Heroes Try To Stop Stupid City Council Law

Okay, it’s time to write more about my new favorite people in this city: The ones suing the city for its new law requiring tour guide licensing.

They are simply on the attack with an all-out media blitz following up on Elmer Smith’s column yesterday. There is an op-ed from an Institute for Justice lawyer in the Inquirer and another in the Daily News from one of the tour guides suing.

The writing by the I4J’s Bob McNamara is full of typical unintentionally hilarious libertarian seriousness — “This is a direct assault on fundamental American freedoms” — but makes the argument pretty clear: The government is limiting who can talk on streetcorners by imposing requirements on what they can say with a tour guide test. That’s not the reason I gave for keeping tour guides unlicensed — they tell awesome lies like, “City Tavern is where the First Continental Congress met” — but it seems to make sense.

The city can probably institute optional “factually-certified™” tour guide registration or whatever, but can’t make it mandatory. Either way this shakes out, I’m totally looking into setting up a tour where you can be sure you won’t be told one accurate thing at all.

Also, since I’ve been laughing at awful Internet comments all week — I do this all the time, but I’ve been posting some of them the past couple days — this comment on the Daily News article is awesome.

ghost stories and anecdotes are a far cry from patently false or misleading information about historical events, which I believe is the main concern here. Statements made in the course of doing one’s job are not protected by the first amendment. If I sell hot dogs and I tell my customers my hot dogs will make them taller, I’m a liar and will be fired (or lose my customers). i have no recourse under the first amendment. Your efforts should be directed at making sure the law is implemented as fairly as possible, with everyone’s best interests in mind. If you try to have the law struck down with a free speech argument you will be wasting your time.

This is also awesome: “Mike Tait is a Philadelphia tour guide who is filing a lawsuit today against the city to secure his constitutional rights.”

Photo by waffler, Creative Commons license

Will Bunch To Release Reagan Book In ‘09

Oh, man, this is pretty excellent: Next year, Daily News writer/Attytood writer Will Bunch will will release a book on Ronald Reagan. Naturally, it will attack the idea that Reagan was a king among men and should have things in every county named after him. Congrats, Will!

As you might know from this, I’m no fan of Ronald (and Nancy) Reagan and how they harmed America with horrible drug policy. Ronald Reagan could have torn down the Berlin Wall with his own two hands and I’d still believe he did more harm than good. (Not that it was just Reagan; I’m ready to jump through my TV every time I see Bill Bennett with his commentator spot on CNN.)

Sorry, too serious there for a second. Bunch’s blog post contains a lot of links and facts and opinions and really I decided to skip to the hilarious comments.

will has finally realized that his true talent, is in tearing republicans down, even dead ones, it is so much easier than contributing anything positive to the world.

Ha ha ha. I love Internet commenters.

The myth of Ronald Reagan: Coming to your bookstore in 2009 [Attytood]

New Ally In War On Duck Boats

I’m all for fighting against the horrible duck boats, and, although it’s a bit too serious for me, here’s a new partner in the fight:

Here’s the dude’s his petition:

We the undersigned do hereby call for respect from the Philadelphia Ride the Ducks Tour Company. The Ride the Ducks Tours are loud, noisy, obnoxious and an ear sore to local citizens of the Philadelphia area. By blasting music, shouting over a loud PA system, and encouraging the tooting of “quackers,” the Ride the Ducks Tours consistently disrupt the life of the average Philadelphian and are violating a number of noise pollution laws. We ask for Ride the Ducks Tours to work for a better relationship with Philadelphia residents and by agreeing to three guidelines:

1) When driving through a residential area, Ride The Ducks Tours will respectfully lower their music, exhibit a more restrained use of the PA system, and encourage a more mindful use of “quackers.”

2) Ride the Ducks Tours will revise their tour routes of Philadelphia to minimize exposure to the residential community.

3) Ride the Ducks Tour guides will no longer encourage tourists to “quack” at individuals on the street.

Eh, go ahead, fight the duck boat people. The War on Duck Boats will one day be won!

See also: Anti-duck activism in Seattle

Will Bunch Reveals Blogging Secrets

My favorite mostly useless useful idiot blogger, Will Bunch, posted yesterday about the “lone nut” killing the newspaper business, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark.

Newmark, you see, doesn’t make enough profit. Somehow, this kills newspapers. Anyway, in the comments section Will responds to his detractors — who include people calling him too liberal or too conservative — in the comments:

As for the “you’re kidding, right?”…one of the things I love about doing Attytood is the posts here range from a seriousness factor of 100 percent to 0 percent — and I’ll never tell you which is which!

I finally get Attytood.

UPDATED: The “lone nut” theory of the American newspaper assassination [Attytood]
Archives: Will Bunch