“Gee, one of our biggest demographics is really into this book series about vampires and werewolves that live in the woods. The first film made $70 million in 3 days and the second movie is due out next month. Hmmm… I bet if we put our heads together, we can figure out a way to cash in on this franchise.”
This is an excellent article, relating the current health care debate issue to the current American food supply and farm policies.
For instance, the government currently subsidizes the corn industry (at the tune of $37.3 billion between 1995 and 2003). In fact, because of said subsidies, it’s so profitable to be a corn farmer that many farmers have forsaken all other grains and vegetables to jump into the corn industry. This causes a surplus in the amount of corn produced in this country.
Rather than cutting back to balance the economics of it, the corn industry is continually coming up with new ways that people can consume more corn. So now while we sit on the couch listening to pipe dream reports about replacing gasoline with ethanol (made from corn), we can drink our sodas and eat our snack foods that are heavily laden with high-fructose corn syrup.
There’s a similar problem with the dairy industry, ever since the advent of pumping cows full of hormones to make them produce twice as much milk. They need to sell all that extra milk so they can pay to replace their hormone-loaded cows, who have this annoying habit of dying every 5 years (a cow’s normal lifespan is 20-25 years). So how do you sell the public more milk than they need? Convince them that they need more milk. Hence the $23 million per year spent on the “Got Milk?” campaign.
The point I’m trying to make, and which the article addresses, is that the cost of health care in America is a result of Americans’ bad health. Our bad health and plagues of preventable diseases are largely the result of the way we eat - the “American diet.” And the American diet can be directly linked to the economics and structure of our food supply.
Do not even get me started on school lunches.
Just read the article.
I’m glad to see there’s still SOME sense left in our legal system…
On June 30, the California Court of Appeal held that a man who was burned by the huge bonfire that ends the Burning Man festival each year could not sue the festival organizers. Anthony Beninati admitted he had intentionally walked into the fire, and that he had previously known fire was hot. But he argued, basically, that the organizers were negligent because they should not have let him approach the fire so closely.He did not win.
From Lowering the Bar
A nice quote from Congressman John Campbell:
It is easy to recognize the impact this event will have on American History. Since the founding of our great Republic, Americans have always relished our most sacred of traditions…freedom. This is yet another display which will be viewed all across the globe, and allows us, as Americans, to display our commitment to our founding virtues.I encourage all Americans to welcome our new Commander-in-Chief and President, Barack Obama. We may not always agree on policy, but we are united by our American tradition, culture, and patriotism.
May God Bless this President and May God Bless America.
President Obama, I do not envy you your job. As someone I respect said recently, I’m sure the thought why did I think this was a good idea? will cross your mind during your first 100 days of your presidency. But I wish you the best and hope to see you meet the expectations you have set for yourself and the rest of the country. I hope you can weather the stresses and remain true to yourself and the people who put you here. And may the hope you inspire in people push us to better ourselves and our country as befits this one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.