In Britishland, there’s a grocery delivery service called OCADO, and just to set this rant up, here’s a customer’s story:
Ocado, the online supermarket, had a suggestion for me recently. I’d got to the point of paying for my weekly groceries when a suggestion popped up on the website page.
‘Swap the products below and you could save 1,216 calories,’ it promised, suggesting I substitute ordinary coconut milk for a reduced-fat version.
It wasn’t the only ‘handy’ tip. I’d need to run for just over two hours, or walk for more than six hours to burn off the calories I’d be consuming should I stick to my original choice, I was reliably informed.
Of course, Ocado isn’t unique. It’s almost impossible to walk down the high street without seeing something suggesting we’re all too fat and need to eat less. Wetherspoons, Pizza Express, Nandos and Wagamama now display calorie counts on their menus.
In May, the Government announced that this scheme would be extended to smaller local restaurants and popular takeaway joints.
And the word “Government” is what triggered me.
Because I think (and I don’t think I’m being overly suspicious here) that with this kind of fucking intrusive software, it’s only a question of time before the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) incorporates snooping software into your household purchases and as with All Things Government, what starts off as a “guideline” somehow always seems to end up “compulsory”.
We all know that Corporate America is only too ready to lick the hands that enslave others, so if HHS (or the poxy CDC — talk about mission creep) decides, For Our Own Good (of course), that we should be hectored into reducing this or that in our diets; or that (even better) we should be prevented from buying doubleplusungood products (e.g. cigarettes, booze or Hostess Twinkies) — why, it would be A Good Thing.
Just not for us. But Visa/MasterCard/Amex/Shylock Inc. would be glad to oblige the Gummint, lest said Gummint do things with laws that take chunks out of the banks’ bottom line.
I’m not ready for that Big Brother shit, and I suspect I’m not alone in this.
And by the way, when I wrote Prime Target in 2012, I tried to imagine the most outrageous, far-fetched and outlandish government-run data mining scenario possible. Less than two years later it was out of date, and the federal alphabet agencies (along with their lickspittles at Google and FaceBook) were strip-mining the most intimate details of people’s lives for their own advantage.
So here’s a little warning to all of these cocksuckers: the minute I see this shit starting in my private affairs, I’ll quit using the service altogether, no matter what the inconvenience may be.
I also need to start stockpiling cash and other kinds of currency against the day. Fuckers.
A few years back my former (for this reason) doctor told all his patients that we had to subscribe to a medical records service, which would store our data and thru which we could contact him with questions or issues. This wonderful service cost “Under $2.50 per week” (it was $9.95 per month, or yes, $120 per year. I HATE when people pull that bullshit of “Under 30 cents a day”, but that’s a rant for another day). He assured me it was “Perfectly secure” to which I replied with the name of a substance used to fertilize gardens (of the equine variety, but bovine would have worked as well).
I understand that my medical data is stored somewhere besides pieces of paper in the doctor’s office. And I realize that, assurances to the contrary, it is NOT perfectly secure. I’ve been in the computer field for nearly 40 years, and I KNOW to a certainty that there’s not a system in the world that can’t be hacked. Shit, a few years back rNas (those little dongles on the keychain with the strings of numbers you use for secure logon) got hacked, so if a company whose PRODUCT is computer security can get hacked anyone can.
I’ll just be damned if I will PAY for the privilege of having my data out there.
A couple years ago I was reading an article written by a world-class power-lifter. His weekly grocery shopping included a few dozen eggs (they’re high in protein, low in calories, loaded with good stuff especially if you’re trying to build muscle, and they’re actually VERY good for you). The cashier said he ought to have his cholesterol checked. He looked at the next person’s stuff on the belt, noted that it contained several boxes of Twinkies and such, and asked if she was going to tell the next person to be checked for diabetes.
Scolds, one and all, may the fleas of a thousand camels infest their crotches and my they die of the drizzling shits.
Mark D
Does the cashier’s employer know she’s practicing medicine without a license?
I was wondering why you decided to use the word: “compulsory”; you’re usually extraordinarily careful with your English, meaning that I was probably missing some nuance.
So I went ahead, spent the time, and examined the difference between “compulsory” and “mandated”. Now I’m more confused than ever.
And yes! We (all of us “Isolationists”) read you very carefully.
you are hereby mandated to voluntarily comply with the compulsary system of government oversight of your free choice of diet.
Here is the simple truth of it all: I am nearly 70 years old, I am overweight, my health is well below where my doctors would want it to be. It is what it is.
More than 60 years ago, I decided I liked food. I eat it every day. I’ve been a smoker, I’ve done drugs, I drive too fast, I’m a big fan of brown liquor, I hate exercise, and I don’t know when to shut up. I’ve told people bigger and meaner than me just exactly what I thought of them and where they could stuff it if they didn’t like it.
For all those years, I’ve done as I pleased, mostly without a care. My choice.
Why?
I NEVER EXPECTED TO LIVED THIS LONG!
Joke’s on me, I guess.
Somebody famous once said: If I knew I was going to live this long I’d have taken better care of myself.
And 20-something athletes did of heart attacks.
If the fan gets fouled, cash and currency will likely be useless. It takes a certain faith in government to trade 2 chickens and a dozen eggs for a piece of paper, and faith in government isn’t too high these days.
We’ll be bartering with gold, jewels, smokes, booze and ammunition, and worse.
My dad told me many interesting – funny – horrible stories about post WW II business methods in a shattered Germany. Ammo stolen from the US Army, or “lost” by American soldiers in the rooms of pretty blondes was in high demand. Indeed, my dad and his associates specialized in finding and repairing tanks lost by American soldiers. Amazingly, they could completely repair a tank into sellable parts overnight with almost no noise.
Your ammo stocks will be very valuable, so you’ve been on the right track for years. Dad’s gone so I can’t ask him what ammo was most valuable.
The ammo that’s the most valuable is what is in most demand. In no particular order, 9mm, 5.56/.223, 7.62/.308 .45ACP would all be good choices, followed by what the popular hunting calibers in your area are. Like 30-30 .243 30-06 etc.
.22LR should go without saying.
I highly recommend Steve Graham’s cookbook “Eat what you want and die like a man”
https://www.amazon.com/Eat-What-You-Want-Like/dp/0806528680
You reach your mid-70’s you are old enough to decide what kind of foods you want to eat without help from meddling dietary, expert, self-serving assholes both government and the next great diet book. Screw’em all and I will eat two eggs and bacon every morning washing that down with plenty of coffee. I do go easy on carbs but I eat some meat for lunch and then more meat, usually grilled, for supper (called dinner outside of Texas). In the evening I have a bit of whiskey or wine to settle my soul and I am thankful for making it through one more day.
If I had to eat a bunch of vegan seeds, roots, nuts and berries with no good beef, pork, lamb, fowl or cheeses and eggs in order to live to be 100 years old I would say no thanks, I will just run out the clock doing what I am doing now.
Your own Mark I plumbing system will tell you what it will and will not accept.
Your body will regulate its own caloric needs if you stop poisoning its caloric regulation system with sugar and carbs. I hope Ancel Keyes is roasting in hell, because his “fat causes heart disease” cult has killed more people than Pol Pot.
Keyes was also the idiot that designed the K-ration. It’s amazing that anyone took him seriously after WWII.
Whenever I read about the .gov, or any busybody, trying to legislate behavior, especially about diet/health, I reflexively mention the following:
https://billstclair.com/DoingFreedom/000623/df.0600.fa.lipidleggin.html – written so far back, it was dismissed as impossible. Now, not so much.
Then there’s https://misc.survivalism.narkive.com/4GJI4Ccq/the-consultant-complete – this one is truly scary, and a crackin’ good read. It made me want a Mosin Nagant(haven’t gotten one yet, but the day’s not over).
Stay safe
“…to burn off the calories…”
=========
In that case I’d just NOT buy the item.
That’s how you change pandering behavior – hit em in the ass pocket.