More news from the annals of zero tolerance and the continuing campaign to make the culture ever more deranged:
A New Jersey student made a baseball bat in shop class, then was expelled for refusing to hand it over to a teacher as a dangerous weapon.
A National Merit scholar in Fort Myers, Fla., missed her graduation ceremony and was sent to jail after a kitchen knife was found on the floor of her car. She said the knife had fallen there when she moved some possessions over the weekend.
At a Halifax, Nova Scotia, school, a ban against throwing snowballs also prohibited all arm motions that can be interpreted as possible attempts to throw something at anyone.
In New York City, a parks officer gave a 3-year-old a $50 summons for urinating into a bush. Also in New York, a cop busted an investment manager for tossing a pebble at pigeons who had nearly hit him with pigeon poop. "How would you like it if someone threw a rock at you?" the cop said sensitively. "They're living creatures too." The pebble-thrower is due in court on a disorderly conduct charge.
In Connecticut, a bill to ban handheld cell phones by drivers also makes eating or tuning the radio while driving an offense.
Walter Olson's Web site, www.Overlawyered.com, reports brightly on the amazing excesses of the litigious society. In New Orleans, a group of "rave" promoters, attempting to comply with a court order, banned glowsticks, the neonlike tubes of light waved by concertgoers, on grounds that they are drug paraphernalia.
A Hooters restaurant in Augusta, Ga., made the mistake of advertising in six different fax mailings sent to 1,321 customers. Since federal law allows a penalty of $500 to $1,500 per unsolicited fax, a court returned a $12 million judgment against the restaurant, and it went bankrupt.
A Minneapolis woman took a job in a sex-toy store and then filed a hostile-environment suit complaining about all the smutty talk she had to listen to.
The Canadian government thinks overweight airline passengers should be given an extra seat free of charge (why not have very thin passengers double up in a single seat too?).
In Florida, a former traffic-light installer sued Palm Beach County for firing him because he is color-blind and can't distinguish between red and green wires. Installers have to deal with 19 colored wires.