Here’s a Sin Tax for You.

Diabetes can be, if not reversed, managed well with a limited grain or no-grain, no-sugar diet (rich in lean protein, some fruits, and vegetables), no alcohol, and the avoidance of artificial sweeteners. Even caffeine and chocolate in small amounts provide helpful antioxidants for diabetics. Artificial sweeteners, however, tamper with the body's satiety mechanism, often causing people to eat more and gain weight, neither of which are helpful with diabetes. Diabetics need to eat small, frequent meals that are mostly protein and vegetable based. Diabetics would also be served well to be tested for a low thyroid, which may be preventing them from losing the weight that could help them manage their diabetes more effectively. And diabetics should be tested for celiac as well, to see if celiac is causing some of the nutritional deficiencies that are causing the body to hold on stubbornly to every calorie, even when those calories have little nutritive value. Pharmaceuticals and genetically modified foods, artificial sweeteners, toxic food colorings, HFCS, cigarettes, and alcohol cause more health problems than certain substances that are illegal. One of the great, twisted successes of the extravagantly wasteful and destructive War on Drugs is to get people fearful of the wrong drugs-- and accepting of Genetically Modified Corn (and almost all corn in the US is unlabeled and genetically modified) and aspartame (which is, by the way, also a genetically modified product). Meanwhile, marijuana, helpful in cancer, anorexia, and glaucoma, as well as many other diseases, has never killed anyone, is impossible to overdose on, and is illegal. We've let the terrorists win: they're in the FDA and they were in the Reagan and Bush Administrations. Donald Rumsfeld used his clout to get aspartame to market and put into everything even though nearly every non-company-sponsored study proved it caused brain cancer in mice. Do you still think the War on Drugs is of pure motives? Do you still think the FDA has your interests at heart?

I’m One of “Them,” But I Pay Taxes.

By Becky J. Swift There's a dangerous type of thinking floating around. The idea that if "they" stopped leaching off "the system," there would be less unemployment. The idea that people choose to remain unemployed while collecting checks that pay half or less than half of what they need to cover their daily expenses--so why …