Want [more] proof that nanny state bureaucrats don’t trust citizens to be capable of making common sense decisions? Look no further than the new City Hall in Chandler, Ariz., where signs warn visitors against drinking from toilets and urinals.
Mayor Boyd Dunn told the Arizona Republic, “I’m certain there’s some regulation out there that requires that type of sign.”
Just in case you forgot. (Image source: Arizona Republic)
Posted in Food & Drink, Government, Health
Tagged absurd, big government, bizarre, boyd dunn, bureaucracy, bureaucrats, chandler arizona, city hall, funny, government, humor, nanny state, news, odd, oddly enough, politics, strange but true, weird
Bureaucrats pulled their coach. Fair or foul play?
Coach Russell Stone said he was just trying to make sure all of his graduating receivers received passes on Senior Night. While only one pass went for a touchdown, Stone has been suspended by school district administrators for ‘running up the score’ in a 75-7 win last week.
This Friday, Douglas Byrd High School in Fayetteville, N.C., will be without its football coach for the final game of the regular season. Graduating seniors, this time, will be punished for playing along last week with their coach’s controversial game plan.
Cumberland County schools student activities director Leon Mack refused comment to the local media, saying only that Stone’s suspension is a “personnel matter.”
What are your thoughts? Should school district officials decide what the appropriate margin of victory is and punish coaches who exceed it? What about the seniors who might be one stellar game away from receiving second looks by college recruiters? Is it bureaucrats’ role to pull the kids’ coach and crush their chances of receiving potential scholarships?
Share your thoughts with Cumberland County schools’ Leon Mack:
Email - http://www.ccs.k12.nc.us/Email/LeonMack.htm
Tel. - 910.678.2445
Posted in Government, Lifestyle, Parents & Children
Tagged absurd, ban, big government, bizarre, bureaucracy, bureaucrats, children, conservative, Cumberland County schools, Douglas Byrd High School, football, football scholarship, freedom, government, kids, Leon Mack, liberal, libertarian, lifestyle, nanny state, news, odd, oddly enough, Russell Stone, school, strange, strange but true
Just as deadly as a loaded gun? C'mon!
One high school student’s attempt to add some excitement to ‘spirit week’ backfired when the horse he rode around his school’s parking lot was declared a deadly weapon. “They told my son it’s the equivalent of bringing in a loaded firearm to school,’’ said 17-year-old Dan DePaolis’ father, Ron.
Last week, Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School in rural Massachusetts held a series of themed events as part of its School Spirit Week festivities. On “Knight Day,” Dan and his “squire” dressed in Medieval garb and did their best to keep with the theme while boosting the spirits of fellow students.
Dan received a two-day suspension, and his squire, sophomore Keegan Blute, got slapped with a one-day suspension and community service.
A message at the end of Dan’s video on YouTube showcasing his school spirit reads:
Our quest was short indeed! I was suspended for two days and my squire was suspended for one. He must serve two hours of community service. Until he completes his community service, they will hold his test grades ransom.
All this for having the audacity for having spirit on spirit day and riding in on a horse in Hamilton, Mass. — A horse community on the North Shore of Boston only one good nine-iron away from Myopia Hunt Club.
According to the Gloucester Times, “The high school’s student handbook contains no mention of horses or animals explicitly, but has an entry on using alternative transportation methods. A paragraph on page 51 reads: ‘The use of bicycles, unicycles, skateboards, scooters, wheeled sneakers and/or any other motorized or wheeled transportation devices in the school building before, during or after school is strictly prohibited for safety reasons.’”
Tell us if you think Dan DePaolis is a hero or a villain.
Posted in Legal, Lifestyle, Parents & Children
Tagged absurd, big government, bizarre, bureaucracy, bureaucrats, children, conservative, crime, Dan DePaolis, firearms, freedom, funny, government, guns, Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School, handgun, knight day, knight on horse, liberal, libertarian, lifestyle, nanny state, news, odd, oddly enough, school, school shooting, spirit week, strange but true, weapons
Despite the fact that we totally missed the ball on this story, here’s a quick summary from the Idaho Reporter:
The incident occurred in front of a Lewiston home Friday when a staffer for the commission ordered the family of Dan and Kami Charais to close down all pumpkin sales. The couple’s kids, one 4-years-old and the other 6, were selling the orange gourds to save up money for sports and other activities. The staffer with the commission said that roadside stand lacked proper sales permits and that the family would need to obtain proper licensing before opening shop again. The staffer also demanded that the pumpkin stand collect sales tax on all purchases and forward that money to the state.
Posted in Government, Legal, Parents & Children
Tagged absurd, big government, bizarre, bureaucracy, bureaucrats, children, conservative, crime, Dan and Kami Charais, entrepreneur, freedom, funny, government, law, liberal, libertarian, lifestyle, nanny state, news, odd, police, pumpkins, small business, strange, tax, taxes
San Francisco bureaucrats are hoping the city's alcoholics live this dream, too!
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the city already blows “about $13.5 million a year dealing with inveterate street drunks who pass out in doorways, vomit and urinate in public, get rushed to the emergency room and cycle through the city’s various treatment programs, including a ‘sobering center.’”
Now, Supervisor Bevan Dufty and the city’s Department of Public Health want to mimic a program currently underway in Seattle, Wash., that takes drunks off of the streets and does absolutely nothing to encourage them to quit their alcohol addictions that have, for the most part, ruined their lives forever. While some critics of the program refer to it as “Bunks for Drunks,” it sounds more like a hospice house for terminal alcoholics to exit society and drink away the rest of their lives with big government’s blessing.
The city is expected to add 500 new public housing units over the next three years that Dufty and his cronies are hoping will be rewarded to drunks who are unwilling to kick their habits and rejoin the rest of society as productive, tax-paying citizens.
“This seems like an appropriate response for this hard-to-serve population,” Dufty, who’s running for mayor, told the Chronicle. “I think there is merit.”
How do you feel about taxpayer money being used to perpetuate alcoholism as opposed to treating it? Contact Supervisor Dufty if you’d like to discuss the “merit” of his proposal:
Supervisor Dufty’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/BevanDufty
Email: Bevan.Dufty@sfgov.org
Tel: (415) 554-6968
Fax: (415) 554-6909
Mailing address:
City Hall
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 244
San Francisco, Ca 94102-4689
Posted in Food & Drink, Government, Health, Lifestyle
Tagged absurd, Bevan Dufty, big government, bizarre, Bunks for Drunks, bureaucracy, bureaucrats, conservative, crime, Department of Public Health, funny, gavin newsom, government, happy meal, happy meals, health, health care, humor, liberal, libertarian, lifestyle, mcdonald's, nanny state, news, odd, oddly enough, police, republican, san francisco, strange but true, tax, taxpayers
School officials are hoping that forcing kids to stand all day long will burn calories and prevent obesity. (Photo credit: YogaDork.com)
Edie Hedge, a first grade teacher at College Hills Elementary in College Station, Texas, told KBTX-TV’s Nicole Morten that the anti-sitting initiative has yielded positive results for herself and her students.
“I have really enjoyed them,” Hedge said. “I feel like the students have really been able to focus and pay attention to their work because they are using some of their energy in just standing.”
Every student in grades K-4, whether they’re obese or not, is a participant in an experiment that is “tracking the students’ movement to determine how many more calories are burned by those at stand-up desks than at traditional desks,” Morten notes.
“What we found is the standing classrooms were on average burning about 17% more calories during the time they were in the class than the seated desks,” says Dr. Mark Benden, a professor at Texas A&M and the lead researcher on this experiment. He admitted that students are provided with stools to make “standing more comfortable” and give their tired feet an occasional rest.
College Hills Elementary Principal Jane Rankin said she’s thrilled that her school is the first in Texas to tackle childhood obesity by forcing children to stand all day long. “It’s exciting to know that we are helping a project that could conceivably be something that would help a lot of children in a lot of different places,” she said.
The results from the experiment are still being compiled and even Principal Rankin sounds skeptical. Based on the initial discoveries we’ve noted, how would you feel if your child was not allowed to sit in the classroom all day long … in the name of preventing or combating obesity?
Share your praise or criticism with Principal Rankin and Dr. Benden:
jrankin@csisd.org
mbenden@srph.tamhsc.edu
Posted in Government, Health, Lifestyle, Parents & Children
Tagged absurd, ban, big government, bizarre, bureaucracy, bureaucrats, childhood obesity, children, College Hills Elementary, conservative, Dr. Mark Benden, Edie Hedge, education, epidemic, exercise, fat, fitness, food, freedom, funny, government, happy meal, health, Jane Rankin, junk food, kids, liberal, libertarian, lifestyle, michelle obama, nanny state, news, obese, obesity, odd, oddly enough, overweight, parents, public school, school, stand-up desks, strange but true
School's zero tolerance policy towards bad jokes lands kids in drug rehab.
A dozen children pretending to drink alcohol were suspended from Wake Forest Rolesville Middle School school in Raleigh, N.C., despite school officials not falling for the awkward joke. Once it was determined that the fake booze was just soda, the kids were disciplined as if they had brought hard alcohol to school.
One parent told the local ABC News affiliate that his daughter received a “10-day suspension and was told to attend a drug program that costs $450.” That’s the standard punishment given to kids caught violating the Wake County Schools’ ”Narcotics, Alcoholic Beverages, Controlled Substances, Chemical and Drug Paraphernalia” policy.
Wake County Schools policy 6429 says:
No student shall possess, use, distribute, sell, possess with intent to distribute or sell, or conspire or attempt to distribute or sell, or be under the influence of any narcotic drug, hallucinogenic drug, amphetamine, barbiturate, marijuana, anabolic steroid, other controlled substance, any alcoholic beverage, malt beverage, fortified wine, other intoxicating liquor, drug paraphernalia, counterfeit substance, any unauthorized prescription drug, or any other chemicals or products with the intention of bringing about a state of exhilaration, euphoria, or of otherwise altering the student’s mood or behavior.
School officials declined to comment to ABC News on the case, but even if the kids were charged with possessing “counterfeit” alcohol, the soda in their bottles could in no way — intentionally or unintentionally — brought about “a state of exhilaration, euphoria, or of otherwise altering the student’s mood or behavior.”
Punish the kids for playing a bad joke about a serious matter on their teachers, but pretending they’re drug addicts, suspending them for 10 days, and sending them to rehab seems a bit much. What are your thoughts?
Posted in Food & Drink, Government, Health, Legal, Parents & Children
Tagged absurd, alcohol, bizarre, booze, bureaucracy, bureaucrats, children, conservative, crime, discipline, drug treatment, drugs, funny, humor, liberal, libertarian, lifestyle, liquor, nanny state, news, odd, oddly enough, parents, rehab, school, strange but true, suspended, wake county schools, Wake Forest Rolesville Middle School
They neglected to include the pose of a motorist bending over ...
The City of Cambridge, Mass., thinks motorists need to take a deep breath and relax when they find themselves in receipt of parking tickets. Payment envelopes adorning violators’ windshields now suggest a series of Yoga poses to help replace feelings of anger and hostility with inner peace and tranquility.
“It’s trying to debunk the idea that all parking tickets are a hostile action, because I don’t think they are,” Susan E. Clippinger, the city’s transportation chief, told the Boston Herald. “We’re not writing tickets to get somebody. We’re writing tickets to help make the city function.”
The city commissioned a local artist to design the Yoga imagery that will be given to 40,000 lucky parking violators. Almost 340,000 parking tickets are written every year, perhaps, making the Yoga-themed tickets collector’s items.
Artist Daniel Peltz said he designed the Yoga imagery as “a reflection on a social situation, the human experience of giving and receiving parking tickets.” He elaborated, “I started this process by wondering what would happen in a world where I received them with a set of graceful postures: a clean bend at the waist, a gentle lift of the windshield wiper . . . I’m going to get the ticket either way, my only choice really is how I’m going to receive it.”
How much did it cost the city’s taxpayers to prepare these ‘special edition’ parking tickets? Ask Susan E. Clippinger:
E-mail: sclippinger@cambridgema.gov
City of Cambridge
Parking and Transportation Dept.
344 Broadway
Cambridge, MA 02139
Main: 617-349-4700
Fax: 617-349-4747
Posted in Government, Legal, Lifestyle
Tagged absurd, big government, bizarre, bureaucracy, bureaucrats, cambridge, crime, Daniel Peltz, freedom, funny, government, hippies, liberal, lifestyle, news, odd, oddly enough, parking tickets, parking violation, police, strange but true, Susan E. Clippinger, tax, traffic tickets, weird, yoga
Just another "educational" experience courtesy of a "non-profit" organization catering to cougars and their younger prey.
An “educational non-profit organization” that caters to the ‘cougar’ lifestyle claims it had to cancel an upcoming singles getaway because a major U.S. cruise line allegedly discriminates against older women who prey on younger men. Keep reading, because it gets even more bizarre.
The Society of Single Professionals complains that, despite the “tremendous success of the world’s first International Cougar Cruise” aboard Carnival Cruise Lines in December 2009, the ‘Fun Ship’ will not allow itself to become the ‘Love Boat’ again in 2010 or beyond. Rich Gosse, chairman of the organization, elaborates:
While it is perfectly acceptable for middle-aged men to date women their daughter’s age, women don’t have the same privilege. After the tremendous success of the world’s first International Cougar Cruise, December 2009, aboard Carnival, we were shocked that they refused to allow another. If there had been problems on the first Cougar Cruise we would understand being banned. But hundreds of our cougars and cubs onboard were well-behaved, and there were absolutely no problems. We expect the same will be true with the European Cougar Cruise.
Cougars awaiting their prey.
Stepping-up to the plate and welcoming hundreds of sex-crazed cougars and their so-called ‘cubs’ aboard is Royal Caribbean International. The “Liberty of the Seas” ship will depart from Barcelona, Spain, and help the intergenerational couples make love connections or whatever ‘floats their boats’ across Europe from April 16-21 in 2011.
An “educational non-profit organization?” How the heck did they pull that off with the IRS and State of California?
It sure is amazing how a glorified sex tour operator that also proclaims itself to be “an alternative to the bar scene” is proudly advertising its “nonprofit” tax status. The NSLF searched Guidestar.org’s “broad and deep” database of non-profit organizations to verify the organization’s “non-profit” status and could not locate any results to support the claim:
Society of Single Professionals is a division of American Singles Education, Inc., incorporated in the State of California in 1978 as an educational non-profit organization. We are the world’s largest non-profit singles organization, sponsoring thousands of educational and social events for singles worldwide, on six continents.
If you’re wondering what passes for an “educational” experience worthy of tax-exempt status, perhaps the itinerary for the April 2011 cruise will give you a good idea (or not):
Our days at sea will have an array of activities offered by the cruise ship and by our social host along to bring the group together. So you’ll have non-stop activities or you can just sit back and socialize with a cool drink, relax in one of the many pools or jacuzzis or enjoy a tantalizing host of other on board services. Workout in the fitness center and pamper yourself in the spa! Watch the sun set over the sea as you stroll the decks of our floating resort and then enjoy incredible gourmet meals, lavish nightly shows and the chance to dance the night away with great new friends.
According to the State of California’s requirements for organizations seeking to incorporate as “domestic non-profit corporations,” the petitioner must prove it provides a “public benefit,” “mutual benefit” or “religious” purpose. “Unless otherwise required by law, any deviation from the required purpose statement can be cause for rejection,” the Calif. Secretary of State’s “Corporate Filing Tips“ webpage states.
We’re not tax attorneys, but we do know that this cougar-centric organization serves no religious purpose. Here’s how the Secretary of State defines “public benefit” and “mutual benefit” requirements:
Public Benefit – This corporation is a nonprofit public benefit corporation and is not organized for the private gain of any person. It is organized under the Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law for (public or charitable [insert one or both]) purposes.
Mutual Benefit – This corporation is a nonprofit mutual benefit corporation organized under the Nonprofit Mutual Benefit Corporation Law. The purpose of this corporation is to engage in any lawful act or activity, other than credit union business, for which a corporation may be organized under such law.
Something sounds fishy about American Singles Education, Inc.’s so-called “non-profit” status qualifications. Despite widespread media coverage of this organization and its sexually-charged activities, not a single journalist has ever raised the issue of how this organization can claim itself to be an “educational non-profit organization” meriting tax exempt status.
Posted in Business, Food & Drink, Government, Legal, Lifestyle
Tagged absurd, American Singles Education, bizarre, caribbean, Carnival Cruise Lines, cougar, cougarevents, cougars, cruise ship, dating, funny, International Cougar Cruise, IRS, lifestyle, marriage, non-profit, odd, oddly enough, relationships, Rich Gosse, Royal Caribbean, sex, singles, Society of Single Professionals, strange, strange but true, tax exempt, travel
Perfect for treating the toughest loads of b.s.
Who would ever believe that the socialists, liberals and ‘progressives’ over at The Huffington Post would be appalled by big government interference in American citizens’ lives, much less, impressionable young school children whose minds they’ve yet to manipulate? Well, wonder no more, because they posted proof in words and pictures.
Of course, out of the 17 “Weirdest Things Schools Have Banned,” there’s no mention of Bibles being banned on Freedom of Religion Day, students’ crucifixes being mistaken for gang symbols, or countless instances of God being removed from morning classroom recitals of the Pledge of Allegiance, and that’s probably cool with Huffington Post’s Grace Green:
Schools have a responsibility to protect their students, but when it comes to things like silly bandz and pogs, we wonder just how much protection kids really need. We found some of the weirdest things schools have banned, and we have to admit we are shocked at what some people consider a threat. Some of it we understand, like no toy guns or cell phones, but no Cheetos or breast cancer awareness bracelets? That’s crazy talk.
Got that? There are exceptions to how much nanny state bureaucrats can interfere in American’s lives, but only when it come to eating Cheetos and wearing Silly Bandz or breast cancer awareness bracelets.
We’ll assume everything else that’s fun, tasty and emits that awful stench of freedom is still off limits, unless The Huffington Post tells us otherwise.
Posted in Business, Food & Drink, Government, Health, Legal, Lifestyle, Parents & Children
Tagged absurd, ban, big government, bizarre, bureaucracy, bureaucrats, children, conservative, crime, discipline, education, educators, food, freedom, funny, government, government interference, health, huffington post, humor, indoctrination, junk food, kids, law, leftist, liberal, liberal media, liberals, libertarian, lifestyle, mcdonald's, nanny state, news, obama, odd, oddly enough, parents, police, progressive, progressives, republican, school, silly bandz, socialism, socialists, strange but true
