Thanks to work and other goings on I have not had any time to post.
I thought I would post a few thoughts on current news. Being a news junkie, I read the news frequently and often have more to say about it than people want to hear.
The first piece of news I read today was about California banning restaurants from using trans fats. This is not the first time that trans fats were banned, but it drives me crazy to see the false attention to the mass population's health and well-being. If the government wanted to protect the health and well-being of the population then there are much more effective things that they could do. Lower the highway speed, provide basic health care, remove chemical carcinogens from food additives, enforce mandatory paid vacations to relieve stress, provide more and better equipped law enforcement, enforce zero-emissions vehicle testing, etc…
Anyway, some of the other news I have been reading was about the mortgage and banking failures in the last few weeks. The largest banks are writing off billions if not trillions of dollars, the Federal Government is closing the mortgage companies that were giving loans, with no verification of incomes, to millions of people. All this just based on greed.
And I couldn’t complain about the news without talking about gas prices. Can someone explain to me why gas prices keep going up with production about the same, and the national oil reserve continues to grow. The biggest problem is not enough refineries in the US. Everyone wants cheap gas, but no one wants a refinery built anywhere near them. The government still taxes gas at crazy levels, still diverts gas to the reserve; the oil companies still make record profits, and Congress is still looking into it.
At least you won’t have to worry about trans fats.
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4 comments:
I have my unfortunate vices.
I like to say, that if the government simply outlawed cigarettes, people would stop smoking. It's far too convenient for an addictive drug. When walking New York City streets, you are confronted with smoking at every point- it induces cravings and supports smoking.
I believe states do this to ensure tax revenue from cigarette sales.
States are not about conservation and social minded policy- they're about money. Lots of things are about money. Not so many people care about other people's health as they do about other people's money.
oh- and oil. the US is part of OPEC and has to sell crude at the OPEC prices. Hence Texas based ExxonMobil has high dividends. The other oil producing countries have much more sway over OPEC than the USA, especially Saudi Arabia.
Apparently Siberia, reaping spoils of oil profits, is becoming quite the luxury market.
Money is the root of it. They will ban trans fat becuse it costs no money. They won't ban cigarettes because of the tax money they get from it, like all the other "sin" taxes.
Yeah, if the government would simply ban alcohol people would stop drinking. Or drugs. Or what if the majority of the country practiced a religion that had as one of it's main commandments "Thou shall not kill". If our commander-in-chief was part of this imaginary religion Then we'd have no more wars.
Oregon is banning smoking in bars Jan 2009. I smoke about a pack and 1/2 a week, all of them in bars where smoking should be done. Where am i gonna be smoking now? Out on the sidewalk, blowing it all the non-smokers way.
I understand the smoking vs health ratio and also understand life enjoyment vs early death. But ultimately its all about balance, baby.
I am now off to the local transfateasy.
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