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
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.
“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, 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.
😉
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.
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.
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.
“Anon, still, reading you as saying what you do say, I gotta say, c’mon…”
I don’t know what you are saying.
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 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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
Mark,
Re: Anon’s aspersion.
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.
bfm,
Big mac’s. Do you know why Ronald McDonald got put in jail?
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.
“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.
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.