By Alan Caruba
Okay, let’s say that President Obama or Hillary is in office and Congress has passed a bill that requires everyone to have health insurance. Gas is up over $4.00 a gallon, food prices are sky high, and, if you’ve recently graduated from college, you are paying off loans at $1,000 per month.
If you’re a homeowner, you have a mortgage, property taxes, and a stack of other bills. You’ve got to decide between paying the mandated premium or being able to drive to work, buy food, holding onto your home, or keeping the bill collector from your door.
All of a sudden, mandatory health insurance doesn’t seem like such a great idea. In fact, your big worry is that Social Security will be able to send you a monthly check and that Medicare and Medicaid won’t go flat broke before you die. Trustees for these massive entitlement programs just announced Social Security will be depleted by 2041, while Medicare goes bust eight years from now in 2019.
According to a March 18 Policy Analysis published by the Cato Institute, health care consumers are annually spending “more than $1.8 trillion dollars for overall health costs, more than what Americans spend on housing, food, national defense, or automobiles.”
Moreover, “because of the way health care costs are distributed, they have become an increasing burden on consumers and businesses alike. On average, health insurance now costs $4,479 for an individual and $12,106 for a family per year. Health insurance premiums rose by little more than 6 percent in 2007, faster on average than wages.”
The news gets worse. “Moreover, government health care programs, particularly Medicare and Medicaid, are piling up enormous burdens of debt for future generations. Medicare’s unfunded liabilities now top $50 trillion.”
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Posted by Walt in Economics, Health categories at 10:41 PM EDT
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By Alan Caruba
After a while, one grows accustomed to the environmental rants that appear in The New York Times. This newspaper, so often pointed to as an exemplar of the highest standards of journalism, has been repeatedly revealed to employ fantasists for whom truth and facts are mere impediments to the advancement of their obsessions and agendas.
A perfect example of this is the January 27th rant, “Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler” by Mark Bittman, identified as the author of “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian” along with the disclaimer that “He is not a vegetarian.” He writes for the “Dining in and Dining Out” section. If it looks like a vegetarian, walks like a vegetarian, and quacks like a vegetarian, it probably is a vegetarian.
His commentary is a cornucopia of assertions and cherry-picked facts that beg to be rebutted, but I shall choose just a few, starting where he started. “Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government.” By subsidized, the reader is asked to assume that the raising, packaging, and distribution of meat products depends on government subsidies to exist and that the oil industry does as well. Unlike the European Union, those engaged in either industry in the United States are expected to make a profit on their own without such dependence. It’s called capitalism.
“Finally—like oil—meat is something people are encourage to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible.” Visible to whom? Do supermarket sections offering abundant choices of meat products suggest anything other than the fact that people want meat as part of their diet? Does anyone really give any thought to how it got there?
The only people recommending we eat less meat are vegetarians.
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Posted by Walt in Environment Issues, Global Warming, Health categories at 10:04 PM EST
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By Alan Caruba
If you want the government, federal, state and local, to tell you what you can and cannot eat, please raise your hand. Apparently no one does except for the various politicians who think they were elected to determine what you should eat and drink.
Let’s get something straight, however. I’m fat. You’re fat. And your kids, if you have any, are probably overweight too. There are some easily understood reasons for this and economist, Eric A. Finkelstein, along with Laurie Zuckerman, tells us what they are in their new book, “The Fattening of America: How the Economy Makes Us Fat, If it Matters, and What to Do About it.”
Looking to the government for answers, however, is predictably a bad idea. Sally C. Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute, points out that “government data about what constitutes ‘overweight’ and ‘obese’ are misleading.” The standard metric for this is a person’s body-mass index (BMI). It is the ratio of one’s height to one’s weight. It is a measurement standard that “does not take into account an individual’s body type.” Some athletes would be categorized as obese, but their weight comes more from muscle than fat.
We keep hearing that America is in the midst of an “obesity epidemic” and this is just hype. Americans in general have put on more pounds, but an epidemic is a term applied to diseases that are quickly spread whereas the only thing spreading in America is our waistlines. It’s happening worldwide and even occurring in the world’s poorest countries. Finkelstein notes that “an astounding 1.6 billion people or roughly 25 percent of the planet’s population are (in a) higher than normal weight range, and 400 million of these are considered obese, according to a fall 2005 report by the United Nation’s World Health Organization.”
There are cultural and racial characteristics, too, that play a role in over-weight. “As was the case 30 years ago, excess weight remains more common among African-Americans and Hispanic children than among whites.” And, if the kids are fat, their parents are likely to be fat, too.
Plainly said, Americans are just eating more. “Between the late 1970s and today, men have increased their daily food intake by about 180 calories and woman have increased their daily food intake by about 360 calories.” For men that’s the equivalent of a pint of beer and, for women, it’s a four-ounce slice of chocolate cake. Over all, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), men now consuming 2,600 calories per day and woman now consume 1,900 calories daily.
A major contributing factor has been the price of food that has dropped 38 percent relative to the prices of other goods and services. Add to this that, “high-calorie foods have become much cheaper compared to healthier alternatives such as fish, fruits, and vegetables.” Fast food establishments have thrived in the U.S. and even restaurants serve large portions these days. It’s Economics 101. Cheaper food equals eating more.
In San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom recently announced he intends to tax retail chains for stocking Coke, Pepsi, and other drinks sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. He is typical of politicians who (a) think raising taxes on anything is a good idea and (b) haven’t a clue about nutrition.
Henry Miller, a physician and fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, the author of “The Frankenfood Myth”, points out that “In sweetness, high-fructose corn syrup is equal in intensity to disaccharide sucrose, otherwise known as table sugar.” Moreover, “Sugar and high-fructose corn syrup also have essentially the same affect on the body’s production of insulin, which helps burn calories and lowers blood sugar.” According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Americans actually consume less high-fructose corn syrup than sugar.
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Posted by Walt in Health categories at 9:09 AM EST
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By Robert E. Meyer
Recently there has been a celebrated news release, detailing a new breakthrough in stem-cell research, which may make the existing moral controversy over the use of embryonic stem-cells moot.
While it’s still too early to tell if this new procedure using adult stem-cells from skin will produce the anticipated results, I have a feeling those perched exclusively in the embryonic stem-cell research camp, will be left unsatisfied.
The reason for my hunch is the way the stem-cell controversy has been misrepresented all along.
The fact that many religious leaders are tentatively, but enthusiastically, endorsing this new advance, refutes the charge that persons of strong religious convictions are Luddites trying to stifle scientific progress. This is an absurd canard that refuses to die a natural and merciful death.
A second false claim, is that the Bush administration sold out to the "religious-right," when the president banned government funding of embryonic stem-cell research several years ago.
Bush actually took the middle ground of compromise. Bush did not ban embryonic stem-cell research that was privately funded, nor prohibit continued research on the stem-cell lines already existing. To do so would have been the more socially conservative position. Bush’s "concessions" were viewed by some as his lack conservative conviction.
Of course, many will argue that embryos are routinely discarded as a byproduct of fertility treatments. I am personally opposed to that aspect of fertility procedures. Yet, the point of criticizing Bush because of that situation is irrelevant, because the government does not fund in vitro fertilization therapy. Thus, Bush is perfectly consistent in his approach, even if he is found to be wrong in his ultimate conclusions.
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Posted by Walt in Health, Religon, Science categories at 11:15 PM EST
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FORT LAUDERDALE, Aug. 21 /Christian Newswire/ — Author and Christian broadcaster Dr. D. James Kennedy connects the dots between Charles Darwin and Adolf Hitler in Darwin’s Deadly Legacy, a groundbreaking inquiry into Darwin’s chilling social impact. The new television documentary airs nationwide on August 26 and 27 on The Coral Ridge Hour. For station listings, go to http://www.coralridge.org/darwin/.
What: New TV documentary, Darwin’s Deadly Legacy
When: August 26, 27, 2006
Where: Nationwide; details at http://www.coralridge.org/darwin/
The program features 14 scholars, scientists, and authors who outline the grim consequences of Darwin’s theory of evolution and show how his theory fueled Hitler’s ovens.
“To put it simply, no Darwin, no Hitler,” said Dr. Kennedy, the host of Darwin’s Deadly Legacy. “Hitler tried to speed up evolution, to help it along, and millions suffered and died in unspeakable ways because of it.”
The one-hour program features Ann Coulter, author of Godless; Richard Weikart, author of From Darwin to Hitler; Lee Strobel, author of The Case for a Creator; Jonathan Wells, author of Icons of Evolution; Phillip Johnson, author of Darwin on Trial; Michael Behe, author of Darwin’s Black Box; Ian Taylor, author of In the Minds of Men, and Francis Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project.
“Among German historians, there’s really not much debate about whether or not Hitler was a social Darwinist. He clearly was drawing on Darwinian ideas,” said Weikart, a professor of modern European history at California State University, Stanislaus.
Ann Coulter, a bestselling author and popular conservative columnist, said Hitler “was applying Darwinism. He thought the Aryans were the fittest and he was just hurrying natural selection along.”
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Posted by Walt in Health, Science, Social Issues categories at 8:53 PM EDT
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By Jack Kettler
According to the Los Angeles Times, the California Association of Physicians and Surgeons, and even the Center for Diseases Control’s own admission, well over 100,000 people in this country die each year from “properly” administered prescription drugs. This is absolutely shocking!
One study has shown that more than two million American hospitalized patients suffered a serious adverse drug reaction (ADR) within a 12-month period and of these, over 100,000 died as a result. Likewise, roughly 36,000,000 adverse drug reactions are reported annually, resulting in more than 33.6-million admissions or hospitalizations all from drugs that the FDA has pronounced “safe effective.” Sources for these statistics can be found at: http://www.cancure.org/medical_errors.htm.
The media is not doing a very good job of reporting this ADR crisis. Instead, we hear the constant media drumbeat about the dangers of firearms, which are currently politically incorrect yet represent a miniscule fraction of the deaths in this country. Doctors who want to politicize gun deaths should clean up their own glass houses first. The real crisis is the failing health care or more accurately described as the sick care system. There are numerous reasons for this crisis.
One reason is that conflicts of interest represent a very real problem for public servants and those entities which have relationships with various government agencies. Numerous researchers have reported that the FDA receives money from the very entities it is suppose to be regulating and one consequence of this is the suppression rather than advancement of disease cures. Consider the following:
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Posted by Walt in Health categories at 8:05 PM EDT
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by Ayesah Ahmed
Use of western knowledge is kufr (blasphemy) and its parishioners are apostates and infidels. Only Islamic knowledge of health and hygiene must be used in daily life because Allah has already given that information through Prophet Mohammed for a reason. In Quran he said so many times that he is your role model. Ignoring his sayings is ignoring your deen (religion) punishable with hellfire
The following information is presented for the good health of Muslim umma (believers).
Avoid Sicknesses By Clean Islamic Habits
HOW TO CLEAN YOURSELF AFTER DEFECATING, THE ISLAMIC WAY
Apostle of God used to clean himself after defecation using only odd number of stones. That is the sunna (examples set by Muhammad). Muslims living in U.S. can go to Home Depot and buy a bag of gravel for this purpose (the used gravel can be good landscaping material).
Bukhari Volume 1, Book 4, Number 163:
Narrated Abu Huraira:
Allah’s Apostle said, " whoever cleans his private parts with stones should do so with odd numbers. And whoever wakes up from his sleep should wash his hands before putting them in the water for ablution, because nobody knows where his hands were during sleep."
NEVER USE BONES OR ANIMAL DUNG AFTER DEFECATING
Jinns love to eat bones and dried animal dung. They don’t appreciate the contamination of their favorite delicacy with fecal matter and can pounce on the next guy they find sitting and defecating.
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Posted by Walt in Health, Religon categories at 6:04 AM EDT
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