Comments & Curiosities:

They are over. And as always, not a moment too soon. With the holidays done, we turn our attention to California’s new laws for 2010.

There is a boatload of them, of course, but we will limit ourselves to the ones that hold the most promise for changing our lives in meaningful, uplifting ways. You already know the high regard in which I hold the state legislature (see folder marked, “Budget, California, Nightmare.”) Would it be possible to get through life without the women and men in Sacramento? I don’t see how.

A lot of people think most of our state legislators are inept, out of touch, way out in the ozone, so thoroughly lost that they have a hard time remembering where they came from let alone what they are there for. I think that’s being generous, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

As we begin our in-depth tour of California’s new laws for 2010, keep in mind that each of them was proposed, analyzed and passed while the state government is in free fall, imploding, devolving before our very eyes. In the middle of all that fiscal carnage, here are what the folks in Sacramento thought were California’s most pressing issues — issues that can no longer be ignored. Write these down. This is serious.

Effective immediately, Assembly Bill 1015 makes it a misdemeanor to sell or provide nitrous oxide, also know as “laughing gas,” to a minor. No issue there, but does that mean it was legal to sell laughing gas to a minor before now? How did that work, exactly? Where did kids go to buy their nitrous oxide?

Assembly Bill 305 says people can be jailed for failing to report oil spills or lying about them. Not being critical, but when a ship spills 16 bazillion gallons of oil and fouls hundreds of square miles of ocean and shoreline, do a lot of people lie about it? This is not like your Yorkie having an accident in the family room. When the Coast Guard flags down a super-tanker at the head of an oil slick that is seven miles long and two miles wide, are there a lot of captains who say, “Oh, that? No, wasn’t us.”

Thanks to Assembly Bill 62, you can now have a video or DVD screen in the front seat of a moving car as long as the driver can’t see it. I’m sorry — was this a huge problem? Even if it were, the logistics are a little hard to follow.

You can sit in the passenger seat watching something on a DVD player or a laptop, but if the driver glances at it, you’re busted. How do they enforce that? Does a cop pull you over and say, “Ma’am, I clearly saw you glance at the Tony Bennett video while you were driving. Step out of the car, please.”

I would say one of the next two new laws is the bell-ringer, but I can’t decide which one. Senate Bill 527 makes it legal to ride a bike without a seat on state roads, as long as the bike was built without a seat to begin with.

Wow. Really? Again, how big a problem is this? How many people are out there riding bikes without seats, on state roads or anywhere else? Who builds bikes without seats, and more important, who buys them? Doesn’t that hurt really bad? You can pedal standing up for only so long. Sooner or later, you have to sit down, and it’s not going to be pretty.

In a photo finish for the most bizarre new law of the year is Senate Bill 135, which makes it a misdemeanor to cut off a cow’s tail, except for medical reasons.

Granted, I don’t know anything about cows, but is there ever a good reason for cutting off their tails? Cows seem to be pleasant, unassuming things that don’t hurt anyone and just want to be left alone, all of which argues strongly against tail cutting in my opinion. And just what are the medical reasons that make it OK to snip a cow’s tail?

“Sounds like you have a cold, Elsie. Sorry, we have to whack your tail off.”

Who decides these things? I don’t get it. Maybe you have to be a state legislator to understand.

I think that’s it then, laughing gas, bicycles without seats and cows without tails. And remember, if you cause a major oil spill, man up and turn yourself in. It’s the law. I gotta go.

PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays. He may be reached at ptrb4@aol.com.