Asshat's Notion

The Rational Adult View

The Initial Lower Federal Court View

Stay tuned for John Asshat's relentless assault on our liberty.

Carding The Kool-Aid Club
Source: Washington Times    [07/09]

On the verge of extinction, the shrinking Goldwater Republican cadre just served notice on their nanny state loving Elephant Clan cohorts with cards the list the 6 GOP 'commandments'.  The aforementioned commandments are as follows:

'...The cards command the bearer to ask whether the legislation would:

Handing them out to Elephant Clan legicrats is cool.  It's even better that they hand them out to any Donkey Clan hack that requests one.  But, if they really want to target the number one big government Elephant Clan hack, they need to carpet bomb the Oval Office with the damn things.  Bold new concept.

Election Cycle Legicrap
Source: Fox News    [07/09]

You can always recognize classic election cycle legicrap by its family values coddling stench.  For example, Senator Joe Lieberman served up a bill that would dump $90 million in dead presidents into a study about popular media's impact on children's health.  The money would fund a study to evaluate 'whether kids' favorite TV shows, movies and video games are actually bad for their health' (Fox News).

For those not up to speed on election cycle legicrap, I'll explain.  Joe Lieberman knows that the usual kid coddling experts already spewed countless 'studies' to prove that popular Amerikan culture damages the little tykes.  The science is suspect - at best - but it's there, if Joe wants to use it.  He and the kid coddlers would love to use this dubious data to coerce media purveyors into submission, but there's this pesky little roadblock called the First Amendment to the United States Constitution that just won't go away.  So, Lieberman does the next best thing.  He placates the great unwashed with another study that will prove his foregone conclusions. 

The Protest Porker Caper
Source: St. Petersburg Times   [07/05]

The most enduring - endearing - protest against Florida's July 1, 2003 nanny state Smoke Nazi tyranny is a 10-foot long, 5-foot tall fiberglass pig attached to the roof of Buddy's Bar-B-Que in Wildwood, Florida.

Owner Buddy Clark doesn't draw the line at symbolic protests.  'A sign in the window reads, "Smoking permitted," and the plastic jug by the cash register isn't for tips. Its message: "Donations for smoking fine."..' (Times).  Kudos are conferred on this rugged Amerikan individual for standing up to smoke Nazi tyranny.  Buddy Clark, you are the man!

Afterthought
Some of the smoke from the restaurant's BBQ pit is vented out the fiberglass porkers cigarette, giving the restaurant its motto: "Home of the Smokin' Pig".  If anyone wants to join Buddy Clark's fight, they can buy a "Smokin' Pig" t-shirt for a modest $10.00.

Oregon Tax Nazis Go High Tech
Source: Seattle Times    [07/05]

Oregon hacks hatched an eye-popping revenue-enhancing scheme that demonstrates how, when it comes to devising new ways to loot hard-earned taxpayer dollars, certain bureaucrats always stay ahead of the curve.  Worried that gas-hybrid vehicles will, eventually, drastically reduce their gas tax plunder, Oregon Tax Nazis hatched a high tech scheme that uses GPS technology to track each car's mileage - track each car's every movement - thus enabling them to replace/supplement the existing state gas tax with a mileage tax.

The bad news is that Big Brother would be tracking your every move...You can imagine what these government snoops might do with that data.  The good news is that your 50 gallons per mile RV, truck or SUV gets taxed at the same rate as your 50 miles per gallon internal combustion roller skate. [Tax Nazis spout drivel about 1.25 cents per mile, but you gotta know it'll got much higher, if this gets a legicrat okey dokey.]  Bold new concept.

In theory - at least this is their story - this mileage tax would replace the existing state gas tax.  Yeah right...tell me another one.  When was the last time a political hack, voluntarily, eliminated a tax?  In practice, this is just another way to plunder the taxpayer so the hacks can play wealth redistribution bingo.

Afterthought
Is there a proper solution for this road use financing?  You better believe it, sovereign individual Sparky.  We need to privatize the roads then let the new owner(s) charge, whomever, for driving on them.  I know what you're thinking and I've got it covered.  Unlike the government, the marketplace always exerts forces that increased a commodity's supply, maximizes efficiency and decreases the commodity's cost.  Ayn Rand's book title says it all: "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal".


Virginia Hacks 'Red-Faced' Over Blue Law Debacle
Source: News Max    [07/02]

When Virginia legicrats passed a law repealing the state's business-hostile "Blue Laws", they managed, instead, to restore those mandatory Saturday and Sunday business closing edicts to their original, nanny state condition. Instead of dumping the law itself, the bill deep-sixed the amendments that let most Virginia businesses operate on the weekend.

After the usual, public hand-wringing, legicrats got some breathing room when a judge granted Virginia corporations a 90-day injunction that keeps these newly restored Blue Laws on the sidelines.  Will these legicrats  get a Blue Law repeal right, before its too late?  Stay tuned for all the thrilling details.

Afterthoughts
Tragically, nobody bothered to condemn this intolerable, liberty-infringing Blue Law assault on capitalism and property rights. 

I'm just cynical enough to believe that the law these legicrats are so eager to disown, now, did exactly what they wanted.  Virginia's legicrats are notoriously pious, so a government coerced Sunday closure law is the sort of thing they'd try to pull off, when nobody was looking.  Gotcha, sanctimonious asshats!

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A $21,000 Property Rights Lesson
Source: Pagan Scribbler News Wire [08/27]

Movie star, Bruce Willis, ran afoul of the tree hugger zealots in the EPA when he dared to - gasp - civilize a small island located on his Idaho property. Outraged EPA mutants hammered him with a citation that 'explained' - in the most forceful terms, no doubt - that his constitutionally guaranteed property rights are subordinated to Uncle Sam's federal wetlands protection laws. I feel your pain, Bruce. You might own the property - technically, unless the EPA offered to pay for it - but, the EPA pinheads determine what you can do with it.

This lesson in Nanny State abuse cost Bruce $21,000, not including the cost of "restoring the damaged habitat". The value of the lost inalienable individual liberty is incalculable. When it comes to Uncle Sam's liberty-hating bureaucrats, there's no place you can hide...not even in a terminally rustic outpost like Idaho.

The Case Of The Felonious Oak
Source: Herald Tribune (Sarasota, Florida) [08/25]

Annoyed to the max about the drug dealers, hookers and assorted other Florida Voters who lurk under a large Fort Walton Beach oak tree, the Okaloosa County Sheriff Department is poised to take drastic, crime-busting action. Will they park a squad car under the tree? Nope. Will they roust, arrest or otherwise disturb these lowlifes? Nope. They department wants to - I am not making this up - chop down the tree.

County bureaucrats feel the Sheriff Department's crime-busting pain, but they aren't ready to execute an oak tree for crimes perpetrated by alleged humans. This pagan scribbler is stunned - in the extreme - to witness Florida bureaucrats engaging in - gasp - no shit sound...thinking. Uh...Excuse me while I take time to recover from this shock.

Kin-tucky Morality Nazi Antics
Source: Kentucky Post [08/21]

Kenton County (Kin-tucky) just passed new adult business regulations that repeal a stripper's First Amendment rights. Under this Draconian edict, dancers lose the right to peaceably assemble, plus their free speech rights, because the new regulations make it a crime for dancers to mingle with or even talk to the booty palace's customers. Am I the only one who didn't realize that the U.S. Constitution specifically exempts Kin-tucky from those pesky, liberty-defining amendments? Learn something new every day.

Nanny State Fun and Games
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer [08/20]

Donkey Clan hacks and their News Nazi cohorts call 'it' an election year giftie to W's evil capitalist supporters. W and his pachyderm horde call 'it' a long-overdue revision to outdated, lawsuit-inviting regulations. Tragically, nobody has the nads to get real about 'it'.

The heretofore unspecified 'it' is an overhaul of Uncle Sam's overtime pay rules, as laid out in the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. After the usual suspects - libs, labor types, etc. - derailed W's first attempt to revise these rules, Elephant Clan hacks watered the bill down, added "Fair Play" to the bill's title, then ran it up the legicrap flagpole, again. This time out, enough hacks saluted, sending it to W's desk for his signature. That easily, W's legicrat homeboys gave the Donkey Clan a badly needed election cycle issue.

It would be refreshing if at least one legicrat pulled their head out of their ass and faced up to the real issue: this 1938 relic is an assault on our liberty. Labor Rules? Labor Rules! Which clause in the Constitution gives the federal god damn government the power to regulate with that? Why hasn’t somebody...any god damn body...kicked up a fuss about this blatant, egregious, asinine intrusion into the marketplace? The real issue isn’t ‘tweaking’ the damn rules to favor management over labor. The real god damn issue is this Nanny State intrusion where it no shit does not belong. Have these hacks even read the U.S. Constitution?

Flying Beneath Decency Dimwit Radar In Tacoma
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer [08/18]

Tacoma hack panties are in a hyper bunch because an adult business maven opened an all-male sex club 'in the shadow of City Hall' (Post-Intelligencer). He played the system so perfectly...He negotiated their bureaucratic maze so deftly, that they're left without a suitable way to shut him down. How did he do it? That is the burning question, and nobody seems to have the answer, except for the man himself and he's not talking.

'...[Club owner Larry] Miller applied for a business license under the name Stitch & Grind LLC, and described his venture as "administration of general economic programs." Then he submitted floor plans, requesting to remodel the leased space. The plans show a lounge, a workout room, a locker room, a walk-in vault and 29 small rooms, most of which measure 6 by 8 feet. They're labeled on the floor plans as "counseling/encounter meditation rooms."...(Post-Intelligencer)

This bun ranger haven is called 'The Loading Zone' and it's the thorn in Tacoma's civic hide that won't be going away in the foreseeable future. Call me names if you must but this story amuses this pagan scribbler in the extreme.

Emerilizing Hate Crime
Source: Washington Times [08/16]

Derby (Connecticut) boldly took hate crime bovine excrement to the next level when the local justice system convicted an oppressor couple under the prevailing hate crimes edict. The sentence for showering their melanin-enriched neighbors with 'racial slurs and threats' (Times) exacted a triple punishment package from the oppressors. In addition to an $11,000 fine and mandatory 'diversity-education classes' the couple is compelled to move the hell out of town. No shit.

Forced to leave town? When did our Constitution give the government that power? If you live in Derby, Connecticut, be afraid...be very afraid, because you could be next. Welcome to the Derby Gulag.

Eminent Domain Takes A Hit, Finally
Source: Washington Times [08/12]

Twenty years ago, a Michigan Supreme Court ruling called 'the Poletown' case, gutted individual liberty by Emerilizing eminent domain beyond recognition, but that's all changed now with a belated reversal in the same Michigan Supreme Court. Since the Poletown decision gave local hacks the power to steal private property at will, using the flimsiest excuse, it's necessary that we revisit this ruling, before we consider what the recent reversal portends.

'...The original Poletown case provided governments with the legal weaponry to seize private property in the name of a greater public good. This usually led to the land being awarded to a private developer who presented the remade property to a company that could pay higher taxes than the previous owners....' (Times)

Translation: If some deep pocketed dolt wants your property, he, she or it could simply grease a hack palm, tell the hack what property they want and let political greed takes its ususal course. The hack would steal the citizens property, citing 'a greater public good', then hand it over to the aforementioned deep pockets on a silver, tax-payer funded platter. Sucks, is the mildest thing I can say about this Nanny State on steroids abuse.

The new ruling might change all that, because, besieged property owners can lawyer up and cite this Michigan Supreme Court precedent. Kudos to the Michigan Supreme Court for breathing some life into Amerika's beleaguered property rights.

Afterthought
The Washington Times offering up this chilling, eminent domain scenario:

‘...[Under the original 1981 Poletown ruling, property owners] have been forced to live with the threat of being put out of business because of the "greater good." As they have come to know, the government's rallying cry of "public benefit" is an ill-defined one, extending well beyond the original purpose of eminent domain. It even could apply to the low-end homes in a residential neighborhood whose tax contributions are lower than those of their neighbors. The "public benefit" in a particular neighborhood would be for all the homes to be of equal value. Eliminate the low-end homes, build homes commensurate with the neighborhood, and the city has provided the "public benefit" with an increased tax base...’

Another Irrational Decency Fiasco
Source: Pagan Scribbler News Wire [08/12]

In 1997, Roseville, Michigan artist Edward Stross signed a Faustian bargain with the local authorities, granting him an exemption from the city's sign ordinance. He could deploy a wall-filling sign (image, only...no text allowed), but, he was strictly banned from showing - gasp - boobs or genitalia. That worked fine, for a while, but,eventually, Edward felt the need to deploy the full brunt of his artistic expression with a wall-filling reproduction of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel fresco, 'The Creation of Man'. That fast, the bovine excrement hit the fan

For those Philistines - like me - who don't have a clue about this famous toll booth decor, I'll report that the salient artistic element is the fun fact that Eve is displayed, bare-breasted. The blue noses running Roseville, don't give a rip about an artistic masterpiece, nor do they consider the fun fact that this art work is situated in the most famous cross cult toll booth on the planet. If the dirt kisser can cope with Eve's naked hooters, so can the nitwits running Roseville.

Although this is decency taken to irrational extremes, I'm compelled point out that Edward signed his agreement with the city, voluntarily. Granted, a city sign ordinance is an affront to property rights, and should be abolished, stat. But, Edward volunteered, rendering that point moot. A promise is a promise, Edward. Game over.

A Down East Growth Drama
Source: Bangor Daily News (Maine) [08/04]

The political hacks Down East, are alarmed by a growth spurt that is laying waste to their state. The 'increase' in question isn't what you think...It's a matter of expanding citizen, uh, girth, not a spike in headcount. According to a state cabal named 'Commission to Study Public Health, Maine denizens are packing a lot more...tonnage these days. Pulling the usual alarmist statistics from their boom-booms, Down East Fat Nazis declared:

'...Maine has the highest rate of overweight people and obesity in New England, with about two-thirds of all adults weighing more than they should...' (Bangor Daily News)

Circling the Nanny State wagons to protect 'the children', Fat Nazis suggest the familiar 'tax evil foods' tactic, including a thrilling $4 per gallon tax on carbonated beverage syrup. Can a Big Mac surcharge be far behind? Will the Hostess Twinkie salespunk land on the state's ten most wanted list? Will Krispy Kreme employees be prosecuted as terrorists?

If Maine's Fat Nazis really want to help Down East denizens live a healthier lifestyle - without assaulting our a citizen's inalienable liberty - they should do it through persuasion, not government coercion.

Big Brother Is Listening?
Source: Reuters [08/04]

If you use VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) to make your calls, be careful what you say. By a 5-0 vote, Kommandant Powell and his FCC Central Committee comrades, decided that it's a nifty idea to force VoIP providers to 'set up their systems so U.S. law enforces can monitor suspicious calls' (Reuters).

VoIP chaps Nanny State hides because it's, essentially, a free market gig that isn't subject to the usual bureaucratic oversight. Fear not, the Nanny State ninnies are all over it. In fact, they're discussing how to regulate and/or tax it into submission. If you don't know that this planned marketplace intrusion is unconstitutional...big damn time....you aren't paying attention.

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More Nanny State Nonsense
Source: Pagan Scribbler News Wire [09/29]

Federal legicrats in the House of Representatives passed the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act this week, making it a federal crime to use a video camera to record films in a movie theater. This felony is punishable by 3 years in the slammer for the first offense and as much as 6 years in a federal graybar for subsequent offenses. Making this bill even more thrilling, the legicrats allow local and state police to bag you, after the fact, even if the officers didn't personally see you bagging that illicit video.

As usual, this story forces rational adults to ask the salient question: is this a proper government function? Am I the only one who thinks this matter belongs in the civil, not criminal, courts? If the theater owner and/or the movie studio (the film's owner) want redress when some asshat, illegally, copies their film, it should be sought by way of a lawsuit. Property rights must be protected, but this Draconian federal legicrap isn't the way to get the job done.

Afterthought
The bill also lowers the bar for Internet dweebs who "knowingly" distribute copyrighted materials. When you allow others to copy them, you're toast, if this legicrap gets Senate approval and W's John Hancock. Most DVD's cost $20 or less. Is it really necessary to risk 6 years as Buford's Bitch for a $20 buck flick? I way don't think so, Tim.

A Compelling EEOC Adventure
Source: Sacramento Bee [09/29]

A hiring discrimination suit by the EEOC against Amerikan capitalists isn't breaking news, unfortunately, but this epic has a twist that makes it just a tad amusing to this pagan scribbler. According to certain melanin-enriched individuals whose job aspirations prompted them to fill out applications for Southern Mexifornia-based food maker, Farmer John, the sausage didn't sizzle because those tasked with hiring them perpetrated racist discrimination. It's still not breaking news, you protest? Too true, but, you gotta wait for this epic's Paul Harvey Moment:

'...The federal commission accused an all-Hispanic hiring staff at Vernon-based Farmer John of discriminating against Donnie L. Gaunt and other job applicants at a processing facility because they are black...' (Bee, emphasis added.)

Amexican racists? I'm shocked, shocked. I tell you.

Property Rights On The Docket
Source: News Max [09/28]

"...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." (Fifth Amendment to U.S. Constitution, emphasis added.)

The government's frontal assault on the Fifth Amendment's defense of private property finally reached the Supreme Court this week. Tuesday, this nation's highest court decided to hear a case that focuses on the mega popular government assault on private property - eminent domain. Unlike bygone days when local and state government 'liberated' private property under eminent domain for a new school, road, or government facility, the new eminent domain craze steals a citizen's private property then gives it to another citizen, invariably, a citizen whose deep pockets oil government's cash-obsessed gears with dead presidents. By any reasonable measure, this does not meet the founding fathers' criteria for "public use", but that hasn't stopped the practice from swallowing private property from sea to shining sea.

The case being considered by the Supreme Court is a prime example:

'...Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., filed a lawsuit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes to clear the way for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices. The residents refused to budge, arguing it was an unjustified taking of their property...'

'...New London contends the condemnations are proper because the development plans serve a "public purpose," such as boosting economic growth, and are valid "public use" projects that outweigh the property rights of the homeowners...' (News Max)

The sad fact is that, if you live in such liberty blights as Connecticut, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, New York or North Dakota, your property can be stolen, legally, any time some deep pocketed asshat takes a shine too it. Welcome to the Amerikan Gulag where all property belongs to the all-powerful state.

Will this nation's highest court restore the founding fathers' property rights protection and put and end to this pernicious property theft by petty, local government tyrants? Maybe, but it's far from a slam dunk. The good news is that Michigan's Supreme Court just ruled on a similar case and stopped this property theft dead in its tracks. The bad news is that the Supreme Court has flushed other Bill of Rights protections - free speech ate it when they upheld the McCain Feingold Campaign Finance Bill - so this is far from a done deal.

Hemp Ruling
Source: Sacramento Bee [09/27]

In October 2001, W's federal drug warriors in the DEA decreed that 'food products containing even trace amounts of THC would be banned under the Controlled Substances Act' (Bee). As a result, this federal cabal ordered that all 'production and distribution of all goods containing THC that were intended for human consumption' (Bee).

Just like that, hemp - a plant containing THC - landed squarely in the DEA bull's-eye, a fun fact that could stop production and distribution for such diverse products as: paper, clothing, rope, lotion, soap and cosmetics. With so much commerce on the chopping block, it's hardly a shock that somebody took the DEA asshats to court. The 200 companies involved in this lawsuit got a favorable ruling this week from the oft - and, too often, quite properly - maligned Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. For a change, these federal judges got something right:

'...The San Francisco-based appeals court said that although the Drug Enforcement Administration has regulatory authority over marijuana, the agency did not have the authority to ban foods derived from hemp. The court said it was not possible to get high from products with only trace amounts of the mind-altering chemical...' (Bee)

Kudos to the Ninth Circuit for giving W and his DEA drug warriors a badly needed thrashing.

Afterthought
Government cess-schooled readers might need to know that hemp is related to another prime drug war bull's-eye: marijuana. The primal scream emanating from D.C. is Attorney General John Asshat throwing a tantrum.

Nanny State News Briefs
Source: Pagan Scribbler News Wire [09/22]

Don't Bank On It
It's not breaking news when federal bureaucrats interfere with your finances, so, nobody should be that shocked when they learn that these job-for-life retards are at it again. This time out, the Federal Reserve system is imposing a mandatory change to the way your checking account works. Starting October 28, the feds spring a nifty Halloween surprise when they require that banks stop returning your cancelled checks. Instead, you'll get something called an IRD [image replacement document], a snapshot of the check, if I'm interpreting hack-speak correctly.

The job-for-lifers hatched this notion in 1999, but it didn't get traction until after the 9-11 attacks. How do my cancelled checks effect the war on terror? I haven't got a clue, nor do I give a flaming damn. The fact remains that this is just another intrusion by the goddamn Nanny State where it no shit does not belong. My checking account and the particular elements thereof are none of their business. Which part of leave me the hell alone don't they goddamn understand?

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
When the recent deluge made Pennsylvania's Conodoquinet Creek a raging river, it stranded several customers on paper carrier Betsey Patrick's route. Unwilling to spoil her perfect delivery record, Betsey enlisted her father's help and delivered the papers to the stranded customers on a raft. Betsey, her customers and fishwrap were elated, so the story should end there. Should, but doesn't.

Some cops and a pinhead in the state Fish and Boat Commission weren't thrilled spitless, so, they hammered Betsey and her dad with 'negligent operation of a water craft'. When Betsey kicked up a fuss - and who can blame her - they arrested her for disorderly conduct, carting her off in handcuffs while her 2-year-old daughter watched in amazement. This is the Nanny State running amok. The pinheads who perpetrated this farce should be tracked down and given a thrashing. Who the hell asked them to butt in anyway. We are, as usual, profoundly unamused.

Kudos to Betsey and brickbats to these jack-booted Nanny State storm troopers.

Full Moon Rising
A Tennessee man landed in deep doo-doo when, while taking snapshots of his son, the 5-year-old lad dropped his drawers and mooned dear old dad. Amazed and more than a tad puzzled, dad took the picture then sent it to his ex-wife - the butt-baring tyke's mommy - asking her where baby boy learned this crap. That easily, he won the staring role in a trial for 'sexually exploiting a child'.

The fact that there's no evidence that the man ever abused, exploited or mistreated his son in any way...the fact that the only other person who saw the photo is the tyke's mommy, doesn't cut any ice with these zealous to a fault Nashville DA's. It's an election year and they're determined to destroy this dude's life, to further their political career. This transcends asinine, and demonstrates how utterly out of control our government is. When the justice system can accuse a dude of a sex crime against his own son based on a harmless snapshot, nobody is safe from their power-obsessed antics.

Visiting Tennessee can be hazardous to your inalienable liberty. Enter at your own risk. This is not a drill.

Nashville's Road Rules
Source: The Tennessean [09/22]

Music City's Metro Council thinks that tourists will flock to their fair city, with more enthusiasm if the city's taxi drivers are whipped into shape. Unwilling...unable to leave such things to the unflinching 'mercy' of the marketplace, these hacks are determined to impose etiquette on the city's taxi drivers by government mandate. The new rules include such goodies as: no smoking or incense; no talking on cell phones; no 'attitude' when the passenger doesn't tip you; speak proper English. The "or else" underlying what the hacks call 'a taxi passenger's bill of rights' is a $50 dollar fine for each offense.

In a marketplace driven, properly capitalistic, system, good manners would be an optional element left to the individual taxi companies. If customers clamor for kinder, gentler drivers, a company could - invariably would - distinguish itself as the 'cab company that treats you right'. The inevitable result would be increased business, forcing other companies to serve up similar customer service, or take a hit on the bottom line. It's the way capitalism works, when the government hacks mind their own damn business and stop intruding where they damn sure don't belong.

Nanny State News Roundup
Source: Pagan Scribbler News Wire [09/16]

Item: Poker Ban In Blithering Bobby Byrd's Backyard
The Weirton, West Virgina city council just passed an edict that bans video poker businesses within 1,000 feet of a cess-school or Toll Booth [pagan scribbler speak for a church]. According to one news blurb, Weirton's 20,000 strong populace is so video poker bonkers they support 81 poker-parlor businesses, so, this edict reeks of 'closing the barn door after the horses got out'.

Why, I wondered, single out cess-schools and Toll Booths? As usual, I came up with the answer:

Cess-Schools?: Because government cess-school inmates aren't trained to use their brains. Educrats do all the thinking for them.

Toll Booths?: Because supernaturalists, deliberately, refuse to use their brain. Old Ka-Boom does all their thinking for them.

81 poker parlors? Wow!!! Who knew West Virginia could be this fun? Learn something new everyday.

Item: Re-Thinking Seattle's Public Transit Debacle
In 2002, Seattle denizens decided that the proposed 14-mile, $1.6 billion dollar monorail project was just what the city needed. Fast forward to 2004 and the same populace is showing residual signs that sanity has reared its ugly head. Some dastardly rational adults put an initiative on the November ballot that would, if passed, scuttle this mass transit boondoggle, before it got off the drawing board.

As expected, the Monorail morons aren't taking this taxpayer revolt lying down, so they went shyster bonkers, trying to get a judge to nuke the initiative. Believe it or not, they hit paydirt when a King County Superior Court judge ruled that the initiative is illegal. Before they could don their party hats, Monorail supporters got nailed by the state's judicial system when an appeals court overturned the lower court's ruling, putting the initiative back on the ballot. The second shoe dropped when the state's Supreme Court refused to hear the Monorail supporters appeal.

Against this legal backdrop, the Monorail supporters on Seattle's city council held their noses, and voted to keep the initiative on the ballot. I'm guessing that political waters testing played a major role in their Monorail reality check. Will Seattle voters wake up and smell the mass transit boondoggle coffee? We'll all find out together, in November.

Item: Uncle Sam Goes Tire Pressure Bonkers
If the D.C. pinheads in Uncle Sam's egregiously bloated bureaucracy get their way, starting in 2007, all new cars will have government-mandated warning gizmos that alert the driver that his tire pressure is too low. When pressed for some justification for this blatant intrusion into the marketplace, the regulatory retards spouted drivel about saving 'as much as $1.7 billion in fuel and vehicle maintenance costs' (AP). For those who care, the same mutants estimate that it will cost $1.1 billion annually, to outfit the cars with this asinine warning system.

Anyone with a single functional synapse knows that you always double bureaucratic cost estimates and halve their savings predictions, but that misses the essential point. Saving the unwary dolt from under-inflated tires is no shit none of Uncle Sam's damn business. Where, exactly, is the Constitutional clause that gives the federal goddamn government the power to dictate automobile features and/or accessories? This enraged pagan scribbler demands an answer.

Item: Big Dig Springs A Leak
Boston's endless, decade (plus) old mega boondoggle, The Big Dig, is back in the news, thanks to the thrilling fact that a tunnel they dug under a river just sprung a leak. Trust me when I tell you that this is an inherent hazzard when you dig tunnels under a large body of water. You'd think that the $14.6 billion in taxpayer dollars (probably a very low estimate) would buy better quality than this, but this is par for the course when you have job-for-life, government cess-schooled bureaucrats granting contracts to the lowest bidder.

More Nanny State News
Source: Pagan Scribbler News Wire [09/15]

Item: Tilting The Cellidiot Windmill in Mexifornia
Mexifornia's action hero governor signed a bill that makes 'it illegal to talk on a cell phone while driving a school bus, or other mass transit vehicle' (Contra Costa Times). As usual, this law boldly intrudes where government doesn't belong. As an employer, the state - at every level - is perfectly within its rights to dictate 'rules of engagement' for its owns workers. But, the nanny state exceeds its rightful power, when it tries to dictate on the job rules for private employers. Those firms, together with their insurance provider, are, inherently, empowered to set whatever kind of job rules thrill them spitless. A successful businessman in civilian life, this action hero governor should be up to speed on this fundamental concept.

Item: Another Day, Another Smoking Ban
The hacks running Ramsey County (Minnesota) perpetrated an edict that bans smoking in all 'businesses that make a majority of their money selling food' (Star Tribune). The owners of the 1,369 business effected must be thrilled in the extreme that their local hacks abolish property rights so blatantly. Ramsey County's antics offer more proof - as if we needed it, that the inalienable individual liberty set forth by the founding fathers is on life support. We got to this sorry condition, thanks to Nanny State asshats like The Ramsey County Board, or is that the Ramsey County Politburo?

Censorship Takes A Direct Hit
Source: CNET News (09/11)

A Pennsylvania's Internet-censoring edict - statute 7330 - that forced ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to block access to any site that might, in some hypersensitive retards fevered brain, aid, abet or imply child pornography just got shot down by a federal judge. The judge didn't mince words in this freedom-restoring ruling:

'..."There is little evidence that the act has reduced the production of child pornography or the child sexual abuse associated with its creation," U.S. District Judge Jan DuBois wrote in the 102-page decision. "On the other hand, there is an abundance of evidence that implementation of the Act has resulted in massive suppression of speech protected by the First Amendment."...' (CNET News)

This ruling provides badly needed relief to ISPs and Internet users in Pennsylvania. With the law hanging over their heads like the sword of Damocles, ISPs erred on the side of caution and wiped out entire domains, rather than risk the criminal charges set forth in statute 7330. Determined to avoid Pennsylvania's zealous child porn-obsessed justice officials, ISPs blocked 'more than million innocent web sites, along with 400 alleged child porn sites' (CNET News). Call this whatever thrills you spitless, but it's no shit government-mandated censorship on a massive scale.

If well-meaning individuals want to snuff out child pornography, they should publicize the specific addresses of those Internet sites dealing in child porn and let concerned individuals take the matter from there. Kudos to Judge DuBois for ruling in favor of inalienable individual liberty.

Mexas Nanny State Brain-Fart
Source: Houston Chronicle [09/02]

Mexas' bureaucratic busybodies uncovered a shocking blight on society and promptly dropped the hammer on a Houston watering hole's Monday night bingo game. After 4 years, the Continental Club's Monday night festivities are history: Gone are the bingo girls, the bingo cards and those lavish pez dispenser joke prizes. It's a good thing the proper authorities stepped in to end this iniquitous practice. Today the boodle is pez dispensers, but tomorrow it could be - gasp - plastic swizzle sticks. Mexas denizens can rest easy, now that this evil bingo blight has been snuffed out.

Is this bingo ban asinine? Big damn time, but, Mexas' Nanny State dolts still enforce the relevant law because acting like asshats is what bureaucrats do best.

'...Section 2001.551b of the Bingo Enabling Act notes that it is illegal to conduct bingo without a license, even for free. Although there are exemptions, [Billy Atkins, director of the charitable bingo operations division at the Texas Lottery Commission] said. A person can play bingo in his house if no more than 15 people play and prizes are nominal. There are also exemptions for veterans and seniors groups. Newspapers are allowed to offer "promotional bingo" games...' (Chronicle)

Am I the only one who sees this Nanny State outrage in all its fetid...glory? Regulating bingo is anti-liberty in the extreme. Who made bingo games the government's damn business? Enough already!

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Nanny State News
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch [10/27]

Sixteen years ago, Theocratica enacted the 'Birth Injury Act', legicrap that allows a baby who suffers a catastrophic injury - such as severe brain injuries - during childbirth in a hospital to be put on what this Theocratica fishwrap calls a 'state program that offers lifetime medical care'...at taxpayers expense, of course. A severely injured individual, especially a baby, is a tragedy, but, that alone does not merit a free medical ride on the tax dollar express.

The specific case discussed by the paper involved a dispute over a certain birth-injury victim who was not born in a hospital, but in the parent's home. According to the law's fine print, only babies born in a hospital are eligible for this program. In this case, a Virginia Court of Appeals ruled that the baby didn't qualify for the program, sending the parents into civil court to seek redress from the hospital and the doctors.

Call me heartless if you must, but this tragedy is not the Nanny State's financial responsibility. If the parents need financial assistance, they should seek it from church groups and other privately funded charities. They have no right to use government coercion to impose this financial burden on their neighbors. To put it bluntly, this is a risk they undertook, voluntarily, when they decided to reproduce.

Afterthought
Would this 'cold-hearted' pagan pony up some dead presidents if they passed the hat? Probably. I don't mind helping out, voluntarily, but, I do object strenuously, when anyone tries to garner my support by force, via government coercion.

Another Thought Police Power Grab
Source: Pagan Scribbler News Wire [10/20]

Thought Police Kommandant Michael Powell thinks it would be a nifty - in the extreme - notion if his FCC goose-steppers seized control over a cyberspace communications goodie called VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). VoIP allows individuals the option to make phone calls via the Internet, thus bypassing those quasi-government entities, the phone companies, but it's not just the phone companies that want to jam these high tech communications gears. State and local governments have their tax and spend panties in a bunch, because, when John or Jane Q. Public uses VoIP, he and/or she doesn't get nailed by all the taxes government hacks pile on your monthly phone bill.

Kommandant Powell, deftly, avoided all the hot-button issues when he launched this federal regulation trial balloon. Instead, he wrapped himself in marketplace rhetoric, by claiming that VoIP would be destroyed, before it got rolling, by 'a patchwork of conflicting rules like those that have ensnarled the traditional phone business for decades' (News Max). As usual, the fight here centers on which government entity will intrude in the marketplace, and how much damage it will do. It would be refreshing if, just once, somebody - inside or outside government circles - dared to bring up the real issue here: why is the government, at any damn level, interfering in the telecommunications marketplace? Once again, the Nanny State butts in where it doesn't belong and makes matters much, much worse. Enough already, damn it!

Nanny State News Nuggets
Source: Pagan Scribbler News Wire [10/19]

Michigan
When the owner of a gas station/mini mart combo added some booty-decorated cigarette lighters to his product line, he compounded his salacious salesmanship by putting the offending items next to kid heaven: the mini mart's candy isle. The instant certain moralistic 'mommies' spotted the lighters with their 'naked pictures of men and women engaged in various sexual acts' (News 8, a Grand Rapids boob tube outlet), they went postal, invoking a 2003-vintage state law:

'...According to House Bill 4360, displaying sexually explicit matter to minors is against the law. Specifically, a person is guilty if he or she is a manager of a business that sells material that depicts sexual intercourse, and that material is not in a restricted area away from minors...' (News 8)

Will these porno lighters so sully the tykes that they'll careen off the straight and narrow into relentless debauchery and sexual excess? I seriously doubt it, but don't try to convince Nanny State overlords or their clamoring, Morality Nazi denizens. If the citizens make enough noise...If they take their business elsewhere, marketplace forces will compel the business owner to 'do the right thing' or go bankrupt. This is none of the Nanny State's damn business.

Nebraska
Nebraska's equal opportunity storm troopers lowered the Nanny State boom on a property owner - The Richdale Group - when the property owner refused to lease an apartment to a 'topless dancer' dolly. When this booty-shaker tried to negotiate a lease, the Richdale Group minion explained that, their company policy bans them from leasing to anyone in the adult entertainment business, including strippers. Faster than a speeding pastie, the aggrieved dancer went whining to the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission, claiming that the Richdale Group discriminated against her.

In a heartbeat, the Nebraska victim coddlers laid a bureaucratic smackdown on Richdale Group, claiming that their 'no strippers allowed' rule discriminated against women, since 98% of strippers in the state - 96% nationwide are...chicks. To their credit, Richdale decided to fight it out, but, they whimped out, minorly, by claiming that their law applied equally, to men and women in the adult entertainment business.

In a rational world...a world based on inalienable individual liberty...the only defense the Richdale Group needs is: it's our property and we'll rent, lease or sell it to anybody we damn please. Obviously, such a rational defense is just a tad too real in these Nanny State plagued times.

Southern-Fried Nanny State Nitwits
Source: Sacramento Bee [10/18]

When South Carolina decided to 'allow' adults to consume adult beverages in the '70's, the state's hacks got a case of the cutes that continues to plague the state's adult beverage purveyors. Thanks to this three decades old, Southern-Fried brain-fart, every time you ask your local, South Carolina bartender for that Scotch on the rocks, your friendly beverage wrangler needs to dispense said adult beverage from a special 1.7 ounce minibottle - the same minibottle served to airline passengers. No matter how strong, or weak, you want your drink, you gotta buy the whole minibottle. Adult beverage imbibing adventurers who like fancy adult beverages that require more than one type of liquor - the infamous Long Island Iced Tea comes to mind - are required to pony up for several minibottles. Ka-ching!

This asinine law makes adult beverage purveyors' job much more difficult, at best, and nearly impossible in some cases. Critics point out that the existing minibottle law isn't fulfilling the promised 'advantages': encouraging people to drink less. In fact, a standard shot served from the larger adult beverage container is smaller - 1 ounce verses the minibottle's 1.7 ounces. Also, the minibottle went from 1.5 ounces to 1.7 ounces, after this law was enacted. That, plus the fact that South Carolina is the only state of the original 22 that still mandates these minibottles, prompted some rational adults to whomp up a ballot initiative to deep six the minibottle, forever.

It doesn't really matter how the voting turns out on this matter, because nobody had the nads to face up to the real issue: the government shouldn't be micro-managing business in the first place. In other words, butt the hell out, legicrat asshats. Let the adult beverage purveyors - and their clients - decide how they want their booze packaged.

Nanny State Follies
Source: Pagan Scribbler News Wire [10/13]

Banned In Tennessee
Kathleen Williams stirred up a Morality Nazi tizzy when she displayed a 'yellow ducky sponge' at a Spring Hill, Tennessee flea market. Although our heronine insists that the vibrator-packing ducky is a kids toy, the usual Morality Nazi suspects goose-stepped into the fray, insisting that it's a sex toy and demanded that she cease and desist displaying such salacious wares. Unwilling to prolong the fiasco, Ms. Williams pulled the toy off her display.

Shame on these Tennessee Morality Nazis for imposing their fetid supernaturalist-inspired delusions on Nashville's sovereign individuals. If there's no market for Kathleen's adult novelties, the marketplace will exact its usual punishment. If there is a market for such things, these Tennessee Morality mutants should butt the hell out.

Those Dastardly Outlaw Horn Honkers
The Gulag's (San Francisco) men in blue don't want to hear about it, so they're ticketing - $50 per citation - any driver who honks their horn to signal their support for the city's striking hotel workers. The cops claim that businesses near the strike's Palace Hotel focal point are complaining about the noise, so they're just doing their duty for capitalism. Yeah, right, as if anyone in this Marxist enclave gives a rip about businesses and/or their property rights. I didn't name Frisco 'The Gulag' because it's a bastion of free enterprise.

Nanny State Targets The Internet, Again
Source: AP [10/13]

Thanks to a recent federal court ruling that shot down the FEC's (Federal Election Commission) rules of engagement under Amerika's liberty-zapping Campaign Finance Reform law, this federal election cabal is now tasked with 'regulating' campaign-related antics on the Internet. Refreshingly, these regulators are reluctant to snuff out this cyberspace political activity, but the judge's ruling is clear and unambiguous: McCain-Feingold restrictions apply, equally, to the Internet.

Encouraged by the ruling, the usual speech-muzzling suspects are spouting off about 'unregulated' political activity on the internet, focusing, exclusively, on Internet-based, political fund raising and advertising. They claim that's all they're after. Yeah right. I don't buy it for one second, because these eager regulators are after much bigger game: snuffing out the only place in Amerika where unrestricted free speech is still practiced...the Internet. In other words, kiss your cyberspace liberty goodbye, because Uncle Sam is poised to stomp it out, right, goddamn now. We are, as usual, unamused in the extreme.

Afterthoughts
Anyone who sees the venerable 'slippery slope' lurking out there to snuff out the last vestiges of free speech in Amerika - the Internet - are right on the money. Once the feds jump into Internet regulation with both feet, any opinion that doesn't thrill the political clan in power will be crushed under Uncle Sam's regulatory heel. Welcome to the Amerikan Gulag, comrades.

Mexas Nanny State B.S.
Source: Houston Chronicle [10/12]

Item 1
A Mexas capitalist who manages an adult novelty store named 'Tres Equis', just dodged a bullet when a judge dismissed the "that dastardly dude sold me a sex toy" charges perpetrated by an undercover officer wench. Sergio Acosta had the temerity to, while this police wench lurked in his store, to display and describe 'the use of a sex toy' to her. I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you. I'm shocked that selling sex toys is a crime in Mexas. Apparently, the terms "inalienable individual liberty" and "consenting adults" don't translate into whatever lingo these Mexas asshats speak.

If selling sex toys tops the criminal docket in El Paso, Mexas, life is downright spiffy and the proper Mexas authorities should knock off this Morality Nazi crap and get on with it. Color this pagan scribbler unamused, to the max.

Item 2
Houston (Mexas, of course) officials served up an election cycle edict that bans adult beverage emporiums from racking up brewskies within 300 feet of a daycare center. Readers who imagine tykes throughout Houston passing these drinking holes on the way home need to sober up, because, so far, only three adult beverage emporiums are so situated within Houston. The fun fact about this edict is, that, if it's enacted, it won't effect existing adult beverage emporiums.

The real impetus behind this edict is betrayed in this fishwrap piece's final paragraph:

'...Councilman Adrian Garcia, chair of the public safety committee, said he supports the proposal as one way of discouraging bars from locating in residential neighborhoods. He has worked with [director of the Mayor's Citizens' Assistance Office, Richard] Cantu's office to try to reduce nuisance cantinas in his heavily Hispanic district in the near-north side...' (Chronicle)

Unwilling to incur race-card wrath and "profiling" prose by targeting the offending Sombrero Stomper drinking dens, the city hacks deflect any 'racism' accusations by punishing all adult beverage purveyors, throughout the city. Predictably, this pagan scribbler is unamused in the extreme over this blatant, Nanny State, bovine excrement.

Nanny State Bonkers In Mississippi
Source: Pagan Scribbler News Wire [10/10]

Wal Mart just mothballed all the crane games in their Mississippi stores, citing the state's asinine gambling laws. I'm guessing this move helped them dodge a bullet, because the state's highest court decreed that, under the state's prevailing gambling edicts, 'amusement games that dispense something of value upon the insertion of a coin are illegal slot machines' (AP). Crane games are slot machines? Slot machines! If these Southern-Fried hacks can't tell the difference between a crane game and a slot machine, there's no hope for them.

Is proximity to Talibanma causing this Mississippi brain-fart, or did the state get terminally stupid all by itself? Whatever the case, Mississippi's irrational edicts make it a good place to avoid.

Afterthoughts
Government cess-schooled dolts will need to be told that 'crane games are those curious and frustrating games where you pay a quarter and try to use a toy crane to capture a stuffed animal or toys locked in a glass box.' (AP)

Given the fickle - sometimes they work, other times you gotta bash the bastards - nature of the garden variety, adult beverage emporium cigarette machine, it's a slam dunk that they, too, could be classified as slot machines under Mississippi's asinine gambling laws.

Hate Crime Expansion Doesn't Make The Cut
Source: Pagan Scribbler News Wire [10/08]

The usual suspects in the U. S. Senate played election cycle bingo when they attached a 'hate crimes' amendment to the defense authorization appropriations bill. The hate crimes revision would "...[expand] the law to include violent crimes motivated by a person's real or perceived sexual orientation, gender and disability". Although the hate crimes rider passed the Senate, it didn't make the cut when it got to the conference committee tasked with resolving the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. That fast, Elephant Clan hacks trashed this hate crimes expansion. You won't need Nostradamus to predict that certain senators didn't take this defeat like, uh...men.

The bloated one himself, that bellowing Senatorial asshat, Teddy Kennedy, went postal, spewing his usual, demented drivel. Predictably, none of Teddy's table pounding prose is memorable, or worth repeating. What is thrilling, to half the country, is the sobering, Senator Teddy notion that this fetid legicrap will get a better reception, after John 'War Hero' Kerry takes his, uh, 'rightful' place in the Oval Office. The obvious, Fat Teddy inference - that W would veto the bill - assumes facts not in evidence. So far, W hasn't vetoed any-damn-thing, and it's highly unlikely that he'll start with the vital defense appropriations bill. It's the Elephant Clan hacks who control the House of Representatives who shot down this hate crimes crap-o-la, and they're unlikely to change their ways for a President Kerry. Teddy needs to up the voltage on his shock treatments and rejoin reality, before it's too late.

Gay Marriage On The Louisiana Court Docket
Source: Sacramento Bee [10/05]

The ink barely had time to dry on Louisiana's shiny, new, amendment to the state constitution when a state judge declared it fatally flawed. Three short weeks ago, the state's electorate rammed through the gay marriage banning amendment, when a whopping 78% majority voted to enshrine homophobia in the state's constitution. Fast forward to the present and District Judge William Morvant shot it down because the amendment had more than one purpose, a no-no under state law. As written, the proposed amendment to the state constitution banned gay marriages, and, it also banned civil unions. Bold new concept.

The fun fact about Louisiana is that it already has a law banning gay marriage, but the usual, smugly sanctimonious subjects wanted more. Terrified that, somehow, those dastardly GLAAD BAAGs would despoil holy matrimony down on the bayou, Cross Cultist lit a fire under the state's legicrats and this ballot initiative reared its ugly head.

I'm guessing that the same sanctimonious asshats who promoted this constitutional amendment will press this thing all the way up the judicial ladder. That's life in the fast lane, Tome-bonkers Sparky.

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Ducking The Issue?
Source: Sacramento Bee [11/29]

Too impatient to allow state legicrats and voters settle the contentious "gay marriage" issue, certain Bay State traditional marriage defenders decided to steal a page from the liberal elite playbook. Their scheme hinged on getting Massachusetts' gay marriage adventure declared unconstitutional by their own activist judges on the U.S. Supreme Court. That all looked nifty on paper, but, this week, when the fast-tracked hot-button issue landed on their doorstep, Amerika's highest courts took a pass, declining the case without comment.

It's ironic that the usual 'will of the people' suspects are so hell-bent to rescue traditional marriage from some damn body that they refuse to allow the state's denizens to settle the matter for themselves, according to the prevailing state laws:

'...State legislators will decide whether to put the issue before Massachusetts voters in November 2006...' (Bee)

Could it be that the rigidly righteous right doesn't trust Massachusetts' voters to 'do the right thing' when the time comes? Could it be that their demented bellowing about saving marriage doesn't pass the voters' smell test in Teddy Kennedy's backyard? The answer to both questions appears to be "yes".

Santa's Naughty Adventure
Source: NBC (Albany, NY) [11/27]

A Latham (New York) capitalist incurred Nanny State nitwit wrath when he affixed some provocative holiday decor atop his booty parlor (a strip club called Sebastian's). The holiday cheer that put hack panties in a hyper twist is tame, by any reasonable measure, but too hot for the limp wangs in Latham, by a long shot:

'...A female doll, wearing a T-shirt that says 'I've been naughty,' stands right in front of an inflatable Santa Claus...' (NBC)

Stretching the city's edicts well past their limit, the relevant city hacks declared the display that sits atop this booty palace "a sign", giving them the ability to fine this inspired capitalist for having an illegal, "inappropriate" sign. If there's a rational adult left in Latham, New York, get down to city hall stat and step-up the voltage on these Nanny State nitwits' shock treatments.

When, exactly, did Amerikans get so goddamn addled by alleged 'decency' that we lost our sense of humor?

ACLU To The Rescue?
Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel [11/25]

The Transportation Safety Administration's new 'grope them sweater puppies' policy just registered on the ACLU's vaunted radar as 'potentially' sexual harassment. Although the TSA insists that it's all being done for our safety and that dudes are as likely to be groped as babes, this TSA blithering didn't pass the ACLU's smell test, and the women subjected to this hot-handed treatment aren't buying it either:

'...Passenger Rhonda Gaynier, who said she was given a "breast exam" by screeners in Tampa last month, was so upset she retained Norman Siegel, a civil-rights lawyer, to study the feasibility of a class-action suit against the TSA...' (Sun-Sentinel)

Given Norm Mineta's (TSA's fearless leader) egregiously Korrectnik policies against "profiling" Mecca Maniac passengers, you can bet the farm that he's issued strict orders that those passengers most likely to be a terrorist wench - women wearing those Mecca Maniac class moo-moo rigs - must never be groped, even if you hear a ticking sound or she's trailing a burning fuse behind her. On the other hand, if you're a melanin-deficient wench with a Pam Anderson class bod, you're gonna be "inspected" relentlessly.

It would be thrilling if the ACLU shysters could scream some common sense into Norm and his hot-handed horde, but I'm not gonna hold my breath waiting for that to happen. If you enjoy having some minimum wage, job-for-life, government-schooled, federal employee's hands-on mauling of your breasts, genitals and butt, all you gotta do is book a fight and get that TSA-administered thrill at your nearest airport. Big, big fun

Afterthought:
Am I the only one profoundly disappointed that Norm didn't quit, get fired, or move the hell out of the way after W won his second term? I doubt it. Putting Norm in charge at the TSA is, without a doubt, number one with a bullet when it comes to W's worst Oval Office decisions. Be a man, W, admit your mistake and fire this asshat before his Korrectnik incompetence gets somebody killed.

The CDC's Flawed Obesity Data
Source: Seattle Times [11/24]

After countless rational adults questioned the CDC's highly publicized obesity findings that claimed a staggering 400,000 Amerikans died due to 'poor diet and physical inactivity' in 2000, CDC bureaucrats revisited their data and discovered that they'd overstated their case by an estimated 80,000 individuals. When the real numbers get plugged into the formula, the increase in obesity-related deaths - when compared with data from 1990 - the result isn't a stop the presses 33% increase. Instead, the percentage increase sinks down into single digit territory. How do bureaucrats say "D'oh"?

The breaking news here isn't that a government cabal cooked some numbers to generate screaming - we're a nation of blubber - headlines from sea to shining sea. The real story here is that the CDC admitted its mistake, publically, and in writing:

'...The CDC plans to submit a correction to the Journal of the American Medical Association, which published the study in March. The correction will explain how the error was made, said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner...' (Times)

You can bet the farm that this 'we're not getting that fat, that fast' bureaucratic mea culpa won't generate the headlines that its initial, egregiously flabby, report spewed. The News Nazis thrive on bad news, so don't bet the farm that this item will get a single mention on the network news, on cabal news, or in your local fishwrap. That's why informed individuals get their breaking news from PIG.

Pachyderm Fun And Games
Source: CNN [11/21]

Elephant Clan legicrat panties are in a wad, again, after some sharp-eyed Senators spotted a rider on the omnibus spending bill that would allow two Elephant Clan committee chairmen to snoop into any Amerikan taxpayer's tax returns, whenever they were in the mood. Predictably, the two snoops - Alaska's Senator Ted Stevens and Florida Congresspunk, Bill Young - pleaded ignorance, and disavow any interest in spying on Amerikan taxpayers. Did anyone expect them to plead "guilty"?

As expected, this 'gotcha' elicited on-camera chest beating and 'outrage' from the usual suspects. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist vows to track down the dastardly skunks who perpetrated this outrage, but I'm guessing that his enthusiasm will wane, the tick this story falls off the News Nazi radar. Across the political aisle, the Empire State's senior senator, Chucky Schumer is making the usual Donkey Clan noises about tracking down the guilty hacks through 'a "full and complete" investigation':

'..."This harkens back to the days of [FBI Director] J. Edgar Hoover, when some unknown person could go and snoop on you," [Senator Chucky] said on CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer."...' (CNN)

Reading between the lines, it appears that one or more arrogant Elephant Clan, legicrat asshats tried to pull a fast one, and got caught. Will we ever find out who did this crap? Probably not. Does it matter? Not really, because, neither political clan gives a flaming damn about inalienable individual liberty. Voters who elect these liberty-hating asshats get the suffocating Nanny State tyranny they deserve.

Gearing Up For A Premature Death?
Source: AP [11/20]

Your government is gearing up to suffocate a new enterprise, space tourism, by ordering the FAA to get set to murder this new industry - before it gets profitable - by drawing up the usual, over-the-top Nanny State regulations. The bill, H.R. 5382, attempts a free market approach by delaying the FAA's death stroke for 8 years after the bill is passed, but those good intentions go out the window the instant something goes wrong during space tourism's growing pains stage.

Remind me to reread my Constitution, because I missed the 'congress shall regulate space tourism' clause, the last time I read it. Which part of 'it's none of your damn business' don't these legicrat clowns understand?

Abortion Pill In The Congressional Bull's-Eye
Source: Washington Times [11/18]

Determined to placate the clamoring, righteous righty horde, congressional Elephant Clan hacks scheme to run an "abortion pill" ban up the legicrap flagpole. Their excuse is the usual crap, the pill is unnecessarily dangerous for Amerikan citizens. Unfortunately, the facts don't necessarily support that premise. According to FDA statistics, 360,000 Amerikan women have used RU-486,out of which 600 complained, including the family of 18-year old Holly Patterson who blame their daughter's death on RU-486. The rampaging pachyderm punks are - allegedly - alarmed over RU-486's track record, despite the fact that only 0.016% of RU-486 users complained about side effects.

As soon as you shovel away the hack bovine excrement, their real motives come into sharp focus. This RU-486 ban is just another front in the rampaging right's war on abortion. This fast-tracked "abortion pill" ban has nothing to do with the drug's safety record. If nobody suffered ill effects, these pachyderm punks would still ban what they view as a pernicious blight on Amerikan womanhood. These hacks are determined to give the righteous righty horde anything it wants. To please their impatient new masters, the newly elected Elephant Clan congressional majority will, eagerly, impose Cross Cult theology, through government coercion. If you don't realize that your liberty hangs in the balance, you're in a red state-induced coma.

Afterthought
Since abortion is a front burner issue again, a few choice pagan scribbler words are in order. Not including the fabled flood, the Old Ka-Boomists' 'unblemished word of God', the Bible, is replete with stories where Old Ka-Boom himself ordered his 'chosen people' to exterminate the entire population of cities, countries - men, women, and children (some of them unborn). That's why this pagan scribbler renamed 'holy scripture', The Blood-Soaked Tome.

Contrary to righteous righty blithering, some human life is more 'sacred' to the God Squad's deity than other, non-God Squad, human life. If the Blood-Soaked Tome is to be believed, Old Ka-Boom qualifies as the most prolific mass murderer in human history. Let’s hear a heavenly trumpet fanfare and a heartfelt 'amen' for this record-shattering accomplishment.

NIMBY Illinois Nitwits
Source: CBS [11/16]

The hackes on the Antioch (Illinois) village council condemned a new coffee shop's name, before the franchise brewed its first pot of java in this hypersensitive town. Some-damn-how the name "Big Ass Coffee" will inflict lifelong trauma on Antioch's egregiously fragile tykes, because - gasp - this horrid name might encourage tykes to utter the infamous "A" word. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

Several Big Ass Coffee-related issues caused the following synaptic surges:

Why, exactly, is a coffee company headquartered in Mormon-dominated Utah? Don't company executives know that a core Mormon tenet, 'The Words of Wisdom' forbids coffee consumption?

A coffee company named "Big Ass Coffee" is headquartered in Salt Lake City? If the Mormons can cope with the name, so can Antioch.

"Big Ass Coffee" is an officially registered Illinois corporation. If Illinois hacks can cope, so can Antioch.

Antioch denizens should let the marketplace decide the issue, rather than running asinine, non-binding, resolutions up the Antioch council flagpole. If a critical, Antioch denizen, mass takes their coffee business elsewhere, the balance sheet concerns will force the company to change the name or go away. It's called capitalism and it's much more efficient that nattering NIMBY decrees.

Draconian Drug Law Dementia In Colorado
Source: ABC [11/13]

A new Colorado drug law bagged a business man because he sold a legal substance, iodine, to the "wrong" people. This Rocky Mountain High, edict makes you slammer bait if you 'knowingly sell chemicals used for manufacturing meth'. ABC reports that it took a 'year long investigation by federal and local authorities' to bag a dude for selling idone. A year long investigation for selling iodine? Iodine! Asinine is the nicest thing I can call this bovine excrement.

Iodine pusher, Neil Cizek, faces, a virtual life's sentence, because, at age 62, he'd never survive 12 years in a slammer. If, by some miracle, he did survive, he faces the onerous chore of ponying up $750,000. Is sending this dude to jail for selling iodine what Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, Ben Franklin, James Madison, et al, had in mind when they proclaimed America's dedication to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? I way don't think so, Tim. Amerika's asinine drug war is anti-liberty, in the extreme.

Ashcroft Update
Source: News Max [11/10]

Attorney General John Asshat isn't done undermining state sovereignty yet. Despite his resignation, Attorney General Asshat continues his single-minded quest to overturn Oregon's assisted suicide law. Using federal drug laws as his excuse, Asshat hopes that the U.S. Supreme Court will agree to rubber stamp his plot to club inalienable liberty into submission, from sea to shining sea. Untroubled by this federal violation of Oregon's state sovereignty, Asshat, clearly, plans to promote his squalid Cross Cult Theocracy scheme, as long as he's this nation's number one justice system official.

Asshat's departure can't happen too soon. He's an unabashed supernaturalist zealot who, blatantly, imposes his twisted morality via Nanny State coercion. Enough already, Asshat. Don't let the door slap your ass on the way out, dude.

Science Butts Heads with Bureaucracy
Source: Charlotte Observer (North Carolina) [11/08]

Charlotte-Mecklenburg's enriching "gotcha speeder" cameras have a pesky problem: the tattletale photo system works like gangbusters, in the daytime, but, after the sun goes down, the system starts to turbo suck. The proper authorities admit that 20% of the nighttime photsos are unuseable, so, given nominal hack hyperbole, the problem is, probably, much, much worse.

The camera system purveyor is "working on a solution", but there's a very high hurdle to surmount: cameras need light to capture a useful image. Unless Charlotte hacks find a way to rewrite certain fundamental scientific tenets, this no light, no image problem will persist.

This cautionary tale warns the intellectually aware reader that technological answers aren't always a slam dunk. In the spirit of cooperation, I have a modest suggestion. If Charlotte-Mecklenburg hacks want traffic law compliance, the old ways are the best: cops visibly patrolling the city's streets.

Self-Inflicted Sunshine State Wound
Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel [11/04]

Sunshine State voters shot themselves in the wallet when they voted to increase the state's minimum wage by a job-killing buck an hour. In reality, Florida's electorate voted for higher prices, plus, fewer jobs and benefit cuts on the lowest end of the wage scale. As bad as this will be, there is more economic trouble on Florida's horizon:

'...Raising the minimum wage is great, said Laura Hansen of Broward Coalition for the Homeless, but she cautioned it was a "baby step" that won't lift people out of poverty. "Unless you're making at least $10 an hour you're vulnerable to homelessness," Hansen said...' (Sun-Sentinel)

Voters raise the minimum wage a buck an hour and the capitalism-hating whiners' first response is that "It's not nearly enough." Trust me on this, it will never be enough. Ballot box stupidity strikes again. It's the gift that keeps on giving. So be it.

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A Northwest Nanny State Adventure
Source: The Herald (Washington State) [12/30]

Snohomish (Washington) bureaucrats banned the artwork a BBQ restaurant painted on the side of it's building, because the imagery features nudity...porcine nudity. That's right, the eatery's mural features naked pigs and, apparently, that's just not done in tragically anal, Snohomish. Why...if they allow naked pigs...somebody might - gasp - paint naked humans on their own goddamn property. Shocking!

For those who obsess on relevant details, here's how The Herald describes the porcine porn:

'...The mural features five pink pigs on a white concrete wall, unwilling participants in meal preparation. One is ready to be grilled as another attempts escape in a hot air balloon. The remaining three appear to be to enticing drivers to stop...'

Blue state bonkers Snohomish bureaucrats need a refresher course on Constitutionally-guaranteed property rights, stat.

Fort Lauderdale's Pernicious Parking Punks
Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel [12/27]

Fort Lauderdale's parking meter patrol pea-brains are, as Kenneth Kramer discovered, seriously out of control. When our hero parked in a metered slot, he waited - briefly - while he finished his cell phone babble, before feeding the meter. In that short time span, a prowling parking meter punk nailed Kenneth with a parking ticket, because city code mandates feeding the meter "immediately". Already in a parking fine funk, Kenneth quickly learned that his close encounter with Fort Lauderdale's pernicious parking patrol punks was headed for uncharted "what the hell are they smoking in city hall" waters.

For reasons nobody can explain, the paranoid parking patrol punk - Jonathon Lightbourn - went off the deep end, when Kenneth emerged from his ride to question the ticket :

'...Lightbourn fled in his parking scooter, the written citation still in his hand, because he thought Kramer was going for a weapon, he told investigators later. Baffled, Kramer followed him to get his name and to find out whether he had issued a ticket. Kramer's pursuit was dispatched incorrectly to police officers, who thought Kramer had rammed Lightbourn's scooter twice with an SUV and was trying to run him off the road...' (Sun-Sentinel)

In a heartbeat, a parking violation landed a handcuffed Kenneth Kramer in the back seat of a police cruiser. Luckily, at least one rational adult arrived on the scene, because somebody quickly deduced that the parking patrol punk was clinically bonkers. Finally up to speed on the incident, they cut Kenneth loose, apologized and added Kenneth to the city's mushrooming parking patrol punks' victims list.

Fearing a registered voter bitch-slap, city hacks are making "kinder, gentler" parking enforcement noises, but they're not sorry enough to change their enriching - for city coffers - 24/7/365 parking meter operating hours. All things considered, Fort Lauderdale sounds like a great place to avoid. You heard it here, first.

Afterthought
The data on this Fort Lauderdale parking policy caper is eye opening:

'...[parking patrol punks write an] estimated the crew writes 140,000 tickets a year. That's 383 a day...' (Sun-Sentinel)

Is cattle prodding a parking punk peon a felony or a misdemeanor in Fort Lauderdale?

Nanny State Fun Facts
Source: Reason Magazine [12/18]

What do the following items have in common with each other and, potentially, Barry Bonds:

Treason
Counterfeiting
Piracy
Arson
Car-Jacking
Gun ownership by felons
Moving birds from one state to another to engage in fights
Transporting unlicensed dentures across state lines. [What in blue goddamn blazes is a licensed denture?]
Tampering with an odometer.
Pretending to be a 4-H Club member.

Believe it or not, all of these activities are federal crimes, but only the first three - treason, counterfeiting and piracy - are cited in the U. S. Constitution. All the rest are among the 4000 (+) crimes added by your congressional hacks, a fun fact that brings us to the Barry Bonds connection. Citing the legicrat tyrant's excuse of first resort, "Interstate Commerce", Oval Office aspirant, Senator John McCain, wants to make steroid use by professional athletes a federal crime, too.

"Major-league baseball players and owners should meet immediately to enact the standards that apply to the minor leagues, and if they don't, I will have to introduce legislation that says professional sports will have minimum standards for testing." (Senator John McCain)

If Senator McCain thinks this is Amerika's number one problem, he has no business getting anywhere near the Oval Office, in any capacity. Based on this, and other, McCain brain-farts, he's not even qualified to empty the Oval Office trash cans.

Afterthought
For all the gruesome details on Uncle Sam's insatiable hunger for power, I strongly recommend that you read a new book titled: 'Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything'.

Only In Mexas
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer [12/17]

Lacking the nads - and the authority - to outlaw booty emporiums outright, San Antonio hacks decided to drive the city's strip clubs out of business with an edict that requires booty brandishing wenches (exotic dancers) to apply for a permit then wear the damn thing during their performance. The new edict also makes life much more difficult for booty emporium owners by requiring that the clubs maintain a 3-foot space between dancers and their customers.

At least one, rational, Mexas adult sees though the city hack bovine excrement:

'...Jim Deegear, an attorney for a number of San Antonio strip clubs, said complying with the space rule will require clubs to reduce the number of tables, and thus the number of customers. "It's really going to cut into the revenue of my clients, which I think is the real purpose," said Deegear, who plans to the fight the rules in court. "They can't legally say, 'We want to run these people out of business.'"...' (Post-Intelligencer)

Will these petty Mexas tyrants succeed in their crusade to purge San Antonio of its booty emporiums? You better damn believe it, goose-stepping, Mexas Morality Mutant Sparky.

Afterthought
Inalienable individual liberty is on life support in red state retard Amerika. You heard it here, first.

Lancaster's Legicrat Lunatic
Source: Sacramento Bee [12/11]

When a Lancaster (Pennsylvania) city councilman spotted several photos featuring Little Georgie W. Bush in the local farmer's market, he went postal, and demanded that the shop owner take down the 'offensive' pictures, stat. Ironically named Nelson Polite, this petty tyrant spewed drivel about the city needing a "healing period", to cope with W's successful re-election bid. The city may, or may not, need a "healing period", but the hilariously misnamed Councilman "Polite", no shit needs to get over it, stat. Like it or not, W won, so deal with it, dude.

This pagan scribbler is pleased to report that the shop owner, David Stoltzfus, isn't taking down his W pix, but his story gets better. Several other farmers market capitalists are supporting David by putting up their own W photos. Free speech is alive and well in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Can I get a resounding inalienable liberty "Amen" from the congregation?

Afterthought
If you find yourself in Lancaster, and meet Councilman Polite in a dark alley, do everyone a favor and bitch-slap his whining Donkey Clan punk with your pocket copy of the Constitution. It might not help, but it damn sure can't hurt.

Letting Too Much Hang Out, In Florida
Source: AZ Central Site [12/11]

Poppy Madden went toe to toe with Fort Lauderdale (Florida) bureaucrats and emerged victorious, when city hacks, reluctantly, acknowledged that she has the right use clothesline to dry her undies in the Florida sun. The rubber hit the road when a deep pocketed neighbor complained that he could see Poppy's bloomers flapping in the Florida breezes from his two $3 million dollar homes:

'..."I objected to walking out of the new home I was building and seeing her underwear. And now she's flying it like a flag."...' (Whining, deep-pocket asshat, Robert Strauss as quoted on AZcentral)

When Strauss complained to the city, our heroine trumped the local hack contingent by citing a Florida state law that promotes renewable resources. The state edict specifically targets eager to regulate local governments:

'...Madden's clothesline is protected by a state law that encourages the use of solar power. Local governments are prohibited from banning devices that use renewable resources. Other states have similar laws, but only Florida and Utah specifically protect clotheslines...' (Azcentral)

When, exactly, did Amerika stop respecting a sovereign individual's inalienable right to his own life, liberty and property? Did legicrats sneak the Amerikan Gulag Liberty-Repealing Act under the rational adult radar, in a top secret legicrap session? I way don't think so, Tim. Hang out them purple bloomers, Poppy and tell that Strauss asshat to go pound sand.

It Seemed Like A Nifty Idea, At The Time
Source: Salt Lake City Tribune [12/07]

When a study demonstrated that Taylorsville (Utah) would save money by trading in County Sheriff patrols for their own police force, the city hacks bought 50 new police cruisers, but the same hacks are dragging their feet about hiring sworn officers to drive the damn things. Unless the city council changes its 'no money for new officers' decision, they've got 50 police cruisers, assorted equipment and a new police chief rotting on the city funded vine. Bold new concept.

The usual 'informed sources', suggest that County Sheriff, Aaron Kennard, is the one who talked the city council into delaying funding for the new police officers. In addition to losing power and funding for his department, Sheriff Kennard might lose some officers, if Taylorsville's plan to staff their new police department by 'stealing' Sheriff Department deputies panned out. Like most Sheriffs, Kennard is, first and foremost, a politician who just happens to dabble in law enforcement. That's why he's pushing something called a "unified police authority" to patrol several nearby cities. We have something like that here in parts of Mexifornia, but we don't call this entity a "unified police authority", we call it the County Sheriffs Department. Go figure.

If you live in a town that just happens to be named Taylorsville and need some police cruisers, you might want to put Taylorsville, Utah's city hall on your speed dial. Fair warning...you might need to take the city's new police chief off their hands, to seal the deal.

Another Day, Another Florida Epic
Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel [12/04]

Florida's Agency for Workforce Innovation - a cabal whose task involves helping Florida denizens find jobs - is the running for this year's highly coveted "Supreme Irony" award, after it outsourced certain critical programming tasks to (insert drum roll here) India. No shit, they're helping Florida denizens find jobs by sending jobs to India.

'...In a letter to Sen. Walter "Skip'' Campbell, HCL [HCL Technologies Ltd.] said work on the $6.6 million contract [to consolidate older compter programs] takes place at the agency site in Tallahassee with "some coding'' done at HCL's offshore center at Mumbai, India...' (Sun-Sentinel)

As expected, the usual hack suspects spouted their political clan's official mantra. A Donkey Clan hack blithered about Florida's Elephant Clan administration exporting Amerikan jobs, while the state's Elephant Clan governor spread the usual globalization is nifty bovine excrement. "Blah, blah, blah" sums it up, perfectly. Both clans will be thrilled to learn that the state's Agency for Workforce Innovation antics puts them on the short list for this year's Supreme Irony award.

Will The Government Restrict Internet Access?
Source: Washington Times [12/04]

Former CIA Director George Tenet thinks the Internet is much too open, too accessible, too damn free, and needs to be restricted to the chosen few who can be trusted to use it responsibly. He made his liberty-obliterating remarks at an information security conference in D.C., after making certain that News Nazis were excluded. Based on his antics, George wouldn't recognize inalienable individual liberty if it fell on him:

"I know that these actions will be controversial in this age when we still think the Internet is a free and open society with no control or accountability, but ultimately the Wild West must give way to governance and control." (Emphasis added)

'...The way the Internet was built might be part of the problem, he said. Its open architecture allows Web surfing, but that openness makes the system vulnerable, Mr. Tenet said. Access to networks like the World Wide Web might need to be limited to those who can show they take security seriously, he said...' (Washington Times, emphasis added)

It's ironic that Tenet invokes government control over the Internet, citing security as the excuse. The same goverment cites security when it bans encryption software use and demands that Internet-based firms leave holes in their security so government snoops can spy on sovereign individuals. It would be very helpful if the government got its story straight, before it send out dipsticks like Tenet to float these trial balloons.

Like every hack who spent his whole life in reality-insulated government roles, Tenet views inalienable individual liberty as a pestilence that must be eradicated in the name of 'national security'. If you happen to meet George during your travels, bitch-slap this asshat with your copy of the Declaration of Independence.

The Great Tea Caper
Source: Detroit Free Press [12/02]

Blissfully unaware that his administration is steeped in supreme irony, our proudly supernaturalist president set his legal dogs on a rival supernaturalist cabal - Brazil-based O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal - because the rival sect uses hallucinogenic tea in its mumbo jumbo. Things heated up when the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that "the church probably has a religious-freedom right to use the tea". Unwilling to accept this ruling, W's minons got a temporary stay to give them time to mount a suitable Supreme Court assault on the rival sect's inalienable liberty.

When will Amerikan citizens wake the hell up and tell W - all others of his ilk - to drop the fatally-flawed, terminally unwinnable, war on drugs, like a bad habit? Not in my lifetime, but it needs to be done right goddamn now.

Afterthoughts
I'm smelling supernaturalist envy rearing its ugly head. W and his Cross Cult homeboys are green with envy because hallucinogenic tea is majorly more fun than that sorry-ass communion wine.