The problem here isn't whether they are fat or not, the problem here is that they have readily accepted a learned helplessness. They have internalized the general idea that fat people are worthless, fat people can't complete basic physical tasks, etc, and they are living it out. How defeated in life do you have to be to stop earning your own keep and accept that you are as worthless as the world treats you? If you live somewhere where you can't get hired for a proper job, them yeah, being on the dole is probably easier and less demoralizing than taking a low-status, grueling job. But them being obese is not caused by their "laziness" - they've given up on living because they aren't respected.

These types of stories always come up in a recession to help bolster conservative arguments that people on welfare are fat, lazy, ungrateful, swindling the gov't, etc. It's a huge myth akin to the US "welfare mom" who is tricking the gov't into cash she "didn't earn". The truth is that the safety net most people have available to them IS small and limited, and in order to get it they have to roll over and become as helpless and dependent on the gov't as possible. It's not perfect, but using these types of examples to somehow prove that welfare programs should be cut is ridiculous.

I think it's a pretty terrible idea to encourage public shaming of people as a means of weight loss. There's nothing "neat" about this story. I also read somewhere that human cargo only accounts for a tiny percentage of an aircraft's weight...for example, if there were more children or models on the plane, it would account for their extra pounds.

Yeah I bet they wasted a lot of money paying to take all those "Whites Only" signs down from bathrooms, drinking fountains and lunch counters, too. Stupid PC bastards! I mean, once they changed the law it didn't matter that the signs were still there, right? And I bet a lot of places remained white only anyway, right? Poor taxpayer dollars at waste, I tell ya. Remember when gay used to be our word? Remember when women couldn't vote?

Being fat /= being Republican. People make enough associations (mainly negative) about fat, let's try not to add political leanings to the list.

Also: what teqjack said.

"Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" is a holiday standard, which graces practically every Christmas concert or album. I hear it in the grocery store or the mall at least a dozen times leading up to the big day.

A very interesting fact about this song - the original lyrics are incredibly depressing. It's from the musical film classic Meet Me in St. Louis, and the song comes at a point when Judy Garland's character is sad that her family is moving, leaving everything she knows and loves behind. The song originally reflected this fact, and was not a happy, nostalgic song, but more a lament. Her life is changing and she's incredibly depressed about it. The classic lyrics ORIGINALLY went, "Have yourself a merry little Christmas/It may be your last...Faithful friends who were dear to us/Will be near to us no more."

They changed this line, and a few others, at the request of Judy Garland herself, who felt it was too dark for a holiday song (which the character is singing to her very small younger sister, played by Margaret O'Brian).

(Wiki article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_Yourself_a_Merry_Little_Christmas)

I struck up a friendship with the guy who ran karaoke night at a local pub a few years back. Since most of the pop songs people were singing were ~3 mins long, he never really got a chance to take much of a break. Whenever he was dying to take a step outside and clear his head, or go run and grab a bite to eat, he'd set my friends and me up with what he called "the longest set" - American Pie by Don McLean and Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. By the time we'd finish our set he would have had time for a bathroom break, a cigarette and a sandwich. We just liked being on stage in a big group absolutely butchering these LONG LONG songs. I can't say the folks at the bar loved us too much for it, but it was certainly fun.

Viral marketing for the new Harry Potter film/book is my first bet. Looks a lot like young Mr. Potter flying to a quidditch match...gotta get the Spanish-speaking market!

This is a very timely link for me - over the holidays two different sets of relatives told me how houses a few doors away from them turned out to be grow houses...and they were the ones who figured it out. Like the freaking Bloodhound Gang! It made me rethink the whole idea of "neighborhood watch," which used to creep me out a lot (maybe because I was such a bad kid, lol).