Covid-19 miscellany

[WAB]

The alt-right was shitting their pants when First Lady Michelle Obama suggested children having fruit for dessert. Don't give me this healthy lifestyle bullshit. That has to be one of the most disingenuous arguments the alt-right is providing now. If the Government punished people for being overweight, the alt-right would be up in arms... literally.

I once ate too many apricots as a kid and shit my pants, so its not an unfounded fear. As I recall, the people who shit their pants (figuratively, anyway) from Mrs. Obama's lunch edict were the kids themselves. They even wrote their own song and the video became a bit of a sensation back in the day.

I seriously doubt anyone (except perhaps some idiots on the fringe of the right-wing nutjob range of the spectrum) "shit their pants" over Mrs. Obama's suggestion to eat fruit for breakfast.

Now - and this becomes tedious as fuck to have to explain everything - if eating fruit for breakfast ever became an actual mandate ----,

whether in literal gubmint form or strong encouragement and shaming dealt out by the Lefty-Loosey wingnuts on the opposite nutjob-end of the political spectrum (which is where they actually met, and will meet, as in hardline fascism and in-practice communism and/or theoretical Marxism, historically and right now), like certain posters at TFT, elsewhere, AND the CDC), ---

then I don't know what to tell you. ....[hold steady, Concord, we're almost there!]...THEN, if that were to actually happen, which I seriously doubt, then there could very well be some kind of low-level civil war, in which case the armed rebels on both silly extreme sides will sorely lose to the American Military/Industrial/Political complex, and there will be much suffering and much blood - incidentally (or not) and sadly (or not, depending on whether you are really an empathetic person or just pretending to be one), from the throats and veins of innocents, who always get caught in the crossfire when IDIOTS begin to arm themselves and start marching with slogans and songs and paint cans and frozen water bottles, eggs, matches, lighters, butane lighters, grill-lighters, or other fire-starters and/or accelerants (the idiots!), torches, bibles, copies of Atlas Shrugged - dog-eared, beaten, and highlighted all over, with exclamation points, copies of Animal Farm or 1984 or Brave New World, etc, - T-shirts with the newest fashion-trend political bromide,...etc, etc, etc&...

 

[lpetrich]

Opinion | Australia Is Still a ‘Free’ Country, Despite Our Covid Lockdowns - The New York Times

No, Australia Is Not Actually an Evil Dictatorship

SYDNEY, Australia — Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida who has made a name for himself as an extreme opponent of vaccine mandates, announced at the end of last month that Australia was “not a free country.” This was surprising news — most of all to Australians.

We have mostly spent pandemic lockdowns alternating between boredom, frustration, wine, a lot of Netflix and trying to locate our trousers before Zoom meetings. Recently, we’ve also become aware of a disturbing myth that appears to be enthusiastically fostered on the American right: Our experience of the pandemic, apparently, has been that of a violent police state. We must have been too busy taking out the bins to notice.

Last week, the myth of our enslavement propelled aspirational allies into the streets. In the United States, Poland and Britain, distinctly non-Australian protesters assembled outside Australian diplomatic missions, denouncing the country’s decline into thuggish autocracy. A #SaveAustralia hashtag trended.

...
Confected for an American audience, it seems to be part of an international right-wing campaign to recruit those frustrated by lockdowns, unsure of vaccines and animated by appeals to personal liberty. Australians, trying to get their kids to bed before bingeing on “Ted Lasso,” have been enlisted as unwitting props in an American culture war.

...
Cam Smith, a public broadcaster and independent researcher who tracks the far right, noticed videos claiming to show recent acts of brutal police violence against hapless citizens “just pinging around, devoid of context” across anti-vax and anti-lockdown channels. But the footage, Mr. Smith discovered, was re-edited recordings of incidents that took place in the country 12 months earlier, some from a provocation campaign by anti-maskers to defy restrictions and initiate confrontations with police officers.

...
That’s bad enough. But the malign spread of foreign influence goes beyond the internet. In July, anti-lockdown protests took place across Australia, attracting crowds in Sydney and Melbourne. Yet this was no homegrown uprising: Data analysts found the protests had been coordinated by a central group of organizers based in Germany and Britain.

These anti-lockdown protests, never attended by more than a few thousand people, are small by Australian standards. And unlike Americans, Australians are not politically inclined to demands for liberty and choice as much as we are for fairness and solidarity. (The name of the national anthem is “Advance Australia Fair.”) As Australia’s First Nations people knew and settler-colonial Australians learned on arrival, individualism is far less useful than collaboration on a continent where everything from the weather to the insects is trying to kill you, all the time.

Even as some lockdown restrictions ease, Australians continue to comply with public health orders, which even now enjoy overwhelming public support. But where lockdowns remain, far-right activists have seized a rare chance to march on empty streets.

Defenders of police brutality whining about how the cops are so brutal to them.

‘Off the rails’: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blasts Australia’s Covid restrictions | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

The leader of America’s third-largest state, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has blasted Australia’s coronavirus restrictions, accusing us of going “off the rails” and comparing us to authoritarian China.

Mr DeSantis, who has been a vocal opponent of lockdowns, mandates and vaccine passports in the United States, brought up Australia’s Covid policies during remarks to the International Boatbuilders Exhibition in Tampa.

“Look what’s going on in Australia right now. They’re enforcing, after a year-and-a-half, lockdowns by the military,” the Republican said.

“That’s not a free country. It’s not a free country at all.

“In fact, I wonder why we would still have the same diplomatic relations when they’re doing that. Is Australia freer than communist China right now? I don’t know. The fact that is even a question tells you something has gone dramatically off the rails with some of this stuff.”

What a weenie. Australia is not a one-party state, not a nominally Communist dictatorship. I say "nominally" in honor of what a capitalist roader China now is, to use an old Maoist insult.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Joe Rogan talked with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, here is what we learned.

Joe Rogan isn't a doctor.
Joe Rogan has no education in the field of medicine.
Joe Rogan isn't licensed to provide medical treatment.
Joe Rogan's comments are as valid as medical advice provided in a fortune cookie.

Here is how Fox News and Friends are spinning it:
Joe Rogan forces Dr. Sanjay Gupta to admit CNN shouldn't have called his COVID treatment 'horse dewormer'

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

This is really getting me conspiratorially paranoid

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-we...ings-support-preliminary-israeli-trial-681127

The paper about Aspirin and Covid was published in March 2021. Maybe you should ask why jpost is just now putting out that story to coincide with the new recommendation about daily aspirin therapy.

Oh, here's a relevant abstract from that paper.

Results: Four hundred twelve patients were included in the study. Three hundred fourteen patients (76.3%) did not receive aspirin, while 98 patients (23.7%) received aspirin within 24 hours of admission or 7 days before admission. Aspirin use had a crude association with less mechanical ventilation (35.7% aspirin versus 48.4% nonaspirin, P = .03) and ICU admission (38.8% aspirin versus 51.0% nonaspirin, P = .04), but no crude association with in-hospital mortality (26.5% aspirin versus 23.2% nonaspirin, P = .51). After adjusting for 8 confounding variables, aspirin use was independently associated with decreased risk of mechanical ventilation (adjusted HR, 0.56, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.37-0.85, P = .007), ICU admission (adjusted HR, 0.57, 95% CI, 0.38-0.85, P = .005), and in-hospital mortality (adjusted HR, 0.53, 95% CI, 0.31-0.90, P = .02). There were no differences in major bleeding (P = .69) or overt thrombosis (P = .82) between aspirin users and nonaspirin users.

Conclusions: Aspirin use may be associated with improved outcomes in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. However, a sufficiently powered randomized controlled trial is needed to assess whether a causal relationship exists between aspirin use and reduced lung injury and mortality in COVID-19 patients.

It was in a journal called Anesthesia and Analgesia and not a journal dealing specifically with virology and epidemiology. So do you know of any followup studies that deal with the issue of sample size, control, and statistical power that this paper has? I think it is a great idea but where are the followup studies and why is jpost just now putting out something about this old preliminary review?

The dropping Aspirin thing for heart health has been a thing for a while too.

Joe Rogan talked with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, here is what we learned.

Joe Rogan isn't a doctor.
Joe Rogan has no education in the field of medicine.
Joe Rogan isn't licensed to provide medical treatment.
Joe Rogan's comments are as valid as medical advice provided in a fortune cookie.

Good thing Dr Gupta went on his show or we might never have learned these things about Joe!

Yeah. It is also great Rogan decided to have a person on to discuss this so early in the vaccine deployment.

 

[TomC]

The leader of America’s third-largest state, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has blasted Australia’s coronavirus restrictions, accusing us of going “off the rails” and comparing us to authoritarian China.

Well, there's one way that Australia and China are very similar. Neither is suffering nearly as much from C19 as Florida is.

One could say that both states are freer than Florida. Freer from an epidemic.
Tom

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The alt-right was shitting their pants when First Lady Michelle Obama suggested children having fruit for dessert. Don't give me this healthy lifestyle bullshit. That has to be one of the most disingenuous arguments the alt-right is providing now. If the Government punished people for being overweight, the alt-right would be up in arms... literally.

I once ate too many apricots as a kid and shit my pants, so its not an unfounded fear. As I recall, the people who shit their pants (figuratively, anyway) from Mrs. Obama's lunch edict were the kids themselves. They even wrote their own song and the video became a bit of a sensation back in the day.

I seriously doubt anyone (except perhaps some idiots on the fringe of the right-wing nutjob range of the spectrum) "shit their pants" over Mrs. Obama's suggestion to eat fruit for breakfast.

Now - and this becomes tedious as fuck to have to explain everything - if eating fruit for breakfast ever became an actual mandate ----,

whether in literal gubmint form or strong encouragement and shaming dealt out by the Lefty-Loosey wingnuts on the opposite nutjob-end of the political spectrum (which is where they actually met, and will meet, as in hardline fascism and in-practice communism and/or theoretical Marxism, historically and right now), like certain posters at TFT, elsewhere, AND the CDC), ---

then I don't know what to tell you. ....[hold steady, Concord, we're almost there!]...THEN, if that were to actually happen, which I seriously doubt, then there could very well be some kind of low-level civil war, in which case the armed rebels on both silly extreme sides will sorely lose to the American Military/Industrial/Political complex, and there will be much suffering and much blood - incidentally (or not) and sadly (or not, depending on whether you are really an empathetic person or just pretending to be one), from the throats and veins of innocents, who always get caught in the crossfire when IDIOTS begin to arm themselves and start marching with slogans and songs and paint cans and frozen water bottles, eggs, matches, lighters, butane lighters, grill-lighters, or other fire-starters and/or accelerants (the idiots!), torches, bibles, copies of Atlas Shrugged - dog-eared, beaten, and highlighted all over, with exclamation points, copies of Animal Farm or 1984 or Brave New World, etc, - T-shirts with the newest fashion-trend political bromide,...etc, etc, etc&...

This wasn't that long ago folks!

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh last week suggested Obama is a hypocrite for dining on ribs, and remarked on her waistline in the process. That was just the latest offering in what has been a steady diet of criticisms.

“Leaders are supposed to be leaders,” Limbaugh said. “If we are supposed to eat roots, berries and tree bark, show us how.”

Critics have carped about Obama’s spread at her Super Bowl party — and have suggested that the child-nutrition legislation she backed in Congress would bring about the end of school bake sales. Her work with the National Restaurant Assn. to develop healthier menu items has been decried in some circles as a government takeover of business.

And in January, some conservatives even suggested that Obama was endangering people, blaming an increase in pedestrian deaths on the first lady’s campaign by saying that Americans were putting themselves at risk by walking more.

The criticism is fueled by a rising conservative chorus against the Obamas and comes as Republicans embark on a contest to pick a nominee to challenge the president next year.

Earlier this month, Mitt Romney, addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, peppered his remarks with digs at the first lady and her husband.

Ridiculing President Obama’s purported move toward the political center, Romney joked that the president’s rhetoric had shifted so radically that “he sounded like he was going to dig up the first lady’s organic garden to put in a Bob’s Big Boy,” Romney said.

On second thought, I shouldn't have said "alt-right" and just said "right".

 

[scombrid]

The paper about Aspirin and Covid was published in March 2021. Maybe you should ask why jpost is just now putting out that story to coincide with the new recommendation about daily aspirin therapy.

Oh, here's a relevant abstract from that paper.



It was in a journal called Anesthesia and Analgesia and not a journal dealing specifically with virology and epidemiology. So do you know of any followup studies that deal with the issue of sample size, control, and statistical power that this paper has? I think it is a great idea but where are the followup studies and why is jpost just now putting out something about this old preliminary review?

The dropping Aspirin thing for heart health has been a thing for a while too.

Joe Rogan talked with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, here is what we learned.

Joe Rogan isn't a doctor.
Joe Rogan has no education in the field of medicine.
Joe Rogan isn't licensed to provide medical treatment.
Joe Rogan's comments are as valid as medical advice provided in a fortune cookie.

Good thing Dr Gupta went on his show or we might never have learned these things about Joe!

Yeah. It is also great Rogan decided to have a person on to discuss this so early in the vaccine deployment.

It is a technique that the "JAQ"-off grifters have mastered. They have Bret Weinstein, Alex Berenson, and hosts of other bullshitters on. Then they eventually get around to having someone else on for "balance" but they've already poisoned the well. Rogan did the same shit with UFO people and Chemtrails.

 

[scombrid]

Yeah. It isn't "alt-right" anymore. Regular Republicans that used to make fun of anti-vaccine folks like Jenny McCarthy and 9/11 Truthers are now posting Joe Mercola and such all over the place.

 

[scombrid]

I seriously doubt anyone (except perhaps some idiots on the fringe of the right-wing nutjob range of the spectrum) "shit their pants" over Mrs. Obama's suggestion to eat fruit for breakfast.

Now - and this becomes tedious as fuck to have to explain everything - if eating fruit for breakfast ever became an actual mandate ----,

whether in literal gubmint form or strong encouragement and shaming dealt out by the Lefty-Loosey wingnuts on the opposite nutjob-end of the political spectrum (which is where they actually met, and will meet, as in hardline fascism and in-practice communism and/or theoretical Marxism, historically and right now), like certain posters at TFT, elsewhere, AND the CDC), ---

then I don't know what to tell you. ....[hold steady, Concord, we're almost there!]...THEN, if that were to actually happen, which I seriously doubt, then there could very well be some kind of low-level civil war, in which case the armed rebels on both silly extreme sides will sorely lose to the American Military/Industrial/Political complex, and there will be much suffering and much blood - incidentally (or not) and sadly (or not, depending on whether you are really an empathetic person or just pretending to be one), from the throats and veins of innocents, who always get caught in the crossfire when IDIOTS begin to arm themselves and start marching with slogans and songs and paint cans and frozen water bottles, eggs, matches, lighters, butane lighters, grill-lighters, or other fire-starters and/or accelerants (the idiots!), torches, bibles, copies of Atlas Shrugged - dog-eared, beaten, and highlighted all over, with exclamation points, copies of Animal Farm or 1984 or Brave New World, etc, - T-shirts with the newest fashion-trend political bromide,...etc, etc, etc&...

This wasn't that long ago folks!

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh last week suggested Obama is a hypocrite for dining on ribs, and remarked on her waistline in the process. That was just the latest offering in what has been a steady diet of criticisms.

“Leaders are supposed to be leaders,” Limbaugh said. “If we are supposed to eat roots, berries and tree bark, show us how.”

Critics have carped about Obama’s spread at her Super Bowl party — and have suggested that the child-nutrition legislation she backed in Congress would bring about the end of school bake sales. Her work with the National Restaurant Assn. to develop healthier menu items has been decried in some circles as a government takeover of business.

And in January, some conservatives even suggested that Obama was endangering people, blaming an increase in pedestrian deaths on the first lady’s campaign by saying that Americans were putting themselves at risk by walking more.

The criticism is fueled by a rising conservative chorus against the Obamas and comes as Republicans embark on a contest to pick a nominee to challenge the president next year.

Earlier this month, Mitt Romney, addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, peppered his remarks with digs at the first lady and her husband.

Ridiculing President Obama’s purported move toward the political center, Romney joked that the president’s rhetoric had shifted so radically that “he sounded like he was going to dig up the first lady’s organic garden to put in a Bob’s Big Boy,” Romney said.

On second thought, I shouldn't have said "alt-right" and just said "right".

The Obamas were like the head Lizard People of the NWO right? Yet there they were promoting healthy lifestyles that Troutsi says would have made everyone impervious to the CCP virus without the fauci ouchi.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Wait, say what?

Navy outlines discharge process for sailors who don’t get COVID vaccination
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...wQFnoECAkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1l8ojX0-dhKiWeLAE_h0Sk

The U.S. Navy says sailors who are not vaccinated and who do not have a pending or approved exemption request by their vaccination deadline “will receive no lower than a general discharge under honorable conditions” for failing to obey a lawful order.

This makes no sense. The list of mandatory vaccinations is long, and not optional. The vaccine is approved. Fuckers already agreed to the jabs.
But then again, there's a standard draw-down of bodies following a war ending. This way, they can offer an 'early out' program, but NOT have to let them keep any reenlistment bonus. They can have that paid back for not completing the tour they were compensated for.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This is really getting me conspiratorially paranoid

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/aspirin-lowers-risk-of-covid-new-findings-support-preliminary-israeli-trial-681127

View attachment 35687

Yet another example of covidiot propaganda. The situations aren't comparable at all. I suggest getting better sources of information.

There is always a balance between the risk of blood clotting too well (causing a clot, which can be deadly if it gets into the wrong place) vs blood not clotting well enough (allowing unchecked bleeding.) Aspirin is an anticoagulant, it will shift this balance.

What that study you are talking about is saying is that shifting this balance isn't a good thing for someone not at elevated risk of a clot. That does not mean that shifting that balance is never a good idea.

Covid is well known for causing clotting. Hospitalized Covid patients are often given anticoagulants. Is it any surprise they found a particular anticoagulant is helpful?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This wasn't that long ago folks!

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh last week suggested Obama is a hypocrite for dining on ribs, and remarked on her waistline in the process. That was just the latest offering in what has been a steady diet of criticisms.

“Leaders are supposed to be leaders,” Limbaugh said. “If we are supposed to eat roots, berries and tree bark, show us how.”

Show us how?!

I think carrots are good eating. Likewise, blueberries and strawberries are very good eating. You'll find the tree bark in the spice cabinet: Cinnamon.

 

[lpetrich]

... “Leaders are supposed to be leaders,” Limbaugh said. “If we are supposed to eat roots, berries and tree bark, show us how.”

Show us how?!

I think carrots are good eating. Likewise, blueberries and strawberries are very good eating. You'll find the tree bark in the spice cabinet: Cinnamon.

Good point. Here are the parts of plants that we eat.

• Roots: carrot, potato, beet, turnip, radish, ...
• Stems and buds: asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprout, fern fiddlehead, ...
• Leaves: lettuce, cabbage, spinach, tea, watercress, seaweed, ...
• Seed coverings: apple, pear, peach, plum, orange, lemon, grape, strawberry, raspberry, tomato, chili pepper, black pepper, zucchini, cucumber, squash, pumpkin, watermelon, cantaloupe, ...
• Seeds: wheat, rye, barley, peanut, almond, pecan, walnut, hazelnut, Brazil nut, pine nut, sunflower seed, bean, pea, coffee, chocolate, ...
• Bark: cinnamon

Shows what omnivores we are. We also eat from all over the animal kingdom, we eat fungi, and we even eat a prokaryote: Spirulina.

 

[thebeave]

I seriously doubt anyone (except perhaps some idiots on the fringe of the right-wing nutjob range of the spectrum) "shit their pants" over Mrs. Obama's suggestion to eat fruit for breakfast.

Now - and this becomes tedious as fuck to have to explain everything - if eating fruit for breakfast ever became an actual mandate ----,

whether in literal gubmint form or strong encouragement and shaming dealt out by the Lefty-Loosey wingnuts on the opposite nutjob-end of the political spectrum (which is where they actually met, and will meet, as in hardline fascism and in-practice communism and/or theoretical Marxism, historically and right now), like certain posters at TFT, elsewhere, AND the CDC), ---

then I don't know what to tell you. ....[hold steady, Concord, we're almost there!]...THEN, if that were to actually happen, which I seriously doubt, then there could very well be some kind of low-level civil war, in which case the armed rebels on both silly extreme sides will sorely lose to the American Military/Industrial/Political complex, and there will be much suffering and much blood - incidentally (or not) and sadly (or not, depending on whether you are really an empathetic person or just pretending to be one), from the throats and veins of innocents, who always get caught in the crossfire when IDIOTS begin to arm themselves and start marching with slogans and songs and paint cans and frozen water bottles, eggs, matches, lighters, butane lighters, grill-lighters, or other fire-starters and/or accelerants (the idiots!), torches, bibles, copies of Atlas Shrugged - dog-eared, beaten, and highlighted all over, with exclamation points, copies of Animal Farm or 1984 or Brave New World, etc, - T-shirts with the newest fashion-trend political bromide,...etc, etc, etc&...

This wasn't that long ago folks!

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh last week suggested Obama is a hypocrite for dining on ribs, and remarked on her waistline in the process. That was just the latest offering in what has been a steady diet of criticisms.

“Leaders are supposed to be leaders,” Limbaugh said. “If we are supposed to eat roots, berries and tree bark, show us how.”

Critics have carped about Obama’s spread at her Super Bowl party — and have suggested that the child-nutrition legislation she backed in Congress would bring about the end of school bake sales. Her work with the National Restaurant Assn. to develop healthier menu items has been decried in some circles as a government takeover of business.

And in January, some conservatives even suggested that Obama was endangering people, blaming an increase in pedestrian deaths on the first lady’s campaign by saying that Americans were putting themselves at risk by walking more.

The criticism is fueled by a rising conservative chorus against the Obamas and comes as Republicans embark on a contest to pick a nominee to challenge the president next year.

Earlier this month, Mitt Romney, addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, peppered his remarks with digs at the first lady and her husband.

Ridiculing President Obama’s purported move toward the political center, Romney joked that the president’s rhetoric had shifted so radically that “he sounded like he was going to dig up the first lady’s organic garden to put in a Bob’s Big Boy,” Romney said.

On second thought, I shouldn't have said "alt-right" and just said "right".

I think we can agree that both the school kids and the "right" had a problem with Michelle Obama's lunch edict. Though the outrage ratio was probably 100 kids to every "right" person.

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olZVsiH3qrY[/YOUTUBE]

 

[lpetrich]

Michelle Obama was such a big ogre, wasn't she? (sarcasm)

On School Nutrition: How Republicans Create an Alternative Reality • Richard Carrier

Noting lots of research:
Impact of the new U.S. Department of Agriculture school meal standards on food selection, consumption, and waste - PubMed

After the new standards were implemented, fruit selection increased by 23.0% and entrée and vegetable selection remained unchanged. Additionally, post-implementation entrée consumption increased by 15.6%, vegetable consumption increased by 16.2%, and fruit consumption remained the same. Milk selection and consumption decreased owing to an unrelated milk policy change.

Healthy School Lunches Improve Kids’ Habits | The Pew Charitable Trusts - "Strong nutrition standards work, evidence shows"

More time for school lunches equals healthier choices for kids: Children are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables when given at least 25 minutes for lunch, according to a new study -- ScienceDaily
noting
Amount of Time to Eat Lunch Is Associated with Children’s Selection and Consumption of School Meal Entrée, Fruits, Vegetables, and Milk - Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

Compared with meal-component selection when students had at least 25 minutes to eat, students were significantly less likely to select a fruit (44% vs 57%; P<0.0001) when they had <20 minutes to eat. There were no significant differences in entrée, milk, or vegetable selections. Among those who selected a meal component, students with <20 minutes to eat consumed 13% less of their entrée (P<0.0001), 10% less of their milk (P<0.0001), and 12% less of their vegetable (P<0.0001) compared with students who had at least 25 minutes to eat.

Are Healthy School Lunch Programs a Waste? | Live Science

School Meal Programs Innovate to Improve Student Nutrition | The Pew Charitable Trusts - "Survey explores progress, challenges three years into transition to healthier food standards"

After stating "Hopefully you’ve gleaned some critical thinking skills from this example." Richard Carrier continues with his conclusion:

• Check the sources for any claim, and then follow the source trail until you confirm the claim has a reliable source…or that it doesn’t. Judge accordingly.
• Don’t be fooled by deceptive mathematical wording like “some.” Remember the opposite of “some” is usually “most.” Take note of what it means when most of something is exactly the opposite of what someone tells you.
• Remember a statistic is useless if you aren’t told what it’s to be compared with. It does no good to be told that after a policy was implemented, kids threw away 60% of their vegetables. Because that’s actually an improvement if they were throwing away 75% of them before the policy. Always ask for the comparand.
• Make sure you have the facts right (get the best, most accurate facts), and that you have all of them (if someone is leaving something out, go fill it back in).

And when it comes to reasoning about policy, don’t buy into the fallacy of “this implementation sucked, therefore this law should be repealed.” If the implementation sucked, the solution is better implementation. Period. In other words, probably the law should be improved, not repealed. Or there is nothing wrong with the law at all: a failing executive is not the fault of the law; it’s a fault of the executive. Fire them. And hire someone who knows what they’re doing. Or teach them to do it better. If many schools are nailing it, it clearly can be nailed. And that’s teachable. I know Americans have a really hard time with the idea that you have to have a competent executive to have an effective policy, or that policy can be improved by the people bungling it learning from the people who are doing it right. When things aren’t going well, it’s not always the law that’s the problem.

 

[TV and credit cards]

This wasn't that long ago folks!

On second thought, I shouldn't have said "alt-right" and just said "right".

I think we can agree that both the school kids and the "right" had a problem with Michelle Obama's lunch edict. Though the outrage ratio was probably 100 kids to every "right" person.

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olZVsiH3qrY[/YOUTUBE]

If a child is raised on sugar, salt, and fat, don't wonder why they can't go without. Hence the comment toward the end of the video about elementary school kids being more accepting than high school kids. Mom and dad haven't completely fucked the little ones up yet. Further, for those of us familiar with these peculiarities called fruits and vegetables know there is a world of difference in the quality of them; between the pretty to look at but tasteless discount store crap and good organic fare. I imagine what schools purchase is on par with Walmart.
The part where children are collapsing from fatigue shows how little kids learn about food. Just another failure of our society. Perhaps a lesson on the many vegan athletes might point them in the right direction. They damn sure aren't going to get it from mom and dad.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

... “Leaders are supposed to be leaders,” Limbaugh said. “If we are supposed to eat roots, berries and tree bark, show us how.”

Show us how?!

I think carrots are good eating. Likewise, blueberries and strawberries are very good eating. You'll find the tree bark in the spice cabinet: Cinnamon.

Good point. Here are the parts of plants that we eat.

• Roots: carrot, potato, beet, turnip, radish, ...

• 
  
  Yeah, I thought of potato later. Those others I don't care for.
  
  

  [*]Leaves: lettuce, cabbage, spinach, tea, watercress, seaweed, ...

  
  I sometimes call my wife a rabbit because of her fondness for leaves. Right now we have some pots containing yams--they are never harvested, she just snips off leaves to eat. She's also quite fond of pea leaves--the latter of which I have on occasion seen a bag of at the local Chinese market.
  
  

  [*]Seed coverings: apple, pear, peach, plum, orange, lemon, grape, strawberry, raspberry, tomato, chili pepper, black pepper, zucchini, cucumber, squash, pumpkin, watermelon, cantaloupe, ...

  
  Strawberries aren't seed coverings.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If a child is raised on sugar, salt, and fat, don't wonder why they can't go without. Hence the comment toward the end of the video about elementary school kids being more accepting than high school kids. Mom and dad haven't completely fucked the little ones up yet. Further, for those of us familiar with these peculiarities called fruits and vegetables know there is a world of difference in the quality of them; between the pretty to look at but tasteless discount store crap and good organic fare. I imagine what schools purchase is on par with Walmart.
The part where children are collapsing from fatigue shows how little kids learn about food. Just another failure of our society. Perhaps a lesson on the many vegan athletes might point them in the right direction. They damn sure aren't going to get it from mom and dad.

Yeah. School kids don't want healthy food because it's prepared horribly. Fortunately, I knew the stuff actually tasted good and wasn't put off by the barely edible garbage at school. The junk food is the stuff that's hardest to ruin.

 

[Toni]

If a child is raised on sugar, salt, and fat, don't wonder why they can't go without. Hence the comment toward the end of the video about elementary school kids being more accepting than high school kids. Mom and dad haven't completely fucked the little ones up yet. Further, for those of us familiar with these peculiarities called fruits and vegetables know there is a world of difference in the quality of them; between the pretty to look at but tasteless discount store crap and good organic fare. I imagine what schools purchase is on par with Walmart.
The part where children are collapsing from fatigue shows how little kids learn about food. Just another failure of our society. Perhaps a lesson on the many vegan athletes might point them in the right direction. They damn sure aren't going to get it from mom and dad.

Yeah. School kids don't want healthy food because it's prepared horribly. Fortunately, I knew the stuff actually tasted good and wasn't put off by the barely edible garbage at school. The junk food is the stuff that's hardest to ruin.

It's true that one of the strong points of junk food is that it delivers a lot of calories with very little preparation and has a long shelf life. Delivering a lot of calories to growing children who don't get enough to eat is a good thing but obviously, if all they get is highly caloric food filled with fat, salt and sugar and calories, while simultaneously being devoid of protein, fiber, and vitamins, then that's really bad. I'm not advocating for bad junk food--just stating why it's often used. Oh, and it's cheap.

Couple of things: In our first years together, my husband and I had...very little money. It was very important that every penny we spent on food was spent on food that was as cheap and as nutritionally dense as possible. We went the vegetarian route, making almost everything from scratch at home. Yes, we also ate cheese and eggs--we wanted the protein. But we focused on whole grains, beans and legumes, vegetables and low salt and low added sugars.

Then when we visited family, who were not of the same persuasion nor inclined to accommodate our preferences, the amount of salt almost gagged me. And sweets were so so so so sweet! Because my taste buds had become accustomed to less salt, less added sugar. The idea of eating an entire piece of meat--say a hamburger, was quite daunting to me because I was no longer accustomed to eating like that. Mind you, I had grown up eating plenty of hamburger, with lots of salt and sugary stuff. My grandparents farmed and we got lots of fresh produce but my mother favored convenience foods because they were 'modern' and evidence of not being quite so poor as they had once been. If family ate at my house, I always made certain a salt shaker was full and on the table. Otherwise? Never had a salt shaker out.

So it is quite possible to become accustomed to more meat or less meat, more salt or less salt, sugar, fat, whatever.

When my children were young, the school PTAs sometimes were able to work with an international students' group at the local university to put on an International day, where these small town midwestern kids who were mostly related to one another got a chance to spend a day, moving from classroom to classroom and hearing about other countries from people from those countries. One option the schools had was to have the international students prepare a meal for the kids. I really, really, really pushed for this and was eventually able to convince the PTA to spring for the extra cost--over the vehement objections of a number of parents who were CERTAIN their kids would never touch such foreign, spicy food (oh, pizza was considered very spicy) and would be HUNGRY. But I (and some other parents) convinced the PTA to cough up some $ and we had a group of Bangladeshi students prepare a delicious lunch, with a spicy chicken and rice base. The kids LOVED it and asked for seconds and tried for 3rds. I understood why--it was delicious! The parents who were in attendance to help supervise picked at their plates and found the food inedible. The kids were much more open minded than were most of the parents.

That said: I was an extremely picky eater as a kid and hated when my mom made me get the school lunch. Of course, the school lunches only had very overcooked vegetables and no fresh fruit. It tasted dead and salty to me. I much preferred carrot sticks, celery, cheese, peanut butter sandwiches and apples and raisins from home. It was a battle as my mother felt she was somehow failing me by sending me a lunch from home instead of a modern hot lunch at school.

I would wager a guess that most of the parents who protest the healthy options are speaking for themselves and not for their kids who will definitely adapt.

 

[thebeave]

This wasn't that long ago folks!

On second thought, I shouldn't have said "alt-right" and just said "right".

I think we can agree that both the school kids and the "right" had a problem with Michelle Obama's lunch edict. Though the outrage ratio was probably 100 kids to every "right" person.

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olZVsiH3qrY[/YOUTUBE]

If a child is raised on sugar, salt, and fat, don't wonder why they can't go without. Hence the comment toward the end of the video about elementary school kids being more accepting than high school kids. Mom and dad haven't completely fucked the little ones up yet. Further, for those of us familiar with these peculiarities called fruits and vegetables know there is a world of difference in the quality of them; between the pretty to look at but tasteless discount store crap and good organic fare. I imagine what schools purchase is on par with Walmart.
The part where children are collapsing from fatigue shows how little kids learn about food. Just another failure of our society. Perhaps a lesson on the many vegan athletes might point them in the right direction. They damn sure aren't going to get it from mom and dad.

Yep. A lot of these kids, especially the older ones, have been more or less "addicted" for years to the added sugar, salt and fat in their foods, which is why going cold turkey on changing their lunch menu is going to be problematic. Like any addiction, going cold turkey is a tough road and if you're not serious or committed and have the option to quit at will (by throwing your lunch away), its not going to work. And in fact, it may make things worse, as the kids who threw their lunch away or were calorie restricted are going to gorge on calorie dense junk food at the local 7-11 or fast food joint after school. Or at home. It wouldn't surprise me if a study showed that kids ended up gaining weight overall with the introduction of the healthier lunch menus. A case of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".

What strikes me as really odd is limiting the calories, as if all students in a given grade range have equal needs which is implied in the video. A senior high school male on the football team needs a lot more calories and protein than some petite late bloomer freshman female. How do the idiots who made up these dietary guidelines not understand this? Of course many students are going to go hungry and complain.