A Stitch in Haste

Here's something I don't understand:

People lament the fact that computers may soon regularly beat our best chess grandmasters, but no one ever bemoans the fact that machines are already stronger, faster and more durable than we are.

It seems to me that, since we built the machines, shouldn't we be collectively* proud of ourselves for our accomplishments? Isn't it a good thing if we are smart enough to build computers that are "smarter" than we are, in chess or anything else — just as we should celebrate our ingenuity in designing cars, trains, planes, spacecraft, forklifts, scalpels, video game systems, etc., that become ever better?

Isn't that worth being humbled by the occasional "checkmate"?

Just wondering.



(Inspired by this post.)

*Please, no Randian gobbledygook from anyone about how "collective pride" is a contradiction in terms and that one should only feel pride in one's own accomplishments and no one else's. It's perfectly rational to delight in the totality of human intellectual achievement.

Here's one for those who insist that it is inappropriate to describe unbridled democracy as "mob rule" --

Rents for New York City's one million rent-stabilized apartments can increase by as much as 7.25 percent over the next two years, the city's Rent Guidelines Board voted last night in a raucous meeting that was disrupted for hours by jeering tenants protesting the state's control of the city's rent laws.
...
The vote came after hundreds of tenants filled the Great Hall at Cooper Union in Manhattan, armed with everything from drums and whistles to aluminum-foil roasting pans and handmade rattles. The meeting was disrupted for the better part of an hour, prompting the board chairman, Marvin Markus, to adjourn for the next two and a half hours.

The board finally voted shortly before 10 p.m., more than four hours after the meeting started. The bellowing and pounding had become so deafening that the stenographer recording the proceedings had to go onstage to hear Mr. Markus, shouting into his microphone, read the proposal into the record.

There's a word for people like this: brats.

Another word might be: criminals --

While protesting tenants were unhappy with last night's outcome, they were pleased with their disruption. "We did a fantastic job," exulted Jumaane Williams, executive director of the Tenants & Neighbors coalition. "We shut it down longer than it's ever been shut down before."

Tenant leaders said they decided months ago to disrupt the annual rent-setting meeting because they considered the deliberations "a sham" that always produced a pre-ordained result.

That's premeditated disturbing of the peace, trespass, obstructing governmental administration and perhaps even inciting to riot. Remind me again how these people pretend to have the moral high ground?

So now these leeches not only get something they don't deserve, something that extracts a terrible economic toll on the city, something that was supposed to be a "temporary" program back in the 1940s — but they also get to behave like pre-schoolers, and lawbreakers, in the process?

This is the democratic process at its purest.

And it's not something to be accommodated.

Those who receive regulatory charity at the involuntary expense of others should exude, not indignation or criminal intent or certainly not infantile tantrums, but apologetic humility.

---

Meanwhile, Washington D.C. just slipped back into last century:

D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams signed legislation yesterday to bar most landlords in the District from raising rents by more than 10 percent a year, the first major revision of the rent-control laws in more than two decades.

Under the new law, landlords of rent-controlled buildings will be permitted to raise rents only once a year, with most units limited to an increase of 2 percent plus inflation, or no more than 10 percent.

It's quite simple really: As I've said before, the laws of economics do not yield to the laws of politicians. I hope Washingtonians are looking forward to their pending housing shortage — and, eventually, their rent riots.

I like to think that I know my way around a derivatives desk, but could someone please explain to me precisely what BP is accused of doing in the propane markets -- other than buying lots of propane with the hope of selling it later for a profit?

Senior executives in charge of BP's North American natural gas liquids trading desk cornered the market by buying large quantities of propane, starting in January 2004, and holding onto them to push up prices, the complaint said.

After its buying spree, BP eventually ended up holding 90 percent of all propane supplies to be delivered through the Teppco products pipeline from Mont Belvieu, Tex., to markets in the Northeast and Midwest, it said.

That's it? That's illegal? Um, why?

Was a single contract breached, with anyone?

Was a single fraudulent representation made, to anyone?

Was a single negligent act committed?

Was a single piece of property trespassed upon, damaged or destroyed?

Was a single debt defaulted on?

There are laws that should not be broken, and then there are laws that should not be enacted. Which kind of law applies here?

"Cornering the market" is a fiction, much the same way as "price gouging" is a fiction. People buy, people sell. And it is a vicious ideology that would suggest that there is anything wrong with that.

Today is my two-year blogiversary.

It was too difficult to calculate precisely, but it appears I've published approximately 2,400 posts, which is scary considering how little I blog on the weekends. There's no obvious way I can think of to estimate a word count, or how many pages my "blogbook" would run.

One of my blogposts has appeared in print. A 0.05% publication rate is pretty good, right?

Anyway, I want to take a moment to thank all of you for reading, and especially for the high quality of your comments. I get almost no spam or offensive entries here, and I've had to ban only three or four people in two years. I'm sorry I can't reply to comments more often than I do, but I'm at full capacity as it is. Never think that, just because I don't reply, it means I don't value your comment — I do.

I hope I can resume offering trackbacks someday — and those of you who link to me on your own blogs have my deepest appreciation.

Suggestions for improvement are always welcome, as are recommendations for my blogoll.

I'd especially like to know whether you would benefit from more "click here" type posts — as in "JoeBlogger has a good piece on stadium economics here..." I have avoided posting on a topic unless I actually had something to add and time to add it. But often I have nothing to contribute except: "yeah, what he said" — which often suggests that the piece is actually very good. Or maybe I should add de.licio.us to the sidebar. Thoughts?

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Actually, this is as good a time as any to point out that I will visiting my parents in Las Vegas over the weekend and that blogging will therefore be very light from Saturday through Tuesday.

Harvard economist Greg Mankiw:

Many economists believe that it would be desirable for Americans to increase the fraction of their income that they save.
...
The difficult issue is how to get Americans to save more.

The rest of Mankiw's post is ballast.

Here's what confuses me about manipulative government paternalism such as "getting Americans to save more": Why precisely is it so "difficult"?

If "enlightened" economists, and the politicians who hire them, really believe that Americans should save more, then why not just flat-out require it? Just force people, at the point of a gun, to save -- just as we force people, at the point of a gun, to pay taxes. Why pussyfoot around with 401(k) opt-in defaults and tax-exempt bonds and the "Save More Tomorrow" gobbledygook that Mankiw mentions?

What's that you say? People don't like being forced to do things at the point of a gun? But if that's true, then why think that they like being manipulated through public policy and social engineering programs either?

If you're going to be a central planner, then at least have the intellectual and political honesty to acknowledge it openly rather than cloak yourself with bait-and-switch terminology like "enlightened paternalism" or "behavioral economics" or "happiness research."

But stop trying to convince yourself, and us, that government manipulation is any different in principle from government coercion.

A few days ago I noted an obnoxious proposal to rescind the right of voluntary homeowner associations and condominium boards to restrict flag displays on resident property.

Not to be outdone, hack New York State politicians want to abolish not just freedom of contract but also privacy of contract:

The prices paid for co-op apartments in New York City could be made public for the first time under a bill passed last week by the Legislature in Albany. The bill proposes to lift the veil on what has long been a central secret of real estate in the city: how much your neighbor paid.
...
The bill was drafted at the request of the city's Finance Department. It allows the city to make public the information provided on transfer tax forms, including the sales price, bringing co-op sales in line with other real estate transactions, including those involving condominiums and single-family homes.

If the bill becomes law, the information would be available on an online database, and would also include addresses, and the names of the buyers and sellers. In 2003, a similar law went into effect allowing the city to make public the sales prices of all other real estate transactions.

Do words simply not have meaning anymore? How is a private sale of private property between private parties in any way a matter of "public" concern? How is this anything other than "financial voyeurism"?

Or look at it this way: how can anyone assert that transfer tax forms should be made public but that, say, income tax returns should not? (Warning: Don't ask that question in Finland.)

And why should a seller -- who may no longer be a resident of the state (or even alive, for that matter) -- have his name and address made available, to anyone and everyone, years after the transaction? I ask again: exactly what "public interest" is being served here?

There's a difference between running a city and running it into the ground. Only hack politicians could possibly believe that giving people yet another reason not to live here and not to invest here could be a sound policy.

I like the Amish as much as anyone, but something doesn't add up in this fact pattern:

Arlie Stutzman was busted in a rare sting when an undercover agent bought raw milk from the Amish dairy farmer in an unlabeled container.

Now, Stutzman is fighting the law that forbids the sale of raw milk, saying he believes it violates his religious beliefs because it prohibits him from sharing the milk he produces with others.

"While I can and I have food, I'll share it," said Stutzman, who is due in Holmes County Common Pleas Court on Friday to tell a judge his views. "Do unto others what you would have others do unto you."

Religious milk for thee but not for me? Sorry, but that's not an option.

There are only two rational positions here. Either "freedom of milk" exists or it doesn't. Freedom of religion is not part of the equation. If the externalities (i.e., the public health risks) of raw milk are real and sufficiently great, then the government may have the authority to ban it. If not, then all milk regulation is improper and everyone should have the right to buy, sell and drink raw milk as they see fit.

I know most of my readers would insist on the latter option ("laissez moo"?), and I don't disagree. My point is that the former approach is at least defensible too. But a split-the-baby exemption for the Amish, or for anyone else, based solely on religious grounds is preposterous. If raw milk is a health risk, then it's a health risk for the Amish too.

Here's my favorite analogy to demonstrate the fallacy of demands for religious exemptions to secular laws. It is well-settled that practitioners of Voodoo and Santaria, both of which endorse ritual animal sacrifices, are not exempt from general animal cruelty laws. If the law applies uniformly to everyone, then by definition there is no religious discrimination. There may be religious impediment, but that is not the same as religious discrimination.

Bottom line, Mr. Stutzman has some crying to do over his spilled milk.

---

On a tangent, let's not lose sight of this part of the story:

Last September, a man came to Stutzman's weathered, two-story farmhouse, located in a pastoral region in northeast Ohio that has the world's largest Amish settlement. The man asked for milk.

Stutzman was leery, but agreed to fill up the man's plastic container from a 250-gallon stainless steel tank in the milkhouse.

After the creamy white, unpasteurized milk flowed into the container, the man, an undercover agent from the Ohio Department of Agriculture, gave Stutzman two dollars and left.

The department revoked Stutzman's license in February.

All this over two dollars worth of milk? Sounds like a pretty flagrant case of entrapment too.

One would think that the Ohio Department of Agriculture could find something better to do. I think they deserve a thorough Amish shunning!

Here are my hasty stitches about the Supreme Court's decision in the Texas redistricting case, League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, No. 05–204:

--There is no such thing as "minority voting rights." There are only individual voting rights. The Supreme Court's Voting Rights Act, Equal Protection and Fifteenth Amendment jurisprudence, now including that part of ULAC, holding that "minority voting rights" can somehow be infringed by otherwise reasonable redistricting, is just plain wrong. An individual member of a minority can certainly be disenfranchised (e.g., by racism-inspired roadblocks on Election Day), but a minority group should have to show more (e.g., a bizarrely shaped district) than a mere racial imbalance to win a redistricting challenge. Stated differently, questions of race can perhaps be the beginning of a gerrymandering allegation, but it should not be the end.

--Turning to "the end": analysis of gerrymandering allegations should be based, not on race and not on party, but on the map (i.e., the so-called "compactness test"). So long as the districts (1) are relatively equal in population (preserving the constitutional requirement of "one person, one vote") and (2) bear some rational relation to geography (i.e., are relatively simple and convex shapes), then a redistricting plan should not be disturbed, regardless of the racial or party distribution implications. People should not lose sight of precisely whence comes the term "gerrymander."

--Mid-decade redistricting might be logical if there is a major shock to population distributions (e.g., the New Orleans area should probably lose a Representative); otherwise it's probably (as was the case in Texas) despicable petty politicking. Nevertheless, it happens to be perfectly constitutional under the plain text of Article I. The Supreme Court got that part right in this case. It remains to be seen how widespread the phenomenon will become now that the Court has confirmed its constitutional permissibility.

--If politicians are truly the enlightened, dedicated and selfless public servants that they claim to be, then why do we keep having these problems?

"We are the only business where our expenses, the skies the limit, but our income is tightly controlled and it's totally unfair."
--A New York City landlord subject to rent regulation.

No, not the only business. I can think of another:

A vague definition of price gouging will make it difficult for gas station owners to know what price they can charge and stay within the law. Indeed, the FTC investigation uncovered examples of gas stations that shut down rather than risk a suit under a state price-gouging statute.

Same politics. Same errors. Same outcome. Same maddening frustration.

Rent regulation chain here; price gouging chain here.

...in a contest that, in the end, was about as silly as this.

A while back I noted a bizarre fact pattern in which a sheriff refused to accept, as payment for a traffic ticket, a check with "For Speed Trap" on it.

Well, another jurisdiction has taken it up a notch:

The parking fine was $10. But the comment Robert Militzer added to the check could land him in jail for 30 days.

The computer programmer from Allen Park [Michigan] got the ticket May 29. When Militzer wrote the check to Berkley District Court, he scribbled on the memo line, "BULL (expletive) MONEY GRAB."

That got Militzer an in-person court appearance -- on a contempt of court charge.

The ACLU is defending Militzer, and his First Amendment defense seems pretty solid to me. Mere profanity is, without more, generally protected speech. See Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971). Unless, of course, Orrin Hatch introduces a "Ticket Protection Amendment" or something.

(Via Fark.)

This hasn't been on my radar screen, but for those following it, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has just issued a ruling overturning the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the State Department's ban on hiring people with HIV for overseas diplomatic posts. This does not mean that the policy has been ruled illegal, but only that the plaintiff is now authorized to proceed with his lawsuit.

The State Department's position has been that its new hires for the Foreign Service Office must be healthy enough to serve anywhere in the world, and that many foreign countries do not have adequate health care infrastructures to care for people with HIV. The appellate court found that assertion to be a fact that cannot simply be assumed and must be proven at trial.

Some choice language:

There is evidence suggesting that, in practice, the Secretary does not require every Foreign Service Officer to be available to serve everywhere in the world. This is apparent from the fact that some candidates unable to serve at every overseas Foreign Service post are nevertheless hired with [limited medical] clearances. The Secretary admits that between 1998 and 2002 the Foreign Service hired twelve candidates who were given [limited] medical clearances because of their asthma.

Asymptomatic HIV? Sorry, the world is too risky for you. But chronic asthma? No sweat -- join the party.

The analogies to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" are obvious -- a 42-year old heterosexual can make a fine and dandy Iraq-bound infantry private, but a 22-year old Arabic-speaking gay cannot even sit at a translator's desk. Lovely.

The case is Taylor v. Rice, 05-5257 (D.C. Cir., June 27, 2006) (PDF - 26 pages)

(Via How Appealing.)

The proponents of a partial repeal of the First Amendment via a "Flag Protection Amendment" insist that the flag "stands for something." Something intrinsically and perhaps uniquely American.

Well, apparently that "something" doesn't include property rights or freedom of contract:

Also up for consideration in the House this week is the Freedom to Display the Flag Act, which would bar condominiums or other homeowner associations from restricting the size or placement of residents' flags. It's expected to pass today.

Of course, condominiums and homeowner associations are strictly voluntary multi-party contracts to guarantee property rights — the right to have your community, in which you have an ownership stake, operated the way you see fit. You know what the rules are going in, and if there is a rule you feel strongly about, such as "no pets" or "no flags in windows," then too bad so sad — live somewhere else.

These associations are also "mini-democracies" (or "mini-republics," if you prefer). The management boards are popularly elected and operate, with limited and pre-defined authority, under a set of by-laws — again as part of the voluntary (and dare we call it "social") contract that each resident enters into as a condition precedent of joining the community.

All this is, somehow, "un-American" and must be quashed by a far-off Congress, led by some hack politician* in Maryland.

Welcome to the New American Way™.

The bill is H.R. 42.

(Via To The People.)

*Oh, sorry, Representative Roscoe Bartlett, the bill's sponsor, insists that he is "a citizen-legislator, not a politician." Fine, he's not a hack politician, but rather a hack citizen-legislator. My bad.

More thoughts at Below the Beltway.

UPDATE: The law, H.R. 42, has been signed into law by President Bush.

President Bush laments freedom of the press:

And the disclosure of this program is disgraceful. We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America, and for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it, does great harm to the United States of America.

Guess who agrees with him?

Chinese media outlets will be fined if they report on "sudden events" without prior authorization from government officials, under a draft law being considered by the Communist Party-controlled legislature.

The law would give government officials a powerful new tool to restrict coverage of mass outbreaks of disease, riots, strikes, accidents and other events that the authorities prefer to keep secret.

Like the Communists before and after them, the terrorists seek to destroy our way of life.

Judging from the blather coming from our President, they are succeeding.

So as we libertarians continue to lick our property rights wounds a year after the "public use" requirement of the Fifth Amendment was rendered a nullity in Kelo v. New London, could it be that a new sort of property rights fact pattern is bubbling up in a backwater block of Manhattan?

East Village activists fighting to save the old P.S. 64 on E. Ninth St. celebrated on Tuesday morning as the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated it an individual city landmark, safeguarding it from the wrecking ball.

A few hours later, Gregg Singer, who purchased the building from the city in 1998 and is bent on developing a towering dormitory on the site, announced his plan for the building, for at least the next several years, to be home to the Christotora Treatment Center, a facility providing temporary housing for the homeless and ex-convicts fresh out of jail, supportive housing for people with H.I.V./AIDS and services for the mentally ill, substance abusers and “troubled youth.”

The peripheral issues grabbing the headlines in this case are twofold: whether the hippies "enlightened" residents of the East Village will even be fazed by a homeless shelter in their neighborhood, and whether a controversial "scare tactic" picture of a scabbed and bruised homeless woman (i.e., "your new neighbor") was photoshopped.

Whatever.

Here, in fact, is the really important part:

Calling the landmarking of the old P.S. 64 “stupid,” Singer said he plans to file a lawsuit in hopes of overturning the designation.
...
The landmarking of old P.S. 64 means that the standstill agreement preventing Singer from acting on his pre-existing permit to strip the building’s ornamental facade has been lifted. Speaking on Tuesday, Singer said he indeed now plans to commence with the stripping of the building’s terracotta window trim and copper cornice, starting on the 10th St. side. ... Singer said his strategy is to strip the building’s facade by using his pre-existing permit, then argue in court that the building never should have been landmarked in the first place.

How sublime -- granting "Landmark" status may in fact mean the destruction of the supposed landmark itself.

On Tuesday, Lisi de Bourbon, a spokesperson for the Landmarks Preservation Commission, said there has never been a case where a court has overturned the L.P.C.’s designation of an individual landmarked building.

Keep in mind that the L.P.C. is an unelected patronage bureaucracy that has little oversight. It is a collection of self-important central planner wannabes who are, apparently, smarter than Gregg Singer -- and you. Any building over thirty years old is subject to landmark designation, based on the capricious whims of (a simple majority of) the commissioners. And since designating landmarks is sole purpose of the Commission, is it any surprise that it never in fact runs out of landmarks to designate? When all you have is a hammer...

The L.P.C. has for decades now stunted development and exacerbated the city's perpetual housing shortage by freezing 23,000 buildings, forever, in the name of the warm fuzzy feeling of "preservation." But "preservation" for its own sake, untethered to any rational basis, objective criterion (nor, above all, to any "demeaning" market forces), is not the description of sound urban planning, but of a wax museum. And this city deserves better.

If the government wants to preserve a landmark, then it should buy it (yes, by eminent domain if absolutely necessary). Seizing your property is, after all, better than the alternative of not seizing it but not letting you do anything productive with it either.

Gregg is right -- this is all stupid. Landmarks preservation in New York has become gratuitous, counterproductive and obstructionist. The original laissez faire "Penn Station demolition" pendulum (wrecking ball?) has swung so far in the opposite direction of "preserve anything and everything" as to be downright absurd.

The Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, St. Patrick's Cathedral, perhaps. But a dilapidated, non-historical and currently unused former grade school in the East Village? Give me a break.

(Via Gothamist.)

I've blogged previously about the obnoxious political stunt of taxing people and then sending them rebate checks -- often timed to coincide with elections, often with a politician's (machine-generated) signature on the check. Besides being an underhanded way to make taxes more progressive, it insults the intelligence of voters. It has been one of the favorite ploys of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (well, at least until he became a lame duck; it remains to be seen whether his property tax rebate check program will continue now that he is term-limited).

But even though these programs as a concept are insulting, at least the amounts -- typically a few hundred dollars -- have not been.

Until now, that is:

Gov. George E. Pataki and the Legislature agreed Friday to send property tax rebate checks to New York homeowners and add more than $1 billion to the state budget in a final round of deal making as the Legislature's regular session came to a close.

The larger checks would go to regions with the highest property taxes, with Westchester County residents getting $373 on average, or $613 for those 65 or older. By contrast, residents of Hamilton County in the Adirondacks would get $76 on average, or $127 for seniors. In New York City, which uses income taxes to finance education, an average homeowner would receive $58, or $97 for seniors, and a credit averaging $70 that would be phased in by the 2007 tax year.

Is it really necessary to crank up the entire state taxation administrative contraption -- determining the correct rebate amounts, printing checks, mailing them, forwarding them if people move, re-issuing them if they are lost, etc. -- to send out checks for $58, or even less? Couldn't they just lower next year's taxes instead, or incorporate the rebate into the income tax return?

Oh right, I forgot, it's not about lowering taxes, it's about buying votes -- which requires something tangible in voters' hands, like a envelope containing a check.

And if $58 is the best the politicians can come up with, well it's better (for them) than nothing.

You can take that, along with your puny little rebate check, to the bank.

Here's what I wrote back in September 2005 about the Supreme Court's review of Vermont's draconian campaign finance limits:

In any event, wouldn't it be grand if the Court used this opportunity to revisit and reverse the schizophrenic holding of Buckley and rule that people have a unlimited First Amendment right to spend their money as they see fit?

Here's what actually happened:

In a fractured set of opinions, justices said they were not sweeping aside 30 years of election finance precedent but rather finding only that Vermont's law -- the strictest in the nation -- sets limits that unconstitutionally hamstring candidates.

Oh well.

I have little to say that I didn't say back in September, and Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), and its progeny -- including this case -- remain on my list of the ten worst Supreme Court cases. Money is money, and money is speech, and people have a First Amendment right, whether or not politicians and judges acknowledge it, to contribute their money to candidates, campaigns and parties as they see fit. The idea that Michael Bloomberg can spend $70 million to get elected but I can't spend even one percent of that to oppose him demonstrates just how pathetic and moronic this whole tangle of statutes and cases is.

There were six different opinions in today's case. Like I said in September: schizophrenic.

The case is Randall v. Sorrell, 04-1528, 04-1530 and 04-1697 (PDF - 70 pages)

Some hasty stitches about both major anti-terror stories over the weekend:

I. The SWIFT Financial Records Monitoring Program

--This is clearly not as onerous as the NSA warrantless wiretapping scandal. There is a clear, mutually understood, carefully chronicled and independently monitored standard of individualized suspicion that the Treasury Department, the CIA and SWIFT have crafted.

--Nevertheless, the people, both in and out of the White House, who insist that disclosure of this program "aids al Qaeda" are either idiots or shills. Foreign terrorists cannot simultaneously be smart and stupid. Of course we were monitoring financial transactions. The federal government required disclosure of all large cash transactions long before September 11 anyway (before "terrorism," there was "money laundering"). And of course the terrorists knew that.

--On the other hand, the specifics of this particular program are clearly a matter of public concern — it's news. "If it's legal, then why report it?" is so hollow a lament as to hardly warrant a response. It's as bad as "If you have nothing to hide, then why not let us search you?"

--Speaking of warrants, there is a fundamental difference between a real, judicial warrant and an "administrative warrant" (which apparently is the new euphemism for "national security letter"): an independent magistrate. Warrants come from judges; subpoenas come from prosecutors. Having a subpoena requirement for SWIFT access is certainly better than the nothingness of the warrantless wiretapping scandal, but it's still not a warrant.

II. The Miami / Chicago Conspiracy Arrests

--The operative word here is "conspiracy." The legal definition of a conspiracy is a plot that has not yet begun. These would-be terrorists may have made all kinds of impressive plans — on paper — and sworn allegiance to Allah and al Qaeda, but they had not taken a single concrete step towards realizing their plans. They had no weapons, no explosives, no plane tickets (and apparently, no clue). They might just as likely have called it all off a few days later.

--Speaking of al Qaeda, these people, um, weren't. So now it's not "all about al Qaeda," which was what the Administration told us all along, but now, as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales phrased it:

Today, terrorist threats may come from smaller, more loosely defined cells who are not affiliated with Al-Qaeda but who are inspired by a violent jihadist message. And left unchecked, these homegrown terrorists may prove to be as dangerous as groups like Al-Qaeda.

So if the real but far-off (and "on the run") al Qaeda justified warrantless wiretapping of American citizens on American soil and vast suspicionless data-mining of our phone records, then what, pray tell, will "homegrown terrorists" in our own backyards justify?

--Hasn't the FBI, by announcing the Miami arrests, also aided the terrorists by "leaking" to the public the details of a confidential anti-terrorist program (i.e., undercover agents) much the same way the New York Times supposedly has by disclosing the SWIFT program?

After careful consideration, I have decided to deactivate the trackback feature on this blog. The ratio of legitimate trackbacks is now less than 1%, and my hosting service is doing nothing about it (a simple "one trackback per domain per hour" limit would probably more than suffice).

When they get with the program, then the program will return.

I told you this was going to happen:

Fresh out of prison, Kerry Skora would much rather be known as a murderer than a sex offender. The law said otherwise.

Skora ... found out that because the victim was 16, he would have to register as a sex offender -- even though the crime didn't involve sex.
...
[Illinois] lawmakers in the mid-1990s added a host of crimes against minors to the sex offender registry requirements, including first-degree murder, kidnapping and child abduction -- regardless of whether the crime involved a sex offense.

People on the state's sex offender registry can't live within 500 feet of schools and other public places where children are found. The public can look up their names, pictures and addresses on the state's Web site, which makes no distinction between people who committed sex crimes and people who committed violent crimes involving minors.

The Illinois Legislature has passed a bill to make two distinct registries; the governor has yet to sign it. Montana and Indiana also have single registries that fail to distinguish sex offenders from other ex-convicts.

The dual canards: that "sex offenders have greater recidivism rates" (the Department of Justice says the opposite is true), and that "child molesters prey on the community" (they overwhelmingly tend, in fact, to prey on children they have proximate access to, such as stepchildren), have both been discredited. There is therefore no clear logic for singling out sex offenders for a registry.

Which can lead you down either of two mutually exclusive paths: either scrap the sex offender registry or insist on "registries for everything." It is increasingly clear that public figures, chasing the Politics of the Warm Fuzzy Feeling, are sprinting down the latter path.

Some previous examples here.

Place this one in the "Politician as Selfless Public Servant" file:

Lame-duck Gov. Pataki's patronage machine shifted into high gear yesterday as the names of dozens more politically connected friends and associates -- including the wife of CNBC host Lawrence Kudlow -- were sent to the GOP-controlled Senate for appointment to high-level jobs and prestigious boards.
...
Democrats pounced on the qualifications of Jennifer Arena, a longtime Pataki administration spokeswoman, for a two-year term — at $101,600 a year — on the state Board of Parole.
...
Senate Minority Leader David Paterson (D-Manhattan) said Arena failed to meet the state law's requirement that board members have at least five years' experience in such fields as criminology, law, psychology and law enforcement.
...
Pataki spokesman Michael Marr contended Arena's experiences as a spokeswoman were sufficient to meet the legal requirement.

Was this a stray case of impropriety?

The [New York] Post reported yesterday that Pataki had jammed nearly 150 political cronies, campaign contributors, longtime aides, and their relatives, into patronage jobs in a move designed to close off positions that would otherwise by filled by the state's new governor in January.

Look on the bright side, at least he's not selling pardons.

In any event, the best way to avoid the placement of cronies into government positions is to eliminate the government positions themselves. Go figure.

If you oppose making English the official language of government in the United States, then you must, by corollary, support actions such as this:

Officials are now having to lay off some of the bosses who manage [Oregon] firefighting crews because the bosses are not bilingual. Many of the newer hires in Oregon only speak Spanish.

"What we do know is 85 percent of the crew makeup is of Hispanic descent," said Jim Walker, with the Oregon Department of Forestry.

The state said all bosses must speak the same language of their crew on the fire lines for safety reasons. They want to make sure that the leader of the crews can quickly communicate during an emergency if the fire turns or if there is another problem on the fire lines.
...
So why couldn't the state require that these crew members speak English? The state doesn't have a clear answer.

Notice that the article did not say "85 percent of the crew are recent immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries." It said "of Hispanic descent." There's a difference.

And this is not Texas, Arizona or New Mexico. It is Oregon, which is only 8% Hispanic according to the 2000 Census. One can only imagine what new rules might be imposed in more heavily Hispanic states under this twisted logic.

Given that firefighting is a public good, and that the purported concern here is over "safety," then the correct approach would of course have been to pay enough to recruit English-speaking firefighters in the first place, not to settle for cheaper non-English speakers and then create "collateral damage" among the even more skilled fire bosses by laying them off or demoting them for not having a skill which no reasonable person could consider "necessary" to the position of fire boss. It would be akin to firing them for not knowing how to ride a horse or play the oboe.

Stated differently, how hard is it to find a raw recruit firefighter, and how hard is it to find a veteran, expert fire boss? Which should therefore be the one accommodated and whose retention should be prioritized?

Of course "safety" is a necessary component of "public safety." Which is precisely why the inability to speak English is something to be proscribed in such occupations, not accommodated.

(Via Fark.)

A quick, and one would hope final, update to the rather pathetic Islamofascist-inspired squabble over the admission of the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross into the international body over -- get this -- the symbols used by the various agencies:

The Magen David Adom (Red Star of David) has sought membership since the 1930s, but it objected to using the traditional cross or crescent symbols.

The breakthrough came with approval of a third emblem, the Red Crystal, to identify relief and emergency workers.
...
Muslim countries objected to the use of the cross symbol, which is redolent of the Crusades in medieval times, and have used a crescent instead since the 19th Century.
...
The new symbol, a red square at an angle on a white background, can be used by any relief teams in areas where there is sensitivity about Christian or Muslim symbols.

Prior to this reassertion of common sense by the civilized nations of the world, the Islamofascists were insisting on a hypocritical "special symbols for me but not for thee" double-standard for Israel.

Because international humanitarianism must never, ever get in the way of taking cheap political pot-shots at Israel. Allah Ackbar...

No (new) pictures of Diamond today, but I thought I'd share a new comic strip I found that might be of interest to dog lovers, called "Dog Eat Doug." Not quite "Calvin & Hobbes," but cute.

Here's one strip that has a bit of a libertarian undertone:


(Click to enlarge.)Diamond can relate:

Happy Friday!

(Carnivalized at Modulator's Friday Ark and Mickey's Musings' Carnival of the Dogs.)

Some items from the sex offender mania front:

ITEM: In Virginia, a new law requires colleges and universities to turn over the names and Social Security numbers of every applicant accepted for admission, even if the individual never actually enrolls or even sets foot in the state. The purpose of this privacy invasion? To catch sex offenders, of course. Because the best way for perverts to find potential rape victims is to take organic chemistry with them. And the best way to help rehabilitate convicted sex offenders is by making sure they don't get to go to college. And how this helps prevent child molestation is anybody's guess. (Via UnCivil Defense.)

---

ITEM: A challenge to Georgia's draconian sex offender redlining law has been initiated in federal court. The law "sets 1,000-foot buffers for convicted child sex offenders around all school bus stops, churches, schools, child-care centers and other places where children congregate." Perhaps the most intriguing challenge is to the "church" provision, which seems a pretty clear violation of the First Amendment's free exercise clause. As for redlining in general, the relationship between the proscription and the goal seems far too weak in most instances to withstand scrutiny. Saying that a convicted child molester can't work in a day care center is one thing; saying he can't live down the street from one is another matter altogether.

---

ITEM: This is the one that has gotten all the headlines --

Penile plethysmograph testing is a procedure that “involves placing a pressure-sensitive device around a man’s penis, presenting him with an array of sexually stimulating images, and determining his level of sexual attraction by measuring minute changes in his erectile responses.” Although one would expect to find a description of such a procedure gracing the pages of a George Orwell novel rather than the Federal Reporter, plethysmograph testing has become routine in the treatment of sexual offenders and is often imposed as a condition of supervised release.

So begins a circuit court case, U.S. v. Weber, 05-50191 (9th Cir., June 20, 2006), considering the constitutionality of the procedure. First of all, I think Anthony Burgess is a better author to invoke than George Orwell. In any event, contrary to many of the reports and blogposts out there, the court did not rule the test unconstitutional on its face, but simply found insufficient facts to warrant its use on this particular convict. The case was sent back to the lower court for further hearings on the matter.

Let's assume the plethysmograph is even a reliable test (not a universal view). So what? A person may enjoy horror films, even snuff films. That doesn't make him a murderer. Enjoying images of burning buildings does not make you an arsonist. And getting an erection over naughty pictures does not make a sex offender a guaranteed recidivist. Expect more challenges, and more findings of impropriety, in the future. (Via Decision of the Day. More thoughts at ThePhalanx.)

One of my favorite targets for ridicule is the European wine cartel. If their wine is so good, then why does it require multi-billion-euro subsidies and flagrantly protectionist regulations?

Well, it turns out that some eurocrats are, sorta kinda, asking the same question:

The EU plan foresees an end to restrictive and often confusing labeling rules for wines and wine-making practices to make it simpler for consumers to see what they are buying. It calls for winemakers to put on their label the grapes used in the wine, a labeling practice used by non-European producers, which has appealed to consumers.

The reform also recommends simplification of national vintner quality systems replacing them with just two EU-wide classes of wine: wine with Geographical Indication and wines without.

That's the good news; here's the better news:

[EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel] said EU governments had to realize that decades-old practices of generous subsidies -- which total some 1.2 billion euros ($1.5 billion) a year, 63 percent of which was used to prop up prices -- had made wine producers complacent and out of touch with trends and were flooding the market with too much wine that no one wants to buy.

There is a special vineyard in Hell for people who advocate agriculture subsidies of the type given to European vintners: First the government taxes people -- regardless of whether they even drink wine -- to pay the vintners not to grow grapes (which by definition decreases Europe's GDP -- Salut!). Restricted supply means higher prices, so the taxpayers get, not cheaper wine but more expensive wine (and let's not forget sales, value-added, and "sin" taxes). Cheers! And, in the end, there still winds up being a wine glut because the vintners -- stripped of the profit motive -- have no incentive to produce wine anyone actually wants to drink. Prost!

But these pernicious subsidies are going to end, right?

[Boel] ... said billions of dollars in new aid would be made available to salvage the wine sector.

Sigh. Subsidies to correct the subsidies? Isn't that like throwing good wine after bad? Bottoms up!

---

For what it's worth, we're no better. See also here.

Read through this New York Times article on how the middle class is vanishing from New York City and see if you can notice which five-letter word appears nowhere in it.

Hint: It starts with "t" and ends with "axes." As in: "what destroys the American middle class."

There's also a seven-letter word that appears nowhere in the piece. Hint: It starts with "s" and ends with "chools." As in: "the single highest priority of most members of the American middle class."

One more: Starts with "m" and ends with "obility." As in "the defining characteristic of the American middle class."

Sometimes policy analysis is not very difficult.

A MySpace user — who identifies herself simply as a "20-year female in a relationship," has apparently plagiarized an entire blogpost of mine without permission, trackback, citation or attribution.

How rude.

Now since I refuse to sign up for MySpace myself, I have no direct way to contact the apparent plagiarizer. Which I suppose might be a good thing if I were a (hetero-)sexual predator, but is not such a neat-o idea when I'm the apparent victim of an intellectual property tort.

Clearly MySpace has breached a duty, of some kind, to "protect" me from compositional "predators" like this young woman apparently is. Surely MySpace could have instituted safeguards, of some kind, to prevent this apparent malfeasance. Undoubtedly MySpace should have foreseen, somehow, that illegal acts by third parties might occur via its site, even if established tort law says otherwise. Certainly MySpace showed a "greedy" indifference to me and should be held liable, somehow, even if "greed" is not actually a tort.

I want my $30 million.

Need more? At the bottom of the MySpace page in question — and I'm guessing the bottom of all MySpace pages, is the following:

©2003-2006 MySpace.com. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright fraud? That's a federal offense.

Make that $300 million.

(For those who are wondering, I discovered the plagiarism via the embedded links to other posts of mine, which of course show up via a routine Technorati search.)

UPDATE: The young lady has apologized in the comments below.

A New York City hack politician has jumped the shark:

Councilman Joel Rivera, health committee chairman, said at a hearing Wednesday he was exploring the idea of using zoning laws to prevent fast food joints from taking over city streets.
...
He said there is a high concentration of fast food eateries in low-income communities, and suggested that might to contribute to obesity rates, which also tend to be greater in those areas.

Rivera said he plans to hold hearings on the matter --particularly to explore whether New York City zoning laws could be tweaked so specifically.

There was time when zoning laws were limited to broad, generalized attempts to account for true, objectively demonstrable externalities among property owners themselves (e.g., "this area shall be residential," "that area shall be industrial"). Zoning is not an excuse, however, for every would-be central planner bureaucrat and politician to play mini-dictator to generate warm fuzzy feelings that trample on both property rights and freedom of choice.

We have seen a city ban smoking outright, we have seen cities, entire states and even Congress either ban or consider banning junk food (and not-quite-junk food) from schools. Now we are seeing potential zoning restrictions on perfectly legal products (and don't forget calls for "fat taxes" and soda taxes). Can the reductio result — outright bans on junk food, period — be far behind?

More thoughts at Overlawyered.

Oh sorry, make that "San Francisco's Health Care Miracle" --

San Francisco, eager to put its own stamp on the health care debate, unveiled an ambitious plan Tuesday that would make it the first city in the nation to provide every uninsured resident with access to medical services.

When rolled out next year, the city's 82,000 uninsured residents would become eligible for a wide array of benefits, regardless of employment or immigration status. The complex, $200-million-a-year plan requires funding from existing government sources, uninsured residents who will pay based on income and a mandated contribution from all San Francisco employers with more than 20 workers.

If I'm a San Francisco employer with 21 workers, do you think I am now more or less likely to reduce my staff?

And If I'm an employee, especially a relatively low-productivity employee, at that 21-employee business, am I now more or less likely to be nervous about my job security?

And if I'm a San Francisco employer with 19 employees, do you think I am now more or less likely to hire more workers?

And if I'm an employer outside of San Francisco, do you think I am now more or less likely to expand or relocate into that city?

The laws of economics always, always, preempt the laws of hack politicians.

(Via Kevin, M.D.)

Today's blogging is sponsored by...


...Fluff marshmallow spread, a key component in the ever-popular "Fluffernutter Sandwich" --

Long a staple of playgrounds, after-school snacks, college dorms, and the local diner, a Fluffernutter is a wonderful concoction of Marshmallow Fluff and peanut butter in a delightfully tasty sandwich!

Fluff — perfecting the intricate science of combining "corn syrup, sugar syrup, vanilla flavor, and egg white" for generations!

Pick up some Fluff today — before the nanny-staters ban it:

Massachusetts State Rep. Jarrett Barrios, D-Cambridge, fired the first shot, vowing earlier this week to file an amendment limiting schools to serving Fluffernutters just once a week as the main meal of the day.

Barrios decided to take action after his third-grade son Nathaniel was given a peanut butter and Fluff sandwich at the King Open School in Cambridge. Barrios acknowledged that while "it seems a little silly to have an amendment on Fluff" the issue of school nutrition is serious.

Barrios' amendment seemed anything but silly to Democratic state Rep. Kathi-Anne Reinstein, D-Revere, whose district is near Lynn, home of Durkee-Mower Inc., the local company that has produced the marshmallow concoction for more than 80 years.

Is there anything better than a knock-down, drag-out brawl between the Politics of the Warm Fuzzy Feeling ("We must protect the children from Fluff!") and the Politics of Pull ("Fluff is a valuable member of the community — and happens to be in my district.") Welcome to the Politics of Fluff.

Now back to our show...

(And since soda in schools is a no-no, be sure to enjoy your Fluffernutter Sandwich with a savory cup of Folgers Coffee — or else the CoffeeLoompas will come after you!)

UPDATE: The anti-Fluff politician has capitulated.

The exploitative and manipulative conspiracy of calculated corporate advertising has reached a new apex.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you — the CoffeeLoompas.



Brought to by the sinister Galbraithian geniuses at Procter & Gamble.

(Via PoliBlog.)

A 14-year old girl who is alleging sexual assault from a MySpace impostor is suing — of course — MySpace:

The suit alleges that MySpace has "absolutely no meaningful protections or security measures to protect underage users."

"(MySpace) has got to take this seriously," said attorney Carl Barry, who is representing the girl and her mother. The suit seeks $30 million.

Some hasty stitches:

--Where there is no duty, there is no negligence and no grounds for a lawsuit. End of discussion.

--Assume the answer for a moment and insist that there must in fact be a duty on the part of MySpace. What exactly would the plaintiffs have MySpace do? Turn itself into a credit bureau or background check service? Provide free chaperons to every meeting?

--Even if there were a duty, the plaintiff must still prove proximate causation, which in this fact pattern is undercut by foreseeability. The general rule in tort law is that criminal acts by third parties are not considered foreseeable and break the chain of causation between the plaintiff (i.e., the girl) and the negligent party (i.e., MySpace).

--Is "assumption of risk" dead as a defense to negligence? What about comparative fault?

--Thirty million dollars?

More thoughts at Point of Law Forum, Joanne Jacobs.

UPDATE: Apparently MySpace was already in the process of changing its access policies such that (self-reported) adults cannot reach out to minors unless invited to do so. How that, or anything else, protects against would-be predators posing as minors remains unresolved. Also, the accused has filed his own lawsuit against MySpace. This is rapidly becoming a theater of the absurd.

Weird:

Earlier today, LEGO employees were notified that the greater part of the company's production will be outsourced to an Electronics Manufacturing Services company, Flextronics, over the coming three-year period.

The decision to outsource means that present production at the LEGO Group’s US-based subsidiary in Enfield, Connecticut, will be phased out during the first quarter of 2007 and relocate to Flextronics' production facilities in Mexico.

Flextronics is a high-tech company. It seems odd that they would be able to contribute any unique capital or worker skill to the manufacture of little bits of uncomplicated plastic.

Which invites the question of whether it's not so much about Flextronics' comparative advantage as about Mexico's.

It's a basic legal premise that mere conveyance cannot convert bad title into good. In other words, if I steal your iPod and then sell it on eBay, you can still recover it, even though neither the buyer nor eBay knew, or had any reason to know, whether the iPod was stolen.

Should not the same principle apply to the police when acquiring personal data?

Numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies have bypassed subpoenas and warrants designed to protect civil liberties and gathered Americans' personal telephone records from private-sector data brokers.

These brokers, many of whom advertise aggressively on the Internet, have gotten into customer accounts online, tricked phone companies into revealing information and even acknowledged that their practices violate laws, according to documents gathered by congressional investigators and provided to The Associated Press.

The law enforcement agencies include offices in the Homeland Security Department and Justice Department — including the FBI and U.S. Marshal's Service — and municipal police departments in California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia and Utah. Experts believe hundreds of other departments frequently use such services.
...
None of the police agencies interviewed by AP said they researched these data brokers to determine how they secretly gather sensitive information like names associated with unlisted numbers, records of phone calls, e-mail aliases — even tracing a person's location using their cellular phone signal.

Read the whole thing.

Now compare and contrast this law enforcement tactic with Hudson v. Michigan, the recent (correctly decided) exclusionary rule holding that I defended in this post. The evidence in Hudson was not proximately obtained via the constitutional violation of "knock and announce," and applying the exclusionary rule would not have been "restitutional" to the defendant but strictly punitive to the police. Stated differently, excluding evidence that would have been found anyway, as many libertarians advocated, would not correct a miscarriage of justice to the defendant but would simply serve as a vindictive reprimand to the police. That is simply not a core Fourth Amendment concept.

Here, however, we have the exact opposite. The evidence obtained by these data brokers is, typically, fraudulently obtained information — the brokers have the equivalent of "bad title." And it is still bad title when they sell (or give away) the records to the police — who apparently believe they have no obligation to determine whether they are dealing with law-abiding businesses. It is still tainted evidence that would never have been found without the subpoenas or warrants that the police simply (and impermissibly) chose to bypass. This is when a libertarian's Fourth Amendment siren should be blaring and the exclusionary rule should be demanded as a constitutional right. The exclusionary rule is about what to do with improper evidence, not improper procedures.

Congress is holding hearings this week to explore the data broker scandal. What might we learn about these law enforcement abuses?

Many of the executives summoned to testify before Congress this week were expected to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and to decline to answer questions.

Bill of Rights for thee but for me? Go figure.

Tax Policy Blog wants to know:

One tool used to analyze lottery data is sales records in various zip codes. If there is a strong enough correlation between high sales and low per capita income in a certain zip code, the lottery is said to be regressive in that area.
...
If people in different income brackets spend the same amount on the lottery, then the implicit lottery tax (the portion of proceeds kept by the state) is regressive.

Call me simplistic, but I think it makes no sense whatsoever even to describe a voluntary lottery as a "tax," let alone to try pigeonholing it into "regressive" or "progressive" categories.

And besides, let's keep in mind that lottery winnings are subject to federal income tax anyway — which is very steeply progressive. So even if lottery expenditures can somehow be definitively described as "regressive" or "progressive," the lottery system, as a unified redistribution program, is obviously progressive.

But you know that I don't really give a damn about lotteries anyway. So why this post?

Because this same need to "see the program and not just the tax" also plagues the Social Security debate. Social Security taxes are proportional up to a point (well, not a point but a moving target), and then become regressive. Point conceded. But "Social Security" isn't simply a tax, it's a program, consisting of taxes and benefits. And those benefits are, like the federal income tax, steeply progressive. A worker who pays twice as much in FICA taxes over his lifetime as another worker receives far less than twice as much in benefits (and is also more likely to pay federal income tax on those benefits — what I have termed "progessivity squared").

Since Social Security is, in toto, a progressive redistribution program, calls to make it even more progressive (e.g., by removing the wage cap or by means-testing benefits) are misplaced. Instead, the structure of the system as a whole should be rethought — with a focus on making it a better deal for everyone, especially lower-income workers. After all, the best way to help the working poor is by not taxing them. And the easiest way to ease their tax burden is (or would have been) voluntary partial privatization of Social Security. Oh well.

Unfortunately, the debate over "regressive versus progressive" was subsumed by another "-gressive" — the retrogressive nature of petty politics, a lottery that no one ever really wins anyway.

Louisiana has decided that children must be protected from fun:

The law — enrolled as Act 441 — states that sales of video games are prohibited to minors if "The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the video or computer game, taken as a whole, appeals to the minor's morbid interest in violence."
...
Rather than define "violent," the bill was carefully crafted to mimic the Miller obscenity test — the gold standard upon which modern anti-obscenity legislation has been crafted.

Of course the whole point of the Miller obscenity test is that it applies to, um, obscenity (i.e., pornography) — and nothing else. There is no reason to suspect that the Supreme Court, especially given its recent Internet-and-children cases, is at all inclined to extend Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), beyond obscenity. These hack Louisiana legislators may be a bit too quick to pat themselves on the back for their cleverness, given that every single federal court that has heard a challenge to video game restrictions has struck down those laws. Every single time.

And besides, if video games can be banned as "too violent," then one wonders whether toy guns will be next, or Nerf missiles, or this.

Put aside the First Amendment concerns, Miller notwithstanding, as summarized here.

This law is still unconstitutionally vague. The law still requires a court, masquerading as an "average person, applying contemporary community standards," to define "violence." So the vagueness problem persists.

What is a "violent" video game? As I blogged previously: what precisely is that supposed to mean? Is my 180 mph Xbox 360 racing game "violent"? If reasonable people cannot easily discern a law's exact proscription, then that law violates due process. (The idea that states could simply rely on Entertainment Software Rating Board ratings is misplaced. First, the ESRB is a private body and not a regulatory agency. Second, It doesn't solve the problem: What is a "Mature" or "Adult" video game? What is "violence," "mild violence" or "intense violence"? What is "gore"? What are "strong lyrics" or a "drug reference"? These are some of the subjective factors that are used to determine ESRB ratings.)

Now repeat that whole exercise, but for the word "morbid."

Want more? Miller also demanded that an "obscene" work, to forfeit First Amendment protection, must also lack "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." Some of the best art I've encountered recently, both visual and musical, has been from my Xbox 360 games. And I've learned scientific concepts too, such as the trajectory of rocket-propelled grenades fired down stairwells and the physics of uphill turbo-drifting in high-speed auto races.

Seriously though, you would think that Louisiana would have more pressing problems right now that crafting warm fuzzy feeling, "Blame Canada" child protection laws to rob kids of their playful amusements.

UPDATE: A federal judge has granted a temporary restraining order preventing the law from taking effect. Typically a judge will not grant such an injunction unless there is a strong likelihood that the law will in fact be deemed unconstitutional. Stay tuned.

For the second time in two weeks I am fully supportive of a Supreme Court ruling that does not find a Fourth Amendment violation.

In ... Samson v. California (04-9728), the Court decided that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit a police officer from searching a parolee, even without a warrant. ... The Court, in an opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, relied heavily upon a 2001 precedent, U.S. v. Knights, [534 U.S. 112 (2001),] allowing a warrantless search of the apartment of a probationer. Parolees, Thomas wrote, have fewer expectations of privacy than probationers. The ruling was by a vote of 6-3.

Entirely correct. Some hasty stitches:

--If there is no "right to parole," then there can be no "right to parole without restrictions." If the convict doesn't want to consent to unlimited and unrestricted warrantless searches during the length of his parole, then he can serve out his sentence in jail. It's like any other proposed contract: "offer + acceptance" or "offer + rejection."

--Last week's case, Hudson v. Michigan, 04-1360, which aroused such bizarre libertarian outrage, was about a search subsequent to a valid warrant. This case carves out an entirely new (but wholly correct) exception to the warrant requirement itself. Therefore, one would think that any libertarian upset with last week's holding should be even more upset with this one. Will they be? Somehow I'm skeptical.

--On the other hand, given the ongoing sex offender mania and its premise of permanent recidivism as the basis for lifetime registries and prohibitions on residence and occupation and such, one wonders whether some activist legislature will now jump the shark and propose extending Samson to a lifetime forfeiture of Fourth Amendment protection for convicted sex offenders, even after the term of the parole has ended. Now that would be an outrageous law and a scary Supreme Court case.

More thoughts from Sentencing Law & Policy, Concurring Opinions, Crime and Consequences.

Which is worse: having an occasionally delayed flight or a permanently canceled flight?

Which is worse: having more flight options or fewer flight options?

Which is worse: having cheaper airline tickets or costlier airline tickets?

According to New York Senator Chuck Schumer, the answers are: the former, the former and the former--

At a news conference Sunday, Schumer (D-N.Y.) unveiled a bill that would require airlines to alert passengers immediately about delays and allow travelers to rebook.

"Nothing is more galling than having the airlines know their plane will be late but not tell you," Schumer said. "Passengers should have the option of looking for an earlier flight or cancelling if it will ruin their plans."
...
Alerting passengers of delays could decrease car and foot traffic at busy airports and reduce the stress of travel, Schumer said.

Well, yes, a new regulatory burden "could" decrease car and foot traffic, especially if the airlines cut back on service -- which is likely if not inevitable. Any flight that was only marginally profitable, or break-even, might now be more expensive, or even a money loser, under Schumer's "How Dare They!" proposal.

Is it really less preferable to have an occasionally-delayed flight than no flight at all, ever? Or if the airlines have pricing power (which, generally, they don't), then they will simply raise ticket prices to pay for the added flexibility they would be forced to offer customers. Higher ticket prices are somehow "consumer empowerment"?

No apologist for the airlines am I. But the laws of economics do not yield to the laws passed by hack politicians like Senator Chuck E. Cheese. Force the airlines, or any other business for that matter, to offer something for which the market has not indicated a demand, and customers will simply pay an unwanted premium for it somewhere down the line -- perhaps through higher prices, perhaps through fewer offerings, perhaps through poorer service. Stated differently, all Schumer's bill would do is force all customers to buy a service that not all of them want -- all in the name of "protecting them" from the airlines.

What's the expression I'm looking for? Oh yes: Nothing is more galling.

Just as there is no such thing as a free (in-flight) lunch, so too is there no such thing as a free government regulation.

For Discussion: What would be the economic impact on air travel of a law requiring airlines to offer "free" in-flight meals? (Most no longer do.) Would such a law be any different in principle than Schumer's proposal?

Reading through Time Magazine's excerpt of the forthcoming book, "The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11," which describes an ominous new technology for conducting gas attacks and a plot — not thwarted but aborted — to gas the New York City subways, confirms what some of us already knew:

--New York's asinine and unconstitutional random suspicionless subway search program did not, and cannot, prevent an attack in the subways. Any terrorist carrying the new "mubtakkar" can simply walk a few blocks (if not a few hundred feet) to the next subway entrance and enter the system there. Since the devices can be remote activated, the terrorist doesn't even need to be a suicide bomber anymore. So the question arises, as it has from the beginning: How can a hopelessly futile search program, one with literally zero probability of success, not be considered "unreasonable" for Fourth Amendment purposes?

--The information the CIA obtained about al Qaeda and the plot did not come from spying on American citizens on American soil without a warrant. As the piece demonstrates, our government knows precisely who the major players are in al Qaeda and can easily obtain warrants, especially retroactive FISA warrants, to monitor their communications. Why run afoul of FISA, and perhaps the Bill of Rights, for no bona fide reason?

--Similarly, mass data mining of the phone records of law-abiding American citizens contributed absolutely nothing to discovering or preventing the subway attack plan. Neither is there any reasonable basis to believe that it would in the future.

When we keep our eye on the ball in the War on Terror, we prevail. When we run around in a panic like a headless chicken, setting up dubious programs that merely create warm fuzzy feelings of faux security — not to mention civil liberty crises — we simply burn rubber, leaving skid marks on the Constitution in the process.

Our local dog run has, during the warmer months, a kiddie pool and faucets with which to fill it. Diamond is a big fan.

This morning the dog run was especially crowded and the dog run was turned upside down. So I of course flipped it back and filled it.

Now suppose, as a thought experiment, that all the other dog owners interrupted me and said, "We don't want that pool filled with water."

To which my response would be, "Why?"

Them: "Dog runs are obviously about running dogs. Throughout history dog runs have been about running dogs and exclusively about running dogs. We believe in traditional dog runs."

Me: "Why should I care what you believe in? This is a public dog run with a public kiddie pool and I have every right to use it."

Them: "Well, this is a democracy, isn't it? We took a vote and the will of the majority is that the pool remains flipped."

Me: "But that's discrimination against pool-loving dogs, which is irrational in a dog run with a kiddie pool. And besides, we're not a democracy; we're a society founded on individual and inalienable rights."

Them: "You have no 'right' to undermine traditional dog runs. That would be a 'special right.'"

Me: "How is equal access and equal protection under the law a 'special right'? And besides, how does my dog's use of the kiddie pool undermine your dogs' use of the run for traditional running?"

Them: "You do have equal access. Your dog has the right to run here just like every other dog."

Me: "What good is a right to run if my dog doesn't want to run but wants to swim instead?"

Them: "Well, if you want to try to persuade a majority of us to let you use the pool, then go ahead. But for now, we're all going to be coming here every weekend and voting to keep the pool flipped. This will be a strictly 'traditional' dog run until further notice. In fact, we just ratified a by-law that forbids use of the kiddie pool."

Me: "Since when are rights subject to a majority vote? That's not democracy — that's mob rule."

Them: "Watch, he'll go find an activist judge now..."

---

All sound absurd? Is it any more absurd than the arguments made by opponents of gay marriage?

---

And for the more radical libertarians who will say: "The government should get out of the dog run business altogether..." my response is to remind you that marriage is a legal status and not simply "a bundle of contracts," that it cannot be perfectly replicated by private contract and that it is an extremely efficient and inexpensive legal process. It makes no sense to abolish it rather than to simply apply it fairly. See this post.