I Tried to Open a Lemonade Stand...but, but I didn't have a fire extinguisher and I failed the puffer fish question.

"What toxins are associated with the puffer fish?" (See answer here )

I Tried to Open a Lemonade Stand

 

by John Stossel

Want to open a business in America? It isn't easy.
In Midway, Ga., a 14-year-old girl and her 10-year-old sister sold lemonade from their front yard. Two police officers bought some. But the next day, different officers ordered them to close their stand.
Their father went to city hall to try to find out why. The clerk laughed and said she didn't know. Eventually, Police Chief Kelly Morningstar explained, "We were not aware of how the lemonade was made, who made the lemonade and of what the lemonade was made with."
Give me a break. If she doesn't know, so what? But kids trying their first experiment with entrepreneurship are being shut down all over America. Officials in Hazelwood, IllinoisIll., ordered little girls to stop selling Girl Scout cookies.
It made me want to try to jump through the legal hoops required to open a simple lemonade stand in New York City. Here's some of what one has to do:
— Register as sole proprietor with the County Clerk's Office (must be done in person)
— Apply to the IRS for an Employer Identification Number.
— Complete 15-hr Food Protection Course!
— After the course, register for an exam that takes 1 hour. You must score 70 percent to pass. (Sample question: "What toxins are associated with the puffer fish?") If you pass, allow three to five weeks for delivery of Food Protection Certificate.
— Register for sales tax Certificate of Authority
— Apply for a Temporary Food Service Establishment Permit. Must bring copies of the previous documents and completed forms to the Consumer Affairs Licensing Center.
Then, at least 21 days before opening your establishment, you must
arrange for an inspection with the Health Department's Bureau of Food Safety and Community Sanitation.
It takes about three weeks to get your appointment. If you pass, you can set up a business once you:
— Buy a portable fire extinguisher from a company certified by the New York Fire Department and set up a contract for waste disposal.
— We couldn't finish the process. Had we been able to schedule our health inspection and open my stand legally, it would have taken us 65 days.
I sold lemonade anyway. I looked dumb hawking it with my giant fire extinguisher on the table.
Tourists told me they couldn't believe that I had to get "all those permits." A Pakistani man said: "That's crazy! You should move to Pakistan!"
But I don't want to move to Pakistan.
Politicians say, "We support entrepreneurs," but the bureaucrats make it hard. The Feds alone add 80,000 pages of new rules every year. Local governments add more. There are so many incomprehensible rules that even the bureaucrats can't tell you what's legal. In the name of public safety, politicians strangle opportunity.
John Stossel's TV Special on America's explosion of laws, "Illegal Everything," will air tonight, Friday, at 9 p.m. EST on Fox News Channel.
John Stossel is host of "Stossel" on the Fox Business Network. He's the author of "Give Me a Break" and of "Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity." To find out more about John Stossel, visit his site at >johnstossel.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

Comments Also in Midway, GA, sometime around December (2011) a woman was rummaging through the local trash dump/pick up site for 'good stuff'. This was a woman with not a lot of income. Many people like to find usable or fixable items something like a treasure hunt. She was told to leave and that she could not pick through the trash or take anything because that is stealing from the government. Everything there belongs to the government. So, now I suppose being poor, thrifty, or even homeless and trying to survive is illegal?????   Comment: #1 Posted by: d Fri Feb 24, 2012 8:12 PM Just sell the damn lemonade anyway. Unless the cops have time on their hands, they're not going to bother. Let them give you 100 summonses for it. Do you think the judge is going to care? Do you think the District Attorney wants to waste her time? Be sure to get out there and sell if you hear police sirens, because if the cops have their hands full with an emergency, there will be none available to hassle the kids.   Comment: #2 Posted by: Leonard Sat Feb 25, 2012 6:44 AM I had a company in Ohio. Did about $1000 gross per month. After three months in business I got a bill from the Ohio Tax Department for $12000. I thought it was a joke, and I ignored it to the last two days, then called. They said it was an "estimated" bill and I had 30 days to pay or reply. AFTER that it became cut in stone and I had to pay it. The estimate was what the big boys payed and they lumped everyone together.   Comment: #3 Posted by: Tom Sat Feb 25, 2012 7:46 AM I agree with the nonsense of police shutting down a child's lemonade stand; however, I did not appreciate John Stossel's comment regarding those who choose to drink raw milk as "silly food faddists". I was given raw, whole milk right out of the womb, given I grew up on a dairy farm. I am 47 years old and truly believe that the natural probiotics in raw milk are what have given me such a strong immune system and kept me "healthy as a horse". Organic and raw is not a fad, it is a smarter and healthier choice than the chemical and preservative-laden food that the government deems suitable for Americans. I'll take my risk with organic and raw over cancer causing chemicals any day.   Comment: #4 Posted by: CDiNoia Sat Feb 25, 2012 3:51 PM Can I purchase this program??   Comment: #5 Posted by: A Magruder Sat Feb 25, 2012 7:15 PM The second biggest business during alcohol prohibition in 1920s Detroit was liquor, at $215 million a year and employing an estimated 50,000 people. Authorities were not only helpless to stop it, many were part of the problem. During just one raid, the state police arrested Detroit Mayor John Smith, Michigan Congressman Robert Clancy, and Sheriff Edward Stein. Just like their counter-parts of the 1920s, Drug cartels are eager and ready to show, that when it comes to business, they too, are completely non-partisan. They will buy-out and threaten politicians of any party; making deals with whoever can benefit them, and killing those who are brave or foolish enough to get in their way. Prohibition comes with great human cost. If you support it you're either a black market profiteer, a corrupt politician, a terrorist, a sadomoralistic fake-conservative, or an authoritarian wing-nut-socialist. As a prohibitionist, you've helped create a black market with massive incentives to hook both adults and children alike, while making these dangerous substances freely available in schools and prisons. You've triggered the worst crime wave in history (ramping up extortion, kidnapping, carjacking and other crimes that directly prey on civilians), raised gang warfare to a level not seen since the days of alcohol bootlegging, and helped evolve local gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, with significant social and military resources at their disposal. Your insistence that only criminals should sell drugs has put previously unknown, dangerous, contaminated concoctions on our streets. Your aberrant ignorance has diverting scarce law-enforcement resources away from protecting peaceful citizens from YOUR ever-escalating prohibition-engendered mega-violence. - These are the very same citizens that you falsely claim to represent. How can you even sleep at night, knowing that your actions are preventing the sick and dying from obtaining safe and effective medication? Knowing you are responsible for the horrific racial disparities which have bred generations of incarcerated and disenfranchised Afro Americans? Or knowing you're promoting a policy which kills our children, endangers our law enforcement and military personnel, counteracts our foreign policy, and reduces much of the developing world to anarchy? Mexico has become "Afghanistan with margaritas" - the situation in both of these countries is a direct result of your beloved policy of prohibition!   Comment: #6 Posted by: malcolm kyle Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:13 AM

Panetta and Obama are openly declaring that they no longer represent the American people

From Infowars.com         
Coup D’etat: Pentagon & Obama Declare Congress Ceremonial          

Congressman Jones introduces bill that would subject Panetta & Obama to impeachment
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Thursday, March 8, 2012

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s testimony asserting that the United Nations and NATO have supreme authority over the actions of the United States military, words which effectively declare Congress a ceremonial relic, have prompted Congressman Walter Jones to introduce a resolution that re-affirms such behavior as an “impeachable high crime and misdemeanor” under the Constitution.

See video here

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing yesterday, Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey brazenly admitted that their authority comes not from the U.S. Constitution, but that the United States is subservient to and takes its marching orders from the United Nations and NATO, international bodies over which the American people have no democratic influence.

Panetta was asked by Senator Jeff Sessions, “We spend our time worrying about the U.N., the Arab League, NATO and too little time, in my opinion, worrying about the elected representatives of the United States. As you go forward, will you consult with the United States Congress?”
The Defense Secretary responded “You know, our goal would be to seek international permission. And we would come to the Congress and inform you and determine how best to approach this, whether or not we would want to get permission from the Congress.”
Despite Sessions’ repeated efforts to get Panetta to acknowledge that the United States Congress is supreme to the likes of NATO and the UN, Panetta exalted the power of international bodies over the US legislative branch.
“I’m really baffled by the idea that somehow an international assembly provides a legal basis for the United States military to be deployed in combat,” Sessions said. “I don’t believe it’s close to being correct. They provide no legal authority. The only legal authority that’s required to deploy the United States military is of the Congress and the president and the law and the Constitution.”
In an effort to re-affirm the fact that “the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution,” Republican Congressman Walter Jones has introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives.
The full text reads;

Expressing the sense of Congress that the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.
Whereas the cornerstone of the Republic is honoring Congress’s exclusive power to declare war under article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that, except in response to an actual or imminent attack against the territory of the United States, the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress violates Congress’s exclusive power to declare war under article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution and therefore constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.

Under the terms of Jones’ resolution, both Panetta and Obama would be subject to impeachment for abusing their power and violating the Constitution in disregarding the authority of Congress and placing a foreign power above its jurisdiction.
Despite the Pentagon’s efforts to claim that Panetta’s words were misinterpreted, the Obama administration itself has routinely cited the authority of the United Nations in relation to last year’s invasion of Libya, which was conducted without approval from Congress.
In June last year, President Obama arrogantly expressed his hostility to the rule of law when he dismissed the need to get congressional authorization to commit the United States to a military intervention in Libya, churlishly dismissing criticism and remarking, “I don’t even have to get to the Constitutional question.”
Obama tried to legitimize his failure to obtain Congressional approval for military involvement by sending a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner in which he said the military assault was “authorized by the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council.”
In boldly asserting the authority of international powers over and above the legislative branch, Panetta and Obama are openly declaring that they no longer represent the American people and instead are water carriers for a global dictatorship that has usurped the sovereignty of the United States.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News

______________________________

Congressman Jones is apparently the only member of Congress that truly represents the people...else Obama would already be serving time or deported to Kenya.

Further, why haven't any of the recent pool of presidential candidates making impeachment one of their talking points? Opposing Obama and his Marxist clan of Czars is not being racist, its being American. ~ Norman E. Hooben

Leon Panetta Trashes U.S. Constitution

This is not unusual for any of Obama's people for every single one of them have been selected for their anti-American ideology (from  the New World Order clan).  As for this exchange between Senator Sessions I would not have given Panetta a chance to redeem himself...and even that attempt was p--- poor!  Sessions should also have chastised Panetta when Libya was brought into the fray.  Now I like Senator Sessions but he has to get tough with these Marxists that are destroying the country...intentionally destroying it!  When Panetta expressed his unconstitutional views Sessions should have closed down the interview and started impeachment proceedings. ~ Norman E. Hooben

A Bible, An Almanac, and A Prayerbook...a soldier's story

Deck Of Cards...two versions
I was quite young when I first heard this story (the 2nd version below) and for an eight year old, I was impressed.  In fact, I even memorized it!  Although over the years it has long been lost in the deep reservoirs of my brain only to be resurrected by a recent email reminder.  The young man in the first video is also impressive with his slight of hand enhancement to the story.  But I post the second video for a couple of reasons.  First, it was the version I originally heard by Tex Ritter.  Second, although this has nothing to do with the story...it's the artist that I have somewhat of a connection.  Back in the early 70's I had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Tex Ritter.  She was the guest speaker at our NCO Academy graduation at Knoxville, Tennessee.  After the ceremonies I was in conversation with her and retold the story of my first encounter with the Deck of Cards by her husband Tex.  I don't remember exactly what she said to me at the time but I could see in her eyes the flow of love she had for him.  It was one of those moments that all else is lost except for the experience of having been there and you felt good for having shared the moment. ~ Norman E. Hooben

Great News...America is waking up! Agenda 21 banned from Texas city !

"...leaving ICLEI is only a first step in a community’s battle against Agenda 21, experts noted. Policies, boards, decisions, and other measures implemented at the behest of the international organization must also be undone. Citizens, of course, must remain vigilant, too. But according to opponents of the UN-led schemes, College Station is now on the right track."

The following from: New American

Texas City Withdraws From ICLEI, UN “Agenda 21”

Written by Alex Newman

Officials in the City of College Station, Texas, announced that the city government would be withdrawing from ICLEI, an international organization linked to the United Nations and its controversial “Agenda 21.” Local Tea Party activists and concerned citizens promptly applauded the decision as another victory for national sovereignty and property rights. Communities and lawmakers across the nation have been fighting back against the UN’s so-called “sustainable development” schemes for years. But the trend is accelerating as more and more cities and towns cancel their memberships in “ICLEI — Local Governments for Sustainability,” formerly known as the “International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives.” The UN-linked non-profit is essentially a global advocacy group seeking to implement a broad range of policies at every level of government — especially the plans laid out in Agenda 21, a UN scheme to radically alter the world under the guise of environmentalism. But ICLEI and the agenda it represents have come under increasing scrutiny recently as awareness grows and activists mobilize. While “sustainability” may sound nice at first, critics of the plans note that advocates of “sustainable development” have much broader goals in mind. "Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class — involving high meat intake, the use of fossil fuels, electrical appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning and suburban housing — are not sustainable," noted Earth Summit Secretary-General Maurice Strong as he ushered in Agenda 21 two decades ago. Dozens of local governments and counties have already expelled ICLEI in recent years. In fact, membership in the international organization has declined from over 600 local governments in America in 2009 to around 550 today. A new wave of withdrawals is expected in 2012 as public outrage over the schemes and the dangers they represent to freedom continues to build. The city of College Station and its almost 100,000 residents just became the most recent example of a community taking action to protect the rights of citizens. According to Jason Stuebe, the assistant to the College Station city manager, local officials decided over a month ago that leaving ICLEI was in the best interests of the community. And so, in late February, the city sent ICLEI a letter stating that College Station would not be renewing its membership or participating in any of the organization’s programs going forward. “Furthermore, I asked that ICLEI immediately cancel our membership (if it is even still active), and remove the City of College Station and its officers from any and all ICLEI rosters, publications, and websites,” Stuebe said. Other local governments found that, even after withdrawing, ICLEI often failed to promptly remove them from membership lists. Since 2009, College Station taxpayers — including many students at Texas A&M University, which is based there — have been paying upwards of $1,000 per year for ICLEI membership. But while the fee may seem relatively small, local officials are glad to be rid of the organization and what it represents. “I am truly excited to announce that the proposed 2013 College Station budget will not include funding for this organization,” wrote College Station City Councilman Jess Fields. “It is an insidious, extreme institution that does not represent our citizens, and for our taxpayers to continue to fund it would be ridiculous.” Fields said that because ICLEI is an international organization seeking to impose its policies at all levels of government — and many local governments have already adopted at least parts of its agenda — College Station will have to be on guard in the future to avoid becoming entangled in its initiatives. “[T]his organization is a threat to our individual rights and our local government’s sovereignty in decision-making,” he wrote. In the devastating critique of ICLEI compiled using the organization’s own documents, Fields revealed that the goals go far beyond simply protecting the environment. Noting that the word “radical” appears regularly throughout ICLEI material, the city councilman cited several documents to expose the true nature of its agenda. The group’s “Governing Charter,” for example, states that member governments should “affirm gender equality,” ensure “universal access” to health care, integrate the “values” needed for a “sustainable way of life” into education, and much more. Also troubling to critics: ICLEI seeks to prod local officials to “adopt patterns of production, consumption, and reproduction that safeguard Earth’s regenerative capacities,” according to the charter. “ICLEI’s Charter and its Strategic Plan both reinforce what could already be surmised by examining its founding and history,” Fields noted. “This is an international organization with an extreme environmentalist bent, which desires to impose its vision of ‘sustainability’ on the citizens of member cities and connect to the United Nations in a way that furthers that goal.” According to Fields, imposing the policies needed to achieve ICLEI’s vision of a “sustainable future” would require a significant reduction in individual rights — after all, governments’ only tool is to “coerce people with force,” he noted. Plus, Fields explained in the piece, the impacts of those policies are “dangerous” to the free-market economy and to taxpayers. Countless critics of Agenda 21 and ICLEI agree. “Ultimately, ICLEI is clearly not an organization that represents the interests of our citizens in College Station,” he wrote. “We do not need international organizations leading the way for us in how we develop our planning and development tools and regulations. It is better for policies to reflect the actual needs of our community than some amorphous concept of greenness or sustainability, promoted by an overarching international body.” College Station, of course, is hardly alone. The New American has reported on numerous other local governments extricating themselves from ICLEI and Agenda 21 in recent years. Officials across Texas have become increasingly vocal, too. And the whole agenda has now become an important campaign issue in the state. “Under the guise of world sustainability the plan establishes a regime of rules that attempt to bypass Congress and the American people, handing over power over vast areas of the US economy to unelected UN bureaucrats,” noted Ted Cruz, one of the frontrunners in the GOP primary for a U.S. Senate seat representing Texas. “Agenda 21 is wrong, and it must be stopped.” Cruz, the former Solicitor General of Texas, promised that if elected, he would take the fight against the UN’s scheming directly to Washington. “In the U.S. Senate, I intend to continue leading the fight to stop Agenda 21 and any other globalist plan that tries to subvert the U.S. Constitution and the liberties we all cherish as Americans,” he wrote recently on his campaign website. “We need fighters in the Senate, who will stand and defend We the People.” Even the Republican National Committee recently joined the fight against Agenda 21. “The United Nations Agenda 21 plan of radical so-called ‘sustainable development’ views the American way of life of private property ownership, single family homes, private car ownership and individual travel choices, and privately owned farms; all as destructive to the environment,” states the official RNC resolution approved in January. But as the backlash against ICLEI, the UN, Agenda 21, and all of its related organizations and schemes continues to grow, ICLEI officials are hitting back. “Across the country, we’ve witnessed a small but vehement group of activists who often resort to intimidation tactics to disrupt local planning meetings and halt healthy dialogue at a time when it is needed more than ever,” alleged ICLEI USA Executive Director Michael Schmitz last month in a press release. Schmitz claimed the trend toward citizens taking action to stop ICLEI was “unsettling,” even preposterously accusing opponents of his outfit of trying to stop efforts to make communities more prosperous. “As our nation attempts to recover from the economic crisis and a record-breaking year of extreme weather that cost us tens of billions of dollars, we must not allow common-sense community planning efforts to be derailed,” he said in the statement. Even as Agenda 21 comes under increasing pressure in the United States, however, world leaders are preparing to assemble in Rio de Janeiro in June on the 20th anniversary of the Earth Summit. The plan is to once again plot the “sustainable” future of humanity while building the foundation of a global “green economy” based on UN principles. While dubious theories on “climate change” are reportedly off the agenda to avoid controversy, UN leaders have a grandiose vision of what they hope to accomplish at the summit. And the UN apparatus has already started a half-baked campaign to fight back against opponents, even dispatching tax-funded propagandists to demonize criticism of Agenda 21. But it does not appear to be working. Of course, leaving ICLEI is only a first step in a community’s battle against Agenda 21, experts noted. Policies, boards, decisions, and other measures implemented at the behest of the international organization must also be undone. Citizens, of course, must remain vigilant, too. But according to opponents of the UN-led schemes, College Station is now on the right track. Related articles: What are the UN's Agenda 21 and ICLEI? Your Hometown & the United Nations’ Agenda 21 Agenda 21 and the Movement Toward a One-World Govt New Strategies in the Fight to Stop Agenda 21 2011 Was an Incredible Year as Agenda 21 Becomes a Major Issue UN Demands $76 Trillion for “Green Technology” Obama Signs Agenda 21-Related Executive Order UN Bosses Secretly Plot Global Govt Through “Green Economy" for Rio+20 Oklahoma City Leaves ICLEI but Not Agenda 21 County in Washington Ditches Sustainable Development Pennsylvania County Rejects Agenda 21 Edmond Oklahoma Dumps Agenda 21 Maryland County Cancels Agenda 21 Participation UN's Green Economy May Cost $2.5 Trillion a Year Ambitious UN Sustainability Conference in Rio to Avoid Climate Talk

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