So, this morning I was reading some of Title 17 of the California Code of Regulations online, and I came across a section titled "Meaning of Words." Clicking on it revealed the startling statement that:

Words shall have their usual meaning unless the context of the definition indicates a different meaning.

Well, I'd hope so.

I think they should just go ahead and declare, like Humpty Dumpty, that words mean precisely what they intend them to, neither more, nor less. And then we could watch all the king's horses and all the king's men try to put the state budget back together again.

Why was I reading Title 17 of the California Code of Regulations, you may ask? Well, I have been known to do stranger things just for fun, but that wasn't the case here. I'm taking a class in proposal writing, and my classmates and I are putting together a proposal for a local non-profit which provides services for people with developmental disabilities. To do this, we need to understand a bit about the laws and regulations concerning developmental disabilities, and some of those happen to be laid out in Title 17, which covers Public Health.

Although reading Title 17 is no picnic, I've been generally pretty favorably impressed by the amount of information I've been able to find on various California government websites, and how clearly written and easy to find much of it is. I had no idea how easy it was to get statistics on all sorts of things. The internet is a really cool thing when people use it well.