There's been an expensive but thus far generally unsuccessful movement to ban smoking in all public places in Indianapolis. As someone with a life-threatening chemical sensitivity to, among other things, cigarette smoke, I can't help but feel strongly about this issue. To everyone who has put their dollars and energy into freeing Indianapolis from smoke in bars, restaurants, et cetera, I'd just like to say...

Shut up!

Yes, you heard me.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America begins:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

If you are human, and you are born here, you are a citizen, period.

For all they talk about small government and constitutional conservatism, the GOP are just as much big government idiocrats that Obama and his friends in the Democratic Party are.

"So they won't go on our welfare roles" is not a reason to deny our citizens their rights based on something their parents did. In a sane world, we'd just stop subsidizing poverty to begin with.

The gall of suggesting an unconstitutional measure to mitigate a small portion of the damage done by another unconstitutional measure is staggering.

Did you ever wonder why "census" and "incensed" have the same root? It's because in Latin, "to tax" and "to anger" are the same word: censui.

Note: the dictionary entries are for "censeo" because Perseus shows the first person singular present form.  "Censui" is the infinitive of "censeo".

A blog post on abledbody.com led me to a New York Times article on H.B. 3103, the "Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009".  Both the blog post and NYT article gushed about what a huge boon this bill would be to the deaf community.  Unfortunately, it won't accomplish what it claims to--making internet content and new communications channels more accessible to disabled persons--and will shake the internet with a host of dangerous unintended consequences.

Though touted for its regulation of online television programming by big media, this bill also regulates small content producers, internet relay chat, instant messaging, Skype, Jingle, and other voice chat, email, and more!

Yesterday, I wrote about a bill that would treat income differently based on the job description of the person earning it.  A New York Times editorial, bravely posted without a by-line, announced "The Unemployed Held Hostage".  It described this same bill, acting as if a gun was being held to the head of every jobless person in America by those lawmakers who weren't on board with using the tax code to punish this week's unpopular crowd.

Reuters reported yesterday that a bill about to be considered would raise taxes on investment fund managers, by treating some of their investment income like "regular" income.  Will this raise a lot more money in the grand scheme of things?  No.  Why do it?  Politics.  It's a way to look "tough on" Wall Street.

This week the unpopular people are the investment fund managers, so we are going to tax them extra, and not let them eat lunch at the cool kids' table.

This CNN article is well worth the read, even though it comes to the completely wrong conclusion.  Michelle Alexander writes that she's a criminal, and so are you:

Today, Walter Olson over at the Cato @ Liberty, blogged about the moronic warning label one publisher chose to attach to copies of the Constitution:

© Wilder Publications 2008

This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.

For anyone else planning to watch the Cato Institute liveblogging the State of the Union address tonight: the URI provided in the reminder emails is incorrect. The correct URI is: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/01/25/cato-experts-live-blogging-oba... Enjoy!

NCLB ties school funding and the ability (or mandate, depending on which side of the coin you’re on) to provide a struggling student help to diagnosis with one of a number of recognized conditions. Yes, your kid’s school cannot recoup any of the money spent helping your child get up to par (and isn’t really required to help at all) unless he or she is diagnosed with something.

The diagnostic criteria for a determination of autism under NCLB are as follows: