Government redefined reality: Pizza is vegetable, Brillo pads are illegal gun silencers

What is it about food that brings out more than the usual looniness from government? Remember when California tried to impose the "snack tax"? And before that it was President Reagan who sought to have ketchup officially deemed a vegetable.

Now the squabbling between the Obama Administration and the Republican-held Congress has made it so that pizza is to be classified as a vegetable. The article is nigh worth reading, if only because it is the first (and I pray last time) that this blogger has ever agreed with the food Nazis at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (hey, a stopped clock is right twice a day...)

But that's not the most ridiculous act of federal gubmint to come across this desk today, folks. No, that dubious honor belongs to the assorted thugs and goons at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which has now declared it illegal to possess Brillo pads, Chore Boy Pot Scrubber and similar cookware scouring/cleaning material, depending on how it is construed. From the article...

"[S]ound/gas absorbing materials manufactured from Chore Boy copper cleaning pads, along with fiberglass insulation, constitute a silencer.

Therefore, it is illegal for an individual to replace deteriorated material within an already- registered suppressor without an approved ATF Form 1, 'Application to Make and Register a Firearm,'" along with a "$200.00 making tax" and "a 'no-marking' variance...since there is no viable area in which to apply a serial number to the sound-absorbing material."

The article further states that "The original letter included a question about the owner of a legally owned silencer having a reserve of such pads. In case, you know, they needed to clean something. According to the ATF that would be considered a "stockpile" and considered an illegal act."

So in the BATF's eyes, there is an illegal stockpile of munitions, ohhh... inside the cabinet beneath every kitchen sink in America.

I wouldn't put it past the BATF to seek warrants to invade private property on those measly grounds.

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ATF agents caught editing Wikipedia pages for Star Wars, beer

You may have heard already about the Wikipedia Scanner, a new website that lets you find out who has been editing what Wikipedia pages and from where. And since the site went bigtime last week a lot of activity has come to light, such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the Vatican making edits, Apple, Microsoft and Dell adding negative info about their competitors and Diebold attempting to wipe out serious concerns about the integrity of its voting machines.

Now comes word that Red's Trading Post has blown the lid on what members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are doing with our tax money.

Among other things, IP addresses that trace back to the BATF have been responsible for Wikipedia edits regarding: Star Wars, Calvin and Hobbes, Charles Bronson, Samuel Adams Beer, and Harry Potter.

I suppose it's easier for ATF members to play around with fantasy, than it is for them to "edit away" the very real world that they have played a part in creating (WARNING: graphic image at the link).

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