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I saw a commercial advertising an egg white muffin sandwich from Subway. They are always pushing their sandwiches as a healthy alternative to their competitors, but when you look at what is not on the sandwich, you realize that it isn't an apples to apples comparison. An egg white muffin would be healthier if it didn't have the cheese and ham on it. You are better off using a whole egg and dropping the ham. McDonald's Egg McMuffin has more fat and sodium using a whole egg but has 1/3 less total calories. The point of all this is that, while the fast food industry acts like it is concerned with our health and the apparent national epidemic of obesity, it continues to pull the old "bait and switch" on its products. I have seen the occasional triple burger with a pound of cheese wrapped in doughnuts and deep-fried but that is usually an oddity. The mainstream industry is pushing larger and more ridiculously unhealthy food on us. Look at KFC. They just introduced a chicken sandwich consisting of 2 fried chicken breasts with cheese and bacon between them and no bun. How friggin' healthy is that? Hardee's has a 2/3 pound Thickburger that has 1320 calories, of which 860 calories are fat calories. This thing has 75% of the daily requirement for sodium! By itself!
Thirty years ago, it was the tobacco industry that was doing the same thing. Everyone was smarter, sexier, and more successful with a cigarette hanging from their mouth. Of course, anyone with common sense already knew that it was bad for you but, hey, it's an addiction. The tobacco industry became the scapegoat for nearly every ailment people had so the government hung them out to dry. They have been blamed for anything tobacco related, including house fires from smokers passing out drunk! There is another thing; alcohol. I'll bet, between fast food and alcohol, they contribute to more death and long-term health problems than tobacco. Especially if you attach the same tenuous threads of cause and effect used for tobacco. Is the government going to hold their feet to the fire? Nope. Way too many politicians in their pockets!
What can we do about all this? Quit letting Big Business feed us bullshit and use some common sense! There is certainly enough information available for us to make good decisions even if we lack common sense.
The Muslim crazies are at it again. The creators of South Park have been threatened by a Muslim nut job living in New York City for depicting Muhammad in a bear suit. They don't know that he was actually in the bear suit. It's a cartoon. Anybody who watched the episode knows that Santa Claus was the one in the bear suit! I'm sure everyone has heard that the Muslims believe showing Muhammad's likeness is blasphemous. Their idea of how to handle blasphemy is apparently to kill the offender and anyone else within range of their chicken-shit suicide bombers. Why hasn't Homeland Security picked this guy up? His website, which has been taken down, has openly supported bin Laden and jihad. I'm sick of these nuts holding a collective gun to our heads while they claim to be peace-loving. Now, I'm sure there are a lot of Muslims out there who practice their religion in peace and these people would probably take offense to any label of radicalism. Any religion will have their share of extremists, but Islam's top leaders appear to be the extremists in their religion. How can the average Muslim have any credibility when their version of the Vatican is spouting rhetoric about killing Americans?
What the hell kind of headline is that? This is the typical sort of dumbass eye-catching rumor starting media crap we are constantly bombarded with. Saying that bad school nutrition causes fat kids who can't serve in the military which, in turn, poses a national security threat is a stretch! That's like saying doing meth or smoking dope is a security threat because we would be too high to get in the Army. Another story like this one is the one that opines that cow farts are destroying the ozone layer!
There is a bill working its way through the Georgia Legislature that changes the language status of driver's license tests. Currently, the test can be taken in 13 different languages. Believe it or not, if you are illiterate, they will read it to you aloud and let you say the answer! Opponents of the bill say it discriminates against immigrants and anyone holding temporary visas, like foreign exchange students. I say bullcrap!! We speak English here in the good 'ol USA and should stop pandering to the special interests trying to please everyone. If you move to (insert foreign country here), you will have to learn the language. English has become somewhat of an international language so foreigners traveling to the US should already be learning it. What's going to happened when there is an accident and nobody speaks Sanskrit? It is easy to recognize stop signs and stuff like that but what is the non-English speaking driver going to do in Atlanta when they have to read one of the many portable highway construction signs that are flashing up constantly changing instructions on what's being worked on or what lanes are closed? I guess if there was anything good about an illiterate person having a driver's license, it would be that you probably wouldn't catch him texting while driving!
Reading through the business news this morning, I ran across a couple of stories that required my opinion (in my opinion!).
Mr. Geithner, fearless leader of our Treasury, has acknowledged that giving banks deemed too big to fail large amounts of our tax money while ignoring our personal economic meltdowns is "deeply unfair". Of course, these banks are now in decent financial shape, making money while the rest of us are still foundering in the recession. Part of our personal financial problems come from the fact that the banks we "rescued" own the credit cards that are jacking interest and fees into the wild blue yonder. Have you ever seen the Chase commercials where you can pick your payment amount and loan duration? Every time I see it, I wonder just how much that flexibility is costing the card holder. Geithner went on to discuss the unemployment numbers. In true government fashion, the numbers don't reflect the number of unemployed workers who, after a year of job seeking, said "Aw fuck it!" and sit home watching Dr. Phil.
Oil prices are on the rise. Again. It would be great if this was a result of a recovering economy but it's not. These greedy assholes are betting that we are in a recovery position and are driving up prices. Demand and inventories are not supporting this position, yet the trading goes on. It pisses me off to have to pay $3 a gallon for gas just because someone is gambling on the market.
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