Good day all. The lunatic asylum known as Kalifornistan continues down the path of utter socialist totalitarian insanity. The latest brilliant idea is to throw people into prison for handing out a drinking straw.
This latest bit of Progressive Totalitarianism is brought to you by one Ian Calderone. Here are the details from Reason:
Ian Calderon wants restaurateurs to think long and hard before giving you a straw. Calderon, the Democratic majority leader in California’s lower house, has introduced a bill to stop sit-down restaurants from offering customers straws with their beverages unless they specifically request one. Under Calderon’s law, a waiter who serves a drink with an unrequested straw in it would face up to 6 months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.
“We need to create awareness around the issue of one-time use plastic straws and its detrimental effects on our landfills, waterways, and oceans,” Calderon explained in a press release.
As you would expect from the People’s Democratic Republic of Kalifornistan, the various members of the Ruling Elites are fully on board with throwing Jane, the 17 year old waitress into prison for 6 months for simply handing out a drinking straw.
The Los Angeles Times has gotten behind the movement, endorsing straws-on-request policies in an editorial that also warned that “repetitive sucking may cause or exacerbate wrinkles on the lips or around the mouth.” Celebrity astronomer Neil DeGrasse Tyson (always up for a little chiding) and Entourage star Adrian Grenier have appeared in videos where an octopus slaps them in the face for using a plastic straw.
The actual number of straws being used is unclear. Calderon, along with news outlets writing about this issue—from CNN to the San Francisco Chronicle—unfailingly state that Americans use 500 million plastic straws a day, many of them ending up in waterways and oceans. The 500 million figure is often attributed to the National Park Service; it in turn got it from the recycling company Eco-Cycle.
And where did Eco-Cycle get their information? Oh you are going to LOVE this!
Eco-Cycle is unable to provide any data to back up this number, telling Reason that it was relying on the research of one Milo Cress.
And who is Milo Cress?
Cress—whose Be Straw Free Campaign is hosted on Eco-Cycle’s website—tells Reason that he arrived at the 500 million straws a day figure from phone surveys he conducted of straw manufacturers in 2011, when he was just 9 years old. Cress, who is now 16, says that the National Restaurant Association has endorsed his estimates in private correspondence. This may well be true, but the only references to the 500 million figure on the association’s website again points back to the work done by Cress.
So this is all being done due to some information gathered by a 9 year old? And people wonder why Kalifornistan is the laughing stock of the United States? It’s moronic laws being passed on the basis of information from 9 year old experts.
Update: Reason spoke with Voleck Taing, a senior assistant to Assemblyman Calderon, who said they intend to amend the bill to remove the fines.
So, Jane the waitress won’t have to pay the $1000 fine? She will just be thrown in jail for 6 months? I’m sure that’s going to be of great comfort to her parents when they’re informed their daughter was shivved in the showers. So, when is Calexit scheduled to happen? Can we speed the process up in any way?
Thatisall
~The Angry Webmaster~
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