Discussion about hot topics trending today

[mad_gater]

Count yourself among the lucky ones.

Yea guess again. A friend of mine had anorexia (yea, a guy) and you have no idea what the power of the mind is. Just because you got off with your smoking doesn't mean it's just as easy/hard for everyone. For bonus irony points: That very friend was of the same "people are weak/just lack willpower" mentality. Took him years of therapy to be somewhat normal again, and even now he's still busy with his body building. It never goes away completely.

Also, you literally smoked for 25 years and admit quitting was the hardest thing ever. you cant imagine someone having it slightly harder and not being able to quit at all?

Finally, just for contrast: my father smoked for years. Until one day he felt sick (something unrelated), didn't smoke for a week and when he got better, he lit a cigarette, spat it out and never smoked since, never craving it either. For that one case i know 10 guys who tried and failed. Hell my ex-colleague was addicted to drugs, to smoking and drinking. He managed to quit drugs and quit drinking (after ~30 years) but can't cope with quitting smoking too. if he tries he just completely breaks down and starts drinking (And smoking) again.

cigarettes are quite the expensive addiction too....can easily spend hundreds of dollars a week on cigarettes....good thing I never started smoking I guess

the one and only drag I ever took off a cigarettes just reinforced my desire to never start once I was done hacking my lungs out...I figure I got enough cigarette smoke second hand from my paternal grandparents while they were still alive anyway

[Annoyed]

Last edited by thekillman; Today at 12:04 PM.
Also, you literally smoked for 25 years and admit quitting was the hardest thing ever. you cant imagine someone having it slightly harder and not being able to quit at all?

Added after my first response, I guess.

No. But I can imagine someone having a harder time and having to work harder to achieve the goal.

There is an awful lot of things that happen to us that are totally outside of our control. But our battles with our own inner demons are ours alone, to win or to lose as we see fit. When I started quitting, I swore to myself that this was one battle I would not lose.

[aretood2]

What of the whole Hulk Hogan racist comments....it left me very perplexed.

[ZRFTS]

What of the whole Hulk Hogan racist comments....it left me very perplexed.

I don't know; celebrities usually get cocky of themselves and make mistakes on the basis that their thinking is "in line" with the public. When in actuality, the public takes offense and the person doesn't realize until they tell it to him; meaning the damage is done. Every celebrity has gone through this without even realizing and sometimes it's nothing, sometimes it's severe. Hulk Hogan may have lost his WWE status but he still has his fanbase. Bill Cosby on the other hand...

[Annoyed]

What of the whole Hulk Hogan racist comments....it left me very perplexed.

Consider the source and move on would be my suggestion.

[aretood2]

Consider the source and move on would be my suggestion.

Honestly, I don't think he should have been fired nor anything really. The guy seems pretty cool and he owned up to it. Oh well. Next celebrity...sorta old news but no one has mentioned it possibly because of earlier topics here kinda went on the heavy side.

Ariana Grande...the American Justin Beiber or not? I say, I knew it. I saw through her act and knew exactly what kind of brat brainless she is.

[garhkal]

What about the hypocrisy of the church offering them absolution and protection?

See my latter part of that comment, in relation to drug barons and gangs going to church to receive communion etc. I agree it is somewhat of a hypocracy that the church allows it to happen.

When you take a good look at the statistics as a whole, the entire American gun control debate is completely off target from both sides. More firearms regulation is necessary, but the laws being proposed do not address the problem correctly because hey are driven by wrong motivation.

Why do you feel we need yet MORE restrictions/regulations rather than actual enforcement of the ones we already have?

Besides, I don't think you should ban or restrict something for everyone because of the actions of a criminal minority, when there are far better solutions to explore. I think a lot of politicians use gun control as a big distraction to hide their disinterest in tackling the real issues.

Well said Britta.. BUT in this PC kneejerk society i feel we live in, that is just the way it seems we are. Take a look at Roof and the whole Confederate flag issue for example. Cause of that ONE Bad apple, anyone flying the flag is now seen as a racist.
Or the Gay marriage debate. If you don't fully support it, it must be because you are a religious nut who is a homophobe (to many at least)..

State funded rehab. If you have an addiction that is preventing you from working, the state should help you get clean. That should be the limit. The state shouldn't be funding people who choose not to get clean, and spend their time sitting around getting high.

There's a world of difference between tolerating drug use and endorsing it.

With how little imo rehab works though, will there be a cut off point? Look at Ms lohan for example. She has been in rehab what, 7 times now?

A lot about this one paragraph is true. The left feels like it could legislate the problem away while the right feels that giving everyone a gun is the answer. The fact is that neither will work. The problem is cultural.

Statistically, the percentage of white mass shooters is proportional to the number of white people in the US. Same with black shooters and Asians are rare, but there aren't that many of them to begin with. The number missing from that are Hispanics which are more rare than a Donald Trump apologies.

But its not just these mass shootings though that push all these anti-gun nuts to want to eliminate guns even more.. Just look to cities like Chicago and Detroit for example. Over one weekend we had what, 20+ murders and other gun shootings? That equals both the Chattanooga and Charleston shootings. Add up all the gun shootings in Chicago just this year, and it is well over all the school shootings added together.

What of the whole Hulk Hogan racist comments....it left me very perplexed.

Don't get me started.
So this wrestler said something, what 20 years ago, and its only NOW coming to light? What a bunch of drizzle. Where is free speech?

[Annoyed]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/28/africa...e-lion-killed/

As I understand it, this human scum was hunting for sport, killing for the fun of it.

If you ask me, he ought to be dropped stark naked and with no weapons into a wild area where lions and other critters live. Let him be the target of the hunt. At least whatever kills him will likely eat the corpse, rather than killing him just for fun.

[garhkal]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/28/africa...e-lion-killed/

As I understand it, this human scum was hunting for sport, killing for the fun of it.

If you ask me, he ought to be dropped stark naked and with no weapons into a wild area where lions and other critters live. Let him be the target of the hunt. At least whatever kills him will likely eat the corpse, rather than killing him just for fun.

I have ALWAYS hated crud like that. Where a human willingly and WILLFULLY goes out to mess with animals in THEIR natural habitat, but then get attacked. And when they do, they are the loudest to call for that animal to be put down "For the safety of all humans of course"...
Just like a case i remember in the early 90s where a pair of 14-16 yr old teens went out into the glades on a swamp skiff, and started taking shots with their BB gun at several gators. Then freaked out when one climbed ONTO the skilff and bit one of the teens legs off.
You should have heard their parents howling that ALL those scaly critters should be hunted down and shot, so no one else's kid should suffer such an injury.

[Annoyed]

He wasn't attacked; this was no self defense. He and his paid guides attached a dead animal to the back of a vehicle and used that to draw the lion out of a preserve where he was protected from hunters to where it was legal to shoot him.

[imzadi35]

Whatever the case may be, IMOHO, he lured the lion out of where he was protected ON PURPOSE so he could say that he did it, then came back to the States where he knew he wouldn't get prosecuted. I think he should be sent back over there to answer for what he did to Cecil the Lion.

[ZRFTS]

Pathetic. I don't know why humans get the urge to kill something that we don't even understand but I do know that they have rights, they have minds, thoughts, lives like all of us and to kill something like that is just wrong. This person has used clever legal wrangling in order to make this kill happen and it's just going to influence other hunters to find ways around the law so that they can kill for sport. What's going to happen when every animal is extinct; then we start killing ourselves and there'd be no life except for the extraterrestials out there. Hopefully... If they exist...

As for the people who demand money for these things; equally pathetic for most of the same reasons.

[Womble]

In Zimbabwe itself, the killing of Cecile the lion went mostly unnoticed. And with good reason.

"Why are the Americans more concerned than us?" said Joseph Mabuwa, a 33-year-old father-of-two cleaning his car in the center of the capital. "We never hear them speak out when villagers are killed by lions and elephants in Hwange".

80% of Zimbabwe population is unemployed. 2 million people are facing death by starvation. 15% of the population is HIV-positive. That's all just statistics. But kill a lion with a first name, and it's an atrocity?

I hate being manipulated by empathy triggers like that.

[Annoyed]

It would seem somebody has noticed, as they now want to extradite the dentist.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/31/world/...-lion-dentist/

[Falcon Horus]

Guess again. I smoked for 24 years. Decided to quit in June, 2000, and the only cigarette I've smoked since then was in late August of that year, as a self-test. Took 3 hits and flushed it. Have not put another to my lips since then.
It was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. But I only had to do it once.

Well then, congratulations on your resolve to quit.

My father and grandfather were both occasional smokers and quit. And another family relation died of lung cancer.

Although I don't place a great deal of faith in psychological claptrap...

As someone who's seen a psychologist I can assure you, it has its merits.

Or the Gay marriage debate. If you don't fully support it, it must be because you are a religious nut who is a homophobe (to many at least)..

That's probably because those who are vocal about it, usually start by quoting the bible on it.

Annoyed has already kindly explained why he's opposed to it. He isn't a religious nut, and not a homophobe either.

So this wrestler said something, what 20 years ago, and its only NOW coming to light? What a bunch of drizzle. Where is free speech?

It was 8 years ago, in a sex-tape.

++++

Cecil was wearing a GPS-collar, so there's no way I'll ever believe that moron didn't know which lion he was killing. Beyond that killing endangered animals is just not done at all... or any other animal...

Killing for sport... not done.
Killing for eating... whole other deal, unless it's an endangered animal.