Metra plans to operate regular service on 10 of its 11 lines. For the Metra Electric Line, most trains will operate, although some stations and the Blue Island branch line will be closed for all or part of the summit. Those closings are detailed below.

In other words, "Sorry, you poor working stiffs who have been our customers for years, but we're doing important stuff here and you'll just have to make do."

Naturally, they're also using this as an excuse for various infringements of our Fourth Amendment rights:

Riders of all lines may be subject to screening and baggage checks, with more extensive screening on the Metra Electric Line. Passengers on all lines will be prohibited from carrying many items onboard trains and will face other security restrictions outlined below.

These restrictions apply to all lines, even those that have nothing to do with the NATO summit, and Metra's description of the changes is kind of chilling:

In addition, the following safety measures apply to riders of all Metra lines during the three days (May 19, 20 and 21) of the summit:

1. Riders may be subject to search and/or screening before boarding or while en route.

2. Riders may carry only one bag not exceeding 15 inches square and 4 inches deep. Boxes, parcels, luggage, backpacks and bicycles will not be allowed on trains. Banned items cannot be stored at Metra stations. They must be removed or they will be disposed of.

3. Riders may not carry any food on the trains. Liquids and personal effects (such as makeup) must be less than three ounces in size. This includes coffee and other beverages. Breast milk can be carried but is subject to inspection and should be declared during any screening.

4. Riders may not carry any type of tools, pipes, stakes, wood or weapons, including pocket knives and pepper spray, on the trains.

5. Law enforcement personnel must identify themselves and present their credentials and any weapons. Security guards will not be allowed to carry any weapons onboard.

Failure to comply with these safety measures or instructions from law enforcement personnel, or attempted avoidance of screening, will result in ejection from the station or further police action.

The suspicionless searches amount to some kind of internal checkpoint, which is bad enough, but the rest of the rules are going to inconvenience thousands of people. No tools or pocket knives? What's the theory here? That someone will use a Swiss Army knife to derail a train? And the rules against food and beverages sound insane.

They even have the 3-ounce beverage rule! That was put in place on airplanes because of the theoretical threat that 3-ounces of liquid explosives could bring down a plane. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure 3 ounces of explosives wouldn't do much damage to a 40-ton solid-steel Metra passenger car, let alone a whole train of cars. And in the worst case, the train can just roll to a stop.

Remember, this is not just for people entering the NATO summit site. It affects everyone riding on the entire commuter rail system. Because, you know, someone might threaten the NATO summit from 15 miles away by carrying a sandwich onto a rail car.

The powers that be in NATO and Washington, D.C., and Chicago City Hall have decided to host this summit, and they're cracking down with the violent power of they state because they're scared that somebody somewhere might do something they don't understand and control. This is the totalitarian impulse in action.

(Hat tip: Tina Sfondeles and Casey Toner at the Chicago Sun-Times.)

1. The Golden Rationalization, or "Everybody does it"

This rationalization has been used to excuse ethical misconduct since the beginning of civilization. It is based on the flawed assumption that the ethical nature of an act is somehow improved by the number of people who do it, and if "everybody does it," then it is implicitly all right for you to do it as well: cheat on tests, commit adultery, lie under oath, use illegal drugs, persecute Jews, lynch blacks. Of course, people who use this "reasoning" usually don't believe that what they are doing is right because "everybody does it." They usually are arguing that they shouldn't be singled out for condemnation if "everybody else" isn't.

Since most people will admit that principles of right and wrong are not determined by polls, those who try to use this fallacy are really admitting misconduct. The simple answer to them is that even assuming they are correct, when more people engage in an action that is admittedly unethical, more harm results. An individual is still responsible for his or her part of the harm.

If someone really is making the argument that an action is no longer unethical because so many people do it, then that person is either in dire need of ethical instruction, or an idiot.

Despite Jack's warning in the last paragraph, I'd like to write a few posts about situations where "everybody does it" is a actually a pretty good argument. I'll let you decide whether I'm in need of ethical instruction or if I'm just an idiot.

I'll start with the most obvious example: I don't think anyone in this country doubts that driving on the left-hand side of a two-way road is unethical. First and foremost, it creates an immediate and potentially deadly hazard to oncoming traffic. Second, even if there's no traffic, driving on the left side increases the possibility that a pedestrian will get hit because he or she was looking the other way. It's so dangerous that I think we can safely say that only drunks and maniacs drive on the left-hand side of the road.

Or Englishmen. At least while they are in England, because everyone there drives on the left-hand side of the road.

I'm not sure how people ended up driving on different sides of the road in different countries -- the best explantions I've heard have something to do with differences in the types of wagons pulled by horse-drawn teams -- but whatever the reason, once one side began to dominate common practice, it would have been a huge gain in safety and efficiency to require everybody to drive on that side.

In other words, it's the right thing to do because everybody does it.

(Arguably, the ethical rule is not "drive on the left side of the road" but rather "drive on the agreed-upon side of the road." Driving on the other side is unethical not because there's something bad about that side, but because it violates our common agreement about how to drive safely. That common agreement is exactly the sort of consensus ethical rule I'm talking about when I say that "everybody does it" can be a good justification.)

For another example, in the condo building where I live, except for the occasional party, I never hear the sounds of my neighbors' lives. It would be rude for any of us to play lound music or crank up the television. If was a persistent problem, it would be cause for a complaint to the board.

This is very different from when I lived in a college dormitory, and everyone played loud musing all day and late into the night. It's not that my college dorm mates were any less ethical than my condo neighbors. They were just younger and in college. Tolerating their neighbor's loud music was a small price to pay for being able to play their own loud music. If anyone had complained, he would have been the one behaving rudely.

It was a case of different cultures, different rules. When the rules are defined in terms of cultural norms, then "everybody does it" isn't just an excuse, it's the way the rules are made.

It's important to note that cultural norms variation of "everybody does it" only works when everybody involved is a willing participant in the culture. It's no excuse for cultural practices such as gay bashing, slavery, or burning the heretics.

"I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that 'don't ask, don't tell' is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I've just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married," Obama told Roberts in an interview to appear on ABC's "Good Morning America" Thursday.

I don't see why Obama couldn't have said that three years ago, but I'm glad he finally said it. By way of explanation, he said his thoughts went through an "evolution" to reach this decision.

The president stressed that this is a personal position, and that he still supports the concept of states' deciding the issue on their own.

So...still a little more evolving to do...

Whenever I get tired of checking the bestseller lists on my Kindle book reader for new novels to read -- the top of the list has been owned by Hunger Games and Lisbeth Salander ever since I got the thing -- I like to try out a few of the cheap e-books. It's a bit like checking out experimental theater productions: Most of them turn out to not be very good, but sometimes they're unusual and different enough to get your attention.

I've been thinking for a while that it might be fun to blog about a few of these books, and the first one I'd like to tell you about is Shifted, by Colin D. Jones. It's been a while since I read it, and even at the time, it defied easy explanation, but I'll try.

First, however, I should point out that even though the main character is a werewolf of sorts, Shifted is not one of those books spawned by the popularity of the Twilight books or the Underworld movies. It's not even a counterpoint to those storylines. Colin Jones arrives at his werewolf story from a whole different direction.

Or maybe from several different directions. Shifted is kind of a coming-of-age story about a kid who grows up in an abusive environment and discovers that he has a...werewolf, of sorts...inside him, or maybe alongside him, since there's something about quantum physics and multiple universes. There's a ghost of sorts too, and secretive government agents, and a little bit about Norse legends.

Jones pulls these elements together from all over the place, and assembles them into a story that -- while not exactly a seamless whole -- isn't nearly as messy as it sounds. Jones's writing style is simple and unpretentious, and the book is a pretty quick read.

Marshall decided to call her out for plagiarism on Thursday. Given that Prevost's blog is basically marketing her lawfirm, my guess was that Prevost had hired someone to ghost-write her blog, and that person had figured they could just steal Jack's post instead of doing actual work. I figured that she'd probably apologize when she found out.

That's not what happened, according to Jack Marshall in a followup post a few days later. He had emailed Prevost, asking for "an explanation, and failing that, an apology, a retraction, and proper credit." Instead, according to Jack, she responded via Facebook with a message that included this:

I have counseled with one of the country's premiere ethics attorneys. Here's the result: 1) accusing me of a crime is defamation per se and unethical; 2) suggesting that my entire law practice has been based on unethical conduct is defamatory and unethical. I maintained copies both of your email and blog. It is clear that you are hell bent on engaging in systematic harassment and unethical conduct, the likes of which can, and most likely will, develop into a lawsuit unless rescinded forthwith.

It is clear you have little to do in your life besides sent me emails accusing me of crimes, and writing poorly written blog posts accusing me of immoral behavior. Interesting how one making such claims, engages in most egregious conduct himself....But the sheer amount of energy really suggests something more: a lack of work; too much time; off your meds. I suggest you take a look inward and remove your defamatory and unethical blog post regarding me. Indeed, you should come clean on your blog. You've practiced law only two weeks before giving up. Yet, your resume suggests far more experience. I think you should rethink what you've done.

[paragraph breaks added for readability]

Perhaps this is a good aggressive response in the legal arena, but it doesn't go very far in the blogosphere. For all I know, she could very well be right to question Jack Marshall's motives and knowledge of legal ethics, not to mention his sanity, honesty, writing skils, and personal hygiene. Lord knows, I strongly disagree with a lot of what Jack says. But when I quote what he writes, I follow the standard blogger ethic: I give credit and a link. And that highlights what this response is missing: She never addresses the substance of Jack's complaint. She neither admits nor denies the alleged plagiarism.

What really bothers me about Prevost's response, however, is her accusation that Jack is obsessed and has too much time on his hands. For someone who's been running a blog for five years, she really doesn't know much about blogging.

An email and a blog post do not come within a mile of being systematic harassment by blogosphere standards. Jack was just passing by. He says he sent one email, and he'd only written the one post at the time. Prevost could have just ignored him and he'd probably have moved on to something else. Instead, she responded in anger, triggering a second blog post. And now Jack says he filled out a bar complaint.

[Update: Jack says he hasn't filed the bar complaint yet and isn't sure that he needs to. See comments.]

As a criminal defense lawyer, Prevost probably gets the question all the time, "How can you defend those people?" I can almost see my defense lawyer readers flinching as they read that. It's not that they don't have a good answer, it's just that they're really tired of the question, and of the implication that there's something wrong with them for doing what they do.

For bloggers, I think the equivalent question is "Why are you bothering with this?"

I get that a lot. I'll read some news story, and some aspect of it will stick in my brain, and eventually a blog post will come out of it. This is how blogging works. Quite often, we leave the big, obvious stories to the news media and focus our attention on an interesting detail. And for some reason, this upsets people.

They say we're missing the big picture, as if the details couldn't possibly hold an important lesson. They accuse us of bias in picking a subject, as if having a point of view was sufficient to prove us wrong. They tells us we're ignoring the important story, as if life was a television script, and it would be confusing if too many things were happening at once.

This is the weakest possible criticism of a blog post. If you're not interested in what we're writing about, just stop reading. If you actively dislike what we're writing about, then write your own blog. In your own words.

This last Wednesday, however, Jennifer made this stunning announcement:

If you go to the newsstand and buy the May 2012 issue of Playboy, YOU WILL SEE ME INSIDE! .... no, wait, that came out wrong. Let me try again: if you buy the May 2012 Playboy, you'll find my latest anti-TSA column inside. It's on page 42 (which, as any Douglas Adams fan knows, is the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything).

Whatever else Playboy is about, they've often attracted quality writers, so that's a pretty cool publication credit for Jennifer. Naturally, I wanted to read it.

That turned out to be harder than I thought. Playboy's website doesn't let you read much of its content without paying, and the May issue isn't even online yet. This meant I would have to go out and buy a printed copy of a magazine. Yeah, I know. Back before the web was big, I used to buy a bunch of magazines, but they were mostly about either computer software or politics, and these days you can find plenty about either of those subjects online. I had no idea where to buy a printed copy of Playboy.

I drove out at lunch time to a nearby magazine shop, but they turned out to have closed a while ago. The next day I tried some nearby convenience stores, but they all apparently stopped selling magazines without my even noticing. Last night I stopped in at Barnes & Nobel, but I could only find a single copy of Playboy, and it wasn't the right issue. I guess all that print-is-dead hype was pretty real.

Finally, I found out that City Newsstand in Evanston had the May issue, so I drove out there today and sent my wife in to get a copy. Score!

The article is in the Playboy Forum section (which is nothing like the Penthouse Forum section). If you're a regular reader of Jennifer's blog, it will be a familiar subject, although as an amateur writer, it's fascinating to see how she's adopted her style to the publication. I don't quite understand what's different, but it feels like there's about 20% less scorn and derision which, given her feelings about the TSA, is pretty amazing. It almost feels a bit (dare I say it?) playful.

Anyway, check it out. (Normally, that would be a link but, you know, dead-tree media.)

]]> Blogosphere mdraughn 2012-04-21T19:01:37-06:00 http://www.windypundit.com/archives/2012/04/weyland-yutani_startup.html

In an unprecedented approach that involved four law enforcement agencies - including federal agents - METRO launched a national BusSafe pilot program last Friday that saturated its system and resulted in quality arrests, making transit safer for passengers.

The METRO Police Department, Houston Police Department, Harris County Precinct 7 Deputy Constables and 15 agents - part of so-called viper teams - from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) joined forces in a synchronized, counter-terrorism exercise that focused on bus stops and shelters and transit centers.

Law officials performed random bag checks, conducted sweeps with our K-9 drug and bomb-detecting dogs, and assigned both uniformed and plainclothes officers at transit centers and rail platforms to detect and prevent criminal activity.

The call it a "counter-terrorism exercise," but in the very next paragraph they mention drug-sniffing dogs, which of course have nothing to do with catching terrorists. And given the incredibly self-serving nature of this press release, they would have mentioned it if any of the "quality arrests" had been for something even remotely resembling terrorist activity.

In reality, what they did was setup an internal checkpoint -- a place were citizens just going about their business are forced to show their papers and submit to questioning and investigation by the authorities -- which is the hallmark of tyrannical governments everywhere, and a sign of creeping totalitarianism here.

Naturally, our elected representatives don't see the problem:

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas District 18), a senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee, called this a new era for the TSA, and a new era for surface transportation security.

"We're looking to make sure that the lady I saw walking with a cane...knows that METRO cares as much about her as we do about building the light rail," said Jackson Lee at the news conference.

What the hell is that? Mention a woman with a cane and somehow that makes it alright to harass citizens for no reason? Is she that stupid? Or does she think we're that stupid?

(Hat tip: Mark Bennett.)

Update: And now the Houston METRO folks have realized that "random" searches may not hold up in court, so they're trying to change their story. Mark Bennett is all over it.

Airport security in America is broken. I should know. For 3½ years--from my confirmation in July 2005 to President Barack Obama's inauguration in January 2009--I served as the head of the Transportation Security Administration.

You know what Kip? Fuck you. You're part of the problem. The very first words out of your mouth should be "I'm sorry." Anything less is just not good enough.

You know the TSA. We're the ones who make you take off your shoes before padding through a metal detector in your socks (hopefully without holes in them). We're the ones who make you throw out your water bottles. We're the ones who end up on the evening news when someone's grandma gets patted down or a child's toy gets confiscated as a security risk. If you're a frequent traveler, you probably hate us.

I've flown once since 9/11. I still hate you. I hated you even before I flew. You know why I hated you, even though I hadn't flown? Probably not. It's because I have something called empathy for other people. I realize that's a foreign concept for you, but you really should try it out.

Any effort to rebuild TSA and get airport security right in the U.S. has to start with two basic principles:

First, the TSA's mission is to prevent a catastrophic attack on the transportation system, not to ensure that every single passenger can avoid harm while traveling. Much of the friction in the system today results from rules that are direct responses to how we were attacked on 9/11. But it's simply no longer the case that killing a few people on board a plane could lead to a hijacking. Never again will a terrorist be able to breach the cockpit simply with a box cutter or a knife. The cockpit doors have been reinforced, and passengers, flight crews and air marshals would intervene.

We've been telling you this for YEARS, you dumb son of a bitch! Years!

Sigh. According to Hawley, it's not all his fault, and I have to admit his explanation rings true:

I wanted to reduce the amount of time that officers spent searching for low-risk objects, but politics intervened at every turn. Lighters were untouchable, having been banned by an act of Congress. And despite the radically reduced risk that knives and box cutters presented in the post-9/11 world, allowing them back on board was considered too emotionally charged for the American public.

We did succeed in getting some items (small scissors, ice skates) off the list of prohibited items. And we had explosives experts retrain the entire work force in terrorist tradecraft and bomb-making. Most important, Charlie Allen, the chief of intelligence for the Department of Homeland Security, tied the TSA into the wider world of U.S. intelligence, arranging for our leadership to participate in the daily counterterrorism video conference chaired from the White House. With a constant stream of live threat reporting to start each day, I was done with playing defense.

Still, he's kind of clueless:

Taking your shoes off for security is probably your least favorite part of flying these days. Mine, too.

Actually, most offensive part is when the TSA pricks look at us naked and touch us in places that strangers shouldn't touch us. I realize that system came online after Hawley left the TSA, but it was going through procurement while he was in charge.

Eventually, he gets to a list of changes he proposes, most of which are pretty good:

What would a better system look like? If politicians gave the TSA some political cover, the agency could institute the following changes before the start of the summer travel season:

1. No more banned items: Aside from obvious weapons capable of fast, multiple killings--such as guns, toxins and explosive devices--it is time to end the TSA's use of well-trained security officers as kindergarten teachers to millions of passengers a day...

2. Allow all liquids...

3. Give TSA officers more flexibility and rewards for initiative, and hold them accountable...

The TSA's basic problem with accountability is that it is responsible for enforcing its own standards. That's not very effective, especially since TSA employees have civil service protections that make them hard to fire. They aren't law enforcement officers, so they don't need to be government employees. The best way to hold airport security employees accountable is to lay off 90% of TSA employees and go back to the private security system we had before. Turn the remaining TSA officers into inspectors that hold the private system accountable.

4. Eliminate baggage fees: Much of the pain at TSA checkpoints these days can be attributed to passengers overstuffing their carry-on luggage to avoid baggage fees...

You could also try to make baggage handling safer and more efficient. Stop losing bags. Stop letting baggage handlers and TSA officers steal stuff. All that security, and someone can still walk off with anything you check. That's why people carry stuff on.

To be effective, airport security needs to embrace flexibility and risk management--principles that it is difficult for both the bureaucracy and the public to accept. The public wants the airport experience to be predictable, hassle-free and airtight and for it to keep us 100% safe. But 100% safety is unattainable. Embracing a bit of risk could reduce the hassle of today's airport experience while making us safer at the same time.

Again, some of us have been telling you that for years.

--Mr. Hawley is the author of "Permanent Emergency: Inside the TSA and the Fight for the Future of American Security," to be published April 24 by Palgrave Macmillan.

Like we didn't see that coming...

Security expert Bruce Schneier, who has been explaining the TSA's errors for years, has posted his reaction, which is basically that Hawley has finally caught up to the rest of us. Also, Hawley was saying something completely different as recently as one month ago.

(10a) Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.

(10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.

(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).

(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.

(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.

(10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.

(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.

(10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.

(10i) If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving.

Holy Crap!

I keep thinking I must not be getting the joke, that this is some kind of rude satire, and I'm just missing the clues that give it away, like someone who never heard of Chris Rock tuning into the middle of him doing his "Controversy LaRue" character.

In my heart, though, I know Derbyshire's just a tool.

Update: Derbyshire, who is best known as a writer for National Review, isn't:

Derb is effectively using our name to get more oxygen for views with which we'd never associate ourselves otherwise. So there has to be a parting of the ways. Derb has long danced around the line on these issues, but this column is so outlandish it constitutes a kind of letter of resignation. It's a free country, and Derb can write whatever he wants, wherever he wants. Just not in the pages of NR or NRO, or as someone associated with NR any longer.

Cue complaining about NR's caving in to political correctness in 5...4...3...

This weekend we're seeing a one-two-punch against freedom of speech -- at least as it exists on the internet -- one from Arizona, the other from the U.S. Senate.

You may have heard of the first punch, in the form of a stupid law that I can only guess is an overreaction to the "bullying" panic. The Media Coalition offers this description of Arizona House Bill 2549:

Arizona House Bill 2549 would update the state's telephone harassment law to apply to the Internet and other electronic communications. It would make it a crime to communicate via electronic means speech that is intended to "annoy," "offend," "harass" or "terrify," as well as certain sexual speech.  However, because the bill is not limited to one-to-one communications, H.B. 2549 would apply to the Internet as a whole, thus criminalizing all manner of writing, cartoons, and other protected material the state finds offensive or annoying.

The Media Coalition explains what's wrong with this in their letter to Arizona Governor Janice Brewer:

Government may criminalize speech that rises to the level of harassment and many states have laws that do so, but this legislation takes a law meant to address irritating phone calls and applies it to communication on web sites, blogs, listserves and other Internet communication. H.B. 2549 is not limited to a one to one conversation between two specific people. The communication does not need to be repetitive or even unwanted. There is no requirement that the recipient or subject of the speech actually feel offended, annoyed or scared. Nor does the legislation make clear that the communication must be intended to offend or annoy the reader, the subject or even any specific person.

In other words, this law would enact broad censorship of the press, and precisely because its result is so blatantly unconsitutional, I'm not too worried about it, even if it spreads outside of Arizona.

The second punch comes at the federal level, from reliable internet panic-monger Senator Joe Lieberman.

I know a lot of blogs attract crazy people, but I don't get too many of them here. I was reminded of this recently when I got a comment on this post about Julian Assange blaming me for the decline of journalism since Walter Cronkite died (or something). Perhaps the most dangerous sounding was "Albatross," who stopped by to defend writing about his fantasy of killing one of my former co-bloggers, and even he wasn't as crazy as that short summary makes him sound. I'd like to think the relative lack of crazy is because all of you regular readers are so goddamned intelligent and level headed, but I suspect it has more to do with the fact that there just aren't very many of you.

But even if the craziness in the comments got much, much worse, I don't have to spend too much time worrying about it, largely due to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which makes it clear that web sites that accept content from third parties are not considered publishers of that content, and are therefore not legally responsible for it. Essentially, comments I receive are not editorial content of this blog; they're more like sheets of paper pinned to the billboard at a neighborhood community center.

All that could change if Senator Lieberman gets his way with a stupid new bill he's just proposed. The bill changes Section 230 to essentially strip away the protection against third-party content, making every blogger responsible for what commenters post. This will kill or cripple the lively comment areas of many blogs.

Even worse, remember that in many cases the blogs themselves are third-party content on someone else's site, such as blogs hosted by Live Journal, Blogger, or Wordpress. (The Huffington Post media empire itself would never have gotten off the ground if this law had been passed a few years ago.) There's no way those companies could afford to police the millions of blogs for which they would now be liable, and I suspect most of them would go out of business. Even my own humble blog might go under, since the company I pay to host it might somehow become liable for its content.

The Arizona law seems blatantly unconstitutional, but I'm not sure to what extent something as technical as the status of third-party content is constrained by the Bill of Rights, especially since 1st Amendment lawyer Brian Cuban seems concerned:

One may look at this and think, "good riddance to sites like the Dirty" but free speech for one is free speech for all, even commentary we find offense.  If this amendment passes, we are all stripped naked in our ability to engage in the honest and blunt discourse that anonymous commenting protects. It  puts an unbearable burden on not only the sites we might not like but the sites that encourage legitimate discourse. All consumer rating sites would disappear practically overnight.

Hat-tip to Florida criminal defense Lawyer Brian Tannebaum, who takes a Voltaire-esque stand:

I'm not a fan of the sewage that is most anonymous comments. In my little part of the blogging world they come from lawyers, lawyers parading as cowards - afraid to express their thoughts unless protected by anonynimity. But I certainly don't support federal legislation controlling the sewage.

Strangely, Mark Bennet thinks it might be a good idea:

Obviously, making it possible for web hosts to be held responsible for the conduct can't help but raise the tone. Letting people who have been libeled online seek justice from those who allow the comments rather than chasing anonymous ghosts will essentially bring much-needed grown-up (but -- and this is the key -- nongovernmental) supervision to the Internet, raising barriers to entry and therefore the quality and utility of the discussion.

I think the Other Mark is forgetting that he doesn't own the servers his blog is hosting on, and if this stupid bill passes, he might get an ugly surprise when his hosting company decides they don't have the time to research the facts behind some of the potentially libelous things he writes.

First Amendment Badass (and restauranteur) Marc Randazza confirms my interpretation and, naturally, stands strong, so I'll let him have the last word, in his inimitable style:

Although Lieberman is touting this amendment as an anti-terrorist effort, this action will have a chilling effect on all forms of Internet speech. Service providers from Comcast to Consumerist may now be treated as publishers to content posted to their websites. This opens up the possibility that review sites and others that rely on third parties for content will be held responsible for those very same deranged, sub-literate contributions. Lieberman's proposed amendment will have a chilling effect on free speech, as any site that does not want to drown in legal bills likely won't accept anonymous comments.  If you're a sissy with paper-thin skin or an obsession with "bullying," rejoice, I suppose.

...

Needless to say, inhibiting anonymous speech is an attack on this right in gross.  It will be a grave day if this amendment succeeds.  Although anonymous speech on the Internet is not always the most intelligent, it still has its place in public discourse -- for me to poop on.  Civil liberties should not be victims in the attempt to curb terrorism, yet we have already succumbed to the Scylla and Charybdis of the TSA and NSA in entrusting our rights to the benevolent government.  At this point, what's one more right ceded to the security theater's alphabet soup?

Eternal vigilance, folks. Enternal vigilance.

If you won that cash prize, the federal government's tax bite would be about $136 million, based on the top marginal tax rate of 35%. (And really, the top bracket is all that matters for this kind of money.) There could also be a state income tax, depending where you live. For those of you here with me in Illinois, that's another 5% or about $19.5 million.

That leaves you with a mere $233 million after time-value-of-money and tax calculations. Given the 1 in 175,711,536 odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot, this means that each Mega Millions lottery ticket you purchase has a mathematically expected value of $1.33.

That's right, for the first time I know of, the Mega Millions lottery is above the breakeven point. It could actually make some kind of financial sense to buy a ticket.

Of course, that's only if you're completely risk-blind, since the most likely outcome by far is loss of all your money. By comparison, synthetic CDO's backed by residential mortgages were a much safer investment even during the crash.

If you have a handy $175 million in cash, it might make sense to use it to buy all 175,711,536 possible lottery tickets, which would guarantee you a $58 million profit.

Well, that's not quite true. You see there's one thing these calculations didn't take into account, which is that someone else could also pick the winning number. I don't know the odds of that happening -- it depends on how many people buy tickets -- but if even one other person wins, it will cut your prize in half to about $117 million, for a net loss of $59 million.

Because of this possibility -- multiple winners splitting the prize pool -- even at a jackpot of over half a billion dollars, the Mega Millions lottery still might not actually be at breakeven.

Florida's now-infamous Stand Your Ground law, which lets you shoot someone you consider threatening without facing arrest, let alone prosecution, sounds crazy -- and it is.

Florida's Stand Your Ground law may or may not be crazy -- the devil is in the details -- but Krugman's description of it misses by a mile. The legal principle that lets you "shoot someone you consider threatening without facing arrest, let alone prosecution" is plain old self-defense.

Krugman tries to make this sound sinister by using the deceptive phrase "consider threatening" which implies that the standard for opening fire is weak and highly subjective. In general, the standard is stronger than that: It's not self-defense unless a reasonable person in the same situation would fear for his life. Typically the defendent would have to prove that the person he shot had the means, opportunity, and intent to do great bodily harm. Also, the shooter has to have clean hands: You can't generally initiate a confrontation with someone and then shoot them if they fight back.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, and there is a lot of state-to-state variation in the details of how these laws are written and interpreted. For all I know, Florida law may enact a frightenly broad definition of self-defense. But that's not what Stand Your Ground laws are about:

The distinguishing factor of "Stand Your Ground" laws, which have been under renewed debate since George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, is a simple concept: The rule was that a person had the duty to retreat if he can safely do so rather than use force against an aggressor in proportion to the force being used against him. "Stand your ground" laws eliminated this duty.

You may or may not think that's a good idea, but in either case, you'd be thinking more clearly than Krugman was.

Also, I don't know enough about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to know if Krugman's description is accurate, but Krugman's link to Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) sounds like nonsense:

But where does the encouragement of vigilante (in)justice fit into this picture? In part it's the same old story -- the long-standing exploitation of public fears, especially those associated with racial tension, to promote a pro-corporate, pro-wealthy agenda. It's neither an accident nor a surprise that the National Rifle Association and ALEC have been close allies all along.

I'm not saying that CCA doesn't participate in ALEC -- it does -- but it's hard to see why a private prison corporation would back a law that puts fewer people in prison.

Update: And then there's this line:

And if there is any silver lining to Trayvon Martin's killing, it is that it might finally place a spotlight on what ALEC is doing to our society -- and our democracy.

So, Trayvon Martin was shot to death...but there's still a "silver lining" because some semi-shady public/private thinktank will get bad publicity. Good to know.

Geraldo's case is, well, not entirely insane.

People do react to the symbols you wear. Ask any ex-hippie from the '60's if he was harassed about his long hair. That's not an entirely crazy response to long hair either: Hippies wore long hair as a statement, and some people were offended by the statement. Then other people started wearing long hair just because it seemed cool. They weren't trying to make a statement, but that didn't keep them from being treated as if they were.

No one controls the meanings of symbols -- not even the symbols of language, as the internet has taught us with its fast evolution of new words ("LULZ") or old words with new meanings ("trolls") -- and no one controls the meaning of an article of clothing. Which can have unexpected consequences.

American businessmen have sometimes run into this problem in England. In the clip above, Geraldo is wearing a striped tie. His tie looks mostly grey, but these striped "rep" ties come in all colors, and a lot of businessmen in America like to wear them. So do a lot of businessmen in London, but in London, these ties mean something.

To English men, striped ties are symbols of their affiliations. The patterns are specific to each organization. There are ties for schools, ties for clubs, and ties for military regiments (which is probably where the tradition of such ties began). It sometimes rubs them the wrong way to meet with an American businessman who shows up wearing a tie that represents a school that he didn't attend, or a Royal Army regiment he couldn't possibly have served in.

I've heard that kids in America's inner cities run into a similar problem with more tragic results when they unknowingly wear some element of gang colors -- just because they thought it was cool -- and then run into gang members who aren't pleased to see their colors disrespected, or find themselves in the territory of a rival gang, when they're not even in the gang.

In any case, just as the backwards-facing ball cap stopped being a gang symbol about the time parents started wearing them on outings with their kids, I don't think the hoodie is really much of a sign of a miscreant any more. My wife and I are both middle-aged white folks, and we've been wearing hoodies for years.

On the other hand...

A few weeks ago. My wife and I were returning home on a Saturday evening when, over a period of about three minutes, we saw eleven Chicago Police cars go flying by with the full light show. Curious what was going on, I downloaded a police scanner app to my phone, and we listened in on the radio chatter.

As we listened for the next 90 minutes or so, we learned that it was a manhunt for some people who had shot (without success) at a police officer. The police had only a sparse description, but it was enough to catch at least one of them as we listened: Two males. Wearing hoodies.

On the one hand, there's the Republican candidate, Roy Moore. He had the job before, at least until a few years ago when he was kicked off the bench. He's the judge who insisted on having a copy of the Ten Commandments displayed in his courtroom. When a federal court ordered it removed, he refused, and the Alabama Court of the Judiciary responded by removing him from the post.

Moore is also not too fond of teh gay:

To disfavor practicing homosexuals in custody matters is not invidious discrimination, nor is it legislating personal morality. On the contrary, disfavoring practicing homosexuals in custody matters promotes the general welfare of the people of our State in accordance with our law, which is the duty of its public servants... The State carries the power of the sword, that is, the power to prohibit conduct with physical penalties, such as confinement and even execution. It must use that power to prevent the subversion of children toward this lifestyle, to not encourage a criminal lifestyle... Homosexual behavior is a ground for divorce, an act of sexual misconduct punishable as a crime in Alabama, a crime against nature, an inherent evil, and an act so heinous that it defies one's ability to describe it.

So that's the Republican.

Then there's his opponent, Democrat Harry Lyon, who favors mandatory random drug testing for all high school students, in public and private schools. Also, one day while discussing the illegal immigration problem, this came out of his mouth:

"My idea is to bring attention to the problem and let the Legislature [and courts] decide," Lyon said. "I'd give them 90 days to make arrangements to make them leave and if after that, you'd have to go to public execution."

He also gave an interview, partially transcribed here:

Tim Lennox: "'It would only take five or 10 getting killed and broadcast on CNN for it to send a clear message not to fool, or not to step foot rather, in Alabama.' Is that an accurate quote?"

Harry Lyon: "That's an accurate quote. You have have to get tough on things like this. We're losing 35 to 50 soldiers a day in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a tough proposal, but the legislature would have to approve it."

Lyon: "If I were an illegal alien in Alabama and I read that in the newspaper, I wouldn't wait around for laws to be passed, I would be going back to my homeland. They broke in here, they violated our laws. It's no different than breaking into your house."

And then somewhat later:

Lyon: "Now, I can assure you that proposal would fly right through the Alabama legislature is one of these illegal immigrants were to blow up the Galleria, OK?"

Lennox: "Well, but there's no indication that any immigrants in Alabama, illegal or otherwise, have done anything along these lines--"

Lyon: "Well, there's no indication about 9/11 until the buildings came down."

Lennox: "I mean, are you suggesting that this is a real concern of yours?"

Lyon: "Absolutely. These people are not here legally, they are here illegally. What do they care about the laws of Alabama, or the United States? Slap in our face."

He now claims he was being facetious (see the comments), but you can watch the actual interview (starts around 6:00, the second part comes around 19:50) and decide for yourself.

Roy Moore's campaign page is here (warning: plays audio on load).

Harry Lyon's criminal defense firm web site is here (although I wouldn't recommend him if you're worried about collateral immigration issues).

(Hat tip: Ed Brayton)