Via SayUncle

In Chicago, some idiot named Robert Fioretti wants to ban little plastic bags because that's where drug users put drugs. In other news, that's what the Uncle family puts carrots, school lunch items, small gun parts, and all those extra rubberbands in.

It seems like we go through this every year. Last week the Virginia Senate passed the Smoke Free Air Act that prohibits smoking pretty much any place a person might wander. The senate was good enough to except private residences and cars.

[snark]
Won't Virginia be great! I can light up a cigar in my own living room without worrying about jack booted thugs beating down my door to snuff me out. Thats freedom!
[/snark]

I'm not sure what chance this bill has of passing the House. But eventually it will be illegal to smoke pretty much everywhere. Incrementalism has killed smoking, which is a damn shame. I'm not an avid smoker and couldn't care less about cigarettes or smokers. But we did balance all our budgets on cigarette taxes, which means that as the smokers stop buying ciggies the tax man is gonna come after us.

And of course if the first temperence movement is any guide, prohibition will lead to crime, and crime will lead to gun control.

And perhaps most important, nobody should stand idly by and watch legislators negate property rights like this. Private property doesn't seem to matter to these people. So long as your place is "frequented by the public", they think they can tell you what to do with it.

If Republicans force Larry Craig out of office, I'm writing off the party as a bunch of spineless bible thumpers. Being gay is not a crime, nor are sexual flings. Bitter says it best:

Looking for someone to have sex with is not illegal. If it were, every bar, nightclub, dating website, speed dating event, and frat house would have to be shut down.

"As we slide down the slippery slope, future smoke bans will include cars (where children are present), private homes (where children and/or employees may be present), and eventually outdoors (where smoke is free to roam where anyone might be present)." -- Ravenwood, 11/10/2005

Under a City Council proposal, New York City would prohibit smoking in cars where children are riding, joining the ranks of Arkansas, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, Bangor, Me., and Rockland County, N.Y., where similar legislation has been passed. -- New York Times, 08/15/2007

Senate and House Democrats are falling all over each other to see who can be first to destroy the U.S. cigar industry. Dueling bills in the Senate and House would raise the tax on cigars to fund healthcare programs for "children". And as usual Congresses definition of "children" is being relaxed to include adults as old as 25 and illegal aliens.

Rather than tax diapers, toys, video games or other child accouterments, Democrats are adopting a "from each according to their ability" strategy. They plan to raise the maximum tax on a cigar from $1 per cigar to a whopping $10 per cigar. Low-end cigar prices would likely triple.

Not only will the U.S. cigar industry be decimated, but the cigar industry in many Latin American countries like the Dominican Republic will also suffer.

Adding insult to injury Democrats from Florida (the home of the American cigar industry) are actually pushing for the tax hike. Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) and freshman Delegate Kathy Castor are both in favor of the bill because it's for the children. Castor has gone so far as to lead the Democrat charge rather than support the constituents of her Tampa district (the U.S. cigar capital).

What is most ironical perhaps, is that the tax hike will actually do more to harm the children (and 25 year old illegal aliens) than help them. The taxes are so prohibitive that many people would simply stop smoking cigars. Cigars are not addictive like cigarettes, and cigar smoking would certainly decline.

Die-hard cigar enthusiasts would resort to buying bootlegged cigars or using Al Gore's internet to have smokes shipped in from low-tax countries like Spain. That means nobody will be left to fund the $8 Billion votes for health care program that Democrats and some Republicans are planning. And as long as you're buying cigars from overseas, you might as well support Castro's Cuba and pick up some of the people's cigars.

"...without monetary damages, all the fed can do is limit [cigarette] marketing or demand that [tobacco companies] fund more of those lame anti-smoking advertisements (which I tend to think actually increases teen smoking)." -- Ravenwood, February 7, 2005.

"I've long theorized that anti-smoking commercials were not only counter-productive, but were really a clever plot to increase smoking. Especially those annoying 'think' commercials that say things like 'smokers are idiots' and 'can anyone tell me why these dumbasses smoke'." -- Ravenwood, May 15, 2006.

"Youngsters 12 to 17 were less likely to see smoking as harmful and had stronger intentions to smoke after the airing of television ads that urged parents to talk to their children about not lighting up, according to the study to be published in December in the American Journal of Public Health." -- Washington Post, November 1, 2006.

"The more exposure middle school students have to anti-smoking ads, the more likely they are to smoke, according to a new University of Georgia study." -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 19, 2007.

Yet another frivolous lawsuit. This time a Detroit city worker is suing to ban perfume from office buildings.

An employee in the Detroit planning department who claims she is severely sensitive to perfumes and other cosmetics has sued the city, saying a co-worker's strong fragrance prohibits her from working. Susan McBride's lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit, says the work environment is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. She wants a ban on such scents at work — and unspecified damages.

While lewd sex and graphic language are no longer taboo in movies smoking soon will be. The MPAA has decided to begin giving movies that feature smoking a higher rating than those that don't.

The MPAA says that for the first time film depictions of cigarette smoking will number among criteria used by its ratings board to determine how a movie is rated.

Anti-tobacco lobbyists have been pressing for an automatic "R" rating for films with smoking scenes, but MPAA chairman-CEO Dan Glickman on Thursday rejected that proposal and said a more nuanced policy will be implemented.

I've long felt that the PG-13 rating and a crack down on kids sneaking into R-rated movies by theater owners has ruined Hollywood. It seems like 11 out of 12 movies are rated PG-13, and R-rated flicks are routinely cut down to receive a PG-13 rating.

Economics rule the day and if Hollywood can make more money with PG-13 films than R films, they're going to do it. Personally, I think movie makers should be as realistic as possible and not compromise artistic principles.

Could you imagine Pulp Fiction without Bad Motherfucker Samuel L. Jackson? How about a Winston Churchill biopic receiving an R rating because of Churchill's prominent cigar, or filmmakers removing the cigar altogether? (I mean, they're called Churchills.) The MPAA policy change means that smoking may soon disappear from movies.

What's next? Fast food?

Literally:

"The Nazi party barred smoking in many public places, including party offices and waiting rooms. Note the negroid head on the cigar; Nazi antitobacco activists tried to characterize smoking as the vice of degenerate Africans."

(Via Rush)

You can't even smoke at home anymore.

From California to Maine, at least 36 public housing authorities have made their apartments smoke-free, says Jim Bergman, director of the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project.

Such policies are not unusual in private dwellings. The trend has accelerated in government-subsidized rentals in the past year.

Housing officials say they made the change to protect non-smoking tenants from secondhand smoke, prevent cigarette fires and reduce the cost of rehabbing smokers' apartments.

I had thought that people were generally pro-choice. But for some reason, when it comes to smoking there is no choice. If you want to enjoy a cigarette or cigar in the privacy of your own home, too bad. This is majority (mob) rule and non-smokers have voted themselves the right to not have to smell your stinky ass.

As we slide down the slippery slope, future smoke bans will include cars (where children are present), private homes (danger to children, employees, "fire hazard" to your neighbors), and eventually outdoors (where smoke is free to roam where anyone might be present).

So why should you care what happens to smokers and their stinky habit? Well, here is just a sampling of my reasons:

This is my body. There are many like it, but this one is mine. And any sort of nagging bullshit about what I can and can't put into it is wrong. This week it's smoking, next week it'll be drinking and fast food. These whiny little piss-ants aren't man enough to walk up and tell you to your face, instead they use the police power of the government to try to run your life. If you think I shouldn't have that extra roll, why don't you come over and try taking it off my plate? I'd like to see you try.

It's all about freedom of choice. People have a wide selection of smoking and non-smoking environments from which to choose. But that's not good enough for some people. They want all restaurants/homes/buildings to be non-smoking, just in case they some day might want to go there. Never mind what the property owner wants, his rights don't count.

Temperance leads to crime which leads to death. In New York City where a single packet of cigarettes cost $7, gangs are killing each other over the selling of buttlegged cigarettes. It's big business on the street, and fights can break out over selling on the wrong street corner or at the wrong price. Teenagers just trying to make a buck have been gun downed for undercutting the prices of the local street thugs.

Temperance leads to crime which leads to bigger government. Many of today's gun laws can trace their roots right back to the temperance movement. Prohibition of alcohol lead directly to the National Firearms Act of 1934, and the horrible RICO statutes wherein nearly anything can be prosecuted as a conspiracy to commit organized crime. Then there's the whole Drug Enforcement Administration which was stood up 30 years ago to arrest people for violating the various temperance laws. Currently the DEA has offices across the globe and costs Billions (with a B) of dollars to maintain.

Temperance leads to crime which leads to terrorism. With a huge profit motive and all these dollars flowing around, much of the money eventually finds it's way into the hands of terrorists. You may think that buying bootlegged smokes is a victimless crime and that you're only sticking it to the government, but you may be inadvertently funding the next terror attack. Terrorists need money to do what they do, and they aren't above using our own temperance laws against us.

Over-regulation leads to under-regulation. When prohibition of alcohol took affect, your average Joe didn't think twice about civil disobedience. Speak-easies popped up and alcohol was available for anyone with the money to buy it. The price went up, the quality went down, and any of the laws that controlled product quality or safety were moot.

As neo-temperance takes hold people will gradually start to ignore anti-smoking laws. That is, when cigarettes are outlawed only outlaws will have cigarettes. When that happens, the government will be powerless to control what goes into cigarettes. They could become more harmful, even deadly depending on how cheaply they're produced. Laws governing the nicotine, tar, and carcinogens produced from tobacco will be worthless.

And what about the children? There will be no way to limit access to cigarettes. All those age-limits that anti-smokers pushed through a few years back will be negated once cigarettes are sold in mass quantities on the streets. By over-regulating the product, they'll actually increase it's availability to minors. The only thing between a child and a cigarette will be the conscience of the dealer.

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Neo-temperance is inevitable and it's coming to Virginia. Since the Virginia Legislature won't force businesses to throw smokers out into the streets, the city of Alexandria will use zoning laws to do so. Virginia has a Dillon Rule meaning they cannot pass laws more restrictive than state law. But they do control zoning, and smoking is about to become a criteria for zoning permits. (More evidence that this is about property rights rather than smoking.)

"This is something we all wanted," said Mayor William D. Euille (D). "It would be nice if the state would mandate and make it happen. But obviously they're passing the buck on this . . . so we need to move forward to do what we need to do, and we found the loophole to do it."

Euille said the city's proposal was a result of "creative, outside-the-box" thinking.

Alexandria would seize control of the smoking issue with such mundane tools as use permits. When a bar or restaurant came to the city to request a permit, the city would require it to be smoke-free before granting the permit. Restaurants that have permits must agree to go smoke-free in three months or risk future restrictions or even closure.

Virginia did pass an asinine law that requires businesses that allow smoking to post a huge sign saying so. The theory is that restaurants will ban smoking rather than post a sign and risk losing business now that customers know beforehand that smoking is permitted. (Us non-smokers are apparently too stupid to figure it out without a big sign.)

I had thought that people were generally pro-choice. But for some reason, when it comes to smoking there is no choice. If you want to enjoy a cigarette or cigar after a nice expensive meal, too bad. Smokers don't have any rights, and neither do business owners who want to tap that market.

As we slide down the slippery slope, future smoke bans will include cars (where children are present), private homes (where children and/or employees may be present), and eventually outdoors (where smoke is free to roam where anyone might be present).

So why should a non-smoker care what happens to smokers and their stinky habit? Well, here is just a sampling of my reasons:

This is my body. There are many like it, but this one is mine. And any sort of nagging bullshit about what I can and can't put into it is wrong. This week it's smoking, next week it'll be drinking and fast food. These whiny little piss-ants aren't man enough to walk up and tell you to your face, instead they use the police power of the government to try to run your life. If you think I shouldn't have that extra roll, why don't you come over and try taking it off my plate? I'd like to see you try.

It's all about freedom of choice. People have a wide selection of smoking and non-smoking restaurants from which to choose. But that's not good enough for some people. They want all restaurants to be non-smoking, just in case they some day might want to eat there. Never mind what the property owner wants, his rights don't count.

Temperance leads to crime which leads to death. In New York City where a single packet of cigarettes cost $7, gangs are killing each other over the selling of buttlegged cigarettes. It's big business on the street, and fights can break out over selling on the wrong street corner or at the wrong price. Teenagers just trying to make a buck have been gun downed for undercutting the prices of the local street thugs.

Temperance leads to crime which leads to bigger government. Many of today's gun laws can trace their roots right back to the temperance movement. Prohibition of alcohol lead directly to the National Firearms Act of 1934, and the horrible RICO statutes wherein nearly anything can be prosecuted as a conspiracy to commit organized crime. Then there's the whole Drug Enforcement Administration which was stood up 30 years ago to arrest people for violating the various temperance laws. Currently the DEA has offices across the globe and costs Billions (with a B) of dollars to maintain.

Temperance leads to crime which leads to terrorism. With a huge profit motive and all these dollars flowing around, much of the money eventually finds it's way into the hands of terrorists. You may think that buying bootlegged smokes is a victimless crime and that you're only sticking it to the government, but you may be inadvertently funding the next terror attack. Terrorists need money to do what they do, and they aren't above using our own temperance laws against us.

Over-regulation leads to under-regulation. When prohibition of alcohol took affect, your average Joe didn't think twice about civil disobedience. Speak-easies popped up and alcohol was available for anyone with the money to buy it. The price went up, the quality went down, and any of the laws that controlled product quality or safety were moot.

As neo-temperance takes hold people will gradually start to ignore anti-smoking laws. That is, when cigarettes are outlawed only outlaws will have cigarettes. When that happens, the government will be powerless to control what goes into cigarettes. They could become more harmful, even deadly depending on how cheaply they're produced. Laws governing the nicotine, tar, and carcinogens produced from tobacco will be worthless.

And what about the children? There will be no way to limit access to cigarettes. All those age-limits that anti-smokers pushed through a few years back will be negated once cigarettes are sold in mass quantities on the streets. By over-regulating the product, they'll actually increase it's availability to minors. The only thing between a child and a cigarette will be the conscience of the dealer.

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"...without monetary damages, all the fed can do is limit [cigarette] marketing or demand that [tobacco companies] fund more of those lame anti-smoking advertisements (which I tend to think actually increases teen smoking)." -- Ravenwood, February 7, 2005.

"I've long theorized that anti-smoking commercials were not only counter-productive, but were really a clever plot to increase smoking. Especially those annoying 'think' commercials that say things like 'smokers are idiots' and 'can anyone tell me why these dumbasses smoke'." -- Ravenwood, May 15, 2006.

"Youngsters 12 to 17 were less likely to see smoking as harmful and had stronger intentions to smoke after the airing of television ads that urged parents to talk to their children about not lighting up, according to the study to be published in December in the American Journal of Public Health." -- Washington Post, November 1, 2006.

One of the reasons I stand up for smoker's rights is because I know that the pleasure police will not stop at banning cigarettes. And sure enough New York City health officials are gearing up for their war on fried foods. The first target is banning trans-fat oils and margarines from city restaurants. This would force restaurants to change they way they cook common everyday foods like french fries or fried chicken.

Doctors are getting to be as bad as lawyers, scientists, and researchers at spreading fear, uncertainty, and doom.

Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard University School of Public Health, praised New York health officials for considering a ban, which he said could save lives.

"Artificial trans fats are very toxic, and they almost surely causes tens of thousands of premature deaths each year," he said. "The federal government should have done this long ago."

My first thought is, what gives the government the right to use the threat of lethal force to dictate how french fries are cooked? If Tom wants to sell fried chicken to Harry, why does the government get to interfere? And how big of a leap will it be for the government to start telling Harry how to cook his own food at home?

"The health effects of secondhand smoke exposure are more pervasive than we previously thought. The scientific evidence is now indisputable: secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance. It is a serious health hazard that can lead to disease and premature death in children and nonsmoking adults." -- U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona

Color me skeptical, but "indisputable". That's the same bullshit attitude the global warming alarmists use. As if it's proven scientific fact that secondhand smoke causes cancer. Despite the fact that after a 7 year exhaustive study, the World Health Organization could not show a conclusive link between the two.

What is almost indisputable is that the average doctor is typically anti-smoking, anti-gun, anti-fried food, anti-fun, yadda yadda yadda.

In Howard County Maryland, 83% of restaurants and bars already prohibited smoking. But thats not enough for anti-smokers. They don't want anyone smoking, anywhere. Period.

And so, Howard County becomes just the latest Maryland county to violate private property rights and outlaw smoking in restaurants and bars. What's even more dispicable is that the government had forced restaurants to invest in seperate, ventilated smoking areas per a 1996 smoking ban. This may help explain why smoking was only allowed in 17% of area restaurants. By this time next year, those investments are all for naught.

Council member Charles C. Feaga (R-West County), who voted against the measure along with Council Chairman Christopher J. Merdon (R-Northeast County), said the ban was unfair to businesses that spent hundreds of thousand of dollars to create separate smoking areas.

"We promised people that if they put in the extra ventilation equipment, they would be okay. Now we're just cutting them off and telling them we know better than them about their business," Feaga said. "I just think that government is being too much of a Big Brother."

I had thought that people were generally pro-choice. But for some reason, when it comes to smoking there is no choice. If you want to enjoy a cigarette or cigar after a nice expensive meal, too bad. Smokers don't have any rights, and neither do business owners who want to tap that market.

As we slide down the slippery slope, future smoke bans will include cars (where children are present), private homes (where children and/or employees may be present), and eventually outdoors (where smoke is free to roam where anyone might be present).

So why should a non-smoker care what happens to smokers and their stinky habit? Well, here is just a sampling of my reasons:

This is my body. There are many like it, but this one is mine. And any sort of nagging bullshit about what I can and can't put into it is wrong. This week it's smoking, next week it'll be drinking and fast food. These whiny little piss-ants aren't man enough to walk up and tell you to your face, instead they use the police power of the government to try to run your life. If you think I shouldn't have that extra roll, why don't you come over and try taking it off my plate? I'd like to see you try.

It's all about freedom of choice. People have a wide selection of smoking and non-smoking restaurants from which to choose. But that's not good enough for some people. They want all restaurants to be non-smoking, just in case they some day want to eat there. Never mind what the property owner wants, his rights don't count.

Temperance leads to crime which leads to death. In New York City where a single packet of cigarettes cost $7, gangs are killing each other over the selling of buttlegged cigarettes. It's big business on the street, and fights can break out over selling on the wrong street corner or at the wrong price. Teenagers just trying to make a buck have been gun downed for undercutting the prices of the local street thugs.

Temperance leads to crime which leads to bigger government. Many of today's gun laws can trace their roots right back to the temperance movement. Prohibition of alcohol lead directly to the National Firearms Act of 1934, and the horrible RICO statutes wherein nearly anything can be prosecuted as a conspiracy to commit organized crime. Then there's the whole Drug Enforcement Administration which was stood up 30 years ago to arrest people for violating the various temperance laws. Currently the DEA has offices across the globe and costs Billions (with a B) of dollars to maintain.

Temperance leads to crime which leads to terrorism. With a huge profit motive and all these dollars flowing around, much of the money eventually finds it's way into the hands of terrorists. You may think that buying bootlegged smokes is a victimless crime and that you're only sticking it to the government, but you may be inadvertently funding the next terror attack. Terrorists need money to do what they do, and they aren't above using our own temperance laws against us.

Over-regulation leads to under-regulation. When prohibition of alcohol took affect, your average Joe didn't think twice about civil disobedience. Speak-easies popped up and alcohol was available for anyone with the money to buy it. The price went up, the quality went down, and any of the laws that controlled product quality or safety were moot. As neo-temperance takes hold people will gradually start to ignore anti-smoking laws. That is, when cigarettes are outlawed only outlaws will have cigarettes. When that happens, the government will be powerless to control what goes into cigarettes. They could become more harmful, even deadly depending on how cheaply they're produced. Laws governing the nicotine, tar, and carcinogens produced from tobacco will be worthless. And what about the children? There will be no way to limit access to cigarettes. All those age-limits that anti-smokers pushed through a few years back will be negated once cigarettes are sold in mass quantities on the streets. By over-regulating the product, they'll actually increase it's overall availability. The only thing between a child and a cigarette will be the conscience of the dealer.

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Lawrence Kansas is considering a complete ban on talking in cars. Well, talking on a cell phone that is. Whereas most bans require a hands-free kit or ear bud, in the Lawrence ban not even hands-free kits would be allowed. Proponents of the measure say that it's the conversation that's distracting, not the phone itself.

You can ban cell phones if you want, but people are still gonna have accidents. The real problem with car accidents is the drivers. You ban drivers and the accident rate drops to zero almost immediately.

Of course all that assumes that people actually obey the ban. In New York, that's not the case.

A study of the New York state ban found that hand-held cell phone use by drivers dropped by about half during the first months following the ban. But one year after the ban had been in place, hand-held cell phone usage among drivers had climbed to virtually the same rate as before the ban.

In Washington, D.C., though, hand-held cell phone usage went down about 50 percent following its ban and has remained below pre-ban levels. But enforcement activity in Washington, D.C., is aggressive. Tickets for cell phone violations there represent 8 percent of all moving violations compared with 4 percent in New York, according to studies compiled by the institute.

The difference is that none of the drivers in D.C. are D.C. residents. The Washington City Council is uses fines as a back-door commuter tax. Besides once you find good parking in D.C., you never move your car again any way.

In related ban-news, the lovely Bitter reports that the City of Minneapolis wants to ban "strangers" from "walking in alleys".

I've long theorized that anti-smoking commercials were not only counter-productive, but were really a clever plot to increase smoking. Especially those annoying 'think' commercials that say things like "smokers are idiots" and "can anyone tell me why these dumbasses smoke". (to look cool.. Duh!)

Well, the lovely Bitter Bitch points out that throwing money at the drug problem is actually increasing drug use.

Teenagers exposed to anti-marijuana public service announcements (PSAs) produced by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) are more likely to hold positive attitudes about the drug and are more likely to express their intent to use cannabis after viewing the advertisements, according to a study published in the May issue of the journal Addictive Behaviors.

Of course, you need to consider the source.

Heh.

"A small Easter display was removed from the City Hall lobby on Wednesday out of concern that it would offend non-Christians," the Associated Press reports from St. Paul, Minn.:

The display--a cloth Easter bunny, pastel-colored eggs and a sign with the words "Happy Easter"--was put up by a City Council secretary. They were not purchased with city money.

Tyrone Terrill, the city's human rights director, asked that the decorations be removed.

Well, this certainly makes sense. After all, everyone knows the Easter Bunny is a Christian symbol, which has no place in the public square in St. Paul, a city named after--uh, we've forgotten. Does anyone know where St. Paul got its name.

Fairfax Virginia tried this a few years ago. Basically the cops are saying that being drunk is still a crime and there's no place better to catch a drunk than at a bar. Of course it's all done in the name of safety.

Being in a bar does not exempt one from the state laws against public drunkenness, [Alcoholic Beverage Commission Carolyn] Beck said.

The goal, she said, was to detain drunks before they leave a bar and go do something dangerous like drive a car.

Pre-emptive arrests; such a novel idea. I'm no legal scholar, but isn't driving a fundamental component of DWI? As long as people have a sober ride home, and aren't getting rowdy, what is the problem?

Those that push for socialized medicine (a/k/a Hillarycare) usually talk about health care as a basic civil right. But in England where government controlled health care is a reality, people are being turned away because of their bad habits.

People who are grossly overweight, who smoke heavily or drink excessively could be denied surgery or drugs following a decision by a Government agency yesterday.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) which advises on the clinical and cost effectiveness of treatments for the NHS, said that in some cases the "self-inflicted" nature of an illness should be taken into account.

So after making people dependent on the government, the next step is to tell them how to live their lives. I wonder if they consider AIDS to be self-inflicted and would deny treatment to those with promiscuous sexual behavior? Or for another matter, pregnancy. I'm not just talking about abortions, but natal care (that's 'child birf' to those of you who went to public skool). For the most part pregnancy is preventable, and perhaps taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill for people who can't keep their legs together.

The WHO and CDC have thus far been unable to prove that secondhand smoke causes cancer. But that hasn't stopped the neo-temperance movement. I've said for years that smoke bans were coming for cars and other private property for the children. New Jersey is stepping up to the plate.

Assembly bill 4306 would allow police to issue an extra $250 ticket to a smoking motorist who is pulled over for a primary offense such as speeding. The bill has the heavyweight support of the Assembly's majority leader, Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) and has been referred to the Assembly's Transportation Committee for consideration.

Driver distraction was also listed as a reason, but drivers would not be given points on their license.

Countertop thinks the .gov's priorities are out of whack. They're too busy to debate tax relief. Energy independence, who needs it? But preventing the sale of what's legal to give away, that's important.

The new federal law would grant state and local law enforcement agencies funds to investigate and prosecute the men -- brothel owners and pimps...

"You're out of luck," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), summing up the bill's message to the customers.

"The johns use and abuse these young women," said Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio). "And pimps -- you can call them slaveholders, the masters out in the field."

Prostitution is as old as marriage itself, and getting rid of it is impossible. But that doesn't stop Congress from trying. Their solution: throw money at the problem. Taxpayer money. Your money.

Last week the Washington D.C. City Council voted to nullify the rights of property owners. Smoking will be banned on all accessable private property except for "cigar bars, hotel rooms, retail tobacco outlets, outdoor dining areas and medical research institutions" reports the Associated Press.

The anti-smoke nazis usually claim that prohibiting smoking everywhere actually increases business in restaurants and bars. But that message seems to be lost on D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, who's worried about the impact on D.C.'s night life.

Lighting up in restaurants and bars would become illegal in the nation's capital under a smoking ban approved Tuesday by the city council, a move the mayor warned would send residents and tourists across the Potomac River to dine in more lenient suburbs.

"We should not impose a blanket ban on all of our restaurants," Mayor Anthony Williams said in a statement. "To do so puts the district at a competitive disadvantage."

So why not remain pro-choice and let the customers decide if they want to frequent smoking or non-smoking bars? In Chicago, anti-smokers are wrestling with the same dilema. They too want to tell people how to live their lives, but it's really hitting them in the pocketbook.

When I wrote about [bar owner Wendy Pick] in August, she was wrestling with her conscience. Should she continue to run a bar that abetted her customers in smoking themselves sick? Or should she forbid cigarettes, which might be as financially unhealthy as banning beer?

Gotta love the holier-than-thou attitude. Someone who peddles booze looking down her nose at smokers. She's not at all concerned about heart disease, alcoholism, or drunken driving. On top of that Pick knows that her self-imposed smoking ban is hurting her business. She's hoping to hold on until July 2008, when Chicago will begin using the police power of the government to force everyone else to ban smoking as well.

She feared that without a citywide smoking ban to "level the playing field," her smoking clients would take their money, as well as their Marlboros, elsewhere...

Since [she banned smoking], with clear lungs and a clean conscience, she's watched profits drop.

"We're not getting as many of the 'smoking's-not-going-to-hurt-me-I'm-young' crowd," she says. Some of the old-timers are gone, too, like the ardent pool player who complained about being forced outside to smoke in winter.

"I'm going to get pneumonia," he protested.

She thought he should be more worried about emphysema.

Ugh. Would you want to deal with this person? I bet if I ordered french fries she'd insist I eat steamed veggies instead. Working for her is apparently not much better.

Meanwhile, her bartenders are looking for extra work and trying to appreciate the bright side of fewer tips.

"When you go home, your clothes don't stink, and your eyes don't burn," [bartender Matt Wilson] said Thursday night. Then he amiably excused himself.

"We just got a rush."

A rush?

"Well," he said, "one person just came in."

Remember, it's about property rights and freedom of choice.

The Student Body President of one of America's premier party schools is pushing to punish students for exercising their Constitutionally protected freedom of expression. The Saudi Arabian national would make posing in Playboy a violation of the honor code.

Undergraduate Student Government President Yaser Alamoodi is hoping to pass a rule that would prohibit males and females from posing in magazines he believes are damaging to ASU's reputation.

"I was concerned to see logos and the name of ASU being associated with such magazines," he said. "I don't want the name of ASU to be a joke anymore, and I think the Playboy association is a big reason why the ASU academic reputation is not up to what it should be."

Under the proposed rule, students who posed would be punished by the rules set forth in the student code of conduct.

According to the code, any student who is found to violate the rules is subject to expulsion, suspension, probation, warning or payment of restitution.

Now, I haven't read *cough* a Playboy magazine in more than 10 years. But from what I remember of the magazine, the photos would only erect their reputation and show off ASU's valuable assets.

(via Taranto)

UPDATE: It looks like women are still free to show their goodies in Playboy, they just can't use the University logo, because that would reflect poorly on the University.

Cartoons are no stranger to political correctness. Many of the Looney Tunes are kept off the air or trimmed down when shown on TV. Now political correctness is even entering your home by way of the DVD sets you buy.

...I stopped to buy the third boxed set in the ''Looney Tunes Golden Collection.'' Loved the first two: Daffy, Bugs, Porky, beautifully restored, tons of special features. But, for some reason, this new set begins with a special announcement by Whoopi Goldberg explaining what it is we're not meant to find funny: ''Unfortunately at that time racial and ethnic differences were caricatured in ways that may have embarrassed and even hurt people of color, women and ethnic groups,'' she tells us sternly. ''These jokes were wrong then and they're wrong today'' -- unlike, say, Whoopi Goldberg's most memorable joke of recent years, the one at that 2004 all-star Democratic Party gala in New York where she compared President Bush to her, um, private parts. There's a gag for the ages.

I don't know what Whoopi's making such a meal about. It's true you don't see many positive images of people of color on ''Looney Tunes,'' but then the images of people of non-color aren't terribly positive either (Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam). Instead, you see positive images of ducks of color, roadrunners of color and tweety birds of color. How weirdly reductive to be so obsessed about something so peripheral to these cartoons that you stick the same damn Whoopi Goldberg health warning on all four DVDs in the box. And don't think about hitting the "Next" button and skipping to the cartoons: You can't; you gotta sit through it.

And of all the people to carry the message of decency and goodness, they pick Whoopi Goldberg. I guess Howard Stern was busy.

Some anti-smokers apparently think so:

Rob Reiner is opposing a California ballot initiative that would raise money for hospitals through a $1.50-a-pack cigarette tax hike. Reiner is worried that the initiative will threaten his pet project, the First 5 California program, a preschool enrichment boondoggle that relies on a 50-cent-a-pack tax hike approved by voters in 1998. "If the state increased cigarette taxes as proposed by the hospitals," the Associated Press notes, "purchases would inevitably decline as smokers shop elsewhere for lower prices or give up the habit. If fewer cigarettes are sold in the state, tax collections will decline. In turn, First 5 would receive less money."

Keep on smoking, folks. It's for the kids.

(Via Bitch Girls)

Beginning this week, bars in London will be able to stay open 24 hours if they so choose. Naturally the temperance crowd has their panties in a bind.

Mr. Blair and his ministers hope the relaxation of the drinking laws will lead to a European-style cafe culture in which patrons linger for hours over a bottle of wine as in Paris or Rome, or a couple of steins of beer as they do in Berlin.

But police, judges, doctors and other critics fear they will, instead, get a quantum leap in the binge drinking that -- along with loutish behavior, street fighting and related crimes -- already plagues the land.

I've always thought that people will drink and drive regardless of bar hours. (Does Las Vegas have more DUI convictions, and if so is it related to 24 hour operations?)

What's more, by not forcing people out the door all at the same time you'd think it'd actually make the roads safer on Friday and Saturday nights. Regardless of whether or not personal drink-driving choices are impacted by bar hours, the pleasure police will always push for more restrictions. Some colleges are actually banning alcohol from football games and tailgating.

Tradition is getting repeated tweaks almost everywhere. From such football and basketball powerhouses as Southern California and Kentucky to other Ivy League schools and lower-profile, lower-division institutions, college athletics is wrestling with its longstanding relationship with alcohol.

A USA Today survey of the 119 schools in the NCAA's major football-playing Division I-A found that nearly half (54) allow the sale of alcohol - through public concessions, in private suites or both - at one or more playing venues. Eighty-five of those schools have designated tailgating areas, and barely one in 10 tries to keep those zones alcohol-free.

Nor should they be trying to keep tailgating areas "alcohol-free". Someone needs to tell these people that not everyone drinks to get drunk, and those that do are not necessarily driving.

Scott Norvell notes that even art isn't spared by the anti-smokers.

Reuters reports that an actor on stage in Italy was forced to put out a cigarette he was smoking after a member of the audience complained loudly in the middle of the performance.

Sebastiano Lo Monaco was smoking, as per the script, during a peformance of Henry Miller's A View from the Bridge at at a theater in Mestre when the woman complained. After a 15-minute break, the performance resumed with a a non-smoking main character.

In January, Italy banned smoking in all enclosed public places.

I concede that they had to put out the cigarette to comply with the law. But I would have also thrown the bitch out for talking during the performance.

In case you missed it, publicity whore Michael Newdow who sued to prevent others from saying the Pledge of Allegiance in school is coming for our wallets. Well, our currency that is.

Michael Newdow, the atheist who continues his fight against the Pledge of Allegiance, will open a new front this week in his campaign to purge references to God from government.

He plans to file a lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, Calif., challenging the national motto: "In God We Trust."

Newdow wants to remove the phrase from U.S. paper money and coins because he believes it represents a government endorsement of religion.

"We are the nation that gave to the world the establishment that government should not endorse religion and everybody should be what they want," Newdow said. "And of all the possible choices, we go with the motto of 'In God We Trust,' which totally contradicts that tradition."

Newdow needs to get laid. If any of you ladies volunteer to do the deed though, just be careful not to scream "Oh God".

Sony is suspending production of CDs with anti-piracy software, after it was discovered that the software was being installed without the user's knowledge and transmitting information back to Sony without the user's knowledge. The announcement came after Homeland Security "official" Stewart Baker cautioned copyright owners about being too aggressive.

"It's very important to remember that it's your intellectual property, it's not your computer," Baker said at a trade conference on piracy. "And in the pursuit of protection of intellectual property, it's important not to defeat or undermine the security measures that people need to adopt in these days." [...]

Security researchers have described Sony's technology as "spyware," saying it is difficult to remove, transmits without warning details about what music is playing, and that Sony's notice to consumers about the technology was inadequate. Sony executives have rejected the description of their technology as spyware.

It was also discovered that hackers have been able to exploit Sony's anti-piracy technology to avoid detection. Sony cloaked their anti-piracy software to prevent the user from detecting it, and hackers were able to piggyback on that to avoid detection as well.

The County Council of Prince George's County (MD) unanimously voted to overturn property rights this week. They are mandating that business owners kick smokers out into the street. Next the anti-choice temperance movement will set their sites on the entire state of Maryland.

With the vote, Prince George's becomes Maryland's third county -- joining Montgomery and Talbot -- to pass such a ban. Howard County and the District will take up similar measures in the next few weeks. Proponents say yesterday's action could be a "tipping point" in the movement to secure passage of a statewide ban when the General Assembly reconvenes next year.

I had thought that people were generally pro-choice. But for some reason, when it comes to smoking there is no choice. If you want to enjoy a cigarette or cigar after a nice expensive meal, too bad. Smokers don't have any rights, and neither do business owners who want to tap that market.

As we slide down the slippery slope, future smoke bans will include cars (where children are present), private homes (where children and/or employees may be present), and eventually outdoors (where smoke is free to roam where anyone might be present).

So why should a non-smoker care what happens to smokers and their stinky habit? Well, here is just a sampling of my reasons:

This is my body. There are many like it, but this one is mine. And any sort of nagging bullshit about what I can and can't put into it is wrong. This week it's smoking, next week it'll be drinking and fast food. These whiny little piss-ants aren't man enough to walk up and tell you to your face, instead they use the police power of the government to try to run your life. If you think I shouldn't have that extra roll, why don't you come over and try taking it off my plate? I'd like to see you try.

It's all about freedom of choice. People have a wide selection of smoking and non-smoking restaurants from which to choose. But that's not good enough for some people. They want all restaurants to be non-smoking, just in case they some day want to eat there. Never mind what the property owner wants, his rights don't count.

Temperance leads to crime which leads to death. In New York City where a single packet of cigarettes cost $7, gangs are killing each other over the selling of buttlegged cigarettes. It's big business on the street, and fights can break out over selling on the wrong street corner or at the wrong price. Teenagers just trying to make a buck have been gun downed for undercutting the prices of the local street thugs.

Temperance leads to crime which leads to bigger government. Many of today's gun laws can trace their roots right back to the temperance movement. Prohibition of alcohol lead directly to the National Firearms Act of 1934, and the horrible RICO statutes wherein nearly anything can be prosecuted as a conspiracy to commit organized crime. Then there's the whole Drug Enforcement Administration which was stood up 30 years ago to arrest people for violating the various temperance laws. Currently the DEA has offices across the globe and costs Billions (with a B) of dollars to maintain.

Temperance leads to crime which leads to terrorism. With a huge profit motive and all these dollars flowing around, much of the money eventually finds it's way into the hands of terrorists. You may think that buying bootlegged smokes is a victimless crime and that you're only sticking it to the government, but you may be inadvertently funding the next terror attack. Terrorists need money to do what they do, and they aren't above using our own temperance laws against us.

Over-regulation leads to under-regulation. When prohibition of alcohol took affect, your average Joe didn't think twice about civil disobedience. Speak-easies popped up and alcohol was available for anyone with the money to buy it. The price went up, the quality went down, and any of the laws that controlled product quality or safety were moot. As neo-temperance takes hold people will gradually start to ignore anti-smoking laws. That is, when cigarettes are outlawed only outlaws will have cigarettes. When that happens, the government will be powerless to control what goes into cigarettes. They could become more harmful, even deadly depending on how cheaply they're produced. Laws governing the nicotine, tar, and carcinogens produced from tobacco will be worthless. And what about the children? There will be no way to limit access to cigarettes. All those age-limits that anti-smokers pushed through a few years back will be negated once cigarettes are sold in mass quantities on the streets. By over-regulating the product, they'll actually increase it's overall availability. The only thing between a child and a cigarette will be the conscience of the dealer.

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The neo-temperance movement marches on, and there is little anyone can do to stop it. The Washington Post reports that the D.C. lawmakers are smoking ban is imminent and soon all of Maryland will be "smoke free".

As a non-smoker, I have no problems with smoke-free restaurants. But I do take issue with the government mandating property owners to outlaw smoking. Business owners should be allowed to decide for themselves whether or not they want to cater to smokers. And non-smokers are free to choose whether or not they want to eat a restaurant based on it's smoking preferences. The idea that all restaurants should be smoke-free just in case they may some day want to eat there, is absurd.

Being a free state (and a tobacco state) the neo-temperance movement has thus far spared Virginia. Yet we still have a good selection of smoke-free restaurants to choose from.

In Virginia, where tobacco interests have long held political sway, a statewide ban on smoking in bars and restaurants seems unlikely anytime soon. And because the state's constitution generally forbids counties from passing laws more restrictive than the state's, local jurisdictions are hindered in efforts to pass anti-smoking measures. Still, in Alexandria, more than 50 restaurants have voluntarily agreed to ban smoking on their premises, according to city officials.

The free market works, imagine that. In the liberal la-la-land that is Maryland, misery loves company.

Even some Maryland restaurant and bar owners. . .tell lawmakers they'd be willing to live with a statewide ban if the District follows through with its own legislation, eliminating that competition.

So control only works when it's tried everywhere. That sounds a bit like the gun grabbers. In some parts of Maryland, business owners face a smoking ban yet again, even though they've already invested thousands of dollars to cater to non-smokers.[Howard County] Council member David A. Rakes (D-East Columbia) intends to submit legislation that grandfathers in establishments with sealed-off smoking areas.

"They've already spent so much money to comply with our old law that we shouldn't now change the rules on them," he said.And therein lies the slippery slope. When you allow lawmakers to take away a few of your rights, you have no guarantee that they won't soon be back for more.

The anti-smoking campaign started with airplanes. It has morphed into telling property owners that they cannot allow people to smoke on their property. Soon smoking bans will include private homes and vehicles, in the name of protecting the children.

And just like the alcohol prohibition of the 1920s and 30s, it will lead to more crime, more violence, and more limits on the law-abiding. Let's not forget that gun control was borne largely from the temperance movement.

Reader HighDesertDog sends this link about the anti-hunting and anti-gun crowd. As is typical they have a solution searching for a problem, and the "problem" is underage hunting. Recent photos of 8-year olds hunting has set the pleasure police out on a crusade.

When an 8-year-old girl made headlines last month by bagging the first black bear of the season, many Marylanders were surprised to learn the state has no minimum age limit for hunting. But for some families in rural areas such as Garrett County, learning to handle firearms is as much a part of childhood as losing one's baby teeth.

Hunting opponents aim to change that. The Humane Society of the United States is talking with state legislators about establishing a minimum hunting age of perhaps 16, said Heidi Prescott, the society's senior vice president of campaigns.

"A deer rifle can kill someone up to a mile away, and young adolescents lack the experience, judgment and emotional maturity to handle that kind of firepower safely," she said. "To send someone into the woods with a long-range weapon who�s not even mature enough to drive a car is an invitation to tragedy."

Of course the whole idea is to kill interest in hunting and guns altogether. Letting the animals become overpopulated is hardly humane, and it's dangerous to hunters and non-hunters alike. On the 240 mile drive back from Blacksburg this weekend, I saw no less than 10 dead deer that had been hit by cars.

Not to mention that waiting until your kid is 16 to teach proper gun safety is another kind of danger.

In their quest to purge society of all things 'men', the feminazis have gotten the term 'freshmen' expelled from one New Hampshire high school. Ninth graders will now be referred to simply as 'ninth graders', reports the Concord Monitor.

ARHS Assistant Principal Marta Guevara, who spearheaded the change, said the decision to move away from 'freshman' was a result of conversations among faculty that began after the controversial production of The Vagina Monologuestwo years ago.

"We want conversation, we want for kids to bring forward their thinking," said Guevara. "It's a great conversation to make them aware of the possible misogynistic, oppressive or non-inclusive language."

Guevara said such conversations could eventually mean doing away with all class terms, such as "junior,""senior," and "upperclassmen." These changes are not under discussion at this point.

[snarky] Yeah, and the Vagina Monologues certainly is inclusive of the male point of view. [/snarky]

Contra Costa County (Calif.) is planning to ban felons from owning dogs.

The Contra Costa County board of supervisors unanimously supported on Tuesday prohibiting convicted felons from owning any dog that is aggressive or weighs more than 20 pounds, making it all but certain the proposal will become law when it formally comes before the board for approval Nov. 15.

The legislation also treats law-abiding dog owners the same way they want to treat gun owners; calling for training, registration, safe storage, mandatory inspections, waiting periods, and presumably background checks to ensure you aren't a felon trying to buy a gun dog.

Under the new law, the county could require owners of dogs exhibiting certain behaviors to attend obedience classes, to keep the animals in secure confines that have been inspected, and to register their dogs with the county. Dogs that do not repeat egregious behavior for a three-year period would be eligible to have their "potentially dangerous" designation removed.

Contra Costa County's attempt to regulate ownership of dangerous dogs follows an effort to mandate spaying and neutering of pit bull and pit bull mixes and the signing of a new state law that allows local governments to pass such laws.

Dog aggressiveness actually has more to do with upbringing than breeding. Yes, the grip of a pit bull can be dangerous. But any dog can be aggressive, and no amount of breed specific legislation cannot prevent savage maulings like this.

It won't be a Happy Halloween at Underwood Elementary School in Newton (Mass.). They've cancelled Halloween to kowtow to the easily offended.

The school's principal said yesterday he acceded to the complaints of a handful of parents who said that because the school's traditional Halloween celebrations offended their religious beliefs, they would not send their children to school if the revelry continued this year.

"Not everyone is going to agree with the decision, and I really understand that," said principal David Castelline, , who last year grew a beard and dressed up as Johnny Damon. ''But I felt the goal was really important to make it a respectful and open and welcoming place for all members of our community."

Castelline, who met yesterday with the Parent Teacher Organization to explain his decision, said three teachers told him they had children in their classes who were not going to come to school if the Halloween celebration was held. The celebration, which has been going on for at least 14 years, involves teachers dressing up and lining the hallways and children making Halloween-related arts and crafts.

Maybe I just don't get it, but how is cancelling the event to cater to the sensibilities of the three sets of parents who are offended respectful to those who aren't? In trying to please everybody, they end up pleasing nobody.

Nobody seems to mind that companies are discriminating against smokers in the name of health care. But Wal-Mart - being Wal-Mart - is sure to catch hell for trying to make their employees to get a little more exercise:

An internal memo sent to the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. board proposes numerous ways to hold down health care and benefits costs with less harm to the retailer's reputation, including hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from seeking jobs, the New York Times said Wednesday...

To discourage unhealthy job applicants, the paper said, Chambers suggests Wal-Mart arrange for "all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering),"

The memo also proposed that employees pay more for their spouses' health insurance, called for cutting the company's 401(k) contributions to 3 percent of wages from 4 percent and for cutting company-paid life insurance policies.

Like I said before, picking on smokers is only the tip of the iceberg. As soon as you accept that they have an interest in how you live your life, they're going to start making you eat better, get more exercise, or whatever. The slippery slope is clear.

The newspaper publisher, Gannett, provides it's employees with health insurance benefits. They figure that entitles them to tell employees how to live their lives.

Gannett Co. Inc.'s employees this month are receiving a notice that tells them to kick their nicotine habit or pay an extra $50 for their health insurance each month next year.

The McLean-based publisher of USA Today and 98 other daily newspapers nationwide is the latest company to institute a smoking disincentive to encourage healthy lifestyles and curb rising health care costs.

"This is part of a health and wellness initiative the company started a few years ago," said spokeswoman Tara Connell. For the past two weeks, the media company has sent letters explaining the policy to its estimated 40,000 U.S. employees. The surcharge will go into effect in January.

So why just pick on smokers? As long as you're running people's lives why not make them pay a surcharge for exhibiting any reckless behavior? I'll repeat something I first said back in October 2002. Under the guise of decreasing insurance premiums, here are some other regulations they should impose:

No skydiving, water-skiing, motorcycling, hang gliding, or bungee jumping.
No reading or watching TV in the dark.
No going to loud rock concerts.
No running with scissors.
No burning candles after 9 PM.
Employee's homes must be properly equipped with bath mats.
No electrical outlets without a safety cover.
Employees must always use the handrail on the stairs.
Employees must wash hands, regardless of whether or not they are returning to work.
No frayed extension cords.
No answering the door without knowing who it is.
No talking to strangers.

Anyone caught participating in any of the listed activities without paying the surcharge should be fired on the spot.

Rob Smith is mad at MADD, and those that are congratulating the neo-temperance group for a job well done.

I really like THIS piece of "proof" about how effective that organization has been.

He rightly congratulates them on a job well done, noting drunk driving deaths are down more than 35% since the 80s. He goes on to tell us by the mid-90s the deaths began to level off, thus validating MADD's success in changing public priorities and perceptions.

Yep. MADD deserves all the credit for that. Better designed cars with more safety features didn't have a damned thing to do with the statistics. Mandatory seat belt laws and air bags didn't have a damn thing to do with it. Anti-lock brakes didn't have a damn thing to do with it. Front seat headrests didn't have a damn thing to do with it.

It was ALL acomplished by MADD.

If you get a DUI in the state of Georgia now, you are REQUIRED to pay $10 and attend a MADD class, where people tell horror stories about drunks with a BAC of .350 going the wrong way down the interstate at night, at 120 MPH and no headlights on, then wiping out a good, loving family. That's sheer tragedy, caused by sheer stupidity on a selfish person's fault.

But that's not the driver MADD attacks today. I had to attend one of those classes in 2001. I didn't hear ONE SINGLE STORY about someone with a .08 BAC doing something like that. In fact, I compared notes with some people sitting around me in the meeting, and I had the highest BAC (.14--- almost "twice the legal limit," don'cha know.)of anybody I talked to. Most of the people in there were caught by revenue enhancers "random roadblocks," where they blew a .09 or a .10 on a breathalyzer.

Prohibitionists have collected many a dollar to spend lobbying for lowering the legal BAC from .10 to .08. The money would be better spent combating the real drunks instead of pushing for zero tolerance.

The C.D. Hylton High School marching band has yanked Charlie Daniel's 'Devil Went Down to Georgia' from their lineup lest it be considered an unConstitutional establishment of a national religion.

This year, the marching band is performing a Georgia-themed halftime show, to celebrate their upcoming trip to perform at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta in December, band director Dennis Brown said.

Until recently, the Charlie Daniels Band song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" was in the marching band's line up of Georgia-themed music.

The lyrics of the song describe the devil's attempt to steal the soul of a fiddle player in Georgia by challenging him to a fiddling duel.

On Oct. 2, The Potomac News & Manassas Journal Messenger published a letter to the editor arguing that while no one objected to that song about the devil, there would be objections if the band were to play a song about God or other spiritual beings.

After that letter ran in the paper, Brown dropped the song from the marching band's program.

Washington D.C. has a zero tolerance policy against drunk driving. That means (according to D.C.) they can arrest people for drunk driving, even in they aren't drunk. The Washington Post reports that Debra Bolton was arrested for DUI after admitting to having a single glass of wine with dinner. A breath test showed she had a BAC of .03. "Bolton thought she might get a ticket. Instead, she was handcuffed, searched, arrested, put in a jail cell until 4:30 a.m. and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol."

D.C. Police are defiant.

As D.C. police officer Dennis Fair, who arrested Bolton on May 15, put it in an interview recently: "If you get behind the wheel of a car with any measurable amount of alcohol, you will be dealt with in D.C. We have zero tolerance. . . . Anything above .01, we can arrest." [...]

Fair acknowledged that many people aren't aware of the District's policy. "But it is our law," he said. "If you don't know about it, then you're a victim of your own ignorance."

Apparently getting arrested for being drunk when you aren't drunk is pretty common in Washington D.C., a city which incidentally has one of the highest murder rates in North America.

Neither the police department nor the attorney general's office keeps detailed records of how many people with low blood alcohol levels are arrested. But last year, according to police records, 321 people were arrested for driving under the influence with blood alcohol levels below the legal limit of .08. In 2003, 409 people were arrested...

Bolton said she didn't know. But defense lawyers who practice in the District do.

"Even one drink can get you in trouble in D.C.," said Thomas Key, a lawyer who successfully defended a client who had a blood alcohol level of .03. "They might not win a lot of these cases or prosecute them, but they're still arresting people."

Ms. Bolton fought to get the charges dropped, but her troubles didn't end there.

In August, after Bolton made several fruitless appearances in D.C. Superior Court, prosecutors dropped the DUI charge. But then she had to battle the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles, which warned that it would suspend her driving privileges at the end of this month unless she went through an alcohol prevention program.

Even the DMV was defiant:

Since what she refers to as her "unfortunate incarceration," Bolton has spent hours in D.C. Superior Court and at the DMV and $2,000 so far fighting the DUI charge. Her refusal to submit to the 12-week alcohol counseling diversion program has sent her on a "surreal" odyssey.

Twice, after hours of waiting, prosecutors told her that they had lost her file and that she would have to come back.

On Aug. 22, after four court appearances, prosecutors dropped the charge. But she spent all of September battling the DMV to keep her driving privileges from being suspended for three months.

Corey Buffo, the DMV's general counsel, explained that the agency drops its procedures only after a case goes to trial and is dismissed on its merits. "Our burden of proof is lower" than the Superior Court's, he said. "Not enough evidence for them may be enough evidence for us." Yesterday, the DMV decided not to suspend her privileges and issued her a warning instead.

That's right the DMV has a lower burden of proof than the courts. Even if you aren't convicted of a crime, you can still be punished as though you were. (ASIDE: Unless of course that crime is violating immigration laws, in which case they'll probably register you to vote while they're bending over backwards to accommodate your driving privileges.)

The ordeal for Ms. Bolton - who now goes out to eat in Virginia instead - is finally over.

UPDATE: After word got out that D.C. police would arrest people for driving after having had a single drink with their dinner, a lot of people started cancelling dinner reservations. Now the D.C. City Council is moving to suspend Washington's "zero tolerance" policy on booze.

Over at Grits for Breakfast, Scott Hensen notes that the War on Sudafed isn't quite going as planned.

Despite all the hype, Oklahoma's new anti-meth law turned out to be less than OK. Backers touted the idea as a national model. (Indeed, Texas followed the Okies' lead this spring by requiring pseudoephedrine, which is used to make homemade meth, to be sold only from behind the counter, and customers must sign for the purchase.) Now it turns out the much-ballyhooed new law hasn't worked at all, instead opening up the market for violent Mexican drug cartels.

Such is the law of economics. Increased regulation forced the price to go up and the black market naturally stepped up to the plate and meet the lucrative demand. Plus there's no regulation, no product safety, no disincentive to sell to minors, and you get all the goodies that come along with organized crime.

It's the same scenario that plays out year after year in ban after ban. During prohibition you could get a drink that may or may not make you go blind, for about 10 times the price of what it used to cost. In New York gangs are killing each other in turf wars over selling bootlegged cigarettes, while the state loses tax money and their regulatory power to keep minors from smoking. Whether your banning/regulating/taxing guns, cigarettes, or whatever, the same scenario plays out over again.

Banning sudafed is yet another classic example of insanity. That is, when something doesn't work, do it again only harder. (Apologies to Kevin Baker.) Meanwhile, the law-abiding are forced to live with head colds.

Say Uncle notes that you can't even call those little dots at the beginning of an itemized list "bullets" anymore. From a NY teacher:

Today in our weekly PD it was mentioned that the region doesn�t want us to use the term "bullet points" anymore because it has a negative connotation.

I wonder if they'll have zero-tolerance for bullet points, whereby teachers and students using the marks will be automatically extricated.

I always thought that if federal agents ever beat down my door they'd be coming for my guns. But it looks like they may be after something else that's stashed away in the closet.

Early last month, the [FBI] Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of "the Director." That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.

Mischievous commentary began propagating around the water coolers at 601 Fourth St. NW and its satellites, where the FBI's second-largest field office concentrates on national security, high-technology crimes and public corruption.

The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against "manufacturers and purveyors" of pornography -- not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. "We must not need any more resources for espionage."

Such is the sad state of affairs in prudish America. You can get your fill of murder, arson, and mayhem on the nightly news. If you photograph a prisoner getting shot in the head, you might even win the Pulitzer Prize. But don't dare show the naked body, or the most natural of acts taking place between consenting adults. That's criminal.

In the immortal words of the lovable Principal Carter: "I sat through every disgusting frame of this film. Twice."

(Via Countertop)

Georgia will sacrifice more than $20 million in federal highway funds because they have not yet forced farmers to buckle-up in their pickup trucks. AAA notes that using the threat of lethal force to make pickup truck riders buckle their seat-belt, would save 22 lives a year. Georgia, along with Indiana, are the only two states that don't comply.

South Carolina used to buck the system, but now they toe the line.

People in pickup trucks [in South Carolina] had to wear seat belts, but if the unbelted were adults, police couldn't pull them over for that alone. But come this December, seat belts can be the "primary" reason for a traffic stop.

"We're going to hopefully gain $11 million," said a jubilant Max Young, South Carolina's director of highway safety. "I love it. I love it for two reasons. We got a primary seat belt law that's going to go a long way in saving people's lives. And second, good gracious, if we qualified for additional money, we can use the money."

As Dr. Williams brought up earlier this year, this brings up the question of who owns you? In the eyes of the government, clearly it's not you. Insurance companies have a vested financial interest in forcing people to wear seatbelts, and have successfully lobbied the imperial government to do just that. Since the .gov cannot legally force states to pass seatbelt laws (without further expansion of the ever-widening commerce clause), they instead resort to extortion by threatening to withhold highway funding.

Personally I always wear my seatbelt, and make others do so when they ride with me. But if some idiot wants to splatter his brains all over the windshield, who am I to stop him. On principle, it's an infringement of our civil liberties; the same as if they were telling us what to eat, or that we can't smoke (oh wait, too late). Unfortunately, since most of us already wear seatbelts we go along with it in lock-step.

Apparently the ever-annoying ESPN play-by-play announcer, Brent Musberger, drinks Budweiser.

Capt. Allen Soukup said Musburger was cited at 6:10 p.m. Saturday on a public street just west of Memorial Stadium. Musburger was a passenger in the car and was drinking a beer, Soukup said � a Budweiser.

Musburger, 66, had just finished broadcasting the Huskers' game against the University of Pittsburgh.

He was one of several people who were cited for similar alcohol offenses Saturday, Soukup said.

Maybe he was playing the Brent Musburger drinking game.

People seem to like throwing the word UnConstitutional around a lot. Now another federal judge has ruled that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is an illegal establishment of religion.

Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools was ruled unconstitutional Wednesday by a federal judge who granted legal standing to two families represented by an atheist who lost his previous battle before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The First Amendment clearly states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." No where in there does it say anything about reciting the Pledge or not reciting the Pledge. Quite frankly, I'm fed up with these thin skinned atheists pushing their beliefs on other people. If the Pledge is considered religion, then the government preventing people from reciting it would be an unlawful prohibition of free exercise.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled that the pledge's reference to one nation "under God" violates school children's right to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God."

Maybe I just don't get it. The Pledge is not a religious statement, and I've never gone to church and recited it. Just how does the phrase "under God" establish a religion? Which religion is established? I mean, if the government is establishing, endorsing, or pushing a religion on people, then which one is it? Catholic? Jewish? Protestant?

Just once I'd like to see the judge bounce these people out on their ear and tell them to get over it.

Since french fries "cause" cancer, you'd better eat them with a cup of cancer curing coffee.

Coffee not only helps clear the mind and perk up the energy, it also provides more healthful antioxidants than any other food or beverage in the American diet, according to a study released Sunday.

Too much coffee can make people jittery and raise cholesterol levels, so food experts stress moderation. But, said Joe A. Vinson, a chemistry professor at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, "the point is, people are getting the most antioxidants from beverages."

Antioxidants, thought to help battle cancer, are also abundant in grains and many fruits and vegetables.

Provinces in Canada are practicing doggie genocide, whereby racially profiled doggie breeds are to be rounded up and slaughtered.

Pit bull owners now have 60 days to get their animals spayed or neutered, and must muzzle and leash them in public.

People will not be able to own, breed, import, transfer or purchase pit bulls, although they can still adopt them for a limited time.

Those violating the rules can end up with their pets seized and euthanized, while they could face finds of up to $10,000 or even jail time.

However animal advocates fear hundreds of adult and puppy pit bulls may now be euthanized and candlelight vigils were held across Canada Sunday night to protest Ontario's new law.

The Tennessee AG is trying to intimidate a country singer into not using tobacco products on stage. He claims that it amounts to advertising tobacco to minors, something forbidden under the tobacco settlement.

State officials said Gretchen Wilson can be seen on concert jumbo screens pulling a can of Skoal from her pocket while performing her new song, "Skoal Ring."

That may violate the 1998 settlement between states and tobacco companies forbidding tobacco ads targeting young people, Attorney General Paul Summers said.

"Many young people attend your concerts and purchase your music and T-shirts," Summers wrote in a letter he sent to Wilson Thursday. "Because your actions strongly influence the youth in your audience ... I ask you to take steps to warn young people of negative health effects of smokeless tobacco use."

By the way, all of my Tennessee readers be sure to check out Cohiba brand cigars. Nothing says cool, like Cohiba.