Former Senate Leader, Cat Torturer Bill Frist: America is Too Fat to Fight
Because no supposed social problem can't not be twisted into some sort of military-preparedness issue, here's former Senate Majority Leader and admitted cat torturer Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) talking about how a nation of butterballs can't win the future (WTF) with all that wheezing and skid-marked-stained underoos and whatnot:
"Childhood obesity is something much larger than something that just hurts and pulls back and restrains our economic strength. It threatens our security, our national security as a nation," Frist said on Tuesday at the "Building for a Healthier Future" summit held in Washington, D.C.
"Between 1995 and 2008, over 140,000 potential military recruits failed their entrance physicals, failed them because they were too heavy," said Frist. "That's 140,000 young men and women who were motivated enough to enlist but, because of being overweight, could not. They were the ones who wanted to serve their country, who were willing to put themselves in harm's way, and they were told, 'No, you're too heavy to safely be trained.'"
The French Marines, one presumes, could not have gone over the top if they were fat loads. Word.
I for one miss the old America, where being fat was discussed in terms that did not immediately gravitate to collectivism such as national preparedness, like tubbys around a donut giveway.
The healthier future "summit" and broader agenda (yes, this conference evokes visions of Kruschev and LBJ meeting at the old Glassboro State College, dunnit) is heavy on making tot-sized porkers move more and eat less, especially at school. Because, you know, schools really already waste too much time not teaching kids how to read, write, and add.
FWIW, obesity rates among kids and adults in most of the Western world (including the U.S.) have leveled off in a way that seriously annoys what Jacob Sullum has called "professional fat alarmists."
Take it away, Stripes, the ultimate tribute to the hollow Army that somehow managed to destroy the Soviet Empire despite the Coms having folks like the just-deceased 350-lb.Olympic weightlifter Vasily Alekeseyev:
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Frist!
How exactly does operating drones, that are killing people on the other side of the planet, require a fit soldier ? In fact, fat computer nerds are what the ideal future soldiers will have to be.
except, with the continuing advancement of mobile computing, the Army would prefer to have those drone operators running laps around the base while they pilot.
Why don't you ask, why do you need to learn knife fighting?
Exactly. I also think people underestimate the potential of fatties for defensive positions. Since they can't run away, they can't turn cowardly and retreat. Perfect for when you don't want to lose any ground.
While he was a medical school student in the 1970s, Frist performed fatal medical experiments and vivisection on shelter cats while researching the use of drugs on the mitral valve. By his own account, Frist improperly obtained these cats from Boston animal shelters, falsely telling shelter staff he was adopting the cats as pets.[40]
...
Kitty Mengele!
Seriously. What utter scum.
Is he Japanese?
Complete and total sociopath. No wonder he fits in so well in Congress.
I always thought he was a real jerk. Now I know there is a special place for him in Hell.
I saw that movie. The cat tortured the old man and killed the hired hitman.
Frist rescued those cats from chinese restaurant, where they would have contributed to our national epidemic of obesity.
He is our nation's greatest hero!
I don't have a problem with this. Unless the research was funded with taxpayer money. This is awesome cat shelter hacking. [/monocle]
-The Most Interesting Libertarian In The World
They're cats, guys. Not people. Experimenting on property is one's right, and morally permissible to boot.
He obtained the property through fraud, so no.
The cat shelter was probably completely devastated to have forty cats off its hands. Plenty more where that came from.
What's wrong with you people? Experimenting on cats is unethical in this manner, but it's not cat torture! When you read cat torture you think...well, of someone sick psycho torturing a cat for fun. That's a hell of a lot different than pursuing medical knowledge! Does anyone know if he used anaesthesia?
I'm sorry, but Reason really screwed the pooch on this one... this just in, Reason rapes puppies!
old fart moment: back in the day, we had PE every day and, as a bonus, graduated high school knowing how to read, write, and do fairly serious math, well enough to NOT need remedial work in college.
Like most politicians, Frist misses the point: a lard-ass who is allegedly "motivated" enough to try and join the service is too stupid to be accepted. Besides, overweight is not a disease, it is a condition that can be rectified.
I suspect that often the "motivation" is inability to find a job, rather than high-minded patriotism. If these bozos would stop wrecking the economy the big boyz might stay home.
It was primarily patriotism from 9/12/2001 until about march of 2003. Then it went back to the status quo once the patriotic soldiers started asking why they were in Iraq to fight the terrorists in Afghanistan.
To assert that patriotism is high-minded is to assert the absurd.
Agreed. I said it with a cynical grimace.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here. I'm gonna volunteer my leadership to this blog. An blog without senior editors is like a foot without a big toe. And Nick Gillespiie isn't always gonna be there to be that big toe for us. I think that we owe a big round of applause to our newest, bestest buddy, and big toe... Nick Gillespie.
*cut to sloopy doing pushups in the rain*
I'll vote for you when you learn how to spell, or at least preview and edit.
Does that make Welch the John Laroquette of reason?
Matt Welch as Capt. Stillman
Lucy and KMW as Hansen and Cooper
Mike Riggs as Pvt. Cruiser
Tim Cavanaugh as Pvt. Francis Soyer
Peter Suderman as Pvt. Elmo Blum
Ronald Bailey as Soldier
Timothy Busfield as Soldier with mortar
Now if we only had some MP uniforms for the fine ladies at reason....
"Between 1995 and 2008, over 140,000 potential military recruits failed their entrance physicals, failed them because they were too heavy," said Frist.
We'll just do with physical requirements for entrance into the service what we do with every other line standing in the way of our goal: move it.
Too little or too much poverty? Move the line. Too many or too few drivers' BAC over the limit? Move the line. Too much or too little Texas in the United States? Move the line.
That's around 10,000 per year. How is this a huge problem again?
There are 3,141 counties and county equivalents in the 50 States and the District of Columbia. That means every year, there are 3 people in each county in the US that are too fat to make it in the military. It's an epidemic! The terrorists are winning!!
They need to be faster than the American citizens they suspect of being terrorists after S.B. 1867 makes every American suburb a field in the Warr'nterrah
Oh that's right, Private Pyle, don't make any fucking effort to get to the top of the fucking obstacle. If God would have wanted you up there he would have miracled your ass up there by now, wouldn't he?
Are you quitting on me? Well, are you? Then quit, you slimy fucking walrus-looking piece of shit! Get the fuck off of my obstacle! Get the fuck down off of my obstacle! NOW! MOVE IT! Or I'm going to rip your balls off, so you cannot contaminate the rest of the world! I will motivate you, Private Pyle, IF IT SHORT-DICKS EVERY CANNIBAL ON THE CONGO!
What if they just lowered the obstacle wall, and raised the barbed wire that you have to crawl under in the mud? And put some cakes at the end? Or some pussy up there on top of that obstacle?
Get your fat ass up there! I'll bet if there was some pussy up there you would get up there, wouldn't you?
Frist! Drop and give me forty!
The cake is a lie
@colonel_angus
[looks at Epi and Pro L]
Now, are either of you homosexuals?
You mean flaming, or...?
Well, it's a standard question we have to ask.
No, we're not homosexual, but we are willing to learn.
Holy dog shit. Texas? Only steers and queers come from Texas, Private Cowboy. And you don't look much like a steer to me so that kinda narrows it down. Do you suck dicks?
Yeah, dude, totally wrong movie. I mean, there isn't even any connection. You might want to save it for something that has anything to do with Full Metal Jacket.
All threads that deal with life must deal with Full Metal Jacket.
and the Gunny in that movie turns his Corps schtick into a Hollywood living. Ya jackwagon.
I, for one, welcome our new fashionably thin overlords...
John doesn't.
No, no, no! The overlords need not be thin. Just the serfs and spearcatchers.
"We're all very different people. We're not Watusi. We're not Spartans. We're Americans, with a capital 'A', huh? You know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. We're mutts!"
reluctantly raises hand....
Yeah, yeah I do. Yeah, I do. I went to this doctor. Well, he told me I swallow a lot of aggression... along with a lot of pizzas! Ha Ha Ha! Pizzas! I'm basically a shy person, I'm a shy guy. Uh, he suggested taking one these uh, aggression training courses. You know these aggression training courses like EST, those type of things. Anyway, it cost 400 bucks! 400 bucks to join this thing? Well I didn't have the money and I thought to myself, "Join the army"! It's free. So I figured while I'm here I'll lose a few pounds. And you got what, a 6 to 8 week training program here? A real tough one. Which is perfect for me.
Chicks dig me, because I rarely wear underwear and when I do it's usually something unusual. But now I know why I have always lost women to guys like you. I mean, it's not just the uniform. It's the stories that you tell. So much fun and imagination.
I think you're ready for the Special Olympics...
He could always join a monastery.
I thought Scottish were the lowest of the low.
If it's not Scottish, it's crap.
SF'd the link.
Stripes sucked.
Lighten up, Francis.
I bet you're the kind of guy that would fuck a person in the ass and not even have the goddamn common courtesy to give him a reach-around. I'll be watching you.
You ever think maybe some of these guys joined before they got drafted, Nick?
So is Fist concerned that our military has 140,000 to few members? It apparently doesn't occur to Fist that maybe the cause of obesity is government mandates, dictates, subsidies and rent seeking. Oh no, it couldn't be that. We must have people like Fist expanding the war on obesity. Fist.
Nevermind that that socon piece of shit probably blew a gasket when DODA was repealed. But it's the 140k fat kids that were rejected that is the tragedy and is fucking up our national security.
DODA?
It was actually the DODAT Act, which stood for : Department Of Defense Assraping Taxpayers Act.
Add sumo wrestling to basic training.
After the first World War they said that Americans had been too scrawny to serve. We got a massive push for PE in public schools as a result.
Now we've come full circle and we're (supposedly) too fat to serve.
It's funny, but even though after every war we hear stories about Americans being physically unfit to serve, we keep kicking ass.
Go watch the tape of the US Marines putting ashore in Somalia back in the first Bush presidency and tell me again how Americans are physically unfit for war. It looks like a fucking ALIEN INVASION or an attack by giant robots or something.
Good point. Just because a few fat fucks get rejected it doesn't mean we have a problem with our armed forces.
And he doesn't say how many people were turned away in the past for being fat. Who is to say that 140,000 is out of the norm.
And maybe Frist has missed this, but they have this thing called physical training in the military. It gets you in shape. In my experience, the Army is generally the most in shape group of alcoholics in the world.
I can vouche for this. The problem is, once I finished my stint in the army, I kept the boozing.
As long as we've got a voucher.
[looks at reason commentariat]
Tomorrow, you'll be on parade in front of General Postrel. And when she sees what total fuck-ups you are, I will recommend that your whole platoon repeat the entire course of basic training.
What she'll really see is that, despite that fact that our sergeant was blown up by a mortar, we were able to pull together into a well knit squad. Hell we'll be just the people she's looking for for a special mission.
That's the fact, Jack!
That's fine, Sparky. But if you fuck this up, I'll see to it that you're assigned to a weather station above the Arctic Circle.
French Marines? What? Are you referring too WWI?
Did Parris Island in '89. The Fat Bodies who failed the initial fitness test were sent to the Physical Conditioning Platoon (PCP) where they were basically exercised all day by DI's and their diet was strictly supervised. The one guy sent there from my platoon looked like they sawed him in half.
The problem was that people (even young ones) tend to die when they are fat and overstressed. (A couple of recruits died of heart attacks while I was there.) So the services stopped accepting fat recruits.
I don't think we are getting fatter - just more sensitive about training deaths.
That is an excellent point.
When I was at Parris Island ('98), PCP was mostly full of dudes who couldn't pass the 1.5 mile run. My limpdick arms couldn't get more than 2 pull-ups, one shy of the 3 minimum. After a few weeks of hell, I got out and into a training platoon.
After graduation me and a few other PCP alums went to their squad-bay for a little motivational talk. Sadly, there were a few guys I knew from my own stint. The idea of spending 18-20 weeks in PCP before finally mustering out is horrible. The endless hell of bootcamp without any of the accomplishments. Sad sad fuckers.
With delayed enlistment (sign now, show up in six months) it's all on you to show up ready to train. If you arrive 40lbs overweight, unable to run a mile without puking and/or passing out before the finish, can't do more than 50 situps, and the bare minimum 3 pull-ups, you're a fuckup and probably shouldn't have signed up in the first place.
Especially when you are 18 years old. God it is easy to get in shape when you are that young. Try staying in shape after 40 when your metabolism has slowed down and your body aches from the years of working out. I would give anything to be 18 again and naturally weigh about 160 lbs and still eat anything I wanted. You have to be a real lazy fuck if you can't get into shape at age 18.
I wasn't in the greatest shape, but holy shit there were guys that made me wonder if their recruiters were blind and retarded to let them in. We're talking about guys about 5'8" 200 lbs. I don't even know how some of them got through MEPS let alone signing a contract for service.
There was one guy who was on the island for about a month before me who got picked up into the same training series but a different platoon. He was back in PCP after a few weeks and still there when I graduated. He was a spitting image of Bull from Night Court. When I saw him he was on his way to get his separation papers after 25 weeks on Parris Island. I still don't understand why you'd do that to yourself.
I don't understand how you can spend 25 weeks with DI's torturing you and not look like an MMA fighter at the end of it. Hell even at my age, if you put me on the Paris Island training program, assuming I didn't get hurt, I would be in bad ass condition in about a month. How did they not get into shape?
No fucking clue John. I lost something like 40 lbs. and looked almost emaciated because I was burning more calories than I could take in.
Don't know either. I was damn skinny after PI. After MCT (short Infantry school) I was too skinny. After a few weeks at Twentynine Palms with regular PT, decent food, AND access to a weight room - I was a stud.
Don't get me started on the height / weight BS. When we were weighing in, we had a dude who weighed 265. They were about to put him on weight control when the Senior DI came out his office.
The DI ordered him to take off his t-shirt - guy was a bodybuilder with a washboard stomach. "You're not on weight control! Get off my scale!"
OS - True, but the ones I'm talking about were fatties. Short, fat, balding dudes in their early 20s. The BC glasses may have added a few pounds because your head looks like it weighs an extra 20 pounds with them damned things on.
LOL, they still call them "BC glasses"? That brings back memories (Navy bootcamp, '78)
I did in fact manage to get laid while wearing those plastic monstrosities, possibly disproving the myth of their birth control capabilities. Though chicks really dig the USMC uniform scheme so that probably counteracted the negatives of the glasses.
" run a mile without puking and/or passing out before the finish, can't do more than 50 situps, and the bare minimum 3 pull-ups"
Mid-50's and I can still do all of this. How can someone in their 20's be so out of shape as to fail this?
I would have had a problem with the situps.
Situps are a bitch to do if you've never done them before. It's real easy to look in shape but never work those particular muscles.
"It threatens our security, our national security as a nation,"
It's...hard to take someone seriously after this shit comes out of his mouth.
It's impossible to take Bill Frist seriously after his tenure as Senate Majority Leader.
Here is the John Candy link that SHOULD have been in the article.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD7UWeXYGSk
Why is it that Reason calls out people they don't like (Frist) for animal cruelty ("cat torturer"), but then gives a total pass ("choice") to the cruelty industry (force-fed geese)? Gillespie? Linnekin? Anyone?
Cuz kittehs are cute? Seriously, I think a big part of the issue is that he took the cats out of shelters under false pretenses. If he had said he was taking them for vivisection, I doubt the shelters would have released them. That sort of makes him an immoral lying fuck.
Actually geese that are used for foi gras live better lives than most other foul used for food. That is a myth Tony.
A less onerous form of torture is still torture. Completely lame, even by your low standards.
Unless you refuse to eat chicken as well, you are pretty stupid to refuse to eat fois gras.
Why do they call Frist a "cat torturer" then give a link to a Huckabee story?
Can you spell "Khrushchev," Nick? Apparently not. Ever heard of "SpellCheck"? It's cool! Let Bill Gates solve all your problems for you, the easy way!
ALAN VANNEMAN
derp
The stamina and strength which the defense of liberty requires are not the product of a few weeks' basic training or a month's conditioning. These only come from bodies which have been conditioned by a lifetime of participation in sports and interest in physical activity. Our struggles against aggressors throughout our history have been won on the playgrounds and corner lots and fields of America.
Thus, in a very real and immediate sense, our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security.
JFK goes on to say that if you get far, the communists win.
*fat. Fat is what I meant to say.
Then JFK took a bit dose of steroids and banged a woman he wasn't married to.
Not to be a nit-picker, but LBJ didn't meet with Krushchev at Glassboro. It was Kosygin.
And not to be a nit-picker--oh, who am I kidding; of *course* I'm being a nit-picker: Old Nikita Sergeyevich's name is properly transliterated as "Khrushchev."
Please. You know nothing of pedantry. It's ?????? or nothing.
Amateur porn sites are the best way to encourage fitness. They turn every season into beach season.