Nanny Bloomberg bans soda pop. I suppose what’s most upsetting about this ridiculous scheme is that the average New Yorker interviewed for his view either supported it on some vague, ill-defined “health ground” or dismissed it as unworkable “because somebody can just buy two cans”. No one seemed to think it was outrageous that the city is interfering with a citizen’s right to mind his own business and do what he likes. Where are the “our body ourselves” ladies? The legalize marijuana crowd? Oh well, if it just affects fat people, who cares – they’re too dumb to know better, right?
And then, speaking of dumb, how about the flawed science behind this ban? There’s no data supporting the notion that a 16.5 oz. soda pop will cause diabetes while a 16oz drink will not. It’s just a convenient way to begin the process of imposing mandatory tofu diets on the masses.
I overheard a friend of mine the other day, an otherwise intelligent, well educated woman in her fifties, recounting a tale of woe about being stuck in traffic, dying of thirst, with only bottled water to turn to. But she couldn’t drink that, because a mutual friend of ours “has scared me off drinking water of any kind if it’s in a plastic bottle, let alone from a bottle that’s been in a hot car”.
So she sat there and suffered for two hours rather than risk ingesting a one part per billion molecule of a chemical her friend had said was as deadly as a heated rod of thorium thrust into her nether parts (I expand a bit for color). But here’s the thing: Both my thirsty friend and Madam Curie there smoke cigarettes!!! Can you imagine – I have trouble doing so – the profound statistical illiteracy, the demonstrated inability to calculate risk probability, inherent in that episode?
As I said, this woman is a real, functioning adult and is one of the nicest people I know, but if she can be so defective in this area of thought, it’s no wonder that Bloomberg and the California Mommies can persuade so many Americans to abandon common sense. Do I need add that my friend is also a Democrat?