In short: if you have a harmless bit of brass in your cup holder – such as the .22 casings I recall that I have in mine – the D.C. police are *supposed* to arrest you. The result can be a $1,000 fine and/or a year in jail.
If you can come up with a reason why having empty bits of brass in your car should be illegal… I mean, a reason beyond “D.C. is a fascist police state”… I’d love to hear it.
Heh.
[youtube dT5FS0h2SBs]
The “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010″ mandates that public schools serve a narrow range of pre-selected, government-approved foods. Foods that, apparently, kids hate, and aren’t eating, and thus spending the rest of their schoolday hungry. And hungry kids don’t lern so gud.
Huzzah. Another “central planning success story.”
The short form: if you are planning on a surgery and your health insurance won’t cover it all and you’ll be left with a big bill… talk to ’em and find out what it’ll cost you if you do not file it as an insurance claim, but pay cash.
The doctor in the story points out what the effects of Obamacare will be on the costs of healthcare…
In short: the company “Forever 21,” which I gather sells clothes of some sort, just turned all the 40-hour-a-week workers into 29.5-hour-per-week workers, effective August 31. Why the rather odd 29.5 hours? Because at 30 hours, the company would still have to pay into their medical, dental, vision and life insurance, but at less than 30 hours, Obamacare doesn’t make so many demands of employers.
As a bonus, not only are the former full-timers losing their medical insurance in favor of a massive new government bureaucracy, they are losing at least a quarter of their income. As a further bonus, they will no longer accrue paid time off.
Hmmm.
Reminds me of something. Didn’t someone closely associated with Obamacare once say:
“If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”
I have no idea what the politics of the management, staff and customers of “Forever 21” are. But looking at a few things online, they seem to cater to “fashionable” young folk. You know, the kind who voted in large numbers of Obama. The kind who thought that Obamacare was such a fantastic idea. The kind who may never know what a full-time job is.
It’s a pity nobody saw this sort of thing coming. Oh, wait, lots of people saw this sort of thing coming.
Uhhhh… “return?”
Short form: some preachers want to become overtly political at the pulpit without giving up their tax-free status.
Seems to me there’s a straightforward solution: get rid of the notion that churches are *supposed* to be tax free, then they can say whatever they like.
Short form: some people do monumentally stupid things (kayaking in floods, frex), and then need rescuing. Since the economy is not exactly stellar, states are looking at ways to fund rescue services. Well… how about charging for their services, when their services are required to save someone who exhibited poor judgement?
This is not only a good idea for this particular government function, but for *most* government functions. Some functions cover everybody equally… the military, weather services, etc. Others, such as rescue, policing, food stamps, welfare, etc. take funds from some and distribute it unequally to others. Why should those who consume out of proportion, and do so not due to bad luck but due to bad judgement, not be required to pay back the society they’ve helped impoverish?
Of course, there are other opinions:
The other approach to dealing with cash-strapped governments is to simply soak the taxpayers. Sure, that’s worked well.
City officials urge ban on ‘potentionally offensive’ language
Seattle officials call for ban on ‘potentially offensive’ language
Minitrue dayorder decree following ungood oldthink:
Recdep to rectify.
Giving government officials the power to collect taxes is bad enough. Giving the ability to determine what you *should* be making is worse.
After more than six months of paperwork and interviews, the Minnesota Department of Revenue ruled that de Mars is not a professional artist.
It listed several reasons, chief among them that de Mars took too much pleasure from her work, and didn’t work hard enough to make a profit. As a result, state officials say she owes thousands of dollars in back taxes.
Ye gods. I know that on this planet of seven-plus billion people, there should be a market to sell thousands of copies of, say, Aerospace Projects Review. And yet I only sell dozens. Does this mean some bureaucratic busybody will decide that I should pay taxes on what I *should* sell, and that I’m just being lazy?
Ugh.
Short form: Weiner resigned his seat in Congress in 2011 after photos went public provign that he was a scumbag, cyber-cheating on his wife. He did the weepy thing, promising to change, blah, blah. Well, it’s happened again, with photos from mid/late 2012. Note that this is well *after* he quit in 2011, while *still* married. Before this came out, Weiner was leading in the polls to win the NYC Mayoral election.
So here’s my suggestion: if, after this, Weiner *still* wins, that’ll be prima facie evidence that the voters of NYC cannot be trusted with even local elections. Consequently, their votes will no longer count for state and federal elections until such time as they prove to not be complete unutterable morons. Any man who cannot keep it in his shorts even after losing his career so publicly and humiliatingly is clearly someone who should not be entrusted with any position of power, and anyone who would nevertheless put such a person in a position of power is clearly an idiot.
Same of course goes for Detroit and Chicago.