"Valley adult film producer blasts state for ‘tiresome’ condom fine"

LA Daily News:  An adult film production company has been fined by state regulators after inspectors found its performers working without condoms, which is against the law in California, officials said this week.

Boy Racer Inc., which produces the Burning Angel website, was cited $32,400 for four violations based on an inspection conducted in April at a production site in Porter Ranch, according to Cal/OSHA.

Burning Angel founder Joanna Angel said in a statement she would not let the violations stop her from creating her work.

“In addition to the financial loss I have impending, this citation has been incredibly tedious and tiresome, and incredibly straining for a small business like mine to deal with,” she said. “My lawyer and I will deal with this and not let down my fans, my followers or any of the amazing talent in this industry.”

Glenn Reynolds: Why we still don't have flying cars

After regulation exploded in 1970, innovation hit a sustained speed bump.

"In the United States, which drove most of the “golden quarter’s” progress, 1970 marks what scholars of administrative law (like me) call the “regulatory explosion.” Although government expanded a lot during the New Deal under FDR, it wasn’t until 1970, under Richard Nixon, that we saw an explosion of new-type regulations that directly burdened people and progress: The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act, the founding of Occupation Safety and Health Administration, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, etc. — all things that would have made the most hard-boiled New Dealer blanch."

Within a decade or so, Washington was transformed from a sleepy backwater (mocked by John F. Kennedy for its “Southern efficiency and Northern charm”) to a city full of fancy restaurants and expensive houses, a trend that has only continued in the decades since. The explosion of regulations led to an explosion of people to lobby the regulators, and lobbyists need nice restaurants and fancy houses.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence that progress suddenly slowed down, but I don’t think so. Indeed, the Obama administration’s brilliantly successful policy for promoting private spaceflight ventures (basically one of benign neglect) can be seen as evidence that we can actually get the kind of progress we used to get, when we regulate lightly, like we used to. Who knows, if we regulated pharmaceuticals like we did in the early 1960s, perhaps we’d get as many major new drugs as we got in the 1960s. (“The time for a new drug candidate to gain approval in the United States rose from less than eight years in the 1960s to nearly 13 years by the 1990s,” notes Hanlon.)

Of course, excessive regulation isn’t just slowing technological progress, it’s also making us poorer. A recent study from the Mercatus Center found that the increase in federal regulation since 1980 has reduced economic growth by 0.8% per year — which over time means that the economy by 2012 would have been 25% larger, adding up to about $13,000 more for every American. The number would be much bigger, if they’d used 1970 as their baseline.

"Prepare to have your sex life regulated by government"

Adults may soon find their sex lives regulated to the point where nearly every sexual encounter is defined as rape unless neither party reports the activity.

The American Law Institute will vote in May on whether to adopt a model penal code that would make "affirmative consent" the official position of the organization. Affirmative consent — or "yes means yes" — policies have already been adopted by many colleges and universities, and have been passed as law in California and New York.

A group of concerned members within ALI even circulated an opposition letter, signed by dozens of members, that detailed the dangers of pushing affirmative consent on the general public (not that it's a good policy for college students, either).

Instapundit: Sure, this sounds impossible — but think of all the other things happening, legally, that seemed impossible not long ago. But the people pushing this stuff have no fear of consequences. If this passes, the American Law Institute should be shamed and shunned.

Elsewhere.... "London gets its first naked restaurant, waiting list already at 5,000"

Supremes Put Obama's 'Global Warming' Regs on Ice

ABC News: A divided Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to halt enforcement of President Barack Obama's sweeping plan to address climate change until after legal challenges are resolved.

The surprising move is a blow to the administration and a victory for the coalition of 27 mostly Republican-led states and industry opponents that call the regulations "an unprecedented power grab."

By issuing the temporary freeze, a 5-4 majority of the justices signaled that opponents made strong arguments against the rules. The high court's four liberal justices said Tuesday they would have denied the request for delay.

"In Oregon, frustration over federal land rights has been building for years"

Washington Post: The federal government owns more than half the land in the state, as it does across much of the West. It used to be routine for ranchers to get permits to graze cattle or cut timber or work mines — a way to make a living from the land.

Then came increasing environmental regulations, and the federal land became more for owls and sage grouse than for local people trying to feed their families, said Soper, 39, who lives 100 miles up the road in Bend.

“What people in Western states are dealing with is the destruction of their way of life,” said Soper, a father of four who was once a professional rodeo rider. “When frustration builds up, people lash out.”

Anger at the federal government boiled over this past weekend, when a small group of people took over a remote federal wildlife refuge east of here. Their specific aim was to support two local ranchers sentenced to prison over arson charges. But the larger issue is a decades-long struggle over federal land rights in the West that often flies under the radar in much of the country.

Charles Murray: "The American project, in it's original incarnation, is dead"

"The Law sufficiently advanced is often indistinguishable from lawlessness."

Link to video

"The Code of Federal Regulations: The Ultimate Longread"

"Regulations have piled up and piled up to the point where no individual can make sense of them all."

The average adult reads prose text at a rate of 250 to 300 words per minute. If you read the Code of Federal Regulations at 300 words per minute on a full-time basis, it would take you nearly three years to get through just the version of the CFR published in 2012. That’s about 58 times longer than it would take to read through the five volumes currently published in George R. R. Martin’s fantasy saga, A Song of Ice and Fire. Or 220 times longer than it would take to read through The Lord of the Rings from the original R. R. of fantasy—J. R. R. Tolkien.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Air Care Colorado

Guess what I got to do yesterday.

O jour frabbejeais! Calleau! Callai!

The drive is around this mesa on the far side of town, getting close to Boulder. I practiced in Google Earth so I knew in advance what each intersection looks like. 

The station closest to me always has obnoxiously long lines. That has been my experience. So I decided to have a drive out to Golden instead. Online, Golden always show reliably short lines. Except for today. I ended up waiting obnoxious long there instead of nearby.

But I was ready for that! 

With my camera. 

As I and my truck approached the front of the line it suddenly became arbitrary, as usual. Third from the front I was directed to move into another lane, their sign language signals are appalling. You have no idea for certain they are pointing at you. The woman in front of me was directed to another lane too but after I moved. Very odd, that. The whole thing awkward. Then once there I was directed by another person to switch back to the original lane we were all in. Which put me and the woman in the same waiting room. I suppose the line behind me became too long. My truck was finished before the woman's car in front of me started. This time the arbitrariness worked to my advantage, but those slights are noticed and resented. 

Monday. Beginning of the month. Two points against speedy bay access.

Directly across the station Carhartt has an outlet. Turns out an excellent shop. Like Army Surplus except a lot better organized with all of the sizes available, even 29W 34L, proving not all outdoor workers are cows as Amazon expects American men are judging by sizes available. And the best part about the whole thing is everybody I met even at Air Care Colorado is so pleasant and nice. So it is impossible to stay cross for too long. And it is a pleasant and interesting drive out there besides.

Lookout Mountain, popular hang gliding site, Buffalo Bill's grave (wonder who's buried there), Colorado School of Mines, and Coors an abject eyesore just like Gates Tires used to be. That place needs an overhaul. Or tons of urban graffiti. Coors should invite artists to have their way with murals on all those gray cement walls as are done with train cars. The plant dominates the valley.

What is the deal with those raisins?

Lyle Denniston writing for Scotusblog 

Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion for the Court did not declare a final victory for the California raisin-producing family involved in the case, but it did give them a chance to bring a fundamental challenge to the government’s authority to fine them for failing to put aside a part of their annual processing of raisins in order to help boost the price of raisins generally.

Lyle continues, it is seen as a blow to regulation generally. If they cannot just smack you without arguing about it then it makes regulation harder, even if the decision is seen to be limited to agriculture.

But what is the deal with raisins? Come on.

The government is closely regulating, not just regular regulating, closely regulating crops since the Depression (the one Greater than this one, apparently) and continues to enforce a whole array of marketing mandates affecting a full range of crops and various commodities. Farmers are paid to distort the market. 

Now the couple who claims this whole setup is unAmerican and smells like Communism, reeks of it in fact, smells like a… settle down, can challenge without first paying half a million bucks in penalties for failing to cooperate in keeping the cost of raisins higher than they need be. 

I cannot continue.

I did continue. The ruling is potentially  a major setback for the Department of Agriculture.

Do love me some raisins. Put 'em in the sourdough stuffing last night and changed the whole thing, like )))schwing(((( new thing. In fact, I still have some. I'm hungry.