OT: One last pleasantry for today...

AZ is only a bit better than the average US state for obesity:

Not that Canada is doing much better:

Ireland is the one to beat!

John

Living in Real America must be miserable, staring at fat women day in and day out. No wonder they're so pissed off all the time.

California is pretty good. There are lots of cute skinny women here.

And most people here are happy most of the time.

Well, San Francisco and LA, anyway.

Both statistically bad cities for young single straight men, for somewhat different reasons but the fundamental cause is the same, there are too many single men with large amounts of dough chasing too few women.

The Northeast is much better on paper at least in the "available ladies" department.

"There are a lot of tech guys"

Paying for "dates" is shameful, un-masculine behavior IMO but I guess when one's making 350k the temptation to easy-street it is hard for some guys to resist

Most of the obese stats in AZ derive from the truly native population... a blend of Mexican Spanish and Papago Indian... otherwise we're a pretty lean population. ...Jim Thompson

What's West Virgina's excuse, there a lotta Indians in WV?

Bitrex is a certified/registered village idiot. No life experience outside the church/police state of Massa2shits.

Thompson's rule on food follows my grandmother's lead... if she couldn't spell it, she didn't eat it, I don't eat it.

One of the biggest scams ever pulled on the American public is/was margarine and other butter substitutes. Nothing beats butter and olive oil!

Second biggest scam... sugar substitutes... they cause HIGHER consumption of soft drinks and are now one of the leading causes of liver cancer... enjoy ;-)

Third biggest scam (in my personal opinion)... particularly damaging to our black population... Tylenol/Acetaminophen... guaranteed to kill your liver.

I could go on and on... but probably Thompson's most fundamental rule is... if the government says it's bad for you, it's probably essential to your good heath... so they'll tax it ;-) ...Jim Thompson

The difference between the US in 1863 and the US in 2018 is that in 1863 the North considered the South to be a valuable resource worth keeping, unlike the (literal) dead weight it is now.

Untrue! I lived for a few summers in WV (Weirton) and spent a few weeks in South America.

I gotta say that honestly I preferred South America.

Bitrex, You are certainly expert at being able to step right in it... West Virginia's obesity rate is due to continuous DEMOCRAT decimation... everyone is on welfare... Byrd and cronies pretty much drove all employers out of the state so they could maintain their fiefdom.

I escaped 70 years ago when I got the scholarship to MIT, but I had applied to virtually every engineering school in the US and the USAF, and had scholarship offers from all of them... I was determined to get out of there.

What do you have to show for yourself? Nothing is apparent. ...Jim Thompson

Are you asking me to have empathy for people on public assistance? Get a job

I was broke for many years as a young man I was never obese, nobody put a gun to my head and told me what to eat.

Persistently/insistently ignorant?

Are you really so ignorant that you don't know of the industry (try car manufacturers), and technology centers (Research Triangle and Atlanta) in the South?

For example...

Sheeeesh! Unbelievable! ...Jim Thompson

Well, I wouldn't visit RTP if you intensely dislike "leftist" transplants from elsewhere in the country a la MIT in 2018.

Just saying if you're hoping those places resemble Trump Labs with photos of the Dear Leader in every office you're going to be disappointed.

Weirton _used_ to be a big-time steel town. Why isn't it now? You keep ignoring the political-screw-up element (for obvious reasons ;-)

Do us all a favor and go back >:-} ...Jim Thompson

Because the US steel industry became ossified and non-competitive due to greed and laziness on the part of the owners

Beautiful women, warm beaches, friendly people, cheap cost of living, no more violent or dangerous than the US even in many cities in Colombia or Brazil...oh man please don't make me!

When I moved here, some decades ago, it was the opposite. I was overwhelmed. Now there are tons of geeky male brogrammers, but I suspect that they are not hard to compete with.

Being settled with a cute skinny woman, it doesn't matter to me now.

I prefer women who are smart and have good jobs. They are not generally impressed by money. When I met my wife, I was unemployed and certainly not wealthy.