I risk my life by working

As if it isn't bad enough that the Federal Government has its hands in too many pies, now we have situations where one the states has taken it upon itself to get involved in enlightening the citizenry through badgering people about what it thinks important. It should be no surprise that that State is California.

While installing an in line ground fault interrupter on a piece of machinery, I found this warning wrapped around the cord:

WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, and other reproductive harm. Wash hands after handling.

On what grounds do they force this warning? California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment guideline states thus: “A person exposed to the chemical at the ‘no significant risk level’ for 70 years would not have more than a ‘one in 100,000’ chance of developing cancer as a result of that exposure.” Anything over that, say one extra case per 100,000 people over 70 years, means the tag has to be applied to the whatever it is at hand.

Doesn't this strike anyone as overkill? How am I supposed to feel about getting a scare that I have increased my chance of contracting cancer simply by putting a power cord on a machine? How do the people using equipment day after day react to the news that they are in such a slightly more hazardous situation than they could possibly have imagined? By what right does California think it can violate someone's comfort zone by insisting on a tag where no significant increase of contracting cancer exists?

We could dismiss it as simply the big dog of the nation throwing its weight around. But it's more than that: it serves as a reminder that government, any government, when its gets big enough feels it has the right to throw its weight around. California is darn near a nation unto itself anyway, and seeing as its infrastructure needs are well below what its citizens demand, one would think it would be more concerned with shoring up its physical plant than in promoting scare stories.

But, after all, its still a big brother government. What's not to love?

Obamacare and the Nanny State

Today is the day. If we may borrow from the soothsayer and adapt his warning to Caesar to fit an anxious American public 'Beware the ides of February'.

Okay, we're slightly beyond the middle of February. But we're close enough to the middle of the month that we feel we can get away with it. Today is the day where you must have health coverage or pay a penalty. The penalty is...well, we don't care what the penalty is, because the real issue isn't about penalties. It's about government overreach. It's about the eventual totalitarianism where the nanny state must, in the end, become manifest. And it is manifested in Barack Obama and John Roberts.

See? There are no independents in the nanny state. A Democratic President and a Republican Chief Justice of the Unites States Supreme Court have agreed that if you don't have health insurance you can be compelled to buy it, or suffer tax penalties. Take that, heathens who don't think government can cure all ills.

That's how the nanny state solves problems. You don't have something it believes you should have? Well, then, we'll order you to get it. Soon after that, we'll order you to eat your vegetables.

We are not arguing that having health insurance, or eating your vegetables for that matter, are not good ideas. They are. But if health care is all about issues between the doctor and the patient (and their religious leader, if we may be so bold as to once more implicate the political left in its hypocrisy) then on what grounds can the government order you to have or do something which you may not need? Indeed, on what grounds can a moral government order you to do or not do anything beyond what is obviously and directly dangerous to an, ahem, healthy body politic, such as prohibitions against murder and theft? And even then we see that the mere prohibition or encouragement at times will fail. Still, at least such laws reflect a greater truth wherein human beings are expected to respect other human beings in their natural and reasonable rights.

What respect is there in an order to do what may be unnecessary, and therefore up to the person to decide if they want it?

We'll leave the answer to that question to you. But, having asked it, we will give you our answer. The ACA and its supporters in the Supreme Court if not the larger body politic are tyrants of the worst kind: arrogant bureaucrats and general busybodies in the guise of Mary Poppins. King George would be proud of you both, Mr. Obama and Mr. Roberts. And of your political supporters, even and especially those who voted for you, Mr. President.

Mow Your Lawn Today!

We are now well beyond the start of the Ozone Action Day season, according to SEMCOG, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. And although today is not an action day, SEMCOG's website reminds us to be aware of them and to check frequently about when they occur. People are encouraged to not gas up their cars or mow their lawns on Ozone Action Days.

Go ahead and do it anyway. Indeed, look for such days and gas up and mow on them precisely because our local government has said we should not. Nature is incredibly resilient and will survive what little real effect gassing up and cutting grass may do. But more than that, it would serve as a protest against precisely the kind of government intrusion into our lives that is evidence by declaring such days.

To be sure and fair, avoiding certain things on Ozone avoidance days has not been made a point of law. But that step is surely somewhere down the road. The first step is to condition people that the government knows best, that SEMCOG is smarter than and better than you and ought to be obeyed. The slippery slope is exactly how basic human freedoms are the surest way eroded.

So look out for them, and purposely violate them. You're serving a purpose by asserting your authority over your property.

Seat Belt Check Lanes are Stupid

Note: Charles Martin Cosgriff, smart aleck extrordinaire that he is, doubles as the Wayne County (MI) Conservative Examiner on examiner.com He likes this too much to dare alter it.

While your Wayne County Conservative Examiner was tooling westwardly along Michigan Avenue in southwest Detroit early yesterday evening, a little after 7 in the PM, he could not help but notice the harsh stare of the Detroit Police Officer boring into his person as he made his way. It caused him to shrink away with fear, in fact. The officer had his squad car parked in the left turn lane, which was truly inconvenient. Your WCCE was wanting to hang a left into the parking lot of his favorite Little Caesars for the sake of a couple Hot and Ready pizzas, and perhaps some Crazy Bread as well. You know, that delightfully doughy bread painted with garlic, and with what we perceive are cheese bits of a sort as a kind of crust. Yet thanks to the officer ever so diligent at his duty, it was necessary to drive a block past the restaurant, to make a left and circle yet another block in returning to Michigan to turn right into the waiting LC. It was really quite distressing, for your WCCE had spent several hours doing yard work, a chore in itself, and was really quite hungry for that wonderful American specialty colloquially known as beer and pizza. Yet his well earned repast was delayed so insultingly because he had happened upon a seat belt check lane, an area set aside so that the City of Detroit could be on the lookout for those vile and despicable criminals who had not buckled up. Horrid, disgusting felons they are.

Really now. We have to wonder whether the whole plot was merely a ploy for the city to earn a few extra bits of coin. Detroit is, after all, suffering deep financial woes. Yet if only that might have been the case, the officers perhaps may have been cut a little slack. As it is, they were seeking out the truly evil people who may have dared motored along a Detroit thoroughfare without having availed themselves of the proverbial 'click it or ticket'. My, but those government agents as so able to turn a phrase.

Of course, one really can harbor no ill will against those stouthearted men and women in blue. They were merely doing what they were ordered, we are sure, and with the proper admonition to 'be careful out there', if a harkening back to a well known catchphrase from a well received police show of thirty some years ago may suit our purpose here. If the reference escapes you, this is where it may be found: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2QApwtE8zQ . It was surely an easy if boring night of work for them, the 5 or 6 squad cars of dutiful civil servants we could count for ourselves who were assigned such a menial task. Surely they pined for a career out of the police academy which offered a greater challenge than signalling an errant driver to the roadside, for no greater sin than a citizen driving his own car on a highway paid for by his taxes having no real concern for his own safety or that of his fellows. Surely the murderer, the rapist, the arsonist, the robber; nay, even the passer of bad checks, could not have been doing more harm to society last evening than that inconsiderate unbuckled operator of a motor vehicle. The nerve. Cheek, gall; that's what it is.

And now, as we have assuaged the desire to over-employ the semicolon as we pen our message this noonday, we leave you with this heartfelt thought.

Seat belt check are a waste of time and manpower. It seems that the nanny state rules, especially as it easier to apprehend safe criminals over unsafe. Our leaders appear to do so much while doing so little as they assign their minions such tasks so well below their training. Yet so little done seems the fate of modern government at all levels these days.