Via Popehat, here's a notice that is required to appear on all vending machines in Florida under a law that took effect in 2010: As you can see, the notice tells the reader that the notice the reader is reading…
Here's the right way to use a "signing statement": To the Members of the California State Senate: I am signing SB 769, which allows for a dead mountain lion to be stuffed and displayed. This presumably important bill earned overwhelming support [from] both…
When I mentioned the other day that Michigan now has a set of 13 snow-cone machines that it bought with homeland-security grant money, I prefaced that by saying that everytime you think "homeland security" can't get more ridiculous, it gets…
Here's an official statement from the city of St. Charles, MO, on the Sugar Plum Fairy incident. As should be obvious, all italicized and/or bracketed material is my commentary and not part of the official statement. Mayor Sally Faith –…
St. Charles, Missouri, has been in the news before (my news, at least), back when it was contemplating an ordinance that would have banned "profane language" anywhere alcoholic beverages are sold, a ban that would have been unconstitutional as well…
Today Boing Boing asks the question, "Is it legal for police to shoot photographers in a public place simply because they do not want to be photographed?" Well, no. No it is not. That includes Oakland. This video, taken by the shootee,…
That's a slight exaggeration, depending on who you ask. According to this report (also this one), no one is currently being prosecuted for misdemeanor acts of domestic violence committed in Topeka, Kansas, because of a dispute between the city and county…
I couldn't be more in favor of full access for the handicapped – just suggesting that the cost of building a ramp should be something less than $700,000. The San Francisco Chronicle reported yesterday that a 10-foot ramp being installed in…
In May, I reported that it looked like it would soon be legal in Illinois to take or possess "fur-bearing mammals found dead or unintentionally killed by a vehicle along a roadway," given that the state Senate had just passed the…
Below are some legal provisions, the first of which you may recognize if you aren't a member of the City Council of Gould, Arkansas. Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or…