1st Thought: Isn’t it funny how progressives like to force religion on others…

Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and ‘pray to Allah’ during a religious education lesson.

Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.

They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing Muslim headgear - was a breach of their human rights.

I am somewhat reminded ’bout the biblical story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego being told to worship an idol by the Babylonian king, and refused to bow down because it was against their God to do so. Now I am not saying that we can expect those British school kids to be thrown into a furnace (yet), but they are being punished the same. But what else can we expect from our enlightened betters in the progressive/socialist/communist movement… The fact that this is even happening in England shows how far freedom has fallen there in the name of political correctness and “diversity”.

England… sorry to see ya go guys….

And Mike over at The Jawa Report has a great comment on this:

It appears that religious diversity education in Britain concentrates exclusively on having infidels learning to pray to Allah. There are no reports of Muslims being required to take Holy Communion.

Heh.

2nd Thought :
I had mentioned earlier ’bout Sen. Warner’s braindead attempt to revive the federal 55mph highway mandate. I missed this:

Warner cited studies that showed the 55 mph speed limit saved 167,000 barrels of oil a day, or 2 percent of the country’s highway fuel consumption, while avoiding up to 4,000 traffic deaths a year.

So the Feds are going to think ’bout forcing the states to reinstitute the 55 mph limit in order to save an enormous 167,000 barrels of oil a day… and this will have a major impact on oil prices, but we can’t drill in ANWR because it will only give us, by conservative (no pun intended) estimate, a measly 876,000 barrels a day. Anybody else see the cognitive disconnect here?

From many editorials today:
NYT:

In a radical break from 70 years of Supreme Court precedent, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, declared that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to bear arms for nonmilitary uses, even though the amendment clearly links the right to service in a “militia.”

WaPo:

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, concluded that the amendment guarantees a right to bear arms for private use, such as self-defense, although nowhere is that explicitly mentioned in the Constitution.

Teh Boston Globe:

To arrive at this decision, the court performed a grammatical parsing that would confound the best English teacher, deciding that the first 13 words are merely “prefatory” to the “operative clause” of the one-sentence amendment, thus conveniently tossing aside the importance of “a well regulated militia” to the right to bear arms.

SO what do the people think? CNN asked us last night and within hours it was pretty clear:

Perhaps the editors didn’t read the amendment fully? Or maybe they don’t understand the words? As with all the anti gun fools, any mention of the 14 words in the last sentence mean nothing, because, peoples’ rights mean nothing. Self defense is not a part of the picture here. When people have the means to defend themselves, crime would become less prevalent. And this would end the need for a big chunk of local, state and federal law enforcement.

Either way, it was at age three, my Dad taught me these words. He didn’t teach me about guns, although he owned many. My X took care of that- when he was active USMC. These words cannot be forgotten, wisked under the carpet, or misinterpreted.
“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Uh oh…it’s summer. The kids are going to get fatter. The Nannies are hyperventilating.

Camp food is just one of the summertime nutrition challenges for parents these days. While childhood health advocates often blame schools for poor nutrition and a lack of physical activity, the problem often gets worse in the summer. Last year, The American Journal of Public Health published a provocative study showing that schools may be taking too much of the blame for the childhood obesity epidemic.

Camp food? School food? The culprits to modern day child obesity, right? Wait, I thought it was the school’s fault. Oh, maybe that was only the low class inner city school’s faults; and the parents too! Who can’t afford healthy food. Ahh…it’s the commercials. Those Fruit Loops are the most evil food to hit the market. EVAH!

NOT.

First of all, the so called OBESITY problem isn’t as BIG as the Nannies want us to believe. The standards of what is obese and what is not have changed over the years: What used to be considered a normal healthy weight is now labeled as overweight. This change didn’t occur because of scientific data that showed a real and present link to weight and health problems. The weight charts were “updated” to provide the Nannies with some guidelines they could cite for their studies. No one cared that these guidelines were wrong, not representative of the vast majority of medically healthy kids. Suddenly, people were being told their children were fat and at risk for major diseases.

“During the year, television viewing habits are more limited because of school and homework, but in summer, all bets are off,” said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children’s Hospital Boston. “They are lying around all day long with little supervision, watching TV and playing video games. The mythical childhood of summer at the beach is becoming increasingly rare, certainly for children in the inner city.”

It’s always the inner city kids…the poor kids…the disadvantaged kids..is it about class?

Hyperbole. It’s government gone wild once again. The Nannies exist to keep existing. They do these studies which are designed to find failure in every program or effort…they do this in order to get more federal money to continue with…more studies. The result is excuse after excuse; alarming head line after alarming head line, blame shifting from schools to parents to TV commercials to camps…who knows who or what will be blamed next.

Across the pond, the Nannies have taken yet another extreme measure.

BUSINESSES will be encouraged to monitor the weight of their employees as part of a £56m Government plan to tackle Scotland’s obesity epidemic. Workers will type in their weight every morning – using Government-provided software – allowing occupational health staff to spot significant weight gain and offer early help, under the scheme unveiled by ministers. The Government also plans to appoint a full-time official charged with liaising with Scottish food firms and encouraging them to make products healthier.

Bull fucking shit. It’ll be a cold day on the Globally heated earth that I weigh myself at work, for this purpose. Of all the nanny ideas gone WILD…will the peasants will quietly oblige their master government?

Additional measures include spending £19m of the total programme on vouchers for fruit and vegetables for women of childbearing age, pregnant women, and children under five in disadvantaged areas, and a review of commercial sponsorship rules to crack down on advertising and promotion of junk food.

Ministers will order a retraining programme for midwives and health visitors to ensure that they can give the most up-to-date advice to pregnant women and mothers. In addition, the SNP will launch a “cooking bus”, which will tour Scotland giving advice on healthy eating.

Fruits and veggies will save the world, right? And the cooking bus will traverse the gorgeous countryside of Scotland, to teach the citizenry how to cook properly. Sounds misty eyed and noble. But read what this is really all about.

There are some truths we all know.
We all know smoking is bad for our health. Yet millions and millions of people choose to smoke.

We all know drinking and driving is dangerous. Yet millions of people do it every day.

We all know having unprotected sex is dangerous. Yet millions of people do so ever day.

We all know crossing the road can come with a risk. But we do it anyway.

We all know dragging a horse to a water hole doesn’t guarantee it will drink.

And, most people who are overweight KNOW it.
Including kids.

They don’t need a nanny to tell them.

They don’t need a government to meddle with their eating habits and choices.

Even when said government is paying the health care tab…as proven time after time lifestyle choices have little to do with disease development. When will the nannies go away? Who hired these people? Who decided the nannies should intervene on a level so invasive it’s like living a Twilight Zone show?

The price of freedom, and the lifestyle choices it allows, is far more valuable than any Nanny endeavor. Freedom is the cause of society’s good points- and it’s bad ones as well. Slowly, freedoms are being taken away in the name of health (or whatever politically correct “problem” happens to be popular for the day). People, peons, peasants, low class, high class, rich, poor, famous and unknown, are under siege. We need to stand up and fire the nannies.

Just when you think the nanny state lawyers and judges up in Canada can’t find more areas to stick their noses in where they don’t belong comes this newest gem: 12-Year-Old Grounded for Too Much Internet Use Gets Punishment Overturned in Court.

You read that right, as the news story relates:

A Quebec Superior Court judge has overturned a father’s punishment for his daughter in which the father denied her permission to attend a school trip. Her offense was to disobey her father’s instructions to stay off the internet by continuing to utilize online chat sites and posting posting “inappropriate” pictures of herself online using a friend’s computer. Her behavior was the culmination of a history of disciplinary problems.

However, the judge in her infinitely superior wisdom decided the father’s punishment was too severe.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The first question that screams out from this story is this: how did this case get to a court hearing before this judge in the first place. Why wasn’t it laughed out of court?

Since there isn’t a whiff of abuse that might mandate custody being taken from the parents, why does a judge see fit to waste his time and everyone’s money to intervene in a case of parental discipline? The girl stepped over boundaries regarding her use of the internet (for which her parents face strict liability) and her father appropriately decided to show his daughter that her choices has consequences. How is it that the judge decided to intervene with the authority of the government as a substitute for the parents’ considered judgment, who are responsible for this child until she reaches the age of majority.

This just demonstrates the truth of the slippery slope arguments about government intrusions into parenting practices, such as spanking children. Regardless of one’s view on the merits of the practice, the state has no business mandating or forbidding it. (I’m not talking about genuine physical child abuse, where the state does have a legitimate interest.)

The father’s lawyers, thankfully plan to appeal this decision:

The punishment was for the girl’s “own protection,” according to the father’s attorney, Kim Beaudoin, who is appealing the ruling. “She’s a child,” Beaudoin told AFP. “At her age, children test their limits and it’s up to their parent to set boundaries. I started an appeal of the decision today to reestablish parental authority, and to ensure that this case doesn’t set a precedent.”

Otherwise, she continued, “Parents are going to be walking on egg shells from now on.”

Eggshells? Try abject cowering before determined judicial micromanagement…

Or does this judge want to expand her juvenile criminal docket in the years to come?

Thus, in the interests of promoting sound parenting practices here at ARS, I’d like to add my own advice as to how to handle this judge’s decisions

Specifically, we all know that logical consequences is widely recommended as a good parenting practice. How about the adults in this world apply logical consequences to this judge’s out-of-control behavior. I could think of a few possible ideas:

1) If the judge has children, appoint a court review panel to micromanage the judge’s parenting, empowering the panel to review every parenting decision of the judge and to mandate their own preferred decisions as their sole discretion, with all expenses of this panel (including time) to be paid by the judge.

2) Turn over full decision-making power for this 12-year old child, plus legal liability for the child’s behavior, to the judge, such that she has to make every parenting decision, day-and-night, with 24/7 availability by cell phone (at a minimum) and at no pay.

Other suggestions welcomed in the comments.

We report. You decide.

Now, read this and think about it. ALL THIS MONEY, EFFORT, TESTING, LAWSUITS and the like is what we get when these laws are put into place. For what? The once a week trek to Wendy’s?

And the simple truth of the matter is this:

…we buy just six of our 21 weekly meals from restaurants. Put another way, menu labeling laws mean nutritional information will be slapped in front of the average American for about three of every 100 meals. We aren’t getting fatter because there aren’t fat-count stickers on our Big Mac wrappers — as if most of us didn’t already know a Big Mac isn’t the most nutritious meal anyway.

Actually we don’t eat out 21 meals a week. The point here is valid. Why go to all this trouble when food/calorie intake is only ONE part of our supposed obesity problem? The Nannies want us all to believe if we starve ourselves, okay LIMIT ourselves to what we eat, we’ll be skinny perfect beings. It ain’t so! Exercise, movement and lifestyle changes are what is needed more than anything else. Of course the Nannies would regulate all those aspects of life if they could get away with it…and don’t be shocked when they start doing just that.

Nanny state stuff of the day:

The American Medical Association is hulking mad at Marvel Studios.

Last week, the advocacy arm of the powerful physicians’ group unleashed a tsk-tsk campaign against “The Incredible Hulk,” a Marvel film that opened on Friday and is distributed by Universal Pictures. The complaint was of “gratuitous depictions of smoking.”

In the movie, which drew a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, Gen. Thunderbolt Ross, a bad guy played by William Hurt, is rarely seen without a smoke-spewing cigar. (Presumably, the physicians’ association worries that children who identify with the authoritarian general — who wants to annihilate the Hulk, played by Edward Norton — may be tempted to pick up the habit.)

Uh oh.
This song was heard all over my town this morning when I went to the diner. Does this mean whoever was listening to this tune should expect a whopping slap on the wrist from the AMA??

Please tell me the Japs are anti freedom. I am appalled at this article…how do people allow their governments to have such control over them?

AMAGASAKI, Japan — Japan, a country not known for its overweight people, has undertaken one of the most ambitious campaigns ever by a nation to slim down its citizenry.

Summoned by the city of Amagasaki one recent morning, Minoru Nogiri, 45, a flower shop owner, found himself lining up to have his waistline measured. With no visible paunch, he seemed to run little risk of being classified as overweight, or metabo, the preferred word in Japan these days.

But because the new state-prescribed limit for male waistlines is a strict 33.5 inches, he had anxiously measured himself at home a couple of days earlier. “I’m on the border,” he said.

Under a national law that came into effect two months ago, companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups. That represents more than 56 million waistlines, or about 44 percent of the entire population.

WTF? Companies and local governments MUST measure the peasantry? Oh my. There is NO freedom in Japan. And the peasants are stupid to allow such intrusions into their lives. Can we imagine how Americans would react to this? Of course liberals would be FINE with this form of privacy invasion.

Those exceeding government limits — 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women, which are identical to thresholds established in 2005 for Japan by the International Diabetes Federation as an easy guideline for identifying health risks — and having a weight-related ailment will be given dieting guidance if after three months they do not lose weight. If necessary, those people will be steered toward further re-education after six more months.

To reach its goals of shrinking the overweight population by 10 percent over the next four years and 25 percent over the next seven years, the government will impose financial penalties on companies and local governments that fail to meet specific targets. The country’s Ministry of Health argues that the campaign will keep the spread of diseases like diabetes and strokes in check.

Oh great. Companies that are fined for employing folks with waist lines larger than government standards will FIRE the folks. For every action there is a consequence- something liberal types always forget. And there is little actual evidence to support weight and diabetes/stroke connections. But no one wants to look deeper into THAT cause it’s not politically correct to do so. Weight loss is big business in every nation.

The one voice of reason mentioned in this article:

But on a shopping strip here, Kenzo Nagata, 73, a toy store owner, said he had ignored a letter summoning him to a so-called special checkup. His waistline was no one’s business but his own, he said, though he volunteered that, at 32.7 inches, it fell safely below the limit. He planned to disregard the second notice that the city was scheduled to mail to the recalcitrant.

He is absolutely right. Just damn. The Japs suck big time and this is absurd. I’m having a hard time believing this isn’t a joke or something!

The Lemoncrats (TM) want to insure everything.

WASHINGTON — As hurricane season begins, Democrats in Congress want to nationalize a chunk of the insurance business that covers major storm-damage claims.

The proposal — backed by giant insurers Allstate Corp. and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., as well as Florida lawmakers — focuses on “reinsurance,” the policies bought by insurers themselves to protect against catastrophic losses. The proposal envisions a taxpayer-financed reinsurance program covering all 50 states, which would essentially backstop the giant insurers in case of disaster.

The program could save homeowners roughly $500 apiece in annual premiums in Florida, according to an advocacy group backed by Allstate and State Farm, the largest writers of property insurance in the U.S.

Wonder of wonders. I bet the insurance industry will stand behind such tax payer financed rip offs. For cristsakes.

But environmentalists and other critics — including the American Insurance Association, a major trade group — say lower premiums would more likely spur irresponsible coastal development, already a big factor in insurance costs. The program could also shift costs to taxpayers in states with fewer natural-disaster risks.

“This bill makes it a little bit too easy for the state to go to the federal government for a bailout,” said Eric Goldberg, associate general counsel at the American Insurance Association, an insurers’ trade group.

Why should people who live in NH (where there are VERY FEW hurricanes/other natural weather “disasters”) be forced to pay (via income or other tax) for the ding dongs fine citizens who chose to live in high risk regions of the country?

The proposed plan is roughly analogous to the National Flood Insurance Program, which has been criticized for encouraging construction in risky floodplains. Nevertheless, in recent weeks the Senate voted to renew the flood-insurance program, and also to forgive $17 billion in debt incurred after Hurricane Katrina.

Critics cite that debt forgiveness as an example of how states with little or no hurricane risk can end up footing the bill for damage in flood-prone areas. “For years, federal flood-insurance backers told us the program was financially sound, but the storms of 2005 left it $17 billion in the hole,” said Steve Ellis of nonpartisan budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Why don’t we learn from our failures? Oh wait…I forgot. It’s Lemoncrats who are pushing this, and of course the insurance industry. Two thieves who share the same bed.

A lot of people cite the “universal” health care mandate in the state of Massachusetts as being revolutionary; it’s being viewed as a model for other states. Businesses don’t view it as anything but a burden and the state wants to increase this.

The state’s bill for providing healthcare to employees of large companies increased 14 percent in the last fiscal year, to $636 million, according to a report released yesterday.

The state report shows that while healthcare reform has extended coverage to thousands of people in Massachusetts, many employers still rely on state programs to provide healthcare benefits for their workers. The findings also underscore what is likely to become the next battle in the ongoing implementation of healthcare reform: getting employers to contribute more toward health insurance, even for part timers and seasonal help.

“There are a lot of companies that have set up their employment-benefit systems so the state pays for their workers’ healthcare,” said Brian Rosman, research director for Health Care for All, an advocacy group that helped establish the healthcare reform law. “They ought to pay some of the freight.”

Pay more? Gee whiz. What do we suppose can happen here with all this? What happens when these companies close shop and move out of MA (to NH as many are doing every single week)…

…the law also established a minimum standard under which a company would be deemed to provide a “reasonable” contribution to healthcare coverage - if 25 percent of a company’s employees enrolled in a company plan or if the firm paid 35 percent of the premiums. Those that didn’t meet that threshold must pay $295 per employee into a pool for the uninsured.

Yesterday, some advocates said the Patrick administration should raise those levels, so companies have to contribute more or pay the annual fee.

Massachusetts is learning, quickly, that $295.00 is not sufficient. A lot of people TOLD them this ahead of time but did they listen? NO.

“The administration has to raise the threshold,” said the Rev. Hurmon Hamilton, president of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization and pastor of Roxbury Presbyterian Church. “It is socially offensive for Wal-Mart to be making millions of dollars in Massachusetts and have employees who facilitate that profit be kept healthy by the state. That’s what I call freeloading.”

Socially offensive? Go bite yourself Reverend. YOU’RE socially offensive for even suggesting this. Does this idiOt consider the amount of money Wal Mart pays in ALL the other taxes- to the local communities, the state? I would venture to guess he has no damn clue. As for freeloading? Bullfucking shit.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, is the top company on the list. The state found 5,021 Wal-Mart employees used state health coverage at a cost of nearly $14 million in the 12 months ended June 30, 2007. That includes care provided to dependents of employees, but does not count employees without Social Security numbers.

Now who do we suppose has no SS number? Hmm. Every baby born in the US must get their SS numbers before they reach age 1; parents of newborns are sent home from every hospital with the required paperwork to start the application process for the number. Do we have to SPELL this out? Are we talking about forcing businesses to provide health insurance for….illegal immigrants?? I think so. That’s what this is all about. Let’s talk about freeloaders, Reverend. He, and others like him, want us to
consider health care as a service owed to citizens without regard to their ability to pay for it. Instead, charging businesses and others the costs is preferred. They’re going to push companies right out of the state if they keep this up. Then who pays???

As many are whining about the costs of being insured, they pander to the Democrats universal health care promise.

On Fox News Wednesday, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, “If we don’t get universal health care, we will continue to bleed money.” Funny. The more Washington politicians promise to control health care costs, the higher they go. As humorist P.J. O’Rourke famously said, “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.”

Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama both promise to provide access to health care for all Americans by mandating that employers provide or contribute to the cost of health plans for employees.

What’s with the glory of mandated employer provided health care insurance? There really is no glory; and what’s happening now should give warning to what would be happening if EVERYONE who works gets their insurance through government mandates.

The economic slowdown has swelled the ranks of people without health insurance. But now it is also threatening millions of people who have insurance but find that the coverage is too limited or that they cannot afford their own share of medical costs.

Many of the 158 million people covered by employer health insurance are struggling to meet medical expenses that are much higher than they used to be — often because of some combination of higher premiums, less extensive coverage, and bigger out-of-pocket deductibles and co-payments.

With medical costs soaring, the coverage many people have may not adequately protect them from the financial shock of an emergency room visit or a major surgery. For some, even routine doctor visits might now take a back seat to basic expenses like food and gasoline.

Let’s blame the economic slowdown? No. Let’s blame people who make poor financial choices. Who don’t plan and anticipate for their medical needs. Who think they are entitled to free, or very low costs health care.

Will we ask people to truly cut their budgets? Take classes in Economics 101? Or spread the burden across the tax payers’ shoulders and ask everyone to accept very high premiums, high deductables, little to no access to their own doctors and hospitals…and more.

Once again, people need to make choices: Health care costs or the cell phone; the medication co pay or the Internet access, and so on. Oh the choices they must make. Or not. Forcing businesses to provide insurance isn’t an answer. Health care is not a right. It’s not free. Even when the out of pocket costs are low, someone else is paying…and now that burden is coming down to average people. It can only get worse.

via Misha @ Anti-Idiotarian Rott.

WASHINGTON - There’s an empty highchair sitting in the kitchen of the Arlington home of Nancy Hey and Christopher Slitor. It’s their daughter Sabrina’s highchair. But it’s been empty for two years because thieves disguised as Arlington County social workers and judges took her from her parents. She was stolen with no public scrutiny or accountability. Arlington County social workers used unproven allegations of neglect in April 2005 to justify removing then-3-week-old Sabrina from her parent’s home. Her parents were accused - anonymously - of starving Sabrina.

Turns out that there was no abuse at the hands of the parents. However, it is looking shockingly like the government has abused Sabrina and her parents, and continues to abuse them. And this is the most shocking part to me:

Judge Almand later used the baby’s inappropriate removal to justify making the separation permanent, saying it would be too “traumatic” to return Sabrina to her natural parents.

Are you kidding me? The Judge royally screws up, CPS looks to be, if not criminally liable, at least ethically in the wrong by giving the kid to politically-connected yet untrained-thereby-unfit parents (Go read the rest of the article at Misha’s to find out why), and NOW the Judge has the GALL to tell them that it would be too traumatic to return Sabrina to her natural parents. I am calling for everyone involved with this case in the Arlington CPS office to be fired, and this Judge impeached, removed, and hopefully disbarred, never to practice “law” again. This is an example of an organization that is supposed to protect children actually harming them and their parents. I know there are good CPS workers who do good work. But this is a perfect example of government run amok and Constitutional rights, hell, the inalienable rights due every human of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, violated in the most obvious and evil way.

I, as a father of two little girls, am ENRAGED at the thought of this happening to ANY parent. This little girl needs to be reintroduced to her parents in a caring and easy manner, slowly integrating her back into a life with the people who she should be calling Mommy and Daddy in order to minimize any possible trauma. Then a full-blown investigation should be performed. I hope these parents sue the CRAP out of every individual involved in the state sanctioned kidnapping of little Sabrina. I hope there are firings.

Angry. Angry. Angry.

As Misha closes out with:

Rope. Tree. C.A.S. “Social Worker.”
Some Assembly Required.

Might I add black-robed kidnapping/child-stealing judge tyrant with the Social Worker.

Another useless survey. Thats tells us we’re a bad country we have and what we can do to “fix” it. Gimme a damn break.

(WASHINGTON) — Staying healthy and happy is a struggle for about half of Americans,according to a massive survey that attempts to measure the nation’s general welfare, much like the Dow Jones Industrial Average portrays the health of the stock market.

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, based on interviews of more than 100,000 people so far, shows that 47% of Americans are struggling and 4% are suffering. Forty-nine percent of respondents are reported to be thriving based on a personal assessment of how they feel about their lives at the time of the survey, and where they think they’ll be in five years.

Pollsters asked people to imagine where they would put themselves on a ladder with 10 steps. Those said they were on step seven or above are listed as thriving. Those at four or below are suffering. In between are the strugglers.

Those who are thriving tend to have higher incomes, more education and less illness. Those who are suffering have trouble meeting their basic needs, including food, shelter and medical care, said James Harter, Gallup’s chief scientist for workplace management and well-being.

Yeah? Did they ask those who are suffering if they had Internet access, computers/laptops, cell phones and Play Stations? Bet not. And I bet the suffering DO have all this.

Researchers hope the findings, which can be broken down by occupation, commute time and exercise habits, will help employers better understand what they can do to create happier and healthier workers.

I think they need to ask the people what their POLITICAL leanings are as well. In terms of being a LIBERAL, A CONSERVATIVE or a LIBERTARIAN. I can say without a doubt the liberals will be the best off in terms of income and lifestyle AND access to health care; yet those liberals on the bottom half of the income scale will be the whiners and complainers who have Internet, computers, cell phones and nice houses and fancy brand clothing and Play Stations- but no health insurance. And many will be on some form of welfare. Count on it.

And, what has all this got to do with the workplace? Gah these surveys piss me right off because of what they don’t ask.

One good deed.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Charlie Crist has signed a bill into law that allows Florida residents to keep guns locked in their cars at work.

The bill says businesses cannot prohibit employees or customers from keeping a legally owned gun locked inside their cars, as long as the owner has a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Some sites — schools, prisons, nuclear power plants, military facilities and buildings that store explosives — would still be off limits.

The governor signed the bill Tuesday.

No building should be off limits…people should ALWAYS have to right to defend themselves.

I propose that businesses, schools and other places who deem their facilities to be GUN FREE ZONES, have a plan in place that guarantees the safety of the people who will enter the premises. GUARANTEE. Against violence. And agressive attacks. By removing a persons ability to self defend, these places MUST do the defending themselves. If they fail to do so they should be held accountable. In these situations I would approve of lawsuits, up the collective asses of those making the life and death policy decisions. Sue them for everything they own and could ever own…we’d see a change of heart really fast.

How do you know when you live in a nanny state worthy of a name that starts with the “People’s Democratic Republic of….”? When you have a bureau like this….

The People’s Democratic Republic of California. Such a beautiful state. Such a waste…

And try this on for size. They even have this department:

Okay, so this is a department that provides services for the elderly. Sure. But apparently, in true California style, they’ve got grievance mongering in the name of diversity down because they have an entire section for the “Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans-gendered” elderly… sheesh…