For the Greater Good. Of course.

Have you ever seen one of those cartoon speedometers that will spin all the way around, and it keeps spinning faster and faster until it flies apart? If I had one of those on my forehead, that's what it would be doing.

But, I've finally managed a brief midnight respite with warmed over coffee and dropping humidity such that I have the window open after the storms have passed. While wolfing down an evening meal, I caught the new health-scare ad that Obama's cronies are funding in an attempt to stampede the sheep in the direction of the plantation.

Here is a perfect example of the government in action. Imagine similar state-employed cretins making decisions about whether you can have access to a doctor.

It seems that a lot of rain fell in Missouri this spring resulting in lots of run-off into the Lake of the Ozarks, a primary tourist destination for folks across the Midwest. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources -- the folks who would put a meter on my private well if they had the nerve -- decided that elevated levels of E. coli didn't need to be reported.

Here's the text of the story linked above on ky3.com from the Kansas City Star via the AP:

A state agency acknowledges it withheld a report for four weeks that showed the Lake of the Ozarks had E. coli above safe levels. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources said it withheld the report around Memorial Day because of concern that releasing it would hurt tourism and businesses around the lake.

Heavy rains in May washed the bacteria into the lake, which has since returned to safe levels. For a month, the DNR refused to show the report to residents who were demanding to see it.

DNR spokeswoman Susanne Medley said the agency wanted to make sure it didn't panic the public. Some critics say the decision not to release the report immediately was a cover-up that put the economy above public health.

But, but, it's the government. They're all good -- not like those eeeVille corporations. How could this be?

Our lesson for today, boys and girls, is, "Do not trust the government with anything". All bureaucrats and politicians want is to: a) line their pockets with our money; b) control us because they are control freaks; c) keep their cushy, low-stress, welfare-lite jobs; d) build weird little empires on the public dime; e) all of the above.

As you can see the "greater good" argument really is a question of the greater good for whom. Does it serve the greater good for children swimming in the lake to get sick and perhaps die? Death is not that uncommon with little ones (the ones perhaps most likely to ingest lake water while swimming). They can't handle the extreme dehydration resulting from an E. coli infection. Or perhaps DNR thought "greater good" meant more tax revenue from the businesses at the Lake.

Give me free market greed over government control any time. Cut DNR's funding and I can use the tax money I save to test the water myself.