Free Republic

“Die Kitties Die!” screamed the headline in the New York Daily News when, in 2013, former Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief Joe Lhota criticized a decision to pause trains in a Brooklyn subway station to rescue a pair of kittens lost on the tracks. These days, New York so badly needs to get the trains to run on time that Lhota, whose unfortunate anti-cat comments caused a minor scandal, has been brought back as chairman of the transit agency.

Criminal laws and regulations in the United States have increased to absurd proportions in the past few decades, posing a growing threat to our constitutional liberties. There are nearly 5,000 criminal laws and an estimated 300,000 or more criminal regulations at the federal level alone. In fact, there are so many possible criminal offenses that Harvey Silverglate, a civil liberties attorney, contends the average American probably commits at least three felonies a day, most without knowing it. In April, the perils of overcriminalization were on full display when Brian Everidge traveled to Michigan with more than 10,000 bottles and cans,...

There are few things more precious to Swedes than their traditional drinking habits, and a new EU-wide rule change affecting one of their favorite Christmas drinks has some of the normally tranquil Scandinavians up in arms. A yuletide tradition in Sweden since the 1800s, glögg (a variation of mulled wine) is consumed at parties and gatherings throughout the Christmas period, and is often strengthened with additional spirits to give it an extra kick. But now, some drinks previously labeled as glögg will no longer be allowed to carry that name, with revised EU legislation on the labeling of aromatized wine...

The Senate Finance Committee on Thursday announced its opposition to the construction of more high-speed TGV routes in France for at least the next 15 years, targeting three planned high speed rail routes in particular. A report into infrastructure financing has advised against pouring money into “projects where the socioeconomic viability is doubtful, the costs are unreasonable and the finance plan is still unknown”. Plans for LGV lines connecting Bordeaux with Toulouse and Dax, Poitiers with Limoges, and Montpellier with Perpignan were singled out as costly and unnecessary. …

Periods of industry-redefining regulatory change are hardly new. What is unprecedented is the volume and relentless pace of regulation. Organizations have to ensure they can implement the system code changes and update operating processes to comply with the welter of new legislation, regulatory initiatives and rule amendments. And they have less time in which to react to those changes. To further complicate matters, the regulations are coming from multiple sources, with no consideration of whether the objectives are complementary or conflicting, and what the cumulative impact will be. Two primary objectives are driving the extensive regulatory agenda: a desire for...

Employers cut jobs in 20 states last month, suggesting modest improvement in the U.S. job market this year is not enough to benefit all areas of the country. The Labor Department said Friday that 29 states added jobs, while Montana showed no net gain or loss in August. Unemployment rates rose in 18 states, fell in 17 and were unchanged in 15. …

The Mississippi (Catfish Marketing L)aw, which updates a 2008 law, requires every grocer and restaurant in the state to “provide the consumer with the country of origin and method of production of catfish” and, now, of other catfish-like fish. While the 2008 law required groceries throughout the state to provide country-of-origin labeling for catfish alone, the new law expands the measure to include all catfish-like fish, which is mostly imported, at every “restaurant, cafeteria, lunch room, food stand, saloon, tavern, bar, lounge or other similar facility operated as an enterprise engaged in the business of selling food to the public.”...

(CNSNews.com) - President Barack Obama says Democrats "don't want to tax all businesses out of business." "I know that there are a few Republicans here in the audience," Obama said Friday at a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign in Palo Alto, Ca. "If you talk to us, it turns out we're pretty common-sense folks. "We don't think government can do everything," he said. "We don't think that top-down solutions are the right way to go. We believe in the free market. We believe in a light touch when it comes to regulations."

The European Union is to ban olive oil jugs and dipping bowls from restaurant tables in a move described by one of Britain’s top cooks as authoritarian and damaging to artisan food makers. The small glass jugs filled with green- or gold-colored extra virgin olive oil are familiar and traditional for restaurant goers across Europe, but they will be banned from 1 January 2014 after a decision taken in an obscure Brussels committee earlier this week. From next year, olive oil “presented at a restaurant table” must be in prepackaged factory bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labeling in...