Random News
U.S. RULING RESTRICTS RANDOM DRUG TESTS
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n1812/a08.html
ST PETERSBURG TIMES - The state Department of Juvenile Justice's random drug testing policy is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. Only public employees with jobs that affect safety, such as armed law enforcement officers or bus drivers, can be required to randomly submit to drug tests, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ruled. For other employees, such as receptionists, such a policy is a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Hinkle said.
The ruling does not affect the private sector. "The courts have upheld random drug testing for employees who carry guns or fly planes or are involved in other dangerous activities," said Rick Johnson, an attorney for the ACLU. But he said "number crunchers," such as the Department of Juvenile Justice employee the ACLU represented in this case, do not do work that is safety-sensitive. "The Constitution does not allow them to be tested except on reasonable suspicion, not a random test,"Johnson said.
ELITE ETHNOGRAPHY
LIVING HIGH IN BIG SKY
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=2026&e=6&u=/latimests/20041231/ts_latimes/millionairesflockingtoyellowstoneclub
SALLIE HOFMEISTER, LA TIMES, BIG SKY MT - There's no dry cleaner here, no carwash, nowhere to get a blow dry or a manicure. Looking for a sushi restaurant? You'll have to settle for a buffalo burger at the Corral Bar. The closest place to park your private plane is at the airport in Bozeman, an hour's drive down a two-lane road. Big Sky is no Aspen, Colo. But the super rich are flocking here anyway.
The lure: the Yellowstone Club, a private, millionaires-only resort community whose amenities more than make up for Big Sky's lack of a traffic light or a designer boutique. Occupying 22 square miles of mostly wilderness, it's the only private club in the U.S. with its own ski mountain and world-class golf course. . .
"Sometimes you have to pay to play," says the Yellowstone Club's website, which explains that in exchange for an initiation fee of $250,000, a required property purchase of $1 million to $10 million and annual dues of $16,000, members enjoy a gated wonderland that offers 40 hiking and biking trails, rivers perfect for fly-fishing and an 18-hole course designed by former pro Tom Weiskopf, who is a member. So few skiers use the 2,700 feet of vertical slopes that a blizzard can take weeks to pack down, guaranteeing so much untracked snow that the club has trademarked the slogan "Private Powder."
CIVIL LIBERTIES
FEDERAL JUDGE DEFENDS EROTIC EXPRESSION
http://wb20.trb.com/hc-berclub1231.artdec31,0,3356865.story?coll=wtxx-home-3
HILDA MUÑOZ, HARTFORD COURANT - Banning lap dances and other simulated sex acts at strip clubs illegally censors erotic expression, a federal court judge has ruled.Senior U.S. District Judge Warren W. Eginton, who is based in Bridgeport, said that sections of a Berlin ordinance regulating adult businesses violate the Constitution because they prohibit movements and gestures that a dancer might need in transmitting an erotic message. "A government cannot constitutionally regulate erotic expression with such stringent restriction that the expression no longer conveys eroticism," Eginton wrote in his Dec. 20 ruling.
WORDS
DAVE BARRY - I want to stop before I join the horde of people who think I used to be funnier. And I want to work on some other stuff. So for the next year, I won't be writing regular columns, though I hope to weigh in from time to time if something really important happens, such as a cow exploding in a boat toilet.
IT'S ALMOST AS GOOD AS REALITY TV: It's pretty cool to be asked to come out and go right in the middle of it. It's like we stepped inside our television. Joe Escalante, punk band bassist on performing for troops in Iraq
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n1812/a08.html
ST PETERSBURG TIMES - The state Department of Juvenile Justice's random drug testing policy is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. Only public employees with jobs that affect safety, such as armed law enforcement officers or bus drivers, can be required to randomly submit to drug tests, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ruled. For other employees, such as receptionists, such a policy is a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Hinkle said.
The ruling does not affect the private sector. "The courts have upheld random drug testing for employees who carry guns or fly planes or are involved in other dangerous activities," said Rick Johnson, an attorney for the ACLU. But he said "number crunchers," such as the Department of Juvenile Justice employee the ACLU represented in this case, do not do work that is safety-sensitive. "The Constitution does not allow them to be tested except on reasonable suspicion, not a random test,"Johnson said.
ELITE ETHNOGRAPHY
LIVING HIGH IN BIG SKY
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=2026&e=6&u=/latimests/20041231/ts_latimes/millionairesflockingtoyellowstoneclub
SALLIE HOFMEISTER, LA TIMES, BIG SKY MT - There's no dry cleaner here, no carwash, nowhere to get a blow dry or a manicure. Looking for a sushi restaurant? You'll have to settle for a buffalo burger at the Corral Bar. The closest place to park your private plane is at the airport in Bozeman, an hour's drive down a two-lane road. Big Sky is no Aspen, Colo. But the super rich are flocking here anyway.
The lure: the Yellowstone Club, a private, millionaires-only resort community whose amenities more than make up for Big Sky's lack of a traffic light or a designer boutique. Occupying 22 square miles of mostly wilderness, it's the only private club in the U.S. with its own ski mountain and world-class golf course. . .
"Sometimes you have to pay to play," says the Yellowstone Club's website, which explains that in exchange for an initiation fee of $250,000, a required property purchase of $1 million to $10 million and annual dues of $16,000, members enjoy a gated wonderland that offers 40 hiking and biking trails, rivers perfect for fly-fishing and an 18-hole course designed by former pro Tom Weiskopf, who is a member. So few skiers use the 2,700 feet of vertical slopes that a blizzard can take weeks to pack down, guaranteeing so much untracked snow that the club has trademarked the slogan "Private Powder."
CIVIL LIBERTIES
FEDERAL JUDGE DEFENDS EROTIC EXPRESSION
http://wb20.trb.com/hc-berclub1231.artdec31,0,3356865.story?coll=wtxx-home-3
HILDA MUÑOZ, HARTFORD COURANT - Banning lap dances and other simulated sex acts at strip clubs illegally censors erotic expression, a federal court judge has ruled.Senior U.S. District Judge Warren W. Eginton, who is based in Bridgeport, said that sections of a Berlin ordinance regulating adult businesses violate the Constitution because they prohibit movements and gestures that a dancer might need in transmitting an erotic message. "A government cannot constitutionally regulate erotic expression with such stringent restriction that the expression no longer conveys eroticism," Eginton wrote in his Dec. 20 ruling.
WORDS
DAVE BARRY - I want to stop before I join the horde of people who think I used to be funnier. And I want to work on some other stuff. So for the next year, I won't be writing regular columns, though I hope to weigh in from time to time if something really important happens, such as a cow exploding in a boat toilet.
IT'S ALMOST AS GOOD AS REALITY TV: It's pretty cool to be asked to come out and go right in the middle of it. It's like we stepped inside our television. Joe Escalante, punk band bassist on performing for troops in Iraq
posted by T. Scott Brineman at 8:28 AM
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