04.18.2008 | 12:42 pm | Yeah - That'll Work, Nanny Nation
While most countries are badgering their citizens to lose weight, France thinks they have the opposite problem – some of their citizens are too skinny.
New French legislation makes it a crime to promote excessive thinness. Anyone guilty faces fines of up to $70,000 dollars and three years in jail, where the food is, evidently, abundant and excellent. The law applies to all media, but the primary target seems to be pro-anna web sites which proclaim anorexia or bulimia is a good and preferred lifestyle.
I found this post on a pro anna site: “its so strange ive had like a rice cake and i feel like purging. i think im going to have to. i cant cope today!” Evidently she’s too weak to hold down the shift key.
France’s government did this after a Brazilian supermodel literally starved herself to death, lowering the country’s total IQ by nearly sixteen points.
Ladies, if you’re considering doing something as stupid as developing an eating order on purpose, please accept this observation from an average male guy type person:
Guys like women that are woman shaped. That means curvy bits, not straight lines. Breasts are sexy (we really like breasts). Visible ribs are gross. Hips are sexy. Hip bones are disgusting.
If your boyfriend gets painful bruises when he hugs you he won’t continue being affectionate. Nor is he likely to stay around if he runs his fingers down your shoulder blades and cuts himself.
So have a sandwich.
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04.14.2008 | 1:12 pm | Yeah - That'll Work, Nanny Nation
Evidently it doesn’t take much to be a professor in New Zealand. Or a “top public health expert,” for that matter.
Professor Rod Jackson (which would be an excellent screen name for a porn star) has declared that butter is poison. He uses the word repeatedly in his rants. He claims “We have a health tax on alcohol and cigarettes and there should be a health tax on butter. It’s the most poisonous commonly consumed food in New Zealand. It’s about the purest form of saturated fat you can eat and it has no protein and no calcium. Butter has had all the good things taken out and just left the poison.” It’s easy to picture him wiping the foam from his chin after his rant.
New Zealand is a very nanny state, but this is too much even for them. There are no plans to make this idiot’s demand into law. For now.
Japans contribution to this kind of lunacy is even worse. The government has mandated that everyone over 40 must have a “regulation size” waist of 33.5 inches. Companies are not only required to monitor their employee’s weight, but also the weight of their families. Companies who don’t comply will be fined 10% of their profits. Expect to see more fat people on the unemployment lines, and blocking the sidewalks begging for change.
There goes Sumo as a national sport.
Japan has socialized medicine like all socialized medicine, is getting difficult fund. This gives them the justification to force people to be healthy.
Meanwhile, back in the states, schools across the country are banning “junk food,” foolishly believing that all you have to do to get rid of something popular is make it illegal, because that always works so well. And everywhere this happens smart, entrepreneurial students load up their back packs with candy, soda and chips to sell to their fellow students. If they’re caught, instead of being given extra credit for their initiative and business acumen, their goods are confiscated and they’re sent to detention. I’ve yet to see an article mention what happens to the confiscated candy, but I’m guessing the teachers aren’t losing any weight.
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03.26.2008 | 10:37 pm | Yeah - That'll Work, Nanny Nation, Big Brother
A high school project in New Jersey asked teens to design public policy. They designed one that requires Big Brother to punish kids for making incorrect decisions, proving that government schools are doing a fine job of raising the next generation of sheep.
The new bill would fine kids caught possessing tobacco or smoking in public places.
The article quotes Marie Kakogiannis, a junior at Rutherford High School. “I think it’s a great way for kids not to smoke, but kids are going to find a way to do it. But whatever the government could do to prevent it, they should.”
Only a high school junior, and she’s already a Nicotine Nazi. Isn’t that cute?
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03.21.2008 | 2:35 pm | Yeah - That'll Work, Politics
The Democrats solution to most problems, both real and imaginary, is usually a new tax. Rep . John Dingell, known to his friends as Barry, thinks the solution to skyrocketing gas prices is to add a tax of fifty cents a gallon. This, he thinks, will lower consumption. Seriously, that’s the way his mind works.
It will lower consumption, but not of gasoline. Very few of us drive more than we have to, and are unable to reduce our mileage without severe lifestyle changes. Gas is a necessity, and when necessities get more expensive we cut back on the luxuries. For instance, the last surge in gas prices seriously hurt mid and high end restaurants. Not because people didn’t want to drive to them, but because a huge increase in gas prices left them with less discretionary money. If you’re spending an extra fifty bucks a month to get back and forth to work, that’s fifty bucks you don’t have for something else.
Dingle Barry needs to read some Adam Smith, or if that’s too advanced for him, open a lemonade stand in front of his house. Anything that will give him a little taste of Economics 101. (He could also read this helpful article on a related subject: Economics for Democrats.)
Raising gas taxes and forking over more of our hard earned money to the government – yeah, that’ll work.
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03.8.2008 | 10:58 am | Yeah - That'll Work
I’ve avoided adding too many categories to this blog, because the longer the list gets the less useful it becomes. Occasionally this has resulted in having to shoehorn a story into a category it barely fits, but that’s better than having a hundred categories with just one or two items in them.
But I keep seeing articles where the only appropriate response is “Yeah, That’ll Work,” so I’m adding that as a category. I may go back and apply it retroactively to a few previous articles, but I’m pleased to award the first one to the serial boneheads who make up the Chicago City Council.
Most city councils are full of mouth breathing do-gooders who give absolutely no thought to the burdens and unintended consequences of their idiotic rules. But the CCC deservers special attention – they are truly moron’s among morons. Here’s a partial list of their accomplishments:
They are proposing a bill that would block airlines from landing at O’Hare or Midway if they don’t have a passenger’s bill of rights in place. Chicago is a major hub city, so these droolers intend to blackmail nationwide and worldwide corporations to be politically correct enough to use their airports.
Using PeTA inspired excuses, they banned foie gras. (Note to heathens: that’s goose liver pâté (Further note: It’s very good. Really.)) Before the ban it was only carried by a few restaurants and few people ate it. The ban caused demand to skyrocket, so restaurants came up with many clever methods of ban evasion. My favorite: the crackers are $20, the pâté is free.
They’ve demonstrated their hatred of poor people by forcing “Big Box” stores to pay a minimum wage of $13/hour. ($10/hour pay, $3/hr benefits) This absolutely guarantees fewer big stores will be built and existing ones will hire far fewer employees or close completely. Since these stores also have substantially lower prices, the CCC is also forcing the poor to pay more for their stuff.
They’ve urged congress to consider slavery reparations – because there’s just not quite enough interracial hatred in the US today.
Of course they’re not all work. They took time out for bribes. The FBI convicted six of them for corruption. They were not merely charged; they were convicted. The other 42 presumably got away with it.
While The New York City Department of Health put the first trans-fat ban in place, the CCC was the first to propose it.
(New York City has its own department of health, which is completely separate from the New York State DOH. This is because the New York State DOH doesn’t implement idiotic rules fast enough to satisfy the uber-nannies in The City. (Note: When people from New York (The City or the state) refer to NYC as “The City,” you can actually hear the capital letters in their voice.)
(Note to self: try to cut down on the use of parentheses.)
They’ve raised the Real Estate Transfer Taxes by a whopping 40%, costing property owners thousands or tens of thousands of dollars when they sell their property.
So…let’s move on to the most recent example of their anencephaly:
Like most big cities, Chicago has a problem with illegal drugs and the crime caused by their illegality. So their plan is…wait for it…to outlaw small plastic bags.
Yeah, that’ll work.
Their brilliant solution is to make it illegal to possess or sell any plastic bag that’s less that two inches in any dimension. They assure us that we don’t have to worry about small bags used for jewelry or suit buttons or other legitimate things because the authorities would never get stupid about this. Nuh uh, never ever.
Good thing drug dealers have never heard of Seal-A-Meal, or would never think of using bags that were 2.1 inches, or would ever wrap their stuff in something other than a bag like, say, glossy magazine paper. Good thing drug users will refuse to buy something that’s in a slightly bigger bag.
So congratulations Chicago City Counsel for your first “Yeah That’ll Work” award. I’m sure it will not be your last.
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02.14.2008 | 1:25 pm | Yeah - That'll Work, Very Old Jokes, Nanny Nation
Thailand’s Assumption University (yes, that’s their real name) asked 2400 teenagers if they were planning on having sex on Valentine’s day. 27% of them said “yeah, maybe.”
Bangkok police, armed with the knowledge that teenagers never lie, especially about sex, are springing into action. They’re going to turn all the lights on at public parks, tell parents to make their kids come home early, and check cheap motels. They’ll be sending patrols to parks, restaurants and shipping malls, no doubt practicing the ancient oriental secret birth control technique of jumping out from behind something and shouting “Hey, stop that!”
There is no evidence they’re considered changing city’s name to something less suggestive.
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01.16.2008 | 2:05 pm | Yeah - That'll Work, Nanny Nation, Big Brother, Politics
Inspired, perhaps, by California counties that have made it illegal for people to smoke in their own homes, the government is eager to continue expanding their tentacles into once private residences.
The California Energy Commission wants to require all new homes, and remodeled homes, have special radio controlled thermostats which Big Brother could control. First they’ll set it to “suggested” temperatures. Customers would be allowed to override the “suggestions,” but Big Brother would have the ultimate control, and the final say.
Concerns that the signal could be hacked have been brushed aside. A spokesweasel for PG&E says that’s not possible, a statement guaranteed to inspire geeks to prove her wrong.
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07.31.2007 | 9:45 pm | Yeah - That'll Work, Political Correctness, Ridiculous
If you eat meat, neither of these people will have sex with you.
They call themselves Vegansexuals, because they wouldn’t want to call themselves something ridiculous, and think they’re making a point by refusing to have sex with carnivores.
Can you think of a better reason to order a thick, juicy steak?
The woman is the one on the left. Probably.
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05.31.2007 | 10:59 pm | Yeah - That'll Work, Nanny Nation, Big Brother
Nanny Nation Notification
The government of Massachusetts has always been long on big brotherism and short on brains. They continue in that tradition with a proposal to ban “junk” foods from high school cafeterias, vending machines, and get this: bake sales. Before mom can bring in her cookies or cupcakes, she’ll have to send them off for an expensive nutritional analysis.
One sure sign you’re dealing with a nanny: they use the phrase “a level playing field.” It’s the nannies second favorite expression, right behind “for the children.”
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