And the homophobe circus continues

As yet another anti-gay demagogue gets busted with a male escort. (source)

And Now For Something Completely Different

In the City of Brotherly Love, Philly fans boo the tasing of an asshat running on the field.  Then there is no pleasing you, Philadelphia.

Response to the Harvard e-mail controversy

By All Hands

Last week, one Harvard law student forwarded a fellow classmate’s six-month old e-mail to people guaranteed to take offense to it.  The original e-mail’s damning line, which has been seized upon by Above The Law, Eugene Volokh and others, is this:

“I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent.”

We are not writing to discuss the merits of this original e-mail, but rather the response it has generated.  The above quote can fairly be described as the line that launched ten thousand blog comments.  Beyond the sources mentioned above, scores of people have weighed in on the issue at Gawker, Jezebel, Feministe, Bossip, Steve Sailer’s Blog, Roissy and other message boards.  Some are now calling, fairly actively in some cases, for the e-mail’s author to lose her upcoming clerkship on the 9th Circuit.

This outrage is predictable and protected by the first amendment.  While being offended is the cost of living in a free society, people who are offended are entitled to recourse using their own free speech rights.  When religious groups are offended by some aspect of culture, they band together to effect change, or at least heightened awareness and sensitivity.  Even if the outrage surrounding this e-mail is irrational, it’s a natural response to profound criticism; chiding outraged people for expressing their distress would be glib.

Shaming tactics, however, only work when there is mutual respect between parties that can be lost through a breach of trust.  When someone’s parents or friends shame them, it is effective because the shamed wishes to be viewed positively by those he or she values.  When the shaming group is anonymous to its target, there is no respect to be lost.  Rather than engaging the controversy with attacks and shaming language, those aggrieved could have engaged in reasoned, logical discourse, as we attempt to do now.

We do not begrudge the offended their response to this incident.  We do not think that it is the most effective or productive means of response, either.  By pushing sentiments like the e-mailer’s underground, we delay and deepen the effects of such beliefs.  Perhaps the time to discuss race without the cloud of racism hanging overhead has not yet come, but refusing to engage ideas, however uncomfortable they are, with evidence, facts, data or anything but counterattacks and dismissiveness ensures that the post-racial society we strove for in 2008 is no closer to existing today than it was then.

The issue addressed by the e-mailer is a complex one of scientific and social significance.  This subtlety and nuance of these issues largely have been lost amidst the backlash from her speech.  Indeed, she should expect backlash, and may well deserve it.  However, given the fact that this was presumed to be a private email, and it only became a widely-publicized event because of a personal spat, even that is called into question.

But as with all rights, the ability to do something does not necessarily make it a good idea.  However justified we all may feel in saying what we want, it does not shield ourselves and others from the consequences of doing so.  Just as the emailer and her critics’ speech affected one another, the aggregate effect of this incident and its fallout affects all of us and how we as a society respond to difficult questions of race.  Being mindful of the precedent these controversies set, it would be better for all involved to swallow their pride, however bitter it tastes, and engage in discourse together.  For it is in the dark, in the vacuum of contextualized information and feedback that taboos create and reinforce, that ignorant and harmful views are born.

Rape charges defeated by skinny jeans

By J. DeVoy

Apparently juries have a problem convicting men of rape when their alleged victims are wearing skinny jeans.  The pants are so narrow and hard to get on or off that reasonable minds believe “collaboration” is necessary for their removal.

An Australian man was acquitted of rape Friday when a jury ruled there had to be “collaboration” to remove the woman’s tight size 6 skinny jeans.

Nicholas Gonzales, 23, admitted to having sex with the 24-year-old accuser, but insisted it was consensual.

The woman said Gonzales pushed her on his bed and held her down against her will, the Daily Mail reported.

“I struggled to try to get up for a while and then he undid my jeans and he pulled them off,” she testified.

Gonzales’ lawyer pressed her, saying it would be “difficult for skinny jeans to be taken off by someone else unless the wearer’s assisting, collaborating, consenting.”

[...]

The “skinny jeans defense” has become more common in rape trials all over the world. (Source.)

Adult film industry decries piracy in new video

By J. DeVoy

This surprisingly sober (and thoroughly whiny co-worker-safe) video from the Free Speech Coalition addresses the problems piracy causes in the adult entertainment industry.  For several years, “Tube” sites such as YouPorn, which feature content uploaded by amateurs and pirated from professionals, have taken a significant bite out of the industry’s earnings.

The video’s most salient point is made about one minute in by director Will Ryder: Torrents can lead to criminal liability because of what users don’t know they’re downloading.  In the halcyon days of Alberto Gonzales’s tenure as Attorney General, child pornography prosecution by the DOJ and US Attorney’s Offices across the country was in high gear, and that illicit content was showing up in all kinds of unexpected places — namely as parts of torrent files.  When someone downloads a torrent, he or she gets the end file from dozens, even hundreds of other people allowing the downloader to copy portions of it off of their hard drives.  Other files can get scooped up in this process, including child pornography.  This happened with non-trivial frequency, and US Attorney’s Offices brought charges against the people who had these files, which were identified through whatever mechanism the DOJ and FBI used to identify and track them. (Even if I could disclose this information, I wasn’t privy to how it was done.)

There are statutory carve-outs in the United States Code  that protects people unknowingly in possession of child pornography.  Under 18 USC § 2252(A), a person must “knowingly” fulfill the conditions of the statute to be guilty, so someone who has no idea he or she has the content may escape liability.  Under subsection (d), a defendant can raise an affirmative defense if he or she:

(1) possessed less than three images of child pornography; and
(2) promptly and in good faith, and without retaining or allowing any person, other than a law enforcement agency, to access any image or copy thereof—
         (A) took reasonable steps to destroy each such image; or
          (B) reported the matter to a law enforcement agency and afforded
                 that agency access to each such image.

Any guesses as to how many people out there would know about this provision?  Would even think to Google for it?  I’m thinking zero.  And woe unto the person who discovers more than three images.  As with most things, an ensuing cover-up of deletions would be worse than the crime.  The easiest, most effective solution simply is to not pirate anything through torrents.  Not porn, not software, not music — nothing.

Another highlight from the video: Lisa Ann dramatically taking off her glasses in the first segment.  It’s an old and clichéd move, but it always works; I bought glasses for the sole purpose of doing it.

Finally, the industry describes what it will do to fight piracy:

Many adult-film producers within the last month have begun employing fingerprinting technology to track online copyright infringement, Cachapero says. (Source.)

Overall, a good idea — one that Trent Reznor developed the early 1990s to identify which of his friends would leak his highly controversial, ultra-limited-release Broken video.  Universal Records has already indicated its intentions to watermark its musical releases as well.  While there may be technological impediments making this move more difficult for the adult film industry, it may be a good way to see where links are originating, especially if content is being released on multiple formats or through more than one distribution channel.

It’s true, the Catholic church ain’t all bad

Nicholas Kristof shines a positive light on the beleaguered Catholic world.

[T]here seem to be two Catholic Churches, the old boys’ club of the Vatican and the grass-roots network of humble priests, nuns and laity in places like Sudan. The Vatican certainly supports many charitable efforts, and some bishops and cardinals are exemplary, but overwhelmingly it’s at the grass roots that I find the great soul of the Catholic Church. (source)

Of course, if you read the post and watch the video, you’ll get a very sunny view of Catholicism. I’m not saying that it is undeserved, but isn’t the underlying point that compassionate people are good people? That seems simple enough.

I wonder if anyone’s considered this angle yet

by Jason Fischer

A new law in Oklahoma requires women who seek an abortion — including when the pregnancy results from incest or rape — to (i) have an ultrasound performed; and (ii) have the fetus described to them (source).  (Apparently, a few Oklahoma lawmakers have been watching too much television, where everyone goes all gooey as soon as the woosh-woosh-woosh noise starts and that unrecognizable, grainy image pops up on the tiny monitor.  <cueViolins>”It’s a GIRL!”</cueViolins>)

"Don’t force your morality off on me!  Or else I'll squirt this gel all over you!"

Not particularly shocking news, coming from the buckle of the Bible Belt.  I wonder, however, if anyone has considered the First Amendment implications.  Can the state require an ultrasound tech to describe the fetus?  Not if some pro-choice tech doesn’t want to.