My day job intruded tonight with some after hours hi pri stuff, so this will be short.

One of the things that seems to be more and more prevalent is the nannyism of government.  Not just econannies, but also social nannies.

The operative principle of the government right now seems to be “let us do that for you, because you cannot be trusted to do it your self…”

They want to mandate the rules around as many aspects of our lives as they can.

Some of their works are necessary, I have to admit.  But things like the Yard Sale post bring home the fact that in the eyes of our Government, we are too stupid and ignorant to control our own lives.

I personally resent that.  I believe I have sufficient capacity to decide for myself most of the choices I want to make.

One way that really pisses me off in this state is alcohol.  We have to buy any hard liquor we want from the state run liquor stores.  State run means fixed prices, extra taxes and a limited stock and selection., W e get to buy what they think we want.

Have a garage sale, go to jail?

Not quite that bad, but if the story below is true, the potential is there:

Check with the CPSC before putting up that yard sale sign

In Minnesota, the coming of spring means the return of lawnmowers, motorcycles, brats on the grill, and the big American tradition of yard sales.  People do their spring cleaning, toss what’s unusable, and try to sell the rest to bargain-hunters.  Thanks to the new consumer product safety law, though, you now need to download a CPSC pamphlet and start researching each item on your driveway in case of recall:

Thinking of having a yard sale this weekend? Before you do, be sure to consult CSPC Publication #254 [PDF].

This handy 28-pager from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) reminds the American people that, thanks to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (which I have blogged about here and here), the government is totally in charge of your yard sale…

Heard this on the radio today.

The issue was a guy in Seattle who was walking his dog without a leash at Discovery park.  Two leash nazis humane law-enforcement officers confronted him, and cited him for the park’s leash law.

He figures that was a fair cop.

But they also cited him for failure to have feces removal equipment.  From the Seattle Times:

Dog owner says rules about droppings stink

On a rainy November morning, Guiling decided to take Amy, his 13-year-old shepherd-mix dog, to Discovery Park.

He did not have a leash, his excuse being, “she’s 13. She can barely walk.”

On the scene happened two humane law-enforcement officers once known as dog catchers. Seattle has 13 in the field.

They wrote out a citation for Amy not being leashed, which Guiling accepted.

When Guiling later took the time to look at the ticket, he found he had actually been given two $54 citations, the other for failure to carry scoop equipment.

The latter is what Guiling is challenging.

Here is why.

Seriously.  You cannot make this stuff up.  Florida has decided to get tough on farting.

Florida Boy Arrested For Gas Attack

12-year-old charged after deliberately “breaking wind” in class

NOVEMBER 21–A 12-year-old Florida student was arrested earlier this month after he “deliberately passed gas to disrupt the class,” according to police. The child, who was also accused of shutting off the computers of classmates at Stuart’s Spectrum Jr./Sr. High School, was busted November 4 for disruption of a school function.

I can’t help but wonder if he was charged with carrying a concealed weapon, or if this was classified as a hate crime….

A Martin County Sheriff’s Office report, a copy of which you’ll find below, notes that the 4′ 11″ offender admitted that he “continually disrupted his classroom environment by breaking wind and shutting off several computers.” The boy, whose name was redacted from the police report released today, was turned over to his mother following the arrest. The young perp turned 13 on November 15.

The charge was actually “Disruption of a school function”, according to the police report.

Let’s be honest, at my age, the drinking age isn’t anything I really care about.  I think I have been carded once in the last 10 or 15 years.

But i do have children, two of which are still under the age of 21, so for their sake, and for the unnamed hoard of 18-20 year olds, I want to visit the issue.

What brings this into focus is the recent call to raise the drinking age back up, presented by a coalition of college professors.¹

College chiefs urge new debate on drinking age

College presidents from about 100 of the nation’s best-known universities, including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus.

Men pour beer on a drunken student during Spring Break on South Padre Island, Texas.

The movement called the Amethyst Initiative began quietly recruiting presidents more than a year ago to provoke national debate about the drinking age.

Here we go again:

Condominium owners tell smokers: Take it outside

Residents of a tony, high-rise condominium along the Mississippi River in Minneapolis are among the first to vote to make their building smoke-free, taking Minnesota’s battle over smoking bans into private homes.

The rule, at La Rive Condominiums near St. Anthony Main, covers individual units, common areas, garages and private balconies. Current owners who want to smoke will be grandfathered in, but future buyers will have to abide by the rule.

Opponents say the ban is an intrusion into private property rights that could hurt resale prospects at a time when the market is already soft. Supporters counter that, not only do they have a right to breathe clean air, but nonsmoking potential buyers will see going smoke-free as a plus.

“Just as we have seen business [use bans], we’re now seeing homeowners and landowners of apartment buildings and condominiums deciding that they don’t want their property to have smoking on it either,” said Doug Blanke, director of the Tobacco Law Center at the William Mitchell College of Law.

I’ve had some interesting discussions lately regarding governments. 

So thinking about it today I realized that a government only has two real roles.

To Protect and to Provide.  Provide is easy.  It provides education and welfare and all those various entitlements, and sundry other benefits.  I don’t want to blog about that.  I might have to take a position on Universal Health Care.

I am more concerned today about protection.  I see there being 3 areas of protection.  The obvious one is protection from foreign enemies.  We have the military and such to ensure our people are safe from the bad guys.  There is also an element of internal protection, where the Federal Government ensures that the states are not taking advantage of each other and that business are not taking advantage of consumers..

But the most insidious element of protection is the nanny state “protect you from yourself” mentality, and our Federal, State and even City and County Governments are masters of it.

Oh for the…Are they serious?  Sadly, yes.  Filed under “idiots” for obvious reasons.

The organization that oversees high school sports in Washington is considering more specific rules for fans that could ban booing and offensive chants.

The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association is drafting guidelines to crack down on negative conduct.

I can understand banning physical threats and violence. But booing?  Since when is team loyalty a crime?  Since when is school spirit bad?

The association director blames rude fans for the dwindling number of people who want to be coaches and officials.

Oh, Puuuuuleeze!

He says the guidelines will remind fans to cheer for their team, not against the other.

The penalty is still secret¹ but rumor says that the first violation will result in a stern lecture that makes understand that you made the other team feel really bad.

Second offense will result in being order to apologize publicly and stand in the corner for 10 minutes. 

A third offense will be to write on the score board “I am not a good sport” 100 times and to have to wear the “I’m mean” T-shirt for the rest of the game.

http://www.komotv.com/news/local/5566451.html

Proponents of same-sex marriage have introduced an initiative that would put a whole new twist on traditional unions between men and women: It would require heterosexual couples to have kids within three years or else have their marriages annulled.

Initiative 957 was filed by the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance, which was formed last summer after the state Supreme Court upheld Washington’s ban on same-sex marriage. In that 5-4 ruling, the court found that state lawmakers were justified in passing the 1998 Defense of Marriage Act, which restricts marriage to unions between a man and woman.

Under I-957, marriage would be limited to men and women who are able to have children. Couples would be required to prove they can have children to get a marriage license, and if they did not have children within three years, their marriages would be subject to annulment

Of course its absurd.  The sponsors, the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance, readily admit it.

"Absurd? Very," the group says on its Web site, which adds it is planning two more initiatives involving marriage and procreation.

I get to go to court this morning.  My son committed a crime and has a mitigation hearing on his fine.  Actually, to be technical, it wasn’t a crime, it was a civil infraction, a sort of non driving speeding ticket.

His crime? Possession of  tobacco by a minor.

I don’t personally smoke, I quit that habit in 1991, and when I tried to restart in 1997, I got so sick I gave up.  And I am no particular fan of smoking anyway, as my late mother in law had lung cancer (though she died of other causes) and my mother presently is in a kind of semi remission in her own battle with the disease.

But other parents do, and of course our kids learn by example, so there you go.   Kids will smoke.  Then peer pressure moves in and they help other kids learn.  Despite the more then sufficient evidence of it’s dangers, kids still are attracted to the lure and learn to smoke at young ages (he is 16).

But the ban bothers me, as does the social stigma against the smokers, as outlined in my previous blog entries: