Thursday 01-03-13

They are so spineless on the DC it is stickening.  They are all in denial.  If they were my children they would get corrected.

Obama schedules potentially ‘catastrophic’ debt-ceiling ‘fiscal cliff II’ for February
President Barack Obama scheduled another so-called “fiscal cliff” crisis for February by announcing late Jan. 1 he would refuse to negotiate any curbs on his use of the nation’s maxed-out credit card.
“I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills that they’ve already racked up through the laws that they passed,” he claimed during a late-night appearance on the last-minute resolution to the December 2012 fiscal cliff.
However, the GOP-led Congress wants to use its authority over the nation’s debt ceiling to pressure Obama to shrink future spending, not to repudiate existing debts. (RELATED: House Republicans approve Senate fiscal cliff bill)
Obama is expected to add $3.4 trillion to the national debt by 2017. In his first term, he boosted the national debt by $5.8 trillion, up to $16.4 trillion.
But on Dec. 31, his government hit the $16.4 trillion limit agreed by Congress and Obama in 2011.
Federal officials say they’ll use a series of financial maneuvers to postpone any problems until February. But sometime after that, Obama’s administration won’t be able to borrow more money, and will have to use day-to-day tax revenues to fund the government’s myriad popular and unpopular programs.
Without any negotiations, Washington will be gripped by another fiscal crisis sometime in February, while the GOP and Obama battle for public support and international lenders consider further downgrades to the nation’s credit ratings.
Obama used his brief appearance Jan. 1 to claim that any limits on the government’s ability to borrow funds would be extremely dangerous.

“If Congress refuses to give the United States government the ability to pay [its] bills on time, the consequences for the entire global economy would be catastrophic,” he claimed.
Obama’s refusal to negotiate is partly caused by the GOP’s advantage in any debate over the debt ceiling.
In the 2011 debt-ceiling dispute, the GOP eventually pressured him to accept spending curbs in exchange for an increase to the debt limit up to $16.4 trillion.
Obama has repeatedly complained about that defeat.
On Jan. 1, he complained that “the last time this course of action was threatened, our entire recovery was put at risk. Consumer confidence plunged. Business investment plunged. Growth dropped. We can’t go down that path again.”
The debt is expected to reach almost $20 trillion by 2016 — equivalent to $80,000 for each working-age American — and then climb to almost $23 trillion by 2022.
Current tax revenues are enough to pay roughly 70 percent of federal bills, which include the interest payments on the existing debt.
Obama want to borrow even more money — roughly $850 billion per year — to expand government and operate many additional programs.
These programs include large green-tech subsidies, massive government-run healthcare programs and expensive welfare programs for healthy, working-age people.

GOP legislators say they won’t allow him to borrow more money unless he agrees to reform long-term government spending.
For example, various GOP leaders say Medicare should be reformed to give recipients and providers financial incentives to avoid wasteful medical spending, and fewer payments should be made to the wealthiest retirees.
Other activists say the GOP should end the subsidies and tax breaks enjoyed by Democratic-affiliated groups. These include Hollywood companies, universities and nonprofit groups exempt from many income taxes, investors in taxpayer-funded green-energy companies, and the unions’ lobbyists who are indirectly funded by local government’s tax-free bonds, as well as state tax levies that are now exempted from federal taxes.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/02/obama-schedules-debt-ceiling-fiscal-cliff-ii-for-february/

Good news, for the over weight

Recipe for a long life: overweight people have LOWER death risk

Carrying a few extra pounds 'could protect the heart'

Being overweight can extend life rather than shorten it, according to a major new study that runs counter to widespread medical assumptions and years of warnings about the fatal implications of Britain's expanding waistlines.

It sounds too good to be true, coming at the end of the season of excess, but after one of the largest reviews of research ever conducted, doctors say that carrying a few extra pounds may actually reduce the risk of premature death. Experts have repeatedly warned that obesity would soon exact a greater toll than smoking and the current generation could be the first to die before their parents.
Only yesterday, the Royal College of Physicians called for more to be done to tackle the UK's obesity epidemic, criticising the NHS's "patchy" services and inadequate leadership on the issue. However, the new study shows that people who are modestly overweight have a 6 per cent lower rate of premature death from all causes than people of ideal, "healthy" weight, while even those who are mildly obese have no increased risk. Overweight is defined as a body mass index above 25 but below 30. For a man of 5ft 9in, that is between 12 stone 4lb and 14 stone 6lb, or for a woman of 5ft 6in, it is between 11 stone 3 lb and 13 stone 4lb. Ideal, healthy weight is defined as a BMI between 18.5 and 25.
Mild obesity (those with a BMI between 30 and 34.9) brings a 5 per cent lower premature death rate, according to the study. Although this was not statistically significant, it suggests there is no increased risk of premature death attached to that weight range.
The news will seem heaven sent to those contemplating a new year diet, and contradicts the received wisdom that being fat reduces life expectancy. It is the second time that research studies led by Katherine Flegal, a distinguished epidemiologist from the National Centre for Health Statistics at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Maryland, US, have studied the link between obesity and mortality.
In 2007 the same group caused consternation among public health professionals when they published the results of a similar analysis that also showed being fat does not shorten life. Walter Willett, professor of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health, dismissed the finding as "rubbish".
Dr Flegal told The Independent she had decided to conduct a second, larger, study on the same theme to counter the sceptics. She and her team examined results from 100 studies from around the world, involving three million people and 270,000 deaths.
The results are published in the respected Journal of the American Medical Association, which also published the earlier study. They show only the severely obese, with a body mass index above 35, have a significantly increased mortality, up by 29 per cent. Otherwise, extra weight appears to be protective. Underweight people, meanwhile, have a 10 per cent higher rate of premature death than those of normal size, according to earlier research. "There is already a lot of literature showing that overweight is linked with lower mortality," said Dr Flegal. "It is not an unusual finding. But authors tend to shy away from it. They tend to underplay it or try to explain it away."
There were warnings last night that the research should not be taken to mean that there were no negative health implications associated with being overweight or obese. Tam Fry, spokesman for the UK National Obesity Forum, said: "Katherine Flegal is an extremely good researcher and I would respect her. But I am flabbergasted. The sum total of medical expert opinion cannot have got it so wrong. The consequences of people taking this research and deciding 'let's eat and be merry' will be catastrophic. Mortality [the death rate] is one thing but morbidity [the disease rate] is another. If people read this and decide they are not going to die [from overeating] they may find themselves lifelong dependents on medical treatment for problems affecting the heart, liver, kidney and pancreas – to name only a few."
Dr Flegal herself stressed that findings are not a licence to eat cream cakes. "We were only looking at mortality – not health. We are absolutely not recommending people overeat. We intended our research to give a little perspective – to counter the view that if you weigh a bit less you will live forever or if you weigh more you are doomed. The relationship between fat and mortality is more complicated than we tend to think."
Possible explanations for the findings are that fat – adipose tissue – may protect the heart, carrying a few extra pounds may help individuals withstand periods of illness or hospitalisation when they lose appetite, and the distribution of fat on the body is more important than the amount, with extra on the hips being good while extra on the stomach is thought bad.
It may also be that the health risks of being overweight are declining with advances in medicine. Drug treatments to lower blood pressure and cholesterol have contributed to a dramatic fall in heart disease deaths. Fitness, too, may be more important than fatness. People who are overweight, smoke, eat junk food and take no exercise are heading for an early grave.
A voluptuous history: Fat through the ages
Until abundant food and sedentary lives combined to form mass obesity, plumpness was often coveted, flaunted as an indicator of health and wealth.
To stone-age man, the Venus of Willendorf – a voluptuous sculpture with enormous breasts and a bulbous belly – was worthy of celebration. Today, she would probably be put on an NHS weightloss programme.
Famously, Rubens, the 16th-century Flemish painter, preferred the fuller figure, depicting fleshy, large-bottomed women as the life-giving goddesses of beauty, sexuality and fertility in The Three Graces (1635).
Though portliness could be bad when it demonstrated other vices (cartoonists decided that George IV's extravagance was most easily shown in his girth), generally, the modern-age dislikes fat. The fashion industry sells its garments on skinny models: in 2009, Kate Moss was estimated to have a BMI of 16.
Yet not all societies, even now, accept this. Samoans, Puerto Ricans and Tanzanians still celebrate largeness and six out of 10 black South Africans are clinically obese. Even in Western societies, there are differences. In a survey by Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, white women were found to worry about their weight when their BMI hit 25, black women when it nudged 30.
With obesity straining health services, "fat phobia" is on the rise. A third of US doctors thought obese patients weak-willed, sloppy and lazy. This latest study suggest that we may need to take a broader view.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/recipe-for-a-long-life-overweight-people-have-lower-death-risk-8434743.html