Fat Tax or Pop Fee; What's the Difference?

I got up this morning and turned on the T.V. Normally I don't but I thought I would check school closings. Well The Daily Buzz was on and they were doing a piece on San Francisco mayor Newsom's plan to assess a fee on soda (or pop as we call it here). The justification was that soft drinks are a major contributor to obesity and therefore the retailers should be penalized for selling it by paying a fee (and NOT a tax although the distinction escapes me). The idea of a "fat tax" has been kicked around for years. The liberal left plans to control your decisions by making what they deem unhealthy more expensive as punishment to manufacturers, retailers, and you the consumer. (The tree hugging enviroweenies use the same concept with things they deem harmful to the earth.)

Newsome says he plans to make soda makers give back. Newsom considers city fee for sellers of sugary soda has this to say about where the money will go.

In San Francisco, Newsom said a recent Health Department survey found that 24 percent of fifth-, seventh- and ninth-graders were overweight and that high-sugar drinks accounted for 10 percent of the kids' caloric intake.

All in all, he said obesity accounts for tens of millions of dollars of the city's health costs.

Now Newsom wants the soda sellers - primarily big-box retailers and chain drugstores - to chip in for his "Shape Up San Francisco" program and for media campaigns to discourage the soda habit.

So the city want to shape up and offset the cost of tens of millions of dollars by taxing soda pop. Is there a line somewhere that the nanny staters will not cross to interfere with an individual's freedom to choose? I may not have met a can of Coca-cola I didn't like but charging extra for it because it's unhealthy? Too much.

Thursday Thirteen #58

13 Things About Dane Bramage

13 Things About Feet

One never knows when one's muse will hit. I was sitting on the sofa staring at my dry ashy feet (Black folks understand ashy) wondering what to write this week's Thursday Thirteen about. After examining my feet for cuts, blisters, and sores like a good diabetic should, it occurred to me that most everyone has feet. But do they know feet? So here are thirteen things about feet.

1. One fourth of all the bones in your body are in your feet.


2. Women suffer from foot problems nearly four times as often as men. This may be attributable to wearing high-heeled shoes.


3. Our feet bear a cumulative weight total of 1,000 tons a day.


4. There are over 250,000 sweat glands in your feet. An average pair of feet will create a pint of perspiration a day.


5. Standing and balancing cause babies feet to exert a lot of energy-they may sweat up to twice the amount of adult feet.


6. The average person walks over 115,000 miles during their lifetime. That’s enough to walk around the world 4 times.


7. Our feet cushion as much as a million pounds of pressure during only one hour of strenuous exercise.


8. Your feet may be as much as 5 to 10 percent larger at the end of the day. It's best to shop for shoes in the afternoon or late in the day. Your feet actually swell during the day from walking and activities, so a pair of shoes that felt comfortable in the morning might actually be too snug by day's end


9. No less then 19 muscles and 107 ligaments are used to control the movement of each foot. (Ironically it is the lip and tongue muscles however; that position the foot into your mouth.)


10. Before King George IV of England ordered a set of boots made to fit each of his feet, shoes were designed to be worn on either foot.


11. When a baby is born, the number of bones in the feet are higher, but many of them fuse by the time we reach adulthood.


12. The palms of the hand and the soles of the feet cannot tan. (I don't know what they are talking about, I cannot tan any part of me).


13. The skin on your feet is 20 times thicker than on any other part of your body! (With the notable exception of certain skulls!)

Fifty percent or more of leg amputations not resulting from traumatic injury are a result of diabetes. An annual foot health check up by your Podiatrist is a preventative way to help avoid diabetic foot complications, along with proper diet, exercise, and not smoking. People with diabetes should inspect their feet daily for signs of cracking, sores, skin discoloration, or blisters. See your Podiatrist right away if you have any of these things. People with diabetes must also pay attention to good footwear, since worn out or poorly fitting shoes can cause serious problems.

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More "Less AIDS Deaths"

I blogged about the total lack of millions of AIDS related deaths not ravaging Africa like the liberal guilt machine predicted. Now there are fewer AIDS deaths worldwide but the Liberal agenda spin doctors are quick to point out that the reduction is mostly on paper.

Much of the drop is due to revised numbers from India - which earlier this year slashed its numbers in half, from about 6 million cases to about 3 million - and to new data from several countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Previous AIDS numbers were largely based on the numbers of infected pregnant women at clinics, as well as projecting the AIDS rates of certain high-risk groups like drug users to the entire population at risk. Officials said those numbers were flawed, and are now incorporating more data like national household surveys

So how does this work exactly? They inflated the number of AIDS cases to hype the scare. They "projected" AIDS on the population based on a couple of actual cases. People started noticing that they were off by, oh say, 50% in India. Now that the numbers are accurately reflecting the lack of pandemic, they don't want us to give it much heed because the adjustment is on paper and not a real reduction in AIDS cases. What it is, they don't want any reduction in the SCARE of an AIDS epidemic obviously. Isn't anyone besides me upset that they lied about the number of cases to begin with?