Category: Health

To Smoke Or Not To Smoke

OKay, Irene….where do these people plan to stop this whole thingy?

Oregon smokers have been elbowed out of bars, shooed away from entrances, and now they could get a ticket for lighting up in their own car.

The Oregon House voted Wednesday to fine anyone caught smoking with a child in a vehicle, windows rolled up or not. Minors are defined as children younger than 17 and tobacco as cigarettes, cigars or the loose stuff in pipes.

If approved, House Bill 2385 would make such smoking a primary offense, punishable by a maximum $90 fine for a first-time offender.

I can see where they are going with this and I can see where it would be a more healthy thing…but I also see where it is involving the government into the lives of a family…..child abuse?  Then why not say because the government is not moving fast enough on emissions that they are also practicing a form of child abuse?  We can play this lame ass game for ever.

Someone Thank A Smoker

Federal taxes also are going up Wednesday on other tobacco products, including cigars. Federal per-cigar taxes, which vary based on weight and price, used to be capped at 4.9 cents but now are capped at 40.26 cents.

The tobacco tax hikes, which President Obama signed into law in February, will be used to finance an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. The expansion, which will cost $35 million over five years, is expected to secure federally funded health care for an additional 4 million children.

Before the expansion, SCHIP covered almost 7 million children whose parents earn too much to qualify for Medicaid — the federal health insurance program for the poor — but can’t afford private insurance.

So if anyone is benefitting from the SCHIP program in the future then the smoker is helping your child get the medical care that they are needing.

Someone…somewhere…say thanks.

Smokers Now, But Who Is Next?

Beginning April 1, the federal tax will increase 62 cents on a pack of cigarettes, bringing the total federal tax on a pack to $1.01.  Some tobacco companies already have increased their prices to help make up the difference.

I have read a piece that said the at least one million people have stop smoking ahead of the price increase.  Is that the desired outcome?  The higher price will force people to stop smoking or they will have to stop eating.

Has anyone stopped to consider something else?  Cigarette companies are a dying breed in the US….manufacturers.  The tax collect is to offset any future drain on the Medicaid/care system from the results of second hand smoke.  Cool, huh?

Are you ignorant?  Maybe just thick?  But that argument is just stupid!  Okay, let us say that millions of people stop smoking, thus stop buying the product….will not millions go to a US manufacturer that is in dire straits?  A bailout if you will.  So all the cash saved from those not smoking will be eaten up by another bailout of sorts.  Sounds like a sound, logical plan (that is sarcasm, in case you missed it).

So looking for another short term fix, these morons have created yet another failing industry that will most likely need bailing out.  What geniuses we elected!

With smoking eliminated what will be next?  Maybe everyone’s favorite liquor….or maybe those darn pesky fast food outlets.  Afterall, these institutions have and produce unhealthy side effects.

Once again the US government intervenes in the people’s private decisions….congrats morons!  You elected this group of idiots!

Get Government Out Of Your Life

I do not mind the government taxing me or telling me that my kid has to go to school but there are some things that they should NOT be allowed to do.  These are to legislate morality or good health or good eating habits.

Last year the state of Mississippi tried to encat a law that would make it illegal for restaurants to sell certain foods to overweight people.  You got it!  They were trying to making certain eating habits illegal….like what they are doing with smoking and oral sex.

But Mississippi is not alone in this assault on the people’s right to the “pursuit of happiness” thing.  Paterson of New York had his “fat Tax”.   The initiative that drew the most criticism was an 18-percent tax on nondiet soda. It was dubbed the “fat tax” because $404 million in proceeds were to go toward combating childhood obesity.

The government needs to stay out of the people’s private lives…their health habits are just that…theirs.  No matter how hard the government tries they cannot legislate morality or health.

Gingrich Is A Moron!

And you thought you had heard all you were gonna hear from this guy….HA!

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich says Michigan should pay pregnant teenagers to take prenatal vitamins and stay healthy so the government avoids expensive costs when babies end up in neonatal intensive care units.

The Republican also told state senators Wednesday he supports paying poor children to read, and the state should consider paying girls to not get pregnant.

Gingrich is the founder of the Center for Health Transformation. He says politicians and the media spend too much time focusing on the finances of health care. Gingrich says more attention must be paid to cultural changes such as requiring students to exercise, putting grocery stores in the inner city and incentivizing people to not smoke.

Is he saying to pay teen girls to have sex but not get pregnant?  I believe there is a title for that activity.

With 8 You Get Porn

I had only thought that Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan and such ilk had irritated me…I was sadly mistaken….this broad and her continuing story is more putrid than the Ana Nicole drama.

This is a re post from my primary site of Info ink.

The total absurdity of this story just keeps getting deeper and deeper.

When I first heard this story I thought of the words of my 6 year grand daughter, “Eeeeeewwwwwwwwwww”!

Porn company Vivid Entertainment is offering “financially strapped” Nadya Suleman—who just gave birth to octuplets and is now the mother of 14—“a $1 million payout as well as health and dental care for all of her kids in exchange for a starring role in a porno.”

Look, said Gina Serpe in E! Online, “Octomom needs money,” and “the world needs porn.” Sure, the offer is “clearly not in the best of taste,” but it “couldn’t have come at a better time”: Apparently, the hospital won’t release Suleman’s octuplets “until she has proven she can provide them with adequate care and living arrangements,” and she’s at risk of being evicted from her home for falling behind on her mortgage payments.

Nadya Suleman certainly is “pregnant with possibility,” said Michael Musto in The Village Voice. But she hasn’t even responded to Vivid’s offer yet, and there’s a good chance she won’t do it: Let’s not forget that Suleman “popped out eight implanted embryos”—having sex doesn’t seem to be high up on her list of priorities.

About the only thing I can think of is Tom Waits song, “Whistling Past The Graveyard”.

The Story That Will Not Go Away!

Nadya Suleman apparently has bigger worries than taking care of her 14 children. Talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw says she may have to prove she can handle the load, or else have hospital officials withhold her newborn octuplets.

McGraw said the 33-year-old unemployed mother called him Tuesday, distraught that Kaiser Permanente officials told her they were concerned about the babies living at her home in suburban Los Angeles.

“What she is telling me is that unless and until she has a better living arrangement, that they are not likely to release the children to her,” McGraw told the Los Angeles Times.

“If they feel there’s a risk to a baby, they contact Child Protective Services and Child Protective Services would make a determination as to whether or not there’s a reason for concern,” Bermudez said.

A call to the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services was not returned Tuesday night.

Suleman has not responded to repeated interview requests from The Associated Press. Her phone has been disconnected and she no longer has a publicist.

So let me get this right….the people of Calif. will pay for the upkeep of the children…one way or the other….is that it?

The California Medical Board and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine are curious, too. Earlier this month they announced separately that they were investigating the Suleman case, stopping short of naming Michael Kamrava, the fertility doctor thought to have aided Suleman.

While much has been said about the social ramifications of the Suleman octuplets – such as issues about being a single mother, or the impact on the welfare system – these medical organizations need to investigate the case as they would any malpractice suit: Did the doctor deliberately put eight children at risk for serious medical conditions?

A study published in JAMA in 2005 followed over 200 ELBW babies until age 8 and found 14 percent to have cerebral palsy; 21 percent to have asthma; 10 percent to have vision worse than 20/200; nearly 40 percent to have an IQ lower than 85, which approaches a mental deficiency; and nearly 50 percent with poor motor skills.

Similarly, a study in Pediatrics in 2000 found that more than 50 percent of VLBW babies and up to 70 percent ELBW babies need special assistance at school.

Beyond all that…why has no one asked who paid for the comestic work she has done to look like Jolie?  Please someone make this story go away!……………………….

8 More Mouths To Feed

My first agitation is the bitch that just squirted out 8 more ankle biters to go with the 6 she already has at home…home…her mother’s 3 bedroom house with 14 kids and two adults…that is right 2 adults….it seems she is not married and still poppin’ out babies.

Question that are plague me are–1–who paid for the proceedure? 2–who is paying for the kids to live.  I mean it is said that it takes about an average of $9-10, 000 per child per year.  Who is gonna cough up that damn cash?

Personally, do not give a crap how many kids she has if sjhe can afford to raise them…but if she is a drag on the state because  she had some abnormal yearning to squirt out babies that is her problem not the taxpayer’s.  This woman is in serious need of a lobotomy and be fitted with a vaginal cork.  And if she gets such urges in thefuture be tazered until she comes to her senses