Ezra and Ygz are right, of course, that a “nanny state” isn’t all that offensive when the people being nannied are kids. There’s such a thing as overprotecting even children, but obviously when kids are in public schools, “the government” at some level is going to decide what food options are available to those kids, […]

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Slashdot posts an essay by a fellow who used Amazon’s Mechanical Turk program to offer micropayments to folk willing to argue with him—which I’d have thought was unnecessary in an age when blogs are awash in folk happy to argue for free. The argument, incidentally, is quite terrible: 1. Government should ban smoking by people […]

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Ygz is creeped out by Caitlin Flanagan’s description of a social networking site for the Spongebob set: What fun they had! Club Penguin is a cute, happy virtual world in which you create an adorable little penguin in whose guise you can travel to all sorts of fun spots and play video games (making pizzas […]

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GamePolitics reports on a new video game law that flew through the New York State legislature faster than Sonic the Hedgehog on benzedrine. It includes a redundant provision mandating that new game consoles include parental-control technology (new consoles already do) and a dangerously vague one making it a felony to sell or rent to minors […]

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According to Ars Technica, the state of Illinois had to pull about a million dollars from its public health and welfare departments to bankroll failed litigation to defend a plainly unconstitutional law that sought to restrict violent or sexually explicit video games. Or, to put it melodramatically: (Protecting poor kids from malnutrition and disease) < […]

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In response to last week’s gay-incest anti-pot ad, a friend reminds me of this classic PSA, which proves that drug warriors are becoming more savvy, overtly gearing their “Just Say No” messages to people who are already stoned out of their fucking gourds:

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This may just be the strangest anti-drug PSA ever.

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Diane Rehm, who I hear once had pretensions of being a journalist of some kind, conducted a maddeningly uncritical, borderline fawning interview with drug warrior Joe Califano on her program today. My expectations at this stage are actually pretty low. I didn’t expect Rehm to probe terribly deeply into Califano’s dire warnings about the terrifying […]

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Ben Adler at TAPped writes: This clearly expresses a fundamental tenet of conservative/libertarian thinking: that engaging in risky behavior with serious social costs is an entitlement. People who are injured by metal bats, or fall ill from smoking or fatty food, cost the rest of us money. We pay their emergency room bill, their Medicare […]

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The Spider-Man star opines: I’ve never been a major smoker, but I think America’s view on weed is ridiculous. I mean, are you kidding me? If everyone smoked weed, the world would be a better place. Somewhat more interesting is the passing mention of the fact—old news, apparently, but news to me—that Carl Sagan was […]

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