What would you do if you came across someone on the street that had not had anything to eat for several days? Would you give that person some food? Well, the next time you get that impulse you might want to check if it is still legal to feed the homeless where you live. Sadly, feeding the homeless has been banned in major cities all over America. Other cities that have not banned it outright have put so many requirements on those that want to feed the homeless (acquiring expensive permits, taking food preparation courses, etc.) that feeding the homeless has become "out of reach" for most average people.

Some cities are doing these things because they are concerned about the "health risks" of the food being distributed by ordinary "do-gooders". Other cities are passing these laws because they do not want homeless people congregating in city centers where they know that they will be fed. But at a time when poverty and government dependence are soaring to unprecedented levels, is it really a good idea to ban people from helping those that are hurting?

This is just another example that shows that our country is being taken over by control freaks. There seems to be this idea out there that it is the job of the government to take care of everyone and that nobody else should even try.

But do we really want to have a nation where you have to get the permission of the government before you do good to your fellow man?

It isn't as if the government has "rescued" these homeless people. Homeless shelters all over the nation are turning people away each night because they have no more room. There are many homeless people that are lucky just to make it through each night alive during the winter.

Apparently going without is more nutritious than having food that is not nutritionally perfect. At least in Michael Bloomberg's eyes it is. I will admit I will savor chips, cocktail weenies and sugary punches when I wandered the streets as I lacked cooking facilities to make proper food. I also dumpster dived to supplement my intake as I found those food choices lacking for the carbo and protein burning rigors of sleeping outdoors and carrying everything I owned on my back. Homeless and hungry tip-Trader Joe's has awesome noms from the dumpster.

Kimberly Bois' tiny front yard garden isn't much to look at right now. But in a few weeks, it'll be in full bloom, and every blossom will cost her dearly.


Even though she says her builder gave her permission to do a little planting, the current condo board now says she's in violation.

They're charging the Portsmouth, New Hampshire homeowner $50 a day for being so petal pushy. That fine has reached close to $6,000, plus the board's legal fees.

Sweden was the first European country to introduce bank notes in 1661. Now it's come farther than most on the path toward getting rid of them.

"I can't see why we should be printing bank notes at all anymore," says Bjoern Ulvaeus, former member of 1970's pop group ABBA, and a vocal proponent for a world without cash.

The contours of such a society are starting to take shape in this high-tech nation, frustrating those who prefer coins and bills over digital money.

In most Swedish cities, public buses don't accept cash; tickets are prepaid or purchased with a cell phone text message. A small but growing number of businesses only take cards, and some bank offices - which make money on electronic transactions - have stopped handling cash altogether.

"There are towns where it isn't at all possible anymore to enter a bank and use cash," complains Curt Persson, chairman of Sweden's National Pensioners' Organization.

Commentary: Occupiers arrested, but Mayor Mike dines with Goldman

If ever there was an opportunity for Occupy Wall Street to re-energize and awaken from its winter slumber, it is the let-them-eat - Shake Shack lunch of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the chief executive of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

"Bloomberg visited Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s GS -0.21% headquarters in Manhattan in a show of support after a departing employee [Greg Smith] publicly criticized the firm's culture yesterday," according to a Bloomberg News report.

" 'The mayor stopped by to make clear that the company is a vital part of the city's economy, and the kind of unfair attacks that we're seeing can eventually hurt all New Yorkers,' said Stu Loeser, a spokesman for the mayor."

The mayor also ate lunch with Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein at Shake Shack. For those who don't know, that restaurant is the creation of celebrity chef Danny Meyer. With a plain burger starting at $4.55 and going as high as $8.60, Meyer, whose restaurant empire also includes Union Square Cafe, the Modern and Maialino, has become a kind of gilded Ronald McDonald in Manhattan.

There's just so many things wrong with Bloomberg's visit, it's hard to know where to begin.

Canada - To the Ontarians who make the annual pilgrimage to cottage country, it may appear that some of the trees have had a growth spurt.

Bell Canada's new cell phone towers, being built in a number of Muskoka communities, will be decked out to appear more like giant white pines than tall eye-sores.

By adding fiberglass branches coming out of the steel 'tree trunks,' Bell hopes to blend the cell phone towers in to the natural forests, according to a Toronto Star story.

"While we are still in the planning stages, we expect to install approximately 20 tree sites throughout many communities in the greater Muskoka area," said Jason Laszlo, Bell spokesperson, to the the Star.

"The equipment comes to the location prefabricated and is assembled on site. When complete, the tree will stand between 25 and 29 metres and will be positioned to blend with existing trees."

Those trees will be showing up in a number of communities in Muskoka, including Brackenring, Foot's Bay, Port Carling East, Port Sandfield, Walker's Point East, Breezy Point Road and Little Joseph Lake.

Thousands of people have taken part in a memorial service in northern Belgium for 15 children and two adults killed in a coach crash in a Swiss tunnel.

Two large screens were erected outside the community centre in Lommel because of the large numbers attending.

Of the 28 who died when their coach crashed in Switzerland on 13 March, 17 were from Lommel. Six of the children had Dutch nationality.

Members of the Belgian and Dutch royal families attended the service.
White balloons

Lommel, where 15 of the dead children attended the Stekske primary school, is close to the Dutch border.

The coffins of 14 children and their teacher were brought into the community centre by military escort. Photographs of the two other victims from the Lommel school were also carried in.

The Florida police department handling the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teen by a self-appointed neighborhood watch leader admitted to ABC News tonight that investigators missed a possible racist remark by the shooter as he spoke to police dispatchers moments before the killing.

The admission comes a day after the Justice Department announced that it has launched an investigation of the slaying of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman last month as a possible hate crime.

On a tape of one of Zimmerman's 911 calls the night of the shooting, he is heard saying under his breath what sounds like "f**ing coons." Seconds later he confronted Martin and after a brief scuffle shot him dead.

In March 1799 authorities in North Carolina found no fault in a teen fatally shooting a black man after confronting that man about his being on a public road.

In February 2012 authorities in Florida found no fault in a man fatally shooting a black teen after confronting that teen about his being on a public road.

How authorities in Sanford, Florida have handled the fatal February 26th shooting of 17-year-old black teen Trayvon Martin by a town watch operative in Sanford, Florida is sparking outrage nationwide.

That slaying does raise the specter of race-tainted inequities that have roiled through American society since before the formal inception of the United States.

No Hollywood scriptwriter could plot a more implausible story. Here is the plotline sequencing:

1. Bankers make NINJA loans, securitize them, and sell on to government GSEs
   
2. Bankers destroy all the loan documents and begin random and fraudulent foreclosures, throwing millions of innocent victims out on the street
   
3. GSEs sue bankers and force them to take back bad mortgages
   
4. Bankers sell servicing rights for the same bad mortgages back to GSEs, who overpay
   
5. GSEs resell servicing rights to companies run by former GSE officials
   
6. Bankers slapped on wrist with puny foreclosure settlement in return for government promise it will never sue them for past foreclosure fraud
   
7. Government stress test claims banks are healthy
   
8. Bankers get sweet deal, counting mortgage mods for best borrowers toward the settlement
   
9. HUD report released demonstrating massive foreclosure fraud that reached to highest levels of banks
   
10. Vampire Squid Executive Director fires off resignation letter decrying bankster culture
    
11. Banksters walk away scott-free as statute of limitations runs out for criminal behavior

This would have to be a fantasy because no one would ever believe it could have been true.

Beginning in the late 1990s the biggest banks and GSEs created MERS to end-run around county recorders so that they would not have to pay fees to properly register sales of mortgages that would be securitized.

They then proceeded to lose or destroy all (or virtually all) the written documents, broke the chain of title, and screwed up even the electronic records. Nobody knows who owes what to whom, so the loan servicing arms of the biggest banks decided to go on a foreclosure frenzy to seize as many homes at random before anyone found out.