Butt Out!

A new ruling from the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has placed an injunction on the smoking ban in Allegheny County.

According to the ruling, the Clean Air Act passed by the Pennsylvania Legislature:

Section 10.1 also exempts restaurants seating less than 75 persons from having to maintain a non-smoking section, but leaves it within the restaurant’s discretion whether to maintain a non-smoking section.

It also required restaurants seating more than 75 persons to create non-smoking sections and follow the appropriate regulations.

Allegheny County has subsequently passed an ordinance to amend the “Health Dept. Regulations”:

Among these amendments was a prohibition of all smoking in any public place in Allegheny County.

The restaurants who brought the suit argued that the Allegheny County ordinance conflicted with the state law which allowed smoking in those restaurants, and the court ruled in their favor.

In other news, some idiots are apparently just now figuring out that when you ban indoor smoking, smokers go outside:

“In the past few years, we’ve effectively banned smoking in most public places in many parts of the country, and one unintended result are these ‘smoke zones’ in front of restaurants and bars,” noted study author L.P. Naeher, an assistant professor at the University of Georgia College of Public Health in Athens.

BRILLIANT!! Unitended? Seriously, how retarded do you have to be to not be able to see that coming? And of course, with these dirty smokers gathered in places outside the restautant or bar, they are polluting the air:

What we found is that the level of secondhand smoke in front of restaurants and bars was several times higher than the safety standards established by the EPA’s Clean Air Act.

Amazing. Now, you could have them inside with filtration and ventilation systems, but no, you kicked ’em to the curb, so what the next obvious step – banning all smoking regardless of whether it occurs indoor or outdoor. The only place it might be safe to smoke is in your home, and that’s only if you don’t have kids, because trust me, if it’s for the children, you won’t be able to smoke there either.

Stripper Registration

This one almost slipped by me, but according to the New York Times and the New York Post, Felix Ortiz introduced legislation in the New York Assembly (A08183) to register strippers:

To amend the labor law, to protect sex trafficking victims or any person employed at an adult entertainment establishments from becoming victims of severe forms of trafficking.

I’m a little puzzled as to how this would help in terms of human trafficking, since most strippers – I dare say none – are not “sex slaves,” as strip clubs are heavily regulated. And if any of them are, this would probably only succeed in driving them underground, into prositution, or something else.

But let’s look at it a little more:

Ortiz said he also wants to make sure strippers pay taxes on their lap-dance cash, and says that while the bill won’t require strippers to get medical checkups, it might help protect them and their customers from sexually transmitted disease.

Ah…. and the real issue becomes apparent. Can’t have these girls not paying their fair share to the state. That’s how you do it folks: pretend the law is necessary, give it a touching purpose, and then use it for its real purpose (raising revenue). As Thomas Hobbes noted, “Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money which, where the right of sovereign power is acknowledged, are superfluous; and where it is not acknowledged, insufficient to defend the people.”

This law will just be one more way in which the state can raise revenue from the strip clubs and now the strippers themselves and won’t do a damn thing to stop human trafficking.

The Language of Politics

According to the Dallas Morning News blog, Capitol Letters, “the freshman House members just passed a resolution honoring the senior ones for helping them through their first session.” And in this resolution, they listed the six most common phrases used on the House floor, which we will translate for you:

1. “It’s just a simple bill.” Translation: Please don’t look at this bill too closely.
2. “It’s a technical cleanup.” Translation: The bill was fucked and subject to a point of order.
3. “It’s for the children.” Translation: This bill is crap, but if you vote against it, you’ll get creamed at the polls.
4. “This is the bill we heard yesterday.” Translation: I tricked you into voting for this crap yesterday, don’t get wise today.
5. “This is about good government.” Translation: This bill fucks people over.
6. “We are not advised.” Translation: We don’t know shit.

However, they left out the single most used phrase:

• “This is good public policy.” Translation: If I tell this lie often enough, you’ll eventually believe it.