Mayor Michael Bloomberg introduced an idea to limit soda sizes to 16 ounces. The limit is only for sugary drinks that have over 25 calories per 8 ounces. Diet sodas and water would likely exempted. However, the city of Cambridge thinks this is an equally delightful idea, would likely include ALL drinks, all the name of "the war on obesity."
But myopic rules like these don't work. They're designed to be stifling and show the laziness of governments not to do their research on health, to knee-jerk their way into control of the populace who consumes these drinks. This is why rules like this get ridiculed; no law is worse than when proposed by someone who doesn't like what others do (and is tyring to get money from the government to fund such cockeyed schemes) and try to control others.
Furthermore, by disguising these stiff laws as "it's for your own good," they hide the real motivation behind them, which is "we don't like what you're doing, regardless of it being harmless, and we'll prevent you from doing it any way we can." Types of laws like this usually devolve into resentment, confusion, and then revolt and black markets. See the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s for an example of that success story.
A better idea would be to suggest that occasionally, a 20 ounce drink with as much sugar as your pancreas can handle is fine, so long as you balance it out during the day. That's better than being laughed at as a crank and a control freak.
Showing posts with label control freaks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label control freaks. Show all posts
6/20/2012
6/07/2012
'Elf and Safety? Stuff and nonsense!
"Health and safety" is a completely rational reason for shutting something down that is obviously dangerous. For example, if you have a bunch of donuts on the shelf and one of them has been tested for salmonella, you get rid of the remaining donuts as a precaution. It's a waste to get rid of the donuts, but there's that rare chance that salmonella-contaminated donut in your hand might contaminate others.
Abuse of "health and safety" as an excuse to exert power and be an obnoxious killjoy is rampant in Britain. The list of what constitutes banning things in the name of health and safety is pretty darn stupid, at least to this Yank. Unless you're putting rocks in hanging baskets, using an ironing board to try out your new chainsaw by cutting vegetables with it, it's just plain grating for town councils to wag their bony bureaucratic fingers at others.
It's also narcissism gone amok: if the town's image is so sullied by people doing ordinary things such as flying kites, tying up bicycles, pouring tea, and having bake sales, while sweeping drug use, larceny, burglaries and assault under the rug, the town's priorities require a massive reworking and shakeup, including the public sacking of the people responsible for using "health and safety" as an excuse to spoil other people's livelihoods.
Abuse of "health and safety" as an excuse to exert power and be an obnoxious killjoy is rampant in Britain. The list of what constitutes banning things in the name of health and safety is pretty darn stupid, at least to this Yank. Unless you're putting rocks in hanging baskets, using an ironing board to try out your new chainsaw by cutting vegetables with it, it's just plain grating for town councils to wag their bony bureaucratic fingers at others.
It's also narcissism gone amok: if the town's image is so sullied by people doing ordinary things such as flying kites, tying up bicycles, pouring tea, and having bake sales, while sweeping drug use, larceny, burglaries and assault under the rug, the town's priorities require a massive reworking and shakeup, including the public sacking of the people responsible for using "health and safety" as an excuse to spoil other people's livelihoods.
5/15/2012
Free - to eat a Quarter Pounder with cheese
I love this great opinion piece by Kerry J. Byrne, a food and drink writer of the Boston Herald.
The government is not going to get a nation of anorexics, vegans, or perfectly proportioned people any time soon - because the very first attempt to regulate eating will make the American Revolution look like a shoving match. No nation but in America can someone select what they want to eat, how much they want to eat, and at what price point they want to pay for what they eat. We don't follow the anorexic or
I like going to b. good, which is burger joint that sells much healthier burgers and so forth. A full meal with fries and a shake costs about $12 - and often I can afford it. However, I also like to go to Burger King for a bacon double cheeseburger for half of that cost. I can either have a yogurt parfait at Au Bon Pain, a yogurt shake at b. good, or ice cream at Ben & Jerry's (or a local joint).
Now, if you have $3 and you can feed yourself pretty well on that, you're lucky. It might be true that we have healthy food deserts (but you also notice there are plenty of lottery and liquor oases), but if there is food and it sates us until the next meal, then someone's telling a big fat lie. Moreover, if you can buy that meal off the dollar menu at Wendy's and work all 800 calories off in a day, bless you. No one's forcing a gun to your head to do jumping jacks and mountain climbers - just move around and keep active.
How about this neat idea from a mother with three children - you can still have junk food, but you gotta work for it. If there's a McDonald's three miles away, the Happy Meal is yours if want to walk for it. Or if you want to go to Sonic, we take the dog too and give it a run. I think that's a marvelous idea - work for your junk food, make it slightly more difficult to access (no knee-jerk food fascism such as bake sale bans and getting into a lathering snit over 2800 calories shakes - unless you've had major dental work and can't eat solid foods), and get some exercise in the bargain - it'll make you at least hungrier for it!
Byrne is certainly right about one thing - we aren't active enough. I'm not and I'm free to admit it - I work 8-9 hours a day at a desk, and the last thought on my mind on the way to work or on the way home on the bus is exercise. I could get a bicycle, but I like to ride with my huge noggin al fresco - no helmet. When we aren't active, even if we're on a strict macrobiotic hypervegan diet, we gain weight. The worst thing we can do is nag people to death to lose the weight, but given an appropriate, non-obnoxious incentive to do so, and people will flock to it.
Take out the fear of getting injured or being a victim to violent and non-violent crimes, and all those poor people who are overweight will be healthier. It'll certainly knock down the Potemkin food deserts and the fun out of marching lockstep in the streets, extolling the virtues of Puritanism gone amok.
The government is not going to get a nation of anorexics, vegans, or perfectly proportioned people any time soon - because the very first attempt to regulate eating will make the American Revolution look like a shoving match. No nation but in America can someone select what they want to eat, how much they want to eat, and at what price point they want to pay for what they eat. We don't follow the anorexic or
I like going to b. good, which is burger joint that sells much healthier burgers and so forth. A full meal with fries and a shake costs about $12 - and often I can afford it. However, I also like to go to Burger King for a bacon double cheeseburger for half of that cost. I can either have a yogurt parfait at Au Bon Pain, a yogurt shake at b. good, or ice cream at Ben & Jerry's (or a local joint).
Now, if you have $3 and you can feed yourself pretty well on that, you're lucky. It might be true that we have healthy food deserts (but you also notice there are plenty of lottery and liquor oases), but if there is food and it sates us until the next meal, then someone's telling a big fat lie. Moreover, if you can buy that meal off the dollar menu at Wendy's and work all 800 calories off in a day, bless you. No one's forcing a gun to your head to do jumping jacks and mountain climbers - just move around and keep active.
How about this neat idea from a mother with three children - you can still have junk food, but you gotta work for it. If there's a McDonald's three miles away, the Happy Meal is yours if want to walk for it. Or if you want to go to Sonic, we take the dog too and give it a run. I think that's a marvelous idea - work for your junk food, make it slightly more difficult to access (no knee-jerk food fascism such as bake sale bans and getting into a lathering snit over 2800 calories shakes - unless you've had major dental work and can't eat solid foods), and get some exercise in the bargain - it'll make you at least hungrier for it!
Byrne is certainly right about one thing - we aren't active enough. I'm not and I'm free to admit it - I work 8-9 hours a day at a desk, and the last thought on my mind on the way to work or on the way home on the bus is exercise. I could get a bicycle, but I like to ride with my huge noggin al fresco - no helmet. When we aren't active, even if we're on a strict macrobiotic hypervegan diet, we gain weight. The worst thing we can do is nag people to death to lose the weight, but given an appropriate, non-obnoxious incentive to do so, and people will flock to it.
Take out the fear of getting injured or being a victim to violent and non-violent crimes, and all those poor people who are overweight will be healthier. It'll certainly knock down the Potemkin food deserts and the fun out of marching lockstep in the streets, extolling the virtues of Puritanism gone amok.
5/08/2011
Who gives a damn what they think of us? Osama bin Laden death edition
Maureen Dowd (via Hub Blog) is exactly right on the end results of Osama bin Laden being killed by United States Navy Seals, under the direction of President Barack Obama.
What says even more about OBL's death is that there's not only evil still in the world, but cowardice by hand-wringers and the tut-tutters are decrying this as "an unjustified killing." That OBL was in a wealthy suburb south of Islamabad, is a huge clue to OBL's own ego - he loved being a PR man as much as Public Enemy #1. Those who protected OBL - the wealthy, the government of Pakistan, NGOs with their own twisted versions of utopia - are equally guilty of giving OBL a haven, as he was likely their meal ticket to perpetuate and justify their own myths, to raise funds, or to simply be one of his propaganda points. Bringing OBL to trial, rather being buried undersea, would have generated far more publicity and fervor for him and his group than to satisfy the blatant ignorance of those who think celebrations are barbaric and medieval.
In fact, maybe this hue and cry is the upper classes of our world chagrined that the lower and middle classes took out one of their fellow travelers - an evil, bloodthirsty thug who ruled with an iron fist, just like the aristocrats of the past did. They dream of a day where they can rule without question, can execute people for even the slightest bit of disagreement, and take everything they can from those who are too weak to resist.
The myth of Che Guevara as the hero to the oppressed was smashed to bits once it was discovered he was a bloodythirsty murderer of epic proportions as he murdered anyone who got in his way. Like Osama bin Laden, he came from an aristocratic, upper-class background; he too was executed when he was caught.
We're going to celebrate the death of evil to the end of days - whether it's the arrogant politician who was arrested and jailed for lining his own pockets, the killer who gets hundreds of consecutive life terms plus a few more 99 year terms for good measure, the dictator who draws his last painful breath in his bed from cancer, the foaming-at-the-mouth agitator who gets caught with their pants down on something trivial, or the rogue banker who made the wrong bet and caused an economy to collapse.
A lot of countries praised the USA, but some said "We're glad OBL's gone, but terror still exists." That caution is completely acceptable, and is more out of wisdom than of fear. Celebrating and shouting "USA!" is also a catharsis of the horrors of September 11, not a sign of jingoism. And celebrate we should, until we're too hoarse to shout and too tired to lift our arms. Once the celebrations are through, it's a sign to move forward.
What says even more about OBL's death is that there's not only evil still in the world, but cowardice by hand-wringers and the tut-tutters are decrying this as "an unjustified killing." That OBL was in a wealthy suburb south of Islamabad, is a huge clue to OBL's own ego - he loved being a PR man as much as Public Enemy #1. Those who protected OBL - the wealthy, the government of Pakistan, NGOs with their own twisted versions of utopia - are equally guilty of giving OBL a haven, as he was likely their meal ticket to perpetuate and justify their own myths, to raise funds, or to simply be one of his propaganda points. Bringing OBL to trial, rather being buried undersea, would have generated far more publicity and fervor for him and his group than to satisfy the blatant ignorance of those who think celebrations are barbaric and medieval.
In fact, maybe this hue and cry is the upper classes of our world chagrined that the lower and middle classes took out one of their fellow travelers - an evil, bloodthirsty thug who ruled with an iron fist, just like the aristocrats of the past did. They dream of a day where they can rule without question, can execute people for even the slightest bit of disagreement, and take everything they can from those who are too weak to resist.
The myth of Che Guevara as the hero to the oppressed was smashed to bits once it was discovered he was a bloodythirsty murderer of epic proportions as he murdered anyone who got in his way. Like Osama bin Laden, he came from an aristocratic, upper-class background; he too was executed when he was caught.
We're going to celebrate the death of evil to the end of days - whether it's the arrogant politician who was arrested and jailed for lining his own pockets, the killer who gets hundreds of consecutive life terms plus a few more 99 year terms for good measure, the dictator who draws his last painful breath in his bed from cancer, the foaming-at-the-mouth agitator who gets caught with their pants down on something trivial, or the rogue banker who made the wrong bet and caused an economy to collapse.
A lot of countries praised the USA, but some said "We're glad OBL's gone, but terror still exists." That caution is completely acceptable, and is more out of wisdom than of fear. Celebrating and shouting "USA!" is also a catharsis of the horrors of September 11, not a sign of jingoism. And celebrate we should, until we're too hoarse to shout and too tired to lift our arms. Once the celebrations are through, it's a sign to move forward.
1/08/2011
Success should NEVER be punished
Amy Alkon leads a discussion on why the rich are penalized at high tax rates when the poor skate away without paying a single dime in income taxes, once their credits and withholding are factored in.
The poor, despite paying little to no income tax, actually pay much higher and very well hidden taxes on other things - well hidden by cowardly politicians who would face an enraged populace if they discovered that all the EITCs and withholding they got back from the IRS went back to the government via consumption. For instance - that $6 of generic smokes they got at the convenience store slams them with an effective tax rate of 58.5%. Or that their cellphone bill has taxes that have been collected since the Spanish-American war and tack on 10-20% in taxes. Gasoline taxes are 18.4 cents per gallon in Massachusetts - if you work 40 hours a week at minimum wage of $8 an hour and fill your 20 gallon tank at $60, you've just paid half an hour of your wages in tax. (When you factor in the federal tax of 24.4 cents per gallon, each hour you work you will pay that much money in gas taxes.)
On the other hand, the rich are paid very well because their value and success to their business warrants it. Sure, there are sports players that earn hundreds of millions of dollars in salary for each season, which is a few months a year. Sure, there are greedy bankster and baron robbers out there that have million-dollar bonuses. But others who are inventors, innovators, researchers - people who do a genuine service - deserve to be compensated handsomely. Some are so rich now that they take a nominal dollar salary per year, but they do so as a symbol to their employees that money doesn't matter.
The reason why there are calls for the rich to be taxed higher and higher doesn't involve money. There are people so insanely jealous and envious of others are guilty of not being successful themselves, so they demand the money be seized via taxes and inflation and given to others as a warped method of "justice." In East Germany, those who dared work privately and not for the state found their wages taxed at 90% - all because Karl Marx - himself a wealthy aristocrat with disdain for the lower classes - saw those same visions of serfs and feudal lords.
We don't live in the times of feudal lords, aristocracy, royalty, serfs, commoners, and peasants anymore, but there are folks who dream that a pecking order returns and people are put in their place. The other fantasy is that all are equal and none are exceptional - no one learns how to work hard to get ahead and all is provided by a invisible hand. (Love this quote about so-called "social justice" in the blog, though - "[Bec]ause if it were real justice it wouldnt (sic) require a qualifing word.")
Hence, not only should the rich not be an ATM for social engineering wonks, the rich should never, ever be punished for their success. Not all of them are going to drive six-figure cars and spend the entire summer in Martha's Vineyard burning hundreds and engaging in all-day insider trading deals. Most of them are humble; most of them donate freely to places and charities (the IRS is a government agency, not a charity). To sneer that the rich are "not paying their fair share" is a sign that the inquirer is either an ignorant moron, a control freak of the highest order, or is clueless of how things and people work. Of course, if you feel you're not paying enough to the government, by all means, write a check to the IRS to reduce the national debt (or, if you live in Massachusetts, check off the 5.85% "optional" income tax).
Otherwise, you're a jealous fucking control freak asshole.
The poor, despite paying little to no income tax, actually pay much higher and very well hidden taxes on other things - well hidden by cowardly politicians who would face an enraged populace if they discovered that all the EITCs and withholding they got back from the IRS went back to the government via consumption. For instance - that $6 of generic smokes they got at the convenience store slams them with an effective tax rate of 58.5%. Or that their cellphone bill has taxes that have been collected since the Spanish-American war and tack on 10-20% in taxes. Gasoline taxes are 18.4 cents per gallon in Massachusetts - if you work 40 hours a week at minimum wage of $8 an hour and fill your 20 gallon tank at $60, you've just paid half an hour of your wages in tax. (When you factor in the federal tax of 24.4 cents per gallon, each hour you work you will pay that much money in gas taxes.)
On the other hand, the rich are paid very well because their value and success to their business warrants it. Sure, there are sports players that earn hundreds of millions of dollars in salary for each season, which is a few months a year. Sure, there are greedy bankster and baron robbers out there that have million-dollar bonuses. But others who are inventors, innovators, researchers - people who do a genuine service - deserve to be compensated handsomely. Some are so rich now that they take a nominal dollar salary per year, but they do so as a symbol to their employees that money doesn't matter.
The reason why there are calls for the rich to be taxed higher and higher doesn't involve money. There are people so insanely jealous and envious of others are guilty of not being successful themselves, so they demand the money be seized via taxes and inflation and given to others as a warped method of "justice." In East Germany, those who dared work privately and not for the state found their wages taxed at 90% - all because Karl Marx - himself a wealthy aristocrat with disdain for the lower classes - saw those same visions of serfs and feudal lords.
We don't live in the times of feudal lords, aristocracy, royalty, serfs, commoners, and peasants anymore, but there are folks who dream that a pecking order returns and people are put in their place. The other fantasy is that all are equal and none are exceptional - no one learns how to work hard to get ahead and all is provided by a invisible hand. (Love this quote about so-called "social justice" in the blog, though - "[Bec]ause if it were real justice it wouldnt (sic) require a qualifing word.")
Hence, not only should the rich not be an ATM for social engineering wonks, the rich should never, ever be punished for their success. Not all of them are going to drive six-figure cars and spend the entire summer in Martha's Vineyard burning hundreds and engaging in all-day insider trading deals. Most of them are humble; most of them donate freely to places and charities (the IRS is a government agency, not a charity). To sneer that the rich are "not paying their fair share" is a sign that the inquirer is either an ignorant moron, a control freak of the highest order, or is clueless of how things and people work. Of course, if you feel you're not paying enough to the government, by all means, write a check to the IRS to reduce the national debt (or, if you live in Massachusetts, check off the 5.85% "optional" income tax).
Otherwise, you're a jealous fucking control freak asshole.
12/08/2010
The Pleasure Killers
I read the piece about the Bush Tax Cuts in the New York Times (link: and you're saying to yourself, 'hmm, he usually quotes the New York Post or Fox News' - there's not everything in the New York Times I disagree with, and this one's pretty good) and how Obama's deal with the Republicans on keeping the current tax brackets and plus an added bonus of cutting the payroll tax by 200 basis points, or 2%. President Obama could well have left everything as it is, or even hiked taxes to the levels he feels people should pay (not what people are willing to or afford to pay). I'm not sure what the result would have been, but if there were no extra revenue (or a sharp decline in revenue), then the government would have hiked them even further, engaging in a vicious cycle of tax hikes and revenue drops.
I'm not going to pretend that I don't like what happened. I'm middle class and I'm not going to complain. The Republicans tried every way to Sunday to get something moving, and it took the near shutdown of the government (well, that and Election 2010) to get Obama to at least concede that raising taxes is not the way to return to prosperity.
The comments, on the other hand? Save for one or two good comments, either Obama is the second coming of Bush, Obama should have had more cojones, the Republicans are the Party of No, the rich get away scot free with this, and so on. Oh, and a smattering of how he's a one term president. Childish, insecure, ignorant, arrogant, get-the-venom out stuff.
My thought is that there are still a ton of people who hate George W Bush and what he stood for. I'm also not going to pretend I didn't like him. Unlike Obama, who I feel surrounds himself with czars, bureaucrats, nanny-staters and the-bus-doesn't-stop-there radicals, Dubya was a steadfast and principled man. Often he was wrong as he was right. He too let himself be led by the nose by his advisors, but when he was correct, damn, you had to respect his tenacity, even though you were marching through the streets demanding he be dragged to the Hague in front of the World Court.
It leads me to a good question: some people can't stand others being happy, prosperous, and self-sufficient AND self-reliant. There's a streak of Puritanism that permeates through certain social circles that happiness and wealth is a sin, one that must be atoned for with brutal acts of contrition. But within that streak is a rank hypocrisy: it's OK for you to be happy, but not for someone else, and even if you die trying, you're going to prevent someone from their dreams.
It's a toxic stew of jealousy, resentment, and selfishness that rots the soul. It's the basis of moral panics that end up hurting people more than they help because the person trying to control the panic ends up overcompensating and snowballing unintended consequences.
Take for example the "obesity crisis." If a person is slightly overweight, the most simple way of doing so is to eat less and exercise more, not to tax items sky-high because someone (Michelle Obama? Mayor Mike Bloomberg? Deval Patrick?) is afraid that it might lead to being obesity. If you're exercising and eating right, the occasional donut won't kill you, nor will the daily cruller resign you to the pits of a fat camp. And, those extra tax revenues because you're slapping a dollar on a soda may be a smokescreen for trying to fatten (pun intended) the state coffers. True, morbid and gross obesity exists, but trying to eradicate it by controlling food, and in turn trying to control people, is the ultimate fools' errand.
The same thing goes for taxes. If you're a successful employee and make your company the best it is, why in heaven should you be penalized for it through high taxes? That's the whole gist about keeping the Bush Tax Cuts - if there are people so resentful and jealous of others success that short of running them over with your car or hiring a hit man to liquidate them your feeling is that the money must be taken away from them "for the greater good" (a healthy, steaming pile of total, absolute, pious, self-serving bullshit), those people should be given something to do that will keep them away from the editorial pages.
How about helping the people who should get a lift up from the depths of trash TV and shady lawyers? No one's going to be Oprah right away, and there will be weeks of your bank account being very lean, but it's better than handouts and bailouts. And happiness and success does come, so long as you work hard and you're patient - and anyone who tries to get in your way should be avoided at all costs.
There are people who still take their anger, guilt, bitterness, and disappointment on others because they cannot control things. It is a religion all its own, and it makes Puritanism look downright hedonistic. The ones who try to kill happiness have never been successful anyway - because happiness and success always seem to win, don't they?
UPDATE: Despite the House not deigning to vote on it and Bernie Sanders (S-VT) deciding it would be a great idea to read from the telephone book as a way to filibuster (maybe he did, maybe he didn't), this tax deal will go through with a lot of noses held, because if it doesn't, the Party of No will have a D next to it.
UPDATE #2: China is in a hefty snit because the Nobel Prize committee awarded Liu Xiabao the Peace Prize in absentia. The three signs I take out of this are (a) even farthest of the far left are demanding his release from Chinese prison, (b) it takes away the spotlight and attention from a like-minded Canberra Julian of W_______s, and (c) China must be really shit-scared of losing its power to ramp up the manipulation to sub-light speed, all because a dissident had a manifesto that wasn't one endorsed by a German aristocrat with money guilt.
I'm not going to pretend that I don't like what happened. I'm middle class and I'm not going to complain. The Republicans tried every way to Sunday to get something moving, and it took the near shutdown of the government (well, that and Election 2010) to get Obama to at least concede that raising taxes is not the way to return to prosperity.
The comments, on the other hand? Save for one or two good comments, either Obama is the second coming of Bush, Obama should have had more cojones, the Republicans are the Party of No, the rich get away scot free with this, and so on. Oh, and a smattering of how he's a one term president. Childish, insecure, ignorant, arrogant, get-the-venom out stuff.
My thought is that there are still a ton of people who hate George W Bush and what he stood for. I'm also not going to pretend I didn't like him. Unlike Obama, who I feel surrounds himself with czars, bureaucrats, nanny-staters and the-bus-doesn't-stop-there radicals, Dubya was a steadfast and principled man. Often he was wrong as he was right. He too let himself be led by the nose by his advisors, but when he was correct, damn, you had to respect his tenacity, even though you were marching through the streets demanding he be dragged to the Hague in front of the World Court.
It leads me to a good question: some people can't stand others being happy, prosperous, and self-sufficient AND self-reliant. There's a streak of Puritanism that permeates through certain social circles that happiness and wealth is a sin, one that must be atoned for with brutal acts of contrition. But within that streak is a rank hypocrisy: it's OK for you to be happy, but not for someone else, and even if you die trying, you're going to prevent someone from their dreams.
It's a toxic stew of jealousy, resentment, and selfishness that rots the soul. It's the basis of moral panics that end up hurting people more than they help because the person trying to control the panic ends up overcompensating and snowballing unintended consequences.
Take for example the "obesity crisis." If a person is slightly overweight, the most simple way of doing so is to eat less and exercise more, not to tax items sky-high because someone (Michelle Obama? Mayor Mike Bloomberg? Deval Patrick?) is afraid that it might lead to being obesity. If you're exercising and eating right, the occasional donut won't kill you, nor will the daily cruller resign you to the pits of a fat camp. And, those extra tax revenues because you're slapping a dollar on a soda may be a smokescreen for trying to fatten (pun intended) the state coffers. True, morbid and gross obesity exists, but trying to eradicate it by controlling food, and in turn trying to control people, is the ultimate fools' errand.
The same thing goes for taxes. If you're a successful employee and make your company the best it is, why in heaven should you be penalized for it through high taxes? That's the whole gist about keeping the Bush Tax Cuts - if there are people so resentful and jealous of others success that short of running them over with your car or hiring a hit man to liquidate them your feeling is that the money must be taken away from them "for the greater good" (a healthy, steaming pile of total, absolute, pious, self-serving bullshit), those people should be given something to do that will keep them away from the editorial pages.
How about helping the people who should get a lift up from the depths of trash TV and shady lawyers? No one's going to be Oprah right away, and there will be weeks of your bank account being very lean, but it's better than handouts and bailouts. And happiness and success does come, so long as you work hard and you're patient - and anyone who tries to get in your way should be avoided at all costs.
There are people who still take their anger, guilt, bitterness, and disappointment on others because they cannot control things. It is a religion all its own, and it makes Puritanism look downright hedonistic. The ones who try to kill happiness have never been successful anyway - because happiness and success always seem to win, don't they?
UPDATE: Despite the House not deigning to vote on it and Bernie Sanders (S-VT) deciding it would be a great idea to read from the telephone book as a way to filibuster (maybe he did, maybe he didn't), this tax deal will go through with a lot of noses held, because if it doesn't, the Party of No will have a D next to it.
UPDATE #2: China is in a hefty snit because the Nobel Prize committee awarded Liu Xiabao the Peace Prize in absentia. The three signs I take out of this are (a) even farthest of the far left are demanding his release from Chinese prison, (b) it takes away the spotlight and attention from a like-minded Canberra Julian of W_______s, and (c) China must be really shit-scared of losing its power to ramp up the manipulation to sub-light speed, all because a dissident had a manifesto that wasn't one endorsed by a German aristocrat with money guilt.
10/21/2010
Juan Williams pulls back the PC curtain and freaks out the narrow minds of NPR
Juan Williams deserves a TON of credit for telling the truth about National Public Radio.
Williams committed the simple sin of saying out loud what the rest of the elitist, fully white, upper middle and upper class editorial boards of NPR wouldn't dare say in public, but probably do well behind closed doors. (Even more telling is that Williams was the only black correspondent.)
Who will this brouhaha hurt the most? At the very least, moderate Muslims who have been yearning to break free from the stereotype of fundamentalist militancy have been pushed back into a corner - the ones who want to prove that the abaya, hijab or burqa, or the four fingers of beard the men must wear, is no way linked to the more malignant strains of Islamic worship - and assure them that while their religion is Islam, their nationality is American. Thanks to NPR's firing of Williams, that conversation gets drowned out by clueless upper-class twits.
But the real hurt that will come will be on NPR itself. When free speech is determined by an unelected upper echelon of white elitists, and that money comes from public taxpayers, a new Congress will be loathe to fund an entity whose primary focus is to make sure the right words come out of the right mouths, and any word not in the Approved Vocabulary of NPR will be grounds for immediate termination. Congress defunding NPR would force it to pledge even more from its listeners, and if you don't have the money, your license to broadcast gets ripped up and tossed out in the trash.
Williams should keep on talking about his now-ex-colleagues, how they love to insult those who aren't like them, and then tell the public to avoid donating a thin rusting penny to their organization because they are malignant narcissisists who only care about their own ideology and not giving a complete story. Oh, and donations from well-heeled, like-minded people.
Williams did everyone - including Muslims - a favor by pulling back the curtain on the narrow minds of NPR, who proved to the nation that the antidote to curtailing free speech is even more free speech - and that political correctness is worse than any nuclear weapon on the planet.
Williams committed the simple sin of saying out loud what the rest of the elitist, fully white, upper middle and upper class editorial boards of NPR wouldn't dare say in public, but probably do well behind closed doors. (Even more telling is that Williams was the only black correspondent.)
Who will this brouhaha hurt the most? At the very least, moderate Muslims who have been yearning to break free from the stereotype of fundamentalist militancy have been pushed back into a corner - the ones who want to prove that the abaya, hijab or burqa, or the four fingers of beard the men must wear, is no way linked to the more malignant strains of Islamic worship - and assure them that while their religion is Islam, their nationality is American. Thanks to NPR's firing of Williams, that conversation gets drowned out by clueless upper-class twits.
But the real hurt that will come will be on NPR itself. When free speech is determined by an unelected upper echelon of white elitists, and that money comes from public taxpayers, a new Congress will be loathe to fund an entity whose primary focus is to make sure the right words come out of the right mouths, and any word not in the Approved Vocabulary of NPR will be grounds for immediate termination. Congress defunding NPR would force it to pledge even more from its listeners, and if you don't have the money, your license to broadcast gets ripped up and tossed out in the trash.
Williams should keep on talking about his now-ex-colleagues, how they love to insult those who aren't like them, and then tell the public to avoid donating a thin rusting penny to their organization because they are malignant narcissisists who only care about their own ideology and not giving a complete story. Oh, and donations from well-heeled, like-minded people.
Williams did everyone - including Muslims - a favor by pulling back the curtain on the narrow minds of NPR, who proved to the nation that the antidote to curtailing free speech is even more free speech - and that political correctness is worse than any nuclear weapon on the planet.
9/14/2010
Better start learning the meaning of "closed door" in Grove Hall
The residents of Mattapan love the new 60 foot articulated buses on the Route 28 bus. I rode them on the Route 39 when they first came out and they're really, really nice.
The residents of Grove Hall? They do too, but not their so-called "community leaders" to bitch about not being "consulted." One of the comments from the boston.com site is quite telling...
What the T should do is introduce a neat little concept called "closed door" service. Routes 14, 19, 23, 28 and 45 go through that area. Since the "community leaders" are pissed they weren't able to extort all sorts of things from the T, the T should turn around and state that those route will not stop to discharge passengers nor to pick up passengers. All routes will just go right through Grove Hall without stopping. If it means a quarter mile to half mile walk to Grove Hall, in the blazing sun or during a hefty blizzard, that's the way it has to be.
They will, however, get more than an angry earful from passengers who rely on the T, who worked so hard for improvements, and now have to go out of their way just because the pigheaded, egotistical, hamfisted, loudmouthed control freaks killed service in their area, and the T will not lift a finger to return it to normal. Then these so-called "community leaders" will be seen for who they truly are: obstructionists who are too selfish to let their residents have what they truly deserve, because improvements would dilute their power and ego to infinitesimally small irrelevance.
The residents of Grove Hall? They do too, but not their so-called "community leaders" to bitch about not being "consulted." One of the comments from the boston.com site is quite telling...
Yet despite all of this, these community groups act as though they're being victimized. Like the State is coming in to destroy their neighborhoods. They killed the #28X [Route 28X would have been a Silver Line-style BRT route running down the median of Blue Hill Avenue. -ed]. Now they're completely apoplectic over the fact the T didn't kiss their feet and beg them to allow larger buses to offer better service to what is arguably a community long-underserved by mass transit. This is literally the least the T can do to help them, and still the community groups are trying to fight them to do less. They'd rather see the rest of their community get nothing, than have their "authority" undermined.
It appears to be about ego, control and the need to assert both.
What the T should do is introduce a neat little concept called "closed door" service. Routes 14, 19, 23, 28 and 45 go through that area. Since the "community leaders" are pissed they weren't able to extort all sorts of things from the T, the T should turn around and state that those route will not stop to discharge passengers nor to pick up passengers. All routes will just go right through Grove Hall without stopping. If it means a quarter mile to half mile walk to Grove Hall, in the blazing sun or during a hefty blizzard, that's the way it has to be.
They will, however, get more than an angry earful from passengers who rely on the T, who worked so hard for improvements, and now have to go out of their way just because the pigheaded, egotistical, hamfisted, loudmouthed control freaks killed service in their area, and the T will not lift a finger to return it to normal. Then these so-called "community leaders" will be seen for who they truly are: obstructionists who are too selfish to let their residents have what they truly deserve, because improvements would dilute their power and ego to infinitesimally small irrelevance.
8/01/2010
Puritanism - still alive and well in Massachusetts
I was reading an article this morning in the Boston Globe magazine from Tom Keane regarding Massachusetts' efforts to control alcohol. Among the interesting snippets:
This is because of the former Blue Laws that the Puritans put down in the 1620's because most of the Puritans were supposed to have their eyes and ears with God at all times, and not engage in frivolity such as liquor consumption. Many of the Blue Laws have been struck down, but only since the mid 1980s. Liquor stores have only been allowed to open on Sundays since 2005 or so.
This brings me to the debate of the soon-to-be-dead gambling bill. I've been wavering between being for it and being against it, but now I'm solidly against it. Governor Deval Patrick should not only veto the bill, he should be commended for it at the risk of losing his support from unions and others.
This is because Puritanism is still alive and well in Massachusetts.
We have way too many finger waggers, nags, wrist wringers and such who feel that any kind of fun should be eliminated or strictly controlled in the wake of some kind of fake moral enlightenment. Liquor and alcohol is a great example: keeping such a "vice" away through high price and scarcity makes the ones who are disturbed by its effects (even when people drink responsibly) soothes whatever guilt and bias they might have towards this vice. The same is true with cigarettes, food, and gasoline - self-styled moralists figure that the unwashed masses are not "enlightened" enough and must have these items made difficult to procure for "the greater good."
(In my honest opinion, the greater good would love to give these self-styled moralists a nice hard slap in the face, followed by a nice hard boot to where God split ya.)
If the Legislature were a more honest, less self-interested group, they would have expanded the bill to include as many resort casinos and slot parlors as they would allow without the worry of some group screaming that Massachusetts' moral fiber would decay at a ridiculous rate. There would be no scare tactics of prostitution or people wasting their entire paychecks on slots or children being abandoned in their cars. The Legislators would have no problem with the money coming in and distribute it evenly, rather than try to corner the money for their own town, city or ward.
Even if the casino bill passed, I can imagine the kind of "gambling" we'd get if it went through - it would be regulated just as tightly and stiffly as alcohol is today, along with a mix of gimmicks such as environmental standards, limits on play, money and alcohol consumption, no ATM machines or ATM machines with very high access fees, and bans on any kind of comps, credit and the like.
When Puritanism dances with Curley-style parochialism, what you get are political hacks, self-styled moral activists, and others killing something that may or may not have had promise, but no one dared to try because they were afraid they'd offend the wrong people. The writer of the article sums everything up nicely, and you can easily substitute "gambling" for "alcohol":
It would certainly prove that we cut all the laws of Puritanism but six, who were forced into service as pallbearers.
Alcoholic beverages sold for off-premise consumption can only be sold in licensed package stores. No one is allowed to own more than three stores that sell alcohol. State law puts sharp quotas on the number of liquor stores, bars, and restaurants permitted in every town, a formula carefully based on population. Holiday and Sunday sales are limited. In fact, we’re not even permitted to have happy hours. Free drinks and discounted prices are flatly illegal.
This is because of the former Blue Laws that the Puritans put down in the 1620's because most of the Puritans were supposed to have their eyes and ears with God at all times, and not engage in frivolity such as liquor consumption. Many of the Blue Laws have been struck down, but only since the mid 1980s. Liquor stores have only been allowed to open on Sundays since 2005 or so.
This brings me to the debate of the soon-to-be-dead gambling bill. I've been wavering between being for it and being against it, but now I'm solidly against it. Governor Deval Patrick should not only veto the bill, he should be commended for it at the risk of losing his support from unions and others.
This is because Puritanism is still alive and well in Massachusetts.
We have way too many finger waggers, nags, wrist wringers and such who feel that any kind of fun should be eliminated or strictly controlled in the wake of some kind of fake moral enlightenment. Liquor and alcohol is a great example: keeping such a "vice" away through high price and scarcity makes the ones who are disturbed by its effects (even when people drink responsibly) soothes whatever guilt and bias they might have towards this vice. The same is true with cigarettes, food, and gasoline - self-styled moralists figure that the unwashed masses are not "enlightened" enough and must have these items made difficult to procure for "the greater good."
(In my honest opinion, the greater good would love to give these self-styled moralists a nice hard slap in the face, followed by a nice hard boot to where God split ya.)
If the Legislature were a more honest, less self-interested group, they would have expanded the bill to include as many resort casinos and slot parlors as they would allow without the worry of some group screaming that Massachusetts' moral fiber would decay at a ridiculous rate. There would be no scare tactics of prostitution or people wasting their entire paychecks on slots or children being abandoned in their cars. The Legislators would have no problem with the money coming in and distribute it evenly, rather than try to corner the money for their own town, city or ward.
Even if the casino bill passed, I can imagine the kind of "gambling" we'd get if it went through - it would be regulated just as tightly and stiffly as alcohol is today, along with a mix of gimmicks such as environmental standards, limits on play, money and alcohol consumption, no ATM machines or ATM machines with very high access fees, and bans on any kind of comps, credit and the like.
When Puritanism dances with Curley-style parochialism, what you get are political hacks, self-styled moral activists, and others killing something that may or may not have had promise, but no one dared to try because they were afraid they'd offend the wrong people. The writer of the article sums everything up nicely, and you can easily substitute "gambling" for "alcohol":
What we really need is a culture that celebrates the wise use of alcohol rather than a body of laws whose aim is to make us feel guilty.
It would certainly prove that we cut all the laws of Puritanism but six, who were forced into service as pallbearers.
2/21/2010
Phasing in sounds like a good idea...
Hub Blog posts an article regarding an easier way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
The idea is to add a carbon tax of $300 a ton, or about $2.60 per gallon of gasoline.
I like it, but not for reasons of the psuedo-religion of environmentalism.
No - slapping a high premium on oil and gasoline would certainly discourage the excessive speculation going on in Wall Street. Put a $2.60 tax on a gallon of gasoline, and you will find a LOT of investors who should have no business in Wall Street leaving the energy futures market quicker than you can say "perp walk" and "margin call."
The reason? People who find themselves grumbling of paying $5 a gallon for gas will reduce demand even further. The demand on crude oil has been quite low since the stock market crash of 2009, even though we pay an average of $2.60 in Massachusetts. People like cheap gas (I do, even though I don't drive) but when gas is sky-high, people reduce a lot of their car driving. When gas went from $4.11 a gallon in June 2008 to $1.59 in December 2008, certainly it put money back in their pockets.
The reason why gasoline prices are high now is because Wall Street thinks that once the economy improves, people will return to their bad old driving habits and hence increase demand, and hence line their portfolios with monster profits. A $2.60 per gallon tax will not only cool off demand, it will all but freeze it. The crude oil traders in the NYMEX pits would drive the wholesale price to under a dollar because no one wants to drive when gas is over $5 a gallon. The floor, then, for a gallon of gas would be around $3.25-$3.50.
The other benefit will be that hostile foreign countries who feel the US will always be dependent on them for cheap oil won't be so accomodating when they go into their little diatribes against America. The Great Satan/imperialists/warmongers would finally tell these countries that, yeah, your imports are nice, but we've got cars that are more fuel efficient anyway. So, take your tankers back from whence they came and your fevered conspiracy theories and mumbo-jumbo too.
A better way to implement this gas tax would be to add this tax in 2011 at the end of every quarter. Adding 65 cents a quarter to the price of gasoline is less painful and won't cause as much panic as doing it all at once. Or, increasing the tax 10 cents every other week would cause far less panic as long as the public is notified beforehand.
The only problem I would forsee is a few activists screaming (as they're wont to do) "This tax is regressive towards the poor." Really? Everyone who drives will pay this tax, but in return for this high tax, innovation would explode exponentially - cars with better fuel mileage, substantial improvements to public transportation, and other developments. For example, Bermuda has a minimum gas price of $2.00 per liter - or $7.56 per gallon - yet their cars are much smaller and fuel efficient. So a 20 liter tank of gas that has a fuel efficiency of 5L/100km gives a Bermudian a 400km range - and the island itself is only 52 square kilometers. Conversely, Bermudians use scooters and public transportation to get around the islands. The same would happen if the US implements a this tax and the 30 gallon tanks of gas giving only 15 miles per gallon shrink to 10 gallon tanks giving 45 miles to the gallon. Same distance, but better fuel efficiency.
And I do like the aspect that control freaks who use the environment as an excuse to implement wild schemes like this will not like this kind of tax either because with it, they can't impose their ideals on us. Environmentalism, along with socialism and communism, is a false religion to begin with - they are religions worshipped by the elite who missed the memo that the United States isn't ruled by a monarchy or a dictator with military fatigues and bushy facial hair. If you want to worship trees and plants and pray that one day, animals can hold a reasonable conversation with you, go right ahead - but trying to control behavior because your morality must be followed without question harbors resentment and revolt. Americans don't like to be ruled.
Finally, if the benefits of this high tax outweigh the skepticism, indeed it will be a small cost to pay. The true scientific proof for global warming has not been established yet, and may take many years to establish, but if we can stave off at least the bad parts, it will be a boon for many people, not a curse.
The idea is to add a carbon tax of $300 a ton, or about $2.60 per gallon of gasoline.
I like it, but not for reasons of the psuedo-religion of environmentalism.
No - slapping a high premium on oil and gasoline would certainly discourage the excessive speculation going on in Wall Street. Put a $2.60 tax on a gallon of gasoline, and you will find a LOT of investors who should have no business in Wall Street leaving the energy futures market quicker than you can say "perp walk" and "margin call."
The reason? People who find themselves grumbling of paying $5 a gallon for gas will reduce demand even further. The demand on crude oil has been quite low since the stock market crash of 2009, even though we pay an average of $2.60 in Massachusetts. People like cheap gas (I do, even though I don't drive) but when gas is sky-high, people reduce a lot of their car driving. When gas went from $4.11 a gallon in June 2008 to $1.59 in December 2008, certainly it put money back in their pockets.
The reason why gasoline prices are high now is because Wall Street thinks that once the economy improves, people will return to their bad old driving habits and hence increase demand, and hence line their portfolios with monster profits. A $2.60 per gallon tax will not only cool off demand, it will all but freeze it. The crude oil traders in the NYMEX pits would drive the wholesale price to under a dollar because no one wants to drive when gas is over $5 a gallon. The floor, then, for a gallon of gas would be around $3.25-$3.50.
The other benefit will be that hostile foreign countries who feel the US will always be dependent on them for cheap oil won't be so accomodating when they go into their little diatribes against America. The Great Satan/imperialists/warmongers would finally tell these countries that, yeah, your imports are nice, but we've got cars that are more fuel efficient anyway. So, take your tankers back from whence they came and your fevered conspiracy theories and mumbo-jumbo too.
A better way to implement this gas tax would be to add this tax in 2011 at the end of every quarter. Adding 65 cents a quarter to the price of gasoline is less painful and won't cause as much panic as doing it all at once. Or, increasing the tax 10 cents every other week would cause far less panic as long as the public is notified beforehand.
The only problem I would forsee is a few activists screaming (as they're wont to do) "This tax is regressive towards the poor." Really? Everyone who drives will pay this tax, but in return for this high tax, innovation would explode exponentially - cars with better fuel mileage, substantial improvements to public transportation, and other developments. For example, Bermuda has a minimum gas price of $2.00 per liter - or $7.56 per gallon - yet their cars are much smaller and fuel efficient. So a 20 liter tank of gas that has a fuel efficiency of 5L/100km gives a Bermudian a 400km range - and the island itself is only 52 square kilometers. Conversely, Bermudians use scooters and public transportation to get around the islands. The same would happen if the US implements a this tax and the 30 gallon tanks of gas giving only 15 miles per gallon shrink to 10 gallon tanks giving 45 miles to the gallon. Same distance, but better fuel efficiency.
And I do like the aspect that control freaks who use the environment as an excuse to implement wild schemes like this will not like this kind of tax either because with it, they can't impose their ideals on us. Environmentalism, along with socialism and communism, is a false religion to begin with - they are religions worshipped by the elite who missed the memo that the United States isn't ruled by a monarchy or a dictator with military fatigues and bushy facial hair. If you want to worship trees and plants and pray that one day, animals can hold a reasonable conversation with you, go right ahead - but trying to control behavior because your morality must be followed without question harbors resentment and revolt. Americans don't like to be ruled.
Finally, if the benefits of this high tax outweigh the skepticism, indeed it will be a small cost to pay. The true scientific proof for global warming has not been established yet, and may take many years to establish, but if we can stave off at least the bad parts, it will be a boon for many people, not a curse.
12/04/2009
The altar of Gaia is fraught with Tofu-pup wrappers and crumpled pictures of Marx and Lenin in the nude
Note to the health Puritans and malignant gentry who are trying to hide their mega-control freak designs through Mother Earth - it's not nice to fool Mother Nature - in fact, pissing her off will give you something much more than you bargained for.
If they weren't so obnoxious on your neo-Puritan crusade, and actually MINDED THEIR OWN GODDAMN BUSINESS, people wouldn't see them as the fussy eaters and spoiled children they really are.
If they weren't so obnoxious on your neo-Puritan crusade, and actually MINDED THEIR OWN GODDAMN BUSINESS, people wouldn't see them as the fussy eaters and spoiled children they really are.
11/07/2009
When gentrification pisses off an entire neighborhood
Yuppie scum at its finest and most obnoxious, and a few questions:
1. How many of those condo units are affordable?
2. Are the loud booms from old Ironsides ruining people's whoopie making/yoga/debating sessions?
3. If you're here because it's an attractive area, why in blazes do you want to change it without a single shred of consideration for your neighbors, who were here much longer than you've been?
1. How many of those condo units are affordable?
2. Are the loud booms from old Ironsides ruining people's whoopie making/yoga/debating sessions?
3. If you're here because it's an attractive area, why in blazes do you want to change it without a single shred of consideration for your neighbors, who were here much longer than you've been?
8/12/2009
Julia Child: A foodie's goddess, a control freak's Mephistopheles
In this article, a member of the restaurant industry puts out the word that, yes, you can have your cake or hollandaise or Bloomin' Onion, but make sure you get some exercise. Otherwise, the armada of finger waggin' nannies will come to your door and raid your cabinets.
I'm currently into a program with a dietician that emphasizes fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and the like. I feel 100% better. At first, I missed caffeine and pancakes and that heavenly coffee roll with the white icing they sell at work, but then I discovered for half that amount of calories, I could have two slices of whole grain bread, peanut butter, and yogurt and be completely full hungry at 11am. I don't have those urges to raid the vending machine, except for the $2 Clif bar I buy. I even think I've lost weight.
That doesn't mean the health Puritans should slap the occasional cheeseburger and fries out of my hands. Sure, show me (not lecture, hector, cajole or anything resembling finger wagging) better food choices and their advantages, but unless you want a counterlecture on why strangers should mind their own damn business and not dictate their dogma to people, you'll walk right on by and shut your damn mouth.
In fact, I think a lot of what motivates these health Puritans (I'm looking directly at you, Tom Friedman of the CDC, the biggest nanny-state prick on the planet) is that they fear that the lower classes will discover that the foods that the upper classes take for granted are actually a lot better, and demand for these boutique foods will skyrocket. Hence, keeping the poor fat and happy on HFCS and cheap food is better than growing more food that gives out continuous energy, and charging an obscene amount for fruit ($3.99 for a half pound of pineapple at Au Bon Pain, when you can get a whole pineapple for 99 cents a pound and cut it up yourself?) and veggies kinda defeats the purpose of "beating obesity."
Which brings me to another point: health Puritans can't stand the sight of people who aren't perfect in weight and proportion. Most of the time it's the heavy and obese, but wouldn't it be nice if these dingalings cast their jaundiced eye on anorexic and bulimic girls, who sometimes are so underweight that they look like Holocaust death camp survivors? And for what purpose do these young girls count calories, exercise to exhaustion, and then wonder why their hair is falling out and their friends and parents are pleading them to stop losing weight? Fashion? To get that cute boy from her biology class to notice her? Being anorexic is just as bad as being obese - unless the goal of the health Puritans is to have a class of wafer-thin automatons who only survive on lettuce and water.
So the point of his letter, save the author's reputation, is to do what the great Julia Child did: be as much pain in the ass to the health Puritans as possible. Proclaim loudly and proudly that an entire stick of creamery butter makes the pies much better tasting, not some "weak as water" stand in. Incorporate as much liquor as Julia did, but not to the point where your entire dinner party is blitzed when the dessert comes around - including the children. And while your vegetarian friend looks at you in horror as you devour that 1/3 pound Angus burger, blithely mention that Julia Child lived till she was 92, and not on Gardenburgers and soy milk.
Then, after the dishes are cleared, head outside for a walk.
I'm currently into a program with a dietician that emphasizes fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and the like. I feel 100% better. At first, I missed caffeine and pancakes and that heavenly coffee roll with the white icing they sell at work, but then I discovered for half that amount of calories, I could have two slices of whole grain bread, peanut butter, and yogurt and be completely full hungry at 11am. I don't have those urges to raid the vending machine, except for the $2 Clif bar I buy. I even think I've lost weight.
That doesn't mean the health Puritans should slap the occasional cheeseburger and fries out of my hands. Sure, show me (not lecture, hector, cajole or anything resembling finger wagging) better food choices and their advantages, but unless you want a counterlecture on why strangers should mind their own damn business and not dictate their dogma to people, you'll walk right on by and shut your damn mouth.
In fact, I think a lot of what motivates these health Puritans (I'm looking directly at you, Tom Friedman of the CDC, the biggest nanny-state prick on the planet) is that they fear that the lower classes will discover that the foods that the upper classes take for granted are actually a lot better, and demand for these boutique foods will skyrocket. Hence, keeping the poor fat and happy on HFCS and cheap food is better than growing more food that gives out continuous energy, and charging an obscene amount for fruit ($3.99 for a half pound of pineapple at Au Bon Pain, when you can get a whole pineapple for 99 cents a pound and cut it up yourself?) and veggies kinda defeats the purpose of "beating obesity."
Which brings me to another point: health Puritans can't stand the sight of people who aren't perfect in weight and proportion. Most of the time it's the heavy and obese, but wouldn't it be nice if these dingalings cast their jaundiced eye on anorexic and bulimic girls, who sometimes are so underweight that they look like Holocaust death camp survivors? And for what purpose do these young girls count calories, exercise to exhaustion, and then wonder why their hair is falling out and their friends and parents are pleading them to stop losing weight? Fashion? To get that cute boy from her biology class to notice her? Being anorexic is just as bad as being obese - unless the goal of the health Puritans is to have a class of wafer-thin automatons who only survive on lettuce and water.
So the point of his letter, save the author's reputation, is to do what the great Julia Child did: be as much pain in the ass to the health Puritans as possible. Proclaim loudly and proudly that an entire stick of creamery butter makes the pies much better tasting, not some "weak as water" stand in. Incorporate as much liquor as Julia did, but not to the point where your entire dinner party is blitzed when the dessert comes around - including the children. And while your vegetarian friend looks at you in horror as you devour that 1/3 pound Angus burger, blithely mention that Julia Child lived till she was 92, and not on Gardenburgers and soy milk.
Then, after the dishes are cleared, head outside for a walk.
4/13/2009
Why snack taxes don't work, Exhibit #2,384
Going into the L'il Peach (now Tedeschi's) to buy a newspaper for the train/bus rides into Watertown, I literally have to go around groups of kids waiting to go into the Rogers. If I'm lucky, I'm able to purchase my paper (and a lottery ticket or two) before they can slam all of their sugar-laden junk onto the counter.
Here is my bit of friendly advice to Ray Considine, who is the head of the Medical Foundation in Boston. A lot of those kids come to Hyde Park from other parts of the city - mainly the inner city, like Roxbury and Dorchester. Their families likely cannot afford organic/vegan/super healthy things to begin with, so the kids don't get a healthy, nourishing breakfast. So they either (a) wait until they get into school, where the breakfast they serve is so bad even the rats refuse to eat it, or (b) they purchase quick cheap energy, like L'il Hugs, Doritos, and Little Debbies. Not many of them would be patient enough to buy a banana or buy a little cup of Milk and Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Unless you want a full-bore black market on junk food - to which many kids will gladly profit from and mark up the price to willing demand - forget the snack tax. It's a tax that will not fund health programs or anything remotely resembling health. (Notice I'm using the word "health" and not the diaphanously ambiguous and Orwellian "wellness.") They will be boomerang taxes, going from the poor to the government to fill their rainy day fund.
"But it will only add up to pennies!" you proclaim.
Horse hockey. For every dollar these kids spend, it's 5 pennies to the state. Five percent sales tax. Add that to a $1.50 bottle of soda, plus a five cent deposit, and it's a sneaky/stealth/backdoor 8% sales tax. A kid with two bottles of soda at $1.50 each, plus two hostess at a dollar, and a bag of Doritos at $0.75, is looking at a 7% tax. (The good thing is that they're not buying cigarettes at a national/state take of 50-60%, which I learned isn't going anywhere near smoking prevention programs, but to...wait for it...the rainy day fund.)
What are the efforts to control our smoking and eating habits anyway? I call these efforts health eugenics - the efforts of a government to conform the citizens into a perfect, docile, asexual, compliant group of Stepford people. Utopia ain't here and never will be. Trying to manipulate life and people for the promotion of utopia has violent, even deadly, results.
Here is my bit of friendly advice to Ray Considine, who is the head of the Medical Foundation in Boston. A lot of those kids come to Hyde Park from other parts of the city - mainly the inner city, like Roxbury and Dorchester. Their families likely cannot afford organic/vegan/super healthy things to begin with, so the kids don't get a healthy, nourishing breakfast. So they either (a) wait until they get into school, where the breakfast they serve is so bad even the rats refuse to eat it, or (b) they purchase quick cheap energy, like L'il Hugs, Doritos, and Little Debbies. Not many of them would be patient enough to buy a banana or buy a little cup of Milk and Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Unless you want a full-bore black market on junk food - to which many kids will gladly profit from and mark up the price to willing demand - forget the snack tax. It's a tax that will not fund health programs or anything remotely resembling health. (Notice I'm using the word "health" and not the diaphanously ambiguous and Orwellian "wellness.") They will be boomerang taxes, going from the poor to the government to fill their rainy day fund.
"But it will only add up to pennies!" you proclaim.
Horse hockey. For every dollar these kids spend, it's 5 pennies to the state. Five percent sales tax. Add that to a $1.50 bottle of soda, plus a five cent deposit, and it's a sneaky/stealth/backdoor 8% sales tax. A kid with two bottles of soda at $1.50 each, plus two hostess at a dollar, and a bag of Doritos at $0.75, is looking at a 7% tax. (The good thing is that they're not buying cigarettes at a national/state take of 50-60%, which I learned isn't going anywhere near smoking prevention programs, but to...wait for it...the rainy day fund.)
What are the efforts to control our smoking and eating habits anyway? I call these efforts health eugenics - the efforts of a government to conform the citizens into a perfect, docile, asexual, compliant group of Stepford people. Utopia ain't here and never will be. Trying to manipulate life and people for the promotion of utopia has violent, even deadly, results.
10/18/2008
Food control - why it's a waste of time and a failure
Every time I enter the L'il Peach in Cleary Square, the kids from the Rogers and Hyde Park High load up on whatever sugar-laden or fat-laden treats they can get their hands on. Many a time, I joked out loud that there should be a snack tax - one that would discourage kids from bollixing up the line by forking over more money for Pixy Stix, Chef's Cajun/Ketchup/Soul chips, and Ring Pops.
That would give richer, tonier, wealthier towns a wicked idea, though. Tack on a quarter to a fist full of Tootsie Pops, a bag of chips, or anything else that looks like junk food. They take a harsher line: they ban any form of sugar in their schools.
I'm wondering if the dearth of cupcakes and crullers really raised the SAT scores - no wealthy family will have their spawn at UMass Amherst to flip burgers or work in a cubicle when they could be at a Big Six accounting firm with a hot trophy wife and five Stepford children.
I think these richer towns have it wrong: You cannot hope to rein in obesity if you have a group of resentful kids and equally resentful parents glaring at you as if you were Captain Queeg. Take away the sugar, and they're bound to find it elsewhere and consume it sub rosa.
Are the kids from Lynn going to become illicit sugar suppliers for the kids in Lynnfield? How about the North Andover kids, jonesing for a can of Coke Classic, surreptitiously going over the border to Lawrence to snag a can - at inflated prices? And Brookline is surrounded by Boston, and it's easy to sneak into Allston and Roxbury to get your fix of Ho-hos and Yoo Hoo.
If these richer towns really want to do something about obesity, the first thing is to take the advice of Richard Simmons - bring back gym, also known as physical education. Letting the kids run around for twelve minutes a day during recess will not only get all that pent-up energy out of their systems, it will help maintain their health without your school administration being branded a nanny-state killjoy. The MCAS and other boutique courses can wait - and you won't be taking away a single cupcake or cookie without a whimper, as they'll be burned off as soon as the recess bell rings.
Second, the teachers should be examples to students, and not live their lives through them. That means they should encourage healthier eating by eating healthier themselves. If the teachers can have donuts and flavored coffee during their meetings and are telling their kids they can't bring in cupcakes for the bake sale, then the teacher's a hypocrite AND a liar. Maybe after a few meetings with the things they're forcing their students to do, they will modify their hasty decision.
Third, and most importantly, it is most important to know that social engineering through food control is a bad idea. Making kids perfect at the expense of letting them be kids is a Sysiphian task. Trying to control children through food also brings up nastier, elitist overtones, as in "Johnny won't be much if he's 300 pounds vs. Jenny's a good girl for being within 99% of her weight and height profile." In the future, Johnny could lose all that weight, or even maintain the weight and be fit (normal blood pressure, good cholesterol scores, etc.), while Jenny is in the hospital yet again because she can't gain control of her anorexia or buliemia, and she's one or two binge-purge sessions away from choking on her own vomit and dying - and she's the same 72 pounds she was in 5th grade, at the age of 21.
I don't talk about these things lightly because I am overweight myself. I am over 300 pounds, although I am 6-4. I have high blood pressure at times, and I am prone to lose weight one doctor's visit, only to put it back on another. I sit in front of a computer all day, and exercise is hit-or-miss. Ice cream is my Kryptonite. So what business would I have telling the school boards that their plans to ban sugar and junk food stinks?
Plenty.
I'm a lot like Johnny: my blood sugar and cholestrol is still good. I don't eat eggs all the time, I don't drink or smoke, or do drugs. I do walk, but not enough to get benefits. My doctor tells me I won't live past 60 if I keep on doing what I do, but losing weight and keeping it off isn't an easy process. There is no magic pill, no exercise program or diet program that will make me 100+ pounds lighter tomorrow. I've tried Weight Watchers and I've found it too heavy on meetings and group therapy (and massive amounts of accounting) and not enough on proper eating.
If these school boards think that sugar and junk food are the obstacles from keeping kids healthy, maybe they should consult reputable dietiticians and physicians who aren't paid to spout out the directives these school boards want to hear, as kids will also overeat the healthy, organic stuff equally simply because they think it's OK to gorge on soy shakes and organic tofu dogs.
Maybe they can bring Richard Simmons to their schools and tell them how to do it right.
That would give richer, tonier, wealthier towns a wicked idea, though. Tack on a quarter to a fist full of Tootsie Pops, a bag of chips, or anything else that looks like junk food. They take a harsher line: they ban any form of sugar in their schools.
I'm wondering if the dearth of cupcakes and crullers really raised the SAT scores - no wealthy family will have their spawn at UMass Amherst to flip burgers or work in a cubicle when they could be at a Big Six accounting firm with a hot trophy wife and five Stepford children.
I think these richer towns have it wrong: You cannot hope to rein in obesity if you have a group of resentful kids and equally resentful parents glaring at you as if you were Captain Queeg. Take away the sugar, and they're bound to find it elsewhere and consume it sub rosa.
Are the kids from Lynn going to become illicit sugar suppliers for the kids in Lynnfield? How about the North Andover kids, jonesing for a can of Coke Classic, surreptitiously going over the border to Lawrence to snag a can - at inflated prices? And Brookline is surrounded by Boston, and it's easy to sneak into Allston and Roxbury to get your fix of Ho-hos and Yoo Hoo.
If these richer towns really want to do something about obesity, the first thing is to take the advice of Richard Simmons - bring back gym, also known as physical education. Letting the kids run around for twelve minutes a day during recess will not only get all that pent-up energy out of their systems, it will help maintain their health without your school administration being branded a nanny-state killjoy. The MCAS and other boutique courses can wait - and you won't be taking away a single cupcake or cookie without a whimper, as they'll be burned off as soon as the recess bell rings.
Second, the teachers should be examples to students, and not live their lives through them. That means they should encourage healthier eating by eating healthier themselves. If the teachers can have donuts and flavored coffee during their meetings and are telling their kids they can't bring in cupcakes for the bake sale, then the teacher's a hypocrite AND a liar. Maybe after a few meetings with the things they're forcing their students to do, they will modify their hasty decision.
Third, and most importantly, it is most important to know that social engineering through food control is a bad idea. Making kids perfect at the expense of letting them be kids is a Sysiphian task. Trying to control children through food also brings up nastier, elitist overtones, as in "Johnny won't be much if he's 300 pounds vs. Jenny's a good girl for being within 99% of her weight and height profile." In the future, Johnny could lose all that weight, or even maintain the weight and be fit (normal blood pressure, good cholesterol scores, etc.), while Jenny is in the hospital yet again because she can't gain control of her anorexia or buliemia, and she's one or two binge-purge sessions away from choking on her own vomit and dying - and she's the same 72 pounds she was in 5th grade, at the age of 21.
I don't talk about these things lightly because I am overweight myself. I am over 300 pounds, although I am 6-4. I have high blood pressure at times, and I am prone to lose weight one doctor's visit, only to put it back on another. I sit in front of a computer all day, and exercise is hit-or-miss. Ice cream is my Kryptonite. So what business would I have telling the school boards that their plans to ban sugar and junk food stinks?
Plenty.
I'm a lot like Johnny: my blood sugar and cholestrol is still good. I don't eat eggs all the time, I don't drink or smoke, or do drugs. I do walk, but not enough to get benefits. My doctor tells me I won't live past 60 if I keep on doing what I do, but losing weight and keeping it off isn't an easy process. There is no magic pill, no exercise program or diet program that will make me 100+ pounds lighter tomorrow. I've tried Weight Watchers and I've found it too heavy on meetings and group therapy (and massive amounts of accounting) and not enough on proper eating.
If these school boards think that sugar and junk food are the obstacles from keeping kids healthy, maybe they should consult reputable dietiticians and physicians who aren't paid to spout out the directives these school boards want to hear, as kids will also overeat the healthy, organic stuff equally simply because they think it's OK to gorge on soy shakes and organic tofu dogs.
Maybe they can bring Richard Simmons to their schools and tell them how to do it right.
7/26/2008
Political correctness - the religion of the elite
Jon Keller gives a crack set of comments about the Lowell Spinners Political Correctness Night, where the bat boys were batpersons and the shortstops were vertically challenged players.
Keller also has a poll that highlights the killjoy nature of PC...I'm printing his poll out with my comments in red.
- Insistence on gender neutrality in all things (e.g. "selectperson" or "second-baseperson")
Where the men can now become nurses and women can now be mayors, there is no bias. When it gets ridiculous as in the above, it smacks of insecurity and avoiding reality.
- The insistence that there is no right or wrong
I graduated with a mathematics degree in 1994. Proving theorems and solving complex mathematical problems was the way I got out of writing fifteen page papers. The proof of 1+1=2 is rumored to be 800 pages long, and in abstract algebra, 1+1=2 is the result of an element in an additive ring with the operation of + acting as a collector of successive items, with 1 representing a unitary object and 2 representing the successive object.
In my current line of work, there are certain rules and regulations I must follow, and I must keep a high accuracy percentage, or else I get FIRED. That means I cannot explain my way out of my errors; I actually have to have proof that I was right before they dismiss the charge, so I'm guilty before I'm proven innocent.
'There is no right or wrong' is a cop-out when the person posing the question can't answer it either.
- Phobic antipathy toward Western civilization, its cultural works and beliefs
In other words, be really, really suspicious and jealous of stuff that was not done by the Third World, corrupt despots and bloodthirsty dictators, and things that involve science, law and other innovations...things that keep people in the Middle Ages or lesser.
- One must never do anything to damage anyone else's self-esteem (i.e. grading, tracking, testing)
Horsehockey (not to you, Jon!). Testing, grading and tracking is absolutely essential - it gauges knowledge, points out errors, and helps people to understand what is right and what is wrong. Even if you're not held to a job that expects high quality, you're still being graded, tracked and tested by your managers and supervisors to see if the hire they made (you) will be able to tackle higher assignments down the road. If you break under pressure, you may miss out on raises, and soon enough, you may be shown the door for lack of initiative.
- Feel-good environmental fads of dubious value (such as carbon footprint offsets)
Any activity that protects the elite at the expense of the non-elite is a product of guilt, guarded jealousy, and envy. The elite, in order to protect all their goodies, throw out all sorts of curve ball theories to keep the non-elite from enjoying their spoils. Environmentalism is a great example - the elite preach the gospel according to Gaia, but once the mercury-filled lights are dimmed, the elite go home in their carbon-wasting jets, drive their gas-guzzling cars, and enter their gated mansions, smugly counting their lucre behind closed doors and snickering. Any "-ism" that has been tried as a political fiat always fails and sometimes takes a human toll - sometimes at the point of a gun.
- Excessive emphasis on the "root causes" of violent criminal behavior
Analysis paralysis hasn't solved the great murders of the 20th and 21st century...but defense attorneys seem not to mind when they can bill at $300 per hour.
- Going nuclear over someone else's harmless slip of the tongue
Don Imus found out the hard way - referring to a women's basketball team as he did in passing was similar to taking down a hornet's nest with a machine gun.
On the other hand, if you're zealous in correcting people for their slips of the tongue, it would be better to keep your tongue in your mouth instead of being a pushy busybody.
- Valuing PC over the First Amendment
Free speech is not equal to saying whatever you want while the other speaker is forced to listen. Free speech is also not equal to having people accept your wacky theories or your obscenity-laden tirades.
Free speech really is saying things that people won't agree with, any may require you clarify your statement. Free speech also guarantees us saying things without fear of arrest or reprisal.
PC mutates free speech into something that is synthetic, a sort of code-word interlingua between two people who are afraid to say in public what they are free to say behind closed doors. PC euphemizes unpleasant things, incorrectly elevates dull ones, and attempts to block off all stereotypes and characterizations that people find unsettling. PC manages to take the joy out of wonderful, marvelous things and reduces them to impersonal, cold machinations, in which the joke is on the unknowing.
Behind closed doors, the freedom to be ugly and to lash out on those beneath you while in public you painstakingly choreographed the correct, inoffensive version prove you to be a phony, rather than being one of the "enlightened."
Keller also has a poll that highlights the killjoy nature of PC...I'm printing his poll out with my comments in red.
- Insistence on gender neutrality in all things (e.g. "selectperson" or "second-baseperson")
Where the men can now become nurses and women can now be mayors, there is no bias. When it gets ridiculous as in the above, it smacks of insecurity and avoiding reality.
- The insistence that there is no right or wrong
I graduated with a mathematics degree in 1994. Proving theorems and solving complex mathematical problems was the way I got out of writing fifteen page papers. The proof of 1+1=2 is rumored to be 800 pages long, and in abstract algebra, 1+1=2 is the result of an element in an additive ring with the operation of + acting as a collector of successive items, with 1 representing a unitary object and 2 representing the successive object.
In my current line of work, there are certain rules and regulations I must follow, and I must keep a high accuracy percentage, or else I get FIRED. That means I cannot explain my way out of my errors; I actually have to have proof that I was right before they dismiss the charge, so I'm guilty before I'm proven innocent.
'There is no right or wrong' is a cop-out when the person posing the question can't answer it either.
- Phobic antipathy toward Western civilization, its cultural works and beliefs
In other words, be really, really suspicious and jealous of stuff that was not done by the Third World, corrupt despots and bloodthirsty dictators, and things that involve science, law and other innovations...things that keep people in the Middle Ages or lesser.
- One must never do anything to damage anyone else's self-esteem (i.e. grading, tracking, testing)
Horsehockey (not to you, Jon!). Testing, grading and tracking is absolutely essential - it gauges knowledge, points out errors, and helps people to understand what is right and what is wrong. Even if you're not held to a job that expects high quality, you're still being graded, tracked and tested by your managers and supervisors to see if the hire they made (you) will be able to tackle higher assignments down the road. If you break under pressure, you may miss out on raises, and soon enough, you may be shown the door for lack of initiative.
- Feel-good environmental fads of dubious value (such as carbon footprint offsets)
Any activity that protects the elite at the expense of the non-elite is a product of guilt, guarded jealousy, and envy. The elite, in order to protect all their goodies, throw out all sorts of curve ball theories to keep the non-elite from enjoying their spoils. Environmentalism is a great example - the elite preach the gospel according to Gaia, but once the mercury-filled lights are dimmed, the elite go home in their carbon-wasting jets, drive their gas-guzzling cars, and enter their gated mansions, smugly counting their lucre behind closed doors and snickering. Any "-ism" that has been tried as a political fiat always fails and sometimes takes a human toll - sometimes at the point of a gun.
- Excessive emphasis on the "root causes" of violent criminal behavior
Analysis paralysis hasn't solved the great murders of the 20th and 21st century...but defense attorneys seem not to mind when they can bill at $300 per hour.
- Going nuclear over someone else's harmless slip of the tongue
Don Imus found out the hard way - referring to a women's basketball team as he did in passing was similar to taking down a hornet's nest with a machine gun.
On the other hand, if you're zealous in correcting people for their slips of the tongue, it would be better to keep your tongue in your mouth instead of being a pushy busybody.
- Valuing PC over the First Amendment
Free speech is not equal to saying whatever you want while the other speaker is forced to listen. Free speech is also not equal to having people accept your wacky theories or your obscenity-laden tirades.
Free speech really is saying things that people won't agree with, any may require you clarify your statement. Free speech also guarantees us saying things without fear of arrest or reprisal.
PC mutates free speech into something that is synthetic, a sort of code-word interlingua between two people who are afraid to say in public what they are free to say behind closed doors. PC euphemizes unpleasant things, incorrectly elevates dull ones, and attempts to block off all stereotypes and characterizations that people find unsettling. PC manages to take the joy out of wonderful, marvelous things and reduces them to impersonal, cold machinations, in which the joke is on the unknowing.
Behind closed doors, the freedom to be ugly and to lash out on those beneath you while in public you painstakingly choreographed the correct, inoffensive version prove you to be a phony, rather than being one of the "enlightened."
6/21/2008
Acting like the very children you wish to teach
The correct, diplomatic way of asking two kids to stop discussing hunting:
"Guys, I think that's an interesting story, but a little bit too graphic for other kids. You can still discuss it, but please talk quietly, or perhaps talk about it later."
The incorrect, childish, selfish, immature way of asking two kids to stop discussing hunting:
"LALALALA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU! I DON'T WANT TO KNOW IF YOU KILLED BAMBI OR NOT! I HIKED, I STRIPPED NAKED AND WORSHIPPED GAIA, I'M BETTER THAN YOU, LALALALA!"
And yes, it was in theNew Upper West Side Socialist Nation of Vermont, where hunting is still acceptable, except you can't run over deer or bears with your Prius.
Update: Newsbusters also follows the story with one really good quote from Okie:
"Guys, I think that's an interesting story, but a little bit too graphic for other kids. You can still discuss it, but please talk quietly, or perhaps talk about it later."
The incorrect, childish, selfish, immature way of asking two kids to stop discussing hunting:
"LALALALA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU! I DON'T WANT TO KNOW IF YOU KILLED BAMBI OR NOT! I HIKED, I STRIPPED NAKED AND WORSHIPPED GAIA, I'M BETTER THAN YOU, LALALALA!"
And yes, it was in the
Update: Newsbusters also follows the story with one really good quote from Okie:
And who's the 10 year old here?
The teacher covering up her ears and saying "la la la la la la".
The woman is an idiot. I hope she gets fired for stupidity. (emphasis mine)
1/28/2008
Smoking - an addiction for people and politicians
My mother quit smoking on New Years Day 1991, and she does not miss the habit. Back in 1991, there weren't as many finger-waggers telling her all of those lovely chemicals she's putting into her body, and a pack of cigarettes cost about $2 a pack. Today, thanks to an excise tax of $1.51 per pack of cigs, the cheapest you can get a pack of cigs is $3.50, with the name brands clocking in at least $5.00. In New York State, a pack of cigarettes goes for at least $6 - and in New York City, you can't even get an ultra-cheap (as in no-name, you've got to be desperate) pack of cancer stix for less than $8.
When I went to Mohegan Sun for my birthday last year, I would have expected cigarettes to be much cheaper. Boy, was I wrong: a pack of Marlboros went for the princely sum of $9.65 per pack. (I have no clue how much the cheapos were, but a sawbuck? They were also selling bars of soap with real money for $13.95 - and of course, stupid me bought one. I did, however, use that dollar inside the bar of soap to play the daily numbers and ended up winning $721.)
In some of the New York State Indian reservations, however, you can still get name-brands for more than half the price. Why? The Indians kinda sorta don't put tax stamps on the packages.
This means the bridge & tunnel folks from Queens and Brooklyn (and their Manhattanite friends) who don't want to venture into their corner bodega can take a quick trip to the Hamptons for a family "visit" and stop by the Shinnecock Indian rez for a carton of Newports at $50. If their corner bodega is selling them for $8.50 a pack, that's $170 a carton there versus $50 (and $2.50 a pack) at the rez, meaning a savings of $120 per carton. No wonder the Indians in New York State like business the way it is, and the wholesalers are a bit miffed.
And believe the wholesalers with a fisheye when they say the cheap cigs are funding terrorism. Wholesalers who deliver to stores get a commission on all the sales they make, no matter what the price. So, when they go into the convenience store and set up their displays, it's not to make sure the lady in a bikini is not showing too much bodacious ta-ta; it's because that bodacious ta-ta is the difference between a stale pack that doesn't get sold and several hundred orders, perhaps with the bodacious ta-ta exposed. The wholesalers are blowing as much smoke to deceive the public; if the black market were as thriving as the wholesalers would have you believe, then New York City would have returned to the glorious cesspool of iniquity it once was. It hasn't, and it looks like the wholesalers are ticked that Indian tobacco sellers are cutting into their commissions and profits.
It doesn't mean I approve of smoking. I don't smoke myself, and I personally don't care if you light up, and I will not stop you if you're puffing away (if you ask nicely, all the fuss you'll get is a friendly hand wave and a "g'right ahead.").
Imagine, though, if cigarettes were ultimately banned. Everyone stopped smoking, no one got dirty looks when you lit up, and you didn't smell like an ashtray.
The politicians would have a hell of a time getting over their addiction - to smoker's money.
Here in Massachusetts, the excise tax for a carton is $1.51 x 20 = $30.20. $30.20 is not chump change, and a million cartons not being lit up means $30.2 million denied to the Commonwealth's coffers. Hence, you will see increasing and more constrictive rules on smoking, but you will never, ever see a complete ban, because once the commonwealth or any other state bans smoking completely, they lose hundreds of millions of dollars in easy, regressive tax revenue. The nanny state is not bold or ballsy enough to do a total ban, so they must do their deeds in passive-aggressive steps.
If there's anyone who really must get an intervention, it's the governments who use their insecurities and moralities to control people. Smoking is that perfect example: if smoking were banned, the states would require cases of Nicorette Tax patches.
When I went to Mohegan Sun for my birthday last year, I would have expected cigarettes to be much cheaper. Boy, was I wrong: a pack of Marlboros went for the princely sum of $9.65 per pack. (I have no clue how much the cheapos were, but a sawbuck? They were also selling bars of soap with real money for $13.95 - and of course, stupid me bought one. I did, however, use that dollar inside the bar of soap to play the daily numbers and ended up winning $721.)
In some of the New York State Indian reservations, however, you can still get name-brands for more than half the price. Why? The Indians kinda sorta don't put tax stamps on the packages.
This means the bridge & tunnel folks from Queens and Brooklyn (and their Manhattanite friends) who don't want to venture into their corner bodega can take a quick trip to the Hamptons for a family "visit" and stop by the Shinnecock Indian rez for a carton of Newports at $50. If their corner bodega is selling them for $8.50 a pack, that's $170 a carton there versus $50 (and $2.50 a pack) at the rez, meaning a savings of $120 per carton. No wonder the Indians in New York State like business the way it is, and the wholesalers are a bit miffed.
And believe the wholesalers with a fisheye when they say the cheap cigs are funding terrorism. Wholesalers who deliver to stores get a commission on all the sales they make, no matter what the price. So, when they go into the convenience store and set up their displays, it's not to make sure the lady in a bikini is not showing too much bodacious ta-ta; it's because that bodacious ta-ta is the difference between a stale pack that doesn't get sold and several hundred orders, perhaps with the bodacious ta-ta exposed. The wholesalers are blowing as much smoke to deceive the public; if the black market were as thriving as the wholesalers would have you believe, then New York City would have returned to the glorious cesspool of iniquity it once was. It hasn't, and it looks like the wholesalers are ticked that Indian tobacco sellers are cutting into their commissions and profits.
It doesn't mean I approve of smoking. I don't smoke myself, and I personally don't care if you light up, and I will not stop you if you're puffing away (if you ask nicely, all the fuss you'll get is a friendly hand wave and a "g'right ahead.").
Imagine, though, if cigarettes were ultimately banned. Everyone stopped smoking, no one got dirty looks when you lit up, and you didn't smell like an ashtray.
The politicians would have a hell of a time getting over their addiction - to smoker's money.
Here in Massachusetts, the excise tax for a carton is $1.51 x 20 = $30.20. $30.20 is not chump change, and a million cartons not being lit up means $30.2 million denied to the Commonwealth's coffers. Hence, you will see increasing and more constrictive rules on smoking, but you will never, ever see a complete ban, because once the commonwealth or any other state bans smoking completely, they lose hundreds of millions of dollars in easy, regressive tax revenue. The nanny state is not bold or ballsy enough to do a total ban, so they must do their deeds in passive-aggressive steps.
If there's anyone who really must get an intervention, it's the governments who use their insecurities and moralities to control people. Smoking is that perfect example: if smoking were banned, the states would require cases of Nicorette Tax patches.
8/13/2007
Get your control freak hands off my "everything!"
We read this article regarding an overarching desire for change (through the good people at lucianne.com) and discovered a few things that shocked us.
1. People secretly adore criminals because they're the ultimate rebels, until said criminals turn around, point a gun at your head, demand all your money, shoot you dead, and your friends are agog at the ruthless efficiency of their criminal nature!
2. "Everything must be different!" is a battle cry for "We're so overwhelmed with guilt we can't stand it! Let our control freak flag fly, establish totalitarianism for everyone, make people exceedingly poor - except us, where we'll be off in our own island, using the same slave classes to bring us drinks and food chop-chop while we bang out press releases and enjoy the fruits of their labors!"
3. "Now normal folks are speaking out in their own media, and it just freaks out our socialist Ruling Class." That's because the socialist Ruling Class are a bunch of control addicts who deserve every bit of venom cast towards their simpering maws, including extended middle fingers, blogs that blast every single conspiracy theory to dust, and people who "just don't get" the spoiled elite and find out answers for themselves!
1. People secretly adore criminals because they're the ultimate rebels, until said criminals turn around, point a gun at your head, demand all your money, shoot you dead, and your friends are agog at the ruthless efficiency of their criminal nature!
2. "Everything must be different!" is a battle cry for "We're so overwhelmed with guilt we can't stand it! Let our control freak flag fly, establish totalitarianism for everyone, make people exceedingly poor - except us, where we'll be off in our own island, using the same slave classes to bring us drinks and food chop-chop while we bang out press releases and enjoy the fruits of their labors!"
3. "Now normal folks are speaking out in their own media, and it just freaks out our socialist Ruling Class." That's because the socialist Ruling Class are a bunch of control addicts who deserve every bit of venom cast towards their simpering maws, including extended middle fingers, blogs that blast every single conspiracy theory to dust, and people who "just don't get" the spoiled elite and find out answers for themselves!
6/27/2007
The "We Hate Opposing Viewpoints" Doctrine
That's what the Fairness Doctrine really was about: For each point, there was a mandatory counterpoint in the green room, getting prepped by the producer. Then, in 1986, the Fairness Doctrine was scrapped, giving rise to such things as talk radio.
John Gibson: Those who want the Fairness Doctrine back into law will cut off a lot of its own noses to spite faces. Each time Bill Maher comes on, Ann Coulter must follow. For every Dixie Chick, a Tobey Keith, &c, &c. In other words, Hollywood, the movie industry, et. al. must become a defacto Fox News, fair and balanced and cannot rely on the polemic of one to stand while the response of the other is left unheard. (Hannity & Colmes are already a shoo in, no further parts required.)
Jon Keller: You might like all the roses in your garden, and find one rose rotting, but does that mean you put the flame-thrower to the entire rose garden? Jon puts the smackdown on a certain rotanes from Massachusetts whose $1.50 words contain zero nutritional value - sort of like cotton candy without the flavor or the teeth-rotting sugar.
Dennis Miller also gives his two cents: advertisers like the Mr. Roarke approach ("smiles, everybody!") to radio, rather than the Marge Simpson as a blue squirrel against Itchy 'n Scratchy ("don't do that! don't do that!") or the crazy nutball who thinks George Carlin talks about doomsday from the Ms Pac Man game at the bus terminal.
To us, bringing back the Fairness Doctrine represents a temper tantrum by spoiled brats, who desperately want to be heard, but the fed up parents are walking away. It's also about MONEY - those juicy advertising dollars that businesses put out for radio shows that work hard for it, not a bunch of slackers who paste together a whole buncha nothin' (or a whole bunch of horsehockey) and call it a show. The solution? Reminds us of the story of the man who deals with screaming and naughty children, whispers something into their ears, and everything magically stops and they walk away...when the shopkeeper asks how he did it, he said, "I threatened to give them the biggest spanking of their lives."
John Gibson: Those who want the Fairness Doctrine back into law will cut off a lot of its own noses to spite faces. Each time Bill Maher comes on, Ann Coulter must follow. For every Dixie Chick, a Tobey Keith, &c, &c. In other words, Hollywood, the movie industry, et. al. must become a defacto Fox News, fair and balanced and cannot rely on the polemic of one to stand while the response of the other is left unheard. (Hannity & Colmes are already a shoo in, no further parts required.)
Jon Keller: You might like all the roses in your garden, and find one rose rotting, but does that mean you put the flame-thrower to the entire rose garden? Jon puts the smackdown on a certain rotanes from Massachusetts whose $1.50 words contain zero nutritional value - sort of like cotton candy without the flavor or the teeth-rotting sugar.
Dennis Miller also gives his two cents: advertisers like the Mr. Roarke approach ("smiles, everybody!") to radio, rather than the Marge Simpson as a blue squirrel against Itchy 'n Scratchy ("don't do that! don't do that!") or the crazy nutball who thinks George Carlin talks about doomsday from the Ms Pac Man game at the bus terminal.
To us, bringing back the Fairness Doctrine represents a temper tantrum by spoiled brats, who desperately want to be heard, but the fed up parents are walking away. It's also about MONEY - those juicy advertising dollars that businesses put out for radio shows that work hard for it, not a bunch of slackers who paste together a whole buncha nothin' (or a whole bunch of horsehockey) and call it a show. The solution? Reminds us of the story of the man who deals with screaming and naughty children, whispers something into their ears, and everything magically stops and they walk away...when the shopkeeper asks how he did it, he said, "I threatened to give them the biggest spanking of their lives."
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