patrick.net

simchaland says

Why stop with just a tax on fatties and sodomites? Let’s round them up and ask the NRA to deal with them. Just make sure that fatties and sodomites are separated before the final solution. There’s nothing worse than sodomite fat asses. They’re unclean I tell you! This is all a case for hygienic eugenics. We’ll create a master American Race.
All hail Whole Foods!

So, simcha - your answer begs the question - how do you tax a gay fattie with a gun? (not that I'm implying you're fat or that you have a gun. But you've admitted that you're - gasp - one of THEY! I think there's a problem with that, tho. If they tax gays by the head of men in whom they express interest (no pun intended, I swear!), then women and bisexuals should be taxed at the same rate. I can't afford it.

I'm old, but not dead. :)

I'm still trying to work out if this thread is Ray's heretofore absent sense of humor.

Personally I'd just be happy if airlines charged by the pound, passenger & luggage. Then I'd not be subsidizing fuel for Sumo Steve, nor his giant rollaboard exploding out of the overhead.

Zlxr says

People eat what’s put in front of them. In the old days we ONLY had whole wheat bread, and things that you knew where they came from.

I’m reading from a label of ? Chicken Broth (that I did not buy) and it lists Monosodium Glutamate as the 4th ingredient. Then sugar, natural flavor (why?) Maltodextrin, autolyzed yeast extract, hydrolyzed whey protein, modified corn starch, hydrolyzed wheat bran, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, caramel color, beta carotene (for color). Chicken broth , salt and chicken fat were listed as the first 3 ingredients.

See you're supposed to buy from the Kosher proveyor of healthful food from Whole Foods, that way the S&P 500 goes through the roof then the Liberal regime gets credit for a Booming profits at the poor expense. Do they take Food Stamps??? Because it would be nice if the poor can know what a 3 inch Porterhouse steak from a Cow that practiced Bobine Yoga taste like.

Zlxr says

In the old days we ONLY had whole wheat bread, and things that you knew where they came from.

I don't know when and where YOU grew up, but when I grew up, sandwiches started with a soft & remarkably WHITE bread:

Wonder Bread with baloney (preferably cooked in a pan a little) & mustard.

School lunch might be:

Wonder Bread with PB&J, or maybe PB & bananas.

I don't recall wheat bread entering my diet on a regular basis until I was an adult.

I always thought it was Roman bread, I was an adult before I realized Roman was the brand.

Vicente says

Personally I’d just be happy if airlines charged by the pound, passenger & luggage. Then I’d not be subsidizing fuel for Sumo Steve, nor his giant rollaboard exploding out of the overhead.

Now you're thinking. Why shouldn't airlines charge per pound?

Zlxr says

If we did not eat processed water and cardboard or whatever they call some of these food items - we would not have the problem we have. If the stores only sold real food then that’s all we would have to choose from. Times may have changed alot but we still pretty much have the genes and the digestive tract of our ancestors. Their food was not sugar based and full of all these non food items.

A bit short sighted, I'd say. There've been overweight people long before processed foods came along... and if we couldn't go to the store & buy fattening foods we'd make them at home. Processed foods makes it easier to get fat, that's all. I have a cookbook from the early 1900's and all it lists for ingredients is cream, pure butter, sugar, etc. All that stuff is fattening.

I'd dare say we've gotten fatter since we started sitting on our asses more, in offices & cars and on couches (where I sit right now, reclined). We're a sedentary society, and it shows.

Zlxr says

You’re right about the exercise - we need more of that too. It’s just that there was a time when we could be sedentary and eat wrong and not be AS fat as people are today.

A quick look online: Big Mac Value meal 1170 calories, Whopper value meal 1,800 calories, Panda Express orange chicken single serving is 500 calories... and there's a newer version of the bigfoot pizza that's 2 feet long being advertised all over the teevee.

Ever notice how they have skinny people in their ads? Yet when I walk into the restaurants, there are many overweight people chowing down. Even their salads dressings are high in calories.

But I do believe we're more sedentary than we used to be. Video games, computers, cars, riding mowers, etc. I knew a guy who was a runner for a title company - he would brag that he didn't have to get out of the car almost all day except to walk about 20 feet into a building. He'd use the drive thru to buy coffee, donuts, drop off the boss's dry cleaning, eat lunch, go to the bank... He also carried a urinal in his car. That's dedication.

Zlxr says

But we were all thin back in the 50’s and 60’s, there was maybe 1 fat kid per grade

Yes and a standard mcd's meal, which I got about every 3 months not 3 times a week, was a small hamburger (270 calories) , small fries (180 calories), and a 12 oz coke (110 calories). That's 550 calories. The quarter pounder and large fries didn't exist. The standard mcd's meal today is triple that or more. Someone at mcd's realized that most of the cost of providing a meal wasn't the actual food and that increasing the meal size made for a much larger profit as the cost of the food didn't increase as fast as the price charged then voila, super size it was the order of the day. All the other fast food vendors jumped on the bandwagon. Brilliant marketing, not so great for calorie consumption.

A coke from a vending machine was 12 oz in the 1960's, not 32. Sugar was very expensive before high fructose corn syrup, so sugared beverages were small and expensive. Track the growth of fast food consumption as well as the growth in consumption of very cheap corn syrup sweetener and it matches the growth in obesity very well.

The genie of extremely cheap calories is out of the bottle. I very much doubt it can be put back in.

bob2356 says

The genie of extremely cheap calories is out of the bottle. I very much doubt it can be put back in.

It wouldn't fit anymore - gained too much weight. ;)

Are you still against the Fat Tax?

http://www.kfor.com/kfor-news-fat-roll-shoplifters-story,0,3781914.story

RayAmerica says

We typically buy only organic food (which admittedly is far more expensive)

Ray I'm not sure how I missed this part early on in your post, or I would have totally disregarded this whole post. It's pretty much like the first Missus running around telling kids to eat healthy, when she has a full staff of personal shoppers, chefs, dietitians working on the first family diet.
Just more of the Hypocritical smug bullshit that I find endearing in modern politics.

Why is eating organic/local bad ToT?

I'm not a fanatic about it, but I drink milk and usually "O" brand organic milk from Safeway.

I guess it's that whole thing of not wanting to drink a daily dose of extra special mystery chemicals above and beyond what you'd expect your cow to provide.

Prefer growing my own tomatoes etc. now that we have garden space. Just getting good harvest off the winter crop of lettuce and greens now. We don't spray any pesticides on it.

Vicente says

Why is eating organic/local bad ToT?
I’m not a fanatic about it, but I drink milk and usually “O” brand organic milk from Safeway.
I guess it’s that whole thing of not wanting to drink a daily dose of extra special mystery chemicals above and beyond what you’d expect your cow to provide.
Prefer growing my own tomatoes etc. now that we have garden space. Just getting good harvest off the winter crop of lettuce and greens now. We don’t spray any pesticides on it.

I didn't say it is bad, I said it is unrealistic to expect most people to eat healthy, given the limited resources many have. It wasn't that long ago a huge bag of produce was like a copula dollars.
Now it's a a huge bag of burgers cost only a copula dollars.

The fat people are the Canaries not the cause.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Diet/story?id=3353401&page=1

discusses the benefits and drawbacks of organic food.

Tenouncetrout says

I didn’t say it is bad, I said it is unrealistic to expect most people to eat healthy, given the limited resources many have.

You don't have to eat only organic to eat healthy. A lot of people eat junk, and pay a lot of money for it. We were vegitarians for about 5 years. It was incredibly cheap ... and healthy. Granted it takes more of an effort, but there are other ways to eat than the slop most Americans consider to be "food." We still eat mostly vegitarian, but now eat fish & chicken, etc.

Instead of taxing fat people, we could incentivize fitness, by for instance providing health premium discounts for thin people the same way safe drivers get insurance discounts. Also, tax deductions for things like kids' soccer or hoops camp, for businesses who offer gym memberships to their employees etc.

sam1 says

Instead of taxing fat people, we could incentivize fitness, by for instance providence health premium discounts for thin people the same way safe drivers get insurance discounts. Also, tax deductions for things like kids’ soccer or hoops camp, for businesses who offer gym memberships to their employees etc.

What a crazy idea. Negative reinforcement is the way! We should make fat people sit at the back of the bus and not allow them to vote until they lose weight. If they're their ideal body weight, they shouldn't be afforded the same privileges that others are. This should include pregnant women, invalids, etc. We should electrify video games so that after 20 minutes, kids begin to be shocked at progressively higher amounts until they get up off their lazy (electrified) asses and exercise. ;)

this thread is crazy. People who are thin often don't understand how difficult it is to lose weight. Even starving themselves doesn't help. Focusing on the issue and chastising the overweight doesn't seem to be helping.

sam1 says

Instead of taxing fat people, we could incentivize fitness, by for instance providence health premium discounts for thin people the same way safe drivers get insurance discounts. Also, tax deductions for things like kids’ soccer or hoops camp, for businesses who offer gym memberships to their employees etc.

I like your ideas. Another thing to consider would be a special penalty on parents that allow their kids to get fat. This is a form of child abuse, IMO.

RayAmerica says

. We were vegitarians for about 5 years. It was incredibly cheap … and healthy. Granted it takes more of an effort, but there are other ways to eat than the slop most Americans consider to be “food.” We still eat mostly vegitarian, but now eat fish & chicken, etc.

Well that's because you live in Unicorn village.

Wait a minute, you were a Vegetarian for about 5 years, and you now eat fish & chicken?

Perhaps you're just Gourmandly challenged.

Give me your address. I'll send you a tub of tofu.

You don't have to send me anything. I know how to eat, and while I'm defending fat people only in the fact that most don't have an alternative. Be poor and hungry and only have $2.00, and I bet you anything, you'll be spending that $2.00 on as may burgers as it can buy at a fast food value menu. And not on the two or three Carrots you be able to buy at the Grocery Store.

In America, obesity is not that closely correlated to income. You have a lot of fat people in affluent white suburbia too, though those tend to be in red states.

Ah, typo above, I meant "providing" not "providence".

Obesity is for poor people!

Vicente says

Obesity is for poor people!

How do you know she's not the one that's rich and loves slim, I mean him, for the person that lives inside that mass of human flesh?

Fat fact

President William Taft weighed over 300 lbs and once got stuck in the White House bathtub.

rpanic01 says

President William Taft weighed over 300 lbs and once got stuck in the White House bathtub.

By today's standards, Taft would be considered a light weight.

"Food ... I need more FOOD. Can't you see I'm starving?"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1337077/World-s-fattest-woman-Terri-Smith-told-Diet-die-hitting-50-STONE.html

Michelle Obama gets it ... she really, really gets it.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46303.html

Taxing gasoline at much higher rates might get at least some people to slim down as well.

Maybe we should consider taxing fat cats too (no pun intended)?

What is with the abiding hate on Fatties Ray?

I can't help wondering why you can't let this thread rest.

Vicente says

What is with the abiding hate on Fatties Ray?

Maybe you should direct your question to Michelle Obama ... she just raised the natiional security threat level for obesity to "orange."

I was thinking about Ray's Fat tax for a while, and still not sure if that's a good idea or not. It may not work even if it's a good idea, because congress will love to give a tax cut on it. Anyways....

I think the alternative could be, sending them to the boot camp. Not talking about sissy girl scout crap that won't do any good, but talking about seriously enforced program that does make them loose fat for sure. It is all about giving them a chance to lose fat, so that they can live w/o suffering from fat related desease down the road. Will this happen? LoL.

zzyzzx says

Taxing gasoline at much higher rates might get at least some people to slim down as well.

This reminds me of this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuX-nFmL0II

Is there anything wrong in what Michelle Obama is saying?

http://www.breitbart.tv/michelle-obama-on-child-nutrition-we-cant-just-leave-it-up-to-the-parents/

FYI, many local codes are changing on January 1: window clear opening dimensions for egress has been notably increased. Some existing home owners contemplating renovations are upset, as double hung windows are resultantly required to be so long they don't allow furniture to be placed under the sill if the house was built with 8 foot ceilings - which is very common for single family homes, particularly if they were built more than 10-15 years ago.

Yes, it is due to people getting fatter, both occupant and fireman.

I had not considered the "egress problem" for fatties. Bigger windows eh? That's going to negatively impact your energy bill of course, every additional square foot of any kind of window bleeds HVAC money. Good grief what's next, loading dock doors?

Vicente says

Good grief what’s next, loading dock doors?

Don't know if I'd be surprised if the next revision includes a 1-2 hr. fire rated Area of Refuge for people who do not have the stamina to run out of their own house.