This from the woman who still cannot pay off her campaign debt…
It takes a lot of money to fight something that isn’t there…
OMG SNIPER FIRE EVERYBODY DUCK!!!…
It’s only money…
Take your pick, the article.
Remember how a few years ago, anorexia and bulimia were destroying the lives of America’s youth? Yeah I do too, there was a time when you couldn’t avoid hearing about how female “body image” was being distorted by attractive people on television and in print advertising. Young women, en mass, were apparently racing to the bathroom to puke away a delicious meal or two.
Yes there were and are women, especially some young women, who are being ravished by terrible psychological problems and hard to deal with issues surrounding their self image. For them I feel and hope they seek and find help. There is a difference between a minority of our population suffering from something that needs real assistance and a public relations campaign forged by academics and snake oil salesman creating a media driven sense of epidemic. The craze over people who were too thin was just a craze, not unlike Y2K or Africanized Killer Bees.
Do you know how I always knew there was no mass issue with bulimia and anorexia striking American youth and destroying our nation from the inside? I have eyes and I shop at malls. While the extreme anti-female-left was pushing this notion, I could see with my own eyes that the majority of people around me, including young girls, were getting fatter and fatter. If there was an epidemic of people experiencing extreme weight loss, it sure wasn’t happening outside of JC Penny’s and definitely not Wal-Mart.
You almost never hear about anorexia or bulimia anymore. I believe that is because common sense has set in. In place of extreme weight loss fears, we are now in the midsts of a massive media campaign declaring obesity the number one problem with America. Liberals, out of nowhere, must have found the right prescription glasses, looked around the classroom and realized young girls and the rest of the population were not wasting away, they were gorging themselves on all they could find.
Obesity has become a major concern of the far left. Just as interest groups were birthed and spread throughout the 80’s and 90’s because of the belief the planet was going to get so hot that the world would explode, lefty groups now appear to be on a crusade to tie obesity to the extinction of the human species, the destruction of Health Care and yes, even global warming. Oy, do we not learn our lessons?
I have to say, I could care less about obesity. Will millions die as a result? Sure, but that is not my problem. Millions of people will also die from a plethora of other things. I will never, in my life, jump out of an airplane for recreation. If someone does and they die, not my problem and if a hundred people did it, that still doesn’t make it a concern of the federal government. If people choose to eat until their heart explodes, I don’t really care, that is their right. If they want to spend their money becoming obese, have at it. Liberty isn’t always pretty.
The new argument is that health care costs are spiraling out of control because of obesity. There is endless research making this connection and it became the cornerstone of many of the 2008 candidates health care proposals and will surely be part of the health care solutions coming out of the Congress. That is all well and good, I actually believe health care costs are rising because of obesity and other lifestyle choices. I also know, most of the people pushing the plans and vilifying restaurants and food producers, are fat.
Hillary Clinton’s plan in 2008 was loaded with ideas about how to make America healthy. Hillary Clinton is fat. Hillary actually got fatter during the campaign while she was out talking about her proposals. The woman has millions of dollars and a team of people working on her. She can afford the healthiest food and have someone prepare it for her. She has no problem preaching to others about lifestyle, yet her ass is enormous.
It isn’t just a Democrat thing either. Mike Huckabee LOVES to talk about the weight he lost and the virtues of personal responsibility leading to savings for society. I have news, Mike Huckabee is ENORMOUS again. The guy has a TV show and apparently has decided the money he makes from it is best spent binge eating. If Huckabee wants to talk about how to not stay thin, great, otherwise I have no interest.
They aren’t the only ones. Every other week it seems Oprah does a show about weight loss and has been the public face for this growing media campaign. Oprah is gigantic. A billionaire with all of her money riding on self improvement, she cannot wait to let her audience know they have a problem. She is the one with the problem. Any woman taking diet tips from Oprah needs to have her head examined.
Have you looked at most of the members of Congress pushing Health Care reform? Fat! Michael Moore made a movie about the high cost of health care. He must have run across some of this amazing research linking obesity to the high cost of care. Michael Moore, even with supposedly losing weight, is gigantic.
One of the new trends is to attempt a ban on trans fats and taxes for fatty foods. I honestly think the Oprah’s and Hillary Clinton’s of the world can only be skinny if such a stupid and useless ban or heavy tax existed. It appears to me that to keep Oprah skinny, we would have to remove from the planet, every non-vegetable and fruit and turn our streets into treadmills she could not avoid.
At the end of the day, I don’t care if Hillary Clinton or Oprah or Michael Moore are fat and not giving up a few meals to feed starving people in Uganda. They, however, care that everyone else is. Hypocrites.
If you believe in human evolution, you should recognize that over time, species either adapt or they die. This is supposedly the root of all evolutionary history. If you know how the heart and the human body work, you also know that our great ancestors would have had to face enormous obstacles in conditioning their organs to move out of the oceans and eventually walk on two legs. Pushing against the force of gravity, they managed to become stronger and adapt. Their bodies changed and things worked out.
Our bodies are either going to adapt to being gigantic or die. If human internal organs cannot figure out how to handle a Snickers bar properly over the next few hundred years, we might as well become extinct. Like all things liberals worry about, massive government action is not the answer. Time, nature, and a little common sense will prevail. Healthy doses of shame from skinny good looking people is actually part of the solution too, not the problem.
I believe Liberals were smart to wrap their distaste for a heavier population to the rising cost of health care and not spend their time actually solving their own weight problems. As a conservative, I completely agree with the notion that a lack of personal responsibility is leading to problems in our society. However, if you follow a logical and Constitutional line of thought, you would never arise at government bans, taxes and of course socialized medicine.
The logical thing to do would be to charge people who have excessive weight issues more money for things like health care. Somehow this seems to escape the liberal mind. If everyone enjoys foods with trans fats, but a percentage of the population abuses them, why charge everyone more? Additionally, why make the entire population pay the medical bills that come from this abusive population when the smaller population should be paying less? If obesity is a problem you wish to solve, this line of thought actually makes things worse because it removes consequences from the very obese.
Additionally, giving obese people who are denied or cannot afford the high cost of regular medical insurance a government run medical insurance plan, is counterproductive. The socialist notion that the strong must pay more to save the weak is the problem. Like all liberal plans, their solutions to obesity punishes everyone, to save no one, while hurting the people who make good choices.
In the end obesity will work itself out or it won’t. All of the money and time wasted to hunt this media driven epidemic will only make things worse. Is obesity a problem? Yes, for the obese. Has it become a problem for everyone else? Yes, because we all have to pay for their poor choices. So will a solution whereby everyone is punished and taxed and forced to provide for the obese, solve the problem? No, it will only make things worse.
There is one solution to obesity, eat less and work out more and society cannot do that for the obese.
From the Financial Times:
India on Sunday night rebuffed an appeal by Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, to embrace a low-carbon future in which the two countries would work together to devise new ways of consuming and producing energy.
Mrs Clinton, on a five-day visit to the country, said that low-carbon emissions would not jeopardise India’s high economic growth rates and its goal of lifting millions of people out of poverty. She offered a technological partnership to secure the fast growing nation’s energy supplies and help boost the livelihoods of its farmers.
“There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have been among the lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions,” Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment minister told Mrs Clinton. “And as if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours.”
Honduras Struggle for Power
Morning News
Reports: Soldiers arrest Honduran president…
Chavez denounces “coup”& urges Obama to speak out against “military takeover”…
Afternoon
Nicaraguan paper La Prensa Gráfica reports that the Venezuelan ambassador to the Organization of American States claims that the ambassadors for Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua in Honduras were kidnapped, hooded, and beaten. OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza announced he will travel to Honduras.
[1:28 PM EST] Venezuela’s Chavez says he will bring down any new government in Honduras… Reuters says Venezuela military on alert.
[1:32 PM EST] Reuters: Ecuador says it will not recognize any new government after Honduras coup.
[1:36 PM EST] Clinton urges condemnation of Honduras military action WHILE President José Manuel Zelaya says he was ousted in a coup
[6:10 PM EST] Appears the Honduran Congress voted to remove Zelaya
[9:39 PM EST] New president Roberto Micheletti sworn in
The Honduran Congress later voted to remove Zelaya for “putting in present danger the state of law” and appointed congressional President Roberto Micheletti as the new chief executive, as is mandated by the Constitution.
Resource: Fausta’s blog has breaking info Latest report from her blog:
Honduran Turmoil Background
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya’s push to rewrite the constitution, and pave the way for his potential re-election, has plunged one of Latin America’s poorest countries into a potentially violent political crisis (Wall Street Journal
Zelaya, a leftist elected in 2005, has found himself pitted against the other branches of government and military leaders over the issue of Sunday’s planned referendum. It would ask voters to place a measure on November’s ballot allowing the formation of a constitutional assembly that could modify the nation’s charter to allow the president to run for another term.
Zelaya, whose four-year term ends in January 2010, cannot run for re-election under current law.
The Honduran Supreme Court had ruled the poll illegal, and Congress and the top military brass agreed, but Zelaya had remained steadfast. (CNN
More on history of Honduras
- BBC History of Honduras Timeline
Iran state TV continues its assault on Neda’s death
Iran arrests 8 British embassy employees – Hat Tip (Hot Air) … Britain calling for their release
Senators Graham & Schumer are calling for restrictions on tech exports to Iran
Cap & Trade
The Rino Eight and comprehensive list of cap-and-trade materials
Minority Leader John Boehne calls the climate bill a ‘pile of s–t’
Everything Else
Time Warner & Comcast trying to kill online TV
Senate agrees to full funding request by NASA, putting it at odds with House
US & Russia differ on treaty for cyberspace
Harrisburg PA chapter of NAACP urges martial law
Must Watch: Goode Family
Open Thread, will be updated throughout day
Now in the news
Worth a watch
Megyn Kelly & Bill Press debate the Fairness Doctrine
(Hat tip: Hot Air)
Bristol Palin discusses motherhood
Now in the news:
Worth a read
- Obama’s Rhetoric Is the Real ‘Catastrophe’ In 1932, automobile production shriveled by 90%.
It is bad history because our current economic woes don’t come close to those of the 1930s. At worst, a comparison to the 1981-82 recession might be appropriate. Consider the job losses that Mr. Obama always cites. In the last year, the U.S. economy shed 3.4 million jobs. That’s a grim statistic for sure, but represents just 2.2% of the labor force. From November 1981 to October 1982, 2.4 million jobs were lost — fewer in number than today, but the labor force was smaller. So 1981-82 job losses totaled 2.2% of the labor force, the same as now.
Job losses in the Great Depression were of an entirely different magnitude. In 1930, the economy shed 4.8% of the labor force. In 1931, 6.5%. And then in 1932, another 7.1%. Jobs were being lost at double or triple the rate of 2008-09 or 1981-82.
- Former astronaut speaks out on global warming
Former astronaut Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the moon and once served New Mexico in the U.S. Senate, doesn’t believe that humans are causing global warming.
“I don’t think the human effect is significant compared to the natural effect,” said Schmitt, who is among 70 skeptics scheduled to speak next month at the International Conference on Climate Change in New York.
Schmitt contends that scientists “are being intimidated” if they disagree with the idea that burning fossil fuels has increased carbon dioxide levels, temperatures and sea levels.
- The Obama rescue: This week marked a huge wasted opportunity in the economic crisis
- Recalled to half-life: A surprising revival in previously reviled nuclear power
- Lack of standards delaying move to digital medical records
Well day two was no fun as Obama began dismantling the tools of George Bush’s successful war on terrorism. Obama issued executive orders, once setting a close date of no later than one year for the Guantanamo Bay detention center, an order severly limiting interrogation techniques and requiring every agency of the government to abide by the Army Field Manual interrogation guidelines, an order to review the detention of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri who is being held at a Naval Brig in Charleston, S.C. and finally an order to conduct a review of detainee policy going forward. Word also came that Obama was closing down supposed black sites used to detain and question terrorists that exist around the world.
In total all of these executive orders will take away interrogation methods and detention methods used when capturing terrorists on the battlefield around the world. It will begin a process of providing those captured the same rights that Americans enjoy and will severly constrain the military, intelligence and executive branch in the future from gaining intelligence or distrupt terrorist networks. The second day of Obama’s presidency was a major win for terrorists and enemies of our nation around the world.
Luckily though Yemen is setting up a rehabilitation center for the terrorists who are expected to be released and returned there.
- Obama further broke with Bush administration policy asking Israel to open its borders with Gaza.
- Hillary Clinton started her bid as Secretary of State and it was announced George Mitchell would serve as US special envoy for the Arab-Israeli conflict and Richard Holbrooke, former US ambassador to the United Nations, as representative for Afghanistan-Pakistan.
- It was speculated that Obama could seek a second bailout for banks. It was also suggested Obama could put a halt to plans for offshore drilling.
The White House Press Secretary held his first conference, he didn’t do too well. An earlier briefing by two administration officials was supposed to keep their names unidentified but Press Secretary Gibbs accidentally outed one minutes into the briefing. A good deal of the conference had reporters questioning Obama’s pledge for “transparancy” attempting to square it with seemingly secretive actions.
Obama ended the day visiting the White House press room where he was asked a substanative question by a Politico reporter who asked, “how he could reconcile a strict ban on lobbyists in his administration with a Deputy Defense Secretary nominee who lobbied for Raytheon” Obama then tried to joke off the inquiry. The reporter pressed him further.
“Alright, come on” he said, with obvious irritation in his voice. “We will be having a press conference at which time you can feel free to [ask] questions. Right now, I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself to you guys – that’s all I was trying to do.”
Yesterday the White House distributed their own staged photos to the press for distribution, 3 news agencies refused to run them because of longstanding policies treating photos taken by the admin in parts of the building that are considered “public” as press releases. The agencies voiced their concerns over access but it is unclear if they came to a resolution. The media was also not thrilled about being kept in the dark about Obama’s SECOND swearing in and a host of other issues.
- Additionally it was discovered whitehouse.gov contains some interesting policy objectives that contradict Obama’s stated promises on gun rights.
Update: No surprise here, from the New York Times “Some in the Obama camp are bristling at what they see as strategic leaks by the Clintons aimed at boxing in the president-elect and forcing him to offer the post. The tension could foreshadow a complex relationship burdened by suspicion and enmity should Mrs. Clinton become secretary of state. “ while Politico says some aides are not too pleased with what a Clinton appointment says about the message of change.
Andrea Mitchell from NBC News contends neither the Clinton or Obama camps wanted the release of news that the NY Senator and former Obama rival was being tapped for the Secretary of State position. Still as Clinton dismissed questions late last week it was hard not to notice the giddy smile she wore. Since that time we have been treated to a kind of “on again, off again” confirmation and denial game with leaks aplenty and news of vetting needed for Bill Clinton’s business dealings. (The latest on which says Clinton is willing to “make concessions” on future earnings and speaking engagements)
Today what seemed like static is quickly turning into noise with the headlines, “Clinton believes Cabinet post is hers, if she wants it” and Sen. Clinton is weighing Secretary of State post.” News is Clinton isn’t sure if she is willing to give up her relative “independence” for the constraints of the job. A woman almost giddy last week is now making Obama wait in a very public way. Not good… Not good.
This is all so Clinton, isn’t it? All the leaks, all the back room talk, the ability to turn what should be someone else’s moment into a national conversation about them.
While I personally believe Senator Clinton has all the right skills, contacts and command to be a good Secretary of State, I also see that this woman is going to bring an endless supply of drama. Can you just imagine what will happen that very first time things go wrong and the administration looks to pin it on Hillary? Can’t you just see Bill going on Larry King that night to explain why it was anyone but her? Can you imagine the leaks to the press, the reaction of what will no doubt become a rampant chapter of Hillaryland housed in the State Department? All that drama.
Personally I want to see Obama handle her. I have real fears of this man being schooled by world dictators and while a campaign against candidate Clinton was one hurdle, take away the need for neighborhood coffees and Good Morning America interviews and you have something entirely different. You have a machine against a man. A man whom, for some precarious reason, has surrounded himself with Clinton loyalists, people like Emanuel who brought this game to new levels while working in Clintonville.
When things go right, everyone is loyal and happy, everyone is willing to check their egos at the door because enough praise can go around. When things go wrong though, that is when Obama will need to watch his back and his administration as it will quickly turn from an episode of Full House to 24. If Hillary is bringing this much drama now, just wait!
Newsweek is reporting that Obama is counting votes to see if he can get Eric Holder confirmed as Attorney General. Holder was Bill Clinton’s #2 man at the Justice Department, he was also the one responsible for getting Mark Rich pardoned in the last minutes of the Clinton administration. Rich made #10 of Time’s most controversial pardons in Presidential history.
In 1983, financier Rich was indicted for evading more than $48 million in taxes, and charged with 51 counts of tax fraud, as well as running illegal oil deals with Iran during the 1979-1980 hostage crisis. During his last week in office, President Bill Clinton pardoned Rich, who had fled the U.S. during his prosecution and was residing in Switzerland. Clinton’s eleventh-hour move, along with pardons of his half-brother, Roger, and former business partner Susan McDougal, outraged Republicans and Democrats alike. The Rich pardon sparked an investigation into whether it was bought by the hefty donations Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, had given to the Clintons and the Democrats. In the end, investigators did not find enough evidence to indict Clinton.
So change has given us John Podesta as Transition head, Rahm Emanuel as Chief-of-Staff, potentially Hillary Clinton at State and Eric Holder as AG. Not to mention 31 out of 47 people on his transition team are Clintonites.
