The UK is Quickly Becoming One Giant Buzzkill

MPs see no happiness in happy hours:

Pub happy hours should be banned and supermarkets stopped from selling alcohol at a loss in order to combat drink-fuelled disorder, MPs have said.

The Home Affairs select committee said reckless drinking was placing a heavy burden on police resources.

One possible solution for England and Wales, MPs said, would be legislation setting a minimum price on alcohol.

That is certainly an innovative approach to dealing with alcohol -- price controls. Good one guys.

Besides, if there is one group of people who need lots and lots of cheap booze it's the guys who are forced to sleep with British women. For that reason, and no other freedom-loving reason, I denounce this attempt by certain MPs to force British men to have sex with British whales while sober.

Breaker, Breaker: Is There a Chuck E. Cheese Near a Stripper Bar?

A West Virginia Mother is attempting to get toymaker Fischer-Price to recall a line of working walkie-talkies after her three year-old heard real-life truckers on the line:

Deborah Pancaro, 34, said she contacted Fisher-Price after she heard a conversation in which a man said “10-4” and other things that led her to believe the device was relaying a CB radio conversation.

“They said we should go smoke some weed, and were talking about being in a strip bar, some really explicit things,” Pancaro said Thursday.

The walkie-talkie is sold exclusively at Wal-Mart and allows children to role-play animal rescues like the Diego character does on the cartoon series “Dora the Explorer” and “Go, Diego, Go!”

The walkie-talkie is supposed to have a range of about 20 feet, but Pancaro said she heard one of the voices say he was driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, about 275 miles north of Huntington.

And, yes, the complaints are having an effect because -- all together now -- it's for the children:

Though the product has not been recalled, Wal-Mart says on its Web site that it is being discontinued. A spokeswoman for the company based in Bentonville, Ark., said Thursday she would look into the matter.

Pancaro said she planned to return Fisher-Price’s call later Thursday.

“It’s not about the money. I’d just hate for little kids to be hearing things like that, and I thought maybe they didn’t know.”

Read the whole thing here.

Via Fark.com.

Ban on Cheap Drinks Leads To Binge Drinking

Here's another for the list of nanny state laws that do more harm than good:

Before Sarah Bowman goes to the bar, there is a ritual.

A group of friends gather at someone's house, turn on some tunes, socialize and "pre-drink."

Sometimes there are three people, sometimes 10, but the objective is always the same: Get a buzz off cheap booze at home before heading to the bar where drinks cost $5.50 each.

"I rarely, rarely go to a bar without any alcohol in my system," said Bowman, 20, a University of Alberta nursing student.

The practice of pre-drinking is one the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission says it is monitoring, especially in light of a new alcohol policies, which came into effect Aug. 1 and will put an end to many cheap drink specials.

"A year ago, I hadn't even heard the phrase pre-drinking and now you're hearing it more and more," liquor commission spokesman Wes Bellmore said.

It is hoped the new policy, which includes minimum drink prices and happy hour regulations, will curb compulsive binge drinking and related post-bar violence.

Read the whole story here.

Hazard Warning Signs Found To Be Hazardous

In England they're taking down the signs on one highway that tell motorists how many people have been killed on that road because the drivers are so distracted by the signs they're getting into accidents:

A spokesman for the [UK Highways] agency said: "The signs were put up as an experiment in the early 1990s.

"But research has shown that they have not had a noticeable effect on accident figures."

He said recent studies had shown drivers were increasingly suffering from "information overload" and that there was now concern the signs could be more of a distraction than an aid.

Which makes sense. I mean, when you're roaring down a highway with a couple of strippers in the car helping you finish off a bottle of tequila, sometimes you really have to concentrate on those road signs to read them.

This Highways Agency's decision didn't please everyone though:

A spokesman for the AA said casualty information signs were important because they justified the use of speed cameras.

He said: "We need to keep the public on side with road safety initiatives and telling them why we are bothering to enforce the law is very important."

So they want to replace highway fatalities with fatalities caused by road rage brought on by speed limits? Jolly good show mates!

Know Your Limits -- Then Push Them Until You're Willing to Sleep with Rob

Daily Mail:

Middle class drinkers are to be bombarded with TV, radio and newspaper adverts warning them of the dangers of alcohol.

Ministers are stepping up their campaign against unhealthy boozing with a multi-million pound blitz on people who have a glass of two of wine at home at the end of the day.

The drive, launched today, is designed to alert middle-aged drinkers to the number of units of alcohol in each glass and leave them in no doubt that regularly exceeding recommended levels causes health problems.[...]

"We are not saying don't drink," public health minister Dawn Primarolo insisted last night. "I enjoy a glass of wine myself.

"It is not saying don't, it's saying here's the information and think about it. It is presented in a nonjudgmental, directly identifiable environment."

Good grief...The terrorist have won. Isn't this what we Yanks and Brits are fighting for in Iraq? The right to drink as much booze as we want at home? Don't the Islamistfacisterroist hates us because of our decadent, whore mongering western culture that feeds on excess in drugs, alcohol and sex? That's the war I signed up for and I'm punching out if that isn't the plan anymore. Let me know when we are back on that "terrorist hate us for who we are" meme.

In the meantime, check out the UK's Know Your Limits website, bound to make you laugh and give you a chubby at the same time. There you can post your "I'm a whore who uses booze as an excuse to be a big whore" stories like Anna:

"A typical example of a night out was once when I was in a pub with a group of friends, and I slipped out unnoticed – my mates found me unconscious later on, in a shop doorway covered in my own sick.

On other occasions, my drinking sessions made me really promiscuous, and I slept with a series of strangers on one-night stands, and then contracted a number of sexually transmitted diseases. One particular occasion, I went to the pub I worked in on my own, and left 10 minutes later with a completely random bloke nobody knew. I took him home where we drank, did drugs and had sex. A couple of hours later I walked him back to the pub and said goodbye.[...]

After an all-too regular pattern of near-misses and scrapes, and once the drinking became compulsive and secretive, she knew she had a problem – so she has cut back severely on her drinking.

Well, goodbye Anna, I wish I had had the chance to know you. However, my limited travels around this world tell me that there will always be another sloppy drunk British girl to take Anna's place. Ladette to Lady anyone?

And if posting the story about that one time you were really drunk and let your roommate's dog lick your asshole isn't your idea of fun, you can always play the "Night Out" game. I choose the girl character, had one drink with the cute guy who was eyeing me at the bar and then ended up sexually assaulted. I'm not sure what happened, but it was probably my fault. Good times.

Fix Your Coffee First, Worry About Socialized Healthcare Later

I like the newly reinstated Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz as a business executive. In fact, I'm probably one of the few people who thinks Starbucks is poised for a turn-a-round; but I could do with out overly dramatic statements like this:

What happened to your crusade for universal health care?

We were the first retailer in America to provide comprehensive health care to every employee, including part-timers. I've been fighting for health care for Americans for quite some time and have been to Capitol Hill a number of times. Obviously, [we're in] a Presidential election year, and there's not going to be much done until there's a new Administration. But if there's one thing that I think is the fracturing of the humanity of America, it's the fact that 50 million Americans do not have health insurance.

Look, I get that businesses have a motivation to see the government take over paying for health care, but that doesn't make any less of a bad idea.

It won't be much longer until the choice to NOT have health insurance will be taken away from individuals.

Interview here.

Disclaimer: I own a minuscule position of Starbucks stock, and occasionally enjoy buy an espresso from the Starbucks in my Safeway.

John Hemminghaus, This Camel's For You

Earlier today, I found via Hit&Run an interesting debate on civil disobedience. Here's Arnold Kling arguing in favor. Here's Kenneth Silber taking him on. And here's Kling's "Re:Re:" Tonight, ironically, I found a story of a guy from my former home state testing the waters of this civil disobedience thing.

WEST FRANKFORT - A call from authorities hasn't halted one West Frankfort man's plans to host a peaceful protest against the state's recently implemented Smoke-Free laws.

John Hemminghaus has been passing out flyers and making phone calls to invite as many people as he can reach to a March 1 event he is calling a "Smoke In."

"This country was founded on civil disobedience," Hemminghaus said in a previous interview. "It has gotten to where, now, people are afraid to get into trouble. It kind of makes me mad that everybody has turned into cowards."

Monday afternoon, Hemminghaus said he was recently contacted by Williamson County State's Attorney Chuck Garnati in regards to his plans."

Chuck said I would be taken into custody and get a $2,500 fine," he said. "Nobody I know can find where anybody in Illinois has been arrested yet." [...] He said Garnati told him that law enforcement would be present at his event if he couldn't be talked out of hosting the rally.

So if Hemminghaus is correct, nobody has been arrested for violating the Illinois ban to date. But one guy tries to publicize his plans to exercise his property rights and organize some people, and the State's Attorney feels the need to whip it out and swing it around a bit.

As for fines and punishment he might face, Hemminghaus said he will skip vacation to spend his money on the cause he backs, even though he stopped smoking about five years ago.
[...]

Hemminghaus said others are also on his side, including several other non-smokers. The man is so determined to have his point heard he has posted a large sign in the front yard of his business, which reads "My Place, My Choice, Smoking Allowed."

Very nice. Although a southern Illinois dissenter isn't likely to make the headlines, I'll keep an eye out for what happens to the guy. I have a feeling that if he's fined $2,500, he won't have a problem getting donations to cover it, even in a sparsely-populated area of Illinois. Best wishes, John Hemminghaus.

My previous post on the Illinois smoking ban here.

Traffic Cameras and the Slippery Slope

Speed and red light cameras were installed a few years ago in DC with little public outcry. One of the intersections that red light running cameras were installed at, Nebraska and Connecticut, had seen four deaths in as many years due to red light runners slamming into cars. Libertarian me did not even protest that camera as I had a very scary experience when a huge dumptruck going about 50 at that same intersection ran a red light and would have killed me had I not noticed it coming and wildly acclerated to avoid it.

But those cameras do start a slippery slope of government. Marc Fisher in the Wa Post reports today:

In Britain, the global leader in official surveillance of public spaces, the latest generation of digital speed cameras produces photos that reveal when drivers are eating, smoking or using hand-held cellphones -- all no-nos in Mother England.

Are we still so happy with speed cameras?

The UK is ahead of the US both in terms of surveillance technology and the evolution of the Nanny State. Does anyone doubt that the government will, like the UK, start using those cameras for more invasive monitoring of drivers?

Dispatch from the USVI, an Unregulated Paradise

I recently spent a short week in St John, USVI. Aside from its pristine beaches and natural beauty, it was fun to be in a place that regulation has bypassed, despite it being a US territory or possession, I don't know which. The US regulatory juggernaut has overlooked this little island. And no one is getting killed due to the lack of regulation. They are just having fun. I did not see any bodies in the roadway.

Some of the fun features of the USVI that would be outlawed in the US:

-- Taxicabs are low-end Ford pickups with rows of seats in the 4 by 4. They are open air and do not have seat belts and you slide around as they take the hills. But a taxi ride is typically $5 and it is fun to be in the open air in that great weather.

-- You can smoke anywhere, if you care to do that. There is no smoking ban. I noticed that people were respectful of not smoking around eaters and would retreat to the bar for a smoke. The market does work!

-- There is no law banning having an open bottle in the car. You can bring your rum punch into the open air taxi and smoke to boot. You can also drink a beer while driving. That makes sense to me. Drunk driving is one thing, but how is it not a crime to have a couple of drinks and then drive while it is a crime to have a beer in the jeep when one is not anywhere near intoxicated?

The USVI reminds me of the freedoms that we had until the 80s, when the baby boomers decided to become Nanny Staters.

Middle School Bans "Intentional" Farting

For adults, farting is something that we desperately try to contain and make private. This story brought me back to grammer school, when boys had the magical ability to produce farts upon demand and aim them at the people they disliked.

But it is doomsday for those "intentional" farts in Camden, ME, as they have banned it.

The joke's on the boys as the penalty for "intentional farting" is now a detention.

"Strange, but true, thanks to a bunch of 8th grade boys, intentional farting has been banned from CRMS," the newsletter said. "It started out as a funny joke and eventually turned into a game. This is the first rule at CRMS that prevents the use of natural bodily functions. The penalty for intentional farting is a detention, so keep it to yourself!"

In the Name of Tax Revenue Saving Small Businesses; City May Allow Low-Wager Gambling

1) Ban smoking in bars and restaurants. 2) Allow state-sanctioned gambling in non-proft venues, i.e -- American Legions, but not in for-profit businesses, i.e. -- bars. 3) Watch as small, neighborhood bars collapse from a dwindling customer base.

In response, Indianapolis tries to fix #2:

INDIANAPOLIS – Lawmakers in both the House and Senate have filed legislation to allow bars and taverns to offer paper pull tabs and other small-stakes gambling opportunities.

“I think there’s a realization that bars and taverns, particularly in smaller communities, are struggling,” said Rep. Matt Bell, R-Avilla, a co-author of the bill.[...]

House Bill 1153, authored by Rep. Dennis Tyler, D-Muncie, specifically authorizes bars and taverns to conduct Type II gambling, which is highlighted by pull tabs.

This game is similar to one offered by the Hoosier Lottery and something already allowed in charitable fraternal organizations or clubs.

Pull-tab distributors describe them as small paper games of chance used for profit-making or fundraising. The front side of the pull tab shows winning combinations of symbols and prizes a player can win. The back side of the pull tab has windows to open. If the symbols underneath the pull-tab windows match the winning combinations on the front of the pull tab, the player wins.

Generally, the tickets cost $1 each, and the game pays back about 70 percent of the money with 30 percent retained by the owner or group running the game.

Full article here.

DC Mother Kills Her Four Children. Is the State to Blame or the Mother?

This week a horrible tragedy surfaced in DC. US Marshals enforcing an eviction notice found a disoriented woman, Banita Jacks. The home had no furnishings on the entire first floor, which was spray-painted with bizarre writing, and a foul stench permeating the house. When the Marshals went upstairs they found the corpses of Jacks' four daughters, ranging in age from 5 to 17, in an advanced state of decomposition.

Banita Jacks murdered her four daughters and is so sick that she lived with the rotting corpses in her house since, possibly, last May. She is a depraved maniac, yet all of the Washington media is focusing not on what a monster Jacks is but how it was a grand failure of the DC government that these children were murdered. Even an early story on the tragedy quickly (and editorially) posited:

Among the questions: How could Jacks's children disappear for so long without school officials, police or social workers noticing and stepping in to help? Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) promised some answers today.

Today's Wa Post story was 100% about the DC government's failure to prevent this tragedy. Every agency is on the hot seat, but if you read the article you learn that social service agencies tried on many occasions to tend to the family but Jacks did not answer the door. Even the concerned godmother of two of the children gave up and thought they must have moved away. The girls fell out of the school system because Banita said she was homeschooling them.

NPR today had an hour-long show devoted to decrying the state failure in these girls' deaths in which the hosts berated the participating public official that DC needs to do much more to prevent such atrocities. The pressured DC offcial in turn promised much more public (tax) spending to combat this sort of problem, and I am sure much more spending on ineffective programs will come. There is only so much a government can do when a mother wants to kill her children.

The media's treatment of this story is a sad statement of the transfer of responsibility from the individual to the state. DC did not kill those four young girls, their mother did.

Be Careful Not To Fall Down the Slippery Slope of Nanny Statism

Of all the things for the Baltimore City Council to worry about:

Baltimore City should improve access to fresh produce and recreational activities in low-income neighborhoods to stem childhood obesity, according to a City Council task force report released today.

"This is more serious than smoking," said City Councilwoman Agnes Welch, who has overseen the issue in the council. "Let this be a movement: We're going to stop childhood obesity in the city of Baltimore."

You heard it here first; pork rinds are more dangerous than smoking. Prepare for the War on Lake Trout.

Full article here.

Anti-Libertarian Wins Arlington County Head Council Seat

Campaigning on a platform of banning trans-fats and smoking, requiring property owners who sell their property to pay for the relocation of their tenants and also generally hating cars, Walter Tejada became Arlington Board Chairman on New Year's Day. From today's Wa Post:

Tejada (D) said he would encourage restaurants to ban the use of trans fat in foods, seek to eliminate smoking in public places and require property owners to pay relocation assistance to low-income tenants who are displaced. The county also will urge residents to give up their cars to save money and reduce greenhouse gases.

All of us who believed that smoking bans were the first step in a slippery slope of government control of personal choices were, basically, right.

Tejada says he would "encourage" but if you read the article he is doing everything in his power to coerce and ban through the strong arm of the law.

"A lot of people in our community would be inclined to go to restaurants that don't use trans fats."

I agree with this point, but come out completely opposite of Tejada: let patrons make their own decisions and there is no need for government control of patrons' choices.

I won't even go into the assault on property rights that he is proposing.

Huckabee Surge Helps the Democrats

Huckabee has a two to one lead over Romney in Iowa. As much as I would love to see Iowa blown into the irrelevance that it deserves, it is important with our current primary system.

If Huckabee wins Iowa and the Republican primary then there is a 100% chance that the Democratic candidate will win the general election.

Fiscal conservatives, who used to vote Republican, cannot stand the Christian values litmus test and will vote against it. They are a big swing group that the GOP ignores. And libertarians hate Huckabee's tax raising and Nanny State policies.

Nanny State

I apologize for being so late to this...(I do check our e-mail)..But be sure to check out David Harsanyi's new blog -- if you aren't already -- and maybe even pick up his new book, Nanny State.

Montgomery County Hospitals Ban Smoking Outside, and Smelling Like Smoke

A coalition of hospitals in Montgomery County, MD (a Nanny State), just banned smoking on their hospital campuses.

The use of tobacco products will be prohibited anywhere on the hospitals' grounds -- outside entrances, on walkways or in parking lots and garages. Gazebos where smoking has been permitted are being dismantled, and cans for cigarette butts will disappear...

They also printed small cards with "scripts" for staff members to follow if they see a colleague, visitor, patient or family member puffing away. The suggested dialogue is more courteous than curt, but employees could face disciplinary action for repeated violations. A worker with clothes smelling of tobacco might be issued disposable coveralls or asked to go home and change.

Maybe hospitals should instead focus on the 195,000 people they kill each year through error instead of policing the smell of smoke on one's clothes.

Smoking Back at DC's Aroma Bar

In a victory against the Nanny State, patrons are again allowed to smoke at DC's Aroma, a quiet hip bar in Cleveland Park. That was my favorite watering hole to park up to, ask awesome bartender Krishna which martini I should drink, light up and read the City Paper. I haven't been back since the ban, and neither have a lot of their other customers.

Alas, it took Aroma to almost go out of business to get the exemption. From Wa Post's Going Out Gurus:

A friend and I went to Aroma last night to say goodbye to longtime bartender Krishna Ramsundar, and as we walked in, we took in the aroma. It wasn't because we were caught up in the moment -- it was because we smelled the fragrant odor of burning tobacco. Ashtrays were scattered across the bar, a guy lit up a celebratory cigar and, later, one man wandered in while puffing away on a pipe.

For a moment, we felt like we were in some 2006 bizarro world. Was this the patrons' way of saying goodbye to Krishna, a bartender who likes the occasional smoke break while working? Was this a critical mass-style protest against the city-wide smoking ban?

Hardly. All the puffing away was completely legal, because Aroma is the first D.C. bar to receive a hardship exemption from the city's Department of Health.

In the six months after the smoking ban began, Aroma's owners say, business fell at least 20 percent from the year before. "Aroma was set up as a cigar bar, and [smoking] was pretty core to its identity," explains Curt Large, the chief operating officer of Bedrock Management, Aroma's parent company. Once smokers could no longer enjoy a cigar or cigarette with their cocktails or cognac, he says, they simply stopped coming.

Infant Cough Medicine Recall: That DXT Is Way Worse Than Codeine

Another Drug War tragedy is that the US made codeine-based cough suppressant prescription-only which led consumers to take deadly DXT and doctors to be like DEA agents when prescribing codeine.

I am allergic to DXT, the substance that killed River Phoenix and that the FDA now says should not be given to young children. Codeine is safe and it works.

Every year or two I have a cough and ask my doctor for some cough medicine with codeine and get the Spanish Inquisition. In terms of how our freedom has been compromised, consider that codeine-based cough medicine used to be available without a prescription.

A Note from the Nanny State- DC

In a city whose government can't seem to get the basics right, such as providing working fire hydrants, these two competing stories in the Northwest Current got my attention. [No link as they do not have an online edition]. The headlines and excerpts are thus:

"Council Mulls Ways to Up Financial Literacy"

The DC Council has taken an interest in student's financial literacy in hopes that teaching teenagers about principles of lending, borrowing, savings and credit will help them adopt sound financial practices as adults.

"National Test Show Low Literacy Level in DC"

More than half of the students sampled, 62% [I would call that two-thirds] scored below basic in reading.

I would think that the DC schools would want to try to make their students literate before they tried to make them achieve anything else. Financial aptitude is a ridiculous goal for students who cannot even read. And it is also a huge expansion of what we expect public schools to teach.

Council member Mary Cheh is intoducing this legislation, and she has shown herself to be a Nanny State nightmare. She has also led legislation to ban pay-day lending and trans-fats.

The 21 Drinking Age, Revisited

In 1984 Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which denied federal highway funding to states that did not raise their drinking ages to 21 within three years. This was the heyday of MADD and marked the federal government's first foray into alcohol legislation since Prohibition. I was born one year too late to be grandfathered-in so the memory of that Act is seared into my soul and it was a dark day in Reagan's presidency when he gladly signed it, surrounded by MADD staffers.

Twenty-three years later, it is time to reflect on the legislation that drove young adult drinking away from bars and college wine and cheeses and into the shadows. From the college perspective, former Middlebury President John McCardell supported lowering the age back to 18 in a letter last month to the NY Times:

So much of the drinking-age debate focuses on alcohol-related traffic fatalities, which have not changed much in the last decade.

Meanwhile, peer-reviewed studies have shown that more than 1,000 lives of 18-to-24-year-olds are lost each year to alcohol in places other than on the roadways -- behind closed doors, in dark corners, in remote and risky locations, where a law fundamentally at odds with social reality exacts its deadly toll. And these numbers are increasing annually at an alarming rate.

...Alcohol is a reality in the lives of young adults age 18 to 20. Most of the rest of the world acknowledges that reality with its laws. For some reason, the United States seems stuck in the virtuous mire of prohibition.

That sounds like the Drug War to me.

Any college student today can tell you about drinking in the shadows. I remember a day when it was done in bars and in college pubs (though for me in MA it was only the juniors and seniors who could drink) and it was a lot more "healthy."

Today William Saletan, a reliably libertarian Slate columnist, took up the issue.

Smoke While You Still Can

Banning smoking in bars won't lead to full-scale tobacco prohibition. Nope. Sure won't. No reason to believe that. No slippery slope there.

California motorists will risk fines of up to $100 next year if they are caught smoking in cars with minors, making their state the third to protect children in vehicles from secondhand smoke.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday signed a bill that will make it an infraction to smoke in a vehicle if someone under age 18 is present. But the traffic stop would have to be made for another offense, such as speeding or an illegal turn, before the driver could be cited for smoking.

Ha ha. Remember when they said seat belt laws would only be enforced if drivers were pulled over for another reason? That lasted about a year and then states gave the police the authority to waste valuable time pulling people over for nothing more than not wearing a seat belt.

More on California's latest assault on freedom here. And I predict a ban on smoking in your own apartment or condo will be California law within a year.

The Feds Nab a Track Star

Marion Jones, the American sports star who won five track-and-field medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, formally accepted a plea agreement from the government today at the United States District Court here, pleading guilty to making false statements to federal agents about her use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Why on Earth is the federal government imposing itself on track and field events? Don't they have better things to do?

Didn't We Do the Same Thing?

Public service announcement in the Khaleej Times, the English, Dubai paper. I agree it's pretty tasteless...Although I seem to remember our government did a similar thing last year. Wait...now that I've gone back to check my previous post from last January, I see they did exactly the same thing. Just swap out tobacco for illicit drugs, and you have a DEA ad from '06.

Brits Allowed to Still Order Pints

Good news from the NY Times today-

BRUSSELS, Sept. 11 — Britons and the Irish can still down a pint of beer, walk a mile, covet an ounce of gold and eat a pound of bananas after the European Union ruled today that the countries could retain measurements dating back to the Middle Ages.

Under a previous European Union plan, Britain and Ireland would have been forced to adopt the metric system and phase out imperial measurements by 2009. But after a vociferous antimetric campaign by British skeptics and London’s tabloid press, European Union officials decided that an ounce of common sense (or 28.3 grams) suggested that granting a reprieve was better than braving a public backlash.

A point that article does not make is that the metric system, while good for use in science, is difficult to comprehend on a practical basis in everday application. This is because its base units of measurement are so infitesimal. It is much easier to understand a recipe that calls for 3oz of butter versus 84.9 grams. In contrast, its secondary units of measurement are too large. The average American woman is about 5'3" inches which equates to only 1.7 meters.

Anyway, this is a victory against an increasingly totalitarian EU. It's too late for Steve Thoburn, though.

A British grocer, Steve Thoburn of Sunderland, became known as the “metric martyr” when he was convicted in 2001 of measuring fruits and vegetables in pounds and ounces instead of kilograms. A court gave him a six-month conditional discharge. He died of a heart attack in 2004 just days after learning that his appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against a conviction for using nonmetric scales in his market stall had been rejected.

Want Less of Something? Tax It

I never thought I would find myself agreeing with public health activists who push for cigarette taxation as the most effective tool to reduce smoking. But they got one thing right: taxing something means you get less of it. That rule also applies to work, investment, capital formation, etc. A WSJ editorial [sub only] today shrewdly observes that and the folly of proposing new government programs that rely on funding generated by higher cigarette taxes:

Cigarettes have become every pol's favorite tax target, and last year Trenton raised its cigarette tax to $2.575 per pack -- the highest state levy in the nation. Governor Jon Corzine forecast that the tax increase of 17.5 cents a pack would fetch $30 million in revenue to help balance the state's $1 billion deficit. Not quite. A new analysis by the Center for Policy Research of New Jersey finds that the state collected $23 million less revenue from tobacco taxes in Fiscal 2007 than it did the year before.

Anti-smoking and health advocates say this proves that high taxes on cigarettes reduce smoking. And they're partly right: When you tax something, you get less of it. If only politicians kept that in mind when they were taxing work, investment and saving -- as opposed to "sin."...

State cigarette tax collections may fall by an estimated $1 billion more if Congress goes ahead with its plan to raise the federal cigarette tax to $1 a pack from 39 cents in the name of funding an expansion in health-care spending of $132.6 billion. The Heritage Foundation calculates that, to make those numbers add up, some 22 million Americans would have to start smoking over the next decade.

So, light up, friends. You may kill yourself, but your bad habits will let the politicians continue theirs.

It is pretty ironic that more and more government programs rely on the fact that people smoke. What if everyone quit? Well, that might be the only great anti-smoking argument: to pull the rug out from underneath the Nanny/Welfare State.

Notes From the Nanny State on a Holiday Weekend

At Bethesda Row cinema: I was in the ticket line outside the theater when the man in front of me asked the sales clerk, "Is smoking allowed here?" I thought for a moment that he was a renegade Rumpelstillken who wanted to smoke in the cinema. "No, smoking is not allowed in the theater," the clerk replied. The man then said, "No, I don't mean in the theater, I mean here on the sidewalk." The clerk replied that smoking was allowed on the sidewalk but not inside the cinema. The increasingly agitated man then yelled, "That is not acceptable. It still gets at you," then stormed off. I looked around and didn't see any smokers, just a few people eating ice cream. Perhaps a smoker had been walking by earlier.

At the Parthenon restaurant in Chevy Chase DC: I was sitting outdoors having dinner Monday night with a friend when I heard another customer angrily call for the waiter. The customer barked, "Is this a smoking restaurant?" "No," the waiter replied, "but customers of the bar [which is adjacent] are allowed to smoke directly outside of the bar." The customer was then as annoyed as the agitated cinema man and said that this was unacceptable. I was sitting next to him and never detected any odor of smoke. I think he just saw people smoking and was outraged as the nearest smokers were a good 20 feet away. Of course the smokers would rather be inside as they used to be, listening to music and watching sports tv, but were forced outside by the ban.

Those two incidents reinforced my belief that ban proponents are not motivated by health concerns so much as they just don't like the smell of smoke. And who does? But let's get honest about what is driving smoking bans. Getting a drift of smoke outside is not a health concern.

TtP to Mike Huckabee: Smokers are God's Children Too

Mike Huckabee just called for a national smoking ban similar to what we see at the state and local levels now. Really, no one should be surprised by this. I'm sure he believes in it (he did it in Arkansas and his entire nanny-stater resume is impeccable), and I'm sure he thought it was a bold-move-that-wasn't-really-a-bold-move. You know, attract attention without saying something along the lines of "Let's get the fuck out of Iraq right now."

Here's what he had to say:

1. Said he would not only sign the law if Congress brought it to him, but that he would encourage it.
   
2. Get this---He's not for banning smoking in bars and restaurants, because that's a consumer issue. But he's for banning smoking in bars and restaurants under the guise of a workplace safety issue. To simplify -- He's for banning smoking anywhere more than 3 people work. Including bars and restaurants. I now vaguely remember this douche bag doing the same double talk while trying to pass the Arkansas smoking ban.
   
3. It's a workplace issue....I quote him "[...]for the same reason that we don't let people pour radon gas into a workplace, is the same reason we shouldn't allow people to pour the toxic nauseous fumes of a cigarette into a place where people have to work.
   
4. Again, I quote "We know without a doubt that secondhand smoke is deadly"
   

Here's what Huckabee had to say last year at the signing ceremony for the Arkansas bill:

"This is not a bill against smokers, and I want to make that clear," Huckabee said at the bill-signing ceremony at the state Capitol. "This is a bill for people who, for their own reasons, whether it's health, or just personal, choose not to smoke."

Video here. NYT article on Huckabee and his do-goodness here. More on the Arkansas ban here. Related video of Huckabee claiming you're the idiot for not believing the Earth was made 6,000 years ago in 6 days by God, here.

When Unpastuerized Milk is Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Unpastuerized Milk

When people want the white stuff, someone somewhere will find a way of getting it to them. No, not cocaine. Unpastuerized milk.

Your Tax Dollars Used to Find Startling Information: Old Farts Like to Drink Beer Not Take Shots

I don't know which is sadder that my tax money went to these studies or that the media considers them news.

Binge drinkers are more likely to have a beer can in hand than a shot glass, new research shows.

Unless you're talking about teens. They prefer the hard stuff.

The stereotype-shattering findings are reported in two studies by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [Editor's note: Stereotype-shattering? Uh, where have these reporters been?]

Access may play a major role in the choices of the two age groups, experts suggested.

For adults, beer is cheaper and easy to find, sold in gas stations and grocery stores. However, for teens, it may be easier to filch free booze from their parents' liquor cupboards, one of the researchers said. [editors note: if adults buy beer instead of liquor, wouldn't their liquor cupboards be empty? Or full of beer?]

Binge drinking — no matter which type of alcohol — is bad for your health. Excessive alcohol is acutely dangerous because of its role in car crashes, violence and other traumatic injury, and is blamed for 75,000 deaths annually. [Editor's note: Uh, shouldn't you say doing stupid shit like driving drunk and getting into fights with men twice is your size is bad for your health, not drinking per se?]

More here. If you're wondering I'm a binge drinker. As is any one who drank five or more drinks on at least on occasion in the last 30 days. How do the health fascists get away with this? A man has five beers at a company picnic and drinks nothing else the rest of the month and he's a binge drinker? Pleeeeeeeeaaaaaaasssseeeeee. Not surprisingly the health fascists have a solution, increase taxes on beer. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The most important thing liberty-minded policymakers can do is to put a special tax on research studies. Researchers can study whatever they want they should just have to pay a special $100,000 federal tax for each report. I bet the junk science mill house would screech to a stop real quick.