Tag: Nanny State Knows Best

Don’t Win Too Hard

You know what’s a great feeling? Grinding your opponent to dust in a friendly competition. Well being this is no longer the awesome country founded on competition it once was that’s no longer the politically correct feeling to have. See winning can hurt your opponent’s feelings and we can’t have that. To that end a soccer league in Ottawa has established a rule; if your team wins by more than five points you automatically lose. Wait what?

Yes that’s right if your team scores six points more than the other team has you automatically lose. This is because a crushing defeat can really hurt a child’s feelings and thus prepare him for the real world where nobody is going to give two wooden nickles about his or her feelings.

This sissification of the next generation is sickening. The weight we’re putting on peoples’ feelings is getting out of hand. I’d like to bring up reality for a second. There are two types of people in a competition, winners and losers. By definition one side of a competition must lose and one must win. If this basic criteria is no met it’s not a competition anymore. Just wait until these kids grow up and realize that they could be yelled at or even fired if they fuck up on the job.

Drinking, It’ll Give You AIDS

Via No Agenda I learned that the World Health Organization has started a campaign against alcohol (because they research Prohibition in the United States and found that it worked so well). They have a page up titled Call for action to reduce the harmful use of alcohol. There are some real doozies on this page but my favorite is this:

Harmful drinking is also a major avoidable risk factor for noncommunicable diseases, in particular cardiovascular diseases, cirrhosis of the liver and various cancers. It is also associated with various infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS and TB, as well as road traffic accidents, violence and suicides.

Holy shit drinking can give you AIDS!

What He Really Said

So I’ve noticed a meme going around that is pegging Rand Paul as a racist. I thought that was pretty surprising being he just won the Kentucky Republican nomination and thus coming out as a racist would not seem the wisest political maneuver ever. Needless to say I did a little digging and found out he didn’t say anything racist at all.

What Rand Paul did say was the Civil Rights Act is in direct conflict with private property rights. Of course when he came under fire he went and said the opposite which I think was just plain dumb.

I agree with the fact that private property rights give you the ability to do what you want on your property including being a racist bigot. If you don’t want to allow black, brown, white, or indigo people into your place of business that’s fine it’s your right to determine your clientele. If you want to require all customers of your business to wear red shoes before they walk in that’s your right as well. Likewise if I don’t support your rules of business I can take my money elsewhere.

What the Civil Rights Act should have done is required all facilities receiving public funding to recognize all races and serve them equally. In essence it should have only applied to government and people receiving tax payer money. Our system of laws are supposed to protect us against our government not protect us against idiots who are willing to turn down business from customers who have a different skin color than themselves.

Needless to say Rand Paul doesn’t seem to have quite the backbone as his father but he most certainly is on the right track.

The Top of the Bad Idea Mountain

What would you say if you enrolled in a college and they asked for a DNA sample? If you would say “OK here’s the sample” then you get to go into the room for those who can’t think ahead. If you would say “Fuck off” congratulations you are a far more intelligent human being.

UC Berkley is asking all students to voluntarily submit DNA samples as part of enrollment:

The students will be asked to voluntarily submit a DNA sample. The cotton swabs will come with two bar code labels. One label will be put on the DNA sample and the other is kept for the students own records.

Now it’s no surprise to anybody that getting a DNA sample from somebody is fairly easy and if somebody wants it they can get it with a little work. But volunteering such information to any government entity (UC Berkley is a state college) is just stupid. The UK has established a DNA database which they claim is used for the following reasons:

* quickly identify offenders
* make earlier arrests
* secure more convictions
* provide critical investigative leads for police investigations

In other words they have it so they can fuck you over easier. Sure an innocent person will say they have nothing to fear from such a database but the second some legal becomes illegal you are in a position to face charges or at least public scrutiny. Of course at the time only people arrested are added to their database but alas some want everybody in it.

But the big question I really have is why the fuck is a college asking for DNA samples? Well:

The confidential process is being overseen by Jasper Rine, a campus professor of Genetics and Development Biology, who says the test results will help students make decisions about their diet and lifestyle.

Once the DNA sample is sent in and tested, it will show the student’s ability to tolerate alcohol, absorb folic acid and metabolize lactose.

Oh I see make it sound fun and exciting so students will be suckered into it. The best way to establish a database is to sucker people into volunteering their information for it. Also the easiest way to find out your alcohol tolerance is to drink alcohol until you can notice side effects. It’s cheap, easy, and fun. But here is the icing on the cake:

The results of the test will be put in a secure online database where students will be able to retrieve their results by using their bar code.

I just love the term “secure online database.” Without knowing how the security is implemented how can you know it’s actually secure? I bet money within the first year of this database being online (so a year from today) some bright student will find a way to break into it.

The bottom line is you should never volunteer any information you don’t have to, especially something that could be used to nail you for something ten years down the road. The main thing to remember is you never know when you could be caught up in something that is under investigation and if your DNA shows up you could face massive public scrutiny even if you didn’t actually do anything.

The Dangers of Legislating Behavior

Jay over at MArooned sums up why it’s dangerous to allow our politicians to legislate any behavior:

That’s the whole thing. It never ends. Once we let them dictate one behavior, there’s no stopping those who would use the power of the state, the men with guns, to force the people to bend to their whims and wants. Today cell phones, tomorrow iPods, next week it’s passengers and heating choices.

It’s a slippery slope. Once you’re sliding down the slope it’s practically impossible to stop until you hit the bottom. In this case Jay was talking about calls to ban all cellular phone use while driving because it’s said to distract drivers. As he pointed out the logical conclusion is to ban passengers since they provide distractions as well.

This logic can be applied to anything. For instance when our government regulated the ownership of machines gun and other such “scary” guns via the National Firearms Act is started us down a slippery slop. Now thanks for the Hughes Amendment to the Firearm Owners Protection Act the transfer of machine guns produced after an arbitrary date to civilian hands is completely illegal.

This should be kept in mind whenever legislation regulating what can be posted on the Internet comes up. Sure first they will say they need to protect the children but it will not stop until everything that isn’t government approved is banned (think China).

Once you allow the state to be your nanny there is no escaping the nanny state.

Something That’s Always Annoyed Me

I rarely touch the Health Care debate but there is one little thing about it that’s always annoyed me. Take a look at the picture:

Nothing something odd, besides the condescending ass in the center. Those “doctors” behind him are wearing lab coats. When the Hell is the last time you’ve seen doctors wearing lab coats outside of the office? Hell most doctors I know don’t wear lab coats half of the time they’re in the office.

Does the president believe the American people are so stupid that we can’t identify a person as a “doctor” unless they’re wearing a lab coat? That’s the message I get out of that.

California Strikes Again

Although many people think of California as being entirely beach front property the truth is much of it is desert. Southern California for instance has very little rainfall and depends on irrigation by water drawn from Northern California. Realizing this Angelina and Quan Ha decided it was stupid having all that grass in their lawn and decided to replace it with wood chips and drought tolerant plants. What happened next is rather obvious:

Meanwhile, the couple said they had reduced their water usage from 299,221 gallons in 2007 to 58,348 gallons in 2009.

Oh and they’re being sued by their city. Apparently the city of Orange decided it would be a good idea to have an ordinance requiring 40% of a piece of property to be covered in live plants. They did this because, you know, they like things that make sense.

Seriously the problems of that state are never ending.

If You Don’t Want Security to See You Naked You Can’t Fly

Good news British subjects! If you are selected to go through a full body scanner at either Heathrow or Manchester airports you must submit or you don’t get to fly:

It is now compulsory for people selected for a scan to take part, or they will not be allowed to fly.

Previously if you were selected to go through a body scanner you could opt for a full body pat down instead. Personally I’d go that route, if somebody wants to see me naked I better be getting free drinks out of the deal.

Surprise, Making Things Illegal Doesn’t Stop Them

In the pursuit of common knowledge a research project was issued to determine if banning the use of cellular phones while driving was beneficial. Anybody who understands human nature already predicted the answer though. Apparently banning the use of cell phones while driving doesn’t stop people from using them while driving.

Go figure.