Ban on Window Peeping Is Sought

Gotta love the New York City Council:

At one time or another, many New Yorkers unwittingly find themselves staring into the window of an adjacent building and spotting a neighbor in a state of undress. It's almost unavoidable among the city's close quarters and some might go so far as to call it a beloved pastime. But it may become illegal under new legislation before the City Council.

Council Member Peter Vallone Jr. of Queens is proposing to outlaw voyeurism by extending a state law that forbids non-consensual peeping with cameras to peeping with the naked eye.

In addition to targeting repeat offenders who crane their necks to peer under the dresses of women scampering up and down subway stairs, the legislation would also crack down on anyone caught staring into the window of a private bedroom or bathroom.

"If you have an expectation of privacy and someone is looking at you, you would be violating this law," Mr. Vallone said. It would not, for example, protect someone who stands naked beside her living room window, he said.

The New York Civil Liberties Union said the legislation was too broad and could lead to abuse.

The bill's "lack of clarity confers a license for abuse on those empowered to enforce the law by leaving it up to the individual police officer to decide which kinds of viewing are lawful and which kinds are degrading and hence unlawful," the group's executive director, Donna Lieberman, said in a statement.

Okay let's break this down. The people looking up dresses at the subway is one thing, but if peeping into apartments is to be a crime, couldn't the so-called "victim" of peeping be charged with indecent exposure?

If you have an expectation of privacy, wouldn't it be symbolized by, I don't know, closing the blinds on your exterior windows? If you are a nudist or like to walk around your apartment naked, that is your right, but if you have an expectation of privacy, buy curtains. Haven't we all, at one time or another walked through our home sans clothing for some reason or another?

Ah, nanny statism, thy name is New York City.

Why Editing Skills Are Important

A mistake in an Arkansas law would permit children of any age, including toddlers to marry with parental permission.

A law passed this year allows Arkansans of any age—even infants—to marry if their parents agree, and the governor may have to call a special session to fix the mistake, lawmakers said Friday.
The legislation was intended to establish 18 as the minimum age to marry but also allow pregnant teenagers to marry with parental consent, bill sponsor Rep. Will Bond said. An extraneous "not" in the bill, however, allows anyone who is not pregnant to marry at any age if the parents allow it.

"It's clearly not the intent to allow 10-year-olds or 11-year-olds to get married," Bond said. "The legislation was screwed up."

Oops.

The Arkanas legislature is not scheduled to meet again until January 2009, so a special session is probably likely. I would hope the Governor might put a few more things on the agenda to make the trip to Little Rock worthwhile for legislators.

An Inconvenient Requirement

From the NY Sun:

Peter Rivera is not well known to many New Yorkers, despite a decade and a half in the Assembly. He is familiar to the mental health industry because he chairs that committee. In his Bronx district, his major efforts seem to be towards directing "member item" funds into questionable projects.

Mr. Rivera is making a stab at wider recognition with the introduction of a dangerous piece of legislation, one that has grave implications for our schools, our children, and our society.

Mr. Rivera proposes that all students in middle and high school be required to watch the Mr. Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth." In fact, by the end of his press release, he expands the mandate right down to the first grade. It is never too early to proselytize.

"This documentary," Mr. Rivera says, "captures the science along with social issues that undoubtedly have relevance to the lives of all of our young people. It is a must showing to our future generations if only to have them serve as our daily reminders to the adults who govern this planet that we must change or cease to exist."

Mr. Rivera, who up until now never seemed to be particularly interested in the education issues of his community, where test scores rise a lot slower than the temperature of the earth, seems to have found a new cause.

" Al Gore has suggested that every science class in America watch this film," Mr. Rivera says. "My legislation will mandate the showing to all students in grades 1 through 12 because the message of this documentary must be seen by every member of the next generation. They are the ones most likely to listen. The Environmental Revolution we need to confront global warming, if there is one, will come from the youth, as most uprisings do, not from their parents, who are mostly too entrenched in old behavior and lifestyles to be willing to make real change."

OOOKKKAAAYYY!!!

10-Month-Old Baby Gets Illinois Gun Permit

Via Breitbart:

Bubba Ludwig can't walk, talk or open the refrigerator door—but he does have his very own Illinois gun permit.
The 10-month-old, whose given name is Howard David Ludwig, was issued a firearm owner's identification card after his father, Howard Ludwig, paid the $5 fee and filled out the application, not expecting to actually get one.

The card lists the baby's height (2 feet, 3 inches), weight (20 pounds) and has a scribble where the signature should be.

snip

Illinois State Police oversee the application process. Their purpose, said Lt. Scott Compton, is to keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons, those under an order of protection and those convicted of domestic violence.

"Does a 10-month-old need a FOID card? No, but there are no restrictions under the act regarding age of applicants," he said.

While there may be no legal restrictions, how about some common sense. At least a phone call was warranted in this case.

Global Warming and Naitonal Security

House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes believes there is a connection since the Intelligence Authorization Act includes a provision that requires the CIA study global warming.

Christopher Alleva writes:

Yesterday, House Democrats once again showed the electorate why they cannot be entrusted with the nation's national security. Incredibly, the Democrats are insisting that the Intelligence Authorization Act include a provision funding a global warming study. Texas Democrat Silvestre Reyes, Intelligence Committee Chairman preposterously argued that "this is an area we may vulnerable in terms of potential terrorists."


I understand many terrorists claim a special hot-line to God, but to date I have yet to see any evidence of a connection. So let me get this straight, Democrats believe there is a link between terrorists and global warming but not Al Qa'eda and Iraq. And those Chlorine Bombs they are now blowing up in Iraq, no they're not WMD.

I am not sure global warming exists, since the data is at best conflicting. Further, I am not sure the Federal government needs to be leading the charge studying the matter, but if the government does feel it is important enough for a funded study, I am VERY certain the CIA should not be involved. NASA, NOAA, EPA and perhaps a dozen other agencies make sense, but not the CIA.

Dumb.

Spending Stupid in Michigan

The Detroit News has this editorial, titled An iPod for every kid? Are they !#$!ing idiots? The editorial begins:

We have come to the conclusion that the crisis Michigan faces is not a shortage of revenue, but an excess of idiocy. Facing a budget deficit that has passed the $1 billion mark, House Democrats Thursday offered a spending plan that would buy a MP3 player or iPod for every school child in Michigan.

No cost estimate was attached to their hare-brained idea to "invest" in education. Details, we are promised, will follow.

This has to be one of the dumbest spending proposals ever. While you can get educational material from Itunes, how does the state propose to allow students to get teh material--provide every student with a computer?

Leaving aside the stupidity of the idea, the funding itself is tenuous. Talk about dumb. I can't leave aise teh stupidity of the idea, sorry. This is twice as dumb as anything I have ever seen proposed by a legislator, at least since this idea.

Cupertino, CA Limits Property Rights to Protect Neighbor's Privacy

This from the San Jose Mercury-News:

The Cupertino City Council on Tuesday moved to settle a continuing battle over a house in the Garden Gate neighborhood, eliminating a second-story balcony from the design of the 4,200-square-foot home to protect the privacy of neighbors.

The property owners, Homa and Mehrdad Mojgani, can still build their new house and one of the balconies they wanted. But the council agreed with neighbors that the other balcony invaded their privacy.

Like most regulated neighborhoods, the Mojgani's had to get notify and get approval from neighbors before building their own home on their own land.

The Mojganis will also have to plant shrubs or trees to provide privacy for the neighbors.

"We always knew there would be a large house there, but we never anticipated a balcony," said Jessica Rose, who lives next door and had appealed to have the city council review the design.

"This is a bigger problem within Cupertino. The fact that this left the planning department with two second-story balconies without a satisfactory landscape plan is unacceptable to me," she added.

So neighbors who don't like the house will force the home owners to plant shrubs (at their cost) in order to protect the privacy of their neighbors.

Here's an idea, if you don't want your privacy invaded, plant your own damn shrubs, move or shut up!!

This "community" standard sets of property rights movement is just getting absurd. In my old house, my wife an I wanted to put a deck on our townhouse. In order to do so and avoid a hefty fine from the homeowner's association, I had to get "authorization and approval" from the homeowners to either side of me and a majority of homeowners with site lines to my new deck, which amounted to 25 other townhomes. Notifying my immediate neighbors made sense to me since there would be workmen in an around their property and they had a right to know. But just because someone has a view of my deck just did not sit well with me.

Cupertino's action is just another example of how "community rights" are trumping individual rights. Who gets to determine the community rights?

If I were the Mojganis, I would scrap the plans for the second story balcony and put in teh biggest picture windows I could afford on the second story in the area of the balcony and dare my neighbors to complain. I can just hear the complaints--their windows are too big?

Congress Gets Busy with NCLB

On Tuesday, the Senate and House committees overseeing education held a joing hearing on the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, aka Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Here is a link to the Committee's announcement, which also includes links to the testimony offered by the witnesses and a link to the webcast of the hearing.

On the first reading through the testimony, there is nothing particularly shocking about the political spin. I have not had an opportunity to listen to the entire webcast.

What is interesting is the macro politics of the reauthorization. On the surface, both Sen. Kennedy and Rep. Miller can't easily back away from NCLB because they were sponsors of the law when it was first enacted. But at the same time, they are likely more than a little concerned about being tied to President Bush's premier domestic policy win of his first term. That leaves the two liberal lawmakers in a jam as they look to make their mark on the bill in a way unavailable to them in 2001.

As the Washington Post is reporting, many in the President's own party are now opposing many of the provisions of NCLB, reflecting in part a desire to distance themselves from the President politically and a disdain for a Washington centered education bureaucracy. A new bill being put forward by Rep. Peter Hoekstra is seen as an alternative, although it is unlikely to get a hearing or a vote in the House. Hoekstra's bill would essentially gut the main carrot/stick structure of NCLB, allowing the states two methods of opting out of the NCLB regime and still receive federal funds. The states could opt to exempt all education programs, save special ed, from NCLB testing and reporting mandates, making the law nothing more than a "pretty please, states, do this" kind of law with no consequences.

Already, a healthy debate is springing up about the efficacy of a 100% proficiency rate, but other issues that may be in the offering would be expanded choice options, grants and other financial incentives for teacher pay, and some changes to the accountability structure now in the law. The teachers' unions are in full court press mode on the matter as are many other interest groups.

To be blunt, I am not sure whether I like the idea behind Hoekstra's offering. I know that federal funding accounts for about 10 percent or less of education funding. But the testing regime, while it may seem a little over bearing, does ensure that students are taught basic skills. Admittedly, perhaps too much emphasis is put on reading and math skills, but we have to start somewhere. But gutting the bill puts the onus back on teh states, which have not proven particularly adept at anything with NCLB, save for gaming the system. Do we really expect change at the state and local level? No enough time has passed to decalcify the education leviathon and gutting too soon will no serve anyone, least of all the students in most need of help.

Politics - Dog-ear clipping survives - sacbee.com

I am beginning to wonder if the people of California are getting the best value for their money from the Legislature. In yet another example of rediculous legislation, the California legislature was actually considering a ban on clipping dog ears. Fortuneately saner heads prevailed and the bill died, but the fact that such a bill was even introduced and more incredibly considered in some depth astounds me.

California has enough problems that the legislature should be addressing than this, despite arguments from PETA and other animal "rights" groups that this legislation is necessary.

Politics - Dog-ear clipping survives - sacbee.com

CA State Senate votes to ban hunting via Internet - sacbee.com

Um, OK. Apparently the CA State Senate has nothing better to legislate on. At least one Senator has his head on straight:

But Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, R-La Mesa, complained that the bill was "rapid reaction to something that's barely even occurred yet" and that lawmakers ought to pay more attention to other problems, like protecting children from child predators.

"We ought to take a serious look at what our priorities are," he said.

Of course I have a rather serious question. Who is going to be responsible for
policing this? Who will enforce this law?

On a constitutional level, there could be an argument for the interference of
interstate commerce by California, assuming of course this asinine bill
actually beomces law.

AP State Wire News - State Senate votes to ban hunting via Internet -