benjaminobscene.com

i was finally able to sit down and watch heavy metal in baghdad the other day. i’ve been following the development of this documentary for the last few years and was just blown away by the full length film. the ideas and perceptions that you’re exposed to in this film remind me of the real meaning behind obscene. watch it.

re-watched the video from the second all city hustle. for those who don’t spend all night on blogs, it’s a team race across LA. first team to the beach wins.

stay in college forever. work is for assholes.

or boy that is… i’m now back in the philadelphia area! new designs and product soon?

one more week of living on hoth.

i never thought i’d say this but enough with the snow already.

From PharmExec’s October interview with Tommy Thompson, former Secretary of Health and Human Services: full story here

“Next you have to take a look at where the money is being spent. It turns out that 75 to 80 percent of what we spend is for chronic illnesses. And most chronic illnesses are behavioral—meaning that you or I have some control over them. So we have to figure out a way to do wellness and prevention. For instance, we should be selling insurance to keep you from getting sick instead of insurance to pay for you after you get sick.

One of the big drivers is tobacco. It costs us $150 billion in healthcare costs—442,000 Americans died last year from tobacco-related illness. We have to look at ways to encourage smoking cessation in America.

There’s enormous opposition to things like regulation of tobacco by FDA.

We should regulate it, without a doubt. Why not? Why should we allow a company to put out a product that kills 442,000 people each year and costs you and me $150 billion?

What about the politics?

The politics are going to be rough, but I’m telling you what has to be done. Healthcare is going broke. It cost us $2.4 trillion this year, and it’s going to grow to $4.6 trillion by 2015. It’s growing at the rate of 9 to 10 percent a year. We have to cut that to 4 to 5 percent—the rate of inflation—to maintain a healthcare system that allows us to be economically competitive.

Next comes diabetes. Last year, 18 million Americans had Type 2 diabetes. This year, 24 million. It costs us $135 billion a year. There are 41 million more Americans who are prediabetic. And an exhaustive study by the National Institutes of Health has found that if we lost 5 to 10 percent of our body weight and walked 30 minutes a day, we could reduce the incidence of Type 2 diabetes by 60 percent.

Another fact that most people don’t know is that 30 percent of the individuals going into Medicare this year are Type 2 diabetic, and 50 percent of them don’t know they are. Can you imagine how much we could save Medicare if we put the emphasis on preliminary physicals before going into Medicare and get them started getting treatment.

Then there’s obesity. We have to recognize that in this country, we’re causing it with our high fat concentrates and food consumption. Twenty-five to 30 percent of our children are overweight or obese, and we have to do something about that. This is going to be a huge emphasis next year in Congress.”

today was opening day for the mountains here in the midwest. this cozy little spot is just a half hour away. and yes this picture is from the peak.