It's Banned!!!

[Count Bobulescu]

A weekly look at the things that get banned in towns and cities around the world.

FOIE GRAS, IN LOS ANGELES
The fat lady is singing loudly for foie gras in California, as a statewide embargo against the fattiest of liverfoods goes into effect July 1. Not surprisingly, restaurants have prepared intricate tasting menus so diners can cram every last gram of the controversial food into their bodies before it becomes illegal. In Los Angeles, the chic Petrossian is offering a $100 five-course meal featuring a berry gazpacho with poached goose liver and pickled beets, a flat-iron steak with foie "meat butter" and an ice cream infused with the unctuous organ. Japanese joint N/NAKA is serving foie sushi in a $180 tasting, with kanpachi covered in a dried-liver snow. Over in San Francisco, Mélisse has a $185 "Foie for All" menu with truffled foie-gras agnolotti, foie-gras flan with hazelnut foam and blood orange gelee and "of Course, Something Sweet with Foie." The chef behind these delicacies told USA Today that "30 percent of our guests are ordering foie gras."

GAY PARADES, IN MOSCOW
The city court in Russia's capital has upheld a law banning gay-pride parades for the coming century. For years, LGBT supporters have been barred by Moscow's government from holding such events; when they do participate, they often face violence or arrest or both. But activists thought they found a loophole in the law last year, and flooded the mayor's office with more than a hundred requests to march. They got form letters instead quoting the law, and thus a civil case was born. Nikolay Alekseyev, an organizer of the annually banned Moscow Pride parade and a "famous gay in Moscow," at least according to Wikipedia, vowed to appeal the decision to the European Court of Human Rights. The Moscow ruling, which follows a new ordinance in St. Petersburg forbidding the promotion of "gay lifestyles," expires in May 2112.

RATCHET-AZZ SATELLITE DISHES, IN BOSTON
Addressing a "serious quality-of-life issue," on Wednesday Boston councilman Matt O'Malley helped pass a ban on satellite dishes that have become eyesores. The new regulation forbids residents from mounting the dishes on the fronts of buildings or near fire escapes, ending the era when Bostonites could just load up a lone wall with seven of the things. People who already have dishes in front are grandfathered in, but everybody else will have to remove them from public sight by 2015. If that means suffering a poor signal, the customer can petition the city for the right to display a dish in a better location. City councilman Salvatore LaMattina had earlier compared the devices to litter, saying, “Certainly landlords should be held accountable for letting their property become covered in something that makes the neighborhood look terrible."

COSPLAYING, IN ORLANDO
Want to dress up like Tinker Bell and go to Disney World? Too bad! Disney security will eject you from the park faster than the bullet that killed Frau Bambi. The amusement destination has a rule against adults dressing up like Disney characters, as 15-year-old April Spielman found out recently when officials ordered her to change her clothes immediately. Metro.us reports that Spielman was happily exploring the park in full-fairy regalia with her boyfriend – who was dressed up like Peter Pan, for what it's worth – when "the happiest place on Earth took a dark, dark, turn":
Security guards asked Spielman and her boyfriend to change before entering the Animal Kingdom, telling them Disney World has a policy against "adult costumes or clothing that can be viewed as representative of an actual Disney character," so as not to confuse children hoping to meet real Disney characters, as stated on its website....
"They were talking about little girls, how it ruins their dreams," April said as she choked back tears. "But it ruined my dream, because I just wanted to be Tinker Bell."
HAHAHAHA! Oh, sorry. What a sad story. Everybody wish upon a star that Disney changes this unfair policy soon.

AND IN UNBANNING NEWS.... A TOWN WELCOMES BACK ITS PARKING ENFORCERS
Last May, the southwest-U.K. town of Aberystwyth (gesundheit) fired all its traffic cops due to budget cuts, effectively banning parking enforcement. The hamlet's elders planned to find a cheaper contractor, but it turned out to be harder than they thought. In the year that passed since the layoffs, Aberystwyth has seen a level of traffic hell rarely seen outside of a surprise blizzard in the peak of rush hour. The town's descent into madness was chronicled by the local Cambrian News, which regularly ran stories with headlines like "At least another year of chaos," "8 more months of parking chaos ahead," "Parking chaos for quite some time to come," and "Chaos on the streets must not continue a year." A survey by NCP found it to be the worst place in the U.K. to find parking spaces, and a study in 2006 unvealed that about a third of the drivers on the road at any given time were simply looking for a spot to park.

But the massive headache for drivers has finally abated, with the town hiring back a parking-enforcement team that is twice as big as the original. The eulogy on the mess was penned by the Cambrian News, which opined:
The last year has been an interesting “experiment”, if only because it has shown the majority of residents that [parking] wardens are in fact a “necessary evil”. Without people to enforce laws, it has become clear that anarchy will rule.

BEING CHARITABLE, IN CORONA, CALIFORNIA
Businesses in Corona have 90 days to remove boxes for used-clothing donations, or else the city will rip them out on the business owners' dime. The NIMBYish city council of Corona recently outlawed the wooden receptacles because, as Mayor Eugene Montanez has complained, "I’ve seen mattresses laying to the side, clothes, toys, all kinds of things that you’ll see propped up to the side of these, and they’re really an eyesore.” Another sore point considered by the council: that the boxes could be hampering the efforts of local charities in Corona, located an hour's drive east of Los Angeles, because the organizations that manage them send the clothing out of the country to places like Africa. According to the CEO of Planet Aid, a nonprofit that's no longer welcome in the city, 85 percent of California's used clothing winds up in garbage dumps.

BEING FAT, IN NEW YORK CITY
Mayor Mike Bloomberg thinks that if you drink any kind of large soda, you're a huge, disgusting sweat-hog. And maybe he has a point, with more than half of the city's population being overweight or obese. So his administration has rolled out a plan to ban sweetened drinks larger than 16 ounces. Fruit juices, dairy drinks and artificially sweetened drinks are still allowed, as are (loophole!) free refills. The new regulation, which is expected to take effect next March, targets movie theaters, restaurants, grocery stores and ball parks. One solution to soda-deprivation? Just drink beer!

Meanwhile, even New York's prisoners can't escape the long, toned arm of Bloomberg. He has asked City Hall to consider banning junk food from jail commissaries, meaning approximately 13,000 inmates may no longer get to nosh on instant ramen, candy bars, potato chips, soda and Honey Buns. For prisoners whose lives revolve around a daily Honey Bun, being as it's one of the rare joys of penal institutions and also is used as currency, this is most unsatisfactory news. “They are not going to be happy,” a corrections supervisor told the Daily News. New York has already outlawed trans fats and fried foods from jail commissaries, and needless to say smoking is not allowed.

DRUNK BUREAUCRATS, IN FUKUOKA, JAPAN
The mayor of this Kyushu city has asked his municipal employees, 20,000 in all, to refrain from imbibing alcohol "anywhere outside their own homes" for a full month. Chiding his shameful underlings, Soichiro Takashima said, "I hope each of you takes this abnormal situation seriously because this matter involves everyone." The government-mandated drying out arrives after several employees staged boozy shenanigans that would make W.C. Fields proud. City workers have been caught driving while intoxicated, beating up a taxi driver while intoxicated, beating up each other while intoxicated and stealing a car while utterly trashed (that last guy was a fireman). Fukuoka's bureaucrats are allowed to drink alcohol at their own weddings, but every other guest must suffice with soda or water.

JOHN FOLEY, IN LONDON
The British court system has issued its first human-specific ban for the upcoming 2012 London Olympics. The ultimate consumer advocate, John Foley, now faces arrest if he protests anywhere near the games. Foley's been on a bit of a tear recently over budget airliner Ryanair, which he believes unfairly fired his daughter, and has proved quite “ingenious in his disruptions," according to the police. As part of his "Ryanair Don't Care" campaign, he forced authorities to fetch the boltcutters after handcuffing himself to a goalpost during a January Manchester City soccer match. Cops found a plastic mask resembling Ryanair's CEO in his pocket. In 2011, he jumped out into the middle of a horse race holding a protest sign above his head, provoking an irate racing fan to later punch him in the face. He climbed on top of a hotel at Liverpool John Lennon Airport the year before that with a banner reading "STOP RECRUITMENT SCAMMING CABIN CREW." Foley's daughter must be the most proud, or embarrassed, kid in the world.

[eamo]

BANNED!!!!

With the Euro football thingamajig now on, at least one Irish bank has declared it does not want any taxi sporting Irish flags or mirror covers to cover their account work.
Maybe it is embarrassing for them to be reminded who owns them.
Or maybe they think it is just too common.
Or maybe it is just some prat doing what prats do.

[5intheface]

Old but gold;

[Count Bobulescu]

A few more for the files.

FLIES IN BATHROOMS, IN BEIJING
Faced with 12,000 public toilets that often reek worse than a rotting bison, China's capital has rolled out a hygiene initiative meant to make answering nature's call a more agreeable event. Among the improved standards is an oddly specific prohibition against more than two flies per restroom, a stipulation that whips into existence the world's newest most-offensive job: toilet-fly inspector. The move comes after Beijing spent nearly $57 million to get its bathrooms up to par for the 2008 Olympic Games. Said one commentator on the insectoid quota: "The cleanliness of public toilets reflects the level of civilization and management skills of a city."

PLASTIC BAGS, IN LOS ANGELES
L.A. has become the largest city in America to ban plastic bags in grocery stores, beginning in about four months. The city council voted 13-1 this week to approve the planet-pleasing measure, with the lone dissenter, Councilman Bernard Parks, saying that uncleaned reusable bags could promote the cross contamination of raw meats. Also, in a year the city will force markets to charge 10 cents for paper bags, spurring this waaaahhhing from an L.A. Times chat participant called Maurice: "We (Angelenos) will be shopping in neighboring cities if/when the ban goes into force." Good luck finding your El Dorado of Plastic Bags, Maurice, as 48 other cities in California have also banished them.
.
THOSE "ANONYMOUS" MASKS, IN MONTREAL
It's a sad day for Guy Fawkes... well, slightly less sad than the one when he got tortured and hung. Authorities in Montreal have banned protesters from wearing hoods or masks, including every geek's favorite, in an effort to quell the widespread student marching/rioting that's been afflicting Quebec since February. Why so suddenly serious, Canada? Well, Quebec's government wants to raise college-tuition rates by 82 percent (about $1,700) over the next five years, spurring nightly acts of civil disobedience that culminated with the arrest of 518 protesters on Wednesday. (With the hoosegows overstuffed, it's uncertain how many people will be able to turn out for the impending 2012 hockey riot, but we'll see.) The Canadian government also passed an emergency measure last week, Bill 78, forbidding unapproved protests of the sort that are going on constantly now. Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay said he would defend his fashion police handing out $1,000 tickets, arguing, "When a cause is just, why is it necessary to hide behind a mask?"

*** BONUS STATE BAN *** NAUGHTY LICENSE PLATES IN MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun has put together a delightful quiz regarding what Maryland's department of motor vehicles considers an unacceptable personalized license plate. Which of the following plate is allowed to grace your ride in Maryland: TOILET, SAFESEX, FATPIMP, ALLAH, BUNS? Plus more! Cruise on over to the Sun to play.

[Count Bobulescu]

NATIVITY SCENES, IN SANTA MONICA

Rivaling factions in this beachy burg have wound up ruining Christmas for everyone. Because Christians, atheists and the local government couldn't agree on how to decorate Palisades Park in December – a tradition that's been going on for six decades – the city council simply banned nativity scenes altogether. The humbuggish swat came after atheists won lottery spots last year for most of the nativity scenes, and snowed the park with signs like “Happy Solstice!” and this poke-in-the-eye to believers: “'Religions are all alike – founded upon fables and mythologies' - Thomas Jefferson.” (Monticello scholars, by the way, have yet to locate that line in any of Jefferson's letters.) The council worried that if they let the holiday tradition continue people might erect crazier and crazier displays, including “a gigantic sign refuting the events of the holocaust or a picture of Texas Chainsaw Massacre's Leatherface standing over the wee baby Jesus.”

PORCH SOFAS, IN DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA

The Durham city council has just outlawed “one of the great Southern comforts known to mankind,” according to Barry Saunders of the News Observer. For time eternal, making the world your oyster by moving the living room outdoors has reigned as one of the South's greatest design achievements. But NIMBYs have struck a decisive blow against the practice by flooding Durham's city hall with so many complaints about their neighbors' moss-covered chesterfields that the government now considers porch sofas “almost an epidemic.” Under the new regulation, sitting on a rocking chair, hammock or beer-filled cooler is still allowed, but anyone who brings anything upholstered into the light of day, including the scavenged back seat of a T-Bird, faces a fine. Carps Saunders: "Just as when Sherman passed through here on his gloriously destructive march to the sea, another cherished Southern tradition is falling to another Northern movement."

MOUTHWASH-SWILLING HOMELESS MAN, IN THE U.K.

The council in Plymouth, located on the southwest tip of England, has banned a man who's been a "thorn in the side" in the city ever since he took up chugging mouthwash in public a year ago. Robert Piskadlo has been “responsible for a wave of offending, including assault, theft and being drunk and disorderly,” reports the Plymouth Herald. When he can't find mouthwash, he allegedly drinks “white spirits,” a solvent used in painting. Piskadlo, who didn't attend his banning proceedings, is forbidden from having open bottles of mouthwash for the next four years.

SWEARING IN PUBLIC, IN MIDDLEBOROUGH, MASSACHUSETTS

The residents of this New England town might all start sounding like a bunch of ding-dong-diddly Ned Flanderses under a new prohibition against public swearing. Residents of the famed home of General Tom Thumb, located about 40 miles south of Boston, have long suffered auditory offense when walking by groups of loitering teenagers in public parks and downtown. “They’ll sit on the bench and yell back and forth to each other with the foulest language. It’s just so inappropriate,” one woman complained during a town meeting. The solution, Middleborough's gentility decided, is to lay a $20 fine on people who uses “profane or obscene language” as per state law, although a full list of no-no words has yet to surface. The new ordinance updates old Massachusetts laws against cursing at sporting events and denying the existence of God.

[Slim Buddha]

BANNED!!!!

With the Euro football thingamajig now on, at least one Irish bank has declared it does not want any taxi sporting Irish flags or mirror covers to cover their account work.
Maybe it is embarrassing for them to be reminded who owns them.
Or maybe they think it is just too common.
Or maybe it is just some prat doing what prats do.

It is all of the above, eamo.

[Count Bobulescu]

It didn’t take long for the banning of profanity to raise some 1st Amendment concerns. WaPo editorial is agin it. Now if only PW had a 1st A. we could ditch that censoring software, and the people who used profanity could be frowned upon like this, “You stupid ~!@#$%^&* idiot” gets the point across.

THE RESIDENTS of Middleborough, Mass., have had enough. In a state with a storied history of Puritan-inspired prohibitions, they voted 183-50 in a town meeting last Monday to approve a proposal that would, among other things, impose a $20 fine on public profanity, First Amendment be damned.
In a town of roughly 20,000 people that the Associated Press described as best known for its cranberry bogs, profanity was just one of several practices addressed in the recently passed bylaw. The idea was to decriminalize certain behaviors prohibited in existing legislation that a cumbersome legal process often discouraged officers from enforcing. Other behaviors officers can now ticket include public marijuana use, public drinking and dumping snow on roadways. By treating them in the same vein as, say, traffic violations, the idea is that officers would actually be more inclined to deal with these issues when they see them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...c=nl_headlines

[Count Bobulescu]

TOPLESS SWIMMING, IN SEATTLE

The parks department in this liberalist of cities is refusing to let a woman with a double mastectomy swim without a top in public pools. Jodi Jaecks has no visible breasts and considers herself "pretty androgynous," reports The Stranger, but cannot do laps the way she wishes due to a parks policy requiring gender-appropriate swimwear. The city believes that Jaecks is simply trying to be subversive; however, she argues that tops hurt her chest and anyway, it is "good for kids to be exposed to the positive reality" of surviving cancer. (For what it's worth, public nudity is legally allowed in Seattle.)

CHALK DRAWINGS, IN DENVER

Kids who execute a sidewalk drawing of a happy bee in Stapleton, a tony neighborhood in Denver, will quickly see their chalk sprayed away by a frowning adult with a garden hose. That's because the home-owners' association has a policy that "anything that offends, disturbs or interferes with the peaceful enjoyment is not allowed on shared spaces," according to Fox 10 News. (Does this count?) Stapleton's censorship of tots hit the media this week after a 3-year-old girl was scolded for scribbling hearts and flowers on the ground. Her mother said, "My initial reaction was, 'You have to be kidding me.'"

LAUGHING, IN MUMBAI

Yoga practitioners in this Indian megalopolis will have to zip it under a recent court decision forbidding loud laughing. The Bombay High Court has ruled in favor of a man who had complained of "mental agony" caused by his neighbors' public displays of high mirth, according to DNA India:
From 7am, around 10 to 15 members of the group gather and sing bhajans and clap loudly. “This is followed by loud and vigorous spells of laughter... They laugh at the top of their voices; every member encourages the others to laugh to their heart’s content,” stated the petition.
Finding such har-harring to be a nuisance, the court decided it “is not proper to gather outside somebody’s house and laugh.” Laughter Yoga was founded in Mumbai in 1995 by Madan Kataria, the "Guru of Giggling," and has since spread to thousands of clubs in 60 countries. Its followers believe that laughter "lowers the level of stress hormones (epinephrine, cortisol, etc) in the blood" and makes it "less likely for a person to succumb to stress and feelings of depression and helplessness."

[Count Bobulescu]

DOG EXECUTIONS, IN ALABAMA

One heroic pup who must be really good at holding his breath has caused the town of Florence, located in the northwest corner of Alabama, to throw out its practice of destroying unwanted dogs. Last October, animal-control officer Cody Berry opened the door of the pound's gas chamber, which he had just filled with a load of fresh dogs, and noticed a tail wagging among the corpses. Berry quickly shut the door and turned on the gas again... actually, no. What he did was give the weakened Beagle-mix some water and a new name: "Daniel," for the Biblical fellow who escaped a den of lions.
Because of the animal's death-defying stunt, Florence has decided to dismantle its gas chamber in favor of becoming a no-kill animal shelter, according to All Voices. The invincible cur's story has sent ripples coursing through the world of politics, with senators as far away as Pennsylvania trying to pass a "Daniel's Law" against canine gassing.

LED LIGHTS, IN RHODE ISLAND

Energy-saving LED signs are no longer allowed in Hopkinton, which is squeezed up against the southern Connecticut border, because the town council considers them a "safety hazard and a threat to the atmosphere of rural communities." In what sounds like a joke, the Westerly Sun reports that "councilor and lighting designer" Barbara Capalbo was behind the push to exile the green technology. She explained her outrage thus: "If you allow the self-illuminated diodes, you end up getting super bright signs that can change color, flash, pattern, move, and you have no control over their brightness, how often they change."
The town decided that if LEDs were permitted to flash wantonly, motorists could become confused and crash their vehicles. The restriction of diodes will help assuage locals' fear that Hopkinton could soon become a hellhole of glittering lights like its bigger-sized neighbors, Johnston and Cranston.

CARS, IN BHUTAN

Thimphu, Chhukha, Pemagatsel and other cities in this Himalayan kingdom are awfully quiet on certain days under a new prohibition against driving. The rulers of this country of about 700,000 people decided that to help save the environment, they'd banish all gas-powered vehicles except buses, taxis and emergency vehicles from the roads on Tuesdays, all over Bhutan. Actually, Prime Minister Jigme Thinley had a more poetic way of phrasing it, per his executive order:
This will be a day when Bhutanese citizens will seize the opportunity to contemplate the fragile nature of our precious Himalayan mountain ecology and make a small contribution. Tuesdays will also be a day when Bhutanese will walk for their health, experience the joy of walking with friends, family and colleagues, and promote community vitality.
In other words, Tuesdays will be a time to seize the day.
The government has also urged taxi drivers to keep off the road once a month using a rotating schedule of even and odd license numbers. Electric cars are still free to toodle around wherever and whenever they want, no doubt improving their popularity in this wonderfully odd little nation.

[C. Flower]

Bhutan

[eamo]

From Wikipedia:

Bhutan.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the country expelled or forced to leave nearly one fifth of its population in the name of preserving its Tibetan Mahayana Buddhist culture and identity.[32] The Lhotshampas, the ethnic group persecuted by the Bhutanese government, were subject to "harassment, arrests and the burning of ethnic Nepali homes."[33] The government enacted discriminatory citizenship laws against the Lhotshampas, stripping about one-fifth of its population of citizenship. A harassment campaign escalating in the early 1990s ensued, and afterwards Bhutanese security forces began expelling people after making them renounce claims to their homes and homeland. A refugee recounted, “The army took all the people from their houses. As we left Bhutan, we were forced to sign the document. They snapped our photos. The man told me to smile, to show my teeth. He wanted to show that I was leaving my country willingly, happily, that I was not forced to leave.”[34] Due to the violence, Bhutanese of Nepali origin, mainly Hindu, fled their homeland. According to the UNHCR, more than 107,000 Bhutanese refugees living in seven camps in eastern Nepal have been documented as of 2008.[35] After many years in refugee camps, many are now moving to host nations such as Norway, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States as refugees. The United States has admitted 30,870 refugees from fiscal years 2008 through 2010.[36] Still, in July 2010, the Bhutanese prime minister, Jigme Y. Thinley, called the Bhutanese refugees illegal immigrants.[37]

If this is true then these are the sort of genuine refugees we should be accepting and integrating into our country. Not the shams that just turn up here with a bs story.

[fluffybiscuits]

From Wikipedia:

Bhutan.


If this is true then these are the sort of genuine refugees we should be accepting and integrating into our country. Not the shams that just turn up here with a bs story.

We should accept all immigrants but that is another story. The very ideals of Buddhism is all about harmony, the tenets that are meant to live by conveniently go out the window when these people are subject to harrassement.

[Count Bobulescu]

DRINKING MILLER LIGHT WHILE TUBING, IN TEXAS

Everybody knows that river tubing, like poker, is basically an excuse to take off your pants and down a sixer. (Or am I the only one who plays five-card draw that way?) That's why thousands of tubers who flock each summer to New Braunfels, just outside San Antonio, are outraged over a new prohibition against alcoholic containers on the scenic Guadalupe River. The problem is that tipsy tube-fans have been filling the river with crushed cans, empty bottles and space bags, destroying the natural beauty of backwater sights like the Stinky Falls. The ban has forced practitioners of this laziest of sports to switch to reusable glasses and "Chug-a-Mugs," which hold three beers. (Shouldn't they give thanks for that forced adaptation?) Complained one tube-rental business owner: "People are calling saying, 'You can't drink in New Braunfels, so why am I coming?'"

CHANG'AA, IN KENYA

Officials in the town of Njoro continue to uphold an embargo on chang'aa, a local moonshine often made from contaminated river water, molasses and jet fuel. Police recently seized 590 liters of the rotgut, whose name translates to "Kill me quick," and plan to make a sweep of houses to roost out illegal brewers. Want to know more about this magical substance? Here's an excerpt from its Wikipedia entry:
The alcoholic content is sometimes increased by adding substances like jet fuel, embalming fluid or battery acid, which has the effect of giving the beverage more 'kick'. Drinkers have suffered blindness or death due to methanol poisoning. In Nairobi slums like Korogocho, the water used to make the drink is often contaminated with feces, and women's underwear along with decomposing dead rats have been found in the drink during police raids. [Emphasis mine.]
Needless to say, chang'aa is best enjoyed with a mixer.

WOLF-DOGS, IN CALIFORNIA

Who would want to own a pet known as a "wolf-dog"? Lots of people: Kristen Stewart's mom has a couple, for instance. There are an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 of the hybrid creatures in the United States, and they even have a lobby to protect them, the National Wolfdog Alliance. But when it comes to dogs that might kill your sheep but raise your infant twins, cities have not been very tolerant. The latest blow to wolf-dog understanding emanated from Calaveras County, home of San Andreas, where officials recently supported a standing boycott on the possible descendents of the hugely muscled, throat-tearing Beasts of Gévaudan. Despite being reputably as or more even-tempered than many dogs, county supervisors decided that "rabid wolf hybrids may pose a public health risk," according to the Calaveras Enterprise. (There is no USDA-approved rabies vaccine for wolves.) One official who voted to discard the ban claimed that mean wolf-dogs were the product of bad owners, saying the "ones I’ve run into have, to an animal, been quite spectacular as pets.”

[Count Bobulescu]

PATRIOTISM, IN MASSACHUSETTS

Until very recently, Captain America would've had to remove his cloths if he wanted to stroll through the Garden Lane public-housing complex in Wrentham, Massachusetts. That's because the local housing authority adopted an ad hoc policy against displaying American flags in public areas. Why do Wrentham bureaucrats enjoy spraying sulfuring acid all over the Eagle of Freedom? Well, around Independence Day one tenant complained about Old Glories flying outside people's apartments, and that was enough for the housing authority to drop the ban hammer (via passive-aggressive notes taped on everybody's doors, naturally).
However, today the Massachusetts state-housing department announced that Wrentham's prohibition was a "mistake that is being corrected immediately,” according to the Sun Chronicle. Perhaps, but not before politicians get to score easy points off this snafu. Here's State Rep. Dan Winslow, R-Wrentham, vomiting outrage to the Chronicle: “[T]his outrageous event points to an imbedded problem about the attitude and experience of the state employees who made this decision in the first place. Those state employees should be fired immediately for incompetence and their jobs filled by unemployed veterans.”

SMELLING UP THE STACKS, IN CALIFORNIA

he tony beach community of Newport Beach, just south of Los Angeles, likes to have a nice, quiet, odor-free library experience. But certain homeless people have been getting in the way of that. So what does the city council do? It passes tighter restrictions on library behavior this week that outlaw sleeping, cursing or "occupying furniture in a manner that suggests lounging," reports KNX 1070 Newsradio. Folks who get tossed on their butts for nodding off over Atonement basically have one person to thank:
“We have a regular customer who comes in and sleeps and lounges on furniture and tells us, ‘You don’t have the authority to stop me from doing this’,” said Newport Beach Library Services Director Cynthia Cowell. “So now this policy gives us that.”
Also not allowed is bringing in a sleeping bag, not wearing shoes, talking loudly, neglecting to keep up one's personal hygiene and the “use of perfume or fragrance which produces odors that interfere with other patrons’ use of library facilities," according to the library's website. Such measures might seem draconian, seeing as homeless people don't have many great options on where to spend their afternoons, but they protect Newport Beach Central Library's status as a destination spot for Hollywood filmmakers (the building was featured in the 1997 film, Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion).

EVERYTHING, AT THE LONDON GAMES

The following things have been banned from the London 2012 Olympics (note: list not inclusive):
Che Guevara T-shirts
Any other clothing bearing a political message
“Non-essential liquids” including both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages
Glass bottles
Large hats
Big umbrellas
Large flags or banners
More than one soft-sided bag of 25 liters
“Large quantities of coins”
Bicycles, in most areas
Roller-skates
Skateboards
Vuvuzelas
Laser pointers
Walkie talkies
Personal wireless access points and 3G hubs
“Any item that is too large to be electronically screened at the point of entry”
Explosives, knives, mace and other weapons

FLINTSTONES CAR IN GERMANY

It was a case of 'Yabba Dabba Don't' for Flintstones nut Sebastian Trager after police banned his custom built motor from German roads.
Featuring a wooden frame design and leopard print seat covers, engineer Trager built the model using the chassis of a Volkswagen Polo.
There's no need for Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble's pedal power however, with the modern adaptation of the Flintmobile boasting a 1.3 litre engine hidden under the front roller.
Trager's bid to make his vehicle legally roadworthy hit the skids after German police ruled that the vehicle was too unsafe to be driven on public roads.
'We copied every last detail. I work in car construction and love working with cars so it is perfectly safe,' explained Trager.
'But when we got the registration form section about the number of lights, windscreen washers and wipers, well, we don't even have a windscreen so we gave up.
'Instead we trailer it to shows and exhibitions for people to see and everyone seems to love it.'

[Kev Bar]

PATRIOTISM, IN MASSACHUSETTS

Until very recently, Captain America would've had to remove his cloths if he wanted to stroll through the Garden Lane public-housing complex in Wrentham, Massachusetts. That's because the local housing authority adopted an ad hoc policy against displaying American flags in public areas. Why do Wrentham bureaucrats enjoy spraying sulfuring acid all over the Eagle of Freedom? Well, around Independence Day one tenant complained about Old Glories flying outside people's apartments, and that was enough for the housing authority to drop the ban hammer (via passive-aggressive notes taped on everybody's doors, naturally).
However, today the Massachusetts state-housing department announced that Wrentham's prohibition was a "mistake that is being corrected immediately,” according to the Sun Chronicle. Perhaps, but not before politicians get to score easy points off this snafu. Here's State Rep. Dan Winslow, R-Wrentham, vomiting outrage to the Chronicle: “[T]his outrageous event points to an imbedded problem about the attitude and experience of the state employees who made this decision in the first place. Those state employees should be fired immediately for incompetence and their jobs filled by unemployed veterans.”

SMELLING UP THE STACKS, IN CALIFORNIA

he tony beach community of Newport Beach, just south of Los Angeles, likes to have a nice, quiet, odor-free library experience. But certain homeless people have been getting in the way of that. So what does the city council do? It passes tighter restrictions on library behavior this week that outlaw sleeping, cursing or "occupying furniture in a manner that suggests lounging," reports KNX 1070 Newsradio. Folks who get tossed on their butts for nodding off over Atonement basically have one person to thank:
“We have a regular customer who comes in and sleeps and lounges on furniture and tells us, ‘You don’t have the authority to stop me from doing this’,” said Newport Beach Library Services Director Cynthia Cowell. “So now this policy gives us that.”
Also not allowed is bringing in a sleeping bag, not wearing shoes, talking loudly, neglecting to keep up one's personal hygiene and the “use of perfume or fragrance which produces odors that interfere with other patrons’ use of library facilities," according to the library's website. Such measures might seem draconian, seeing as homeless people don't have many great options on where to spend their afternoons, but they protect Newport Beach Central Library's status as a destination spot for Hollywood filmmakers (the building was featured in the 1997 film, Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion).

EVERYTHING, AT THE LONDON GAMES

The following things have been banned from the London 2012 Olympics (note: list not inclusive):
Che Guevara T-shirts

Any other clothing bearing a political message
“Non-essential liquids” including both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages
Glass bottles
Large hats
Big umbrellas
Large flags or banners
More than one soft-sided bag of 25 liters
“Large quantities of coins”
Bicycles, in most areas
Roller-skates
Skateboards
Vuvuzelas
Laser pointers
Walkie talkies
Personal wireless access points and 3G hubs
“Any item that is too large to be electronically screened at the point of entry”
Explosives, knives, mace and other weapons

FLINTSTONES CAR IN GERMANY

It was a case of 'Yabba Dabba Don't' for Flintstones nut Sebastian Trager after police banned his custom built motor from German roads.
Featuring a wooden frame design and leopard print seat covers, engineer Trager built the model using the chassis of a Volkswagen Polo.
There's no need for Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble's pedal power however, with the modern adaptation of the Flintmobile boasting a 1.3 litre engine hidden under the front roller.
Trager's bid to make his vehicle legally roadworthy hit the skids after German police ruled that the vehicle was too unsafe to be driven on public roads.
'We copied every last detail. I work in car construction and love working with cars so it is perfectly safe,' explained Trager.
'But when we got the registration form section about the number of lights, windscreen washers and wipers, well, we don't even have a windscreen so we gave up.
'Instead we trailer it to shows and exhibitions for people to see and everyone seems to love it.'

The following things have been banned from the London 2012 Olympics (note: list not inclusive):
Che Guevara T-shirts

Suppose that means Ganley can enjoy the Darwinian dancing in peace.