More TSA Trash

A woman had the audacity to complain to the TSA that the screeners in Phoenix did not know their own procedures — which allow for alternative screening for medical liquids. Breast milk is classified as a “medical liquid.”

The brave TSA agents, who make us all safe, saw her coming a week later.

They made sure that she would miss her flight. They made sure that she was sorry that she ever complained.

The TSA is nothing but a bunch of uneducated shitbags who couldn’t hold a job at 7-11. That goes from the head on down to the fat fuck in this video.

Is this freedom?

Remember all that shit they told you in school about “land of the free and home of the brave?” They might not have lied to you then, but they are lying when they tell your kids that fairy tale now.

This is the pep talk (below) that America needs. Too bad that the Democrats are too fucking pussified to give it, and the Republicans are too goddamned fascist to want it to be given in the first place.

“It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!” That’s such a great quote. Too bad it came from a movie script, and not from one of the elected leaders of this “brave” and “free” country.

America is now the land of the mewling terrified coward. Which country do you think will be the new “land of the free and home of the brave?” Because we, sure as shit, don’t deserve that title anymore.

Jesus is a dick, Bills fans and poor people already know this

The media is all aflutter over Buffalo Bills receiver, Steve Johnson, who dropped a game-winning pass, and then used Twitter to blame the Magic Space Zombie Jew.

JESUS DON'T NO ENGLISH NEITHER KTHX BAI

Mr. Johnson, I agree. The thing is, Jesus is a dick. The ungrateful fuck just flies around in space, demanding that we bow down and kiss his ass, and meanwhile, what does he do for everyone who worships him? Well, let’s take a look at the most religious places on Earth…. Haiti? The Philippines? Mississippi? It is as if a massive divine shit bomb landed on all of those places. Meanwhile, the strongholds of atheism like Norway, Vermont, and Canada? Yeah, that’s what I thought… the thing is, when Jesus hears you acting like a servile little pussy, begging him for shit, he loses respect for you. Who wouldn’t? Think of the homeless assholes you pass on the way to work. “Please sir, can’t you help me?” Sure, you might have some compassion for them, but that’s the best you’ll ever drum up for them. And YOU are a good person.

Jesus, on the other hand, is a dick. (source)

Worse yet, he’s one dick who loves to watch football — and can’t keep his dirty nazarene hands off of the damn results.

I’m no Bills fan, but I’m not a Bills hater either. Therefore, I’m just speaking the truth here – Jesus hates the Buffalo Bills. Just ask Scott Norwood. He kicked that ball straight and true. Of course, Jesus was busy making a little boy die from cancer that day. After he destroyed the faith of the kid’s entire family, he slammed back his 10th Mickey’s Big Mouth, let out a belch, and said “oh fuck! The Superbowl is on!” So Jesus smashed the bottle, and zapped right over to Tampa, dropping a few cases of AIDS and some crack on most of the city on the way there, and then gave a high holy silent-but-deadly fart into Tampa Stadium. It was just enough divine ass wind to push the ball wide right, and lo, Jesus and his dad had a big laugh. Dicks.

Of course, nobody came out and blamed Jesus. That’s when that divine twat decided that he would keep fucking with sporting events. What with his dad all busy taking a huge dump on the entire continent of Africa, Jesus knew that the Big G wouldn’t really care. Did Saddam Hussein really give a shit when his kids messed with the Iraqi soccer leagues? So for the next three years, Jesus more brazenly kept punishing the Buffalo Bills.

The thing is, the Bills had done nothing to warrant this. Mr. Johnson doesn’t get it. Jesus does hate him, but that’s because he is on the Buffalo Bills, AND because he is always whining in the Man from Galilee’s ear. Think about it. You must know someone who is sort of a loser, who always calls you, and you ignore the call. But, eventually you listen to the voicemail, and its always that loser asking for something.

So look, Johnson (and anyone else), if you want to stay off Jesus’ shit list, there are two ways to do it: 1) Don’t root for the Buffalo Bills until Jesus’ attention span wanes, and 2) Stop asking him for shit. When he eventually listens to your message, he just acts like a dick.

Can't he get into a different sport?

DISCLAIMER: Don’t misunderstand this post. I have nothing against the Bills. In fact, as long as a Bills win has no implications for the Patriots’ playoff picture, I root for them. So don’t anyone out there think I’m hating on the Bills. I’m not. I’m mocking clowns who follow a magic space zombie jew.

Homeland Security now seizing domain names

By J. DeVoy

ICE appears to be targeting sites that help Internet users download copyrighted music, as well as sites that sell bootleg goods, such as fake designer handbags.

The sites are replaced with a note from the government: “This domain named has been seized by ICE, Homeland Security Investigations.” (source.)

Upon trying to access 51607.com, one of the affected domains, one is treated to this:

On one hand, this is good for antipiracy efforts, but where do the criminal penalties go?  While content producers may be grateful for the seizure of a particularly egregious pirate, more will step forward to take its place, and shutting down one site doesn’t put money in the producers’ pocket for past infringement like a civil suit does.  Furthermore, the government seizure of a site makes it difficult to see prior pages and build a case for copyright infringement.  For smaller producers, it seems like this action is little more than the government taking money out of their pocket and using potential legal fees to line its own coffers.  It’s not like the Federal government is solvent in any meaningful sense.

Anonymous, we respectfully dissent (A defense of Porn’s Antipiracy push)

But not when it comes to attacking porn companies.

By Randazza & DeVoy

Over the years, we’ve been keenly aware of the *Chan websites’ user base and their exploits.  From 4Chan, 7Chan, 7-11Chan, 420Chan and especially /b/ and /i/, we’ve laughed and cheered as a teeming mass of faceless internet users upended society.  They’ve collectively brought animal torturers to justice; rigged the voting on Dancing with the Stars; exploited the voting mechanism for Time’s Person of the Year so they could elect 4Chan’s creator, Chris Poole, as the winner; attempted to send Justin Bieber to perform a concert in North Korea; confronted and embarrassed the Church of Scientology; created the entire lolcats genre; gave us memegenerator; bombed Youtube with porn; and generally been the cyber police’s most wanted.

Like many friends, though, we do have a disagreement with Anonymous with one issue in particular.  It’s no secret that Anonymous is upset with the slash-and-burn litigation wrought by the RIAA and MPAA, and has launched DDoS attacks against the MPAA for its anti-piracy tactics.  While not condoning these actions, we certainly understand them – everyone is pissed about the ham-handed way in which these suits have been handled.  But to launch a DDoS attack on Hustler, as Anonymous recently did, because it’s pursuing lawsuits against infringers is overreaching — the adult entertainment industry is materially different from the recording and movie industries, and warrants different treatment.

First, Anonymous is a large and amorphous group.  Its members subscribe to the credo of NYPA – Not Your Personal Army – and we have reason to believe that the full force of Anonymous was not behind the Hustler Denial of Service attack.  The best indication of broader disengagement was that the attack was not successful.  But, as content piracy continues to grind at pornography’s profitability like a millstone, further anti-piracy litigation is inevitable.

The adult entertainment industry is a collection of many smaller companies without a monolithic trade group to represent its economic interests in court and before congress.  While the Free Speech Coalition and ASACP are trade organizations representing the industry’s principles and a subset of their legal interests, there is no equivalent of the MPAA, RIAA or even a BMI/ASCAP-type entity to bankroll sector-wide anti-piracy endeavors.  This eliminates the cost-spreading structure that allowed the RIAA and now MPAA to ruthlessly pursue thousands of litigants for years, and the adult entertainment industry is left with individual studios acting alone to enforce their copyrights against the most egregious pirates.

In 2000, right when online piracy became a huge issue, Courtney Love gave an eloquent defense of file sharing, essentially backing up the argument that a lot of online copyright thieves employ — that when you steal music online, you’re not really stealing from the little guy musician, you’re stealing from the fat pig record companies. With that, we agree. While that doesn’t make it any less illegal or any less of a theft, it does add a certain dose of a moral authority to the argument that sharing music online doesn’t actually hurt any worthy parties. (We are not entirely persuaded of that, but we respect the argument).

When it comes to porn companies, while the entire industry brings in a couple billion dollars a year, it is by no means as large as many people like to think. Forbes breaks it down here. But, when you cut up that porn pie, you will see that many of the slices are diet sized. Given the niche nature of porn, most porn DVD titles sell only a thousand or so units. When you rip off a Metallica song, you may contribute to a large aggregate loss for the record company, but your individual theft doesn’t really change the record label’s bottom line. When you steal a single porn movie, you may have stolen a significant portion of that movie’s sales. And that’s when you steal from the companies that crank out DVDs, which tend to be the larger producers.

When you talk about internet-based porn, aside from a handful of market leaders, most internet porn companies are smaller businesses than your local Chipotle franchise, and they are often run by the very people on screen. When you steal Mission Impossible, it doesn’t really take much money from Tom Cruise. When you steal porn, very likely it will have an immediate and measurable negative impact on the actor, director, and publisher. With the current degree of online piracy, most adult studios’ profits are down 60%. Though hardly poor, they lack the resources to pursue every instance of infringement solely to make a point.

Even if hunting every nominal copyright infringer to the ends of the earth was feasible, it seems unlikely that this industry would do so.  Unlike movies and music, porn lends itself to a smaller, self-sustaining and closely knit community.  While it studies what sells and what doesn’t - films without condoms sell better than those that use them, for instance – it doesn’t have an army of Harvard- and Wharton-educated MBAs reducing consumers to numbers in an excel spreadsheet, trying to part them with their money at every opportunity.  This informal system of checks and balances will keep studios from going after grandmothers and 12-year-olds who shared files on accident, unlike the RIAA.  Don’t be deceived by Larry Flynt’s badass gold wheelchair — the people who create adult content often do it to serve principles more important than profitability.

Without being too Randian, though, producers and studios are in the business to make a profit.  While they may not have a laser-like focus on the bottom line like other businesses do, it is still the reason they stay in business; indeed, revenues and profits are needed to keep their employees employed and owners content with their investment.  While there will always be an adult entertainment industry, the risk of losing substantial chunks of it is great; in addition to losing diverse and high-quality content, the rest of society will miss out on the technological advancements that have been driven by pornography for the last several decades.

Weighing social and technological advances together, the adult industry’s impact on American culture has been second only to NASA.  In the 1980s, porn’s choice of VHS over Sony’s Betamax ended the format war.  In the 1990s, pornography was at the spearhead of internet development both in terms of technology and business models, designing affiliate programs and billing services at the same time it pushed for video, audio, and more efficient photo services. If you watch any video online, thank the porn industry. In fact, if you use the world wide web, thank the porn industry. While porn didn’t invent the internet, it certainly acted as the amniotic sac for the fetal Web.

This trend has not slowed.  The adult film industry swiftly adopted the now-dominant BluRay media format, ensuring its viability and winning the war against HD-DVD.  Ironically, this helped Sony’s format win, after doing the opposite decades earlier.  Porn has also been instrumental in transcending format wars with video on demand (VOD) technology.  Vudu, an early VOD service that offered a channel catering to adult entertainment, was recently acquired by Walmart and forced to end its adult offerings. And don’t even get us started about sexbots.

Culturally, the trends found in porn are generally mirrored in real life, albeit with a slightly delayed reaction time.  A good proxy for these changes can be found in the pages of Playboy, roughly represented at this inappropriate-for-most-workplaces link.  Or, just compare what you’re used to seeing with the images at Retrotic (yet another site most employers would not appreciate you visiting).  As of 2006, more than half of all women in a study conducted on behalf of Vagisil reported engaging in some form of pubic hair maintenance, whether trimming (25%), partially shaving (23%) or fully shaving (9%) what they have.  In keeping with the sexually active, porn-consuming audience, this trend was more common among women aged 18-44 than women 45+ years old.

Another trend where life imitates art: Anal sex.  The number of heterosexual people who try – and regularly perform – anal sex is way up.  The numbers compiled from the national sex survey speak for themselves:

In 1992, 16 percent of women aged 18-24 said they’d tried anal sex. Now 20 percent of women aged 18-19 say they’ve done it, and by ages 20-24, the number is 40 percent. In 1992, the highest percentage of women in any age group who admitted to anal sex was 33. In 2002, it was 35. Now it’s 46. (source.)

[The number of women in their 20s and 30s who have had anal sex in the past year has doubled since 1992] to more than 20 percent, and one-third of these women say they’ve done it in the last month. Among all women surveyed, the number who reported anal sex in their most recent sexual encounter was 3 percent to 4 percent. (source.)

The result of all this is increased pleasure — for her!  Among women who had anal sex in their last encounter, 94% reached orgasm, compared to only 81% for women who received oral sex.  All of this data is self-reported, and may be unreliable on that basis, but that unreliability – a desire to look better, more chaste and moral, less kinky and so on – seems like it would resolve in higher-than-reported numbers for women who have engaged in and enjoyed this activity, which was largely planted in the public psyche by pornography.

The net result of adult entertainment’s viability as an industry has been an undercurrent towards faster, higher quality and more widely accessible technology.  Every other sector has benefited from the accessibility and ubiquity that adult entertainment has sought to achieve, given its patrons’ frequent need for discretion.  Culturally, people are experimenting more and, as the data above suggest, enjoying themselves more as well.  Not to say that people are uncreative on their own, but the adult entertainment industry gives them ideas, whether for technology, business or physical activities, that they may not have thought of on their own, and that entrenched interests like film and music companies have no interest to develop.

To those who say that “the model needs to change,” you’re right.  That’s why the adult entertainment industry has constantly been in a state of flux, and has material available in print, on DVD, and online.  This has also been a major reason why the industry has not been able to establish trade cabals like the RIAA and MPAA.  The common thread of the industry, and reason for its existence, is original content — content that is copyrighted and entitled to a range of legal protections.  All of the structural change in the world will not alter the fact that a right to produce and protect original content is at the core of adult entertainment; it is the industry’s sole commodity, like coal, oil or copper, that derives value by virtue of its relative scarcity.  Content producers want you to have access to it on your phone, computer and television, but legally, and can only advance the technology required for this goal if they have the money to research and perfect it.

People are free to dislike pornography and choose not to buy it.  They can keep strip clubs and video stores out of their cushy suburbs if they can convincingly show that it will increase crime and harm property values.  But in light of the progress it has stimulated, does anyone really want to imagine a world without it?  If all of the major studios were to shut down tomorrow, there would still be more porn around than any one person could need in his or her lifetime, but that’s not the point.  As an inexorable force for technological and social change, porn is intrinsically valuable, and its producers have to defend their ability to stay viable – and even profitable – for the rest of us to benefit from its existence.  Nobody likes to be sued, or to pay a settlement of several thousand dollars, but widespread piracy has destabilized an entire industry, and one that has worked to be rather versatile, as opposed to the recording and movie industries’ desperate grip on decades-old models of distribution.

Retaliation against adult content producers amounts to fighting the wrong enemy.  They aren’t the ones trying to take your house or ruin your lives.  They aren’t pursuing scorched-earth litigation to prove a point.  They’ve just seen that piracy is jeopardizing their continued ability to make the contributions they have to our economy, technological abundance, and own curiosity.  Ultimately, attempts to hurt the industry are counterproductive, and you’re merely pointing the gun at yourself.

A Thanksgiving Prayer – William S. Burroughs

h/t Bob

Maybe it was the Jesus, and not the Dope?

Nobody fucks with the Jesus

The Hunterdon County (NJ) Democrat had a headline that read: Marijuana-crazed teen runs from Clinton Twp. home in pajamas, barefoot, prompting widespread search, police report

The boy’s parents told Patrolman Sean Ross that the boy had been at home with a group of friends when he suddenly burst into their bedroom proclaiming “Jesus is our savior” and other related comments, police said. When the teen’s father tried to grab him, he ran from the house, leaving his friends upstairs, according to police.

After the friends were taken home by their parents, his father contacted them and found his son had become agitated and uncontrollable after smoking marijuana with them. The boy has no history of such behavior, police said. (source)

When they finally found him, apparently he had no memory of the past three and a half hours.

How come they blame the marijuana? Wouldn’t you think that bizarre and stupid behavior might more naturally be related to someone believing in a magic space zombie jew, than it would from smoking a plant?

Aaaaahhh…. shadaaaap! And a plan to reform the student loan system

Student loans suck. I’m not going to bother going through all the reasons they suck, as plenty of people have done that before me. I just paid mine off, because I despised paying that crack whore, Sallie Mae, every month.

Nevertheless, I just want to slap some people when they whine about their student loans. Kelli Space, age 23, for example, should get a taste of the back of someone’s hand.

Kelli owes about $200,000 in student loans. She borrowed that much money to get a bachelor’s degree from Northeastern University. Now that she realizes that she is lifepwned, she launched a begging site trying to raise money to offset her debt. (here). Gawker wrote about it here. Kelli wrote to them:

The severity of my situation goes a bit deeper than “I owe this money, help me” – I am actually forced to live with my parents (forced = I am lucky! But…) as the monthly payments for just my private loans are currently $891 until Nov 2011 when they increase to $1600 per month for the following 20 years… attached is my payment plan. I also mentioned I have a job – which is great! And I probably have my college education to thank for that! Except there is still no way to make these monthly payments, and live on my own as a contributing member of society. Neither of my parents, nor I, really knew how this would pan out — unfortunately — and now that I’m here, I see no real light at the end of the tunnel. (source)

I can say with absolute certainty that there is NOTHING that you could possibly learn at Northeastern University that is worth $200,000. I’m not down on Northeastern. I can’t imagine a BA from any university on earth that is worth $200,000. But, apparently she borrowed $200,000 to get a degree in … wait for it … sociology. Oh, yeah, there was a study abroad program in that little financial time bomb too.

Look, someone has to study sociology, so I won’t shit on that discipline (I respect it actually) … but she couldn’t have gone to some SUNY school (I think she’s from New York) and gotten in-state tuition? Was the study abroad program really necessary? Or was it like every other study abroad program — an overpriced vacation?

Naturally, I have neither sympathy nor respect for Ms. Space. But, lets not blame her all by her lonesome. She got taken for a ride.

The student loan system sucks, and it needs to be reformed. There’s no goddamned way that her education was worth a quarter of what she paid for it — she got ripped off. You know why? Because the school knows that it can sell its bullshit “education” for $200,000. Why? Because the people buying this garbage are 18 year old idiots. You tell a kid “sign here” and she does. To make it worse, the debt isn’t dischargeable in bankruptcy, so she’s stuck with it.

I agree that student debt should not be dischargeable in bankruptcy. But, here’s my modest proposal for how we fix the system:

1. Student loans must be co-signed by the school itself — if the student does not pay, the school is financially responsible for the debt.
2. The school can still sue the student for reimbursement – no discharge in bankruptcy.
3. If you have a professional license of any kind, doctor, lawyer, etc., you lose it if you default on your loans.

Do you think that Northeastern University would ever have let this girl borrow $200,000 for a fucking sociology bachelor’s degree if they knew that the $200,000 was going to come out of their ass? Hell no. She’s never going to be able to pay that back with a sociology degree — not unless we get Weimar Republic style inflation, which might make the balance meaningless.

Under my plan, you would likely find schools simply loaning the money themselves. Why put the extra friction in the machine that an outside usury brings to the equation? The problem with higher education is that guaranteed student loans create an imbalance in the market. Every other loan market is prone to bubbles and errors (just look at the recent housing debacle) but corrections do happen. Loans to 18 year olds for life-crippling debt numbers are bad enough, but loans of this magnitude with zero evaluation of the credit worthiness of the person (or the endeavor) are insane.

If the school doesn’t want to co-sign the loan, students could still be free to go to banks and beg for loans. However, just like any other business loan, the student would need to demonstrate that the loan is a good investment. If someone came to me and said “I want to borrow $60,000 to study engineering at the University of Massachusetts,” that might be a good investment. If that same person wanted $200,000 to study art history at Bennington, well … I hardly think that would be a prudent use of my money.

It would seem that this plan would cure a good number of ills in the legal profession as well. Every law school chases the U.S. News Rankings like a dog digging for a shit-filled diaper in a trash bag. Then, every year, law students and law schools scream about the rankings and say that real employment figures should be factored in to the rankings.

If the school was on the hook for the loan, U.S. News would wind up where it belongs — recycled into toilet paper. Schools would be pretty damn committed to getting their students jobs, and those that were not would dry up and die under the blistering heat of the free market. We would likely see 25% of the law schools close, and most of those remaining open would be forced to drop their tuition. Law professors might suffer a little bit of a pay cut, but let’s face it, 75% of the full time profs are worthless anyhow. The legal teaching field would likely start to embrace more adjuncts – meaning more people who do the thing that they are supposed to be teaching.

Everyone of any value wins.

Cry Me A Fucking River, You Lowlife

BECAUSE WE LIVE HERE!

It seems that the morale at the TSA is falling, because the poor dipshits in blue polyester don’t like it when we call them nasty names. (source)

I’d say that if morale is crashing at the TSA because the American people are finally waking up and finally refusing to go quietly into the Constitutional limbo that the power hungry hall monitors want them to … well then maybe there is hope for us after all.

If you’re flying, remember to be a douche to the TSA. And remember to do so if you’re not flying too. Don’t give me that “they’re just doing their jobs” bullshit. At some point, you say “no,” I will not. They have a goddamned union. Instead of lobbying their union to try and force us to be nicer to them, they ought to lobby their union to press the Agency to cut the security theater bullshit.

Subcultures that make no sense

By J. DeVoy

For example, the hipsters seen in this video. (Be cautious depending on your employer.)  It’s just YouTube, so why am I not linking to it?  It’s not particularly work safe, and there’s an open 18 U.S.C. § 2257 question about the appropriate documentation for this work, whose protagonist starts masturbating in front of a crowd of identical-looking nonconformists.  (I didn’t see the requisite disclosures under 28 C.F.R. § 75.1 et seq, either, though I understand that ensuring compliance with the law isn’t all that hip.)  Yes, we’d probably be a “distributor” within the scope of the statute and its regulations, but why assume any potential risk when we can push it upstream to YouTube and Google?

I know that we have to defend all forms of expression but… seriously, what the fuck is this shit?  The first two minutes are a stunning allegory for today’s youth, bumbling with a can opener and trying to attach it to a container of Spaghetti-O’s – of all things – at a 90 degree angle.  Also, note how winded the main character gets when trying to open the can, an ever-present reminder of the youth obesity epidemic.

Then comes the “everything is shit” monologue.  Well, yes.  That’s one of those things so obvious it doesn’t need to be pointed out to anyone.  I would like to see something similar at trial, though, and it could make a good kamikaze closing argument in a number of cases.  The next time you’re in front of a judge or jury, forget their emotions; just try to shock and bewilder them by smearing brown, gooey Spaghetti-Os over your Jos. A Banks suit – one of three you can get for the price of one at any time – and explain that, “ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we are shit, this is all shit, and we seek meaning where there is none.”  If you think that wouldn’t work, it’s because it won’t, and is the kind of lazy thinking that qualifies as self-empowerment these days.  If someone makes something, it’s considered inherently valuable.  Expression’s right to exist under the First Amendment, though, doesn’t account for taste, decorum or novelty.

The video devolves into guttural utterances and the above-described masturbation, all of which are met with cheers and applause.  Good for the actors and audience, expressing themselves and encouraging one another, but they’re doing it wrong.  The freedom to express yourself does not mean you’re good, or even mediocre.  If anything, it should encourage the kind of criticism that sends the unoriginal back to the drawing board or, if such criticism is received early enough, into the warm embrace of an accounting firm.  While people have the right to put on performance art pieces like this, people need to remember that the pendulum swings in both directions — they have the right to criticize this kind of nonsense, even if not the duty to do so.

Also, this is the culmination of a not insubstantial portion of federal, state and local education budgets.  17+ years of costly schooling culminating in live-action nonsense?  Looks like a great investment to me.  And I sincerely hope the film’s heroine thought through her life and realized what potential employers might think of her before appearing on camera.  We’d all like to think life is one big tolerance festival, but actions do have consequences.

While you were sleeping

By J. DeVoy

North Korea putatively shelled a South Korea island, and South Korea returned fire.  Almost eight months ago to the day, a South Korean ship sank near North Korea’s border waters.  While the natural assumption is that North Korea is behind both incidents, historically these spearhead moments are false flag attacks, allowed to occur, and sometimes even completely made up, such as the U.S.S. Maine, the U.S.S. Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin, the Iraqi murders on Kuwaiti infants — the list goes on interminably.  If this is an actual attack by North Korea on the South, it will be exceptional for that reason alone.

I wish I lived in Roman times

Because then we would throw these fucking child abusing nutbags to lions.

Ron Paul – Right Again

The ol’ doc’s oratory skills seem a bit off here, but he has the right idea (as usual).

Personally, I’d prefer legislation that makes every American immune from prosecution if they punch a TSA employee in the face. But, I’ll settle for Rep. Paul’s bill.

Training Day

Faithful Readers:

I arrive at headquarters with two black shirts, two pairs of black pants, one pair of black boots, two pairs of black socks, one black jacket, an army surplus mattress, and three hundred dollars personal burial money.

My handle is Splifton and my resume is not impressive. I plan on contributing tangentially relevant popular culture articles to The Legal Satyricon.

My background on the interwebs consist mostly of lurking on message boards and less time posting well reasoned thought provoking blog articles. My punctuation, spelling, and grammar are best described as atrocious and I have been told I write at a fifth grade level. If you are looking for good writing you probably best avoid my posts. In spite of all of my shortcomings I bring many skills to the table…You know, like nunchuku skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills… Mainly, I believe The Legal Satyricon could use a someone of my ilk to direct the readers attention to more obscure topics of conversation.

I very much value my internet privacy/anonymity mainly because I will probably piss off some methed out internet hacker and be the victim of some online personal vendetta. However, Splifton is the handle bestowed upon me in college by my friends, and J. Feldman is my given name.

My education includes twelve years of private catholic schooling, followed by a B.S. in Chemistry with Medical Physics and Mathematics minors from University of Denver. I worked for a Fortune 500 Bio-Tech Company before my three year vacation known as Barry University School of Law.

My life currently consist of providing court appointed representation for indigent defendants. This provides ample trial experience but often the cliental leaves something to be desired. (sidenote: Dealing with junkies and sex offenders regularly should be an automatic qualifier to post) There are very few things I care about it this world and most people would classify me as deeply cynical. You’ll learn that at times I take adverse positions in arguments simply to ascertain the competency of the other individual’s logic or reasoning. In short I am a huge dick, and in this world there are only three types of people pussies, dicks, and assholes…

As I understand it, I have to wait for three days before training can start… Therefor the next 72 hours I will answer any questions posed by the readers as honestly as humanly possible but after that time I reserve the right to be an absolute dick.

-Splifton

What is the TSA’s Job, Really? (Applause for John Tyner)

Back in February, I wrote that it was time for a social revolt against the TSA. The idea was that everyone should treat TSA agents like shit. I haven’t met any outside an airport — probably because I don’t frequent places where uneducated ‘tards hang out. Accordingly, I wasn’t able to employ my own strategy.

I’d like to renew the call. We’ve employed an army of low grade fucking retards to pantomime security theater — and if you think it was absurd before, we’ve really turned the corner into idiocracy now.

Here in San Diego, an American citizen by the name of John Tyner arrived at Lindbergh Field (San Diego’s main airport) and was faced with a choice — either go through the “virtual strip search machine” or get an “enhanced pat down.”

I was trying to get into the metal detector line because I just didn’t even want to deal with the backscatter machines at all,” said Tyner, referring to the body scanning machines installed at Lindbergh Field earlier this year.

Tyner said that is too much personal privacy to give away just to get on an airplane.

“I don’t think that needs to be a condition for people to fly,” he said. “I mean, giving up that level of privacy is not something I’m prepared to do.” (source)

Tyner refused to be subjected to the backscatter machine. Therefore, the TSA agent informed him that he would need to be “patted down.”

I’ve seen the “enhanced pat down” procedure. I’ve also, in the past, been made a guest of the State on a couple of occasions. The “enhanced pat down” is more intrusive than the search I had to endure when I was placed in a jail cell.

Think about that.

Mr. Tyner did, and he refused to be subjected to that degree of indignity.

“I turned to him, I looked him in the eye and I said, ‘If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested,’” he said. “[Then] the supervisor came over… [and] explained the whole process again and I told her, ‘You know, I’m not really comfortable with this. It seems to me it amounts to a sexual assault and I don’t think that should be a condition for getting on the plane.’”

Tyner said more TSA agents arrived and encircled him. After some discussion with the agents, Tyner said an agent told him he would be escorted out of the airport.

As he was about to leave, Tyner said another person who was described as a senior TSA supervisor had some unwelcome news.

“Because I had started the screening process and refused to finish, I was in violation of federal law and he needed me to go back into the screening area and finish the screening process,” said Tyner, who refused. “[Then] the guy threatened me with a federal lawsuit and $10,000 fine and I finally told him I would see him in court and I left the airport.” (source)

So let me get this straight. You either have to be subjected to increased doses of radiation, a virtual strip search, or being fondled in order to board a plane? However, if you refuse any of those things, you still have to be subjected to it, whether you board the plane or not?

I have news for you, people. “The Terrorists” won. We lost. Game over.

On Corporations and Free Speech

By J. DeVoy

Earlier this month, when I danced on Russ Feingold’s political grave, Randazza and several others critiqued the desirability of unbridled free speech for corporations.  This is a subject where many will have to agree to disagree.  Since defending corporations seems to be the minority position, though, I think the rationale should be clearly delineated.  In many ways, it makes sense and provides value to society.

A few disclosures: My stock portfolio is worth $0, and my net worth is just slightly in the negative six figures.  (Adios, gold-diggers!)  To understand my opposition, I spent two-and-one-half hours watching The Corporation, a documentary on the corporate form and the evils it has allegedly wrought on the world.  I have nothing to gain from my position, and some might accuse me of being a shill for not getting anything out of my beliefs.  Still, I think that broader policy concerns trump the fact that my positions do not translate into pecuniary gains.

Misconceiving “Corporations”

When people talk about corporations, names like Nike, Monsanto, Intel, Bechtel and Comcast come to mind.  In reality, these are a tiny number of the corporations operating in America and internationally, though they do wield tremendous wealth and power.  The pejorative use of “corporation” has become synonymous with the Fortune 1000 – large international entities that are not wholly committed to any one nation and, thus, not exclusively within their jurisdiction.

This perspective ignores people who incorporate simply to limit their liability.  This group is fantastically large, including people such as someone who owns two small local bike stores, or a landscaper who wants to protect himself – and his retirement, children’s college funds, and house – from any negative consequences coming from using heavy equipment around his employees or customers’ residences.  Being a corporation allows a man or woman, and possibly a few others, such as friends, relatives, operators or investors, to pool their money and obtain credit and assets without worrying about their personal assets being subsumed by a new business operation that’s actually quite risky.  Suddenly, the faceless corporation is made quite human.  And its interests, like human interests, need to be expressed not only in the commercial marketplace, but the political and social ones as well.

Achieving Perfect Information

The ultimate goal of allowing corporations to have speech rights equivalent to individuals is expanding the total universe of available information.  In economics and in practice, perfect information is theoretical, but the availability of more information leads to better decisions.  A larger pool of data allows for more trends to be spotted, more externalities to be found, and for anecdotes to congeal into patterns.

Given their size and research capability, corporations have lots of data they can share with the public – even if it’s to serve an agenda.  Having this information on the marketplace, however, is better than not having it there, simply by virtue of it being fact.  To the extent these facts are incomplete, misleading or stilted, as statistics and other findings sometimes are, other entities can dispute them and for less money.  Once a corporation has released its information, a special interest group, individual or other corporation – even if acting through a proxy – will have an easier time disputing these findings without even paying for the advertising to do so.  Public relations and other media activity relating to catching a large company with its pants down will 1) be free, 2) likely be effective, due to its implications, and 3) may even outshine the first corporation’s message.

There is also the belief that corporations will lie and mislead the public.  In fact, it has happened numerous times, from environmental disasters to accounting scandals.  But as the informational hierarchy has flattened over the last five years – and especially within the last two, due to renegade agents of truth such as Anonymous and Wikileaks – there is more likelihood of corporations being caught in their lies, with the corresponding public relations and financial damage included.  The relative ease of truth-finding compared to the past creates disincentives for corporations to lie, as they can face tort liability from shareholders and consumers, and criminal or administrative penalties from state and federal government agencies.  There is also the penalty of a sinking stock price, as informed shareholders and brokers who are pressured not to invest in these “headline risk” companies sell their shares amidst a crisis of confidence in the corporation’s management.  While a corporation cannot be imprisoned as a person can, as Randazza pointed out, there are enough other penalties that can curtail its activities and end its existence that such a distinction seems arbitrary.

With that said, the easiest way to achieve this state of information availability is through Citizens United-style free speech.  Allowing corporations to speak freely in the course of their operations, even for non-commercial reasons, allows them to take advantage of tax incentives for business activities and release more information on the marketplace.  Predictably, this information will be countered, increasing the total amount of information available.  To the extent we want free expression to give people choices, information and the ability determine what they want – including what evidence they choose to believe – unlimited corporate speech seems to further these goals.

Signal-to-Noise Ratio

One persistent complaint throughout the internet age is the increase of “noise” surrounding the information we actually seek.  Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur confronted this problem directly – though dating itself by focusing on the now-irrelevant MySpace – and raised good point about the cheapening of art and culture by thoughtless reproduction by amateurs.  Artistically, I agree with Keen, but dealing with unfunny “Ow, My Balls!“-level shit on YouTube is the price we pay for freedom and self-actualization.  A blend of technology and commitment to free speech has made this explosion of extraneous information inevitable.  Simultaneously, Google and other constantly improving search technology has made it easier to find relevant information, diminishing the consequences of data proliferation.  So really, the issue isn’t purely one of signal-to-noise, since we believe that everything produced by a person or business, however amateur or derivative, has expressive or commercial value, but a matter of subjective relevance.

From this point, the options are limited:  The signal-to-noise ratio can be limited by constraining expression, or eliminated by some kind of elevated mass public consciousness.  The former is easier to dispatch, as it reduces aggregate freedom and expression.  The benefit of the internet and mass communication is that it allowed more people to be heard; moving backwards from that point seems like a waste of the technology’s potential, especially when the utility of individual voices can be rated by users (such as blog comment ratings).  It doesn’t make sense to advocate restricting expression in the interest of enhancing speech’s value.  To the contrary, if your message comes out on top in an unrestrained forum, it’s probably “better” – however defined – than one that would prevail in an arena where competitors are excluded from entry.

The other school of thought, that we should become more responsible with our communication and reduce the signal-to-noise ratio because it is in our own self interest to do so is laudable, but impossible.  One of the critical ways people believed this would happen is through education.  Unfortunately, primary education is costly and minimally effective in affecting outcomes.  This phenomenon is summarized in an imperfect but representative graph from the Cato Institute:

Yes, there’s no indication as to where this spending is happening, whether at primary or university levels, or how it is distributed; additionally, the NAEP scores don’t reveal much about aptitude or competence without further information.  Still, this snapshot should undermine the assumption that increased education spending – and increased education – creates a smarter, more responsible populous.  Most of that spending could be in the form of students attending college for four years of skinny jeans, androgynous haircuts, pregnancy scares and talking about how they were really “othered” by someone’s facebook post before retreating to mom and dad’s basement.  That doesn’t seem to further the goal of self-policing expression to limit the signal-to-noise ratio as some would hope education does.

Indeed, there seems to be little hope for responsible self-regulation of communication.  The above scenario applies to about 1/3 of Americans, though I’ve gone on record stating that a generic college degree in this day and age is pretty worthless as an indicator of intelligence or potential.  Is self-regulation of the signal-to-noise ratio even possible, though, when dialogue is reduced to memegenerator.com and stale ripoffs of years-old jokes from /b/?  In other media, the Jackass franchise has a third movie out, and Blood On The Dance Floor writes songs like “I Hope You Choke”:

This world is just so fucked up!
My life is just so messed up!
Nothing makes sense in a world that is so dead
The bleeding in my heart are from these stitches that are falling apart
You make me sick from this shit
How could yoou everr [sic] do this?

Deep.

So let’s abandon this fantasy of achieving a deeper shared consciousness that promotes only the highest and most refined communication on the marketplace.  While it would be nice if everyone decided to search for truth and excellence at the expense of lesser information, it will never happen – and that’s just fine, as it enriches the lives of millions.  But since there’s not a collectivist desire for perfect and unbiased data, let’s not erect barriers to its dissemination either, even if it’s a choppy process.

Conclusion

This is a contentious issue on which I don’t expect to win any converts.  There are, however, many upsides to allowing nearly unfettered corporate speech, for which Citizens United may be a prelude, as opposed to the former paradigm of McCain-Feingold restrictions on corporate political speech.  Corporate dissemination of this information invites scrutiny and rebuttal, which increases the data available for individuals to consider when informing their purchasing decisions, positions on various issues, and overall worldview.  Externally imposed restrictions on this type of speech in the interest of limiting the signal-to-noise ratio in publicly available information are abhorrent.  It is also an unrealistic expectation for others to believe that the public writ large will suddenly demand only the most pure and relevant information be presented to them — especially given the subjectiveness of relevance.  Indeed, the best thing anyone can hope for is that the most information that can be made available to the public is presented to it.

…

This post is written with regards to Marc Randazza and Brett Stevens, both of whom I’m sure will have things to say to me about it.