Happy F*&@^#ing New Year!

I've said it before and I'll say it again. New Year's resolutions suck. Does anybody ever resolve to do anything that is genuinely worthwhile, and if so, do they ever actually do it? If not, what the hell is the point, other than to increase gym membership sales and/or to make people feel bad?

The worst part is the "experts" who come crawling out of the woodwork at this time every year to tell you why human beings are such weak and pathetic pieces of shit and to give you advice on sticking to your resolutions. Here's a great example. In this CNN article, Kelly Haws informs us that the reason people fail to keep their resolutions is that "people are resistant to things that are uncomfortable or have them feeling deprived." Wow, no shit? I thought people loved things that are uncomfortable and make them feel deprived. I guess that's why Kelly Haws is an assistant professor of marketing at Texas A&M and I'm not.

Also, why is this article so hung up on demonizing lattes? What's wrong with a daily latte? Caffeine, in moderation at least, is good for you. In the short term, it increases your endurance so you can exercise longer and harder, which is also good for you, at least up to a point. Dairy, by most people's reckoning, is also good for you, especially the fat-free kind. Lattes taste good and are aesthetically and even spiritually satisfying. They are a nice way to start your day. If you make them at home, they are inexpensive. So what exactly is the problem with lattes (other than that they are the beverage of choice of the elitist left-wing god-hating terrorist-loving Volvo-driving intelligentsia)? The beverage pictured in the article with the caption under it referring to a "latte" isn't even a latte. I don't know what the hell it is, but it's not a latte.

Happy New Year anyway.

How about a jagoff tax instead?

Found this gem on CNN.com today. Apparently David Paterson thinks the state of New York needs an "obesity tax". (To be fair, that was what the headline said, not necessarily what Paterson called it, but his editorial is chock-full of anti-"obesity" rhetoric.) Actually the proposal is not to tax people for being fat, but rather to tax non-diet "sugared drinks". Because, you know, there is a direct correlation between consumption of non-diet soda and being fat. Well, except when there isn't.

Two things really get me about this editorial. The first is Paterson's assertion that "No one can deny the urgency of reducing the rate of obesity". That is certainly one way of forcing people to agree with you -- just say "No one can deny that...", and then how could anyone have the nerve to disagree? The second thing that irks me is the idea that diet soda is healthy for people. First of all, there is still the possibility that aspartame causes cancer -- there have been some conflicting reports, but it's not as if the connection is just some fringe idea. And then there is this bit of delicious irony: drinking diet soda may actually *increase* weight gain. Does anyone else find that totally hilarious or do I just have a sick sense of humor?

Good article on AlterNet

Hi all, I wanted to draw your attention to this article on AlterNet (thanks to the Admiral for the heads-up). It's about a 2007 documentary that somehow I never heard about, called "Fat: What No One Is Telling You", which definitely sounds worthy of checking out on Netflix.

The article itself (don't know yet about the movie) is stuck on the old idea of "obesity" as a "disease" and suffers from a few other misconceptions, but it made me happy anyway (well, "happy"... I mean, it's not a happy article, but I'm glad it was written). It's not all that common for lefties to come to the defense of fat people these days (unfortunately you see this in some of the comments on the article, which I recommend avoiding), so it's nice to see this on AlterNet.