The Government Wants To Take Your House And Your Stuff
Joining policing for profit -- police using the cover of bad law to steal assets of people not proven guilty -- is Kalamazoo's instance of seizing this woman's property. They say they're following the law but it seems unlikely the woman was properly notified about the missed payment or the intent to foreclose.
A woman, Deborah Calley of Kalamzoo, had her home seized because she missed one property tax payment. She made the payments in 2012 and 2013, but missed the one in 2011. She says letters about the missed payment were sent to out-of-state banks and a title company. Daniel Jennings writes at Off The Grid News:
"To take my $164,000 house over less than $2,000, yeah I would say that's extremely excessive," Deborah Calley told West Michigan TV station Fox 17.Kalamazoo County foreclosed on Calley's home because she missed one property tax payment in 2011. She made the payments for 2012 and 2013 and told Channel 17 that she is willing to make up for the missed payment.
"When I paid the taxes in 2012 right there in Richland, no one said, 'Oh, well you still owe money for 2011,'" Calley said. "So, I didn't really have a clue. I thought I was right on time."
...The county says it followed the law.
"In this case we followed the statute and pursuing foreclosure is appropriate," Kalamazoo County attorney Thom Canny said.
Canny claims the county treasurer sent Calley seven certified letters alerting her to the missed payment, but Calley says the letters were sent to out-of-state banks and a title company.
The county contends it cannot stop the foreclosure because it followed state law. County Treasurer Mary Balkema and her deputy, Greg Vlietstra, went to the home and served a notice, but even that is disputed. Calley claims that she never saw the two or received the notice. In court testimony shown in a Fox 17 news story, Vlietstra said he couldn't remember to whom he gave the notice.
"The county admitted in this case, under oath I might add, that the certified mail that was sent to Deb's house came back," Calley's attorney, Ven Johnson, said. "In other words, she never accepted it. So, that means that the county knows it wasn't successful."
Johnson believes the officials may have given the certified letter to one of Calley's young daughters. If that happened, the action was not legal because the children have no legal standing in such a case.
via ifeminists
Paglia On The Campus Rape Hysteria And The Illusion Of The "Perfectibility Of Mankind"
Camille Paglia writes in TIME:
Wildly overblown claims about an epidemic of sexual assaults on American campuses are obscuring the true danger to young women, too often distracted by cellphones or iPods in public places: the ancient sex crime of abduction and murder. Despite hysterical propaganda about our "rape culture," the majority of campus incidents being carelessly described as sexual assault are not felonious rape (involving force or drugs) but oafish hookup melodramas, arising from mixed signals and imprudence on both sides.Colleges should stick to academics and stop their infantilizing supervision of students' dating lives, an authoritarian intrusion that borders on violation of civil liberties. Real crimes should be reported to the police, not to haphazard and ill-trained campus grievance committees.
Too many young middleclass women, raised far from the urban streets, seem to expect adult life to be an extension of their comfortable, overprotected homes. But the world remains a wilderness. The price of women's modern freedoms is personal responsibility for vigilance and self-defense.
Current educational codes, tracking liberal-Left, are perpetuating illusions about sex and gender. The basic Leftist premise, descending from Marxism, is that all problems in human life stem from an unjust society and that corrections and fine-tunings of that social mechanism will eventually bring utopia. Progressives have unquestioned faith in the perfectibility of mankind.
...Liberalism lacks a profound sense of evil -- but so does conservatism these days, when evil is facilely projected onto a foreign host of rising political forces united only in their rejection of Western values. Nothing is more simplistic than the now rote use by politicians and pundits of the cartoonish label "bad guys" for jihadists, as if American foreign policy is a slapdash script for a cowboy movie.
The gender ideology dominating academe denies that sex differences are rooted in biology and sees them instead as malleable fictions that can be revised at will. The assumption is that complaints and protests, enforced by sympathetic campus bureaucrats and government regulators, can and will fundamentally alter all men.
On a justice agenda, she's particularly right about this:
Real crimes should be reported to the police, not to haphazard and ill-trained campus grievance committees.
Reynolds: Reach Across The Aisle For The Next Attorney General
Glenn Reynolds has a wise idea for the president, writing in his USA Today column that like other presidents, Obama chose a friend for his Attorney General:
In many ways, this makes sense: The attorney general of the United States is at the top of the law enforcement apparatus, and in that position, you want someone you can trust.But while presidents may feel better having an intimate, if not a crony, in charge of law enforcement, that kind of closeness raises questions for the rest of us. With the Obama administration beset by numerous scandals, from the IRS's targeting of Tea Party groups, to the Fast and Furious gun-smuggling scandal, to NSA and CIA spying on Americans, Holder's role has been not so much law enforcement as "scandal-goalie," ensuring that whatever comes out in the news or in congressional investigations, no one in the government will go to jail -- or face the pressures to talk that go with a serious criminal investigation.
Writing in Above The Law, Tamara Tabo notes that Holder's stonewalling, which led him to be the first attorney general ever found in contempt of Congress, has poisoned relations between the Justice Department and legislators, ensuring a rocky reception for whoever Obama names next.
But maybe not. Perhaps President Obama -- and, for that matter, future presidents -- should take a lesson from the way we handle the Department of Defense, and apply it to the Department of Justice: Consider naming someone outside his own party as attorney general.
...Naming an attorney general from the opposite party would tend to make the administration of justice bipartisan, and would provide considerable reassurance, as Holder's tenure in office emphatically did not, that the powers of law enforcement were not being abused in service of partisan ends. In an age of all-encompassing criminal laws, and pervasive government spying, that's a big deal.
On his blog, Reynolds suggests, as an example, gay-marriage advocate and former Solicitor General Ted Olson.
Unfortunately, I don't think a conservative who out-liberaled the president on gay marriage is going to fly. More about the President's "which way is the wind blowing?"/"politics as usual" gay marriage stance here.
Grumpy
Linkie got kicked in the teethies.
Lena Dunham Wants You To Work For Her For Free
Hamilton Nolan writes at Gawker:
This week, rich and famous human Lena Dunham will begin her 12-city book tour. Several dates will feature regular people performing. They will not be paid.
He does the math on that:
Forbes' estimate of Lena Dunham's annual earnings: $6 millionLena Dunham's book advance: $3.7 million
Tickets sold for Lena Dunham's book tour: 8,000
Price per ticket: $38 (or $900, from scalpers)
Total book tour ticket revenue: $304,000
Percentage of book tour revenue reserved for regular people performing as warm-up acts for Lena Dunham: 0%
Scummy.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, this wasn't something she was in the dark about. The open call for performers to work for free as warmup acts for her book tour was posted on her website.
Imperfect Parenting Is Now Illegal
I'm not a parent, but I feel for parents who are pulled about six ways all at once. Sometimes they take a chance and maybe even do something dumb in respect to how they supervise their kid -- like overtaxed parents have for centuries upon centuries.
Well, this mom has surely learned to keep her mouth shut in therapy, since the therapist was the one who informed on her. Lenore Skenazy writes at reason:
A mom's 20 minute absence from home became an obsession of a Child Protective Services officer. As is often the case, the issue was not whether anything bad happened to kids while mom was out. The sole criteria for CPS hounding this woman for two solid years seems to be that something bad could have happened.
The story from Mashable by Rebecca Ruiz:
The ordeal began on a June morning when Gonzalez, then 36, awoke at 7:30 a.m., startled and groggy. Her 16-month-old son had been sick, and Gonzalez slept fitfully; her husband left earlier to start the first of his two jobs. Like most parents, Gonzalez's mind immediately settled on the day's many tasks, including taking the children to walk her four-year-old son to the bus stop. And that's when the panic surged--she had overslept and the bus had already departed.As her eight-year-old daughter dressed for school, Gonzalez and her son rushed down the stairs from their third-floor apartment in Schaumburg, Illinois, and looked for the bus. Seeing an empty street, Gonzalez quickly decided to drive the two miles to school.
When she returned home after a 20-minute absence, Gonzalez found her toddler son watching television in bed and her daughter ready to attend school. She regretted impulsively leaving them alone, but felt grateful nothing tragic had happened.
The next day, Gonzalez mentioned the incident to her therapist, a clinic student who helped treat her for depression. "I did something probably stupid," Gonzalez recalls saying. Her therapist remained silent then, but a few hours later, Gonzalez's phone rang.
"I talked to my supervisor," her therapist said, "and I explained to her what you just told me, and we have to call [Department of Children and Family Services]." Gonzalez hadn't heard of the child welfare agency, but was terrified. "She started telling me that they were probably going to come and interview and probably they would take the children away."
The reasoning:
When the case for neglect was opened against Gonzalez, her daughter told the investigator she hadn't been afraid during her mother's absence; she knew when to open the door if someone knocked and had been previously instructed to call 911 in the event of an emergency. The children's pediatrician told the investigator that Gonzalez and her husband had been exemplary parents, and that he had no reason to suspect neglect or abuse.Still, the investigator and his supervisor recommended "indicating" the allegation of neglect -- a finding that would put Gonzalez's name in the state's central registry for five years, barring her from jobs in child care, teaching or in-home health care, and placing her under a kind of semi-permanent suspicion in the eyes of the agency. Officials argued that Gonzalez's daughter might have been able to make a decision on her own behalf in a hypothetical emergency during those 20 minutes, but that it was beyond her ability to do the same for her 16-month-old brother. This constituted inadequate supervision, and therefore, neglect.
What could have happened is now being used to ensnare and punish normal moments of parents being overwhelmed and imperfect here and there. Or what's now considered neglect -- allowing children independence.
For example:
In one case, a mother allowed her nine-and-a-half-year-old daughter to walk three blocks to a safe park with her 20-month-old sister. In their tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community, this was a common practice, but a bystander saw the girls, escorted them back home, then called the child welfare hotline to report their mother.
And then the upshot:
It's not clear that reporting "inadequate supervision" benefits anyone in some cases, Appell said. Research has shown that children placed in foster care, for example, can experience physical or sexual abuse in their new homes. Many also leave the system with post-traumatic stress disorder, perhaps because of maltreatment and the forced separation from their families. But these scenarios don't immediately occur to bystanders.
Monkey
Linkie with very furry legs.
The Usual iWhipping Boy: No, "Tech-Driven Narcissism" Isn't What Makes Us Rude
Frances Terrell Lippman, in a letter to the editor about my recent LA Times op-ed, thinks so:
With more ways to talk about ourselves -- Twitter, Instagram, texting, Facebook, that old standby email and all the rest that will be coming along -- rudeness is inevitable.
People often blame technology -- and it feels comforting and right to do it, because we all have to duck around some asshole meandering down the sidewalk engrossed in his electronic binky (and all the other manifestations of those umbilicalized to their me-phone).
I explain in my book, "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck" (which the op-ed is a miniature of):
[On sources of blame for all the rampant rudeness] "It's the Internet; it alienates people." Oh, right--when it isn't functioning as the single most connective force in human history. And sorry, all you cell phone blamers, but iPhones don't leap out of people's pockets and purses, put themselves on speaker, and float around the grocery store barking into the ears of everybody shopping....Much of this surge in rudeness we're experiencing is a consequence of life in The New Wild West, the world that technology made. Technology itself doesn't cause the rudeness. But technological advances have led to sweeping social change, removing some of the consequences of being rude, especially in the past fifteen years, with so many people living states or continents apart from their families and friends, often spending their days in a swarm of strangers, and being both more and less connected than ever through cell phones, Facebook, Twitter, and Skype.
And I write in the LA Times op-ed:
We're all experiencing more daily rudeness than ever, to the point where there seems to be a revised Golden Rule: "Do unto others ... whatever you think you can get away with." Pundits are quick to blame technology, too much parenting, too little parenting and the reality TV empire known as the Kardashians. But science tells another story: We have lost the constraints we had on our behavior for millions of years of human history. In short, we are rude because we are now living in societies too big for our brains.I came to this idea via the finding by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar that there's a "magic" population limit -- approximately 150 people -- beyond which civility breaks down. In a society of 150 or fewer, where everyone knows everyone else (like the small bands in which we evolved), concern for reputation keeps people from acting out. But there's no need to worry about reputation when you are surrounded by strangers, as we so often are these days, and it's transformed our society into a free-for-all for the piggy and entitled.
We obviously can't turn the clock back to a world where everybody knows everybody and the blacksmith's mother. What we can do is use my "societies too big for our brains" concept to bring back some of the constraints and benefits of the small societies in which we evolved.
This starts with letting empathy -- "How would I feel if that were done to me?" -- be our behavioral guide, rather than whether we know the person we are about to do it to. We also need to start speaking up to the rude, which is something many people feel uncomfortable doing.
To get over this psychological hurdle, we need to recognize rudeness for what it is: A form of theft. A cell boor who privatizes shared space as his own is stealing your attention. The neighbor who blasts music at 2 a.m. is stealing your sleep. And ultimately, all rudeness is the theft of everybody's peace of mind because it makes our world into an ugly shove-or-be-shoved place.
By the way, most dismayingly, the shipping message on my book at Amazon says the book will ship in "1 to 3 weeks." This is a glitch in their system. The publisher just reprinted (for the fourth time!) and that was right after the third reprint, and my editor (who is the executive editor and has some mojo!) will straighten this out on Monday. (They can get books to Amazon in a day, in my past experience!) The book is in at Barnes and Noble and should ship right away. Please order a new copy, which helps support the author (me!), which allows the author to keep writing books and keep eating at tables instead of out of Dumpsters.
"Generation Wuss"
That's what Brett Easton Ellis calls the Millennial generation in a piece for Vanity Fair:
I have been living with someone from the Millennial generation for the last four years (he's now 27) and sometimes I'm charmed and sometimes I'm exasperated by how him and his friends--as well as the Millennials I've met and interacted with both in person and in social media--deal with the world, and I've tweeted about my amusement and frustration under the banner "Generation Wuss" for a few years now. My huge generalities touch on their over-sensitivity, their insistence that they are right despite the overwhelming proof that suggests they are not, their lack of placing things within context, the overreacting, the passive-aggressive positivity, and, of course, all of this exacerbated by the meds they've been fed since childhood by over-protective "helicopter" parents mapping their every move. These are late-end Baby Boomers and Generation X parents who were now rebelling against their own rebelliousness because of the love they felt that they never got from their selfish narcissistic Boomer parents and who end up smothering their kids, inducing a kind of inadequate preparation in how to deal with the hardships of life and the real way the world works: people won't like you, that person may not love you back, kids are really cruel, work sucks, it's hard to be good at something, life is made up of failure and disappointment, you're not talented, people suffer, people grow old, people die. And Generation Wuss responds by collapsing into sentimentality and creating victim narratives rather than acknowledging the realities of the world and grappling with them and processing them and then moving on, better prepared to navigate an often hostile or indifferent world that doesn't care if you exist....When Generation Wuss creates something they have so many outlets to display it that it often goes out into the world unfettered, unedited, posted everywhere, and because of this freedom a lot of the content displayed is rushed and kind of shitty and that's OK--it's just the nature of the world now--but when Millennials are criticized for this content they seem to collapse into a shame spiral and the person criticizing them is automatically labeled a hater, a contrarian, a troll. And then you have to look at the generation that raised them, that coddled them in praise--gold medals for everyone, four stars for just showing up--and tried to shield them from the dark side of life, and in turn created a generation that appears to be super confident and positive about things but when the least bit of darkness enters into their realm they become paralyzed and unable to process it.
Agree? Disagree? Your experience?
via @MZHemingway
Slurpee
7-Eleveny links.
Why They Don't Stop The Female Thief
I don't think it's so simple as her being attractive and a woman. I think it's because they suspect they'll be accused of attacking her.
The Secret On Brisket
The only people who are excited to eat it are non-Jews invited to Jews' houses for holidays.
Former Muslim: President Obama Is Wrong; ISIL Absolutely Speaks For Islam
Excellent video.
Michelle Obama Confuses USA With Saudi Arabia
About the USA, First Lady Michelle Obama said at the United Nations, "We still struggle with ... harmful cultural norms that tell women how they are expected to look and act."
We have these for men, too. They're called "civilization." This is the most free country on the planet. Norms here, unlike in Saudi Arabia, do not come with morality police slinking around every corner, looking to throw you in a cage and give you a caning.
I've violated "norms" my whole life, like the "get married and have children" norm -- along with the "be normal" norm. Sure, there are tradeoffs, but I choose to be as I am, and it's not a form of persecution when people try to push me to get married or when they look askance for me for being unmarried or working all the time.
Loopy
Dizzy links.
Moderation Is A Source Of Death Threats In Islam
That's what happened to a Muslim academic in South Africa. Stephanie Findlay writes in the Telegraph/UK:
A Muslim academic is vowing to push ahead with the launch of his woman and gay-friendly mosque in South Africa, despite receiving death threats.Taj Hargey, director of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford, a group of "forward thinking" Muslims, said his Open Mosque will welcome all genders, religions and sexual orientations when it opens in Wynberg, a Cape Town suburb, on Friday.
"You enter the mosque, do I ask you the question who did you sleep with last night? No. It's not my business who you slept with," said Mr Hargey, a native of Cape Town.
"Women will enter the same doors as men, women will take part in the service" said the 60-year-old. "This is the first time you'll see men and women praying together."
Mr Hargey says the Open Mosque, that has been in development for two years, is designed to counter growing Islamic radicalism in Africa.
"South Africans have become Arabised, they think they must wear the burka, must have face masks, that men must wear pyjama dresses," said Mr Hargey. "They think that is the only version of Islam."
With over 300 people expected to attend the first service, Mr Hargey, who has caused a similar uproar in Britain when he called on Muslims to ban the burka, says the response to the Open Mosque has ranged from ecstatic to apoplectic. "A 77-year-old grandmother just called me and said: 'All my life I've been waiting for this, for the first time I can go to a mosque and be warmly welcome,'" he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Hargey says he has received "a lot of death threats".
My parents belong to the oldest reform Jewish congregation in Michigan, Temple Beth El. I think it's been around for over 100 years, and the only deadly thing I experienced there was the rabbi's sermon. When I was still around in Detroit, the reform-ier temple, the humanist one, was merely thought to be a bit...odd. Not death-worthy.
"Scholar of the Heart" Ibn al-Qayyim (aka Abu Bakr, Mohammed's successor) on how a person is better off dead than homosexual. (Islam commands the slaughter of gays.)
Both of them - fornication and homosexuality - involve immorality that goes against the wisdom of Allaah's creation and commandment. For homosexuality involves innumerable evil and harms, and the one to whom it is done would be better off being killed than having this done to him, because after that he will become so evil and so corrupt that there can be no hope of his being reformed, and all good is lost for him, and he will no longer feel any shame before Allaah or before His creation. The semen of the one who did that to him will act as a poison on his body and soul.
There is an exception:
As a side note, in 2012, a cleric issues a fatwa endorsing sodomy as a means of widening the anus in order to pack it with enough explosives to kill bystanders in a suicide bombing. As Sheikh Abu al-Dema al-Qasab put it, "Jihad comes first, for it is the pinnacle of Islam, and if the pinnacle of Islam can only be achieved through sodomy, then there is no wrong in it."
via NicoleK
Where Husbands And Boyfriends Go To Die While Still Alive
Ladies, at least give a man a choice, like whether he'd prefer to have you run over him in a minivan several times.
Please buy my book, "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," only $9.48 at Amazon and about that at Barnes & Noble. New copies help me earn back my advance and support me as a writer -- of this site and more.
Trash Crimes
Conversation soon to be overheard in Seattle:
Wait -- is that a half-eaten sandwich in your trash?What do you mean you didn't like the cooked carrots?
Off with your head!
Daniel Beekman writes in the Seattle Times that Big (Sanitation Collector) Brother is going to be looking to see whether you're tossing too much food out with your trash, and if maybe -- gasp! -- some recyclables sneak in there:
The Seattle City Council passed a new ordinance Monday that could mean $1 fines for people who toss too many table scraps into the trash.Under current Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) rules, people living in single-family homes are encouraged but not required to dispose of food waste and compostable paper products in compost bins.
Apartment buildings must have compost bins available, but residents of apartment buildings aren't required to use them.
And businesses aren't subject to any composting requirements.
Under the new rules, collectors can take a cursory look each time they dump trash into a garbage truck.
If they see compostable items make up 10 percent or more of the trash, they'll enter the violation into a computer system their trucks already carry, and will leave a ticket on the garbage bin that says to expect a $1 fine on the next garbage bill.
This is like the ridiculous plastic bag ban in California that is supposed to be saving energy but is actually wasting it. Likewise, separating your trash is an idiotic waste of time, per a John Tierney New York Times piece I love.
I'm with "punditenvy," who left this comment on the Seattle Times site:
This is ludicrous on several levels:1. How do you accurately calculate the 10%?
2. What's to stop people from putting the compostables at the bottom of the bin and covering them up with non-compostables?
3. Is a $1 fine a real deterrent?
4. If someone challenges the fine, how does the city prove its case? Will garbage collectors be taking photos and writing up reports about violators? If so, at what cost?
Is this really the society anybody (who does not have some mental problems) wants to be living in?
A New Comedy From The Federal Government
The US Postal Service wants to deliver our groceries.
Or, as Adrian Moore, whose tweet led me to this story put it:
@reasonpolicy
Geniuses at the Postal Service going broke with monopoly on mail, so now they want to compete to deliver groceries.
Now, I have rented same house for, oh, 17 years. My neighbors have live in theirs a few years longer. Today, I got neighbors' mail and they got mine -- as we have about two or three days a week for, oh, 17 years.
From GovExec.com's Eric Katz:
The cash-strapped agency is looking to deliver groceries to homes in select metropolitan areas nationwide, as part of a pilot program it hopes can launch it back into the black. The program, which is pending approval from the Postal Regulatory Commission, would be called Customized Delivery.USPS would "provide delivery of groceries and other prepackaged goods," for the most part between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m. Customized Delivery would aim to build on "operational testing" the Postal Service started in conjunction with Amazon earlier this month in San Francisco.
Problem: My neighbors eat yucky.
Question: Do I try to persuade them to move or to eat more butter, bacon, and steak?
Lumpy
Under-mixed links.
Trickle-Down Humanity: My Op-Ed In The LA Times Today
"Trickle-Down Humanity" is the title of the last chapter of "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," and it's reflected in my book-related op-ed the LA Times published today. (Please read the whole thing at the link!)
It's kind of a miniature of my book (though the book has tons of specific advice on numerous topics, including how to balance politeness and self-incrimination in a traffic stop, and how to get noisy neighbors to stop being noisy).
An excerpt from the beginning of the op-ed, which the LA Times titled "In battle against rude people, kindness is a powerful weapon":
In Los Angeles, you can call 311 to get a stack of old mattresses removed from your alley; I don't see why there isn't some number to summon aliens with a giant ray gun to pop down and vaporize the guy marching back and forth in front of my house, yelling into his cellphone.And sure, as he helpfully pointed out, "It's a public street!" -- but there's a reasonable presumption that the sounds you hear inside your house will be house sounds: the tea kettle whistling, bacon frying and your dog biting his toenails. Basically, another person's right to have a cellphone yell session outside your home ends where your living room begins.
...Admittedly, some rudeness is a result of good people just not being mindful. If their behavior is pointed out to them, they will generally express embarrassment and apologize . However, for the egregiously, remorselessly rude, we need to bring back the power of shaming in the public square. Standing in for the pillory we have what I call webslapping: posting awful behavior on social media. (There's a new sheriff in town, and it's the YouTube video that goes viral.) Even if the particular rude person never sees his or her ignominious star turn, the fear of being similarly exposed should deter others from acting out.
A small kindness that's no big deal when you do it for someone you know is an incredibly powerful act when done for a stranger.
Not everyone will be comfortable standing up to the rude, but we can all start making a daily effort to treat strangers like neighbors: smiling, saying hello, and doing the small kindnesses that we would for people we know. For example, a friend came upon an older lady fanning herself on a bench on a hot Boulder, Colo., street. The woman asked my friend where she could get a Diet Coke. My friend went up the block, bought a Diet Coke, came back and handed it to the woman. "Oh, my God!" the woman shouted. "You're kidding me! God bless you! I can't believe you did that!"
It's pretty amazing. A small kindness that's no big deal when you do it for someone you know is an incredibly powerful act when done for a stranger. It's also likely to have cascading societal returns. Research by psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky found that recipients of kind acts were almost three times more likely to do kind acts for others. So simply by regularly reaching out to our co-humans, we can transform our society, little by little, from a vast strangeropolis to a really, really big neighborhood. The way I see it, a minimum of one kind act a day should be our self-imposed cover charge for living in this world. We get the society we create -- or the society we let happen to us.
Amy Alkon's latest book is "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," which was published in June.
If You Like Your Plan, You Still Can't Keep It
New wave of Obamacare health plan cancellations coming soon!
Robert F. Graboyes writes at USNews:
There's a bizarre reason why millions of Americans saw their health insurance plans cancelled in 2013 - and as explained in a new video put out by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, millions more will lose their plans in years to come.Insurance coverage for Americans will remain in permanent turmoil because the Affordable Care Act requires all plans to fit within four cookie-cutter designs called "metallic tiers." (The tiers - bronze, silver, gold and platinum - refer to the percentage of medical expenses a particular plan pays.) The video also notes that families may have to change plans repeatedly because, as circumstances change, a plan that fits within a tier one year may not fit in any tier a later year.
...Mercatus affiliated scholar Chris Conover has noted that there is no technical reason for Congress to have included this particular provision in the law and suggested the cookie-cutter requirement may have been based on the assumption that Americans can't handle more than four plan designs when buying insurance.
These waves of cancellations will bring real hardship to Americans. At the least, many will have to dive back into the exchange Websites which, despite their absence from the headlines, are still largely nonfunctional. Worse, for some Americans, the cancellations will mean changing doctors, interrupting coverage and losing continuity of care.
The video with Grayboyes -- he explains this well:
Information on grandfathered plans here.
Disgustypants
In this morning's email, expressing disgust about my science-based approach to giving advice:
"You are a disgrace to your gender."
Thanks! I do try!
The Unfree Speech Movement
Sol Stern, was among the student radicals at Berkeley in 1964, back when colleges had intellectual freedom, as the subhead of his WSJ op-ed puts it. Stern writes about why the move for unfree speech is so successful on campuses today:
The Berkeley "machine" now promotes Free Speech Movement kitsch. The steps in front of Sproul Hall, the central administration building where more than 700 students were arrested on Dec. 2, 1964, have been renamed the Mario Savio Steps. One of the campus dining halls is called the Free Speech Movement Café, its walls covered with photographs and mementos of the glorious semester of struggle. The university requires freshmen to read an admiring biography of Savio, who died in 1996, written by New York University professor and Berkeley graduate Robert Cohen.Yet intellectual diversity is hardly embraced. Every undergraduate undergoes a form of indoctrination with a required course on the "theoretical or analytical issues relevant to understanding race, culture, and ethnicity in American society," administered by the university's Division of Equity and Inclusion.
How did this Orwellian inversion occur? It happened in part because the Free Speech Movement's fight for free speech was always a charade. The struggle was really about using the campus as a base for radical politics.
...On Oct. 1 at Berkeley ... one of the honored speakers at the Free Speech Movement anniversary rally on Sproul Plaza will be Bettina Aptheker, who is now a feminist-studies professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Writing in the Berkeley alumni magazine about the anniversary, Ms. Aptheker noted that the First Amendment was "written by white, propertied men in the 18th century, who never likely imagined that it might apply to women, and/or people of color, and/or all those who were not propertied, and even, perhaps, not citizens, and/or undocumented immigrants. . . . In other words, freedom of speech is a Constitutional guarantee, but who gets to exercise it without the chilling restraints of censure depends very much on one's location in the political and social cartography. We [Free Speech Movement] veterans were too young and inexperienced in 1964 to know this, but we do now, and we speak with a new awareness, a new consciousness, and a new urgency that the wisdom of a true freedom is inexorably tied to who exercises power and for what ends."
Read it and weep--for the Free Speech Movement anniversary, for the ideal of an intellectually open university, and for America.
A really important, terrific, and very short (50-page) book to read is Freedom from Speech
An essential quote from it (one of many):
"It is crucial ... to note how the definition of safety has been watered down on campus. The term is no longer limited to physical security -- far from it. In my career, I have repeatedly seen safety conflated with comfort or even reassurance. It is hard for me to overemphasize how dangerous this shift is."
What Must A Guy Do To Get Taken Off The Payroll For His Government Job, Set The Building On Fire?
The Free Beacon posts that the EPA porn watcher is still on the payroll -- more than four months after being banned from the EPA building:
It has been months since a high-paid Environmental Protection Agency employee was banned from the building. In some weird real-life "Office Space" parallel, he is inexplicably still getting paid-and no one has fixed the glitch.Whether the employee watched porn on his government-issued computer is not in question. Allan Williams, deputy assistant inspector general for investigation, told the House Oversight Committee in May that his office had discovered an EPA official that habitually watched porn on the computer.
The Free Beacon reported that the official "spent up to six hours a day on the taxpayer dime looking at pornography," viewing more than 7,000 pornographic files while on the job. Not only that, but the employee was rewarded with "performance rewards" for his hard work.
"So this guy is making $120,000, spending two to six hours a day looking at porno. Then this information I have is he received performance awards during the time period?" Rep. John Mica (R., Fla.) asked Williams at the time.
Williams responded, "Uh, he possibly did. Yes, sir."
Fappy government job to you...
Slinky
Wiggly links.
The Barbarians Behead A French Tourist For Allah
Ryan Gorman writes on AOL that French tourist Hervé Gourdel was beheaded by Muslims in Algeria.
An ISIS-offshoot based in Algeria has executed a French hostage after previously threatening to kill him over France's participation in airstrikes over Iraq.Herve Gourdel, 55, was captured Sunday by Jund al-Khilafa while on vacation. The horrifying video ends with one of the insurgents holding his head over his body as another stands on it waving to the camera while they all praise Allah.
Gourdel was captured only one day after landing in Algeria, according to reports.
Gourdel was a mountaineer, and described himself in the barbarians' video as a "mountain guide," The Wire reports. He looks a bit like a crusty retired French friend of ours, in his 70s. Terribly sad.
I was always sort of amazed that friends of mine from France were so relaxed about vacationing in places like Algeria and Egypt that are so hostile to westerners and Enlightenment values.
Beheading is big in the Quran -- it calls for it for unbelievers:
Book of Al-Anfal, verse 12 (8:12) - "I (Allah) will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off."
Sadly, if you want to climb some mountains these days, and want to keep your head on your shoulders, you'd best stick to places like Switzerland that as of yet do not have an Islamic majority.
Affirmative Action Hits Other Species
From a tweet:
Yes, Let's Care About The Stuff That We Can Get Our Tiny Minds Around
The President saluted a Marine while holding a coffee cup in his hand after stepping off the helicopter Marine One, and it seems to have garnered far more interest than that war thingie he entered us into without congressional approval. (More on the uncheckable powers at HotAir from Allahpundit.)
From the CNN link above, a piece by Ashley Killough and Eric Weisbrod:
It's become tradition for presidents to salute the military officers he encounters when boarding the official helicopter, a tradition that is widely understood as begun by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.A U.S. Navy manual on customs and courtesies, cited by the Daily Caller, says saluting in general is "the most important of all military courtesies."
"The salute formally recognizes the officer as a military superior, and returning the salute expresses the officer's thanks for the junior's support," the manual reads.
It recommends not saluting when one is "carrying articles with both hands or being otherwise so occupied as to make saluting impractical."
But Obama has previously passed by a Marine without saluting -- and that got noticed as well.
And former President George W. Bush did an awkward salute with his dog back in 2001.
There's Comfortable And There's Too Comfortable In A Relationship
One of my recent Pins:
Please buy my book, "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," which is only $9.48 at Amazon and about that at Barnes & Noble. New copies help me earn back my advance and support me as a writer -- of this site and more.
The Idiocy Of Plastic Bag Bans
There's often this notion that we have to just "Doooo something!"
To some, motion is progress -- like the motion to ban plastic bags from being given out at grocery stores and other businesses, which has happened where I live.
Julian Morris, Vice President Of Research, Reason Foundation, writes at ABQJournal that plastic bag bans are not the panacea they're thought to be for environmental ills:
Over 200 municipalities in the United States, including two in New Mexico - Santa Fe and Silver City - have banned the distribution of lightweight plastic shopping bags. Proponents of these bag bans claim they will reduce litter and protect the marine environment, diminish our consumption of resources and emissions of greenhouse gases, reduce waste and save taxpayers' money.Unfortunately, for those who see banning plastic grocery bags as a panacea, a recent report for the Reason Foundation shows that all these claims are false.
Authoritative studies show that plastic bags constitute less than 1 percent of visible litter in U.S. cities. The presence of plastic bags in trees and on the ground signifies that a community has a litter problem. The appropriate response is to reduce and ameliorate that problem through education and other initiatives - not to ban plastic bags.
Members of some pressure groups claim that plastic bags kill large numbers of marine animals. Even for bags distributed in coastal cities, that claim is simply false.
As David Santillo, a senior biologist with Greenpeace, told The Times of London: "It's very unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags. The evidence shows just the opposite ... . On a global basis, plastic bags aren't an issue."
Because they are so strong and light, plastic shopping bags can actually reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills.
In short (because of the realities of the bag bans and the actual rate of reuse of plastic bags, among other things):
Banning lightweight plastic bags likely increases energy use, water use and emissions of greenhouse gases, but does not substantially reduce waste or litter, or the cost of associated municipal waste and litter collection.Advocates of banning plastic grocery bags, while perhaps well-intentioned, are actually harming the environment, raising consumer costs and reducing personal freedom.
What does this bag ban mean for me? Sometimes that I buy less that I would have, if I've forgotten to take a bag in my purse and there's too much to carry.
Like businesses in California need one more hardship. Good job, idiot legislators!
Simpery
Whineylinks.
Applying Feminist Logic To Other Crimes
Terrific piece by Ashe Schow at WashEx. An excerpt:
Feminists have been arguing that it's "victim-blaming" to suggest steps that women can take to reduce the risk of being sexual assaulted. But what if that same logic were applied to all crime prevention tips?It might go something like this:
Stop blaming the victims of theft
We should be teaching people not to steal, not telling people to lock their doors and windows.
Parking in well-lit areas, not hiding keys near the front door, avoiding websites that ask for your Social Security number -- these are all just ways that we blame the victims of theft. And it needs to stop.
Stop blaming the victims of violent crimes
I don't want to live in a world where I can't jog down deserted streets at night. I shouldn't have to change my normal behavior because someone wants to attack me or steal my iPod.
Telling me to be aware of my surroundings perpetuates "burglary culture" where it is somehow my fault that I got mugged.
And so on. Right on.
No, nobody deserves to be raped, but drinking yourself into a stupor in public imperils you. Advising people of this isn't victim-blaming -- it's helping them avoid being robbed, raped, or murdered.
Tweet Of The Week
My pick is Paul Hsieh's:
@PaulHsieh
Remember when "Hope I die before I get old" was a rebel youth cry, and not advice from a White House health advisor?
Your fave? (And any comments on the above? Which, in case you've been in a coma for a few days, is about this.)
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Laments The Lack Of Totalitarianism In The U.S.
Charles C.W. Cooke writes at NRO about an "aspiring tyrant" from the Kennedy family:
Blissfully unaware of how hot the irony burned, Robert Kennedy Jr. yesterday took to a public protest to rail avidly in favor of censorship. The United States government, Kennedy lamented in an interview with Climate Depot, is not permitted by law to "punish" or to imprison those who disagree with him -- and this, he proposed, is a problem of existential proportions. Were he to have his way, Kennedy admitted, he would cheer the prosecution of a host of "treasonous" figures -- among them a number of unspecified "politicians"; those bêtes noires of the global Left, Kansas's own Koch Brothers; "the oil industry and the Republican echo chamber"; and, for good measure, anybody else whose estimation of the threat posed by fossil fuels has provoked them into "selling out the public trust." Those who contend that global warming "does not exist," Kennedy claimed, are guilty of "a criminal offense -- and they ought to be serving time for it."
Read the Constitution lately, dipshit?
Cooke points out something important:
It is dull and dispiriting that it should need so often to be repeated, but, for the sake of tedious clarity, repeat it I shall: Freedom of speech is a wholly fruitless guarantee unless it is held steadfastly to protect even those utterances that most pugnaciously contravene the zeitgeist and most grievously offend the well-connected. Inherent to the safeguard, further, is the supposition that the state may not distinguish between speakers or make legal judgments as to whose words are valuable are whose should be frowned upon. Despite a concerted and increasingly unsustainable attempt to suggest otherwise, the question of climate change remains an open and rambunctious one, and the debate that surrounds the topic remains protected in practice by the First Amendment and in civil society by the dual forces of taste and liberality. Robert Kennedy, by agitating for the suppression of heterodoxy, is casting himself as an enemy of all three.Kennedy's insidious aspirations are the inevitable consequence of his conviction that he is in possession of the truth and that all who have the temerity to question him are, in consequence, wreckers. At the best of times, and on the least shaky of epistemological ground, this is a dangerous instinct.
The Picasso Of Potholes
Government is leaving holes in the streets and a Chicago man is filling them -- with mosaics.
The amazing thing is that the government is going with it instead of stopping him.
Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice: Repetitive Work In Math Is Good
Engineering professor Dr. Barbara Oakley, who was recently on my radio show discussing her terrific new book, "A Mind For Numbers," has an op-ed in the WSJ on how we should be teaching math:
I'm now a professor of engineering, but in my mid-20s I was an artsy language lover who had flunked her way through elementary-, middle- and high-school math and science. What I discovered when I started over at age 26--first tackling remedial middle-school math and then working my way toward a Ph.D. in systems engineering--is that a conceptual understanding only gets you so far.Conceptual understanding has become the mother lode of today's approach to education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics--known as the STEM disciplines. However, an "understanding-centric approach" by educators can create problems.
Today's Common Core approach to teaching STEM is at least superficially appealing. The goal of placing equal emphasis on conceptual understanding, procedural skills and fluency, and application is laudable. But as with any new approach to teaching, the Common Core builds on the culture that's already there. And the culture that has long reigned in STEM education is that conceptual understanding trumps everything. So bewildered math teachers who are now struggling to teach the Common Core are leaning on the old thinking, which has it that if a student doesn't understand--in the "ah-ha," light-bulb sense of understanding--there's no way she or he can truly become expert in the material.
...As research by Alessandro Guida, Fernand Gobet, K. Anders Ericsson and others has also shown, the development of true expertise involves extensive practice so that the fundamental neural architectures that underpin true expertise have time to grow and deepen. This involves plenty of repetition in a flexible variety of circumstances. In the hands of poor teachers, this repetition becomes rote--droning reiteration of easy material. With gifted teachers, however, this subtly shifting and expanding repetition mixed with new material becomes a form of deliberate practice and mastery learning.
True mastery doesn't mean you use crutches like laying out 25 beans in 5-by-5 rows to demonstrate that 5 × 5 = 25. It means that when you see 5 × 5, in a flash, you know it's 25--it's a single neural chunk that's as easy to pull up as a ribbon. Having students stop to continually check and prove their understanding can actually impede their understanding, in the same way that continually focusing on every aspect of a golf swing can impede the development of the swing.
Linketty
Econolodgings for links.
The Weather In Here Is Churlish
Yoohoo, person with the car alarm going off intermittently in my neighborhood for two days:
I just offered a guy $5 to steal your car.
Sadly, he found my offer insultingly low.
Pew Poll: Egyptians Want Democracy -- And Stonings For Apostasy And Adultery
Welcome to The Dark Ages...with smartphones.
From the Globe and Mail, a 2011 Pew Poll says 59 percent prefer democracy to other forms of government.
20 percent think suicide bombings are sometimes justified;
82 percent believe adulterers should be stoned, and we're not talking about giving them a doobie;
And 84 percent believe apostates from Islam should face the death penalty, as per the Quran and Hadith.
(Here's one of the more well-known verses from the Hadith: Bukhari (84:57) - [In the words of] "Allah's Apostle, 'Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.'")
From the Quran/Hadith link above:
The contemporary (i.e., 1991) Al-Azhar (Cairo) Islamic Research Academy endorsed manual of Islamic Law, Umdat al-Salik (pp. 595-96) states: "Leaving Islam is the ugliest form of unbelief (kufr) and the worst.... When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostasizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed. In such a case, it is obligatory...to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed."
via @jonathanturley
Pssst, Did You Steal Your Ethics Textbook?
Valerie Strauss reports in the WaPo that an increasing number of students are illegally downloading college textbooks for free. (A single book can now cost more than $200, in some cases.)
Vocativ.com has a story titled "Why College Students are Stealing Their Textbooks," which notes that some students are even downloading them for ethics classes.The cost to students of college textbooks skyrocketed 82 percent between 2002 and 2012, according to a 2013 report by the U.S. General Accountability Office, the research arm of Congress. As a result, students have been looking for less expensive options, such as renting books -- and, now, finding them on the Internet, uploaded by other students.
In August, an organization called the Book Industry Study Group, which represents publishers, retailers, manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, librarians and others in the industry, released a survey of some 1,600 students and found, according to a release on the data, that "students continue to become more sophisticated in acquiring their course materials at the lowest cost as illicit and alternative acquisition behaviors, from scanned copies to illegal downloads to the use of pirated websites, continue to increase in frequency."
About the ethics textbook:
A year ago a student wrote on a Tumblr blog called "Children of the Stars" [it's gone now, even from Google cache] complaining about a professor who insisted that students buy an online version of a specific paperback sociology book for more than $200 -- which the professor wrote himself -- and would not allow them to purchase "an older, paperback edition of the same book for $5." The student continued: "This is why we download," and "Don't ever, EVER buy the newest edition of a book," which is followed by a list of Web sites with pirated books. As of 2:20 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, the post had 780,942 views.
I don't steal copyrighted material, no matter how expensive. That said, I think it's utterly wrong and a disgusting scam to force students to buy your $200 book as a requirement of taking your course.
Did You Remember To Pack Your Al Qaeda Training Camp Sweatshirt In Your Carry-On?
Of course, if terrorists are going to try to do something dastardly, they'll all be sure to wear and carry their terroristy team colors -- sweatshirts, baseball caps, and travel bags with the ISIS logo.
Knowing this, the geniuses in the pretend cop costumes of the TSA delayed a flight out of JFK because someone on it had a duffel bag with the word "ISIS" -- or what looked like "ISIS" -- emblazoned on it.
From Betsy Akers at Lew Rockwell:
The I-word was instead the "logo of a travel agency appearing similar to ISIS insignia. The travel agency had given out bags with the logo to a travel group on the plane."No matter: this phantom "triggered a security alert. ... the plane and luggage were swept, but nothing was found." No, really? Ten hapless victims were "taken off the plane" and "questioned by police and FBI agents...
As Betsy put it: "Whew! Saved from Insignia!"
RELATED jokeybit: Duhhh...
And from opencarry.org:
So I declare my firearm at check in and get sent over to the TSA with my pelican case. So mr. TSA hero starts sorting through my underwear, never checks the 2 unlocked gun cases. But makes sure to get a good sniff of my underwear. You know to make sure I am not carrying explosive diarrhea.
Kumlinkbayah
Links in hippie shoes and toe rings.
Advice Goddess Radio, 7-8 pm PT: Fred Hahn On The Science-Based Exercise That Requires Only 15 Minutes A Week
Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.
Crazy week for me this week, so I have a "Best Of" replay for you -- of an extremely popular show.
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 that fitness fanatic who spends hours 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 the myths most of us hold about exercise and fitness, and lays out a plan for exercise that will make you fitter and healthier, and will only eat 12-15 minutes of your week. Really!
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 to the show at this link or download the podcast afterward at the link:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2014/09/22/fred-hahn-on-the-science-based-exercise-that-requires-only-15-minutes-a-week
Join me and my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.
My show's sponsor is now Audible.com. Get a free audiobook download and support this show financially at no cost to you by signing up for a free 30-day trial at audibletrial.com/amya (It's $14.95 after 30 days, but you can cancel before then and have it cost you nothing.)
Please consider ordering my new book, the science-based and funny "Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," (only $9.48 at Amazon!). Orders of the book help support my writing and this radio show!
Kid Gets Detention For Sharing His Lunch
About every day, there's yet another completely, insanely stupid example of zero-sense school administrators.
Here's the latest, from KRCR TV's Katherine Harwood:
Kyle Bradford, 13, shared his chicken burrito with a friend who didn't like the cheese sandwich he was given by the cafeteria.Bradford didn't see any problem with sharing his food.
"It seemed like he couldn't get a normal lunch so I just wanted to give mine to him because I wasn't really that hungry and it was just going to go in the garbage if I didn't eat it," said Bradford.
But the Trinity Alps Unified School District has regulations that prohibit students from sharing their meals.
The policies set by the district say that students can have allergies that another student may not be aware of.
Tom Barnett, the Superintendent of the Trinity Alps Unified School District says that hygiene issues also come into play when banning students from sharing meals.
The hygiene thing is just idiocy, unless he handed it to The Boy In The Plastic Bubble.
Furthermore, a 13-year-old knows whether he has allergies or not. Are they really making these burritos from terribly exotic ingredients?
At 13, I was babysitting for an infant and riding my bike miles away from my house. Miles and miles and miles away.
Of course, if we treat 13-year-olds like they are responsibility-free infants, they're less likely to be able to behave as capable proto-adults.
Apparently, per the comments at the link, the cheese sandwich is the punishment lunch for poor kids or others who don't have lunch money.
Yes, let's punish a kid for showing consideration and compassion for others.
I love that the kid said he'd do the same again. More of him, please; fewer school administrators.
"Why I Hope To Die At 75"
Ezekiel Emmanuel in The Atlantic:
That's how long I want to live: 75 years.This preference drives my daughters crazy. It drives my brothers crazy. My loving friends think I am crazy. They think that I can't mean what I say; that I haven't thought clearly about this, because there is so much in the world to see and do. To convince me of my errors, they enumerate the myriad people I know who are over 75 and doing quite well. They are certain that as I get closer to 75, I will push the desired age back to 80, then 85, maybe even 90.
I am sure of my position. Doubtless, death is a loss. It deprives us of experiences and milestones, of time spent with our spouse and children. In short, it deprives us of all the things we value.
But here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.
And apparently, some of us retain a junior high school need to avoid being seen as pathetic -- to the point we'd rather be dead.
Not being overcome by fear of being seen as an ass allows me to keep living and take risks to the point where I sometimes fall on my ass (or my face).
He continues:
By the time I reach 75, I will have lived a complete life. I will have loved and been loved. My children will be grown and in the midst of their own rich lives. I will have seen my grandchildren born and beginning their lives. I will have pursued my life's projects and made whatever contributions, important or not, I am going to make. And hopefully, I will not have too many mental and physical limitations. Dying at 75 will not be a tragedy. Indeed, I plan to have my memorial service before I die. And I don't want any crying or wailing, but a warm gathering filled with fun reminiscences, stories of my awkwardness, and celebrations of a good life. After I die, my survivors can have their own memorial service if they want--that is not my business.Let me be clear about my wish. I'm neither asking for more time than is likely nor foreshortening my life.
...I am talking about how long I want to live and the kind and amount of health care I will consent to after 75. Americans seem to be obsessed with exercising, doing mental puzzles, consuming various juice and protein concoctions, sticking to strict diets, and popping vitamins and supplements, all in a valiant effort to cheat death and prolong life as long as possible. This has become so pervasive that it now defines a cultural type: what I call the American immortal.
I reject this aspiration. I think this manic desperation to endlessly extend life is misguided and potentially destructive. For many reasons, 75 is a pretty good age to aim to stop.
Agree? Disagree?
Muslim Leaders Vow Domination Of Rome, London, Spain, Paris, America
It's as the Quran commands -- to convert or kill the infidel and take over their lands and make them Muslim. Civil liberties? Not under the Islamic caliphate.
Like the Jews of Banu Qurayza.
$1.5 Billion To Obamacare Contractor, And The Result?
They've processed only five percent of their anticipated workload under Obamacare. They said they were prepared to manage 6.2 million paper applications. They actually processed 271,341, according to a KMOV Freedom of Information Act.
KMOV posts:
ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOV.com) -- After months of waiting, the Federal government responded to News 4's request for information on an Affordable Care Act application processing center in Wentzville, Missouri.In May 2014, employees at the Wentzville facility run by Serco complained to News 4 that they were sitting around with no work to do.
One employee told News 4 they passed the time by playing "Pictionary on a dry erase board. We played 20 questions."
Employees at the plants in Kentucky and Arkansas, also hired to process the paper applications for theACA, made the same claims.
The final bit in the piece -- about the stark difference in projected and actually processed applications:
None of this should have been a surprise to federal workers as Serco's contract with CMS stipulates that the company must submit reports on the number of applications processed every month.
How many of you could run a business not connected to government and stay in business?
Who lobbied whom to get this contract and where are their mansions and yachts? (All your base belong to us -- or should. But that's not how government booty works, even when it doesn't work out.)
I had a talk with a friend on Saturday night about small government. I'm for it, and so is she. But will enough people see the merits of it that they vote out the current system and those perpetuating it?
Doubtful, sadly.
I don't think it'll happen until it's far too late.
Shmoopy
Links so cute they hurt your teeth. (Let's not take that literally.)
For People Who Like To Enjoy Nature, And Not By Thumbing Through A Book Of It In Their Apartment
Today's deal: Go live with the bears for less -- Eight-person Coleman tent, regularly $219; now $99 at Amazon
Gold Box deal of the day (limited quantities, I think): 50% Off Select Artist Series Pet Beds
Woof.
Thanks to all who shop through my Amazon links, which help support me and this site.
To look for products not listed above, search Amy's Amazon
The Sociopolitics Of Yicky
Please consider buying my book, "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," which is only $9.48 at Amazon and about that at Barnes & Noble. New copies help me earn back my advance and support me as a writer -- of this site and more.
As Weapons Go, A Baby Is A Particularly Poor Choice For Personal Defense
Ed Kreyewski writes at reason that the DEA shot a 49-year-old grandmother, Lilian Alonzo, while she tried to pick up her infant grandchild during a raid they did on her home:
Police in raids elsewhere arrested two of Alonzo's daughters in an oxycodone ring but neither of them lived with Lilian and no drugs, weapons, or cash was found in her home.The New Hampshire Attorney General's office is investigating the shooting, according to the New Hampshire Union-Leader, and believe that "one of the officer's weapons discharged."
It's actually impossible to shoot somebody, accidentally or "accidentally," if you aren't staging a violent raid on their home in America's disgusting war on its own citizens and their civil liberties, aka the "War on Drugs."
RELATED: In yet another one of these War on Citizens raids, there was a no-knock raid on the home of a Texas man, Marvin Louis Guy, 49. Scott Shackford writes at reason:
Attempting to serve a search warrant by entering a house through a window got Killeen, Texas, Police Detective Charles Dinwiddie shot in the face and killed last May. It was yet another SWAT raid organized for a purpose other than the reason they were invented. The police had a search warrant looking for narcotics at the home of Marvin Louis Guy, 49. They decided to serve this warrant at 5:30 in the morning and without knocking on his door. He opened fire on them, killing Dinwiddie and injuring three others.Though they found a glass pipe, a grinder, and a pistol, they did not find any drugs. Former Reason Editor Radley Balko took note of the deadly raid in May at The Washington Post. A police informant apparently told them there were bags of cocaine inside the house, which sounds a lot like another familiar drug raid in Virginia that got an officer killed.
The Virginia case ended with Ryan Frederick in prison for 10 years despite his insistence he thought he was defending himself against in home intruders. He may end up lucky compared to Guy. Prosecutors in Texas are going to seek the death penalty against him.
That's right. Seeking the death penalty. Because a man, at 5:30 in the morning, heard somebody breaking into his home and opened fire on them.
(What would you or any reasonable person do, hearing someone breaking into your home -- break out the bagels in case the intruders were hungry?)
Massive License Plate Scanner Networks Track Cars Of Citizens Suspected Only Of Needing To Drive From Place To Place
Tami Abdollah writes for the AP:
LOS ANGELES -- A rapidly expanding digital network that uses cameras mounted to traffic signals and police cruisers captures the movements of millions of vehicles across the U.S., regardless of whether the drivers are being investigated by law enforcement...."If I'm not being investigated for a crime, there shouldn't be a secret police file on me" that details "where I go, where I shop, where I visit," said Michael Robertson, a tech entrepreneur fighting in court for access to his own files. "That's crazy, Nazi police-type stuff."
A San Diego judge has tentatively ruled that a local government agency can deny Robertson's request for scans on his own vehicle under California's open records law because the information pertains to police investigations.
Disgusting. You are guilty of no crime, but information on the level of information collected on you is unavailable -- to you.
via @adamkissel
Rinky-Dink
Run-down links.
"It's A Crime To Be Happy In Iran"
That was @CHSommers' tweet of this article, about seven Iranians seen dancing to Pharrell Williams's hit song Happy in a video that went viral on the internet. From AFP/The Guardian:
The clip, recorded on a smartphone and uploaded multiple times on YouTube, shows three unveiled girls dancing and singing to the song in a room, on rooftops and in alleys with three young men.For the defendants, the homemade video was merely an "excuse to be happy", but for the authorities it was "vulgar" breach of the Islamic republic's values. The video has had more than 1m views.
The seven were arrested in May and released on bail after appearing on state television and expressing remorse for appearing in the clip.
Their arrest triggered international fury and criticism in the media and online, with many Iranians expressing shock and some observers questioning whether it was a crime to be happy in Iran.
During their trial, the men were found guilty of the illegal distribution of a film and illicit relations, their lawyer Farshid Rofougaran said.
One female dancer was sentenced to a year in prison and 91 lashes for posting the footage online, while the five other dancers and the clip's director were sentenced to six-months and 91 lashes. All of the sentences were suspended for three years.
Rofougaran said he did not know whether his clients wished to appeal against the sentence.
SWAT-Style Raids To Check Florida Barbers' Licenses Get A WTF From Fed Appeals Court
What's next, SWAT raids on little girls' unpermitted lemonade stands? Busting The Girl Scouts for selling those cookies with the coconut on top, on the grounds that they're "addictive"?
Jacob Sullum writes at reason:
Today a federal appeals court rebuked police in Orange County, Florida, for mounting a warrantless, SWAT-style raid on a barbership under the pretense of assisting state inspectors. "We have twice held, on facts disturbingly similar to those presented here, that a criminal raid executed under the guise of an administrative inspection is constitutionally unreasonable," says the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. "We hope that the third time will be the charm."On August 19, 2010, two inspectors from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) visited the Strictly Skillz Barbershop in Orlando and found everything in order: All of the barbers working there were properly licensed, and all of the work stations complied with state regulations. Two days later, even though no violations had been discovered and even though the DBPR is authorized to conduct such inspections only once every two years, the inspectors called again, this time accompanied by "between eight and ten officers, including narcotics agents," who "rushed into" the barbershop "like [a] SWAT team." Some of them wore masks and bulletproof vests and had their guns drawn. Meanwhile, police cars blocked off the parking lot.
The officers ordered all the customers to leave, announcing that the shop was "closed down indefinitely." They handcuffed the owner, Brian Berry, and two barbers who rented chairs from him, then proceeded to search the work stations and a storage room. They demanded the barbers' driver's licenses and checked for outstanding warrants. One of the inspectors, Amanda Fields, asked for the same paperwork she had seen two days earlier, going through the motions of verifying (again) that the barbers were not cutting hair without a license (a second-degree misdemeanor). Finding no regulatory violations or contraband, the officers released Berry and the others after about an hour.
Not surprisingly, it seems these raids were punitive in nature -- going after shops with black and Hispanic customers that had previously refused to "cooperate" with DBPR inspectors. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the raids violated state law as well as...you know...the now frequently-disregarded Fourth Amendment.
The One Area Where You Can't Suggest Ways For People To Protect Themselves Against Assault
Ashe Schow writes at WashEx:
If you suggest even commonsense ideas to help women -- and men -- protect themselves from rape and sexual assault, you're accused of "victim-blaming."But why?
Police departments across the country provide tips to help prevent a whole host of crimes. The DC police department offers guides to reduce the risk of burglary and theft, sexual assault and identity theft. Are they engaged in victim-blaming? Or are they providing information that can keep you safe?
The tips include things like "Be aware of your surroundings," "Don't let alcohol or other drugs cloud your judgment" and "Have your key ready before you reach the door" -- all things that can protect a person from multiple types of crimes.
But for some reason, to suggest to women -- especially on college campuses -- those basic, common-sense precautions amount to an attempt to somehow blame the victims for getting raped or sexually assaulted.
... Tracey Vitchers of Students Active for Ending Rape told Culp-Ressler that reducing sexual violence is "a really good thing," but people need to question "why we keep placing the responsibility for preventing sexual assault on young women."
Another activist, Rebecca Nagle, said that doing things like watching her drink or not walking alone at night means that "rape isn't just controlling me while I'm actually being assaulted -- it controls me 24/7 because it limits my behavior." She added that she doesn't want to test her drink with the nail polish because "[t]hat's not the world I want to live in."
I don't want to live in a world in which I need pay living expenses or look both ways when I cross the street. Wildly, amazingly, I manage to do both.
RELATED: Serena Williams catches heat for her thoughts on protecting oneself from being raped -- saying that people need to be taught take responsibility for themselves and to be taught that getting seriously drunk can get you seriously imperiled. Especially girls, but boys, too.
Bumpy
Linky with an assboil.
"You Just Don't Let Them Play Outside"
No, children must be placed in a little cabinet like porcelain knickknacks and only let out when they are 35.
We've now gone from a society with helicopter parents to a helicopter society.
Lenore Skenazy writes at reason about children's book author Kari Anne Roy, who recently had visits from the Austin police and Child Protective Services for doing the unthinkable -- allowing her son, age 6, to play 150 feet away from her house, unsupervised.
A woman -- a stranger -- brought her son to her door. Roy wrote on her blog:
He said this was his house. I brought him home." She was wearing dark glasses. I couldn't see her eyes, couldn't gauge her expression."You brought..."
"Yes. He was all the way down there, with no adult." She motioned to a park bench about 150 yards from my house. A bench that is visible from my front porch. A bench where he had been playing with my 8-year-old daughter, and where he decided to stay and play when she brought our dog home from the walk they'd gone on.
"You brought him home... from playing outside?" I continued to be baffled.
And then the woman smiled condescendingly, explained that he was OUTSIDE. And he was ALONE. And she was RETURNING HIM SAFELY. To stay INSIDE. With an ADULT. I thanked her for her concern, quickly shut the door and tried to figure out what just happened.
Skenazy writes:
About a week later, an investigator from Child Protective Services came to the house and interrogated each of Roy's three children separately, without their parents, about their upbringing."She asked my 12 year old if he had ever done drugs or alcohol. She asked my 8-year-old daughter if she had ever seen movies with people's private parts, so my daughter, who didn't know that things like that exist, does now," says Roy. "Thank you, CPS."
It was only last week, about a month after it all began, that the case was officially closed. That's when Roy felt safe enough to write about it. But safe is a relative term. In her last conversation with the CPS investigator, who actually seemed to be on her side, Roy asked, "What do I do now?"
Replied the investigator, "You just don't let them play outside."
There you have it. You are free to raise your children as you like, except if you want to actually give them a childhood. Fail to incarcerate your child and you could face incarceration yourself.
Nobody Running For Office Is Bragging, "I Helped Pass Obamacare!"
Michael Hausam writes at IJReview that perhaps that's because the cost of Obamacare subsidies will quadruple by 2016.
Subsidies are projected to increase eight-fold over the first 10 years of the program:
The subsidies are for Americans who bought the insurance through a government-run exchange - as opposed to directly from an insurer - and earn less than 400 percent of the poverty level. For a family of four, the income level at which the subsidy drops to zero is $94,200.Yes, you read that correctly: a family of 4 earning $90,000 still gets help from other Americans to buy their health insurance.
An 8-fold increase in subsidy costs is certainly not how the program was sold to the American people.
via @reasonpolicy
Zero-Cal Sweeteners: None Of The Calories Of Sugar; A Good Bit Of The Price
Gautam Naik has a piece in the WSJ about research showing that zero-cal sweeteners can raise blood sugar.
The research shows that zero-calorie sweeteners such as saccharin, sucralose and aspartame can alter the population of gut bacteria and trigger unwanted changes such as higher blood glucose levels--a risk factor for diabetes. The provocative findings are likely to stoke the simmering controversy over whether artificial sweeteners help or hinder people's ability to lose weight and lower the risk of diabetes and obesity."The scope of our discovery is cause for a public reassessment of the massive and unsupervised use of artificial sweeteners," said Eran Elinav, a physician and immunologist at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science and lead author of the study, which appeared Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Though many people consume products containing zero-calorie artificial sweeteners instead of sugar to control their weight, the scientific evidence is mixed. Some studies have indicated that sweeteners can help lead to weight loss, while others suggest they contribute to weight gain.
One reason is that it has been hard to separate cause and effect. For example, it isn't clear whether people who consume products with artificial sweeteners are overweight because of what they eat--or whether overweight people are the ones who typically gravitate to such products.
The sweeteners caused changes in gut bacteria as well.
The results appears to demonstrate that for some people, artificial sweeteners can alter the composition of gut bacteria in such a way that it may contribute to--rather than reduce--certain metabolic conditions related to obesity, such as glucose intolerance.
A well-written piece that also lays out limitations of the research.
Rush Limbaugh Is A Left-Wing Advocacy Group
Hans Bader points out at LibertyUnyielding:
Rush Limbaugh can take a winning issue for conservatives and turn it into a loser just by shooting his mouth off. He gives advocates of extreme left-wing policies ammunition for their views by making stupid arguments when smarter arguments exist, and by lacing his arguments with sexism or scurrilous remarks. He did it recently in response to my commentary about Ohio State University's ridiculously overbroad and intrusive "sexual assault" definition -- which seemingly requires students to agree on "why" they are having sex or making out, which is none of the university's business. And he did it in 2012, when his scurrilous remarks about contraceptive advocate Sandra Fluke being a "slut" and a "prostitute" drove even moderate liberals to support a contraceptive mandate on religious employers that they had earlier opposed (and which the Supreme Court later ruled 5-to-4 violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.)When the Obama administration required even religious employers to include contraceptives in their health plans in 2012, this initially antagonized some moderate Democrats. That includes the Washington Post editorial board, which has not endorsed a Republican for President since 1952, but which has endorsed moderate Republicans over liberal Democrats for local offices (like endorsing Bob Ehrlich for Maryland Governor in 2006). Even legal scholars who approve of contraception (including me) explained how the requirement violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act...
...Overnight, Limbaugh's remarks made opposition to the contraceptive mandate radioactive, and the Washington Post editorial board and other entities that had criticized the administration later switched position to backed the administration after it made cosmetic tweaks to the mandate. It became an integral part of the Democratic Party's highly-effective "War on Women" meme in the 2012 election. Even social conservatives now admit that this harmed the GOP in 2012.
Burpy
Links after a taco.
How To Use A Telephone In 2014
From "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," which I hope you'll buy. It's less than $10 at both Barnes & Noble and Amazon. (P.S. Buying a new copy supports the author.)
There are exceptions -- like if you're in a profession where people expect and want your call, like if they need the test results on their pancreas.
But otherwise, unless you know someone likes to be called, not calling should be the default. We have a whole lot of methods of communication that don't demand a person's instant attention to whatever you want. Use them.
If She's Drunk, He's Guilty; If He's Drunk, Too, He's Still Guilty
From a story by Peter Jacobs at Business Insider, "How 'Consensual' Sex Got A Freshman Kicked Out Of College And Started A Huge Debate":
An ongoing legal dispute over a drunken sexual encounter between two freshmen, which occurred one year ago last week at the college, has become a battle over how to define the terms that govern campus sexual-assault policies....Per Occidental's policy, students are unable to consent if they are "incapacitated" -- a state of being that, although often caused by alcohol, is distinct from drunk or intoxicated.
After examining all of the evidence provided by Occidental's team of outside investigators, an external adjudicator made several key determinations. First, that sexual intercourse had in fact occurred; second, that Jane Doe gave her consent; and, third, that Jane was incapacitated when she did so.
As the external adjudicator wrote:
[T]he fact that Complainant successfully navigated herself, under her own power, to the Respondent's room, indicates both that, at the time, she had an awareness of where she was and that her motor skills were sufficiently intact to enable her to walk unassisted. Those factors, however, must be considered not in isolation but along with all of the other evidence regarding the Complainant's condition during the relevant period.The report added that Jane Doe was "incapacitated at the time she engaged in the conduct or statements that indicated she consented to sexual intercourse with the Respondent."
One final question remained: Should John Doe have known that Jane Doe was incapacitated, and thus unable to effectively consent?
Indeed he should have, the adjudicator found. Citing Occidental's policy stating that "Being intoxicated or impaired by drugs or alcohol is never an excuse for sexual harassment, sexual violence, stalking or intimate partner violence and does not diminish one's responsibility to obtain consent," the adjudicator determined that John Doe had committed sexual assault, despite not having knowledge of Jane Doe's state at the time.
My suggestion for men on campus -- and I'm not joking -- is to go in with a bunch of friends for a time-share on a prostitute until they're out of college.
Cops And Prosecutors Shouldn't Have This Level Of Cover
Jamie Satterfield writes in the Knoxville News-Sentinel about what your options are if you're falsely arrested.
In short, not much. The paper only makes this available to subscribes, so I copied this excerpt that Knoxville-dwelling Glenn Reynolds posted:
Suppose a police officer finds an aspirin powder in your pocket and insists a presumptive test kit shows it is cocaine.You are handcuffed and arrested. Maybe your neighbors or co-workers are watching, thoroughly embarrassing you and damaging your reputation. You are hauled off to jail, held for several hours and freed only after you post bail. Your mug shot is published online and in print in one of those "Just Busted" tabloids. You shell out money to get your vehicle out of the impound lot and hire a lawyer.
Then, weeks later, a test by a forensic chemist reveals that powder was exactly what you said it was -- aspirin -- and prosecutors drop the charge.
The officer was wrong. Your dignity, reputation and wallet paid the price for the officer's mistake.
Lawsuit in the making, right?
Not under Tennessee's Governmental Tort Liability Act.
If a citizen is wrongfully arrested, the tort liability law protects governments and their employees from legal action.
via @instapundit
Dopey
The linkiest dwarf. The dwarfiest link?
About That Kent State Sweatshirt...
In general, maybe it's not such a good idea for businesses to get rid of all the expensive old people. 
Running Away From Home To Go Behead People
Alistair Bell writes at Reuters:
(Reuters) - U.S. law enforcement is investigating a new phenomenon of women from the American heartland joining Islamic State as President Barack Obama vows to cut off the militants' recruiting at home.At least three Somali families in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area have female relatives who have gone missing in the past six weeks and may have tried to join Islamic State, said community leader Abdirizak Bihi. He said that while the reasons for their disappearance were unclear, he had told the families to contact police.
In a separate case, a 19-year-old American Somali woman from St. Paul snuck away from her parents on Aug. 25 saying she was going to a bridal shower. Instead, she flew to Turkey and joined IS in Syria.
via @WendyMcElroy1
There Really Are Thought Crimes These Days: Girl Suspended For Diary Entry Mentioning Pot
Claudette Riley writes in the Springfield News-Leader that a Buffalo girl was suspended from high school for more than half a year for her journal entry, found by school officials, in which she wrote about experimenting with pot and contemplating bringing it to school:
Tom Grayhorse said his daughter, Krystal, had never been in trouble before she was called into the office and suspended May 9. Originally, she was ousted for 10 days, but it was quickly extended through the end of the 2014 calendar year.Unable to finish her junior year, her grades plummeted and she lost out on credits needed for graduation. Grayhorse hoped the district would reconsider, allowing her to return last month so she had a chance of graduating with her class in May.
...Dallas County Superintendent Robin Ritchie said her hands are tied, legally, in terms of answering specifics about this situation. But she agreed to talk in generalities.
"Anything that's drug-related or alcohol-related, we are going to have zero tolerance," she said.
Even if you have no fucking evidence that it happened anywhere but in somebody's head?
Yet another administrator proving that the people most in need of common sense on high school campuses are probably the people in charge.
There was this:
The superintendent of the Dallas County school district said that is "not the full story" but declined to provide any details, citing student privacy laws.
Anyone else smell the wafting manure blowing across the plains?
What more could be written in a diary that could reasonably lead to a kid's suspension?
Also, if you find a diary, the polite thing to do, vis a vis how a person's private thoughts are not for public consumption unless they so decide, would be to return it unread -- not greedily paw through the pages.
A Note From My Boyfriend's Favorite Self-Help Movie, The Godfather
Part III, by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola, a line spoken by Al Pacino as Michael Corleone:
"Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment."
(Gregg's of the mind that most of life's problems can be solved with the wisdom from The Godfather, Mean Streets, and a couple other movies in that neighborhood.)
Stinky
Smelly links.
Welcome To The Diversitocracy
Gitika Nalwa has an op-ed at The Stanford Daily about "holistic admissions" -- considering the "whole applicant" -- which are less fantastic and fair than they sound:
As Ron Unz notes in The American Conservative, quoting Pulitzer Prize-winner Daniel Golden, Asian-Americans are the "New Jews." Unz reveals that from 1993 to 2011, the percentage of Asian-American Harvard undergraduates dropped from 20-plus percent to 17.2 percent and has remained steady since. Although it is possible for Harvard to have maintained this surprising consistency without explicit and provable bias, exactly as it did previously to limit Jewish admissions, is it fair?Colleges argue that they seek racial and geographical diversity, but the former disfavors any race that might see larger numbers admitted on merit alone, and the latter disfavors any race that is concentrated in a few geographical pockets, as is typical of new immigrants. Both introduce implicit, if not explicit, racial bias against Asian-Americans. Do you care whether a cure for your impending disease is discovered by an ethnically and geographically diverse team? There is value to diversity, but not at the expense of merit.
So, the second casualty of holistic admissions is race neutrality. It is laudable to help those with a continuing history of discrimination and socioeconomic disadvantage, but not to distinguish within the remaining population on a basis other than transparently objective merit.
You can be sure if there were a greater number of Asian-Americans in Congress, as there are now Jewish-Americans, perceived discrimination against the "New Jews" would also be a thing of the past. Why? Because no elite U.S. institution can afford to alienate Congress when federal funds are the lifeblood of every institution's research and resultant prestige.
I don't think SAT scores are the answer. Some of us are able to test well. Some are not. I've been lucky to have a sense of the "game" behind multiple choice tests -- how test-writers are trying to trip test-takers up -- and I've done better than I probably should have on a number of tests because of it.
via @sapinker
I Love This Woman -- She Is An Example We All Should Follow
She identified herself as Sara Bostonia to the cops -- one of whom threatened to arrest her for being "loud and boisterous" as she videotaped the police brutalizing a man.
Dominic Kelly writes at Opposing Views (where there are photos of the man's injuries):
Police in West Virginia arrested a man who was walking his children to the park because they thought he appeared intoxicated, but unbeknownst to them, he was reportedly merely showing symptoms of his terminal illness.Reports say that 39-year-old Jeffrey Banes was allegedly approached and brutally arrested while walking his kids to the park because the officers thought he was under the influence of a substance. Banes, however, suffers from Huntington's Disease, which characteristically makes a person look intoxicated due to lost motor function over time.
The incident, which took place on September 6, was caught on camera, and while officers pinned him down after using pepper spray on him, Banes choked on his own blood and cried for help. Banes was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, obstructing an officer, and battery on an officer.
"Assuming because of his appearance he was high on narcotics with out reason they began to subdue him, macing and beating him in the head as he fell to his face were he was -- then held with a great amount of force by two officers double his size as a third one landed on his torso," said Banes' nephew Josh to The Free Thought Project.
The Notion That Islam Is A Religion Of Peace
It is -- in the minds of wishful thinkers alone.
Sam Harris explains:
A belief in martyrdom, a hatred of infidels, and a commitment to violent jihad are not fringe phenomena in the Muslim world. These preoccupations are supported by the Koran and numerous hadith. That is why the popular Saudi cleric Mohammad Al-Areefi sounds like the ISIS army chaplain. The man has 9.5 million followers on Twitter (twice as many as Pope Francis has). If you can find an important distinction between the faith he preaches and that which motivates the savagery of ISIS, you should probably consult a neurologist.Understanding and criticizing the doctrine of Islam--and finding some way to inspire Muslims to reform it--is one of the most important challenges the civilized world now faces. But the task isn't as simple as discrediting the false doctrines of Muslim "extremists," because most of their views are not false by the light of scripture. A hatred of infidels is arguably the central message of the Koran. The reality of martyrdom and the sanctity of armed jihad are about as controversial under Islam as the resurrection of Jesus is under Christianity. It is not an accident that millions of Muslims recite the shahadah or make pilgrimage to Mecca. Neither is it an accident that horrific footage of infidels and apostates being decapitated has become a popular form of pornography throughout the Muslim world. Each of these practices, including this ghastly method of murder, find explicit support in scripture.
...Many believe it unwise to discuss the link between Islam and the intolerance and violence we see in the Muslim world, fearing that it will increase the perception that the West is at war with the faith and cause millions of otherwise peaceful Muslims to rally to the jihadist cause. I admit that this concern isn't obviously crazy--but it merely attests to the seriousness of the underlying problem. Religion produces a perverse solidarity that we must find some way to undercut. It causes in-group loyalty and out-group hostility, even when members of one's own group are behaving like psychopaths.
But it remains taboo in most societies to criticize a person's religious beliefs. Even atheists tend to observe this taboo, and enforce it on others, because they believe that religion is necessary for many people.
Linkertwit
If you are reaching out to correct grammar on Twitter, I suggest you find a hobby, like chewing your toenails and creating sculpture from them.
Other links and tweets of wisdom?
"Science News You Can Use" Radio: Tonite! 7-8pm PT, 10-11pm, Amy Alkon & Dr. Jennifer Verdolin On How And Why To Set Boundaries -- Even If It Terrifies You
This is a new, very special every-other-week show -- "Science News You Can Use" Radio -- with science-based advice columnist and author Amy Alkon and animal behaviorist Dr. Jennifer Verdolin laying out science news you can use to solve your relationship problems or just improve your relationships and have a better life.
(And yes, Amy Alkon will still be doing shows on the best behavioral science books on weeks in between.)
Join us tonight for our show on how, when, and why you should set boundaries.
Catch the show live at this link, tonight, Sunday, September 14, 7-8 p.m. PT, 10-11 p.m. ET, or listen at the link afterward or subscribe free on iTunes or Stitcher:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2014/09/15/amy-alkon-dr-verdolin-how-why-to-set-boundaries-even-if-it-terrifies-you
And don't forget to buy our science-based, fun, funny, and illuminating books -- support our show while entertaining yourself and learning a thing or two to improve your life.
Amy's new book is "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck."
Jennifer's is "Wild Connection: What Animal Courtship and Mating Tell Us about Human Relationships."
"If A Doctor Doesn't Do Excess Testing, He Isn't Going To Be Able To Live"
Afford to live, that is. Compelling piece at KevinMD by Sandeep Jauhar, MD. An excerpt:
Oni said he had received payments from a mobile echo company for referring patients for cardiac ultrasounds. Though he no longer participated in these contracts, he was open about the fees -- about $100 per patient, paid in cash -- and he saw nothing wrong with it. "As internists we don't do procedures, so we have to figure out another way to make money. But it isn't hard once you figure out how to do it.""We don't clock the number of minutes when we talk with our patients," someone said. "We don't hang up the phone as lawyers may do if they are not going to get paid. No, we listen to patients and answer their questions, however long it takes."
The family doctor suggested that patients call a toll number if they wanted to speak to their physicians. "Sure, I'll talk to you," he said. "Just call this 888 number. I'll talk to you as long as you want. I'll even talk dirty to you." People laughed. "My lawyer always tells me, 'If I'm thinking about your case, even while I'm taking a leak, you're getting charged three hundred and fifty dollars an hour.' "
Oni said, "I have a cousin who is an OB/GYN. He is paying one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year for malpractice insurance. As an obstetrician, you have to earn five hundred thousand dollars just to make ends meet. That is why people don't want to do it anymore."
"I did obstetrics," someone replied. "They used to pay fifty-five hundred dollars for fourteen office visits plus a delivery when you stay up all night. Now they pay twenty-four hundred. You think that's reasonable? Your wife delivered. Is that enough money to make it worthwhile?" He shook his head, disgusted. "The problem is, they cut the money, they took away the autonomy, but they didn't take away any of the responsibility."
via @medskep
Apparent Case Of KWB -- Kissing While Black
Jared Keller writes at mic.com, "LAPD Confuses Black Actress Kissing White Husband for Prostitute."
The actress is "Django Unchained" actress Danièle Watts, who plays the TV daughter of Martin Lawrence on FX's "Partners," reports Dish Nation. The man she was thought to be soliciting while kissing was Chef Brian James Lucas, who happens to be her husband.
From the mic.com story:
African-American actress Danièle Watts claims she was "handcuffed and detained" by police officers from the Studio City Police Department in Los Angeles on Thursday after allegedly being mistaken for a prostitute.According to accounts by Watts and her husband Brian James Lucas, two police officers mistook the couple for a prostitute and client when they were seen showing affection in public. When the officers asked Watts to produce a photo ID when questioned, she refused. Watts was subsequently handcuffed and placed in the back of a police cruiser while the officers attempted to figure out who she was. The two officers released Watts shortly afterwards.
...Watt's husband Brian Lucas, who is white, claimed that the two were targeted by police for being an interracial couple. In a separate post on his Facebook page, Lucas said that "from the questions that [police] asked me as D was already on her phone with her dad, I could tell that whoever called on us (including the officers), saw a tatted RAWKer white boy and a hot bootie shorted black girl and thought we were a HO (prostitute) & a TRICK (client)."
Variety reports:
An LAPD public information officer said there was no record of the incident as Watts wasn't arrested or brought into the station for questioning.
From the traffic stops, manners, and civil liberties section of my book, "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," a quote from retired California cop Tracy Ambrico, a 30-year law enforcement veteran, on what to do in cases of police abuse. (Of course, this assumes you're still alive afterward):
Where people go wrong is in thinking they're powerless to fight back against an abusive cop. Ambrico says that if an officer does violate your rights or is rude or otherwise out of line, it's important to recognize that you have recourse--just probably not there, while the stop is taking place. She does say that you can ask for a supervisor to come out during the stop or go afterward to the counter at the police station and ask to file a complaint.
Linkfeed
I loved this Buzzfeed of 22 parents "funnier than their kids." Actually funny stuff here.
Pure Evil: ISIS Beheads British Aid Worker David Haines
Steve Robson writes the Mirror/UK that a new video has been released purporting to show the 44-year-old aid worker being executed by a black-clad ISIS member:
David Cawthorne Haines helped those in need in some of the most hostile environments in the world.The Scots-educated aid worker spent 11 years in the military before going to work for charities in Libya and South Sudan during periods of extreme violence, according to his LinkedIn page.
He was in Libya during its civil war in 2011, according to his online CV, working as head of mission for Handicap International, which helps disabled people in poverty and conflict zones around the world.
Understand that this is not some misunderstanding of Islam. From thereligionofpeace.com:
The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding. Muslims who do not join the fight are called 'hypocrites' and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter.Unlike nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence, the verses of violence in the Quran are mostly open-ended, meaning that they are not restrained by the historical context of the surrounding text. They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subjective as anything else in the Quran.
...Most of today's Muslims exercise a personal choice to interpret their holy book's call to arms according to their own moral preconceptions about justifiable violence. Apologists cater to their preferences with tenuous arguments that gloss over historical fact and generally do not stand up to scrutiny. Still, it is important to note that the problem is not bad people, but bad ideology.
Unfortunately, there are very few verses of tolerance and peace to abrogate or even balance out the many that call for nonbelievers to be fought and subdued until they either accept humiliation, convert to Islam, or are killed. Muhammad's own martial legacy - and that of his companions - along with the remarkable stress on violence found in the Quran have produced a trail of blood and tears across world history.
The Rights Of Inanimate Objects To Not Be Face-Raped By A 14-Year-Old Mimicking Getting A Blow Job
Laws should not be passed unless they are absolutely necessary -- because they can be used to jail people who are not truly criminals or dangerous to society.
More obviously, they also should not be passed when they violate our constitutional rights, as does this law in Pennsylvania that makes it a crime to desecrate a venerated object.
That law, passed in 1972, was used to charge a 14-year-old boy for desecrating a Jesus statue (by getting somebody to photograph him mimicking getting blown by the statue).
Not surprisingly, he then did the other thing 14-year-old boys do, and posted the photos on the Internet.
Anyone who knows anything about the First Amendment understands that this is protected speech. Is it offensive to many? Sure.
Again, our right to free speech is protected. You do not have a right to not be offended.
And every violation of the Constitution -- in laws or in practices -- makes it easier for the next one.
Oh, and in support of free speech and wanting to know what the news stories aren't showing, here's that photo: 
P.S. It's a statue. Won't Christianity survive just fine without prosecuting a 14-year-old boy for doing what 14-year-old boys do?
OSU Students Must Agree On WHY They're Having Sex
Yes, that's your government, all up in your collegiate undies.
Incredibly, here's the latest from Robby Soave at reason about college requirements for what is considered "consent" to sex. This is from Ohio State University:
Effective consent can be given by words or actions so long as the words or actions create a mutual understanding between both parties regarding the conditions of the sexual activity--ask, "do both of us understand and agree regarding the who, what, where, when, why, and how this sexual activity will take place?"
Hans Bader writes at Liberty Unyielding:
There used to be a joke that women need a reason to have sex, while men only need a place. Does this policy reflect that juvenile mindset? Such a requirement baffles some women in the real world: a female member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights told me, "I am still trying to wrap my mind around the idea of any two intimates in the world agreeing as to 'why.'"
More from Bader at examiner.com. He says that Ohio State applies an impractical "agreement" requirement -- not just to sex but to for "touching" that is sexual in nature:
This "agreement" requirement is impractical, because unlike sex (where there is generally an implicit agreement among the participants before it can even happen, since sex is difficult to do without active cooperation), no one agrees in advance - verbally or non-verbally - to have someone touch them in a particular place while making out. No one ever says, "may I touch your breast" before doing it while making out. They may (and usually do) welcome (and enjoy) it after it occurs, but they don't specifically "agree" to it in advance (indeed, they may have expected the touch to occur in a different place, even if they found it pleasant). The very process of making out is a gradual escalation of intimacy step by step, without constant discussion or an endless series of agreements.That may be impossible under Ohio State's policy, not just because it requires "agreement" (rather than mere "acquiescence") but also because it expresses hostility to the concept of "consent to one form of sexual activity" being a signal of receptiveness to other, slightly more intimate "forms of sexual activity." But that's exactly what happens in making out: when you acquiesce in one form of touching or other "sexual activity" long enough, that signals a likely willingness to engage in slightly more intimate forms of touching -- although you are free to rebut that presumption of willingness at any time simply by saying "no" or physically conveying your unwillingness.
Such fluid interaction is threatened by Ohio State's definition, which states that that "Consent to one form of sexual activity does not imply consent to other . . . sexual activity," that there must be "agreement between both parties to participate in each and every sexual act," that only "clear consent" counts, and that "Consent can never be assumed, even in the context of a relationship."
If this definition of "sexual assault" were not already broad enough, Ohio State's Student Wellness Center seeks to radically narrow the concept of consent further (and ban "kissing" without verbal consent as "sexual assault"). It says consent must be "verbal," "enthusiastic," and must be "asked for every step of the way"; "If consent is not obtained prior to each act of sexual behavior (from kissing to intercourse), it is not consensual sex," it says. Consent also must also be a litany of other things, such as "sober," "informed," "honest," "wanted," and "creative."
I can't think of anything more boring than "sober," "informed," and "honest" sexual activity. (And by knocking "sober," I don't mean I like to black out before sex; I mean, it's fun to get tipsy on a glass of wine and make out.)
And if you ask me, "May I touch your breast," and then ask me to sign a statement (perhaps on videotape) confirming my consent, well, let's just say I'm going to remain about as sexed up as I feel while speaking to my deaf elderly aunt.
This becomes like the junior high makeout version of Three Felonies A Day, Harvey Silverglate's book on how, just by living our lives in our overlegislated age, we are each guilty of approximately three federal crimes.
More from Bader on kissing:
Classifying "kissing" as "sexual assault" if it occurs without "verbal" consent -- the way Ohio State's Wellness Center does -- is so extreme that it could create a PR disaster. If a school expels or even suspends a student for kissing and calls him a "sexual assault" perpetrator, many will view it as outrageous overkill, that student may sue, and groups like FIRE will publicize it as an example of PC college administrators run amok.But if it does not expel or remove the student from campus, despite calling it "sexual assault," people will wrongly assume there is a rapist on campus (because "the terms 'rape' and 'sexual assault' are sometimes used synonymously in common language"), angry classmates may protest the student's presence as a result, and Ohio State may end up being denounced by web sites or journalists who depict colleges as as "rape cultures" or "rape factories" (even though the rape rate has fallen 58% since the mid-1990s).
Up Your Nose
With a linkie hose.
Our Civil Liberties Disappear A Dribble And Drabble At A Time
Like with pressure cooker-buyer watch lists.
Our civil liberties don't disappear all at once; they are slowly eroded as we are too busy to worry about them. We -- many of us -- find these small erosions unimportant. But put together, all of the many small erosions add up, and are dangerous to our continuing as a free society -- one started by people who wanted a society of limited government, meaning limited government power.
Here's the latest small incursion into privacy. Small, but not unimportant.
And remember that each directive like this requires more "(jack)boots on the ground" in the government industrial complex, and once those jobs exist, they don't get erased.
Tim Cushing posts at TechDirt, "DHS Wants To Expand 'See Something, Say Something' To Retailers Selling You Pressure Cookers":
Since it would be impossible to train thousands of retail store employees properly, this will likely take the form of an item watchlist, one that will be constantly subject to change. It will probably also instruct employees to view perfectly normal shopping behavior as suspicious.As has been the result of previous "see something, say something" efforts, this new directive will create another massive database of false positives for Fusion Center employees and local law enforcement to deal with. Johnson specifically cited pressure cookers (while stating the government couldn't actually forbid their sale) as one example. If so, then this directive has no chance in hell of catching terrorists and is guaranteed to serve up a lot of unsuspecting (and unsuspicious) consumers for further government examination.
Pressure cookers are a legitimate item that thousands of consumers use. Now, they're viewed as the equivalent of buying a U-Haul truck full of fertilizer. Past incidents are prompting future actions, much as they do with the TSA (shoe bomber? off with your shoes!). Constantly being one step behind the clumsiest terrorists isn't going to keep the country any safer. It's just going to make it a worse place to simply "go about your business."
How To Deal With A Bratty High School Student: Call The Cops, Have Three Of Them Wrestle Her To The Ground
4'10" bratty tenth grader, Ixel Perez, using her phone in class, gets sent in the hallway for it, gets asked for the phone by the administrator (per school rules), and then, when she won't give it up, gets wrestled to the ground by three cops.
Writeup at KHOU:
In cell phone video first aired on KHOU Tuesday night, three HISD police officers surround Ixel Perez, two of them have her pinned to the floor face down. One officer has his knee pressed to the side of her head."Both of the cops just tackled her down to the floor. They put her knee on her head and after that they just arrested her, took her phone," said student Gustavo Lucio who took the video on his cell phone. "The cop just said you can't use your phone and after that, no words no nothing, just actions, grabbed her, threw her down."
...She says her reading teacher caught her using her cell phone in class, which is against school rules, and told her to go to the hallway. That's where Perez says she was confronted by an assistant principal who demanded she relinquish the phone. Students caught using phones in class are required to turn them over to school administrators and then retrieve them at the end of the school day, for a fee.
"I just didn't want to give up my phone," said Perez who said she was talking to her mom who suffers from medical conditions. Perez said she was trying to make sure her mom was OK.
"She asked me for the phone and I didn't want to give it to her, because I was scared. I ended up walking down the stairs trying to get away from the AP (assistant principal) and then she had already called the cops."
The HISD resource officers also demanded she hang up the phone and hand it to them. Perez admitted she refused again.
'He grabbed my hand, one of them was right here, one grabbed my hand, I didn't want to let go of my phone because I was on the phone with mom," she said.
Via @reason blogger Robby Soave, who writes this:
It sounds like Perez behaved badly: It's not okay to talk on a phone during class, and if she was truly concerned about her mother she should have asked permission to leave the classroom and make a call from the office.But that does not excuse the administrator who called the cops for no good reason, nor does it justify how the cops handled the situation. Treating students who break school rules like violent criminals is unacceptable and outrageous.
I Couldn't Look At The Tragic 9/11 Photos Another Time
What I do think is important to look at is the absolutely barbaric behavior of Palestinians cheering the deaths of thousands of American civilians, guilty only of arriving at the office on time.
A friend's husband -- a guy in finance, who worked at the WTC -- is only alive today because she had a morning production meeting, so he had to take the kids to school that day.
Here is a photo Professor E. Stringer Keefe found at Ground Zero. Somebody tweeted that they are all Cantor Fitzgerald employees and that the two girls on the right are sisters. That person also tweeted that they are all dead.
via @instapundit
Do The TSA Geniuses Think He's Going To Blow Up The Airplane After Getting Off And Going Into The Airport?
"He's pretty objectionable, filming me," says one of the TSA thugs, Alex Grossman, about the passenger, Kahler Nygard, they are trying to detain for a groping and baggage rifling -- after he got off the plane.
Yes, it's so "objectionable" when citizens want to have proof of the violations of their civil liberties.
If screening is about keeping the airways safe, why, after a man gets off a plane, is he being searched?
Clearly, it is about getting citizens accustomed to being docile in the face of their rights taken from them.
And the TSA are only pretend cops in cop Halloween costumes, so they are impotent to detain anything more than a mosquito.
Here's the video:
At InfoWars, Paul Joseph Watson writes:
When Nygard states that he is going to leave, the TSA agent threatens to call Denver police who will apprehend Nygard "for refusing our direction." The agent is unable to provide a statute or law under which this is permissible.Nygard then leaves the airport as Grossman calls the police. Nygard was able to leave the airport without being apprehended by law enforcement.
A local Fox News story about the incident said that Nygard, "was on a list that should have singled him out for screening -- but that didn't happen."
According to the report, Nygard should have been subjected to enhanced screening at Minneapolis Airport because his name was, "on the secondary security screen list known as "quad S," and Nygard, "had a boarding pass designated with four bold S's."
The TSA failed to notice the details on Nygard's boarding pass and he was allowed to board the plane. It was only after a Spirit employee called the TSA when the plane was half way to Denver that the oversight was recognized.
Nygard, "slipped through three layers of security, and no one was any the wiser until he was already in the air," states the report, noting that some of the red flags that get someone on the 'quad S' list include, "buying your ticket the same day, paying cash, or getting a one-way ticket."
In an email to Infowars, Nygard said that the Fox News story was mostly "lies," noting that he was forced to undergo a full body pat down at Minneapolis Airport. Nygard also states that Fox News' characterization of him as a "Somali-American man" is inaccurate given that his descendents are Poles and Norwegians.
This is by no means the first time that the TSA has attempted to conduct pat downs on passengers after they have already exited their mode of transportation and are attempting to leave the facility. In 2011, travelers were subjected to an invasive pat down and bag search after getting off an Amtrak train in Savannah, Georgia.
More from Fox Minneapolis.
Thank you, Kahler Nygard, for standing up for your rights -- and, in turn, all of ours.
Civil liberties are not yanked from us all at once but little by little, so complacent citizens barely notice -- until we become a police state.
Linkgloo
Ice fish for links!
Childhood Vaccines: Our Faulty Risk Perception
From Chris Mooney at Mother Jones, about a PBS program airing tonight. The headline on his piece: Tonight's PBS Special Makes The Most Powerful Argument For Vaccines Yet. A new NOVA special, "Vaccines: Calling the Shots," stands up for science. See the first line of my excerpt below:
The program focuses on our faulty risk perceptions around vaccines, how many people are vastly more scared than they ought to be of a tiny risk (vaccination) while ignoring a huge one, the return of deadly diseases. The consequence could not be more grave: In a scene that is just hard to watch, the program shows a tiny infant suffering from whooping cough, its mother weeping, nurses running in constantly to sit the baby up (he cannot even raise himself) so that he does not choke. It's heartbreaking.
Annie, Get Your Butt!
I love this woman, who's got a sign up about her pledge to return some little gifts left on her lawn.
Piano Prodigy And Straight-A Student Misses 10 Days Of School, Labeled "Truant"
It's yet another example of the administrators of public schools showing that they're idiots desperately in need of an education in the most basic common sense.
Petula Dvorak writes in the WaPo:
Avery Gagliano is a commanding young pianist who attacks Chopin with the focused diligence of a master craftsman and the grace of a ballet dancer.The prodigy, who just turned 13, was one of 12 musicians selected from across the globe to play at a prestigious event in Munich last year and has won competitions and headlined with orchestras nationwide.
But to the D.C. public school system, the eighth-grader from Mount Pleasant is also a truant. Yes, you read that right. Avery's amazing talent and straight-A grades at Alice Deal Middle School earned her no slack from school officials, despite her parents begging and pleading for an exception.
"As I shared during our phone conversation this morning, DCPS is unable to excuse Avery's absences due to her piano travels, performances, rehearsals, etc.," Jemea Goso, attendance specialist with the school system's Office of Youth Engagement, wrote in an e-mail to Avery's parents, Drew Gagliano and Ying Lam, last year before she left to perform in Munich.
Here she is performing -- in a 2013 concerto competition for which she won second place (she's the one in front). Clearly, this little girl spends all her time robbing liquor stores when she should be doing homework to get...sorry, what's higher than an A?
Obama's Speech Gets It Dangerously Wrong On Both Islam And ISIL
Full prepared text of his speech is here.
First, he gets it wrong on Islam. From his speech:
Now let's make two things clear: ISIL is not "Islamic." No religion condones the killing of innocents...
Islam doesn't just condone it; it commands it:
So ingrained is violence in the religion that Islam has never really stopped being at war, either with other religions or with itself. Muhammad was a military leader, laying siege to towns, massacring the men, raping their women, enslaving their children, and taking the property of others as his own. On several occasions he rejected offers of surrender from the besieged inhabitants and even butchered captives. He actually inspired his followers to battle when they did not feel it was right to fight, promising them slaves and booty if they did and threatening them with Hell if they did not. Muhammad allowed his men to rape traumatized women captured in battle, usually on the very day their husbands and family members were slaughtered....Although modern apologists often claim that Muslims are only supposed to attack in self-defense, this is an oxymoron that is flatly contradicted by the accounts of Islamic historians and others that go back to the time of Muhammad.
Consider the example of the Qurayza Jews, who were completely obliterated only five years after Muhammad arrived in Medina. Their leader opted to stay neutral when their town was besieged by a Meccan army that was sent to take revenge for Muhammad's deadly caravan raids. The tribe killed no one from either side and even surrendered peacefully to Muhammad after the Meccans had been turned back. Yet the prophet of Islam had every male member of the Qurayza beheaded, and every woman and child enslaved, even raping one of the captives himself (what Muslim apologists might refer to as "same day marriage")....Although scholars like Ibn Khaldun, one of Islam's most respected philosophers, understood that "the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force", many other Muslims are either unaware or willfully ignorant of the Quran's near absence of verses that preach universal non-violence. Their understanding of Islam comes from what they are taught by others. In the West, it is typical for believers to think that their religion must be like Christianity - preaching the New Testament virtues of peace, love, and tolerance - because Muslims are taught that Islam is supposed to be superior in every way. They are somewhat surprised and embarrassed to learn that the evidence of the Quran and the bloody history of Islam are very much in contradiction to this.
Islam may be referred to as a "religion," but I have been reading about Islam since 9/11, and at first, was surprised to find that it is actually a totalitarian political movement dressed up as a religion. I am aware that many Muslims are peaceful and do practice it as a religion, and that many have no idea about the violent overthrow of the "infidel" world that the Quran commands. Unfortunately, there are also many Muslims who practice Islam as the Quran and other major texts command. (This is not "radical" Islam, simply Islam.)
In case you were wondering about its founder...what sort of man was Mohammed? The late George Mason explains:
Muhammad himself was a thoroughly evil man. Quoting Prophet of Doom (p. 3), "He became a pirate, dictator, and terrorist leader. He used Quranic scripture to justify horrific behavior: pedophilia, incest, rape, torture, assassinations, thievery, mass murder, and terror all in an unbridled orgy of sex, power, and money." This picture of Muhammad comes from the founding documents of Islam. Nobody has to make up anything. The founding documents themselves tell all.Once he had gathered enough followers, Muhammad changed from evangelist to conquistador. He was a barbaric savage, claiming Islam as the authority for his behavior. He was the first "Islamic terrorist," and he set the standard which Islamists follow to this day.
Muhammad competed with his contemporaries, Maslamah and Zayd, who preached the pagan Hanif doctrine in the local culture. Hanif was almost identical to Islam; Muhammad incorporated these beliefs whole-cloth into Islam, even stealing Zayd's poetry. Muhammad became the dominant prophet after winning a huge battle in which he destroyed his competition.
He lived among Jews, and spent a lot of time interacting with them, prior to killing them. He "lifted" liberally from their traditions. Islam plagiarized big-time from Judaism and the Bible, and capitalized on their terms, such as God, Prophet, Angel Gabriel, Satan, Heaven, and Hell. Islam has never been more than "Judeo-Christianity-Lite" at best.
Every time he wanted something, Muhammad said that Allah gave him the "revelation" that authorized his actions. Muhammad made up each and every one of these alleged revelations. One authorization allegedly given Muhammad by his "Allah" was for wife stealing, later topped off by his marriage to a six-year-old girl. This wonderful fellow, however, waited until she was nine to consummate the marriage. Does this Muhammad remind you of Jesus and his Apostles or of the great leaders of Judaism?
Getting back to the President's speech, Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan explain where Obama went wrong on ISIL -- and why that means his strategy has no chance of success -- on WeeklyStandard.com:
Noting that ISIL is not a state (partly because the international community thankfully does not recognize it), he declared, "ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way." Neither of those sentences, unfortunately, is true.ISIL is an insurgent group that controls enormous territory in Iraq and Syria that it governs.
...ISIL has described a very clear vision of seizing control of all of the territory of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories. It intends to abolish all of the borders and redraw them according to a new structure of governance suitable to its hateful version of an old Islamic heresy. That vision also makes it more than a simple terrorist organization. It's awfully hard to develop a sound strategy when you start by mis-diagnosing the problem so profoundly. That's why the "strategy" the president just announced has no chance of success.
Islam commands the re-establishment of the Caliphate -- and this is what they are trying to do. A bit more on that:
It becomes obligatory on every single individual to do his best to re-establish the Islamic Caliphate. Every one has to do as much as he can wherever his place is to return our Glory, supremacy and dominance...
In addition to air strikes, Obama says we'll have American service members acting (in my description) as sort of military soccer coaches to the Iraqis. He wants Congress to okay more of this in Syria. Note that he didn't ask Congress, but merely "consulted" with a few Congresscritters.
Ugh. Right. This is sustainable. And kind of like trying to close a bursting dam with a tube of Krazy Glue.
Then there's this from Obama:
Third, we will continue to draw on our substantial counterterrorism capabilities to prevent ISIL attacks. Working with our partners, we will redouble our efforts to cut off its funding; improve our intelligence; strengthen our defenses; counter its warped ideology; and stem the flow of foreign fighters into - and out of - the Middle East.
And he will accomplish this by clicking his ruby slippers three times...
More Obama:
Fourth, we will continue providing humanitarian assistance to innocent civilians who have been displaced by this terrorist organization. This includes Sunni and Shia Muslims who are at grave risk, as well as tens of thousands of Christians and other religious minorities. We cannot allow these communities to be driven from their ancient homelands.
Right. We'll just have elementary crossing guards standing outside those towns wagging their fingers at the ISIL members and saying, "That's not nice!"
From The Onion: Obama Vows To Split ISIS Into Dozens Of Extremist Splinter Groups.
Who here thinks we can keep anything tamped down in the Middle East without either flattening much of it or having a presence there that goes on endlessly?
By the way, anyone who thinks there can be anything resembling democracy and civil liberties for individuals in Islamic majority countries is ignorant about Islam. Islamic cultures are collectivist cultures.
The lowest Hofstede Dimension for the Arab World is the Individualism (IDV) ranking at 38, compared to a world average ranking of 64. This translates into a Collectivist society as compared to Individualist culture and is manifested in a close long-term commitment to the member 'group', that being a family, extended family, or extended relationships. Loyalty in a collectivist culture is paramount, and overrides most other societal rules.
So, who's feeling good about our taking out Saddam and about all the other meddling we've done in these countries? Seems to me we took the lid off Pandora's box, let all the demons out, and then inadvertently tossed the lid out with the recycling.
Linkertoys
Keeping noisy children muzzled for minutes.
From George Washington, Lewis And Clark, And Davy Crocket To "You Need A Doctor's Note To Use Chapstick In Elementary School"
Not only that, it needs to be applied by the school nurse!
Welcome to Pussy Central, formerly known as the United States of America.
Bob Stuart writes at the News Virginian of the latest -- and perhaps the apex -- of "zero tolerance" idiocy: school policy in Craigsville, Virginia, prohibiting elementary school kids from having Chapstick.
Stuarts Draft fifth-grader Grace Karaffa appeared before the school board Thursday night, saying she had requested the substance while on the playground after suffering chapped lips."I was told I couldn't use it. Then later that day they (lips) started to bleed so I asked for Chapstick again and I was told that it was against the school policy for elementary kids to have Chapstick,'' Grace said.
...George Earhart, the assistant superintendent for administration with the Augusta County Schools, said Chapstick is considered an over-the-counter medication by the school board. The board has a policy regarding such medicines. He said Chapstick could be allowed if a physician asked for a student to use it, and it was administered by a school nurse.
via @jeffkatzshow
"Your Property Is Guilty Until You Prove It Innocent"
More on the civil asset forfeiture scam the Institute for Justice is fighting in Federal Court. This is a very good Washington Post video on how the police and prosecutors can "pull over the average Joe and rob him on the street." With no evidence that a crime has occurred.
There's a "perverse incentive" to seize cash -- "without a warrant or indictment" -- because there are kickbacks to the police and prosecutors' departments who stop and (this is sick -- legally) steal their cash.
They ruined a man's business -- watch through to the end to see how they took the capital he needed to keep his restaurant open. He got his money back, but it was too late for his restaurant.
Institute for Justice's free PDF, "Bad Apples or Bad Laws? Testing the Incentives of Civil Forfeiture."
Kermit The Penis: Oh, The Questions We Come Upon On The Internet
I saw this while looking something else up on Yahoo:
Girls, would it be a bad idea if I were to dress my d!ck up in costumes in order to make a woman laugh?
He also posted an update:
I have taken pics of it dressed up as kermit the frog, a dog, a cat, a fireman, a cowboy, one wearing a shirt and tie. and dressed as a princess wearing a tiara. I know it silly but I love it when a woman laughs.
Politics, Not Economics Driving The Minimum Wage Argument
Wendy McElroy puts the econ back in the debate at The Hill:
It is useful to move past dueling statistics and rhetoric to consider economic principles. One basic economic principle: The market price of labor is set by the law of supply and demand which no politician can repeal. The law explains that a raise in the price of a good will result in a decline of the quantity demanded. Supply and demand impacts low-wage laborers in a particularly damaging manner for at least four reasons.First, low-wage workers who perform relatively unskilled labor are more vulnerable to being replaced by automated systems. Panera Bread has already announced it will replace its cashiers with robots by 2016. Interestingly, Panera's CEO Ron Shaich supports raising the minimum wage which is likely to increase the prices of competitors who use human labor or are "late" in automating.
Second, to hold down costs, businesses will eliminate marginal employees. If they do not or cannot, then the price of goods will be passed along to customers. Among the customers least able to absorb the hike in prices are low-wage workers.
Third, an increased minimum wage also shrinks the job market. An employer who pays $7 an hour may not be able to afford $10.
Fourth, competition for low-wage jobs increases although high-paid jobs are unaffected. Young and inexperienced employees may accept $7 as a way to enter the workplace and gain experience. But if wages rise to $10, then the job seeker competes not only with everyone willing to accept $7, but also with those who will accept $10. Especially with high unemployment, employers become more selective and less likely to hire the inexperienced or those with disadvantages such as poor language skills.
The economist Milton Friedman called the minimum wage "the most anti-black law on the books" because it raised the unemployment rate for blacks, especially black youth. The same dynamic creates unemployment for immigrants, the poor and other categories that the Minimum Wage Fairness Act is said to champion.
But debate over the act will be about election politics and not about sound economics. The political maneuvering was clear in the Senate vote. In advance of the vote, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) threw down a gauntlet by declaring, "Who's going to vote to give these people a fair shot at the American dream? And who's going to vote against it?"
Loony
Nutty McButty links.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Levenson Isn't A Racist, Just A Businessman
Abdul-Jabbar writes in TIME about the recent revelation about Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson's email (scroll down) on how to attract more white fans:
Sure, there are assumptions he makes that are cringeworthy--but the questions about how to attract more white fans were entirely reasonable....I read Levenson's email. Here's what I concluded: Levenson is a businessman asking reasonable questions about how to put customers in seats. In the email, addressed to Hawks president Danny Ferry, Levenson wonders whether (according to his observations) the emphasis on hip-hop and gospel music and the fact that the cheerleaders are black, the bars are filled with 90% blacks, kiss cams focus on black fans and time-out contestants are always black has an effect on keeping away white fans.
Seems reasonable to ask those questions. If his arena was filled mostly with whites and he wanted to attract blacks, wouldn't he be asking how they could de-emphasize white culture and bias toward white contestants and cheerleaders? Don't you think every corporation in America that is trying to attract a more diverse customer base is discussing how to feature more blacks or Asians or Latinos in their TV ads?
...Sure, there are a few assumptions he makes that make me cringe a little. For example: "My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a significant season ticket base." On the other hand, I have no evidence that he's wrong on either count. Even if he is, the question still needed to be raised, because racism is a realistic possibility as to why whites in Atlanta may not be coming.
To Levenson's credit, in that same paragraph, he dismisses fans who complained about the arena's site as code for racist fear that "there are too many blacks at the games." He further decries the white perception that even though the percentage of blacks in attendance had lessened, they still feel it's higher and therefore somehow threatening. His outrage seems authentic.
Businesspeople should have the right to wonder how to appeal to diverse groups in order to increase business. They should even be able to make minor insensitive gaffes if there is no obvious animosity or racist intent. This is a business email that is pretty harmless in terms of insulting anyone -- and pretty fascinating in terms of seeing how the business of running a team really works.
The thing that makes me mad is that Levenson was too quick to rend his clothing and shout mea culpa. In his apology, he wrote, "By focusing on race, I also sent the unintentional and hurtful message that our white fans are more valuable than our black fans." But that's not the message in the email at all. If the seats had been filled, even if by all blacks, the email wouldn't have been written. He wasn't valuing white fans over blacks; he was trying to figure out a way to change what he thought was the white perception in Atlanta so he could sell more tickets. That's his job.
Save The Multiculturalism! (Too Bad About The Sexually Abused Children)
Steamer sent me this really good assessment of the Rotherham situation, where numerous girls where being abused by adults, but nothing was done because of who was doing the abusing. Allison Pearson writes in the Telegraph/UK:
Let's start with a riddle. If South Yorkshire Police can mount a raid on Sir Cliff Richard's home in pursuit of evidence linked to a single allegation of child sex abuse 30 years ago, why were South Yorkshire Police incapable of pursuing multiple allegations against multiple men who raped 1,400 children over 16 years?...One 11-year-old known as Child H told police that she and another girl had been sexually assaulted by grown men. Nothing was done. When she was 12, Child H was found in the back of a taxi with a man who had indecent pictures of her on his phone. Despite the full co-operation of her father, who insisted his daughter was being abused, police failed to act. Four months later, Child H was found in a house alone with a group of Pakistani men. What did the police do? They arrested the child for being drunk and disorderly and ignored her abusers.
The Labour Party, in particular, is mired in shame over "cultural sensitivity" in Rotherham. Especially, cynics might point out, a sensitivity to the culture of Muslims whose votes they don't want to lose. Denis MacShane, MP for Rotherham from 1994 to 2012, actually admitted to the BBC's World At One that "there was a culture of not wanting to rock the multicultural community boat, if I may put it like that. Perhaps, yes, as a true Guardian reader and liberal Leftie, I suppose I didn't want to raise that too hard." Much better to hang on to your impeccable liberal credentials than save a few girls from being raped, eh, Denis?
Equally horrifying is the suggestion that certain Pakistani councillors asked social workers to reveal the addresses of the shelters where some of the abused girls were hiding. The former deputy leader of the council, Jahangir Akhtar, is accused of "ignoring a politically inconvenient truth" by insisting there was not a deep-rooted problem of Pakistani-heritage perpetrators targeting young white girls. The inquiry was told that influential Pakistani councillors acted as "barriers to communication" on grooming issues.
Front-line youth workers who submitted reports in 2002, 2003 and 2006 expressing their alarm at the scale of the child sex-offending say the town hall told them to keep quiet about the ethnicity of the perpetrators in the interests of "community cohesion".
The Crime Of Rehabilitating An Animal Without The Proper Paperwork
Elizabeth Nolan Brown blogs at reason about Reba and Tommy Morse, who, when living in Florida, often helped nurse injured wild animals back to health -- like Grace, the squirrel.
But then, oops, the Morses moved to Alabama, where Grace was seized by state wildlife services.
Brown writes:
The agency wants us to know we are dealing with dangeous criminals, pointing out that one of the Morses "was ticketed in Florida in 2013 for ... rehabilitating wildlife without a permit." Heaven forbid someone aid an animal without the proper paperwork! You should have to pay the state to help save a squirrel's life, obviously."We cannot turn a blind eye to these violations," said WFF Director Chuck Sykes. "The animals have to be confiscated. It may not be the popular thing to do, but it is our job to protect the public from the potential threats that wild animals pose to humans. In one of those cases last year, a man in Marshall County suffered serious injuries, including the loss of vision in one eye."
According to AL.com, the squirrels were turned over to an animal rehabilitator with the proper permit. From here, they will either be returned to the wild or--if deemed unfit for living on their own in the wild--wind up euthanized.
Linkieloo
You show me yours...
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Pennsylvania Mom Will Go To Prison For Obtaining Abortion Pill For Daughter From Online Pharmacy
Keep in mind that she would have gone to jail had she gotten the pill for herself.
Back when Plan B, the morning-after pill, had to involve a doctor visit, I bought some in Paris at the pharmacy, over the counter. France has its flaws, but it is far less nannyish on allowing adult citizens pharmaceutical control over their bodies.
This woman also turned to Europe for pills without the nannying.
Elizabeth Nolan Brown blogs at reason:
Jennifer Ann Whalen will spent 12 to 18 months in prison for illegally obtaining the abortion pills misoprostol and mifepristone for her 16-year-old daughter. Whalen, a nurse's aid, ordered the drugs from an online pharmacy in Europe, violating a Pennsylvania law that abortion must be performed by a physician. On Friday, a judge sentenced Whalen to the prison time plus a $1,000 fine and 40 hours of post-prison community service for the felony offense.Whalen said her teen daughter wanted to terminate her pregnancy, but the nearest abortion clinic to their home in Washingtonville, Pennsylvania, was 74 miles away. Per state law, anyone seeking an abortion must first visit a clinic for a counseling session and then wait at least 24 hours before having the procedure or obtaining the abortion pill (referred to as a "medical abortion"). Getting the pill at a clinic generally costs between $300 and $600; the drugs Whalen obtained for her daughter online were $45.
But the girl experienced severe cramping and bleeding--a not uncommon side effect of misoprostol and mifepristone. Whalen took her to the local hospital, which is how the matter came to the attention of authorities.
It should not be the government's business to tell you that you have to have a counseling session or wait 24 hours. It is adults, not infants, who are having abortions. In this case, a parent was making a decision with her daughter.
Mental Illness And The Cops In Sweden
Sheila Anne Feeney, a colleague from my New York Daily News column days, whom I first met when she wrote a wonderful story for the paper on my partners and me -- The Advice Ladies -- said I could repost this Facebook post of hers.
First, Sheila's photo of a Swedish cop talking to a mentally ill man:
Sheila's accompanying post:
Why I love Sweden Chapt. 8,002. Watched this mentally ill man screaming bloody murder in Sodermalm as a motorcycle cop gently calmed him down & urged him to sit while the guy kept yelling. "What's he saying?" I asked a Swedish onlooker. "He's saying he hates all police and wants to kill them and he's going to kill the policeman," the man told me. Eventually, other officers arrived, and they used a minimum of force and maximum of compassion to cuff the guy and put him in a car. "Where are they taking him?" I asked. "The psychiatric hospital, of course!" said the Swede. "Not to jail?" I asked. "Why would they take him to jail?" said the Swede. "He's not a criminal: He's just mentally ill and probably needs his meds." I Couldn't help but think the cops could be this nice because they knew that this guy was unlikely to be armed cuz, you know, people don't have the right to give their 9-year-olds machine guns over there.
Your thoughts?
Slurpee
7-Eleveny links.
Advice Goddess Radio, LIVE 7-8 pm PT: Dr. Michelle Skeen On How To Stop Letting Your Fears Sabotage Your Relationships
Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.
Tonight's show will help you stop pushing potential partners away by exploring why you do that and explaining how you can stop.
Psychologist Dr. Michelle Skeen explores how our "core beliefs" can set the stage for our developing unhealthy, fear-based patterns of behavior that keep us from having happy and healthy connections with others.
Join us on tonight's show as she explains the underlying causes and how to yank yourself out of the unhealthy thinking and patterns and develop the skills you need to have loving and happy relationships.
Skeen's book we'll be discussing: Love Me, Don't Leave Me: Overcoming Fear of Abandonment and Building Lasting, Loving Relationships
Listen to the show at this link or download the podcast afterward at the link:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2014/09/08/dr-michelle-skeen-on-how-to-stop-letting-your-fears-sabotage-your-relationships
Don't miss last week's show, the start of a very special every-other-week show -- "Science News You Can Use" Radio -- with science-based advice columnist and author Amy Alkon and animal behaviorist Dr. Jennifer Verdolin laying out science news you can use to solve your relationship problems or just improve your relationships and have a better life.
Last week's show was on understanding jealousy and overcoming the damaging kind.
Listen at this link or download the podcast:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2014/09/01/amy-alkon-dr-verdolin-the-science-on-understanding-and-overcoming-jealousy
Join me and my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.
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Sounds Like: "Let's Get Your Little Criminals In The System While They're Really Young!"
As Cory Doctorow points out at BoingBoing, the push by St. Louis cops to fingerprint Ferguson's children (as part of a national public safety push) sets "a new tone-deaf low from the region's cops." 
Government-Employed Assheads And Your Stomach
Janet Fletcher writes in the LA Times about FDA nitwits keeping some French cheese out of the country:
Roquefort -- France's top-selling blue -- is in the agency's cross hairs along with raw-milk versions of Morbier, St. Nectaire and Tomme de Savoie.In early August, these cheeses and many more landed on an FDA Import Alert because the agency found bacterial counts that exceeded its tolerance level. Cheeses on Import Alert can't be sold in the U.S. until the producer documents corrective action and five samples test clean, a process that can take months.
Of course, French creameries haven't changed their recipes for any of these classic cheeses. But their wheels are flunking now because the FDA has drastically cut allowances for a typically harmless bacterium by a factor of 10.
The limits for nontoxigenic E. coli were cut from 100 MPN (most probable number) per gram to 10 MPN. These are bacteria that live in every human gut; they are typically harmless and we coexist happily. But the FDA considers them a marker for sanitation: If a cheese shows even modest levels of nontoxigenic E. coli, the facility that produced it must be insufficiently clean.
Dennis D'Amico, an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut whose specialty is dairy microbiology, says this premise is flawed. But that's little comfort to producers whose cheeses are denied entry, like the prominent French affineur (cheese ager) Pascal Beillevaire. Or to the retailers who rely on these cheeses.
"We carried eight or nine Beillevaire cheeses, and we can't get any of them right now," says Andrew Steiner of Andrew's Cheese in Santa Monica. "People like him are just going to give up. The American market is not the biggest part of their business. If a shipment gets destroyed, they're likely to say, 'We're not trying that again.'"
Government assheads.
I happen to be deathly allergic to roquefort cheese (bizarre, late-in-life thing), but as for the other cheeses, anyone know of anyone becoming ill or dead from them?
Here's what should happen: The government can stamp cheeses they've inspected and people who believe that the government actually protects them can eat only those cheeses. Then the rest of us will have more of the yummy French cheeses (that don't have the flavor cooked out of them and then cooked out of them again) to ourselves.
Deal?
I guess government doesn't work that way. It's got to be stupid, stupid, stupid, across the board.
IJ Goes After Government's Forfeiture Scam -- When The Cops Become Robbers
The Institute for Justice has just launched a major federal lawsuit taking on the civil forfeiture machine -- the legal scam that allows law enforcement officials to seize your property, sell it, and pocket the proceeds...even if you've done nothing wrong. Even if you have never been convicted of a crime.
Mark Meranta from IJ wrote me in an email about Philly's forfeiture machine:
From 2002 to 2012, Philadelphia took in over $64 million in forfeiture funds--or almost $6 million per year. In 2011 alone, the city's prosecutors filed 6,560 forfeiture petitions to take cash, cars, homes and other property. The Philadelphia District Attorney's office used over $25 million of that $64 million to pay salaries, including the salaries of the very prosecutors who brought the forfeiture actions. This is almost twice as much as what all other Pennsylvania counties spent on salaries combined.This is how the city's forfeiture machine works: Property owners who have their cash, cars or homes seized must go to Courtroom 478. But Courtroom 478 isn't a courtroom at all: there is no judge or jury, just a scheduler and the prosecutors who run the show. Owners who ask for a lawyer are frequently told their case isn't complicated and a lawyer isn't necessary, but are then given a stack of complicated legal documents to fill out under oath. Time and time again, property owners must return to Courtroom 478--up to ten or more times in some cases. If they miss a single appearance, they can lose their property forever.
More on this here. The video shows how rigged this is against the accused:
Here's one of IJ's cases in another state that highlights how sick this is:
Small businessman Zaher El-Ali, who goes by Ali, has lived in Houston for more than 30 years, and is in many ways a classic American immigrant success story. Ali struggled to get his Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck back from Harris County police and prosecutors for the better part of nine months. The pickup was seized by the police after they stopped the truck's driver for driving while intoxicated. But the driver did not own the Silverado. The driver was making payments to purchase the truck from Ali, but had not finished paying for it. Ali retained title, and would like to get his truck back. But under Texas law, the burden is on the property owner, and, as Ali found out, it is very difficult to get your property back once it has been seized for civil forfeiture.That is why he brought a counterclaim in the case of State of Texas v. One 2004 Chevrolet Silverado to challenge Texas' civil forfeiture statute as a violation of his constitutional rights. For the benefit of all Texans, Ali challenged the profit incentive that underlies civil forfeiture in the state. He also challenged the provision of the law that places the burden on owners to prove their innocence, rather than on the state to prove their guilt. The goal of Ali's challenge was to help rebalance Texas law enforcement priorities, take the profit out of civil forfeiture, and protect innocent property owners caught up in an upside-down legal process that violates fundamental constitutional standards of due process.
The outcome, sadly, by Forrest Wilder in the Texas Observer: "When it Comes to Civil Forfeiture in Texas, You Have No Property Rights."
Only three of the Texas Supreme Court Justices dissented. Wilder writes:
Justice Don Willett, in a scathing dissent signed by two others, ripped his colleagues for punting. Willett bangs all the conservative gongs, quoting James Madison and Edmund Burke and opining that the case "evokes less Chevy than Kafka.""Forfeiture 2014-style is not forfeiture 1957-style 21st-century practice merits 21st-century scrutiny," he wrote, noting that the vast expansion in the use of civil forfeiture occurred after the Legislature broadened the statute's scope in 1989 to include a grab-bag of felonies and misdemeanors, and allowed cops and courts to split the profits. "In the quarter-century since, we have yet to revisit the protections due in such proceedings.
"A generation ago in America, asset forfeiture was limited to wresting ill-gotten gains from violent criminals. Today, it has a distinctive 'Alice in Wonderland' flavor, victimizing innocent citizens who've done nothing wrong."
There's something beyond hypocrisy here. It's not just that we live in a political moment in which Texas Republicans speak of little else than liberty, property rights and government overreach. It's the sense that the state, particularly the criminal justice apparatus, as currently constituted, has become predatory, preying on the weak and forcing them to pay for it, too.
Is this the America you thought you were living in? The America you want to be living in?
UPDATE: WaPo's "Stop and Seize," an investigative report by Michael Sallah, Robert O'Harrow Jr., and Steven Rich:
Behind the rise in seizures is a little-known cottage industry of private police-training firms that teach the techniques of "highway interdiction" to departments across the country.One of those firms created a private intelligence network known as Black Asphalt Electronic Networking & Notification System that enabled police nationwide to share detailed reports about American motorists -- criminals and the innocent alike -- including their Social Security numbers, addresses and identifying tattoos, as well as hunches about which drivers to stop.
Many of the reports have been funneled to federal agencies and fusion centers as part of the government's burgeoning law enforcement intelligence systems -- despite warnings from state and federal authorities that the information could violate privacy and constitutional protections.
A thriving subculture of road officers on the network now competes to see who can seize the most cash and contraband, describing their exploits in the network's chat rooms and sharing "trophy shots" of money and drugs. Some police advocate highway interdiction as a way of raising revenue for cash-strapped municipalities.
More from the piece:
A 40-year-old Hispanic carpenter from New Jersey was stopped on Interstate 95 in Virginia for having tinted windows. Police said he appeared nervous and consented to a search. They took $18,000 that he said was meant to buy a used car. He had to hire a lawyer to get back his money.Mandrel Stuart, a 35-year-old African American owner of a small barbecue restaurant in Staunton, Va., was stunned when police took $17,550 from him during a stop in 2012 for a minor traffic infraction on Interstate 66 in Fairfax. He rejected a settlement with the government for half of his money and demanded a jury trial. He eventually got his money back but lost his business because he didn't have the cash to pay his overhead.
"I paid taxes on that money. I worked for that money," Stuart said. "Why should I give them my money?"
Nippy
Chilly Links. No relation to Chili Palmer, who, by the way, sued Elmore Leonard.
You're A Registered Sex Offender -- Unless You Also Happen To Be A Woman
Check out the double standard -- a female teacher who had sex with a 9th grader won't have to register as a sex offender, reports Rob Port on SayAnything.
He quotes an unbylined AP story:
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - A former Bismarck middle school teacher who admitted she had sex with a ninth-grader will spend 60 days in prison.South Central District Court Judge Bruce Romanick has ruled that 35-year-old Susan Duursma won't have to register as a sex offender.
Port writes:
She is an adult. She had sex with a child, and not just any child, but a student at a school where she was a teacher.That's not ok behavior, but our society seems to have a double standard in these cases. Men who molest girls are never given any slack, and rightfully so. But adult women who have sex with underage boys?
That prompts a lot of winking and nodding, especially if the female adult is physically attractive, as though that sort of thing is ok.
via @instapundit
Eat Meat. As Much As You Want. With Plenty Of Fat.
As I keep saying, based on the evidence I've seen.
Now, Anahad O'Connor writes in The New York Times about a new study -- with a rather small sample size, for only a year -- with findings that give the thumbs up to eating not only low carb but also a diet that embraces fat:
People who avoid carbohydrates and eat more fat, even saturated fat, lose more body fat and have fewer cardiovascular risks than people who follow the low-fat diet that health authorities have favored for decades, a major new study shows.The findings are unlikely to be the final salvo in what has been a long and often contentious debate about what foods are best to eat for weight loss and overall health. The notion that dietary fat is harmful, particularly saturated fat, arose decades ago from comparisons of disease rates among large national populations.
But more recent clinical studies in which individuals and their diets were assessed over time have produced a more complex picture. Some have provided strong evidence that people can sharply reduce their heart disease risk by eating fewer carbohydrates and more dietary fat, with the exception of trans fats. The new findings suggest that this strategy more effectively reduces body fat and also lowers overall weight.
The new study was financed by the National Institutes of Health and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. It included a racially diverse group of 150 men and women -- a rarity in clinical nutrition studies -- who were assigned to follow diets for one year that limited either the amount of carbs or fat that they could eat, but not overall calories.
"To my knowledge, this is one of the first long-term trials that's given these diets without calorie restrictions," said Dariush Mozaffarian, the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, who was not involved in the new study. "It shows that in a free-living setting, cutting your carbs helps you lose weight without focusing on calories. And that's really important because someone can change what they eat more easily than trying to cut down on their calories."
By the end of the trial, people in the low-carb group had lost about eight pounds more (on average) than those in the low-fat group, as well as losing more body fat and improving their lean muscle mass -- without changing the level of physical activity. The low-fatters lost weight -- but appeared to lose more muscle mass than fat.
The low-carb participants -- I'm guessing -- would have done better if they'd eaten a no-holds-barred/"eat fat, plenty of fat" diet, which the article suggests they did not. (I haven't read the paper and I woke up late and don't have time -- about three hours late in getting started writing.)
Dietary researcher, Dr. Jeff Volek, on my radio show, suggested eating a diet that is very high in fat (meat fat, avocados, butter, etc.) to balance the protein. This is what I eat, and even while writing "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck" (and barely leaving my chair in the last six months of finishing the book), I did not gain weight.
Joan Rivers Word-Slaps A Humorless Heckler
Loved her.
Limpie
Linkie with a seriously bad hangnail.
What A $15 Minimum Wage Would Do To The Price Of Your Big Mac
Michael Hausam writes at IJReview about how research finds that raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would mean lower sales, smaller profits, fewer worker hours, and higher fast food prices.
How high?
Hausam writes that the Daily Signal "reports that when this is applied to some of our favorite fast food items":
A Big Mac meal increases from $5.69 to $7.82.Wendy's Son of a Baconator combo increases from $6.49 to $8.92.
Taco Bell's 3 crunchy tacos combo increases from $4.59 to $6.31.
A Whopper meal increases from $6.15 to $8.46.
Subway's turkey breast Footlong increases from $6.50 to $8.94.
Kind of takes away one of the main reasons people buy fast food in the first place, right?
Their study also came up with some other effects that would be likely:
1. Utilizing higher skilled workers to gain efficiency and productivity2. Substitution of labor with automation
3. Many businesses will close their doors rather than risk so much capital with such a tiny return
Robots don't get pregnant or take sick days.
Love This Man: Inglewood Dad Refuses To Let Police In Without Warrant
Cop: "I'm going to drag you out if you..."
This man, Avel Amarel, admirably stands his ground and refuses to comply with the warrantless search the police are trying to bully him into and refuses to comply with their demands to see his ID.
As the writeup at YouTube says:
Never Open the Door for the cops, but if you do, never consent to warrantless searches.
My friend, a police sergeant, concurs. She said to NEVER let the police into your home. Even if you are not guilty of a crime. One can be manufactured and what is not evidence can be turned in to evidence.
She further suggests that you put a sign out in front of your home or on your door -- it can just be written words taped on your door: "No trespassing, no soliciting, beware of dog." This sets up in some small way that you do not agree to intrusions -- by the police or anyone.
From the link at TheFreeThoughtProject:
If police come to your door and you don't need their help, you can simply decline to answer. They cannot come into your home without a search warrant.Even if the police have probable cause, they cannot come in your home without a search warrant.
You might even be a suspect in a criminal investigation. In such a case you should remain silent -- except to say "Officer, I can't let you inside without a search warrant." Following such an encounter, you should immediately contact a lawyer before speaking to police again.
The fact is that police can legally lie to try and gain access into your home and knowing how to deal with police at your door can go a long way.
A video uploaded to facebook last week by Avel Amarel, shows Amarel doing a great job at shutting down the two officers who tried to gain access to his house. Notice that in the beginning of the video, police try to get Amarel to stop filming. Mission number 1, reduce accountability. Cheers to Amarel for standing his ground.
Indeed. Every person who stands up for their rights stands up for all of ours. Every YouTube video of this that is uploaded helps more people stand up for their rights.
Be brave, be smart, know your rights, and stand up for them.
Hah!
Here.
Government To Patients: "Suffer, Mofos!"
Ari Armstrong writes at The Objective Standard about the government's panic to keep pain medication out of the hands of people who might have some fun using it keeps it out of the hands of people who are suffering horrible pain and are desperately in need of it:
Individuals' lives and bodies belong to them, not to the government. Individuals have a moral right to seek out and use the drugs of their choice for pain management (and for any other purpose), and politicians and bureaucrats are morally wrong--indeed, they are detestable--when they violate those rights.In the name of "saving" people from drugs the government deems dangerous, government outright bans some drugs, and it severely limits access to others. But government's proper role is to protect people's rights, not to try to save people from choices the government deems to be "wrong." One of the costs of government violating rights in this area is that some people with severe illnesses are unable or less able to acquire the drugs they need to most effectively manage their pain.
Consider the marijuana laws. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, "A total of 23 states and the District of Columbia now allow for comprehensive public medical marijuana and cannabis programs." That means that people in twenty-seven states are unable to legally seek medical marijuana, so patients in those states either must use standard prescription drugs, including opioids (themselves tightly regulated); buy their marijuana illegally; or suffer in unmitigated pain.
...Ultimately an individual has a moral right to seek whatever drugs he deems best for himself, even if consuming the drugs entails certain risks or side-effects. It is properly up to a patient, not the government, to weigh the benefits and risks of taking a given drug or combination of drugs. Many patients rationally accept certain risks in order to effectively manage their pain, and each patients should be free to seek whatever combination of opioids, marijuana, or other drugs he thinks will work--without government standing in his way and effectively saying, "No, we feel that pain is better for you."
Jihadist Appeasement Is A Losing Strategy
David French writes at NRO that we need to stop seeing jihadists as something akin to multi-culti ivy league faculty members:
We see President Obama himself remarking in Cairo that "much has been made that an African American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected president." As if this crude racial bean-counting could make jihadists stand down in the same way it helps vacate student protesters from the dean's office. Do they not know that "young Pakistani Muslims" are colorblind? They happily slaughter even Muslim neighbors who look just like them (with names that sound just like theirs), if those neighbors aren't sufficiently faithful.But it's not just the identity politics, it's also the self-loathing, the belief that our own actions are the indispensable fuel for the "extremist" fire.
Obama in Cairo:
We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year...
French continues:
Once again, this is "get the kids out of the office" thinking. But jihadists don't think like rebellious Dartmouth students or their faculty cheerleaders. For the psychopaths of al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, Hamas, Hezbollah, (you name the group), Gitmo is a joke. Abu Ghraib is meaningless. Even after Abu Ghraib, jihadists would strongly prefer to surrender to American troops than our Iraqi allies, confident in our good treatment. But it didn't make them hate us less. We were hit on 9/11 before anyone outside the U.S. military could locate Gitmo on a map and after President Clinton had exerted such herculean effort to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that he hosted a known terrorist in the White House more than any other foreign leader. That didn't make our enemy hate us less....Jihadist Islam is violently expansionist to its very core -- and its enemies are simply defined as anyone and everyone (regardless of faith) who doesn't submit. Moreover, jihadist Islam isn't some kind of historical aberration, a unique phenomenon created as a byproduct surrounding the (very brief) period of colonialism in the Middle East. It's part of the historical DNA of the faith itself, with periodic waves of jihad sweeping out from the Islamic world since its founding. That's just a fact. And while jihadists tend to focus on the enemy right in front of their face (the Christians, Jews, or Muslims next door), they can and do multi-task -- trying to paralyze and intimidate the great powers who have the strength to crush their movement.
Jihad existed before modern Israel.
Jihad existed before America.
Jihad existed before even Great Britain.
So, no, it is not rooted in our supposed national sins, the Sykes-Picot agreement, or in the failure of the two-state solution. It's ultimately rooted in a single, primal religious drive: To conquer until all the world bends the knee. That's not nihilism. It's fanaticism. And these fanatics don't care one bit about the race or ideology of our president. But they do care about our strength or weakness. And now, Americans should (once again) see that weakness means death.
Lippy
Backtalky links.
TSA's Repurposed Mall Workers Confuse "F-Bomb" For Actual Bomb
Security at our airports is now provided by The Three Stooges.
Lisa Simeone posts at TSA News Blog that a 4 x 2" decorative paperweight was confiscated by our costumed fake cops at airports, aka TSA workers, and crowed about on their website:
It is an "F Bomb Paperweight," a piece of art handmade by Fred Conlon and selling for $45. Quoting from the F Bomb's blurb:It's never easy dropping truth bombs in the office. But "f" bombs? Always explosive fun! Fred Conlon's recycled steel sculpture lightens up desk-side chats and tough conversations with a delightfully abstract expletive appropriate for any situation. Handmade in Utah....But look -- it has that special "f" attached -- you know, the one that looks like a Facebook "f". Why, what evil plot is on display here? Could this be some kind of secret signal? Is Facebook, with its global reach, in on some scheme to spread fear and Terror™ at airports everywhere? Is this a Trial Run™? Why, if the TSA stops confiscating F Bomb Paperweights, thinking they're benign, then someday somebody could come in with a real bomb (that looks like something out of a cartoon) and before you know it, boom!
I get chills just thinking about it. Thank god the TSA is here to save us all.
And just think -- maybe whoever stole the F Bomb can trade it for the "grenade-shaped" perfume bottle, or maybe the "knuckle-clasp" purse, or perhaps just the embossed purse, or the toy lighter, or the shoes, or any number of other things.
Imagine Being Raped -- And Then Charged: $15,000 In Back Child Support
Dr. Helen Smith, author of Men On Strike, has an op-ed in USA Today about how different the punishment is for a teen boy who is raped:
Imagine that your 14-year-old daughter engaged in sex with the 20-year-old man down the street. Anger would hardly begin to describe your feelings, but then imagine how you and your daughter would feel if she became pregnant and the man who abused her got custody of the child and your daughter had to pay him child support for the next 18 years.This would not only be unthinkable in our society but most people would say that it bordered on abuse or worse. Yet, as reported in a recent Arizona Republic news story [instaplay video], this is what happened to Nick Olivas, who happened to be 14 at the time he had sex with a 20-year-old woman. The difference, of course, is he's not a girl.
At the age of 21, Olivas found out he had a child and that he owed over $15,000 in back child support plus interest. He was rightfully upset, stating: "It was a shock. I was living my life and enjoying being young. To find out you have a 6-year-old? It's unexplainable. It freaked me out."
When a state government finds out a 14-year-old girl is a statutory rape victim of a 20-year-old man, the common reaction would be to file criminal charges to put the predator in jail. But for male victims, child support laws turn state governments into the allies of abusers instead of advocates for the victims.
Why the double standard when the victim is male?
The main reason is that the law says so. According to a 2011 article in the Georgia Law Review "much of the law relating to child support is based on the fact that it is typically in a child's best interest to receive financial support from mothers as well as fathers" even when there is "wrongful conduct by the mother."
This line is really chilling:
In a case involving a 15-year-old California boy raped by a 34-year-old woman who gave birth in 1995, the courts declared, "Victims have rights. Here, the victim also has responsibilities."
Related: "Men Struggle for Rape Awareness."
And from the Alia Beard Rau Arizona Republic story on Olivas:
Nick Olivas became a father at 14, a fact he wouldn't learn for eight years.While in high school, Olivas had sex with a 20-year-old woman. As he sees it now, she took advantage of a lonely kid going through a rough patch at home.
State law says a child younger than 15 cannot consent with an adult under any circumstance, making Olivas a rape victim. But Olivas didn't press charges and says he didn't realize at the time that it was even something to consider.
...California issued a similar state court ruling a few years later in the case of a 15-year-old boy who had sex with a 34-year-old neighbor. In that case, the woman had been convicted of statutory rape.
In both cases, it was the state social-services agency that pursued the case after the mother sought public assistance.
"The Kansas court determined that the rape was irrelevant and that the child support was not owed to the rapist but rather to the child," said Mel Feit, director of the New York-based advocacy group the National Center for Men.
UPDATED -- Charlotte Allen feels differently, and tweeted about it. Agree? Disagree? 
Blimpie
Linkie ate too many brownies.
Beauty Is Thrift
I like to find the truly fabulous product or appliance for the job -- and then find the one that's far cheaper and just as good or close to it.
Need a flat iron for your hair? You can get a great one for $175, according to beauty sites, or, according to me, for $39.99: The latter is the Remington S8510DS Flat Iron, Frizz Therapy, 1 Inch
And there's $22 Make Up For Ever waterproof cream eyeshadow
And then there's MAC gel eyeliner for $16 at MAC. And there's L'Oreal gel eyeliner
Oh, and don't forget to throw a copy of my book, "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," into your cart, so you can be beautiful while stopping the rude.
Next week, for all you boys, the beauty of frugality in power tools. Um, maybe. If I become a different person by next week.
They're Groping Grandma At The Airport While Employing The Guy Who Went On To Die Fighting For ISIS
Tom Lyden reports at MyFoxTwinCities:
MINNEAPOLIS (KMSP) - He was the second known American killed while fighting for ISIS in Syria, and the second from Minnesota -- and a Fox 9 exclusive uncovering his employment history is raising a few eyebrows.An airport is probably the last place anyone would want a suspected terrorist to work, but before he died overseas, that's exactly what Abdirahmaan Muhumed did in the Twin Cities. In fact, he may have cleaned your plane at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
...Before he died, Muhumed left behind a trail of selfies and questions. Who recruited him to join the terror group, and how did he support himself and 9 children? Multiple sources tell Fox 9 News that, for a time, he worked at a job that gave him security clearance at the airport, access to the tarmac and unfettered access to planes.
This is why -- beyond how we need to protect our civil liberties -- we need to act with probable cause in who we search and investigate rather than going all needle-in-a-haystack and look at every single American who takes a plane to go see their momma as if they have plans to bring down a plane.
The pretense that we are secure, provided by the police-costumed repurposed mall cops of the TSA is just a distraction from the fact that we can only really protect ourselves from terrorism -- to have any hope of it -- by using highly trained intelligence officers acting...ONLY...on probable cause.
via @instapundit
Remnick's Response To Anti-Biotech Activist Vandana Shiva
From the Genetic Literacy Project, an excerpt of New Yorker editor David Remnick's letter resonding to Vandana Shiva's criticism of Michael Specter's profile of her (and her campaign against genetically modified crops, entitled, "Seeds of Doubt":
I should say that since you have said that the entire scientific establishment has been bought and paid for by Monsanto, I fear it will be difficult to converse meaningfully about your accusation that the story contained "fraudulent assertions and deliberate attempts to skew reality." But maybe I am wrong; I'll try....One hardly needs to hold a Ph.D. in physics to become an effective environmental activist, as you have demonstrated. Yet, when a prominent figure, such as yourself, is described for decades--in interviews, on web sites, in award citations, and on many of your own book jackets, as having been "one of India's leading physicists" it seems fair to ask whether or not you ever worked as one.
...Your math and conclusions on the issues of farmer suicides and seed prices and values differ from the math in studies carried out by many independent, international and government organizations. Mr. Specter is far from alone in rejecting, based on data, your charge that Monsanto is responsible for "genocide" in India. In your letter you state that "Specter promotes a system of agriculture that fails to deliver on its promises of higher yield and lower costs and propagates exploitation." This has always been your position, but as Mr. Specter pointed out in his article, there have been many studies on the effects of planting BT cotton in India, and on the whole, scientists - none of whom were connected to Monsanto -have found the opposite to be true.
You say that the prices of seeds are extremely high, but also that as a result of your action the government regulates their price. Several recent studies have shown that Bt cotton has been highly beneficial to cotton farmers in India. One of the best recent studies on the economic impact of Bt cotton on farmers found that "Bt has caused a 24% increase in cotton yield per acre through reduced pest damage and a 50% gain in cotton profit among smallholders. These benefits are stable; there are even indications that they have increased over time.'' The researchers also show that Bt cotton adoption has raised consumption expenditures, a common measure of household living standard, by 18% during the 2006-2008 period and conclude that Bt cotton has created large and sustainable benefits, which contribute to positive economic and social development in India.
...4.) We take particular exception to your charge that Mr. Specter's physical description of a farmer, with "skin the color of burnt molasses and the texture of a worn saddle" was racist. It wasn't. In a 2005 profile he described the Italian designer Valentino this way: "Valentino spends a lot of time in the sun. His skin, the color of melted caramel, has the texture of a lovingly preserved Etruscan ruin." Last year, Specter described a sixty-eight year old American farmer as having " a tan, weather beaten face."
A comment by "Gilmore" at reason, where I found this, in a blog post by Ron Bailey:
I think the whole 'treat charlatans with respect' rhetoric needs to go. Rather than be "dismayed and distressed" by Shiva, Remnick (or someone) should simply state in completely unqualified language:"You are a liar, and a demagogue; your claims consistently run afoul of easily demonstrated facts; your accusations of racism, and calls for persecution of scientists are abhorrent; you have no credibility and your movement is nothing but a cult; the lives of millions in the developing world are worsened by your anti-scientific crusade "
Pennsylvania's Archaic And Complicated Wine Laws: State-Instituted Robbery
And now it seems it will turn into state-instituted theft and destruction -- of rare and expensive wines.
Michelle Minton explains at CEI that a Philly man, Arthur Goldman had his home raided and had cops seize 2,426 bottles of rare wine -- more than $125K-worth -- that the cops reportedly plan to "destroy":
Arthur Goldman, a 50-year-old lawyer, alleged ran afoul of Pennsylvania's archaic wine laws by purchasing and selling through unapproved channels. In Pennsylvania, one of ten states that doesn't allow direct shipping of wine to consumers, the only place one can purchase wine is through state-owned liquor stores. For wine connoisseurs looking for a bottle unavailable for purchase in state stores, the only other option is to order their wine through one of the sanctioned "direct wine shippers" and have it sent to a state store. Of course, this adds a certain cost to the purchase (shipping charge, plus $4.50 handling, the state's 18 percent Johnstown Flood tax, 6 percent sales tax, and an addition 2 percent Philadelphia tax). With an average shipping rate of $7 per bottle or $22 per case, this means that a typical $50 bottle of wine would end up costing $74. A case of that wine, which would have cost $600 could cost around $832 after jumping through the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board's hoops. Of course, Goldman was likely purchasing much rarer and more expensive wines--the tax and shipping costs, assuming the approved direct shipping companies had the wines he wanted--could have been astronomical.Cops paint a picture of a sophisticated racket meant to make Goldman a lot of money, but his lawyer asserts it was more like a group of 15-20 wine connoisseurs for whom Goldman would procure bottles unavailable in the state, only charging them for his costs.
"It was more 15 to 20 people who liked wine like Art, who he would get the wine for."
RELATED: Read how Prohibition may still have an effect -- maybe slowing the craft beer spread.
Lucky
Either a dog with links or a four-leaf clover with a bunch of hidden messages on its stem.
Arrested For Sitting While Black
Conor Friedersdorf posts at The Atlantic about the latest example of abusive policing -- a black man taken to jail for sitting in a public area, after somebody tells him he can't sit there:
A black father, Chris Lollie, reportedly got off work at Cossetta, an upscale Italian eatery, walked to the downtown building that houses New Horizon Academy, where he was to to pick up his kids, and killed the ten minutes until they'd be released sitting down on a chair in a skyway between buildings. Those details come from the Minneapolis City Pages, where commenters describe the area he inhabited as a public thoroughfare between commercial buildings. If you're 27 and black with dreadlocks, sometimes you're waiting to pick up your kids and someone calls the cops to get rid of you. The police report indicates a call about "an uncooperative male refusing to leave," which makes it sound as though someone else first asked him to vacate where he was; another press report says that he was sitting in a chair in a public area when a security guard approached and told him to leave as the area was reserved for employees. The Minnesota Star Tribune visited the seating area and reported that "there was no signage in the area indicating that it was reserved for employees."So a man waiting to pick up his kids from school sits for a few minutes in a seating area where he reasonably thinks he has a right to be, private security asks him to leave, he thinks they're harassing him because he's black, and they call police. This is where the video begins, and that conflict is already over. The man is walking away from it and toward the nearby school where he is to pick up his kids.
So problem solved? It could have been.
But here's what happened instead:
Friedersdorf notes:
Lollie is also absolutely correct that no law required him to show an ID to police officers. As Flex Your Rights explains, "Police can never compel you to identify yourself without reasonable suspicion to believe you're involved in illegal activity," and while 24 states have passed "stop and identify" statutes "requiring citizens to reveal their identity when officers have reasonable suspicion to believe criminal activity may be taking place," Minnesota isn't one of those states.
Charges against the man were, not surprisingly, dropped. Disgustingly, the police department continues to defend the officers' actions.
Read more in Minneapolis City Pages.
If the area was not marked as employees only, it was entirely reasonable for the guy to assume that someone was asking him to leave for spurious reasons (like that he's a black guy or a dreadlocked black guy).
None of us like to be controlled by others and I celebrate people (and we all should) who non-violently protest thuggery and abuse -- like Chris Lollie, by holding his ground.
The thugs -- in cop uniforms -- decided to abuse their power and tase him and throw him in a cage. This needs to stop and the officers here need to be charged and dealt with under the law, not coddled and protected by the police department.
Problem Solved!
Sign, Venice, California.
Genius Idea For How To Get Kids To Read More
A pastor in Texas is demanding that the public library purge all the vampire books. Eric W. Dolan writes at RawStory:
A Texas pastor is leading a campaign to have books about vampires pulled from Cleveland's public library.Phillip Missick and other religious leaders have called on the Austin Memorial Library to remove books about vampires, demons and other magical beings from the teen section.
"This is dark. There's a sexual element. You have creatures that aren't human. I think it's dangerous for our kids," Missick, a pastor at King of Saints Tabernacle of Cleveland, told KTRK.
Missick is circulating a petition that requests that the "occultic and demonic room be shut down, and these books be purged from the shelves, and that public funds would no longer be used to purchase such material, or at least require parents to check them out for their children," according to the Cleveland Advocate.
He claims there are 75 books in the library that deal with the occult, including the Twilight series.
This is exactly how I ended up reading Helter Skelter. Mom said no way. I borrowed it from one of the Goldsmith girls, the stepdaughters of my dad's friend Bill. She loved contributing to my nerd-linquency.
More from the piece, quoting Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State about religious leaders trying to censor books such as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Harry Potter:
"Every time, it's the same tired argument: Young people need to be 'protected' from themes such as 'the occult,' human sexuality, modern science and so on. I think it's pretty obvious what the Religious Right is up to here: They want to 'protect' children from critical thinking, self-reflection and the type of curiosity about our world that an immersion into literature can give us," Boston wrote.
My friend Sonya Sones, who writes YA fiction (and pretty clean YA at that, lest her children read her books and be embarrassed) is one of the most banned authors in America. A badge of honor!
Sones' most recent book: To Be Perfectly Honest: A Novel Based on an Untrue Story
RELATED: These days, even old Sesame Street episodes come with a warning label.
Minkie
Furry links with sharp little teeth.
Bag Me A River
Up to 70 percent off shoes and handbags for men and women Amazon
To buy other items and give me the credit (which supports this site), please click here: Amy's Amazon
Hat Tip, George Orwell
Yes, it's another case of school administrators and cops gone stupid.
A teacher was suspended and given an emergency psych eval for his FICTIONAL book (originally written under a pseudonym), set in the future -- 2092 -- about a school shooting.
UPDATE: Robby Soave at reason reports that the McLaw's novels "were not the initial or prime factor that led to his suspension":
Rather, McLaw submitted a letter to officials at the Dorchester County school district where he worked that raised concerns about his mental health. Wicomico County health department personnel then stepped in.Officials have several other concerns about McLaw, apart from his letter. He was formerly accused of harassment, and may face charges for a separate allegation of wrongdoing. Privacy laws are keeping everyone vague about the details, since nothing is official yet.
Looking At Jennifer Lawrence Pictures Is Like Watching Movies On A Stolen TV, Only Worse
With the stealing and posting of these naked pictures of Lawrence, she has been robbed -- by thugs with computers instead of guns -- of her privacy, one of our most valuable civil liberties.
(Lawrence is one of more than 100 celebrities who've had their nude photos hacked and posted online.)
I wrote about this vis a vis the capabilities of the technology in my new book, "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck" (surely the only manners book ever to quote from Brandeis and Warren's Harvard Law Review article on privacy). Here's an excerpt:
Now that we have that technology, many seem to believe that their life and everyone else's are there for the uploading. If something happens, it simply must be posted, tweeted, and Facebooked, and if something isn't, it must not matter or maybe doesn't even exist. (If a tree falls in the forest and nobody's around to video it and upload it to Facebook . . . )But, is it really a matter of compelling public interest that three days ago, while waiting in your car for the light to change, you picked your nose? And just because some guy in the next car was quick to catch your nose-digging with his phone and post it to YouTube, should it really be preserved for eternity like a bug in amber?
Technology's impact on privacy isn't a new issue. "Numerous mechanical devices threaten to make good the prediction that 'what is whispered in the closet shall be proclaimed from the housetops,'" wrote Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis in the Harvard Law Review in the 90s--the 1890s. They were worried about the advent of affordable portable cameras and dismayed at the way newspapers had begun covering people's private lives.
Brandeis and Warren explained that a person has a right--a natural human right--to determine to what extent their thoughts, opinions, and emotions and the details of their "private life, habits, acts, and relations" will be communicated to others. They noted that this right to privacy comes out of our right to be left alone and that it applies whether an individual's personal information is "expressed in writing, or in conduct, in conversation, in attitudes, or in facial expression."
This has not changed because of what's now technically possible: how it takes just a few clicks to Facebook or Instagram an embarrassing photo of a person or blog their medical history, sexual orientation, sex practices, financial failings, lunch conversation, or daily doings. No matter how fun and easy the technology makes immediately publishing everything about everyone and no matter how common it's become to violate everyone's right to privacy, each person's private life remains their own and not a free commodity to be turned into content by the rest of us.
As I also write in "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," you need to figure out who you are before you get on the Internet -- whether, say, you're the sort of person who thinks nothing of enjoying stolen property. Whether you'd like to play some small part in perpetuating and feeding the market for stealing people's most private moments and making them public.
An excerpt:
Because the Internet puts so much power right at our fingertips and it's so much fun to use, we underestimate the tendency for even otherwise responsible adults with serious jobs to devolve into mouth-breathing chimps who've just been handed the button for an info-nuke....People who fall back on what's technically possible as the standard for their behavior typically give the most thought to how to act online after they get in trouble--after they lose their job or a friend or just go medieval on somebody on Facebook in a way they're later ashamed of. To avoid disaster, you need to come up with personal policies in advance for how you'll fly online, covering three essential areas:
• Your online identity.
• Privacy: yours and everybody else's.
• How to treat other people online and what to do when
they treat you badly.
And no, I haven't looked at the photos and I won't.
I also won't watch movies of Lawrence on a stolen TV or download stolen content.
Because ethics.
I happen to have them, and I really, really feel better about myself when I use them instead of violating them.
An Alternative To Government Meddling? Common Sense
"The Rational Optimist" blogs about the TSA and other government-originated stupidities:
But anyway, two seconds thought shows that the whole rigmarole of officiously checking boarding passes and IDs makes no sense. Faking them would be the easiest part of the plot for a would-be hijacker. Nor does x-raying every bag and person make much sense - especially with TSA personnel being (forgive my bluntness) low-paid drones proven unable to spot true problems.I'm reminded of Philip Howard's enlightening 1994 book, The Death of Common Sense. In his latest, The Rule of Nobody
, he relates that after some nasty scandals, Australia scrapped hundreds of detailed rules governing nursing homes. Regulatory experts were aghast. Yet, with facilities now enjoined simply to provide a "homelike environment" with "privacy and dignity" - freeing them to think creatively rather than blindly following checklists - they measurably improved.
Howard's point is that we tend to impose complex regulatory schemes because we don't trust their targets - be it governmental arms, or businesses - to behave reasonably and fairly otherwise. It's a big mistake, as evidenced by Australia's experience. And by [the] TSA.
This Guy Will Spend His Life In A Cage For Marijuana
At reason Aaron Malin writes about Jeff Mizanskey, swept up by Missouri's three strikes law and now serving life without parole:
Jeff racked up all three strikes without ever committing an act of violence. He was a working class guy with a small side gig as a low-level pot dealer. He never hurt anyone, never brandished a weapon, and never sold to children.Jeff calmly told me his story from across the table in the visiting room. The guard stared at the floor as he half-listened from thirty feet across the room.
Strike one came in 1984 when Jeff sold an ounce of marijuana to a close relative, who at some point gave or sold it to an undercover police officer. The relative told police where he got it in exchange for leniency, and his testimony was enough to get a search warrant of Jeff's home. The half-pound of pot found during the search landed him with his first felony conviction and five years probation.
Strike two came in 1991. Police again received information from an informant that was sufficient to obtain a search warrant of Jeff's home. This time, they found less than three ounces of cannabis, but it was still more than the one and a quarter ounces needed to trigger a felony charge. Unable to afford the legal fees necessary to fight the charge in court, he pleaded guilty for the second time.
Just two years later, Jeff gave a friend a ride to a motel. The friend was there to buy a few pounds of pot from a supplier, who was once again working with the police and had helped them set up a sting operation. Jeff accompanied his friend into the motel room and allegedly handled a package of marijuana during the transaction. He was arrested with what would end up being his third strike as they left the parking lot. Jeff has been in a cell at the maximum security Jefferson City Correctional Center (JCCC) ever since, nearly 21 years and counting.
Malin notes:
Jeff has watched dozens of convicted rapists and murders, housed in his cellblock, walk out the doors as free men over the past 21 years. Many have re-offended and were sent right back to prison. Meanwhile, Jeff has completed over a dozen rehabilitation programs while incarcerated, and now mentors other inmates to convince them to learn from his past. He doesn't hesitate to acknowledge the mistakes he has made, but feels strongly that his punishment was disproportionate to his crime.
He's exhausted his appeals and his only hope is clemency from the governor. Or he will die in jail for what Malin rightly calls "a victimless crime."
This not justice and it serves neither the state nor the man.
Linkieboo
Peekielinks
