RANDOM THOUGHTS from the retirement lane: the ‘obesity epidemic’ is proof that Americans are telling the nanny-staters to mind their own business.

IF MY CATS COULD TALK, they’d tell the author to stick her opinion where the sun don’t shine.

JEFF JACOBY: The Third Jihad.

OBAMA’S ‘TRANSFORMATIVE’ PRESIDENCY: ”The question raised by the Catholic Church's battle with ObamaCare is whether anyone can remain free of a U.S. government determined to do what it wants to do, at whatever cost.”

Older Americans have sought for years to drop out of Medicare and contract for their own health insurance. They cannot without forfeiting their Social Security payments. They effectively are locked in. Nor can the poor escape Medicaid, even as the care it gives them degrades. Farmers, ranchers and loggers struggled for years to protect their livelihoods beneath uncompromising interpretations of federal environmental laws. They, too, had to comply. University athletic programs were ground up by the U.S. Education Department's rote, forced gender balancing of every sport offered.

With the transformers, it never stops.

WHAT A SURPRISE: World Bank Report Shows Large Public Sectors Reduce Economy. Mitchell is wrong on only one point: the real solution is not to restrain government growth, but to reduce government size in absolute terms.

OLIVER NORTH: Freedom from religion for our military. And then what?

RADICAL ISLAM: If You See Something, Shut Up: “Criticizing Islam is now a punishable offense in several European countries.” It’s close to that in the United States.

LATEST MORTGAGE BAILOUT: Victims get 6%; ‘profiteers’ get 94%.

ED FEULNER: A Job Too Good to Be True. If you live in or near D.C., the disparity is obvious.

NO BIRTH CONTROL LEFT BEHIND: ‘To Stop the Multiplication of the Unfit’. There’s more than just women's health and religious freedom at stake.

DREAM CHASER, a possible Shuttle replacement, is in Louisville, CO, for final assembly in preparation for testing at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. It is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program to eventually deliver supplies and people to the International Space Station.

BREAKING: Kim Jong-Un death confirmed, now registered to vote in Chicago.

If only ....

BILL WHITTLE: Conservatives Suck!

NO FUN IN LA-LA LAND: L.A. Board of Supervisors Impose $1,000 Fine for Having Fun on the Beach. Liberals remind me of H. L. Menken’s definition of Puritanism: “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

FAT OR FERAL? Obesity epidemic strikes U.S. pets. More here. Note the deliberate link in both articles of pet obesity to human obesity – both are “epidemic.”

But here’s the relevant question: would you prefer your pet to be protected, fat, and alive? Or feral, skinny, and ... starving to death?

Exactly the same question is relevant for humans. Would you rather be living in a democratic, capitalist society where you can afford to be obese? Or would you rather live in a chaotic totalitarian society where you afford to be ... starving?

I know what my choices are.

FIVE YEARS LATER and not better off.

“THEY SHOULD REGISTER corrupt pols in Chicago, but that would be all of them, I guess.” I’m for a nationwide registry. Also put ‘em on the ‘do not fly’ list as potential terrorists.

Rand Paul: Do You Hate Rich People?



Related news here.

NEW YORK TIMES: World's Glaciers Losing Billions Of Tons Of Ice Per Year.

Quoting the same source, John Wahr, Fox News reports that the Himalayan glaciers have lost no ice in the past 10 years. US News & World Report, using the same source, reports Earth’s Polar Ice Melting Less Than Thought.

Same source, same data, different emphases to conclude with the “correct” narrative.

Here’s what I find facinating. In the reports, there are two sets of numbers bandied about: 230 billion tons of ice melt causing the oceans to rise 0.06 in/year (US News) and 150 billion tons of ice melt, causing the oceans to rise 0.4 mm/year (NYT).

So now let’s convert those numbers to a common baseline: mm/year per 100 billion tons of melt. The NYT numbers convert to 0.27 mm/year of ocean rise; the US News numbers convert to 0.66 mm/year. That’s roughly a 250% disparity.

And yet the NYT, with the lower number, has a decidedly gloomy headline while US News, with the much higher number, is decidedly optimistic.

Perhaps it would be wise to pay attention to Dr. Wahr: “Eight years of data is great, but it’s still hard to see any kind of trend or to say whether ice loss is accelerating. All I can say is that we have a better sense of the current state of the cryosphere.”

And check the math ....

WELCOME TO OBAMACARE (language warning).