Okay, a “meteoric rise” is not trying to say that meteors rise, and you are rising like a meteor rises. It is saying that meteors travel fast, and you are rising as fast as a meteor travels.
When I said “secondary health effects”, I meant “your smoking causes health effects in me”, i.e. second hand smoke. There are no second hand calories. Drugs and alcohol are legally controlled for the ways they affect others. DWI laws and possession/control laws, laws on sales of alcohol, laws on closing time for bars. I can’t get drunk because you guzzled a fifth of Jim Beam. I could get run over if you get behind the wheel, so we make drunk driving a serious criminal offense.
Yes, you giving me cancer, you being unable to quit even if you want to, you smelling bad. Okay, that last is not as good a reason.
The more this comes to light, the more attention it is getting. We haven’t reached critical mass on this topic yet, but things like the New York City restrictions on soda size sales show that there is an undercurrent regarding this topic.
Well you obviously like buying those, so here’s another to buy. Okay, that really only makes sense for consumables (you like Charmin? Here’s a good deal on Charmin) rather than fixed goods (You like that toaster? Why not buy another?).
Dust is made up mostly of skin cells and dust mites in places frequented by people. In abandoned buildings dust is made up of small pieces of dirt and is carried in by air currents. In used places this dust would be cleaned, but over time in abandoned places it can accumulate.
As mentioned earlier when glasses were first invented they were unfashionable, so people used monocles. Grinding lenses was still very expensive and so only rich people could afford them. Furthermore, nearsightedness is most commonly caused by exposure to artificial light. Before electricity artificial light was expensive and only used for short periods at night. So only rich people could afford artificial light and need correction.
Cigarette smoking does not cost taxpayers money, it saves taxpayers money because smokers don’t live long enough to cost Medicaid as much money as non-smokers. Smokers have never been a majority and smoking rates have been falling for seven decades. So policies that affect smokers only affect a minority of voters and those who smoke are more likely to be poor and not vote. So passing anti-smoking laws is politically easy. Conversely 60% of adults drink and only 25% have never drank. So it is harder to pass anti drinking laws. Likewise everybody eats and most people eat fatty foods so it is harder to pass anti junk food laws.
According to the American Optometric Association, simple nearsightedness (“myopia”) is caused by “Both genetic and environmental factors, particularly significant amounts of near work” (Optometric Clinical Practice Guideline: Care of the patient with myopia. 1997). Poor tailors cold be expected to develop myopia just as often as rich diamond merchants. They just couldn’t afford expensive luxuries like a monocle…
I don’t have any stats to back this up, but didn’t people discover the harmful effects of smoking about thirty or forty years ago? And weren’t there a lot more smokers thirty or forty years ago?
Conversely, while we’ve known the ill effects of being obese for a while, didn’t the obesity epidemic happen pretty recently (say, twenty years ago)? And while the government may continue efforts to reduce tobacco use, I’ve seen a lot more new programs and legislation aimed at reducing obesity rather than reducing tobacco use.
I don’t know how the current breakdown is, how much is spent on reduction of tobacco use versus how much is spent on reducing instances of obesity, but if most of the dollars go towards the former, it’s probably because the efforts to reduce tobacco usage have been going on a lot longer and the programs are already in place, so continuing to fund them is relatively simple.
My prediction is that if you give it another twenty years, the government will be spending far more money on efforts to reduce obesity than they will on reducing tobacco use.
Why is it bad, and against the rules in some places, for doctors to have an intimate relationship with their patient? If a doctor loves you or wants to fuck you, shouldn’t that make him give you better care? Same with teachers and students (between adults in college). So what if a teacher and student are dating? Isn’t dating, pairing up, marriage, etc. a good thing? Who wouldn’t teach well to someone they’re boning?
Why are stars often drawn with 5 points?
Why is it illegal to pump your own gas in New Jersey?
I can’t speak to the doctor/patient thing, but the issue with student/teacher relationships is twofold: First, there’s a concern that the teacher (being in a position of authority) would have undue influence in the relationship, which could be harmful to the student. Second, there is the problem (even if it’s only perceived, rather than actual) of favoritism - the student might have undue influence in the classroom, and it’s harmful to the classroom environment if the other students think one of their peers is getting preferential treatment (because they’re screwing the professor).
It’s basically the same reasons that being in a relationship with your boss is typically a bad idea.
The only ones I know are mental health care workers, i.e. therapists. The idea is that it is really hard to get help from the person involved in causing your stress. That, and therapists have to have a very intimate emotional and psychological relationship. That is inherent to trusting someone to poke around in your brain. That makes the patient susceptible to the therapist’s influence and control. It’s an out of balance power dynamic.
It’s all about power dynamics. Either the student is taking advantage of the system (“I’ll give you a blow job if you’ll give me good grades”) or the teacher is taking advantage of the student (“I’ll give you good grades if you’ll give me a blow job”). Not saying that’s always the case, but far too often it is. Easier to set up expectations that it is inappropriate.
Down is universally defined as “towards the bottom of the earth”.
Proof of this is found by following any continent to it’s end, which is also the edge of the earth. Carefully get down on your hands and knees (don’t want to fall off) and peek underneath.
You will see the giant tortoise upon which rides the earth.
Occaisionally, you will only see a large drop to another level. This, of course, is a continental shelf. Just follow it to the edge and repeat.
Catholicism never really “defined” meat. It just prohibited eating the flesh of warm-blooded animals during Lent (now reduced to Lenten Fridays, along with Ash Wednesday and Good Friday). This was done as a sign of Jesus’ death on the cross on Friday. The (albeit sometimes really silly-sounding) exceptions were often made in recognition of how hard it was for people to survive without meat in other times/circumstances.
So, the story about how it was designed to give a break to the fishing industry at about the time ma,mal meat and poultry became more readily available in the Common Man’s diet is a bunch of hooey?
Here’s one. A man who knows his waist and inseam measurements can walk into a clothing store and find a pair of pants labeled to fit him. A woman who knows her waist and inseam measurements cannot. Why do no manufacturers of pants for women believe that such a convenience would appeal to enough women to make it very lucrative to offer it?
Its more fundamental than that. In Latin, the word for “meat” simply doesn’t include fish. Church law is written in Latin, and the law only required abstaining from “meat”, thus allowing fish to be consumed on Fridays.
Men have a very loose concept of “fitting correctly”. I know, because for a while I had difficulty finding pants that fit comfortably. Either the waist was too tight, or the crotch hung too low and chafed. To get the crotch in the right place, I had to hike the waist up to my belly button. (I solved that dilemma by gaining weight.)
Women often pay a lot more attention to the look and style of fit. “Is the neckline here or there, is the hemline here or there, how snug in the hips, where is the cut at the waist?” Those are question most men wouldn’t think to ask. “Does it go around me, do they look like highwaters, am I tripping over the legs?” Those are questions men ask.
Actually, men’s fashion is changing a bit. You can now find trousers in skinny, thin, regular, and relaxed. That makes a difference in comfort and fit. “Rise” in jeans is starting to get more attention. That’s where the waist fits compared to the crotch.
I take your point, but the adoption of different “grades” of “fit” has not led to abandonment of the waist-and-inseam rubric for adequacy. If the two axes of sizing paradigms can be integrated for men’s pants, I see no reason why the technique can’t be successfully applied to women’s pants
RE: doctors and patients, there is a lesser but still present imbalance of power given the trust/respect that patients have, or used to have, for doctors. The patient is also in a position of vulnerability going to their doctor. Finally, many doctors do not treat their family members for anything complicated, even if it’s in their field of expertise - emotions can make it hard to view a case objectively and with a clear head.
