I’ve always maintained that the government does tens of thousands of things for you that you have no idea they do. I’m pretty on top of these things, and there are thousands of things that the government does for me that I’m not aware of so it must be in the tens of thousands for people who believe that government does nothing for them. Libertarians in particular, seem to have a difficult time with believing this. One might conclude that they simply can’t bring themselves to believe in something they can’t see, except that they cling on to their unicorn of Austrian economics like it’s the precious blankie that kept them so safe when they were (yes, I’ve generously chosen to use the past tense) infants.
But I digress. Brain eating amoebas. The government takes care of them for you so that you don’t have to worry about it. I came across this story about St. John the Baptist Parish in Louisiana, where a four year old died as a result of these brain eating amoebas (known by their much less fun scientific name: naegleria fowleri). The CDC (that dreaded government entity that is constantly intruding in our lives) determined that the problem was the amoebas in the water system. Apparently, someone was misreporting the chlorine levels in the water to DHH (the dreaded department of health and human services) and claiming that the required levels of chlorine were present. The actual level of chlorine in the water was zero. So a child died because government regulations weren’t being adhered to. Damned big government!
Anyway, big government in Louisiana has mandated an increase in chlorine into the water supply for the next 60 days. This should kill the amoebas completely and prevent anymore easily preventable deaths. Damned big government!
But overall, this is good news Louisiana. We finally have an answer to one of Louisiana’s most confounding questions, "where the fuck did our idiot governor come from?" Since we now have confirmation that he probably crawled out of your unclean water, we know how to prevent the next infection.
