I hate the Center for Science in the Public Interest. First, as any Jebustani knows, science is bogus, and if it ain't in the Bible, the 100% literal word of God, then it and doesn't exist, and therefore isn't a problem. Second, who exactly appointed them to watch over the public's health?

Their latest crusade is "Dump Soft Drinks", a global effort to reduce soda consumption, even though it sounds like they advocate a ban on soft drinks.

I know, I know, soda rots your teeth, cooks steak, cleans alumininum, makes you fat, cleans pennies, gives you pimples, and makes you fart. Been there heard that.

But what yanks my chain are a couple of their demands: "Pay a modest Value Added Tax on soft drinks -- with governments using the proceeds for nutrition education and physical activity programs and to subsidize the costs of fruits and vegetables."

So the solution to ending childhood obesity is to tax the stuff people over consume? Here's the problem with that: once imposed, taxes become a treasured income source for governments, and if consumption goes down then the tax has to go up to maintain that revenue. It happened recently in Texas with cigarette Taxes. As sales fell, tax revenue went down, so a brand spanking new tax was imposed to "fund childrens' health programs." Sure. And I'll buy that bridge in Brooklyn, and I believe that not inhaling marijuana is not using marijuana, but not inhaling tobacco smoke is smoking.

If the product is so bad ban it! Instead of finding some income stream to stick your fingers into, advocate the complete ban of the product and the dissolution of any company that makes it!

What makes me think CSPI wants money? "Ensure that sponsorships involving the promotion of physical activity and health be made in a transparent fashion only to independent health charities or government agencies which, in turn, use such funds for programs not associated with the company's logo, brands, or other proprietary information."

Now, some of what they demand makes sense: clearly display the calorie content of each drink on the front of the can or bottle. I would go further and demand that the nutrition label be changed to show that each can or bottle be considered a serving, not one and a half or two servings.

I disagree with their proposed ban on sales in school lunch rooms. I would favor the elimination of the current model where a soda company pays the school to be the only brand sold.

Most of their other demands fly in the face of capitalism and recent trends: Promote and advertise low sugar drinks more, support research into safer substitute sweeteners (remember saccharine anyone? Let's put a carcinogen in our food so we don't get fat!)

And finally, they now refer to soft drinks as sugar-laden drinks. See how they put the last part of Osama bin Laden's name there to make soda sound evil?

In a perfect synchronicity of causes health experts have come up with a way to stop Global Warming (Praise Gaia and her anointed profits [sic] the Goreacle and Tom Brokaw. Hah-Men!) and make the Earth the cold place it once was and solve the nation's obesity problem: Walk more!

Months after an English study revealed that walking to work and shops causes more Global Warming (Wish I could find that article. Apparently, I forgot to tag it.), the US had decided to revive that hoary old myth. Unfortunately, burning excess fat causes you to produce CO2, and makes you eat a bit more, and since food production causes CO2, you wind up contributing more CO2 to the atmosphere by walking everywhere instead of less.

Memorandum

To: The Republican Party

From: Hiikeeba

Subject: Hypocrisy

No human is perfect, yet all politicians have to act perfect to be elected. Republicans often run on a platform of morality: against gay marriage, for the sanctity of the traditional marriage. Then, when caught soliciting bathroom sex and being convicted, say "I have done nothing wrong, and my family, my God and my good constituents know that. We're going to continue to seek justice."

First, Idaho Senator Larry Craig. Second, Washington Legislator Richard Curtis. And third, Florida State Representative Bob Allen. All three are champions of "family values." All three oppose same sex unions. All three enjoy smoking pole.

Take a page from the Democrats, guys. Diane Feinstein has championed the minimum wage for years, yet the law exempts her from paying it to her winery employees. Ted Kennedy has always fought against big oil companies, demanding more in taxes, but somehow managing to exempt his family's oil company in Texas. Ralph Nader has always been a supporter of labor unions, but fired his employees when they tried to unionize. Al Gore flies a private plane all over the world to tell us to cut back on our CO2 emissions and monthly pays the average family's annual electric bill to power his home. These three statesmen are above moral reproach because they are visionaries!

The Republican Party needs to have someone act as a visionary, and they will be immune from all charges of spin and hypocrisy, and, as a result, their shenanigans won't be covered in the MSM.

Earth Day, Global Cooling and Vladimir Lenin

Quick what do the above have in common?

I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s (assuming I was a full-fledged adult when I turned 18 in 1980, and put the freaking calculator away!). I remember that in the 1970s all the environmentalists, and I do mean all of them, were concerned about global cooling. Peer-reviewed scientific studies (which are the holy writ of the Church of Global Warming) of the time predicted that the Earth was heading into a new ice age. Why, in a few years, the consensus was, we'd be wearing parkas to the beach. Some, like the late Carl Sagan (one of my personal heroes), even warned of "Nuclear Winter." Predictably, the left demanded that something be done to stop this global cooling or "we would all die!" On April 22, 1970, a band of pioneering climate crusaders banded together to stop global cooling. They called it Earth Day.

Jump forward 30 years and we find out that Earth Day worked! The earth has stopped cooling and is warming.

Before anyone complains that we didn't know as much then as we know now, allow me to ask: Do we know everything?

Global Warming (Praise Gaia and her anointed profits [sic] the Goreacle and Tom Brokaw. Hah-men!) faithful believe that we have learned all that is learnable, know all that is knowable. Their holy writ, peer-reviewed studies (even if paid for by ADM who profits from biodiesel) are to be accepted without question as if from above, and anyone who disagrees with the slightest tenet of the faith must be a fascist motherfucker who cares nothing for the planet and uses the n-word a lot, and must be silenced--they have to no Right to Free Speech. And any peer-reviewed studies that disagree with the divine prophecy of the Goreacle are to be ridiculed and ignored.

The faithful seem to forget that science always progresses from less knowledge to more knowledge, and believe that we have achieved the ultimate knowledge as of the release of "An Inconvenient Truth."

Oh, and the Lenin thing? While the first Earth Day was observed on the 98th birthday of the founder of Arbor Day, conspiracy theorists (like those who believe that GWB is simultaneously the stupidest man on the face of the planet and the greatest criminal genius to ever walk the Earth should love that it was also Lenin's 100th birthday.

For the record. I believe that Global Warming is basically right. Climate change occurs all the time, and that to assume that it is all the fault of human activity and that we won't learn any more about climate change is scaremongering at its finest.

Here's my prediction: In 2009, shortly after Hillary takes the oath of office, Global Warming will drop off the radar in much the same way homelessness dropped off the radar when Bill was sworn in. The homeless just disappeared. The folks begging for money for "food" are still out there begging, but homelessness stopped being a problem when Reagan left office, since Reaganomics was responsible for them.

I'm confused. The Feds want to raise the cigarette tax to $1 per pack to fund children's health. But if the tax works as planned, everyone will quit smoking. So who will pay the tax? The Tobacco companies? How will they get revenue to pay the tax, since no one is purchasing their product? Or, will the government require every US citizen to buy a pack of smokes a month?