Thursday
Why are governments so deeply concerned to protect us all from pornography? Simple. To protect us from it properly, they have to watch it. Protecting us from savage debt collectors is not nearly so entertaining, so they don't bother with that, even though the kind of savagery that can involve is much closer to being their real business.
Canadian civil servants have been condemned for inspecting sex shops and adult cinemas while apparently ignoring a flood of consumer complaints.Ontario's provincial auditor says the Ministry of Consumer and Business Services officials have carried out almost 1,600 inspections of adult video retail stores after claiming to have received eight complaints - none in writing.
Those inspections involved checking whether the stores had valid licences "and were selling adult videos only with proper stickers indicating their ratings," the report states.
In the same time there were about 4,000 complaints and inquiries related to debt collectors last year, including 800 written, formal complaints.
Despite the avalanche, it's claimed the ministry carried out only 10 inspections. Similarly, almost 2,000 complaints about motor vehicle repairs prompted just six inspections.
Assistant provincial auditor Jim McCarter has described the situation as "pretty weird", saying he wasn't sure whether inspectors were in fact screening porn. "My understanding is that is not a primary part of their job," said McCarter
As usual, Dave Barry gets to the stories that matter, and I pick out some of the ones that are serious as well as funny for Samizdata. And he has quite a few of those, let me tell you.
T'is obvious, they are government officials, and Canadians, to boot, therefore they are by definition 'wankers', and they have to get their 'jollies' somewhere.
Posted by ernest young at December 5, 2003 04:38 AM
"yes dear, all this porn here is simply work I had to bring home from the job. where's the vaseline lovey?"
Posted by gunner at December 5, 2003 05:20 AM
The US Supreme Court used to have a porn-watching session every year in their chambers, because their legal standard for obscenity was, in the famous quip of one Justice, "I know it when I see it."
Posted by R C Dean at December 5, 2003 12:09 PM
Our UK politicians are not without their measure of hypocricy: when there was a fulmination about evil foreign satellite channels corrupting us with, the "demo" showing in the House of Commons was standing room only.
Posted by Harry Payne at December 5, 2003 01:01 PM
How about the British Board of Film Classification then? Must be a great job for a film fan. To give Matthew Parris his dues, they have got a whole lot less censorious since he joined the board.
Posted by John Harrison at December 5, 2003 03:02 PM
Ernest Young.
You, sir, by definition, are an ass.
Posted by Libertarian Canuck at December 5, 2003 04:01 PM
Here's the part we all love to hear about from this, and because canoe pulls it's articles so quickly it's difficult to find, I'd suggest a quick search on the Toronto Star website. But this part of a much larger picture here in Ontario.
100,000+ back logged court cases due to a lack of judges, between 8 & 10 visits out of 350+ public water treatment facilities, not counting private facilities like trailer parks, and whatnot. Etc, etc, etc. This is government at work in Ontario. Failings in food inspection, massive mismanagement in hospitals, bah.
It doesn't surprise me that they are going to look at the porn, and have that many inspectors looking at it either. The standing in this country is "Morality First, Safty Second", that is unless you are going to go out and try something in the world, then it's the other way around.
Posted by Mashiki at December 6, 2003 12:03 AM
