For its fiscal year 2009/2010, the City of Mesa, Arizona, expects to spend $408.6 million and collect $245 million in revenue, which is a deficit of $164.6 million. Mesa’s left hand announced that all 3,400 employees would take a 2 percent pay cut just after Mesa’s right hand gave 1,600 employees a 5 percent pay increase that cost the insolvent city $2,500,000 it does not have.
Four young men from the Bronx were arrested by the snowball police and charged with weapons possession, attempted assault, menacing and harassment when one of them threw a snowball that hit a New York City transit officer. The member of New York’s finest, protecting and serving, did what any member of the governing elite would do in that situation – he pulled his gun and called for back up who arrested the guys. The DA won’t drop the charges and one of the dudes says he is going to sue the city for $10 million. He’ll probably win considering that New York paid a cop $4.5 million who fell backwards on his chair and shot himself in the knee. See “New York City Must Pay Cop $4.5 Million After He Accidentally Shot Himself.”
Tomorrow the citizens of Switzerland will vote on whether to give all Swiss animals increased legal rights, including the right to be represented by an attorney. I’m not kidding! Switzerland currently gives its animals more protections that perhaps any other country in the world. If the referendum passes, all of Switzerland’s cantons (territorial divisions of the country similar to a city or county) will be required to pay for lawyers to represent animals. Proponents of the new law say that if a person who has been accused of mistreating an animal is able to hire an attorney then the abused animal (the victim) should also be represented by a lawyer. Does that mean that if a Swiss dog bites and injures a person, can the injured victim sue the dog who would have a court appointed lawyer and if the victim prevails in court, would the dog be liable for damages that would then be paid by the Swiss government?
Here are some eye-popping current requirements of Swiss animal law:
Let’s hope that Congress and the U.S. trial lawyers don’t hear about the Swiss animal laws because if they do, we’ll have similar laws here. Giving U.S. animals a right to a lawyer will put dollar signs in the eyes of the trial lawyers and give a lot of currently unemployed lawyers a job as animal rights specialists. I can also see a boom in much needed animal rights seminars, books, tapes and law blogs.
Update: By a huge margin, the Swiss voters rejected the animal rights law.
Because the California legislature did not have the funds to purchase a fiddle for every legislator to play while California spirals down the economic death hole, the members of the Assembly spent their time considering and passing a new law intended to solve California’s financial woes by asking citizens to swear off swearing for a week. Finally recognizing that their intellect was not up to the monumental task of passing important legislation that might fix the broken state, the Assembly simply punted and tackled a subject well know to all of them – cursing. Now the Senate must consider the bill. Next up for the Assembly, a bill giving Paris Hilton a key to the Golden State for her hard work in promoting Los Angeles as a playground for air-headed trust babies.
New York Times: “in the two years since the Education Department began an intensive effort to root out such teachers from the more than 55,000 who have tenure, officials have managed to fire only three for incompetence. . . . . The city’s effort includes eight full-time lawyers, known as the Teacher Performance Unit, and eight retired principals and administrators who serve as part-time consultants to help principals build cases against teachers.” Joel I. Klein is the chancellor of the New York City schools. He said this about how difficult it is to remove teachers.
“The process makes it virtually impossible to remove a teacher within a reasonable amount of time,” Mr. Klein said in an interview. “Nobody thinks that the number of cases is reflective of the teachers who should be removed.”
See John Stossel’s “Impossible-to-fire Teachers” and “How to Fire an Incompetent Teacher: An illustrated guide to New York’s public school bureaucracy.” If you’ve gotten this far, you have to see the illustrated “epic spelunk through the New York school system.” See also LA Weekly’s “LAUSD’s Dance of the Lemons.”