The Asylum

California has long been viewed as a holding tank for the weird. It seems to attract a special breed of off-the-wall lunacy unrivaled by anywhere else in the US.

California is in the lead with regard to traipsing down the road to fiscal disaster. They are the role model of government excess and pandering which the US is aggressively emulating despite the empirical evidence of the ineffectiveness of redistributive policies, repressive regulation and environmental extremism.

But this is a bit far even for California:

Broadcast Birdsongs For Better Business

I enjoy hearing the birds around my home. I've got loads of robins and the very distinctive call of the cardinals and the multi-talented playlist of the Texas state bird, the mockingbird to entertain me. I'm not so good with the gutteral hack of the crows or the soaring wingbeats of the buzzards. I get a kick out of watching the redtail and golden hawks hunt the pastures. But I'm sorry, I couldn't get much out of some bureaucrat mounting a loudspeaker on the power pole by my house to pipe in pre-recorded bird calls.

I bought one of those Audubon Society bird-call clocks as a joke for SWMBO at Christmas a few years ago. I threw the damn thing out after about two weeks of the two AM loon.

It might be good to have the city council speak a bit of Mandarin though. While they were learning linguistics they couldn't be legislating. First, do no harm, second, dazzle your friends at P.F. Chang's.