Government Stupidity Defies Satire When a $50 Light Bulb Wins an Affordability Prize

I’ve written about the government’s war on consumer-friendly light bulbs (and also similar attacks on working toilets and washing machines that actually clean), so I’m generally not surprised by bureaucratic nonsense. But even I’m shocked the federal government gave an affordability award for a light bulb that costs $50. I’m not making this up. Here’s [...]

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Amen to Pat Robertson on Marijuana Legalization

Even though I’m a dull and straight-laced guy, that doesn’t mean I want the government to pester, harass, and persecute people for engaging in victimless crimes that I find distasteful. Especially when interventionism and prohibition doesn’t work. To be blunt, the War on Drugs has been a costly failure (much like the War on Poverty). [...]

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Is Banning Skinny Models a Legitimate Function of Government?

Notwithstanding my post comparing stupid government policies in the U.S. and U.K., I thought the Greeks took to prize for most moronic government. After all, the politicians in that nation think it’s fine and dandy to subsidize pedophiles and collect stool samples as a condition of getting a business license to set up an online company. But the [...]

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The Never-Ending Battle Between the U.S. and U.K. for Stupidest Government Policy

In June of last year, I posted several examples of idiotic government policy from both the United States and United Kingdom and asked which nation had the dumbest bureaucrats and politicians. Since then, we have found new examples of brain-dead government and jaw-dropping political correctness from England, including an effort to stop children from watching [...]

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“I’ll Give You my 100-Watt Bulbs When You Pry Them from my Cold, Dead Hands!”

Apologies to Charlton Heston for butchering his line about the Second Amendment, but I’m increasingly disgusted and irate about the looming light-bulb ban. For more than a century, incandescent light bulbs have brightened our world. But the 100-watt bulb doesn’t provide enough light to compensate for the dark and malignant impact of politicians. In less [...]

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Another Edition of the “Government Stupidity and Incompetence” Contest

Oh. My. God. Sorry to sound like a teenager, but I am endlessly amazed at the hare–brained ways that politicians waste our money and interfere with our lives. So as part of my ongoing series comparing foolish government policies (previous editions include the U.S. v Germany and the U.S. v. the U.K.), let’s figure out [...]

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Is This an Example of the Nanny State Run Amok, Government Stupidity, or the Overlawyered Society?

Or is it another example of the “wussification of America?” I don’t know how to classify this story, other than it is a sad commentary on what is happening to America. Bureaucrats in Maryland, who obviously have too much time on their hands, are issuing rules governing sunscreen on summer camps. Have we really reached [...]

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The Continuing Wussification of America

Life is filled with risk. We can deal with that two ways. The first option is to allow people to make educated choices, thus promoting individual responsibility. The second option is to have politicians micro-manage our decisions, thus promoting passivity. Not surprisingly, America is drifting in the wrong direction, allowing busybodies to regulate every aspect [...]

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Is Government Really this Stupid?…and a True Confession from My Sordid Past (Maybe)

I realize this questions answers itself, but I’m continuously amazed at the bone-headed decisions made by politicians and bureaucrats. Indeed, I wish I had this example for my recent post comparing incompetent officials in the United States with their counterparts in the United Kingdom. A kid in Indiana played a prank involving a blow-up doll [...]

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Which Nation Has Dumber Bureaucrats and More Political Correctness, the United States or United Kingdom?

Somebody just sent me a story from the UK-based Daily Telegraph about two little boys who got in trouble for playing army at school. You may think I’m joking, but here’s a blurb from the report. Staff at Nathaniel Newton Infant School in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, reprimanded the two boys after they were seen making pistol [...]

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In Symbol of Government Stupidity, the Nanny State Meets the Quota Cops

Here’s the kind of story that makes me fear for the future of the nation. It is a disturbing example of both government stupidity and soft tyranny. The police may not be ticketing for smoking in the parks, but they are still ticketing parker visitors for crimes like…eating a doughnut in a playground. Yup, this [...]

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The Boundless Stupidity of State Governments

I’m an over-protective parent. Even now, with my kids ranging between 18 and 23, I will try to herd them together while skiing so I can follow them down the slopes and watch for potential injuries. And I never got them a jungle gym when they were young, even though I somehow managed to survive [...]

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How Government Condemned Us to Dirty Clothes by Mandating Sub-Standard Washing Machines

Sam Kazman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has a withering critique of dumb government policies that have taken away our freedom to buy low-cost and effective washing machines and instead forced us to buy expensive machines that don’t do a good job of cleaning our clothes. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that politicians are [...]

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Rand Paul Speaks for America, Grills Obama Hack about Real Freedom of Choice

This is beautiful. It’s so refreshing to have a handful of Republicans who actually understand that their job is promoting freedom.

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GOP Congressman Gives Good Speech against New Government-Mandated Toxic Lightbulbs

Regular readers of this blog already know (see here, here, and here) that I’m not a big fan of the new “CFL” light bulbs that we will be forced to use in a couple of years. In a more entertaining fashion, here’s a video from a few years ago, featuring a Republican Congressman railing against [...]

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Poetic (and Smelly) Justice for San Francisco

Since I believe in federalism and decentralization, I tend to be somewhat tolerant of stupid decisions by local governments – particularly when those choices are made thousands of miles away and I don’t have to deal with the consequences. With this in mind, I find it rather amusing that San Francisco is now plagued by [...]

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The Best Super Bowl Commercial of 2011

I don’t know if this commercial was broadcast nationally, but I saw it in northern Virginia. A very smart, anti-politician message. The worst commercial (this is a no-brainer) was from Chrysler. Not because the advertising was bad, but because the company is mooching from the taxpayers.

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The Nanny State Runs Amok, Asks Americans How Much Time They Spend “Sitting on Toilet”

Dana Milbank is a snarky leftist who writes for the Washington Post, but I have to give him credit for an amusing column today about the new big-brother diet guidelines from our incompetent federal government. Here are a few excerpts. In the late 1970s, before the government began telling us what to eat, 15 percent [...]

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First They Came for the Happy Meals, then They Came for the Foreskins…

There is a famous statement attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller, who was imprisoned by Hitler’s National Socialist regime and barely survived the concentration camps. They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a [...]

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Banning Happy Meal Toys in San Francisco

Reason TV has a new video in their great Nanny-of-the-Month series. The winner is a San Francisco politician who pushed through legislation to ban restaurants like McDonald’s from including toys in happy meals. Here’s a great idea: How about banning politicians from trying to tell us how to live our lives? Our Founding Fathers surely [...]

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The First Lady’s Misguided Crusade

Michelle Obama has a column in the Washington Post about the supposed wonders of giving schools a bigger role in the feeding of children. My first reaction is to roll my eyes. I understand that every First Lady picks a pet cause. I just wish they found causes that didn’t involve bigger government. My second [...]

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Government Thuggery

It is common to mock paper-pushing bureaucrats and nanny-state politicians for silly laws and mindless regulations, but sometimes absurd policies translate into genuine oppression. John Stossel outlines some of the disturbing ways that the American people are being mistreated. Something’s happened to America, and it isn’t good. It’s become easier to get into trouble. We’ve become a nation [...]

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The Nanny State and Toxic Light Bulbs

Deroy Murdock explains in National Review how politicians in Washington have imposed legislation – which most Americans still don’t know about – to ban traditional light bulbs. As American as the grand slam, the Mustang convertible, and the constitutional republic, Thomas Alva Edison’s incandescent light bulb is among this nation’s most enduring gifts to mankind. [...]

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Those Crazy French

To preserve domestic tranquility, men should always shout “NO” when their wives ask “Does this make me look fat?” Well, Frenchmen now also have a legal reason to give that answer. In a nation where everything seemingly requires a role for government, there is a new law with penalties of “…up to three years in prison [...]

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Great Moments in International Bureaucracy

Europe’s economy is stagnant, the euro currency is in danger of collapse, and many nations are on the verge of bankruptcy. But one thing you can count on in this time of crisis is for prompt, thoughtful, and intelligent action by the super-bureaucrats of the European Commission. Right? Well, maybe not. You can be confident, however, [...]

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Should Convicts Be Allowed to Smoke?

I’m somewhat conflicted by this BBC story from New Zealand. I want prison to be a miserable experience so that there is a strong deterrent effect. Yet anything that keeps prisoners calm is presumably good for prison management. The guy who sent me this story included a comment that a smoking ban will increase the lifespan [...]

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The Drug War Is a Failure

The Associated Press has a thorough story looking at the utter failure in the War on Drugs. In part, this is a predictable result of government incompetence, akin to the War on Poverty. And just as the so-called War on Poverty has negative side effects such as increased dependency, the War on Drugs has negative [...]

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An Example of “Bloated” Government

I’m not even sure what to say about this story about new legislation being proposed that would have the federal government track the “Body Mass Index” of American children and spend lots of money and impose lots of rules to reduce childhood obesity. I certainly don’t want to be in favor of chubby kids, but [...]

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Victory Over Surveillance Statism in Arizona

Here’s a bit of good news to begin the weekend. Arizona politicians have been forced to suspend a statewide speed camera program. I’m especially pleased to see that civil disobedience played a role in forcing politicians to pull the plug on the Orwellian system. Here’s an excerpt from the news: Arizona is ending a groundbreaking [...]

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Another Crazy Example of the Nanny State Run Amok

I’m not even sure what to say about this story. Politicians apparently think that they have the right to impose their personal preferences on other people, regardless of whether the issue is big or small. How else to explain the thuggish proposal of a headline-seeking sleazy pol who wants to ban Happy Meals at McDonalds? [...]

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