760 new California Laws - Did you need them?

I wish to hereby become one of the very last to wish all of you throughout the free (and maybe not-so-free) world a very warm, healthy, happy and prosperous New year! Only by so doing may I gain your rapt attention and convey some important information you need to better lead your life during Twenty Twelve.

Those of you who live in California, let me first express my condolences. From the once "Golden State," California has been tarnished almost beyond belief by a 40-year long assault on your freedoms by a series of otherwise unemployable educated fools who have infested the Statehouse and corrupted our laws. It was no different in 2011, during which the brain-dead types in Sacramento passed more than 900 new laws. Fortunately, our perennial Governor Jerry Brown only saw fit to pass the ones that benefitted his union backers. That would be a total of 760 new laws! Did you think we really needed 760 new laws? I didn't. But we have them. And some of them are so ridiculous as to be laughable. And notable. Hence this artful and informative review.

In addition to the one I discuss in-depth in my award-nonwinning blog at http://chuckmeisterunleashed.blogspot.com, here are a few others to mull over as you watch your investments wither away. So, settle in, pour yourself a glass of good Zin and wonder what these turkeys must have been thinking – or smoking – as they voted for this crap.

Senate Bill 929 by Senator Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, mandates that children must be fastened in a safety seat and in the back seat while riding in a car if under the age of eight. You can avoid going through this little nanny-state exercise if the kiddies are at least 4'9" in height. The old law was 6 years of age with no height requirement. Now, I have to wonder just how this new pronunciamento will be enforced, and how it will be received. Will the gendarmerie be equipped with measuring tapes? If a back seat occupant appears to be of short stature, will you be pulled over and forced to "assume the position" while the public servant in blue dutifully measures your passenger while trying to keep a straight face? And how about the kid who just graduated from a kiddy chair as a six year-old and is now in middle school having to once again crawl into the back and a safety chair while being transported to school? That's gotta' do a lot for their self-esteem, crawling out from that contraption in front of their school chums. And what if the passenger happens to just be short? Costa Mesa's mayor happens to be, umm, vertically challenged. I would guess he would have to stand on tippy-toes or insert some serious lifts in his shoes in order to make the height requirement (no slumping, please!). Will he be harassed as he drives to work? And what of those who fall into the category of midgets or dwarves (I can use those terms…I'm proudly politically incorrect). Can you give them a lift to the grocery store without running afoul of the law? Maybe we need an entirely new – and unionized, of course – police force whose job it will be to track down and arrest short folks. Think of the revenue this could generate for a state that's completely bankrupt? And spending more borrowed money every year?

Assembly Bill 144 by Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D-Pasadena (there's that "D" again), makes it a crime to now "open carry" an unloaded but completely visible handgun. Despite the fact that 40 other states have passed or are passing new and very liberal concealed carry laws, and that the crime rates where this has occurred have plummeted, Deep Blue California has taken an entirely different tack. Portentino thinks open carrying of handguns "…only belongs on a Hollywood movie set, not on Main Street or Starbucks." God bless his micromanaging little soul, if he has one. You cannot obtain a concealed carry permit without the permission of your county sheriff, and most California sheriffs are lefty sympathizers who will not grant such permission. The criminals are very happy about this fact, and no doubt donate to those sheriffs' reelection campaigns. Second Amendment supporters vow to begin openly carrying unloaded rifles and shotguns until such time as the NRA is successful in overturning this blatantly unconstitutional and outrageously stupid new law.

Senate Bill 39 by Senator Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima (is this "D" thing becoming a trend?), prohibits '…the import, production, manufacture, distribution or sale of beer to which caffeine has been directly added as a separate ingredient at retail locations within the state." Despite the fact that distributors have already pulled all such products from their shelves, the weenies in Sacto still felt it important to make this law. I can see it all now. "Put down that Corona and that double mocha latte and come out with your hands up and nobody gets hurt!"

Senate Bill 514 by Senator Joe Simitian, D-Pala Alto (yes, it's a trend), bans anyone under the age of 18 from using a tanning bed in our sunny broken state. I gather this was to reduce the potential for skin cancer among the young. Presumably they are too stupid to know how to protect themselves, and God knows we can't permit their parents to exercise their parental prerogatives. We need the State to be our nanny. Yes we do.

Assembly Bill 353, Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles (this is becoming ridiculous!), prohibits the impounding of vehicles at sobriety checkpoints if the driver's only offense is not being licensed. Cedillo states that some cities have used this little contrivance as a revenue-generating measure (say it ain't so!). Cedillo, you may recall, is the one-note politician who, for every year for the past six, has submitted legislation to provide drivers' licenses to illegal aliens. Having been continually unsuccessful in that endeavor, Cedillo can now feel all warm and fuzzy about sending illegals on their illegal little way without having to recover their cars from the impound lot. Kind of makes you wonder why you bothered to get a license in the first place, doesn't it? Maybe should simply tell John Law you don't have one the next time you get pulled over. Maybe you should tell him you're here illegally. That would kind of make it hard to write a ticket, wouldn't it? Tell him you're Pablo Gonzalez from Cuernavaca. You don't have to thank me. That's why God put me here.

And finally, for this little exercise, we'll feature Senate Bill 48, Senator Mark Leno, D-San Francisco (of course he'd be a Dem…he's from San Francisco). Openly gay and loving it Mark Leno has forced into existence a law which makes California the first state (and hopefully last) in the nation to require public schools to teach the contributions of gays and lesbians. Leno's law requires that these folks whose "roles and contributions" contributed to our society must be included in California and U.S. history lessons. It bans instructional materials judged to reflect adversely on gays or particular religions. So now your kids will be instructed in the sixth grade (!) that LGBT's (that's lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders) are really nice folks who have contributed much to our society. As if anyone had suggested that they hadn't. Shouldn't we add the Irish to this list? How about Jews? Ukrainians? Albinos? Those with Tourette's' Syndrome? Is this micromanagement to the "inth" degree? Do parents have a choice about whether their kid has to undergo this nonsense? Yes. Pull your kid out of public school before they begin to walk and talk and act like Joe Biden…

And so it goes, people. A New Year, and new laws. My favorite is still last year's law that forced you to euthanize your gerbil before feeding it to your python. As if pythons like to eat dead critters. Now THAT was a really good California-style law.