11.27.2007 | 1:26 pm | Big Brother
If you live in Boston and think your kid might have an illegal gun stashed in his room, don’t go looking for it yourself. No, that would be too much trouble, especially when Officer Friendly is volunteering to conduct the search for you.
The Boston Globe reports, “in the next two weeks, Boston police officers who are assigned to schools will begin going to homes where they believe teenagers might have guns. The officers will travel in groups of three, dress in plainclothes to avoid attracting negative attention, and ask the teenager’s parent or legal guardian for permission to search. If the parents say no, police said, the officers will leave.”
They say they’ll only confiscate the guns and won’t press charges. Unless they were used in a shooting, of course. And if they find any drugs, they’ll confiscate those too, without pressing charges. Although they might. They’ve received lessons in discretion, so parents can trust that the friendly officer will make the right decision.
A better way to invade bedroom privacy is being tested by The Huston Police department. They were caught conducting secret tests of an unmanned spy plane. They refuse to specify what they’re going to use it for, only saying they aren’t ruling anything out. They say they’ll tackle privacy and illegal search issues “later.” Check out the video from local news station KPRC.
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11.23.2007 | 10:51 pm | Political Correctness, Pop Culture, Nanny Nation
When my kids were little I watched Sesame Street with them, and some of the jokes were obivously aimed at adults. I remember Cookie Monster, sitting in a big leather chair in a library, smoking a pipe and announcing, “This Is Alastair Cookie, bringing you Monster Piece Theater.” My kids didn’t know why I was laughing - that joke wasn’t in there for them.
Some of the original shows have been released on DVDs, but according to this article (sent to me by Michael Tighe of thecheapstudent.com) they carry a warning: ““These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”
Cookie Monsters pipe was too offensive. According to Carol-Lynn Parente, “That modeled the wrong behavior” — smoking, eating pipes — “so we reshot those scenes without the pipe, and then we dropped the parody altogether.” Oscar was too grouchy. Parente said, ““We might not be able to create a character like Oscar now,” she said.
And the pussification of America continues. . .
Of course, it’s not limited to America. In Australia, Santas are being told to say “ha ha ha” instead of ‘ho, ho, ho” because someone might misunderstand and think he’s calling someone a whore. I’m sorry, if you’re that easily offended, if your brain is so poorly developed that you find that offensive, rest assured that we’re far more offended at your stupidity than you are at this innocuous phrase. And you’re probably a ho too.
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11.15.2007 | 1:25 pm | Poker, Pop Culture, Nanny Nation, Politics
Yesterday, Annie Duke testified to the House Committee on the Judiciary about playing poker on line: Why it should be legal, why the whining nannies lament about compulsive gambling is ridiculous, why the “for the chillllllllllldreeeeen” bleat is sensless, how poker is a game of skill, not luck, and quite a few other related issues. Here are a few excerpts:
“Of course, opponents of gaming will cite the incidence of compulsive gambling and the possible exposure of minors as reasons to prohibit it. With respect to compulsive gambling, this committee has received expert testimony confirming what most academic studies on compulsive gambling have found: that the incidence of problem gambling in the population of adults who engage in gambling activity is less than 1%. From a similar study in the United Kingdom, we know that the availability of betting over the Internet does not increase it over time. Furthermore, even if one’s primary concern were the very small incidence of compulsive gambling, then licensing and regulation offer more effective and less intrusive means to combat it.”
“Of course, prohibitionists point to the possibility of children betting online as the other justification for prohibiting it. In fact, most people who seek to restrict individual freedom invoke protection of children as their motivation. I suspect they find that that argument has more resonance than what is often their real motivation — to treat adults like children, and manage their choices for them.”
“To reiterate: if your concern in this matter is about children, there are solutions available. If, instead your interest is in treating adults like children, then there are not.”
“The vast majority of Internet poker players are doing so for recreation and entertainment. On average, a person spends $10 a week playing online poker. 10 dollars! You can’t even get a movie ticket for that price where I live!”
“In the proposed rule issued by the Department of the Treasury and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the regulators come right out and say that they cannot and will not tell the regulated community what constitutes an unlawful Internet wager. Let me emphasize — the posture of the Federal government is, “We are going to create a new federal crime, but we will not tell you what it is.” In the proposed rule, the regulators explain their refusal to resolve this by saying that to do so would require them to examine the laws of the federal government and all 50 states with respect to every gaming modality, and that this would be unduly burdensome. Yet that is exactly what they are requiring the general counsel of every bank in the country to do.”
Read the entire transcript here.
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11.13.2007 | 1:41 pm | Junk Science, Nanny Nation, Big Brother
Mothers Against Drunk Driving is suing Mothers Against Illegal Aliens for using “Mothers Against” in their name. Their C&D letter said “MADD cannot be associated with your organization and the use of “Mothers Against” gives a strong implication of a relationship with MADD.”
Not really. As the writer of this blog discovered, a quick Google of “Mothers Against” returns hundreds of “Mothers Against” organizations. Why they went after this one is anyone’s guess.
M.A.D.D, like every other nanny organization, is a fountain of made up numbers and fake statistics. Their favorite, of course, is the number of drivers killed in “alcohol related accidents.” Note the careful phrasing. We’re not talking drunk drivers here, we’re talking alcohol related. If the driver swallowed his mouthwash before going to work and blew .01 on a breathalyser, that’s alcohol related, even though no sane person would consider that drunk. If a driver hits a drunk pedestrian, that’s alcohol related. If the driver is stone cold sober but his passenger had a few, that’s an alcohol related accident.
I’d suggest that they change their name. Just shorten it by one letter, to M.A.D: Mothers Against Drinking. They are no longer going after drivers who are actually drunk. Their goal is prohibition, one baby step at a time.
At one point, they used the motto “Impairment starts with the first drink.” They’ve dropped that, removing it entirely from their web site. Perhaps they realized they were jumping the gun by a few years. But a few quotes from their literature shows where they’re really coming from.
”Promoting ‘responsible drinking and driving’ is like promoting ‘responsible drive-by shootings’.”—MADD’s Driven Magazine, Fall, 1997
Forget limits on BAC. It’s just not acceptable to drink and drive, period” - Madd President Wendy Hamilton.
“Lowering the legal [arrest] standard will be a deterrent for light drinkers as well as heavy drinkers. There is no safe blood alcohol level, and for that reason, responsible drinking and driving means no drinking and driving.”—Catherine Prescott, former President, MADD.
“…we do not want to overlook the casual drinker. If you choose to drink, you should never drive. We will not tolerate drinking and driving-period.”—MADD President, Karolyn Nunnallee.
Source: this informative, very ugly site.
A well done breakdown of how M.A.D.D lies with numbers can be found here. And you know you can trust it, because it’s published by Modern Drunkard Magazine.
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11.1.2007 | 1:35 pm | Cigars, Nanny Nation
The Great American Smokeout is November 16th, and we’re making plans to participate. I’ll be getting together with several cigar smoking buddies and we’ll smoke…out. We’ll start with a round of cigars, filling the air with thick tobacco smoke and light conversation. Then we’ll all have a very nice, very unhealthy dinner, followed by even more cigars.
All smokers should make a point to smoke publicly and obviously on this day. If you’re a non-smoking freedom lover you can still make a statement. Buy a big cigar and pretend. (And try lighting it up – you might find you like it.) Use this as an opportunity to make a statement about the whiney, sniveling, pussified, wimpy, nanny, lipidleggin society we’ve become.
Use caution, though, when participating in similar events for the first time. A few years ago I misinterpreted the intention of the Great American Meat Out and really embarrassed myself.
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