Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Man No Longer Allowed To Hunt For Food...in his back yard
This is like something Ernest Hemingway would have done.

A judge in Easton yesterday ordered a couple to stop shooting in the backyard of their Lower Saucon Township home. The preliminary injunction prevents the two die-hard hunters from firing at targets or pigeons or whatever. And why did the neighbors seek an injunction against the backyard hunters? "How would you like to have a picnic at your home and have this guy shooting 18 feet away?" But things aren't all odd quotes designed to elicit a "I wouldn't like it" response. Township police filed 19 gun charges against the hunter, Richard Seruga, but 17 of them were thrown out since he didn't violate any local gun laws. The township responded by banning shooting within 450 feet of any residence. Sergua is, naturally, claiming conspiracy and has filed a lawsuit. Ain't this country grand?

Monday, April 16, 2007

Lindenhurst Choice 070415 PRESS RELEASE: Betustak supporters steal opposition signs
Bystander catches thievery on camera;
DeAngelis boasts of taking signs

You may recall that I posted a while back about a contentious election in Lindenhurst, IL, where the incumbents are being taken to task by a slate of challengers over the (mis)handling of a major real estate development proposal, and the incumbents proposed a mutual ban on yard signs. That would have benefited the incumbents, of course, so the challengers refused to do it. Well, check this out. The incumbents' supporters seem to be taking down the challengers' signs. The article has a neat photo showing one of the culprits walking down the street with a sign under his arm.

(Lindenhurst, IL)—After attempting, in vain, to get the Lindenhurst Choice Party to refrain from using signs in its campaign against incumbent Mayor Jim Bestustak, members of his Lindenhurst Community Party have found another way to achieve their goal. At least two of Betustak’s supporters have taken about 60 Lindenhurst Choice opposition campaign signs from county and village locations.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

The Nonprofit Industrial Complex
Here is something to make you think. It's by Gerard Alexander and is in the Weekly Standard. He focuses on universities and foundations, but he could have added in almost 300,000 residential private governments.

Western countries have already been transformed by industrialization, the rise of the service sector, and the growth of big government. The result has been wealthy economies, middle-class societies, and vast bureaucracies. Our country might now be transformed again by the spread of what Richard Cornuelle dubbed the "independent sector." The growth of nonprofits--from the Getty Museum to Seattle's Children's Hospital, Emory University, and your aunt's country club--has created the world's largest sector that is neither business fish nor government fowl. It has the private sector's diversity and independence but the government's lack of a profit motive. It is a different way of doing business. It may be a different way of making a country. But is it a wholesome one?