Thursday, March 08, 2012

Standard-Examiner: Utah Lawmakers Enter Final Day of "Calm Session," So Called

Let's just stand back and watch it all unfold with our crackpot legislature, eh, people?

Thanks to the sharp-eyed and alert editors of the Standard-Examiner, we're reminded that today marks the final day of the 2012 Utah Legislative Session... you know, the end of the 45-day period in Utah's midwinter when the nuttiest folks in the land gather together to basically pass message bills to ensure their re-elections by their "facilitators," the equally wacked out Utah GOP sheeple, er, voters. Here's this morning's Standard-Examiner heads-up story wherein our beloved home town newspaper's unpaid reporter surrogate, i.e, Josh Loftin from the Associated Press, convinces at least the apparently lo-paid and politically detached night shift headline copy editor guy that the The Standard should publish a facially ridiculous story like this, under an even more politically indigestible headline:
Don't count on the Standard-Examiner for the truth, people. Remember. The Standard's main business plan objective is sellin' newpapers!

Here's a a very nice SE Reader counterpoint, posted by a very savvy SE commenter, by the way:
Hmmm. Let's start with this legislative session: Parents no longer have a choice to have sex ed taught to their kids, the legislature reaffirmed that you can be fired in the workplace based on your sexual orientation, if you are trying to quit smoking, you can no longer use an e-cigarette, you can no longer smoke hookah in hookah bars, they reaffirmed that you still cannot buy liquor on Sunday and they did not expand liquor licenses despite a growing population (aka prohibition), teens can longer use tanning beds and parents have no say in the matter, cities can no longer decide where bill boards will be placed (only the legislature can), cities can no longer create local idling ordinances, forced patriotism in the schools, teachers could be charged with a misdemeanor for using the word "democracy" to refer to the U.S. government in the classroom, schools must now teach only the positives of capitalism and not refer to any negatives (misdemeanor charge). My favorite this year is that the legislature legalized nepotism in charter schools and passed legislation to hold traditional public school teachers accountable for test scores but not public charter school teachers. My second favorite bill: it is now a felony to get a job on a farm or meat processing plant with the intent of taking pictures or recording animals being mistreated. In fact, it is now illegal to take pictures of anyone's mistreated animals whether you are trespassing or not - TheKingsCourt.
Calm session? My ass!

Tonight's the big nite when the nitwit legislative GOP morons typically spring their very most crackpot bills at the last minute.

Let's just stand back and watch it all unfold, eh, people?


Cranky reader comments are invited, as always...

5 comments:

Fll said...

Very funny, Rudi; but frankly only hurts when I try to laugh about it. Sorry.

Ogden Fan said...

The only one that makes sense to me is:

Teens can longer use tanning beds and parents have no say in the matter. 

I found this while searching on tanning  beds and cancer:

'In an interview with WebMD, the IARC’s Vincent Cogliano, PhD, called the
scientific evidence linking indoor tanning to the deadly skin cancer melanoma “sufficient and compelling.”'

Peter said...

Last year the big deal was GRAMA-how did that ever turn out? I thought there were to be tweaks to it-did that ever happen?

rudizink said...

 Here'a morning update, Peter, via the Salt Lake Tribune:

GRAMA battles quiet this year

I'm hoping this adequately answers your question.

UtahTeacher said...

Far be it from me to defend the legislature on education, but I have a couple corrections about the education bills.  The democracy bill and legalized charter board conflicts of interest bills were from the last two years' sessions.  (Nepotism may have been legal at charters since the beginning?) Grover's capitalism class bill didn't pass.  The  test scores for pay bill that PCE wrote, SB 67, did not pass.  The mostly goodish "accountability" bill, SB 64, doesn't mandate any % of pay or evaluation on test scores, though the principal will take that into account.  And the sponsor, Sen. Osmond, even tried to throw in a clause requiring charters to abide by other schools' nepotism rules, but it got amended out on the floor.

Most of the worst education stuff failed in an election year. Stephenson has already proclaimed his goal to get rid of the State School Board next year, and just put the governor and a political appointee in charge of public schools.  http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765557598/Nobodys-in-charge-of-governing-Utah-education.html

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