Maxim is not porn

News:

MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- Authorities in Florida are sending convicted sex offenders to jail for violating the terms of their probation by having men's magazines such as Maxim.

Andrew Calderon, 23, was jailed for six days before a judge ordered his release after officers found a racy poster and calendar and copies of Maxim in his home earlier this year.

Maxim is pretty tame. The supermarket women's magazines are more pornographic than Maxim.

Fewer CS majors

NBC news:

The researchers came up with an interesting ? yet disturbing ? conclusion. While adults, many of them women and minorities, are realizing they have to go out and obtain degrees in computer science to advance or just keep up at the workplace, the ?traditional? young students in four-year colleges are increasingly deciding not to major in computer science.

In fact, as the technology-dependent United States struggles to stay ahead of the Bangalores of the world, the Higher Education Institute at the University of California-Los Angeles found significantly fewer students at the college level ? 60 percent fewer ? wanted to study computer science in 2004 as opposed to the year 2000.

And what is even more alarming are the low numbers of young women pursuing computer science at the college level ? current numbers are the same as in the 1970?s. Yet in terms of demographics, women comprise more than half of the current college population.

Simple supply and demand. Bill Gates says that he wants more computer scientists, but the jobs just aren't there anymore. Too much work is being outsourced to India and China.

Bomb Mecca

CNN says:

A Colorado congressman told a radio show host that the U.S. could "take out" Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons.

Tancredo has backed off his comments, but surely we'd have to take extreme measures if the Mohammedan religion declares war on us and nukes our cities. Tancredo said that the ultimate threat should be met with the ultimate response.

Phony autism numbers

Don't trust autism figures:

The US Department of Education figures, based on the number of children receiving special education assistance, have internal ''anomalies" and are in conflict with a number of studies on the prevalence of the condition, said the report from Portland State University in Oregon.

''Basically we don't know what the true prevalence of autism is in this country," the study's author, physician James Laidler, said in an interview. ''The problem with the data is that it may be including kids who have problems other than autism -- a less severe degree than was included even . . . a year or five years ago -- and it has some internal inconsistencies."
''That said, there may still be an autism epidemic in the United States," but the figures most widely used to demonstrate that are not valid, Laidler said.

The government figures estimate that autism as recorded in the US public school population went from 5,415 cases in 1991-1992 to 118,602 in 2001-2002.

Diagnosing autism has become a big fad.

No benefit to hands-free phone

New study:

(CNN) -- A study released Tuesday said drivers who use cell phones -- even hands-free models -- are four times as likely to be involved in wrecks involving a serious injury than are drivers who do not use cell phones.

"There was no safety benefit whatsoever from using a hands-free phone," said Anne McCartt, one of the authors of the study, which was published in the British Medical Journal and paid for by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

So all the cities and states passing hands-free phone use laws may not be making anyone safer.

UN Doudou says the obvious

BBC reports:

An independent investigator for the UN says racism in Japan is deep and profound, and the government does not recognise the depth of the problem.

Doudou Diene, a UN special rapporteur on racism and xenophobia, was speaking at the end of a nine-day tour of the country. ...

Mr Diene says he plans to recommend that Japan enact a law against discrimination, which he said should be drawn up in consultation with minority groups.

He said he would now wait for the Japanese government to respond to his comments before submitting a report to the United Nations.

Duh-duh. The UN bozo is probably uniquely qualified to make the problem worse.

Nashville news:

Parents, Stripper Sentenced; Birthday Boy Gets Off

Jason L. Miller | Staff Writer | 2005-07-08

Landon and Anette Pharris pled guilty to charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor by hiring a stripper to dance at their son's birthday party, according to the Associated press. In addition to winning two years probation, the court ordered them to take parenting classes.

The boy and about a dozen of his friends attended the party where 29-year-old Cassandra Joyce Park, stage name "Sassy," performed at the behest of the boy's parents. His grandfather was also attending.

Sassy danced for a few hours before the randy group of teenagers took up a collection, raising an additional $150 to convince her to take off her clothes completely.

Funny headline.

Next time they'll use a digital camera, so they don't have to worry about the busybodies in the photo shop.

Violence against women act

Wendy McIlroy attacks VAWA 2005. There is more info here.

VAWA has received $5B of funding over the past 10 years, and I wonder if there are any studies showing that any of the money has done any good. I suspect that the money has done much more harm than good.

Here is a 1998 study with domestic violence statistics. It shows that one can do a survey asking for complaints, and get complaints. But it fails to show that the VAWA approach helps anything.

More conservative politically

Andy writes:

America is becoming more conservative politically, which is one reason why we do not want young age to be a factor in picking the next Supreme Court justices. (Another reason is that justices typically move to the Left after serving on the Court for years, as Kennedy is doing right now.)

Here are ten examples of how conservative politics is growing. Additions are welcome. Note how few of them are attributable to GWB and the current Congress.

1. Capitalism defeated communism in the 20th century.
2. The right to own guns is stronger than it has been in decades.
3. Financial rights to invest in gold, mutual funds, etc., are at their strongest level.
4. The right not to be drafted is the strongest ever.
5. Evolution, the sacred cow of liberal atheism, is being widely discredited and discarded.
6. Liberal icons like Ted Kennedy and Arlen Specter are increasingly viewed as laughingstocks.
7. The right to homeschool is the strongest ever.
8. Presidential and congressional power are at their weakest point in over a century.
9. The power of citizens to communicate and influence policy (over the internet) is at its strongest point.
10. The free market in medicine is stronger than in 30+ years.

I'm not sure about some of these. In California, the right to own guns has been weakened. Evolution is taught as much as ever. And there is a long list of liberal successes.

Child car seats don't work

Freakonomics authors say:

But no matter what you control for in the FARS data, the results don't change. In recent crashes and old ones, in big vehicles and small, in one-car crashes and multiple-vehicle crashes, there is no evidence that car seats do a better job than seat belts in saving the lives of children older than 2. (In certain kinds of crashes -- rear-enders, for instance -- car seats actually perform worse.)

There is more info on their blog.

One conclusion that I draw is to not trust the medical literature on subjects like this. Pediatricians and other medicos often give pseudoscientific arguments about things like this, and they should really stick to medicine.

Drinker loses license

Pennsylvania news:

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) ? A state appellate court has rejected an appeal from a Lebanon man whose driver's license was revoked by the state after he told doctors he drank more than a six-pack of beer a day. ...

Under a law that dates to the 1960s, doctors in Pennsylvania must report any physical or mental impairments in patients over 15 years old that could compromise their ability to drive safely. The law requires an indefinite recall of the license until the driver can prove he or she is competent to drive. ...

PennDOT receives about 40,000 medical reports and recalls 5,000 to 6,000 licenses a year, according to officials at the agency, but it does not keep any statistics on its reasons for doing so.

I guess you have to be careful about telling your physician about your beer drinking. It is entirely possible that this man never did any drunk driving, and yet he is punished anyway. I don't believe the line about keeping statistics. They just cannot defend what they are doing.

72 bottles a day

UK news:

A 20-YEAR-OLD father of SIX who lives off state handouts is getting the snip.

But Mike Blake, a recovering alcoholic who has never worked in his life, says he will still stay at home and live off the family?s £800-a-month benefits.

He claims looking after his kids with his unemployed wife Kathleen, 24, will always be his full-time job.

Blake first became a dad aged just 13 after a one-night stand with a girl.

He met Kathleen in a pub when he was 15 and they got married the day before his 17th birthday.

They are parents to Sarah, seven, Jordan, four, Courtney, three, Kia, two, and eight-month-old Stacey Leigh.

They all live rent-free in a three-bedroom house in Pontypridd, South Wales, where Blake also gets incapacity benefit for his drink problem.

He says he used to drink 72 bottles of beer a day.

Now he has booked himself in for a vasectomy.

Blake said: ?I?m on the waiting list. I should have it in about three weeks.?

Admitting they live solely on handouts, Blake added: ?That?s the best way. We can stay at home.?

The UK is famous for its lousy treatment for responsible fathers. Apparently there are irresponsible fathers who get treated pretty well. Makes no sense to me.

Parrot grasps the zero

Science news:

A parrot has grasped the concept of zero, something humans can't do until at least the toddler phase, researchers say.

Alex, a 28-year-old African gray parrot who lives in a lab at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, has a brain the size of a walnut. But when confronted with no items on a tray where usually there are some, he says "none."

Zero is thought to be a rather abstract concept even for people. Children typically don't grasp it until age three or four, Brandeis researchers say. Some ancient cultures lacked a formal term for zilch, even as recently as the Middle Ages.

I am not sure that most American adults understand the concept. Yes, toddlers can learn it easily, and yet the elementary schools are reluctant to make use of it. Newspaper articles are typically written for people who do not understand the zero.

Trend for potty parity

NY potty news:

For reasons of anatomy and culture, women take at least twice as long - and as much as five times longer - to complete a bathroom visit as men, according to studies. Men generally zip in, zip down, zip up and zip out, according to John Banzhaf, professor of law and legal activism at the National Law Center of George Washington University.

I didn't know that there were professors of "legal activism". Now I have some idea of their concerns.

DV victims

Here are 2 more victims of domestic violence law:

Marriage vows land the groom in county jail

Associated Press
Jun. 30, 2005 12:00 AM

SPOKANE, Wash. - When Rachel Dunham took out a restraining order against her boyfriend, she didn't expect to be marrying him a short time later.

So instead of honeymooning in Mexico, her beau, Rodney Tomsha, sits in the Spokane County Jail, accused of violating the order by getting within two blocks of Dunham.

He tried to persuade a Spokane judge last week to lift the restraining order, but the judge refused.

The couple were married in nearby Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

The vast majority of restraining orders are unjustified.

Sex education

Honk Kong need sex education:

Grace Wong of the southern Chinese territory's Family Planning Association said the number of inquiries at her agency rocketed 50 percent last year, with many clients claiming to have no idea how to have sex.

"Some married couples are not familiar with their body parts," Wong was quoted as telling the Sunday Morning Post. "They don't know where their sex organs are.

Also, Egyptian men.

Anita Hill

Everyone keeps saying that Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment at his Senate confirmation hearing. Here is the actual transcript:

So that at that time, there was a doubt in your mind as to whether Judge Thomas was, in fact, guilty of sexual harassment on the facts as you knew them?

MS. HILL: Well, I want to back up and say something here. In my statement to you, I never alleged sexual harassment. I had conduct that I wanted explained to the Committee. My sense was -- my own personal sense was that yes, this was sexual harassment. But I understood that the Committee with their staff could make that evaluation on their own.

So, I didn't have any doubts. But I wanted to talk with someone who might be more objective.

SEN. SPECTER: Well, you did call it sexual harassment in your extensive news conference on October 7th, even though you did not so characterize it to the FBI or in your statement to this Committee.

MS. HILL: But that news conference on August 7th had not taken place at the time -- or excuse me, on October 7th --

It is a little confusing, but it appears to me that she wanted people to think it was sexual harassment, but that she stopped short of formally making that accusation.

Clarence Thomas denied it: "I cannot imagine anything that I said or did to Anita Hill that could have been mistaken for sexual harassment."

Showering is bad

News for the paranoid:

Taking regular showers could pose a health risk and even result in permanent brain damage, it has been claimed.
Scientists believe that breathing in small amounts of manganese dissolved in the water may harm the nervous system.

The damage may occur even at levels of the naturally occurring metal normally considered safe, say the US researchers.

Although manganese levels in public water supplies are monitored, regulators have not considered the long-term effects of inhaling vaporised manganese while showering, they claim.

No, I am not going to worry about it.

Fewer UFO videos

UK news:

Oscar-winning director STEVEN SPIELBERG is baffled that fewer UFO sightings are made now than were made twenty years ago - because the technology to record would-be aliens is so commonplace today. ...

Spielberg says, "There are millions of video cameras out there and they're picking up less videos of UFOs, alleged UFOs, than we picked up in the 1970s and 1980s. There's 150 per cent more cameras, so why are we getting less from up there?.
"I think that we all know that we're not alone in the universe. I can't imagine that we are the only intelligent biological life form out there. I'm a little less sure in my fifties that I was in my late twenties whether we're
actually ever going to find out.".

He has filmed them as both friendly and unfriendly.

Trivial actions become sex offenses

Here is a stupid ruling:

He grabbed girl's arm -- now he's a sex offender

Fitzroy Barnaby said he had to swerve to avoid hitting the 14-year-old Des Plaines girl who walked in front of his car.

She said he yelled, "Come here, little girl," before getting out of his car and grabbing her by the arm.

He said he simply lectured her.

She said she broke free and ran, fearful of what he'd do next.

In a Thursday ruling, the Appellate Court of Illinois said the 28-year-old Evanston man must register as a sex offender.

While acknowledging it might be "unfair for [Barnaby] to suffer the stigmatization of being labeled a sex offender when his crime was not sexually motivated," the court said his actions are the type that are "often a precursor" to a child being abducted or molested.

Though Barnaby was acquitted of attempted kidnapping and child abduction charges stemming from the November 2002 incident, he was convicted of unlawful restraint of a minor -- which is a sex offense.

'Most stupid ruling'

Now, he will have to tell local police where he lives and won't be able to live near a park or school.

The punishment of supposed sex offenders has gone way too far. This guy is not a sex offender.