As a nation, Americans look more and more to the government to take care of us. To provide us with things like free and low-cost education, day care, health care, and laws for our own protection: seatbelts, open container, helmets, and cellphone bans. Not to mention insuring that if any terrorist got onto a plane to hijack it there is no way we would have anything in our possession that could possibly be used to thwart them. Except for Grannie's knitting needles which I have been reassured repeatedly are now an allowable item for carryon.
Thirty percent of adults in Mississippi are obese and one particularly concerned individual has decided enough is enough. He has decided that since the obese aren't going to lose weight on their own, the government will just have to step in and help the process along. I'll grant you that 30% is a rather large portion of the population, and unchecked obesity does lead to a variety of health problems. Republican Rep. John Read of Gautier, Mississippi has decided that it is time the government intervened directly in this issue.
How, you may well ask yourself? By implementing a "no serve" policy forcing restaurant owners to refuse service to obese people. That's right folks, if you're a lard-ass in Mississippi you don't get to eat out in public. We don't want to see you fat pigs snuggling up to the trough and chowing down at our diners, buffets, fast food joints, bistros, and certainly not our fine eating establishments. If you're a porker, just keep your chubby cheeks at home and eat lettuce with low fat salad dressing the way god intended.
The ironic thing is that Republican Rep. John Read of Gautier himself would not be allowed to eat in public as he stands 5'11" and weighs 230 lbs. For my non-imperial readers that amounts to 1.524 meters (do you express height that way?) and 104 kg.
15 comments:
I agree it's a funny attempt. I do give him credit for thinking outside the box re: weightloss:-) Not that I think his law is a particularly good idea.
FYI, typically, human heights are given in centimetres. Your conversion is actually incorrect: 5'11" is actually 180.3 cm (that's my height, btw, though I weigh a great deal less that 230 lbs).
FYI#2 - In Canada, even though we're metric for just about everything else, we still tend to give our weights and heights in imperial. Old habits die hard, I suppose.
Wow... and this guy's a Republican? What ever happened to LESS government from the GOP?
King A... I just went to an imperial to metric conversion site and plugged in the data. t certainly didn't look right when I typed it, that's why I asked.
I don't know if a google search for "correct format for metric height" would have yielded any meaningful results or not.
T&A Less government from Republicans has not been what the current administration has been about at all!!!!!
Nor was less gov't characteristic of Reagan, in spite of his rhetoric. He may have cut taxes but he did not cut spending!
His cutting taxes and increasing spending predictably made the debt increase —in real dollars and as a percent of GDP. During his eight years in office the percentage of debt to GDP grew to 51.9%.
The ratio of debt to GDP had been generally dropping since the end of World War II. When Mr. Reagan entered office the percent of US debt relative to GDP was down to 33.3%.
Reagan argued vociferously to reduce the level of all that liberal spending. However the only real effort he pursued was to get taxes cut while increasing spending. Cutting taxes and increasing spending predictably made the debt increase - in real dollars and as a percent of GDP. During his eight years in office the percentage of debt to GDP grew to 51.9%!
So, Reagan appeared to take less money, but by creating debt, he took more! After his Presidency taxpayers had to pay for the debt & interest he incurred. In the end he will have taken much more from Americans pockets than if he had not cut taxes. That is still big government, all thanks to the GOP.
The Republicans used to talk-the-talk of freedom, capitalism, and less government, but failed to walk-the-walk. Since Reagan they don't even talk-the-talk, and really only have differing takes on the political implementation of religious views. So, vote Republican if you want Christian 'Sharia' Law. Revolting and harmful as the Democrat candidates are, the religionists are the bigger danger.
The Democrats are ultimately less dangerous because their socialism is intellectually bankrupt and it will be resisted by elected Republicans. In contrast the religion of the Republicans is being accepted by the Democrats!! and will not be effectively resisted. That has more scary consequences than a Hilary president (Gack@#$%^&*( P'toowey!) or an "I have no idea what I will actually do", starry-eyed Barack president
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BTW: I thought the candidates for the two parties were bad in the last two caucuses. This time they are so bad I would not sit a table with any of them, except maybe to suggest to Obama that he should have some sort of plan to attract the odd voter that actually thinks beyond skin color and pie-in-the-sky speeches.
I heard this story way up here in MA and thought, "WHAT?" Yeah, humiliation always works super well in getting people to change their behavior.
Apparently, he doesn't really want this to become a law, but just wanted to bring attention to the problem. Kind of like the parent who slaps their kid and says, "I'm doing this for your own good!"
Fairy Odd Mother, COOL NAME! Welcome to m' blog! Lovely to see another homeschooling Mom pop in.
We were having a small family get- together one time and my cousin's son (age 2ish) was acting up a bit and then smacked my son. My cousin's wife reached over and slapped his hand and said, "Stop hitting people!"
I just kind of looked at her with my eyebrow raised and she said rather sheepishly, "Oh... I guess that doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?"
Ummmm... nope!
Richard, Reagan also raised taxes.
From Washington Monthly
"Reagan agreed to a tax increase to reduce the deficit that restored fully one-third of the previous year's reduction. (In a bizarre bit of self-deception, Reagan, who never came to terms with this episode of ideological apostasy, persuaded himself that the three-year, $100 billion tax hike--the largest since World War II--was actually "tax reform" that closed loopholes in his earlier cut and therefore didn't count as raising taxes."
"Faced with looming deficits, Reagan raised taxes again in 1983 with a gasoline tax and once more in 1984, this time by $50 billion over three years, mainly through closing tax loopholes for business. Despite the fact that such increases were anathema to conservatives--and probably cost Reagan's successor, George H.W. Bush, reelection--Reagan raised taxes a grand total of four times just between 1982-84."
Every National politician out there is a lying, self-serving, power hungry, evil, manipulative bastard.
And I would absolutely love nothing more than to be proved utterly wrong on this one!!!
fuck off barb, hope your plane crashes. don't spam my blog.
Thanks, T&A!! I somehow missed that... amongst all the rhetoric.
Do you know if total taxation went up under Reagan, or if he just repealed a bunch of taxes and then added some new ones? Judging by the numbers I suspect the total probably went up.
Fiery... but I want to know what that Barb did.. :-)
You know, "We don't serve your kind here." is what I would like to see said, publicly, to politicians and priest-types at restaurants etc. No other legitimate, prominent groups are more deserving, not blacks, not dogs, not even (e.g.) Latter Day Saints, Mormons or North American Muslims.
It looks like Hilary will be the next Liar-In-Charge... and, my god, what a fork-tongued, power-hungry freak she is. Worse, she is probably the best in the field for the Americans to pick :-(
I would kind of prefer to see starry-eyed vacuous, unprincipled, power-hungry, eyes-betray-his-character, Obama in the role. At least he seems nicer. The World could use that delusion for a while.
Wait, the only difference with Obama is that he can *look* starry-eyed and Hilary cannot.
This is the most shallow, unprincipled, mindless, election I have ever heard of or witnessed. The main ideas seem to be black, female, & 'christian'-snerk-'values'. Health care &/etc aren't even seriously debated. No politician really disagrees, not really. Not even Ron Paul... because he cannot raise the necessary arguments properly, and that's because Libertarians have no principles.
Did the term "white lies" arise from statements released by the "White" House.
Is it okay to crack open the Brandy at 8 AM??? I won't , but it seems no worse than waking up to all this crap.
Jeebus
I have blisters on my hands from shoveling snow... I shovel mine plus 4 neighbors' driveways ——they are single women with children AND significant health problems.
I shoveled three times yesterday, the last time from 11PM to 12AM. Then I resumed shoveling from 6:30AM to 7:45AM this morning before having my coffee.
I wonder if this is nearing some sort of record levels for the Toronto area. King Aardvark might know.
The snow banks are generally at 5' with some now over 6' tall. That's not counting the ones pushed up by the plows.
Another 6" expected over the next four days.
Since the global climate is supposed to be unchanging, this (and the awful tornadoes in the US) is clearly a consequence of human industry and CO2 production. Stop buying and driving those damn cars, people, don't you CARE???
Never mind that Barb... it's one of those "work at home and make lots of money" sites. (My "follow up comments" finally displayed 'Barb's' spam comment.) Fuck-off Barb, is just what is deserved!
If nothing else it provided some good fodder for the comedians. I heard about this on breakfast radio here in Aus, the DJs were having a good laugh about it.
Hey OzA! I admit that initially it is funny. And very easy to turn into morning drive time radio dj fodder.
The scary part is when you start thinking about it. When you realize that people in the government want to pass laws to FORCE people to take care of themselves. To FORCE people to do what the GOVERNMENT believes is in their best interst.
Where is self-responsibility when it is the government dictating where you can eat, how much, how often. What happens when eventually to that list becomes added "AND WITH WHOM!"
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