Silly String Theory in Hollywood's Universe

Eugene Volokh, a (so far as we know) unindicted co-conspirator at The Volokh Conspiracy
reports that Silly String in banned in Hollywood during Halloween and has posted the sign on a post seen above as evidence of the ban.

He has kindly provided us the ordinance that explains/imposes/empresses the ban as follows:

a) For purposes of this section:

1. “Silly String” shall mean any putty-like substance that is shot or expelled in the form of string from an aerosol can or other pressurized device, regardless of whether it is sold under the name “Silly String” or any other name.

2. “Hollywood Division” shall mean the area defined by the Los Angeles Police Department as the Hollywood Division, the geographical boundaries of which include all of that portion of Los Angeles City bounded and described as follows: Beginning at the point of intersection of Beverly Boulevard and Normandie Avenue, and proceeding northerly along Normandie Avenue to Franklin Avenue, and proceeding westerly along Franklin Avenue to Western Avenue, and proceeding northerly along Western Avenue to Fern Dell Drive, and continuing northerly along Fern Dell Drive to its terminus, and proceeding due north through Griffith Park to Forest Lawn Drive at its intersection with Zoo Drive, and proceeding westerly and southwesterly along Forest Lawn Drive to Barham Boulevard, and proceeding southerly along Barham Boulevard to United States Highway 101, and proceeding southeasterly along U.S. Highway 101 to Mulholland Drive, and proceeding westerly along the various curves and courses of Mulholland Drive to the Crest of Ridge, and proceeding southerly following the Los Angeles city line along the eastern border of the Trousdale Estates area of the City of Beverly Hills to the northeast corner of the City of West Hollywood, and proceeding easterly following the Los Angeles city line bordering along its various curves and courses of the northern border of the City of West Hollywood to the eastern border of the City of West Hollywood that is to the east of La Brea Avenue, and proceeding southerly along the Los Angeles city line to Romaine Street, and proceeding westerly following the Los Angeles city line along its various curves and courses to the intersection of Romaine Street and La Cienega Boulevard, and proceeding southerly following the Los Angeles city line along its various curves and courses to Beverly Boulevard, and proceeding easterly along Beverly Boulevard to La Brea Avenue, and proceeding northerly along La Brea Avenue to Willoughby Avenue, and proceeding easterly along Willoughby Avenue to Hudson Avenue, and proceeding southerly along Hudson Avenue to Melrose Avenue, and proceeding easterly along Melrose Avenue to Gower Street, and proceeding southerly along Gower Street to Beverly Boulevard, and proceeding easterly along Beverly Boulevard to Normandie Avenue.

3. “Halloween” shall mean the 36-hour period from 12:00 a.m. on October 31st of each year, through 12:00 p.m. on November 1st of each year.

(b) No Person, as defined in Municipal Code Section 11.01(a), shall possess, use, sell or distribute Silly String at, within or upon any public or private property that is either within public view or accessible to the public, including, but not limited to, public or private streets, sidewalks, parking lots, commercial or residential buildings, places of business, or parks within the Hollywood Division during Halloween.

(c) Any violation of this section is a misdemeanor subject to the provisions of Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 11.00(m).

The first thing that we and others have noted is that the definition of "silly string" would include Cheez Whiz "i.e., a putty like substance extruded from an aerosol can, as well as aerosol putty and many kinds of insulation that come in a pressurized can like Great Stuff. The prohibition extends not only to the use or sale but also the mere possession of the substance. Cheese and Crackers ! (Until Kraft put that product in a spray can I didn't even know that Cheese could take a whiz.)

Some scholars at Volokh's blog discuss the Second Amendment implications of banning the use of string for self defense. (It's a slippery slope-literally, if you spray silly string or cheez whiz on a downhill incline) because the next thing you know they'll be banning Silly Rope.

Are there religious implications in the banning of substances on the day that is the most important in the Wiccan calendar? Might we need silly string to defend us from being embrassed by ghosts from another dimension? "That day, called Sahhain is seen as a time when the veil between this world and the next was at its thinnest. The Celts believed that upon death, everyone went to a beautiful place free of hunger, pain and disease. It was called "Tir nan Og", sometimes translated as "Summerland". They had no concept of Heaven and Hell like that seen in Christianity and Islam. Many believed that two separate and nearly identical worlds existed. When a person died, they were transferred to the "ghostworld"; when they were born, they were transferred from the ghostworld to the mortal one. "The pagan idea used to be that crucial joints between the seasons opened cracks in the fabric of space-time, allowing contact between the ghostworld and the mortal one." according to this blog.

One of the few things you can't possess to smoke in Hollywood on Halloween is silly string. The old bag of flaming dog shit is OK to have on Halloween as long as it's not exrement from an aerosol can--one of the few things that is putty like and not dispensed in that manner.

Speaking of which, when we were kids the most often way of doing the kind of damage that kids do now with silly string was to use rolls of toilet paper to decorate bushes and trees. Hollywood is not considering banning the posession of toilet paper for the thirty six hours including Halloween I hope.

My clients frequently ask me, as one did today, "How long is a hearing?" I answer, "How long is a piece of string?" Some are long--some are short. How long is a piece of silly string?

Serious Scientific Studies of Silly String (serious silliness?) have measured at the greater than atomic level how much silly string there is in a can, and concluded it's 1,632 feet of string. That is about a third of a mile!

Wee Verdict is Quite Large: Strange Case Makes Interesting Law

This blog's Senior Bottled Water Editor, Heidi Rayshun, reports that in the "Hold your Wee for a Wii" wrongful death case previously blogged here, the jury has returned a verdict against the radio station that held the contest in which Jennifer Strange died from water intoxication.

The award was $ 16.57 million, perhaps the largest wrongful death verdict ever in Sacramento, it is reported by On Point. The attorney for the husband of Jennifer Strange, Roger A. Dreyer (Dreyer Babich, Sacramento), established that the D.J. who dreamed up the contest, Dermenjian, had heard of hyponatremia, or water intoxication, (a/k/a H 2 Oh No), before he took part in the contest and didn't know whether any of the other contestants knew about it.

He knew that some people just can hold their water, I suppose, or at least until their bladder bursts. Strange's husband testified he had never heard of hyponatremia and that his wife never indicated to him that she knew about it. Staff at the radio station, KDND 107.9, did not warn the contestants of the danger of excessive water-drinking. {ASIDE: I know a guy who tried to drink Canada Dry once--but he never got past Toronto.}

This is a blow to the hydration industry, which is said to have remarked that water doesn't kill people, people who hold contests kill people. The defense had argued that people who engage in contests assume the risk of, well, engaging in contests. But, this website notes that one of the the symptoms of hyponatremia is confusion, so a person who drinks so much water that her body lacks sufficient sodium (creating an electrolyte imbalance) would lack the judgment to know when to say "when."

The jurors felt that the on air people should have run the contest past the legal department--known to be party poopers about almost anything--who no doubt would have stopped it because they'd stop just about anything. The jurors also relied on calls taken on the air from callers who said the contest was dangerous--but who listens to radio callers? They are the same housebound agoraphobics who call in ranting to right wing talk show hosts about the black helicopters from the secret world government, or explaining to sports personalities on air why the Yankees need to buy Chase Utley right away.

The jurors deliberated for nine days about damages, or three days longer than it took to create the world and all the water on it, according to Genesis. In the end, according to juror Tammy Elliott, the jury agreed to averaging the dollar amount each juror felt appropriate. It was nine days for cryin' out loud, and they were starting to get on one another's nerves, we suspect, or at least run out of clean underwear. "Each juror's number was weighted equally," Elliott said according to the Sacramento Press. That seems fair, if one wants to award nothing and another $48 million, then $24 million would be about right, even if no one on the jury actually believed that to be the correct amount within a $24 million range. Just like the saying that a truly good settlement is one that leaves everyone unhappy, the same must be true for trial jurors.

They can't do that, can they?

No, they can't--it's called a quotient verdict and is impermissible in many states (see Houseworth v. Bishop 57 Ind. App. 62, 106 N.E. 380 (1914). California is one--McDonnell v. Pescadero Stage Co., 120 Ca. 476, 52 Pac. 725. Do you smell a good appeal issue?

FOR SALE: HISTORY'S HATCHET

Click to enlarge each image-- A For Sale item from my family's collection I wrote about several years ago---

"I was Just There for the Soup" is a Hecht of a Defense

Right up there with the Twinkie defense and the violence on TV made me do it defense is the chicken soup defense offered by a judge to explain why he went to a notorious adult bookstore/movie house in a seedy part of town.

Pierce County, Washington Judge Michael Hecht said he went to the Mecca adult theater in Tacoma for the chicken soup in its vending machine, not to meet male sex partners. I know that when I want a really good bowl of chicken soup the first thing that comes to my mind is a vending machine--preferably one named Bubbie. So Judge Hecht pulled out the two millennia old explanation "I was just there for the chicken soup." It was last raised by Judas, who explained that he was only at the Last Supper (which was a Passover seder according to Mark 14:12) for the matzo ball soup. Not to mention the gefilte fish--which, of course, he did not mention.

{ASIDE: In Leonardo Da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper (click photo to enlarge), the meal is apparently grilled eels, which would be unlikely since they are not kosher. You don't make gefilte fish with eels.) Of course Da Vinci was not at the Last Supper--and so he could have chosen to imagine spaghetti and meatballs as the meal he would depict on the table.
But not with tomato sauce, since the painting was done in 1495, and Christopher Columbus, an Italian working for the Spanish monarchy, was the first European to bring the tomato from the new world in 1493. The earliest discussion of the tomato in European literature appeared in a herbal written in 1544 by Pietro Andrea Mattioli, an Italian physician and botanist, who named it pomo d’oro, golden apple.}

According to Judge Michael Hecht's campaign biography found here, he is a graduate of "UPS Law School." Apparently he didn't have the grades to get into the more prestigious Fedex School of Law. Despite the fact he claims to have a master's degree in education, he writes: "Every person knows that they are entitled to their day in court." While we don't have to agree with Judge Hecht's legal decisions or culinary taste, his nouns and pronouns should agree with one another.

Pierce County is named after Franklin Pierce, a President very popular in Washington State apparently, if not at Mount Rushmore. It is not named after the tatoo artists and body modification specialists who put holes in your ears and other body locations. It's most famous geographical feature is Mt. Rainier, with its massive sculpture of Franklin Pierce seen above.

Jester Exit Poll Declares Abdullah Abdullah the Winner Winner !

The election in Afghanistan is not scheduled to occur until November 7th, but the Supremecourtjester Scientific Exit Poll has declared Abdullah Abdullah the winner based upon his exit from the race.

This election is a runoff election, and we declare Abdullah Abdullah the winner because he was the first candidate to run off. We will have a break down of the vote later--because it certainly broke down !
o0o0o0o0

In other news---according to EmptyVee, this music TV channel, the new Michael Jackson movie, This is It, is a big hit. It proves that for Michael, like his ex father-in-law, Elvis, death was a good career move. It also proves that if you give the public what they want--a promise that this is it for Michael Jackson, they will come out of morbid curiosity. It could be the biggest disaster movie since Titanic, and critics have already proclaimed it the "Best feel bad movie of 2009."

In death Michael is even bigger that in life--but that may just be bloating.

Monday Morning Musings--A Run off Election Where One Candidate Ran Off

Over the weekend Abdullah Abdullah dropped out of the Afghan election and Dede Scozzafava dropped out of the 23rd Congressional district race in New York. There's been a lot of that going around recently. The Center for Disease control does not yet have a vaccine ready--which they had planned to test on school children in school districts with a high drop out rate.

The Republican conservative votes drove Ms. Scozzafava out of the race because they thought she was too centerist for their liking, and thought the local Republican party should not dictate to them the leanings of their candidate. Now it is the Democrat running against the Conservative Party candidate.

This makes me wonder what Kirsten Gillibrand is thinking. She was too conservative for a lot of New York Democrats when Governor Paterson picked her. No doubt there will be Working Families candidate running for Senate to the left of her. Will the same result occur?

UPDATE: With 0 % of the precincts in this week's Nov. 7th Afghan election reporting, Hamid Karzai has been declared the winner.

The House Health Care Bill: As Readable as it is Affordable!

H.R.3962 - Affordable Health Care for America Act--

The House health care bill unveiled Thursday is a tidy 1,990 pages, and contains about 400,000 words. With an estimated 10-year cost of $894 billion, that comes out to about $2.24 million per word. This baby was born weighing more than 19 pounds (poor mother!) and measures nearly nine inches tall, because Congress never says anything important in less than fifteen hundred pages. If the Constitution were written by the House Democrats, it would be longer than the Encyclopedia Britannica--but less readable. The Senate bill will also be a hairy read.

As an aid to your understanding this complex bill (A guide for the perplexed); we will be offering the following publication soon:

Trick or Treat !

Trick or Treat at our house...

click to enlarge

Dear Gov. Schwarzenegger: We're Rubber, You're Glue.

The Legislature of California passed, unanimously, a bill that Gov. Schwarzenegger chose to veto with a not so hidden acrostic message (See Wednesday's post below). Now it is up to the Legislature to override the veto, and to send a message back to the Governor. I suggest something like this (Of course, the acrostic you might find in this message's first letter of each line is purely a coincidence, too):

Click on the image to enlarge it big enough to read it--

Science/Seance Friday: Is The Hadron's Failure Because God Intervened?

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the first internet type of communication. The less than memorable quote sent via the Arpanet was "Login." Unfortunately, the computer operator on the other end had already forgotten his password (A clever amalgam of his children's names and birth dates) so there was no immediate reply.

Without the wonders of internet communication, we would never be able to receive the entreaties of Nigerian Princes or information concerning natural male enhancement. On the other hand, I have never spent the better part of a Saturday trying to figure out why my letter box has crashed, or trying to remove a virus from my mailbox that came via snail mail.

It was not really an email--nor was it the World Wide Web – that was created by the British scientist Tim Berners-Lee, now Sir Tim Berners-Lee, at Cern, the Geneva physics laboratory that now houses the Large Hadron Collider, 20 years ago in March.

Which brings us nicely to the other topic for Science/Seance Friday. Are your great grandchildren trying to keep you from destroying the Universe? Two scientists think so. (When people say you couldn't make this stuff up" I usually reply, "Yes, I can" but this one may have been beyond my simple stories about my great great granddaughter sending me court decisions of the future.)

"In a bizarre sci-fi theory, Danish physicist Dr Holger Bech Nielsen and Dr Masao Ninomiya from Japan claim the Large Hadron Collider at CERN's startup has been delayed due to nature trying to prevent it from finding the elusive Higgs boson, or "God particle".

They say their maths proves that nature will "ripple backward through time" to stop the LHC before it can create the God particle, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather."

While it is a paradox to go back in time and kill your grandfather, physicists agree there is no paradox if you go back in time and save him from being hit by a bus," Dannis Overbye wrote in the New York Times.

"In the case of the Higgs and the collider, it is as if something is going back in time to keep the universe from being hit by a bus." Maybe these guys should not have had that large midnight snack before rereading the Bible verses about the the Tower of Babel, then falling asleep.

So how does your time travelling great great grandchild learn that the Hadron collider must be stopped? By the fact that he has read that we, who have a natural affinity for destroying our own planet, actually caused the Universe's demise with the collider? Could he have gone back and saved Lincoln to make sure that reconstruction would run smoothly? Could he have stopped 9/11? Did he stop nuclear annihilation in the Cuban missile crisis? Are there an infinite number of alternative universes in which those things and others do or do not happen? Is there one in which you win the $200 million Mega Million lottery? If you had Time Traveler's checks for your journey, would you be able to cash them in the past, or would they be rejected as post dated?

I think I'll go lie down now, all this thinking makes my head hurt.

Today's Headlines We've Ripped from Today's Headlines

Northwest Airline Passengers to Minneapolis Demand 300 Extra Frequent Flier Miles for Trip To/From Wisconsin...

Malia Obama to Dress in Scariest Halloween Costume--Will Go Trick or Treating as Glenn Beck...

Banks Go Trick or Treating on Capitol Hill--Won't have Goody Bags But May Carry Goody Tarps..

This Halloween is Sponsored by the American Dentists Association Who Remind You to Eat More Candy....

Mayoral Candidates Present Disparate Views; Bloomberg: "Middle Class, Middle Class, Middle Class"; Thompson: "Middle Class, Middle Class, Middle Class."

John O'Quinn, Famous Houston Personal Injury Lawyer Dies in SUV Crash; Will Sue From the Beyond

Juror Deliberations Continue in "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" Wrongful Death Trial; Frequent Rest Room Breaks Afforded Jury
(This news break sponsored by Flomax)

* Alien Tort Claims Act Cases Increasing

Now that's a Veto with Some Punch !

Here is a veto message with a hidden message that Gov. Arnie sent to the California Legislature. You will not have to be Dan Brown to decode this one:




This is just an enormous coincidence we guess, because no aficionado of acrostics would ever look for a hidden message in one that is so plain and clear anyway. You can see which branch of government the ex-movie star would like to saw off. Or does the governor think the office is a bully pulpit because it lets you act like a bully?

The target was San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who had sponsored AB1176. The bill, which passed unanimously in the Assembly and Senate, would have granted the Port of San Francisco expanded financing power to redevelop a former shipyard into a new neighborhood known as Pier 70.

Earlier this year the governor appeared at meeting in San Francisco. On a video clip of the governor's appearance, Ammiano can be heard shouting "you lie" and other derogatory phrases as other attendees booed and heckled Schwarzenegger's brief speech.

After the governor left, Ammiano took the stage and gave a rambling diatribe in which he criticized Schwarzenegger for a wide variety of perceived offenses. In part, the freshman lawmaker was upset that Schwarzenegger had vetoed bills in 2005 and 2007 that would have legalized gay marriage.

The is a situation that can only be resolved in the old fashioned way. Ammiano, who has indicated that he wants to move on because now it's even, must now go to the gubernator's office, slap him in the face with a pair of gloves and, challenge him to a duel for insulting the honor of his home district. The gov then has a choice of weapons, which should be mud pies at fifty feet. That's how Burr and Hamilton would have handled it. That's the original intent of the Founding Fathers to which the Supreme court would ask us to adhere. There is no indication in the Constitution that insulted politicians must be subjected to a time out. When did California become the mild West?

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Do you suffer from restless leg syndrome? No ? Would you like to suffer from restless leg syndrome? Do you suffer from listless leg syndrome--Do your legs refuse to carry you as far as the TV to change the channel ? Do you suffer from Remotitis--an inflammation of the remote control device caused by overuse?

Then you need Fugitol--the cure for what ails you. It's made from the scale oils of finest snakes from remote Amazon jungles and is used by aborigine tribes there to cure a variety of illness caused by curses brought on by diabolical medicine men. Generations of shamen swear by it--acts faster than curare for most ! {ASIDE: Why do shamen wear red suspenders? To keep their spirits up! Alternate acceptable answer: They don't wear red suspenders!}

Side effects include suicide, homicide and a slight tingling feeling just behind your funny bone. Don't ask your doctor if Fugitol is right for you--he's a busy man and you'll only have to fork over a co-pay! Available wherever forged prescriptions and phony green cards are sold!