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Is It Time to Start Waterboarding Fat People?
I have another short back-and-forth over at the L.A. Times, this one on child obesity. My sparring partner, the Manhattan Institute's Kay Hymowitz, actually read the May Newsweek story on fat kids. Here's what she found:
According to former U.S. surgeon general Richard Carmona, "As we look to the future and where childhood obesity will be in 20 years … it is every bit as threatening to us as is the terrorist threat we face today. It is the terrorist threat from within."
I'm not sure whether we should be more or less afraid of the "War on Terror" now that the phrase terrorist threat means "bad thing."
TallDave|6.25.08 @ 12:58PM|#
Don't worry, I have it on good authority that in 20 years everyone who isn't getting lots of exercise swimming will be dead.
Naga Sadow|6.25.08 @ 12:59PM|#
I believe that only fat people who wear thongs to the beach should be waterboarded.
|6.25.08 @ 1:01PM|#
Funny thing is, from a cost perspective (particularly in our
quasi-socialist medical system), it's actually far more threatening
than today's terrorist threat. Of course, that's partially because
today's terrorist threat isn't all that threatening.
Does this mean that Al Qaeda is now going to be secretly
distributing Twinkies to our nation's children?
|6.25.08 @ 1:04PM|#
Carmona exaggerating health claims in an attempt to get us to do
something through government intervention.
Say it isn't so!!!
Episiarch|6.25.08 @ 1:04PM|#
Is It Time to Start Waterboarding Fat People?
Wouldn't Diet Coke-boarding be more appropriate?
Considering that the drug warriors almost instantly conflated drug
consumption with aiding terrorism, how does this surprise
anyone?
|6.25.08 @ 1:10PM|#
I foresee the development of a new terrorism threat level advisory system, ranging from Side Salad with no-fat dressing (Low) to Double Quarter Pounder with cheese Value Meal, Supersized (To the Fallout Shelter!)
|6.25.08 @ 1:17PM|#
Richard Carmona? He's the Surgeon General who claimed that the Administration "interfered with science" by refusing to let him advocate for various policies like banning all tobacco use. I guess treating obesity like terrorism was on that list as well.
Guy Montag|6.25.08 @ 1:26PM|#
Is It Time to Start Waterboarding Fat People?
Yes, after I lose 15 Lbs.
Jennifer|6.25.08 @ 1:31PM|#
Having a fatass trip and fall on you is just as bad as having a 110-story building collapse and fall on you.
|6.25.08 @ 1:33PM|#
"As we look to the future and where childhood obesity will
be in 20 years … it is every bit as threatening to us as is the
terrorist threat we face today. It is the terrorist threat from
within."
Improvised
Explosive
Discharge
Everyone has a little man wearing a bomb jacket in their colon. We
only need to get in touch with him to win this war.
That said, I plan on siding with the insurgents.
|6.25.08 @ 1:40PM|#
So, how many calories does waterboarding burn? I'd like figures for both boarder and boardee; the treadmill has been getting mighty boring.
|6.25.08 @ 1:42PM|#
Wouldn't Diet Coke-boarding be more appropriate?
No; NutraSweet gives me migraines :)
Granted, I'm not fat in any real sense of the word... until you go
by the BMI numbers, in which case I border on obese (and something
tells me that's what they'll be using to determine whether somebody
is fat, despite the fact that I'm, um, just a bit
broad-shouldered).
|6.25.08 @ 1:44PM|#
NutraSweet gives me migraines
Then don't read my posts, assho... oh, wait...
Damn, Epi.
thoreau|6.25.08 @ 2:09PM|#
Having a fatass trip and fall on you is just as bad as
having a 110-story building collapse and fall on you.
Everybody knows that exercise doesn't actually melt fat, at least
not at room temperature. If fat was melting at room temperature, it
could only be because they changed their HFCS intake.
Episiarch|6.25.08 @ 2:17PM|#
Having a fatass trip and fall on you is just as bad as
having a 110-story building collapse and fall on you.
You laugh, but it's true.
NutraSweet gives me migraines
Me too, he's really annoying. Don't read his posts.
Damn, Epi.
What can I say? I'm good at giving nicknames that stick.
Everybody knows that exercise doesn't actually melt fat, at
least not at room temperature. If fat was melting at room
temperature, it could only be because they changed their HFCS
intake
Exercise doesn't melt fat, but controlled demolitions do!
drewt333|6.25.08 @ 2:18PM|#
So obesity is 'the terrorist threat from within,' or a form of extreme fundamentalist insurgency? 'scuse me while I head on down to Krispy Kreme and declare jihad.
|6.25.08 @ 2:25PM|#
You don't really believe that a fatass just trips and falls on
you, do you? At free-fall speed, into his own "footprint?" That
defies the laws of physics! Note the undulations in his blubber,
descending down his body, as he was falling. That was a controlled
fall, I tell you.
www. fatassfallingtroofers.com!!
|6.25.08 @ 2:28PM|#
where terrorist threat means "bad thing."
I would amend that to, "Something I disapprove of".
Guy Montag|6.25.08 @ 3:05PM|#
Won't anybody think of the children?
They are being recruited as terrorists by big HFCS and BIG
Mack!
George Orwell|6.25.08 @ 3:07PM|#
Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable." The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another.
|6.25.08 @ 3:40PM|#
The first time I heard of people using ground-up White Castle burgers as turkey stuffing, I literally gagged.
|6.25.08 @ 4:19PM|#
Make the little bastards walk five miles to school, uphill both ways, through the snow, everyday like we had to.
tassawwuf|6.25.08 @ 4:41PM|#
they could waterboard that recently ex-fat guy from the tv commercial for me...the one that "gave all his fat clothes to his fat friends"...
Jennifer|6.25.08 @ 4:43PM|#
You laugh, but it's true.
Who's laughing, Epi? Not me. If the government were really serious
about fighting terrorism, they'd make it illegal to sell clothes
any larger than a size two. That way, all the terrorists would have
to stay home lest they violate public nudity laws.
Lousy fatass terrorists.
thoreau|6.25.08 @ 5:06PM|#
You don't really believe that a fatass just trips and falls
on you, do you? At free-fall speed, into his own "footprint?" That
defies the laws of physics! Note the undulations in his blubber,
descending down his body, as he was falling. That was a controlled
fall, I tell you.
Not to mention that not a single Israeli was there on the sidewalk
when the fatass fell over. It's almost as though they had been
warned. How else to explain that when this particular person fell
over in this particular place there were no Israelis next to
him?
dpsc|6.25.08 @ 10:08PM|#
MP says: Funny thing is, from a cost perspective (particularly
in our quasi-socialist medical system), it's actually far more
threatening than today's terrorist threat.
On the other hand the cost of water-boarding fat people in our
warming world is much higher. It takes a lot more water. Plus you
have to guard against them spontaneously becoming superheroes named
things like "Whale-Man" and "Elephant-Seal-Woman" because you
mismatched the current somewhere in your impedance regulator. That
can be bad, bad indeed. I speak from experience, and now stay far
away from the coastline (not easy in Florida).
Episiotomy says: I'm good at giving nicknames that
stick.
I wish I had that superpower.
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