State laws apparently don't matter anymore when it comes to regulating the police. The SCOTUS just ruled that it is entirely acceptable for the government to introduce evidence that the police obtained while conducting a search that is illegal under state law, but otherwise constitutional. See, in Virginia, there are restrictions on the books about how far you can go in a traffic stop. The officer thought he had probable cause based on the person's behavior, even though state law said he couldn't search the man, and the SCOTUS upheld a state court saying that the 4th amendment and his probable cause argument overrode the state law.
A congressman wants to end the sale of Playboy on military bases. I'm sure our servicemen are going to just love his logic about why he feels justified in arguing that tax dollars are involved, when in fact the magazines are bought with private money at both ends of the transaction:
North Koreans found working at a Syrian reactor? Why am I not surprised?
Anyone use Twitter? I don't, but I found these two things to be pretty funny:
Got this screenshot blurb from this blog.
Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron), the first release of Ubuntu 8, just came out.
And what would a morning linkfest be without a good Youtube video? This series brought to you by my wife, who has an incredible knack for finding good content on Youtube.
A congressman wants to end the sale of Playboy on military bases. I'm sure our servicemen are going to just love his logic about why he feels justified in arguing that tax dollars are involved, when in fact the magazines are bought with private money at both ends of the transaction:
But Broun's spokesman John Kennedy contended that taxpayer dollars are involved - "used to pay military salaries, so taxpayer money is, in effect, being used to buy these materials," he said.Super-sized waves that can sink ships! Once again, something that was snidely dismissed as rubbish by "the experts," without evidence, turns out to be true.
North Koreans found working at a Syrian reactor? Why am I not surprised?
Anyone use Twitter? I don't, but I found these two things to be pretty funny:
Got this screenshot blurb from this blog.
Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron), the first release of Ubuntu 8, just came out.
And what would a morning linkfest be without a good Youtube video? This series brought to you by my wife, who has an incredible knack for finding good content on Youtube.
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The article about super waves was interesting, and unsurprising. I suppose a person could write a massive tome offering one example after another of items that scientists once sneered at--since they didn't fit their worldviews--that have been verified as true. It aptly illustrates how scientists are as susceptible to biases as anyone else. Education or specialized knowledge is irrelevant, when speaking of a closed mind.
"His Military Honor and Decency Act would amend a provision of the 1997 Defense Authorization Act that banned sales of “sexually explicit material†on military bases. “Allowing sale of pornography on military bases has harmed military men and women by escalating the number of violent, sexual crimes, feeding a base addiction, eroding the family as the primary building block of society, and denigrating the moral standing of our troops both here and abroad,†Broun said. Broun said he wants to bring the Defense Department into compliance with the intent of the 1997 law “so that taxpayers will not be footing the costs of distributing pornography.â€Â"
Ah, going after visual porn. So easy, it's passe. A nice bone to religious conservatives. But what about porn for chicks? What does Mr. Congressman propose to do about romance novels and other emotional porn for women? That's stuff is just as harmful by feeding a base addiction in women, indulging women in unhealthy and unrealistic fantasies, and promoting immorality and vice. And I can argue that it leads to legal violence in the form of divorce and other family disruption, which is way more deadly and consequential than the physical kind of violence Broun worries about. And if you get rid of Playboy, you gotta get rid of Cosmo and other female skin-revealing mags that do everything but show nip and bush.
This bill's DOA. It happens every 5 or 6 years or so, and it gets shot down each time.
Ironically, for people as obsessed about pornography as they are, social conservatives never seem to realize that romance novels are almost down to a book, a bona fide form of pornography. In fact, they are in some respects worse because they hit all of the relationship nuances, whereas regular pornography only hits the sexual.
Mrs. Wapiti used to consume romance novels at one time. She reported becoming quite switched on as a result. She also tells me that those books are quite full of one-night stands, and sometimes positively feature rape and quasi-rape.
How those books are supposed to be okay while lad mags are dirty is difficult for me to grok.
It's a matter of image, nothing more...
The rape and quasi-rape part does not surprise me in the least because there are a number of women out there who like to feel like they have lost control from time to time. Feels dirty or something like that.
Thanks for including an excerpt from my twitter blog on http://ok-cool.com/ - I found it especially enjoyable because I had previously enjoyed seeing the cartoon above it so it was amusing to see it put next to my post.