The American Spectator

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The Nation's Pulse

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The obesity-ain't-so-bad story has a link to a related story about how the Centers for Disease Control has determined that the benefits of occasional drinking to the cardiovascular system have been "over-exaggerated." Hilariously, Tim Naimi, M.D., an internist and medical epidemiologist at the CDC's Chronic Disease Center, adds in the official review synopsis, "If we compared this (alcohol) to a pharmaceutical drug, there's no way in hell the FDA would've approved it," essentially proving the FDA keeps itself afloat via a campaign of taxpayer-financed paranoia.

Nevertheless, this change of rhetorical course can have nothing but a positive effect on the small number of adults in America who choose of their own free will not to drink, myself included, as this "fact" about the medical benefits of alcohol is relentlessly thrown about by drunks who cannot stand to think someone, somewhere out there may not be inebriated. (I'm conveniently ignoring the part of the study that says moderate drinkers are smarter and have better social lives.) There has never been any reaction against this sort of reverse-teetotalism, even as it has always been exceedingly clear to anyone who has ever spent time with a drunk that it is not thinning the blood or health of the heart that draws this moth to that particular flame.

Fat and sober. Fat and sober. Fat and sober.

The chirping of a dozen golf ball-sized birds finally interrupts my reverie. I share my leftover dinner roll with them. Carbs for everyone, great and small! Carbs for everyone, one and all!

Still...I'm a professional, damn it. There has to be something to get worked up about.

Just read some blogs, find out who the target of the week is, and either pile on or offer a magnanimous defense to show everyone what a thoughtful young fellow you are, the devil on my shoulder offers. (Note that he doesn't suggest writing about the Pope...typical devil.)

Striving to be fair and balanced, I turn to get the angel's take on my options. But he's flown out the window. I think I'm going to follow him. All it takes is faith that out there in cramped cubicles and dingy apartments across America there are other writers, liberal and conservative alike, ready and willing to complain in my place for the day. Somehow I don't think I'll be disappointed.

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