Posted on 06/19/2002 11:21:13 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:54:50 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
An abiding weakness of the conventional wisdom is that, once a supposed fact has become part of that wisdom, it becomes almost impossible to dislodge it.
Contemporary journalism contributes to this problem by relying on technologies that help ensure an assertion, once it is repeated enough times, will never be checked against the actual evidence. Consider for example the claim that fat kills 300,000 Americans per year, and is thus the nation's second leading cause of premature death, trailing only cigarettes. A Lexis database search reveals that this "fact" has been repeated in more than one thousand news stories over the past three years alone. Yet the evidence for this claim is so slim as to be practically nonexistent.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
I would like to suggest a different variable....eliminating fast food restaurants...or at least requiring a bold posting on each door, similiar to the one required on packs of cigarettes....
"Eating at this establishment more than once will likely lead to coronary artery disease, stoke, cancer, malnutrition.....etc. etc. etc.
They should have just asked me to sing.
Color me stupid but but poor dietary habits coupled with a sedentary lifesyle generally results in obesity.
300,000 fatsos gone to the great cafeteria in the sky.
Pass around the Big Macs. You don't suppose this article has anything to do with the fact that Southwest Airlines wants to charge extra to fat people who can't fit in the seat? I smell another group that wants victim status.
You don't suppose this article has anything to do with the fact that Southwest Airlines wants to charge extra to fat people who can't fit in the seat?
Considering the source Washington Times, I think the article is counter to the recent fast-food calorie supper-size reports in the media as well as talk of obesity being a major problem in United States that's been in the news. Counter the food-police.
Watch to see if the press and government gives Southwest the go-ahead, even if seemingly grudgingly so. Then, a while latter watch the Southwest obesity issue be used by politicians, bureaucrats, the media and academia to bolster the food-police argument.
The government should stop paying for anyone's medical expenses.
That they do.
But why?
Because their abundant sweat destroys the upholstery.
All this preventing or extending the death process,especially for political purposes, bothers me beyond belief.
And yeah, everyone has a right to eat what they want just like they have the right to feed their kids what they want just like they have the right to smoke and blow smoke in their kids faces. The latter has involved massive amounts of education in the last 30 years. I think it's time for some nutritional education as well.
Big Gub'mint be OK as long as it be for something we dislike.
Or more likely just plain uncomprehending.
That's one of the intended consequences the government seeks. More precisely, how politicians, bureaucrats, the media and academia want people to react -- emotionally instead of rationally. They want people to feel that politicians and bureaucrats are compassionate and looking out for the little guy. They want people to think that government as their warm-blanket friend from cradle to grave. But those people are playing right into their hands. I say those people without knowing specifically who they are and I have seen none on this thread. Still, they unknowingly, or as you said uncomprehendingly, play right into the slave masters hands.
Government intervention into peaceful, private activity among consenting adults will make things worse rather than better.
I think its a plague!
I think it's time for some nutritional education as well.
Don't expect to get rational and honest education from the public indoctrination schools or the media or politicians and bureaucrats. For decades they should have, if they were acting rationally and honestly, broadcast the tremendous harm that sugars are the most damaging carbohydrates -- carbohydrates that destroy a person's metabolism. Certainly people working in the medical industry should have been screaming that from the rooftops.
And the FDA should not have outlawed Saccharine. Taxpayers pay for government abuse so that some FDA parasite can build their case-file drawer as a means to justifying their unearned paycheck. Such government abuse is rampant in almost every one of the alphabet agencies.
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