Excuse me if I seem like I'm hacking up a lung...

A couple of my friends and I hit McDonald's for lunch earlier. Fortunately, we were able to find a few seats a good distance away from the smoking section.

Unfortunately, that didn't stop the Big Grey Cloud of Death ®(...well, not really.) from drifting over and making us all sick to our stomachs. So naturally we went over to the group that was creating this little piece of biological warfare and asked them if they could kindly quit doing that.

And, of course, they give us the excuse we're all getting:
"Hey, it's our right to smoke, so if you don't like it, TOUGH SHIT!"

Well here's a little dose of reality for ya:

WRONG FUCKING ANSWER!

No, no, I'm not saying people don't have the right to do things like that...having such freedom is what makes America such a nice place. What these sort of fuckwits don't get is that with right comes responsibility and limitation.

Take waving my hand around, for example. I'm perfectly free to do that, right? Right...well, right up to the point where I wave it through the same space your face happens to occupy.

My point is that one person's right to smoke doesn't allow them to infringe on another person's right to take a nice deep smoke-free breath of air. On the flipside, though, my right to breathe clean air doesn't mean I can slap the cigarette out of your mouth and stomp on it, either.

The simplest solution to this kind of a problem is simply to not be a dick about it. If the smoke from your cigarette is disturbing other people, for cryin' out loud, have the courtesy to go somewhere else!

...Well, that's it.

Maybe Floridans aren't as dumb as our last election showed?

Recently, a law's been floating around Florida where, upon meeting certain requirements, students could skip 12th grade entirely and graduate a year early.

Naturally, there are people for and against this plan. On one side, the plan's lauded as an effective means of reducing the stress of overcrowding on the schools, and giving an incentive for kids to bump up their study habits. On the other, a lot of people are complaining about how the kids who go through this will miss out on a lot of important education and life-building events that can only be experienced in their senior year, like the senior prom.

Just as I was about to groan at how idiotically the state was dealing with it, I came across an interesting little paragraph about how a lot of schools are having the students and their parents discuss the deal with school counselors, getting all the facts on it and then letting the student make their choice from there.

Well, Florida, all I have to say to that way of working with it is

BOOYA!

Of all the ways this could be dealt with, you folks managed to bullseye the best one. Totally responsible, unbiased, and it lets the kid think for themselves without putting all of the burden on them. Deuces up to you, Florida!

Of course, I do have one slight problem with this...I agree that there's a lot of things that you can only experience as a senior, so here's an alternative that's just as effective and probably sits a lot better:

How 'bout letting the kids skip their FRESHMAN year instead? (C'mon, who wouldn't dive at an opportunity to skip the embarassment and senior-abuse that is the ninth grade? :) )

Anyway, that's it.

One thousand one...one thousand two.

To Pennsylvania, birthplace of some of the most notorious roadway safety measures known, such as the lines in the center of the lanes that indicate 1- or 2-way traffic and whether passing is legal or not, and the bumps that warn you of drifting into oncoming traffic...

Now, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has devised a visual cue to another road safety fundamental: The "2-Second Rule Dot", which consists of dots placed on the road at 115-foot intervals where, by keeping two dots between them and the car in front of them, drivers can now tell whether they are keeping a safe distance or not.

They apparently got the idea from a similar setup in Europe using chevrons on the road.

Also apparent is the success of the plan. One particularly hazardous road has already shown a drop of more than half in the first six months alone.

I have to admit, my only problem with this plan is that now all the morons that wipe themselves out of the gene pool are gonna have a higher survival rate...but then again, so are the rest of us, so I guess it's a fair trade. Besides, Nature'll find other ways to get rid of them. She always does. ^^

Nonetheless, Pennsylvania, deuces up.d^^b

....That's it.

...D'oh!

JUST when I thought today was gonna be moron-free, who should pull up and drop off a cargoload of DumbAss but U-Haul?

The moving company was unsuccessful in trying to sue net-advertising company WhenU due to their software causing the pop-ups of other companies to appear on their page.

Sorry U-Haul, but Judge Lee made the right decision. If the software in question was our choice to download and install, then the pop-ups are our choice to view. What's it called when someone looks at the services of two different companies at once? That's not unfair competition, people. That's shopping around, and the people using WhenU are well aware of that.

As annoying as we all find pop-ups, ones like this aren't actually too shabby for the economy. They let the person browsing know about other options in the field they're looking through, helping them to get the best deal they can.

Tough luck U-Haul. U-Lose. Bada-BING! *rimshot*
(Sorry, I just HAD to...)

....Yep, that's it.