Via Theo.
——————————————————-

Supposed Christian group that won headlines attacking Paul Ryan’s budget funded by the very secular-minded George Soros.

——————————————————-

Jim DeMint: Your tax dollars at work: $2 million grant to build a “culinary amphitheater,” wine tasting room, and gift shop in Richland, Washington. That makes sense, with the federal deficit where it is, everyone needs a drink.

——————————————————-

Cedar Falls, Iowa wants keys to residents’ homes. It’s for their safety.
——————————————————-

Kayleigh via Jose Guardia: Keynesianism is the equivalent of pouring your can of soda into a glass and trying to claim that, because the soda is now in the glass, you have more soda than if you had not poured it into the glass.
——————————————————-

Michelle Malkin: Woe is Weiner: No skillz to pay the billz. But don’t worry, he has a job offer with a higher salary. And he has a pension.
——————————————————-

Leopold Bloom resigns after erotic letters leak.

DirectorBlue argues that warning labels on voting machines and ballots would be more to the point.

Hat tip to the News Junkie.

The Coast Guard has put new restrictions in place across the Gulf Coast that prevent the public – including news photographers and reporters covering the BP oil spill – from coming within 65 feet of any response vessels or booms on the water or on beaches.

According to a news release from the Unified Command, violation of the “safety zone” rules can result in a civil penalty of up to $40,000, and could be classified as a Class D felony. Because booms are often placed more than 40 feet on the outside of islands or marsh grasses, the 65-foot rule could make it difficult to photograph and document the impacts of oil on land and wildlife, media representatives said.

But federal officials said the buffer zone is essential to the clean-up effort.

“The safety zone has been put in place to protect members of the response effort, the installation and maintenance of oil containment boom, the operation of response equipment and protection of the environment by limiting access to and through deployed protective boom,” the news release said.

The Coast Guard on Tuesday had initially established an even stricter “safety zone” of more than 300 feet, but reduced the distance to 20 meters – 65 feet – on Wednesday. In order to get within the 65-foot limit, media must call the Coast Guard captain of the Port of New Orleans, Edwin Stanton, to get permission.

Photographer James Michael Duncan marvels at the way that it has suddenly become potentially a crime to photograph the oil spill.

Volunteers can’t work on the beach, [ostensibly] for liability reasons. Only contracted employees can go work. Of course, those contracts expressly forbid talking with media. Every boat captain that signs on with the clean up is also expressly forbidden from talking to media or taking photographers out, even when those photographers can stay out of the way of people working. Chilling effects, all.

The Coast Guard says that you must call the Coast Guard captain of the port of New Orleans to get permission. If you buy the safety argument, that sounds sort of reasonable. Except for the fact that there’s no stated rules for who can get permission. The Times-Picayune article reports that AP photographer Gerald Herbert—one of the few mainstream press photographers that has been putting out incredible shots—has asked to discuss the new policy with officials. Guess what? He hasn’t received a response. ...

I successfully [took several] photos without endangering any response workers, interfering with booms, or endangering wildlife. In fact, there wasn’t a response worker within miles of my location. Should I be a felon for making these images?

I ask again: Why is the government helping control the message here? Who’s interest is being served? It’s certainly not the public’s interest.

Fast cars, smoking, flirting, even eating fast food at Burger King, the puritans of the Left are determined to eradicate each and every one of life’s little pleasures, Dennis Praeger warns.

Just as the Soviets removed Trotsky from old photos, anti-smoking zealots have forced the removal of cigarettes from old photos — from photos of FDR, from the famous Beatles photo — and from movies whenever possible. Torture and murder are ubiquitous in films, but smoking is all but banned — even cigars are now banned from James Bond films.

Smoking has been banned in entire cities, outdoors as well as in. In Pasadena, Calif., one cannot even smoke in a cigar store. ...

Virtually every game I played as a child during school recess is now banned because organizations such as the National Program for Playground Safety deem games in which kids are “running into each other” as too dangerous. Someone might get hurt.

Until a few years ago, just about every American boy, and many girls, played dodgeball. No more. This joy, too, has been eliminated from American life. “We consider it inappropriate to use children as human targets,” said Mary Marks, physical education supervisor for Fairfax County, Va. And it may hurt the feelings of kids who are eliminated. For the same reason — potential hurt feelings of those eliminated — musical chairs is no longer played in some schools.

Some might argue that these bans are not because of Leftism but because of fear of lawsuits. But in light of how leftwing the trial bar is, that only reinforces my argument.

Read the whole thing.

Young men of Brockworth in Gloucestershire have from Time Immemorial, at least for a couple of centuries, possibly even from Roman or Phoenician Antiquity, been celebrating the arrival of Spring with the annual Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake, a peculiar local competition involving a hazardous madcap pursuit down a steep hill after a large round block of Double Gloucester cheese.

The London Times reports that safety, insurance, and traffic considerations, in other words bureaucracy and general poltroonery, have caused this year’s cheese-rolling to be cancelled.

A centuries-old cheese rolling contest has fallen victim to health and safety — but not because of the broken bones and dozens of other injuries sustained each year.

Organisers of Gloucestershire’s annual competition have cancelled the event due to be held on May 31 because of concerns raised by the police and local authority over traffic and crowd control.

Good blog article on the tradition

Cheese-Rolling in Gloucestershire web-site

Maccabees “Can You Give It” 3:18 Cheese-Rolling song video

Hat tip to No Pasaran.

The owners of the High Timbers (sic) restaurant, located in the heart of London, are insisting that customers sampling their festive menu sign a legal waiver before sitting down to eat.

The restaurant is currently offering plum pudding as part of its seasonal fare, which, as ancient custom (and the recipe) dictates, is prepared with the odd silver coin or lucky charm thrown into the mix.

But so wary have the management become of expensive lawsuits brought by any patron chipping a veneered tooth or choking on silver horseshoes that each portion arrives with both a jug of brandy sauce and a legal disclaimer.

You see how these things work?

There’s a little accident, and first they come and take away your cannon. Next, before long, they won’t even let Boy Scouts carry pocket knives. The utter and complete emasculation of society is a slippery slope process.

Telegraph:

New advice published in Scouting, the official in-house magazine, says neither Scouts nor their parents should bring penknives to camp except in “specific” situations.

Scouts have traditionally been taught how to use knives correctly, using them on camping trips to cut firewood or carve tools.

At one point Scouts were allowed to carry a sheath knife on their belt as part of their uniform although this is no longer the case. In recent years the Scout Association guidance has been that parents should carry knives to camps or meetings.

Dave Budd, a knife-maker who runs courses training Scouts about the safe use of blades, wrote that the growing problem of knife crime meant action had to be taken.

“Sadly, there is now confusion about when a Scout is allowed to carry a knife,” he wrote. “The series of high-profile fatal stabbings [has] highlighted a growing knife culture in the UK.

“I think it is safest to assume that knives of any sort should not be carried by anybody to a Scout meeting or camp, unless there is likely to be a specific need for one. In that case, they should be kept by the Scout leaders and handed out as required.”

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

Even farther back, before WWII, there used to be an official Boy Scout sheath knife. It seems to have been an adaptation by a different company (Ka-Bar? Camillus?) of the old Webster Marble Woodcraft pattern.

——————————————————————British Scouting Commissioner says story is unfair, Update 9/9:

Wayne Bulpitt, UK Chief Commissioner, says the Daily Mail’s Sunday edition used “a few selective statements and quotes some out of context.”

There’s no story here, Bulpitt claims. Why! We’ve been discouraging scouts from carrying pen-knives for years.

A Mail on Sunday journalist approached us on Friday having read the latest guidance we issued in Scouting Magazine/online in December 08 and April 09 on advising Scouts on the situations in which they can use a knife as part of normal Scout Activities. He was looking to make the story into “Scouts Ban knives shocker”. The media team took them through the facts and sent them links to our various documents and magazine articles giving him the following info,

– The Rules changed about wearing knives with uniform in 1968 – We have issued regular guidance to the Movement on this matter ever since 1968 e.g. early 1980’s , 1996, 2008 and 2009 (the latest being the magazine article in April/May) – We need to support leaders with information to help them support young people

Despite making these facts available the Mail on Sunday published the piece, They used a few selective statements and quotes some out of context..

A number of newspapers this morning (Times, Telegraph, Express, Mirror, Sun) have taken the text from the Mail on Sunday (without talking to us) and have run with the story.

I’m not especially moved by Mr. Bulpitt’s complaints personally, but I thought he was entitled to a place on the record.

(T)he tobacco regulation bill recently passed by Congress indicates that the spirit of liberty is even scarcer than usual in the halls of government.

What motivates advocates of stricter tobacco regulation is the unassailable assurance that they are not only completely right but that their opponents are a) wrong and b) evil. This invigorating certitude makes it possible to justify almost anything that punishes cigarette companies, even if it does no actual good—or does actual harm.

One of the main purposes of the new law is to reduce the number of smokers in the name of improving “public health.” This is a skillful use of language to confuse rather than enlighten.

An individual decision to take up cigarettes is a private event, not a public one, and its health effects are almost entirely confined to the individual making the choice. ...
Cigarette makers are forbidden to use color in ads in any publication whose readership is less than 85 percent adult. They are barred from using music in audio ads. They are not allowed to use pictures in video ads. They may not put product names on race cars, lighters, caps, or T-shirts. From all this, you almost forget the fleeting passage in the Constitution that says “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.”

When it gets in a mood to regulate, Congress doesn’t like to trouble itself with nuisances like the First Amendment. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional for Massachusetts to ban outdoor ads within 1,000 feet of any schools and playgrounds. So what does this law do? It bans outdoor ads within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds.

The Court said the Massachusetts law was intolerable because it choked off communication about a legal activity. “In some geographical areas,” complained Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, “these regulations would constitute nearly a complete ban on the communication of truthful information about smokeless tobacco and cigars to adult consumers.”

But to anti-smoking zealots, that effect is not a bug but a feature. The only problem they have with imposing “nearly a complete ban” is the “nearly” part.

Read the whole thing.

The BBC quotes an industry association report identifying the latest breakthrough in British mollycoddling: replacing dangerous, capable of individual expression knotted ties with clip-ons.

Clip-on ties are replacing knotted school ties as schools worry about health and safety, says a survey of school uniform suppliers.

The Schoolwear Association says 10 schools a week in the UK are switching, because of fears of ties getting caught in equipment or strangling pupils.

There are also claims that clip-on ties can stop pupils from customising the size of the knots in their ties.

Uniforms are an “instrument of social levelling,” says the association. ...

The emergence of clip-on ties is part of a growing sensitivity towards health and safety, says the association, along with modifications such as high-visibility trimming on scarves.

Clip-on ties take away the risk of pupils having accidents with their knotted ties.

Schools have raised concerns about ties catching fire in science lessons, getting trapped in technology equipment or ties getting caught when pupils were running.

Clip-on ties also allow schools to create a more standardised appearance, says the association, stopping pupils from being more creative in how they wear their ties.

There is something perfectly embodying modern leftist thought in the combination of motives here: sniveling cowardice joined with leveling conformity.

The news has even reached India’s DNA news service (Bombay) that librarians at Oxford have banned step ladders and refused all access to books on upper shelves.

Britain, to make up for the monstrosities it perpetrated on its colonies during its empire days, has since the culmination of the Second World War been celeritously progressing on a path of political correctness—to the extent of first starting to call a spade a wilting water lily and then beginning to nurse a whimpering nanny state.

Now, an old stanchion of olde Blighty has caught the contagion. The Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford, where many a ruminative afternoon was spent by the likes of Gladstone and Attlee, Wilde and Shelly, and Hawking and Tim Berners-Lee, has made the books in its uppermost shelves out of bounds for students—or anyone else for that matter.

The reason: three-year-old British health and safety regulations that the library’s authorities happened to trip upon recently. Better late than never, the library has deemed the use of stepladders to be too risky for a scholar’s life and limb. The momentous decision has been arrived at irrespective of the fact that in the centuries of its existence, no untoward incident is on record to have occurred in the Bodleian owing to the use of ladders for reaching books in the higher rows.

So is there a way to access the books? In one word, no. The authorities say, respecting the national love of tradition, the books stay where they are: in their “historic” locations. If one wants access to a particular volume, one can always try at the British Library in London. And yes, there are also the digital versions.

It was several decades ago that Yale closed all the fireplaces in in residential dorms after the fire marshal declared that they constituted a fire hazard.

One of contemporary nincompoopery’s most characteristic features is an infatuation with the idea of Progress so complete that it excludes totally the ability not only to draw lessons from the evidence of the past, but even to recognize that the possibility of continuation with the past exists. Revolutionary change today is always vital and obligatory. And anytime events produce the slightest break with ordinary routine, as in the case of Islamic terrorists captured post 9/11, a group of experts must be hastily assembled to re-invent the wheel.

Oxford librarians simply cannot recognize that people have climbed stepladders to reach books for centuries, just as Yale’s administration could not access the fact that people heated homes and cooked with fireplaces for centuries, all with entirely acceptable rates of untoward incident. Similarly, the Bush Administration could not grasp the fact that American military commanders had previously encountered illegal combatants and that practically effective policies and customs applying to such circumstances have existed throughout the history of human conflict. Instead, George W. Bush had to invent new policies and order policy drafts from Justice Department attorneys.

The Bodleian’s high shelf books are exactly like mankind’s history, tradition, and the experience of all our deceased predecessors: out of the reach of contemporary idiots.

Get ready, America, for a return to the 1970s era of federally-mandated nationwide 55 mph speed limits, emission-strangled automobile engines, and speedometers topping out at 85.

Barack Obama has appointed America’s Safety-Nazi-in-Chief Charles A. Hurley, current head of Mothers Against Drunk Driving to preside over the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Well, you’re living in the Nanny State now, boys and girls. Hurley is a long time advocate of drastically more extensive federal supervision of your naughty driving.

He is on the record as supporting a .04% Blood Alcohol Content limit, meaning you are guilty of DUI if you sip one glass of Chardonnay at dinner, and he favors vastly expanded pullover alcohol checks to enforce it, along with breathalyzer-ignition interlocks.

Expect to see the federally mandatory 55 mph speed limit again, expanded liability opportunities for trial lawyers, and a nationwide regime of stoplight and speed check cameras everywhere.

Repeat after me: “I love Big Brother!”
—————————————-

Hat tip to Walter Olson.

For all I know, this column is coming to you from beyond the grave. As I write, it is Christmas Eve. As you read, it is Boxing Day. I can’t really see myself making it through. You see, despite my best efforts, I have utterly failed to get hold of a copy of the Government’s festive safety leaflet, Tis the Season to be Careful.

Tis, tis it? Oh dear. I wonder what will get me? Will I sever an artery with scissors while excitedly opening a present? Take a lethal elbow to the nose, thanks to somebody else’s overenthusiastic tug on a Christmas cracker? Maybe I’ll get drunk and sit in the fireplace, or blow up the house by putting a gravy boat in the microwave. Maybe, who knows, I’ll fit the whole turkey over my head and, as the complete antithesis of that “Blind man sees” story that was in the newspapers the other day, run around excitedly until I fall off the landing. You know, like Joey would have done, if they’d had stairs in that apartment in Friends.

Alas, there is just no knowing. For the Government handed out 150,000 leaflets advising people on how not to kill themselves at Christmas, and my household didn’t end up with one. I’m feeling terribly exposed. And there must be plenty of other families in the same boat.

Maybe you read this now as the only survivor of your own little festive apocalypse. Under the dining room table, naked except for a party hat, beating off the advances of your snarling, brandy-butter-crazed family dog with the charred remains of grandma’s thighbone. “Nooooo!” you will be wailing. “If only I had been appraised of the stark and leafleted warnings of Baroness Morgan of Drefelin, the Minister for Children, in conjunction with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents! Woe! Woe!” Sob, growl, thunk. ..

Once you stop resenting nanny, you start to rely on her. If nanny tells you to stop smoking in pubs, you probably stop smoking in pubs. But, in time, you also stop thinking about whether you ought to smoke in pubs or not. And worse, if somebody else lights up next to you, you expect nanny to do something about it. It’s not your business or even really his. It’s just nanny’s business. You’ve both become morons.

Now nanny is telling you not to hurt yourself over Christmas. Chances are, you weren’t really planning to, anyway. Chances are, moreover, that you probably thought you were quite well equipped to avoid hurting yourself at Christmas all by yourself.

But nanny disagrees. Nanny doesn’t think that you are up to it. And, in time, you’ll probably start to believe her. In time, as a result, you will grow to consider your wellbeing at Christmas not to be your own problem at all, but to be nanny’s problem entirely. And that’s nuts.

In other words, you used to have a duty not to burn down your house and slaughter your entire family. Now, because nanny has taken on that duty, you have a right not to burn down your house and slaughter your entire family. Needless to say, this makes no sense at all.

Still, don’t come crying to me. It’s nanny’s fault, not mine. And anyway, as discussed, I’m probably dead.

Read the whole thing.

For nearly a quarter of a century, Lourdes Maxwell has celebrated the arrival of summer by putting a paddling pool in the garden.

This year, however, her two grandchildren and the children of her neighbours may have to find another way to cool off in the heat.

Miss Maxwell’s local council has decided that the pool – which is only 2ft deep – needs a lifeguard.

The 47-year-old divorced mother of three has also been told she must have insurance before she can inflate the toy outside her house in Portsmouth.

Remember this? “There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical….”

Younger readers may not remember the opening to “The Outer Limits,” a pretty good sci-fi rip-off of “The Twilight Zone” (and they may have only a fuzzy understanding that TVs used to have knobs to control the horizontal and vertical). But as they read the news these days, maybe they can find a new appreciation for the creepy feeling of powerlessness that opening once gave viewers. ...

We are seeing a return to the idea—first championed by social planners in the progressive era—that government can and should play the role of parent. For instance, Michael Gerson, once a speechwriter for President Bush, advocates a new “heroic conservatism”—an updating of his former boss’ compassionate conservatism—that would unleash a new era of statist regulations. On the stump, Hillary Clinton refers to her book, “It Takes a Village,” in which she argued that we all must surrender ourselves to the near-constant prodding, monitoring, cajoling and scolding of the “helping professions.” Clinton argues that children are born in “crisis” and government must respond with all the tools in its arsenal from the word go. She advocates putting television sets in all public gathering places so citizens can be treated to an endless loop of good parenting tutorials.

Mike Huckabee, who represents compassionate conservatism on steroids, favors a nationwide ban on public smoking. Everywhere, from Barack Obama to John McCain, we are told that our politics must be about causes “larger than ourselves.” What we used to think of as individual freedom is now being recast as greedy and selfish.

Read the whole thing.

As the BBC reports, even joke guns and toys swords must be registered and stored locked up in today’s Britain.

A Cornish village drama group has had to register a toy gun with the police to comply with health and safety rules.

Carnon Downs drama group in Cornwall have also had to keep their plastic cutlasses and wooden swords locked up for the pantomime, Robinson Crusoe.

Producers of the show called the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) rules “farcical”.

A spokesman for the HSE said the rules were designed to make risks “sensibly managed”.

The climax of the show is a fight in which actors use replica 4ft-foot long plastic cutlasses.

There is also a toy gun which produces a flag saying “Bang”.

The directors contacted police after receiving advice from the HSE and the National Operatic and Dramatic Association.

The HSE have a page on their website called Entertainment Information Sheet 20 which lays down strict rules for the handling of guns, swords and other weapons on set.

Drama group co-director Linda Barker said: “The cutlasses count as weapons even though they are replicas and made of plastic and apparently they could be mistaken for real ones.

“Our only gun was a panto pistol which produces a flag with the word bang on it.

“Our local police at Truro were fantastic and they have registered the gun, the two plastic cutlasses and our six wooden swords.”

She added: “It gets a bit farcical when you are dealing with plastic swords. It is not as if anyone is likely to be scared by them.”

Neighbourhood beat officer Pc Nigel Hyde said: “We have been informed and made a note.

“It seems a bit unusual but other forms of replica weapons have been used to carry out crimes and the consequences have been serious.”

A spokesman for the HSE said: “We do not want to stop people putting on pantos or having fun as long as the risks are sensible managed.”

Hat tip to Walter Olson.

The Washington Post reports that the US Naval Academy may soon be losing its plebe year culminating ritual when the mass scrimmage is condemned by the authorities as “unsafe.”

In the name of safety, the U.S. Naval Academy is considering an overhaul of one of its most bizarre traditions: the annual ritual in which a thousand first-year midshipmen struggle to conquer a 21-foot granite obelisk coated with 200 pounds of lard.

The Herndon Climb has occupied a hallowed place in Naval Academy tradition for decades. For members of the plebe class, the climb represents what a former midshipman called “our final exam of all finals.” The starter gun fires, and the plebes, working together, race to replace a blue-rimmed sailor’s cap, known as a “dixie cup,” with a midshipman’s cap.

The scene is unforgettable to those who watch, as the sweating, grunting, red-faced midshipmen at the bottom, their arms linked, support a human pyramid surging to the top of the monument. The pyramid often collapses, but the plebes invariably make it to the top whether it takes them minutes or hours.

But at the ever-changing academy, the climb may be going the way of the sailing ship and the smoothbore cannon.

“Similar to how our Navy looks at all traditions in the Fleet, we are evaluating the Herndon Monument Climb to ensure the event remains a valid part of our heritage but it is conducted with professionalism, respect, and most important, safety in mind,” the academy’s public affairs office said in a statement.

It is unclear what changes might be imposed. This year’s climb is scheduled for 9 a.m. May 15.

Deborah Goode, a spokeswoman for the academy, said that she could not recall any serious injuries resulting from the Herndon Climb and that the reevaluation was part of a broader reconsideration of the end-of-year events for plebes.

Alumni scoffed at the risk of someone’s getting hurt, especially given the school’s mission to prepare officers for combat.

Yale use to have a similar male-bonding event, the annual bladderball game, banned by President Bartlett Giamatti in a fit of politically correct namby-pambyness in 1982.

A coastguard who risked his life to save a teenage girl stranded on a cliff ledge has resigned after he was criticised for breaching health and safety rules during the rescue.

Paul Waugh, 44, was so concerned for the 13-year-old girl that he clambered down to her in gale-force winds without waiting to fit safety harnesses.

The father of three, who was hailed as a hero and received an award for stopping the girl from falling 300ft as she waited for an RAF rescue helicopter, announced yesterday that he was leaving the service after 13 years.

Officials at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said that Mr Waugh, from Cleveland, had breached health and safety regulations because he had not been roped up for the descent. A spokesman said that the rules were in place because the agency did not want any “dead heroes”.

Mr Waugh said: “I am very sad that I have had to leave because I loved my job, but it is one of those things. You save a life and this is how they treat you. I am sorry, but I would not leave any 13-year-old girl hanging off a cliff.

“Saving her life was the important thing. The cliff edge was crumbling away and I didn’t think I had time to wait. It was pitch black and all you could see was a little girl’s frightened face. She was even planning her own funeral. If I had left her and ran back to the vehicle, got the safety equipment and then ran back, she could have fallen. She had been stuck there for 45 minutes and the cliff ledge had actually gave way so she was hanging by her arms off tufts of grass.

“If she had fallen and I had stood watching her, my life would not have been worth living.”

The former miner gave up as a volunteer for the agency, blaming “immense pressure” from management at Bridlington Coastguard.

The girl, Faye Harrison, had been walking with three friends along the cliff top at Brotton last January when they followed the wrong path down the cliff. As it got dark they became disorientated and stranded. A dog walker raised the alarm after hearing their screams for help.

Mr Waugh was paged by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, and with two others went to the scene. Because of a locked farm gate they could not get the rescue vehicle, which contained harnesses and ropes, to the cliff. Mr Waugh clambered down to Faye and held her to prevent her from falling. About 30 minutes later they were winched off by the helicopter.

Mr Waugh said: “I broke a rule and did not use the kit but I saved a life. I don’t call myself a hero. I would have helped even if I had not been in the coastguard. If I had done nothing I would have got slated, but I saved her life and I still get slated.” ...

A spokesman for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said: “We wish Paul well in his future endeavours and the MCA is very grateful for his past activities and work in the Coastguard Rescue Service. However, the MCA is very mindful of health and safety regulations, which are in place for very good reasons.

“Above all our responsibility is to maintain the health and welfare of those who we sometimes ask to go out in difficult and challenging conditions to affect rescues. The MCA is not looking for dead heroes. As such, we ask our volunteers to risk-assess the situations they and the injured or distressed person find themselves in, and to ensure that whatever action they take does not put anyone in further danger.”

Fifty years ago, New American Library published the Mentor Philosophers series, each with a title beginning The Age of . . . Belief, Ideology, Reason, and so on; the 20th-century selections bore the title The Age of Analysis. Had the series continued to the end of that century and into this, the volume should no doubt be The Age of Apology. Our postmodern ethos seems to hold that if anything can be proved to have happened, then surely someone needs to apologize for it.

We live amid a veritable tsunami of apology. The Catholic Church, which, of course, has much to apologize for, has, of late, offered mea culpas to Galileo, the Jews, the gypsies, Jan Hus, whom it burned at the stake in 1415, even to Constantinople (now Istanbul) for its sacking 800 years ago by the knights of the Fourth Crusade, an event for which the late John Paul II expressed “deep regret.” No wonder that a group in England, claiming descent from the medieval Knights Templars, is asking the Vatican to apologize for the violent suppression of the order and for torturing to death its Grand Master Jacques de Molay in 1314, an apology timed to commemorate the 700th anniversary of that fell deed. In America, the National Council of Churches apologized to Native Americans for Europeans’ discovering their continent and appropriating their land (but did not return any church’s specific holdings to any specific tribe). The United Church of Canada followed suit, officially apologizing to Canada’s native peoples for wrongs inflicted by the church; the native peoples, however, officially rejected the apology.

The current lieutenant governor of Illinois, Pat Quinn, personally presented the leaders of the Mormon church with a copy of his state legislature’s House Resolution 793, expressing “official regret” for the 1844 murder of Joseph Smith and the expulsion of his followers, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The language asking for “pardon and forgiveness” was toned down when certain lawmakers protested that they could not ask for forgiveness for acts that they had not personally committed — a retrograde notion, apparently, of individual responsibility. Tony Blair, as British prime minister, apologized to the Irish for his nation’s insensitivity to the plight of the victims of the Potato Famine in the 1840s. A hundred years after the event, the U.S. Congress offered a formal apology to the Hawaiians for the overthrow of their monarchy in 1893. The French parlement unanimously adopted a law stating that “the trans-Atlantic and Indian Ocean slave trade, perpetuated from the 15th century against Africans, Amerindians, Malagasies and Indians, constitutes a crime against humanity”: the centuries of slavery before the 15th and the slavery of other peoples do not, apparently, constitute such a crime, at least in France.

In 2005 the U.S. Senate formally apologized for something that it had not done: make lynching a federal crime. Such a record of inaction, claimed one of the resolution’s sponsors, constituted a “stain on the United States Senate.” True enough, no doubt, but one of how many? Imagine if the United States or any other government began apologizing not only for sins of commission but for those of omission: an infinite regress of culpability.

My favorite apology so far, however, appeared in a brief Reuters account. “Villagers of the tiny settlement of Nubutautau [Fiji] wept as they apologized to the descendants of a British missionary killed and eaten by their ancestors 136 years ago,” the news agency reported. “The villagers and the relatives of the missionary, the Rev. Thomas Baker, were taking part in a complex ritual intended to lift a curse the locals say has caused an extended run of bad luck.” A cow was slaughtered and kisses given to the 11 relatives of the missionary by the village chief, Ratu Filimoni Nawawabalavu, “a descendant of the chief who cooked the missionary.” No word on whether the curse lifted. ...

Our mania for apology stems from a radical sort of “presentism”: the belief, in practice, if not fully articulated, that the actions and actors of the past should be evaluated, and usually condemned, by present-day standards. In our relativistic age in which advanced opinion notoriously eschews universals and absolutes, the criteria obtaining at the moment in Cambridge and Chapel Hill, Ann Arbor and Palo Alto, Austin and Madison seem to have more than contingent status. The criteria appear perilously close to absolutes, the sort of absolutes obeisance to which allows moderately competent graduate students in sociology or culture studies to relish their moral superiority to almost any denizen of the benighted pre-Foucault past. One has only to listen to the incredulous-to-hostile laughter that, at academic conferences, greets the opinions of, say, Henry Adams or Thomas Carlyle on the mental capacities of women, or of Hegel or Hume on Africans, commonplace a century or two ago, to understand how relative our relativism really is.

Presentism wants not only to judge the past by the criteria of the present, but, in a complete failure of historical imagination, can’t conceive of the criteria of the future being radically different from today’s.

Don’t miss the whole thing.

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

The London Times reports:

Middle-class wine drinkers will be the focus of government plans to make drunkenness as socially unacceptable as smoking, The Times has learnt.

Under the plans published today, a fresh audit is to be conducted by the Government into the overall costs of alcohol abuse to society and the National Health Service.

“We want to target older drinkers, those that are maybe drinking one or two bottles of wine at home each evening,” a Whitehall source said. “They do not realise the damage they are doing to their health and that they risk developing liver disease. ...

The move comes as The Times has been told that the British Medical Association is to investigate measures used in other countries to curb excessive alcohol consumption. Doctors’ leaders are also calling for pubs and restaurants to display warnings stating how many units of alcohol are contained in drinks served by the glass.

Today’s strategy, by the Home Office and the Department of Health, broadens the Government’s offensive against excessive drinking, with the focus moving beyond teenagers and the binge-drinkers to include those regularly sipping wine at home.

As part of the strategy, ministers wish to highlight the increasing burden that drink-related disease is placing on the NHS, which four years ago was estimated to be costing between £1.3 billion and £1.7 billion. Ministers want drunkenness in public to be as socially unacceptable in ten years’ time as smoking or drink-driving is today.

Last night Ian Gilmore, President of the Royal College of Physicians, gave his full support to the focus on the health costs of heavy drinking. “We really need the spotlight more on health. While crime and antisocial behaviour is important it’s too easy to concentrate on that because it’s somebody else causing the trouble.

“When you look at health it’s more uncomfortable because there’s a very significant percentage of the population already drinking at potentially hazardous levels.”

With alcohol costing 54 per cent less in real terms than in 1980, Professor Gilmore, a liver specialist, also called on the Chancellor to raise drink taxes.

Socialized medicine demonstrably involves the surrender of private liberty to the nanny state now in charge of paying your doctor bill.

Amazing!

Hat tip to José Guardia.

Smoking. Yeah-yeah, I should just give it up. Sorry, I still reserve the right to kill myself, albeit slowly.

Now that NY, VT, and apparently NH require cigarettes to be “self-extinguishing” I’m seriously pissed. I know the intention is good; to prevent fires from drunk/sleeping smokers, but if I put my cigarette down in the ashtray for a minute, it burns out. What a damn annoyance! It just makes me light-up more often and puff on the coffin-nail more often.

I hate the “nanny-state” and hope a bunch of meteorites fall on every single statehouse across the country.

And on Washington DC, too

We’ve become a nation—no, make that a world—of whiny-babies, of perpetual-victim-invalids and their dog-shit greedy lawyers, who are incapable of self-thought, personal responsibility, and freedom of action; even to make stupid mistakes if they chose to do so….

I hope every ****ing politician in this country is thrown out of office. Or maybe worse than that.

Hell will freeze over before I vote for ANY ****ing Democrat or Republican again. And spare me your ****ing “would you rather…lesser of evils…throwing away your vote” bullshit. We need a revolution—in politics, in thinking, in rights, in America and the world,—and you will NEVER get it from anyone in the two major parties. We need a nation where men start acting like men again. This country needs a big ****ing shot of testosterone.

And this guy is gay!

Lord knows, I can understand where he’s coming from. We all feel that way several times a week, typically after reading the newspaper. But, the consequences of a democrat House majority are no joke.

“This list of the bills most likely to be championed by committee chairmen in a Pelosi-led House of Representatives would be great fodder for the latenight talk show hosts if it weren’t true,” House Majority Whip Roy Blunt said. “Instead, it’s just plain scary…

Department of Peace and Nonviolence Act—H.R. 3760: Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and 74 Democratic cosponsors propose a new “Department of Peace and Nonviolence” as well as “National Peace Day.” Cosponsors include three would-be Democratic Chairmen: John Conyers (Judiciary), George Miller (Education and the Workforce), and Charlie Rangel (Ways and Means).

Gas Stamps—H.R. 3712: Jim McDermott (D-WA) and eight Democratic cosponsors want a “Gas Stamps” program similar to the Food Stamps program to subsidize the gasoline purchases of qualified individuals….

Voting Rights for Criminals — H.R. 1300: John Conyers (D-MI) and 32 Democratic cosponsors, and H.R. 663: Charlie Rangel (D-NY) and 28 Democratic cosponsors would let convicted felons vote. Rep. John Conyers is the would-be Democratic Chairman of the Judiciary Committee which would consider this legislation.

Expand Medicare to Include Diapers—H.R. 1052: Barney Frank (D-MA) supports Medicare coverage of adult diapers. Barney Frank is the would-be Chairman of the Financial Services Committee.

Nationalized Health Care — H.R. 4683: John Dingell (D-MI) and 18 Democratic cosponsors want to expand Medicare to cover all Americans. John Dingell is the would-be Democratic Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee who along with cosponsors Charlie Rangel, would-be Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and Henry Waxman, would-be Chairman of the Government Reform Committee, would have jurisdiction over the proposal.

Federal Regulation of Restaurant Menus—H.R. 5563: Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and 25 Democratic cosponsors authorize federal regulation of the contents of restaurant menus.

Taxpayer Funded Abortions & Elimination of all Restrictions on Abortion, Including Parental Notice — H.R. 5151: Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and 66 Democratic cosponsors want to overturn even minimal restrictions on abortion such as parental notice requirements. The bill would also require taxpayer funding of abortions through the various federal health care programs. John Conyers, the would-be Chairman of Judiciary Committee which has jurisdiction over the bill, is an original cosponsor.

Bill of Welfare Rights—H.J. Res. 29-35: Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) proposes a Soviet-style “Bill of Welfare Rights,” enshrining the rights of full employment, public education, national healthcare, public housing, abortion, progressive taxation, and union membership. On some these measures, Rep. Jackson is joined by up to 35 Democratic cosponsors, including would-be Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers.

A note about this list: While by no means an exhaustive list of the liberal, out-of-the-mainstream bills introduced by Democratic Members, these bills deserve particular attention because the principle advocates are the very individuals who would be in a position to schedule committee markups and move the legislation through the Congress should the Democrats take control.

For more details on the would-be chairmen….

Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) Elected 1969, 18th term Rep. Obey voted with the AFL-CIO 100% of the time. Obey voted against the Deficit Reduction Act, against Defense Funding (FY06), against the Legislative Line Item Veto, and against funding the Global War on Terror (FY04).

“Mr. Obey was one of those Democrats who ripped Mr. Clinton for endorsing a balanced budget in 1995. Rather than cut spending, his goal would be to spend less on defense and more on domestic programs and entitlements.” (WSJ, 08/31/06)

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) Elected 1970, 18th term Rep. Rangel voted with the ACLU 94% of the time. Rangel consistently voted against free trade agreements, against the Bush tax cuts, against Pension Reform, and against Welfare Reform.

Rep. Rangel “opposed the Bush tax cuts and recently voted against free trade with tiny Oman. His committee’s crucial health care subcommittee would be run by California’s Pete Stark (1972), who in 1993 criticized Hillary Clinton’s health care proposal because the government wasn’t dominant enough.” (WSJ, 08/31/06)

“No question about it.” Rep. Charles Rangel (DNY), when asked whether tax increases across the spectrum would be considered should Democrats take control of Congress. (CongressDaily, 09/26/06)

Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) Elected 1964, 21st term Rep. Conyers voted with the AFL-CIO 100% and the ACLU 100% of the time. Conyers consistently voted against any liability reform, against the USA PATRIOT Act Reauthorization, against REAL ID, against the Child Interstate Abortion Notification bill… “He recently made his plans clear in a 370-page report… the report accuses the Administration of violating no fewer than 26 laws and regulations, and is a road map of Mr. Conyers’s explicit intention to investigate grounds for impeaching President Bush.” (WSJ, 08/31/06)

Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) Elected 1955, 25th term Rep. Dingell voted with the AFL-CIO 100% of the time. Dingell voted against exploring for American-made energy in ANWR and OCS, against reforming the Endangered Species Act, and against the Telecom Reauthorization bill. “The Michigan Congressman would do his best to provide taxpayer help to GM and Ford. But telecom companies would probably get more regulation in the form of Net neutrality rules, and a windfall profits tax on oil would be a real possibility.” (WSJ, 08/31/06)

Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) Elected 1974, 16th term Rep. Miller voted with the ACLU 95% of the time. Miller voted against Higher Education Reauthorization, against Head Start Reauthorization, and against Pension Reform. Rep. Miller is “the chief sponsor of the ‘Employee Free Choice Act,’ which would make it much easier for unions to organize by largely banning secret elections… The Californian also wants to raise the minimum wage and fulfill the National Education Association wish to spend more federal dollars on local school construction.” (WSJ, 08/31/06)

Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) Elected 1980, 13th term Rep. Frank voted with the AFL-CIO 100% and the ACLU 95% of the time. “…the ascension of Barney Frank (1980) would mean a reprieve for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, despite $16 billion in accounting scandals. His main reform priority has been to carve out a new affordable housing fund from the two companies’ profits. And forget about any major review of Sarbanes-Oxley.” (WSJ, 08/31/06)

Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) Elected 1974, 16th term Rep. Waxman voted with the AFL-CIO 100% and the ACLU 95% of the time. Waxman voted against the 9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act, against the formation of the Bipartisan Katrina Committee, and against 527 Reform. Rep. Waxman “would compete with Mr. Conyers to see who could issue the most subpoenas to the Bush Administration.” (WSJ, 08/31/06)

Intelligence Committee Chairman Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) Elected 1992, 7th term Rep. Hastings voted with the AFL-CIO 92% of the time. Hastings voted against declaring that the U.S. will prevail in the Global War on Terror, against the 9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act, against Supporting Terrorist Finance Tracking, against the USA PATRIOT Act Reauthorization… Rep. Hastings “who, should Ms. Pelosi succeed in pushing aside current ranking Member Jane Harman, would take over the House Intelligence Committee. Before he won his Florida seat in 1992, Mr. Hastings had been a federal judge who was impeached and convicted by a Democratic Congress for lying to beat a bribery rap. He would handle America’s most vital national secrets.” (WSJ, 08/31/06)

And think how many of them are in favor of more gun control.

There’s no doubt about it. Republicans deserve to lose this election, but we Americans do not deserve a democrat Congress.

Turner Broadcasting is scouring more than 1,500 classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons, including old favorites Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo, to edit out scenes that glamorize smoking.

The review was triggered by a complaint to British media regulator Ofcom by one viewer who took offence to two episodes of Tom and Jerry shown on the Boomerang channel, part of Turner Broadcasting which itself belongs to Time Warner Inc.

“We are going through the entire catalogue,” Yinka Akindele, spokeswoman for Turner in Europe, said on Monday.

“This is a voluntary step we’ve taken in light of the changing times,” she said, adding the painstaking review had been prompted by the Ofcom complaint.

The regulator’s latest news bulletin stated that a viewer, who was not identified, had complained about two smoking scenes on Tom and Jerry, saying they “were not appropriate in a cartoon aimed at children.”

In the first, “Texas Tom”, the hapless cat Tom tries to impress a feline female by rolling a cigarette, lighting it and smoking it with one hand. In the second, “Tennis Chumps”, Tom’s opponent in a match smokes a large cigar.

“The licensee has … proposed editing any scenes or references in the series where smoking appeared to be condoned, acceptable, glamorized or where it might encourage imitation,” Ofcom said, adding that “Texas Tom” was one such example.

Akindele said cartoons would only be modified “where smoking could be deemed to be cool or glamorized”, and that scenes where a villain was featured with a cigarette or cigar would not necessarily be cut.

There must be a special place in hell for the kind of lickspittle corporate cowards who come up with this sort of disgraceful policy.

But, now the same highly dubious principle has been extended by Mayor Bloomberg, and the New York City Police Department, to new levels of legal and moral absurdity: for use in enforcing NYC’s Safety Nazi anti-fireworks laws far outside the borders and legitimate jurisdiction of the Cesspool on the Hudson. The Pennsylvania State Police ought to arrest the lot of them for criminal trespass and car theft.

NY Post story

Cato Institute History of American Forfeiture Law