…but it’s clever.

This article from the animal rights section of the Change.org ring of websites has been making the rounds on dog-related blogs and Twitter feeds. Arguing that many dogs are mistaken for pit bulls in jurisdictions that have banned the much-maligned “breed,” the author calls for state officials to DNA test dogs before euthanizing them.

The argument is that city officials shouldn’t be able to euthanize a dog simply because it “looks like a pit bull,” whatever that means. But the real aim is to undermine breed-specific legislation altogether by imposing what would sound to most like a common-sense requirement that most cities can’t afford to follow.

It’s a cute idea, and I support the ultimate goal, but the scheme requires too much concession to the misguided thinking behind put bull prohibitions. I’ve written about breed-specific bans before, so I’ll save some time with a cut-and-paste:

Bad owners create bad dogs, regardless of the dog’s lineage. Bans on pit bulls don’t prevent dog fighting, nor do they prevent people from raising vicious dogs. They just ensure that dogs fitting the pit bull description will be vicious, because the well-bred lines will be discontinued and good owners will stop raising them. Meanwhile, people who raise dogs for fighting will simply move on to another breed.

Moreover, the term pit bull isn’t really a breed at all. It’s a generic term that can and has been applied to just about any dog with bulldog and/or terrier traits (take the pit bull test here). The American Kennel Club-recognized breed that’s generally associated with the term is the American Staffordshire Terrier. And the vast, vast majority of staffies are harmless (they’re actually considered a child-friendly breed).

In fact, most fighting dogs commonly called pit bulls aren’t bloodlined staffies. Fighting dogs are bred for attributes conducive to fighting, not for pedigree.

Better to impose strict liability on dog owners for any damage their pets do to others or their property.

In a unified display of bipartisan dimwittery, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) are joining together to ban prepaid cell phones. Because an inept terrorist once used one in a failed plot.

If only we could get a terrorist to employ a reactionary, grandstanding politician in some future plot. Maybe Congress would finally ban those, too. Or at least no longer allow them on airplanes.

Alfred Hitchcock with an early version of “that’s what she said.”

(Via BuzzFeed.)

• Yet more misery in North Korea.
• New evidence in the Amanda Knox case. Man claims his brother admitted to the crime, can show investigators the murder weapon.
• This article starts as a decent critique of paternalistic tax policies, then advises lawmakers on how to better implement them: Lie to the public about what the tax is intended to accomplish. Silly rubes. Standing up for “liberty” and such. Better to trick them!
• Yay, democracy!
• Glenn Greenwald on the too-cozy relationship between the Washington press corps and the politicians they cover.
• Woman gets life in prison for asking 13-year-old-boy to touch her press breast and (allegedly — she denies the second part) have sex with her.

• Glee and copyright law.
• In Michigan, prosecutions for violating the law against “seducing an unmarried woman.”
• Here’s the story behind that recurring newspaper prop.
• Necessity is the mother of invention.
• I’m liking Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels more and more. Generally speaking, if you’re irritating the neocons, you’re doing something right.
• Another great World Cup ad, though with a decidedly different (and possibly NSFW) approach.
• Dog lovers: This video will make your morning.

I have a piece up at Slate using the Hank Skinner case to argue that in rape and murder cases, investigators should err on the side of conducting DNA tests on all biological material collected at the crime scene.

A friendly reminder as Californians go to the polls today: Included on GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s “public safety” advisory committee is Kern County, California DA Ed Jagels, the man who put 25 (at least) innocent people in prison. This presumably is the sort of person Whitman would have advising her on criminal justice issues should she become governor.

Oh, and while she was head of eBay, the company formally advocated throwing people who play online poker in jail.

I don’t know that her opponent today is any better. But those are two pretty good reasons not to vote for Whitman.

Blogging will remain light as I’m getting settled in. Hoping my remaining furniture will arrive in the next few days. So far, Nashville is great. I’m in a pretty great location, close to just about everything from downtown to the west side of the city. Lots more coffee shops to work from than D.C. I hope to have the Nashville blog fired up in a few weeks. I’ve decided to go with a cheap Bob Dylan pun for the title: Nashville Byline.

Here are your morning links:

• How the Obama health plan will make health care costs go down: threats! Was there any doubt it would eventually come to that? The only surprise is that it’s happening so soon.
• Study says lesbians make better parents. I haven’t seen the study itself, and for all I know it may indeed be flawed, but the I’m-sticking-my-fingers-in-my-ears reaction from the Concerned Women for America flack is amusing.
• Horrifying Photoshop gallery of people erotically kissing . . . themselves. Seriously. Don’t click.
• What pets can teach us about marriage. Seems to me the article overlooks that we readily forgive our pets because we know they don’t know any better. Or we blame ourselves for not training them properly. That doesn’t (usually!) apply to spouses and significant others.
• Well-timed photos of breaking waves.
• How many times do these “this generation will be the first to have a lower standard of living than their parents” people have to be wrong before people will stop taking them seriously?
• The economics of the World Cup.

I don’t know if it’s the “greatest ad I’ve ever seen,” but it’s pretty darned good.

• Off-duty Baltimore cop kills a man who grabbed his girlfriend’s butt. Pretty sure if a non-cop had done this he’d have been in jail while the police department sorted out what happened.
• Same prop newspaper shows up in multiple TV shows, movies.
• A visit to Georgia’s Stalin Museum.
• Eliot Spitzer: Abraham Lincoln would be ashamed of you for not wanting to pay more in taxes. The sneering condescension in that piece will raise your blood pressure about 10 points. Seems to be something about being born into money that makes people especially prone to lecture the rest of us about “shared sacrifice.”
• Missouri cops harass guy with history of recording Missouri cops.
• Nebraska crime scene investigator who manufactured evidence sentenced to “up to four years” in prison.

Obama’s commission to reduce the federal budget deficit . . . says it needs more money.

• If you had dreams of going dwile flonking in Britain this summer, well you can just forget it.
• Georgia prosecutor orders a defense lawyer off a death penalty case. Bonus: The state’s supreme court upheld the defendant’s conviction. Double bonus: Same prosecutor is now angling to become a judge.
• Puppycide: Cops shoot man’s medical dog while looking for a burglary suspect.
• Pretty sure this law isn’t going to have the effect its supporters think it will.
• Philly cops under fire for passing around gruesome accident scene photo.
• Nashville mayor thanks city jail inmates for saving the city’s water supply.
• Arizona continues its campaign to become the Mississippi of the West.

• I think they should get the money. And it’s the second time this has happened?
• Meta amusing.
• California NAACP needs a collective hearing test.
• South Carolina state senator needs a damned clue.
• So does the Family Research Council.
• The Economist looks at civil asset forfeiture.
• C-O-N-T-R-O-V-E-R-S-Y
• Gin!
• More evidence that illegal immigrants don’t cause crime.

• Have to say, it’s refreshing to see the grace and class with which everyone on the field handled themselves after the Galarraga perfect game fiasco. Too bad we can’t say the same for hysterical pundits and grandstanding politicians.
• North Korea develops superbraincellfountainofyouthhappyfuntimedrink.
• Obama touts 435,000 new jobs as “a sign that our economy is getting stronger by the day.”. Unfortunately, 411,000 were created by the Census.
• Terrific article from our current issue of Reason: The Persecution of Gilbert Arenas.
• Jack Shafer on sack tapping, vodka eyeballing, and little girl parties. Shafer sniffs out bullshit better than any media critic in the country. His column should be assigned reading at every journalism school in America.
• The drug war vs. Jamaica.
• The Washington Times weighs in with an editorial on the Anthony Graber case.

Try to guess the setting for this photo, taken at a record store in the 1960s:

More here.

The arrest of Maryland motorcyclist Anthony Graber is generating some considerable backlash against the state’s law enforcement officials. Graber was arrested and is being charged with felonies for posting video to YouTube of a cop who pulled his gun on Graber during a traffic stop. I’ve written about Graber here and here, and I discussed the case on WBAL’s Ron Smith show yesterday.

Cato’s David Rittgers has posted his own analysis of how officials are misinterpreting the state’s wiretapping law here. Rittgers also discussed the issue on D.C. NPR affiliate WAMU’s Kojo Nnamdi show.

And in a somewhat odd pairing, anarchist writer Wendy McElroy’s write-up of the issue was picked up by Gizmodo. That triggered a link and discussion thread at Slashdot.

It’s good to see this issue picking up steam. As I said on Smith’s show yesterday, there seems to be a big disconnect here between the generalpublic’s attitude on recording cops (the feedback I’ve received has been almost unanimous in support of ensuring that the practice is legal) and the attitudes of law enforcement officials (on-duty cops have a right to privacy) and politicians (generally a position of deference to law enforcement).

The issue is important not just in order to keep law enforcement transparent and accountable, but in that it raises fundamental questions about the nature of individual rights in a free society. The way Marylandofficials are interpreting the state’s wiretapping law, government agents—in this case on-duty cops— have privacy rights in public spaces that ordinary citizens don’t. But state employees acting as state employees don’t have rights. Citizens have rights. Governments and their employees have powers, and only to the extent that those powers have been delegated to them by the people they’re governing.

…by not treating them like public bathrooms.

• New PHD scandal rocks the professional sports world.
• Gene Healy on the chorus calling for Obama to don a cape and fix the oil spill.
• Ohio Supreme Court rules cops can issue speeding tickets based on a guess-timate.
• Just so I have this straight: The suicide rate at the Chinese Foxconn factory is no higher than the rate in the rest of the country, the workers are paid more than they’re paid in other factories, and they’re certainly better off than if the plants had never been built. But consumers should feel guilty about it all anyway?
• Albuquerque police department using its helicopter for the really important stuff . . . like busting parties where there’s underage drinking.

I’m still getting settled in my new place, so blogging will be light for a couple days.

The place is great. It’s in an old hotel that has been converted into lofts. It’s right on Music Row, so it’s where the big acts would stay in the 1950s and 60s when they were in town to record a new record. The building’s maintenance man is a retired long-time roadie for Kenny Rogers. My loft is apparently the suite where Jerry Lee Lewis usually stayed. So I am of course teaching myself “Great Balls of Fire” on the piano.

Daisy isn’t crazy about the hardwood floors, so I guess I’ll be getting some rugs. We’ll have to scope out some dog parks this weekend, too. The building includes a wonderfully ostentatious guitar-shaped swimming pool designed by honky tonk legend Webb Pierce. The first floor includes the old hotel room service kitchen. There’s a baker who uses the facility each morning to make bread for restaurants across the city. I am told if you’re nice to him he’ll give you a loaf. So that’s pretty great.

The location is really nice, too. I’m surrounded by studios, so it’s quiet. But it’s also just a few blocks (“stumbling distance,” you might say) from some great bars, restaurants, and live music.

I really had no particular reason for choosing Nashville, other than I’m a music lover and I’ve heard great things about the city. It was just time to get out of D.C.  Nice thing about having a portable job. But so far, I’m pretty happy with the choice. I’m thinking about starting a little side blog about the town and my process of discovering it. The general content would be a mix of photos, interviews, reviews, and a little digging into interesting stories around the city. So here’s a list of blegs for Nasvhillians, current and former: Suggestions on what to call the blog? People I should interview? Places to visit and write up? Must-do, but not as well known events in the city?

Should be back to regular blogging in a couple days.