October 30, 2008

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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October 20, 2008

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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October 02, 2008

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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