It's For the Children™

Last year, the courts struck down a California law banning the sale of "violent" video games to kids under 17 and fining anybody who sold them the games $1,000. Well, the Nanny lawyers are back at it again, trying to get the ruling overturned:

The Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association, which represents game makers, has claimed that in addition to being unconstitutional, the bill is impractical.

"The same argument has been made again and again throughout the history of the country about books, about movies, about comic books and now about video games," said Jennifer Mercurio, director of government affairs for a national group that represents "America's gamers." "The way this law is drafted comes up against hundreds of years of First Amendment issues."

But Deputy Attorney General Zackery Morazzini, representing the Schwarzenegger administration, argues in a court filiung that the mere ratings don't do enough.

"It defies logic to suggest that our founding fathers intended to adopt a First Amendment that would guarantee children the right to purchase a video game wherein the player is rewarded for interactively causing a character to take out a shovel and bash the head of an image of a human being," he wrote in the court brief.

Invoking the framers of the Constitution in arguing for a law to restrict speech rights? I don't know if this Morazzini guy is a good law-talkin' guy, but the man's got balls.

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The Nanny State Wants You To Speak Cherokee

So much so, they are spending a bunch of money on a helpline with Cherokke speakers. Only problem?

But there is not even one speaker of the Red Indian language in Britain.

Another of the languages made available to callers on the NHS is Laotian – even though official Government figures show only one native of Laos has a current UK work permit.

Previous estimates have put the total cost to taxpayers of providing interpreters for immigrants at £500million a year.

Details of the latest waste were given in a parliamentary answer to Tory Shadow Health Minister Mike Penning.

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You can't have your healthy substitute for pudding if you don't eat your organic fair trade free-range vaguely meat-like soy substitute

Sorry, you're just gonna have to quit drinking so much milk and eating as much meat and junk foods in order to save Gaia.  Yes, this is another ZOMG COW FARTS AND MODERN AGRICULTURE RUIN TEH ENVIRONMENT!!1!1eleventy!1one!1 study.  Here's the obligatory statement from the head of the study, calling for dictatorial control over the citizenry,

Tara Garnett, the report's author, warned that campaigns encouraging people to change their habits voluntarily were doomed to fail and urged the government to use caps on greenhouse gas emissions and carbon pricing to ensure changes were made. "Food is important to us in a great many cultural and symbolic ways, and our food choices are affected by cost, time, habit and other influences," the report says. "Study upon study has shown that awareness-raising campaigns alone are unlikely to work, particularly when it comes to more difficult changes."

This is in the UK, so I'm guessing the Nanny government will be happy to oblige.   The National Farmers' Union response? 

However, the National Farmers' Union warned that its own study, with other industry players, published last year, found net emissions from agriculture could only be cut by up to 50% if the carbon savings from building renewable energy sources on farms were taken into account.

The NFU also called for government incentives to help farmers make the changes. "Farmers aren't going to do this out of the goodness of their hearts, because farmers don't have that luxury; many of our members are very hard pressed at the moment," said Jonathan Scurlock, the NFU's chief adviser on renewable energy and climate change.

Moar subsidies pleez!

The article has a before and after of what your weekly menu would look like after Nanny put it's foot down...on their throats.  Let's just say, maybe it'll take the government denying the Brits their bangers and mash and their clotted cream to make them take back control of their government.

Exit question:  You think Vice-Chair of the Minnesota GOP will swipe this story, too? 

(h/t)

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A small pushback against the California Nanny brigades

...yeah, I know there's no way Tom McClintock would have won in the Soviet of California, but a moron can dream, right?  Consider this here, he managed to get an opt-out law for the remote thermostat law onto Schwarzenegger's SuperRINO desk.  Basically this thermostat law allows energy companies to remotely turn up or down the thermostat in a person's home.

So instead of building new power plants or rebuilding the energy grid, they're resorting to this crap.  Can't say California holds monopoly on this sort of nonsense, but they are about the worst in the US when it comes to idiotic Nannyism.

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First They Came For The Naked Women Bartenders, And I Said Nothing...

It appears as though a woman in Dehli, IL wanted to bartend naked. Only problem with that plan? The authorities stepped in and harshed everybody's mellow.

The Jersey County State's Attorney's office says sheriff's deputies were doing a routine check at the Cabin Tavern one afternoon this week when they found something not-so-routine. Authorities allege Janet Brannon of East Alton was naked as she served patrons.

She was arrested, and because no other bar employees were available, the tavern was closed down.

Brannon has been charged with misdemeanor public indecency, and her bond has been set at $8,000.

Actually, judging by the beefy women who reside in East Alton, IL, the police probably did everyone a favor by keeping her nakedness out of view.

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Nice To See Post-Heller DC Makes It Easy To Own A Handgun

Well, if you consider a process that is longer, more expensive, and more complicated than getting married or divorced, then, yeah, it's a piece of cake.

While the process isn't so difficult to navigate, it's by no means easy or cheap. Throughout the process, there are no options. All applicants MUST make at least thrree trips to police headquarters where parking is to say, in the least hard to find. Yes, it's near a Metro, but do you want to take your new gun for a ride on Metro?

All applicants must make at least two trips to Anacostia, where the only licensed dealer is located. Parking isn't an issue, but it's hardly centrally located [yeah, and it's dangerous as hell.-ed.]. All applicants MUST pay $60 in fees to the city, $125 transfer fee to the dealer as well as the cost of passport photos and a notary.

Applicants should budget an extra $200 on top of the price of the gun.

As for the written test, out of 20 questions, I got one wrong. Most of the questions are taken right out of the Firearms Registration Outline that comes in the application packet. I won't give any of the questions here [the first time a reporter held back on information. But I digress.-ed.], but it was much easier than the written test for a driver's license. (I got four wrong on that test recently.)[yeah, and more morons will drive than ever own a legal handgun. Your point again?-ed.]

Man, am I ever glad I live in a Red State.

As an aside, I did not edit the writer's text to correct spelling or grammar mistakes.

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Obama avoids the question, reveals more than he meant to *Update: WSJ misreports

Obama was questioned by a lady in the crowd who was (I hope still is) distrustful of him on Second Amendment issues in PA yesterday.  The exchange was reported by the WSJ has been seeing some circulation,

Bob at Confederate Yankee and Allah both looked at it, Allah doesn't seem to be sure what to make of it.  Bob at CY reacts to Obama's statements this way,

So Obama concedes that he wants to "take them away," but then he claims that he doesn't have the votes to push through a gun ban.

I think Bob is reading this wrong (though I don't think he's distorting, as apparently a reader suggested in his update), let's take a look at what Obama said (underlines are mine) and see why.

"If you've got a gun in your house, I'm not taking it," Obama said. But the Illinois senator could still see skeptics in the crowd, particularly on the faces of several men at the back of the room.

Take note of that line I underlined.  The gun is in your house, meaning you own it, Obama says nothing about going out and purchasing a new firearm.  He's not really lying in that statement, he probably won't be sending the authorities to kick down your door and empty your gun cabinet.  Which is all irrelevant, because that isn't what the lady asked.  She asked if Obama was going to support gun bans.  Let's look at the rest of the quote,

So he tried again. "Even if I want to take them away, I don't have the votes in Congress," he said. "This can't be the reason not to vote for me. Can everyone hear me in the back? I see a couple of sportsmen back there. I'm not going to take away your guns."

Again, Obama didn't answer her question, he's answering a question about confiscation policy, she's asking about bans which would prevent purchase of certain (perhaps all?) firearms.  This is a tricky rhetorical device to avoid answering her question.  He won't answer her question, she won't say if he'll pursue bans.  Now we have to look at one of the quotes again,

"Even if I want to take them away, I don't have the votes in Congress,"

Knowing what we now know, that Obama was answering a question about confiscation policy(despite being asked about bans), we have to consider what this means in that context.  Take this thought from Bob at CY...

Further breaking down Obama's statements, he says, "Even if I want to take them away, I don't have the votes in Congress. This can't be the reason not to vote for me." I read this as an admission that he desires a ban, but that he lacks the means so you should not hold his views against him.

...and replace ban with confiscation.  That ought to send a chill down your spine.  Admittedly, I'd like to see if there's video or a full transcript to make sure I'm not mischaracterizing what he said, but going just on what WSJ reports, the statements Obama made should be of concern to those of us who value liberty.

We still don't technically know what Obama's policy is on gun bans, though I think given the lengths he's trying to go to avoid answering are a pretty good indicator of where his policy is.

I hope someone can make him answer directly to the question of gun bans, or at least make him squirm enough that it lets everyone know Obama isn't to be trusted when it comes to Second Amendment rights.  Someone should ask if he'd pursue registration.  Someone should also press him on the question of whether he supports the right to defend oneself with a firearm as well.  When Obama gets asked about Second Amendment rights, people need to be on their toes to make sure he doesn't get away with dodging questions.

An aside:  Obama's argument that cities should have the leeway to make laws to keep guns out of criminals hands...what kind of laws could possibly control the illegal gun trade in cities?  How are they going to keep guns out of the hands of the same gangs who are working with cartels to traffic tons of illicit drugs across the borders every damn day?  Are you telling me that Obama is going to be able to stop said cartels from shipping guns too?  How about the fact that 12 to 30 million illegal immigrants have managed to cross our borders?  This is such crap.

What this sounds like to me is that he wants to try and make some federal law that would allow cities to override state gun laws and possibly state constitutional gun laws, which are usually more friendly to gun owners than what most major cities would be. 

When I look at this, I'm thinking of places like Philly.  A while back, Philly passed a bunch of gun bans and regulations which were challenged and I think smacked down pretty promptly by the courts because PA's gun owner friendly state Constitution and laws make Philly's gun bans unconstitutional.  I think that's Obama's policy goal here.

Update:  Here be the exchange that the WSJ reported on, link to the video and a transcript written by one of the Moron-in-Chief's commenters.  The WSJ misreported the woman's question.  The WSJ stated she asked about a gun ban,

A woman in the crowd told Obama she had “heard a rumor” that he might be planning some sort of gun ban upon being elected president.

When in reality, she asked about "taking people's guns away", which is a crude way of asking about confiscation policy, not banning and restriction policy.  So Obama wasn't dodging the question as I previously argued, which means we're told much less in this exchange than previously thought. 

We still know that he probably won't pursue confiscation, he can't get away with it politically, even though he still leaves enough wiggle room to allow people to rightfully question if he at least personally wishes he could confiscate firearms.

We still have no record on whether he'd pursue gun bans, which means we have no idea if he'd ban you from buying a new one.  We have no idea what, if any sort of restrictions, registries or bureaucratic red tape he'd (at least try to) impose on people trying to purchase firearms. 

We have no specifics on what he'd do to keep guns out of criminal hands.  Beyond the confiscation issue, which even Barry recognizes is politically unfeasible, we still have no answers on many Second Amendment issues.  Obama is still being obtuse in order to mask his policies, but not quite as obtuse as I had previously thought.  Stupid WSJ.

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That Free Speech stuff was nice while it lasted

47% want to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine for radio and television, and 31% want government regulations against bloggers. 

Lame.

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Lisa saves Illinois (from itself)

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is protecting the good people of the Land of Lincoln from the dangers of a product called "Meth Coffee" (which the article notes doesn't really, you know, contain any actual methamphetamine) because it "violates the Illinois Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Practices by comparing itself to illegal drugs," and because it supposedly (horrors!) "glorifies drug use,"  by banning its sale throughout the state.

Which is actually a fairly stupid and pointless gesture, as it turns out:

The San Francisco-based makers of Meth Coffee said their product was designed strictly for sale online.

"(Meth Coffee) was never marketed or sold in stores in Illinois, and it is now no longer available online for purchase from, or shipment to, Illinois."...the company said in a statement.

Whew. Crisis averted. Illinois consumers can rest easy knowing that they're now unable to buy this not-actually-dangerous product which was never really meant to be sold there, anyway.  Way to go, Lisa!

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Yet another L.A. ban For Your Own Good™

Gee, who could have seen this coming?

Smoking is already banned in Los Angeles restaurants and bars, as well as parks and beaches. However, one Los Angeles City Council member wants to ban smoking from all public places, both inside and out.

[...]

"Wherever people congregate, or there is an expectation of people being present, smoking should be prohibited," said L.A. City Councilman Bernard Parks.

Parks says current restrictions are a patchwork put together by many city leaders.

"Greg Smith is talking specifically about parks, just as Jack Weiss talked specifically about beaches ... So we're saying there is a larger number of places, public places, where people congregate beyond these specific locations," said Parks.

Parks, who is also running for County Supervisor, is calling for a countywide measure for all unincorporated areas.

Parks favors a ban similar to Calabasas, where offenders are fined $500 and repeat offenders face jail time.

Well, ain't that just fuckin' great?

Look, somking is a nasty habit. I know because I'm a smoker. If I didn't smoke, I'd be a lot healthier and a lot wealthier. I know people don't like second hand smoke, too. That's fine. When I go out for a smoke in public, I try not to do it right around other people, especially little kids.

But you know what, Bernard? Tobacco is legal. Furthermore, we smokers pay a lot of taxes that the rest of you use for all sorts of things. We also go to places like bars and restaurants and concert venues, where we spend more money, generating more tax revenue. If you don't want us in L.A., maybe we'll spend that money elsewhere.

Put that in your pipe and...well...

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Attention California Morons!

Were you aware that our betters in the State Legislature are trying to pass a 25 cent per bag tax on plastic grocery bags?  According to this site, that's going to cost each of our families around 400 bucks per year!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to tell all your friends and family (especially those who aren't as interested in politics as you are) about this travesty and urge them to contact their State Senators and Assembly members that this kind of punitive crap, designed to legislate plastic bags out of existence, is unacceptable.  We put up with enough of Sacramento's bullshit as it is.

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Garbage Day!

Told you this Nanny State nonsense would make its way to our shores.  San Francisco is going to start mandating that serfs separate their waste into different types of recyclable and non-recyclable bins.  Sanitation workers will be inspecting their bins and they can be fined up to $1000 for not complying to the diktats of Big Brother. 

Here's just part of what happens with these idiot Nanny Laws.  I immediately thought of the problems that these idiotic nanny laws are causing in Britain, in particular the abuses of power.  Of note is a story of a 96 year old veteran, a Desert Rat in WWII, who was denied garbage collection for two weeks for the unspeakable crime of putting a ketchup bottle in the blue bin, when it belonged in the green one.

Then there's this, some guy has the collectors refuse to take his garbage twice because of frivolous trash ordinances, so he wheeled his bin to city hall and dumped his trash in city hall.  This sort of nonsense is already here, and we have to keep it contained to Soviet enclaves like San Francisco. 

Obligatory,

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First They Came For The Bacon...

By now, making fun of the Nanny Staters in Europe has become par for the course. But this time, those bastards have gone too far. They want to regulate bacon! Those nitwits want to lower the salty goodness in a slab of that processed pork.

But Big Bacon in England isn't going to go down without a fight.

But ham and bacon processors say the move will reduce the shelf life of products, and put customers off.  A 10-slice packet of ham contains just under two teaspoons of salt.

Claire Cheney, director-general of the Provision Trade Federation, representing leading processed meats companies and supermarkets said the targets were a potential health risk.

She told The Grocer magazine: 'If you have not got sufficient preservative in a product like ham you get pockets where the salt levels are too low to prevent the formation of the botulism toxin.

'This will force us to reduce the shelf life further and with that come serious food safety concerns, not least the risk of botulism.'

This is a travesty. We cannot let this assault on the greatest foodstuff to ever exist to go uncontested. And besides, that whole botulism thing is a bit of a downer as well.

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Chocolate Milk Challenge

Rise up Chocolate Milk lovers and take your stand against the evil oppressors that are trying to stop you from enjoying your sacred drink...or something like that.

This vlog was done by one of my favorite blogging friends, Spacekicker. It's brilliant.

Drink up, y'all. And yes, morons, you can add Val-U-Rite to your chocolate milk.

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Sacramento tells me what I can and can't eat

A big thank you is in order to Nanny Schwarzenegger and all his Democrat pals in the Legislature for saving me from my stupid, stupid self!

California, a national trendsetter in all matters edible, became the first state to ban trans fats in restaurants when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Friday to phase out their use over the next few years.

Under the new law, the fats must be excised from restaurant products beginning in 2010, and from all retail baked goods by 2011. Packaged manufactured foods will be exempt.

Thank God! I mean, I might choose to buy some of that stuff, and that would be wrong.

In recent years trans-fats have become almost the new cigarettes among public health policy makers, with consumer behavior as much in the crosshairs as the product itself in governments’ attempt to curb harmful effects.

“I think the potential here is real for a far greater understanding of the harms of trans-fats,” said Dr. Clyde Yancy, the incoming president of the American Heart Association. “And to encourage more states to do the same.”

Yep. Let's have all the states ban the icky, icky stuff. Next, maybe they can go after booze. Hell, let's just legislate the joy out of all our lives. We'd be safer that way. Healthier, too.

Remember, it's For Your Own Good.

(h/t)

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Reason creates a rough freedom index and compares the 35 biggest cities in America

Chicago of course being the Nanny Capital. Philly was ranked number 26 in spite of itself, those of us in the non-Soviet parts of the state kept them from imposing fascist anti-gun laws on Philly citizens, which probably would have made it drop even further.  You're welcome Philly, even though most of you Marxist clowns aren't smart enough to appreciate it. (h/t)

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Carolyn McCarthy (NSDAP-NY) sued by Long Island resident for gun confiscation

After the guy apparently made a scene or got in an argument about illegal immigration at the New York office of Carolyn McCarthy.  The office contacted the police, who then confiscated his legally owned firearms. 

The article makes no mention of any crime this guy committed, and I don't see where he's been charged with anything.  The office of the fascist McCarthy claims that the guy's behavior was "disruptive and threatening." 

I'm not buying it, I wouldn't trust the McCarthy or anyone who would work for that Nazi unless they had video or audio that showed him acting in a genuinely threatening manner.  Of course if he did make a threat then I'd expect to see his firearms confiscated, followed by an arrest and charges filed.  I'm not seeing that, and until I see that, this guy had his civil rights violated.

For a little refresher, I'd like to remind people what a reckless, dangerous person this authoritarian idiot McCarthy is,*

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So why not just get rid of the police dogs at this stage?

And Britain's downward spiral continues.  Following the efforts to make police dogs wear booties when they are to be taken into muslim homes for searches, the Brits are now working to set setting guidelines demanding police avoid frightening criminals with their dogs and to be mindful of potential allergies. 

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Pwn3d! Our Lord and Savior rejects having British PM at His Downing Street press conference

You know things are bad for Gordon Brown when He Who Is refuses to have him in His holy presence.  Probably a smart move on Messiah's part, He knows that He has to deflect the Nanny Stater accusations, and hanging around with a first rate Nanny like Gordon Brown (or any British PM at this stage) in any high profile way would look bad.

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Wait! You Mean Public Oral Sex Competitions While On Holiday Are Illegal?

Damn! Fucking European Nanny-Staters! Where can a fella go to get some relief nowadays?

All of this stems from the fact nine adventure seeking British women ran afoul of the Greek Authorities after trying to hold an oral sex competition on the holiday island of Zakynthos.

Not only that, but the fellows involved are in trouble as well.

Six British and six Greek men, including two bar owners, were also charged in the incident, which took place at Laganas beach in the south of the Ionian island, which lies off the west coast of mainland Greece, police said

The women, who came to the popular resort on holiday, had been paid to take part in the competition, which was video recorded and was to be posted on the Internet, police said.

Sure beats the hell out of any vacation I have ever had.

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