www.govit.com

 Steve Bellovin points out a silly proposal to require licenses for Geiger counters. Like Bellovin, I’m at a loss as to why anyone would think this was a good idea. The police department says the legislation would “prevent false alarms and unnecessary public concern,” but it’s not clear either that false alarms are a major problem, or that this registration requirement would prevent them. Strangely enough, the article doesn’t cite a single example in which “false alarms” created serious problems for anybody.

more

California energy regulators are considering taking control of residents’ thermostats, giving them the ability to control the temperatures of homes during energy crises, the New York Times reports.

The California Energy Commission is expected to vote on the rules next month, which would give utilities the power to control home thermostats via radio control to manage electricity shortages, the paper reports.

“Bernard Siegan: Reaganite and University of San Diego law professor Bernard Siegan, died on Monday at age 82.

In a pathbreaking 1980 book, Mr. Siegan challenged the view set out by the New Deal Supreme Court in 1937 that property rights are somehow inferior to other rights and deserve lesser protection. Gail Heriot, a colleague at the University of San Diego, summarized Mr. Siegan’s thinking this way: “What’s yours is yours, what’s mine is mine, and the government does not have unlimited power to take that property or to tell us what to do with it.” Who could have given him such a crazy idea? It was James Madison, the father of the Constitution, who wrote: “Government is instituted to protect property of every sort… that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.”

Read more

From:The Hattisburg American

“McGee and several unidentified deputies are accused of handcuffing and detaining a National Guardsman who tried to prevent them from seizing two Federal Emergency Management Agency trucks at Camp Shelby on Sept. 4, six days after Katrina battered Hattiesburg.”

Read More.

“Well, I guess it had to happen. Several weeks after writing my “Queer Muhammad” column, I finally got a call from a Muslim extremist – one who mostly shouted at me over the phone in broken English. I have decided to reprint our conversation in today’s column, hoping that it will shed some light on how to deal with the fundamentalist Muslim disdain for free speech, not to mention the fundamentalist Muslim disdain for satire.” (more)

“Poverty is an important and emotional issue. Last year, the Census Bureau released its annual report on poverty in the United States declaring that there were nearly 35 million poor persons living in this country in 2002, a small increase from the preceding year. To understand poverty in America, it is important to look behind these numbers–to look at the actual living conditions of the individuals the government deems to be poor.” (more)

Please read the whole article. It’s getting scary out there.

“Ahead of me, throwing bags in bins, is a young mother with a two or three year old girl. The mother is tense, flustered. Bags, bottles, a stroller to break down and get on the conveyer belt. A security agent yelling: “Keep your boarding pass in your hand at all times.” The little girl is looking up, anxious. All these yelling adults, and things being thrown. “My doll!” she says as her mother puts it quickly in a gray bin. “We’ll get it on the other side!” says the mother. She grabs her daughter’s hand roughly.

“Take off your sneakers!” a clerk yells.

The mother stops, hops, quickly removes her sneakers. Her daughter has already walked through the magnetometer and is wandering on the other side. She looks around: Where’s mommy?

Mommy gets her sneakers in a bin, on the belt, gets through the magnetometer.

I’m relieved. Her daughter holds her mother’s leg. They begin to walk on.

A TSA clerk shouts to another, “You didn’t check the sneakers. You have to put the sneakers through.”

The second clerk yells–”Your daughter has to go through again!”

The little girl is scared–What did I do wrong? I’m sorry, mommy.

The mother is tense, gets a look.

I lift my chin at the TSA agent, smile, and say softly, “Miss, that poor girl with the child, she is having a tough time. The little girl is scared and–”

“We are following procedures!” said the TSA agent. Her mouth was twisted in anger.

I nodded and said softly, “I know, I’m just saying–a little gentle in your tone.”

She looked at my ticket and smiled.

“You have been chosen by the computer for extra attention.”

“What?”

“You have been chosen by the computer for extra attention.”