According to Andrew Grossman, of The Wall Street Journal on-line via Drudge: “The Bloomberg administration filed plans Tuesday to appeal a judge's decision to strike down a ban on the sale of large sugary drinks in New York, setting up what is likely to be a lengthy legal fight that could outlast the mayor's term in office and affect the balance of power at City Hall.”
After the ruling, Mayor Bloomberg visited a restaurant and said, "In the end, our customers that live longer are going to be happier customers, and they're certainly going to be with us a lot longer.”
On the other side, Matthew Geller, who represents a group of theater owners who challenged the ban said "This decision is not about soda, nor about obesity. It is about power. The decision illustrates that the mayor and the Department of Health exceeded their authority as the legislative branch, and violated the separation of powers."
Now, as for me, I think the mayor’s absolutely and unequivocally wrong in taking up this issue to begin with, and moving on to an appeal is such an incredible waste of time and funds it’s absolutely incomprehensible. However, the attorney for the other side came close but missed the basic point himself.
The way I see this issue, if there even is one, is that it stems from behavioral patterns in people’s lives that can’t simply be changed by laws at all. Because obesity isn’t caused or continued by the size of a soda container, it goes much deeper than that. And the only thing this dumb legislation will do is force sugar-craving addicts to either buy more smaller drinks or ingest the calories some other way.
So, if the mayor really wants to cure obesity, let him donate his billions for shrinks who can then go out and seek the individual causes of excessive sugar ingestion within the population whereas it’s highly likely that personal root causes are quite specific to each and every one who overindulges.
However, that likely won’t happen because that solution makes too much sense. But worse than that, it might actually do some good which is the absolute reverse of what.politicians of every stripe are known for. And heaven knows, they can't let something good ruin their reputations as card-carrying, headline seeking, worthless dolts.
That’s it for today folks.
Adios
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