"We're Too Broke To Be This Stupid"
Mark Steyn explains all the nitwits who vote in spendalot legislators and programs we can't actually afford; an example in California being the "high-speed" train to San Francisco...among numerous others. Steyn writes in Macleans:
When William Beveridge laid out his blueprint for the modern British welfare state in 1942, his goal was the "abolition of want." Sir William and his colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic succeeded beyond their wildest dreams: to be "poor" in the 21st-century West is not to be hungry and emaciated but to be obese, with your kids suffering from childhood diabetes. When Michelle Obama turned up to serve food at a soup kitchen, its poverty-stricken clientele snapped pictures of her with their cellphones. In one-sixth of British households, not a single family member works. They are not so much without employment as without need of it. At a certain level, your hard-working bourgeois understands that the bulk of his contribution to the treasury is entirely wasted. It's one of the basic rules of life: if you reward bad behaviour, you get more of it. But, in good and good-ish times, who cares?By the way, where does the government get the money to fund all these immensely useful programs? According to a Fox News poll earlier this year, 65 per cent of Americans understand that the government gets its money from taxpayers, but 24 per cent think the government has "plenty of its own money without using taxpayer dollars." You can hardly blame them for getting that impression in an age in which there is almost nothing the state won't pay for. I confess I warmed to that much-mocked mayor in Doncaster, England, who announced a year or two back that he wanted to stop funding for the Gay Pride parade on the grounds that, if they're so damn proud of it, why can't they pay for it? He was actually making a rather profound point, but, as I recall, he was soon forced to back down. In Canada, almost every ethnocultural booster group is on the public teat. Outside Palestine House in Toronto the other week, the young Muslim men were caught on tape making explicitly eliminationist threats about Jews, but c'mon, everything else in Canada is taxpayer-funded, why not genocidal incitement? We're rich enough that we can afford to be stupid.
Via Robert W.
It's The Legal Immigrants Who Are Having The Problems
I know of a case like this myself, although I can't blog about it. In The New York Times, Katherine Q. Seelye writes of a British couple frozen out of the country. On the window of their "cozy eatery" in Maine was the sign "Closed. Gone to try and get a new visa. Hope to see you in the spring. Dean & Laura":
The sign turned out to be overly optimistic. Dean and Laura Franks, a British couple who opened the restaurant in 2000, found that after nine years of running their business, they could not renew their visa, forcing them to shutter the restaurant and leave the country.The Franks are among thousands of people who enter the United States each year on E-2 visas, which allow citizens from countries with which the United States has certain trade treaties to invest in businesses and work here. The visas generally are renewed every two years, but there is no limit on how many times they can be renewed. Still, they are not intended as a path to permanent residency or citizenship.
But now, immigration advocates say they are hearing more and more accounts of renewal applications being turned down. It has been an enigmatic process for the Franks, uprooting their lives even though they have paid all their taxes, own the restaurant and its adjacent rental house, and have no debts except a mortgage on their home in Arundel, about 35 miles away.
"This is the forgotten story of immigration," said Angelo Paparelli, a prominent immigration lawyer in California. "The headlines deal with Arizona and border crossings, but these are real people too. This is what happens when you play by the rules."
In denying the Franks' renewal application last year, immigration officials said their restaurant had become a marginal business. The government sets no specific dollar amount, but it defines a marginal enterprise as one that "does not have the present or future capacity to generate more than enough income to provide a minimal living" for the visa holder and his family.
The Franks were surprised and confused to learn last year that they were deemed marginal. Their tax returns show that their gross annual income in 2008 was $64,000, in addition to rental income of $16,800. Their gross profit for the year was $38,800, which was down from their gross profit in 2007 of $50,700 because of the recession, which hit most businesses. They said they barely needed more than enough to provide for minimal living because that is how they live -- minimally.
"We live frugally, we don't drink, we don't smoke, we don't party, and we live within our means," Mr. Franks said by phone earlier this year from Nova Scotia, where friends had given them use of an empty house. "We pay all our bills, we don't have car payments, we pay our credit cards off every month, and that seems to count against us.
A Memorial Day Thank You
To all the men and women in the military, who risk their lives for the rest of us, and to protect western freedoms and democracy.
I got this email from reason Foundation's Manny Klausner:
On the Memorial Day weekend, I thought it fitting to send information about the Tuskegee Airmen -- the nation's first black military pilots, who flew their aircraft with the tails painted bright red -- and the moving obituary from the LA Times of William B. Ellis, who pushed to break racial barriers as one of the Tuskegee Airmen. "Wild Bill" Ellis died this week in California at 93.In April 1945, Ellis and other black pilots courageously participated in an act of civil disobedience against segregaton in an all-white officers club at Indiana's Freeman Field. The protest, which with other incidents became known as the Freeman Field Mutiny, prompted the War Department to establish a committee to investigate illegal segregation in the Army Air Forces -- the first step toward the official desegregation of all U.S. armed forces in 1949.
Ellis called the officers club incident "the single most socially significant thing to come out of World War II."
A detailed account of the Freeman Field Mutiny is linked here.
On a related note, I'm happy to see that gay servicemen and women will soon be treated like all other servicemen and women.
Are We Going To Legislate Against Daddylessness?
Hot topic around here these days, women having daddyless children. Kamala Harris, a pandering politician running for California attorney general, wants to jail parents for children's truancy. (Of course, in the case of single mothers, this will mean the kids have no parent at home at all, instead of just being short one parent. Genius, lady) Let's explore the details on single motherhood and truancy:
Teenagers living without their biological fathers* Are more likely to experience problems with sexual health
* Are more likely to become teenage parents
* Are more likely to offend
* Are more likely to smoke
* Are more likely to drink alcohol
* Are more likely to take drugs
* Are more likely to play truant from school
* Are more likely to be excluded from school
* Are more likely to leave school at 16
* Are more likely to have adjustment problems* After controlling for social class, level of parental supervision, attachment to family, whether peers and siblings were in trouble with the police and standard of work at school, boys in lone-parent households were still 2.7 times more likely to truant than those from two-natural-parent households.70
Article on jailing parents for children's truancy here. By the time a kid's old enough to ditch school, it's a little late to start punishing Mommy.
P.S. When I go talk to kids at that inner-city school, which I'll next do on June 2, very few of the kids have two parents in the home. Those that do are likely to be Latino.
We're Short One Messiah
Welcome to the supposed messiah Obama's Katrina-And-Then-Some. Frank Rich writes for The New York Times:
Obama's news conference on Thursday -- explaining in detail the government's response, its mistakes and its precise relationship to BP -- was at least three weeks overdue. It was also his first full news conference in 10 months. Obama's recurrent tardiness in defining exactly what he wants done on a given issue -- a lapse also evident in the protracted rollout of the White House's specific health care priorities -- remains baffling, as does his recent avoidance of news conferences. Such diffidence does not convey a J.F.K.-redux in charge of a neo-New Frontier activist government.Long before Obama took office, the public was plenty skeptical that government could do anything right. Eight years of epic Bush ineptitude and waste only added to Washington's odor. Now Obama is stuck between a rock and a Tea Party. His credibility as a champion of reformed, competent government is held hostage by video from the gulf. And this in an election year when the very idea of a viable federal government is under angrier assault than at any time since the Gingrich revolution and militia mobilization of 1994-5 and arguably since the birth of the modern conservative movement in the 1960s.
Hey, Sex Offender!
Ever "play doctor" as a kid? These days, a kid in the UK could end up a convicted sex offender for doing it. Two boys, 10 and 11, were convicted of attempted rape of an 8-year-old girl (but cleared of two counts of rape) for what very well may have been some kind of consensual kiddie sex exploration, reports the BBC -- convicted, despite the fact that their young accuser said she'd lied:
Prosecutors told the trial that the boys had approached the girl when she was playing with a friend.The jury heard that she was taken to a block of flats, a bin shed and a field.
The girl's mother told the court she had found her daughter with the boys near a field after another child said the pair were hurting her.
But barristers for the boys, among the youngest to be prosecuted for rape, said the pair had only been playing a game like doctors and nurses.
When she was cross-examined earlier in the trial, the eight-year-old told the court she had lied to her mother about what had happened because she had been "naughty" and was worried she would not get any sweets.
Mr Justice Saunders previously refused pleas from the boys' barristers to throw out the case after the girl admitted she had not been truthful about some of her evidence.
He said that the girl had been consistent in what she told adults, including police and doctors, soon after the incident and said she had looked exhausted at the end of her evidence.After the trial, Alison Saunders, chief Crown prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service London, said the allegations made by the young girl were "very serious" and the decision to prosecute "was not taken lightly".
She said: "She had given a clear and compelling account to the police and her account was consistent with the medical evidence and with the accounts given by other witnesses to the police."
Det Ch Insp Peter Holdcroft said: "This was a very complex investigation involving a very young girl but throughout the investigation, her accounts remained consistent.
More on the girl's story, which seems to involve some mutual "you show me yours/I'll show you mine," here and here.
We can't know what happened here, but it's my feeling that you don't convict on maybe, probably, well, we're not really sure.
Dating The Children Of Single Parents
Two people here, Purple Pen and oscar, have expressed that they're sick of dating the grown children of single mothers.
Purple: I'm tired of dating men from single mothers. No matter how "good" they were I'm generally stuck with a guy with a bunch of issues.oscar: I've come to feel similarly about women raised this way. When I was younger, these were the promiscuous girls and now they're the women with lots of baggage.
I've seem a lot of data that children of single parents have the worst outcomes in myriad areas of life, from school performance to promiscuity, to their emotional development, to how they are in their own relationships.
I know this is an unscientific study, but what's your experience, everybody?
Are Libertarians Really That Scary?
I made some offhand remark about being libertarian at a party, and I might as well have donned a pointy white hood with eye slits. The guy I was talking to, with whom I'd had a perfectly pleasant conversation until that moment, started attacking me...demanding of me, did I (horrors!) believe roads should be private? I could see he had a distorted view of libertarianism, and the conversation degenerated from there.
I'll try to blog about the rest of our conversation in the next few days.
As for this question: Do I believe roads should be private? Well, not all...but what's wrong with a privately owned and maintained road you have to pay a toll to be on? Or with paying a toll to ride in the fast lane?
And finally, I drive very little. In six years (since September, 2004, when I bought my Honda Insight), I've put 17,000 miles on my car. (I spent $198 on gas last year -- down from, I think, $237 the previous year.) Should I pay the same amount of money as somebody who drives 17,000 miles a year -- or more?
There's a Spanish proverb I like -- "Take what you need, but pay for it." Seems pretty fair to me.
Family Business Is State Business
Kids working at their family's pizzeria get stopped by the state. Stan Fisher writes for the New Haven Register:
Michael Nuzzo says he and his siblings learned how to make pizza in their parents' famed New Haven pizzeria, and his children should have the same opportunity in his restaurant.That's not the view of the state Department of Labor, whose special investigator visited Nuzzo's Grand Apizza Shoreline at 9 E. Main St. earlier this month to tell him that his children could not be seen assisting their parents in the restaurant, under state statutes that prohibit the employment of minors in certain occupations.
Nuzzo and his wife, Magdalia, are challenging the state prohibition in federal court, arguing that the statute violates their constitutional rights, and the generations of restaurant history that are part of their Italian heritage.
"It's our culture; it's our tradition; it's our civil right," Nuzzo says of their parental right to have their children learn the pizza business as his father taught his children.
Michael Nuzzo's parents, Fred and Rosemarie, opened the original Grand Apizza in New Haven in 1955, where it joined Sally's, Pepe's and Modern pizzerias as the four original New Haven pizza restaurants, Nuzzo says.
Nuzzo and his brothers and sister all worked in their parents' restaurant as they grew up, and "now all of us have our own (pizza) businesses because of what our father taught us," he explains. It was commonplace in New Haven pizzerias for the kids to work on weekends with their parents, Nuzzo says.
Moreover, Nuzzo says it's a matter of not wanting to leave their children -- ages 13, 11, and 8 -- at home while he and his wife work during the weekend. "It's to have our children with us," he said.
Clinton attorney Raymond Rigat, who is representing the Nuzzos, said the couple's children are with them after school Fridays and on Saturdays, and do not operate dangerous equipment, are not paid wages and are under the direct supervision of their parents and occasionally their grandparents.
My dad always said "work builds character!"...typically as I was complaining about being made to mow the lawn. But, I see it with my neighbors' kids, and with Sergeant Heather's. Helping -- around the house, and in Sergeant Heather's case, with her 5-year-old son with autism -- is just part of being a member of their family. I see all their kids rising to the responsibility -- and, in turn, being brought up to be the antithesis of L.A. spoiled brats.
Me? From the time I was about 12 to about 14, before I was old enough to get my jobs at a bagel place and assisting a P.R. lady, I typed addresses and names on letters and addressed envelopes for 10 cents each for my dad. It made me a blazing fast typist and taught me a good work ethic that I maintain today.
But hey, lemme tell you, it was a real sweatshop, sitting there at the kitchen table, in my parents' air-conditioned suburban house, clacking away on my dad's electric typewriter. Lucky for my dad, I'm guessing any statute of limitations on such terrible abuse to your child has long-since run out.
What Really Happened In The Middle East
What If You Can't Have It All?
What if you're a woman, and you want to have kids, but you just don't meet the guy to do it with, and you wake up one day and you've aged out of the egg business? Is this a horrible tragedy, or do you accept it?
P.S. And, noticing mpetrie's comment below, let's take the notion of adopting as a single mom out of the equation.
Should Private Businesses Be Allowed To Exclude People?
What if they're wearing Nazi regalia or KKK hoods? David Bernstein blogs at Volokh, quoting this unnamed Volokh.com commenter's remark:
There is a German restaurant called the Alpine Village Inn, in Torrance California. A group of four neo-Nazis went there to eat, each wearing a lapel pin with a swastika on it. The management asked them to take off the lapel pins. They refused. The management asked them to leave. They refused. The management called the police, who arrested them.Then, remarkably, the Southern California ACLU gets involved, and sues the restaurant for calling the police on the Nazis! This much I've confirmed from media accounts. According to the commenter who first alerted me to this story, "the defendants' insurer eventually settled following unsuccessful pretrial challenges to the complaint, believing they could not prevail under California law!"
The lawsuit was brought under California's Unruh Act, which provides that "all persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal, and no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, or medical condition are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever." The California courts have held that the protected classes delineated by the Act are not exclusive; the Act also protects arbitrary discrimination by a business establishment based on similar characteristics to the above. Apparently, the insurer thought that "political views" was sufficiently similar to "religion" that the courts would likely rule against the insured.
...why was the ACLU concerned about the rights of the Nazi patrons, but not the owners? Why didn't the owners have a right to send a message that they disapprove of Naziism?
Third, even accepting the absurd premises apparently underlying this lawsuit, that the Unruh Act somehow protects Nazis from discrimination in public accommodation, where was the discrimination here? The restaurant didn't refuse to serve the Nazis, it simply refused to serve them so long as they were turning the restaurant into a forum for promoting their Nazi views by wearing swastikas. A restaurant couldn't discriminate against Satanists, does that mean they are required to let the Satanists wear T-shirts showing Jesus being tortured by a gleeful Lucifer?
Fourth, under current hostile environment law, the restaurant could get in serious trouble for not ordering the Nazis to stop wearing the swastikas. Tolerating swastika-wearing patrons would be considering by some to be the creation of an "illegal hostile public environment" for Jews, Gypsies, and others.
If you're familiar with my views on such issues, you know that I don't think the restaurant owners can or should be forced to censor the Nazis' expression of their views (unless the owners censor all points of view except Naziism, which could then be seen as their way of getting around the law and excluding Jews), but I also don't think that the Nazis can or should have the right to impose their speech on the unwilling owners of the restaurant, who are acting not only on their own behalf, but as agents for their patrons.
Julian Sanchez comments more directly on L'affaire Rand Paul at Newsweek, in "Why Rand Paul Is Right ... and Wrong -- The new GOP Senate candidate in Kentucky would be wrong to oppose the 1964 civil-rights law, but his underlying concern was legitimate":
Yet there's nothing intrinsically racist in the argument in favor of property rights--and indeed, any real liberal ought to at least have some sympathy for it. Strong property rights have often been the friend of unpopular minorities: Jim Crow laws were imposed precisely because racists feared the South's rigid caste system would collapse if business owners were free to integrate, as historian Charles Wynes noted in his 1961 study Race Relations in Virginia. After that long apartheid imposed on consumer preferences, it might have been too sanguine to hope market forces alone would have ushered in desegregation as rapidly as the Civil Rights Act did. But history is littered with tribal boundaries shattered by commerce, and formal law yielded no instant solution either. (A ban on formal segregation could only do so much in practice where majorities were determined to exclude blacks by means less explicit but barely more subtle than signs announcing "whites only.")Anyone who values freedom of association should also recognize the real tradeoff that antidiscrimination law involves. In a free society, Americans have long believed, even people with repulsive views have a right to express them, and to join with like-minded bigots in private clubs and informal gatherings. It is not crazy to imagine that in a more just world, an ideally just world, respect for that freedom would lead us to countenance--legally, if not personally--the few cranks who sought to congregate in their monochrome cafés and diners.
Yet that's precisely why Paul's 1.0 argument breaks down on its own terms: at the scene of a four-century crime against humanity--the kidnap, torture, enslavement, and legal oppression of African-Americans--ideal theory fails. We libertarians, never burdened with an excess of governing power, have always had a utopian streak, a penchant for imagining what rich organic order would bubble up from the choices of free and equal citizens governed by a lean state enforcing a few simple rules. We tend to envision societies that, if not perfect, are at least consistently libertarian.
...The central fact obscured by our polarized political discourse is that Rachel Maddow and Rand Paul don't inhabit completely alien moral worlds. The value of free association, in commercial as well as private life, is and ought to be a liberal value. The call for justice from victims of a criminal state should ring in libertarian ears. Both should hope to see a better world, where bigots' desire to gather together in their own sterile haunts could be not only tolerated but positively welcomed as a favor to the rest of us.
Your thoughts?
Obamacare Howler
From the WSJ, about a Medicare flyer sent to seniors worried about cuts, reassuring them that "The Affordable Care Act passed by Congress and signed by President Obama this year will provide you and your family greater savings and increased quality health care":
That's the first sentence of the four-page mailer, and it gives a flavor of the Administration's respect for the public's intelligence. It goes on to mention "improvements to Medicare Advantage," the program that Democrats hate because it gives nearly one out of four seniors private health insurance options. "If you are in a Medicare Advantage plan, you will still receive guaranteed Medicare benefits."But that's not what Medicare's own actuary thinks. In an April memo, Richard Foster estimated that the $206 billion hole in Advantage will reduce benefits, cause insurers to withdraw from the program and reduce overall enrollment by half. Doug Elmendorf and his team at the Congressional Budget Office came to the same conclusion, as did every other honest expert.
That's also what Humana told its customers, warning that seniors "could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage so valuable." Medicare threatened the Kentucky-based company with fines and regulatory punishments for "misleading and confusing" beneficiaries, then issued a blanket gag order on Advantage insurers. The agency later backed down, once its Cosa Nostra message had been signed, sealed and delivered.
I Recall When We Cared About The Soldiers
A Marine I follow on Facebook posted this about a helmet recall:
The Pentagon is recalling 44,000 combat helmets that are already in use with deployed soldiers and Marines in combat because they don't met standards for blast protection. They were made by Federal Prison Industries. Ok so we know your're a crook and can't be trusted, but we trust you make combat helmets? WTF!!
The Difference Between Children And Screaming Brats
CNN.com just posted a column by travel writer Christopher Elliott, headlined "Parents who shouldn't be allowed on planes."
Elliott linked within his piece to my recent LA Times op-ed on screaming children on planes and the people who "parent" them, which got picked up by papers around the globe. (Interestingly, Elliott didn't crediting me by name, but with "the wrath of the commenting classes.")
Elliott's linkage explains the off-topic comment left on my blog item of the Evian rollerskating babies commercial by one snarly "David Warner":
Ironic that you would like a video such as this given your distaste for sitting near the real thing.(Screaming kids and airplanes: Mayday! Mayday! - November 24, 2009)
The world isn't as perfect you wish it to be. Perhaps you should embrace that rather than complain about it.
Posted by: David Warner at May 26, 2010 12:24 PM
My reply:
Um, David Warner, perhaps you can't understand because you're the sort of parent who thinks nothing of bringing children in the feral stage on planes. I don't hate children. In fact, I have about nine in my life I absolutely adore. What I dislike is underparented children -- and that's on the parents, not the kids. Are you the sort of parent who brings their children to fancy restaurants and lets them wail or run around? If so, I'm talking about you.My parents raised us to be considerate, and the reason I have such a great relationship with my neighbors' kids (who can be naughty at times) is that they are raised to be considerate. Sometimes, they'll wake me up or annoy me. But, their parents will say, "Hey, Amy might be sleeping," and the fact that they care means everything, even if I do sometimes get awakened or have balls bouncing against my house when I'm writing.
A few excerpts from my book, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society, from the chapter, The Underparented Child:
...Back then, I believed I could fly, but the idea that I could ever be loud in a restaurant or kick the back of somebody's seat in a movie theater did not exist for me in what was possible in the known universe. I credit my parents, who I sometimes describe as "loving fascists." Our roles were clear. They were the parents and I was the child. They gave the orders and I obeyed them. ("Heil, Mother!")These days, too, American familial roles are clear. There are kings and queens and there are lowly serfs -- serfs called parents whose single greatest fear is not being liked by their children. As a result, as I wrote in a column, "The parental 'no' has officially joined the ranks of chronically missing items like The Holy Grail, Atlantis, and Britney Spears' underpants."...
...There used to be kid spaces and adult spaces. In fact, I thought kids and I had a deal: I'd stay out of Chuck E. Cheese if they stayed out of the martini lounge. Nope. In New York and some other places, kids can go to bars, and do.If you're a bar owner, don't even dream of telling parents they can't turn your place into Romper Room With Beer. That's what the owners of Brooklyn's Union Hall dared to do, with two signs, "Please, No Strollers" and "No One Under 21 Admitted." Their bar, their rules, right? Wrong. Shortly afterward, the mommies in the neighborhood declared war. "Local parenting blogs were soon bristling with denunciations," reported Alex Williams in The New York Times.
"This was a perfect winter moms' group place for those of us with infants going stir-crazy," wrote one woman on onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.com, wondering testily why local mothers could not at least drop in for "a beer once a week when it's not crowded."Um, because it's a bar, lady. Take it from another parent, commenting below Williams' story:
I have a six year old and a three year old. I like going out as much as the next person. Still, there are places that are appropriate for children, and places that are not. If it's not a place where the management and clientele can handle spilled juice, random Cheerios, and children underfoot, then don't go. It's not fair to the kids or to other patrons.Delving into the motivation of those determined to inflict their children on bar patrons, Williams quoted writer/actress Christen Clifford, who, most charmingly, sees dragging her baby to the martini lounge as a way of denying that one's youthful exploits come with a shelf life. "Psychologically, you feel like, 'Oh, my life hasn't changed that much,' " she said, "although of course it completely has."
Okay, fine, a mommy likes to dream, but why should that mean the adult social scene of the rest of us gets turned into a playdate? Guess what, lady: The feminists were wrong. Sadly, tragically, you cannot "have it all" -- not when it means making the rest of us put up with it all. So, if you're a parent, and you simply must throw back a beer or two while minding the kiddies, please feel free to pop into the liquor store for a six-pack on your way home.
The 27-Year-Old With The Helicopter Mommy
From an MSNBC story by Eve Tahminciolgu:
Indeed, some parents are going overboard, said Steven Rothberg, president and founder of CollegeRecruiter.com."I recently received a call from the mother of a Ph.D. student who was applying to jobs on behalf of the daughter and thought there was nothing wrong with it," he said. "The mother asked for suggestions for what jobs she should apply to on behalf of the daughter and I told her none."
Rothberg said the mother was surprised at his reaction. "It had never occurred to her that her daughter should be in charge of her own career, especially as she was in her late 20s and looking for a professional position," he added.
Parents are also popping up at job fairs with their children.
Tom Dezell, career adviser for the Maryland Professional Outplacement Assistance Center, a federally funded organization, often mans resume booths in the Baltimore area during job fairs and has seen parents bringing their grads up and speaking for them. "I say, 'Are you going to be next to them when they face the employer?'"
I don't come from a wealthy or connected family, but I got plum internships and jobs during high school and right out of college. How? As I tell the at-risk kids I speak to: "Don't think about what's possible. Figure out what you want, then figure out what it takes to make it happen."
I wanted to go to graduate school for film, but my midwestern parents thought it was just HEEE-larious, the thought that they'd pay for me to watch movies. I decided to find work where I could learn production on somebody else's dime. I ended up producing TV commercials at Ogilvy & Mather. And not because I have a parent who went to Dartmouth who wrote to some other Dartmouth alum (I don't and they didn't).
Amy The Nobody wrote a batch of letters to the O&M production heads that went utterly unanswered. So, having a funny resume and a sort of cute student film, I decided to try to sneak in and give somebody my resume. I got caught right in the lobby and kicked out by the guard, who later became my friend. I was glum. I waited just outside the building in the humid August heat and tried to come up with a new plan. I decided to wait for somebody important-looking to come out.
This guy, with this shock of white hair and a Dr. Zhivago-style shirt and seersucker pants walked out. I thought he definitely looked important. I trotted after him down 48th Street to Fifth Avenue and said, "Excuse me, do you work for Ogilvy & Mather?"
"Yes, I do," he said in a British accent.
"Would you please give my resume to somebody who can do something with it?" I asked.
A week later, I had an interview with one of the heads of production. As I waited in the reception area, I thumbed through the annual report and saw the picture of the man I'd stopped: Norman Berry, head of creative, Ogilvy Worldwide.
There Will Never Be Peace In Israel
A quote from Benjamin Netanyahu:
"If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel."
The Fox Guarding The Pornhouse
Yet another story reminding us that we're naive in expecting government to protect us. Stephen Power writes in the WSJ that government regulators accepted gifts from the oil industry:
Employees of a federal agency that regulates offshore drilling--including some whose duties included inspecting offshore oil rigs--accepted sporting-event tickets, meals, and other gifts from oil and natural-gas companies and used government computers to view pornography, according to a new report by the Interior Department's inspector general.The report--published Tuesday on the inspector general's website--describes a culture in which inspectors assigned to the Lake Charles, La., office of the Minerals Management Service have moved with "ease" between jobs in industry and government, drawing on relationships that formed "well before they took their jobs" with the agency.
Although the report says that "all of the conduct" examined in the report is "dated" and occurred prior to 2007, its publication comes at a sensitive time, with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar scheduled to testify before Congress Wednesday on his plan to restructure the agency following the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. The accident led to the deaths of 11 workers and to the spillage of thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico each day.
Mr. Salazar said he has asked the inspector general to expand her investigation to determine whether any of "this reprehensible behavior" persisted after the department implemented new ethics rules in 2009.
The inspector general's report doesn't specify how many MMS staffers accepted gifts from the oil industry, but says "this behavior appears to have drastically declined" since a former MMS supervisor, Don Howard, was terminated from the agency in 2007.
Mr. Howard, the former regional supervisor of the Gulf of Mexico region for MMS, pled guilty and was sentenced to a year's probation in federal court in New Orleans last year for lying about receiving gifts from an offshore-drilling contractor.
Loved this comment on the WSJ by Alex Schuettenberg:
One thing for sure. Since the Obama administration is adding more federal employees, these porn sites will have to get bigger IT servers.
Less Regulation, More Parenting
Tragically, these people had a child who died when they gave her popcorn at 23 months, and she choked on it. Laurie Tarkan writes for The New York Times:
On a July afternoon in 2006, Patrick Hale microwaved a bag of popcorn for his two young children and sat down with them to watch television. When he got up to change the channel, he heard a strange noise behind him, and turned to see his 23-month-old daughter, Allison, turning purple and unable to breathe.As a Marine, he was certified in CPR, but he could not dislodge the popcorn with blows to her back and finger swipes down her throat. He called 911, but it was too late: by the time Allison arrived at the hospital, her heart had stopped beating. An autopsy found that she had inhaled pieces of popcorn into her vocal cords, her bronchial tubes and a lung.
"Neither one of us knew that popcorn was unsafe," said her mother, Christie Hale of Keller, Tex.
Now, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the nation's leading pediatricians' group, wants that to change. Saying that food should be subject to as much scrutiny as toys, it is calling on the Food and Drug Administration to require warning labels on foods that are known choking hazards, and to evaluate and monitor food for safety.
Now there's a hotdog you can buy that breaks apart when eaten. Of course, there's always been knife and fork that you can use to cut your child's food -- and the common sense to cut or mash up food for your children when they're very young. I know that and I'm not a mom. And isn't this something that should come from pediatricians and other parenting advice sources, not government regulated food labels? I mean, are you reading the labels of food, which are already quite wordy, to figure out how to parent your child?
The Difference Between The Burka And The Bikini
There's one of those ridiculous cult 'o multi-culti pieces in Newsweek, but Phyllis Chesler makes quick work of the fuzzy-thinking Newsweek columnist Christopher Dickey:
He focuses upon the false moral equivalence between the burqa and the bikini. He quotes Amal Gandour, a Stanford-educated Shiite (unveiled) woman who says that "the very educated and professional--but veiled--woman in the southern suburbs of Beirut may have a stronger claim on the cosmopolitan vision than the bimbos with bare stomachs, big lips, and fake eyelashes walking downtown on Rue Foche."Just a minute. While I may not like the pornographication of the female body that has taken over Western culture, neither my family nor the state will ever force me to wear a bikini--or kill me if when I refuse to do so. Increasingly, the Islamic Veil has become either a life--or a death sentence for Muslim women. The veiling of women is also related to fundamentalism and terrorism. Bin Laden's wives are all fully veiled. Follow the chador or the burqa, in Muslim lands and in the West, and soon enough, you will stumble upon an anti-infidel, anti-Zionist den of extreme haters or terrorists.
Dickey is right to say that "The real test of modernity, including our own, is tolerance." But to suggest, as he does, that the more a person is willing to tolerate, the more modern you are, is just as mistaken as suggesting that the more nakedness you reveal, the more liberated you are. Tolerance and liberty without limits will eventually lead to their opposite.
Broadcast's Youth Market Starts At 44
Fascinating piece by Brian Steinberg at Ad Age:
While advertisers get ready to plunk down billions on prime-time broadcast TV during this upfront -- and make no mistake, they will -- consider this statistic: The median age of viewers of regular prime-time fare is nearing 51 (Fox, the youngest, is 44). That's two years past the age widely considered to be the point of no return for the most-coveted advertiser demographic. All of which leads to a burning question: Why are advertisers expected to rush to pick up some $9 billion in inventory in a medium that seems to be passing by younger viewers?In a word, reach. No other media outlet is able to put a 30-second commercial in front of the "most" of any demographic an advertiser wants in one fell swoop. Sure, there may be fewer of those valuable consumers between the ages of 18 and 49 watching -- and fewer still, perhaps, of consumers between 12 and 24 -- but there are still more of them watching "American Idol," "30 Rock" or "Grey's Anatomy" than in most other places.
via Robert W.
The Importance Of "Zing"
I'm working on a question from a woman whose older stepsister, at 36, is ready to settle for the first guy who doesn't pick his nose at the dinner table. From Lori Gottlieb's 2008 Atlantic piece, Marry Him! The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough:
Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year. (It's hard to maintain that level of zing when the conversation morphs into discussions about who's changing the diapers or balancing the checkbook.)
Maybe you need the "zing" to not hate the person when things get tough? To be very attracted to them when they're doing something really annoying (as all humans do)?
How does this sort of man as commodity work for all you men out there? And sure, you need to prioritize character, but how far do you go in going without "zing"?
Gottlieb's new book that I just read (also titled Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough
We're Making Less, But We'll Be Paying Lots More
via @DrEades, Dennis Cauchon writes for USA Today:
Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.At the same time, government-provided benefits -- from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs -- rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.
Those records reflect a long-term trend accelerated by the recession and the federal stimulus program to counteract the downturn. The result is a major shift in the source of personal income from private wages to government programs.
The trend is not sustainable, says University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes. Reason: The federal government depends on private wages to generate income taxes to pay for its ever-more-expensive programs. Government-generated income is taxed at lower rates or not at all, he says. "This is really important," Grimes says.
Bloated Bureaucracies Don't Produce Good Watchdogs
Or even adequate ones. The Comptroller of the Currency, supposedly the watchdog against bank misconduct, has not investigated Bank of America, despite my repeated complaints about their lies to the press about their bank's "security"...complaints I made not just as a citizen but as a reporter; complaints accompanied by 19 pages of typed, faxed documentation. I even called their press rep, Kevin Mukri, and begged him to get somebody to look into my reports and start an investigation.
Monday night, I read a piece by "public health correspondent Andrew Schneider" that many sunscreens may be accelerating cancer, and hopped my way to a short piece by Environmental Working Group about what the FDA actually does for us:
FDA: 32 years (and counting) after its first draft sunscreen standards, still no final rule.The FDA first issued draft sunscreen regulations in 1978 and last updated the draft in 2007. The regulations are still not final, despite multiple announcements of impending completion. Until the agency formally issues its rule, companies are not required to verify that their sunscreens work, including testing for SPF levels, checking waterproof claims or providing UVA protection. Nearly 1 in 8 sunscreens does not block UVA rays. Buyer beware!
The proposed regulations would require sunscreens to be labeled with a UVA star rating along with its SPF value. In the meantime, consumers should skip reading the claims and turn straight to the ingredient list looking for a mention of zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, Mexoryl or avobenzone. Buying products with those ingredients offers some assurance that the user will get at least some protection from UVA rays.
Think government's going to protect you? Think those tax dollars are actually buying you something? Well, besides hefty pensions for the government employees who employed by the FDA, the Comptroller of the Currency, and other government watchdog agencies whose greatest concern is...certainly not you, me, or the best interest of the rest of the citizenry they're charged with looking out for. Scumbags.
Fire them all.
And as Ron Kaye writes about our elected officials:
They are part of a system that itself is corrupt, from our cities to our state's to our nation's capital. Corruption is the business of politics. The two parties have divvied up the graft from the broad array of special interests and legalized it. They have turned political discourse and debate into a war of divisive messages meant to segment us into antagonisms while lulling the masses into passivity and helplessness.
Trust, honesty, courage are passé. We now look for no more than their abstractions in integrity and transparency as if the coherency of their behavior and its visibility alone were the real stuff of leadership.
Personally, I long ago reduced my own political philosophy nothing more, or less, than right of everyone to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as they see fit, just as long as they respect those same rights for others.
When I go to the polls June 8, I will vote against who holds public office almost without exception. My judgments have nothing to do with Democrat or Republican or any other party or their positions on any particular issue.
It has solely to do with my sense of their character, whether there is any reason to believe that they might show courage, honest and are trustworthy.
There may be dozens of great people running for office but I only have come across four of them that I believe are people who strive to be honest, have shown the courage of their convictions and just be worthy of our trust.
I'm with him on Mickey Kaus -- all the way:
At the top of the ticket, running for the United States Senate is Mickey Kaus, a journalist who became one of the first great bloggers with the Kaus Files and became a mainstay at Slate.com.
Kaus is a maverick Democrat who believes Barbara Boxer is the worst kind of political hack who achieved little or nothing in her three terms except wasting a seat in the Senate and pandering to the party faithful's prejudices without actually achieving what they want or looking after the interests of her state.
I know Mickey, and have read him for years, and went to hear him speak on Saturday, and agreed with almost all of what he said. He's principled, highly intelligent, honest, and reasonable, and a good guy, and he has my vote, and if you live in California, I hope you'll give him yours.
Back to the sunscreen, here's the deal from EWG on the form of Vitamin A, retinyl palmitate, that may be harmful. According to EWG, the highly protective, Mexoryl-based Anthelios
Rogue Taxidermy
Simply great small show of taxidermied creatures not found in nature at La Luz de Jesus gallery (at Wackos on Hollywood Boulevard near Vermont in Los Angeles).
Here's Frick 'n' Frack, the two-headed squirrel:
More about the show:
Guest curator Robert Marbury (along with his partners Scott Bibus and Sarina Brewer) coined the term in 2004, upon forming the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists. Road kill becomes a central part of their "recycled" philosophy, as are discarded livestock, destroyed nuisance animals, casualties of the pet trade and animals that have expired from natural causes. Other sculptures utilize taxidermy materials with custom stitching to fashion beasts from the recycled pelts of toy stuffed animals.
Heinlein Quote Of The Day
"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him."
--Robert Heinlein
I just heard Ayaan Hirsi Ali interviewed by my friend Jill Stewart at Center For Inquiry, so I'm especially mindful that there is worse tyranny (one example), but I'm no fan of the above, either. More on what Hirsi Ali said in the next few days.
Her new book that Gregg just bought me: Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations
Alternative Medicine?
Alternative to being alive, that is. Parents who don't vaccinate their children and some of the woowoo doctors responsible. Translated from the Swedish.
via @bengoldacre
England Might Stop Naming Rape Suspects
Minette Marrin writes in the Times of London about a possible progressive development in the UK, and why it's the right thing to do:
A false allegation of rape can ruin a man's life. Even if he is tried and found not guilty, he will still remain suspect in many people's eyes and perhaps at home, too. Rape is notoriously difficult to prove, even when the defendant is clearly guilty, and people always say there is no smoke without fire. So it is almost impossible for a man to survive an accusation of rape without a stain on his name: there will be whispers and worse for the rest of his life. Only a false allegation of paedophilia could be worse.That must be obvious. So one might imagine that the government's proposal last Friday to grant defendants in rape cases anonymity until proved guilty would be welcomed. On the contrary, activists in the rape lobby were furious. Ruth Hall, of Women against Rape, angrily described this new policy as an insult. It would stop women reporting rape, she claimed, and reinforce the misconception that lots of women who do report rape are lying.
This is nonsense. The subject of rape has a curious way of making the most rational people throw away the most basic principles of justice and sexual equality as well. Surely the most misandrist of feminists would accept that the principles of equality before the law and equality between men and women are not lightly to be dismissed. After all, equality is what the feminist movement has fought so hard for, and the rape lobby is one of the daughters of feminism. And surely they would agree that the presumption of innocence until proved guilty is a central principle of English law.
What is legal sauce for the goose ought to be sauce for the gander. The law rightly protects women in rape trials from the particular miseries involved; it should equally protect male defendants from the corresponding miseries, because every man is innocent until proved guilty.
Of course, she says, if he is found guilty, his name would be made public, just as the woman's would be if he is found not guilty.
How prevalent are false accusations of rape? iFeminists' Wendy McElroy writes on Fox:
Politically correct feminists claim false rape accusations are rare and account for only 2 percent of all reports. Men's rights sites point to research that places the rate as high as 41 percent. These are wildly disparate figures that cannot be reconciled.This week I stumbled over a passage in a 1996 study published by the U.S. Department of Justice: Convicted by Juries, Exonerated by Science: Case Studies in the Use of DNA Evidence to Establish Innocence After Trial.
The study documents 28 cases which, "with the exception of one young man of limited mental capacity who pleaded guilty," consist of individuals who were convicted by juries and, then, later exonerated by DNA tests.
At the time of release, they had each served an average of 7 years in prison.
The passage that riveted my attention was a quote from Peter Neufeld and Barry C. Scheck, prominent criminal attorneys and co-founders of the Innocence Project that seeks to release those falsely imprisoned.
They stated, "Every year since 1989, in about 25 percent of the sexual assault cases referred to the FBI where results could be obtained, the primary suspect has been excluded by forensic DNA testing. Specifically, FBI officials report that out of roughly 10,000 sexual assault cases since 1989, about 2,000 tests have been inconclusive, about 2,000 tests have excluded the primary suspect, and about 6,000 have "matched" or included the primary suspect."
The authors continued, "these percentages have remained constant for 7 years, and the National Institute of Justice's informal survey of private laboratories reveals a strikingly similar 26 percent exclusion rate."
If the foregoing results can be extrapolated, then the rate of false reports is roughly between 20 (if DNA excludes an accused) to 40 percent (if inconclusive DNA is added). The relatively low estimate of 25 to 26 percent is probably accurate, especially since it is supported by other sources.
What's "Bizarre" Is The Level Of Overprotection These Days
Lenore Skenazy writes on Spiked about her proposed "Take Your Children To The Park And Leave Them There Day," called "Bizarre" on the front page the New York Daily News, the paper that used run to my column and hers:
I keep hearing that it's so dangerous today, that it's not like it used to be. But one reason we parents think this way is because we used to enjoy going outside and meeting each other when we were kids, and it felt safe when everyone knew one another in the neighbourhood. Now that we've become increasingly used to keeping our children in a safe bubble, keeping them indoors where there are computers, televisions and constant texting, there's nobody left outside who knows your kids. It's actually safer and better for everyone involved if I know who your kids are and you know who my kids are. We need to re-knit the idea of a community.A lady wrote a message on my blog today, saying: 'So if I'm at the park and your kid falls down and hurts his arm, I'm supposed to help him?' Her implication was that that's not her job, but I thought 'yes, that is your job' - just like I would look after her kid if he fell down and broke his arm. There's something nasty about a society that says 'I'm here for my child and my child only, and I'm going to ignore your kids completely even if they're in distress'. Well, I don't think that's the kind of neighbourhood anyone wants to live in, so I hope the Take Our Children to the Park Day will give us some hope of shaping the kind of community we all long for.
And it's also about getting our children to play again - outdoors and with each other. Play is incredibly important for children, not just because it's fun, but because it's an important part of their development. When kids play with other kids, they have everything going for them - all the kinds of developments that parents could hope for. There's creativity involved: 'Let's turn that tree into a jail!' There's communication: kids have to explain to each other the rules of the game. There's compromise: one kid thinks the tree should be the jail, another says it should be first base, a third believes it should be the safety zone, and so on. And so they have to compromise. And in play, children also have the perfect chance of developing 'self-regulation' - which is the new buzzword. This refers to that ability that we attribute to maturity: to keep yourself from doing something impulsively that you know is not a good idea, to keep yourself from acting unfairly or doing something wrong.
What happened yesterday to one of the kids who got left at the park yesterday? He made a new friend.
Bacon, Bacon, Bacon, Bacon
It's what I think of this time of the morning when I think of the kitchen. But, at Amazon, for those who think of other foods, too, there's Up to 30 percent off kitchen stuff
For anyone wondering how I make bacon (no splatter, attention on my blog instead of on a pan while it's cooking), here's my secret: Pyrex Bakeware 1-1/2-Quart Casserole Dish with Lid
Cook it on paper towel? The horror, the horror! That removes all the fat, which, in bacon, is the point! This way, it cooks in the fat, but the fat does not end up all over your microwave or your kitchen. Dry it off in paper towel afterward, and do your best to wait for it to get cool before you eat it. Greedies.
Is Pubic Hair Passé?
For women under 30? For women under 40? Has anybody seen a woman with a full bush in the past 10 years (who isn't 55)?
And then, not to leave the other side out: Are straight guys out there shaving or...horrors!...getting the boyzilian?
What's your experience/opinion on the latest in hair down there?
Comment About The State Of Things
On Better Pluck Next Time, by Lily:
I would say that feminism has gone a long way but a look at the demographics in California shows that more progress is needed. Many of the poorest people in California are working single mothers. Women make about 71 cents to the dollar that men with comparable jobs make. Part of it is that women do take more time off to for their children (I would argue out of necessity and residual expectations from 50 years ago) but part of it is just prejudice. Companies are run as if each employee has a wife at home to handle household and child care and this just isn't the case anymore. Teachers complain that few parents can make it for parent-teacher conferences anymore. A lot of times even two parent families can't handle things financially unless both parents are in the work force. I don't see how even two people can work full-time and raise kids and I worry about all of the single mothers in our state right now. Honestly, sometimes I think that in fighting for education and work, we have instead of making things better for ourselves, women just made things worse. I would currently love nothing more than to get married and focus on taking care of my husband and having children for the next few years. But I have just nearly finished a bachelors program and internship and now am going to work for a year and then go on to grad school. If I get married, even having children seems like a huge luxury that me and many of the women in my graduating class may never have. So this is the legacy that our mothers have left us. An expectation to excel in school and have brilliant careers without removing the expectations to keep our homes clean, do volunteer work, and children raised. I think that in the current status quo women suffer but so do men and so do children. Unless companies change and become more family friendly, I worry about what's going to happen.
Agree? Disagree?
Public "Servant" Pensions Will Break This Country
I'm hugely grateful to people like my LAPD cop friend Sergeant Heather who lay their lives on the line to protect the rest of us. The thing is, there's no way we can afford to pay huge pensions for people's lifetimes -- especially when they retire young. In The New York Times, Mary Williams Walsh and Amy Schoenfeld write about the state of things in their state:
In Yonkers, more than 100 retired police officers and firefighters are collecting pensions greater than their pay when they were working. One of the youngest, Hugo Tassone, retired at 44 with a base pay of about $74,000 a year. His pension is now $101,333 a year.It's what the system promised, said Mr. Tassone, now 47, adding that he did nothing wrong by adding lots of overtime to his base pay shortly before retiring. "I don't understand how the working guy that held up their end of the bargain became the problem," he said.
Despite a pension investigation by the New York attorney general, an audit concluding that some police officers in the city broke overtime rules to increase their payouts and the mayor's statements that future pensions should be based on regular pay, not overtime, these practices persist in Yonkers.
The city has even arranged for its police to put in overtime as flagmen on Consolidated Edison construction sites. Though a company is paying the bill, the city is actually reporting the work as city overtime to the New York State pension fund, padding future payouts -- an arrangement at odds with the spirit of public employment, if not the law.
The Yonkers experience shows how errors, misunderstandings and wishful thinking are piling hidden new costs onto New York's public pension system every year, worsening the state's current fiscal crisis. And the problem is not just in New York. Public pension costs are ballooning everywhere, throwing budgets out of whack and raising the question of whether venerable state pension systems are viable.
In fact, the cost of public pensions has been systemically underestimated nationwide for more than two decades, say some analysts. By these estimates, state and local officials have promised $5 trillion worth of benefits while thinking they were committing taxpayers to roughly half that amount.
Allah Just Rest For A While, Thanks
Lucy, in repose, after a hard five minute's work posing as Mohammed for Draw Mohammed Day. (As I wrote yesterday, I don't draw. I am, however, one of those wacky broads who dresses up her dog.)
Meatless Meatballs
Gregg just said:
"If meat is so bad for all these vegans, why do they make all their food look like meat?"
He wonders why vegans don't have 2001-ish food cubes or some other non-meat-referential method of food delivery. Tofurkey? Eeeuw. I'll take the steak, with strips of bacon wrapped around it.
What's Yours Is Theirs
Stossel in reason on property confiscation -- sometimes on mere suspicion a crime has been committed. Stossel writes:
Zaher El-Ali has repaired and sold cars in Houston for 30 years. One day, he sold a truck to a man on credit. Ali was holding the title to the car until he was paid, but before he got his money the buyer was arrested for drunk driving. The cops then seized Ali's truck and kept it, planning to sell it.Ali can't believe it
"I own that truck. That truck done nothing."
The police say they can keep it under forfeiture law because the person driving the car that day broke the law. It doesn't matter that the driver wasn't the owner. It's as if the truck committed the crime.
"I have never seen a truck drive," Ali said. I don't think it's the fault of the truck. And they know better."
Something has gone wrong when the police can seize the property of innocent people.
"Under this bizarre legal fiction called civil forfeiture, the government can take your property, including your home, your car, your cash, regardless of whether or not you are convicted of a crime. It's led to horrible abuses," says Scott Bullock of the Institute for Justice, the libertarian law firm.
Of course, as Bullock points out, for those taking your property, it's not the money but the...uh, money that seems to be behind this:
"One of the main reasons they do this and why they love civil forfeiture is because in Texas and over 40 states and at the federal level, police and prosecutors get to keep all or most of the property that they seize for their own use," he said. "So they can use it to improve their offices, buy better equipment."
The LA Times Is Allergic To The Local
They have covered my book in Brand X, their younger section that's given out free in some newsboxes around town, but the main paper has not done a single story on me...a local author, whose stories of militant action against the rude take place locally...and who has been covered in wee venues like The New York Times, San Jose Mercury News, Toronto Star, and the LA Weekly.
The paper just posted a cursory Health section blog item on a subject in my book, and they apparently haven't even read the current study, which is as of yet unpublished! In fact, it sounds like they just read the news release. Quality science reporting, ladies! Their blog item about it is here.
The comment I left below their blog item is below:
Andrew Monk and his team at York University published research saying this years ago, and it's in my book, "I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society," in the chapter on cell phone rudeness. I also explain it further. See below:A paper published in 2004 by York University's Dr. Andrew Monk and his colleagues showed that one-sided conversations are more intrusive and annoying -- whether the person talking is on a cell phone, or talking with another person whose side of the conversation isn't audible. It's likely your brain is compelled to pay attention and fill in the side of the conversation you can't hear. Dr. Mark Liberman, a University of Pennsylvania linguist, speculates that, after a few seconds of hearing half a conversation, the front part of your brain, the chief-executive/decision-making area, "is throbbing like a stubbed toe. Or at least it's interfering with your ability to think about other things."Liberman believes this mind-jacking is a side-effect of the human capacity for mind reading -- not swami-in-a-jeweled-turban-style, but in the little ways we all do, all day, every day, to predict what other people are thinking and feeling, and in turn, how they'll behave. This ability, called "Theory of Mind," is how, when somebody's shaking his fist at you and growing increasingly red-faced, you can be reasonably sure he's angry, not gleefully happy, and is more likely to end up clocking you one than hugging you. Humans not only have an ability for mind reading, "It's ... pretty much automatic," Liberman writes. "...You can't stop yourself from reading your companions' minds any more than you can stop yourself from noticing the color of their clothes. But when you're only getting half the cues -- from one side of a cell phone conversation between two strangers -- you have to work a lot harder."
There's more in my book.
Meanwhile, I just found out I'm up for Journalist of the Year from LA Press Club -- twice! -- in both large circulation and smaller circulation papers. (I'm up for a few other awards, too.) It seems I'm just not of any interest to the local daily!
Slicing A Fingertip Off Just Got Much Cheaper
Specials on kitchen knives at Amazon
Draw Mohammed Day, From A Girl Who Doesn't Draw
What to do, what to do...some mediocre sketch of Mohammed, not up to my conceptual standards?
That wasn't going to work.
I put my favorite subject to work instead, to show my opposition to religious thuggery and my support for free speech and other Western values: 
Nick Gillespie, in reason, explains their Draw Mohammed contest:
It's worth meditating on the whys and wherefores of the contest, which was inspired by a jihadist death threat against the creators of South Park and was originally suggested by Seattle artist Molly Norris....There comes a point in any society's existence where it must ultimately, to paraphrase Martin Luther (who himself was more than happy to see opponents put to death), dig in its heels and say here we stand, we will do no other. We don't need to be perfectly consistent philosophically or historically or theologically to assert what is special and unique not just about the United States, with its bizarre and wonderful articulation of the First Amendment, but the greater classical liberal project comprising not just the "West" (whatever that is) but human beings in whatever town, country, or planet they inhabit. And at the heart of the liberal project is ultimately a recognition that individuals, for no other reason than that they exist, have rights to continue to exist. Embedded in all that is the right to expression. No one has a right to an audience or even to a sympathetic hearing, much less an engaged audience. But no one should be beaten or killed or imprisoned simply for speaking their mind or praying to one god as opposed to the other or none at all or getting on with the small business of living their life in peaceful fashion. If we cannot or will not defend that principle with a full throat, then we deserve to choke on whatever jihadists of all stripes can force down our throats.
...Our Draw Mohammed contest is not a frivolous exercise of hip, ironic, hoolarious sacrilege toward a minority religion in the United States (though even that deserves all the protection that the most serioso political commentary commands). It's a defense of what is at the core of a society that is painfully incompetent at delivering on its promise of freedom, tolerance, and equal rights. It's a rebuttal to the notion that we should go limp in the clinches precisely because bullies and bastards can punch or blow us up.
Oh, and remember when Iran, in response to the Jyllands-Posten cartoon Islamic cartoon controversy, ran a Holocaust Cartoon Contest. In response, Jews all over the world...went about their day -- yes, most amazingly, instead of blowing up Muslims' places of business or trying to behead the cartoonists.
Luckily, Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard was saved from the ax-wielding Muslim guy who broke into his home by huddling in a panic room.
UPDATE: Twitter is having none of that freedom of speech stuff, it seems. I tried to do a second tweet of my 'round midnight tweet about this post and I kept getting error messages:
"Something is technically wrong. Please try again in a moment."
Got that repeatedly. And another message, saying I didn't have permission to post.
But it seems my account isn't suspended. It seems they're blocking "Mohammed" and probably "draw." I used both in my tweet:
Draw Mohammed Day 5/20? Hmm, I don't draw. I am, however, one of those wacky broads who dresses up her dog: http://bit.ly/bVfY1Y
JihadWatch's Draw Mohammed cartoon gallery here.
UPDATE #2: reason's is finally up here.
Feel The Bubbling Joy
And then scroll down for the bubbling ugly. In the New York Observer, a guy named Felix Gillette posts a story about ABC News producer Mimi Gurbst, who's quitting to become a high school guidance counselor:
In recent years, when she wasn't putting together stories as a senior producer for ABC's World News or helping to oversee global news-gathering operations as a network vice president, Mimi Gurbst liked to advise her colleagues on various ways to improve their personal and professional lives.Somewhere along the say, sources tell The Observer, Ms. Gurbst became a kind of cherished, if unofficial, career counselor at ABC News, helping countless young producers and correspondents find their way at a particularly tumultuous time in an already confusing business.
Soon Ms. Gurbst will be counseling uncertain youngsters, full-time.
Awwww..."cherished"? Wet kissies all around? Well, not exactly. Posted below the piece are comments about how Gurbst apparently ran the place, for 30 years -- apparently, like the news bureau version of Mean Girls.
Most of these comments seem to be anonymous, but the number and vehemence is stunning. It seems the tongue job Gillette did was just too much for Gurbst's former colleagues to bear.
Response defending Gurbst here.
The Religion Of Pieces
Body parts, that is -- of "infidels," apostates, gays, and women who don't toe the line. For example, from JihadWatch from Wednesday, there's "Switzerland: Muslim father murders his teenage daughter with an axe in honor killing."
The question from the audience to the panel: Why would they "warp" a religion to kill us?
Colonel Allen West explains that we're actually fighting against a "theo-political" system. (As the late George Mason said, it's a totalitarian system masquerading as a religion.)
Regarding the Quran, West says, "They are doing exactly what this book says." And until we understand this, and get leadership that does, we will not be able to adequately fight the enemy:
Never Mind Actually Enforcing The Laws
CNN reports that the Feds aren't going to act on the kid's revelation to Michelle Obama that her mom's in the country illegally:
"My mom said, I think that she says that, Barack Obama is going to take away everybody that doesn't have papers," the young girl told Mrs. Obama as she visited a Washington-area school with Mexican first lady Margarita Zavala.The unscripted moment was sandwiched between examples of Michelle Obama's signature policy initiatives -- a lesson on healthy eating and an exercise session -- and forced the first lady to walk the fine line of immigration reform policy language.
"Yeah, well, that's something that we have to work on, right? To make sure that people can be here with the right kind of papers, right? That's exactly right," she said.
The girl replied, "But my mom doesn't have any."
"[W]ell we have to work on that; we have to fix that and everybody's got to work together in Congress to make sure that happens. That's right," Obama said before moving to the next question.
Nicholas Cage: Dignified Sexitarian
From a Telegraph/UK piece by Alastair Jamieson, Cage told the Sun he doesn't eat certain animals because he doesn't like the undignified way they have sex:
He told the newspaper: "I love all animals. I have a fascination with fish, birds, whales - sentient life - insects, reptiles."I actually choose the way I eat according to the way animals have sex. I think fish are very dignified with sex. So are birds.
"But pigs, not so much. So I don't eat pig meat or things like that. I eat fish and fowl."
Hairy Men, Women Who Resemble Joseph Stalin
I just posted my Advice Goddess column, "How To Pick Up Gorillas," with an answer to a guy with a hairy back -- and another letter from a woman who was very offended that I'd advise a woman to advise another woman to remove her mustache (how very "anti-feminist" of me)! Comments are live at the links above.
The End Of Fun
Free Range Kids author (just out in paperback!) Lenore Skenazy on Salon on the changes they're making on the playground, constantly overhauling them because kids are hurting themselves unnecessarily:
But that depends on your definition of "unnecessary.""Children rise to risk," says Joan Almon, executive director of the U.S. Alliance for Childhood. "Give them some genuine risk and they quickly learn what their limits are, and then they expand their limits." The problem is: If kids never encounter even tiny risks, they never develop that thing we call common sense.
Joe Frost is a professor emeritus at the University of Texas who has written 18 books on children's play. He has also spent the past 33 years observing children frolicking on the playgrounds he personally developed and keeps tinkering with at the Redeemer Lutheran School in Austin.
"There's a public school just a few blocks away and the principal told me they'd had two to three broken bones this school year already," says Frost. Meanwhile, over at Redeemer, "In three decades, we've averaged one per decade on our playground -- and our kids jump off 4- to 6-foot decks at a dead run. They play chase games all over the equipment, and all over the country you'll find schools that won't even allow it."
He's right. Schools have outlawed tag and other running games at recess. At my own sons' public grammar school, kids are allowed to run only around the perimeter of the yard, not anywhere in the middle. Too much chance for someone to get hurt! So how come Frost's 500 students aren't hurting themselves?
Frost says it's the same reason he and his buddies didn't hurt themselves too bad back when he was a kid playing in rural Arkansas: They developed a sense of how high and how fast it's safe to go. They learned how to protect themselves. They even learned how to fall safely. You can guess how a kid acquires that particular skill.
A playground that gets kids moving and grooving and growing and thinking requires a frisson of adventure. That's what Denmark realized during World War II: Kids actually preferred playing in the rubble of bombed-out buildings than on their regular playgrounds!
The Danes took that to heart and started erecting "adventure playgrounds," filled with "loose parts" -- aka junk. England adopted that model, too, and at one point London had 200 adventure playgrounds. It still has about 80, says Almon, and across Europe about 1,000 still flourish.
Why Sharia Law Threatens America
By a courageous woman who's lived under Sharia, Wafa Sultan.
Under Sharia, says Sultan, "Women and minorities are deprived of the human rights we in the rights take for granted."
For her, personally, in considering to leave her native Syria, "Contemplating to be homeless in America would be more attractive than living as a woman under Sharia..."
"Under Sharia gays are to be killed and women are considered inferior."
If Sharia would be imposed, she says...goodbye alcohol, pork or bacon, birth control pills. And hello, more honor killings. Women are forced into marriage. People from other religions are persecuted.
"Muslim men are allowed to beat their wives..."
And more...
What can we do? "You can learn about Sharia and educate others in your community about it," and tell politicians and the news media your concerns about Sharia in a Western country.
We all need to take action, she says. All of us who live in the United States and believe in the Constitution, she says. "Sharia is a form of slavery. Sharia has no place in the West."
America has given her her life, she says.
I Am A Sucker (On Wheels) For This Stuff
Evian commercial:
Amy trivia for anyone who cares: I can do every skating trick here except for the backflip off the fence, spinning on my back, and walking on my hands. (I used to say I was "like Tonya Harding on wheels.")
Too Few Vaginas In Those Seats?
Libby Purves talks sense in the Times of London about the notion that there aren't enough women in politics:
The assumption that Parliament or Cabinet should fully "reflect the diversity of the electorate" is ridiculous. You work with what's there: and besides, there are plenty of prominent women who absolutely do not speak for me, and there are Muslims, ethnic minority members, gays and disabled people in public life whose views are anathema to many within their category. If a thoughtful and (I honestly believe) unbiased Prime Minister chooses more men than women right now, fine. The only important thing -- whether in politics, science and engineering, media, churches or banks -- is that doors should not be closed by law, that girls should be equally educated and encouraged to lead and to try non-traditional subjects, and that family life should be respected for both genders. With, of course, a reasonable recognition that biology hampers women more.
I don't think there should be more female scientists or more males in the talk professions like psychology. I think people should have the careers they want, and those careers will probably reflect their biology (men, for example, are more likely to take risky careers, like working on an oil rig, because men evolved to be the risk-takers of the species, because that's what they have to do to land and keep women). And then, in politics, I don't care what you're packing in your pants, what color you are or what religion you are (I do prefer none at all, reflecting rationality on your part); I just want you to be worthy of election or appointment (which is a pretty high bar to hit -- and few do).
Once You Go Beige...
My friend Charlie, who's "African American" but who's just slightly darker than I am, refers to his skin color as "beige," and calls himself "incognegro."
I posted this on Facebook, and got some hilarious follow-up comments:
"My son's schoolmate is a very light-skinned African American. His parents named him Tanner."
"oh nice! My family is Chinese and Mexican. My sister coined the phrase "Mexigook""Do you celebrate cinco de Mao?"
"I made nachos, does that count?"
From the above Chinese/Mexican woman:"When I was pregnant with my first, her in-utero nickname was 'Honky' because my husband grumbled 'she's going to be mostly white anyway'"
About me:"EVERYBODY is darker than you are!"
"If Amy was any whiter, she'd be clear. Not that it stops her from having flava and soul."
ME: "I like to say I'm the color of fresh Wite-Out!"
Maybe It Was The OTHER Vietnam
You know, the one just north of Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington, D.C. Amazingly, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, now running for the U.S. Senate, talks about serving in Vietnam -- like so, in this New York Times piece by Raymond Hernandez:
"We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam," Mr. Blumenthal said to the group gathered in Norwalk in March 2008. "And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it -- Afghanistan or Iraq -- we owe our military men and women unconditional support."There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat now running for the United States Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records.
The deferments allowed Mr. Blumenthal to complete his studies at Harvard; pursue a graduate fellowship in England; serve as a special assistant to The Washington Post's publisher, Katharine Graham; and ultimately take a job in the Nixon White House.
In 1970, with his last deferment in jeopardy, he enlisted in the Marine Reserve, landing a coveted spot in a unit in Washington, which virtually guaranteed that he would not be sent to Vietnam. The unit conducted part-time drills and other exercises and focused on local projects, like fixing a campground and organizing a Toys for Tots drive.
Vile.
Blumenthal denies the allegations.
And here's another.
Whoopsy! From Hot Air, here's the video!
"We have learned something very important since the days I served in Vietnam..."
The Price Of Government Price-Setting
If you own an ATM machine, you should be able to charge whatever you damn well please. But, from Consumerist, a tiny anti-capitalist rant:
A cap on ATM fees topping out at 50 cents, as proposed by some in Congress, sounds like a no-brainer, an automatically awesome thing that anyone who has ever groaned at a $3 fee would seem to applaud. But there could be disadvantages too.As CNNMoney points out, capping fees on ATMs could prompt those who make the machines and distribute them cut costs by decreasing the number of machines available.
More from the CNN piece:
What consumer advocates have taken issue with however, is that some banks and ATM operators charge far beyond the simple processing fee.The Harkin amendment estimates that it only costs banks somewhere in the neighborhood of 36 cents to carry out an ATM transaction - far less than what consumers typically pay.
"Banks shouldn't be able to turn accessing your own money into a profit center," said Jean Ann Fox, director of financial services for the Consumer Federation of America.
Um...why not?
If you're frugal, do as I do, and be prepared to have enough cash on hand or to go to an ATM in your system. Nobody owes you convenience.
And, by the way, if the government can tell ATM owners what they can charge, and doctors what they can, what stops them from setting the going rate on fixing a toilet or telling you what you can charge for your services?
Too many laws, too much lawmaker meddling. Free enterprise is increasingly shackled, and it's not a good thing.
Lost In Translation
Tweet from UK science journo Ben Goldacre:
@bengoldacre fags still cause 30% of all deaths in developed countries, and 60% of deaths among current smokers. awe inspiring, isnt it?
P.S. Fags in the UK are Marlboro and Camels. Fannies, on the other hand, are vaginas. And in France, you'd better hope there are no "préservatifs" in your food, a la, "Monsieur, there's a condom in my soup."
Hey, Freelancers! Fun With Obamacare!
At reason, Peter Suderman writes that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Obama's trillion-dollar overhaul of the nation's health care system, is already adding costs, is likely to reduce people's existing insurance programs, and is going to cause a big old pain in the ass for those of us who are self-employed:
Small businesses, meanwhile, have discovered that their tax preparation costs just went way up. The PPACA will require small business owners and the self-employed to fill out 1099s for every company they do more than $600 worth of business with. That means any freelancer who buys a mid-range laptop from Best Buy will technically be required to fill out a 1099, no matter if the retailer is an indifferent chain giant. As with the drug subsidy modification, the idea is to beef up compliance and raise additional revenue--about $17 billion worth.Yet if it works, it will drive up compliance costs--how many home-based freelancers are likely to generate a docket of 1099s, complete with tax identification numbers, for big corporate suppliers all by themselves? And if, as seems likely, the requirement is widely ignored, it will have the exact opposite of its intended effect, pushing more and more taxable transactions into illegal, unrecorded territory.
Content? What Content?
A friend of mine cancelled his LA Times and got this e-mail from the paper telling him about all the great...coupons...he's missing. Oh yeah, and then they do mention "a national weekly magazine with celebrity features" -- I think, meaning Parade:
Subject: Reminder: Don't miss out on receiving Times Select every SundayDear SoCal Consumer,
This is to remind you that if you don't want to miss out on FREE money-saving coupons and more every Sunday, immediate action is required.
ACT NOW and the Los Angeles Times will deliver Times Select to your doorstep - at NO COST!
Every Sunday, you can enjoy receiving.
•Money-saving coupons for local stores
•Special advertising inserts from major retailers
•A national weekly magazine with celebrity features/news
If you want to start getting Times Select at NO CHARGE, click below.
Thanks,
Los Angeles Times
Hey, Artists, Sponge Off The Rest Of Us!
This little Pelosi speech makes me burn with a white-hot rage, especially considering the seriously crappy jobs I had as a struggling writer in New York (and I wouldn't have had it any other way, since the person whose responsibility it is to support me is...me!)
Here's Nancy Pelosi telling artists they can quit their jobs and let the rest of us pay for their health care.
via @EdMorrissey/Hot Air
What's A Little Nick?
Mark Steyn writes in the OC Reg about how easy it's gotten for Muslims to turn our society into one of theirs:
Last week, the American Association of Pediatricians (Amy: Pediatrics, actually) noted that certain, ahem, "immigrant communities" were shipping their daughters overseas to undergo "female genital mutilation." So, in a spirit of multicultural compromise, they decided to amend their previous opposition to the practice: They're not (for the moment) advocating full-scale clitoridectomies, but they are suggesting federal and state laws be changed to permit them to give a "ritual nick" to young girls.A few years back, I thought even fainthearted Western liberals might draw the line at "FGM." After all, it's a key pillar of institutional misogyny in Islam: Its entire purpose is to deny women sexual pleasure.
True, many of us hapless Western men find we deny women sexual pleasure without even trying, but we don't demand genital mutilation to guarantee it. On such slender distinctions does civilization rest.
Der Spiegel, an impeccably liberal magazine, summed up the remorseless Islamization of Europe in a recent headline: "How Much Allah Can The Old Continent Bear?" Well, what's wrong with a little Allah-lite? The AAP thinks you can hop on the Sharia express and only ride a couple of stops. In such ostensibly minor concessions, the "ritual nick" we're performing is on ourselves. Further cuts will follow.
P.S. Judaism-driven, non-medically necessary circumcision of boys is also barbaric, and should not be allowed.
Meet The Class Of 2010
Joe Queenan in the WSJ on what it's like to be a recent grad:
A few weeks ago I ran into one of my son's oldest friends. He had attended an Ivy League school, studying drama and music, and was now back living at home. He is a smart, talented, enterprising young man and I have always liked him, in part because he engages with adults in a way many young men do not. (For example, he actually makes eye contact.) I asked him if he had found a job yet and he replied, a bit sheepishly, "Not exactly." He then explained that he was working as an intern at a street fair on the Lower East Side of New York City. An Ivy League education runs around $200,000, not counting meals and transportation. The internship paid about $250 a week. But presumably, it could lead to bigger things, like a full-time job at a street fair in New York. Even so, it did sound like my son's friend was ever so slightly underemployed.Over the next few weeks, hundreds of thousands of Millennials will graduate from institutions of higher learning. They will celebrate for several days, perhaps several weeks. Then they will enter a labor force that neither wants nor needs them. They will enter an economy where roughly 17% of people aged 20 through 24 do not have a job, and where two million college graduates are unemployed. They will enter a world where they will compete tooth and nail for jobs as waitresses, pizza delivery men, file clerks, bouncers, trainee busboys, assistant baristas, interns at bodegas.
...With the obvious exception of youngsters born during the Great Depression, no generation in American history faces more daunting obstacles. Economists theorize that this may be that very rarest of things--a generation that does not do as well financially as the generation that spawned it. Even the pasty-faced Pilgrim toddlers gamboling around Plymouth Rock in 1620 had better prospects than this one; at least the Massachusetts economy was still expanding back in the 17th century. And kids entering the work force after the Alamo or the Donner Pass Incident or the Crash of 1873 weren't saddled with the kind of debts kids tote around now. Back then, ordinary people didn't go to college. And back in those days, you could always pack up and move west, to California, let's say, where the streets were paved with gold. Now the streets aren't paved, period.
There are three formidable obstacles confronting college graduates today. One, the economy, though improving at a glacial pace, is still a wreck. There are no jobs, and the jobs that do exist aren't the kinds anyone in his right mind would have spent $100,000 to $200,000 to land. Two, nothing in most middle-class kids' lives has prepared them emotionally for the world they are about to enter. Three, the legacy costs that society has imposed on young people will be a millstone around their necks for decades. Who's going to pay for the health care bill? Gen Y. Who's going to pay off the federal deficit? Gen Y. Who's going to fund all those cops' and teachers' and firemen's pensions? Gen Y. Who's going to support Baby Boomers as they suck the Social Security System dry while wheezing around Tuscany? Gen Y.
$1 Trillion Flushed Down The Toilet With A Buncha Pot
Via reason, the AP reports on the disastrous failure of the 40-year-old drug war, which has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and which, as the headline says, "has met none of its goals":
Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn't worked."In the grand scheme, it has not been successful," Kerlikowske told The Associated Press. "Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified."...
Some of where the money's gone:
_ $33 billion in marketing "Just Say No"-style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have "risen steadily" since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year...._ $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.
_ $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses....
Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron says the only sure thing taxpayers get for more spending on police and soldiers is more homicides.
"Current policy is not having an effect of reducing drug use," Miron said, "but it's costing the public a fortune."...
"For every drug dealer you put in jail or kill, there's a line up to replace him because the money is just so good," says Walter McCay, who heads the non-profit Center for Professional Police Certification in Mexico City.
Communism's Body Count
Claire Berlinski writes in City Journal (quoted in the WSJ) on stolen documents possessed by a Russian exile in London that show the evil of Communism:
In the world's collective consciousness, the word "Nazi" is synonymous with evil. It is widely understood that the Nazis' ideology--nationalism, anti-Semitism, the autarkic ethnic state, the Führer principle--led directly to the furnaces of Auschwitz. It is not nearly as well understood that Communism led just as inexorably, everywhere on the globe where it was applied, to starvation, torture, and slave-labor camps. Nor is it widely acknowledged that Communism was responsible for the deaths of some 150 million human beings during the twentieth century. The world remains inexplicably indifferent and uncurious about the deadliest ideology in history....For instance, the documents cast Gorbachev in a far darker light than the one in which he is generally regarded. In one document, he laughs with the Politburo about the USSR's downing of Korean Airlines flight 007 in 1983--a crime that was not only monstrous but brought the world very near to nuclear Armageddon.
These minutes from a Politburo meeting on October 4, 1989, are similarly disturbing:
Lukyanov reports that the real number of casualties on Tiananmen Square was 3,000.Gorbachev: We must be realists. They, like us, have to defend themselves. Three thousands...So what?
And what of Zagladin's description of his dealings with our own current vice president in 1979?
Unofficially, [Senator Joseph] Biden and [Senator Richard] Lugar said that, in the end of the day, they were not so much concerned with having a problem of this or that citizen solved as with showing to the American public that they do care for "human rights." . . . In other words, the collocutors directly admitted that what is happening is a kind of a show, that they absolutely do not care for the fate of most so-called dissidents.
These are only a few of the documents that have been translated.Unfortunately, Berlinski writes, no one seems willing to publish and translate the rest. Let's hope her piece changes that.
Chick Books I've Enjoyed Recently
Julie Klausner, one of the authors on my LA Times Festival of Books "All The Single Ladies" panels is one of the funniest ladies I've read in a long time. Her book: I Don't Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters, and Other Guys I've Dated
And then, I finally, finally read a book on beauty by Beth Teitell that I've had for a while, Drinking Problems at the Fountain of Youth
The Discount Is In The Mail
Magazines, cheaper, at Amazon
Use code MAYMAGS3 at checkout, and the discount will apply. Start a new subscription, renew an existing one, or give a gift. Offer expires June 15.
Didja Miss Me?
Here's the podcast of my Thursday appearance on the hilarious and whip-smart John Phillips' KABC radio show: I SEE RUDE PEOPLE.
Self-restraint I did not practice: refraining from telling Phillips he looks just like Tintin
I Really Don't Like Your Views
But, I sure will defend your right to speak them.
There's been a disturbing trend in Britain to arrest, jail, and even convict people for writing or speaking ugly thoughts -- a practice much uglier than the ugly speech or writing.
A Christian street preacher was recently arrested for telling a woman homosexuality is a sin, writes Michael Carl on WND. The preacher's an ass, preaching beliefs there's no evidence for, but the ass should be allowed to bray.
More arrests and convictions of the homophobic outspoken in the UK:
"In June 2005, 21-year-old Oxford student Sam Brown was arrested under Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 and fined 80 British pounds after joking to a mounted police officer, 'How do you feel about your horse being gay?' He was taken to police station and held in a cell until the morning. The fine was later overturned," Judge said."In October 2007, Landlord Adrian Taylor was convicted under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 for a sign outside his pub that read 'faggots and mince not on the menu.' This was taken by the previous owners of the pub, a homosexual couple, as an insult against them, and a complaint was made to the police. The case ultimately resulted in a 500 pound fine. A crude and tasteless joke, yes. But a crime?" Judge said.
"In April 2002, pensioner Harry Hammond, suffered from Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism, and was convicted and fined 300 pounds plus 395 pounds costs. When preaching in Bournemouth town centre, Mr. Hammond held up a sign saying: 'Stop Immorality', 'Stop Homosexuality', 'Stop Lesbianism', and 'Jesus is Lord'," Judge said.
"Mr. Hammond was physically attacked by a group of protesters. Despite being forced to the ground and having mud and water thrown over him, it was Mr. Hammond that was arrested, prosecuted and convicted under section 5 of the Public Order Act. One of the police officers on duty disagreed with his colleague over the arrest and he appeared as a witness for the defense," Judge said.
"In September 2006, police arrested and charged Stephen Green for handing out evangelistic tracts at a 'gay' pride festival in Cardiff. Police admitted that he had not behaved in a violent or aggressive manner, but confirmed that officers arrested him because the leaflets contained biblical quotes about homosexuality," Judge said.
"Mr. Green was held at a police station for four hours, questioned, charged and eventually committed for trial. The case against Mr. Green was subsequently dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service," Judge said.
I'm a very pro-gay rights, pro-gay marriage libertarian, but the last thing we want to do is legally silence people, no matter what their views. The answer should be getting your own soapbox, not calling the cops.
Eek! Gay Parents Might Have Rights!
Rights that are long overdue. Rights that would ultimately protect their children (and like it or not, gay people do have children), and rights that would help protect both partners when one partner becomes physically or mentally incapacitated. Rights that would make gay citizens like any other citizens -- able to marry the person they love.
Yet, along with abortion, the Pope just deemed same-sex marriage one of the most "insidious and dangerous" threats out there. (Sorry, Mr. Pope, but I'd have to go with the Quran's commands to Muslims to convert or kill the infidels, which faithful Muslims are supposed to observe.)
But, no, according to the Pope, it's two gay guys' friends buying up half the floor at Tiffany's, or two lesbians who think parents should be married, including gay parents -- that's what really threatens Western civilization.
Meanwhile, there are all those closeted gay dudes and frustrated hetero dudes in priestly service who eventually can't help but nibble on the low-hanging fruit -- the little altar boy or Catholic school girl.
Imagine if the Church allowed these people to be full sexual people, and to have families. Horrors! Their families instead of the Church would inherit all their earnings and worldly goods. Can't have that happening. (In fact, regarding "insidious and dangerous" threats to the Church, that would probably have to top the list.) As a wise man once advised me, "When they say "It's not the money; it's the principle, it's almost always the money."
What Will Go On That Blank Slate?
The one that is Elena Kagan, that is? Peggy Noonan writes in the WSJ that the senators won't ask tough questions, just speechify, and that the proposed Supreme won't have much to say -- not that she has up till now:
We know little of the inner workings of Ms. Kagan's mind, her views and opinions, beliefs and stands. The blank-slate problem is the post-Robert Bork problem. The Senate Judiciary Committee in 1987 took everything Judge Bork had ever said or written, ripped it from context, wove it into a rope, and flung it across his shoulders like a hangman's noose. Ambitious young lawyers watched and rethought their old assumption that it would help them in their rise to be interesting and quotable. In fact, they'd have to be bland and indecipherable. Court nominees are mysteries now.Which raises a question: After 30 years of grimly enforced discretion, are you a mystery to yourself? If you spend a lifetime being a leftist or rightist thinker but censoring yourself and acting out, day by day, a bland and judicious pondering of all sides, will you, when you get your heart's desire and reach the high court, rip off your suit like Superman in the phone booth and fully reveal who you are? Or, having played the part of the bland, vague centrist for so long, will you find that you have actually become a bland, vague centrist? One always wonders this with nominees now.
There should be and needs to be a vigorous, rigorous grilling of Ms. Kagan. But one fears we'll all listen and come away not knowing where she stands and what she thinks. Instead, you know what we're going to hear: opaque, convoluted, impossible-to-understand statements. "I appreciate your raising that issue, Senator. The Blewblew v. Blahblah decision was ultimately reflective, as you suggest, of jurisprudential assumptions going back at least far as Dewdew v. Dahdah as interpreted by Justice Jackson, who did not nullify, and reinterpreted by Justice Brandeis, who did, as you note." Viewers will try to listen, give up, and wind up thinking, "I like her hair." Everyone in public life says, "I can't believe they only care about my hair," but they're lying. That's all they want you to think about.
David Brooks has more here, in The New York Times, on Kagan, the careerist cipher:
One scans her public speeches looking for a strong opinion, and one comes up empty. In 2005, for example, she delivered a lecture on women and the legal profession. If ever there was a hot-button issue, it's the mommy wars, the tension between professional success and family pressures. Kagan deftly summarized some of the research showing that while women do well in law school, they are not as likely to rise to senior positions at major firms. But she didn't exactly take a stand. "What I hope to do is start a conversation," she said.Her recommendations were soporific: "Closer study of the differences across practice settings, linked to the experiences of women in those settings, could help us to improve workplaces throughout the profession." Furthermore, "Charting a course for the profession in these times will require sustained cooperation between practitioners with the experience and wisdom to identify problems and implement solutions, and academic researchers with the ability to generate the systematic and unbiased research on which these solutions must be based."
Kagan's sole display of passion came during her defense of her decision to reinstate a policy that banned the military from using Harvard Law School's main career office for recruiting. But even here, she argues that her position was not the product of any broad opinions. She was upholding the antidiscrimination regulations of Harvard University. She told the Senate in written answers to questions during her confirmation hearings for solicitor general, "The position I took does not entail a view on the exclusion of R.O.T.C. from college campuses, and I never expressed a position on the exclusion of R.O.T.C. from Harvard."
What we have is a person whose career has dovetailed with the incentives presented by the confirmation system, a system that punishes creativity and rewards caginess. Arguments are already being made for and against her nomination, but most of this is speculation because she has been too careful to let her actual positions leak out.
Can You Hear Me Now?
Probably not unless you're that killerish-looking guy sitting a couple tables from me...but, tonight, if you're in Los Angeles or thereabouts, you can catch me at 8pm until 9pm PST on the hilarious & whipsmart John Phillips' KABC 790am radio show. Outside of L.A., you can listen (and maybe get video, too) at kabc.com.
We'll be talking about my book, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE, and more, and he'll mention the LA Weekly charity event I'm the opening act for -- May 21, at the beautiful deco Saban Theatre, benefiting a very good cause: The Charles Mingus Arts Center in Watts. Tix are only $12.50. Details at LAWeekend.LAWeekly.com.
A Tiny Little Sign Of The Times
It's just a little thing, but I feel like it points to a big thing -- a change in the state of things in this country.
I needed some information about policy at my local post office -- whether I'd have to stand in line to give somebody my already stamped packages, or whether I could just let a clerk see me put it in their window. I used to just toss them in the blue mailbox near my house, but -- thank you, Islam! -- that's a thing of the past for anything over 13 ounces.
I called 1800-ASK-USPS, as they try to get you to do, and they told me I'd have to call the post office itself. They gave me the direct-dial number, and I called. And called. And called.
No answer.
And, no, it wasn't a holiday -- on Wednesday (yesterday).
Each time I called, after the first and second time, I let it ring about five minutes, just to see if somebody would pick up.
Nobody did.
I wondered if it was just my post office. I tweeted it and found it wasn't.
Apparently, post offices around the country, if my responses on twitter were any indication, are just ignoring their ringing phones. Staff has been cut, so they apparently just let the phone ring.
No, never mind putting on a recording saying it'll never be answered. Just let it ring.
There's something of Communist Russia in this, just a little flavor of it. And it's possible everything will bounce back -- the economy, the way you used to be able to earn a good living if you just worked hard. I sure hope so, but I wish I could be optimistic about it, and I'm not.
You?
UPDATE: Roy Betts, Manager, Community Relations, United States Postal Service, returned my call, and said about the phones not being answered: "It's not a policy -- it's not the postal service's intent that these post offices not answer their phones."
"I'm sharing this with our California office and then I'm going to share it with our Vice President of Consumer Affairs."
I told him that if they're not going to answer the phones, at least put on a recording: "This phone will never, ever be answered..." so people needing information know to stop calling and can just accept that they're screwed.
You're Still Guilty
How to open luggage without keys:
via Crid/New Shelton/wet/dry
"We're All Just One Accusation Away From The Sex Offender Registry"
That's a quote from a mother whose two apparently innocent sons are guilty of "sex offenses."
My pet peeve this week is overlegislating -- passing too many laws, and using the laws to trap innocent people. Just because. Chomp, chomp, chomp...people's lives get eaten. Like the woman's two sons, both of whom Lenore Skenazy reports got accused at 18 of "sex offenses." Lenore blogs at Parent Dish:
Let's say your son turns 18. He gets a job at the local carnival, running the ride where the kids lie face down and spin around till they shriek with delight (or puke). Before each ride he has to buckle the kids in so they don't fly out. But then -- tragedy strikes.Oh, don't worry. Nobody goes flying. They're buckled just fine. But one girl does tell her mother, "He touched my bottom!"
The mom alerts the police.
The police come over and ask, "Is that true?" Your son replies, "Maybe. I have to lock the bar around their waists and between their legs. They squirm. It could have happened."
The next day the police take him in for questioning. They ask him the same thing, this time with the videotape running. He gives them the same answer.
It is considered his confession. He is convicted of "Indecent Assault and Battery on a Child." He goes to jail for nine months. He is put on the Sex Offender Registry -- for life.
The second son was in the bathroom -- the one for males -- when a young girl walked in on him. He yelled to her to get out:
She starts crying and leaves. Her mom is concerned. The police are called. Was he in the men's room with a girl?Well, yes. Since everyone agrees the girl was not touched, he is convicted of "Visual Sexual Aggression Against a Child" -- the crime of having a child see his genitals. He does six months in jail. He's placed on the Sex Offender Registry for the next 10 years.
Let us remember this when we look up our local sex offender maps and see two convicts: One who ostensibly exposes himself to children and one who ostensibly assaults them.
Islam And Western Freedoms
The two are at odds. Most recently, this played out in an ugly way, in a talk in Sweden at the University of Uppsala about free speech by Lars Vilks, who did one of the Mohammed cartoons. Christians just deal when there are jokey images of Jesus or photos like Piss Christ, Andre Serrano's Jesus suspended in urine. Muslims? Well, from a post on Salon.com about Vilks' talk:
When Vilks finally entered the hall, about twenty men and women started shouting at him. "Swine!" one man called out. Another yelled: "You are a failed artist!" Vilks proceeded to take photos of the demonstrators with his cell phone, provoking them even further.Around ten minutes into the presentation, which was broadcast live on a local TV station (you can watch the entire lecture and the resulting chaos HERE in Swedish), a man in the front row jumped up and charged at Vilks, butting him with his head and hurling him against the wall. Three more sprang up and charged at Vilks as well. Others rose to their feet, shouting "Allahu Akbar!" Police quickly subdued the attackers and hustled Vilks away to safety. The artist, whose glasses were crushed in the incident, told the Swedish press "I wasn't injured, but pretty shaken up." The police arrested three men in their twenties. The crowd finally broke up about a quarter of an hour later amid cries of "swine!," "idiot!," "Mohammed! Mohammed!" and "You must respect us!"
What was Vilks's presentation about? It concerned pushing back the boundaries of freedom of expression and featured images of Holocaust denier David Irving, the infamous "Piss Christ" photo (which outraged fundamentalist Christians when it was first displayed in 1987), a graphic Robert Mapplethorpe picture, and sexual images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. The images that sent the attackers into action were from a short Iranian film depicting two gay men with Mohammed masks engaging in sexual intercourse. "That is pornography!" some of the Muslim men present cried out at the sight. "It insults the Prophet Mohammed! You can't show that here!"
You don't like it? Leave the lands of Western values and go back to Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries, where you'll find the oppressive environment that kowtows to Islam with the absence of so many freedoms, just starting with freedom of speech. (There, it's women who are treated like dogs, not Mohammed who's pictured as one.)
A video of the evening:
Note the shrieking Muslims shouting Allah Akbar to drown out Vilk's speech.
Disgruntled Juries
Losing three weeks or more of pay to be on a jury really isn't working for people these days. Yeah, it's a civic obligation -- but what if your familial obligation is making ends meet every month, at a time when that's more difficult than ever? Carol J. Williams writes in the LA Times of juror outbursts before starting a trial -- people apparently trying to disqualify themselves:
The spontaneous outbursts of the reluctant jurors just as Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James R. Dunn was about to swear them in emboldened others in the jury pool to express disdain for the case and concerns about their ability to be fair, and to ratchet up the pathos in their claims of facing economic ruin if forced to sit for the three-week trial.In this time of double-digit unemployment and shrinking benefits for those who do have jobs, courts are finding it more difficult to seat juries for trials running more than a day or two. And in extreme cases, reluctance has escalated into rebellion, experts say.
After three days of mounting insurrection, lawyers for both the deputy and the sergeant waived their right to a jury trial and left the verdict up to Dunn.
"We can't have a disgruntled jury," said attorney Gregory W. Smith, who represents Deputy Robert Lyznick in the lawsuit against his former supervisor. He called the panel "scary" and too volatile for either side to trust.
Money woes inflicted by the recession have spurred more hardship claims, especially by those called for long cases, say jury consultants and courtroom administrators. More than a quarter of all qualified jurors were released on hardship grounds last year, according to court statistics. And judges say they have seen more people request such dismissals in the last year.
What Isn't A Crime These Days?
A girl gets a week's detention for possession -- of a Jolly Rancher:
More here.
Too many laws mean any of us can be tripped up and arrested for a crime at any time. No, it doesn't usually happen -- but it could.
I helped a friend by reading a contract for her book, and apologized for being a stickler on some language, but the way I see it, you have to go with what the worst case scenario could be. Because, if a situation goes bad, people -- or prosecutors -- will run with what they can.
Money Can't Buy Happiness?
Well, if I'm going to be miserable, I'd rather be miserable while getting a massage in a suite at The Four Seasons.
From an AP story by Jeannine Aversa, Fed chair Bernanke has the gall to lecture the graduating college class at the University of South Carolina:
"Having a larger income is exciting at first, but as you get used to your new standard of living and as you associate with other people in your new income bracket, the thrill quickly wears off," he said.
I know all about the notion of hedonic adaptation (getting used to new and exciting things in our lives until they stop being new and exciting, and become the new normal) and how you can affect how happy you are.
It seems about 40 percent of your happiness is under your control -- you may be able to increase it by expressing gratitude for what you have and by doing kind acts for others, among other things. Details can be found in Sonja Lyubomirsky's excellent book, The How of Happiness
Question, though: How many of those grads do you think will have jobs when they graduate, Mr. B? And can you help us all find the joy in unemployment?
Black-Kids-Only Field Trip In Ann Arbor
Black kids from an Ann Arbor elementary school got to go talk to a rocket scientist. White kids from the school did not, writes David Jesse for AnnArbor.com. Principal Mike Madison wrote to the parents of the students:
"In hindsight, this field trip could have been approached and arranged in a better way," Madison wrote. "But as I reflect upon the look of excitement, enthusiasm and energy that I saw in these children's eyes as they stood in the presence of a renowned African American rocket scientist in a very successful position, it gave the kids an opportunity to see this type of achievement is possible for even them."It was not a wasted venture for I know one day they might want to aspire to be the first astronaut or scientist standing on the Planet Mars.
"I also think it's important that you know that I have talked to the children who did not go on the field trip, and I think they have a better understanding of the purpose of the AA Lunch Bunch now, as I hope you do. I'm sorry if any kids were upset by the field trip or my discussion afterwards with them, and I have let them know that.
"The intent of our field trip was not to segregate or exclude students as has been reported, but rather to address the societal issues, roadblocks and challenges that our African American children will face as they pursue a successful academic education here in our community."
Black kids in the middle class neighborhood where I grew up did just fine -- way better than lots of white kids. There were only a handful, but they were in AP classes and were on Student Council and excelled in band and sports. What else did they have? Two-parent homes.
Oh, and "the AA Lunch Bunch" is the "African American Lunch Bunch." (Excuse me, but didn't the ugly Jim Crow laws get ruled unconstitutional back in the day of Brown v. Board of Education?)
Hey, Cheapskate Parents...
Here's why you buy a seat for your kid instead of just cheaping out and holding him or her.
Null And Void
Gary Null has people believing he's a health expert. To quote from the video, he has "about as much clinical qualification as the lunch lady at the local high school":
via Orac
Saw Me A River
Mantools (the kind you plug in) are on sale at Amazon, up to 60 percent off. Yes, I know ladies use Skil saws, too. I use a man who uses Skil saw, and appreciate the hell out of him.
Here's a link: Skil, up to 60 percent off
If you need a man who can wield a Skil saw, write me for advice, and I'll try to help you find one. Other problems welcome, too, especially interesting ones!
Women Who Manage To Find An Issue In Everything
Is Mother's Day about mothers being more important than other women? (Notice that no men come up with this sort of hoohah about Father's Day.)
But, Anne Lamott, on Salon, actually brags that she didn't raise her son to celebrate Mother's Day. The headline and subhead of the article -- "Why I hate Mother's Day - It celebrates the great lie about women: That those with children are more important than those without." Lamott writes about her son:
I didn't want him to feel some obligation to buy me pricey lunches or flowers, some annual display of gratitude that you have to grit your teeth and endure. Perhaps Mother's Day will come to mean something to me as I grow even dottier in my dotage, and I will find myself bitter and distressed when Sam dutifully ignores the holiday. Then he will feel ambushed by my expectations, and he will retaliate by putting me away even sooner than he was planning to -- which, come to think of it, would be even more reason to hate Mother's Day.But Mother's Day celebrates a huge lie about the value of women: that mothers are superior beings, that they have done more with their lives and chosen a more difficult path.
Oh, please. Isn't it just about doing something nice for the lady who raised you?
P.S. You learn a lot about a man by observing how he treats his mother.
The Real Difference Between Moms Today And Yesterday
In the comments under one of those heartwarmy pieces on CNN.com, one commenter went for the harsh reality:
Maurder1949: Older moms favored one father for 3 kids--new moms today think 3 fathers for 3 kids is ok..which leads to the next question.."Whose your daddy?"
Blame Anything But Islam
Joe Queenan writes in the WSJ about various media people blaming Faisal Shahzah's attempt at Times Square jihad on the foreclosure proceedings on his Connecticut home:
Ruminating about the circumstances that drove Shahzad around the bend, CNN's Jim Acosta said that the possibility of losing one's house most assuredly "brought a lot of pressure and a lot of heartache on that family."Even more insightful was Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, remarking: "It's a reminder that foreclosures generate an enormous amount of misery and anxiety and depression that can tip people into all sorts of dangerous behaviors that don't make headlines but do ruin lives. And for all that we've done to save the financial sector, we've not done nearly enough to help struggling homeowners."
No, we haven't. And since an awful lot of people of all nationalities are in foreclosure at this very moment, the authorities are going to need all the help they can get in monitoring this situation. If you know of anyone in your neighborhood that has fallen behind in his mortgage payments, immediately contact the police.
As CNN's and the Post's astute analyses make clear, homeowners are only one missed payment away from becoming depraved terrorists. This is yet another case where unscrupulous mortgage brokers, heartless banks and conscienceless real-estate agents have brought this society to its knees.
How To Pack, By A Pro
Flight attendant Heather Poole shows how she packs a lot in a very little bag in The New York Times.
Note to Gregg: Yes, Honey, I will still be checking a (U.S.S. Nimitz-sized) bag.
An Utterly Horrifying Display
This "How To Train Your Man" (how offensive!) lady sent her husband to the store for sausage out of the casing and he brought home sausage in the casing instead, then she made his humiliation public by putting it up on YouTube:
I found the video via Dr. Helen, who's domestic on the level I am (we discussed how she made undercooked salmon for Glenn when they were first dating...awwww...romantic!). Glenn apparently does the cooking these days (like Gregg, in my life, brings me food or cooks it for me), but you can bet she doesn't berate him for the dinner he makes like this woman does her husband. Ugly, ugly stuff.
If this happened in my life, I'd first hug and kiss Gregg to thank him for going to the store, and then, happily decase the sausage instead of decasing the man.
I want to send a team in to rescue this woman's husband, but I suspect he's suffering from the pussywhipped version of Stockholm Syndrome, and would cling to his abuser.
Reader E-mail That Screams "FAKE!"
This came on Friday. (I like how the punctuation marks seem like tiny animals, burrowing into text at random):
Dear, Amy
I am a 23 years old man in relationship with a woman who is 3 years older than me . she got mad at me because my elder sister hugged me and i went shopping with her ( she came to see me few days ago ) she says, she does not want me hugging or touching anyone of opposite gender.actually, me and my big sister are very close but not the way my GF thinks.she wants me to stop inviting my elder sister to my place and make no contact with her .
many times i caught her making out with her girlfriends , when asked , she replied it's "female bonding" i forgave her even her girlfriends make nasty comment about me she does not protest , rather she lets them slag off me but she claims to love me.
why don't you sleep with your buddies to straighten your friendship ? she told me last week.
well, it does not come to men naturally ( unlike female-bonding) , except he is gay-- i replied
Now, i want to ask you, what is wrong with this girl? would it be wise decision to stay out such relationship immediately? please let me know .
bst regards
Your vote: Is a real person this dim, or is this a fake?
"He Talk Like A White Boy"
Black conservative Joseph C. Phillips on how the old school needs to be new school in the black community. Stone-sensible stuff. Video here.
Phillips' book: He Talk Like a White Boy: Reflections of a Conservative Black Man on Faith, Family, Politics, and Authenticity
Are Their Mouths Duct Taped Shut?
I Googled the site Feministing, and the blurb that came up was this: 
On those occasions when I'm not "given the opportunity to speak," if I have something to say, I open my big mouth and let the words fly out, one after the next.
Is there some vast secret swath of female society in America that's been born without the power of speech?
Hey, Ladies Of Online Dating
Whaddya think of them "winks"?
Do you respond to them? Ignore them? What do you think of the guys who "wink" at you?
Busy Sending Businesses Out Of Business
The Los Angeles City Attorney puts most of the local pot shops out of commission. Brian Doherty writes at reason:
Los Angeles has lost over 150,000 jobs in the past year, is on the brink of bankruptcy, and experienced an unexpected 16 percent decline in sales tax revenue last year. And it's located in a state with its own dire fiscal situation that is also facing unexpected gaps in tax revenue. Yet this week the Los Angeles City Attorney's office made a move that's certain to make things worse for its citizens: forcing over 400 functioning businesses to close shop, under threat of jail time.Don't worry, though. It's no big deal. Those businesses are only selling medicine.
Medical marijuana, that is. As detailed in my May Reason magazine cover story, Los Angeles struggled for years with regulating medical marijuana storefronts--which thrived in L.A. as in no other city. In January the city finally came down with an ordinance imposing a variety of new restrictions, including how the businesses handled cash, provided security and lighting, and paid their employees, as well as insisting that the shops were not technically allowed to make a profit.
But the ordinance's most important effect will be to reduce the 500-plus functioning storefronts serving the city's medical marijuana community to a mere 70 (with some possible grandfathering that might bring the eventual total higher).
On June 7, the ordinance is finally supposed to go into effect. Under the law's tenets, any functioning medical pot store that did not register with the city prior to a November 2007 moratorium is outlawed--despite the fact that in October 2009 a judge declared the moratorium legally void.
...The reasons are stated, lamely and without support, in the preamble to the ordinance, with some jabber about crime, health hazards, and public safety and welfare. That jabber, as my Reason feature shows, is unsupported by any rigorous evidence beyond the petty complaints of a small number of very vocal citizens.
There's a pot shop around the corner from me. It could be any other shop. It's apparently a bunch of aging attorneys and other middle-aged ordinary citizens buying pot there. No big deal whatsoever. Just nice that somebody's got a functioning business these days -- or will, for another few weeks.
Heckuva Job, Strickie!
Remember "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job!"? This administration's Interior Department chief of staff, Tom Strickland, was in the Grand Canyon white water rafting and doing other activities with his wife while the oil kept pouring into the Gulf of Mexico:
Jake Tapper writes at ABCNews.com:
Other leaders of the Interior Department were focused on the Gulf, joined by other agencies and literally thousands of other employees. But Strickland's participation in a trip that administration officials insisted was "work-focused" raised eyebrows among other Obama administration officials and even within even his own department, sources told ABC News.Strickland, who also serves as Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, was in the Grand Canyon with his wife Beth for a total of three days, including one day of rafting. Beth Strickland paid her own way, Obama administration officials said.
The Stricklands departed for the Grand Canyon three days after the leaks in the Deepwater Horizon pipeline were discovered. Ultimately, after the government realized that the spill was worse than had been previously thought, officials decided that Strickland was needed in the Gulf so Strickland was taken out of the Grand Canyon by a National Park Service helicopter.
One government official, asking for anonymity because of the political sensitivities involved, told ABC News that some Interior Department employees thought it was "irresponsible" for Strickland to have gone on the trip, given the crisis in the Gulf, which was fully apparent at the time he departed for the Grand Canyon.
Bye, Bye Western Civ!
Gad Saad, Canada's Concordia University Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences and Darwinian Consumption, blogs at Psychology Today on the death of common sense and what's taking its place:
Several years ago, my wife and I had gone out for a celebratory dinner with one of my doctoral students and one of his female friends. The friend in question was a committed postmodernist and a staunch academic feminist. At one point during our dinner, I gently asked her whether she genuinely believed the postmodernist foundational tenet that there are no universal truths. The astute reader might notice the logical problem here, as the latter tenet is itself construed as a universal truth! Setting aside this embarrassing conundrum, she retorted with complete assuredness that indeed all knowledge is relative.
He asked the lady deconstructionist (deconstructionism being the belief that reality is a linguistic construction) whether it's a universal truth that from any vantage point on Earth, the sun rises in the East and sets in the West:
She proposed that I was putting labels on things, and she refused to play such games. She did not know what I meant by "East" or "West". These were arbitrary labels. What did I mean by "sun"? That which I called the sun, she might refer to as "dancing hyena" (her actual words!), to which I wryly replied: OK, the dancing hyena rises in the East and sets in the West. Better yet, the dancing hyena gives me a dancing hyena burn on my fat stomach if I lay out too long without any dancing hyena protection!If you think that this is an isolated incident that is otherwise unrepresentative of postmodernists, academic feminists, or deconstructionists, you'd be wrong. These anti-science movements have spent the greater part of the past four decades polluting the minds not only of bright academics but also of generations of students who were otherwise impressed by the obscurantism and fake profundity of these intellectual charlatans.
...These anti-science movements coupled with cultural relativism, political correctness, and an ethos of self-guilt regarding all geopolitical realities will prove the demise of Western civilization. It is such babble that caused nearly all of the American news media to offer hallucinatory explanations regarding the recent Times Square incident including that the alleged terrorist did this because he had defaulted on his mortgage payment, and hence was facing great financial strain. Both the media and Obama officials are under a strict edict to avoid uttering the most obvious of geopolitical facts. These nonsensical pseudo-intellectual movements will spell the end of liberal democracies if they are not eradicated from public discourse.
Gad Saad's excellent book: The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption
Why Are The Ladies Trying To Quash Inclusion Of Parental Alienation?
I hear almost weekly from divorced parents -- usually men -- who are being kept from seeing their children by vindictive ex-spouses.
There's a push to include Parental Alienation Disorder to the next version of the diagnostic manual for psychiatrists and psychologists, the DSM V, but NOW is fighting against it. Fathers & Families director Glenn Sacks writes at GlennSacks.com:
The National Organization for Women is very concerned about our efforts, condemning them in March and again in their recent media release NOW Foundation Opposes Phony Parental Alienation Disorder. In it, the NOW Foundation references Fathers & Families' DSM Campaign and explains "The 'disorder' has been proposed...to be added to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostics and Statistics Manual - V to give it more legitimacy than it currently has -- or should have -- in court." The NOW Foundation has also written the DSM Task Force, urging them to reject PAD....The Family Law Section of the State Bar of California believes Parental Alienation is real and legitimate, explaining that alienation tactics often include:
"[C]ancel[ing] the other parent's visit without telling the child that the visit has been cancelled, creating a 'let down' for the child when that parent does not 'show up' for the visit. Threats could also be made against the child for wanting to have visitation with the other parent - 'Fine, if you want to see [your other parent] tonight, then you are grounded for the rest of the week.' Guilt can also be used to influence a child to avoid visitation - 'I'm not feeling well and I wish you would stay here with me, but if you have to see [your other parent] I will understand.' Rewards can also be used - 'Sure, you can see [your other parent] today, but I thought we would go play laser tag with your friends today.'"
...NOW refers to those contacting DSM re: Parental Alienation as "men's custody activists."
Fathers & Families responds:
This is false--Fathers & Families believes and has worked towards a legal presumption of shared custody, except in situations of parental unfitness. When appropriate, we've supported mothers' rights to shared custody of their children, including the recent Vanessa Benson and Mullen-Hobbs cases and our amicus brief in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in A.H. v. M.P. Excluding cases of maternal unfitness, we invite NOW to cite one example where Fathers & Families has ever advocated for a presumption of sole custody for fathers.
NOW writes:
This accusation [of Parental Alienation] is made by abusive ex-husbands and is intended to cause the courts to disregard mothers' claims of fathers' physical or sexual abuse in an effort to gain the fathers' full or joint custody. NOW Foundation is concerned that because of the alienation accusation known batterers and child abusers have been awarded custody...There have been numerous instances of documented batterers and child abusers being awarded custody by biased family court judges.
Fathers & Families responds:
If there are "numerous instances of documented batterers and child abusers being awarded custody by biased family court judges," why have NOW, the CJE and their co-thinkers found it so difficult to find even a handful of credible, documented cases?
...In the end, our efforts to promote recognition of Parental Alienation Disorder aren't about fathers or mothers, they're about protecting children from harm. In Charlotte Hardwick's Dear Judge-Kids' Letters to the Judge, a letter from preteen Bailey A. said:
Dear Judge, Whichever parent I am with wants me to be loyal. I can only prove my loyalty by saying I don't want to be with the other parent...It's like sixth grade when two of my girlfriends made me crazy trying to force me to pick one of them to be my best friend. I remember when I was sad sometimes. Now I have trouble remembering when I wasn't sad.
Eight Rock-Hard Inches Of Travel Assistance
I loved the hilarious denial by anti-gay activist George Rekers after being photographed returning from a European vacation with a male hottie from rentboy.com. Here, from Rekers' website:
***MISLEADING INTERNET REPORTS ABOUT PROFESSOR GEORGE REKERS***
A recent article in an alternative newspaper cleverly gave false impressions of inappropriate behavior because of its misleading innuendo, incorrectly implying that Professor George Rekers used the Rentboy website to hire a prostitute to accompany him on a recent trip. Contrary to Internet stories based on this slanderous article, following medical advice Professor George Rekers requires an assistant to lift his luggage in his travels because of an ongoing condition following surgery. His family, local friends, and even another university professor colleague have offered to accompany him on trips to assist him in his travel. Dr. Rekers found his recent travel assistant by interviewing different people who might be able to help, and did not even find out about his travel assistant's Internet advertisements offering prostitution activity until after the trip was in progress. There was nothing inappropriate with this relationship. Professor Rekers was not involved in any illegal or sexual behavior with his travel assistant.
Penn Bullock and Brandon K. Thorp's Miami New Times story plus photo here. An excerpt:
The pictures on the Rentboy.com profile show a shirtless young man with delicate features, guileless eyes, and sun-kissed, hairless skin. The profile touts his "smooth, sweet, tight ass" and "perfectly built 8 inch cock (uncut)" and explains he is "sensual," "wild," and "up for anything" -- as long you ask first. And as long as you pay.On April 13, the "rent boy" (whom we'll call Lucien) arrived at Miami International Airport on Iberian Airlines Flight 6123, after a ten-day, fully subsidized trip to Europe. He was soon followed out of customs by an old man with an atavistic mustache and a desperate blond comb-over, pushing an overburdened baggage cart.
That man was George Alan Rekers, of North Miami -- the callboy's client and, as it happens, one of America's most prominent anti-gay activists. Rekers, a Baptist minister who is a leading scholar for the Christian right, left the terminal with his gay escort, looking a bit discomfited when a picture of the two was snapped with a hot-pink digital camera.
Reached by New Times before a trip to Bermuda, Rekers said he learned Lucien was a prostitute only midway through their vacation. "I had surgery," Rekers said, "and I can't lift luggage. That's why I hired him." (Medical problems didn't stop him from pushing the tottering baggage cart through MIA.)
This travel companion website, disabilitytravel.com, doesn't seem anywhere near as much fun as rentboy.com. Here's a description of one of their travel companions, a nice-sounding mature lady named Gail:
"Interesting, lively, and articulate," Gail has the personal and professional qualifications that have made her a success in nursing and in life. With 31 years of nursing experience with geriatric populations and life experience delivering companion care to a chronically ill elderly family member, Gail is a dependable companion and interesting personal assistant. No longer married and living in Pennsylvania, Gail's past experience as a companion makes her an asset on anyone's personal holiday.
Hmmm...something tells me an ASSet is more Reker's style.
Google (Strip) Search
Disturbing cavalierness about privacy rights tweeted by @kevinmitnick:
@kevinmitnick "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." - Eric Schmidt, Google CEO@kevinmitnick Makes me feel warm and fuzzy using Google's products
Porn Again Christian?
Could that be Florida state Senator Mike Bennett's excuse for being anti-abortion but pro-nudie picture-watching during a floor debate on a bill requiring abortion seekers to pay for an ultrasound?
(Not to worry, vanilla and safe for work.)
Educating Mexicans With Arizona Tax Dollars
Charming. The AP reports that the Arizona Department of Ed is having to demand a southern Arizona school district give back $1.2 million in funding for educating students who crossed the border daily to attend school in the Ajo school district:
Ajo Superintendent Robert Dooley says the district relied on documentation provided by Pima County and that district officials have no desire to break the law. He says he anticipates state and district will try to negotiate an agreement.
What Conan Woulda Said If He Coulda
In his 60 Minutes interview with Steve Croft. I'm not a Conan fan, but I did watch this interview, and hear about the gag order he had to sign. Here, ungagged, through the beauty of subtitles...:
Speculation as to whether Conan is behind this video in some way?
The Letter Writer Pays A Visit
His question, which I answered for my column:
My wife has gone baby crazy. She's demanding I get her pregnant -- between screaming "You're a horrible person," "I know why your ex cheated on you," and "You're a cold and heartless machine." We're both 42, and have been married for eight months. Last year, she had a miscarriage. She's always been difficult, but things have gotten really bad. A counselor we're seeing deemed her a "loose cannon." He said we should get our relationship healthy, then consider having a baby, and set up rules for us that my wife ignores. Last time I reminded her we agreed to wait on the baby, she called me "pure evil," and for the third time, threw her engagement and wedding rings at me and said to sell them. She says if we don't have a child right away, she'll hold me responsible. Obviously, the dynamic here isn't good, but the real problem is she can be amazingly sweet and giving. These extremes really scare me, for our future as a couple and as possible parents.--Shell-Shocked
An excerpt from my answer (the rest is here):
Should you bring a child into the world with a raging psycho who can occasionally be nice? Um...well...sure...assuming you've already struck out with all the crack-addicted prostitutes. ("Aww, look, little feller's got his daddy's eyes and his mommy's Hep C.")While other guys' wives spend long hours reading self-help books, yours apparently favors how-to guides to totalitarianism ("The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Despots"?). Now, it is possible some of her behavior traces to some postpartum-type upset; maybe hormones running wild after her miscarriage. Then again, you made it clear in our e-mail exchange that she was rather witchy prepartum. Sure, it's tough for a woman who sees her eggs on the reduced-for-quick-sale rack. But, clearly, there's something radically wrong here -- something that begs for more intervention from a mental health professional than a set of rules. Regarding her ticking clock (with the loose cannon attachment), there are a lot of things you can call a woman who goes off on you like she does, but let's hope the last thing anybody'll be calling her is "Mommy."
...It's fine by me if you want to hang around looking for the good in some woman while she bends silverware with her screams, but you and your wife aren't just two people making each other miserable. One of you is desperately trying to make a third person. You need to do everything in your power to see that your as-yet-unborn child remains unborn. While I'm not usually one to explicitly advise people to end relationships, in your case, let me make this perfectly plain: Get out before she straps you down, hooks up the vacuum cleaner, and takes your sperm.
The letter writer writes back:
Hello everyone..I originally wrote to Amy seeking advice for my baby ultimatum problem. Thank you all for your comments and advice.I would like to answer a few questions I saw repeatedly such as why I married her, what the therapist said about my contributions to the problems and why I dont just leave. Well..We dated off and on for a year before we got serious. During this time there were no big arguments or issues between us. She was very giving and thoughtful but I could also tell that she was an extremely emotional person by her extreme responses to situations. I rationalized that this was part of the territory and wasnt too concerned. We had fun and discussed marriage and a family. Given her age, we were encouraged by a doctor to start trying for a baby asap and to worry about marriage later. She got pregnant and things were mostly good. Then..three months later we had to abort the baby because of a genetic defect. I took it exceptionally hard, she less so.. at first. We decided getting married was the best thing at the time - looking back I think we just wanted comfort and this seemed the easiest way to deal with our loss. However, this is when the problems really started. Throwing things, threats, primal screams, name-calling.. then, during the same "conversation", she would ask when we would try to get pregnant again. Confused..
Counseling... the therapist said I was "reserved" and suggested I comfort my wife when she was screaming at me and not respond or be defensive when my wife was verbally abusive. My wife was a "loose cannon" that had to take responsibility for her actions, move on from her losses and stop seeing herself as a victim. We didnt follow the therapists' plan and we ended up going in circles. The primary issue for her is about lack of time in trying to have a baby. Of secondary concern is our marriage. She said "I will have a baby with or without you" and threatened to use a sperm donor if I wasnt on-board. She "tries" in our marriage by buying things for us or arranging fun things to do. She has initiated the IV process but, in her defense, is waiting another week for me.. All good, but our communication is broken, mean-spirited and not effective. Given this, my primary issue is our relationship dynamics and is the main reason I am afraid to have kids with her. I feel like a donor, that I am replaceable and all of this is being forced on me. I dont talk about the IV stuff with her because a huge eruption will be coming soon - Old Faithful indeed..I curtailed doing nice things for her because she "hates me" and I am "evil". No more motivation left.
I havent left yet because I sense, despite all of this, that there is something wonderful in her. Granted, that sense is getting pretty weak now but she can draw me back in so easily just by being like she was when we met. She pulls a lot of people in..
Anyway, thanks again to all of you for your comments, advice and support. It helps to know that others have walked away from similar experiences.
Now would be a really good time to find your shoes.
Greece's Pieces
Guess who's paying for the Greek bailout! Yup. That would be you. And me. And lots of Americans. And it's not really a bailout of Greece but of the banks and investors Greece owes money. Henry Blodget blogs at Business Insider:
Of the 110-billion Euro Greece bailout, 30-billion (approx $40 billion) will be paid for by the IMF.The US supplies almost 20% of the IMF's funding (per quotas). So that means US taxpayers are providing ~$8 billion of the $145 billion going to kick the Greek can down the road.
...(Why don't the existing creditors have to lose a penny? Same reason the AIG creditors didn't lose a penny. Because it would apparently be too traumatic to ask them to do that. The idea that the existing creditors might have to lose money was apparently so unthinkable that it was never even on the table).
No Word On Whether He's a Quaker
A suspect in the Times Square attempted bombing was arrested at JFK. From the Telegraph:
The man has been identified as Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American, and was arrested on Long Island, New York.CNN said the man was trying to board a plane for an unknown location at John F Kennedy International Airport and that investigators were looking for others in the probe.
The New York Times said the suspect lived in the US state of Connecticut.
Authorities had launched a massive manhunt with the FBI's terrorism task force and local New York police to try to catch the would-be bomber.
MSNBC said the 30-year-old man had been linked to a sport utility vehicle seized with explosives late Saturday in the busy New York district.
More from MSNBC here.
There was this cheery and subtle incitement to further attempts of violence from Revolution Muslim, reports WND:
Younus Abdullah Muhammad, author of RevolutionMuslim.com, told WND senior reporter Aaron Klein on New York's WABC Radio that America should "absolutely" expect more jihadi violence in New York City....As WND reported, RevolutionMuslim.com last month warned there is a "very real possibility" that "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone will end up murdered like Theo Van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker killed by an Islamic extremist in 2004 after making a film critical of Islam.
...Abdullah Muhammad argued, "We made a prediction before the 'South Park' episode was even aired, and then we made a clarifying statement that said, yes, under Islamic law, if a person insults the prophet it is permissible for them to be killed. But we are not saying that the creators of 'South Park' should be killed; we are saying that we are conveying what is permissible under shariah law."
Abdullah Muhammad also told WND last month that his site was not issuing threats against the "South Park" creators but was pointing out the Islamic punishment for mocking Muhammad is death.
"As for the Islamic ruling on the situation, then this is clear," read the statement from Abdullah Muhammad's site. "There is no difference of opinion from those with any degree of a reputation that the punishment is death. Ibn Taymiyyah a great scholar of Islam says, 'Whoever curses the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) - a Muslim or a non-Muslim - then he must be killed ...' and this is the opinion of the general body of Islamic scholars."
The site called for Parker and Stone to "understand the tastelessness of their portrayal, apologize and reflect on the words that follow."
Bill Maher had it right:
"When South Park got threatened last week by Islamists incensed at their depiction of Muhammad, it served -- or should serve -- as a reminder that our culture isn't just different than one that makes death threats to cartoonists. It's better."In his defense of the First Amendment and other Americal civil liberties, Maher -- who made the film "Religulous" -- continued: "The Western world needs to make it clear: Some things about our culture are not negotiable. And can't change. And one of them is freedom of speech, Separation of church and state is another."
Nice talk. But, it won't change the Quranic directive for Muslims to convert or kill the infidel and install the New Caliphate around the globe. Kind of a problem. One I don't see any solution to...do you?
Ladies, Bread Might Make You Dead
via @DrEades, Steve Parker writes that heavy carb consumption doubled the risk of developing coronary heart disease in women (but didn't seem to affect heart disease risk in men), according to research published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine:
High-glycemic-index foods and glycemic load were also tied to heart disease risk in women. Glycemic index and glycemic load refer to how much of an effect a carbohydrate-containing food has on blood sugar levels. As you might guess, high-glycemic-index foods and glycemic loads raise blood sugar higher and for longer times in the bloodstream.Examples of relatively high-glycemic-index foods are potatoes, white bread, and pasta.
Over 47,000 men and women in Italy were interrogated via questionnaire as to their food intake, then onset of coronary heart disease was measured over the next eight years.
158 new cases of coronary heart disease were found in the 32,500 female participants.
Scientists doing this sort of research typically compare the people eating the most carbs with those eating the least. Consumption in this study was divided into "quartiles." By way of explanation, let's assume that all carb consumption was in the form of white bread. The lowest quartile of consumption, for example, might be eating 1-2 slices a day. The highest consumption quartile could be 7-8 slices a day. Everybody else (the other two quartiles) ate 3 to 6 slices daily.
The researchers in the study at hand found that the highest quartile of carb consumers and glycemic load had twice the rate of heart disease compared to the lowest quartile.
And no, don't be thinking whole wheat bread is the answer.
Al Qaeda Is Short On Idiots Willing To Die For Allah
At least according to the U.S. military. From news.com.au, via aldaily:
AL-QAEDA in Iraq is struggling to recruit volunteers for suicide bombings and other attacks, the US Army said yesterday, hours after the jihadist network confirmed the deaths of its top commanders.Brigadier General Ralph Baker, a senior US officer in Baghdad, said no one could deny the killing of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayub al-Masri, who had direct links with Osama bin Laden, was a "decapitation" for its leadership.
The SITE Intelligence Group said the Islamic State of Iraq, the al-Qaeda front in the country, had announced for the first time the deaths of the two men.
But the insurgents also vowed in the internet message that other insurgents would take their place, under plans put in place ahead of the Iraqi-US military strike that killed them in a house north of Baghdad on April 18.
General Baker cautioned that the killing of AQI's previous military leader, the well-known Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who died in a US airstrike in 2006, had shown the insurgents were capable of rebuilding. But he said AQI was weaker now, and it would be harder for it to regenerate after hundreds of arrests recently.
Meanwhile, the Taliban idiots are claiming responsibility for not blowing up Times Square:
According to Fox News, in a 1 minute video allegedly released by the Pakistani Taliban, the group says the attack is revenge for the death of its leader Baitullah Mehsud and the recent killings of the top leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq.Images of the slain militants are shown as an unidentified voice recites the message. English subtitles are at the bottom of the screen.
According to the AP, an unidentified speaker on the tape also says the attack comes in response to American "interference and terrorism in Muslim Countries, especially in Pakistan."
The claim could not be immediately confirmed andhe tape makes no specific reference to the attack nor does it mention that it was a car bomb or that it took place in New York City.
A text in gold letters on a black background at the start of the video congratulates Muslims for the "jaw-breaking blow to Satan's USA."
Whoopsy!
Apparently, being anti-science, acid-in-schoolgirls' faces-throwing primitives has its costs.
Pretty good video from MSNBC on the Times Square attempt here:
Find Porn Troubling?
Simple solution: Don't order it, buy it, or watch it. Nick Gillespie on reason.tv on "Lady Chatterly, Milk Nymphos, and John Stagliano":
P.S. You'll have to Google milk nymphos to find out what they are (or just ask one of those fine watchdogs at the SEC). No, the naughty milk nymphos are not in the video, which is relatively safe for work, but kinda sexy in a few places.
The Missing Care In Obamacare
Dr. Marc Siegel explains in Forbes the reality of Obamacare -- much worse care for many:
Beginning in 2013, 16 million more people will be eligible for Medicaid, but where will they go for care? I don't accept Medicaid now, because it doesn't pay my office expenses, and I won't accept it then, even if the reimbursements increase slightly for two years. Without a network of specialists to refer Medicaid patients to (specialists fees will not be increased), I won't be able to work with it any more in 2013 than I am now.In 2014 patients with pre-existing conditions will be able to obtain insurance no matter whether they are working, healthy, or sick. Many will qualify for federal subsidies. But where will this group go for care? My office practice is already full. And I must admit that once the health reform bill takes hold in a few years, if I do have an opening in my overburdened schedule I will be more inclined to see a patient with a single problem rather than a complex patient. Insurance may cover those with multiple pre-existing conditions but this doesn't mean I will be able to take care of them.
via Paul Hsieh
Where There's A Drill...
There's a way. Up to 60% Off Makita Cordless Tools
Up With Ornery
photo by Gregg Sutter
Asshat Of The Month: 1st Prize
The winner is...Bret Mills in the Guardian, "Questioning whether...animals have a right to privacy" (from lenses of documentary filmmakers).
Yo, Bret: I don't think the wildebeest has the capacity to be embarrassed that people are watching him have sex on National Geographic Channel. We'll know for sure, though, after his Paris Hilton sex tape is released on TMZ.
Don't Be So Quick To Knock "Big Food"
Robert Paarlberg writes at Foreign Policy about some myths and realities about growing and eating organic:
Take industrial food systems, the current bugaboo of American food writers. Yes, they have many unappealing aspects, but without them food would be not only less abundant but also less safe. Traditional food systems lacking in reliable refrigeration and sanitary packaging are dangerous vectors for diseases. Surveys over the past several decades by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found that the U.S. food supply became steadily safer over time, thanks in part to the introduction of industrial-scale technical improvements. Since 2000, the incidence of E. coli contamination in beef has fallen 45 percent. Today in the United States, most hospitalizations and fatalities from unsafe food come not from sales of contaminated products at supermarkets, but from the mishandling or improper preparation of food inside the home. Illness outbreaks from contaminated foods sold in stores still occur, but the fatalities are typically quite limited. A nationwide scare over unsafe spinach in 2006 triggered the virtual suspension of all fresh and bagged spinach sales, but only three known deaths were recorded. Incidents such as these command attention in part because they are now so rare. Food Inc. should be criticized for filling our plates with too many foods that are unhealthy, but not foods that are unsafe.Where industrial-scale food technologies have not yet reached into the developing world, contaminated food remains a major risk. In Africa, where many foods are still purchased in open-air markets (often uninspected, unpackaged, unlabeled, unrefrigerated, unpasteurized, and unwashed), an estimated 700,000 people die every year from food- and water-borne diseases, compared with an estimated 5,000 in the United States.
Food grown organically -- that is, without any synthetic nitrogen fertilizers or pesticides -- is not an answer to the health and safety issues. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition last year published a study of 162 scientific papers from the past 50 years on the health benefits of organically grown foods and found no nutritional advantage over conventionally grown foods. According to the Mayo Clinic, "No conclusive evidence shows that organic food is more nutritious than is conventionally grown food."
Health professionals also reject the claim that organic food is safer to eat due to lower pesticide residues. Food and Drug Administration surveys have revealed that the highest dietary exposures to pesticide residues on foods in the United States are so trivial (less than one one-thousandth of a level that would cause toxicity) that the safety gains from buying organic are insignificant. Pesticide exposures remain a serious problem in the developing world, where farm chemical use is not as well regulated, yet even there they are more an occupational risk for unprotected farmworkers than a residue risk for food consumers.
Regarding potential conflicts of interest, Paarlberg is an advisor to Monsanto -- but he also has other credentials. More about Paarlberg here:
"Paarlberg is currently a member of the Board of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the National Research Council of the National Academies, and a member of the Biotechnology Advisory Council to the CEO of the Monsanto Company. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of Winrock International, a member of the Emerging Markets Advisory Committee at the United States Department of Agriculture, a scientific liaison officer to IFPRI from the U.S. Agency for International Development, and a consultant to the National Intelligence Council (NIC), USAID, IFPRI, and the World Bank.
Here's more on the meta-analysis of organic vs. conventional food studies. From ScientificBlogging.com:
The researchers found organically and conventionally produced foods to be comparable in their nutrient content. For 10 out of the 13 nutrient categories analysed, there were no significant differences between production methods in nutrient content. Differences that were detected were most likely to be due to differences in fertilizer use (nitrogen, phosphorus), and ripeness at harvest (acidity), and it is unlikely that consuming these nutrients at the levels reported in organic foods would provide any health benefit.Alan Dangour, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine's Nutrition and Public Health Intervention Research Unit, and one of the report's authors, comments, said "A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance. Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority. Research in this area would benefit from greater scientific rigour and a better understanding of the various factors that determine the nutrient content of foodstuffs."
Oh, and here's reason's Ron Bailey on DDT, which seems to cause eggshell thinning in raptors -- which seems a small price to pay for saving millions of people from malaria.
Serf Nazis Must Die
photo by Gregg Sutter
When In America
Do as the Japanese do. Hiroko Tabuchi writes in The New York Times that Japan is forcing bureaucrats there to defend government spending
TOKYO -- Seeking to bring its spiraling debt under control, Japan has undertaken an unlikely exercise: lawmakers are forcing bureaucrats to defend their budgets at public hearings and are slashing wanton spending.The hearings, streamed live on the Internet, are part of an effort by the eight-month-old government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to tackle the country's public debt, which has mushroomed to twice the size of Japan's $5 trillion economy after years of profligate spending.
..."We want the public to see how their tax money is really being spent," said Yukio Edano, the state minister in charge of administrative reform, who is heading the effort. "Then we will bring about big changes."
The target of the most recent hearings, which began Friday, is Japan's web of quasi-government agencies and public corporations -- nonprofits that draw some 3.4 trillion yen ($36 billion) in annual public funds, but operate with little public scrutiny. Critics have long argued that these organizations, many of which offer cushy executive jobs to retired public officials, epitomize the wasteful spending that has driven Japan's public debt to dangerous levels.
The daily testimony by cowering bureaucrats, covered extensively in local media, has given the Japanese their first-ever detailed look at state spending. So far, viewers have looked on in disbelief over the apparent absurdity of some of the government spending.
Let's have some "cowering bureaucrats" over here. We're long overdue.
A Woman Scorned, With Password Access
From Richard Metzger at Dangerous Minds, a chick whose gamer boyfriend apparently cheated on her shreds his Starcraft2 beta access codes, then breaks his window.
