Lovely:

A libertarian flies a plane into an IRS building and you have nothing to say about it. That’s odd.

Wayne Nix

Sorry for my silence. It’s just that yesterday’s events have stunned me into a moral crisis. I’ve been up all night recontemplating my entire political philosophy. It’s so clear now how a philosophy that espouses nonviolence and peaceful, voluntary exchange could drive a man to fly a plane into a building in a murderous, suicidal act of hate.

I can’t believe I didn’t see it all along.

“Head On,” by the Jesus & Mary Chain.

• New Yorkers embrace Bloomberg’s Nanny State. Bill of Rights probably wouldn’t win a popular vote there, either.
• Interesting reaction to my column on DNA exonerations discussing false confessions and the lessons for torture.
• Spies, assassins, and fake beards.
• This seems like a bad sign.
• See, we have to watch all this gay porn so we know how bad it is. Seriously. What? Why are you looking at me like that?
• This story about a school district using school-supplied computers to spy on students via webcam is making the rounds right now. Remember that it is one side of a lawsuit. I’m a little dubious. It seems awfully brazen to me. If it’s true, I’ll be the first to call for tar and feathers.
• He was immediately offered an internship at Dunder-Mifflin.
• What every parent should know about the TV show Glee. Wonderful bit of satire.
• Village of 292 people hires a Washington lobbyist.
• Atlanta woman arrested after asking a cop “why” when he demanded she move from a public sidewalk.

From the people who brought you Flat Daddy….

(And yes, it appears to be real.)

Larimer County, Colorado will pay Tim Masters $4.1 million for his 1999 wrongful murder conviction. Masters was released last year after he was exonerated by DNA testing. The money will come from the county’s risk management fund and from a payment from the county’s insurer. The former is funded by taxpayers, and the latter will almost certainly raise the county’s premiums, also paid by taxpayers.

More interesting is who won’t be paying. Former prosecutors Terry Gilmore and Jolene Blair convicted Masters on flimsy evidence (some drawings he’d made and testimony from an alleged expert on sexual deviants). They were also actually censured by Colorado Supreme Court for not bothering to look into evidence undermining their case against Masters, as well as for withholding exculpatory evidence from Masters’ attorneys. The censure was an unusual reprimand for misbehaving prosecutors. But it was largely symbolic. As noted, Gilmore and Blair won’t have to pay a dime to Masters. And both will get to keep their current jobs: They’ve both since moved on to become judges in Larimer County District Court, where they preside over other criminal cases.

Both negligent-prosecutors-promoted-to-judge said through their attorneys that they oppose the settlement, and are confident they’d have won if the lawsuit had been brought to trial. The way the law stands now, they’re probably right.

My crime column this week calls for an end to the use of “flashbang” grenades during drug raids.

Just realized that Sunday marked the eighth anniversary of this blog.

Many of the college students I spoke to this weekend were in elementary school when I started blogging.

That’s crazy.

Coming soon…

• No criminal charges against the NYPD officers who shot groom-to-be Sean Bell in 2006.
• A history of tech panics, going back to Socrates.
• Meet George Hutchins, the man who wants to lead North Carolina’s 4th Congressional District . . . into 1995.
• Make of this story what you will. Even if the guy was acting erratically, seems like the cops ought to show some restraint. And if true, the show of force at the hospital was ridiculous. Also, for goodness sake, drop the charges. Interestingly, the comments aren’t as pro-police as you typically see in these stories.
• Gulp!
• Audit finds the Census has already wasted millions, and it hasn’t officially started yet.
• Interesting article on the use of food and drink in police interrogations.
• How the Beatles contributed to soaring health care costs.

Mary Beth Buchanan is running for Congress.

I’m trying to think of someone I’d less rather see in Washington.

The list is pretty short. Bill Belichick, maybe.

CNN reports has a story on parents who are fighting state efforts to keep newborn DNA on file after the child is tested for genetic defects.

The genetic tests are done without the parents’ consent, and some states then keep the DNA profiles for years. State laws vary on length of time the samples are kept, from just a few days in many states; to Indiana and New Jersey’s oddly specific 23-year cutoff; to California and Florida, which keep the DNA “indefinitely.”

States also vary on whether the newborns’ names are attached to the samples, and the procedures by which the DNA profiles are loaned out to academic researchers.

Damn, Tampa.

Talk about taking the show on the road.

Déjà Vu, a gentlemen’s club located on East Adamo Drive, has started driving what it calls the “Stripper Mobile” around town. The “Stripper Mobile” is a large truck with Plexiglas sides featuring a stripper pole and dancers inside, sort of like a peep show on wheels.

Reaction so far, according to Déjà Vu dancer Bree, has been crazy.

“Everybody’s taking pictures and running up and screaming and trying to get on the bus and throwing dollars outside. It’s actually very exciting,” she said.

The “Stripper Mobile” was originally driven in Las Vegas until local leaders there put the brakes on the vehicle last November. The owners eventually sent it to Tampa, where Déjà Vu’s general manager says they’re taking it out on Friday and Saturday nights between 10 P.M. and 2 A.M. in places like Ybor, Channelside and South Howard Ave.

“We have had a few frowns here and there, but for the most part it’s all thumbs up,” he said.

Apparently, even Vegas passed on the idea when it was first tried there.

Alexandria, Virginia.

Over the weekend, I spoke at the third annual International Students for Liberty conference.

All due props to Alexander McCobin, who started this organization. I’ve spoken at two of their big conferences, a regional conference, and at several campus chapters around the country. I’m a little more impressed by these students every time I speak to them.

This year there were about 250 students in attendance from all over the country. These kids are smart, engaging, interested, and incredibly well-read. I didn’t talk to a crazy person all weekend. Better yet, the conference was surprisingly gender-balanced. Diverse, too.

I don’t think I even heard the word libertarian until about my junior year in college, and I went to large Big Ten school. It’s great to see that that’s changing. At a couple schools I’ve spoken to in the last couple years, the SFL chapter is larger than the College Republicans or College Democrats. At many, they’re more active.

It’s been encouraging and heartening not only to watch the organization grow, but to grow without making least-common-denominator appeals to the nuttier, conspiratorial fringes of libertarianism.

Almost enough to temporarily relieve me of my cynicism. Almost!

• Measuring the speed of light with leftover chocolate.
• Another look at the disconnect between crime trends (which are getting better) and public perception of crime (which is that it’s getting worse).
• The Garrity Rule really needs more public discussion.
• A Brief History of Pretty Much Everything.
• The NFL tries to claim its copyright notice is protected by copyright. The rest of the article looks at how companies vastly overstate their copyright protections, and usually get away with it.
• The New York Times looks at Vice magazine’s infiltration of and contributions to the popular media. Their videos from North Korea and Liberia were incredible. Also, I had no idea Vice had gotten so big.

Last Friday, the DEA raided a medical marijuana producer in Colorado. The story needs some fleshing out, but at the moment it appears that Chris Bartkowicz wasn’t violating any state law. Medical marijuana is legal in Colorado. His offense appears to have been boasting about how much money he makes growing the drug for patients.

DEA agents converged on the house Friday afternoon and, before leaving several hours later, removed dozens of marijuana plants in black plastic trash bags as well as numerous high-powered growing lights.

On Thursday night, 9News promoted a story about Bartkowicz’s operation, and on Friday morning, Bartkowicz was featured in a 9News story posted to its website and published in The Denver Post. The story was to air on television Friday night. He told the station he serves as a caregiver to a number of medical-marijuana patients and hoped to turn a profit this year in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“I’m definitely living the dream now,” Bartkowicz told 9News.

The DEA is not only unapologetic, they appear to be blatantly ignoring last year’s directive from the Obama Justice Department instructing U.S. attorneys to allow medical marijuana growers and distributors to operate so long as they’re complying with state law.

Along with the raid, Jeffrey Sweetin, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s special agent in charge of the Denver office, sent a message to anyone involved in Colorado’s increasingly profitable medical-marijuana industry.

“It’s still a violation of federal law,” Sweetin said. “It’s not medicine. We’re still going to continue to investigate and arrest people.”

Bartkowicz is being held over the Presidents Day weekend while the office of Colorado U.S. Attorney David M. Gaouette decides if he’ll be charged.

Last October, I expressed some skepticism about Obama’s announcement to end the federal medical marijuana raids. My Reason colleague Jacob Sullum did too.

• “All presidents are above average.” Starting the Cult of the Presidency at an early age.
• This guy nails it.
• The tone of this article seems surprised that spending on lobbying is up “even in a recession.” When the party in power is making plans to vastly expand the size and scope of government, it’s a pretty sure bet that interest groups are going to spend a lot of money to (a) get a piece of the action, and (b) ensure regulations are written in a way that benefits them, or at least that hurts competitors.
• Next time the U.S media gets (justifiably) outraged over U.S. journalists detained in North Korea or Iran, it’s worth remembering that our own military has been detaining foreign journalists without charges, too.
• Cop cracks jokes on Facebook about shooting citizens practicing their legal right to open carry.

Alexandria, Virgina.

• Crappiest Valentine idea ever.
• Ocean depth, to scale.
• Reason magazine: too hot for prison!
• Comic book collector gets six months in prison for importing manga.
• Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) weeps as he sends his chief of staff off to make boatloads of money, likely by lobbying Sen. Mitch McConnell.
• Dogs howling at the intro to Law and Order.

This may be the greatest thing I have ever seen.

Weird poll of the day: According to a new New York Times/CBS News survey, 79 percent of respondents who identified as Democrats say they favor allowing gay men and lesbians to serve in the military, and 60 percent favor allowing them to serve openly.

But according to the same poll, only 59 percent of Democrats favor allowing homosexuals to serve, and only 44 percent favor allowing them to serve openly.

According to the New York Times’ “The Caucus” blog, the weird disparity wasn’t as prominent with Republicans and independents.

(DISCLOSURE: I enjoy brunch more than any straight man should.)