Indentured Servitude For All Young Americans!
I was surprised that the WSJ published this op-ed by General McChrystal, calling for "a year or two" of "national service":
The duties of citizenship have fallen from the national agenda. Talk of service is largely confined to buoyant commencement ceremonies. And too often it is just that: talk.Less than 1% of Americans serve in the military--a historic low during wartime--leading to a broad, complacent assumption that serving the nation is someone else's job. As we've allowed our understanding of service to be so narrowly limited to the uniform, we've forgotten Lincoln's audience: With the armies still fighting, the president exhorted a crowd of civilians on their duty to carry forward the nation's work.
It is right that we send off the young Americans graduating this month from high school, college and professional schools with speeches. They should be congratulated for completing the many exams now behind them. But we must remember another test--Lincoln's test of citizenship--and begin to mark these important junctures in life not just with words, but with real-world commitment.
Universal national service should become a new American rite of passage. Here is a specific, realistic proposal that would create one million full-time civilian national-service positions for Americans ages 18-28 that would complement the active-duty military--and would change the current cultural expectation that service is only the duty of those in uniform.
At age 18, every young man and woman would receive information on various options for national service. Along with the five branches of the military, graduates would learn about new civilian service branches organized around urgent issues like education, health care and poverty. The positions within these branches would be offered through AmeriCorps as well as through certified nonprofits. Service would last at least a year.
Returning military veterans would be treated as the civic assets they are and permitted to use a portion of their GI Bill benefits to support a period of civilian national service, since such service helps them transition to life back home.
The new service opportunities would be created in accordance with the smart rules that have guided AmeriCorps since its founding in 1994, which allow that program to field tens of thousands of service members without displacing workers and who fill vital niches their paid colleagues do not.
...Instead of making national service legally mandatory, corporations and universities, among other institutions, could be enlisted to make national service socially obligatory. Schools can adjust their acceptance policies and employers their hiring practices to benefit those who have served--and effectively penalize those who do not.
Just a suspicion on my part, but I'm guessing he really wants this to be mandatory but knows suggestion would not fly -- now, anyway.
I agreed with commenter Alan Sewell at the WSJ on this point:
It's a waste of national resources for young people who do have career options. Why should a young person be delayed for two years from starting a career in order to sweep the streets in the 'hood? The idea is demeaning.
The Littlest Criminals: Today's Gun "Violence" Tale
We like to hammer 'em down young these days, like in kindergarten. Yet another story of a kid with a "gun" -- in this case, a cap gun. Eric Owens writes at The Daily Caller:
In the latest incident of anti-gun hysteria to erupt in a school setting, a kindergarten boy has been suspended from school for 10 days because he showed a friend his cowboy-style cap gun on the way to school.The incident happened on Wednesday morning at about 8:30 a.m. on a school bus in Calvert County, Maryland, reports The Washington Post.
The kindergartener had brought the toy gun because his friend had brought a water gun the previous day. He later told his mother than he "really, really" wanted his friend to see it.
The rat school officials interrogated the kid for over two hours -- until he wet his pants, which his mother deemed highly unusual for him.
The suspension will be part of his permanent school record.
And since it's boys who are interested in toy weapons, primarily, we're basically criminalizing being a boy.
I do think gun control craziness is part of this but also a part of this is the feministing of education. (And if that sounds a bit like "fisting," it was intentional.)
Bore More Years
How do you get out of one of those conversations at a party where the minutes are going by like decades?
Call for the Jaws of Life? Use a clever conversational trick?
Shame Is Officially Dead, Cremated, In An Urn In Somebody's Basement
Linda Stasi writes in the New York Post about a new reality show, "Pregnant & Dating":
You'll also be happy to know that "Pregnant & Dating" is not a series about pregnant teens, but is a series about real-life grown women--some of whom are in their 40s and pregnant for the first time.
Well, there's a relief.
Old enough to know better -- yet not.
Linkfiegnugen
What all the best pirates drive.
Male Pantywad Angst-Ridden Over His Erotic Thoughts About Random Women
On Slate's often Doubly Dumb blog known as Double X, Andy Hinds writes (apparently, without the eye of a copyeditor..."smarter than me am"?):
I'm a stay-at-home dad to twin 4-year-old girls who are already smarter than me, and my wife is a brilliant doctor who kicks ass and saves lives every day. I grew up with big sisters and a mom whose authority was unbreachable. I celebrate every inroad that women make into business, technology, science, politics, comedy, you name it, and I get angry about "slut-shaming" or "stereotype threat" or whatever is the affront du jour. And yet, in the caveman recesses of my imagination, I objectify women in ways that make Hooters look like a breakout session at a NOW conference....I assume that my "condition" is perfectly normal, because many friends I've consulted have admitted that they, too, might have graphic daydreams about a woman they saw for five seconds at a traffic light. And indeed, the academic research on the subject corroborates my informal polling. But I couldn't get over the cognitive dissonance of the whole situation. How could enlightened, feminist guys like myself put up with these unbidden fantasies that violate our dedication to gender equity and basic human decency? There must be like-minded men who have overcome these impulses.
...OK, so I had two potential tools: 1) Try not to ogle; and 2) Don't freak out if I catch myself ogling or fantasizing.
I decided to kick it up a notch and see what kind of wisdom I could glean from the sexual addiction community. I called the toll-free number for Sexual Addicts Anonymous, and had a chat with what seemed to be the nicest guy in the world. He explained to me, gently, that their program was designed to deal with dangerous and destructive behaviors, and that lessening the annoyance of "normal" fantasies was not in their purview. "But," I protested, "based on the addiction self-assessment phone survey, it seems like a spectrum, really. I mean, every man I know would have to answer 'yes' to some of those questions. Who hasn't kept secrets about their sexual fantasies? Whose fantasies haven't conflicted with their morals or spiritual journey? Whose sexual preoccupation hasn't caused them some kind of problem?"
"Well," he replied, "maybe you should come to a meeting."
I didn't go to a meeting, but I did scour the SAA website for coping resources that might translate into good practices for the person who is pretty sure he's not a sex addict. I found one good tip there: The Three Second Rule is described as "a tool we use for dealing with visual stimulation or addictive fantasy." "As we go through life," the text explains, "we are not in control of what thoughts pop into our minds. However, we make a distinction between that experience and the practice of indulging in addictive fantasy." So, if a "triggering image or thought" lingers for more than three seconds, practitioners of this rule must "turn the behavior over to our Higher Power and ask for help as quickly as we can."
Dude. You evolved to want to look because that's how the human race continues. If men only wanted to look at video games or tree bark, the planet would be home only to a lot of cockroaches, the animal kingdom, and a lot of plant life.
P.S. Women long for men with resources, not really nice day laborers with good character. Oh, the horror!
UPDATE: I'll be discussing this at 11 am Pacific Time/2 pm Eastern on Michael Graham's radio show, which you can hear on the New England Talk Network: AM 830 Worcester/AM 1120 Concord; AM 1390 Plymouth/AM 1110 Salem, NH; AM 1460 Brockton/AM 970 Southbridge.
Hear me live at michaelgraham.com/radio.
Gun Crime On School Bus
We're the land of the free to be idiotic when a 6-year-old kindergartner gets in trouble for bringing a gun on the school bus -- a plastic GI-Joe gun the size of a quarter.
Cheryl K. Chumley writes in the Wash Times:
The 6-year-old was given detention and forced to apologize to the bus driver, The Daily Caller reported. He may be tossed from the bus, too, depending on how school administrators pursue the incident."I think they overreacted, totally. I totally do," said mother Mieke Crane, in the WGGB report. "I could see if it was, you know, an Airsoft gun or some sort of pistol or live bullets or something, but this is just a toy. At 6 years old, I don't really think he understood the zero-tolerance policy and related it to this as the same."
Yes, this is exactly what 6-year-olds should be focused on -- idiotic policy.
Lenore Skenazy posted a photo here of the "terrifying instrument of death." Here's Skenazy on the boy who pretended a pencil was a gun:
The teacher wrote, "Christopher pointed his pencil at another student as if it was a gun and made shooting sounds. I told him to stop and he did."Now, you might THINK that that final sentence meant she told him to stop and he did. As in, "Okay kids, now let's get back to our math lesson." But in fact, the next part of the form is labeled, "THIS SECTION MUST BE FILLED OUT" and so it was, detailing all the post-pencil-pointing "ACTION TAKEN." Apparently the admins:
1. Held a conference with the student.
2. Met with his mother.And
3. Suspended the boy for two days.
That'll teach him to point a pencil!
...Bethanne Bradshaw, a spokesperson for Suffolk Public Schools, told a Fox reporter that, when accompanied by verbal "gun noises" (or at least the universal stand-in for real gun noise -- the word, "Bang!"), "Some children would consider it threatening, who are scared about shootings in schools or shootings in the community....They think about drive-by shootings and murders."
They do? Then here's a tip: Instead of reinforcing their hysteria by reacting as if they're in real danger, try saying something soothing instead, like, "Look, hon, it's just a pencil." (Or something satisfying like, "FOR GOD'S SAKE, IT'S JUST A PENCIL!")
But since it seems more likely that the kids were not ACTUALLY scared of being shot by a #2 Ticonderoga, then let's retire the, "Oh, the poor, rattled children!" rationale. If no one feels threatened, why overreact? And why teach kids to overreact, too?
Because that's what we've been trained to do. Safetyland -- excuse me, America -- is so obsessed with safety that we demand it even when we're already extremely safe. We want super-safety -- the kind you get when you make middle-aged moms take off their shoes before getting to the gate. Yes, we are 99.99999% sure you're not a shoe bomber, but just in case.
Crony Capitalism With A (Raw) Milk Mustache
Kelsey Gee writes in the WSJ:
Raw-milk proponents celebrated a Wisconsin farmer's acquittal on three of four counts related to selling unpasteurized milk and cheese, bolstering their hopes of legalizing the products in America's Dairyland.Jurors found Vernon Hershberger, a 41-year-old Loganville, Wis., farmer, innocent of producing milk without a license, selling milk and cheese products without a license, and operating a retail establishment without a license. He was found guilty of one count of breaking a holding order issued by the state in June 2010, which barred him from moving any of the food he produced without a license.
The verdict means Mr. Hershberger can continue to sell his farm's products to members of the buying club he started, said one of his attorneys, Elizabeth Rich. He faces as long as a year in jail and $10,000 in fines for the one guilty count; a sentencing date has yet to be announced.
Big Dairy lobbyist rat Shawn Pfaff lays it out -- bleating about the public's health, and then what is surely the real reason that they want raw milk illegal: "To protect the state's $27 billion dairy industry."
Why should government be in the business of protecting any industry? If big corporate dairies can't make it on their own against the Hershbergers of the world, then they should go out of business.
Linkspotting
The musical.
"It's Not About The Nail"
What women want -- some women...okay, probably a lot of women:
You Should Have The Right To Control How And When You Die
We put our dogs to sleep when they are suffering but if we are suffering, and want to die but cannot make that happen ourselves, we are expected to just suffer on. A compassionate person who is willing to put us out of our misery will likely go to jail if they follow through.
Zach Weismuller writes at reason:
You may have the right to control your own life, but what about your own death? This is a question facing several states across the U.S., including, most recently, Vermont and Montana...."We have a certain tradition here, going back to frontier days, of saying there are certain areas the government ought to stay out of," says Robert Connell, a Montana attorney who argued in the state's landmark Supreme Court case, Baxter v. Montana.
Connell's client, U.S. Marine veteran and retired trucker Robert Baxter, suffered from a terminal illness called lymphocytic leukemia and wanted the ability to take medication that would hasten his death and end his suffering. He died before Montana's Supreme Court could even issue the Baxter decision, which recognized a constitutional right to assisted suicide for all Montanans.
Having control over whether you live or die and having the right to have somebody help you in dying is such a primary right. It is astonishing that we allow government a say in whether we continue our suffering.
The reason TV video:
Hilarious: "Terrorists Have Office Politics, Too"
Blog item at reason by Jesse Walker, linking to AP report. An excerpt:
After years of trying to discipline him, the leaders of al-Qaida's North African branch sent one final letter to their most difficult employee. In page after scathing page, they described how he didn't answer his phone when they called, failed to turn in his expense reports, ignored meetings and refused time and again to carry out orders.
How Ben Carson Is Not Like Hitler
Smart Kinsley column in TNR about the demonizing of Ben Carson (with whom I disagree on gay marriage, by the way, as I think that gay people should get the same right as straight people to marry the one consenting adult of their choice):
Carson may qualify as a homophobe by today's standards. But then they don't make homophobes like they used to. Carson denies hating gay people, while your classic homophobe revels in it. He has apologized publicly "if I offended anyone." He supports civil unions that would include all or almost all of the legal rights of marriage. In other words, he has views on gay rights somewhat more progressive than those of the average Democratic senator ten years ago. But as a devout Seventh Day Adventist, he just won't give up the word "marriage." And he has some kind of weird thing going on about fruit.But none of this matters. All you need to know is that Carson opposes same-sex marriage. Case closed. Carson was supposed to be the graduation speaker at Johns Hopkins Medical School. There was a fuss, and Carson decided to withdraw as speaker. The obviously relieved dean nevertheless criticized Carson for being "hurtful." His analysis of the situation was that "the fundamental principle of freedom of expression has been placed in conflict with our core values of diversity, inclusion and respect." My analysis is that, at a crucial moment, the dean failed to defend a real core value of the university: tolerance.
The university's response was wrong for a variety of reasons. First, Carson isn't just another gasbag. He is director of pediatric neurosurgery at Hopkins. Pediatric neurosurgery! He fixes children's brains. How terrible can a person be who does that for a living? Yes, I know the flaw in this thinking: There is no necessary connection. As a character says in Mel Brooks's movie The Producers: "der Führer vas a terrific dancer." But Carson didn't murder millions of people. All he did was say on television that he opposes same-sex marriage--an idea that even its biggest current supporters had never even heard of a couple of decades ago. Does that automatically make you a homophobe and cast you into the outer darkness? It shouldn't. But in some American subcultures--Hollywood, academia, Democratic politics--it apparently does. You may favor raising taxes on the rich, increasing support for the poor, nurturing the planet, and repealing Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act, but if you don't support gay marriage, you're out of the club.
...The dean calls Carson's remarks "hurtful." They weren't hurtful to him, unless he's hopelessly oversensitive. The dean was just making a move in the great game of umbrage that has clogged American politics, where points are awarded for taking offense at something the other guy said. No one, when confronted with some opponent's faux pas, or some stray remark that can be misrepresented as a faux pas, ever reacts anymore with: "Who cares?" Instead, it's: "I am deeply, deeply offended by this person's remarks. She should drop out of the race immediately, or quit her job, and move into a nunnery to contemplate her sins. And we certainly can't let her speak at commencement because ..."
Because what?
You don't like somebody's ideas? Throw yours into the ring. Don't try to yank theirs out.
The Root Causes Of Islamist Jihadism: Same As They Were Back In Jefferson's Day
No, not "American imperialism" or the state of Israel -- neither of which existed in Jefferson's time. Islam is a violent totalitarian system masquerading as a religion, as numerous examples show.
Ali A. Rizvi, Pakistani-Canadian writer, physician and musician starts his piece at the HuffPo with this quote (italicized):
The ambassador answered us that [their right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.The above passage is not a reference to a declaration by al Qaeda or some Iranian fatwa. They are the words of Thomas Jefferson, then the U.S. ambassador to France, reporting to Secretary of State John Jay a conversation he'd had with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, Tripoli's envoy to London, in 1786 -- more than two and a quarter centuries ago.
That is before al Qaeda and the Taliban, before the creation of Israel or the Arab-Israeli conflict, before Khomeini, before Saudi Arabia, before drones, before most Americans even knew what jihad or Islam was, and, most importantly, well before the United States had engaged in a single military incursion overseas or even had an established foreign policy.
At the time, thousands of American and European trade ships entering the Mediterranean had been targeted by pirates from the Muslim Barbary states (modern-day North Africa). More than a million Westerners had been kidnapped, imprisoned and enslaved. Tripoli was the nexus for these operations. Jefferson's attempts to negotiate resulted in deadlock, and he was told simply that the kidnapping and enslavement of the infidels would continue...
Link Anything
But bring your boom box.
Nuremberg Notions: Are We Entirely Devoid Of Historical Knowledge?
Business offers 15 percent raise to workers who will get a tattoo of the company logo.
I believe the slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" is also available.
Morons In CA State Senate Don't Understand The First Amendment
The losers in the California Senate last week approved legislation that would make it a crime to harass or secretly photograph children of police officers, judges, celebrities, and others because of the parents' occupation.
Harassment is already a crime.
Do I think it's utterly rotten that a person would be chased by photographers because, say, mommy's a movie star? Yes.
But the MPAA, below, in the excerpt from the piece by Patrick McGreevy at the LA Times, explains why this legislation should not have been passed. (I'm hoping it will be challenged.)
The measure requires those convicted serve 10 days to one year in jail. State Sen. Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) introduced the measure in response to a killing spree in February by former Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner, whose victims included the adult daughter of a former LAPD captain.De Leon said a manifesto left by Dorner before his suicide named 50 potential targets, including law enforcement officers and their families.
As a result, six foster children of LAPD Captain Phil Tingirides, who served on the board that recommended Dorner's termination from the LAPD, had to be placed under round-the-clock police protection during the manhunt.
SB 606 was supported by the California State Sheriffs' Assn. "Unfortunately, children of law enforcement officers have been targeted for harassment and threats of violence due to the employment of their parents," the group said in a statement.
The measure was opposed by the Motion Picture Assn. of America, which said it conflicts with free speech rights and puts anyone who takes film or photographs of the public in jeopardy of violating the law by photographing children who fall under the protections.
I like "godzilla3's" suggestion in the LAT's comments:
What is really needed is a part-time legislature as it is apparent that having them there full-time results in their trying to find new laws to make up that accomplish nothing. So what is some peace officer's kid going to do, wear a big sign in public that says you can't inadvertently take their picture without violating the law?
I can't know de Leon's actual motivation, of course, but it's my suspicion that the real motivation behind this was getting support the next time he runs from the police union.
Watch TSA Thug Grope Her And Tell Me This Has Anything To Do With Security
As I keep saying, this is pretend security. It's really compliance training for a public already complacent about our constitutional rights.
@AshleyJessica, the woman in the tape, is heard, at one point, to complain that the TSA gropenfrau put her hands on her vagina. (Been there -- it's a disgusting violation that countless Americans help to continue by not making a peep of complaint about this or other erosions of our civil liberties.)
In what universe do we stop terrorism by hiring a bunch of unskilled workers to violate people's private parts at the airport?
A Timeline: How Our Government And The AMA Helped Sicken Countless People
Sans solid scientific evidence that there was any basis for their dietary recommendations. From a tweet:
@ProfTimNoakes
Brilliant time line of bad science but unmatched advocacy behind false diet-heart hypothesis http://bit.ly/18mBO0B When will we ever learn?
Here's the timeline -- "Illustrated History Of Heart Disease 1825-2015" -- and an excerpt:
1910
Butter consumption = 18 pounds per capita. In the year 2000 butter consumption went below 4 pounds. When we were using high quality butter lavishly, mortality from heart disease was below 10 percent. (Infections killed a majority of people; a high percentage of infants and women of child-bearing age died during the birthing process.) Today as we consume our "Country Croak," the mortality from heart disease is 40 to 45 percent. Both Dr. Andrew Weil and the late Dr. Robert C. Atkins agree: "Eat butter; not margarine, regardless of the claims the manufacturer is making for it!"
Best to eat butter from grass-fed cows. We get Kerrygold from Trader Joe's like Mark Sisson does. Bonus: It's delicious.
Supercalifragilisticexpialinkdocious
Poppins, Mary.
Think Before Panty-Wadding
There was this tweet:
@thegirlgodbook @Unilever pull your Facebook ads! #FBRape pic.twitter.com/6tog2F2EAr
It was about this intentionally odious photo -- and the ads alongside it:
Those ads include a Unilever deodorant ad -- at the bottom:
I tweeted back what you'd think would be obvious to anyone with three working brain cells:
@amyalkon
@thegirlgodbook @HelgaBitter @Unilever Um, Facebook ads most likely pop up via algorithm, not intention on a manufacturer's part.@amyalkon
@thegirlgodbook @HelgaBitter @Unilever Does anyone really think some brand manager at Unilever says, "Hey, let's enrage people into buying!"
I'm sure that works really well for the locals trying to sell refrigerators in the UK, too, since only remorseless wife-beaters would ever be interested in keeping food cold.
It turns out there's a campaign to ban certain speech on Facebook. I am completely creeped out by these photo posters of violence against women -- same as I would be if they were about men. But the answer to speech -- even the most odious speech -- is more speech, not to trying to stop speech. Speech that is squashed doesn't go away -- it just goes underground, where it can no longer be challenged.
Not An Onion Headline: "Vatican Corrects Infallible Pope: Atheists Will Still Burn In Hell"
From an Irish Times piece by Cahir O'Doherty.
The Vatican has just announced that, despite what Pope Francis said in his homily earlier this week, atheists are still going to hell.What a relief. For a brief moment there it was possible to imagine a brave new world of compassion, generosity and acceptance, not qualities we have come to associate with the Holy See.
Said Pope Francis this week: 'The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! 'Father, the atheists?' Even the atheists. Everyone!'
That seemed like a pretty clear admission that people of other faiths and none have intrinsic worth to God and will be saved alongside the faithful. But this turned out to be wishful thinking.
Although they are otherwise good, moral people they are still doomed to burn in a lake of fire for having the temerity to have been born outside of Catholicism or having chosen to remain so.
The Rev. Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman, spelled it out for the world on Thursday. People who know about the Catholic church 'cannot be saved' if they 'refuse to enter her or remain in her,' he said.
Gotta Farm The Rhinos (And Bald Eagles And The Rest) To Save Them
Interesting idea from a tweet:
@ScrewedbyState
@deespeak Chickens never go extinct even when they are eaten in & by millions.Similarly commercial farming of rhinos can save them. Think.
When We Go On To Live In Terror, We Have Let The Terrorists Win
From a blog post by "Tam" in Indianapolis:
"Break out the checkered flag, folks, because I have breaking news: Tamerlane Tsarnaev has won the Indianapolis 500!DHS and TSA are "assisting" with entry security at the race today and TV news is showing lines tens of thousands long, snaking around the block from each entrance..."
Of course, if somebody really wants to do harm, and they aren't entirely dim, they aren't going to be stopped by the pantygroper squads.
Don't be swayed by the pretense of security. This isn't about security at all but prepping all of us to give up our rights with ease and maybe a "Yes, Sir" or "Yes Ma'am," to boot.
via @MarkWBennett
When Averages Mislead
Smart piece in The New York Times by sociologist Stephanie Coontz about how averages can skew what we believe -- and skew social policy in negative ways:
Averages are useful because many traits, behaviors and outcomes are distributed in a bell-shaped curve, with most results clustered around the middle and a much smaller group of outliers at the high and low ends. Knowing the average number of births in an area can help builders decide how many bedrooms are likely to be needed in new houses, and alert policy makers to a brewing fertility crisis.But averages can be misleading when a distribution is heavily skewed at one end, with a small number of unrepresentative outliers pulling the average in their direction. In 2011, for example, the average income of the 7,878 households in Steubenville, Ohio, was $46,341. But if just two people, Warren Buffett and Oprah Winfrey, relocated to that city, the average household income in Steubenville would rise 62 percent overnight, to $75,263 per household.
Outliers can also pull an average down, leading social scientists to overstate the risks of particular events.
Most children of divorced parents turn out to be as well adjusted as children of married parents, but the much smaller number who lead very troubled lives can lower the average outcome for the whole group, producing exaggerated estimates of the impact of divorce.
...But in this new paper, "The Trouble With Averages," the psychologist Anthony Mancini shows that treating the average response as if it was the normal or typical outcome can lead to bad social policy and inappropriate therapeutic responses.
...When we assume that "normal" people need "time to heal," or discourage individuals from making any decisions until a year or more after a loss, as some grief counselors do, we may be giving inappropriate advice. Such advice can cause people who feel ready to move on to wonder if they are hardhearted.
There's Something About Linky
Whatever is that goo in your html?
Advice Goddess Radio ("Best Of" Replay): Tonight, 7-8pm PT -- Dr. Marty Klein On How To Rethink Your Way To Better Sex
Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in therapy and research.
This show is a "Best Of" replay for the Memorial Day holiday -- an especially helpful one.
It turns out that our assumptions about the mindblowing sex we think we are "supposed" to be having is the thing that stops us from the pretty great sex we could be having. Or from having sex at all.
On this show, therapist and sex therapist Dr. Marty Klein rips away widely held myths about sex to help everybody listening improve their sex lives.
Klein's very helpful book: Sexual Intelligence: What We Really Want from Sex--and How to Get It.
Listen at this link at 7pm Pacific, 10pm Eastern, or download the podcast afterward:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2013/05/27/dr-marty-klein-on-how-to-rethink-your-way-to-better-sex
And don't miss last week's show with exercise trainer and rehab expert Fred Hahn explaining why slow-speed strength training for just a few minutes a week will make you healthier than a fitness nut who spends their week running miles upon miles in the rain and hours in the gym. (He lays out fascinating and solid evidence throughout the show.)
Fred is co-author, with Dr. Michael Eades and Dr. Mary Dan Eades, whom I greatly respect, of The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution: The Slow-Motion Exercise That Will Change Your Body In 30 Minutes A Week.
He debunks all the myths most of us hold about exercise and fitness, and will leave you with a plan for exercise that will strengthen your heart and bones and increase your metabolism, and will only eat 12-15 minutes of your week.
This is a not-to-be-missed show. This method of exercise has improved my health and my life and I'm hoping you'll follow my lead.
Listen or download the podcast at this link:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2013/05/20/fred-hahns-science-based-exercise
Join me and my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, here at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.
(I'll be back with a live show next week -- with Dr. Helen Smith
Guerilla Crosswalk Painted By Citizens, Removed By City At Cost Of $1K
The city of Tacoma did nothing to make a dangerous intersection safer for pedestrians so some citizens took it upon themselves to paint a crosswalk (and bike lanes, too). What did the city do? Spend $1K removing it.
Can't have citizens deciding to make themselves safer!
Tom Fucoloro says it at SeattleBikeBlog:
If your citizens feel they must resort to breaking the law in order to make your streets safe, you're doing something wrong.
via @maggiemcneill, @ishfery
The Dangerous Rise Of The Fourth Branch Of Government, The Administrative State
The unchecked and ever-growing bureaucracy in this country is a danger to our freedoms, writes law professor Jonathan Turley in the WaPo:
The rise of the fourth branch has been at the expense of Congress's lawmaking authority. In fact, the vast majority of "laws" governing the United States are not passed by Congress but are issued as regulations, crafted largely by thousands of unnamed, unreachable bureaucrats. One study found that in 2007, Congress enacted 138 public laws, while federal agencies finalized 2,926 rules, including 61 major regulations.This rulemaking comes with little accountability. It's often impossible to know, absent a major scandal, whom to blame for rules that are abusive or nonsensical. Of course, agencies owe their creation and underlying legal authority to Congress, and Congress holds the purse strings. But Capitol Hill's relatively small staff is incapable of exerting oversight on more than a small percentage of agency actions. And the threat of cutting funds is a blunt instrument to control a massive administrative state -- like running a locomotive with an on/off switch.
...As the number of federal regulations increased, however, Congress decided to relieve the judiciary of most regulatory cases and create administrative courts tied to individual agencies. The result is that a citizen is 10 times more likely to be tried by an agency than by an actual court. In a given year, federal judges conduct roughly 95,000 adjudicatory proceedings, including trials, while federal agencies complete more than 939,000.
These agency proceedings are often mockeries of due process, with one-sided presumptions and procedural rules favoring the agency. And agencies increasingly seem to chafe at being denied their judicial authority. Just ask John E. Brennan. Brennan, a 50-year-old technology consultant, was charged with disorderly conduct and indecent exposure when he stripped at Portland International Airport last year in protest of invasive security measures by the Transportation Security Administration. He was cleared by a federal judge, who ruled that his stripping was a form of free speech. The TSA was undeterred. After the ruling, it pulled Brennan into its own agency courts under administrative charges.
...In the new regulatory age, presidents and Congress can still change the government's priorities, but the agencies effectively run the show based on their interpretations and discretion. The rise of this fourth branch represents perhaps the single greatest change in our system of government since the founding. We cannot long protect liberty if our leaders continue to act like mere bystanders to the work of government.
If you still have faith that government will protect you, please try to understand that it is very much misplaced.
Muslim Leaders Preying On What Westerners Want To Believe
Muslim Toronto Sun columnist Tarek Fatah understands the violence Islam demands and explains why Muslims who do not believe in the violence they are commanded need to speak up. He writes in the HuffPo:
If the latest act of jihadi terror was different in nature, the reaction by mainstream Islamic groups and prominent Muslims in Britain was not. It was exactly the same as it has been after every tragic incident. Old press releases were brushed off and sent afresh to the media.While ordinary Britons and non-Muslims around the world are bewildered by these never-ending acts of terrorism, the response of the leaders of the Islamic community is the tired old cliche -- Islam is a religion of peace, and jihad is simply an "inner struggle."
The fact these terrorists are motivated by one powerful belief -- the doctrine of armed jihad against the "kuffar" (non-Muslims) -- is disingenuously denied by Islamic clerics and leaders.
Yesterday, instead of calling on Muslims to shelve the doctrine of armed jihad, predictably, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) issued a quick press release claiming the "barbaric" attack has "no basis in Islam."
Not true, MCB. As a Muslim, I can say without fear, the latest terror attack has a basis in Islam and it's time for us Muslims to dig our heads out of the sand.
The MCB was not alone. Imam Makkah Masjid in Leeds, Qari Asim, MBE said, "Islam does not permit vigilante attacks on anyone and therefore such inhumane acts have no place in Islam."
If the Imam was trying to put the best face of Islam to the British people, the London Muslim Centre was careful not to even mention the fact the two terrorists were Muslim, claiming instead that "criminals and murderers do not represent any community or religion. We remain steadfast in opposing all forms of hate and terrorism."
The Islamic Society of Britain joined in the chorus, stating, "justifying this killing in the name of faith or religion is false and rejected," again failing to mention the fact the terrorists were killing in the name of Islam, not just any "faith or religion."
Hundreds of British Muslims tweeted their condemnation of the act, but not one individual or organization had the courage to point out and admit the fact Sharia-backed doctrine of armed jihad does permit holy war on non-Muslims, specially in the land of the "kufaar."
This was an opportunity for the Muslim leadership to confess they have failed and that the time has come to admit that jihadis cannot be fought without fighting the doctrine of jihad.
It is worth noting that not a single Muslim cleric since 9/11 has mustered the courage to say the doctrine of armed jihad is defunct and inapplicable in the 21st century. They rightfully denounce terrorism, but dare not denounce jihad.
...Unless the leaders of British mosques as well as the Islamic organizations in the U.K. denounce the doctrine of jihad as pronounced by the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami, and distance themselves from the ideology of Qutb, al-Banna and Maudoodi, they stand complicit in the havoc that these jihadis are raining down on the rest of us.
Thanks, Jerry, for this link.
Debunking The Notion That Men Are The Domestic Abusers And Women Are The Abused
From PRWeb, women perpetrate physical and emotional partner abuse and engage in controlling behaviors at rates comparable to those behaviors in men:
The most comprehensive review of the scholarly domestic violence research literature ever conducted concludes, among other things, that women perpetrate physical and emotional abuse, as well as engage in control behaviors, at comparable rates to men. The Partner Abuse State of Knowledge project, or PASK, whose final installment was just published in the journal Partner Abuse, is an unparalleled three-year research project, conducted by 42 scholars at 20 universities and research centers, and including information on 17 areas of domestic violence research....Among PASK's findings are that, except for sexual coercion, men and women perpetrate physical and non-physical forms of abuse at comparable rates, most domestic violence is mutual, women are as controlling as men, domestic violence by men and women is correlated with essentially the same risk factors, and male and female perpetrators are motivated for similar reasons.
"Although research confirms that women are more impacted by domestic violence," stated Hamel, "these findings recommend important intervention and policy changes, including a need to pay more attention to female-perpetrated violence, mutual abuse, and the needs of male victims."
Hamel also argues that men are not only disproportionately arrested in domestic violence cases, but sometimes arrested for arbitrary reasons, citing, for example, that police often arrest the bigger and stronger party in cases where the perpetrator is unclear. "Such policies are not only ineffective but violate people's civil rights," Hamel concludes. "People in the domestic violence field say that 'it's all about the victims.' Well, the victim is not always the one hit, but sometimes the one arrested."
via ifeminists
My Brother The Islamist
Sam Harris tweet:
@SamHarrisOrg
"My Brother the Islamist"-- If you only have 1 hour to spare on Islam this year, watch this: http://bit.ly/10TPGKT Brilliant.
Linknuttery
Nutter, butter...
Why You Got Fat
An entertaining three-minute video from Fat Head, The Movie, that explains it simply and well:
You can buy Fat Head
via @AnnChildersMD
Why This Fervent Opponent Of Gay Marriage Is Now For It
David Blankenhorn, an opponent of gay marriage, on why he's come around. He writes in the LA Times:
And yet arriving at that position has for me been a difficult and painful journey. Until June 2012, I was a vocal opponent of gay marriage. I wrote a book about it and spoke against it across the country; I was an expert witness in support of Proposition 8.I did all of that not because I condemned homosexuality or objected to gay civil unions -- I didn't. But I believed gay marriage would weaken the traditional institution of marriage, the institution that binds mothers, fathers and their children together.
A wealth of social science evidence about child poverty, mental and emotional distress, educational failure, crime and other problems suggests that when marriage breaks down -- when fathers are absent and mothers are left alone to raise children -- society breaks down too. Gay marriage and families, which by their nature involve the loosening of biological family ties, seemed to pose one more threat to an already beleaguered institution.
In the end, I didn't change my mind on gay marriage because I stopped believing in the importance of intact biological families. Nor was it because of new studies or additional facts. (Gay marriage still strains biological family bonds, although research also points to the potential stability of gay marriage and family structures.) And I didn't change my mind because I got tired of being criticized. I changed my opposition to gay marriage because of personal relationships.
In my case, it began with the writer Jonathan Rauch, who I'd been publicly debating on the gay marriage issue. But at some point we stopped debating and started talking about our lives, including about my wife, Raina, and his husband, Michael. Did Jonathan's marriage threaten the idea of marriage? Perhaps in theory. But in real life, was I able to see it? No. In fact, quite the opposite.
It may sound trite, but for me the key was the gradual breakthrough of empathy. I found that as friendships develop, empathy becomes at least possible, no longer kept at bay by a wall of fixed belief. Put simply, becoming friends with gay people who were married or wanted to get married led me to realize that I couldn't in good conscience continue to oppose it.
...And this is where I find myself now: The goal of marriage equality is to make marriage available and achievable for all who seek it -- gay and straight, the upscale minority and the non-upscale majority. And the strategy for achieving full marriage equality is a strategy of strange bedfellows: social conservatives and gay rights liberals, a coalition that could put an end forever to the conflict between gay rights and family values.
That coalition is waiting to be born, no matter what the Supreme Court decides.
By "We" She Means "You" (Need To Cover The Costs)
What is it with people that they are so completely comfortable to mooch off other people? A woman named Chelsey Andrews Staskiews posts at the stupidly named moochsite "GoFundMe" (which makes me come right back with "Go fuck yourself"):
My husband and I have started our journey to surrogacy and recently learned that our insurance does not cover this. We will have to cover 100% of the costs.
As the friend who sent me the link emailed me:
Why can't her husband just knock up someone?
Tired Republican Trope: Hey, Black People, Vote For A Democrat And It's Back To The Plantation For You!
Charles M. Blow writes in The New York Times:
Why do Republicans keep endorsing the most extreme and hyperbolic African-American voices -- those intent on comparing blacks who support the Democratic candidates to slaves? That idea, which only a black person could invoke without being castigated for the flagrant racial overtones, is a trope to which an increasingly homogeneous Republican Party seems to subscribe.
Aaron Laramore, who happens to be black as well as "reluctantly Republican," blogs:
Let's get it straight here and now: Living under the liberal policies of the Democratic Party willingly embraced by most blacks is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like living under a racist terror state where your labor is stolen from you under the threat of violence and your family can literally be sold to punish you. Choosing to vote for and support the liberal agenda of the democratic party DOES NOT REMOTELY resemble being owned by another person, treated like an animal, forbidden to marry, bred like an animal, beaten like an animal, being sold away from your family or forbidden to learn to read and write on pain of death or torture.This metaphor is moronic and ignorant in the extreme and it is beyond unfortunate that it has become a standard rhetorical trope of the right. If you are a white conservative and you use it, you immediately brand yourself as someone who is more interested in pummeling black folk with your political ideas than engaging them. If you are a black conservative and employ this metaphor, you show yourself to be not only ignorant of your history, but dismissive of it, for the sake of being provocative.
Oh, and P.S. And no, it isn't just the Republicans who do this. Jason L. Riley writes in the WSJ:
Prominent blacks who do not share Mr. Blow's left-wing views are regularly referred to by Democrats as "Uncle Toms," a reference to the enslaved title character in Harriet Beecher Stowe's antebellum novel.Al Sharpton has referred to Colin Powell and Condi Rice as "house negroes . . . while the rest of us [blacks] are in the field," an allusion to the division of slave labor on a plantation. Political cartoonist Jeff Danziger has depicted Ms. Rice as Prissy, the ignorant slave girl in "Gone With the Wind." And during last year's presidential campaign, Vice President Joe Biden told a largely black audience that Republicans are "going to put y'all back in chains."
Somehow, such examples were left out of Mr. Blow's column. Maybe he ran out of space. But if slave imagery is an inappropriate debating tool, so is Mr. Blow's inference that only his political opponents use it.
via @blackrepublican
Linksploitation
A show-me state.
Shoes, Shoes, Shoes! (And More!)
Shoes, handbags, and more, for men, women, kids; up to 60 percent off at Amazon
Can "I Love You" Get Overused?
Some couples throw that phrase around like breadcrumbs to the pigeons.
Does it lose its mojo for you if your partner does that?
Pro-Life (Except When He Knocks A Woman Up)
Chris Carroll and Andy Sher write in the Tennessee Times Free Press about an anti-abortion Republican whose personal history includes "supporting his ex-wife's two abortions and, as a physician, sleeping with patients, including one he also urged to undergo an abortion":
U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., says God has "forgiven me" and asked "fellow Christians" and constituents "to consider doing the same."
Did God send him a registered letter saying so?
(Since God is imaginary, it's conveniently easy to just make up shit he supposedly said.)
More from the piece.
In a recorded 2000 telephone conversation, DesJarlais pressed a patient who said she was pregnant by him to get an abortion. He said he knew she wasn't pregnant and that there was no abortion, and he said the conversation was recorded without his knowledge.But a transcript of his divorce trial, released after his re-election, revealed him saying under oath that he did tape the call. The woman testified that she had been pregnant but declined to say whether she had had an abortion.
On the radio Friday, DesJarlais cited the case of an unnamed executive of a national pro-life group, who he said "had two abortions."
"I don't know if that disqualifies her as a pro-life advocate, but I feel very solid in my view and I think my voting record reflects it."
State Democratic Party spokesman Brandon Puttbrese dismissed all that Friday evening.
"Some people will surely forgive Congressman DesJarlais for having sex with multiple patients and for lying to his constituents about his anti-choice hypocrisy," he said. "But no one will ever forget it."
via Jonathan Turley
**Sorry -- I double posted this and deleted the wrong entry. My apology. Please repost your comments. So, so sorry.
Kiera Wilmot On Her Arrest For Her Science Experiment
Ridiculous zero tolerance (zero sense) policies are being brought down like a hammer on kids.
Teenagers are not known for their judgment or lack of impulsivity. Anyone running a school should understand this and understand the difference between somebody criminally minded and somebody who was eager to try her experiment out right away.
Wilmot writes:
My science teacher said we could each pick a science project that has to do with biology, chemistry or physics. He said we couldn't do a baking soda and vinegar volcano because that was at the fifth grade level. I especially like chemistry, and the reacting. I like seeing two or more different things become something else. So I was asking friends around for project ideas. Someone suggested to me to combine aluminum foil and toilet bowl cleaner in a water bottle to make a volcano.That morning I was taking the experiment to be approved by my teacher. My friends and I were outside, and they wanted to see how it worked. Eventually they convinced me to try it. It did not react the way I expected it to. The lid popped off and smoke came out. If I could go back in time, I definitely wouldn't have done it.
The principal and dean of discipline came over and asked me to tell them what happened. I was kind of scared, but I thought they'd understand it was an accident. Before that, I've never gotten in trouble this year other than a dress code violation because my skirt was two inches too short. I told him it was my science experiment. In my third period class I was called up to discipline. I wrote a statement to the dean of discipline explaining what had happened. Afterward I was told to sit on the resource officer's office. They told me I made a bomb on school property, and police possibly have the right to arrest me. I didn't know what they classified as a bomb. I was worried I accidently made a bomb. I was really hurt and scared. I was crying.
They didn't read me any rights. They arrested me after sitting in the office for a couple minutes. They handcuffed me. It cut my wrist, and really hurt sitting on my hands behind my back.
They took me to a juvenile assessment center. I was sitting in this room with no clock so it felt like years of me sitting there. When my mom came, she didn't say anything. She just had this really disappointed look, and told me I lost privileges. But she's really been supportive of me. I don't know what would have happened if I didn't have my mom. I would have dug a hole and sat there for the rest of my life.
I don't think police should have been involved because I'm a good student for one. And two, it was a big deal, but it wasn't like people were hurt and the school was in shatters. I maybe should have gotten 10 days suspension or a work detail where on Saturday you wake up early and pick up trash around the school.
Nice that somebody shows some sense about this. A pity it isn't the people running the school.
via @carlzimmer
Kaus: "Work Is Anti-Terrorist Medicine"
Mickey Kaus blogs about how welfare benefits make it easy to grow an angry, oppositional underclass -- and possibly a terrorist one:
Relatively generous welfare benefits enable those in the ethnic ghetto to stay there, stay unemployed, and seethe. Without government subsidies, they would have to overcome the prejudice against them and integrate into the mainstream working culture. Work, in this sense, is anti-terrorist medicine. (And if you work all day, there's less time to dream up ways and reasons to kill infidels.)"
The Part Many News Organizations Cut Out
The part where he says that (there are) "many, many ayahs through the Quran...that we must fight them as we fight us..."
A few of the lovely verses commanding violence against the "infidel":
Qur'an:9:5 -- "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.Qur'an:9:29 -- "Fight those who do not believe until they all surrender, paying the protective tax in submission."
Qur'an:8:39 -- "Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah."
Qur'an:8:39 -- "So fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief [non-Muslims]) and all submit to the religion of Allah alone (in the whole world)."
More here:
Muslims invest a quarter of their school day learning to recite the Qur'an -- not reading it or understanding it. They simply learn to mouth its sounds in the arcane, inadequate, and odd dialect of Religious Arabic. That way they can be fooled into believing that it's "God's Book," and that it's written intelligently. Ignorant, they can be indoctrinated and thus manipulated by clerics and kings. Even turned into human bombs when it serves Islam's interests.If Muslims were to shed their yoke of ignorance, they would discover that the real reason those who indoctrinate them, control them, suppress them, fleece them, and abuse them want them deceived is that the actual message contained in Allah's Book is horrendous. It is more intolerant, racist, punitive, and violent than Hitler's Mein Kampf. There are one hundred vicious verses for every nice one. The book inspires infinitely more terror than peace.
Talk Linky To Me
Here.
Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss
I'm still waiting on Obama to be different on war policy and civil liberties from Bush (and by different, I mean different-better, not different-worse).
Matt Wilstein writes at Mediaite:
Thursday afternoon on CNN's The Lead, following President Obama's major speech on counterterrorism, host Jake Tapper welcomed The Nation's Jeremy Scahill, who offered his reactions to the speech. Scahill, who with his book and documentary Dirty Wars has been highly critical of Obama foreign policy did not find much hope in what the president said."My reaction to the president's speech," Scahill began, "is that it really is sort of just a rebranding of the Bush era policies with some legalese that is very articulately delivered from our constitutional law professor, Nobel Peace Prize-winning president. But effectively, Obama has declared the world a battlefield and reserves the right to drone bomb countries in pursuit of people against whom we have no direct evidence or who we're not seeking any indictment against."
Things That Make Women Boil
Guys: Ever asked a woman to dress sexier? (And I don't mean go all-out tramp -- just to jazz it up a little.) Ever had her try to take your head off with a cleaver for it?
Ladies: Would you object to it if a guy wanted you to dress a little sexier when you go out with his friends?
I think women don't understand how competitive men are and how much it means to them to feel like they're the envy of other guys, if just a little.
Laws That Eat Good People
Macie Melendez notes at HuffPo that she once thought of prison in the simplistic way I did -- as a place bad people were sent for doing bad things.
Then she had a friend get sent to prison -- Federal prison -- for five years on child porn charges. She writes:
My friend was sentenced to five years in a federal prison for obtaining five pornographic images and one video that featured a minor. (This number is minuscule compared to the hundreds of thousands of images and videos that are collected by serious offenders.) He obtained these images through a peer-to-peer file sharing program. He was intentionally downloading porn, but he was not seeking out child porn. Once he knew the images and video file existed, he deleted them.Unfortunately for him, there was a member of the FBI searching the Internet for child pornography offenders. That FBI agent was able to track his computer's IP address, find out who he was and where he lived. In that process, the FBI learned that he was a young man who held a full-time job, had earned a Master's degree and had never been convicted of a crime -- in fact, he had never been arrested for anything at all. In spite of those facts, the FBI felt it necessary to send about a dozen agents to his apartment, armed with guns and dressed like they were going into a war zone. They had a search warrant and used it to raid his apartment. When they didn't find anything, they left.
The FBI continued to monitor him while he went about his normal, crime-free life. After eight months of investigating, the FBI still found nothing more than that first unintentional download. Regardless, several FBI agents came back to his apartment, put him in handcuffs and took him to jail.
I now see that laws simply aren't black and white. Instead, they come with a lot of grey matter. Within that grey matter is emotion -- a powerful fuel that charges people to action. But emotion can be dangerous as it often clouds logic and critical thinking. For this reason, our laws dictate that courtrooms be presided over by emotionless judges; lawmakers, however, aren't given these same emotional restrictions.
Congress' repeated escalations of penalties for child pornography offenses are an example of emotion getting in the way of logic. What voter wouldn't support severe punishments for those supporting or distributing films with underage sex and nudity? Especially when they are explained as a means to catch the worst of the worst. But in reality, in practice, these laws have formed the basis of a modern-day witch-hunt that thrives on the vagaries of the Internet and too often captures individuals who make relatively simple errors online, rather than those who produce such material or directly abuse children.
Elder Hostiles
Danah Boyd is right on with her tweet:
@zephoria
Adults complain about teens lacking etiquette, but they think nothing of interrupting people's days w/ phone calls. Phones are mega rude.
Philly Mayor Has A Way With Words -- And Hard Truths
Black Democratic Mayor Michael Nutter isn't one to mince words. From City Journal, Ethan Epstein writes about the mayor's impassioned speech against the robbing, assaulting flash mobs made up mostly of black teenagers:
"This nonsense must stop," he said, his voice rising. "If you want to act like a butthead, your butt is going to get locked up. And if you want to act like an idiot, move. Move out of this city. We don't want you here any more." Nutter grew increasingly heated as he blasted the city's absentee fathers--who, he implied, were responsible for the crimes that their children committed. And he wound up his speech by telling the flash mobbers: "You've damaged your own race."
The text from Nutter's speech:
Parents, get your act together. Get it together. Get it together right now. You need to get hold of your kids before we have to. Parents who neglect their children, who don't know where they are, who don't know what they're doing, who don't know who they're hanging out with: You're gonna find yourselves spending some quality time with your kids, in jail, together. . . .Fathers have a particularly important role to play. Not more important than mothers, but just as important. You know, you're not a father just because you have a kid, or two, or three. That doesn't make you a father. A father is a person who's around, participating in a child's life. He's a teacher who helps to guide and shape and mold that young person, someone for that young person to talk to, to share with, their ups and their downs, their fears and their concerns. A father has to provide instruction to a young boy on how to become a good man. A good man. A father also has to be a good role model and help a young girl be a strong woman.
Now let me just say this: if you're not doing those things--if you're just hanging out out there, maybe you're sending a check or bringing some cash by--that's not being a father. You're just a human ATM. You're just an ATM. And if you're not providing the guidance and you're not sending any money, you're just a sperm donor. You're just a sperm donor. You're what the girls call out in the street: "That's my baby-daddy. That's my baby-daddy." That's not good enough. Don't be that. Don't be that. You can do better than that.
And you know something? That's part of the problem in our community. Let me speak plain: that's part of the problem in the black community. And many other communities, but a particular problem in the black communities: we have too many men making too many babies that they don't want to take care of and then we end up dealing with your children. We're not running a big babysitting service. We're running a big government and a great city. Take care of your children. All of them. All of them.
Mayor Michael Nutter
Mount Carmel Baptist Church, Philadelphia
August 7, 2011
Terrible Idea: Let Non-Citizens Serve On Juries
Ben Boychuk writes at City Journal:
In California, a Fremont Democrat is pushing a bill that would extend eligibility for jury duty to noncitizens--not on the theory that misery loves company but in the belief that serving on a panel of jurors is an excellent way to assimilate immigrants into American society. It's a bad idea backed by flimsy reasoning, but one that so far has faced no effective opposition in the state legislature. Bob Wieckowski's Assembly Bill 1401 passed the assembly last month and is now winding through committee in the state senate....The problem with putting noncitizens on juries is that it essentially puts the cart before the horse. Jury service should not be a "learning experience" or an "experiment," but rather an exercise of solemn responsibility by fully integrated citizens. Thomas Jefferson made the most compelling argument against schemes such as Wieckowski's in Notes on the State of Virginia. It takes a long time, Jefferson said, to acquire the habits and manners of a free citizen--and to relinquish those acquired under corrupt or tyrannical governments.
A Link In The Attic
A blog item that has nothing to do with Shel Silverstein
Compare The Prophets: Jesus vs. Mohammed
Comedian Steven Crowder does the analysis:
Could the violence demanded and commanded by Mohammed, just a tiny bit of which is shown in the video above, have anything to do with the thinking that went into the machete attack below?
Here's one of the myths about Mohammed -- debunked -- that Mohammed never believed in murder. The truth is quite the contrary. A whole slew of the debunkings are here.
Sometimes My Advice Can Be A Tad Impractical
Over at the LA offices of the libertarian mag, reason, they're taking in the IRS hearings. Scott Shackford tweeted:
@SShackford
We have churros at the @reason LA office. It's like a surprise reward for listening in on hours of IRS hearing coverage.
I tweeted back:
@amyalkonShackford has a point:
@SShackford @reason There should be blowjobs and foot massages.
@SShackford
Churros are just a touch less awkward with our open offices.
We Cannot Wait To Turn Our Citizens Into Criminals: High Schoolers Arrested For Water Balloons
It's important to criminalize them as soon as possible -- in elementary school, if possible, for, perhaps, playing with imaginary guns or using an allergy inhaler without 12 people with med school under their belt observing.
But if you can't get 'em in elementary school, you can arrest 'em in high school, for serious crimes like, say, throwing water balloons.
Via Tim Cushing at TechDirt, a quote from the Eric W. Dolan piece at RawStory:
Seven teenage students in North Carolina were arrested on Thursday and charged with a misdemeanor for throwing water balloons during a school prank. A parent was also arrested during the incident.The seven boys, all between the ages of 16 and 17, threw balloons filled with tap water as an end-of-year prank at Enloe High School in Raleigh. The balloons were rumored to be filled with "other substances," but Wake County Public School System spokeswoman Renee McCoy said "all indications" were that only water was used.
Six of the teens were charged with disorderly conduct. The seventh was charged with assault and battery for hitting a school security officer with a balloon.
Check out the police response to this -- as if they're bringing down some knife-wielding attacker:
Engineering Prof On Tornado Tragedy: Idiocy Of Building Wood-Frame Structures In Tornado Zone
My engineering prof friend, Éric Pascal Bescher, writes about the devastation in Oklahoma:
$1b in damages because people keep building wood-frame structures in tornado alley, as if the difference between the elastic modulus of wood and that of concrete was not documented. Building codes need revision.
Kid-Shaming: A Bully Learns A Lesson
A woman forced her stepdaughter to wear dowdy thrift store clothing as a punishment for bullying another fourth-grade girl over her clothes. Amy Graff posted the story at The Mommy Files at SFGate. (Ally and Kaylee aren't their real names.):
Kaylee was relentlessly harassing one of her classmates over the course of three weeks and verbally tearing apart the girl's clothing, according to KTSU-TV/Fox. Kaylee's stepmother, Ally, told the Salt Lake City TV station that Kaylee went as far to call the girl a "sleaze" and a "slob."When Ally received a note from the school alerting her of Kaylee's bullying, she talked about the issue with her stepdaughter and was perplexed when the young girl seemed apathetic to the damage she'd caused. The bullied student was so hurt that she wanted to leave the school.
Ally decided to get creative to teach Kaylee a lesson. The stepmom spent about $50 at a thrift store and purchased clothes she knew Ally would be embarrassed to wear. The clothes were poorly fitting and dated. (Anyone with a daughter might know that fourth grade is often the year when a girl starts to show interest in fashion and care about what she wears to school.)
"I thought this was a perfect moment for us to really teach her, this is right, this is wrong, which path are you going to take? And then it's her choice," Ally told KTSU.
Graff reports that child psychologists advise against shaming.
"Public shaming may be effective in teaching our children what specific behavior they should stay away from in the future to avoid future humiliation," Jennifer A. Leigh, Psy.D., told She Knows Parenting. "However, shaming can damage the parent-child relationship. Children quickly learn they cannot trust their parents. Children need to feel safe and secure and to be able to trust their parents."
Children who are apathetic about cruelty, I think, need to be taken down a peg. A kid who isn't psychologically defective in some way, and who is well-parented (in what I think it means to be well-parented) is taught empathy and consideration, and sees it as significant that another person is in pain. At the very least, they come to realize it and feel guilt (one of the "moral emotions") when their pain-causing actions are pointed out.
Now, maybe the girl's reaction has something to do with the fact that she has a stepmom, and perhaps or probably is a child of divorce. But, again, for a fourth-grader to be "apathetic" about the effects of cruelty to another child? I think something major needs to be done.
How did Kaylee react to her public shaming? When her stepmother presented her with the thrift store outfits, she cried.But the fourth grader followed her stepmother's instructions, wore the unstylish threads for two days, and put up with her friends saying meaning things about her clothes. In the end, Kaylee admitted that she learned a lesson, has decided that teasing other kids is mean, and promises to be more kind to her peers.
How's the relationship with her stepmother? Only time will tell.
I don't think public shaming is a first choice, but it seemed an appropriate choice here.
What's In Millennials' Wallets? Far Fewer Credit Cards Than In Previous Generations
Emily Alpert writes at LATimes.com:
Ringed by the posh shops of Beverly Center, Tim Ratliff said no -- he didn't have a credit card. He didn't need one."I just hear so many horror stories about people being in debt," said Ratliff, 21, who studies psychology at Ohio State University. "When you have a credit card, you feel like you have a lot of money when you don't."
Ratliff is like many young adults, emerging data show. His generation, dubbed millennials by academics and marketers, grew up during the boom and bust cycles of the U.S. economy over the last decade and a half -- crises that appear to have reshaped their attitudes toward spending and debt.
Millennials, who range from teenagers to people in their early 30s, are more financially cautious than the stereotype of the spendthrift twentysomething, several studies suggest. Many embrace thrift.
Some experts say their habits echo those of another generation, those who came of age during the Great Depression and forged lifelong habits of scrimping and saving -- along with a suspicion of financial risk.
"Both generations had a childhood memory of wealth and then saw that wealth yanked out from under them" in or around their teenage years, said Morley Winograd, who has co-written several books on the millennial generation. Though the pain was much more severe during the Depression, "Both generations are very conservative spenders," Winograd said.
...In some quarters, thrift has become cool, reflected in the do-it-yourself stylings of Los Angeles hipsters and economical new apps and websites.
"As a kid, if you had a patch on your jeans it wasn't cool -- people made fun of me," said Jonaya Kemper, a 27-year-old preschool teacher who grows her own vegetables and sews her own sundresses. "Now they ask, 'Can you teach me?'"
Linkorama Dome
Rumor has it, Orson Welles is hiding under a seat cushion.
Got Your MBA?
Beware of signage that can easily be subtracted from -- from a photo by Phil Miller (used with permission):
Make Pols Pay For Special Elections After They Resign In Disgrace
Elections are expensive. Here in Los Angeles, they hold them this month and that (like to replace a politician who resigns), not thinking of combining them to save money. (It's only taxpayer money, after all!)
Well, in NYC, Anthony Weiner's rival in the race for mayor is rightly demanding that he pony up the $350K for the cost of the special election require to fill his hastily vacated congressional seat. David Seifman writes at the NYPost:
Weiner resigned under pressure in June 2011 after it was disclosed he was tweeting lewd pictures of himself to women he'd met on the Internet.In the special election held that September to replace him, Republican Bob Turner pulled off a stunning upset victory over Democrat David Weprin.
Taxpayers were stuck with the $350,000 election tab, according to former Brooklyn Councilman Sal Albanese, a longshot mayoral contender who hasn't been shy about taking sharp jabs at his better-known opponents.
Sal is self-interested, but this time, his self interest happens to coincide with that of the taxpayers.
You Can Buy More As A Star Than Mansions And Fancy Cars
I like the way Zach Galifianakis spends his money. He was friends with a woman who worked at his local laundromat, and when he found out she was homeless, he bought her a one-bedroom apartment.
This was just in the news because he took the woman, 87-year-old Elizabeth "Mimi" Haist, to the Hangover III premiere, as his date.
This sure beats news about stars showing us their hoohoos as they get out of limos.
Here's Mimi:
Our Eroding Civil Liberties: Obama's War Against The Free Press
People who are still under the impression that Obama is so much more wunnnnderful than that evil Bush are thick in the head.
As you can see from searching my blog, I was no Bush fan. Far from it.
But not being partisan, I can also see how dangerous Obama has been and will likely continue to be for this country -- while all the while professing to be better and more transparent than that.
J.D. Tucille writes at reason that Obama's war against the free press has gotten creepier:
Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the U.S. Department of Justice "investigation" of Fox News chief correspondent James Rosen isn't the intrusive tracking of his movements and contacts -- although that's disturbing enough -- but the basis for the criminal charges he may ultimately face.At its heart, the allegation that Rosen broke the law "at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator" is based on nothing more than meeting with and asking questions of government adviser Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, who told him the non-shocking information that North Korea could very well respond to United Nations sanctions with more nuclear tests.
That's right. Meeting an official and asking questions, which is what journalists do, is interpreted as criminal conspiracy. Taken with the already brewing scandal over the snooping of Associated Press phone records, we're looking at a full-fledged assault on the free press.
Naps For Nursery Schoolers And 40-Something Women
I napped in nursery school and I've taken up the practice again, about every four or five hours. I wake up at 5 am most days to write, take nap number one in the late morning, and then nap number two in the early afternoon.
I nap for about the same time (26 minutes, with a minute to get settled) as Dr. Winter, a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (who apparently has no first name, as quoted by Heidi Mitchell in the WSJ):
Routine Naps A scheduled nap is healthier than catching up on or banking sleep. "Because sleep extension can make you feel groggy, I always recommend a short nap, at the same time, every day," if a person feels they need it, says Dr. Winter. He adds that 25 minutes is ideal. He tracks his alphawaves and sleep quality with a Zeo device, and sets his Sound Oasis machine to wake him after 25 minutes. "When you schedule a short nap, your body anticipates it and slows down, without falling into a deep dream sleep," he says. That refreshing, scheduled break is better than an occasional, disruptive weekend lie-in. "The body likes routine," he says. "When it's prepared, it works more efficiently."
I once took a single class of yoga I took -- and loathed it.
What I did learn from it is how to slow down my breathing.
The key, for me, is not to focus on trying to fall asleep but just on the breathing, and then I just do.
Napping, for me, is like a reboot. If I can even get in three or five minutes, I seem cognitively refreshed. Pretty amazing.
If I had a business where employees came, I'd have an employee nap room.
Linkspacious
From the amber waves of grain to the college kegs of grain alcohol...
Sporty Savings
Big savings in sports and outdoor stuff at Amazon
Creepy Clown Car: Better Than A Car Alarm
Creep the n'er-do-wells out of trying to rob you.
Photo by Gregg Sutter
Feminism Today
Tweet:
@EllenBethWachs
Does a baby feminist get her wings everytime another one uses the phrase "old white man" as an insult? #CueTheChillGirlAccusation
via @MaggieMcNeill
"The Asscam Has Been Invented"
Title from a @xeni tweet. And do heed her warnings at the end of her tweet:
Nicky Da B "Go Loko": music video, dir @ClaytonCubitt (NSFW, Seizure Warning)
Nicky Da B - Go Loko (Official) from Clayton Cubitt on Vimeo.
TSA Thugocracy Invents A Crime After Judge Rules There Wasn't One
The right to free speech is protected by our Constitution, but -- whoops -- all the people going compliantly through the TSA "security" checkpoints have shown them that they can crumple up the Constitution at the airport door.
Rarely a peep out of the flying sheeple or any of the people.
Sit back and enjoy the TV, everybody!
Well, there's a cost to that sort of thing, and it's the continuing erosion of our constitutional rights, and peevishness on the part of the TSA thugocracy when they don't get their way with us.
A case in point is that of the Portland man, John E. Brennan, who, most admirably, stripped down while going through a checkpoint to protest the disgusting and ridiculously invasive TSA "security" measures. Aimee Green writes in The Oregonian that a judge acquitted him last year, but his legal troubles continue:
But the Northeast Portland man's legal headaches continue.Brennan made national headlines a year ago when smartphone photos went viral showing him standing near a metal detector without a stitch on and then again when a Multnomah County circuit judge determined he was just exercising his free speech.
On Tuesday, Brennan will be back before a judge, appealing a Transportation Security Administration attempt to fine him $1,000 for allegedly breaking a federal rule stating passengers may not "interfere with, assault, threaten, or intimidate" TSA screeners.
"I've had this cloud hanging over my head ... for months and months," said Brennan, 50, who was notified of the $1,000 fine in August.
Robert Callahan, a Portland attorney who has taken on Brennan's case pro bono, said the TSA is going after Brennan "because they didn't like to lose."
It's disgusting -- but not at all surprising -- that this is happening. Without protests from the people, government will just grow bigger and bolder. And one naked guy just isn't enough.
Oh, and he seems to have lost his job at Seagate Technology over this. I'm sorry to say I have a Seagate drive. In the future, that's not going to happen.
Support those who support our rights -- in whatever way you can.
And stand up for our rights -- before they're no longer our rights.
Stupid Thief Tricks
The alleged thief of Virginia Maiden's Toyota 4-Runner pulled up in it to the drive-in window at McDonald's, where Maiden works. Lee Moran writes in the New York Daily News that it was just hours afterward that the Toyota rolled up to the McDonald's:
Maiden called the cops and the 22-year-old driver, Katherine York, was detained before she could even make it out of the parking lot.A male passenger was also taken in, but later found to be unconnected to the theft, reports KEPR-TV.
Cops said they found a "large amount" of clothing, complete with security tags, that had previously been stolen from JCPenney and Sears in the vehicle.
York was booked into the Benton County jail, reports the Tri-City Herald.
@nycjim
Linksplosion
Look, it's a pipe bomb. Meerschaum, I believe.
Advice Goddess Radio ("Best Of" Replay): Tonight, 7-8pm PT -- Fred Hahn On Science-Based Fitness: How To Be Healthier A Fitness Fanatic With Only 15 Minutes Of Exercise
Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.
My wee doggie was sick, and this consumed much of my week, so I'm sorry to say I have a rerun for you this week -- but a very good one.
On this show, exercise trainer and rehab expert Fred Hahn explains why slow-speed strength training for just a few minutes a week will make you healthier than a fitness nut who spends their week running miles upon miles in the rain and hours in the gym. (He lays out fascinating and solid evidence throughout the show.)
Listen at this link at 7pm Pacific, 10pm Eastern, or download the podcast afterward:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2013/05/20/fred-hahns-science-based-exercise
Fred is co-author, with Dr. Michael Eades and Dr. Mary Dan Eades, whom I greatly respect, of The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution: The Slow-Motion Exercise That Will Change Your Body In 30 Minutes A Week.
He debunks all the myths most of us hold about exercise and fitness, and will leave you with a plan for exercise that will strengthen your heart and bones and increase your metabolism, and will only eat 12-15 minutes of your week.
This is a not-to-be-missed show. This method of exercise has improved my health and my life and I'm hoping you'll follow my lead.
And don't miss last week's show with Kinsey Institute researcher and evolutionary biologist Dr. Justin Garcia, co-author with Dr. Peter B. Gray of the encyclopedic new book, Evolution and Human Sexual Behavior
This show will help you improve your sex life and diminish sexual anxiety with the latest research on sex.
We talk about orgasms, fantasies, hooking up, what's changed about oral sex, how people can make Internet dating work better for them, how the proliferation of porn really affects the average person's sex life, and whether you can be better in bed -- and how -- among other topics.
Garcia has done fascinating studies on sex and will debunk some widely held myths with straight talk about who's doing what to whom, how things have changed, and how we can do better with a few shifts in our thinking in various areas.
Listen or download the podcast at this link:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2013/05/13/kinseys-dr-justin-garcia-on-the-science-of-better-sex
Join me and my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, here at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.
Probable Bullshit: Story Of Rich Manhattan Moms "Renting" The Disabled To Jump Lines At Disney
"Lesley" writes a detailed post about why at XOJane:
HAVE YOU BEEN OUTRAGED BY THIS YET? Unfortunately, you're probably angry for all the wrong reasons....1. There is no way this is a common practice.
Basically the Post has taken the story of one Manhattan mother and extrapolated it to mean that renting disabled people is rampant amongst the rich as a means of administering yet another kick to the teeth of the little guy who probably saved for their big family Disney vacation for the past three years.
If you read the Post story closely, the evidence is that there is ONE disabled tour guide who works for one particular company -- who, indeed, is a co-owner of said company -- and that her contact information may have been shared amongst a few people. (The tour company's co-owner told the Post that his partner has an auto-immune disorder and confirmed that she does use a motorized scooter to access the parks.) This is HARDLY the same thing as wealthy Manhattan socialites jetting down to Orlando and choosing a disabled tour guide from a specially-designed "black market" service to provide them.
2. It wouldn't work anyway.
The belief that using a wheelchair or scooter lets you skip epic lines at the theme parks is a thoroughly popular one, but just because people believe it doesn't make it so. The truth is, most of Disney's ride queues are indeed wheels-accessible these days, thanks to efforts on the part of the company to improve access. And the only reason disabled guests and their parties EVER get to skip a line is because they are physically prevented from using the regular queue space -- just being disabled does not get you a head-of-the-line pass.
The worst offender for inaccessible queues is the Magic Kingdom park, simply because it is also the oldest, and updates have been slower to catch up. For the newer parks, like Disney's Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom and even Epcot, very few of the rides require disabled guests to use a different entrance.
We're so quick to believe stories of the evil rich, people's skepticism filters automatically go to the "off" position.
Via @WalterOlson who posts links to the pieces by other skeptics here.
marco73 comments at overlawyered:
This story sure sounds too good to check. You can hire a Disney employee to personally escort your group anywhere in any of the DisneyWorld parks, jumping to the front of every line, and providing entertaining knowledge to boot. We've taken a couple escorted tours, and the experience is worth every penny.Why would you bother with having to drag around some stranger for $1000 per day, when you can have a real tour guide for a lot less?
Do reporters ever do any diligence? Oh, yes, the reporter called Disney a couple times and Disney never called back.
Maybe they should have just checked the Disney website.
All The Little Subservient Citizens, All In A Row
Ben Boychuk writes in the Sac Bee that the government is delegitimizing itself with all of these recent scandals (Benghazi, Holder's "I dunno" about the AP phone records sweep, the IRS abuse of power).
Obama picked a particularly bad time, in his OSU commencement address, to make the case for the virtues of collective government action:
"Unfortunately," he said, "you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner."Talk about bad timing.
"You should reject these voices," the president continued. "Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can't be trusted."
Who is this "we" about whom the president speaks? Is it the elected official or the career bureaucrat? Of course they can't be trusted. They prove it every day, and again this week.
And although our "experiment in self-rule" isn't necessarily a sham, Obama's airy description surely is. Self-rule doesn't mean filling out umpteen forms for Obamacare, or letting a federal bureaucrat dictate how you can use your private property, or acceding to thousands upon thousands of incomprehensible rules and regulations, or getting another pat down at the airport. The proper word for that isn't self-rule, but subservience.
via @walterolson
What We're Really Protecting In Afghanistan
Via Martin, Ben Anderson posts his Afghan War Diary on vice.com:
Transition is the fourth and final stage of NATO's counterinsurgency policy, but it isn't supposed to happen until the Taliban have been cleared out, infrastructure has been built up, and the Afghan security forces have been trained and recruited to the point where they are ready to take over without outside support.After spending five weeks in Sangin, it was obvious to me that Afghan security was nowhere near ready. I'd seen policemen so high on heroin they couldn't stand up straight or tie sandbags, and soldiers firing hundreds of rockets, bullets, and grenades at the smallest of suspicious movements in the desert--"Fuck them, they are all Taliban here," one blurted out when he was told to stop shooting at a father and son--and on at least six different occasions, the use of child soldiers.
The Afghan Police was still active, too, kidnapping civilians for ransom or as bargaining chips in prisoner exchanges. Weapons, fuel, and equipment NATO had supplied to the Afghan National Army were being sold at the local bazaar, and "ghosts"--officers who technically didn't exist--filled police payroll sheets. "Have you ever seen The Sopranos?" said Major Bill Steuber, the marine in charge of the police-advisory team, describing the corruption. "It's vast."
Worst of all, police commanders were routinely abducting young men and using them as "chai boys," house servants who were also kept as sex slaves. In separate incidents, three of those boys had been shot dead while trying to escape. One was shot in the face and one was shot at police headquarters. When a fourth boy was shot, Steuber marched into the police chief's office and demanded action.
The police chief first said that the boys had chosen to live on the patrol bases: "They like being there and giving their asses at night." He also claimed that the practice of soldiers sexually abusing them was necessary. "If my commanders don't fuck these boys, who will they fuck? Their own grandmothers?"
The culture of slavery and child molestation is enabled by Islam.
In the description of paradise, Allah says that He has reserved young and beautiful boys as servants for those who qualify to enter the garden of paradise. This pleasure of child molestation is especially relevant to the Jihadis of today, who are dying just to have a real taste of paradise.
More here on the "prophet" Mohammed's "thighing" of little 6-year-old Aisha.
And from thereligionofpeace.com:
In fact, a fatwa was recently issued from a mainstream Islamic source reminding Muslim males of their divine right to rape female slaves and "discipline" resisters in "whatever manner he thinks is appropriate". Not one peep of protest from Islamic apologists was recorded. In 2011, what passes for a women's rights activist in Kuwait suggested that Russian women be taken captive in battle and turned into sex slaves in order to keep Muslim husbands from committing adultery. (Other calls for turning non-Muslim women into sex slaves can be found here). Since Muhammad was a slave owner and slavery is permitted by the Qur'an, the Muslim world has never apologized for this dehumanizing practice. Even Muslims in the West will often try to justify slavery under Islam, since it is a part of the Qur'an.
Americans are dying in Afghanistan for this?
Linksie Riccardo
Remember the scene with the chocolates? Fill 'er up!
A Self-Help Book That's Truly Helpful
I get a lot of self-help books in the mail for my behavioral science-based radio show and I have to say, lately, I've been very disappointed. I've got quite a stack of books that have nothing really extraordinary or very helpful to say.
Well, I bought a book on Kindle the other day (and I'm quoting it in a column) and I have to say, it contains truly helpful and practical advice on time management.
The book is Time Management from the Inside Out: The Foolproof System for Taking Control of Your Schedule -- and Your Life
I tend to try to fit too much into an hour and run late, and some of her insights have helped me rejigger my thinking in ways that will help me have an easier time being on time.
Boyfriendism Of The Day
Gregg calls vitamins "all these little crackpot pills you make me take."
Gotta keep the man alive!
Choices, Choices, Choices: Why Women Earn Less Than Men
We've been through this here before, but this video has good explanation from Prof. Steven Horwitz of St. Lawrence University about how the pay differences flow from men's and women's choices.
Sure, there is a wage gap -- of about 2 percent, when you take away choices like having children and taking time off to care for them, and compare comparable men and women:
Texas Catch 22 "Morality" Clause: Unmarried And Dating People Can't Live Together -- And Gay People Can't Marry
Anna Waugh writes at DallasVoice.com:
MCKINNEY -- Page Price and Carolyn Compton have been together for almost three years, but a Collin County judge is forcing them apart.Judge John Roach Jr., a Republican who presides over the 296th District Court, enforced the "morality clause" in Compton's divorce papers on Tuesday, May 7. Under the clause, someone who has a "dating or intimate relationship" with the person or is not related "by blood or marriage" is not allowed after 9 p.m. when the children are present. Price was given 30 days to move out of the home because the children live with the couple.
Price posted about the judge's ruling on Facebook last week, writing that the judge placed the clause in the divorce papers because he didn't like Compton's "lifestyle."
"Our children are all happy and well adjusted. By his enforcement, being that we cannot marry in this state, I have been ordered to move out of my home," Price wrote.
...Ken Upton Jr., senior staff attorney for Lambda Legal's Dallas office, said he is familiar with the case. He said morality clauses are rarely enforced and were historically used to prevent unmarried people from cohabitating with children present. Courts often include the clauses without people knowing, especially in conservative areas like Collin County, he said.
Gay couples are unfairly targeted under the clause because they can't legally marry in Texas, Upton said.
...The couple can appeal the decision, which would likely be overturned. Upton said many appeals courts look at the relationship and if it causes any harm to the children in deciding whether to honor the morality clause. Being that the couple already lives together with a healthy environment for the kids, Upton said they stand a good chance to win on appeal.
If the couple decides to appeal, he said the case could set an example in Texas for how courts will interpret the clause for gay couples.
"This could be an important case in Texas," he said. "I think it's a case to watch."
The situation is similar to a 2011 Houston case where a judge ruled that William Flowers couldn't leave his children alone with his partner, Jim Evans, because they were not related by blood or adoption, despite the couple being married. Had he ruled under the morality clause, the partner would have had to move out.
Sometimes Mumbo Jumbo Is Just Mumbo Jumbo
In Pat Condell's latest video, he talks about a letter from a Christian telling him he needs "a more nuanced view of the transcendent."
Does anybody really understand what that means?
Religion "transcends common sense" and reality, he notes, "protecting nonsense from examination":
And he doesn't use the exact term, but he's talking about pathological altruism -- when religious people do evil in the name of religion.
Advice Goddess Free Swim
You pick the topics. A little exhausted Friday night. I'll post more on Saturday morning.
P.S. One link per comment or my spam filter will eat your post.
TSA Has Its Hands In Your Panties But US Marshals Had No Idea Where Two "Known Or Suspected" Terrorists Were
Ryan J. Reilly writes at HuffPo:
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Marshals Service gave new names and identities to "known or suspected" terrorists admitted to the witness protection program and allowed them to fly on commercial airlines, despite the fact that they were on the TSA's "no-fly" list, an internal Justice Department investigation found.The DOJ Inspector General report released Thursday also found that the Marshals lost track of two former known or suspected terrorists who had left the federal Witness Security Program. The DOJ has now tracked down all the current members of the WITSEC program and has determined where the two terrorism-linked individuals who left the program are located, a DOJ official told reporters.
..."There is no threat to public safety," another Justice Department official said. "To-date, the FBI has not identified a national security threat tied to participation of terrorism-linked witnesses in the WITSEC program."
But the critical IG report said the Marshals had not involved other national security stakeholders in the WITSEC process. It also found "significant deficiencies in the handling of known or suspected terrorists" admitted into the program. Because the TSA was not told about the WITSEC participants' new identities, "it was possible for known or suspected terrorists to fly on commercial airplanes in or over the United States and evade one of the government's primary means of identifying and tracking terrorists' movements and actions," the report stated.
Yes, the people we should be taking a serious look at we ignore, while treating every other American who needs to board a plane as if they've been to al Qaeda training camp -- even if they're 6 and disabled.
Viagra? To Know Or Not To Know?...
If you're a woman, and you aren't exactly 20, and a man you've just started dating (also not exactly 20) is taking those little blue pills...do you need to know? Do you think you should?
The War On Drugs Is Working -- But Only To Rid Taxpayers Of Hundreds Of Billions Of Their Dollars
Via Jason S., Serena Dai lays out a chart by filmmaker Matt Groff on theatlanticwire that shows that while drug war spending has climbed astronomically since 1970, the drug addition rate has remained pretty much the same.
Dai writes:
As you can see, while the blue illicit drug addiction rate line has remained relatively steady at about 1.3 percent, the green line for drug control spending has skyrocketed. The increased spending did not correlate to lower addiction rates. "Drug use and abuse exists on a spectrum and as a society we must accept that some portion of the population will be addicted to drugs even if we don't like it," Groff says.
More on the chart from Mike Riggs at reason:
A reader points out that the dollar amounts on the right Y axis don't add up to $1.5 trillion. The creator of the chart, documentary filmmaker Matt Groff, Tweeted the following in response to a question about where the $1.5 trillion figure comes from: "Short answer: chart shows only fed drug control, $1.5T refers to all costs assoc. w/ drug prohibition..."
Data Doesn't Support IRS Explanation For Scandal
From reason's newsfeed:
Applications for tax exemption from advocacy nonprofits had not yet spiked when the Internal Revenue Service began using what it admits was inappropriate scrutiny of conservative groups in 2010.In fact, applications were declining, data show.
Top IRS officials have been saying that a "significant increase" in applications from advocacy groups seeking tax-exempt status spurred its Cincinnati office in 2010 to filter those requests by using such politically loaded phrases as "Tea Party," "patriots," and "9/12."
Jonathan H. Adler at Volokh on White House spokesperson Jay Carney's claim that the IRS is an "independent agency":
Ammon Simon offers more on this point here.Not only is the IRS not an "independent" agency, but it appears that the substantial bonuses received by the head of the IRS tax-exempt division when the targeting of conservative groups occurred would have been approved by the White House because they exceeded $25,000. This official is now in charge of the IRS' Affordable Care Act office.
LinkedIn Snubs Prostitutes
How rude. And prissy.
It's your body -- sell it if you want to.
From reason, LinkedIn has updated its privacy policy to ban sex workers.
Sheri's Ranch, a brothel in Nevada, posted this:
"Legal prostitutes in Nevada are licensed and recognized by their county of employ as independent, taxpaying businesswomen. Nevada brothels are also licensed and recognized business establishments. These are legal businesses in reality, so why shouldn't they have a presence in virtual reality?"
Loved a blurb about this from reason: "You let politicians on here and not hookers?"
Excellent, excellent point.
In the past few week, I've gotten four illegal robocalls asking me to vote for Wendy Greuel, voiced by City Councilman Bill Rosendahl. (Those links are both of their LinkedIn profiles.)
More on Business Insider.
Follow the company -- Sheri's Ranch on LinkedIn. I just did.
Link, Link, Link Your Boat
Life is but a scream.
Bea Arthur's Boobies
Bea Arthur topless painting sells for nearly $2M, reports Natalie O'Neill in the New York Post:
The bare-breasted Bea Arthur piece, which the former "Maude" actress never actually sat for, was derided as misogynist by critics when it came out.Some writers even urged art lovers to boycott Currin's shows in the early 90s. But his work is now widely acclaimed and hangs in museums such as the Whitney.
A Christie's spokesman called the painting "visually lasting."
"It's historically significant -- it's radical to sexualize someone people think of as asexual," spokesman Koji Inoue said.
He added, "The painting has a visual toughness to it -- but it's also fun."
"Bea Arthur Naked" first stirred controversy in 1991, when critics blasted it for being sexist and misogynistic.
Others argued it was actually a feminist statement about confidence and age.
The New Yorker described the series that includes the portrait as "acrid fantasy portraits of menopausal women."
I hope somebody sexualizes me when I'm an old bag.
Changing The Drunk Driving Laws: How To Jail More People And Make More Money For The State
I'm against drunk driving and I don't drive drunk.
But if we want to cut down on driver impairment, will we make it illegal to turn on the radio or change the stations in the car or drive while preoccupied?
Jonathan Turley posts about the NTSB's push to make states change the drunk driving maximum blood alcohol level to .05, down from the current rate of .08:
That will mean that an average woman will cross the threshold with only a single drink. For men, it will be a two drink maximum.What is striking is the statement of NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman, who explained that "Our goal is to get to zero deaths because each alcohol-impaired death is preventable." That would seem to favor a .00 BAL. While all agencies work to avoid all injuries and deaths, few consider it a functional goal since there are few attainable absolutes in regulations. All regulation tends to be a trade off between rivaling goals or practices. Drinking is legal and most people believe that they can drive safely with a single drink. There is no question that the alcohol diminishes driving ability even with a single drink but the new level could result in a massive expansion of drivers under court supervision or suspension.
States are likely to be threatened with the loss of federal highway funds if they don't comply.
States may also be ordered to implement alcohol ignition interlock devices. The cost of these devices is imposed on the drivers in the form of a $50 to $100 purchase price plus a $50 a month fee to operate.With the increasing use of sobriety roadblocks where drivers are asked if they had anything to drink (and most answer truthfully), the result could be a much higher "yield" in arrests.
For? Against?
At A University That Gets Federal Funding? Better Tape Your Mouth Shut.
This is a terrific little video about the insane new speech codes the feds are pushing on universities.
Say "You're a pussy!" to somebody on campus? Tell a slightly dirty joke? Compliment somebody on their appearance? If they object, you've violated the new speech code.
In other words, yes, the federal government has become the thought police force of the college campus -- any college campus that gets federal funding, which is to say, almost all of them.
Reason editor Matt Welch highlights an essential issue here (in his three-minute interview with FIRE's Greg Lukianoff) -- that universities that refuse to punish any speech of a sexual nature that offends anyone will lose federal funding.
If you have any money to spare, please donate to theFIRE.org -- they are doing a big push to fight this, and will need to fund it. They defend the free speech rights of anyone on campus who has them violated -- people who otherwise would not be able to afford a defense.
Marc Randazza did the same for me. Without him coming to my rescue (and that of other bigmouthed broads who exercise their free speech rights), I would likely be spending the rest of my life paying $500,000 to the TSA worker who decided she'd make herself some cash stomping all over my First Amendment right to speak out about her violation of my Fourth Amendment rights.
Linkyteria
Raspberry Jell-O Beret.
The Low End Of The Gene Pool Bubbles Up On Twitter
PublicShaming posts responses on Twitter to Angelina Jolie's awareness-raising revelation in The New York Times that she underwent a double mastectomy. Creeps came out on Twitter to mourn her boobs and send Brad Pitt condolences.
via @Popehat
Who Were The Real Child Abusers Here?
Answer: The vengeful person or persons who called Child Protective Services on the Russian parents, living in Sacramento, who left one hospital to get a second opinion from a doctor in another. National Parents Organization's Robert Franklin gets this right:
It took a week and the intervention of the Russian consulate, but a judge finally ordered Sammy to be returned to his parents' care. As anyone with a brain could see, the Niklolayevs are loving parents whose only "crime" was to do the medically prudent thing - seek a second medical opinion. If this be neglect then all parents should be so neglectful.But if the topic is child abuse, let's focus on Sutter Hospital, Child Protective Services and the police, all of whom worked hand-in-glove to abuse an infant. Face it, someone at Sutter got mad at the Nikolayevs for questioning their medical advice. The fact that Alex and Anna turned out to be right and Sutter wrong (as evidenced by Kaiser doctors giving the boy a clean bill of health) only made them madder. So, like countless individuals we've seen before, they turned to the one governmental agency they knew they could count on to strike back at the Nikolayevs and aim the blow at their most vulnerable spot - their little son. With the help of the police, CPS made sure Alex and Anna learned their lesson; CPS can do anything it wants to for any or no reason and woe betide the parent who asserts his/her parental rights.
Did I say abuse? Here's a fact: children, within the very first weeks of life have learned to identify their parents and differentiate between Dad and Mom. They've bonded with them and of course rely on them for every detail of their care and protection. Sammy can't talk yet, but he knows his parents well and his whole sense of security is bound up in them, in seeing them, smelling them and hearing their voices, in being cuddled by them, fed by them, cleaned and swaddled by them. And it is that deeply important sense of security that Sutter, CPS and the police struck at when they grabbed Sammy from his loving parents and ran. That they grabbed him for no good reason is a fact, but it's a fact lost on Sammy. What's important to him is that, for a very long time - for all he knew, forever - his parents vanished. What damage that did to his psyche, I don't know, but it had the power to do permanent harm.
Anna and Alex Nikolayev were overjoyed on their son's return. "He lay down, closed his eyes, but then a couple seconds later, he turned around, looked at me, looked back, turned around, closed his eyes. A couple seconds later, same thing again, looked at me. It is like, 'Mommy, you're still here.' That was exciting," Anna told News10.Exactly my point. How long will it be before he regains the security to rely on his parents' presence? Will he, throughout his life, continually be on the lookout for some unforeseeable cataclysm that falls on him and ruins everything. I can't say, but that's the sort of thing CPS risked in their "protection" of this child.
Of course, the name of the person who reported them has not been revealed. I suspect that Franklin is exactly right that this is a case of indignation on the part of medical personnel more than anything else.
Baby Feces Wednesday: I Hate When Companies Apologize To The Rude
A woman goes to a Denver Starbucks, finds there's no changing table in the restroom, and decides to give the rest of the customers some feces and poo smell to go with their coffee by changing her baby in the middle of the place.
Sorry, but the world may not always accommodate your every little need. When it does not, you need to be a sport about it, not act out and assert your tiny self over the rest of us -- wiping feces in an area where food and drink is served.
The appropriate thing to do would be to go change your baby in your vehicle.
The ugly thing is, after an employee gave the lady a rag, the woman's pig of a husband dumped his coffee on the floor. This tells us something: These are people who needed extreme birth control measures. I don't want to experience the brat that such entitled assholes put out into the world. Here's the story from 9News (via Sosij):
Burgos noticed there was no changing table at the Denver Starbucks on the 7900 block of East 49th Avenue so she changed her son's diaper in the seating area."I just kind of wiped him off, cleaned him off as quickly as I could," Burgos said.
Alex Burgos says a Starbucks employee tossed his wife a rag and spoke to her in a "demeaning" tone.
"He said make sure to wipe the seat when you're done," he said. "They started talking amongst themselves and laughing about it."
Burgos says his blood started boiling, hotter than the venti coffee with extra sugar he decided to pour on the floor.
"And I said make sure you clean that," Burgos said.
He says they exchanged strong words and hand gestures.
The store called Denver police to report a "disturbance" and an officer responded around 10 p.m. but nobody was arrested.
Starbucks spokesperson Jaime Riley says the company is "concerned," has "apologized to the Burgos family," and wants all customers treated with "dignity and respect."
Oh, hurl. Here's the video:
Boston Bombers' Mosque Recommended Wife-Beating As Marital Aid
From The Daily Caller, Patrick Howley writes:
The Islamic Society of Boston, the mosque attended by Boston Marathon bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokar Tsarnaev, posted an article on its website in September 2004 that advocated for the beating of women as a last resort to force them to behave.The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based mosque posted an English translation of Saudi cleric Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajid's 1997 work, "The Muslim Home: 40 Recommendations in Light of the Quran and Sunnah," which the mosque headlined, "40 Recommendations for the Muslim Home."
"Hinting at punishment is an effective means of discipline, so the reason for hanging up a whip or stick in the house was explained in another report, where the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: 'Hang up the whip where the members of the household can see it, for this is more effective in disciplining them,'" the article states.
"Seeing the means of punishment hanging up will make those who have bad intentions refrain from indulging in bad behaviour, lest they get a taste of the punishment. It will motivate them to behave themselves and be good mannered," it says.
"Hitting is not the way to discipline; it is not to be resorted to, except when all other means are exhausted, or when it is needed to force someone to do obligatory acts of obedience, as Allah says (interpretation of the meaning): '... As to those women on whose part you fear ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly, if it is useful),'" it goes on.
Well, isn't that civilized!
Think Link
A fluffy from the past. More from the present are up to you.
Your Right To Blast Disco At 11pm Ends Where My Living Room Begins
A note for an asshole who now lives nearby, who took over the rooms of all the nearby houses with their extremely loud music. Note that I am being careful not to refer to this person as a "neighbor," since they do not behave like one:
Regarding your blastingly loud, amplified outdoor music on Saturday night:This is a neighborhood you moved into, not a giant, open-air disco.
People who live here have a right to the quiet enjoyment of their homes and apartments, meaning that they don't have amplified, super-loud music blasting into their homes when they want to read a book, watch TV, talk with their dinner guests or sleep.
If you want to hold a party with amplified outdoor sound (or any sound that would invade others' residences), the considerate thing to do is to pay to rent a party space -- not force your neighbors to put up with your party noise.
Last night, almost a block away from you, we were watching a movie on TV (with all the doors and windows closed) and at one point we couldn't hear the dialogue because your music was so loud.
How were you raised that you think this is okay?
--Your neighbors
Do whatever you want -- as long as whatever you're doing doesn't shove itself into other people's homes, transforming their environment.
Disgusting Government Intrusion: DOJ Secretly Obtains Months Of AP Reporters' Phone Records
The headline is from this AP piece by Mark Sherman:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.
In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.
In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.
"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," Pruitt said.
Richard A. Serrano writes for the Washington Bureau of the LA Times
WASHINGTON -- Federal prosecutors secretly obtained telephone records from more than 20 lines belonging to the Associated Press and its journalists in an attempt to learn who leaked information on how the CIA thwarted an apparent terrorist plot hatched in Yemen.The Associated Press on Monday called the action a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into news gathering. The government subpoenaed records covering a two-month period in early 2012 from telephones in the wire service's offices in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., as well as the homes and cellphones of at least five reporters and an editor.
The American Civil Liberties Union called the subpoenas "an unacceptable abuse of power."
In the past, prosecutors have obtained telephone records from individual journalists, but subpoenas directed at so many telephone lines in a single leak investigation are unusual.
The records would not have included the contents of the calls, but would have shown the phone numbers of people or agencies that reporters called, and could have included numbers of those who called reporters and the length of the conversations.
Prosecutors are known to be investigating who tipped the Associated Press about a secret CIA operation that foiled a plot to bomb an airplane bound for the U.S., an attack that would have coincided with the one-year anniversary of the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
The Associated Press story, published May 7, 2012, said Al Qaeda operatives had devised a new type of bomb that would not contain metal, making it easier to evade airport security. The Associated Press reported that the terrorists had not yet selected a target city or purchased a plane ticket "when the CIA stepped in and seized the bomb."
Declan McCullagh from CNET tweets an important question:
@declanm
Is there any evidence that DOJ's @AP subpoenas violated the law? If not, then shouldn't critics prioritize fixing the law? cc: @OrinKerr
Based on what we know so far, then, I don't see much evidence of an abuse. Of course, I realize that some VC readers strongly believe that everything the government does is an abuse: All investigations are abuses unless there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt to the contrary. To not realize this is to be a pro-government lackey. Or even worse, Stewart Baker. But I would ask readers inclined to see this as an abuse to identify exactly what the government did wrong based on what we know so far. Was the DOJ wrong to investigate the case at all? If it was okay for them to investigate the case, was it wrong for them to try to find out who the AP reporters were calling? If it was okay for them to get records of who the AP reporters were calling, was it wrong for them to obtain the records from the personal and work phone numbers of all the reporters whose names were listed as being involved in the story and their editor? If it was okay for them to obtain the records of those phone lines, was the problem that the records covered two months -- and if so, what was the proper length of time the records should have covered?I get that many people will want to use this story as a generic "DOJ abuse" story and not look too closely at it. And I also understand that those who think leaks are good things will see investigations of leaks as inherently bad. But at least based on what we know so far, I don't yet see a strong case that collecting these records was an abuse of the investigative process.
From Philip Klein at the WashEx:
It will be harder for President Obama to pin the DOJ's action on lower level bureaucrats, however, because requests to subpoena news organization records require the approval of Attorney General Eric Holder....So, either attorneys' ignored procedure in obtaining phone records without proper approval, or Holder directly approved an operation that involved obtaining journalists' work and personal phone records.
Shouldn't a warrant be required for this sort of thing? We have checks and balances in government for a reason -- that there's a whole lot of need for checking and balancing people's power (the people in government, that is).
Commenter Stephen_Lathrop writes at Volokh:
Of course if there were a warrant requirement, you wouldn't be searching reporters' phone records, because no probable cause. That's one piece that is wrong, warrantless searches that shouldn't be happening because there is no probable cause against the people searched.Two more general points:
First, these kinds of warrantless searches have been enabled because technology creates electronic proxies of our private records willy-nilly. I think I'm relying on Professor Kerr when I say that to convenience prosecutors, the courts have apparently okayed ransacking the proxies, even though the originals would be off limits. I think I'm disagreeing with Professor Kerr (not to mention the courts) when I say, that's wrong.
Second, there is an aspect of the 1A free press clause that hasn't had the attention it needs. Early thinking about press freedom was mostly about protecting the expression of opinion. It wasn't until the 20th century, as far as I know, that issues relating to news gathering entered the free press debates. Those issues have proved thorny because they create contested constitutional rights, freedom-of-the-press vs. right-to-subpoena-witnesses, for instance.
The wise policy choice in handling those conflicts is not to resolve them. Instead, honor both sides. You do that by allowing court maneuvers that intrude on press news-gathering freedom, and then if press people resist, punishing them. But the key is to not punish the resistance too severely--and to do that uniformly, as a matter of wise (but informal) policy, taking note that the press people are also defending a constitutionally guaranteed right. The alternative is to pick one side to favor, as matter of policy, and thus destroy permanently the right on the other side. That's wrong, too.
Warrantless searches of electronic records circumvent any possibility of using judicial policy to protect rights that are ambiguously divided among contesting parties. So that's a fourth way that warrantless searches of press phone records are wrong.
Courageous Revelation By Angelina Jolie: Her Recent Protective Double Mastectomy
Jolie writes in The New York Times, "I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity":
MY MOTHER fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56. She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was.We often speak of "Mommy's mommy," and I find myself trying to explain the illness that took her away from us. They have asked if the same could happen to me. I have always told them not to worry, but the truth is I carry a "faulty" gene, BRCA1, which sharply increases my risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer.
My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman.
Only a fraction of breast cancers result from an inherited gene mutation. Those with a defect in BRCA1 have a 65 percent risk of getting it, on average.
Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex.
On April 27, I finished the three months of medical procedures that the mastectomies involved. During that time I have been able to keep this private and to carry on with my work.
...Nine weeks later, the final surgery is completed with the reconstruction of the breasts with an implant. There have been many advances in this procedure in the last few years, and the results can be beautiful.
I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy. But it is one I am very happy that I made. My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent. I can tell my children that they don't need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.
via @michaellinder
Once You Go Black...
Katherine Mangu-Ward's headline at reason.com says it all:
Most Transparent Administration in History Releases Completely Redacted Document About Text Snooping
The document, livin' large and buried in black, is here.
Hot Pork Links
The tasty kind, not the bitter, sawdusty government kind.
I'm Wanting A Dash Cam About Now
Check out this lady in Russia who tries to fake being hit by a car. Foiled by the video!
Men's Rights Grumbled About By Judge: You're Not The Daddy? Well, You're A Rat For Saying So. And Keep Paying Anyway.
Just because you're not the daddy doesn't mean you don't have to pay for the kid. Yes, this still goes on. And on.
The guy asked and asked judges for a DNA test, but no judge would order one. When he wanted to establish that the child was not his, he was told, "This is not what we're here for."
Stephanie Scurlock writes at WREG that the guy, in 2009, took the child (he'd been supporting for years) to get a DNA test, and found that the kid was not biologically his. The judge wouldn't accept the results but ordered another test, and the probability that he was the father was zero percent:
Juvenile Court magistrate Nancy Kessler agreed in October to dis-establish paternity, but only after she admonished him for taking it this far."The judge stated that, 'well I find it very distasteful that you're bastardizing the child," said Bowdery.
The judge stopped the child support going forward, but Bowdery is still paying $460 a month in back pay to the mother.
He doesn't think he should have to pay that.
In fact, he believes someone owes him money. He wants the $30,000 he already paid, back.
Administrators at juvenile court denied our request for an interview on this case.
They say it's not appropriate to comment about rulings.We asked a family lawyer what are the chances of Bowdery getting his money back.
Attorney Miles Mason said, "It is very unusual and very infrequent."Mason says in a similar case, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled a man in middle Tennessee could sue his ex-wife for fraud. He won a $100,000 judgement.
"There was a very large judgement awarded against the mother but I doubt they would be able to collect in most cases," said Mason.
State representative G.A. Hardaway says he's heard from a number of fathers in his district like Bowdery.
He introduced a bill letting them file civil lawsuits against the biological fathers, but it never made it out of committee.
If feminists were truly about equal rights for all people, they'd be at the forefront complaining about this.
And P.S. The person who "bastardized this child" is the woman who had the kid out of wedlock and then stuck the paternity on this guy -- probably because he has deeper pockets than the real father (or perhaps because she has no idea who the real father is).
When you have children the way a stray dog has puppies, you are the one who should pay for it -- not some random guy you can use the state to catch up in its net. And sickeningly, as has been shown over and over, the state is only too glad to stick some random man with the payment, not making room for (or even allowing) the most basic attempts to find the truth, like a DNA test.
via ifeminists
America's Roads Are Now America's Revenue Generator
And we're all the funders.
From The Economic Collapse Blog:
All over America today there are state and local governments that are drowning in debt. Many have chosen to use "traffic enforcement" as a way to raise desperately needed revenue. According to the National Motorist Association, issuing speeding tickets raises somewhere between 4.5 billion and 6 billion dollars in the United States each year. And the average price of a speeding ticket just keeps going up. Today, the national average is about $150, but in many jurisdictions it is far higher. For example, more than 16 million traffic tickets are issued in the state of California each year, and the average fine is approximately $250.If you are wealthy that may not be much of a problem, but if you are a family that is barely scraping by every month that can be a major financial setback. Meanwhile, America's roads are also being systematically transformed into a surveillance grid. The number of cameras watching our roads is absolutely exploding, and automated license plate readers are capturing hundreds of millions of data points on all of us.
As you drive down the highway, a police vehicle coming up behind you can instantly read your license plate and pull up a whole host of information about you. This happened to me a few years ago. I had pulled on to a very crowded highway in Virginia and within less than a minute a cop car had scanned me and was pulling me over because one of my stickers had expired. But these automated license plate readers are being used for far more than just traffic enforcement now. For example, officials in Washington D.C. are now using automated license plate readers to track the movements of every single vehicle that enters the city. They know when you enter Washington, and they know when you leave. So where is all of this headed? Do we really want to live in a "Big Brother" society where the government constantly tracks all of our movements?
Back in the old days, the highways of America were great examples to the rest of the world of the tremendous liberties and freedoms that we enjoyed. Americans loved to hop into their vehicles and take a drive. But now government is sucking all of the fun out of driving. The control freak bureaucrats that dominate our political system have figured out that giant piles of money can be raised by turning our roads into revenue raising tools.
More on the license plate readers:
The amount of data that these automated license plate readers are capturing is astounding. The following is from a recent article by the Electronic Frontier Foundation...Photographing a single license plate one time on a public city street may not seem problematic, but when that data is put into a database, combined with other scans of that same plate on other city streets, and stored forever, it can become very revealing. Information about your location over time can show not only where you live and work, but your political and religious beliefs, your social and sexual habits, your visits to the doctor, and your associations with others. And, according to recent research reported in Nature, it's possible to identify 95% of individuals with as few as four randomly selected geospatial datapoints (location + time), making location data the ultimate biometric identifier.
via Jay J. Hector
Recognizing That Somebody's Time Means Something Means A Lot
I spent some time carefully reading an advice request from a reader and sending her a series of questions to get further information. She answered my questions and then subsequently sent this:
Please do not publish a reply to my inquiry, I've changed my mind. ...It's possible he might see the column and there could be negative repercussions!
It's annoying to have people decided afterward that they don't want something published after I've put some time into it -- except when I get a message like this, which this woman included:
So sorry! I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. I know you've already put time and energy into writing me and thinking about my question.
I wrote back:
Hi there -- not to worry. I won't publish it. And yes, I did put time into thinking and writing, but second thoughts sometimes happen and a message like this one from you makes all the difference.Thank you for not being one of the entitled ones! All the best, -Amy
More Fun With The "Religion Of Peace"!
This jihadi went to America and all he got was this lousy indictment!
Stewart Bell and Graeme Hamilton write for Canada's National Post about a jihadist's plan to kill 100,000 people with bacteria in the water:
TORONTO -- A third suspect in custody in connection with an alleged terrorist plot to derail a VIA Rail train near Toronto is a former Université Laval graduate student who arrived in Canada nearly three years ago but moved to the United States in March.Ahmed Abassi, a 26-year-old Tunisian citizen, was arrested at New York's JFK airport on April 22 -- the same day the RCMP picked up Chiheb Esseghaier in Montreal and co-accused Raed Jaser in Toronto.
The U.S. case had remained sealed until Thursday, when federal prosecutors revealed that an undercover FBI officer had met with Mr. Abassi and Mr. Esseghaier, and recorded conversations in which they allegedly discussed mass casualty terror plots.
Among the attacks they proposed were the train derailment plot and poisoning the air or water, resulting in the deaths of up to 100,000 people, officials said. The contamination plot was only talk and there was never any public danger.
As an atheist, I tend to discuss, oh, whether friends have been watching Downton Abbey or reading this book or that. Slaughtering 100,000 people who don't think as I do? Not quite on the discussion agenda.
You?
Now, of course, most Muslims aren't jihadists. Very few seem to be. But because there are lots and lots and lots of Muslims, proportionately very few tends to be quite a lot.
People talk of how Islam must be "reformed" like Christianity was. Problem is, there are failsafes built into it, like how the Quran is said to be the word of Allah, and is not to be questioned or to be taken as a historical document or allegory, but The Truth To Be Followed.
This, perhaps, explains why we don't see loud outcry from the "moderate Muslims." (There's also probably fear of being slaughtered.)
Any suggestions?
via @mpetrie98
Obamacare, In A Single Line
Dr. Barbara Beller is running for the Illinois State Senate:
Links Of Steel
"Kandor, take me away!"
Advice Goddess Radio, Tonight, Sunday, May 12, 7-8pm PT, 10-11 ET -- Kinsey's Dr. Justin Garcia On The Science Of Better Sex
Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio -- "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in therapy and research.
Tonight's show will help you improve your sex life and diminish sexual anxiety with the latest research on sex.
We'll talk about orgasms, fantasies, hooking up, what's changed about oral sex, how people can make Internet dating work better for them, how the proliferation of porn really affects the average person's sex life, and whether you can be better in bed -- and how -- among other topics.
My guest tonight is Kinsey Institute researcher and evolutionary biologist Dr. Justin Garcia, co-author with Dr. Peter B. Gray of the encyclopedic new book, Evolution and Human Sexual Behavior
Garcia has done fascinating studies on sex and will debunk some widely held myths with straight talk about who's doing what to whom, how things have changed, and how we can do better with a few shifts in our thinking in various areas.
Listen at 7 pm Pacific and 10 pm Eastern at this link or download the podcast afterward:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2013/05/13/kinseys-dr-justin-garcia-on-the-science-of-better-sex
And don't miss last week's show with the inspiring Dr. Temple Grandin, bestselling author, autism activist, and consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior, discussing her fascinating new book, The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum
This isn't just a show for people who have friends or children with autism or autism spectrum disorders but a show that offers compelling thinking on how to see intelligence, creativity, and differences between brains and how to help people use their brains and talents in optimal ways.
Listen online or download the podcast:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2013/05/06/temple-grandin-the-autistic-brain
Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8pm Pacific, 10-11pm Eastern, with podcasts available afterward, at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon, or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.
Freedom Is Messy
A commenter here who railed against pot subsequently wrote: "Legalized drugs & alcohol cause crime too. Alcohol-related crime is greater now than when it was illegal."
Freedom is a nasty business. But lack of freedom is far nastier.
It's "Possible" To Cook Meals For Your Children Without The Government Paying For It
And by "the government," Kristin Wartman means "all the other taxpayers."
There's a piece of nitwittery about paying people to cook at home in The New York Times by Wartman:
To get Americans cooking, we need to make it possible. Stay-at-home parents should qualify for a new government program while they are raising young children -- one that provides money for good food, as well as education on cooking, meal planning and shopping -- so that one parent in a two-parent household, or a single parent, can afford to be home with the children and provide wholesome, healthy meals. These payments could be financed by taxing harmful foods, like sugary beverages, highly caloric, processed snack foods and nutritionally poor options at fast food and other restaurants. Directly linking a tax on harmful food products to a program that benefits health would provide a clear rebuttal to critics of these taxes. Business owners who argue that such taxes will hurt their bottom lines would, in fact, benefit from new demand for healthy food options and from customers with money to spend on such foods.If we truly value domestic work, we should also enact workplace policies that incentivize health, like "health days" that employees could use for health-promoting activities: shopping for food, cooking, or tending a community garden.
It's a workplace, dear, not a health education community center and gardening store.
If you can't afford to or manage to cook for your children, well, then don't have them.
Don't expect other people to pay for your choices.
My dad might've liked to become a woodworker or gone into some type of creative puttering career. But because he chose to have a family he opened a business selling and renting commercial real estate in Detroit. Not exactly a laugh-a-minute but it paid for our whole-grain gruel. (Sadly, my mother was more influenced by Angela Davis than Julia Child.)
As for this question from her piece: "Where can people find the money to buy fresh foods, and how can they find the time to cook them?"
Buttered green beans are cheaper than Cheetos, and I make them by throwing a bunch in a bowl in the microwave with a few pats of butter and hitting 10 minutes. Yum!
UPDATE: Here's a previously linked piece in The Atlantic by Caitlin Flanagan that talks about the vegetables available in Compton:
As it happens, I live fewer than 20 miles from the most famous American hood, Compton, and on a recent Wednesday morning I drove over there to do a little grocery shopping. The Ralphs was vast, well-lit, bountifully stocked, and possessed of a huge and well-tended produce section. Using my Ralphs card, I bought four ears of corn for a dollar, green grapes and nectarines (both grown in the state, both 49 cents a pound), a pound of fresh tortillas for $1.69, and a half gallon of low-fat milk for $2.19. The staff, California friendly, outnumbered the customers, and the place had the dreamy, lost-in-time feeling that empty American supermarkets often have.But across Compton Boulevard, it was a different story. Anyone who says that Americans have lost the desire and ability to cook fresh produce has never been to the Superior Super Warehouse in Compton. The produce section--packed with large families, most of them Hispanic--was like a dreamscape of strange and wonderful offerings: tomatillos, giant mangoes, cactus leaves, bunches of beets with their leaves on, chayote squash, red yams, yucca root. An entire string section of chiles: serrano, Anaheim, green, red, yellow. All of it was dirt cheap, as were the bulk beans and rice. Small children stood beside shopping carts with the complacent, slightly dazed look of kids whose mothers are taking care of business.
What we see at Superior Super Warehouse is an example of capitalism doing what it does best: locating a market need (in this case, poor people living in an American inner city who desire a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and who are willing to devote their time and money to acquiring them) and filling it.
If you won't do what it takes to keep your children healthy, there are programs where you can have yourself sterilized. I suggest you take advantage of one of them, or (heavens!) pay for it yourself.
Bagel And Links
Heavy on the capers...
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Bath Salts In The Days Before Face-Eating
A tweet:
@SteveHuff
As far as I know, no one has answered for all the vanished 1970s moms who Calgon "took away."
Departments Of Justice And Education Take A Shocking Stand Against Free Speech On Campus
From the campus free speech defenders, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education:
WASHINGTON, May 10, 2013--In a shocking affront to the United States Constitution, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education have joined together to mandate that virtually every college and university in the United States establish unconstitutional speech codes that violate the First Amendment and decades of legal precedent....In a letter sent yesterday to the University of Montana that explicitly states that it is intended as "a blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country," the Departments of Justice and Education have mandated a breathtakingly broad definition of sexual harassment that makes virtually every student in the United States a harasser while ignoring the First Amendment. The mandate applies to every college receiving federal funding--virtually every American institution of higher education nationwide, public or private.
The letter states that "sexual harassment should be more broadly defined as 'any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature'" including "verbal conduct" (that is, speech). It then explicitly states that allegedly harassing expression need not even be offensive to an "objectively reasonable person of the same gender in the same situation"--if the listener takes offense to sexually related speech for any reason, no matter how irrationally or unreasonably, the speaker may be punished.
...Among the forms of expression now punishable on America's campuses by order of the federal government are:
•Any expression related to sexual topics that offends any person. This leaves a wide range of expressive activity--a campus performance of "The Vagina Monologues," a presentation on safe sex practices, a debate about sexual morality, a discussion of gay marriage, or a classroom lecture on Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita--subject to discipline.
•Any sexually themed joke overheard by any person who finds that joke offensive for any reason.
•Any request for dates or any flirtation that is not welcomed by the recipient of such a request or flirtation.There is likely no student on any campus anywhere who is not guilty of at least one of these "offenses." Any attempt to enforce this rule evenhandedly and comprehensively will be impossible.
"The federal government has put colleges and universities in an impossible position with this mandate," said Lukianoff. "With this unwise and unconstitutional decision, the DOJ and DOE have doomed American campuses to years of confusion and expensive lawsuits, while students' fundamental rights twist in the wind."
Tweet:
@SandyHingston
That campus speech code I made fun of here http://www.phillymag.com/articles/penns-water-buffalo-incident-20-years/ ... just became law of the land: http://thefire.org/torch/#15768
Excerpt from Hingston's piece:
Those who dare question whether these offended parties have actually suffered harm are shouted down by the hurt-feelings "sensitivity" industry and social media and news organizations trolling for hits. And the costs of disagreeing with the PC guardians ratchet ever upward--costs that all of us pay.Penn's water buffalo debacle marked the moment when a remark ceased to be assessed on its merits and instead became subject to the ears of the beholder. Jacobowitz's epithet wasn't racial, but the women shouting outside his window perceived it to be. The content no longer mattered; their reaction, their hurt feelings, did, and that's what the administration acted on in charging the freshman with using a racial slur.
More from her piece:
In case you think what happens on college campuses doesn't seep through to the culture at large, consider the City Controller's Office at Philadelphia's City Hall. After some birdbrain scrawled a lewd comment about an aide and his partner on a men's-room stall, a dozen employees were grilled by a private investigator (cost to taxpayers: $7,746), then subjected to four hours of "Diversity & Sensitivity Training" on bullying and stereotyping (cost to taxpayers: $17,671). Did shelling out $25,000-plus for a sensitivity consultant accomplish anything that a stern "Hey, people, let's not be idiots" wouldn't have?But sensitivity training has become a huge industry, commonplace on campuses, in the workplace and in government. In one ultra-fatuous example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture spent nearly $200,000 to have a trainer lead employees in repeating such farcical mantras as "The Pilgrims were illegal aliens" and "Thank you, white males," as well as shouting, when prompted, "Bam!"
Sometimes, the costs of such "sensitivity" are more than just financial. Remember Major Nidal Hasan, who shot up Fort Hood in 2009? A report on the incident noted that an officer at the San Diego Field Office for the Joint Terrorism Task Force had informed headquarters in Washington, D.C., before the shootings that he thought Hasan should be asked about possible terrorist sympathies. The response from the D.C. office? It "doesn't go out and interview every Muslim guy who visits extremist websites." Besides, the San Diego office was told, the matter was "politically sensitive." Not long afterward, dozens of soldiers were wounded and 13 were dead.
Linkzilla
What's for dinner? Um...Tokyo?
It Should Be A Teaching Moment, Not An Arresting Moment
Yet another school principal, Georgia's Jamille Miller Brown, shows that being in the top job at a school and having judgment do not go hand in hand.
A student, Keandre Varner, Instagrammed Miller's mug shot he dug up -- adding that he thought she'd been arrested for a DUI, which she hadn't.
Time to call the kid and the kids parent (or parent) into the principal's office for a chat about...no, not posting the shot, which is his right under the First Amendment, but about accusing people of things when you don't have all the information, and how hurtful that can be. Also, there can be financial consequences -- like lawsuits.
Of course, the principal didn't do that. Instead, she reportedly tried to have the kid arrested, showing herself to be a tiny, power-mad bureaucrat who has no business having power over anything of more consequence than a hamburger grill.
Chris Matyszczyk writes at CNET:
You might be wondering what she asked the policeman to arrest him for. I am wondering the same thing.The policeman might have wondered the same thing too, as he reportedly refused to arrest Varner.
What was Miller Brown to do? Why, suspend the miserable miscreant.
You're still here, aren't you? What could she have suspended him for? Well, school administrators declared that Varner has been suspended for disseminating the picture to many people and for behaving in a belligerent manner when on the principal's carpet.
Here's a twist: Varner's mom, Nakesha Thomas, told WSB-TV that Miller Brown had sent her a letter stating that he had been suspended for "spreading misinformation."
Are you reaching exhaustion yet? Well, there is nothing in the school's rules that prevent students from spreading misinformation. This is the Internet age. You're supposed to spread misinformation.
This may or may not have been a contributory factor to reducing Varner's suspension from four days to two.
Also, the principal is teaching a lesson of sorts -- not to follow her example in being so irresponsible as to miss a court appearance about a speeding ticket.
Now, it is possible that she didn't get the notice, blah, blah, blah. But, it takes a hell of a lot of ignoring before a traffic ticket turns into a bench warrant. (Forget to pay it on time and you start getting a small storm of angry red notices.)
Fraud Who Preys On The Gullible, AKA "Psychic" Sylvia Browne, Said Amanda Berry Was Dead
Wanting to believe is not the same as having reason to believe, but grieving people will often grasp onto the words of "psychics" like Sylvia Browne. David Moye writes at the HuffPo:
Celebrity psychic Sylvia Browne is doing damage control over a prediction made nearly 10 years ago claiming Ohio kidnapping victim Amanda Berry was dead, but her actions may represent a watershed moment in how Americans view psychics."The [Ariel Castro abduction] is a test case for all psychics," said Joe Nickell, editor of Skeptical Inquirer, a magazine that encourages science-based analysis of paranormal and fringe-science claims. "Why didn't one psychic wake up in the middle of the night and know where they were?"
Browne told Louwana Miller, the mother of Amanda Berry, on "The Montel Williams Show" in 2004: "She's not alive, honey. Your daughter's not the kind who wouldn't call," The Atlantic Wire reported. Berry was kidnapped 10 years ago and was found alive on Monday.
Browne responded with an official statement to The Huffington Post earlier this week that included this line: "Only God is right all the time."
No evidence that The Big Guy exists, either, but at least "he" isn't earning a living defrauding people. (Other people do that on "his" behalf -- building giant cathedrals and developing vast land wealth.)
Here's the The Skeptical Inquirer's Joe Nickell on the bullshit that is "psychics":
Although mainstream science has never validated any psychic ability, self-styled clairvoyants, diviners, spirit mediums, and soothsayers continue to sell their fantasies--and in some cases to shrewdly purvey their cons--to a credulous public. Particularly disturbing is a resurgence of alleged psychic crime-solving.In fact, the media--especially Court TV's Psychic Detectives, NBC's Medium, and various programs of Larry King Live--have shamelessly touted several self-claimed psychic shamuses as if they could actually identify murderers and kidnappers, or locate missing persons.
Iran's Islamic Fundamentalist Forcing Of Women To Veil May Have Contributed To Rise In MS
Via LW, Libby Copeland writes in Smithsonian Magazine that "Multiple sclerosis has skyrocketed in Tehran, increasing almost sevenfold between 1989 and 2005":
Now Oxford University researchers suggest, for the first time, that the 1979 Iranian Revolution may deserve some of the blame for the extraordinary jump. They say the revolutionary mandate for modest dress and head coverings for women may have inadvertently fueled the increase by limiting their exposure to sunlight.Scientists have long recognized a link between lack of sunlight and multiple sclerosis (MS), a neurological disease that typically first strikes people in their 20s and 30s, and women more often than men. The disease, in which the immune system attacks the protective coverings on nerve fibers, is known to be more common among people at higher latitudes, possibly because of less vitamin D, which the body manufactures when skin is exposed to sunlight. Vitamin D deficiency might even come into play in the womb . Studies conducted in the United States and Europe, for example, show that babies born in April, whose mothers were pregnant during cold, dark months, have a higher risk of MS than babies born in October, whose mothers had spring and summer pregnancies.
The Oxford researchers--Julia Pakpoor and Sreeram Ramagopalan, who both study genetics --are careful to make clear that they aren't telling women to abandon the hijab any more than they would tell New Englanders to move to Florida . Instead, the researchers encourage Iranians to supplement their diets with vitamin D pills. That advice goes for women and men in other cultures, too. Data show, for instance, that modestly dressed Orthodox Jewish mothers in Israel have lower vitamin D levels than women with more exposed skin.
The duo's revolution-MS theory is consistent with studies published as recently as 2011 showing that Iranians do have low levels of vitamin D. But Pakpoor acknowledges that the theory is speculative. For one thing, MS rates are also going up in many other places, including parts of southern Italy, Norway, Kuwait and Japan. There's no data showing exactly when MS rates started to rise in Iran, she says, and it's unclear how much of the increase may be the result of better diagnoses. Still, the change is dramatic, with yearly diagnoses in Tehran rising from 0.68 per 100,000 people in 1989 to 4.58 per 100,000 in 2005. Though MS data are sparse for much of the world, Iran's rates now appear comparable to those in some European countries.
"In order to explain such a rapid rise, you're looking for something that is specific to Iran," Pakpoor says.
Religion kills. Not always, and there is some good from religion, like from the Christians I know who feed the poor (at a mission they give substantially to) because it was written that Jesus said to do it. But religion tends to be a force for repression for women, especially whenever practiced by fundamentalists.
And of all the religions practiced now, the single worst religion for the lives and liberty of women is Islam, which commands wife-beatings (don't leave bruises!), stonings of rape victims, and says women do not have autonomy (they are pretty much property owned by the man they are most closely related to), and are worth half of what a man is.
SF Makes Homeowners Responsible For Sidewalk Tree Care, Then Fines Them For Doing It "Wrong"
People have called me many things, but nobody's ever called me a "horticulturist."
Good thing I don't live in San Francisco, where the city has mandated that residents care for the trees in front of their buildings -- and then got all picky about exactly how they were doing it.
C.W. Nevius writes at SFGate:
Two years ago, San Francisco began turning over responsibility for sidewalk tree care to residents to save money. So far, 3,669 trees have been transferred to homeowners. And while it may have saved roughly $600,000, it created the wild west of tree trimming.In Schweigert's case, the solution he found online for his ficus was to pollard his trees, which involves trimming back branches to the knobby growth. The online references he found said that it didn't seriously harm plants, but the city says otherwise.
So there are cases like his, where he thinks he's doing the right thing; people who are hacking off branches willy-nilly; and some people who are just letting tree roots run wild.
"If you were thinking about what would be the worst way to manage the urban forest," says Supervisor Scott Wiener, "this would be it. What this does is guarantee inconsistent maintenance."
Unfortunately, an increasing number of property owners will be faced with the challenge of caring for trees the city planted. In total, the city has scheduled 21,653 trees to be transferred to residents. And if those caretakers commit any of the list of obscure pruning sins - like topping, lion tailing, heading or hat-racking - they will face a hefty fine. (The $1,715 total is the estimated cost of replacing a tree and paying a city employee to water it for three years.)
Schweigert was fined $1,700 by the city for not trimming the trees right.
via @walterolson
What Happens When You Change The Sex Of The Author On A Book Cover?
I think Maureen Johnson has a point -- how female authors get the dummed-down, sappy covers. (Scroll down to the slideshow at the bottom here.)
But, I think all authors need to understand that they need to stand up for their work. I conceived the cover on I See Rude People and Gregg shot the photo on my porch. (He didn't strip in the little people.) I also had input on a lot of it. The art director wanted to use very fruity serif type in very fruity colors -- two colors. It looked very chick-flick and I fought for it to be what it is. All and all, it looks very much like my original design.
Not every publisher will let an author do that, but many authors don't ask for input and don't have their agents push for it when they're denied it.
To do what it takes to write a book that's readable, and then to just sit back and let yourself be given any old cover or a dumbed down one...well, it just seems unimaginable to me.
Stand up for your work, scribes!
DOJ: We Can Read Your Email Without A Warrant
Declan McCullough writes at CNET:
The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI believe they don't need a search warrant to review Americans' e-mails, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and other private files, internal documents reveal.Government documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and provided to CNET show a split over electronic privacy rights within the Obama administration, with Justice Department prosecutors and investigators privately insisting they're not legally required to obtain search warrants for e-mail. The IRS, on the other hand, publicly said last month that it would abandon a controversial policy that claimed it could get warrantless access to e-mail correspondence.
...Still, the position taken by other officials -- including the authors of the FBI's official surveillance manual -- puts the department at odds with a growing sentiment among legislators who insist that Americans' private files should be protected from warrantless search and seizure. They say the same Fourth Amendment privacy standards that require police to obtain search warrants before examining hard drives in someone's living room, or a physical letter stored in a filing cabinet, should apply.
Every time we let government have more power, we endanger our democracy.
Link Is All You Need
Another fine piece of HTML from The Beatles.
Hilariously Lame
CNN talking heads pretend they're talking over satellite when they're actually in the same parking lot.
via @Instapundit
What We Know About Benghazi
Andrew Malcolm lays it out at IBD:
The Benghazi consulate was totally unsecured and unprepared, despite area terrorist attacks and months-long urgings of security personnel and Stevens himself.In fact, a month before 9/11 when two security personnel used their weapons to fight off terrorist carjackers, most of the Special Ops security forces were ordered out of the country.
The first and last contact Hicks in Tripoli had with Stevens that night was an interrupted cellphone call in which the ambassador said, "Greg, we're under attack!" No mention of any protest demonstration.
A special joint team of FBI-CIA-Defense-State crisis experts was ordered not to deploy to Benghazi.
Twelve hours after the U.S. Embassy wall in Cairo was stormed, no contingency military forces were prepared to assist there or anywhere else in the region. The nearest F-16's in Italy were not even on alert and had no refueling tankers nearby.
As the four remaining Special Ops troops in-country boarded a Libyan C-130 to rush to help in Benghazi, someone ordered their colonel to stand down.
Five days later Hicks was "stunned" to see U.N. Amb. Susan Rice on five Sunday talk shows blaming the attack on angry reaction to an obscure online anti-Islam video. From Minute One every official American in Libya knew the attack was terrorist, as did a high-level email circulating in the State Department on 9/12, four days before those infamous TV shows.
When Hicks, who was not consulted for Rice's talking points, reminded State execs the embassy never reported one word about video protests and inquired where that explanation came from, he was instructed to drop that line of questioning.
Hicks, who received calls of praise from Secy. of State Hillary Clinton and Obama himself, has since been sentenced to a desk job.
Remember back in 2007-08 in their bruising primary battles when Clinton questioned Obama's readiness for that 3 a.m. crisis call?
Obama has had himself photographed firmly atop other national security events like the whacking of Osama bin Laden. The Democrat held a brief Rose Garden photo op on Benghazi the next morning before rushing off to fundraisers in Las Vegas. We know he and Clinton both blamed the offensive video for weeks after they knew that line was phony.
What we don't know is where the hell was the commander-in-chief all-night while two former SEALs, a communications specialist and the first U.S. ambassador in three decades were being murdered on-duty six time zones away.
Patterico on how the LA Times reported it.
What Is It That Makes People So Stingy On The Thank Yous?
You let somebody in in traffic and -- and -- no wave.
You wait to hold the door open for somebody and -- nothing. Not a peep from them.
I was researching something for my book and came upon this in a list by "mywearywolf" on tumbler:
Things that piss me off1. When people don't say "thank you" when you take the time to open the door for them. Seriously? You think this is my job to walk a few feet in front of you, stop whatever the hell I'm doing, just to hold the door open for you and the 30 people behind you. No big deal, everyone.
There's a cold refusal here to participate in a basic human exchange -- a stranger doing something nice for you and then a response recognizing that.
The Fact That You're A Drunk, Irresponsible Asshole Isn't Grounds To Sue A Bar
A bar is an adult drinking establishment, not a nursery school. They'll let you buy beer and spirits and everything -- there's no orange juice in a sippy cup.
This means you have to be your own mommy -- not expect the bartender to do it.
But, welcome to Lawsuit World! A guy gets into a drunken fight with a friend, gets a head injury, blames the bar, and is now suing the bar for $1 million -- or more.
Joe Richardson writes at the Amarillo Globe-News:
William Lawler, of Amarillo, is suing Pink Sports Bar, 814 S. Taylor St., for injuries he received after a fight with a friend, according to the lawsuit. Lawler claims the fight resulted from the Pink staff serving them too much alcohol.
Were the bartenders holding them down and forcing them to drink?
Lawler is suing for physical pain, mental anguish, physical and mental impairment, loss of earnings, loss of earning capacity and medical expenses for the treatment of his injuries....The lawsuit said their server continued to provide drinks to them after they had become "visibly intoxicated."
Afterward, the two friends decided to go get something to eat at a truck stop, the suit said. There, an altercation between the two men escalated and became physical.
The suit claims Lawler's friend then punched him in the face, causing Lawler to fall and hit his head.
Lawler claims in the suit that he suffered a traumatic brain injury because of the fight. He also claims the two had an "amiable relationship, and would have never fought were it not for their extreme level of inebriation."
How did these assholes get to the truck stop? Was it in walking distance, and did they walk there?
via @Overlawyered
Links Fur Coat
Meeeeeowwwww.
Tell Your Mom You Care For 30 Percent Less Money
Or, rather, up to 30 percent off Mother's Day gifts at Amazon
Deal of the day: Good till 3 pm Pacific Time, Ann Klein Ceramic Watch
News Shocker: TSA Employee Fails "Lost Wallet" Integrity Test
The people groping you and pawing through your belongings at the airport are not to be trusted, as so many news stories of them being arrested for everything from theft to pedophilia show.
Remember, the TSA checkpoint is a "security" puppet show -- there's no reason to spend money vetting TSA hires in any meaningful way, because it's all just to give us the illusion of security while providing the double duty as a jobs program for unskilled workers.
Mara Somio writes in the rather amusingly named Missouri University newspaper, The Maneater:
The Columbia Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security arrested a Transportation Security Administration employee at Columbia Regional Airport for failing a TSA test by not returning a lost wallet.The individual failed the test to uphold integrity in the workplace and has since been fired from his position, TSA Regional Public Affairs Manager Carrie Harmon said in an emailed statement.
CPD spokesman Sergeant Joe Bernhard identified the employee as 32-year-old Eric Richard Dunlap of Jefferson City. Dunlap was arrested for felony stealing and given a $4,500 bond, Bernhard said.
...The TSA conducts the tests to monitor its employees' performance and make sure they are being accountable. Its statement said the tests are conducted regularly, though it did not specify whether or not the individuals undergoing the checks are targeted for a particular reason.
A TSA news release put out by Harmon on Friday affirmed that the individual, now identified as Dunlap, was not employed by the city of Columbia. Harmon said the occurrence of criminal conduct by TSA employees is rare and an unfortunate case.
"(It) does not reflect the dedication and professionalism of our workforce as a whole," Harmon said.
No, there are other TSA scumbags who have not been caught.
Why You Should Support Planned Parenthood Even If You're Anti-Abortion
Via Media Matters, abortion is only a tiny part of what they do -- 3 percent of what they do, in fact, per their latest annual report. The majority of their work is STI/STD treatment. Second on the list is contraception -- in other words, PREVENTING ABORTIONS. Third on the list is cancer screening and prevention. 
Women who need abortions will get them -- whether Planned Parenthood is supported or not. The other services are very important.
Take The Quiz! Professor Or Hobo?
This might be too "in academia," but as somebody who goes to academic conferences, I loved it. (And scored 8 out of 10.)
The quiz is here: "Prof or Hobo?"
I'm guessing nobody will get their tightywhities in a wad like female scientists do when people post lists of the hottest ladies in science.
On a related note, my boyfriend once described himself as "disheveled in an employed sort of way." I love that about him.
Zero Tolerance For Imagination
This seems to be a rule that catches only boys in the net. (Boys are usually the children who play with weapons -- or imagine they have weapons, as in this case.)
If there are little girls with a dark side -- if they play deathqueen Barbies -- will they, too, be suspended? Or is it just imaginary guns that we have demonized?
In the latest episode to show that we have drooling morons running schools in this country, two Virginia boys were suspended for pretending their pencils were guns.
Yes, that's right. From CBSDC:
SUFFOLK, Va. -- Two Suffolk second graders have been suspended for making shooting noises while pointing pencils at each other.
Media outlets report the 7-year-old boys were suspended for two days for a violation of the Suffolk school system's zero-tolerance policy on weapons. They were playing with one another in class Friday at Driver Elementary....Suffolk Public Schools spokeswoman Bethanne Bradshaw said a pencil is considered a weapon when it's pointed at someone in a threatening way and gun noises are made.
..."Some children would consider it threatening, who are scared about shootings in schools or shootings in the community," Bradshaw said.
I also used to think there were monsters in my closet and under my bed, but nobody thought to clear out all the scary stories from the Farmington Hills Public Library.
Government-Employed Groper Just In The Wrong Job
The Air Force's sex-abuse prevention honcho just needs a job where groping is part of his duties, like in the rights-violating Transportation "Security" Administration.
Unfortunately, his job isn't a good fit with the charges against him -- for sexual battery. Jim Miklaszewski, Courtney Kube, and Tracy Connor write for NBC News:
The Air Force official in charge of its sexual-assault prevention program was arrested for groping, authorities said Monday.Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski, 41, was removed from his position as head of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office pending an investigation, the Air Force said.
The incident happened just after midnight Sunday when a drunken Krusinski allegedly approached the woman in a parking lot in Arlington, Va., and grabbed her breasts and buttocks, according to a police report.
Police said the woman fought off her assailant and scratches can be seen on Krusinski's face in his mug shot. He was charged with sexual battery.
We, in this country, don't allow government workers to sexually assault our citizens unless they've done something really wrong, like buy a plane ticket.
Linkiepoo
It's a new kind of hybrid blog item -- much like a Labrapekingese.
Charles Ramsey, Rescuer Of Kidnapped Cleveland Women, Speaks
From YouTube writeup, "After going missing more than 10 years ago, Amanda Berry shouted to a man from a Seymour Avenue house on Monday..."
Ramsey had not a clue about what the kidnapper was up to until the woman called to him to help her.
He said, "I barbecue with this dude! We eat ribs and whatnot and listen to salsa music."
Welcome To The Cop Bowl
There are times when policing becomes more about the police team winning than any other priority.
This was one of those times -- when service on four NYC subway lines was suspended for more than an hour as the police searched for a petty jewelry thief.
For anybody who hasn't lived in New York or taken the trains, shutting down one train means that people who need to transfer between trains to get places are sunk, so that's a much bigger shut-down than just four lines.
Sure, we want the thieves caught (or not allowed to escape from the Keystone cops, as was the case in this case).
But unless there's a dangerous criminal on the loose, what's with stopping life for countless non-criminal citizens?
As @DanGillmor put it in a tweet:
Welcome to Lockdown America. NYC shuts down subway to catch an alleged teenaged necklace thief. http://owl.li/kL3zF
Shimon Prokupecz and Brynn Gingras write at NBCNewYork:
Vuktilaj was being led out of his apartment building on Saint Nicholas Avenue in Hamilton Heights Monday morning when he pushed an officer out of the way and ran toward the subway at 145th Street, police said.The MTA suspended service on parts of the A, B, C and D lines as police and K-9 units searched the tunnels for Vuktilaj. Regular service on those lines resumed by about 1:15 p.m.
Police said Vuktilaj had been arrested last week in connection with two chain-snatching attacks on women in their 60s.
Law enforcement officials say police were arresting him Monday for an additional necklace robbery when he fled.
There was an event like this in the hood in Venice a week or so ago where pretty much every cop car in West LA seemed to be called out, plus at least one chopper, maybe more, plus the SWAT Team. The criminal? A dopehead and petty thief the cops know to be non-violent (per the local lady who monitors all police action) who was trapped on a roof and lying down in a half-fetal position.
Oh, did he "refuse to come down," as they put it in the LA Times? Well, go the hell up there and yank him down by the scruff of the neck. And if he resists, tase him!
Bad Cop, Bad Cop
Via @RadleyBalko, headline of the day:
Accused Florida cop: My girlfriend's pimp set me up
When Tofu-Eaters Attack
Everything is now not only racism, but bullying.
Vegan students at a California high school have been accused by agricultural students of bullying them online (by exercising their free speech rights in a way that hurts their widdle feelings and probably grosses them out a little). From FoxNews.com:
Fox 40 reports the vegan students allegedly have been posting angry words against Elk Grove High School's agriculture program on social media sites such as Instagram."[One student] keeps posting about goats and sheep and pigs and dead pictures and them being slaughtered," agriculture student Katie Velon told the station.
Outside vegan groups have also reportedly become involved in the bullying, and some vegan students are passing out fliers on campus. In one instance, meat eaters were called "carcass crunchers."
The agriculture students say they feel misunderstood.
I'm a "carcass cruncher." I recommend it. They're delicious.
via @AdamKissel
Linkyteria
All the tater tots you can throw across the cafeteria...
Small Ways Of Keeping Dead Friends And Loved Ones With You
I have five people in my life I really cared about who've died since cell phones came to the fore, and the phone number of every one of these people is still programmed into my phone.
And yes, I know I can't call them, but I'm not going to delete them from my life. Keeping them in my phone allows me, in some small, illusionary way, to hold on to life as usual with them.
Do any of you -- or many of you -- do the same?
Advice Goddess Free Swim
You pick the topics. Writing day then two radio shows in a row on Sunday -- mine and an appearance on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. I'll post more when I can.
P.S. One link per comment or my spam filter will eat your post.
Downtown Abby
Yes, I know it's really "Downton." This is my version:
It's my dream to have Maggie Smith (as the Downton Abbey dowager countess) follow me around and make snide remarks to people who behave badly.
As Drunken Tirades Go...
I thought Reese Witherspoon's was pretty classy. No unladylike language, just rather drunkenly huffy. But, again, I'm talking about when it's judged against others' drunken tirades -- not against polite dinner table conversation. Video here.
I was shocked that her husband didn't remind her to put a sock in it. Being an agent, first of all, and one married to a celebrity, second, that should be second nature. If not first.
People who love you are supposed to tell you when you're acting against your best interest -- and especially when it will surely leave you subsequently embarrassed in international media.
Amy Alkon On How To Stop All The Rudeness: Tonight (Sun, May 5), On Coast To Coast AM With George Noory, 10-11 pm PT, 1-2 pm ET
In honor of my appearance to discuss my book I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society, why people are rude and how to empower ourselves against the rude, I'm reposting a 2011 entry, "More Rudeness: Is It The Economy Or Are People Just Jerks?" (It's just below.)
You can listen to the show here. George Noory has done some previous shows on rudeness, and gets it -- as well as getting what needs to be done -- so this should be a very interesting show. (We'll be taking calls from 10:30 to 11 pm Pacific, if all goes as planned.)
That blog item:
More Rudeness: Is It The Economy Or Are People Just Jerks?
I came to the conclusion in I See Rude People (based on British anthropologist Robin Dunbar's work) that we're rude because we live in societies too big for our brains.
Dr. Helen wonders on Pajamas Media whether the uptick in rudeness, observed by people polled by Rasmussen Reports, is connected to the Obama economy? (76 percent of the Americans polled feel people are becoming ruder.) She blogs:
I wonder how much of the free-floating hostility is a reaction to the horrific economy, even for those who voted for the current administration. Maybe, the policies that are driving this country into the ground are also causing bad and hostile driving. Or maybe it's something else.Anyone else notice an increase in hostile driving or other hostility in the air recently? What do you attribute the anger to?
Rasmussen Reports speculate that it's technology and cell phones making people ruder. I dispense with that rather facile conclusion in my book, in the section "Meet Homo Barbarus":
I call it "the 'Verizon made 'em do it!' defense" -- blaming the recent surge in rudeness on recent advances in technology like cell phones, the Internet, and mobile sound systems that shake the foundation of your house whenever some jackass in a tricked-out Lincoln Navigator turns his radio on in your zip code.Technology isn't to blame. It just allows rudeness to be spread further, faster, and to a wider audience. The unfortunate truth is, rudeness is the human condition. We modern humans are a bunch of grabby, self-involved jerks, same as generations and generations of humans before us. It's just that there are suddenly fewer constraints on our grabby, self-involved jerkhood than ever before.
Half of my solution -- punishing the rude, in another excerpt from my book:
What good is knowing that we're living in societies way too big for our brains if there's really no reasonable way to change that? I mean, what are we going to do, ship 99.999 percent of New York City back to Poland or Cleveland or Potsdam or wherever they or their ancestors came from, then prohibit the people still left from interacting with more than 150 people -- ever?Although we can't physically recreate a society more in tune with our psychological limitations, the good news is, we can artificially recreate it. What we have to do is mimic the psychological effect the small town/small tribe environment has on people behaving badly -- how the possibility of being caught, shamed, and losing status or getting booted from the fold dissuades people from getting their rude on. And again, while social exile today isn't the death sentence it would have been back in the Stone Age, our genes are still playing and replaying the same old tune in our heads: "It's hard out there alone in the savannah, dude!"
Ironically, the road back to the civility of the 150-person village goes straight through the global village. It takes only the Internet and one pissed-off person with a cell phone camera to strip some willful jerk of the protections of obscurity. The pissed-off person posts the photo on their site or one of the many jerk-exposing sites cropping up, and with a little linkie-love from a few bloggers and maybe a news story or two, the perp gets his (or hers).
My other solution? Being mindful that we live in societies too big for our brains and going out of our way to treat strangers like neighbors (doing small kindnesses for people you don't know -- as well as people you know). I wrote about this in my LA Times op-ed, titled by them "Rude Awakening":
It's also important to expand your concept of "neighbor" to anyone in your vicinity that you can act neighborly to. Not long ago, I saw a car stopped on my street in a place cars don't normally stop. "Everything OK?" I called to the 70ish man at the wheel.In an Irish accent, he said, "Actually, we're lost." He and his wife were looking for the freeway, which was several miles and several turns behind them. I was running late for an appointment, but I gave them quick directions. The man thanked me, but he looked confused.
"One sec!" I said. I ran to my car, pulled out a pen and paper and wrote the directions down. It was no big deal, but then again, it was.
A minute or two of generosity of spirit is probably all it takes to leave people with a lasting good impression of Los Angeles, and more important, it just might compel them to pass on a little goodwill to the people they encounter -- to spread the nice instead of the mean.
I hope you'll consider buying a copy of my book, I See Rude People: One Woman's Battle To Beat Some Manners Into Impolite Society. It's only $11.32, brand new, with Amazon's discount at the link above. (New copies or Kindle books go against my advance, and help me keep writing...and eating!)
My next book, to be published by St. Martin's next Spring, is "Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck."
Advice Goddess Radio, Tonite, 7-8pm PT, 10-11 ET -- Dr. Temple Grandin
Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio -- "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in therapy and research.
My guest is the inspiring Dr. Temple Grandin, bestselling author, autism activist, and consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior, discussing her fascinating new book, The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum
This isn't just a show for people who have friends or children with autism or autism spectrum disorders but a show that offers compelling thinking on how to see intelligence, creativity, and differences between brains and how to help people use their brains and talents in optimal ways.
Listen at 7 pm Pacific and 10 pm Eastern at this link or download the podcast afterward:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2013/05/06/temple-grandin-the-autistic-brain
And don't miss last week's show with Carlin Flora on "friendfluence" -- why friendships matter more than ever and how to deepen healthy ones and dump toxic ones.
Her book is Friendfluence: The Surprising Ways Friends Make Us Who We Are
Listen online or download the podcast:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2013/04/30/carlin-flora-friendfluence
Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8pm Pacific, 10-11pm Eastern, with podcasts available afterward, at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon, or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.
US Government Dole For "Indie" Rock Bands Looking To Gain Fans Overseas
Hannah Karp writes in the WSJ that the US government is helping fund the exportation of indie rock to foreign countries. (Someone should tell them about YouTube -- as well as the concept of people funding their own business expansion rather than doing it through handouts of other people's tax dollars.)
For the first time, the U.S. government's trade arm is stepping in to help the music business, funding trade missions to Brazil and Asia in recent months for the heads of a dozen independent music labels, which make up one-third of the U.S. music market and represent acts such as the Black Keys and Sonic Youth.It is a departure for the International Trade Administration, which has been spending $2 million annually to boost exports for the past two decades under its Market Development Cooperator Program but has never before given one of its $300,000 grants to the music industry, instead favoring sectors like machinery, technology and engineering services.
How lovely that we're spreading the handouts.
Many of the independent label heads that visited Seoul, Shanghai and Hong Kong this fall as part of the ITA grant program have since signed foreign distribution and licensing deals that will generate hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, Mr. Bengloff said. The deals could represent as much as a quarter of a small independent label's revenue, he said.Alec Bemis, managing partner for the New York indie label Brassland, said as a result of a government-subsidized trade mission, he recently signed digital distribution deals in Korea and Hong Kong, began negotiations to license a song for an Hyundai Motors commercial and booked festival shows in Hong Kong and Taiwan that will pay five-figure fees.
This is called "business development" and it should be funded by those who are making the profits. I don't think Alec will be sharing his profits with the rest of us -- just the cost.
Does the label for Sonic Youth really need our help? Interesting that they aren't "sequestered."
P.S. You lose any right to be called "indie" when you are funded by the US government.
TSA: What If Each Air Traveler Had To Pay The Cost Of Their TSA Scan 'n' Grope?
For years now, I've been sounding the alarm about the danger to our civil liberties from the TSA's crumpling up Fourth Amendment rights at the airport door (and the First Amendment right to speak up about it), and how this makes it possible for the next civil liberties violation and the next.
People mostly seem to say, "Yeah, whatever," and be on their way. I think it has something to do with how physically comfortable we are as Americans. (Americans seem unwilling to put up with even the slightest bit of conflict -- not even to defend our constitutional rights.)
Well, here's a way to change that -- a proposal to finance the FAA and the security puppet show people (aka the TSA) -- through the fees paid by those traveling. The cost would be $35 per travel segment for the TSA and FAA fees, and that's only if you go through the regular groping and not the "Pre-Check."
The sad thing is, if you cost people even a few extra dollars and they'll scream -- in a way they won't if you simply remove something truly precious, like their civil liberties.
Edward Glasser writes at Bloomberg:
Passengers should bear the costs of their own travel. Taxpayers generally shouldn't pick up the bill....Sometimes we can make society fairer if the public sector spends less, a policy of progressive libertarianism. Making the FAA and TSA independent entities responsible for funding themselves by charging air passengers would reduce the overall deficit and economic inequality simultaneously.
The time-honored economic principle is that efficiency requires people to pay the costs of their actions. Frequent fliers should cover the expenses that their lifestyle imposes on others, such as increasing the length of security lines. If the entire cost of the FAA and the TSA were paid for with fees for each flight segment, the segment charge would be $35, which would replace the current mixture of gas taxes and fees that rise with ticket prices.
There is a solid economic case for primarily using per- ticket charges because more-expensive seats don't impose wildly higher costs on the TSA, the FAA or other passengers.
And don't forget the "some flyers are more equal than others" program of "Pre-Check." As Bill Fisher wrote recently on TSANewsBlog:
Since the Pre-Check lanes have the same operating cost in terms of equipment and staff but process less than 1% of passengers, Pre-Check increases the cost 100 times per screening compared to a standard security lane. This means that for every 100 passengers screened at regular checkpoint lanes, only one is screened in the Pre-Check lane. So rather than an average distributed cost of $11.21 per screening, the Pre-Check cost to taxpayers soars to $1,121 per passenger.
How many people do you think will go through a pre-check lane if they, not we, are picking up that $1,121 tab?
New, Shorter Obamacare Application Is An Invitation To Fraud
Scott Gottlieb writes at AEI:
Last month, the Federal government floated a 61-page draft application that people would use to sign up for Obamacare's financial subsidies.After a political rebuke over the form's length, the Department of Health and Human Services has released a streamlined, 3-page version of the same application.
The rub? The government's new form is going to be an invitation to fraud and abuse.
Regarding eligibility -- that you make little enough to qualify and aren't receiving health care subsidies another way:
The new form largely takes your word for it all.This leaves one of three possibilities:
First, that the government is willing to tolerate a lot of fraud and waste as subsidies flow
to individuals who weren't eligible for the money in the first place.Or the government is going to rely on the states and the private health plans to ask the probing questions, essentially foisting the vetting process onto other entities so that these actors (and not the Feds) are the targets of any political backlash.
Or third and most likely, it's some combination of each of these devices.
The folks at HHS must be feeling that they're darned if they do and darned if they don't, now that they are taking flack for the 61 page form, as well as the shortened, 3 paged revision. But the conundrum is largely of their own design.
They fashioned a health program so dense and intrusive that it was never going to be easy to rationalize the ensuing paperwork. Now the Obama political team is faced with a stark choice: match the paperwork to the complexity or cut corners.
Out of political expediency, they've decided to cut corners.
The downbeat story that they've temporarily suppressed over the application's length sets up a bigger political backlash over the fraud and abuse that will follow.
The Afterlink
A funeral for your thoughts?
Cops Take Baby From Parents After They Seek Second Opinion On Med Care
Underlying this, it sounds like there was a grudge by a health care worker who didn't like that his or her advice wasn't followed or care was disparaged, who then called Child Protective Services.
It's not like these parents took their kid out into the forest. They took the baby to another hospital for another opinion when heart surgery was discussed -- according to the parents.
Of course, the hospital cannot talk about this and provide another side due to health care privacy laws, so it's possible the parents are providing a cleaned-up story after the fact.
Again, however, they took the kid to another hospital, not off into the wilderness.
The video here, from a David Self Newlin piece on KSL.com:
GMA story (auto-plays).
Leaving the hospital without a discharge is considered "AMA -- Against Medical Advice." This site says you can't be threatened with a huge bill.
via @Overlawyered, Melissa, Jim P.
Homeowners Shouldn't Be Subsidized By The Rest Of Us With The Home Mortgage Deduction
The home mortgage deduction isn't fair to renters -- or taxpayers picking up others' costs to the tune of perhaps $70 to 100 billion a year added to the budget deficit. Wikipedia actually lays this out well in a thumbnail about it in the US:
The National Association of Realtors strongly opposes eliminating the mortgage interest deduction, claiming, "Housing is the engine that drives the economy, and to even mention reducing the tax benefits of homeownership could endanger property values. Home prices, particularly in high cost areas, could decline 15 percent if recommendations to convert the mortgage interest deduction to a tax credit are implemented."[17] The Tax Foundation, a conservative think tank, claims that economists are basically united in their opposition to the deduction.[18]The Tax Foundation argues that few low- and middle-income taxpayers benefit,[19] calling it subsidization of the real estate industry.[20] Alan Mallach, a senior fellow at the Center for Community Progress and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, argues that the deduction artificially inflates home prices and is in effect a government subsidy of the real estate industry.[21] Critics in the United States also estimate that it contributes between $70 billion and $100 billion annually to the budget deficit.[22]
Economist Edward L. Glaeser remarked in the New York Times that the policy "is public paternalism at its worst" and wrongfully "encourages people to leave urban areas" as well as to borrow as much as possible to bet on housing."[23]
On March 9, 2012, PBS aired an episode of its show Need to Know in which a bipartisan panel discussed tax reform. The panel, which consisted of former Democratic politician Eliot Spitzer, tax law professor Dorothy A. Brown, Reagan domestic policy advisor Bruce Bartlett, and libertarian economist Daniel J. Mitchell, unanimously opposed the federal mortgage interest deduction. [24]
The standard justification for the deduction is that it gives an incentive for home ownership.[15] Countries that tax imputed income on home ownership may allow the deduction under the theory that it is no longer a personal loan, but a loan for income-producing purposes. Standard criticisms are that it does not significantly impact home ownership, that it allows taxpayers to circumvent the general rule that interest on personal loans is not deductible, and that the deduction disproportionately favors high-income earners.
This is a subsidy that works best for the rich, writes Kevin Drum at MoJo:
Families with incomes over $75,000 receive 88 percent of the benefits from the home mortgage deduction. What's worse, the mortgage interest deduction, as currently structured, doesn't even appear to increase homeownership rates, its supposed reason for existence in the first place.
He adds this:
One key factor you don't mention is that it's largely a regional thing -- the vast majority of the deductions go to homeowners in New York City, Los Angeles and the Bay Area. In those three places, the deduction is actually a pretty big deal because houses are so expensive....That's part of the reason it's such a political challenge -- our political elite largely lives in expensive cities where a lot of people actually do get the deduction.
This guy -- Barry Habib, chief market strategist for Residential Finance, says cap the deduction, don't kill it. Give it five years of life (five years of deductibility whenever someone buys a new house) and give it to first-time home buyers:
But while the mortgage deduction would save a lot of money, the consequences of eliminating it entirely will be dire. According to the National Association of Home Builders, home purchases and the ancillary economic activity generated from home purchases account for nearly 20 percent of GDP. That's not insignificant.
Charming. Another "too big to fail" paid for by the rest of us.
Again, why should some be subsidized by us in their chosen career?
Or in their housing choices?
Want The Best Job Applicant For Your Audience? "This Is A Stickup," Love, The NYC Commission On Human Rights
Shockingly a British pub might want to hire British employees. This is a problem for a British pub in Brooklyn, like the Longbow Pub and Pantry, which NYT reporter Andy Newman calls "a British pub through and through, from the Welsh national rugby jersey framed by the bar to the Old Speckled Hen ale in the fish-and-chips batter to the accents that ring loud off the walls during soccer broadcasts." Newman continues:
So when the owners needed a bartender last year, they sought someone who knew the territory. "Energetic and enthusiastic men and women with an appreciation of craft beer, good food, whisky and real football (a k a soccer)," the Craigslist ad read in part. "Being British definitely works in your favor."The résumés trickled in. One applicant, however, was not really looking for a job. She already had one: trolling the classifieds for the New York City Commission on Human Rights.
Soon, Longbow received a legal notice. The bar, it said, had violated discrimination law "by giving a preference to employment applicants based on their national origin."
The commission offered to settle the matter for $2,500.
But Longbow's owners say they are just doing what many thousands of ethnically identified businesses across the city do: seeking the best applicants to help them cater to their audience. They are not giving up without a fight.
The Colberts say they are perfectly willing to hire qualified people who are not British.
"Kate behind the bar, she's from Long Island," Jennifer Colbert said on Wednesday as the dregs of the crowd that had gathered to watch Bayern Munich dispatch Barcelona in the Champions League semifinal trickled out into the evening. "But she got her hospitality degree in London."
Colbert says that a suitable employee knows that "Wales is not where the Princess is from, why Everton v. Liverpool is an important match, that 'knocking someone up' is not about being pregnant, a banger has nothing to do with gangs, black pudding is not a dessert and that the Old Firm has nothing to do with attorneys."
Of course, the commission cares about none of this.
Bend over for your gouging, please!
via my NYC friend @NormaDesperate
Linketeria
Like Danceteria without the coke. (Vintage NYC joke to go with the bit about the Brooklyn pub.)
Privacy In A Relationship: Where Should The Line Be Drawn?
People have friends with whom they share the details of their lives -- and then they get in a relationship and a partner will sometimes object to having the details of the relationship discussed.
I'm not talking about trash-talking but talking about relationship issues or day to day life with a friend.
Some people do talk about their sex life with their friends -- not necessarily to lay out the dirty details, but to discuss a problem or issue because they want to resolve it.
Is there such a thing as informational unfaithfulness?
Where do you draw the line? Where do you think the line should be drawn?
Execute The Bastards! (Muslims In Muslim Majority Countries On Apostates)
Jonathan Turley was right on in his assessment in this blog item about how we prop up governments that are horrible on human rights:
A new poll by the Pew Research Center offers an disturbing insight into the views of the majority of Muslims in some countries on the subject of apostasy. With blasphemy, apostasy remains one of the greatest threats to human rights and free speech in the world with people continuing to be arrested for rejecting Islam. Some 78 percent of Afghan Muslims support putting former Muslims to death for rejecting Islam. Our Afghan "allies" actually had the highest support for this basic denial of human rights -- a system that we prop up with American lives and treasure. In Egypt and Pakistan, 64 percent support executing for apostasy....We continue to treat our Muslim allies as enlightened governments when many still embrace this denial of a basic human right (as with common denial of other rights of woman and religious minorities). These countries cannot by definition be considered part of the "free world" when they mandate the execution of people for exercising this fundamental right to choose the religion (or the lack of religion) of their choice. Viewed from this perspective, we are spending billions on governments oppressing their citizens while our leaders continue to espouse the centrality of faith in their public lives.
Civil libertarians do not view such rights as a "western" or "American" view. Many often try to defend these oppressive nations by saying that we have no right to judge others.
Those who do are wrong. This is one of the most basic human rights -- freedom of thought.
The WaPo report on the Pew Poll is here. And another Turley blog item, about a Moroccan student reportedly in hiding from police after posing with a sign, "I am proud to be an atheist." Turley blogs:
It is not a crime to be an atheist in Morocco. However, there is an offense for "Shaking the Muslim's faith" which includes criticizing Islam or promoting any other religion. That offense can bring a three year sentence. It takes considerable courage therefore to step forward and demand the right to reject Islam and faith generally.
Habib posted a picture of himself with a sign reading "I am proud to be an atheist." In 2012, Imad founded Masayminch ("We will not fast") with more than 600 persons signed in. He is also a member of the Global Secular Humanist Movement. He has also organized a Facebook site for "non-believers, atheists and non-Muslims." For this advocacy, he has been the subject of death threats and now a police investigation.
Hespress, Morocco's leading news website featured him in a piece entitled "Infidels of Islam: stories of Moroccans who went out of the flock." It quoted him as saying "it just takes an objective reading of the Quran to understand that these are myths invented by humans". The led to the police investigation. While the news report stated that Habib has "a grudge" against Islam, the article may serve to show other young people that there are those who reject faith.
That's going particularly well for him.
Meanwhile, I "rejected faith" in America. People occasionally ask me questions about heaven or whether I think it's possible to be moral without religion. This requires me to answer, not flee and hide in somebody's garage.
The Notion That We Can Prevent Crimes If We Just Spy On People Enough
And by "we," Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw means everybody's neighbors, who are supposed to report any conversations they have with, oh, people like me, who don't think of government as a nice big teat for us to nuzzle up to and suck off of, but a danger to us and our liberties if not constrained.
Sign up to your left to be Block Kommissar.
Dara Kam and Stacey Singer write in the Palm Beach Post:
Florida House and Senate budget leaders have awarded Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw $1 million for a new violence prevention unit aimed at preventing tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., from occurring on his turf.Bradshaw plans to use the extra $1 million to launch "prevention intervention" units featuring specially trained deputies, mental health professionals and caseworkers. The teams will respond to citizen phone calls to a 24-hour hotline with a knock on the door and a referral to services, if needed.
The goal will be avoiding crime -- and making sure law enforcement knows about potential powder kegs before tragedies occur, Bradshaw said. But the earmark, which is a one-time-only funding provision, provoked a debate Monday among mental health advocates and providers about the balance between civil liberties, privacy and protecting the public.
Bradshaw said his proposal is a first-of-its-kind in the nation, and he hopes it will become a model for the rest of the state like his gang prevention and pill-mill units.
"Every single incident, whether it's Newtown, that movie theater, or the guy who spouts off at work and then goes home and kills his wife and two kids -- in every single case, there were people who said they knew ahead of time that there was a problem," Bradshaw said. "If the neighbor of the mom in Newtown had called somebody, this might have saved 25 kids' lives."
Bradshaw is readying a hotline and is planning public service announcements to encourage local citizens to report their neighbors, friends or family members if they fear they could harm themselves or others.
The goal won't be to arrest troubled people but to get them help before there's violence, Bradshaw said. As a side benefit, law enforcement will have needed information to keep a close eye on things.
"We want people to call us if the guy down the street says he hates the government, hates the mayor and he's gonna shoot him," Bradshaw said. "What does it hurt to have somebody knock on a door and ask, 'Hey, is everything OK?'"
His thinking in all of this is "You can trust the police!" and "Surrender to authority. It's what's good for you."
This country was built on just the opposite.
Get off your iPhone and care, will ya?
Link Stew
Comes in five shades of plaid.
How To Find Old Bay Seasoning
It's a pain to get locally, and it's integral to my heating (uh, cooking). I put it on steak and love the taste. Perhaps because I am a plebian taste-budded midwesterner. But, I do love it. Even the design of the can:
Turns out you can order it, in volume, at Old Bay Seasoning, 16-Ounce Tins (Pack of 3)
One thing you could order, if you haven't already, is I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society. It's only $11.32, brand new, with Amazon's discount at the link above. (New copies or Kindle books go against my advance, and help me keep writing...and eating, and help fund my answering questions that will never make my column.)
Also, until May 6, you can get 20 percent off when you spend $100 on shoes, handbags, and more
Dangerous, Idiotic Drill At Oregon School -- Armed Gunmen Burst In
Richard Cockle writes in The Oregonian:
Two masked men wearing hoodies and wielding handguns burst into the Pine Eagle Charter School in this tiny rural community on Friday. Students were at home for an in-service day, so the gunmen headed into a meeting room full of teachers and opened fire.Someone figured out in a few seconds that the bullets were not drawing blood because they were blanks and the exercise was a drill, designed to test Pine Eagle's preparation for an assault by "active shooters" who were, in reality, members of the school staff. But those few seconds left everybody plenty scared.
Anybody besides me predicting a PTSD lawsuit or two?
The friend of a friend who emailed me the link wrote:
Too bad this story didn't end with "two drill participants were shot in the face by a startled teacher."
Do you get the idea that people are entrusting the education of their children to the biggest idiots any of us will ever encounter?
TSA: If You Really Want To Bypass "Security," You Can. With Ease.
All you need is an airport worker with a badge, bad character, and some debt, and be willing to pay that person a bribe -- which tells you how ridiculous we are to give up our Fourth Amendment rights for "security."
This doesn't just go on at DFW, where a local NBC station did an investigation of all the people taking people around security with their airport access badges. Even an FAA manager and a CEO at American Airlines' American Eagle did it -- as well as lower on the totem pole employees, including a TSA scumbag, uh, supervisor.
Story here from NBC and a piece by Lisa Simeone at TSA News Blog that led me to it. Lisa, sensibly notes (about the "security" puppet show):
Look, obviously I don't think most -- or any -- of these workers are Terrorists In Waiting, anymore than I think passengers are. But if we have to submit to "security," then why don't the people behind the scenes? Fair's fair.
Why Millennials Are Flunking Their Job Interviews
Paul Davidson writes at USA Today:
(Jaime) Fall (vice president of the HR Policy Association), says Millennials also have been coddled by parents. "It's (a mindset of) 'You're perfect just the way are,' " he says. " 'Do whatever you're comfortable doing.' "About half of HR executives say most recent grads are not professional their first year on the job, up from 40% of executives who had that view in 2012, according to a recent survey by the Center for Professional Excellence at York College of Pennsylvania.
The HR Policy Association recently launched a website, jobipedia.org, to provide advice to first-time job seekers about interviewing, resumes and workplace behavior.
Why some job candidates flunked their interviews:
• Taking calls and texting. A male graduate student seeking a managerial position in Avery Dennison's research and development unit took a call on his smartphone about 15 minutes into the interview. The call, which lasted about a minute and wasn't an emergency, ruined his near-certain chance for a job offer, Singel says.
"If he thought that was OK, what else does he think is appropriate?" he says.
• Helicoptering parents. A man in his late 20s brought his father into a 45-minute interview for a material handling job on an assembly line, says Teri Nichols, owner of a Spherion staffing-agency in Brooksville, Fla. At Cigna, a health insurance provider, the father of a recent grad who received an offer for a sales job, called to negotiate a higher salary, says Paula Welch, a Cigna HR consultant.
• Pets in tow. A college senior brought her cat into an interview for a buyer's position at clothing retailer American Eagle. She set the crate-housed cat on the interviewer's desk and periodically played with it. "It hit me like -- why would you think that's OK?" says Mark Dillon, the chain's former recruiting director. "She cut herself off before she had a chance."
Men: How To Prevent Unwanted Sex Acts With Women
Via Jay J. Hector. The Conrad line, "The horror! The horror!" comes to mind.
Marine: I Could Justify Fighting In Afghanistan -- Until Boston Bombing
Marine sergeant Thomas Gibbons-Neff writes in the WaPo:
I deployed to Afghanistan believing my presence in that country would help stop attacks such as Boston's from happening. But instead, my war has spilled over, striking the city where my 22-year-old brother goes to school and where my mom, until recently, felt perfectly safe eating lunch outdoors.The Tsarnaev brothers aren't the first alleged terrorists to cite U.S. military intervention in other countries as a reason for targeting civilians, and they won't be the last. Despite our best efforts and valor, I wonder, have America's wars made the homeland less safe? Sure, we've killed and captured thousands of radicals who wanted to harm Americans. But in doing so, have we created more?
It wasn't always easy to justify serving in a war that has devolved from its initial aim of ousting the Taliban and al-Qaeda to a nation-building effort that appeared to have come 10 years too late. The conflict has dragged on for more than a decade, becoming increasingly unpopular after years of mixed results and no clear definition of victory. The counterinsurgency mantra of "clear-hold-build" echoed in our ears as we fought an elusive enemy and slowly pushed them out of the city centers. Day by day, we measured victory by the number of wells we helped build and the time that passed without a casualty.
Some of my best friends came home in flag-draped coffins, and no one ever convincingly explained to me why and what for. On a recent winter afternoon, after Afghan President Hamid Karzai delivered an upbeat speech at Georgetown on the future of Afghanistan, I had the chance to ask him what the sacrifice of my brothers-in-arms meant to him and his countrymen.
The answer I received was a diatribe. Karzai cited Sept. 11, 2001, and America's global war on terror but never directly answered my question. I would have liked a "thank you" or a sentence with "greatly appreciated" in it. But there was not a hint of gratitude in his response.
Link-Eye
A show-me state.
Martha Stewart On How Hillary Clinton Stood By Bill Clinton, Post Lewinsky
Dotson Rader interviewed Martha Stewart for PARADE:
In the past, you've compared your personal difficulties with those of Hillary Clinton: You went through trial and imprisonment; she endured the Monica Lewinsky scandal.Stewart: I admire Hillary greatly, her inner strength. She did a phenomenal job as secretary of state. The best thing of all was the way she treated her husband.
Most wives would have left him.
Stewart: Well, I wouldn't have. Hillary was married to the president. Walking out on him when he's stupid would've shown weakness and self-centeredness. She saved him, her self-respect, and her daughter. She didn't cut the family asunder. As a result, she gained his respect forever.
Forget whether Hillary's motivation might also have been her own political career.
Say this wasn't Hillary. Do you agree with what Stewart then?
How Insurance Companies Changed Medical Care
Retired pediatrician Ed Marsh writes in the WSJ about how it worked (in his practice) before health care was paid for with "insurance" -- and after:
Treating patients without insurance meant that I had to give my acute attention to the price of every medical intervention. The costs could have a direct and painful impact on a family's budget. So I had to know the prices for most of the medications I prescribed and of most of the tests I might order. I learned to play for time by waiting, when it was safe to, before ordering an X-ray or a test--and to substitute less-expensive medications for more costly ones wherever possible.I developed pastimes that were diverting but would permit me to be available to patients 24-7, requiring coverage by a substitute only for a two-week vacation annually. Few physicians nowadays would undertake such an onerous schedule, and yet many of the inconveniences are offset by benefits. If you are caring for your own patients, you know them and their ailments and can manage a great deal over the telephone (or by email these days), with minimal cost to them and minimal intrusion into your own life. By contrast, covering for another physician almost invariably means inefficiency--additional time to learn the patients' relevant history, and often either a direct patient encounter or an outpatient facility visit, all of which greatly add to the cost.
Then, in the mid-70s, insurance companies were interpolated between the doctor and the patient:
Patients knew that any suggestions I might make would have negligible consequences for their own budgets, so "more" became the expectation. A sense of entitlement developed. Why would the doctor hesitate to do some procedure, or hesitate to request a test? Everything was already paid for. If I was reluctant, perhaps weighing the cost to them, patients speculated there must be some hidden reason. Perhaps I was, in some obscure way, feathering my own nest. Misgivings arose.This mistrust heightened--and became rational--when "prepaid" group practices became more prevalent. Physician compensation is tied to "efficiencies," which means reducing the outlays and costs to the group (translation: skimp where possible) and thus generating for internal distribution a larger share of the prepaid premiums.
Second opinions proliferated, upping the costs. Patients could get two opinions for the same price: near zero. I could acquire additional knowledge from the feedback of the consultant and was better positioned should some legal controversy arise. One underexamined aspect of defensive medicine is those excessive referrals to diminish responsibility.
My income rose substantially and pediatricians in general thought that they had arrived in the Promised Land. The submission of some paper to some anonymous third party would not put a dent in any patient's grocery bills. And the consequences of profligacy disappeared, while rational income-building strategies--aka gaming the system--appeared. For instance, since telephone calls weren't reimbursable, additional office visits, which were, supervened.
"Preventive care" became the touchstone. The concept is obvious, but the evidence for its value, and especially its potential for savings, is rarely conclusive.
I loved the end line under the piece: "Dr. Marsh now raises Christmas trees in Ipswich, Mass."
Here's an observation about government-based health care in action from the WSJ comments, from Gerd Dimmler (I've corrected a bit of his punctuation and spelling and left the rest as-is):
My wife, several years ago, was diagnosed with breast cancer at the same time a very good Montreal friend of us of half my wife's age, also originally a German origin, at the time Canadian citizen, as I am now an American citizen, was also diagnosed with breast cancer. My wife after about two weeks was under the knife with a lumpectomy surgery.Our Montreal female (compared to us, young) friend died after six months waiting line in which she waited to get a biopsy
The cancer was faster than the waiting line for a biopsy. Our friend was, interestingly enough, a an enthusiastic supporter of the socialized single payer system, well, as long as she was still alive.
Which Religion (Or Non-Belief System) Cares Most About The Homeless?
Homeless man conducts behavioral econ test. Photo and writeup at BoingBoing. Larger version of the photo here.
A few comments from Reddit, where this was originally posted.
First from Dromaeosauridae:
Actually, he's probably redistributing the funds to get a bigger reaction. Or at least he would be if he was clever. Statistically Christians are more likely to pass by, so what do you do? Put most of the money in the Atheist bowl to get a rise out of them. They figure "All hell nah, Atheists are not more charitable than Christians" and drop a decent amount in the Christian bowl to prove it.
puaAthens:
Except that Christians make up over 70% of the US population. Those who self-describe as Atheist constitute less than 2%. Of course, geography factors in (more Atheists in San Francisco than in Dallas, TX), but these figures can be used roughly. Thus, in terms of "population survey", Atheists suddenly look even better.In other words, speaking generally about the US, if Christians were 35 times stingier than Atheists, this homeless man would have equal donations from Christians and Atheists.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States#Christianity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#United_States
And a joke from swagger_of_a_cripple:
Two beggars are sitting in a heavily Christian neighborhood, one of them with a Star of David necklace and one with a cross necklace.Whenever people walk by they smirk at the guy with the Star of David and give money to the guy with the cross.
Eventually someone comes up to the first beggar and tells him, "It's really not a good idea for you to sit here, people in this neighborhood don't like Jews and they'll probably even give money to the other guy just to spite you."
The beggar looks at the other beggar sitting next to him and says, "Chaim look who's trying to teach the Goldman brothers about business."
Who's Getting Those Discriminated-Against Farmer Funds From Pigford?
Via @Instapundit, Joel B. Pollak writes at Breitbart.com that the guy at the LA Kinkos where he went to copy the NYT piece about the Pigford fraud -- the lack of vetting of who got funds for supposedly being discriminated against in a farm loan -- had heard of Pigford and had a friend apply for funds:
"My friend sent me a form to fill out to get the money, but I never did it," he said.I was too shocked to answer. We were standing thousands of miles from the rural South, where the original Pigford litigants claimed they had suffered racial discrimination from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The Healthcare Mess Is Just Beginning
Louise Radnofsky writes in the WSJ:
The main goal of the 2010 law is to bring health-insurance coverage to Americans who lack it, yet two of the measure's key ways of doing this have hit obstacles.More than half of the states are on track to sit out the law's Medicaid-expansion goal initially--which means millions of low-income Americans won't have access to health insurance through Medicaid as the law anticipated.
Meantime, 33 states have opted against running their own insurance exchanges, the websites where the law envisions consumers shopping for health policies and finding out whether they qualify for tax credits to help pay for them starting Oct. 1. While these residents will be able to use a federal exchange to buy policies, the federal government has had limited funding to set up the exchanges on behalf of the states and to provide consumer assistance for people trying to pick among insurance policies.
Moreover, state and federal officials have had limited opportunities to fully test the complex computer technology behind the exchanges before consumers start shopping.
Government + untested computer technology that is "complex." Right. I'm sure that will go swimmingly.
And the crazy thing is, I think this will probably drive health care through the roof for people who were already paying for it.
UPDATED: Of course, as we've discussed before, Obamacare isn't health insurance. Ari Armstrong writes at The Objective Standard:
Dr. Beth Haynes makes a surprising but warranted claim in her recent article for Huffington Post: "Very few Americans have health insurance . . . because what people call health insurance really isn't insurance at all."Real insurance, Haynes explains, covers high-cost, catastrophic events, not routine care. What usually passes for health insurance today is actually "prepayment of medical expenses." Unfortunately, Haynes notes, ObamaCare makes this problem worse by mandating that "insurance" cover various types of routine care such as "health maintenance checks." Haynes points out the absurdity of this: "It's like having a law requiring homeowner's insurance to pay for lawn care, house painting and water heater replacement."
The consequence, Haynes notes, is that insurance companies have less money to cover truly catastrophic events; thus, "when we are at our most vulnerable, we are less protected." Because the federal government requires insurance companies to spend more on routine care, that money is not available for emergencies or catastrophes. The government's solution to the problem? To heck with the emergencies! Haynes offers the example of the American Academy of Pediatrics, "under pressure" to declare fewer premature infants eligible for treatment and to restrict the amount of care that insurance will cover for them.
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