post mock, ergo propter mock
The September 11 attacks may have an impact newborns. First of all, if you’re a news agency running a story, you should have your grammar correct. Second, has anyone thought that maybe, just maybe, the pollution that is allegedly causing these babies to be smaller came from, um, living in New York? I think it’s hilarious how we try to blame everything on September 11th. Thirty years down the road, we’ll be blaming our heart disease on it (see article), and of course it will have nothing to do with our ten-kilocalorie fast food or our completely sedentary lifestyle.
“…McDonald’s engaged in deceptive advertising, in part because it failed to adequately disclose additives and processing methods that make its food less healthful. ” (full article)
Is there something I’m missing here? Are there people out there that actually stand in the parking lot, McDonalds on one side, Souplantation on the other, and actually try to figure out which is healthier? It’s McDonald’s, people: a name that has, worldwide, become synonomous (I think I spelled that right) with cheap production line food. Now, if I went up to the counter, and asked the acne-ridden teenager there for a salad, hold the dressing, and a tub of water, I’d be surprised to find out that it had thirty kilograms of fat in it. But a Big Mac? Fries? Chicken McNuggets? None of them are made from anything remotely real. Chickens don’t have nuggets. Carl’s Jr. taught us that.
“Lawyers claim, for example, that some fast-food restaurants deliberately raise the temperature at which they cook their fries to increase the amount of fat absorbed.”, notes the above article. What could be more senseless? Why would a company do something to use up more of a product? Surely this fat they use is expensive… they’d try to minimize its use for cost reasons. And I’m sure McDonalds is out to get us all fat. I can just picture it: the CEO of McDonalds (is it that creepy clown-man?) sitting in his darkened office, henchmen lounging about, and he exclaims, “Well, boys, it’s like this, ya see… I’m gonna take us into the red this year in fat purchasing because I want to fatten up the world! Screw the profits, I’m adding extra fat to the fries!”
“Thanks in part to the publicity generated by the initial lawsuit against McDonald’s, ‘there has been a shift in perception,’ said Marion Nestle, chair of the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University, ‘from seeing obesity only as a personal or family responsibility to seeing it as a societal problem with societal solutions.’”, quips the previous link. Right. Obesity is not a societal problem, people. It’s a social problem. I know quite a few people who manage to get through life without accidentally gaining 300 pounds. I managed to do it without trying too hard (though, according to my BMI, I’m firmly in the ‘overweight’ category with my freakishly huge 33-inch waist). Before you yell at me for being insensitive, let me say that I’m not being insensitive. You’re being oversensitive. I know full well that there are genetic conditions and such that cause people to have a propensity for gaining weight. This isn’t a societal problem either. It’s a medical one, and I’m not attacking that. The people I’m attacking are those that walk (?) into Jack in the Box, order five Double Bacon Heart Cloggers, and then proceed to stuff them in their face while lamenting the fact that they’re fat. It’s not like its tough to eat healthy (healthily?) just about anywhere.
This is one of the major things wrong with Americans today. If you make a poor choice, don’t think it’s the responsibility of the courts or the company you bought the product from to fix it. It’s your fault if you eat poorly, smoke, etc. Don’t sue the tobacco companies (of course cigarettes are addictive… why else would anyone smoke them? And of course they’re bad for you… you’re breathing in smoke… Come on, people, think!) If I had the choice between world peace and world intelligence, I think I’d have to go with the latter. Do you notice how Americans are just about the only people on Earth that don’t seem to get the message that only they are responsible for their actions? It would be absurd to sue Nokia if my phone dropped an important call when I walked into a building, and it would be simply stupid to sue the state if I was driving 90MPH and went off the road and hurt myself. Likewise, only a moron would sue Starbucks if they burned themselves on the coffee. It’s coffee, idiot, it’s supposed to be hot. It doesn’t need a warning on it. My Almond M&M’s bag has a disclaimer on it: may contain nuts. If you need a legal disclaimer like that, you’re nuts.
On an up-note, check out CollegeHumor.com. It’s great, except a few strange banner ads, but those are forgivable. If you click on them, it’s your fault. See above. Especially great are Aaron Karo’s Ruminations and Observational Humor. I should start a periodic thing where I rant about things. But no one would read it because it would be about philosophy and religion and law and I’d point and laugh at stupid people.
SoYouWanna.com is a pretty cool site for learning how to do some different stuff (use Feng Shui, find a good club, speak with an Irish accent). I’m working on the Irish accent one, and I think I’m going to try it out at school with the new people on my floor to see if I can get them to think I’m Irish.
OMG!! J. Lo and Ben called it quits! Who gives a rats ass? I mean, if I were going out with J. Lo and she dumped me after I spent a million on her, I might be perturbed. But the nation shouldn’t care. What’s sad is that they do.
Isn’t it grand to be an American? You don’t have to have your own life, since you can live vicariously through the media and the glitterati. You don’t have to go to the gym becuase, hey, everyone’s fat anyway; it’s society’s fault. And you don’t have to look good because you’re not living your own life. And you can do whatever you want because it’s not your fault if you hurt yourself, it’s Corporate America or the Government’s fault. And your heart disease? It’s not that Big Mac, it’s the dust in the air.
So September 11th must be why I don’t have a girlfriend. Damn the terrorists.
New Mexico doesn’t seem to get it when it comes to punishing lawbreakers. Assault someone and get a tai chi class? Steal a purse and get some tea? What is it with incarceration these days? It costs more to keep someone in lockdown than the median American family makes in a year. Now we’re offering tai chi and tea to criminals? That’s good, becaue without it, the college degrees, cable TV, internet connection, free gym, and library were just plain barbaric. Here’s an idea for you: deprive criminals of cool stuff in prison. I’m all for the dungeon-and-chains thing. I don’t care if it’s cruel and unusual. So is murder. So there. Let’s put some of this money toward helping people that need it. (No, murderers and rapists don’t need college degrees and gyms… do you want someone that brutally killed someone to come out of prison bigger, stronger, and more cunning?) I say get these people hooked on some pitiful computer game, so they’re no longer a menace to society.
I really hope none of my Federal tax money is paying for this study. I’d hate to think that I’m supporting monkeys at computers. Oh wait… did I say Federal tax? Nevermind, it already does. Don’t get me wrong… I’m all for scientific progression. But there are some things that are just plain useless.
It seems that some people just can’t keep it in their pants. Their money, that is. A man had half a million dollars stolen from him. Alright, happens in books and shady eastern european countries, right? But this was in cash. At a strip club. Why is it that lottery winners are almost always people who shouldn’t be allowed to have money anyway? What’s this guy going to do with his millions? Well, he’s donating ten percent to charity. What a nice guy. What’s even better? He’s donating it to churches, like the Church of God. Talk about a noncommittal name. Hey, at least now he can keep his mobile home safe. And he can buy all the Pabst he could ever drink.
It’s good to know that politicians make mistakes too, even if they didn’t actually make them. “It’s my policy to personally sign every document that comes out of my office… unfortunately that didn’t happen in this case”, comments the political guy. Someone needs to either revise their policy, or their practices. Why not make today (the 58th anniversary of us nuking the living hell out of Japan… surprisingly Hallmark hasn’t got a card for this) Screw You, Hirohito day? (or maybe Look At All The Pretty Colors day)
And remember folks, next Monday starts Hussein Week.
It seems like downloading music isn’t as widespread as the RIAA would like us to believe. I’m fairly certain more people smoke than pirate, so why not go after them? They pollute as much as cars.
Notebooks are becoming ever more in vogue as they get more powerful. Which is good. I can’t wait until Apple upgrades the 15″ PowerBook. I’m so there.
