A couple of years ago, we wrote about his desire to figure out ways to disable mobile phones from working while the car is in motion. After there was a lot of controversy around that, LaHood tried to claim he never really said what he said. However, he's continued to repeat those kinds of claims again and again -- and with the new "guidelines" for automakers being published, we see, once again, his plan to push for technology to force other technologies not to work while a car is moving.

...No one denies that distracted driving can be incredibly dangerous and a serious problem. It's just that many of us question this as a solution. In fact, it seems likely to make the problem worse, not better. First of all, rules that require automakers to disable features while a car is moving completely ignore the fact that not everyone drives alone. Many people have passengers, and it can be quite useful to have a passenger make use of the technology to set the GPS, answer a phone call or whatever else needs to be done. Locking that up for passengers serves no purpose.

Not only has the use of outsourcing inflated manufacturers productivity statistics, it argues, but so has the practice of hiring "temporary help" services to staff factories. That's right: Just like your office can hire a temp to handle filing, so too can Caterpillar hire a temp to man their assembly lines. But because employees from temp services aren't counted as "manufacturing workers" in official data, factories appear to be using less human labor than they really are.

via @Richard_Florida

Out of the UK, it's yet another case of imposed "fairness," and surprise, surprise, it's one of my favorite people -- Mr. Bean, commonly known as Rowan Atkinson -- popping up to speak up for free expression. From the Guardian, Dan Sabbagh and John Plunkett write about a case in the UK where a BBC presenterlady successfully sued the BBC for ageism for dumping her. Rowan Atkinson, pleasingly, called this an "attack on creative free expression":

The BBC should have been free to drop Miriam O'Reilly from Countryfile without attracting any accusations of age discrimination, according to comedian Rowan Atkinson, in a controversial intervention into the debate about the lack of older women on television.

The 57-year-old Blackadder, Mr Bean and Johnny English star said - in a letter to Radio 4's The Media Show - that O'Reilly's successful age discrimination case against the BBC amounted to an "attack on creative free expression" and that television was the wrong place to deal with anti-discrimination issues.

Atkinson wrote that he did not blame O'Reilly for taking legal action, but added that his argument "would be that the creative industries are completely inappropriate environments for anti-discrimination legislation and that the legal tools she used should never have been available to her".

In January 2011, O'Reilly won a landmark age discrimination case against the BBC after she was one of four women in their 40s or 50s who were dropped from a peaktime revamp of BBC1's Countryfile.

...Atkinson said O'Reily's complaint was no more sensible than "Pierce Brosnan complaining that he was sacked from the role of James Bond for being too old" and that true creative freedom for both Bond films and Countryfile could only mean that producers should have complete artistic latitude.

"If either at the outset of a TV programme, or at any time during its screen life, you want to replace an old person with a young person, or a white person with a black person, or a disabled straight with an able-bodied gay, you should have as much creative freedom to do so as you have to change the colour of John Craven's anorak," Atkinson wrote.

Presenterlady O'Reilly came back with a snivel:

"I think very few people will agree with Mr Atkinson. At one time we didn't think black people should sit next to white people on a bus but fortunately we live in a fair and civilised society."

..."It was very unfortunate that I had to take legal action against the BBC for them to fairly represent women and older women."

I think it's very unfortunate she prevailed. It isn't television's job to "represent" anyone; it's an entertainment medium.

If you want to see older women on TV, get all your older women friends together and boycott any station that doesn't show them.

Using fatalities in commercial vehicles to control for time trends, weather patterns, economic conditions, and unobserved highway conditions, we found that a decrease of 1 million enplanements leads to an increase of 15 driving-related fatalities. Ap- plying that relationship to the estimated reduction in originating passenger volume due to baggage screening, we estimate that in the fourth quarter of 2002 approximately 129 individuals died in automobile accidents that resulted from travelers substituting driving for flying in response to the inconvenience asso- ciated with baggage screening.

While we're looking at the stats, per an email from anti-TSA blog, the @TSANewsBlog, the TSA confiscated 1200 guns in 2011. The TSA spent about $8 billion, so cost per gun found is over $6 million. And not one of them belonged to a terrorist.

The police officer who testified said that the Muslim man admitted to grabbing Pierce's sign and beard on the night of the incident.

Here, Judge Mark Martin scolds victim who insulted Islam (after a brief bit about freedom of religion in America):

More from American Atheists:

The Pennsylvania State Director of American Atheists, Inc., Mr. Ernest Perce V., was assaulted by a Muslim while participating in a Halloween parade. Along with a Zombie Pope, Ernest was costumed as Zombie Muhammad. The assault was caught on video, the Muslim man admitted to his crime and charges were filed in what should have been an open-and-shut case. That's not what happened, though.

The defendant is an immigrant and claims he did not know his actions were illegal, or that it was legal in this country to represent Muhammad in any form. To add insult to injury, he also testified that his 9 year old son was present, and the man said he felt he needed to show his young son that he was willing to fight for his Prophet.

The case went to trial, and as circumstances would dictate, Judge Mark Martin is also a Muslim. What transpired next was surreal. The Judge not only ruled in favor of the defendant, but called Mr. Perce a name and told him that if he were in a Muslim country, he'd be put to death. Judge Martin's comments included,

"Having had the benefit of having spent over 2 and a half years in predominantly Muslim countries I think I know a little bit about the faith of Islam. In fact I have a copy of the Koran here and I challenge you sir to show me where it says in the Koran that Mohammad arose and walked among the dead. I think you misinterpreted things. Before you start mocking someone else's religion you may want to find out a little bit more about it it makes you look like a dufus and Mr. (Defendant) is correct. In many Arabic speaking countries something like this is definitely against the law there. In their society in fact it can be punishable by death and it frequently is in their society."

Judge Martin then offered a lesson in Islam, stating,

"Islam is not just a religion, it's their culture, their culture. It's their very essence their very being. They pray five times a day towards Mecca to be a good Muslim, before you die you have to make a pilgrimage to Mecca unless you are otherwise told you can not because you are too ill too elderly, whatever but you must make the attempt. Their greetings wa-laikum as-Salâm (is answered by voice) may god be with you. Whenever, it's very common when speaking to each other it's very common for them to say uh this will happen it's it they are so immersed in it."

Judge Martin further complicates the issue by not only abrogating the First Amendment, but completely misunderstanding it when he said,

"Then what you have done is you have completely trashed their essence, their being. They find it very very very offensive. I'm a Muslim, I find it offensive. But you have that right, but you're way outside your boundaries or first amendment rights. This is what, and I said I spent about 7 and a half years living in other countries. when we go to other countries it's not uncommon for people to refer to us as ugly Americans this is why we are referred to as ugly Americans, because we are so concerned about our own rights we don't care about other people's rights as long as we get our say but we don't care about the other people's say."

...The Judge neglected to address the fact that the ignorance of the law does not justify an assault and that it was the responsibility of the defendant to familiarize himself with our laws. This is to say nothing of the judge counseling the defendant that it is also not acceptable for him to teach his children that it is acceptable to use violence in the defense of religious beliefs. Instead, the judge gives Mr. Perce a lesson in Sharia law and drones on about the Muslim faith, inform everyone in the court room how strongly he embraces Islam, that the first amendment does not allow anyone " to piss off other people and other cultures" and he was also insulted by Mr. Perce's portrayal of Mohammed and the sign he carried.

This is a travesty. Not only did Judge Martin completely ignore video evidence, but a Police Officer who was at the scene also testified on Mr. Perce's behalf, to which the Judge also dismissed by saying the officer didn't give an accurate account or doesn't give it any weight.

...Needless to say, this is totally, completely and unequivocally unacceptable. That a Muslim immigrant can assault a United States citizen in defense of his religious beliefs and walk away a free man, while the victim is chastised and insulted by a Muslim judge who then blamed the victim for the crime committed against him is a horrible abrogation.

This judge should be disbarred. As Buckeyenonbeliever writes on American Atheists:

So, if I were to rip a sign off of a christian, jew, or muslim which read: "Nonbelievers are going to hell", would I merit such protection from this judge? Or would I be sentenced to the fullest extent of the law?

Qualifications:

•Proof of U.S. citizenship
•High school diploma, GED or equivalent; OR
•At least one year of full-time work experience in security work or aviation screener work; or with x-ray technician work.

Forget graduating high school! You don't even need a GED!

Training?

•40 hours of classroom training, and •60 hours of on-the-job training, and •A certification examination

Love this at the monster.com job application link:

Discover the Benefits of Serving America
The work we do is rewarding and on the cutting edge of Federal service. You'll receive competitive compensation and all Federal benefits, including a variety of health insurance options, life and long-term care insurance, paid time off, flexible spending account, retirement plan, flexible work schedules, career development and enrichment training, an employee recognition program and more.

And you get to touch strangers' balls, violating their Fourth Amendment rights and their dignity!

From Justice Robert H. Jackson, the former chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials:

"Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart."

Currently, the American legal and regulatory system is set up to bind as many people to employers as possible. The government wants you to be a wage slave and sets up a regulatory framework that keeps as many of us as possible yoked to bosses and management.

The IRS doesn't like the self-employed, fearing they may conceal income. Banks and credit card companies view such people with suspicion, and it is notoriously difficult for start ups and part time enterprises to have access to formal finance. Many services are hard for the self-employed to get on terms like those made available to employees of large corporations: from health insurance to retirement planning, many things are harder and more expensive for the self-employed. The payroll tax system is brutal: the self-employed pay both the employer and employee halves of Social Security and Medicare taxes, almost 20 percent of income and likely to go higher. Many cities will tack on unincorporated business taxes, mass transit taxes, and other interesting feudal exactions and dues.

There are other, subtler ways in which the current system favors old style large employers over small firms. The cost of hiring people can be prohibitively high for small businesses: the paperwork involved in hiring so much as a cleaning person or babysitter can be cumbersome. Hiring full time workers involves negotiating the requirements for worker compensation, unemployment insurance and much else. The cost of these barriers cannot be calculated: jobs foregone, businesses stifled in their cradles, ideas untested, innovations untried.

...The jobs of the future will not all come from start-ups and small business, but a very large proportion of them will. The best industrial policy we can have now is a policy that supports the rise of new information and service based enterprises. Small business and other, innovative forms of creative association (like co-ops and partnerships) will be a key engine of growth growing forward. We must do everything possible to accelerate and promote their growth; it is the best and fastest way out of our current troubles to the broad and sunny uplands that lie ahead.

I worked as an employee at companies for a very short time -- before college, and for three years after college at Ogilvy & Mather. After that, and ever since, like my father, I've been my own boss. More and more people are.

So many policies ignore this; most notably, the stupid gargantuan health care "reform." Oops...they didn't untie health care from the workplace. So, in an age of entrepreneurs, freelancers and others already getting boned by the government, people will continue to keep jobs they shouldn't stay in to keep their health insurance and to lose their jobs and find themselves screwed when they have to buy new health insurance when they're no longer 23 and healthy. That's the age when I'd like to see people do what I did and sign up, as individuals, for an HMO like Kaiser, that only raises their rates based on age once you're in.

On Christmas Day 2009, my wife and I were returning from an African safari and had a connecting flight through Amsterdam. As we waited for our flight, we sat on the floor next to the boarding gate. What I witnessed while sitting there and subsequent events have changed my life forever. While I sat there, I witnessed Umar dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, being escorted around security by a man in a tan suit who spoke perfect American English and who aided Umar in boarding without a passport. The airline gate worker initially refused Umar boarding until the man in the tan suit intervened. The event meant nothing to me at the time. Little did I know that Umar would try to kill me a few hours later as our flight approached Detroit. The final 10 minutes of our flight after the attack were the worst minutes of my life. During those 10 minutes I sat paralyzed in fear. Unfortunately, what happened next has had an even greater impact on my life and has saddened me further.

When we landed, I was shocked that our plane taxied up to the gate. I was further shocked that we were forced to sit on the plane for 20 minutes with powder from the so called bomb all over the cabin. The officers that boarded the plane did nothing to ensure our safety and did not check for accomplices or other explosive devices. Several passengers trampled through parts of the bomb as they exited the plane. We were then taken into the terminal with our unchecked carry on bags. Again, there was no concern for our safety even though Umar told the officers that there was another bomb on board as he exited the plane. I wondered why nobody was concerned about our safety, accomplices or other bombs and the lack of concern worried me greatly. I immediately told the FBI my story in order to help catch the accomplice I had seen in Amsterdam. It soon became obvious that the FBI wasn't interested in what I had to say, which upset me further. For one month the government refused to admit the existence of the man in the tan suit before changing course and admitting his existence in an ABC News article on January 22, 2010. That was the last time the government talked about this man. The video that would prove the truth of my account has never been released. I continue to be emotional upset that the video has not been released. The Dutch police, meanwhile, in this article (show article), also confirmed that Umar did not show his passport in Amsterdam which also meant that he didn't go through security as both are in the same line in Amsterdam. It upsets me that the government refuses to admit this fact.

I became further saddened from this case, when Patrick Kennedy of the State Department during Congressional hearings, admitted that Umar was a known terrorist, was being followed, and the U.S. allowed him into the U.S. so that it could catch Umar's accomplices. I was once again shocked and saddened when Michael Leiter of the National Counter terrorism Center admitted during these same hearings that intentionally letting terrorists into the U.S. was a frequent practice of the U.S. Government. I cannot fully explain my sadness, disappointment and fear when I realized that my government allowed an attack on me intentionally.

During this time, I questioned if my country intentionally put a known terrorist onto my flight with a live bomb. I had many sleepless nights over this issue...

More from NPR, from a Robert Siegel interview with Haskell:

Mr. KURT HASKELL (Attorney): I saw them just before we boarded at the Amsterdam airport near the final ticket agent.

SIEGEL: And the younger man, the Nigerian man, you later recognized at the end of this entire thing in Detroit?

Mr. HASKELL: Right. He was the one that tried to blow up our plane a few hours later.

SIEGEL: And who is the older man or what did he look like?

Mr. HASKELL: Well, nobody knows who he is. He was a wealthy-looking Indian man, maybe around age 50. He had a suit on. And, you know, he's the one that tried to get the terrorist onto the plane without a passport.

SIEGEL: What do you mean without a passport? He was...

Mr. HASKELL: Well, what I saw specifically was the two men go to the ticket agent counter together. Only the Indian man spoke and what the Indian man said was this man needs to board the plane and he doesn't have a passport. And the ticket agent then responded, well, you need a passport to board the plane. And the Indian man said, well, he's from Sudan and we do this all the time. And the ticket agent then responded, well, you'll need to speak to my manager and pointed the two down a hallway to speak to her manager.

SIEGEL: Now, did this older man, did he appear to work for the airport or the airline or security? Did he have any badge on him identifying himself?

Mr. HASKELL: I can't say 100 percent for sure. But to me, he didn't appear that way. He appeared to be maybe trying to bully the ticket agent into letting this man on. And it seemed he was more some kind of authority figure to the terrorist.

Video:

From FrontPage Magazine, Bell writes about what happened when he wrote, based on his research, that "beliefs of Islam were in direct conflict with human rights, gay rights, women's rights and basic Democratic Values":

I could not believe the cartoonish way in which those who opposed the mosque were making their case. I felt like I was on the right side of this thing - absolutely certain. But in fact, I was wrong.

But something kept nagging at me on a gut level. Something about all of this didn't quite feel right. The Arab Spring, which I supported, started to degenerate into the Islamist Winter, and I grew more and more concerned. I flew back to Nashville to shoot a conference on whether or not Islam was conducive with Democratic Values and on the way to my hotel room I learned that my cab driver was from Egypt. I asked him how he felt about the fall of Mubarak, a dictator worth over $70 billion dollars while so much of his country was living in poverty and he told me he was concerned. Concerned? Wasn't this good news? The cab driver was a Coptic Christian and he told me that he feared for his family back home. "If the Muslims take control, and they will, it will be very dangerous for my parents and my sisters. I'm scared for them right now". After that conversation, I started to pay more attention to the news coming from the Islamic world in the Middle East.

Over the coming months I watched as the Muslim Brotherhood gained political power in Egypt. I saw that cab driver's worst fears come true as Coptic Christians were attacked by Islamic mobs. I saw Tunisia institute Sharia, the brutal Islamic Law. After Libya fell, the Transitional Council also instituted Islamic Law. The nuclear armed Islamic government of Pakistan arrested and punished those who cooperated with the United States in killing Osama Bin Laden. A woman under the Islamic government of Afghanistan faced execution for the crime of being raped. Similar news stories emerged from Iran. A man who typed "there is no god" as his Facebook status in Indonesia, the largest Islamic country in the world, was arrested for blasphemy.

Several Muslim men in England were arrested for handing out leaflets to Londoners demanding that homosexuals be executed by hanging for violating Islamic Law with their lifestyle.

And it struck me. Even though these angry townspeople in Mufreesboro, TN had not articulated their concerns very well, they were only half wrong.

...It was at this time that I went to my backers and told them that we were not making an honest documentary. I felt that everything I had put into the 25 minute short version (the one I used to raise the completion funds) was true, but only half true. It was critical that we also show the very real threats that exist within Islam. We needed to show that what is happening to these small communities of peaceful Muslims in America are the exception to the rule. I wanted to show what happens to countries when they gain a Muslim majority, how women are treated, that homosexuals were executed, that free speech did not exist, that the forced Islamic Law was not consistent with Democratic Values - anything and everything I could think of that ought to strike a chord with the Liberal mindset. And the response I received was, "Eric you are starting to sound like an Islamophobe. We don't want to make a movie that promotes fear. Let's just stick with the existing plan, okay?"

I fought and I fought. I showed them a book called "The Truth About Mohammed" but was struck down since the author was a man named Robert Spencer and my backers pointed out that the Southern Poverty Law Center named his "Jihad Watch" site as part of a hate group. I asked them to watch a documentary called "Islam: What the West Needs to Know" and pointed out that I had researched independently and verified the truth of what was being presented there, but they would not even watch this documentary as they were sure in advance that it was "hate speech" and "propaganda designed to spread fear". It probably goes without saying that by now I was very frustrated. I showed my new backers several verses from the Koran that call for the killing of infidels and was told that these verses were probably being taken out of context. I showed them a video clip from MEMRI TV of a young Egyptian child reciting a Hadith that calls for the killing of Jews and was told that "you can't trust MEMRI because they have an agenda".

I mentioned the popular Islamophobia watchdog site "Loonwatch" and how I had noticed a pattern of deflection all criticisms of radical and violent Islam by calling anyone who publicly raises these concerns a "Loon" and how I felt this was an intentional effort to provide a smoke screen for the terrorists. I also noted that everything Loonwatch said was in lockstep with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and now CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation - the largest Islamic charity at one time, which was found to be funneling monies to Islamic terrorist organizations. I also noted that CAIR had ties to both Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and that Al Qeada had come out of the Muslim Brotherhood. I expressed my concerns that the Egyptian Imam of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro might have ties to the MB, something I had failed to properly investigate. But since CAIR had the support of Glenn Greenwald and Amy Goodman's show, Democracy Now, I was told that I had my facts all wrong. It was also pointed out to me that if CAIR was allegedly some kind of terrorist front then why do they still have a special tax status and why are they still around? When I said I do not know but it was possible that the government might prefer to watch them out in the open rather than risk them going underground I was told that my judgment was sounding less and less clear and that maybe I needed to take a step back from the project for a while.

...Where do I stand on Islam? Let's look at its founder - a man who raped a 9 year old girl, a slave owner, a leader who ordered people to be tortured, for adulterers to be stoned, for countless nonbelievers to be beheaded, a killer, a warmonger who spread his "religion of peace" by the sword, a man who suffered from hallucinations of voices telling him to do violent things, a tyrant, a homicidal maniac perhaps the equivalent of 100,000 Osama Bin Ladens. And this sadistic lunatic is considered to be the "ideal man" in Islam. What more needs to be said about Islam than that?

And don't forget Amazon Gift Cards, for those who care enough to send the very best, but have not a fucking clue as to what that might be.

Get the podcast at the link (listen on your computer or click "play in your default player" to download it to your iPod, etc.):

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/02/20/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon

Of course, a big part of the problem, as I've written before, is that health care is tied to the workplace. As soon as I no longer worked in a company (in my early 20s), I got my own health insurance (Kaiser HMO rather than Blue Cross, because once you're in, you're in, and the price goes up based on age, not on whether you get sick).

Read the tale of the here of the guy's kid in the hospital after he took his chances on having no health insurance (but, yay, he "works full time as a self-employed consultant and writer"):

He wasn't eating and his fever was getting pretty high, up to 103. I drugged him the best I could with kid's OTC meds and on Monday my wife and I attended to his needs however we could.

We should have taken him to the Urgent Care right then and there. But we didn't.

My poor decision-making capabilities in this regard was influenced by my lack of experience with any major disease (I have an immune system of steel, fortified by coffee and whisky), and our lack of insurance. My family includes four of the 49.1 million uninsured people in the United States. I've comforted myself that we couldn't afford private insurance, which we can't, but at least we were all relatively healthy and never seemed to have problems.

...When I started my family 6 years ago, I was on a path to a career in research and teaching. We had amazing health insurance through my institution and my wife and children-to-be were generously covered, no-questions-asked by the state of Pennsylvania during, and a year after, the pregnancies. We never saw a bill. After I got "real jobs" upon completing my Masters degree, I entered a grey zone of contract teaching and research employment at universities. With a decent, regular salary we were ineligible for state aid, yet didn't make enough to afford extra costs. Furthermore, the quality of the insurance kept lowering until I wasn't even sure what I was paying for - even as the premium costs were rising.

It reached rock bottom last Spring when we attempted to actually use our insurance that I bought for $1400 every six months while a contract lecturer and beginning PhD student at a North Carolinian university. My boy was starting Kindergarten and needed to be current on his vaccines. Of course, both kids needed to be current, so we took them in one-by-one, got their shots and check-ups, handed over the insurance information, paid our co-pay and went on our way. Never thinking about it, assuming that insurance would do the job we paid them to do.

Exactly 6 months later we received bills, after I no longer had insurance (I had to leave my phd for variety of reasons), and addressed to our kids' names and not mine, the policy holder, for substantial amounts. Apparently, my daughter owed over $400 and my son owed over $1600 to the doctor office, which was the net left over after the insurance contributed about $200 for each visit.

Naturally, I was dumbfounded. I already paid $1400, which I had to ask my department head for an advance to cover their own insurance (there were no monthly payment plans offered by the way), but they only covered about 20% of the medical bills? Ironically, as an uninsured I would have been able to get a discounted rate and probably pay less than the amount I actually owed after the insurance company gave their dues.

I still don't understand it and they are unwilling to work with me. Hence, the bills have gone to a collection agency. I'm refusing to pay for the time being and my kids, at 4 and 6, have their first negative credit rating. Presumably, anyways, since the idiots never fixed the billing information.

This burn, though, has contributed to a deep mistrust in the insurance industry, further feeding my indignations about acquiring individual care - of course we couldn't afford the monthly premiums anyways so the point is moot.

This commenter's right on:

20. Eowyn
Mr. Zelnio's story is sad indeed. But I'll be the lone dissenter among the commenters here.

Throughout his tear-jerking account, not once did Zelnio admit that his behaviors and his choices have consequences. It is Zelnio who chose to support a wife and 2 kids on a M.A. graduate student's salary -- which is not meant to support an entire family. It is Zelnio who chose to discontinue his Ph.D. studies and so forfeited even that salary. It is Zelnio who chose to get "renter's or home, wind and hail, flood, car, life" insurance, but not medical insurance, although he knows full well how expensive medical care is. It is Zelnio who chose to gamble that he and his family would not require emergency care or hospitalization.

He gambled and lost. So now he wants other people to pay for his family's medical insurance via a "single payer" system. Though some of the commenters deny it, that is socialism.

This person's dad got it, too -- although the commenter's mocking his dad, who was right:

32. DSchultz
My late father would have explained it to me as follows:

"When you chose to have children, you forfeited the right to follow your "dream job". Your satisfaction with your job is not as important as your ability to provide necessary support and protection for your children. Therefore you must abandon your present job and find a responsible middle management position in a major corporation that will provide your family with group health insurance. Your pay and benefits are all that matters, job satisfaction is for hippies."

Bio of the writer:

Kevin Zelnio is a marine biologist by training and is now a freelance science writer, independent scientist and science communications strategist living in beautiful coastal North Carolina. He has studied the ecology and evolution of animals living around underwater volcanoes and described several new species of deep-sea invertebrates.

Kevin is the assistant editor for Deep Sea News, where he contributes articles on marine science. Outside of science, Kevin is a songwriter and enjoys spending time with family in the long-leaf Carolina pines!

In The New York Times, William Bennett Turner writes:

XAVIER ALVAREZ is a liar. Even the brief filed on his behalf in the United States Supreme Court says as much: "Xavier Alvarez lied." It informs us that he has told tall tales about playing hockey for the Detroit Red Wings, being married to a Mexican starlet and rescuing the American ambassador during the Iranian hostage crisis. But as the brief reminds us, "none of those lies were crimes."

Another of his falsehoods, however, did violate the law. In 2007, while introducing himself at a meeting of a California water board, he said that he was a retired Marine who had been awarded the Medal of Honor (both lies). He was quickly exposed as a phony and pilloried in the community and press as an "idiot" and the "ultimate slime."

But his censure did not end there. The federal government prosecuted him under the Stolen Valor Act, which prohibits falsely claiming to have been awarded a military medal, with an enhanced penalty (up to a year in prison) for claiming to have received the Medal of Honor. Mr. Alvarez was convicted but appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which held that the act violated the First Amendment.

...It's a question about the scope of the government's power over individuals -- whether the government can criminalize saying untrue things about oneself even if there is no harm to any identifiable person, no intent to cheat anyone or gain unfair advantage, no receipt of anything of value and no interference with the administration of justice or any other compelling government interest.

...The Justice Department argues that the Stolen Valor Act serves an "important" government interest: preserving the integrity and credibility of the military medals program. False claims, it maintains, dilute the reputation and meaning of the medals.

But the government has offered no evidence that lies by crackpots like Mr. Alvarez have in any way damaged the honor or prestige of medal recipients. A few instances of dubious characters lying about medals does not require the government to deploy the heavy artillery of criminal sanction. The United States has had military medals since the Revolutionary War, but the founding fathers didn't seem to think such legal protection was necessary, and neither did Congress until 2006, when it passed the act.

We have too many laws and too many are created to pander to one group or another without a thought as to how this accumulation of laws causes danger to us as a free and free-speaking society.

Being a lying asshole should not be a federal offense.

via Arvin

As soon as we crossed the street, just two blocks from my house as the crow flies, the police car that just passed us hit its lights and wheeled around, with five others appearing almost immediately, all with lights flashing. The officers got out with tasers drawn demanding I raise my hands and step away from the child. I complied, and they roughly cuffed me, jerking my arms up behind me needlessly. Meanwhile, Ty edged up the hill away from the officers, crying. One of them called out in a comforting tone that they weren't there to hurt her, but another officer blew up any good will that might have garnered by brusquely snatching her up and scuttling her off to the back seat of one of the police cars. (By this time more cars had joined them; they maxxed out at 9 or 10 police vehicles.)

I gave them the phone numbers they needed to confirm who Ty was and that she was supposed to be with me (and not in the back of their police car), but for quite a while nobody seemed too interested in verifying my "story." One officer wanted to lecture me endlessly about how they were just doing their job, as if the innocent person handcuffed on the side of the road cares about such excuses. I asked why he hadn't made any calls yet, and he interrupted his lecture to say "we've only been here two minutes, give us time" (actually it'd been longer than that). "Maybe so," I replied, sitting on the concrete in handcuffs, "but there are nine of y'all milling about doing nothing by my count so between you you've had 18 minutes for somebody to get on the damn phone by now so y'all can figure out you screwed up." Admittedly, this did not go over well. I could tell I was too pissed off to say anything constructive and silently vowed to keep mum from then on.

As all this was happening, the deputy constable who'd questioned us before walked up to the scene and began conversing with some of the officers. She kept looking over at me nervously as I stood 20 feet or so away in handcuffs, averting her gaze whenever our eyes risked meeting. It seemed pretty clear she was the one who called in the cavalry, and it was equally clear she understood she was in the wrong.

A supervisor arrived and began floating around among the milling officers (I have no idea what function most of those cops thought they were fulfilling). Finally, she sidled up to repeat the same lecture I'd heard from the young pup officer who'd handcuffed me: "When we get a call about a possible kidnapping we have to take it very seriously," etc., etc.. By this time, though, I'd lost patience with that schtick. Interrupting her repetitive monologue, I explained that I could care less how they justified what they were doing, and could they please stop explaining themselves, focus on their jobs, and get this over with as soon as possible so Ty and I could go home? She paused as though she wanted to argue, then her shoulders slumped a bit, she half-smiled and replied "Fair enough!," wheeling around and issuing inaudible directions to some of the milling officers, all of whom appeared to continue doing nothing, just as before. Not long after that they released us.

Ty told me later that back in the police car she'd been questioned, not just about me but about her personal life, or as she put it, "all my business": They asked about her school, what she'd been doing that evening, to name all the people in her family, and pressed her to say if I or anyone else had done anything to her. Ty was frustrated, she said later, that they kept repeating the same questions, apparently hoping for different answers. She didn't understand why, after she'd told them who I was, the police didn't just let me go. And when it became clear they wouldn't take her word for it, she began to fear the police would take me away and leave her alone with all those scary cops. (I must admit, for a moment there I felt the same way!) On the upside, said Ty, when they were through questioning her one of the officers let her play with his flashlight, which she considered a high point. Don't you miss life being that simple?

Part of the answer, of course, to Ty's Very Good Question about why I wasn't released when she confirmed my identity is that I was in handcuffs and she was in police custody before anybody asked anyone anything. "Seize first and ask questions later" is better than "shoot first," I suppose, but it's problematic for the same reasons. I found out later police had told my wife and Ty's mom that I'd refused to let them question the child - a patent lie since they'd whisked her away into the back of a police car while I was handcuffed. I wasn't in a position to refuse anything at that point.

How hard would it have been to perform a safety check without running up on me like I'm John Dillinger and scaring the crap out of a five year old? I didn't resist or struggle, but they felt obliged to handcuff me and snatch the kid up for interrogation away from any adult family member. Nine police cars plus the deputy constable all showing up to investigate the heinous crime of "babysitting while white."

I understand that the police are supposed to investigate when accusations are made, but what's with the entire lack of reason and sensitivity? Why is this so often the case these days? I know there are good and reasonable police officers -- a couple of them are my friends. But, I read about more and more abuse of power and other police state tactics and it's worrisome.

It's maybe also linked to, oh, more wearing of the color teal, but that doesn't mean that the pill causes teal. A link is merely an association, and you can find associations with lots of things that aren't causal. The cause or causes could be entirely different.

From the story:

The study said men have higher prostate cancer rates in nations where women use the pill more often, but the pill wasn't blamed specifically. "This is just a hypothesis generating idea," said a co-author of the study. "Women should not be throwing away the pill because of this."

via ifeminists

We think more choices are better -- but research shows that human brain is actually overwhelmed by more than a handful of choices. Having many choices often leaves us unable to choose or upset and dissatisfied with our choices afterward.

Tonight on Advice Goddess Radio, psychology professor Dr. Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, will explain how to manage choice in our lives so it helps us rather than running us.

Listen live at the link (7-8pm PT, 10-11pm ET), call in (347-326-9761 when show is live), download the podcast afterward:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/02/20/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon

And don't forget to pick up a podcast of last week's terrific show with Dr. Bella DePaulo on why "single" shouldn't be paired with "miserable" and why, even if you're in a couple, living a little "single-ish" should make you happier:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/02/13/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" With the best brains in science.

And, in case you haven't heard, my most recent book is science-driven look at rudeness with lots of funny stories about how I go after the rude, I See Rude People: One Woman's Battle To Beat Some Manners Into Impolite Society. It's only $12.75, brand new, with Amazon's discount at the link above. (New copies go against my advance, and help me keep writing, doing my radio show...and eating!)