The nanny-State metastasizes to include yard-sales

The skeevy bureaucrats currently infesting the federal bureaucracy will stop at nothing to restrict, outlaw, and/or tax literally every human function....even yard sales......

From FoxNews -- Americans who slap $1 price tags on their used possessions at garage sales or bazaar events risk being slapped with fines of up to $15 million, thanks to a new government campaign.

The "Resale Round-up," launched by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, enforces new limits on lead in children's products and makes it illegal to sell any items that don't meet those limits or have been recalled for any other reason.

The standards were originally interpreted to apply only to new products, but now the CPSC says they apply to used items as well.

If there's been a single regulation in the last 20 years that wasn't intended solely to limit our freedoms and unfairly tax our activities, I'd like to know what it was. The federal government, like an insidious, aggressive tumor, exists for one reason, and that is to feed on its host and grow larger at the expense of the body it infects.

The federal bureaucrats bear responsibility for the Chinese lead painted toys, poisonous pet food, and formaldehyde tainted tooth-paste because they let it into the country in the first place. The primary, and arguably only, constitutional mandate of the federal government is to keep the American people safe and it fails utterly to do even that, even as it finds new and creative ways to torment us with punitive taxes and regulations.

Government thug enforces stupid, Draconian rule for the little people

I saw this story over at Moonbattery this morning and had to repost it....

From the NYPost -- An elderly Manhattan woman living on Social Security was slapped with a $100 ticket -- just for throwing away a newspaper in a city trash can.

Delia Gluckin, 80, tossed the paper in a bin right outside her Inwood apartment building Sunday morning, only to be ambushed by an overzealous Department of Sanitation agent wielding a citation book.

The green mesh can, at the corner of Beak Street and Seaman Avenue, is marked with signs that read "litter only" and "no household trash."

Who's to say whether a "fishwrapper" is litter or household trash?

The heavy hand of the government will not stop tormenting us until the neck of every free American is imprinted with the tread pattern of the jack-boot of a government thug.

The nanny-State creeps onward

As if Americans are too stupid to back out of their own driveways, here come the federal regulators to remedy the situation....

From Bloomberg -- U.S. auto-safety regulators proposed requiring backup cameras on all new vehicles by 2014 to prevent drivers from backing over pedestrians, a rule that may cost as much as $2.7 billion.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which published the proposed rule today, said an average of 292 people die each year from back-over accidents, which primarily kill children and the elderly. To equip a new-vehicle fleet of 16.6 million produced in a year would cost from $1.9 billion to $2.7 billion, the agency said in the proposal, calling the cost “substantial” and saying it might reduce back-over deaths and injuries by almost half.

I'm sorry if people run over their own kids with the car in the driveway, but come on! If you have little kids or wandering seniors at your house, how distracted and careless do you have to be to not take the time to check behind the car before backing up? This is a self-regulating problem and the government doesn't need to mandate anything. The consumer car market will determine if we want to pay for backup cameras on our cars.

I swear, it's like these federal regulators think that if they aren't restricting the activities of Americans either by force or by cost, they aren't doing their jobs. Or worse, they just dream up pointless regulations with which to torment us, just because they have the power to do so.

Stop, look, and listen at Purdue U., not so much

At first glance you might think this is at your kid's grade school but, it's coming to Purdue University where the students are so stupid that they keep walking out in front of cars and getting hit. The school is hiring dozens of grade-school-like crossing guards to help the mentally retarded boilermaker student body safely cross the streets to class. Replied one kid who was asked about the new paid positions on campus.....

"Personally I think it's embarrassing because we are grown adults now. When I was in undergrad and we didn't have the yield sign, it was pretty obvious you don't take the right of way from cars. And now people just... I mean, they are on their iPods and they are walking and jamming across the street, and then they get hit," said Trzupek.

And get hit they should. Kids in this generation are so used to their helicopter parents making their world absolutely risk-free from physical harm, hurt feelings, bad grades, a losing score, or poorly attended birthday parties, etc., that they can't even cross the street safely without help. The answer to adult students getting run over isn't to make their carelessness consequence free, it's to stop nannying and coddling them and force them to be responsible, independent pedestrians. There are no crossing guards in the real world. Isn't college supposed to prepare you to live successfully in the real world?

Your tax dollars at work

Rather than let ISP's decide how to best provide Internet service to rural customers, the federal government is taking money from you to pay for it....

Headline: “Stimulus” Money Subsidizing Rural Broadband At $5,525/Customer

From Sayanythingblog -- The USDA has given over $24 million in grants to two North Dakota telephone companies.

Griggs County Telephone received $22.1 million to provide high speed access to over 4,000 customers. Inter-Community Telephone was given $2.3 million to do the same with the hope of increasing service to 850 consumers. The money is part of the stimulus bill and is partially a grant and part loan.

The price for living in the North Dakota badlands or big-sky country in Montana is that you might have to put up with no media connections. That means little if any TV and no Internet unless you can figure out a way to do it via satellite. Why is it other taxpayers' responsibility to provide Internet service to people who choose to live where there isn't any? By the same token, why is it the responsibility of policy holders nationwide to pay higher premiums so that beach-front home owners in Florida can afford their otherwise unaffordable home policies?

The simple answer is that it is not. If you want Internet service, live where it's available or do without. The government isn't the answer to every whim or imagined need of every person in the country, though free-wheeling democrats want you to expect just that. Then they'll expect you to vote for them in return.

The creep of the imperial nanny-State

Not satisfied with their attempts to control salt content, fat content, school-provided meals, etc., now the Obama administration thinks it should also control all food advertisements to make sure unhealthy foods aren't peddled to children.

If advertisers don't voluntarily self-regulate their campaigns, the administration task force suggests, then the FCC should step in and regulate it for them. The Obama's have assumed the role of national proxy-parents because in their estimation, we're all too incompetent to know how to feed our own kids. This is textbook Obama. Define a crisis, in this case childhood obesity, then threaten to take over control if companies don't voluntarily police themselves, knowing that regardless of what measures the companies take, it won't be enough.

The pernicious creep of the nanny-State is slowly but surely destroying what little freedoms are left in the US.

The nanny-State marches ever onward

First Mayor Bloomberg of New York decided that residents of, and tourists to his city, ate too much salt so, he tried to regulate the amount of salt that restaurants could use in food preparation. Now the federal government wants to regulate all salt in the diet of Americans......

From Hotair -- The Food and Drug Administration is planning an unprecedented effort to gradually reduce the salt consumed each day by Americans, saying that less sodium in everything from soup to nuts would prevent thousands of deaths from hypertension and heart disease. The initiative, to be launched this year, would eventually lead to the first legal limits on the amount of salt allowed in food products.

See, here's the modus operandi of any well-schooled government bureaucrat:
Step1-talk about a crisis of some kind and throw out a bunch of bogus statistics that make the public afraid.
Step2- offer condescending, paternal advice on how to change lifestyles to address whatever the problem is.
Step3- wait a believable amount of time and announce that your advice has not worked and that government action is needed to prevent a catastrophe. By then, the people will be so worried, they'll accept any restrictions you impose on them because they believe it's for their own good.
The only problem is when a study comes out debunking the foundation upon which your original crisis lay.....

High-salt diets may not increase the risk of death, contrary to long-held medical beliefs, according to investigators from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.

But a good, liberal bureaucrat never lets little things like facts or the truth get in the way of his seizure of a slice of the American economy. This is just like cap-and-trade. CO2 has been shown to be harmless plant food and there's no proof that it contributes to any rise in global temperature or sea levels yet, our congress is pressing forward with legislation to regulate CO2 production.

With liberals, it's never about the actual crisis they conjured up with which to terrify you. It's always about taking control of every facet of our lives. The crises are just convenient excuses for it.

Government regulation of popcorn prices....sheer idiocy!

This is in Israel but, don't be surprised if some degenerate, nanny-state liberal tries it here too...

From Breitbart -- An Israeli lawmaker is hoping to butter up voters and pass a law that would limit outrageous popcorn prices at the movies.

Carmel Shama, from the governing Likud party, plans to bring the "popcorn law" for a vote when parliament returns from its Passover break next week, the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper reported Wednesday.

"We have to put an end to this. The public should not have to mortgage their houses for a soft drink and a snack," Shama told the paper.

A large box of popcorn usually sells for about five dollars (four euros) at theatre concession stands, more than double what it costs at a supermarket and 10 times more than it would cost to make at home.

Movie theaters don't make anything on movie ticket sales. All that money goes to the studio. Theaters use movies as an attraction to get people to buy concessions. If barber-shop quartets on stage sold more popcorn and goobers, there would be no movie theaters. This is how theaters make money. Whose business is it to tell them how much to charge for popcorn? If the movie-going public decides it's too much, they'll stop going to the movies and he'll be forced to lower his prices. Otherwise, the market is perfectly capable of determining the fair price for movie popcorn. Just because you want cheaper popcorn at the movies, doesn't make that a proper function of the government to provide it to you. But, that's the problem with many Americans. If a law's intended purpose pleases them personally, they think it's OK for the government to impose. They rarely look at the constitutionality of laws, just whether it pleases them, and politicians count on that character flaw among voters.

When I first read the headline I assumed it was somewhere in the US because this is precisely the sort of idiocy I'd expect from our smarmy, democrat politicians. I was shocked to hear it's in Israel. They usually don't put up with nonsense like this.

Nanny-staters want to regulate condiments now

This is how utterly stupid the nanny-state do-gooders have become in New York....

From MyFoxNY -- Some New York City chefs and restaurant owners are taking aim at a bill introduced in the New York Legislature that, if passed, would ban the use of salt in restaurant cooking.

"No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises," the bill, A. 10129 , states in part.

The legislation, which Assemblyman Felix Ortiz , D-Brooklyn, introduced on March 5, would fine restaurants $1,000 for each violation.

Good grief! Is there any part of your life that Bloomberg and other arrogant liberals don't want to control? The restaurant business in NY is a cornerstone of the tourism industry. If tourists want bland, tasteless, disgusting food, why not just go to England instead?

Banned, along with handguns, illicit drugs, and cigarettes.

The ever-expanding federal bureaucracy

Just in case you are economically delusional from what little your dreadful public school taught, or from all the hopey-change, to the point of believing that capitalism and free-enterprise are how our economy works, look how many subsidy programs are active in the US right now.....

From Moonbattery

There might be one or two but, I can't think if any federal subsidy that is consistent with free-market economics. No commercial enterprise should ever be given a subsidized advantage over it's competition for any reason...especially not for just being politically favored.

"But Ed" you whine, "what about the arts? Surely you can't be against community orchestras and museums"?

But I can. If a community wants an orchestra or a museum, their local tax dollars and donations can pay for them. Why should money be taken from me to pay for the Paduka Community Chamber Orchestra when I live in Birmingham?

"Federal subsidies" is just an innocuous-sounding phrase for the financial favors with which the politically powerful reward donor constituencies, or use to manipulate commercial markets for political purposes. Either way, they're bad!

The nanny-State marches on, never retreating....ever!

Across the nation as of Jan 1, 2010, 40,000 new laws went into effect from texting to tanning bed usage to trans-fat's in fried chicken. What this means is that there are 40,000 ways in which or overseers have further eroded our liberties and restricted our freedoms......you know, for our own good because we're too stupid to look after ourselves.

The media constantly harp about government "getting things done" for the people. Passing laws that limit our activities is what they mean by that. And these laws almost never, ever get rescinded. They just keep on restricting our lives in all kinds of intrusive, ridiculous ways. This is precisely why I love gridlock in Washington and in our local governments too. The more time lawmakers spend unable to "get things done", the fewer of our liberties get taken away by the all-powerful nanny-State.

Failures should be allowed to fail

Can somebody please explain to me how this is consistent with the American way of capitalism and self-determination in the market place?

NEW YORK - The government on Wednesday provided a fresh $3.8 billion cash infusion to stabilize GMAC Financial Services as the financing company struggles with hefty losses in its home mortgage unit.

The Treasury Department said the new aid, which comes from a taxpayer-financed bailout fund, is less than the roughly $6 billion the government had earlier thought GMAC would need to stabilize the company.

The fresh infusion is on top of $12.5 billion in taxpayer money Detroit-based GMAC has already received from the government. The new agreement will boost the federal government's ownership in GMAC to 56 percent, from 35 percent.

Without the threat of failure, where is the incentive for companies to employ efficient and wise business practices? Obama says he doesn't want to be in the financing and mortgage business yet, the federal government now owns a majority share of GMAC thanks to tax-cheat boy-wonder, Timmy Geithner, as directed by the man-child President.

Is there any slice of the American economy this administration doesn't want to control? Heaven help us!

Doomed by carelessness

This is Thunder Hole in Acadia National Park, Maine. It's named that because it sounds like a clap of thunder when a wave crashes into the hole. As you can see, it's close when you are out on the observation deck but, who in their right mind would go out there as a hurricane passed by?

Hurricane Bill’s storm surge struck with fierce and terrifying power Sunday on the shore of Mount Desert Island when the raging water lashed up and crashed on sightseers near Thunder Hole, sweeping three out into the turbulent sea. One of the three, a 7-year-old girl, later died.

The news media are blaming the hurricane but, really, who's fault is it that this little girl lost her life? Who places a 7 year old on a boardwalk when 30foot waves are crashing on the jagged rocks beneath her feet? Shouldn't there be a presumption of common sense in most situations where kids are involved? I'm guessing the state of Maine will be getting sued for not posting danger signs. And a skeevy trial lawyer will trick a dumb jury into believing that their grief for the family should translate into a reward, for the father's stupidity and carelessness, of loads of taxpayer money. Plus states will be required at great cost, to post, "Stay Out of the Hurricane" signs along every beach.

And the behemoth nanny-state will grow a little more.

You're too stupid to raise your own kids

Just in case you were under the mistaken impression that the nanny-state do-gooders in Washington had injected themselves into every imaginable corner of your life, we get this news today...

WASHINGTON — If you're planning a garage sale or organizing a church bazaar, you'd best beware: You could be breaking a new federal law. As part of a campaign called Resale Roundup, the federal government is cracking down on the secondhand sales of dangerous and defective products.

The initiative, which targets toys and other products for children, enforces a new provision that makes it a crime to resell anything that's been recalled by its manufacturer.

"Those who resell recalled children's products are not only breaking the law, they are putting children's lives at risk," said Inez Tenenbaum, the recently confirmed chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission

So, coming to your yard-sale soon, will be gov't thugs in jack-boots and dark glasses to pour over your yard-sale items to ferret out any dangerous contraband, small enough that some dumb kid might stick up his nose or some other orifice. Do you people understand how utterly stupid and incompetent your government thinks you are, that you can't even manage to exercise a tad of common sense when buying things for your kids? The people who allow this sort of idiocy are your elected representatives. Show them in the next election, what you think about the government intruding into our daily lives with endless regulation and oversight. If we reward them with re-election, we'll get more of the same.

The thought police in the UK even tax grief

The once Great Britain descends further from idiotic nanny-State into a little shop of horrors...

A grieving mother in Britain was fined $173 for spending too long at her son's coffin before it was taken away for cremation.

Terrie Rouse, 32, said her grief turned to shock when officials told her she had taken too long to say goodbye, The Daily Mail reported.

"The vicar had asked if I would like to spend a bit more time saying goodbye," she said. "I sat by the coffin for 10 minutes, telling my son how much we loved him and begging him not to be scared."

Are there so many funerals in the UK that they have to keep a tight schedule such that you can't grieve for longer than 30minutes? And more preposterously, there's a fine for exceeding your allotted time limit....unbelievable! It's bad enough that the UK government controls and monitors every part of life there but, now they're taking control of the dead too.

Once the imperial nanny-State gets a toe-hold and isn't rightly put down by public resistance, it creeps insidiously into every facet of life no matter how private. We in the US could learn a lesson from our Mother Country that is but a shadow of her former self.

WOW......just WOW!!!

Lest you think the concept of 24/7, government surveillance in your home was just a nightmarish figment of George Orwell's fertile imagination....I present you, Airstrip One, the name of England in his book, "1984"...

The Children’s Secretary set out £400million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes.

They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.

Private security guards will also be sent round to carry out home checks.

How long before they expand the justification for home-monitoring to include enforcement of recycling, limiting anti-Muslim "hate-speech", restricting politically-incorrect gatherings, punishing divisive talk regarding the government, etc?

This is precisely what Orwell predicted for London in "1984". It's coming to pass. How sad and pathetic that the people who established the British Empire have let their once-great country descend into this!

A police state.....in Texas?

Every time a hurricane blows into the US, there are people in it's direct path who refuse to leave their homes. These people wind up having to be rescued and/or supplies delivered to them at great cost to the taxpayer and at great risk to the emergency workers. Well, Texas has passed a law that gives the local government the power to forcibly remove you from your home....for your own good....

A new state law will allow police to arrest people who don’t leave town under mandatory evacuation orders.

As it stands, officials cannot compel people to evacuate, only warn that those who stay behind won’t have any emergency services at their disposal. The new law gives county judges and mayors the power to authorize use of “reasonable force” to remove people from the area.

The law, passed this year, takes effect Sept. 1, in the heart of hurricane season in Texas. It also applies to other disasters, such as fires or floods.

It sounds like a common-sense idea on the face of it but, given that governments almost never give back power they've taken, is it a good idea to hand over to the local authorities the power to come into your home, when they think it's necessary, and remove you from it? I don't think so.

If a person wants to ride out the storm in his home, he should have the right to do that but, he shouldn't expect any, ANY rescue services to help him afterwards. Nor should he receive any help unless he pays for it. There should be no law against dying stupidly in your own home, or preventing the suffering by homeowners who refuse to get out of harm's way.

It's just a slippery slope to me, to hand over to the authorities, the power to remove you from your home if THEY see fit to do so. It's a question of balancing the need for public safety versus our Constitutionally guaranteed, individual and property rights. I'll almost always come down on the side of the Constitution over the government.

The homeless have important business too

Regular reader David sent a news story in to me. It's about that public assistance program through which homeless dudes can get free cell phones in like 17 states so far. To save my life, I don't know what a homeless dude needs a cell phone for....perhaps to call his dealer? To call other homeless dudes to see which plasma lab is giving the best deal on blood donations? Or maybe to keep tabs on traffic patterns to make identifying the best intersections for pan-handling easier? Whatever, here's the money-quote from the article....

The idea is to convert Safelink users to regular cell customers as they are weaned from the public dole.

"As they are weaned from the public dole" And just how exactly does giving a homeless guy a free cell phone help to wean him from the public dole? All it does is make life on the street a little less uncomfortable and make him a more entrenched derelict and permanently dependent on handouts.

Somebody please tell me if you can, a single way the government is weaning people off the public dole.

Digital TV switch today still confuses some morons.....but then, what doesn't?

For how many years have we known about the switch to all digital TV signals? The switch date used to be Feb17 of this year until it was revealed that millions of idiots had not figured out that their antennae would no longer work. The current date is today. And as expected, we'll be treated to sympathetic stories like this one for the next year as brain-dead TV watchers whine about not knowing about the switch and not being able to afford the converter box......

NEW YORK — TV stations in the U.S. plan to cut their analog signals Friday, ending a more than 80-year era for the over-the-air technology that changed America's landscape, and reshaped and defined its culture.

The Federal Communications Commission estimates that more than 1 million homes still have not installed digital converters or switched to a digital cable or satellite service provider, and has put 4,000 operators on standby to handle calls from confused viewers.

There're a lot more things than TV signals that are confusing to these people.....like left from right, up from down, and the value of gainful employment. How dumb are these people? If you got caught off guard by the digital TV switch today and you cannot afford a $50 converter box, perhaps you should put down the remote, get a job, read a newspaper from time to time, and re-engage with the world.

Smokers can't help but exhibit the stupidity that led them to take up smoking in the first place

In Indiana, they've passed a law that requires cigarettes to self-extinguish if not actively used. That is, if the smoker doesn't re-light or actively suck on it, it'll go out by itself. Apparently the statistics regarding fires caused by unattended cigarettes are pretty staggering. They interviewed a smoker for the article....with predictably absurd results.....

Unlike traditional cigarettes, the new fire-safe smokes will burn out more quickly when left unattended and are designed to cut down on the number of smoking-related fires.

"The cigarettes are made from the same blend of tobacco as regular cigarettes," said Indiana State Fire Marshal Jim Greeson. "The only difference to the consumer is they need to puff it more often or relight it."

Jess Brewer of Lafayette said her first encounter with the fire-safe smokes was not good.
"Since coming back from Kentucky about a week ago, I've been coughing constantly and having chest pains because you have to inhale harder on the new cigarettes," she said.

That's rich! She blames her coughing and chest pains on having to suck harder, not on the fact that she's a stupid, career smoker in the first place.
Then came the money quote.....

"I'm totally against the change," Brewer said. "What's the point of making safer cigarettes if they lead to negative health effects?"

It's as if she believes cigarettes don't lead to negative health effects, regardless of fire safety. What an idiot!