When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. – Plato
This week, Reason magazine editor Jesse Walker tied with the ever-interesting Twitter feed of Radley Balko for the highest number of links; Walker supplied the first three items below the video (which you may wish to play while you read the link directly beneath it), and Balko the three items before it:
- In case you were wondering what it takes to get a cop fired these days.
- Politician who claims gay people are a threat to children, harms children. While drunk.
- Man arrested and shackled to a pole for three hours for the dastardly crime of using legal United States tender.
- Nom nom nom.
- This week in rapid ape evolution.
- Are they working with the “sex traffickers”, or is it a separate invasion?
- California city prosecutes a school principal for “child molestation” despite a complete lack of evidence in order to justify seizing the school, building a homeless shelter on its land and thereby scoring millions in federal funds.
- The past several weeks have made one thing crystal-clear: Our country faces unmitigated disaster if the Other Side wins.
- Man shoots another man at point-blank range; cops respond by firing wildly into a crowd, injuring nine innocent bystanders.
- How to minimize rape pregnancy statistics via bogus math.
- An outcome which surprised nobody but prohibitionists. (Via Mike Siegel)
- Total surveillance: it’s not just for sci-fi dystopias any more. (Via Nick Tolman)
- This week’s edition of “Never call the cops for any reason whatsoever”. (Via Popehat)
- Woman sentenced to five years in prison to “send a message” that adults shouldn’t have sex with other legal adults. Actually, she got off easy; the prosecutor was trying for 320. (Via reader Stephen Douglas)
This anti-photographer, anti-privacy PSA is mostly lies. (Via Antonio Lorusso)
I pretty much write down the harassment of Gibson Guitars to cronyism in the Obama administration for which the Republicans have no guts to check. Make NO mistake about it – the Republicans now have the capability to de-fund large swaths of the EPA and Justice Department – and Mitch McConnell has the ability to shut the entire Senate down. They sit around and complain about things – but nothing gets done.
Gibson’s Democratic competitors are not being harassed …
http://landmarkreport.com/andrew/2011/08/ceo-of-gibson-guitar-a-republican-donor
Okay – on this “Homeland Security” Video …
First – I think it’s kooky to even try this. Enlisting the help of 350,000,000 Americans in identifying “suspicious persons” is going to produce massively mixed results of such a volume that no police organization could filter through it all to get to the real threats. My WASP grandmother, were she alive – would have called the cops on anyone she saw wearing a turban. My Catholic grandma would have called the cops on anyone she saw at a wedding reception who wasn’t drinking. LOL.
Unless you’re trained to spot things – you don’t know what you are doing. Second, I HAVE witnessed people leave their bags laying about and, rather than call the cops I just run them down and tell them they’ve left their bag. If they ever acted suspicious – I’d call. Usually I get a “thanks” and they go back and get the bag.
Having said all that – this notion about terrorists who don’t take pictures is preposterous. We raided several AQ compounds in Afghanistan and found stashes of photos in both hard copy – and on computer drives. It’s also believed that “photographers” are used to “probe” security readiness and see who’s paying attention at the intended target. The guys taking the pics aren’t normally the ones who make the attack – they are simply collecting data for others to make it.
But it’s beyond paranoid to try to instill this kind of culture of vigilance into a nation of hundreds of millions of people.
Also – just turned on the tube and found that Neil Armstrong just died. I never cry – but I had to fight back a tear … this is depressing …
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/story/2012-08-25/neil-armstrong-astronaut-appreciation/57318288/1
It’s not only paranoid; it’s what every totalitarian state has ever done.
I agree. I didn’t specifically note that only because security problems are to me what a math problem is to an algebra freak. 😛
350,000,000 people … somewhere inside that – multiple terror plots … you must stop every single one … it’s just interesting for me to ponder this. 😀
“Unless you’re trained to spot things – you don’t know what you are doing.”
Plumbing into the credibility/threat assessment literature, what’s typically the case is that training increases confidence without increasing ability. Even the people trained to spot those being “suspicious” are mostly working off of whatever hunches they would have used without training – they’re just more confident in their guesses than untrained persons.
I agree in as far as a 10 or 20 minute video isn’t going to increase “ability” in anyone – much less hundreds of millions of Americans.
Adequate training however, and a knowledge of the Constitution, when applied to a group of selectively screened individuals could produce a cadre of individuals very capable of spotting terrorists.
But this isn’t the way it’s working in the US since our Constitutional rights have been stripped by the Patriot Act. Law enforcement no longer feels encumbered by the bill of rights. They feel empowered to do whatever they think necessary in the name of preventing terrorism.
Make NO mistake about it – the Republicans now have the capability to de-fund large swaths of the EPA and Justice Department
[snip]
OK, I’ll bite. How?
Congress has not passed a budget in the last three years. If one were proposed, the Republicans would have the votes to block its passage, but since the government is already illegally operating without one, what can they do about it?
The separation of powers effectively enables the president to do whatever he wants, unless the police or troops start refusing his orders. And given his amorality and his extreme intentions, I’m surprised history hasn’t repeated itself to the extent of a Night of the Long Knives. Maybe that’s in store after the election in November.
I was curious whether you’ve encountered a particular anti-decriminalisation argument that I’ve been seeing recently. It’s the claim that in places with legal/decriminalised sex work, women are forced into the sex industry by the government, who’ll withhold welfare from people who refuse those jobs.
This interview with Gloria Steinem in the latest issue of The Humanist has a typical example: http://thehumanist.org/september-october-2012/the-humanist-interview-with-gloria-steinem/
“In Nevada, there was a time when you couldn’t get unemployment unless you tried sex work first. The same was true in Germany. So the state became a procurer because of the argument that sex is work like any other. This is not a good thing.”
There don’t seem to be any actual examples of this ever happening, in fact Snopes lists it as a myth (at least when it comes to Germany: http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/brothel.asp), but that hasn’t stopped it from being presented as a fact and used as a scare tactic.
Yes, it’s a myth. And the fact that stripping is legal in far more places than prostitution, yet nobody tells that tall tale about stripping, demonstrates exactly how bogus it is.
Man Arrested for using legal tender at Best Buy…
And you know what the most irritating thing is? The excuse the cops proffered, via spokesman Bill Toohey, “It’s a sign that we’re all a little nervous in the post 9/11 world.”
Yeah, Ellsworth. Because everybody knows that 2 dollar bills are just an explosive belt waiting to happen.
I’d hate to see the reaction they’d give to half-dollar coins. Or, heaven forbid, foreign tender that could be easily confused with US tender.
So if you’re in Israel and you receive an email, the person sending it might literally be talking out of their ass.
Thank you, I’ll be here all week.
Hello Maggie,
I wanted to get your perspective on something. You distinguish between neo-feminists and “archeofeminists,” and you identify as the latter. It is clear that you think poorly of the “neo-feminists,” as do I.
Here’s my question:
To what extent (if at all) do you feel women were oppressed in the West as compared to men at any time in the last 200 years? Currently I hold the view that during any given period the oppression of women was no worse then the oppression of men during the same period.
Do you feel that there was once ever a need for any kind of feminism? Has this “archeofeminism” resulted in correcting any specific injustices against women?
Ooops “…the oppression of women was no worse THAN the oppression of men…”
Of course, opinions besides Maggie’s are welcome as well.
nom nom nom
Interesting, and it’s now official: I have no cuteness threshold.
stoned bonobo
Well, he was taught how to make the tools by humans, so it isn’t like he invented them. Also, he’s been taught sign language, which probably stimulates intelligence.
rape pregnancy statistics
I suspect that the number is also inflated by folding in consenting statutory rape.