Assorted Stupidity #124
- I am informed that an effort to add a third official state song and an official state dance to Louisiana's roster has failed. The sponsor of SB 192 evidently believed that "Give Me Louisiana" and "You Are My Sunshine" were insufficient to fully describe the glory that is Louisiana, and proposed adding "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)." The bill would also have designated something called "the Cajun waltz" as the official state dance, but that too appears to have fallen victim to what some describe as a need to actually get something useful done by the end of the session on June 6.
- Remember the national emergency on the southern border? Great news: the government is preparing to deploy members of that elite security force, the TSA, to help with the continuing crisis. CNN reports that hundreds of TSA workers from various parts of that agency will be retasked, thus diverting them from whatever useless task they are performing now to one for which they are even more poorly trained. Will they be able to surpass their historical detection-failure rate of nearly 96 percent? Stay tuned.
- According to CNN, the email it obtained indicates that "[o]fficials expect the contingent to ultimately include federal air marshals who typically fly in plain clothes on commercial flights to prevent terror attacks," because it makes perfect sense to have those people go walk around in the desert instead.
- The BBC reports that a man in China's Anhui Province was sentenced to 10 days in jail for naming his dogs "Chengguan" and "Xiequan," which are types of local officials, apparently. He made the mistake of announcing the names on social media, which led to his conviction for issuing "insulting information " against law enforcement personnel." I'm glad to live in a country where that kind of thing is legal, and will remain so for the next 12 to 15 months or so, anyway.
- Meanwhile in Perth, Australia, previously mentioned here in connection with some alleged cyborgs and people riding around on motorized picnic tables, and I should clarify that those were two different groups of people, a man has reportedly appealed a $50 jaywalking fine to Western Australia's Supreme Court. He seems to have claimed the trial judge "interfered" with his effort to cross-examine a witness as to whether the police commissioner had tampered with the pedestrian signal at the crosswalk, a claim that surprisingly did not prevail.
- I should also clarify that I once met some people from Perth, Australia, and they seemed perfectly normal to me.
- Police in Florida said a chase ended last Thursday when the driver of a stolen Cadillac crashed into a home. Police didn't actually see this happen, though, because the police car involved in the chase had also been stolen. According to the report, whoever stole the police car was trying to pose as an officer to pull over and presumably rob other drivers, but it looks like the only one he fooled was the fellow criminal in the Cadillac. Not sure why he went in hot pursuit rather than just trying another victim, but his commitment to the role I suppose is quasi-admirable.
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