Bookworm-Watching: This Disgusting Privacy Violation Creeps Me The Hell Out
Alexander Alter writes in the WSJ that those behind e-readers can track our eyeballs through the books we buy and read on their devices:
The major new players in e-book publishing--Amazon, Apple and Google--can easily track how far readers are getting in books, how long they spend reading them and which search terms they use to find books. Book apps for tablets like the iPad, Kindle Fire and Nook record how many times readers open the app and how much time they spend reading. Retailers and some publishers are beginning to sift through the data, gaining unprecedented insight into how people engage with books.Publishing has lagged far behind the rest of the entertainment industry when it comes to measuring consumers' tastes and habits. TV producers relentlessly test new shows through focus groups; movie studios run films through a battery of tests and retool them based on viewers' reactions. But in publishing, reader satisfaction has largely been gauged by sales data and reviews--metrics that offer a postmortem measure of success but can't shape or predict a hit. That's beginning to change as publishers and booksellers start to embrace big data, and more tech companies turn their sights on publishing.
Barnes & Noble, which accounts for 25% to 30% of the e-book market through its Nook e-reader, has recently started studying customers' digital reading behavior. Data collected from Nooks reveals, for example, how far readers get in particular books, how quickly they read and how readers of particular genres engage with books. Jim Hilt, the company's vice president of e-books, says the company is starting to share their insights with publishers to help them create books that better hold people's attention.
How about creating a business model that doesn't violate my privacy? Like one that pays customers to opt-in to be watched by Big Book Brother?
Obamacare Will Help People Retire Early -- And Turn The USA Into Greece
Chuck Saletta writes at The Motley Fool how people could retire early, thanks to Obamacare, because it will pick up the cost of their health care:
The reason is that two of the law's key features -- guaranteed coverage and subsidized premiums -- play right into the hands of those who'd like to leave the rat race behind them. With guaranteed coverage, anyone who wants to can buy insurance, regardless of pre-existing conditions. With subsidized premiums, taxpayers could be on the hook for paying premiums for anyone making less than 400% of the poverty level.The Big Change
In essence, unless and until money to fund the program runs out, Obamacare has just made retiring early much easier. Prior to the law's passage, if you wanted to retire early, you needed to do one of the following:
•Convince your former employer to keep you on its health care plan.
•Go uninsured and hope for the best.
•Be healthy enough to qualify for insurance on your own.
•Qualify for some other group plan (like a trade association or union).
•Lower your assets down to Medicaid eligibility levels.
•Follow a carefully prescribed process of exhausting COBRA coverage, then qualifying for guaranteed issue insurance under HIPAA.In most cases, though, you either would be committing yourself to going broke, or you would be required to pay the full cost of your insurance, plus you'd have to figure out how to cover any premium increases. That's an incredibly risky undertaking, and it means that someone retiring young enough would need to have several hundred thousand dollars invested just to cover health insurance premiums until Medicare eligibility.
With this new law, as long as your income falls below the level of 400% of federal poverty guidelines, your out-of-pocket premiums for "silver" level coverage are capped on a sliding scale that gets to be no higher than 9.5% of your income. The rest of the costs of insuring you are covered by taxpayers.
Per another Motley Fool piece by Bruce Watson:
400% of the poverty line -- for a household of two adults and one child, this would be $70,208
Welcome to France. So, everybody retires, everybody's subsidized...and who, exactly, is paying for all this? I know -- we can have a tax to pay the tax! (Now, we're Greece!)
Yes, Obamacare could end up being the fiscal beginning of the end for this country. Saletta explains:
The law may cap out-of-pocket insurance premiums, but that cap doesn't eliminate the total cost of the insurance -- it merely shifts the difference to taxpayers. Indeed, by so significantly shifting costs, it fundamentally changes the nature of early retirement planning. Rather than "save, invest, and figure out how to cover your costs," the incentive has become "pay off your debts, keep your other costs and your income low, and your neighbor will cover your health insurance for you."Given that so many people so easily stand to qualify for such large subsidies simply by keeping their incomes below the caps, Obamacare is virtually guaranteed to cost significantly more than initially projected.
The Million-Condom Farce
My fave cafe closed early today for a photo shoot, so I went to pick up the mail and listened to John and Ken on KFI on the way.
I think I'm as mad as they are that tax dollars are being sucked up to provide A MILLION FREE CONDOMS to people in Los Angeles.
From City Council Ass Zev Yaroslavsky's site:
Each year, grant money is distributed by the county to local health care providers to purchase and distribute free condoms, which help prevent sexually transmitted diseases. (About 250,000 have been handed out so far this year, at a wholesale price of about six cents apiece, Beck says.) The contest is a small part of a larger centralization of STD prevention that has already merged three county programs.
As John and Ken pointed out, the reason people don't use condoms isn't because they aren't free. It's because they're reckless, drunk, impulsive, etc.
The fact that Ass Zaroslavsky is proud to be associated with this shows you how separated from reason and any sort of sensible budgeting these jerks are.
It's now about $70 if you happen to sleep in one morning (perhaps from working seven days a week to make ends me) and you get a street cleaning ticket. They were $25 or so, if I'm remembering correctly (and I think I am) when I moved here -- and I moved here in the late 90s.
What's next -- will we be providing free toothbrushes and dental floss to all residents of Los Angeles?
Why A Road?
And does it taste like chicken?
What Changed With Health Care
Yaron Brook writes at ARI:
Prior to the government's entrance into the medical field, health care was regarded as a product to be traded voluntarily on a free market--no different from food, clothing, or any other important good or service. Medical providers competed to provide the best quality services at the lowest possible prices. Virtually all Americans could afford basic health care, while those few who could not were able to rely on abundant private charity.Had this freedom been allowed to endure, Americans' rising productivity would have allowed them to buy better and better health care, just as, today, we buy better and more varied food and clothing than people did a century ago. There would be no crisis of affordability, as there isn't for food or clothing.
But by the time Medicare and Medicaid were enacted in 1965, this view of health care as an economic product--for which each individual must assume responsibility--had given way to a view of health care as a "right," an unearned "entitlement," to be provided at others' expense.
This entitlement mentality fueled the rise of our current third-party-payer system, a blend of government programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, together with government-controlled employer-based health insurance (itself spawned by perverse tax incentives during the wage and price controls of World War II).
Today, what we have is not a system grounded in American individualism, but a collectivist system that aims to relieve the individual of the "burden" of paying for his own health care by coercively imposing its costs on his neighbors. For every dollar's worth of hospital care a patient consumes, that patient pays only about 3 cents out-of-pocket; the rest is paid by third-party coverage. And for the health care system as a whole, patients pay only about 14%.
Maxime Meis comments at ARI:
In 1993, Washington state passed a law guaranteeing all residents access to private health-care insurance, regardless of their health, and requiring them to purchase coverage. The state legislature, however, repealed that last provision two years later. With the guaranteed-access provisions still standing, the state saw premiums rise and enrollment drop, as residents purchased coverage only when they needed it. Health insurers fled the state and, by 1999, it was impossible to buy an individual plan in Washington -- no company was selling.So when it fails, what is Obama going to blame first, free-market or greedy company who wanted to make a profit?
Government Gone Mad: Miniature Golf Version
There are federal regulations mandating how high the grass can be. Ryan Young writes at Open Market:
Course owners aren't too happy about the new Americans with Disabilities Act requirements that came into effect on March 15, though construction firms must be delighted at the windfall Washington just sent them.The federal government regulates the slopes of miniature golf courses. The new standard "permits a slope of 1:4 maximum for a 4 inch rise where the accessible route is located on the playing surface of a hole."
If a course uses artificial turf instead of grass, it also regulates length for the fibers. The height of the "grass" shall not exceed half an inch.
The so-called "start of play" areas must be at least 48" x 60", and shall not have a slope steeper than 1:48.
I have friends who get around in motorized wheelchairs. I'm not some disabled person-hater. But, should we really have government forcing every business to make itself accessible to all?
Are you harmed if you're a disabled person who can't go to miniature golf because the grass is too high? Am I harmed if I'm a crowd-hating person who can't go to concerts because I get upset at being jostled around in close quarters? Would I be considered harmed if I could find some doctor to call that feeling a psychiatric condition?
I suspect that a good bit of regulations like this is about people in government having a woody for wielding power over people who have had the much harder task of becoming successful in the marketplace.
via @WalterOlson
Goofy Birthday Ritual Or Kiddie BDSM?
Via FreeRangeKids, a principal with a custom of "whapping" kids softly with a big padded paddle on their birthday gets investigated, resigns, and here's what a judge decided a year later:
In a ruling dated June 14, administrative law Judge Robert Wheeler dismissed the charges of physical abuse against a student, failure to protect students' health and safety and exposing students to unnecessary embarrassment or disparagement.Whether those "whaps" were harmless fun or psychologically damaging formed the bulk of the complaint, with several parents alleging the birthday ritual was an attempt by Eisenbarth to "establish his dominance and cause the children to act submissively."
But more parents came out to support the former principal, testifying that the experience was harmless and optional, enjoyed by those who opted in and witnessed by other students and staff.Principals Steve Brand of Mount Vernon High and Noreen Colbeck-Bush of Mount Vernon Middle School testified on Eisenbarth's behalf, saying their own children had participated in the birthday ritual and neither of them considered the practice abusive.
Colbeck-Bush said parents who objected did so because the birthday "whaps" appeared to resemble disciplinary "spankings," but that she easily distinguished between the two behaviors. Brand said he'd observed Eisenbarth at work as part of professional rounds of Washington Elementary and found him to be a good administrator.
... After conducting a criminal investigation, Sergeant Harvey Hall of the Linn County Sheriff's Office determined no children were traumatized by the "whappings," and no crime had taken place.
Rituals create community and this sounded like a fun one for the kids. How awful that everything is pathologized.
I Hate Being Called "A Woman Writer"
For the record, I don't write with my vagina. I'm a writer who happens to be a woman.
Also, I like to think I'm actually funny, not chick-funny -- which is cute-funny, and makes me hurl.
Hsieh On Obamacare: Three Important Take-Home Points
Paul Hsieh, MD, blogs at Pajamas about America in the wake of the Supremes' Obamacare ruling:
1) American health care will be in deep trouble in just a few years.Not only does the individual mandate stand, but also all the other provisions including various new taxes, new regulations on the insurance industry, and new payment and practice standards for physicians.
CNN recently reported that 17% of doctors in private practice might close shop within the next year due to a combination of factors, including "business expenses and administrative hassles, shrinking insurance reimbursements and costly malpractice insurance." Under ObamaCare many will likely join large "Accountable Care Organizations" or become hospital employees, accelerating the government-driven collectivization of American medicine. Under new medical practice incentives, doctors will become increasingly beholden to their paymasters, rather than their patients.
Medicare patients will also face de facto rationing under the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) which will set physician reimbursements. Given that private insurance companies generally mirror Medicare coverage and payment decisions, this means these government restrictions will likely affect millions of Americans with nominally private insurance as well.
However, Chief Justice Roberts also noted that the Court "does not express any opinion on the wisdom of the Affordable Healthcare Act." Rather, "That judgment is up to the people."
In other words, if Americans want to repeal ObamaCare, we will have to do it ourselves.
2) There are plenty of good ideas for free market health care reform.
Details at the link.
3) ObamaCare must be defeated politically.
The American people will have one final chance to kill ObamaCare at the ballot box this November, by electing politicians committed to repealing it. If Americans value their lives, they must repudiate ObamaCare soundly at the ballot box. The elected officials who supported it two years ago should sent packing.
Sorry, but I'm not optimistic. Nor am I optimistic that the reforms that were needed -- like untying health care from the workplace and allowing interstate purchasing -- will be enacted.
Here's Hans Bader on the harms of Obamacare at OpenMarket:
Regardless of whether it is unconstitutional, Obamacare will harm the health care system and reduce employment. The Dean of Harvard Medical School, Jeffrey Flier, noted that Obamacare will harm life-saving medical innovation. Obamacare is causing layoffs in the medical device industry. The healthcare law taxes medical devices and cosmetic surgery, arbitrarily discriminates against certain hospitals, and raises taxes starting in 2013 on investors. The Associated Press and others have noted that it breaks a number of Obama campaign promises.
Ron Paul On The Healthcare Ruling
From The Capital Column, Ron Paul's thoughts:
"Today we should remember that virtually everything government does is a 'mandate.' The issue is not whether Congress can compel commerce by forcing you to buy insurance, or simply compel you to pay a tax if you don't," said the Texas Republican. "The issue is that this compulsion implies the use of government force against those who refuse. The fundamental hallmark of a free society should be the rejection of force. In a free society, therefore, individuals could opt out of "Obamacare" without paying a government tribute."..."Those of us in Congress who believe in individual liberty must work tirelessly to repeal this national health care law and reduce federal involvement in healthcare generally. Obamacare can only increase third party interference in the doctor-patient relationship, increase costs, and reduce the quality of care," said Mr. Paul "Only free market medicine can restore the critical independence of doctors, reduce costs through real competition and price sensitivity, and eliminate enormous paperwork burdens. Americans will opt out of Obamacare with or without Congress, but we can seize the opportunity today by crafting the legal framework to allow them to do so."
A Lot Of "Science" Reporting On Low-Carb Lately
Much of it utter steaming crap. And a terrific post dissecting it by Tom D. Naughton.
Why Did The Chicken Cross The Toad?
And did they kiss first?
He Must've Gone To Al Qaeda Training Camp In Between Priceline Shoots
LAX TSA pulls William Shatner's pants down while violating him for "security." Because he's a likely Al Qaeda terrorist.
Raise your hand if you think this is security. Post your comment if you think it's something else.
Cash And Caring: Ladies, Would You Date An Unemployed Man?
If not, do you complain bitterly that men only want the young hot ones?
An article at LiveScience notes that 75 percent of women say they'd be unlikely to date an unemployed man and 33 percent said no outright. David Mielach writes:
On the other hand, the prospect of dating an unemployed woman was not a problem for nearly two-thirds of men. In fact, 19 percent of men said they had no reservations and 46 percent of men said they were positive they would date an unemployed woman.
A guy may pursue a hot barrista. A woman is unlikely to.
Of course, as I've written over and over, detailing the results of numerous studies, men and women evolved to prioritize different things. Per a wide, cross-cultural study done by Dr. David Buss, both men and women put top priority on a partner who's kind. But, men prioritize physical beauty in women (youth and other signs indicating that she's a healthy, fertile mother-to-be) and women prioritize men's social status and ability to provide.
To get all indignant about this stuff is ridiculous. Knowing what the opposite sex wants tells you what you need to do to be wanted.
via Instapundit
Libertarian Party: Why A President Romney Would Be Worse Than A President Obama
I opened this emailed press release (pasted in below) from the Libertarian Party just after I posted this comment on a blog item:
It is entirely naive -- and absurdly so -- the way the Occupy people ignore the abuses by the Democrats, which are myriad -- as are those by the Republicans.This is politics of idiocy. Once you join a "team," you are predisposed to support and stand behind it. I'm an independent. I look at politicians and issues independently and generally find myself choosing the lesser of two evils, but at least I'm choosing.
The text from their press release:
The Supreme Court Ruling on ObamaCare does not matter. It will make little difference to America in the short run, and no difference in the long run.Why? Because almost all elected Republicans and Democrats are Big Government politicians - in all things - including health care. After this Supreme Court decision, they will get back to work expanding government involvement in all things - especially health care.
One thing could make things worse. Electing Republican Mitt Romney President.
Why?
Republicans fiercely oppose, and often defeat Democratic Party attempts to massively expand government involvement in Health Care - such as HillaryCare.
But Democrats usually vote for Republican Party legislation to massively expand government's role in Health Care.
Republican President George Bush's $1.1 Trillion Government Prescription Drug Program was voted into law by Republicans and Democrats.
Republican Governor Mitt Romney's Massachusetts state government expansion into Massachusetts health care - RomneyCare - was voted into law by both Republicans and Democrats. With virtually no resistance.
A Republican-controlled House of Representatives and US Senate would oppose Democratic President Barack Obama's health care proposals.
But a Republican majority House of Representatives and US Senate would support and vote for a Republican President Mitt Romney's Big Government health care proposals. And most Democrats in the House and Senate would, too.
What Republican Governor Romney did to Massachusetts' health care, a Republican President Romney would do to America's health care.
A President Mitt Romney would not undo ObamaCare. He'd make it permanent.
A first-term President Mitt Romney would be far more dangerous to small business, the private sector, and taxpayers than a lame-duck President Obama - no matter what the Supreme Court decided.
If Tax Penalty For Uninsured Survives, Good Luck Collecting It
Typical clear-eyed view from Jacob Sullum over at reason:
My column tomorrow will consider whether the "shared responsibility payment" demanded from Americans who fail to obtain government-approved medical coverage is properly viewed as a "tax," a "penalty" (which is what the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act calls it), or both (as Solicitor General Donald Verrilli maintains). That question of nomenclature is relevant in deciding whether the individual insurance mandate is constitutional under the Taxing Clause and whether the Anti-Injunction Act of 1867, which generally bars legal challenges to taxes until they are assessed, makes this case premature. Putting those issues aside, the discussion of the penalty's mechanics by the mandate's defenders leaves the impression that it is unlikely to work as intended even if it survives Supreme Court review.First of all, the penalty is low compared to the cost of insurance. The minimum payment is $95 in 2014, $325 in 2015, and $695 in 2016 (and thereafter, adjusted for inflation).
...In any case, these penalties can be easily evaded. "Although the act provides that the IRS may not use criminal prosecutions, notices of federal tax liens, or levies on property to collect an unpaid penalty," the Obama administration says in its brief, "the IRS may employ offsets against federal tax refunds. The IRS may also seek payment through correspondence or phone calls." But as a group of tax law professors note in a brief arguing that the Supreme Court should not address the constitutionality of the insurance requirement until it takes effect, taxpayers who know that the IRS has been deprived of its scariest enforcement tools may be less responsive than usual to the agency's letters and calls. The professors also argue that, while the IRS could in theory sue taxpayers for owed penalties, the amount of money involved in any given case is unlikely to justify the effort.
With such low penalties and a guarantee of care, it seems to make sense for people to willfully avoid having health insurance and just pay the penalty. If they're even made to.
I Wish I Could Patronize This Deli Without Taking A Plane
The headline at Consumerist:
Deli Imposes $3 'Yapping On Phone While Ordering' Surcharge
My very favorite cafe has a no cell phones policy and more and more, I don't want to be at any coffee shop that allows people to yammer into their phones.
The cafe isn't open on Sundays and I used to go to a Starbucks near me with staff I really liked. One day, a guy was -- and I'm not kidding -- SHOUTING into Skype on his iPad, holding up orange juice he was drinking, etc., to show his girlfriend (presumably) in Paris or France (because he was speaking French): "J'ai jus de l'orange...et café...!"
When I said something, both he and some other guy who's frequently shouting into his phone there berated me.
The staff at Starbucks are basically told not to say anything to people, even outrageously rude people like the guy shouting into his iPad, unless they light themselves or another customer on fire.
I used to spend a lot of money at Starbucks. I don't go there anymore.
And I try to patronize businesses like, for example, Groundworks Coffee on Rose where they have a no cell phones sign.
Do They Also Crash Obama's Big Bucks Fundraisers?
Got this press release:
COALITION OF ACTIVISTS & OCCUPIERS TO CRASH DAVID KOCH'S SOUTH HAMPTON FUNDRAISER FOR MITT ROMNEY* * *
Umbrella Coalition Vows to Not Allow Koch Industries to Influence Election, Sets Sights on David Koch's Private Party for Romney
[SOUTH HAMPTON, NY] At 4pm on July 8th, 2012 a diverse coalition of activists and occupiers from across New York will descend upon a $50,000 per-guest fundraiser for presidential candidate Mitt Romney at the South Hampton home of billionaire David Koch. Citing the ever-growing and pervasive influence of Koch Industries' money on our electoral system, organizers from Occupy Wall Street, The Long Island Progressive Coalition, Greenpeace, Moveon.org, Strong For All, United New York, The Occupied Storefront and Occupy Huntington, Long Island, have announced that they will take action to non-violently disrupt the fundraiser at David Koch's shorefront estate located at 880 Meadow Lane in South Hampton.
Are they also "disrupting" the fundraisers Hollywood stars throw to raise big money for Obama? Are they outside George Soros' house?
Why is one Big Politics guy okay and not the other?
TSA: If You Don't Like It, Don't Fly, Take A Train, Or Drive
The TSA is "looking for terrorists" on the highway. By randomly stopping and searching drivers.
What bullshit.
They advise that you call authorities if you see something suspicious -- say, like a truck that says "Terrorists on board!" with a big fuse coming out the back.
Note that they say they have drug-sniffing dogs. Clearly, this is about increasing the power and reach of the police state. Stopping drivers randomly to find out if they're terrorists -- could there be a bigger waste of time and stopping of business?
Those of you who go quietly at the TSA checkpoint at the airport, and who complain not at all about this, this is happening a little easier because of you.
Note at this link the militarization of the police.
via @mpetrie98
The Terrorist Attack Will Not Be Launched From Granny's Diaper
Democratic congressmen Jerrold L. Nadler, Edward J. Markey and Bennie G. Thompson write in The New York Times about where security forces are needed -- in our ports:
MILLIONS of cargo containers are unloaded from ships each year at American seaports, providing countless opportunities for terrorists to smuggle and unleash a nuclear bomb or weapon of mass destruction on our shores.To counter this threat, Congress passed a law five years ago mandating that by July 2012, all maritime cargo bound for the United States must be scanned before it is loaded on ships. But the Obama administration will miss this deadline, and it is not clear to us, as the authors of the law, whether it ever plans to comply with the law.
Over the years, terrorists have shown themselves to be frighteningly inventive. They have hidden explosives in printer cartridges transported by air and embedded explosives in the shoes and underwear of airline passengers. The cargo containers arriving on ships from foreign ports offer terrorists a Trojan horse for a devastating attack on the United States. As the Harvard political scientist Graham T. Allison has put it, a nuclear attack is "far more likely to arrive in a cargo container than on the tip of a missile."
But for the past five years, the Department of Homeland Security has done little to counter this threat and instead has wasted precious time arguing that it would be too expensive and too difficult, logistically and diplomatically, to comply with the law. This is unacceptable.
An attack on an American port could cause tens of thousands of deaths and cripple global trade, with losses ranging from $45 billion to more than $1 trillion, according to estimates by the RAND Corporation and the Congressional Research Service.
Unfortunately, that doesn't allow power-mad tiny despots (aka unskilled labor in positions of authority) to order Business Class-flying accountants and lawyers to "assume the position!" (Okay, so they don't bark that, but they might as well.)
Why Are There Chickens?
And which came first, the chicken or the road?
Next Up, WASP History Month!
Photo by Gregg Sutter (who bought me the flowers, too): 
Egypt: The Land Of Barbarians
Another female reporter in Tahrir Square is attacked as if by animals -- but by men. Natasha J. Smith writes:
My friend did everything he could to hold onto me. But hundreds of men were dragging me away, kicking and screaming. I was pushed onto a small platform as the crowd surged, where I was hunched over, determined to protect my camera. But it was no use. My camera was snatched from my grasp. My rucksack was torn from my back - it was so crowded that I didn't even feel it. The mob stumbled off the platform - I twisted my ankle.Men began to rip off my clothes. I was stripped naked. Their insatiable appetite to hurt me heightened. These men, hundreds of them, had turned from humans to animals.
Hundreds of men pulled my limbs apart and threw me around. They were scratching and clenching my breasts and forcing their fingers inside me in every possible way. So many men. All I could see was leering faces, more and more faces sneering and jeering as I was tossed around like fresh meat among starving lions.
I shouted "salam! Salam! Allah! Allah!". In my desperate state I also shouted "ma'is salaama!" which actually means "goodbye" - just about the worst possible thing to say to a horde of men trying to ruin me. I might as well have yelled "goodbye cruel world! Down I go!"
A small minority of men, just a couple at first, tried to protect me and guide me to a tent. The tent was crushed, its contents scattered into shards all over the ground. I was barefoot as they stole my nice new shoes. I was tossed around once more, being violated every second. I was dragged naked across the dirty ground. Men pulled my blonde hair - a beacon of my alien identity.
The men trying to protect me tried to guide me into another tent. I was able to scramble onto the ground.I sat with my back against a chair and surveyed the surging mob. Although a few men tried to form a human shield around me, offering me rags to cover my bruised body, men were still able to touch me. There were just too many.
Barbarians. I believe this behavior comes straight out of the disrespect and devaluing of women, which is encouraged, condoned, and even demanded by Islam.
Smith writes elsewhere on her site:
In June, I will independently film a 20-minute documentary on women's rights and abuses against women in Egypt since the revolution.
How lovely that she got to experience being a woman in a Muslim country firsthand.
The Biggest Rent-Seekers And Moochers: Politicians Themselves
It's like that in most countries, including the United States, said MIT professor Daron Acemoglu. Veronique de Rugy quotes him at NROonline:
But nowadays in most countries, the most extractive elite is the politicians themselves. Think of Greece. You cannot understand the last three decades without understanding corrupt political system. But the same is true even for the United States. The US political system has become dominated by the political elite and the lobbying industry funneling money to them. We are seeing the costs of this at this moment.
She also quotes a piece by Tim Carney, on how companies like Microsoft were given strong indications that hard work alone isn't enough to to business in this country. From Carney in the WashEx:
If you want to get involved in business," Sen. Orrin Hatch warned technology companies at a conference in 2000, "you should get involved in politics."Hatch was referring to the shortcomings of then-software king Microsoft, which he had spent most of the previous decade harassing from his perch as Judiciary Committee chairman. The message was clear: If you become successful, you must hire lobbyists, you must start a political action committee, and you must donate to politicians. Otherwise Washington will make your life very difficult.
Hatch's crusade against Microsoft was a formative moment in the cozy relationship between K Street and Capitol Hill.
De Rugy winds up:
Unfortunately, cronyism has real economic consequences at the state and federal level. In my congressional testimony last week, for instance, I explained how loan-guarantee programs are harmful to the economy as a whole, even when the projects are low risk and taxpayers' exposure to losses is small. These loans, among other things, distort important market signals and redirect private capital toward "government supported" projects regardless of their merits. In other words, through these loan programs, the government pick winners that will benefit from much better financing terms than they would be able to get on their own, which also makes it harder for the companies who didn't get government support.Thankfully, Acemoglu seems to believe that there is still time for the United States to rein in these behaviors before it turns into a country that only benefits extractive elites. In my opinion, the first step is to end all forms of cronyism at the state and federal levels. That means that we end all subsidies, loan guarantees, or other government-provided special treatment for private companies.
Middleborough, MA: "Fuck The Constitution"?
Via iFeminists, a Massachusetts town passed a bylaw allowing police to hand out $20 tickets for public swearing. From NBC Connecticut, there were protesters:
Some people shouted curse words while others carried profane posters supporting free speech at Monday's rally in the rain on the Middleborough Town Hall lawn. People who support the bylaw also showed up.The protest rally was organized by Adam Kokesh, a libertarian who publishes podcasts online from a Virginia studio. He says police can "steal from you if they don't like what's coming out of your mouth."
But police won't be issuing any tickets until the state attorney general determines if the bylaw making public cursing a civil offense is constitutional. The bylaw was passed overwhelmingly two weeks ago at a town meeting.
I might be The Advice Goddess and not Some Lawyer Who's Passed The Bar, but allow me -- Cohen v. California, 1971, the "Fuck the Draft" case, in which the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a man wearing a jacket bearing the phrase, "Fuck the Draft.":
Specifically, Harlan, citing Justice Brandeis' opinion in Whitney v. California, emphasized that the First Amendment operates to protect the inviolability of the marketplace of ideas imagined by the Founding Fathers. Allowing California to suppress the speech at issue in this case would be destructive to that market place of ideas."To many, the immediate consequence of this freedom may often appear to be only verbal tumult, discord, and even offensive utterance," Justice Harlan wrote. "These are, however, within established limits, in truth necessary side effects of the broader enduring values which the process of open debate permits us to achieve. That the air may at times seem filled with verbal cacophony is, in this sense not a sign of weakness but of strength."[2]
"[A]bsent a more particularized and compelling reason for its actions," Harlan continued, "the State may not, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, make the simple public display of this single four-letter expletive a criminal offense."[3] In his opinion Justice Harlan famously wrote "one man's vulgarity is another's lyric."[4]
Thus, Harlan's arguments can be constructed in three major points: First, states (California) cannot censor their citizens in order to make a "civil" society. Second, knowing where to draw the line between harmless heightened emotion and vulgarity can be difficult. Third, people bring passion to politics and vulgarity is simply a side effect of a free exchange of ideas--no matter how radical they may be.
This Is NOT About Security
A man whose story Lisa Simeone reported (from his email) on TSA News blog lays out how disgustingly preyed on and sexually violated I have been every time I've been pointlessly patted down by some government thug in a TSA costume. Here's an excerpt from his government-dispensed sexual assault ("pat-down," they like to call it) at O'Hare:
The male TSA agent now told me that he would pat me down. He started explaining the things he was going to do. He said he would go into my waistband, into sensitive areas, and other things I can't remember. Remember -- the clothes I was wearing were very tight-fitting -- think of a surfer about to hit the waves. There was no reason for a pat-down. From reading other stories on the web yesterday and today, I realize that this sort of aggressive pat-down seems to be the norm now. The man probably even followed procedure by telling me in detail the things he was going to do. (I realize that some people seem to have complained that the TSA has groped them without properly advising them beforehand. In my case, however, I feel as though it was worse to be told every step of the way where this man was going to put his hands.)He talked, then groped, then talked again to tell me where he was grope next. I should have told him to stop, but I didn't say anything. I think I was in shock. I felt violated, molested, assaulted, none of the words do justice to the feeling. And at least for me, the fact that he explained his every move made it much worse. It was like he was a sexual predator, planning his every move, telling me he was going to do it, and then doing it. I felt so powerless by the whole process. I have been aggressively searched when entering nightclubs before, including in the genital area, but the bouncers had always done it so fast and professionally, that I never felt violated. The TSA agent was a different story. I felet truly violated for the first time in my life.
First he groped from behind. One of the things he said was that he would run the back of his hand upwards until the "point of resistance." I thought it would be a quick movement until his hand touched some part of my genitals. But no. It was a slow and deliberate movement. He ran the back of his hand up my leg until he touched my balls, but he didn't stop there. He kept moving upward until his hand was firmly in between my inner thigh and my balls. The back of his hand was on my inner thigh; THE PALM OF HIS HAND WAS ON MY BALL. The he repeated the procedure on my other leg/thigh, on the other side of my balls.
Then he stood up and told me he was going to do the same thing from the front. Now came the worst part. He ran his hand up my thigh again, the same way. From the front. He touched the same inner thigh again, the same genitals again, he touched me in the EXACT SAME PLACE, for the second time. Why did he have to touch the same part of my genitals twice? Just because he was standing in front of me? Tell me, what difference did that make? That was the moment I felt that this man was a predator. I felt that he did it on purpose. I felt that he meant to molest me all along. He then let me go. I got my things and hurried away. What had happened began to sink in. I got angry. I got feelings of shame. I tried to play it off as a joke to my friends -- they had seen the man pat me down, but hadn't seen the details. It's been haunting me, all of yesterday, and today.
For the record, I'm typically not a procrastinator (it's irrational -- you use up a lot of time thinking about not doing something and then feeling bad about it, too). I mean to write about my Albuquerque experience with TSA thuggery, and I realized I didn't want to write about it because it's upsetting reliving it to put it on the page. I'm a pretty strong girl -- I can usually buck up and force myself to do what needs to be done; this man's piece above should give you a sense why I have been a little delinquent in writing my latest story up.
The question is, why is this man one of very few people expressing such feelings?
My feeling is that Americans are so physically comfortable, with even many of the poor having what would be considered lives of great luxury to many people on the planet, that we're just not willing to deal with the slightest inconvenience or hardship.
And then, education being what it is, and most people's families having been in this country for a while, there just isn't the requisite appreciation for the Constitution.
I read novels about Russia as a little girl, and about other countries where people were politically oppressed, and I quickly realized how utterly lucky we are -- or were -- and feel that to this day.
If you haven't read the Constitution or Bill of Rights lately, you can get them, separately or together, and probably for free, to read on your smart phone when you're standing in line or waiting somewhere. (I especially like to read them after I've come through the TSA groping station to underscore how utterly wrong their pointless and probable cause-free searches are.)
Pogue On Security Sans Science
In Sci Am, David Pogue lays out the asinine rules (clearly just rules for rules sake) and more idiocy:
Then there are the airport checkpoints, where the old metal detectors are being replaced by millimeter-wave and backscatter scanners. They are supposed to be able to find nonmetal weapons and other contraband--not just objects made of metal. Many people consider these machines invasive (they can see through your clothes), overpriced (at least $160,000 apiece) and, in the case of the backscatter machines, a potential cancer risk.They also require twice as many employees to operate and far more passenger preparation (you can't have anything in your pockets, not even your wallet or boarding pass). And they are much slower--the TSA says screening takes "less than a minute," but that's about 60 times longer than it takes to walk through a metal detector. As a result, some airports now suggest checking in two hours before a domestic flight. How many millions of dollars in productivity are we losing as a result?
With these machines, we trade convenience for security. But look--if we're going to adapt a "security at any cost to convenience" policy, why not prohibit all luggage and require everyone to fly naked?
...My field is technology, so I really shouldn't go into the other absurdities of TSA rules. I shouldn't mention how you can't have more than 3.4 ounces of liquid in a container, but you (and the group you are with) can bring lots of those little containers. Or how a full container of liquid is okay if you say that it's baby formula. Or that you have to throw away a seven-ounce toothpaste tube even if it's 80 percent empty. Or how kids who are 12 years old and younger no longer have to remove their shoes.
Or how all of this is focused on preventing a terrorist attack on a plane of 100 people--while far less attention is paid to far more populated targets, such as train stations, theaters, sports arenas and, yes, airports.
Still, on balance, the TSA's irrational half measures ... don't protect us all that well from terrorists. They do, however, make life miserable for the innocent.
via @wa7iut
Why Did The Chicken Cross The Footbridge?
Has anyone ever actually seen a chicken cross a road? Except in a huge cage on the back of a huge truck?
This Is How You Catch Terrorists -- Not By Peering In Granny's Diaper At The Airport
It's targeted intelligence, based on probable cause, executed by highly trained intelligence officers -- people who might be anthropologists, lawyers or own their own business if they weren't working for the FBI. From WRIC.com, Betsy Blaney writes for the AP of a Saudi man accused of gathering materials to make a bomb:
During the first day of testimony in the trial of Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, Special Agent Aaron Covey walked jurors through the 22-year-old former chemical engineering student's apartment in West Texas using photos taken hours after Aldawsari's Feb. 23, 2011, arrest. Prosecutors contend Aldawsari gathered bomb components with the goal of targeting sites across the U.S.Prosecutors presented more than 80 exhibits Friday, many of them photos that gave jurors a first look at Aldawsari's sparsely furnished apartment near Texas Tech University. In addition to the bottles of sulfuric and nitric acids, prosecutors showed photos of cellphones, Christmas lights, journals and notebooks, a laptop computer, wiring, a stun gun, a hazmat suit and a baby scale.
Aldawsari faces up to life in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. Investigators say the targets he researched included the Dallas home of former President George W. Bush, dams and nuclear plants.
...Authorities say they were tipped to Aldawsari's online purchases by chemical company Carolina Biological Supply of Burlington, N.C., and shipping company Con-way Freight on Feb. 1, 2011. The chemical company reported a $435 suspicious purchase to the FBI, while the shipping company notified Lubbock police and the FBI because it appeared the order wasn't intended for commercial use.
...Court documents say Aldawsari wrote in Arabic in his journal that he had been planning a terror attack in the U.S. even before he came to the country on a scholarship, and that it was "time for jihad," or holy war. He bemoaned the plight of Muslims and said he was influenced by Osama bin Laden's speeches.
FBI bomb experts have said they believe Aldawsari had sufficient components to produce almost 15 pounds of explosive - about the same amount used per bomb in the London subway attacks that killed scores of people in July 2005.
Soak Up Savings
Picks for summer in outdoor equipment, clothing, and more at Amazon
Including 40% off beach towels
I need 15 more items purchased at Amazon to increase my kickback number from Amazon from 6.5% to 7% for the month of July. So if you need, say, a Tommy Hilfiger Classic Lobster Beach Towel
Purchases you make through my links (even if you just go through the link to buy something through the search engine at Amazon) help support me and my site, and are much-appreciated.
You can also go to Amy's Mall and go through the "powered by Amazon" logo at the top. It leads to a search engine at Amazon -- here's a link to save if you want.
Don't Put Your Hello Kitty On The Microwave
Photo by Gregg Sutter, who was traumatized by this display at his favorite electronics store, suggesting the near-complete Hello Kittification of America.
(Like me, Gregg now eats his steak cooked "still faintly mooing," but when it comes to his electronics, Gregg is a Vegan. He gave me his fabulous 15-inch MacBook Pro, and even bought me the Banksy Schticker I wanted for the back -- but he made me wait for him to leave to put it on, because he couldn't bear the thought.)
Obamacare's Russian Grandfather
Yuri N. Maltsev writes at Mises about what Soviet medicine teaches us:
These goals were similar to the ones declared by Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi -- attractive and humane goals of universal coverage and low costs. What's not to like?The system had many decades to work, but widespread apathy and low quality of work paralyzed the healthcare system. In the depths of the socialist experiment, healthcare institutions in Russia were at least a hundred years behind the average US level. Moreover, the filth, odors, cats roaming the halls, drunken medical personnel, and absence of soap and cleaning supplies added to an overall impression of hopelessness and frustration that paralyzed the system. According to official Russian estimates, 78 percent of all AIDS victims in Russia contracted the virus through dirty needles or HIV-tainted blood in the state-run hospitals.
Irresponsibility, expressed by the popular Russian saying "They pretend they are paying us and we pretend we are working," resulted in appalling quality of service, widespread corruption, and extensive loss of life. My friend, a famous neurosurgeon in today's Russia, received a monthly salary of 150 rubles -- one-third of the average bus driver's salary.
...Not surprisingly, government bureaucrats and Communist Party officials, as early as 1921 (three years after Lenin's socialization of medicine), realized that the egalitarian system of healthcare was good only for their personal interest as providers, managers, and rationers -- but not as private users of the system.
So, as in all countries with socialized medicine, a two-tier system was created: one for the "gray masses" and the other, with a completely different level of service, for the bureaucrats and their intellectual servants. In the USSR, it was often the case that while workers and peasants were dying in the state hospitals, the medicine and equipment that could save their lives was sitting unused in the nomenklatura system.
...Socialized medical systems have not served to raise general health or living standards anywhere. In fact, both analytical reasoning and empirical evidence point to the opposite conclusion. But the dismal failure of socialized medicine to raise people's health and longevity has not affected its appeal for politicians, administrators, and their intellectual servants in search of absolute power and total control.
It's crony communism -- which is kind of how all communism turns out.
Oh, and something to remember:
I should make it clear that the United States has one of the highest rates of the industrialized world only because it counts all dead infants, including premature babies, which is where most of the fatalities occur.Most countries do not count premature-infant deaths. Some don't count any deaths that occur in the first 72 hours. Some countries don't even count any deaths from the first two weeks of life. In Cuba, which boasts a very low infant-mortality rate, infants are only registered when they are several months old, thereby leaving out of the official statistics all infant deaths that take place within the first several months of life.
Government-Funded Marriage Counseling
The best things in life are free -- when you manage to stick other taxpayers with bill.
Allison Benedikt writes at Slate about a "$150-million-a-year program launched (hilariously as part of the Deficit Reduction Act) during the Bush administration to help low-income couples work on their marriages and encourage poor, unmarried parents to get hitched":
After seven years, Health and Human Services is finally reporting some results and they are not good. Mother Jones notes that the program for unmarried couples "produced precisely zero impact on the quality of the couples' relationships, rates of domestic violence, or the involvement of fathers with their children."Outcomes are pretty depressing across the board, and it's tempting to frame this as religiously-motivated wasteful spending by the party whose entire thing is supposed to be about not spending wastefully. And that it is! But there is also a positive result:Iin the initiative's other program, the one aimed at already-marrieds, couples actually did see a small bump up in relationship happiness after taking the government-funded course. That course costs the taxpayer $7,000 to $11,500 per couple, a number Jezebel calls "astronomical" and prompts Mother Jones to ask: "Imagine how much happier the couples would have been if they'd just been handed cash?"
I'm all for this sort of program -- but as the job of pastors and others who volunteer their time (as I do -- with my WIT: What It Takes program that, in part, puts out a message for inner city kids to develop themselves and a career and have a solid family situation before they make babies).
#StopThief: Jody Rosen Tweets His Stolen Bike Back
Just loved this story.
NY Post: "Airlines, TSA Seeking Advanced Security Screening Devices"
Bill Sanders writes in the New York Post that the TSA is looking for more high-tech ways to pointlessly violate your rights. Naturally, he means the sort with all sorts of logic boards and wiring.
Here are two actually logic-guided "advanced screening devices":
In the next seven to 10 years, passengers will be able to breeze through security without even noticing they're being electronically scanned for weapons and contraband, if airport security experts have their way.No longer will passengers have to suffer the indignity of pulling off shoes and belts. They will go through a security experience that seems more like passing through a hallway than enduring the angry cluster of humanity they are familiar with today.
"We see it as a walk-through process," said Perry Flint of the International Air Transport Association, an airline group.
Instead of metal detectors, software hooked up to video cameras will ensure safety by assessing passengers mannerisms to help screeners determine whether they're threats.
Of course, some of the screeners I've had would be lucky to "assess" their way through the terminal to McDonald's.
Furthermore, as Dr. Bella DePaulo and other solid researchers on lying caution, it's hard for even highly trained intelligence officers and other experts to determine whether a person is lying.
Here's my suggestion for meaningful airport security -- two logic-guided "advanced security screening devices":
1. A human brain with a high level of intelligence (probably not a feature in those unskilled workers who consider airport "security" a desirable job).2. Probable cause -- trained, actually intelligent intelligence officers doing targeted detective work to root out people who could reasonably be suspected of plotting to blow up a plane, etc. (These people are not palsied children or 88-year-old grandmothers known as Mrs. Schlomovitz.)
Chicken. Road.
Why?
TSA Thug Opens, Spills Grandpa's Ashes, Has A Chuckle About It
I don't go quietly at the TSA grope-points -- the question is, why do so many other people? These are not security officials violating our bodies, our possessions and our constitutional rights -- they're unskilled workers putting on a show of security, with little concern for common sense, common decency or any of the other qualities that used to be at least somewhat common in this country.
From theindychannel.com:
John Gross, a resident of Indianapolis' south side, was leaving Florida with the remains of his grandfather -- Mario Mark Marcaletti, a Sicilian immigrant who worked for the Penn Central Railroad in central Indiana -- in a tightly sealed jar marked "Human Remains." Gross said he didn't think he'd have a problem, until he ran into a TSA agent at the Orlando airport."They opened up my bag, and I told them, 'Please, be careful. These are my grandpa's ashes,'" Gross told RTV6's Norman Cox. "She picked up the jar. She opened it up.
"I was told later on that she had no right to even open it, that they could have used other devices, like an X-ray machine. So she opened it up. She used her finger and was sifting through it. And then she accidentally spilled it."Gross says about a quarter to a third of the contents spilled on the floor, leaving him frantically trying to gather up as much as he could while anxious passengers waited behind him.
"She didn't apologize. She started laughing. I was on my hands and knees picking up bone fragments. I couldn't pick up all, everything that was lost. I mean, there was a long line behind me."
The TSA's own website says that human remains are to be opened under "no circumstances," according to the story.
Surely, we don't expect the likes of those working at the "security" checkpoint to be able to read.
Here's the comment, slightly edited, that I left on the Indy site:
Another commenter wrote: "Unfortunately, because there are people who want to commit terrorism, we have to put up with the TSA."This sounds like thinking but it's actually nonthink.
The TSA has not caught a single terrorist in its $60 billion plus history. It hires unskilled workers who would otherwise be vying hard for a job in the fast food industry to violate other Americans' constitutional rights for pay -- while ignoring the vast security holes in cargo.
This is not how you root out terrorist plots -- it's by having highly trained intelligence officers use probable cause to find out who plotters are long before they ever get to the airport. What we have now is obedience training for the American public -- to be docile and polite as our rights are yanked from us...as they increasingly are these days.
Thanks for the coming police state, all of you who don't speak up. Here's what I suggest instead.
via @DebWilker
Answering My Question: Is There Anyone In the Modern World Who Doesn't Understand How Advice Columns Work?
Apparently, yes. This person in Nevada:
The truth is, I get a large volume of mail, try to answer all of it (although sometimes a little later than I'd like), and most of the questions I answer will never make it into my column.
Won A Couple Of First Place Awards For My Column
In Sunday night's LA Press Club Awards, in both the large circulation (100,000 circ and up) and the small circ categories. B7 is the large-circ category. Here are the judges' words about my column:
B7. COLUMNIST
Amy Alkon, Creators Syndicate
Judges' Comments: The dangers are plenty for any advice columnist: It is easy to be trite, predictable, maudlin, stuffy, cute or - most ominously - just plain wrong. Amy Alkon transcends those hazards for two basic reasons: She writes with nerve and she offers knowledge based on that extraordinary attribute known as authentic research. It is rare to read an advice columnist and to think afterward, "I actually learned something." Yet Alkon's take on the chemical basis of infatuation, or her shattering statistical dismissal of popular myths about blind dates, or her clear-eyed take on the realities of the sexual dynamic in longtime couples (a dynamic most typically and erroneously filtered, as she notes, through a male perspective) .... Holy smokes. Readers walk away looking at their own lives a little differently, which is the goal of any fine columnist, period. That provides reason, ample reason, for honoring Alkon with this award.2nd: Marty Kaplan, Jewish Journal
3rd: Gendy Alimurung, LA WeeklyC6. COMMENTARY
Amy Alkon, Creators Syndicate, "Selected Columns"
Judges' Comments: Ms. Alkon combines off-center analysis, research and spirited writing in these advice columns. The columns are interesting and fun. They also appear to be sincere efforts to provide helpful advice.2nd: Charles Crumpley, Los Angeles Business Journal, "Wasting and Wanting"
3rd: Henry Dubroff, Pacific Coast Business Times, "Amgen is Big Pharma's Newest Player"
MOVED TO MONDAY, SAME TIME: Advice Goddess Radio: Tonight, 7-8pm PT, 10-11pm ET -- Neuroeconomist Dr. Paul Zak
Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd your way to a better life!" with the best brains in science.
PAUL ZAK SHOW MOVED TO MONDAY, SAME TIME.
Tonight, I'm very excited to announce that my guest will be Dr. Paul Zak, the economist-turned-neuroeconomist (who, in fact, founded the field of neuroeconomics).
In his research on oxytocin, he's made some extremely exciting findings about morality, trust, and ways we can encourage moral and benevolent behavior in ourselves and others -- and not just in intimate relationships, but in politics, business, and society at large.
His recently published book is The Moral Molecule: The Source of Love and Prosperity
I hope you'll tune in to hear him from 7-8 p.m. Pacific/10-11 p.m. Eastern at this link (or download the podcast there afterward):
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/06/26/advice-goddess-1
From Amazon, from the page for his book -- some questions about human morality:
Why do some people give freely while others are cold hearted?Why do some people cheat and steal while others you can trust with your life?
From his site, MoralMolecule.com:
Why do human beings engage in courageous acts of compassion but also perpetrate violence?Could the apparent flip-flopping morality of our species have a hidden explanation?
The Moral Molecule is a first-hand account of the discovery of a molecule that makes us moral. It reveals that compassion is part of our human nature, why loneliness can kill you, and why your neighbor may be a psychopath. From the laboratory to the jungles of Papua New Guinea, Paul Zak takes you on an amazing journey that reveals what it means to be human.
Here's a WSJ excerpt from his book.
And don't miss last week's show, a replay of a really popular show, that with Dr. Michael Eades and Dr. Mary Dan Eades, two of best people on science-based eating for weight loss and health, along with Gary Taubes. (I attended the Human Behavior and Evolution Society Conference all week and couldn't prep for a show, too, so I took last Sunday off.)
Here's a link:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/06/18/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday at 7-8 p.m., Eastern and 10-11 p.m., Pacific, or download the podcast afterward at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon
If You Don't Like The TSA, Don't Fly -- Or Take The Train, Or...
That's what people sneer to me with some regularity:
"If you don't like the TSA process, don't fly!"
Well, first of all, it is my right to travel within these United States without being sexually groped or otherwise searched sans probable cause. If United Airlines makes that a condition of travel on their airline, I would not fly United.
The government, pointlessly, at great expense ($60-plus billion dollars, and not a terrorist found), violating our rights in the name of security?
NO.
Well, for all of you who've sneered that at me, guess where the TSA will next be creeping around your genitals?
Wendy Thompson blogs at TSANewsBlog about Amtrak and the TSA:
TSA News recently received an email from a Philadelphia reader commenting that he saw TSA agents at a train station:I was on a train from NY Penn Station to Philly today. Three uniformed TSA agents were waiting at the top of the stairs to randomly screen passengers before boarding. This is the equivalent of the final random witch-hunt gate search at the airport.What gives?
1. I thought TSA had been banned from Amtrak?
2. I wasn't selected, but Amtrak is running videos in the station that say passengers are subject to random search. Does that mean a TSA search or an Amtrak search?
3. According to the video, anyone who refuses a random search will not be allowed on a train. I thought I could say "I do not consent" and get on board. Can someone clarify?
If they're at the train stations, it's an ominous sign.
Wendy posts Amtrak's policy at the link -- "Passengers failing to consent to security procedures will be denied access to trains and refused carriage, and a refund will be offered" -- but adds:
Train stations, however, unlike airports, have not agreed to designate "sterile areas." That means that a TSA agent cannot deny you entry to any area anywhere other than at an airport.I read a blog entry a few months ago that described a man encountering a TSA agent at a train station. The man didn't want to deal with the TSA agent, so the agent called for the local police. The man explained to the policeman that he was in a public area, and if the policeman was intent upon detaining him, he asked exactly which local/state law or statute the policeman was attempting to enforce. He was allowed to proceed without further incident.
The best defense against TSA assault is knowledge. Understanding the TSA's jurisdiction, its limitations, and the definition of which laws apply to which venues is critical in successfully asserting your rights.
(Ray) Gun Control
Why don't I own an alien ray gun?
Because I'd be tempted to disintegrate people driving cars with that bone-vibrating, house foundation-shaking megabass.
In case you were wondering.
(In reality, I'm only hostile, not violent.)
Why Charter Schools Work (And Conversely, Why Regular Public Schools Don't)
Harlem Village Academies founder and CEO Deborah Kenny writes in the WSJ:
Critics claim that charter schools are successful only because they cherry-pick students, because they have smaller class sizes, or because motivated parents apply for charter lotteries and non-motivated parents do not. And even if charters are successful, they argue, there is no way to scale that success to reform a large district.None of that is true. Charters succeed because of their two defining characteristics--accountability and freedom. In exchange for being held accountable for student achievement results, charter schools are generally free from bureaucratic and union rules that prevent principals from hiring, firing or evaluating their own teams.
Freedom without accountability is irresponsible. Like all professionals, educators need to be accountable for the results of their work. Yet accountability without freedom is unfair: How can teachers or principals be held responsible for results if they don't control decisions about curriculum or teaching methods? Accountability and freedom do not guarantee that a school will provide an excellent education, but they are prerequisites.
...When the union and political forces that are protecting the status quo finally come around to doing what's best for children, they will find that it is also what's best for the majority of teachers. Then we will see the best and brightest minds competing for the privilege of working in the teaching profession--a profession that will finally be elevated to its rightful place as the noblest in our nation.
Why The Chicken?
Why cross the road at all?
Inheirited IQ? Yes And No
The question -- do genes or environment matter for IQ? There are two answers: Genes if you're rich and well-fed. If you're poor, environment matters.
In the WSJ, Matt Ridley writes about my friend Dr. Nancy Segal's book, Born Together - Reared Apart
Today, a third of a century after the study began and with other studies of reunited twins having reached the same conclusion, the numbers are striking. Monozygotic twins raised apart are more similar in IQ (74%) than dizygotic (fraternal) twins raised together (60%) and much more than parent-children pairs (42%); half-siblings (31%); adoptive siblings (29%-34%); virtual twins, or similarly aged but unrelated children raised together (28%); adoptive parent-child pairs (19%) and cousins (15%). Nothing but genes can explain this hierarchy.But as Drs. Bouchard and Segal have been at pains to point out from the start, this high heritability of intelligence mainly applies to nonpoor families. Raise a child hungry or diseased and environment does indeed affect IQ. Eric Turkheimer and others at the University of Virginia have shown that in the most disadvantaged families, heritability of IQ falls and the influence attributed to the shared family environment rises to 60%.
In other words, hygienic, well-fed life enables people to maximize their genetic potential so that the only variation left is innate. Intelligence becomes significantly more heritable when environmental hurdles to a child's development have been dismantled.
I haven't read the book Ridley reviewed, but I was very moved and compelled by Nancy's other recently published book, Someone Else's Twin: The True Story of Babies Switched at Birth
Bad Business Model
Photo by Gregg Sutter:
You're Buying Kenya Some Navy SEAL Boats!
Bend over, US taxpayer! Yet again.
TradeAidMonitor, which reported on the boats being given to Kenya (according, they say, to a presolicitation notice that NAVSEC uploaded to a federal contracting database on May 21), blogs:
A History Channel report referred to the boat as "the Lamborghini of special warfare craft."
TeaPartyEconomist blogs:
The government of Kenya is going to receive a gift from the Obama Administration: five top-of-the-line Navy Seal boats.Why? Nobody seems to know.
With a $1.3 trillion deficit every year, little things like this barely get noticed. They add up.
The winner is the contractor: United States Marine Incorporated (USMI) of Gulfport, Miss.
These boats are described by the Navy's "Fact File" as "High-speed, high-buoyancy, extreme-weather craft with the primary mission of SEAL insertion/extraction."
What does Kenya plan to do with these boats? And why should American taxpayers pay for them?
via @mpetrie
The Morons Running Our Schools
Via Free Range Kids, Jesse Michener's children were horribly sunburned at their school's field day because the school wouldn't allow sunscreen to be applied to them because they didn't have a "prescription."
Michener blogs (and includes photos):
I took all three children to Tacoma General last night and their burns were met with concern from doctors and staff alike. Violet is starting to blister on her face. Both children have headaches, chills and pain. Two are home today as a direct result of how terrible they feel. As much as I am saddened about the burns, I realize my deepest concerns revolve around everything but the sunburns.Let me back up a bit and share what I experienced yesterday: after seeing the kids upon returning home from work, I immediately went to the school to speak with the principal. Her response centered around the the school inability to administer what they considered a prescription/medication (sunscreen) for liability reasons. And while I can sort of wrap my brain around this in theory, the practice of a blanket policy which clearly allows for students to be put in harm's way is deeply flawed. Not only does a parent have to take an unrealistic (an un-intuitive) step by visiting a doctor for a "prescription" for an over-the-counter product, children are not allowed to carry it on their person and apply as needed. Had my children gone to school slathered in sunscreen (which they did not, it was raining), by noon - when the sun came out - they would have needed to reapply anyway. Something as simple as as sun hat might seem to bypass the prescription issue to some extent. Alas, hats are not allowed at school, even on field day.
My children indicated that several adults commented on their burns at school, including staff and other parents. One of my children remarked that their teacher used sunscreen in her presence and that it was "just for her." So, is this an issue of passive, inactive supervision? Where is the collective awareness for student safety? If they were getting stung by bees, teachers would remove them. Staff need to be awake to possible threats or safety issues and be able to take action. Prolonged sun exposure leads to burns: either put sunscreen on or, at the very least, remove the child from the sun. A simple call would have brought me to that school in minutes to assist my kids.
Common sense missing + fear of being sued = my kids pay the price. Not okay.
EDITED TO ADD: a friend just posted to my facebook page that it would cost her about $110 in a doctor's visit to get the required prescription for sunscreen. Incredible.
Paul Bloom: How Pleasure Works
Yale psych prof Paul Bloom gave this fantastic talk on art at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society conference that I just attended in New Mexico -- which is also online from the Chicago Humanities Festival. It's terrific -- worth viewing:
Here's the writeup for his talk:
Why are original paintings so much more valuable than forgeries? Why do people pay millions for abstract art? How do creations such as Duchamp's urinal get to be artwork in the first place? I present evidence that our understanding and appreciation of art ‐ even contemporary art ‐‐ reflects universal aspects of human nature. I argue that the experience of art is not special: there are deep parallels between the pleasures we get from artwork and the pleasures we get from seemingly simpler activities such as food and sex.
"Do You Ever Get Tired Of Seeing Giant Pants?"
Thanks to autocorrect, that was Gregg Sutter's unintended caption for this photo he took:
Unfortunately, I never got the caption Gregg sent me after he sent me the photo because autocorrect also took over then, and he sent it to someone named Dan Fonda instead.
Best of all, Dan got three captions Gregg had meant to send me, and all were as hilariously weird as this one.
Welcome To California: You Are Now Government's Bitch
If I were building a house, and if I ran the numbers and solar panels seemed like a good idea, I'd install them. I like saving money and energy -- which isn't to say I think the government or I should get to force you or anyone else to do it.
Well, never mind the depressed housing market here in California. The California Energy Commission recently mandated that, starting in 2014, all new homes must have roofs equipped for solar panels. (The panels are still option -- for now, says the WSJ):
Other highlights: Ceiling fans, hot water pipes, air conditioning units and even the sunlight exposure from windows will now be regulated. Lighting systems must be controlled by sensors, roofs must be slanted in the right direction to have full access to the sun, and sunlight must not be impeded by chimneys and skylights. This is a full employment act for building inspectors, not builders.The new rules will increase the average construction cost of a new California home by an estimated $2,300--at a time when too few homes are being built in California.
...The Commission says not to worry about the extra costs because the new rules will reduce energy use by 25% and save homeowners money on the houses they increasingly can't afford to buy. "This will be great for everybody who buys a house and wants to put solar on the roof," Commissioner Karen Douglas said. But you'll still have to pay even if you don't want solar on the roof.
I'm With Dick Cheney On Gay Marriage
Kim Geiger writes in the LA Times of Dick Cheney's remark about gay marriage (upon the marriage of his daughter Mary to her longtime mate, Heather Poe, with whom she has two children):
"I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish," he said in 2009. "Any kind of arrangement they wish."
Your prediction: How many years will it be before we look back on "how crazy it once was" that gays and lesbians weren't allowed to marry the partner of their choice?
(It wasn't that long ago -- just back in 1952 -- that Alan Turing was persecuted for being gay, very likely leading him to commit suicide in 1954.)
Why Did The Rubber Chicken Cross The Road?
And did Heisenberg have a cat, too? (I'm uncertain.)
The Jewish Version Of Those Rubber Balls Hanging Off Truck Hitches
If You Can't Open Your Mouth And Squeak Out Words
Stay home, crochet doilies and bake pies.
Via Virginia Postrel and Ann Althouse, who both feel as I do -- appalled by this bit in a piece in The Atlantic by Anne-Marie Slaughter, a Princeton Professor of Politics and International Affairs:
I continually push the young women in my classes to speak more. They must gain the confidence to value their own insights and questions, and to present them readily. My husband agrees, but he actually tries to get the young men in his classes to act more like the women--to speak less and listen more. If women are ever to achieve real equality as leaders, then we have to stop accepting male behavior and male choices as the default and the ideal.
Althouse put it well:
Somebody please tell me why Princeton University -- Princeton University! -- is admitting women who need to be continually pushed to speak more. In the 21st century. They don't deserve the seats they fill. They shouldn't be coddled. They should be flunked out. You get into Princeton and you sit there too timid -- or too withholding -- to speak? Unacceptable. The teacher shouldn't be prodding you.They must gain the confidence to value their own insights and questions, and to present them readily.Is this kindergarten? This is Princeton! How many applications for admission did Princeton turn down in the process of matriculating these ladies?
Somehow, remarkably, I "gained the confidence," not only to "value my own insights," but to snarl them at unsuspecting litterbugs -- among others.
I was out on the sidewalk, outside a cafe where I write, talking to Gregg on the phone, when I couldn't believe my eyes.
A guy walking down the sidewalk threw his lit cigarette on the ground, crushed it under his foot and left it there -- right by some beautiful flowers on a trellis.
I told Gregg to hold on, ripped the guy for littering, adding "It's beautiful here, and you're making it ugly."
I kept at him: "How were you raised that you think it's okay to behave that way?"
I then ordered him, "Go back and pick up your cigarette and put it in the trash!" And he did.
Gregg, who'd been having kind of a bad day, broke up laughing. "You just made my day, going all medieval schoolteacher on the guy."
What does this say about me? Surely that I'm not fit for Princeton.
On a less depressing note, I met one of my dearest friends after I blogged "Rebecca Solnit Is A Sniveling Idiot," an 1,863-word piece in the Sunday LA Times about how women are supposedly patronized and silenced by men:
Solnit's simply too limp-willed to say, as I've said numerous times, and to men and women, "Don't interrupt!" or "My turn to talk!"When that doesn't work, as it didn't when I was on the TV show, "Faith Under Fire," with the booming blowhard Frank Pastore, I began removing my mike, and told the host I was going to walk off if Pastore kept shouting over me. (I may not have been born with balls, but I keep a little set in my makeup bag, and bring them out on an as-needed basis.)
"Dear TSA: I Am Not Your Customer"
Via Charlotte Allen, a right-on piece by Art Carden in the WashEx, in the wake of getting the sexual assault at the airport that now passes for security, and seeing a "customer service" comment card:
The TSA should not be streamlined. Administrators should not "review screening procedures." Screeners don't need additional training. The TSA doesn't need to be tweaked. It didn't "go too far" in these specific instances. Its very existence goes too far. The TSA never should have been created in the first place, and it should be abolished now. Immediately. Without hesitation.The TSA's existence is an assault on American liberty and simple human dignity, as anyone who has had his or her genitals touched during an "enhanced pat-down" can tell you. Some still say we should be willing to trade off a little bit of liberty in order to get security, but this is a false trade-off. The TSA does not provide security. It provides what security expert Bruce Schneier calls "security theater." The TSA only exists in order to give people the illusion of safety. Someone in an airport somewhere in the U.S. is being subjected to an unreasonable search by a gloved TSA screener right this minute. The cruel irony is that he or she is being stripped of liberty and dignity and is being made no safer for it.
As security experts John Mueller and Mark Stewart have estimated, the entire Homeland Security Department infrastructure fails on cost-benefit grounds. In order to justify the costs, Homeland Security would have to stop about four and a half attacks on the scale of the failed 2010 Times Square bombing every day.
...The TSA embodies a resource-wasting assault on liberty. The kicker is that it makes us no safer, so we aren't even getting the extra security that supposedly justifies the indignities the TSA inflicts upon us. No review of TSA procedures will make a meaningful difference, nor will firings. The TSA never should have existed in the first place. It's past time for it to be abolished.
Sounds Like What My Grandpa Told Me About The Great Depression
Andrew Malcolm blogs at IBD:
A Panera sandwich shop on Chicago's North Side removed its regular prices Thursday and now posts only suggested donations. People pay what they can, maybe a little more than suggested, maybe a little less. If some have no money, they can help clean the store for an hour to earn a meal....Two years ago both Obama and VP Joe Biden, who's taking today off because he can, were promising an amazing Recovery Summer with hundreds of thousands of new jobs created every month. Federal job rolls have grown significantly.
But for the nation, that jobs vow turned out to be as empty as the promise to shutter the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center during 2009. Or the pretend-penurious Obama's 2008 vow to go through his federal budget line-by-line for savings.
The Democratic golfer's latest budget received a truly bipartisan reception on Capitol Hill; it was rejected by every single voting member of the entire Congress of the United States. The Democrat Senate hasn't passed a budget in more than three years. The official unemployment rate remains above 8% for a record 40 months.
When Did The Chicken Cross The Road?
And how do we know there's a chicken?
Little Shits Say They're Sorry To Bullied Bus Monitor
But, not personally. She appeared on Anderson Cooper's Anderson 360:
The BMW Bad Teeth Bought
Another fine Phil Miller photo (used with permission):
Sexual Infantilization By The Government
Retired call girl Maggie McNeill blogs at The Honest Courtesan:
As I've pointed out many times, prohibitionist laws (and legalization regimes) are based in the ridiculous notion that sex work is magically different from all other work, and that whores somehow need "protection" from our own choices...
She links to a piece from the Sydney Morning Herald by Elena Jeffreys, former president of the Australian Sex Workers Association:
Sex workers (most commonly women) make money from sex work. The clients (usually men) pay for sex work. This is a relationship, this is negotiation and this is a system in our culture. Yet our laws, social mores and the morality police tell us it's scandalous - a one-way ticket to hell. Or jail, if you live in Sweden. All this assumes that sex workers and clients are supposedly doing something wrong.But what makes it wrong? The government, even when it legalises or reforms laws in favour of sex workers, does not want to be seen to be endorsing sex work - just regulating it for those who are in it and need ''protection."
What are we being protected from? Why should it be reasonable to criminalise the negotiation of financial arrangements for sex? Rape is criminal. Violent assault is criminal. But consensual sex with a dollar figure attached to it is not. In NSW sex work is decriminalised and workers, clients and health advocates believe it should stay that way.
We are talking about 30 minutes or so of massage, sex, nakedness, talking, showering, then getting on with your life. Is that evil or wrong? Negotiate, pay or be paid, have sex, see ya later....In the words of author and sex worker Juliet November, "Sometimes sex work is about being gentle with someone's need for touch; sometimes it's about being kind toward a man who's ashamed of his body; sometimes it's about being friendly and fun with someone who's lonely; sometimes it's about holding someone's vulnerability very lightly in your hands; sometimes it's about making someone feel desired...sometimes it's about sharing intimacy, cigarettes and a laugh." So let's rid ourselves of our prejudices and preconceptions and repeat after me: IT'S OK TO PAY!
Who's Guarding The Airport
They're drones who can't think for themselves and can only follow policy -- in jackbooted lock-step. Sometimes, there's a substantial cost for this -- far beyond having to pour out bottled water you've paid for or throw away a cupcake in a jar.
Via Charlotte Allen, there's a chilling story of a trachea grown in a lab that was to be transplanted into a woman in Barcelona -- and how it almost didn't make it there in time thanks to airport "security" in the UK. Robert Krulwich writes on NPR:
No, said airline security, you can't take this bottle onboard. It exceeds the 100 milliliter limit; it's forbidden.But wait, said professor Martin Birchall of Bristol University. This is a medical container. Inside is a trachea, a carefully constructed human windpipe, seeded with 60 million stem cells from a very sick woman in Barcelona. We have just 16 hours to get it into her body. We pre-arranged this.
We have no record of your request, said the airline.
You do have a record, said the professor. There's a woman in Barcelona right now who needs this, and we are running out of time. It took us five months to create this organ. It is the first of its kind. We must board this plane.
Sometimes, leaps in medical science require an agreeable security guard, and on this day in 2008, he wasn't playing. The guard, then his supervisors, said no. Being larger than 100 milliliters, the bottle was categorically dangerous material. If Birchall insisted on boarding the plane, he would be arrested.
A medical student ended up saving the day:
At this point, the medical student who was going to take the organ to Barcelona, Philipp Jungerbluth, told Birchall that he had a pilot friend in Germany with a small jet who could come immediately to Bristol, take the container and fly it straight to Spain. Calls were made, the friend agreed to do it for "cost" -- 14,000 pounds (about $21,000) and Birchall paid on the spot. (He was later reimbursed by his university.)We have no record of your request, said the airline.
Philipp, instead of flying on easyJet, took the trachea to Barcelona with his pilot friend and later told science writer Mark Stevenson that easyJet "wouldn't even refund the 70 pounds for the original ticket."The trachea did make it to Barcelona, and then into Claudia Castillo. Ten days after her operation, Castillo was discharged from the hospital. Within weeks, her lung function rebounded. Tests showed she was back to normal for her age, and doctors found no antibodies that would indicate her body was rejecting the transplant. The Guardian reports that later she called up her doctor to tell him she'd been dancing that night in a club in Ibiza.
If it had been up to airport "security," she would likely have been six feet under being eaten by worms. Vive la difference.
Horrible Kids Bully An Elderly Bus Monitor
Details at the HuffPo:
Karen Huff Klein, a bus monitor for the Greece School District in Greece, N.Y., is receiving an outpouring of support after a ten-minute video of her enduring vicious bullying while watching over students on a bus ride home was uploaded to YouTube.
Kids who are capable of this have not been raised to have empathy for others. What were these parents doing when they should have been parenting?
My mother talked to my three sisters and me on occasion about how hard it is to be old, I think, in hopes of teaching us compassion for elderly people. I hear my neighbor urging her kids to think about how others feel. Isn't that a basic element of child-rearing?
What do you suspect allowed these kids to behave the way they did?
Since the video was posted, these remarks went up. This:
Karen Klein said one comment hurt the most--kids said "you're so ugly your kid should kill themselves" Her son took his life 10 yr ago
And this:
A shocking video of middle schoolers verbally abusing a poorly-paid, hearing-impaired grandmother of eight hired to keep them safe on the school bus went viral on Wednesday. Over 5,700 online strangers rallied to Karen's side, contributing $110,000 towards a vacation and maybe even early retirement!
Video of the woman on an NBC affiliate:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The Great Outdoors Is For Sale
Or rather, the stuff to wear and play on in it. At Amazon
Xcargot
This is the kind of car you buy when you first come to LA, hoping to make it as more than a waiter. Photo by Gregg Sutter:
Motorcyclist Arrested For...Having A Helmet Camera
Be very afraid. I read daily accounts of police misconduct -- arresting people without the slightest bit of probable cause, like in this case. A biker was driving under the speed limit and a cop, Dallas Deputy Sheriff James Westbrook, stops him to seize his camera for the footage, and then...arrests him for having a concealed license plate.
Remember that you or I can be next. Here's the transcript from News8:
Dallas Deputy Sheriff James Westbrook ended up turning the video over to the department's gang unit, even though there is nothing in the video indicating Chris Moore was affiliated with a gang.The incident took place on Memorial Day Weekend as Moore was riding with a pack of at least 50 other bikers. Deputies were hoping to prevent a repeat of the previous Memorial Day Weekend when more than 100 bikers ended up shutting down the freeway.
So Westbrook singled out the one biker wearing a video head-cam - who also happened to be driving below the speed limit.
Here is the exchange that took place:
MOORE: "Was I doing something wrong? What am I being pulled over for?"
WESTBROOK: "The whole group of you guys."
MOORE: "No. I was not, individually. How can you pull me over?"
WESTBROOK: "The reason you're being pulled over is because I'm gonna take your camera and we're gonna use it as evidence of the crimes that have been committed by other bikers."
MOORE: "I have not committed any crimes, and you cannot take my personal property from me, sir."
WESTBOOK: "That's fine. Need to see your license and registration."
Westbrook then announced that he was arresting Moore for having an obstructed license plate, which usually amounts to a citation.
WESTBROOK: "You're under arrest for your license plate being obstructed. Place your hands."
MOORE: "Are you kidding me, dude?"
WESTBROOK: "Place your hands behind your back."
As Moore continued to protest, the deputy lost his patience.
MOORE: "Why'd you pull me over in the first place?"
WESTBROOK: "Have a seat, okay?"
MOORE: "Sir. Sir. What you did to me was not right. You know it."
WESTBROOK: "I'm going to ask you one more time to have a seat."
MOORE: "That's f'ed up. Where's my bike going?"
WESTBROOK: "Sit down.I'm telling you to chill out."
Again, none of us should be "chill" with the constant violation of our rights these days.
via @CarlosMiller
TSA: Retired Crotch-Grabber Protests Her Crotch-Grabbing
Correction: She apparently got out before the started grabbing crotches (unfortunately, I can't change the entry title without breaking the link).
A former TSA worker was a little upset about her pointless sexual assault in the name of security, went all grabbo on her old supervisor to demonstrate, and got herself arrested. From ABC's Alexis Shaw:
Carol Price, of Bonita Springs, Fla., was traveling on United Airlines from Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers to Cleveland, Ohio on April 20, en route to her brother's funeral in Cincinnati.When she went through security, Price received a pat down that she felt involved "intrusive touching of her genitals and breasts," said her lawyer, John Mills.
According to Mills, Price went over to Kristen Arnberg, her former supervisor, to complain about the pat down. When Arnberg asked what she meant by intrusive, Price demonstrated on her, said Mills.
"She used to be a TSA employee up until 2007, she obviously knows the procedure," said Mills.
According to the police report, Price "did intentionally and without consent grab the victim and slide her hands into the crotch area" of Arnberg.
Mills says that Price and Arnberg did not get along when they worked together.
The police report states that Price "attempted to walk away from the scene" following the altercation, and disregarded a Lee County Port Authority police officer's instructions to stay in the area.
Subsequently, Price was arrested for battery and resisting an officer. She is due in court July 2 on misdemeanor battery charges.
I'm just off deadline and will write about my own groping and mistreatment by TSA thugs in Albuquerque in the next few days.
Oh, and Ms. Price is despicable for herself having once earned living violating the rights and possibly the bodies of her fellow Americans.
Should you encounter her or any other TSA worker, be sure you tell them exactly how despicable they are. You can also print up my op-ed and leave it around the TSA checkpoint and the airport.
People in this country need to wake up to the constant erosion of our civil liberties, and if you don't have it in you to be civilly disobedient at the TSA checkpoint, at least do your best to act like an alarm clock for civil liberties.
How Bloomberg's Gigundo Soda Ban Will Backfire
In The Atlantic, Brian Wansink and David Just lay out how Bloomberg is not only a dietary fascist but a facile one:
On June 1 -- National Donut Day -- New York City's mayor proposed a restaurant ban for any soft drink over 16-ounces. The hope is that by banning big drinks people will drink less and weigh less. He and others cited our research as the science behind the policy. Indeed, a dozen of our studies show when you randomly give people large sizes of food like popcorn and French fries, they overeat. Another of our cited studies showed that people ate 73 percent more soup when eating from a soup bowl that secretly refilled itself.There's a critical difference between the lab and Lexington Avenue that the mayor's office didn't account for: when Joe the Plumber and Bob the Banker buy soft drinks, they buy the size they want. They aren't randomly forced to take a 44-ouncer when they really wanted a 12-ouncer. Moreover, their Coke or Pepsi doesn't magically refill itself. If that happened, they'd overdrink. Instead, most restaurants give us a choice of a small or large drink -- just as nearly every fast food outlet gives us a choice of small, medium, or large fries, and every movie theatre gives us a choice of small, medium, or large popcorn. People who want a little buy a little, and people who want a lot figure a way to get it.
Yes, we have found that when people are given larger portions, they do drink or eat substantially more. But to claim that these results imply that the ban will be effective is to ignore our larger body of work. In our experiments, subjects were given larger or smaller portions of food in a dining or party setting, where they were unlikely to notice portion size. It is exactly because participants weren't paying attention that we got the results we did.
The mayor's approach, however, overtly denies people portions they are used to be able to get whenever they want them. In similar lab settings, this kind of approach has inspired various forms of rebellion among study participants. For example, openly serving someone lowfat or reduced-calorie meals tends to lead to increased fat or calorie consumption over the whole day. People reason that because they were forced to be good for one meal, they can splurge on snacks and desserts at later meals.
...150 years of research in food economics tells us that people get what they want. Someone who buys a 32-ounce soft drink wants a 32-ounce soft drink. He or she will go to a place that offers fountain refills, or buy two. If the people who want them don't have much money, they might cut back on fruits or vegetables or a bit of their family meal budget.
Who buys large soft drinks? It's not just the people who may have some disregard for their weight. It may also be the construction worker who buys a single drink and nurses it all day. It may be the family of three who decides to split a single drink to save money.
Blogger Threatened With Police Report For Deeming Gym Overpriced
A ballet-based workout gym (@BarreCleveland/Barre Cleveland) went all Black Swan on a blogger for a minor negative remark about the gym's prices in a review. Consumerist's Chris Morran has the story here:
But from what we can tell, the inflammatory comment comes when she writes, "And, if I'm being completely honest, the studio is overpriced for Cleveland. Sure, they will probably do just fine due to their location, but I hope to see [the studio] reduce their prices to reflect the market - $25 a class isn't going to fly!"Not exactly a nasty burn on the fitness studio, at least to most people who read the post.
Alas, the operators of the studio are apparently not most people.
It took about 11 days, but last week the studio's Twitter account began taking issue with what Alana had written.
"1 class won't make a change. If so the whole country wouldn't be suffering from an overweight epidemic," wrote the studio, in a Tweet that has since been deleted.
By posting that, and subsequent defensive comments, over the weekend, the studio only attracted more Twitter users who said its prices are too high.
Then this morning, someone purporting to be from the studio -- and sharing the last name of the studio's owner -- wrote the following on Alana's blog:
Just stop the posting about [the studio] and take down all the existing posts. We know that you stole the class and we can pursue legal action against you for that and that is why it is ridiculous that you complain about a price when you never paid for the class. You were never given a discount code... and somehow you used that to enter the studio. I am sending you this message to politely ask that you remove all the content about [the studio] from your blog and twitter and we will not get the Beachwood Police involved on this theft of services.We asked Alana about this "stolen" class and she tells Consumerist that she -- and the other women who took the class with her -- all used a discount code that had been given out on Twitter to publicize the studio's opening.
We've written to the studio asking for its side of the story. Will update if anyone responds.
Tell the gym what you think of their tactics on their contact page.
Enough With State Liquor Boards
Jonathan Turley blogs his USA Today column:
Republican leaders and pundits have repeatedly denounced Obama administration programs from health care to bailouts as part of a creeping "socialist agenda," which appears to mean any centralized control of a market.What is fascinating is that the warnings over state monopolies omit one of the longest-standing institutions of central planning and control in the U.S.: state liquor boards.
Seventeen states continue to exercise control over liquor as absurd relics from the 1930s. Ironically, there is no better example of the failures of central planning than the "ABC stores" around the country from Alabama to Pennsylvania. Indeed, if Karl Marx were alive and trying to buy Schnapps today, he might reconsider aspects of Das Kapital after dealing with our central alcohol planners.
This month, many people were enthralled with a controversy in Idaho where the State Liquor Division had barred the sale of Five Wives Vodka. The division refused to allow Idahoans to buy the popular vodka because it might be offensive to the Mormon population in the state.
I represented the distiller of the vodka, Ogden's Own Distillery of Utah, in raising a host of constitutional objections to the enforcement of such religious mores. The state recently agreed to rescind its bar on sales, but the controversy should not pass without some discussion of continued existence of these state monopolies on alcohol sales.
...Because I live in Virginia, I have to drive to an ABC store to buy liquor -- a store that is insulated from competition, and it shows. Like many government-run enterprises, the place is run with all of the care and concern of your local DMV.
States differ on the rationale for these boards. The Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, for example, uses its authority "not to promote the sale of liquor" but to "promote moderation and to enforce existing liquor laws." The heavily Mormon state is famous for imposing arbitrary limits on the sale of alcohol from formerly banning of bars (in favor of "clubs") to the required use of "Zion curtains" to prevent bartenders from being seen pouring alcohol.
These and other laws seem based on the belief that "for the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him." The man who said that was Marx, a great believer in central control. These states have allowed a fixed bureaucracy to take hold of a market -- a self-perpetuating and inefficient middleman in the market.
Ironically, alcohol board heads often defend their decision to bar particular brands because of the limited space that they have at warehouses and stores -- ignoring the obvious point that there would be no limitations if they were removed as a chokepoint in the system.
In New York, ridiculously, I couldn't buy wine at the big Whole Foods near the hotel where they put me for Anderson Cooper and I was too tired to go off looking for a liquor store, so I just went without.
The Whole Foods had beer, but they told me they could either sell beer or wine there -- they had to choose. So, Whole Foods lost a wine sale and I went back to my hotel without the wine I wanted.
Republicans Are Against Big Government! (Except When They're Not)
Crony capitalism, anyone? Republican darling Marco Rubio appears to favor it. He's one of 16 Senate Republicans who've voted to preserve the current federal quota program for sugar farmers. From the WSJ's editorial page:
One test for economic conservatives is whether they are willing to oppose constituent business interests looking for government favoritism. On that score, two recent contrasting votes by Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Marco Rubio of Florida are instructive.Last month the Senate easily voted to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, 78-20, a vote that was never much in doubt given the backing from business lobbies and the White House. But it's still worth saluting the 20 votes in opposition--19 Republicans and independent socialist Bernie Sanders--and especially Mr. DeMint, a rare case of a Senator voting for principle against the biggest interests in his home state.
...The sugar lobby ... last week narrowly defeated a bipartisan attempt at reforming its egregious quota program that gouges American consumers to benefit a mere 5,000 or so farmers. The Senate voted 50-46 to table Senator Pat Toomey's reform bill, but the reform would have passed if not for the votes of 16 GOP Senators. (See the nearby table.)
The usual sugar beet and sugar cane state suspects dominate the list, but one name leaps out--Mr. Rubio, the freshman from Florida who won his seat in 2010 while running as a tea party favorite in opposition to the crony capitalism and government meddling of the Obama Administration.
Mr. Rubio nonetheless voted against consumers and for the big sugar-cane producers, including Florida's Fanjul family. Mr. Rubio thus voted to the left of the 16 Democrats who joined 30 Republicans in supporting sugar reform. Unlike Mr. DeMint, the Floridian was not a profile in courage on this issue, or even a profile.
What's Racist? Depends On Whether You're Black Or White
Walter E. Williams writes at LewRockwell.com on racial double standards:
Back in 2009, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said we were "a nation of cowards" on matters of race. Permit me to be brave and run a few assertions by you just to see whether we're on the same page. There should be two standards for civilized conduct: one for whites, which is higher, and another for blacks, which is lower. In other words, in the name of justice and fair play, blacks should not be held accountable to the same standards that whites are and should not be criticized for conduct that we'd deem disgusting and racist if said or done by whites.You say, "Williams, what in the world are you talking about?" Mitt Romney hasn't revealed all of his fall campaign strategy yet, but what if he launched a "White Americans for Romney" movement in an effort to get out the white vote? If the Romney campaign did that, there'd be a media-led outcry across the land, with charges ranging from racial insensitivity to outright racism. When President Barack Obama announced his 2012 launch of "African Americans for Obama", the silence was deafening. Should the same standards be applied to Obama as would be applied to Romney? The answer turns out to be no, because Obama is not held to the same standards as Romney.
...Racial double standards are not restricted to the political arena and crime reporting; we see it on college campuses and in the workplace. Black people ought to be offended by the idea that we are held accountable to lower standards of conduct and achievement.
Fix Your Password
Good stuff on Slate.
A Grasshopper Walked Into A Bard
Be poetic. And if you can't be poetic, just make us laugh our asses off.
Sounds Like A Discount
Need some new headphones? Here are a bunch at Amazon
Purchases you make through my links (even if you just go through the link to buy something through the search engine at Amazon) help support me and my site, and are much-appreciated.
You can also go to Amy's Mall and go through the "powered by Amazon" logo at the top. It leads to a search engine at Amazon -- here's a link to save if you want.
Caption This Weird-Ass Public Art
From the University of New Mexico where I just attended the Human Behavior and Evolution Society conference, there's some art apparently intended to frighten drunken students walking around after dark:
"The Imperial Presidency Of Barack Obama"
Along with the erosion of civil liberties, there's a dangerous and willful creeping imperialism in The White House. In this administration, there's the announcement that they will no longer deport illegal aliens under 30, who came to this country as children, "effectively negating part of federal law," writes law blogger Jonathan Turley:
It raises some troubling questions, again, about President (Obama's) assertion of executive power. While liberals again celebrate the unilateral action, they ignore that danger that the next president may also simply chose to ignore whole areas of the federal law and criminal code in areas ranging from the environment to employment discrimination. It is one more brick in the wall of the Imperial Presidency constructed under Barack Obama -- a wall that may prove difficult to dismantle for citizens in the future.Presidents are given extreme deference in decisions on the enforcement of federal laws. It would be difficult for anyone to challenge this policy for that reason. However, that does not mean that this is a good practice -- regardless of the merits of specific issue.
...This is different from past presidents who have not made deportation a priority in their policies. Despite the criticism of Obama, he is certainly no less aggressive on deportation than his predecessors. Indeed, he may be more aggressive in terms of numbers. Presidents like George W. Bush clearly did not push for deportation based solely on illegal status. The Administration, however, was forced to admit this long-suspected policy in court in fighting the Arizona law -- stating that it did conflict with federal policy because the Administration did not want mass deportations.
The change could also create a new conflict with states passing tough immigration laws. We are awaiting the ruling of the Supreme Court in the Arizona case where the Administration is expected to lose some ground.
This is different. Here the Administration is implementing a categorical policy not to enforce federal law, which dictates deportation for illegal immigrations regardless of their age. Congress has refused to pass such laws and this is an obvious effort to circumvent Congress -- something of a signature for this Administration. Liberals were outraged by Bush's use of signing statements as a circumvention of Congress. Yet, when Obama broke his promise and started using signing statements, liberals were again silent. Now, he has gone further and (rather than advancing a restrictive interpretation) he has announced that he will simply not enforce the law.
Woman Sues City Of Tulsa For Cutting Down Her Edible Garden
Your property really isn't your property -- the government can come in any time and do whatever they want with it:
More here.
via @keepfoodlegal
Canadian Airport P.A. Announcement: "Paging George Orwell...Paging Mr. George Orwell..."
There's a line in the Canadian national anthem:
"God keep our land glorious and free!"
Well, scratch the "glorious and free" part, because, per Crid, the latest news out of Canada is beyond troubling. Ian Macleod writes at Canada.com:
OTTAWA - Airports and border crossings across Canada are being wired with high-definition cameras and microphones that can eavesdrop on travellers' conversations, according to the Canada Border Services Agency.A CBSA statement said that audio-video monitoring and recording is already in place at unidentified CBSA sites at airports and border points of entry as part of an effort to enhance "border integrity, infrastructure and asset security and health and safety."
As part of the work, the agency is introducing audio-monitoring equipment as well.
"It is important to note that even though audio technology is installed, no audio is recorded at this time. It will become functional at a later date," CBSA spokesman Chris Kealey said in a written statement.
But whenever that occurs, the technology, "will record conversations," the agency said in a separate statement in response to questions from the Ottawa Citizen.
At Ottawa's airport, signs will be posted referring passersby to a "privacy notice" that will be posted on the CBSA website once the equipment is activated, and to a separate help line explaining how the recordings will be used, stored, disclosed and retained.
Definition of a free country from Cambridge Dictionaries Online:
•a country where the government does not control what people say or do for political reasons and where people can express their opinions without punishmentThe transition from a totalitarian state to a free country will be long and slow.
I can say what I like - it's a free country!
Some of the TSA workers in Albuquerque and an Albuquerque cop have a lot to be ashamed of for earning a living by violating Americans' rights. I experienced some truly disgusting intimidation tactics at the TSA checkpoint there, and will blog about it in the coming days -- naming names. (I'm a little behind in my writing, thanks to my attendance at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society conference from Wednesday through Sunday.)
"The Last Acceptable Form Of Prejudice"
Get in line.
via @walterolson
Why Did The Fried Chicken Cross The Road?
Socrates asked himself that a lot.
Lightning Deals
Special few-hour-only "Gold Box" deals at Amazon
Advice Goddess Radio - Special Replay Tonight, 7pm PT/10pm ET - Dr. Eades & Dr. Eades On The Science Behind Low-Carb Eating
Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd your way to a better life!" with the best brains in science.
I just spend four days hoovering up the latest in evolutionary psychology and anthropology research at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society conference in Albuquerque.
So, tonight, instead of my usual live radio show, I'm re-running a really popular show, that with Dr. Michael Eades and Dr. Mary Dan Eades, two of best people on science-based eating for weight loss and health, along with Gary Taubes.
The show will air at the usual time -- 7-8pm Pacific, 10-11pm Eastern -- and can be found at this link at that time or afterward.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/06/18/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
And don't miss last week's show with the very wise Dr. Judith Sills on the hidden mechanics of relationship success, from courtship through commitment:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/06/11/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
Escargot, New Mexico
I'm in New Mexico for the Human Behavior and Evolution Society conference, where I spotted an automotive pet I longed to adopt: 
Oh, and in case I haven't said it, "Fuck, it's hot here." I feel like a rotisserie chicken. I have a big hat with me, but I finally went to Walgreen's and bought an umbrella. (The kind other people use for rain.)
Wacky Kissing Hypotheses And Kissing As A Commitment Check Mechanism
The wacky hypotheses for why we kiss include, from medicine, the dental hygiene hypothesis -- that people kiss to generate saliva, to improve dental hygiene. From the Human Behavior and Evolution Society Conference in Albuquerque Saturday.
"If (the dental hygiene hypothesis) were true, you'd want to kiss more after a meal." -- Dr. Aaron Goetz
(Yuck!)
Goetz sees kissing as an honest signal and a commitment assessment mechanisn. (Kissing is "costly" because it transmits bacteria.) It helps you assess romantic partner's commitment to a current romantic relationship. Basically, says Goetz, by kissing, you're saying, "I'm so committed to you, I'm willing to put my health on the line." (You're also asking your partner, "Are you that commited to me?")
Goetz' prediction: Partners with lower mate value should initiate more kisses than partners with higher mate value. And Goetz found, in his research, that this seems to be true (that the lower mate value partner needs to assess the relationship level more).
A book about signaling that I love -- Zahavi and Zahavi's The Handicap Principle: A Missing Piece of Darwin's Puzzle
The New Farm Bill Is (More) Welfare For Farmers
Veronique de Rugy writes in the WashEx that the Occupy movement was right to protest the bank bailouts -- but they forgot something:
Cronyism is not restricted to the financial sector. The farm bill currently going through Congress would bail out farmers for the years to come if they ever saw their revenue fall by a small share from their recent record-high levels.The "shallow loss" program would effectively guarantee farmers' revenue. Here is how it would work. Under current crop insurance program, farmers can buy insurance that covers poor yields and declines in prices. The government heavily subsidizes such insurance by paying about two-thirds of the premiums, at a cost of $7 billion annually.
Like most insurance plans, the current system doesn't insure against all revenue losses. The shallow-loss program would change that by sending money to farmers in the event that their actual revenue fall by 11 percent to 21 percent, a drop typically not covered by existing crop insurance.
De Rugy points out:
There is no valid justification for taxpayers paying for a crop insurance program for some of the wealthiest farmers in the country, and it would be irresponsible to expand it further. Sold as a deficit reduction plan, shallow loss is a budget calamity waiting to happen.
I think there is no justification for any taxpayer to pay for any other taxpayer's business, whether they're in the business of farming or advice columning.
Amnesty For Children Of Illegals: Agree Or Disagree?
@JLThorpe tweets:
Saying children of illegals should stay because they did nothing wrong is like saying children of embezzlers should keep their stolen money.
My Breakfast Bullet Hole
Exciting town, Albuquerque. I ate breakfast at Mannies -- nice diner, nice waitresses, and they got my eggs right...always a pleasure.
While I was getting up to pay, I noticed two bullet holes in the window next to my table -- one at pretty much the level where my head was while I was dining.
The waitresses either didn't know the story or weren't telling, but the guy who was seated behind me said he and his son have wondered about those bullet holes for a while. Kind of interesting that they don't repair them.
How The Government Steals Property
It's Kelo with the smell of weed.
William Griggs writes at Lew Rockwell of the government-perpetrated crime against the owner of Missouri's Camp Zoe:
Entrepreneur and musician James Tebeau, whose Camp Zoe concert venue was one of Shannon County, Missouri's largest employers, has accepted a plea agreement in which he will forfeit his 350 acre property and serve a prison sentence for "maintaining a drug-involved premises."Tebeau played bass in an ensemble called the Schwag Band and hosted a number of concert events including the annual "Schwagstock" festival. The agreement stipulates that Tebeau neither participated in drug sales, nor did he profit from them. Yet he faces a prison term of two and a half years and the loss of his property.
According to the Feds, Tebeau's crime was to permit the sale of marijuana, LDS LSD and mushrooms, while instructing employees to evict people who sold heroin, cocaine, crack, meth, and nitrous oxide. However, the same can be said of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, which abetted the sale of many controlled substances for four years following an August 2006 arrest of two people at the camp for selling hallucinogenic mushrooms. Over that four-year period, informants employed by the State Police conducted hundreds of undercover purchases, including many of the hard drugs Tebeau was seeking to ban from his premises.
The "Justice" Department's press release (which was reproduced nearly verbatim by the few media outlets that covered the story) made a point of noting that Tebeau "was aware that the term `schwag' was a slang term for low-grade marijuana and he purposely adopted that name for his music festivals and band." If this is evidence of evil intent, the Feds should begin criminal proceedings against the Doobie Brothers and the management of any venue where that classic rock band performs.
At about 7:30 a.m. on November 1, 2010 - a few hours after the finale of the annual "Spookstock" music festival -- a multi-jurisdictional task force invaded Camp Zoe. According to one eyewitness, "Every letter of the alphabet was represented.... There were people from the DEA, the IRS, the Highway Patrol, from Homeland Security, the local police and country Sheriff's Office. There was a group from the Rolla Police Department, which is two counties away from here."
One camp staffer was briefly stopped by police on nearby Highway 19 as he was driving his children to school. He was separated from his wife and children at the point of an M-16 rifle. The detainee was taken into the camp and briefly questioned before being released.
Camp Zoe was placed under lock-down while the raiders rummaged through every corner of the campground, intimidating staff and visitors and seizing personal items (including cash). As this was going on another federal contingent was dispatched to clean out the personal and business accounts of Jimmy Tebeau, the musician and entrepreneur who owns and operates the campground.
The Feds "just siphoned away all of his money, and then filed a civil asset forfeiture lawsuit seeking to seize his property," protests attorney Dan Viets, who has volunteered to represent Tebeau. "This would mean that he wouldn't have the money needed to fight the seizure in court." The Feds clearly sought to confiscate Camp Zoe from the beginning, and they took exceptional care to guarantee that Tebeau couldn't mount an effective defense of his property.
Details on Stealing Camp Zoe here, at Pro Libertate:
Witnesses estimate that as many as 200 law enforcement officers took part in the assault on Camp Zoe. Given the size of that mobilization, some would expect that the police were dealing with a heavily armed gang that posed an imminent threat to public safety. Yet no criminal activity was found during the raid, and not a single person was led away in handcuffs.This should come as a surprise only to those who persist in believing that "law enforcement" is connected in some way to the protection of life, liberty, and property. Those who invaded Camp Zoe didn't find criminal activity because they weren't looking for any. They weren't there to arrest criminals; they were preparing to steal the property in the name of "civil asset forfeiture."
"From what I saw, it looked like the people from the IRS were in charge initially," Mike Johnston relates. "The original search warrant was for business records, and I saw the IRS personnel hauling off boxes full of papers, computer drives, and other materials of that kind. Apparently they didn't find what they were looking for right away, so the DEA guys were next in line."
...Missouri state law dictates that forfeiture proceeds be given to the School Building Revolving Fund, which is administered by the state's Department of Revenue and subject to official audits. However, this isn't the case when the assets are seized as part of a joint (or "hybrid") operation with the Feds.
The Justice Department's manual on asset forfeiture describes this as "equitable sharing" of revenue proceeds, and explains that it is intended "to increase or supplement the resources of the receiving state or local law enforcement agency" and can be used by the recipient "for any permissible purpose as long as shared funds increase the entire law enforcement budget." This helps explain why practically every federal agency represented by an acronym -- as well as every local police agency -- joined the Gadarene rush to invade and occupy Camp Zoe.
If, on the other hand, the raid had been a purely local affair, it could have been "adopted" by the Feds after the fact. In congressional testimony, former deputy assistant attorney general Joe Whitley described how such an "adoption" takes place: "We receive a case which is in every aspect a local case, been worked on pretty much by the local agencies all the way from beginning to end, and we put our cover on it."
Under either approach,police agencies are typically permitted to keep at least eighty percent of the haul. The objective "is to reward the help we get from our brother and sister law enforcement" agencies, explained former Justice Department official Jerry McDowell in 2000.
Since these "rewards" are doled out in explicit and willful defiance of state forfeiture laws, what McDowell is describing is a criminal syndicate, one far larger than any of the private criminal gangs whose depredations supposedly justify the forfeiture racket. Steve Kessler, a former prosecutor and recognized expert on forfeiture laws, has described the practice of asset forfeiture as "unquestionably the largest, most lucrative business in the United States."
Norway's Centre Party: Ban Ritual Circumcision
From The Local, Centre Party justice spokeswoman Jenny Klinge echoes the discussion here the past few days:
"Circumcision based on ritual and religion is actually about holding down a newborn baby boy and cutting off part of a healthy sexual organ, with all the consequences that this might have for an individual's future health and sex life," said Klinge.With this in mind, performing a circumcision on religious grounds ought to be made a criminal offence, she added.
Jan Helge Solbakk, a professor of medical ethics at Oslo University, agreed with Klinge's criticism of the practice.
"It represents an irreversible operation on a boy who is not in a position to protect himself, and as such is in breach of basic human rights," he told Dagbladet.
Parents should leave the decision as to whether their child will have his penile flesh hacked to their child -- when he is an adult or of an age where he can make that decision.
Freedom of religion? Your right to exercise it ends where the unnecessary surgical removal of a part of a child's body begins.
Why Did The Chicken Cross The Roadkill?
Thoughts, jokes, vulgar remarks here.
My Idea Of Camping
...Is staying in a bad hotel. If your idea of camping is a little more tent and tin spoon'y, you may be interested in this offer from Amazon
(Link fixed -- thanks, Jim P.)
The Pakistan Of The Midwest
Detroit -- formerly "the Paris of the Midwest": 
Remember when immigrants were expected to assimilate? What happened?
USDA Fines Family $90K For Selling Rabbits Without A License
We've gotten to the point where any citizen can be a golden goose for government. This country was to be an example of limited power by the state and it's grown to be anything but.
Jim P. wrote me about this story by Jonathan Strong on The Daily Caller:
It started out as a hobby, a way for the Dollarhite family in Nixa, Mo., to teach a teenage son responsibility. Like a lemonade stand.But now, selling a few hundred rabbits over two years has provoked the heavy hand of the federal government to the tune of a $90,643 fine. The fine was levied more than a year after authorities contacted family members, prompting them to immediately halt their part-time business and liquidate their equipment.
The Dollarhite's story, originally picked up by conservative blogger Bob McCarty, has turned into a call to arms for critics of the government's reach and now has both Democratic and Republican lawmakers vowing to intervene.
John and Judy Dollarhite began selling rabbit meat by the pound in 2006, and as pets to neighbors and friends in 2008.
Raised on the three-acre lot on which their home sits, the rabbits were heralded by local experts for their quality and kept in pristine condition.
When a local pet store asked them to supply their pet rabbits, the Dollarhites had no idea they would be running afoul of an obscure federal regulation that prohibits selling more than $500 worth of rabbits to a pet store without a license from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Under the law, pet stores are exempt from regulation.
But by selling to pet stores for resale, the humble Dollarhites became "wholesale breeders of pet animals," said Dave Sacks, a spokesman for USDA who defended the fine, even while admitting it "looks curious" to the average person.
That's especially so since the Dollarhites face no accusation they mistreated any animals. Instead, they committed what's called in regulatory parlance a "paperwork violation" under the Animal Welfare Act, a 1966 law intended to prevent the abuse of animals.
Instead, it's a lesson in abuse of people by government.
Citizens should not be fined for doing business with willing others.
A license should not be required to do business, unless you're in, say, the business of removing appendixes.
The Reality Of Canada's "Free" Health Care
On PsychologyToday.com, Gad Saad, a Canadian academic whose work I follow, advises Americans not to romanticize the Canadian health care system:
(1) Our healthcare is anything but free. We are levied some of the most punitive and exorbitant tax rates of all industrialized nations. The average Canadian will pay extraordinarily more taxes to subsidize the "free" healthcare system then he/she will ever receive in return in terms of services rendered.(2) Margaret Thatcher famously quipped "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." Let's see how this played out within the Canadian healthcare system. For decades, the Canadian medicare card did not include a photo ID. In other words, when an individual presented his/her card to obtain "free" medical services, seldom did anyone ensure that the card belonged to the individual in question. The running joke among many Middle Eastern communities (recall that I was born in Lebanon) is that the whole of the Middle East obtained free healthcare in Canada. The Canadian government eventually smartened up to this astonishing scam by altering the medicare cards to include a photo ID. That said, the politicians did not have to worry about the billions of dollars stolen (which I paid for), as there is always a passive citizenry willing to absorb additional tax hikes. You see, we have "free" healthcare in Canada.
(3) The Canadian healthcare system is so overburdened that it is difficult to find a family physician willing to take on new patients. In our "free" system, one has to beg and plead to be taken as a patient. You are made to feel as though you are personally indebted to a physician who accepts you as a patient. "Thank you, doctor. I will never forget your infinite kindness for having accepted to provide me the 'free' service that I pay thousands of dollars per year in taxes to have. You are a mensch doc." Good luck finding a specialist in due time. There are endless anecdotes of patients being told that the next available date for an important surgery is many months down the line, given the scheduling backlog.
(4) Let us suppose that you are facing a medical emergency. Have no fear, as our Canadian system is free and generous. You'll only have to wait 8-14 hours in a hospital waiting room (as did my wife when she experienced a medical situation whilst pregnant with our first child). You might die while waiting but at least it is "free."
(5) The failure of our Canadian healthcare system is so apparent (and so unsustainable) that in the last few years many Canadians have had to enroll in private health insurance programs! I recently experienced debilitating lower back pains rendering me nearly immobile for several days. I could have sought the services of our "free" healthcare but this would have meant that I would have likely waited six months to see a physiatrist. He/she would have then ordered me to have some MRI images done, which would have taken a few more months at the "free hospital." On the other hand, since I pay for private healthcare insurance, the problem was addressed in less than one week. Hence, not only do I pay exorbitant taxes to fund a healthcare system that is utterly broken but also I must enroll in private healthcare programs (as would the average American) to avoid having to participate in the "free" system that I already paid for!
Why Did The Anthropologist Cross The Road?
Well, probably because standing on the median all night is a shitty way to spend an evening.
Amazon's Gold Box Deals
There are some really good ones, and if you shop through my link -- Gold Box Deals
You can also go to Amy's Mall and go through the "powered by Amazon" logo at the top. It leads to a search engine at Amazon -- here's a link to save if you want.
New Mexico Is Mostly A Beautiful Place
I haven't seen much of it, admittedly, but it looks to me quite a bit like Tucson, and I love the mountains and the light, and the low-slung adobe houses.
I guess they felt all the good looks made the place kind of a bore, so they decided to throw up some uglyass art at the University:
Why Should The Government Be Involved In Medicine At All?
Stossel asks that question at reason. Are things better with government involved?
Costs have risen. More choices? No, we have fewer choices. Many people lost coverage when companies left the market.Because ObamaCare requires insurance companies to cover every child regardless of pre-existing conditions, WellPoint, Humana and Cigna got out of the child-only business. Principal Financial stopped offering health insurance altogether -- 1 million customers no longer have the choice to keep their insurance.
This is to be expected when governments control health care. Since state funding makes medical services seem free, demand increases. Governments deal with that by rationing. Advocates of government health care hate the word "rationing" because it forces them to face an ugly truth: Once you accept the idea that taxpayers pay, individual choice dies. Someone else decides what treatment you get, and when.
At least in America, we still have some choice. We can pay to get what we want. Under government health care, bureaucrats will decide how long we wait for our knee operation or cataract surgery ... or if we get lifesaving treatment at all.
...True, surveys show that most Brits and Canadians like their free health care. But Dr. David Gratzer notes that most people surveyed aren't sick. Gratzer is a Canadian who also liked Canada's government health care -- until he started treating patients.
More than a million Canadians say they can't find a family doctor. Some towns hold lotteries to determine who gets to see one. In Norwood, Ontario, my TV producer watched as the town clerk pulled four names out of a big box and then telephoned the lucky winners. "Congratulations! You get to see a doctor this month."
Think the wait in an American emergency room is bad? In Canada, the average wait is 23 hours. Sometimes they can't even get heart attack victims into the ICU.
That's where we're headed unless Obamacare is repealed. But that's not nearly enough. Contrary to what some Republicans say, we didn't have a free medical market before Obama came to power. We had a system that limited competition through occupational licensing, FDA rules and other government intrusions, while stimulating demand through tax-favored employer-based "insurance," Medicare and Medicaid.
If we want affordable and cutting-edge health care, there's only one approach that will work: open competition. That means eliminating both bureaucratic obstacles and corporate privileges. Only free markets can give us innovation at the lowest possible cost.
If health care went free market, you could do what you can't do now -- buy far cheaper health care across a state line.
If health care were untied from the workplace, you could take your benefits in salary, and you wouldn't be collectively paying for the benefits of the very fat and very ill if you are neither. And, when you leave a job, your health care wouldn't be in jeopardy -- and you wouldn't be prevented from leaving a job you should if you get some disease or condition while on the job and under that workplace's coverage.
Additionally, it's crazy that wealthy older Americans get publicly subsidized health care. We can't afford to be a giant charity as a country -- especially not at the expense of the young and underemployed, who are having it particularly tough in this economy.
Today At The TSA Groping Station: Uneventful -- Unlike Last Week
Arrived in New Mexico (Albuquerque) on Wednesday afternoon for the big annual ev psych conference. First time in many times flying that I got through the TSA ungroped.
At the last second, before I went through the metal detector, I decided to do I the submissive geisha thing and looked down at the ground, making no eye contact with the guy on the other side. Maybe that made a difference; maybe I was just lucky.
When we flew Delta last week from LAX to Detroit, my government-employed sex parts molester -- a black woman named Michelle Johnson -- recognized me and said, "I know you. You put on a show last time. Gonna calm down?" (The implication being that I'd have to wait to continue being groped by her until I did.)
But, I demanded that she continue the process -- they can't use the fact that I'm behaving in an upset manner (and I'm very upset about the massive daily violation of Americans' constitutional rights) to keep me from boarding my plane, or going through their disgusting and pointless groping in a timely manner.
I demanded a supervisor and a guy named Douglas A. Cruz came over. I told him he and the rest of the TSA workers were, most disgustingly, violating people's civil liberties for money.
"How do you feel about doing this to people?" I asked him.
His response: "I'm given orders and I just follow orders. That's what I do."
"That's what they said in Nazi Germany," I told him.
After this conference, I have to get some writing weeks in on my book, and then we'll do some collective civil disobedience at LAX. Bunch of chicks. More on that soon.
Oh, and I urge all of you who fly to think about all the ways we are protected by the Constitution. Doesn't it warrant some protection from you? Every time we let abuses of our rights happen, it chips away at our rights a little more.
Please speak up against the TSA, be disobedient at the checkpoints, publish the name of the government worker who violates your rights and your body for a paycheck, and don't make it psychologically easy for them to do their jobs.
Today, I told one of the TSA guys that he was protected by the Constitution and that he was a horrible person for earning a living violating people's Fourth Amendment rights -- and that being a male prostitute would be a more noble profession.
Naturally, he laughed and mocked me. I only wish I'd gotten his name.
Pretend We're Safer
Thanks to this poster taxpayers surely paid for on Detroit's go-nowhere People Mover, if you see a clock wired to a bomb sitting in the middle of a train car, you'll know what to do.
On the bright side, this security theater is just a poster instead of government thugs to rifle through passengers' belongings without probable cause.
Of course, the most successful bomb detectors are trained law enforcement officials investigating actual suspects when there's probable cause. But, if we replaced our bullshit airport security with that sort of thing, well, are there really enough Burger Kings in the world to hire all the unskilled workers we have groping us in the name of "security"?
The Sick Results Of Mandatory Sentencing -- The Case Of Clarence Aaron
There are people for whom "lock 'em up and throw away the key!" makes sense. But there are also those in jail like Clarence Aaron -- serving three life terms for a small-time college cocaine deal. Seth Ferranti, a prisoner himself, locked up at age 22 for 25 years and four months for a non-violent drug offense writes on Alternet:
This is a simple truth: the United States is the only country in the first world that imposes life sentences to teenagers for small-time, non-violent drug offenses. In fact, the American legal system does so with alarming regularity, spending $40 billion a year to lock up hundreds of thousands of low-level dealers. The practice began when Ronald Reagan declared a "War on Drugs" in 1986, and has spread steadily since then. The following year, Congress enacted its federal mandatory sentencing guidelines, which automatically buried tens of thousands of low-level, non-violent drug offenders in the belly of the beast for decades--even for multiple life terms. Just ask Clarence Aaron, inmate number 05070-003.At the age of 24, Aaron was sentenced to three life terms for his role in a cocaine deal. That's effectively three times the sentence imposed upon Faisal Shahzad, who tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square in 2010. Aaron was a student and football player at Southern University in Baton Rouge. He'd never been arrested. In 1992, he made the mistake of being present for the sale of nine kilograms of cocaine and the conversion of one kilo of coke to crack. Aaron would have earned $1,500 for introducing the buyer and seller. He never actually touched the drugs.
Though his role was minor, Aaron received the longest sentence of anyone involved in the conspiracy when he refused to cooperate with authorities. His case gained national attention in 1999, when he appeared in "Snitch," a PBS Frontline documentary about prisoners serving long sentences after refusing to turn informant. Since then, a loose, bipartisan coalition of lawmakers and civil rights activists have championed efforts to have President Obama commute his sentence. But it's now 2012 and Clarence Aaron is still locked up, despite the fact that the Federal Prosecutor's Office that tried the case and the sentencing judge have supported immediate commutation. US District Court Judge Charles Butler, who sentenced Aaron, recently wrote, "Looking through the prism of hindsight, and considering the many factors argued by the defendant that were not present at the time of his initial sentencing, one can argue that a less harsh sentence might have been more equitable."
To say the least. So what happens to a prisoner if the presiding judge states that a sentence should have been "more equitable"? Nothing. The Constitution provides the President with the authority to grant clemency to federal offenders, but Presidents, afraid of tarnishing their tough-on-crime credentials, have used clemency sparingly (and usually to help well-connected, politically-powerful prisoners, like Scooter Libby or Marc Rich). And so the federal prison population has exploded from around 25,000 prisoners in 1980 to almost 225,000 now, mostly because of the War on Drugs. Applications to the Office of the Pardon Attorney, the branch of the Justice Department that reviews commutation requests, have reached thousands each year.
Not surprisingly, the forked tongue in the Oval Office talked a good game about the awfulness of mandatory minimum sentencing while campaigning for office, but is on track to be the President who has pardoned the fewest number of people -- 23, including one commuted sentence.
The Biggest Welfare Mothers In The Country
You're well-acquainted with the latest vast recipients of your tax dollars, GM and Dow Chemical. Nathan Bomey writes at the Freep:
The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded $9 million to Dow Chemical and $2.7 million to General Motors for research aimed at improving the energy efficiency of advanced manufacturing technologies.Dow will use the money to develop a carbon-fiber manufacturing process that could result in a 20% cost reduction and 50% decrease in carbon emissions.
GM will use its money to develop a die-casting process for the production of vehicle doors. The automaker told the Energy Department it hopes to cut its energy usage in the door manufacturing process by 50%. It also hopes to reduce the weight of car doors in a continuous quest to improve vehicle fuel economy.
Win-win -- for everybody but the people forking over the money. I started an every Sunday night radio show -- one that actually costs $40 a month to air: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in therapy and research. Doing the show weekly since October has improved my speaking ability and made me much better on both radio and TV, which will surely improve my business.
But, I don't expect my fellow citizens to invest in my business. They might benefit from my doing better on the radio -- but really the benefit is mine and the payment and risk should be mine...and are...because I don't have lobbyists in Washington, because I'm not "too big to fail," and because I think it's scummy as fuck to legally steal from other taxpayers to benefit my business.
Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?
Somehow, Aristotle never got to that one.
University Of Cincinnati Learns Of The First Amendment
The wonderful people at campus free speech defenders theFIRE.org have another victory on their hands:
CINCINNATI, June 12, 2012--In a ringing victory for student rights, a federal district court declared today that the University of Cincinnati's (UC's) tiny "free speech zone" violates the First Amendment. In his order enjoining enforcement of the challenged free speech zone policy, United States District Judge Timothy S. Black held that UC's free speech zone "violates the First Amendment and cannot stand." The suit was filed by Ohio's 1851 Center for Constitutional Law in cooperation with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)."Once again, a federal court has been forced to remind a public university of its constitutional obligation to uphold the free speech rights of its students," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "Ohioans should be pleased at the court's decision but outraged that a public college was willing to waste taxpayer money defending a policy that was manifestly unconstitutional from the very start."
Prior to today's court order, UC had required all "demonstrations, pickets, and rallies" to be held in a "Free Speech Area" that comprises just 0.1% of the university's 137-acre West Campus. University policy further required that all expressive activity in the free speech zone be registered with the university a full ten working days in advance, threatening that "[a]nyone violating this policy may be charged with trespassing."
Today's order prohibits UC from enforcing the policy, finding that "the University has simply offered no explanation of its compelling interest in restricting all demonstrations, rallies, and protests from all but one designated public forum on campus." The court further notes that it "would be compelled to find the policy unconstitutionally vague on its face."
Obama Is Not A Socialist -- It's Worse Than That
Via @danieljmitchell, Thomas Sowell writes:
It bothers me a little when conservatives call Barack Obama a "socialist." He certainly is an enemy of the free market, and wants politicians and bureaucrats to make the fundamental decisions about the economy. But that does not mean that he wants government ownership of the means of production, which has long been a standard definition of socialism.What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.
Politically, it is heads-I-win when things go right, and tails-you-lose when things go wrong. This is far preferable, from Obama's point of view, since it gives him a variety of scapegoats for all his failed policies, without having to use President Bush as a scapegoat all the time.
Government ownership of the means of production means that politicians also own the consequences of their policies, and have to face responsibility when those consequences are disastrous -- something that Barack Obama avoids like the plague.
Thus the Obama administration can arbitrarily force insurance companies to cover the children of their customers until the children are 26 years old. Obviously, this creates favorable publicity for President Obama. But if this and other government edicts cause insurance premiums to rise, then that is something that can be blamed on the "greed" of the insurance companies.
Steals In Electronics
Some really good deals today in electronics at Amazon
You can also go to Amy's Mall and go through the "powered by Amazon" logo at the top. It leads to a search engine at Amazon -- here's a link to save if you want.
Sleeping In On Sunday Morning, Detroit
Photo by Gregg Sutter.
TSA: This Is What Should Be Happening At Airport Checkpoints
From 2011, a woman goes sane in the airport after a sleazy government worker, who earns money for violating Americans' bodies and rights, gropes her breasts in the name of security:
Caption with the video posted by rynomaz111:
5-28-11 at Sky Harbor International in Phoenix, AZ my mother was sexually assaulted which brought her to tears. Multiple TSA agents claimed to know my whole family (WELCOME TO 1984) TSA then threatened to steal my luggage because I left it unattended... rather because I was 10 feet from it. I was then threatened to have my ability to fly revoked by Southwest Airlines, NOT TSA. Southwest Airlines then threatened to have me arrested for filming the event, even though TSA, Southwest, and Phoenix Police couldn't provide me with the statute or law that claims I cannot film in a public area. Here is that event. Police- Protecting and Serving??? Why is TSA asking for my father's phone number and address at the end of this ordeal, to add us to a no-fly list or spy on us?
THIS is what it means to be a patriotic American.
Going quietly as the TSA thugs violate your mother's body and rights -- that is cooperating with those goose-stepping us to becoming a police-state.
And I heard a TSA thugwoman saying "This is the second time this family has done this." Props to them. We all should be doing this -- in respect and protection of the Constitution.
via the Daily Mail/Drudge
Baby Blowjobs During Circumcision Cause Herpes
It isn't disgusting enough to mutilate boys for no medical reason -- the Orthodox Jewish practice involves having the man doing the baby mutilating suck off the infant's penis afterward. In New York City, 11 newborns contracted herpes that way. Alexandra Sifferlin writes for TIME:
The report is sure to reignite a long-simmering debate over public health and religious liberties: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Thursday that 11 baby boys in New York City were infected with herpes between Nov. 2000 and Dec. 2011 following an ultra-Orthodox Jewish circumcision ritual called metzitzah b'peh -- or oral suction -- in which the mohel puts his mouth directly on the newborn's circumcised penis and sucks away the blood.Ten of the babies were hospitalized, at least two developed brain damage and two died, according to the New York City health department. In 2005, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked rabbis throughout the city to move away from performing metzitzah b'peh -- and also issued an open letter [PDF] to the Jewish community warning of the health risks -- but they refused claiming the practice was safe.
According to the CDC report, the investigation into circumcision-related herpes infections in newborns began in 2004 when New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) was notified of twin boys who had contracted herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1, the type that causes cold sores and is usually transmitted orally) following circumcision with metzitzah b'peh; one twin died. Both twins were circumcised by the same mohel, whom the CDC report refers to as "mohel A."
During the investigation, the DOHMH learned of another 2003 case of neonatal HSV-1 infection after circumcision, also involving mohel A. In all three cases, the babies' mothers and the hospital staff who cared for the infants had no history of herpes infection. When mohel A was tested about three months after the 2004 circumcisions, he showed antibodies to HSV in his blood, but was not found to be actively shedding the virus.
In all three cases, the babies developed lesions or vesicles in their genital areas about 8 to 10 days after their ritual circumcision; the timing and location of the babies' symptoms suggest that the infections were introduced during circumcision, the CDC reports. The health officials' investigation further uncovered eight other similar cases through Dec. 2011 in New York City, bringing the total to 11.
I'm very much for religious liberty -- to a point: to the point where babies, who cannot consent, undergo unnecessary and mutilating surgical procedures (all of which come with some risk).
Cannibalism Is Bad!
Publicity hound Gloria Allred takes a stand against herself -- no, wait, she's actually talking about the Florida face-eater. Fred Grimm writes for the Miami Herald:
Finally, someone -- someone right here in Miami -- had the courage to take a stand against the great scourge of our time.Oh... not that scourge. Not child obesity or one-percenters or sexually transmitted diseases or radical Islam or Citizens United or greedy bankers or Burmese pythons or Greek tax evaders or Iranian nukes or unmanned drones or union busters or feral pigs or Facebook IPOs or destination casinos or Boston Celtics or illicit voters or even Donald Trump.
No. Gloria Allred came to town Wednesday to warn us -- those of us who might have been wavering in our resolve -- that "cannibalism is a serious issue and is very dangerous to the health and the well-being of the cannibal and the victim."
Not necessarily in that order.
Allred once presented a journalism prize I won in the LA Press Club Awards. All the other judges talked about the entry they were giving out. Allred skipped the part about me and my work and talked about Allred, what a shocker.
@walterolson
Oink, Oink, Oink, Please Pass The Salt
I answer a lot of questions that will never make my column, and this is one from this morning. (I'm on deadline today, but I needed a mental amuse bouche of sorts to wake up.) I thought I'd publish it here because it's an issue I hear from time to time, related to my writing on rudeness. The email:
I try to be tolerant of people's quirks because none of us are perfect. However, I have a cousin whose table manners include licking his plate, sticking his finger in his nose, talking with food in his mouth and eating salad and olives with his fingers. My cousin does not have any medical condition that can explain this behavior. He has a Ph.D. and he is in his 60s.Am I required to accept invitations to dine at his house because I am his cousin? If I am allowed to repeatedly decline such invitations, what would be a polite and kind thing to say when he asks for a reason? Is there a better way to deal with this situation than just avoiding him?
Thank you for the work you do and any advice you can give me.
- Perplexed
My response:
You aren't going to change the table manners of a man in his 60s. Thus, it's pointless to tell him why you aren't coming to dinner -- it's only hurtful -- and it's fine to decline. Just be "busy" when invited to dinner. If you want to see him, meet for drinks in very dark restaurants or go to a museum or an event like a gallery walk. I'm hoping his manners when not eating aren't as bad as when he is.
This column was in no way intended to be hurtful to pigs, one of which I was eating -- in the form of three strips of bacon -- while writing my response.
I Want Backup Dancers Following Me Around Everywhere
(I'd also like to have Julie Andrews waltz in the cafe where I write and sing to me when things are going poorly.)
Why Did The Road Cross The Chicken?
Because a grasshopper walked into a bar.
Purple Reign
We flew back Sunday from the ruins of what used to be Detroit to the also fiscally bereft but otherwise magical state where I now live. 
These are a couple of houses in Santa Monica, on Fourth Street, near where we picked up my doggie from my friends who were taking care of her.
Utter Crap Reporting By The LA Times On Porno Scanners
Hugo Martin is the LAT "reporter" responsible for the pile of turds under the lie of a headline, "TSA scanners pose negligible risk to passengers, new test shows":
Full-body scanners used for security screening at the nation's airports do not expose passengers to dangerous levels of radiation, according to a new independent analysis of the security devices.The study by the Marquette University College of Engineering concluded that radiation from so-called backscatter scanners passes beyond a passenger's skin to reach 29 different organs -- including the heart and brain. But the radiation levels are considerably lower than those of otherX-ray procedures such as mammograms, the study said.
The findings will be published in the next issue of Medical Physics, an international journal of medical physics research produced by the American Assn. of Physicists in Medicine.
The study, believed to be the first independent review of the scanners, is not likely to put to rest years of heated debate over the health risk of the machines operated by the Transportation Security Administration.
The TSA has submitted the scanners for testing by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the U.S. Army Public Health Command. The tests concluded that the scanners posed no significant risk to passengers, but TSA critics have called for more independent studies.
The author of the Marquette study, assistant professor of biomedical engineering Taly Gilat Schmidt, did not test the actual machines. Instead, she based her conclusions on scanner radiation data released publicly by the TSA. She ran the numbers through simulation software that modeled how X-ray photons travel through a body.
Hi, we're the government and you should believe everything we say -- even though there's proof Janet Napolitano previously lied about the scannners being safe.
Medical scanners are tested daily. These scanners, which are in constant use, all day, every day, maybe get looked at once a year. Maybe.
I think it's possible we'll see massive cancer claims from TSA workers against the government (and thus, we taxpayers) in coming years. The morons manning the porno scanner in Detroit told me something along the lines of "Duh gubermint says they're safe."
(We're the government, and we're here to bend you over, and radioactively fuck you -- and screw you if you want your 4th Amendment rights or a lead apron in the process.)
Bill Fisher from TSA News Blog gets it right in the comments:
This is blatant TSA propaganda at its worst. A sample size of one data set is too small to be statistically significant and would not pass a middle school science class.This is the same bogus test they tried to peddle in March, 2011 from Smith-Bindman and no one believed that one either. She was even criticized by members of her University and professional associations for falsifying the results.
Further, the tests by NIST and APL did not say the scanners were safe, they concluded that the scanners met engineering criteria set by the manufacturer.
In fact Dr. Michael Love at the Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine doesn't think the backscatter x-ray full body scanners are safe. He said "They [TSA] say the risk is minimal, but statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these [backscatter] x-rays."
A valid test will need to use real scanners needed to be randomly selected from operating scanners.
The fact that DHS/TSA made the data available to Marquette University confirms it is simply another attempt at a cover up in an effort to defy a Congressional mandate that the agency allow independent testing. The head of TSA agreed to testing six months ago and reneged. He should be held in contempt of Congress and jailed until a third party organization conducts test of operating scanners.
Disgusting, Pointless, Intense Ball-Groping -- More TSA Rights Abuse Porn
I'm not offended by traditional porn -- the kind with naked people and and kinky this and that (as long as it isn't kiddie porn).
What I am deeply offended by is the obscene constant daily violation by the TSA of Americans' Fourth Amendment right to not be searched without probable cause. There was yet another disgusting TSA-inflicted ball-grabbing -- that became an intense disgusting TSA-inflicted ball probing -- of the husband of conservative commentator Dana Loesch:
He was subjected to the standard pat-down: back of the hands, check your waistband, run hands up and down the inside of the leg stopping at the groin. When the agent went to check his gloves he claimed that something on his gloves "set off the alarm" at which point informed us that Chris would be subjected to another pat-down and his luggage searched.He was not given the choice as to whether or not he wanted a private or public screening for the second, more invasive pat-down.
At this point we were becoming annoyed as we'd been detained for around 25 minutes minutes already (the entire screening process took about 45 minutes) and were concerned that we would miss our flight. I flipped on my camera after we had been escorted into the private room and kept it vertical, rather than horizontal, to look less confrontational.
The TSA agent informed us, as he snapped on his blue latex gloves, that he would be performing another pat-down, this time using the front of his hands, and he would be touching Chris's "groin." It was at this point I began asking questions. He became aggravated and asked for me to turn off my camera. I asked once more about photos and video for clarification, and he stated that the reason I could not film them touching my husband's genitals through his shorts was due to "security reasons." The other agent in the room spoke into his shoulder walkie about security. I complied and turned off my phone. When I asked for the agent's name a second time, he informed me that if I would like, he would call security. The agent demanded that I put my phone away entirely and get it out of my hands and would not start the intrusive screening procedure until I had done so.
...He performed the pat-down which began as routine, except that he used the front of his hands. He then bent down and specifically targeted Chris's crotch. Using the front of his hands, he pressed against his genitals and swept his hands across the crotch three times across, and then pressed at the top of his genitals and wiped his hands down three times.
Make no mistake: outside of the airport this would be considered molestation.
And in the airport, it is considered molestation -- by any decent, rights-respecting, Constitution-loving person.
A commenter on her site posted this about the TSA's thuggish order that Loesch stop videotaping:
*UPDATE: Jimi971 notes this:TSA does not prohibit the public, passengers or press from photographing, videotaping or filming at security checkpoints, as long as the screening process is not interfered with or slowed down. We do ask you to not film or take pictures of the monitors. While the TSA does not prohibit photographs at screening locations, local laws, state statutes, or local ordinances might.
I urge people to stand up to the TSA. Don't go quietly when your rights are taken from you. Don't let TSA workers walk past you in the airport without telling them that they are horrible people for taking money to violate Americans' rights daily. Take names of the TSA workers who violate you, and name them far and wide -- on blogs, on Twitter, and anywhere else you can. And speak up to everyone you can and in every venue you can about how dangerous it is that we are allowing this march to a police state we call "security" to continue.
Yes, that's right -- we are well on our way to becoming a police state, and this is not hyperbole. Just think back to 2000, and how you would have reacted if somebody told you that you had to have your genitals groped to get on an airplane. We're not safer because of this -- but Americans are being primed to be obedient little drones in the face of having their rights taken from them.
The videotape she did get:
I'd love to see her get and post far and wide the name of the government-employed thug who violated her husband's body and rights.
No More Welfare For "Shadow Banks"
Risk your own money, fat cats.
In the WSJ, Thomas M. Hoenig, a director at the FDIC, says the FDIC and taxpayers are underwriting too much private risk-taking -- and I sure agree:
Before 1999, U.S. banking law kept banks, which are protected by a public safety net (e.g., deposit insurance), separate from broker-dealer activities, including trading and market making. However, in 1999 the law changed to permit bank holding companies to expand their activities to trading and other business lines. Similarly, broker-dealers like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and other "shadow banks" were able to use money-market funds and repos to assume a role similar to that of banks, funding long-term asset purchases with the equivalent of very short-term deposits. All were able to expand the size and complexity of their balance sheets.While these changes took place, it also became evident that large, complex institutions were considered too important to the economy to be allowed to fail. A safety net was extended beyond commercial banks to bank holding companies and broker-dealers. In the end, nobody--not managements, the market or regulators--could adequately assess and control the risks of these firms. When they foundered, banking organizations and broker-dealers inflicted enormous damage on the economy, and both received government bailouts.
To illustrate my point, consider that if you or I want to speculate on the market, we must risk our own wealth. If we think the price of an asset is going to decline, we might sell it "short," expecting to profit by buying it back more cheaply later and pocketing the difference. But if the price increases, we either invest more of our own money to cover the difference or we lose the original investment.
In contrast, a bank can readily cover its position using insured deposits or by borrowing from the Federal Reserve. Large nonbank institutions can access money-market funds or other credit because the market believes they will be bailed out. Both types of companies can even double down in an effort to stay in the game long enough to win the bet, which supersizes losses when the bet doesn't pay off. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) fund and the taxpayer are the underwriters of this private risk-taking.
...My proposal seeks to return to capitalism by confining the government's guarantee to that for which it was intended--to protect the payments system and related activities inside commercial banking. It ends the extension of the safety net's subsidy to trading, market-making and hedge-fund activities. This change will invigorate commercial banking and the broker-dealer market by encouraging more equitable and responsible competition within markets. It reduces the welfare nature of our current financial system, making it more self-reliant and more internationally competitive.
As WSJ commenter TC Phillips wrote (and this applies to GM and other corporate welfare recipients):
Too big to fail is too big.
Welcome To Earth 2
Forgot to blog this the other day. Barack Obama: "The private sector is doing just fine."
You doing "just fine"? You know anybody who's doing "just fine" -- who isn't a movie star, an NBA player, or a politician with a hefty taxpayer-funded pension coming to him or her?
Pickle Me, Elmo
A bar walked into a drunk...
The Carcass Of A City -- Detroit: Formerly Elegant, Now Empty
I'm in Detroit for four days for the annual alternative newsweeklies conference. I worked as an intern during my senior year of high school at WDIV, Detroit's NBC station, which used to be downtown.
I got to drive downtown and hang out there on my lunch breaks.
That was in the 80s. The place was bustling and filled with people.
Now, even during the day, during the week, nobody's here, and the place is all run down and in ruins. (I'm pretty sure those people in the picture were fellow conference attendees heading to the evening event.)
This building below even had a tree growing right through it.
This, below, is the old Detroit Free Press building at around 9 p.m. on a Friday night. It's a ghost town.
Front of the Freep below.
There was one unexpected blast from my past during the conference: Detroit First Amendment lawyer Herschel P. Fink spoke. Afterward, I went up to thank him for what he does, talk free speech, and ask him if he knew Marc J. Randazza, the wonderful First Amendment lawyer who defended me pro bono when TSA worker Thedala Magee and her lawyer tried to squeeze $500K out of me.
I'd thought Fink looked somewhat familiar when he was speaking, but figured I was mistaken. But, no sooner did I say hello than he said, "I remember you from Michigania!"
That's University of Michigan family camp -- nerdy camp for adults, with a bunch of speakers all week, and stuff for kids to do like boating, arts 'n' crafts, etc. When I was a kid, my sisters and I used to go up north with my parents and stay in a cabin there for a week on Walloon Lake. I look pretty much like I did at 8, but I still find it amazing that he recognized me.
And finally, a beautiful book about Detroit -- both documenting the ruin it's become and showing hope for what it can be -- is Julia Reyes Taubman's Detroit: 138 Square Miles
Advice Goddess Radio: Slightly Dif Time Tonight, 6-7pm PT, 9-10pm ET -- Dr. Judith Sills On Breaking Through Your Own Or A Partner's Relationship Ambivalence, And More
Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in therapy and research.
I don't like a lot of self-help books because I typically find them very much about the self of the writer and not all that helpful. (They also tend to be filled with annoyingly cutesy writing.) An exception is a book by psychologist Judith Sills, Ph.D., A Fine Romance: The Passage of Courtship from Meeting to Marriage
In it, Sills busts a lot of the myths of how relationships work (like the myth that there's one right person for everyone), and has a fantastic chapter on managing ambivalence -- your own or that of a person you care about. Tonight, we'll talk about when to push and when to hold back in the process of developing a relationship, how to manage your differences and negotiate commitment, and much more.
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/2012/06/11/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
And don't miss last week's Advice Goddess Radio, Last week's guest was neither a therapist nor a researcher, but I couldn't resist having her on. She's my friend and former columnist colleague at the New York Daily News, Lenore Skenazy, who wrote the book Free-Range Kids, Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry
Listen at this link or download after the show (click "Play in your default player").
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/06/04/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
It Had To Be Poo
In the WSJ, Geoffrey A. Fowler and Amir Efrati write of a new phone app:
iPoo, a social-networking app that connects people sitting on toilets, sounds like a joke, but it exists. More than 200,000 people have paid $1 apiece to download iPoo since it launched two years ago, say the app's creators, enough to help put one of them through Harvard Business School. And tens of thousands use it every day, they say."In hindsight it was a great idea, but we weren't expecting it to be anything more than a joke amongst ourselves," says Amit Khanna, a 30-year-old accountant in Toronto. He says one of his fellow iPoo co-creators is ashamed to be associated with it.
In...hindsight...poo hoo hoo.
Dim Me Right
What's with the barely-there lighting at desks in hotel rooms? I mean, did the idea that a guest might actually want to do work at a desk -- in my case, read and annotate the tiny little print in a scientific study that Gregg printed out for me -- cross anyone's minds?
We're at the annual alt weeklies conference at the Book Cadillac, aka the downtown Detroit Westin (in an old gem of a building which, unfortunately, has not just been renovated but Westin-ized). I'm trying to write my column and prep for my radio show. The light at the desk is perfect if you want to hit on some hottie who happens to wander into your hotel room; not so great if you actually want to, you know, do the stuff most people mostly do on desks without a major flashlight, six candelabras, or enormous eye strain.
The Bradbury Chronicles
Wonderful Virginia Postrel piece on the late Ray Bradbury and how to make your life mean something.
@DrEades/@NGillespie
Choice Morsels
Sign outside a deli, Detroit.
Free Speech Is So Out Of Style For The Obama Administration
Disgustingly, the DOJ "seized a hip hop blog for over a year, and then gave it back, effectively admitting that there was no legal basis for the censorship," reports Mike Masnick at Techdirt.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren asked Attorney General Eric Holder about this and he promised to get back to her and never did:
Of course, since then the secret proceedings in the case (which Dajaz1 was not even allowed to know about, or even have their lawyer speak to the judge) have been unsealed. Those revealed that the ICE Agent in charge of the case, Andrew Reynolds, had basically sat around doing nothing for over a year, waiting for the RIAA to finally provide the evidence that Dajaz1 had broken the law. That evidence was obviously never produced, which is why Dajaz1 eventually got its domain back.There was another oversight hearing yesterday, and Zoe Lofgren quizzed Holder again, noting that not only did he not respond to her questions, but also highlighting the unsealed documents, which show that the original affidavit was misleading.
...Holder first responds that he "believes" the seizures were legal, because the court signed off on them. Lofgren immediately challenges that, noting the incorrect or misleading information in the affidavit, and asking if he believes it's okay to censor a site for over a year and not allow the site to even be heard by the court in all that time. At that point, he at least admits that if the affidavit was "misleading" that "that would not be an appropriate basis for action on behalf of the government." He also notes that seizure is a powerful tool that needs to be used "judiciously." And then notes that if what Lofgren descrbied was accurate "that would be of great concern."
More from Masnick here -- some truly awful and scary stuff for anyone who cares about civil liberties:
In fact, as the details came out, it became clear that ICE and the Justice Department were in way over their heads. ICE's "investigation" was done by a technically inept recent college grad, who didn't even seem to understand the basics of the technology. But it didn't stop him from going to a judge and asking for a site to be completely censored with no due process.The Dajaz1 case became particularly interesting to us, after we saw evidence showing that the songs that ICE used in its affidavit as "evidence" of criminal copyright infringement were songs sent by representatives of the copyright holder with the request that the site publicize the works -- in one case, even coming from a VP at a major music label. Even worse, about the only evidence that ICE had that these songs were infringing was the word of the "VP of Anti-Piracy Legal Affairs for the RIAA," Carlos Linares, who was simply not in a position to know if the songs were infringing or authorized. In fact, one of the songs involved an artist not even represented by an RIAA label, and Linares clearly had absolutely no right to speak on behalf of that artist.
Despite all of this, the government simply seized the domain, put up a big scary warning graphic on the site, suggesting its operators were criminals, and then refused to comment at all about the case. Defenders of the seizures insisted that this was all perfectly legal and nothing to be worried about. They promised us that the government had every right to do this and plenty of additional evidence to back up its claims. They promised us that the government would allow for plenty of due process within a reasonable amount of time. They also insisted that, after hearing nothing happening in the case for many months, it meant that no attempt to object to the seizure had occurred. Turns out... none of that was true.
...If Congress needs to do anything, it should be to investigate the lawless, unconstitutional, cowboy censorship and blocking of due process by both Homeland Security and the Justice Department. The last thing it should be doing is allowing more such actions. This whole thing has been a disgrace by the US government, starting with a bogus seizure, improper and illegal censorship, followed by denial of due process and unnecessary secrecy.
Read the rest at the link, of the horrible and Kafka-esque process the government put the site owner and his lawyer through.
Grits And Shiggles
You know what to do.
Big Infantilizing Government
Via @mpetrie, Mark Steyn at NRO:
I saw a fellow in a "Don't Tread on Me" T-shirt the other day. He was at LaGuardia, and he was being trod all over, by the obergropinfuhrers of the TSA, who had decided to subject him to one of their enhanced pat-downs. There are few sights more dismal than that of a law-abiding citizen having his genitalia pawed by state commissars, but him having them pawed while wearing a "Don't Tread on Me" T-shirt is certainly one of them.
The column is actually about the ridiculous way we are all treated like we are 4-year-olds in America, with big, ugly-ass fluorescent lime pedestrian signs going up:
The oncoming army of lurid lime signs uglies up an already decrepit Main Street. They dominate the scene, lining up in one's windshield with the mathematical precision of Busby Berkeley's chorines in Gold Diggers of 1935. And they make America look ridiculous. They are, in fact, double signs: One lime green diamond with the silhouette of a pedestrian, and then below it a lime rectangle with a diagonal arrow, pointing to the ground on which the hypothetical pedestrian is likely to be hypothetically perambulating. The lower sign is an exquisitely condescending touch. A nation whose citizenry is as stupid as those markers suggest they are cannot survive. But, if we're not that stupid, why aren't we outraged?What's the cost of those double signs -- 300 bucks per? That's the best part of four grand we don't need to have wasted on one little strip of one little street in one small town. It's not hard to see why we're the Brokest Nation in History: You can stand at almost any four-way across the land, look in any direction, and see that level of statist waste staring you in the face. Doesn't that count as being trod on?
If you can't cross the street adequately by looking both ways, the institution caring for you shouldn't let you leave the facility without supervision. Otherwise, I believe people have been crossing streets, mostly alive, since the invention of the horse-drawn carriage, and after the invention of the automobile. Disclosure: I did it a number of times last night and lived to tell.
And related to the bit about the TSA, let's encourage people to wear clothes to their TSA gropings with the Fourth Amendment printed on them. In case you were wondering:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Goldielocks, Detroit-Style
Spotted hanging out outside the opening party at the alt weekly conference in downtown Detroit:
The Itch To Meddle In Others' Lives: Where The Left And The Right Are Pretty Much Alike
Their only real argument is on the subject matter.
Timothy Noah writes in TNR:
Yet, even as liberals and conservatives profess to hate the idea of government paternalism, both practice it. Liberals support restrictions on harmful things individuals do to their bodies, like smoking, driving without a seat belt, and riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Conservatives support restrictions on actions they deem harmful to the soul, like having abortions, using contraception, and marrying a person of the same sex.
I think this is a little simplistic, because it excludes people who are or lean libertarian. But, if citizens pay the price of their choices and don't force others' to pay them (like by driving while high or by forcing others to pay the medical costs for riding a motorcycle without a helmet), they should be free to make them.
And here's where Tim Noah stands:
I would never want the government to stop discouraging illicit drug use and prostitution.
It is not the government's business to tell two consenting adults that they cannot exchange money for sex or to tell a person he can't get high by eating or smoking some plant matter. Tim Noah is free to picket places prostitutes congregate and snarl at potheads, and that should be the extent of it.
Crony Capitalism Taking Over In The US
Luigi Zingales worries in an op-ed in the WSJ that we're becoming a bit too much like Italy:
In Italy today, even emergency-room doctors gain promotions on the basis of political affiliation. Instead of being told to study, young people are urged to "carry the bag" for powerful people in the hope of winning favors....Once an incompetent appointee finds himself in a powerful position, he tends to hire only subordinates of equal or lower quality, since more talented people pose a threat to him. After a few years, a firm's human capital will become so eroded that it won't be able to compete without some form of protection. The more protection it can gain from government, the greater the scope of the cronyism, which in turn makes protection even more necessary. Crony capitalism creates a vicious circle.
...Traditionally, the U.S. has enjoyed a relatively honest democracy and transparent form of capitalism, which encouraged robust economic growth and contained the hunger for entitlements. This is less and less true. The U.S. tax code is filled with loopholes and special exemptions. Political connections increasingly count more than innovative ideas; young entrepreneurs often learn to lobby before they learn how to run a business.
Seven out of the 10 richest counties in the U.S. are in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., which produces little except rules and regulations. Even worse, the slow growth and decreased social mobility of the last decade have damaged the free market's reputation as a creator of prosperity. The hundreds of millions of dollars awarded for disastrous economic performance--from Robert Rubin's salary as chairman of almost-bankrupt Citigroup to government loans for the actually bankrupt solar company Solyndra--have in turn weakened public belief in the system's fairness.
For the U.S., the moment to act is now, before the cancer of crony capitalism metastasizes. The tax code needs an overhaul that eliminates special treatment and bans any form of corporate subsidy--starting with too-big-to-fail banks. We must find ways to introduce more competition into sectors such as education and health care, while expanding economic opportunity for those at the lower end of the income spectrum. And we must curb the political power that large industry incumbents have over legislation. Not only does it distort legislation, it also forces new entrants to compete on lobbying instead of concentrating on making more innovative and cheaper products.
Fogey Days In Prison
At a Zocalo panel on James Q. Wilson, UCLA Professor of public policy Dr. Mark Kleiman said that we aren't helping ourselves by keeping 50-year-olds in jail:
"Serious crime has about the same age structure as serious basketball."
TSA: Scanners Cost $93.34 Million Per Find -- And Zero Terrorists Found
Bill Fisher at TSANewsBlog writes about the TSA waste and fraud and the TSA's success rates:
To date, there have only been three "weapons catches" directly attributable to body scanners, and none found from groin-groping. These include a "Tactical Spike" (a martial arts weapon) that was found in the sock of a passenger in Pensacola after he was screened by a body scanner, a .380 Ruger that a Detroit passenger had in an ankle holster, and a plastic knife in the hem of a woman's shirt, again in Detroit.The TSA claims that airport screeners found 1,306 guns in carry-on bags in 2011 and that passengers continue to try getting prohibited items onboard, by hiding them in their shoes or using hollowed-out books. (Never mind the fact that guns are metal and are therefore detected by -- er -- metal detectors.) Based on three weapons out of 1,306, the scanners account for a dismal 0.07% of gun finds.
When scanners are evaluated on the basis of all items found that the TSA classifies as contraband, including knives, tools, and snow globes, the record becomes even more abysmal. The TSA reports that it confiscates an average of 5 million contraband items each year, yet only 3 items were found in 2011 via scanners and none by invasive pat-downs.
...The cost per "catch" on the scanners is currently at $93.34 million per find. While no data is available on the total number of x-ray belts in use in airports, the amount spent on scanners so far would have purchased 13,334 x-ray belts. Enough to install 3.5 additional x-ray belts in each of the 377 airports in the US.
As for the invasive pat-downs inflicted on travelers as a byproduct of the TSA's forcing scanners on us, these have an even more pitiful return on investment. To date, there have been no reports of a weapon or any other banned item being found by the TSA through pat-downs.
Given that the TSA claims to do 60,000 pat downs per day - a number that may have decreased as resistance and bad press have mounted but in any case is impossible to verify -- these require on average five minutes of screener time each. Based on a media pay rate of $35,000 year and 1,920 working hours per year, each hour costs $18.23. The cost for each five-minute pat-down is $1.52, working out to a total cost per day of $91,145.
That's $91,145 every day spent on what are proven to be statistically futile searches of passenger's bodies.
Ron Bonner writes at TSANewsBlog about the vast security holes ignored by the TSA while they are busy degrading the people who keep the airlines in business:
In the news recently was a story of San Juan, Puerto Rico airport employees being arrested for moving large amounts of drugs through the airport to the mainland United States.From the report, the drugs were introduced by airport/airline employees who routinely enter airport secure areas without any TSA screening. These employees brought in large amounts of drugs, handing them off to ticketed passengers who had already been screened. Other airport/airline employees brought suitcases of drugs in by vehicle and other means and loaded these bags directly onto planes, again bypassing all TSA screening.
Now, it's not the TSA's job to interdict drug trafficking (in fact, TSA screeners have no right to search for drugs, or illegal immigrants, or cash, etc.). But this report demonstrates a glaring security hole that the TSA has refused to address. And the problem is not limited to San Juan.
Who knows what else these people might have placed aboard airplanes? The TSA doesn't know since TSA policy doesn't call for the screening of all people who enter the sterile areas of airports.
Every day thousands of people enter the terminal and flight line areas of this nation's airports without any screening of any kind. They walk or drive in and the TSA is nowhere to be found.
So while the TSA is fondling children and other innocent people who don't present any danger to airplanes, thousands of people who could present a danger are allowed unrestricted access to those airplanes. (Let's not even mention that most of the cargo still goes unscreened.)
The TSA: Obedience training for the American public to be docile in the face of having our rights yanked from us.
You Mean The Time The Lady Touched Me In My No-No Square?
Don't the airlines understand what the TSA has done to flying?
(I got the no-no square bit from Joe Wahler's cohost from his WAIF Cincinnati show. I think that's how they teach kids to avoid molesters.)
Helo-Kitty
Animal rights nutters have dropped their tofu "steaks" to squeal about a guy whose cat died and who didn't just sniffle and bury its body in the backyard.
P.S. If steak is so bad, how come tofu so desperately wants to be it?
Some People Will Choose Badly
It isn't government's job to force them to choose well. Sheldon Richman at reason links to Albert J. Nock's essays in "On Doing The Right Thing", available on Kindle
Across the political spectrum, social engineers think they need to deprive us of freedom in order to make us moral or in some way better. (Such as thin. See New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to outlaw some sugared drinks larger than 16 ounces in eateries and ballparks.) So they use the law to keep us from discriminating, gambling, eating allegedly fattening foods, taking drugs, smoking in restaurants, abstaining from helping others, leaving our seat belts unbuckled, you name it.Nock saw through this long ago:
Freedom, for example, as they keep insisting, undoubtedly means freedom to drink oneself to death. The anarchist [that's what Nock called himself] grants this at once; but at the same time he points out that it also means freedom to say with the gravedigger in Les Misérables, "I have studied, I have graduated; I never drink." It unquestionably means freedom to go on without any code of morals at all; but it also means freedom to rationalise, construct and adhere to a code of one's own. The anarchist presses the point invariably overlooked, that freedom to do the one without correlative freedom to do the other is impossible; and that just here comes in the moral education which legalism and authoritarianism, with their denial of freedom, can never furnish.
Here he echoes Thomas Paine in Rights of Man :Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all the parts of civilised community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their law; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government.Nock concluded that the purpose of his advocating freedom was nothing less than "that men may become as good and decent, as elevated and noble, as they might be and really wish to be."
...Nock's essay on the Right Thing is a reminder that the advocates of the paternalistic state, whether "left" or "right," have it backward: good conduct isn't a precondition of freedom; it is a consequence of freedom.
I'm Very Much For Gay Rights...
...As an atheist and as a person who thinks it's weird, backward and obscene to discriminate against people for being attracted to same sex partners.
As a person who cares about and tries to defend civil liberties, I'm also very much not for forcing private businesses to serve customers when it goes against their religious beliefs. There are some standards to parse in that -- and Eugene Volokh does that in a link below.
But, if you do not wish to photograph a gay wedding, as a New Mexico businessperson did not, the government has no business forcing you or fining you. As long as you aren't taking public money and as long as nobody is going to bleed out on the floor (or something like that), refusing any clients you wish to (Amy Alkon included) should be your right.
Hans Bader writes at OpenMarket of a really awful court decision that flies in the face of this:
Judges are supposed to interpret laws narrowly if a broader interpretation would potentially encroach on religious freedom. For example, in NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago (1979), the Supreme Court refused to apply the National Labor Relations Act to religious schools, even though the NLRA does not expressly exempt such schools, because subjecting them to the Act's requirements might violate Constitutional religious freedom guarantees.But the New Mexico Court of Appeals did just the opposite on May 31 in Elane Photography v. Willock. It effectively nullified religious exemptions contained in state law, and expanded the reach of a state gay rights law that bans discrimination in "public accommodations," in order to uphold an agency's order that an Evangelical Christian wedding photographer pay $6600 as a penalty for having refused to film a lesbian couple's "commitment" ceremony.
To do that, it also ignored court rulings recognizing that photography is expression protected by the First Amendment. See ACLU v. Alvarez (2012); Bery v. New York, 97 F.3d 689, 696 (2d Cir. 1996). The First Amendment generally bars the government from either restricting speech, or compelling the creation or dissemination of speech, a principle illustrated by the Supreme Court's decision in Hurley v. Irish American Gay Group of Boston (1995), a ruling that held that the St. Patrick's Day parade could not be compelled to include a gay-rights contingent, since parades are speech. (Photography is also treated as inherently expressive for purposes of the copyright laws. See Jewelers Circular Pub. Co. v. Keystone (1922).)
The appeals court is just wrong to claim that Elane Photography can constitutionally be forced to film a ceremony as long as viewers would not perceive its doing so under duress as a "message" by it "of approval for same-sex ceremonies." As Professor Eugene Volokh, a leading First Amendment scholar, notes, that claim is directly contrary to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Wooley v. Maynard (1977). The fact that Elane Photography is a business -- as the appeals court notes -- does not eliminate the First Amendment violation, as Professor Volokh explains here. While I have supported gay marriage and the inclusion of gays in the military, I do not think that government officials like judges should go out of their way to expand the reach of gay rights laws in order to persecute people for not supporting gay marriage or for not equating commitment ceremonies with marriages
Religious freedoms are an essential part of our civil liberties and you should have the freedom to say "No thanks" if what you're being asked goes against your belief.
More from Bader linking to Eugene Volokh here:
Professor Volokh explains here why the sanctions against Elane Photography do not further a compelling governmental interest. As Volokh notes, Elane Photography "should have a strong" religious-freedom "claim here, especially if there are many other photographers in the area who would gladly photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony, and especially given that the state's claim that eliminating every instance of sexual orientation discrimination [is a compelling governmental interest] rings hollow given that the state itself discriminates against same-sex commitment ceremonies in its own marriage laws," which forbid gay marriage in New Mexico.
via @walterolson
Ho Hos
A standard feature in some areas in downtown Detroit, where I'm attending the alternative newspaper conference over the next few days.
TSA: It Seems I'm Being Targeted
I'm on a plane to Detroit for the annual alternative newspaper conference. It seems I'm being targeted for gropings by the TSA. I can't prove that I am, but I get groped EVERY time I go to LAX. I'm told I'm chosen "at random." But, every single time I fly?
Also, the woman who, disgustingly, will get a weekly paycheck for groping my breasts and touching the sides of my labia and those of other female travelers, recognized me and snarled a remark about that. More on this later, because I'm almost out of computer power.
But I want to emphasize, the TSA is able to violate our civil liberties because most people are meek as mice and polite, to boot, while it happens. Don't go quietly as you are pointlessly violated by these people in the name of "safety."
If you haven't read my op-ed on why this is pointless, here's a link.
I'm hoping to coordinate some civil disobedience by a few of us in July. More on that soon, too.
Your Dog's Life Is Worth Many More Times Yours In The Meddling State Of New Jersey
Tickets for unseatbuckled humans in cars: "A measly $46 fine."
Ticket if your dog isn't wearing a seatbelt: "Penalties range from $250 to $1,000 and as much as six months in jail." (And that's for each offense. Two dogs, double the fine and jail time.)
Just wondering, what was the lobbying group behind this one?
via @WalterOlson
Welcome To The Police State: Everyone Must Be Cuffed
From an ABC story by Erin McLaughlin.
Most of us give up our civil liberties so easily at the airport -- entirely sans probable cause. Why would police treat us any differently?
Well, they didn't in Aurora Colorado. Every adult who stopped at an intersection was cuffed and had their car searched because a bank robber was on the loose.
Yes, armed bank robbers were on the loose and they cuffed and detained these citizens and banded them together in a group (according to the video) -- all the better to possibly be mowed down at gunpoint by the armed bank robber. (Photo of handcuffed people here.)
via Lisa Simeone
Bennnnnd Over, Santa Monica!
If you live in Southern California, Santa Monica is cracking down for the month of June on stop sign violations. Be sure you come to a full stop at the white line -- not the crosswalk --or you could pay about $400 in ticket and court costs and get a point on your record.
How great! Now taxpayers will be ponying up money to pay for all those programs their local elected panderers voted in -- but without seeing it as a raise in taxes!
And yes, it's the law that you should stop at a stop sign, but this is a terrible economy and $400 is more than some people make in a week. People need to connect with why ticket prices are so high -- especially as they're on their way to cast their votes.
Skits And Giggles
Here.
Father's Day Gifties
Give your dad something nice (and give me a little site-supporting kickback while you're doing it) by shopping through this link at Amazon
The Notion That Any Man Is A Molester Strikes Again
Free Range Kids' Lenore Skenazy talked on my radio show about how the media's need to gin up fear for ratings and the simple existence of stories in our minds create fears without basis in statistical reality. For example, there's this story out of Scottsdale, Arizona -- a 73-year-old grandfather being thrown out of a children's section for shopping there while male. Peter Corbett writes in the AZ Republic:
A Scottsdale man is claiming that a Barnes & Noble bookstore discriminated against him when an employee forced him out of the store because he was a male shopper alone in the children's area.Omar Amin, 73, said store worker Todd Voris told him that a female shopper had complained about him being in the children's area May 4 in the store at Shea Boulevard and Loop 101 in Scottsdale.
Amin, who was alone at the time, said he was in Barnes & Noble to buy books for his two grandchildren who live in Wisconsin.
"Men alone cannot be by themselves in the children's area," Amin said he was told, adding that Voris said other bookstores had encountered problems with child molesters.
Voris, when contacted by The Arizona Republic on Thursday, referred the call to a district manager.
Mary Ellen Keating, a Barnes & Noble spokeswoman in New York, said in an e-mail response: "We have no comment on the store matter you called about. We believe we acted appropriately."
Consumerist, where I found the story, said Barnes & Noble has since apologized:
"It is not our policy to ask customers to leave any section of our stores without justification."
Fail Is The New Pass
Via wonderful Free Range Kids' Lenore Skenazy, who just did made a terrific appearance on my radio show on Sunday, Andrea Sands writes in the Edmonton Journal that a teacher was suspended for going against a school's "no-zero" policy when grading students' tests:
A Ross Sheppard High School teacher has been suspended and expects to be fired for giving students zeros despite the school's no-zero grading practice.The physics teacher with 35 years experience said he continued giving zeros when students failed to hand in assignments, instead of using behaviour codes such as "not completed," which the school requires under its grading and reporting practice.
"To me, this is just not working," Lynden Dorval, 61, said of the no-zero policy the school introduced about a year and a half ago. "This is just a way of inflating marks and it's not benefiting the students ... It's a way of pushing kids through and making the stats look good, but at what cost?"
Under the policy, teachers must pursue students to arrange for late assignments to be completed. If the student doesn't turn in enough work for the teacher to assess progress, the teacher should enter "unable to evaluate," the policy says.
"Unable to evaluate"?
Here, allow me: Students are lazy, do-nothings, and why not? If the school system is going to let them slide all the way to graduation, why waste precious TV and pot-smoking time doing homework?
Lenore weighs in -- much like she did on my show about all this kid-coddling:
Why is this an issue on Free-Range Kids? Because it is once again treating today's teens as if they are less competent and more fragile than any of the generations preceding them. When students don't turn in a bunch of their assignments, the school asks teachers to write, "unable to evaluate." But they clearly are able to evaluate, they're just being told not to.It's not that I'm against all changes in school culture. I'm glad we don't rap students' knuckles anymore, and the dunce cap seemed pretty cruel. But a zero is a statement of fact, not an insult. Who has decided students can't handle everyday life? The same folks who think they can't handle pretty much anything else, from age-old literature (see Fannie story, below) or a bike ride to school (see this story, below) or the glare of notebook paper (see this) or a room temperature lunch (one of my favorite stories, here). But unless evolution did a U turn just a few years ago, kids can handle a lot more than we give them credit for.
FIRE Fights "Fee Speech" On College Campuses
Joseph Cohn writes at the site of the campus civil liberties defenders theFIRE.org:
Last October, FIRE intervened to protect student speech following a disturbing incident at Catawba Valley Community College (CVCC), where student Marc Bechtol was kicked out of classes mid-semester and banned from campus for two additional semesters for violating the school's policy prohibiting any "offense which, in the opinion of the administration or faculty, may be contrary to the best interest of the CVCC community."Bechtol's offense? He criticized an agreement between CVCC and financial service company Higher One that required CVCC students to carry Higher One debit cards that would also serve as their student IDs. FIRE quickly came to Bechtol's aid, and his shocking case garnered national media attention. (See this article, this article, and this article, and while you're at it, check out this one from The New York Times, too). After FIRE intervened, CVCC abandoned its punishment of Bechtol-but unfortunately, the college has refused to reform its unconstitutionally vague policy banning action that "may be contrary to the best interest of the CVCC community."
...Last month the United States Department of Education issued guidance about problematic university deals with banks--confirming that Bechtol isn't alone in his concerns about college/bank partnerships. The Department of Ed's worries are shared by others, too. For example, last week, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund released a report supporting Bechtol's dissent. The report highlights that university and college partnerships with banks (and particularly Higher One, which now has contracts with over 520 campuses) can be exploitative of students, potentially charging excessive fees and hampering students' ability to make their own banking choices.
Kickstopper
I'm now getting multiple requests daily to fund people's creative projects -- typically, the film of the second cousin twice removed of some person I barely know.
Oh...and would I mind posting a blog item for a Kickstarter request to fund somebody's best friend's dad's book? Not that I know this person more than in passing! (Of course, I wouldn't know her best friend if she [he?] held me up at gunpoint.)
I don't mind at all being asked for favors by true friends. And I'm big on supporting friends or talented strangers' FINISHED work. But, no, I'm not going to fund your friend's friend's sculpture he's making out of 300,000 wire hangers. In fact, at the moment, I'm hoping to honor the request of the DWP that I pay my electric bill.
And if every I have real money again, it's going to theFIRE.org and St. Joseph Center for the homeless.
What's with people that they think it's okay to turn every person they have the email address of upside down and shake them down for change -- or more?
Why You Shouldn't Go Nuts On Nuts
Helpful post from Chris Kresser:
In a previous article, I suggested that nut consumption should be limited or moderated because of the high levels of omega-6 fat many of them contain. But there's another reason you shouldn't make nuts a staple of your diet.One of the main principles of the Paleo diet is to avoid eating grains and legumes because of the food toxins they contain. One of those toxins, phytic acid (a.k.a. phytate), is emphasized as one of the greatest offenders.
But what is often not mentioned in books or websites about the Paleo diet is that nuts are often as high or even higher in phytic acid than grains. In fact, nuts decrease iron absorption even more than wheat bread2. This is ironic because a lot of people on the Paleo diet - who go to great lengths to avoid food toxins - are chowing down nut like they're going out of style.
More on phytic acid at the link.
Shits And Gimlets
For a change of pace.
Rebecca Watson Again: "Groped, Grabbed, Touched In Other Nonconsensual Ways"
According to her, in a post about why she won't be attending James Randi's The Amazing Meeting this year, male atheists (apparently she's talking about atheist conferences) are HORRIBLE PEOPLE who just think they can reach out and grab a woman at any moment:
Over the past several years, I've been groped, grabbed, touched in other nonconsensual ways, told I can expect to be raped, told I'm a whore, a slut, a bitch, a prude, a dyke, a cunt, a twat, told I should watch my back at conferences, told I'm too ugly to be raped, told I don't have a say in my own treatment because I've posed for sexy photos, told I should get a better headshot because that one doesn't convey how sexy I am in person, told I deserve to be raped - by skeptics and atheists. All by skeptics and atheists. Constantly.
"I should get a better headshot because that one doesn't convey how sexy I am in person." I would say "Thanks," not get my godless knickers in wad, and I guess I'm just not as hot as she is or I go to the wrong conferences because I'm also an atheist and people at conferences ask if I'm going to the 10:30 thing, not if I'd like a little rapey-rapey with my lunch.
Of course, I go to newspaper conferences and psychology and evolutionary psychology conferences. At the only atheist conference I've been to, the Atheists Alliance conference perhaps eight years ago, Ben Edward Akerley, who invited me, and who wore a darling lavender suit jacket, asked me if I'd like to sit next to him at lunch. I was deeply offended and immediately burst into tears, of course.
Last year's post that lit up my comments section -- and I'm sure, Watson's traffic -- was about a little experience she had in the elevator. My post on her post:
When Women Confuse Being Asked Out With Being Raped At Knifepoint In An Elevator
It's amazing how an atheist can so easily make being a feminist sound like a religion...
Only 649 comments on that post.
via @mpigliucci
Your Time Is Their Time (Wasn't There An Amendment Against That Sort Of Thing?)
Disgusting attempt to steal people's time -- a call for a 50-hour public service requirement for admission to the New York Bar. In the NYT, Ben Trachtenberg writes:
THE chief judge of New York State, Jonathan Lippman, announced at a Law Day ceremony on May 1 that, starting next year, aspiring lawyers must perform 50 pro bono service hours before joining the state bar. The goal is to provide legal services to needy clients, including those facing eviction, foreclosure and domestic abuse.Mandatory pro bono work for lawyers is a good idea. But Judge Lippman's plan is deeply flawed, as it affects only aspiring lawyers who have not yet gained admission to the bar. As a result, the beneficiaries of Judge Lippman's largess will be served by people unlicensed to practice law -- who by definition have no real practice experience. (Though internships and law school clinics are useful training grounds for future lawyers, they are no substitute for the rigors of licensed practice.)
Pro bono work is a wonderful idea -- by those who chose to give their time. First Amendment lawyer Marc J. Randazza and his associates put in a substantial amount of research and work -- at substantial cost to Marc -- to respond to the lawyer of the TSA agent who was trying to squeeze me for $500,000 for daring to exercise my First Amendment rights to complain that my Fourth Amendment rights were stolen from me (and are from all other citizens who travel by plane).
I couldn't have afforded a lawyer to defend me, but that doesn't mean I am entitled to a lawyer's time. Marc cares about free speech and was extremely generous in its -- and my -- defense.
But, we have a name for forced labor and it's slavery. And Trachtenberg's op-ed is home to a smart thought -- that aspiring lawyers aren't exactly the best defenders. And he's right. But that doesn't mean that experienced lawyers should be forced to hand over their time for free -- unless they so choose. (And many do.) Others, like David Feige, turn down high-paying jobs at big law firms and work as public defenders.
UC Irvine law school dean Chemerinsky writes in a letter to the editor:
All law students and lawyers should be expected to do pro bono work.
No, all law students and lawyers can be encouraged to do pro bono work. If you're a great lawyer, perhaps you can use your talents to persuade them. And let me just say that I am a strong supporter of volunteering and do it in formal and informal ways.
I also write in I See Rude People that it is in our self-interest to be generous and pro-social, and support that contention with references to research. Show people that it benefits them to benefit others and maybe they'll be more likely to do that.
In the letters to the editor and the Trachtenberg's op-ed itself, however, it's just taken for granted that forced labor is good. Disgusting.
Eat Less Salt? Why?
Investigative science journalist Gary Taubes writes in The New York Times about the received "wisdom" that salt is bad for us:
This eat-less-salt argument has been surprisingly controversial -- and difficult to defend. Not because the food industry opposes it, but because the actual evidence to support it has always been so weak.When I spent the better part of a year researching the state of the salt science back in 1998 -- already a quarter century into the eat-less-salt recommendations -- journal editors and public health administrators were still remarkably candid in their assessment of how flimsy the evidence was implicating salt as the cause of hypertension.
...WHY have we been told that salt is so deadly? Well, the advice has always sounded reasonable. It has what nutritionists like to call "biological plausibility." Eat more salt and your body retains water to maintain a stable concentration of sodium in your blood. This is why eating salty food tends to make us thirsty: we drink more; we retain water. The result can be a temporary increase in blood pressure, which will persist until our kidneys eliminate both salt and water.
...With nearly everyone focused on the supposed benefits of salt restriction, little research was done to look at the potential dangers. But four years ago, Italian researchers began publishing the results from a series of clinical trials, all of which reported that, among patients with heart failure, reducing salt consumption increased the risk of death.
...When several agencies, including the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, held a hearing last November to discuss how to go about getting Americans to eat less salt (as opposed to whether or not we should eat less salt), these proponents argued that the latest reports suggesting damage from lower-salt diets should simply be ignored.
...This attitude that studies that go against prevailing beliefs should be ignored on the basis that, well, they go against prevailing beliefs, has been the norm for the anti-salt campaign for decades. Maybe now the prevailing beliefs should be changed.
Scholarship Quibble: He Earned It
There's been some grousing that Sean "Diddy" Combs' son got a $54,000 UCLA football scholarship. Kate Mather writes for the Los Angeles Times:
When Justin Combs turned 16, his father, hip-hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, gave him a $360,000 silver Maybach.When Justin Combs decided to play football in college, UCLA gave him a $54,000 scholarship.
As UCLA confirmed this week that the recent graduate of New York's New Rochelle Iona Prep would enroll on a full athletic scholarship, some questioned if the cash-strapped school should pay for the education of the son of a man worth an estimated $475 million -- and whether the 18-year-old should have accepted the offer.
Justin Combs took to Twitter to defend his scholarship.
"Regardless what the circumstances are, I put that work in!!!!" he tweeted on Wednesday. "PERIOD."
Agree? Disagree? Why?
Giggles And Shits
Who says this blog won't go in reverse?
Advice Goddess Radio: Tonight, 7-8pm PT, 10-11pm ET -- Lenore Skenazy On Free-Range Kids
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 neither a therapist nor a researcher, but I couldn't resist having her on. My guest is my friend and former columnist colleague at the New York Daily News, Lenore Skenazy, who wrote the book Free-Range Kids, Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry
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/2012/06/04/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
And don't miss last week's Advice Goddess Radio, a wonderful show with psychiatrist and business coach Dr. Mark Goulston, with life-changing advice on listening and persuading:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/05/28/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
His book, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone
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
"The 5th Avenue To Serfdom"
Love that Hayek-inspired headline on Holman Jenkins' recent column in the WSJ. He points out, vis a vis New York's Big Mommy Mike Bloomberg's move to ban the sale of gigundo sodas, that nobody thought to take away your Big Gulp until the government began to pay for everyone's health care:
Half of the city's residents allegedly are obese or overweight--a stat seemingly belied by the ladies who lunch and the impression on the subway that New York remains one of the few places in America where people have not ballooned to supersize. But by the state's own estimate, it spends $8 billion annually treating obesity-related ailments under Medicaid, which is how 40% of city residents now get their health care.Here is the ultimate justification for the Bloomberg soft-drink ban, not to mention his smoking ban, his transfat ban, and his unsuccessful efforts to enact a soda tax and prohibit buying high-calorie drinks with food stamps: The taxpayer is picking up the bill.
Call it the growing chattelization of the beneficiary class under government health-care programs. Bloombergism is a secular trend. Los Angeles has sought to ban new fast-food shops in neighborhoods disproportionately populated by Medicaid recipients, Utah to increase Medicaid copays for smokers, Arizona to impose a special tax on Medicaid recipients who smoke or are overweight. New York itself, with private money, some of it from Mr. Bloomberg's own pocket, has also tried the carrot approach, dangling direct payments to encourage beneficiary families to adopt healthier habits.
So perhaps the famous "broccoli" hypothetical during the Supreme Court ObamaCare debate was not so fanciful after all. It flows naturally from the state's fiscal responsibility for your health that it will try to regulate your behavior, even mandating vegetable consumption.
Pay for your own insurance and whether you are a lardass is between you, your insurance company and their rate-makers.
Because I am frugal and didn't go into a profession that pays in big chests of gold doubloons, I was very careful about my choice of healthcare coverage, picking Kaiser HMO in my early 20s, and paying for it myself every month ever since. They charge by age, and once you're in, you're in.
But, idiotically, Obamacare did not untie healthcare from the workplace, in an age when few people stay in jobs for a lifetime. Health problems that crop up chain many to jobs they would otherwise leave, and health care is as screwed up as it's ever been.
The Little Guys Squash Easier
Joe Nocera writes in The New York Times about how the government is going after the smallest of the small fry for home loan fraud, like Charlie Engle, 49, who went to jail for lying on a "liar loan" during the housing bubble:
There were two things about Charlie's prosecution that really bothered me. First, he'd clearly been targeted by an agent of the Internal Revenue Service who seemed offended that Charlie was an ultramarathoner without a steady day job. The I.R.S. conducted "Dumpster dives" into his garbage and put a wire on a female undercover agent hoping to find some dirt on him. Unable to unearth any wrongdoing on his tax returns, the I.R.S. discovered he had taken out several subprime mortgages that didn't require income verification. His income on one of them was wildly inflated. They don't call them liar loans for nothing.Charlie has always insisted that he never filled out the loan document -- his mortgage broker did it, and he was actually a victim of mortgage fraud. (The broker later pleaded guilty to another mortgage fraud.) Indeed, according to a recent court filing by Charlie's lawyer, the government failed to turn over exculpatory evidence that could have helped Charlie prove his innocence. For whatever inexplicable reason, prosecutors really wanted to nail Charlie Engle. And they did.
Second, though, it seemed incredible to me that with all the fraud that took place during the housing bubble, the Justice Department was focusing not on the banks that had issued the fraudulent loans, but rather on those who had taken out the loans, which invariably went sour when housing prices fell.
As I would later learn, Charlie Engle was no aberration. The current meme -- argued most recently by Charles Ferguson, in his new book "Predator Nation" -- is that not a single top executive at any of the firms that nearly brought down the financial system has spent so much as a day in jail. And that is true enough.
But what is also true, and which is every bit as corrosive to our belief in the rule of law, is that the Justice Department has instead taken after the smallest of small fry -- and then trumpeted those prosecutions as proof of how tough it is on mortgage fraud. It is a shameful way for the government to act.
P.S. Check out the end line of Nocera's piece, referencing Enron, Worldcomm and Tyco prosecutions during the previous administration:
Amazing, isn't it? George W. Bush has turned out to be tougher on corporate crooks than Barack Obama.
And yes, Engle did engage in fraud, but regarding who gets prosecuted and who does not, as the saying (sorta) goes, "Some people's fraud counts more than others.'"
How To Drop Pounds
Gary Taubes interviewed by Lisa Davis in Reader's Digest on why conventional diets don't work and what you can do to actually lose weight:
"Our mothers grew up believing refined carbohydrates and starches were fattening--pasta, potatoes, bread, sweets, rice, and corn. And they were right: These foods literally make you fat. Sweets are probably the worst, along with sugar-water combinations, which can be anything from fruit juice to Coca-Cola. The reason is that refined carbohydrates raise your insulin levels. Scientists have known since the early 1960s that insulin is the primary hormone that regulates your fat tissue. This is not controversial--if you go to an endo- crinology textbook and look up what makes a fat cell fat, it'll tell you all the ways insulin does it. Then you look up obesity, and it'll say people get fat because they eat too much and exercise too little. There's a complete disconnect between the fundamen- tal science and the cause of human obesity."All I'm saying to obesity researchers is, Pay attention to the hormonal and enzymatic regulation of the fat tissue. If you do, you'll get a different answer for what causes obesity and what cures it. Basically, Dr. Atkins got it right with the Atkins diet, although he didn't get all the science right."
..."I'll walk down the street and see somebody who's obese, and I can't see it as anything but a hormonal disorder. Not everyone gets fat from eat- ing carbohydrates--it has to do with how sensitive your cells are to insulin and specifically how sensitive your fat cells are versus your muscle cells. But some huge percentage of the people who do get fat got that way because of the carbs in their diet. If you've been fat for a long time, getting rid of carbohydrates might not make you lean. But the leanest you can be is on the diet with the fewest carbohydrates.
"Are there some cautions? Yes--some people feel low energy while their bodies adjust to this way of eating, though adding a little salt or bouillon to your diet can take care of that. A low-carb diet can reduce your blood pressure, too, so you might have to adjust your medication--if you have a medical condition, you should talk to your doctor first. But basically, I'm just saying, Eat what humans evolved to eat. Highly refined grains and sugars were not part of our diet for 99.999 percent of human history. Back when we were hunter-gatherers, we ate meat as often as we could get it, and when we ate plants, they were much tougher and higher in fiber than they are today--much lower in digestible carbs, in other words. This isn't a diet. The fundamental idea is, Don't eat the foods that make you fat. Beyond that, you can eat as much as you want."
Taubes' latest book: Why We Get Fat.
Pat Condell: Appeasing Islam
From 2008, but I came upon it again on Saturday. Love the wife-beating crack at the beginning:
Shits And Giggles
Not necessarily in that order.
Father's Day Gifties
Fifty percent off men's summer clothing and Dad stuff on sale at Amazon
"Your First Amendment Right Can Be Terminated," The Officer Said
Via Glenn Reynolds, cop arrests NBC reporter and cameraman:
32 Innovations That Will Change Your Tomorrow (Or Make You Roll Your Eyes)
Some cool stuff (and some dumb and/or ridiculous) in this compilation in The New York Times. Here's #17, written by Clay Risen -- Terrifying Playgrounds, that relates to the radio show I'll be doing Sunday Night With Free-Range Kids
Two Norwegian psychologists think that modern playgrounds are for wimps. Instead of short climbing walls, there should be towering monkey bars. Instead of plastic crawl tubes, there should be tall, steep slides. And balance beams. And rope swings. The rationale is that the more we shield children from potential scrapes and sprained ankles, the more unprepared they'll be for real risk as adults, and the less aware they'll be of their surroundings. Leif Kennair and Ellen Sandseter's ideas have won the support of playground experts on both sides of the Atlantic; one company, Landscape Structures, offers a 10-foot-high climbing wall that twists like a Möbius strip.
Risen wrote this one up, too -- #23, Teeth That Think:
Scientists at Princeton and Tufts are working on a superthin tooth sensor (a kind of temporary tattoo) that sends an alert when it detects bacteria associated with plaque buildup, cavities or infection. It could also notify your dentist, adding an extra layer of social pressure to make an appointment. The sensor may have wide-ranging use: the researchers have already used it to identify bacteria in saliva associated with stomach ulcers and cancers. While the sensor won't last long on the surface of a well-brushed and flossed tooth, Michael McAlpine, the project's leader, says that the sensors will be inexpensive enough that you can replace them daily.
#28 is Michelin-Star TV Dinners:
Frozen food may soon be on par with anything you can get at a three-star restaurant. Sous vide -- a process in which food is heated over a very long period in a low-temperature water bath -- has been used in high-end restaurants for more than a decade. (Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud were early proponents.) But the once-rarefied technique is becoming mass market. Cuisine Solutions, the company that pioneered sous vide (Keller hired it to train his chefs), now supplies food to grocery stores and the U.S. military. Your local Costco or Wegmans may sell perfectly cooked sous vide lamb shanks, osso buco or turkey roulade. Unlike most meals in the freezer aisle, sous vide food can be reheated in a pot of boiling water and still taste as if it were just prepared. And because sous vide makes it almost impossible to overcook food, it's perfect for the home cook. Fortunately, sous vide machines are becoming more affordable. "It's like the microwave was 30 years ago," Keller says.
Oddly, Michael Ruhlman, who wrote that up, couldn't bring himself to mention the affordable Sous Vide machine for the home that you can buy at Amazon. Here's a link: SousVide Supreme Sous Vide Water Oven.
Oh, and by the way, the Sous Vide Supreme is a product of Dr. Michael Eades and Dr. Mary Dan Eades, best known here for their evidence-based advice on low-carb eating.
Advice Goddess Radio: Get The Podcast - Dr. Mark Goulston On Listening
From this past Sunday, in case you missed it, wonderful show with psychiatrist and business coach Dr. Mark Goulston, with life-changing advice on listening and persuading:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/05/28/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
His book, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone
Wanna Pay 60 Percent Of Your Income In Taxes?
That's how they get "free" health care in France. From Paris Chronicles:
The French national health system, la sécurité sociale, is often cited as one of the best in the world. It served as a model for ObamaCare and Michael Moore gives it ample laudatory footage in his 2007 film "Sicko". But as with any industry where humans are involved, there is good and there is the not-so-good. And then there is the downright ridiculous, which I wrote about in the Papaya Cure.As a longtime beneficiary of the health system here, (and surely an even more-active consumer-to-be now that I'm a quinquagenarian) I've had lots of opportunities to observe and experience some of the terrific--as well as odd--services that make the French national health system one of the most talked-about when we talk about healthcare.
The Good and the Enviable: Cost
"In France, you pay into the system according to your means. And you take out of the system according to your illness."
I'm misquoting Karl Marx here, but this is the core philosophy upon which the French system is constructed. Outsiders often think that the French system of socialized medicine is free. Guide books will tell you that should you take ill while vacationing in France, you can walk into any emergency room and be treated "without paying a dime!". But the reality is that it's not free--we are taxed heavily (I pay 60% of my gross salary back to the government and they disburse it to several agencies, the healthcare system being but one of them). In that way, paying taxes is a bit like paying an obligatory insurance policy. If you have children, get sick a lot (or have children who get sick a lot), live to be old (and get sick a lot), you'll be very happy that you and your fellow citizens paid all those taxes all those years. On the other hand if you are childless, in excellent health and age without incident, you'll never get your money back out of the system. But you are helping the Community (which is, after all, one of the tenets of the French Republic) so that alone will get you in to heaven. (And with that sentence, I just violated another tenet of the French Republic, which is to never mix the sacred and the secular.)
I've already amortized my investment. Between birthing one baby on French soil and having a serious accident with a resulting year of physiotherapy, I'd say the French have put about 1.5 million dollars in me at this point. So you'll never hear me complaining about the system here, unless it's about the hospital food.
A commenter writes:
Doctors overprescribe...you never leave a doctor consultation without a prescription for at least six medications, most of which can be bought OTC. But if the doctor prescribes them, they are "free" so the French prefer to visit the doctor to save a couple of euros on the tylenol or whatever. I've always found this odd, although I guess when you are 70 you have more time to spend going to see various practioners.
Oh, and college in France is practically free -- to those attending, not to the other citizens who are paying their way. Here from Wikipedia:
Tuition costsSince higher education is funded by the state, the fees are very low; the tuition varies from 150€ to 700€ depending on the university and the different levels of education. (licence, master, doctorate). One can therefore get a Master's degree (in 5 years) for about 750-3,500€. Additionally, students from low-income families can apply for scholarships, paying nominal sums for tuition or textbooks, and can receive a monthly stipend of up to 450€/month.
The tuition in public engineering schools is comparable to universities, albeit a little higher (around 700€). However it can reach 7000€ a year for private engineering schools, and some business schools, which are all private or partially private, charge up to 8900€ a year.
Lovely, huh -- except for how France is broke off its ass?
Young Snot Gets Indignant That I Won't Give Him Something For Nothing
Thursday's email:
Dear AmyMy name is Eric and I'm a new advice columnist for the DELETED my local news paper. My editor will not let me write about any topic outside of Christianity. Though I am a devoted Christian and i love writing about that topic, I'm running out of idea. I was hoping you can help me out. I was reading your bio about how you have written award winning books. I was wondering if I can call you or keep in contact with you via email to get some information from you on how to become more of an experienced advice columnist. I am about to graduate with my BA in music. However I really want to write. I saw you are not a licenses psychologist. Neither am I nor will I be. I just want to help. This is my first year (not paid) as working as one. Is it okay with you to ask some information from you either through a phone call or through email? Thank you so very much for your time.
Sincerely
Eric
My reply:
Sorry, Eric, I give business advice for a fee. I just can't afford to give free advice on topics I can't address in my column. I can do this by phone for a fee: http://www.advicegoddess.com/private-session.html
Friday morning, I get this back:
Dear Amy,All I wanted to know was how you became so successful as an Advice Columnist with no psychology background or degree. I am new at this and I wanted inspiration to be someone like you out there helping others. But, I guess money is more important to you than helping. I know the economy is tough these days. I know all about that being fresh out of college. But, as an Advice Columnist, you should put helping people above a pay. I am doing this for free at my local newspaper for free (I have a big following as well) each week. Showing that email to my co-workers at the newspaper, too, they agree with my opinion at hand along with many other writers I work with outside the newspaper. I wanted to be like you after reading your articles and looking at the books you have published. But, after that email, you are the exact advice columnist I don't want to be. I want people to come to me knowing I will help them no matter what. I guess I am going to have to find a new inspiration. But, I will never stop what I do: having a want to help others no matter what. Thank you for all your time. I appreciate that much at least.
Best Wishes,
Eric
My reply:
"But, I guess money is more important to you than helping"Nice touch.
I give a great deal of free advice every day to people whose questions will never make my column, but I need to limit the free advice I give or I'd never get any work done.
Money is very important to me because I need to pay my electric bill and rent in order to continue writing. I built a business and that's what you're looking to do -- but without valuing the time of those you're looking for advice from. You are irate that I will not give you my time for free. How obscene.
"But, as an Advice Columnist, you should put helping people above a pay."
I choose to give my time for free to inner city children and I looked after a homeless guy -- one who's integrated back into society now. I do not choose to give it to you, to tell you how you can become my competition. Imagine that!
You don't "appreciate my time." You're an insincere snot who wanted something for nothing from a total stranger and who was indignant at not getting it.
Go feed a homeless guy today to make up for trying to make me feel bad (and failing, by the way) for refusing to give you something for nothing.
And here's some advice: Nobody owes you anything. And by treating them as if they do, you won't get anything out of it from them but disdain.
Also, regarding the opinion of your coworkers, popular opinion does not trump having values. A pity you don't know that and think this is a valid argument.
Being the sort of person the email above reflects -- entitled, bratty, and immature -- you have no business giving advice to anyone. Read some Krishnamurti -- Freedom from the Known
-- and work on that ratty interior of yours.
And don't sign "best wishes" when you don't mean it.
-Amy Alkon
On a related note, I was just talking with a girlfriend about how important we both think it is to mentor younger people (when I was in New York, this wonderful man, then a copywriter at an ad agency, was a mentor and friend to me). My girlfriend and I both do this with a few younger people in our lives. But again, I choose to give these people my time because they mean something to me; they don't demand it.
Laughing Gas
Insert straw and blow.
Italy And Taxing The Church: Making Change
Carol Matlack writes at Bloomberg Businessweek that change is being made in Italy in the Church's tax status:
Under Italian law, most buildings owned by the Catholic Church are tax-exempt, even if used for commercial purposes.That could soon change. In an announcement posted Feb. 15 on the government's website, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said he would seek legislation requiring the church to pay taxes on all its commercial holdings. About one-third of the 100,000 properties owned by the church in Italy are used for commercial ventures, according to Italy's Radical Party, which has long campaigned against the tax exemption.
Existing laws say that church-owned buildings used for "purely commercial" purposes are to be taxed. But many ventures, such as the Santuario della Verna guesthouse, remain exempt because they are attached to properties used for religious purposes. (Property within Vatican City, which is a sovereign state and therefore not subject to Italian laws, would not be affected by the government's plan.)
Via Marginal Revolution, where Emanuele writes in the comments:
Catholic Hostels with Tax Exemption (were) unfairly competing with normal ones. A 10% margin can be quite a big advantage in a free market. The problem was not only related (to) Catholic institutions by the way. On the same page, enjoying Tax Exemption on unrelated activities, there were political associations and labor unions.
(I think English isn't her first language so I made a few corrections -- see parentheses.)
Magazines, Cheep, Cheep, Cheep
Select magazines are $5 at Amazon
They have this annoying "auto-renewal" thing built in, but you can actually turn it off. They post:
More About Auto-RenewalWith auto-renewal, we'll renew on your behalf so you'll never miss an issue. You can adjust your auto-renewal settings at any time by following these steps:
• After checkout, visit the Magazine Subscription Manager.
• Locate the magazine in your list of magazine orders.
• Click the "Turn off auto-renewal" button.
After turning off auto-renewal, you will continue to receive the magazine for the duration of the initial subscription term.
Your Amazon purchases help support me and this site, and they're greatly appreciated. If you'd like to buy something I don't link to, just go to Amy's Mall and click on "Powered By Amazon" (upper left) to open their search window, and I will get small kickbacks for all your purchases without it costing you any extra. You can also save this link to open a search window that kicks back to me: http://www.amazon.com/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=advicegoddess-20&linkCode=sb1&camp=212353&creative=380557
Do You Live "Interestingly"?
A request from my friend, researcher Dr. Bella DePaulo, whose work I've included in my column and who has appeared on my radio show:
Do you live with friends or siblings? With parents or grandparents or grown children? Do you have a spouse or other long-term romantic partner AND a place of your own - not because of job demands but because you each want your own space? Have you moved to be closer to people you care about, even if you do not share a home with them?Bella DePaulo is looking for people who live in these ways and any other interesting way. (Not interesting: a couple, or a couple and their young children - and no one else -- living under the same roof. That's too ordinary.)
If you qualify and want to share your story, you can fill out an online survey, https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HPFJZDG, and/or contact Bella directly at BellaDePaulo [at] gmail.com.
Philly Homeless People Are More "Dignified" If They're Hungry?
When I used to be a runner, I liked seeing the volunteers (I think they were volunteers, not from the city) who set up a table at the edge of the Santa Monica Palisades park to feed the homeless.
In Philadelphia, the city is going to start enforcing a ban on such outdoor feeding programs. Nice!
From CBSPhilly, Cherri Gregg writes:
Mayor Michael Nutter has said the ban will protect the dignity of the homeless, cleanliness of the parks, and eliminate food health concerns. But dozens of opponents testified at a City Council Committee hearing on Thursday, calling the Mayor's reasons for the ban misleading."These regulations are clearly designated not with the intent of protecting the health and dignity of the homeless, but are designed to tuck the homeless in a corner and pretend that the problem does not exist in our city," said Reverend Brian Jenkins of Chosen 300 Ministries.
For years, the group has held feedings for the homeless along the Ben Franklin Parkway.
"The people are the number one resources of this city, not the Barnes Museum," said Erike Younge, writer at the One Step Away, a newspaper which represents the voice of the city's homeless. "Feeding people and serving the needs of the people is a fundamental right. And to ban it or to oppose it and not to work to solve this problem is unconstitutional and inhumane."
via ifeminists
The State Knows Best What Works For Your Disabled Child!
Via @overlawyered, a Chicago Trib piece by William Choslovsky on state meddling in how disabled people are allowed to be housed and live in Illinois:
When schools could not serve him, Rita home-schooled Brian, even teaching him "how to read words he does not completely understand." But when Brian's behaviors became too much, the family looked for help. They tried many placements in the "community," because as Rita says, "we wanted Brian to live as independent a life as possible."But they all failed. "However hard they tried, all the places eventually kicked Brian out because private facilities do not have to keep difficult residents with extreme needs. And Brian was extreme," Rita says.
So in 1990, when Brian was 20, they placed him at the state-operated Clyde L. Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center in downstate Anna. "It's been a godsend. No other place could address all of Brian's complex needs," Rita says. She adds, "Brian functions at his maximum potential at Choate, has an on-campus job, enjoys his music, interacts with friends -- has a real community life."
Choate, with 158 residents, is one of eight large facilities the state of Illinois still operates where Brian and 2,000 others live. But the state, along with many self-proclaimed "advocates," wants to close the facilities, which they call "institutions." As Tony Paulauski, director of the disability group Arc of Illinois recently wrote, "It is imperative that state institutions be closed in Illinois."
Advocates like Paulauski and state bureaucrats make for strange bedfellows. The advocates are motivated by dogma, believing all disabled people can and should live in the "community," while state officials see a way to save money in tough economic times.
"But nobody sees Brian," Rita says. "Choate is not an institution, it is his home in the best sense of the word."
You see, here is the cold, hard truth: "For Brian -- and many other high-needs individuals -- an institution is best. This is not theory, as Brian tried living in the community many times," Rita says.
The problem is also more than just the eight state facilities, which are very expensive. Many advocates also target the hundreds of private facilities, like Misericordia Home here in Chicago, even though they cost the state no more than many "community" placements. Basically these advocates define any place with more than eight beds as an "institution," which they think improper.
Kicking Off Some Team Awesome
I was going to my favorite cafe, and I parked on the street. As I walked down the sidewalk to the cafe, I saw a guy who looked homeless and maybe crazy coming in toward me so I did what I've done since my New York days, walked into the street as if I were going to a car.
I got to the cafe and got a table, and when I got up to order my coffee, I spotted the man again, in the cafe. I wasn't afraid in an environment with a lot of other people, so I told Linda, the manager that I wanted to buy him a cup of coffee. She said she'd seen him before -- that he sleeps in the alley behind her place.
I went over to him and asked him if I could buy him a cup of coffee. "You don't have to," he said.
"I want to," I told him.
Another woman waiting for her breakfast heard me, saw the guy, and came up to me as I was paying and asked if I needed help (paying for the guy, that is). I said thanks, but I'd get the coffee, and then I added, "You could buy him a pastry or something."
Linda ended up giving me a scone and a banana to give to him. I came over to the woman with food and said Linda had contributed it. Then we talked a little bit, and she said it was nice I'd done that, and I said that my feeling was, with a little bad luck or some mental illness, any of us could be in his position.
We talked a bit more. She's from Wyoming and was here getting her son settled -- he has an internship at a recording studio here.
I told her not to believe the stuff people say about LA, that it's just different from other places and you have to work a little harder to create community here. I told her that, after LA was declared by Travel+Leisure to be the rudest place in America, I wrote a piece that included this very cafe, and talked about how there's a "culture of hugging" here. (When Kay and Earl, these elderly people come in to read mystery novels, people get up to hug them...sometimes even line up to hug them.)
The woman had to go, but then she did this wonderful thing -- left me $20 to give to the homeless guy, who'd been in the bathroom, probably washing up. (I'd been waiting for him to come out to give him the coffee and food.) When he emerged, I gave him the food and the $20 and poured him some coffee and told him where the milk was when he came out.
He said "I'm uncouth," and I said no, he wasn't -- I didn't think that.
But, sad that it comes to this, At least today, a few people teamed up to make live a little less terrible for him. I told Linda that when she sees him in the alley, she could call St. Joseph's center (for the homeless). They do interventions where they give homeless people a place to live (if they want -- they don't force them), and not just in shelters.
And I'm sure all of us have had those times where we've really been in need of something -- not homeless, maybe, but with a flat tire at a terrible time, or pickpocketed, or somehow seriously kicked in the ass by life on a particular day. Think of the person who came to your rescue the next time you see somebody who could really use rescue and consider pitching in.
I Don't Think That's What Was Meant By "The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living"
I turned on my TV last night, which for some irritating reason defaults to E!, and discovered that Clint Eastwood's wife and daughters have a reality show.
Attorneys Take All? Not If Ted Frank Is Around
Ted Frank and his Center For Class Action Fairness are taking on abusive class action decisions where the represented class gets little or no compensation and the lawyers take all. His latest, which he sent me by email:
The Center for Class Action Fairness LLC announced today its victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit objecting to a class action settlement that arbitrarily froze out over a million class members from meaningful recovery while paying the attorneys over $9.2 million.On Thursday, the appellate court vacated a district court's 2010 approval of a settlement of a lawsuit over allegedly defectively leaky Volkswagen and Audi sunroofs.
While the settlement permitted many class members to submit claims for water damage, an uncertified and unrepresented "subclass" of over a million car owners received no financial compensation.
The settling parties defended this unjust result by arguing that the settlement provided these owners with a letter notifying them of the need for additional maintenance, and submitted an implausible economic expert report (adopted by the trial court) that this letter was worth millions of dollars.
The Third Circuit rejected the proposition that class members in the same class with the same claims could receive such disparate treatment.
Ted Frank, who argued the appeal in March, has now won three out of the four challenges to class action settlement approvals federal appellate courts have decided since he founded CCAF in 2009.This case is particularly important because, in late 2011, an en banc panel of the Third Circuit decided in Sullivan v. DB Investments to reduce the scrutiny given to intra-class conflicts in class action settlements; today's decision confirms that Sullivan does not given carte blanche to unfair treatment of class members.
A few years back, after I read about what Ted Frank was doing on Overlawyered.com, I volunteered to be one of the lead plaintiffs in his challenge of the Costco gas decision. I love Costco, and really can't imagine, if there was some discrepancy in the gas I paid for and the gas I got, that it amounted to more than a few pennies. But, the Costco decision was decided with the class acdtion lawyers carrying off wheelbarrows of money ($10 million) and the represented class left very unrepresented financially (getting zero dollars), so I was pleased to join on.
More about Frank and the Center here:
The Center for Class Action Fairness is a not-for-profit program that provides pro bono representation to consumers and shareholders aggrieved by class action attorneys who negotiate settlements that benefit themselves at the expense of their putative clients. With a skeleton staff, it has won millions of dollars for class members over the last three years; it has won rejections of unfair settlements, pecuniary benefits for the class, and over $150 million in fee reductions in eighteen different cases. Attorneys affiliated with the Center have eight cases pending on appeal in the federal courts, and a ninth in Texas state court.
In God We Trust!
God must have been taking a pee break.
