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The odd joys of government lunacy[/h] 									 				By 
George F. Will
				 			
 			November 26, 2014
Before the tryptophan in the turkey induces somnolence, give thanks for living in such an entertaining country. 
 This year, for example, we learned that California’s legislature includes 93 persons who seem never to have had sex. 
 They enacted the “affirmative consent” law directing college  administrators to tell students that sexual consent cannot be silence  but must be “affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement” and  “ongoing throughout a sexual activity.” 
 Claremont McKenna College requires “all” — not “both,” which would  discriminate against groups — participants in a sexual engagement to  understand that withdrawal of consent can be any behavior conveying  “that an individual is hesitant, confused, uncertain.”
 A severely moral California high-school principal prohibited the  football booster club from raising money by selling donated Chick-fil-A  meals because this company opposed same-sex marriage. 
 The school superintendent approved the ban because “we value inclusivity and diversity.” Up to a point. 
 At a Washington state community college, invitations to a “happy  hour” celebrating diversity and combating racism said white people were  not invited.
 At Broward College near Miami, a conservative who was asking students  if they agreed that “big government sucks” was told by a campus  security guard that she must take her question to the campus  “free-speech area.” 
 She got off lightly: The federal government has distributed to local  police, including those of some colleges and school districts, more than  600 surplus MRAP (mine-resistant ambush-protected) armored vehicles  designed for Iraq and Afghanistan.
 The federal government, which has Tomahawk cruise missiles and Apache  and Lakota helicopters, used the code name “Geronimo” in the attack  that killed Osama bin Laden but objected to the name of the Washington  Redskins. 
 The Department of Homeland Security, unsleepingly vigilant, raided a  Kansas City shop to stop sales of panties emblazoned with unauthorized  Royals logos. 
 A US Forest Service article on safe marshmallow-toasting did not  neglect to nag us: It suggested fruit rather than chocolate in s’mores.  The droll Orange County Register wondered, “Why not replace the  marshmallow with a Brussels sprout?” 
 The federal government’s food police began cracking down on schools’  fund-raising bake sales: Step away from those brownies and put your  hands on a fruit cup.
 Niagara County, NY, spent $700,000 of its Tobacco Master Settlement Money not on fighting smoking but on golf-course equipment. 
 In Seattle, the Freedom Socialist Party, which favors a $20-an-hour  minimum wage, advertised a job opening for a Web developer to be paid  $13 an hour.
 Joe Biden was off by 160,839 when citing the number of people killed  in the 2011 Joplin, Mo., tornado. He said 161,000. But the former  chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee expressed optimism  about “the nation of Africa.” 
 Barack Obama explained the Keystone XL pipeline: “It is providing the  ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land, down to  the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else. 
 That doesn’t have an impact on US gas prices.” Someone very patient  should try to explain to him that prices of petroleum are set by a  global market.
 Hamlet: “Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?”
 Polonius: “By the mass, and ’tis like a camel, indeed.” 
 Hamlet: “Methinks it is like a weasel.” 
 Polonius: “It is backed like a weasel.” 
 Hamlet: “Or like a whale?” 
 Polonius: “Very like a whale.” 
 Fortunately, Polonius was not among the Colorado Springs  second-graders invited to use their imaginations in seeing shapes in  clouds. Kody Smith said one looked like a gun. So, a behavior report was  filed against the 8-year-old. 
 A South Carolina high-school student was arrested and suspended after  having written a story about killing a dinosaur with a gun.
 “The Great Immensity,” a climate-change musical financed by $700,000 from the National Science Foundation, quickly closed. 
 Outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, perhaps planning for wars  with small carbon footprints, fretted that global warming “could  threaten many of our training activities.” 
 Alarmed by reports that global warming will cause a 4-foot rise in  sea levels, California Gov. Jerry Brown warned that “Los Angeles’  airport’s going to be underwater.” It is more than 120 feet above sea  level. 
 Because everything confirms the theory of impending catastrophic  global warming, in 2005 Hurricane Katrina was called a harbinger of  increasingly violent weather caused by . . . well, you know. 
 Today, Louisianans are thankful that this was the ninth consecutive hurricane season without a major hurricane landfall.