From the Alexandria (LA) TownTalk:
A federal judge this week ruled that an Alexandria law forbidding fortunetellers from working in the city is a violation of First Amendment free speech rights.
U.S. District Judge Dee Drell concurred with a recommendation in June by U.S. Magistrate Judge James D. Kirk that said Alexandria's 2011 ban of Rachel Adams' shop on Jackson Street Extension was unconstitutional.
Drell signed the judgment Tuesday, a document that includes a bit of tarot card history and an observation.
"We also note with interest that the 'art' of fortune telling proliferates in front of St. Louis Cathedral, in the city of New Orleans, apparently without incident," Drell wrote.
Kirk last month recommended that Drell mow down the Alexandria law that bans palmistry, card reading, fortune telling and other otherworldly communications.
"To apply the ordinance literally would outlaw every 'amateur psychiatrist, parlor sage and barstool philosopher' in Alexandria who dares to suggest to another what the future may hold," Kirk wrote last month.
Kirk wrote that a court judgment supporting Alexandria's ban of fortunetellers "is not in the cards."...MORE*January 9, 2011
Tax Policy Debate, Romanian Style (witches, mandrake, cat poo, the usual)
February 8, 2011Romania's witches vow to take revenge on tax-hungry politicians.Self-declared witches in Romania are preparing to curse the country's rulers publicly for taxing their profession under an amended labour law.Poisonous mandrake plants are due to be hurled into the River Danube and queen witch Bratara Buzea has devised a spell involving cat dung and a dead dog.
Income tax of 16% and health and pension payments have been imposed....
Attention Market Pontificators: Witches to be Fined, Jailed if Predictions Don't Pan Out
There's more bad news in the cards for Romania's beleaguered witches.Italy is also on a responsibility kick:
A month after Romanian authorities began taxing them for their trade, the country's soothsayers and fortune tellers are cursing a new bill that threatens fines or even prison if their predictions don't come true....
Attention Prognosticators: "Italian scientists charged with manslaughter for failing to predict earthquake"
