When You Can't Tell An April Fool's Joke From News

You know that the reporter is covering Los Angeles politics. From the April 1, 2008 Los Angeles Times:

Council members had been asked by a handful of activists to declare a 40-hour ban on murder and other forms of violence, a concept one critic quickly derided as "silliness."

After a 45-minute debate, the council reworked its resolution on the topic, saying the city's opposition to homicides should last more than a single weekend.

"A moratorium on violence and killing is something we should support 365 days a year and every minute we live," said Councilman Richard Alarcon, who represents part of the San Fernando Valley.

The symbolic ban on homicides had been proposed by Los Angeles author and political commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson, who had urged the city to make a bold statement about the recent spike in homicides, which are up 32% compared to the same period last year.

"If this works, then the next logical thing is: if a city like Los Angeles can go 40 hours without one homicide, then why not 40 days?" said Hutchinson, president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable, before the vote.

Gee, isn't making murder a felony enough of a symbolic statement? The fact that this got anything from the Council but, "Mr. Hutchinson, we're engaged in serious business here. Ask your Mommie to take you home, give you some cookies and milk, and put you to bed" really shows how absurd the politics of Los Angeles have become.

If the prospect of lethal injection (for certain first degree murders), life in prison (for most other first degree murders), or seven years in prison (the manslaughter penalty under California law) isn't enough to make you not commit murder, why would anyone think that a resolution against murder "for forty hours" would do any good at all?