azraelle

Here You Go:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/main.jhtml?xml=/fashion/2003/05/01/efflip01.xml

May I offer an alternate viewpoint? Feet is feet, male or female, they're both the same, gender-wise. But not all feet are the same. Some humans have a genetic abnormality (I don't remember the name or technical details, only that it was discussed on this forum some time ago) where heel wearing above, say 1-1/2 inches caused extreme discomfort, which can be alleviated SOMEWHAT by lots of practice, but even "moderate" heels will never really be comfortable. I believe that my mother had this problem. There are other genetic predispositions that make higher heels more comfortable than low heels (or at least as). Flat feet with heel spurs fall into this category, one which I have. I have long known that heel wearing can alleviate pain from knee tendon injuries associated with driving for several hours at a time--again because I have that problem. I recently found that they help a backache, first from posts by genebujold. One of my flatmates was squatting in what to me would be an intensely uncomfortable position right after work. To him it was more comfortable that standing flat-footed because it relieved the pressure on his back to be squatting on his toes. I lent him a pair of relatively low-heeled very ugly block heeled boots (maybe 1-3/4" at the back) to see if it would help--immense relief on both our parts--I got rid of the damn things! More recently, heels helped ME with a backache. My convoluted point is that heels in the range of ~ 1" to 2-1/2" or so are immensely uncomfortable, to me, but heels in the range of 2-3/4" to 4" are more comfortable than most flat shoes, anti-pronation running shoes with double Spenco arched insoles inserted being the sole exception. Maybe some women out there who find what Daz calls low or moderate heels to be excruciating have feet with problems similar to mine, and contrary to what logic would seem to suggest, might find relatively higher heels, especially with a curved arch, to be much more manageable. Most probably never will try them though, because to many women (my ex-wife and oldest daughter come to mind), heels are at best unimportant to their self-image. Why bother?? They don't HAVE to in this day and age, unless they aspire to be exotic dancers or cocktail waitresses, or highly paid models or COMDEX product demonstrators. I also think that most of the "lies" are from predominantly male shoe salesmen, trying to sell sexy shoes to women in shoe stores. They seem to believe that exaggeration of heel height will lead to higher sales. Who knows, maybe they do. But I think that most women who put forth an exaggerated aproximate heel height are just repeating what the salesman (or saleswoman) said--I don't think there are that many that carry a measuring tape with them in their purse to verify the claims. Like I surmise a lot of guys here do.

Anyway, my main reason to post this all here is more the "making the commitment in public" so I stick with it this time. What usually happens is that "lift happens" and fall off because of stuff going on and then the usual "Oh well, I will start next week then" and then go on to eat tons of junk food the rest of the weekend. This time I won't be able to hide that because I will have to answer to everyone here

Later,

Scotty

You might try this forum--it has helped me stick with it.

http://forum.lowcarber.org/index.php?

Heels were generally thicker, and more underslung. Many of the more fancy versions had a somewhat Bell-bottom appearance as well, (or elephant's foot look--the heels getting slightly larger again near the base). Many of the boots had a back zipper; side-zippers weren't put in boots until the mid-60's. Since back zipper boots are much easier to put on, I don't know why the change was made.

Let's think about this, OK Jinxiekat? Starvation for short periods of time was the rule rather than the exception, if you believe the evolutionary theory of the origin of man, for nearly the entire length of man's 1-3 million year history. The role of ketosis, the chemical reaction that the body goes into when real starvation occurs, as well as when you drop your carb intake below 50-60 grams a day, is to keep the body, and brain, healthy and functioning rationally for as long as possible during periods when food is no longer being eaten. So that eventually, when food is found again, it can be safely prepared and eaten again. The very fact that the human race has survived because of this very process kicking in time and time again, should be ample reason to conclude that it is more than safe, certainly not dangerous, regardless of what doctors may think. They have been known to be wrong before!!! ROFLMAO. It should be pointed out that the human race has survived and flourished without those same doctors, perhaps even BECAUSE they weren't there! Finally, one should not get caught up letting the forrest mask the trees. Which is more dangerous to a person in the long run--enduring a natural built-in bodily survival mechanism for a few months, or carrying an extra 50-100+ pounds/kilos around for years?? Or even for a lifetime. And a foreshortened lifetime at that.

I hit my all time high of 260 in early May, 2003. I am now at 201, and still slowly losing, due to adopting a low-carb lifestyle--not diet. I went from 260 to 240 in 9 days eating very little more than bacon, eggs, canned tuna fish, a handful of almonds, and another handful of vitamins and essential oils capsules every day. I didn't eat lettuce salads because up until that time I got horrible heartburn that no antacid did anything for (TUMS, Rolaids, baking soda, Pepcid, Xantac, Tagamet, Axid), for about 5 hours afterwards. Same was true with bananas. I had also been experiencing intense heartburn (GERD) about 2 hours after every meal, unless I had taken Pepcid about an hour before eating, for nearly as long as I can remember. The heartburn completely disappeared after the first 3 days. I found out on the 9th day that I could eat lettuce without heartburn due to a meal prepared by a friend's mother from Costa Rica, that I couldn't get out of eating. The next day I tried a banana--same thing. The only time my heartburn returns is when I eat more that about 100 grams of carbohydrates in a given 12-18 hours. I went from 260 to 225 without increasing my level of exercise--basically the same as the average couch potato/computer nerd. I have since January been bicycling an average of 3-4 miles a day, and if anything it slowed down my weight loss, probably due to increasing my leg muscles.

For "in the sticks" users I have found that Windows 2000 is more stable than XP, and that Panda antivirus runs rings around Norton (safely removes viruses/worms from the windows kernel that Norton can't even quarantine effectively against the next time you reboot). It is also less expensive. And, it "plays well with others". I've also found that running Ad-Aware, then Spybot S&D, works better than either one alone. Agree with you gene on the LinkSys router though.

Frankly, I must be one of the 0.07% out there because I detest the song, both because of its lyrincs and the way I feel when I am listening to the haranging and yawing of the music. I get more jollies out of listening to Scriabin's Black Mass (9th Sonata?).

I knew a man (a department manager, actually) at the Nevada Test Site, who was at the time working for REECo, a DOE general contractor, who was fired for using the word stercoracious to describe another department manager. He probably wouldn't have been except that he was so convinced of his self importance, and the rightness of his position that he audaciously mailed, hard copies of his 3 page diatribe to all the other department heads, and the Company President. Point is, use of substitute "high English" can get you into trouble too.

"For 60 years we believed in quote-unquote stability at the price of liberty, and what we got is neither liberty nor stability," the strategist said. "So we are taking a fundamentally different approach toward the Middle East. That is a huge doctrinal shift, and the people who have given their lives, careers to building the previous foreign policy consensus, see this as a direct intellectual assault on what they have devoted their lives to. And it is. We think what a lot of people came up with was a failure — or at least, in the present world in which we live, it is no longer sustainable."

This is the most lucid part of your post, Hiluc, and as far as I am concerend, the only part worth reading, though I admit that I did suffer myself to read the post in its entirety, unlike another, apparently.

J-turbo, I find your post to be lucid, to the point, relatively nice, and oh so truthful, especially on the subjects of pollution and the behavior "former" British Empire.

Europeans tend to think of Americans as wasteful polluters because we continue to drive gas guzzling monsters, mainly because we can! It is NOT America's fault that the price of petrol in Europe is more than twice what it is here. My best guess is that we don't tax the shit out of it the way European Nations apparently do. One wonders why a 60-70% income tax rate isn't enough to support their national health care system--they have to tax everything else as well?? The average tax rate on fuel varies from state to state, but I doubt that it accounts for more than 40% of the total retail amount per gallon, even in the highest gas tax state--California.

The point is if we had to pay $5 per gallon instead of $ 2.25 or so, we would be much desirous to buy gas conserving cars, including the new gas-electric hybrids than we are now. Gas guzzling, however, does not equate to pollution; indeed, when I was in the Army back in 1984, it was bloody nigh impossible to buy a car in Europe and bring it back to the States because the pollution restrictions here at the time would have, in most cases, necessitated a whole new engine specially tuned to handle the emissions requirements. I don't know whether this has changed recently or not (e.g. European anti-emissions standards catching up to the US standards?).

It has always seemed incredible to me how anyone could honestly believe that we were "Imperialistic" in any way. Even Teddy Roosevelt's "speak softly and carry a big stick" policy (not too far different than the current administration, actually, at least in principle) did not involve us interferring with some potentate's sovereignity other than to secure the safety of Americans or American businesses abroad (see for example

http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/life/Morocco.htm).

In the days of the British Empire, native people in the empire were second class citizens, when they were free at all. At least we gave native peoples the right to vote, eventually, be it the Indians, Cubans, Okinawans, or Filipinos. And we didn't use our "colonies" for penal colonies either. Or shoul I say lifetime indentured slavery, er, servitude.

If you buy the kind with reinforced toes, if you can find them, they almost never fail. I prefer Thi-Tops, Thi-His, etc, with a wide elastic band at the top, usually I buy from Sears, as they sell them with reinforced toes--Leggs, or even JustMy Size do not. @ othe tricks that have worked for me, especially when I had to wear steel toe boots/shoes at work. The hard toe would rub holes in acryllic socks even. I took to putting a piece of duct tape about 1-1/2 inches long over just the big toe. They never ripped through after that, or not until after half a doxen wearings or so. Also, don't just "trim" your toenails, round over the edges towards the front of the toe with a good, fine grit, padded emery board, then apply a couple coats of polish (clear or whatever) to the edge at least.

If I were to be so outrageous as to wear nail polish at the same time as open toe sandals, I would wear whatever color was my favorite in polish--after all if you're going to be that bold, you might as well wear whatever color "takes your breath away". With me that would be either a medium blue or bright purple metallic. I detest "classic" bright red nail polish--on either gender--it screams conservative, no guts, no imagination--it was the only color you could buy before ~1960.

If this war was always about giving freedom to the iraqi people, why did GWB need all that false evidence about WMDs to storm in there? Why didn't he just say "We're going to free the oppressed people of Iraq, who's with us?".

Personally I believe that the WMD will eventually turn up, but in the hypothetical case that they do not, the answer to your question is the same as the answer to the question of "why didn't FDR do anything about the foreknowledge that he had that Japan was going to attact the US?". And that is simply that neither president could have convinced either Congress, or the American people generally, to go to war, because, contrary to popular belief, both inside and outside the US, when it comes to world politics, Americans in general prefer not to get involved, especially for altruistic "it will make the world a better place to live in" reasons.

Girl, Lindsay Lohan, moves to new High School, befriended by a couple of semi goth outcasts, then by the leader of the in-crowd (e.g. the mean girls). The goths convince her to be their spy inside the in-group, but she ends up becoming even more mean than them all. And it goes on from there. eventually nearly everyone in the school gets their comeuppance in one way or another, and most is forgiven.

Dr. Shoe: first of all, try this for a little levity. Go to google.com, type in "weapons of mass destruction" and then click on "I feel lucky".

Now for something that I posted on another forum.

To answer you, I ask you to step back, apparently a LONG way, to look at the bigger picture for a moment. Concentrate not on Al Qaida, or the terrorists who, FINALLY, decided to carry the Muslim fanatics' long-term threats to America's shores, but instead on those threats themselves, on how many years that America has been the target of a general Muslim Jihad, and on ALL those various groups AND GOVERNMENTS who have been mouthing the threat, and listen to the words of African-American columnist Thomas Sowell last year:

"The greatest curse of the 20th Century was the inability of decent people to realize that what was unthinkable to them was both thinkable and doable to others--like Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. Are we to wait until Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and we wake up one morning to find a couple of American cities obliterated?"

As someone else has pointed out, the fact that we haven't found the WMD doesn't mean they don't exist. Saddam had 12 years to hide them. He had several months to move them to other countries. Which ones?

The technology to produce organophosphate insecticides is in the hands of many countries who have sworn ill towards America. This same technology can be used with very little modification to produce the nerve agents in our chemical weapons stockpile. Heck, why modify it at all? TEMIK, an organophosphate insecticide works the same way. Granted it is only ~1/4 as lethal as VX, but when you're talking 0.4 milligrams per KiloGram of bodyweight to kill, you don't need a huge amount of it to contaminate the water supply (or the bevereges of, say, some local bottling company) to cause widespread sickness. Or better yet, since it is oil-based, why not contaminate the meat at some beef packing plant? The FDA doesn't routinely check raw beef for that sort of thing, to my knowlege--only bacteriological contamination. Or incorporate into the permanent press treatment applied to newly-manufactured (overseas) cotton-blend clothing? The possibilities are practically endless to a dedicated, imaginative, and well-financed terrorist organization or government.

I forgot to mention something that apparently most people do not realize about organophosphates (and nerve agents) is that the lethal dose figure stated above for TEMIK applies for SKIN TRANSMISSION, e.g. the oily nature causes the normally protective barrier of the skin to be fooled into "thinking" that this is a friend, instead of a foe, and it ACTIVELY transports it throught the skin into the bloodstream. Taken orally, or worse yet breathing it in, has the effect of reducing the amount needed to cause death by a factor of 100 to 1000 or so, so the figure would then be ~ 4 micrograms for oral transmission, perhaps as little as 400 nanograms for breathing it in. And that is for a legal insecticide. The least lethal nerve agent, VX, has, as I recall, a skin Lethal dose of less than 0.1 milligrams per Killogram of body weight.

This is just CHEMICAL WMDs. Biological WMDs are even easier to hide. Or transfer across the border. Or send through the mail. Why bother with high-tech Nuclear WMD?? Perhaps the rumours of Saddam posessing them were, in fact, rumours. Only a megalomaniac idiot, which Saddam was not, would have failed to put together WMDs of a Biological or Chemical nature--indeed we KNOW that he posessed Chemical WMDs becaused he used them, both against Iran, and again against his own people, the Kurds. I believe, as mr. Sowell pointed out, that it was only a matter of time before Saddam used them against us--or the UK, for that matter.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_957945.html?menu=news.quirkies.sexlife

The fact that this happened in supposedly enlightened Germany, and not in the red-necked South (in the USA), or Utah for that matter, where you might expect it to happen, speaks volumes about a society where something like this can still happen. And volumes about the stone age basis of most of society's sexual prejudices, including it's views on CD.

sscotty727-- I have a pair exactlylike those that I bought in ~2002 at Pay Less, size 12, that I have regularly used as dress shoes at church, and on the job. http://home.earthlink.net/~azraelle/dox/shuz.html

Maybe my pants are longer, but I have yet to catch an "askance" view, much less a remark. But since they sooo resemble shoes that Donnie Osmond was wearing on the Osmond show in the late 70's, I just wear them with the confidence that they are what I would have bought then had I had the money! I think that how you project your "aura" has more to do with whether you are accepted in a particular shoe or not than what the shoe actually looks like, but I may be wrong. I do know, however, that I wouldn't project the same way if they had spikes for heels...

Not really. Sherlock Holmes said that if all other possible answers are exhausted then the one that remains, however implausible, must be the truth, or words to that effect. No one, anywhere, on the net can figure out a plausible or really compelling reason for why we ar still there other than some vague "political expediency" which fades into non-believability when one asks the question "whose political expediency?" So then you have to ask "Well, what other agenda is it serving?"

Themz are mighty foxy chicka babes. With or without the heels! Especially the brunette.

I posted this on another forum, but it may bear repeating here... There was an economist from India that wrote a book in the mid-80's--Ravi Batra, don't remember the name of the book. He said that all civilizations have fallen, usually by civil war, when the top 1% gain control of 50% of the wealth. At least I believe that was the figure. At the time the US was edging at around 47%. His thesis was that if something drastic wasn't done to change it that America was heading for a social collapse sometime early in the 21st century. His suggestion was to replace income tax with an "inherited wealth tax", then institute a wage structure based somewhat on the Japanese system. In Japan at the time, the highest paid executive was the CEO of Matsushita, making about $230,000 annually, while in America, it was Lee Iacocca of Chrysler, making in excess of $10,000,000 per year. His suggestion was to not pay the highest paid worker of a company (presumably the CEO) more than 10 times what the lowest paid worker received. Of course, his suggestions fell on deaf ears! One of my roommates and I were having a heated discussion about this when he said something that had never occurred to me, the jist of which is that the powers-that-be are very much aware of the crisis of the haves vs the have-nots, and have been trying to "solve" it for years by attempting to remove the weapons from most Americans (who coincidentally happen to be the have-nots) through ever-more stringent gun control. This plan backfired on them, recently, when statistics caught up with them as to the fact that in all states where "shall-issue" concealed weapons carying permit laws have been enacted, the violent crime rate actually went down, in some cases rather drastically. Therefore, the "establishment" have more-or-less come to the conclusion that they may have to put down a well-armed insurrection (as opposed to the preferred disarmed insurrection) some time in the near future. Which explains the real reason why we are in Iraq right now--to train the Army soldiers (whom they figure to use to put down said insurrection) in urban warfare, it being a foregone conclusion that since the vast majority of the REALLY poverty-stricken have-nots are in the urban, inner-city areas of the US. Twas, and is, food for thought. It would explain much in regards to why we are still over there, and haven't just pulled out and left the place to the shiites and their shite(!)._

"Certain soldiers even wore high heels, again as a statement to their enemies."

In all my reasearch, I've yet to find any example or drawing of this. If anything, I've found the converse to be true - that soldiers wore functional gear in battle. Those that didn't were soon dead. Heels are NOT good in battle for a number of reasons, especially on either soft or rough terrain.

Have to disagree with you there, at least a little bit. The "reiters", e.g. raiders, or mobile cavalry of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1500s and 1600s wore over-the-knee boots with at least some heel height, if for no other purpose than to hold their feet in the stirrup. So in this case at least, moderate heels WERE needed for survival in battle, as long as they remained seated in the saddle!

who says that men forced women to wear high heels to control them. What a riduculous concept when it attributes to making the female more sexy and confident. in most situations.

Also ancient history shoes that me have worn heels before, and not so long ago in the 70's with the platform styles, so why if given the choice can we not choose to wear heels.

1) I SAID: "as they suppose"! No where did I imply that women thought that way. That said, however, men are, at least indirectly responsible for women buggering up their feet for the last century, and directly as well for at least 80 of those years. If men in general weren't so turned on by the hi-heeled look, women wouldn't be using hi-heels to lead them around with. Also, up until quite recently, most jobs REQUIRED their women employees to wear hi-heels (it was part of the dress code for my mother as an elementary school teacher as late as the early 70's, for example, in Nevada). And in the vast majority of those businesses, again until quite recently, it was men only in the upper management who determined the sexist dress codes.

2) I didn't say that SOME men wouldn't take the choice if offered, just that MOST men wouldn't, if it was merely a chice. Again--why would they? The only thing that drives most straight men with regards to fashion (assuming they pay any attention to it at all) is what they believe will get them more chix to hook up with. Or more sexual favors with present steady spouses/GFs. This isn't just my opinion. Books have been written on the subject!

I'll start wearing hi-heels made for men when they start being made for guys identical in every respect to the female counterparts except one--namely being made on a guy's last, and in generally larger sizes. If the sole is made thicker (so as to last longer--kowtowing to guys' supposed addiction to practicality, or to make them look more massive/masculine), or the leather less supple, or the heel shape is different, ao the straps are wider--FORGET IT!! But if I could buy non-fetish fashionable hi-heeled boots made specifically FOR men, with the aforementioned provisos, I WOULD, in preference to wearing something made for someone I am not. What I would like is stylish, femminine-inspired hi-heeled boots that really, truly FIT MY FOOT. Is that too much to ask?

Two thoughts: :: All other things being equal, hi-heels make the butt more pronounced, especially while walking. Granted, as JinxieCat informed me not too long ago (I think it was her), if a woman wants to flirt with her hips, hi-heels aren't needed, but they do enhance the effect. Generally it is considered unmasculine, if not downright gay, certainly comical, for a man to purposely wiggle his tush when he walks, ala Dom DeLoise. :: Quoting from a recently posted article, "Masculinity is still the must­have factor in so many of the achievements that our culture prizes. In such circumstances, how can we possibly understand those who would voluntarily surrender this valued asset? We may have abandoned many of ourpreconceptions about the nature of the female but we still can¹t understand why on earth any man would want to be taken for one. Boys who want to play with girls' toys are somehow downgrading themselves." What real man is going to give up the ability to move swiftly, freely, and comfortably, if unstylishly, in low-heeled "sensible" shoes, for the relatively inhibitiveness, if not enslavement, of hi-heels that they now use, as they suppose, to control their women with??