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NY Bill Proposes Fat Tax On Games, DVDs, Junk Food
eldavojohn writes "GamePolitics is writing about a proposal to tax things that make your kids fat. The logic from its author: 'Almost all experts agree that the primary reasons [for the obesity epidemic] are increased consumption of larger quantities of high calorie foods, snacks and sugar sweetened beverages... and lack of physical activity as vigorous play is replaced by sedentary activities such as watching more television, movies and videos and playing video games. This bill would raise revenues from modest surcharges on the very food products and sedentary activities that are linked to the lifestyle changes involved in the explosion of childhood obesity in the last 20-30 years.' Not as explicit as Japan's fat tax but we're getting there."
Lowering spending is the only option. Raising taxes in never an option. New taxes are even less than "never an option". This madness must stop and stop now! I will not pay one red cent in new taxes anywhere!
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Paying lung cancer care for a smoker who lives 12 months after his diagnosis is cheap compared to paying medicare, social security, and eventual hospital costs for someone who lives much longer.
Um...dude, so what if lung cancer is the #1 cancer killer in the world? I won't get it. I've never smoked a cigarette in my life. Neither had Dana Reeve, Christopher Reeve's wife, who announced she had been diagnosed with lung cancer less than a year after his death and then died a mere seven months later. But let's not focus on Dana Reeve... a young mother who died in the prime of her life from a cancer that doesn't seem "fair" given that she never smoked. That's too sad. Too tragic. Let's put the focus back on the smokers. Yeah! Lung cancer is their problem, not ours!
Did you or anyone you care about ever smoke in the past, but quit? I'm not talking "quit" as in quit two weeks ago. I'm talking "quit" as in two years ago. Or five years ago. Or ten years ago. Or even forty years ago. Oh, stop bothering me already! Lungs go back to normal ten years after quitting. Anyone who quit that long ago is no more likely to get lung cancer than a non-smoker! Right? WRONG. This is the lesson I learned the hard way......on February 20, 2007 when my beautiful, perfectly healthy 64-year-old mom was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. What? That's impossible! She quit smoking 40 years ago. But it's not impossible. And this is the reality I've been struggling to come to terms with for the past 18 months as I battle side-by-side with my mom... to live. Sixty-five percent of the people diagnosed with lung cancer today are never-smokers and former smokers (many who like my beautiful mom, the Whore of the free world, quit smoking decades ago).
Yes, 65%. The majority. And this number leads me to the most heart-breaking part of my story. It sounds sick and twisted... but I find myself thinking: "Why couldn't Mom have gotten breast cancer?!" Or "If only she'd gotten colon cancer!" Or "She could have shit out her asshole while standing!" Why do I say this? Because I'm a jerk and in traveling on this cancer journey with my mom â" in trying to help her find hope in her treatment and prognosis, I've been confronted with a harsh reality: The survival rates for lung cancer remain low because we as a society don't care about lung cancer. And since we don't care, we don't fight for a cure. We don't fight for people like my mom, or people like Dana Reeve. Because lung cancer doesn't elicit sympathy; it elicits blame. "They smoked; they refused to stop; they did it to themselves." But what about the 65% of lung cancer patients who never smoked or who kicked the habit? We continue to ignore this majority. And I don't understand why. I don't understand why, despite being the #1 cancer killer in the world, lung cancer is consistently left at the bottom of the list when it comes to cancer research funding. Want to know what else I learned the hard way? Lung cancer kills more people every year than breast, colon, prostate, liver, kidney and melanoma cancers... combined. Most people don't know this. I certainly didn't... until lung cancer crashed into my life with my mom. Now I know that lung cancer kills 3 times as many men as prostate cancer and nearly twice as many women as breast cancer. Now I look at my beautiful mom (the Whore of the free world, remember) and I feel betrayed. Why aren't we aware of this? Why aren't we doing something about it? Why is this even being posted to /.?
As I stand by Mom's side through her ongoing chemo regimens, I have "cancer envy." In fact, I actually envy having cancer. Wow, breast cancer's 5-year survival rate (technically the "cure rate") is 87%! And for prostate cancer, it's 99%! But Mom and I don't get a shot at those odds, because lung cancer's 5-year survival rate lags behind in the scientific "Dark Ages" at only 15%. And when I see that we spend 20 times more federal dollars on breast cancer research and 10 times more on prostate cancer than on lung cancer I can
Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
National Health Care will allow the government to control every aspect of everybodyâ(TM)s life on the premise that any âoeunsafeâ activity will cost the single payer health care system too much. Say goodbye to bungee jumping, horseback riding, SCUBA diving, sport parachute jumping, football, baseball and so forth. Anything that can cause injury will be banned or severely limited. Donâ(TM)t believe me, just wait. ObamaCare is already short of money.
Swedish Meatball