Good to see The Salted Slug getting off to a flying start this year, with two very well considered posts.
Saving us from ourselves
While in Oz, I was talking to a friend of a friend; a very nice lady nurse who worked in community health. After a bit of idle career talk, she informed me of her wishes to move away from ‘reactive’ work and into more proactive, preventative stuff. I asked what she meant and she replied that she “wanted to get into legislation” and enthused about the success of things like legal seatbelt requirement in cars and the Aussie ban on smoking in cars with children.
I didn’t make much of it at the time, because: a) I was on holiday and desire an easy life, and b) It’s their country. But, what anyone means when they wish to ‘get into’ legislation -or the influence thereof- is that they have a list of things they don’t like that they wish to see banned or modified-with-menaces. The classic Righteous Bansturbator we’ve all come to know and love.
And to follow:
And another thing…
Further to my last post where I mention the bansturbators’ overall well-intentioned goal of doing Good Things by way of legislation; I have a quick point for the consideration of any common-good crusaders who may be passing through.
You do realise, Mr/Mrs Righteous, that no matter what your good intentions are, and no matter how nuanced and specific the perceived flaw you wish to fix is, the legislative or policy-based result of your attempted social engineering will always have a crude and ham-fisted result, don’t you?
Over at DK’s place The Filthy Smoker gives lie to another raft of bullshit reporting of made up statistics by the BBC in the furtherance of righteous causes:
And a happy new year to you too, you scare-mongering, lemon-sucking, compulsive lying, pointy-headed, neo-prohibitionist fucking cranks.
This non-story was published on the BBC website at five minutes past midnight on New Year’s Day. It would be nice to think that some wag at the Beeb thought it would be richly ironic to put an anti-alcohol piece online at the one time when everybody is pissed, but a more plausible explanation is that the BBC wanted to start the decade as it means to go on – ie. with doom-mongering drivel from state-funded temperance dicks.
And which dick is mongering the doom on this occasion? Why, it’s our old friend Ian Gilmore.
Read on to reveal the old patterns from the last 10 years being replayed.
A quick round-up of some of the predictions being made for 2010.
http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2009/12/new-year-resolution-and-stories-for.html
http://atoryblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/black-swans-for-2010.html
http://www.lettersfromatory.com/2009/12/31/10-things-that-wont-happen-in-2010/
I’ll probably update this post anon as I happen upon other nuggets of interest.
AJ
Al Jahom's Final Word 