Seriously.  You cannot make this stuff up.  Florida has decided to get tough on farting.

Florida Boy Arrested For Gas Attack

12-year-old charged after deliberately “breaking wind” in class

NOVEMBER 21–A 12-year-old Florida student was arrested earlier this month after he “deliberately passed gas to disrupt the class,” according to police. The child, who was also accused of shutting off the computers of classmates at Stuart’s Spectrum Jr./Sr. High School, was busted November 4 for disruption of a school function.

I can’t help but wonder if he was charged with carrying a concealed weapon, or if this was classified as a hate crime….

A Martin County Sheriff’s Office report, a copy of which you’ll find below, notes that the 4′ 11″ offender admitted that he “continually disrupted his classroom environment by breaking wind and shutting off several computers.” The boy, whose name was redacted from the police report released today, was turned over to his mother following the arrest. The young perp turned 13 on November 15.

The charge was actually “Disruption of a school function”, according to the police report.

Maybe the ACLU will take up the case.   Isn’t passing gas a free speech exercise?

Puhleeeeze….Detention?  Reprimand?  Even sending him home to stink out his parents in a suspension, OK.

But calling the police and creating a Juvy record?

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Let’s be honest, at my age, the drinking age isn’t anything I really care about.  I think I have been carded once in the last 10 or 15 years.

But i do have children, two of which are still under the age of 21, so for their sake, and for the unnamed hoard of 18-20 year olds, I want to visit the issue.

What brings this into focus is the recent call to raise the drinking age back up, presented by a coalition of college professors.¹

College chiefs urge new debate on drinking age

College presidents from about 100 of the nation’s best-known universities, including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus.

Men pour beer on a drunken student during Spring Break on South Padre Island, Texas.

The movement called the Amethyst Initiative began quietly recruiting presidents more than a year ago to provoke national debate about the drinking age.

“This is a law that is routinely evaded,” said John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont who started the organization. “It is a law that the people at whom it is directed believe is unjust and unfair and discriminatory.”

Other prominent schools in the group include Syracuse, Tufts, Colgate, Kenyon and Morehouse.

Of course the debate has its opponants.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving says lowering the drinking age would lead to more fatal car crashes. It accuses the presidents of misrepresenting science and looking for an easy way out of an inconvenient problem.

Now, I can understand their wanting to be a part of the deate and that they are passionate.  What sucks is that MADD had to take the low road:

MADD officials are even urging parents to think carefully about the safety of colleges whose presidents have signed on.

Here we go again:

Condominium owners tell smokers: Take it outside

Residents of a tony, high-rise condominium along the Mississippi River in Minneapolis are among the first to vote to make their building smoke-free, taking Minnesota’s battle over smoking bans into private homes.

The rule, at La Rive Condominiums near St. Anthony Main, covers individual units, common areas, garages and private balconies. Current owners who want to smoke will be grandfathered in, but future buyers will have to abide by the rule.

Opponents say the ban is an intrusion into private property rights that could hurt resale prospects at a time when the market is already soft. Supporters counter that, not only do they have a right to breathe clean air, but nonsmoking potential buyers will see going smoke-free as a plus.

“Just as we have seen business [use bans], we’re now seeing homeowners and landowners of apartment buildings and condominiums deciding that they don’t want their property to have smoking on it either,” said Doug Blanke, director of the Tobacco Law Center at the William Mitchell College of Law.

OK, while they may not be the first, as Seattle already banned smoking in their Housing Authority Units, they are one of the first that is taking the action as a private homeowners organization.

Now, I am showing my bias here, because I personally believe Homeowners associations to be an elitist, oppressive and disgusting abuse of power.  But remove “who” made the ban in this case, and look at the bans themselves and you will see that there is still plenty of things to object to about them.

The ban on smoking is a fast growing movement, with only 18 states having no bans at all.  It is clear that the bans will continue to grow, and there will be more and more oppression of individual rights.

Now.  Let me qualify things right now and say that I have no love for smoking.  I quit in 1991 and since several relatives have been diagnosed with Lung Cancer.  I personally don’t like smoking and I think that anyone who starts smoking in this age is a complete idiot.

I’ve had some interesting discussions lately regarding governments. 

So thinking about it today I realized that a government only has two real roles.

To Protect and to Provide.  Provide is easy.  It provides education and welfare and all those various entitlements, and sundry other benefits.  I don’t want to blog about that.  I might have to take a position on Universal Health Care.

I am more concerned today about protection.  I see there being 3 areas of protection.  The obvious one is protection from foreign enemies.  We have the military and such to ensure our people are safe from the bad guys.  There is also an element of internal protection, where the Federal Government ensures that the states are not taking advantage of each other and that business are not taking advantage of consumers..

But the most insidious element of protection is the nanny state “protect you from yourself” mentality, and our Federal, State and even City and County Governments are masters of it.

Take a few recent examples.  First, Smoking.  Once upon a time almost everyone smoked.  It was common and everyday.  But as the health risk became more publicized, the government grew more intrusive.  Now, you cannot smoke practically anywhere, not because a business decides to ban it, but because bureaucrats decided smoking in doors was naughty.

And California has taken that to the extreme by seeking to ban smoking in homes.  Yes, in homes.  If you are in an apartment or condo, in several cities there are now ordinances in the works to an smoking, and even in free standing homes if a neighbor complains.

Look, we can agree smoking is bad for you, but as long as the federal and state governments allow the legal sale of Tobacco, then they have to accept that people are going to smoke, and as sidewalks and parks get banned, and even cars in some instances, what is left when you take away homes?

Oh for the…Are they serious?  Sadly, yes.  Filed under “idiots” for obvious reasons.

The organization that oversees high school sports in Washington is considering more specific rules for fans that could ban booing and offensive chants.

The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association is drafting guidelines to crack down on negative conduct.

I can understand banning physical threats and violence. But booing?  Since when is team loyalty a crime?  Since when is school spirit bad?

The association director blames rude fans for the dwindling number of people who want to be coaches and officials.

Oh, Puuuuuleeze!

He says the guidelines will remind fans to cheer for their team, not against the other.

The penalty is still secret¹ but rumor says that the first violation will result in a stern lecture that makes understand that you made the other team feel really bad.

Second offense will result in being order to apologize publicly and stand in the corner for 10 minutes. 

A third offense will be to write on the score board “I am not a good sport” 100 times and to have to wear the “I’m mean” T-shirt for the rest of the game.

Rumor also suggests that next on their agenda is to make all games end in ties, so none of the players have to deal with the trauma of losing and the presentation of “Everyone is a winner” tee shirts.

Also they plan on banning “Neener Neener”, “Nyah”, nose thumbing and “I know you are but what am I”?

Idiots.

1. so secret I made it up [back]

http://www.komotv.com/news/local/5566451.html

Proponents of same-sex marriage have introduced an initiative that would put a whole new twist on traditional unions between men and women: It would require heterosexual couples to have kids within three years or else have their marriages annulled.

Initiative 957 was filed by the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance, which was formed last summer after the state Supreme Court upheld Washington’s ban on same-sex marriage. In that 5-4 ruling, the court found that state lawmakers were justified in passing the 1998 Defense of Marriage Act, which restricts marriage to unions between a man and woman.

Under I-957, marriage would be limited to men and women who are able to have children. Couples would be required to prove they can have children to get a marriage license, and if they did not have children within three years, their marriages would be subject to annulment

Of course its absurd.  The sponsors, the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance, readily admit it.

"Absurd? Very," the group says on its Web site, which adds it is planning two more initiatives involving marriage and procreation.

But they feel that the state opened the door.

"But there is a rational basis for this absurdity. By floating the initiatives, we hope to prompt discussion about the many misguided assumptions" underlying the Supreme Court’s ruling.

…

…Gadow noted that the Supreme Court’s majority decision specifically mentioned procreation throughout.

The opinion written by Justice Barbara Madsen concluded that "limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers the state’s interests in procreation and encouraging families with a mother and father and children biologically related to both."

Gadow said the argument is unfair when you’re dealing with same-sex couples who are unable to have children together.

"What we are trying to do is display the discrimination that is at the heart of last year’s ruling," he said.

Merits of gay marriage aside, by framing the debate as involving procreation, the Starte Supreme Court opened the door to arguments about having children as well as the validity and relevence of heterosexual marriage.

I get to go to court this morning.  My son committed a crime and has a mitigation hearing on his fine.  Actually, to be technical, it wasn’t a crime, it was a civil infraction, a sort of non driving speeding ticket.

His crime? Possession of  tobacco by a minor.

I don’t personally smoke, I quit that habit in 1991, and when I tried to restart in 1997, I got so sick I gave up.  And I am no particular fan of smoking anyway, as my late mother in law had lung cancer (though she died of other causes) and my mother presently is in a kind of semi remission in her own battle with the disease.

But other parents do, and of course our kids learn by example, so there you go.   Kids will smoke.  Then peer pressure moves in and they help other kids learn.  Despite the more then sufficient evidence of it’s dangers, kids still are attracted to the lure and learn to smoke at young ages (he is 16).

But the ban bothers me, as does the social stigma against the smokers, as outlined in my previous blog entries:

California Smoking Ban bans smoking in some private homes

Danger and denial of care for elderly residents.

Why?  because if our society had a real concern, if we really were convinced that smoking was dangerous, and if we had any balls we would ban the sale and manufacture of the damn things in the first place.

Seriously.  Why are they legal?  What other known cancer causing agent is openly sold in your local Convenience store?  Even Al Gore has now pounced on he anti smoking band wagon.  Why?  Well it appears that Al believes it is a "significant" contributor to global warming".

OK, whatever.  Some days I wonder what Gore is smoking himself.

But assume he is right.  Ban them.  Burn the fields out (the delicious irony) and end the this debate. 

So why don’t we?  Well it isn’t because of Mr Clinton’s love of a fine cigar.

To which I say bullshit.  Why is this being funded out of Medicaid?

We have people complaining that we cannot provide universal health care, but then you see that $50-60K a person sex change surgeries are paid for on the public dole, and you honestly do not see a connection?

Maybe if we made our health care system deal with essentials, there would be more to go around.

Yes, I am saying that gender reassignment is a voluntary and elective surgery, not an essential necessity.

Deal with it.

State tries to rule out aid for sex-change surgery

Medicaid officials plan to rewrite regulations to make it clear the state will no longer cover sex-change operations.

But before the new regulations are in place, the state will likely have to pay for more surgeries.

Lovely.

In a pair of rulings issued last month, a state appeals board ordered Medicaid to pay for two people to travel out of state to undergo sex-change operations. The state estimates the procedures, also known as sex-reassignment surgery, will cost $50,000 to $60,000 each.

How many immunization clinics would that fund?

"This is very controversial and in need of clarity," said state Medicaid director Doug Porter. "We’ve decided to make it real crystal clear that it’s not a covered service."

But Porter said the state plans to continue covering other services — such as hormone treatment and psychotherapy — for people diagnosed with gender-identity disorders. State officials argue that those treatments are just as effective as surgery but are less risky and far less expensive.

"We understand this is a very real condition for some people," Porter said. "We just think psychotherapy and hormone treatment is a better way to go."

Many transgender people and medical experts who treat gender-identity disorders disagree. In some cases, they argue, surgery is the only effective treatment.

"It’s the only thing that repairs our mental health and makes us feel whole and able to get back on track," said Lee, one of the two people who won on appeal last month. Lee is her middle name; she requested that her full name not be published.

Note, the article referenced below implies that the Monroe School district was attempting to deny access to a Bible Study Group.  The article states that  A policy change at Monroe High School aimed at keeping public funds out of Bible studies is striking a blow to a less controversial student activity. 

The implication that the Monroe SD had said intention was fairly straight forward, and in part was what my blog was based on.  A call to the Herald reporter revealed that Monroe High was not actively involved with any bible related clubs in the course of this ruling.  It was taking its action in an apparently preemptive move based on the results of a federal lawsuit in Bethel School in 2002. 

The intention of the article was to imply that the policy’s inception had been to deny a bible club access when it was implemented by Bethel SD, and that Monroe SD was implementing a similar policy, for reasons unstated.

I would note that the accusation that the policy was implemented to deny the gay club formal recognitions, which was addressed and denied in the article, may actually be the accusation closer to the truth.  See below for more information and a history of the lawsuit.

Monroe High School, a small School in Northern Washington has made a policy change that is sure to have repercussions that ripple farther outward.

At issue is student clubs.  The situation is apparently that a Christian Club was being denied access and ASB funds, a privilege that other clubs enjoyed, and protested, citing the Supreme Court Ruling concerning equal access.

The school reviewed its options and decided the only way to prevent those darn Christians from having the same rights was to chuck them all.  So it partitioned the clubs into two classes, curriculum related and not curriculum related.

Any clubs not directly related to school curriculum will not be recognized.  And so to stop the Christians they tossed the baby out with the bath water.

The Christian Club was not the only one affected, as hit by this was the Multicultural Club, the Gay Straight Alliance, and the Kiwanis sponsored Key Club.  Here is the story.

I missed this when it was handed down, but thought that it was an interesting story to go along with my blog on the Liquor Tax being ruled unconstitutional. 

Washington has long had a severe nanny state mentality to Alcohol.  We have state run stores for hard liquor and enough restrictions to make you go sober.

Not any more.

Giant retailer Costco filed an Anti Trust suit to force fair trade practices regarding sales, pricing and distribution.  For a discount warehouse who normally depends on bulk purchasing and such to keep prices competitive, they were stifled by the states uber-control.

In what amounted to a near prohibition era control of the industry, the state maintained a stranglehold on retailers in an attempt to promote temperance, orderly market conditions and to raise revenue.

Costco wins beer, wine suit - Judge’s ruling could lead to lower prices across state

Costco Wholesale Corp. won a landmark legal battle Friday that could lead to lower beer and wine prices in Washington — and across the nation, if other states use the case’s precedent to knock down their distribution laws.

The Issaquah company brought the case against the Washington State Liquor Control Board because it said Washington’s three-tier system for distributing beer and wine was hurting its ability to do business, in violation of federal antitrust law.

Joining the State in opposing this was the Washington Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association.

The state now, unless they appeal, no longer:

• Force producers and distributors to each mark up their products by 10 percent.
• Ban high-volume discounts to retailers on beer and wine.
• Ban credit sales to retailers.
• Ban central warehousing of beer and wine by retailers.
• Require that beer and wine distributors and producers post and hold prices for a month.
• Require wholesalers to charge uniform prices to all retailers.
• Require wholesalers to charge the same “delivered” price to all retailers, no matter what the actual delivery cost.