Category Archives: Health

Business, Economics, Health, Humor, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Satire

President Romney’s Lawlessness

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The Democrats and the media bash him for it:

Schumer’s colleague, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, described the Romney administration’s behavior as “the nuclear option.” “This abuse of executive discretion is beyond the pale,” Reid fumed. “I’m a lawyer, I know.” (For more information on the American system of government please take a look at Ezra Klein’s comprehensive explanatory primer, “Our Constitution in Exile: Why Everything President Romney Does Is Illegal,” over at VoxProg. Alternatively, consult Greg Sargent’s excellent Washington Post column, “Article I: A Love Story,” published January 20th, 2013.)

Others went further. “It’s. The. Law,” animated Democratic spokesman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz told reporters at a hastily assembled press conference in Miami, barking out each monosyllable and pounding her fist on her desk. “The terrorist, anarchist, hostage-taking neo-confederates in the Republican Party tried for years to delay this in the legislature and now, simply because they have a Senate they dislike, they are trying to do so with the executive branch. It’s a disgrace to the memory of our Founding Persons and it will not stand.”

Wasserman-Shultz’s claim of impropriety is a strong one, and it echoes Democratic complaints from last June, when President Romney delayed the income tax by two years to allow compliance deadlines to be met and to make sure that he was standing up for the middle class. George Washington University law professor and frequent critic of executive power, Jonathan Turley, broke through tears to tell National Review Online that the development was “merely the latest in an endless series of corruptions, and another devastating step on the road to monarchy.” “D’you know what?” Turley added, his voice cracking. “I’m thinking of moving to Cyprus.”

Despite the criticism, Republican strategists remained sanguine. “What you’re seeing here is the Democratic Party reaping the whirlwind,” a GOP operative explained on condition of anonymity. “This is the train that the last guy set in motion — and he was cheered on by politicians and journalists alike. Can they really complain now our guy has the reins? I think not.”

Those damned Republicans, who don’t give a damn about the law or the Constitution.

Business, Culinary, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

The Calorie-Labeling Mess

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Another ObamaCare disaster:

The calorie label clause, buried deep within the ACA’s 10,000 pages, seems harmless enough at first glance. Each restaurant chain with over 20 locations is required to display the calorie content of each food and drink item it serves on signs and printed menus–with vending machine distributors subjected to the same rules. But the regulation also covers “similar retail food establishments,” a clause vague enough to give FDA regulators sweeping power to determine who does and doesn’t have to comply.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg admitted that she “actually thought [calorie labeling] would be one of the more straightforward tasks…but little did I know how complicated it would be.” Hamburg’s concerns are hardly unfounded, but it’s small business owners and franchisees—not FDA bureaucrats—that will feel the most pain under the new law.

What’s particularly stupid is that even if they could make it work without impacting businesses so much, it won’t even do any good, because calories are not what make people obese. All part of the Democrats’ war on science.

Culinary, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Low-Carb Diets

…give better cardiovascular outcomes:

Recent randomized controlled trials document that low-carbohydrate diets not only decrease body weight but also improve cardiovascular risk factors. In light of this evidence from randomized controlled trials, dietary guidelines should be re-visited advocating a healthy low carbohydrate dietary pattern as an alternative dietary strategy for the prevention of obesity and cardiovascular disease risk factors.

I’m convinced that the medieval unscientific low-fat nutrition advice killed my father in the seventies.