A toy in the box has been a staple of American foods since we can remember. How many of us ruthlessly hunted in the battleground of a cereal box until we scored our prey? The Happy Meal is the logical progression of this, except it has burgers and fries instead of Lucky Charms. But the toy remains the same.

Until now. Apparently some angry Santa Clara County supervisors must have had terrible childhood memories because they approved an ordinance to ban toys in fast-food meals.

“Hoping again to be a pioneer in promoting healthier eating, Santa Clara County supervisors on Tuesday approved the nation’s first ordinance that would prevent restaurants from using toys to lure kids to meals high in fat, sugar and calories.

“Under the ordinance, restaurants would not be able to offer toys for kids’ meals that exceed certain nutritional standards — more than 485 total calories, for instance, or more than 600 milligrams of sodium. That means, at Wendy’s, four chicken nuggets, mandarin oranges and low-fat milk would get a toy. But the crispy chicken sandwich, fries and chocolate milk would not.”

Um, we’re sorry to break it to you, but the toys only bring in the adults – it’s the fries that keep the kids coming. Just saying.

The ordinance only applies to a handful of restaurants in certain areas and small pockets of the county; restaurants within city limits are unaffected, and has to go to a final vote on May 11 before it is final.

We feel this is only a publicity stunt. Certainly Santa Clara county is doing this with our children’s best interests in mind, but there are other things they can do instead of taking the toy away, like create a promote a healthy lifestyle, increase after-school activities for kids, and improve the meals in the school lunchroom. All this stunt does is give sites like us something to write about and empowers other ill-informed politicians across the country to waste more taxpayer dollars on similar initiatives.

I think a bigger problem is the possibility we are contaminating an entire alien planet. It’s not enough we ruin the Earth, now we’re starting on Mars in the worst possible way. Researchers from NASA say bacteria from earth could be hitching a ride on our spacecraft, and inadvertently contaminating the Red Planet we all have dreams of visiting once in our lifetimes.

“Even though NASA and other space agencies do sterilize spacecraft in an effort to reduce the chance of contamination to other bodies in our solar system, recent studies have shown that microbial species are likely still hitching a ride. And in what might be a more-harm-than-good scenario, the sterile nature of spacecraft assembly facilities ensures that only the most resilient species survive, including acinetobacter, bacillus, escherichia, staphylococcus and streptococcus. So we’re likely sending the worst of the worst kinds of bacteria, at least by human standards.”

This could result in three possible ways. One: We might contaminate and destroy all existing alien life forms on Mars. Two: As the bacteria interact and evolve on Mars, we might create a life form more deadly than anything we’ve ever seen – something like the face huggers, perhaps. Or three: We might just tick off the aliens which already live there to come to Earth and get some payback. Gee, let’s give aliens one more reason to conquer and colonize our planet. Just have the 3D cameras ready, Hollywood.

Lastly, a study from the NPD group found portable gaming habits in children aged 4 – 14 are up 8% from when the study began in 2005. Now before the Santa Clara superiors try to ban gaming in public too, let’s think about this. The rise in portable gaming could actually be a good thing for kids. Many kids share daily commutes with their parents to and from day care and school due to the increase in dual-income families. With so many entertainment options being made available in the car to kids these days – DVD players, iPods, iPhones – a Nintendo DS or Sony PSP is a logical extension of these devices. What this also means is that kids aren’t wasting time in front of the TV when they should be studying or exercising, they are simply filling the downtime.

The other positive is all games are not destructive; they can be educational or provide other developmental benefits. There are several titles age-appropriate for younger children on the DS, and both Leapfrog and Vtech have portable products filling the “games-as-educational” need. And generally, the simplicity of the technology on the DS is more akin to the games we parents played as kids, where innovation and creativity trumped graphic and gratuitous violence. One can argue the Pokémon games don’t necessarily provide any educational value, but it would be hard to justify why they are bad for you.

Here are the other top stories of the day:

No Jokey: Paul Reubens Joins ‘Smurf’ Film [Deadline.com]

Imax, Warner Bros. pact on 20-film deal [The Hollywood Reporter]

How to Plan the Ultimate Star Wars Girl’s Birthday Party [Parenting Pink]