Comments

1. colnago80 says

   February 23, 2014 at 6:00 pm

   Nothing new about this sort of stuff. Martin Gardner in his seminal work, Fads and Fallacies in Science, noted a law in Indiana that set pi = 3 by statute.

2. wtfwhateverd00d says

   February 23, 2014 at 6:29 pm

   For less comedy, and a bit more nuance, here is a newspaper article about the spanking:

   http://www.kansas.com/2014/02/18/3297077/sponsor-of-kansas-spanking-bill.html

   1. It is proposed by a Democrat

   2. She claims it is because corporal punishment is already legal, but there is no definition for it, which gets families in trouble with DCF (department of children and families)

   The proposed legislation, House Bill 2699, would define corporal punishment as “up to 10 forceful applications in succession of a bare, open-hand palm against the clothed buttocks of a child.”

   The bill also would allow “reasonable physical force” to restrain a child during a spanking, “acknowledging that redness or bruising may occur on the tender skin of a child as a result.”

   It would continue to ban hitting a child with fists, in the head or body or with a belt or switch.

   The bill would allow parents to give permission to others, including school officials, to spank their

   FWIW, I cannot imagine allowing “anyone with a permission slip to do so” to hit a kid, but I can see “some” limited role for it for parents, in that I think making it outright illegal would lead to more inequities in how the law is applied than benefit in eliminating corporal punishment.

   Also, it will probably surprise no one that very shortly after this aired the Wikipedia “protected” the pages of Mike and Zbigniew Brzezinski from anonymous editing.

3. AnotherAnonymouse says

   February 23, 2014 at 6:37 pm

   I am second-generation American (all 4 of my grandparents were immigrants who came in via Ellis Island and settled in the northeast), but my father joined the military, so I grew up mostly overseas in a variety of countries. Now I live in the mid-Atlantic for work. I find it quite offensive when know-nothings and politicians blather on about how the mid-westerners and the southerners are the only “rill ‘murkkkuns!” Invariably the places they’re crowing about as being superior are the places where I’ve encountered the most racism, misogyny, and flat-out backward thinking (Palin making rape victims pay for their own rape kits and firing the town librarian for not pulling national award-winning books that Palin’s wacko witch-burning religion didn’t care for are perfect examples).

4. Phillip IV says

   February 23, 2014 at 8:24 pm

   Well, that’s probably why they call it the heartland. Instead of, you know, the brainland.

5. left0ver1under says

   February 23, 2014 at 11:17 pm

   Does that mean employers in Kansas can hit their employees who disobey? Can politicians be physically punished by voters? Husbands can beat their wives for mistakes? Of course not. You’re only allowed to hit people who can’t fight back, who don’t have the knowledge to take legal action to protect themselves.

   What happens when parents repeatedly beat, assault and violate kids, what sort of people do they eventually become? Joe Scarborough is one example (re: Lori Klausutis). What happens when kids suffer years of abuse more than a decade in some cases? Read about people like Kip Kinkel, Donna Wisener, Roy Rowe, William Bresnahan and countless other kids who defend themselves when they are finally big enough to do so.

6. Chiroptera says

   February 24, 2014 at 12:03 am

   Does the law allow a child to use a handgun for defense against an abusive parent? ‘Cause that would make it consistent with right wing ideology. In other words, making no sense whatsoever.

7. busterggi says

   February 24, 2014 at 8:46 am

   There’s a reason its ot clled the Brainland.

8. doublereed says

   February 24, 2014 at 9:12 am

   2. She claims it is because corporal punishment is already legal, but there is no definition for it, which gets families in trouble with DCF (department of children and families)

   This sort of reminds of the rape/incest exception in abortion cases. People don’t realize that conservatives are the ones who thought up such things. Liberals want more broad protections and freedom, and conservatives tried to add in caveats and such to not make them look like the absolute horrible people they are.

   So they have to try to fit their arbitrary, narrow worldview into the legal system and it makes it an absolute mess.

   Though putting it down in law in explicit terms like she did also makes it easier to eliminate. People probably didn’t even know corporal punishment was still legal in Kansas. Now they do.

9. Pierce R. Butler says

   February 24, 2014 at 8:42 pm

   GOP Senate candidate in Texas says ranchers should shoot “wetbacks” entering state illegally.