Truth in Advertising
Don’t take anything the government says at face value.
We Need A Famine
HOW TO OPEN OFFICE DOORS AND MORE: A CIVIL SERVANT’S GUIDE (h/t peterj)
Oh, Shiny Prime Minister
Entitled to his Entitlements: A standing ovation.
A Glimpse into How PET Jr. Got Elected
The secret ingredient: Low Information Voters!
David Cameron’s Britain
Where the foxes caper unmolested, and the government unpacks your school lunch…
Teachers can lawfully “confiscate, keep or destroy” unhealthy snacks in children’s school lunch boxes, a Government minister has said.
Lord Nash, an education minister, said that the child in question and a second member of staff should be present during the search. Parents must also be warned that the searches might take place.
(h/t Roseberry)
Sigh.
- The OPM hack gives everything, including contact info.
- To help protect employees the Feds source a private credit protection company.
- They send the connection info out via the same medium that was vulnerable in the first place.
- Are surprised that…they’ve created another vulnerability.
- They go back to #1.
I’m just so glad that Justin Trudeau is so hyped about giving Canadians a voice that he’s all in favour of online voting.
The Sound Of Settled Science
In 1974, pediatrician William Crook wrote a letter to a medical journal in which he named cane sugar “a leading cause of hyperactivity” (what we now call ADHD). This truism has been so persistent that it was immortalized on an Old Navy “Let’s Blame the Sugar” T-shirt for babies. Researchers debated Crook’s claim for decades. The scientific consensus now? According to the National Institute of Mental Health, “more research discounts this idea than supports it.” They cite one study as a possible explanation for the myth’s persistence, in which “mothers who thought their children had gotten sugar rated them as more hyperactive […] compared to mothers who thought their children received aspartame.” It was belief about sugar’s ill effects that biased the mothers’ perception.
[…]
Real science, as Ioannidis reminds us, is slow and humble. Only time will tell if the current level of sugar alarmism is warranted, or if many years from now the comparison of sugar to cocaine will look a bit ridiculous. Should that be the case, governments and policymakers will be in the unenviable position of backtracking on yet another dietary guideline, further undermining the public’s trust in science as an enterprise. The research on sugar might be right – but our history of bias shows that we have a tendency to jump the gun on sugar due to moral furor.
We need a famine.
h/t Meatriarchy
“The Gov’t didn’t tell me what to do!”
While I feel for their losses. I really don’t like the blaming going on here.
Let’s see, dry spring, fire bans all over the place. Big well known, out of control fire around the lake. Yep, lets go to the cabin for the weekend!
The World Is Being Run By Crazy People
Officials urged people to not trap, catch or eat any fish caught on the streets because it’s unclear how “exposure to elements outside of their natural domains will affect them.”
Yes, it is.
Fed civil servants get 15 sick days a year which they can bank. How much has been banked? 15 million sick days!! That’s nuts.
— David Akin (@davidakin) May 13, 2015
Now, I’m no accountant, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but if they’re banked then then can be withdrawn, which if I know civil servants, means retirement date – vacation days – sick days = stop working day.
So, at $20/hour = $160/day * 15,000,000 days = $2,400,000,000.00 for zero productivity days.
That’s 2 Billion, 400 Million dollars that have to be accounted for if those days are ever used.
Use it, or lose it union lovers.
What Would We Do Without Researchers?
I’ll cut right to the chase.
If you’re going to conclude that diet soda consumption is linked to weight gain and increased abdominal circumference you’d damn well better control for diet as a whole given that diet beverage consumption may simply be a marker for people who eat more indulgent foods and think, erroneously, that choosing the diet pop with their mega combo will somehow protect their weights and waists, and because there is no known plausible mechanism for a direct link. This study didn’t.
Like climate and environmental research, what government wants, government gets.
Obamanation
The Lives of Others is a disturbing film about East Germany during the Soviet era. It’s a careful examination of how the government got neighbours to spy on neighbours and the authorities spied on everyone.
With a similar mindset, “Two Democratic members of the New York City city council will propose paying people to spy on other residents’ idling vehicles.” More here.
Happy Flag Day
Good Enough for Gov’t Work
Thanks @JennyErinRowe for her sharp eye and this photo of an Austrian flag on the Albert Memorial Bridge #yqr #Canada pic.twitter.com/owO5eVhwzy
— CBC Saskatchewan (@CBCSask) February 17, 2015
The level of “I don’t give a darn” necessary for that mistake to happen is chin-level. When it comes to the public-sector, I’m a ‘broken-window’ type of person. Fire them. Yeah…firing someone is a little harsh.
Victimless Drug
If only California, New York, Toronto, and Martensville/Warmen would do this kind of study on vaping prior to banning it.
Dr Marwaha said: “The observed tendency for cannabis use to precede or coincide with rather than follow mania symptoms, and the more specific association between cannabis use and new onset manic symptoms, suggests potential causal influences from cannabis use to the development of mania. It is a significant link.”
FWIW, on the 26th, I’ll have been 1 year cigarette free thanks to electronic nicotine delivery. Given 8 cigarettes a day @ 13.50/pk I’ll have not spent $1570 on cigarettes, but have spent about $700 on juice, atomizers and gear. Aside from health, a 50% savings…50% which would have gone to the gov’t.
h/t: Sean.
We Need A Famine
National Post: Being fat is a disability, EU judges have ruled, meaning that companies in Europe must offer obese staff bigger chairs, special parking spaces and a lighter work load.
h/t Kevin B.
Net Neutrality
Showing Up To Riot
A nanny-state tobacco ban goes horribly wrong;
Twenty-five minutes into the meeting, the hearing was closed by Board of Health chairwoman Andrea Crete, “amid shouts of ‘America!’ and ‘Freedom Now.’ ”
WBZ’s Julie Loncich captured video of the crowd protesting at the meeting.
“The crowd’s getting out of control and the room’s filled to capacity,” Crete said. “We don’t want any riots.” Crete and two other board members were escorted out by the police. The crowd sang “God Bless America” as it was cleared out of the room.
It’s not enough to be angry. You’ve got to show them you’re angry. (Via)
The World Is Being Run By Crazy People
The rubber plantation has 8,000 workers with 71,000 dependents. It is an hour north-east of Monrovia, surrounded by Ebola outbreaks. The virus arrived on the plantation in March. Knowing that the UN and the Liberian government were not going to save them, the managers sat around a rubber tree and googled “Ebola” and learned on the run instead.
h/t John Lewis
Vancouver’s Dismal Drug Culture
David Berner is interviewed about the latest sad chapter in Vancouver infamous drug scene: