As IF Times

link Americans Concerns About Obesity Soar, Surpass Smoking.

Really?  One of the things that weighs most heavily on people’s minds is obesity?   How about stupidity?  How is it that people are made to feel insecure about their physical appearance yet not be ashamed at exposing their lack of intelligence, wit or understanding  (otherwise known as stupidity) for the world to see?

We keep hearing about the ‘epidemic of obesity’ as if it were scabies at a frat house.  It has been estimated that $40 billion dollars per year is spent on various and sundry diet programs including Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, The Atkins Diet, The South Seas Diet, The Watermelon diet, etc etc.  Who knows how someone counts this, but if you include the entire fitness industry, it adds up to some real moolah.  So it’s a little disingenuous for people to moan about an epidemic when in fact the livelihoods of millions of people depend on making people feel guilty about having that extra piece of cheesecake.

Perhaps we should blame food companies for making their products taste so good.  Evil corporations.  Isn’t that the main point of every creature on earth? To get easy access to food?   In most of today’s societies, access to food is no longer an issue, so one of the main problems facing mankind has essentially been eliminated. Isn’t that success?  Somehow this “obsession” has gotten to the point where people are willing to have a tax imposed on themselves for being fat!  Fat tax article They are essentially admitting that instead of  controlling themselves, they’d rather pass money to the government than pass on that second helping of lasagna.

If people are worried about their physical profile, that’s a first world problem, sort of like worrying about whether your upstairs maid gets along with the downstairs maid.    Oddly, we never hear of this calamity in the Sudan.  The only reason this ‘concern’ even exists is because of the media and fashion business.  As we all know, the fashion business exists because of their pandering to people’s natural insecurities.  They somehow portray the illusion that a 40 year old person can have the idealized body of a 17 year old model if only they wore the same capri pants.  As if Rosie can look like Giselle.

We’d be far better off trying to eliminate stupidity.  We have a far larger problem of billions and billions of dollars being spent on schools to turn out functional illiterates.  If you ask me,  I’d rather be living in a society of zaftigs than one of zombies.

link Obama Promises He Will Win Virginia and the Election.

Those that care for this kind of thing will note that the media are ratcheting up for this year’s pivotal U.S. elections.  Accusations and claims upon the character of the respective protagonists are fired like bullets at a Palestinian wedding, which means randomly in the air and mostly harmless. Nevertheless, political spin-meisters from both sides are feverishly attacking each other in a political fight to the death.   The classic barbs are expectedly thrown; liar, cheater, stupid and of course corrupt.  Clearly there are no Marquess of Queensberry rules governing political scuffles.  But calling a politician a liar is pretty lame these days, it would be like calling Michael Moore a slob, it really has no shock value.

There is a lot at stake in this election; it is not a simple Coke vs Pepsi issue of personal preferences.  In the case of the election, choosing one over the other does say much about the value system  of the voter.  As is the case with professional sports teams, fans will be loyal to their side (mostly) regardless of how badly their team fares.  Tribalism is a strong human urge and manifestations of this via sports of all stripes are obvious for all to observe.  I mean seriously, what rational person can be a Leafs fan?  Politics is the same thing.  In the U.S. case, it’s not only about tribal associations, it’s also about money.  Both sides of the political divide will have their die hard adherents.  Regardless of actual performance records, the rabid supporters will champion their side despite any evidence of logic to do so, even to the point of their own negative self interest.  We would not find this in the animal world.  In the animal world, we don’t have the variable of money which can strangely pervert human activity.  So both sides of the political spectrum will have their hard wired supporters.

That leaves the group which the media refers to as, “the independents” , those that have no formal party or ideological affiliation.  This is a myth.  It is impossible not to have an established set of values  based on one’s personal life circumstances.  One cannot be ambivalent about issues concerning personal freedom and self determination, social responsibility, free markets and ability to progress in life.  The linked article describes that Obama promises to win the election.  Of course anything is possible.  His base will certainly be loyal.  But if the “independents” are to be counted upon to support him, we can only conclude that there must be parts of the country which don’t have access to current news.

On the one side, we have a guy who has successfully built up his life and the lives of hundreds of employees via job creation, has held public office and successfully run an Olympics, both without pay and who has experience in running and administering complex businesses.  He is for self determination and the reduction in the scope of government intrusion in people’s lives.  On the other side is a guy who has a murky past, whose supporters are peppered with felons, has never held a job in the private sector and has always nursed at the public teat.  He also nakedly endorses  the philosophy of governments being actively involved in peoples’ lives including what to eat.  If this stark choice between the candidates is a difficult one for the “independents”, we really are in trouble.

While it may have been fashionable to vote for the exotic guy 4 years ago, the passage of time since has shown that like the character Chauncey Gardner in the 1979 film “Being There”, there is no substance to the soaring rhetoric that mesmerized people back then.  Aside from political spin, there have been no achievements, none, made during his term in office which can be pointed to as advancing the plight of the American people.  Quite the contrary;  by any measure, economic, social, legal, international affairs, it has been a dismal and catastrophic 4 years.  So when the President promises that he will win the upcoming election, he is either pathologically delusional or believes the electorate is.