Spelling By Mitt Romney
Maybe "Amercia's" GOP sweetheart has been tagging some SoCal buildings:
The First Amendment Is Now Officially Brett Kimberlin's Bitch
Terrific blog post by Hans Bader at Open Market:
Earlier, I wrote about how a judge in Montgomery County, Maryland (a liberal bastion), had effectively silenced a critic of convicted "Speedway Bomber" Brett Kimberlin, who is now a left-wing activist subsidized by the Tides Foundation and the Barbra Streisand Foundation.On Wednesday, Judge C.J. Vaughey issued a restraining order -- a so-called "peace order" -- against attorney Aaron Walker based on Walker's criticism of Kimberlin's misuse of the legal system (Kimberlin, who has also been convicted of perjury, has filed countless lawsuits against his detractors). Walker's criticism of Kimberlin had supposedly resulted in outraged members of the public making threats against Kimberlin (although the judge's order did not cite a single example of a threat).
I explained here on May 29 how Judge Vaughey's order patently, flagrantly violated the First Amendment and the Supreme Court's First Amendment rulings in cases like Brandenburg v. Ohio and Hess v. Indiana limiting liability for so-called incitement. I also explained how the Judge's order reflected ignorance about both the Internet and basic First Amendment principles.
I also noted that Walker had been arrested at that hearing, but I said it was "unclear" at the time why he had been arrested. It is now crystal clear that he was arrested for exercising his constitutional right to free speech. The judge's jailing of Walker was based on his blog posts and tweets, and thus violated the First Amendment, a fact lamented by law professors like Case Western Reserve University's Jonathan Adler and U.C.L.A.'s Eugene Volokh (one of America's leading First Amendment scholars), and journalists like David Hogberg of the Investors Business Daily. But as Professor Adler notes, Walker was indeed "arrested for blogging." This confirms what Los Angeles deputy district attorney Patrick Frey deduced earlier at Patterico, where he noted that "Aaron Walker was arrested today in the United States of America for blogging about a public figure."
Just Declared Unconstitutional: Treating Gays As Lesser Citizens
The disgusting prohibition against gays and lesbians being able to marry the person they love and get all the benefits and protections legal marriage offers has just been declared unconstitutional in a Boston Court. From the AP:
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston said the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, discriminates against gay couples.The law was passed in 1996 at a time when it appeared Hawaii would legalize gay marriage. Since then, many states have instituted their own bans on gay marriage, while eight states have approved it, led by Massachusetts in 2004.
The appeals court agreed with a lower court judge who ruled in 2010 that the law is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right of a state to define marriage and denies married gay couples federal benefits given to heterosexual married couples, including the ability to file joint tax returns.
FAA Regulations Still Apply When You Can't Control Your Kid
Parents who brought a 3-year-old they can't control on a plane -- delaying hundreds of people when the brat wouldn't sit still and let them put his seat belt on -- are crying foul that the pilot turned around and dumped them back at the gate. From Kim Shephard writes at MyNorthwest.com:
Yanchak admits his son was being a little fussy as the flight was preparing for departure."He was crying, being cranky," said Yanchak. "I started putting him in his seat. I put his seatbelt on. But he was being cranky, trying to be close to me, so he wasn't fully fastened yet."
Yanchak said when his son didn't want to keep his seatbelt on, he enlisted the help of his wife. She had been seated with the couple's other son and her mother in first class.
After the boy's mother came back with a pacifier and some water, they were eventually able to get the boy to sit still. But by then, the pilot had already ordered the plane back to the gate.
...According to the airline, it was a judgment call. The crew was concerned because the boy did not want to sit upright and keep his seatbelt on. The airline said the pilot would rather deal with the issue on the ground than mid-flight.
Alaska offered to rebook the family on a later flight, but Yanchak says they have no desire to take any flight with the airline again.
This is a bad thing? (I guess only if you're flying on the next airline they move to.)
via Consumerist
Bloomberg Thinks He's Your Mommy
In the latest Meddle Bloomberg police action, he's banning big sugary drinks. Michael M. Grynbaum writes in The New York Times:
New York City plans to enact a far-reaching ban on the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks at restaurants, movie theaters and street carts, in the most ambitious effort yet by the Bloomberg administration to combat rising obesity.The proposed ban would affect virtually the entire menu of popular sugary drinks found in delis, fast-food franchises and even sports arenas, from energy drinks to pre-sweetened iced teas. The sale of any cup or bottle of sweetened drink larger than 16 fluid ounces -- about the size of a medium coffee, and smaller than a common soda bottle -- would be prohibited under the first-in-the-nation plan, which could take effect as soon as next March.
The measure would not apply to diet sodas, fruit juices, dairy-based drinks like milkshakes, or alcoholic beverages; it would not extend to beverages sold in grocery or convenience stores.
"Obesity is a nationwide problem, and all over the United States, public health officials are wringing their hands saying, 'Oh, this is terrible,' " Mr. Bloomberg said in an interview on Wednesday in the Governor's Room at City Hall.
"New York City is not about wringing your hands; it's about doing something," he said. "I think that's what the public wants the mayor to do."
I think the mayor has an inflated idea of the office he was elected to. It's "Mr. Mayor," not "Mr. Mommy."
In interviews at the AMC Loews Village, in the East Village in Manhattan, some filmgoers said restricting large soda sales made sense to them.
This is called being an adult and making personal choices.
Will the mayor also be setting the city's bedtime?
PETA: Eat A Piece Of Salmon And It's Like You Just Raped An Old Lady
Among other things. Ridiculous PETA ad "Silent Scream":
Note to PETA -- I believe in killing animals for food as humanely as possible, but when's the last time you saw a fish write something equivalent to the Declaration of Independence?
And, P.S. PETA -- how do we know that lettuce doesn't scream when we pick it?
Yuck It Up
Right here.
Zoned Out Of Business
In Ventura, the local government is using arcane building and zoning code laws to shut businesses down:
"We're from the government and we're here to bend you over and fuck you."
..."For no good reason except that we can."
Via reason.tv, from the video written and produced by Zach Weissmueller. Camera by Alex Manning, Tracy Oppenheimer, and Weissmueller. An excerpt from the writeup on YouTube:
"If there isn't someone complaining, and there isn't really a serious public health and safety issue, why do they spend so much of their time pursuing these kinds of cases?" asks Lynne Jensen, executive director of the Ventura County Coalition of Labor and Business (COLAB).Tom Wolf owns the Pine Mountain Inn, a restaurant that's been serving biker groups and local community organizations since the 1930s. Wolf temporarily had to shut the doors when he suffered a heart attack in 2002, and he was never able to reopen when the county informed him that his property had been rezoned as an "Open Space" back in the 1980s without his knowledge.
"[The county] wanted everybody out of here," says Wolf. "And they wanted a complete open space with nothing but deer and frogs... and no people."
No matter how hard Wolf tried to comply with the ever-changing codes, the county just wouldn't relent, at one time even ordering him to remove a chicken coop that had never actually existed on the property.
Wolf isn't alone, says Jensen. Several other small businesses along Highway 33 have been hit by multiple county agencies for no apparent reason.
"They had every department hit us with violations to make sure that they shut us down," says April Hope, who, along with her husband Bob, owns a bed and breakfast called The Wheel, which has existed in the area since the 1890s.
What is this really about? Eminent domain -- legalized stealing of private property by the government:
"This rezoning is really a way to get around eminent domain, because eminent domain means you give up your entire property. And here, you only give up part of your rights," says Jensen.Invoking eminent domain to seize private property would not only require the county to compensate landowners, but also to demonstrate that the taking served a "public use."
"They have been very successful in taking people's property in a number of different ways without compensation as long as they don't take ownership of it," says Jensen.
I Love Churlish License Plates
Spotted this one on a parked car: 
Prissy Principal Goes Off On Senior Class For Cop- And Mayor-Led Bike Ride
Zero tolerance for those thuggish pedalers! Mayor- and cop-led bike ride by high school seniors -- an alternative to vandalistic senior pranks -- gets the principal's panties in a wad. Joe LaFurgey writes at WOOD TV:
The plan was to hold a bike parade as a nice, non-destructive, healthy senior prank. Seniors called police for an escort, and even called Walker's mayor, who rode in the parade. "Police escort, with the mayor, who brought us donuts. ...The mayor brought us donuts..." said a group of seniors following the ride.But school official weren't told in advance, hence the word prank, and were not happy with the event.
They kicked the seniors out of school for their last day and threatened to keep them from walking in graduation ceremonies set for May 30.
Cellphone video caught audio of principal Katie Pennington in a post-prank gathering in the school's performing arts center.
"...Get your butts home. You're not participating in senior walk today."
About 60 seniors got the day off and missed the traditional last walk through the hallways at Kenowa Hills, although students say many more seniors got the one-day suspensions.
(Methinks this is about a tiny little woman with her own tiny little authoritarian state feeling challenged!)
The Pothead-In-Chief
Mike Riggs writes at reason about the President's shifting views on pot:
Obama did not turn against pot smoking as an adult, he turned against it at the point in his political career when he had the most power to change policy. As a state congressman in Illinois, Obama declared the drug war a failure. He said the same thing as a U.S. Senator. As a candidate for president, he condemened (and promised to stop) medical marijuana raids. Really, Obama did not come to favor prohibition until he became president.
Advice Goddess Free Swim
A little sleepy, will post more blog items Wednesday morning. So, here, you post the links.
The Bad Neighbor Policy: Shame The Rude
Call the cops on the asswad neighbors playing booming music in their yard at 4 am and only they know. Publicly shame them and they know that everybody knows what inconsiderate asswads they are:
(I only wish I knew their names and could have put them on the page.)
Oh, the best was...I put one flyer on their front gate and another on the side and they didn't see the side one for two days. This means hundreds of people walked past and read it.
It won't give me back my sleep, but it does make for the beginnings of a shit-eating grin.
Corruption At Brown U: Lowering Standards Of Evidence For Sexual Assault
Via John Leo, KC Johnson writes of the fallout from dialing back standards of evidence from sexual assault accusations, and Brown Spectator editor Ryan Fleming's story of how young men are denied due process and have their lives turned upside down or ruined because of it. Johnson explains:
As university after university follows the OCR's mandate to lower the threshold for evaluating campus sexual assault claims--and thereby to increase the likelihood of convictions from false accusations--it's worth keeping in mind cases in which even the pre-"Dear Colleague" procedure broke down. Caleb Warner's is one such case; William McCormick's is another.I've written about the McCormick case previously; the then-Brown freshman was accused first of sexual harassment and then sexual assault by Marcella Dresdale, daughter of Richard Dresdale, a major Brown donor who founded Fenway Partners, a $2.1 billion equity firm. Richard Dresdale appeared to have improperly influenced Brown administrators--who aggressively moved to get rid of McCormick before he even encountered Brown's accuser-friendly disciplinary system. McCormick transferred to Bucknell, but subsequently filed a suit against the Dresdales and against Brown; the suit was settled out of court.
Now the Brown Spectator--with considerable original reporting--has laid out the most comprehensive coverage to date of the case. In a searing, 3,279-word article, Spectator editor Ryan Fleming uses interviews and documents from the since-settled lawsuit to try to piece together what happened in a case that had no witnesses and no physical evidence that even Brown's lax standards deemed admissible. The central players in this tale were not Marcella Dresdale or William McCormick but instead various Brown administrators, who all but ceded their authority to Dresdale's father, and the students' Brown-appointed residential counselor.
Fleming's article uses Brown's own reports to show that Marcella Dresdale's story dramatically changed over the course of a week--from an allegation that McCormick was stalking her and behaving creepily to a claim of a violent rape. Dresdale did not seek medical attention after the alleged rape, nor did she file a report with either the campus police or the local police. The Spectator also uncovered fascinating e-mails from students who allegedly witnessed exchanges between Dresdale and McCormick--e-mails that "evolved" in such an awkward fashion that a representative who believed in McCormick's innocence would have had a field day in cross-examination. (One student, Julie Siwicki, simply inserted a damning portrayal of McCormick in between two paragraphs of a previously submitted e-mail that didn't seem to help Dresdale's case.) Perhaps such awkwardness was why Dresdale's father worked so hard, as he told Brown president Ruth Simmons in an e-mail, to avoid a hearing and thereby enable his daughter "and the other students to avoid having to . . . face questioning from [McCormick's] advocate."
Given the above, it might seem that even by the OCR-mandated preponderance-of-evidence standard, McCormick would have been found not guilty. Yet Fleming's article (as well as an older report from The Herald) convincingly suggests the opposite--that if a hearing had taken place, McCormick quite likely would have been found guilty, in no small part because of the role of the students' residential counselor, another Brown undergraduate named Shane Reil. Reil's role shows how easily college judicial processes can be corrupted--at least if the corruption conforms to the preexisting ideological or financial interests of the college administration.
A bit from Fleming's terrific piece:
Perhaps the most destructive misconduct that deans committed was concealing evidence from McCormick and his advocate Burch. In the entire rape case, there was only one piece of supposed evidence against McCormick: a pair of ripped boxers. Beth Dresdale claimed to have the pair of boxers that she was wearing when McCormick allegedly ripped them off and proceed to rape her. This being the one and only alleged piece of physical evidence in the entire case, Burch rightfully asked to see it in order to examine it for finger prints and DNA -- anything to help determine McCormick's innocence. The deans refused. In an email from Terry Addison, dated Sept. 25 he said, "The boxer shorts will not be entered as material evidence. References to the shorts in witness statements will not be stricken" i.e. witnesses can still claim that the boxers were ripped off. In an email to Spectator editor Ryan Fleming dated May 3, 2012, Ward wrote, "If there is a question about sexual activity, any reasonable evidence to help determine the truth would be admissible and reviewed by both the complainant and respondent." That, unfortunately, does not appear to be a right afforded to William McCormick....A case like this seems like an anomaly. It cannot be too often that a university like Brown is seemingly willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of one of its students simply to protect their endowment funds. Unfortunately, there is evidence that Brown's actions in the McCormick case may have been the rule, not the exception.
In September 2009, just three years after the McCormick incident, there was another eerily similar case. A student, who wishes to remain anonymous, approached Michael Burch -- who was known for advocating on behalf of McCormick -- seeking help after being accused of sexual assault.
The student dated the daughter of another wealthy member of a private equity firm throughout the 2008 school year until they had a tumultuous break-up during the summer of 2009. After the break-up, the daughter allegedly filed a sexual assault complaint with Brown Police but told them not to process it. Then the student claimed that he was indirectly warned by a Brown police officer that there was a potential charge against him. Upon learning this, the male student contacted Michael Burch asking for help.
At Burch's suggestion, he filed a slander charge against the female student. However, for nearly three months neither Burch nor the male student knew if there was an official complaint filed against him. They claim to have repeatedly visited, called, and emailed Brown Department of Public Safety, Jonah Ward, and Margaret Klawunn asking if there was an official charge, but they never received a clear answer.
After months of asking, Brown officials finally told the male student that a formal complaint was never filed against him. He claimed that he was advised by the university to not proceed with his complaint and let both charges fade away since he was graduating later that year.
On some campuses, it's now enough to be male and accused to be deemed guilty of a crime.
Kids On United Flights Will Now Board When Everybody Else Does
Via Consumerist, a CNN piece by Thom Peterson reports the United will no longer offer pre-boarding in coach to families with small children:
Kate Hanni of flyersrights.org calls the move "very anti-family.""There are very few things a parent can count on when it comes to air travel these days, but one of those things was always the ability to board first to get your children settled in and all of their needs met before the throngs of people board the plane," said Hanni in an e-mail to CNN. "I hope United changes their mind."
"If families do need additional assistance, our gate agent will work to accommodate them," Hobart said. "That message has been communicated."
"We're not going to fly United knowing that we're going to have to put up with that extra hassle," wrote Steven Manson, a Brooklyn, New York, father of twin 4-year-old boys. "Frankly, we always look forward to the preboarding when we fly and try and position ourselves near the gate when boarding begins. It's just so helpful getting the car seat attached and everyone settled before the plane is crowded with passengers," Manson said in an e-mail to CNN.
I'm all for this change. I often pay a moderate premium to have a slightly better coach seat, and with that usually comes earlier boarding. Why should others get earlier boarding free of charge simply because they've reproduced?
Unless it's an emergency, if they can't travel with their children without holding up the whole plane, they should wait to travel by plane until they can.
With Freedom Comes Responsibility -- But Not In Beijing
Where the Chinese go wrong -- they apparently don't get or live by the above concept. Tom blogs at Seeing Red In China about "Smoking as an expression of the Chinese idea of freedom:
Any foreigner who has spent more than a few hours in China might have noticed that smokers are everywhere. Many notice it before they even leave the airport. In Shanghai's Pudong airport, it's not uncommon to see a man place a cigarette between his lips or behind his ear before he's even off the plane. Most of them will duck into the first bathroom they can find to light up, despite the ban on smoking in airports (this might not be the first impression they were hoping for when they built PVG). But what does the ubiquitous smoking tell us about China?First, it gives us a very interesting glimpse into how many Chinese view freedom. In the west we might define freedom as the ability to participate or not participate in any act, so long as it doesn't affect others. This version of freedom is very visible in our anti-smoking campaigns in the States; you can't smoke here, because other people's health would be effected. In China however, freedom means that you should be able to do whatever you want (several of my Chinese friends have made this argument). If I want to light up in a crowded restaurant, I should be able to, because that is what I would most like to do. Laws and placards be damned.
This Chinese notion of freedom fits within one conception of freedom, just one that becomes somewhat untenable in a country of well over a billion people. It's the same notion that leads to 6 a.m. construction projects in neighboring apartments, driving in reverse down sidewalks full of students, and a good amount of the other unusual behavior that drives expats crazy. One thing that you might not realize by simply watching what happens, is that most of my Chinese friends would describe these same behaviors as uncivilized and rude, but they wouldn't want to impose on someone else's freedom.
I'm for the libertarian approach -- that your right to engage in some behavior (like punch me in the nose, in the classic example) ends where my nose begins.
Via Ori Pomerantz
Snort By Snortwest
Make us snort with laughter.
It Isn't Easy Being Clean
Guys, a question for you: Say your house has become clutter and biohazard central, and you have a new girlfriend -- of two months. You don't notice the mess but it's getting in the way for her -- grossing her out, making her feel uncomfortable in your home. Do you see her as a controlling nag if she lets you know how she feels at the two-month mark?
(I would advise her to build you up -- tell you what an amazing guy you are but also let you know that...well...she feels a little uncomfortable.)
Also, if you're "frugal" and don't see getting a cleaning person as something that's part of your way of doing things -- would you do it to make her feel comfortable? And if so, how do you get over that hump?
The truth is, some people just don't have cluttervision -- or even vision for the filth that builds up. It's their filth; they just don't notice it.
How do you bridge the gap between Pigpen and the girl who cares about him but is a little uncomfortable tiptoeing around the biohazards?
Falsely Accused Of Rape, Jailed, Then Found Innocent
Ashley Powers writes in the LA Times of a terrible thing done to a man -- five years and then some of his life and his future in football eaten by a false rape accusation:
Brian Banks logged onto Facebook last year, and a new friend request startled him.It was the woman who, nearly a decade ago, accused him of rape when they were both students at Long Beach Poly High School.
Banks had served five years in prison for the alleged rape, and now he was unemployed and weary. So he replied to Wanetta Gibson with a question: Would she meet with him and a private investigator? She agreed.
At the meeting, which was secretly recorded, Gibson said she had lied. "No," she was quoted as saying, "he did not rape me."
That admission set off an extraordinary chain of events that culminated Thursday morning. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge dismissed Banks' conviction, ending 10 years of turmoil in a hearing that lasted less than a minute.
Banks and her family got $1.5 million from suing the Long Beach schools, where the supposed rape was committed.
More from the story:
According to Banks and his private investigator, Gibson refused to tell prosecutors that she had lied, so that she wouldn't have to return the money she and her family had won in court.She also said she feared it would affect her relationship with her children, Banks' attorney alleged in court papers.
So...does she just get to walk free now?
The LA Times reporter didn't bother to do that sort of reporting.
via ifeminists
Big Schoolmarm Is Watching You
Francisco Vara-Orta writes at mySanAntonio.com:
Northside Independent School District plans to track students next year on two of its campuses using technology implanted in their student identification cards in a trial that could eventually include all 112 of its schools and all of its nearly 100,000 students.District officials said the Radio Frequency Identification System (RFID) tags would improve safety by allowing them to locate students -- and count them more accurately at the beginning of the school day to help offset cuts in state funding, which is partly based on attendance.
Northside, the largest school district in Bexar County, plans to modify the ID cards next year for all students attending John Jay High School, Anson Jones Middle School and all special education students who ride district buses. That will add up to about 6,290 students.
The school board unanimously approved the program late Tuesday but, in a rarity for Northside trustees, they hotly debated it first, with some questioning it on privacy grounds.
...The American Civil Liberties Union fought the use of the technology in 2005 at a rural elementary school in California and helped get the program canceled, said Kirsten Bokenkamp, an ACLU spokeswoman in Texas. She said concerns about the tags include privacy and the risks of identity theft or kidnapping if somebody hacks into the system.
Texas Education Agency spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said no state law or policy regulates the use of such devices and the decision is up to local districts.
"Safety" is typically the excuse used for yanking our civil liberties away. What people keep failing to see is that the most unsafe thing is giving up our civil liberties. Is that really worth knowing that Jennica went to 7-Eleven when she should have been in geography?
via ifeminists
Sick: Bogus Call Sends Police To Home Of Another Kimberlin Critic
Patterico blogs that blogger Erick Erickson is the latest victim of yet another dangerous attempt to intimidate those who speak freely against convicted bomber Brett Kimberlin. Erickson's tweet:
@EWErickson Sheriff is at my house. Someone spoofed my phone number and said someone had been shot at my house.
Luckily, he expected this sort of thing, he told Patterico:
@EWErickson We're ok. After I starting writing about #BrettKimberlin I informed the local sheriff's office to expect this to happen.
Glenn Reynolds wrote:
Really, if the goal is to keep people from writing about Brett Kimberlin, this doesn't seem like the way to do it. It was smart of Erickson to call his local Sheriff ahead of time. I did the same thing.
Better Late To Funny Than Never
Forgot to post this Sunday. Funny it up here.
Advice Goddess Radio: Tonight, 7-8pm PT, 10-11pm ET -- Dr. Mark Goulston
Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in therapy and research.
This week's guest is psychiatrist and business coach Dr. Mark Goulston, author of the terrific book Just Listen
I've learned a whole lot this week just by prepping the show.
Listen live at this link or download after the show (click "Play in your default player"). And do call in with questions when the show is live -- 347-326-9761
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/05/28/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
And don't miss last week's Advice Goddess Radio with therapist and sex therapist Dr. Marty Klein, ripping away widely held myths about sex to help everybody listening improve their sex lives. We discussed his new book, Sexual Intelligence: What We Really Want from Sex--and How to Get It
Listen at this link or download (click "Play in your default player"):
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/05/21/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
Join me and all my fascinating guests live every week from 7-8pm Pacific, 10-11pm Eastern, and listen to all my previous shows at this link:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon
Saudi Woman Defies Religious Police: It Is None of Your Business If I Wear Nail Polish
Just great.
From Neetzan Zimmerman at Gawker about this brave woman:
Messing with the Saudi mutaween (religious police) is not recommended -- particularly if you happen to be a Saudi woman.Granted power to enforce Sharia Law by order of King Abdullah himself, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice employs thousands of members and volunteers whose sole duty it is to go around and harass people they think are not being Muslim enough.
And they don't kid around: In 2002, members of the HAIA reportedly prevented schoolgirls in Mecca from fleeing a fire because they were not properly dressed. Fourteen perished in the flames.
...According to the Saudi Gazette, the woman's actions incited a mini-revolution, which led to the launch of an official commission review of the member's conduct.
A Business Should Be Able To Hire Only Hot Women If They So Choose
What's next, making strip clubs hire the old, obese and walker-bound?
"Take a couple of turns around that pole, Granny."
"I said, TAKE A COUPLE OF TURNS AROUND THAT POLE!"
A Boston area coffee place, apparently known for its attractive female servers, is under investigation by the EEOC for discrimination in hiring -- something which the government should not be meddling in:
There are links to the story in the Boston Herald, but I've posted the Daily Mail link that has some pix:
A Boston-area coffee shop chain known for its attractive, young female servers is under investigation by federal authorities for employment discrimination.But executives for the 29-store Marylou's chain, which started off in Hanover, Massachusetts, call the probe by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission a 'witch hunt'.
They claim that the workers the chain hires are based on the applicant pool, most of whom tend to be younger women.
...State Sen. Robert L.Hedlund said the probe is ridiculous. 'Why, because they haven't hired old overweight men who want to wear a pinkT-shirt and serve coffee?' he said.
'The federal government has better things to do with my tax dollars than to harass a legitimate business.'
If a business does better by hiring hot chicks, why would it be the government's business to force them to hire indiscriminately?
Tackle Me Elmo
As Jim P. has pointed out here in the comments, shortly after the attacks on 9/11, the TSA became unnecessary. Prior to 9/11, we were under the impression that terrorists wanted a bag of money and a trip to Bolivia. Or Chad. Or wherever. Now, we know differently.
The AP reports that a 24-year-old Canadian man, now in custody, rushed to the front of the plane as it was taxiing in. Maybe he was just nuts, but you can guess what happened: He "was subdued by some of the 165 passengers."
I know what you're thinking: But for the TSA, who will hire child-abusing defrocked priests?
The Cutest Public Marriage Proposal Ever
I'm not usually a fan of the public marriage proposal, but this one was pretty great:
Story here, from Tecca, by Barb Dybwad:
Now we've seen our share of geeky marriage proposals in our day, but Isaac Lamb's insanely epic live lip-dub proposal may just be the most epically awesome "she said yes!" story of them all. The Portland actor had his brother sit girlfriend Amy Frankel down in the back of a Honda CRV and put on some headphones, with the purportedly innocent motive of "playing her a song."
Love the quote above the video:
This video features live lip-dub, 60 friends, a marching band, dancing Jews, two dudes kissing, and Skype.
Enough With Idiotic, One-Size-Fits-All Punishment In Schools
It becomes clearer and clearer that the necessary qualifications for being a school administrator and maybe even a judge are a lack of judgment. There's a case out of Texas where a 17-year-old girl who's an honor student taking AP classes while working two jobs to support her siblings was thrown in jail for 24 hours and fined $100 for missing school. From the New York Daily News:
Diane Tran, an 11th-grader at Willis High School in Willis, Texas said she was often too exhausted to get to school in time.Judge Lanny Moriarty said he warned the student last month not to miss any more classes or she would be violating truancy law, KHOU 11 News reported. When she missed school again, he had her thrown in jail.
"If you let one run loose, what are you gonna do with the rest of 'em? Let them go too?" Judge Moriarty asked the TV station.
Tran said her parents divorced unexpectedly and left town, leaving it up to her to support her younger sister, who lives with relatives, and her brother's university education, KHOU 11 News reported.
Tran works full-time at a dry cleaner and weekends at Waverly Manor wedding venue, where she lives with the family that owns the business.
At school she takes several advanced placement and college-level courses, often staying up all night, a classmate, coworker and friend of Tran's told the TV station.
Judge Moriarty admitted he was using Tran as an example.
Of an exemplary human being, already at 17, if you ask me. Tragic about her "parents." Not how it should be.
The "news" stories on this are absent a lot of information. One here. Another here.
The video:
The judgement-free judge talks about "if you let one run loose..." -- sorry, but this girl is not "running loose." As the woman says at the end, you help a girl like this, who is, at 17, endangering her health by acting as breadwinner and AP student in the absence of those "parents" of hers.
via @mpetrie98
Patterico: "THE NIGHT I COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED BECAUSE OF MY BLOGGING"
There's been a campaign of intimidation against people critical of convicted bomber Brett Kimberlin.
And let's dispense with all the left versus right squabbling, because this is about free speech and not allowing the bullying or even the death of people who speak freely, and this should not be a partisan issue but an issue for anyone of any political stripe who values civil liberties.
My friend, Orange County Prosecutor Patrick Frey, who blogs under the name Patterico, last year, in confidence, told me this chilling story of a SWAT raid on his house -- in which he could have been killed. Now he's blogged about it, and you should read it -- and read about the disgusting campaign of intimidation against those who've dared to post blog items critical of the vile Brett Kimberlin, a man who blew off the legs of an innocent father with a bomb he planted, later leading to the father's death.
Here's an excerpt from Patterico's original blog item on Kimberlin:
Brett Kimberlin set off eight bombs in Speedway, Indiana in 1978 over the course of several days. One blew up a police car. Another blew the right leg off of a Vietnam veteran named Carl DeLong. DeLong's left leg was also severely injured, and two of his fingers were blown off and then reattached. DeLong carried shrapnel in his body, causing him constant pain . . . which apparently became too much for him. DeLong committed suicide in 1983 by sitting in his van in his garage with the engine running.Kimberlin was identified by store clerks who sold him bombmaking materials. A search of his car revealed timers similar to those used in the bombing, as well as traces of the explosive used. He was convicted of the bombings. He has never been exonerated by any court.
Authorities suspected Kimberlin did the bombings as a distraction from a murder investigation. Kimberlin was enamored of a pre-teen girl named Jessica [a pseudonym given her by Mark Singer] who went on several unsupervised out-of-state trips with him. Jessica's grandmother expressed her disapproval of the relationship, and insisted that the granddaughters move into her house to get away from Kimberlin. Kimberlin became suicidal. Then the grandmother was shot in the head at her house. Nobody else in the world had a motive to kill her except Kimberlin. After police arrested Kimberlin and several confederates in Texas in a massive drug smuggling operation, the sole eyewitness to the murder identified one of Kimberlin's confederates as the man who killed Jessica's grandmother. But the witness soon died of cancer, and no charges were ever brought against Kimberlin for the murder.
While awaiting trial on the bombing, Kimberlin plotted with an inmate to murder a prosecutor on his case. He promised another inmate bail money to go set off another bomb with similar components while Kimberlin was incarcerated, creating an alibi for Kimberlin.
In addition to his convictions for the bombings, Kimberlin was convicted at trial of impersonating a military official. (He sometimes posed as a military official as part of his smuggling operations). He also pled to the drug smuggling charge in Texas. For all these crimes, Kimberlin was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison for these and other crimes, but was somehow paroled in the early 1990s.
This is a copy of the phone call that could have ended Patterico's life, thanks to the bogus SWAT raid that resulted from it -- and a voice comparison:
Patrick posts:
In other words, it is the opinion of an expert forensic examiner that Ron Brynaert's voice is probably the voice of the man on my swatting call. A call that could have gotten me killed.
Patrick notes the importance of this battle for free speech and against intimidation:
It's an important battle to take on. And I want to stress that this should not be a partisan issue. I believe Brett Kimberlin uses lefty politics as a tool -- but he doesn't believe any of it in his heart. He is looking for a buck. I have been heartened to see left-leaning people of all stripes stand up to this guy in the past, from Mark Singer, the author of Citizen K; to Ken Ashford, who refused to give up Aaron Walker's identity; to the left-leaning lawyer who represented Aaron pro bono.It is my hope that left-leaning blogs will recognize that this is not a partisan issue. It is a free speech issue.
Remember how I said one of my commenters was outed? And this crew started talking about his parents? And his divorce records? For being a commenter of mine?
What happened to me could literally happen to anyone. It could happen to you.
If you take nothing else from this post, remember that. It could happen to you.
If you care about free speech, please blog, tweet and Facebook this entry and/or Patterico's originals, diffusing the ability to attack those who exercise their free speech and who support that for all.
Funnies Here.
Hunnies.
Get The Podcast: Advice Goddess Radio, Sex Therapist Marty Klein
Sex therapist Dr. Marty Klein brings realism to sex, revolutionizing the way we perceive and have it -- making for far better times in bed (or on the kitchen table, as the case may be). Listen at this link:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/05/21/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
Apparently, The School Policy Is To Just Let Your Kid Die
A student didn't have the proper paperwork on file to use his own asthma inhaler -- at age 17 -- and the school nurse wouldn't give it to him, and didn't call 911. Shaun Chaiyabhat writes for ClickOrlando.com:
Volusia County School officials stand by a Deltona High School nurse's decision to refuse a student his inhaler during an asthma attack, citing a lack of a parent's signature on a medical release form."It's like something out of a horror film. The person just sits there and watches you die," said Michael Rudi, 17. "She sat there, looked at me and she did nothing."
He said the school dean found his inhaler during a search of his locker last Friday. The inhaler was still in its original packaging -- complete with his name and directions for its use; however, the school took it away because his mother hadn't signed the proper form for him to have it.
School leaders called Sue Rudi when her son started having trouble breathing. She rushed to the office and was taken back to the nurse's office by school administrators and they discovered the teen on the floor.
"As soon as we opened up the door, we saw my son collapsing against the wall on the floor of the nurse's office while she was standing in the window of the locked door looking down at my son, who was in full-blown asthma attack," Rudi said.
Michael Rudi said when he started to pass out from his attack, the nurse locked the door.
"I believe that when I closed my eyes I wasn't going to wake up," he said.
The Director of Student Health Services, Cheryl Selesky, said that parents must sign the medical release form each year, which allows students to carry their prescribed drugs with them in school.
They didn't have that signed release, Selesky said. Whoops! Failure to file paperwork. Your kid dies!
And let's talk about how ludicrous it is that a 17-year-old is not allowed to hang onto his own asthma inhaler (apparently, a parental release needs to be signed to do that at this school, but at many schools -- per the Cathy Seipp piece below -- students cannot carry their own inhalers).
And as for calling 911, how long does it take them to get there, and how dead could the kid be before they do?
Video at this link.
My late friend Cathy Seipp wrote about this absurdity at reason in 2002 -- when "zero tolerance" collides with children's health:
In her letter to the Bristol Township School Board, Nancy Sander referred to the 1991 death of a New Orleans high school student, Catrina Lewis, who was delayed by security guards before being allowed to get her inhaler from the office. When it didn't help, she asked school staff to call an ambulance; instead they spent a half-hour trying to call her mother first. Catrina's sister, another student, finally called 911 herself, but emergency help arrived too late. In 1996, a New Orleans judge ordered Lawless High School's acting principal, a school counselor, and the school board to pay $1 million in damages to Catrina's family.Much has been made of how school zero-tolerance policies can lead to absurdity. One of the most notorious cases was the 1998 incident in which Christine Rhodes, a quick-thinking sixth grader at Mount Airy Middle School in Maryland, lent her inhaler to another girl who was having an asthma attack on the bus ride home. For her trouble, the school labeled Christine a drug trafficker.
@jonathanturley
At What Point Do We Just Expect People To Not Be Really Stupid?
I don't believe the claims of products in most infomercials and I didn't believe ads for Skechers' shoes with "rocker bottoms" that offered gym-free magic for your ass. From The Week, complete with photo at the link:
They really were too good to be true. Skechers agreed Wednesday to pay $40 million to settle claims that it exaggerated the fitness benefits of its toning sneakers with "rocker bottoms," including the popular Shape-Ups. The Kardashian-endorsed footwear evidently could not, as promised, deliver toned legs and a firm tush "without setting foot in a gym."
There are a bunch of products that were the subject of class action lawsuits there, like vitaminwater. From The Week:
Think you're making a healthy choice when you finish a workout and reach for the virtuously named Vitaminwater? You might want to think again. The drink contains 33 grams of sugar and 125 calories, and is so arguably unhealthy that a class-action lawsuit was filed against parent company Coca-Cola in 2010 claiming that the name Vitaminwater misleads consumers. "They added vitamins to crap," says the lawsuit's chief litigator.
Duh! Read the label. And in general, avoid drinking anything radioactive pink.
"How Can You Have Any Pudding If You Don't Eat Your Meat?"
Simon Black writes at Lew Rockwell of a performance by Roger Waters of "Another Brick in the Wall" at the LA Colisseum -- and of a remark he made that I wholeheartedly agree with:
"If we stand at the top of the slope and give our governments, and particularly our police, too much power, it's a very long and dangerous slippery slope to the bottom," Waters said.
LA's Moronic Plastic Bag Ban
Jay Beeber writes at reason about LA's grocery bag ban, prohibiting the distribution of plastic and paper bags on the grounds that the ban will reduce waste in landfills and litter on the streets and help protect the environment:
But banning free grocery bags will not achieve those lofty goals.First, banning free plastic grocery bags won't reduce waste. California's Statewide Waste Characterization Study [pdf] shows that "Plastic Grocery and Other Merchandise Bags" consistently make up just 0.3 percent of the waste stream in the state. That's three-tenths of 1 percent. In comparison, organic waste such as food and yard clippings makes up 32 percent while construction debris comprises about 30 percent. The effect of eliminating free grocery bags on the amount of waste generated in the city would be insignificant.
Second, despite misleading claims from environmental groups and the L.A. Bureau of Sanitation, banning free plastic grocery bags won't do much to reduce litter in the public commons. Litter studies from across the country demonstrate that, on average, plastic retail bags make up about 1 percent to 2 percent of all litter.
Even that small amount of litter doesn't decline when bans are enacted. In San Francisco, plastic bags comprised 0.6 percent of litter before the city banned plastic bags and 0.64 percent a year after the ban took effect [pdf, pg. 35]. Since plastic grocery bags make up less than 2 percent of roadside trash, banning them will affect neither the total amount of litter nor the cost of cleaning it up.
Third, banning free plastic grocery bags won't reduce our consumption of foreign (or domestic) oil. L.A.'s Bureau of Sanitation claims [pdf] that "approximately 12 million barrels of oil go into the US supply of plastic bags." But plastic bags made in the U.S. are not derived from oil; they're made from a byproduct of domestic natural gas refinement. Manufacturing plastic grocery bags does not increase our need to import oil, and banning them in Los Angeles or anywhere else will not reduce US oil consumption.
Despite claims that plastics threaten our oceans and sea life, there is no evidence that free plastic grocery bags make up any significant portion of the plastic waste found on beaches or in the ocean. In fact, reports from environmental groups doing beach and ocean clean-ups show that plastic bags make up only about 2 percent of the debris.
Furthermore, reusable bags being touted as a "green" alternative carry their own environmental costs. Unlike locally manufactured plastic bags, reusable woven bags are primarily produced in China and imported to the U.S. on cargo ships which burn millions of gallons of dirty low-grade fuel oil. Because they're made of mixed materials, these reusable bags can't be recycled and will eventually end up in landfills, unlike plastic grocery bags which are fully recyclable.
I brought my own bags back when people looked at you funny for doing it, but then I started getting grocery bags -- even though I have my reusable nylon bags in my purse in case I have a lot of mail to carry.
I use the grocery bags to leave out bottles for the poor and homeless. This nice old lady pushing an old baby carriage comes through our alley early in the mornings looking for bottles and I like to leave them out there neatly bagged so she won't have to go through the trash cans.
If I left them out in a box, or just standing there, trash might get left behind in the alley, or bottles might get broken and somebody might get a flat tire. But, I guess a bag ban based on bogus reasons is more important.
Government meddling has become a religion in this country, and you can think of me as an atheist in more ways than one.
via @johnnydontlike
Hoe, Hoe, Hoe...
The Rake's Progress here.
Driving Miss Daisy
Spotted as Gregg and I were driving down to an event in Palos Verdes.
Flashing Your Headlights To Warn Of Speed Traps Is Protected Speech
The police state of Florida has been ticketing drivers who warn of speed traps by flashing their headlights. Walter Olson at Cato reports that a Sanford, Florida judge has ruled that this is protected speech.
And about the Florida cops: Civil liberties-sucking assholes!
Junior High Girl Inappropriately Dressed -- If Looking Like A Hooker Means Not Wearing A Burqa
Adult Onset Atheist got a call from the junior high principal about her daughter's "inappropriate" outfit. (Scroll down at the link for the photo.)
Waiters Just Bring You Your Food; They Don't Hypnotize You Before You Eat It
I grew up in a family that believed in The Clean Plate Club -- but then I grew up, left my parents' home, and was able to rethink things. It is not a virtue to cram food into your piehole and leave a restaurant or the dinner table feeling stuffed.
I trained myself to only eat when I was hungry, even if it meant leaving a tiny piece of food on my plate. The temptation for many is to "clean" that little piece up. This makes no sense. You will not get demerits if you don't eat it. You'll just be a little slimmer over time if you don't make a habit of this.
This post was inspired by a rather hysterical item over at the HuffPo on restaurant portion sizes. I LOVE vast portions, except when we're staying at a hotel somewhere without a refrigerator. I love them because I end up eating my dinner for days, which means I can truly live my dream; as I like to joke, "I don't cook; I heat."
But, then as if people have no choice, as if they can't be told to use reason while eating, Laura Schocker's piece, "Restaurant Portion Size: Nearly All Entrees Exceed Nutrition Recommendations," sounds the food excess alarm:
A whopping 96 percent of America's chain restaurant entrees fell outside the range of the USDA's recommendations for fat, saturated fat and sodium per meal, according to a new analysis from the RAND corporation, published in the journal Public Health Nutrition."If you're eating out tonight, your chances of finding an entree that's truly healthy are painfully low," lead researcher Helen Wu, assistant policy analyst at RAND, told USA Today.
Wu and her team evaluated 28,433 regular menu items and 1,833 children's menus at 245 restaurants around the country between February and May 2010. They looked at the USDA recommendations for daily maximum intake in calories, fat, saturated fat and sodium and divided that by three to arrive at a government recommendation for a single meal. And while the majority of dishes fell below the USDA's calorie limit for a meal (667 calories), they did not meet the requirements for fat, saturated fat and sodium (which, according to the government regulations, should not exceed 767 mg per meal).
Per Gary Taubes, it's the government's "health" recommendations that have led people to eat the diet that chubs them up and makes them diabetic -- the high-carb, lowfat diet.
As I discussed with Dr. Roy Baumeister on my radio show, you can pre-think your way out of your tendency to hoover up more food than you need to eat at a sitting, and rethink and rehabituate yourself into healthier behavior.
The more you repeat an action, the more it becomes part of what I call your personal culture -- to the point where you can stop thinking about it because it's just how you behave.
Don't Harsh On The One You Love
Wednesday morning, I looked up and emailed the link to this piece by my friend Susan Shapiro to a female reader with some anger issues. From Marie Claire, Shapiro writes about Dr. Fred Woolverton's prescription for putting her marriage back on track. An excerpt:
I agreed to stop slamming my husband. Instead, I'd say something sweet the next night. It seemed like a stupid, phony exercise. When he walked in, I reluctantly mumbled, "Nice shirt you have on."Aaron looked at his button-down, then at me. "Really? You like it?"
I nodded. "You look good in green.""Thanks." He smiled. "Remember you got me a light-green Gap shirt? I'll wear it tomorrow."
I swear he stood up straighter and pumped his shoulders proudly. "Want to watch Letterman?" he asked. I did. Snuggling on the couch led to steaming up the bedroom.
To keep getting closer, I kept watching my words. Not that I got a lobotomy. If Aaron's collections became chaotic, I joked, "Uh-oh, your piles are sprouting other piles." To avoid monthly anxiety, I self-deprecatingly asked, "Since I'm OCD about being early, mind if I pay bills from our joint account?" (He didn't.) OK, so when I saw his VHS tapes erupting everywhere, I stashed them on a shelf while he was out, swearing to myself. When he flipped out, calling me "an anal neat-freak," I was about to retaliate with "psycho hoarder." Then I remembered how my carps chipped away at Aaron's feelings -- and the affection I wanted. I held my acid tongue and said, "You're lucky you're cute." He winked.Recently celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary, I thought of how toning down my gripes had begun as a way to please and placate him. But whom did it benefit most when my mate felt bigger and stronger? Yes, Aaron spent years working on a network TV drama, enabling us to renovate our dream home and office. But the best surprise was the enhancement of my career: Since marrying, I've published several memoirs and two novels -- all with a funny, affectionate male hero.
"You couldn't sell a book until you had a loving man in your life and your plots," my shrink annoyingly said. As a loudmouth, raging feminist who is pro-men and marriage, I learned that a little less raging got me a lot more love.
Shake, Rattle And Hah
Funny it up here.
Thank You, Mr. Paternalistic
Refreshing opener on a piece by Campbell Brown in The New York Times asking the President to stop condescending to women:
WHEN I listen to President Obama speak to and about women, he sometimes sounds too paternalistic for my taste. In numerous appearances over the years -- most recently at the Barnard graduation -- he has made reference to how women are smarter than men. It's all so tired, the kind of fake praise showered upon those one views as easy to impress. As I listen, I am always bracing for the old go-to cliché: "Behind every great man is a great woman."Some women are smarter than men and some aren't. But to suggest to women that they deserve dominance instead of equality is at best a cheap applause line.
via ifeminists
Finalist In Three Categories For LA Press Club Awards
More good news on the heels of my book deal for "Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck."
I'm a finalist in the Southern California Journalism Awards for best column and best commentary in the big papers category (100K circ and up) and for commentary in the small papers category, too:
B6. COMMENTARY
* Amy Alkon, Creators Syndicate, "Syndicated Columnist Amy Alkon"
* Larry Allison, Long Beach Press-Telegram, "The Legacy of Stephen Horn"
* Thomas Elias, California Focus Syndicated Column, "California Focus"
* Timothy Spangler, O.C. Register, "China"
* Timothy Spangler, O.C. Register, "Yemen"
B7. COLUMNIST
* Gendy Alimurung, LA Weekly
* Amy Alkon, Creators Syndicate
* Tim Grobaty, Long Beach Press-Telegram
* Marty Kaplan, The Jewish Journal
* Timothy Spangler, O.C. RegisterC6. COMMENTARY
* Amy Alkon, Creators Syndicate, "Selected Columns"
* Charles Crumpley, Los Angeles Business Journal, "Wasting and Wanting"
* Henry Dubroff, Pacific Coast Business News, "Amgen is Big Pharma's Newest Player"
* Thomas Elias, California Focus, "California GOP's Rick Perry Boomlet Misguided"
* Jon Regardie & Sue Laris, Los Angeles Downtown News, "Council Disrespects Los Angeles with Lack of Quorum"
You Can Sell A Few Cookies In Washington State
The creep of government goes on -- and on and on -- and what is absurd starts to seem normal to many people. One of the absurdities is that you can generally give away cookies you bake but you can't trade them for money. You can only do that if you bake them in a commercial kitchen. But, that's changing just a little in Washington State. Matthew Yglesias writes on Slate:
A recently passed Cottage Food Act that will come into effect this summer will give the blessing to "small, home-based entrepreneurs looking to sell cakes, cookies, jams, jellies and other so-called 'low-risk' foods."It'll be interesting to keep an eye on this. Will the state's jam-eaters be stricken with waves of illness? Or is going to turn out that people eat food cooked at home all the time, and it'll basically all be fine? Absent the terrible economy this probably wouldn't be a big deal one way or another, but with things being what they are these kind of barriers to gainful employment matter a fair amount.
Ridiculously, the government still has its grubby hands in things, per Melissa Allison's piece in the Seattle Times that Yglesias links to in his piece (Former Banker posted his comment before I finished the blog item):
More than 250 home-based businesses have shown interest in applying for a cottage-foods license, according to the Washington state Department of Agriculture, which administers the new law. It estimates 1,000 people eventually will apply.The department is accepting public comments on a draft rule related to the cottage-foods law until Tuesday.
"When we first started working on it, there were 16 states with similar proposals adopted or in the works," said Kirk Robinson, assistant director of the food-safety and consumer-services division of the Department of Agriculture. "It seems to be a growing movement the last few years. Maybe the down economy has something to do with it, people looking for additional sources of income."
The draft rule stipulates which foods may be produced -- among them breads, cakes, cookies, granola, nuts, jams and jellies.
It also requires annual inspections by the Department of Agriculture, which will ensure that surfaces and floors be smooth and easy to clean and that pets and children under 6 years old are kept out of the kitchen while food is prepared.
The home kitchens do not need the stainless countertops or three sinks required of commercial kitchens. And home cooks cannot sell by mail order or over the Internet. They are limited to selling products directly to consumers -- from their homes, for example, or at farmers markets.
The new law also limits the revenue someone can make from a home kitchen to $15,000 a year.
Felicia Hill, a cake baker and decorator in Vancouver, Wash., who lobbied for the new law and helped advise the Department of Agriculture in drafting its rule, said the $15,000 limit is better than the $5,000 originally proposed in the Legislature.
The limit exists because the Cottage Food Act is meant to give home cooks a boost in starting a business without the burden of high overhead.
Have you ever gotten sick because you ate a brownie at a bake sale? Do you know anyone who has? People who bake or sell jam are often moms. Do you hear of many -- or any -- neighborhood children dying of food-borne illnesses from eating a snack at the neighbor's?
Bend Over, And Then Bend Over Again
Erik Wasson writes for The Hill that Democrats in the Senate have backed an increase in one-way fees for passengers to pay for a shortfall in the department of ball- and vagina-gropers formally known as the TSA:
The Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday moved forward with legislation to increase airline passenger security fees, beating back a GOP attempt to keep them at current levels.The 2013 Homeland Security appropriations bill would increase one-way fees for passengers from $2.50 to $5 in order to close a budget shortfall at the Transportation Security Administration.
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said the $315 million in funding would otherwise come from taxpayers and argued it is better to stick passengers who rely on TSA with the bill.
How about the idea that it's better to disband this agency that has not found a single terrorist but has done a wonderful job of priming Americans to be kitten-like in the face of being told to give up their constitutional rights?
ɹǝʇɥƃnɐ˥
˙ƃuıɥƃnɐl ssɐ ʎɯ uo llɐɟ əɯ əʞɐɯ
The Times They Are A-Changin', And Boy Are The Diapers Stinky
Men's room baby-changing station. Photo by Gregg Sutter.
Of course, it was tiny little gang members who did the grafitti.
Big News! Book Deal!
Here's the note I just sent out with my column for this week's deadline:
Amy Alkon's next book, "Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," will be published by St. Martin's Press.
How Can A Company Simultaneously Be So Smart And So Stupid?
I've been on AOL since the early 90s (go ahead and make fun, all of you who've had to send out change of email address notices 600 times -- mine's still the same).
Well, AOL has this fantastic new email, "Project Phoenix," with an interface that I like much better than .mac or gmail. (I think it might still be invitation-only, but perhaps you can petition your granny or somebody else on AOL to get you into the party.)
Mine somehow got screwed up, and I needed tech support. Grrr. I braced myself Saturday morning, and dialed, preparing to deal with a semi-English-speaking incometent in some foreign country. Was I ever surprised. I got this great guy, Jason K., in Florida, who totally knew his shit, and who took copious notes about maintaining my white-listing (so I can send my column out bulk-mail, etc.).
After I got off the phone, I wrote not one, but two glowing reviews of Jason. (They sent me one automatically after the session and I went to their feedback link as well and wrote again.)
Because the techs that had to reset something weren't there on the weekend, he said somebody would call me Monday. Well, Monday comes and Monday keeps coming, and I've got screwed-up email, and then, finally, at the end of the day, the phone rings. It's "Jerome" (of course, not his real name), speaking unintelligible "English." I asked him if he was in the Philippines. Of course he was.
This immediately turned into a English-challenged nightmare. I said I needed to talk to a supervisor. he said somebody would call me back in five minutes. Hours later, irate, I called the tech support number back myself (push one, push two, and shove the phone up your ass and somebody will be right with you).
Lucky me, after a bunch of pushbutton annoyance, I got AOL's Florida tech support office on the line, where I was helped by Josh, another American like Jason, who completely knew his shit, fixed the problem, fixed some other problems, and then went off to save the day for somebody else.
While I quickly became irate when Jerome was on the line, I was calm and even joking a little bit the entire time on the phone with Jason and Josh. Why? Because they spoke perfect English and knew what the hell they were talking about and then some. Oh, and they talked like normal human beings instead of being forced to read off some script like tech-bots.
AOL is completely stupid for outsourcing their tech support. It's surely buttloads cheaper in the Philippines, but then, is it...if you make your customers despise the hell out of you when they talk to "Jerome" and friends?
Thinking Small
Veronique de Rugy writes in the June edition of reason about "America's small business fetish":
The cult of the small business is so prevalent that you are treated like a heretic in Washington if you don't pledge to do something nice for the little guys. Targeted tax credits, special regulatory exemptions, preferential access to government contracts--nothing is too good for America's DIY manufacturers and social networking startups. Support for the Small Business Administration (SBA), a federal agency tasked with handing out goodies to the modestly sized, remains strong, despite dozens of compelling studies demonstrating that its efforts amount to little more than poorly targeted corporate welfare.In his 2011 budget, President Barack Obama requested $1.4 billion to fund SBA programs. Most of the agency's money is spent on special credit programs for small businesses that have difficulty getting loans from regular banks. In fiscal year 2011, the SBA guaranteed $30 billion in such loans, which theoretically don't cost taxpayers anything. In practice, however, whenever the economy goes south, the SBA can't cope with the number of small businesses that default on the loans. In 2011 the SBA ended up spending $6.2 billion, a $4.8 billion increase over its requested amount, mainly because so many small businesses couldn't make their payments.
...Our national obsession with small businesses misses the point. It's not micro-firms that drive our new, entrepreneurial economy. Young firms--the startups that will grow to be the next Facebook--do tend to be small. But their newness is the relevant factor, not their size.
A 2010 National Bureau of Economic Research paper by University of Maryland economist John Haltiwanger and researchers at the U.S. Census Bureau found there was no consistent link between net job growth rates and the size of a business. Instead, the researchers found that firms younger than 10 years, particularly startups, are the real sources of job growth.
...Instead of preferential policies, the government should establish an environment that encourages businesses with strong growth potential to evolve into successful large enterprises. This means low tax rates, low levels of regulation, and a stable legal structure that protects property rights.
Taxpayer money should not be preferentially passed out to other taxpayers. If you can't get money out of a bank, you need to get creative and get the money elsewhere.
Keep Telling Yourself That You're Free
TSA photo series posted by Lisa Simeone at CogitamusBlog.com.
Laugh Factory
We make midgets.
College Aid Is Corporate Welfare
Via @WalterOlson, Andrew G. Biggs writes at TheAtlantic.com, per recent econ research, that it seems that it's the colleges that are truly benefiting from all that student loan money by jacking up their tuition:
In response to rising tuition costs, federal aid such as Pell Grants, work-study programs and tuition tax credits have more than tripled over the last decade, reaching $65 billion in 2011. Washington also made over $100 billion in subsidized student loans last year. But is all this college aid actually making college more affordable? At first glance, the answer is obviously yes. But there's an alternative story, in which colleges and universities can siphon off a portion of federal education dollars. Economists would term this a question of the "incidence" of federal aid, of who ultimately benefits from it.The most obvious way that colleges might capture federal student aid is by raising tuition. Research to date has been inconclusive, but Stephanie Riegg Cellini of George Washington University and Claudia Goldin of Harvard have provided compelling new analysis. Cellini and Goldin looked at for-profit colleges, utilizing the key distinction that only some for-profit schools are eligible for federal aid. Riegg and Goldin find that that aid-eligible institutions "charge much higher tuition ... across all states, samples, and specifications," even when controlling for the content and quality of courses. The 75 percent difference in tuition between aid-eligible and ineligible for-profit colleges -- an amount comparable to average per-student federal assistance -- suggests that "institutions may indeed raise tuition to capture the maximum grant aid available."
Dharun Ravi Sentenced To 30 Days In Jail, Probation
Megan DeMarco and Alexi Friedman of the Star-Ledger have details and a timeline and details from today in court.
My previous blog items on the Clementi case here, here,and here.
More from the HuffPo's Michael McLaughlin:
Ravi treated Tyler as if he didn't deserve "basic human decency and respect, because he was different," he said.
As a kid who was "different" and bullied throughout elementary school and half of my time in junior high, I have great compassion for gay kids and what they go through. (I never had to come out as straight to my parents or worry that I'd get hate glares for holding the hand of the person I love in public.)
I'm on deadline today, and I have to be brief, but I've read a great deal on this case and I think that Ravi was an immature, self-centered asshole, and that this was not about gay hating but about having a button to push and technology at his command, and not thinking about the possible consequences...if Clementi even did commit suicide because of Ravi's actions. It's easy to conclude that, but the truth is, we really don't know.
Government Thuggery In Massachusetts And Beyond
George Will writes in the WaPo that the DOJ intends to seize a couple's motel -- the motel Russ Caswell's father built in 1955 -- because drug deals have taken place there:
The Caswells have not been charged with, let alone convicted of, a crime. They are being persecuted by two governments eager to profit from what is antiseptically called the "equitable sharing" of the fruits of civil forfeiture, a process of government enrichment that often is indistinguishable from robbery....Since 1994, about 30 motel customers have been arrested on drug-dealing charges. Even if those police figures are accurate -- the police have a substantial monetary incentive to exaggerate -- these 30 episodes involved less than 5/100ths of 1 percent of the 125,000 rooms Caswell has rented over those more than 6,700 days. Yet this is the government's excuse for impoverishing the Caswells by seizing this property, which is their only significant source of income and all of their retirement security.
The government says the rooms were used to "facilitate" a crime. It does not say the Caswells knew or even that they were supposed to know what was going on in all their rooms all the time. Civil forfeiture law treats citizens worse than criminals, requiring them to prove their innocence -- to prove they did everything possible to prevent those rare crimes from occurring in a few of those rooms. What counts as possible remains vague. The Caswells voluntarily installed security cameras, they photocopy customers' identifications and record their license plates, and they turn the information over to the police, who have never asked the Caswells to do more.
The Caswells are represented by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm. IJ explains that civil forfeiture is a proceeding in which property is said to have acted wrongly. This was useful long ago against pirates, who might be out of reach but whose ill-gotten gains could be seized. The Caswells, however, are not pirates.
Rather, they are victims of two piratical governments that, IJ argues, are violating the U.S. Constitution twice. They are violating the Eighth Amendment, which has been construed to forbid "excessive fines" that deprive individuals of their livelihoods. And the federal "equitable sharing" program violates the 10th Amendment by vitiating state law, thereby enabling Congress to compel the states to adopt Congress's policies where states possess a reserved power and primary authority -- in the definition and enforcement of the criminal law.
The wonderful Institute for Justice, defending the Caswells, writes about this here:
Keep in mind, the Caswells themselves have worked closely with law enforcement officials to prevent and report crime on their property. And the arrests the government complains of represent less than .05 percent of the 125,000 rooms the Caswells have rented over that period of time.Despite all this, the Caswells stand to lose literally everything they have worked for because of this effort by federal and local law enforcement officials not to pursue justice, but rather to police for profit.
How widespread is the problem of civil forfeiture abuse nationwide? In 1986, the year after the U.S. Department of Justice's Asset Forfeiture Fund was created--the fund that holds the forfeiture proceeds from properties forfeited under federal law and available to be paid out to law enforcement agencies--took in just $93.7 million. Today it holds more than $1.6 billion.
Are you quiet about the constant civil liberties violations we're seeing? Remember Niemoller's quote:
First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Heavy Meddle
Because there are no problems in California and there are dumptrucks of extra money rolling up every day to Sacramento, and because LA is in a similar position, our City Council members have taken on the problem of wandering shopping carts. No, this is not a piece from The Onion but from the LA Times op-ed page:
Now the City Council has unanimously passed, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has signed into law, an ordinance that will actually require all new stores with more than six shopping carts to include locking wheels -- or carts with tall vertical poles that bang up against barriers, or a grocery-lugging attendant, or some other way to ensure that carts don't end up on streets as a kind of portable urban blight. The Planning Department is under orders to study, as soon as any money turns up in city coffers, how to require existing stores to also keep their carts on the premises.Like a broken window that goes unrepaired, abandoned shopping carts are a problem and lend a depressing, transient air to a street. Any ideas about wrangling them ought to be considered. But really, a law mandating that stores erect barriers or provide carry-out service? Aren't there already too few grocery stores in many parts of town? Does city government really need to devise another reason for a company not to build a new store? City Hall should be making it easier and less costly to build and operate a market, not adding more burdens.
Besides, it's in the markets' best interest to police their costly runaway carts, and in fact it is the grocery chains' association that pays for those roving trucks that pick them up. They are better and faster at collecting carts than the city is at responding to complaints about other junk. Maybe we need to require locking devices on old couches.
Advice Goddess Radio: Get The Podcast - Sex Therapist Dr. Marty Klein
It was a really great show with sex therapist Dr. Marty Klein, ripping away sexual myths so you can have really great sex. Pretty revolutionary thinking. Hope you'll listen -- and share the link!
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/05/21/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
His new book, discussed on the show -- Sexual Intelligence: What We Really Want from Sex--and How to Get It.
Why Are We Paying An Ex-President's Phone Bill?
In 2010, we paid George Bush's phone bill, to the tune of $80K, writes Nick Sorrentino at AgainstCronyCapitalism, and that's just a tiny big of our payouts. Former presidents get piles of perks that we're paying big for. Here's video from ABC News/Yahoo's Jonathan Karl:
Hoo, Hoo, Hoo
Owl be expecting your inappropriate humor here.
Advice Goddess Radio: Tonight, 7-8pm PT, 10-11pm ET -- Sex Therapist Dr. Marty Klein
Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.
This week's guest will be therapist and sex therapist Dr. Marty Klein, ripping away widely held myths about sex to help everybody listening improve their sex lives. We'll be discussing his new book, Sexual Intelligence: What We Really Want from Sex--and How to Get It
Listen at this link or download after the show (click "Play in your default player"). And do call in with questions when the show is live -- 347-326-9761
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/05/21/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
And don't miss last week's Advice Goddess Radio with evolutionary psychologist Dr. David P. Barash, talking about revenge: why we seem to need it, the different kinds, and when and how to avoid leaping to clobber others.
Barash's book, co-authored with psychiatrist Dr. Judith Eve Lipton, is
Payback: Why We Retaliate, Redirect Aggression, and Take Revenge
Listen at this link or download (click "Play in your default player"):
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/05/14/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
Join me and all my fascinating guests live every week from 7-8pm Pacific, 10-11pm Eastern, and listen to all my previous shows at this link:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon
Got Cash? Hand It Over To The Cops.
If you've got it in Tennessee, no matter whether there's any evidence it's drug money, and you get stopped by the cops, they may keep your money -- without filing a single charge.
A link to the story by Phil Williams of NewsChannel5:
Case in point: a 2009 stop where a tractor trailer was stopped for a traffic violation, leading to a search and the discovery of large blocks containing almost $200,000 cash -- cash that officers keep on the suspicion that it's drug money."What's wrong with having a large amount of cash?" asked Karen Petrosyan, a California businessman who owned the truck.
Petrosyan refuses to admit there's anything suspicious about the stash that police discovered. Officers later released his father, who was driving the truck, without filing a single charge -- and authorities cut a deal that let Petrosyan come to Tennessee to get his big rig back.
Read officers' narrative about why money seized"If I am a criminal, if they allege me to be a criminal," Petrosyan told NewsChannel 5 Investigates, "why would they settle? They do not just let criminals go."
District Attorney General Kim Helper said that "in general, it was seized because -- based upon our evidence and probable cause -- it's illegal drug proceeds."
Still, Helper admitted that what makes the Petrosyan case a bit unusual is the location. The traffic stop occurred in Smith County, near the Carthage exit. But the officers work for Helper's 21st Judicial District Drug Task Force out of Franklin -- more than an hour away.
Her officers patrol that area under a deal where they give a third of any cash they seize to the agency that owns that stretch of road.
Read the agreement between the 21st and 15th judicial districts"It's a way to make money ... for your task force?" NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Helper.
The DA paused.
"Honestly?" we asked, prompting a smile from Helper.
"Well, you know, when you say 'make money,' I guess it is a way for us to continue to fund our operations so that we can put an end to drug trafficking and the drug trade within this district," she responded.
It is absolutely disgusting the way the prosecutor justifies stealing citizens' cash because they need to fund their drug enforcement.
UPDATE: In Wisconsin, a mother posted bail money for her son in cash and had it seized by the police on the grounds that it was drug money. With no evidence of that whatsoever. (As most of you posting here probably know, most U.S. paper money is said to test positive for cocaine.)
@mpetrie98
Government Is A Bully Stealing Your Lunch Money
Via Consumerist's Chris Morran, a judge in Atlanta has collected more than $1 million in traffic fines by knocking traffic offenses down to warnings, discounting the penalties and collecting the lesser amount as "court costs"...which is illegal and keeps bad drivers on the road:
For a good chunk of 2012, Atlanta's WSBTV has been looking into the behavior of one area judge, who was recorded in open court saying, "It's my policy to always reduce these to warnings and let you pay the fine as court costs... so it will not go on your record."
The WSBTV reporter found that one-in-five tickets in just this particular city had been reduced to warnings, amounting to more than $1 million in fines that had been collected as court costs.But the Chief Judge of neighboring DeKalb County's traffic court tells the reporter that "You don't charge for a warning... A warning is almost an adjudication of not guilty. It means that the case is not going forward against you. If you can't be punished, you can't be fined."
Adds the judge, "There is absolutely no legal basis for keeping that money."
Essentially, if the court collects fines -- even if you're calling them court costs -- it is saying the driver is liable. And yet, by labeling the money something other than a fine, the drivers' records are not impacted.
This may be acceptable for the occasional person who deserves a warning for going a few extra miles per hour over the speed limit, but keeping the state from knowing about offenses prevents law enforcement from identifying repeat offenders.
"I would say it's dangerous to the community," says the District Attorney for Clayton County, where the warning-happy judge works. "Nothing is written down on the record."
"You cannot fine people if they are not convicted of the offense," she adds.
From the WSBTV piece by investigative reporter Jodie Fleischer:
Daniel Brackett said he thought he was getting a good deal when he fought a speeding ticket."She made it clear that if I accepted the warning, they were doing me a favor and giving me a $100 discount on my fine," said Brackett.
But after Brackett left, he began thinking twice about the "warning" that cost him $700.
"They change everything to warnings, collect all this cash and go on about their merry way," said Brackett.
From commenter Captain Obvious on Consumerist:
I got a ticket in Atlanta.The fine was about $225, or you could get it nol prossed by paying $350. THe line to pay the extra was hours long and the line to go to court...did not exist. Its a giant scam that has been going on in Atlanta for 10 years or longer.
Commenter lunasdude on Consumerist writes:
yeah they do this crap here in NM as well, I got busted for passing (in a passing zone) unsafely which the cop never explained what that was and I was given a court date because he tacked on the unsafe part which made the ticket like a careless driving charge!I went, the judge knocked it down to a "taking under advisement" and I payed court cost of $240 and the ticket would not go on my record.
I got home and looked it up the fine and it would have been around $100 and 3 points on my licence, probably higher insurance rates, yada, yada.
Uniformed tax collectors!
And finally, Chrisnif writes at Consumerist:
In Meck county NC the fine for speeding 1-9 mph over is $5. Court costs will set you back $188.
"How The West Was Really Won"
Inspiring piece by Fergus M. Bordewich in the WSJ on The Homestead Act, signed by Abraham Lincoln, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this week, and which transformed the country -- especially the American West:
The Homestead Act offered 160 acres of free public land to settlers who would build a home on it and farm it for at least five years. Anyone 21 years old who was either a citizen or declared the intention to become one could stake a claim.The law, declared Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune, was "one of the most beneficent and vital reforms ever attempted in any age or clime--a reform calculated to diminish sensibly the number of paupers and idlers and increase the proportion of working, self-subsisting farmers in the land evermore." Bombast aside, his words were not far from the truth.
In all, four million settlers would file homestead claims to 270 million acres in 30 states, 10% of the land mass of the United States. (The size permitted for homesteads was eventually increased to 640 acres as settlers moved into drier regions.) Although the number of claims dropped off during the Great Depression, hundreds continued to be filed annually through the 1960s. Homesteading ended in the lower 48 states in 1976 but continued in Alaska, where the last homesteader filed his claim in 1979.
...Among Galusha Grow's "soldiers of peace" were single women, who would eventually stake about 10% of all claims. So too those newly liberated from slavery.
"African Americans wanted what white settlers wanted--opportunity, community, land--but they were also looking for a place where there was less racial violence than they faced in the South, where they weren't going to be lynched," says Lonnie Bunch, director of the National Museum of African-American History in Washington, D.C. "Land ownership was central to the community's notions of what freedom meant, and it was the key way for them to become middle class."
Eventually dozens of all-black settlements were founded on the Great Plains. One of the first was Nicodemus, Kan., 200 miles west of Topeka. Says Angela Bates, the director of the Nicodemus Historical Society, "Out here they could become the mayor, the sheriff, shopkeepers, blacksmiths, landowners--anything."
Jester The Molester
Vulgar jokes and humor here.
The Bright Bank
Parisian girls often show how they're beyond seeking protection in head-to-toe black like we Americans (this American included, although, as I type this in my favorite coffee shop, I am wearing a red shrug with my long black formal mermaid skirt, black shirt and black boots): 
He Wants A Break In Child Support
Meaning we pay -- people like me who don't have kids and people who had only, say, two kids, because that's all they could afford. A 33-year-old man has fathered (and I use that term loosely) 30 children, and now he's asking a judge for a break in child support. From the Huffington Post:
Desmond Hatchett has fathered 30 children -- which is believed to be the record in Knox county, according to the Los Angeles Times -- with 11 different women. His youngest children are toddlers and his oldest is 14.Hatchett reportedly asked the court to give him a break on his payments, claiming that he's struggling to make ends meet with his minimum-wage job. Currently, the state requires him to divide 50 percent of his earnings among the 11 women, some of whom receive as little as $1.49 a month, WREG reports.
Here's the WREG/Memphis report, TN Man "Fathers" 30 Kids But Can't Support Any:
The guy has "a minimum wage job." How many fathers have worked two or three jobs to support their kids? Fully support the kids they have, that is.
At the end, the newscaster says, he "hasn't broken any laws." There's welfare and little stigma for popping out kids like litters of rabbits, so it seems there's little stopping the guy from having 30 more.
The Umbilical Cord, Now Unsnippable
I couldn't wait to leave home and be out on my own. I was fiercely independent and was happy to live in terrible apartment after terrible apartment in New York and sleep on the floor and later, on a door propped up on two milk crates. It was crummy and awful, but it was all mine.
Times have changed, and so have kids and parents. I know the economy is far, far worse than when I graduated college, but the parent/perpetual child relationship is the biggest change. In USA Today, Jane Wells writes:
Some parents are not content to help pay the bills. They're going to great lengths to help Junior get a job.According to Adecco, nearly a third of parents are helping their kids find work, and nearly one in ten are taking them to job interviews.
But that's not all.
Three percent of recent college grads say their parents have actually sat in with them during interviews, and one percent claim Mom or Dad wrote their thank you notes afterwards.
Sons are more likely than daughters to ask for help, especially when it comes to writing resumes or cover letters. About one in ten young men get such help, compared to one in 25 young women. These are probably the same kids whose mothers and fathers "helped" them write book reports and make dioramas in grade school.
Once they are offered jobs, three out of four recent grads expect to get good health benefits and job security. Good luck with that, kids!
What are deal killers?Nearly one in four say they would not take a job they were otherwise interested in if they could not make or receive personal phone calls at work. Twelve percent say they wouldn't work at a place that wouldn't let them check in on Twitter or Facebook. Finally, my favorite, five percent -- one in 20 recent grads -- say they wouldn't take a job where they couldn't shop online, and the same amount would say no to employment where they couldn't check sports scores.
Oh, America.
via @veroderugy, @MargRev
Obama's Wishy-washy Take On Gay Marriage
If it's just a matter of empathy, the way he recently put it, then states can decided for themselves. The other argument -- "Argument B" below -- is "more uncompromising," writes Krauthammer in the Washington Post (and it's the argument that happens to be my argument, that being allowed to marry the consenting adult of your choice is a matter of equal rights):
Argument B has extremely powerful implications. First, if same-sex marriage is a right, then there is no possible justification for letting states decide for themselves. How can you countenance even one state outlawing a fundamental right? Indeed, half a century ago, states' rights was the cry of those committed to continued segregation and discrimination.Second, if marriage equality is a civil right, then denying it on the basis of (innately felt) sexual orientation is, like discrimination on the basis of skin color, simple bigotry. California's Proposition 8 was overturned by a 9th Circuit panel on the grounds that the referendum, reaffirming marriage as between a man and woman, was nothing but an expression of bias -- "serves no purpose . . . other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians."
Pretty strong stuff. Which is why it was so surprising that Obama, after first advancing Argument A, went on five days later to adopt Argument B, calling gay marriage a great example of "expand[ing] rights" and today's successor to civil rights, voting rights, women's rights and workers' rights.
Problem is: It's a howling contradiction to leave up to the states an issue Obama now says is a right.
As for Obama's "evolving" views on gay marriage:
He was pro when running for the Illinois Legislature from ultra-liberal Hyde Park. He became anti when running eight years later for the U.S. Senate and had to appeal to a decidedly more conservative statewide constituency. And now he's pro again.
I'm glad he's "pro," but I'm disgusted at the contortions.
Ground Chuckle
Make me lunch.
Still Flower-Powered
California: We might be $16 billion dumbass dollars in debt, but when I walk out my door at 12:53 am it smells like honeysuckle.
Stupid Fed Tricks
The Feds overstep what should be their boundaries in fining a Utah school $15,000 for forgetting they had a soda machine running during lunch...but it's okay to sell "sports drinks" and candy bars at the same time. From KUTV:
School lunch is served for 47 minutes each day, and federal law clearly states no soda can be sold during that time.The school was aware and shut down their machines during lunch.
"Nobody realized our bookstore also sold carbonated beverages," said Davis High Principal Dee Burton.
The rule is clear on one thing. No soda can be sold during lunch.
You can, however, buy soda before and after.
"The rule is vague and open to interpretation. For example, the way the rule reads - you can buy before lunch starts a carbonated beverage, buy school lunch, sit down in the cafeteria, eat the school lunch and not be in violation," Burton said.
While sodas are out, Gatorade is allowed.
"You can sell Snickers and Milkyway bars because they have nuts and they're nutritious. You can't sell licorice, but you can sell ice-cream," Burton said.
The idea of the federal law is to cut down on our nations obesity epidemic and force kids to eat real food during lunch.
Burton says it's a nice idea but it doesn't work.
"The misconception is if we don't let kids buy candy and pop, we drive them to the cafeteria, it doesn't drive them to the cafeteria it drives them off campus," Burton said.
So now he says kids are getting a better deal.
They get their candy fix cheaper at the gas station on the corner or the nearby grocery store, which brings up new problems with student safety.
Morons. These kids, presumably, have parents. Why is the Federal government acting in loco parentis (with emphasis on the loco)?
via @ariarmstrong
The Food Police Are Now The Reality
Mike Adams reports at Natural News that the feds are going after both the people who want to buy raw milk and the people who want to sell it to them:
In a bombshell revelation of the depth of the food police state that now exists in LA County, California, NaturalNews has learned that the LA County health department has unleashed door-to-door raw milk confiscation teams to threaten and intimidate raw dairy customers into surrendering raw milk products they legally purchased and own.According to Mark McAfee (see quotes below), both LA County and San Diego county have attempted to acquire customer names and addresses from Organic Pastures (www.OrganicPastures.com) for the sole purpose of sending "food confiscation teams" to customers' homes to remove the raw milk from customers' refrigerators. Using both phone calls and home visits, these teams intimidate customers and try to force them to give up their milk.
These revelations have surfaced in a recorded NaturalNews interview with Mark McAfee, the founder of Organic Pastures and a food rights advocate. Here's what he told us:
LA County health enforcers go door to door, demanding your fresh milk
"I received a phone call yesterday morning from a wonderful young gal, a 36-year-old mom out of LA County. She's one of our UPS customers that we deliver overnight raw milk to her house. When the CDFA was in here the other day on our recall, they demanded to have all our delivery addresses for overnight UPS delivery. We screwed up and [inadvertently] gave it to them, they got it from one of our secretaries here. The LA County health department started calling her, six or seven times, demanding that she give up her raw milk from her own home to the health department.
She refused, then they showed up at her house and demanded that she give her raw milk to them. She was getting ready to call 911 for the Sheriff's department and have them removed from her front doorstep, and she was threatening to use her camera to take a picture of them and post it on Facebook for harassing her over her raw milk... The investigators left after she told them she was not going to give them the raw milk and to get the Hell off her property.
This is what's going on, it's like food Nazis, it's incredible what these people are doing, trying to collect food from people's houses, that have not made them ill!
Then the San Diego health department called me up and said oh we want a list of all your buyer's club members, and I said no... and they said we want all their addresses and their names, because we want to go to their homes. I said it ain't happening, we aren't going to give it to you."
If the guy has the video of this interview, he should post it so there's more than a printed allegation. But, here's a posting from 2004 at FarmFreedom.org that names a name:
Aggressive and forceful raids against America's small farms, farmers, co-ops and private buying clubs by state and federal regulatory agencies, updated as new information becomes available. Spring 2004 - Organic Pastures - California Without notice, the FDA in association with state agencies visited Organic Pastures Dairy Company (OPDC) and carried out a multi-day investigation. The initial authority provided at arrival was suggested that the FDA was visiting to look at cheese production. On the second day of the inspection/ investigation an FDA investigator (Special Agent Jennifer King) was found secretly and illegally rapidly taking pictures of customer files of PET food sales and colostrum sales. OPDC demanded that the FDA leave and return the next day so that OPDC attorneys could respond to the illegal and unauthorized taking of customer data and file information. The FDA was found illegally operating outside of its jurisdiction, they were very embarrassed and did not return for five years.
Here's a legal notice Organic Pastures was forced to post.
Ron Paul on the FDA going out of control on raw milk drinkers:
A Selection From Today's Big Government Dictionary
Sallie James translates what "bipartisanship" really means at Cato:
(a) "we've just renamed a post office";(b) "cough up, because we've agreed to spend more of your money";
(c) "brace yourself, because we've agreed to violate more of your liberties"; or
(d) both b and c (see, e.g., the Department of Homeland Security).
Sudanese "Lost Boy" Wins The Race
Via @AriArmstrong, amazing guy, amazing story:
Funny It Up Here
No fistfights. Unless they're really entertaining.
Why Don't They Just Bring In A Witch Doctor Wearing Chicken Feet Around His Neck?
University of Stirling, in the UK, is offering offers homeopathic treatments "to help students who may have exam stress, who cannot sleep, or who have acne, anxiety or any other problem."
Orac at Respectful Insolence on the crapthink behind homeopathy. The short version.
via @RichardWiseman
Not A Single Terrorist Arrest From The Full-BS Body Scanners
Travel writer Charlie Leocha blogs at TSANewsBlog:
At a forum conducted by National Journal yesterday on aviation security, John Halinski, TSA's Assistant Administrator for Global Strategies, claimed that the TSA mission was to protect passenger security. Not so. The difference in mission between what one of the administration's top security executives and the TSA website claims makes a big difference in how the U.S. is spending time and money regarding "ensuring freedom of movement for people and commerce."Halinski was asked directly whether there has been even a single instance of an arrest or detention of anyone, in any way, related to terrorism based on airport whole-body scanners. His answer was, "No." Of course, he then went on to assert that the mere fact that we have these whole-body scanners is keeping terrorists away. (Evidently, terrorists don't have access to websites that tell them which airports have whole-body scanners and which don't.)
...When I questioned Mr. Halinski about the current TSA searches for prohibited items such as tools of any sort, knives, and boxcutters that were prohibited immediately post-9/11 because the cockpit doors were not yet hardened, he claimed that TSA was protecting the security of passengers by confiscating knives and brass knuckles.
His amazing answer was that though cockpits were now hardened, it was the mission of the TSA to prevent passengers from hitting other passengers with brass knuckles or from engaging in knife flights on a plane -- a closed space where such a fight might terrorize passengers.
I followed up Halinski's answer, noting that this business of protecting passengers from knife fights was a bit of mission creep for TSA. I also stated that in the whole history of the U.S. airline industry there has never been a report of a knife fight between passengers on a plane.
TSA should be the entity that should be pressing for relief from useless security checks that slow down the security process and end up costing the administration hundreds of million of dollars in money and time lost by passengers.
Check out the list at the link of the ridiculous banned items, including "Wrenches and Pliers (greater than seven inches in length)." Charlie writes:
When was the last time a plane was hijacked by a screw gun? When was the last time a passenger was threatened by a wrench?Has there ever been reported any violence in an airplane caused by Martial Arts & Self Defense Items?
Again, this is not security, and the more Americans mindlessly put up with having their rights yanked away, the more it will happen. Americans giving up their Fourth Amendment with a smile and a "Yessir!"...paving our way to a police state.
Other People's Life Choices
If you don't like 'em, maybe you shouldn't opt for 'em. There's a piece in reason by someone named Shikha Dalmia about General Electric CEO Jack Welch's words for female executives:
General Electric CEO Jack Welch ignited a firestorm recently when he told female executives that to become top dogs (like him), they have to toughen up. "Over-deliver," he lectured. "Performance is it." Forget about "life balance." A couple of women walked out--and others have since condemned him as "spectacularly stupid."Nasty though this spat was, it masks a fundamental agreement between Welch and his feminist detractors: They both regard the paucity of female CEOs as something regrettable needing correction. But if there's anything regrettable here, it's that so many men in the 21st century are still reflexively busting their derrières for the pleasure of parking them in the C-Suite.
Why is that "regrettable"? Maybe it gets them better chicks, a better jet, a better house in Aspen, and maybe they like all that.
The French Workplace: Government-Mandated Kumbaya
At businessweek.com, Gregory Viscusi and Mark Deen lay out some of the idiocy in the way the French are forced to run their businesses -- for example, why there are so many 49-employee companies...in a country with 2.9 million people out of work. The answer? French labor laws:
The country has 2.4 times as many companies with 49 employees as with 50. What difference does one employee make? Plenty, according to the French labor code. Once a company has at least 50 employees inside France, management must create three worker councils, introduce profit sharing, and submit restructuring plans to the councils if the company decides to fire workers for economic reasons.French businesspeople often skirt these restraints by creating new companies rather than expanding existing ones. "I can't tell you how many times when I was Minister I'd meet an entrepreneur who would tell me about his companies," Thierry Breton, chief executive officer of consulting firm Atos and Minister of Finance from 2005 to 2007, said at a Paris conference on April 4. "I'd ask, 'Why companies?' He'd say, 'Oh, I have several so that I can keep [the workforce] under 50.' We have to review our labor code."
...Companies say the biggest obstacle to hiring is the 102-year-old Code du Travail, a 3,200-page rule book that dictates everything from job classifications to the ability to fire workers. Many of these rules kick in after a company's French payroll creeps beyond 49.
...The code sets hurdles for any company that seeks to shed jobs when it's turning a profit. It also grants judges the authority to reverse staff cuts years after they're initiated if companies don't follow the rules. The courts even deem some violations of the code a criminal offense that could send executives to jail.
A little something we should consider as government is allowed to meddle more and more in our lives and businesses.
I'm consistently amazed by people who think government is there to protect us. It's run by people -- flawed people, with self-interest in mind. If you don't believe that, either you're a 12-year-old girl with a lot of growing up to do or I don't want you voting.
via @WalterOlson
We're The Government. We're Here To Ignore You.
Shaila Dewan writes in The New York Times that hundreds of millions of dollars meant to help struggling homeowners is being diverted by states to other purposes:
In a budget proposed this week, California joined more than a dozen states that want to help close gaping shortfalls using money paid by the nation's biggest banks and earmarked for foreclosure prevention, investigations of financial fraud and blunting the ill effects of the housing crisis. California was awarded more than $400 million from the banks, and Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed using the bulk of that sum to pay the state's debts.The money was part of a national settlement valued at $25 billion and negotiated with five big banks over abuses in their mortgage and foreclosure processes.
The settlement, reached in February after a year of talks and intervention by the Obama administration, was the second-largest in history involving the states, trailing the tobacco industry settlement, and represented the first large-scale commitment by banks to provide direct aid to borrowers.
As part of the settlement, the banks agreed to pay the states $2.5 billion, money intended to help homeowners and mitigate the effects of the foreclosure surge. But critics complained that this was the only cash the banks were required to pay -- the rest comes in the form of "credits" for reducing mortgage debt and other activities. Even that relatively small amount has proved too great a temptation for lawmakers.
Only 27 states have devoted all their funds from the banks to housing programs, according to a report by Enterprise Community Partners, a national affordable housing group. So far about 15 states have said they will use all or most of the money for other purposes.
Again, if this shocks you, you're either 12 or you shouldn't be voting.
Humerus
Cat got your funny bone?
Why I Won't Be Flying Virgin
Hugo Martin writes in the LA Times that they'll soon be allowing passengers to yammer on their cellphones in flight.
Will they also be allowing their seatmates to brutally assault them when they just can't take another moment being the captive audience to their inane yammerings?
$4 Million In Roadwork Done For Free By Citizens In Eight Days
When the government didn't have the money it estimated it would take to fix a state park in Hawaii, residents pulled together and fixed it themselves, doing roadwork and making other repairs. Mallory Simon writes at CNN:
Ivan Slack, co-owner of Napali Kayak, said his company relies solely on revenue from kayak tours and needs the state park to be open to operate. The company jumped in and donated resources because it knew that without the repairs, Napali Kayak would be in financial trouble."If the park is not open, it would be extreme for us, to say the least," he said. "Bankruptcy would be imminent. How many years can you be expected to continue operating, owning 15-passenger vans, $2 million in insurance and a staff? For us, it was crucial, and our survival was dependent on it. That park is the key to the sheer survival of the business."
So Slack, other business owners and residents made the decision not to sit on their hands and wait for state money that many expected would never come. Instead, they pulled together machinery and manpower and hit the ground running March 23.
And after only eight days, all of the repairs were done, Pleas said. It was a shockingly quick fix to a problem that may have taken much longer if they waited for state money to funnel in.
"We can wait around for the state or federal government to make this move, or we can go out and do our part," Slack said. "Just like everyone's sitting around waiting for a stimulus check, we were waiting for this but decided we couldn't wait anymore."
via @mpetrie98
Why Balance The Budget When You Can Make Taxpayers Bend Over A Little Further?
Dennis Romero posts at LA Weekly about one legislator's idea of balancing the budget in California:
Tax strip club patrons $10 each time they enter an exotic dancing establishment. Damn. Talk about your cover charge.Assemblyman Das Williams of Oxnard plans to tax you like a gangster taxes drug dealers:
AB 2441, which is moving through the state Assembly as we speak, would levy a $10 fee on each and everyone of you good gentlemen (and the freaky dates who love them) who enter a "sexually oriented business."
...Roger Jon Diamond, an attorney representing SoCal strip clubs, laughed off the bill when we called him last night, saying it wouldn't be approved and that, if it did, it wouldn't pass muster with the courts.
You can't, he argued, tax a business based on content. Wouldn't be constitutional.
Amen.
The Nancy Genovese Case
A number of people sent this to me, but the link, "Mother of 3 Arrested for Taking Pictures of Tourist Attraction at Airport," is from the woman's lawyers' website. Here's Snopes.
It Isn't Just Gwyneth Paltrow Naming Her Kid Potato
There's a political divide in baby-naming and it's not what you'd think. Alan Greenblatt writes on NPR:
Evan, Elizabeth, Rachel, Abigail and John all have something in common. They were born this spring at Fletcher Allen hospital in Burlington, Vt.Around the same time, a group of babies named Paislee, Liberty, Rykan and Scottlynn were all born in and around North Platte, Neb.
Styles of baby names, it seems, are nearly as different in various parts of the country as voting habits. "There is an enormous red state and blue state divide on names," says Laura Wattenberg, founder of BabyNameWizard.com and author of The Baby Name Wizard, which claims to be "the expert guide to baby name style."
But this doesn't play out the way you might expect. More progressive communities, Wattenberg says, tend to favor more old-fashioned names. Parents in more conservative areas come up with names that are more creative or androgynous.
"Sometimes people have a naive expectation that people who are politically conservative on social issues would name their kids in traditional ways, and it doesn't always happen that way," says Andrew Gelman, a professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University and author of Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State.
The reason for more outlandish-sounding names cropping up in conservative quarters is simple, Wattenberg says. Women in red states tend to have their first children earlier than women in blue states. A 23-year-old mom is more likely to come up with something out of the ordinary than one who is 33.
Hugh More
More or less.
Telephone Carcass
Twentieth Century dinosaur:
Face The Hard Facts-Book: Parenting In The Age Of Social Media
Via Kate Coe, here's a lady who isn't her kids' bitch. Reshonda Tate Billingsley writes about her old-school parenting in the new millenium on mybrownbaby.com:
We talked extensively about proper etiquette in the cyber world. So imagine my surprise when I see my bright, intelligent child smiling as she held up a bottle of Vodka with the caption 'Wish I could drink this Vodka.' Before you do-righters chastise me for her having the liquor, she got it out of my husband's bar to take the photo because she thought "it was cute." She knew better but did it anyway and "didn't see anything wrong" because she "wasn't drinking, just posing."She had been warned against acting up on social media countless times but obviously, it wasn't getting through. So I took it to her level, implementing my motto of "Get tore out where you show out." I made her hold up a sign saying, "Since I want to take pics holding liquor, I am obviously NOT ready for social media and will be taking a hiatus until I learn what is and isn't appropriate to post. Bye-Bye " I made her post the picture to Instagram and I put it on my Facebook page as a warning to other parents to monitor their kids.
I never expected that photo or my choice of discipline to go viral. But with over 10,000 shares in just a few hours, that's just what happened. I heard from parents that, to my surprise, had never looked at their child's social media accounts, parents who were too afraid to publicly embarrass their kids, yet were at wit's end on what to do with them, and parents who had never even heard of Instagram, yet found out their child had an account. Ninety-seven percent of the feedback was positive. The other three percent did everything from call me a 'parental bully' to tell me my child would 'commit suicide' to telling me I 'sucked as a parent.' Usually, that kind of stuff bothers me.
But not this time.
When it comes to my kids, I don't play. This is a new age. We have to meet kids where they are. Punish her by taking away her phone? Did that last week. Make her write an essay? She loves writing so that would be a thrill. Ban TV? She loves to read so that's no big deal. Talking? Sure, but my talking obviously wasn't sticking. So, since she showed out on line, she was punished on line. My daughter actually begged for a spanking instead, which she would've taken, gotten over in no time, and not realized the seriousness of her actions. Now, if and when she ever gets back on social media, she'll think long and hard before posting anything crazy.
We didn't do much wrong as kids because my tyrants (uh, parents) let us know that there would be consequences for acting inconsiderately. They didn't let us know by telling us. We just knew. So we were quiet in restaurants, didn't kick the seat backs in a movie or on a plane, and were pretty considerate kids.
Can We Please Be New Jersey With Palm Trees?
From the WSJ, William McGurn lays out the difference between California governor Jerry Brown and New Jersey governor Chris Christie:
In his January 2011 inaugural address, California Gov. Jerry Brown declared it a "time to honestly assess our financial condition and make the tough choices." Plainly the choices weren't tough enough: Mr. Brown has just announced that he faces a state budget deficit of $16 billion--nearly twice the $9.2 billion he predicted in January. In Sacramento Monday, he coupled a new round of spending cuts with a call for some hefty new tax hikes.In his own inaugural address back in January 2010, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also spoke of making tough choices for the people of his state. For his first full budget, Mr. Christie faced a deficit of $10.7 billion--one-third of projected revenues. Not only did Mr. Christie close that deficit without raising taxes, he is now plumping for a 10% across-the-board tax cut.
It's not just looks that make Mr. Brown Laurel to Mr. Christie's Hardy. It's also their political choices.
When the Obama administration's Transportation Department called on California to cough up billions for a high-speed bullet train or lose federal dollars, Mr. Brown went along. In sharp contrast, when the feds delivered a similar ultimatum to Mr. Christie over a proposed commuter rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey, he nixed the project, saying his state just couldn't afford it.
I'd happily vote for Christie for President, and I bet a lot of other people would, too. Why the hell isn't he running?
(Oh, and Dr. Michael Eades has agreed to do an intervention on Christie's weight and health. Well, truth be told, only I have asked him, but he did say yes.)
Blogger Makes Copyright Thief Pay
Just great. I write in I See Rude People about how we need to stand up for ourselves against the thieves and bullies of the world -- even the small-scale ones -- and this guy exemplifies what I'm talking about. (I was greatly impressed by his calm -- he sounds like me on six sleeping pills even though he's addressing injustice that would make me boil.)
Here, the vid as AllAmericanBlogger.com's Duane Lester stands up to a copyright thief:
Lester's blog item about this here:
I have been asked why I'm writing this article. Some think it might be an "IN YOUR FACE!" kind of article.It isn't.
It's to demonstrate the importance of standing up for yourself and your rights, regardless. It's to show how to protect your work from those who would steal it.
It's not hard when you are right.
Consult with others, get your ducks in a row and demand respect for your work.
If you don't, who will?
via @palafo
Tasteless Humor Here, Please.
I did ask nicely.
Got Beach Balls?
You can't buy the kind you use if somebody kicks sand in your face, but you can get everything else at up to 30 percent off at Amazon's Get Ready for Summer Sale
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Poetry In Motionless
Hello, Beautiful...
TSA: Can't Be Too Careful With Those Wheelchair-Bound Nobel Peace Prize Winners
The losers at the TSA have their meaningless policies -- no ball left ungroped. To them, Henry Kissinger is as guilty as any 90-something grandmother with leukemia or any cerebral palsied tot.
Of course, the truth is probably that many are in these "security" jobs because they failed high school government class -- among others. (Who the fuck doesn't recognize Henry Kissinger?!)
Well, the TSA dipshits at LaGuardia just gave Kissinger the big grope-down, reports CBS/DC:
Kissinger, who was in a wheelchair, was told by a TSA agent that he needed to be searched."He stood with his suit jacket off, and he was wearing suspenders," freelance reporter Matthew Cole told the Post. "They gave him the full pat-down. None of the agents seemed to know who he was." Cole added that Kissinger was given "the full Monty" search.
Kissinger negotiated the Paris Peace Accords which helped bring an end to the Vietnam War.
via @DebWilker
Jersey City Bans Being An Asshole With A Phone
It's a sidewalk, not a side-stop-while-you-text-your-girlfriend, and I will hate you if you make me leap out of the way to avoid you, but..."there ought to be a law!"?
That's what the numbnuts in Jersey City think -- adding to the illegalization of everything, as if that's a way to improve anything more than the state of the city's coffer's. They've banned texting while walking, and you'll get an $85 ticket if a cop has to ignore actual crime to punish you for it.
Election Year Bribery: Couldn't Kick In At A Better Time
Lawrence Rafferty, guest-blogging at Turley, writes about health insurance rebate checks set to go out in August:
I have to admit that I was not aware that the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, as its detractors call it, mandates that the insurance companies who don't spend at least 80% of premium money on actual medical care expenses, must send rebates to policy holders."But the rebate provision of the law -- the fruits of the so-called "80/20 rule" -- is about to kick in big time, as millions of Americans receive rebate checks or premium reductions from insurance companies who have failed to spend enough on patient care.
This cash could be a true game changer in public attitudes about whether the law actually is beneficial and good public policy. The rebate provision of the law has been known and discussed in health care policy circles for months, but has largely flown below the radar in the political world and for voters--until now." Time
These rebates or premium reductions could not only be a big financial benefit to millions of policy holders, it could also be a big political boost for the Obama Administration in its attempts to convince the public of the many benefits provided by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Now that I know that the ACA will provide these rebates, just how much money are we talking about? The Time Magazine article linked above quotes a Kaiser Family Foundation study that suggests that big dollars are involved here.
"This analysis looks at the latest estimates provided by insurers to state insurance commissioners.The analysis finds that consumers and businesses are expected to receive an estimated $1.3 billion by this August in rebates from health insurers who spent more on administrative expenses and profits than allowed by the ACA.
The rebates include $541 million in the large employer market, $377 million in the small business market, and $426 million for those buying insurance on their own. Rebates in the group market will generally be provided to employers, and in some cases be passed on to employees as well. Rebates are expected to go to almost one-third (31%) of consumers in the individual market.
Among employers, about one-quarter (28%) of the small group market and 19% of the large group market is projected to receive rebates. The share of consumers in the individual insurance market expected to receive rebates ranges from near zero in several states to as high as 86% in Oklahoma and 92% in Texas. " KFF
TSA: Exploratory Surgery Before Boarding?
It seems they'll be expanding the duties of those unskilled workers they hire to man the TSA checkpoints, increasing their duties to cutting you open to make sure you aren't packin'. Via MSNBC:
Western intelligence agencies believe that al-Qaida doctors have been trained to implant bombs inside the bodies of suicide bombers, Britain's Sunday Times reported.The doctors, thought to have been trained by a man who worked with the top bomb-maker for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), have the ability to put explosive compounds in breasts and abdomens of suicide bombers, the newspaper reported without citing its sources.
The lead doctor was thought to have been killed in a drone attack earlier this year and likely worked with the master bomber-maker, Ibrahim al-Asiri, according to the newspaper.
...Experts said explosive compounds such as pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) could be surgically implanted in an aspiring suicide bomber, who would them allow the wounds to heal, according to the newspaper. Body scanners in most airports around the world would not be able to detect the device, which could be detonated by injection, the newspaper added.
Oh, and there's this:
The CIA want to track down the group of doctors, the newspaper reported.
So...when we aren't pretending to have security which is actually a jobs program and a way to shovel cash into the pockets of the well connected (in addition to priming us to give up our rights quietly and politely), we have highly trained intelligence officers doing the actually meaningful intelligence work.
Bullying LA Sheriffs Go All Police State on A Photographer
But, whoopsy, seems his camera, attached to his bag, is recording during most of the cops' thuggery. Check out how they make laws up as they go along (like the invented notion that you can't shoot photos of the apparently underage girls the cops appeared to be hitting on):
He's handcuffed and taken to their vehicle while his camera equipment -- $2,500 worth he says -- is left on the sidewalk. More here on all the rights violations that go on, at Miami photog Carlos Miller's site.
Abolish Mandatory Minimums
In a huge travesty, Marissa Alexander has been sentenced to a mandatory minimum 20 years in prison. Roland Martin writes on cnn.com:
If you are the most hardened law-and-order person in the world, even you should have some compassion for Alexander, the Jacksonville, Florida, woman who has been struck by the ridiculous Florida law known as 10-20-life.The law requires anyone convicted of an aggravated assault when a firearm is discharged to serve a minimum of 20 years in prison with no regard to extenuating circumstances.
Alexander says that on August 1, 2010, her husband went into a rage and tried to strangle her after reading some text messages she sent to her ex-husband. She fled the family home, got to the garage and realized she didn't have her keys. Fearing for her life, she says she grabbed a gun and went back into the home to retrieve her keys.
She says her husband threatened to kill her, and to keep him at bay, she fired a warning shot into a wall.Why was she charged, convicted and sentenced? Because State Attorney Angela Corey, the same prosecutor leading the Trayvon Martin case, said the gun was fired near a bedroom where two children were and they could have been injured.
Did the bullet hit the children? No. Did Alexander point the gun at her husband and hit him? No. She simply fired a warning shot, and according to Florida's shameful law, that's enough for a minimum 20-year sentence.
...The 10-20-life policy has no business in the laws of Florida or any other state.
Judges should have the discretion to consider a variety of factors in sentencing, and I have no doubt had this judge been given flexibility, Alexander wouldn't be going to prison for 20 years.These types of injustices are common in our legal system, and it is necessary for everyone with a conscience to stand up and decry these so-called legislative remedies that end up as nightmares.
I blogged about this previously here.
The Bluetooth Will Set You Free
And eat far fewer dollars out of your wallet if you buy it at Amazon through Today's Deals In Electronics
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Tea Hee
And trumpets.
Advice Goddess Radio: Tonight, 7-8pm PT, 10-11pm ET -- Dr. David Barash On Revenge
Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.
This week's guest will be evolutionary psychologist Dr. David P. Barash, talking about revenge: why we seem to need it, the different kinds, and when and how to avoid leaping to clobber others.
Barash's book, co-authored with psychiatrist Dr. Judith Eve Lipton, is
Payback: Why We Retaliate, Redirect Aggression, and Take Revenge
Listen at this link or download after the show (click "Play in your default player"). And do call in with questions when the show is live -- 347-326-9761
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/05/14/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
And don't miss last week's Advice Goddess Radio with Dr. Robert Kurzban. He explains how our mind's makeup makes us prone to hypocrisy and less-than-ideal behavior, and ways we might counteract that. Kurzban is the author of Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind
Listen at this link or download (click "Play in your default player"):
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/05/07/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
Join me and all my fascinating guests live every week from 7-8pm Pacific, 10-11pm Eastern, and listen to all my previous shows at this link:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon
We're All Being Followed
"Moviephone wants to track your location."
"Amy Alkon wants Moviephone to go to hell on a reindeer sled."
How To Succeed As My Cable Provider: Don't Be Scummy
After an outage, cable companies and other utility companies force you to ring them up and spend time on the phone to get credit for the time you were screwed out of -- which either gets you screwed out of more time, or gets them to keep the money for the time they didn't give you what you were paying for.
The thing is, when I pay for cable, I pay for more than the day of cable or Internet service I get; I'm also paying for reliability. So, it's wrong for them to simply credit for the time lost -- usually a pittance, even if your monthly bill is pricey.
Consumerist's Chris Morran asks the right question, per a Fast Company piece by Don Peppers: "Should Cable Companies Credit You For Outages You Didn't Complain About?"
Absofuckinglutely.
Why should you have to jump through hoops to get what you're paying for or to not pay for what you didn't get?
Peppers writes:
The trustable thing for Comcast to do in this kind of situation would be to proactively advise customers that they know an outage has occurred, and tell them that the company will be automatically providing a credit on this month's bill. No call necessary on your part, because we know you experienced this outage, and we're watching out for you. Comcast already has all the data needed to make this happen. If it really does want to be on the customer's side, here's a splendid business opportunity to demonstrate it. A proof point, as we used to call it in the advertising world.And just think how customers would react! How would you react if your cable company sent you a message, by phone or email, saying "Sorry! We'll keep trying to do better, but in the meantime we're taking $x off your bill this month because of last night's outage, and thank you for your continued loyalty."
It may sound like a costly initiative for Comcast to voluntarily give a few dollars back to thousands of customers at a time--customer who weren't even asking for the refunds--but the point is that this policy is inevitable. Whether or not Comcast initiates it, sooner or later one or more of its competitors inevitably will, and then Comcast will be forced to follow suit anyway.
If The TSA Can Ignore The Fourth Amendment, The NYPD Can, Too
Perry Chiaramonte writes on FoxNews about the NYPD's "Stop-and-Frisk":
Baltimore native Chris Bilal was walking through his adopted Brooklyn neighborhood when he was stopped by a police officer. The NYPD officer peppered the 24-year-old with questions about where he lived, requested Bilal's ID and rummaged through his bag."I was coming home from the Laundromat and I was stopped by the police officer. Asking me, 'Let me see your ID. 'Where are you from?' 'Do you live around here?'"
The officer then proceeded to rummage through Bilal's bag of freshly cleaned and folded laundry to see if he was carrying anything illegal. The search produced nothing, and the officer sent Bilal on his way.
"They were searching for drugs. The funny thing was that it was a mesh laundry bag. I'm not sure what I could hide," Bilal said.
Bilal, who is African-American, came to New York to follow his dreams of being an artist, but has felt more suspicion than inspiration since arriving a little over a year ago. He is repeatedly stopped on the street, being asked what he's doing, where he's going and even, on occasion, being frisked.
"I feel guilty all the time," said Bilal, an artist and writer. "I feel like I'm being watched and targeted all the time."
Bilal has been affected by the NYPD's policy of Stop, Question and Frisk, in which officers randomly stop a person to determine if they are up to any wrongdoing or possess weapons and contraband items.
...Backers of the policy say it is an effective tool for deterring crime, which has dropped nearly 80 percent since the Giuliani administration enacted Stop, Question and Frisk in the mid-'90s.
It may be as effective as all get-out, but we don't ditch the Constitution because it's expedient. Oh, well, actually we do -- at airports across America every day -- but maybe if more Americans start squeaking, or even speaking, up about our rights being yanked from us, there's some possibility of our not degenerating any further into a police state.
Oh, and P.S. If the searches are random, they're stopping Mitsy Fairchild on Madison and 68th and rummaging through her Birkin. Tell me that that's happened even once.
For Nerds Only
Reading on the right to privacy from Brandeis and Warren. And Dorothy G. Glancy on Brandeis and Warren. (Read Glancy first.)
Princess Leia Hoodie
With integrated hair buns
And don't forget your lightsabers
Questionable Humor
Insert here.
Unfortunately, My Cameraphone Was Inside When The Girl Lifted The Back Of Her Dress And Began To Pull Down Her Thong
She squatted and was pulling down her panties to pee between my car and my neighbor's. Or drop choc. Much worse.
Unfortunately, my cameraphone was unfortunately placed, so here's a little note from a while back that I put on the windshield of somebody who parked really inconsiderately -- rudely taking up two spaces in a neighborhood where parking is beyond scarce.
That'll Show Wall Street!
Occupy L.A. cost Los Angeles (meaning taxpayers) close to $5 million, writes Mark Lacter at LA Observed. He quotes City News Service (via LAist):
City Councilman Mitche Englander thinks that this grim fiscal report should be a warning to his colleagues who were so quick to "approve" of the encampment last October that maybe they should think such endorsements through a little harder. "For every resolution or position the city might take, there's a cost,'' Englander said, citing L.A.'s ongoing fiscal crisis....The Los Angeles mayor and the police chief, Charles Beck, held a near-celebratory news conference at Mr. Villaraigosa's office as crews outside -- including workers in white hazmat suits, in response to what officials said was considerable danger of biological infection -- cleaned up the wreckage across City Hall Park. Hundreds of police officers were stationed near the fences, but there was no sign of demonstrators trying to return. Mr. Villaraigosa said he expected that the cost of the protest -- in cleanup, police overtime and lawn replacement -- could exceed $1 million. "Yes, the answer is we're all going to pay for it in these tough economic times," the mayor said. "Because we were peaceful here, we were able to keep our costs down, especially compared with other cites."
There's a Spanish proverb I learned from Nathaniel Branden: "Take what you need, but pay for it."
I love free speech and respect people for speaking out -- even if I disagree with them. But, the big difference, viewpoints aside, between the two recent protest groups (neither of which I belong to), the Tea Party and the Occupiers, seems to be that the Tea Partiers went home at night, didn't cost the rest of us boatloads of money, and didn't leave human waste in their wake.
Government, Out Of Our Guts
Nick Sorrentino posts at Against Crony Capitalism about the FDA going after raw milk producers, noting that it's not about health; it's about controlling a commodity:
Mike Adams makes the point that if someone contracts with another for eggs, or milk, or steaks, or strawberries, what business is it of the federal government? The answer of course is that it is none of the federal government's business. There is no interstate commerce here. Just 2 people who share a love of raw milk, one selling, one buying. Here in the foothills of Virginia people do this all the time.The anchor of the show makes a couple of good points of her own. One is how is it that we can buy knives (which can kill people) but we can't buy or sell raw milk? Also she makes the point that it is perfectly legal to sell genetically modified foods to the consumer with no indication that the food is GMO, but one can't buy milk that one knows is raw?
Milk is now a focus of the federal government. Milk.
What's next--federal regulation of the selling of used cars? I could see this.
The feds say that cars are dangerous potentially and so the individual can't be trusted to contract with another for the selling and purchase of said car. No, the federal government prefers, nay demands, that you sell your car to an intermediary first which meets specific federal regs. For the saftey of the public of course.
Mike Adams on the multi-agency raid on raw milk producers:
Here's who they're raiding. And here's the story, from Adams writing at naturalnews.com, of Minnesota moms risking criminal charges and prosecution:
Minneapolis, MN -- Several Minnesota mothers who organize community access to local fresh farm foods plan to risk criminal charges by openly and publicly defying warnings from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA). The MDA has threatened several mothers, conducted investigations against them and sent them warning letters that if they continue helping provide fresh food to their friends and neighbors, they will be subject to criminal charges and prosecution. The MDA alleges the Mothers are violating food-handling regulations.Dozens of individuals who are disgusted with what they regard as MDA's overly aggressive tactics are expected to join in the same activity as these mothers.
"It is absolutely outrageous that during this time of economic crisis our state government is investigating and sending warning letters to mothers and putting farmers on trial who are helping provide communities with fresh foods. It is my right to contract privately with a farmer for the food of my choice just as it is the right of every American," says Melinda Olson a mother and recipient of one of the MDA's letters. "The MDA's harassment against mothers will not work. We plan to ignore this warning and continue operating as we are. MDA should not waste taxpayer money investigating, prosecuting and jailing peaceful farmers and mothers for helping their communities secure fresh foods. Our time to stand up against this tyranny is now!"
In addition to the threatening letters the MDA sent the mothers, MDA has brought charges against two local farmers for supplying their communities with fresh foods. Mothers who rely on the food and delivery service of one of these farmers, Alvin Schlangen, are facing loss of their food supply if Schlangen is jailed on four misdemeanor charges for providing food to his community. The charges against Schlangen stem from alleged handling of food without a permit, mislabeling food, and handling unprocessed, fresh milk, which is a crime according to the MDA.
Juvenile Humor
Consider this your get out of juvey free card for posting vulgar and tasteless humor.
Here, via @WalterOlson, are the top 21 members of Congress who resemble Muppets.
Herding Cats
Another fine Phil Miller photo (used with permission, of course!):
(Of course, it's a Tarantino thing.)
Being All Up In His Business: The Right To Privacy In A Relationship
Women, more than men, according to my mail, will express a position that being in a relationship entitles them to snoop through a man's cell phone and email. In fact, I get letters from women who are indignant that a boyfriend won't give them their passwords. I believe that being in a relationship doesn't eliminate your right to privacy, and to have things that you do not share with a partner.
People bring up trust issues. Well, you need to do your homework to find a partner you can trust instead of turning the hot interrogation light on them and violating their right to have thoughts and email and conversations that you are not privy to.
What's your position on privacy in relationships, and how does it work in your relationship?
Advice Goddess Radio, Get The Podcast: Dr. Robert Kurzban On Hypocrisy
Advice Goddess Radio: Dr. Robert Kurzban on how our mind's makeup makes us prone to hypocrisy and acting against our best interest and how we can counteract that.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/05/07/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
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Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.
Conservative, Except About Your Vagina
In an email exchange I had yesterday, my friend Dale Launer asked:
What's with (some) conservatives saying they're against gov't intervention - against gov't intruding into your life - but have legislation for vaginal probes and conservative SCOTUS approved (spread your ass cheeks please) strip searches. Can gov't get any more intrusive? Creepy shit!
My response:
The truth is, they aren't true conservatives; they're what I call convenience conservatives. They're conveniently conservative -- except on all the occasions that they try to dictate others' behavior.
Your response?
But, first via Jim P., a pertinent link from ChrisLittleton.com, "Are you a 'Socialist' Conservative?":
Enter my fiend the "socialist conservative." Ok, that term isn't entirely accurate, so a bit of clarification. I have heard people use many terms to describe this inconsistent type of person as a "tea party collectivist," "big government Republican" or "corporate statist." All fall in the vein of someone who says, I want to cut spending and limit government, except for Medicare or Social Security - I paid into those.Another giveaway is the person who calls for a constitutionally limited government, but is ok with an unconstitutional war on drugs or regular encroachment on civil liberties. As long as it doesn't inhibit their particular view of the world, the "socialist conservative" is all for it.
Veronique de Rugy recently called out many Republicans for being "pro-business," but not actually "pro-market". Yes, they are very different. These are the people who are ok with selective tax cuts, bailouts or subsidies for individual (and coincidentally well connected) corporations. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless to protect him from future criticism, calls this whole phenomenon of double speak with a straight face - "tea party hypocrisy."
...If we'd simply embrace the principles of liberty as a prism through which all ideas can be viewed - we could have unbeatable consistency and mass appeal. "Socialist conservatism" is not conservative at all if it does not focus on government restraint and self-responsibility.
We can't abandon the ideas of self-ownership and limited government, just because we aren't comfortable about a particular issue or because a certain candidate shares our personal moral system - whether that is Christianity or anything else. One universal truth will never go away - the larger the government, the smaller the individual, and we can't give a single inch on this idea.
Whose Boob Is It Anyway?
(It belongs to "Jamie Lynne Grumet, a 26-year-old mother of two who is also a lactation consultant and breastfeeding advocate," per LAObserved.)
Is it just me, or does the kid sucking her breast on the cover of TIME look like he's about 8?
Plug Something In For Less
Top Deals In Electronics
Buying through my Amazon links helps support me and my site, which I truly appreciate. If you don't see what you want in my link (like if you're looking for polka-dotted shoes
Boil And Bubble
LA skyscape by Gregg Sutter:
Cash Or Charge, And Can We Also Hoover The Meat Off Your Bones?
Some businesses are so stupidly run, not understanding how unpleasant they make the shopping experience when acting in the interest of bleeding you for every possible penny.
I had to stop into Rite-Aid this morning and the nicest older man, probably the manager, was at the register. I said hello to him and we had a very friendly interaction -- and then he had to ask me "Do you have a Rite-Aid Wellness card?" And next, he had to ask me if I wanted to give a dollar to Children's Miracle Network.
All of a sudden, what had been a friendly interaction turned into a sellopportunity. I stopped being a person and I became a mark. Ugly.
I told the man I knew they made him say those things, and we commiserated about it.
I told him about having to go to Best Buy on the weekend without my boyfriend. (Gregg was in Detroit -- he typically handles all retail purchases that do not have heels or a zipper.) This was also on Sunday, when I was behind in prepping for my radio show and struggling with a paragraph for my column.
Bad enough to be in Best Buy at all, but then I got attacked by a guy trying to sell me Direct TV. Best Buy has these people running around the store hitting on customers.
I'm normally very friendly. I like people and I like talking to strangers and making them feel good, but if I could have bitten this guy's head off, I would. I know he probably just needs to feed his kids -- he probably doesn't have this job because he enjoys bothering people. Still, I don't appreciate going to a store for a purpose and being attacked by some guy trying to sell me other stuff. It was like being chased by a telemarketer.
What's with these stores that they think it's good business to make their customers feel like marketing victims?
And Her Name Is Sandy Hill
An artist friend of mine -- a successful Santa Monica-based painter -- just asked me what to get for his mom for Mother's Day. She's also an artist, also successful, showing in museums around the world, and isn't hurting for cash or "stuff." She travels a lot, and probably likes clever design, so I suggested he look for something fun on Fab.com. And then I remembered this book I saw at a friend's -- a book on mountains put together by mountain-climbing woman named Sandy Hill.
It was designed by one of the premier book designers, if not the premier one, Lorraine Wild, and in looking through it at a friend's house, I was reminded of Jonathan Haidt's words on Jefferson's notion about a high form of happiness -- that it's a feeling of "elevation," a swelling in the chest.
That's what I got in looking through this book, Mountain: Portraits of High Places
I realized, in recommending it to my friend, that I'd been inspired by it without realizing it. I sent thank you notes to the staff at Anderson Cooper -- all of whom were wonderful to me, and helped me be the best I could be on the show. The producer (and much of the staff) were there on Sunday night, and it's a really high-pressure environment. So, with my thank you note, I sent him two beautiful mountain postcards I picked up when the sweethearts at the Colorado Springs Independent brought me in for an event. I told him I thought he could keep them in a desk drawer and look at them for a little serenity when things got seriously crazy.
This book has incredible, mood-changing, life-calming, elevating photographs. You can't see them on the Amazon site, but if I were going to buy somebody a present that wasn't just a thing, but something to make them feel good, this would be it.
More about the book here. And a video:
Work Less, Make Less. It All Adds Up To Me
I write seven days a week, often well into the evenings, and do a radio show on Sunday nights. My stay-at-home mom neighbor is writing a middle-grade novel -- and it's good -- but she just had her third baby, and I came over the other day and she was tapping out notes about a character on her cell phone before the baby woke up (because she had no place to put the computer). Most of her time is kid-time, and she steals away an hour here or there to write. Let's say we write the same sort of stuff, and work for a company. Should we be paid the same amount of money? On what planet would that be fair?
Christina Hoff Sommers blogs at US News about the unfairness of the Paycheck Fairness Act:
Groups like the National Organization for Women insist that women are being cheated out of 24 percent of their salary. The pay equity bill is driven by indignation at this supposed injustice. Yet no competent labor economist takes the NOW perspective seriously. An analysis of more than 50 peer-reviewed papers, commissioned by the Labor Department, found that the so-called wage gap is mostly, and perhaps entirely, an artifact of the different choices men and women make--different fields of study, different professions, different balances between home and work. Wage-gap activists argue that even when we control for relevant variables, women still earn less. But it always turns out that they have omitted one or two crucial variables. Congress should ignore the discredited claims of activist groups.The misnamed Paycheck Fairness Act is a special-interest bill for litigators and aggrieved women's groups. A core provision would encourage class-action lawsuits and force defendants to settle under threat of uncapped punitive damages. Employers would be liable not only for intentional discrimination (banned long ago) but for the "lingering effects of past discrimination." What does that mean? Employers have no idea. Universities, for example, typically pay professors in the business school more than those in the school of social work. That's a fair outcome of market demand. But according to the gender theory permeating this bill, market forces are tainted by "past discrimination." Gender "experts" will testify that sexist attitudes led society to place a higher value on male-centered fields like business than female-centered fields like social work. Faced with multimillion-dollar lawsuits and attendant publicity, innocent employers will settle. They will soon be begging for the safe harbor of federally determined occupational wage scales.
Steven Pinker
Monobrow Humor
Lower than lowbrow, in other words.
Institute For Justice On The Scam Of Occupational Licensing
IJ is a wonderful civil liberties-defending organization -- one of two, with theFIRE.org, that is near and dear to me.
They have just gone after occupational licensing -- requiring a person to have the government's permission to pursue their chosen occupation.
Now, I don't want hospitals hiring doctors who haven't been tested and certified in some way, but are you somehow imperiled if your interior decorator doesn't have the government's blessing?
There's a post about this up at Cato by Trevor Burns, about the IJ's 200-page, comprehensive study on occupational licensing in the USA. Click on the IJ link -- you can skim the thing and be easily outraged. I was.
Burns writes:
There are significant real-world effects to these laws. In a world of nine percent unemployment, barriers to work should be the last thing we want, particularly if those barriers do not make us safer or better off. The study found that the average license forces would-be workers to pay an average of $209 in fees, take one exam, and complete nine months of training. In the four places in which they are licensed (three states and DC), interior designers have the highest barriers to entry, apparently to save us from shag carpeting and misuses of the Pottery Barn. In the face of such requirements, particularly the months of training, it's easy to see how someone can be discouraged from even looking for a job.
The IJ's video:
Paris In The Rain
As my friend Emily Tarr, who took the picture wrote, "You won't see those pink shoes anywhere else..."
We Get Press Releases
Press release subject line: "Pedigreed Psychologist Available for Comment."
Pedigreed? Is he a golden retriever?
TSA: The Effectiveness Of Fast Food Workers Working "Security" At The Airport
Scott Shane and Eric Schmitt write for the NYT in a story about the double agent who disrupted the Al Qaeda attempt to blow up a plane:
A senior American official said the new device was sewn into "custom-fit" underwear and would have been very hard to detect even in a careful pat-down. Unlike the device used in the unsuccessful 2009 attack, this bomb could be detonated in two ways, in case one failed, the official said....On Tuesday, the Transportation Security Administration repeated a security message previously sent to airlines and foreign governments. The security guidance notes that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula still intends to attack the United States, probably using commercial aviation, and warns T.S.A. agents to look out for explosives in cargo, concealed in clothing or surgically implanted, officials said.
Lisa Simeone writes in an email about this:
So what the fuck are they gonna do now? Prod and poke people's surgery scars (which they've already done, as I've documented in my Master List)?? Further grope and paw and humiliate people?? Rip open stitches?? Remove casts from limbs??
Any commenter smart enough to make it in the comments section on this blog could get an item they wanted on a plane, if they really wanted to. These are unskilled workers groping us at "security." If I wanted to bring explosives on a plane, and I wanted to defeat the current methods, all I'd have to do is stick the whatever between my ass cheeks. Are they going to start feeling between there? Are they going to make us strip, bend over and spread them?
Again, you find these plots, not with some chickie whose job options included the TSA and The Home of the Whopper, but with targeted intelligence by highly trained officers. The TSA is about something else -- and that's training us to be docile in the face of having our rights removed. And yay, Americans, you're doing such a great job of bending over and politely letting your rights be taken from you.
UPDATE: Here's Sommer Gentry on defeating the body scanners.
Biden Accidentally Speaks The Truth; Obama Gets The Bill
Whoopsy! Dana Millbank writes in the WaPo about Biden's recent "Meet The Press" appearance, in which he gave his full support to gay marriage...making Obama's public view, that his thinking is "evolving," look like the political fence-straddling that it is:
The vice president said he is "absolutely comfortable" with same-sex marriage, committing the classic Washington gaffe of accidentally speaking the truth. This bit of straight talk made Obama's position -- neither for nor against such unions but in an evolutionary state, not unlike the Galapagos finch -- all the more untenable.
The press landed on him, all vulturelike on carrion:
CNN's Jessica Yellin asked whether Obama was trying to "have it both ways before an election" and whether he should "stop dancing around the issue."ABC's Jake Tapper said that "it seems cynical to hide this prior to the election" and that "I don't want to hear the same talking points 15 times in a row."
NBC's Chuck Todd said with a grin, "So help me out here. He opposes bans on gay marriage, but he doesn't yet support gay marriage?"
...Whatever Obama's public position, there was little doubt in the briefing room Monday that the president supports gay marriage and that he would go public with this position after Election Day, when he no longer need fear losing independent voters.
via @DrEades
Lowbrow Humor Here
I know you have some.
Classiest Flash Mob Ever
Via @The Week:
Santa Monica Book Event Worth Going To: On Andrew Gumbel's New Book On The Oklahoma City Bombing
Andrew's new book, written with Roger G. Charles, is Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed--and Why It Still Matters
He'll be talking about his book at Barnes & Noble in Santa Monica, on the 3rd Street Promenade, at 7pm, Thursday, May 10. Andrew is a terrific reporter I became friends with after he did a piece for the Independent/UK on my campaign to make SUVs uncool to drive.
From the B&N link:
Nearly two decades after the attack, questions still remain about the Oklahoma City bombing and its investigation. Author Andrew Gumbel's years of reporting reveal rifts between departments and anti-terrorism problems with implications for today.
From an email from Andrew about the event:
The book is a comprehensive rewriting of the story of the Oklahoma City bombing based on access to previously unpublicized government documents and interviews with hundreds of the key players -- investigators, prosecutors, defense attorneys, members of the radical far right and, thanks to an extended correspondence from prison, Terry Nichols. The book shows how the investigation was far from the great success trumpeted at the time but actually missed crucial parts of the story and almost certainly failed to catch everyone involved.
TSA Numbnuts Ruin A Girl's $10,000 Insulin Pump
One of my good qualities, I think, is that I'm pretty honest about the areas where I'm an idiot, which keeps me out of a good bit of trouble. (I'm a big fan of seeking out professionals for all sorts of things, income providing, of course.)
Well, give some TSA worker a tin badge and she'll consider herself an endocrinologist. That must be why a Salt Lake City TSA worker told a Colorado teen, Savannah Barry, to go through the nudie scanner with her insulin pump and all would be fine. From ABC SLC, Don Hudson reports:
Savannah, who is a type one diabetic and wears an insulin pump 24 hours a day, says she ran into TSA agents who were not prepared to deal with her medical situation. "I went up to the lady and I said, I am a type one diabetic. I wear an insulin pump. I showed her the pump. I said, what do you want me to do? I usually do a pat down - what would you recommend?"Savannah then showed agents a doctor's note explaining that the sensitive insulin pump should not go through the body scanner. She says she was told to go through it anyway. "When someone in a position of authority tells you it is - you think that its right. So, I said, Are you sure I can go through with the pump? It's not going to hurt the pump? And she said no, no you're fine."
The 16-year-old walked into the scanner with some serious reservations "My life is pretty much in their hands when I go through a body scan with my insulin pump on." She was right to be worried. She says the pump stopped working correctly. "Coming off an insulin pump is rough. You never know what is going to happen when you are not on the insulin pump."
She says TSA agents then made the situation worse when they didn't know what to do about her juice and insulin. "She said, because we don't have the machines to scan the juice to make sure this is not an explosive we do have to do a full body pat down and search your through your bags." Of course, that's what she wanted in the first place, but it was too late.
Loved this about the reality of our "security theater" from an ABC Denver story by Amanda Kost:
"When they saw her juice, they panicked and they didn't know what to do. A diabetic is going to need a source of sugar, preferably liquid. I can assure you she's not going to blow up a 737 with an insulin pump and three Capri Sun Juice(s)," said Savannah's mother, Sandra Barry.As soon as she went through the full-body scan, Savannah said she felt something was wrong.
She called her mother, who called the maker of the insulin pump, Animas.
"They said she's got to take that pump off as soon as she lands. And my heart just sank, because I know how expensive they are. I knew how upset she would be, and I knew that I had to be the one, when I got to DIA, to tell her," said Sandra.
"They can't guarantee that the software isn't damaged by the TSA's technology that they use, so her blood sugar could run high or her blood sugar could run low. So thankfully, it's just about a 1 hour flight, a little bit over an hour. So I knew if something was going to be wrong or not working we had a short amount of time that she was in the air," said Sandra.
The diabetic teen said she had to transition to insulin shots the moment her plane landed in Denver.
"Coming off an insulin pump is rough. You never know what is going to happen," Savannah said.
How To Catch A Terrorist (Obviously, Don't Rely On The TSA -- That's Not What They're For)
As I wrote in my op-ed on the absurdity of unskilled workers who get their job off pizza boxes being the ones we supposedly count on to root out terrorists:
If the TSA's actual mission were its stated one - "protect(ing) the Nation's transportation systems" - checkpoints wouldn't be staffed by low-wage, unskilled workers, and they wouldn't be searching everyone. They certainly wouldn't be waiting until terrorists get to the airport 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 plots.
Of course the granny gropers at the airport didn't find anything -- it was (see above) "highly trained law enforcement officers using targeted intelligence to identify suspects long before they launch their plots."
From ABCnews.go.com, Olivier Knox writes:
The CIA thwarted a suicide plot by al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen to bring down a U.S.-bound airliner near last week's one-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death with an upgraded "underwear bomb," the Associated Press reported Monday. The White House quickly released a statement insisting "the device did not pose a threat to the public.""We had no specific, credible information about active terrorist plots timed to coincide with the anniversary and reiterate that this device never represented a threat to the public," a senior Obama aide told Yahoo News Monday on condition of anonymity.
The AP, citing unnamed U.S. officials, said the CIA seized the explosive, an improved version of the weapon used in the failed Christmas 2009 plan to bring down a commercial airplane over Detroit.
The device did not contain metal, making it likely that it could have eluded detection by traditional airport security. But it was unclear whether controversial new full-body scanners would have located it.
Of course, as I wrote in my op-ed about the real mission of the TSA:
The TSA's main accomplishment seems to be obedience training for the American public - priming us to be docile (and even polite) about giving up our civil liberties.
Little shows it better than how we leave the actual terrorism detection to people whose job options aren't as follows: "Defending National Security or Home of the Whopper."
All Those Starving Children With The Distended Bellies In...Quebec?
Yes, they're all over Canada. Or they must be, because the UN Human Rights Council's hunger monitor, Oliver de Schutter, is not going to Syria, where a 12-year-old boy told Reuters Thursday, "There is no food and no clean water, nothing."
No, the UN hunger monitor is going to investigate...Canada! (Hello, crazytime!)
Hillel Neuer writes for the NatPost:
That's right. Despite dire food emergencies around the globe, De Schutter will be devoting the scarce time and resources of the international community on an 11-day tour of Canada--a country that ranks at the bottom of global hunger concerns.A key co-ordinator and promoter of De Schutter's mission is Food Secure Canada, a lobby group whose website accuses the Harper government of "failing Canadians...and [failing to] fulfill the right to food for all." The group calls instead for a "People's Food Policy."
I asked De Schutter if his time wouldn't better be spent on calling attention to countries that actually have starving people.
"Globally, 1.3 billion people are overweight or obese," he responded via his spokesperson, "and this causes a range of diseases such as certain types of cancers, cardio-vascular diseases or (especially) type-2 diabetes that are a huge burden."
In other words, the hunger expert is not even that interested in hunger, but the opposite. Sure, we should all eat less fries, but do Canadians need a costly UN inquiry to tell us that?
via Kate Coe
More Inappropriate Humor
Give it a good home right here.
Glenn Reynolds On Online College Educations
Reynolds writes at washingtonexaminer.com:
Another opportunity exists in alternative methods of certifying knowledge. A college diploma serves as a basic signifier of its holder's basic competence, but with costs running well into the six figures, it's an awfully expensive credential.MIT/Harvard will start certifying online students, and that may be just the beginning. The Cato Institute's Andrew Coulson suggests that people should accumulate knowledge in life, then build a portfolio that will directly demonstrate their knowledge to future employers. He calls it savoir faire: (Literally: "know how to do.")
I think that's a really nice idea but find that people are often unable to assess for themselves whether another person is qualified and like to fall back on credentialism.
The Extra E Is For Extra Pee
The headline refers to an old ad on cable TV in New York for sex line 1-900-PEEE, and the blog post is about a woman who had cops pepper-spray and urinate on her when she was shackled following a drunk driving arrest in which she was the passenger. From the AP:
PITTSBURGH -- A judge has refused to dismiss the lawsuit of a western Pennsylvania woman who claims state troopers pepper sprayed and later urinated on her while she was shackled hand and foot, saying the troopers' claim of sovereign immunity doesn't apply because the alleged misconduct is outside the scope of their official duties.Derena Marie Madison, 40, of Smithfield, sued five troopers from the barracks near Uniontown in August for conduct she claims occurred when she was riding in her car while a friend was stopped for drunken driving on Feb. 3. Madison named two of the troopers, Chad Weaver and Cpl. Michael Zampagona, but doesn't know the names of the others.
The attorney general's office, representing the troopers, asked that the lawsuit be dismissed under the doctrine of sovereign immunity which, essentially, contends that law enforcement officers are immune from being sued for actions "within the scope of their employment."
But Chief U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster, in a decision last week, found that "when a suspect is in custody and fully restrained, the acts alleged here do not serve any purpose of the police or constitute the kind of conduct police are employed to perform. Certainly, troopers serve no legitimate law enforcement purpose by urinating on a person in custody." The judge's decision was first reported by the Courthouse News Service.
Lancaster, in issuing the ruling, is not saying the allegations are true - only that Madison's lawsuit can go forward because, at this juncture, he must legally assume they are true.
via Lisa Simeone
Swanky Art Opening At Manhattan Museum: Painter Max Ferguson, "Painting My Father"
My dear (and talented) friend Max Ferguson said I could invite those of you who read my blog to his art opening.
If you're in or near Manhattan on Tuesday, May 8, do go. Oh, and check out the catering. Hilarious. (Max painted a wonderful painting of his father in Katz's Deli a while back. Another Katz' portrait here.)
Here's the invite. Do RSVP:
Delighted to invite you to the Gala Opening of Painting My Father. Tuesday, May 8th 6 - 8:30 pm The 100th Birthday of Richard J. FergusonHebrew Union College Museum
One West Fourth Street, New York
Catered by Katz's DelicatessenAll are welcome, but the Museum requests that you RSVP to them.
hucjirmuseum@huc.edu
Please mention number of guests.I look forward to seeing you there.
Max Ferguson
(The exhibition runs through June 29th)
About Max and the show -- a recent WSJ article and a Sunday NYT piece.
Not Funny: The Erosion Of Our Civil Liberties
A tweet by reason's @MikeRiggs:
P.A. at Houston-Bush Intl: "Please know that any inappropriate jokes or remarks about airport security may result in your arrest."
@TedFrank pointed out:
That rule dates back to the 1970s.
Joking "There's a bomb in my pants!", yes. But, "inappropriate remarks"? What are inappropriate remarks? Is "I see this as a violation of my Fourth Amendment rights"? "I think it's disgusting that you earn a living violating people's rights"?
Here's a sign in Denver that also puts a chill on free speech.
If you don't know what you can be arrested for, you're less likely to speak up at all.
Why Black Women Are Fat
Surprisingly politically incorrect op-ed in The New York Times by Alice Randall:
Too many experts who are involved in the discussion of obesity don't understand something crucial about black women and fat: many black women are fat because we want to be.The black poet Lucille Clifton's 1987 poem "Homage to My Hips" begins with the boast, "These hips are big hips." She establishes big black hips as something a woman would want to have and a man would desire. She wasn't the first or the only one to reflect this community knowledge. Twenty years before, in 1967, Joe Tex, a black Texan, dominated the radio airwaves across black America with a song he wrote and recorded, "Skinny Legs and All." One of his lines haunts me to this day: "some man, somewhere who'll take you baby, skinny legs and all." For me, it still seems almost an impossibility.
Chemically, in its ability to promote disease, black fat may be the same as white fat. Culturally it is not.
How many white girls in the '60s grew up praying for fat thighs? I know I did. I asked God to give me big thighs like my dancing teacher, Diane. There was no way I wanted to look like Twiggy, the white model whose boy-like build was the dream of white girls. Not with Joe Tex ringing in my ears.
How many middle-aged white women fear their husbands will find them less attractive if their weight drops to less than 200 pounds? I have yet to meet one.
But I know many black women whose sane, handsome, successful husbands worry when their women start losing weight. My lawyer husband is one.
Unfortunately, Alice and the evidence-based science of weight loss have not been introduced. She writes:
I have my own personal program: walk eight miles a week, sleep eight hours a night and drink eight glasses of water a day.
Memo to Alice: Per Gary Taubes' "Why We Get Fat," it is carbohydrates -- sugar, flour, starchy vegetables like potatoes, apple juice -- that cause the insulin secretion that puts on fat.
Gary Taubes on why most of us believe that exercise makes us thinner--and why we're wrong.
Jailed For Trying To Fill A Prescription
In yet another sick casualty of the absurd War on Drugs, a Dallas woman, Annie Lenhart, was thrown in jail when she went to the drug store for more painkillers -- painkillers for which she had a legal prescription after shattering her kneecap falling down a cliff on vacation. Susy Solis writes for DFW's CBSlocal.com:
With the help of several men, Lenhart climbed out of the area and after a 3 1/2 hour trip to the nearest hospital in Port-Au-Prince, she underwent reconstructive surgery with no general anesthesia.A week later she was flown back to the U.S., still in deep pain, and admitted into Baylor Medical Center in Dallas.
"They gave me a pretty high, heavy duty narcotic, Norco, as a painkiller going forward and I had used that up. It had been a month and I had called for my refill," Lenhart said.
The pharmacy called Lenhart to ask her exactly what time she would be in pick up her prescription. She thought it was odd, but told the pharmacy what time she would be there.
Still on crutches and unable to drive, a friend of Lenhart's, drove her to a CVS Pharmacy in Oak Cliff.
She wasn't able to pick up her prescription because a police officer arrived to pick her up.
"He was like 'we need to go outside,'" she said. "I was on crutches and I had a permanent IV line in my arm. I had a big leg brace. I asked him if it was necessary and he said yes and he rather policingly escorted me out the front door and into the back of a waiting patrol car."
Lenhart was so stunned, she didn't think to ask the officer questions. The officer explained to her what was going on.
"He said, 'Well we believe that you have forged your pain pill prescription and we are calling your doctor now. But I've worked with this pharmacist a number of times and he's never made a mistake," Lenhart said.
The officer then took her the Dallas County jail, where she remained overnight. After she was released on bond, she was charged with obtaining a controlled substance by fraud, a felony.
She eventually things straightened out, but consider this: An injured woman had her freedom taken from her because of the drug war. Yet another woman, yet another person, among so many people.
Cut Me In On A Gift For Your Mom
Shop Amazon - Mother's Day Gifts
Don't forget to give your mom the gift of some really fun reading -- I See Rude People!
Thanks to all of you who support this site (and me!) by buying through my blog links to Amazon and through Amy's Mall.
I don't list some product you want, if you just use one of my product links or the "powered by Amazon.com" logo on the top left on Amy's Mall to click through to Amazon, I'll get a small kickback from what you buy. Also, if you go through one of my links to shop (even if you don't buy that exact product), same deal. I get credited for everything you buy.
Thanks again!
Inappropriate Humor
Put 'er here.
Advice Goddess Radio: Tonight, 7-8pm PT, 10-11pm ET -- Dr. Robert Kurzban, Hacking Our Brain's Hypocrisies
It's Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in psychology and research -- all with really compelling things to say about how to be smarter in being human.
My guest tonight, evolutionary psychologist Dr. Robert Kurzban, will explain how our mind's makeup makes us prone to hypocrisy and less-than-ideal behavior, and ways we might counteract that. Kurzban is the author of Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind
Listen live at this link or download after the show (click "Play in your default player"). And do call in with questions when the show is live -- 347-326-9761
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/05/07/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
And don't miss last week's Advice Goddess Radio with therapist Dr. Ofer Zur, who has some of the most eye-opening and breakthrough views on who becomes a victim or a victimizer, and why, and what can be done to change it.
Listen at this link or download (click "Play in your default player"):
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/04/30/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
Join me and all my fascinating guests live every week from 7-8pm Pacific, 10-11pm Eastern, and listen to all my previous shows at this link:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon
TSA: It's Our Party And We'll Bruise Your Balls If We Want To
There's video of one of the power grabs pretending to be security, also known as a TSA pat-down, and KENS5 TV has gotten it through an open records request.
Watch below as Texas Congressman Canseco pushes away the assaulting hand of a TSA gropenfurher who is both violating his Fourth Amendment rights and rather aggressively violating his balls.
It's rather amazing they got the video so fast, considering it took the TSA FOUR YEARS to fulfill a Propublica Freedom Of Information Act request for the complaints against them.
TSA: Zippidy-quick to violate our rights -- slower than slow at complying with them.
via @mpetrie98
Only 65 Years To Earn Back Its Investment (And That's If They Cut Our Losses Right Now)
I love trains, and I'd love to get around Los Angeles on a train, but I'd also love a house in Bel Air with servants and a moat, and Los Angeles can't afford a subway and I can't afford even a doghouse in Bel Air.
Well, that only stops one of us from making an outrageous investment. Tim Cavanaugh and Scott Shackford write at reason about our smashingly successful new train line:
Los Angeles' brand new $930 million Exposition light rail line is carrying so few riders and bringing in so little revenue that it will, at best, take 65 years for the train to earn back its capital investment (not including ongoing operating costs). If the project completes its next phase and establishes an at-grade train that runs through heavy street traffic from Downtown L.A. to the city of Santa Monica, it will not pay for its construction for 170 years.
My dad told me to never buy anything I can't afford. When are the voters going to tell that to LA and the pandering dimwits and sleazebags who run it?
School Disciplining Goes Color-Coded
Ted Frank blogs at Point of Law about race-based changes in how schools are to discipline kids who act out:
Seventy percent of African-American children are born to single mothers. Moreover, children growing up in the African-American community face the peer pressure of gangsta culture: success in school results in ostracism for "acting white."With such dysfunction in the African-American community one would expect African-American children to have more disciplinary problems than average. And indeed they do: "black students were three and a half times as likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers".
These problems are certainly difficult: how do you change the culture? Unfortunately, the Obama administration is proposing counterproductive policies that would reduce personal responsibility.
According to the Obama administration, the disparity in discipline is a "civil rights" issue of "equity." The Department of Education is threatening "disparate impact" inquiries on school districts that discipline blacks more than whites or Asians. School districts could only comply by failing to discipline poorly-behaving African-American students; disciplining well-behaving whites to get the numbers up will just result in lawsuits.
The Real Breaking Bad: How the Drug War Creates Collateral Damage
DEA bullies are putting an elderly couple out of business because their product, Polar Pure -- useful to hikers for years -- can be used to make meth. Conveniently, the couple can't afford bigtime lawyers to go after the DEA.
Great reason.tv video, written and produced by Paul Detrick, field produced by Zach Weismuller and Sharif Matar:
The story from reason posted at YouTube:
88-year-old Bob Wallace, and his 85-year-old girlfriend, Marjorie Ottenberg fell in love 35 years ago backpacking to the tops of the highest peaks in the world.Wallace is a Stanford educated engineer and Ottenberg is a former chemist and decades ago they came up with a water purification product for backpackers like themselves called Polar Pure out of their garage in Saratoga, Calif.
"For an old guy with nothing else to do, this is something that keeps us occupied," says Wallace.
Today, Wallace and Ottenberg are fighting the Drug Enforcement Administration and state officials to continue to operate their business. Why? The DEA says that drug dealers are using their product to make methamphetamine.
The DEA says meth heads are interested in Polar Pure's key ingredient, iodine crystals.
In 2007 the DEA reclassified iodine as a controlled substance and named Polar Pure in particular as a product that was of concern to the DEA. The DEA told Wallace and Ottenberg, they could continue to operate their business but they would have to pay a $1,200 regulatory fee, register with the state and feds, report any suspicious activity and keep track of each and ever person who bought a bottle of their product.
Bob says that the overhead alone would be too much to pass onto customers.
"So that's why I didn't bother with their rules, because I would be out of business if I followed their regulations," says Wallace.
The same went for camping stores and online outlets that stocked Polar Pure. Instead of dealing with the new regulations they just dropped the product, effectively killing Wallace and Ottenberg's business.
"Any time you deal with a government it's a hassle," says Ottenberg.
A spokeswoman for the DEA told the San Jose Mercury News that Wallace was "collateral damage."
"They are being put out of business, they are totally being put out of business," says Stephen Downing, a former Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief and a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
Downing says that that the DEA is the most out of control arm of the federal government today because they are given so much authority with very little oversight.
"Within the controlled substances act, the DEA is given authority chemicals as they come up," says Downing. "To make it easy for federal enforcement people to so called, do their job and make their quotas and have their show-and-tells, they pass these regulations that impact innocent people."
Downing also says that the metrics for stopping use and production of methamphetamine don't make sense.
The Justice Department's own National Drug Threat Assessment for 2011 said that the availability of methamphetamine was increasing in every region of the country and the rates of abuse were increasing as well.
One Thirty-Second Cherokee Nation
Sizzling writing by Mark Stein on Elizabeth Warren's claim to be 1/32 Cherokee. From the OC Register:
Like Barack's white girlfriend, she couldn't be black. She would if she could, but she couldn't. But she could be a composite - a white woman and an Indian woman, all mixed up in one! Not Indian in the sense of Ashton Kutcher putting on brownface makeup and a fake-Indian accent in his amusing new commercial for the hip lo-fat snack Popchips. But Indian in the sense of checking the "Are you Native American?" box on the Association of American Law Schools form, which Elizabeth Warren did for much of her adult life. According to her, she's part Cherokee and part Delaware. Not in the Joe Biden sense, I hasten to add, but Delaware in the sense of the Indian tribe named in honor of the home state of Big F--kin' Chief Dances With Plugs.How does she know she's a Cherokee maiden? Well, she cites her grandfather's "high cheekbones," and says the Indian stuff is part of her family "lore." Which was evidently good enough for Harvard Lore School when they were looking to rack up a few affirmative-action credits. The former Obama Special Advisor to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and former Chairperson of the Congressional Oversight Panel now says that "I listed myself in the directory in the hopes that it might mean that I would be invited to a luncheon, a group, something that might happen with people who are like I am," and certainly not for personal career advancement or anything like that. Like everyone else, she was shocked, shocked to discover that, as The Boston Herald reported, "Harvard Law School officials listed Warren as Native American in the '90s, when the school was under fierce fire for their faculty's lack of diversity."
So did the University of Texas, and the University of Pennsylvania. With the impertinent jackanapes of the press querying the bona fides of Harvard Lore School's first Native American female professor, the Warren campaign got to work and eventually turned up a great-great-great-grandmother designated as Cherokee in the online transcription of a marriage application of 1894.
Hallelujah! In the old racist America, we had quadroons and octoroons. But in the new post-racial America, we have - hang on, let me get out my calculator - duoettrigintaroons! Martin Luther King dreamed of a day when men would be judged not on the color of their skin but on the content of their great-great-great-grandmother's wedding license application. And now it's here! You can read all about it in Elizabeth Warren's memoir of her struggles to come to terms with her racial identity, Dreams From My Great-Great-Great-Grandmother.
Alas, the actual original marriage license does not list Great-Great-Great-Gran'ma as Cherokee, but let's cut Elizabeth Fauxcahontas Crockagawea Warren some slack here. She couldn't be black. She would if she could, but she couldn't. But she could be 1/32nd Cherokee, and maybe get invited to a luncheon with others of her kind - "people who are like I am," 31/32nds white - and they can all sit around celebrating their diversity together. She is a testament to America's melting pot, composite pot, composting pot, whatever.
Via Walter Olson, Ethel Merman: "I'm an Indian Too"
Scummy Business
That's what I call unpaid internships by clever cheapskates who use interns as a substitute for wage-earning employees, often taking advantage of their need for "experience," and often giving them little more than the business' name value on a resume. From an article by Steven Greenhouse in The NYT:
Matt Gioe had little luck breaking into the music and entertainment industry after graduating with a philosophy degree from Bucknell last year. To get hands-on experience, he took an unpaid position with a Manhattan talent agency that booked musical acts. He said he answered phones and looked up venues. Although he was sometimes told to make bookings, he said he received virtually no guidance on how to strike a deal or how much to charge. But the boss did sometimes ask him to run errands like buying groceries."It was basically three wasted months," he said.
...Joyce Lee, who received a film degree from Wesleyan in 2010, moved to Los Angeles and did six unpaid internships, including one for Scott Rudin, a top Hollywood and Broadway producer.
Her duties included reading scripts and picking up the mail. To pay her rent, she worked at a coffee shop and handed out fliers for a taxi company.
"Scott Rudin is made of money," she said. "I don't think it would be so hard for him to pay five interns the minimum wage."
A spokesman for Mr. Rudin said he could not be reached for comment.
Ms. Lee, who is now in New York making her own film and supporting herself by again working at a coffee shop, said interns deserved better.
"If I ever become a famous filmmaker," she said, "I promise I will pay my interns."
Egypt: Give 'Em An Inch -- And $1.3 Billion...
My dog is very well-behaved because when she's bad, she sees immediate consequences.
Our government, time and time again, seems incapable of learning to use simple behavioral lessons like this -- that you don't reward bad behavior. From the WaPo editorial board:
IT'S BEEN FIVE weeks since the Obama administration granted Egypt its full $1.3 billion in annual military aid despite its government's failure to meet conditions set by Congress for advancing democracy. In granting a waiver on national security grounds, administration officials argued that continuing the funding was more likely to encourage cooperation with the United States and progress on human rights than a cutoff would.As it turns out, the administration was wrong. In a number of tangible ways, U.S.-Egyptian relations and the military's treatment of civil society have deteriorated since the waiver was issued March 23. The threat to nongovernmental organizations, whose prosecution triggered the threat of an aid suspension, has worsened. Conditions for U.S.-backed pro-democracy groups elsewhere in the Middle East have deteriorated as other governments have observed Egypt's ability to crack down with impunity.
...U.S. officials argued that an aid cutoff might cause a dangerous political backlash in Cairo. But since the waiver was issued, Egypt's government-owned press, which is controlled by the military's intelligence agency, has continued a toxic campaign of anti-Americanism. The State Department also argued that aid should continue because Egypt had stuck to the 1979 Camp David agreements with Israel. But after the waiver, the government unilaterally canceled a deal under which it was supplying Israel with gas.
Though Egypt has scheduled a two-round presidential election for this month and next, it remains unclear whether a promised transition to democratic civilian rule by July 1 will take place. One thing is certain: The Obama administration has lost much of its leverage over the Egyptian military -- and its credibility with Egyptian democrats.
Continuing to behave like a beaten spouse is not good foreign policy. And especially not when we're trillions in the hole and well on our way to becoming China's bitch.
Don't Be Using That Embezzlement Conviction Against That Guy You'll Be Hiring As Your Accountant
@Johnnydontlike, KABC radio host John Phillips, reminded me last night of this ridiculous EEOC policy:
There is no Federal law that clearly prohibits an employer from asking about arrest and conviction records. However, using such records as an absolute measure to prevent an individual from being hired could limit the employment opportunities of some protected groups and thus cannot be used in this way....Several state laws limit the use of arrest and conviction records by prospective employers. These range from laws and rules prohibiting the employer from asking the applicant any questions about arrest records to those restricting the employer's use of conviction data in making an employment decision.
From Tom Trinko at AmericanThinker:
While the new policies (EEOC testimony) are targeted at all potential employees, the motivation was the EEOC's concern that since African-Americans and Hispanics have a higher rate of criminal convictions than whites, considering former crooks as a hiring risk would unfairly impact minorities....Further, while the EEOC guidelines do not force companies to hire those with criminal records, the fact that the EEOC is even addressing the issue is highly questionable. Where in the Constitution does it say that the government can prevent companies from rejecting a candidate for a job because of the behavior of that person? Behavior, unlike race, is something people can control. Additionally, while there are no "bad" races, there are bad behaviors. What's next? Forcing private schools to consider hiring a teacher convicted of child molestation because the teacher has "reformed"?
Here's how it works in Philly, per Mahleah Chicetwan at examiner.com:
In April of 2011, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter signed into law the Philadelphia Fair Criminal Screening Standards Ordinance. On January 13, 2012 the ordinance, also known by the catchy phrase of Ban the Box, became a way of life.The ordinance states that any business with more than 10 employees can't ask, either on the application or in the first interview, about an applicant's criminal convictions. To do so, may result in a warning and then, if the employer continues to violate the law, could result in fines of $2,000 per violation.
The ordinance wants to level the playing field for ex-offenders who often find the door to legitimate employment locked thus forcing them back into their illegal line of work.
On Wednesday, April 25th, the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) agreed with Mayor Nutter and his law; that a potential employer lacks the ability to properly assess a potential applicant's abilities if they're already aware of a conviction history.
(Whole EEOC thing is here -- "Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.")
When Is A Drug Habit A Problem?
The assumption is "always." The assumption is wrong.
Great question by Jacob Sullum at reason.com:
The new season of Nurse Jackie, the Showtime series starring Edie Falco as a super-competent emergency-room nurse with a fondness for pain pills, begins with her character in rehab. Unlike Gregory House, the brilliant diagnostician played by Hugh Laurie on Fox, Jackie Peyton does not actually suffer from severe chronic pain; rather, she uses narcotics to manage her emotional state. But like House, she is very good at her job, which never seems to be compromised by her drug use except to the extent that she lies and cheats to get painkillers (along with the occasional stimulant) and to cover up her habit. Her drug-related problems stem almost entirely from the fact that the drugs she favors are legal only for doctor-approved medical use. Hence she invents injuries, deceives her friends, swipes medication, and starts an ill-advised extramarital affair with the hospital pharmacist who supplies her with painkillers. If she could simply walk into a store and buy the oxycodone, hydrocodone, and amphetamine that help get her through the day, those problems would disappear. Which raises the question: Does Jackie have a drug problem or a prohibition problem?
6-Year-Old Suspended For "Sexual Harassment"
These ridiculous punishments for the little kids keep on coming. Tara Kelly writes on the HuffPo:
A Colorado first grader was suspended from school after singing the LMFAO song, "I'm Sexy And I Know It," 7 News reports.Six-year-old D'Avonte Meadows, a boy, was suspended for three days from Aurora Elementary School after singing a line from the song to a female student while standing in a school lunch line, according to ABC News.
Does anyone really think the kid did more than imitate some song he saw on a grown-up music video -- probably, admittedly, way too young?
Ignoring The Fourth Amendment: Not Just For Airports Anymore
Lisa Simeone forwarded a friend's email about a DEA search on the highway, writing:
From a friend. Unwarranted (of course) searches on public highway. Pulling over cars.Nah, this country isn't circling the drain. It's all in my head. Fourth Amendment schmourth amendment!
The email:
From: Deleted
To: Lisa Simeone
Subject: Re:
Date: Thu, 3 May 2012 19:36:42 -0400
Lisa
In Indiana now...
...I thought of you today as we hit KY...directly north of the TN border...DEA Drug search on I-75...starting at the Rest Area and 1 mile up on 75. There were signs warning the public of the search...oh...yes, they had a black man in an old sports car pulled over. surprise?
and I thought I was free to travel on the USA roads...silly me.
Or...It Might Be A Sign That You Had Unprotected Sex
Does having children mean that you are more mature? Not necessarily. But, that's often the assumption when they're compared with the childless. Katie Roiphe writes on Slate of some of the men who choose not to have children:
Thinking of men I know who have decided not to have children, there is often a belief that they are immature, Peter Pan-ish, and somehow clinging unnaturally to a freer state, an unseemly perpetual adolescence. The criticism of them is not that they are failures, as is the implicit judgment of women, or somehow unfulfilled or empty, but that they are not growing up.A man in his 40s who decided against having children emailed me:
"The immaturity verdict--I got that a lot in my 30s. The theory behind it is that every man wants a kid but some won't admit this to themselves on schedule, and so need to have their narcissism exploded by all these terrific new Moms and Dads. Forget the question of whether men are qualified to make their own decisions at age 35--I'd say most are. And forget that you have to be mature at least in some ways to withstand so much social pressure. The most unattractive thing about my friends at this time was that they seemed indifferent not only to my happiness, but to the happiness of my children. These kid-pushers had none of my reluctance to sentence a child to life with an ambivalent, disengaged and possibly unloving Dad."
The semi-moral imperative to grow up does seem sort of arbitrary and unfair. After all, why should you have to grow up if you don't want to? Why do we feel the need to impose or foist this very particular variety of grown up life on other people? It seems likely that there is an element of envy in those who have taken on responsible, burdened, parenting lives.
To me, what's "grown up" is recognizing that I find children loud, sticky and expensive and have no desire to have any.
Charlie Leocha: "What Kind Of Children Are We (Is TSA) Raising?"
An inspiring post on the erosion of our civil liberties by travel writer Charlie Leocha at Consumer Traveler:
Recently, I have been watching passengers moving through TSA lines. They shuffle along, don't make eye contact, obey all instructions, submit to full-body scanners, have their luggage pawed through and watch others get called out for additional screening. All the while, most hope that they can move through TSA inspections quickly and quietly, without being noticed.Parents cringe when their children protest being patted down by uniformed strangers, not because the pat downs border on abuse, but because they hate to see their kids cause a stir. I feel, somewhere in this shuffle through threatening uniforms we are losing the American soul. Worse, children and teenagers growing up under these kinds of "normal" searches are losing their internal compass of freedom.
Americans are soothingly accepting the government's counsel that in order to be free to move about the country we have to give up some of our freedoms and submit to more government invasion of privacy.
Anyone with half a brain knows that our "privacy" has been severely compromised through warrantless wiretaps, the ability to intercept wireless communications, credit card transaction tracking, grocery store membership cards, international integration of police files and sharing of everyday travel data. Those kinds of privacy invasions are distant and nebulous to most.
But, at the airports, when TSA agents actually put their hands inside our pants, touch genitals, disrobe infants and have senior citizens remove adult diapers in the name of security, that is where true damage to our society takes place. With all of the aforementioned surveillance, these kinds of hands-on pat downs are not necessary and are un-American.
I have not heard of one single person since the institution of pat downs and whole-body scanners who has been detained for a contemplated act of terrorism. Not one.
The old tried and true metal detectors and luggage x-ray machines are working fine in the rest of the world. Why Americans have to go through the added indignity of being patted down and stripped virtually naked when our intelligence is often a quantum leap better than any other country's in the world, is beyond me.
It is not as if Americans consider probable cause for search and seizure a luxury that can be abandoned. It is a bedrock of our country and has been since its inception. With classic doublespeak, our leaders make speeches with promising words supporting liberty and then institute police-state actions to "protect" those liberties.
Back in the dire days of the Great Depression, President Roosevelt said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Today, we as a nation have succumbed to that fear. Worse, it is not only fear of foreign terrorists that worries us, but fear of our own government, our domestic police and our federal officials that hammers the soul of American freedom.
My comment on the site:
Charlie, this is an inspiring post. I write about manners and people sometimes criticize me for being "rude" for being civilly disobedient at these security theater checkpoints. As I wrote in an op-ed:Some find it an absurd contradiction that I write books on manners 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.This means not being what I would be in almost any other situation -- which is friendly and polite. It means telling TSA workers (they are not officers) that they are horrible for earning a living violating Americans' constitutional rights. Travelers should print out my op-ed and leave a copy with the TSA rights violators when you pass through and hand it out around the airport.
I see a near-constant erosion of our rights these days. Americans are way too "polite" in the face of this.
How Sex Might Be Like A Math Test
See text messages here.
The Nuances Of Creative Passion
Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman on explores the different kinds of passion -- healthy and not-so-healthy -- for a creative pursuit, from a Reena Jana interview with him on CreativityPost.com (originally posted at frogdesign):
Can you share a condensed definition of the psychology world's definition of "passion"?
Passion is the energy that can fuel a project, or a task. It has a similar role to inspiration. When we engage in something we are passionate about, we feel free from external constraints and in control. Time recedes into the background, and we feel allowed to engage in flow. Research has shown that flow correlates directly with passion.Psychologists have been studying "passion" for years in the lab. But only recently have we been conceptualizing it. We understand lots of different conditions of passion, especially what is known as harmonious passion, or positive passion. It's actually very important to distinguish between different types of passion. Sometimes we encounter wolves in passion's clothing--otherwise known as obsession. Robert Vallerand has done the large majority of research in distinguishing obsessive passion from harmonious passion.
So there are two types of passion?
At least two, with very distinct fingerprints. Interestingly, in studies, people who self-report either harmonious or obsessive passion perceive their drive is "passion," without qualifying it. They value their sense of passion highly, but that is where the similarities end. With obsessive passion, unlike harmonious passion, a person feels controlled by work, as if not in control. Harmoniously passionate people can engage in work in an intense way, which they self-report as "concentration." This feeling of being able to concentrate at work correlates more with harmonious passion than obsessive passion. The key difference is the extent to which a person is in control of his or her environment. People who experience harmonious passion feel more intrinsically motivated.
Ham On Wry
@avflox tweets:
Overheard in Brentwood: "If you haven't had parasites at least once in your life, you're not really living."
Things That Usually Happen On Tuesday
I usually post my advice column. Oops. Crazy week because of my Anderson Cooper show appearance. Forgot. Just posted it now.
First question: You Lite Up My Life. Second question: Stare Way To Heaven. (If new questions don't show up for you on my columns page, clear your cache.)
Got a love/dating/sex/relationship problem? Feel free to write me for advice at adviceamy at A O L dot com. I can always use interesting questions, and I do my best to answer every one I get.
And yes, I have an AOL email address. Had mine since the early 90s, when I first got online. You've had to change yours and send out a bajillion notifications how many times?
Everything Under The Sun Is Racism (Never Parody Anyone Who Isn't White)
Ashton Kutcher appeared in an ad for a dating site playing a variety of characters -- "worldwide lovers." These included a Bollywood producer...in "brownface," as I saw it described on various sites, including E!'s. Of course, there were squeals of "racism!"
Of course, merely playing somebody from a different culture with a bit more of a tan than Kutcher actually has is horribly racist act in PC America. And the Karl Lagerfeld sendup in the video, in powder-whiteface, complete with a sort of German-ish accent, is okay...because we're allowed to parody white people?
Here's the video:
Princeton's Entry Into Helicopter Parenting
There are so many vying to be your surrogate mommy -- the Federal government, local governments, Michael Bloomberg...and now, Ivy League universities like Princeton. From the AP:
In keeping with a belief that fraternities and sororities promote social exclusiveness, Princeton University says any freshman who joins, rushes or pledges to a Greek organization starting this fall will face suspension.The Ivy League school has a long-standing policy of not officially recognizing fraternities or sororities, and says any student who solicits the participation of freshmen in Greek organizations this fall will also face suspension.
The administration announced last year it would ban first-year students from Greek activities starting in the fall of 2012. School officials said they hoped that delaying rush would cut down on drinking and keep freshmen from limiting themselves socially to Greek organizations.
Funny, they don't want to keep freshman from limiting themselves socially to Jewish organizations, Asian organizations, or black organizations.
Oh, and please note that, if I were in college, I'd sooner join a crew repairing a leaky sewer line in bare feet than a sorority, but I'm for freedom of association as well as the freedom to piss away one's college education and whatever else one so desires without interference from "well-meaning" others (parental wealth and lack of parenting permitting).
The Ethics Of Coerced Treatment For Drug Use
All drug use is not abuse. Yet, people caught using drugs are often given no choice but to go into "treatment." This is like catching me drinking a glass of wine and forcing me to go to rehab for it.
I do drink wine, but not to excess, because it makes me woozy and sick and I can just take a few curves in my car or take off in a small plane to do that. So why should my mere consumption of wine be a reason to send me to rehab?
Via @ethannadelmann, a paper by Alex Stevens, Ph.D., "The ethics and effectiveness of coerced treatment of people who use drugs," from Human Rights and Drugs. An excerpt:
There are two types of coerced treatment. The first occurs when people who use drugs are ordered into treatment with no opportunity to provide informed consent to such treatment.This will be called compulsory treatment. The second type occurs when drug users are given a choice of going to treatment or facing a penal sanction that is justified on the basis of crimes for which they have been (or may be) convicted. This will be called quasi-compulsory treatment (QCT).
The first of the three types of person who uses drugs includes those who use drugs but who have not committed other crimes, and do not meet diagnostic criteria for drug dependence ('non-problematic drug users'). This group includes the majority of people who use illicit drugs. Most of them will discontinue drug use without any need for treatment. Only a small minority will go on to need treatment to help them give up drugs, or to reduce the harm that their drug use causes.
The conclusion:
This article has argued that it is very unlikely that compulsory treatment can be considered ethical for any category of person who uses drugs, outside of the 'exceptional, crisis' situations allowed for under the UN Office on Drugs and Crime/World Health Organization review.It has been argued that quasi-compulsory treatment may be considered ethical (under some specific conditions) for drug dependent offenders who have committed criminal offences for whom the usual penal sanction would be more restrictive of liberty than the forms of treatment that they are offered as a constrained, quasi-compulsory choice. It has briefly reviewed research that suggests that QCT may be as effective as treatment that is entered into voluntarily. This may help individuals to reduce their drug use and offending and to improve their health, but it is unlikely to have large effects on population levels of drug use and crime.
Nadelman later tweets about the absurd state of things -- the feds deeming total abstinence from drugs a must:
Gil K talking about emphasizing drug prevention, but the feds' approach is all about abstinence only, not reality-based drug education.
Although I don't smoke pot, I know a number of highly successful people who use it -- when they come home from work at 9 p.m. after a 12-hour, highly productive day, to relax and unwind. Are these drug criminals -- or are they just ingesting a different sort of sauvignon blanc than I am?
Finally, let's not forget the cost of "zero tolerance" on adult "offenders," from a NYT piece by Brent Staples:
Millions of people have been arrested under the policy for minor violations, like possession of small amounts of marijuana. And one thing is beyond dispute: this arrest-first policy has filled the courts to bursting with first-time, minor offenders who do not belong there and wreaked havoc with people's lives. Even when cases are dismissed, people can be shadowed for years by error-ridden criminal records....An arrest, even without a conviction, can swiftly unleash disastrous personal consequences. Consider the 2011 case of a 26-year-old single mother from Brooklyn whose lawyers say she was arrested after the police forced her to reveal a small packet of marijuana hidden in her purse. The judge said the charges would be dismissed if she stayed out of trouble for a year. A week later, the woman had been fired from her job as a janitor with the New York City Housing Authority. She has not been rehired.
...Young parents have faced neglect accusations in family court after marijuana arrests, even if they are not ultimately charged with any crime. In a case described in The Times, a woman's son and niece were removed from her home by child welfare workers after police found about a third of an ounce of marijuana -- below the threshold for a misdemeanor -- in a boyfriend's backpack in her Bronx apartment. The district attorney declined to prosecute, but the children spent time in foster care, and her niece was not returned for over a year.
...New York City's overly zealous marijuana arrests, coupled with the unreliability and porousness of record-keeping, damage the lives of tens of thousands of people a year. The Legislature needs to fix this.
Government Without The Rose-Colored Glasses
David Burge (@iowahawkblog) tweets:
a "do-nothing Congress" is sort of like a "do-nothing arsonist."
Dinnertarianism
There's a refreshingly libertarian approach to food and government regulation of it in a story by Nevin Martell in Washington City Paper. I'm all for this approach, and then some. Enough with bans on the sale of unpasteurized milk, Four Loco, and all the rest on which the government claims to know best. (I have a Mommy and I no longer need her to make my food decisions for me.):
"If you want to buy a Happy Meal with a horsemeat burger, a can of Four Loko, trans fat fried foie gras, and a side of shark fin soup, I applaud your right to make those choices," says Baylen Linnekin as we sit on his porch in North Bethesda.The 39-year-old executive director of the nonprofit Keep Food Legal has a decidedly libertarian perspective on food politics. "We want you to have the right to grow, raise, produce, buy, sell, cook, eat, and drink the food of your own choosing," he says. "We're opposed to subsidies that skew those choices and bans that clear those choices off the board. People are not stupid. They can make their own choices and live with the consequences."
To that end, we're sipping on cans of lemonade-flavored Four Loko, malt liquor cranked up with guarana, caffeine, and taurine. When I admit my ignorance over the final ingredient, Linnekin offers, "I think it's approved for use in animal feed as a stimulant, but not in human food." That's reassuring.
The boozy energy drink was banned in several states in 2010 after it was linked to illness and, in some cases, death. Before the company pulled it off the shelves, Linnekin ran out and bought several cases, but not because he likes it.
"It's disgusting," he admits. "But I don't believe that my personal tastes should dictate what other people choose to enjoy."
Government out of our stomachs!
via @radleybalko
Laughter Is The Best Medevac
Fly me.
For People Who Care Enough To Send The Very Best For Mother's Day
...But really have no idea what that would be, Amazon
Hot Air
I'm sure I put out more than my share, but I promise to put out only the good stuff this afternoon.
I'll be live on Ed Morrissey's Hot Air radio show from 12:30-1 p.m. Pacific today/3:30-4 p.m. Eastern, talking about rude people, I See Rude People, and previewing a tidbit or two from my next book, which is being submitted to publishers now!
Link to listen live: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-ed-morrissey-show
And if you haven't bought my book, please buy a copy now! (New copies or Kindle books [but not "bargain" copies] go against my advance, and help me keep writing...and eating, and help fund my answering questions that will never make my column.)
Excuse Me, Mr. President, But It Was My Turn To Talk!
The President gets reporters chasing after him wherever he goes. You'd think he could give me my moment on Anderson Cooper uninterrupted. But, no! He had to come on in the middle of yesterday's airing of my appearance on Anderson's talk show. Affairs of state, schmaffairs of state!
Well, I'm pleased to say that the show I was on re-airs today -- at 1pm Pacific here in LA.
Here's a link to a clip. To find out when and where it airs near you, go to the link, click "Show Info," and type in your zip code.
P.S. Anderson Cooper was completely wonderful and so was everyone on the show. There's an environment of niceness and decency throughout this show, top-down, and that makes a real difference for me as a guest (and I saw how they all work together, and it seems to make a difference for them, too). That says a lot if you know how high-pressured TV is. (Their office was filled with staff Sunday night at 7 p.m., and I could see that they were all pretty tired, but there wasn't the tense environment you pick up on other shows.)
The Senate To The Post Office: Money-Saving Measures? No Way!
The Post Office, which is losing $25 million a day, wants to make money-saving reforms and the Senate is determined to block them. From the WSJ op-ed page:
Management wants to close about half of its mail processing centers and some 3,000 unnecessary post offices--letting Wal-Marts or local stores take packages and sell postage stamps. But the Senate bill creates new rules to prevent or delay this.For example, Postal Service managers want to save $2.7 billion by changing mail deliver standards (such as relaxing overnight delivery requirements for some first-class mail), but the Senate bill locks in current standards for three years.
Managers want to renegotiate absurd no-layoff labor contracts to shrink its labor force faster. The Senate bill denies that authority.
Managers want to end Saturday delivery as soon as possible. The Senate bill allows this in two years but only if a federal study certifies there is no viable alternative. Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a cosponsor of the bill, has said she believes ending Saturday delivery will put the mail service in a death spiral. Compared to losing $25 million a day?
...The Senate bill is the result of one of those unholy political alliances of Democrats, who don't dare take on the union lobby, and Republicans who don't want local post offices shut on their watch. The Senate waived five budget points of order that were intended to prevent such fiscal raids. So bleeding Uncle Sam will borrow $34 billion to give to the bleeding Postal Service. Glad to have solved that crisis. Next issue?
...The larger story here is how difficult it is to reform any government operation, even one that everyone admits is broken. In the private economy, a company that loses money every year eventually declares bankruptcy and restructures or dissolves. In government, political constituencies protect a loser as long as Congress can keep soaking taxpayers.
Advice Goddess Radio, Get The Podcast: Dr. Ofer Zur On Victimization
Dr. Ofer Zur's eye-opening and breakthrough views on who becomes a victim or a victimizer and how to avoid being victimized.
Listen at this link or download (click "Play in your default player"):
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/04/30/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
Join me and all my fascinating guests live every Sunday from 7-8pm Pacific, 10-11pm Eastern and listen to past shows at this link (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/) including last week's, with Dossie Easton on ethical open relationships and ways of thinking to make your conventional relationship better.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/04/23/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in therapy and research -- all with really compelling things to say about how to be smarter in being human.
TSA: Stand Still While They Sexually Assault You; Get Arrested If You Do It Back To Them
Via Lisa Simeone at TSANewsBlog, WINKnews reports that a female traveler is facing charges for turning the tables on the rights-violating TSA workers:
Police say they arrested Carol Jean Price, 59, for battery and resisting an officer after they say she groped a TSA agent at Southwest Florida International Airport. Arrest reports say Price was about to board a flight to Ohio when she was chosen for a pat down at security. Price was reportedly angry about the extra screening and asked to speak to a supervisor.Other TSA agents told police that's when Price "reached down to demonstrate and grabbed the leg of the agent and crotch area as she claimed had happened to her."
As Lisa wrote:
Again, think about this: Price was arrested for doing what TSA agents had already done to her and what they do to passengers every day.
If there is no reasonable suspicion you've committed a crime, or you are not out on a date and feeling frisky, there is no reasonable reason for a government worker to grope you.
More in the next few days on the groping that was done to me, and the intimidation tactics that led up to it, when I flew back from JFK on Monday afternoon. (I only wish I knew the name of the traveler who pitched in and helped me so I could thank her again.)
And please, don't go quietly. By doing so, you're contributing to our creep to becoming a police state.
When The Tea Party Becomes The Me And My Well-Heeled Cronies Party
Veronique de Rugy blogs at NRO about Republican and tea party-backed members of the House and their letter to press the House leadership to agree to the Export-Import Bank reauthorization, which de Rugy says "represents corporate welfare at its finest; in this case, the beneficiaries are the largest businesses in America."
She points out that it isn't the role of our government to prop up a few selected company and shelter them from the adversities of competition -- not even when that competition comes from companies helped by foreign governments:
The letter repeats many of the usual half-baked claims about the bank, such as the idea that because the French government provides support to Airbus, like other governments do for their large manufacturers, it means the U.S. government should support its aviation manufacturers. (I would like to argue that if the French government does it, we probably shouldn't.) First, there is no evidence that Boeing (the biggest Bank beneficiary) wouldn't be able to compete or couldn't sell planes without the government loans, even if it claims that's the case. Boeing took in over $64 billion in revenue in 2010, with $31 billion of that money coming from commercial-airplane sales. Are these guys really saying that this is a company that needs taxpayers' support? Or are we saying that it is the role of taxpayers to guarantee that Boeing makes the largest possible earnings?
Race-Based College Admissions
Like Ward Connerly, I think they're discriminatory. Terence Chea writes at Boston.com:
Ward Connerly, an African-American businessman who has led a national campaign against affirmative action, sees the practice as a form of racial discrimination."I don't believe in proportionality," said Connerly, who heads the American Civil Rights Institute. "The taxpayers have a right to say that we want every kid to be treated without regard to race, color, creed or national origin."
Connerly became wary of UC's efforts to admit more underrepresented minorities when he was a university regent in the 1990s. He pushed the board to bar UC from considering race in school admissions in early 1996 before he helped qualify Proposition 209 for the ballot that year.
"I looked at the extent of our diversity efforts and I concluded we were a lawsuit waiting to happen," Connerly said. "There was a very clear view that we had to be concerned about the growing Asian influence at the University of California."
...Affirmative-action advocates say Proposition 209 has created a "new Jim Crow regime" in California, where elite public colleges are dominated by white and Asian students while black and Hispanic students are relegated to less prestigious campuses.
"It is extraordinary that the vast majority of high school graduates in this state are minorities, and they're denied the opportunities to go to their state universities," said attorney Shanta Driver for the group By Any Means Necessary, which filed suit to overturn the ban.
I say that if you're against discrimination, you're against discrimination. You can't just decide to be for discrimination when it works in your favor.
What was that thing Martin Luther King said about how to judge people?
via Kate Coe
Amy Alkon/I See Rude People On Anderson Cooper's New Talk Show (Airs Tues, May 1)
We taped Monday; show airs Tuesday, May 1 -- check "show info" at this link and put in your zip code to find out what time/station it airs near you. (This is his syndicated show, not his CNN show I watch late-nights in LA with The Ridiculist.)
Just home (posting this Monday night) and going back to bed!
If you haven't read the book, please buy it at this link! Buying a new copy (about $12 with Amazon's discount) or a Kindle copy goes against my advance and helps me keep writing and eating!
Here's a link to a bit with me from the show:
Their blurb with the video:
Amy Alkon, syndicated advice columnist and author of "I See Rude People," says that "when someone is on a cell phone in a public place, they are hijacking your thoughts, they're stealing your time and your peace of mind."Anderson agreed, saying, "That's the thing that annoys me; that they are stealing my time, and my brain power is focused on them -- when it should be focused on the inane things that I think about through the day or whatever I want to think about."
Do you silently sit there and fume while someone is rude? Amy says it amplifies things. "You're eating you that way and it can have very negative effects on your health. So it's really important to not do that, to not brew. But to say something before you brew so much that you explode."
The Cost Of Mandatory Minimums: Do We Really Want To Jail People For Firing Protective Warning Shots?
Greg Newburn, the Florida director of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, which advocates for fair sentencing laws, writes at jacksonville.com that Florida's mandatory sentencing laws often lead to gross injustices and a waste of tax dollars:
Consider the case of Marissa Danielle Alexander, a 31-year-old mother of three who had been repeatedly abused by her husband who threatened several times to kill her. On Aug. 1, 2010, Alexander's husband choked her and refused to let her leave the house.After breaking free and making her way to the garage, Alexander realized she did not have her car keys. Fearing for her safety, she grabbed her legally registered handgun and re-entered her home to retrieve her keys. Her husband, screaming and threatening her, moved toward her. Alexander fired one shot into her ceiling, and her husband left.
Angela Corey prosecuted
State Attorney Angela Corey charged Alexander with aggravated assault. The jurors were not told that, if convicted, Alexander would have to serve a 20-year mandatory minimum prison sentence.They rejected Alexander's self-defense claim and convicted her. Alexander is due to be sentenced soon.
Unfortunately, Alexander's case is not unique, and others in similar situations are serving 20-year mandatory minimums in Florida prisons today.
Orville Lee Wollard, a lawful gun owner with no criminal history, fired a warning shot in his home to scare off a man who had been abusing his daughter.
After he rejected a plea deal and a jury rejected his self-defense claim, the judge was forced to send Wollard to prison for 20 years.
Wollard's judge said, "If it weren't for the mandatory minimum, I would use my discretion and impose some separate sentence, having taken into consideration the circumstances of the event."
@gnewburn (via @radleybalko)
Love Thy Doctrine
From ScienceDaily.com, a new study suggests that the highly religious are less motivated by compassion than non-believers when it comes to helping people:
"Love thy neighbor" is preached from many a pulpit. But new research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that the highly religious are less motivated by compassion when helping a stranger than are atheists, agnostics and less religious people.In three experiments, social scientists found that compassion consistently drove less religious people to be more generous. For highly religious people, however, compassion was largely unrelated to how generous they were, according to the findings which are published in the most recent online issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.
The results challenge a widespread assumption that acts of generosity and charity are largely driven by feelings of empathy and compassion, researchers said. In the study, the link between compassion and generosity was found to be stronger for those who identified as being non-religious or less religious.
"Overall, we find that for less religious people, the strength of their emotional connection to another person is critical to whether they will help that person or not," said UC Berkeley social psychologist Robb Willer, a co-author of the study. "The more religious, on the other hand, may ground their generosity less in emotion, and more in other factors such as doctrine, a communal identity, or reputational concerns."
Link to journal article abstract is here.
Advice Goddess Free Swim
It's Monday night and I'm a little sleepy from waking up early in NYC to be on Anderson Cooper and then flying back to LA for my deadline on Tuesday morning, so you post the links. Will post more blog items when I can on Tuesday.
Disgusting: Watch Some TSA Lackey Pawing Jennifer Hudson's Hair
This was one of the ickiest parts of my TSA gropings. It's so personal to have your hair touched -- it was extremely upsetting to me to have it as part of the violation of my Fourth Amendment rights at the airport. And for what? Meaningless shows of "security" theater?
Here's Jennifer getting her hair groped.
More soon on my recent groping when flying out of JFK. Of course I cried loudly as I got felt up.
And more from Lisa Simeone on the TSA's strip-search tactics here.
Here are a few Texans from this past summer on what a sexual assault this TSA "security theater" is:
