Calling critics of the plan “ridiculous,” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is defending his proposed ban on large-size sugary sodas. I have long been a critic of such measures, but this one is particularly presumptuous in my view. People should have a choice as to what and how much they wish to eat and drink. The ban is particularly illogical since it would simply require people to buy multiple cans of soda unless Bloomberg will next impose a drink limit for New Yorkers. You can have as many Manhattans as you want but do not reach for the super-sized soda. I am waiting for the next bumper sticker: ”If Big Gulps Are a Crime, Only Criminals Will Have Big Gulps.”
I agree with critics that this is the ultimate example of the “Nanny state” where the government dictates the the proper lifestyle choices and risks for adults. I have no problem with banning sodas in school as many district have done. However, Bloomberg has decided that educational programs and warnings are not enough because adults are not meeting the expectations of the government. Bloomberg is quoted as saying “I look across this country, and people are obese, and everybody wrings their hands, and nobody’s willing to do something about it.” The solution therefore is to take away choice and to dictate Dr. Bloomberg’s diet for all citizens.
The soda ban will be introduced on June 12 at a New York City Board of Health meeting. It is expected to pass.
However, Bloomberg insists that when you are told that you cannot have that soda, “Nobody is taking away any of your rights. This way, we’re just telling you ‘That’s a lot of soda.’” Really? Sounds a lot like “you can’t have that soda.”
Honestly, if prohibition did not work for alcohol, it is likely to be even less successful for sodas. What is unclear is why Bloomberg is not also banning french fries, onion rings, and other unhealthy foods eaten in excessive quantities. How about requiring proof that a large stuffed pizza has no fewer than four persons willing to sign for it? I think people have a right to an unhealthy lifestyle. This is not like second-hand smoke that harms others. You can be around someone with a large soda and remain perfectly healthy.
There must be something to occupy the Mayor’s time beyond soda drinkers like serial killers. Forcing people to buy two ten ounce sodas rather than one twenty ounce soda is hardly a public interest triumph. However, it is not the sheer stupidity but the sheer hubris that I find remarkable about this proposed ban. Perhaps the good Mayor should stop “looking across the country” like some stern Satrap and focus on those harms that people do to others from crime to pollution.
In the meantime, I will soon issue a new bumper sticker for the soda patriots: “You Can Pry My Big Gulp From My Cold Fat Fingers.”
Source: LA Times
I don’t think Bloomberg expects it to pass. He just wants to draw attention to the subject of obese kids and the Type II diabetes epidemic. That is real. If this tactic works, it’s a net good for everyone. A little hype over a doomed measure is no threat to the Republic.
The broader argument is that reckless behavior resulting in obesity (or drug addiction, or tripping from untied shoelaces etc) drives up health expenses and is therefore subject to regulation.
What he wants to ban is an epidemic.
Obesity and its sidekick diabetes.
This epidemic alone can destroy a nation.
The propaganda of Bullshitistan that produces what is called “food” around here is really “poison”, on many levels.
War = peace
ignorance = wisdom
food = poison
Somebody has to take these m***erf***ers down.
Problem is, it is the m***erf***ers vs. the other m***erf***ers that we have to choose between.
Like it was planned.
What will be banned next?
x
Alcohol’s a problem too. Is he going to ban “40s”? Or would rhat create a bigger shit-storm?
Sodas are not good for anyone. However, prohibition doesn’t work in spite of what big daddy says.
Difficult to know where the greatest idiocy resides, even if we hold our consideration to Bloomberg.
Difficult to consider anything advanced by the torturer of the hurricane threatened, the user of police powers against OWS, and now the claimed savior of the obese, as being anything but pushing the mayorial envelope of power.
Having trained to drink and eat ourselves to death on sugar, to then come with restrictions is as JT says a hypocritical repeat of Prohibition. Is he playing for attention and a VEEP nomination.
Wait until the doors and walls have to be torn down so that the gross obese can be brought to his doorstep to protest the limitation. Will it move his heart, or mind, when he sees the seas of basteing flesh frying in the sun?
Doubt it.
Ignoring what we know today about alcohol, aspirin, sugar consumption, and marijuana smoking, which of the above should be banned or regulated by society?
“People should have a choice as to what and how much they wish to eat and drink.”
I wish to eat horse and dog and drink alcohol in public places and consume marijuana and heroin.
“The ban is particularly illogical since it would simply require people to buy multiple cans of soda unless Bloomberg will next impose a drink limit for New Yorkers. ”
I think an economist or psychologist might tell you differently. An economist would tell you that the simple act of carrying a credit card and not carrying checks around in a wallet enlarges the economy, because having it there, very easy to use, makes it easier to use, and increases its usage.
If sugar is really addicting to the human brain, and if the human body and brain were originally incented by evolution to go after it in a world where this form of food was rare, then maybe the human body does need regulatory help to keep from over-indulging in this food addiction.
Maybe the guy on the street corner inside the 7-11 selling sugar drinks is no different from the guy on the street corner outside the 7-11 selling meth.
Nothing more than this title can better express the hypocrisy: “Bloomberg pitches soda ban in appearance to celebrate National Doughnut Day” http://digg.com/news/politics/bloomberg_pitches_soda_ban_in_appearance_to_celebrate_national_doughnut_day
How many donuts will you eat everyday, or every week?
How many cokes will you drink?
http://www.dunkindonuts.com/content/dunkindonuts/en/menu/nutrition/nutrition_catalog.html?nutrition_catalog_hidden=0&nutrition_catalog_needType=Food&nutrition_catalog_selPage=1&nutrition_catalog_perPage=100
Calories in a Dunkin Donut’s Chocolate Glazed Cake Donut 370
http://www.sugarstacks.com/beverages.htm
Calories in coke:
Coca Cola
12 oz (355 ml) Can
Sugars, total: 39g
Calories, total: 140
Calories from sugar: 140*
7-Eleven 32 oz Big Gulp
(28 oz soda + 4 oz ice)
Sugars, total: 91g
Calories, total: 364
Calories from sugar: 364
7-Eleven 44 oz Super Gulp
(38 oz soda + 6 oz ice)
Sugars, total: 128g
Calories, total: 512
Calories from sugar: 512
7-Eleven 52 oz Xtreme Gulp
(45 oz soda + 7 oz ice)
Sugars, total: 146g
Calories, total: 585
Calories from sugar: 585
That’s about a cup of sugar! It’s hard to believe anyone could drink that much soda.
Coca Cola
7-Eleven 64 oz Double Gulp
(55 oz soda + 9 oz ice)
Sugars, total: 186g
Calories, total: 744
Calories from sugar: 744
Anon, is this really the road we want to go down in reducing calorie or sugar intake? I am willing to bet that smoking 2-4 packs of cigarettes a day is more harmful than 64 oz. of soda.
What ever happended to personal responsibility? Bloomberg is out of his mind IMO.
Bloomberg truly is a nut. The guy lives in another world. A world in which he is a Father and citizens of New York are his infant children whose lives he must micromanage. All those troops from the Bronx who thought they were fighting in Afghanistan for the simply freedom to have a large Coke with that burger and fries may be in for a rude awakening when they get home.
Juris,
I actually almost entirely agree with you about personal responsibility.
My problem is that this is not like red meat, eating donuts, riding motorcycles without a helmet, or wearing white after labor day, but that conceivably this is a real “exploit” of the human body by marketing pukes and sugar pushers in exactly the same notion of exploit might be used on any addicting drug, or computer hack.
Evolution taught us to love sugar but that was in an environment of food very different than today’s.
If you believe that, then there is reason to be concerned with the sugar pushers — they are motivated by dollars not by overall societal good or our own personal health and they are using a biological weakness against us.
If I could put on a Larry Niven / Spider Robinson wireheading pleasure electrode that wired directly into my brain’s orgasm center and then commit suicide through constant orgasms (much as Gene attempts to do every day in the subway) should that behavior be regulated?
If so, why not regulate the sugar component of soft drinks that are addicting?
By the way Juris, in full disclosure, if you step between me and a cold Coke and a french chocolate donut, you are taking your life in your hands.
anon, point taken about the regulation of sugar components in soft drinks. But Bloomberg isn’t even trying to do that. He is proposing to regulate merely the size of the drink. I think this is a very slippery slope. As others have pointed out, what about alcohol, tobacco, that crazy restaurant in Vegas that dishes out 1,500 calorie burgers?
As with most issues, I still think education is the best weapon. Call me naive.
In any event, at least we found some middleground in the personal responsibility thing. And I got to laugh at your clever and very funny comments in response (the orgasm thing especially! – I am not sure there would be any males left to assist in procreation if something like that existed).
The biggest soda drink at 7-11 here in Sweden is 16 ounces.
I knew America was gross, take it as you like, but this gross is ugggghhh.
Now in boring Sweden I see only at best two obese Swedes a week. And the bikini ads and the diet headlines come out
each Spring like the violets blooming.
idealist, I am curious… is that because there is a law in Sweden banning a larger size, because Swedes would not buy anything larger than that (IOW, no demand), or some other reason(s)?
BTW, Why is America “gross”?
anon:
You might actually make some sense if you weren’t so repellent. Guess it comes with being a troll.
I know Mark. I see you being a lawyer, and feel exactly the same way.
anon:
There a psychosis for those who insist on hanging around with people they hate. I just call it masochism.
Hey anon! Ol’ Honest Georgie Z is heading back to jail in Florida. Seems he can’t count his money or his passports or else can’t tell the truth about them. Gene H broke the news. I get you some tissues.
I have been saying for years that the entire Bloomberg administration has been a disaster from the start. Bloomberg literally bought his way into the Mayoralty and after Giuliani he seemed mild and sensible. In truth he is more of a self righteous autocrat than Rudy ever imagined being. This concept if a total absurdity and I think unconstitutional. I say that even though I do not drink sugared sodas, nor eat donuts. Ingesting either of those items seems like a very bad idea to me, but I don’t have the right to make someone else’s choices for them, neither should a Mayor.
Bloomberg is a schmuck. But New Yorkers know everything so why would they vote for a guy who tells them to do something else than that which they know. Which means that another schmuck who admits and encourages New Yorkers in their know it all ness will beat him in the next election. Meanwhile, the cops are on the public trough and I say remove the donuts before it collapses.
anon:
There a psychosis for those who insist on hanging around with people they hate. I just call it masochism.
I don’t hate you guys. I hate the idiot things you say.
And I greatly appreciate Professor Turley’s writings.
The odd juxtaposition for me is the huge number of times the so called regulars here, who seem to believe they are progressive, or liberal, or democrat, or unbiased can be seen advocating positions opposed to Professor Turley’s blog post. And how far and willing you guys are to bend over in ways that would impress a Chinese acrobat to defend egregious poor behavior because a Democrat did it.
As an example, if you remember last summer, when you Mark, made a homophobic joke at Marcus Bachmann’s expense.
Here’s Mark Esposito uber-lawyer, and you wander around arrogantly assuming you are enlightened and everyone knows what a uber-mensch you are, you couldn’t possibly be a homophobe.
I pointed out the nature of your remarks, and sure enough, almost everyone chimed in to say that it was okay to call Bachmann gay, and that no way could you be a homophobe.
But what I took away, is that you never even made the slightest concession that perhaps I had a point…
Well the truth is the attack on Bachmann that he is a closeted gay because he is effeminate is an attack that homophobic at its core. It was this way when you were in middle school, and it’s that way now that you’re a member of the Bar regardless of how you think you’re enlightened.
Here is a group of people from queer sites, feminist sites, liberal sites, mainstream sites to help you understand:
http://tab.bz/byp (goes to a page at tab.bz with 11 links (one basically a dupe) that I just found by googling. May open slowly)
Mark, I actually don’t think you’re a homophobe. I actually think you’re just an arrogant dumbass lawyer too stupid to not apologize or too afraid to apologize.
I come here Mark, because I appreciate what Professor Turley has to say. I come here because I have a case that wanders in and out of family court and it’s helpful to see how other lawyers approach various issues in the law and the courts.
And sometimes I come here to gaze at the trainwrecks, to see proudly, bragging, uber-liberals advocate against innocent until proven guilty, to advocate against strong privacy laws, to invade the privacy of all commenters on this blog, to blithely make homophobic attacks without ever conceding they might be wrong to do so. Hell, everyone likes to watch a trainwreck, and this blog commenters are full of them.
“Bloomberg literally bought his way into the Mayoralty and after Giuliani he seemed mild and sensible.”
It’s got to be a terrible idea to vote the owner of a press and an billionaire financier and friend of the banks into being a leader of the city.
If this had taken place in Gotham and not in New York, it would all be clear.
Juris said:
“idealist, I am curious… is that because there is a law in Sweden banning a larger size, because Swedes would not buy anything larger than that (IOW, no demand), or some other reason(s)?
BTW, Why is America “gross”?”
Thanks for the opportunity to expand, even tho’ that might be an ironic putdown you posted, just chuckle to yourself.
No, it’s part of the swedish philosophy so well summed up by the phrase: “lagom är bäst”. Like the baby bear’s porridge: “just right”. Details available.
Swedes don’t regulate sex, nature does that.
Swedes do regulate alcohol, for nature doesn’t.
And most people are decent and not grossing out at others cost because that’s the civilized way to do things.
Kinda boring. So I exceed the norms often: Cracking jokes at the pharmacy assistant. Giving compliments to women who pass and have chosen an item of apparel that “shines” like the sun.
So there is no demand for gross consumption. Even those who park their Lamborghinis in front of the outdoor bar, are regarded as gauche. For both reasons you are thinking of now. For owning and the conspicuous display.
Now the two last above are two steps to why I say America is gross. Another is having 20 percent poverty classed, while the one percent owns 80 percent of the wealth.
Ain’t that gross?
The list is long, and you aren’t dumb. Write it yourself.
Did I answer your challenge?
I disagree with Bloomberg’s suggestion. Maybe he has stock in the Big Gulp competitors?
ANON,
Straight question: Who swept 9/11 debris under the rug? Giuliani or Bloomberg? Details.
BTW, you do know when I kick your ass, it is a compliment for your orneriness and refusal to be like the asskissers here.
Don’t all holders of public office have to make annual declarations of ownership and transactions vv the stocks etc. markets.
Rafflaw, can you answer? Pretty please.
ID707,
Many states have disclosure requirements, but they will vary widely.
“ANON,
Straight question: Who swept 9/11 debris under the rug? Giuliani or Bloomberg? Details.”
I don’t know all that much about either, so I’ll go with “They both did” but I could easily be convinced otherwise.
BTW, you do know when I kick your ass, it is a compliment for your orneriness and refusal to be like the asskissers here.
Where are you? Sweden? Must be drinking time already.
“All duties are either duties of right, that is, juridical duties (officia juris), or duties of virtue, that is, ethical duties (officia virtutis s. ethica). Juridical duties are such as may be promulgated by external legislation; ethical duties are those for which such legislation is not possible. The reason why the latter cannot be properly made the subject of external legislation is because they relate to an end or final purpose, which is itself, at the same time, embraced in these duties, and which it is a duty for the individual to have as such. But no external legislation can cause any one to adopt a particular intention, or to propose to himself a certain purpose; for this depends upon an internal condition or act of the mind itself.” — Immanuel Kant
Deciding whether or not to ingest an excessive amount of sugary drinks is a duty of virtue; a duty that cannot be enforced by external legislation under any metaphysics of morals.
To promulgate a duty of virtue as if it were a juridical duty, or duty of right, is tyranny per se. Thus referring to Bloomberg as an immoral tyrant is not hyperbole.
Hey Mark,
Glad to see you’re doubling down. Stand your ground man!
Sorry. He’s my favorite hypocrite.
Um, the Mayor of the City of New York wants to ban very big sodas, is that the issue? OMG. OMG. Could we start SMALL, perhaps, and just get a federal law to ban the use of TUBS of sugary soda in the practice of water-boarding during interrogations? Then we could kind of move up from there to non-torture misuse of sweet beverages, to size…
Oh, I get it. He’s telling us size matters!
Bob,Esq.
Changed my mind about you. Damn fine elucidation.
In our company we called it the spirit of the boss, ie not ethics but the guiding goals as understood. And we all know that legislation has loopholes. But ethics committees do also.
Pssstt…Hey buddy, wanna buy a soft drink in excess of 16oz?
ANON,
If a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk is intoxicating then I’m high as hell. But one can be high on oneself, on nature, on women, on life, etc.
Mohammad in principle in the Koran banned all forms of intoxication. Many sufis and others were executed for their intoxication in Allah.
Guess the Holy Rollers don’t have any problem with that.
If you were RCC I’d ask if you’d ever seen an exalted priest, other than when he is entering the confessions boooth when a group of choir boys are standing in line.
Father, bless me for I have sinned. With apologies to true believers. The faith was given yee in order yee might be tried. Or am I just guessing.
On a roll. Time for bed. 2 AM.
What about “more than 16″ ounces of an artificially flavored drink that has no sugar in it?
What about ice, does the ice in the cup get counted in the “ounces”?
Can you just see all the amendments piling up on this bill? Go into overtime, guys, get it RIGHT!
PS: Can a person buy a bag of refined granulated sugar in a grocery store and just EAT IT? In public? Sell it in plastic baggies on the corner?
If a single mom has five kids and can’t afford five separate drinks for them, can she get an exemption to buy just one and make them share?
Why does Professor Turley say, “It is expected to pass”? Have the legislators been polled already?
What about at charity events, can you sell them at charity events?
Idealist, as much as you wanted it to be, my question was not a “challenge.” I was just curious why you have such a jaded view of America. Sounds to me like you either couldn’t hack it in the States or are envious thereof. Or maybe you couldn’t find a companion so you took haven in Sweden where nature regulates sex. At least you found your release by “challenging” posters here. What ever blows your hair back.
Let me know if you ever get the courage to cross the pond and want a real challenge. I will be happy to personally show you just how “gross” America can be. I will drink a 64 oz. afterwards just because I can. I bet you would rather play it safe in Sweden challenging” posters online and doing all those fun things you mentioned, cracking jokes at the pharmacy assistant and such.
mespo,
I don’t think Bloomberg expects it to pass. He just wants to draw attention to the subject of obese kids and the Type II diabetes epidemic. That is real. If this tactic works, it’s a net good for everyone. A little hype over a doomed measure is no threat to the Republic.
===========================================================
I’ll order a super sized combination at McDonalds if I want. It’s none of your business.
If Bloomberg is going to mandate that I get less Coca-Cola when I order my artery-clogging takeout pizza then he ought to mandate that they have to put the actual coke back into it. The consumer gets nothing out of this but the opportunity to pay more sales tax and that tax increase IMO, should met with a corresponding value in the product. Just say’n.
is there a stiffer penalty if the cops take a16oz out of your pocket during a “stop and frisk”?
This is one of the more ridiculous things anyone has tried yet.
If he’s so concerned about our kids’ weight, why not look into the amount of SODIUM, etc, inside the school lunches they push on our kids? When I was in school we actually had COOKS who fixed food without all the unhealthy salt, sugar, etc, and it tasted better. It was also back in the days when we didn’t have such a rampant obesity epidemic… perhaps the mayor should look into WHEN they made the change from real cooked food to warmed food. That might give him a very good reason for our weight problem, since people crave through life what they’re used to eating.
How many people have mothers (and fathers) who actually cook any more? Look at the ingredients in all that instant food- no wonder people are fat. Sodas have NOTHING on some of that stuff.
I do believe the only thing more hilariously retarded than Bloomberg’s proposal is is any reaction other than laughter at his proposal. Anyone who can take a proposal like this seriously, or worse, the need for a proposal like this seriously, needs to be checked into an insane asylum, where their vote can’t do others harm. I’m going to go by the nearest QT and get me a 55oz Mt. Dew and drink it all in his honor. My kidneys will be pissed, but oh well.
I am just as concerned this ban go into effect with a vote of the NYC Health board, as opposed to the City Council voting on it.
Juris,
Don’t you have the balls to stand up for your attacks?
If that was attacking you, then so be it. For you then without offering proof say that I do it in all my posts. Were you waiting all the time to see my reaction to your rattling my chain, so you could launch that claim.
Now whatever that may be, I gave you straight answers, meant to inform on why Swedes are to large degree moderate in calories. That would have been much fairer and squarer if you had reciprocated in the same manner.
I have many there with whom I have good relations with (like you know, like I have many black/jewish/Republican friends). Just an old saw which seems applicable. I also have excellent and tight relations with minorities from the whole glove, can you say that?.
I am jaded when America is still fighting the war on minorities after 350 years.
I am still jaded when America still has a MIC after over 110 years.
I am still jaded when Congress is bought, as are the Presidents, and to a large degree the SCOTUS.
I am jaded when Americas are still fighting for their need for health care, and now have to fight with insurance companies, health care providers, and doctors whose primary concern is to avoid malpractice suits—–and still don’t get adequate healthcare in spite of paying TWO TIMES what Europeans pay for better care.
And I am jaundiced, ie negative expectations based on history and the current system, that America will get a system which is owned by the people, for the people, and most of all, of the people.
And there are good stats that say that Americans are jaded by their many wars, the present ones, and of the prospect that new ones are being lobbied from.
DO YOU NEVER FEEL JADED BY THESE THINGS????
Your aspersions as to my abilities to compete in America i will leave in the same dung heap with such worn ones as “teachers can’t do things so they teach”.
My personal life is mine. I was valued commercially enough to be sent to 25 countries for representation purposes.
America is gross in that it produces people like you who put out challenges to me by saying we don’t have the right here to drink 64 ounce sodas. You don’t get it, as usual. We DON’T WANT to to make up a market for that size. BTW, 64 ounces quickly consume could likely produce water sickness (super-hydrations) and possible thermally induced shock—but drink away. America is the pinnacle of moderation—-so knows the whole world.
But if you say that’s an example of American freedom, I simply reply that we have many others you don’t have.
Like publicly challenging your boss, and retaining your job. But that’s another story. I’m sure you have many others which illustrates the lack of freedom there.
Like the power to negotiate your wages in a meaningful fashion. The lack of government agencies that actually represent you, and are not there for the sole purpose of protecting the industry they are regulating, and being staffed and lobbied to do as the industry will have done.
Get it?
Assuming that your culture and system is the norm of the world is just one more. But sadly he who pays the piper calls the tune, and in your control of international money the tune is sour for most countries.
I love America, the tourists that come here seem most often intelligent, slim, well-read, and culturaly oriented—as world travelers should be.
If you should come to Sweden as a tourist, remember that Swededs are shy, modest, and don’t readily talk to strangers—–but love to make exceptions for American ones. Try it, you might like it.
Now, I thank you again, Juris, for this oppoetunity.
And welcome you to challenge me further if you like.
There is much more to be written on the subject of beimg jaded with America. Just look at the JT blog if you haven’t before.
He who controls the sugar, controls the universe.
Google god is an iron site:deathwish.net
http://www.google.com/webhp?q=god%20is%20an%20iron%20site%3Adeathwish.net
Then read.
Then thank me.
Here’s someone with similar thoughts re: sugar vs. libertarianism in 2006.
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2006/11/obesity-wireheads-and-case-for-and_03.html
I am an academic economist who teaches at a law school and has never taken a course for credit in either field.
Obesity, Wireheads, and the case for and Against Paternalism
Suppose we come up with really good pleasure drugs, drugs that give us lots of pleasure without negative side effects such as hangovers or cirhosis of the liver. If we accept the economist’s model of the rational actor, their invention is clearly a good thing. It expands our choice set, provides us one more and possibly better way of getting what we want.
To people sceptical of the rational model, that conclusion is less clear. To see the problem, consider an extreme version. Larry Niven, in some of his stories, describes wireheads, people who have had a wire inserted into the pleasure center of their brain and stimulate it with a mild electric current. The intense pleasure that results dominates all other concern, making it possible for a wirehead to die of hunger and thirst because getting food or drink is simply more trouble than it is worth.
For a more homely example, consider a pleasure drug that many of us overdosed on a couple of days ago: Chocolate bars. If you have more elevated tastes, substitute dinner at a four star restaurant in Paris. While it is true that food is useful to keep us alive, sufficient food for that purpose–lentils, powdered milk, vitamin pills, rice or potatoes–does not cost very much or taste very good. Most of what we spend on food buys pleasure. In modern societies, calories, even moderately tasty calories, are cheap. People like to eat. Voila: An obesity “epidemic.”
…
For a different angle on the situation, consider a question I raised in another recent post: Does consumer sovereignty, the principle of accepting individual actions as proof of what we value, apply if we have good reason to regard the actions as due to evolutionary mistakes, adaptations to a past environment very different from the one we now live in? In most past environments, after all, eating when you had the chance, eating enough to get fat, was a sensible strategy, since next month might be famine. From an evolutionary standpoint, current obesity is simply one more case of humans being poorly adapted to their current environment.
Following out the logic of that argument, one would conclude that greater choice sometimes makes us worse off. If so, is that an adequate reason to abandon libertarian conclusions—to, for example, support government restrictions on fat in food, cheap junk food in restaurants and grocery stores, and the like. Is it a good argument, following out the line other economists have taken with regard to gasoline, to support high taxes on food, designed to force consumers to compensate for their irrational tastes?
If we had a government run by benevolent philosopher kings, that might make sense….
All of you so certain Bloomberg should stay out of it.
What are your thoughts on Obamacare?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_addiction
A 1987 study showed sugar acted as an analgesic drug whose effects could be blocked by a morphine blocker.[2] In her 1998 book, author Kathleen DesMaisons outlined the concept of sugar addiction as a measurable physiological state caused by activation of opioid receptors in the brain and hypothesized that dependence on sugar followed the same track outlined in the DSM IV for other drugs of abuse.[3][page needed]
2002 research at Princeton began showing the neurochemical effects of sugar, noting that sugar might serve as a gateway drug for other drugs.[4] The research group fed chow to the rats as well as a 25% sugar solution similar to the sugar concentration of soft drinks. After one month the rats became “dependent” on the sugar solution, ate less chow and increased their intake of the sugary drink to 200%.[5] The sugar industry asserts that similar effects have been reported for rats given solutions that tasted sweet, but contained no calories.[citation needed] However, some scientists say that caloric value may not be the issue. Researchers say that sugar and the taste of sweet is said to stimulate the brain by activating beta endorphin receptor sites, the same chemicals activated in the brain by the ingestion of heroin and morphine. [6]
In 2003, a report commissioned by two U.N. agencies at the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization was compiled by a panel of 30 international experts. It recommended that sugar not account for more than 10% of a person’s diet.[2] However, the US Sugar Association asserted that other evidence indicates that a quarter of our food and drink intake can safely consist of sugar.[citation needed]
A 2008 study noted that sugar affects opioids and dopamine in the brain, and thus might be expected to have addictive potential. It referenced bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization, and gave each of them operational definitions in order to demonstrate behaviorally that sugar bingeing is a reinforcer. These behaviors were said to be related to neurochemical changes in the brain that also occur during addiction to drugs. Neural adaptations included changes in dopamine and opioid receptor binding, enkephalin mRNA expression and dopamine and acetylcholine release in the nucleus accumbens.[4]
On the same day of his snide, whining news conference about a soda ban, Michael Bloomberg attended a donut festival…. So much for health concerns. Or perhaps Mike just didn’t want to upset cops by clamping down on donuts.
New York is wimping out on its ban on smoking in public parks. But smoking has clear and indisputable negative externalities. The same cannot be said of soft drink consumption.
I think there is another, grossly under-appreciated element in Bloomberg’s dictatorial tendencies. He and many like him just look down on the vast majority of people. Plenty of wealthy moneygrubbers like Bloomberg smoke. Plenty drink. Destructive behavior isn’t really Bloomberg’s concern. He has defended the most vile behaviors of Wall Street robber bankers. He has opposed any increase in taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers (some 70 of whom are billionaires — the highest number of any American urban region, and perhaps the highest in the world).
Bloomberg views the average person with contempt — as an awful, abusive parent views a child.
ANON
Thanks. For Robinson, for wirehead, for sugar overdosing, for the facts, for being different. For this 15 second period you’re on top.
But Bloomsbury won’t solve it.
I predict we will see such bizarre inventions as backpacks
for carrying your 2 gallon sugar solutions, re-fillable at your corner 7-11.
We a bit later will see status models, even 5 times the size with a wheeled cart to bear it. It’ll be avaiable in models of FAVO ONE to FAVO FIVE depending on the number of different flavored drinks you want to Style with for your friends. FAVO chain shops will miraculously appear equipped with the latest jingle-bangles for the new public.
Dystopia, yeah. Don’t spend much time there myself. The one we have bemused me enough—-more than well..
The vast majority of New Yorkers are similar to this smug mug who think that their shit doesnt stink. They are so smart as citizens that they have to move out of the state and region because their property taxes on even a small home are too high–they exceed the entire year’s social security benefit. So the know it alls move to North Carolina and proceed to tell the others how to do everything and that includes farting. They buy homes in flood plains, boats that they give up after three years and the golf cart becomes a vehicle not for the golf course but to get to the bar without fear of getting a dui. When they die the grandkids dont even come down for the funeral. They never came down to stay in the four bedrooms bought just for that occasion. Then when their offspring retires its the same old pattern. Went in dumb, come out dumb too, shufflin round Manhattan in their alligator shoes….
Anon loves the nanny state, eh?
Gene,
I’ve been keeping mine to myself lately.
In a sense this is a very small issue. But there is something fundamental here to understanding the role of the state.
There are real problems for the state to solve. But I for one do not want the state intruding in the lives of ordinary citizens to tell them what to drink. I am in favor of educational programs to give citizens information to make reasonable choices.
The public health argument in favor of this regulation seems especially thin to me. It is true that sugary drinks can lead to bad effects. But those bad effects are related and almost directly proportional to use, or more accurately over use. Almost everything we eat, or use, has that characteristic. For essentially everything we use it is necessarily the case that if you use to much bad effects will follow.
There are two problems with the public health argument.
The first is that the argument leads to the regulation of literally everything we eat and everything we use. Surely regulation should be based on something more compelling than the proposition that ‘if some one overuses the product something bad can happen’.
The second is that the application of this supposed pubic health regulation is whimsical. Even if you buy into the proposition that the state should regulate products which can be misused, there is no analysis or prioritization here. The regulation makes only the most superficial link between risk and behavior. There is no attempt to determine risks, costs, payoffs.
Which is more risky behavior, eating big mac’s, drinking large sugary drinks, eating bacon, birthday cake, three eggs a week, New York strip steak? Which has the greater cost to society in terms of lost productivity and health costs: avocado, olive oil, margarine, trans-fatty acids, Brazil nuts, peanuts. What are the proportions, what are the cut off points. How many pop corn kernels are ok and how many are too many. Now add butter and to the pop corn and calculate the numbers.
What we have here is an example of do-gooders regulating their current fascination, regulation their current whim, regulating the first thing that sparks their passion and condemnation. This is not rational public health policy. This patriarchal contempt for the preferences and choices of those less powerful.
As a point of philosophy I believe some regulation is necessary. The real question is not whether we regulate but where do we draw the line. But this kind of regulation is an example of over zealous government intervention so feared by some on the right.
BTW I drink zero cal energy drinks because I do not like coffee. I have not had a sugar or high fructose corn syrup carbonated drink in years.
“Anon loves the nanny state, eh?”
Hey Jude, get a reading comprehension moran!
Na na na, na-na na na
Na-na na na, hey Jude
Na na na, na-na na na
Na-na na na, hey Jude.
Hugh S, what you say is interesting. Yes, now I see it, you have really hit upon something important here. We need to look at our “leaders” with these lenses on.
bfm,
Big mac’s. Do you know why Ronald McDonald got put in jail?
I should have mentioned this earlier. A major justification for this kind of legislation would seem to be that (1) obesity especially childhood obesity is a major factor in health (2) large sugary drinks are an important factor in obesity (3) it is justified to regulate large sugary drinks.
The role of large sugary drink in obesity is questionable at this time. There are many factors that seem related to obesity. Factors that have been suggested as playing an important roll include sedentary life style, changing age composition of the population, high fructose corn syrup and many others.
It will take me a while to dig it out but there are studies that suggest that the increase in obesity best correlates with increase in the food supply. What next Mayor Bloomberg – restrictions on caloric intake or could we just have monitors to control the size of portions?
These regulations are not based on sound science. They do not reflect thoughtful public health policy. These policies reflect the whims of the powerful to use the power of the state to intervene in the lives of ordinary people and overrule their preferences and choices.
This is bad law and the people who propose it ought to pay a political price.
Mark,
Re: Anon’s aspersion.
I guess the days of slow carbo versus fast carbo and their relative effects on the storage of sugar as fat have disappeared with the years. Plus the fast ones make you insulin resistant and fuck up your pancreas too. Baaaaddd”
It is not difficult to avoid obesity. Move a little, eat a little. Move a lot, eat a lot. And always 75 percent slow carbo.
The psychic effect on non-caloric sweet sensation is still apparently there accdg to ANON studies of studies. But what metabolistic effect do they have? ANON?
Another reason why Bloomsbillion won’t do it.
Are you old enough to remember when the six-pack was a new thing. It became a synbol of rebellion.
And giant six-packs of the “legal” size will again become popular symbols with the young. And Bloomsbillion will get the message.
Actually,
I was just saying that Gene has a small peener and that the spam filter here is terrible.
But you are of course free to misread and misinterpret everything (as you are famous for.)
Here is Slate on your “Homo Say What?” theory of sexuality:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/04/homophobic_maybe_you_re_gay_the_new_york_times_on_a_new_study_of_secret_sexuality_.html
tl;dr; It’s bogus
On the other hand, we know it’s not past you to keep flogging some old debunked argument and bad science if you think it might help one up you on a person that you disagree with.
It’s my understanding that about 1/6th of the male population is either bisexual or gay. Women are more likely to swing both directions than men. That’s according to prison statistics. There’s more pairing up in female prisons than male prisons.
I never could understand why men who aren’t gay are so upset about men who ARE. I mean, if I don’t want to get a particular person into bed, what on earth do I care about whom he or she goes to bed WITH? Uh Oh, I have that end-of-sentence-preposition problem again. I mean: If I don’t want to get a particular person into bed, what on earth do I care about with WHOM he or she goes to bed?
Anon, still, reading you as saying what you do say, I gotta say, c’mon…
Americans Have No Idea How Few Gay People There Are
By Garance Franke-Ruta
May 31 2012, 2:17
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/americans-have-no-idea-how-few-gay-people-there-are/257753/
Surveys show a shockingly high fraction think a quarter of the country is gay or lesbian, when the reality is that it’s probably less than 2 percent.
Contemporary research in a less homophobic environment has counterintuitively resulted in lower estimates rather than higher ones. The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, a gay and lesbian think tank, released a study in April 2011 estimating based on its research that just 1.7 percent of Americans between 18 and 44 identify as gay or lesbian, while another 1.8 percent — predominantly women — identify as bisexual. Far from underestimating the ranks of gay people because of homophobia, these figures included a substantial number of people who remained deeply closeted, such as a quarter of the bisexuals. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey of women between 22 and 44 that questioned more than 13,500 respondents between 2006 and 2008 found very similar numbers: Only 1 percent of the women identified themselves as gay, while 4 percent identified as bisexual.
Higher numbers can be obtained when asking about lifetime sexual experiences, rather than identity. The Williams Institute found that, overall, an estimated 8.2 percent of the population had engaged in some form same-sex sexual activity. Put another way, 4.7 percent of the population had wandered across the line without coming to think of themselves as either gay or bisexual. Other studies suggest those individuals are, like the bisexuals, mainly women: The same CDC study that found only 1 percent of women identify as lesbian, for example, found that 13 percent of women reported a history of some form of sexual contact with other women.
“Estimates of those who report any lifetime same-sex sexual behavior and any same-sex sexual attraction are substantially higher than estimates of those who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual,” the Williams Institute’s Gary J. Gates concluded.
“Anon, still, reading you as saying what you do say, I gotta say, c’mon…”
I don’t know what you are saying.
I guess the days of slow carbo versus fast carbo and their relative effects on the storage of sugar as fat have disappeared with the years.”
I don’t think this is true, though it seems to be framed in simple carbs vs. complex carbs.
It is not difficult to avoid obesity. Move a little, eat a little. Move a lot, eat a lot. And always 75 percent slow carbo.
I believe this is now considered outdated. Lots of studies seem to show that exercise doesn’t really help you lose weight or avoid obesity. May help building muscle, or with cardiopathic improvements, but exercise itself doesn’t seem to do much in terms of weight control.
The psychic effect on non-caloric sweet sensation is still apparently there accdg to ANON studies of studies. But what metabolistic effect do they have? ANON?
I wish I knew, because I love Coke Zero.
Matt Johnson,
Okay? Thanks for the update?
***********************
anon,
Your projection is as adorably predictable as your preoccupation with my “peener” is telling.
Let’s review, shall we?
anon hates women as evidenced by his frequent misogynistic foaming at the mouth episodes.
anon likes to be abused as is evidenced by his repeated and masochistically provoking people he cannot possibly hope to best in argument.
anon has a preoccupation with is ability to consume high calorie food.
anon has a preoccupation with the genitalia of other men and their size.
This leads me to ask one simple question.
So tell us, anon, how long have you blamed your weight problem for being a self-loathing and in the closet bottom?
However, I see the trained therapist in the group already noticed the pattern.
You know, there is nothing wrong with being a homosexual and okay with yourself and you should know that there are gay chubby chasers tops out there more than willing to fulfill your needs.
In fact, getting laid might do something to improve your dreadful personality.
Best of luck with that.
In fact, with your personality, I suggest hiring a gigolo.
If you’re shocked and upset that Bloomberg would want to size limit soft drinks, ask yourself if you favor carbon taxes to limit greenhouse gases, or if you favor import tariffs on non-fair trade coffee or import tariffs on any product that was created with child labor, in polluting environments, or where workers are not paid a living wage or have unhealthy work environments.
Ask if how you feel now is how you might feel in 10, 20, 30 years when the population is 12 billion and there are no more rainforests because they were all burned to create pastures for cows.
Ask if a person you knew who was obese and had health problems, maybe till their dying day, wouldn’t have preferred some regulation, or some calorie tax 10, 20, 30 years earlier.
Understand that if the poor are eating lots of unhealthy fast food, and the rich are not, if this isn’t some sort of actual attack on the poor, some new form of class welfare.
We won’t pay you enough to eat healthy, and we won’t give you the time to make healthy meals, but we will provide you ways to stay healthy enough to take make us rich, and then you can drop dead.
Anon, here is what I am saying:
This is a thread about a New York politician trying to pass a law about how big a soft drink can get before becoming illegal. For some reason, which I honestly do not know, you have seen fit to comment on what appears to be your impression of some other man’s body parts. Right?
So: c’mon.
As in: (here are some other responses that could be substituted for “c’mon”:
Are you for real?
Huh?
Whu?
WTF?
Did you really say that?
What is that supposed to mean?
Is he trying to say that there’s something less important to all of us than the size of a legal soft drink in New York?
etc.
That’s very nice Gene.
You have nicely rebutted a one line crack that you have a small peener, with a huge “Yeah, well you’re a faggot” attack back.
All while you would claim you are too enlightened to call others faggots.
And I guess, Mike is a trained psychologist, and he too in fact led with the “You’re a fag” attack (and based on a debunked and bogus paper at that.)
I love you guys. You help clarify what makes America great, what makes modern liberals so special.
“This is a thread about a New York politician trying to pass a law about how big a soft drink can get before becoming illegal. For some reason, which I honestly do not know, you have seen fit to comment on what appears to be your impression of some other man’s body parts. Right?”
Yeah, because internet cracks about someone having a small dick are so rare. And because people never make jokes about that. If you want you can go the full Mike Spindell and demand that anyone that says anything like that must hate gays and be gay himself. I mean the guy is a psychologist.
Or you can just use Occam’s Razor and your experience here long enough to understand Gene is a moron and anon likes to rag on him.
anon,
The percentage is higher than 2%. Maybe you should move to SanFrancisco.
If anybody has any questions, I’m not part of the 1/6th. However, as long as nobody is being victimized I don’t care what other people do.
No, anon.
Merely putting the fact patterns as indicated by your behavior together.
That your reaction is “you’re calling me a faggot” is quite telling too.
For one thing, I don’t use that term unless asking a Brit for a cigarette. It’s derogatory. And to be clear, I know and like quite a few members of the LGBT community. I’ve written several articles here in support of their causes and I’m friendly with a few members of that community who post here. People can say a lot about me, but that I’m homophobic isn’t one of them. Also to clarify, I wasn’t criticizing your sexual orientation, but rather your shitty personality which has nothing to do with your sexual orientation. Of course, other than your self-loathing would go a long way to explaining why you have such a shitty personality in the first place, but that isn’t the fault of your orientation but rather causally connected to your living in denial of it.
“That your reaction is “you’re calling me a faggot” is quite telling too.”
That’s not my reaction. My reaction is amusement.
My characterization of your attack is what I said “You have nicely rebutted a one line crack that you have a small peener, with a huge “Yeah, well you’re a faggot” attack back.”
“Also to clarify, I wasn’t criticizing your sexual orientation”
Of course you were. So was Mike Spindell, licensed psychologist.
Keep pounding the table Gene.
ANON,
Not to beat a dead horse, but:
Slow vs fast is not the same as complex vs simple. Tests with humans, many of them are needed to decide the insulin effect.
Exerceise per se was not addressed as a way to lose weight.
I was simply saying what goes in has to be burned, eliminated fecally or stored. Exercise is the burn function.
My question has been reverted to me. If I find out, I won’t keep it a secret.
Gene you huge turd,
If you weren’t attacking me based on your perception of my sexual orientation and how you personally consider that vile, why would you go out of your way to specifically characterize me as a bottom, and then go on to say “there are gay chubby chasers tops out there more than willing to fulfill your needs.”
You are clearly making a homophobic attack against a particular kind of sex that you think deserves derision and can be the basis for a personal attack.
Please tell us more how some of your best friends are gay.
“Slow vs fast is not the same as complex vs simple.”
You may be right. This is how I have usually characterized it, but I don’t follow it closely.
“If I find out, I won’t keep it a secret.”
Please don’t!
http://www.good.is/post/cola-wars-the-big-loopholes-dooming-bloomberg-s-soda-ban (via FARK)
Cola Wars: The Big Loopholes Dooming Bloomberg’s Soda Ban
In another effort to attack obesity (and libertarianism) in New York City, three-term Mayor Michael Bloomberg is attempting to institute a ban on sodas in the city. Under Bloomberg’s plan, it would be illegal for “food-service establishments” like mall food courts, delis, sports arenas, and food carts to sell sodas and other sugar-laden drinks in cups or bottles larger than 16 ounces. The ban could take effect as early as March of next year, at which point New Yorkers can say goodbye to giant glasses of Coke in restaurants. Say goodbye to 20-ounce sodas from the bodega on those sweltering summer afternoons.
…
there’s no arguing with the fact that his attacks on freedom have had the desired effects. According to a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the trans fat ban cut the amount of saturated fat and trans fat in French fries sold by New York City’s restaurant chains by more than half. And the smoking ban saw New York City’s smoking rate fall to 14 percent. In fact, Bloomberg’s inveighs against consumer choice have been so successful that numerous politicians in places far away from New York have started to follow his lead, introducing public-health bans of their own. The soda ban, however, may be Bloomberg’s first big, embarrassing defeat.
The first and most important problem with Bloomberg’s soda ban is that, unlike with his trans fat ban, it won’t be illegal for places to carry soda. Everyone can continue selling sugary drinks—remember, even pure orange juice has a lot of sugar in it—and some places, like grocery stores, can even continue selling sodas larger than 16 ounces. Also exempt will be the convenience store 7-Eleven, which will be able to sell its 40-ounce Big Gulp because the store is classified as a “grocery establishment,” not a food-service establishment. That means that if you live in New York and want to drink 32 ounces of Mountain Dew in one sitting, you can do that; you’ll just have to order two 16-ounce glasses, or go to 7-Eleven, or go to any one of city’s dozens of grocery stores.
Essentially, this so-called “soda ban” isn’t a ban on soda at all; it’s a ban on being able to have soda conveniently. Destroying the convenience of smoking by outlawing it in bars and parks was part of Bloomberg’s war against cigarettes. But he also bolstered those salvos with a heavy tax on tobacco that made smoking an expensive pastime. Without that financial incentive, it’s unlikely the smoking ban would have been as effective. The soda ban has no such incentive.
Besides the fact that people will still be able to get soda everywhere they could before, and in whatever quantities they’d like, the ban curiously exempts “dairy drinks.” That means that while someone going into a bodega for big bottle of Pepsi will be turned away, that same person can go into a Starbucks and get a venti Frappuccino (200 calories and 34 grams of sugar in every 12 ounces) at their leisure. The fancy milkshakes at all of the upscale restaurants now specializing in “comfort food” will also remain legal. These dairy drinks are loaded with sugar just like any soda—plus a healthy dose of fat—and yet they made the cut while the sodas didn’t. Why? Consider the difference in clientele: Black people get more of their calories from soda than any other ethnic group, while Starbucks is a place that caters to people willing to pay $3 or more for a cup of coffee (read: wealthier white people). To many outsiders, Bloomberg’s latest gripe appears to be powered by classism; he doesn’t like cheap soda and the poor people who consume it in large quantities.
…
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Again, I didn’t attack you for being a homosexual in the slightest. I merely pointed to a pattern that explains a lot of your ridiculous behavior and in particular your zealous hatred of women and your preoccupation with my penis. That your own self-loathing of your orientation factored in to what I was attacking – namely your shitty personality (and as much as people here do disagree, I think that is an issue you’d find great consensus about) – is simply tangential although causally related to your self-denial.
If you’re a chunk o’ lovin’ looking for a top?
I wish you the best of luck.
But again, as I said, with your personality, it will probably be best if you pay someone for sex.
“Again, I didn’t attack you for being a homosexual in the slightest.”
Of course you did Gene, and now you’re just being your old dishonest self and cannot even admit to that.
“If you’re a chunk o’ lovin’ looking for a top?
I wish you the best of luck.”
Oh look, you just can’t resist, can you?
That you take offense at something I have no issue with only bolsters the observation of your self-denial, anon.
Indeed, it is your reaction that completes the picture of self-loathing based on that very denial.
Come on.
Tell me how I’m homophobic again for urging you to confront your issues with yourself, sexuality and with women.
I merely want you to be happy.
True, I have an ulterior motive – I hope that if you were to come to terms with your issues, it might improve your personality since you’ve chosen to inflict it upon all of us, but that does not negate that I want you to be happy and accept yourself as you are instead of hate yourself for how you want to be all the while allowing that self-hatred to manifest in your exchanges with others.
“That you take offense at something I have no issue with only bolsters the observation of your self-denial, anon.”
If you didn’t have an issue with it, you wouldn’t
1. have used it twice in a personal attack,
1.5 even have used it after having this all pointed out to you the first time
2. insisted you were a friend of the gays
3. have denied you used it in a personal attack
You also apparently are saying that people should not be offended with bigoted statements if the person making the bigoted statement has made some claim to never having been a bigot.
And apparently, even noting that you have made homophobic remarks is “self-denial” indicating once more you are making a “You are a faggot” attack on me.
So let’s amend 1 to:
1. have used it thrice in personal attacks
1.5 even have used it twice after having this all pointed out to you the first time
Keep pounding that table Gene.
I’m not pounding the table.
I’m not even denying I attacked you (since you seemed to think provoking me was a good idea – which it almost never is), but rather that I did so clearly based on your shitty personality, not your sexual orientation. Your orientation only relates to the causation of your behavior, behavior that in the end is only damaging to you.
I don’t care how gay you are. I just wish you’d come to terms with it. Why? Because I do care about how shitty your self-denial and self-loathing make your personality since you display it here.
However, your denials certainly are furious speaking of pounding the table.
You keep on denying and trying to take insult for something I think is perfectly socially acceptable – homosexuality – when what I was insulting you about was your shit personality.
It’s funny.
BTW, if you don’t like the box you are in, it is of your own construction. That is the nature of intervention. Pointing out the box and the builder to the builder themselves.
I can only point to the path of happiness for you which is found at the end of self-acceptance.
I cannot walk it for you.
INTERIOR. BLOOMBERG THREAD
Dribble stains the shirt of GENE HOWINGTON.
GENE HOWINGTON
(furiously pounding table)
I’m not pounding the table!
lol
“Of course you were. So was Mike Spindell, licensed psychologist.”
Anon,
Just where exactly in any one of our written encounters have I ever said you were homosexual? I never have and wouldn’t because you are such a misogynist that you could only be straight. Gay men don’t hate women like you do, they’re just generally not sexually attracted to them. Misogynists on the other hand are sexually attracted to women, they just don’t want to play nice with them. BTW I’m not a psychologist, I was a psychotherapist, but haven’t practiced for twenty years.
I guess that would be here, Mike:
Re: Anon’s aspersion. http://jonathanturley.org/2012/06/01/super-sized-ego-bloomberg-wants-to-ban-large-size-sugary-sodas/#comment-377706
Unless I have that wrong.
What was that post about? I probably didn’t understand it.
“I never have and wouldn’t because you are such a misogynist that you could only be straight. ”
Yeah, you like to trot that out. But you really can’t point to any posts of mine that are misogynistic that weren’t a parody of other posts, and that’s always been a problem for you.
“BTW I’m not a psychologist, I was a psychotherapist, but haven’t practiced for twenty years.”
Oy. Well that explains a lot. Only thing worse than a psychologist therapist is a therapist that just pretends. I wonder what nutbar theories were the ones you subscribed to.
And anon the misogynist said, ‘But you really can’t point to any posts of mine that are misogynistic that weren’t a parody of other posts, and that’s always been a problem for you.’
ROTFLMAO
Go for it Mil, enjoy, have fun, revel, …
http://theweightofthenation.hbo.com/
Half of obese teenage girls become extremely obese by their early 30s.
In the 25 years between 1987 and 2010, the number of American’s diagnosed with diabetes almost tripled to 20.9 million.
Food obtained outside the home tends to be higher in calories and fat than food prepared at home.
The percentage of children aged 6-11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 20% in 2008.
79 million Americans are prediabetic.
The obese workforce costs American business an estimated $73.1 billion per year.
Sugar-sweetened beverages are the largest source of sugar in the diets of children and adolescents.
–
You can take my soda when you pry it from my cold, dead mallet like greasy fish fingered hands
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Diet/story?id=4865889&page=1#.T8q9wsW_5JU
Obese People Aggravate Global Warming
The letter, submitted by researchers from the United Kingdom, implicates the rising tide of obesity in greater oil consumption, more food production — and, ultimately, in an increase in the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
“It is a significant contribution,” said Phil Edwards, co-author of the letter and senior statistician at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom.
“Eighteen percent more food energy is required in many populations where there is a large prevalence of obesity,” he said, citing a 460-calorie increase in daily food intake for an obese individual. “There is a clear impact in terms of greenhouse gas emissions in order to grow that food.”
Edwards and colleague Ian Roberts wrote in the letter that “more transportation fuel energy will be used to transport the increased mass of the obese population, which will increase even further if, as is likely, the overweight people in response to their increased body mass choose to walk less and drive more.”
Mike Spindell, I’m going to take issue with one of your statements. Speaking to Anon, you said you considered him straight, not gay, because “you are such a misogynist that you could only be straight.”
I thought the same way for a long time because my gay male friends were not particularly misogynist, but then I ran across the poem written by one of my favorite (of all time) poets, W.H. Auden, who was gay:
[He is reciting his New Year wishes for various people and he says]:
“To Fascists, policemen, and women,
long nights on the glaciers of fear,
and a lake full of brimstone to swim in
and a bloody awful New Year.”
And of course, some of his best friends were women, but you know how that goes.
Malisha,
But he wouldn’t want one to marry his daughter.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!
I want you to write my stand-up stuff for me!
How has your (or anyone’s) privacy been invaded?
@matt “Big mac’s. Do you know why Ronald McDonald got put in jail?”
I don’t have a clue. I am going to assume it was not for insider trading. If the question if raised on this blog I am going to guess it must be something like ‘he couldn’t keep his big mac to himself’, or he was just vising. He wanted to give big macs to all the prisoners.
@???????
Last Fall, mid September or so, it was revealed that in the Spring a group of the guest bloggers, in conjunction with a non-guess blogger handled Slartibartfast (aka Kevin Kessler) in an attempt to stop what they perceived as a problem of sockpuppets had written special software to exploit a WordPress privacy leak to create a database of all the users and be able to identify what users were using the same underlying email address, an email address whose field says “never made public”.
This is my recollection.
The WordPress privacy leak makes a mathematical hash of that email address public. Which means that any time you use the same email address at any wordpress site, that the email address that wordpress says is not made public, can in fact be used to track you. WordPress refuses to fix this bug because they use it in their Gravatar product.
NOTE: You do not need to have a gravatar. The privacy leak is enabled whenever you type the same email address into the comment form. When I fill out the comment form, for email address, I use a very generic address, and then once every few days or so, I sprinkle random characters into it.
But that does not mean it is not a privacy leak.
So for instance, at this forum, right now, you have chosen the handle ???????, but you filled in the email address. Say you used either your real email, or a typical throwaway email, like, robert21@hotmail.com or ?????@mailinator.com or even your real email.
If you are a regular commenter, and you changed your handle for this one post to ???????, but you used your typical email address, you can be identified.
WordPress will take that email address and give it a (almost completely) unique mathematical identifier. They will do this on every blog you ever use that email. Say at this blog you use that email address, which wordpress says will not be published, as a civil libertarian might, to anonymously complain about TSA, or complain about rendition, or GITMO, or the use of drones. Say at another blog you use that email address and your real name, to talk about what you did over the weekend with your kids. Those two blog posts can be correlated and your real email address and any other personally identifying information that you have published can be revealed if you have the software that Dr. Kevin Kessler wrote. And it’s made worse when the guest bloggers are acting in collusion with him to grant him access to the underlying wordpress registration data for each comment, which I believe they also did, in order to fight their scourge of sock puppets.
And it does not mean that bloggers themselves are to use that bug to identify, and then reveal publically, which comments were written by the same person.
But it’s of course worse when this data is shared as the guest bloggers did, with a non guest blogger like Dr. Kevin Kessler.
Sockpuppets are annoying, but revealing who is writing what blog comments is dangerous, especially on a blog, written by a civil libertarian that discusses government malfeasance and details other whistle blower type actions.
And sockpuppets here weren’t that annoying, or that much worse than what appears at other blogs. It was just a capability they found they had, and so they chose to write special software to exploit it.
When it was discovered, the usual guest commentator fucktardery took over as they first denied it, then they denied it was a privacy invasion, then they claimed it was somehow a feature, then they claimed they were doing privacy research, then they claimed that Professor Turley of all people would approve this behavior, then they all commended themselves for being such royal fuckfaces.
You can read more about it in a couple of threads that this link should provide other links to.
http://tab.bz/c38
Anyway, I would never have expected this sort of behavior from a group of lawyers guest blogging here, but this is exactly what they did.
So keep that in mind when you post comments here, that all these lawyers and other fucktards are eager to hack your privacy behind your back even while to your face they are bragging about what elites they are.
What’s especially amusing is than in January, Gene Howington, apparently one of the co-conspirators, wrote a blog post excoriating just this sort of privacy invasion when performed by the Government, but apparently, it’s okay when he does it.
There is a real problem with the guest bloggers here. With the exception of Nal and I think Mike Appleton if he ever guest blogs here, the others are abusive idiots. And when I say idiots, I mean that literally.
1) Kevin Kessler is not a guest blogger here. It is my understanding that the data he collected was and is still publicly available to all users of WordPress and Gravatar. It contains no personally identifying information like IP or e-mail addresses.
2) “Sockpuppets are annoying, but revealing who is writing what blog comments is dangerous, especially on a blog, written by a civil libertarian that discusses government malfeasance and details other whistle blower type actions.”
Prove that anyone’s real identity was ever revealed here let alone a whistleblower.
This is just another example of your continued anti-guest blogger agenda, anon.
A tale of sound and fury told by an idiot, signifying nothing.
Prove that anyone’s real identity was ever revealed here let alone a whistleblower.
Gosh, well there’s a statement.
One you cannot prove.
I cannot say that I either understand the flap about sock puppets or revealing identities or whistle-blowers, but when I read this:
“… the others are abusive idiots. And when I say idiots, I mean that literally.”
Excuse me. You can’t mean that “literally.”
See, e.g., http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2012/mar/12/reality-check-literally-wrong-use-word
Reading stuff that makes no sense makes me literally turn red with rage. Then when I read somebody else who trashes it in a more sophisticated way than I ever could, I literally get green with envy. Fearing an attack on my own misuse of the language makes me literally turn yellow in fear. And I literally get blue when I think about all the lawyers I have had in my life in ways other than enjoying their intellectual banter.
But for these guys to be literally “idiots” I think they would all have to test out at a lower than 60 [or something] intelligence quotient and I don’t think they literally could do that. I mean, really.
OK, that’s all I have, I’m going to take some more caffeine now. Figuratively.
The damage was done. It was done by lawyers, and you are not just a lawyer you claim to be an IT expert and a defender of privacy.
The statement no one’s real identity was ever revealed is not a defense of the abuse of databases, and the sneaking around without telling the commenters here OR Professor Turley exactly what you clowns were doing.
You should be asking yourself how a lawyer, IT expert, and privacy defender got involved in this.
You should be ashamed of your participation and apologizing.
You should not be rationalizing this shameful episode by stating, “no one’s real identity was ever revealed and you cannot prove otherwise.”
This Gene is why you are a fucktard.
“The damage was done.”
Prove it.
There was no damage done.
Unless you count people who were trying to manufacture consensus (a form of mass lying) being exposed as using sockpuppets to do so, and even in that case?
Prove the damages.
Name names and quantify what they lost in actionable terms.
You simply can’t do it because no one was harmed.
I’ll wait here while you build your case which I’m sure will amount to your opinion of my “fucktard”-ness and nothing of substance.
Announcement: I am changing my name on the blog to “Malisha, NAL, NAD, NAIC.” I will do this just as soon as I figure out how. The credential-initials (first I ever had!) mean:
Not a Lawyer;
Not a Doctor;
Not an Indian Chief.
I just hope I don’t start suffering from DID.
Anon,
It is curious that you keep warning other commenters about the dangers of exposure they face when posting on this blog and yet you keep commenting yourself. Surely you wouldn’t do that if you felt personally threatened or had been in any way exposed? Why is that. Perhaps, because as Gene stated previously, you appear to have a vendetta against all guest bloggers and haven’t suffered any consequences for your feelings.
“It is curious that you keep warning other commenters about the dangers of exposure they face when posting on this blog and yet you keep commenting yourself.”
I randomize my gravatar hash leaks.
I am aware of the privacy leak and when I have really interesting things to say that could get me in trouble, I post behind TOR using a different email address.
Apart from that the rest of your derp has been elided. Derpity, derpity doo.
I am aware of the privacy leak and when I have really interesting things to say that could get me in trouble, I post behind TOR using a different name, and email address.
There are other methods too of course, it’s just beyond the power of comprehension to think those would be required when posting at the blog of a civil libertarian due to the actions of a few of his guest bloggers.
““The damage was done.”
Prove it.”
Heh.
One of the participants boasts that no third party not privy to the information can prove anything about the damage he did, therefore there was no damage.
Brilliant, you’ll make an excellent barrister one day.
Anon,
In addition to being a misogynist, you hate lawyers. Hmm, I wonder if the two are connected, perhaps a bad divorce settlement?
I’m impressed with the lengths you go to so you can . . . what exactly, anon? Preserve your ability to lie? Use sockpuppets and manufacture false consensus? Be an anonymous dick without personal consequence instead of having the character or spine to stand behind what you say? And who exactly are you “going to get in trouble with” for exercising your free speech around here? No one has ever been banned for exercising their 1st Amendment right around here. You’re allowed to say what you like just like we’re allowed to rebut what you say how we like. The fact you haven’t been banned already for being a disruptive ass is testament to the commitment to making this a free speech zone. If you are worried about trouble from someone should you say something that really could “cause you trouble”, it should be the NSA who concerns you. The NSA who have both the means and – should they develop the inclination to find you – the ability to do so whether you use TOR or not. There is a huge difference between pointing out trolls and arresting them. And all that paranoia from someone so stupid they think using an Android phone protects them from their carrier downloading and remotely executing code to your phone that can not only track your Internet usage but your physical location? A truly impressive set of misplaced priorities you’ve got there in addition to a really deficient technical expertise.
“you hate lawyers. Hmm, I wonder if the two are connected, perhaps a bad divorce settlement?”
Truly Mike?
You’ve just now connected something that I’ve said often?
You would make for an insightful psychotherapist!
(And as usual, you are free to produce any examples of misogyny that are not parodies of others in the thread….)
Hey, look at the huge grey wall of blather.
anon,
So you’re saying that I should switch up my email addresses when I post? How do you like this one?
Hey that’s great Dr. Kevin Kesseler.
http://jonathanturley.org/corrections/#comment-378229
You’re such a maroon.
“You’ve just now connected something that I’ve said often?”
I’ve known that for a long time from your writing. I’m just bringing others who don’t kow your crap up to speed.
bfm,
@matt “Big mac’s. Do you know why Ronald McDonald got put in jail?”
I don’t have a clue. I am going to assume it was not for insider trading. If the question if raised on this blog I am going to guess it must be something like ‘he couldn’t keep his big mac to himself’, or he was just vising.
==========================================================
Something like that.
Everyone knows sugary sodas are not healthy, but apparently everyone does not know that prohibition simply never has, does not and never will keep people from putting whatever they want into their bodies.
A more important discussion, I think would focus on the sheer volume of responses this totally unimportant story has generated as well as the elevated level of ad hominem and non sequitur attacks provoked by and contained in those responses. Does this truly matter? How will your lives be affected? Who knew such a mundane piece of legislation could so polarize a populace? On one side you have the all-government-is-evil kooks screaming “nanny state” while on the other you have the you-must-be-protected-from-yourself crowd. There must be SOME happy medium here.
I know! Lets leave the gargantuan sodas alone but pass legislation requiring all good citizens to point and laugh at anyone seen sucking one down.
anon,
Sorry to take so long to reply, but I needed to do a little bit more work “under the hood” before I responded to your pitiful squalling…
I’m sure it is–I’m just not sure how much of the truth is left after it’s been filtered through your many obvious biases…
Comments you make on the web can be correctly attributed to you–oh the horror!
Just out of curiosity, what is that supposed to accomplish? Except, of course, to provide me with some amusement regarding your complete tactical ineptitude. If that was your intent, good job!
As I’ve asked before, whose privacy has been violated and how?
I used a different email address (but valid–I like to subscribe to the threads, but I guess you can’t do that… *snort*)–otherwise you would have recognized my gravatar. I thought that was what you wanted–not to be able to tell if two different commenters are really the same person… Make up your mind.
I didn’t put the leak there, I’m just making use of the data I come across. You seem to be arguing that this is solely the province of corporations or intelligence agencies rather than anyone who wishes to take the time and effort to look at what is freely available. Since we know that the information is already out there and there is no reason to suspect it is not already being used by those with the wherewithal to collect and analyze it, it’s too bad there isn’t someone pointing out that this is possible so that any potential whistleblower would be more careful than the one you describe. Oh wait–that’s exactly what I’m doing!
Do you think that my software is doing things that, say, the NSA is not capable of? That’s flattering but nowhere near the truth…
No guest bloggers were involved in the project when this first arose (and there hasn’t really been any project since then… until now, of course
) and your allegation is completely baseless. Furthermore, since you clearly understand what I claim to have done, you must be aware that I could have accomplished everything I did by the methods that I’ve explained. So why are you making accusations that you have no evidence to support? Trying to smear innocent people by falsely accusing them–I think that says volumes about your character (or lack thereof).
You really don’t understand anything, do you? This was a one-trick pony–once anyone knows that someone is watching in this way they can easily cover their tracks (unless they are as stupid as you apparently are). I didn’t write the software to exploit the gravatar leak, I wrote it as a tool and exploiting the leak was just something that the tool made it easy to do. I’m not the only one who has or can build this kind of tool…
This is a complete and utter lie.
It seems to me that understanding what kind of information (and intelligence) can be developed from freely available information that most people are unaware that they are leaving is exactly the sort of thing that should be discussed on the blog of a civil libertarian. If you weren’t a fool, you’d see that I’ve been trying to raise discussion of this issue (and defend myself and others from your false charges, of course).
A fine example of putting the cart before the horse.
Do you really think that the people that set up gravatar didn’t know about this (and likely intend to make use of it for their own profit all along)? Professor Turley may have expressed his disappointment to me in a private email, but he doesn’t seem to think this issue is important enough to comment on, so until someone can explain to me exactly how anyone is being hurt by my actions or why corporations have more rights than I do, I’ll be using my software and the information that it gathers however I see fit. (I can see you… Bwa-ha-ha-HA-ha!)
Oh, I think I know what they say…
While, despite the fact that you should know exactly what went on since I explained it all, you were a little light on the facts and heavy on the false accusations…
So, by revealing what went on when the matter first arose and explaining everything completely when a third party was attacked, I’m doing this “behind your back”? How, exactly, does that work?
Co-conspirators? I hate to disappoint you (although I’m sure you wont believe me anyway, even though I’m telling the truth), but there really wasn’t any conspiring going on–I developed the software to help a friend with an idea he had about determining demographic information from comments on blogs, did all of the planning and programming myself and only involved other people to discuss the usefulness and ethics of the resultant information once I was getting data (or close to it). This whole kerfuffle is really beside the point, anyway–using gravatars to identify people posting with different handles and the same email isn’t what I’m interested in as there is much more interesting and revealing data that you continue to make available all the time–or am I not allowed to collect your words and analyze them according to your Byzantine rules?
Well, let’s just say in a contest of intelligence, I’d pick any of the guest bloggers over you. You clearly have some sort of grudge against the guest bloggers (which makes it curious why you would spend so much time commenting on threads that they started and participate in if they are so horrible…), but while all of the guest bloggers have long histories of insightful contributions to discussions here, I have yet to see you participate in any discussion in good faith or display genuine insight of any kind.
Just to give an example of what you seem to think is a violation of your privacy, I note that the handle anon has been used with 121 different email addresses (I’m guessing most, but not all, are you). How has imparting this knowledge injured you? Besides the fact that anyone who understands what is going on here is now having a laugh at your expense regarding your pointless countermeasures… Did you think them up all by yourself? I’d ask if you got your friends to help you, but I doubt you have any…
Bloomberg is taking candy water away from babies! Wah!
Bloomberg is probably driven everywhere he goes, and doesn’t expend as much energy walking around his city as most New Yorkers and visitors do. Wasn’t the problem the sugar content, not the size of the fluid created with it. New Yorkers burn more calories than anyone because there is no transportation except underground, forcing everyone to walk, or live underground like mice.
I’ll right away seize your rss feed as I can’t to find your email subscription link or newsletter service. Do you’ve any? Please permit me know so that I may subscribe. Thanks.