Friday, December 30, 2016

Proof, Pudding, Etc...

A couple of days ago I suggested that it's not particularly sensible to think that the many things contained in 2016 which depress us will suddenly cease because the year in the modern calendar becomes 2017.

Comes now a variety of state legislatures to ensure -- as only a government can-- that 2017 intends to make a strong run at being even sillier. Illinois may have a $13 billion budgetary shortfall, but it also now has a state artifact, the pirogue canoe. California will insist that any item purportedly signed by some famous person must have a certificate of authenticity if it is to be sold for more than $5. No word on whether a signed statement of authenticity will need its own signed statement of authenticity.

Las Vegas will allow marijuana consumption, but the law did not pass without a requirement that casinos feature several extra-large signs informing gamblers that potato chips may not be used in place of casino chips.

The real question such laws pose is not how we as a species survived before we had legislative government, but what we will do now that the evolution of our intelligence has so obviously ceased.

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