Nanny state

Here's a plug for the U.S. Department of Transportation, which is trying to get you -- and you know who you are -- to stop talking on the @#$%^& telephone while you are driving. You wanna kill yourself? Fine. You wanna kill me? Not fine. You got kids in the car? You're a schmuck.

Every single day I encounter these morons with the phone plastered to the right ear, driving with the left hand, and not noticing what the hell is going on around them. The rest of us drivers are doing our best to stay as far away from them as we can, because they obviously don't see us. Every time I walk through downtown Providence, I have to stop at an intersection because there's an idiot driving through it talking on the phone who does not see me. Almost half a million people are injured in the U.S. every year as a result of this totally irresponsible, inexcusable, stupid behavior.

While we're on the subject of public health, one third of the people in Appalachia have diabetes. This Salon article by Frank Browning highlights how difficult it is to get people to change behavior, particularly when it's deeply culturally embedded. But this is an emergency.