Kudos to the city council and mayor of Los Angeles, California for exhibiting rare leadership by mandating that pornographic film actors wear condoms when they make their films within the LA city limits.

With just a few strokes of his pen, the mayor has saved literally dozens of lives, probably. Actually, it’s probably millions of lives, because now not only will the performers in pornographic films be completely protected from uncovered penises, but the people who watch pornographic films will be reminded of how great condoms are, and they will emulate their pornographic film performer heroes and put them on when they engage in their own coitus.

That is what you call a “win-win.”

I’m not going to pretend to know anything about pornographic films, myself. If I tried to talk to you about pornography, I’d come off like Mitt Romney talking about shooting “small varmints, if you will.” But I would like to think that seeing James Deen wrap up his pecker before sticking it into the buttocks of, oh let’s say Naomi Russell, would be a welcome development for the pornographic film connoisseur, of which I am not one. Seriously, if you presented me with a lineup of Tori Black, Stoya, Carmen Kinsley, Eve Lawrence, and Jennifer White and told me to tell you which of them was whom, I would probably not be able to tell you, especially if they weren’t wearing any makeup. I understand they all look different without makeup.

I don't know who this is.

It’s just not my world, you see. As far as I know, the letters “ATM” stand for “Automated Teller Machine,” and nothing else. The only “Bang Brothers” I know are Archie and Chester Bang, of the Hampton Bangs. I met them while summering in the Hamptons in my long-ago youth. Oh, the times we had! That special summer I learned the true value of the word “teamwork,” when I and Chester and Archie and Bobo and Fritzy and the Jimster all worked together to win the big regatta against an upstart team led by the son of the groundskeeper. I digress. Anyway, the LA government has been on this beat for awhile now:

Los Angeles County public health officials backtracked Tuesday on their statements last week that at least 16 unpublicized cases of HIV in adult film performers had been reported to them since 2004.

Despite their release of data to The Times describing the cases as “adult film performers,” the county’s top health official acknowledged that the agency does not know whether any of those people were actively working as porn performers at the time of their positive test.
…
County public health officials said they had mislabeled all reports from the AIM clinic as adult performers when, in fact, information about their occupation is unclear. Although the clinic was created primarily to serve the porn industry, it serves other clients.

I would also like to commend the Los Angeles city council for the money-saving steps they took in adopting this requirement without going to the mess and bother of holding an actual vote on the subject.

The city would have had to spend over $4 million to hold the election, and city officials said a decision to simply adopt the condom requirement allowed them to dodge that costly poll.

Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Koretz, who brought the measure, said he expected residents at the ballot box would have overwhelmingly approved the condom requirement, so it was a “no-brainer” to adopt it now.

“For us right now, our only real policy issue is do we spend $4 million and have this become law? Or do we not spend $4 million and have this become law?” Koretz said.

The LA city council is known for its frugality. They’re always looking for ways to save money. Not only does this save the city the cost of holding an election, it also saves the pornographic film companies the expense of mounting some kind of campaign to convince voters to let their workers decide for themselves whether they want to use condoms or not. It’s my hope that the city council will extend this money-saving practice to other “election” issues. For instance, it’s pretty clear that Barack Obama is going to carry Los Angeles. So why don’t they just pass a resolution saying that Barack Obama carried Los Angeles, and then spare the expense of holding an actual vote? The city council can use that money to go toward Los Angeles’s storied mass transit system.

As happy as I am that the city of Los Angeles has adopted this no-brainer condom mandate, I have to wonder why it is that the mayor and the city council are only looking to protect pornographic film performers? After all, they’re not the only ones having coitus. It’s my understanding that a lot of people who don’t actually film themselves also enjoy having sex. And yet, the city council has said to these people, “Go ahead and have unprotected sexual relations with each other! Go ahead and catch diseases. We don’t care! If we did, we’d pass a law mandating that everyone who has sex wear a condom!”

Oh, I’m being farcical. Obviously I don’t think that everyone who has sex should have to wear a condom. Just those who are not currently married. Think about it. These people are out having sex with who knows whom, catching who knows what kinds of diseases, and then we all end up having to pay for it.

I am tired of it. We have to do something about it.

People do not have the right to abuse themselves. We don’t allow people to take just whatever drug they want. We don’t allow people to sell their own organs. We don’t allow people to just walk on an airplane without being frisked. We don’t allow people to drive without wearing a seatbelt. We have decided — as a society — to make certain decisions for you. In case you’re too stupid to make the right one.

Just as I don’t want to have to pay for your lung cancer treatment because you smoked, just as I don’t want to have to pay for your diabetes or heart disease medicine because you’ve eaten too much fast food, just as I don’t want to pay for your drug treatment because you got addicted to the marijuana, so too I don’t want to pay for your Valtrex because you think you’re too “cool” to remain in a committed relationship with one single sexual partner for the rest of your life like society says is the right way to do things, and you signed that social contract when you were born here if you didn’t like it you should have been born elsewhere.

I am totally unbiased in this argument. I don’t know Sunny Lane from Faye Reagan, and if they and Lexi Belle invited me to engage in some MFFF action I wouldn’t know what the hell they were talking about. But I do believe in protecting people; especially those people who refuse to protect themselves in the manner that I know is best.

I don't know who this is, either.

Rick Perry seems to be adjusting his meds with some success. After sleeping through a couple debates and partying through a couple more his native cunning produced a good, if limited result, assuming the goal was to let some air out of Mitt Romney. Maybe there is real benefit to these bi-weekly debates since there is only ever one or two highlights that make it out into the wider world. The Massachusetts Princeling is wishing he had skipped this one after boldly betting Rick Perry ten thousand dollars that his book says one thing and not another.

One question that no one is addressing is the simple legality of Mitt’s proposal. As I understand it, outside of Nevada and a few other locales, wagering is explicitly illegal. Sporting events? Card games? Shell games? If an ordinary citizen bets on such things he is breaking any number of statutes. Is the disputed content of a piece of paper different? This doesn’t qualify as a state lottery, does it? Recall Michael Moore, advocate of metaphysically strict campaign finance rules dishing out cash, in public but without accounting to his candidate. Picking nits is for The Little People. That ain’t Moore and that ain’t Mitt.

The amount; a cool ten large, has been tagged as the revealing nub by the predictable and well-seasoned detractors on the Left. Throwing a Salmon on the table demonstrates that Mitt is a One Percenter, ’nuff said. Only those contesting Romney’s presumed coronation will bring up the real core of this disgusting little episode; Who is right? And if it is Rick (and it is) what is going on here?

Jon Huntsman couldn’t cut the polling mustard for this round but if he is fading out, he is fighting it, and fighting Mitt. The most forceful pushback came from his campaign. After the lights were out and cold but not long after that, his crew put up a website with all the details, going back years documenting Romney’s approval of the “individual mandate”; compulsory participation in medical reforms and his application of it in Massachusetts. The crux of Mitt’s bet is the subtle revision between the original print of his campaign manifesto, “No Apologies” and subsequent editions. Mitt reads from the latter. Rick from the former.

Whether Romney’s revision amounts to a full-throated denunciation of his now burdensome position or a new nuance to go with new facts is not the question. Not at all. That is because he does not admit that he has changed his position in the least. He did however alter his book and also do as expert an internet scrub as one can accomplish. Huntsman still has the goods to which Perry alludes but Mitt will have none of that. He seems to lay claim to his own private memory hole and assumes that the obsolete copies have been recovered and pulped. Rick misses out on true stardom here, sadly. If he had produced the troublesome tome he would have had Mitt sputtering and red faced on live TV, perhaps carried out in wraparound couture muttering, “No, it’s not what I said. It’s what I’m saying….” but instead the Texas cowhand declines to bet, possibly on religious grounds, revealing that he is as ignorant of what the damn book said as is Romney, having rehearsed this interchange with his handlers rather than ever forming his objections for himself.

So, as is often the case, Rick blows a big debate opportunity. Very well. But Romney’s actions are far worse than a flub. What he wants is not a pass on rhetorical incompetence or ordinary political exaggerations or even outright lies. He intends to re-write his words and deeds, live, on camera, without concealment of any sort to suit his momentary requirements. And anyone who notices has no standing to complain if they are not fixed well enough to drop ten grand on a spa weekend. This should be a revelation but for reasons well understood by the gunslingers who are really calling the shots, the self-interest of the involved parties are contradictory enough to keep a full reckoning at bay. Romney has already revealed how calamitous he fears this might prove by going nuclear in his defense. He has brought in the wife, in an obviously contrived scenario, and she has admonished him, No more bets! That is supposed to end the matter. How? By invoking the perpetually abused Spouse Clause Mitt has now declared that he has taken a hiding for this from the REAL boss and further chatter is either piling on a man who can’t defend himself for fear of a blow up with the missus or intrusion in a private, family matter. See how easy this stuff is?

But it has NOT ended the matter, nor should it. Newt is on the hunt denouncing Romney as a silk-stocking bankster. He sees his opportunities well. After Romney and others have pulled HIS finances front and center Newt sees an opening for a crippling counter. Mitt has exposed his throat, will Newt decline to take a bite? Why? From shame at his own double and self-dealing? From fear that his own tactical wafting from this position to that will be re-scrutinized? Oh, perish the thought! What we see from both men is a petty scale version of Big Lie Theory in action. Mitt makes his declarations; abandoning that old centrist compromiser from way up north and in a snarl DARES anyone to say different while declaring just as firmly that he has never changed his positions a whit! His recruitment of Chris Christie to do this dirty work is another black mark on his ledger (and Christie’s as well). Newt takes blank denial and slick one-off rationalizations to an art so fully developed that even the most cynical citizen can only gape and grudgingly admit that anyone with a glib answer to everything must be “smart” and frank. Lies so baroque could not be relied upon.

That is the world we inhabit and more important issues than Mitt or Newt’s relative consistency have been brushed away by such maneuvering. No one… and that is NO ONE ever questions Mitt’s assertion that, whatever the Constitutional or ideological problems with Masscare if brought to the nation at large, the result in his state has been good. No, it has not. Costs are UP, not down. Results are WORSE, not better. The hard numbers say that. The polling also says that. And even Mitt’s carefully revised book pukes up an abhorrent lie when he claims that his program did not amount to a government takeover of medicine. Apparently only a government appointed Star Chamber can satisfy that definition which is all that awaits the doctors and hospitals of Massachusetts. Still less remarked is that Masscare relies heavily on one-time financing from a federal windfall that was a use-it-or-lose-it Medicare fluke that poured cash into the state from federal coffers; the exact malady that all healthcare reform is supposed to address.

The bluster amounts to little, though, even if one of these dreadful men attains his aspiration. If Medicare is to be “saved” the payments OUT must be curtailed and the payments IN expanded which was the state of affairs in ’08 and in ’10 and will be in ’12. It is the goal of the Doc Fix which forcibly cuts payments to doctors as it is for the hikes in taxes or cuts in therapies like the recent scrapping of Avastin treatment for breast cancers. Yes, this is also what Obamacare claims to do and it is what all “solutions” have done over forty years while the costs of the program only escalate. Anyone who wants to preserve a leading federal roll in healthcare (and this is not me) has only one viable option; radical means testing which would in essence end Medicare, intended to cover “seniors” and expand Medicaid, coverage for the indigent. Who proposes that? Not even the allegedly voracious Paul Ryan proposes anything so dire but the alternative is not some lumbering behemoth that delivers our necessities without charm. It is collapse; that is the checks bounce. And if you don’t want the checks to bounce, as no one does on their shift, they are backed with printed money with all that implies. Are either of these men or Obama going to resist such temptation? Only now does that strange transmission gain coherence….

Resist we much.

10. While slicing the pumpkin pie, you cut your finger and gravy came out

9. Your belly button, formerly an innie, is now an outie

8. People kept saying, “Happy Thanksgiving, Gov. Christie!”

7. NASA is considering one more mission to photograph the other side of you

6. A policeman came up to you and ordered you to disperse

5. You just woke up from your tryptophan coma

4. You’ve gotten inquiries from the Guinness World Records people

3. Old Country Buffet just issued a lifetime ban

2. Your relatives took a picture of you in your Pilgrim outfit, and it’s still printing

1. You just caught the flesh eating bacteria, and were given 67 years to live
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

The McRib is a miracle sandwich. It’s something delicious that is made from a bunch of seemingly non-delicious ingredients. This apparently bothers some people.

Some people are just never satisfied.

10. You saw the nurse filling the syringe with Diet Snapple

9. It makes you so delirious, you seriously start considering voting for Michele Bachmann

8. It has a 100 percent guarantee from Dr. Kevorkian

7. It’s FDA approval is from the Florida Dental Association

6. After injecting you, the doctor offers to sell you the antidote for another hundred bucks

5. The “clinic” is in the backseat of a ’54 Chevy

4. You notice the diploma on the doctor’s office wall is from Hamburger U.

3. Right after getting it, you start shaking like Rick Perry at an NAACP rally

2. You got the shot from a door-to-door grifter

1. The label claims it’s also effective against Cooties
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

A friend of mine has recently gone from being a very healthy guy to deciding he wants to be the healthiest man ever. Suddenly his calendar is filled with triathlons and, when not actually participating in triathlons, he is staying in shape for triathlons, because it’s not like you wake up one morning, grab a few Krispy Kremes for breakfast, and decide, “I feel like traveling a ridiculously long distance as fast as possible today without using my car.” I recently took a trip with him to Chicago to visit a mutual friend and, our first morning there, he popped in his daily workout DVD and then spent the next hour and 15 minutes exercising (the highlight: when the workout commanded him to do pullups he began scrambling around the apartment searching for structures to support his weight, while I noted that our hosts probably wouldn’t appreciate him ripping their shelves from the wall in his desperate attempt to ensure he maxed his workout benefits by ripping off 15 before his body started to cool down).

On the flip side, I have friends who are overweight. Actually, not overweight: fat. When I say fat, I don’t mean, “Your body is not as aesthetically appealing as it might be.” I mean, “Oh my lord when you got in the Range Rover suddenly we sank six inches.” They inspire not contempt (at least from me), but genuine concern, to the point where you’re hanging out and they say, “So what do you feel like doing tonight?” and you immediately reply, “How about riding the Elliptical for a few hours, then getting some tofu? Yay!”

I feel like most of America is starting to fall into these two extremes. People have abs or they have a gut; at some point, the mere belly shall be lost entirely. And the thing is, I don’t think there’s a reason for either end of the spectrum. Unless you’re planning to get lost in the wilderness for a month or two, being overloaded with body fat seems of limited value. (Even then, I’m not sure the message your bloated frame sends is “Nature, I am ready for your challenges” so much as, “Hey, faster creatures, guess who’s edible? This guy!”)

Yet my friend who’s in great shape is…a writer. Yeah. This is a job that calls upon a person to be fit enough to type, rise up from one’s chair to get something to eat and use the bathroom (often on the same trip), and, if you’re working from home, masturbate until the boredom passes. I also write and never did I say, “Man, thanks to my ability to swim six miles before riding a bike, I think that piece was mostly spelled correctly.” Do I find going for a walk or doing something else physical is a good way to jumpstart the brain? Yes, but at the same time I doubt an editor would have any sympathy if I told them, “I was about to get the article in ahead of the deadline…when suddenly I felt an overwhelming need to lift heavy things. So I did. The end.”

Related to this, there was once was a time of trade-offs. Women who had larger breasts tended to be a bit heavier, because that’s how the human body works. Guys could go for big boobs or they could seek out stick figures, but they couldn’t have both. Surgery and ridiculously specific workouts have changed all this, to the point that the little girl who will grow up to be an exact anatomical match for Barbie has probably already been born (and shall receive her first liposuction any moment now). And thus we lost the time when men — and, more importantly, women themselves — had more reasonable standards for feminine beauty, with the result that people could blow off spin class to have a Grand Slam at Denny’s without having to book extra appointments with both their trainer and their therapist (for the guilt).

(There isn’t an exact analogue to this for men, except to note that at one point it was understood if a woman wanted her guy to have ridiculously well-defined abs she would just have to understand and accept that her boyfriend was secretly gay, with the result that going to bed with a man for the first time and discovering a complete lack of definition was demoralizing yet comforting all at once. Thanks for ruining it, Ryan Gosling.)

Extremes seem to be catching on throughout the culture, particularly financially. On the one hand, there are people working 90 hour weeks as investment bankers hating every minute of it but pressing on because “While making ten million dollars left me feeling oddly empty inside…I’m pretty certain that eleven million will do the trick.” On the other, folks are deciding, “You know what? Gainful employment’s overrated; I’ll be in my parent’s basement for the next 50 years if you need me.”

There must be a middle somewhere in this.

To close, please google the name “D’Angelo.” You will discover a number of photos of the R&B star D’Angelo, who is now 37.

In some of them, from early in his career, he is shirtless and in such ridiculous shape that his stomach seems to have invented new muscles that did not exist previously.

In other, later pics, he looks like 300 pounds of goo stuffed into a bag meant to hold 150 pounds max.

I like to think that D’Angelo has found a balance between these: there’s many a night he’d rather have a nice meal than do crunches, but at the same time he’s able to see his feet. May we all be able to take this route and remember to eat a little less, not freak out as much when we can’t get to the gym, work hard but remember to leave the office occasionally, refuse to settle while keeping open minds, and remember that, no matter what shape D’Angelo’s in, the song “Brown Sugar” sounds the same damn way.

Dateline DC: This city of swamprats in custom suits is a limbo, a purgatory occassionally slipping into hell. It is the capitol and first city of the Wild East, edging out New York with baroque corruption more obscene than hundred dollar parking if only because the scales of loot and depravity are orders of magnitude larger. Why? For the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks, rather than lemonade stands. It’s where the money is.

Cornell Jones is no villain, or at least not here. Lifetime criminal though he be, he is at least an honest one, hijacking his hoard with an iron fist and an open gun instead of a soothing word and a hidden dagger. Still, even he was not above getting his hands dirty in Washington politics, sullying his own reputation by rubbing elbows with Marion Barry and his patrons under the Capitol Dome. One might wonder why a pillar of his community, inventor and entrepreneur like Jones would risk his hard-won legacy as the importer of drugs, exporter of thugs and dispenser of neighborly hugs? Even the man flush with cash from innovations like Butt Naked can be turned from his path by the lure of still easier riches dripping from the point of that greasy funnel whose mouth draws from the North American contintent and drains out not far from his blighted Georgetown neighborhood.

So what happened? How did Cornell Jones go wrong? Jones was known as a benefactor to his neighborhood, in Robin-hood style he would drop off groceries, Air Jordans and even medicinal drugs to those with conspicuous need in shitholes like Hanover Place. So it was only natural when DC do-gooders were looking to dump some cash on a fashionable cause like urban AIDS that Mr. Jones’ name would come up. As it happened, a third of a mil of that lucre earmarked for “jobs training” programs went to fund a ghetto fabulous gentlemen’s club in the ‘hood.

It must be said that as jobs programs go, this was not so bad. Inarguably he DID create a dozen and a half jobs paying greater than the prevailing legal wage. Jones’ was creating, not saving jobs and certainly not destroying them. Compared to the Green Jobs Fiasco the Flesh Jobs Initiative was wildly successful, setting up a new enterprise in a mature industry drawing hard cash from a business environment as hostile as one could imagine. So why is this fellow not getting a plum seat and Honorable Mention in the desparate hunt for beneficial results from recent government spending? The obvious reason might be the real one. Jones’ career was a product of the Bush Disaster, not the Obama Miracle. Secondly though, we must recognize that the club created by Miracle Hands (the corny euphemism for the Jones Gang) was the most helpful project to come from the $4.5 mil showered upon it. The details of neglect and death are in the links, hit them at your peril, but HIV positive bodies littering playgrounds was not the open goal of this particular trenchant of spending. It was the result by anyone’s reckoning as attached news bits reveal but can anyone think the soft-hearted yuppies at the Washington Post are interested in discrediting government charity? No no, of course not. Neither were the Bushies or Congresses of whatever party throughout the last couple decades. But the facts speak for themselves and it’s a good thing, since no child born of woman has any hope of helpfully doing so.

Who could ever speak against the limitless funding of Miracle Hands? No one, brothers and sisters. NO one. Some tried, for sure. Mostly these were the victims of the helping hands; AIDS ridden street people who scratched together the wherewithal for a desperate phone call to a number plastered on a bus bench only to have it ring and ring and ring without even the dignity of getting a runaround from living, breathing people. But who cares about them?

The urban AIDS initiatives were as above real scrutiny as the Mother of God, moreso in the swankiest precincts. At a Georgetown cocktail party where the apparatchiks who funded these disasters and the city wardheelers who administer them hobnob with the press watchdogs who are supposed to police them, can you imagine anyone saying a word in protest? It would be their last cocktail party, that is for sure and could well presage their last paycheck. Miracle Hands enjoyed a powerfully alloyed shield. The first layer, plain as day, is race. The wretches who were to be helped by these projects were almost all black. You aren’t a racist, are you? That’s what I thought. But this is no ordinary Race Card. Not in DC. For in attacking Miracle Hands with whatever truth and necessity the REAL beneficiaries would snap and snarl against you like their lifestyles depend on it. These are the purely black city officials, employees and retainers. If you wonder how a program to house and clothe beggars can rip through millions and still not help a soul, this is it. Six-figure salaries and unexamined expense accounts are the genuine and intended outcome. Any improvement at the street level is cool but incidental and there is a strong case to be made that the incentives are AGAINST any ammelioration of conditions; we have to keep the funding you know and really, we would like to expand it. Then we have the AIDS angle so complainers are not only racist but forthrightly homophobic. If you observe that a federally funded Ba-Da Bing Club is not what reformers at the School of Public Policy had in mind you are, what? Against women in the workplace? Are you laughing? You should stop.

And now from the same precincts comes the shrieking question…. How? How can we spend TRILLIONS and reap only destruction? There is only one explanation. We did not spend ENOUGH! Wasn’t our original project double or triple what we actually got? Right there’s your trouble. We have to catch up; it is only good sense and common decency. What we need is MORE largesse, MORE private-public partnership to make sure it goes where it should and LESS oversight but paradoxically MORE administration. And all the while no one has the temerity to say that, hey, maybe we should curtail this crap to a limited extent, stop drawing those trillions from the pockets of working Americans and maybe, just maybe they will do something about it that is… crazy idea… more efficient, more effective, more compassionate, more penetrating and gosh darn it, perhaps a bit less corrupt than a job training program for gunmen, whores and drug slingers. Ya think? And perhaps we could even get Mr. Jones on board. He must be tired of government meddling in his affairs. Aren’t you?

Men’s Health and Yahoo! Health conspired to produce an hilariously misleading set of “9 Scariest Food Facts” that aren’t scary, and aren’t actually facts, either. The piece was written by a couple of assholes called “David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding,” apparently as a promotional tool for their pushy book with the yammering title Eat This, Not That! (has there ever been a book with an exclamation point in the title that wasn’t crap? I really don’t know; I’m not trying to be snide).  The piece is almost worth reading as an example of the effective use of unsourced half truths and lies to promote an agenda.

The first “fact”?

1. Nutritious food costs 10 times more than junk food.
University of Washington researchers calculated the cost discrepancy between healthy food and junk foods and found that 2,000 calories of junk food rings up at a measly $3.52 a day. Yet for 2,000 calories of nutritious grub, the researchers plunked down $36.

The asshole authors, David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding, do not include a link to the study to which they are alluding. (They do, however, include a link to a promotional webpage for their fingerwaving screed Buy This, Not That! excuse me I mean Eat This, Not That!) So I had to google it for myself, because I don’t trust a couple of bluenosing jerks just because they say something alarming. And it turns out that the “study” in question does not say what the asshole authors, David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding, claim it does. In fact, it says nothing of the sort. Moreover, it’s almost completely meaningless.

* The study only shows that people who already pay more for food get more nutrients and less sugar and fat.
* It then calculates improvements based on existing dietary habits. To get more nutrients, participants would just eat more of what they already eat, so they would pay more. For example, if you currently get your potassium from expensive nectarines instead of thrifty bananas, then the projected costs were based on buying even more nectarines.
* Costs don’t reflect what the participants actually paid for the food, but retail prices gathered by the researchers when the studies were done. So the participants may have bought those nectarines in season, on sale, in bulk, and at a farmers’ market … all factors that can drive prices down.
* The costs of eating more healthy food is shown, but not the savings from eating less unhealthy food. But if you eat an extra banana and half a cup of beans a day, you will eat fewer Pop-Tarts and Gummi Bears.
* The costs for each nutrient were calculated separately. So even though bananas provide potassium, fiber, and calcium, the cost was allocated to only one nutrient.

You’ll note that the assholes David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding wrote in their first “fact” that “for 2,000 calories of nutritious grub, the researchers plunked down $36.” But they didn’t. They asked people what foods they already buy, and then extrapolated how much of each product they already buy that they would have to purchase in order to “eat healthy.” The researchers didn’t “plunk down” anything.

What I find even more alarming is the fact that the costs of eating so-called “unhealthy” food can be even more expensive than eating “healthy.” For instance, I love to eat foie gras smothered in a heavy Béarnaise sauce, followed up by a slice of rich chocolate lava cake. That is high fat, high calorie, and high flavor. And it’s also pretty goddamned expensive — a lot more than $36 a day. Let me tell you something, I only wish I had the tolerance for less pricey “unhealthy” foods, such as Funyuns and Clark bars.

The rest of assholes David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding’s first “fact” is as follows:

To add insult to fiscal injury, out of every dollar you spend on food, only 19 cents goes toward the stuff you eat. The other 81 cents goes toward marketing, manufacturing, and packaging.

Again, there’s no link to verify this “fact,” which meant I actually had to google it. And… I am not sure what they’re talking about. I found this from March of this year, which claims that, “For every dollar we spend on food, less than 16 cents go to farmers. The rest is spent on marketing.” But the assholes David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding are claiming that “19 cents goes toward the stuff you eat,” not “15.8 cents goes to farmers.” So I guess that means I’m supposed to keep doing the assholes David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding’s job and keep researching. So I found this, from July 2008:

Out of every dollar spent on food, the farmer receives only 19 cents, according to the American Farm Bureau.

Even though that matches the “19 cents” part, this again states that the 19 cents goes to “the farmer,” not “toward the stuff you eat.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t eat farmers, so clearly that can’t be what the assholes David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding are talking about, can it?

But you know what? I’m only on the first “fact,” and I’ve already grown tired of this exercise. Let the assholes David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding back up their own claims. That’s not my job.

Asshole authors David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding. Have to admit, they take a good picture.

The second “fact” presented by the assholes David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding states,

2. Grocers don’t have to tell you where your produce comes from.
With meat, supermarkets must tell you the country of origin, but produce laws aren’t as strict. Consider this: In a recent E. coli outbreak, German bean sprouts were implicated as the source of the bacteria, but that didn’t prevent thousands of people from being infected. Many of those people were Americans, and they were clueless as to where their sprouts came from.

Again, no links. I had to do the research myself, and I discovered that the assholes David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding were “not as strict” with the truth.

The 2002 and 2008 Farm Bills amended the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 to require retailers to notify their customers of the country of origin of covered commodities. Covered commodities include beef (including veal), lamb, pork, chicken, goat, wild and farm-raised fish and shellfish, perishable agricultural commodities, peanuts, pecans, ginseng, and macadamia nuts. The implementation of mandatory COOL [Country of Origin Labeling] for all covered commodities except wild and farm-raised fish and shellfish was effective September 30, 2008.

The 2008 Farm Bill contains a number of provisions that amended the COOL provisions in the Act. These changes include the addition of chicken, goat, macadamia nuts, pecans, and ginseng as covered commodities, the addition of provisions for labeling products of multiple origins, as well as a number of other changes.

The statute also states that any person engaged in supplying a covered commodity to a retailer must make the country of origin and the production method
available to the buyer.

Retail establishments that are licensed under the Perishable Agricultural Marketing Act (PACA) are required to provide COOL information to consumers.
Under the PACA, a retailer is any person engaged in the business of selling any perishable commodity at retail. Retailers are required to be licensed when the
invoiced cost of all purchases of perishable agricultural commodities exceeds $230,000 during a calendar year. The term perishable agricultural commodity
means fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables.

So grocers are required to tell you where your fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables come from. (In fact, the labeling requirements are quite onerous and strict.) Do bean sprouts fall under the “fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables” umbrella? I’m going to go ahead and take a page from the assholes David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding and say, Yes, they do, unequivocally. Why not? I have more credibility than they do at this point.

By the way, a lot of other things were “implicated” in that E. coli outbreak, including tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce. This has only reinforced my belief that fruits and vegetables are dangerous and to be avoided at all costs. Most especially foreign fruits and vegetables, which are notoriously and allegedly filled with E. coli and are taking jobs away from good, solid American fruits and vegetables.

Are you bored yet? I know I am. The third so-called “fact”:

3. Fruits and vegetables are losing their nutrients.
According to the USDA, the fruits and vegetables we eat today may contain significantly fewer nutrients than those our grandparents ate. Researchers looked at 43 produce items and discovered drops in protein (6 percent), calcium (16 percent), iron (15 percent), riboflavin (38 percent), and vitamin C (20 percent). The only way to counter this trend: Eat more of them.

Please note that the assholes, David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding, state unambiguously in their headline that “Fruits and vegetables are losing their nutrients.” They then state in the following sentence that today’s sorry selection of fruits and vegetables “may contain significantly fewer nutrients.” They can’t even get one sentence into their alarmist bullshit before they start backpedaling. I expect more from the assholes David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding, especially when nothing less than the health and well-being of every single man, woman, and child in the country is at stake.

But there’s no link, just an assertion you’re supposed to accept as fact. I googled the claim and guess what I found? I found something that’s not quite as alarming!

A couple of studies, one in England and one in the U.S., attempted to compare nutrient data collected in the and 50s and 60s with more recent nutrient analyses. Both studies found differences. For example, the British study found that the calcium content of modern vegetables was about one-fifth lower than what was measured in the 1960s and average copper content declined almost 80%. The U.S. study, which was more carefully controlled, found that amounts for a few nutrients like vitamin C, iron, and riboflavin declined somewhat, several were the same, and a few actually increased.

These studies are widely—but very selectively—cited in books, articles, and websites that sell nutritional supplements. You never see any mention of the fact that the level of some nutrients has apparently increased in the last 50 years, for example. Instead, the 80% decline in copper levels observed in the British study is frequently translated as, “Fruits and vegetables have lost 80% of their nutritional value,” which is obviously a gross mischaracterization of the findings.

The authors of both studies are very candid that most of the differences are probably explained by factors other than nutrient depletion of the soil—and it’s not at all clear that these changes pose a problem. For example, the dramatic decline in copper levels in vegetables from 1960 to 1990 is probably because copper-based pesticides, which were widely used then, are not as commonly used now.

When you actually read the studies, it becomes clear that a lot of the differences are most likely the result of changes in sampling methods and measurement techniques, geographical variation, and the random variation in nutrient values from one pepper or strawberry to the next—which is much more significant than most people realize.

There are more “facts” that you can read and research for yourself, but I feel like I’m just rewriting the same things over and over again. Instead allow me to turn my considerable research talents to the asshole authors, David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding. It turns out, one half of that team of assholes, the David Zinczenko half, is the editor of Men’s Health magazine!

The man who put his name on this lying list of unsourced feebogzh is actually an editor! And of an alleged “health” themed magazine! How is that for irony? And, no surprise, he’s even more lazy and dishonest than I thought:

Yesterday, Men’s Health editor David Zinczenko got caught cutting and pasting old cover lines onto the new issue of his magazine. Today, he explained that it was a deliberate “overall branding strategy.” Boy, was he right.

It goes far beyond the similarities between the December 2007 and December 2009 covers that was discovered yesterday. Have a look at the Men’s Health cover archive and you’ll find that Zinczenko has been recycling covers since 2004. The magazine only has about four cover archetypes, which usually share the same copy (“Get Back in Shape” is always paired with “30 Red-Hot Sex Secrets,” for instance), and the same stupid numerical eye candy. And Zinczenko seems to have keyed into the seasonal desires of his readers—the January/February covers, for instance, were virtually identical in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008.

And also:

Zinczenko — who’s known among his peers more for his frequent Today Show appearances than for his skill with a blue pencil — didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry, but he tells the New York Post that the repetitions were “not inadvertent” and “part of overall branding strategies.”

Certainly, it doesn’t sound as though this happens by accident. A source who used to work at Men’s Health recalls sitting with Zinczenko and his top editors in cover meetings. “They had a file of used cover lines and would just pick them somewhat randomly, with no regard for what was in the issue,” says the source. “Occasionally they’d have to call some poor editor and ask something like, ‘Hey, is there anything in the issue that involves 792 sexy women confessing what turns them on?’”

This man is clearly not trustworthy. So why should anyone trust him? Especially with something so important as your “health”?

Do you think David Zinczenko cares about your health? Or is he just trying to make himself rich?

It’s easy to take things out of context and present half-truths and numbers without sourcing as fact. It can be an effective tool when you’re trying to scold people, or make them afraid. It can also be a great way to sell a shitty book or a magazine that sucks ass. Watch out, because it’s not just the big bad “junk food corporations” that are marketing to you. There’s apparently a lot of money to be made in pushing “healthy choices,” and to hell with the facts.

By the way, did you know that in a bleak world full of danger and death, Ultra Veal might be the best food you can eat? And did you know that the only place you can learn about this miracle food is in the classic book about the famous enema murderer Arsole Fantüme, Gentleman Immoralist? Why not order your copy now? It’s a lot more nutrient-rich than anything the assholes David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding ever wrote, and it just might save your life.

If you live near me and had to wait a few extra minutes for an ambulance yesterday, I might have an explanation. Yes, the sirens were sirening and the lights were flashing, but trains still have the right of way. At least this one did. It was a very slow, long freight train. Fortunately, by the time the ambulance showed up, the train was almost past.

Let’s say that Barack Obama dons some gay apparel, something like a viking hat and chainmail, hoists Osama’s crab-nibbled melon over his own and runs out on the West Lawn crying out like Braveheart, “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” This has a predictable effect, rallying the entire country to the cause of Scottish nationalism, but also whatever other plans the President has cribbed on his ipad. The hottentots in the House and elsewhere fall in to line. The institutions of international finance are also well impressed by this display of leading from the side yard; they promise (and prove to have the ability) to buy up all the T-bills we can print at around 3%. For the most part there is no effect on the media, except that Fox is given over to the closest thing white people have to Obama, Mitt Romney, making it as tractable as a gelded pony. The Bush Era Tax Rates die of natural causes next year, engorging federal revenues while not harming economic activity in the least. Likewise FICA taxes rise to no complaints or ill effect. The regulations of the insurance industry have exactly the intended effect and no other leaving it exactly as prosperous and powerful as Obama wants. In short, let us make this titanic and diverse stipulation that is far, far better than any reasonable Best Case Scenario and still we can confidently predict that Obamacare (or whatever you would like to name it…. Husseincare? How’s that sound?) will fail utterly, catastrophically and grotesquely. And we can blame it on Charlie Sheen.

Mr Sheen is not a well man. And while he does seem to have a few health problems typical of a man his age, by far the most of it is self-inflicted. Or possibly little more than a pose. So what do his father, brothers and other well-wishers advise him to do? Get into rehab. Re-habilitation, or we might call it re-civilization is a modern convenience that seems to have almost no ancient corollary except maybe the odd dry monastery. A rehab center looks like a resort that has been turned into a prison or maybe a prison hospital. To this bleak facility we send countless people, many of them teenagers, to “get clean”. Generally this does not include a thorough wash by firehose if only because the majority of the inmates, guests, patients, prisoners or whatever you call them, are there voluntarily. Charlie Sheen, if he were to go (again) would be going voluntarily, assuming there is nothing happening right now in HIS mansion hideout that could get him sentenced there. In any event, Charlie would of course go to only the finest example of the rehabber’s shop which will be luxurious indeed. An ordinary Joe would kill to get a few weeks there. Well, he would if there were booze.

But the Betty Ford Clinic and others even more chi chi are just the top of a very tall pyramid. There are rehab centers for every budget and every addiction. Charlie famously seems to be addicted to almost everything simultaneously and explains it well when he says that Charlie Sheen is high on Charlie Sheen. Yes, even this exotic malady can be treated. I’m not sure how you cure an addiction to self, to self-aggrandizement, self-deception, self-indulgence and self-abuse but the experts; doctors and fixers with elaborate degrees and fat salaries, claim to be up to the challenge. If only they could get a-hold of him. They would cloister him in their posh, hygienic cells, isolate him from bad influences, drink, drugs and smokeables. They will enroll him in group therapy sessions, remedial handicrafts, assign him duties with orphans and the elderly to expand his spirit; they will cajole and advise and massage and urine test Mr Sheen until they can plausibly deliver him a clean bill of health. Right after that they will present him with another bill.

That will be a stiffie, you can be certain. But what the hell? Charlie is making it. Or he was. Of course his prodigious income was also subject to wanton outgo so it could well be that the titanic cost of a month or two in a joint like this will impact even him. So imagine, if you will, this practice of semi-imprisonment at lavish costs expanded to the country at large. Would this be madness? Think of a country where any old Melvin can show up to work drunk for a year or more or maybe expose himself at the water cooler, claim that these hijinx were caused by addictions and get a few weeks vacation at a fancy hotel out of it. No need to imagine such a Utopia, friend. Look beneath your feet. You are standing in such a country.

Health insurance as we know it is a pretty modern invention. Back in the days of Lucy what you got was hospitalization. This paid the bills when you went into the hospital. Pretty straightforward. Back then there wasn’t a whole lot to do for your health outside of a hospital except to see that you were eating right. It was in the sixties that the prescription drug revolution really began. Prior to that, for the most part, some malady would either kill you or let you live with it. Chronic conditions were alleviated through prayer and special shoes. Patented medicines for ailments we never knew existed changed all that. Now there were continuous medical bills that would reliably get higher as you got older and consumed more and more pills. Around this time the calendar pill box was certainly invented. But also was the health maintenance organization, pretty much by Ted Kennedy. This sought to do what we expect modern health plans to do; cover all medical expenses. The HMO is a reviled beast now, the name is hardly spoken, but it was a real innovation that lowered quite radically the out-of-pocket medical expenses of Americans at large while it was supposed to control costs overall.

You know what happened. Demand for this now essentially free good took off like a scalded cat. Costs for particular treatments fell but the array of available drug or therapy regimens exploded so overall medical costs ramped up as we know them to have done. But one would think that even if we are indulging outright hypochondriacs and applying every available remedy to every diagnosable ill, we will eventually hit the limit, right? How much disease can there be in a population? And if medical progress continues as it seems to do, surely with prevention, early diagnosis and expanded options we will all be less sickly. There are two problems with this. One is the simple fact of time: live long enough and you will die of something probably at a great expense in the last few months even if you’ve never been sick a day in your life. Medicare is meant to address this so for now, let’s say it has. We still must contend with Charlie Sheen.

Not Charlie Sheen the Charlie Sheen. He is of course paying his own way. If he has a healthcare policy it is certainly gold plated in its benefits and its cost. Rather the problem is the Charlie Sheen Phenomenon. Do you think only Charlie Sheen is Charlie Sheen? Oh no. There is a bit of Charlie Sheen in everyone. Everyone. And almost certainly you have your inner Charlie Sheen all wrapped up in a straitjacket inside your mind and maybe you can even have a drink or patronize a strip club and do it quietly enough to sleep in your own bed but Charlie Sheen cannot. Or he will not. And there is a Charlie Sheen in every office, factory, store, restaraunt and of course the bars are full of ‘em. And guess what? Sheenism is covered. Oh, yes it is. The rehab industry is truly gigantic and like healthcare generally, the people it accepts as customers or whatever they are, do not pay the bill. Nope, if you come in one day to find the next cubicle empty, and they whisper, “Oh, Joe turned up drunk again. They are putting him in rehab.” Guess who is “they”…. Why, you knew it all the time that it was YOU! You and Joe are both on the company insurance, right? Now, you were concerned that you might bust your ankle mountain biking or that you might be unfortunate enough to inspire a Movie of the Week, catching lupus or whatnot. And that is fine but you must know that a little concept called “parity” has made Joe’s habit of smoking whiskey and drinking cocaine a moral and legal equivalence with your more prosaic medical demands. Yep, all psychiatric care is to be handled by the insurers exactly like any other claim. But while you with your sprain will go to the emergency room, maybe an orthopedist, take a few days off and be done, Joe’s Sheenism is a chronic condition. He will be put into therapy on open-ended terms to be released when he is considered cured. And when is that? What’s the expression?

When the insurance runs out.

Many a youngster who was troublesome in any way whether it involved drugs and drink or not has been committed by their folks to a good drying out that somehow always extends to the maximum payout from the insurer. It’s almost miraculous and it is much the same with Our Joe. But here is something MORE miraculous. It is now illegal to have lifetime or even annual limits on payouts. So if you are in there until the insurance runs out, friend, it is illegal for the insurance to run out. So you have a life sentence to foosball and communal TV. That is just not possible, is it? No, and this is a big reason why the insurers call out that they are dying, waivers are only good for so long. Fans of Obamacare of course say, good riddance. We will default to the government doing it all and we will finally have our Single Payer, the Holy Grail in the field.

Only Obamacare has the same problem. The laws requiring parity are at the State level and they have been put into place by powerful and well-heeled professional organizations representing shrinks and chiropractors and counselors and not a few regular old doctors. They aren’t going anywhere. Knowingly or not Obamacare has signed on to cover the rehabilitation for every Charlie Sheen in the country with infinite funds forever. In effect, the purveyors of medical financing miracles are betting on the relatively easy and reliable cure of Charlie Sheen from his addiction to tigerblood. If it were as simple as keeping him from tigers it might be possible but no, the project intends to save Charlie from himself, the one thing we can’t keep him from.

And even the greatest triumph in whatever sphere doesn’t make this any more possible. Sorry Mr President. Good job on the pick but Osama’s head over your mantle is not changing math, medicine or Charlie Sheen.