Arrest The Hamburgular

Santa Clara County, Calif.: A dozen fast-food workers are lined up against the wall and sheriff’s deputies block the doors. The manager nervously tries to assure that everything is in order, but the hard-eyed detectives aren’t satisfied. Customers think this is a “sting” to round up illegal immigrants, but they are wrong.
One of the inspectors catches a glimpse of something shiny behind a freezer. He reaches behind, and pulls out a six-inch-long plastic Iron Man™ action figure, hard evidence that the restaurant stands in violation of Santa Clara County Ordinance No. NS-300.820. The manager desperately tries to assure the cops that the toy belongs to his son, who inadvertently left it behind. No dice – they haul him downtown on suspicion of using toys in promotions to lure kids and their parents into his restaurant to eat.
That’s right: As part of a crusade against childhood obesity, three politicians in a county of 180,000 people have decided that parents are not allowed to decide whether they can take their children to a restaurant where they might receive a toy alongside their meal.  (IBD)
Santa Clara County’s Board of Supervisors also voted four to one to enter amicus curiae in lawsuits challenging Arizona’s new immigration law. The county will soon consider a resolution commanding its law-enforcement officers not to check suspects’ immigration status, unless required by federal law. So illegal immigrants working in fast-food restaurants will be safer than Iron Man^tm action figures.
The fast-food toy ordinance, meanwhile, is so absurd that even the San Francisco Chronicle (April 30) editorialized on its futility. Somehow, I don’t think that being held up to ridicule is enough to stop politicians arrogant enough to fantasize a magic answer to childhood obesity.
After all, politicians have a desperate, emotional, need to be noticed doing “something” about your problems. Expect this ordinance to come to a California county near you in the near future. No child’s Happy Meal will be safe.(PRI)
The ordinance allows fines of up to $1,000, enforceable by the Health Department.
County supervisor Ken Yeager said Tuesday that the ordinance “prevents restaurants from preying on children’s love of toys to peddle high-calorie, high-fat, high-sodium kids’ meals,” and would help fight childhood obesity.
“This ordinance breaks the link between unhealthy food and prizes,” Yeager said. “Under this ordinance, restaurants are still permitted to give out toys. This ordinance merely imposes very specific, common-sense nutrition standards for children’s meals that are linked to these incentives.”
Saratoga Mayor Kathleen King has five children. “It starts with, ‘I’m hungry,’ and then it goes to what the toy looks like, so I know exactly where it’s going,” she said.
Yeah, weak parenting!
So the government must save you from yourself and parent your kids for you.
When they came for my kid’s Happy mean I said nothing.
Then they came after my fast food and I said nothing.
Then they came for my food to tell me what I can and cannot eat and there was no one left to say anything.
So, next time you see a Toy commercial for a Fast Food restaurant, think evil thoughts of those mean and evil, heartless, predatory capitalists whose only mission in life is to make your kids fat!! and think happy thoughts about how the government is going to stop them for you because you’re not strong enough to do it yourself.
Happy meal Toys are, after all, an evil capitalist Right-wing conspiracy to destroy your kids after all.
It must be George W. Bush’s Fault somehow…