Evidence-Based Medicine Is "Microfascism"
According to these "researchers" (infected with that humanities department special something) that's because it comes to exclude "alternative forms of knowledge," such as those where people just make shit up, like in the case of homeopathy.
Homeopathy is good for one thing -- curing your wallet of the problem of excess dollars.
Love their conclusion in the abstract:
The Cochrane Group, among others, has created a hierarchy that has been endorsed by many academic institutions, and that serves to (re)produce the exclusion of certain forms of research. Because 'regimes of truth' such as the evidence-based movement currently enjoy a privileged status, scholars have not only a scientific duty, but also an ethical obligation to deconstruct these regimes of power.
Me? When I need to make a quick decision on, say, whether a vitamin would be helpful, I use Cochrane Group's meta-analyses -- studies of the body of work in a field -- which are high-quality and explain whether the evidence is solid (adequate sample size, etc.) in plain language.
Sadly, one guy here is an RN. I pity his patients.
I'm sure, for his own medical care, he ignores Cochrane meta-analyses and modern medicine for the judgment of his local post-structuralist witchdoctor.
Yes, medical care has plenty of bullshit in it, too -- like publication bias, where studies (those that don't show the results that will advance the career of the researcher or the interests of the drug company) are shoved in a drawer.
But there's at least a driving idea that medical decisions should be evidence-based.
A quote I've posted before from Marcia Angell and Jerome Kassirer:
It is time for the scientific community to stop giving alternative medicine a free ride... There cannot be two kinds of medicine -- conventional and alternative. There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work. Once a treatment has been tested rigorously, it no longer matters whether it was considered alternative at the outset. If it is found to be reasonably safe and effective, it will be accepted.
Horrifyingly, the RN who led the study, Dave Holmes, is the University Research Chair in Forensic Nursing at the University of Ottawa. Here's another one of his fine pieces of work -- an investigation on "glory holes," discovered by @clairlemon.
Sorry, we really needed to investigate the "popularity" of and "re-theorize glory hole sex - what we call 'faceless sex'"? (Meet male-on-male sexuality, dude. Straight guys would be doing it, too, but for how straight ladies generally want to be bought at least a few drinks first and told they're pretty.)
Collect Trash, Not Shoes! "Encouraging" Women Into Traditionally Male Professions
I love the way psych prof Steve Stewart-Williams put it in this tweet:
@SteveStuWill
Urgent! Help get as many women as men into jobs that fewer women than men want!
The link in his tweet went to this site in the UK, 50/50 by 2020, which has the ridiculous aim of shoving women into jobs they don't actually want to be in -- or, if they do want those jobs, letting them in just to make the male/female split 50/50:
The population of Wales is close to being 50/50 split between women and men.This gender split isn't however reflected in senior decision making roles in the workplace, be it the private, public or third sectors.
Here's a photo from the site: 
For the record, I only want to work on an oil rig if "working" means briefly posing for a photographer while wearing an evening dress.
That bit of snark from me is, of course, in line with how men are the risk takers of the species. Profession in which I could be killed in an explosion? Thanks; I'll pass.
Also, men tend to be bigger and stronger, which makes them better candidates for jobs where there's any sort of strength required.
Finally, should a woman who's child-focused rather than career-focused really have the same opportunities as a man who is not?
Or a woman like me who is not?
I sure don't think so.
In case this 50/50 wasn't ridiculous enough for you, here's a site calling for women to compete against men in the boxing ring.
As Quillette editor Claire Lehmann put it:
@clairlemon
This genius argues that preventing women from competing against men in the boxing ring is harmful
I could kick the ass of a male my age -- if he is six inches tall and made of molded plastic.
Hollylink
Welcome to the red link carpet.
The Socialization Myth Used To Argue Against Home-Schooling
This reminds me of the screech about gay parenting -- the notion that two mommies can't possibly bring up a boy successfully because he will lack for male role models...as if we all live on isolated, individual islands and it is impossible for young boys to have male role models in their lives if they have lesbian mothers.
And what of children raised by widows? Nobody's screeching about widows and their children's need for father figures.
Responsible parents see that their children get what they need -- whether they get it at home or whether they bring it into their lives.
By the way, we have a lesbian mom kind of in my family by marriage. She happens to be a Log Cabin Republican, and her two boys are the kind of "upstanding young men" my father always talked about. They are decent, highly intelligent, highly informed, and straight, and lived in one of the Beverly Hills homes growing up that allowed toy guns and all the boyhood trimmings. (The lefty parents' kids used to come over to their house to play with the guns they couldn't get at home. Their mom laughed to me about the time one of these kids came to the door to meet his mom "shooting" some plastic machine gun.)
I suspect the screeching about home-schooled kids is largely by people who don't know any home-schooled kids (along with those with an agenda -- more on that below).
For the record, I only know three kids who are, but I also have a friend who home-schools a group of kids of wealthy parents. She used to work at the LA top-notch private school Crossroads, and is one of the most highly intelligent people I know, and has a truly exciting mind along with knowledge of how to educate and motivate even the toughest cases.
At The Freeman, B.K. Marcus writes about the ridiculous socialization myth people use to argue against home schooling:
The contention that kids kept out of large group schools will somehow suffer in their social development never made any sense to begin with. (In fact, large group schools may hurt social development.) Did no one enjoy any social skills before the era of mass education?Decades of research now support the common-sense conclusion: the artificially hierarchical and age-segregated structure of modern schooling produces a warped form of socialization with unhealthy attitudes toward both authority and peers.
The students who escape this fate are those with strong parental and other adult role models and active engagement with a diverse community outside school. Homeschooling holds no monopoly on engaged parents or robust communities, but those advantages are an almost automatic part of home education.
In 1993, J. Gary Knowles, then a professor of education at the University of Michigan, surveyed 53 adults who had been taught at home by their parents. He found that nearly two-thirds were self-employed. That's more than twice the global average and about 10 times the current national average. "That so many of those surveyed were self-employed," said Knowles, "supports the contention that home schooling tends to enhance a person's self-reliance and independence."
That independence may be the real source of critics' concerns.
He thinks the concern is about creating cogs, but I think it's about a number of things: Support for teachers' unions, support for the status quo, fear of and distaste for religious people, and not wanting to admit that the public schools one put one's children through often pretty much suck compared to home-schooling.
I was a "gifted kid," and I was wildly bored in school and did little -- ever -- in it. However, I was a voracious reader and was always learning on my own.
There's little that would have helped me achieve educationally like being pulled out of public school and taught at home -- especially by my mother, who was the valedictorian of the top Detroit high school, Phi Beta Kappa and a Hopwood awardee at University of Michigan, taught at a top high school before she got married and is a truly exciting thinker.
Instead, my mother (who found motherhood wildly boring in a way she probably woudln't have if she were educating us) went to my second grade teacher, Mrs. Ramsey, and told her that when I say I've read a chapter in class, I've read a chapter, even though the other kids still needed the rest of the hour to get through it.
Vimeo Calls It "Playground PTSD"
That's their name for the feeling of having somebody say your video sucks, which is sooo much like the horribleness soldiers deal with in war.
As the friend of mine who sent me the link wrote: "Oh, get over it."
I did a column on this -- the way many people now are quick to claim to have "PTSD":
Tales from your PTSD support group:THEM: "I was held captive with a burlap bag over my head and beaten with electrical cords."YOU: "I'm right there with you, bro. This dude I was dating told me his Ferrari was paid for, and it turned out to be leased!"
YOU: "My boyfriend pretended he was buying a mansion, but he really lives with his parents."THEM: "That's terrible. Can you help me put on my prosthetic leg?"
Sure, according to Pat Benatar, "love is a battlefield." But spending three months fighting with a sociopathic boyfriend doesn't leave you ducking for cover whenever a car backfires like a guy who did three tours of IED disposal in Iraq and came home with most of the parts he went in with.
Claiming to have PTSD because of the slightest thing does go along with how stylish it is these days, especially on college campuses, to find offense in the slightest thing.
Trump Of The Will
There are more than a few ways the style of The Donald resembles the style of The Adolf.
Gregg noticed a distinct similarity between Der Fuhrer's plane landing in Leni Reifenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" -- descending from the clouds like a Wagnerian god -- and Trump's plane landing on Saturday in Arkansas.
The Adolf:
The Donald: 
Gregg: You can compare the way Hitler campaigned and the very vague things he said he would do and the more specific things. And the way Hitler appealed to people's baser selves and their unhappiness with the establishment.
And then people woke up and there was martial law.
More Gregg: Trump is a sleeper agent to take down the Republican party.
I think that we got to this point -- with a bunch of rotten children of various ages as our choices for president -- by years of the Democrats and Republicans being slightly different flavors of corrupt.
Licky
Linky with tongue.
California Govt. Forced By Court To Give Away Your Child's Privacy -- But You Can Opt Out
This is just terrible -- records on student behavior, mental health, attendance, and much more -- are being handed over to a non-profit organization, "The Concerned Parents Association."
It's a non-profit that fights for the rights of disabled children. They want the information for research. The information includes social security, medical information, and home address.
NBC San Diego's Consumer Bob writes [annoying autoplay at link]:
That doesn't sit well with privacy groups. Beth Givens with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse said it's "shocking that the court would release this sort of information."Eva Velasquez with the Identity Theft Resource Center agreed.
"The issue isn't why they want it," said Velasquez. "The issue is that it creates vulnerabilities and access points."
Students and parents can opt-out of the list by following detailed instructions from the district court. However there appears to be very little being done on the state or local level to inform parents of the disclosure.
You can opt out -- do it here.
Oh, they'll be careful with that data, they say.
Right.
Like the IRS was with the data of the 724,000 people whose personal information was stolen by hackers.
via luj
Welcome To Sleepaway Nursery School, AKA College
At Middlebury College, they've banned on-campus sales of energy drinks like Red Bull and 5-Hour ENERGY. Wow, that should stop slightly inconvenience students who want them.
Susan Donaldson James writes at NBC:
College officials blame the drinks for contributing to "problematic behavior," such as alcohol abuse and "high-risk sexual activity," and say they don't contribute to the dining service's mission to "nourish" its students.A prominent flyer in the college's Wilson Cafe states: "Energy drink consumption facilitates unhealthy work habits such as prolonged periods of sleeplessness, contributing to a campus culture of stress and unsustainable study habits."
...Arnav Adhikari, a 22-year-old senior from India who works at the cafe, said he used to sell "loads" of the drinks, and the college is over-reaching its role.
"There are more important things for them to address," he told NBC News. "And what do energy drinks have to do with sexual activity?"
A college has to (pretend to) do something, dude!
Caffeine is an adenosine agonist.
I take halved caffeine pills and drink strong coffee all day.
I also take amphetamines. By prescription.
This diminishes the stress I have when I don't get my writing done or much writing done.
As for this ridiculous, pretending-to-DOOOO SOMETHING! school, it's not like Amazon will stop delivering the stuff to campus. If I were there, I'd be selling it out of my dorm room.
Klinky
Colonel Sexters.
"Two-Parent Privilege"
Dennis Prager at NRO:
If you are raised by a father and mother, you enter adulthood with more privileges than anyone else in American society, irrespective of race, ethnicity, or sex. That's why the poverty rate among two-parent black families is only 7 percent.Compare that with a 22 percent poverty rate among whites in single-parent homes. Obviously the two-parent home is the decisive "privilege."
Judith Stacey and Timothy Bednarz find that children raised by gay parents do just as well as those in straight families.
What seems to matter is whether the family is an intact one.
via @Mark_J_Perry
Yell Out Criticism -- "Hey, Dude, Go A Little Lighter On The Donuts!" -- As You Hit Record, So Cop Can't Arrest You For Videotaping Him
Disturbingly, a federal court just ruled that there's no right to record police, except if your recording is accompanied by "challenge or criticism."
(I suspect my suggestion in the header won't actually fly, but please, any lawyers dropping by, please weigh in.)
I don't like unnecessary rudeness or unsolicited advice, but I really, really don't like violations of our civil liberties or people who stand up for them being jailed, fined, or worse.
You stand up for our civil liberties by recording cops and other government employees in action, both to log what they do and as evidence of any misconduct.
At The Freeman, Eugene Volokh writes about the recent Fields v. City of Philadelphia court decision -- which I hope will be swiftly overturned. But here's what it says:
There is no constitutional right to videorecord police, the court says, when the act of recording is unaccompanied by "challenge or criticism" of the police conduct. (The court doesn't decide whether there would be such a right if the challenge or criticism were present.)Therefore, the court held, simply "photograph[ing] approximately twenty police officers standing outside a home hosting a party" and "carr[ying] a camera" to a public protest to videotape "interaction between police and civilians during civil disobedience or protests" wasn't protected by the First Amendment.
I don't think that's right, though. Whether one is physically speaking (to challenge or criticize the police or to praise them or to say something else) is relevant to whether one is engaged in expression. But it's not relevant to whether one is gathering information, and the First Amendment protects silent gathering of information (at least by recording in public) for possible future publication as much as it protects loud gathering of information.
Eugene's take on this:
Your being able to spend money to express your views is protected even when you don't say anything while writing the check (since your plan is to use the funds to support speech that takes place later). Your being able to associate with others for expressive purposes, for instance by signing a membership form or paying your membership dues, is protected even when you aren't actually challenging or criticizing anyone while associating (since your plan is for your association to facilitate speech that takes place later). The same should be true of your recording events in public places.
He suspects this will be overturned.
Here's a quote from the court's conclusion:
We have not found, and the experienced counsel have not cited, any case in the Supreme Court or this Circuit finding citizens have a First Amendment right to record police conduct without any stated purpose of being critical of the government. Absent any authority from the Supreme Court or our Court of Appeals, we decline to create a new First Amendment right for citizens to photograph officers when they have no expressive purpose such as challenging police actions. The citizens are not without remedy because once the police officer takes your phone, alters your technology, arrests you or applies excessive force, we proceed to trial on the Fourth Amendment claims.
Huge chill on free speech. Who can afford to be "Oh, no probski!" about being arrested or having "excessive force" applied?
Linknoggan
Egg sled sandwich.
The New "Oppression"
USC students can submit a video related to "oppression" on campus, reports Anthony Gockowski, for a chance at a $500 prize:
"Have you seen, heard, or experienced oppression on a college campus?" a poster advertising the contest states. "Many would answer yes. What would you do to change that? Submit a skit for a campus wide diversity training led by USC Student Affairs!"Students were encouraged to participate when a campus-wide newsletter promoting the contest was sent out earlier this week.
The contest will award three winners $500 each. At least a portion of the funds allocated to the Office of Student Affairs is derived from student tuition fees, according to The Tab. The prize, however, is likely only a small fraction of a budget distributed to diversity initiatives.
To borrow from Marc Randazza, "Jesus Hello Kitty Christ on a Rocket-Powered Toboggan!"
If you are, in 2016, privileged enough -- yes, privileged -- to attend USC (annual undergrad cost, $67,212), which I got into but by no means could fucking afford, you are not oppressed.
You are something way, way, WAAAAY different from oppressed.
via @adamkissel
In A Free, Democratic Society, No, Keesha, Mere Accusation Isn't Enough; Not Even If The Accused Is A "Creepy"-Looking Man
I think it's horrible that criminals sometimes go free because there isn't enough to convict them.
But you know what I think is more horrible? Innocent people being convicted and having their lives ruined.
I deeply and passionately love our Constitution and the principles of due process. We all should.
Because you could be that accused person one day, or somebody you love could, and what you don't want to have happen is that you or they are convicted on the sympathy vote.
That's the notion that if it's a sexual assault accusation, "Jeez, poor girl..." should triumph over evidence-gathering and all the other standards that make up a justice system that actually errs on the side of justice.
(This is to say that it errs on the side of not convicting innocent people.)
Brendan O'Neill writes at NRO about something that's been on my mind -- those tweeting the #FreeKesha hashtag and rallying around the pop star Keesha, who has accused her producer of sexual assaulting her:
It's the darkest irony of the year so far. Last week, feminists, alongside many others, were praising the recently deceased Harper Lee and her extraordinary literary achievement. Yet just hours later, they were behaving like Lee's literary villains, the outraged mob in To Kill a Mockingbird, who are driven by an ugly, singular conviction: that if enough angry people believe a man is guilty of rape, then he is guilty of rape, and to hell with due process.In their outpouring of belief in pop star Kesha, who claims to have been sexually assaulted but has never had those claims tested or proven, these Lee-celebrating feminists did precisely what Lee's most immoral characters did: They assumed that a man was guilty of rape on the basis of nothing more than accusation and suspicion.
The Kesha story reveals the irrational rot that has set in within much of modern feminism. Kesha spent months trying to wriggle free from her contract with Sony, on the basis that her producer, Dr. Luke, had previously sexually assaulted her. She said that continuing to work with Sony would cause her "irreparable harm." But there's a small problem for Kesha: These claims of rape have never been brought to criminal trial and thus remain unproven. So it's her word against Dr. Luke's, and he says her claims are "outright lies."
Understandably, the Manhattan Supreme Court in New York City, which presumably works from the understanding that Dr. Luke, like everyone else, is innocent until proven guilty, has rejected Kesha's request to be released from her contract.
...Across Twitter and in the pop world, self-styled feminists are insisting that Kesha is an abuse victim who now deserves to be liberated from her contract. Many are tweeting the phrase "I believe Kesha." It's meant to sound caring and female-friendly, but there is an ugly, Salem-like streak in this presumption of a man's guilt. Discussion threads are overflowing with statements of belief in Kesha and defamation of Dr. Luke. At celeb site TMZ, one commenter says: "I believe Kesha. Maybe it's because Dr Luke has a creepy look about him." Yeah, a creepy look -- he must be a rapist. Lock him up.
This mob mentality is alarming. And it's becoming more commonplace in feminist circles. When Woody Allen's daughter Dylan Farrow accused him of having abused her when she was a child, the Internet almost buckled under the weight of "I believe" declarations. One writer slammed those who presumed Allen was innocent, complaining that they were "saying that his innocence is more presumptive than hers." But it is. That is how justice works. All of us are innocent until someone rigorously, beyond doubt, proves us guilty of a crime.
This is what justice demands. What terrifies me is that so many people are demanding injustice.
Linktation
Something to do with bringing tater tots together, but I'm not really sure what...
Banning Conservatives From Twitter Does Not Violate The First Amendment
I recognize this and so does Robby Soave -- and I agree with him:
I hope Twitter treads more lightly in the future--again, not because I have a right to say whatever I want on the platform, but because I'm a customer and would prefer a service that had more respect for free expression.
It's like this site. This is a free expression site.
Unless you are part of a speech-destroying mob, posting comments to wreck the discussion here or seem to have mental problems that lead to the same result, you can criticize me or others here and you won't be banned.
In fact, I love the discussion here and the way all the commenters here have made me careful in my reasoning and in what I post.
(There's nothing that sucks like waking up to find out that you posted something that was some hoax -- which I, thankfully, rarely do.)
For the record, I am not a conservative; I am fiscally conservative and a libertarian. But I defend the free speech rights of liberals, conservatives, neo-nazis, neo-nazi haters, haters of all kinds, and people who untangle yarn as a hobby.
"Innocence Is Not A Defense": Young Men On Campus Are Getting An Unexpected Education
Male and accused of rape at Harvard? You did it.
The TIME article quoting Harvard law prof Alan Dershowitz is behind a paywall, but here's his quote:
"Harvard's policy was written by people who think sexual assault is so heinous a crime that even innocence is not a defense."
In fact, a defense is not even possible. Here's how it worked at Vassar, from Riversong:
Peter Yu, a Vassar student accused of sexually assaulting a female student last year, wasn't allowed legal representation during the college's investigation of his case, according to his lawyer, Andrew Miltenberg, an attorney with Nesenoff & Miltenberg in New York. As a non-native English speaker from China, Yu wasn't able to tell his story, according to a suit citing Title IX violations filed against the college."If you were a senior in college and had paid $200,000 for your education and were hoping to go to medical school, would you want to put all that on the line without a lawyer?" Miltenberg, who maintains his client's innocence, said in a telephone interview.
Yu was expelled in March. Vassar officials declined to comment.
Here's how it worked for a young wrestler:
Assault on young men on college campuses: a father's perspective 12/18/2014My son, Corey Mock was accused of sexual assault by a young lady named Molly Morris [she had published her name previously] while at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga in the Spring of 2014. I am not writing this to defend my son; the truth is, no one really cares - that's life. I am writing this because I don't want to ever read about this happening to another wrestler again.
My son asked Molly Morris if she wanted to go into the bedroom; she said "yes". They both lay in the bed and began kissing. He removed her pants and performed oral sex. At some point, he stopped to remove his clothes and she removed her bra. He climbed on top of her and after having some trouble entering her, she reached down and guided him inside her. At NO TIME during this encounter did Ms. Morris communicate in any way that she did not wish to engage in sexual activity, verbal or otherwise. She does not dispute that any of these details happened, she merely says she does "not remember" (a toxicology exam a day later was negative confirming there was no drug in her system). Two days later, after a series of very pleasant text message exchanges between the two of them which are in evidence, she suddenly informs him that she "never gave consent to sex".
At the initial hearing conducted by the school, my son was found innocent of all charges. One week later, with absolutely NO additional evidence or explanation, the judge simply reversed her decision.
There has been a fundamental change on college campuses all over this country. In this current culture of "hookups" in lieu of dating, with women every bit as sexually aggressive as men on campuses, parents, wrestling coaches, and wrestlers heading to college need to understand the extent of this new danger. I am not just the father of a wrestler, I am a Division 1 wrestling coach as well and I am very familiar with the college culture.
If a woman accuses you of sexual assault at UTC, you will immediately be removed from the wrestling team prior to any investigation or determination of guilt. YOU HAVE NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS IN COLLEGE. The colleges have taken the position that you relinquish your rights when you sign the application and the courts have upheld this. This is not just at UTC, this is everywhere. The University or College will do everything in its power to prosecute you and kick you out of school regardless of the evidence and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, and they know it. You can sue the school and the alleged victim as we are doing, but the minimum cost to sue is $50,000 and the NCAA isn't going to give you your year back if you win.
Here's how it works when the case is where it should be -- in the criminal justice system. Mock's father posted this update:
1/11/2015 - We are finally out of "school court" and in a REAL court system with a REAL judge where they require REAL evidence and are not subject to REAL politics. A place where unlike the colleges, the feminists and activists pushing the man-hating agendas have no power or influence. A real judge reviewed the case and SHE ordered him back in school.
By the way, Dershowitz later dialed back on blaming Harvard, and blamed the federal government, and specifically, the Obama administration -- the source of the "Dear Colleague" letter that turned college campuses into very dangerous places for anyone with a penis.
Remember -- this is just like the Salem Witch Hunts. Whether you actually did anything; whether you actually even know the girl who accused you; that's immaterial.
Her accusation is all it takes to, effectively, burn your future at the stake.
Dershowitz via @SteveStuWill
Slurpee
Wet, slushy links.
Just Call It eBoy: Supposed Bias In Ebay Earnings
There's supposedly a "bias" in people's buying behavior that causes men to make more money than women selling stuff on eBay.
Yes, my greatest concern is what sex the seller is, so I can overpay for something a man is selling, compared to what I would have paid a woman.
Bamzi Banchiri writes at CSM about a new eBay study:
Women, if you're selling something new on eBay, you'll make more money if you get a male friend to sell it, according to a new study.The findings, published Friday in the Journal Science Advances, revealed that on average, women make about 80 cents for every dollar a man does when selling the identical new product. The gender gap is much less acute on used goods, with women making 97 cents for every dollar on the same product sold by a man.
Although Ebay doesn't advertise a seller's gender, the researchers say buyers can figure it out by looking at the seller's username and the other products he or she is selling.
Oh, please. I bought some dropcloths. I think the sellers were both a man and woman, a married couple. However, I only found this out after I paid.
Tragically, I didn't think to be more investigative before, so I could half overpay and half underpay.
Of course, I don't look at the seller's made-up name; just the item description and the price, and sometimes, the rating of the seller.
via @CHSommers
Who Didn't See This Coming? Second-Class Healthcare In A Third-Class Way Under Obamacare
If you like your doctor...you could lose your doctor. I'm guessing other healthcare plans will soon follow Highmark's lead.
Highmark said Friday it plans to reduce what it pays doctors who treat patients with Obamacare plans.
Wes Venteicher writes at TribLive:
Citing an estimated $500 million loss last year on health insurance plans sold on the Affordable Care Act marketplace, Highmark Inc. said Friday it plans to reduce what it pays doctors who treat patients with the plans.Highmark plans to reduce payments to the physicians by 4.5 percent starting April 1 as part of a broad effort to stem losses related to the federal marketplace, said Alexis Miller, Highmark's special vice president of individual and small group markets.
Miller estimated the insurer paid about $500 million more for patients' care in 2015 than it collected in premiums for the plans sold on the federal marketplace, resulting in the loss. Highmark officials have said the people who signed up through the health law's marketplace were sicker than the insurer expected.
John Krah, executive director of the Allegheny County Medical Society, said doctors should not be held responsible for Highmark setting plan costs too low to cover patients' care.
"It's inappropriate for Highmark to seek to compensate for their failure to price these products appropriately by paying physicians less," Krah said.
Faced with lower reimbursement rates for ACA patients, doctors could end up setting quotas for how many of the patients they would accept at their practices, the way they do for Medicare and Medicaid patients, he said.
By then, Obama will be out on a golf course somewhere, leaving his trail of "Affordable" "Care" turds for the next president.
And do note how I wrote that above. It used to just be "Affordable" in scare quotes. Soon, it'll be joined by "Care."
Inky
Binky, bottle of links...
Often, Creative Work -- Like Prof'l Writing And Songwriting -- Barely Pays Anymore
Back in 1997 or 1998, when I wrote the piece for the LA Times Magazine (now no longer in existence) about my pink Rambler being stolen, I made $1 a word (for maybe 1,000 words), which was actually kind of low right then.
Writing a piece like that takes maybe a week and probably more (humor writing tends to take longer).
Well, now, in 2016, I get calls to write (for respected publications) for $200 or $250.
And not just some piece I can "bang out." (I've never "banged" a piece out in my life.)
One publication -- one I happen to like -- asked me to do 1,500-3,000 word pieces for $200 or $250. Can't remember which amount it was. And they were talking smart pieces with reporting in them -- the sort of piece that takes you the better part of a week or more.
Who can write for this money who doesn't have a trust fund or who isn't promoting their lucrative law practice?
My favorite one of these calls kept me on the phone for half an hour only to come up with that rate and then tell me, "But the site will keep the rights." (This is very non-standard -- you typically give first North American rights and then get to resell your piece, or have the right to use it in a book, as I did with this Rambler piece, which I expanded into a chapter in I SEE RUDE PEOPLE: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society.)
Of course, a huge part of the problem is that print is having a hard time making money, thanks to the Internet.
Songwriters have it even worse.
John Seabrook writes in The New Yorker, "Will Streaming Kill Music Songwriting?":
For many songwriters, the wake-up call comes when they have their first streaming hit. For Michelle Lewis, an indie-rock singer-songwriter who now writes primarily for other artists, it was the song "Wings," which she co-wrote for the British girl group Little Mix. Lewis and her writing partner, Kay Hanley, the former lead singer of the band Letters to Cleo, had been busy working on a Disney show (children's TV relies heavily on alt-rock music), and at first she didn't realize how popular the song had become."We were emerging from this bubble," she told me, "and I realized, 'I have this hit. This is going to be good! Nearly three million streams on Spotify!' And then my check came, and it was for seventeen dollars and seventy-two cents. That's when I was, like, 'What the fuck?' So I called Kay."
"And I said, 'What the fuck?' " Hanley recalled.
Lewis was one of fourteen people credited for the song (some of whom had bigger shares than others). The discrepancy between the stream count and her earnings surprised her. The numbers from other services were similar.*
"We started reading and talking to our friends and fellow-songwriters," Lewis said. Eventually, they found their way to Dina LaPolt, a music lawyer in Los Angeles, who specializes in copyright and songwriter issues.
Lewis: "And Dina said to us, 'Where the fuck have you bitches been?' "
Hanley: "She literally said that."
LaPolt told them that unless streaming rates were changed and the music-licensing system were overhauled for the digital age, the profession of songwriting was on its way to extinction. And they were on their own, she added, because, while everyone loves a songwriter, members of the profession have no actual bargaining power, whether via a union or another powerful institution, and so, when the money in the industry dries up, they're in serious trouble.
"Our jaws were on the floor at the end of talking to her," Lewis said.
What's the solution? Well, personally, after I turn in my book in September, I'll start going hard after speaking engagements -- talking on applied science: How people can use science, as I do in my books and columns, to make their lives work better. (I've already spoken to 500-plus psychology students and faculty at Cal State Fullerton and I spoke at the last Human Behavior and Evolution Society conference, in Missouri in May.)
I'm also editing a friend's next book before she turns it in to her publisher. (I edited her last, and give comments on some of her scientific papers, and apparently really help.) Maybe I'll do more of that.
I won't stop writing; I just need writing to pay on a level where I'm not going to be burning through my savings to do it.
Rent A Minority! Diversity On Demand!
Hilarious parody site that I'm sure some people will take as for realz.
Rent-A-Minority is a revolutionary new service designed for those oh-shit moments where you've realized your award show, corporate brochure, conference panel is entirely composed of white men. For, like, the fifth year in a row. Suddenly you're being called out on Twitter and you need to look not-racist and not-misogynist fast. Actually doing something meaningful to disrupt institutional inequality would be way too much work; so why not just Rent-A-Minority instead?
More:
We have a minority for every occasion. Whether it's a tech conference panel, an awards show, an advert, or a business meeting, we will collaborate to find the right minority for you. All of our minorities have been vetted to ensure they are not "too black" or "too Muslim" or "too much of a Feminist." We know how awkward that can be. Each minority comes with bespoke pricing based on a proprietary algorithm that analyzes current states of supply/demand and the Degree of Diversity (TM) intrinsic to the potential hire.
Featured minorities include:
Ethnically Ambiguous
Mexican? Arab? Asian? Mixed? What even are they?! It doesn't matter...the exotic Ethnically Ambiguous minority can be whoever or whatever you want her/him to be.Cheerful Woman of Color
Won't embarrass you by being "an angry black woman."Smiling Muslim Woman
Certified not to support ISIS (or your money back).Intellectual Black Guy
Good for tech conferences. Also available to stand next to you while you say racist things at parties. Because you can't be racist if one of your best friends is black, obvs.
Such Cutely Compliant Protesters
This is a "revolution" with Papa Smurf as its role model.
Milo Yiannopoulos and Christina Hoff Sommers interrupted by male feminists at University of Minnesota.
Linkin
Abie to his linkie friends.
HumanLab -- The Science Between Us: Get My Just-Recorded Podcast On The Science Of Touch
How Touch Drives Our Emotions and Behavior, with neuroscientist Dr. David Linden.
From my show description:
On this show, neuroscientist David Linden takes us on a journey from our fingertips to our funparts and explains how huge an influence touch is in every aspect of our lives.He lays out, for example, how touch can improve your success in business. We also discuss when it may hurt you. He also explains how vital touch is to a child's development and well being and about how much touch a child needs. These are just a few of the ways that touch drives our emotional experience. We discuss many more.
The show comes out of Linden's fascinating book, just out in paperback, Touch: The Science of Heart, Hand, and Mind.
The Wisdom Of The Crowd
Via @SteveStuWill, this is a quote from a book by frequent Ludwig von Mises Institute speaker, scholar Robert P. Murphy.
The book looks like a great overview of a lot of important concepts, and it's The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism
Once You Go Mud Pack...
There is no limit to the things that cause racial hurt feelz on campus these days.
Remember back when you had teenage slumber parties? Well, I didn't have any, but if I had, I might've done that DIY skincare thing of leaving a mudpack on, all over the face, save for the eyes and mouth.
Well, some students did that at the University of Wisconsin, thought, shit, we look dippy; let's do some selfies, and Snapchatted a photo of themselves.
Holy Martin Luther King, Batman, would you look at that "racism"?!
Here, from the Daily Mail, from a story by Darren Boyle, is that selfie:
More from the story:
Initially, college chancellor Beverly Kopper released a statement condemning the post: 'Last night a disturbing racist post that was made to social media was brought to my attention.'This post was hurtful and destructive to our campus community. While social media can certainly bring about positive change, it can also be a place that deeply hurts and harms others.'
...The students said they had both underwent a facial and did not realise that posting the image of them undergoing their treatment would cause offence.
Chancellor Kopper accepted the students' explanation and they will not face any disciplinary action.
One of the students told WISN.com: 'I put it on the UW SnapChat. I didn't really think about it being blackface. I just thought it looked funny.'
via @Instapundit
Linkety
Dinkety dock...
Asshole Privilege At Universities
What's true privilege? Thinking you can skip all your classes to march around demanding non-culturally appropriated food in the cafeteria -- and then still pass and even get good grades.
The Special Snowflake SJWs are complaining that skipping class to picket and group-whine is causing them some issues.
Mei Novak writes in the Brown Daily Herald:
"There are people breaking down, dropping out of classes and failing classes because of the activism work they are taking on," said David, an undergraduate whose name has been changed to preserve anonymity. Throughout the year, he has worked to confront issues of racism and diversity on campus.His role as a student activist has taken a toll on his mental, physical and emotional health. "My grades dropped dramatically. My health completely changed. I lost weight. I'm on antidepressants and anti-anxiety pills right now. (Counseling and Psychological Services) counselors called me. I had deans calling me to make sure I was okay," he said.
As students rallied to protest two racist columns published by The Herald and the alleged assault of a Latinx student from Dartmouth by a Department of Public Safety officer, David spent numerous hours organizing demonstrations with fellow activists. Meanwhile, he struggled to balance his classes, job and social life with the activism to which he feels so dedicated. Stressors and triggers flooded his life constantly, he said.
David turned to CAPS and reached out to deans for notes that extended his deadlines for assignments. These were helpful, he said, but acted only as "bandages" for the underlying causes of stress.
True "privilege" (and I don't mean that in a good way) is being given an education and not taking advantage of it.
Via @CollegeFix. Their tweet:
@CollegeFix
Feel for them, people: "Schoolwork, advocacy place strain on student activists"
Government Thug-ocrats Are Forced To Give Back The Money They Stole From One Man Under "Asset Forfeiture"
I am someone who is wildly grateful to have been the recipient of a pro bono legal defense -- by Marc J. Randazza after TSA worker Thedala Magee got herself a lawyer and tried to squeeze me for $500K plus a blog take-down and a written apology.
She got none of that -- but it took countless hours worth thousands and thousands of dollars by Randazza and his associates for my defense.
In other words, pro bono is not free.
So while it is just wonderful that the Institute for Justice won the case for "asset forfeiture" victim Ken Quran -- who had $150,000 of his money legally stolen by government thug-ocrats -- it is terrible that this was necessary.
And it was surely costly for the Institute for Justice to bring this case.
Many victims of this government theft -- this disgustingly euphemized "asset forfeiture" -- would have the entire sum stolen from them eaten up by hiring a lawyer to get it back.
And those who are victimized tend not to be the powerhouses of society -- maybe they wouldn't even know how to find the right lawyer.
Let's hope this Institute for Justice case chips away, at least in some small way, at the asset forfeiture programs still in place.
About the current case, John Kramer writes at IJ:
Arlington, Va.--It is a major victory for the individual against the seemingly all-powerful IRS. In a single-page letter, sent this morning by fax, the IRS agreed to return a North Carolina convenience store owner's entire life savings.The IRS seized $153,907.99 from Ken Quran in June 2014, without any warning or meaningful prior investigation, simply because he repeatedly withdrew cash from his bank in amounts under $10,000.
Ken's money was seized under so-called "structuring" laws. These laws were designed to target criminals evading bank-reporting requirements. But under IRS policy at the time of the seizure, the IRS applied the structuring laws to seize cash from individuals and businesses accused only of frequent under-$10,000 cash transactions.
The IRS changed its policies in October 2014 to prevent such seizures. But those changes came too late for people like Ken, whose property was seized before the policy change.
So, in July 2015, the Institute for Justice submitted a petition to the IRS on Ken's behalf, arguing that the IRS should apply its policy retroactively to Ken's case. The petition argued that the money "would not be seized--much less forfeited--under current government policy" and urged the IRS to "do the right thing and give the money back."
This week, IJ sent a letter to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen following up on the petition--and urging the IRS to act quickly to give Ken his money back.
Today's letter states that Ken's petition is granted "in full."
"I'm so happy," said Ken, "The IRS never should have taken my money in the first place, but I'm so grateful that it has now done the right thing. I worked hard for that money. This is justice."
The Institute for Justice also filed a petition in July 2015 on behalf of Randy Sowers, a Maryland dairy farmer who had $29,500 forfeited by the IRS. There has not yet been any ruling on Randy's petition.
"If the IRS is willing to do the right thing for Ken, they should do the right thing for Randy--and all the other property owners in the same situation," said IJ Attorney Robert Everett Johnson, who represents both Ken and Randy. "Today's decision opens a way for other victims of the structuring laws to get back what's rightfully theirs."
According to data obtained by the Institute for Justice from the IRS via the Freedom of Information Act, the IRS forfeited about $43 million in 618 structuring cases between 2007 and 2013 in which the IRS reported no suspicion of criminal activity other than the mere fact of sub-$10,000 cash deposits.
Here's another example of how this works -- how stacked the deck is against a citizen. From the IJ site:
Rhonda Cox, the Arizona mother whose son was arrested for theft, learned this the hard way. After her truck was seized, she told two police officers that it was hers and that she had nothing to do with her son's crime. Both told her that she would never get her property back. Cox then provided proof of ownership to the county attorney's office and explained that she had no knowledge of the truck's involvement with any illegal activity. The prosecutor rejected her plea and started legal actions to forfeit her truck.On her own and without a lawyer, Cox filed the paperwork required to challenge the forfeiture as an innocent owner--paying a $304 filing fee for the privilege. But eventually she gave up. The legal process was too convoluted, and--as the prosecutor had warned her--if she lost, not only would she lose the truck, but under Arizona law she would also have to pay the government's legal costs. 19
Cox lost her truck without ever having been accused of a crime and without ever having gotten her day in court. Innocent third-party owners who do make it to court will often face a bizarre and almost impossible task: proving their own innocence.
As shown in Figure 8, innocent owner provisions in federal law and 35 states place the burden of proof on owners, meaning that owners must prove they had nothing to do with the alleged crime. In essence, most civil forfeiture laws presume that people are connected to any criminal activity involving their property and force them to prove otherwise to recover it. This is precisely the opposite of what happens in criminal trials, where the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty by the government. It also often involves a practical impossibility, as it requires people to prove a negative--that they did not know about or consent to the illegal use of their property.
Only 10 states and the District of Columbia demand that the government prove owners did something wrong before forfeiting their property. In the remaining states, whether the burden of proof falls on the owner or the government generally depends on the type of property involved.
Another case -- from the Freeman:
Willie Jones of Nashville was flying to Houston on February 27, 1991, to purchase plants for his landscaping business. Because Jones was black and paid cash for his plane ticket, the ticket clerk reported him to nearby Drug Enforcement Agency officers, who presumed Jones was a drug courier. DEA officers at the Nashville airport approached Jones, checked his identification, and asked permission to search him. Although Jones refused to grant permission, the officers searched him anyway and found $9,000 in cash. The DEA agents then announced that they were "detaining" the money. Jones observed: "They said I was going to buy drugs with it, that their dog sniffed it and said it had drugs on it." (A 1989 study found that 70 percent of all the currency in the United States had cocaine residue on it.) Jones never saw the dog. The officers didn't arrest Jones, but they kept the money. When Jones asked the officers for a receipt for his money, they handed him a receipt for an "undetermined amount of U.S. currency." Jones objected and asked the officers to count the money out, but the officers refused, claiming that such an action would violate DEA policy.Federal judge Thomas Wiseman, in an April 1993 decision, concluded that "the officers' behavior at this point was casual and sarcastic . . . /they believed that the seizure of the currency was all but a fait accompli . . . they cared little for Mr. Jones's feelings of insecurity." Judge Wiseman concluded that the DEA officials' testimony on the seizure was "misleading," "unconvincing," and "inconsistent" and ordered the money returned--after a two- year legal battle. Jones observed: "I didn't know it was against the law for a 42-year-old black man to have money in his pocket."
This is absolutely sick. Property rights and the protection of property rights are foundational to a democracy.
Yet here we are: The state can steal your cash or goods by simply saying that you did something wrong. You are forced to "prove" -- at great expense and with great effort -- that you didn't to get your cash or property through criminal activity.
And we are better than unfree countries how?
Welcome to the Confiscation State. That's a lovely watch you have. Proceeds from a drug deal?
Linkiephant
This may be the cutest cute animal video I have ever seen. (And I'm not really the cute animal video type.)
Telling Students To Watch Out That Their Drinks Aren't Drugged Is "Rape Culture"-Driven "Victim Blaming"
Forget whether anybody was actually spiking drinks at or around Claremont McKenna. There was some talk of this, so the college -- rather responsibly -- warned students to keep an eye on their beverages.
Eekers.
Campus feminist panties wadded up instantly in response.
Robby Soave writes at Reason:
Such common sense suggestions promote "rape culture" and are akin to blaming the victim, according to one student.It's better not to pass along good advice if said advice empowers women to protect themselves in any manner whatsoever, I guess.
...It's not clear that any drinks were actually drugged--the evidence was anecdotal--but the administration thought it best to remind students to keep an eye on their drinks at all times. That's hardly earth-shattering advice, and it certainly isn't offensive.
Or so one would think. Student Kay Calloway wrote in a statement on Facebook that the email was "disgusting" and "unacceptable." "This is rape culture," she wrote. "By no stretch of the imagination is it the fault of the drugged students that our campus is made unsafe."
This is...idiotic.
As Soave notes:
We can only reduce rape on campuses if we are allowed to actually discuss its proximate causes. To those who say we should stop blaming rape victims, I say: stop pretending that anyone other than the rapist was blamed.
Money Changes Everything: A Boy Named "Sue The Hell Out Of Them"
The removal of due process from men on campus accused of sexual assault continues apace on campus after campus.
And, for any newbies popping in here, yes, if there is evidence somebody committed rape -- judged in the actual criminal justice system instead of in a campus kangaroo court -- well, of course there should be punishment.
But today, the status quo on college campuses is bye-bye due process for men -- thanks to an Obama Ed Dept. "Dear Colleague" letter and the threat of the removal of federal funds from non-compliant campuses.
But there are some bright spots. One of these is from Montana, where, per a WaPo headline: "Montana quarterback receives $245K settlement for university's 'unfair and biased' rape investigation"
Michael E. Miller writes in the WaPo:
Jordan Johnson was the star quarterback for the University of Montana. He was tall and handsome and an NFL hopeful. He had nearly led the team to a national title.Then, suddenly, he was accused of rape.
On March 19, 2012, a Missoula television station reported that a female student had filed a restraining order against Johnson after she accused him of raping her six weeks earlier. Life quickly unraveled for Johnson. He was expelled from school, then criminally charged with rape. In February of 2013, a year after the alleged incident, he went on trial.
...Johnson was acquitted in March of 2013. He promptly sued the university.
And on Tuesday, four years after the alleged rape took place, it was announced that the ex-quarterback would receive $245,000 over the expulsion.
"Any student accused of wrongdoing deserves a fair and impartial hearing of the facts of his or her case," Johnson said in the statement, according to the Associated Press. "Officials at the University of Montana -- people who were in positions of great power -- were unfair and biased. Their misconduct made my family and me suffer unnecessarily, both emotionally and financially."
The dramatic reversal is just one of a slew of lawsuits nationwide in which young men have accused universities of erroneously and over-zealously clamping down on sexual assault.
On Monday, two male students at the University of Texas filed lawsuits claiming the school used them as scapegoats to build a reputation for being tough on sexual assault, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
Those complaints are part of a growing phenomenon. As American universities try to rein in sexual assaults on campus, more and more men are claiming -- often in multi-million-dollar lawsuits -- that they innocently have been caught up in the crackdown.
And this is precisely what needs to happen. Only by showing schools that they will pay for the removal of due process from men is there any hope that this will stop happening.
I just wish Johnson had gotten more money.
And to do more about stopping the disgusting violations of civil liberties on campuses across America, my request to wealthy, charitable people who give to colleges:
Check out the college you normally give to or would give to. What are their free speech policies? Do they stand for it -- or roll over for the first freshman who complains of hurt feelz?
Do men on campus get a fair shake if they're accused of sexual assault? And by fair shake, I mean, is the case dispatched to law enforcement -- or judged in a campus kangaroo court by some girl who's running late to her yoga final?
If you can't answer yes to these questions, a suggestion: Instead of sending money to a college this year, send a letter -- telling them why you aren't and what they need to do to start seeing money from you again.
And then band together with other parents, wealthy donors, and others who care about free speech and civil liberties and get them all to do the same.
What we all have to refuse to do is to let government-driven thuggery and greedy PR-driven college administrators win the day.
If they do, individuals involved in these cases obviously lose, but in that happening, we all lose -- in civil liberties and free debate, which is what elevates us as a society, and which is what free, democratic societies are made of.
Oh, and if you want to know what to do with the money you would have given to a college, my suggestion: Give it to campus free speech defenders theFIRE.org, which defends, pro bono, those on campus who have their free speech rights yanked from them -- and who are too often even fired (in the case of professors) or expelled.
Linkie Sue
From the album, At Linkie Quentin.
TSA "Academy": Pretend Airport Security's New "Advanced Training"
Great Chris Bray post at TSA News Blog on how the TSA is doing a little image management with a "national training academy":
The new academy is a response to the TSA's spectacularly high failure rate during "red team" testing. The agency's smurfs used to "train" on the job at airport checkpoints, but now "train" at a single, national facility. Take a moment to watch the video: TSA officers are still TSA officers, slack-jawed mouthbreathers (in a GED-optional job) who mindlessly repeat empty slogans about the dangers and challenges of Thedala Mageeing septuagenarian crotches and sobbing toddler bodies.And the training is still the training: A trainer points at an x-ray screen, for example, and asks a trainee: "Do you see anything prohibited in that bag?" But instead of pointing at an x-ray screen and asking a trainee, "Do you see anything prohibited in that bag?" at a local airport, the trainer now points at an x-ray screen and asks a trainee, "Do you see anything prohibited in that bag?" at a national facility.
And the perfect analysis from Bray:
It's like if the bagger at the Piggly Wiggly flew to a different city to learn how to put eggs in a bag.
VA Suicide Hotline: "Your Call Is Very Important To Us..."
Horrifyingly, some of vets' suicide hotline calls went to voicemail. With the predictable tragic consequences.
Yes, vets, we care about you -- just not enough to give you timely or adequate medical care or to do what it takes to have a human being present on the suicide hotline when you call.
Here's the CBS report:
A suicide hotline operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs allowed crisis calls to go into voicemail, and callers did not always receive immediate assistance, according to a report by the agency's internal watchdog.The report by the VA's office of inspector general says calls to the suicide hotline have increased dramatically in recent years, as veterans increasingly seek services following prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the aging of Vietnam-era veterans.
The crisis hotline -- the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary -- received more than 450,000 calls in 2014, a 40 percent increase over the previous year.
About in 1 in 6 calls are redirected to backup centers when the crisis line is overloaded, the report said. Calls went to voicemail at some backup centers, including least one where staffers apparently were unaware there was a voicemail system, the report said.
"Unaware"? Not acceptable. And that's on the VA's part -- because it is their job to see that those they farm care out to are doing an adequate (or, ideally, better than adequate) job.
On a more positive note, at least the VA's service is consistent -- consistently substandard and a consistent slap in the face to veterans.
And really -- put yourself in the shoes of somebody who feels they have nothing left to live for, and suspects they should or could feel differently, and does the enormous thing (for a depressed person), of finding a phone number, dialing a phone and asking for help.
And then...
"Your call is very important to us..."
No. Just no.
Kinky
Linky with a little red riding crop.
The "Why Spend A Bunch Of Money?"-Phone
Great today-only deal on a phone: Motorola Moto G black 16 GB. List: $199.99; Today only, $85.99 at Amazon -- 57% off.
Also, great deal on a dimmable LED lamp -- regularly $199, but only $31.99 at this link. Plus it's a highly-rated best-seller!
To buy something you don't see listed here, just use this link: Search Amy's Amazon
And thank you, all of you, who shop through my Amazon links.
Idiots At Vassar Sell Terror T-Shirts To Raise Money For "Palestinian Resistance"
Actually, that should say "useful idiots," because there are surely some gays and women among them.
These groups -- especially teh gayz -- don't do so well over there in Islamland.
And by "don't do so well," in the case of the gays, I mean "are often put to death" (often by their own families) if their closeted lives become uncloseted.
And check out the shirt they're peddling:
Okay, so stabbing old Jewish men on the street and a mother of six in her home and blowing up buses and pizza places is okay if it serves your cause? Good to know!
Meanwhile, college students at Vassar and elsewhere find it unbearable to hear mere words they disagree with.
As David Marc Grant puts it on the idiots' Facebook post:
There's nothing to be afraid of. Indeed anyone wearing this is likely to be a 90 pound vegan afraid of his own shadow. But do something useful with your money and plant trees in Israel instead. ..Furthermore, terrorism is fairly well defined. Indiscriminate targeting of civilians and non combatants is terrorism, not resistance. So if you're targeting the IDF, ok that's at least debatably an act of resistance. But it's well understood that the martyrs and jihadists are not specifically targeting the IDF, they are targeting Jews in general. This is terrorism and racism. Not resistance.
Adam Kredo writes about the t-shirt campaign at FreeBeacon:
The Vassar chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, an anti-Israel organization that has been banned at some colleges for disseminating anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda, announced recently on Facebook that it is selling t-shirts featuring Leila Khaled, a convicted Palestinian terrorist and airplane hijacker.The profits will help the anti-Israel students fund Palestinian resistance efforts against Israel, according to the group's Facebook page.
An original version of the posting, which has since been updated to sanitize the language, urged supporters to purchase "sweet fucking anti-Zionist gear." All of the profits, the group claimed, "goes towards organizing Palestinian resistance."
The updated Facebook posting states: "Check out our friends at Existence is Resistance!!! They will be selling sweet anti-Zionist gear at our events," the Facebook page states. "100% of profits goes towards Existence Is Resistance."
Morons. Especially because some of them are probably gay and/or see themselves as supporters of gay rights.
The Zionists -- as in, the Israelis -- are the people over Middle East who support gay rights and even have gay pride parades. There are, sure, fundamentalist Jews who go after the gays over there -- but this is not acceptable behavior in Israel, as in, it gets punished by law.
Gay in Palestine: Probably death.
Attack gays in Israel: Go to jail.
Which place do you think humanity suggests we support?
The Three-Plus Stooges And Then Some: Welcome To The 2016 American Presidential Race
Scanning the field of petulant and deluded children, uh, candidates, I'm thinking that the best option is Mitt Romney.
You?
Discuss.
Parmesan Should Not Grow On Trees
Those of you who think government protects you, think again.
It took a tip to the FDA for them to discover that -- as Lydia Mulvany reports at Bloomberg -- "Castle Cheese Inc. was doctoring its 100 percent real parmesan with cut-rate substitutes and such fillers as wood pulp and distributing it to some of the country's biggest grocery chains."
Mulvany explains that some brands promising 100 percent pure cheese were found to have no Parmesan at all:
Some grated Parmesan suppliers have been mislabeling products by filling them with too much cellulose, a common anti-clumping agent made from wood pulp, or using cheaper cheddar, instead of real Romano. Someone had to pay. Castle President Michelle Myrter is scheduled to plead guilty this month to criminal charges. She faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine....Cellulose is a safe additive, and an acceptable level is 2 percent to 4 percent, according to Dean Sommer, a cheese technologist at the Center for Dairy Research in Madison, Wisconsin. Essential Everyday 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese, from Jewel-Osco, was 8.8 percent cellulose, while Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Great Value 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese registered 7.8 percent, according to test results. Whole Foods 365 brand didn't list cellulose as an ingredient on the label, but still tested at 0.3 percent. Kraft had 3.8 percent.
"We remain committed to the quality of our products," Michael Mullen, a Kraft Heinz Co. spokesman, said in an e-mail. John Forrest Ales, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said he questioned the reliability of testing a single sample and that Wal-Mart's "compliance team is looking into these findings."
Jewel-Osco is also investigating, spokeswoman Mary Frances Trucco said in an e-mail. "We pride ourselves on the quality of products we deliver for our customers," Trucco said.
...Until recently, there was little incentive to follow labeling rules. Criminal cases are rare. That's because the FDA, which enforces the country's food laws, prioritizes health hazards, said John Spink, director of the Food Fraud Initiative at Michigan State University.
Oh, about the job the FDA does, they're very sorry, all you dead people who got scoped -- for decades -- with bacteria-transmitting equipment.
Yippeeee!
Linkeeee!
Silverglate On Scalia's Important Impatience With Murky Federal Criminal Laws
TheFIRE.org founder, lawyer Harvey Silverglate, wrote the book Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent
Silverglate writes at WGBH:
Scalia's impatience was particularly acute when dealing with a problem that is disturbingly common in federal criminal law: the plethora of statutes so vague and broad that no person of normal intelligence - or even superior intellect for that matter - can figure out where the line is being drawn between crime and business-as-usual. Scalia was the member of the court most disturbed when a citizen found himself convicted of violating a statute that gave no fair and clear guidance of the demanded standard of conduct.Scalia was what we lawyers call an "originalist"--someone who believes that when the Constitution was written, its words, phrases, and concepts were meant to set out a blueprint for a society where government powers are limited, where citizens' (and others') rights and obligations are spelled out, and where those dictates are not lightly trampled upon in the absence of a hard-to-obtain amendment to the Constitution. Original meaning, in other words, does not change with the times in the absence of an amendment.
Scalia took literally and absolutely some constitutional commandments that other judges and justices try to skirt or re-define in order to achieve what they view as some overriding social or political goal. Scalia prioritized free speech rights, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, protection of the right to trial by jury (despite others' repeated attempts to cut corners), and, importantly, the obligation of Congress and state legislatures to enact clearly-worded criminal statutes that gave fair warning of what actions (or inactions, for that matter) could land one in prison.
This notion - that all of us are entitled to have the clear guidance of the law in deciding what we should and should not do - is essential to liberty. Indeed, it curtails the power
of the government to decide anew what is unlawful whenever prosecutors want to bring a case. The notion is not exactly new, having (in theory at least) been enshrined as one element of "Due Process of Law." Due Process is a concept set forth in the original Bill of Rights that constricts the power of the federal government to infringe on an individuals' rights. After the Civil War, the concept was written into the Fourteenth Amendment,
applying it to state governments that might otherwise be tempted to interfere with the property or liberties of citizens without resort to fair processes....Rebalancing politics and federal criminal law may have to await the next Antonin Scalia, and I would not make a wager that such a justice is likely any time soon. It takes a certain intellect, and a certain character and courage, to tell the Department of Justice that, like the fabled emperor, it is wearing no clothes.
There's Now A Boohoo Department At The University Of Portland
I now typically describe college as "nursery school with beer."
Greg Lukianoff, at theFIRE.org, the campus free-speech-defending organization, explains that students conflate being emotionally safe and being physically safe.
There's yet another example of that at the private Catholic college, the University of Portland, reports Michael McGrady -- a sort of "If you hear something, say something" website:
The University of Portland has launched a "Speak Up" webpage that encourages students to report "incidents of discomfort" to its Public Safety department."We ask members of our community to SPEAK UP and report alleged incidents of discrimination and incidents of discomfort regarding observed or experienced interactions of intolerance," the university states on the webpage.
..."The University of Portland takes seriously its responsibility to provide an inclusive environment for all UniversityPortlandSpeakUpmembers of our community," said Rachel Barry-Arquit in an email to The College Fix. Barry-Arquit is the university's director of marketing and communication.
Isn't it the University of Portland's job to provide an environment for unfettered learning -- the sort that fosters debate (and through that, further learning and growth)?
The Beacon campus newspaper reports Speak Up was created at a time when "students of color feel isolated on campus" through the widespread use of microaggressions on campus.
Well, when you leave campus, you're going to be ill-prepared for the world around you, in which people are going to say things that upset and even "microaggress" you all the fucking time.
Jonathan Haidt just talked about Nassim Taleb's Antifragile
JONATHAN HAIDT: That children are anti-fragile. Bone is anti-fragile. If you treat it gently, it will get brittle and break. Bone actually needs to get banged around to toughen up. And so do children. I'm not saying they need to be spanked or beaten, but they need to have a lot of unsupervised time, to get in over their heads and get themselves out. And that greatly decreased in the 1980s. Anxiety, fragility and psychological weakness have skyrocketed in the last 15-20 years. So, I think millennials come to college with much thinner skins. And therefore, until that changes, I think we're going to keep seeing these demands to never hear anything offensive.
News from FIRE about the idiots enrolled at UCLA:
Nearly half (43.2 percent) of freshmen responded that they "agree strongly" or "agree somewhat" with the statement that "[c]olleges have the right to ban extreme speakers from campus." And a large majority (70.9 percent) of respondents "strongly agree" or "agree somewhat" that "[c]olleges should prohibit racist/sexist speech on campus." When this same statement was presented to students in the early 1990s, around 60 percent of students agreed.
Yes, it should go very well for you in life if your expectation is not that you debate people you disagree with but that you merely -- Disney-style -- make them "POOF!" go away.
Personally, I find that debate -- including waking up to people in these blog comments telling me what an idiot I am for posting or thinking something -- makes me a better thinker and more careful in what I post. (Which isn't an invitation to go all willy-nilly calling me an idiot, thanks!)
Hey, Kanye: I Don't Think That's The "Overcome" MLK Was Talking About
Kardashian husband and extreme spendthrift Kanye West claims to be $53 million in debt.
This is not a surprise, considering this sort of thing from a Guardian Music article:
West certainly has the kind of extravagant tastes that require significant sums of money. When he made his proposal of marriage to Kim Kardashian in October 2013, he did so not by taking her to a local bistro but by hiring a 41,000-capacity baseball stadium in San Francisco, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on hand to supply the music.
Well, his response to spending money faster than most people could burn it? A tweet asking people to pray "we overcome":
@kanyewest
I write this to you my brothers while still 53 million dollars in personal debt... Please pray we overcome... This is my true heart...
I'm overcome.
Next stop, Zuckerberg:
@kanyewest
Mark Zuckerberg invest 1 billion dollars into Kanye West ideas
More from the Guardian piece:
He continued with a bizarre series of Tweets through Sunday night and Monday morning: "Mark Zuckerberg I know it's your bday but can you please call me by 2mrw ... You love hip hop, you love my art... I am your favorite artist but you watch me barely breathe and still play my album in your house ... World, please tweet, FaceTime, Facebook, instagram, whatever you gotta do to get Mark to support me ... I'm this generation's Disney ... I want to bring dope shit to the world ... I don't have enough resources to create what I really can."He insisted that "one of the coolest things" Zuckerberg could do would be "to help me in my hour of need".
Even more!
He said: "All you dudes in San Fran play rap music in your homes but never help the real artists." He added that they were more interested in opening schools in Africa. "like you really helped the country", than - by implication - giving money to the one of the world's most high-profile celebrities. "All you guys had meetings with me and no one lifted a finger to help," he concluded.
Opening schools in Africa...wow...how callous, how heartless.
I'm a fan of this guy, commenting at the Guardian:
bobby_sludge
If there was some way of donating money that would ensure he had less money, I would donate in a heartbeat....
Think Link
Feel the Hepburn.
Shoes And Salad
They don't go well together, but I recommend both. Gregg's ordering our fave dressing, the truly great Lucini balsamic vinaigrette, which comes six for about six dollars each, if you order them on Amazon. Makes me love salad almost like I love steak.
And there's a great deal of the day at Amazon for some classy shoes for men --up to 60% Off Cole Haan Men's Oxfords.
Another great deal -- 58% Off a Hoover bagless vacuum -- regularly $189; today, $79. Today only, that is.
Thank you to the person who bought the $499 inversion table through my links. Times are tough -- nobody wants to pay writers or pay writers much for their work -- and I'm working as hard as ever, and this was much appreciated, as is every purchase through my links, big or small.
To buy something you don't see listed here, just use this link: Search Amy's Amazon
And thank you, all of you, who shop through my Amazon links.
Valentine's Day Is Best Celebrated The Other 364 Days A Year
It was really nice Saturday night -- Gregg came over and cooked me my fave (lamb chops), brought me this enormous potted orchid (that's practically the size of a small palm tree), and then hung out in the morning and talked politics with me in the darkly amusing way he talks about so many things.
But other than the ginormous orchid (which I think I'm going to name Miss Kong), this night wasn't really different from so many other nights we spend together.
The thing is, I don't care about Valentine's Day -- in part because I'm me and don't care about any holidays, including my birthday. But I also don't care about it because Valentine's Day, for me, isn't what it is for some people -- the day their partner tries to make up for being unloving and taking them for granted the rest of the year. That truly sucks. Underlying all the "romance™," is the sense of what's really going on in the relationship.
Getting back to Gregg, on Friday night, he knew I'd be falling over exhausted from my writing day. This book I'm writing may have stopped trying to kill me a few months ago, but it's still using me for a chew toy.
So, for me, just doing normal life things, like figuring out what to have for lunch and preparing it, becomes a big deal.
Anyway, Gregg needed to stay at his place and work on Friday night. But in the late afternoon, he went to the grocery store, picked up some "supper fixin's," as he calls them, and dropped by and cooked me dinner. He made me not only dinner for that night but he made a second plate for me to just heat up for lunch on Saturday.
Do that sort of thing for a woman -- which starts with caring enough about her to figure out what would make her happy on some, oh, Tuesday -- and the overpriced, undercooked dinner you'd get at some overcrowded restaurant on Valentine's Day may be less of a necessity.
The Disgusting "Racism" Of Mistaking Me For Some Other Redhead
I just didn't understand that I should see it that way.
A journalist named Iris Kuo, who's Asian, has an article-length sniffle in the WaPo about how her co-workers keep confusing her with other Asians.
The subhead: "Yes, it's usually done without malice. No, that does not make it okay."
A bit from her piece:
All my life I've been mistaken for other people of my race. It's a degrading and thoughtless error that boils away my identity and simplifies me as one thing: "that Asian."
More:
This is not unique to Asians. The Golden Globes' Twitter account mistook America Ferrera for Gina Rodriguez, and the media regularly mixes up black public figures: TMZ confused Nene and Mary J. Blige; a local reporter mistook Samuel L. Jackson for Laurence Fishburne; George Stephanopoulos identified Bill Russell as Morgan Freeman.People look at us without really seeing us. Instead, they simply see our race.
This phenomenon has a name -- psychologists call it the "cross-race effect," a well-replicated finding that people are better at telling apart faces of their own race than those of another race. It becomes an even bigger problem in court: Witnesses are more likely to misidentify an alleged perpetrator of another race. Sixty-six of 216 wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing involved the use of cross-racial eyewitness identifications, according to the Innocence Project. And white participants in one study were significantly more likely to experience a cross-race effect than black participants.
Yes, it rarely happens out of malice. Yes, it is often accidental. Yes, it is bumbling, careless, idiotic and unintentional. But it is absolutely not right.
Oh, please. Do we really need one more thing to be worried about when we speak?
Well, that's what she's saying:It's on white people to learn to make distinguishing faces a priority. Whether they realize it or not, the repeated misidentification broadcasts its own message: I'm Asian, indistinct and not worth remembering.
You know, Iris, maybe the rethinking needs to be done on your end.
The late Albert Ellis led me to Epictetus, who said (something along the lines of): "It is not events that disturb us but the views we take of them."
I get mistaken for other redheads with some frequency. Naturally, I crawl into the corner and weep at this horrible, uh, something-ism. (Naturally, I do nothing of the fucking kind -- nor do I waste moments I could be putting into, oh, picking my cuticles, into giving this any thought.)
I also do a good bit of mistaking people for other people -- typically blacks, Asians, and averagely attractive white women with straightish or wavy-ish brown hair.
Why am I better at identifying white people (beyond the average-looking women with brown hair)? Well for some pretty understandable reasons:
1. White people come in a lot of different hair colors.
2. Black people and Asians tend to have what looks to me like the same hair color. Black.
3. I also didn't grow up around many blacks or Asians back in the Detroit suburbs. We had a handful in my high school class. One was a very handsome dark-skinned guy, so that was easy. Two were twins girls with cappuccino-colored skin, and though they were twins, they were fraternal and didn't look very much like each other. Different hair; different facial features. So, it wasn't like I'd mistake even one twin for another.
A related comment at the WaPo:
OtherJay
As a kid growing up in the 1950's in Northern Va. almost everyone in the parochial, private and public schools I attended was white. I learned to identify people using characteristics from a world populated by blonde, brunette and red haired white people.Later, as a classroom teacher it always took me many weeks before I was able to recognize all of my students and remember their names and that was when they were in their seats.
More Asian students in the classroom made this increasingly difficult. Once I had four Asian girls who always sat together and never spoke up in class unless asked. I studied hard trying to find characteristics to separate them but it was difficult. No, they were not identical but they were very similar to my eye.
The characteristic identifiers I had learned as a kid were not working well here. ... As a teacher, I wanted all of my students to feel valued and included but my cultural upbringing did not prepare me for this and made it very difficult.
P.S. If you tell me I look like Cate Blanchet -- which I also get from time to time -- I will kiss you, very possibly with a little tongue.
Lotte
Linka. Slight relation.
Train Your Dog Like The French Train Their Children
My dog was not eating something I needed her to eat.
I find that French child-rearing as a model for happy dog/human coexistence makes sense on a number of levels, like firmly correcting your dog in a calm stern voice right then and there (when he or she does something wrong) versus getting visibly angry and punishing.
My five-pound Chinese Crested, Aida, has a tiny mouth, and I can't quite get into the back with a brush. We get her teeth cleaned once a year by the vet, but it's really important that she eat her dental chews, which help her clean her teeth.
Enter the (classic) French way with kids at mealtimes: kids are expected to eat what's on their plate. Or not. They are not given mac 'n' cheese. They have a choice: Eat or starve.
Well, Aida started turning up her nose at Whimzees dental chews. I was very upset. She eats Blue Buffalo dog food (salmon, grain-free), which was recommended by our wonderful breeders, so Gregg bought Blue Buffalo dental chews
I opened the bag. Aida heard the sound -- a cue for treats! -- and came running. She did a little dance, took the bone, and then -- ugh -- dropped it on her little fur throw in the kitchen (where she sits when I'm doing something in there) and repaired to the couch.
This happened again and again, and I finally rubbed it with bacon juice. This worked -- long enough for Aida to lick the bacon juice off and repair to the couch.
Then I remembered French parenting and went into battle-of-wills mode. I hated doing this, but hey, tough love = dog who keeps her teeth. I did not feed Aida when her bowl was empty. I gave her a dental treat (half of one that I snapped in two). She snubbed it again. This went on a few times. However, at some point, when she was getting hungry, I gave it to her again -- just a half I'd broken off. Success! She actually gnawed the thing until it was gone.
And now -- huge relief -- I give her one and she goes off to gnaw it.
For those who have children without paws and a tail, more on the French parenting mode may be helpful.
From a Bon Appétit interview by Emily Fleischaker, talking with Karen Le Billion, who wrote the book, French Kids Eat Everything: How Our Family Moved to France, Cured Picky Eating, Banned Snacking, and Discovered 10 Simple Rules for Raising Happy, Healthy Eaters
What do you mean by food education at home?The French believe that teaching a kid to eat is just as important as, and just as time consuming as, teaching them to read. When you teach a kid to read, you teach the alphabet, then words, sit with them, read with them. The French feel that way about eating. They have a long-term view. They also don't get frustrated when there are bumps in the road. Some kids take longer to read than others, but they don't give up and say "This kid is a picky eater, she just doesn't like broccoli." You don't treat fear of foods as a personality trait, you treat it as a phase.
You noticed, also, that French kids are typically well behaved in restaurants. What's the lesson there?
The French train their kids-from the age of three they spend time eating at the table at lunch every day in school. They're not inherently better behaved, but they've practiced for years. By the time you see an eight-year-old French kid in a restaurant they have sat at a table thousands of times. It's just practice.
Related -- and do check out "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck" if you don't have it already: 
More from the Bon Appétit interview, with the "eat or starve" thing tucked in there in less plain language at the end:
The French really do believe that school is a place where you teach kids constantly, even in the lunch room. Here we're teaching kids that lunch is an interruption in the day, that food should be convenient. I'm working with my school to change that, and that's why I started the blog with all the French school lunch menus. We may not want to do this French food but we couldhave it be a highlight of the day. So I've kind of come to believe that the book, which is about food rules for parents and what you can do at home, has to connect to a larger conversation about what needs to change in school to make sure that those lessons are being reinforced in both places.If you could give parents of picky eaters one piece of advice, what is it?
The one place to start is fun food tastings. Don't make the new foods you're introducing a source of conflict, prepare them in a fun way, serve them in a calm relaxed manner, and tell your kids, "You don't need to eat it, you just need to taste it." Corollary to that you, as a parent, have to sit down with them, taste it and like it, and you're all sitting at the table eating the same thing. Think: You're learning. It might take you 10 times, 12, but it's OK.
If the kid refuses to taste it?
The French would say take it away cheerfully, tell them to enjoy their next meal, and that will be scheduled in a few hours. I always put things I know they like on the table, then there's a new food that appears. OK, they're interested but not sold, we'll try it again next week. Don't build it into a battle of the wills.
Again: "The French would say take it away cheerfully, tell them to enjoy their next meal, and that will be scheduled in a few hours."
Translation: "Okay, mon kiddo...eat or starve."
I Don't Want To Think Of My Dinner Enjoying Itself
Tip for restauranteurs: I don't want to see my dinner having fun. Fish arranged in ice to look as if they're jumping out of water...bad idea.
Finky
Rattylinks.
Obama Ross And The Supremes
Boyfriend, horrifyingly: "I wonder whether Obama can nominate himself to the Supreme Court?"
The Muslim World's "Sick Relationship With Women" -- And Sex
It's no wonder young Muslim men are blowing themselves up to get sexual access to those supposed 72 supposed virgins -- they can't get women on earth, thanks to Islamic views on women and sex. (Polygamy -- the monopolizing of many women by a few men -- adds to the problem.)
Women, in Islam, are basically like goats or camels -- possessions of men.
Bukhari (62:81) - According to Muhammad, the most important part of a marriage contract is the unrestricted access that a man has to his wife's vagina.
Contributing op-ed writer Kamel Daoud writes in The New York Times about the sick view of sexuality, and especially female sexuality, under Islam:
In some places, women are veiled, stoned and killed; at a minimum, they are blamed for sowing disorder in the ideal society. In response, some European countries have taken to producing guides of good conduct to refugees and migrants.Sex is a complex taboo, arising, in places like Algeria, Tunisia, Syria or Yemen, out of the ambient conservatism's patriarchal culture, the Islamists' new, rigorist codes and the discreet puritanism of the region's various socialisms. That makes a good combination for obstructing desire or guilt-tripping and marginalizing those who feel any. And it's a far cry from the delicious licentiousness of the writings of the Muslim golden age, like Sheikh Nafzawi's "The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight," which tackled eroticism and the Kama Sutra without any hang-ups.
Today sex is a great paradox in many countries of the Arab world: One acts as though it doesn't exist, and yet it determines everything that's unspoken. Denied, it weighs on the mind by its very concealment. Although women are veiled, they are at the center of our connections, exchanges and concerns.
Women are a recurrent theme in daily discourse, because the stakes they personify -- for manliness, honor, family values -- are great. In some countries, they are allowed access to the public sphere only if they renounce their bodies: To let them go uncovered would be to uncover the desire that the Islamist, the conservative and the idle youth feel and want to deny. Women are seen as a source of destabilization -- short skirts trigger earthquakes, some say -- and are respected only when defined by a property relationship, as the wife of X or the daughter of Y.
These contradictions create unbearable tensions. Desire has no outlet, no outcome; the couple is no longer a space of intimacy, but a concern of the whole group. The sexual misery that results can descend into absurdity and hysteria. Here, too, one hopes to experience love, but the mechanisms of love -- encounters, seduction, flirting -- are prevented: Women are watched, we obsess over their virginity, the morality police patrols. Some even pay surgeons to repair broken hymens.
In some of Allah's lands, the war on women and on couples has the air of an inquisition. During the summer in Algeria, brigades of Salafists and local youths worked up by the speeches of radical imams and Islamist TV preachers go out to monitor female bodies, especially those of women bathers at the beach. The police hound couples, even married ones, in public spaces. Gardens are off-limits to strolling lovers. Benches are sawed in half to prevent people from sitting close together.
He doesn't mention how Mohammed encouraged the rape of "infidel" women.
But he does point to where this sickness about sex via Islam leads:
Dreaming about such prospects, suicide bombers surrender to a terrifying, surrealistic logic: The path to orgasm runs through death, not love.
And about all those migrants just accepted into Western Europe:
People in the West are discovering, with anxiety and fear, that sex in the Muslim world is sick, and that the disease is spreading to their own lands.
We women in the West aren't people under Islam. We're merely "uncovered meat." The story, from the Guardian, from 2006:
A senior Muslim cleric in Australia has sparked a furore by comparing women who do not wear a headscarf to "uncovered meat", implying that they invited sexual assault.Sheik Taj Aldin al-Hilali delivered his comments in a religious address on adultery to around 500 worshippers in Sydney last month, but they only came to the attention of the wider public when they were published in the Australian paper today.
Sheik Hilali was quoted as saying: "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside ... without cover, and the cats come to eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat's? The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab [the headdress worn by some Muslim women], no problem would have occurred."
Right. No problem at all...no change whatsoever to our free society from taking in all those immigrants -- many of whom have been raised, all their lives, to see a woman in a tank top as good for the rapin'.
I like us to be a nation that takes in immigrants. But we really do have to admit that this is a major and apparently insurmountable problem.
The Horrible Racism Of Police Politely And Somewhat Apologetically Enforcing The Law
A Princeton University professor, Imani Perry, was arrested (instead of being sent off with cookies and flowers) when police discovered that there was a warrant out for her arrest.
Naturally, she deemed this a sign that the police discriminate against black people, not that they are tasked with enforcing the law.
New Jersey state law, per the story in the Daily Mail by Chris Pleasance:
Section 39:4-139.10 of title 39 of the 2013 New Jersey Revised Statutes state that the penalties for not paying parking tickets include suspension of the driver's license or the registration of the vehicle.Section 39:4-139.10a of the same statute states that if the court fails to issue an arrest warrant for the individual in question or order a suspension of driving privileges for the individual, the matter will be dismissed and not reopened.
And, for the record, I don't think parking tickets or unpaid debt should lead to arrest -- as it does in LA of homeless people with jaywalking tickets they can't pay -- but the cops don't make the laws.
Dashcam video below shows that New Jersey cops were extremely polite -- almost to the point of being apologetic -- in having to follow the law and arrest Perry, who'd let her license remain suspended for three years (in the wake of an unpaid parking ticket). (They'd initially pulled her over for speeding, but found there was a warrant out for her arrest.)
More from the Daily Mail story:
Imani Perry, and African American studies professor, said she was left 'humiliated and frightened' after being handcuffed and searched during a traffic stop on February 6.Perry said police denied her a phone call before she was arrested, that a male officer searched her despite a female officer being present, and that she was handcuffed while being taken to the police station and cuffed to a desk after arriving.
Footage of the incident shows that Perry was handcuffed during her arrest, though the officer is at pains to point out that it is simply a matter of protocol.
The video also shows that Perry was denied a phone call prior to her arrest - though again the officer explains that, once at the station, she can 'make as many phone calls as you want'.
I guess she felt her special snowflakehood should have had her just waved on her way.
Here's one of the videos. Check out how polite and solicitous these officers were:
She posted a Facebook rant about this, which the Daily Mail story reported on:
'Yesterday, on my way to work, I was arrested in Princeton Township for a single parking ticket three years ago,' she said in the statement. 'The police refused to allow me to make a call before my arrest, so that someone would know where I was.'There was a male and a female officer, but the male officer did the body search before cuffing me and putting me in the squad car. I was handcuffed to a table at the station.
'At any rate, I was afraid. Many women who look like me have a much more frightening end to such arrests.'But the larger point is that I'm working to move from being shaken to renewing my commitment to the struggle against racism & carcerality.'
In a later statement, issued through Facebook, she added: 'I hope against hope that the attention my story has received, and the fact that many people will give me the benefit of the doubt because of my profession, my small build, my attachment to elite universities, and because prominent people will vouch for my integrity and responsibility, can be converted into something more important.
'I hope that this circle of attention will be part of a deeper reckoning with how and why police officers behave the way they do, especially towards those of us whose flesh is dark.'
Especially toward those of us who think we can just let stuff slide without repercussions and then cry that it's about racial hatred.
Lawsuit: U of Tennessee Not Just Shuffling Those Accused Of Sexual Assault Through Campus Kangaroo Court; Giving Them Too Much Due Process
Unlike so many colleges these days, U of T has been modeled more on that Constitution thingie than the Obama admin take on Title IX.
And how dare they, really!
In the Tennesseean, Anita Wadhwani and Nate Rau report:
Six women filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday claiming the University of Tennessee has created a student culture that enables sexual assaults by student-athletes, especially football players, and then uses an unusual, legalistic adjudication process that is biased against victims who step forward.
Legalistic, meaning they don't just do as so many other schools do and stack the deck against the accused in such a way that an accusation amounts to an expulsion, with some going through the motions of a panel of a few members of the university "hearing" the case:
The plaintiffs say that UT's administrative hearing process, which is utilized by public universities across the state, is unfair because it provides students accused of sexual assault the right to attorneys and to confront their accusers through cross-examination and an evidentiary hearing in front of an administrative law judge. The administrative law judge who hears the case is appointed by Cheek, the lawsuit says.
Oh, how horrible -- that we might give someone accused of something due process instead of just expelling them based simply on another person's word.
Slippy
Wet linky floors.
What Happened When Maine Required Childless Adults To Work For Their Food Stamps
An 80-percent drop -- that's what -- in the people "requiring" food stamps.
Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield explain at The Daily Signal:
Since 2008, the food stamp caseload of adults without dependents who are able-bodied has more than doubled nationally, swelling from nearly 2 million recipients in 2008 to around 5 million today. They gained notoriety when Fox News aired a documentary on food stamps featuring 29-year-old Jason Greenslate, a Californian who reported that he spends his time surfing and playing in his rock band, all the while receiving benefits from the food stamp program.
From that Fox link above:
The 29-year-old signed up for SNAP and receives $200 dollars a month in taxpayer money for food. He put it simply, "I don't got a paycheck coming in, so I qualify."All he has to do is provide his birth certificate and Social Security card and fill out a form once a year.
In 1996, if you were an able adult with no family, you would only qualify for food stamps for three months every three years. President Obama wiped away those restrictions when he signed the 2009 stimulus bill. In 2010, the president used his regulatory powers to extend the suspension of the welfare-to-work requirements.
Greenslate is trained to be a recording engineer, but he told Roberts he has no paycheck because holding down a steady job isn't for him.
So, it was off to the gourmet section of the grocery store, as Greenslate purchased sushi and lobster with his EBT card. "All paid for by our wonderful tax dollars," he said, telling Roberts that's what he typically buys.
Rector and Sheffield write:
In response to the growth in food stamp dependence, Maine's governor, Paul LePage, recently established work requirements on recipients who are without dependents and able-bodied. In Maine, all able-bodied adults without dependents in the food stamp program are now required to take a job, participate in training, or perform community service.Job openings for lower-skill workers are abundant in Maine, and for those ABAWD recipients who cannot find immediate employment, Maine offers both training and community service slots. But despite vigorous outreach efforts by the government to encourage participation, most childless adult recipients in Maine refused to participate in training or even to perform community service for six hours per week. When ABAWD recipients refused to participate, their food stamp benefits ceased.
In the first three months after Maine's work policy went into effect, its caseload of able-bodied adults without dependents plummeted by 80 percent, falling from 13,332 recipients in Dec. 2014 to 2,678 in March 2015.
This rapid drop in welfare dependence has a historical precedent: When work requirements were established in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program in the 1990s, nationwide caseloads dropped by almost as much, albeit over a few years rather than a few months.
Government should aid those in need, but welfare should not be a one-way handout.
The Maine food stamp work requirement is sound public policy. Government should aid those in need, but welfare should not be a one-way handout. Nearly nine out of ten Americans believe that able-bodied, non-elderly adults who receive cash, food, or housing assistance from the government should be required to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving aid.
...Requiring work for able-bodied welfare recipients was a key element of President Ronald Reagan's welfare philosophy. It was the foundation of the successful welfare reform in the 1990s. But the idea of work in welfare has fallen by the wayside. It is time to reanimate the principle.
The problem in this approach -- and they don't mention whether it's happened -- is that it will act as further incentive for people to have children they cannot support.
Twitter's Hurt Feelz Tribunal (Welcome To George Orwell's Adult Nursery School)
I just love Marc Randazza -- and not just for fierceness in defending free speech and his brilliant wiping of the floor with the TSA worker, Thedala Magee, and her lawyer, after they tried to squeeze $500K from me. (Streisand effect, anyone?)
I also love Randazza because what anyone else would be quick to say is off the record, he's all, "Sure! Print it!" (Which he was about his words in an email -- including his politics -- that I put at the bottom of this post.)
He sent me a link to this Robby Soave Reason piece on the rotten shit that's been going down at Twitter -- which is basically that they've assembled a hurt feelz tribunal.
Of course, as Soave explains, they're billing it as a way to strike a balance between free speech and harassment.
Gilded bullshit by Twitter.
Soave translates -- calling this new "Trust and Safety Council" Twitter's version of 1984's "Ministry of Truth." He writes:
A quick glance at its membership roster suggests the council is almost as Orwellian as it sounds--and overwhelmingly biased in favor of speech suppression.If you thought Milo Yiannopoulos losing his blue checkmark was the opening salvo in the next great culture war (I tended to agree with Popehat's Ken White that the controversy was overblown), then this might be your virtual invasion of Poland.
The council includes more than 40 organizations that will be tasked with helping Twitter, "strike the right balance between fighting abuse and speaking truth to power." But if the goal was really to find some middle ground between total free speech and safeguards against harassment, one might have expect Twitter to solicit some diversity of opinion. In fact, despite the press release's claim that the council includes a "diversity of voices," virtually none of the council members are properly classified as free speech organizations. (Full list here).
And here's Randazza's take, and I think he's absolutely right:
I think they might have missed one little point too though... having pro speech people on the roster would be nice. But, my bigger concern is not that Twitter will suppress too much speech. I see lots of platforms that have a policy of banning "abusive" speech, and as he correctly notes, that's their right.My concern is that Twitter seems interested in banning only speech on one side of the divide. I speak as someone who identifies as a very far left Liberal -- but they only seem interested in banning speech that Liberals do not like. You put the same exact threats / abuse in the hands of an account that uses a female avatar, or that attacks someone for being white, male, or (funny enough) Jewish, and Twitter's response is crickets. But, if you so much as disagree impolitely with a feminist with more than 1,000 followers, and you're banned.
That's my problem with this. Twitter has decided that it is the SJW service, and thus diminishes all wide open and robust debate -- thus (I think) even diminishing my (somewhat SJW friendly) point of view, by making the marketplace of ideas a "planned economy."
The way Virginia is "for lovers," the First Amendment is for assholes, and yes, a private business can do what it wants. But Twitter wouldn't exist but for the First Amendment, and it's depressing and worrisome that they think they "protect" people by shutting down speech, and especially certain people's speech. In the long run, we are most protected by letting assholes come out in full rectal flower. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
Thoughts you suppress don't cease do exist; they just don't exist on a plane where you can poke the holes in them that should be poked.
Mink
Furrylinks.
Demands For Coddling On Campus: Taleb's Anti-Fragile Explains The Problem
This is Nassim Taleb's Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
And about the campus coddling: Researcher Jonathan Haidt, who's behind the newly formed Heterodox Academy, points out that we're raising children to be these simpering pussies -- though he said it a bit classier in this Minding The Campus interview with John Leo:
JONATHAN HAIDT: The big thing that really worries me - the reason why I think things are going to get much, much worse - is that one of the causal factors here is the change in child-rearing that happened in America in the 1980s. With the rise in crime, amplified by the rise of cable TV, we saw much more protective, fearful parenting. Children since the 1980s have been raised very differently-protected as fragile. The key psychological idea, which should be mentioned in everything written about this, is Nassim Taleb's concept of anti-fragility.JOHN LEO: What's the theory?
JONATHAN HAIDT: That children are anti-fragile. Bone is anti-fragile. If you treat it gently, it will get brittle and break. Bone actually needs to get banged around to toughen up. And so do children. I'm not saying they need to be spanked or beaten, but they need to have a lot of unsupervised time, to get in over their heads and get themselves out. And that greatly decreased in the 1980s. Anxiety, fragility and psychological weakness have skyrocketed in the last 15-20 years. So, I think millennials come to college with much thinner skins. And therefore, until that changes, I think we're going to keep seeing these demands to never hear anything offensive.
A possible answer:
Most people are horrified by what's going on. And when we ask people to join or support us, they say, yes. If we can find an easy way to organize alumni and get them to put their donations in escrow, or otherwise stop giving to schools that don't commit to free speech and free inquiry, we may begin to see schools move away from illiberalism and return to their traditional role as institutions organized to pursue truth.
Until then, there's this sort of thing in the video below -- this young woman's disbelief and horror that a man has dared to suggest something to her that she wasn't thrilled with.
Note that she isn't saying he held her down and raped her on the conference table; he merely made what many would consider an oafish remark.
Meet male sexuality -- men, overwhelmingly, evolved to be the pursuers, and women overwhelmingly, evolved to be the gatekeepers.
Evolutionary psychology explains why this man may have made this remark to her -- specifically Martie Haselton and David Buss's "Error Management Theory," which suggests that we evolved to err on the side of making the least costly mistake -- whether it's a mistake of omission or commission.
For a man, the most costly error is missing a mating opportunity, so men evolved to overperceive female interest; women, on the other hand, evolved to be "commitment skeptics," because they make a greater error by overperceiving male commitment.
Some of what she says: "He asked if we were going to have some sort of sexual relations ... and it was incredibly uncomfortable for me... because tour team is an incredibly safe space for me..."
Life lacks safe spaces, kitten, and the rest of us have done just fine on that principle -- and have probably done better by occasionally having to deal with the oafish "When are we having sex?" or something like that.
This is adult life.
Apparently, you expect adult nursery school, and you expect it to go on for ever.
We Jews Are Really Far Too Busy Owning The Banks
I keep telling them that I own the place at my bank, and bizarrely, it doesn't help me get the million-five I keep asking for so I can buy a tiny shack in Los Angeles.
But, on to what inspired this post -- a tweet:
@Yair_Rosenberg
To the trolls insisting to me that Israel steals people's organs: just because you're missing your brain doesn't mean the Jews took it
Most recently, this accusation was made by this nutbag who spoke at Vassar, reports Ziva Dahl in the New York Observer:
Ms. Puar's libelous accusations included Israelis killing Palestinians to harvest their organs, a version of the age-old anti-Semitic "blood libel"...
How Feminism Cripples Women
Many women feel oppressed by cat calls. I sure don't. They really aren't a big deal. (My dad also once said to me, "Worry when they stop making them.") Of course, my shrugginess is an attitude very different from the victimist, infantalizing view promoted by feminism.
Eleanor Sharman writes at Spiked about how feminism transformed her into a limp weakling who was afraid to leave the house:
As a female student in a nightclub, I expected to get some unwanted attention. What I didn't expect was for feminism to turn me into someone so terrified of unwanted attention I stopped going out.In the past, someone groping me would only annoy me for a minute - that would be the extent of it. If they were being really pushy, I'd go to my male friends and stay with them, because they'd enjoy making it clear that the guy's attentions were unwelcome. And yes, other men were more likely to listen to my tall, imposing male friends than me - a shy, skinny 18-year-old. You could call it male privilege, I'd call it the benefit of self-confidence.
And then she joined an Oxford feminist group called Cuntry Living:
I came to see women as physically fragile, delicate, butterfly-like creatures struggling in the cruel net of patriarchy. I began to see male entitlement everywhere.The experience also changed my attitude to going out. I would dress more cautiously and opt to stick with female friends in clubs. And, if the usual creeps started bothering me, I became positively terrified. I saw them, not as drunk men with a poor grasp of boundaries, and certainly not as misguided optimists who might have misread my behaviour, but as aggressive probable rapists.
If I was groped by someone, I didn't give them a scathing look or slap away their hand, and I certainly didn't tell them to fuck off. Instead, I was scared into inaction. How could I countenance such a violation? How could I possibly process something so awful?
After the event, I would go outside and cry. And then I would leave - feeling traumatised. I saw the incident, not as some idiot being a bit too handsy, but as sexual assault - something scarring to dwell upon.
She came to realize that feminism wasn't empowering; it was the opposite:
Even leaving the house became a minefield. What if a man whistled at me? What if someone looked me up and down? How was I supposed to deal with that? This fearmongering had turned me into a timid, stay-at-home, emotionally fragile bore.Thankfully, I learned a lot from the experience. Teaching women that we exist as probable victims (to the probable attacks of men) is not freeing or empowering. Modern feminism trains us to see sexism and victimhood in everything - it makes us weaker. It is also anathema to gender equality. How are we to reconcile with our male 'oppressors' when we view them as primitive, aggressive beasts? How are we to advance female agency when everything from dancing to dating is deemed traumatic?
The answer to the problems we face as women is not to submit to the embrace of victim feminism, but to stand up for ourselves. We must throw off the soft, damp blanket of Safe Space culture and face the world bravely. If we do not do so now, we will consign any prospect of real equality to the ash heap of history.
Telling somebody their experience is horrible and scarring can be enough to turn something they would have shrugged off into something that prevents them from having a normal life and normal relationships.
Feminism has become a religion -- a fundamentalist religion of grievance-hunting that eats women and men while pretending it's about "equality" and "empowerment."
Sniffy
Stinkylinkies.
WAZE For When You're Going Around Iran In A Burka That's A Little Too Short
Here in Los Angeles, some of us avoid traffic the social media way -- with directions around where the traffic's heavy with the fab app WAZE.
Well, in Iran, young, fashion conscious Iranians are avoiding the morality police the same way.
The morality cops are known in Persian as "Ershad" or guidance.
On the BBC, there's news of an app, "Gershad" -- probably meaning get around Ershad instead of facing them -- allowing users to do just that.
It will "will alert users to checkpoints and help them to avoid them by choosing a different route":
In a statement on their web page the app's developers explain their motives in this way: "Why do we have to be humiliated for our most obvious right which is the right to wear what we want? Social media networks and websites are full of footage and photos of innocent women who have been beaten up and dragged on the ground by the Ershad patrol agents.""Police need to provide security for the citizens not to turn into a factor for fear. A while ago, angry with such unreasonable oppressions, we looked for a solution to find a practical way to resist the volume of injustices peacefully with low risk level, to restore part of our freedom."
...Just exactly what amounts to immoral behaviour, can be widely open to the interpretation of the Ershad agent on the spot. So buying your clothes and or makeup from authorised shops, won't necessarily keep you out of trouble. If an Ershad agent sees the combination unfit according the Sharia code of conduct, you can still end up being warned or even prosecuted.
Also, if you're caught walking or riding with your opposite sex friend, you still could end up being stopped, questioned and prosecuted by Ershad because that's another violation of Islamic code of conduct.
Sharia Law -- it's what's (having you) for dinner.
Just one more way to remind you not to take living under the Constitution for granted.
The Mental Suffering Of ICU Patients And How Engagement By Others May Protect The Brain
Those in a cognitively impaired state are sometimes treated like meat, points out Melissa Akers in a conversation on Aeon.
I spent over 6 weeks in ICU and only speak from a patient perspective.The illness that put me in ICU did not involve head trauma, but I have long term cognitive & processing impairment. In an effort to understand and cope, I have talked repeatedly with my family, had extensive counseling and have been involved with professionals who are ground breaking in the study of the effects of ICU and it's impact. Dr. Jim Jackson is the best source for this information.Altering the environment? From a patient's perspective. Yes if It's like multiple beds in an ER Trauma unit. But smaller changes like tweaking sedation med doses; acting like a deathly ill person is awake when you're working with them; training other personnel who enter ICU rooms to introduce themselves and what they're doing, though the patient looks gone to the world; keeping noise to a low hum as though a child is asleep in the next room rather than roaring with laughter standing at the open door of someone; those kinds of environmental changes can make more difference than you think. And I think they will make more difference than most patients could tell you.
I have been told that my family talked to me and around me in a normal fashion. I was incredibly blessed to have with me virtually 24/7. I'm told that the doctors and nurses also talked to me normally as they worked with me. Interestingly, technicians and personnel who came in my room and did not interact with me were the ones that I felt were threatening and I thought they were the captive camp overseers.The beautiful wood paneling on the wall became a box I was kept in. Understandably, my restraints that kept me from removing ventilation tubing, etc. became part of the delusion. Loud noises I translated as negative in some way. When I was roused, I was able to convey agitation at a twinkling Christmas tree on the wall for me. Months later I told my family that pictures drawn for me and a large silk flower arrangement made for me were agitating.
Waking up from an ICU stay? Wow, I lived. Recovery, now there's the wild ride; no professional driving that train. Some things have probably changed. Take heart, work hard, get help; yes, it's real and no, you're not crazy.
This conversation has a companion Aeon article by Rebecca Guenard:
Of course, doctors have known for years that the ICU triggers a disrupted mental state. In the 1960s, ICU delirium was labelled 'The Disease of Medical Progress' - with memory loss deemed a fair price for life. But recent studies have shown that the effect is widespread, and often permanent.According to a study from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, published in 2013 in the New England Journal of Medicine, 74 per cent of those who enter the ICU suffer delirium during their stay, and more than half leave so impaired that their cognitive ability is comparable to that of mild Alzheimer's disease. Akers's executive functioning skills are gone. She cannot prioritise a set of tasks or determine their duration. Working is no longer an option, and her experience is common.
...Recent findings have provoked changes on the ground: many ICU protocols now involve minimising sedation, waking patients often, removing mechanical ventilation, and getting patients on their feet as quickly as possible.
...But most interesting is the possibility that a patient's sense of community could protect the brain. Akers's frightening captivity images don't infiltrate memories of regular family visits. She recalls her daughter-in-law standing in a red coat, her father offering her apple fritters each morning, her son reading to her, her mother and daughter bathing her. Early on in her ICU stay, Akers's husband hung a picture of her in healthy days above her head, juxtaposing an expressionless, intubated face with that of a smiling, vigorous person. Reminders of health seemed to block hallucinations. In European ICUs, family members record daily events in a diary and read it aloud as a map back to reality if the patient becomes confused.
I had a dear friend who -- tragically -- suffered brain damage and was put in a nursing home in New York for about six months until she died.
She may not have been conscious of who I was (or who the other friends were who visited her and sat with her), but I feel good that I we there talking with her and holding her hand.
If she could hear us, the tone of voice she heard, and the fact we were there touching her, may have made her feel comforted and less scared and detached from being human.
Slinky
Downstairsy links.
A Woman Thought She'd Turn The Tables On Men And Upset Them With Unsolicited Vaj Pix
Hilarious. The widespread denial of biological sex differences comes to roost.
From the Unilad story by Alex Watt:
Online dating is a veritable minefield for single women, with simple Tinder messages too often escalating into an overeager guy sending a single lady an unsolicited photo of his own genitals. You know, as you do.Now, one woman decided to fight back against the "dick pics" and took a stand on the issue by turning the tables and sending potential matches pictures of her lady parts.
Her thinking:
I'd ... hoped the guys would see how invasive it is to receive such intimate photos from a stranger.
Let's just say it didn't turn out how she planned. 
Feminists work so hard to deny biological sex differences -- like how male sexuality is far more visually driven than female, which makes evolutionary sense, since men just need to be attracted to young, fertile women and have sex with them to further their genetic interests.
Women, on the other hand, need to vet men for whether they are "dads" (who will stick around to invest) or "cads." Wanting to have sex with anything that crosses their path does not serve a woman's interest.
From a study by Lykins, Marta Meana, and Strauss -- the hilarious and unsurprising finding that men are looking at women and women are keeping watch on the competition:
Men looked at opposite sex figures significantly longer than did women, and women looked at same sex figures significantly longer than did men.
Side note: Yes, per the title, I know it's technically a "vulva," but I call things what people call them, and have interesting discussions with my copyeditor about this.
UPDATE: I forgot to include this bit on dick pix etiquette from my book, "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck":
Because men are turned on by disembodied photos of boobs, butts, and coochies, they're quick to pull down their pants, click on their cameraphone, and text some woman they just met a close-up of their zipperwurst. Really bad idea. Men who've done this should pick up a Harlequin romance, which is basically porn for women (from the ravishing by some hot gazillionaire to the final commitment-gasm). See any photo spreads of male crotch shots tucked in there anywhere, boys? This is not an error of omission. Women aren't fantasizing about seeing your willy; they're fantasizing that somebody in the royal family will pluck them out of suburbia and marry them in Westminster Abbey.
The footnote on that:
Although a photograph of an erect penis initially makes a poor calling card, some women are into getting bonerpix after they've slept with a guy.
Government Is A Bully -- Of Pretty Scary Proportions
Mark J. Perry writes at AEI of the unbelievable -- save for anyone who recognizes every one of his examples as something that actually happened to somebody in the U.S.:
A government that will lock you up in a cage for smoking weeds grown in your back yard is a government that will take your children away from you for playing basketball unsupervised in your own yard. That same government will also seize your cash and keep it from you even if you broke no law and are not charged with a crime. They'll anally probe you against your will with a forced colonoscopy if they suspect you are hiding a small amount of drugs. They'll break into your house with a SWAT team kill your dogs and throw stun grenades that explode in your toddler's face, scaring him for life, etc. etc. etc. You get the point...A case like this is almost unbelievable because it goes way beyond nanny statism into the dangerous realm of state totalitarianism. For those of you who put faith in the government and tolerate them regulating your life, allow them to tell you what you can and can't put in your body - which plants and weeds and what type of milk you're allowed to ingest, accept government laws that force employers to pay their workers a mandated wage, etc., be careful what your wish for.... and watch out when a neighborhood snitch calls your government and they come and seize your unsupervised children.
From Glenn Reynolds at USA Today, only bureaucrats are above the law:
"On May 22, 2013, the IRS director (of exempt organizations) asserted her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and refused to testify before a House committee. She was placed on administrative leave. The following month, it was revealed that she received a $42,000 bonus. She retired in September."On Jan. 9, 2014, it was revealed that the Department of Justice attorney leading the investigation was a donor to the president's campaigns. A week later, the Justice Department revealed it would not bring any criminal charges. Attorneys for many of the targeted political groups complained that they had never been contacted in the investigation.
"On Feb. 2, 2014, the president stated in a televised interview before the Super Bowl that although there 'were some bone-headed decisions out of a local (IRS) office ... (there was) not even a smidgen of corruption.'
"On May 7, 2014, the House voted 231-187 to hold the former IRS director in contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate in its investigation (six members of the president's party voted with the majority). The House also voted 250-168 to request the attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate (26 members of the president's party voted with the majority)."
Of course, nothing happened. Obama Administration Attorney General Loretta Lynch said that the U.S. Attorney was using "prosecutorial discretion." That discretion protected Lerner from the grand jury.
As Investor's Business Daily editorialized, this sets an ugly precedent. Under the Obama administration, officials are above the law -- at least so long as they're targeting Obama's political opponents. Accountability? Rule of Law? That's just for the little people.
Ducklink
Goose!
Red, White, And Blue
Lady Gaga, at one with the national anthem, at the SuperBowl.
Lady Islam.
Burka shot by Steve Evans from India and USA (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Yes some cultures are better than others. I'll take the one where clerics don't proclaim women dressed like Gaga "uncovered meat," with the implication being that they are good for the rapin.
More on the rights of women under Islam:
The many opportunities denied women under Islamic law, from giving equal testimony in court to having the right to exclude other wives from their marital bed, is very clear proof that women are of lesser value then men in Islam. Muslim women are not even free to marry outside the faith without being killed by their own families.Islamic law also specifies that when a woman is murdered by a man, her family is owed only half as much "blood money" (diya) as they would be if she had been a man. (The life of a non-Muslim is generally assessed at one-third).
Although a man retains custody of his children in the event of his wife's death, a non-Muslim woman will automatically lose custody of her children in the event of her husband's death unless she converts to Islam or marries a male relative within his family.
Contemporary Muslims like to counter that Arabs treated women as camels prior to Muhammad.This is somewhat questionable, given that Muhammad's first wife was a wealthy woman who owned property and ran a successful business prior to ever meeting him. She was even his boss... (although that may have changed after the marriage). Still, it is somewhat telling that Islam's treatment of women can only be defended by contrasting it to an extremely primitive environment in which women were said to be non-entities.
Homa Darabi was a talented physician who took her own life by setting herself on fire in a public protest against the oppression of women in Islamic Iran. She did this after a 16-year-old girl was shot to death for wearing lipstick. In the book, Why We Left Islam, her sister includes a direct quote from one of the country's leading clerics:
"The specific task of women in this society is to marry and bear children. They will be discouraged from entering legislative, judicial, or whatever careers which may require decision-making, as women lack the intellectual ability and discerning judgment required for these careers."
Modern day cleric Abu Ishaq al-Huwaini has called for a return of the slave markets, where Muslim men can order concubines. In this man's ideal world, "when I want a sex-slave, I go to the market and pick whichever female I desire and buy her."
At best, Islam elevates the status of a woman to somewhere between that of a camel and a man.
Muhammad captured women in war and treated them as a tradable commodity. The "immutable, ever-relevant" Quran explicitly permits women to be kept as sex slaves.
Crazy, I know, but I prefer Western values, the Declaration of Independence, and the U.S. Constitution.
After 100 Years, Scientists Are Finally Closing In On Einstein's Nipples
Uh, ripples. It's still exciting.
Why Black Activists Look The Other Way When Blacks Kill Blacks -- In Epidemic Proportions
Michael Krikorian writes of one of these shootings in the LA Times:
It was the fourth time in two days last week that a young black person was killed by other blacks in South Los Angeles. It didn't make much of a news splash. Like the 16-year-old girl and 20-year-old man at 81st and Avalon, like the 17-year-old boy at 83rd and Main Street, Gerrik Thomas' shooting death, on Jan. 25, was to everyone other than his family, friends and the LAPD, just another L.A. killing.Thomas, 21, had gone to the market to buy a soda. As he walked back to his great-grandmother's blue-and-white house eight doors down from the corner of West 54th Street and 9th Avenue, he was hassled -- maybe asked, threateningly, "Where you from?" -- by two males about his age driving by. He didn't answer; he called his mom. Moments later, according to police, at the corner, in front of the M & J 100% Hand Car Wash, the car stopped. The two guys got out. One grabbed Thomas, and the other shot him in the head. Thomas was pronounced dead at California Hospital.
There will be no protest marches organized in Thomas' memory. No downtown streets will be blocked; the entrances to the Harbor Freeway will remain open. No angry citizens will demand the arrest, trial and conviction of those responsible for his killing.
I get the outrage when a cop kills an unarmed civilian, I get the fury when a video shows what looks like an unnecessary, excessive police shooting. But what I don't get is why Gerrik Thomas' death barely signifies. Why isn't his excessive and unnecessary killing a story? Why are the community, the hashtag leaders, the media and the politicians mostly silent?
Railing against black on black violence provides little benefit for Al Sharpton, as the answer is looking at and fixing problems in the black community. There's little money or fame in that, as it lacks a convenient white Satan and starts with scolding black people who have children without creating a family first to bring them up in.
Black Lives Matter? It seems they only do on the (comparatively few) times when a white cop is the one with the gun.
Krikey
Linky with star-bellied krikes.
Welcome To The ZuckerBowl
I turned on Superbowl to see the music and thought the Coldplay guy was Mark Zuckerberg.
For a little change of pace, here's the Punjabi half-time show.
Vote For A Vagina, Urge Gloria Steinem And Madeleine Albright
There is nothing that screams "I'm unequal!" like voting for a candidate simply because she's a woman.
Yet, Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright are using their renown to try to sneer young women out of voting for Bernie Sanders.
Young progressives are drawn to Sanders on a number of fronts -- for his socialist leanings, his not being in bed with big banks, his not remaining married to somebody who blatantly and repeatedly cheated on him, and his not making more per speech than some millennials will make in five or 10 years.
Alan Rappeport writes in The New York Times of the old feminist bags trying to guilt the young women into a Clinton vote:
While introducing Mrs. Clinton at a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday, Madeleine Albright, the first female secretary of state, talked about the importance of electing the first female president. In a dig at the "revolution" that Mr. Sanders often speaks of, she said that the first female commander in chief would be a true revolution. And she scolded any woman who felt otherwise."We can tell our story of how we climbed the ladder, and a lot of you younger women think it's done. It's not done," Ms. Albright said of the broader fight for women's equality. "There's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other!"
...In an attempt to explain Mrs. Clinton's struggles with female voters in New Hampshire, Ms. Albright said during an NBC interview on Saturday that women could be judgmental toward one another and that they occasionally forgot how hard someone like Mrs. Clinton had to work to get where she is.
I don't care how hard you worked; I care about the kind of president you'll make.
Voting for somebody because she'll be the first female president is like voting for a candidate because they have a cute dog. Women who vote along these lines don't deserve to have the vote.
via @CHSommers
If You Became President, What Would You Do?
What's the first thing, and what would be your other priorities?
Social Isolation Is Not Romantic
I posted recently on the torture that is solitary confinement in prison, noting:
We are people who evolved in small bands, living cooperatively with others, meaning our minds are adapted for social living -- being amongst others.
Even famous loners weren't all alone, or tried not to be, writes Kimberlee Brownlee at Aeon:
The wild is a source not only of sensory stimulation, but also of interspecies sociality. ... Robinson Crusoe had a dog, two cats, some goats and a parrot, and later a human companion in Friday. And another Crusoe-like character, the runaway 12-year-old Sam Gribley, the protagonist in Jean Craighead George's children's novel My Side of the Mountain (1959), takes a baby falcon from a nest, trains it, and names it Frightful. He also adopts a semi-tame weasel, which he calls the Baron.The same kind of anthropomorphising happens in the movie Cast Away (2000) where Tom Hanks, who appears to be bereft of all animal contact on a deserted island, personifies a volleyball by giving it a face, naming it Wilson, and later being genuinely grieved when he loses it.
Real, relentless isolation is not at all romantic. Indeed, it is far worse than the stress of social life. In contrast with the success of military-trained Proenneke, the inexperienced hiker Christopher McCandless died of starvation in Alaska in 1992 after venturing into the wild alone with few supplies, a victim of the fantasy of the wilderness hermit.
Moreover, the evidence from people who've endured unwanted social isolation - among them the US journalists Jerry Levin and Terry Anderson, who were held in solitary confinement in Lebanon as political prisoners by the Hezbollah in the 1980s - is heart-wrenching. Another political prisoner, Shane Bauer, who was held incommunicado for 26 months in Iran, described the black horror of his experience and his desperate desire to reconnect with other people, even with his captors.
Such accounts are confirmed by a growing body of psychological evidence that indicates that supportive social contact, interaction and inclusion are fundamentally important to a minimally decent human life and, more deeply, to human wellbeing. For the most part, we need one another; we cannot flourish or even survive without each other. These fundamental needs are the ground for a range of rights that we neglect, but should not, including the rights to be part of a network of social connections.
Linkin
Linknuts.
How Come Airline "Change Fees" Go Only One Way?
I want $200, Air Canada, for your changing the flight I'm on -- same as you'd charge me if I changed my flight.
I'm going to a scientific conference in Canada. I bought the ticket six months in advance in hopes of getting a low fare and times I wanted, and whoops, today, I got a note from Air Canada saying they'd changed my itinerary.
My flight, carefully booked to leave at 8:45 a.m. and getting in at 11:30 a.m. so I'd have the day at home to write, is now leaving at 10 a.m. and getting in at 1 p.m.
This change may not seem like much to somebody who isn't a writer, but your brain tends to be in its prime earlier in the day. Later in the day, mine's for shit for any sort of science writing, column writing, book writing.
I noticed in my original booking that there was this message (which they cleverly didn't include in the PDF of my changed itinerary they just sent me).
Prior to day of departure - Change fee per transaction, per passenger, is $200 USD plus applicable taxes and any additional fare difference. Changes can be made up to 2 hours prior to departure.
So, how come they aren't giving me $200 for their "prior to day of departure" change?
Unintended Consequences Of Regulation Come Home To Bark
After my beloved little Yorkie, Lucy, died at age 15, my life had a giant doggie hole in it.
Gregg told me he'd get me another dog.
But a dog, for me, is like a child, and I didn't want just any doggie. I wanted another extraordinary dog, like Lucy, who was gorgeous and just a wonderful little doggie spirit.
My wee Chinese Crested, Aida, came from a breeder -- one who requires 10 pages of documentation, references (including our vet's phone number), and had three long conversations with my boyfriend and me before they decided we could have one of their dogs. Their dogs are genetically tested (and registered with CERF and OFA) to see that they don't breed carriers of genetic diseases with other carriers.
People who want a dog on those terms -- and I would only be interested in a breeder who operates on those terms -- will get one. People who don't care aren't going to start caring because they can't get a puppy at a pet store -- which you probably can't in LA, unless one gets dumped off at a shelter.
Per a 2014 LA Times story by Kate Linthicum, the idiots on the LA City Council voted 12 to 2 back in 2014 to ban pet stores from selling non-rescue dogs, cats and rabbits. They now are only allowed to sell animals that come from shelters, humane societies and registered rescue groups.
Genius!
This is one of those showboat initiatives. Of course, anybody intelligent enough to cross streets without assistance doesn't think that stopping pet stores from selling animals would stop buyers of "puppy mill" animals -- or backyard breeders who don't know what they're doing. All anybody has to do is look on Craigslist or the Internet for numerous dogs.
Of course, the LA City Council didn't quite work this whole legislatey thing out -- even beyond the obvious bit above. From an LAT editorial from February 4:
The ordinance, which passed in late 2012, prompted an unforeseen zoning problem.Many animals sold in "humane" stores are older, no longer puppies or kittens. Under the city's municipal zoning code, any pet store selling four or more dogs that are four months of age or older is deemed to be a kennel. While pet stores are allowed by right in commercial C2 zones, kennels are only allowed in industrial zones. The city planning department ordered that these humane stores not be considered kennels, but a lawsuit led the Los Angeles Superior Court to invalidate the order on the grounds that the planning department didn't have the authority to issue it.
It's time for all this legal growling to be put to rest. Most pet stores are in commercial areas because that's where people shop. And there's no good reason for humane stores not to be there as well. On Wednesday, the city council's Personnel and Animal Welfare Committee (PAW -- funny) recommended that the city pass an ordinance specifically exempting pet stores from falling under the definition of "kennel" in the zoning code even if the shops have four or more adult dogs. The council should have done that when it passed the humane store ordinance.
Loved this comment from Tito Flanders at the LAT's site:
Tito Flanders So, basically LA wants to force people to adopt pets that other people couldn't handle. Next up - an LA ordinance forcing people to take in foster children instead of having their own.
Flopsy
Linkie, and Linkietail.
Road Worrier
From a tweet by Marian Call:
@mariancall
Just heard a gorgeous radio piece on a legally blind astronomer. Reminded me of my weekend cooking with a blind filmmaker.
My reply:
@amyalkon
We're pretty sure we have numerous legally blind drivers on the streets of Los Angeles.
Hail Of SJW Stupid
Sonny Bunch writes in the Free Beacon of the Coen brothers' fabulous Huh? response to criticism of the whiteness of the cast of their new film, "Hail, Caesar!":
Brothers Ethan and Joel Coen laid bare the absurdity of this thinking in an interview with the Daily Beast:I asked the Coens to respond to criticisms that there aren't more minority characters in the film. In other words, why is #HailCaesarSoWhite?
"Why would there be?" countered Joel Coen. "I don't understand the question. No--I understand that you're asking the question, I don't understand where the question comes from."
Nigel M. Smith gets into the follow-up in The Guardian:
Asked by the Daily Beast's Jen Yamato to respond to the criticism leveled at the film's casting, Joel said: "It's an absolute, absurd misunderstanding of how things get made to single out any particular story and say, 'Why aren't there this, that, or the other thing? It's a fundamental misunderstanding of how stories are written. So you have to start there and say, 'You don't know what you're talking about.'""You don't sit down and write a story and say, 'I'm going to write a story that involves four black people, three Jews, and a dog' -- right?" Joel continued. "If you don't understand that, you don't understand anything about how stories get written and you don't realize that the question you're asking is idiotic. It's not an illegitimate thing to say there should be more diversity in an industry. But that's not what that question is about. That question is about something else."
Ethan concurred, adding: "It's important to tell the story you're telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity - or it might not."
Helen Mirren explains to The Guardian's Ben Child why Idris Elba wasn't nominated for his performance in Netflix child-soldier drama Beasts of No Nation:
"He [Idris] wasn't nominated because not enough people saw, or wanted to see, a film about child soldiers in Somalia or the Congo or somewhere like that," said the 70-year-old, who was promoting her role as Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper in new film Trumbo. "They just couldn't face watching that movie and so not enough people saw that movie. It wasn't in the cinema for long enough."
The TSA's Ridiculous -- And Meaningless -- Chortling About All The Guns They Steal From Passengers
Smart piece at Lew Rockwell by Becky Akers about something I've long understood -- that it is just ridiculous for the TSA to take the firearms of people who inadvertently bring them in their bag.
Or to prohibit guns on planes to begin with.
Before 9/11, before any of us gave much thought to Islam, we thought hijackers wanted a bag of money and a safe passage to a country that doesn't extradite. The day after 9/11, we all knew the score. Passengers would tackle any passenger who was trying to take over the plane.
And the cockpit doors are locked, anyway.
Akers writes:
Part of the government's propaganda on aviation is that guns are bad, even worse than they are on the ground. But not a shred of evidence confirms this, at least that I can find (and if any of you know of pertinent studies or stats, please alert me): it's simply more of the scorn politicians and bureaucrats hurl at the Second Amendment.Indeed, weapons would come in mighty handy were hijackers to attack a plane, especially since passengers are among the TSA's 20 vaunted "layers of protection"--though one it has stripped of every defense but our fingernails. (By the way, catch this brilliance from one of those disgusted "layers": "...I re-read Kippie's [Kip Hawley, formerly the TSA's Head Cheese] testimony.
It's now clear to me that Kippie included 'passengers' as Layer #20 in order to someday be able to blame us for an in-flight security failure. 'Unfortunately, Senator, Layer #20 failed yesterday, which is why the airplane got hijacked. All other 19 layers directly under my control performed perfectly.' I don't know about anyone else, but I don't remember either volunteering for for [sic] or being drafted into the TSA." Indeed!)
Alas, neither facts nor logic matter when Our Rulers or Their Lapdogs mount the soapbox against our guns. USAToday reliably wags its finger at all the "people [who] claim they just 'forgot' they had a firearm in their bag."
But it may want to scold another group that misplaces its guns far more often than we do: the thugs at the Department of Homeland Security. "DHS had over 188,000 firearms issued over eight component agencies..."; in 31 months, 165 of those went missing. That may amount "to less than one-tenth of a single percent"-but compare that average to passengers'. With something like 720 million "emplanements" every year, and the TSA's finding only 2654 guns in 2015, we score a mere .0000376%. (Yes, yes, I know: we must multiply to compensate for the 95% that eluded the TSA. But that still keeps us well under the DHS's level.)
Slippy
Black Icy Links.
I'm So Adult
My Chinese Crested seems unsympathetic to my need to make up for lack of troll dolls in my childhood.
Finland's National TV Teaches Women Super Secret Rape-Stopping Hand Motion
Yes, that's right -- stick out your hand in a halt motion.
According to Finnish TV, that's all you need to do to avoid being raped by one of those migrants who are told by imams that women who aren't walking around under tablecloths are "uncovered meat," good for the rapin'.
That worked well for this 14-year-old Finnish girl, raped by two Afghan "asylum seekers."
Here's the bizarre rape-"prevention" video Finland's state TV station came out:
Apparently, there's also a Star Wars version somebody posted to YouTube, but I can't find it. Please post the link if you can find it, and I'll put it up.
Oh, and Mohammed encouraged raping non-Muslim women.
Yes, though I'm an atheist, I see that there's a, you know, wee difference between the Christian prophet I don't believe in and the Muslim one I don't believe in.
Yes, Christians have done horrible things to my peeps, the Jews, throughout history, but at the moment, Christians are about as dangerous to my being gunned down in a Paris cafe as astrology buffs are.
via @2313Productions
Generation Thumbsucker
Her KitKat bar, part of an eight-pack, was missing the wafer. It was solid chocolate.
(I know -- the horror...the horror.)
The 20-year-old British law student, Saima Ahmad, is now threatening to sue Nestle, demanding a lifetime supply of KitKats -- or they'll face her legal action.
First problem: KitKats are seriously shitty chocolate.
Second problem: This isn't like finding a rat's foot in there.
From an ITV story via @WalterOlson:
The student admitted she is "trying her luck", adding "if you don't ask you don't get."
The basis of her demand -- her claim of "monetary and emotional" loss:
"They go about advertising the unique concept of KitKat, but I'm so disappointed by what I have purchased," she said.
Modern life is an easier life in so many ways, and I mostly love that -- except for how it seems that the helicopter-parented generation coming up now is basically cotton candy with legs.
Campus Rape: Are the Accused Being Treated Unfairly?
My recent talk with law professor and Instapundit blogger Glen Reynolds:
Mink
Furrylittlelinkswithsharpteeth.
My Boyfriend Raped Me Hello Again Last Night
Under "affirmative consent" rules on campus rules, each sexual act must be preceded by a request for consent. From a New Republic piece by Batya Ungar-Sargon:
Even within an existing relationship, verbal consent must be given. Must two married college students verbally consent to each other? The law stipulates the rather awkward condition that affirmative consent must be "ongoing throughout a sexual activity." Must a couple stop at every stage to reaffirm their consent?But there is a larger problem at stake in Bill 967. It is an argument of definition: A failure to procure "affirmative agreement" means that sexual assault has taken place.
Hans Bader writes at NCFMCarolinas.com:
As lawyer Scott Greenfield notes, progressive law professors have submitted a controversial proposal to the American Law Institute that the Model Penal Code be radically changed to require affirmative "consent" throughout society, for both "sexual intercourse" and a broader range of "sexual contact."On page 69 of their draft, they explicitly admit that this affirmative "consent" requirement would classify as sexual assault even many "passionately wanted" instances of sex (presumably because of the technicality that such mutually-wanted sexual intercourse is welcomed after -- not affirmatively consented to before -- the sex is initiated).
Perversely, they justify this massive invasion of people's sex lives as supposedly protecting people's sexual "autonomy" from potentially unwanted sex, even though their proposal goes well beyond banning unwanted sex, to banning sex that was in fact "passionately wanted" although not agreed to in advance.
Pretend, for a moment, that this has been passed.
Well, on Monday night, my boyfriend blew through the doorway and kissed me -- without any sort of petitioning of me as to whether I would be interested this activity.
I could have called the police and had him arrested. However, he had arrived with three Sous Vide-ed steaks and other fixins for dinner, so I must confess that I kept my mouth shut -- that is, until it was time to hoist a fork with a delightful looking piece of rare steak on it.
P.S. My actual policy has always been: Ask me if you can kiss me and the answer becomes no. (Ya big pussy.)
What's Broken Isn't College Housing: Pernicious Move To Segregate Black Males At U Conn
Martin Luther King and Ruby Bridges, never mind. Black people are being segregated again, and it's being put forth as a good thing.
At Fox News, Cody Derespina writes:
Faced with alarmingly low graduation rates for black males, the University of Connecticut is trying something it calls bold -- and critics call segregation.The school's main campus in Storrs has launched a program slated for fall in which 40 black male undergraduates live together in on-campus housing. Proponents believe the students can draw on their common experiences and help each other make it to commencement. But others cringe at the idea of black-only housing, saying it turns decades of hard-fought racial progress on its head.
"Forget about this nonsense and just treat students without regard to skin color," President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity Roger Clegg told Insidehighered.com. "If there are students of color who are at risk or who could use some access to special programs, that's fine, but schools shouldn't be using race as a proxy for who's at risk and who's going to have a hard time as a student. There are lots of African-American students who come from advantaged backgrounds. And lots of non-African-American students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds."
What makes the difference for black people -- or any people -- is class, not race, and coming from a stable, two-parent home. And 67 percent of black children are growing up in single-parent homes, which often means impoverished homes.
When you have a mother and a father in your home, there's a support system that's not there in a single-parent home. Your mother, because she isn't a single woman working insane hours to support children she's left daddyless, can do as mine did and advocate for your education, as mine did. And your father can go to your junior high school when you're bullied to lean on the principal to do something, as mine did.
And you are less likely to end up poor and attending some failing school in the inner city.
By the way, I grew up with black people who were top achievers in school and I believe went on to Harvard. And who were from a wealthier neighborhood than I was. They didn't need segregated anything, because it's not about race -- really it's not.
And pretending that you can fix the results of poor schooling and affirmative action (putting black students in schools too advanced for them out of a desire for "diversity") by shoving a bunch of black men on one hall...it's depressingly ridiculous.
Also, out in the real world, life tends not to be segregated. College, of course, is less and less about preparing students for the real world and more about preparing them for a life of constant coddling.
Colonel Linktard
In the drawing room with potting soil.
Solitary Confinement Is A Form Of Torture At Sharp Odds With Our Evolved Psychology
We are people who evolved in small bands, living cooperatively with others, meaning our minds are adapted for social living -- being amongst others.
Evolutionary psychologist and psychiatrist Randy Nesse (though I can't find the exact reference on deadline day morning) contends that we, in fact, seem to have a deep psychological need to be around others. In fact, it seems to be essential to our psychological health, which is why solitary confinement is a horrible punishment that we need to stop using.
Here is one quote from Randy, from his paper, "Emotional disorders in evolutionary perspective," from 1998:
Many authors have noted that for humans, the main reproductive resources are social resources, and much of life is spent in social efforts (Alexander, 1974; Cronin, 1993; Humphrey, 1976). That solitary confinement is worse even than most prisons, is a telling fact about human nature.
The New York Times editorial board rightly lauded President Obama for barring federal prisons from holding juveniles in solitary confinement and making big changes in how solitary is used throughout the federal prison system:
By taking a new course at the federal level, Mr. Obama hopes to accelerate changes that are already underway in many state and local corrections systems.Solitary confinement, which is often used arbitrarily and to punish minor rule infractions, is a form of torture. It is psychologically damaging even to healthy people and increases the likelihood of suicide among the young and the mentally ill.
Announcing the new policy in an op-ed essay in The Washington Post, Mr. Obama wrote: "The United States is a nation of second chances, but the experience of solitary confinement too often undercuts that second chance. Those who do make it out often have trouble holding down jobs, reuniting with family and becoming productive members of society. Imagine having served your time and then being unable to hand change over to a customer or look your wife in the eye or hug your children."
He cited the shameful case of Kalief Browder, who was arrested in New York City at the age of 16 in 2010 and jailed for three years without trial for allegedly stealing a backpack. Mr. Browder spent two of those years in solitary confinement, endured "unspeakable violence at the hands of inmates and guards" and tried to kill himself several times. He was released in 2013, but never fully recovered, and he hanged himself last year.
I'm not a fan of this president, but this is a case where he has done the right thing -- and a very essential and humane right thing.
Prisoners also need to be protected from harm, especially rape, but from other forms of violence, too. There's sometimes a sneering that you go to prison; you deserve whatever happens there, but that is disgusting "cruel and unusual punishment" -- unconstitutional and a black mark on our society and humanity.
If prisoners need to be protected or punished, as the President notes in the WaPo op-ed, there needs to be another way -- something other than solitary.
Welcome To History, Ladies!
Charlotte Allen blogs at IWF about the recent mewling that Disney princesses aren't yakkity enough.
Researchers found that men are speaking, oh, 68 percent of the time in Little Mermaid, and so on.
Charlotte quotes this line -- which led to the title of my post:
There are no women leading the townspeople to go against the Beast, no women bonding in the tavern together singing drinking songs, women giving each other directions, or women inventing things.
As Charlotte put it:
I love the bit about "women inventing things." Because in real life women invented the airplane, the steam engine, the automobile, the mechanical harvester, the sewing machine, the typewriter, the radio, the television, the electric light bulb, the grammophone, and the computer.
I'm always sort of amazed when women fall all over themselves to laud women in history -- simply because they are women. Women may have achieved a number of things, but generally, there's a sort of unwarranted female promotion going on far beyond women's actual achievement.
Glinks
Cufflinks for gorillas.
The Train Instead Of The Plane (Or The Car)
I just got back from a great social science conference -- the Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference (SPSP) -- down in San Diego.
I get carsick -- from my own driving, just across LA -- and thanks, but I don't have a brain tumor or Meniere's or need an Epley to get my otoliths repositioned. I just have a stone age brain that has always done poorly with car, plane, and boat (horrors!) travel.
Dramamine? For me, that's like trying to knock down a building by throwing pebbles at it.
The patch works pretty well, but makes me groggy and sort of stupid for days.
I did find a drug not sold in the USA, Serc, that helps, but not entirely. The cool thing is that I can drive on it. The bad thing is the worry I have in ordering drugs from weird pharmacies in Canada or overseas.
Taking the train (Amtrak, in this case) is another big help. It's also a lot of fun and much more comfortable than driving. And I loved seeing the train stations, out of other eras, on each end. These are from the San Diego train station. 
Oh, and the ride along the coast on this train -- the Surfliner -- is supposed to be beautiful, but I slept both ways, almost all the way there and back. And in case you're wondering, it was $37 each way for an unreserved, plush and very nice coach seat with Wifi, which was also a huge bargain over driving down and having to pay for parking for three days.
And I checked two bags -- one of luggage and another of books and textbooks publishers gave me that I brought back -- and had a small carry-on. All wheeled. No problemski!
You Don't Make Little Girls Want A Doll Because Mommy Read An Op-Ed Quoting A "Gender Studies" Professor
Barbie has been given a makeover. Photo at the bottom of the post.
Michael Deacon reports at the Telegraph/UK:
Parents will have been pleased to learn that Mattel is producing a new range of Barbie dolls with more realistic body shapes. Attracting particular attention is a "curvy" doll, which is bigger around the waist and hips than the traditional Barbie. According to the manufacturer, the new models will offer children "choices that are more reflective of the world they see today."
Hmm...the classic Barbie body...thin, big hips, small waist, big boobs...kind of...well, see the yellow dress photo to your left...kind of describes me. Why is it only "realistic" if Barbie looks less like me and more like women with small boobs and kind of a gut?
People are now tweeting for somebody to come out with a "dadbod Ken," reports the Telegraph/UK's Helena Horton.
They're kidding, but with this being the culture of everybody grabbing onto a nice stack of unearned power through grievance hunting, well, a Ken doll or GI-Joe with abs of Jell-O should be just the ticket.
Of course, some mothers, as I blogged the other day, are just not down with little girls getting dolls at all:
Deborah Rhode recounts a telling anecdote: "One mother who insisted on supplying her daughter with tools rather than dolls finally gave up when she discovered the child undressing a hammer and singing it to sleep.(Rhode, Speaking of Sex, p. 19.)
Just idiotic.
Some dopey UCLA lecturer in "gender studies" was quoted in a Shan Li LA Times article, saying that "Barbie creates norms for what's beautiful."
Ridiculous.
Anti-science hoohah.
The same goes for the the notion that playing with dolls is socially inculcated in girls.
Sex differences researcher Anne Campbell has found sex-differentiated toy preferences from 9 months of age. There are even earlier shows of sex differences in aggression and more by Joyce Benenson, another sex differences researcher.
And Sonya Kahlenberg and Richard Wrangham have found that chimps -- girl chimps -- engage in the most amazing doll-play with sticks. (They're seeing it with rocks, too, but Wrangham, last we emailed, maybe about eight months ago, said they didn't have enough data then to say for sure about the rocks, too.)
Also, note that other research -- by Judith Langlois -- has found that infants of both sexes look longer at beautiful female faces.
Now, I do think there's much to be said for giving girls dolls that look kind of like them in terms of their broader characteristics; like how I liked dumb Raggedy Ann and Andy because they were the redheaded kid's version of having a black doll.
But as for the notion that little girls want thick-hipped realism in their play, well, if that's the case, how about this plus-sized Barbie? Isn't that truly real, vis a vis, well, a walk through the Atlanta airport? Or, per my time there, that would be morbidly obese Barbie.
I would argue that women (even as girls) understand, on an evolved psychological level, what men prefer. I would also argue that women, in turn, prefer "aspirational" representations when they're looking at a magazine or, as girls, when they're playing with dolls.
What I really want to know: Why isn't "female empowerment" getting to do what you want (and have the doll that you want) -- regardless of whether it happens to be PC?!
Dinky
Itsybitsylinks.
