Fausta's blog

Expat recently wrote asking that I post on Sweden's new wiretapping law, which Fjordman calls The Greatest Betrayal in History.

I wasn't able to post on it earlier, but Porretto has an excellent essay on Freedom under siege

At this time, every government on Earth claims the power to do as it pleases to anyone and anything within its sway, for any reason or none. Governments, including the 88,000 governments that operate within these United States, compel, forbid, and expropriate without regard for any assertion of rights; that's what "compelling government interest" means. Nowhere that a government claims jurisdiction are men truly free. But were you to ask a hundred recent high school graduates whether Americans are free, ninety-five or more would answer in the affirmative. Ask them why, and they would reply, "Because we get to vote!"

So much for the understanding of freedom.

Go read every word.



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Labels: government, Sweden

At the passport office: The electronic chips used in US passports got outsourced to Taiwan because no American company meets the standards developed by the International Civil Aviation Organization and required by the State Department for border crossing procedures that involve the computer chip. How about finding a US company who is willing to develop it?

At the airline security check: Traveler says she was forced to remove nipple ring. Why anybody would be insane enough to get a nipple ring in the first place remains a mystery to me, but this is even more insane.

A guy in the UK got billed for the gas explosion that blew up his home.

Not only will bureaucrats make your life difficult, they make burial impossible: After a zoning commission refused a French village a permit to expand its (already full) cemetery, the mayor makes a symbolic gesture and bans anyone from dying, since there is no place left to bury them.

And you want the government in charge of your health care?



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Labels: government, health care

Yet another example of big-government's efficiency:
Aircraft sat as California wildfires took hold

As wildfires were charging across Southern California, nearly two dozen water-dropping helicopters and two massive cargo planes sat idly by, grounded by government rules and bureaucracy.

Yup.

Labels: California fires, government

Fat Tax May Prevent 3,200 U.K. Deaths, Study Shows
Bear in mind that the UK has a population of 60,776,238, of which 15% are over age 65, and

In addition, many more now survive into their eighties and nineties.

Additionally, A tendency toward heart disease or fatty buildups in arteries seems to be hereditary.

Doctors in the UK (which doctors, the article doesn't say, so I asume it's the doctors involved in publishing the study) want to increase the price of food in the UK by nearly 5% over the the current inflation rate:

A "fat tax" on unhealthy foods could prevent more than 3,000 deaths from heart attack and stroke every year in the UK, experts have said.

Some researchers are in favour of such a tax while others would prefer to see healthy foods subsidised instead.

In 2004, then prime minister Tony Blair rejected the idea for a tax on fatty foods such as cakes and biscuits, saying it would make Britain too much like a "nanny state".

The new study involved testing different economic models to work out how a fat tax may affect people's buying habits.

Three different approaches were tried out, with the first involving a tax on foods with high levels of saturated fats, such as whole butter, cheese, cakes and pastries and puddings.

The second was to apply a tax to foods with a high "unhealthiness score" - known as the SSCg3d score. For example, spinach scored -12, while chocolate digestive biscuits scored +29.

The third approach was to introduce a tax on a wider range of products with the aim of cutting the intake of fat, salt and sugar.

The third approach was found to be the most effective in reducing the number of deaths, preventing up to 3,200 deaths from heart disease and stroke every year, equivalent to a drop of 1.7% across the nation.

Food expenditure would go up by 4.6% or 67p per week, or around £2 billion annually across the UK.

They've been at it for quite a while but they keep trying.

The foods considered include dairy products, pastries, chocolate, pizzas and burgers.

This means that healthy foods that are naturally high in fat and salt, such as cheese, would be considered "bad", and that the entire population of the country would be affected by rising inflation, all to save a 3,200 people who may already be predisposed by age, hereditary factors, and/or unhealthy habits.

It also asumes that people will change their eating habits because some foods cost more, by not buying the foods they crave and switching to healthy foods.

Good luck on that, folks.

And now for a prayer: Good Lord, deliver us from the nanny state, Amen!

Labels: food, government, UK

As if NJ didn't have enough bureaucrats:
Welcome to the Office of Nutrition and Fitness:

The new office will coordinate the department's existing obesity prevention programs. There are programs to promote breastfeeding, promote sports and physical activity at all ages, encourage fruit and vegetable consumption, and provide fresh fruits and vegetables to eligible women, children and seniors. The new Office of Nutrition and Fitness is expected to open this summer.

Of course the state's spending your money faster than you can burn calories:

The $15 million Safe Routes to School program helps communities create safer walkways, bikeways and street crossings near schools. It is part of Governor Jon Corzine’s $74 million initiative to improve pedestrian safety statewide.

but there's still plenty of opportunity to make a buck or two:

The Academy encourages healthy changes at the community level by training participants and offering mini-grants of up to $10,000 that can be used for such projects as starting walking clubs, creating walking maps, offering swimming lessons or water aerobics, or even starting a community or school garden, for example. So far, 20 communities have received mini-grants.

Garden (Salad) State Launches $2 Million Futile Fat Fight. That's $2 million just on the ads. Then there's the bureaucracy. And yes, it'll cost plenty.

But back to those mini-grants. I'm willing to apply for one and start The Principality Blogger's Walking, Mapping, Swimming and Gardening Club. I'll contact the other blogger in the township and see if he's willing to do the paperwork.

After all, all that walking, mapping, swimming and gardening will be taking up all my time.

Update: NJ resident and dear friend Maria sent me this, asking, "The fittest senior citizens of the world?"

Let's hope the Office of Nutrition and Fitness doesn't get any ideas and start promoting ice skaing.


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Labels: food, government, health, New Jersey, Princeton

The cricket coach was strangled.
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Liberals Relent on Iraq War Funding because of course they support the troops...
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Jay sent a video of the Cuban Ladies In White (wmv file)

Friday fast for all political prisoners and the Ladies In White.
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Read Stefania Lapenna's article on The Human Cost of Iran's Islamist Rule
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Rob Bluey sent a video on Showdown Over U.S. Attorneys:

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Two from Maria:
Dr Sowell writes about Our greedy government
Al's warming lies and the real "inconvenient truth"

If you establish that the Earth is warming, it doesn't necessarily follow that we have a moral duty to reduce emissions. What should follow is an informed debate about the costs and benefits of various policies to address that warming - reducing emissions is just one possible answer. Another debate should focus on those policies' economic costs.

Al Gore doesn't want to have those debates, because the majority of evidence suggests that emissions reduction will be very costly and will have little effect. Kyoto, fully enacted by all its parties, would for all its cost reduce global warming by a mere 0.07 degrees Celsius by 2050 - a barely detectable amount.

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In a lighter mode,
The reason I coudln't wait to buy a house was because I had neighbors like Darren's.

Labels: Al Gore, Cuba, Global Warming, government, Iran, Iraq, sports

Augusto, Beth, No Pasaran and LGF are talking about this,
France bans citizen journalists from reporting violence (emphasis added):

The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.
...
The broad drafting of the law so as to criminalize the activities of citizen journalists unrelated to the perpetrators of violent acts is no accident, but rather a deliberate decision by the authorities, said Cohet. He is concerned that the law, and others still being debated, will lead to the creation of a parallel judicial system controlling the publication of information on the Internet.

And what's next?

The government has also proposed a certification system for Web sites, blog hosters, mobile-phone operators and Internet service providers, identifying them as government-approved sources of information if they adhere to certain rules.

Reporters Without Borders is worrying about "excessive self censorship"

The journalists' organization Reporters Without Borders, which campaigns for a free press, has warned that such a system could lead to excessive self censorship as organizations worried about losing their certification suppress certain stories.

I'm certain that the French government censorship will spare them that worry.

The law will punish operators of websites that publish such images with prison or a fine of nearly $100,000.

As it was, the French media did their best to not report on, and then underplay as much as possible, the stories about the Halimi murder, the 2006 New Year's day rampage on a train from Nice to Lyon, and the 2005 rioting banlieus, which continued into 2006. Since I'm not as optimistic as Reporters Without Borders, I expect a full news blackout on anything that doesn't reflect well on La Belle France. Everything else will be whitewashed to an appropriate shade.

Additionally, where France goes, the EU follows. Not that this is news.

Labels: censorship, EU, France, government, Ilan Hallimi, media