Free In Idaho!

A Valentine for OBL…

In typical bleeding heart do-gooder fashion, the Federal government this morning announced new rules and restrictions concerning Super Bowl which will effectively cancel most of the partying associated with this weekend’s big game.  Arizona Senator John McCain angrily said, “It’s not about amnesty, damn it”.

 For rabid fans of the New York Giants and New England Patriots, this Sunday’s Super Bowl won’t be just a game. It may be a health hazard. Heart attacks and other cardiac emergencies doubled in Munich, Germany, when that nation’s soccer team played in World Cup matches, a new study reports.

While history suggests European soccer fans can get a bit more worked up than the average American football fan, doctors think there are some valid warnings to be shared.

“I know a little bit about the Super Bowl,” study author Dr. Gerhard Steinbeck of Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich said in a telephone interview. “It’s reasonable to think that something quite similar might happen.”

He and his colleagues present their results in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine. They blamed emotional stress for the heart problems, but they note that lack of sleep, overeating, wolfing down junk food, boozing and smoking might have played a role too.

Following the lead of Germany (now that France has a more conservative government, we can’t follow them anymore), much tougher restrictions have been announced for all Super Bowl parties at which more than three people are present.  Health rules mandating maximum consumption limits for alcoholic beverages, carbohydrates, and exposure to tobacco smoke were announced by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain at a joint bi-partisan press conference in California this morning.  They were guests at the hacienda of Governor Ahnold before the his Super Bowl party Tuesday primaries.  The bans are being put in place in order to bring early compliance with the proposed universal health care plans the Democratic Socialists plan to implement following next November’s elections. 

Also announced were future bans not just on the consumption of unhealthy foods, but on the Super Bowl competition itself.  It’s clear that the significant stress of competition, and the deep psychological scars endured by the losers and their fans pose a huge health risk because of the emotional stresses and resulting heart problems.  One of the attendees at this morning’s announcement said “We are a great nation, and we’re too great to allow continued exposure to such an old-fashioned ritual.  We seek to change America.  There will be no more losers, and no more heart attacks due to Super Bowl.  There will be no more Super Bowl”.

“People who are not interested in sport find it very difficult to comprehend this,” said Carroll, who in 2002 reported a link between World Cup soccer and heart attacks in England.

The new paper included heart attacks, cardiac arrests, episodes of irregular heartbeat and activations of automatic implanted defibrillators. The researchers noted the number of cases reported in the greater Munich area during World Cup competition in Germany in the summer of 2006. They compared that to the totals for similar periods in 2003 and 2005, and for several weeks before and after the tournament.

In all, the study included 4,279 patients. Analysis showed that on the seven days when the German team played, the overall number of cardiac emergencies was more than double the norm. For men, it tripled.

Because of the scientific evidence, and the political and scientific concensus, it was determined that action was required immediately, in order to prevent future heart attacks.  Support for the move was so broad based that most television and cable outlets have already announced replacement programming over the weekend.  Because of the writer’s strike, new programs will still not be available, but many of the programs scheduled in previously Super Bowl oriented time slots include classic Dick Cavett Show episodes, as well as continuing coverage of the Brittany Spears crisis.  The Super Bowl itself will still be played, but the NFL announced that the score will not be kept, in order to minimize the emotional stress. 

An excellent article concerning the D.C vs Heller Second Amendment case is up at Concurring Opinions. 

Heller and his amici will likely offer a wide range of arguments in favor of the critical inference. This post is very long, so I’ll note just one here: the argument, from classical liberal theorists like Locke and legal commentators like Blackstone, that the right to arms for public self-defense against tyranny arises from the same source as the right to personal self-defense against criminal force. Each right implicates the other. In essence, Heller will argue that the “right to arms” recognized by the Second Amendment should be read broadly enough to include a cluster of overlapping and philosophically related rights to public and private self-defense.

In other words, Mr. Heller will ask the Supreme Court to bring to the Second Amendment a fraction of the interpretive breadth that it has bestowed on the other provisions of the Bill of Rights

Interpretive breadth?  Abortion, Miranda, pornography…

Good read, you should check it out.