The Mountain Moderate

Spengler Explained

2009-05-29T18:48:00.003-06:00

Back in January 2008 I wrote an entry about a columnist in Asia Times that went by the nom de plume of Spengler. The gist of the entry was, "Who is this idiot?"

Now we know. He's David P. Goldman, an associate editor for First Things, a rag that never met a piece of Right Catholic apologia it couldn't find room to print. It's no wonder he has the logic skills of a turnip. Or Max Boot.

Ephraim Shows Why Utah Sucks Ass

2009-05-25T08:12:00.008-06:00

Yes, believe it or not I'm posting again. I dove for cover before the election because I expected the walking sewers who make up about 30% of This Great Nation(TM) (and who make up well over half of this Pretty, Great Shithole) to pull out their bottomless arsenals and start wasting when Nigger O failed to know his place and become President (Let's face it folks, it's all about race.). They didn't, thus showing that they're really just a bunch of gutless loudmouths that we ought to box up and dump in the ocean, although I still expect one of them to blow Obama away before this is all over.

But now I've decided to resurface. And it's because I'm sick of this place and I intend to get the Hell out if it's the last thing I do. This article in the Trib says it all. The local White people get to celebrate their ancestry in the cemetary for Memorial Day, but the Mexicans have to go down the road. No doubt the Paiutes have to go down the road too.

It looks racist, and there's undoubtedly an element of that, but I assure that isn't really what's going on. Because I assure you that, as lily-white Scandihoovian as I am, if I tried celebrating my ancestry in the cemetary, I'd meet the same reaction as the Mexicans and Paiutes. Because while I may be a "Swensonjensenmonson," I am not an "Elder Swensonjensenmonson."

You see, the cemetary displays are about pioneers. And as Ephraim City Councilcritter Terry Lund makes clear in his display of standard-issue Mormon shitheadedness, the fact that the Mexicans and Paiutes were here before the Mormons doesn't matter because nothing really happened before the Mormons got here. And the non-Mormons who came after don't count even though they came along with most of the Mormons who now inhabit the place because it's the Mormon pioneers who count.

The Mormons are the only ones who count. They're the only ones who've ever counted, and they'll always be the only ones who count. Just look at the Fools on the Hill (the Legislature and our soon-to-be Governor). I had thought the Olympics had changed things. I was wrong. So I'm giving up, I'm getting out, and I hope Global Warming bakes this place to a crackly crunch.

Sutherland Institute Still Whores? Check!

2008-10-03T21:20:00.003-06:00

And the latest bleating from what likes to call itself a conservative public-policy think tank but is better called a neoconjob putrid-policy stink tank is policy anal-cyst Matthew C. Piccolo playing his skin piccolo (Doesn't amount to a flute.) for his corporate masters, decrying the evils of universal health care. You see, good health just isn't a right. He makes a lot of noise about the "God-given" rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," which only means that he, like his deity Ronnie Rayguns doesn't know the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (I swear these Norsefires would repeal the necrophilia laws if it meant they could fellate Rayguns's rotting corpse.). Not a lot of logic in any of it, though (I am shocked, shocked!). I guess you have a right to life, but the kind of shape you're in just doesn't matter.

That's no big surprise, because the Sutherland Institute doesn't consider life to be much of a right (Just look at how little they care about how arbitrary and capricious capitol punishment procedure is. Or pretty much anything having to do with staying alive if you weren't born rich.). They don't consider liberty to be much of a right either, judging by their views on privacy and search and seizure. No, the only thing they're interested in is property, and then only the kind of property you have to be rich to have.

But let's start with property and run with it. You'd think there would be little debate that your body is your property, so you have a right to it. Apparently not, as far as the Sutherland Insta-poop is concerned. If your employer exposes you to hazardous working conditions and injures you, that should be just tough. That's a risk you have to take because we don't want to interfere with your employer's property. If your friendly neighborhood factory poisons your water and gives you cancer, that's just another risk you have to take because we don't want to interfere with the factory owner's property.

As far as the Sutherland Insta-poop is concerned, there is no right to life (unless you haven't been born yet), there is no right to liberty, and the only property that creates a right is that of the rich and powerful.

Yes, I'm Still Here

2008-10-03T17:38:00.003-06:00

There's just so much bad craziness, I don't know where to start.

How about the Inspector General's report that blames Kyle Sampson for the improper firing of all those insufficiently fascist US District Attorneys? You know those orders came from above him, but I have to laugh that this is being pinned on such an archetypal BYU Law grad. They train them to follow orders down there in Provo, and that's what he did. He would have made a great concentration camp commander.

Meanwhile, the Park City schools have adopted International Baccalaureate programs in an attempt to make US high school diplomas something more than the laughing stocks they currently are internationally. You may recall the Utah Legislature's dual dipshits Margaret Dayton and Howard Stephenson shooting down funding for this back in May because they thought it was run by the UN. Those two have decided to let it proceed now, although they intend to keep an eye on this subversion. The private sector, though, has picked up the torch of dipshittiness and is running full steam. Cherilyn Bacon(brain) Eagar, director of World Class Education Research which she runs out of Holladay (Yeah, that sounds like a real "world class" operation.), says that the program is run by UNESCO and so preaches socialist dogma and that it doesn't surprise her that Park City adopted the program because it's the "Hollywood of the Rocky Mountains."

Folks, if you want to know why the US is spinning in at Mach 6, it isn't because of immigrants or declining morals or secular humanism or any other Norsefire bugaboo. It's because our education system is controlled by people like Baconbrain: Right Catholics, Fundies, Orthomorms, people who don't have the mental capacity of a squashed banana slug.

Let's call it what it is

2008-08-27T07:36:00.003-06:00

The headline this morning read, "People of faith challenge Democrats." The story was about the usual gang of idiots (Fundy Christians, Ortho Jews, Right Catholics) protesting abortion rights, gay rights, etc., etc., etc.

Hey, assholes, I'm a person of faith. You are a mob of self-righteous shitheads who want the rest of us to live according to your asinine interpretations of the campfire stories of Bronze Age sheep herders. Why don't you people find a group of islands (preferably in Southeast Asia, where you can be in a monsoon track and surrounded by pirates) and build your little theocracies there?

Texas Joins Utah in Declaring Right to Child Molestation

2008-05-23T05:44:00.005-06:00

A Texas appeals court has decided there was no evidence to support the seizing of the FLDS children (Are you telling me, oh Great Black Robed Ones, there was NO EVIDENCE of a pattern of underage pregnancies by adult males? I'm incredulous, but then you are Texas judges, which means you're probably illiterate.). Great. Now these clowns will act with even greater impudence, believing that God will keep justice from stopping their holy perversions. I'm beginning to think that their sick God (the one also worshiped by what seems to be a majority of Christians, although they try to hide it), really does run this country, which would explain a lot.

This much I know: Any society that so utterly fails to protect its most at risk members needs to go down for the protection of us all. Fortunately, the US is in the process of destroying itself. The Rethuglicans have done such a job that there may be nothing to do but sit back, crack open a cold one, and watch the great train wreck.

And speaking of particularly Utah perversions...

2008-04-17T08:49:00.002-06:00

...how about the Legislature? The Rethuglicans railroaded an omnibus education bill last session that had as many ingredients as fruitcake. Now a citizen group is filing a suit challenging the constitutionality of that suit because, hey, the State Constitution has a single-subject requirement. And Greg Curtis, Speaker of the House and point-whore for his law firm's lobbying efforts, is pissed. He thinks it's an invasion of the Legislature's authority for the courts to interpret the Constitution. These assclown Norsefires are never going to get that checks-and-balances thing or that it's the courts' job to interpret the Constitution. No, they're rich, white, Mormon patriarchs, and they can run anything better than you. Including your own life.

Speaking of pervs...

2008-04-16T20:01:00.003-06:00

...the Texas raid on the FLDS compound is proceeding to the hearing stage. The news there is full of stories of how the courts, the state bar, law enforcement, social service agencies, and many others are working together to overcome the logistical nightmare of such a big case in such an isolated area so that the kids are protected while everybody gets a fair day in court. The Utah news, on the other hand, is full of histrionics about how the Texas authorities have gone too far and how the children are being traumatized by separation from their parents (as opposed to the trauma of being a child bride [for the girls] or being brainwashed into believing having a child bride is a good idea [for the boys]). This state is just sick.

Alright all you pervs...

2008-04-16T19:49:00.003-06:00

...Emma Watson is legal now. Turned 18 earlier this week. Like a cute, rich girl who pulled straight A-Levels is going to want anything to do with you fat, pathetic, wimpy, geeky wankers.

Ben Stein is a Whore

2008-04-13T10:39:00.004-06:00

Well, OK, that was a given. The whoredom of anyone who was a speech writer for Tricky Dick is thoroughly established. Stein, though, has been working on his intellectual credentials the last several years (Intellectual by US standards, that is, which means you drool only a little and can usually get to the bathroom by yourself. Which is yet another reason the rest of the world views the US as a joke. A cruel joke with too much money, too many weapons, and not enough sense to manage either.). Now he is using his new "legitimacy" in his new film "Expelled," which supposedly exposes the persecution of those who espouse "intelligent design" (I put that in quotes because there is in fact nothing intelligent about "intelligent design." And there are good reasons mainstream science doesn't accept it as an alternative theory, such as: 1) little if any evidence offered supporting it, its proponents focusing instead on attacking evolution, and failing miserably; 2) no methodology for potentially falsifying the theory, understandable since it's in fact scripturally based and most of its proponents can accept no falsifying; and 3) no methodology for scientifically examining an intelligent designer. Stein, along with all the other proponents, simply ignores all this and claims "academic persecution.").

The depth of Stein's intellectualism is apparent, though, in his marketing of the film. There have been no screenings for critics, and the only screenings have been for carefully selected groups of evangelicals. In other words, Stein's film is an exploitive shit fest that he expects to rake in a bunch of cash by preaching to the choir, not by actually exploring the issues. I am so shocked.

Mallard Fillpants, Tax Expert

2008-04-13T10:07:00.003-06:00

After being quiet for awhile, that assclown anidae Mallard Fillpants is making noise just in time for taxes. Using that oh-so-reliable waste dump The Tax Foundation as his source, he trots out the factoid that the average American works until April 30th to pay off the tax burden (a right-wing factoid that has been shown time and again to be a marvel of massaged bookkeeping). Then he really goes off the deep end and claims that the Kennedy, Ray-guns, and Chimpy tax cuts increased tax revenues (i.e. that supply side dreckonomics works), even though no one has yet to show any connection between those cuts and any supposed increases in tax revenues (Kennedy's increased revenues were the result of the business cycle, with the country recovering from the recession that hit at the end of the Eisenhower years. Ray-guns "increased" revenue through a series of accounting tricks and smoke-and-mirrors. If revenue increased under Chimpy, it was the result of the false economic growth of the last few years, fueled by real estate and mortgage speculation, and it's all gone now. Fillpants is also ignoring that Ray-guns and Chimpy were cutting taxes for the wealthy while increasing the deficit, thereby increasing the long-term tax load for the rest of us.).

Then he goes for the patently absurd, still relying on The Tax Foundation, and claims that the average American spent more on state and federal taxes last year than on food, clothing, and housing combined. Wait a minute. Pull out your 1040 and your state tax form. Add up the total taxes you paid, even before any refund. Is that as much as you paid on mortgage/rent last year? I didn't think so. Let alone adding food and clothing in. It never ceases to amaze me the brass-plated bullshit Norsefire keeps shoveling at us. And the average moron on the street eats it up with a big spoon.

Texas Busts Perverts Utah Wouldn't Touch

2008-04-13T08:40:00.004-06:00

For such a lightly populated state (There are fewer people in Utah than in the Seattle-Tacoma area, for example.), there is a mind-numbing amount of stupidity packed in here. Just watch any governing body in action. Or the broadcasts of the semi-annual drivel fest known as LDS General Conference, one of which we had clog the arteries of normal life just last weekend. But certainly the most malevolent example of Utah stupidity has been the wink-wink nod-nod it's given the mobs of child molesters hiding in plain sight in polygamist compounds for over a century. Utah has ostensibly given them a pass on religious freedom grounds, although anyone with more wit than a sack of shit knows that religious freedom does not allow you to nail your pubescent niece (I suspect there were two other reasons for turning a blind eye: 1) too many members of Families That Matter secretly involved, and 2) opening that can of worms would also have opened up the orthodox LDS Church's child molestation problem, which isn't limited to little girls.). In spite of this local epidemic of thickness, Utah finally managed to prosecute and convict the leader of the largest group of pervs, the FLDS Church, but it took everything Utah fucktard law enforcement had to do it.

Because of the Utah "persecution," the FLDS moved their headquarters to west Texas. What they didn't figure, though, was that the Texans had no motivation to look the other way (covering up the "sexual indiscretions" of evangelical Christians and right-wing politicians is another matter), so the Rangers kicked the door in and hauled the kids out. There has been much hand-wringing by the usual gang of idiots here in Utah over "persecution" and "oppression," but sane people (i.e. people from anywhere else) generally echo church-state scholar and attorney Marci Hamilton's statement, "Nobody's had the guts to do what Texas authorities did...finally a group of authorities realized they couldn't let it go on any more."

So what do we take away as lessons? First, the obvious point that, in spite of constant noise about caring for children, Utah cares far less about children than it does about the maintenance of the appearance of propriety and of religious authority. Second, and ultimately more importantly, is that we once again see what religion is really about: abusing the weak. Every religion in this country that claims any significant amount of authority (polygamists, LDS, evangelicals, Roman Catholic) have been exposed as having used that authority to commit heinous crimes and then cover them up for years. What do these criminal organizations offer society in return? A road to Heaven through their sewage? If you cling to such idiocy for comfort, I would submit that you too have been abused by these paragons of piety and are so brainwashed that your opinion needs hermetically sealed, not allowed to shape public policy.

Jeez, Lohra...

2008-03-25T16:06:00.002-06:00

...you make this so easy.

Aside from being 24-hour party people at home (and never getting busted for it; hmmm, I wonder just how beholden Whora is to the cops), Our Glorious DA ran her business for years without a business license. She has stated to the media that, essentially, she considers it no big deal. Now, I have admit that I may be vaguely aware (COUGH) of people I'm acquainted with (COUGH COUGH) having operated businesses without licenses. But here's the deal, Lohra: You're the DA, and it's never good when the DA says that ignoring the law "tain't no thang." This is just more evidence supporting what I wrote 11 April: The girl wasn't, isn't, and probably never will be ready for prime time.

I just have to say this

2008-03-25T15:50:00.002-06:00

But first let me say that my long-time best friend is Roman Catholic. Let me also say that there are a lot of batshit crazy people in other religions. Hell, being Mormon and batshit crazy are prerequisites for entering politics in Utah.

But not batshit crazy enough to have junior high kids act out The Lashin' o' the Christ. Last week the kids at St. John the Baptist Middle School (attached to Juan Diego High) performed the 14 Stations of the Cross for Easter, complete with flogging, fake blood, and crucifixion. It never ceases to amaze me how much blood lust the RCC insists on whipping up to celebrate The Prince of Peace.

Where is Spengler from?

2008-01-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

I read the Asia Times. I read a lot of foreign news sources, mainly because there aren't any domestic ones any more, but I try to hit the AT every day. The commentators tend to be too gold-buggy (If things get as bad as the average gold bug predicts, gold will be nearly as worthless as paper currency; the only things people will want are land to raise food and weapons to protect the land and the food.), and too free-markety (Until it becomes as easy to move labor as it is to move capital, the world's flat only if you're rich.), but they're generally tolerable. Except for Spengler. To answer the title question, he must be from Dumbfuckistan. With one side of his mouth he decries US budget and trade deficits and current military fiascoes while with the other side he deifies Ronny Ray-guns, whose eight-year reign of terror was the largest collection of deficits and military fiascoes prior to the current eight-year reign of terror, and who thoroughly set the table for Chimpy and his merry band of neoconjobbers.

Which is it Spengler, you ass clown? With logic like that, you ought to be working for Fux Spews.

State Crapitol

2008-01-06T09:19:00.001-07:00

So the State Capitol building has been rededicated, with lots of blather about its being "The House of the People." Ceremonies were presided over by the Sultan of Senility Gordon B. Hinckley, and there's a brand new bunker in the basement for the governor to hide in so he can avoid The People (except for those properly vetted by the Rethuglican hierarchy). I guess that pretentious pile of putrescence really is "The House of the People" because, let's face it folks, this is all the people of Utah really amount to.

Speaking of religious Groupthink...

2007-12-11T11:26:00.000-07:00

...how about the brouhaha over The Golden Compass. I had to laugh at the item in the Madeleine Choir School's newsletter warning against the movie because it represents the "new face of atheism," which is "aggressive, dogmatic, and unrelenting." Gee, that sounds like Catholicism and any other form of Christo-fascism. Maybe the real problem with the movie is that they don't like competition.

Thank you, UHP...

2007-12-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

...for proving the point I was making in my last post. Trooper Jon Gardner's tasing of Jared Massey in September has been all over the internet. Rational people consider it dick-swinging, cop machismo. UHP, though, has completed its "review" and concluded that Gardner's actions were "reasonable." Of course as far as cops are concerned, anything they do is reasonable. Gardner could have taken a flame thrower to Massey, and that would have been just fine. Anyone still wonder why prosecutors shouldn't take their orders from cops?

Of course the real problem is that there are civilians who think Gardner's behavior was justified. Centerville's own Margaret Hale believes that Gardner was justified because Massey was "aggressive and confrontational" and "is not a humble man." Remember that Gardner tased Massey not once but twice and threatened more. Hale is undoubtedly a Relief Society member and so I suppose should be forgiven for believing that everyone is supposed to simply lay down and spread 'em for any male, authority figure who comes along, but it is truly disturbing how the Dominant Cultural Group here keeps assuming that everyone is going to think, believe, and behave the same as them.

And speaking of more whores...

2007-11-28T13:38:00.000-07:00

...it's time prosecutors got a grip (on something other than cops' willies, because let's face it, prosecution is nothing but mutual masturbation). I won't say anything about the Feds because they're hopeless; Congress has spinelessly given them a set of tools the Spanish Inquisition would drool over, including a whole pile of felonies that require no meaningful intent whatsoever, and now they're doing what comes naturally. No, I'm going to focus locally, and specifically on Lohra "Whora" Miller of Salt Lake County and Jeff "Spew" Buhman of Utah County. Somewhere along the line, these two worthies came to believe that being a good prosecutor means that the victims are your clients, and your bosses are the cops. They charge whatever the cops drag through the door, and they won't cut a deal unless the cops and the victims agree to it.

This is wrong. While victims make a sympathetic group, if they want represented, they can look up one of the full-page ads for plaintiffs' attorneys in the Yellow Pages and call the 800 number. Prosecutors represent the public as a whole, not select individuals. That's why criminal cases are headed "State vs. Doe," not "Victim vs. Doe," and charging and plea decisions should be based on the general welfare, not the victim's.

As for cops, there's a reason they don't have charging authority. They get excited. They throw the book at every jaywalker. They taser and shoot people who look cross-eyed at them. Their objectivity is, shall we say, suspect. So the prosecutor makes the charging decisions. If the prosecutor then turns around and charges everything the way the cops want it, what's the point?

So here's some advice to you, Whora and Spew and all the hundreds of other prosecutors who think like you. If you want to represent victims, get into private practice and stop sucking on tax dollar tit. And if your case decisions are dictated by the cops, you're not a prosecutor, you're a whore who has one of those "special arrangements" with law enforcement.

Speaking of whores...

2007-11-28T13:08:00.000-07:00

...Paul Mero-vingian, president of that fascist Mormon crapfest the Sutherland Institute, opines that the voucher vote does not resolve who controls education. He has no idea how right he is. It ought to be parents and school boards. Our glorious legislature begs to differ.

Taking advantage of the dark places under the big rock that is the Rethuglican majority in the legislature, there is already a proposal to give tax credits for contributions to private school scholarships (mere tax deductions not being enough); Chris Bramble and Howard Stephenson are working to make the State School Board partisan and place it under the control of the Huns who run the state Rethuglican Party, a group that booed Orrin Hatch and Mike Leavitt as being too liberal; and Chris Butt-head wants the legislature to have oversight on the judiciary, largely as a reaction to the Supreme Court having the temerity to rule that the referendum laws mean what they say and that the people get a meaningful vote on the legislatures actions.

Why should anyone be surprised that a bunch of Mormon bishops and stake presidents, who believe they have a divine imprimatur to tell everyone how to run their lives, want to reverse a landslide vote. We were obviously misled, and the legislature is doing this for our own good.

Vouchers

2007-11-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Well, , the voters overwhelmingly shot down taking tax money from public schools and giving it to rich people who send their kids to private schools, and the Norsefire response has been predictable. People were duped by the teachers' union. The Cato Institute, proving once again that it isn't in favor of liberty and freedom of choice but rather is just a whore for rich fascists, says so. Robert Enlow of the Friedman Foundation, proving likewise, says so. And Fux Spews of course says so. Voters were misled by all that union money.

Let's ignore that rural Utah sensibly voted its pocketbook, seeing vouchers for what they were: taking money from their schools and giving it to rich city folk. Let's ignore the millions that rich Nazis spent supporting vouchers, including Patrick Byrne's $4+ million and Larry Miller's full-page bullshit fest in the Trib. Let's ignore the lies from the voucher side, such as the claim that Mormons would be disobeying scripture if they voted against vouchers, or that Bill Clinton is pro-voucher just because he once was interested in the Milwaukee plan (which BTW is needs-based, in contrast to the Utah plan, which would have paid regardless of the wealth of the recipient), or the lie by omission that Richard and Linda Eyre could stack Oreos all day, but what they were really doing was stealing our Oreos and putting them in their pockets. Yeah, let's ignore that. It must have been the union money.

Even Merrill "De Doop De Doop" Cook, who led the 1988 voucher campaign, saw that the voucher people had way overplayed their hand and were going down hard. But no, it's just that people can't make these decisions for themselves.

Speaking of Larry Miller and the 1988 voucher campaign, his parents were among the leaders of the opposition to that campaign. I wonder what they would think of their over-funded and under-souled son if they were around to see this.

The Rot in Zion

2007-09-22T10:49:00.000-06:00

If we need further evidence that there is something profoundly wrong with Utah, let us compare two prosecutions. Orem continues to persecute Betty Perry with the full of the law for failing to maintain a sufficiently green lawn here in our drought-ridden desert. On the other hand, how many years has it taken for anyone to get around to prosecuting Warren Jeffs (or any of the other holy perverts around here, for that matter)? The sick thing is, I wouldn't be surprised if he were acquitted, merely because he's a religious leader practicing his beliefs. That's why he hasn't been prosecuted, after all. Utah and the LDS Church like to hold themselves out as cities on the hill for all us sinners follow, but they still haven't figured out that it's just plain wrong to encourage someone to nail his 14-year-old cousin.

Winning Hearts and Minds?

2007-08-13T13:52:00.000-06:00

Well, I see the US military in Iraq has not progressed at all since Vietnam in the art of winning over indigenous populations. A place called FOB Warhorse segregates the Iraqi civilian employees into separate and inferior restrooms, showers, and chow lines. The Army gives two excuses for this: 1) We need to isolate them for security purposes, and 2) they misuse the showers and toilets. Concerning the first excuse, if we can't control whom we let into the house any better than that, these little segregation tactics won't help. Further, many of these Iraqis bunk in the same tents as the troops they translate for. It seems they have all the access they need if they are actually in league with a terrorist group.

Concerning the second excuse, US military personnel have been circulating those stories about every non-Anglo group they come in contact with for just about forever. During the Civil War, it was the Blacks and Irish who couldn't use a toilet properly and had no hygiene. During WWI the French couldn't use a toilet, even though they had to teach us how to build a field latrine. All the Iraqis contacted say they know how to use the plumbing, and there is no indication in the news reports that there has been any training offered for those who don't.

Sounds like the personnel policies are based on bullshit, which should come as no surprise since the whole war is based on bullshit.

What is the Deal with Development?

2007-08-13T13:37:00.000-06:00

Last week's Mallard Fillpants reminded me of a conundrum that has been making noise on the right since the Supreme Court's Kelo decision. The right wingers have been thumping their tubs hard over eminent domain being used to turn land over to private developers, claiming it's yet another step toward a socialist dictatorship. The thing that puzzles me is that the overwhelming majority of developers cashing in on this process are themselves right wingers who use significant portions of their booty to support right wing causes and candidates. Is this just the usual conservative logic disconnect, or is there a deeper game going on?

Orem Flogs Grandma

2007-07-12T09:39:00.002-06:00

This has been in the news all over the world, and I can think of no more deserving town, except maybe Provo. An Orem cop bloodies a 70-year-old woman's nose while trying to arrest her for not watering her lawn. Only in fucking Utah.

The cops of course are closing ranks and lying like rugs (not exactly unique to Utah). They claim she fell while being arrested; she says she was hit in the face with handcuffs. They claim she refused to identify herself; she says she was just trying to call her son.

Let's assume it makes sense to ticket people for not flood-irrigating their lawns during a drought. If this were the civilized world, there would have been a pre-printed ticket with the record owner's name on it for the cop to serve on the lady. Even if she didn't identify herself, hauling her off to jail wouldn't have been the first response. But this wasn't the civilized world. It was Orthomorm, which is Dark Ages Europe with SUVs.

But does it make sense to require all these green lawns in a desert? Does it make sense to make it criminal not water your lawn in a drought? Does it make sense to make a convict out of a septuagenarian pensioner who can't afford the water bill? Only in Utah.