I sit on two committees of the House of Representatives — Corporations, and Environment and Natural Resources. This is a recap of last night’s Corporations’ meeting — which hears bills related to licenses, banks, insurance, and utilities — with judgement reserved:First up was Bowser, of Sha-na-na’s fame, to testify in support of the “Truth in Music Act.” Basically, Bowser and his friends want to stop bands from touring under the names of famous acts, unless they own the rights to those names or were among the original members. (There’s a faux Drifters-Platters-Coasters combo that’s doing especially well for itself.)

That’s all well and good to me — especially as the Coasters and Drifters have variously been among my very favorite acts. Members were particularly charmed by Bowser’s sing-song testimony, including the closing, “Bom ba ba bom ba bom ba bom bom ba ba bom ba ba bom ba ba dang a dang dang Ba ba ding a dong ding THANK YOU…”

Next up was the push to allow “mixed martial arts” fights, aka Ultimate Fighting, in Rhode Island venues. The front page of the bill contained the most interesting ‘definitions’ section I’ve ever seen, including explanations of ‘choke hold,’ ‘cut man,’ ‘eye-gouge,’ and ‘fish-hook.’ The bill also specified that you ought not kick anybody in the crotch.

The night closed with consideration of legislation that would require insurers to “include coverage for preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in conjunction with in vitro fertilization (IVF) for a married couple where at least one spouse has a balanced translocation.” The hearing consisted primarily of a variety of insurance industry lobbyists asserting that the fact that committee members didn’t really know what PGD or balanced translocations are means that insurers probably shouldn’t have to cover procedures relating to them.

And so we forge on, until we meet again, next Wednesday.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 10:12 am and is filed under Local Yokels, Music, Politics, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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