Recently, two former TSA screeners, 44-year-old Coumar Persad and 31-year-old Davon Webb were convicted of stealing $40,000 from a passenger’s luggage at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. The amount of cash and the involvement of TSA officers obviously makes the story notable. However, what I found quite remarkable was the sentence that they received; six months in jail and five years probation. That is a remarkably light sentence for federal employees involved in a major theft while using public authority and resources.
Continue reading “TSA Agents Steal $40,000 From A Passenger . . . And Receive Just Six Months In Jail”
Category: Society
Bed, Bath, & Beyond is recalling its metal tissue boxes after California health officials found a shipment to be radioactive. The boxes made in India appear to have been made from metal irradiated with cobalt-60. The “Dual Ridge Metal Boutique tissue boxes” are not exactly weapons of mass destruction but they do present a health risk.
Continue reading “Bed, Bath & Beyond Tissue Boxes Found To Be Radioactive”
There is an interesting article published in Appetite Magazine showing the results of a study by German and Swiss academics into the effect of color on food consumption. The Scientists found that eating from red plates and drinking from red cups reduced the amount that people ate by forty percent.
Continue reading “Want to Lose Weight? Think Red”
Yesterday, my column “10 Reasons The United States Is No Longer The Land Of The Free” ran in the Sunday Washington Post. I have been heartened by response to the column. However, a few commenters continue to suggest that the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) does not allow for the indefinite detention of citizens. This claim is being advanced by Senator Carl Levin (D., Mich.) in emails and fax messages to voters. I wanted to respond to Senator Levin’s points which are detached from language of the law and the clear intent of the majority of Senators. I would also like to address those who have stated that our liberties are not at risk when such powers will not affect most Americans.
Continue reading “Indefinite Detention of Citizens: A Response To Senator Carl Levin”
We have spent considerable time on this blog discussing the dangers of Sharia system in various Muslim countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, particularly in the treatment of women and girls. However, in any free nation, citizens should be allowed to resolve their own disputes through private mediation or religious adjudications. This is what is happening increasingly in England where Muslims are circumventing the court system in favor of Islamic courts and Sharia law. The growing influence of Sharia courts has raised concerns among women’s groups and such reliance should come with added vigilance to ensure that all of the parties are truly consenting to such faith-based adjudications.
Continue reading “English Citizens Increasingly Turning To Sharia Courts”
This is a bizarre story. We are all familiar with the island of Montecristo from the famous novel by Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo. If you go to the uninhabited island, however, you are likely to find not the treasure from the book (or Red Beard’s treasure, as has long been rumored to be buried there). What you will find are rats. Lots of rats. One for every square yard of island. Now, the Italian military is planning to literally bomb the island to kill the black rat (Rattus rattus) population — and save the island.
Respectfully Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
On Monday we celebrate the life of the Reverend Martin Luther King and honor him for his work with the Civil Rights movement. One of his most famous speeches was the 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech that he gave in Washington, D.C. to a crowd of thousands. In that speech he laid out his vision and hopes for the Civil Rights movement. I would like to review some of his words and discuss if his dream came true for African-Americans and minorities throughout our country. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” ‘ Huffington Post Continue reading “Did Martin Luther King’s ‘Dream’ Come True?”
Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Freedom of speech is a well established right in this country and rooted in the 1st Amendment. “Congress shall make no law [. . .] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”. The U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19 reads, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” Within the United States and our jurisprudence there are some exceptions to this freedom, but by in large (up to this point in history) the restrictions are both reasonable and necessary: the Miller test for obscenity, child pornography laws, laws prohibiting speech that incites imminent lawless action, restrictions on fighting words, regulation of commercial speech such as advertising, copyright and patent laws protecting authors and inventors control over their work, and the prohibition of slander and defamation.
Let’s be clear here that the subject isn’t just free speech, but anonymous political free speech.
Here at Res Ipsa Loqitur, there is a long standing policy of allowing anonymous posting to comments and protecting poster’s anonymity. The decision to post under your own name or not is entirely yours. This policy encourages free speech while allowing that having an unpopular or minority point of view should not have negative political consequences for the speaker or unnecessarily complicate their lives simply for expressing their views. Many political insiders and Washington professionals have told Professor Turley that they enjoy reading this blog and have enjoyed posting anonymously. The only posters here required to use their real identities are the guest bloggers and the requirement is voluntary. None of us were coerced into using our real names. When offered the honor of being a guest blogger, it was simply (and I think I speak for all the guest bloggers when I say fairly) a requirement in assuming editorial responsibilities. However, all of this raises an important question.
Do you have a right to anonymous political free speech?
According to the Supreme Court, you do. According to the Department of Homeland Security, you don’t. They’ve hired General Dynamics to track U.S. citizens exercising this critical civil right.
Below is today’s column in the Sunday Washington Post. The column addresses how the continued rollbacks on civil liberties in the United States conflicts with the view of the country as the land of the free. If we are going to adopt Chinese legal principles, we should at least have the integrity to adopt one Chinese proverb: “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.” We seem as a country to be in denial as to the implications of these laws and policies. Whether we are viewed as a free country with authoritarian inclinations or an authoritarian nation with free aspirations (or some other hybrid definition), we are clearly not what we once were. [Update: in addition to the column below, a later column in the Washington Post explores more closely the loss of free speech rights in the West].
Continue reading “10 Reasons The U.S. Is No Longer The Land Of The Free”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Almost four weeks ago I read an article in Huffington Post entitled: “Can Loving A Robot Lead to Divorce?” by Vicki Larson, a journalist. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vicki-larson/robots_1_b_1150679.html Ms. Larson introduces her piece by quoting the claims of a current manufacturer of anatomically correct “sex robots”, who presumably speak and move in sexual ways. I followed the article’s link to the website of the robots inventor, Douglas Hines, who enthusiastically discusses his creation and has a few videos (non-explicit) that demonstrate the robot’s “capabilities”. While the HuffPost article links the Company’s website, I’m not doing it here, since publicizing this device is not my aim. Should you want further information it is available at the articles link. The “sex robot” being produced now is but an update on inflatable sex toys, though with a “skeleton”, rudimentary movement and speech added. It therefore is only an opening reference to a real issue that will shortly become scientifically possible.
The next part of this short article is an overview with of the opinion of Artificial Intelligence Expert David Levy http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=humans-marrying-robots “It also may be the future of love and marriage, if you believe artificial intelligent (AI) expert David Levy, author of Love and Sex With Robots. According to Levy, human-robot sex, love and marriage is inevitable — perhaps as soon as 2025. He predicts that robots may not only be more lovable and faithful than many humans, but they may even be more emotionally available than the “typical American human male.” Not only will they make us become better, more creative lovers, but they also will offer those singles who feel a void in their emotional and sexual lives and married couples with differing sexual needs new, nonjudgmental ways to be happy and healthy. Although Levy believes that the “availability of regular sex with a robot will dramatically reduce the incidence of infidelity as we know it today,” he also acknowledges there may be some potential sticky points. “Some human spouses and lovers might consider robot sex to be just as unfaithful as sex with another person.”
Levy’s view naturally flows into the conclusion of the article which is an E Mail interview with Sonya Ziaja, a San Francisco Bay Area attorney who blogs at numerous law and policy media outlets as well as her own, Shark. Laser. Blawg.
“And what could be more fraught with legal dilemmas than a love triangle among a married couple and a sexbot? How that might impact a divorce? That’s what Ziaja explores in her paper, “Homewrecker 2.0: An Exploration of Liability for Heart Balm Torts Involving AI Humanoid Consorts,” which she presented at the 2011 International Conference on Social Robotics that took place in Amsterdam at the end of November.
“If the doll’s owner becomes enamored with the doll, and leaves his spouse, can the spouse sue as she or he would be able to if the interloper had been human? And who would be sued? The manufacturer? Inventor? The AI itself?” she questions. “So long as we’re intent on adding socially interactive AI into situations that would ordinarily be only human. … socially interactive robots need to be ‘safe to play with’ in a way that manufacturers of toaster ovens never had to imagine.”
Thus we are presented here with a legal quandary instigated by the advent of revolutionary technology affecting serious legal, moral and ethical issues. How should we view this inevitability and how shall we deal with it as a society? Continue reading “Robot Love?”
Now this is going to be an interesting case. Pauline Davis, 45, has filed a gender discrimination case against J&J Snack Foods after the company (making churros and other frozen snacks) allegedly fired her for wearing a prosthetic penis to work. She seems to have a viable case.
There is an interesting criminal and tort case being investigated in England. Martin Henderson was celebrating his 37th birthday when he found himself airborne — thrown by another man in the bar who saw him as a dwarf for the tossing. Henderson suffered injuries as a result of the toss and the man fled.
Continue reading “Police Seek Culprit Who Seriously Injured Man In Spontaneous “Dwarf Toss””
Ben Stein is an actor who often appears at conservative conferences and events — often speaking against such things as global warming. Stein’s hard-right politics has made him a hero for conservatives and a villain for liberals. Now, however, he is suing after a company decided that his political advocacy undermined his value as a spokesman. While some conservatives might view such discrimination lawsuits and emotional distress claims as another sign of our litigious society, Stein is suing Japanese company Kyocera Corporation and the New York ad agency Seiter & Miller for the loss of a $300,000 gig. He says that Kyocera then tapped a University of Maryland economics professor whom his lawsuit portrays as a Stein lookalike or clone. Stein declares in his lawsuit that he is “the most famous economics teacher in the world.” Sure there were Adam Smith, John Kenneth Galbraith, and John Maynard Keynes. There were even people like Karl Marx who fashioned themselves as well known economists. But none of them appeared in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
Continue reading “Ben Stein’s Money: Actor Sues Japanese Company For Dumping Him For Another Nerdy Economist”
It is with an extremely heavy heart that I have to report that nine-year-old Kathleen Edward died of Huntington’s disease on Wednesday night. We discussed Kathleen’s illness as part of a horrific case about bullying by a neighbor, Jennifer Petkov.
Continue reading “Kathleen Edwards, 2003-2012”
The extreme views of Justice Clarence Thomas were put into sharp relief yesterday when he stood alone in an 8-1 decision to overturn an outrageous conviction from New Orleans. In the face of shocking misconduct by prosecutors under Harry Connick Sr., even the most conservative members lined up to denounce the case . . . all but one.