Philadelphia starts requiring bloggers to get $300 licenses (via):
For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to ehow.com, over the last few years she says she’s made about $50. To Bess, her website is a hobby. To the city of Philadelphia, it’s a potential moneymaker, and the city wants its cut.
In May, the city sent Bess a letter demanding that she pay $300, the price of a business privilege license.
Rules are rules, lady. Don’t you have any respect for the rule of law?
Huff, huff, huff!
(Yes, this is sarcasm…)Report
Insane. How on earth do they propose to enforce it? What about bloggers who live in PA but host their blod sites outside the state? Vice versa?Report
@North, Well North, if you were a ‘good’ Democrat instead of the closet Republican you are, you’d voluntarily cough up the money. Obviously they need it for hepping the po, the downtrodden, and racial minorities.Report
@Robert Cheeks, Closet Republican?? That’s vile slander Bob ol boy. I’m just a sane (Arguably blue dog) Democrat. The Dems still have a sane wing remember whereas the GOP has been losing their mind ever since 2000 at the very latest.Report
@North, losing?
Actively exiling.Report
@Jaybird, good point Jay.Report
I don’t see where “posting whatever you want on myspace” is covered by the First Amendment.
The Fathers couldn’t have forseen the internet when they wrote about “the press”.Report
I’m breaking my productivity enhancing silence for this one.
WTF!
I can only imagine that this hair-brained scheme was dreamed up by an internet un-aware person who noticed that their city had a large budget shortfall.
Tarring and feathering is murder/assault so instead I recommend honey and feathering. We should then tweet the image as a warning to every other legislator.Report
Philadelphia’s government is completely and self-evidently insane. And North, most of these blogs are on Google servers, who knows where, probably California. All I can say is that the web hosts and ad partners had better come to these people’s defense as well.
LAst year they wanted to shut down the entire public library system ( though of course, some of y’all here probably would support that).Report
@JosephFM, good point JosephFM. I can’t imagine it being workable in anything like a uniform and fair manner. As such it’d be a patently unjust law and I wouldn’t think it’d stand a court challenge.Report
@JosephFM, lieberry?Report