It has been reported that New York City Mayor Michael “So Rich Nothing Really Matters Anymore” Bloomberg intends to seek a ban on selling soda in containers larger than 16 ounces. This of course is a ban on drinking soda and not baking soda, which is not to be confused with baking powder, which is almost like cornstarch, but not really. And of course, when I speak of cornstarch it is not to be confused with ironing starch, though I’ve heard you can use cornstarch to iron your shirts which goes a long way in explaining why the leaves on corn stalks are so crisp and wrinkle-free.

The problem is that soda is proven as maybe being perhaps suspected as a somewhat potential corollary to possible weight gain. The correlation becomes much stronger however, and makes the leap to causation when combined with a lifetime of motionlessness and a regular diet of double chili-cheese dogs. This is why Mayor Michael “More Money Than You” Bloomberg, who himself regularly wears starched shirts and is an anti-obesity advocate, has decided that any serving size over 16 ounces is dangerous to the health of New Yorkers and is thus to be shunned like a blue-collar worker in the Biden family.

For those uninitiated, soft drinks traditionally come in three sizes: small, medium, and large. But not always. There is a certain coffee establishment, whose name shall go unmentioned but rhymes with ‘Marbuck’s’ who has bucked this trend and developed their own size names so their customers can feel educated and relevant and laugh at first-time visitors. Their small is called a ‘tall,’ which doesn’t make any sense because it‘s so short that if there is any coffee in it at all there is no room for any additives to make it tolerable. From there the sizes get progressively larger and are known as ‘grande,’ ‘venti,’ ‘sleepy,’ and ‘doc.’

Normally, the 16-ounce version of a drink is referred to as a ‘medium’ and is equal to two cups or one pound, which if you took it to England and exchanged it for cash would be about $1.58. A large is generally limited to 20 ounces and is big enough for the average glutton, but there is an alarming trend among establishments where they serve even larger sizes such as ‘extra large’ or ‘bladder buster’ or ‘swimming pool.’

Mayor Michael “What’s Your Cup Size?” Bloomberg seems to think that all sugary beverages over 16 ounces are evil giants and the bane of New York, not to be confused with the Bain of Boston, the evil giant where incessantly perennial presidential candidate Mitt “Almost As Rich As Bloomberg” Romney acquired his own considerable soft-drink purchasing power.

This ban has raised some eyebrows among narrow-minded radical libertarians and money-grubbing soft-drink executives who ignorantly seem to think that average citizens are capable of choosing for themselves what to consume. They also seem to think that Mayor Michael “Are You My Mother?“ Bloomberg is just jumping on the banwagon of ridiculous city bans, joining the likes of LA’s plastic bag ban, Portland’s Perfume Ban, and Worcester’s J. Geils Ban. These criticisms, however, are little more than politically or economically motivated rhetoric and blatantly ignore the simple fact that Mayor Michael “I Have No Idea What I’m Doing” Bloomberg has no idea what he’s doing.

As proof that the good mayor has no idea what he is doing, I offer up New York’s “Stop and Frisk” policy that has made so much of the news unbearable lately. Under this policy, if a New York City policemen happens to see a citizen with a ‘suspicious bulge’ on their person, they are allowed of their own authority to randomly stop and frisk them for Big Gulps. Citizens are literally up in arms about the policy shouting things like, “Fourth Amendment!” and “Why are so many policemen loitering around the Ford Modeling Agency?”

But this is the best idea he’s got. This is why Mayor Michael “Constitution Schmonstitution” Bloomberg and his foundation have recently posted an offer of $9 million in cash and prizes for good ideas that local governments can use to solve their problems. So while waiting for my Snuggie to arrive in the mail for my winning idea that he resign, I have come up with something new potentially worth at least a new Cuisinart: a city wide ban on all city wide bans–a ban ban, if you will.

While this is a brilliant idea borne of genius, I admittedly see a couple of problems. The first and most obvious is that a ban ban would tend to be confused with the beloved Flintstones character, Bam-Bam who, thanks to today’s zero-tolerance laws, is locked up somewhere in cartoon juvy.

A second problem is the never-ending chain of movements that would no doubt result from political groups who prefer to eschew logic in an attempt to gain power. First there would be a movement to ban the ban ban, then there would be a movement to ban the ban ban ban, followed by a movement to ban the ban ban ban ban and so on in a dangerous downward spiral of verb-adjective-noun homonym perplexity:

“What do we want?”
“Ban the ban ban ban ban ban ban ban ban ban ban ban ban ban ban!”
“When do we want it?”
“Now!”

Or maybe I’ll just forget the whole thing and go for a dip in my Pepsi.

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Update:  The soda size ban has been banned by the courts; it’s a ban ban.  What?  Freedom to choose over paternalism?  Radical, I know.  Luckily Bloomberg has vowed to push for a ban ban ban.