Parents, doctors and other caregivers wonder if these new restrictions might be putting kids into a germ free bubble which, while keeping them away from contagions as a child may limit the building of a health immune system needed to fight off infections later in life. Australian Medical Association (AMA) president Steve Hambleton says it is healthy for children to be exposed to a certain amount of environmental antigens that build their immune systems.

There was reassuring news from the Perth Minister’s Department: “We’re not going to have the cupcake police out…”

One has to wonder if Nanny State promoter NYC Mayor Bloomberg has heard about this yet?

Read more at the Daily Mail.

Beverage companies argued that the ban was inconsistent since it would still allow grocery and convenience stores to sell sugary drinks in any size. Convenience stores do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Board of Health. One could still buy a Big Gulp at the corner store but would have to purchase two smaller drinks at the next door McDonald’s to get the equivalent amount.

NY State Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling ruled the new regulation was “arbitrary and capricious” and declared it invalid.

Tingling ruled, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the city’s Board of Health did not have the authority to issue the soda ban. You can read the full text of the ruling here.

The ban would have prohibited the city’s food-service businesses from selling sugary drinks larger than 16 ounce. Bloomberg’s Nanny policy will be placed on hold until after an appeal which the mayor stated, is sure to be overturned.

Fellow big government advocate Piers Morgan suggested that Mayor Bloomberg’s soda large soda ban was good for Americans. “I think people need the nanny state occasionally, particularly on issues like smoking, drinking, guzzling sodas that are too big for them, eating 16 Big Macs a day,” Morgan stated. “Whatever it may be, the reality is we all need a little bit of nannying about us.”

Sorry Piers. Today you can still order a pizza and get a two-liter bottle of soda or order a large drink with your Big Mac. It’s a sweet victory as individual rights are preserved…at least for the moment.

Are you sending your son or daughter off to college? If you are, have you given your adult (or close to adult) child instructions on eating a healthy diet? Or, are you anticipating that the school will make these choices for your young adult?

At Paul Quinn College in Dallas (a small private college) the president of the school is making these decisions for you. President Michael Sorrell came to the conclusion that pork is not a nutritious food and therefore banned it from the school cafeterias. All pork. Not just bacon, not just pork rinds.

In an email to students Sorrell wrote: “We know there are many negative health consequences of consuming pork (eating pork can lead to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cancer, sodium retention and heart problems, not to mention weight gain and obesity)…  Therefore, as a part of our continued effort to improve the lives and health of our students, Paul Quinn College and its food service partner Perkins Management have collaborated to create a pork-free cafeteria.”

A couple of questions immediately come to mind: Can a school ban a food? And is President Sorrell a nutritionist?

The answer to the first question is yes. Colleges can determine what foods will be served in their dining areas. However, in efforts to appeal to the college students more schools are increasing their menu rather than limiting.

To the second question and the implied, is President Sorrell qualified to make a determination that all pork is bad, the answer is no.

From the school website: Sorrell received his J.D. and M.A. in Public Policy from Duke University. He graduated from Oberlin College with a B.A. in Government.

The National Pork Board publishes a Frequently Asked Questions page on their website about the nutritional value and whether there were health risks from eating pork. President Sorrell might be surprised at their findings which appear in contrast to his statement.

From the “Pork: Be Inspired” website: Pork tenderloin is now as lean as skinless chicken breast. The study found a 3-ounce serving of pork tenderloin contains only 2.98 grams of fat, whereas a 3-ounce serving of skinless chicken breast contains 3.03 grams of fat.

The Canadian Pork Council states: The fat in pork is tran-fat free and mostly mono-and poly-unsaturated, so trimmed pork is suitable for even cholesterol-lowering or “heart-healthy” diets.

Many will also ask, what happened to eating in moderation? How can these young adults be expected to make their own healthy menu choices if never given options? 

Is this a continuation of the nanny state mentality? If so, where will it stop?

Much has been said about the problems of Greece and how those problems will impact the Eurozone. However, the size of Spain’s economy is over four times that of Greece’s. Spain’s 11.5% share of the Euro zone’s GDP has a far greater impact on European finances than does Greece’s 2.5%.

What the world is witnessing is the collapse of the European socialist economic model; the failure of government dependency. As more people become dependent on government, fewer people are left to pay the cost.

But it goes beyond simply spending other people’s money. The socialist entitlement mentality makes people less productive. As more and more people become less and less productive, an ever-smaller minority of productive people become responsible for shouldering the burdens of a completely lopsided, unfair system. When a tiny number of productive people are required to deprive themselves of the fruits of their own labor in order to finance the lives of the remaining population, where is the incentive for them to produce?

If that is not enough, reliance on a big government nanny state makes people less responsible for themselves, less self-reliant. That is the antithesis of the American way of life.

When European settlers colonized the New World, they left the security of Europe behind in favor of North America’s unknown wilderness. They left homes, family, friends and country behind in exchange for an opportunity to build better lives for themselves. They were freed from the constraints of Europe’s restrictive class system. They openly rejected the European way by leaving.

When the British Monarchy deemed to re-impose that system on Britain’s thirteen North American Colonies, that attempt was adamantly and thoroughly rejected. Hence the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution and the founding of the United States of America.

When America’s pioneers ventured west to traverse the Great Plains and cross the Rocky Mountains they were completely self reliant. They took care of themselves. They didn’t have, want, or need a big nanny state government to take care of them from cradle to grave.

This is the stuff of which America is made.

Because it gives them control over “the masses”, “progressives” have long sought to fashion America after the European socialist model, to make Americans more government dependent. There was FDR with the New Deal and Social Security. LBJ gave America the Great Society, Welfare Programs and Medicare. Now obama forces upon an unwilling America the crown jewel of European style socialism; government controlled medicine.

Every time obama holds a press conference he sounds exactly the way he has always sounded: he inherited the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. his policies are working, but need more time. Congress needs to quit stalling and enact more of his policies. The private sector is doing fine but to grow the economy government needs to spend more money to create more government jobs at the state and local level.

Coming as it does on the heels of the Wisconsin recall election, where such policies were rejected, this shows precisely how out of touch obama is with the private sector, how the economy works, American history and the nature of America’s people…and with reality.

Europe won’t work in America. Neither will an out of touch narcissist who insists on imposing a long rejected European system upon America.

obama, you are fired.

http://mjfellright.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/europe-wont-work-in-america/

The source of the new ban is a mayor’s office policy memorandum. Mr. Stier,  a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research, who obtained  a copy of the memo just weeks ago after being tipped off by a local cleric who said that his religious organization was being bullied by the city for providing food that allegedly contained too much salt and fat content to the homeless or near-homeless, senior citizens who were too aged to work, and recovering drug addicts and alcoholics.

Of course as with many nanny-state totalitarian edicts, the charities weren’t informed by the Mayor’s memorandum ahead of time, instead finding about the new N.Y.C. prohibition against donating food to homeless shelters until they showed up with donations:

“Churches and synagogues have been bringing food to city shelters for decades,” said Stier, a lawyer and a former official in Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s administration. “Now they’re being turned away. Shelter managers told them they were forbidden by the city’s homeless department bureaucrats from accepting the food. The charities had to throw away the food.”

Of course in Mayor Bloomberg’s common sense ideologically-depraved world, denying food to the homeless will….. keep them from getting too obese. Homeless drug addicts will also be made “healthier” by the bureaucratic takeover of Bloomberg’s homeless food donations mandate by limiting the fat and salt content in any food donated to feed them.  Of course, someone will still have  to provide “healthy” food to the homeless and needy people of N.Y.C. Who will that be, hand-picked people from another long line of crony-capitalists from the Bloomberg organization whom are ready to reap massive tax breaks with their support for Bloomberg’s new “healthy homeless” policy?  How will the more expensive  ”healthy food” for the N.Y.C homeless be paid for? How about the possibility of  imposing more stealth tax increases on the already highest-taxed city in America to pay for this scheme, all under the guise of helping people?

Big government enforcer, Mayor Bloomberg and company are trying to imply that this healthy food mandate for homeless shelters will lead to “revolutionary” new ideology in eating habits across America in the future. Will the next starving homeless person you see eating out of a dumpster in N.Y.C. stop to read the ingredients label for salt and fat content before eating it?  Only in Liberal La-La-Land would anyone actually believe that big-government excuse for Mayor Bloomberg’s latest round of tyranny, posing as concern for the “healthy” feeding of the homeless in N.Y.C.

Oh…. But did I mention that this one wouldn’t be optional?  Yep, that’s right folks, this time, it’s mandatory!!  Say goodbye to George on paper and say hello to the dollar coin, weighing us all down, just like all the other government regulations in our lives.  So much for choice.

In the latest chapter of the “we know what’s best for you” bible being written by our government, HR 2977 and its companion bill S. 2049 (co-sponsored by Tom Harkin and that conservative icon we all know and love…. John McCain) would call for the replacement of the dollar bill with a coin….. as a deficit reduction measure…. Yeah, I’ll wait for the literary double-take…. a deficit reduction measure.

Nevermind that the minting of these beauties will be three times the cost of the printing of bills….  Yes, yes, I can hear you…  “but, but, but…  they’ll last longer than the bills, therefore they’ll save us in the long run!”  Uh…. That might be true if someone other than the US Government was running the show.  Seriously, you are just going to take their words that this will save us money?  The same folks that overspend $47,000 per SECOND??!!!

Yet there is a bigger point to be made here.  WE DON’T WANT A COIN DOLLAR!!  I can say this with confidence due to the fact that there are vaults full of Anthonys, Sacagaweas and Presidential coins…. Wait… only half of the Presidents even made it on this last coin venture – they discontinued them after Chester Arthur..  NO COIN FOR YOU, CLEVELAND!! (channeling the Soup Nazi here).  So naturally, the proper thing for Congress to do, when the whole voluntary transition thing didn’t work would be to force it on us…. Sieg Heil!!

And have we stopped to consider the impact this may have on some of the small business owners who deal almost exclusively in cash, like laundromats, vending machines and coin recognition devices?  Pish-tosh!  They’re just the “little people” in fly-over country anyway… no biggie.  So they might have to shell out thousands to replace or retrofit equipment.  We’ll just extend their unemployment benefits after we kill off their business dreams…

Today, it’s the appearance of your currency, tomorrow it’s how you spend it.  The next day is how much you can keep and….. oh crap, I think we are already into next week….

As someone who has actually taken the 22 minutes it takes to read the Constitution, with amendments, I know that one of the few expressed powers our federal government has is to coin money.  Sure, how it looks and how much is in circulation is implicitly included in that mandate, but it should be mentioned that said government still is basically one big employee – and the American people are STILL the boss.

This is bigger than the folding versus jingling argument.  It is about whether we want this level of government intrusion in our lives.  Remember, in 1930’s Germany, it started with regulations on how to cook your lobster.  So you say, “Heck! That’ll never happen here in the good old USA!!”  You mean like some government employee taking a kid’s lunch away because they deemed it too “unhealthy”?

I guess you’re right…. That would NEVER happen here in the U.S…..

Democrats believe their personal preferences are so noteworthy and have such a significant bearing on the future of society that it’s only fair these indispensible preferences be imposed on the public by force of law.

Which brings us to Democrat Alvin Tillman, a third–term member of the council in Terrebonne Parish, LA, who evidently does not have enough to occupy his time. Tillman is personally offended by the chroma culprits who paint their family tombs anything but white, which is Tillman’s preferred color.

“We want to stop this before it gets out of hand,” Tillman was quoted by the Associated Press. “Before you know it you’ll go out there and the cemetery will look like Mardi Gras.”

Since this is Louisiana — where being dead is no bar to exercising the franchise in favor of Democrats on election day — it could be that Tillman is simply responding to the wishes of his electoral base.

So he intends to persuade the council to pass a law. Unfortunately for his finely–tuned sense of aesthetics, his law will only apply to public cemeteries that are government–owned.

Not only will Tillman ban future non–white paint jobs, he won’t grandfather, so to speak, tombs that have already been painted. Those owners will be required to repaint their tombs, much like cab owners in DC will be required to repaint their cabs a uniform white if Councilwoman Mary Cheh, another Democrat member of the color police, gets her way.

In the South there is bad precedent for government intrusion in cemetery management. When local government was under Klan influence, it wasn’t concerned so much about the color of the tomb as it was focused on the color of the customer. In many marble orchards the tombs and the dead were uniformly white.

Tillman may be personally biased against tombs–of–color, but Louisiana has a long history of using paint to customize family tombs. The AP story also quotes an expert who observes, “Historically, the limewash used on family tombs was colored in shades of yellow, ochre, pink, gray and red.”

White on the outside, instead of the inside, is a recent development.

Personally, I think a tomb of almost any color beats the soggy Teddy Bear and defeated balloon piles dotting the roadside that pass for memorials here in Prince William County. At least in Terrebonne Parish the decoration is in close proximity to the deceased.

Judge Gideon Tucker once said, “No man’s life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session.” But in Louisiana you don’t even have to be alive to be at the mercy of a politician’s whims.

Brook’s opening assertion is that Americans are, by nature, energetic:

Americans have always been known for their manic dynamism. Some condemned this ambition as a grubby scrambling after money. Others saw it in loftier terms. But energy has always been the country’s saving feature.

Hard working Americans all over this great land would likely agree with this statement. Most would work themselves into the ground if the opportunity arose – as long as the reward was there. According to a statistic cited by the author, that work-ethic has been on the decline:

..in 1954, about 96 percent of American men between the ages of 25 and 54 worked. Today that number is around 80 percent. One-fifth of all men in their prime working ages are not getting up and going to work.

For some reason, 20% of working-age, able-bodied males aren’t going to work.

The article continues guessing that the problem is that American men don’t have the skills necessary to work.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 35 percent of those without a high school diploma are out of the labor force, compared with less than 10 percent of those with a college degree.

Erroneous thinking perpetuated from the liberal ideology. Mr. Brooks has his cause and effect relationships backwards. First, a college degree is not the reason for the difference in worker participation numbers. Anyone that would work through high school and college is motivated and would most-likely be motivated to find a job – whether or not in the field of his degree. Someone that didn’t finish high school may have dropped out due to being entirely unmotivated. If that’s the case, he probably won’t try very hard to get a job – especially if there are sufficient government safety nets to allow him to be worthless.

The author’s solution to the problem: a vast array of government policies:

It will probably require a broad menu of policies attacking the problem all at once: expanding community colleges and online learning; changing the corporate tax code and labor market rules to stimulate investment; adopting German-style labor market practices like apprenticeship programs, wage subsidies and programs that extend benefits to the unemployed for six months as they start small businesses

Several of those ideas look good on the surface, but is government spending really the answer? Based on the study that Mr. Brooks cited, 96% of working-age males were working in 1954, well before the slew of government intrusions took control of so many facets of American life. Given this empirical evidence, one might instead see government hand-outs and programs as the cause of the unwillingness to work.

Quite plainly, when there was no other way to make a living other than to work, men worked. Now that Social Security disability and two years worth of unemployment are available, 20% of those that should be productive citizens have no need to be. Let’s turn off the government hand outs and see if that 96% number isn’t achieved miraculously and nearly overnight.

I recently called attention to the recent GOP Budget plan for 2012 that compares Obama’s proposed $9 trillion in more irresponsible spending and debt to Paul Ryan’s $6.2 trillion in cuts proposal here. We are fast approaching $15 trillion in national debt people, our world credit rating is about to fall, states are facing bankruptcy, and Democrats want to just keep right on spending us into financial Armageddon !

When looking into the effects that a federal Government shutdown would have on States, we see one glaring fact: States already in the worst financial condition would suffer the worst almost immediately. I consider this as a great reason  to shut the government down, if nothing else it will teach these states some fiscal responsibility.  Also of note is the fact that the states in the worst financial condition are mostly the blue Democratically controlled nanny states, as noted in the N.Y.Times :

“The impact of a short federal shutdown would be minimal, the association wrote in a recent briefing paper. A longer shutdown could pose problems. Even if many of the potential fiscal effects are relatively small, they could create cash-flow problems for some states already operating on tight budgets. (emphasis mine)

Illinois, for example, is currently trying to pay off a $4.5 billion backlog of bills to vendors going back to October. Bradley C. Hahn, a spokesman for the Illinois comptroller, Judy Baar Topinka, said, “A shutdown would be particularly devastating for states like ours that have no margins to cover the costs.”

Illinois also happens to be the home state of our community organizer in chief, Barack Hussein Obama, and this is very indicative of his Socialist policies that are included right in his very own bloated budget proposal.  This is the main reason we see the Democrats so opposed to cutting any government programs, as those same programs are basically  federal wealth redistribution to liberal nanny states.

and here are several articles on much more including general provisions, Tax changes,  marriage penalties, Menu labels for chain restaurants and vending machines,  Breastfeeding rooms, Student Loan takeover, and “Home Visits”.

In addition to the above goodies the law also contained provisions for a type of Private Army. Judge Andrew Napalitano explains:

So to recap we have a forced system of HealthCare, controlled by the Federal Government, that will provide care to illegal aliens, ration care and procedures for all,  mandate all American Citizens (as a condition of citizenship) purchase a healthcare plan, and promote euthanasia for the elderly.

This law also creates a paramilitary force, gives the President authority to control the National Guard of the individual states even absent a war. This is unprecedented and must not be taken lightly.

The nanny state provisions for “Home Visits” and mandating restaurant and vending machine labels should not be overlooked. The Obama Administration is trying to regulate every aspect of our lives. As explained by CNS News our individual BMI index is being recorded and kept in the new mandated Electronic Health Records.  Also consider Barack Obama’s Executive Order titled Establishing the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council with the purpose of:

(a) provide coordination and leadership at the Federal level, and among all executive departments and agencies, with respect to prevention, wellness, and health promotion practices, the public health system, and integrative health care in the United States;

(b) develop, after obtaining input from relevant stakeholders, a national prevention, health promotion, public health, and integrative health-care strategy that incorporates the most effective and achievable means of improving the health status of Americans and reducing the incidence of preventable illness and disability in the United States, as further described in section 5 of this order;

(c) provide recommendations to the President and the Congress concerning the most pressing health issues confronting the United States and changes in Federal policy to achieve national wellness, health promotion, and public health goals, including the reduction of tobacco use, sedentary behavior, and poor nutrition;

(d) consider and propose evidence-based models, policies, and innovative approaches for the promotion of transformative models of prevention, integrative health, and public health on individual and community levels across the United States;

(e) establish processes for continual public input, including input from State, regional, and local leadership communities and other relevant stakeholders, including Indian tribes and tribal organizations;

and then Sec. 5. National Prevention and Health Promotion Strategy.

Not later than March 23, 2011, the Chair, in consultation with the Council, shall develop and make public a national prevention, health promotion, and public health strategy (national strategy), and shall review and revise it periodically. The national strategy shall:

(a) set specific goals and objectives for improving the health of the United States through federally supported prevention, health promotion, and public health programs, consistent with ongoing goal setting efforts conducted by specific agencies;

(b) establish specific and measurable actions and timelines to carry out the strategy, and determine accountability for meeting those timelines, within and across Federal departments and agencies; and

(c) make recommendations to improve Federal efforts relating to prevention, health promotion, public health, and integrative health-care practices to ensure that Federal efforts are consistent with available standards and evidence.

The nanny state in writing. They will come up with legislation to force you to be healthy by overtaxation of items they are against, (cigarettes, etc) or simply outlaw it like the Progressives did with the prohibition of alcohol from 1920 to 1933.

This is a nudge. The Federal Government controls healthcare and will ration it in a Communist manner. “From each according to his abilitiy, to each according to his need.”  If you smoke, if you exceed your BMI, if you are elderly, you go to the bottom of the list for treatment or, as Obama says, “Maybe your better off not having the surgery but taking a pain pill.”

Add these provisions from the Health Care law to the provisions of the Executive Order and you can see the Nanny State forming around us, replacing liberty with a lack of options and oppressive and invasive regulations. Cities, States, and school districts have already begun to act on these provisions and more. California has been the leader banning trans fats, soda’s from schools, and  Happy Meal toys. New York has even attempted to ban salt. Massachusetts schools have begun to send home with kids “Fat Reports” in order to inform parents that their children are obese.

What would the Nanny State be without instructions? Enter Fatherhood.gov. Thats right you now have direct instructions from the Federal Government on how to be a daddy including:

Gather your already read books and donate them to a local library, school, or shelter. The books will be enjoyed again, you will reinforce to your children the value of reading, and they will gain a better understanding of the importance of giving to others.
 
Turn off the water while you brush your teeth in the morning and before bedtime. You can save up to eight gallons of water a day.
 
Many electronic devices and appliances use power even when they’re switched off or not in use. You can save money and energy by unplugging items when they aren’t being used.
 
Earth-friendly cleaning products are widely available and are kinder to our air and water. Or you can make your own cleaning supplies with white vinegar, lemons, baking soda, and other basics you probably have in your kitchen already. Check online or at your local library for the step-by-step of cleaning green.
 
Bike or walk to a park, trail, or other outdoor spot. Leaving the car at home will reduce carbon emissions and you will add exercise to your day without even trying.
 
For Father’s Day, let your family know you would like to share a family activity rather than receive gifts. Instead of collecting another tie, take photos of yourself and your children enjoying your time together. Eliminating wrapping paper and taking digital photos generate less waste on dad’s special day.
 
Take a break from the summer heat with a craft project you and your children can work on together indoors or in the shade. Gather magazines, newspapers, fabrics, and other materials that are scheduled to be thrown away and turn them into attractive and useful items such as greeting cards you can send to family and friends.
 
Visit a farmers market or farm where you can pick your own produce. Locally grown fruits and vegetables do not need to be shipped, which contributes to reducing carbon emissions. Before your trip, go online with your children to find out what is in season in your area and how you can use those items in putting together a fresh, healthy dinner menu.
 
Bring your own bag to the grocery store. You probably can pack more items per bag and many stores offer a discount for using your own bag. Repurpose old backpacks, handbags, and tote bags you already have at home.
 
Instead of buying Halloween costumes, help your children create them using items you already have at home. Or ask a group of friends to join you in swapping (recycling!) costumes the kids wore for previous Halloweens.
 
Buy compact florescent light (CFL) bulbs, which last about 5 years and use less energy. Switching just one standard bulb to a CFL can help you reduce your electricity bill by as much as 75 cents per month.
 
In 2008, Americans spent nearly $11 billion on more than 8 billion gallons of bottled water, and then tossed more than 22 billion empty plastic bottles in the trash. Instead of buying bottled water, use a water filter on your tap and keep a pitcher of filtered water in your refrigerator to fill a reusable bottle.

Welcome to Obama’s Socialist Nanny State where parents mean nothing and the state rules all. Since you can’t think for yourself the Government will provide instructions. Since you can’t keep your kids skinny we will embarass them with a “Fat Report” as we take away happy meal toys since you parents are just to irresponsible to say ”No” to your children. Since you can’t eat responsibly we are just going to take everything away, no salt, no trans fat, no options for you. If you don’t get that BMI in gear “Mom” little Timmy goes to the bottom of the transplant list, but don’t worry, here’s a pain pill.