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This is a prime example of a law that was supposed to have good intentions, but ended having unintended consequences. As is usually the case, the law comes down on the worng side of the issue, overextending its reach and creating more authoritarian control over our daily lives. Lisa Snyder of Middleville is threatened by the State of Michigan for having the audacity to watch her neighbors kids. According to WZZM13 News, the neighborhood school bus stop is right in front of Snyder's home. It arrives after her neighbors need to be at work, so she watches three of their...

MIDDLEVILLE -- A Grand Rapids-area mother who helps neighbors in the morning by watching their children for a short time before the bus comes has been told she's breaking the law. Lisa Snyder's house is at the corner bus stop on Thornbird Drive just outside Middleville. Two of her friends, who need to leave for work, bring their children to her home in the morning before the bus arrives to take them Thornapple Kellogg schools. Snyder said she doesn't think she's doing anything wrong, but she was notified by the Michigan Department of Human Services that she has to stop...

Velvet Glove, Iron Fist author Christopher Snowdon interviews cigarette advertising model David Goerlitz. We here present the collected interview segments which are available in eleven parts at YouTube. David Goerlitz, called the “Winston man,” came to feel guilty about promoting cigarettes. He felt he was influencing children wrongly. He came to despise crass Big Tobacco executives. He began lecturing kids in schools about avoiding tobacco. He became a darling of the antitobacco movers and shakers. Then he came to see these prohibitionists for the essentially greedy, fanatical, and immoral snakes that they are. He says he was naïve. He still...

Sacramento - -- Regulations on small businesses in California have cost the state's economy $492 billion and 3.8 million jobs, according to a report quietly released by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office this week. Republicans in the Legislature have pounced on the findings and on Thursday called the report the "smoking gun" that proves lawmakers are killing the state's economy through burdensome government mandates. But Democrats and at least one capital think tank are highly skeptical of the accuracy of the findings. The 84-page report does not specify which regulations were studied and relies on data collected largely by Forbes. Citing...

If Jesus raised the dead tomorrow, our science czar probably would be too busy calculating the carbon footprint to find salvation. But who needs Christ when the flock is blessed with sound moral guidance from men and women whose lifework has been cajoling 50 percent plus one to push a button? From our extravagant health care choices to our risky financial behavior to our ill-conceived love of profit to, most tragically, our immoral penchant for air-conditioning our homes, we need help. I need help. This week, prepping for the upcoming Copenhagen climate change talks, Dr. Steven Chu, our erstwhile energy...

The New York Times reports today that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been caught “salt-handed.� Despite targeting sodium in his latest nanny-state crusade, the mayor privately enjoys pouring it on by the shaker-load: Under his watch, the city has declared sodium an enemy, asking restaurants and food manufacturers to voluntarily cut the salt in their dishes by 20 percent or more, and encouraging diners to “shake the habit� by asking waiters for food without added salt.But Mr. Bloomberg, 67, likes his popcorn so salty that it burns others’ lips. (At Gracie Mansion, the cooks deliver it to him with a salt...

My real interest is in the authors' third basis for regulation: market failure that ... results from time-inconsistent preferences (i.e., decisions that provide short-term gratification but long-term harm). This problem is exacerbated in the case of children and adolescents, who place a higher value on present satisfaction while more heavily discounting future consequences. Wow. This isn't socialism. It's sheer paternalism. This, according to the authors, is a market failure that justifies taxation to alter your behavior, totally apart from its impact on public health costs. This is what worries me about the crackdown on death sticks and edible crap. There's...

Federal health officials banned sale of flavored cigarettes on Tuesday in the first major crackdown since the Food and Drug Administration was given the authority to regulate tobacco. The ban is intended to end sale of tobacco products with chocolate, vanilla, clove and other flavorings that lure children and teenagers into smoking. The agency will study regulating menthol products and hinted that it might soon take action against the far larger market of flavored small cigars and cigarillos. “These flavored cigarettes are a gateway for many children and young adults to become regular smokers,” Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, commissioner of...

Litigation: The Founding Fathers envisioned the states as laboratories for ideas and choices. If the administration needs a demonstration project for successful tort reform, it need look no further than Mississippi. When President Obama said during his health care speech to Congress that he would "look into" malpractice reform and support "demonstration projects" at the state level, Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, a Republican, responded: "If they want a demonstration project, come down to Mississippi. I'll show you a demonstration project." Mississippi enacted tort reform in 2004, including caps on medical malpractice awards. As a result, the number of medical...

San Bernardino became the latest Inland city to ban medical marijuana dispensaries late Monday. - The report notes that California's decriminalization conflicts with federal law. Studies by other cities show dispensaries contribute to increases in noise, traffic, burglaries and robberies, the report states.

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Candy or fruit flavored cigarettes are no more. The Food and Drug Administration banned the products Tuesday as part of a campaign to reduce smoking.The flavored tobacco products could entice children into the smoking habit, said FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg. "Almost 90 percent of adult smokers start smoking as teenagers," she said. "These flavored cigarettes are a gateway for many children and young adults to become regular smokers."In a statement, the FDA said that studies have found that 17-year-old smokers are three times as likely to use flavored cigarettes as smokers over 25. About...

A new Rasmussen Reports poll finds two-thirds of Americans are angry with the federal government. The poll discovered 66-percent are either "Somewhat Angry" or "Very Angry" with the current policies. That contrasts with 30-percent of participants who said they're either not very or not at all angry. Adding to the anger is 60-percent of Americans don't believe either party has the answers. The poll found 90-percent of Republicans are angry versus 44-percent of Democrats. The report concludes that those who are most angry are the least worried about violence.

Last fall A.J. and Lisa Demaree took a memory stick with family photos to the printing center at the Wal-Mart store in Peoria, Ariz. Some of the photos showed their three young girls, all under 5 years old, partially nude in the bathtub. The Demarees say these were innocent pictures that all families take. But a Wal-Mart employee felt otherwise and contacted the police who agreed that this was a child pornography situation. The Demaree's lawyer released this photo to show the pictures of the girls are innocent. The police report read, "The young girl appeared to be posed in...

Snippets: Calling soda the new tobacco, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom will introduce legislation this fall that would charge a fee to retailers that sell sugary beverages. Newsom would need voter approval to tax individual cans of soda and sugary juice, but only needs approval from the Board of Supervisors to levy a fee on retailers. His legislation would charge grocery stores like Safeway and big-box stores, but would not affect restaurants that serve sodas. Jim Lazarus, vice president of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, said the group opposes the soda tax. "Does this mean there's a fee on...

Few questions loom larger on the political horizon right now than defining the proper role of government in regulating individual freedoms. As many have argued with varying degrees of sanity over the past few months, much of the current health care debate boils down to what kind of government America both needs and deserves. Which is why I was dismayed to read Jacob Weisberg's column in Slate on Saturday -- "First They Came for the Marlboros." In it, the author points to a dismaying trend of "nanny state"-type intrusions on individual liberties sweeping our country. The latest include a series...

A couple soon expecting their seventh child has had their fifth and sixth taken by social workers after warnings that the family needed to slim down their overweight kids or risk losing custody. The unnamed 39-year-old mother from Dundee, Scotland, told the United Kingdom's The Sun newspaper, "This is every family's worst nightmare." Scotland's television station STV reports the family was warned last year that they risk losing all of their kids, ages 3 to 13, unless the children lost weight. At the time, the youngest, a girl, weighed 56 pounds. The oldest, a boy, has since grown to over...

The creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (“CFPA”) is a very bad idea and should be rejected. The proposal is not salvageable and cannot be improved in substance or in form. The proposal is premised on a fundamental misunderstanding of the causes of the financial crisis. The Obama Administration’s Financial Regulatory Reform White Paper, and the intellectual underpinnings of the new CFPA as articulated by law professors Elizabeth Warren of Harvard and Oren Bar-Gill of New York University, set forth the blueprints for a powerful regulatory agency designed to react to a perceived failure of consumers to understand...

Last Monday dawned clear and bright in the nanny state of New York City. The newspaper brought word that the city's new health commissioner was working on ways to get residents to exercise more. That same morning, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his latest assault on unhealthy behavior. By 2012, the mayor hopes "to lower the proportion of adults who drink one or more sugar-sweetened beverages each day by 20 percent." Tuesday's news was about plans to forbid smoking at public parks and beaches. If the past pattern holds, initial gasps of outrage at such bureaucratic interference will sputter into acceptance....

Health care experts, including two former U.S. Surgeons General, said on Wednesday said that obesity has reached epidemic proportions and is a threat to security in the United States and abroad. “Obesity is not just a health issue,” said Richard Carmona, who served as surgeon general in the George W. Bush administration. Carmona is now with the Strategies to Overcome and Prevent Obesity Alliance (STOP), a coalition of consumer, government, labor, business, and health insurers that advocate “innovative and practical strategies” to combat obesity. Obesity “affects our national and global security,” said Carmona. He said the U.S. has reached a...

Reporting from Sacramento - Concerned that the growing popularity of big-screen televisions could make it harder for California to keep pace with electricity demand, state energy regulators are poised to crack down on energy-guzzling sets despite opposition from a powerful electronics trade group. The first-in-the-nation TV efficiency standards would require electronics retailers to sell only energy-sipping models starting in 2011. Even tougher efficiency criteria would follow in 2013. The California Energy Commission is slated to unveil the new standards today, followed by a 45-day public comment period. The commission is expected to approve the measure in early November. The rules,...

Americans who slap $1 pricetags on their used possessions at garage sales or bazaar events risk being slapped with fines of up to $15 million, thanks to a new government campaign.

In general, I have no high regards for the author of the following article. However, I share some of the opinions of Mr. Wästberg. Sweden has, indeed, more in common with Capitalist societies like USA and Hong Kong than the sickening Socialist fiasco that is Cuba. When it comes to the issue of American health care reforms, I feel that too many debaters, too often, focus too much on whether the Swedish health care system is more effective than its American counterpart or not. The ideological and cultural dimensions are sadly neglected by various putative experts that fail to realize...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The California lawmaker who spearheaded a high-profile anti-obesity effort across the country's most populous state is now training his sights on sugar-sweetened drinks. Sen. Alex Padilla, who led a campaign requiring big restaurant chains to disclose calories in meals, said on Thursday he planned to hold hearings in November on the link between soda consumption and obesity. The announcement from Padilla -- who chairs the California Senate's Select Committee on Obesity and Diabetes -- coincides with the release of a study that shows nearly two-thirds of children aged 12 to 17 gulp down at least one...

New York City to smokers: Butt out of our parks. Health Commissioner Thomas Farley announced yesterday he wants to ban smoking in public parks and city beaches as part of a plan to make New Yorkers healthier. "We don't think children, parents, when they're standing at soccer games, should have to be breathing in smoke from the person next to them," Farley said after unveiling the city's 10-point plan alongside Mayor Bloomberg. "We don't think our children should have to be watching someone smoke." The city could outlaw puffing in parks through legislation passed by the City Council or an...

Federal Powers: Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say the government can force people to buy health insurance? And by what authority does it prohibit the purchasing of insurance across state lines?A key part of the administration's plan to reform health care is what is called the "individual mandate" — a requirement that everyone must have health insurance either through his or her employer or purchased individually. A good chunk of the uninsured are that way of their own volition. They are young and healthy and feel they have better things to do with their money at this point...

Loopey might be an unorthodox best friend, but she's a good one. Share Fayetteville, N.C., city council turns down family's plea to keep their pet pig. She was sweet and playful and didn't seem to notice her buddy's quirks like others did. Now, more than a year after Loopey -- a black pet pot-bellied pig -- made fast friends with 8-year-old Anthony Pia, the autistic boy's parents are battling their city's ban on hogs. It's been three months since Lisa Pia and Bobby Tibbetts, fearing fines from the city, removed Loopey the pig from their Fayetteville, N.C., home and took...

Delia, in response to your question, how much can Americans stomach? The answer is, a LOT! Way too much, in fact. Like you, I am chagrined by the dominance of the fast-food industry in America, and not just because their ubiquitous presence every few feet along urban highways is an architectural eyesore. Like you, I happily eat some of it, and for cost, consistency and speed (in this era where a wait of five minutes seems a gross imposition), it can hardly be beat. But when I really look at what I'm eating, I know it's wrong. And when I...

You can read the NY Times op-ed here for yourself: just another example of a Birkenstock brown-shirt who believes he knows what’s best for you. A brief summary: the author, Mr. Michael Pollan, a journalism professor from Berkley, California, openly argues that the state should tell you what to eat and drink. He also writes optimistically on the potential for a beautiful, utopian American future, one in which insurance companies and the state work together to tax fast foods and soda (as they’ve teamed up against tobacco) out of existence. The reason for such Darth Vader visions of America’s future?...

TO listen to President Obama’s speech on Wednesday night, or to just about anyone else in the health care debate, you would think that the biggest problem with health care in America is the system itself — perverse incentives, inefficiencies, unnecessary tests and procedures, lack of competition, and greed. No one disputes that the $2.3 trillion we devote to the health care industry is often spent unwisely, but the fact that the United States spends twice as much per person as most European countries on health care can be substantially explained, as a study released last month says, by our...

Energy Savings: Europe's ban on the incandescent light bulb began phasing in this month, and the U.S. will soon follow. Is Thomas Edison to blame for global warming? And why are we exporting green jobs?When the warm-mongers assemble in Copenhagen this December to hammer out a successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol, no doubt their work to save the earth from the carbon dioxide that gives it life will take place under the eerie light thrown off by compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) mandated by the European Union to fight climate change. The bulbs are more expensive, costing up to...

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee wants levies on insurers to pay for Obamacare and fines for families who don't sign up. To keep Obamacare alive, Baucus has proposed a Rube Goldberg scheme of fees and fines on insurers and the uninsured designed to forcibly bring everyone into the loving and protective arms of the nanny state...

It is almost irresistible for conservatives to snicker as Democrats in Massachusetts hold hearings and seek ways to justify an attempt to change the law in Massachusetts to allow the Democratic governor of the Commonwealth to appoint a Democratic senator--presumably available to vote for President Obama's initiatives. It was just a few years ago when Senator John Kerry was running for president and the governor was a Republican that the Democratic state legislature thought it imperative to change the law to prevent governors from appointing senators. It is just too delicious, the hypocrisy too obvious, for conservatives to ignore. Yet...

Reform: The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee wants levies on insurers to pay for ObamaCare and fines for families who don't sign up. We can cut costs and expand coverage without sacrificing freedom.To keep ObamaCare alive, Montana Democrat Max Baucus has proposed a Rube Goldberg scheme of fees and fines on insurers and the uninsured designed to forcibly bring everyone into the loving and protective arms of the nanny state. To help finance his Plan B, Baucus would impose annual fees of $6 billion on health insurers, $4 billion on medical-device makers, $2.3 billion on drug manufacturers and $750...

President Barack Obama hinted he could support a "sin tax" on fizzy drinks to help lower high rates of US obesity, but admitted it would be an uphill battle against corporate and economic interests. "I actually think it's an idea that we should be exploring," Obama said in the forthcoming issue of Men's Health, regarding potential taxes levied on soft drinks such as colas and other sugar-filled products. "There's no doubt that our kids drink way too much soda. And every study that's been done about obesity shows that there is as high a correlation between increased soda consumption and...

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...

Childhood Obesity Report Calls For Government Regulations to Limit Access to ‘Unhealthy’ Restaurant Chains Wednesday, September 02, 2009 By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer (CNSNews.com) - A newly released report by the Institute for Medicine and the National Research Council details strategies for local governments to combat what it calls an epidemic of childhood obesity, including enacting zoning and land-use regulations that would “restrict fast food establishments near school grounds and public playgrounds.” The report, “Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity,” was compiled by the Committee on Childhood Obesity Prevention Actions for Local Governments, a committee of health care...

Childhood Obesity Report Calls For Government Regulations to Limit Access to ‘Unhealthy’ Restaurant Chains Wednesday, September 02, 2009 By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer (CNSNews.com) - A newly released report by the Institute for Medicine and the National Research Council details strategies for local governments to combat what it calls an epidemic of childhood obesity, including enacting zoning and land-use regulations that would “restrict fast food establishments near school grounds and public playgrounds.” The report, “Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity,” was compiled by the Committee on Childhood Obesity Prevention Actions for Local Governments, a committee of health care...

A pandemic and disaster preparation bill (S. 2028) passed unanimously by the Massachusetts Senate earlier this year is receiving wide-spread criticism as citizens mobilize to oppose its passage in the commonwealth’s House of Representatives. “Under this bill, Massachusetts becomes a medical police state. There is no debating it,” wrote Natural News editor Michael Adams in an August 28 article entitled "Wake Up, America: Forced vaccinations, quarantine camps, health care interrogations and mandatory 'decontaminations,'" where he suggested America was delving into medical fascism. “The citizens of Massachusetts will have no rights, period. The Constitution is ancient history. You are now the...

A "pandemic response bill" currently making its way through the Massachusetts state legislature would allow authorities to forcefully quarantine citizens in the event of a health emergency, compel health providers to vaccinate citizens, authorize forceful entry into private dwellings and destruction of citizen property and impose fines on citizens for noncompliance. If citizens refuse to comply with isolation or quarantine orders in the event of a health emergency, they may be imprisoned for up to 30 days and fined $1,000 per day that the violation continues.

If you're planning a garage sale or organizing a church bazaar, you'd best beware: You could be breaking a new federal law. As part of a campaign called Resale Roundup, the federal government is cracking down on the secondhand sales of dangerous and defective products. The initiative, which targets toys and other products for children, enforces a new provision that makes it a crime to resell anything that's been recalled by its manufacturer. "Those who resell recalled children's products are not only breaking the law, they are putting children's lives at risk," said Inez Tenenbaum, the recently confirmed chairwoman of...

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 will effectively phase out incandescent light bulbs by 2012-2014 in favor of compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs. Other countries around the world have passed similar legislation to ban most incandescents. Will some energy be saved? Probably. The problem is this benefit will be more than offset by rampant dissatisfaction with lighting. We are not talking about giving up a small luxury for the greater good. We are talking about compromising light. Light is fundamental. And light is obviously for people, not buildings. The primary objective in the design of any space is...

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – There is an epidemic in an old gold mining town in western Arizona: The wild burros that roam the town's single street are overweight, with rolls of fat on their necks and big, full bellies. But don't blame them. They'll eat anything. It's the half million tourists who visit tiny Oatman each year. They're the ones who have been feeding these critters carrots, hay or anything else, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management says.

The 20/20 co-anchor summed up the importance of a profit motive for the health care industry to function adequately as he recounted that in Canada, private veterinary clinics provide health care for animals much more rapidly than the government-run system provides similar services for human patients: JOHN STOSSEL: You want innovation and fast treatment? That often comes from people pursuing profit. And you see that in Canada because, even here, there is one area where they do offer easy access to cutting edge technology- UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VETERINARIAN: -CT Scan, endoscopy, thoracoscopy, laporoscopy- STOSSEL: -available all the time. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VETERINARIAN:...

While the healthcare reform debate has been picking up this summer, the conversation is mostly between politicians and average citizens who do not practice medicine. US doctors and nurses seem to have been left out from this dispute, even though the outcome will influence them, their lives, their practice, and their ability to stay in business, enormously. Clearly, if the reform is not private practice "friendly" we as a community might lose our best physicians and our economy might weaken as a result of doctors shutting down or going out of business. Below is an opinion of one of Atlanta's...

By now many are used to the ongoing manipulation of facts perpetrated within the health care debate, but as the President attempts to regain control of his own message his claims and statistical manipulation have crossed beyond the borders of absurd. In a conference call for his campaign organization, Organizing for America (formerly the Organizing for Obama), the president backed up his claims of how he intends to fulfill the promise of cost savings within Medicare without cutting benefits. The President's solution is simply to put America on a weight loss plan. According to the President, "If we went back...

Barack Obama's helmetless bike ride on Martha's Vineyard on Thursday has sparked a mini-controversy for those who thought the move set a bad example.

Perhaps President Obama didn't want to look uncool on his bike ride Thursday, but his decision to skip the helmet had safety experts banging their heads. Obama, on vacation with his family in Martha's Vineyard, joined the First Lady and his daughters yesterday for a ride in Aquinnah, a town at the western, most rural end of the island. The President appeared to be the only one with no helmet. Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group in New York, speculated the President might have been concerned about his image. "Helmets look goofy - you look...

The early baby boomers may be known as the generation of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. But it turns out, they're hitting the bottle pretty hard as they age, as well. And that portends significant alcohol-related health problems ahead as those mid-lifers become seniors. A new study finds that among men and women 50 to 64 years old, almost 1 in 4 men and 1 in 10 women is a "binge" drinker -- meaning that at some point in the last 30 days, he or she has downed four (for women) or five (for men) servings of alcohol in...

In an effort to reduce the spread of HIV, public health officials are considering the promotion of “universal circumcision” for all baby boys born in the United States. The move comes after officials analyzed the results of several studies that show in African countries hit hard by HIV, men who were circumcised reduced their infection risk by half, the New York Times reported. However, those studies focused on heterosexual men who are at risk of getting HIV from infected female partners. The main issue in the U.S. is men who have sex with men. In 2008, the CDC estimated that...

A surcharge on cigarettes has helped curb smoking, but will the same tactic work to fight obesity? "Sin taxes" on cigarettes have turned out to be the most effective weapon in the campaign to reduce smoking. Why not try it on Flamin' Hot Cheetos, vanilla Coke and Twinkies? With increasing vigor, public health experts and think tanks are calling for extra taxes on foods and drinks that are heavy in calories and light on nutrition. New York Gov. David Paterson proposed an 18% soda tax last year as a budget-balancing measure, only to abandon it three months later in the...