Reason.tv: Nanny of the Month for November 2009

Smoking, fast food, giant inflatable blue gorillas—no matter what it is, chances are some nanny wants to ban it. And this past month was no exception.

Reason.tv's October 2009 Nanny of The Month Award went to New York State Sen. Jeff Klein for his efforts to rid the Empire State of fish pedicures.

Who is the Nanny of the Month for November 2009?

The runners up include the California Energy Commission for banning big-screen TVs unless they conform to stringent new energy standards and the Food and Drug Administration, which is waging war against caffeinated booze drinks.

But there can be only one Nanny of the Month, and this time it's …

Click the video to learn the awful truth.

Nanny of the Month is produced by Ted Balaker. The director of photography is Alex Manning and the associate produce is Paul Detrick. Approximately 1.17 minutes.

This video is also available at Reason.tv's YouTube channel (subscribe now!).

For downloadable versions of this video and previous winners (read: losers!), go here.

And make sure to tune in next month for more examples of busybodies minding your own business. 

Comments

[kinnath]

There is a difference between raging nannies and not-in-my-backyard progressives.

You're off target this month.

[Adam]

Fish pedicures? Am I supposed to WTFV or something?

[Bas Mon]

ROTFL, no way dude thats amazing. I like it.

Jess
http://www.be-anonymous.cz.tc

[Doc Liberty]

Kinnath, I agree there's a difference, one has more power than the other. But seriously, wouldn't a progressive force people to give away their food to others under threat of penalty instead of restricting them from giving it away voluntarily?

[KGB]

No! Government food giveaways only! Imperialist bourgeois charity forbidden in progressively socialist beloved homeland!

[KGB]

No! Bourgeois imperialist "charity" forbidden in beloved homeland! Dictatorship of proletariat is only permitted source of the people's welfare!

[IHOP Hostess]

So who is it? Due to work rules, not everyone can see the video.

[hmm]

Huffpo link same story

[IHOP Hostess]

Thank you.

[IHOP Hostess]

Thank you.

And no, server squirrel, this is not spam.

[hmm]

When retarded NIMBY movements get government backing it is nanny state.

What do want to bet some people complained about property value and scary people in their neighborhood.

[kinnath]

I disagree.

Nannies use the power of the state to keep people from engaging in enjorable behaviors that the nannies believe are harmful to those same people's well-being (saving people from themselves).

NIMBYs are all in favor of great endeavors to help society so long as those great endeavors happen somewhere else.

[hmm]

So the state seeking to protect property value and stop evil homeless people from walking through a neighborhood to get food isn't a nanny state move?

I guess it's just semantics anyway, and either way it's a shit move.

[kinnath]

Evil comes in many flavors. It is important to recognize its many forms, because it takes a different means to kill it off in each different form.

I mean, you're not going to get very far trying to kill a werewolf with a stake if you get my drift.

[SugarFree]

By the way, what are churches doing in residential zoning?

[Death Panelist]

Jesus needs to live somewhere.

[ev]

+1

[Pope Jimbo]

I've got a church that I have to drive by on Sundays that because of the huge congregation and stupid placement requires cops to stand in the road and stop traffic so that the holy folks can get out of their lot.

I'm pretty much against most zoning laws and believe that people should be able to do what they want with their property, but that church chaps me bad.

The main reason is that if it wasn't a church they would have no chance of getting cops to direct traffic for them. (There is a liquor store that I use that has a similar crappy setup and they sure can't get a cop to make my Friday night beer run more enjoyable).

So, I guess I would vote against Nanny of the month for these guys. If they are going to screw with other businesses, they better screw over the church too.

[Eric]

"If they are going to screw with other businesses, they better screw over the church too."

wha??? why not less "screwing with" all around?

[Pope Jimbo]

Yeah, I agree that the best outcome would be to stop screwing with private property owners all together.

In the real world, though, it seems that places of worship tend to get out of all the stupid rules that are applied to everyone else.

Which brings me to my real world point, that stupid rules better apply to everyone.

[Nipplemancer]

before we were married, my then girlfriend lived on the same block as a large catholic church. sundays were a fucking nightmare as the street itself was temporarily a one-way 30 minutes before and after each mass. it also has a high school attached so there was never any parking during the day and 8am and 3pm were brain-exploding madness.
oh yea, the church bells sucked too. i was sooo happy when we moved in together and got away from that nightmare.

[plutosdad]

I see those cops outside some businesses, it's not just churches. I think they must have to pay for the service (at least I hope so).

[Eric]

"By the way, what are churches doing in residential zoning?"

Was this a joke? You know you're on a libertarian forum, right?

[SugarFree]

"Was this a joke? You know you're on a libertarian forum, right?"

Was this a joke?

[Art-P.O.G.]

"Are you serious? Are you serious?"

[SugarFree]

Is this a joke? You do know this is a non-repetitive forum, right?

[hmm]

Non-commercial properties. Schools (private and public) get the same treatment a lot of times.

Instead of adding to the zoning mess they just make them residential. Not to mention there are often full time residents at many churches.

[Mad Max]

hmm's link quotes the following story on the reasons for the ban:

'The controversy surrounding the Crossroads United Methodist Church's weekly pancake breakfast began last spring when neighbors complained about an increase in the number of homeless people in the neighborhood. With the increase in homeless individuals in the area came an uptick in their undesirable behaviors, including "panhandling, burglary, public intoxication and vandalism, among other things," according to AZ Family.'

Doesn't make the church wrong, of course. But they will have harder sledding because California lacks a Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). According to this link, the California legislature passed a Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1998, but then-Governor Pete Wilson vetoed it.

[Rub My Balls]

"With the increase in homeless individuals in the area came an uptick in their undesirable behaviors, including "panhandling, burglary, public intoxication and vandalism, among other things," according to AZ Family."

Fuck the bums. Let 'em starve.

[HARLEYRIDER]

As for secondhand smoke in the air, OSHA has stated outright that: "Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)...It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded." -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec'y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997
-harleyrider1978

[HARLEYRIDER]

Outdoor bans are even crazier than indoor bans. The chemical make-up of shs is nearly 94% water vapor and A SLIGHT AMOUNT OF CARBON DIOXIDE with about 3% being carbon monoxide AND 3% CONTAINING THOSE SUPPOSED KILLER CARCENOGENS.........

n-nitrosomines which you hear so much about is actually inorganic arsenic..what they dont tell you is that the measurements they took match the naturally occuring arsenic in the air outside everywhere.
they measured levels at 0-29 picograms

which is totally safe.its the same as drinking a glass of water..the amount has to be 5 million times that to be harmful to humans........you see how they switched it. Trying to blame shs for what is actually a natural thing. The levels of other things in shs if they can be measured at all are millions if not billions of times smaller than the amounts needed to harm anyone......just remember this second hand smoke is a joke within nano seconds from the burn it turns into WATER VAPOR.....Even the exhaled smoke is loaded down with water vapor...osha has said nothing in shs/ets is going to harm you or anyone else.....what shs will do is irritate those with weak immune responces.......thats why shs is classified as a class 3 IRRITANT BY OSHA AND THE EPA.

Remember this a prohibition movement must rely on scare tactics and big money in order to succeed to the level of getting legislation....These outdoor regulations are even crazier than the first claims made for indoor bans.......lets do the silly math if one cig lets off 29 pico grams.We will use the high side of their measurement........and it takes 5 million picograms then thats 5 million divided by 29 = IN CIGARETTES SMOKED AT ONE TIME IN A SEALED ROOM.........172,414 CIGS SMOKED SIMULTANEOUSLY..........DIVIDE THAT BY 20 TO GET PACKS.........8620 PACKS ALL TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME...........SECOND HAND SMOKE IS A JOKE........and this same thing applies to anything they claim in shs/ets.........dont be fooled

[Jennifer]

I must've been sleeping in class, the day my biology teacher taught the lesson that fish have toenails.

[Randy]

Las Vegas should have won for their ban on the stripper mobile, but this is good too.

[NotALiberal]

Personally, I would object to the Church being in my neighborhood, regardless of what they were doing. But as has been mentioned previously, this is not a Nanny State thing, it's nimby.

[plutosdad]

She did not go far enough, she should have banned the church.

[HARLEYRIDER]

The global warming hoax is fast becomming the story of the century.

Now we wait for the second hand smoke emails to show up from tobacco control.....the great second hand smoke hoax is about to be revealed....lmao The left is going down down down

[tkwelge]

I think that we should stop treating all church's as if they were non profit. I think that all church's should be separated into two organizations: charitable and administrative. The administrative end should be taxed ( the incomes of church labor, ministers, etc) and the charitable activities should enjoy tax exempt status. That way you don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. I'm tired of seeing clergy living in mansions and monolithic super church's meant to cater to the higher up believers while the church itself enjoys tax exemptions.

[wylie]

Do churches have to abide by the provisions of other non-profit organizations?

Or do they just receive and maintain their tax-exempt status by virtue of their holiness?

[Isaac Bartram]

Wylie, an institution has to satisfy different sets of criteria depending on whether it is trying to incorporate as a non-profit corporation under its own state's corporation laws or whether it is trying to qualify for non-profit status with the IRS.

All being a non-profit corporation means is that making a profit is not one of its goals and that all funds will be plowed back in to meet the groups expenses rather than distributed to shareholders.

Status as a non-profit with the IRS means that people who donate money can deduct the amounts of those donations from their taxable income.

A "church" automatically qualifies with the IRS as a "non-profit" but not every institution that wants to call itself a "church" gets recognized as such by the IRS.

[Isaac Bartram]

The administrative end should be taxed ( the incomes of church labor, ministers, etc) and the charitable activities should enjoy tax exempt status.

That's pretty much how it is now. Pastors or priests as well as janitors or school teachers have to pay income tax on the wages or salaries they recieve from the church. Many churches have run afoul of the IRS over failure to submit witholding and FICA payments on time. And the fact that it is a church property will not stop Uncle Sam from slapping a tax lien on it.

Furthermore, when a church operates a commercial enterprise it must be very careful about accounting for money going to the church. And unlike the property the church building sits on the property the business is on will have to pay local property taxes.

[abercrombie milano]

My only point is that if you take the Bible straight, as I'm sure many of Reasons readers do, you will see a lot of the Old Testament stuff as absolutely insane. Even some cursory knowledge of Hebrew and doing some mathematics and logic will tell you that you really won't get the full deal by just doing regular skill english reading for those books. In other words, there's more to the books of the Bible than most will ever grasp. I'm not concerned that Mr. Crumb will go to hell or anything crazy like that! It's just that he, like many types of religionists, seems to take it literally, take it straight...the Bible's books were not written by straight laced divinity students in 3 piece suits who white wash religious beliefs as if God made them with clothes on...the Bible's books were written by people with very different mindsets...in order to really get the Books of the Bible, you have to cultivate such a mindset, it's literally a labyrinth, that's no joke

[abercrombie milano]

My only point is that if you take the Bible straight, as I'm sure many of Reasons readers do, you will see a lot of the Old Testament stuff as absolutely insane. Even some cursory knowledge of Hebrew and doing some mathematics and logic will tell you that you really won't get the full deal by just doing regular skill english reading for those books. In other words, there's more to the books of the Bible than most will ever grasp. I'm not concerned that Mr. Crumb will go to hell or anything crazy like that! It's just that he, like many types of religionists, seems to take it literally, take it straight..

[nike shox]

is good