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
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.”
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
Go for it Mil, enjoy, have fun, revel, …
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
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.
“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.
lol
INTERIOR. BLOOMBERG THREAD
Dribble stains the shirt of GENE HOWINGTON.
GENE HOWINGTON
(furiously pounding table)
I’m not pounding the table!
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.
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.
Indeed, it is your reaction that completes the picture of self-loathing based on that very denial.
“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?
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.
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.
…
“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!
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.
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.