...and took up shooting real guns instead. Some dude in Shanghai stabbed another dude after he sold a "dragon sabre" that they won while playing some dame called "Legend of Mir 3."
Virtual economies, such as those in Everquest, Ultima Online, and other MMORPGs are interesting labs for the testing of economic theory, and pretty damn libertarian. That is, until someone stabs you.
Methinks that this is a place where the criminal law has not caught up with the rest of the world. With regard to the stealing of the fictional "dragon sabre," that is. I'm pretty sure that stabbing a dude is illegal. Even in China.
Yours truly,
Mr. X
...puzzle pirate...
3.10.2005
Big Brother is Watching What Your Kids Eat
If you are what you eat, the current generation of kids is going to grow up to be lowfat fruit snacks. The future is, well, bland (but at least we'll all be skinny). I'm tired of reading the newspaper day in and day out only to find that another state has banned 'junkfood' in schools. It appears that Kentucky is the latest state government that is obviously better suited to make nutritional choices than their citizens.
Thanks to many overbearing state government around the county students are being put on a very strict diet. No more sodas or beverages with added sugar. Say goodbye to Hawaiian Punch, the old lunchtime staple, and hello to...more water. Mmm, tasty (if you close your eyes and pretend to be drinking Hawaiian Punch). In addition to water, students will be offered more juice and milk. Now I'm not a dietary expert by any means, but I do know that calories are what make people fat. So let's do some math. An 8 ounce serving of orange juice has 122 calories. An 8 ounce Coca-Cola has 97 calories. An 8 ounce diet Coke has just 1 calorie. If we do the math here, orange juice has 121 more calories than a diet Coke, and 25 more calories than a regular Coke. I'm not seeing how orange juice is really helping children to eat healthier here. Sure, one could argue that the orange juice's calories are outweighed because of vitamin content, but it seems that almost every food is vitamin fortified these days, and a single serving of almost any fruit will give you 100% of your required daily vitamin C. A single 8 ounce serving of orange juice actually gives you more than 2.5 times the recommended vitamin C intake for your 122 calories, and less than 1 gram of fiber. You know, fiber, the stuff that makes you feel full and tells you to stop eating. Orange juice has less than 1 gram of it. Oranges, by contrast, which are up to 85% water, have twice the fiber of orange juice and half of the calories. Even a small McDonald's fries fries, at 230 calories, offers more fiber than orange juice. In fact, the french fries offer triple the fiber of orange juice, meaning that to get the same amount of fiber I'd actually eat fewer fry calories than I would orange juice calories. And french fries taste way better than orange juice.
Any logical person can easily see that eating oranges is nutritionally superior to drinking either orange juice or soda, but you don't see schools investing in vending machines that sell fruit (and I honestly can't see how they'd get an orange to fit on one of those spiral racks traditionally used to hold chips). So instead of offering healthy food choices, like fresh fruits, state governments are offering our children extra calories and a false sense of health, all while cutting physical education programs to include an optional and maximal 30 minutes a day (which, if you include changing into and out of a uniform and the post-workout shower usually end up requiring 10 minutes of exercise). If the state was so worried about student health it would take a look at its own policies and allow students to eat based on their own nutritional needs. It'd be fantastic to have the government encourage students to eat more healthfully, but lying to students about what is healthful does nothing to promote better eating and will eventually backfire when millions of overweight school children grow up into obese adults who can't figure out where they went wrong.
Telling people that french fries are healthy is deceptive, but no one's doing that. Telling people that orange juice is healthy is also deceptive, and the government *is* doing that. People should be able to make their own informed choices about health, but current government programs (as always, it seems) are simply misinformation campaigns that confuse the public. Certainly the government should trust its citizens to be able to make their own choices about what to put in their bodies, but as usual I expect too much out of the government by asking them to leave people alone. It's my choice if I want to Supersize my fries, and if I end up with clogged arteries at least I knew the risks. And I'd rather die a happy fat woman than a skinny bitter fruit snack.
Being skinny does not make people happy. Being able to run 5 miles does not make people happy. Being able to make your own choices about what to do with your life does make people happy. I wish government officials could see this.
Hugs and Kisses,
The Bitter Libertarian
Thanks to many overbearing state government around the county students are being put on a very strict diet. No more sodas or beverages with added sugar. Say goodbye to Hawaiian Punch, the old lunchtime staple, and hello to...more water. Mmm, tasty (if you close your eyes and pretend to be drinking Hawaiian Punch). In addition to water, students will be offered more juice and milk. Now I'm not a dietary expert by any means, but I do know that calories are what make people fat. So let's do some math. An 8 ounce serving of orange juice has 122 calories. An 8 ounce Coca-Cola has 97 calories. An 8 ounce diet Coke has just 1 calorie. If we do the math here, orange juice has 121 more calories than a diet Coke, and 25 more calories than a regular Coke. I'm not seeing how orange juice is really helping children to eat healthier here. Sure, one could argue that the orange juice's calories are outweighed because of vitamin content, but it seems that almost every food is vitamin fortified these days, and a single serving of almost any fruit will give you 100% of your required daily vitamin C. A single 8 ounce serving of orange juice actually gives you more than 2.5 times the recommended vitamin C intake for your 122 calories, and less than 1 gram of fiber. You know, fiber, the stuff that makes you feel full and tells you to stop eating. Orange juice has less than 1 gram of it. Oranges, by contrast, which are up to 85% water, have twice the fiber of orange juice and half of the calories. Even a small McDonald's fries fries, at 230 calories, offers more fiber than orange juice. In fact, the french fries offer triple the fiber of orange juice, meaning that to get the same amount of fiber I'd actually eat fewer fry calories than I would orange juice calories. And french fries taste way better than orange juice.
Any logical person can easily see that eating oranges is nutritionally superior to drinking either orange juice or soda, but you don't see schools investing in vending machines that sell fruit (and I honestly can't see how they'd get an orange to fit on one of those spiral racks traditionally used to hold chips). So instead of offering healthy food choices, like fresh fruits, state governments are offering our children extra calories and a false sense of health, all while cutting physical education programs to include an optional and maximal 30 minutes a day (which, if you include changing into and out of a uniform and the post-workout shower usually end up requiring 10 minutes of exercise). If the state was so worried about student health it would take a look at its own policies and allow students to eat based on their own nutritional needs. It'd be fantastic to have the government encourage students to eat more healthfully, but lying to students about what is healthful does nothing to promote better eating and will eventually backfire when millions of overweight school children grow up into obese adults who can't figure out where they went wrong.
Telling people that french fries are healthy is deceptive, but no one's doing that. Telling people that orange juice is healthy is also deceptive, and the government *is* doing that. People should be able to make their own informed choices about health, but current government programs (as always, it seems) are simply misinformation campaigns that confuse the public. Certainly the government should trust its citizens to be able to make their own choices about what to put in their bodies, but as usual I expect too much out of the government by asking them to leave people alone. It's my choice if I want to Supersize my fries, and if I end up with clogged arteries at least I knew the risks. And I'd rather die a happy fat woman than a skinny bitter fruit snack.
Being skinny does not make people happy. Being able to run 5 miles does not make people happy. Being able to make your own choices about what to do with your life does make people happy. I wish government officials could see this.
Hugs and Kisses,
The Bitter Libertarian
3.01.2005
John Gilmore: Angry Libertarian
Okay, he's not really angry, but he's one hell of a Libertarian. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a good story on Gilmore's struggle to get some really basic questions answered about travel restrictions in this country. Questions like, "What law requires me to show ID before I get on the plane?"
That's right, we have to obey a law that we can't even read. Truly, the mind boggles at how our country has turned into a Kafka novel.
You're probably thinking, "Hey, what's the big deal? It's for our security, isn't it?" It turns out that the magical secret laws have some other pretty bizarro consequences beyond just keeping hippie Libertarians stuck in San Francisco.
That's right, TSA baggage screeners who stole from unsuspecting airline passengers were not prosecuted for their crimes because of this stupid secrecy bullshit. WTF?
John Gilmore, we salute you.
Yours truly,
Mr. X
...freedom fighter...
The gate agent asked for his ID.
Gilmore asked her why.
It is the law, she said.
Gilmore asked to see the law.
Nobody could produce a copy. To date, nobody has. The regulation that mandates ID at airports is "Sensitive Security Information." The law, as it turns out, is unavailable for inspection
That's right, we have to obey a law that we can't even read. Truly, the mind boggles at how our country has turned into a Kafka novel.
You're probably thinking, "Hey, what's the big deal? It's for our security, isn't it?" It turns out that the magical secret laws have some other pretty bizarro consequences beyond just keeping hippie Libertarians stuck in San Francisco.
The government has been so unyielding on disclosure that men with the name David Nelson suddenly found themselves ejected from flights. Somewhere in the system, the name came up on the newly created "No Fly" list. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., found himself in the same dilemma. When baggage screeners were caught pilfering, prosecutions were dropped because a trial would require a discussion of "Sensitive Security Information."
That's right, TSA baggage screeners who stole from unsuspecting airline passengers were not prosecuted for their crimes because of this stupid secrecy bullshit. WTF?
John Gilmore, we salute you.
Yours truly,
Mr. X
...freedom fighter...
2.25.2005
Roadkill has feelings too.
You'd think that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had plenty of important work to do, with cockfighting being legal in all of 3 states these days and my neighbor dressing her dog up in ridiculous sweaters, but apparantly they don't. Recently the SPCA has taken to fighting people who promote cruelty to animals instead of people who are actually cruel to animals. Recent target: Kraft Foods. Upon hearing this most people would think that perhaps Kraft had done something actually cruel, like forcing chicks to watch as hens were plucked for dinner, but apparantly this is no longer cruel. Kraft committed a much graver crime: They marketed a fruit snack shaped like road kill. (Dramatic pause for effect).
TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) -- Animal rights activists are disgusted by a new candy from Kraft Foods Inc. that's shaped like critters run over by cars -- complete with tire treads.
The fruity-flavored Trolli Road Kill Gummi Candy -- in shapes of partly flattened snakes, chickens and squirrels -- fosters cruelty toward animals, according to the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
"It sends the wrong message to children, that it's OK to harm animals. And that's the wrong message, especially from a so-called wholesome corporation like Kraft," said society spokesman Matthew Stanton.
The society is considering petition drives, boycotts and letter-writing campaigns to get the candy pulled from the market, Stanton said.
After receiving a complaint from the NJSPCA Wednesday, Kraft officials pulled an animated advertisement from Trolli's Web site that featured car headlights and animals.
No other decisions on changes have been made, said Kraft spokesman Larry Baumann.
"If you look across the Gummi category we certainly have many products that are offbeat, and that's what we were doing in this case," Baumann said. "We didn't mean to offend anyone."
That's right folks, Kraft had the nerve to market a candy shaped like roadkill. Apparantly roadkill have feelings, too, and the SPCA is there to prevent injury. Apparantly allowing children to eat things (vegetarian things, nonetheless) shaped like roadkill is more damaging than actually eating roadkill (empirical data from West Virginia is forthcoming). How eating roadkill shaped candy encourages children to run over animals is beyond me, given that most children who still enjoy fruit snacks are five to ten years away from driving. Perhaps the modern Power Wheel has more power than I thought.
If the SPCA has nothing better to do than attack a candy for promoting animal cruelty, maybe the SPCA has been so successful as to work itself out of a job? No, strike that, the SPCA still has plenty of work to do: my neighbor is still knitting dog sweaters, I smashed a cockroach in my office this morning, and rumor has it that my boss is currently thinking about running over a snake on his way home.
Hugs and kisses,
The Bitter Libertarian
TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) -- Animal rights activists are disgusted by a new candy from Kraft Foods Inc. that's shaped like critters run over by cars -- complete with tire treads.
The fruity-flavored Trolli Road Kill Gummi Candy -- in shapes of partly flattened snakes, chickens and squirrels -- fosters cruelty toward animals, according to the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
"It sends the wrong message to children, that it's OK to harm animals. And that's the wrong message, especially from a so-called wholesome corporation like Kraft," said society spokesman Matthew Stanton.
The society is considering petition drives, boycotts and letter-writing campaigns to get the candy pulled from the market, Stanton said.
After receiving a complaint from the NJSPCA Wednesday, Kraft officials pulled an animated advertisement from Trolli's Web site that featured car headlights and animals.
No other decisions on changes have been made, said Kraft spokesman Larry Baumann.
"If you look across the Gummi category we certainly have many products that are offbeat, and that's what we were doing in this case," Baumann said. "We didn't mean to offend anyone."
That's right folks, Kraft had the nerve to market a candy shaped like roadkill. Apparantly roadkill have feelings, too, and the SPCA is there to prevent injury. Apparantly allowing children to eat things (vegetarian things, nonetheless) shaped like roadkill is more damaging than actually eating roadkill (empirical data from West Virginia is forthcoming). How eating roadkill shaped candy encourages children to run over animals is beyond me, given that most children who still enjoy fruit snacks are five to ten years away from driving. Perhaps the modern Power Wheel has more power than I thought.
If the SPCA has nothing better to do than attack a candy for promoting animal cruelty, maybe the SPCA has been so successful as to work itself out of a job? No, strike that, the SPCA still has plenty of work to do: my neighbor is still knitting dog sweaters, I smashed a cockroach in my office this morning, and rumor has it that my boss is currently thinking about running over a snake on his way home.
Hugs and kisses,
The Bitter Libertarian
2.23.2005
First they came for the fat guys
...and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a fat guy. The Sun reports that the UK government has decided to lock up a fat guy for, well, being fat.
Ain't National Health grand? Also contained in this little gem of an article is the impetus for this blog.
Now I'm pretty sure that Dr. Gabb is merely the angry spokesman for the Libertarian Alliance and that the Sun's copy editor should be summarily fired, but it got me and a few other angry libertarians thinking, "There ought to be an Angry Libertarian Alliance."
And now there is.
Yours truly,
Mr. X
...angry libertarian-in-chief...
SOBBING 31-stone [434 lbs. -Ed.] Chris Leppard was dragged off to a mental hospital against his will by meddling social workers and police.
Chris, 23, has been forcibly detained for a month because he cannot stop eating.
The authorities used powers normally used to detain mentally ill people who might harm themselves or others.
They locked him up despite the fact neither he nor his family wanted him to go. Last night Chris’s furious mother Anne said he has no mental problems and was winning his fight against the rare illness that compels him to eat.
Ain't National Health grand? Also contained in this little gem of an article is the impetus for this blog.
Angry Libertarian Alliance spokesman Dr Sean Gabb said: “What on earth justifies the intervention of the police and compels him to have medical treatment?”
Now I'm pretty sure that Dr. Gabb is merely the angry spokesman for the Libertarian Alliance and that the Sun's copy editor should be summarily fired, but it got me and a few other angry libertarians thinking, "There ought to be an Angry Libertarian Alliance."
And now there is.
Yours truly,
Mr. X
...angry libertarian-in-chief...
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