Laughable legislation in Indiana's General Assembly

STRAIGHT FROM THE TEAT | SB0610
Oftentimes, students who have never lived south of Indianapolis experience a degree of culture shock after enrolling in IU, living and migrating to the arse-end of the state. The causes tend to include southern accents, Waffle House and the staggering number of crimes that can be committed with livestock. While lonely farmers seeking companionship remain out of luck, Senate Bill 0610 will allow farmers to drink the unpasteurized milk of their livestock, as well as offer it to guests of the farm. We at the Indiana Daily Student can only shake our heads at the moral decay that comes with removing milk from the list of controlled substances. Fortunately, marijuana remains strictly prohibited.

PRESERVE ALL THE FLAGS | SB0323
Senate Bill 0050 seeks to appropriate half a million from the state treasury for the restoration and preservation of Civil War flags. Legislators seemed to realize this was a terrible idea. An amended bill, Senate Bill 0323, would extend this money to the protection of all Indiana battle flags. While we’re glad to see this money isn’t being wasted on trivial concerns, like education, health care or running a state government, we’re still pretty bitter that they refuse to acknowledge our poster of Hunter S. Thompson as an official IDS Battle Flag.

BOWLING CENTER IMMUNITY | SB0468
Just like time, bowlers keep on slipping, slipping, slipping, and some state senator with ties to Big Bowling is tired of bowling alleys getting blamed for the patrons’ negligence. Bowling centers are now protected from lawsuits by those who slip and fall in their alleys, provided that the “substance on the bowler’s shoe ... was acquired outside the bowling center and tracked in.”  While bowling alleys are pleased with the potential new law, Keller & Keller are incensed at the prospect of losing revenue, as bowling alley mishaps provide roughly 100 percent of their clientele.

WRITE IN CURSIVE | SB0120
Instruction in reading was apparently not already mandated by Indiana law. We wondered why we were having trouble increasing readership — it’s because graduates of Indiana public schools are all illiterate. The Indiana Statehouse is coming to the rescue, ensuring that reading will be included in the curriculum this coming school year. The bill also requires cursive instruction, because cursive is not important at all and you can go through your whole life not knowing the proper strokes and still be a successful person. The pairing provides Indiana’s trademark balance of being behind on the important things and ahead on everything that doesn’t matter.

HUNTING FOR THE HUNGRY | SB0364
Senate Bill 0364 would allocate funds for an Indiana sportsman benevolence account. This proposal would encourage hunters to donate the game they kill to feed the hungry of Indiana. This proposal is at least as efficient as forcing all the hungry to compete in a reality television show and awarding food to the winner, and not just because Suzanne Collins threatened to sue for copyright infringement. In all seriousness, though, this is a great proposal. Everyone wins, except for the deer, of course.

A LICENSED HAPPY ENDING | SB0573
Do you fancy yourself a masseuse-in-training? Do all of your friends rave about your massages? Are you always the caboose on a massage train? Well, watch out, because IU Police Department could come knocking very soon if this bill is signed into law. It makes it a class B misdemeanor to practice massage therapy without a license. This means illegal masseuses will get more strict punishment than first-time drunk drivers. Those “happy ending” massage parlors just got double illegal. They might as well start selling coke, too.

NO TAKE BACKS | SB0194
For those of you without a classics major, caveat emptor is a Latin phrase which, depending on your translation, means either “no take backs” or “never trust a used chariot salesman.” Senate Bill 0194 defies this ancient wisdom by proposing a 72-hour window in which car purchases can be rescinded. Unfortunately for our sex lives, safeguards in the bill prevent us from renting a Lamborghini every few days. Trust us, we’ve checked. It’s more like repealing a tax on people who don’t understand auto mechanics. This proposal is great for consumer rights in general and liberal arts majors in
particular.

ANIMALS ON AIRPORT RUNWAYS | SB0104
This bill provides for the plague of wild animals wandering onto airport runways, allowing airport managers to unleash dogs and/or the kraken on any wild animal stupid enough to venture onto the runway, because fixing an animal problem with more animals is the way to go. It also allows for the hunting and trapping of wild animals without a hunting license in these instances. I guess the airport just became the hunting grounds we had all dreamed of. Nothing like firing a gun around pressurized cabins.