I'd Like To Buy The World A Coke...

But I won't be able to afford the taxes. At least, not in New York.

Seems Governor David Paterson wants to combat obesity by adding a penny-an-ounce tax to sugared sodas. That price move, according to this article, will make some brands of beer cheaper than soda.

Now, ignoring the argument over whether you can call Old Milwaukee "beer", let's look at the important point:

Why the hell should everybody be punished for those who cannot exercise moderation?!

I've blogged on this before, because it's a topic that pisses me off. Clearly, it's an idea that's not going away. But guess what? I'm not growing more accepting... on the contrary - I'm more pissed about it than I used to be! But maybe I'm alone. From the comments section of the article:

Freedom of choice is all well and good, but New York has the largest Medicaid system in the country–a very expensive support system for many of the people who drink lots of soda and give it to their children. All of us pay for the medical treatments for poor people that result from their bad consumption decision-making.

THIS is the kind of thinking that will one day threaten the world's supply of bacon.

One last thought on this.
Think carefully... The last time you saw a truly gargantuan member of our society zooming through the grocery store on a motorized cart intended for the handicapped, what was in their basket?

I know, from personal observations, it usually goes like this:
A layer of snack cakes, some Cheetos, frozen dinners and processed food and....

DIET FREAKING SODA!

Foods That Make Us Feel Full?

Scientists in the Netherlands are playing with the notion that food could be engineered to make us feel full faster in an effort to combat obesity. In a recent study, researchers focus "on the possibility of using aroma as a trigger for inducing or increasing satiation". From the study (emphasis mine):

"The extent of retronasal aroma release appears to be a physiological feature
that characterizes any individual. Although the extent of retronasal aroma
release appears to be subject specific, food product properties can be
tailored in such a way that these can lead to a higher quality and/or
quantity of retronasal aroma stimulation. This in turn provokes enhanced
feelings of satiation and ultimately may contribute to a decrease in
food intake."

So... they literally want to explore the possibility of changing our food so that we are tricked into feeling full while eating less.

In a world of ever-expanding waistlines and an "obesity epidemic!" (as though it's contagious), I'm sure to some this seems like a dandy idea. Since personal responsibility is an endangered species, and since we clearly can't expect people to make sensible choices on their own, why not just fix the food so nobody eats too much of it?

What about the ectomorphs?

Seriously. What about people like me? Not only am I not overweight, just maintaining a normal weight is a struggle. What happens to those of us who are required by their metabolism to eat more than the recommended number of calories, just to keep from shrinking?

I realize there's little sympathy for folks like me. While we're to feel bad for people who dig their grave with fork and spoon, the naturally scrawny people of the world have our own problems which are largely ignored, misunderstood, or outright mocked.

Most people would never think to ask the gelatinous blob of flesh in the checkout line behind them (in a cart meant for the handicapped, most likely) whether they've considered a diet. But you might be stunned to know how many people think nothing at all of asking a skinny person "Do you EAT?!" People who would consider it rude to berate the morbidly obese seem to lose all sense of manners when it comes to the underweight. In a culture obsessed with weight, we're considered "lucky" by folks who say "I wish I had your problem!" And the fact that a need for massive amounts of calories is, in fact, a daily inconvenience with real health consequences is lost in the fact that we're thin without effort.

I'll be honest... This study pisses me off. We should tinker with the food supply rather than allow people to suffer the consequences of their gluttony and sloth? We should make everybody eat less because we have a large contingent of fatties with no self-control? We should make life harder for people who are doing what they have to do because other people can't stop doing what they shouldn't be doing in the first place?

I have a better idea. Let the people who overeat suffer the effects of their bad habits... and leave the rest of us alone.

Michael Moore's Action Plan

Michael Moore's Action DIET Plan. There... fixed that.

Yesterday Michael Moore wrote a piece that I saw on both HuffingtonPost and DemocraticUnderground. "My Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now".

Now, I'm not going to even touch most of this piece. For one thing, it will be dissected and either mocked or applauded all over the blogosphere so there's no need for one more entry on his politics. Moore's pretty blatant about his socialist ideas, and none of that is new or news.

That said, there IS a bit in Moore's piece I have to address. When it comes to his politics, he's been called out for his hypocrisy before, and it doesn't phase him. But this time he's taken the "Do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do" elitist nonsense to a new level. You see, in his "Action Plan" he has graciously included his "Diet Plan". Ready?

Turn off the TV and the Blackberry and go for a 30-minute walk every day. Eat
fruits and vegetables and cut down on anything that has sugar, high fructose
corn syrup, white flour or too much sodium (salt) in it (and, as Michael Pollan
says, "Eat (real) food, not too much, mostly plants").

I'm sorry. Have you seen Michael Moore? Let's have another look, shall we?

Or how about this one?

THIS is the man who says the rest of us should "Eat (real) food, not too much, mostly plants"

Are you shitting me, Michael?

We've (unfortunately) become used to the class that considers itself our betters giving advice and orders for the peons to follow, but which never seem to apply to the inner circle. We have Rangel the tax cheat setting tax policy for the rest of us. We have a president who smokes cigarettes himself but who has not called out the higher rates for smokers in the proposed health bill. We have legislators who can't be bothered to read bills they'll be voting on telling the rest of us we don't need to read the bills for ourselves (because it would force them to read the bills in order to debate us later).

And now we have this tub of guts, this poster boy for the positive points of anorexia, this morbidly obese slob who often appears to be dirty as well as fat telling the rest of us how to eat?! I don't think so.

I don't believe for a minute Michael Moore follows this plan. Not for one bloody second do I buy it. Nobody who walks 30 minutes a day and eats "(real) food, not too much, mostly plants" looks like Michael Moore. If he can prove this is what he does every day of his life as he is advising the rest of us, I'll eat one of my sneakers.

And if he DOES follow that eating plan himself and STILL looks the way he does... well, isn't that all the argument we need to NOT follow his diet advice? Considering the rest of us are almost universally smaller than Moore, wouldn't it be a terrible mistake to begin a diet regimen that would turn us all into... well... disgusting blobs?

Nope. Sorry. Not falling for it. I think Michael Moore is a hypocrite and a liar, more now than ever before. And if the diet plan he advises every American to follow is how he maintains his own... um... figure... well, he can keep following it himself and provide shade for the rest of us.

A Better "Fat Tax"

"I love to smoke... I love to smoke... I LOVE to fucking smoke! I smoke seven THOUSAND packs a day, and I am never going to quit!" -- Denis Leary

As you can probably guess, I smoke. And the above statement sums up my feelings pretty succinctly.

OK, that's not true. I twice made an effort to quit. The first time, I was asked nicely to please have a cigarette. I'm guessing I was pretty unbearable. The second time is a blog entry all by itself. But aside from those two blips, I have been smoking for a long, long time. It's my only vice. Or rather, it's the only vice I intend to discuss here. Heh. And the deepest, truest reason I carry on with a decades-old habit is simple. I love to smoke!

And you know what? I resent like hell that everytime our government has a new pet project or an old bill they can't pay, somehow I get to cover the tab! What's that about? I'm reasonably healthy, I'm not on government insurance, and I don't plan to sue anyone when my lungs turn black and shrivel. I'm tired of hearing how I am responsible for raising America's health care bills! The latest plan being bandied about actually proposes to charge me more than others for health care. And the TAXES! Good grief, I single-handedly funded NASA last year with my habit.

NOW they want to start taxing junk food. I don't each much junk food, to be honest. It's not a health-nut thing (obviously... see previous paragraphs), it's just not to my taste. But it strikes me as pretty unbalanced to tax certain foods and not others. Even though I don't agree with the cigarette taxes, at least those taxes are put directly on the people who have the health risk of smoking. We're going to tax these other things because SOME of the people who eat them are obese. How is that fair? Not everyone who eats a Twinkie is fat.

So... (fair warning - NOTHING that follows is politically correct)... Here's my proposal.

I want to see a BMI tax!

That's right. A fatass tax. And I do not mean a tax on soda, or Twinkies, or Whoppers, or any product out there that is also enjoyed by people who aren't a walking zip code. I'm talking about a tax based directly on how many extra chins you have blobbering down the front of what used to be your neck. I want to see people charged for every last nasty glob of cellulite. I want a love-handle surtax and a fine for dunlap disease. (As in: "Your belly dunlapped over the waistband of your britches.") If taxing cigarettes only punishes smokers, it is not fair to tax anyone who drinks a Coke, whether they happen to be normal sized or ...ahem... BIG.

You know the ones I'm talking about. They're the folks that take all the motorized carts (meant for the handicapped) at the grocery store because they're TOO FAT TO WALK DOWN THE AISLES. Here's a tip for ya: If your ass is too large to walk through the grocery store under your own power, you probably don't need groceries! Or consider that if you got off your ginormous ass and DID go walkabout, you might return to normal size. Being a human land mass isn't a handicap, and you shouldn't be tooling around on a device meant for people who have an actual disability.

And please... I do not want to hear the tired old screed of "gland problem". I'll grant you that some people who struggle with their weight have a medical problem. But for most of them, it's a FORK problem! Don't push past me with your scooter-cart filled with Pepsi and potato chips and then tell me you can't help it. "But, my whole family is big!", some say. Well, look how you people eat! When a four-hundred pound slab of meat is doing the family cooking, don't try to tell me you're living on veggies and tofu. "Deep-fried" and "sugar-coated" are NOT food groups.

Or my other favorite: "It costs more to eat healthy." Please. I buy groceries, OK? It's cheaper to buy a head of lettuce and a bag of carrots than a box of snack cakes and a six-pack of soda. And a gallon of water is the cheapest beverage on the shelves. You can eat junk food if you understand the concept of moderation. Processed foods might be cheaper and less nutritious, but portion control can solve most calorie problems. (Translation: Have a SERVING of fries, not the whole damn bag!)

Frankly, I find it disgusting. And horribly unfair. These people are a heart attack looking for a place to happen, and yet when I light up a smoke in front of some of them I get "Don't you know how BAD that is for you?" Yeah, Jabba... like the extra three people you're dragging around with you in your big & tall pants is a health craze. Pffft.

So keep raising the cigarette taxes. After all, part of the rationale is that it'll eventually get people to quit, right? (Then what will they do? Tax all the smokers until we quit or die, then where will all that money come from? Hey, NASA - there goes your funding!) But if you're going to tax MY bad health traits, I say we spead it around. Bring on the BMI tax! Let's tax the fatties with a sliding scale based on poundage. Then Michael Moore could fund the new health care system all by himself!