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Location: Indianapolis, Indiana, United States

I'm just trying to develop an online body of work (even if the work is throwaway nonsense) to advance my writing career.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Let's Loaf

The United States Supreme Court recently ruled against the Environmental Protection Agency not because the EPA had done anything wrong, but because the EPA hadn't done anything. Rather than impose stricter emissions standards, which might prove unpopular as both consumers and manufacturers would be required to make changes, or permitting more lax emissions standards to continue, which might prove unpopular as environmentalists would complain this exacerbated global warming, the EPA evidently decided that enforcing emissions and controlling greenhouses gases simply wasn't the agency's job.

Proving that even five hundred year old men are not invariably easy to hoodwink, Justice John Paul Stevens (born 1506), writing for the majority, declared in essence that denying it's your responsibilty to set standards for greenhouse gas emissions when you've got "Environmental Protection" in your name would be a bit like a dog catcher insisting a stray mongrel who attacks kids isn't his problem. In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia did not explicitly address whether or not the aforementioned duty was the EPA's job, but he did contend that ruling on the case was not the Supreme Court's job and they never should have heard it.

Meanwhile, in my home state of Indiana, the State Legislature spent several pointless days debating a same sex marriage ban, which mercifully died in committee. The whole thing is a bit convoluted, but essentially same sex partnerships are already not recognized as marriages in Indiana, but the bill's sponsors wanted to make it more illegal, or rather, preclude any chance of civil unions. The benefits of a law like this for society at large are, at best, unclear. The whole thing qualified as a "SWOT" ("Stupid Waste of Time").

Bearing all this in mind, here's the question: Doesn't anyone do any work around here?! The EPA doesn't want to work, the Supreme Court doesn't want to work, the Indiana Legislature doesn't want to work. Of course, to varying degrees and depending upon whom you ask, any or all of these institutions may serve us better by remaining idle. It could be that avoiding work is doing your job. I'll see if that works with my employer.

I'll get back with you later; I'm busy.

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