Barack Obama Will Regret He Took Ownership of Hurricane Sandy Recovery

The New York Times (Obama Promises Speedy Aid as Storm Takes on Political Weight) described the President  as “eager to project the image of a president responding forcefully to the crisis” as he promised on Wednesday “storm’s victims in New Jersey, New York and elsewhere that federal help is on the way.” He assured them that his administration will “get resources where they’re needed as fast as possible.” If governors and mayors are “getting ‘no’ for an answer somewhere in the federal government, they can call me personally at the White House.” The Times even threw in praise from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie: “The President has been all over this. He deserves great credit.” Christie wisely did not add: “And he gets the blame when things go wrong.”

If Obama were an experienced hurricane survivor like me (hailing from Houston), he would not have said these words. No hurricane works to the benefit of public officials, high or low.

go to forbes.com

Mayor Bloomberg: Big Gulps OK For Women

Epidemics provide fodder for the news media, especially on slow news days. They give politicians a good cause to promote and villains to blame.  We move from one fad epidemic to the next, abandoning old ones to the dustbin of history.  Fear of epidemics that never were can be costly, such as the mad cow epidemic, whose incidence proved no more than the normal background disease level. There are still enough tuna to grace our tables, and the polar bear population seems to be doing just fine.

Obesity is the new fad epidemic. It gives the First Lady a cause to divert attention from the economy, and the Mayor of New York can gain accolades by banning Big Gulps and other offending beverages. Super-thin anchor women can condescendingly narrate stock footage of the same obese woman walking her toy terrier, her beltline jiggling. What is America coming to? American women have let themselves go.

The January 2012 release of the  Prevalence of Obesity in the United States by the Center for Disease Control confirmed suspicions of an obesity epidemic. A closer reading of the report, however, provides a more nuanced picture. The CDC statistics show that from 1999-2000 to the present, obesity rates among women and girls have not increased.  The obesity rates of men have risen. In 1999 men were less obese than women. Now men have caught up. In 1999 boys and girls had the same obesity rates. Now boys are higher.

go to forbes.com