If you are straight, unmarried (or separated) and living in North Carolina, I’ve got some bad news for you: getting laid is illegal. North Carolina General Statute 14-184 provides that:

§ 14‑184. Fornication and adultery.
If any man and woman, not being married to each other, shall lewdly and lasciviously associate, bed and cohabit together, they shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor: Provided, that the admissions or confessions of one shall not be received in evidence against the other.

If you are gay, however, no problem. Two men or two women are, after all, not “any man and woman,” and are therefore incapable of violating NCGS § 14‑184 even if they wanted to. Granted, they would violate NCGS 14-177, which provides that:

If any person shall commit the crime against nature, with mankind or beast, he shall be punished as a Class I felon.

but as long as the “crime against nature” is committed with mankind rather than beast, it’s clearly protected under Lawrence v. Texas. So if you are married and feel like doing anyone other than your spouse, or if you’re an unmarried and feel like doing anyone at all, just remember this. If either you or your partner has got a schlong, the other had better have one, too.

UPDATE: Commenter Robert notes that this law is probably unconstitutional. I say probably because a judge so ruled in 2006, but the ruling was never appealed so its precedential value is debatable. Then again, it does appear to enjoin everyone who could ever enforce the law, so if you have a law no one can enforce, is it really a law? If a tree falls in the forest, etc.

People always  say cheap and worthless stuff is “for the birds.”  The birds themselves beg to differ.

  This may be thefirst time CNN felt the need to report that the shit did not hit the fans.

James Taranto thinks David Frum is silly, and that Andrew Breitbart’s posting of a doctored video makes him our Alinsky, not our Rather. As much as I love the part about Frum being silly, on what planet is an Alinsky better than a Rather?

… you might be a Reidneck.

Who came out of Shirleygate looking worst?

1. Andrew Breitbart, for finally posting an allegedly incriminating video whose critics could say it was taken out of context, and actually be right.
2. The NAACP, for taking the story and running with it even though the speech in question was made at one of their own functions, and they had the full, in-context tape in their possession all along.
3. Tom Vilsack, for firing Sherrod without even attempting to investigate the matter.
4. Barack Obama, because we know Vilsack was doing his bidding.
5. Shirley Sherrod, for moonbattily blaming her wrongful termination on everyone except those who wrongfully terminated her.
6. FoxNews, for existing.
7. Me, for blogging about it.
8. Lindsay Lohan, for ____________.
9. The 103rd Congress, for enacting a totally unnecessary five-day waiting period on handgun purchases rather than a much-needed five-day cooling off period on frivolous charges of racism.
10. Other (specify).

Don’t know how I missed this for two years – oh yeah, probably by ignoring that blathering idiot – but here’s a pretty good takedown of her theory that single parents should take a vow of celibacy. I’m offering a free ounce of cocaine^* to the first reader who can explain the scare quotes in the heading.

^*Offer void where prohibited by law.

Sorry, coalminers, but there’s a simple reason why Ashley Judd can make a living showing her boobies but you can’t: nobody wants to see a coal miner’s boobies. Deal with it. On the plus side, David Gooch probably can make some money by promising not to display his namesake.

Full disclosure: last year I lost over $100k on a house located in the Lickinghole District of Goochland, VA.

The former artist formerly known as Artist Formerly Known As Prince has refused to allow any of his music to be traded online. I predict his efforts will be every bit as successful as Bill Waterson’s refusal to license Calvin and Hobbes. Or Calvin, anyway; the ban on Hobbes seems to be holding up all right (and urine is still in the public domain).

The Greensboro News & Record almost gets it right on Alan Gura’s latest suit against NC’s crazy law that makes it a crime to possess a firearm during a snowstorm. Here’s where they go off the rails:

The [McDonald] court also said other local restrictions on gun ownership might be reasonable.

The North Carolina law might not meet that test. There should be a compelling reason why someone who is the legal owner of a firearm should be barred from carrying it from his home to a shooting range, even if the governor has declared a state of emergency because of cold weather. That might make sense in some kinds of emergencies — a breakdown of civic order, for example — but the law should make distinctions.

Indeed it should, but since when it is better to strip people of their guns in an emergency situation where they might actually need them? As dumb as it was for Stokes County to strip all its residents of their Second Amendment rights last winter, at least they didn’t do it at a time when their residents were actually likely to need them.

The blanket prohibition doesn’t seem justified, and the state should stipulate that it is not enforceable as it’s written.

Or at all, for that matter; else we might as well just pass a law making it a crime to breathe, and stipulating that we’ll only enforce that law against people we think actually did something wrong. Rather than stipulating to anything, why not have the General Assembly get off its duff and repeal this crazy law outright?

‘Cuz Bill is a man’s name, after all. Maybe we’d better go with a more neutral name like Pat or Chris. Still, if a bill that won’t do anything is the worst bill Civitas could find to single out as its bad bill of the week, I’d call that progress.