Nobody's Business

Guess Who's Not Coming to Dinner

Feeding the homeless is illegal unless the food is prepared in a high-end, government-approved kitchen. Sounds like an Onion spoof. Isn't.

From now on, feeding the homeless in Fairfax County will require more than just a big heart. You'll also need a commercial-grade refrigerator, a three-compartment sink and county certification. Officials said this week that a new campaign to enforce the county food code at shelters is aimed at preventing food poisoning among the homeless. But operators of shelters said forcing them to reject donations of sandwiches or casseroles prepared at home or in church kitchens is not in the best interest of their clients because it will make it harder to provide them with healthy, hot meals. "We're very aware that a number of homeless people eat out of Dumpsters, and Mom's pot roast has got to be healthier than that," said Jim Brigl, chief executive of Fairfax Area Christian Emergency & Transitional Services.

Some bureaucrats are silly but harmless. Others — the ones whose stupidity approaches evil — deserve to be humanely killed, put through a meat grinder, and made into hamburger patties. All under the watchful eye of FDA inspectors using the strictest hygienic guidelines, of course.

[hat tip: Bureaucrash]

Great Success for Catholic Grievance Seekers

If a company sells dog bowls but not dog food, does it discriminate against dogs?

That's more or less the reasoning of these Italian busybodies. who allege that Ikea is guilty of "anti-Catholic prejudice" because the retailer sells Christmas decorations but not nativity scenes.

Evidently, the war-on-Christmas meme, long a favorite fallacy of frothing-at-the-mouth conservative Christians in the U.S., has now spread across the ocean.

I wish it was January.

Dog Too Fat? See You in Court!

In England, being obese can get you carted off to a mental institution. Allowing your pet to overeat means you might get some face time with a judge.

[T]wo brothers appeared in court yesterday charged with allowing a dog to get too fat. Rusty, a nine-year-old labrador, may only have been doing what labradors do, which is to eat everything in sight. But he ballooned to more than 11½ stone (161lb, 73kg), the ideal weight for a large-boned 6ft (1.82m) woman, but not a retriever, which should be chasing sticks and newly shot game. ... In what is thought to be the first case of its kind, Rusty’s owners, David Benton and his brother Derek, have been charged with animal cruelty for allowing him to become grossly overweight. ...

When interviewed by the RSPCA, David Benton insisted that Rusty ate only one meal of dried food each evening and a snack in the morning. “He has been plump ever since he was a puppy. He is a poor old thing but he is not in pain. We have tried to give him many foods, but it does not make any difference,” he said. Derek Benton told the charity that Rusty’s weight gain was old age catching up with him.

The first child-abuse lawsuit against parents for having a fat child is surely just around the corner.

Texas: Ethics, Smethics

In theory, the Ethics Commission in the state of Texas does great work. In practice, you might as well appoint eight skeevy street hookers to a commission on promoting virginity.

A Texas official who receives any sum of cash as a gift can satisfy state disclosure laws by reporting the money simply as "currency" without specifying the amount, the Texas Ethics Commission reiterated Monday. The 5-3 decision outraged watchdog groups and some officials who accused the commission of failing to enforce state campaign finance laws. "What the Ethics Commission has done is legalize bribery in the state of Texas. We call on the commission to resign en masse," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, who heads Texas Citizen, an Austin-based group that advocates for campaign finance reform. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, said the "currency" interpretation would render it "perfectly legal to report the gift of 'a wheelbarrow' without reporting that the wheelbarrow was filled with cash." 

Whole thing here.

Unrelated bonus: When you click on that link, in addition to the article, you may also see a banner ad for a local TV station touting tonight's 10 o'clock news broadcast:

Your childs best friend...
a convicted SEX OFFENDER?
A growing threat in Texas schools. 

While the station's advertising staffers are not too well-versed in the use of the possessive apostrophe, they're absolute masters with type and images. That towheaded, blue-eyed, frecklefaced boy... Those disturbing blood-red 'police file' capitals... It's genius, I tell you. Evil genius, but still. With news reports — and ads — like these, it won't be long before America is every bit as obsessed and hysterical as Great Britain.

Comments Disappeared... Sorry!

For the third time in a couple of months, this site is under attack by comment spammers touting various porn and gambling sites. Typepad, my blogging service, talks a good game but ultimately refuses to do anything about it. Anyway, while I was deleting oodles of spammers' comments this morning, an errant mouseclick or two also got rid of about a week's worth of legitimate comments. That was an irreversible (but hopefully not unforgivable) mistake. My apologies if your comment has been inadvertently deep-sixed. I'll try not to do that again...

Comedy Apartheid

If you say a bad word on the airwaves, the FCC wants the broadcaster to pay a half-million-dollar fine. That idea really appeals to Jaime Masada, a comedy-club owner who suddenly fancies himself a brave fighter against racial insensitivity.

You see, the latest on the Michael Richards kerfuffle is that Mr. Masada, the proprietor of the Laugh Factory, the L.A. club where Richards had his horrible racist meltdown, has joined the chorus of those demanding further atonement. He also wants out-of-line comedians to pay millions of dollars' worth of fines.

Jaime Masada extended an invitation to Richards to perform on December 4 at the club to apologize to the guests who attended the November 17 performance. ... Masada suggested Richards donate at least $500,000 to charity for every time he unleashed the derogatory term. Masada also said the comedy club will ban comedians from using all "hateful words" including the "n-word." "We want to be the first place in the world to ask all of the comedians if they go on stage and use the 'n-word,' (it) comes out of their paycheck," Masada said.

It's a little bit like the Muslims and the Pope, isn't it? No matter how many times the Vatican apologizes for his perceived insult to Islam of a few months ago, his original words, for those who are high on their own righteousness, are the gift that keeps on giving. Multiple apologies are not enough; the perpetrator must continue his public self-flagellation and self-recrimination until the eagerly displayed moral outrage of his accusers either dissipates or finds a new lightning rod.

Mr. Masada can implement any policy he sees fit — it's his club. I'll just note that his plan to ban "hateful words" seems a little opportunistic. I mean, why now? Because this particular bandwagon was too enticing to ignore? If Mr. Masada is so bothered by words that offend, might he be in the wrong business? And why didn't he ban those terms from his club years ago?

Also, whose sensibilities deserve protection from which words? And which word carries what penalty, exactly? If instances of 'nigger' draw $500,000 each, shall we punish 'raghead,' 'goatfucker,' 'spic,' and 'hymie' with, say, $250,000? And 'cracker,' 'bull-dyke' and 'faggot' with $100,000, maybe? Does that sound about right? Send your suggestions to Mr. Masada, as I'm sure he's struggling with these weighty questions.

Maybe you could also tell him whether you think there should be an exemption for black comedians, like Chris Rock, who love using the n-word. Chris Rock, of course, has performed at Mr. Masada's club, presumably with a free pass to utter any potentially hateful word of his choosing. So, do different standards apply to black funnymen? Does Mr. Masada advocate comedy apartheid? As Earl Ofari Hutchinson writes,

[B]lack comedians and rappers ... have virtually canonized the word. They sprinkle the word throughout their rap lyrics and comedy lines, and black writers, and filmmakers go through lengthy gyrations to justify using the word. During a panel discussion at the Summer Television Critics Association tour in 2005, Aaron McGruder, creator of the popular comic strip Boondocks, defiantly told the audience that he'd use the n-word as much as he pleased in his comic strip and in his series on the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. If folks didn't like it, well tough.

McGruder and Rock, like Richards, are subject to simple-to-grasp market forces. People are free to see their shows or to avoid them. We surely don't need the FCC to tell us which fare is permissible and which deserves huge fines; just as we don't need comedy-club owners to go down that same censorious path.

No one has punished Michael Richards more than Michael Richards. His obscene tirade virtually assured the end of his career. He has since obediently prostrated himself and asked for forgiveness. To pile on and demand that he do it again and again is almost as unseemly as the behavior that provoked those calls in the first place. And telling other comedians that their use of bad words now carries heavy fines is about as offensive as anything they might find themselves spewing.

Lay off.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Last year, when my wife and I were visiting London, she took a cab one morning, and the driver, making conversation, asked her what she did. When she replied she runs kids' camps and was in town to recruit staff at a job fair, the first thing out of his mouth was "Oh, I wouldn't want to do what you do. You never know if you're hiring kiddie fiddlers" [pedophiles].

The irrational fear of child molesters was everywhere we traveled in the U.K. Within days, I even fell under suspicion myself when I took pictures of children at an Irish-dance festival. It was surreal. (For other examples of the pedophilia panic that has gripped the Brits, see here, here, and here.)

I return to the topic because I belatedly happened upon an excellent column by libertarian journalist and Member of Parliament Boris Johnson. Johnson, whose name regular readers of this blog might recognize, was recently asked to change seats on a British Airways flight because he was sitting next to two children. This arrangement was considered potentially dangerous to said children's wellbeing, as there is no telling what disturbing things a man might do to underage travelers in front of a planeload of passengers.

Luckily, the flight attendant who told Johnson to scram withdrew her request when the children informed her that the would-be pedophile was in fact their father.

Writes Johnson:

[C]ome off it, folks. How many paedophiles can there be? Are we really saying that any time an adult male finds himself sitting next to someone under 16, he must expect to be hustled from his seat before the suspicious eyes of the entire cabin? ... [M]aybe all adults will have to carry personal cardboard partitions with them on every plane or train, just in case they find themselves sitting next to under-16s. 

(In fairness, airlines have the same ugly guidelines Down Under.)

Johnson points out that this lunacy has consequences that are actually detrimental to the welfare of children. Viewing all men as potential child buggerers is

...a huge deterrent to any public-spirited man contemplating a career in education that society apparently regards all adult male contact with young people as being potentially a bit dodgy, a bit rum, a bit you know… It is a total disaster. It is not just that both boys and girls could do with more male role models in the classroom. Worse still, it often used to be men who taught physics, and maths, and chemistry, and it is the current shortage of such teachers that explains why 80 per cent of pupils studying physics are now taught by someone with a degree in biology; and that in turn helps explain why the numbers doing physics A-level have halved, and why physics departments are closing all over the shop, with all the consequent damage to our science base.

One of the commenters on Johnson's article notes that the consequences of the moral panic can be more severe than educational setbacks:

I was once walking to work in London — I had the good fortune to live about 10 mins from the office in Islington and took a route along some busy but not main roads. One morning I came across a screaming toddler who appeared to be on his own. My instinct was to hand him in as lost property at a police station on-route, but upon more careful consideration — an adult male approaching a lone toddler and leading him off...no chance. It caused me great pain, but I had to walk off. 

I'd like to think I would have offered — literally — a helping hand; but given the overall hysteria, I certainly understand the urge not to get involved.

Also check out the comment by a physician named Lisa Silver. Her account, about her good-Samaritan husband being branded a potential pedophile, neatly encapsulates all that is wrong with the British child-molestation obsession. Still, the Silvers have devised a way to extract something good from a bad situation: next time they travel on British Airways,

...my husband is going to call over the hostess and mouth to her that he has unfeasibly nasty tendencies and under no circumstances can he be entrusted to sit anywhere near any youngsters, and if [BA] could see their way to getting him one of those flat beds up the pointy end of the plane, he will give them his utmost assurance that he will keep his odious habits to himself.

It's a perfect combination of spite and spoof; I might try it myself.

Will 'Causing Offense' Become a Crime?

England again. Of course. From the Guardian, via Reason's Hit & Run:

As well as the absence of a law banning the burning of a flag, there is no law banning the burning of a religious text.

There isn't? The bloody outrage!

The police want powers to tackle a "grey area" in the array of public order laws. At present, causing offence by itself is not a criminal offence.

Well, that's just the facking limit, innit? Someone should finally push for "causing offense" to be a crime.

Oh wait, someone just did.

Logic, Nanny-Style

A Durex commercial shown on late-night TV has bluenoses seeing red. Sputters an outraged spokesperson for the pressure group Family and Youth Concern:

"Yet again we have the sex industry seeking to push back the boundaries of what is acceptable on television. The promotion of sex as a purely recreational activity devoid of any lifelong commitment has contributed to the human misery that results from family breakdown, and the massive increase in sexually transmitted infections" [emphasis mine].

Um... As the always-excellent site mediawatchwatch points out,

Durex makes condoms.

Homeowners Group Wars Over Peace Sign

Legions of holier-than-thou lawmakers aside, the country's most odious nannies reside on co-op boards and homeowners associations, where they excitedly find fault with every behavior under the sun. Case in point:

A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan. Some residents who have complained have children serving in Iraq, said Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association in Pagosa Springs. He said some residents have also believed it was a symbol of Satan. Three or four residents complained, he said.

"Somebody could put up signs that say drop bombs on Iraq. If you let one go up you have to let them all go up," he said in a telephone interview Sunday. Lisa Jensen said she wasn't thinking of the war when she hung the wreath. She said, "Peace is way bigger than not being at war. This is a spiritual thing. ... Kearns ordered the committee to require Jensen to remove the wreath, but members refused after concluding that it was merely a seasonal symbol that didn't say anything. Kearns fired all five committee members. 

Whole astonishing thing here.