Zero Tolerance means "Zero Thinking"...

Teenager, 16, fined for littering ... after letting balloon go at charity event

Newcastle Council said it had a zero-tolerance approach to littering.

Stephen Savage, director of regulatory services and public protection, said:

"We believe pursuing action against offences like this sends out an uncompromising message that litter dropping in the city will not be tolerated."

Yeah? Well, understand this, Mr. Director of Regulatory Services and Public Protection:

I *will* protect myself from *you*.

Fresh from...

...the Hugo Chavez School of Economics, comes Maxine Waters (D-umbass, California) with this remarkably honest (albeit totally inept) bit of threatening at the recent United States Congressional Hearings on oil prices.



Well, it's nice to see that she's honest enough to flat out state that "liberal" and "government take over" are pretty much synonymous, while still progressive-ly dishonest enough to want to backtrack big-time when she forgets herself and trots out the very accurate, but totally useless for propaganda, "S-word".

S'okay, Maxine. We absolutely understand.

h/t Two-Four

Oh gimme a break...

California mulls steep tax on adult entertainment

The last time I remember this ridiculousness being floated (in 2005) it was:

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat, characteriz[ing] her bill introduced last week as a way to make the Internet a "safer place" for children. The bill would impose a 25 percent tax on the revenue of most adult-themed Web sites.

Yeah right.

It'll make the Internet a more profitable place for cash-sucking bureaucrats and professional moralists, and a lot less safe for anyone else with a wallet is what it'll do.

Note that *all* the sponsors of that 2005 legislation were Democrats, not fundie right-wingers.

Other Senate sponsors of the legislation--all Democrats--include Thomas Carper of Delaware, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, Ken Salazar of Colorado, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Evan Bayh of Indiana and Kent Conrad of North Dakota. (CNET)

Anyways, this time it's Democrats again, in California (Yahoo News)--and the same magical 25% target.

California. Well, yeah...bank robbers rob banks 'cause that's where the money is. Even if Willie Sutton didn't exactly say so.

And, what???...do politicians think that 25% sounds enough like stealing a measly quarter or something?

Anyways, I LUVVED this quote from the ABC article on the subject of California's "efforts".:

College students who were lobbying at the Capitol Monday to push for fewer education cuts want any way to boost state coffers, even if the money came from a questionable source.

"When you're going for a greater cause, it doesn't matter where you get the funds, as long as it's a legal source of funding and it's going to improve the future and the economy," says college student Bridgette Dussan.

Ah, so all you gotta do is write law that makes it legal, *then* take it.

Because she "think[s] it's going for greater cause" is what makes it all right.

Yeah, I love modern educations.

In the meantime, Assemblyman Charles Calderon (Democrat dontcha know...) claims he's doing it (...sniffle...choke......) for the poor porn workers, and the caring folks who have to, you know, help them pick up the pieces:

"there is something wrong with the porn industry. The workers don't usually have a long career and California taxpayers end up footing the bill at a time when the state is broke".

"When they come out, they come out with no skills. They come out unemployed. Many come out addicted. If they go on unemployment or on welfare or Medi-Cal, that's a cost to the state."

Oh, Chuck, you're *so generous*...with someone else's money.

Angry Studies Departments...

Bumped into the phrase "Angry Studies departments" at Small Dead Animals, in a post by Vitruvius.

I'd never encountered it before, but it evidently stems back to a post by someone named Jim, I gather relating to the old Duke affair..

Anyways...what a perfectly appropriate description.

Find of the Century: Wisdom.

Boreded Ceiling Cat makinkgz Urf n stuffs

1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.

2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.

3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1

6 An Ceiling Cat sayed, im in ur waterz makin a ceiling. But he no yet make a ur. An he maded a hole in teh Ceiling.7 An Ceiling Cat doed teh skiez with waterz down An waterz up. It happen.8 An Ceiling Cat sayed, i can has teh firmmint wich iz funny bibel naim 4 ceiling, so wuz teh twoth day.

9 An Ceiling Cat gotted all teh waterz in ur base, An Ceiling Cat hadz dry placez cuz kittehs DO NOT WANT get wet.10 An Ceiling Cat called no waterz urth and waters oshun. Iz good.

The lolcat Bible Translation Project.

Here's a mixed-up story...

...Christian group appeals human rights violation CTV/CP

TORONTO -- A provincially funded Christian group is appealing part of a tribunal ruling that found it violated the rights of a worker who had to quit after revealing she was gay.

Ontario's Human Rights Tribunal ordered Kitchener-based Christian Horizons to compensate Connie Heintz and to end a code-of-conduct agreement for its 2,500 employees.

The contract, which all staff must sign, forbids workers from cheating on their spouses, having pre-marital sex or homosexual relationships, using pornography, and "endorsing" alcohol or tobacco.

The group says it will no longer require employees to sign the agreement, but it will be appealing the remainder of the tribunal's order.

The evangelical organization is funded almost entirely by the province and operates more than 180 residential homes in Ontario for people with developmental disabilities.

Just exactly *how* did the Christian organization violate the rights of the worker involved? After all, it was the worker who actually signed and then broke the contract.

So, lets sort out this *some* of the right and wrong in this story:

1) a Christian group ought to be able to demand its employees uphold what it sees as "christian" standards. That's a no-brainer; after all, people can freely choose to work for the organization, or not. I guess it's also perfectly OK if they decide they don't want employees to sign such a contract, too--but they equally ought not to be forced into that decision.

2) The government ought not to fund religious organizations, for any reason. That's a no brainer, too; religious people can fund religious organizations if they want them enough. In the same vein, why should (for example) atheists be forced through taxation to support religious organizations? Why should, say, gays be forced to support organizations that don't like them (and wouldn't choose to hire them)?

3) Not that The State ought to be in the charity business in the first place, but it still remains that if I hire someone to do something, I accept their standards or I don't hire them in the first place. That's a no-brainer, too. Why was the government hiring an agency whose ethical (as in hiring) standards were at odds with its own standards?

4) Any agency, religious or otherwise, equally, ought to accept the standards of its employer, or it ought not to work for them. The religious organization in question knew full well it was accepting a secular task, on behalf of a nominally secular government--and it knew the sort of HR practices that are part of that package. The religious organization was fully free to try to help disabled people on its own terms without being hired by the government, without accepting the State's payments.

5) The religious organization had an employment contract that an employee freely signed. The employee then broke the terms of the contract. Instead of faulting the employee for breaking the contract, the so-called "Human Rights Tribunal" of Ontario instead ruled that the organization owed the contract-breaking employee some compensation.

6) Why would a gay person choose to work for a homophobic employer...and lie to do it?

So what we have is a lovely mish-mash of unprincipled behaviour on pretty much everyone's part. And the result?

The result is that now religious organizations don't even have the right to insist that their employees meet their moral standards.

In other words, the result is stupid.

Sad. Just sad.

Rich Nikoley over at Honestylog.com also writes (well) about this. I've got something to say, too, because this is just sad.

The so-called DC Madam (actually the human being, Ms.Deborah Jeane Palfrey, an honest and discreet business woman) killed herself.

Here's why:

I cannot live the next 6 to 8 years behind bars for what you and I have both come to regard as this 'modern-day lynching' only to come out of prison in my late 50s a broken, penniless and very much alone woman

Who did she hurt? No one. Who did she betray? No one. Who did she steal from? No one.

Evidently there must are...people...(I guess that term still applies)..that think--that must think--somehow her death was necessary for "the common good".

Read what she wrote.

There are so many laws that cause this kind of real damage, all in the name of some hideously abstract "common good". Please stop putting up with them.