :tongue_smilie: http://learnjapanesefaq.com/some-japanese-practise-how-to-understand-the-nuclear-situation/

Just the word professional parent makes me ROFL. :lol:

I don't know if you guys know about this site (givawawayoftheday.com) - but they give free software away everyday. Usually it is boring stuff like organize your desktop or check your registry keys ( :confused: ) - but today is a free scrap-booking program! :001_smile: I just downloaded it and it looks fun. So just FYI for scrap-bookers. Oh, and it is only good until midnight tonight, then they change the giveaway. http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/

And yet, from what I can gather - the purpose of secular humanism appears to be the validation of all things by science and logic. So, he's kind of right even though he's says it in a sort of demeaning way. If you only believe what you can prove, well then you're not going to have an easy time convincing people to give a crap about your fiction because nothing about fiction is logical and provable...because it's fiction. So I think his point was that "successful" secular humanist authors MUST insert meaning into their stories by attaching non-validated...emphasis (for lack of a better word) to it. Which, if what he says is true and they don't believe in "meaning" (and I'm not sure that is correct) then he'd be right. They are creating the illusion of meaning. Yes, it IS convoluted and I can see your point. But this is such a small thing to me. Just not enough to get my hackles up.

Well, it's all an illusion, right? Especially in a story. The job of an author is not so much different than an actor. You make stuff up and try and get people to care about your made up stuff. That's how I take it. I'm not offended by stuff like that but I can see where some people might be. And I don't find it polarizing even though I'm not religious - just take this stuff with a grain of salt. In fact, it would present a good opportunity to talk about it with the kids, I think. I'm willing to use lots of different things for teaching and there is just no way I can agree with most of it. When we did Apologia science we skipped over a lot of stuff, but it didn't bother me that he presented his point of view. I just presented mine along side of it and sometimes I said - "Well, that's a bunch of crap..." And then sometimes I said "Well, I can see where he's coming from but this is how I would say it different..." I'm willing to give this program a go because I think his incidental Christian stuff will not get in the way of the main lessons which is how to create an adventure story, character arc, theme, etc.. Even in that lesson about secular humanism it really isn't the point - in fact it really doesn't add to his main point very much because in order to be meaningful things have to be assigned meaning first. Pretty obvious, that one.

I'm not sure that's what he said. From what I read it appears he was trying to differentiate between people who believe in meaning and people who don't. He even specifically said not religious meaning, but general meaning and then pointed to secular humanists who do not believe in meaning but when writing books insert meaning into their stories because stories without meaning are pointless. He says: "Without the basic assumption that something is more than just itself, that the person is more than a bag of meat, a sacred text more than just words on parchment or paper, a treasured heirloom more than a lump of silver, the events of one’s story lose their power. They can’t signify any real theme. They can only give the illusion of doing so, which is a kind of lie." I think the point of the lesson was to teach the student author that people relate to the underlying meaning of a story and not just the characters or plot and if you want your reader to care about the characters and plot, you make it happen with significance and purpose. The part I think you may be objecting to is where he states secular humanists do not believe in "meaning". I'm really not familiar with the dogma of secular humanism, so I can't really comment on that. Edit: Oh, and I am totally getting this for my son next year! Of course, he doesn't know it yet but it sounds like so much fun. I'm really not a religious person but it still looks fantastic. I sent for the sample DVD. I figure if he really hates it and refuses to cooperate I'll do it myself! :)

I buy my books - the fiction I like to read, at least the good ones, aren't free. I was not a free book reader before I got it, and I'm not one now. Didn't change anything except that when I finish a book I can instantly get a new one to begin. I love my Kindle and only buy paper books now if they don't have a Kindle version of it.