You got served !!

From the greatness of Reason magazine, on how to deal with Nanny State legislators who don't know how to find their way out of a sack, but who believe they know what's best for you to eat:

San Francisco's ban on giving away a free toy with a child's meal containing a certain number of calories, salt, and other particulars is set to kick in tomorrow. McDonald's, the clear target of the ban, had a year to figure out a way to change its business practices. Seems like they used the time wisely, reports the SF Examiner.

The San Francisco ban on providing free toys to entice children to eat unhealthy foods goes into effect Thursday, but McDonald’s plans to comply with the law by charging 10 cents a toy for their Happy Meals and donating the money to the nonprofit Ronald McDonald House.

(Catch that nice bit of editorializing about what's "unhealthy" there?)

And from the SF Weekly:

In any event, it appears the fast food chain's sharpie lawyers have McTopped San Francisco's legislators. Count this city's lawmakers as the latest among the billions and billions served.

Good for McDonald's.  They got around the toy ban by charging a dime for the toy. 

 The Aggie grew up eating McDonald's Happy Meals, and has now upgraded to McDonald's Value Meals (or the WhataBurger equivalent) and she now has the body fat of a mop handle and can do enough pull-ups to qualify for Navy Seal training.  Out of 120 people who tried to make it into the YMCA's lifeguard training program, she's one of 12 who qualified, and one of only 7 who finally passed the class.  (Not that I'm proud or anything....)

There's a lot that's unknown about proper diet and health, but this much is clear:

1) The San Francisco City Council doesn't know jack shit about this topic.  The Federal Government knows even less.  Go here for a personal testimony. 

2) Michelle Obama tried to hop on the Food Nazi Bandwagon last year, releasing some guidelines from her throne for all of us who truly love our children to follow.  Go here for the pics of Barack feeding a hot dog into The Teleprompter's orifice a few days later.

3) When I was in the Literary Retail business, I sold every diet and nutrition book that was brought to market.  The new ones couldn't be kept on the shelf, they sold so quickly.  They had totally different content than the old ones published the year before.  The old ones couldn't be given away, mostly because they were old and had different contents than the new ones that were recently featured and slobbered over by Oprah Winfrey.  The only things these books had in common were dietician authors and a short shelf life. 

4) I grew up being told to eat my fruit, eat my fruit, eat my fruit.  But that stuff turns to sugar as soon as it is digested.  I don't eat quite as much fruit now.  I feel better.
    
5) All laws, rules and regulations have unintended consequences and create different incentives from the ones intended by the prophets who bring them down from the mountain.  As an example, Happy Meal toys are now cloaked in the righteousness of the Ronald McDonald Houses.  Good work, guys !

Here's the great Jonathan Edwards, doing his 1971 mega-hit "Sunshine".  (I especially like the line "Some man's gone, he's tried to run my life, he don't know what he's askin'.  He can't even run his own life, I'll be damned if he'll run mine.") 

One last thing, totally off-topic....Edwards mentions performing this at an anti-war rally.  Are we going to have any more of those rallies, or do we have to elect a Republican president first????

On taking a chance by hiring a 55 year old

I had an interesting conversation today with a new employee.  He's 55 years old, works in another department, and he mentioned that he really felt grateful to have a job with us since many companies are no longer willing to take a chance on a 55 year old. 

The guy has plenty of experience, and probably has great references and credentials. 

So why wouldn't other companies take a chance on him? 

It's because if he doesn't work out and he has to be fired, he can sue his employer for age discrimination. 

Doh ! 

In my previous job, I hired, trained and promoted enough gays to staff the Disneyworld parade.  But the powers-that-be got nervous.  Very nervous.  I eventually got sat down and told about the realities of Civil Rights law, and that I might want to take it easy on hiring those fine folks.  Lots of lawsuits over minority firings were in the works.  (Comic episode:  I'm ashamed that I actually tried to comply with this.  I promoted 3 consecutive people who came out of the closet 15 minutes after I promoted them.  Ha !  I hope you're out there reading this, Betsy Batchelder.)

Do you think that maybe, just maybe, more companies would promote more racial minorites to better positions if the companies couldn't be sued for changing their minds later on????

If I decide to stop giving money to Joe's Plumbing Service and start purchasing the same service from Bill's Plumbing Service, do I have to prove that I didn't do so because of Joe's age, race, weight, sexual orientation, religion, voting record, or attitudes toward dachshund ownership?  No.  That's why excellent plumbing services owned by old, black, fat, gay, Mormon, Libertarian dachshund owners are likely to stay in business just as long as excellent plumbing services owned by young, Hispanic,healthy, straight, Presbyterian, Democrat cat owners.  Customers aren't punished if they take a chance on a minority employee and change their minds later.  (And if you hire a plumber, you are an employer.  The plumber is your employee.  Please hurry up and wrap your head around that concept !!)

Purchasing labor and effort should be just like purchasing pizzas or lug nuts.

If I decide to switch from Kroger to Wal-Mart, I don't have to fill out any paperwork.  I just purchase goods and services from Wal-Mart.  Same thing for the people who replace my roof after every hailstorm.  I don't think I've ever used the same people twice.  I probably change my mind every time, and it's none of Harry Reid and John Boehner's business.     

Civil Rights law doesn't apply to those situations, thank God.  It only applies to certain labor agreements. 

If you ever allow yourself to be placed in a protected category by the government, you might be in big, big trouble.    There is a good chance that The Law Of Unintended Consequences is going to kick you very hard.  Good luck. 

Damn, that's gotta hurt

I think it'll leave a mark. 

As an office-holder for the Libertarians, I can't endorse anybody running as a Republicrat or a Demoblican.
But this ad is freakin' vicious. 

Ron Paul didn't pull out all the stops in this one, and he didn't make fun of the early '90's laughable "Republican Revolution". 

Otherwise, it is pure, undiluted greatness. 

Well done, sir.  Well done. 

Happy Birthday, Mark Twain !!!

Sam Clemens was born 176 years ago today. 
Be grateful. 

A Modest Proposal For The Defense Of South Korea

We're spending a fortune defending South Korea from North Korea. 

We've been spending billions per year there ever since our unsuccessful Foreign Policy Adventure there in the 1950's. 

You can go here and here to learn more about the relatively small amount that the Republic Of Korea contributes toward this effort.  The rest is an outright massive subsidy of the Korean government.  And Korean industry. 

As long as Lockheed, Bell, Halliburton, etc. are contributing toward election campaigns, this isn't likely to change.

We keep sending our children over there to not fight, and then they retire at age 45 with massive pensions. 

We're 15 trillion in debt.  What to do, what to do? 

Here's a suggestion.....  Let's outsource the defense of Korea to the Koreans !!!!

Seriously.  We could start paying the Koreans to defend their own country.  It would cost less. 

We wouldn't have to move so many people around.  It would be a "green" movement. 

We wouldn't necessarily have to pay pensions for Korean retirees. 

As a cost-cutting measure, I see nothing wrong with this idea. 

In which the Occupy Wall Street movement starts to get a clue

I've had a glorious time ridiculing the Occupy Wall Street movement for the last few months.  They have no idea what they want, no idea about the root cause of their complaints, and their problem with homeless people mooching the food that was donated to THEM ONLY, well, that makes me wake up in the middle of the night with fits of The Giggles. 

But now they're getting somewhere.  See the chart below.  Bear in mind, this is only the "discretionary" spending. 

We're responsible for more than 40% of the world's military expenditures.  We have 6% of the world's population.  We have a massive % of the world's debt. 

Isn't it time for this sacred cow to get slaughtered?  Or at least put on a reasonable diet?

Where the hell did the Peace Movement go?  Are we going to have to elect a Republican before we hear from those people again?  Where's the freakin' outrage over Libya and Pakistan?   

p.s. - We really shouldn't spend this much on the other stuff either. 

Some More Settled Science Updates

Willis Eisenbach has published an open letter to Dr. Phil Jones of the University Of East Anglia Climate Research Unit. 
It's one of the most devastating things I've ever read. 

These guys invented global warming.  They just sat around made up some data, and scared the living shit out of everybody with it.  Now they can't find it.  They are cornered. 

They simply made it up.  Billions and billions have been spent on this scam. 

They made it up.  It really is that simple. 

If you're not totally sickened yet, go here.   Or you can go here.   
This one won't tell you anything you don't already know, but is a nice summary of the Return Of The Son Of Climategate emails. 

Remember when skepticism was seen by most scientists as a virtue and not a vice?  If you value Free Inquiry, I defy you to read these articles without crying. 

We no longer make decisisions

From John Shuey's Facebook page:

The US no longer does decisions. It can neither stop the drug traffic nor legalize it. It can neither win wars nor abandon them, neither make money nor stop spending it, neither stop immigration nor assimilate the immigrants. Washington can beat its thumb with a hammer, and notice that it hurts, but it can't stop beating its thumb. That would take a decision, and Washington doesn't do decisions."