http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/200...0820?hub=CTVNewsAt11

You're supposed to be a first-class dummy if you think you can catch AIDS from a toilet seat, but you're an "enlightened progressive" if you think you can catch the "fat virus" from hanging out with your chubby friend.

What a political conundrum we find ourselves in.

I'm continually fascinated by this. Adults with the best educations and intellects in the world find themselves with some research money, then get busy acting like children or superstitious primitives and share it with the rest of us.

What's funniest of all is that these very same people usually accuse others of acting in such a way. They're very intelligent people, but they seem to lack perspective, imagination or any sense of being self-conscious. They scored high on the SAT and could whip your ass on "Jeopardy!" but seem to be caught in a traffic jam in Stupidtown when it comes to anything that the nearest window washer could believe.

So, "the obesity virus" that causes what the article refers to as "infectobesity" has finally been discovered. I'm sure that Louis Pasteur and Isaac Newton are just green with envy.

Does anyone find this counterintuitive? After all, obesity is supposed to be McDonald's fault, isn't it? Aren't we all mindless slaves of McDonald's Capitalism; so driven crazy by the sight of Grimace and the Hamburgler that we have to run out and buy cheeseburgers that taste worse than what a ten year old could achieve with some ground chuck and a frying pan?

(Ray Kroc himself admitted that anyone could make a better hamburger at home than McDonald's could make for them. McDonald's is in the commercial real estate business, not the great-tasting hamburger business.)

To be honest, I don't find this "obesity-virus" counterintuitive at all.

In the early 90's there were alot of new Politically Correct labels being thrown around. Blacks became African-Americans (whether they were of recent African descent or not, mind you), Puerto Ricans became Latino-Americans. The mentally retarded became mentally challenged.

Fair enough, really. People deserve to be called what they wish, I think. If you want to be called Paul and I call you Harry, you're right to straighten me out.

I noticed that a group was missing from all of this, though, and it wasn't because they didn't have their own special interest groups. This group has been shown many times to be discriminated against, and it is still easy to prove today. Somehow, though, the Far Left ignored them, even at a time when the Far Left was as busy puffing away at a cigarette as anyone else was.

This group, was, of course, the obese.

At the time, I was thin enough to squeeze out of my 31 waist pants without unbuttoning them, but I remembered very well those people around me who were obese and intensely aware of it, and these weren't people who fit into some modern definition of obesity based on some public health organization's rigged scale. These people were FAT and they knew it. I couldn't help but wonder how they felt when every little faction seemed to be getting together to take up the bullhorn for somebody else, when they always found themselves completely out of the picture.

I was quite naive at the time. Now, much wiser (and with a wider waistline), I realize why this particular group, many of whom would have been chomping at the bit for some social respect, went unnoticed. Obesity was a symptom of Capitalism and America, but the people who considered themselves to be "politically active" at the time didn't know this at the time. They simply didn't notice them because the Far Left conveniently left the oppressed-feeling obese out of the equation and never put such people in their crosshairs, even if some of those people would have liked it at the time.

(This is not to say that obese people felt oppressed at the time, though they undoubtedly were discriminated against, and still are. I don't even think that most obese people notice or care, but some certainly do.)

In 2007, this all makes sense to me.

Obesity is now some kind of transmittable disease. If the notion that obesity is socially transmittable doesn't seem far-fetched enough, well here are some guys in ties and labcoats who believe that obesity is transmitted via a virus. It's contagious, so you better stay away from those fatties!

This is a primitive idea that has a very powerful effect on people because it is so ingrained into them by nature. The wide acceptance of now "commonsense" notions regarding secondhand smoke tap into the same instincts. They're instincts of fear and these instincts helped protect us from the very real threat of infection in the past.

In American Society today, despite what Far Left interests would like you to think, the greatest risk of infection to most of us is the common cold. The rest just makes good television.

This is the "germ theory" approach to science, as if anything in our society that political special interests dislike can be attributed to some kind of contagious virus, despite the worst threats of contagious virus being conquered before the mid-twentieth century. This is why the average American lifespan was 47 in 1900, 68 in 1950, and 78 today.

Don't you see? It's science. You don't? What are you? Against science? Well, how dare you show these educated professionals such a lack of respect by pointing out a discrepancy an eight year old would notice.

Not to mention, you can sell anti-obesity drugs much easier if there's an "obesity virus".

15 years ago, Leftist political interests decided to forgo the fatties at a time when they seemed ripe for the political picking. It was a mystery to me then, but, now, I know why. These interests, in reality, don't care about any group of people. Rather, these people are simply being swept up by a political force much larger than themselves that simply changed form at the end of The Cold War.

You can't kill patterns of thought by knocking down a wall across the ocean anymore than you can stop electricity by shooting Thomas Edison, or destory the theory of relativity by strangling a young Einstein. Once the thought-cat is out of the bag, it's out.

15 years ago, the politically active Leftists didn't have obesity on their radar. There wasn't a conspiracy. Rather, systems of thought have a powerful way of moving themselves along.

The system of thought I'm speaking of is, of course, Communism, and it doesn't care what it's called as long as it gets its way...

...and it's been hating your fat, American ass for at least 150 years.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: WinstonSmith,

The system of thought I'm speaking of is, of course, Communism, and it doesn't care what it's called as long as it gets its way...

...and it's been hating your fat, American ass for at least 150 years.[/QUOTE]

Winston! that last line is the BEST line I've heard in years!!! That includes the "americans" that hate their own fat ass and want to blame the productive one for their "problems", and cry "fix me fix me, too!" Cause they're just too lazy to sweep off their own front steps-it's easier to point out someone elses front steps.

Amazing how these things start popping up just as the latest "war on [insert your fave hatred here]" picks up speed.

The real good they could do, and don't, with the dollars wasted on this bullshit is sad.

On the upside, though, IF this catches on, it will really make poor widdle Banzahf's litigation against fast food companies more difficult.

Gee, I guess it's true, there really is a silver lining to every dark cloud.........hehehehehe