It'll Only Be a Matter of Time...

...before these are required by law for skiers.

Elyse Saugstad was taking a break with several fellow skiers Sunday in the Washington state backcountry when the shouting began. "Elyse! Avalanche!"

The 33-year-old turned to see tons of snow boiling toward her.

"I pulled the trigger," she said, inflating two air bags attached to her backpack. The device is meant to keep skiers and adventurers from disappearing beneath waves of snow in an avalanche.

It likely saved her life, said Saugstad, who was hurled half a mile down the slope.

"(It was) like being in a washing machine," she said.

Saugstad came to a stop buried in densely packed snow. Only her face and hands were free.

Because Perky Boobs Are a National Priority

UK trying to mandate sports bras for school PE classes.

They're better from an aesthetic standpoint, of course. And from an 'elf and safety standpoint, you don't want to accidentally step on them and trip while you're walking. Can't be too careful.

'Ere's Mud In Yer Eye

A wet-sponge-throwing battle in UK has been changed to a Super-Soaker duel for health and safety reasons.

Organiser Ralph Spours said: “We decided that, in the face of health and safety, it would make better sense to use super-soakers instead.

“We did note that sometimes when the sponges were landing on the ground, they were landing in dirt and grit, being put back in the water butts and thrown again and there was a danger that people could get grit in their eye.”

I'd Wrap Them Up In Celophant

It's the only way to keep the little chirrens safe, you know.

This passage made me LOL:

Researchers found that conkers have been banned from nearly one sixth of playgrounds for fear that they could cause injury or trigger a nut allergy, even though they are not nuts.

update: Not to be outdone by the UK, the state of New York thinks Freeze Tag is dangerous.

h/t Jammie Wearing Fool.

You Sell the Tickets, I'll Sell the Popcorn...

...while we watch these two poor buggers drown.

In UK, two men drowning in a frozen lake were refused help by firefighters.

UK: 'Elf & Safety Madness To End

Story.

Here's some examples:



You can see more recent examples by clicking on the "elf and safety" tag at the bottom of this post.

Health and Safety Be Damned!

After a 200-year-old tradition of rolling a cheese down a hill in Brockworth, Gloucestershire (UK) was banned for "health and safety reasons," the local citizens subjects citizenry ignored the ban and rolled the cheese anyway.

Good for them. "Health and Safety" is nothing but a disguise for a jackboot, anyway.

Here they are, having their traditional fun, just as they have had for 200 years:



Seeing such defiance of over-reaching, officious bureaucratic authority by ordinary people is encouraging.

It's Kinder Than "Because We SAY So, That's Why!"

If we ever do lose our freedom in the US, you can be sure that the excuse for taking it will be for "health and safety" reasons.

Yet another cautionary tale from the UK.

UK: Health & Safety Silliness of the Day

Butchers at the Sainsbury supermarket chain aren't allowed to use knives to de-bone joints of meat because of health and safety regulations.

So the alternative is for the customer either to live with the bone in the meat, or perhaps try to de-bone it herself, which you think would be much more of a risk to "health and safety" than a professional with 30 years' experience cutting the meat...

Thus the nanny state infantalizes adults more and more each day.

Death By "'Elf And Safety"

A woman in UK who fell down a mine shaft was left down there for 6 hours because firefighters with both the equipment and training were barred by health and safety regulation from rescuing her.

Jesus wept.

They're A Menace To Society, They Are

Those gravestones; they just stand around waiting to fall on people. We mustn't have that.

UK's ridiculous "'elf and safety" regulations cause 181 gravestones in a churchyard to be uprooted and laid flat on the ground.

UK: Let's Put Cigarettes In Plain White Wrappers

That will discourage smoking, surely.

An idea I had a long time ago was for a cigarette maker to start a new brand of cigarettes called Coffin Nails, with a coffin shown on the packaging and a celebrity spokeskeleton for advertising; advertise the hell out of them and watch them become the #1 brand of cigarettes on the market.