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But getting back to common sense.....maybe the initiative is to cut out, or drastically reduce, the intake of sodas across the board....diet, regular, sweeteners that are chemicals, sweeteners that are refined, or even sweeteners that are raw and natural, and replace them with.....I don't know.....water?

Not to be outdone by American Eagle, Dingle Dongs Inc. launches their own campaign hoping Trump will start talking about it.

I don't have any filed away at the click of a button, but there are methods to search if one is interested. But in order to get down to the truth of things, one would have to conduct such a search with subjectivity, with the intent to learn, not search with the intent of confirmation bias. As we all know, it's not difficult to produce a study that yields the results that we want, so one has to go about it with scrutiny of what they are reading.

By “excluded,” I meant “banned.” I’m still not sure if the science on artificial sweeteners is really settled. Again, if you have a study or two you’d like to share I’d love to read them.

I think Gage can absolutely be an AA at some point as well.

Freakin serious lol. Now I did laugh at that.

The people doing this are a tad immature, but probably the funniest story line in the news currently. There are actually betting lines on what color the next dildo is going to be....

Artificial sweetners are not excluded. The ban in Texas will be on artificial sweeteners and/or more than five grams of sugar. Why determine the artificial sweeteners are unhealthy? Well let's break that down, starting with the very first word.......artificial

People with knowledge, years of experience and extensive research.

https://people.com/sex-toy-thrown-onto-the-court-halts-wnba-game-for-a-third-time-11785626

For example, going back to the Diet Soda debate, it looks like Texas is including artificial sweeteners in its items that will be excluded.

Good idea, but who is deciding what’s “healthy”?

I didn’t write this excerpt. I stole it off of fb. Much of it is true to me from my perspective. I listened for years. I started in the 90s in high school. I purchased satellite radio when it was new to listen to Howard. I thought it was a good write up. I too gradually stopped listening around the start of Covid. https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/14910416/howard-stern-show-canceled-contract-up/ __________________ Nobody's been a bigger Howard Stern fan than me. Listening since he started on WNBBCCC , I was a extra in the movie Private Parts, I created a amazing group on fb Stern Facebook Superfans. I stopped listening to Howard before the pandemic, as it just wasn't fun or funny to me anymore. The show thrived on the interaction of the staff and when they started doing the show from home it lost so much of the fun . I listened and loved The Howard Stern Show and wanted to laugh and not get lectured everyday....Thank You Howard for the many years of amazing radio.... Howard Stern is DONE—and we’re celebrating. The “King of All Media” died years ago. What’s left is a bitter, washed‑up hypocrite who hides in his Hamptons mansion lecturing the same audience that made him rich. He went from: Savage outsider who roasted everyone to Whiny, woke, overly political, celebrity‑boot‑licking sellout He stopped being funny. He stopped being relevant. He became exactly what he used to mock—a soft, scared, corporate puppet. SiriusXM flushed hundreds of millions paying for a man who turned his show into a boring woke Hollywood infomercial. He’s been phoning it in for YEARS while spitting on the working‑class fans who built his empire. Howard Stern didn’t get canceled. He got exposed—irrelevant, gutless, and forgotten.

I've not been a track fan for that long, and have been so spoiled by runners like Ingebritsen, Faith Kipyegon, Yomif Kejelcha and Beatrice Chebet, et al. taking it out quick, setting WRs etc., that I haven't learned to love tactical races yet. I'm also not a huge Hocker fan. I was rooting for Graham Blanks to make the 5000 team, and as a huge Grant Fisher fan, I was already annoyed he was outkicked in the 10K. When Hocker outkicked him in the 5, and Blanks had obviously been dropped, I was like wait, wait, how's Hocker the only race winner to hold a lead this weekend? After Nuguse and Hoey had already blown up after leading their respective races, I figured Hocker would be next, but no, he drops to P7 only to storm back like Kejelcha on EPO and win the damn thing. As an aside, a tactical race I did enjoy was the women's 5K, as I've always thought there was a good chance Shelby was innocent, and to see her lose 4 years, come back coaching herself, and still pullout the W was validating. They're surely testing her constantly now, so I think it's fair to assume she's at least clean these days. That she lost 4 of her prime years, is now in her early 30s, without even a coach, yet still performs at nearly the same level she was at when suspended suggests that either PEDs weren't helping her the way they usually do, or she wasn't on them. Between her current performance, her background as a small town Iowa girl made good, and the fact that she apparently wouldn't even wear super shoes prior to being banned (she supposedly viewed them as cheating), it's hard to imagine her searching out PEDs by herself, then being comfortable injecting them. It sucks we'll probably never know the truth. /soapbox As for swimming, I never even though about pool lane dividers being an odd addition to competitive swimming, but maybe they're a safety issue? Or maybe they're more meant to orient swimmers, and help them traverse the pool efficiently. Without them, it'd be a lot easier to accidentally swim at an angle (especially when back stroking), which would look unprofessional at best. Then again, when runners get bunched up, some have to run outside lane 1, and we consider being able to avoid that a valuable skill. Why should it be any different for swimmers?

He did. We were wondering why Richie was on the mat if he was potentially injured (this was at the Daktronics Open last year - not a premiere event and I think Richie was #1 then), but even so, Brady was absolutely not intimidated. Brady dominated from the whistle.

I'm sorry, but I'm having a hard time seeing how this is going to work. The main problem is that it's just freestyle. Don't get me wrong -- I love freestyle. No other sport I'd rather watch. But the truth is, the bleachers are pretty empty even in nationals and WTTs. It's a small community, not particularly moneyed, and it's hard enough to get them to come out when there's actually something on the line. We know the typical attendance figures for freestyle events, and we know they aren't financially viable. I just don't see the plan. It isn't that nothing's being done. I see the social media, I see the prize links to high school teams, the drawing for a free camp. That's nice. Maybe it bumps the attendance a bit. But even if it's on the above-average side of a typical freestyle event, that's still a long way from being financially viable. Forgive my rant, but: 1. Better Cross-Selling They could have tried to cross-sell it with another sport which similarly has a modest fan base -- e.g. BJJ, grappling, judo. Not seeing that. Even if it's just one or two match, these smaller sports can cross-sell. They'd also be wise to find a way to work with MMA on this, because otherwise, MMA will see them as competition. Maybe build in some advertising for them, and have some UFC people there. We can't portray ourselves as some sort of minor league for UFC, but the sports are symbiotic and both can play off that. Similarly, it sucks that Hulk passed, but I'd have thought they could cross-sell to the pro wrestling crowd too. Not my jam, but those guys fill huge arenas. Maybe they were trying, I don't know, but that's going to be a tough sell without a pro wrestling "face". They also could mix something else in the event which pulls out the non-wrestling crowd or at least wrestling fans' families or significant others -- e.g. some well-known performer at intermission, MMA celebrities, etc. Not seeing that either. The reason it's so important to attract an audience outside the typical freestyle crowd isn't just that the numbers are too low without them. It's sponsorships. Companies like Defense Soap and Rudis only have so much ad money to go around, and to be viable, you need to attract some of the bigger dogs. 2. Making the Event More Exciting If they're not going to do any of that stuff, then they really need to do something to amp up the excitement level in the wrestling itself. But I don't see that either. For example, build in mini events within the wrestling itself. A big prize if someone hits a 5 pointer, or a pin under a minute, or something that creates a huge incentive to do something wild. Something that totally changes the complexion of the match to see if anyone's going to pull it off. I'm not seeing that. They could shake it up by mixing up the rules to make it more offensive-action oriented or throw-oriented, or dramatically change the scoring, so it's constant attempts to score. (I made a separate post about that a while back.) Doesn't appear to be in the works. They also could mess with the scoring by giving guys a "handicap" like it's golf (e.g. spotting points to the underdog), so you can have more on-paper mismatches or bumping up weights. But everything I've heard so far is that it just isn't varying much from a standard freesyle dual that doesn't vary much from tradition. 3. Where's the "League"? The most frustrating thing to me is that what's billed as a "league" really just looks like a Flowrestling Night in America event. If you're gonna do a league, do a league. Have a draft, talk it up. Have the "teams" based in specific cities. Create an actual team, which develops actual fans, who actually follow said teams. Get creative about how team score is kept to keep it exciting. Get the smack talk going, get the interviews before and after going, have a process for trade, have a well-known coach for each team -- even if the coach(es) are crossover guys. Maybe have the coaches wrestle if the team score is tied. If this is too heavy a lift, maybe contract with the RTCs. Those are existing teams of freestyle athletes who have no one to compete against except themselves when not in international competition. Even better, if you do that, maybe doing a licensing deal with universities, you can tap into collegiate allegiances to build out your fan base. Why not link up with them? In fairness, my guess is that they know there's too small a demand to create an actual league right out of the gate, and they're doing this event more to whet the appetite and build a brand, sort of a "proof of concept." I agree that makes sense, as the fan base is too small as it is. But even if so, that should be made more clear, and the design of the event should serve as a buildup to that -- explicitly, and with some context for the vision, so it gets talked up. It's also all the more reason to really change things up and do something extraordinarily fan friendly and action-friendly, widening the audience while exciting the bases. 4. Unique matchups. What's more, even among existing fans of freestyle wrestling, you need to create a product that they want to see. For that, you need good matchups. Honestly, they're pretty lackluster. Several are decent, but it begs for a headliner. Get me a Gable vs. Snyder, or Spencer vs Jax, or Nickal versus an actual bear (OK maybe not), or AJ vs. Starocci, or Starocci vs. Bartlett (LOL), or Taylor vs. Dake part XVIII. Or go the generational route, putting in the top current guys against some top high school guys with huge social media followings. They've done some of this, pulling in Nickal and old-timers like Palmer and Caldwell. *** Bottom line is this: What I'm seeing is a lack of risk taking. The built-in audience is simply too small for this, so you need to do something more than just talk it up on twitter and having drawings, because even if that works you'll still fall short. A rehash of RPW or RWL is going to hit a wall real fast. Maybe they've got Elon Musk secretly bankrolling them for $500 million and so they're fine with taking a loss, so they can afford to make it an event for freestyle purists. But I suspect all they've really got it some decent seed money, which is going to dry up real fast if they can't present a viable vision with a path to profit.

Kaleb Wright from Campbell to Long Island

Shane Cook from Cleveland State to Grand View

Gavin Ricketts from Cleveland State to Bellarmine

Douglas Terry from Cleveland State to Life University

Six more states add snap waivers (WV, Florida, Colorado, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas). This too is a very good move by DHHS.