Some Members of Congress Are Finally Seeing the Light

Those in government who think they know what's good for everyone else have gotten away with a lot of silly things in recent years, and one of the silliest has been the effort to ban the manufacture of incandescent light bulbs, especially when a safe and cost-effective alternative has yet to be manufactured.

Leave it to a Texan, Joe Barton, to try to steer the nation onto a more sensible path. As Pajamas Media's Peter Roff reports in a column today,

On Wednesday, Texas Republican Joe Barton introduced legislation in the House to repeal the ban.

Barton’s bill, the Better Use of Light Bulbs Act, protects America’s access to the light bulbs of their choice rather than forcing them to purchase CFLs and LEDs by engineering distortions in the marketplace.

“Light bulb efficiency standards,” Barton’s office said, “could carry negative unintended consequences. For example, some mandates could only be met with bulbs that contain dangerous mercury. Rather than having the government limit light bulb options or appear to favor one type of bulb over others, the market should allow consumers to decide on the cost, type, and efficiency of the lighting that works best for them.”

There is considerable sentiment in support of Barton’s view, which is shared by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton of Michigan and most if not all of the House Republican leadership.

Simply put, the mandate won’t work — and may create more problems and be more costly than leaving things well enough alone.

And here's the money quote, from former Federal Trade Commission head Orson Swindle:

The creativity of the private sector has brought us a long way from the days of darkness, kerosene lanterns and candles. Thank you, Thomas Edison. Now the government, despite failure after failure over the decades of government efforts to run the economy, decides to mandate to all consumers that the remarkable incandescent light bulb is no longer to be used. The “government light bulb,” like the government energy programs (anti-petroleum) and the government healthcare system, will be far more costly. In addition, reports are still coming in on the rather dangerous fire hazard qualities of the government bulb. Obviously, those responsible for this new government initiative are not the brightest bulbs in the box.

It seems like a lot of government actions come from these dim bulbs, doesn't it? And there's little doubt that those behind the bulb initiative acted before they did a lot of their homework, didn't they?

I have CFL's in my house, and it appears that my reading light has gotten worse over the past few years (it's not the fault of my aging eyes--I swear!). They don't provide heat like incandescents (for those who live in colder climes than here or want to run a cheap popcorn popper or Easy-Bake Oven). They're more expensive than incandescents, and you have to jump through all kinds of hoops to dispose of one, especially if it breaks. And while I tried these things in an effort to be "green," I would, if given the choice, go back to incandescents in a heartbeat. I'm happy to see that Rep. Barton and others would like to give me that choice back.

(And if there's anyone reading this who actually likes CFL's better I'd love to hear from you in the comments.)

UPDATE: And the bill fails in the House. It's time to find out who voted against this and send 'em packing in the next election. Ridiculous...

Get Your Nanny State Out of Our Stadium Implosion

If you're here in the DFW area, you've probably heard about the upcoming demolition of Texas Stadium, set to take place in the early morning hours (yawn) of April 11. And you might have even heard that Kraft Macaroni & Cheese is the official sponsor, and they're having a contest to pick a lucky kid to push the button that will start the whole process.

While there was some (not wholly unexpected) griping about the whole idea of having a kid blow up a stadium, that pales in comparison to the actions of a so-called physicians' group, which is looking to pay the city of Irving the same amount of money to replace the Kraft advertising with its own ad, which would basically say that cheese is making people fat:

Susan Levin with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine says they have sent a letter to the mayor suggesting that they remove Kraft as a sponsor of the event and for the same $75,000 allow them to warn children of the dangers cheese poses to their health. Levin says dairy products are the number one source of saturated fat in America.

Thankfully, Irving Mayor Herb Gears isn't taking the bait (Get it? Bait? Like cheese in a mousetrap?), especially when the advertising the group has proposed (which can be viewed at the link above) shows a fat guy eating cheese and wearing an "I [heart] Velveeta" shirt, with a caption reading "Cheese really blows you up."

More on this at the Dallas Morning News Irving blog, where the commenters have already done a lot of the heavy lifting, exposing this "doctors' group" as an radical animal rights group, less than 5% of whose members are actually physicians. And others have pointed out that Kraft is donating $75,000 to local food banks, as well as another $75K in sponsorship fees to the city, which will be donated to local charities. I'd like to see the "doctors" match that one...

When I heard this story on the radio this afternoon, two thoughts came to mind: 1) I'm glad that Mayor Gears said no, because this would have been yet another example of nanny-statism run amok, and 2) This group is probably some sort of wacko "activist" organization. I'm glad to see that my suspicions have been proven. (And I look forward to the day when "activism" no longer pays, and all its practitioners have to actually go out and get real jobs.)

The Nanny State Butts In Again

Let me start out by saying that I simply can't stand smoking. I'm pretty allergic to the stuff, and I can smell it from a mile away. When I had a weekly gig a few summers ago at a smoky bar, it almost did me in. I'd be happy if nobody ever smoked again.

But all that being said, i still don't like this particular proposed piece of government intervention: A Texas Senate committee has approved a bill that would raise the smoking age from 18 to 19:

Though they are legally considered adults and can serve in the military, 18-year-old Texans would be considered minors when it comes to smoking under a bill passed unanimously through a Senate committee Tuesday.
The measure would increase the legal age for buying tobacco products to 19, and would cut off an estimated $12.5 million in tax revenue for the state over the next two years.

Supporters say raising the legal age will prevent teens from smoking an extra year and keep cigarettes out of high schools, where they can be passed along to younger students.

As often happens with things like this, the bill's sponsor is coming from a good place; I'm sure that many people would prefer that high school students not smoke. (The same thing happened with the drinking age a number of years ago--it was raised from 18 to 19 until the federal government twisted every state's arm out of the socket by threatening to withhold highway funding until it was raised to its current age of 21.)

But the problem here is the exact same one that we talked about last summer, when the Amethyst Initiative was being introduced: Actions like this continue to blur the definition of adulthood. If the smoking age is raised, that means that adutl privileges would go like this: voting, military service and lottery tickets at 18, smoking at 19 and drinking at 21; why not be consistent? As I said in that earlier post, it would be better for all concerned to have a single age of majority, rather than the "graduated steps to adulthood" that will be even more in place if this bill were to pass. I would prefer a consistent age of majority at 18, because going in the complete opposite direction would mean that nearly every college student would be a minor, and I don't think that the colleges are prepared to take on the role of in loco parentis any more than they already do.

A commenter to the Chronicle story has a good idea:

he government has no right to restrict things if you are of legal adult age. If they are worried about younger teens gettign access, then make the punishment for posession of said things more severe.

I couldn't agree more.

What say you? Chime in below with your comments.

And here's where I might look like a hypocrite: I may not be a fan of the law proposed above, but I have no problem with the dramatic increase in federal cigarette taxes that went into effect yesterday. The main difference for me is that, while the tax is likely to be a burden for some smokers, it doesn't actually outlaw the practice for a certain portion of the population. If it nudges someone who might have been on the verge of quitting over the edge, that's all well and good, but at least that person still has a choice in the matter.

Memo to Lawmakers: Keep Your Nanny State Out of My Car. And Here's Why:

The Texas Legislature convened last week, and now Congress and the new President will begin working together--or not?--to solve various problems, real and imagined. One of the items that might be on the agenda either here in Texas or at the national level is the subject of my post today.

Ever since cell phones became almost universal in this country, some people have been trying to take them out of the hands of drivers. While most of the laws that have actually been passed are much more specific--banning their use by drivers in active school zones, or allowing them only to be used if a hands-free device is engaged--there are people trying to tighten things up in 2009. Here at home, a few Texas lawmakers are hoping to introduce bills to completely ban cell phone use by drivers, and the National Safety Council advocates a complete ban nationwide as well.

But the nanny-state implications of this notwithstanding (we'll discuss that in a minute), it seems like someone should stick up for the cell phone and its use while driving. (I should emphasize that, yes, this use should be done responsibly; adverse weather or traffic conditions may trump everything else on occasion.) But these lawmakers and the safety council are making it sound like no good can come from talking while driving, and that's far from the truth. A few examples:

• People on long trips, especially those driving alone, can often use some "company" from time to time. Sure, other things--coffee, opening a window, listening to CDs or the radio--can help to an extent, but sometimes, there's no substitute for interaction with a real, live person on the other end. I've certainly benefited from this practice, and friends who take long hauls have often called me while en route for the same reason. (And yes, there are some who would say that the person should simply be taking a shorter trip, but that's not the way life works sometimes.)


• And then there's the person who's driving around lost; it's much easier to phone a friend for directions if you're actually going somewhere, because you're much more likely to pass a landmark that someone else may recognize and can thus more easily assist you. And if you're in a questionable neighborhood, it might be downright dangerous to stop.


• Cell phones have often been used to report crimes in progress. In certain instances, such as road-rage incidents, people would be far more likely to phone in a report if they could remain cloaked in the anonymity of their cars. Pulling off to the side of the highway might make one a target himself.


• And it should be mentioned that highway shoulders are not particularly safe places to be in the first place. Here in Dallas, the section of LBJ Freeway between Stemmons and Central has proven to be particularly dangerous over the years, with crippling or fatal accidents happening to people changing tires, good Samaritans helping people with stalled cars, and even people sitting in cars. Enacting laws that would put even more people on the side of the road seems more dangerous, not less.

And it would be nice if more of the safety studies agreed with each other. A study cited a while back concluded that a driver talking on the phone as more dangerous than talking to a person in the passenger seat because the caller on the other end couldn't see the traffic conditions experienced by the driver, while the passenger might pause the conversation in such an instance. But in a defensive driving class I took a few weeks ago, we were told that the most recent studies have shown that talking on a cell phone while driving is actually less dangerous than talking to a person in the passenger seat, because in the latter case, the driver is likely to look at the person while talking to them.

And of course, there's the whole nanny-state aspect of this. Government has already gone way too far in its intrusion into our personal lives, and there's no reason for it to proceed even further in that direction. Sure, there are some people who can't operate a car safely while talking on a phone, but there are also those who can't do so while (pick one) eating, drinking, changing the radio station, changing clothes (!), putting on makeup, or reading the paper. Is the government going to try and outlaw those behaviors as well? Considering their actions in the past, I don't find it unreasonable to fear a slippery slope here.

I have no problem with requiring hands-free devices if it can be proven in several studies that it's better to have both hands on the wheel (but remind me to buy stock in the companies that make Bluetooth devices before such a law is enacted), The school-zone laws don't trouble me at all, nor would laws against texting while driving. And I don't even mind upping the punishment for causing an accident while using a cell if it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that this behavior was the primary cause of the accident (that would allow people the freedom to assess the risk and use common sense, which also can't be legislated.) But completely outlawing their use while driving would throw out the good along with the bad.

Agree or disagree? Feel free to speak your piece in the comments.

This Idea Is Making Some People MADD, But I Like It

This debate has been going on for years, but I didn't expect this particular group to have such a strong position on it. The issue? Lowering the drinking age in the U.S. back to 18. The advocates? A group of about 100 college presidents. Seriously.

And we're not just talking about "Podunk Tech" type of schools here, either; some of the chief executives on board with his idea include those from Duke, Ohio State and Syracuse. And the reason they've launched this idea, called the Amethyst Initiative, is in part because they feel that the higher drinking age has caused an increase in binge drinking on campus. From the group's website:

Twenty-one is not working

A culture of dangerous, clandestine “binge-drinking”—often conducted off-campus—has developed.

Alcohol education that mandates abstinence as the only legal option has not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among our students.

Adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military, but are told they are not mature enough to have a beer.

By choosing to use fake IDs, students make ethical compromises that erode respect for the law.

How many times must we relearn the lessons of prohibition?

And of course, MADD is mad about this idea:

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

"It's very clear the 21-year-old drinking age will not be enforced at those campuses," said Laura Dean-Mooney, national president of MADD.

It sounds like she's all but demanding a boycott, doesn't it?

As I said in a post several years ago, it's hard, in a way, to bash on MADD ("it's like kicking a puppy," I said at the time). It doesn't take much effort to feel bad for the people who've lost kids in drunk-driving crashes, and there's no saying that, if I were in their shoes, I might never touch a drop of the stuff again in my life. But I can't ever see being at the point where I would want to keep others from doing so.

And that's the problem: MADD seems to have morphed over the years into an organization whose members won't rest until nobody drinks alcohol at all. As longtime (but absent for a while now) commenter Gary P. noted after that previous post,

The problem with advocacy groups like this is once they do achieve meaningful goals, they have to keep inventing more and more scenarios to be "outraged" over to keep getting their name in the paper and preserve their relevance and power.

That seems to be an issue with bureaucracies as well: Solutions in search of a problem.

Look, if you want to eliminate drunk driving, punish drunk drivers more harshly. There's no reason to punish entire groups of people for the misdeeds of a few, and there's no reason to engender contempt for the law among those who would otherwise be on the straight-and-narrow. And if lowering the drinking age isn't the solution for you, then raise the voting age (possibly along with the age of consent to marriage and the age of eligibility for military enlistment) back to 21. Either 18-20-year-olds are adults, or they are not; none of this half-and-half business.

UPDATE: More on the subject from edublogger Joanne Jacobs. (A commenter at that site posts a similar idea to mine above, that the age of majority should be consistent; another one notes that if we waited until people were "fully mature" until they were allowed to do things, few people would even be driving before age 30. Heh.)

I wonder if this story hit his campus like a Hurricane: Among the signatories to this initiative (114 at this writing), only one Texas college appears at the moment: West Texas A&M, whose president is named Pat O'Brien. I'm sure he's not related to the founder of this place, but it's still a funny coincidence.

Judicial Overreach North of the Border

In previous posts, we've discussed several court cases where it appeared that judges went too far, but this case, from Canada, is one of the most jarring in recent memory: A 12-year old girl who defied her father's orders to stay off the Internet was subsequently forbidden by him from going on a school trip. She decided to take her dad to court...and she won:

If you deny your children access to TV or withhold their allowance, can they take you to court? And win?

That implausible scenario emerged after a judge in Gatineau, Que., sided with a 12-year-old girl who challenged her father after he refused to let her go on a school trip for disobeying his orders to stay off the Internet.

Experts in family law and child welfare say they were dumbfounded by last Friday’s ruling by Superior Court Justice Suzanne Tessier.

“As a lawyer and as a parent,” said Ottawa family lawyer Fred Cogan, “I think it’s state interference where the court shouldn’t be interfering.

“I’ve got six kids,” Cogan said. “I certainly wouldn’t want a judge watching over everything that I do, and I wouldn’t want my kids being able to run to the judge.”

Experts say that it's unlikely for other Canadian courts to rule in a similar manner, and the father is appealing the case, but the judge's decision still boggles the mind. Is even the most ardent nanny-stater in favor of this type of family decision being made by a judge?

Hat tip: The Volokh Conspiracy, where host Eugene Volokh, tongue-in-cheek, pretends the story is from the satire site The Onion. It almost is too strange to be true. (And it's scary to see how Volokh's sarcasm was lost on some of his readers.)

Also, one of the Volokh commenters points out a paragraph in the story that seemed unusual to me as well: A big source of the conflict was that the girls' parents are divorced. The (non-custodial) mother was in favor of the daughter going on the school trip, but the school required consent from both parents. In cases of divorce like this, I'm surprised that there aren't more messy situations like this. Shouldn't the custodial parent have the final word?

Another commenter points out that, since many people seemed to be in favor of the state stepping in to prevent parents from administering corporal punishment--we discussed this here the last week as well--that such a ruling was the next (il)logical step.

I'll let Eugene Volokh have the last word here:

But it seems to me the absurdity remains: It's absurd that a judge would step in to decide whether grounding a child from a school trip is "excessive punishment." If the mother petitioned for a change in custody, that would indeed justify (and require) a judge's intervention, because it would involve a major life decision, and would determine which parent should have disciplinary authority -- something the courts have to do in case of a divorce -- rather than whether a particular grounding decision was justified. But when the school policy is that both parents must consent, which is to say that each parent has veto power, and one parent does exercise his veto, it makes no sense for a judge to decide the matter for herself instead of leaving it to the vetoing parent's judgment.

I only hope that no judgements of this nature are rendered here in the U.S. anytime soon. The nanny state must go!

When Life Gives You (Hard) Lemonade, The Nanny State Will Make Lemons For You

It's been a few days since I first heard about it, but I still can't believe this story. "Advice Goddess" Amy Alkon tells the tale:

You could've filled Tiger Stadium (aka Comerica Park) with the tidal wave of idiot-ade in this little drama.

Start with one University of Michigan archeology professor, a little more versed in ancient culture than consumer culture, who takes his 7-year-old kid to the ball game.

He spots a sign: Mike's Lemonade, $7. Being a nice dad, he buys his kid a lemonade. Yeah, the price is kind of inflated, but it's the ball park, and he's probably focused on having a nice time with his kid.

Whoops, seems that's not just Mike's Lemonade, but Mike's Hard Lemonade, with a whopping 5% alcohol in it.

Uh-oh. The story continues, via Brian Dickerson of the Detroit Free Press:

If you watch much television, you've probably heard of a product called Mike's Hard Lemonade.

And if you ask Christopher Ratte and his wife how they lost custody of their 7-year-old son, the short version is that nobody in the Ratte family watches much television.

The way police and child protection workers figure it, Ratte should have known that what a Comerica Park vendor handed over when Ratte ordered a lemonade for his boy three Saturdays ago contained alcohol, and Ratte's ignorance justified placing young Leo in foster care until his dad got up to speed on the commercial beverage industry.

...It wasn't until the top of the ninth inning that a Comerica Park security guard noticed the bottle in young Leo's hand.

"You know this is an alcoholic beverage?" the guard asked the professor.

"You've got to be kidding," Ratte replied. He asked for the bottle, but the security guard snatched it before Ratte could examine the label.

...An hour later, Ratte was being interviewed by a Detroit police officer at Children's Hospital, where a physician at the Comerica Park clinic had dispatched Leo -- by ambulance! -- after a cursory exam.

Dear Lord. Alkon wasn't kidding about the idiocy. But wait--it gets worse:

Leo betrayed no symptoms of inebriation. But the physician and a police officer from the Comerica substation suggested the ER visit after the boy admitted he was feeling a little nauseated.

The Comerica cop estimated that Leo had drunk about 12 ounces of the hard lemonade, which is 5% alcohol. But an ER resident who drew Leo's blood less than 90 minutes after he and his father were escorted from their seats detected no trace of alcohol.

"Completely normal appearing," the resident wrote in his report, "... he is cleared to go home."

But it would be two days before the state of Michigan allowed Ratte's wife, U-M architecture professor Claire Zimmerman, to take their son home, and nearly a week before Ratte was permitted to move back into his own house.

...And so what had begun as an outing to the ballpark ended with Leo crying himself to sleep in front of a television inside the Child Protective Services building, and Ratte and his wife standing on the sidewalk outside, wondering when they'd see their little boy again.

All I can say after reading that story is this: The Nanny State has got to go. Now.

Let's allow you to be the judge as well. Take a look at the sign above the stand that sold the lemonade. Notice how the word "Hard" is conspicuous by its absence. Sure, it might have aroused suspicion that the lemonade cost more than a beer...but hey, it is the ballpark, after all. Who hasn't spent way too much for a cold drink on a hot day? (I can't begin to tell you how many $4 Cokes I bought when the All-Star Game was in Arlington in '95 and we were seated in far left field, right in the crosshairs of the burning July sun.)

I'll let some commenters (from Alkon's site and the Freep story) have their say, because there's some great stuff in here:

• "The trouble with regulations is that, in the end, they always replace intelligent thinking."--Kirk, at Alkon


• "Meanwhile, there's some kid sitting in the squalor of an inner city tenement with his mom turning tricks to make money so she can buy more crack. The kid hasn't had a decent meal, a bath or clean clothes in months. There are rats and roaches running around the place. And CPS is no where to be found because they are "protecting" a 7 yr old with two clueless university professors for parents."--newstroll, at the Freep


• "Europe had it right, kids grow up with weak wine and by the time they are adults, they tend to have much less problems with alcoholism than we do in America. Hmmmm. Why do we so often reject proven successful ideas while stubbornly repeating the same old failed policies over and over and over again?"--Bikerken, at Alkon


• "This is what happens when we surrender our natural and Constitutional rights as parents to an ever-encroaching government that thirsts for power. Incrementally we have elevated the state to having a greater say in our children's lives "for the good of the children" as if the state is an all-loving god that really cares. This goes for their education, healthcare, job training, etc. all because the state has a "compelling interest" which overrides any parental interests. So we hear a case in the news of terrible parents who do bad things and we clamor that "there ought to be a law against that" and demand that "someone do something." So the state steps in. Now no one wants to see a child abused but the flip side of making policy based on the behavior of the few, is that it enslaves EVERYONE (including the good) to the state and forces us to answer to it even when nothing is wrong (as was the case with this story). To be continued..."--RXEnergy, at the Freep


• "The rooted problem with this story, one that has really pulled at my heartstring (yes, i do have...one), is the persistent drive of the government to come between father and son, parent and child.
  
  More subtle, is that those who work in these capacities for the government are simple-minded persons who think they are only doing 'thier job', without contemplation of the serious consequences that can, and often does, last a lifetime."--j.d., at Alkon


• "This whole thing reminds me of another group of government employees about 65-70 years ago that kept using the line, "I was only following orders." Can't any of these state employees involved in this thing use their own brains?"--dns33, at the Freep


• "I think that the major problem is that the system has been geared and gotten legal support for dealing with the very worse case scenarios. This is not to say that the worse case scenarios aren't important, but what has happened is that the methods for dealing with the very worse abusers, are being used across the board as standard operating procedure."--DuWayne, at Alkon


• "What is maddening about this and other similar fiascoes with this department, is that there appear to be no consequences. Not one of these " apologetic" individuals stopped to ask, "What would best serve this child"? We should be horrified that such mindlessness is encouraged by this failed system, and that there is such pressure to "follow orders" (or procedure) without the apparent encouragement to use or have a functioning body of common sense. I DO think that there should be repercussions for those involved...I am an RN, and I am NEVER allowed to use the excuse that "I was told to", or that "The system or rules made me afraid to act"..I am required to THINK about every action which will affect the well-being of another, and to act accordingly. I expect the same of others, and if that's not how that system/department is designed, it MUST be changed."--jimmish, at the Freep

And we'll end on a somewhat humorous note:

• "Read a great story on this subject a few years ago: A woman was awakened in the middle of the night by a noise in the kitchen, and found her four yr old son had drunk a bottle of beer and was acting a little tipsy. She called her pediatrician, who was less than dazzled to be called about this, and asked him what she should do. He told her to just put him to bed, he'd be okay in the morning. "But should I give him anything?" she asked. "Got any pretzels?" he replied."--billmax, at Alkon

(Sorry for the long quotes, but I wanted to give a good sampling of the comments that support my point without your having to slog through them all yourself.)

I still really don't know what to say about this story, except that the security guard, the policeman, and everyone up the chain at CPS probably should have been given pink slips for this. The Nanny State has already been given an inch and taken several hundred miles, and we as a people have to rise up and stop it. We need term limits for bureaucrats as well as lawmakers; nobody works in government for more than ten, twelve years, tops. After that, they need to find a job in a field that actually produces something; if they have no talent for such things, it's back to college for them...or they can do those "jobs that Americans refuse to do" that are currently held by illegals, therefore killing two birds with one stone.

And as always, I fear that this won't be the last post on this subject...

But Wait...I Thought It Was All About Safety?

If you're here in the DFW area, you may have heard by now that the city of Dallas has shut off nearly a fourth of its red-light cameras. Why? Because they weren't making enough money to pay for their operation:

Initial gross revenue estimates for the red light camera system during Dallas' 2007-08 fiscal year were $14.8 million, according to city records. The latest estimate? About $6.2 million. City Manager Mary Suhm on Friday estimated net revenue will fall $4.1 million under initial estimates.

That leaves Dallas government with a conundrum. Its red light camera system has been an effective deterrent to motorists running red lights – some monitored intersections have experienced a more than 50 percent reduction. But decreased revenue from red light-running violations means significantly less revenue to maintain the camera program and otherwise fuel the city's general fund.

Sure, part of the problem comes from a new state law that requires cities to send a portion of camera revenue to Austin. But still...everyone kept saying this was all about safety. Were they trying to pull something over on us all along?

At least one Dallas City Council member agrees with my sentiments:

Council member Angela Hunt, long skeptical of the reasoning behind such camera systems, says she's not surprised Dallas is faced with altering its efforts to reduce red light running.

"The idea of the red light cameras is that they'll be used as a revenue generator instead of being implemented for public safety purposes. It's imperative that the council review this program, especially when the results don't align with the initial performance projections," Ms. Hunt said.

She cited national statistics suggesting that the cameras increase rear-end collisions.

And as anyone who's been reading this blog for a while probably knows, that's the origin of my only real dog in this fight. Four years ago last week, I was rear-ended at a signalized intersection (by an uninsured soccer mom, from whom neither I nor my insurance company ever got a single dime), and, even though she hit me when I'd been stopped for quite some time, I would have actually gone through the yellow light on that day had I not known that my town had recently installed some of the cameras (not realizing at the time that such intersections were precded by warning signs).

Well, once you've been rear-ended (especially myself, since I keep the tools of the trade--my horns--in the trunk), you try to avoid that if at all possible. On my main teaching route, there's a segment where three out of four signals have the cameras, and I can't tell you how much I've done to try to avoid having anyone too close in front of me or behind me in those areas, just in case the light turns yellow. Sure, if I were the first in line, I might well run it if someone was too close behind me, but what if someone in front of me panicked and hit the brakes? Granted, in the first scenario, I'd be risking a citation, but it's always seemed wrong to me to have to choose between what is safe and what is legal.

At any rate, as someone pointed out on the radio yesterday, if it were really all about safety, the city would spend the necessary money to keep the cameras up. The fact that they bailed so quickly seems to support the idea that they really were all about revenue in the first place.

(I do like the idea expressed in the DMN article that they should just leave the cameras up even if they're turned off, as it's likely to serve as a deterrent to the ignorant, or those who just plain forgot.)


Instapundit takes notice as well, and he also points out that they're not doing so well, money-wise (if for a completely different reason) in his hometown of Knoxville either.

They'd need more than cameras to help this guy: A California man crashed two cars on the same highway within a span of about three hours for the same reason: He fell asleep while driving.

I'm glad the cameras weren't running for this guy: A man in suburban New York is charged with going through a Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru with no pants on .

Do as I say, not as I (hic) do: Meanwhile, a Massachusetts driving-school instructor has pleaded guilty to being drunk while teaching a driving lesson.

More Saggy Logic in Dallas

I've posted before about what a waste of time and resources I think it is for local governments to spend time on things like banning baggy pants, especially when there are so many unsolved problems that fall much more closely under their jurisdictions. Just a little over a year ago, a Dallas school board member tried to get the City Council to enact a ban (that's right, not just in the schools, but in the city at large); last month, we discovered that Atlanta was working on a similar measure.

I thought that the idea was dead in Dallas, but this morning, there was Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway on the radio, trying to drum up support for an ordinance again. He wants to do this because "it is a total disgegard and disrespect for all females to have to entertain looking at someone's dingy underwear...it does not set the tone of something that should be accepted in society." He also mentioned the term "respect" several more times during the interview.

But here's the thing: You can't legislate respect. Certainly, it's the goal of any society to raise the level of such respect, but, on the other hand, it's not wise to go around making a whole bunch of laws just because people might be offended. As I said in the earlier post, if something like this were to pass, what would be next--outlawing fat guys in Speedos? (OK, there's still part of me that thinks such a thing would be a good idea, but you get my point.)

The other problem with this is that it shouldn't consume an ounce of city resources until all the other much more pressing problems are at least on their way to being solved. As I said earlier,

Is this style of dress annoying? Sure. But do we really need to get the police involved in enforcing it? Surely not. The time when the council should be devoting the city's resources to something like this would be when crime levels are nonexistent, when all the potholes are fixed, there's not a homeless problem downtown, the police and firefighters are paid the same as their suburban counterparts....in other words, not anytime soon.

More coverage of the story can be found here, and be sure and listen to the entire radio interview at the link above.

To his credit, Caraway doesn't expect the police to "ride past a burglar just to go and make somebody pull up his pants," but he would have them issue civil citations for the defense. As always, if you have strong feelings on either side of this, please chime in using the comments.

Stupid criminal #1: A woman who went to court to pay a traffic ticket probably shouldn't have driven there in a stolen car.

Stupid criminal #2: LIkewise, a man in New York state shouldn't have stolen a car to turn himself in on another charge.

Stupid criminal #3: And finally, if you're going to rob a restaurant, you shouldn't 1) rob one where you're a frequent diner, and 2) order food on a credit card before attempting the robbery.

Evidently, These Guys Didn't Learn from Dallas

On this, the first day of school (i.e. the day I have to start wearing long pants and real shoes again), it's only appropriate that my post is one that tweaks somebody for trying to impose a dress code where it probably doesn't belong.

At this time last year (one year ago yesterday, to be precise), I blogged a story about a Dallas school board member who tried to get the City Council to ban saggy pants. That's right--not just in school, but in the city at large. Efforts like this (as well as a more recent effort by a small-town mayor in Louisiana) never seem to actually be made into law--and they tend to get splattered all over the Internet, making a laughingstock out of its originator in the process--but that never stops people from trying the same thing somewhere else.

This time, it's happening in Atlanta, and the City Council is behind the effort. It's pretty much the same old song and dance:

Baggy pants that show boxer shorts or thongs would be illegal under a proposed amendment to Atlanta's indecency laws.

The amendment, sponsored by city councilman C.T. Martin, states that sagging pants are an "epidemic" that is becoming a "major concern" around the country.

"Little children see it and want to adopt it, thinking it's the in thing," Martin said Wednesday. "I don't want young people thinking that half-dressing is the way to go. I want them to think about their future."

The proposed ordinance would also bar women from showing the strap of a thong beneath their pants. They would also be prohibited from wearing jogging bras in public or show a bra strap, said Debbie Seagraves, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.

The proposed ordinance states that "the indecent exposure of his or her undergarments" would be unlawful in a public place. It would go in the same portion of the city code that outlaws sex in public and the exposure or fondling of genitals.
The penalty would be a fine in an amount to be determined, Martin said.

I only have two points in response to this. First, as the ACLU's Seagraves points out later in the story, such a dress code would be unlikely to survive a court challenge, because it targets a style that comes from black youth culture. (Whether I agree with this logic or not is immaterial, but that's probably how it would go in court.)

Also, let me repeat something I said in the earlier post:

Is this style of dress annoying? Sure. But do we really need to get the police involved in enforcing it? Surely not. The time when the council should be devoting the city's resources to something like this would be when crime levels are nonexistent, when all the potholes are fixed, there's not a homeless problem downtown, the police and firefighters are paid the same as their suburban counterparts....in other words, not anytime soon.

I may not know firsthand whether Atlanta has all of the above issues, but you get my point: This is a waste of city time and resources to be talking about this when so many truly serious problems are out there.

More dress code cluelessness: In an effort to tweak administrators who had instituted a new "business casual" polo-and-khakis dress code at a Florida high school, one student, Austin Perkins, decided to go "above and beyond" the code by wearing a coat and tie to class. The principal suspended him. (Check out the comments at that post--especially the ones by a commenter named "PrisonPlanet" from yesterday at 11:40 and 11:41 a.m. They offer some historic reinforcement of what I've been saying all along--dress codes in schools have very little to do with safety and a lot to do with control. Hat tip--Dave Barry's Blog, where there are also some good comments, including an appearance by yours truly.)

Better saggy pants than none at all: Last Thursday, for no apparent reason, a guy decided to get naked in the Dallas County Courthouse.

The Nanny State Expands Again (or, Prosecutors Gone Wild)

As if the story in yesterday's post wasn't enough, here's another example of, IMHO, a prosecutor overstepping his bounds. In what is inarguably a tragic case where a college student drank himself to death, the local prosecutor sought--and a grand jury returned--indictments against not only the fraternity officers but also the dean of students and the director of Greek life at the college:

Two Rider University officials, including the dean of students, and three students were indicted Friday in the death of a freshman after a drinking binge at a campus fraternity house.

The school dissolved the Phi Kappa Tau chapter Friday, and authorities said the charges should send a message to students and administrators alike.

"The standards of college life, when it relates to alcohol, need to be policed carefully," prosecutor Joseph Bocchini Jr. said.

I won't argue with that in principle, but I have a huge problem with the prosecutor's actions here. Eric Scheie of Classical Values has more on this story, and I echo his reaction to the prosecutor's statement:

Come again? A student acts like an idiot and drinks himself to death, and the dean is arrested?

Not in America. Please, someone, say it's not true!

Sadly, it appears that it is. Here's more from Scheie:

All I can see is a statement that "the standards of college life, when it relates to alcohol, need to be policed carefully." Is "not policing carefully" now a criminal offense? What is the exact charge?

When I was a landlord in Berkeley I rented to students, and plenty of them drank, I'm sure. Was that my fault? How far does this "policing" go? Should the students' residences be subject to search? (Remember, these are not children; they are legal adults.) What is the dean supposed to do, and why stop with booze? If a fraternity threw a party where sex occurred and condoms weren't used and someone got an STD (say, AIDS), would they charge him with "not policing carefully"? Should the dean go into the students' bedrooms and crawl around with a flashlight?

If convicted, the dean and Greek affairs director could face the exact same penalties as the fraternity members: 18 months in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Yet the only charge being levied appears to be "aggravated hazing." Surely the prosecutor's not saying that the dean is guilty of hazing simply by allowing it to occur on his campus, is he? If that's the case, then, as one of Scheie's commenters points out, police officers should be arrested whenever a crime takes place on their beat...after all, they're guilty of "not policing carefully" as well, aren't they?

I'll let another one of Scheie's commenters have the last word; this one calls himself "John Q Liberty," and I hope he's right: "The only silver lining here is that this may give a few college administrators pause to consider whether the nanny state and it's attendant failure to hold individuals accountable for their own actions is really such a great idea."

Holding individuals accountable for their own actions--what a concept! I think it's an idea that never should have gone away in the first place, and definitely one whose time has come again.

They'll stop having kids when they run out of "J" names: The famous (or infamous) Duggar family of Arkansas just welcomed its 17th child into the world this week. All the kids' names start with J, and the new arrival, Jennifer, is no exception. I'm not sure which is the more amazing fact--that mom Michelle has been pregnant for a total of over ten years (!), or that she's looking forward to even more kids. (And to go with my last paragraph above, I should point out that the family is taking responsibility for their actions and not expecting help from the government; according to the their website, both of the parents are licensed real estate professionals and built their own house debt-free as a family project.)

Is This An Overreaction? Yeah, Like Using an Uzi to Kill a Fly...

David Harsanyi (author of the book Nanny State) relates the latest story of Big Entertainment using heavy-handed tactics against consumers it accuses of ripping them off. In this case, a Virginia woman is facing up to a year in jail and a $2500 fine for videotaping 20 seconds of a movie in a theatre.

The full story is here. A sample:

A 19-year-old woman is facing up to a year in jail and a fine up to $2,500 when she goes to trial this month on charges of illegally recording part of a motion picture.

Jhannet Sejas readily admits she used her digital camera last month in an Arlington theater to film about 20 seconds of the climax of the hit movie "Transformers." She said she wanted to show the clip to her little brother and had no intention of selling it.

But minutes after filming the clip, police showed up in the theater, shining a flashlight in her face. Sejas and her boyfriend were ordered out, and the camera was confiscated.

Sejas said the theater's assistant manager saw her holding up the digital camera and reported it to the general manager, who called police.

The Marymount University sophomore was charged with a misdemeanor and was banned for life from the Regal Cinemas Ballston Common movie theaters.

It's interesting that the theatre itself is the one pressing charges and consideing itself the victim, when it's the movie studio that holds the copyright. As some of the commenters to Harsanyi's post point out, it's not like Sejas could sell a 20-second clip from a movie if she wanted to, and even if it did end up on YouTube, it would probably end up drumming up more business for the movie than anything else.

It may well be time to do some overhauling of copyright laws so that they are more relevant to today's technology. But in the meantime, the entertainment industry should be more careful with how it goes after people it feels has wronged it; there's no reason to use a big hammer in cases where a prod with a small stick would be more appropriate. And, like Harsanyi and many of his commenters, I lament the death of common sense in this case and others like it.

(Hat tip: Instapundit, who adds, "I'm beginning to think that we need a lot more oversight over prosecutorial discretion, and more consequences for its abuse." Indeed, as the man himself would say.)

Speaking of killing a fly with an Uzi: A woman in Alabama was tired of a mosquito problem that she blamed on the vacant house next door, so she set the place on fire.

Farewell to a (mostly) unsung hero: R.I.P. Art Davis, whom writer Nat Hentoff referred to as "Coltrane's favorite bassist." In addition to Trane, his resume included Monk, The New York Philharmonic and Bob Dylan.

I think it's time to move out now, Son: A mother in Sicily cut off her son's weekly allowance and took away his house keys because she was tired of his "misbehavior." The kicker? The son is 61 years old. (The article also notes that "[m]ost Italian men still live at home late into their 30s, enjoying their "mamma's" cooking, washing and ironing." Talk about some serious apron strings...)

Eww: Thanks to a plumbing mixup, students at Hiroshima University have been accidentally drinking water that was intended for use in toilets. The scary part? This has been happening since 1993.

You Can Have My Dasani Bottle When You Pry It From My Cold, Dead Fingers

Over at Buzz.mn a few days ago, James Lileks noted that some green-minded people are coming out in opposition to bottled water:

Bottled water used to be a sign you led a healthy life, drinking only Alpine water gleaned from glacier shavings hand-melted by nuns, but since issues of waste and “climate change” have been introduced, the use of bottled water will start to have a different moral component. You may see some people wince or tut-tut when you pull out the Aquafina. Just wait: In a few years, bottled-water users will get the same gentle lecture smokers got in the early 60s; five years from now, the sale of bottled water will sag, and city after city will ban the use of bottled water for official functions. Only rebels will drink bottled water! Movies will be automatically rated R if anyone smokes or swigs from the Evian! Ridiculous? Yes. Then again, the mayor of San Francisco has banned city employees from buying bottled water, and has an online pledge to convince residents to give up bottled water.

There's more on bottled water here, where taste tests are cited and many people said that they still buy bottled water even if the tap water came out on top in the test.

My opinion on the matter is easy to discern from the title of this post. As I said in the comments to Lileks' piece,

Not only do I like bottled water better than what comes out of my tap (which has always had a "muddy" quality to me), but I like one particular brand of bottled water (Dasani) better than any other one.

As a music instructor who spends the bulk of the day in cramped practice rooms, I pretty much have a bottle of water with me all the time; it's a lot easier than having to fight the crowds in the school hallways and then find a water fountain that 1) actually works and 2) doesn't have massive wads of someone's spent gum in there.

But not a one of my bottles ends up in the trash; they all go either into one of those giant bottle-shaped recycling bins at school or into my own bin at home.

And re the San Francisco thing: Boo to nanny-statism. The only purpose of government should be to protect our shores, help the proverbial trains run on time, and otherwise leave us alone.

(Sorry--I can't resist taking a dig at nanny-staters whenever possible.)

Can you tell the difference between tap water and bottled water? If so, what's your preference?

A holiday leftover: We always tell kids to be careful when playing with fireworks; evidently, we should also tell the dog.

Land of a thousand stalls: A public restroom in China has over a thousand toilets spread out over 32,000 feet of space.

Get your Potsicles here: An ice-cream truck driver in Michigan has been arrested for selling marijuana alongside his frozen treats.