Wasting Time

And taxpayer dollars. First up:

• A joint City Council committee will hear testimony Tuesday in support of a proposal introduced by Aldermen Edward M. Burke and Margaret Laurino that seeks to expand measures used to punish cyberstalkers.

Add this one to the foie gras ban and various smoking ordinances passed by the City. It duplicates State law, wastes police time, and promotes disregard for law in general. All this does is give various aldercreatures an "accomplishment" to tout come election time.

Then there's this questionable item:

• Like a parent tightening the reins, Mayor Richard Daley told teens Tuesday that he wants them home a half-hour earlier each night.
  
  Children younger than 17 would have to be off the streets by 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 p.m. on weekends, if the mayor's proposal is approved by the City Council.

Kids who get killed after curfew are either the ones that defy every parental attempt to control them or the ones who never had any parental supervision in the first place. Curfew violations were down during 2006 (29,000 to 26,000) and even those 26,000 violation only resulting in a drop of 398 young crime victims. The stat quoted doesn't define what crimes they weren't victims of, but we seem to have hit that point of diminishing returns. This smells of another money grab and the Police Department is being used as cannon fodder again.