A Stitch in Haste

Demand creates its own supply. So apparently there was a demand for seeing shirtless youths at the local mall:

Behold FlowRider®:

The FlowRider® sheet wave is a skill and thrill attraction with nonstop marketing appeal. The FlowRider® is the "engine" that drives the downstream deep flow channel and action river. The FlowRider has an approximate throughput of 300 riders an hour.

Three hundred mostly young male riders an hour -- in boardshorts. At the mall. "Throughput" indeed.

More:

This is the first time that a FlowRider® machine is being installed within a retail store rather than in a water park or cruise ship. ... Furthermore, the FlowRider® is a unique water attraction in that spectators enjoy watching as much as the participant enjoys riding. Flowboarding is more that a ride; it is a sport.

Or, to quote a fellow blogger:

There I am walking through the mall, and I think to myself "Oh, that store is finally open. I wonder what it's all ab... HOLY CRAP!" There are four, count them, four half naked, ripped surfer guys (I originally typed "dudes" but I just couldn't say that without feeling like a dork), dripping wet, trying to ride this new surf machine. To say I was mesmerized would be an understatement. But how does one watch that, with families and children all around, without pressing one's self right up against the glass?

I couldn't disagree more -- "dude" is perfectly acceptable usage.

Where can I find one?

California's War on Reasonableness continues:

A California lawmaker wants to make his state the first to ban incandescent lightbulbs as part of California's groundbreaking initiatives to reduce energy use and greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

The "How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb Act" would ban incandescent lightbulbs by 2012 in favor of energy-saving compact fluorescent lightbulbs.

I concur fully: This is indeed a joke. Except I'm not laughing.

Some hasty stitches:

--To the extent that there is a global warming problem, light bulbs aren't it. In fact, electricity isn't it. And if electricity were the problem, then the solution would be nuclear power plants, not warm-fuzzy-feeling light bulb bans.

--Even if old-fashioned light bulbs were the problem, then the solution would be a Pigou tax on them, not a ban.

--People have a right to be myopic. The new "compact fluorescent lightbulbs" are indeed more energy efficient and longer-lasting (and, net-net, less expensive over time) than old-fashioned incandescent bulbs. But they are vastly more expensive at the cashier. It's easy for nanny-staters to declare "they save money in the long run." But not everyone lives in the long run -- the student buying a light bulb for her dorm lamp; the senior citizen on a fixed income, etc. People have a right to think about the short run rather than the long run and to make their purchases accordingly.

--People have a right to be wasteful. All tastes and preferences are subjective. That includes each person's definition of "wasteful." What's "wasteful" to me may not be "wasteful" to you, and vice versa. If I want, at my own expense, to run my air conditioner with the window open, or to buy Neopolitan ice cream and throw away the strawberry part, or to buy a gym membership and never go, or to discard an old Xbox 360 game rather than sell it on eBay, or to pay for an expensive medical test that I probably don't need, then that's my prerogative. It's your prerogative to think me foolish. It's not your prerogative to try to stop me -- whether to save my checkbook or to save the planet.

Of course, in the long run, supply and demand will solve this "problem" with no catalysis from politicians -- one example here. So by the time 2012 rolls around, the market may have made the politicians' grandstanding moot (which won't stop them from taking credit, naturally).

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Meanwhile, the U.K. Green Party has declared Windows Vista wasteful and harmful to the environment. To which my response is: So is the Monarchy. Perhaps Green Britons should address that pollutant first. (Via Slashdot.)

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Also meanwhile, some "socially conscious" New Yorker has declared grocery deliveries wasteful and harmful to the environment. My response: Don't ban the delivery truck; ban the ice cream that it's delivering. Either approach "saves the planet," so why prefer one solution over the other?

All politicians are, by definition, moral defectives. This is never more true than when their own paychecks are involved:

When Democrats blasted Republicans last fall for taking annual congressional pay raises while blocking numerous attempts to raise the minimum wage, it was an effective campaign tactic. Democrats vowed not to accept the annual cost-of-living hike until Congress increases the minimum wage.

But Republicans angered over the political attacks are unwilling to allow Democrats to reinstate the so-called members' COLA, forcing Democratic leaders to scuttle the 1.7 percent pay hike for the entire year.
...
Under the annual COLA, lawmakers automatically get a pay hike unless Congress votes to block it.

If one act of Congress can be "more unconstitutional" than another, then the COLA provision may be the "most unconstitutional" thing Congress has ever done.

No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

So reads the Twenty-Seventh Amendment, arguably the most succinct provision in the Constitution.

Two hasty stitches:

1. A COLA varies "the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives." The argument that "a COLA is not a pay raise" and is therefore not subject to the Twenty-Seventh Amendment is unconscionable sophistry.

2. If "no law shall take effect," then clearly no "non-law" can take effect either. If there is no specific action during a specific Congress varying their specific compensation (but not until after a specific election shall have intervened), then clearly the Twenty-Seventh Amendment cannot have been satisfied. Putting the COLAs on "legislative auto-pilot" simply does not satisfy the Amendment, whether viewed from a textualist, plain meaning, original meaning or original intent interpretation. There is no intellectually honest way to make the COLA law valid.

But this is Congress, so don't expect "intellectually honest" to factor into the debate any time soon.

Dark times at Ridgemont High:

Teens who drink alcohol could be caught three days later under a [New Jersey] high school's new testing policy for students.

The test, which will be given randomly to students at Pequannock Township High School, can detect whether alcohol was consumed up to 80 hours earlier.

Pequannock Superintendent Larrie Reynolds said the policy approved last week should be a deterrent to students who feel peer pressure to drink.

Peer pressure.

To understand the egregiousness of this policy, you need to retrace the history of random drug testing of students, which I conveniently provide in this post. Here's the abridged version.

In Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646 (1995), the Supreme Court took its first baby step down the path to unlimited random drug testing of public school students. In Vernonia, the Court crafted a very narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement: In the limited context of student athletes, random drug testing was a permissible safety measure.

It was quite simple, really: high school football players might hurt themselves if they played high or drunk, so the public school (i.e., the government) had a good reason to randomly test them without individualized suspicion. Or so we were told.

But then it suddenly wasn't quite so simple anymore: From the narrow fact pattern in Vernonia, the Court's reasoning quickly imploded. Suddenly it went from athletics to all extracurricular activities* (but how much harm can a stoned chess team do to themselves?). Suddenly a carefully crafted exception became a mere reasonableness test — reasonable to be defined, of course, by the school administrators. From "this and only this" to "whatever you feel like."

That simply cannot be right.

Today, we are not quite at the point where the Court has completely surrendered the Vernonia reasoning; there is no Supreme Court case expressly authorizing random drug testing of students "just because" (i.e., for whatever flimsy reason — e.g., "peer pressure" — that public school administrators might choose to concoct). But we're close, as case studies such as the nanny-state educrats of Pequannock High School and their absurd "War on Peer Pressure" clearly demonstrate.

Oh, and let's keep in mind that this is testing for alcohol, not drugs. Minors notwithstanding, the government interest — uncompelling to begin with — is even less compelling in the context of mere alcohol (which, recall, minors can obtain legally from their parents).

There was a time when "students did not shed their constitutional rights at schoolhouse gate."** Now they shed their pants so they can pee in the cup.

UPDATE: Related post at Rolling Doughnut.

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*Board of Education of Pottawatomie County v. Earls, 536 U.S. 822 (2002).

**Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969).

Miami's politicians seem to think so:

The city of Miami is planning an official celebration at the Orange Bowl whenever Cuban president Fidel Castro dies.

Discussions by a committee appointed earlier this month by the city commission to plan the event have even covered issues such as a theme to be printed on T-shirts, what musicians would perform, the cost and how long the celebration would last.

Such a gathering has long been part of the city's plan for Castro's death, but firming up the specifics has been more urgent since Castro became ill last summer and turned over power to his brother, Raul.
...
"Basically, the only thing we're trying to do is have a venue, a giant venue ready for people, if they wish, to speak to the media, to show their emotions. It's not that we're doing an official death party," [a city commissioner] said Monday.

It's not clear from the piece what is meant by "official celebration" or "the cost." Does it mean that the City of Miami is merely reiterating the viewpoint-neutral availability, when the time comes, of the Orange Bowl (which should be private property anyway) and other public facilities for the private individuals and organizations prepared to pay to use them? Or will actual Miami taxpayer money will be spent underwriting the celebrations? (This story suggests that the city, after some politician backpedaling, is merely strategizing and not subsidizing.)

Good. The former is questionable at best; the latter is flat-out unacceptable. With few exceptions (e.g., inaugurations), partying is a strictly private matter that should be paid for with strictly private funds.

I don't remember any "official" celebrations in the U.S. when the Berlin Wall came down, or when the Soviet Union was dissolved. And those events actually meant something -- it's not clear that anything will change once Castro dies.

Planning is one thing -- sponsoring is something else entirely.

(Via Catallarchy.)

Didn't want to let this one slip away:

Chinese Communist Party chief Hu Jintao has vowed to "purify" the Internet, state media reported on Wednesday, describing a top-level meeting that discussed ways to master the country's sprawling, unruly online population.
...
"Maintain the initiative in opinion on the Internet and raise the level of guidance online," he said. "We must promote civilized running and use of the Internet and purify the Internet environment."

In 2006, China's Internet users grew by 26 million, or 23.4 percent, year on year, to reach 10.5 percent of the total population, the [state-run] China Internet Network Information Center said on Tuesday.

The vast majority of those users have no access to overseas Chinese Web sites offering uncensored opinion and news critical of the ruling party.

This arrogant authoritarianism is of course nothing new — China boasts about its quest to censor all the time.

What's important to remember, meanwhile, is that even censored Internet access in China is limited to politically connected elites, just as access to China's "enterprise zones" is doled out as political patronage. An ambitious Chinese youth from the countryside can't simply pack up and move to Shanghai the way an ambitious young Kansan can pack up and move to New York City. To the extent that China's "market-based communism" can even be called "capitalism," it is strictly crony capitalism — of, by and for the Communist class and not the populace at large. So too with the "Red Internet" — it is strictly for the anointed.

You cannot have free markets without free minds. Capitalism without liberty is an insolent contradiction in terms that cannot be sustained for any significant length of time.

The only question is how much misery and slaughter China's leaders will inflict in the meantime.

Meanwhile, Hu used a quite appropriate analogy:

"Ensure that one hand grasps development while one hand grasps administration," he said.

Of course, a "grasping hand" is also associated with strangulation, which is exactly what China's authoritarians seek to do to free speech and free thought. Go figure.

Some hasty stitches about the tragic saga of Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro:

A horse with Barbaro's devastating injury normally would have been put down but the owners -- the husband and wife team of Roy and Gretchen Jackson -- were determined to save the colt if he could live pain-free. The owners said they paid the hospital bills without even knowing if Barbaro was potent enough to be put out to stud.

Even race horses, which are not pets, are not strictly economic phenomena. On the other hand, even pets are, to some extent, economic phenomena. Just as a race horse owner may say, "it's not only about the money," so too might a pet owner may say, "it has to be a least partially about the money." Stated differently, "money isn't everything" may be true, but "money is no object" is a fiction.

I'll admit it, even Diamond has her limit. If she had a disease or accident, there would be a ceiling on how much I'd be willing to spend on vet bills. It's a very high ceiling, certainly, but it's a ceiling nonetheless. That doesn't mean I don't love her, or that I only love her "X dollars worth."

Bottom line, sentimental value and pecuniary value are admittedly poor substitutes. So poor that courts rarely allow plaintiffs to demand the latter in exchange for the former. But that doesn't mean that the concepts are mutually exclusive. Sometimes the head and the heart must reach a consensus.

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Via the Barbaro story, I'm also reminded of extreme (i.e., expensive) humanitarian animal rescue efforts. Trapped whales come to mind. We also had an incident here in New York recently with some wayward dolphins (that unfortunately ended quite poorly). Such stories often invoke the lamentation that "the money would be better spent elsewhere." Which may be true -- subjectively. Maybe you think it's worthwhile to spend money, time and other resources trying to save lost dolphins, maybe not. Just as you may think that giving to an AIDS charity is a better idea than giving to a breast cancer charity. Or that spending money on a dog is better than spending money on a parrot. All tastes and preferences are subjective.

But what distinguishes saving trapped whales from getting a dog is of course the difference between public and private expenditures. The Jacksons spent their own money trying to save Barbaro -- wisely or foolishly, depending on your point of view. But it was their money to spend as they pleased. They didn't turn around and demand that taxpayers foot the massive bills on some gobbledygook theory that the horse was a "public good" or "national treasure."

Such is not the case with trapped whales or dolphins. It's often taxpayer money that is spent and government resources that are deployed in those instances. In the case of the East Hampton dolphins:

a coordinated rescue operation that ultimately grew to include 11 federal, state, and local agencies and organizations. Among them were the National Marine Fisheries Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Coast Guard, two divisions of the D.E.C., the East Hampton Town Police, Marine Patrol, and Department of Natural Resources ... and the Suffolk County Police.

That's a lot of taxpayer money for a few dolphins.

You can think the money a wise expenditure, or you can think it squandered. But given that it's taxpayer, not private money, shouldn't the threshold for spending it be something higher than "some bureaucrats thought it was a good idea"?

Or maybe, in the context of the grand leviathan of government, an occasional whale rescue is no big deal, not worth libertarians' time getting uppity about. Fair enough. What about rebuilding New Orleans -- at taxpayer expense -- because "it's a national treasure"? Or taxpayer-funded space exploration, which in the post-Cold-War era is entirely frivolous? Or government-subsidized stadiums, paid for at least in part by taxpayers who will never use them. Or my favorite example, Amtrak, which gets over a billion dollars of taxpayer money every year because a few politicians wax rhapsodic about the supposed joys of rail travel.

And these same politicians and bureaucrats, while spending your money on their subjective preferences, simultaneously forbid you to spend what money you have left on your subjective preferences, such as "online gambling" or "trans fat foods."

That simply cannot be right.

The government should tax and spend only for public goods and services. And it should not impede transactions in private goods and services among competent consenting adults without a compelling, objective reason for doing so.

POST SCRIPT: Speaking of "transactions in private goods and services among competent consenting adults" --

A Florida race track is honoring Barbaro by establishing a scholarship in his name. Officials say the award will be worth at least $20,000 and will go to high school students planning to study veterinary medicine at the University of Florida.

The racetrack, Gulfstream Park, is a private entity. Which of course it should be, since racetracks are not public goods. Somebody please tell that to New York State.

Continued light blogging ahead. For now, let's settle for cleaning out the aggregator:

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ITEM: Is "obsolete" synonymous with "explosive"?

"This television is obsolete," will be the essential message of a warning label proposed by US Representatives Joe Barton (R-Texas), Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois), and Fred Upton (R-Michigan), aimed at helping consumers know when an electronics retailer is trying to sell models that aren't compatible with digital transmissions.

MY TAKE: Labeling requirements are one of those "soft paternalism" wedges that non-libertarians, especially utilitarians, use to try to get us to trip over ourselves — "How can you be opposed to that?" Well, very easily — labeling is not costless and opens up a product liability can of worms ("failure to warn" is one of the three prongs of product liability law). And I just love the bomb icon — will all non-digital televisions simply explode on February 17, 2009? Of course not.

People should have some responsibility for doing their own research on such matters — especially for such a discretionary item as a television. Note also that: (a) It is already illegal — illegal — to manufacture or sell non-digital televisions larger than 25"; (b) This nanny-state, warm-fuzzy-feeling regulation is being introduced by Republicans. Small Government, R.I.P.

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ITEM: Speaking of TV's and paternalism —

Need a TV to watch the Super Bowl this weekend? Beware of rent-to-own deals that can have you paying as much as 300 percent more for a TV than its retail value, local lawmakers said yesterday.
...
The [New York] City Council wants Congress to pass the Renter's Rights Act of 2006, requiring companies to abide by state limits on interest and financing.

MY TAKE: In August 2006, New York Senator Chuck E. Cheese Schumer issued one of his weekly "righteous indignation" press releases damning the rent-to-own industry and promising "sweeping" federal legislation after his office conducted a "study" of the issue in New York City. He never introduced any such legislation — there is no "Renter's Right Act" for Congress to pass. Which of course doesn't stop New York City's idiot politicians from demanding that the phantom bill be passed. Meanwhile, the "study" Schumer cited was never actually released by his office, leading some to question whether it even exists. Welcome to New York politics.

In any case, there is a simple reason why the rent-to-own industry exists and charges the rates it does: because people with bad credit can't obtain loans in the traditional personal finance markets. And that's because people with bad credit are, by definition, higher risks to the merchant. So of course rent-to-own merchants require higher fees to compensate for that higher risk. This is evil — how? It's not "exploitation" — it's supply and demand. Also known as voluntary contracts among consenting adults. Which, to Schumer and his City Council supplicants, must be stopped.

If a rent-to-own merchant engages in some sort of fraud, then that's another matter. But their very existence, or the simple fact that they require a far higher finance charge to those who are far more likely to default, is simply not "unfair" by any reasonable definition of the word.

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ITEM: Speaking of "The Big Game," be sure not to place any online wagers on it —

The United States has suffered a new setback in a four-year-old legal battle with Antigua and Barbuda over U.S. restrictions on Internet gambling, a U.S. trade official said on Thursday.

At issue is an April 2005 World Trade Organization ruling against U.S. prohibitions on online horse race betting. Since then, the U.S. Congress has passed additional legislation to ban betting over the Internet.

Gretchen Hamel, a spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office, confirmed press reports that a WTO panel "did not agree with the United States that we had taken the necessary steps to comply" with that ruling.

MY TAKE: This ongoing Antigua dispute is a minor skirmish in the online gambling wars, unrelated to the recent transaction processing ban or the outrageous arrests of foreign nationals at U.S. airports. Still, the key takeaway in this broader topic is that Washington's war on online gambling has nothing to do with either nanny-state paternalism or the casino industry. It's the Politics of Pull, certainly, but by states seeking to protect their lottery monopolies, not the brick-and-mortar casino industry — which couldn't care less about online gambling (it's an entirely distinct market from "a weekend in Vegas").

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ITEM: I blogged previously about New York City's plan to waste taxpayer money on free condoms (as if people don't use condoms because they're too expensive). Apparently that was only the beginning —

Available soon from City Hall: an official New York condom in a jazzy wrapper, perhaps one printed with a colorful subway map or some other city theme.

New York City hands out 1.5 million free condoms a month in ordinary wrappers, and health officials figure people would be more likely to actually use them if the packaging were more distinctive.

"Brands work, and people use branded items more than they use non-branded items, whether it's a cola or a medicine, even," Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said.

MY TAKE: Actually brands fail far more often than they work, especially for commodity products. Have you ever heard your partner say, "It's Trojans™ brand or we're not having sex tonight!"? But "free condoms" generate lots of warm fuzzy feelings for the bureaucrats, especially the out-of-control Thomas "Trans Fat" Frieden. So expect only proclamations of success in the future.

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ITEM: Back during the West Virginia mining catastrophe, I asked whether "wrongful good news" could conceivably be a tort. Here's a less lethal fact pattern inviting the same question —

An admissions department e-mail sent from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill congratulated 2,700 prospective freshmen this week on their acceptance to the school.

The problem is that none of the applicants have been admitted. They won't start finding out until March whether they've made the cut.

"We deeply regret this disappointment, which we know is compounded by the stress and anxiety that students experience as a result of the admissions process," Stephen Farmer, the school's director of undergraduate admissions, said in a news release.

MY TAKE: As a matter of contract law, the erroneous admission email is of course non-binding (assuming a prompt revocation of the unintended offer; but see agency-partnership law and the problem of "actual" versus "apparent" authority). In any event, I'm more interested in the tort: Is negligent conveying of good news worthy of damages? Ignore the fact that those damages would likely be infinitesimal; thinking strictly in terms of liability, did UNC-CH commit a tort? For perspective, wrongful bad news (e.g., incorrectly telling someone that they have a fatal disease, or that a loved one has died) is actionable in some jurisdictions under "negligent infliction of emotional distress." So the question becomes, if "sorrow, then joy" is a lawsuit, then shouldn't "joy, then sorrow" also be a lawsuit?

So much news from across the pond:

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ITEM: Britain's War on Childhood Obesity now has POW camps —

Social workers are placing obese children on the child protection register alongside victims thought to be at risk of sexual or physical abuse.

In extreme cases children have been placed in foster care because their parents have contributed to the health problems of their offspring by failing to respond to medical advice.

The intervention of social services in what was previously regarded as a private matter is likely to raise concerns about the emergence of the "fat police."

MY TAKE: In the U.K., giving your kid too many crumpets is now apparently the moral and legal equivalent of molesting them. And an obese child is now deemed better off in foster care than in treatment. They almost make Mike Huckabee (who asserts that foster care may be better than gay adoption) seem rational. In the U.S., meanwhile, we (correctly) go torch-and-pitchfork over mere "fat report cards." (Via Junkfood Science.)

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ITEM: Not a good time to be the Big Ben clockmaster —

Britain could shift closer to its continental neighbors and illuminate the thick gloom of winter evenings, a former minister said Friday, outlining proposals to set the country's clocks in line with mainland Europe.

The proposal to switch to Central European Time, 60 minutes ahead of current settings, aims to reduce road deaths, boost tourism and promote outdoor activities, Former Environment Minister Tim Yeo said.
...
Yeo, an opposition Conservative lawmaker, said his plan was "a simple change which would benefit everyone by creating a safer and greener country."

MY TAKE: I railed against Congress' silly fiddling with Daylight Saving Time in order to "save energy" here. The U.K. situation might concededly be different: having most of Europe on the same clock could feasibly be economically efficient (e.g., for global financial markets). Perhaps.

But note the blanket pronouncement that "everyone" would benefit from the switch. Scotland begs to differ, since dawn there would occur as late as 9:00 a.m. under the proposal. Such was the case in the U.S. — families complained that the new DST would mean sending kids in some regions to school in the dark and making Halloween trick-or-treating a post-dusk nightmare. But such is often the habit of politicians — see only the benefits, never the costs, and pronounce their actions "good for everyone" or "in the public interest." Which means I suppose that Scotland and Soccer Moms aren't part of "the public." Go figure.

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ITEM: Smiles and happiness go together — or maybe not —

A 20-year study by scientists in Britain that looked at the impact of braces on more than 300 children in Wales showed that having straighter teeth had little positive impact on their psychological health later in life.

When they were questioned as adults, none of them regretted having had their teeth improved and most were satisfied with the way they looked. But there was no difference in their psychological wellbeing when compared to other people who have never had braces.
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Parents can spend a small fortune on their children's dental work. In Britain and other countries braces can cost 2,000 pounds or more depending on the severity of the problem.

MY TAKE: This is not the forum to bash so-called "happiness research." My point is somewhat different: Britain's socialized medicine scheme, the NHS, is also Britain's socialized dentistry scheme. And they don't cover orthodontics. Bottom line: There will always be rationing of health care — that's not economics but metaphysics. The only question is whether the rationing is done by the market (i.e., by you and those with whom you deal) or by politicians and bureaucrats. But the rationing will be done. "Universal health care" means "universal partial care" — even in Europe's supposedly "superior" systems.

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ITEM: Maybe they suspected a case of progeria —

An 87-year-old former Lord Mayor was asked to prove he was over 18 when he tried to buy a bottle of sherry in a supermarket.

Jack Archer said he was shocked — and flattered — when asked the question by staff at Morrisons supermarket in Acomb, York.
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"I don't blame the individual staff because they are just obeying instructions. ... "I don't think I look my age but they must have known I'm not under 18 — it's just silly."

MY TAKE: Obviously stores conscripted into serving as the "liquor police" have to draw an arbitrary line somewhere — it used to be 30. The real problem is when, as my local supermarket does, they actually enter your birthday into the checkout register. So now a supermarket computer system can have both a person's credit card and her date of birth in its files. Splendid. How secure do you think that network is? Bottom line: I absolutely refuse to buy beer in that supermarket. (SIDEBAR: Cheers to the U.K. for having the correct drinking age of eighteen rather than our federally extorted, warm-fuzzy-feeling age of twenty-one.)

Inside the Vault = An intermittent string of weekend posts detailing aspects of my personal life.

I recently bought the following albums in one fell swoop from the iTunes Music Store:

• Asia: The Definitive Collection


• Carbon Leaf: Indian Summer


• Daniel Powter: Daniel Powter


• Eurythmics: Ultimate Collection


• Five for Fighting: Two Lights


• Pilot Speed: Into the West


• Quietdrive: When All That's Left is You


• Zack Hexum: The Story So Far...

iTunes made some "Recommendations Based on My Cart," none of which are familiar to me. So I'll leave it up to you. Whichever one wins the poll, I'll buy — no questions asked.

Best album for Kip to buy based on his recent purchases:

• Cold War Kids: Robbers and Cowards
• Copeland: Eat, Sleep, Retreat
• Scissor Sisters: Ta-Dah
• Landon Pigg: LP
• Drake Bell: It's Only Time
• Spitalfield: Better than Knowing

view results

You can also cast a write-in vote in the comments.

PROLOGUE: Given the recent spate of stories of this nature (i.e., where politicians go out of their way to propose or enact idiotic laws), I have created a new blogpost subcategory, "Activist Legislators," within the "Law" category. Consider it a cousin to the "Nanny State" subcategory.

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A hack politician in Ohio has a plan to solve that state's chronic shortage of poll workers:

[Ohio Secretary of State] Jennifer L. Brunner ... is asking lawmakers to require conscripted workers to have two days of training and then work eight-hours on Election Day.

If the Legislature approves the plan, Ohio would be the first state to force people to be election workers.
...
The workers' average age is 72, and states and advocates around the country are grappling with a shortage of workers, according to research by VoteTrustUSA, a nonpartisan group.

I have my own plan for easing the shortage of poll workers: Pay a market-clearing wage! How is this a difficult concept?

Oh right, I forgot: We're dealing with a politician here.

How civic-illiterate, or just plain stupid, does a politician have to be if she cannot distinguish between jury duty and -- well, everything else? Only a lay jury can serve as a lay jury -- it's axiomatic.* A "jury of one's peers" requires peers being peers (i.e., performing an abstract, generalized and solemn task). A polling place does not require peers -- it requires government employees paid to do a concrete, specific and mundane task. Indeed, it would be hard to identify a function more antithetical to the sui generis role of "juror" than "poll worker."

And yet Brunner, now the senior-most paper-pusher politician in the State of Ohio, thinks they're essentially identical. When did the Buckeye State become the Cross-Eyed State?

Of course, why stop at poll worker? Why not enslave citizens to pick up litter along the highway, or candy-stripe in hospitals, or draw numbered ping-pong balls out of the state lotto machine? If "poll worker" is the civic equivalent of "juror," then so is "bingo hall worker" or "courthouse janitor" or "landfill digger."

Government exists to serve the people, not the other way around. Any politician who cannot grasp this simplest of truths is per se incompetent and potentially dangerous or even lethal.

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(*Assuming you even want lay juries in the first place, but that's a whole other blogpost.)

To review: I accept the premise that it is fundamentally unfair for residents of the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and other non-states to have no voting representation in Congress. However, the Constitution says what it says and must be obeyed — that is simply not negotiable.

Unless, of course, you're a partisan politician:

The House gave D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton the right yesterday to vote on amendments to bills on the House floor, a privilege that legislators acknowledged is largely symbolic.
...
The measure allows Norton and representatives from Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the Virgin Islands to vote in the Committee of the Whole, where amendments to legislation are considered.

But it comes with an important caveat: If the delegates' votes provide the margin of victory, their votes are thrown out and representatives revote without them.

I find it fascinating that Norton considers this a defeat ("heartbreaking," she says) that may deflect calls for full (i.e., unconstitutional) representation in the House. That's crocodile tears — she and the Democratic leadership want this issue in the limelight as much as possible. It's not hard to envision all the future press conferences and floor speeches: "Half an injustice is still an injustice!" etc.

It's quite simple really: We amended the Constitution once before to partially enfranchise the District; we can amend it again to fully enfranchise it — either by expressly altering the composition of the House, the Senate or both, or by simply making the District a bona fide state.

More:

House Republicans filed suit in U.S. District Court in 1993, citing a violation of the Constitution. But Judge Harold H. Greene ruled in favor of Norton and the other delegates, saying their votes posed no constitutional problems because they were "symbolic" and therefore "meaningless." That decision was upheld on appeal.

That's a very myopic, superficial view of how voting works. Game theory and the mathematics of strategic voting (not to mention the corrupting nature of political power) tell us that "meaningless" votes can easily turn meaningful, especially when revotes are at stake. Consider the examples of voting in committee versus voting on the floor, voting to end a filibuster but then voting against the bill being filibustered, or voting for a bill but voting against overriding its veto by the president.

The more votes taken, the more wheeling and dealing can occur. As we are seeing at this very moment, some of the most important votes in Congress are supposedly "symbolic." All the more reason that a (constitutional) all-or-other approach to District enfranchisement must be taken.

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As for Puerto Rico and the other territories, they are even less deserving of sympathy. Every time the commonwealth takes a vote for change (i.e., statehood or independence), they reject it and opt for the status quo. They're not fools — they know which side their passports (and tax returns) are buttered on.

After years of baselessly harassing Microsoft for selling a product that people want to buy (solution: force them to sell a product people don't want to buy -- to make them better off), Eurocrats are now setting their sights on Apple:

The Dutch consumer protection agency became the latest in Europe on Thursday to pressure Apple Inc. into changing restrictions that tie songs bought on iTunes to its market-leading iPod players.

Consumentenbond spokesman Ewald van Kouwen said his group had filed a formal complaint with the Dutch antitrust watchdog NMa asking for an investigation into what he called "illegal practices" by Apple's iTunes online store.

"What we want from Apple is that they remove the limitations that prevent you from playing a song you download from iTunes on any player other than an iPod," van Kouwen said. "When you buy a music CD it doesn't play only on players made by Panasonic. People who download a song from iTunes shouldn't be bound to an iPod for the rest of their lives."

The Dutch complaints follow similar ones from consumer-rights groups in Germany, France and the Nordic countries.

This is, of course, utter nonsense.

First of all, digital music is not a natural resource. A file format is not centuries-old technology that anyone and everyone can share and that Apple is now somehow "stealing" or "hoarding." They invented their particular format, and people are free to embrace it or shun it as they see fit. And if many, most or nearly all Europeans are indeed embracing it, then wouldn't that suggest that the best course of action is no action at all? Why should offering people what they want be considered either an offense or offensive?

Apple has competition, both within the narrow market of digital music and in the broader market of "music" generally. If iTunes continues to thrive, it will only be because it continues to indenture itself to its customers. This, to a European, is somehow a sin.

The "Panasonic - CD" analogy is particularly retarded (not least because the compact disc was invented by Philips and Sony, not Panasonic). The correct analogy would be a law requiring all CD players to also play cassettes, or to include a radio, or to have both European and American plugs. Requiring a company to sell a product that customers don't want simply does not make those customers better off, especially if (when) the company, facing higher costs, raise prices or exits the market altogether.

Let's hope the Eurocrats don't force Apple to "Think Different" about doing business there.

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Did I mention Microsoft?

A coalition of rivals charged on Friday that Microsoft's new Vista operating system will perpetuate practices found illegal in the European Union nearly three years ago.

The European Commission found in 2004 that Microsoft used its dominance to muscle out RealNetworks and other makers of audio and video streaming software and that it made its desktop Windows deliberately incompatible with rival's server software.

Those "practices found illegal" were, again, selling a product people wanted to buy. Go figure.

Antitrust laws do not protect competition, they protect competitors -- who, recall, are not "consumers." How sad that Microsoft's "rivals" are seeking unearned enrichment via the coercive power of corrupt governments.

One of the dumbest — or smartest, depending on your point of view — assertions made by anti-gay bigots is that gays are demanding "special rights." To me the definition of a "special right" would be the selective granting of a positive, not the selective removal of a negative. So, for example, a taxpayer subsidy or tax break targeted only for gays would be an example of a "special right." Allowing gay couples to file joint tax returns the same as straight couples cannot, however, rationally be described as "a special right."

Another example of the "special right" is a targeted exemption from a law. Case studies: Older structures, such as New York City subway stations, are given exemptions from the Americans with Disabilities Act — they need not be made handicapped accessible. Casinos are often granted exemptions from smoking bans, "just because." And so on. These are true "special rights" — being treated differently from everyone else, not being treated the same as everyone else.

Armed with that, consider these two reports:

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ITEM: Special rights for Catholics —

The Catholic Church of England and Wales has dug in for a battle with the government over proposed laws which would force their adoption agencies to consider placing children with gay couples.

Catholic leader Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor wrote to Prime Minister Tony Blair and the cabinet Tuesday, warning that the Church would have to close its adoption agencies if legislation forced them to act against their teachings.
...
The adoption agencies could close if they lose local authority funding.
...
Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly, a Catholic with links to the traditionalist Opus Dei group, has clashed with cabinet colleagues and wants an opt-out for the Church, according to reports at the weekend.

MY TAKE: An "opt-out" is just another term for a "special right." Go figure.

In the context of adoption, meanwhile, keep some points in mind:

--Adoption is neither a religious nor a private event. It is entirely secular and also results in a government-granted decree. So the idea that Catholics have a religious "right" to enact bigoted adoption policies as a "private, religious matter" is untenable.

--"Authority" (i.e., government) funding is at stake. And yet it's precisely the radical anti-gay Christians who frequently insist that it is entirely proper for the government to attach strings to taxpayer money — the most recent example here. So, net-net, they are unrepentant hypocrites. Go figure.

--Recall that, in the contrived brouhaha over this same issue in Massachusetts recently, the laypersons who actually run the Catholic adoption agencies were adamantly and near-unanimously opposed to the Church's position. The very people, Catholic or otherwise, who actually "do" adoptions see how wrong, and counterproductive, the Church's bigotry is — and want no part of it. It would not be surprising to see a similar lay-cleric schism erupt in Britain. Stay tuned.

(POST SCRIPT: Meanwhile, in the U.S. the debate over gay adoption appears to be winding down.)

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ITEM: Special rights for Evangelicals —

A student chapter of the Christian Legal Society (CLS) at Hastings [College of Law, a part of the University of California system] has brought a lawsuit demanding an exemption from the law school's Nondiscrimination Policy. The policy states that all student groups that seek official recognition and direct financial support must not deny membership based on a student's race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, age, sex and sexual orientation. The CLS affiliate argues that its religious liberty is being violated by the requirement.

Last year, a federal district court disagreed with the Christian student group's arguments and upheld the school's right to enforce its nondiscrimination policy. The CLS has asked the 9th Circuit to reverse the lower court's ruling.

As I said, there is no difference between an "exemption" and a "special right." So, yet again, the radical anti-gay Christians are, net-net, nothing more than unatoned hypocrites.

The CLS' original lawsuit was — and the appeal is — entirely frivolous. Requiring all student groups at a public university, regardless of viewpoint, to meet equally the same rational requirements (e.g., do not discriminate) is precisely what the First Amendment requires, not what it forbids. See Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609 (1984) (government may prohibit discrimination by places of public accommodation if done in a viewpoint-neutral manner). And as for attaching strings to government money, one need look no further than the bigots' favorite recent case, Rumsfeld v. FAIR, No. 04-1152 (March 6, 2006) (see also, "Goose v. Gander" and "Payback v. Bitch").

The case is Christian Legal Society v. Kane, No. 04-04484 (N.D. Cal., April 17, 2006) (PDF - 41 pages). The case is being appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

A key premise in any call for socialized medicine is that physicians (and nurses and dentists and physical therapists and orderlies and equipment technicians and pharmacists and ...) will continue to do what they do now, as much as they do it now (and where they do it now and as well as they do it now and for as long as they do it now and ...) despite the efforts by government to enslave them. Like a battered spouse, the health care professional will, the bureaucrats presume, simply put up with it forever.

It's akin to New York City's tax-and-spend liberals — especially Mayor Michael Bloomberg — believing that no matter how much they tax residents, people simply won't leave, precisely because "there's something about being a New Yorker." Do whatever you want to doctors — they won't quit, precisely because "there's something about being a doctor."

Exhibit A:

The [British] government should have capped the money GPs can make out of their new contract, the health secretary says. The proportion of profits GPs take out of their practices has increased since the new contract started in 2004, pushing average pay above £100,000.

In an interview with the BBC News website, Patricia Hewitt said in hindsight ministers would have wanted to ensure doctors did not take so much.

If you're smart enough to become a doctor, then you are smart enough to become a lawyer, accountant, investment banker or a dozen other ultra-skilled occupations that are not price capped. The laws of economics are not subject to repeal by any legislature. An artificial price ceiling creates a shortage, regardless of what "noble goals" underlie it. Doctors, especially future doctors, will not be turned into indentured servants without limit.

Speaking of which — Exhibit B:

Even doctors in training are figuring out how [California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's socialized medicine] plan might affect them. Some physicians believe Schwarzenegger's plan might drive doctors out of state, but University of Southern California medical student Julia Cormano says she would stay in California — but reconsider her choice of specialties. Cormano, co-president of the med school's students' association, says the talk on campus is whether students, who can carry as much as $200,000 in loans, would be forced out of general medicine with the additional drain on future income.

So at best (i.e., assuming doctors don't leave the state or retire early, and that young people don't switch from pre-med to pre-law), Schwarzenegger's plan will be like pushing on a wallpaper bubble: the problem will just pop up somewhere else. You might still have doctors — just the wrong kind (which, somehow, "solves the problem").

As I remarked previously: How insane does a politician have to be to conclude that the best way to increase the supply of a scarce resource is by taxing it?

(Both links via Kevin, M.D.)

"This Court has repeatedly held that, under the Sixth Amendment, any fact that exposes a defendant to a greater potential sentence must be found by a jury, not a judge, and established beyond a reasonable doubt, not merely by a preponderance of the evidence."

So declares Justice Ginsburg in Cunningham v. California, No. 05-6551 (January 22, 2007) (links). The statement is so succinct as to sound rudimentary and even remedial to the point of insulting.

I haven't followed too closely the jurisprudence of sentencing laws or the soap opera over the United States Sentencing Commission and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines (one stray exception here). The Cunningham opinion itself includes a useful review of the saga from Apprendi to Blakely to Booker and now to Cunningham.

My sole hasty stitch from Cunningham is somewhat different. If "any fact that exposes a defendant to a greater potential sentence must be found by a jury, not a judge, and established beyond a reasonable doubt, not merely by a preponderance of the evidence," then how, exactly, are civil forfeiture laws constitutional?

To review: The government can and does seize property from people who are never convicted of any crime, on the theory that the government can "sue" the fruits of criminal activity rather than "prosecute" the perpetrator himself. This why these proceedings have such preposterous titles as "U.S. v. $124,700 in Currency."

As you may know, in a civil lawsuit the burden of proof is typically the lower "preponderance of the evidence" standard rather than the higher "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of criminal trials. Also, far fewer civil defendants are entitled to jury trials than in the criminal court system.

Still, it just doesn't sit well with most people, and certainly not with libertarians: A person can lose his car, or his home, or $124,700 in cash, without being convicted of any crime.

The jurisprudential legerdemain used to sidestep this pesky contradiction is to posit that forfeiture is not "punishment" in the criminal sense. "Punishment" means imprisonment or a fine. Forfeiture is neither, just as restitution is neither or confinement of the insane is neither or deportation is neither. And if forfeiture is not a "criminal" punishment, then Cunningham -- indeed the Sixth Amendment itself -- just does not apply.

That simply cannot be right.

The Fifth Amendment, which goes hand-in-hand with the Sixth, says: "No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Shouldn't Cunningham's simple, elegant Sixth Amendment dictate in fact extend to encompass all three prongs of the Fifth Amendment's protection? Is imprisonment (i.e., denial of liberty) really so different from forfeiture (i.e., denial of property)?

If you believe in the spirit of Cunningham, then you must, by definition, believe that forfeiture -- which is a punishment regardless of how it's pigeonholed within the legal system -- requires a finding, by a jury, of criminal culpability beyond a reasonable doubt.

"The weekend's Washington Post-ABC News poll found [Kansas Senator Sam] Brownback's support at 1 percent among Republican primary voters, while [California Representative Duncan] Hunter merited an asterisk; with the poll's five-percentage-point margin of error, support for both men could be, theoretically, less than zero."
--Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank

I'll settle for "asterisk."

Both of these bigots are under the false impression that they are running for president. Both will certainly play the anti-gay card as much as possible. (Just this past Sunday on "This Week," Brownback, d/b/a "compassionate conservative," repeated the standard radical Evangelical lie that "we know from all the social data" that children do best with a mother and a father. (In fact, there is no independent study — not one — that "proves" or even suggests that straights make "better" parents than gays.)

So the analysis becomes a two-step process: who among the Republicans will win the hearts and minds of the bigots, and can that winner then parlay that animus to a victory in the primaries, let alone the general election — as George W. Bush and Karl Rove did.

I think the answer to the first question is "Brownback," but the answer to the second may well be "asterisk."

At least we'll see Mitt Romney humiliated in the process.

N.B.: Jon Stewart had a similar take on the numbers, but I saw the WaPo piece first, so they get top billing —

An addendum to my recent post:

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ITEM: It's one thing for the government to insist that children go to school. It's another thing for the government to insist that parents go to school too —

A bill [in Texas] would fine parents who neglect particular meetings with their child's teacher.

[The bill] seeks criminal penalty for parents who fail to attend conference meetings requested by their child's teacher. This would not apply to the annual parent-teacher conferences, only meetings requested to address behavioral and educational issues. The offense could be punishable by a fine similar to children who break truancy laws.

MY TAKE: Let's call this what it is — giving subpoena power to teachers, as if they were on a par with judges or prosecutors, and giving fining power to school boards, as if they were on a par with the criminal justice system. Not every "good idea" warrants criminal penalties for non-compliance, and fines such as this will only foment bitterness in the parent — probably not the best prescription for those already behaving sub-optimally. The entire concept is facially absurd — and this particular version also happens to be unconstitutionally vague, because it exempts "legitimate" reasons for missing a meeting. "Legitimate" — to whom, by what standard? Such undefined, subjective, discretionary gobbledygook terms are simply not permitted under our standards of due process. (Via Cato@Liberty.)

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ITEM: Here's one way to combat global warming —

Three years ago, [Binghamton, New York] City Councilman Pat Russo counted 22 times as the same vehicle passed his Pine Street porch. Either the truck could make only right turns, Russo said, or the driver had an eye out for vice in a neighborhood plagued by crime.
...
Russo has asked the city attorney to draft legislation that would prohibit cars from cruising in designated areas at certain times. Under the law Russo would like to see drafted, vehicles that pass by a specific sign more than three times in a three-hour period could be stopped, questioned and fined.

MY TAKE: Consider the implications: Simply driving your car in the "wrong" manner (i.e., in a circle) could now not only be reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop, but could also constitute a per se criminal offense subject to fine. Just like merely standing on a street corner can now, without more, be considered "vagrancy" or even "attempted prostitution." All because some local bumpkin politician is annoyed. The drug war claims more collateral damage. (Via CrimProf Blog.)

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ITEM: Nanny-state politicians insist that smoking bans are a good idea, except when they're not —

Smokers who plan to watch the Bears-Saints NFC title game Sunday at an Orland Park, Oak Forest or Tinley Park bar won't have to chance missing a Brian Urlacher fumble recovery while sneaking outside to light up.

All three of the [Illinois] towns' boards voted Friday to temporarily lift new smoking bans for taverns and eateries in time for the 2 p.m. kickoff.

The bans are on hold until March 14 in Orland Park and Oak Forest and until Feb. 21 in Tinley Park — post-Super Bowl.

MY TAKE: It's either wrong to "put a dollar value on human life" or it isn't; there is no middle ground or "special exemptions" — especially for something as petty as a sporting event. Say what you want about us "cold, heartless, brutal" capitalists; at least we're intellectually honest about our belief that "almost everything has its price." So what's the politicians' excuse? Oh, right — I forgot: Da Bears. (Via Out of Control.)

Truth is scarier than fiction:

In a study of non-human primates infected with the influenza virus that killed 50 million people in 1918, an international team of scientists has found a critical clue to how the virus killed so quickly and efficiently.
...
The new study, conducted at the Public Health Agency of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, utilized the 1918 flu virus, which has been reconstructed by researchers using genes obtained from the tissues of victims of the great pandemic in a reverse genetics process that enables scientists to make fully functioning viruses.

Now I am certainly no biotechnological Luddite, but I wonder if the risk of reviving the 1918 flu virus, even under strict biosecurity, is worth the potential benefit of gleaning information regarding future pandemics.

Thoughts?

Biotechnology disaster story most likely (least unlikely?) to become reality:

• 28 Days Later
• Jurassic Park
• The Andromeda Strain
• Day of the Triffids
• Colossus: The Forbin Project*
• South Park: Trapper Keeper ;-)

view results

*Yeah, I know, not biotech, but I thought I'd throw it in — it was a favorite in my youth.

(Via Bodyhack.)

BLEG: I'm trying to recall the name of a movie, early or mid-1980s I think, about a virus that escapes from the lab and threatens humanity. The disease, although airborne, was neurological rather than respiratory and caused lethal seizures, but only after a lengthy incubation period (i.e., so people unwittingly spread it before becoming symptomatic). I remember the following scenes:

--Boy touches infected dead bird on playground, later dies.
--Male scientist sends wife and kids to London on plane before news is released and North America is quarantined.
--Unfortunately, plane has an infected but asymptomatic passenger on board — too bad so sad.
--Handicapped female scientist, with leg in brace, contracts virus; while dying, even her paralyzed leg spasms violently.

Anyone know the movie?

FUN (?) FACT: Keep an eye out for 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to the (abysmal, in my opinion) 28 Days Later.

The federal government's war on lottery competitors is on the verge of inflicting some collateral damage:

The Justice Department has issued subpoenas to at least four Wall Street investment banks as part of a widening investigation into the multibillion-dollar online gambling industry, according to people briefed on the investigation.

The subpoenas were issued to firms that had underwritten the initial public offerings of some of the most popular online gambling sites that operate abroad.
...
Another lawyer, Lawrence G. Walters of Altamonte Springs, Fla., said the development was disconcerting because the prevailing wisdom had been that investment in a company that is legal and licensed in its jurisdiction was not grounds for prosecution.

Assuming that the Justice Department investigation is prosecutorial and not just "fact-finding," the implications are astonishing: a financial institution that does business with a company in another country, all entirely legally, can still potentially face prosecution, or at least harassment, by the United States government.

Conglomerate tries to formulate some interstate (rather than international) analogies to help demonstrate the reasoning at work:

• If a resident of Texas, where commercial casinos are not legal, buys stock in Harrah's, can the resident be prosecuted in Texas for illegal gambling?


• If a resident of Nevada, where commercial casinos are legal, buys stock in Harrah's, but goes skiing in Utah, can Utah police arrest the NE resident for illegal gambling?


• Can the state of Texas prosecute the editors of Texas Monthly for selling advertising space to Harrah's?


• Can the state of Texas prosecute a private charter bus company for taking Texas residents from Houston to Louisiana casinos?

My contribution:

What if a U.S. citizen travels to Amsterdam, patronizes a "coffee shop" and returns to the U.S.?

The government has no business investigating business outside the U.S. when that business is perfectly legal where conducted, U.S. laws to the contrary notwithstanding.

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And this is all, remember, defended on the grounds of nanny-statism — which would be bad enough if it were actually true. But the online gaming ban serves only one purpose and only one constituency: the protection of state lotteries from better-paying private competition. That's not just a safe bet; it's a sure thing.

Sorry gang, light blogging ahead.

In the meantime, here's special guest blogger, Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry, commenting on the propriety of government eavesdropping:


(Via Boing Boing.)

To review: One of my core political-jurisprudential premises is that there is no such thing as "activist" judges, but there are activist politicians (and bureaucrats and prosecutors), and that it is patently absurd to fear the former more than the latter.

Armed with that, time to clean out the aggregator:

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ITEM: Jesus warned, "everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Well, it seems that if you even think about advocating repeal of drug prohibition in New Hampshire, then you are a drug dealer:

Earlier today I decided to write my representative, Delmar Burridge, an e-mail to voice my support for HB92, decriminalizing marijuana. Unfortunately I was very disheartened by the response I got to my letter. ... "I am copying two members of the Keene Police Department in case you want to change your ways and act legal and save your friends."

MY TAKE: Two hasty stitches — (1) This gives new meaning to the term "thought police;" (2) Where is your "Free State Project" now? (Via Hit & Run. More thoughts at All Clear, No Quarters, Liberty Papers.)

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ITEM: People in Miami Beach know how to throw a party, which apparently is a problem —

A proposal to ban certain house parties in the city of Miami Beach is one step closer to reality.
...
The ordinance would make it illegal for owners to receive payments or exchanged goods and services in excess of $100 for an event.

Alex Heckler, an attorney representing some of the homeowners, said the ordinance was too broad. "The intent of the ordinance we support. However, the way it's written, it actually affects everyday homeowners and residents from having their own private events," Heckler said. "Any event where you receive over $100 in gifts, goods or services would, therefore, be illegal and you would be fined."

MY TAKE: The $100 ceiling is a total figure, not a per-person fee. So if, for example, you were to invite seven people over to watch the Super Bowl and each brought $15 worth of beer or food, then you will have broken the law and could face a $15,000 fine. Of course, if it were a seven-person orgy, then the conduct would be constitutionally protected under Lawrence v. Texas. Go figure. Noise ordinances are one thing, but blanket pre-emptive prohibitions on social use of one's own private property raise very serious due process issues. Do privacy rights really apply only to the bedroom and not the living room? Meanwhile, "house parties" in Miami Beach are often associated with a certain three-letter word (hint: begins with "G" and ends with "AY"). But I'm sure that's just a coincidence. Oh, and you better not be a sex offender, either. (Via Fark.)

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ITEM: New York may become the latest state to have a "no violent games sold to minors" law struck down —

This bill would prevent minors under the age of 18 from purchasing video games that have a mature or violent rating, and it requires the purchaser to show a valid form of identification in order to purchase the game. These games, containing adult images such as morbid violence, rape, alcohol and illegal drug use, as well as other malicious acts, which are not appropriate for children under 18.

The bill, A02024, would actually go further and prohibit even the display of such games where minors might see them. Every single state law trying to do the same has been struck down as unconstitutionally vague — every single one. Which, when you're an activist legislator, is no reason to stop trying. Incidentally, notice the language: "are not appropriate" versus "may not be appropriate." If you believe the former, then why not go all the way and imprison parents who allow their children to play such games? (Via Slashdot.) (POST SCRIPT: The European Union, under the leadership of German politicians, is considering banning "violent" video games outright.)

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ITEM: And any minor who tries to buy a violent video game will get a good spanking!

Or maybe not:

[California] Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View, wants to outlaw spanking children up to 3 years old. If she succeeds, California would become the first state in the nation to explicitly ban parents from smacking their kids.
...
"I think it's pretty hard to argue you need to beat a child 3 years old or younger," Lieber said. "Is it OK to whip a 1-year-old or a 6-month-old or a newborn?"

The bill, which is still being drafted, will be written broadly, she added, prohibiting "any striking of a child, any corporal punishment, smacking, hitting, punching, any of that."

MY TAKE: Notice the bait-and-switch, bouncing from "spank" to "beat" or "whip" to "any of that." Par for the cours