lunch_break { musings about things, part ???

While I sit eating lunch, I have my office free to myself, something rare since I share an office. As I sat munching I decided to take the opportunity to catch up on some blogging. These will be kinda of random and will cover a wide range of things.


Dieting
Because of the laws of conservation of energy and matter. You are what you eat. Literally. At our most base we are the things of stars, that is cosmic dust, hydrogen, arranged in interesting ways to form who we are. Eating is the most intimate thing we can do with an organism. Be it flora or fauna. We take bits of it and incorporate it into ourselves. The fat is used to make our fat stores, or broken down to provide chemical energy to allow us to exist. But the atoms that made up that food, make up us. From our mother's milk to the ham and mayo wrap I am eating. This concept is something I've pondered for years. This is also why I try to buy food that is organic, or at least if not organic, I know where it came from and how it was made. This is especially the case while I eat this ham and mayo wrap that comes from Sodex'Ho. I don't know where the pieces that make it up come from, nor do I know who made it. I do know, if the label can be trusted that it is 776calories and 46.5g of fat. I assume the bulk of this fat comes from the good things in it, the cheese, the mayo, and the fatty ham. I'm eating this and water, though I make make some green tea. I'm trying really hard (which is very hard for me) to have a diet of around 1500-1700calories (~25% of normal diet, basing off a 2000calorie daily diet) and I'm exercising more, granted not as much as I did last year. So with breakfast, which I am ashamed to say was a caffeinated, skimm mocha, I'm probably at if not close to my 1500cal limit. I don't plan on doing those hardcore diets where you do less than healthy things like cut out carbs, but rather just be more aware of what I eat and reduce the amount. This will be hard for me on Nerd Night where we prepare feasts of good things for us such as mountains of fruit, meat, cheese, gummis, etc. But I will try.

Politics/Life/Etc.
A lot of things have been happening in the weeks I have been silent on the topic. Some good, most bad. Here's a roundup of a few things:

Immigration - stalled, not defeated. Depending upon where you live and what news sources you consume, this issue has different meanings for you. I myself lean towards the accepting those who are here, making them legal (and charging them taxes, giving them benefits, education, etc.) because a rising tide lifts all boats. Then provide a reasonable guest-worker program. Anything to abolish this neo-feudal indentured servitude that we have now, where employers exploit workers for cheap, workers who work in dangerous conditions (like meat packing) and whose children go to school, but often can't go into higher education. From a global perspective education is fundamental to our continued existence. Also we need to challenge this fallacy that undocumented workers are doing jobs Americans won't do, that's pure BS. They are doing jobs that American companies won't pay a livable wage to do, and the companies are being rewarded, not the workers.

Iraq - still a shitty mess.

World Bank - I can't believe Wolfiwitz got off with a severance package and the ability to say he did nothing wrong. WTF?

Paris Hilton - scratch that, she's already received more attention that she deserves. But this fiasco has illustrated the disconnect in our justice system. We've come a long way, but this shows we have a long ways yet to go.

Well this about ends the time I have to blog, I need to finish eating and get to a team meeting.