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Ex-NYPD cop charged with hate crime over anti-Jewish graffiti in Brooklyn

How Oklahoma's Botched Execution Affects the Death-Penalty Debate

Condoleezza Rice latest graduation speaker to back out amid protests

Three students expelled for harassment at California college: report -- Remember the incident with the bike lock around a student's neck? That's this one.

Did Floyd Mayweather Use Abortion Rumor to Punish His Ex?

Wider Hips may Suggest a more Promiscuous Woman: Study -- I suppose this is not the time to give out my measurements.

Diners believe a meal is tastier the more they have paid for it, say researchers -- Like The Dave Matthews Band once intoned, "You pay for what you get." (This may indeed be cognitive dissonance at work, where the consumer, having paid so much for the meal, convinces him- or herself that it must be worth the cost, because otherwise they would experience self-criticism for spending beyond the meal's intrinsic value.)

it is what it is not

I was remarking to netmouse yesterday, at her potluck where someone brought a very fudgy pan of brownies, that I was so glad I swore off sweets some time ago. In fact, I didn't even consider them food (at least, not as legitimate food choices).

Does this have to do with the insula? Possibly. At the very least, I liken the experience to that of what I underwent when I trained to become a bank teller. When I handled a large cash drawer (+$1000), money ceased to be considered as money but merely were individual paper instruments. Similarly, sweets no longer qualify as food but could simply be seen as any other item of life's backdrop.

I told my friend S. that I had three pieces of snack-sized candy bars from last Halloween still on a shelf in my bedroom, where I can see it much of the time. She was amazed that they were not eaten long ago.

(I keep commercial hot chocolate for when the craving for chocolate just gets too great. Otherwise, the only sweets I tend to keep are dried fruit & frozen yogurt. [I still drink too many presweetened beverages & use more honey/sugar than I need to in my tea/coffee, but other than that, I've gotten away from most processed sugars.])

Anyway. Here's to ill recognition!