Advice Goddess Blog

« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Be Careful Who You Have Sex With
A Temple City, California woman, Lizet Sariol, 45, who reportedly had a four-day affair with a man and then got dumped went all cries of terrorism on his ass. She's now in custody. The story, from CBS Los Angeles:

The charge stems from an anonymous call Sariol reportedly placed Sept. 25 to a United Airlines call center in Detroit. It is alleged that she said a Frenchman and his friends, all of whom have Arabic surnames, posed an unspecified threat to a plane set to depart that day from Los Angeles International Airport to Las Vegas and then on to Paris, according to court papers.
FBI agents were dispatched to LAX to intercept the group.

During questioning, the Frenchman, Adnen Mansouri, said he expected to be detained by airport authorities because he was being "harassed" by Sariol, with whom he had a four-night affair, according to court papers.

Mansouri said he had broken off the relationship just hours before arriving at LAX.

The Frenchman and his friend, Salim Oumahdi, told FBI Special Agent David Gates they had received threatening texts and Facebook postings from the woman for hours, Gates wrote in an affidavit.

Mansouri said he believed Sariol was angry because he "un-friended" her on Facebook, the affidavit states.

One text Sariol allegedly sent said, "Don't even try to get on the plane (I) called the fbi Sucks to be all of you hope you all have good attorneys," according to court papers.

More on Kim Jong Il's terrible reign.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Gary Johnson: Ron Paul For Grownups
His views.

I got introduced to him at a Reason event and talked to him briefly, and unfortunately, he is not exactly Mr. Charisma.

I've said it before: Ron Paul sounds like the guy pacing and ranting outside the hippie coffee shop with the white beard and the big wooden staff...but he's interesting; you pay attention to him when he talks.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Thank The Anti-Vax Morons
I spent far too much time yesterday trying to track down generic Adderall, which is out of stock or in extremely short supply everywhere. I had the bright idea to start calling less "cool" communities, where they might have less demand for Adderall, etc.

While waiting on the phone with the Kaiser pharmacy in Sacramento, which told me I'd have to drive six hours to pick up pills in person -- no mailing Schedule 2 narcotics, thanks to nannystate prohibitions -- I heard a recorded PSA about whooping cough vaccines.

Turns out whooping cough has come back, thanks to morons who get their medical advice from Jenny McCarthy and let their children go unvaccinated. Steven Salzberg writes at Forbes:

California is suffering the worst epidemic of pertussis, or whooping cough, in 60 years, with over 5,200 cases already, the most since 1950. Nine babies have died, all of them too young to receive the vaccine. Michigan is also reporting a serious outbreak, with over 600 cases so far this year. The deaths of the infants in California are tragic, and what's more tragic is that some of them almost certainly could have been prevented if more people had been vaccinated.
The pertussis vaccine, called DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis) has been responsible for a dramatic drop in whooping cough in recent decades. It isn't 100% effective, but its effectiveness relies in part on "herd immunity": if enough people are immune to the bacteria, then even if someone gets sick, the disease cannot easily spread through the community. This is especially true for very young infants, who are too young to be vaccinated and whose immune systems are not yet strong enough to defeat the bacteria on their own.

It's not a coincidence that California is the center of the new pertussis epidemic. Vaccination rates among adults in California have been dropping in recent years, large due to the influence of anti-vaccination zealots such as Jenny McCarthy and groups such as Age of Autism. Anti-vaccination sentiments seem to strike a chord with relatively well-educated segments of the population - the same people who favor organic food and want to use "natural" products as much as possible. Anti-vaxers appeal to this group by arguing that vaccines are unnatural, and that the body's own immune system can be "boosted" by various natural treatments. Appealing though this may sound, it has no basis in science. California makes it easy for parents to claim exemptions from the required vaccinations for their children, and exemptions have more than doubled since 1997, according to the L.A. Times.

Jenny McCarthy isn't just killing kids here. She has a long reach, per a piece in the Guardian by Vivienne Parry (MMR is the Measles/Mumps/Rubella vaccine):

In South Africa, concerns about MMR, generated by coverage in the rest of the English-speaking world - including the UK - have led to an unwillingness to receive the vaccine, and there has been an outbreak of nearly 7,000 cases of measles. For children with poor health and limited access to medical services, this decision has been disastrous. There have already been hundreds of deaths.

Good diagram explaining herd immunity here. More on anti-vaxers here, at Science-Based Medicine. A resource for doctors communicating with vaccine-resistant parents (from the comments at SBM) is here.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

There's Mommy And There's Big Mommy
And the latter is Big Government, controlling us at every possible turn. From the Wash Times, Valerie Richardson on the latest futile effort by government:

California also became the first state in the nation to require a prescription for obtaining any drug containing dextromethorphan, an ingredient found in many popular over-the-counter cough suppressants, including Robitussin, NyQuil and Dimetapp.
The law was prompted by a spike in the use of cough syrup as a recreational drug. A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel considered making the medications prescription-only, but rejected the idea in September.

So, now, in a terrible economy, a mother's got to go to the doctor to get the cough syrup my mom bought with regularity -- or the drug companies will likely do as they did with Mucinex: make the OTC version ineffective for what its supposed to do for you.

All because some people are apparently abusing it? Why should that be our problem?

via ifeminists

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Just Say No To Concentration
Yesterday, my entire afternoon got eaten by my panic over shortages of Adderall, the drug that changed my writing life from daily torture that I slogged through because I'm a hard worker to sometimes-hard work I love.

Instead of writing, I wasted my time on the phone to a bunch of local pharmacies, and emailing my very good-natured doctor multiple times ("Can you prescribe in Mexico?"), and searching for Canadian pharmacies -- maybe one in Windsor where maybe I could get Gregg to pick me up 10 or 20 or maybe even 30 pills...in all the spare time he has.

Here in Los Angeles, a number of my vast HMO's pharmacies do not have a single pill of Adderall. Not a single pill. Nor do most pharmacies. Including that of the Costco near me and various other drugstores. And that is the case in many pharmacies across the country. Per Dani Carlson at WOOD Grand Rapids:

Koelzer said they've had a problem keeping Adderall on their shelves at Kay Pharmacy.
"We've had customers coming in crying when they find out the drug's unavailable or they've gone to many different pharmacies and finally came to us because they've heard that we have it, and we don't in many of the cases, and they have tears running down their face," said Koelzer.

That was me, boohooing like a baby on and off on Tuesday afternoon, because just as my writing life has changed so substantially in such positive ways, those gains are likely going to be taken away from me if those shortages don't end.

Two possibilities: The government is holding back some the ingredients from pharmaceutical companies -- they have been doing this for a while in hopes of cutting down on drug abuse. More on government-controlled drug ingredient quotas here. Yeah, sure, somebody might end up snorting meth, and some college students will probably snort Adderall during finals. And that's justification for keeping drugs from those of us who truly need them?

The drug I was taking for many years for ADHD, Ritalin, never worked that well on me, but I only discovered that after I started seeing this doctor that I came to feel I could trust on science. I finally confessed to him that it had become almost physically painful for me in struggling to concentrate throughout my writing day, and that I was contemplating taking Ritalin with Mucinex to boost my focus. Bad idea, he said, and prescribed me Adderall to see how it worked.

Like Ritalin, Adderall is a dopamine reuptake inhibitor, but it also pushes a little dopamine out into the brain, and apparently, I really need that D. The first day I took my first Adderall was the best writing day I've had in 20 years. I used to have a tornado of shit whirling around my head at all times, and it stopped and put itself neatly away in cabinets when I took this drug. After years of struggling to pay attention, suddenly, all I had to do to focus was decide to focus, and I found creative decision-making and managing a lot of information, if not easy, tasks I could manage if I worked at them.

Sadly, I've been meaning to write this post about how Adderall changed my life, but I was going to title it "Adderall: A Love Story." Now the story is that there's no word on when this Adderall shortage will end.

The other problem is, even if I can find Adderall somewhere (Fresno?), if I have to buy the drug off-plan, at a regular pharmacy, I will lose the very low price I pay with my insurance -- which has always been one of the points of having insurance. In fact, if I have to go on Vyvanse, considered sort of a sub for Adderall, it costs FOUR TIMES what Adderall does in pharmacies. That's $400 a month, while I just take the cheapo generic amphetamine salts combo that costs me a ten-spot or two. As in, $10 or maybe $20.

The big question is, is it government meddling that's causing the shortage or is it Shire pharmaceuticals, trying to manipulate doctors into prescribing its expensive, patented-till-2023 drug Vyvanse?

I used my detective skills to track down the phone number and email address of a DEA spokespiece who's acted all bewildered about the shortage in news stories that have quoted him. Left him a message and I'll call him back tomorrow. Since the government has no problem meddling in vast swaths of our lives, I'm wondering why they aren't doing something over there at the DEA and FDA other than acting bewildered while countless ADHD and ADD patients across the country are wondering if they'll have to risk arrest in some 'hood to fill their legally obtained prescription. (Go on Twitter and elsewhere and search "Adderall" -- you'll see.)

Here's more on the story from fellow ADD-er Moe Tkacik, at TheFix.com:

Shire has publicly blamed DEA quota restrictions for its anemic generic shipments; the DEA has issued an apparent denial, albeit one short on specifics. A chemist at one of the five authorized "active ingredient" manufacturers in the business of supplying pharmaceutical companies with amphetamine says he and his colleagues "have all been scratching our heads trying to figure out what's actually going on."
The prevailing "water cooler" theory, according to the chemist, is that Shire is trying to "embarrass [the generic drugmakers] by making them look unreliable"--which could theoretically threaten some of their accounts, which could also in turn hurt their case in future applications to the DEA for a share of the annual amphetamine production quota. The DEA's decisions to award quota of controlled substances is a somewhat mysterious process, but the aggregate number of about 26 million kilograms for 2011, up from 1.3 million in 1996, the year Adderall was introduced. And even that 26 million wasn't high enough to accommodate the applications; the chemist says the agency recently granted the generic drugmaker CorePharma, which makes generic Adderall and dexedrine, just half the amphetamine allotment for which it had applied. So it stands to reason that if the agency lowers the quota in response to lower unit sales this year, the great amphetamine famine could be here to stay. And since Shire's own quota for Vyvanse's lisdexamphetamine is 9 million kilograms--hugely generous for such a new drug--it is more than prepared to accommodate a surge in new customers.

To keep this in some perspective, my problem is just getting my hands on a drug that helps me be high-functioning while doing my work. Think about the people suffering terrible pain who can't get the drugs they need because the DEA is worried somebody might get high.

Fuck the drug warriors, the drug war industrial complex, and the scumbag sellout candidates who support it and all sorts of other destructive measures, from SOPA to the TSA.

And sure, maybe this was some Shire-caused dealie, but if you look on the FDA's own site about drug shortages, they are very clear that government is the cause of some of them. See "API" -- "This shortage is due to Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) constraints."

Fuckers.

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Sullum On The Adderall Shortage
Jacob Sullum at reason posted a terrific blog item on the Adderall shortage, linking to my earlier blog post on how there's no Adderall in pharmacies to fill my prescription. Sullum writes (but read the whole post):

Meanwhile, manufacturers of generic Adderall, a.k.a. "amphetamine mixed salts immediate-release tablets," cite "increase in demand" (Sandoz and CorePharma) or "API [active pharmaceutical ingredient] supply issues" (Teva) as explanations for the shortage. Those are two ways of saying the same thing: Demand exceeds supply--i.e., there's a shortage. Why is there a shortage? Because there's a shortage! Duh.
Notwithstanding the DEA's denials, it should be obvious that if the government did not insist on getting between people and the drugs they want, supply would meet demand, as it tends to do in a free market. Trying to figure out why there is a shortage of a government-controlled substance is like trying to figure out why the Soviet Union did not have enough windshield wipers to replace ones that wore out. At some point, a central planner miscalculated, as they tend to do. According to MSNBC, manufacturers "say that as they receive their new DEA allocations in the new year, the shortages may subside."

For the sake of Alkon and all the others whose lives have been senselessly disrupted by the government's pharmacological edicts, I hope that's true.

...The implication is that doctors are overdiagnosing and/or overprescribing, a pretty tricky call to make when dealing with an objectively unverifiable psychiatric condition like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Notice that the Tampa Bay Times, hewing to prohibitionist orthodoxy, describes using Adderall to study for an exam as "abusing the drug"--unless, of course, the student has jumped through the requisite hoops, saying the right things to qualify for a diagnosis and earn the magical slip of paper that transforms abuse into medicine. Why empower doctors to decide who "really" needs Adderall when adults should be able to decide that for themselves?

He's right on about that. What's with the notion that it's drug "abuse" to take a drug that helps you study better -- providing that you aren't stealing my TV, losing your job, and making the rest of us pay for your rehab?

Why are we treated by our government like a nation of 8-year-olds? Oh yeah...because we vote in the people who support treating us that way.

...

While there is nothing wrong with using prescription drugs according to doctor's orders, taking more of those drugs more frequently that what the physician ordered might already be construed as prescription drug abuse.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Overreact Much?
My pal Lenore Skenazy writes in the WSJ on over-hyped child-related panics, like the one where an Applebees waiter accidentally served some toddler a very strong glass of "apple juice":

The parents noticed something was wrong when, the mother reported, the boy started saying "hi" to the walls.
Applebee's went apoplectic with proactiveness, declaring that not only would it retrain its entire wait staff that instant, but from now on it would only use single-serve juices. Which is not an evil response, of course (except environmentally), but it sure is overkill. Applebee's reacted as if serving toddlers stiff drinks had been company-wide policy.

The child's parents, meanwhile, reacted as if the kid had been deliberately served a plateful of steaming plutonium. Their "emotional distress" was so great that they--this will shock you--sued. Whether the individuals are mirroring corporate hysteria or vice versa, the final score was: Overreaction: 2. Common sense: 0.

This collective decision not to distinguish between rare screw-ups and systemic dangers is turning us into neurotic Nellies who worry about, warn against and, finally, outlaw very safe things. My favorite recall from the Consumer Product Safety Commission a few years back concerned a chair that had a screw protruding from the underside. While the commission reported that there had been "no reports of injuries to humans," there had been "one report of a dog's fur becoming entangled in the screw."

Call my lawyer! When a twisted tuft is enough to prompt a 20,000-chair recall, that's setting the safety bar pretty high.

...Despite the fact that baby abductions are exceedingly rare--last year CNN reported a single baby was abducted from a health-care facility--CNN felt compelled to give its viewers tip after tip on how to make sure this does not happen to them. Overreaction or ratings grab? Same thing.

...I'm sorry, but if the chances are about one in four million that a baby is going to be abducted, the idea that a mother who has just gone through childbirth now has to drag her bassinet into the bathroom to be safe from a nearly nonexistent threat is more than ridiculous. It's cruel.

So if you want to enjoy a happier, healthier 2012, it's very easy. Just ignore the temptation to overreact to minuscule threats . . . and have a shot of whatever that toddler was drinking.

That "retraining" must have been hilarious. "No gin and tonics for 3-year-olds..." I place much of the blame on the sue-happy. You?

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

It Doesn't Pay To Be Gay In The United States Of Discrimination
Phil Villareal writes on Consumerist about one more way gays and lesbians pay through being prohibited to marry -- or if they are married, not having their marriages recognized by the federal government:

Same-sex couples reportedly pay as much as $6,000 more a year in taxes because they aren't allowed to file jointly.
...Taxes paid on health insurance premiums also come into play. In an example cited in the story, a gay couple earning $100,000, with one spouse staying at home, may have to pay $4,543 in federal taxes more than a straight couple due to taxes on health insurance premiums from disadvantages in filing as a head of household.

On the other side of the coin, some gay couples may benefit financially by avoiding the marriage penalty, in which a high-income couple with no kids may have to pay more taxes than they would if they filed as single. But that's the exception rather than the rule.

Punishing a couple financially due to sexuality is unfair. With the numerous changes in tax law each year, it's tough to figure why the IRS hasn't come up with a fix to the issue.

Gays and lesbians are treated as not quite citizens, with not quite full rights, by the federal government; why would the IRS not follow suit in continuing to discriminate?

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Patriotic Millionaires Want Taxes Raised On Wealthy Americans
But, The Daily Caller's Michelle Fields encountered an interesting response when she hit up these millionaires to donate to the US Treasury:

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Volokh: Should Prostitution Be Legalized?
I think so -- with the caveats Eugene Volokh posed when posing the question on his blog. Here it is:

Do you think prostitution should generally be legalized, or should it remain criminal? Let's set aside underage prostitution and forced prostitution (except insofar as one wants to argue that decriminalizing adult consensual prostitution would increase or decrease the incidence of underage or forced prostitution). Let's also set aside the question of whether soliciting sex for hire on streets should be criminal, since that raises some separate questions from those raised by non-street prostitution.

Again, my view, in short: It's your body, sell it if you want to. Consenting adults shouldn't have their sex lives (or sexual commerce they choose to engage in) criminalized by the state. Your view?

Oh, and before you give it, here's an interesting thought from commenter John Herbison over at Volokh:

When an act of prostitution is broken down into its component parts, the answer becomes clear. Consensual sexual activity among willing, unrelated adults is no crime. A gratuitous transfer of money from one person to another is no crime. What, then, is the legitimate governmental interest in combining the two?
I have tried to make a list of activities, other than sex, which can lawfully be performed gratuitously, but not for hire. Voting is one. Donation of non-renewable body parts/fluids (that is, parts other than hair, blood, semen, eggs) is another. Governmental officials ordinarily cannot hire out decisionmaking or policy choices piecemeal, but can be compensated by salary.

Can anyone think of others?

I would hope that someday prostitution vis-a-vis sex in general will be regarded as commercial speech has been regarded relative to free expression generally-constitutionally protected, but subject to a greater degree of regulation to prohibit fraud or other harms.

And yes, you're allowed to refer to me as "Amy Alkon, website traffic whore" for running this poll (which may or may not generate traffic), but I'm also truly interested in hearing what you all think!

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

"Pepperoni, Or I'll Shoot!"
It's become criminal to be a boy. Boys play with guns. Tell them they can't have guns, and they'll make their fingers, their carrot, or...their slice of pizza into a gun.

And that's where things got dicey in Tennessee. WKRN has the story of a boy who allegedly pulled...a slice of pizza, and got disciplined for it:

SMYRNA, Tenn. - For the rest of the semester, a Rutherford County elementary student has to eat lunch at the "silent table" for allegedly waving around a slice of pizza some say resembled a gun.
Nicholas Taylor attends David Youree Elementary School in Smyrna, about 30 miles southeast of Nashville.

School leaders say the 10-year-old threatened other students at his lunch table with a piece of pizza with bites out of it so it looked like a gun and when asked about it was initially not truthful.

Nicholas' mother LeAnn calls her son's punishment "absolutely ridiculous" saying he was just playing around and never said anything derogatory or anything about shooting anyone.

"The kid across the table from him said it looked like a gun so he picked it up and started shooting it in the air," she told Nashville's News 2 Investigates.

Pizzas don't kill people; people aiming pizzas kill people...right?

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Don't Want To Vaccinate Your Kid?
Fine. Don't let them ever leave the house, and only get your food and supplies pushed through a slot in your gate. Heard of "herd immunity"?

Benjamin Domenech concurs, writing at HealthCareNews:

Parents have the right to opt their children out of vaccinations as they see fit. It is their child, after all, not the government's.
But when this happens, it must be understood as an act of self-segregation. Parents who refuse to allow their children to be vaccinated must understand they are deciding to teach their children at home or in schools that will allow unvaccinated children to enroll. The rest of the community should not have to bear the risk of a rise in preventable disease.

The role of government in the matter should be to ensure people aren't allowed to impose their choices on others, which means if we're going to have public schools and children are required to attend, we can't allow them to admit unvaccinated children.

All parents would do well to consider the words of Benjamin Franklin, who wrote movingly on the topic, from personal experience:

"In 1736, I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the smallpox," Franklin wrote. "I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it, my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen."

As Franklin acknowledges, the choice here belongs to the parents, and it ought to. But every choice has consequences, and those with knowledge of the risks and rewards must educate and inform parents of what the consequences of refusing vaccination can be for their child and their neighbors' children as well.

Got polio?

via ifeminists

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Just Call Him "Ron Paul Bachmann"
What's with the Republican party in that the people in the running for the nomination are such premodern nimrods?

Via CBS News, "Ron Paul: I don't accept the theory of evolution":

From the CBS link above, the transcript:

"Well, first i thought it was a very inappropriate question, you know, for the presidency to be decided on a scientific matter," he said. "I think it's a theory...the theory of evolution and I don't accept it as a theory. But I think the creator that i know, you know created us, every one of us and created the universe and the precise time and manner and all. I just don't think we're at the point where anybody has absolute proof on either side."

"The creator that I know"? You've sat down and had a beer with the guy? Or somebody told you that there's a god and you nodded your head up and down and got into the rhythm of that?

The nitwit also doesn't understand the meaning of "theory" in science. Via FSteiger:

Creationists argue that evolution is "only a theory and cannot be proven."
As used in science, a theory is an explanation or model based on observation, experimentation, and reasoning, especially one that has been tested and confirmed as a general principle helping to explain and predict natural phenomena.

Any scientific theory must be based on a careful and rational examination of the facts. A clear distinction needs to be made between facts (things which can be observed and/or measured) and theories (explanations which correlate and interpret the facts.

A fact is something that is supported by unmistakeable evidence.

...Creationists refuse to subject their "theories" to peer reviews, because they know they don't fit the facts. The creationist mindset is distorted by the concept of "good science" (creationism) vs. "bad science" (anything not in agreement with creationism). Creation "scientists" are biblical fundamentalists who can not accept anything contrary to their sectarian religioius beliefs.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Advice Goddess Radio: Get The Podcast -- Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky On Happiness
"Nerd your way to a better life" with Advice Goddess Radio.

Gregg says last night's show was my best yet. I had on happiness researcher Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, the least sappy authority on happiness you'll ever encounter.

Lyubomirsky is terrific because she not only studies what makes us happy but gives practical advice on how we can be happier -- even substantially happier -- by making small shifts in our attitude and behavior. Here's the link to get the podcast:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2011/12/26/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon

She's really solid on science and wrote the fantastic book, The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want, which I highly recommend.

Next week on Advice Goddess Radio, Dr. Helen Smith on men and men's issues, also at a slightly different time than usual (1:30-2:30 pm Eastern, 4:30-530 pm Pacific):

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/01/01/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon

I'll be posting an entry later in the week for you to leave comments and questions for Dr. Helen and me.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Ron Paul Is Anti-Israel But Not Anti-Semitic: And Yes, There Is A Difference
A former senior aide to Ron Paul, Eric Dondero, posts his impressions of the man on RightWingNews:

Is Ron Paul a "racist." In short, No. I worked for the man for 12 years, pretty consistently. I never heard a racist word expressed towards Blacks or Jews come out of his mouth. Not once. And understand, I was his close personal assistant. It's safe to say that I was with him on the campaign trail more than any other individual, whether it be traveling to Fairbanks, Alaska or Boston, Massachusetts in the presidential race, or across the congressional district to San Antonio or Corpus Christi, Texas.
He has frequently hired blacks for his office staff, starting as early as 1988 for the Libertarian campaign. He has also hired many Hispanics, including his current District staffer Dianna Gilbert-Kile.

One caveat: He is what I would describe as "out of touch," with both Hispanic and Black culture. Ron is far from being the hippest guy around. He is completely clueless when it comes to Hispanic and Black culture, particularly Mexican-American culture. And he is most certainly intolerant of Spanish and those who speak strictly Spanish in his presence, (as are a number of Americans, nothing out of the ordinary here.)

Is Ron Paul an Anti-Semite? Absolutely No. As a Jew, (half on my mother's side), I can categorically say that I never heard anything out of his mouth, in hundreds of speeches I listened too over the years, or in my personal presence that could be called, "Anti-Semite." No slurs. No derogatory remarks.

He is however, most certainly Anti-Israel, and Anti-Israeli in general. He wishes the Israeli state did not exist at all. He expressed this to me numerous times in our private conversations. His view is that Israel is more trouble than it is worth, specifically to the America taxpayer. He sides with the Palestinians, and supports their calls for the abolishment of the Jewish state, and the return of Israel, all of it, to the Arabs.

His whack-job thinking sticks out all over the place like unruly hairs -- like this bit about 9-11:

He engaged in conspiracy theories including perhaps the attacks were coordinated with the CIA, and that the Bush administration might have known about the attacks ahead of time.

Well, yes, and there could be life on Mars.

By the way, Ron Paul didn't storm out of the CNN interview where Gloria Borger badgered him to death about his old newsletters. In fact, I think he handled it (and her) rather well, and with a bit of a sense of humor:

Dondero publishes LibertarianRepublican.net.

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"Maturity Is For Boring Assholes"
Cracked.com's "5 Ways We Ruined the Occupy Wall Street Generation." An excerpt from #5:

#5. Making You Ashamed to Take Manual Labor Jobs
See, we were raised on 1980s movies and sitcoms, and the "cold, unfeeling grownup who works too hard" was the villain in half of them. The whole point of these "body switching" comedies -- where a kid winds up in the body of a grownup -- was that the career-driven workaholic dad learned what life was really all about. The message was clear: If you work too hard, you'll lose your soul.

The characters who worked their asses off were shown to be stiff prudes who come down on the lighthearted main character with an iron fist. Or maybe that person is the main character, but by the end they realize that the only way to truly enjoy life is to lighten up and embrace their inner child. They finally stand up and quit their grindstone job in a hail of applause, and live a life of stress free bliss.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

No Child Pushed Ahead
The government is a giant dinosaur in a china shop and government involvement is rarely the best solution (or even a workable solution) to problems. Invariably, corruption -- of one sort or another (and not always the financial kind) -- sets in. This is certainly the case in education. Sol Stern writes at City-Journal of the unintended consequences of No Child Left Behind:

The law demanded that all American students be "proficient" in reading and math by 2014 and imposed increasingly onerous sanctions on districts and schools that failed to make adequate progress toward that goal--but then let each state set its own proficiency standard. To look good to the feds and the public, education authorities unsurprisingly lowered standards and found other ways to game the tests (see "Can New York Clean Up the Testing Mess?," Spring 2010).
But NCLB's accountability system led to another distortion, this one harming top students. Because the law emphasized mere "proficiency," rewarding schools for getting their students to achieve that fairly low standard, teachers and administrators had an incentive to boost the test scores of their lowest-performing students but no incentive to improve instruction for their brightest. Robert Pondiscio, communications director for the Core Knowledge Foundation and a former New York City Teaching Fellow, describes how the process worked at his South Bronx elementary school. "Eighty percent of the kids in my fifth-grade class were scoring at the two lowest levels on the state reading and math tests," he recalls. (Each student in New York State receives a test score from 1 to 4, with 1 signifying performance far below grade level, 2 below grade level, 3 grade level, and 4 advanced.) "Early in my teaching career, an assistant principal told me that the kids in my class already scoring a 3 or 4 'are not your problem.' In other words, my goal should be to move the kids scoring at the lower levels up a few points on the scale. I was not specifically ordered to do this, but the message was very clear. My job was to get more kids over the lowest two hurdles, because that's how the school was rewarded for good performance in the city's accountability system."

As a result, Pondiscio says, the few gifted minority students in his class didn't receive any extra attention--attention that could have given them a better chance to pass the rigorous test for admission to one of the city's elite specialized science and math high schools. That's especially sad when you learn that the percentage of black students passing the admissions test for top-ranked Stuyvesant High School has dropped steadily over the past decade. Last year, it fell below 1 percent.

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Imam: "You Don't Have Freedom Of Speech In Islam"
Say that as a non-Muslim and you're a "hater" or "Islamophobic." So...should Abu Mussab Wajdi Akkari, the imam in the video, be called "Islamophobic"...or "honest"?

He also rails against democracy and other such evils of western society. Because living like it's the dark ages is so much better.

Oh, and check out the guy's history. Sounds like a lost boy looking for a cause -- and he found one: trying to overturn Enlightenment values.

In other news from the world of Islam, Iran says a woman set to be stoned for adultery might be hanged instead.

via answeringmuslims

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Year-End Deals In Kitchen Stuff!
Kitchen Stuff For Less! At Amazon.

You'll not only be saving, you'll be supporting my work and this site. Thank you so much to everyone who did that this Christmas and all year. Your purchases are much-appreciated. I just spent four weeks researching and writing a column that debunks some ugly myths about men and domestic violence, and these Amazon kickbacks help me make ends meet so I can put in that sort of work when a subject calls for it.

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Tonight (7:30-8:30 pm PT) On Advice Goddess Radio: Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky On How To Be Happier
It's Advice Goddess Radio -- "Nerd your way to a better life!" by joining me for fascinating and fun discussions about love, dating sex and relationships with the top brains from psychology and science.

THIS WEEK, you'll learn how you can be happier by taking some small and easy steps. I'll be talking with a very exciting guest, UC Riverside psychology professor, Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of "The How of Happiness," and a researcher I greatly respect. Listen live to the show with Sonja or pick up the podcast at this link:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2011/12/26/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon

Lyubomirsky is terrific because she not only studies what makes us happy but gives practical advice on how we can be happier...even substantially happier, by making small shifts in our attitude and behavior. I highly recommend her book, which you can buy at this link.

I've referenced Lyubomirsky's work in my columns and it's the foundation of Chapter 10 -- "It's Nice To Be Nice" -- in my book "I See Rude People," where I use it to show how it's in our self-interest to be generous and pro-social.

***The show will be on at a slightly different time this week, 7:30 to 8:30 pm Pacific. (Next week, I'll have another very exciting guest, Dr. Helen Smith, on men and issues relating to men.)

Lyubomirsky's research can be found here, on her UC Riverside website.

You can also subscribe to my show on iTunes (search "Amy Alkon") or listen to any of the shows I've done at this link:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/

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Ease Up: Unwad Your Atheistic Panties About Christmas
I'm a atheist, and I love Christmas. It's pretty, it's warm, and it's fun (when people aren't, as I like to put it, beating the living crap out of their neighbor to buy the last Nintendo in the name of peace, love, and goodwill toward men).

In fact, I wish people would leave Christmas lights on their houses and Christmas trees up year-round. They look happy.

I don't understand the contortions atheist Alain de Botton had to go through to get okay with Christmas -- except that maybe the decade of one's asshole-ity, the 20s, was the time he went through his particular contortions.

I'm going to the neighbors' tomorrow for an early Christmas dinner before my radio show (7:30-8:30 pm PT, this week only -- with happiness researcher Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky).

Anyway, their little girl made me a really cute little beaded heart and a card -- with the rather athee-menical message, "Happy Holidays." (I think her mom probably told her my origins are more eight days of oil than Santa on the roof.)

Whatever.

What counts are all the little hearts on the card, and the fact that it occurred to her to make me a little keepsake (to go with the interestingly braided yarn necklace she made me that's sitting on my desk...warming the cockles of my heart, whatever the hell cockles are).

Hmmm...mollusks.

Merry Christmas!

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Should We Have Paid For Your Signs And Gotten You Hotel Rooms, Too?
I am all for people protesting -- even if I don't agree with their views.

But, who should fund a protest -- the protesters or the taxpayers? The Tea Partiers did their protesting during the day and went home at night, and left no cans of poo for municipal workers to pick up. In LA alone, the cost from the Occupiers down at City Hall is more than $2.35 million.

A street-cleaning ticket in LA (for just forgetting to move your car on street-cleaning day) is already $68. My DWP trash charges are so high -- for one girl with one tiny little dog -- that I'm contemplating importing trash from Connecticut to throw in my bin, just so I can come close to getting my money's worth.

Sure, protest, everybody. But, clean up after yourself or pay for the cleanup (and resodding of City Hall). Am I right?

From the LA Times:

Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich is considering a lawsuit against Occupy L.A. protesters to reimburse the city for damage caused during the occupation of the City Hall lawn.
..."In isolation, the cost is manageable. But in the context of a $72-million problem, it only made our challenge bigger," said Santana, the city's top budget analyst.

The Los Angeles Police Department, which raided the camp Nov. 30 and arrested nearly 300 people, spent an estimated $1.2 million on overtime pay as a result of the demonstration and subsequent sweep, Santana said in his preliminary report. The General Services Department's police force, which patrols city parks and buildings, racked up an additional $335,000 of overtime.

Carlos Marroquin, a representative of Occupy L.A., called the figures "outrageous" and argued that the city should have set aside money for special events and protests. He accused city leaders of trying to make the Occupy movement a scapegoat and described the intense police response, which involved 1,400 officers, as unnecessary.

Attorney (and the mayoral candidate I -- happily -- voted for) Walter Moore weighs in from reality in the LAT's comments:

And if the City wins, after spending tens of thousands of dollars' worth of time on the case, what will the City recover? Nine used tents? A shopping cart? Trutanich will not file an action. He just wants a headline.

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The Conservative Case For Preserving Gay Marriage In New Hampshire
Travis Blais writes in the Nashua Telegraph about why conservatives should oppose gay marriage repeal in New Hampshire:

First and foremost, conservatives should stand up for freedom. Among America's defining phrases are "We the people," "We hold these truths to be self-evident," and "We leave you alone if you're not hurting anybody."
Living in a free society means other people may do things you don't agree with. Of course, no freedom is absolute. But when balancing competing interests, liberty should win unless there's compelling evidence of harm to others. This is a strong presumption.

For instance, conservatives correctly support the individual right to keep and bear arms, notwithstanding that misuse of firearms can kill people. No evidence suggests gay marriage can be fatal to innocent bystanders.

...Let's bring committed and functional, albeit nontraditional, families inside the pro-family tent. If you believe in working hard and obeying the law, maintaining a stable and loving home, and raising self-sufficient and conscientious children, there's no reason not to be on the same team.

That would promote conservative values in a way no law ever could.

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Year-End Deals In Computer Stuff
Year-End Deals! at Amazon. Buy a new computer or monitor or joy stick (heh) for the one you love the most.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

TSA-Creep: Be Prepared To Be Groped And Photographed -- Everywhere You Go
Those of you who go quietly at the TSA checkpoints, despite how they're violating our Fourth Amendment right against being searched without reasonable suspicion we've committed a crime, this is where that leads.

Regular commenter Eric wrote:

I took my kid and his friend to the indoor water park today. They made a copy of my driver's license and took a photo of all three of us for their records. No photo, no copy, no entry. WTF???

My reply:

Wow, Eric - this is awful. This is the creep that I see happening vis a vis the TSA being allowed to continue violating our rights at airports. A private business has the right to set up conditions for entry, but I believe it's only possible for them to do this now -- to even consider doing it -- because of the TSA.

Via Drudge, massive expansion of TSA checkpoints seems in store. More here in the LA Times.

I think we as Americans are so physically comfortable and have such easy lives (in so many ways -- all of us, me included) that many or most of us just don't have it in us to speak out against any sort of violation of our rights. This is very dangerous, as I wrote in my piece on the erosion of civil liberties and what we need to do to protest, that no mainstream US outlet would publish, but that the Russian newspaper Pravda finally did:

The TSA's main accomplishment seems to be obedience training for the American public -- priming us to be docile (and even polite) when ordered to give up our civil liberties. Not only does the TSA violate our Fourth Amendment rights, they've posted signs that effectively eradicate our First Amendment right to speak out about it. One such sign, in Denver International Airport, offers the vague warning that "verbal abuse" of agents will "not be tolerated." Travelers are left to wonder whether it's "verbal abuse" to inform the TSA agent with his latex-gloved hands on their testicles that this isn't making us safer, or are they only in trouble if they pepper their statement with obscenities? Not surprisingly, few seem willing to speak out and risk arrest.
I believe I've found a less risky and more impactful way to protest, and it's through sobbing. I'm calling on American women to do as I did at the TSA checkpoint: Opt for the pat-down and sob their guts out.

Think about it. What better way to draw attention to the inappropriateness of government-sanctioned groping than hearing mothers, wives and daughters react viscerally to having their private parts touched by strangers -- in each and every airport across America each and every day.

As the 18th century economist Adam Smith noted, sympathy for others is a powerful human motivator. Because a bureaucracy's first duty is protecting itself, perhaps our only chance of revoking the pointless daily rights grab that is the TSA is to evoke wide-scale sympathy. Helpfully, there's plausible deniability for a sobbing woman. We can suspect she's manufacturing her tears, but we can't prove it.

Some find it an absurd contradiction that I write books on bringing back manners, and yet I'm encouraging people to sob at these checkpoints. The truth is, good manners don't always involve going quietly. Sometimes, like when our civil liberties are violated, the most civil thing a person can do is be as loud and uncivil as possible. Still, I'm a realist. I know that most people will not follow my lead. But, maybe, every day, at every TSA checkpoint, a few will bust out in tears. And maybe, just maybe, through the spectacle of this, we can claw back some of the rights we've so docilely given up.

The notion that we can ever have complete physical safety is a ludicrous one. We cannot insure that -- not even by throwing away all of our civil liberties. What's alarming is how people are mewling about protecting our physical selves without considering how dangerous it is to give up our rights and stand there cow-eyed waiting to be told what to do next. Every time we go all "We The Sheeple...", every time we allow one more Constitutional right to be taken from us, it makes it that much easier to take the next and the next...until we wake up one day wondering how we ended up living in a police state. I think it's far better that we do our sobbing now than then.

Pssst! Can somebody please try to get the Pravda link to Drudge? It needs wide linkage to be successful -- so at least a few Americans will join me in standing up for our Constitutional rights at the airport...and beyond.

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Special Guest Sunday Night, Advice Goddess Radio: Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky
Tomorrow night's show is at a special time - 7:30-8:30 pm Pacific - with a podcast avail afterward at same link, for any of you who are still tossing 'em back with Santa when the show's on.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2011/12/26/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon

I'll be talking with a very exciting guest, UC Riverside psychology professor Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of "The How of Happiness," and a researcher I greatly respect.

We'll also talk about some of her very exciting new research on how you can maintain happiness -- instead of adapting to people and situations in your life (and basically developing a sort of ennui about them).

I highly recommend her book, which you can buy at this link. I've referenced Lyubomirsky's work in my columns and it's the foundation of Chapter 10 -- "It's Nice To Be Nice" -- in my book "I See Rude People," where I use it to show how it's in our self-interest to be generous and pro-social.

(Call-in number during the show: 347-326-9761 -- NYC area code. Please call in with comments or to ask advice. Always more interesting with listener participation!)

UPDATE: Subscribe on iTunes by searching "Amy Alkon"

Listen to my last show, with the terrific David DiSalvo, science journo and author of a fantastic new book on common human cognitive errors, "What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite", here:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2011/12/19/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon

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Illegal Cream For Your Coffee
The nanny state is "protecting" citizens from drinking the unpasteurized milk they want, blogs BreakTheMatrix:

Kinzers PA - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) apparent war on Amish raw dairy farmers increased on December 6 when they filed a "motion for summary judgment," with Pennsylvania judge Lawrence Stengler asking for a permanent injunction against dairy farmer Dan Allgyer to forbid him from selling fresh milk out of state. FDA regulation 21 CFR §1240.61 criminalizes any selling of milk intended to cross state lines.
After a two year expensive, exhaustive undercover operation, including multiple armed raids on Allgyer's farm, FDA agents and a team of ten federal lawyers amassed over two hundred and seventy-six pages of evidence allegedly proving what Allgyer openly admits, that he is selling fresh (raw, unpasteurized) milk to customers who knowingly carry the milk across state lines.

Thousands of Maryland customers who have been buying from Allgyer for years were the main focus for evidence during the investigation. In spite of the FDA raids and injunction filing, Allgyer has continued to support his customers' needs for fresh milk and other farm foods, citing his God-given inalienable rights.

Like most Amish, Allgyer is reluctant to participant in the legal system, but he has chosen to respond and his response claims that the FDA action "has created a serious dilemma" by "violating [his] due process and equal protection under the law" and he "is prepared to proceed with a public court forum, if necessary."

Should Stengler sign the motion, the injunction would not ban Allgyer from selling in Pennsylvania, but the Maryland families he supplies would lose their food source, he would lose his out-of-state business and would be subjected to strenuous regulation and unannounced, unlimited, unwarranted inspections at his expense, including costs of travel, food, lodging and per diems for inspectors. A single inspection could cost up to $10,000.

Wait -- we taxpayers have funded "a two year expensive, exhaustive undercover operation" to stop a farmer from selling his cows' milk to his customers who want it?

Brilliant. And people wonder why we're katrillions in debt.

via ifeminists

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Arrogance Without Portfolio
From the WSJ, Obama has a rather high opinion of himself as president:

Mr. Obama was recently asked by CBS's Steve Croft on "60 Minutes" to reflect on his Presidency to date, and the outtakes of the interview that aired last Sunday have been posted online. "The issue here is not going be a list of accomplishments," Mr. Obama responded. "As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign-policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president--with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR and Lincoln--just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we've got a lot more work to do."
You've got to love the "possible" in that sentence about FDR and Lincoln. Perhaps Mr. Obama would have dropped the diminishing modifier if old Abe hadn't taken so darn long to free the slaves or win the Civil War. It's also notable that poor George Washington didn't make the Obama cut. Historians may consider Washington to be America's "indispensable man," but he never did campaign on a promise to lower sea levels.

...The New York Times reported in November that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told Mr. Obama shortly after the election in 2008 that "Your legacy is going to be preventing the second Great Depression." Mr. Obama responded, "That's not enough for me."

At this point, we'd settle for Chester A. Arthur or Martin Van Buren.

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Islamic "Tolerance" Of Other Religions
If Egyptian Coptic Christians are lucky, the Muslims around them will tolerate letting them live. Lucette Lagnado writes in the WSJ:

Kirolos Andraws had every reason to be excited about the January uprising in his native Egypt, figuring democracy would bring hope for young people like him. Copts Seek Asylum in America
Then one day in February, says Mr. Andraws, a gang of thugs beat him and told him, "you deserve to die." His offense, he says: refusing to convert to Islam.

In late March, Mr. Andraws, a 23-year- old engineer, used a tourist visa to board an Egyptair flight for New York City. He let a room in a friend's apartment, hired an immigration lawyer and applied for asylum. He has survived mainly on wages and tips from jobs as a cook, cashier and delivery man.

"I have no other option," says Mr. Andraws, who found refuge at a Queens church that's become a way station for Copts arriving in New York.

Mr. Andraws is one of thousands of Coptic Christians--followers of an ancient form of Christianity with its own language and rituals--who have come to the U.S. to escape rising persecution in Egypt.

For decades Copts have suffered attacks by Islamists who view them as "kafir"--Arabic for nonbelievers. But there is now a sense among Middle East experts that they have become more vulnerable since the revolution.

St George's Coptic Orthodox Church in Brooklyn, NY, has seen a dramatic influx of Coptic Christian refugees from Egypt since the overthrow of President Mubarak. Father Luke Awad does what he can to make them welcome. Photo: Gabriele Stabile/Cesuralab

This year, mobs have looted and attacked Coptic churches, homes and shops throughout Egypt. Churches have been burned down, and one Copt had his ear cut off by a Muslim cleric invoking Islamic law.

This is why any country becoming a Muslim majority country is a thing to be feared -- especially for people of other religions, apostates (who are to be slaughtered under Islam), gays, lesbians, and women. Is there anyone here who doesn't understand why fearing that is not "Islamophobia," but a very real thing to worry about?

More on the myth that religious minorities flourish under Islam, from the religionofpeace.com:

What Muslims call "tolerance," others correctly identify as institutionalized discrimination. The consignment of Jews and Christians to dhimmis under Islamic rule means that they are not allowed the same religious rights and freedoms as Muslims. They cannot share their faith, for example, or build houses of worship without permission.
...For those who are not "the People of the Book," such as Hindus and atheists, there is very little tolerance to be found once Islam establishes political superiority. The Quran tells Muslims to "fight in the way of Allah" until "religion is only for Allah." The conquered populations face death if they do not establish regular prayer and charity in the Islamic tradition (ie. the pillars of Islam).

Tamerlane and other Muslim warriors slaughtered tens of millions of Hindus and Buddhists, and displaced or forcibly converted millions more over the last thousand years. Islamists in Somalia behead Christians. In Iran, they are jailed.

One of the great ironies of Islam is that non-Muslims are to be treated according to the very standards by which Muslims themselves would claim the right to violent self-defense were the shoe on the other foot. Islam is its own justification. Most Muslims therefore feel no need to explain the ingrained arrogance and double standard.

There are about 500 verses in the Quran that speak of Allah's hatred for non-Muslims and the punishment that he has prepared for their unbelief. There is also a tiny handful that say otherwise, but these are mostly earlier verses that many scholars consider to be abrogated by the later, more violent ones.

As for Sura 109, any true Quran scholar will point out that the purpose of the verse was to distinguish Islam from the gods of the Quraysh (one of which was named "Allah") rather than to advocate religious tolerance for non-Muslims. At the time that he narrated this very early verse, Muhammad did not have any power, and thus no choice but to be "tolerant" of others. By contrast, there was no true tolerance shown when he returned to Mecca with power many years later and demanded the eviction or death of anyone who would not convert to Islam. In fact, he physically destroyed the cherished idols of the people to whom he had previously addressed in Sura 109.

If tolerance simply means discouraging the mass slaughter of those of a different faith, then today's Islam generally meets this standard more often than not. But, if tolerance means allowing people of other faiths the same religious liberties that Muslims enjoy, then Islam is fundamentally the most intolerant religion under the sun.

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TSA: "Terrorism Is Chocolatey And Delicious"
Sarah just sent me this Cory Doctorow BoingBoing link, to a TSA worker confiscating somebody's frosting. Rebecca writes:

The agent who first found my dangerously delectable snack consulted [REDACTED] about it just barely within my earshot. He responded hesitantly at first, saying that he was "not sure"--and "with the holidays coming, it's getting harder and harder." When he finally decided my treat was a no-go, I asked to speak with him directly, and he asserted that the frosting on this red velvet cupcake is "gel-like" enough to constitute a liquid, in part because it "conforms to its container." Also: it "should have been in a zip-lock." At this, I offered to scoop my dangerously conformist cupcake out of its jar and place it in a zip-lock bag, where it could mush about to its heart's content; but Agent [REDACTED] wisely refused. After all, the jar in all its tasty glory "clearly contains more than 3 ounces of total contents," he said.
I then explained to [REDACTED] that I'd been allowed to bring cupcakes-in-jars through Boston's Logan airport on my outbound flight with no problem (the TSA agent there had exclaimed, "These look delicious!"). To this logic, [REDACTED] responded, "If Boston had done their job right in the first place, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now." (Take that, Boston!)

CLEARLY [REDACTED] is in the right, because unbeknownst to him, when I had previously opened one of these marvelous cupcakes on the flight from Boston, everyone's safety was jeopardized. There was pandemonium among my hunger-crazed fellow travelers: Everybody wanted one. (Just like [REDACTED], who probably ate my cupcake on his next break.)

Oh, and apparently, Cory missed one of the TSA worker's names at first [REDACT]. Apparently, according to a BoingBoing commenter, it's Epps. EPPS! EPPS! EPPS in Vegas.

Come on -- don't let these people earning a rather tasty living violating our rights (along with the most basic common sense) get away without having their names named. When you get groped -- or have your chocolate frosting yanked from you in the name of "security," NAME NAMES.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

They're TSA WORKERS, Not Officers
These are not trained law enforcement officers, these ball gropers and vagina pokers at the airport. They are TSA workers, and should be called "workers," and should wear outfits that reflect that.

Tennessee Republican congresswoman Marsha Blackburn is ~~arranging deck chairs on the Titanic~~ sponsoring the STRIP Act -- Stop TSA's Reach In Policy, that the LA Times says "would prevent Transportation Security Administration officers from wearing law enforcement uniforms and police-like badges and calling themselves officers unless they receive law enforcement training":

"Congress has sat idly by as the TSA strip searches 85-year-old grandmothers in New York, pats down 3-year-olds in Chattanooga, and checks colostomy bags for explosives in Orlando. Enough is enough!" said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) "The least we can do is end this impersonation, which is an insult to real cops."
The American Federation of Government Employees said the bill was insulting to the 44,000 TSA workers it represented and did "nothing to add to our national security."

Then again, neither do they. From an earlier version of my op-ed on the TSA and the erosion of our civil liberties (mostly cut out of the final version that ran in Pravda after no major mainstream American outlets would publish it), here are some details:

Although some believe the TSA's efforts keep air travel safe, security expert Bruce Schneier deems them "security theater" -- a massive show put on by the government to lead us to believe we're safer when we're just pointlessly delayed, harassed, and groped. On 9/10/2001, most of us would have guessed that a terrorist on a plane would want a bag of money and a trip to Bolivia. By the afternoon of 9/11, it became impossible for any terrorist to ever again bring down a plane with a box-cutter. Still, in 2010, at a Toronto airport TSA checkpoint, a supervisor told me I was "lucky" that he wasn't going to take away my dull little drugstore tweezers. Take away my tweezers? Why? Because I might use them to break into the cockpit and overpluck the pilot's eyebrows?
While the TSA is successful in separating many passengers from their small, semi-sharp objects, it's the scary items that slip past their checkpoints. In February of 2011, a TSA tester snuck a gun through the body scanners in Dallas. Not just once. Five times. A month before, it took only a $100 bribe by undercover TSA agents to get an unaccompanied package on a JetBlue flight. If a terrorist has a bomb that won't fit in the overhead, he can bribe an airport restaurant delivery guy to bring it in with the bread, and then bribe some baggage handler to load it onto a plane. The TSA has been too busy removing the diapers and dignity of grandmothers with leukemia or dementia to plug the gaping security holes in cargo and food service.

Anti-TSA activist Lisa Simeone reminded me via email that the TSA "hasn't thwarted one single attempted attack in their multi-billion-dollar history. (If they had, don't you think they'd be trumpeting it from now to kingdom come?)" As for the two acts of terror that have been prevented, Simeone noted that shoe bomber Richard Reid and pantybomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab were stopped by other passengers.

There's an excellent piece by Charles C. Mann in Vanity Fair on Schneier and his thoughts on the TSA. Some salient bits:

As we came by the checkpoint line, Schneier described one of these aspects: the ease with which people can pass through airport security with fake boarding passes. First, scan an old boarding pass, he said--more loudly than necessary, it seemed to me. Alter it with Photoshop, then print the result with a laser printer. In his hand was an example, complete with the little squiggle the T.S.A. agent had drawn on it to indicate that it had been checked. "Feeling safer?" he asked.
..."The only useful airport security measures since 9/11," he says, "were locking and reinforcing the cockpit doors, so terrorists can't break in, positive baggage matching"--ensuring that people can't put luggage on planes, and then not board them --"and teaching the passengers to fight back. The rest is security theater."

...Remember the fake boarding pass that was in Schneier's hand? Actually, it was mine. I had flown to meet Schneier at Reagan National Airport because I wanted to view the security there through his eyes. He landed on a Delta flight in the next terminal over. To reach him, I would have to pass through security. The day before, I had downloaded an image of a boarding pass from the Delta Web site, copied and pasted the letters with Photoshop, and printed the results with a laser printer. I am not a photo-doctoring expert, so the work took me nearly an hour. The T.S.A. agent waved me through without a word. A few minutes later, Schneier deplaned, compact and lithe, in a purple shirt and with a floppy cap drooping over a graying ponytail.

The boarding-pass problem is hardly the only problem with the checkpoints. Taking off your shoes is next to useless. "It's like saying, Last time the terrorists wore red shirts, so now we're going to ban red shirts," Schneier says. If the T.S.A. focuses on shoes, terrorists will put their explosives elsewhere. "Focusing on specific threats like shoe bombs or snow-globe bombs simply induces the bad guys to do something else. You end up spending a lot on the screening and you haven't reduced the total threat."

As I waited at security with my fake boarding pass, a T.S.A. agent had darted out and swabbed my hands with a damp, chemically impregnated cloth: a test for explosives. Schneier said, "Apparently the idea is that al-Qaeda has never heard of latex gloves and wiping down with alcohol." The uselessness of the swab, in his view, exemplifies why Americans should dismiss the T.S.A.'s frequent claim that it relies on "multiple levels" of security. For the extra levels of protection to be useful, each would have to test some factor that is independent of the others. But anyone with the intelligence and savvy to use a laser printer to forge a boarding pass can also pick up a stash of latex gloves to wear while making a bomb.

...After a public outcry, T.S.A. officers began waving through medical supplies that happen to be liquid, including bottles of saline solution. "You fill one of them up with liquid explosive," Schneier said, "then get a shrink-wrap gun and seal it. The T.S.A. doesn't open shrink-wrapped packages." I asked Schneier if he thought terrorists would in fact try this approach. Not really, he said. Quite likely, they wouldn't go through the checkpoint at all. The security bottlenecks are regularly bypassed by large numbers of people--airport workers, concession-stand employees, airline personnel, and T.S.A. agents themselves (though in 2008 the T.S.A. launched an employee-screening pilot study at seven airports). "Almost all of those jobs are crappy, low-paid jobs," Schneier says. "They have high turnover. If you're a serious plotter, don't you think you could get one of those jobs?"

...To walk through an airport with Bruce Schneier is to see how much change a trillion dollars can wreak. So much inconvenience for so little benefit at such a staggering cost. And directed against a threat that, by any objective standard, is quite modest. Since 9/11, Islamic terrorists have killed just 17 people on American soil, all but four of them victims of an army major turned fanatic who shot fellow soldiers in a rampage at Fort Hood. (The other four were killed by lone-wolf assassins.) During that same period, 200 times as many Americans drowned in their bathtubs. Still more were killed by driving their cars into deer.

My op-ed, "Standing up for our eroding civil liberties," calling for Americans to stop being all "We the Sheeple" in the face of our Constitutional rights being violated, was finally published by Pravda, with this note.

Note: This piece was submitted to numerous mainstream news outlets in America, all of which refused to publish it.

An excerpt:

This country's Founding Fathers were a bunch of obnoxious jerks -- and I mean that in the most reverent way. These were men who were fiercely opposed to blind obedience to authority, and who laid their lives on the line to flip it the bird. Oh, how disappointingly -- and dangerously -- far we've fallen. Our Constitutional rights are increasingly being eroded -- at TSA checkpoints, at police stops where citizens are arrested for videotaping, and elsewhere -- and so many Americans are just sitting there blinking like livestock.
At the airport this past March, I wasn't one of those people, and that sometimes comes with a price. In my case, $500,000. That's what a TSA agent's lawyer is demanding from me for "defaming" her client by saying she sexually violated me during the pat-down, and then for "libeling" her when I blogged about it. Marc J. Randazza, the First Amendment lawyer defending me, called her case "meritless," but this woman's notion that I should fund her existence for the rest of her life because I stood up for my Constitutional rights is beyond disgusting.

On March 31, 2011, I was flying out of LAX to attend a psychology conference in New York. When I reached the TSA checkpoint in the United terminal, I found that I had no choice but to get the pat-down. Tears welled up in my eyes -- for how we've allowed the Constitution to be ripped up at the airport door and because I was powerless to stop a total stranger from running her hands over the most private parts of my body as a condition of normal, ordinary business travel.

I was open about where I was flying and why; noting in public comments that I was flying to Binghamton to interview anthropologists Sarah Hrdy and Dan Nettle -- not to have coffee with Al Qaeda operatives.

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Who's A Terrorist Just Got Expanded
Via Lisa Simeone, Will Potter writes at GreenIsTheNewRed that even peaceful animal rights protesters can be prosecuted as terrorists:

The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force has kept files on activists who expose animal welfare abuses on factory farms and recommended prosecuting them as terrorists, according to a new document uncovered through the Freedom of Information Act.
This new information comes as the Center for Constitutional Rights has filed a lawsuit challenging the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) as unconstitutional because its vague wording has had a chilling effect on political activism. This document adds to the evidence demonstrating that the AETA goes far beyond property destruction, as its supporters claim.

The 2003 FBI file details the work of several animal rights activists who used undercover investigation to document repeated animal welfare violations. The FBI special agent who authored the report said they "illegally entered buildings owned by [redacted] Farm... and videotaped conditions of animals."

The animal activists caused "economic loss" to businesses, the FBI says. And they also openly rescued several animals from the abusive conditions. This was not done covertly in the style of underground groups like the Animal Liberation Front -- it was an act of non-violent civil disobedience and, as the FBI agent notes, the activists distributed press releases and conducted media interviews taking responsibility for their actions.

From the link above:

Representative Bobby Scott, a Democrat from Virginia, acknowledged that this "terrorism" law could still target non-violent civil disobedience. "... there are some who conscientiously believe that it is their duty to peacefully protest the operation of animal enterprises to the extent of engaging in civil disobedience," he said. "If a group's intention were to stage a sit-in or liedown or to block traffic to a targeted facility, they certainly run the risk of arrest for whatever traffic, trespass or other laws they may be breaking...
"To violate the provision of the bill, one must travel or otherwise engage in interstate activity with the intent to cause damage or loss to an animal enterprise. While the losses of profits, lab experiments or other intangible losses are included, it must be proved that such losses were specifically intended for the law to be applied."

In other words, those "who conscientiously believe that it is their duty to peacefully protest" through civil disobedience could be labeled terrorists. But only if they intended to make a difference.

Posted by steak lover Amy Alkon -- just in case anybody thinks I have a soft spot for tofu. Well, I do -- in a dumpster on soft bed of rotting trash, where anything that tastes like tofu belongs.

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Marriage Is "Between A Man And A Woman," Not Two Men And A Woman
Kevin Hoffman writes at CityPages that the Minnesota gay community has apologized to Senator Amy Koch for ruining her marriage, in the wake of news of her affair with one of her staffers:

The gay and lesbian community of Minnesota has issued a letter of apology to recently resigned Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch for ruining the institution of marriage and causing her to stray from her husband and engage in an "inappropriate relationship."
"On behalf of all gays and lesbians living in Minnesota, I would like to wholeheartedly apologize for our community's successful efforts to threaten your traditional marriage," reads the letter from John Medeiros. "We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry."

Full apology letter here. An excerpt:

An Open Apology to Amy Koch on Behalf of All Gay and Lesbian Minnesotans
Dear Ms. Koch,

On behalf of all gays and lesbians living in Minnesota, I would like to wholeheartedly apologize for our community's successful efforts to threaten your traditional marriage. We are ashamed of ourselves for causing you to have what the media refers to as an "illicit affair" with your staffer, and we also extend our deepest apologies to him and to his wife. These recent events have made it quite clear that our gay and lesbian tactics have gone too far, affecting even the most respectful of our society.

We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry. And we are doubly remorseful in knowing that many will see this as a form of sexual harassment of a subordinate.

...Forgive us. As you know, we are not church-going people, so we are unable to fully appreciate that "gay marriage" is incompatible with Christian values, despite the fact that those values carry a biblical tradition of adultery such as yours. We applaud you for keeping that tradition going.

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A $250K Chevy -- Paid For By Taxpayers
Each Chevy Volt is costing taxpayers up to $250,000, writes Tom Gantert at CapCon:

Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as much as $250,000 in state and federal dollars in incentives behind it - a total of $3 billion altogether, according to an analysis by James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Hohman looked at total state and federal assistance offered for the development and production of the Chevy Volt, General Motors' plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. His analysis included 18 government deals that included loans, rebates, grants and tax credits. The amount of government assistance does not include the fact that General Motors is currently 26 percent owned by the federal government.

The Volt subsidies flow through multiple companies involved in production. The analysis includes adding up the amount of government subsidies via tax credits and direct funding for not only General Motors, but other companies supplying parts for the vehicle. For example, the Department of Energy awarded a $105.9 million grant to the GM Brownstown plant that assembles the batteries. The company was also awarded approximately $106 million for its Hamtramck assembly plant in state credits to retain jobs. The company that supplies the Volt's batteries, Compact Power, was awarded up to $100 million in refundable battery credits (combination tax breaks and cash subsidies). These are among many of the subsidies and tax credits for the vehicle.

It's unlikely that all the companies involved in Volt production will ever receive all the $3 billion in incentives, Hohman said, because many of them are linked to meeting various employment and other milestones. But the analysis looks at the total value that has been offered to the Volt in different aspects of production - from the assembly line to the dealerships to the battery manufacturers. Some tax credits and subsidies are offered for periods up to 20 years, though most have a much shorter time frame.

GM has estimated they've sold 6,000 Volts so far. That would mean each of the 6,000 Volts sold would be subsidized between $50,000 and $250,000, depending on how many government subsidy milestones are realized.

via @ariarmstrong

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Seven-Year-Old Girl Asks Santa For Time With Her Dad
Tragic - from a Fathers and Families posting, a girl's list for Santa. From an email from F&F exec director Glenn Sacks (photo at the link):

Elena, the 7-year-old daughter of a Northern California Fathers and Families member, wrote Santa and told him this Christmas she wants flowers, earrings, and a puppy. But #1 on her list was "custady pappers that says I can see my dad more oftan."

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Communally Owned; Communally Let Go To Pot
John Koppisch blogs at Forbes about the sorry state of Indian reservations and the reason behind it:

To explain the poverty of the reservations, people usually point to alcoholism, corruption or school-dropout rates, not to mention the dusty undeveloped land that doesn't seem good for growing much and the long distances to jobs. But those are just symptoms. Prosperity is built on property rights, and reservations often have neither. They're a demonstration of what happens when property rights are weak or non-existent.
The vast majority of land on reservations is held communally. That means residents can't get clear title to the land where their home sits, one reason for the abundance of mobile homes on reservations. This makes it hard for Native Americans to establish credit and borrow money to improve their homes because they can't use the land as collateral-and investing in something you don't own makes little sense, anyway.

This leads to what economists call the tragedy of the commons: If everyone owns the land, no one does. So the result is substandard housing and the barren, rundown look that comes from a lack of investment, overuse and environmental degradation. It's a look that's common worldwide, wherever secure property rights are lacking--much of Africa and South America, inner city housing projects and rent-controlled apartment buildings in the U.S., Indian reservations.

More than a third of the Crow reservation's 2.3 million acres is individually owned, and the contrast with the communal land--often just on the other side of a fence--is stark, as Google satellite maps show. Terry Anderson, executive director of the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana, co-authored a study showing that private land is 30-90% more productive agriculturally than the adjacent trust land. And this isn't because the land is better: A study of 13 reservations in the West put 49% of the land in the top four quality classes, while only 38% of the land in the surrounding counties was rated that highly. For the Crow reservation, 48% of the land made the top four classes; only 33% of the adjacent land did. "The raw quality of the land is not that much different, it's the amount of investment in that land that's different," he says.

via @walterolson

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Solidarity For Blue Bra Woman
On CNN, I was heartened to see crowds of Egyptian women, some of them appearing to be women in their 60s or older, marching in protest of the savage stripping, stomping and beating of "blue bra woman" by the police-uniformed thugs:

(NOTE: I thought the photo formerly in this space, pulled from The Atlantic, was a screen grab from the video but Jay J. Hector told me it was actually a Reuters photograph, so I've removed it.)

On SlateXX, J. Bryan Lowder writes:

Based on the statements reported in the Times and in other media accounts, the women of all ages and political/religious orientations who took to the streets yesterday felt that the violation against this poor woman was a violation against them all. A repressive, virulently patriarchical society like the one the Egyptian military apparently wishes to foment in its country can only function with the tacit (whether coerced or freely given) consent of the women it oppresses. But when those same men who demand chastity, modesty, and all the rest prove themselves to be hypocrites by violently demeaning women in the streets, the silence is bound to be broken.

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Interesting Tactic If True: TSA Worker Nametag Swapping
Commenter Tenzo wrote this on my entry, "Why Did I Have To Go To Pravda To Get My Op-Ed About TSA Rape Published?"

The TSA in Columbus Ohio now use fake nametags so that you can not report them. I was gropped by a 45 year old fat guy with a badge that said "Rose".
When I complained that his name was not on his uniform he told me they trade all the time.

I emailed him:

Thank you so much for your comment. Do they have just first names on their name tags there? Looking to substantiate this or complain about this.

He wrote me back:

I got the search from one guy. Next time I came back he had a name tag that said "ROSE". Now I know I would have noticed that before so I asked him why his ID said "Rose" . He said they switch them up all the time. It's conjecture on my part that they do this so you can't report them. But to me this is like a cop putting on a fake badge. Or me getting pulled over for speeding and handing them someone else's driver's license.

He also added:

I always refuse the radiation booth. (Wife is a doctor. In hospitals they check the x-ray machines daily by qualified people. TSA? No requirement to check it and no one qualified as it is. These have been out for years. They are not being used safely and TSA agents who requested to wear dose meters as required in hospitals were told they could not. In addition x-ray machine must have warnings on them. The TSA does not do this.)

How many here suspect that we'll be paying for the medical care of the TSA agents who get cancer?

As for the alleged nametag swapping, can those of you who are frequent flyers substantiate this?

Or, if nobody can, can those of you who are frequent flyers, who take the same airline, and go through the same TSA groping station, pay attention each time you go through and verify this? Please email me with any information.

I wonder if the TSA workers suddenly have had a change in nametags: First names only? No nametags? If you've been flying or are flying, please leave a comment about it on this post.

And as I did previously, I encourage you all to publicly name the name of the person who's groped you -- as I did in my original blog item on this, "Don't Give The TSA An Easy Time Of Violating Your Rights." Get a free blogspot blog to do it if you don't have a blog already.

The worker (they're not actual officers -- they're just dressed that way) who sexually violated me was Thedala Magee. And after she sexually violated me (violating my Fourth Amendment rights for pay), she got herself a lawyer to violate my free speech rights by demanding $500,000 from me, plus a written apology and a blog item take-down.

As my First Amendment lawyer Marc J. Randazza said about the demand for the written apology, "I sense that you'd rather chew glass."

Yep.

...

Just before 11:30 p.m. Pacific Time, I emailed TSA spokes-piece Nico Melendez, copying in the commenter's account above about the nametag swapping, and continuing with this:

Questions:
1. Are agents required to wear nametags with their first and last names?
2. Are agents permitted to swap nametags?
3. Does this go on?
4. He says this happened at the Columbus, Ohio airport. Will you investigate? Will someone investigate? (I'm hereby requesting a response about what you or others find.)

I await your reply. -Amy Alkon

I'll publish his reply when (and if) I get one.

...

Reply from Nico Melendez:

Hi Amy, I've asked our Ohio guy to look into this, so I'll let you know if I find anything out. It's important to point out, the name tags our officers wear have their last names, so it wouldn't be a surprise to me if Rose is the man's last name.
Nico

Nico Melendez, MPA
TSA Public Affairs Manager
California-Arizona-Hawaii

My reply to Melendez:

Thanks - I thought of that (that Rose might be a last name), but the passenger did say that the TSA worker (they're not really officers, are they?) told him they swap nametags all the time.
Are they all supposed to wear nametags while on the job?

-Amy Alkon

UPDATE: Melendez wrote back:

Officers wear name plates with their last name only. They're also required to wear their government ID and airport-issued identification, which both would have first and last name. Officers undergo uniform inspections at the start of each shift to ensure compliance with all uniform rules.

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Last-Minute Christmas Gifts Still Available At Amazon
Details. And Today's Deals!

Thanks again for all of you who have been supporting my site by buying through my Amazon links. Every time you go through one of my links, I get a little kickback for whatever you buy, even if I haven't linked to it.

If you want something that isn't in my links, you can also click the little "Powered by Amazon" logo at Amy's Mall (on the top left of that page).

And don't forget the perfect gift, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society -- only $12.37 at Amazon, with their discount (it sometimes goes down to $11.53, and Kindle is $9.99). If you buy a new copy at that price (not one of the "bargain" ones, which are probably resales from out-of-biz Borders), it goes against my advance and helps me sell the next one. And I really, really want to sell the next one, which my fantastic new agent will be taking out in February or March.

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Why Did I Have To Go To Pravda To Get My Op-Ed About TSA Rape Published?
I don't understand it. I went to countless mainstream news outlets in America and every one of them refused to publish this -- my op-ed on our eroding civil liberties and what we need to do to stand up for them.

Media outlets that refused to publish this piece include the LA Times, The New York Times, Reuters, CNN.com, The Huffington Post, AOL, The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo.com, MSNBC.com, and The Washington Post.

Apparently, only the Russian media cares about discussing civil liberties in America. The Russian newspaper Pravda published the piece about an hour after I sent it to them. (My next try was going to be North Korea, but the furor there following Kim Jun Il's death made that seem like kind of a bad idea.)

The entire piece is published here, on Pravda's website. An excerpt:

STANDING UP FOR OUR ERODING CIVIL LIBERTIES
by syndicated columnist Amy Alkon
This country's Founding Fathers were a bunch of obnoxious jerks -- and I mean that in the most reverent way. These were men who were fiercely opposed to blind obedience to authority, and who laid their lives on the line to flip it the bird. Oh, how disappointingly -- and dangerously -- far we've fallen. Our Constitutional rights are increasingly being eroded -- at TSA checkpoints, at police stops where citizens are arrested for videotaping, and elsewhere -- and so many Americans are just sitting there blinking like livestock.

At the airport this past March, I wasn't one of those people, and that sometimes comes with a price. In my case, $500,000. That's what a TSA agent's lawyer is demanding from me for "defaming" her client by saying she sexually violated me during the pat-down, and then for "libeling" her when I blogged about it. Marc J. Randazza, the First Amendment lawyer defending me, called her case "meritless," but this woman's notion that I should fund her existence for the rest of her life because I stood up for my Constitutional rights is beyond disgusting.

On March 31, 2011, I was flying out of LAX to attend a psychology conference in New York. When I reached the TSA checkpoint in the United terminal, I found that I had no choice but to get the pat-down. Tears welled up in my eyes -- for how we've allowed the Constitution to be ripped up at the airport door and because I was powerless to stop a total stranger from running her hands over the most private parts of my body as a condition of normal, ordinary business travel.

I can hold back the tears...hang tough...but as I was made to "assume the position" on a rubber mat like a common criminal, I thought fast. I decided that these TSA "officers" earning a living violating our Fourth Amendment rights, and searching us without probable cause, do not deserve my quiet compliance. I let the tears come. In fact, I sobbed my guts out as the agent groped me. And then it happened: She stuck the side of her latex-gloved hand into my vulva. Four times. Twice from the front and twice from the back, with the only barrier being the fabric of my pants. I was shocked -- utterly unprepared for how she got the side of her hand up there.. It was government-administered sexual assault -- an action that, in the workplace, would be considered sexual harassment, and elsewhere would be considered a serious crime.

Powerless to stop her, but not to vigorously protest what she did to me, as I left the checkpoint, I yelled, "YOU RAPED ME." I later blogged about it, naming her name, and urging others to post the names of TSA agents who search them (even when done according to TSA procedure), explaining, "It's got to become very uncomfortable to be one of those who earns a living by 'just following orders.'"

Some believe I'm wrong to suggest such things -- particularly those who believe the TSA is keeping us safer. Unfortunately, it is not. Security expert Bruce Schneier calls the TSA's efforts "security theater," noting all the dangerous items they miss, and observing that during the agency's multi-billion-dollar history, they have yet to thwart a single attempted terrorist attack.

If the TSA's actual mission were its stated one -- protecting the Nation's transportation's systems... -- checkpoints wouldn't be staffed by low-wage, unskilled workers, they wouldn't be searching everyone, and they certainly wouldn't be waiting until terrorists get to the airport to try to root them out. Meaningful measures to thwart terrorist acts require highly trained law enforcement officers using targeted intelligence to identify suspects long before they launch their plot.

The TSA's main accomplishment seems to be obedience training for the American public -- priming us to be docile (and even polite) when ordered to give up our civil liberties. Not only does the TSA violate our Fourth Amendment rights, they've posted signs that effectively eradicate our First Amendment right to speak out about it. One such sign, in Denver International Airport, offers the vague warning that "verbal abuse" of agents will "not be tolerated." Travelers are left to wonder whether it's "verbal abuse" to inform the TSA agent with his latex-gloved hands on their testicles that this isn't making us safer, or are they only in trouble if they pepper their statement with obscenities? Not surprisingly, few seem willing to speak out and risk arrest... (CONT'D)

Please click on "CONT'D" to read the rest of the piece -- including my call to American women to do as I did at TSA checkpoints, and not be quietly compliant in the face of our Fourth Amendment rights being violated.

The initial story, with the TSA agent's lawyer's demand for $500,000 and a muzzling of me, is here, from Mike Masnick at TechDirt: "TSA Agent Threatens Woman With Defamation, Demands $500k For Calling Intrusive Search 'Rape'"

Masnick at TechDirt also posted the response from my wonderful First Amendment lawyer, Marc J. Randazza, who took my case pro bono. I have not heard since from Vicky Roberts, the lawyer for the TSA agent, Thedala Magee. Ken White at Popehat writes more about Roberts and the whole story here. Martin Berg's LA Weekly story about this is here:

Just because she offers advice on manners in the modern world, don't expect blogger/columnist Amy Alkon to stand by quietly if she thinks a government employee is violating her rights at the airport.
"I'm just a normal girl from the Midwest who doesn't believe that she gets to have these rights and then doesn't have to stand up for them when they're violated," Alkon says.

My original blog item on this, "Don't Give The TSA An Easy Time Of Violating Your Rights," is here.

Please link and share this piece widely so Americans will see it and consider standing up for their civil liberties instead of docilely giving them up. And when your civil liberties are yanked from you, please, at the very least, don't go quietly.

...

UPDATE: For any who question my use of the term "rape," the narrow definition of rape needed to change -- and it did. From the Times-Picayune editorial about "the extremely narrow definition of rape, one that left out many victims and provided a woefully incomplete statistical picture of the crime":

The old definition of rape -- as the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will -- overlooked other forms of rape and the fact that men, too, can be victims. It also failed to take into account victims who are raped while drugged or intoxicated.
The definition is also narrower than what is used by most police departments across the country. The discrepancy means that thousands of sexual assaults committed each year have not been reflected in the federal government's Uniform Crime Report.

The resulting under reporting can lead to fewer resources being committed to catching rapists and helping victims.

The FBI will begin defining rape next spring as "penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.'' That's a much more inclusive -- and accurate -- definition.

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How Economic Freedom Saved Wendy McElroy
I worked from the time I was 11 or 12, typing envelopes and addressing letters for my dad for a dime per (I became an extremely fast typist -- a skill that truly serves me today). As a teenager, I babysat, worked in a bagel place, worked for a PR lady at a tennis club, and scored myself a summer job at an ad agency. Among other things, I learned discipline and a strong work ethic and that there's freedom in earning and having one's own money.

In California, there are all sorts of restrictions on "child labor" -- which prevents kids from having jobs and all the benefits that come with. No, we don't want little kids working in factories like in China, but are we really benefited by the strict restrictions we have?

Wendy McElroy writes at The Freeman about how being able to work saved her. ("A room of one's own" is a reference to the book by Virginia Woolf -- one I recommend.):

I once needed a room of my own. And I know on a personal level how laws can harm those they intend to protect. I ran away from home at 16 years old because the streets were safer than my family. Unfortunately it was Canada in December and sleeping in a church with an open-door policy was a stop-gap measure at best. I needed a room with heat and a door that locked.
I was lucky because I was 16-years-old. Child labor laws designed to protect children from exploitation did not apply to me, and so I was able to get a minimum-wage job in a furniture store, filing years worth of boxed papers. If I had been "protected" either as a child or a female from being able to negotiate for less money than other applicants demanded, I would not have been able to to rent a room in a boardinghouse. Instead, I would have been "protected" into begging, stealing, dealing drugs, or sex work. Like most runaways, I would not have "turned myself" into the authorities known as social services.

What saved me was the ability to contract on my own terms so that I could buy a room with a lock and go on to build a life.

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How Not To Raise Entitled Brats
Jean Twenge blogs at Psychology Today about how overindulgence is the easiest way to mess up your kid:

Why? Because, especially at first, overindulgence is easy. It's easier to let your kid sleep in the same bed as you. It's easier to feed them or rock them at night instead of listening to them cry, even when they're a year or two old. It's easier not to say "no," and much easier to let your kindergartener stay up late, not take a bath, and leave her homework undone instead of fighting with her (my own kindergarten-age daughter proclaims that all of these things are "boring.") It's also easier to tell your kid that he's special and fantastic and wonderful--partially because that makes you feel like you are all of those things too.
It's in the long run that this type of parenting backfires. That's for two reasons. First, it fails to teach self-control, one of the most essential skills for success (see, for example, Roy Baumeister and John Tierney's book Willpower). A child who gets what she wants and follows whims doesn't learn to delay gratification, to consider the needs of others, or to keep going when a task is difficult. Second, indulgent parenting has the potential to create narcissism. The research on parenting and narcissism is somewhat confusing, but one clear theme is that narcissists often had parents who were overly permissive and put their child on a pedestal. Even if it doesn't lead to narcissism, indulgent parenting causes problems almost the minute the child leaves the house and enters a world where--horrors--she is not the center of the universe anymore.

As with most things, the best parenting is somewhere in the middle. Beating the kid, or neglecting him--not a good idea. Indulging him by letting him do whatever he wants--also not good. In middle-class American neighborhoods, the latter is much more common than the former--and so, at least among this group, is the larger problem. Yes, you can love your child with abandon, but you are still a parent. That means--and I don't think this should be controversial--that (in general) you should tell your kids what to do, instead of having the kids tell you what to do.

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Obamagate?
CNN's Jack Cafferty wonders whether "Fast & Furious" -- the program to let guns "walk" to Mexico -- is Obama's Watergate:

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Belt-Tightening, Obama-Style
That's the estimated $4 million Hawaiian vacation the president and his family will be taking. Okay, the guy wants to take a vacation, and his family will of course come with, but...$4 million on the taxpayer dime when so many of the rest of us don't quite know what else we can cut back?

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Overhaul All Of Medicine For 10 Million Americans?
Dr. Bala Ambati, Director of Cornea Research at University of Utah, blogs (and note the end line in paragraph one-- that's the kicker):

On the 47 million people without health insurance point, that too is a statistic where there is less than meets the eye. First, health insurance does not equal health care (there are not just emergency rooms but cash-based clinics, and conversely, a lot of people with insurance don't get good health care). Second, of that 47 million, 14 million are already eligible for existing programs (Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' benefits, SCHIP) yet have not enrolled, 9.7 million are not citizens, 9.1 million have household incomes over $75,000 and could but choose not to purchase insurance, and somewhere between 3 and 5 million are uninsured briefly(<2 months) between jobs. That leaves about 10 million Americans who are chronically without insurance. Needless to say, extending the blanket of coverage to this group should not cost $1.5 trillion and require a wholesale overhaul of all of medicine.
...Is the likely Democratic plan a good idea?
I have to say no. Expanding Medicare & Medicaid for all (which is basically what it boils down) opens the door to government price controls, which will devolve into wait-lists, poor quality personnel, salaried staff (who by definition are incentivized to give minimum effort), increasing physician refusal to see Medicare & Medicaid patients, and underinvestment in research and facilities (see Great Britain, and Canada). The Australian system, where public hospitals are well-funded and physicians can choose to accept government rates or charge higher, might be a viable option. The VA system (which was held up as an example by Hillary Clinton) is good at certain things (electronic prescriptions, some routine elements in primary care, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury) but is poor at infrastructure maintenance, efficient clinic and surgical flow, and customer service; further, its costs are held down as much of VA health care is in reality delivered by residents. The proof of the pudding on the VA is that the vast majority of VA patients are enlisted personnel; the retired officers go elsewhere.

...What things should we keep in mind going forward?
As a society gets older and richer, it naturally will spend more on health care. Further, innovation and research cost money along the way - NICU care was probably not cost-effective 15 or 20 years ago, but is now. Neither of these points are in and of themselves bad. But we should allow patients the freedom of choice and with it, the responsibility to take care of themselves and limit unnecessary costs. Yes, in acute situations, it is unseemly and unfair to ask a patient, before anything else, what insurance do you have? And that is a great advantage of Canada that we can learn from. But some patients do abuse the system (refuse to take medications and then come in when they are really sick, or come in to the ER at 2 in the morning for itchy eyes which they've had for 2 weeks without pain or change in vision), and such behaviors should bear the costs.

We do not want to destroy a system that has led discovery and contributed so much to the world and led to unprecedented advances in life expectancy over the last century. As for profit, medicine should not be a business where the profit motive trumps all. Yet money does make the world turn; indeed, money from high-margin services helps support and allow the presence of charitable care, research, teaching, and humanitarian work (much as first class on airlines helps subsidize the rest of coach class). Removing money as an incentive for performance, R&D, and innovation would be stifling. Humans are naturally lazy, and greed can & should be harnessed to useful ambition. But corporate greed, market-distorting greed, and the greed of corruption and unnecessary services should be checked.

via McArdle, via Crid

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"Thousands Rally to Save Nativity"
Um, the nativity doesn't need saving. This is America -- we have freedom of religion. You can put up thousands of nativity scenes on private property if you want. What you can't do is put them on government property (in this case, the Henderson County Courthouse). You likewise can't put up Wiccan scenes, a menorah, or a miniature minaret.

Todd Starnes writes at Fox News:

As many as 5,000 attended a rally in a small Texas community to show their support for a Nativity scene under attack by a Wisconsin-based atheist group, according to a minister who organized the event.

That pastor, Nathan Lorick, wrote this:

"We believe that God led us to do this and so we knew he was up to something great," he told Fox News & Commentary in an email message. "This message is resonating in the hearts of people all over the country. This was a real statement to the nation that Christians are tired of the persecution and suppression. We want all to know that we are ready to contend for the faith."

Oh, please. Spare me the notion that Christians are "persecuted." Christians are the majority in this country, and the fact that some department store has some asshatted measure to be inclusive by saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" is not persecution.

The horrible stuff that's happening to the Coptic Christians in Egypt? That's persecution. You want to spend your picketing time wisely, Christian marchers? Work on alleviating the problems of the Copts and stop mewling about how you're trodden upon.

P.S. If the Coptic suffering isn't quite your cup of Christian-i-tea (sorry, couldn't resist), could you spare a shout or an email on behalf of Pastor Yousef? He's "the Iranian Christian cleric facing death for the crime of apostasy against an Islamic faith he never held," per The Washington Times:

Iran's top judge, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, instructed presiding Judge Ghazi Kashani to delay carrying out capital punishment for a year in order to give time for Mr. Nadarkhani to recant Christianity and become a Muslim.

I know, borrr-ring! It's so much more fun to hate on Macy's or some other big store for making their clerks say "Have a wonderful holiday!"

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The Defense Of Discrimination Act
Takako Ueda and Frances Herbert could be together -- but for the fact that they're two women. They're legally married in Vermont, but that is meaningless in Federal terms, thanks to the disgusting "Defense of Marriage Act." From CNN:

The Defense of Marriage Act prevents the federal government from giving them any benefits, so Herbert can't sponsor Ueda for a green card.
Just this month, the government denied Ueda's application to remain in the United States.

The government sent a letter denying their application and stating that Ueda is "required to depart the United States within 30 days from the date of this decision."

Note that Herbert could sponsor Ueda for a green card -- if Ueda were a man.

"We know that, ultimately, this wrong will be corrected, and we are committed to working for ourselves, and other families, until it is," said Herbert and Ueda, who first met in 1980. "All any of us want is the ability to protect our families and the freedom to live our lives with the loved ones we choose."

Oh, and for those of you who think the Democrats are beautiful people who can do no wrong, DOMA was signed into law by Bill Clinton.

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How Many Miles To The Gallon Does Your House Get?
I HEAR RUDE PEOPLE:

The guy in his car who's playing booming, house foundation-shaking bass outside my window tells ME I should move if I'm bothered.

Hmmm...here's a brain-teaser for you...which of these has wheels & an engine, my house or your car?

(And yes, in case you're wondering, I asked very politely -- because that's nice to do, and because asking any other way will either get you snarled at or shot.)

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Advice Goddess Radio: Get The Podcast - David DiSalvo's "Science-Help"
Last night, I did a fascinating show with science journo David DiSalvo, author of the terrific new book, What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite.

This show with DiSalvo will help you stop your brain from messing up your life...help you understand and combat common human irrationalities so you can stop screwing up your relationships (and maybe even win in Vegas!).

Download the podcast here (click "play in your default player"), or listen online:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2011/12/19/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio -- "Nerd your way to a better life!"

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"No Problem" Vs. "You're Welcome"
There was a blog item on Consumerist about something I'm including in the next book I'm writing on manners (please buy my last book, I See Rude People, if you haven't already! Regular price/non-bargain copies go against my advance and will help me sell the one that my new agent is taking out in a couple of months.)

Consumerist reader Matt asked:

When did "No Problem" replace "You're Welcome"? I recently spoke to a polite customer service rep and at the end of the call, after I said thank you, he replied with "No problem."
It seemed a touch impolite to me, but after asking other people -- all of whom are younger than I -- they said that they thought "no problem," was more polite than "you're welcome." Am I the one who's out of touch?

And it absolutely is an age thing, I think. Many people of a certain age (certainly over 50) go absolutely ape if somebody says "No problem" instead of "Thank you." To me, it's just part of a social dance, and saying something is nice. And actually, "No problem" seems a little nicer than "You're welcome." (In other words, "Not put out by this at all, not a problem to fulfill your request.")

And in the case of the Consumerist post, which was ultimately a question about customer service, commenter ThinkingBrian wrote:

Well, while I can see what the OP is talking about, I too (age 32) use the words "No Problem" instead of "You're Welcome". I really don't see the difference. And while I'm not a CSR, if a CSR said "No Problem" to me, I wouldn't have a problem with it and I would be thankful for them doing there job and in some cases, going above and beyond the call of duty.

Oh, and I do try to say "You're welcome" to older people, because I know "No Problem" drives them out of their aging skulls, and it's best not to do that to people if you can help it.

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Giving Headline
Eugene Volokh wins the day from December 14 with "Saudi Arabia Not Yet Ready to Enter the 18th Century":

The Daily Mail reports:
A woman convicted of practising magic and sorcery has been executed by Saudi authorities.... The London-based al-Hayat daily ... quoted Abdullah al-Mohsen, chief of the religious police who arrested the woman, as saying she had tricked people into thinking she could treat illnesses, charging them $800 (£500) per session.

Best Kim Jung Il headline you've seen?

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Government Land Grab
The grandmother's grandson sold drugs and then made a plea deal to give the government three houses she owns. She, not he! Thomasi McDonald writes for the Raleigh News & Observer:

HOLLY SPRINGS When Gaybbrell Shereise Cofield pleaded guilty last year to selling crack cocaine, he agreed to let the government take his grandmother's home as well as property that has been in the family for generations.
But Ernestine Ward Cofield says her grandson was in no position to forfeit her property to the government and is fighting the move in court. Cofield says that until three federal marshals turned up on her front porch in August, she had no idea that she was the target of a federal law that allows the government to seize the property and assets of drug dealers.

"I just don't understand why they want to take my property. I'm 72 years old. I never sold drugs," she said. "I really don't want them to have my home. I need my home."

Gaybbrell Cofield, 34, was sentenced last month to 22 years in federal prison for what prosecutors say was his role in distributing more than 528 pounds of crack and powder cocaine over a 12-year period.

As part of his plea deal, he agreed to let the government take three houses in Holly Springs: Ernestine Cofield's home on Sand Dune Way and two other houses on a lot she owns near the center of town that has been in the Cofield family for more than 60 years.

"He consented to give up any rights or interest he had in the property, but the property wasn't his and it never has been his," Gaybbrell Cofield's attorney, Robert Nunley of Raleigh, said. "The property has been in the family for three generations, if not four."

Steve West, an assistant district attorney with the U.S. Attorney's Office who handles asset forfeitures, said he could not comment on the Cofield case.

But generally, West said, the federal government seizes property under two instances: if the defendant used the property to help facilitate the commission of a crime, or if it was purchased with proceeds from an illegal enterprise.

West noted that the law allows property owners to appeal if they did not know their property was being used for illegal activities.

"They can come in and file their claims to the property," West said. "They get their day in court."

Aww, well how sweet. They get to fight to keep their own property.

Cofield says that if her grandson did sell drugs out of her homes, she didn't know about it.
"I tell you what," she said before nodding toward the four-room home on Blalock Street. "If drug money bought that house, it wouldn't be looking like it look."

The government is getting scarier and scarier and so many people are just yawning.

via ifeminists

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Why Mandated Health Insurance Is Unfair
This article describes my situation. I've paid for Kaiser Permanente since I was in my early 20s. I paid monthly for health insurance when I couldn't afford a bed. (I slept on a door propped up on two milk crates until I got my part of our Advice Ladies book advance and bought a mattress.) I'm now 47 and still paying monthly for my health insurance, but now I'm going to be expected to pay for the health care of all the people who went "Naw -- I think I'll gamble that I won't get sick, and do something more fun with the money."

No fair.

John C. Goodman writes in the WSJ:

Imagine a community in which everyone dutifully pays monthly health-insurance premiums, except Joe. Then one day Joe gets sick and finds he cannot pay the full costs of his medical care. So the rest of us chip in and pay for the remainder of Joe's care. The upshot: When he was healthy, Joe got to consume all his income instead of paying premiums, and after he got sick he managed to "free ride" on everyone else's generosity.
Ethically, Joe is getting an undeserved benefit paid for by others, who bear an undeserved cost. Economically, he is imposing an external cost on others. If we let him get away with this, others might emulate his example and the cost for the rest of us could grow.

So is the solution to mandate that everyone have health insurance? On average, people without health insurance consume only about half as much health care as everyone else. Of the amount of care they consume, they pay for about half. Thus the "free ride" for the average uninsured person is about one-fourth of what everyone else spends on health care.

Forcing Joe to buy insurance that pays for the same amount of care everyone else gets would be neither fair nor equitable. To get Joe to pay his own way, we need to take from him an amount of money equal to about one-fourth of the average health-care spending of insured people and either distribute it to everyone else or put it in a fund to pay for the care eventually required by Joe and others like him.

How could that work? Let's say that $X is the average health-care spending by insured people. One solution would be to make Joe pay a fourth of that in extra taxes each year. Or, we could achieve an equivalent outcome by giving everyone who has insurance a tax break equal to that amount, but deny the break to Joe and everyone else who is uninsured.

Taxes as a solution? Agree with this? Disagree?

And then there's this:

Although we subsidize employer-paid insurance--in some cases very generously--there is virtually no subsidy for people who obtain insurance on their own. The answer to this problem is to offer the same tax subsidy to all, regardless of how they obtain their insurance.

Better yet, in an age when everybody's a freelancer, untie healthcare from the damn workplace.

And a couple final questions: If you were king or queen, would you say yay or nay to paying for Joe at all?

Should government be in the health care business at all?

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Tonight, On Advice Goddess Radio: David DiSalvo's "Science-Help"
Tonight, on Advice Goddess Radio, 7-8 pm Pacific, 10-11 pm Eastern, science journo David DiSalvo, author of the terrific new book on common human irrationalities, What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite.

I was attracted to this book because it's "applied science" (which is also one of the goals of my column). It does something few science books do -- it tells you how to use the knowledge about human irrationalities to maybe not act so irrationally, so against your best interest. It's also fascinating stuff, including, for example, unpacking how cons work on us (per my pal Paul Zak, whom he quotes about how the essential part of running a con is not to convince your mark to trust you but to convince him that you trust him!).

And there's a whole lot more that pertains to how we lead our relationships and our lives and how we can lead them a whole lot less self-defeatingly.

Link to tonight's DiSalvo show:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2011/12/19/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon

DiSalvo's Psychology Today blog: Neuronarrative. His Forbes blog, Neuropsyched.

Be listening this Sunday or download the podcast: Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio -- "Nerd your way to a better life!"

(Show opening created by Xenia Shin of the LA underground band Laco$te.)

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

I Think I Feel Myself Starting To Miss George Bush
At least there was none of that hopey-changey rhetoric surrounding his presidency. He was who he was, and we were all real clear on that. Not so for the the rock star president, Barack Obama. Andrew Rosenthal writes in The New York Times of what's become for that "hope for change":

President Obama came into office pledging his dedication to the rule of law and to reversing the Bush-era policies. He has fallen far short.
Mr. Obama refused to entertain any investigation of the abuses of power under his predecessor, and he has been far too willing to adopt Mr. Bush's extravagant claims of national secrets to prevent any courthouse accountability for those abuses. This week, he is poised to sign into law terrible new measures that will make indefinite detention and military trials a permanent part of American law.

The measures, contained in the annual military budget bill, will strip the F.B.I., federal prosecutors and federal courts of all or most of their power to arrest and prosecute terrorists and hand it off to the military, which has made clear that it doesn't want the job. The legislation could also give future presidents the authority to throw American citizens into prison for life without charges or a trial. The bill, championed by Republicans in the House and Senate, was attached to the military budget bill to make it harder for Mr. Obama to veto it.

Nearly every top American official with knowledge and experience spoke out against the provisions, including the attorney general, the defense secretary, the chief of the F.B.I., the secretary of state, and the leaders of intelligence agencies. And, for weeks, the White House vowed that Mr. Obama would veto the military budget if the provisions were left in. On Wednesday, the White House reversed field, declaring that the bill had been improved enough for the president to sign it now that it had passed the Senate.

This is a complete political cave-in, one that reinforces the impression of a fumbling presidency. To start with, this bill was utterly unnecessary. Civilian prosecutors and federal courts have jailed hundreds of convicted terrorists, while the tribunals have convicted a half-dozen.

For the record, for anyone who isn't a regular reader here, I'm a Neither (neither a Democrat nor a Republican).

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"Like Dog Food"
That's the assessment of LA's new "healthy" school lunches. Teresa Watanabe writes for Los Angeles Times:

It's lunchtime at Van Nuys High School and students stream into the cafeteria to check out the day's fare: black bean burgers, tostada salad, fresh pears and other items on a new healthful menu introduced this year by the Los Angeles Unified School District.
But Iraides Renteria and Mayra Gutierrez don't even bother to line up. Iraides said the school food previously made her throw up, and Mayra calls it "nasty, rotty stuff." So what do they eat? The juniors pull three bags of Flamin' Hot Cheetos and soda from their backpacks.

"This is our daily lunch," Iraides says. "We're eating more junk food now than last year."

For many students, L.A. Unified's trailblazing introduction of healthful school lunches has been a flop. Earlier this year, the district got rid of chocolate and strawberry milk, chicken nuggets, corn dogs, nachos and other food high in fat, sugar and sodium. Instead, district chefs concocted such healthful alternatives as vegetarian curries and tamales, quinoa salads and pad Thai noodles.

There's just one problem: Many of the meals are being rejected en masse. Participation in the school lunch program has dropped by thousands of students. Principals report massive waste, with unopened milk cartons and uneaten entrees being thrown away.

The truth is, per scientific evidence (which is, of course, not what government mandated health is driven by), a healthy school lunch would be a double cheeseburger, no bun, and full-fat milk, and maybe some buttered green beans and salad with full-fat dressing.

(Wave bye-bye to your dollars, taxpayers!)

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

You're Guilty Of Something
From the WSJ, now lots of agencies have enforcement arms, and boy have they been busy. Louise Radnofsky, Gary Fields and John R. Emshwiller write:

For years, the public face of federal law enforcement has been the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Today, for many people, the knock on the door is increasingly likely to come from a dizzying array of other police forces tucked away inside lesser-known crime-fighting agencies.
They could be from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Labor or Education departments, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency known for its weather forecasts.

Agents from NOAA, in fact, along with the Fish and Wildlife Service, raided the Miami business of Morgan Mok in 2008, seeking evidence she had broken the Endangered Species Act trading in coral.

The agents had assault rifles with them, and the case documents indicated her house and business records had been under surveillance over a six-month period, says Ms. Mok. Under the 1973 law, the departments of Interior and Commerce (home to NOAA) must write regulations to define what is endangered and how it must be protected. One of those regulations specifies coral.

"I felt like I was being busted for drugs, instead of coral," Ms. Mok says. "It was crazy."

Ms. Mok says she showed that her coral had been properly obtained. She paid a $500 fine and served one year of probation for failing to complete paperwork for an otherwise legal transaction.

Think about all the taxpayer dollars this cost us.

And guess what: You're guilty of something. We all are. Because there are too many laws, too many enforcement agencies.

More from Mother Jones' Adam Serwer:

But while earlier incarnations of the detention provisions were confusing and harmful, now they're confusing and largely symbolic.
"Those who were big supporters of this provision, well, this doesn't accomplish what they wanted. Their enthusiasm is misplaced," said Robert Chesney, a national security law expert who teaches at the University of Texas School of Law. "Those who are decrying this as the militarization of domestic law enforcement, it doesn't have to be that either."

The new bill still mandates military detention without trial for any non-citizen terrorism suspect apprehended in the US who is determined to be a member of al Qaeda or an "affiliated group." The administration now has several ways to get around that requirement, however. It could issue a national security waiver--a letter from the administration authorizing a trial in civilian court. Alternatively, the FBI could simply detain a suspect up until a determination is made that he can be detained by the military. Even after that, if the administration decides to try the suspect in civilian court, there's still no need to put him in military custody. Under the latest version of the law, someone like underwear bomber Umar Abdulmutallab could still go from interrogation to trial without ever passing through military hands--and without the need for a national security waiver. (The national security waiver option that has been a part of the Senate bill since the earliest drafts, although the authority to grant the waiver now rests with the president instead of the secretary of defense--a change a Senate aide said was requested by the administration.)

The question is why the detention provisions remain in the bill at all. It looks like Congress, in responding to concerns raised by national security officials, essentially made the "mandatory" military detention optional. The new bill still shifts the presumption towards military custody, and in doing so, sets up a potential controversy every time a non-citizen terror suspect is apprehended in the US.

...Civil liberties and human rights advocates were less convinced that the bill's mandatory detention provisions could be so easily circumvented. A coalition of human rights, civil liberties advocates and national security experts held a conference call on Tuesday morning to warn that the NDAA still carves out a hypothetical role for the military to enforce the law on American soil.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Egyptian Islamists And Pessimism For Democracy
The notion of who's to blame for shark attacks (italicized by me below) says it all. Amr Bargisi and Samuel Tadros write at The Tablet:

When the Egyptian revolution came, we stayed home.
We are young, liberal Egyptian activists who have dedicated our lives to bettering our country. But from the moment in January the crowds took over Tahrir Square calling for President Hosni Mubarak's ouster, we urged observers, particularly Western idealists already hailing the triumph of the new Egypt, to be cautious. We reminded them of Edmund Burke's truism: Bringing down a tyrant is far, far easier than forming a free government.

It would be difficult to form such a government, we reasoned, in a society where the elite, with near unanimity, had just explained a series shark attacks in the Sinai as part of a Mossad-coordinated ploy to damage tourism. A free government must be based on universal rights, not least the right to freedom of conscience for all its citizens, and yet a Pew poll from December 2010 showed that 84 percent of the sampled Egyptian Muslims endorsed the death penalty as the appropriate punishment for Muslim apostates. For an entire country to change in one month, we argued throughout February, you need nothing short of magic.

...Last week, the moment of truth finally came--or so we hope--with the results of the first phase of parliamentary elections. The Islamist parties won big: 40 percent of the electorate voted for the Muslim Brotherhood, and another 25 percent went for the Salafists, hard-line Islamists. Though forced by law to nominate at least one woman on their party lists, the Salafists had the photos of their female candidates replaced by a pictures of flowers in campaign ads, because they believe a woman's face should not be shown publicly. The closest runner-up was the self-styled "liberal" Egyptian Bloc, which got 15 percent of the vote only because it secured the support of the Coptic minority. (The bloc's founder is a famous Christian businessman.) The Islamist parties will likely win even bigger in the next two phases of the election, scheduled to take place in the coming few weeks, because these votes will be held almost entirely in the countryside, where political Islam dominates. (The first phase also included urban districts, where non-Islamists perform better.)

For us, nothing is more painful than being correct. Our vindication comes at the price of our country's potential collapse into Islamist totalitarianism, or, even worse, total chaos.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Christmas Savings
Today's Top Holiday Deals at Amazon.

If you want something that isn't in my links, you can also click the little "Powered by Amazon" logo at Amy's Mall (on the top left of that page).

And don't forget the perfect gift, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society -- only $11.53 at Amazon, with their discount. If you buy a new copy at that price (not one of the "bargain" ones), it goes against my advance and helps me sell the next one. And I really, really want to sell the next one, which my fantastic new agent will be taking out in February or March.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

"How About Killing The Careers Of The Sponsors?"
That was Glenn Reynolds' suggestion and I'm all for it. Bill Wilson writes for The Hill about the Internet censorship bill:

What began as an attempt to restrain foreign piracy on the Internet has morphed into a domestic "kill switch" on First Amendment freedom in the fastest-growing corner of the marketplace of ideas.
Proposed federal legislation purporting to protect online intellectual property would also impose sweeping new government mandates on internet service providers - a positively Orwellian power grab that would permit the U.S. Justice Department to shut down any internet site it doesn't like (and cut off its sources of income) on nothing more than a whim.

Under the so-called "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA) the federal government - which is prohibited constitutionally from abridging free speech or depriving its citizens of their property without due process - would engage in both practices on an unprecedented scale. And in establishing the precursor to a taxpayer-funded "thought police," it would dramatically curtail technology investment and innovation - wreaking havoc on our economy.
Consider this: Under the proposed legislation all that's required for government to shutdown a specific website is the mere accusation that the site unlawfully featured copyrighted content. Such an accusation need not be proven - or even accompanied by probable cause. All that an accuser (or competitor) needs to do in order to obtain injunctive relief is point the finger at a website.

Additionally, SOPA would grant regulators the ability to choke off revenue to the owners of these newly classified "rogue" websites by accusing their online advertisers and payment providers as co-conspirators in the alleged "piracy." Again, no finding of fact would be required - the mere allegation of impropriety is all that's needed to cut the website's purse strings.

Who's vulnerable to this legislation?

"Any website that features user-generated content or that enables cloud-based data storage could end up in its crosshairs," writes David Sohn, senior policy council at the Center on Democracy and Technology. "

SOPA was introduced by Lamar Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of 12 initial co-sponsors. Now there are 30 behind it. See the list and the bill here. For an easier reading of the list of its supporters to vote out of office, here:

Mark Amodei [R-NV2]
Joe Baca [D-CA43]
John Barrow [D-GA12]
Karen Bass [D-CA33]
Howard Berman [D-CA28]
Marsha Blackburn [R-TN7]
Mary Bono Mack [R-CA45]
John Carter [R-TX31]
Steven Chabot [R-OH1]
Judy Chu [D-CA32]
John Conyers [D-MI14]
Jim Cooper [D-TN5]
Ted Deutch [D-FL19]
Elton Gallegly [R-CA24]
Robert Goodlatte [R-VA6]
Tim Griffin [R-AR2]
Tim Holden [D-PA17]
Peter King [R-NY3]
John Larson [D-CT1]
Ben Luján [D-NM3]
Thomas Marino [R-PA1
0] Alan Nunnelee [R-MS1]
William Owens [D-NY23]
Dennis Ross [R-FL12]
Steve Scalise [R-LA1]
Adam Schiff [D-CA29]
Brad Sherman [D-CA27]
Lee Terry [R-NE2]
Debbie Wasserman Schultz [D-FL20]
Melvin Watt [D-NC12]

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Muzzling Men
Via Fathers and Families rather outrageous legislation criminalizing men's relationship choices. Glenn Sacks writes:

Fathers and Families has joined with the ACLU of Michigan in opposing the Michigan's Coercive Abortion Prevention Act (CAPA). It is one thing to criminalize violence or threats of violence designed to coerce a woman into having an abortion. It is quite another to criminalize men's personal relationship choices, as CAPA does. Fathers and Families does not take a position on abortion, but we do oppose CAPA.

There's a link at Sacks' site to email their letter to relevant committee members. From an op-ed by Sacks:

HB 5882 [CAPA] actually makes it a crime for a man to "change or attempt to change an existing housing or cohabitation arrangement" with a pregnant significant other, to "file or attempt to file for a divorce" from his pregnant wife, or to "withdraw or attempt to withdraw financial support" from a woman who he has been supporting, if it is determined that the man is doing these things to try to pressure the woman to terminate her pregnancy.
This violates men's rights. The U.S. constitution's protected liberty interests safeguard privacy in areas such as contraception, marriage, procreation, child rearing and sexual conduct between consenting adults. Do Michigan legislators believe these protections don't also cover the basic personal choices HB 5882 proscribes?...

The bill is also laden with unfair presumptions of male guilt. There are many legitimate reasons why a man might be unhappy over his wife or girlfriend's pregnancy. He may leave because he doubts that the child she is carrying is his. He may want her to terminate a pregnancy because he felt he was deceived into getting her pregnant, and doesn't want to be on the hook for 18 years of child support. He may leave because she blames him for not being a good enough provider, or lashes out at him during pregnancy-related mood swings. None of these behaviors are particularly chivalrous, but they are certainly understandable.

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Skype Yourself From SF To LA
My part-time editorial assistant used to drive a long way from her place on the east side of L.A. to mine on the west. No more. Now, she's moved upstate, and we work over Skype via voice and text. I used to past the text into the Skype window -- now I mostly just hit the button to share my screen so she can see what I'm doing. And now, Instead of spending an hour or more each way in the car, she can roll out of bed, make herself some coffee and sit down at her desk and she's "in the workplace."

More and more, I think our situation will become the case for other people and other workplace, both with the freelance economy and with more and more businesses taking advantage of technology like this.

This makes the eleventy katrillion dollar "high speed" train even more ridiculous than it already was.

Peter Schrag writes on California Progress Report:

Just a month a ago a revised business plan, intended to reflect a new level of candor from a reconstituted Rail Authority, owned up to the project's steeply rising costs - at $98 billion more than double the $43 billion estimate when voters approved $9 billion in rail bonds two years ago. It also acknowledged the declining projections of ridership.
As always, the project was sold as something that wouldn't cost anything in new taxes, but those bonds - with tens of billions more to come if the thing is ever to be completed - will take huge chunks out of California's other urgent needs, from higher education to health to social services. Last week, the Field Poll showed that a large majority of California voters now have second thoughts and want a chance to reverse their earlier vote.

...Riding Europe's high-speed trains is a pleasure, not only because of the time saved and the convenience, but because they're smooth and quiet and infinitely easier to negotiate than air travel.

But California is not Europe, where cities and towns are more densely populated, where there's more public transportation and where those cities have grown around public transportation corridors for the better part of a century and a half. Most travelers arriving by train at Los Angeles' Union Station will still have to drive for an hour, and often more, to get to their ultimate destination.

In Europe, fuel taxes have long been higher than they are in this country; city parking is scarcer and negotiating city streets slower and more difficult. Compared to Paris, London or Brussels, driving in Los Angles is a dream.

The backers of the California project are right that gas won't get any cheaper and that flying won't become easier. Yet it's equally possible that, for business people, technology will increasingly reduce the need to shuttle between northern and southern California by any mode of transportation.

As I was saying. And don't miss the beginning of his piece, on "conspicuous conservation."

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

The Dole Is Better
@WalterOlson, who tweet-pointed me to this story, has it right with his comment, "Since we know unemployment extensions have no incentive effects, this Ohio story is purely imaginary."

From the Marietta Times, Dan Harrison, of Harrison Construction, Inc., writes about how hard it is for him to find employees -- and why:

Before 2009 if our company advertised for an open position, on average we would get 20 to 30 applications, interview six to eight of the applicants, and hire one or two, based on the quality and potential of the candidates. This process has been deteriorating dramatically since 2009 and now at the end of 2011 it has completely hit bottom. Of all the applications that we have received this year, when asked why they were seeking a job with us, one out of three answered: my unemployment is running out and I have to go back to work.
Earlier this year after I hired two new full-time employees, went through our company's orientation process, fitted them with our work clothing and booked them to start within a week, they both quit. One called ahead of the start date to apologize but wanted to inform us he would not be coming in because the government had just extended unemployment benefits again. The second one just did not show on his first day and when I called him he said he couldn't come in now because unemployment had been extended and he was making almost as much as we were planning to start him out with.

...Our government is considering extending unemployment benefits again soon. The final absurdity might be that extending unemployment is the only thing that both the Democratic and Republican majorities both agree on.

My personal position is one of reality. Those who are unemployed and verifiably work every day to find some kind of employment, but are unsuccessful, should receive unemployment benefits for a substantial period of time. However, the unemployed who are collecting dishonest benefits via the hard working tax payers, should be arrested.

Thus I'm asking the government to start verifying and policing the unemployment department. Support those really in need. Kick out the rest and allow us to put people back to work.

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A Fistful Of Taxpayer Dollars
Now look who's getting a place on the taxpayer teat. Teri Sforza writes for the OC Reg that public pensions that used to go to those with the most dangerous jobs are now going to just about anyone who might break a fingernail in the course of their work day:

In California, enhanced public safety pensions -- originally meant for workers who charge into burning buildings and battle criminals with guns -- are going to motor-vehicle examiners, livestock inspectors, funeral home inspectors and many others, a nationwide analysis by USA Today has found.
If it's any comfort, the Golden State is not alone. "Special retirement benefits once reserved for police, firefighters and others with dangerous jobs are now being given to tens of thousands of state workers employed as park rangers, foresters, dispatchers, coroners, even highway laborers, museum guards and lifeguards," the paper reported Friday. "The trend will add heavily to the $70 billion that state taxpayers owe state retirement funds each year and is costing states such as Florida and Maryland $15 million to $30 million annually."

Steven Malanga writes in City Journal:

So sweet are California's pension deals that a report by the state's Little Hoover Commission, a government watchdog agency, estimated that the average government worker retiring with full benefits and Social Security will get 109 percent of his final working salary as a pension.

From the USA Today link above (story by Thomas Frank):

In Illinois, where highway maintenance workers earn up to $148,000 a year with overtime, early enhanced retirement can pay a $75,000-a-year pension at age 50 after 25 years on the job. That adds up to $2.2 million if the retiree lives to age 80 -- or $1.2 million more than if the person had been in the state's regular retirement plan. A 25-year Florida crime lab analyst can get a $60,000 pension at age 50 and collect $1.8 million by age 80, compared with $575,000 if the person was not in the state's "special-risk class."
People in dangerous public safety jobs have long had enhanced early retirement to encourage them to make way for younger workers as their physical abilities decline, and to compensate them for lasting physical and mental damage.

Over the years, other state workers have lobbied elected officials heavily to be included to those plans, or have won the benefits via labor negotiations, arguing that they have similar responsibilities and stress as police. The plans now include livestock inspectors, lottery agents, electricians, elevator repairmen, coroners, sewer workers, magistrates, motor-vehicle inspectors, airplane pilots and union executive directors. Wildlife officers have early retirement in 25 states and liquor-control agents have it in 15 states.
"Everybody wants to be in our special plan," said Christine Gianopoulos, deputy executive director of Maine's retirement system.

You can sell my knuckles when I'm 90 if I can no long afford to keep working to pay for the liquor control "officer" who takes early retirement -- with pay -- on my dime.

Oh, and here's the big question: Your proposal for how we fix this?

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You Know How People Play Music For Their Baby In The Womb?
Somebody may have played it for your dinner:

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Giftiepoos, Cheaper
Today's Deals at Amazon.

Thanks to all of you who support my site by buying through my Amazon links. (Any link you go through from my site, or if you go through the "Powered By Amazon" icon at the top left on Amy's Mall, gives me the credit/kickback for your purchase.)

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Tonight, Advice Goddess Radio: "No More Mr. Nice Guy" At 7 pm Eastern, 10 pm Pacific
One hour til my radio show with "No More Mr Nice Guy" author Dr. Robert Glover, 7-8pm PT. Here's the link to isten live/download the podcast afterward:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2011/12/12/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon

We want your questions! You can either call in when the show is live -- (347) 326-9761 (or via Skype) -- or you can text them to me in the online chat room (although I might not get to all of them that way...but I'll try).

Pssst! This week, I'll try to ask Dr. Glover the Omega Male question somebody asked last week.

UPDATE: Whole show is up now, sans tech errors, thanks to my man Gregg!

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

My Kinda Party
Rocket scientists, bloggers, male and female bikers, a geiger counter and a radioactive dinner plate, a Hartung enthusiast, and homemade ice cream made in two minutes with liquid nitrogen.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Low-Carb Success: Rapper Fat Joe On Da Science
Rapper notices that bread is the staff of ~~life~~ death, and drops 100-some pounds. Via Tom D. Naughton (via @DrEades):

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

LA Weirdness
That's what I call walking out your gate, seeing people you know, and then realizing they're actually people you know from TV (Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, in this case).

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

We Don't Need No Stinking Consistency!
Letter from Cafe Hayek's Don Boudreaux in The New York Times:

In paragraph five of his column today, Thomas Friedman approvingly quotes Pres. Obama's complaint that "Steel mills that needed 1,000 employees are now able to do the same work with 100 employees, so layoffs too often became permanent, not just a temporary part of the business cycle...." ("The Next First (and Only) 100 Days," Dec. 11).
Ignore the fact that this Luddite lament - while in tune with the sympathies of Lord Keynes - is supported by zero historical evidence. Focus instead on Mr. Friedman's call, in paragraph eight of his column, for a "future ... where people learn, imagine and create value rapidly by combining universities, high-tech manufacturers, software/service providers and highly nimble start-ups that collaborate and compete to invent things that make people's lives more entertained, productive, healthy, educated and comfortable."

If, in paragraph five, innovation that makes people more productive is a regrettable source of permanent job losses, how in paragraph eight does innovation that "makes people's lives ... more productive" - and, hence, destroys some jobs - become a desirable policy goal?

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

via @jamestaranto

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Laws For Ye, Not For Me!
Lawmakers just love to pass laws -- laws for other people. Yale law prof Steven L. Carter writes at Bloomberg:

The recent publicity surrounding the very old news that members of Congress aren't prohibited from trading stock using nonpublic information has the House and Senate running for cover. Hastily drafted bills are picking up co-sponsors on both sides of the aisle.
Yet it is something of a wonder that there is so much public excitement at the discovery that regulations that apply to lots of other people turn out to be largely irrelevant to those who serve in Congress. This isn't an exception to congressional practice. It is, far too often, business as usual.

...Critics have lamented that no equivalent of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act applies to Congress. The chief executives of public companies must certify their accounts, and face fines of up to $5 million and as many as 20 years in prison if they do so falsely. Members of Congress (like all federal officials) can make up numbers out of whole cloth without any sanction at all. Incorrect corporate numbers can mislead markets. Incorrect federal budget numbers can mislead the nation. (Perhaps the federal budget, like corporate balance sheets, should be vetted by independent third-party auditors.)

Examples abound. Federal minimum-wage laws apply to private employers and federal agencies; but, once again, Congress isn't an agency. For the same reason, the Freedom of Information Act doesn't apply. The National Labor Relations Act exempts the federal government generally, but there are special rules relating to collective bargaining and unfair labor practices of federal employees -- rules that don't, however, apply to Congress. The Merit System Protection statutes shield personnel in executive agencies, and even in the Administrative Office of the United States Courts; not in Congress. And so on.

Even when Congress does decide to apply statutes to itself, members have trouble resisting the temptation to treat themselves differently. So, for example, Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 extended the reach of several (not all) antidiscrimination statutes to cover congressional employees, but with provisos stripping the protections of much of their force.

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Too-Nice Guys Alert: Dr. Robert Glover On Advice Goddess Radio Tonight
A lot of guys fail with women and fail in myriad areas of their lives because they only think they are nice guys; they are actually what I call "too-nice guys." I've written about them, quoting the terrific Dr. Robert Glover's terrific book, No More Mr. Nice Guy, here:

You call yourself a nice guy, but you're really a "nice guy," an approval-seeking, conflict-avoiding suckup. In "No More Mr. Nice Guy!" Dr. Robert Glover clarifies the difference. The "nice guy" might seem generous, but he actually isn't; he gives to get. He thinks he just has to hide how flawed he is and become what others want him to be, and he'll be loved, get his needs met, and have a problem-free life. This is unlikely to happen, as he's passive-aggressive, chronically dishonest, and brimming with "toxic shame." Thanks to a lifetime repressing his feelings and denying his needs, he's filled with rage, especially at women. Women, on the other hand, do love this guy -- to wash and wax their cars while they're on dates with guys they are sleeping with. And whaddya know, all it takes is calling him "the brick" instead of "a tool."

Another quote:

This guy sounds like the type that therapist Robert A. Glover describes in "No More Mr. Nice Guy" -- a guy who's not nice at all, but is filled with "toxic shame," and is so desperate for approval, especially from women, that he hides who he is and never asks for what he wants. Not surprisingly, he doesn't get a lot of dates, and tends to be filled with repressed rage and hatred for women. Glover told me that, in a relationship, this passive guy often turns passive-aggressive: He's chronically late and "forgetful," puts the woman down in public, and he's generally passively manipulative "because he never gets his way -- even though he's never asked for it."

Glover has very kindly agreed to be on the radio with me tonight -- Sunday from 7-8 p.m. Pacific, 10-11 p.m. Eastern. Show will be live at this link below, and you can also pick up the podcast there afterward.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2011/12/12/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon

Feel free to post questions here for me to ask on the show if you don't feel comfortable calling in. There will also be a live chat room where you can post questions during the show, and I'll try to ask them for you. To call in when the show is live to talk to Glover and me: (347) 326-9761.

If you are a too-nice guy, call in and we'll disabuse you of your doormatty ways. And I highly recommend Glover's book. I probably recommend it once a week at least, and get many emails of gratitude back from men who've read it and who've used it to reshape themselves into the guys who get the girls and don't get walked on by anyone anymore.

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Facebuttheads And The Messages You've Been Missing
Okay, so the hundred and some pieces of Facebook mail that were hidden away were mostly mash notes from semi-literate men, but still, some people had written me to tell me they'd bought and loved my book or were otherwise deserving of a response.

Elizabeth Weingarten writes on Slate about Facebook hiding some of people's messages (to find your hidden messages, open "Messages" and then click on "Other"):

On Nov. 15 at approximately 11:45 p.m., I left my 1-month-old MacBook Air in the back of a New York City cab. Quickly realizing my error, I freaked out: Hands shaking, I dialed the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission, reported the cab's medallion number (I had a receipt) and jotted down the phone number of city precincts where my cargo could end up (if a good Samaritan turned it in). Then, I slumped against the side of a building and sobbed.
Of course, it was only a computer. But this superficial, expensive thing contained a completed story that I was supposed to send an editor at this magazine the following morning. And all of my notes for said story, which I had come to New York to write. No, I didn't save my files to an external hard drive and no I did not have insurance on the computer. The next morning, I chugged coffee and rewrote the story. I tracked down the cab driver; he claimed he never found it. A week later, I reluctantly purchased a new laptop. And that was that.

Until today, when a colleague at Slate sent an email around about the messages Facebook hides in an obscure folder labeled "Other." Haven't heard of it? Click the Messages tab on the left side of your Facebook screen. "Other" will then appear beneath it. Click on Other and you will unearth months of messages you probably missed. (Blogger Erika Napoletano has great, annotated screengrabs to guide you through this process.) When I did just this, I inhaled sharply: A man had sent me four very important messages: two on Nov. 16, one on the 17th, and another on the 18th.
Advertisement

"Please let me know if you lost something and identify what you lost," said the first one. "Did you forget something?? Please identify what you lost," pleaded the second. "Are you the one who lost something? Please respond and identify. I saw your name in the bag I found," said the third message. Finally, he surrendered to specifics: "Dear Elizabeth, I found your laptop in a taxi. Please call me at xxxxxxxxx."

She got her laptop back. And the Facebutt rep said this:

It seems wrong that an email message from your best friend gets sandwiched between a bill and a bank statement. It's not that those other messages aren't important, but one of them is more meaningful. With new Messages, your Inbox will only contain messages from your friends and their friends. All other messages will go into an Other folder where you can look at them separately. If someone you know isn't on Facebook, that person's email will initially go into the Other folder. You can easily move that conversation into the Inbox, and all the future conversations with that friend will show up there.

Grrr.

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Books For Nerds
Right now, I'm reading a fascinating book on attention, Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, by science writer Winnifred Gallagher. I'll have Gallagher on my radio show in the coming months. Attention doesn't seem like much of a subject, perhaps, but she makes it fascinating. She explains, for example, how our lives become what we pay attention to. And it's only about 200 well-written pages that I'm zipping through.

I highly recommend Dr. Barbara Oakley's 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. Details on the book from my interview with Oakley here. And here's Oakley on my radio show on "pathological altruism," helping that hurts (like enabling behavior).

David DiSalvo's What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite. I just started reading this yesterday. Actually, I started skimming through it and couldn't help but read a chapter when I was supposed to be working on a column. Really well-written, clear thinking on common human irrationalities. My old favorite on the topic is Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me), by Tavris and Aronson. I'm excited to announce that DiSalvo will be on my radio show next weekend, helping all of us understand the thinking behind some of the really dumb things we do...in hopes of making us behave less stupidly and self-defeatingly in the future.

And Robert Trivers' The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life . Heard him at Cal Tech last month. An hour and a half of straight-up brain candy.

And last but very much not least, please think of my book, I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society, when you're buying Christmas presents. I figured out why people are rude, based in anthropology data, and how to change things, and it's funny and people tell me they're inspired to go after some of those walking all over them...or to just reach out and be kind to a stranger.

My book is only $11.53, brand new, with Amazon's discount at this link. Buying a new copy (not the "bargain book" version) helps me earn back my advance -- and helps me support this site and give advice, free of charge, to people whose questions will never make my column.

UPDATE: Oopsy, forgot one -- Robert Kurzban's really interesting book, Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind, about self-deception and hypocrisy, and how the way our mind seems to be constructed -- as a bunch of specialized modules -- plays into those.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Correlation Or Causation?
Hilarious. The mountain range one is the best.

via @SBKaufman

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

How We Became The World's Policeman
Todd Purdham writes in Vanity Fair about the private papers of the late George F. Kennan, Cold War architect and diplomat, who Purdham says was anguished "over the way his famous 1947 warning about Soviet expansionism helped transform the America he loved into one he no longer recognized: a national-security state":

In the aftermath of World War II, and of Stalinist Russia's repudiation of postwar agreements with Washington, Kennan's fateful words rang out like a shot: "It is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies." He added, "Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the Western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet policy."
For a nation struggling to know what to make of the newly dawned nuclear age, Kennan's prescription seemed a firm and reassuring guide. It is not too much to say that his analysis, greatly amplified and expanded beyond his wildest dreams, led to the wars in Korea and Vietnam; to various lesser conflicts and adventures then and since; and even to the country's ongoing entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan. For all this--in speech after speech and interview after interview--Kennan expressed profound regret. He had intended to argue for political containment of Soviet ambitions, he insisted, until Russian Communism could collapse of its own internal contradictions (as, indeed, it eventually did). Instead, Kennan's words helped prompt the abandonment of the settled understanding of American foreign policy that had prevailed since John Quincy Adams's day--that the country "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy"--in favor of a view of America as the world's policeman. The transformation, accomplished bit by bit over many decades, was ultimately so complete as to create a country that Kennan himself, near the end of his long and lucid life, confessed he no longer recognized.

In December 1992, in a private diary entry on the American mission to Somalia, Kennan wrote, "The dispatch of American armed forces to a seat of operations in a place far from our own shores, and this for what is actually a major police action in another country and in a situation where no defensible American interest is involved--this, obviously, is something that the Founding Fathers of this country never envisaged or would ever have approved. If this is in the American tradition, then it is a very recent tradition."

It is a tradition I'm against. As George W. Bush put it (and then contradicted): "No nation-building."

via @LaffranchiLA

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Rich Sheep Now Carrying Ugly Canvas Bags
From @nytimesfashion:

Tote Bags Replace Purses as Status Symbols.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Student Loans Jack Up The Cost Of College
If students and parents were paying for college -- if there wasn't this vast federal pot of money to pluck from -- colleges couldn't charge what they do. Even ginormous state universities would have far smaller student bodies. Virginia Postrel writes about the edu-bubble at Bloomberg -- "U.S. Universities Feast on Federal Student Aid":

This week, President Barack Obama held a summit with a dozen higher-education leaders "to discuss rising college costs and strategies to reduce these costs while improving quality." The administration plans to introduce some policy proposals in the run-up to the presidential campaign.
Any serious policy reform has to start by considering a heretical idea: Federal subsidies intended to make college more affordable may have encouraged rapidly rising tuitions.

It's not as crazy as it might sound.

As veteran education-policy consultant Arthur M. Hauptman notes in a recent essay: "There is a strong correlation over time between student and parent loan availability and rapidly rising tuitions. Common sense suggests that growing availability of student loans at reasonable rates has made it easier for many institutions to raise their prices, just as the mortgage interest deduction contributes to higher housing prices."

It's a phenomenon familiar to economists. If you offer people a subsidy to pursue some activity requiring an input that's in more-or-less fixed supply, the price of that input goes up. Much of the value of the subsidy will go not to the intended recipients but to whoever owns the input. The classic example is farm subsidies, which increase the price of farmland.

...This doesn't mean that colleges capture all the aid in higher tuition charges, any more than capital-equipment companies get all the benefit of investment tax credits. But it does set up problems for two groups of students in particular. The first includes those who don't qualify for aid and who therefore have to pay the full, aid-inflated list price. The second encompasses those who load up on loans to fill the gaps not covered by grants or tax credits only to discover that the financial value they expected from their education doesn't materialize upon graduation.

That's the situation many young people find themselves in today, which is one reason for their anger. The other is a widespread feeling, which the recession has intensified, that higher education is unfairly insulated from the everyday competitive pressures most people have to cope with. Instead of having to find ways to operate more efficiently and deliver ever-more value without raising costs, the way private-sector managers do, college administrators seem able to pass higher and higher bills on to their customers and the public.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

"Doctors Don't Overtreat Themselves"
Crid (via Radley Balko) pointed me to this compelling piece on Zocalo by Ken Murray, "How Doctors Die" -- and they don't die like the rest of us:

What's unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go gently.
Of course, doctors don't want to die; they want to live. But they know enough about modern medicine to know its limits. And they know enough about death to know what all people fear most: dying in pain, and dying alone. They've talked about this with their families. They want to be sure, when the time comes, that no heroic measures will happen--that they will never experience, during their last moments on earth, someone breaking their ribs in an attempt to resuscitate them with CPR (that's what happens if CPR is done right).

Almost all medical professionals have seen what we call "futile care" being performed on people. That's when doctors bring the cutting edge of technology to bear on a grievously ill person near the end of life. The patient will get cut open, perforated with tubes, hooked up to machines, and assaulted with drugs. All of this occurs in the Intensive Care Unit at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars a day. What it buys is misery we would not inflict on a terrorist. I cannot count the number of times fellow physicians have told me, in words that vary only slightly, "Promise me if you find me like this that you'll kill me." They mean it. Some medical personnel wear medallions stamped "NO CODE" to tell physicians not to perform CPR on them. I have even seen it as a tattoo.

...It's no wonder many doctors err on the side of overtreatment.

But doctors still don't over-treat themselves. They see the consequences of this constantly. Almost anyone can find a way to die in peace at home, and pain can be managed better than ever. Hospice care, which focuses on providing terminally ill patients with comfort and dignity rather than on futile cures, provides most people with much better final days. Amazingly, studies have found that people placed in hospice care often live longer than people with the same disease who are seeking active cures. I was struck to hear on the radio recently that the famous reporter Tom Wicker had "died peacefully at home, surrounded by his family." Such stories are, thankfully, increasingly common.

There's a note in my wallet, and on file with Kaiser, saying I don't want to be kept alive as a human turnip, but I'm tempted, for the first time in my life, to get a tattoo.

Related, by Hitchens.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

It's "Date-Rapey"?
Wait -- "Baby It's Cold Outside" is known as the Christmas date-rape song?! (Is there no imaginary insanity to which a certain cadre of feminists will not stoop?) Via Althouse, a Metafilter link:

"Baby It's Cold Outside" is known as the Christmas Date Rape Song. Bitch Magazine wonders: does She & Him's gender-reversed version make it less creepy and less rape-y? Meanwhile, Persephone Magazine's "Listening While Feminist" has an alternative take on the holiday classic.

Helpfully, a Metafilter commenter, Bunny Ultramod, clears things up for the seeing rape everywhere morons (as does Persephone, but not as neatly and briefly as Bunny):

Oh Lord. Here are the lyrics. The only line that could possibly be construed as "date rapey" is "Say, what's in this drink?", which comes off badly now, in a time of rohypnol, but can be interpreted entirely innocently.
It's a seduction song, written at a time when social conventions involved women playing hard to get. It was written by Frank Loesser as a duet to be performed with his wife, and was never intended for mass consumption (she was furious with him when he sold it). It was a party song that he sang often with his wife, back when parties typically included skits and entertainment from guests. And the lyrics never specify whether it is supposed to be a male singing the "wolf" part or not

In some instances, I think the criticism that this is sort of date rapey reflects changing attitudes, and is understandable, but in others I think the critics are being sort of ironic and comical about the subject, and, honestly, I think that minimizes the actual experience of rape. The last lines of this song are clearly expressions of consent.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Cooperman Is Mad At The President
Andrew Ross Sorkin writes in The New York Times, "It's Tone, Not Taxes, a Tycoon Tells the President," about 68-year-old Wall Street vet Leon Cooperman's letter to the president:

Leon Cooperman, a 68-year-old Wall Street veteran, says he is for higher taxes on the wealthy. He would happily give up his Social Security checks. He voted for Al Gore in 2000. He says the special treatment of investment gains, or so-called carried interest, for private equity and hedge fund managers is "ridiculous." He says he even sympathizes, at least to some extent, with the Occupy Wall Street protesters.
And yet, Mr. Cooperman, a man with a rags-to-riches background who worked at Goldman Sachs for more than 25 years in the 1970s and 1980s before starting his own hedge fund, Omega Advisors, which has minted him an estimated $1.8 billion fortune, is waging a campaign against President Obama.

Last week, in a widely circulated "open letter" to President Obama that whizzed around e-mail inboxes of Wall Street and corporate America, Mr. Cooperman argued that "the divisive, polarizing tone of your rhetoric is cleaving a widening gulf, at this point as much visceral as philosophical, between the downtrodden and those best positioned to help them."

He went on to say, "To frame the debate as one of rich-and-entitled versus poor-and-dispossessed is to both miss the point and further inflame an already incendiary environment."

...Mr. Cooperman's complaint has less to do with the substance of taxing the wealthy than it does the president's choice of words in promoting it, an emphasis that he says is "villainizing the American Dream."

I think Cooperman is naive to think there's going to be any change in tone -- on either side. But, here are Cooperman's suggestions for what should be done: Screen shot 2011-12-08 at 10.22.07 PM.jpg Agree or disagree?

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Two Children Lost In The Tsunami
John M. Glionna story in the LA Times of parents' grief and how it's stopped their lives made me cry. Fair warning.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Sometimes, A Girl's Got To Sleep It Off After A Bender

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Too-Nice Guys Alert: Dr. Robert Glover On Advice Goddess Radio This Sunday
A lot of guys fail with women and fail in myriad areas of their lives because they only think they are nice guys; they are actually what I call "too-nice guys." I've written about them, quoting the terrific Dr. Robert Glover's terrific book, No More Mr. Nice Guy, here:

You call yourself a nice guy, but you're really a "nice guy," an approval-seeking, conflict-avoiding suckup. In "No More Mr. Nice Guy!" Dr. Robert Glover clarifies the difference. The "nice guy" might seem generous, but he actually isn't; he gives to get. He thinks he just has to hide how flawed he is and become what others want him to be, and he'll be loved, get his needs met, and have a problem-free life. This is unlikely to happen, as he's passive-aggressive, chronically dishonest, and brimming with "toxic shame." Thanks to a lifetime repressing his feelings and denying his needs, he's filled with rage, especially at women. Women, on the other hand, do love this guy -- to wash and wax their cars while they're on dates with guys they are sleeping with. And whaddya know, all it takes is calling him "the brick" instead of "a tool."

Another quote:

This guy sounds like the type that therapist Robert A. Glover describes in "No More Mr. Nice Guy" -- a guy who's not nice at all, but is filled with "toxic shame," and is so desperate for approval, especially from women, that he hides who he is and never asks for what he wants. Not surprisingly, he doesn't get a lot of dates, and tends to be filled with repressed rage and hatred for women. Glover told me that, in a relationship, this passive guy often turns passive-aggressive: He's chronically late and "forgetful," puts the woman down in public, and he's generally passively manipulative "because he never gets his way -- even though he's never asked for it."

Glover has very kindly agreed to be on the radio with me on Sunday from 7-8 p.m. Pacific, 10-11 p.m. Eastern. Show will be live at this link below, and you can also pick up the podcast there afterward.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2011/12/12/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Do They Let Dogs Vote In Minnesota?
Because I find it hard to believe that sentient humans elected Michele Bachmann.

Thomas Lane blogs at TPM, "Bachmann: I Would Close Our (Non-Existent) Embassy In Iran":

Michele Bachmann has had her fair share of foreign policy stumbles, but she just hit a whole new level.
According to a tweet from NBC News' Jamie Novogrod, Bachmann responded to the recent raiding of the British embassy in Iran by saying that if she was President, she would close down the U.S. embassy there.

There's just one problem: The U.S. has not had an embassy in Iran ever since the Iranian hostage crisis, when revolutionaries from the budding Islamic state held 52 Americans for 444 days. Indeed, frustration over this helped bring down Bachmann's bete noire Jimmy Carter by defining his presidency as weak. The two countries have not had official diplomatic relations since that time.

Oh, and PS, she's a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. (Where are they selecting from, the bottom of the barrel?) As long as she's there, they should rename it the House "Intelligence" Committee.

Yes, in America, it seems anyone can be elected to high office, and this is not always a good thing.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Idiotic Partisan Crap I Deplore
I got this ridiculous note from somebody on Facebook (and I should mention that I have a lot of "friends" who've read my work or seen that I'm friends with their friends):

Amy, put on your Depends before continuing...
Now now, this is sad: The First Lady is actually signing "vagina" in American Sign Language -- I kid you not!

(It's sad that Michelle is doing that to get the hard of hearing/deaf men vote.)

Here's the photo.

No idea what the inane comment about Depends means, and I hate getting mail on Facebook. I wrote back:

Thanks, but mail is hard for me -- I need to go to bed but I don't want to be rude (by leaving mail unanswered). I'm sure she had no idea and I'm not interested in these childish partisan politics. In the future, please leave me out of them. I am not a Democrat, and nor am I a Republican, and find the candidates running embarrassingly dim (Bachmann) and disgustingly anti-gay and anti-science.

I get this bullshit back...from a guy whose every post seethes hatred (not just disagreement) with the administration and the Democrats:

Amy, this is a non-partisan stuff-up
It exploded all over the deaf/HOH boards

Utter crap. I write back:

Please, stop emailing me this stuff. I need to go to bed. I am deluged with email for a living and I beg, beg, beg you, do not write me unless you need love advice and then send it to that address. I think Michelle Obama is pretty and stylish and I disagree with her on some points, and I don't give two crushed turds on toast what her hands are doing in a photo.

He has to continue:

Well, whatever... Sorry you didn't like it.

Me:

Please. Stop. Messaging me.

But, he can't:

Talk to you later.

What age are people who behave like this, 6? This behavior, and the thinking behind it, mirrors of the level of what passes for political "discussion" in this country.

(I'd rather talk to a monkey about the drapes.)

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Some Secret Information Should Remain Secret
Floyd Abrams writes in the WSJ on the aftermath of Wikileaks:

Earlier this year the American ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, was obliged to resign under Mexican pressure because his candid and quite correct cables to Washington released by WikiLeaks had observed that the Mexican army had been "risk averse" in pursuing drug traffickers. Ecuador expelled U.S. Ambassador Heather Hodges for her candid assessment of the political situation there in cables released by WikiLeaks. In Zimbabwe, the attorney general of Robert Mugabe's despotic regime has stated that those leaders of his nation who spoke with the U.S. embassy, as revealed by WikiLeaks, could face prosecution for "treason."
In 2010, WikiLeaks released more than 77,000 confidential U.S. military reports from Afghanistan, which included the names of over 100 Afghan sources of information, placing them at risk of retaliation by the Taliban. This was followed, just a few months ago, by WikiLeaks' release of the full texts of over 251,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic cables, many containing the names of individuals who had sought and been promised confidentiality.

As summarized in London's Guardian newspaper, "several thousand [documents were] labeled with a tag used by the U.S. to mark sources it believes could be placed in danger, and more than 150 specifically mentioned whistleblowers." References were, as well, made to "people persecuted by their governments, victims of sex offenses and locations of sensitive government installations and infrastructure."

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

But, Can They Quote "Popular Mechanics"?
Adding to thoughts on the education bubble and whether a college education should be everyone's path, George Mason University economist Alex Tabarrok from an interview by Nick Shulz at American.com:

Tabarrok: First, there is plenty of risk in sending a kid to college! Forty percent of students don't graduate within six years (and probably never will), many more graduate with degrees that won't help them much in the labor force, and even the ones that do graduate often do so with student debt that will follow them for decades. Moreover, even when college pays for kids is it paying for society? A lot of schooling is just signaling, not the true building of human capital. There is an argument for subsidizing science, technology, engineering, and math fields, but should we really be subsidizing anthropology, sociology, and English lit students?
In Germany, far fewer kids go to college than in the United States. Instead, most German high school students opt for apprenticeships and on-the-job training. These students are given high-skill, technical training that motivates theory with practice, and the students are paid! Moreover, on-the-job training promotes acculturation into the adult world instead of walling off 16- to 18-year-olds in their own, sometimes dangerous, world.

By the way, when I make these arguments I am sometimes accused of not appreciating that college education makes for a "well-rounded" person. What a load of rot. Basically, these critics define well-rounded as someone who can quote Plato! Rather self-serving. Well-rounded should also mean being able to replace a light fixture, a challenge to many Platonists!

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The House The Fungus And The (Safeco) Insurance Company Ate
I feel so lucky that I got to eat dinner at what used to be Walter and Judy Moore's beautiful home -- before the fungus and the insurance company (Safeco) wrecked the place.

Walter, who is an attorney, with Judy, has been fighting "Safeco's bad faith and unfair competition" in court. The story is rather amazing and the lesson about what you may really be buying with homeowner's insurance -- in Walter's words, "a false sense of security" -- is instructive:

Walter and Judy's SafecoLitigation.com site is here.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

The TSA Stooges
Lisa Simeone blogs the realities of the TSA, with the quote below about the "safer, stronger" aviation system from a TSA mouthpiece:

A favorite tactic is to repeat tag lines and act as if they're solemn pronouncements:
The country's aviation system is safer, stronger and more secure than it was 10 years ago, and the employees of TSA are on the front lines every day protecting the traveling public. In the past decade, TSA has developed a highly trained federal workforce that has safely screened more than five billion passengers and established a multi-layered security system reaching from curb to cockpit.

I don't know which is my favorite -- the part where he states that the system is safer, stronger, and more secure; the soul-stirring "front lines" bit; the "highly trained" howler; or that cute bit of alliteration at the end -- "from curb to cockpit" -- one wonders how much of our tax dollars went to pay for an ad agency to come up with that.

In fact, the system is "safer, stronger, and more secure" than it was ten years ago, though not because of the TSA. It's for two simple reasons: the cockpit doors have been secured -- something that had been recommended for years before 9/11 but which wasn't done -- and because passengers will no longer silently submit to would-be attackers.

No bombs were brought on board on 9/11. That's not what brought the planes down. If anyone shows up with knives, box cutters, guns -- or, god help us, tweezers -- today, passengers won't play along.

The "front lines" bit is not only clichéd, it's nonsense. If an actual terrorist, as opposed to a forgetful chef, makes it past the "multi-layered security system" that this country is supposed to have in place, all the way to the checkpoint, that's a failure of intelligence, not something to trumpet as a test for the TSA. If you managed to bring a bomb to an airport, why would you bother trying to get on a plane? Why not just detonate the thing in a concourse, like a bomber did in Moscow's Domodedovo airport?

TSA agents are "highly trained"? Really? Is that why the agency advertises on pizza boxes? And is that why in this article on her experience as a TSA agent, Barbara S. Peterson revealed the lackluster interview process and lack of background screening for TSA employees? After all, these are the people pawing through our bags, wallets, and pants, questioning us about our financial transactions, ordering us into the glassed-in gulags for a grope. Shouldn't they be "highly trained"?

Riley goes on to tout the TSA's confiscation of "more than 1,100 guns this year alone." I'm surprised he didn't brag about the confiscation of the potato chip bag containing meth, a bold move by the TSA. Aren't you glad you weren't on that plane? What if that guy had gotten through? The admixture of sodium chloride, methamphetamine, and potato starch might have caused a chemical combustion! (Never mind that TSA agents aren't law enforcement and have no business searching people for drugs in the first place.)

Despite Riley's boasting about "more than 1,100 guns," the TSA's own Red Teams have consistently found that screeners miss most of the banned stuff anyway. In Denver, in Newark, in Tampa, in Dallas, in you-name it, the TSA's "highly trained" agents are missing the very things they brag about finding. Maybe that's because they're too busy sticking their hands down people's pants to notice.

UPDATE - Related, via BoingBoing, "Aviation security expert: TSA wasted $56B on junk security."

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Non-Muslim Muslims And The Jihad Against The West
His FrontPage piece that debunks a lot of misconceptions about Islam starts out "My name is Bosch and I'm a recovering Muslim":

...That is, if Muslims don't kill me for leaving Islam, which it requires them to do. That's just one of the reasons I've been writing and drawing against Islam and its Jihad for a number of years now. But fortunately for us, Islam hasn't been able to make every Muslim its slave, just as Nazism wasn't able to turn every German into a Nazi. So there is Islam and there are Muslims. Muslims who take Islam seriously are at war with us and Muslims who don't aren't.
But that doesn't mean we should consider these reluctant Muslims allies against Jihad. I've been around Muslims my entire life and most of them truly don't care about Islam. The problem I have with many of these essentially non-Muslim Muslims, especially in the middle of this war being waged on us by their more consistent co-religionists, is that they give the enemy cover. They force us to play a game of Muslim Roulette since we can't tell which Muslim is going to blow himself up until he does. And their indifference about the evil being committed in the name of their religion is a big reason why their reputation is where it is.

...Another problem with Muslims who aren't very Muslim is that they lead some among us to conclude that they must be practicing a more enlightened form of Islam. They're not. They're "practicing" life in non-Muslim countries, where they are free to live as they choose. But their "Islam" is not the Islam. There's no separate ideology apart from Islam that's being practiced by these Muslims in name only, there's no such thing as "Western Islam".

Non-observant Muslims are not our problem, but neither are they the solution to our problem. Our problem is Islam and its most consistent practitioners. There is nothing in Islam that stays the hand of Muslims who want to kill non-Muslims. If an individual Muslim is personally peaceful, it's not because of Islam, it's because of his individual choice, which is why I often say that your average Muslim is morally superior to Mohammad, to their own religion. The very rare Muslim who helps us against Jihad is acting against his religion, but that doesn't stop some among us from thinking that his existence somehow means that he represents more than himself.

...We didn't use terms such as "Radical Nazism", "Extremist Shinto" and "Militant Communism" in the past. "Militant Islam", Political Islam", etc., are redundant terms. Our pretending otherwise has proven disastrous. Thousands of American lives, both civilian and military, have been sacrificed because of policies predicated on the myth that "Islam means peace." We didn't try to reform Shinto or Nazism during World War II; the major changes in those cultures took place only after we thoroughly de-militarized them.

And it's no accident that Western analysts of Islam who are most informed about Islam are also most critical of it, while those least informed are least critical. But then there are those who, in their study of Islam, have become so enamored with their subject that, instead of sticking to what Islam is, they often write about what it isn't, what they hope it might be. They seem preoccupied with doing their part to save Islam from those who have allegedly corrupted it.

The Muslim world is where the true meaning of Islam can be found in practice. Islam - not any alleged deviant form of it - means misogyny, censorship, anti-Semitism, homophobia, wife-beatings, beheadings, honor killings, pedophilia/"child marriages", murdering infidels, etc. This is evil, and Islam sanctions every bit of it, but we've been told that we must respect "one of the world's great religions" because it's a religion.

If you are tolerant of all of that -- "misogyny, censorship, anti-Semitism, homophobia, wife-beatings, beheadings, honor killings, pedophilia/'child marriages,' murdering infidels -- let's hear from you.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

It's My Body; Why Can't I Sell It If I Want To?
Sally Satel writes in the WSJ about the recent 9th Circuit Court Decision that bone marrow donors may be compensated:

In a unanimous ruling, the court rejected the position of the U.S. Department of Justice that obtaining bone-marrow stem cells through a needle in a donor's arm--in much the same way that blood plasma and platelets are collected--violates the ban on paying for organs established by the 1984 National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA).
...Pivotal to the judges' decision was the fact that modern bone-marrow procurement makes the process akin to drawing blood. In the early 1980s, when NOTA was written, the process was more demanding, involving anesthesia and large hollow needles that extract marrow directly from the donor's hip bone.

...At one level, the Ninth Circuit ruling is narrow: Only cells collected in a certain way are deemed exempt from NOTA, making their donors eligible for compensation. But the decision has broad implications for transplant policy in general because it underscores the profound weakness in our altruism-only transplant policy--not only relating to bone marrow, no matter how it is collected, but also for the thousands who die each year awaiting a kidney, liver, heart or lung.

As the judges pointed out, there is no logical basis for allowing compensation for blood, sperm and eggs while disallowing bone-marrow cells obtained through apheresis. Nor is it a novel cause for alarm that the better-off will be at an advantage in purchasing. This is already true for egg donation and maternal surrogacy. In contrast, all serious proposals for revising NOTA have advanced a system in which a third party would provide in-kind incentives for bone marrow and other organs as well.

The Ninth Circuit decision should also spur a moral dialogue about the idea of "commodification." Giving a body part "free" is noble, some say, but accepting compensation is illegitimate, a sordid affront to human dignity.

How absurd. Dignity is affirmed when we respect the capacity of individuals to make decisions in their own best interest, protect their health, and express gratitude for their sacrifice. The true indignity is to stand by while thousands of people die each year.

For anyone who doesn't know about Sally, well, I'll put it this way. A mutual friend once introduced Sally Satel and me via email. I wrote to her, jokingly, "I believe you have my friend Virginia Postrel's kidney." (A story worth reading.)

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

U.S. Government As Money Launderer For Drug Cartels
Ginger Thompson writes in The New York Times:

Undercover American narcotics agents have laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds as part of Washington's expanding role in Mexico's fight against drug cartels, according to current and former federal law enforcement officials.
The agents, primarily with the Drug Enforcement Administration, have handled shipments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal cash across borders, those officials said, to identify how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most important, who their leaders are.

They said agents had deposited the drug proceeds in accounts designated by traffickers, or in shell accounts set up by agents.

The officials said that while the D.E.A. conducted such operations in other countries, it began doing so in Mexico only in the past few years. The high-risk activities raise delicate questions about the agency's effectiveness in bringing down drug kingpins, underscore diplomatic concerns about Mexican sovereignty, and blur the line between surveillance and facilitating crime. As it launders drug money, the agency often allows cartels to continue their operations over months or even years before making seizures or arrests.

Agency officials declined to publicly discuss details of their work, citing concerns about compromising their investigations. But Michael S. Vigil, a former senior agency official who is currently working for a private contracting company called Mission Essential Personnel, said, "We tried to make sure there was always close supervision of these operations so that we were accomplishing our objectives, and agents weren't laundering money for the sake of laundering money."

Another former agency official, who asked not to be identified speaking publicly about delicate operations, said, "My rule was that if we are going to launder money, we better show results. Otherwise, the D.E.A. could wind up being the largest money launderer in the business, and that money results in violence and deaths."

Fast & Furious and brought to you by your government.

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For The Person Who Cares Enough To Give The Very Best
And who has not a clue in the world as to what that would be:

Shop Amazon's Gift Cards - Perfect Anytime.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

This Made Me Laugh
Quick video:

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Glee: The STD Version
I'm researching herpes for a column and I found the cover of this book hilarious. Yes, it's Glee -- For People With Herpes

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Domesticity, By Amy Alkon
Boyfriend who cooks for me, at mention of bottle of salad dressing he left out on counter: "You've gotta do more than lift the fork."

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Abstinence-Only Leads To The Back Seat
Via Wendy McElroy at ifeminists, University of Georgia researchers found that abstinence-only education does not lead to abstinent behavior. In fact, states with abstinence-only programs have significantly higher teen pregnancy rates than those with more comprehensive sex-ed:

The researchers looked at teen pregnancy and birth data from 48 U.S. states to evaluate the effectiveness of those states' approaches to sex education, as prescribed by local laws and policies.
"Our analysis adds to the overwhelming evidence indicating that abstinence-only education does not reduce teen pregnancy rates," said Kathrin Stanger-Hall, assistant professor of plant biology and biological sciences in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

Hall is first author on the resulting paper, which has been published online in the journal PLoS ONE.

The study is the first large-scale evidence that the type of sex education provided in public schools has a significant effect on teen pregnancy rates, Hall said.

"This clearly shows that prescribed abstinence-only education in public schools does not lead to abstinent behavior," said David Hall, second author and assistant professor of genetics in the Franklin College. "It may even contribute to the high teen pregnancy rates in the U.S. compared to other industrialized countries."

Along with teen pregnancy rates and sex education methods, Hall and Stanger-Hall looked at the influence of socioeconomic status, education level, access to Medicaid waivers and ethnicity of each state's teen population.

Even when accounting for these factors, which could potentially impact teen pregnancy rates, the significant relationship between sex education methods and teen pregnancy remained: the more strongly abstinence education is emphasized in state laws and policies, the higher the average teenage pregnancy and birth rates.

"Because correlation does not imply causation, our analysis cannot demonstrate that emphasizing abstinence causes increased teen pregnancy. However, if abstinence education reduced teen pregnancy as proponents claim, the correlation would be in the opposite direction," said Stanger-Hall.

The paper indicates that states with the lowest teen pregnancy rates were those that prescribed comprehensive sex and/or HIV education, covering abstinence alongside proper contraception and condom use. States whose laws stressed the teaching of abstinence until marriage were significantly less successful in preventing teen pregnancies.

Their full paper can be read here.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

The Higher Education Bubble Is A-Poppin'
Glenn Harlan Reynolds writes in the WashEx about his notion from a few years back that higher ed was facing a bubble much like the housing bubble. (Well, it seems his crystal ball is working.) He now explodes the fallacy of how colleges will supposedly stamp out middle class people one after the next:

Just last week, the New York Times, normally a big fan of higher education, ran an article on "The Dwindling Power of a College Degree." In our grandparents' day, a college diploma nearly guaranteed a decent job.
Now, not so much: "One of the greatest changes is that a college degree is no longer the guarantor of a middle-class existence. Until the early 1970s, less than 11 percent of the adult population graduated from college, and most of them could get a decent job. Today nearly a third have college degrees, and a higher percentage of them graduated from non-elite schools. A bachelor's degree on its own no longer conveys intelligence and capability."

This is a simple case of inflation: When you artificially pump up the supply of something (whether it's currency or diplomas), the value drops. The reason why a bachelor's degree on its own no longer conveys intelligence and capability is that the government decided that as many people as possible should have bachelor's degrees.

There's something of a pattern here. The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we'll have more middle class people.

But homeownership and college aren't causes of middle-class status, they're markers for possessing the kinds of traits -- self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. -- that let you enter, and stay in, the middle class.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

We'll All Be Crazy Soon
Walter Olson blogs at Cato that the revised DSM-5, the American Psych Association's "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders," with its expanded categories of disorder, is likely to allow all sorts of legal fun in the workplace:

Introducing a new category of Mild Neurocognitive Disorder, for example, could entitle workers to begin claiming job-related accommodation for cognitive deficits often associated with advancing age -- perhaps especially significant since federal law has made it unlawful for most private employers to set policies of automatic retirement at any particular age. As Foley notes, the task force is also planning to reduce the diagnostic threshold for two disabilities that generate many ADA claims already: Attention Deficit Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
Employers already face serious legal risks under existing law if they decline to accommodate employees with mental and behavioral deficits (which may include substance abuse, at least if the worker has entered rehab). As I noted the other day at Overlawyered, a hotel chain has agreed to pay $132,500 for dismissing an autistic front desk clerk rather than working with a state-paid "job coach" to remedy his deficiencies. The EEOC sued an insurance company that rescinded a job offer as an agent to an applicant after he tested positive for methadone. An Iowa jury awarded $1.1 million against a university for failing to accommodate an employee's request for a lighter work load and other changes after she was diagnosed with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. And HR lawyers have warned employers that administering personality tests to new workers could violate the law by improperly revealing protected conditions such as "paranoid personality disorder."

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Get The Podcast! Advice Goddess Radio: Dr. Peter Jonason On Bad Boys, Booty Calls, And The Double Standard
Dr. Peter Karl Jonason is a really smart and insightful young social-personality psychologist who studies the dark sides of human mating. He did a really smart show with me last night and I hope you'll give it a listen.

Listen live at this link (or use it to download the podcast -- click "play in your default player" to download to your iPod, etc.):

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2011/12/05/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon

The show has also been accepted on iTunes, so you can subscribe there. Just search "Amy Alkon." Or go every week to:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon

And listen and call in Sunday night, 7-8 p.m. Pacific, 10-11 p.m. Eastern for advice on love, dating, sex, relationships or to talk with my guest and me about the subjects we're discussing.

As I said about the show last night:

This is Advice Goddess Radio -- the show that brings in the best people from science to help you solve all your love problems and be the best you can be. Yes, with my fantastic professor and therapist guests I'm going to help you Nerd Your Way To A Better Life! ...Get out of your relationship agony, get into a relationship, get more sex, have better sex, and make your life more what you want it to be.

Next Sunday night, Dr. Robert Glover, author of the fantastic book to help men dewimpify, No More Mr. Nice Guy. I recommend this to guys who are "too-nice guys" all the time, and I get back glowing letters about how it's changed their lives. Glover is terrific, and I hope you'll listen!

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

The Herman Cain Mutiny
I found myself talking about the weather for two hours on KABC the other night (Angelenos are such weenies -- a little wind blows your roof into the neighbors' pool, and you get all whiney about it?). This meant that I didn't get to talk about what I'd prepared for -- Herman Cain's zipper issues.

Regarding the earlier sexual harassment charges that came out, I think anybody can bring sexual harassment charges against anybody these days. The likes of "He told me I was wearing a pretty dress!" can sometimes be enough to land a successful executive in the Dumpster.

Also, litigation is extremely expensive and it's sometimes in the benefit of a company to pay a person off -- even if the accused isn't guilty as charged. So, I look less harshly on the accusations of sexual harassment when Cain headed the restaurant association.

But the new lady...there were text messages. There was apparently a trip to the Holyfield fight in Vegas. Apparently. I keep waiting to see photos. Surely a guy like Cain would have really good seats and be in some shots of the fight. But, I've seen no substantiation of these accusations.

And let me say in the strongest way, I am not a Herman Cain fan, nor am I a Republican (nor am I a Democrat). If I could have my druthers, Chris Christie would run -- after Dr. Michael Eades did an intervention on him on his weight!

But, even the appearance that there's evidence brings us to the problem in the modern age. If you want to be a politician -- in this country, not France or Italy -- and you want to have sex with a woman who's not your wife, you'd better be paying cash and wearing a Richard Nixon mask at the time.

For those who pay credit and go maskless, there's a piece in the Independent, "All the candidate's women - rules for surviving a scandal," about how sexual indiscretions do not always lead to political death. Rupert Cornwell writes:

Tales of sexual misconduct have swirled around presidents and would-be presidents ever since Thomas Jefferson, back in 1802, was accused of an affair with his black slave Sally Hemings. For much of the 20th century, however, a curious truce was observed. Reporters had their suspicions about Warren Harding (who was entertaining young ladies in White House closets seven decades before Bill Clinton met Monica Lewinsky) and later about John F Kennedy. But a clubby, boys-will-be-boys, spirit prevailed.
In the 1970s, though, the rules changed - maybe because of the distrust of cynicism born of Vietnam and Watergate, or perhaps it was the growth of a feminist movement out to ensure men were no longer granted carte blanche in sexual matters.

And so to Gary Hart, the first prominent "victim" of the modern sex scandal. Everyone knew that Hart was "a man who appreciated a well-turned ankle". But by the time he was running for the 1988 Democratic nomination the rumours had become so deafening that the candidate challenged the press: "If anyone wants to put a tail on me, go ahead," he said. "They'd be pretty bored." The Miami Herald took him up on the offer, and was not bored.

Its story turned the aspiring actress Donna Rice, who accompanied the politician on a two-day yacht trip aboard the splendidly named Monkey Business, into a short-lived global celebrity. Hart's campaign was finished. He had committed the two cardinal sins in a political sex scandal. The affair was current and he'd been caught lying about it.

Yet Bill Clinton was to survive even more lurid allegations. That he was prone to "bimbo eruptions" had long been known. But in January 1992, at the height of campaigning for the New Hampshire primary, Gennifer Flowers, a nightclub singer, went public with claims of an affair, with phone tapes to prove it. Like most reporters covering the 1992 election, I assumed Clinton had had it. But that was to reckon without a masterpiece of damage control, as his camp sought to discredit the witness, claiming the tapes had been doctored. It helped, of course, that the press liked Clinton, as they had liked JFK 30 years earlier. Clinton managed to come second in the primary, and labelled himself "The Comeback Kid". The rest is history.

But had he been instantly exposed as a flat-out liar, that surely would have been the end - just as it would be the end, years later, for the presidential campaign of John Edwards after he had denied his affair with the film-maker Rielle Hunter with whom he fathered a child, only to be caught out as his wife was dying of cancer.

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The Rise Of Girl Gangs And Girl-On-Girl Violence
Women, historically (anthropologically), don't go all beat-down on each other's asses; women fight wars of words. They talk trash about their rivals, accusing them of promiscuity. They derogate their looks to men. They snub them and try to get them excluded from a group.

Women are responsible for more domestic violence against men (or against lesbian partners) than most people know or believe. But, generally, men exhibit more violence against others than women do. (And this isn't a sneer of "men are awful!" -- just the data-based facts about violence.)

But there's a story out of New York on girl-on-girl gang violence. And increasingly, women are exhibiting animalistic violence against each other in a way not seen before...like this beat-down in Canada that I recently blogged.

Brad Hamilton writes in the New York Post:

When teen hoop star Tayshana Murphy was chased and shot dead by gang members in her project in Morningside Heights in September, few knew her death was a double tragedy.
Despite being one of the city's best high-school basketball players and a likely WNBA draft pick, Murphy had been drawn into a deadly street crew and was killed because of a rivalry with another gang.

Cops now have revealed that Murphy was caught in a troubling new trend: good girls recruited by neighborhood gangs into lives of violence, where carrying weapons and committing crimes is as commonplace as shooting a free throw.

Sister gangs are popping up all over Manhattan, Brooklyn and The Bronx with names such as the Harlem Hiltons, Hood Barbies, Billion Dolla Beauties, Gun Clappin Divas and 2 Gurl Gunnas, police say.

They brawl, flash box cutters, stash guns for male gangbangers and act as ambush bait, luring boy members of rival crews to house parties for revenge beatdowns.

...Bronx prosecutors are preparing to try another young woman, Raven Walker, 16, for murder after she allegedly stabbed to death a teenage boy during a gang fight on Gunther Avenue in June 2010.

The mother of the victim, Rashawn Birthright, 17, claimed her son's death was "part of a gang initiation."

Youth counselors say it's increasingly difficult for female teens like Murphy and Walker to resist joining all-girl sets.

"The mom is working three jobs and comes home at 11 at night, so they're not being raised by anybody but the streets and their friends," says Karim Chapman, a supervisor with Operation Snug, a youth program that employs ex-gang members to teach teens peace.

"These girl crews are forming for protection and a sense of identity."

And that's also my guess on where this is coming from: A need, in the absence of stable, two-parent homes, to belong to something. Karim Chapman notes it above in the Post story:

"The mom is working three jobs and comes home at 11 at night, so they're not being raised by anybody but the streets and their friends"...

And, in universitese, a dissertation by Nancy Beth Hirschinger advises that we should "recognize the adaptational function of violence in the lives of urban females from their perspective."

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The Government Says No To Your iPhone Calls Going Through
Gordon Crovitz writes at the WSJ:

Today's AT&T, a spinoff from the original, needs more spectrum to catch up with market leader Verizon, also a Ma Bell descendant, to support iPhones, Androids and other devices that feature video and sophisticated apps. It wants to buy T-Mobile, a division of a German company, which doesn't have the resources to compete in the United States on its own. But the FCC decided to apply antitrust theory from the industrial era and claims to know better than wireless companies how they should operate their businesses.
AT&T's proposed acquisition is best understood as a private-sector solution to a government-created problem. The FCC has not been able to get Congress to approve auctions to reallocate spectrum to wireless from less valuable uses. AT&T wants T-Mobile's bandwidth so it can extend the latest fourth-generation network to 97% of the country from 80% and improve its spotty service in congested areas.

Under laws dating to the 1920s, the FCC gets to decide if a merger is in the "public interest," a vague standard for top-down decision making. Government is the last institution in this era of fast technological innovation to act as if it has the information and power to dictate how change happens.

The FCC said the planned $39 billion merger between the second- and fourth-largest wireless providers would "enhance market power." This is true, but not the same as harming competition.

The wireless market is different from, say, the steel industry circa 1970: Demand for wireless has skyrocketed, but prices have fallen. Consumers have more choices in mobile-phone plans, but the industry has consolidated. In network-based technologies like telecommunications, the key is using spectrum efficiently to meet the demands of consumers for new services, which puts a premium on scale.

..."What is really galling about the staff report--and, frankly, the basic posture of the agency--is that its criticisms really boil down to one thing: 'We believe there is another way to accomplish something like what AT&T wants to do here, and we'd prefer they do it another way,'" wrote Geoffrey Manne of the International Center for Law and Economics on the TechLiberation blog. "This is central planning at its most repugnant."

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Prefrontal Hip-Hop
This is your brain on rap:

via Scott Barry Kaufman

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The Frugal Santa
Today's Holiday Deals at Amazon.

For the super-frugal, Gifts for under $25.

Thanks to all who buy through my Amazon links and help support me, my writing, and this site.

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Tonight On Advice Goddess Radio: Dr. Peter Jonason On Bad Boys, Booty Calls, And The Double Standard
Dr. Peter Karl Jonason is a really smart and insightful young social-personality psychologist who studies the dark sides of human mating, and who I was determined to have on my show after hearing him present his work at evolutionary psychology conferences I've attended.

A little more about Jonason, who's now teaching at the University of Western Sydney:

I am a social-personality psychologist who takes an evolutionary approach to personality, individual differences, mating behavior, and sex differences.

He'll be on my radio show on Sunday night, 7 p.m. Pacific time, 10 p.m. Eastern, for an hour, and WE NEED YOUR CALLS!

Listen live at this link (or use it to download the podcast afterward -- click "play in your default player" to download to your iPod, etc.):

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2011/12/05/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon

The show has also been accepted on iTunes, so you can subscribe there. Just search "Amy Alkon." Or go every week to:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon

Call in Sunday night, 7-8 p.m. Pacific, 10-11 p.m. Eastern for advice on love, dating, sex, relationships or to talk with Peter and me about the subjects we're discussing.

Call-in number once the show is on and live (at 7 p.m.): (347) 326-9761 (New York area code).

Oh, and the show opening is finally finished -- and it's fab. It's by Xenia Shin of the underground L.A. band Laco$te.

UPDATE: If you have questions you want me to ask him and can't call in then, please post them here or email them to me at adviceamy at aol dot com.

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Common Sense Has Been Suspended Until Further Notice
If the story is true. Now, normally, I would pass on a story like this because it lacks information and seems sort of unbelievable. I'm posting it because in the current climate of paranoia, PC, and zero tolerance, it has a ring of truth to it. It could happen.

Via @mpetrie, a Gaston County, North Carolina mother says her 9-year-old son was suspended for calling a teacher "cute":

Chiquita Lockett said her 9-year-old son, Emanyea, spent the last two days at home.
Lockett said the principal of Brookside Elementary called her Wednesday to say the incident was a form of "sexual harassment."

...A district spokeswoman said she could not go into detail, but said Emanyea was suspended for "inappropriate behavior" after making "inappropriate statements."

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

The Hypocrisy Of Occupy Wall Street
I'm all for free speech -- even if I disagree with it. But, your right to free speech doesn't, for example, mean you get to stop other people from getting to work or make other taxpayers spend a lot of money to clean up from your speech. Or...as Wendy Kaminer writes on Spiked-Online:

Public protests have long been subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions (as I discussed here). But a Superior Court judge in Boston has effectively enjoined the city from imposing routine time, place and manner restrictions on Occupy Boston and evicting the 24/7 occupation from a small square in the financial district, pending a hearing on 1 December.
What's so remarkable - and, in my view, so remarkably wrong - about this order? It suggests that an infinitesimal percentage of the population may appropriate a public park indefinitely, to the exclusion of more than 99 per cent of the people the appropriators claim to represent.

...What standard of review should courts employ in deciding if or when the rights of occupiers unduly infringe on the rights of others? Let's consider just a few questions raised by Occupy Boston's claim.

What if a group of Tea Partiers seeks to establish camp in the same space (Dewey Square) in order to demonstrate a contrary vision of community or communicate a contrary view of economic justice? ... So would Occupy Boston have the right to exclude the Tea Partiers, in order to prevent them from muddying its message, simply because they got there first? What if either Occupy Boston or the Tea Party or any other group decided to take over a much larger, more popular space, like the Boston Common, insisting that it was, after all, the only place in which their messages could effectively be conveyed?

What if a group of Christian nationalists set up camp in a public park and excluded all non-Christians from their encampment in order to demonstrate the possibility of a purified Christian America?

...Occupy Wall Street and its satellites are supposed to represent the interests of the unprivileged many; they should perhaps refrain from demanding occupational 'rights' that can only be extended to a privileged few.

As Kaminer writes at the Atlantic link above:

I suspect that many Occupy Wall Streeters base an excessively expansive view of their own First Amendment rights on a belief in the rightness of their movement.
..."I think it's disgusting that (the Mayor of Boston) said civil disobedience won't be tolerated,'' one 29 year old protester thoughtlessly exclaimed to the Boston Globe. Civil disobedience isn't meant to be tolerated; it's meant to expose official intolerance and injustice. Civil disobedience includes both a commitment to violating arguably unjust laws and a willingness to submit to lawful arrests.

Of course, if very plausible allegations of police brutality are true, then some arrests weren't lawful, and police officers responsible for them should be held to account. No one should have the right to break laws with impunity -- not bankers, not presidents, not police, and not protesters. Occupy Wall Streeters rightfully incensed by a regulatory regime that creates and protects gross economic inequality should be among the first to recognize this fundamental principle -- that everyone is equal under law.

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Adbase Is Scumbase
I am plagued, plagued, by unprofessional PR. I sometimes write to chastise the PR person who glowingly writes me in about something I couldn't be less likely to blog about -- or buy. McArdle at The Atlantic on the scumbags behind Adbase spam:

About six months ago, maybe more, I started getting emails from photographers, showcasing their new work. Clearly, my email got put on some list. But what list? No way to tell. I could opt out from emails, but that only opted out of emails from that particular photographer. All the other photographers kept sending. Since I was getting perhaps a dozen of these a day, I gave up and just let them cram my inbox.
Yesterday I learned where they were coming from, when a photographer sent an email titled "my last email with Adbase". Some googling reveals that people are under the impression that this is a vetted list of creative directors and art directors who have specifically asked to receive emails from aspiring photographers. This is how the Adbase site describes their services:

Don't bother marketing to the wrong buyers or sending the right buyers promotions they'll never see. Our database makes it easy to find the contacts you're looking for and gives you an edge by knowing exactly how they want to be contacted.

Note: I am not a creative director, an art director, or someone empowered with a budget to purchase photographs either by my firm, or my husband.

Further note: at the time that I was added to this list, my title was Business and Economics Editor. It is now Senior Editor. Neither of these titles implies that I am someone empowered with a budget to purchase photographs.

Even further note: I have never requested that someone add my email to a database that photographers could use to send me new work, because, as I may have mentioned, I am not empowered with a budget to purchase photographs.

And final note to purchasers of the Adbase list: this is the quality of email address you're buying. Hope you didn't overpay! Because even if I somehow acquired the budget to purchase new photographs, as god is my witness, I would make damn sure that I didn't buy one from any of the people who have wasted my time with completely unsolicited emails.

Here's a typical one I get from an unprofessional PR person. If anyone takes the time to look at who they're writing to -- the essence of professional public relations -- it takes a about 15 seconds on my site to see to see I write on love, dating, sex, and relationships and blog on those subjects, civil liberties, and a few related subjects. I typically get a message like this back, when I complain that somebody has written about me about, say, in this case, (subject line) "RE: Press Release - New Home Decor Line."

Hi
my apologies...you were not spammed...i went thru a list for 3 days and included key words such as interior decor, feng shu, home decor etc...not sure why you would have been included if none of those subjects show up on your blog!

liza fiorentinos

My email I sent to Liza Fiorentinos:

From: AdviceAmy@aol.com Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2011 10:53:40 -0500 Subject: Re: Press Release - New Home Decor Line To: liza@luludi.net
Feng shui is idiocy and what about a science- and anthropology-based advice columnist who blogs on libertarian issues said to you I was an appropriate person to spam with your press release? Thanks for one more lazy email clogging my life.

P.S. My tiny house is "decorated" in piles of paper and my kitchen has no place to eat, because both sides of what would be the breakfast nook have floor to nearly ceiling shelves to ease the overflow of my books overflow.

And is it such a big deal to just delete an email? Yes, it is. My email box bounces when an email comes in -- which I like. And every unprofessional, wrongly targeted piece of PR takes me away from my writing or whatever I'm doing for something of no importance to me. The person who sends unprofessional PR is taking my time for no good reason other than their laziness. They're making me bear the burden of that laziness, and it is a burden where there's far more than one Liza with the feng shui client out there...daily, hourly.

Oh, and I think I was getting the photographer email, too, but I get so much unprofessional PR, it's hard to remember.

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Sluts Behind The Wheel!
From BBC News, by Sebastian Usher, "End of virginity' if women drive, Saudi cleric warns":

The report was prepared for Saudi Arabia's legislative assembly, the Shura Council, by a well-known conservative academic.
...As part of his careful reform process, King Abdullah has allowed suggestions to surface that the ban might be reviewed.

This has angered the conservative religious elite - a key power base for any Saudi ruler.

Now, one of their number - well-known academic Kamal Subhi - has presented a new report to the country's legislative assembly, the Shura.

The aim was to get it to drop plans to reconsider the ban.

The report contains graphic warnings that letting women drive would increase prostitution, pornography, homosexuality and divorce.

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Teevee Ain't Free...But It's A Little Cheaper
With Amazon's holiday deals in home entertainment.

Thank you to all who support my writing and my site by buying through my Amazon links here or at Amy's Mall. As long as you go through one of my links, even if you don't buy that particular product, I'll get "credit." (In other words, a nice little kickback.)

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Oy Vey, The Face Of Al Qaeda
Hunchbacked, little 85-year-old Lenore Zimmerman was strip-searched by the TSA. (Because JFK TSA sensed her matzo balls are like tiny bombs?)

And check out the photo at the link below. This woman is more likely to get a contract playing for the NBA than she is to be a member of Al Quaeda.

Nicholas Hirshon writes for the NY Daily News:

When Zimmerman reached a security checkpoint, she asked if she could forgo the advanced image technology screening equipment, fearing it might interfere with her defibrillator.
She said she normally gets patted down. But this time, she says that two female agents escorted her to a private room and began to remove her clothes.

"I was outraged," said Zimmerman, a retired receptionist.

As she tried to lift a lightweight walker off her lap, she says, the metal bars banged against her leg and blood trickled from a gash.

"My sock was soaked with blood," she said. "I was bleeding like a pig."

She says the TSA agents showed no sympathy, instead pulling down her pants and asking her to raise her arms.

"Why are you doing this?" she said she asked the agents, who did not respond.

The TSA claims the footage does not show any sign of the injury.

"Our screening procedures are conducted in a manner designed to treat all passengers with dignity, respect and courtesy," Farbstein said.

Yeah, dignity -- what we now call it when you're an 85-year-old lady and two government-employed thugs yank down your pants under the pretense that they're keeping us all safe. What's safest are their jobs.

And by the way, I haven't given up on getting my call to defend our civil liberties op-ed placed. I was last rejected by Reuters, but I have a new editor who's going to take a look at it. And if that person feels it isn't for him (he won't be afraid to publish it, but it might not work for his publication), I have a naughty but wonderful idea of where I think it can go.

link via Charlotte Allen

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Income Inequality, Brought To You By Social Security & Medicare
Taking from the young and giving to the old -- and rich.

Hunter Lewis blogs at AgainstCronyCapitalism.com:

...These taxes hit low income young people and transfer the money to affluent seniors. This is all part of what we have previously described as the current " war against the young."
We are not Republicans on this site. We find crony capitalism in all parties. But if we were Republicans, and facing an Obama campaign completely premised on attacking the rich, we would propose to keep tax rates where they are but end entitlements for rich people.

The biggest entitlement is being able to deduct jumbo home mortgages. Ending this would not be easy because the real estate industry would threaten a shut off of campaign funds. But it makes no sense to subsidize expensive homes when the government is hemorraging red ink.

While they are at it, the Republicans should end Social Security and Medicare for the wealthy.

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« November 2011 | Home | January 2012 »

Welcome To Islam; Leave Your Women's Rights By The Door
Laura King writes in the LA Times/Sac Bee:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has pardoned a jailed rape victim, but only after she agreed to marry the man she says raped her.

Amy Alkon

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