Your choices are unacceptable

A couple of places today I read the NY Times story about how people ordered more calories at fast-food restaurants after the nannies mandated the calorie information for menu items be displayed prominently.

...this just means the anhedoniacs who demand everyone live as joylessly as they do are going to push government to restrict menus.* Restaurants will be the next industry to be legislated into bankruptcy and/or government (GM isn't an exact analogy, as McDonald's has avoided being targeted by SEIU...but CAFE standards and cafe standards....), after the medical industry is destroyed.

And so, an anecdote. In a major fail I do not wish to talk about, I spent a day in August trapped at JFK airport, in Queens**. After standing in line for five hours, I was able to drag my carcass into a chain restaurant for a burger and a beer.

It took me 15 minutes to figure out what all those three-digit integers on the beer list meant.

The put the freaking calorie counts on the BEER LIST.

Obviously, this had no impact on my order. I would drink store brand beer from a can before I would order MGD64 (nasty AND weak), and diet soda is not beer. As it was, I had to settle for a Sam Adams, as the airport franchise did not have the bountiful taps of the standalone franchise I visit most frequently.

Beer is full of B-vitamins, and there have been numerous studies showing that one serving daily has some health benefits. And trapped in an airport, I was in no danger of driving. But the empty totalitarians were trying to scare me away from it. Don't believe for a minute it's about health--it's only about control.

* I'm thinking of donut speakeasies. You know the password, they'll sell you a donut, regardless of your BMI.

** Side note: They apparently "went green" by completely removing the HVAC; particularly repugnant in August at an international airport with frequent flights from cultures that do not value soap or deodorant.

Holocaust Rememberance Day

I've been listening to the Syracuse classical music station (don't ask, I don't know) in the car and at night. Tonight they've been playing songs from composers killed in concentration camps, including the premiere American performance of Marcel Tyberg's Symphony No. 3. Tyberg left all his hand-written scores with a student before he was carted off to be killed; this particular symphony had to be copied from the originals to be performed.

I don't know enough about symphonic music to give an informed opinion, but I'm enjoying it. And enjoying a beer, in anticipation of being dragged off to Right-Wing Extremist/Planet-Destroying Fattie Death Camp. Sigh.

I expect the "fat acceptance" blogs to agree with Frum

...because they're all O-bots. You can't judge a person's intellect or ideas by the person's size (which I think is a sensible position) unless that person's name rhymes with "Simbaugh".

David Frum likes Obama more than Rush because Rush is fat.

And O has stayed married to a politically-connected Klingon. Feel free to speculate how much he's motivated by twue wuv and how much he's motivated by fear of physical repercussions.

(I'm less interested in the Steele vs. Rush thing than I am that Michael Steele nods in mute agreement when partisans tell him Republican conventions "look like Nazi Germany." Hello...)

Oh, and apropos of nothing, if it's wrong to remind newly laid-off Obamatrons that they voted for business-destroying change, I don't want to be right.

Barack Obama hates fat people.

I knew it!

Newsbusters link
Fatosphere link (they're mostly Obamatrons, so I'm surprised anyone took the time to criticize the pick)

It's bad when even Paul Krugman calls you out.

The good news is they won't have to line me up against a wall and shoot me during the Great Enlightenment (hee!) at re-education camp--after a week of eating nothing but an Obama/Gupta-approved diet I'll kill myself.

(My mother once signed me up for "Lighten up Iowa", a government weight-loss program. So I made Iowa X pounds lighter by moving. Heh!)

The second saddest thing I've read in weeks.

Disgusting-sad, not sorrow-sad like the previous post.

What if no one were fat?

Also the stupidest thing I've read recently. Since when do liberals care about corporate profits, seriously? And how do increased corporate profits translate into "giving every household $4000"?? I'd laugh if the premise wasn't so disgusting...

Let's do a little thought experiment:

What if no one were black?
What if no one was gay?
What if no one were Jewish? (I think this has been written)
What if no one were old? (In the UK the NHS is working on it...)

Etc.

I don't see how this is any different.

Oh, and the "obesity costs money thing"?

Filed under "study shows something I've known for years, but get ridiculed for pointing out":

LONDON - Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it doesn't save money, researchers reported Monday. It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars.

"It was a small surprise," said Pieter van Baal, an economist at the Netherlands' National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, who led the study. "But it also makes sense. If you live longer, then you cost the health system more."

In a paper published online Monday in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal, Dutch researchers found that the health costs of thin and healthy people in adulthood are more expensive than those of either fat people or smokers.

I'm thinking if you're using hospitals all that much, you're probably not "healthy." Just thin. But, whatever.

They also found that fat people live an average of 80 years, compared to 84 for thin people who don't die of cancer or drunk drivers or stray bullets or jogging. I consider four years a small price to pay for occasionally piercing my endless boredom with frozen custard, but this is an individual choice--I'm pretty much just waiting for God these days--so feel free to disagree. Just don't feel free to legislate my choice away, dammit!

Now, the claim that diabetes is costing Medicaid/Medicare so much money, I believe that--because the problems are incentives. People don't control their diabetes with diet and exercise if they get free drugs (this is a problem for people with employer-provided insurance, too); people don't pursue full employment if they think they'll lose their free drugs if they get a better job; similarly, people don't save for their futures if they think someone else will pay their way; and finally the whole Medicaid/Medicare system is so wicked INEFFICIENT and bureaucratic...

(I'm labeling this post "fascism" because nationalized health care is. Aside: I finished Jonah's book if anyone wants to borrow my unsigned copy.)

Fascist Mississippi restaurant bill might die

I'm still not taking a vacation down to Mississippi anytime soon. Which annoys me, because I'd love to spend a month or two driving US61 from Davenport (Bix Beiderbecke) down to the Delta (obvious). I digress:

House Public Health and Human Services Committee Chairman Steve Holland announced his intention to kill House Bill 282. The proposed legislation has outraged advocacy groups critical of the legislation and intrigued the national media.

"It's dead on arrival at my desk," Holland, D-Plantersville, said in a news release. "While I appreciate the efforts of my fellow House members to help curb the obesity problem in Mississippi, this is totally the wrong approach."

Can I get a "no shit"?

The author of the bill still needs to have his rectal-cranial inversion treated:

"You take food away from fat people ... my gosh," Mayhall said.

*headdesk* NO. It's not about "fat people are crybabies who eat too much." It's about government mandating discrimination against an entire class of people (I thought there was an amendment about that...). It's about government seizing control of--and probably destroying--another industry. And mostly it's about we're freaking ADULTS, capable of making decisions about where we will eat dinner, and it's no one's damn business if someone wants to trade me a cheeseburger for a sawbuck.

Holland and Gov. Haley Barbour (R) have the right idea:

Holland, who has described himself as obese, said, "I am working on my own health issues, and I need to do that. I think (Gov. Haley Barbour's) take on this is a good idea. Let's all go walking instead of trying to tell restaurants who they can serve."

"Useless bread-eaters" won't be allowed to eat in public in Mississippi...

...and Huckabee hasn't even won the nomination yet.

Lawmakers have proposed legislation that forbids restaurants and food establishments from serving food to anyone who is obese (as defined by the State). Under this bill, food establishments are to be monitored for compliance under the State Department of Health and violators will have their business permits revoked.

It's not a joke; the text is online, and it's a bipartisan fascism. The submitter is a Republican, a co-sponsor is a Demorcrat, and, most shameful of all, one of the co-sponsors is a fat Republican.

I like how the Junkfood Science blog illustrates the bit with a vintage photograph of a "Whites Only" restaurant sign, because it's an excellent analogy. And I wonder if "food establishments" is a clever way to make sure those worthless subhuman fatties (full disclosure: That would be me!) can't even buy GROCERIES. Getting turned away from a restaurant--not even allowed to order a freaking SALAD--will just send me straight into a pan of homemade brownies. How the FUCK is this going to benefit anybody except the bigotted assholes who don't want to see fat people in public?

Even Britain hasn't devolved to the point you need state approval to go out for dinner...although I bet they're taking notice.

Screw facts, give 'em the narrative!

This seems familiar.

In a 2005 study published by The Journal of the American Medical Association, Flegal, Williamson, and two other researchers reported that people the government considers “overweight” have lower mortality rates than people with supposedly “healthy” weights. They were criticized not so much for being wrong as for being unhelpful. “Your patients likely did not read the original article,” said an editorial in the journal Obesity Management, “but they did likely hear about it in the news and the message they got was not to worry so much about overweight and obesity. I do not think this is the message you want them to have.”

Fat, jihad, "global warming"--don't publish actual findings so the peasants can weigh evidence for themselves! Stick to the story we want people to believe!

(I don't make resolutions. Every few weeks I'll realize I need to eat fewer tasty foods and more foods that resemble weeds; after about three days I'm miserable and end up at Kopps. But that's no one's damn business but mine, thank you.)