I just have to comment on the Henry Louis Gates incident. I got to check out the Sunday morning political shows, and listen to George Will and others discuss how Obama's comments had racial overtones. Really? The police arresting a man in his own home after he showed identification proving he lived there wasn't acting stupidly? Really? I don't care if Gates went off on them, called them racists and pigs blah, blah, blah. After he showed some ID, the cops should have been on their way. Now I'm not saying the cop involved is a racist, or that Gates shouldn't have kept a cooler head, all I'm saying is that the president was right for calling said actions stupid. For conservatives-- and I didn't read the Thomas Sowell piece where he weighed in on this but I can imagine what he said-- to imply the president was making accusations of racial profiling is absurd.
In other news, a study has been published declaring that obesity costs the U.S. 147 billion annually. It goes on to say that medical bill are much higher for obese people. I think this is pretty convincing evidence that we need a junk food tax in our health care reform. It's a common argument that obese people die earlier and are thus less expensive than healthy people in the long run. However, much of our health care expenses go towards interventions to keep people alive longer who are suffering from obesity, i.e. people now live longer with heart disease than they did in the past. All that to say, if we're looking to cut costs and pay for health care reform, taxing the crap that increases the costs might not be a bad idea.
