Read it and weep: California is lost to collective insanity.

I’m sure you’ve all heard this goofy-assed story that the California state legislature is trying to remove the serpentine as its state rooooock. Yes?

Serpentine, CA state rock

But do you know why? I mean really why? Well they are trying to tell everyone that it’s because the rooooock has, as part of it’s componant, asbestos. And we all know, well those of us who stay up really late watching television commercials for lawyers,  that asbestos exposure causes mesothelioma. Lung cancer. The legislators are saying to the public that they don’t want a known carcinogen as a state rock. I mean, seriously, how would that look for a state like California to have a rooooock that contains cancer causing components (love alliteration) out there for all the world to see? Even though there are some geologists who say that asbetos is not in all serpentine. It is naturally occurring in some rooooocks and not in others. And we all know that it’s not cancer causing as it appears in a roooock.

However, the trial lawyers are really backing this bill. Odd, don’t you think? (insert shifty eyed emoticon here.)

Know why? Well, I’m gonna tell ya why:

Surprise!  –  Because if this bill is passed, it opens the door for more lawsuits!

Were SB 624 to become law, declaring serpentine as carcinogenic, it could widen the opportunities for lawsuits against owners of property with naturally occurring outcroppings of serpentine. And it’s become a new skirmish in the perennial war between personal injury lawyers and the business-backed Civil Justice Association of California.

“I’ve heard that personal injury lawyers will leave no stone unturned in their hunt for new cases, but this is ridiculous,” said John Sullivan, the association’s president.

You can read the whole story here.