2/25/08Are you or someone you know friends with a white person? Maybe you’re a white person yourself and just want to know what other Caucasians like. Find out here, dear readers:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/
You’re welcome.
About Me
- Ryan Jett
- Springfield, Missouri, United States
- I’m in my mid-30s and still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. Most of my interests do not exactly come with a reasonable expectation of financial success, things such as artwork and fiction writing. I’ve been married to a delightful, attractive woman for five years, and, thankfully, neither of us wants to have children, so we can look forward to adult vacations, sleeping late, and disposable income. We do have two dogs, two chinchillas, a gerbil, and three chickens. Only the chickens seem to be pulling their weight vis-à-vis contributions to the household other than excrement.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Like White on Rice
2/25/08Are you or someone you know friends with a white person? Maybe you’re a white person yourself and just want to know what other Caucasians like. Find out here, dear readers:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/
You’re welcome.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Smoke Em If You Got Em
2/7/08
Whenever I was a smoker* it used to annoy me no end when non-smokers would slap their holier-than-thou palms together at every tax hike or new regulation that came out against cigarettes. It still irritates me a great deal whenever someone pushes their unsolicited idea of healthy living onto another. The jury’s still out on how damaging occasional second-hand smoke is, and while I find the thought of people smoking inside their home around their kids appalling, it seems the casual incidence of standing next to someone puffing away out on the street corner is slightly better than breathing normal city air.
There was, however, one argument the Nons use that I could never really refute. That is the assertion that non-smokers shouldn’t have to pony-up their hard-earned tax dollars for the increased cost of health care associated with smoking. How could I find fault with that? I certainly find the idea that I’m shelling out more to keep the 400-pound woman sucking down KFC extra-crispy than I am for the guy down the block who runs two miles a day. Long have the fat and smoky been chastised for ramping up the costs of health care on the rest of us who’d just rather have an apple, thanks. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it turns out the lady with the doughnut and that dude with the coffin nail are actually saving us thousands.
According to a Dutch study released Monday in the Public Library of Science Medical Journal, the health costs to the public to take care of healthy people is far more than that of smokers or the obese. Why? Bluntly, because “healthy” people hang onto life longer than either of these other groups, and the most expensive healthcare comes from the last years of life. Let’s run the numbers, shall we?
The National Institute for Public Heath and the Environment, who conducted the study, considered three groups of 1000 people each: One smoking group, one obese group, and one healthy group. Healthy people, on average, live 84 years. Obese people about 80 years, and smokers around 77 years. The smokers and obese tended to have more heart disease, obese people had more diabetes, all three groups had the same cancer risk (save the increased lung cancer risk for smokers) and, strangely, the healthy group had the most strokes.
From age 20 on, the cost for health care for the healthy cost about $417,000. The obese cost $371,000, and the puffers came in cheapest at a paltry $326,000. Essentially, healthy people die later for more expensive reasons. Nursing homes are among the most expensive health costs for the people living out their Kevorkian years.
According to Dutch economist Pieter van Baal who took part in the study, “If you live longer, then you cost the health system more. Lung cancer is a cheap disease to treat because people don’t survive very long. But if they are old enough to get Alzheimer’s one day, they may survive longer and cost more.”
So the next time you pass a fellow human shivering on the sidewalk, furiously sucking fire deep into his lungs, give him a little wink and say, “Thanks for doing your part, buddy.”
* As of last Monday I’ve been a non-smoker for 7 months. I think I’ve had 5 or 6 smokes since quitting.
Sources:
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/15293006.html
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/living-longer-is-hazardous-to-the-taxpayer/58164-17.html
http://www.reformer.com/editorials/ci_8192931
Whenever I was a smoker* it used to annoy me no end when non-smokers would slap their holier-than-thou palms together at every tax hike or new regulation that came out against cigarettes. It still irritates me a great deal whenever someone pushes their unsolicited idea of healthy living onto another. The jury’s still out on how damaging occasional second-hand smoke is, and while I find the thought of people smoking inside their home around their kids appalling, it seems the casual incidence of standing next to someone puffing away out on the street corner is slightly better than breathing normal city air.There was, however, one argument the Nons use that I could never really refute. That is the assertion that non-smokers shouldn’t have to pony-up their hard-earned tax dollars for the increased cost of health care associated with smoking. How could I find fault with that? I certainly find the idea that I’m shelling out more to keep the 400-pound woman sucking down KFC extra-crispy than I am for the guy down the block who runs two miles a day. Long have the fat and smoky been chastised for ramping up the costs of health care on the rest of us who’d just rather have an apple, thanks. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it turns out the lady with the doughnut and that dude with the coffin nail are actually saving us thousands.
According to a Dutch study released Monday in the Public Library of Science Medical Journal, the health costs to the public to take care of healthy people is far more than that of smokers or the obese. Why? Bluntly, because “healthy” people hang onto life longer than either of these other groups, and the most expensive healthcare comes from the last years of life. Let’s run the numbers, shall we?
The National Institute for Public Heath and the Environment, who conducted the study, considered three groups of 1000 people each: One smoking group, one obese group, and one healthy group. Healthy people, on average, live 84 years. Obese people about 80 years, and smokers around 77 years. The smokers and obese tended to have more heart disease, obese people had more diabetes, all three groups had the same cancer risk (save the increased lung cancer risk for smokers) and, strangely, the healthy group had the most strokes.
From age 20 on, the cost for health care for the healthy cost about $417,000. The obese cost $371,000, and the puffers came in cheapest at a paltry $326,000. Essentially, healthy people die later for more expensive reasons. Nursing homes are among the most expensive health costs for the people living out their Kevorkian years.According to Dutch economist Pieter van Baal who took part in the study, “If you live longer, then you cost the health system more. Lung cancer is a cheap disease to treat because people don’t survive very long. But if they are old enough to get Alzheimer’s one day, they may survive longer and cost more.”
So the next time you pass a fellow human shivering on the sidewalk, furiously sucking fire deep into his lungs, give him a little wink and say, “Thanks for doing your part, buddy.”
* As of last Monday I’ve been a non-smoker for 7 months. I think I’ve had 5 or 6 smokes since quitting.
Sources:
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/15293006.html
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/living-longer-is-hazardous-to-the-taxpayer/58164-17.html
http://www.reformer.com/editorials/ci_8192931
Saturday, February 02, 2008
The Devil is in the Disney
2/2/08
Sometimes you look at the current incarnation of a company and think, “Oh, if only its creator could see it now, he’d be spinning in his grave.” Wal-Mart, for instance. Sam Walton was a down-to-earth businessman who believed in uplifting the common worker, sharing the wealth, and, you know, treating people fairly. If Walton could see the demonic, spirit-crushing juggernaut his creation has become today the spinning would be so intense he’d most likely escape into orbit.
That’s really the only example I can think of offhand, as it seems much easier to imagine business moguls who would be pretty much fine with the way their particular economic horror shows are being run today. Henry Ford springs to mind. Henry was, as you may have heard, a bit of a dick. Sure the production genius best implemented* the large-scale assembly line, which has directly led to the mass production of tons of really bad, cheap crap today, but he also was fervently anti-union, a rampant anti-Semitic, and I’m pretty sure one time he ate a baby. But it was a China-baby, so it’s okay.
Disney is another one of these mega-corporations that began with a brilliant douchebag at the helm. Walt Disney fostered a feeling of anti-Semitism at his studio (why were people back then so afraid of brisket and dreidels?) and may or may not have been a Nazi sympathizer. Also, he was under the distinctly rich-person-mentality that the “camaraderie” of his studios compensation for the fact he paid his animators less than other companies. Walt pointed to an animator’s strike as evidence of the “growing Communist conspiracy” in the United States.
And ever since Walt’s death in 1966, Disney has moved ever closer to realizing Walt’s dream of bringing joy to people through charging them out the ass for their shit, and if you can corn-hole a few of ‘em on the way, so much the better! I need not point out their King Midas style admission and toy prices, but what the hell is with this malarkey where Disney videos are on sale for like three minutes and then “go back into the Disney vault” only to be re-released in year or two for another round of hoarding? It would be like J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury publishing 50,000 Harry Potter books only to say, “Sorry, poor kids! Good luck finding a copy! Maybe if your parents stop buying food next Christmas when we print another 25 copies of the Sorcerer’s Stone, you too can be happy!” It’s not illegal, but it is a shit-heel way to run a business, rather like China’s artificial suppression of its currency, Disney manipulates the market for bigger profits. But today I heard the most callous, ass-way the demons at Disney have come up with to fleece parents and turn children into fit-throwing dictators who identify a parent’s love with their willingness to open their wallet.
Miley Cyrus, who has changed her name more times than Prince, and plays Hanna Montana on the wildly popular Disney show, recently wrapped her concert “Hanna Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds.” A concert title much more appropriate for hermaphroditic porn. In the concert the disturbingly attractive daughter of one-hit-wonder Billy Ray Cyrus plays both herself and her Hanna Montana character…which totally isn’t weird at all. Right. The show was so successful Disney has decided to launch a 3-D movie version. Now, this isn’t your Jaws 3 or Friday the 13th 3D, either; this is like one step removed from virtual reality. U2 is releasing a concert in this medium as well. From all accounts it’s supposed to be truly mind-blowing; like you’re right there with Hanna, if that’s your bag. The beauty about this is that kids who couldn’t get tickets to the live show, either because of time constraints or cost prohibitions, can now go watch it on the big screen and get at least a sense of what it was like. Or, that would be the case if Disney weren’t the corporate equivalent of pure, capitalist evil.
Disney has announced that this movie release will only run from tomorrow, February 2nd, through next Friday, February 08. Oh, and most of the timeslots are sold out. And, naturally, scalpers are now charging cocaine prices to parents unequipped to explain corporate evil and greed to their 4th-grader. It’s a movie, okay? It’s a fucking movie, Disney! It’s not like Hanna herself is up there running around, you monsters; it’s celluloid! What conceivable reason other than bowing to the forces of Satan could Disney have for putting a timetable on this movie?
Sometimes you look at the current incarnation of a company and think, “Oh, if only its creator could see it now, he’d be spinning in his grave.” Wal-Mart, for instance. Sam Walton was a down-to-earth businessman who believed in uplifting the common worker, sharing the wealth, and, you know, treating people fairly. If Walton could see the demonic, spirit-crushing juggernaut his creation has become today the spinning would be so intense he’d most likely escape into orbit.That’s really the only example I can think of offhand, as it seems much easier to imagine business moguls who would be pretty much fine with the way their particular economic horror shows are being run today. Henry Ford springs to mind. Henry was, as you may have heard, a bit of a dick. Sure the production genius best implemented* the large-scale assembly line, which has directly led to the mass production of tons of really bad, cheap crap today, but he also was fervently anti-union, a rampant anti-Semitic, and I’m pretty sure one time he ate a baby. But it was a China-baby, so it’s okay.
Disney is another one of these mega-corporations that began with a brilliant douchebag at the helm. Walt Disney fostered a feeling of anti-Semitism at his studio (why were people back then so afraid of brisket and dreidels?) and may or may not have been a Nazi sympathizer. Also, he was under the distinctly rich-person-mentality that the “camaraderie” of his studios compensation for the fact he paid his animators less than other companies. Walt pointed to an animator’s strike as evidence of the “growing Communist conspiracy” in the United States.And ever since Walt’s death in 1966, Disney has moved ever closer to realizing Walt’s dream of bringing joy to people through charging them out the ass for their shit, and if you can corn-hole a few of ‘em on the way, so much the better! I need not point out their King Midas style admission and toy prices, but what the hell is with this malarkey where Disney videos are on sale for like three minutes and then “go back into the Disney vault” only to be re-released in year or two for another round of hoarding? It would be like J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury publishing 50,000 Harry Potter books only to say, “Sorry, poor kids! Good luck finding a copy! Maybe if your parents stop buying food next Christmas when we print another 25 copies of the Sorcerer’s Stone, you too can be happy!” It’s not illegal, but it is a shit-heel way to run a business, rather like China’s artificial suppression of its currency, Disney manipulates the market for bigger profits. But today I heard the most callous, ass-way the demons at Disney have come up with to fleece parents and turn children into fit-throwing dictators who identify a parent’s love with their willingness to open their wallet.
Miley Cyrus, who has changed her name more times than Prince, and plays Hanna Montana on the wildly popular Disney show, recently wrapped her concert “Hanna Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds.” A concert title much more appropriate for hermaphroditic porn. In the concert the disturbingly attractive daughter of one-hit-wonder Billy Ray Cyrus plays both herself and her Hanna Montana character…which totally isn’t weird at all. Right. The show was so successful Disney has decided to launch a 3-D movie version. Now, this isn’t your Jaws 3 or Friday the 13th 3D, either; this is like one step removed from virtual reality. U2 is releasing a concert in this medium as well. From all accounts it’s supposed to be truly mind-blowing; like you’re right there with Hanna, if that’s your bag. The beauty about this is that kids who couldn’t get tickets to the live show, either because of time constraints or cost prohibitions, can now go watch it on the big screen and get at least a sense of what it was like. Or, that would be the case if Disney weren’t the corporate equivalent of pure, capitalist evil.Disney has announced that this movie release will only run from tomorrow, February 2nd, through next Friday, February 08. Oh, and most of the timeslots are sold out. And, naturally, scalpers are now charging cocaine prices to parents unequipped to explain corporate evil and greed to their 4th-grader. It’s a movie, okay? It’s a fucking movie, Disney! It’s not like Hanna herself is up there running around, you monsters; it’s celluloid! What conceivable reason other than bowing to the forces of Satan could Disney have for putting a timetable on this movie?
Man…just…fuck you, Disney.
*Henry Ford did not invent the assembly line. Nobody “invented” the assembly line. Ford was just the first one to put in a moving conveyor belt in 1913, thus best improving the process. In truth, it would be more accurate to say Ransom E. Olds (Olds Motor Vehicle Co) had the first assembly line in 1901. Ford just made it faster, more convenient, and mobile. Ford’s greatest genius was listening to very, very smart people.
Sources:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18599173
http://www.news-tribune.net/features/cnhinspopculture_story_031103453.html?keyword=topstory
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