I Could Also Have Held The Garbanzo Beans

At California Pizza Kitchen on Saturday night, I piously decided on the Mediterranean chopped salad instead of cheese and pepperoni. Then I saw on the menu that my choice (including the optional garbanzo beans) was about 1100 calories, enough to sustain a family of four on a life raft for two days.

The source of this discouraging information? The first lady, who got the requirement into the health care bill. To which I say, "Thanks, Mrs. Obama." I wasn't wild at first about mandatory calorie counts when New York City adopted them a few years ago, because I was afraid it would hurt the industry. But I haven't read any evidence of it. After all, I went ahead and ate the salad.

And while Sarah Palin may take a different view, I don't thinking force-feeding calorie counts puts my basic human freedoms at risk. Information is almost always a good thing. Knowing about that honking fat salad, next time I might: a) Look for healthier or smaller choices on the menu (such as the half-order of the same thing). b) Go to a different restaurant. c) Just get the cheese and pepperoni.

Eat Less

Lose weight. Whoa.

Who's Inciteful Now?

While abroad (do people say that anymore?), I read many references to the logical incoherence of Sarah Palin's post-Jan. 8 defense, but for the record, here's Amy Sullivan's at TIME:

While lashing out at the idea that her "lock and load" rhetoric could contribute to any act of violence, Palin decried "irresponsible statements" and insisted that "each individual is accountable for his [or her] actions." She characterized critics of her as guilty of "a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn." Again, I'm a bit slow here. But let me see if I understand this. Palin's words are obviously just words and could never ever influence anyone's actions. But the words of her critics are irresponsibly provocative and have the power "to incite hatred and violence"?

I think Palin jumped the shark over Thanksgiving 2010, when she went to war on the first lady's anti-obesity campaign. But I've been wrong before, such as when I wrote that candidate Barack Obama's high water mark was his May 2008 speech in Berlin.

Don't Touch Her Baked Alaska

Another liberal Beltway elitist conservative Republican criticizes Sarah Palin, this time for her bizarre criticism of the first lady's anti-obesity campaign. Says Mike Huckabee:

With all due respect to my colleague and friend Sarah Palin, I think she's misunderstood what Michelle Obama is trying to do....Michelle Obama's not trying to tell people what to eat or not trying to force the government's desires on people. She's stating the obvious, that we do have an obesity problem in this country.

I Have One Word For You: Plastics

-- to explain why we're such a chubby people.