Rumor has it that Nancy Pelosi slipped in an addendum to the massive House health bill that calls for government-paid access to cosmetic surgery for female congress members with low self esteem. Can anybody verify that?
Not a rumor are the inclusions for “complementary” (never complimentary) medicine, such as bee pollen enemas, chiropractic subluxation adjustments, “all natural” homeopathic jars of memory water, and so on. I’m thinking of setting up as a quack to cash in on this.
Quick: what do you call a slowly moving, undead, nearly impossible to kill ever growing menace that feeds off the living? If you said zombie, you’re wrong.
The correct answer is government bureaucracy! Full points for entitlement, too.
I shouldn’t complain. At least the new program relieves me of the anxiety and worry about how I should spend the money I make. Now, Uncle O can do it for me.
Businesses are also benefit from this newly discovered right. Those who don’t want to buy insurance for their employees will be forced to fork over an 8% payroll tax. Let’s calculate: if the business didn’t want to pay insurance in the first place, but are forced by gunpoint to do so, yet they still want to minimize costs, do you think it is remotely possible that they will reduce their payrolls (by firing people or reducing salaries), thus reducing the new payroll tax?
If you answered no, you’re just the kind of person that would be interested in an investment opportunity I have. Email me with your name, credit card number, and expiration date for full details: matt@wmbriggs.com.
And now that the government is our matron, she will soon demand the right to control our habits because, of course, some habits can lead to ill health. (They naturally get to define what “ill health” is, because you are not qualified to say what makes you satisfied.)
See, inter alia, the book The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Diet by former FDA Worrier in Chief David A. Kessler, who has discovered—you’d better sit for this—that we like to eat certain foods because they taste good! Further, some businesses know this and use it to extract money from people by selling them these foods. How dare they!
Remember our country’s new slogan: If in doubt, regulate.
Hey, don’t knock that homeopathic memory water! The US’s dependence on foreign oil could be a thing of the past if all drivers used homeopathic gas.
” … we like to eat certain foods because they taste good!” And others because they’re cheap.
“Give [the poor] the choice between a $2 double quarter pounder with cheese and a $5 chicken salad, and they’ll make an economically rational decision and order the $2 burger. And with the extra three bucks saved, they’ll order a side of fries and a Coke.”
From …
After Calorie Warnings, Diners Order More Calories
A ground-breaking study shows that New York City’s calorie labeling law is ineffective.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013004574515953042151072.html
Alex,
wouldn’t that cause a water shortage? Everybody knows that homeopathic water refinement is highly inefficient yielding much toxic waste water that must be discarded.
Speed, at lest now they will make that a Diet Coke.
For a dose of debunking Kessler’s type of nonsense go here http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/
Back in the 1960’s or 70’s, I disremember exactly when, the British Medical Journal ran a delightful article on how to be a successful Quacksalver.
First our Mountebank requires a suitably urbane bedside manner and wonderful line, in these modern days, of suitably pseudoscientic claptrap. Once it would have been the secrets of the Ancients, the true Triacle and all that, nowadays, pyramids not being quite so fashionable, it is more likely to be larded with talk of elaborate chemical preparation and secret processes and the like.
All this arcane charlatanism is necessary to invest the mystic Nostrum with great powers, for what is a Quacksalver without his Nostrum? and also serves to explain why it is so reassuringly expensive. Water makes the best Nostrum because it is cheap and has no known effect when taken in small doses. And since openly doing penance for being unwell is also a bit Medieval these days some suitable and inconvenient restrictions on diet, exercise and such like are insisted upon instead: all of which helps to further emphasise the Nostrum’s power.
When the Nostrum is taken one of three things will happen; A] the sufferer gets better; B] the sufferer gets worse; or C] the sufferer remains much the same. If it is A] the Nostrum has worked its magic, if it is C] the Nostrum has at least arrested the sufferer’s decline, and if sadly it is B] then obviously the Quacksalver was summoned too late for the Nostrum to take effect in time. Rare of course but not unknown especially if the sufferer has not obeyed the instructions.
Which is why all wise Quacksalvers charge up front.
And either tend to move on elsewhere once they judge they have squeezed the purses of their credulous dupes as far as is safe to do so: or set themselves up in some style in great cities where dissatisified clients can be allowed to drift away since there are always new ones knocking on the door.
Sound familiar?
Kindest Regards
It seems the Obama administration has created a void in “National Wealth Care” provision. May I congratulate our dear leader for having the humility and public-spirited generosity to take on the task of administering our nation’s private “wealth” resources for those among us too numerically challenged to accept that challenge?
His actual offer, “If you answered no, you’re just the kind of person that would be interested in an investment opportunity I have. Email me with your name, credit card number, and expiration date for full details: matt@wmbriggs.com.” is a selfless demonstration of the ethical and responsible mindset installed by poar-modern Academia deep into the breasts and very fiber of our nation’s statisticians. Good show.
Matt, since you don’t really “like” the west coast that much, may I claim “shot gun” for the assets of Californians who respond?
Great Post!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA