Nobody's Business

Just as Bad as Kelo, But Much More Common

I've had savings accounts that made a bit of interest, balance slowly growing, for years. I didn't necessarily add anything to it (preferring to use new money to diversify in stock mutual funds or annuities or what have you), and neither did I take anything out. I'd get a savings statement a few times a year, check the numbers, feel a pang of doubt (should've bought those Google shares in 2002!), then decide to be happy with seeing at least one part of my, um, vast fortune accrue the safe and steady way.

In fact, with one or two of a handful of mutual-fund accounts I own, I exhibit the same pattern — I've made no deposits or withdrawals for years straight.

Turns out, that's an open invitation for a gang of criminals to take it all away with impunity. These thieves and robbers happen to work for your state's tax office, and their salaries are paid by the very people they're robbing blind. With thanks to Martin Owens for the tip, echoes of Kelo:

States regard property as "unclaimed" if the owner hasn't had contact with the custodian of an asset for a specified period of time. In the case of bank deposits, depending on the state, that means three to five years without deposits, withdrawals or any other customer contact. For stock, it's three to seven years without cashing dividend checks, voting proxies or otherwise contacting the issuer or brokerage.

Delaware, the legal home to many big companies, is an aggressive collector of such assets. State officials examine corporate accounts, looking for uncashed checks and credit balances. Unclaimed property has become Delaware's third-largest source of revenue, generating $365 million in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2007. That amounts to about 11% of state revenue, more than corporate-income tax or the state lottery.

Delaware is one of the states that don't make much effort to seek owners of unclaimed property. It's up to the owners to figure out if states have their assets and to file claims. If owners don't come forward, many states keep the cash and sell physical property, such as jewelry from safe-deposit boxes, on eBay.

Patio Haters

From London to Cape Town and from Washington DC to Lisbon, I've dined al fresco in slightly nippy weather thanks to the wonderful invention that is the patio heater.

Members of the European Parliament, a body that is always at the ready to squeeze the pleasure out of the lives of its 350 million constituents, want to ban the devices in an attempt to maim two birds with one stone: global warming, and smoking.

[Patio heaters] give a vital boost to trade at pubs, cafes and restaurants by enabling customers to sit outside in cool weather. They have become particularly important to pubs since the smoking ban prevented customers smoking inside pubs. Industry experts say a ban on outdoor heaters could cost the pub and catering trade £250 million a year in lost business.

Euro MPs are today due to vote on a resolution calling on the European Commission to set a timetable for abolishing goods with low energy-efficiency ratings, with outdoor patio heaters specifically mentioned.

A United Nations climate-change scientist called bullshit on the supposed environmental impact of patio heaters, however, pointing out that

It would take an equivalent of more than five patio heaters to produce as much CO2 as one TV on stand-by mode does in a year.

Well, Europe's political classes could go after families with more than one TV next, I suppose. Or after citizens who use their outdoor grill in excess of once a month. Or they could ban night-time sports matches, which require blazing lights. And hey, those eternal flames on the tombs of various Unknown Soldier-monuments all over Europe are pretty wasteful too, you know. There ought to be extensive rules and laws for all of that, don't you think?

Just to show that I'm not averse to helping the environment, I can think of one exercise in shameful profligacy that'd be easy to eliminate with just a little political will. It's the European Parliament's own wholly unnecessary monthly schlep between Brussels and Strasbourg, which, in terms of carbon-dioxide production, is the annual equivalent of 150,000 transatlantic flights.

Soon You'll Need a License to Breathe

I'd love to auction off some state inspectors on eBay, but I don't think anyone would bid. What on earth would you do with the waste of space that these bureaucrats are?

Via Radley:

The state of Pennsylvania has shut down the eBay business of Mary Jo Pletz, who started the endeavor so she could earn money at home while caring for daughter, who had developed a brain tumor. Not content with merely running her out of business, state officials are also prosecuting her. One inspector who visited her home threatened that they were "drawing a line in the sand."

Her crime? Selling goods on the Internet without an "auctioneer’s license."

You might think there's more to this saga, that surely you're not getting the whole story — but really, that appears to be it. I suppose that according to the state of Pennsylvania, 99.999% of people who have ever sold anything through eBay or another online auction site are lawbreakers.

Let me come clean right here: since 1999, when I joined eBay, I've violated the state's law over a hundred times. I'm lucky, because at a $1,000 fine per infraction, I owe only a little over $100,000. Mary Jo Pletz (who says she paid income taxes on whatever she made, by the way), auctioned off an estimated 10,000 toys, videos, sports memorabilia, tools, infant clothes, and other items on eBay. So potentially, her fine could run to $10 million.

Taxing Thirst

Though it's unlikely she'll ever admit it, Malory Shaughnessy, a Maine-based crusader against substance abuse who wants to raise alcohol taxes, is in a twelve-step program.

I don't mean to imply that she is addicted to drugs or alcohol. Rather, based on her dour editorial in the Bangor Daily News, I'd say she is incurably ravenous for tax increase after tax increase (times twelve and maybe more). Little steps, each time, and yet by the time she's done, we'll probably be looking at a six-pack of Bud that costs the equivalent of a nice Lafite Rothschild.

Like scores of other nannies, Shaughnessy wants to have it both ways. She says she only favors a little price hike, just pennies per bottle, no big deal; but then, a few paragraphs later, we learn that the increase is dramatic enough that it should stop a chunk of the population from over-imbibing, and that the extra tax will produce massive piles of money that the state can use to further combat drinking. Obviously, those statements can't both be true.

Apart from the fibbing and the obfuscation, the problem with people like Shaughnessy is, they don't ever stop. We've seen it with smoking bans: every time smokers gave in just a little in hopes of buying peace, the various groups of self-appointed vice-fighters yo-yo'd back around in mere months with new demands for bans, and new tax proposals. It'll be no different with the forces of temperance and teetotalism.

Incidentally, the word temperance connotes restraint. Well, hey, how about a little restraint from the other side? How about just leaving people alone? I see no credible self-control at all in the tireless promoters of drug and alcohol crackdowns. And what's more, I predict that within a generation or two, the New New Puritans will argue that just as there supposedly are no safe levels of tobacco smoke, alcohol isn't truly safe in any quantity either.

Scoff if you want. You can drink to my foresight in 15 or 20 years; just be prepared to pay through the nose.

An Extra Eye Focuses on Cops and Suspects

A couple of years ago, after I'd immersed myself in the Corey Maye travesty for a bit, I made the case for SWAT teams equipping their members with helmet-mounted video cameras. The footage would show, almost always beyond any reasonable doubt, whether a shooting or other violence that could occur during a raid was justified, no matter which side initiated it. Video and audio taken automatically at the scene, of the entire police operation, would shield the innocent and inculpate the guilty, whether they're suspects or officers.

I just learned of a complementary product that I hope will be standard police equipment in a few short years, and not just for SWAT teams. It's a pistolcam —€” a small camera designed to be affixed to the barrel of an officer's service gun.

PistolCam, with its patented Auto-On technology, will automatically provide video/audio documentation of a perpetrator'€™s hostile actions. Using state of the art MPEG4 digital imaging technology, PistolCam will record up to 60 minutes of VGA digital video and sound at a full 30 frames per second.

The benefits to police departments are plenty seductive:

No longer will police officers be at the mercy of fallible and all too often hostile eyewitness testimony. ... Mini USB port provides instant downloads, allowing for distribution of video/photo documentation to aid in apprehension of fleeing suspects. Security software aids in evidence chain documentation. ... Whether providing superior situational awareness with the integrated ultra bright illuminator, superior targeting with the on-board laser sighting system, or liability protection from baseless litigation, PistolCam will provide the latest in crime-fighting technology.

Just as important is the benefit to civilians: much-improved law-enforcement accountability, meaning fewer thin-blue-line perjuries; and fewer cops going around like power-mad frat boys, acting out with impunity.

I can think of more than a few instances where a PistolCam would've prevented deaths, or would've at least made it clear which side was the culpable aggressor in a deadly firefight.

Police departments have been enjoying some pretty nice windfalls of late, what with loosely written asset-forfeiture laws leading to (often questionable) property seizures; and with the Department of Homeland Security doling out fortunes for new law-enforcement equipment. SWAT teams are now habitually getting outfitted with Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns, flashbang grenades, ballistic shields, and other fancy gear, up to and including grenade launchers and military tanks.

By comparison, finding money for helmet cams and pistol cams ought to be a cinch.

The police department of Newburgh, NY was the first to bite the bullet, so to speak. More will follow.

Pistolcams, shoulder cams, helmet cams, dashboard cams —€” I say, bring 'em on. I'm no fan of the surveillance society, but this particular aspect of it (while not without downsides) looks a lot more like a blessing than a curse.

The Bad Seed

Political prisoners in China can be as young as two months old.

A Death Threat Against 'To the People'

As a rule, I don't respond to blog comments except in their original thread (and even then, not that often). But once every year or so, there's a disturbing one that merits a new post. One memorable such communication once came from a lady named Pam Futerer who, in response to a quickie essay of mine, fantasized about crushing my dick in a vise and cutting off my balls. Ah, good times.

Anyway, this time around, the honor goes to someone called Matt Vollmer, who only took a year and a half to respond to a Nobody's Business riff about the litigiousness of various dumbasses. For his comment, click on the link and scroll down until you see his name in blue.

One case I mentioned in my post — a post that got Mr. Vollmer so riled he demands my apology on behalf of one of the victims — was that of two young women in Florida who discovered the flammability of high-proof alcohol when they visited a nightclub where a fellow patron set fire to a stream of rum. Both women sustained serious burns. Pretty awful.

But here's my problem. They didn't sue the firebug. Rather, they filed suit against Bacardi because, they allege, the distiller's product is "defective" and "dangerous."

It's like getting stabbed and, instead of pressing charges against the assailant, suing the manufacturer of the knife. It's like finding grandma face-down in eight inches of water and suing the maker of the tub because the thing has a stopper.

Alcohol that ignites may be dangerous, but it isn't defective. It dutifully does what it's done for untold thousands of years, and anyone who has ever eaten crêpes suzettes, or banana foster, or any other flambéed food, knows this perfectly well.

Mr. Vollmer accuses me of "picking on burn victims to get [my] social networking fix." It's an odious charge. I obviously don't make light of people with severe burns — it's a horrendous injury that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. No, what I have a problem with are the craven opportunists who file lawsuits that don't seek justice but a big payout. More to the point, I detest the sundry exploiters of our legal system who give the truly culpable (such as the firestarter in the nightclub) a free pass, while going after a party that clearly has no culpability but does have deep pockets.

And no, that moneygrubbing perversion doesn't become less objectionable as the accuser's physical state is more pitiable (though I'm sure there are swarms of trial lawyers prepared to argue otherwise).

Unlike the hostility displayed by Ms. Futerer against my poor family jewels, Matt Vollmer didn't threaten me with castration, or even with a shotglass of flaming calvados.

He apparently saved the death threat for another blog, To The People, that, in an admittedly prick-ish and intemperate fashion, had also criticized the Florida litigants. Less than half an hour after Matt Vollmer posted his demand for an apology on Nobody's Business, a commenter named Matt (no full name given) threatened bodily harm against To the People's bloggers, confirming that his note was a "death threat" and closing with "be warned you motherfucker." Click on this link and then read the fourth comment.

Remember, both the Nobody's Business post and the one at To the People had lain dormant for 18 months. Is it the same Matt? You'd be forgiven for assuming so. But would anyone really be so muttonheadedly reckless as to leave an e-mail address in one location (you don't see it, but as this site's administrator, I do, along with commenters' IP adresses) and then issue an [ahem] anonymous death threat minutes later at the next site visited? It seems so.

In Matt Vollmer's world, anyone who deplores the vomitous and misguided behavior of a gold digger is way out of line just because said gold digger happens to be injured; but it's OK for him to promise to kill people whose views on gold-digging don't jibe with his own.

I don't think he gets just how repulsive and rationally bankrupt that is — not to mention that it's, you know, a crime.

War on Hand Sanitizer: No Surrender!

Some cops are dumb as posts. Like this guy. The county prosecutor appears to be a little soft in the head, too, for filing charges in the first place.

Denton County [Texas] prosecutors decided Friday to wash their hands of a case against a Lewisville middle school student accused of trying to get high by sniffing his teacher's hand sanitizer. Three days after filing delinquency charges against the youth, prosecutors did a turnaround and decided that the common cleaning gel is not an abusive inhalant under the Texas Health and Safety Code.     

"It's not a crime. Hand sanitizer does not fall within that statute," said Jamie Beck, first assistant districtattorney in Denton County. "The police agency brought it up mistakenly thinking it was."...

Mr. Ortiz said the family's ordeal began Oct. 19, when his son picked up a bottle of hand sanitizer from the desk of his fifth-period reading teacher at Killian Middle School in Lewisville. He rubbed the gel on his hands and smelled it. In the view of school officials, the boy "inhaled heavily," according to Mr. Ortiz, who said his son sniffed the cleanser "because it smelled good."

The youth was sent to the principal's office, and the Lewisville police officer assigned to the school began investigating. "The event happened at the campus," said Dean Tackett, a spokesman for the Lewisville Independent School District. "But once the police took it over, it was a police investigation. They decide if there are charges and what kind of charges."

The other thing that's amazing here is a common denominator in too many of these news stories: the phrase "police officer assigned to the school."

Why are there cops in middle schools to begin with? And if we think it's a good idea to replace the hall monitors of yore with uniformed, armed crimefighters, how about at least restricting the officers' activities to shooting the next Dylan Klebold cleanly between the eyes?

It's easy to see what leads to the incredibly stupid law-enforcement excesses of a case like that of the hand-sanitizer bandit: boredom.

Not the kid's. The cop's.

The tedium of being assigned to a school with a preponderance of reasonably well-behaved kids must be mindboggling. Then, when something — any petty thing — does happen, the officer is likely to throw himself into the situation like a parched bedouin would jump into a puddle in the desert. It's lucky that we haven't yet seen a case of a cop breaking up a cafeteria food fight by emptying his gun into some dastardly 14-year-old pudding-throwers. Give it time, I guess.

Schools are for kids and for teachers. Putting officers with handcuffs and guns in their midst is a solution in search of a problem.

Kick them out.

The Death of Irony

Here's a post that won't die. Getting all these e-mails and comments from people who wouldn't know satire if it hit them on the ass with a concrete paddle used to amuse me. Now the dingbats are actually beginning to frighten me.

I've heard of people with iron deficiencies, but it seems that this country has a bigger problem with widespread shortfalls of irony.

Excellent Question

Newscaster: "Mr. O'Leary, how can we in the news media do a better job of focusing on bullshit and really hounding candidates on these petty issues?"
O'Leary, encouragingly: "You're doing a great job as it is."

Sometimes, only jesters dare speak the truth.

Uneasy Notes on (East) Germany

I belatedly saw The Lives of Others on DVD a few weeks ago, the bone-chilling European drama about an East German Stasi officer who spies on a playwright. From the nuanced script to the top-shelf acting and the understated soundtrack, it's one terrific movie.

The new issue of Wired has an article that reads almost as a companion piece. It's an account of how German computer scientists are using advanced scanning and pattern-recognition technologies to literally piece the deliberately shredded and torn Stasi files back together, page by page (East German operatives, in the weeks before the Berlin Wall fell, hand-ripped the incriminating files after the motors in the electric office shredders overheated and gave out).

Due in part to the film, droves of East Germans are demanding to see their Stasi files; each month brings 6,000 to 8,000 new requests.

The Germans use a special word for learning to cope with and overcome the past (perhaps because they have so much of it): Vergangenheitsbewältigung. That's what those old, restored files are for — a chance to confront historical demons before they become spectral and unreal.

The Wired piece is a good read overall, but one detail stood out for me, one of those seemingly inconsequential trifles that you instantly know you'll never forget. It involves a former dissident named Ulrike Poppe, who was under Stasi surveillance for 15 years.

For months, it turned out, an agent was assigned to steal her baby stroller and covertly let the air out of her bicycle tires when she went grocery shopping with her two toddlers. "If I had told anyone at the time that the Stasi was giving me flat tires, they would have laughed at me," she says. "It was a way to discredit people, make them seem crazy. I doubted my own sanity sometimes."

The effects of this method are like the whiff of a fiendish stench so fleeting that it vanishes before it quite impresses itself upon your senses. The strategy is childish, pranksterish, almost innocent on one level, ruthless and monstrously cruel on another. And, I'm sure, quite effective. There were reasons why East Germany, along with then fellow communist police state Hungary, had the highest suicide rate in the world, and this sort of ethereal, state-ordered wretchedness must have been a solid contributor.

By the way, in excess of five million East Germans were the subject of their own Stasi file, about one third of the entire population. More than 90,000 domestic spies and bureaucrats worked for the Stasi at any one time in order to collect, interpret, and maintain that torrent of data, aided by some 200,000 informers, including university professors and bishops.

Read it all, and you'll know a helluva lot more than the average German high schooler, it seems:

In a survey of Berlin high school students, only half agreed that [the former East Germany] was a dictatorship. Two-thirds didn't know who built the Berlin Wall.

That's a sobering stat, and evidence of an evidently schizoid society in which those over 40 or 50 have a heavy need for Vergangenheitsbewältigung, and those under 20 have no earthly idea what that even means, or why the hell the desire exists in the first place.

Who's the Tool?

If this country ever manages to declaw and shrink the notoriously execrable Department of Homeland Society and its doubly awful Transportation Safety Administration, I know a good place for the canned bureaucrats to go to work: your local school, where they can frisk students and remand those who carry, say, a multitool, to the police for criminal charges. That'll teach those damn honor students cum potential knife brawlers!

Christopher Berger is an honor student at Grayslake Central High School. He's also a choir singer, as well as a former football player who spends half the day training to be a firefighter. "I've never even had a detention," Berger said.

His exemplary record now includes something new: A police ticket for reckless conduct given last week after school officials discovered a multi-tool flashlight in a jacket he left in the cafeteria. The tools include a 2-inch blade, screwdriver, pliers and other gadgets prohibited under school policy. ... Berger admits he broke with school policy in bringing the tool to school. He agrees with the suspension the school doled out and is grateful to be back in school. What he calls "a bunch of hooey," is the police citation for reckless conduct.

Here's the recent case of a fifth-grader arrested for cutting her sandwich with a (ahem) dangerous stabbing implement.

Here's why you should never carry even the puniest Swiss Army knife in your briefcase or in your car, at least when you're visiting London.

And here's why rolled-up newspapers will likely be the next 'weapon' that'll get lots of us in trouble.

How long before official suspicion turns to 10-year-olds found to be in the alarming possession of a sharpened pencil?

Kill the Happy Slam! Ban Beer!

I'll confess right upfront that, while I like Cliff Drysdale and especially Chris Fowler well enough, I'm no fan of Mary Carillo, the one tennis commentator on the ESPN team who (a) habitually runs her mouth as if she gets paid by the word, and (b) is to wit and levity what John Wayne Gacy is to innocent children.

Carillo, who it's best not to picture in a form-fitting tennis dress, so hates the sight of great young female players in short skirts that she has likened their appearance to "kiddie porn" — which, of course, would make her and her TV employers some of the prime purveyors of that deeply exploitative genre. Nevertheless, there she is, match after televised match, collecting a pretty paycheck for presenting the filth she claims to abhor (Now in Glorious High Definition!).

She has long struck me as — to use a phrase — a biatch on wheels. So by all means, take my biatch bias into account.

This past weekend, following reports that a few tennis fans had allegedly misbehaved, Carillo went into full-on nanny mode on national TV by advocating the banning of beer from grand-slam tournaments. That she uttered this odd sentiment at the "happy slam" (Roger Federer's warm-and-fuzzy term for the Australian Open) was perhaps a bit astonishing, given that the annual tennis extravaganza Down Under is by almost anyone's standards — not just Federer's — the most festive and attractive slam of all. The spectators are more enthusiastic and looser than at Wimbledon or the U.S. Open; and so are the players, albeit for reasons probably unrelated to alcohol consumption. In Melbourne, even qualifiers and other dark-horse contenders are suddenly capable of prolonged bursts of almost superhuman performance and true greatness (Baghdatis in 2006, for instance, and Kohlschreiber and Tipsarevic this year).

Why anyone would want to fuck with whichever formula Australia's ace team of organizers applies with great success year after year is a mystery, but Carillo does. Aided by an increasingly dour fellow pecksniff, Pam Shriver, ESPN's ice queen suddenly pronounced it "time, gentlemen": she wants the beer taps in Rod Laver Stadium to be turned off once and for all.

An hour or two earlier, Shriver had inadvertently tickled a lot of funny bones by trying to report on a crowd of high-spirited Serbs or Croats or whatever the Balkan crowd of the moment was. The revelers were just outside the stadium, watching a tennis match on a jumbotron screen, and dared to be so unimpressed by Shriver's presence that, despite her desperate reportorial overtures, they kept their backs turned to her and the camera, happily nursing their beers and preferring to concentrate on the game instead. Shriver, suitably mortified, soon skedaddled. Later, back in the broadcast booth, she had the gall to cast the snub as a crowd alcohol problem that needed to be dealt with.

To the faint protests of Patrick McEnroe and Chris Fowler, Mary Carillo then burst into a neoprohibitionist rant, wondering who let all those thirsty plebeians into her previously perfect world, and asking what had happened to the "gentility" of her beloved sport.

The tenuous coherence of Carillo's argument collapsed altogether when she added the non sequitur that she is a mother (the unchallengeable moral purity some women claim on account of having a functioning birth canal never fails to amaze me); and that the unwashed beer and tennis lovers would surely all be driving home after the match, drunk out of their skulls and ready to mow down a gaggle of stray toddlers.

I've been to Melbourne myself (I even played a night-time tennis match on one of the many courts in the Rod Laver sports complex with my wife, for an audience of none), and I recall a well-run city with no dearth of taxis, and with an official devotion to convenient and affordable public transportation. Also, I'd wager that the concept of designated drivers is not entirely unknown to the foreigners who offend Carillo so with their love of hops.

Perhaps the most hypocritical aspect of her holier-than-thou paroxysm is that while Carillo talks a good game about how we should insist on tennis being a sport of "gentility," she gives every American player who throws unsportsmanlike hissy fits an automatic free pass. Andy Roddick, in Friday's losing match against Philipp Kohlschreiber, behaved like a nasty eight-year-old, repeatedly belittling and cursing at the umpire, and yelling abuse at the fans of his German opponent. No one in the ESPN broadcast booth, Carillo least of all, took him to task for it, preferring instead to speculate aloud whether Roddick's "grousing" might affect his play.

Rather than beer, maybe it's that kind of troubling double standard that we ought to oppose.

What's My Line?

Question: How deep is the Dutch government prepared to bow to Muslims threatening violence? Answer: Deep enough that it can just about kiss its own ass goodbye. Why not hand Holland over to the perpetually indignant Koran crowd right now?

You see, firebrand parliamentarian Geert Wilders is set to release a film revealing the Koran to be "a source of inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror." It is possible that one scene will show the book's pages being torn or otherwise treated without the apparently mandatory convulsions of respect, though nobody has yet seen Wilders' little movie so anyone's guess is as good as mine.

The whole country is now in a state of heightened awareness, and Dutch citizens living abroad have been asked to register with the Netherlands embassies in their host countries (presumably, to facilitate keeping track of the beatings, firebombings, and kidnappings that will possibly befall Dutch expatriates). Echoes of Denmark, ca. 2005.

Now, here are two verbatim responses to the upcoming flick, from (ahem) different sides of the religious and ideological chasm:

(1) "[Wilders] is inciting wars and bloodshed ... It is the responsibility of the Dutch people to stop him."

(2) "Freedom of expression does not mean the right to offend."

One of these statements was made by Ahmad Badr al-Din Hassoun, the Grand Mufti of Syria; the other by Maxine Verhagen, the Dutch Foreign Minister. Please (a) guess who said what, and (b) muse on whether it still even matters.

For the record, I'll always stand at the ready to verbally dropkick any official, from whichever country or religion, who claims to favor "freedom of expression" provided that this right doesn't include the freedom to offend. It's the facile refuge of dictatorially-minded cowards, the very definition of doublespeak. Those claiming that only messages that offend no one can be tolerated, are robbing the concept of free speech of all meaning. It is the exact equivalent of talking about a peaceful war, or a virginal matriarch: one part necessarily rules out the other.

These people don't defend free speech, as they claim. The opposite is true: they sell out all of us by betraying it. They are every bit as much part of the problem as the foaming-at-the-mouth Mohammedans who get erect at the prospect of teaching uppity dhimmis one bloodsoaked lesson after another.

Another Taser Death

More than 290 people have died since June 2001 after being struck by police Tasers, according to the human rights group Amnesty International.

That was in October; we may have already passed the 300-mark by now.

Here's the latest: on Tuesday, Minnesota state troopers tasered 29-year-old Mark Backlund after he'd just accidentally crashed his car. Backlund was "uncooperative" when they arrived, the cops allege. Or (wild guess here) maybe he was just dazed — literally and figuratively shaken up — after having been in a rush-hour highway accident. No matter, the cops fired their tasers, and Backlund, by all accounts a healthy guy, died — "his heart stopped," is all the explanation we're getting so far.

How's that for non-lethal intervention?

While we're on the topic, here's a driver who got pulled over for an alleged traffic violation in rural Utah. There's video; watch it if you haven't already. The motorist wasn't aggressive and the officer couldn't possibly have feared for his own safety, but he tasered the guy anyway. Prior to the cop firing, the driver did seem to be more assertive, and better informed about his legal rights, than most. But that wouldn't piss off a law-enforcement professional, and turn him into a trigger-happy cowboy, would it? Nah.

The victim in the latter case lived to tell the tale, at least.

BONUS: I just learned that the spokesman for Taser International is a gentleman named Steve Tuttle. Tuttle... police brutality... dystopia... ring a bell?

The Fat of the Land

As far as I'm concerned, 500-pound cop Paul Soto can stuff his gob as much as he likes — it's a free country. At that preposterous weight, however, he shouldn't expect to be on a police force payroll, sucking down taxpayers' money and actually demanding more of it — unless he's prepared to be habitually dropped onto unsuspecting evildoers by means of a crane or a giant catapult. I'd be willing to consider that.

Bike Pumpers Anonymous

Remember the guy who was arrested and convicted for having sex with his bike in a hotel room? Fark TV does.

Exercising Is a Must, Except Maybe It Isn't

You've heard it your entire life: you must powerwalk, jump rope, and/or perform other forms of strenuous exercise at least three times a week if you want to be healthy.

It's not a problem for me. Until a knee injury sidelined me last year, I eagerly played four to six hours of tennis a week. I just ordered an exercise bike to help strengthen the post-operative knee and suspect that I will use the contraption for years to come (riding a bike is in my Dutch genes, but I now prefer a stationary one since it allows me to watch the Simpsons while pedaling, rather than maneuver out of the way of exhaust-belching cars whizzing by). With any luck, I'll be back on the courts in a few short months.

Anyway, how much stock should we put in the decades-long exhortations that, to stave off death's clammy grip, we must exercise vigorously at least every other day? The benefits of exercising are a mixed bag, say Gina Kolata in the New York Times.

Exercise has long been touted as the panacea for everything that ails you. For better health, simply walk for 20 or 30 minutes a day, boosters say — and you don’t even have to do it all at once. Count a few minutes here and a few there, and just add them up. Or wear a pedometer and keep track of your steps. However you manage it, you will lose weight, get your blood pressure under control and reduce your risk of osteoporosis.

If only it were so simple. While exercise has undeniable benefits, many, if not most, of its powers have been oversold. Sure, it can be fun. It can make you feel energized. And it may lift your mood. But before you turn to a fitness program as the solution to your particular health or weight concern, consider what science has found. ...

[I]t is impossible to know with confidence whether exercise prevents heart disease or whether people who are less likely to get heart disease are also more likely to be exercising.

Scientists have much the same problem evaluating exercise and cancer. The same sort of studies that were done for heart disease find that people who exercised had lower rates of colon and breast cancer. But whether that result is cause or effect is not well established. Exercise is often said to stave off osteoporosis. Yet even weight-bearing activities like walking, running or lifting weights has [sic] not been shown to have that effect. ...

Exercise alone, in the absence of weight loss, has not been shown to reduce blood pressure. Nor does it make much difference in cholesterol levels. Weight loss can lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, but if you want to lose weight, you have to diet as well as exercise. Exercise alone has not been shown to bring sustained weight loss.Just ask Steven Blair, an exercise researcher at the University of South Carolina. He runs every day and even runs marathons. But, he adds, “I was short, fat and bald when I started running, and I’m still short, fat and bald."

Feel free to add the limitless benefits of exercise to all the other claims that health nannies loved to beat us all over the head with, only to be proven wrong time and again.

Sir Hillary, Madam Hillary

One more thing about Hillary Clinton and the adventurer she claimed to have been named after.

When Safire called Mrs. Clinton a congenital liar in the mid-nineties, she responded that she took offense only because the columnist had impugned her parents' honor — the term congenital of course meaning inherited or hereditary.

Then, in late 2006, when asked to explain the patent untruth about being named after Sir Edmund Hillary, her campaign hung the candidate's mom out to dry without a second thought. Clinton's spokescritter trumpeted happily that it was Hillary's mother who supposedly delivered the fib to the world.

So much for defending her poor parents' virtuousness.

Sure, in the scheme of things, it's hardly a key issue. But to me, the breezy betrayal signifies that when it comes to that old saw about politicians selling their mother for political gain, Hillary Rodham Clinton is the real deal.

Hillary: Erecting a Mountain of Untruths

Christopher Hitchens reminds us of what really does seem to be, in William Safire's decade-old phrase, further evidence of Hillary Clinton's congenital mendacity. Unlike George W. Bush, who at least has the wherewithal to lie about the Big Things (such as sacrificing American blood in a criminally unjustified and idiotically botched war), the Dems' on-again, off-again frontrunner is an incorrigible truth-twister whether the lie is small and inconsequential or huge and of vital import.

Here's a stunner from the former category, regarding the recent death of Sir Edmund Hillary, the man who triumphed over Mount Everest. Quoth Hitchens:

Seeing the name Hillary in a headline last week — a headline about a life that had involved real achievement — I felt a mouse stirring in the attic of my memory. Eventually, I was able to recall how the two Hillarys had once been mentionable in the same breath. On a first-lady goodwill tour of Asia in April 1995 — the kind of banal trip that she now claims as part of her foreign-policy "experience" — Mrs. Clinton had been in Nepal and been briefly introduced to the late Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Mount Everest.

Ever ready to milk the moment, she announced that her mother had actually named her for this famous and intrepid explorer. The claim "worked" well enough to be repeated at other stops and even showed up in Bill Clinton's memoirs almost a decade later, as one more instance of the gutsy tradition that undergirds the junior senator from New York.

Sen. Clinton was born in 1947, and Sir Edmund Hillary and his partner Tenzing Norgay did not ascend Mount Everest until 1953, so the story was self-evidently untrue and eventually yielded to fact-checking.

There are only two possible explanations: either madam Clinton says these things knowing they're untrue, which would confirm the long-suspected presence of a Pinocchio gene; or she tells eye-roll-inducing fibs under the delusion that she's stating facts, which would suggest a certain chemical imbalance in the candidate's gray cells.

Either possibility ought to disqualify her from public office, especially the one on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Vote Early And Vote Often

...for your favorite libertarian blog.

Woo-hoo! Nobody's Business is at number one! two! three! OK, well, in the top-fifteen, anyway!

"I Just Know It's Wrong"

People's pronouncements about what is moral and "right" are often spectacularly unfounded in reason. In fact, in many cases, they can't explain why they are repulsed or shocked by others' particular behaviors — sexual, culinary, or otherwise.

For instance, I once mentioned on this blog that my mom liked to eat slices of buttered bread topped with thinly sliced horse meat (then available at any Dutch butcher shop). I still occasionally receive nasty e-mails saying that eating horse meat is positively barbaric. Most of those correspondents have no idea how to answer the inevitable question: "Why?"

Our laws are based on what we collectively consider moral. If there are no proper, rational justifications for much of what morally disgusts us, why would we outlaw it? And why, for a substitute, would we content ourselves with the patently dishonest if widespread practice of reverse-engineering our conclusions — first knowing what we think of a certain situation, then finding (often specious) arguments that allow us to pass off our mental hangups as semi-universal moral truths?

Consider the three examples below, from Steven Pinker's great article on "the Moral Instinct," published in yesterday's New York Times Magazine.

Julie is traveling in France on summer vacation from college with her brother Mark. One night they decide that it would be interesting and fun if they tried making love. Julie was already taking birth-control pills, but Mark uses a condom, too, just to be safe. They both enjoy the sex but decide not to do it again. They keep the night as a special secret, which makes them feel closer to each other. What do you think about that — was it O.K. for them to make love?

A woman is cleaning out her closet and she finds her old American flag. She doesn’t want the flag anymore, so she cuts it up into pieces and uses the rags to clean her bathroom.

A family’s dog is killed by a car in front of their house. They heard that dog meat was delicious, so they cut up the dog’s body and cook it and eat it for dinner.

None of these acts can rationally be proven wrong, methinks. The basic libertarian credo — whatever consenting adults do that doesn't harm others or their property should not be outlawed — survives perfectly intact when applied to these vignettes. Yet all three of these examples could easily lead to laws intended to stop such supposed outrages. Writes Pinker:

Most people immediately declare that these acts are wrong and then grope to justify why they are wrong. It’s not so easy. In the case of Julie and Mark, people raise the possibility of children with birth defects, but they are reminded that the couple were diligent about contraception. They suggest that the siblings will be emotionally hurt, but the story makes it clear that they weren’t. They submit that the act would offend the community, but then recall that it was kept a secret. Eventually many people admit, "I don’t know, I can’t explain it, I just know it’s wrong." People don’t generally engage in moral reasoning, [psychologist Jonathan] Haidt argues, but moral rationalization: they begin with the conclusion, coughed up by an unconscious emotion, and then work backward to a plausible justification.

Haidt and Pinker could be wrong. Maybe condemning all or some of the three behaviors above isn't impervious to reason after all. Anyone care to give it a shot? Heads up: saying that your favorite book, cobbled together sometime in the first millennium, forbids any or all of these things, does not count as a surrogate for reason.

Hypocrisy Doesn't Get Any Better Than This

Remember that the Chicago Police is so determined to eradicate prostitution that they'll have female cops dress as streetwalkers, then arrest passing drivers who so much as take their foot off the accelerator?

Well, funny story: in the Windy City,

...roughly 3 percent of all tricks performed by prostitutes who aren't working with pimps are freebies given to police to avoid arrest. In fact, prostitutes get officially arrested only once per 450 tricks or so, leading the authors [of a new report on Chicagoland prostitution] to conclude that "a prostitute is more likely to have sex with a police officer than to get officially arrested by one."

Whole story here, via Radley Balko.

In a just world, at the bloody minimum, I'd want to see the mugshot of every Chicago police officer who ever had sex with a prostitute plastered on the department's own Hall of Shame website. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

"Start Smoking Or I'll Pink-Slip You"

I don't think "revenge" is a good basis for an employer's hiring policy. Still, it's hard not to sympathize with the smoke-belching entrepreneur who is the hero (or villain) of this story, given that normally, the shoe is on the other foot.

The owner of a small German computer company has fired three non-smoking workers because they were threatening to disturb the peace after they requested a smoke-free environment. The manager of the 10-person IT company in Buesum, named Thomas J., told the Hamburger Morgenpost newspaper he had fired the trio because their non-smoking was causing disruptions.

Germany introduced non-smoking rules in pubs and restaurants on January 1, but Germans working in small offices are still allowed to smoke. "I can't be bothered with trouble-makers," Thomas was quoted saying. "We're on the phone all the time and it's just easier to work while smoking. Everyone picks on smokers these days. It's time for revenge. I'm only going to hire smokers from now on."

Interesting case. Herr Yot (that's how they pronounce the letter J in Germany) could soon be known as a weirdly capricious employer. What if he really dislikes the color yellow — is he going to fire employees who wear yellow shirts or drive a yellow car?

But then, what if he did? His reputation as a reasonable, reliable employer could soon be shot to hell, qualified personnel would seek jobs at companies whose owners are less quirky, and Herr Yot would have to close up shop or muddle along at half strength. On the other hand, he might easily attract blue-shirt aficionados who are extremely glad to be in the company of yellow-shirt-hating co-workers, so it could all work out in the end.

Now that I think about it, the more apt analogy would be that Herr Yot, without bias, hires qualified people, and that a minority of those hires begins demanding that they be shielded from the color yellow anywhere in the workplace. What would you do, if you were him?

In the matter at hand, notwithstanding that silly headline I wrote, Herr Yot isn't actually requiring non-smoking workers to begin lighting up themselves. He is simply saying, "Here's how most of your office mates like to do things, and they have my blessing; if that's going to be a problem for you, you're probably going to be happier elsewhere."

Put like that, it sounds pretty reasonable, doesn't it?

[hat tip: reader Phil Nelson]

If Indignation Fatigue Hasn't Felled You Yet...

...check out the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. The House recently voted for it 404 to 6. Now the bill is on its way to the Senate.

If we'd been under any other administration in recent memory, the new legislation wouldn't have given me so much pause. But considering the way Mr. Bush and his henchmen in-high-places have been interpreting he law, the measure will surely be used in all kinds of creative, McCarthyesque ways; not just against the terrorists it purports to fight, but against domestic critics of the White House who might organize nothing worse than a sit-in.

I know: in 374 days, we'll have our next president. But the legacy of #43 may live on under president McCain or president Clinton (weird, it suddenly got very cold in my office for a moment there).

Certainly, with a House so massively in favor of a poorly worded, dangerous, draconian law, it's hard to see how our fear-fucked political culture will somehow right itself soon after January 20, 2009.

This bill would establish a Commission to study and report on "facts and causes" of "violent radicalism" and "extremist belief systems." It defines "violent radicalism" as "adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change." The term "extremist belief system" is not defined; it could refer to liberalism, nationalism, socialism, anarchism, communism, etc.

"Ideologically based violence" is defined in the bill as the "use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual's political, religious, or social beliefs." Thus, "force" and "violence" are used interchangeably. If a group of people blocked the doorway of a corporation that manufactured weapons, or blocked a sidewalk during an anti-war demonstration, it might constitute the use of "force" to promote "political beliefs."

[Thanks, Anita!]

A Truly Stunning MP3 Player

Noted without comment:

It's the perfect gift for the security-conscious music lover: a Taser stun gun with a built-in MP3 player. Arizona-based Taser International has revealed its latest product, which combines a stun gun - able to shoot a 50,000 volt electric charge - with a music player, and is packaged in red, pink and leopard skin to make it attractive to women.

[Thanks, Greg!]

What If They Gave a Censorship Party...

...and nobody came?

The U.K. group of scolds and Mary Whitehouse fans that calls itself Mediawatch — the organization is roughly similar to the U.S.-based Parents Television Council — started an online petition against television violence and coarse language two months ago. The goal: to present the TV-regulating agency Ofcom with a million signatures from ordinary Brits asking it to forcibly cleanse the television industry.

Less raunch! More Teletubbies!

The January 10 deadline has now arrived (it's just past midnight in London as I write this). The result?

2,100 people signed the petition (some of them with vaguely saucy names like Liz Fuggle, Jan Lusty, and Anthony Rimmer).

As U.K. blogger Monitor says, it seems that Mediawatch is roughly "0.2 percent as relevant as they think they are."

In the U.S., the situation would be different, but not significantly so. I'd love to see the Parents Television Council try to present five million anti-smut signatures to the FCC by mid-March (the number is adjusted for population difference but not for the surfeit of Jesusy moralists on these shores.) If they get more than 15, 20 percent of that goal, I'd be amazed.

Even then, the bottom line would still be that more than 300 million Americans are fine with TV programming that occasionally features lustfulness and aggression — or at last fine enough to not want to spend 30 seconds on adding their names to a petition.

Why I Should Be Arrested For a Hate Crime

I should probably expect a heavy knock on my door sometime today: police officers with a warrant.

Here's why.

Police in Lewiston, Maine, about three hours from where I live, are investigating a possible hate crime after a local man complained that a fake flyer about a missing dog named Jesus was an insult to Christianity. The flyer said that Jesus, the dog, is "not good with children" and "can't be trusted."

Lewiston Mayor Larry Gilbert believes that posting the single flyer was a gross and possibly criminal act that gives the city an undeserved bad name, and he promptly met with local Christians to assure them that he and his police force are on the case.

Rabbi Hillel Katzir of the Temple Shalom in nearby Auburn shares Gilbert's concerns. "This is how the Holocaust started," Katzir declared. "Attacking or making fun of any religion is the same as attacking and making fun of all religions. If we don't stop it here, who's next? Somebody will be next. That's guaranteed. We know that from history."

What's wrong with this account?

Every detail is true — except the name of the dog and the aggrieved party. Notwithstanding the picture above, which I crudely altered in Photoshop for your amusement, the dog on the flyer was in fact called Mohammed, and so the Somali community in Lewiston is outraged, outraged I tell you, by the single handdrawn sheet that the followers of Mohammed (the prophet, not the dog) call an intolerable insult of Islam.

(For the record, you can't call a cat Mohammed either — not in Bangladesh or other Islamic states, that is. Not without going to jail and having a mob call for your head.)

Anyway, what are the odds that a fake, provocative flyer for a lost dog would have become the subject of a hate crime investigation if the animal on the piece of paper had been called Jesus? That scenario isn't very likely, is it?

Well, why not?

The simple idea I'm championing is of course not that Christians deserve protection from anyone making light of their beliefs. The idea is — and I have a certain law document backing me up here — that no one's beliefs deserve to be shielded from fun-making, mockery, parodies, pastiches, caricatures, and sundry roastings. I fail to see why thin-skinned Muslims (I hope that's not a tautology) have earned the right to be appeased and patted on the head over and over by authorities who would rightly extend no such instant solidarity to Christians.

Or atheists.

Now, why do I expect to be arrested? No, I had nothing to do with the Lewiston flyer, but my crime is arguably much worse. I didn't stick a mere piece of paper on a fence or a telephone pole. If only.

In late November, I blogged, for my vast audience, about how I would name my next dog Mo, "short for Mohammed." It was a response to the Gillian Gibbons affair. Gibbons was the English teacher in Sudan who was arrested, convicted, and finally extradited because she had allowed her elementary-school students (mostly Muslim kids, in fact) to name a teddy bear Mohammed.

So I mused on what I would name my next dog, and noted that 'Mo' seemed to have it all, because the name has superb potential to yank the chain (as it were) of Muslims, Christians, and Hindus alike. I even managed to get a dig in at Satanists. That's four groups I made fun of in one fell swoop. And not on a single sheet of paper either, but on the world wide web, thus potentially exposing millions to my repeated razzing.

I see now that I committed a crime by publishing that irreverent reverie. Maybe even four. If Justice is blind, and Maine police officers are her humble servants, I really should be picked up for questioning, and charged.

Should this blog suddenly fall silent for a few days in a row, somebody please call the poli— OK, not the police, I guess.

Maybe the ACLU, then, or any other organization that still knows the difference between a thought crime and a real crime.

Score One for the Surveillance Society

It apparently started as a decent enough plan — a Rhode Island school district wanted to track the whereabouts of its buses in real time, using GPS tags.

And then the initiative quickly devolved into a program that remotely monitors elementary-school students too, thanks to luggage-label-sized tracking devices attached to their backpacks.

I'm fairly certain that in a few years, school authorities and law enforcement agencies will lean heavily on all of us parents to allow RDIF chips to be implanted into under our kids' skins. It's all about keeping them safe, you know — who could possibly object?

Sky Not Falling, Forest (Maybe) Not Vanishing

The trope about disappearing rain forests that you've been hearing so often it has become that most dangerous knowledge of all — common knowledge — may turn out to be wrong. And if the vanishing act does exist, no one really knows how to prove it, cautions Dr. Alan Grainger, an environmental scientist who has studied the issue:

The UN reports are produced by the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in its regular global Forest Resources Assessments (FRAs). Assembled principally using data from national forest authorities, the FRAs are widely regarded as the most accurate estimates available, which is why they are used by many researchers in the areas of forestry, land-use change and sustainability. ... Dr Grainger looked at the four most recent FRAs, published in 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2005. Each of the individual reports showed a decline in tropical forest cover; but across the four reports, he found no trend was discernible.

Brit Pubs Limit Parents' Drinks to Two

Orange juice or lager, it doesn't matter: if you're a parent and you ask for a third drink at JD Wetherspoon, a chain of almost 800 pubs in the U.K., the staff will refuse and demand that you vacate the premises.

Stephen Gandy contacted the BBC after visiting a Wetherspoon pub in Wallasey on Merseyside for a meal with family and friends. The group was told that they could not have more than two alcoholic drinks each because they were with a child, even though the child's mother was only drinking water. The family say they were told that the aim of the restriction was to prevent "child cruelty".

Wetherspoon management explains that the company is "uncomfortable" with serving thirsty parents who linger, because the pubs lack "play facilities" for the younger patrons.

Hmm. Maybe these families could bring their own play facilities — a pocket Nintendo, a deck of cards for a game of Old Maid, or a chess set. Then, I'd wager, we'll find out that this campaign is actually a bit of social engineering — aimed at telling pub visitors who happen to be parents that their rightful place is at home with junior and a nice cup of cocoa.

But who needs JD Wetherspoon anyway? There are plenty of other watering holes that aren't so high and mighty as to tell adults how many glasses of Coca-Cola or Boddington's they may consume. Long live consumer choice — and I hope Wetherspoon will lose a bloody fortune now that the story is out.

Canine Family Addition

It was coincidence that the dog arrived the day before Christmas, but still, he's gotta be one of the best Christmas presents we've ever received. Meet Thüle, a 4-year-old husky with piercing blue eyes, a kind disposition, and quite possibly the longest canine legs I've ever seen. He came to us from a local couple who raise sled dogs and who found that, as much as they love him, Thüle's not much of a puller and longs to be with a human family.

(That means the local gang of perfidious dog-killers known as the Hancock County SPCA, whose two-faced exploits I've chronicled here and here, had nothing whatsoever to do with the adoption.)

Anyway, welcome home, buddy.

And thank you to all the readers who wrote in previously with words of support and advice.

My family and I haven't had a dog in close to a year, and we'd almost — almost — forgotten what a joy it is to have one around.

I look forward to thousands of walks, to thousands of play sessions involving balls and frisbees, and to thousands of blog posts composed with Thüle napping contentedly at my feet.

Oz Gubmint To Massively Curtail Net Speech

The Australian government is now officially at war against "pornography and inappropriate material" on the Internet. The Howard cabinet contented itself with offering every Australian family a copy of the Net Nanny software package, but Howard's successor, Kevin Rudd, believes that censoring the Net is best left up to his administration (a bright idea he might have gotten during his tenure as a diplomat in China).

X-rated pornography is illegal online in Australia, as are casino-style internet gambling, certain forms of "hate" speech and R-rated computer games. ... How far "inappropriate material" may extend was not made clear, for example questioning Government policy where it comes to Aboriginal people could be deemed to be discrimination under Australian law and hence blocked by the censorship regime. Worse still, bloggers or those (such as forum owners) who allow users to comment or post could find themselves blocked under this proposal, should someone say or post the wrong thing.

Two years ago, the Howard government nixed wholesale filtering of the Internet — not so much on the principle of the thing, it seems, but because central censoring (a) would cost in excess of 100 million Australian dollars in the first two years alone, (b) would inevitably cause overall bottlenecks and slowdowns, and (c) would fail to protect the idea's ostensible beneficiaries, to wit, the nation's innocent children.

In March 2006, the then communications minister, Helen Coonan, said she rejected filtering because it would slow speeds for all users without effectively protecting children. A national system could cost $45 million to set up and $33 million a year to maintain, she said.

No such concerns cloud the mind of current Australian telecommunications minister Stephen Conroy. Conroy wholeheartedly supports Rudd's captious policy — indeed, the minister is one apparatchik whose loyalty to dictatorial creeds is never in doubt. Only yesterday he remarked:

"Labor makes no apologies to those who argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road. If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd Labor Government is going to disagree."

Free speech, child porn — no difference, apparently. Poor Oz.

[hat tip: Martin Owens]

Just a Year-End Suggestion

While you're returning a few Santa gifts to the store (and I totally agree that that pink electric ice cream maker just isn't you), here's an idea for what to do with the refund. Why not spend it on a present for a needy blogger whose site makes your day a little brighter (or darker, as the case may be)? You'll He'll be glad you did!

Merry Christmas

Via the Sun-Sentinel, pictures of some foreign guy with a beard, spreading terror. Somebody call the cops!

Seriously — Merry Christmas everyone. I'll be back shortly after the New Year.

Shock Tactics

I can hardly imagine the fury and helplessness of these prank victims when they were subjected to non-fatal electrocutions. Makes me wonder who's really mentally disturbed here.

State officials are allowing a controversial special education school to use electric shock treatments on students for another year. ... The decision comes after an August incident in which two emotionally disturbed students were wrongly given dozens of shocks after a prank call from a person posing as a supervisor.

A state report found that staff made multiple mistakes when they followed the prank caller's directions. The report by the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care said six staffers at a Stoughton residence run by the Canton-based school had reason to doubt the orders to administer the shocks, but did nothing to stop it. The six staff members and video surveillance worker on duty that night were fired on Oct. 1.

After the Aug. 26 call, the teens, ages 16 and 19, were awakened in the middle of the night and given the shock treatments, at times while their legs and arms were bound. One teen received 77 shocks and the other received 29. One boy was treated for two first-degree burns. The caller said he was ordering the punishments because the teens had misbehaved earlier in the evening. But none of the staffers had witnessed any problems.

The school, the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, was the subject of a recent Mother Jones investigation.

The Times Issues a Hussy Alert

India Knight, a columnist with the U.K. Times, has discovered a shocking, shocking truth: Some girls will throw themselves at famous, highly-paid and often athletic young men, such as rock musicians and sports stars. These strumpets, to whom Knight devotes an entire column that brims with indignation and moral panic, don't even charge for their sexual favors, and, worse, they appear to be having a good time while performing their unconscionable lechery. The horror!

Deaf By Design

The most gobsmacking news of the day:

Deaf parents should be allowed to screen their embryos so they can pick a deaf child over one that has all its senses intact, according to the chief executive of the Royal National Institute for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People (RNID).

Jackie Ballard, a former Liberal Democrat MP, says that although the vast majority of deaf parents would want a child who has normal hearing, a small minority of couples would prefer to create a child who is effectively disabled, to fit in better with the family lifestyle.

Ballard’s stance is likely to be welcomed by other deaf organisations, including the British Deaf Association (BDA), which is campaigning to amend government legislation to allow the creation of babies with disabilities.

For about two seconds, I tried to apply some libertarian gloss to the situation — parents making up their own minds about their offspring, how bad can that be? — but it just wouldn't stick. Um, what about the right of the child to be normal (no, that's not a pejorative word) and healthy?

These people are truly a bunch of, hell I'll say it, immoral imbeciles. They want a child with a deliberately-bred disability because junior would "fit in better with the family lifestyle"? Great. It follows that those who are deaf, mute, and blind should be allowed to manipulate their embryos to produce a generation of pinball whizzes (OK, that would be kinda cool actually). It also means that prospective parents with asthma are entitled to progeny that has lifelong trouble breathing and may die prematurely; that a couple with cystic fibrosis should be allowed to select an embryo with the gene that will make the child slowly drown in its own mucus; and that we should defer to legless parents who decide to have their obstetrician snip a couple of limbs off the foetus.

There's no downside to deaf parents having a hearing child; it will be perfectly at home among the deaf and the hearing alike, likely helping to bridge any gap between the two. From where I stand, purposely creating a deaf son or daughter because it's either more convenient, or because the parents consider deafness a blessing or a virtue, shouldn't be a choice. It should be a crime.

Non-rhetorical question: Why is it that the deaf seem to have attained this level of kooky militancy, complete with the notion that having non-working ears bestows some kind of superiority? The mentality was on full-on display last year at Gallaudet University with the shameful tarring and feathering of would-be president Jane Fernandez; though Fernandez is hearing-disabled, radical students and faculty torpedoed her appointment because they essentially deemed her not deaf enough. A subset of that group apparently consists of "absolutists who want a 100 percent deaf world." I really want to know: How did the emancipation of deaf people turn this deranged? And is there an equivalent movement among, say, the blind?

Me, I wish everyone had five fully functioning senses, plus maybe an extra one that seems to be in increasingly short supply: common sense.

NH Court System Loves Illegal Surcharges

"Live Free or Die." Residents of New Hampshire who choose to pay a fine by credit card will have to choose the latter option. My condolences.

Retailers can't charge customers a fee for using Visa or MasterCard credit and debit cards, but the state of New Hampshire is charging its court customers $3 a swipe. With 36,000 credit card transactions made in state courthouses every year, the state makes about $108,000 annually from the $3 surcharges, said Laura Kiernan, communications director for the N.H. judicial branch.

And while the bordering states of Massachusetts and Maine have outlawed credit card surcharges, the New Hampshire Legislature approved $3 fees for every court customer who pays a fine or fee by credit card. That law is contrary to Visa and MasterCard regulations prohibiting fees for use of their cards.

[via Fark]

Goats Get It On, Get Ticket

Apparently, in Dibble, Oklahoma, they have a time machine that can take the authorities all the way back to the era of the Puritans:

A woman in the small town of Dibble, Okla., said she was shocked when she was ticketed for owning a pair of goats that had [mated] in public. Dibble resident Carol Medenhall said her goats' sexual behavior and public urination earned her two tickets, KXAS-TV, Fort Worth, reported Wednesday. Apparently her two goats were not only relieving themselves in her fenced-in land, but mating in plain view of people passing by.

KXAS-TV said that after confronting local officials, Medenhall learned her private property had been annexed by the city recently, making such animal acts illegal. Medenhall had not been informed of the annexation and successfully fought to have the tickets dismissed.

Still, to avoid giving further offense to innocent passers-by, Medenhall really ought to outfit the female goat with one of these. Cotton Mather would approve.

Beware Broken Bulbs and Stuffed Santa Dolls

Safety and security before everything is our world's new mantra. And if we didn't have highly paid government officials protecting sanitation workers from four-inch elevations, and warning the rest of us against sticking forks in power outlets, we'd surely all be dead.

Two fine examples. England again, of course.

An elderly woman had her rubbish collection stopped because council officials ruled that a four-inch step outside her home was a health and safety hazard. Priscilla Thomas, 76, was told that unless she lowered her wheelie bin down the step and on to the pavement herself, her rubbish bags would not be collected by binmen.

In other news,

MPs have been issued with a 10-point guide on what to do if they find a broken light bulb in Parliament. The detailed instructions were drawn up by the House of Commons Commission, which is responsible for the day-to-day running of the Parliamentary estate. It said a protective mask and gloves should be donned before tackling stray shards of glass and explained how to brush them up using a piece of stiff card. A spokesman for the Taxpayers' Alliance said the guidelines were "ridiculous" and a waste of time. He said: "MPs are public servants paid for using public money — have they really nothing better to do than sit around writing guidelines on how to use a dustpan and brush? Politicians are living on another planet. We pay good money into the Government coffers and the very least we expect is good value in return."

It's a nice dream.

While we're on the topic, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has long cautioned British citizens to be especially careful around Christmastime, when

...gift wrappings, cards, glue and adhesive tape are likely to claim hundreds of victims.

You know how deadly those cards and pretty bows can be, don't you? Well, now you do.

Just for fun, I pulled up RoSPA's Christmas-related news releases of the last ten years. Read 'em and weep.

1998: DYING FOR AN OLD-FASHIONED CHRISTMAS?
Sample quote: "An old-fashioned Christmas could be the death of you, The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents warned today."

1999: No news release found. RoSPA staff must have been attending a seminar to learn how to type safety guidelines without stubbing a pinkie or getting a hangnail and coming to an untimely end. The seminar clearly produced excellent results:

2000: LOOK OUT! THAT CHRISTMAS TREE IS DANGEROUS
Sample quote: "Most [Christmas-tree accidents] will result from branches poking into people’s eyes, others will cut themselves trimming the tree to shape and some will fall off ladders while adding the decorations."

2001: COMPUTERS ADD TO TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS ACCIDENTS
Sample quote: “Records show people: hurting themselves unpacking their new machine; being hit by computers toppling off shelves and wardrobes: falling off ladders and downstairs while carrying a computer; walking into things while playing computer games; cutting themselves while carrying out maintenance work and tumbling on to computers when they slip or trip."

2002: CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS FIRE STRIKE FEAR
Sample quote: "Families are already starting to put up trimmings, candles, lights and trees — which have all been associated with fires in the past."

2003: DON’T FALL FOR CHRISTMAS IN CASUALTY
Sample quote: "Christmas trees, lights, trimmings and turkeys will be among the things turning seasonal merrymaking into misery and mayhem for thousands of families over the holiday period."

2004: OFFICE ALARM BELLS RING OUT FOR CHRISTMAS
Sample quote: "Office furniture isn’t designed to be as sturdy as the furniture in your local pub, so dancing on desks could do them and you a lot of damage."

2005: ACCIDENT FEARS OVER MINI MOTORBIKES FOR CHRISTMAS
Sample quote: "Ideally children need to go to a course or properly organised club where they can be trained and enjoy riding rather than risk breaking the law and being injured."

2006: TAKE CARE! CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS ARE NOT TOYS
Sample quote: "It is easy for parents to be confused and to think novelties are toys. We are not suggesting that people should not buy Christmas novelties, such as stuffed Santas, reindeer and snowmen, but that they should use them safely."

2007: RoSPA CANDLE FIRE WARNING TO AVOID CHRISTMAS TRAGEDIES
Sample quote: "Always read and follow the instructions given on any products that you will be using in your home this Christmas, including candles."

Happy holidays!

London Underground Refuses Bingo Ad

Paddy Power is an Irish bookmaker that wants to attract more women to its games of chance, hence the ad copy. The poster turned out to be an affront to the London Underground, which banned it from its premises because the photo is "an offense to public decency."

As is usually the case with ads deemed intolerable by some authority, the publicity value of the rejection is immeasurable. When it's information and visuals as opposed to goods, the more you ban, the more they get around. I kinda like that.

[hat tip: Martin Owens]

Chicago Calling (Special Flash Mobs Edition)

Here's an idea for Chicagoans who want to call bullshit on the authorities' amped-up paranoia (see this previous post for background):

Organize a couple of flash mobs.

For the first act, get together and, all at the same time, begin calling the police whenever you see someone taking a picture. These calls, from what I can tell, are not illegal — quite the opposite, it's what the cops want you to do as good citizens, and you have it in writing (see the first bullet point on the police department's own flyer). Now, as long as you have your cell phones out, take photos of each other with your phone cameras — or merely pretend to do so — and then report a not-too-detailed description of your flash-mob neighbors to the authorities (after all, cameras are a sign of dubious "surveillance"). Repeat (and disperse) as necessary.

For the second act, bring a piece of paper and a pen, or a PDA with a stylus. Remember, you're supposed to call in notetakers! So: One person begins scribbling away in public. The second person makes a note of the first person doing so and calls in the suspicious activity to the police. The third person makes a note of the second scribbler and also calls the switchboard. Ad infinitum.

IMPORTANT: Even though the Chicago cops, incredibly, want you to call 911 whenever you see anything suspicious, don't in this case. It would be dangerous to jam the lines to the emergency dispatchers. Call the regular police number instead, 312-746-6000. Also note that, as a concerned citizen, you have an obligation to report any suspicious activity, but, as far as I know, no obligation to stick around. And I wouldn't if I were you, for obvious reasons.

Let me know how it goes!

London Calling

Regarding that London Metropolitan police poster I wrote about yesterday, here's a nice spoof by a British reader calling himself horncologne. He tells me he designed this mashup / remix (click to enlarge) "in a fit of midnight Photoshop rage" after seeing the original poster on this blog. The rage got the better of his spelling here and there, but it's still a very chuckle-worthy spoof. I wonder if some kindly liberty lover in the U.K. would get in touch with horncologne with an offer to actually print the posters, and organize a band of people to replace the original ones. In fact, I'll personally contribute to such an initiative. Go, lads!

See Something, Anything? Call 911!

The London police force clearly has the graphic-design edge (see the post below this one), but the Chicago Police Department matches if not outshines the British bobbies for the ardor and toxic nuttiness with which it propagates anti-terrorist paranoia. Click on the image to read which categories of people are considered suspects now. You might want to duct-tape your jaw to your face first (be careful not to do this in public; I'm sure the cops consider duct tape highly fishy too). Like the London example, this flyer is genuine. You can find it on the City of Chicago's website here.

If terrorists do their dirty work by spreading, well, terror, what should we call public servants who promote fear and unhinged suspicions by telling the public to report note takers, binoculars users, camera enthusiasts, map owners, and motorists who time traffic lights?

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UPDATE: For a fun idea on how to fight this ridiculousness together, see here.

U.K. Cops Seize Photographer's Film

...for the crime of street photography (hat tip: BoingBoing). The man, Stephen Carroll, wasn't even taking pictures of them, as has been the case with other people who had the audacity to, from a respectful distance and in public, photograph police officers, and got in trouble for it.

Increasingly, it seems, just showing up with a camera anywhere but at a wedding or a zoo now is grounds for unpleasant questions from uniformed busybodies, and possibly confiscations and arrests.

And of course, the general public is expected — no, encouraged — to get in on the act. The first time someone showed me the poster at right, with its moronically vague incantations about the dangers of cell phones and point-and-shoot cameras and rental vans, I thought it was a hoax — a piece of agitprop designed to satirize government fear-mongering. (Click on the image to enlarge it and be sure to read the text.)

Then I discovered it's real. The billboard was commissioned and paid for by London's Metropolitan Police.

Fear itself is, per FDR, truly the main thing to fear.

Hillary Clinton is Unelectable

...and here's why (poll courtesy of the Washington Times). At times, almost half of those polled have declared they can't stand the shilly-shally, always-hedging senator from New York — to an even greater degree than they dislike the other candidates. How do you build a White House bid on that? You can't, unless you're selfish enough to let your personal ambition trump the good of both your party and the country. Which, with Clinton, may well turn out to be the case.

The Democrats' only fighting chance next year is Barack Obama. My best guess right now is that it'll be a three-way race between Giuliani, Obama, and Ron Paul. Paul will run as a third-party candidate, siphoning a couple of million votes away from the GOP, thereby giving Obama the presidency.

Other than having Paul himself in the White House, and noting that we're apt to see somewhat less nannyism and big-government initiatives from Obama than from any of the other Dem candidates (again, the difference may be small), that scenario actually strikes me as the (second-)best way forward.

Their Boy Friday

Dweezil Zappa and Paris Hilton might want to avoid traveling to Italy, lest local immigration officials question the legality of the names in their passports.

An Italian court has ruled that a couple could not name their son "Friday" and ordered that he instead be called Gregory after the saint whose feast day he was born on. ... Friday/Gregory Germano was born in Genoa 15 months ago. The parents registered him as Friday in the city hall and a priest even baptised him as Friday — unusual in Italy since many priests insist that first names be of Christian origin. ...

When the boy was about five months old, a city hall clerk brought the odd name to the attention of a tribunal, which informed the couple of an administrative norm which bars parents from giving "ridiculous or shameful" first names to children. The tribunal said it was protecting the child from being the butt of jokes and added that it believed the name would hinder him from developing "serene interpersonal relationships". ...

When ordered to change the name, the parents refused and the court ruled the boy would be legally registered as Gregory because he was born on that saint's feast day.

[hat tip: Nicky Eyle]

"I Don't Care That What You Do Is Legal, I'm Ordering You To Change Jobs"

Some members of the Amsterdam city council, inspired by — get this — Rudy Giuliani, want to forcibly reduce the number of sex workers in the Dutch capital's prostitution quarter known as the red light district. Says one of the local politicians, Lodewijk Asscher:

"The real soul of Amsterdam is freedom and tolerance. And in the last few years, the Red Light District has not been about freedom and tolerance. It's been about crime and the abuse of women."

It's just Bushian in its blithe insistence that black is white and up is down. To champion freedom, apparently you have to make a mockery of the free market and crack down on the private transactions of consenting adults. To promote tolerance, you have to tell legal prostitutes that they're intolerable.

The new careers that await these women, who can make thousands a week by voluntarily selling their sexual services, will most likely be something along the lines of cleaning lady or checkout cashier — if they can find regular jobs at all. That's helping them how, exactly?

If some of them are being kept as veritable sex slaves, or physically abused, or both, the police should certainly step in, and there are plenty of laws on the books for that already. Fighting human trafficking and blatant sex abuse ought to be a top law-enforcement priority, as far as I'm concerned. But that's very different from telling grown women which perfectly legal profession they will be barred from continuing to practice.

The city council should keep its grubby little hands off the prostitutes — unless they're willing to pay for the privilege, like this former city alderman who clearly had quite an appetite for paid nookie.

Seriously: When Amsterdam, of all places, begins taking its policy cues from a liberty-wrecking proto-fascist like Benito Giuliani — "a small man in search of a balcony," in Jimmy Breslin's immortal words — you know that freedom is truly in trouble, and not just at home.

Year-End Bleg: Be My Santa!

It's been more than a year since I did any blegging — but don't worry, I'm going to keep this short medium-sized.

Just two points:

(1) I love that you come here, and I doubt I'd be as motivated to write daily Nanny-State updates and musings on liberty if I didn't have an audience of thousands of committed freedom lovers. Thank you, and just so we're clear, you don't owe me a thing. Never have, never will.

(2) That said, it won't surprise you to hear that it costs hundreds of dollars a year in hosting and administrative fees to keep this site up and running (an expense that isn't defrayed by annoying advertising). But that's nothing. I'll confess to some moments of self-recrimination when I realize that if I'd turned all that work and energy into regular, paying journalism assignments, I'd surely be making an extra bundle of money that's the equivalent of a decent mid-level sedan (or five minutes' worth of Ron Paul donations). I get the craziest when I think how nice it would be if my output here — some 150,000 to 160,000 words in 2007 alone — would somehow get compensated at my minimum magazine rate of a dollar a word. It'd be a bit like having a money tree that grows geese that lay golden eggs that produce wish-granting genies. Awesome!

Anyway, the bottom line is this:

• If you're a regular here and you don't feel like contributing, that's no problem and I'll still love you.

• If you could help pay for the site, that's easily double the love; click on one of the PayPal buttons over on the right and follow the simple instructions.

• If you'd rather get me something from my Amazon Wish List, whether it's a 15-dollar book or that Sony Bravia hi-def set (I'm talking to you, Warren Buffett), a couple of clicks is all it takes.

For PayPal and Amazon gifters, I'll feel pangs of appreciation so strong it hurts. Also, if you step up to the (collection) plate, you and I won't have to write / read any more blegs on this site for another year. A worthy mutual goal, no?

Thanks, guys!

NYPD: Gun, Check. Cuffs, Check. iPod, Check.

Apparently seeking to emulate these spoiled U.K. bureaucrats,

The New York Police Department is handing out iPods to academy recruits for the first time to allow them to listen to and watch coursework on the subway. The iPods are "fully loaded" with subject matter including criminal procedure, New York State Penal Law, warrants, ethics and community policing, the department said on Monday.

Outfitting recruits with gadgets instead of books comes in handy because many students take public transportation to class. "Now a recruit can watch a class on 'search and seizure' while going home on the subway," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a statement. The current academy class includes 947 recruits and is scheduled for graduation on December 27.

I'm all for cops smartening up, and heaven knows the NYPD can use a few new members who actually studied the force's own ethics rules. But c'mon — if books are now truly too cumbersome and inconvenient as a study tool, the content loaded onto this mountain of iPods could also have been made available on DVD, or streamed over the Internet — for pennies on the dollar. It's a safe bet that the NYPD is not providing its recruits with the latest in DVD players and TV screens for the home, nor with free home PCs. So why hand out a quarter million dollars' worth of iPods?

Reuters Reporting: Sorta Kinda Truthful

Truthiness at Reuters?

The wire service reports that Ron Paul's campaign took in a record amount of money yesterday. And that's a fact. But how much cash was it, exactly? 4.5 million dollars, Reuters said in a report posted at 10.20 p.m. on Sunday. The real news became apparent (no thanks to Reuters) a few hours later: the amount Paul turned out to have raised in that one 24-hour period was well over 6 million dollars.

Two-thirds of a day have now passed since that milestone was reached. The Paul campaign made the feat public at 1:10 a.m. Monday EST, fifteen hours ago. And what's the latest on Reuters right this minute? Nothing. Still the same amount from last night. Here's a screen grab of the Reuters site at 4 p.m. Monday, Eastern Standard Time.

Is it peevish to find fault with a news organization that misses the actual number, the very reason for the article, by one and a half million dollars? Reuters committed a mistake (or oversight) of some 35 percent. Sorry, that's a whopper by any standard. And by extension, any kind of context was also lacking in what the news service did report.

Six million dollars in a single day is unprecedented, not just for a so-called dark-horse candidate, but for any presidential candidate. It beats John Kerry's record of 5.7 million.

The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, is good enough to point out that

If the reported number holds up when officially reported to the Federal Election Commission in early January, Paul will not only be the only Republican candidate to oppose the Iraq war, he'll be the only GOP candidate to increase fundraising totals each quarter this year — from $640,000 to $2.4 million to $5.1 million to whatever this quarter's final total becomes above $18 million with two weeks to go.

The paper also puts the trend in perspective:

[Paul] raised five times as much as Mike Huckabee in the third quarter.

It might behoove Reuters to actually report this, and to especially correct/update the number of dollars Paul raised yesterday. Taking fifteen hours (and counting) to do this is a tad curious, considering that Reuters claims to be in, you know, the news business and all.

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UPDATE: 24 hours after the Ron Paul campaign made its official six-million-dollar announcement, Reuters has still not updated or replaced the article. Competitor UPI gets it right, at least.

Hooker Day

...in South Dakota. Probably not as fun as it sounds.

If the Rev. David Baer has his way, the Whitewood City Council will change the name of one of the northern Black Hills town's streets. Hooker Street doesn't quite lend itself to a family atmosphere and is offensive to some residents in the town of about 800 people, according to Baer.

It's actually named after a Union general from the Civil War, but Baer said that even renaming it to General Hooker Street might not be much better. ... The council is expected to discuss the request its Dec. 17 meeting.

That's today. I truly wish I could be in Whitewood right now, live-blogging the council's history-making deliberations.

Higher Morals

An agnostic scientist and a Christian get into a discussion about creationism, and the guy who claims to have God's Love and Eternal Truth on his side proceeds to stab the non-believer to death.

Higher morals at work, clearly.

When's the last time you heard of atheists killing Christians over a matter of belief? Just asking.

Feminist Solidarity, an Oxymoron?

Today I learned that some Western feminists defend the burka because hey, the alternative is no picnic either. You see, not being forced to swaddle yourself in yards of black wool 365 days a year

"...has imposed a whole new set of expectations upon women to conform to the standards of attractiveness designated by the culture. The word 'attractive' is important — after all, who are women 'attracting' with their appearance if not men? Have no illusions: our 'choices' are still largely dictated by the will of men. In the extreme, these standards lead to eating disorders, plastic surgery, a massive cosmetics industry, and a whole array of magazines to push the new 'must have' fashions of the season, etc... It may make some people feel better to tell themselves they are more cultured, more free, and more respected because they can choose to wear a skimpy top to show off their new breast implants and the abs it took six months of torture in the gym to develop, but this is one woman who doesn't buy it. The way I see it, women get a pretty raw deal everywhere."

"A pretty raw deal"? WTF?

I don't think anyone has the power to force you to go to the gym, lady, or to command you to buy a new pair of tits. And if they do, that says even more about you than it does about the lookist forces of evil who, with one glare or one unkind remark, can send insecure twits like yourself to the tanning salon or the plastic-surgery clinic.

But forget that, that's not even my real point. My real point is this: Say you pack on a few pounds, or don't apply mascara, or wear a suit that is so two seasons years ago. Honestly, what's the worst that happens? Maybe — maybe — you'll be subjected to some degree of ostracism by people hailing from the shallow end of the gene pool. Your punishment ends there.

On the other hand, what's the worst that happens to women in various Muslim countries who refuse to cover themselves from head to toe, or who wear the mandatory garments in such a way as to offer a shocking glimpse of an ankle or a few strands of hair? You want to talk about a raw deal, honey? They get harassed and arrested. They get jailtime. They get murdered.

Now tell me again how that's really the same as you getting stressed out about how you'll look at your fucking high-school reunion.

Cutting Knife Crime

Another knife criminal apprehended. She's only ten, but you know how stabby those fifth-graders can get if you don't let the local cops teach them some manners.

Anyway, thank you, police officers and school authorities, for doing anything to keep us safe.

An elementary student in Marion County was arrested Thursday after school officials found her cutting food during lunch with a [steak] knife that she brought from home, police said. The 10-year-old girl, a student at Sunrise Elementary School in Ocala [Florida], was charged possession of a weapon on school property, which is a felony. ... The girl told sheriff's deputies that she had brought the knife to school on more than one occasion in the past. Students told officials that the girl did not threaten anyone with the knife. The girl was arrested and transported to the Juvenile Assessment Center.

The Great Eurocrat Swindle Continues

The heads of state of the European Union's 27 member countries descended upon Lisbon today to sign a treaty that is supposed to bring the EU closer to common folk. The leaders are certainly off to a fantastic start. As Time notes:

[T]he whole event has been dubbed a diplomatic vanity trip and an environmental extravagance because, after the signing, the leaders (many of whom only spent only a few hours in the city) will then hop on planes — with their huge entourages and other hangers-on like the media — to meet the next day in Brussels for their regular December E.U. summit.

The reason for this flying circus? Portugal, which currently holds the union's presidency, insisted that the treaty be signed on Portuguese soil and enter the history books as the Treaty of Lisbon. But under the E.U.'s Nice Treaty in 2000, all formal summits must take place in Brussels, home of the E.U.'s main institutions. So the leaders are obliged to meet in the Belgian capital for their scheduled summit, due to take place the day after the signing ceremony.

E.U. officials failed to persuade either Portugal or Belgium to back down so that the hour-long signing ceremony and the summit could take place in a single city. ...

The carbon footprint from the signing rigmarole threatens to overshadow the E.U.'s own strong work in addressing climate change through emission caps.

Then again, none of this should come as a surprise, considering that the entire European Parliament moves from Brussels in Belgium to Strasbourg in France once a month, a pointless exercise that, in terms of carbon-dioxide generation, is the equivalent of more than 150,000 transatlantic round-trip flights annually. One of the parliamentarians, Daniel Hannan, has had quite enough, thank you:

"It’s not just the 732 MEPs who make the monthly peregrination, you see: it’s the chauffeurs, the committee clerks, the man who advises your secretary about her pension rights — oh, and some twelve tons of papers, shuttling back and forth in a dedicated train."

Due mostly to that entourage of yo-yo'ing mandarins, and to the off-the-scale wastefulness of the never-ending schlep, each of those 732 members of parliament costs taxpayers 2.5 million euros (more than 3.6 million dollars) a year.

Hannan is far from alone in his disgust. Plenty of his fellow parliamentarians are thoroughly sick of the trek to Strasbourg, too. Take Gary Titley, a resigning Euro-parliamentarian who literally couldn't stand it any longer:

"The plenary sessions in Strasbourg are ... for public display. We're condemned to these visits whether they are needed or not and they're often padded out with debates saying we are against sin."

Occasionally, there'll be a proposal to abolish the perversely unnecessary monthly trip. But the French have made sure that won't happen. Such a measure would have to be approved unanimously by all member states, and France has simply decided to hang tight, stick its fingers in its ears, and enjoy the prestige of having a Euro-capital within its borders — as well as the fruits of that big heaping helping of foreign porc.

Yeah, way to move closer to ordinary citizens!

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P.S.: For some tell-tale insight into how well the EU truly wants to listen to the commoners it claims to serve, check out this recent article from the U.K. Telegraph:

Referendums on the new European Union Treaty were "dangerous" and would be lost in France, Britain and other countries, Nicolas Sarkozy has admitted. The French president's confession that governments could not win popular votes on a "simplified treaty" — drawn up to replace the EU constitution rejected by his countrymen two years ago — was made in a closed meeting of senior Euro-MPs.

"France was just ahead of all the other countries in voting no. It would happen in all member states if they have a referendum. There is a cleavage between people and governments," he said. "A referendum now would bring Europe into danger. There will be no Treaty if we had a referendum in France, which would again be followed by a referendum in the UK."

The comments confirm suspicions that the real reason why Britain, and all other EU countries, apart from Ireland, were refusing to hold popular votes was because governments were afraid they would lose them.

Long Live My Freedoms, and Screw Yours

I have great affection for David Pogue, America's hardest-working and overall best technology journalist. Today, however, in a piece about cell phones, he comes up with this howler:

No matter how depressed you get about the state of the world, you have to have faith in one thing: when things swing out of control, the public has a way of setting things straight. Smoking bans, the backlash against closed-system electronic voting, the push toward renewable energy — all of it is public-driven, sometimes over the objections of our do-nothing leaders.

Come again? Insisting on transparent voting systems with built-in accountability is, in Pogue's world, the same as fining bar owners out of existence should they dare to allow smoking on their own property.

Um, David: one is a measure against tyranny; the other is pretty much the definition of tyranny. You're a smart guy: see if you can figure out which is which.

Muslim Lawyer: Any Cross is Inherently "Racist"

Quite possibly, baking cookies, or rising after 9 a.m., or even breathing is insulting to Islam. You just never know with the Religion of Peace, whose First Commandment to the world's dhimmis is "Thou shalt perennially walk on eggshells, or else."

A Turkish lawyer has filed a complaint to UEFA, the European [soccer] federation, after Italian club Inter Milan wore a [soccer] jersey with a symbol said to be offensive to Islam, during a game with the Turkish team Fenerbahçe. [Note: the match was played in Italy, RvB] The symbol of the northern Italian city of Milan, a red cross on a white background, was on the Inter Milan shirts during the Champions League game in November which saw Fenerbahçe lose by three goals to zero at Milan's San Siro stadium.

Lawyer Baris Kaska has asked a Turkish tribunal to sanction Inter Milan for wearing the shirts, which he says reminded Turks of an emblem of the Christian order of the Knights Templar. The symbol is tied closely to the Crusades in the Middle Ages, when the Christian powers of Europe tried to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims, with constant and ferocious military expeditions. Kaska said that the symbol is considered offensive in Islamic culture and asked the Turkish tribunal to sanction Inter Milan for their 'racist' action.

[via mediawatchwatch]

Truly Taxed From Cradle to Grave

If a gathering of taxocrats were to have a brainstorm session about the most outrageous thing to tax, they might come up with, oh I dunno — taxing imaginary money, perhaps, or taxing rainwater. But actually, that's nothing new (see here for a tax on non-existent cash, here for a rainwater tax). Where's the innovation?

After a long silence, one of the participants might have a Eureka moment. "Hey, why don't we tax babies?" he blurts. I imagine a smattering of hesitant applause building to a standing ovation, and much rejoicing and hossanah'ing deep into the night.

New parents, of course, would probably be less enthused.

A West Australian medical expert wants families to pay a $5000-plus "baby levy" at birth and an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child.

Writing in today's Medical Journal of Australia, Associate Professor Barry Walters said every couple with more than two children should be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child's lifetime.

Professor Walters, clinical associate professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia and the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth, called for condoms and "greenhouse-friendly" services such as sterilisation procedures to earn carbon credits.

"Go, Balls, Go!": Cops and Social Workers to Become Fixtures in UK Schools

O, brave new world
That has such people as Ed Balls in 't!

The Times of London's headline on this story is "Schools Will Have to Make Room For Social Workers and the Police." Such measures are necessary to ensure both "kindliness" and "happiness," as you'll discover.

Schools will be expected to offer parenting advice, mental health clinics and youth offending workers under one roof, as part of proposals outlined today in the Government’s flagship Children’s Plan.

The plan is also likely to lead to school-based speech and language therapists, social workers and children’s health care as well as help with housing and benefits. It could also lead to police officers being permanently stationed in schools to provide positive role models and prevent antisocial behaviour.

Ed Balls, the Children’s Secretary, said yesterday that the ideal school of the 21st century would become a vital resource for the whole community, contributing to all aspects of children’s lives, not just their education.

Elsewhere in the newspaper, we learn from a fawning Libby Purves, a Times columnist, that Mr. Balls is also busy investigating the effects of advertising on young Britons, seen as a first move toward

level[ing] the playing field in the perennial contest between human kindliness and relentless consumerism.

So, where previous generations of citizens might have believed it was the government's job to build roads and bridges and to look after national defense and to combat crime, Ms. Purves has come to the blinding insight that actually, it's the government's responsibility to stop young people from wanting things, thereby promoting kindliness.

In fact, it occurs to Ms. Purves that if Mr. Balls does his job, he is really Britain's

minister for happiness: as the children might say, how awesome is that?

No irony or sarcasm is intended, as far as I can tell. Ms. Purves cheers the Child Secretary on with a hearty

Go, Balls, go!

That's a moving show of support for the Secretary's manly and testicularly, um, spunky proposals — though, dare I say it, it's also a slightly yobbish expression that, when uttered by mouths less upper-middle class than Ms. Purves's, might get one in a spot of trouble in today's Britain.

Spot the Quatrogenarian

It's official, because Singapore says so: There's no such thing as an over-45 MILF. When a woman reaches the age of 45, no right-minded Muslim with a dick would say, "Yeah, I'd tap that."

Muslim women under the age of 45 will be barred from making the annual haj pilgrimage to Mecca unless accompanied by a close male relative starting next year, news reports said on Monday in Singapore. The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore said it would no longer appeal to Saudi Arabian authorities on behalf of women who wish to make the month-long pilgrimage unaccompanied. "We should respect the laws they have laid down," The Straits Times quoted Minister-in-Charge of Muslim Affairs Yaacob Ibrahim as saying.

But seriously: how would you even know?

Help Me Find This Old Science Fiction Story

A science fiction story I read as a young teenager made an indelible impression on me. I don't remember many details, and it might certainly have been a terrible piece of schlock instead of, say, a worthier Arthur C. Clarke exercise — no idea.

What I do remember is the broad plot line. A traveler (a police inspector, I think, though that could be wrong) arrives on another planet (or on our own planet at a time in the future), and finds that social mores are radically different. When he wants to eat something in public, the local humanoid population erupts in shock, horror, and indignation; the second-most natural act in the world has become utterly taboo.

Even at the time, it struck me as a comment on society-wide sexual repression, though my teen hormones probably led me to see nookie references literally everywhere.

Anyway, if you know what the story is called, and who wrote it, I've long been dying to find out.

Unfortunate Ad Placement of the Day

I've spotted interesting unfortunate ad placements before, of course, but the one below, from the New Republic website, takes the cake. The ad appears in the middle of an article from part-time fabulist Scott Thomas Beauchamp, about a boy in Baghdad who liked to talk to Americans and got his tongue cut out by the locals as a result. In short, it's the perfect place to hawk the services of a language lab that asks if you're tongue-tied.