Apparently, Police In A Lot Of Places HATE It When You Wear A Mask

This guy was arrested for wearing a 'Joker'
 makeup in Virginia. Apparently, it's illegal
to be out in public wearing a mask in Virginia.

Dressing up in costumes is fun.

That's why Halloween is so popular.

Some people take that dress-up ethos to other times of year.  Some lawmkers, and some police agencies, hate it, hate it when you do that.

Apparently, wearing a mask presumes you will commit a crime any minute now. So some jurisdictions go after masked people, just to show their law enforcement cred, I guess.

So it was in Virginia recently, police arrested Jeremy Putman, 31, for walking around the town of Winchester dressed as the Joker, complete with makeup on his face.

He was also carrying a sword, which police didn't seem so worried about. Instead, they nailed Putman for wearing a mask.

I have no idea why Putman wanted to walk around town dressed like the Joker, and he didn't commit any kind of violent crime. But who knows what he intended?

The original intent of these laws was pretty good: Lawmakers didn't want to make these easy for robbers, or the Ku Klux Klan.

However, like almost every well-intentioned statute, some law enforcement types will always find a way to abuse the law.

In any event, police are charging Putman with a felony.  According to Winchester Police, "Officers do not believe there are additional suspects, but want to remind the community of the seriousness of the crime."

Really? Serious? Some nutcase decides he wants to dress up as the Joker and that's a crime against humanity?

The Virginia law has exemptions for Halloween, theatrical performances and that kind of thing.

Still it wold have been nice in the case of Putman to have some discretion, to at least see what he was up to before automatically arresting him.  Some people just like to play dress up.

It appears Putman is just an eccentric who likes dressing up as cartoon characters sometimes. He reported has no prior arrest records and people who know him say he's not scary or dangerous.

The arrest forced him out of his Walmart job, and Putnam says the arrest is ruining his reputation, 

Running Down Protestors: Bills Sprouting To Stop Civil Disobedience

Will legislation in North Dakota allow motorists to run down
people like this, at the Standing Rock reservation protest site?
Opponents wonder. 

For months, there have been constant demonstrations and protests in North Dakota over the Standing Rock Indian Reservation as people object to oil pipeline construction there.

Other anti-fossil fuel protests have cropped up elsewhere in the nation.

The response from some oil industry-friendly lawmakers is to try and stop the protests, even if doing so is probably unconstitutional.

In North Dakota, a number of people do not agree with the protesters who are fighting the oil pipeline around Standing Rock.   Some lawmakers in the state are fed up with the demonstrations.

Which is their right. Unless they take it to far,

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune and many other media outlets, a bill sponsored by North Dakota State Rep. Keith Kempernich, a Republican frrom Bowman, would protect drivers from legal trouble if they accidentally hit, injure or kill pedestriaions who are obstruction traffic.

You can see how this can be abused.  Somebody's pissed off that demonstrators are blocking the road. This somebody is a hothead and decides to ram his car into the people on the road.

And there are some hot heads out there, as a video of masked men threatening protesters at a North Dakota hotel demonstrates. 

Kempernich's proposed law would give this hot head cover. "But officer, I panicked. I thought they were out of the way. I didn't mean to run them over!

Case dismissed.

Kempernich comes down solidly on the side of the not-demonstrating motorists. "If you stay off the roadway, this would never be an issue.....Those motorists are going about the lawful, legal exercise of their right to drive down the road....Those people didn't ask to be in this."

The language of the bill does seem to give a lot of cover to people who run down demonstrators on a road, even if Kempenich says the bill is not intended to let people who intentionally run down protesters off the hook.

Says the Star Tribune:

"Under Kempenich's proposed legislation, drivers who negligently injure or klll pedestrians who are 'obstructing vehicular traffic on a public road, street or highway' would not be liable for damages, and  anyone who 'unintentionally kills' or injures a pedestrian who was blocking traffic 'is not guilty of an offense.'"

Yeah, a lot of people might be irritated when demonstrators block off roadways.  Often, though, it's a form of civil disobedience to call attention to a particular cause. (Black Lives Matter protestors last year sometimes blocked highways)

You can argue whether this form of civil disobedience is a good idea or not, but gosh, does Kempernich's bill open up a potential can of worms.! And possibly some injuries and deaths.

It's not just North Dakota.

In Washington State, a state senator named Doug Ericksen, R- Ferndale wants to label a lot of demonstrations "economic terrorism"  and make it illegal,  notes the Seattle Times.  

His proposal would allow felony prosecutions of protesters who purposely break the law through economic disruptions such as blocking traffic or sitting on railroad tracks.

Demonstrators who oppose rail cars with lots of oil tankers have often blocked trains in Washington and elsewhere, so that's part of where this idea came from.

It looks like what Erickson is doing is going after the money that funds demonstrations, thereby cutting off any publicity or changes in public opinion brought on by protests.

Erickson told the Seattle Times his legislation would go after wealthy, liberal donors, like billionaires George Soros and Tom Steyer, or organizations with deep pockets, like the Sierra Club.

Erickson's proposal has little chance of passing, but he ought to be careful what he wishes for. He's a big Trump supporter. What if a pro-Trump crowd blocked traffic? Would they get in trouble under his idea? So far, he hasn't said.

Other states getting in on this are Indiana, where there's a bill that would authorize police to clear demonstrators from roads "by any means necessary."

Now there's a slippery slope. Does that include just opening fire on them and killing all the protesters?

Yes, civil disobedience can be irritating or disruptive. That's the point. However, the United States has a long history of this kind of thing, and despite the short term pain, civil disobedience has almost always created long term gain.

Think the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Womens' liberation in the 1970s. Gay and transgender rights in recent years.

This old cliche is still totally true: The best response to excesses in free speech is more free speech.

Instead of trying to squelch demonstrations, people opposed to all these demonstrations ought to come up with their own arguments as to why their way of thinking is better.

If they do, they might even change minds. What a concept!

Fight Rages Over Ballot Box Selfies

If these people are taking selfies, they might get in trouble.  

If you're like many Americans, you're proud of voting.

Some of us are so proud that we take selfies of ourselves in the voting booth,  making our selections between candidates. Then we post these photos to social media, natch.

Turns out, such selfies can get you in trouble. They're illegal in a lot of states.

However, maybe not for long, if New Hampshire of all places becomes a trendsetter.

It was illegal to take voting booth selfies in the Granite State. According to Consumerist, the New Hampshire law states:

"No voter shall allow his or her ballot to be seen by any person with the intention of letting it be known how he or she is about to vote or how he or she has voted.

The law was amended in 2014 to include "taking a digital image or photograph of his or her marked ballot and distributing or sharing the image via social media or by any other means.

The New Hampshire attorney general wanted to enforce this law because he figured it could turn into a form of voter intimidation.

But when three New Hampshire voters got in trouble to taking selfies, they sued, and won.

Last year, Consumerist reports, " a U.S. District Court judge said the ban on selfies was an unconstitutional content-based restriction on speech that does not further a compelling government interest."

In other words, there was no evidence that people were using ballot booth selfies to force other people to vote a certain way.

The state appealed, saying, in part, that the selfies were tantamount to campaigning in a voting place, which is a no-no.

But a federal court ruled this week that a voter's First Amendment rights to free speech outweighed any concerns over campaigning.

Restrictions on showing other people your ballot harken back to the old days of corrupt union bosses making sure workers voted the way the bosses wanted them to. They had to show the bosses their ballots, until states passed laws banning the practice.

Where I live in Vermont, voting booth selfies are not explicitly banned, Vermont Public Radio said two years ago. But the law here does ban showing other people your ballot with info on how you voted or intend to vote. That would probably include photographs.

However, VPR says there are no known recent cases of anybody in Vermont  getting in trouble for voting booth selfies.

Laws vary from state to state, so you'd better check your law before you take that selfie just in case.

Fighting Local Laws And Prosecutors Who Still Want To Draw Blood From Stones

Guess what? If you throw somebody in jail for
not paying a fine, they aren't going to earn the money
to pay the fine while behind bars.
You's think that would be obvious.  

You'd think they wouldn't have to do this, but the U.S. Justice Department had to remind some state and local governments that it's probably unconstitutional to jail people who can't pay their fines.

Debtor prisons were outlawed many, many years ago, and sending people to prison for an inability to pay fines more often than not violates federal law.

I'm not quite sure how jailing somebody would make them pay fines anyway. You can't go out and get a job to pay your fines if you're sitting in jail.

Maybe the jurisdictions that do this kind of thing believe that if you threaten somebody with fines, they'll get off their lazy ass and get a job.

Might work in theory, but if the person in question hasn't any job skills, or nobody will hire him or her because of a criminal record, or they're disabled, or there are simply no jobs to be had locally, I have no idea how these people would make money.

Of course, we have to draw the distinction between people who can't pay and people who won't pay.

I'm sure there are people who just refuse to pay fines, and you can jail that type of person. But shouldn't someone make a determination about whether they can pay?

The Department of Justice letter was prompted in part by Ferguson, Missouri, which, as we all know, isn't exactly a shining example of racial harmony. There's classism at work here, too.

The DOJ said the Ferguson municipal court "does not act as a neutral arbiter of the law." and "primarily uses it judicial authority as the means to compel the payment of fines and fees that advance the city's financial interests"

That ,the DOJ said, violats the Fourteenth Amendment's due process and equal protection requirements.

And, unfortunately, Ferguson was far from the only municipality pulling this stunt.

The DOJ knows this. As noted in the Washington Post, Lisa Foster and Vanita Gupta, both officials with the department wrote in a letter that went out to all 50 state judicial systems:

"Individuals may confront escalating debt; face repeated, unnecessary incarceration for nonpayment despite posing no danger to the community; lose their jobs and become trapped in cycles of poverty that can be nearly impossible to escape. .......

Furthermore, in addition to being  unlawful, to the extent that these practices are geared not toward addressing public safety, but rather toward raising revenue, they can cast doubt on the impartiality of the tribunal and erode trust between local governments and their consitituents."

There are alternatives to incarcerating people who can't pay their fines, but those aren't revenue generators. You can extend the time period during which they can pay the debt, make the take traffic or public safety classes or do community service.

You want to hold people responsible, after all, but it's amazing that trying to make people do the impossible is well, impossible.  

The insidious thing, at least from the perspective of those of us who are able to pay our fines when we incur them, is that, as the DOJ letter notes, we lose confidence in the wisdom and fairness of the legal system.

That would only encourage more people to break laws. Why obey laws imposed on us by stupid, corrupt people? goes the thinking.

But to some people, I guess if you perceive somebody as a freeloader, you make it impossible for them to recover. Not sure what this accomplishes, but I'm sure it makes the people who make these laws, and support them, feel good.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, lawmakers there finally repealed a law that prevented people who were convicted of drug offenses to ever receive food assistance again.

Yeah, whoever came up with the original idea is brilliant. When they get out of jail and are trying to get back on their feet, let's cut off their access to food so that they steal and go back to jail at taxpayer expense.

Um, Yay?

The Georgia rule change is reasonable enough. You can get food assistance after jail if you are eligible, if you don't commit a new crime and if you fully comply with any probation restrictions you have.

Makes sense to me.

What doesn't make sense is there are still six states that ban food assistance for drug offenders, even if those offenses took place many years ago.

In An Era Of Abortion Restrictions, Should Viagra Be Restricted For Men?

Fed up with restrictive abortion laws,
a Kentucky lawmaker wants to require men to
have a written note from their spouse
before they can obtain Viagra 

A Kentucky lawmaker is introducing admittably somewhat tongue in cheek legislation that would create some uncomfortable conversations about Viagra. according to a recent article in the New York Times. 

All this has to do with abortion laws.

Follow me here:

Like many conservative states with majority Republican lawmakers, Kentucky has been passing more and more restrictive abortion laws.

The new Republican governor, Matt Bevin, recently signed into a law a requirement that women have a medical consultation 24 hours before an abortion.

Another Kentucky bill, likely to be enacted into law soon, would force women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound and listen to a doctor's description of the image.

All this is couched in language that indicates that they're just trying to protect the health of women. But obviously what's really going on is to make the abortion process so onerous and difficult and expensive and emotionally charged for women that they don't actually go through with the abortion.

I get it that anti-abortion lawmakers' hands are tied because of Roe Vs. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that granted women the right to abortions. But these laws are disingenous. If you're opposed to abortion, say so. Fight Roe V. Wade is you are anti-abortion. Don't be sneaky with these weird laws.

Kentucky Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, a Democrat, wants to make that point, so she's introducing legislation regarding Viagra. Her bill would require that men who are seeking Viagra receive written permission from their spouse before getting the drug, reports the New York Times. 

"I thought if we're going to insert ourselves into women's most private health care decisions, then we should insert ourselves into men's most private health decisions as well," Marzian said. "As a woman and a pro-choice woman and as an elected official, I am sick and tired of men - mostly white men - legislating personal, private medical decisons.....It's none of their business."

Marzian's proposal echo a 2012 Illinois lawmaker's bill that would have mandated men seeking Viagra watch a video detailing some of the possible side effects of the drug, like a prolong erection of the penis lasting several hours that can cause permanent damage.

Yes, Marzian's bill is a stunt and lawmakers should be doing serious work instead of jokes like this. But if you can't get through with reason, sometimes you've got to get goofy, satirical and weird.

It looks like Marzian reached that point. I think many of us of all political stripes have with ineffective, grandstanding politicians.

Now We Know Playbook: How Alabama Republicans Ensuring Minorities Don't Vote

Alabama is making it harder for residents to get
driver's licenses. Is it budget cuts or is it
an effort to prevent the poor and minorities from voting?  

So a bunch of states in recent years  have passed voter ID laws, in which voters have to have official photo IDs, usually a driver's license to vote.

This is to combat the imaginary epidemic of voter fraud going on across the country.

Since most of these voter ID laws were passed by Republican legislators or championed by Republican governors, the fraud might be efforts to make it more difficult for poorer people and minorites to vote.

The proof of this idea came from Alabama this week. Citing "budget cuts" Alabama plans to close 45 of its 49 Department of Motor Vehicles offices, says the Daily Kos.

Of course, nobody is blatantly saying that this is really an effort to prevent people from voting, but it has to be.

People can get voter photo IDs from county registrar offices in Alabama, too, but that also sometimes involves traveling pretty far distances. Which is hard if you don't have a car and driver's license, and there's not much in the way of public transportation.

Sure, Alabama has budget problems. A lot of states do.

But closing so many DMV offices in Alabama would force people to take an entire day, possibly two days off from work to travel long distances, wait in long lines, and then hopefully obtain a driver's license.

As Daily Kos points out, this will also encourage people to drive without a license. Which means people who really don't know how to drive will drive unsafe cars around Alabama. What could go wrong?

Sure, some people can renew drivers' licenses on line. But if there's a problem that has to be resolved, then it's an arduous day at the Alabama DMV.

Are Republican lawmakers in Alabama more concerned with balancing the budget? Or are they more concerned too many Democratic or Independent voters could force them out of office?

Hmmmm.

No, Public Officials Who Hate Gay Marriage CAN'T Violate The Law

This Kentucky county clerk, (woman on right)
refuses to issue any marriage licenses because
she hates the idea of same sex marriage licenses.  

As a gay, married man, I was thrilled along with a lot of other people when the U.S. Supreme Court said same sex marriage was legal everywhere in the United States.

A number of other people were decidedly NOT so happy with this ruling, including a smattering of county clerks across the nation who are tasked with handing out marriage licenses, to straight couples, and now to gay couples.

The gay marriage ruling puts these clerks in a quandary. Do they violate their deeply held religious beliefs to hand out marriage licenses to Steve and Earl and to Becky and Cindy? Or do they refuse?

Frankly, I have a lot of respect for the few county clerks who have resigned their positions rather than violate their religious beliefs in issuing same sex marriage licenses.

Obviously, resigning from a job is incredibly disruptive, but if they choose to resign to live up to their  ideals, more power to them, even if I don't agree with their viewpoints on gay marriage. At least they are being honest and true to themselves, and that's a rare commodity these days.

What I don't like are the clerks who are trying to weasel out of issuing marriage licenses. When you become a public official, you are charged with upholding the laws. Even if it's a law you don't like.

If you don't like the law, you can work to change it, or you can resign from a job that forces you to obey a law you find disgraceful.

Some clerks have tried to get around this by not issuing marriage licenses to anyone, gay or straight. Like the county clerk in Kentucky who was video'd doing just that. 

Some of these refusnik clerks are probably trying to become these fake evangelical Christian martyrs.

You know the type. They are brought up on say, charges of official misconduct for not issuing licenses, and then they go to the Christianist talking heads and activists groups, and they become a prop to this idea that Christians are being "persecuted" in the United States.

As if anyone is taking away their right to their religious beliefs.

But beliefs have consequences. Mine do, and people might not like me for supporting gay marriage, and being gay married. I have to live with that. You can't be loved by everyone.

Plus, I can't imagine ever getting a job at an evangelical church, not that I would want one there.

Evangelical Christians are doing just fine in this nation, despite what some of them will tell you. These Christianists will say that gays have an outsized influence on public discourse, and that might be true.

But these Christianists themselves have an outsized influence on public policy, given how many of them are in public office, or lobbying those in public office. Or are annoying media pundits. Right, Todd Starnes?

The conservative groups are still trying to find ways to break the law by weaseling all of it, as noted in SCOTUSblog. 

Gay marriage will not be the end of Evangelicals in this country. Far from it. So they can stop panicking and get back to praying, if they so wish.

Indiana Passes Great Law Targeting Left Lane Slowpokes

Indiana is the latest to crack down on
left lane slow poke idiots.  n

The state of Indiana, widely and deservedly ridiculed earlier this year for its awful "religious freedom" legislation targeting gay people who wanted to get married, actually passed another law that I love.

This one, signed recently by Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (remember that idiot?) allows police to ticket drivers who drive slowly in the left lanes of highways, causing traffic backups behind them, says the Indianapolis Star.

An amazing numher of people don't seem to understand that if you're going to drive slowly, you should stick to the right lane.

However, there's apparently a huge population of people who are frustrated parade grand marshalls: They're not happy unless there's a long line of other cars in back of them, so they crawl along in the left lane.

This is of course dangerous, because it causes other drivers to weave from lane to lane trying to get by these slow idiots, which increases the chances of a crash.

Indiana joins a number of other states in which driving too slowly in the left lane can get you ticketed.

There are lots of theories as to why people go slowly on the left.

It's basic selfishness. Some people like to drive in the left lane because there's not as many cars there. (They're all stuck behind the slowpoke).

Others apparently drive slowly in the left lane to teach faster drivers a "lesson." They figure the speed they're driving is the speed everyone else should go. "Why does anybody need to go faster," the smug self-selected speed arbiters in the left lane say.

The left lane slowpokes seem to be a pet peeve a lot of people other than myself. There's a whole website called leftlanedrivers.org dedicated to eliminating the scourge of left lane turtles. You can even order a mirror image of a "move over" decal for your windshield so left lane slow people can see it in their rear view mirrors.

Of course, laws mean nothing to our left lane slow pokes. I'm sure they'll these passive aggresive idiots will still keep put-putting along at a left lane crawl. Can't do anything about them, I guess.

I Hate Welfare Queens. You Know, Like Walmart and McDonald's

Are low wage employers the new welfare queens?
If we are using tax dollars to subsidize
the workers who don't make enough to sustain
themselves, they probably are the queens.  

Like pretty much everyone else, I don't like my tax dollars going to welfare cheats.

You know the type. These are the people who get public assistance when they shouldn't. They've found a way to receive government largess even though they already make tons of money.

The latest incarnation of the proverbial Welfare Queen some companies, like Walmart and McDonald's and all kinds of other major firms that pay minimum wage or just barely above.

They pay their workers to enhance their corporate bottom lines. The pay is so low many of the employees are on public assistance.

They can't get by on their meager salaries. So they live in subsidized housing. They're collecting SNAP benefits to put food on the table. (SNAP is the latest federal incarnation of what is commonly known as food stamps.)

This arrangement benefits the corporations, since they don't have to pay their employees adequately. Let the government do it. Your taxes and mine.

The University of California/Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education says us taxpayers are really, really subsidizing companies like Walmart and McDonald's.

It turns out us American taxpayers are subsidizing these corporations to the tune of $153 billion, yes that's billion a year.

Here's what the University of California/Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education says:

"Nearly three quarters (73 percent) of enrollees in Amerca's major public support programs are members of working familiies. The taxpayers bear a significant portion of the hidden costs of low wage work in America."

Or, to put it in more explicit terms, here's how Gawker described the situation in an article about the Berkeley study:

"It is one thing to say 'Fast food workers don't deserve $15 per hour.' But realize that what you are saying really amounts to, 'I prefer to pay the difference between what fast food workers earn and what they need to live myself, rather than making their employers pay it.' 

Yep. Your tax dollars at work. The corporate executives and shareholders, many of whom already have tons of money, are welfare queens. By paying such low wages, the government keeps these employees out of homelesseness and hunger, or at least we hope.

Shouldn't the employers be paying the workers enough money to live on, rather than making us tax payers do it? Sure, that would mean the price of some goods and services from places like Walmart and McDonald's would go up.

But either way, we're already paying.  Plus, those of us who don't even like going to Walmart and McDonald's are subsidizing the rich executives and the (often somewhat rich) shareholders in these
companies.

I know the argument. The burger flipper jobs are said to go to teenagers trying to make an extra buck for their weekend partying.

Some teenagers do work low wage jobs for that reason, or as a means of saving money for something more worthwhile.  However, most of the employees are trying to make a living on money that's not enough to live on. So they're on public assistance. On us taxpayers' dime, I will remind you again.

Or, I suppose we could be completely heartless and end government assistance to these working poor. That's one way to get rid of the problem. Starve 'em to death.

I still like the idea of pay increases more, though.

A lot of low wage workers get this. And they don't want to be on public assistance. They'd rather just collect an adequate paycheck and go on with their lives. Protests are ongoing around the country fighting for a $15 an hour wage.

I don't think that wage level will happen anytime soon, but I'd like to see some serious pay increases. Even if I have to pay more for a Big Mac to get there.

Some companies pay their workers more and do just fine. Costco is widely cited as having higher wages than most retailers and the warehouse store chain is doing just fine. It doesn't hurt that the higher wages helps Costco retain employees, who become proficient at their job, which leads to better customer service, which leads to more customers, and more profits for the company.

Well, why don't these people in low wage jobs look for other jobs, or get some education or training to obtain a higher paying job?

A lot of them probably would if they could.

A big trend among low wage employers is helping to prevent worker mobility, or their ability to seek training and education elsewhere.

It's hard enough that education is expensive, but now it's even harder because employers are preventing workers from having a set schedule so they go to classes, obtain reliable daycare for kids, or have a specific time of day to get things done.

The New Republic explains it:

"Just-in-time scheduling, as the practice is known, allows employers to efficiently allocate resources. Scheduling software offers real time analysis for staffing needs.

When customers flock to a store, managers bring in on-all workers. When business is slowk managers don't call those workers in - or they turn they away.

In some cases, these workers will have already commuted to work, paid for child are and arranged their lives around a shift that evaporates, leaving them no recompense for their troubles.

The unpredictable schedules interfere with such basic daily activities as grocery shopping, doctor's appointments and looking for a better job."

I suppose there are people who like these flexible schedules and it works for them. But what of the employees who can't manage it? They're still forced to live this way without relying on a steady paycheck.

I noticed yesterday that the New York Attorney General is looking into this practice to see if it is even legal in that state.

With all this going on, yeah, it's definitely time to put a stop to the new breed of Welfare Queens. I'd love it if Walmart and those other companies reimburse me and the millions of other taxpayers that subsidizes them.

I mean, what benefit is society as a whole getting by having our tax dollars subsidize big corporations like this.

The arrangement needs to change. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Turns Out Yoga Pants Are The Downfall Of Society

Montana State Rep. David Moore is no fan of
yoga pants. Apparently they are a menace.
Image from Jezebel.  

The State of Montana has the best fashion police, let me tell you.

The world is going to hell in a hand basket, and Montana State Rep. David Moore knows exactly why:

Yoga pants. Especially the ones that are about the same color as human skin. It makes a person look naked or something, Moore said.

According to the Billings Gazette, Moore has introduced the morality saving House Bill 365, which would expand Montana's indecent exposure law to include, as the Gazette put it, "any nipple exposure, including met's and any garment that 'gives the appearance or simulates' a person's buttocks, genitals, pelvic area or female nipple."

That list would include flesh-colored yoga pants, Moore said. Other color yoga pants would have been OK, supposedly, under the proposal, but Moore doesn't like any yoga pants.

"Yoga pants should be illegal in public anyway," Moore said after a hearing on the bill, says the Billings Gazette.

This all got started last August, when there was something called  "Bare As You Dare" bicycle event in Missoula. This kind of thing happens in a lot of cities lately where people in a group ride bicycles while naked because it's fun, people want to celebrate and promote acceptance of all kinds of body images, or they're making some sort of statement like "bicycles are good" or "fossil fuels are bad."

I'm not sure how riding a bike naked will reduce our dependence on fossil fuel, but what the hell. Nobody is getting hurt at these events, right

If you ask Moore and another Montana lawmaker named Walt Hill, this kind of naked bike ride is a terrible threat to the Good Citizens of Montana, so any kind of indecent exposure must be stopped.

Officials felt like they had to give a permit for the "Bare As You Dare" event last year because denying it would maybe make the officials run afoul of First Amendment free speech protections.

So, the effort is on to cover up Big Sky country.

"I want Montana to be known as a decent state where people can live within the security of laws and protect their children and associates from degrading and indecent practices," the Billings Gazette quoted Hill as saying.

Yeah, because I surely wouldn't feel secure unless there was a ban on naked bike rides, yoga pants and guys walking around wearing no shirts.

The wrong kind of clothing is apparently dangerous, at least in the eyes of some lawmakers.

However, Moore's efforts are for naught. According to Jezebel and the Associated Press, a Montana legislative committed voted to day to quash the anti-yoga pants bill.

At the peak of the craze of wearing baggy pants that sagged halfway down people's butts, some states and municipalities tried to ban the wearing of them. 

Too dangerous? Too, I don't know, hip hoppy?

Way back in the 1930s people tried to ban zoot suits because they, like the baggy pants, represented an urban youth culture, rather weighted toward Hispanics, that the adults didn't like.

I'm still not sure how banning certain types of clothing, instead of banning objectionable behavior is going to fix society's ills.

But I guess fixing society's ills is too tough a task, so banning certain types of clothes seems an easy way out.

Talk about the emperor having no clothes!

California (Thankfully) Disparages Nondisparagement Clauses

A new California law would outlaw over the top
non-disparagement clauses like this one.  

Kudos to California, which just passed a law making it illegal for companies to have so called disparagement clauses. 

The clauses companies try to use so they can   shut you up or fine you for lots of money if you have the gall to complain about their shabby products or services.

This was becoming a real problem. Still is, in fact.

Outfits like KlearGear and Accessory Outlet got HUGE bad publicity this year over these disparagement clauses, because they fined people and tried to ruin their credit ratings over relatively mild on-line criticisms.

You'd think the bad publicity and the public outcry and derision against companies like these would make them change their ways. After all, who in their right mind would want to do business with them if they are practically extortionists?

But customer service seemed not to be in their business plans, so lawmakers, at least in California, had to step in.

According to TechDirt, the new California law makes it illegal to prevent a "a consumer's right to make any statement regarding the seller or lessor or its employees or agents, or concerning the goods and services."

It's also now illegal in California to try to collect fines or penalties from a customer who criticizes a company.

The first violaton would cost a compnay $2,500 and "flagrant" violations could run up to $10,000.

TechDirt points out one problem with the otherwise good California law: It's sometimes awfully hard to track down the scumbags behind the scummy outfits that would go after someone financially who complains about shoddy products or services.

Says TechDirt:

".....there's more than a few companies combining crappy service with hefty fines that don't seem to actually exist outside of a Mailboxes Etc. address. Laws are tough to enforce when you can't find anyone to hold accountable. The worst part is that by the time most consumers discover they're dealing with a company that will charge them for negative reviews, these companies already have their credit card information and can start adding these charges to their balances."

The bottom line: It's up to us as consumers, and the media, to find out which companies have these ridiculous non-disparagement clauses and go after them.

Plus, it would be nice if there were a federal law similar to California's which would cover consumers nationwide.

New Anti-Gay Laws Promoting "Religious Freedom" Reflect Chutzah, Will Backfire

Arizona looked, at least until today, like it was onthe cusp of enacting a law that basically says if a gay person comes into your shop and your "heartfelt religious convictions" make you not want to serve them, go ahead and throw them out.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is
deciding whether to veto a really
over the top anti-gay bill.  

At first glance, this might seem too bad. Why should business owner have to deal with somebody they don't like?

Well, because you're discriminating against a whole class of citizens, that's why. It's really like the Jim Crow laws back in the 1950s.

Black people don't have a choice other than to be black, so you can't discriminate against that entire class. Gay people, despite the protestations of religious  conservatives and the discredited "ex-gay" types, really can't change their sexual orientation.

And it's a little much to ask gay people to either pretend they are straight or to spend their lives being celibate, just to make adherents of certain religions feel better.  

Arizona's proposal, and similar ones in other conservative states, have come up because same gender, gay marriage is sweeping the nation.  It's legal in 12 states (including Vermont, Yay!, where I live and have been gay married to the wonderful Jeff since August 26, 2012. )

The people who don't like gay marriage are afraid that say, a religious wedding cake baker might be forced to bake a cake for a gay couple who are getting married.

And under anti-discrimination laws in some states, that's entirely possible. Here in Vermont, a bed and breakfast owner got in trouble for declining to host a wedding between two same gender partners, based on the inn owners' religious beliefs.

Contrary to some conservatives' assertions, people aren't going to get thrown in jail for refusing to serve gays, but they might lose civil lawsuits, as the owners of the Vermont bed and breakfast did to the tune of $10,000.

The deal is, if you run a business open to the public, some of your clientele are going to be people you'd rather not associate with.

Unless those people cause a direct disruption to your business, say by shoplifting, disturbing other customers or causing damage your really have to do business with them.

If you don't want your business to serve gays, blacks, Jews, Hispanics, and I don't know, purple people from Pluto, then don't have a business that serves the public.

It really does take a lot of gall to say people are being "discriminated" against because they have to live in the same world as people their religion says they should hate.  I don't like, say, Internet trolls, but no matter how much I whine, they're going to exist. Deal with it.

All this is why the Arizona bill, if the state's governor, Jan Brewer, signs it into law, will probably get struck down by the courts.

The people behind the bill surely know that, but are just trying to score political points with their conservative base voters.

Of course the court of public opinion could easily shoot down the law before any federal appeals court event gets to glance at the thing.

It seems most people nowadays either tolerate gays or are fine with them. Most businesses want to have as many happy customers as possible. After all, the point of having a business is to make money and you need customers to do that, right?

That business angle is why a similar bill in Kansas recently got shot down. In Arizona, the state's Chamber of Commerce and Industry, not exactly extreme leftists, urged Brewer to veto the bill. As did the state's two Republican U.S. Senators.

And three of the state legislators who originally voted for the bill now say thir vote was a mistake and want the governor to veto it.
 
Here's what the Arizona Chamber of Commerce has to say:

"After analyzing the bill, we are very concerned about the effects it would have on Arizona's economy. As leaders in the business community, we cannot support measures that could expose our businesses to litgation, nor do want to send a message that our state is anything but an open and attractive place for visitors and the top talent that will be the cornerstone of our continued economic growth"  

I also think the law, if it's enacted, would backfire on the religious fundamentalists who backed it. What if a business owner said it was against his heartfelt religious belief to serve someone who would discriminate against gay people?

Already, a Tuscon pizzeria put up a tongue in cheek sign saying it reserved the right to not serve lawmakers who supported the bills. 

So,  as is usually the case, when legislators pass laws based on their well, basic bases, and adhere to narrow, ideological world views, the laws don't end up working in their favor.

Which tells me even if Brewer doesn't veto this stupid proposal, it won't last long, even the most conservative corners of Arizona.

The fun part? All those national extreme right wing fundamentalists that goaded the legislature to take this up willl end up looking even more stupid once the bill, or the law dies.

Bummer, dude

Canadian Group Has Awesome Olympics Ad Protesting Russians' Hate of Gays

Much has been made of the horrible, hideous attacks on gay people in Russia from the top levels of government on down to many people on the street. 

A still from "Luge" a Canadian group's ad
protesting anti-gay idiocy in Russia.  

The government goes after them, vigilante groups brutally attack gay people there. Disgusting beyond belief.

A silver lining to all this is that the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia are shining a spotlight on these abuses. I don't know if it will force any changes, but there is pressure on the government and the people of Russia to back off.

Sometimes, the best forms of protest involve humor, and a group called the Canadian Institute of Diversity and Inclusion put together an AWESOME 30-second, Olympic themed ad calling the homophobic Russians out.

Here's the video, Enjoy:

Virginia Attorney General Is Way Too Interested In Your Sex Life

We need to talk about Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli's sex life.

No, I won't go into any detail here, mainly because I don't know a thing about his sex life, nor do I care about it.

Kenneth Cuccinelli is shocked, SHOCKED! by
most kinds of sexual activity.  

The problem is, he cares, very, very deeply about your sex life. Especially if you live in Virginia.

Before we get into the details, if you're a little delicate, you might want to avoid getting too involved in this post.

Here's the deal: In Virginia, Cuccinelli wants to ban oral and anal sex. 

I guess it's not Biblical enough or something. Of all the crime problems an attorney general would face in any state, I'm not sure why Cuccinelli is focusing on this, but I guess everybody has their priorities.

This all stems from the notion that Cuccinelli finds gay people icky. Courts have the state can't stop gay people from having sex, as long as they do it behind closed doors and it involves consenting adults. Cuccinelli's solution is to ban all oral and anal sex for everybody, straight or gay.

As you can imagine, there are lots of problems with Cuccinelli's potential law. It's unconstitutional, as the U.S. Supreme Court has already dealt with this issue. Yes, I know the Supremes should have been dealing with less carnal issues, but this topic came up, so to speak, so it had to be addressed.

Of course there are other, practical problems with Cuccinelli's idea. How are they going to enforce it? Most people don't have sex of any kind out in the street, where police could see whether people are doing the deed legally, at least to Cuccinelli's satisfaction.

Besides, I think it's already illegal to have sex of any kind out in the middle of the street.

Are you going to have to get a permit before having sex and then have some law enforcement person in your bedroom making sure your technique is proper, under Virginia law? Wouldn't having law enforcement watching kind of kill the mood?

Unless you're into that sort of thing, of course.

Worse, will Cuccinelli invite himself into everybody's bedroom to watch? If so, then geez, the guy really IS kinky!

What if Cuccinelli somehow succeeds with this law and then is able to prosecute everyone who breaks it. Supposedly, Virginia's prison system has the capacity of 30,000. There are several million adults in Virginia. Where would all those sex addled felons go?

And why is Cuccinelli so interested in how people are having sex, anyway?  Yes, I do understand and agree with the point that everyone in law enforcement, including Cuccinelli, should care and ensure that sex only happens between consenting adults

But wanting to regulate how these consenting adults do it just seems a little, well, obsessive.  Sure, Cuccinelli should decide for himself how he wants to conduct his sex life, but he should keep his dick nose out of our beds.

In any event, Cuccinelli already finds himself under pressure to ensure he and his staff have sex (not necessarily with each other!) in a way that Cuccinelli himself finds proper.

Mother Jones magazine has already demanded to know if Cuccinelli and his staff have ever had oral or anal sex. You'd hate to have a hypocrite in his office, so we'd better clean house now, goes the logic.

So far, no response to Mother Jones on that question.

There was that big tourist ad campaign a few years ago that went "Virginia is for lovers."  I'd hate to think the only lovers Virginia would welcome in the future are really boring ones.



.

Quebec Town Hates Front Yard Garden. Why?

A couple in Drummondville, Quebec, well northeast of Montreal, are having quite a war with their town because they are growing vegetables in their front yard.

Criminal activity: A Quebec couple seen here breaking
the law through the evil activity of growing veggies in
front of the house. 

This criminal couple (How dare they have anything other than wasteful, expensive to maintain grass in their front yard!) say the vegetables they're harvesting have improved their health, neighbors like the garden, and they share produce with their neighbors)

But the town said a neighbor complained, though I think that's code for a zoning enforcement person complained that his will is not being followed the way he wants it to be followed.  Apparently, front lawns in this Drummondville neighborhood are required to be 30 percent grass. I don't know why that rule is in place.

The couple face fines of $100 to $300 per day if they don't remove the garden and plant grass. 

As you can see by the photo, the garden is well maintained, so it's not like the neighbors are looking at an eyesore. And I do think it's reasonable to expect people with front yard gardens to keep them looking nice and neat, and well landscaped.

Not explained in any of the articles about this incident, and similar ones elsewhere in the country, is why zoning departments insist on grass on the front yard and not gardens. Gardens use less water, and better for the environment, and aren't a waste of space like lawns can be.

HGTV, that home and garden design network that shows all those oh-so-perfect houses, notes that front yard gardens can be designed to look absolutely gorgeous.  You might try tastefully arranged raised beds, landscaping and scattering some flowering plants among the veggies to make things look pretty for the neighbors and those hyper-critical zoning department inspectors.  

Don't get me wrong. Grassy yards are great if that's what you like. It's your house, do as you wish. No sense of living with surroundings you don't like. But geez, a garden is a bad thing?

Drummondville officials think so. They are working on an ordinance banning the growing of vegetables on front yards anywhere in town.  Because as we all know, a tomato plant growing on a front yard can lead to all sorts of criminal behavior.  I mean, what if somebody uses the tomatoes from the front yard garden to make salsa or something awful like that. 

No, Employer, You Can't Root Through Our Private Messages

If in the future I look for another job, this post might turn into a strike against me, but I congratulate Facebook for threatening to sue would be employers who insist job applicants show them the private pages of their Facebook accounts.

According to the Associated Press, some employers are now requiring applicants to hand over Facebook passwords or "friend" HR managers. 

Should employers  be able to access private pages
on job applicants' Facebook accounts?

On Sunday, U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. and Richard Blumenthal, D-Ct. asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to see whether such demands for Facebook passwords violate federal law.

Of course, any employer should conduct due diligence when hiring somebody. That means combing through public records,  and looking at anything publicly available to see if the prospective employee is a good match. Anything on public Facebook pages, or obtained through Google, is fair game, as far as I'm concerned.

After all, it's probably a good idea to know if the applicant for Chief Financial Officer has three embezzlement convictions. And it's probably useful to know the prospective nanny has a side business producing child pornography.

It's also necessary for job applicants to tell the truth and be open to questions. That's the way it's always worked. And it should.

But really, going through the private pages of Facebook. What's next? Demanding to see every email you've ever written? Turning over those love letters you wrote in college to the HR Department? Wearing a listening device for the rest of your life so your employer knows what you are doing, where you are and what you're saying all the time?

Sorry, pal.  I'm all for giving 110 percent to your employer, but our personal life is our personal life. Yeah, we'll behave, obey the law and not do anything to hurt the companies we work for. That's the employee's end of the bargain.

Employers: If we want to have legal fun, say what we want, do what we want, go where we want on our own time and our own dime, then we will, and you'd better not make that affect our jobs.

Some conservative and libertarian critics say the government has too much power over the public. Others disagree, but in any even, that's a debate definitely worth having.

Another worthwhile debate is to discuss how much control employers should have over us as well. I know, it varies widely. Many employers are great at respecting boundaries, a few are not. We need to set minimum standards on this.

Let the discussion begin.

Beware The Copyright Troll

If you write a book, record a song, make a great movie, you want to get paid for your work.  You don't want someone using your material to make money, and by extenstion, denying you profits for your work. That's why we have copywrite laws. To ensure you own your work and get paid for it. Love it.

Like everything else though, the laws can be abused, often by companies claiming to represent copyright holders, to tragicomic lengths. The worst example I saw came from Belgium, where a copyright collecting company is going after libraries where volunteers read to children, according to an on line report by writer Robin Wauters.

Apparently, the company wants to charge the libraries fees for reading the books to kids. Somehow I bet the agency, not the authors of the books the volunteers are reading, would get the fees.

The kids wouldn't immediately buy the books anyway, since they're so young, so nobody is losing out if they are read to. And as Wauters points out, reading to kids often ends up making them readers. Meaning they turn into the type of people who would buy books. Which would enrich the authors (hopefully!) and the agencies dealing the the copyrights

But logic doesn't matter too much here, I guess.

Wyoming Fails To Protect Itself from the Apocalypse.

I haven't been disappointed with a state as much lately as I am with Wyoming.  They had such a great legislative idea, only to abandon it, those jerks.

The state's House of Representatives was considering a bill that would have set up all kinds of defenses, including an army, weapons and even an aircraft carrier to protect Wyoming from the inevitable collapse of civilization, no doubt brought on by the supposed socialistic, pro-Muslim policies of Barack Obama.

Every state could use one of these. Buy one for yourself
if your state doesn't.

I know questions are being raised by readers right away. For instance: An aircraft carrier? In Wyoming?  I know what you're saying. An aircraft carrier might be a little impractical in a mountainous state with Wyoming, with few bodies of water and certainly no oceans.

But such negative attitudes toward aircraft carriers in Wyoming reflect a terrible lack of imagination that will surely be the ruin of this country, if the New World Order or something doesn't get us first.

As an aside, what exactly is the New World Order?  There was sort of a disco-ey, electronic band called New Order back in the 1980s? Is that band plotting world dominence? Seems odd to be ruled despotically by a disco band but what do I know?

Anyway, back to Wyoming and the aircraft carrier. People who criticize should realize: What if the the end of the nation through liberalism or whatever results in an ocean in Wyoming? The state was just trying to be proactive, covering all possibilities to keep it citizenry safe. What's wrong with that?

Sadly, however, the legislature rejected its preparation for the apocalype, so Wyoming residents are on their own if space aliens attack or something.

Worse, the aircraft carrier piece of the legislation was an amendment made by a Wyoming House member as a means of ridiculing the Wyoming Defense Bill.

Still, local defense in the face of the United States' collapse is probably a great idea. I think I'll lobby my local representative to the Vermont legislature to buy an entire army from some other country to defend us against, I don't know, another Phish concert



a band in 1980s and 1990s called New Order.

Okla. Legislator Saves Us From Fetus Burgers

This has been all over the news, but I have to note here the story about Oklahoma State Senator Ralph Shortey, who has introduced a bill that would prohibit the sale or manufacture of food or products which contain aborted human fetuses. 

This is obviously a great idea, since who in the world would want that in their food? Of course, I doubt anything on the Safeway shelves has any pieces of aborted fetus, given the yuck factor and the really, really substantial ethical issues associated with it.

This man, Ralph Shortey, might save us from the
yuckiness of aborted fetuses in food.

Still, I guess you can't be too careful. Says Shortey: “There is a potential that there are companies that are using aborted human babies in their research and development of basically enhancing flavor for artificial flavors.”


Apparently, Shortey read something on the Internet, where this here blog thingamjig is, that some company called Senomyx is using aborted embryonic create isolated human taste receptors, whatever that sentence means.


And of course you have to believe everything that's on the Internet. If it's in words, it's true, right?.


Well, Shortey said he's done some digging on this, and he doesn't believe everything on the Internet, which is a relief.  He also says he doesn't mind the ridicule, because people who raise seemingly nonsensical issues are often proved right, and the laughing stops


No word from Senomyx on what's going on, at least there's nothing on their Web site, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says they're not aware of this.


I would certainly hope the FDA would be aware of this, if it is going on. 


I also hope our state legislators save us from other perils out there. And the way to do that is to pass laws, to make sure those wascally wabbits don't hurt us.


Here in Vermont, I'm going to lobby my local legislators to pass laws outlawing purple monkeys from walking along my street. I also want them to ban square hailstones in thunderstorms. And I think we need a law that would bar space aliens from abducting anyone with the letter Q in their name.


Because we have to protect ourselves from such things before they happen.