I See Rude People At The WeHo Library
Lookie whose bookie got featured! My talented friend, KABC radio host John Phillips, was at the West Hollywood library and shot me a picture:
If you have yet to read it, it's only $11.53, brand new, with Amazon's discount at this link. New copies go against my advance, and help me keep writing...and eating. (Also, it's funny, has some new, science-based ideas about manners and rudeness, and I worked hard on it and I hope you'll enjoy it.)
College Is More, No Medical Insurance Discounts For The Young, Healthy
Hunter Lewis posts that college costs have risen 8.3% this fall, but...:
The government lends to students at rates as much as 5% higher than the rate the government itself pays when it borrows the funds in the first place. This profit is supposedly applied to " deficit reduction". So the students who will inherit all the federal debt and become responsible for its repayment should now pay inflated loan rates to help the government?These are the same young people whose medical insurance costs will soar under the administration's healthcare law because discounts on younger and healthier people will no longer be allowed. And the same young people who cannot find jobs because the bubbles created by the Federal Reserve and other central banks have crashed.
Young people should be on the streets to protest what is today virtually a government war against the young.
More on student loan debt here:
The idea behind student loans was that the government would help students get an education they otherwise couldn't afford. But it hasn't worked out that way. Yes, more money has been made available to pay for education. But that new money has also seemed to contribute to a faster growth rate in school fees. So, in effect, students are having to borrow more and more to get their education.
via @LibertyandEcon
"It's We The People..." Not "We The Orcas..."
The nutjobs at PETA are now asking a federal court to grant constitutional rights to whales. From an AP story in The New York Times:
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is accusing the SeaWorld parks of keeping five star-performer whales in conditions that violate the 13th Amendment ban on slavery. SeaWorld depicted the suit as baseless.The suit, which PETA says it will file Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Diego, hinges on the fact that the 13th Amendment, while prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude, does not specify that only humans can be victims.
The best is that the Orcas have lawyers:
The five orcas are represented in the case by PETA and four individuals: Ric O'Barry, a longtime orca and dolphin trainer; Ingrid Visser, a New Zealand marine biologist who has studied orcas extensively; Howard Garrett, founder of the Orca Network, an advocacy group in Washington State; and Samantha Berg, a former orca trainer at SeaWorld Orlando.
Steve Jobs' Sister's Eulogy
Via Crid, from The New York Times, a beautiful and moving eulogy for Steve Jobs, by Mona Simpson, an LA-based novelist (who I know a little through dinners and parties at a friend's house). Simpson writes:
I grew up as an only child, with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif. I hoped he would be rich and kind and would come into our lives (and our not yet furnished apartment) and help us. Later, after I'd met my father, I tried to believe he'd changed his number and left no forwarding address because he was an idealistic revolutionary, plotting a new world for the Arab people.Even as a feminist, my whole life I'd been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I'd thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.
...I want to tell you a few things I learned from Steve, during three distinct periods, over the 27 years I knew him. They're not periods of years, but of states of being. His full life. His illness. His dying.
Steve worked at what he loved. He worked really hard. Every day.
That's incredibly simple, but true.
He was the opposite of absent-minded.
He was never embarrassed about working hard, even if the results were failures. If someone as smart as Steve wasn't ashamed to admit trying, maybe I didn't have to be.
When he got kicked out of Apple, things were painful. He told me about a dinner at which 500 Silicon Valley leaders met the then-sitting president. Steve hadn't been invited.
He was hurt but he still went to work at Next. Every single day.
Novelty was not Steve's highest value. Beauty was.
For an innovator, Steve was remarkably loyal. If he loved a shirt, he'd order 10 or 100 of them. In the Palo Alto house, there are probably enough black cotton turtlenecks for everyone in this church.
He didn't favor trends or gimmicks. He liked people his own age.
His philosophy of aesthetics reminds me of a quote that went something like this: "Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later."
Steve always aspired to make beautiful later.
He was willing to be misunderstood.
...Steve's final words were:
OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.
Self-Service In A Service Economy
Craig Lambert writes in The New York Times about "shadow work":
THE other night at the supermarket I saw a partner at a downtown law firm working as a grocery checker, scanning bar codes. I'm sure she earns at least $300,000 per year. Even so, she was scanning and bagging her purchases in the self-service checkout line. For those with small orders, this might save time spent waiting in slower lines. Nonetheless, she was performing the unskilled, entry-level jobs of supermarket checker and bagger free of charge.This is "shadow work," a term coined 30 years ago by the Austrian philosopher and social critic Ivan Illich, in his 1981 book of that title. For Dr. Illich, shadow work was all the unpaid labor -- including, for example, housework -- done in a wage-based economy.
In a subsistence economy, work directly answers the needs of life: gathering food, growing crops, building shelters and fires. But once money comes into play, a whole range of tasks arises that do not address basic needs. Instead, such work may enable one to earn money and buy both necessities and, if possible, luxuries.
To do the work requires extra jobs, like commuting. The commuter often has to own, insure, maintain and fuel a car -- and drive it -- just to get to work and back. These unpaid activities ancillary to earning one's wages are examples of shadow work.
In the industrialized world, few of us live in a subsistence mode, so shadow work is ubiquitous: shopping, paying bills, housework. Digital technology -- with its spam, e-mail, texting, smartphones and so on -- is steadily ramping up the burden of shadow work for all whose lives revolve around its magnetic field.
...The conventional wisdom is that America has become a "service economy," but actually, in many sectors, "service" is disappearing. There was a time when a gas station attendant would routinely fill your tank and even check your oil and clean your windshield and rear window without charge, then settle your bill. Today, all those jobs have been transferred to the customer: we pump our own gas, squeegee our own windshield, and pay our own bill by swiping a credit card. Where customers once received service from the service station, they now provide "self-service" -- a synonym for "no service." Technology enables this sleight of hand, which lets gas stations cut their payrolls, having co-opted their patrons into doing these jobs without pay.
...TO be sure, shadow work has its benefits. Bagging one's own groceries or pumping one's own gas can save time. Shadow work can increase autonomy and enlarge our repertoire of skills and knowledge. Research on the "Ikea effect," named for the Swedish furniture manufacturer whose products often require home assembly, indicates that customers value a product more highly when they play a role in constructing it.
Still, doctors routinely observe that one of the most common complaints today is fatigue; a 2007 study pegged its prevalence in the American work force at 38 percent. This should not be surprising. Much of this fatigue may result from the steady, surreptitious accumulation of shadow work in modern life. People are simply doing a huge number of tasks that were once done for them by others.
One way to decrease shadow work is to telecommute -- to work over Skype instead of in the same location (to which one or more people will have to drive). This also means you may be able to hire somebody who lives very far away from you -- giving you access to a much wider and maybe much better labor pool.
Call In/Listen Tonight: Fourth Show, Advice Goddess Radio!
My fourth show is tonight -- 7 p.m. Pacific time, 10 p.m. Eastern, for an hour, and I NEED YOUR CALLS!
Call in to comment on something in the news (related to love, dating, sex, relationships, or rudeness), call in for advice, or call in to talk about something in my column.
If you're willing to call, please let me know (comments or email me at adviceamy at AOL dot com) so I know I'll have some people to talk with.
Listen live here:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2011/10/31/the-advice-goddess-show-amy-alkon
Download a podcast afterward here:
http://blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon
About the show:
Nationally syndicated advice columnist Amy Alkon takes your questions on love, dating, sex, relationships, and manners.It's most fun and most interesting (and I get in "the zone") when you call and I can play off of you. So don't be shy -- call-in number once the show is on and live (at 7 p.m.): (347) 326-9761 (New York area code).
Call in for advice on the topic we're discussing, to bat around your thoughts on love, dating, sex, relationships, and manners, or to ask for advice on any topic on the above!
You can go to that regular link to download the podcast after the show (you may have to wait 10 minutes or so for it to post). "Play in your default player" downloads it as a podcast. "Download" makes it play on your computer. Yeah, a little bassackwards.
Must-Read: Government Interference In "Farm-To-Fork" Dinner
Via @melissamcewen, another story of a disgusting display of government meddling and bullying -- treating consenting adults like children -- from a blog item by Food Renegade:
Imagine this. An over-zealous regulator shows up at a farm-to-fork dinner hosted by your favorite local farmer. But they're not there to sample the exquisite cuisine highlighting some of the most natural, nutrient-dense, life-giving foods on the planet. No, they're demanding that the food be destroyed while hungry, paying guests wait.
That local farmer, Laura Bledsoe of Quail Hollow Farm, writes:
I can't tell you how sick to my stomach I was watching that first dish of Mint Lamb Meatballs hit the bottom of the unsanitized trash can.Here we were with guests who had paid in advance and had come from long distances away anticipating a wonderful dining experience, waiting for dinner while we were behind the kitchen curtain throwing it away! I know of the hours and labor that went into the preparation of that food.
We asked the inspector if we could save the food for a private family event that we were having the next day. (A personal family choice to use our own food.) We were denied and she was insulted that we would even consider endangering our families health. I assured her that I had complete faith and trust in Giovanni our chef and the food that was prepared, (obviously, or I wouldn't be wanting to serve it to our guests).
I then asked if we couldn't feed the food to our "public guests" or even to our private family, then at least let us feed it to our pigs. (I think it should be a criminal action to waste any resource of the land. Being dedicated to our organic farm, we are forever looking for good inputs into our compost and soil and good food that can be fed to our animals. The animals and compost pile always get our left over garden surplus and food. We truly are trying to be as sustainable as possible.)
Again, a call to Susan and another negative response.
Okay, so let me get this right.
So the food that was raised here on our farm and selected and gathered from familiar local sources, cooked and prepared with skill and love was even unfit to feed to my pigs!?!
Who gave them the right to tell me what I feed my animals?
Not only were we denied the use of the food for any purpose, to ensure that it truly was unfit for feed of any kind we were again threatened with police action if we did not only throw the food in the trash, but then to add insult to injury, we were ordered to pour bleach on it.
Now the food is also unfit for compost as I would be negligent to allow any little critters to nibble on it while it was composting and ingest that bleach resulting in a horrible death. Literally hundreds of pounds of food was good for nothing but adding to our ever increasing land fill!
More at Laura's original blog item.
A Limited Role For The State In Marriage
Diana Hsieh's point of view -- with which I agree:
We ought to separate politics and marriage, by treating marriage like any other contract. The state has a limited but crucial role to play in marriage to ensure that marriage contracts are objective, voluntary, and enforced. However, the state should not play social engineer by deciding who can get married or the terms of that marriage.
Talk To The Duck
Brazilian brainblogger Luciano Passuello on why talking to a rubber duck could help you problem-solve.
The Fred Factor
I just bought this terrific little book, The Fred Factor: How Passion in Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary into the Extraordinary
Some of it -- on how there's personal reward in doing good -- echoes Chapter 10: It's Nice To Be Nice, of I See Rude People.
"The Fred Factor" was based on the fantastic and surprisingly personalized service Sanborn's postman Fred gives him without being asked -- tucking his mail away when it piles up (when Sanborn's on a speaking jaunt) and even retrieving a package UPS misdelivered to another house. Fred brought it to Sanborn's house, and hid it under his mat with a note when Sanborn was away.
A quote from the book:
"Indifferent people deliver impersonal service. Service beomes personalized when a relationship exists between the provider and the customer."
Some more quotes:
"You, too, can replace money with imagination. The object is to outthink your competition rather than outspend them."When people are worrying about being downsized, he tries to "refocus their attention from being employed to being 'employable.'"
He points out that there is a "less observable competitor: the job we could have done." (Mailman Fred represents this.)
Liked this: "If Fred could bring such originality to putting mail in a box, how much more could you and I do to bring originaIity to what we do?" (Basically, Fred was a very entrepreneurial mailman -- figuring out ways to serve the customers, to bring value to the customers.)
That above is what I try to do in my column. To have been in the running to take over for Ann Landers, syndicators told me I needed to write daily, but I want to put out quality, not quantity. I sometimes research a question for weeks or even think and read about it for months, and I see the difference between the work I do and other columnists do when somebody sometimes writes to more than one of us.
The cool thing is, I feel the work, research, and thinking I've done paying off when I talk on the radio (on my new weekly Sunday night radio show/podcast)...when people call in and I have to answer a question on the fly, and the answer is just there, in a few pieces, on shelves in my head, ready for me to pull it together to give to the person.
Dig A Hole/Fill A Hole Economics - Plus, The Purple Tax Plan
Allan H. Meltzer in the WSJ on the flawed thinking behind Keynesian econ, with four reasons it's a bust:
First, big increases in spending and government deficits raise the prospect of future tax increases. Many people understand that increased spending must be paid for sooner or later. Meanwhile, President Obama makes certain that many more will reach that conclusion by continuing to demand permanent tax increases. His demands are a deterrent for those who do most of the saving and investing. Concern over future tax rates is one of the main reasons for heightened uncertainty and reduced confidence. Potential investors hold cash and wait.Second, most of the government spending programs redistribute income from workers to the unemployed. This, Keynesians argue, increases the welfare of many hurt by the recession. What their models ignore, however, is the reduced productivity that follows a shift of resources toward redistribution and away from productive investment. Keynesian theory argues that each dollar of government spending has a larger effect on output than a dollar of tax reduction. But in reality the reverse has proven true. Permanent tax reduction generates more expansion than increased government spending of the same dollars. I believe that the resulting difference in productivity is a main reason for the difference in results.
Third, Keynesian models totally ignore the negative effects of the stream of costly new regulations that pour out of the Obama bureaucracy. Who can guess the size of the cost increases required by these programs? ObamaCare is not the only source of this uncertainty, though it makes a large contribution. We also have an excessively eager group of environmental regulators, protectors of labor unions, and financial regulators. Their decisions raise future costs and increase uncertainty. How can a corporate staff hope to estimate future return on new investment when tax rates and costs are unknowable? Holding cash and waiting for less uncertainty is the principal response. Thus, the recession drags on.
Fourth, U.S. fiscal and monetary policies are mainly directed at getting a near-term result. The estimated cost of new jobs in President Obama's latest jobs bill is at least $200,000 per job, based on administration estimates of the number of jobs and their cost. How can that appeal to the taxpayers who will pay those costs? Once the subsidies end, the jobs disappear--but the bonds that financed them remain and must be serviced. These medium and long-term effects are ignored in Keynesian models. Perhaps that's why estimates of the additional spending generated by Keynesian stimulus--the "multiplier effect"--have failed to live up to expectations.
Meltzer instead proposes:
•That Congress and the administration make a pact for a 10-year program of government spending cuts to reduce the deficit;
•That there's a closing of loopholes to create a reduction in corporate tax rates and expense capital investment (not sure what the latter is...oh, wait...here);
•That there's a five-year moratorium on new regulations;
•That we adopt "an enforceable 0%-2% inflation target to allay fears of future high inflation."
UPDATE: Via a comment by momof4, here's the Purple Tax Plan, by Laurence Kotlikoff, at Forbes.com:
The Purple Tax Plan, I present at http://www.thepurpletaxplan.org (and from which I borrow some text) is a simple, transparent, efficient, and progressive tax system. It will help the economy save, grow, produce jobs, and deliver higher wages.The Purple Tax Plan replaces the federal personal and corporate income taxes as well as the estate and gift tax with a broad-based, low-rate, progressive consumption tax and a low-rate, progressive inheritance tax. It also makes the highly regressive FICA payroll tax highly progressive. The plan eliminates the need for households to file tax returns and enormously simplifies business tax compliance. It's a 15-15-15 plan, which avoids the tax fairness problem of Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan.
In considering the Purple Tax Plan, please bear in mind that we can have a highly progressive tax system without high marginal tax rates. The Purple Tax Plan features lower marginal tax rates than the current system, yet achieves a much more progressive distribution of tax burdens. It should also generate substantially more revenue. This is due not to "trickle down" or the Purple Tax Plan's very likely strongly positive growth effects, but simply the fact that consumption is a very broad tax base.
Details on it here.
The Religion Of Death
A shocking but open display of what Islam's about. Yes, we'd like to believe it's rather like Judaism or Christianity -- but unless Mr. Goldstein next door is pledging to eventually off you to advance Judaism, it's really not.
The Muslim Students Association's pledge of allegiance makes plain that death in the service of establishing Islam is their goal:
From the Muslim Students Association 13th Annual Conference, UCLA, January 16, 2011. Speaker: Abdel Malik Ali.
Myths about Islam debunked here.
"Your Costume Can Kill You. Your Candy Can Kill You. Strangers Can Kill You. You Know What? Just Stay Home, OK?"
Katherine Mangu-Ward at reason on what the CPSC is wasting your taxpayer dollars on.
Why I Can't Get My "Stop The Erosion Of Civil Liberties" Op-Ed Published
Paul Karl Lukacs emailed me his thoughts on why every mainstream media outlet I pitched it to has rejected it:
Because your opinion falls too close to the current boundary between the Sphere of Legitimate Debate and the Sphere of Deviance.
If you have not seen it before, this graphic (explained by NYU journalism prof Jay Rosen) is the best summation I've ever seen of how "newsworthiness" works -- why some opinions are dismissed out of hand while others are conventional wisdom:
http://pressthink.org/2009/01/audience-atomization-overcome-why-the-internet-weakens-the-authority-of-the-press/
If an op-ed sits inside the Zone of Consensus, you're David Broder or Mark Shields or one of those pundits who never said a memorable word. If you're too far into the Zone of Deviance, you're a political prisoner.
In case you're wondering, Paul's read my piece, and was very helpful early on (after I got the letter from the lawyer, demanding $500K from me for the TSA agent) in allaying some of my fears in a call he made to me all the way from Hong Kong.
UPDATED - Newsflash: Catholic University Has Crosses
A PRIVATE Catholic university has Christian symbols around? Wow. The nerve.
Jenny Erikson blogs at The Stir that a group of Muslim students at the PRIVATE Catholic University of America has filed discrimination charges against the university for not providing prayer rooms free of crucifixes:
Here's a fun fact: No one forced people practicing Islam to attend a Catholic university. The school's website declares that CUA is the national university of the Catholic Church in the United States. It is a private school that requires undergraduate students to take courses in theology and philosophy to meet graduation requirements....The Catholic University of America has every right to display symbols of their religion, and should not be required to provide Islamic prayer rooms. Islamic prayer rooms are not Catholic, and therefore incongruous with the mission statement of the school, which explicitly states its commitment to "being a comprehensive Catholic and American institution of higher learning, faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ as handed on by the Church."
More at Jihadwatch and The Tower, the school's newspaper.
Oh, and P.S., I'm an atheist, but I sure don't go into a Catholic institution and expect them to take down all the Christian symbols.
What kind of person thinks that sort of thing?
Via @Anchoress
UPDATE: Actually, it turns out it wasn't Muslim students but an activist law professor, George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf, who filed this case:
Bottom line: It's wrong to characterize this case as it currently stands as a complaint from intolerant Muslim students at Catholic University when in fact it's a complaint filed by a know-it-all from academia who thinks dividing people is the best way to unite them.
The Lamp
Gregg is reading Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs
I read a lot of studies and I've been reading them on the iPad and annotating them with a terrific program I discovered, iAnnotate, that allows you to highlight, make typed notes in and even scribble on a PDF. You can then send it back to yourself (by email) if you don't have a wireless "Air Printer," which I don't, and then print them out via your usual printer connection.
The amazing thing is, you can print the PDFs out without notes, with notes, or you can just print out the pages with the notes! This is fantastic, because I sometimes read a study that's 40 or 80 pages long, and take notes on maybe 14 pages. The program is $9.99 and worth every cent.
Back to the title of this post, last night, before we watched a movie, Gregg played me this adorable little film made during Steve Jobs' tenure at Pixar (which I was much more charmed by than I was by the Academy Award-winning tin toy movie Pixar made):
Another absolutely fabulous program is Scrivener, a Mac-based writing program that's $45, with a month's free trial. Almost every writer I've recommended this to, academic or popular (including screenwriting, because it outputs to Final Draft), has, a month later, basically fallen weeping at my feet thanking me.
The Intrepid
(Formerly The Battleship Potemkin.) Little old Russian lady presses on. Photo by Gregg Sutter, Fairfax District, Los Angeles.
Occupy Wall Street Vs. The Tea Party
Via Dr. Michael Eades, attorney James Sinclair's blog item, starting with one of his favorite articles from The Onion:
79 Percent Of Americans Missing The Point Entirely WASHINGTON, DC--According to a Georgetown University study released Tuesday, 79 percent of Americans are missing the point entirely with regard to such wide-ranging topics as politics, consumerism, taxes, entertainment, fashion, and professional wrestling. . . .
Sinclair, an attorney, writes:
We should pay less attention to the individual lunatics, and more attention to what a movement is really about. Occupy Wall Street, at its core, is a reaction to the increasing power and influence of large corporations. The Tea Party, at its core, is a reaction to the government's constant interference with private enterprise. But wait a minute--aren't those things connected?Bailouts, subsidies, tax breaks, special rights and privileges, regulations designed to restrict competition--to name a few of the many ways the government protects and stimulates corporate interests, and those things are every bit as anti-free market as, not to mention directly related to, the high taxes and excessive bureaucracy that gets Tea Partiers riled up.[3] In other words, aren't these two groups--Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party--raging against different halves of the same machine?
Sinclair then illustrates this with a Venn Diagram (which, I, like Mike Eades, have a thing for, just so you know).
Sinclair follows up with a few points, including:
Yeah, I'm oversimplifying, but only a little. The greatest threat to our economy is neither corporations nor the government. The greatest threat to our economy is both of them working together. There are currently two sizable coalitions of angry citizens that are almost on the same page about that, and they're too busy insulting each other to notice....It's a myth that big corporations are anti-government, right? They don't want to have to compete in a free market, they want to "compete" in an artificially restricted market.
They're Broke -- But They're "Diverse"!
Via Instapundit, John Leo writes at mindingthecampus:
Columnist Mike Adams has some fun today with the strange decision of his college, the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, to lump together two serious academic departments (because of a shortage of funding) while once again expanding the campus diversity bureaucracy (for which no funding shortage ever seems to appear).As Adams figures it, the university will save $80,000 a year lumping together the Physics and Physical Oceanographic Department with the Geography and Geology Department, while committing more funds to five diversity-multicultural offices, each apparently run by someone commanding a hefty salary.
This is an old story on our campuses. Colleges and universities enact severe budget cuts, dropping programs and letting teachers go, while unapologetically expanding their already swollen diversity bureaucracy. This is because diversity now has the status of an established religion on our campuses, while actual teaching deals only in mere learning.
Are Men Better Bosses?
Evil HR Lady, Suzanne Lucas, reports on a new study in her BNET.com column:
A new study surveyed 142 legal secretaries, asking them who they would rather work for: A male partner, a female partner, a female associate or a male associate. Not one of the 142 had a preference for a female partner.Small study and almost half (47 percent) said they had no preference. But, you would expect that at least some of the respondents would say they preferred to work for female partners. (3 percent said they would prefer to work for a female associate.)
Why? Are women monsters to work for? Are men better bosses? Are men more powerful and therefore, if you've got to have a boss you'll go for the one with more power? (Just a side note from someone who was responsible for salary increases-guidelines are just guidelines and the more power your boss has the more likely your raise will be higher than someone else's raise-if you're a valued employee.)
Or, this much ado about nothing? 47 percent said they didn't care.
In the comments, Suzanne notes:
I wonder if the results would have been different if the questions had been like this:1. Do you have a preference for the gender of your boss?
And Tim C. notes in the comments:
A bit of clarification: The data presented only exhibits the percentage of respondents their preference for their supervisors' gender. It is not a measure of "better". Common mistake when discussing ordinal data points is to conclude a "better" group. All you can conclude is the percentage of workers who prefer to work for a specific gender.
What's your preference -- if any -- and why? And what have been your experiences?
Michael Moore Seems To Work The Capitalist System Just Fine
He seems to lap it right up at the table of capitalism -- while earning his substantial living whining about its ills.
Here's his production company:
Welcome to the Dog Eat Dog Films site, the online home of Michael Moore's production company. The site includes information on Michael's films, tv shows, books and more!
And here's an internship I found listed for "Michael Moore in NYC":
=================================== Dog Eat Dog Films is looking for fall interns. ===================================We are a small production company working on projects for filmmaker Michael
Moore. The bulk of the work relates to making documentary films,
non-fiction books and follow-up dealing with past projects produced by
Michael Moore.START DATE: Looking for 2-4 people to start September, 2003.
Positions are full-time or part-time. We try to work around the students
schedule although we recommend a commitment of at least 2 days a week for
10-12 weeks.PAY: There is no pay for this position. There is a daily stipend of $12
to pay for subway transportation and lunch.REQUIREMENTS: You must do this internship for college credit and therefore
be enrolled and taking classes. It is considered part of your education
and we can assist you in meeting whatever requirements your university has
for such an internship. This is a great way to develop contacts,
references, and recommendations for future jobs. Students gain hands on
experience in film production while meeting people in the business and to
get an overview of the different staff positions available within a
production office.LOCATION: Office is in Manhattan, New York. We do not provide housing so
you would need to make sure you have a place to stay within easy commuting
distance to Manhattan.INTERNSHIP DESCRIPTION: Research for documentary films, administrative
duties (answering phones, copying, faxing, word processing, getting and
sorting mail), running errands, assisting editors, maintaining tape
library, archive press and generally assisting producers and other staff in
whatever way will be helpful.I don't know at this point if we'll need interns for the winter or next
summer but if you can't do an internship now, but could then, you should
contact Emma later in the year to see if we need any interns at that time.If interested please send resume and cover letter by email to Emma Trask at
ettrask@...
I'm a middle-class newspaper columnist and author (working in not exactly the golden age of newspapers and publishing) and I don't have people working for me for free. If you work for me, I'll pay you -- and buy you lunch when you're here at my place. (And let's remember that I'm one of those meanie fiscal conservatives!)
What I want to know is how come many of the people occupying Wall Street (as if everyone rich or successful there has caused every problem in their lives and all of our lives) aren't occupying the lobby of intern-stiffing multi-millionaire Michael Moore.
Ryan's Hope
That the president has some remedial math lessons. Paul Ryan writes in the Weekly Standard, quoting then-Senator and new presidential candidate Obama on the politics of division (and he isn't talking the math kind here):
He said that what's stopped us from meeting our nation's greatest challenges is, quote, "the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics - the ease with which we're distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our preference for scoring cheap political points instead of rolling up our sleeves and building a working consensus to tackle big problems."I couldn't agree more.
And yet, nearly three years into his presidency, look at where we are now:
Petty and trivial? Just last week, the President told a crowd in North Carolina that Republicans are in favor of, quote, "dirtier air, dirtier water, and less people with health insurance." Can you think of a pettier way to describe sincere disagreements between the two parties on regulation and health care?Chronic avoidance of tough decisions? The President still has not put forward a credible plan to tackle the threat of ever-rising spending and debt, and it's been over 900 days since his party passed a budget in the Senate.
A preference for scoring cheap political points instead of consensus-building? This is the same President who is currently campaigning against a do-nothing Congress, when in fact, the House of Representatives has passed over a dozen bills to help get the economy moving and deal with the debt, only to see the President's party kill those bills in the do-nothing Senate.
...The tax increases proposed by Senate Democrats and endorsed by the President - when combined with the new taxes in the health-care law, and the President's other tax preferences - would push the top federal tax rate to roughly 50 percent in just 14 months, while doing nothing to promote job creation.
This tax increase on so-called "millionaires and billionaires" would actually constitute a huge tax hike on the nation's most successful small businesses. According to the Tax Foundation, the surtax would hit roughly 35 percent of small-business income.
...As a practical matter, when you try to chase ever-higher spending with ever-higher tax increases, you eventually run into a brick wall of math.
...When you look at the actual math, you quickly realize that the way out of this mess is to combine economic growth with reasonable, responsible spending restraint. Yet neither of these things factors into the President's zero-sum logic.
According to the President's logic, we should give up on trying to reform our tax code to grow the economy and get more revenue that way. Instead, these goals are taking a backseat to the President's misguided understanding of fairness.
Ad Fab
Loved this -- probably a spec commercial or one from the UK, because it's clearly not boring enough to run on TV in the USA:
Taking The "Personal" Out Of Personal Responsibility
At Overlawyered, Walter Olson puts it perfectly:
Perhaps his theory will be that the nightclub had an obligation to assess how drunk the woman was, but he didn't.
Olson was writing about D.C. United's Charlie Davies, who's suing Red Bull and the owners of a Washington nightclub, claiming they're responsible for a fatal car crash that ended his hopes of joining the 2010 U.S. World Cup team. Maria Espinoza was driving, and 22-year-old Ashley Roberts was killed. Davies suffered broken bones and a lacerated bladder.
The AP story is here. An excerpt:
According to the lawsuit, Davies, Espinoza and Roberta were at the Washington club on the night of Oct. 12, 2009, for a private event hosted by Red Bull.The lawsuit said that despite Espinoza being obviously drunk, the club continued serving her alcohol. It claims the club and company "carelessly and negligently" served drinks to drunken guests.
Espinoza later drove Davies and Roberta from the club and crashed her car on the George Washington Memorial Parkway. In March, Espinoza was sentenced to two years in prison.
I recently was invited to a party a long way away on a weekend Gregg was in Detroit. I am not a big driver. I wanted to catch a ride with someone, and it was suggested to me that I go with a certain person who, well, I've seen do a lot of serious drinking. I mentioned the person's drinking to the host (vis a vis the offer that they drive), and the host told me the person's been off the sauce for a year or so. A good thing, since that person shouldn't be on the sauce and on the highway afterward.
I ended up driving anyway because I had to work and come late to the party, but I'm for sure not going to just hop in a car with somebody who's drunk. Isn't this Thinking 101? Maybe the guy decided to take a risk -- save a few bucks on a cab. Isn't the gamble his to pay for? Shouldn't it be?
"Wanting to Get Laid Doesn't Make Me a Jerk"
Marcus Williams writes on The Good Men Project:
There are so many feminist themes and causes that I agree with and support, but the most alienating theme I run into is that men (and therefore, me) are jerks for wanting sex. It's not all feminists who say that, but it feels like any time I see a discussion about a man acknowledging or expressing his sexuality, there will be voices in that discussion calling him a jerk for it. No level of sexual desire is safe from criticism, because just thinking about a woman in a sexy way is enough to objectify her and deny every other quality that she might possess. It's best not to do anything with those thoughts, but even then, don't admit to having them, because that's objectifying, too.Sexual thoughts: bad.
Sexual talk (or writing): admitting you're bad.
Actual sex: good men don't go there, or want to.
It's almost enough to make me yearn for the sex-is-fun liberalism of the Catholic church.
Advice Goddess Free Swim
I'm a little wiped out again, so feel free to discuss whatever's on your mind. One link per comment please, at most (and even better if you avoid posting the HTML part), or your comment will be devoured by my spam filter.
I will post more in the bright light of day!
Creepyass TSA
@JillFilipovic tweets:
"Just unpacked my suitcase and found this note from TSA. Guess they discovered a "personal item" in my bag. Wow."
Picture here.
Thanks, Cridster.
Professor Against Free Speech He Disagrees With
Robert Shibley of campus free speech defender FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights In Education) writes at The Daily Caller about a professor who has a problem with free speech when it's not quite the speech he'd like:
Students at Sam Houston State University (SHSU) in Texas found this out the hard way yesterday when they erected a "free speech wall" -- a recently popular way for students to highlight the importance of free speech in which students put up a freestanding wall covered in paper, upon which anyone can write anything they want. Students jumped on the chance to participate. To cite a few examples: "Don't hate against Gays ...," "If you make less than $200,000 Republicans don't care about you," "Life's not a bitch, Life is a beautiful woman ...," "Han Solo Shot First," "My boyfriend is a liar!," "Legalize Weed!!!," and "NAZI PUNKS FUCK OFF!!!"But just hours in, the free speech wall was vandalized by a professor -- yes, a professor! -- who was offended that someone had written "FUCK OBAMA" on the free speech wall. Students being students, the "F-word" was written on the wall many times about many different topics, but apparently the only expletive that offended this professor enough to take action was the one referring to President Obama.
The professor, whom students identified as Joe Kirk, demanded that the student groups sponsoring the wall -- including Republicans, Democrats, libertarians and socialists -- cover up only the Obama statement. They refused. He then told them that he would come back with a box cutter and cut it out of the wall himself, which he then did. You can see the before and after pictures at thefire.org.
Shocked that a professor would do this, the student organizers got in touch with the campus police. When the police arrived, they interviewed the students and the vandalizing professor. Then came the surprise: The police told the students that since Prof. Kirk was offended by some profanity on the wall, the students were engaging in "disorderly conduct," a misdemeanor, and had to cover up all the swear words on the wall or take it down. Realizing that this would make a mockery out of the purpose of a free speech wall, the students simply disassembled the wall. Thus ended SHSU's several hour-long experiment with free speech.
...Prof. Kirk does not appear to have been offended by the F-word itself, however -- only at its use in an insult against the president. That's the only one he cut out, after all. But the right of Americans to insult their leaders is just as protected as the right to use four-letter words. In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), the Supreme Court made clear that the First Amendment requires that "[d]ebate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and ... may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials." And in Rankin v. McPherson (1987), the Court found that the First Amendment protected a deputy county constable's expressed hope that if another attempt were to be made on President Reagan's life, that it be successful. If that extreme statement constitutes protected speech, there is no question the words "FUCK OBAMA" are as well.
What kind of Mr. Precious thinks he has a right to not be offended -- and on a college campus, to boot?
I "Might" Have Been About To Use The ATM -- Or Rob The Bank At Gunpoint
I put some checks in the bank the other day, but maybe the police should have arrested me on suspicion that I was about to rob the bank. Not because I went inside and handed the teller a note that said "This is a stickup," but because I was at the bank and carrying pen and paper at the time, and I could have written such a note.
The logic there would have been similar to that in a just-overturned case -- Jeffrey McCave's. From TheNewspaper.com:
Jeffrey McCave was sentenced in a county court to thirty days in jail, two years of probation and a $1000 fine for listening to music in an undriven car parked on his father's driveway while drunk. The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday used the case to clarify that the charge of driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) does not apply in a personal driveway....Prosecutors argued that the DUI charge applies to a residential driveway because McCave had physical control of the vehicle and that he might have been about to leave.
...The court also discarded the prosecution's insistence that McCave was guilty of DUI simply because the police officer claimed the man had stated he was "leaving."
"Obviously, if McCave had committed an offense in front of the officers, they would have had grounds for an arrest," Connolly wrote. "But his statement that he was leaving, even if his hand was on the key in the ignition, showed only that he had considered driving but changed his mind."
The high court went on to blast the sloppy police work that led to McCave's conviction.
"No witness reported that McCave was driving a vehicle at any time, and the officers did not pose this critical question to McCave or any witness," Connolly wrote. "Before officers invoke the power of a warrantless arrest, the Fourth Amendment requires them to investigate the basic evidence for the suspected offense and reasonably question witnesses readily available at the scene, at least when exigent circumstances do not exist. This is particularly true when the circumstances the officers encounter are consistent with lawful conduct. As previously discussed, it is not unlawful for a person to be intoxicated in a vehicle on private property not open to public access."
via Overlawyered
"The Occupiers Have The Wrong Address"
Cato's Tom Palmer writes at PolicyMic:
The subprime crisis was designed in Washington, not New York. The FHA discouraged down payments (those old fashioned "savings"), pushing them from their traditional level of 20% down to 3% - and at the start of 2008 to 0%. Everyone, regardless of whether they can afford it, should own a home! Don't save; speculate in the hope that prices will rise!
Government sponsored enterprises Fannie and Freddie "securitized" home loans under congressional mandates to direct more funds to lower incomes. In 1996, the Department of Housing and Urban Development directed Fannie and Freddie to target 42% of financing to borrowers with incomes below the median in their areas, going to 50% in 2000 and 52% in 2005. Such funding was directed to financing even mobile homes, a move lauded by Rep. Barney Frank as "one of the most important things to happen to make home ownership affordable to people who might otherwise be shut out of the market." Also, "special affordable" loans were created, with HUD directing Fannie and Freddie to target 12% of financing to borrowers earning less than 60% of the median income, a percentage that rose to 20% in 2000, then 22% in 2005. That percentage was scheduled to go to 28% in 2008.
A speculative bubble was pumped up by deliberate government policies. Gains were private, but losses were government guaranteed. Sound banking principles were discarded and people were encouraged to load up on unsustainable debt. And when the bubble burst, homeowners, who were encouraged by government policy to buy bigger houses than they could afford, found themselves under water. Insolvent banks - some of the biggest of the big guys - were bailed out, and the printing presses were fired up even further.
Cronyism is on the rise and getting worse. Obama's Solyndra scandal is just the tip of the iceberg. Both Democrats and Republicans are raking in the money from the financial firms; as the Washington Post just noted, "Obama has brought in more money from employees of banks, hedge funds and other financial service companies than all of the GOP candidates combined." When you're in power, everyone wants to be your friend.
via reason
Seems Like A Lovely Day For One Of My Fave Bastiat Quotes
Here you go!
"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."― Frédéric Bastiat, "The Law"
The essential bit, once more:
...Every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.
More Bastiat snacks here.
Call In/Listen Tonight: Third Show, Advice Goddess Radio!
My third show is tonight -- 7 p.m. Pacific time, 10 p.m. Eastern, for an hour, and I NEED YOUR CALLS!
If you're willing to call, please let me know (comments or email me at adviceamy at AOL dot com) so I know I'll have some people to talk with.
Listen live here:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2011/10/24/the-advice-goddess-show-amy-alkon
Download a podcast afterward here:
http://blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon
About the show:
Nationally syndicated advice columnist Amy Alkon takes your questions on love, dating, sex, relationships, and manners.It's most fun and most interesting (and I get in "the zone") when you call and I can play off of you. So don't be shy -- call-in number once the show is on and live (at 7 p.m.): (347) 326-9761 (New York area code).
Call in for advice on the topic we're discussing, to bat around your thoughts on love, dating, sex, relationships, and manners, or to ask for advice on any topic on the above!
You can go to that regular link to download the podcast after the show (you may have to wait 10 minutes or so for it to post). "Play in your default player" downloads it as a podcast. "Download" makes it play on your computer. Yeah, a little bassackwards.
End The War At Home: Stop Killing People In Pot Raids
John W. Whitehead writes at The Rutherford Institute about drug-seeking, sometimes warrantless SWAT raids that can end in death for innocent people and famlies' and neighbors' dogs:
"On July 29, 2008, my family and I were terrorized by an errant Prince George's County SWAT team. This unit forced entry into my home without a proper warrant, executed our beloved black Labradors, Payton and Chase, and bound and interrogated my mother-in-law and me for hours as they ransacked our belongings... As I was forced to kneel, bound at gun point on my living room floor, I recall thinking that there had been a terrible mistake. However, as I have learned more, I have to understand that what my family and I experience is part of a growing and troubling trend where law enforcement is relying on SWAT teams to perform duties once handled by ordinary police officers."--Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo in testimony before the Maryland Senate...Take the case of Philip Cobbs, an unassuming 53-year-old African-American man who cares for his blind, deaf 90-year-old mother and lives on a 39-acre tract of land that's been in his family since the 1860s. Cobbs is the latest in a long line of Americans to find themselves swept up in the government's zealous pursuit of marijuana. On July 26, 2011, while spraying the blueberry bushes near his Virginia house, Cobbs noticed a black helicopter circling overhead. After watching the helicopter for several moments, Cobbs went inside to check on his mother. By the time he returned outside, several unmarked police SUVs had driven onto his property, and police in flak jackets, carrying rifles and shouting unintelligibly, had exited the vehicles and were moving toward him.
Although the officers insisted they had sighted marijuana plants growing on Cobbs' property (they claimed to find two spindly plants growing in the wreckage of a fallen oak tree), their real objective was clear--to search Cobbs' little greenhouse, which he had used that spring to start tomato plants, cantaloupes, and watermelons, as well as asters and hollyhocks. The search of the greenhouse turned up nothing more than used tomato seedling containers. Incredibly, police had not even bothered to secure a warrant before embarking on their raid of Cobbs' property--part of a routine sweep of the countryside in search of pot-growing operations that had to cost taxpayers upwards of $25,000, at the very least.
Thankfully for Cobbs, no one was hurt during the warrantless raid on his property. However, that is not the case for many Americans who find themselves on the wrong end of a SWAT team raid in search of marijuana.
...A growing number of legal scholars, including Bruce Fein, who served as a high-ranking Justice Department official during the Reagan administration, are calling to end the prohibition on marijuana and treat it like alcohol by regulating and taxing it at the state level. Their rationale is that instead of allowing marijuana to flourish as a profitable black market crop, it should be taxed and regulated in a manner similar to tobacco and alcohol, which many in the medical community believe to be far more harmful than marijuana. Not only would that lessen violent criminal activity associated with the manufacture and sale of marijuana, but it would also provide an economic boost to ailing state and federal coffers. As it now stands, marijuana is the United States' largest cash crop (it brought in an estimated $35 billion in 2005), with a third of this production coming from California where it is the state's largest cash crop.
...Additionally, a repeal of the prohibition of marijuana would save federal, state, and local governments an estimated $7.7 billion annually by ending the need for enforcement of drug laws.
Follow Taxpayer Porkulus Dollars To Finland
The maker of a gas-electric car paid for with what ABC in the video below says was a $170,000 million stimulus dollar loan says the car just couldn't have been made here in the USA.
Popular Mechanics says it was a half-billion-dollar loan, and that building the cars overseas was always part of the plan:
LewRockwell, where I found the link, noted that the Finnish half-gas/half-electric car above is $97K, and that Tesla Motors, in the USA, has built an ALL-electric car for half the selling price ($49K) of the Finnish-built car our tax dollars are paying for.
What You Don't Get To Do When You're Somebody's Mother
(And not just somebody's, but four somebodies' mother.) The New York Post Headline:
Florida banker's wife left family to join Wall Street protesters
An excerpt from the story by Kevin Fasick and Bob Hendricks:
A married mother of four from Florida ditched her family to become part of the raggedy mob in Zuccotti Park -- keeping the park clean by day and keeping herself warm at night with the help of a young waiter from Brooklyn."I'm not planning on going home," an unapologetic Stacey Hessler, 38, told The Post yesterday.
"I have no idea what the future holds, but I'm here indefinitely. Forever," said Hessler, whose home in DeLand sits 911 miles from the tarp she's been sleeping under.
Hessler -- who ironically is married to a banker -- arrived 12 days ago and planned to stay for a week, but changed her plans after cozying up to some like-minded radicals, including Rami Shamir, 30, a waiter at a French bistro in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
She swears she's not romantically involved with her new friend.
She said she had been following the movement on Facebook, and the more she learned, the more obsessed she became with joining the demonstrators.
At around 11 a.m. yesterday, Hessler moved from laundry duty to park cleanup -- a four-hour detail from which she broke just once to give a troubled protester a hug at the "empathy table." She also found time for a meditation session later in the day.
Hessler has spoken with her family -- husband Curtiss, 42; son Peyton, 17; and daughters Kennedy 15, Sullivan, 13, and Veda, 7 -- just three times since leaving them. "Friends are taking care of them," she said.
Not everyone has supported her decision. "My mother told me I was being very selfish," she admitted.
And her husband, a former Bank of America financial adviser who now works at a local Florida bank, is perplexed. "He says he's working for 'the Man,' and I'm fighting against him," she said.
The Rude Are Robbing Us
Jason Edwards included some thoughts from me on the rude in a piece he wrote in The Eastern Progress:
While in the library--a place we are taught from a very young age is a quiet zone--I saw a gentleman who had to take an "important" phone call. The place was full of students trying to find a quiet area to study or work on assigned projects. This gentleman decided his very important, "Yeah, she was all over me" phone call was something he didn't need to take outside. He obviously thought it was important enough that everyone within the sound of his voice needed to hear of his adventure....I thought perhaps I should seek out some professional advice on the subject of rude people. I spoke with Amy Alkon, a syndicated columnist and author of I see Rude People: One Woman's Battle to Beat Some Manners into Impolite Society.
Alkon said people who are rude to us are actually stealing from us.
"When someone steals your wallet, you are very clear on that because it is a physical thing, and it's there and then it's gone," she said. "When people are rude, they are stealing intangible but very valuable things: your time, your peace of mind, your good night's sleep...If someone in the drugstore is shouting into their phone, making their boring life part of your life, essentially what they are doing is privatizing public space as their own. They are stealing space that belongs to everyone."
If these rude "robbers" thought about the situation, perhaps they would take a different course of action.
Listen to Alkon. Don't be afraid to speak up to the rude and tell them their behavior is not acceptable.
Yeah!
A Sad Day For Millionaire Farmers
The welfare teat just ran dry, thanks to a rare bit of bipartisan sense in the Senate. Stephan Dinan writes in the Wash Times that both Republicans and Democrats voted to cut off federal farm payouts to farmers making more than $1 million a year.
My question: Why are we giving any farmers taxpayer-funded handouts? Because there sure aren't handouts for advice columnists making less than $1 million a year. Sigh, far, far, far, far less.
Pay To Pray
They could agree to clock out during their prayer time, and keep their jobs, but no, these Muslim employees want to pray and get paid for that time.
Again, when you own the company, you make the rules. You work for Hertz, they make the rules.
Why is this hard to understand? Well, here's the video of the bullying union standing behind this absolutely ridiculous request:
There's respecting somebody's right to pray and bending over and paying for it, too.
Note that the signs they're holding don't talk about respecting their rights but say "Respect My Religion," which actually is a bit much to ask. Ironically, this comes from people who practice the least "tolerant" religion in the world. Here's how Christians are treated in Muslim majority countries.
Requiring Probable Cause? How Silly
Via Jay J. Hector, a story in the Freep about Flint drug stops. Bill Laitner writes:
Motorists driving on expressways around Flint are getting surprised by a stunning tactic that the Genesee County sheriff has been using to fight the flow of illegal drugs -- one that legal experts said will not withstand a court challenge.At least seven times this month, including Tuesday, motorists have said they have seen a pickup towing a large sign on I-69 or U.S.-23 that depicts the sheriff's badge and warns: "Sheriff narcotics check point, 1 mile ahead -- drug dog in use."
The checkpoints are part of a broad sweep for drugs that Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell and his self-titled Sheriff's Posse said are needed, calling Flint a crossroads of drug dealing because nearly a half-dozen major roads and expressways pass in and around the city. Pickell said he decided to try checkpoints when he learned that drug shipments might be passing through Flint in tractor-trailers with false compartments.
"We're doing everything by the book," Genesee County Undersheriff Christopher Swanson said. "We think there's major loads (of drugs) coming through here from all over, every day. And this is one of the tools we use -- narcotics checkpoints."
Once again, as at the airports, treating everyone as a criminal is starting to pass for meaningful, targeted investigation. It is unconstitutional and unacceptable and it is what we get for going quietly as our rights are yanked from us at the airport and elsewhere.
Mail Your Money In!
Smurfy drew my attention to a site, WeStandWithThe99Percent, of rich kids who say "tax me more!" Smurfy paraphrases one of the many 1 percenters' messages at the link:
"My family worked really hard to amass a fortune. I was handed the keys to the castle. Because I did NOTHING to earn this money, I would like to see it taken away from me, because we spit on the American Dream. We prefer Socialism"
These messages of theirs end with statements like "I am the 1%! Tax me more!"
My question is, why do they need to be sent a bill? Why can't they get out their checkbooks and simply mail the money in to the Federal government?
Oh, is it that they won't do that -- they won't help, they won't share their wealth -- until other people have their wealth forcibly taken from them?
Did You Really Think The TSA Would Just Be An Airport Thang?
They're going to be feeling your titties and pawing through your car and your possessions in all sorts of areas of our lives. Adam Ghassemi writes for Tennessee's NewsChannel5:
PORTLAND, Tenn. - You're probably used to seeing TSA's signature blue uniforms at the airport, but now agents are hitting the interstates to fight terrorism with Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR)."Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate," said Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons.
Tuesday Tennessee was first to deploy VIPR simultaneously at five weigh stations and two bus stations across the state.
Agents are recruiting truck drivers, like Rudy Gonzales, into the First Observer Highway Security Program to say something if they see something.
"Not only truck drivers, but cars, everybody should be aware of what's going on, on the road," said Gonzales.
It's all meant to urge every driver to call authorities if they see something suspicious.
"Somebody sees something somewhere and we want them to be responsible citizens, report that and let us work it through our processes to abet the concern that they had when they saw something suspicious," said Paul Armes, TSA Federal Security Director for Nashville International Airport.
"Something suspicious"? "Something" suspicious? Unless it's a trailer truckload of fertilizer on fire, what the hell would that be?
And this article reflects the problem with all the people who go quietly at the airport -- going quietly is a tacit acceptance of the TSA's violation of our Fourth Amendment rights (and those vague free speech-chilling signs they put up telling you that "verbal abuse" will "not be tolerated").
Oh, and if any of you have a legal background and can comment on our right to move freely, please do. Here's a little something. Also, don't forget the Ninth Amendment, protecting rights not enumerated in the Constitution.
Is The NAACP For The Children's Best Interest Or The Unions'?
From the WSJ, a study shows that black students in charter schools outperform their peers in traditional public schools -- by an average of 18 points (over the last four years of publicly available data per the California Charter Schools Association):
Crucially, the data show that charters' success isn't attributable to attracting students who are better equipped to learn from the start. "The African American populations in charter public and traditional public schools are very similar," notes the report, with the same level of parental education, similar household income and nearly identical attrition rates.The real difference is that charter schools are free of the traditional school system's union contracts and bureaucratic rules, which shorten the school day, stifle innovation and protect ineffective teachers. This autonomy doesn't guarantee charter success, but it allows the schools--and their students--to benefit from creativity, competition and accountability.
...Believe it or not, some people read this data not as an endorsement of better schools but as an indictment of reform and a sign of cultural imperialism. "We are concerned about the overrepresentation of charter schools in low-income and predominantly minority communities," wrote the NAACP, the National Action Network, the National Urban League, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and others in a statement last year.
So more good schools in poor neighborhoods are a problem? Such statements show that the NAACP is still fighting the last civil-rights war, refusing to break with its teachers union allies from the 1960s even as another generation of black children is doomed to less equal educational opportunity.
I Could Have Been Arrested In D.C. -- For An Expired Car Registration
I've been working like mad lately, with my new Sunday night radio show/podcast, the book I'm working on, the op-ed I'm trying to place on our civil liberties, so I've been a little scattered on my life stuff. I got my renewed car registration form and the new 2012 tag to stick on my license plate but left the envelope laying around somewhere and only discovered it a day after my current tag had expired.
I ran out and quick-quick stuck thew new tag on my license plate, glad that I hadn't gotten a ticket for an expired tag during my one day of delinquency. In D.C., in one more sign of the continuing growth of the police state, I could have ended up in the slammer. Mike DeBonis writes for the WaPo:
The D.C. police department has released preliminary statistics on the controversial practice of arresting drivers whose vehicles are unregistered or have expired registration. The numbers indicate that the practice is more widespread than previously thought, with several arrests per day on average.In the one-year period starting Oct. 1, 2009, records indicate that 2,163 persons were arrested in the District for expired tags. In the subsequent year, ending in September, arrests declined dramatically, to 1,334. The numbers include arrests made by all law enforcement agencies in the city, not just the Metropolitan Police Department.
Police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump said department analysts are still reviewing the data, which "may be overstated, and may be revised downward in the coming days."
The D.C. Council voted Tuesday to end arrests for expired tags on a temporary basis while lawmakers decide whether to continue a policy that has been in place for decades.
Advice Goddess Free Swim
I'm a little exhausted, so feel free to discuss whatever's on your mind. One link per comment please, at most (and even better if you avoid posting the HTML part), or your comment will be devoured by my spam filter.
I'll post more during the day on Thursday.
Occupy Obama
He's just another politician, really he is. Dan Eggen and T.W. Farnam write at the WaPo:
Despite frosty relations with the titans of Wall Street, President Obama has still managed to raise far more money this year from the financial and banking sector than Mitt Romney or any other Republican presidential candidate, according to new fundraising data.Obama's key advantage over the GOP field is the ability to collect bigger checks because he raises money for both his own campaign committee and for the Democratic National Committee, which will aid in his reelection effort.
As a result, Obama has brought in more money from employees of banks, hedge funds and other financial service companies than all of the GOP candidates combined, according to a Washington Post analysis of contribution data. The numbers show that Obama retains a persistent reservoir of support among Democratic financiers who have backed him since he was an underdog presidential candidate four years ago.
...Obama's ties to Wall Street donors could complicate Democratic plans to paint Republicans as puppets of the financial industry, particularly in light of the Occupy Wall Street protests that have gone global over the past week.
When It's Unethical To Take A Schoolteaching Job
When your religion means you're going to ditch your students for a month to go off on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Pamela Geller writes at WND:
In the continuing Islamization of the Department of Justice, Barack Obama's DOJ filed a lawsuit against a Chicago-area school district for not allowing Safoorah Khan, a Muslim teacher at MacArthur Middle School, to take time off to make the hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, thereby abandoning her students for a month. The DOJ sued the school district and last week forced it to give Khan $75,000 in lost back pay, compensatory damages and attorneys' fees.The Berkeley School District didn't deny Khan's request because they hated Muslims. The school needed her. That's why they said no. She was the only math lab teacher and was a new hire on probation - she had only been on the job for nine months. Why take a job you can't do? Why take a job that you plan on leaving for a month? Islamic supremacism.
Khan herself made that clear when she said: "I'm glad that we settled, and I hope this does set a precedent. I hope they realize that hajj means a lot to Muslims and there will be more and more people taking the trip. I hope this helps people and their employers to accommodate Muslims and their requests."
In other words, employers better get used to changing the way they operate their businesses in order to accommodate Muslim demands, or else.
By the way, I also think it's unethical to take a job knowing you're pregnant and you're going to ditch the job after you give birth, and not disclosing that. Employers and their businesses don't exist to serve employees' needs.
Barney Frank Is Occupying Wall Street
What better place to suck up some of Wall Street's cash? Anna Palmer and Robin Bravender write at Politico:
Rep. Barney Frank might sympathize with the Occupy Wall Street protesters, but he's still got friends in the financial world.The Massachusetts Democrat is heading to New York hoping to raise tens of thousands of dollars Thursday at a fundraiser at the home of Charles Myers, a senior investment banking advisor at Evercore Partners. Myers is one of several Wall Street execs listed on the invite soliciting up to $2,500 from attendees for Frank's reelection committee, according to a copy obtained by POLITICO.
(Don't be too sentimental about politicians from either side -- a politician is a politician is a politician.)
Rep. Barbara Lee: The Regressive Progressive
The California congresswoman refuses to use automated checkout lanes at supermarket -- hilariously, because she's a self-described "progressive." Fred Barnes, at the Weekly Standard link above, quotes Lee's reasoning for avoiding lanes with no flesh-and-blood checkout clerk:
Lee said at a House Appropriations Committee hearing, "I know that's a job or two or three that's gone."
Cafe Hayek has some fun with her notion of progress, with econ prof Donald J. Boudreaux laying out a few things for Lee to consider:
Do you also avoid using computerized ("automatic") elevators, riding only in those few that still use manual elevator operators?Do you steer clear of newer automobiles equipped with technologies that enable them to go for 100,000 miles before needing a tune-up? I'm sure I can find for you, say, a 1972 Chevy Vega that will oblige you to employ countless mechanics.
Do you shun tubeless steel-belted radial tires on your car - you know, the kind that go flat far less often than do old-fashioned tires? No telling how many tire-repairing jobs have been destroyed by modern technology-infused tires.
Do you and your family refuse flu shots in order to increase your chances of requiring the services of nurses and M.D.s - and, if the economy gets lucky and you and yours get seriously ill, also of hospital orderlies and administrators? Someone as aware as you are of the full ramifications of your consumption choices surely takes account of the ill effects that flu shots have on the jobs of health-care providers.
You must, indeed, be distressed as you observe the appalling amount of labor-saving technologies in use throughout our economy. It is, alas, a disturbing trend that has been around for quite some time - since, really, the invention of the spear which destroyed the jobs of some hunters.
via Kate Coe
Retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Arrested At TSA Checkpoint For Reciting Constitution
Disgusting, chilling. And more people should do what she's done.
Read the woman's whole story over at DailyKos. An excerpt:
I say that I never declined a physical search, it was never offered. My intent was to read the Constitution, while it was happening. He speaks to someone in the next room. I ask who he is talking to and Guy with a Tie emerges."You refused to talk to me."
"No, I refused to give you personal information you were not entitled to."
"You refused to be searched."
"I never refused. You never offered. You only offered to remove me from the area."
"You don't have a right to disrupt the screening."
"You disrupted the screening. I just read the Constitution."
Marty intervenes. Clearly, his job is to get this resolved today. He breaks us up and I ask him, "So next week, when I have to fly again, what's going to happen when I read the Constitution?"
I actually feel pity for the way he looks at me. I have just made his day a living hell and I really do feel sorry for him and for calling Jared a Brown Shirt.
"Let's just get through today," he says.
I agree to be searched and tell them I will read the Constitution in a normal voice while they do it. This is not good enough for Guy with a Tie. He says if I read the statement, I can't pay attention to what the frisking officer tells me. You know, how she is going to put her hands here and there and use the back of her hand to check my "sensitive areas". They tell me I need to listen to this, I kid you not, for my own safety. I say I will only read while she is not speaking. That won't do either, because I won't be concentrating on her instructions. Seriously, this was their rational explanation to me for continuing to violate my First and Fourth Amendment rights. I have to get home so I finally acquiesce.
Marty asks if I could be released and Jared lets me out. They give me back my shoes. Old Goat explains that I could await arraignment next Monday, or take the misdemeanor. I say I have already agreed to the misdemeanor.
"OK," he says, "then you need to wait 'til Monday." He leaves again.
"Wait a minute." I call after him, "I don't think I understood the options. Could you come back and explain them to me?" There is only silence. My heart is beating again.
"I said I was taking the misdemeanor. Did I not understand what that was?" Monday is a week away. My job and my husband will kill me.Jared comes to the rescue. He gets Old Goat to write up the misdemeanor charge and explains I have to appear before the judge here in New Mexico. That is going to be damned inconvenient, as I live in Northern California, but I agree.
via Lisa Simeone
The Higher Education Racket
I've noticed all the people at We Are The 99 percent with outrageous school loans. Via Instapundit, Charles C.W. Cooke writes at NRO:
The number of people participating in the Occupy Wall Street sit-ins because they are angry that their education has not yielded the fruits that they hoped it would becomes more apparent by the day. Many of the protesters I have met are understandably ruffled that they are unemployed, and they often finish their remonstrations with a non-sequitur, delivered as if it were a knockout blow: "And I went to college!" Well, one might ask, "So what?"I first noticed this "college = good life" fallacy back in England. A close friend of mine was looking for a job straight out of college, and remained unemployed for six months while he searched for what he described as a "graduate job." Outside of those careers that rely on specific skills and expertise -- doctors, veterinarians, and so forth -- I have never been sure quite what this term means. My friend has a degree in modern history. Congratulations! But there is no obvious career path for this qualification. Why should it lend itself more to working in, say, finance than to working in a 7-Eleven? Compare this attitude to that exhibited by another friend of mine -- a recently naturalized American citizen. After her parents escaped from the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s and fled to the United States, her engineer father worked as a garbageman for five years until he found a job which tallied more closely with his abilities. At no point did he complain. Was it a waste of talent? Undoubtedly. Did he have a right to a "post-graduate job"? No. That's just not how free economies work.
...In the West, we are hard at work establishing a culture that fetishizes education, and instills the belief that college -- regardless of its content or application -- will, and should, inexorably lead to a better job, or a better life, or even a better America. Worse, that one has a right to these things. In doing so, we have created a Potemkin aristocracy, one based upon the erroneous and tragic conceit that having letters after one's name intrinsically confers excellence. We are happily encouraging our children to join its ranks, regardless of whether there is any evidence that to do so will be in their interest. This is supremely ironic, given that so many of America's billionaires -- i.e. those who pay for more educations and create more jobs than anyone else -- are college dropouts. Indeed, both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates failed to finish college. Can we say with a straight face that this has adversely affected them, or America at large?
On Thursday, I met a guy down in Zuccotti Park. He speaks six languages, but he has nothing useful to say in any of them. He is the movement's perfect spokesman.
Ron Paul-onomics
Danny Yadron writes in the WSJ:
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul on Monday laid out an economic plan that would lower corporate and individual taxes and cut federal spending by $1 trillion during his first year in office, achieved partly by eliminating five cabinet-level departments.Mr. Paul, a longtime Texas congressman, said he would close the departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, Interior and Housing and Urban Development, as part of a broader plan to cut federal spending. The federal work force would be cut by 10%. Mr. Paul also called for stopping foreign aid and "ending foreign wars.''
His "Plan to Restore America'' would end the estate tax and taxes on personal savings, "allowing families to build a nest egg.'' He would extend tax cuts on personal income, capital gains and dividends that were enacted under former President George W. Bush.
Mr. Paul has said he would support amending the Constitution to abolish the income tax, though that does not come up in his economic plan.
The corporate tax rate would fall under Mr. Paul's plan, to 15% from the current 35%, and corporations would be allowed to repatriate capital without paying additional U.S. taxes.
Who's Occupying Wall Street?
He is. And he is.
Ferry Stupid Business, Thanks To The Government
Institute For Justice launches a federal civil rights lawsuit to "sink" the ridiculous ferry monopoly in Washington state:
"Only the government would impose such an inconvenient and nonsensical system on passengers..."
The IJ posts:
Jim and Cliff Courtney have had their plans to launch a ferry service on Lake Chelan sunk by a nearly one-hundred year old Washington State law designed to protect the existing ferry provider from competition.No new business can pick up and drop off passengers along the Lake unless they either get the consent of the current operator or prove in a trial-like proceeding that the "public convenience and necessity" requires additional service. The current provider gets to participate in the proceeding and argue why competition should be kept out. It's no wonder the law has resulted in a government-imposed monopoly on Lake Chelan ferry service since the 1920s.
The Courtney brothers have joined with the Institute for Justice in filing a suit in federal court to have the law struck down as an unconstitutional violation of their economic liberty and of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Occupy Oprah
The other day, a Hollywood development guy in his 50s with an iPod, an iPad and a swag bag from Cannes was sitting next to me in the cafe where I write. We started talking and eventually, he mentioned that he was...a socialist! I told him he should mail money in to the U.S. treasury so as to live up to his views. Of course, he wasn't into that sort of thing.
We started to have a bit of a political discussion, but I could see that his irrational views (the socialist notion that people will work for other people's gain, for example) would make me want to blow my brains out, so I excused myself to go back to my writing.
My friend L. pointed out later that I should have told him to share the wealth -- tell him to write me a check for $500, or better yet $5,000. Love that idea.
And now that I've gotten all the tangents out of the way, here's an idea: Occupy Oprah. William A. Jacobson quotes a couple of commenters from his blog, Syn and LukeHandCool:
If you want your collective living wage for your collective Art why are you not Occupying Hollywood demanding Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin, Barbara Streisand, Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, Bruce Springsteen, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Maher, Michael Moore, Matt Damon, and the thousands of other 'rich GREEDY EVIL Hollywood multi-million-billionaire profiteers who are stealing from you'!!Why are you not Occupying Hollywood demanding they pay your $150,000 student loan so that you can be free to produce the same crappy art they create?
via Instapundit
What Does Get Through The TSA
Ten pounds of pot.
Keep searching grandma's diaper; you're not gong to stop people who bribe "officers" to get stuff on planes.
Once again, the suspects are not terrorists and were not stopped by those we're paying bajillions to supposedly defend our airspace, but by an American Airlines baggage handler with a nose for weed.
Criminals From An Early Age
Welcome to obedience school -- we're being schooled from the earliest ages on in being docile in the face of our rights being yanked from us. Wendy McElroy has a piece on fff.org about how the police state is creeping in to yet another area of our lives:
Since September, a public-school district in Florida has been taking fingerprint scans at the entrance to schools as a way to monitor attendance. The scans are compared against a database of students to detect truants. As in most highly intrusive school policies, parents are thrown a bone of control by allowing them to request an "opt out" for their children. An opted-out student needs to pursue a teacher and go through a special sign-in every day. In terms of time, convenience, and avoidance of stigma, students have a strong incentive to comply quietly....The institutions and interactions of society are slowly coming to resemble a prison yard.A key and defining feature of America's prison system is that the people being processed through it have no rights whatsoever that the authorities feel required to consider. Prisoners are caged like animals, removed from familial and other free exchanges, strip-searched at a guard's whim, beaten with no legal recourse, and forced into a de facto "slave" labor.
In goose step with law enforcement, society at large moves gradually toward the zero-tolerance mass-processing of people who have no rights the authorities need to recognize. Travelers are physically molested and interrogated before being given the privilege of using tickets they've paid for. Children attending government schools pursuant to mandatory-attendance laws are fingerprinted as a condition of receiving the schooling or school-bus rides for which their parents are heavily taxed.
In society at large, people are said to surrender their natural rights when they agree to use "services," such as air travel. That is, when you buy a plane ticket, you are deemed to be giving permission to have your body and property rummaged, to have your privacy stripped away, and to face the prospect of being arrested for such trivial noncompliance as asking a question.
In vain, people argue that the air-travel "service" is a usurpation of the free market by a government monopoly that demands all providers comply with government security. The arguments fall on deaf ears, because the people to whom they are addressed are the civil equivalents of prison guards.
Agents of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are there to herd and process potential criminals. Their job is to elicit obedience; they do not listen, and they do not care, because either of those responses would be antithetical to their job description. This is true of all the agents used to process masses of people, from sports fans to grade-school children.
The effect on the prison population, whether it lives behind gray walls or walks the streets, is predictable. We obey without question; it becomes so habitual that, at some point, questions do not come to mind.
My Car Wants To Be This Car's Best Friend
I have a pretend car -- a 2004 Honda Insight hybrid-- that my friend Sergeant Heather calls my "cute deathtrap" because it's smaller than just about everything on the road but this Big Wheel.
Well, my car wants to be the new little Fiat's best friend. So cute.
P.S. I also have a crush on the Smart car. Gregg once took a picture of me hugging a hot pink one in Beverly Hills, but I can't find the photo.
I just don't know how people drive or park anything bigger than my tiny vehicle, but my neighbor, who is an architect, and thus has superior spatial ability, can swerve her car into a space with only inches to spare in front or in back.
Howard Stern Show Interviews Occupy Wall Street
They talked to some real geniuses, who mainly seem interested in hanging out and smoking pot in downtown New York, or at least thinking a lot about it:
Left, Right, And Libertarian
Where do you fit in?
All The Government-Created Bubbles
How government-generated spending is killing our economy. Jim Powell writes at Cato:
For example, every year the federal government funds tens of billions of dollars worth of student loans for college. Altogether, the federal government has provided money for some 60 million students. In 2010, for the first time, student-loan debt surpassed credit card debt. There are about a trillion dollars of student loans outstanding.By enabling more and more people to bid for a college education, the government has promoted inflation of college costs -- some 440% during the past quarter-century, quadruple the overall rate of inflation. Vance H. Fried, author of Better/Cheaper College, reported that nonprofit colleges make huge profits on undergraduate education, and they're spent on "some combination of research, graduate education, low-demand majors, low faculty teaching loads, excess compensation, and featherbedding." Meanwhile, an increasing number of families have difficulty paying for college without financial aid.
Federal farm subsidies range between $10 billion and $30 billion annually. Subsidies are paid on the basis of output or acreage, which means big farmers get more money than small farmers. Subsidies are limited to the "program" crops like corn, cotton, rice, soybeans and wheat, that account for about a third of farm production. Aside from enriching big farmers, the main impact of the subsidies is to encourage over-production and inflate the value of land suitable for program crops. One study, by economists at North Carolina State University, analyzed the different types of subsidies and concluded that each $1 of farm subsidies per acre inflates the value of an acre of farmland between $6.38 and $27.37, depending on applicable subsidies.
Since the mid-1960s, federal, state and local governments have spent hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing government-run urban transit systems. Economist Randal O'Toole explained, "The number of transit trips per operating employee have fallen more than 50%, and the inflation-adjusted cost per trip has nearly tripled during the past four decades. Today urban transit is the most expensive way of moving people in the United States, and it's no better than cars in terms of energy consumption or pollution." Despite the endless subsidies, urban transit systems tend to be inadequately maintained, and they're loaded with debt. New York City's transit system alone has $30 billion of debt plus $15 billion of unfunded pension liabilities for its unionized employees.
...Ever higher taxes are required to pay for all this and other government spending, which means draining more resources out of the private sector -- making it harder to create growth and jobs. As these examples suggest, government spending often makes things more expensive, causes chronic inefficiencies, leads to more debt and disruptive financial bubbles. Far from being an economic stimulus and a cure for unemployment, government spending increasingly turns out to be bad for our economy.
OWS: Decrying Big Business, Killing Small Business
Who's Occupy Wall Street hurting? The food cart owners. Alex Klein writes at New York Mag's Daily Intel:
Even as Occupy Wall Street protesters are decrying the grip of big business on America, they are causing angst for some small business that are well within the 99 percent: The New York food carts and tourist stands that surround Zuccotti Park. And while the occupation has been compared to the Arab Spring and Tahrir Square, the mostly Egyptian kebab cookers and breakfast sellers who are losing their livelihoods aren't too sure.Zizi Elnagouri, a voluble native of Alexandria, Egypt, has spent five years selling pastries on the corner of Cedar and Broadway. She whirled her hands as she spoke, flapping her apron to make a point. "From the beginning of this, we lost all our business," she lamented. Elnagouri took matters into her own hands, venturing out into the square to tell the occupiers "we are out of business." Some were glad and others sympathetic. But Zizi was shocked. "I couldn't believe they were American. Do you see how they look? What they are wearing? I don't believe. This must be the Third World!" Zizi is accustomed to well-fed New Yorkers in suits, not people begging for free doughnuts. "Sometimes they buy coffee ... it depends on who gives them money."
...In the crush of the park, it's difficult to move the carts from place to place at the beginning and end of the day. For Ahmed and Mustafah Abed, both New Yorkers, this means an all-night hot-dog vigil. "We can't leave. People are sleeping in the park, so if we leave, we can't bring our cart back in," said Ahmed. His father, another Egyptian immigrant, has owned the stand on the corner "since before they built the World Trade Center." But now, his sons have had to join on permanently to keep the family business alive. Though they sympathize with the occupation's aims, Ahmed says their stand has lost most of its old customers. "I support what the protesters are saying ... but man, this is bad."
LAUSD Employee Thinks The Jews Should Be "Run Out Of This Country"
Lovely.
Second Show! Advice Goddess Radio - My Live Weekly Call-In Advice Show
UPDATED: Listen here (and download to your audio player at that link below):
on Blog Talk Radio
Book featured on the show: Bella DePaulo's Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After
Other books mentioned: The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, by Nathaniel Branden, and A Guide To Rational Living, by Albert Ellis.
My second show is tonight -- 7 p.m. Pacific time, 10 p.m. Eastern, for an hour, and I NEED YOUR CALLS!
If you're willing to call, please let me know (comments or email me at adviceamy at AOL dot com) so I know I'll have some people to talk with.
The show is:
Nationally syndicated advice columnist Amy Alkon takes your questions on love, dating, sex, relationships, and manners.
It's most fun and most interesting (and I get in "the zone") when you call and I can play off of you. So don't be shy -- call-in number once the show is on and live (at 7 p.m.): (347) 326-9761
You can listen live at this link starting at 7 p.m. Pacific Time (10 p.m. Eastern, etc.):
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2011/10/17/the-advice-goddess-show-amy-alkon
There will also be a podcast you can download later.
The show will air weekly at 7 p.m. Pacific on Sunday nights. For a link to the regular Sunday night show:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/search/amy-alkon/
You can go to that regular link to download the podcast after the show (you may have to wait a few minutes or an hour for it to post). "Play in your default player" downloads it as a podcast. "Download" makes it play on your computer. Yeah, a little bassackwards. Sorry.
Want To Wear What You Want To Wear To Work?
Start your own business. Although I wear eveningwear as daywear when I go out, when I wake up at 5 a.m. to write on my deadine days, I look like a homeless woman who's taken a brief break from rifling through the dumpster (unless Gregg is coming over for some reason, in which case, I take my hair off the top of my head and take other steps to cuteify).
I don't have to look any particular way at work because I am my own boss. If somebody else were my boss, I'd have to do as they said or forfeit my employment. This would mean that I couldn't wear a flag pin, a cross, a Jewish star, a Satan-worshipping symbol, or any other prohibited jewelry.
Some guy in Florida is screaming hatred of patriotism because a hotel fired him when he refused to remove his American flag pin. I love this country, but I don't think you get to set the rules at somebody else's business -- no matter what the reason.
Via Gawker:
On Friday, the hotel fired front desk supervisor Sean May all because he refused to remove his American flag pin from his lapel. May says he's worn the pin every day for the last two years, but a "change in command" (replacing the old execs with an anti-Wall Street protester and the ghost of Lenin) has led to renewed interest in enforcing the rules about pin-wearing. "They're so upset about a little pin, and yet I come to work every day and flying over the hotel there's a gigantic American flag," he said to 4Jax News on Thursday. Maybe the hotel only hates flag pins but not fabric flags? (Answer: No, it hates all flags/America/freedom.)
More from News4Jax:
"The Casa Monica Hotel located in St. Augustine, Florida, is an American-based, homegrown historic hotel," the email reads. "The property reflects its pride in America and great patriotism by flying the Stars and Stripes high over the hotel. The American flag greets every guest and employee with its symbolism of our belief in this great country.""However, our employee handbook clearly states, 'No other buttons, badges, pins or insignias of any kind are permitted to be worn.' No matter an individual's national preference, political views or religious affiliation, it is a standard regulation which ensures equality for all Grand Performers (employees)."
"Making A Difference" How?
The Tea Party movement has a clear message -- as told with the "bacronym" Taxed Enough Already: They're seeking tax reform and responsibile spending.
Occupy Wall Street on the other hand, has a very muddled message.
And yet, there's this, from Reuters, on the HuffPo about "Occupy Times Square":
In New York, where the movement began when protesters set up camp in a Lower Manhattan park on Sept. 17, organizers said the protest grew to at least 5,000 people as they marched to Times Square from their makeshift outdoor headquarters."These protests are already making a difference," said Jordan Smith, 25, a former substance abuse counselor from San Francisco, who joined the New York protest. "The dialogue is now happening all over the world."
The protesters chanted, "We got sold out, banks got bailed out" and "All day, all week, occupy Wall Street." They arrived in Times Square at a time when the area is already crowded with tourists and Broadway theatergoers.
"This is disgusting" said Anatoly Lapushner, who was shopping with his family at Toys R Us in Times Square. "Why aren't they marching on Washington and the politicians? Instead they go after the economic lifeblood of the city."
Here's a photo -- a bunch of people standing around, blocking business in Times Square. How...useful.
UPDATED: Walter Shapiro in The New Republic on Occupy Wall Street:
My very tentative theory about the media success of Occupy Wall Street begins with the cleverness of the initial concept. Even if no one whom I interviewed at the protests had seen anyone even remotely responsible for the economic meltdown, it is easy to imagine that the demonstrators were confronting Goldman Sachs partners and hedge-fund managers daily on their way to work. Occupy Wall Street has a much more dramatic ring than Camp-Out in Lower Manhattan. Another major factor was the way that the normally astute New York Police Department fanned the movement with their indefensible use of pepper spray and their initial penchant for mass arrests. When you are trying to create a mass movement, it is way better to be martyrs than ignored.
Why Mr. Zuckerman Isn't For Mr. Obama
Mort Zuckerman on what's wrong with the President, in the WSJ:
He's certainly pessimistic about the current administration. That began shortly after inauguration day in 2009.At that time he supported Mr. Obama's call for heavy spending on infrastructure. "But if you look at the make-up of the stimulus program," says Mr. Zuckerman, "roughly half of it went to state and local municipalities, which is in effect to the municipal unions which are at the core of the Democratic Party." He adds that "the Republicans understood this" and it diminished the chances for bipartisan legislating.
Then there was health-care reform: "Eighty percent of the country wanted them to get costs under control, not to extend the coverage. They used all their political capital to extend the coverage. I always had the feeling the country looked at that bill and said, 'Well, he may be doing it because he wants to be a transformational president, but I want to get my costs down!'"
Mr. Zuckerman recalls reports of Mr. Obama consulting various historians on the qualities of a transformational president. "But remember, transformations can go up and they can go down."
Now comes the latest fight over Mr. Obama's jobs plan, which has as its centerpiece a tax increase on the wealthy with obvious populist appeal. Mr. Zuckerman supports raising taxes on the rich but says such a proposal cannot be taken seriously unless it's paired with other measures to grow the economy and restrain deficit spending. He also wonders why, if the president wanted to get a plan enacted, he didn't begin with private bipartisan discussions with House and Senate leaders, instead of another address to a joint session of Congress.
"Even if you want to do this to revive your support in the base, to revive your credibility on the issues of the economy and jobs, which has fallen off the table, this isn't going to accomplish it. Another speech from this guy? The country knows this is just another speech. They understand it almost instantaneously, and his numbers have continued to go down for that reason. What the country wanted was some way of coming up with a solution."
The only solution Mr. Zuckerman sees now to juice the economy "is to broaden the tax base and simplify and lower tax [rates]. To me that will be as close to revenue-neutral as you're going to have so it isn't going to be seen as a budget buster." He views GOP candidate Herman Cain's "9-9-9 plan" as a "little bit simple-minded," but he says that a reform that closes loopholes and reduces compliance costs will stimulate both business and consumer spending.
The Most Inane Piece On Steve Jobs, Bar None
I think that's fair to say.
Obama's Starting To Make George Bush Look Soft On War
Apparently, we don't have enough going on in the way of military meddling in places where we have no business (if you believe, as I do, that our military's job is to defend our country, and not every Achmed, Dov, and Harry around the globe).
What the hell are U.S. troops doing in Uganda? Jason Straziuso writes for the AP that the President dispatched a bunch of troops -- about 100 mostly special ops guys -- to central Africa to offer advice in the fight against a guerilla group called the "Lord's Resistance Army":
The first U.S. troops arrived Wednesday.Long considered one of Africa's most brutal rebel groups, the Lord's Resistance Army began its attacks in Uganda more than 20 years ago. But the rebels are at their weakest point in 15 years. Their forces are fractured and scattered, and the Ugandan military estimated earlier this year that only 200 to 400 fighters remain. In 2003 the LRA had 3,000 armed troops and 2,000 people in support roles.
But capturing LRA leader Joseph Kony -- a ruthless and brutal thug -- remains the highest priority for Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a 25-year-leader who has committed thousands of troops to the African Union force in Somalia to fight militants from al-Shabab, a group with ties from al-Qaida.
The U.S. has not had forces in Somalia since pulling out shortly after the 1993 Black Hawk Down battle in Mogadishu in which 18 American troops died.
Some experts believe that the U.S. military advisers sent to Uganda could be a reward for the U.S.-funded Ugandan troops service in Somalia.
How 'bout we give them a plaque instead -- paid for by an Obama donor?
Dividing The Dollars
Bonnie Garvin on Piers Morgan Friday night:
"We live in a country where one percent of the people control the majority of the wealth. That is wrong."
Really? Why?
If they stole it, sure, prosecute them -- and demand restitution. But, if they earned it...it's theirs.
The Real Income Disparity? Public Workers' Pensions Vs. Private Workers Retirement Plans
Chris W. Street writes at Big Government:
The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College just released an analysis entitled "Comparing Wealth in Retirement: State-Local Versus Private Sector Workers" to determine the wealth effect in retirement from 1996 to 2006 for former public employee versus the private sector workers at age 65, after adjusting for workers with similar characteristics of education and experience.The report concluded, "The results show that spending more than 50 percent of one's career as a state-local worker is associated with 11 percent to 18 percent more wealth at age 65." The data for the report was produced by a long-term nationally representative study that tracked more than 12,650 people in 7.600 households since 1992, asking the participants questions about financial standing, spending habits, retirement, pensions, and employers.
...Given that the return for private sector 401(K) investors, after inflation, has been flat over the 5 years since 2006, the public sector pension plans have artificially increased the wealth of public sector retirees at age 65 by an additional 68% since the end of the study. When added to the existing 11-18% income disparity in 2006, public employees can expect at age 65 to be 77% to 86% richer than comparable private sector workers. Does this really seem fair? Perhaps we should ask the Occupy Wall Street crowd whether this is "equal work for equal (retirement) pay."
The Broken Window Fallacy
In my web travels, looking for something else, I just came upon the very sensible Bastiat piece, "The Broken Window," on Mises Daily. It's worth reading. Here's an excerpt:
Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James B., when his careless son happened to break a square of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the fact, that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them, by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this invariable consolation: "It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?"Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our economical institutions.
Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the accident brings six francs to the glazier's trade -- that it encourages that trade to the amount of six francs -- I grant it; I have not a word to say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task, receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen.
But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! Your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen."
It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way which this accident has prevented.
Let us take a view of industry in general, as affected by this circumstance. The window being broken, the glazier's trade is encouraged to the amount of six francs: this is that which is seen.
If the window had not been broken, the shoemaker's trade (or some other) would have been encouraged to the amount of six francs: this is that which is not seen.
And if that which is not seen is taken into consideration, because it is a negative fact, as well as that which is seen, because it is a positive fact, it will be understood that neither industry in general, nor the sum total of national labor, is affected, whether windows are broken or not.
Now let us consider James B. himself. In the former supposition, that of the window being broken, he spends six francs, and has neither more nor less than he had before, the enjoyment of a window.
An article in The New York Times on the stupidity of "make-work" jobs.
What Should The Punishment Be For Giving Somebody An STD?
From CBC News:
The rare case of a Toronto man who was charged with aggravated sexual assault for allegedly failing to tell his girlfriend he was infected with herpes is going before the courts, although critics say police may have gone too far in their application of the law.James David Hogg, 35, had unprotected consensual sex with his 28-year-old girlfriend in March without disclosing his sexual history, police allege.
His girlfriend later found out he had HSV-2 genital herpes, and contacted police. After police investigated, they determined there was enough evidence to charge him with aggravated sexual assault, said Const. Tony Vella.
Hogg is scheduled to appear in court in Toronto on Wednesday afternoon.
via ifeminists
Strip Searches For Minor Offenses
Unpaid parking tickets equal strip search? Maybe. Garrett Epps writes in The Atlantic of Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, argued Wednesday before the Supreme Court:
The victim of the illegal detention and search, Albert Florence, was not a criminal mastermind at all, but an auto-dealership employee on his way to a family dinner. The strip search produced no contraband; a second strip search, when Florence was transferred to another county's jail after a week of illegal detention, was even more intrusive, requiring Florence to squat and cough under the eyes of jail staff. It also produced no contraband.What sane person would have thought it would? The two counties that Florence has sued for subjecting him to this squalid ordeal now argue that there is no need for any sane suspicion --that any person, even one arrested for a non-criminal offense such as failure to pay a fine -- can be subjected to repeated strip searches on the off chance that he or she may be carrying contraband. Florence insists that the authorities need "reasonable suspicion" in this case.
The Fourth Amendment, which applies in jail as well as on the outside, forbids "unreasonable searches." Is a routine strip search reasonable? Failure to pay a fine is not a crime in New Jersey; neither is driving without a seat belt, or asking to exit a parking deck without paying when there's no available parking. But all of these offenses have subjected citizens to arrest, and the Supreme Court has approved that approach to law enforcement. Now such inadvertent brushes with the law may bring strip searches as well.
To be clear, this is not a matter of having to take off clothes for a shower or a medical inspection; it's a matter of one or more guards standing in arm's reach of the prisoner, with the option of requiring a male prisoner to move his genitals, and asking any prisoner to open bodily orifices.
Albert Florence had some criminal charges in his background, but he seems to me less like the Penguin than like Kafka's Joseph K., who "without have done anything truly wrong, ... was arrested" one morning. (The jail's own personnel wrote on his intake form, having his record in front of them, that they saw no grounds for suspicion.)
The important question, of course, is how the justices see him and those like him: law-abiding citizens snared by a clumsy system, or potential Cobblepots?
...I know and admire many honest correctional officers, without necessarily wanting to turn over the Constitution to them. We are caught in the logic of a society enamored of incarceration, which aims to turn any prisoner into an item who can be processed and controlled with minimal fuss about rights and privacy. Failure to pay a fine, murder, what's the difference to "our jailers"?
Whether such a rule is compatible with freedom and democracy is a question that seems likely to get only a brief look amid the quarrels about jailhouse order. I'm not making any predictions as to outcome. But 41 years ago this summer, I ran out of a jaywalking citation from the LAPD. I'm not planning any trips back there after next June.
College About Free Exchange Of Ideas? Well, That's Hilarious.
In yet another case taken by campus free speech defenders theFIRE.org (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), a North Carolina college student was pulled out of class and banned from campus...
...No, not for threatening to shoot the place up. For criticizing the college on Facebook for its aggressive marketing of a debit card to its students. From FIRE's website:
After officials at Catawba Valley Community College punished him for a satirical Facebook post deemed "contrary to the best interest of the CVCC community," Marc Bechtol came to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help."Catawba Valley Community College violated the First Amendment by responding to obviously hyperbolic criticism with swift and severe punishment," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "Marc Bechtol must be allowed to return to class."
On June 20, 2011, CVCC, a college in Hickory, announced that "all curriculum students will receive a CVCC branded Debit Mastercard" in partnership with a financial services company named Higher One. The debit card doubles as a student ID, rendering its use essential. In order to activate his card this fall, Bechtol reportedly had to verify his Social Security number, date of birth, and student number. Bechtol began advocating against the partnership on June 23, concerned about CVCC's sharing of students' sensitive personal information with Higher One.
According to Bechtol, CVCC and Higher One aggressively marketed Higher One checking accounts through emails to students, advertising that they would get their tuition refunds and Pell Grants faster if they opened Higher One accounts; a September 19 email reportedly had the subject line, "Want your refund? Activate your CVCC Onecard today" in all capital letters. After Bechtol activated his card on September 27, he reportedly received a marketing phone call on September 28 from Orchard Bank, a credit card company.
Bechtol criticized CVCC's partnership with Higher One on the school's Facebook page. On September 28, he also posted: "Did anyone else get a bunch of credit card spam in their CVCC inbox today? So, did CVCC sell our names to banks, or did Higher One? I think we should register CVCC's address with every porn site known to man. Anyone know any good viruses to send them?" He immediately added a second comment, "OK, maybe that would be a slight overreaction."
A week later, on October 4, as Bechtol waited for his second class of the day to begin, he was pulled out of his classroom by CVCC Executive Officer of Student Services Cynthia L. Coulter and told that he could not return. On October 5, Coulter sent him a disciplinary letter stating that Bechtol's first Facebook comment was "disturbing," "indicates possible malicious action against the college," and violated CVCC's policy against "[c]ommission of any other offense which, in the opinion of the administration or faculty, may be contrary to the best interest of the CVCC community." Bechtol was suspended without a hearing and was banned from campus for two semesters. He attended an appeal hearing on October 7 but remains banned from the campus.
FIRE wrote CVCC president Garrett D. Hinshaw on October 10, pointing out that the Facebook comment was protected expression and was neither incitement nor a true threat. FIRE also noted that CVCC's policy was unconstitutionally vague, completely failing to give students any opportunity to know what is prohibited by the whims of administrators. CVCC has not responded.
"CVCC not only must reinstate Marc Bechtol, but also must revise its unconstitutional policy," FIRE Vice President of Programs Adam Kissel said. "When criticism of the college's financial partnership can get a student suspended and banned from campus, CVCC has caused a quite severe chilling effect."
This is newsworthy not just for the case in and of itself but as part of an increasing pattern of a chill on free speech on college campuses.
Interesting Thoughts On Why Children Protest Going To Bed
Lions and tigers and bears...oh, my! Boston College psych prof Peter Gray blogs at Psych Today:
Bedtime protest is unique to Western and Westernized cultures. In all other cultures, infants and young children sleep in the same room and usually in the same bed with one or more adult caregivers, and bedtime protest is non-existent.[2]. What infants and young children protest, apparently, is not going to bed per se, but going to bed alone, in the dark, at night. When people in non-Western cultures hear about the Western practice of putting young children to bed in separate rooms from themselves, often without even an older sibling to sleep with, they are shocked. "The poor little kids!" they say. "How could their parents be so cruel?" Those who are most shocked are people in hunter-gatherer societies, for they know very well why young children protest against being left alone in the dark.[3]Until a mere 10,000 years ago we were all hunter-gatherers. We all lived in a world where any young child, alone, in the dark, would have been a tasty snack for nighttime predators. The monsters under the bed or in the closet were real ones, prowling in the jungle or savannah, sniffing around, not far from the band's encampment. A grass hut was not protection, but the close proximity of an adult, preferably many adults, was protection. In the history of our species, infants and young children who grew frightened and cried out to elicit adult attention when left alone at night were more likely to survive to pass on their genes to future generations than were children who placidly accepted their fate. In a hunter-gatherer culture only a crazy person or an extremely negligent person would leave a small child alone at night, and at the slightest protest from the child, some adult would come to the rescue.
When your child screams at being put to bed alone at night, your child is not trying to test your will! Your child is screaming, truly, for dear life. Your child is screaming because we are all genetically hunter-gatherers, and your child's genes contain the information that to lie alone in the dark is suicide.
This is an example of the concept of evolutionary mismatch. We have here a mismatch between the environment of our evolutionary ancestors, in which our genetic being was shaped, and the environment in which we live today. In the environment of our evolutionary ancestors, a child alone at night was in serious danger of being eaten. Today, a child alone at night is not in serious danger of being eaten. In the environment of our evolutionary ancestors, no sane parent-or grandparent, or uncle, or aunt, or other adult band member-would ever let a small child sleep alone.
My column on "co-sleeping" is here. An excerpt:
Studies suggest that co-sleeping may prevent sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS rate is lowest in cultures that co-sleep), but there's yet to be a report of a kid dying of SIDS at age 6.It is good that your wife is sleeping with the baby. Anthropologist and infant sleep expert Dr. James J. McKenna finds that co-sleeping babies cry less and breast-feed more often and for longer durations. They tend to synchronize their breathing with the sleeping parent -- perhaps training themselves in how to breathe -- and spend less time in the deepest stages of sleep, during which quick arousals to recover from apneas (pauses in breathing) are more difficult for them. Because, like SUVs, sleeping parents are prone to rollover, and because a baby can be smothered by blankets or a soft mattress, it's safest if the mother sleeps with the baby in a sidecar or bassinet next to her.
All Of Childhood Soon To Be Deemed Unsafe
Via ifeminists, a story in the Telegraph/UK by Bruno Waterfield on how children are to be banned from blowing up balloons and blowing on whistles on the grounds that it is unsafe:
The EU toy safety directive, agreed and implemented by Government, states that balloons must not be blown up by unsupervised children under the age of eight, in case they accidentally swallow them and choke.Despite having been popular favourites for generations of children, party games including whistles and magnetic fishing games are to be banned because their small parts or chemicals used in making them are decreed to be too risky.
...Official guidance notes: "For latex balloons there must be a warning that children under eight years must be supervised and broken balloons should be discarded." Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at the University of Kent, warned that toy safety bans were part of a trend to micro-manage children's lives at the expense of allowing them to explore, learn and have fun through play.
"Toys and activities, such as blowing up balloons, are part and parcel of the type of children's play that helps them become independent and self-reliant," he said.
"These bans diminish the experience, both of having fun and learning, by turning play into a danger zone with rules that stifle life and adventure for children." Under the EU legislation, Britain will have to ensure that toys are not sold in shops unless they fully comply with the new safety requirements.
As well as new rules for balloons and party whistles, the EU legislation will impose restrictions on how noisy toys, including rattles or musical instruments, are allowed to be.
All teddie bears meant for children under the age of three will now have to be fully washable because EU regulators are concerned that dirty cuddly toys could spread disease and infection.
What a miracle that we all survived to adulthood!
Libertarian Justice
Wendy McElroy writes at Mises Daily:
Libertarianism has evolved sophisticated theories of what constitutes a proper justice system and how to implement it. One of the most popular theories is based on restitution, rather than retribution or punishment. Restitution is the legal system in which a person "makes good" on a harm or wrong done to another individual and does so directly; if you steal $100, then you pay back $100 and reasonable damages directly to the victim of your theft. You do not pay a debt to society or to the state by going to prison. You do not undergo "punishment" other than the damages assessed. You make your victim "whole" -- and, perhaps, a bit more for his trouble.Restitution is inherently self-limiting in how much the perpetrator is processed by the system. Beyond what is necessary to guarantee that the harm or wrong is repaired, there is no need for a perpetrator to relinquish any of his rights. A thief need not be caged to pay back $100 plus damages; all he needs to do is pay it back. There is no need for the currently huge prison industry nor the degradation of society that accompanies it.
To accomplish this, legal scholar Randy Barnett advocates sweeping away the entire criminal justice system. In its place, he proposes to establish a broadened civil-court system that adjudicates civil liabilities and damages. Many critics object to the pure restitution model; for example, they claim restitution cannot adequately redress crimes like murder. Whatever the merits of such objections, it is clear that restitution can address the great majority of harms and wrongs. Moreover, if an action required the presence of an actual victim whose person or property had been injured, then most current laws would fall off the books. Prisons would be spacious.[5]
Some of the steps McElroy is for:
•A sunset provision attached to all new or amended laws. This is a clause that provides an expiration date for a law unless action is taken to renew it. Today most laws are in effect indefinitely.•The elimination of civil-contempt imprisonments, which most commonly occur in family courts; men who are unable to pay court ordered spousal or child support are imprisoned for "contempt" without a trial or appeal process, and for whatever term is set by a judge. This converts the penal system into a debtor's prison. The America legal system is distinguished from most other Western ones in permitting such imprisonment.
•The elimination of a double standard under the law for those involved in law enforcement. For example, the elimination of personal immunity for the willful wrongdoing of police officers on duty and for district attorneys who pursue blatantly flimsy cases. Such immunity skews incentives toward brutality and overprosecution.
•Reinstatement of the mens rea safeguard. Mens rea means there was no "guilty mind" when an act occurred and, so, there was no crime although civil liability may well exist. For example, if a man bumps into another car without noticing it, he should not be charged with leaving the scene of an accident. He is civilly liable but not criminal so. Currently, there is a concerted attack on mens rea so that people are deemed criminally "guilty" despite their intent.[6]
•Establishment of an "ignorance-of-the-law" defense. This differs from mens rea. For example, if a man knows he hits a car and leaves the scene, an "ignorance" defense would be "I didn't know doing so was illegal." It would be an invalid defense because everyone in our society is reasonably deemed to know that the destruction of property is wrong. But it is currently impossible for anyone -- including the police -- to know the content of every law. The principle that "ignorance of the law is no excuse" comes from 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes who addressed willful ignorance of laws that were well-known or a matter of common sense. Thus the claim "I didn't know rape was wrong" is an invalid defense while "I didn't know buying an orchid was wrong" would probably be valid even to Hobbes.
•The elimination of criminal charges for all nonviolent "wrongdoing" toward law-enforcement agents. Such charges include obstruction of justice, lying to the police, and peacefully resisting arrest.
•The decriminalization of all drugs
•A return to the traditional rules of statutory interpretation by which criminal statutes are narrowly construed. Today, not merely criminal laws but seemingly unrelated ones, such as the Commerce Act, are being stretched to include a wide range of so-called violators as criminals.
Don't Get Boned On Toner
Toner for my old girl workhorse laser printer (the HP LaserJet 1300, which migrated to my house from Gregg's house about eight years ago after my Brother died) is $92 at Staples. I pay...$12.95 on eBay -- with free shipping! -- for off-brand toner. (This is a good thing, because I have to print everything when I'm writing in order to edit it.)
I also have an "all-in-one" that prints color, scans, and faxes, that I bought for $50 on super-sale at Staples and only use occasionally, like when I need to print up color fliers for an alt weekly conference. For that, I got an eight pack of toner (they're little) for $9.99 on eBay! I believe a four pack would have cost me about $40 at Staples.
Off-brand + eBay -- a beautiful combination.
And sure, it supposedly voids your printer's warranty to use these. The thing is, printers are cheap -- the deal is like a drug deal: they getcha on the ink. If my HP died, Gregg (captain of my technological life) would probably buy me a new one, but really, I'd rather have this 1300, a workhorse that I know and love, used!
(For me, there's always a cost to having a new techno thing in that I need to learn to use it, which is stressful! I love that I know this thing's quirks.)
Insufferable Coffee Snobs
Real-life no-iced-espresso rant here.
via BoingBoing
The Tweet About The TSA That Twitter Refuses To Take
Tried three times and even logged out as was suggested. No go.
The little type above the tweet I was attempting says "Your account may not be able to perform this action. Try logging out and in again." 
In case that's too little for you to read, here it is:
You forgot child-molesting TSA "officer" in news @TSABlogTeam TSA In Tabloids bit.ly/rc0664 #JessicaSimpson #KimKardashian #Jewelry #travel
Although that tweet was refused, another tweet, made immediately after I tried the TSA tweet, went up fine. As did one about the weather that I posted an hour before. 
The New Racism
Walter Williams lays it out at Lew Rockwell:
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., pointed that out back in 1994 when the Republican-led Congress pushed for tax relief. Rangel denounced Republicans' plan as a form of modern-day racism, saying, "It's not 'spic' or 'nigger' anymore. (Instead,) they say, 'Let's cut taxes.'" That means the simple use of the N-word is not enough to make one a racist. If it were, blacks would be the nation's premier racists. Today it's the call for tax cuts that makes you a racist. That's why the "tea" party, short for "taxed enough already," is nothing more than organized racists. What makes tea partyers even more racist is their constant call for the White House and Congress to return to the confines of the Constitution.Racism has other guises. Say that you're a believer in Martin Luther King's wish, expressed in his "I Have a Dream" speech, that our "children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." The call to judge people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin is really code for racism. There's no question about one's racial antipathy if he voted for measures such as California's Proposition 209, Michigan's Proposal 2, Washington state's Initiative 200 or Nebraska's Civil Rights Initiative 424. These measures outlaw judging people by the color of their skin for admission to college, awarding of government contracts and employment. The call for equal treatment is simply racism by stealth and is far more insidious than name-calling and hood-donning.
One might think that seeing as America elected its first black president, it would usher in the end of racism; but it's all a racist plot that's easily uncovered simply by asking: "Who really elected Obama to the presidency?" It surely wasn't black people. Of the 69 million votes that Obama received in the 2008 election, I doubt whether even 7 or 8 million came from blacks. That means white people put Obama in office, and that means he is beholden to white people, not black people.
He notes something interesting at the end:
Black people are a one-party people in a two-party system. That means Democratic politicians have learned to take the black vote for granted, and Republicans make little effort to get it. That's not smart for blacks to set themselves up that way.
Good Passion, Bad Passion
It seems that all work and no play is no way to succeed in business -- or life.
Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, a researcher focusing on creativity and achievement, writes that research suggests that the notion that many great works have come about "due to an obsessive focus on work to the exclusion of all else" may be a myth.
In an article originally written for the Harvard Business Review, Kaufman differentiates between harmonious passion -- engaging in work because it brings you "intrinsic joy," but knowing when to disengage so work doesn't conflict with other areas of your life -- and "obsessive passion." The latter involves an "uncontrollable urge" to engage in one's work, leading to conflict between the work passion and other areas of one's life.
Harmonious passion is associated with positive outcomes -- better physical healthy, creativity, concentration, flow, and harmony in other areas of one's life. Obsessive passion leads to negative outcomes -- for example, maybe so much engagement with work that your sex life goes in the hopper -- and, according to a recent study, is more likely to lead to work burnout, while harmonious passion protects against it.
Scott's full articles on this are reprinted at Psychology Today, here and here.
Governments Are Worse Than No Good At Creating Jobs
Reason ed-in-chief Matt Welch lays out how government job creation moves like the Porkulus led to "fewer able-bodied Americans ... employed as a percentage of the potential work force than at any time since 1983":
Such persistence in the face of repeated failure suggests that some powerful myths continue to hold sway among politicians and many of the people they represent. Among the most stubborn of these is the notion that passing a bill to fix a problem is the same as actually fixing the problem. This assumption--which reaches its illogical conclusion during times of national panic, when do-something busybodies like Michael Bloomberg will say that it doesn't matter what Washington does, it just needs to do something--is oblivious to the law of unintended consequences, to the reality of corporatist lobbying, and to the limitations of government power....A curious flip side to the myth of government omnipotence is near-complete incuriosity about government side effects. That is, people remain convinced that the state can and should look a problem squarely in the eye and fix it, but they are rarely moved by daily examples of the harm caused by earlier fixes.
Just before Solyndra announced its bankruptcy, armed federal agents stormed three factories and the corporate headquarters of the Gibson Guitar Corporation, seizing guitars and raw materials, forcing employees out into the street, and shutting down production for a day. Why? Because of a century-old law called the Lacey Act, which prohibits the import of wildlife and plant products that were obtained illegally overseas. India, where some of Gibson's raw materials originate, bans the export of unfinished wood.
Overzealous enforcement of job-killing laws is the rule, not the exception, under Obama. His Department of Justice has shown much more enthusiasm than his predecessor's in conducting workplace raids to enforce immigration, drug, and even milk pasteurization laws. Politicians and the public support such relentless meddling without pausing much to consider the deleterious effects on employment. As I write, the California Senate is on the verge of passing a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights that would, among many other onerous things, require parents to provide nannies with breaks every two hours and fill out ridiculously complicated time cards for the government to peruse.
In a sense, every bill is a jobs bill, except for the ones labeled as such. Every business regulation, every intrusion between employer and employee, dampens the incentives to create more jobs. Sucking up tax money and spitting it out at politically chosen recipients is another net drag on the economy.
What's A Life Worth?
Second question: Israeli or Palestinian? From the Canadian National Post about the deal that has been struck for the release of Israeli prisoner Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped and dragged into Gaza by Hamas terrorists in 2006:
According to reports, Israel will free up to 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in return -- a lopsided arithmetic that finds precedent in similar Arab-Israeli deals in the past. Whatever one may think about the wisdom of dealing with terrorists, this 1,000:1 ratio implicitly lays bare the relative value that the two sides, Israel and Hamas, place on their countrymen's lives.
Case Mod
This belongs to a guy -- a really tall guy who looked like he might be a professional basketball player:
Prevention Of Being A Daddy During Your Kid's Childhood Act
I worked with some Scots in New York and found them to be generally sensible people, if incomprehensible when drunk (or sober), but clearly their country is just as nuts and paranoid as ours.
From FoxNews, a dad taking pictures of his little girl eating ice cream is banned from a mall on terrorism concerns:
Chris White, 45, says police were called last week after he took photos of his 4-year-old daughter, Hazel, eating ice cream at Braehead shopping center, and a security guard approached him and asked him to delete the pictures and then banned him from the mall, the Daily Record reports.The security guard allegedly told White that taking photos in the shopping center is "illegal" and that security could confiscate White's camera phone under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
"I explained I had taken two photos of my daughter eating ice cream and that she was the only person in the photo, so I didn't see any problem," White said.
"I also said that I wasn't that willing to delete the photos and there seemed little point as I had actually uploaded them to Facebook."
Police arrived on the scene shortly afterward.
White says one of the police officers was "quite intimidating," but allowed him to keep his camera phone in exchange for offering his full details, including name, place of birth, age, employment status and address.
"Had I not had my daughter with me, and the fact that we are trying to bring our daughter up to respect and trust police officers, I may have exercised my right not to provide those details," White said.
A spokesman for Braehead Shopping Center says security acted in good faith.
"Retail staff at an ice cream stall in Braehead became suspicious after they saw a male shopper taking photographs of a child sitting at their counter. The staff thought the man had also been taking photographs of them and they alerted one of the center's security staff."
Hey, asshats -- if somebody wants to take photos for a terror bid, and he or she isn't a raging dumbass, it'll be done clandestinely, not openly.
UPDATE: Facebook page on this.
via @mpetrie98
Government Regulation Equals Death
Virginia Postrel blogs at Bloombert about a Amit Gupta, a man suffering from acute leukemia who needs a bone marrow donation. Friends and contacts swabbed to see if they were a match...and no, no, and no and then some. So, Seth Godin took action:
What he saw, he told me in an e-mail, was "a lot of digital handshaking" that amounted to "a feel-good waste." Tweets alone wouldn't get Gupta a transplant. Godin wanted to create a sense of urgency.So he wrote a post on his own blog offering to pay $10,000 to anyone who became a match for Gupta and made the stem-cell donation, or to give the money to that person's favorite charity. The offer, he says, was "a chance to say to my readers, 'Hey, I care about this. A lot. Money where my mouth is.'"
A friend of Gupta's added another $10K to that. Problem was, the offer was illegal.
Under the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984, better known as NOTA, it's a federal crime to give or receive "valuable consideration" for any transplantable organ or tissue, specifically including bone marrow. (Expenses incurred in making a donation, including not only medical costs but also travel and lost wages, are exempt.)The valuable consideration doesn't have to be cash. A scholarship, a charitable contribution or even a free movie pass is enough to subject both parties to up to five years in prison and $50,000 in fines. Good intentions -- or fatal consequences - - be damned.
The law subscribes to what Viviana Zelizer, an economic sociologist at Princeton University, calls the "hostile worlds" view. This is the assumption that, as Zelizer puts it, "money and intimacy represent contradictory principles whose intersection generates conflict, confusion and corruption."
As Gupta's story illustrates, however, that's not necessarily the case. Money can be an expression of commitment and a powerful spur to get people to act on their compassionate instincts. Financial incentives can overcome inertia and procrastination. They can steer people toward socially beneficial behavior. Nobel Prizes come with money, and we don't, after all, expect every firefighter, nanny or transplant surgeon to work for free.
As someone with a long-standing interest in reducing the shortage of kidneys, I e-mailed the bad news to Godin as soon as I read his blog post. Although he calls the law "absurd on its face," Godin revised his offer. He now promises the money to the first person who matches Gupta, regardless of whether that person goes through with the transplant: no quid pro quo.
Gupta's friend did the same. Institute for Justice filed a suit to challenge the Constitutionality of the ban on valuable consideration for bone marrow donations, arguing that they aren't significantly different from blood transfusions.
P.S. Virginia Postrel gave a kidney to a friend in 2006.
What Open Government Looks Like
Via @RadleyBalko, here's transparent government, Obama-style. Sean Reilly writes at the Federal Times that the Department of Homeland Security believes that posting the office phone numbers on their websites of public affairs staff poses "a clearly unwarranted invasion" of employee privacy:
That was the department's response when it denied a Federal Times Freedom of Information Act request for the office phone numbers of its official spokesman. Personal privacy exemptions to FOIA are more commonly used to block disclosure of personnel or medical files.DHS' response typifies what many see as the Obama administration's unfulfilled promise to shed more light on government operations through FOIA, the key federal open records law.
The day after President Obama took office in January 2009, he directed agencies to "adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure" when responding to Freedom of Information Act requests.
"I just can't say that I've seen the kind of changes I expected," Anne Weismann, chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, said last week. "It's been a big disappointment."
At Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Executive Director Jeff Ruch said his organization files a new lawsuit roughly every three weeks to force agencies to release records. In general, Ruch said, the administration has been leading by "aspiration instead of perspiration.
"They'll put out a lofty memo, but take no steps to make sure that people are following the memo," Ruch said.
The White House did not reply to an interview request with Steven Croley, a senior counsel to the president and the administration's point man on FOIA policy.
What Movie Reviews Are For
I like to know if a movie is suckola before we go, so I totter along to Google and read what film critics have said about it. Sometimes, despite that, we just end up seeing a dud. This is cause to...grumble about what was dumb in the movie in the car...or so I thought.
Nope. Ben Child writes in The Guardian of a woman who has a different approach:
Most people's gripe about trailers these days is that they blow too much info about a film's plot. But not Sarah Deming. This Michigan resident is suing the distributor of the critically acclaimed Ryan Gosling thriller Drive - as well as the cinema where she saw it - claiming it was publicised as a Fast and Furious style action piece but turned out to be nothing of the sort.In her suit, which was filed at the sixth judicial circuit court in Oakland, Michigan, Deming says the Nicolas Winding Refn film "bore very little similarity to a chase, or race action film ... having very little driving in the motion picture".
The plaintiff goes on to attack Drive for what she perceives as antisemitic leanings. The film "substantially contained extreme, gratuitous, dehumanising racism directed at members of the Jewish faith, and thereby promoted criminal violence against members of the Jewish faith", her suit reads.
Deming hopes to turn her appeal into a class action suit, which would allow cinemagoers across the US to sue on similar grounds if they found themselves watching films on the basis of a misleading trailer.
While I sympathize on the misleading trailer thing, who with an IQ above freezing trusts Hollywood to tell them the truth?
via Jay J. Hector
Not Exactly Confidence-Inspiring
If you're installing my "window treatments" or driving around the city installing other people's, I'd like you to be very well-sighted.
We Are...The Entitled
Check out some of these signs at "We Are The 99 Percent." Here's the archive with all of them.
Look, I'm yet another nimrod who got a liberal arts degree. The difference between them and me? I knew I wasn't going to have an easy time of it, and didn't, and couldn't afford to buy a bed and pay my rent and health insurance at one point, so I paid my rent and health insurance and slept on a door propped up on two milk crates.
I had awful jobs, like working as a mover and a bike messenger and a night production assistant on Hannah and Her Sisters (the least glamourous job in moviedom -- making sure no cars parked on 67th Street from midnight to 6 a.m.).
Somehow, it never occurred to me hat I was entitled to demand handouts from people with more sensible degrees and careers.
And no, I don't agree with bank bailouts or welfare for G.M., but I also don't think you just get to waltz off to get a liberal arts degree without a thought and then whine that nobody wants to hire an English major for a high-paying job.
Oh, and P.S. I was lucky that my parents paid for my college (and I did win a small scholarship for something I wrote), but if they couldn't or wouldn't have, I would have saved money by going to a community college. It isn't tragic, really it isn't, to attend a community college.
Learn To Love The Gridlock
Interesting point from Supreme Court Justice Scalia, from a post over at Patterico.com. Scalia spoke at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing:
So, the real key to the distinctiveness of America is the structure of our govenment. One part of it, of course, is the independence of the judiciary, but there's a lot more. There are very few countries in the world, for example, that have a bicameral legislature. England has a House of Lords, for the time being, but the House of Lords has no substantial power; they can just make the [House of] Commons pass a bill a second time. France has a senate; it's honorific. Italy has a senate; it's honorific. Very few countries have two separate bodies in the legislature equally powerful. That's a lot of trouble, as you gentlemen doubtless know, to get the same language through two different bodies elected in a different fashion.Very few countries in the world have a separately elected chief executive. Sometimes, I go to Europe to talk about separation of powers, and when I get there I find that all I'm talking about is independence of the judiciary because the Europeans don't even try to divide the two political powers, the two political branches, the legislature and the chief executive. In all of the parliamentary countries the chief executive is the creature of the legislature. There's never any disagreement between them and the prime minister, as there is sometimes between you and the president. When there's a disagreement, they just kick him out! They have a no confidence vote, a new election, and they get a prime minister who agrees with the legislature.
The Europeans look at this system and say "It passes one house, it doesn't pass the other house, sometimes the other house is in the control of a different party. it passes both, and this president, who has a veto power, vetoes it," and they look at this, and they say (adopting an accent) "Ach, it is gridlock." I hear Americans saying this nowadays, and there's a lot of it going around. They talk about a disfunctional government because there's disagreement... and the Framers would have said, "Yes! That's exactly the way we set it up. We wanted this to be power contradicting power because the main ill besetting us -- as Hamilton said in The Federalist when he talked about a separate Senate: "Yes, it seems inconvenient, inasmuch as the main ill that besets us is an excess of legislation, it won't be so bad." This is 1787; he didn't know what an excess of legislation was.
Unless Americans can appreciate that and learn to love the separation of powers, which means learning to love the gridlock which the Framers believed would be the main protector of minorities, [we lose] the main protection. If a bill is about to pass that really comes down hard on some minority [and] they think it's terribly unfair, it doesn't take much to throw a monkey wrench into this complex system. Americans should appreciate that; they should learn to love the gridlock. It's there so the legislation that does get out is good legislation.
Chris Christie also applauded "divided government."
And here's how "Occupy Wall Street" promotes the antithesis of what divided government does. Robert David Graham blogs at Errata Security (a very interesting long post):
The occupiers were inspired by the Arab Spring, where the people took their countries back from powerful dictators. But they forget that those dictators similarly took power at the head of populist movements that removed their predecessors and that they ruled "in the name of people". Colonel Gaddafi didn't promote himself to General because that was presumptuous, he was just a man of the people.I found the occupiers had the same totalitarian attitude, though they don't see it as totalitarian. Yes, their loving acceptance of those who disagree with them is astonishing, but it's totalitarian. It asks that people give up their individuality to the state the occupiers are creating. Rather than free speech, the protest has a sort of "managed speech" to make sure everyone has equal time. There is also the flip side, that not to join the movement or to disagree with the protesters means that you are working against the interest of the people.
We have seen this before in history, such as during the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. After they ran out of nobles, the Committee for Public Safety started beheading political rivals -- even those of their own party who helped overthrow the royalty. Their implicit thinking was this: I support the people. Therefore, if you disagree with me, you are acting against the people and must be beheaded. Or to paraphrase in the modern idiom, "you are either with us or against the people".The protesters have been settling on the idea that the conflict is the 99% against the 1%. But since the country is evenly divided between Democrat and Republican, they represent, at best, the interests of 50% against the 1%. No matter how poor, Republicans don't see socialism as being in their own interests. Instead of chanting "We are the 99%" they should be chanting "We are the 50%", but they seem immune to seeing things from this perspective.
A note on Graham by Graham:
I'm a libertarian, which means I'm interested in the connection between populism and totalitarianism, which we libertarians see as the same thing.
And more on blaming Wall Street:
By the way, while Wall Street may be responsible for bad things, it is Wall Street who financed putting a million miles of fiber optic cables crisscrossing continents and under oceans. It is Wall Street that financed the thousands of cell towers. It is Wall Street from which venture capital comes to finance startups like Twitter. Thus, tweeting "Down with capitalism" from your iPhone for those around the word to read seems to be the most ironic thing a person can do. The live stream from the protest site, shared with 12,000 (at this moment) people across the Internet is a testament to Wall Street's allocation of capital that these protesters fight against. [Obligatory Monty Python reference]That the protest is dominated by Internet savvy youths exploiting social media is frequently mentioned. But what is not mentioned is the fact that the protesters are overwhelmingly college students, or recent graduates who still haven't found jobs. They aren't just any college students, but the stereotypical sort that you might expect to be involved in campus activism, such as graduate students in "Gender Studies." I found nobody with engineering or science degrees, but many from arts and acting colleges. After talking with one guy for a while about unemployment and his difficult in finding a job after college, I found out that he was a "poet." I'm not sure he understood that employers aren't looking to hire poets. The only person I met that had a political science degree was one of the police officers "keeping the peace."
Graham link via Cato
Hello, Gullible Flying Public
Do you believe the TSA's body scanners are safe, and do you believe that because a representative of the government tells you so? Becky Akers posts at Lew Rockwell:
In addition to the assault on privacy that millimeter-waves mount, they also threaten our health. Again, the TSA's liars stress that these gizmos are "safe for all travelers" and "[meet] all known national and international health and safety standards."But the fact is that no one actually knows how this relatively new technology affects human flesh. Preliminary findings indicate that terahertz waves, which are similar to millimeter ones, may "unravel" DNA, "creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. That's a jaw dropping conclusion." Which is jaw-dropping passion given that this article, "How Terahertz Waves Tear Apart DNA," appeared in MIT's Technology Review.
Meanwhile, all that's certain at this point is the necessity for much more research before anyone, let alone a litter of inept wingdings at a fundamentally mendacious bureaucracy, pronounces millimeter-waves "safe."
Starting Tonight! Advice Goddess Radio - My Live Weekly Call-In Advice Show
My first show is tonight -- 7 p.m. Pacific time, for an hour. Gregg is producing and put the whole thing together. As for what the show's about, here's how I'm billing it:
Nationally syndicated advice columnist Amy Alkon takes your questions on love, dating, sex, relationships, and manners.
Call-in number once the show is on and live (at 7 p.m.): (347) 326-9761
I really need you all to call in. It'll make for a much more fun and interesting show, and you can get free advice, live. I also may invite people to weigh in on particular issues.
Basically, this is your chance to get for free what I give in a private session -- though I'm not going to talk to one person for the whole hour.
You can listen at this link starting at 7 p.m. Pacific Time (10 p.m. Eastern, etc.):
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2011/10/10/the-advice-goddess-show-amy-alkon
There will also be a podcast you can download later.
The show will air weekly at 7 p.m. Pacific on Sunday nights. For a link to the regular Sunday night show:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/search/amy-alkon/
Thanks to Crid, Adam Bein, and all the others who bugged me to start doing podcasts and/or radio, and thanks to Jay J. Hector who was our call-in guinea pig last night for an hour as we figured out all the bells and whistles.
UPDATE: Download the podcast here:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2011/10/10/the-advice-goddess-show-amy-alkon
"Play in your default player" downloads it as a podcast. "Download" makes it play on your computer. Yeah, a little bassackwards. Sorry.
UPDATE: Books and authors recommended on the show include Nathaniel Branden (The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem), Albert Ellis (A Guide To Rational Living), and evolutionary psychologist Gad Saad (The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature
"Like A Monty Python Skit Without The Humor"
That's what YouTube commenter random8r said about the bizarre video of Occupy Atlanta group, with the crowd repeating everything said. Eventually, they end up shutting out ("silencing," per the YouTube video title) civil rights hero/Congressman John Lewis -- apparently by taking so long to have various random yahoos yammer (and be echoed by the crowd) about whether Lewis should speak. The "collective" "wins." It's actually both hilarious and scary-sick at the same time.
Story about Lewis' eventual non-appearance here, at CreativeLoafing.com, by Joeff Davis:
Congressman John Lewis John Lewis visited the Occupy Atlanta rally at Woodruff Park last night approximately 45 minutes after its planning session, or General Assembly, started. Despite saying he did not want to speak, the civil rights icon was invited to address to the crowd. When the topic of allowing Lewis to speak was presented to the group, "Joe" (pictured in red) held up his arms to "block" Lewis from speaking."Joe" said he was against Lewis speaking because the movement is "not about one individual" and that it has been built on the idea of "no hierarchy." The crowd decided the congressman could speak after the General Assembly, but Lewis had to leave for a previous engagement.
How To Outsource Meth Production
Government geniuses think they can just prohibit everything and the world will be all butterflies and rainbows. Of course, in the case of the controls on cold and allergy drugs, they're just making the meth trade better for Mexican drug lords. Barton Hinkle writes at reason:
This isn't mere speculation. It's exactly what happened in Oklahoma, which imposed restrictions on the sale of cold and allergy medication several years ago to combat meth trafficking there.Result? "Six and a half pounds of Mexican meth, also known as 'Ice,' has been taken off the street by the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics," reported an Oklahoma City TV station last year. "It's the second meth bust in the last week." The story quoted the head of the state narcotics bureau, who said, "The No. 1 threat to the citizens in the state of Oklahoma is the Hispanic sell groups that have infiltrated rural Oklahoma." Oklahoma did not reduce consumption--it outsourced production. Some victory.
Third, the proposal targets the wrong thing. The problem is meth, not meth precursors. Cold and allergy remedies can be used to make meth, but so can soda bottles and coffee filters. Applying the fanatical logic of the nation's drug war, if restricting the sale of allergy medicines does not stop meth use--and it won't--the next step should be to track the sale of 2-liter soda bottles.
Fourth, limiting the sale of over-the-counter medicines, as Virginia officials are considering doing, almost inevitably will entrap law-abiding citizens who unwittingly violate purchase limits. Consider what happened to Sally Harpold, an Indiana grandmother who was hauled off in handcuffs, booked and embarrassed on the front page of the local paper a couple of years ago. As Reason magazine's Jacob Sullum reported, her crime--if you want to call it that--was "buying a box of Zyrtec-D allergy medicine for her husband, then buying a box of Mucinex-D decongestant for her daughter at another pharmacy less than a week later. That second transaction put Harpold six-tenths of a gram over Indiana's three-gram-per-week limit" for pseudoephedrine.
Most importantly, Hinkle writes, the proposed limits on OTC meds amount to dragnet surveillance. Dragnet surveillance is stuff like roadside checkpoints, NSA wiretaps, random drug testing (and I'll add TSA gropes) and abandons the notion of reasonable suspicion.
We Should Invest In Lawbreakers Because We Invested In Lawbreakers?
That seems be Califruitandnut governor Jerry Brown's logic in signing the California Dream Act -- the act that provides financial aid for students who are illegal aliens...because, apparently, we should reward people breaking the law, and because we have an unlimited supply of tax dollars to do it with. From the LA Times:
Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) said he was notified Saturday morning by the governor's aides that Brown has approved the measure, which makes illegal immigrants who are accepted into state universities eligible, starting in 2013, for Cal-Grant assistance.The governor's action also allows those without citizenship papers to tap into institutional grants while attending the University of California and California State University systems, and to get fee waivers in the California community college system.
Cedillo praised Brown as an "incredible leader with the vision and courage'' for signing the bill despite its great controversy.
"After having invested 12 years in the high school education of these young men and women, who are here through no fault of their own, it's the smartest thing for us to do to permit these students to get scholarships and be treated like every other student,'' Cedillo said. "We need an educated workforce. This is good for California's economy and California's future.''
One legislative analysis predicted the bill will cost an additional $40 million to help students who qualify by graduating from a California high school after having attended school in the state for at least three years. They also must show financial need and meet academic standards.
Meanwhile, if you're here legally, as the article references, there are cuts in government services that your tax dollars are paying for.
A comment on the LA Times' site:
Arnold Indictor · Pennsylvania State University What part of illegal don't some people understand? I am liberal but when it comes to illegal immigrants then it is just plain stupid to ignore the fact that they are breaking our laws. There are many people trying to get into this country legally why should illegal immigrants be rewarded in any way?
If You Work For A Company, Your Health Care Is Part Of Your Pay
McArdle blogs at The Atlantic about how health benefits play out:
The problem is that people don't feel richer. In part that's because the costs are hidden--employers rarely tell you how much health care you're being "paid" with--and in part it's because almost all of our health care compensation consists of embedded options, rather than direct consumption. When we develop a new way to treat very premature babies which costs $1 million and shepherds 10% more babies to viability, we all have to pay for it. And probably we'd all like to know that if we had a very premature baby, it would have a better shot at living. But most of us don't have very premature babies, and those who do, don't really connect that event with a 1% increase in their insurance premiums 10 years ago.Austin Frakt wonders what would happen if people realized how much of their wages were diverted into health care spending.
...This is an important challenge for health care reformers on both left and right: even when given a direct choice, people seem to want a system that closely resembles the expensive and inefficient one we have; their main policy goal is simply to shift the bill onto someone else. Obviously, this is not a feasible solution at the national level.
TSA For Tots!
This is your opportunity to let your 6-year-old play "earn a living violating Americans' constitutional rights"! Check out this Playmobil Security Check Point
Here's a review by "Ann":
This is just a sop to the authoritarians among us. I am holding out for the release of the Guantanemo Playset. Hopefully this will come with an extrordinary rendition option.
Here's another by "Zampano":
Thank you Playmobil for allowing me to teach my 5-year old the importance of recognizing what a failing bureaucracy in a ever growing fascist state looks like. Sometimes it's a hard lesson for kids to learn because not all pigs carry billy clubs and wear body armor. I applaud the people who created this toy for finally being hip to our changing times. Little children need to be aware that not all smiling faces and uniforms are friendly. I noticed that my child is now more interested in current events. Just the other day he asked me why we had to forfeit so much of our liberties and personal freedoms and I had to answer "well, it's because the terrorists have already won". Yes, they have won.I also highly recommend the Playmobil "farm fencing" so you can take your escorted airline passenger away and fence him behind bars as if he were in Guantanamo Bay.
Via @VPostrel.
Capitalism, Not Socialism, Helps Autistic People Communicate
Commenter OldRPMDaddy send me a link to a reason article about some of the demands at "Occupy Wall Street" (complete with a photo of a guy holding a sign calling for a "maximum wage"). OldRPMDaddy writes:
A commenter named Michael said "I'd love to hear one of these knuckleheads attempt to square their anti-capitalist zeal with reality like this," linking to a very touching Wired article about how Apple devices help otherwise disabled people to function in the modern world.
Tim Carmody writes at WIRED:
When I heard that Steve Jobs had passed away, I was boarding a train from New York to Philadelphia to visit my son. A friend phoned and then text-messaged me the news before I could read it on Twitter. It felt, I said later, as if someone had torn the hair out of my head.When I did tweet, the first semi-coherent thought I was able to write about Jobs was also about my son:
I'm on my way to PHL to see my son, who uses a device Steve Jobs invented to help him talk. He will never know. He will never know.My son is on the autism spectrum and has a severe receptive and expressive language delay. He's 4 years old, and can read and spell words, and sing entire songs, but is more like an 18-month- or 2-year-old in normal conversation. He cannot use a telephone and has a hard time sitting still for video telephony. He has a thoroughly well-loved iPod Touch, filled with videos and apps that have helped him learn to speak and augment his ability to communicate.
...It may be a stretch to say Steve Jobs invented the iPod Touch or most of the technologies contained in it. But Steve Jobs certainly put it in my son's hands, both by making it a sub-$200 device (and in our case, giving it away free with a laptop) and by helping to create an ecosystem of software applications for people with disabilities -- perhaps especially communication disabilities.
Pat Condell On "The Great Palestinian Lie"
He used to believe the Arabs were acting in good faith, and be harder on Israel:
The Federal War On Judges
The WSJ's Jess Bravin reports that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that all the drug cases being heard at a federal level has required a Congress to enlarge the federal justice system and has diluted the quality of judges:
"It was a great mistake to put routine drug offenses into the federal courts," he told the Senate Judiciary Committee at an unusual hearing that brought Justice Scalia and Justice Stephen Breyer to discuss with senators the judiciary's role in the constitutional system.Justice Scalia said routine drug cases belong in state courts, which handle the vast majority of trials for most criminal offenses. The Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.), himself a former state prosecutor, agreed.
The increase in federal criminal law has required Congress to enlarge the federal court system, and Justice Scalia suggested that has helped diminish the "elite" quality of the federal judiciary.
Naked Veganism
Loved this tweet by the non-existent ugly (and hilarious) stepchild of Ruth Reichl and Anthony Bourdain:
@RuthBourdain on Twitter: "Have you heard about the vegan strip club in Portland? This is so wrong. No woman deserves to be treated like a piece of tofu."
Occupy Wall Street: Racist Like The Tea Party
I'm neither a member of The Tea Party (though I think not buying what we can't pay for is a pretty clever idea) nor am I part of Occupy Wall Street, but I've observed that these days that you're "racist" if you have a protest and there aren't a bunch of black faces amongst the protesters.
So, along with all those "racists" in the Tea Party movement, it seems we can add the Occupy Wall Street Folks...a sea of white, for the most part.
And yes, there are surely some racists in The Tea Party -- as there are in any movement. But, in this show of slides of Tea Party posters that's supposed to indicate Tea Party racism, in between a few vile racist signs, I mostly see the sort of low-blow slogans common to politics on both sides these days. Those dressing up Obama as Hitler, for example. (Of course, once you go to the "he's Hitler" argument, you've lost the argument from the start -- assuming the guy isn't shoving taxpayers in ovens and shooting them into mass graves.)
There are some ugly and racist posters in there, but for a video claiming to show what racists Tea Party members are, it comes up rather short.
Regarding the poster that said "Obama is The AntiChrist," I can't resist repeating what I said on the radio the other night: "I believe The AntiChrist has much better poll numbers."
"Obama spends like a woman" was another one. Well, not like this woman, and excuse me if I'm having a hard time finding the racism in that.
George Bush was called "Chimpy" and other things. (Here's a poster.) I didn't approve of him and I don't approve of Obama, and I see the same sort of low-blow attacks on both. Only the attacks on Obama are called racist, but are they hating on him because he's black? (And sure, some of them are.) Or, is it because he's a president the protesters vehemently dislike? (I'm reminded of Dr. Kingsley Browne's thoughts on how women getting teased in the workplace is actually equal treatment per how men in the workplace tease and degrade each other.)
Again, yes, sure, there are racists out there and some of them are in The Tea Party. But, as a friend of mine who supports Tea Party values like not spending more money than we have said to about Obama, "I don't dislike him because he's black; I dislike him because he's making a mess of the country." (By the way, like me, this friend was no Bush fan, either.)
Professor Funk On The Placebo Effect
Fascinating little video, via @DrEades via @BoingBoing:
The President Told A Fibbie
A two-parter, in fact!
He didn't meet Robert Baroz, and Robert Baroz isn't out of a job.
John Zaremba writes in the Boston Herald:
It is technically true that Obama had a chance to meet Baroz. But the closest Baroz actually got to Obama was the front row of a Rose Garden press conference on the jobs bill in September, with a handful of other teachers. He later met with White House aides and Obama's education chief, but never met the president.Baroz has in fact received three pink slips in four years, but in each case, his job was saved, either through stimulus funds or the 2010 Congressional Jobs Bill. He now works as a literacy and data coach at the Curley K-8 School in Jamaica Plain, analyzing MCAS data and applying it to teachers' everyday lessons.
Other People's Money Is So Easy To Piss Away
I drive a tiny car (a 2004 Honda Insight hybrid) tiny distances, and take care on the road, but sometimes I can't help but drive through some moon crater-sized pothole. Apparently, I've driven through enough of them to mess up my car's suspension and cost me a pretty penny to fix.
Instead of putting our tax dollars toward our crumbling infrastructure, they've gone to opening a Mexican cultural center in LA. How many of our tax dollars? Oh, more than $36 million.
Mike Boehm writes in the LA Times:
An ambitious downtown center created to celebrate the role of Mexican Americans in Los Angeles culture and history opened with great fanfare six months ago, fueled by more than $36 million in public funds and boasting a prominent board of directors.Today the center, La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, is staggering. Its chief executive was let go in August, and he's accused of mismanagement. Attendance has been sparse. The private foundation set up to run it hasn't raised much money. Contractors complain they haven't been paid. And the staff has been slashed from 28 to 12.
The concerts, lectures and other special programs once envisioned were rare, until two events last weekend.
"La Plaza has gone through an unbelievably painful birth," said L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina, the center's primary backer. She remains optimistic but added: "It's not going to be easy."
What's "not easy" is understanding why Gloria Molina thinks she gets to take our tax dollars and open this center. I'm not opposed to such a center being opened; in fact, I think it might be an interesting place to visit -- I'm just opposed to it being paid for with taxpayer dollars.
"Building Codes In The Boonies?"
That's how Kate Coe titled her Facebook post linking to this piece, and she's absolutely right about how nuts it is. Joyce Wadler writes in the NYT about a couple that worked around building codes in the middle of Nowhere, Maine, to transform their house. Utterly idiotic that they had to. What, the owls might feel funny about a chimney that isn't state-approved?
...a small, dark, two-story cabin made of barn wood that, they would later tell friends, resembled an oversize outhouse.It, too, was boxed in by constraints, severe ones as dwellings go. Regulations forbade expanding not only its footprint, which was just 540 square feet on the first floor, but its height as well. Even adding a deck was not permitted. But the couple found the secluded property, on a tidal lake called Goose Marsh Pond, on Mount Desert Island, so breathtaking that after some due diligence to see what changes might be made, they bought it.
They found a designer, George Gekas, who understood that it was not the size of the box that matters, but what you did with it. Without increasing the volume of the box -- and by actually cutting into it in some places -- he turned the house into a light-filled space. When the tide is out, you can spot herons and kingfishers poking about in the mud flats through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and when the tide is in, you feel as if you are on a ship.
My Letter To Steve Jobs
I'm big on letting people know when they've made a difference in my life, and this is a letter to a guy who made a huge difference in my life and so many lives. I wrote it when I heard he was pretty sick, and dropped it in the mail to him at Apple.
22 June 2009Dear Steve,
I understand you haven't been well, and I thought it might make you feel better to get this long, long overdue letter.I just wanted to tell you that there's nothing in my life that's changed and improved it as much as Apple computers. I got my first one with a student discount at the University of Michigan in...must have been 1982 or 1983, and I've had and loved them ever since.
Your computers have been so fun and easy to use, they made me love writing (as much as that's actually possible), which helped me develop into the writer I am today -- newspaper columnist, blogger, and author. I have a book coming out in the Fall -- I See Rude People: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society. Wrote every word on my iBook G4 and the 20-inch iMac on which I'm writing this letter.
It gets better. I met my boyfriend because of the iPod. My friend Nando had one, and on December 12, 2003, I went into the Apple store at The Grove, in Los Angeles, and some tall, brainy-looking guy was standing at the display trying to decide which size to buy. He turned around, I flirted (told him I'd had a kernel panic, and he talked some impressive tech talk) and we've been together ever since. He's also Elmore Leonard's researcher, and the best person I know.
Thank you so, so much, for all you've built. You've changed so many lives besides mine in such major ways. I will continue to use your Apples in hopes of following in your footsteps.
--Amy Alkon
There's something so American about Jobs and his success, and I love that.
It took a free enterprise system, and a country where anybody can make something of themselves (unlike in, say, France, where the hierarchy keeps people in their "station") to allow Steve Jobs, with the lovable and wonderful Steve Wozniak, to get together in Jobs' parents garage and start Apple Computer -- a company that's changed the way we live so fundamentally.
I don't think I've ever cried before when somebody I didn't know personally died, but I cried when I heard the news about Steve Jobs' death -- which, of course, I got on the fabulous MacBook Pro that Gregg gave me. (I'm awaiting my hand-me-down iPad!) Thank you, Steve Jobs.
A bit of Steve Jobs' philosophy of life is also my philosophy of life. It's why I wear eveningwear skirts as daywear, and why I don't have boring friends or eat bad lunch. It's also why I write an advice column and books instead of getting rich quick writing sitcoms, and why I'm starting my own radio show on Sunday -- a live Internet call-in advice show Gregg's helping me do from my house -- instead of talking politics on a local station and getting paid for it.
Here, in Jobs' words from the graduation speech he gave at Stanford in 2005:
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
The Crazy Ones
Steve Jobs narrates:
And an old and inspiring video with Steve Jobs talking about what Apple's about:
Thomas Edison's Obit
Via Lenore Skenazy, here's the link from The New York Times:
Feb. 11, 1847 to Oct. 18, 1931Almost entirely self-educated, Thomas Alva Edison began experimenting in the cellar of his family home around the age of 10.
In 1914, it was announced that the patent records at Washington showed that Mr. Edison had patented new ideas at the rate of one every two weeks for nearly 40 years.
Many of his inventions were failures, some were good enough as inventions but not commercial success.
But some changed the world. In the 1870s, At his lab in Menlo Park, N.J., Mr. Edison experimented on incandescent electric lights. On Nov. 4, 1879, Patent 223,898 marked the official invention of the electric light bulb.
And the relevant bit vis a vis Steve Jobs, "almost entirely self-educated..."
Get Your Kids Taken Away Over A Traffic Ticket?
Much of life now seems to be considered child endangerment. Via Lew Rockwell, a Detroit dad is threatened with the loss of his twins over a traffic ticket he got while riding a bike with them in tow. From MSNBC.com:
In early September, Sean Harrington was pulling his twin boys on a trailer attached to his bike for a day of fun in downtown Detroit along the river walk.He was returning home and riding down the sidewalk on Park Street when he pulled onto the street to avoid hitting baseball fans who were blocking his path.
He admits he was going the wrong way down a one way street, but he was about fifty feet from his home.
"It's a bicycle and it was four car-lengths that I was on the wrong way street," said Harrington.
Police still stopped him and issued him a ticket.
...Several days later, he received a letter in the mail, asking him to appear in court in November, facing the possibility of being charged with child endangerment.
Via Lenore Skenazy, here's an entirely different sort of thinking on "child endangerment" -- from a blind broadcaster for the BBC, Peter White, whose piece is headlined "Taking risks was part and parcel of my childhood, and I'm grateful for it -- Let's understand the difference between sensible precaution and a fear of living our lives adventurously":
My mum in particular realised that we needed our freedom, and the chance to play with the other kids in the street. She fully understood there were risks. I once had to be accompanied back to school with a letter that explained that Peter's many cuts and bruises were the result of his learning to ride a bike. I had spent most of that holiday sprawled in the neighbour's flowerbed, with the bike in the hedge.I didn't understand it then, but I know now it took great courage for her to do what she did. The interesting thing is that the special blind boarding schools to which we were sent were equally uninhibited. At my secondary school in Worcester we were positively encouraged - no, actually forced - to go out alone, or accompanied only by another blind friend. The 4 o'clock walk was compulsory: nobody asked where you were going, or whether you had the skills to get there. And when things went wrong, the school faced them with almost unbelievable sang-froid. When I was 12, I had a road accident. My parents were informed of this in a terse letter: "Peter has had a slight brush with a lorry. No serious harm done."
After this incident, a few half-hearted rules were introduced about who should be allowed to wander about unsupervised, but they were quickly abandoned. Nothing interfered with the custom of Founder's Day, where every pupil was given five shillings, and sent out for the day - a kind of ultimate 4 o'clock walk. I once managed to hitchhike the 200 or so miles home to Winchester and back. Returning to school just after midnight, I received a mild reprimand, and congratulations for having had the initiative to enlist the help of the police in getting my last, after-dark lift.
...My first bosses at the BBC got the idea quite quickly that I was happy to wander off on my own with my portable tape recorder, and come back with the goods. Even on my first trips abroad, always alone, I don't remember anyone asking whether I'd be safe, or what I intended to do.
No, it probably isn't so safe to ride the wrong way down the street with your kids, but should every bit of risk-taking be prosecuted? Couldn't the cops just have given this guy a warning?
Regulation Happens: B of A's $5 Monthly ATM Use Fee
I am no fan of Bank of America, to say the least. I think it's absolutely disgusting they got a vast sum of welfare in bailout money. I also wrote of how they put their customers at substantial risk of identity theft in I See Rude People.
I just don't understand all this screaming about the $5 fee to pay for things with an ATM card. Banks and businesses should be able to charge what they want, and if you don't want to pay their fee, you don't have to use their product (in this case, you can walk around with cash).
Of course, this fee (or some sort of sock-it-to-consumers measure) was predicted with the new regulation that was voted in. Katy Fineran writes at Fox Business:
The new fee comes as banks grapple with fresh regulations that have been imposed as a result of the Dodd-Frank Act's Durbin amendment that reduces the debit card processing fee banks can impose on merchants, which banks say is an important source of income. Currently, banks charge merchants, such as retailers, 44 cents per transaction - but starting next month, banks can only charge 21 cents per transaction.In light of reduced profitability, some banks are increasingly turning to customers to fill the gap. Indeed Bank of America isn't alone, Wells Fargo (WFC: 24.21, +1.03, +4.44%) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM: 30.26, +1.86, +6.55%) announced they too are exploring new debit card fees.
Still, some banks say they won't succumb to peer pressure. For instance, Citigroup (C: 24.39, +1.28, +5.54%) already revealed it doesn't plan on imposing new debit card fees.
Consumerist published a blog item about this about this by Chris Morran:
Our benevolent benefactors at Consumers Union are now calling upon legislators and regulators to investigate this move by the nation's largest bank.CU has sent letters to the House and Senate banking committees and financial regulators, urging them to investigate whether the new monthly fee is justified and whether it takes unfair advantage of consumers simply to boost profits.
The letter notes that the fee, which could cost Bank of America customers an extra $60 per year, comes at a time when American families are hard pressed to pay additional charges.
"Bank of America's decision to charge a monthly fee for debit card transactions is ill-timed and unwise. The bank continues to struggle financially. Yet it now appears ready to drive away customers with the promise of more excessive fees," said Pamela Banks, senior policy counsel for Consumers Union. "Consumers cannot afford and should not be required to pay a costly fee that appears to be arbitrary and designed to generate income for the bank rather than covering the costs of providing debit card services."
Consumerist commenter wrjohnston91283 writes:
So a business charging for a service now warrants investigation? What's next, investigating Sony for not selling a TV cheap enough?What law is being violated? Whose rights are being infringed on?
thatsiebguy comments on Consumerist:
I think the argument here is, why is a company who just got a free handout from the taxpayers a couple years ago, to save it from it's own poor business practices that contributed to the problem we're currently in, should be justified in jacking up rates on it's customers? I bet it has mostly to do with how they can no longer price-gouge retailers for debit transactions, so now they are making the customers make up the difference. I agree it's their own prerogative if they want to drive away customers, but that's not the point of the investigation."Joe Price, president of consumer banking for Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), said in an e-mailed statement that the lower fee wouldn't fairly compensate the bank for the infrastructure and services it provides to retailers.
And consumers would end up feeling the pain when Bank of America is forced to recoup costs "by increasing the cost of their everyday debit card transactions, limiting their payment choices, and impacting industry innovation," according to the email."
http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/10/pf/debit_cards_limit/index.htm
I only use a debit card one place -- Costco -- because I know that debit card use is not very safe. For everything else, I use a credit card, which helps me track purchases at tax time, and which I pay off in full every month.
Anthony Gregory At Mises On "Occupy Wall Street"
Gregory writes:
Some who see the protesters as a bunch of whiny young leftists opposing the great symbols of American capitalism will be tempted circumstantially to side with Wall Street. Yet much of the anger against Wall Street is justified, if misdirected -- even reflecting a vaguely classical-liberal class consciousness. In cahoots with the politicians, these giant firms are indeed ripping off the middle class and poorer Americans. Today's political economy resembles some form of fascism more than the free-enterprise system, and of the businesses with a hand in colluding with the state in advancement of corporatism, those being targeted by the protesters for special animus are probably among the guiltiest. Some of the activists, waving signs in opposition to bailouts, war, and police abuses, are carrying a libertarian message.But overall the protesters' message is too vague and heterogeneous -- at best -- to elicit much enthusiasm. As in the tea parties to which it has been compared, many in this movement are condemning a nebulous conception of the status quo without much of an inspiring alternative vision.
It gets worse. Although there is no single ideology uniting the movement, it does seem to have a general philosophical thrust, and not a very good one at that. OccupyWallStreet.org has a list of demands, and while the website does not represent all of the protesters, one could safely bet that it lines up with the views of most of them: A "living-wage" guarantee for workers and the unemployed, universal healthcare, free college for everyone, a ban on fossil fuels, a trillion dollars in new infrastructure, another trillion in "ecological restoration," racial and gender "rights," election reform, universal debt forgiveness, a ban on credit reporting agencies, and more power for the unions. Out of over a dozen demands there is only one I agree with -- open borders -- and, ironically, many on Wall Street probably favor that as well.
All in all, this wish list is a terrible recipe for moving far down the road toward socialism. On the way to achieving these goals, totalitarian controls on the population would be necessary. Some of these demands are merely horrible ideas that would injure the economy severely -- such as the huge expansion of public infrastructure. But others are so fancifully utopian -- such as a living wage guaranteed to all, especially when combined with free immigration -- that their attempted implementation would confront the many disasters and horrors we have seen in every nation that has seriously attempted socialism. Such policies would vastly expand the government, including its manifestations in the corporate state and police power that these protesters find so unsavory. All of the corruption and brutality they think they oppose are symptoms of the same essential political ideology they favor.
Indeed, the true members of the ruling class have nothing to fear from these protests, which on balance strengthen the power elite, whether the activists get their demands or not. This is because they do not have a coherent program for true liberty. The same principle behind freely living where and how you please and voicing one's opinions without harassment from the government underlies the freedom to engage in short selling, hostile takeovers, mergers, and speculation. Just as important, these protesters fail to understand that the market economy that they want the state to conquer is the principal engine of prosperity.
Fat For Your Head
Dr. Emily Deans, a psychiatrist I respect who has an evolutionary bent, has an interesting post up at Psychology Today on "Brain Energy" -- or what I consider "lunch for my brain":
Your brain uses a ton of energy. It's a small organ, maybe 2-5% of your total body weight, but it uses up to 20% of the energy you use in your body. That means for every plate of food, 1/5 of it goes to feed your noggin.I have a lot more details about brain energetics in a previous post, Your Brain on Ketones. If you don't have a minute to look at that article, the down low is that, for various reasons, a ketogenic diet (very low carb and high fat, or moderately low carb and high medium chain triglyceride, such as coconut oil), seems to allow our mitochondria (the cells' energy factories) to make energy more efficiently. This ability is less important in our muscles (unless you are an elite athlete), but in our brain, which uses a ton of energy and relies on energy-expensive ion gradients to function properly, efficiency is paramount.
Be sure to read "Your Brain On Ketones" at the link within the piece. Really good stuff.
The Latest In Perps: Concerned Moms Seeking A Good Education For Their Children
Micheal Flaherty writes in the WSJ that the latest crime wave is "education theft" -- parents trying to send their kids to a better school:
That's the charge that has landed several parents, such as Ohio's Kelley Williams-Bolar, in jail this year.An African-American mother of two, Ms. Williams-Bolar last year used her father's address to enroll her two daughters in a better public school outside of their neighborhood. After spending nine days behind bars charged with grand theft, the single mother was convicted of two felony counts. Not only did this stain her spotless record, but it threatened her ability to earn the teacher's license she had been working on.
...These arrests represent two major forms of exasperation. First is that of parents whose children are zoned into failing public schools--they can't afford private schooling, they can't access school vouchers, and they haven't won or haven't even been able to enter a lottery for a better charter school. Then there's the exasperation of school officials finding it more and more difficult to deal with these boundary-hopping parents.
From California to Massachusetts, districts are hiring special investigators to follow children from school to their homes to determine their true residences and decide if they "belong" at high-achieving public schools.
...Only in a world where irony is dead could people not marvel at concerned parents being prosecuted for stealing a free public education for their children.
In August, an internal PowerPoint presentation from the American Federation of Teachers surfaced online. The document described how the AFT undermined minority parent groups' efforts in Connecticut to pass the "parent trigger" legislation that offers parents real governing authority to transform failing schools. A key to the AFT's success in killing the effort, said the document, was keeping parent groups from "the table." AFT President Randi Weingarten quickly distanced her organization from the document, but it was small consolation to the parents once again left in the cold.
Here's the trailer of a moving documentary I saw on school choice -- "The Lottery" -- and the fate of those who don't get chosen for good schools:
More on the film and school choice here, from my blog item on reason's school choice night:
Former mayor Richard Riordan, in the Q&A session afterward, mentioned that D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee said that until you separate the Democratic party from the school board, you're not going to have great schools.Ben Austin talked about "Parent Trigger." It is:
a historic new law that gives parents in California the right to force a transformation of their child's current or future failing school. All parents need to do is organize - if 51% of them get together and sign an official Parent Trigger petition, they have the power to force their school district to transform the school.Austin and others said that parents, for the first time, realize they have power. And that's a good thing, because Jerry Brown wasted no time firing him and replacing him with the head lobbyist for the teacher's association.
Somebody pointed out that you can't get elected in New York City -- or many places -- without the teachers union. They described the behavior of the New York teachers union as akin to "mafia thugs."
And I think it was Riordan who said that schools are now designed to serve adults -- teachers! -- not students. And really, the whole deal is about power and money for the union, not even about teachers.
Crazy.
Being Too Dense To Understand The Context Isn't Cause For Censorship
Tom Giffey, editorial page editor of the LeaderTelegram, writes about yet another case the terrific campus free-speech defending organization FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) has taken on:
The saga began Sept. 12 when Jim Miller, a UW-Stout communications and theater professor, hung a poster from the defunct sci-fi TV series "Firefly" on his office door. The poster showed spaceship captain Mal Reynolds, the series' protagonist, accompanied by a quote: "You don't know me, son. So let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you'll be awake, you'll be facing me, and you'll be armed."As a communications professor - and, one would hope, university administrators - would know, context is critical to understanding a text. In this case, while the quote includes the word "kill," it isn't espousing violence. Quite the contrary: In the preceding line, a character who has been rescued by the captain asks, "How do I know you won't kill me in my sleep?" In the context of the program, the captain's reply is a declaration of his code of honor - he would only commit violence in self-defense - not a threat.
Unfortunately, university officials didn't explore this context by asking the professor about his "threatening" poster. Instead, campus police Chief Lisa Walter removed it and emailed Miller that it was "unacceptable." Miller responded that the action was "fascistic" and violated his First Amendment rights. The police chief retorted: "Speech can be limited on a reasonable expectation that it will cause a material and/or substantial disruption of school activities and/or be constituted as a threat." She then threatened that re-posting the quote could bring him a charge of disorderly conduct.
Miller responded by putting up a cheeky poster that bore a cartoon of a figure in riot gear beating another person, as well as the phrase "Fascism can cause blunt trauma and/or violent death. Keep fascism away from children and pets." Campus police removed that one too.
The kerfuffle may not have received much attention were it not for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a Philadelphia-based group that advocates for civil liberties on campus. On Sept. 21, FIRE wrote to Chancellor Charles Sorensen, saying the university's actions were "outrageous" and that no reasonable person would see the posters as a threat. In its letter, the group stated, "The First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression does not exist to protect only non-controversial speech; indeed, it exists precisely to protect speech that some members of a community may find controversial or offensive."
...But instead of apologizing, UW-Stout administrators sent out an email last week defending their actions: "It was our belief, after consultation with UW System legal counsel, that the posters in question constituted an implied threat of violence."
Working as an administrator at a university constitutes an implied threat of intelligence, but clearly, one should never assume.
More on the UW-Stout case here and here, at FIRE's site.
The Sign
With this simple hand gesture, tell people in the military that you appreciate their service on behalf of the rest of us:
Amazon Returns To The Amy
And Amy to linking to Amazon items and getting a small kickback -- 6 or 7% -- which helps me stay afloat and keep writing. Here's the message I got from Amazon:
Amazon Re-opens Associates Program to California Residents California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed legislation repealing the law that had forced us to close the program to California residents. We are pleased to invite all California Associates whose accounts were closed due to the prior legislation to re-enroll in the Program. Associates who re-enroll will retain all prior account settings (login, Associates ID, payment information, etc.). For more details and eligibility information, see our re-enrollment FAQs.
Thank you to all who've supported me and my site by buying through my Amazon links!
Oops.
Photo by Philip Miller.
When Does Style Count?
What elements of personal style or personal expression in a person you've dated put you off? What elements put you off so much that you've stopped seeing a person -- or would if they came up?
Ditching a man for a style issue is often the province of the younger woman, who has yet to get kicked around by some Slick Rick in a relationship (and thus recognize what she might need to give in a little on).
That said, not all style things can be given in on, and people will say that's "superficial," but if somebody's personal style is really going to grate on you in some way, and you don't think you can influence them to modify it, it might be time to be moving on.
And by "influence," I don't mean trying to bully them into being something they're not, but maybe getting a guy to stop wearing those shirts, which you can do by telling him how much sexier he looks in this kind of shirt...hint, hint...and maybe buying him a few of those.
"Give The TSA The Bird"
That's how a commenter titled himself on an entry about TSA agents humiliating a woman who had breast cancer -- and is still bald from chemo -- and has inserts in her chest to prepare for breast reconstruction after a double mastectomy.
His comment is below. About the "middle index fingers," he's referring to a practice by my wonderful First Amendment attorney, Marc J. Randazza, who shows the TSA agents earning a living violating our rights the respect they deserve: Sticking out both middle fingers as he gets the ridiculously named "pat-down." (Let's call it what it is -- the "futile groping of Americans' sex parts in order to groom them to be docile in the face of more of their civil liberties being yanked from them in the future.")
Amy: Just a few days ago, I had to go through O'Hare. Mindful of your experience, I deliberately raised my middle index fingers on both hands when forced into the scanner. Immediately, a swarm of TSA agents, supervisors, etc. surrounded me.I was told that this was not the "correct" position to stand in via the scanner, and whether I wanted a pat down instead. I informed them that since they supposedly were trying to see what was underneath my clothes, I could arrange my hands however I liked, and then they could try to justify a further "search" of my bare hands if they had probable cause or a warrant. Supervisor #1 threatened to call in Chicago police. I asked him if he was seriously threatening to detain me for engaging in political speech.
He informed me that my hand positioning was not political speech. I informed him otherwise. He suggested that the Chicago Police might tell me I was wrong. Supervisor #2 then came over and said he was "asking" me to cooperate. I stated that I would be perfectly fine with going through the metal detector, as half the other travelers were doing. He refused. Then I informed him I maintained my position.
He grabbed my boarding pass, and warned me that if I didn't cooperate, I was likely to miss my flight. I asked if I was being detained. He again said I should just cooperate. I said I was fully entitled to engage in political speech. He asked if I wanted a pat-down. I refused. After going around and around for another 10 minutes, he finally had me step into the scanner.
They deliberately scanned me three times. Another TSA agent kept me standing in the scanner, and then as I went to exit, told me that the scan was "no good" and they had to do it over. I told him that the light had gone on and off three times, and, realizing he was caught in a lie, let me step out of the scanner. I was told to stand outside the scanner. I was left standing there for 15 minutes.
I asked repeatedly if I was being detained. No TSA person would respond to me, except to say that they couldn't let me move until their supervisor said so. Supervisor #2 had deliberately moved to a different part of the scanning area so as to be out of visual or hearing contact.
None of the TSA agents would give me their name or his. All were clearly pissed off that I wanted to give them the finger while being forced into their nude scanning machine. In the interim, five more people went through the scanner and were passed on their merry way.
As soon as the boarding time on my flight arrived, Supervisor #2 magically reappeared and indicated to the minions that I could leave.
So there you have it, folks. TSA agents knew that they had absolutely no good justification to detain me. But they went out of their way to push the limits while maintaining plausible deniability. TSA can't take any criticism, and are going out of their way to punish those who seek to engage in one of the most mild, yet classic, ways of conveying to authority, fuck off.
They were actually offended that I was upset with THEM. Ummm, THEY are the ones that demand as a condition of my travel (necessary for work) that I either get a radiation scan and nude exposure, or a sexual assualt. They should hang their heads in shame every day they go to work. If they actually had balls, they'd quit.
I have the person's email address, so I emailed a thank you:
Hi there -- I am so appreciative of what you did. It is terribly upsetting to me that so many are so cavalier about our rights being violated -- as a course of normal daily business travel -- and that they do nothing about it.I've been very upset about not being able to place this op-ed I wrote and your comment was a little reminder that there are others who care deeply about our civil liberties. Thank you so much. I will get the op-ed placed, but it's distressing that mainstream media outlets so far will not publish it. All the best,-Amy
Note per above and as I've blogged, that the government's grab of our rights started with our Fourth Amendment right against being searched without reasonable suspicion we've committed a crime and has now moved on to a chill our First Amendment right to speak up about it.
If you aren't seriously afraid, please ask one of the attendants to sign you up for lobotomy repair.
Oh, and see Cohen v. California, the "fuck the draft" case, for naughty words as an integral part of free speech:
The Court, by a vote of 5-4, per Justice John Marshall Harlan II, overturned the appellate court's ruling. "[A]bsent a more particularized and compelling reason for its actions," it said, "the State may not, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, make the simple public display of this single four-letter expletive a criminal offense."[1] In his opinion Justice Harlan famously wrote "one man's vulgarity is another's lyric."[2] Harlan's arguments can be constructed in three major points: First, states (California) cannot censor their citizens in order to make a "civil" society. Second, knowing where to draw the line between harmless heightened emotion and vulgarity can be difficult. Third, people bring passion to politics and vulgarity is simply a side effect of a free exchange of ideas--no matter how radical they may be.
A Top-Secret Press Release
Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? Yes, it's a press release for my eyes only!
This silliness was at the bottom of a press release! From some genius PR firm called "Evins Communications." The "privileged, confidential" information? "Ambassador Kathryn Hall's Dinner Party Tips":
this email and any attachment hereof may contain proprietary information which is privileged, confidential or subject to copyright belonging to evins communications. this email is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. if you are not the intended recipient of this email, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, or action taken in relation to the contents of and attachments to this email is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. if you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and permanently delete the original as well as any copy of this e-mail and any printout thereof. thank you for your cooperation.
I wrote the account exec back:
Um, you're a PR firm sending out press releases with this silliness? That's so dumb, it makes me want to clearcut a forest, print up flyers (with this message) and disseminate them to the world.By the way, I'm already being sued by a TSA agent for $500,000, which is kind of stupid, because those of us who write freelance for papers can barely keep the lights on.
Nevertheless, get in the lawsuit line, because I'm going to blog this -- no, not your press release with the dinner party suggestions -- but the dipshitted warning statement.
Pssst! I suggest you sue me for my toenail clippings rather than cash. The income, she doesn't grow so well in the Obamaconomy. The toenails seem pluckily determined to continue on their merry toenail way.
Suggestion for employers: Hire (and be) people who think when conducting business.
Also, if you're going to try to frighten me with legal action, it's best to capitalize at the beginnings of sentences.
11-Year-Old Debunks Claims Of Touchiehealie Bullshitters
Gad Saad blogs at Psychology Today about 11-year-old Emily Rosa, who, in 1998, published a paper in JAMA debunking the bullshit altie med therapy called "therapeutic touch":
Practitioners of TT are supposedly capable of curing specific ailments (e.g., pain) via the transference (or manipulation) of human energy fields (?) from their hands to a patient's afflicted body part. Rosa's experiment consisted of having TT healers slip their hands through a partition that would not permit them to see the other side of the partition. She would then place her hand above either their right or left hands, and ask them to state the location of her hand. Twenty-one TT healers of differing levels of experience (one to twenty-seven years) took part in the study. Two hundred and eighty trials were conducted in total. The healers achieved a success rate of 44%, namely their performance was worse than what one might expect via random guessing!...Perhaps the most important takeaway from this story is the democratic nature of the scientific method. A young child was able to devise an experiment that allowed her to test a given claim. This is precisely why any belief system that does not permit for such objective scrutiny should be viewed with much suspicion if not derision.
Gad's smart and very interesting book: The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature
Hey, Cancer Patient, The TSA Wants To Palpate Your Mastectomy Scars
Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting. Breast cancer patient Lori Dorn asks on her blog about the TSA agent asking to grope her breasts, "At what point does the need for security eclipse human dignity and compassion?"
I explained to the agent that I was a breast cancer patient and had a bilateral mastectomy in April and had tissue expanders put in to make way for reconstruction at a later date.I told her that I was not comfortable with having my breasts touched and that I had a card in my wallet that explains the type of expanders, serial numbers and my doctor's information (pictured) and asked to retrieve it. This request was denied. Instead, she called over a female supervisor who told me the exam had to take place. I was again told that I could not retrieve the card and needed to submit to a physical exam in order to be cleared. She then said, "And if we don't clear you, you don't fly" loud enough for other passengers to hear. And they did. And they stared at the bald woman being yelled at by a TSA Supervisor.
To my further dismay, my belongings, including my computer, were completely out of sight. I had no choice but to allow an agent to touch my breasts in front of other passengers.
It is my opinion that the way they separate you from your stuff is yet another way to punish anyone who opts for the pat-down and is a way for the agents to exert power over passengers. It's absolutely disgusting.
In New Orleans, when I complained that my stuff was just sitting out there, including my laptop, I was told they had no personnel to watch it, but that there were "security" cameras in case my computer was taken. (I'm sure that's been very comforting to those who've had stuff stolen from the TSA checkpoints.)
By the way, I'm still working on placing my op-ed about our civil liberties and my own abuse at the hands of a TSA agent.
UPDATE: Related post by Popehat.
Via Lisa Simeone
Which Comes First, The Bullying Or The Mental Health Problems?
Interesting question in a TIME piece by Meredith Melnick, "Should We Rethink Our Anti-Bullying Strategy?" A relevant excerpt:
A growing number of education psychologists and childhood-development specialists are beginning to ask whether our approach to anti-bullying education is predicated on a fundamental misunderstanding of the research. They suggest that the underlying motivations for bullying are a great deal more complicated than what's addressed in anti-bullying policy: What if bullying is not a cause of poor mental health but is a warning sign that it already exists?Studies show that kids who are involved in bullying -- bullies, victims and a third subgroup of particularly problematic kids who engage in both behaviors and are referred to as bully-victims -- are more likely to have started out with depression, anxiety and other mental health issues that predispose them to lashing out and to self-harm.
...Studies show that kids who are involved in bullying -- bullies, victims and a third subgroup of particularly problematic kids who engage in both behaviors and are referred to as bully-victims -- are more likely to have started out with depression, anxiety and other mental health issues that predispose them to lashing out and to self-harm.
The concept of the menacing bully with problems at home is as established in the culture as it is in the research, but most people shy away from addressing the existing mental-health struggles of the bully's victim for fear of appearing to blame the more vulnerable party. But in viewing the victim as an actor in the relationship, educators and researchers may be able to provide him with the correct kind of support.
Dr. Barbara Oakley offers thinking along these lines about domestic battering -- and batterers -- in her compelling book, Cold-Blooded Kindness: Neuroquirks of a Codependent Killer, or Just Give Me a Shot at Loving You, Dear, and Other Reflections on Helping That Hurts
Obamacostlier Than We Thought-O-Care
At ABC.com, Jake Tapper lays out some of the fiscal realities of Obamacare:
On May 3, 2008, the president told voters that he had "a health care plan that would save the average family$2,500 on their premiums."Last year workers at the flower shop saw their insurance premiums shoot up 41 percent.
"I basically work for the health care payments," says manager Pat Cowhig, whose husband has medical issues.The Kaiser Family Foundation shows family premiums topped $15,000 a year for the first time in 2011, increasing a whopping 9% this year, three times more than the increase the year before. The study says that up to 2% of that increase is because of the health care law's provisions, such as allowing families to add grown children up to 26 years old to their policies.
So what about that $2,500 in savings the president pledged? White House deputy chief of staff Nancy-Ann DeParle insists families will see that savings -- by 2019.
The Kaiser study also indicates employers are switching plans and shifting costs onto employees. Half of workers in smaller firms now face "deductibles of at least $1,000, including 28 percent facing deductibles of $2,000 or more," according to the study.
Flora Venture's new policy increased the deductible employees pay to $5,000.Doesn't that fly in the face of the president's promise that "if you like your health care plan you can keep your health care plan"? ABC News asked DeParle.
She said no -- the president wasn't saying the legislation would guarantee that everyone can keep his or her preferred plan, just that the legislation wouldn't force anyone to change.
Again, what Obamacare didn't do was modernize our health care in this country by disconnecting health insurance from the workplace, just for starters. We don't work just one job from young adulthood to retirement these days, but we still have a health insurance system that's set up for it.
Our elected numbskulls passed a health care plan that fails in so many ways to respond to reality and that often just thumbs its nose at it entirely, it's just crazy. Remember...it was too big and long and complicated to read, so they passed it so they could find out what's in it.
If you voted for someone who did that, why aren't you now campaigning to have them recalled for breach of office, for starters, and breach of the most rudimentary intelligence after that?
More here at Forbes.com. Merrill Matthews, formerly director of a small free market health insurance research and advocacy group, talks some simple sense:
I was in the middle of the fight against ObamaCare. Trying to explain to Democrats and their staffs why the legislation would make health insurance premiums explode was like banging your head against the Berlin Wall.They would mindlessly--almost zombie-like--regurgitate the liberal talking points, asserting that if we could just get everyone in the health insurance pool, premiums would go down, not up. Didn't President Obama repeatedly promise that premiums would fall $2,500 for a family by the end of his first term?
So the government:
•Provides coverage to an additional 45 million to 50 million uninsured Americans--note that the uninsured spend less than half of what the insured spend on health care, so their spending will rise significantly;•Requires insurance to cover lots of additional treatments and services, in many cases free of charge to the patient; and
•Guarantees that people will spend very little out of pocket, which insulates them from the cost of their decisions;
And the president argues--well, he used to argue, until the facts could no longer be denied--that total health care spending would go down!Every aspect of the current health insurance system that makes health care so expensive--requirements to cover lots of additional therapies, limiting patients' cost exposure, and subsidizing the most expensive health plans (through employers or the government) so that more people will choose them--is in ObamaCare ... on steroids.
Another example from Matthews in the comments:
Actually, fredlinn, I had a car analogy but cut it out so as not to get too long. Here's what it said: "Suppose someone claimed that if the government required everyone to have a Cadillac loaded with options and subsidized the cost to ensure that every American could buy one, then the total amount of money the country spent on automobiles would go down, you'd think that person was a lunatic."
Santa Monica Cop: "No Parking" Signs Are For Other People
A cop parked his vehicle right in front of the "no parking" sign -- a space where anybody else would get a big-ass ticket.
Now, this cop could have parked at a meter or in one of several available spaces behind the coffee shop. (He was there to pick up a drink, not a perp.)
But hey, what are laws and rules for but for law enforcement officers to flout?
Also, parking there makes it difficult for cars to get in and out of the alley -- which can cause a traffic hazard.
How To Not Turn Into A Pillar Of Salt On TV
Friends of mine who write sometimes garner opportunities to be on TV. If you are not on TV for a living, the prospect can be terrifying. Here's advice I gave a friend nervous about an upcoming appearance -- advice that took me years to implement.
Very important: Don't think about yourself or how you'll do. Focus on how you know your stuff and how you're going to have fun on TV. If I focus on me, I'm dead.Also, bring a walkman and do a little dance to music that jazzes you beforehand (where no one will see you). It will get you in the right mode, which is "I'm me, and I know stuff, and I'm going to have fun saying it." (I got this idea from some study I read -- can't remember which.)
We can talk on the phone about this if you need help on this -- I spent a lot of time working through this, and no one was more terrified than I was on TV. I wore a leather jacket to "ward off the rays" of people's judging eyes the first time we (Advice Ladies) were on TV.
Oh, also...once, I was appearing on Dennis Miller's old TV show with Dr. Drew. Dr. Drew is one of the smoothest people I've been on with, and I always feel like he comes off with more authority than I do.
As we were sitting offstage waiting for them to be ready for us, I noticed him digging his nails a little and was overjoyed. "Even he's nervous!"
At that point, I went into my head and ran a little video: Dr. Drew was on all fours, crawling across the studio floor, wearing only a pair of tighty-whities, and I was riding him and urging him on with a little crop.
I think it helped me be less nervous. Also, it was a hilarious picture, and it's always good to laugh.
Class Ass Suit
As Walter Olson put it on Overlawyered, "Can't squeeze the last 20% of toothpaste from the tube? Sue!"
He linked to an LA Weekly blog item by Simone Wilson about an Encino man, Jonathan Rothstein, bringing a class action suit because he couldn't get the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube of Crest:
The excruciating details of a consumer's plight:"Once the dispenser becomes 'lighter' and is 'harder to squeeze,' it will no longer dispense toothpaste. At this point, the only way to access the remaining toothpaste is to cut open the packaging with scissors or a knife. However in doing so, the promise of 'Less Mess,' the slogan associated with the Neat Squeeze dispenser, is lost and the package is not designed or intended to be sliced open."Rothstein says he sees right through Procter & Gamble's money-making ploy. By preventing tooth-brushers from getting at the last of the tube, the company in effect "sells more units of toothpaste, whether in the Neat Squeeze dispenser or other container, than it otherwise would if the entire volume of toothpaste in the package could be used."
The comment I left on Overlawyered:
I can barely find time to get to the grocery store, and have frozen hot dogs in my freezer for moments of extreme mealtime desperation. Whose life is so bankrupt that they have time to sue because they didn't that Cresty goodness to the very last drop? Buy it once, hate on them a little, maybe drop the brand manager a note (fish for a coupon for a freebie or two) and buy something the hell else the next time!
Loser pays legal system, anyone?
