Archive for 2014

HEH: New bill would require WH dinners to follow same as school lunch guidelines.

One Illinois Republican lawmaker has asked the White House and the Obama’s to stop being “hypocrites” and practice what they preach about nutrition.

Tuesday night’s glutton-fest of a White House state dinner for French President François Hollande was the perfect example of why U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis has introduced legislation that would require official White House meals to follow the same USDA mandated guidelines for school lunch and breakfast programs.

Davis’ bill, H.R. 3686, the School Nutrition Fairness Act, is “to make sure this Administration is aware of the real-life impact their regulations are having on kids who are going hungry and our smaller school districts who are struggling to keep up with the increased costs,” he wrote on Facebook Tuesday.

The Washington Times reported that the meal served to guests at Tuesday’s dinner ran an estimated 2,500 calories, “which is almost three times as much as what the first lady and the USDA allow our school kids to eat in the school lunch program,” Davis said. It’s “the height of hypocrisy.”

The dinner’s high-calorie menu shattered the USDA standards of approximately 1,200 total calories per day for students that the first lady touted as part of her anti-obesity campaign.

Not to mention the government mandated, small meal portion size leaving kids hungry, as well as the complaints from students and parents about school lunches that “taste like vomit.”

This is the sort of thing GOP lawmakers should do more of.

TRAINED LAW-ENFORCEMENT PROFESSIONALS: Florida Trooper Harassed, Threatened Over Stopping Miami Officer.

Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Donna Jane Watts was on routine patrol early one morning when a Miami police car whizzed past at speeds that would eventually top 120 mph. Even with her blue lights flashing and siren blaring, it took Watts more than seven minutes to pull the speeder over.

Not certain who was behind the wheel, she approached the car warily, with gun drawn, according video from her cruiser’s dashboard camera. “Put your hands out of the window! Right now!” she yelled. It turned out the driver was Miami Police Department officer Fausto Lopez, in full uniform. Watts holstered her gun but still handcuffed him and took his weapon.

“I apologize,” Lopez said, explaining that he was late for an off-duty job.

“You were running 120 miles an hour!” Watts barked back.

That October 2011 confrontation made national headlines and eventually got Lopez fired. But Watts’ actions involving a fellow officer didn’t sit well with many in law enforcement, and not long after she made that traffic stop, she says, the harassment began. Random telephone calls on her cell phone. Some were threats and some were prank calls, including orders for pizza. Unfamiliar vehicles and police cars sat idling in her cul-de-sac. She was afraid to open her mailbox.

Watts suspected her private driver’s license information was being accessed by fellow officers, so she made a public records request with the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. It turned out she was right: over a three-month period, at least 88 law enforcement officers from 25 different agencies accessed Watts’ driver’s license information more than 200 times, according to her lawyer.

Law enforcement officers have long been known to band together and protect each other, but Watts said in her lawsuit that these actions went too far.

When you have a culture of impunity, people do stuff they wouldn’t do if they were likely to be held accountable.

“IT’S LIKE CHUCK E. CHEESE’S, but with elliptical machines.” Somebody was just telling me about this, and it seemed so bizarre that I googled it. Apparently, it’s true: Planet Fitness doesn’t allow deadlifts, and will toss you for working out too hard.

Well, some people are scared of the gym. For them, a nonthreatening place where they can do 20 minutes on the treadmill, then do a few light sets on friendly-looking machines, is still better than sitting on the couch. It’s a niche, it’s just not my niche. Plus, free pizza!

SARAH HOYT: To Fear A Painted Devil. “I’m still not sure why they turned on Heinlein, but I think it was his unwillingness to go along with the demonization of the US that had become fashionable, and the fact that if you read him very carefully you can’t help but notice the similarity between his totalitarian societies and some of what is going on. . . . The funny thing, though, is that they are not only completely ignorant about us, and so unaware of it that the dime never drops, but that these demonization cycles seem to be coming closer and closer and get more hysterical.”

KIRSTEN POWERS THINKS THAT RAND PAUL IS ENGAGING IN A “misguided war on Hillary.” This characterization is dumb for two reasons. First, if you’re thinking of running in 2016, waging a “war” on the favored Democratic nominee is hardly misguided. Second, what Paul is doing is making it painful for Democrats to bring up their “war on women” crap (which Powers’ column echoes) instead of giving them a free pass. If it becomes painful enough for them to do that, they’ll abandon the tactic. Even a flatworm is smart enough to turn away from pain.

JOURNALISM: Slate on Affirmative Action.

Here’s a HuffPo piece that had him going on about how he has no black friends, even though he’s totally liberal and lives in NYC. He’s “never even been inside a black person’s house.” So that’s his background. Why he’s the person to declare and explain the failure of affirmative action and to propose a solution, I do not know.

Does Slate know? Obviously, Slate’s publishing the article boosts Colby’s stature as an expert on this topic. It’s why I’m reading Colby’s piece. But I can see the reasons why Slate would publish this. It knows its readers are mostly white liberals, and it’s easy to guess that they’re susceptible to the narcissistic question: Where are my black friends? (Obama counts as one friend, but he’s always so busy.)

Indeed.

ALL IS PROCEEDING AS GARY TAUBES HAS FORESEEN: Sugary Foods Increase Heart Risks. “Most adults, they found, get 10 percent or more of their calories from added sugar. After adjusting for age, smoking, sex, B.M.I., physical activity and other factors, they found that compared with people whose calories were less than 10 percent from added sugar, those whose intake was 10 to 25 percent added sugar had a 30 percent increased risk of cardiovascular death. Those whose diet was more than 25 percent added sugar almost tripled their risk.”

I PLAN TO SUE BIG SPOON: Trial Lawyers Plot To Sue Food Industry Over Obesity.

Lawyers are pitching state attorneys general in 16 states with a radical idea: make the food industry pay for soaring obesity-related health care costs.

It’s a move straight from the playbook of the Big Tobacco takedown of the 1990s, which ended in a $246 billion settlement with 46 states, a ban on cigarette marketing to young people and the Food and Drug Administration stepping in to regulate.

Somebody should sue the federal government over the Food Pyramid. Say, wasn’t Hillary Clinton involved in that?

THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Kansas Teen Uses 3D Printer To Make Hand For Boy. “Using a 3-D printer at the Johnson County Library, Wilde made a prosthetic hand that opens and closes and can even hold a pencil. Just ask young Matthew how he feels about Wilde. ‘He’s awesome,’ the boy said, thrusting his mechanical hand high above his head.”

SEEN ON FACEBOOK: “I should start a 4 wheel drive homemade wine delivery service for times like this. All the ladies are posting about whether they have enough wine to get them through the snow day.”