The Bethie Bee

I’m going to have to disagree with Matt from mattmargolis.com on this one…

I’m with him about not wanting to eat at a table with dogs, but if a restaurant wants to target a niche market that wants to bring their dogs out to dinner with them, so what? I agree that the idea is rather ridiculous, but as long as a restaurant isn’t forced to allow dogs at the table, the law doesn’t bother me at all.

While a few restaurants may decide they want to cater to canines, I think the vast majority would want to please people like me and Matt, who prefer homo sapien company. I may prefer that my dinner company not have fur, but I don’t believe the government should prevent restaurant owners from allowing dogs if they so choose…

Haven’t we been hearing about how gas prices are too high for months? Then why is the Minnesota government fining Midwest Oil for pricing their gasoline too low?

Really, the big question here is not whether a government should fine gas companies for selling their product for too much or too little, but as Greg from Rhymes with Right puts it: “Since when is it the business of government to set prices?”

The government hurts everyone whether they try to set prices too high or too low. Set prices too high, the consumer loses–set prices too low, the company loses. Our best bet is always to give good old supply and demand a chance.

I’ll admit it…I have an unhealthy obsession with The Apprentice. And after seeing Martha Stewart’s two-bit copy of the original, I was glad to hear that Donald Trump recently called her a moron. Even if it was all a publicity stunt.

Talk about crazy campaign promises…in his run for New York governor, Elliot Spitzer recently said that he would sign legislation allowing the sale of the “morning-after” pill without a prescription. Obviously, I’m a big supporter of personal liberties. However, this bill would be simply a bad idea.

Such a law would allow the “morning-after” pill to be available to underage girls without parental consent. Essentially, kids who aren’t legally allowed to buy cigarettes or beer, can choose to engage in irresponsible behavior and then take a “pill” without the consent of their parents. These kids still need a parents signature to bring Tylenol to school, but buying the “morning-after pill”?–no problem.

As sickening as the comments were, I think maybe I’m glad Spitzer uttered them. Afterall, as Nick Vertucci said on the New York Young Republican Record:

Personally I think any Republican candidate can have a field day with this. There are millions of parents in this state who can have their stomachs turned by the thought of their 13-year-old daughter walking into CVS to buy a “morning after” pill without them knowing, which is what would happen if Spitzer signed the bill. Some well-placed commercials showing young girls abusing the drug, with the tag line “don’t you want to know what your daughter is doing”, should work wonders.

It seems to me that even most moderate pro-choicers would be opposed to morning-after pill access to children. This really can’t have been a good move for Spitzer.

I’ve never tried a drug in my life…so it might come as a surprise to some that I’m really happy about this Supreme Court decision. I certainly don’t believe that you need to drink this tea to connect with God, but I find it refreshing that the court has taken the side of individual liberty.

Justice Roberts wrote the opinion of the court:

Roberts, in writing the opinion for the court, said the government had failed to prove that federal drug laws should outweigh the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which Congress passed in 1993 to prohibit burdening a person’s exercise of religion.

A Canadian Brewery recently learned an all too important important lesson…In an age when pretty much anything goes, you’d still better not offend women. That’s right, after all of our years of struggle for equality, women are once again whining and promoting the “old stereotypes” rather than acting like adults.

The ad in question said “The average woman speaks 10,000 words in a day. Roughly 9,950 too many.” Look, the ad is targeting a specific audience: men who want to get together with the guys, drink beer, and watch the game. The ad might be stupid, and perhaps somewhat offensive, but, in the end, it’s really harmless. Reverse the gender, and the same ad could be used to sell Cosmos to women “The average man speaks 10,000 words in a day. Roughly 9,950 too many.” Only that ad would be allowed to stay, women would laugh at it–it doesn’t mean that women really think that men should only speak 50 words a day. It’s just the same old battle of the sexes type of joke that has made people laugh for generations.

Look, if this ad was advocating spousal abuse or truly degrading women, I would be first in line to organize a boycott to get rid of it. But the way women carry on whenever a joke is made at their expense does nothing but promote the old stereotype of the weak woman.

An Illinois newspaper recently refused to run any of these ads, to be paid for by the Will County Right to Life; the ad department said the newspaper would not run them because they were “too graphic.” What makes these ads so “graphic?” Apparently, the fact that they show sonogram pictures, or, more accurately, that they are pro-life.

Hey, the newspaper has the right to run or not run any ads they choose, but I hope that businesses in the area remember the newspaper’s “choice” to refuse these ads when they “choose” where they’ll buy advertising.

Well, it’s almost February 14, time for that annual, ridiculous ritual. No, I’m not one of those people who gets all pissy about Valentine’s day, I can’t stand this V-Day thing that’s been going on the past few years. As Wendy McElroy explained back in 2002 on ifeminists.com

Politically correct feminists want Valentine’s Day to become V-Day, standing for Vagina, Violence (committed by men against women) and Victory.

Rather than taking 24 hours to celebrate romantic love, women are admonished to ponder rape and domestic violence.

Since 1998, V-Day events have been sponsored on university campuses across America. The stated purpose is to raise awareness. In reality, V-Day embodies the same double standard and dishonesty that has characterized most feminist pronouncements for decades.

Rather than watching a romantic movie with someone special, these radicals want us to spend our holiday watching every radical feminists favorite play, “The Vagina Monologues” While most universities are now showing a slightly less disturbing version of the play these days, as McElroy pointed out,

The play is meant to decry rape and other violence against women. Yet, the original performances of the play and the published book eulogize lesbian “rape” of a 13-year-old girl by a 24-year-old woman who plies her with alcohol. The pedophile section is entitled “The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could” — Coochi Snorcher being the nickname of the little girl’s genitalia. Her vagina’s tale of seduction begins, “She gently and slowly lays me out on the bed…”

After becoming more graphic, the little girl gratefully concludes, “I’ll never need to rely on a man.”

Both by statute and by feminist definition, the “seduction” scene is rape. Nevertheless, the Coochi Snorcher declares, “…if it was rape, it was a good rape.”

Such idealization of child molestation would have created a firestorm of outrage if the offending character had been male. But the molester was female, so “The Vagina Monologues” won an OBIE Award on Broadway and noted actresses clamored to be included in the cast.

I’d rather have sickeningly sweet holiday myself.

Well, as the day approaches, I’ll keep you abreast of the campus activities across the country…they’ll be good for a laugh, before you cry.

Oakland has a problem with litter. What are they to do? I know…they can tax fast food restaurants.

Oakland officials are so fed up with fast-food trash that they want to tax the businesses they blame for much of the city’s garbage woes, then use the money to clean up the streets.

One sentence from the person who came up with the idea tells what’s really at the heart of this tax plan: “It’s not fair that the residents have to clean up after a fast-food establishment that’s making a profit,” said Councilwoman Jane Brunner, who proposed the new ordinance.

That’s right folks, its all about the evil profits.

Luckily, some in the city understand that taxing these evil profit-makers would end up hurting Oakland citizens…

“This is an indirect tax on the people,” said Benjamin Scott, public policy director for Oakland’s Chamber of Commerce. “This ordinance does little to address the problem of litter in Oakland.”

How long is it going to take for lawmakers to understand that taxes like this are simply bad economic decisions, not solutions to every problem under the sun?

Yet another example of why pop singers should not reproduce…
According to the New York Post,on Monday, Britney Spears drove for at least two miles along the Pacific Coast Highway in the oceanfront area of Malibu with her 5-month old baby in her arms.

A source close to Spears, 24, told Reuters that the incident occurred after the singer had driven to a Starbucks shop with her son strapped properly into his car seat in the back of her SUV.

She moved the baby to her lap after stopping at the coffee shop to let her bodyguard go inside, then became unnerved as photographers swarmed around the vehicle as she waited for him to return, the source said. When the bodyguard got back in the car, Spears quickly drove off with her son still in her lap.

Britney’s Explanation?

“I had a horrifying, frightful encounter with the paparazzi while I was with my baby,” Spears said in a statement issued through her publicist. She said Monday’s episode reminded her of an incident last summer in which she was “trapped” in her car by a throng of photographers.

“I instinctively took measures to get my baby and me out of harm’s way, but the paparazzi continued to stalk us, and took photos of us which were sold to the media,” she said. “I love my child and would do anything to protect him.”

Anything, huh? Like use your arms of steel to hold him from flying through the windshield during a car crash?

As much as those government-sponsored booster seat billboards (boosterseat.gov)I’ve been seeing piss me off, perhaps this shows that there still needs to be more private funding for car seat education.