For all of you who reside in the US and are just in love with all of these taxpayer subsidized programs that President Barry is enacting, you'd better slow down and check yourselves just to double check to think about whether they're really a good idea or not. After all, when people start to just be handed things without any effort on their part, they become a people that I don't think having an entire country full of would be of any great benefit. I don't even think it would be of any small benefit. The only benefit I see coming out of President Barry's social programs is that the programs will give us plenty of examples of what not to do in the future should the notion ever come up again that some people should be handed everything in their lives. It doesn't end well. Just take a gander over at the UK there to see what I'm talking about.For instance, let's look at a one 25-year old Laura Ripley who lives somewhere in the UK. According to the Daily Mail, Ms. Ripley is unemployed and overweight. The unemployed moniker is probably a stretch though, as she has never worked in her quarter of a century on this planet. And the overweight moniker could be worse, as she used to weigh 38 stone (one stone = 14 pounds. I don't know why they go with "stone". Probably because they use "pound" for their currency and would be getting the two different pounds mixed up all of the time.) and now she weighs a mere 22 stone. I'll do the math for you so that you can be shocked that she used to weigh a whopping 532 pounds and now is down to a comparatively speaking svelte 308 pounds. Still a large gal, yes. See for yourself. Behold! 
Definitely tough to knock over. But I digress. Anyway, she is, of course, on the British version of welfare because she's (wait for it) too fat to work. Well, she was too fat to work...until the British government paid for gastric band surgery and she lost 224 pounds! Fabulous! Now she can work, right? Not so fast. See, part of the money that she was receiving from the government was disability money because she's what? Too fat to work, that is correct. But when you drop off 224 pounds and you end up weighing only 308, you're still linebacker material, no getting around that fact, but you're not the entire defensive line anymore, so I'd call that progress! And so does the British government. And it's just the kind of progress that they were hoping for when they were the ones that footed the bill for her gastric bypass surgery! (That's quite a system you've got going over there, Britain. Quite a system indeed.) Here's why they offered it to her. Behold!
Because of all of the weight losing, Ms. Ripley no longer gets the money that she used to
receive for being what? Too fat to work, that's right! And she is now...what? Bitching about it, correct! Because when fat, one receives £600 a month in benefits, but when one gets rid of some fat then they lose about £340 a month. (Now here's where the British pound comes in. Again, different from the US pound and when converted we learn she was receiving $984.78 a month in benefits and is no longer eligible for the $558.02 of "too fat to work money". (I'm paraphrasing there, of course. I don't think that's really what they call it. It'd be a good name for it if they needed one, though.)
receive for being what? Too fat to work, that's right! And she is now...what? Bitching about it, correct! Because when fat, one receives £600 a month in benefits, but when one gets rid of some fat then they lose about £340 a month. (Now here's where the British pound comes in. Again, different from the US pound and when converted we learn she was receiving $984.78 a month in benefits and is no longer eligible for the $558.02 of "too fat to work money". (I'm paraphrasing there, of course. I don't think that's really what they call it. It'd be a good name for it if they needed one, though.) Now that loss of free and effortless income really is tough for some people. I 
think that the degree of entitlement is directly proportional to the degree of irrationality of the complaint of the hardship. Both of those factors are in direct proportion to how much other people cannot stand this sort of person. According to Ms. Ripley, "'Without my disability allowance I'm left with just £210 ($344.67) incapacity benefit which I get because of my depression, and £100 ($164.13) income support I receive every two weeks and out of that I have to give them back £70 ($114.89) towards the cost of the £500-a-month ($820.65) flat I'm living in." Seriously, does she say this with a straight face?
think that the degree of entitlement is directly proportional to the degree of irrationality of the complaint of the hardship. Both of those factors are in direct proportion to how much other people cannot stand this sort of person. According to Ms. Ripley, "'Without my disability allowance I'm left with just £210 ($344.67) incapacity benefit which I get because of my depression, and £100 ($164.13) income support I receive every two weeks and out of that I have to give them back £70 ($114.89) towards the cost of the £500-a-month ($820.65) flat I'm living in." Seriously, does she say this with a straight face? 
Listen up, buttercup. You're paying 14% of what your rent actually is, yet living in 100% of the flat. And even though you're paying that 14%, technically you're not even doing that because you're not working and that money is being given to you by your government! You're 25 years old there, honeybabe, and you've never worked a day in your life? And you're complaining about this arrangement? Is this ALL you're complaining about? Sadly, no. See, now that she doesn't get as much free fat money, "This means she cannot afford to eat healthily - causing her to pile the weight back on." Wait. What? Can't afford it? What does she do? Glad you asked! "'I can't afford to buy Weight Watchers crisps and cereal bars any more so I eat Tesco's chocolate bars and packets of Space Invaders crisps, sometimes four of each a day', says Laura, who spends seven hours a day watching TV." Oh. My. God.
No! No! Hold that thought! There's more! See, before when she was getting the Funds for Fatties, that "...was spent on gym workouts, healthy food and having her hair highlighted." Because having highlighted hair really slims a person down, is that it? I don't think it is! See, this is what happens when people spend other people's money. They don't CARE what they spend it on because it's not theirs and they didn't have to EARN it. And they can always make justifications for why they do what they do with money that they don't have to earn. Sort of like how she explains her food choices by saying "'People ask why I don't snack on an apple - they're cheap, but emotionally I don't always feel like an apple." Um, what now?
That's why she eats crap. It's not that she can't pay for it, it's that she doesn't want to. Essentially, she's throwing a tantrum because her Funds for Fatties were discontinued. Oh, sure, she could go and get a job, but she's holding off on that because she'd like to get a tummy tuck-like operation "which would normally cost £12,000, to remove the saggy skin left behind after the dramatic weight loss, but only if she sheds a further five stone." Well, clearly, that isn't going to happen if she's all out of free money! Five stone..what is that? Seventy pounds? She just gained fourteen pounds over the past three weeks! I don't think that five stone is going to just melt off of her! But that's why she's not looking for a job to supplement her income. Hold on. What?
Right. She's not looking for a job. Even though she's been deemed "fit to work" (and really, you'd have to be Manuel Uribe, the World's
Fattest Man, at the very least in order to actually be too fat to work) and she needs the money, she's not looking because "'I'm not even applying for work at the moment because I'm only going to have to have lots of time off when I have more surgery." But you're not having any surgery until you lose another seventy pounds there, Einstein! Even if you lost a miraculous 5 pounds a week, that's fourteen weeks you're going to have until they can get you all tucked in again. MINIMUM fourteen weeks, but that's totally unrealistic, so it would be at least double that, I'm guessing. Still, that's 28 weeks. Can a person drop 70 pounds in about 7 months? Maybe, but not eating chocolate bars and chips all the live long day they can't.
Fattest Man, at the very least in order to actually be too fat to work) and she needs the money, she's not looking because "'I'm not even applying for work at the moment because I'm only going to have to have lots of time off when I have more surgery." But you're not having any surgery until you lose another seventy pounds there, Einstein! Even if you lost a miraculous 5 pounds a week, that's fourteen weeks you're going to have until they can get you all tucked in again. MINIMUM fourteen weeks, but that's totally unrealistic, so it would be at least double that, I'm guessing. Still, that's 28 weeks. Can a person drop 70 pounds in about 7 months? Maybe, but not eating chocolate bars and chips all the live long day they can't. But here's the best part. Here is where I completely twisted off. It's not like she's happy with this situation. No, it saddens her, as evidenced by this statement: 'It's heartbreaking that after all my hard work losing this weight someone's come along and ruined it."
Sooooooooo....by someone do you mean you?! You're the only one doing the eatin' over ther
e! You're the only one watching seven hours of TV a day. (My God, seven hours? I'd shoot myself first.) You're the one not exercising and eating crap. If that's what you mean, then, yes, it is a shame that someone decided to choose to sabotage all of the work that had been done up until this point. See, if you had paid for that gastric bypass yourself, you would have felt like you made some sort of an investment in the whole deal. After all, if you're spending that kind of money on something, you wouldn't want it to be for nothing or to go to waste because you ballooned up like it was Super Bowl time and someone ordered up the Goodyear Blimp. But hey! You didn't spend the money, so what do you care if you end up as big as a house again? Not a bit. Nope. Don't care a bit.
e! You're the only one watching seven hours of TV a day. (My God, seven hours? I'd shoot myself first.) You're the one not exercising and eating crap. If that's what you mean, then, yes, it is a shame that someone decided to choose to sabotage all of the work that had been done up until this point. See, if you had paid for that gastric bypass yourself, you would have felt like you made some sort of an investment in the whole deal. After all, if you're spending that kind of money on something, you wouldn't want it to be for nothing or to go to waste because you ballooned up like it was Super Bowl time and someone ordered up the Goodyear Blimp. But hey! You didn't spend the money, so what do you care if you end up as big as a house again? Not a bit. Nope. Don't care a bit. Her parting plea for more free money really summed up how this woman looks at the world and what she feels that it is obligated to give to her. "I sometimes feel guilty about all the taxpayers' money that's been spent on me but I only want an extra £100 a month, that's all." I don't think that's guilt you're feeling. I think those are hunger pains. Oh, wait a minute. No they're not! Never mind, scratch that. But it still isn't guilt that you're feeling there, cupcake. (Mmmmm...cupcakes.)
That "extra £100 a month" that you want is (and pay attention here) SOMEONE ELSE'S MONEY! Someone else had to get up and go to work all day, every day whilst you sat at home in your flat which is heavily subsidized (sort of like you are!) and watched TV! Tell you what...you go out and find someone who works a full time job and then explain to them that you don't want to work but you do want them to give you £100 a month from their paycheck and see how well that goes over.
Talk about a 'Fail Whale'. 
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