1. How is the Massachusetts health care plan working out?
2. NCAA as cartel.
3. Why it's hard to apply the FDIC model to failed big banks.
4. "Suicide by cop."
5. Finally, a campus boycott I can support.
6. Democratic chess.
7. Peter Orszag, the effective economist.
I didn’t even realize there was a campaign against bottled water. Don’t people have better things to do with their time? /stupid question
Why on earth do you support a bottled water boycott?
I’d support a 5 cent deposit for water bottles so it would be profitable for bums to recyle them.
Bootleggers and Baptists
Corporate conspiracy to force more corn based sweetener drinks down our throats. Im sick of this. LOL.
Do the left and and big agra business have a secret alliance that we dont know about?
I’ve heard some grumblings about bottled water in the past. I find myself generally unable to pay a premium for something that’s usually free from drinking fountains. But I’m wondering, if plastics are so bad, is there a reason they cannot sell canned water instead? Are cans unsavory or less aesthetically pleasing?
From the DemChess website:
Emphasis added. So not really democratic, more like a dictatorship with freedom of speech.
I think the bottled water ban is getting too little respect here.
- Soft drinks are not available in every bathroom sink. So that’s why we are not banning bottled soft drinks.
- Bottled water does waste alot of energy, relative to tap water.
- Other environmental priorities may be more helpful than eliminating bottled water consumption, but the expected value of a given environmental campaign is a function not merely of predicted environmental gain but also of feasibility, effort expenditure, message catchiness, simplicity, and attitude-changing potential. On many of these counts a bottled water ban shows itself to be a positive step.
In general people who denigrate particular environmental campaigns in favor of others are guilty of neglecting (1) the risk-managing method of pursuing a portfolio of options, (2) the inherent complexity of the world and the uncertainty in optimally allocating one’s time given a collection of positive-expected-value projects.
Yes, lets ban bottled water, and then when the kids get diabetes from the soft drinks and sugary fruit juices, we can tell them about how they shouldn’t worry about it because at least they are being sustainable…maybe not healthy…but certainly sustainable. And when our taxes go up because obesity is on the rise and these people need more medical services, we’ll be sustainable too, because we’ll have to sustain an even larger amount of the victims in our society.
Since drinks in plastic bottles are still allowed, the ban is easily circumvented: just add some minimal combination of a faint tinge of natural coloring and trace amounts of some additional zero-calorie ingredient.
Similar products already exist, of course, but pricey and with preposterous names like Omega-3 Revitalizing Vitamin Water. So you merely have to come out with an unpretentious mass-market homeopathically dilute version of the same thing.
If they try to ban those too, just move a little bit further along a continuous sliding scale between plain water and soft drinks/energy drinks, until you hit the sweet spot.
@Student
There is no evidence that sugar consumption leads to diabetes.
Below is just one the studies:
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/content/full/26/4/1008
RESULTS—Compared with the lowest quintile of sugar intake, the RRs and 95% CIs for the highest quintiles were 0.84 (0.67–1.04) for sucrose, 0.96 (0.78–1.19) for fructose, 1.04 (0.85–1.28) for glucose, and 0.99 (0.80–1.22) for lactose, after adjustment for known risk factors for type 2 diabetes. Similar findings of no association were obtained in subgroup analyses stratified by BMI.
CONCLUSIONS—Intake of sugars does not appear to play a deleterious role in primary prevention of type 2 diabetes. These prospective data support the recent American Diabetes Association’s guideline that a moderate amount of sugar can be incorporated in a healthy diet.
Silas, Yeah, sure, and in 2004 some Brits who drank bottled water also drank some extra, carcinogenic bromate. What’s your point?
@Rex Rhino: insightful critique of ecoconsumerism.
Barkley_Rosser: It happened in Woodway, a wealthier dorm city of Waco, Texas. As in, not Mexico. There were unacceptable levels of bacteria in the water and they put out a boil warning that I didn’t get in time. I could document this if necessary (not the diarrhea, but the warning going out).
The very fact that there are boil warnings at all shatters the BS about the two being equal.
And I can guarantee you that tap water is NOT equal to distilled.
@Curt_Fischer: Right, I just coincidentally switched without my knowledge to a diarrhea-inducing diet in the exact window that would make it coincide with a boil warning. And then *right* after I run out of bottled water and “chance it” *after* the boil warning has expired (and without boiling), I get similar (but milder) symptoms.
You and Barkley_Rosser should join the reality-based community instead of living in the fantasy of perfect tap water.
My problem with tap water isn’t that I’m afraid it will make me sick.. its that it tastes gross.
About the bottled water bans, I have an idea:
Why can’t the University setup a water fountain right next to every vending machine that sells bottled water (and sodas for that matter), and post a big sign talking about the benefits of the tap to the left and the problems with the bottle to the right.
The taste of tap water is easy to fix. Buy a Brita pitcher. You replace the filter 4 times a year. Tastes great.
DISCLAIMER: Does not stop the runs.
A related issue, but on way I improved my life in 2008. I made a New Years resolution to stop recycling. I no longer sort my cans, haul them to the recycling outpost, and get frustrated that it’s closed or full or the attendant has a crappy attitude. I no longer have a giant extra trash can in my garage. I no longer have to lift it into my truck, waste 30 minutes every month. It has worked out great, and I feel better for it.
The disturbing thing about the left wing environmental movement, not the desire to protect the environment, is that it seems like a weird socialist movement dedicated to banning commerce in as many instances as possible. The environment is just the middle man in this socialist scheme. They use it to subjugate and bash anyone that doesnt agree with their anti commerce rants.
So instead of these people saying, “Gee I think plastic bottles are bad for the environment, lets create a more eco friendly storage vessel that allows people to have market produced water that isnt so harmful to the environment.
Of course we dont get that. We get the usual socialist witch hunt, more calls for boycotts, laws, and bans. Is it not oddly Orwellian esque newspeak that a political group called progressive is hyper obsessed with banning things? STRANGE TIMES!!
36% of all shootings are SBC? WTF?
“36% of all shootings are SBC?”
They asked the cop, a witness, and the shooting survivor and averaged the answers.
The campus ban seems a little heavy handed. Much better to remind people that, say, a bottle of Dasani water costs $1. If a student buys a bottle everyday, that’s $30 per month. A bottle of beer also costs about $1 if you buy in bulk so…
The OMB director’s father, Stephen A. Orszag, has been an important contributor to mathematical and computational study of fluid dynamics, particularly turbulence. If the son has half the father’s ability, he should do fine in his job.
If we actually are making tap water good enough to drink straight, then we are paying too much to process the water.
Sorry. This is a wildly broad and unconvincing assertion. Maybe you have an argument to back it up, but it seems doubtful to me. What does it cost, on a per household basis, to take water that is good enough for non-drinking use and make it potable? And what standard are you applying to determine the appropriate level of treatment and purity of water supplies?
You’d support a boycott calling to pointlessly restrict personal freedom? Figures.
“And moreover, it says, peoples’ experiences have shown that insurance does not guarantee access to care. The Boston Globe chronicled the long wait for primary care last September.”
And I’m sure single-payer will have absolutely no waits for care!
By the way, private insurance IVF coverage is mandated by law in Arkansas, Hawaii, Illinois, Mass., Montana, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, and WV. The UK NHS covers up to three IVF cycles for women 23-39, but local PCTs have additional criteria, for example not provide funding for couples where one partner already has a child, or for women over 36. Wait times for UK NHS IVF treatment varies from weeks to years.
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