As IF Times

link Denmark Introduces ‘Fat Tax’ on Foods High in Saturated Fat – ABC News.

The mind races at the likely repercussions from this new law.  Today it’s a tax on fat, but the zealots will want to push it more and really get to the root of the problem.  Cows.  There will soon be a tax on cows, or even a push to outlaw them.  Taxes will also spike for any who dare to operate in the dairy industry since they will be seen as enablers to cows.  That might actually not be much of a hardship anyway since the world is moving towards the farming of cannabis as a more healthy and benign farm crop.  In addition, it’s well known that cows give off gasses that contribute mightily to Global Warming, so banning cows can actually have a two ‘fer benefit.

Once this train of logic gets going however, it’s a sure thing that the next areas to be targeted are clothing manufacturers and those industries that make fabric.   There will be a tax on plus sized garments so that fat people won’t be able to afford to buy clothes.   Of course you can’t make fat garments illegal, that would be preposterous.  But you can make it difficult for fat people to be seen in public.  Not that this doesn’t have benefits.  We’d no longer have to look at Michael Moore on TV for example.

Immediately, we can think of new companies that spring up to capitalize on the anti fat people dictates, especially if there’s new financial incentive.  To help people eat less, companies will start to market two tined forks.  This will make eating of large volumes of food difficult and the added strokes required to eat the same volume of food will actually be an aerobic exercise as well.  Sheer genius.  By the same token, they will make smaller plates and smaller cups, since larger plates and cups would of course carry punishing taxes.  There will be pictures of grossly obese people printed on packages of ice cream and soda pop as public service warnings. 

The trend will be towards making food products that are less and less appealing to the palate, making eating less of an enjoyable pursuit.  As society progresses, the proliferation of food pellets will be the norm as people ingest the optimal amount of nutrients according to a national standard.  Rogue elements of society would still eat real food, but they will be pariahs as they huddle outside of office buildings eating sandwiches and enduring the condescending glares of law abiding citizens as they pass by.

Of course, the transition away from butter will not be complete without changes in popular phrases and idioms as well.  No longer will politicians use the phrase, “butter not guns” and in business, you’d have to “margarine somebody up”.  Now you can only say, “smooth as unsaturated vegetable product”. 

It’s only a matter of time before they get to cheese and Oreos.

link http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/205126/20110828/global-warming-climate-change-fears-concern-decline-developed-nations-rise-developing-nations-poll-s.htm

This is what happens when you spend too much time watching the adventures of Snookie and The Situation; you lose track of the  things that are really important to other citizens of the world.  According to this article, the consciousness of global warming remains high on the minds of people in less developed countries despite a slight decline over the past few years.  Apparently in places like Japan, New Zealand, South Africa and Singapore, citizens collectively fret about their carbon footprints on their daily commutes to their workplaces.  It remains the hot topic of cocktail conversations and that awareness is woven into every aspect of daily life.

Just the other day, while sitting in a bar, my friend pointed to an attractive gal across the room and mused, ” I wonder what her views are on sustainability of our fragile ecosystem”.  No doubt this scenario plays out hundreds of thousands of times every day in the world as people push aside their more pedestrian worries of mortgages, the quest for perfect abs and the best chai latte.  To be sure, this only happens in the enlightened enclaves of the world, or those that get CNN.  In other parts of the far flung planet, there are countless millions still living in ignorance of the impending catastrophe that’s looming just over the horizon.  They are still blissfully unaware of this and continue to pursue nonsensical things such as looking for food and staying alive.

This is perhaps a bit unfair, since many have been practising ‘earth friendly’ lifestyles long before Al Gore brought earth awareness to our collective consciousness.  In the Amazonian rain-forest for example, the residents there have eschewed modern frivolities such as True Religion Jeans or Columbia goretex sportswear, instead relying on the tried and true, environmentally friendly, loincloth.  Rather than waste money on things such as guns and bullets, their hunting and warfare is conducted using the eco-friendly blow tube.  This is much more sensible since any conflicts between tribes is considerably less bloody, less noisy and with almost no cases of misfiring weapons.

In China, to avoid the profligate use of resources observed in the west, it is common to see generations of families thoughtfully living in one simple house of only a few hundred square feet to reduce their carbon footprint.   Eschewing the family SUV, there is instead the family bicycle.  This is somewhat inconvenient when dropping the kids off at school, but they get used to it.  Their consumer habits are much more eco friendly as well.  For example, instead of owning iPads which consume electricity, they prefer to just go down to the community bulletin board where they can keep up on the Kardashians.   It’s not all perfect of course.  While their diet consists mainly of grains and vegetables, they do eat the occasional bear.  When chastised about this, the Chinese respond, ” If we aren’t supposed to eat them, why are they so delicious?”  Oh well, enlightenment will come eventually.

link Rare Drop in Sunspot Activity Could Cause Little Ice Age – International Business Times.

I wonder how they know it’s ‘rare’?  While advances in science and research have been marvelous over the past 100 years, some of the conclusions that are offered should prod some questions as to their validity.  It’s not known for how long observing sun spot activity has been a scientific pursuit, at least for those who don’t wind up blind, but when they observe that sunspot activity is  ‘rare’, we presume it means over the lifetime of the sun and not just of the person.

Of course we really don’t know the history of the sun to assign what actually constitutes rare.  It’s been around for a few million years and man only invented telescopes a short while ago in relative terms.  In fact, the activity may not be rare at all, it may just happen at night.  But let’s assume that there’s legitimate reason to label this sunspot activity rare.

If that’s the case, we expect that there must be records kept over at least the past 3000 years which document the instances of sunspot activity.  This in itself would be amazing since these days,  we can’t even find a birth certificate issued 50 odd years ago.  According to the article, some Chinese sun-gazers made note of this activity in 600 B.C. as did some German astronomers in the 1840′s. Anyone’s guess is good as to why they would do this.   It’s a stretch to believe that people in those days recorded these kinds of ‘scientific’ observations as part of some official capacity.  You’d have to convince me that governments had nothing better to do than to pay someone to look at the sun.  More likely, they were eccentrics who pursued this stuff like someone cataloging types of cat hair.  Nevertheless, the conclusion is that based on such historical records,  sunspot activity is linked to temperature fluctuations here on earth.  Unfortunately, according to the article, not enough to offset global warming.

I guess it all sounds plausible.  As plausible as the doom the Mayans felt when they witnessed a rare eclipse back in the day, doubly so if you were a virgin.  There’s an old anecdotal story about a scientist studying the relationship between removing the legs on a bug and its hearing.  As the scientist removed each leg,  he commanded the bug to move, which of course it did. Upon removing the last leg, the command to move elicited no movement from the bug.  The conclusion was that when you remove legs from a bug, it goes deaf.  I can’t help but think of this when articles like this claiming really questionable science comes to light. Call me a skeptic.