I realize this is going to look like I’m just shilling for my future employer, but really, what the hell am I missing about this Huffington Post controversy?

A bunch of people agreed to write for Huffington Post for free. Or rather, in exchange for a platform that gave them access to a pretty large audience. They did this knowing full well that the goal of Huffington Post has always been to eventually become profitable. If they agreed to sit behind their keyboards and voluntarily churn out free content, how exactly have they been exploited? And on what basis could they possibly argue that those prior agreements should change now that the site has been purchased by AOL?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written for free over the years. It’s how you get a foot in the door. It has never occurred to me to go back and sue all of those publications. Come to think of it, I’ve been writing for all of you for free for the last nine years. Expect a visit from my process server soon.

• The terrorists win, chapter six bazillion.
• Oregon Supreme Court says state must prove reliability of drug dogs. More of this, please.
• Excellent dressing down of Norm Ornstein, one of Washington’s loathesome, self-appointed Wise Old White Men.
• Chicago public school bans students from bringing their own lunches.
• Would His Honor like a sandwich? Study: Hungry judges less likely to grant parole.
• Nassau County, NY: Don’t worry about all those crime lab mistakes. We’ll pay for retesting evidence with money from the secret police forfeiture fund. Oh, I guess you didn’t know about the police department’s secret forfeiture fund. Well we can’t tell you  anything more. That’s why it’s secret.
• John McCain lashes out at the Goldwater Institute for trying to prevent yet more corporate welfare for a professional sports team. It might be time for a loved to sit John McCain down on a comfortable couch and showed him some warm-hued brochures depicting happy-looking communities with names like “Sunset Valley” and “Dusky Pines”.

Greenville, South Carolina.

• John Thompson, the losing half of the Connick v. Thompson SCOTUS decision, has an op-ed in the New York Times.
• Something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Maureen Dowd?
• 16 great cities in human history.
• “Her storytelling ability and word usage (coming from me, who has written many bestsellers), is not at a very high level.”
• Another regulatory ADA mess.

This Wednesday, April 13th, at 12:15 pm, I’ll be giving a talk about police militarization at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor. The speech will be at 625 S. State St. in room 220.

The gig is sponsored by the Federalist Society and the American Civil Liberties Union. It’s open to the public.

Okay, calm down all you Alyona Minkovsky fans. They were merely discussing porn. And my boss Matt Welch pretty much destroys the nattering anti-porn crusader in this clip. I don’t know what data she’s citing at the end about a 20 percent spike in teens acting out sexual aggression on other teens, or some such nonsense. Crimes against minors, youth violence, and rape are all down over the last 20 years. Sounds like another made-up study.

Manhattan.

• The NY Times stirs panic over “Oxybabies”. If they turn out like all of those allegedly doomed “crack babies”, they’ll be okay.
• The baby squirrel clearly made a furtive gesture.
• Cats and dolphins playing together.
• Ohio man charged with barking at a police dog.
• The lingering, irrerversible effects of the 1990s predator youth panic. I think we’re starting to turn a corner on how the public views crime and punishment issues. But there needs to be some reckoning for the people who did the damage. The James Q. Wilsons, William Bennetts, and John Dilulios of the world have quite a bit to answer for.

• Atlanta cops appear to be lying about stopping Allen Iverson, impounding his car.
• Well okay, then.
• Oh come on, Reuters. Just use the word “taint”.
• Headline of the day.
• Runner-up.
• Now that I’ve been quoted in Adult Video News, I think can retire. I think this earns me some sort of achievement honor at my old fraternity.
• Vocabulary word of the day.
• In which Gary Busey gets into a heated argument with Meat Loaf (the man, not the comfort food) over some art supplies.

I somehow missed this when it actually happened. But it’s fantastic. Lou Reed and the Blind Boys of Alabama do the VU’s “Jesus” on Letterman. Thanks to reader Brenda Kelly for the suggestion.

• Interesting article on social networking sites and their role in police work.
• Nine-year-old kid gets pepper sprayed by cops.
• SCOTUS further restricts habeas claims in federal court. More here.
• DWI registry? Sure! Why not? I think the best strategy at this point may be to support as many registries as possible. Eventually, we’ll all be on one, thus rendering registries useless.
• I’ve written a bit before on the battle between the Cook County, Illinois DA’s office and the Northwestern University journalism class taught by David Protess, which has uncovered a number of wrongful prosecutions. It now looks as if things have taken an unfortunate turn. I only know what’s in the article, but it doesn’t make Protess look good. Which is too bad, because he has done some great work.

Here’s a final shot from the Cold Stares at the Hard Rock here in Nashville.

I’m absolutely loving my new camera. It takes a pretty stellar piece of equipment to pull off high-speed, low-light shots like this one. This little beauty does it marvelously, especially for a just-above-entry-level DSLR.

You all were so helpful with ideas last time, I figure I’ll see if you have any suggestions about a little planning quandary I’ve encountered for my trip to Eastern Europe next month.

Because I’m using frequent flier miles, I’ll be flying into Budapest to start my vacation, then flying out of Prague to end it. That’s not the most geographically optimal scenario. But it is what was available. And hey, a free flight is a free flight.

So here’s the quandary: I have 12 1/2 days. I’m thinking I’ll spend a few days in Budapest, and a few days in Prague. In between, I’d like to see as much of the Dalmatian Coast as I can fit in.

For those of you who live in, have lived in, or are familiar with this part of Europe, what’s the best way for me to do this? Renting a car would give me the most mobility, but driving all that way down and back would eat up a lot of time. Flying would be quicker, but I’m not sure how practical/expensive that would be. Maybe a train or bus be more convenient? And if I take a bus, what are the odds that it will plunge off a cliff? (I’m kidding about that last part. Sort of.)

Seems like the best option would be to rent a car in Budapest, drive one way, leave the car in whatever southernmost large-ish city I can get to, then fly back to Prague. But I’m not sure this is an option either, given that we’re talking about different countries.

Your suggestions, please!

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding more federal obscenity prosecutions. The letter was co-signed by more than 100 other senators and congressmen. Here’s an excerpt:

Last June, an important briefing in the Capitol outlined how pornography has changed, becoming more harmful, addictive, and available, and linked to other crimes.  Researchers, scholars, and other experts explained, for example, how today’s hardcore pornography is typified by extreme violence against women and how pornography consumption can contribute to sexual harassment and sexual violence.  Another expert warned that Internet adult pornography normalizes sexual harm to children, while another addressed the growing connection between pornography and sex trafficking…

Simply put, we know more than ever how illegal adult obscenity contributes to violence against women, addiction, harm to children, and sex trafficking.  This material harms individuals, families, and communities and the problems are only getting worse.

Hatch is full of crap. We don’t “know” any of these things. In fact, every conceivable social trend over the last 20 years obliterates the idea that porn is causing widespread societal harm.

The rise of the Internet in the mid-1990s made porn increasingly accessible to the point that today, just about everyone can watch people have sex damn-near any time of day, in every conceivable manner, in in every possible vareity. If Hatch and his colleagues are right, over the last 15-20 years, we should have seen a massive increase in the social ills listed in Hatch’s letter.

And in fact, every single one of these problems are trending in the opposite direction. And it isn’t even close:

• Sex crimes against children: Down 53 percent between 1992 and 2006.
• Abortion: The abortion rate has dropped by about 25 percent since 1993.
• Teen pregnancy: In 2009, teen pregnancy hit its lowest rate in the 70 years that the federal government has been tracking the statistic.
• Divorce: The U.S. divorce rate is at its lowest level since 1970.
• Domestic violence: The rate of reported domestic violence in the U.S. dropped by more than half between 1993 and 2004.
• Rape: The forcible rape rate in the U.S. has dropped from 41.1 per 100,000 people in 1990 to 28.7 in 2009. That latter figure is also an all-time low.

These numbers are overwhelming. What’s more, there are at least a couple of studies suggesting that the widespread availability of pornography is partially responsible for some of these trends, especially the drop in reported rapes.

Of course, like the activists pushing bullshit sex trafficking figures to shut down online escort ads, Hatch and his colleagues aren’t interested in actual data. This much is certainly true: There are substantially more people masturbating to pornography in America today than 20 years ago. And that’s really the only figure that matters to people like Hatch. (My favorite example of this line of thought: Concerned Women for America’s amusing attack on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue a couple years ago. Note that the article is titled “Do the Math”, yet doesn’t contain any actual math.)

Expect no one to actually challenge Hatch or his co-signers on any of the letter’s claims.

In other porn news, fallen CNN anchor Rick Sanchez—remember him?—is outraged that some politicians have received campaign contributions from a pornographer. He’s demanding they return the money. Clearly Rich Sanchez hates pornography. Given the figures above, I think there’s a much bigger story here: Why does Rick Sanchez want more women to be raped?

Here’s Reason.tv’s interview with porn maven (and Reason Foundation contributor) John Stagliano, discussing Stagliano’s federal obscenity trial:

• Okay, can we all now agree that this is starting to get pretty ridiculous? Ultimate election-year law: Come up with something that manages to give extra punishment to illegal immigrants, sex offenders, and tobacco companies at the same time.
• Puppycide. Cops chase suspected home burglar through a neighborhood, run into a private yard, shot and kill the owner’s dog.
• I write quite a bit about bad prosecutors here. So it’s worth noting and praising a DA who is doing things right.
• Drug dogs search two middle schools in Wisconsin. They alert 27 times, triggering searches of student lockers. All 27 were false alerts.
• Cop nearly takes out a cyclist with his car door, then chases her down and arrests her.
• Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s greatest hits.
• Speaking of famous and funny libertarians, here’s an interview with Doug Stanhope in the British GQ. I saw him in Nashville a few months ago. Highly recommend his show. I still have this image in my head of a prostitute relaying the vulgar advice Milton Friedman once gave her about how to expand her repertoire when the economy takes a turn for the worse.
• San Francisco decides privacy, free assembly are quaint notions of a bygone era.
• I suggest you all send this video to your congress-critter. I’m thinking it might be able to keep them occupied—and thus, from passing crappy legislation—for a good three or four months.
• Headline of the day.

Cold Stares at the Hard Rock. A little love for the drummers.

Here’s a shot from a Cold Stares concert a few weeks ago.

• The Oregon legislature Rickrolls you.
• A sad, familiar theme, as another innovative company  opens an office in D.C. Quotable: “None of this is rocket science. You make a judgment as to how much of a threat you face in D.C., you decide how much money you are willing to spend, and then you hire people based on your strategic sense.”
• Meanwhile, the FTC may be taking aim at Google.
• Jack White to produce a Jerry Lee Lewis live album.
• Bill Steigerwald wrote a great piece for Reason debunking Travels With Charlie, Steinbeck’s travelogue of “the real America”. Amusingly, Steinbeck scholars seem unconcerned that much of the nonfiction may have been made up: “I still feel there’s an authenticity there.” Sure. If it were fiction.
• Polk County, Iowa, Board of Supervisors considering a proposal that would pay them severance for losing elections.

Here’s another shot from the Jim Lauderdale show at Nashville’s Station Inn.

The most significant thing Mike Huckabee has lost: more than 100 pounds! The most significant thing Mike Huckabee has found: Jesus (I would presume). The most significant thing Mike Huckabee’s aides have destroyed so no one can ever find again: 12 years of computer records generated during his three terms as governor of Arkansas.

From Mother Jones:

Send a public records request seeking documents from his 12-year stint as Arkansas governor, as Mother Jones did recently, and an eyebrow-raising reply will come back: The records are unavailable, and the computer hard drives that once contained them were erased and physically destroyed by the Huckabee administration as the governor prepared to leave office and launch a presidential bid…

In February, Mother Jones wrote to the office of Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe seeking access to a variety of records concerning his predecessor’s tenure, including Huckabee’s travel records, calendars, call logs, and emails. Beebe’s chief legal counsel, Tim Gauger, replied in a letter that “former Governor Huckabee did not leave behind any hard-copies of the types of documents you seek. Moreover, at that time, all of the computers used by former Governor Huckabee and his staff had already been removed from the office and, as we understand it, the hard-drives in those computers had already been ‘cleaned’ and physically destroyed.”

He added, “In short, our office does not possess, does not have access to, and is not the custodian of any of the records you seek.”…

Some of Huckabee’s gubernatorial papers do still exist, records that were selected by his office and handed over to his alma mater, Ouachita Baptist University. Due to funding hang-ups and other delays, a spokeswoman for the university says the records won’t be accessible to the public for another two years. That is, after the conclusion of the 2012 presidential contest.

Seems like a guy who carries a gun, has access to some pretty powerful weaponry, and is accused of dealing drugs would present the sort of threat to officer safety that we’re told merits the use of a SWAT team; a middle-of-the-night, no-knock, forcible home entry; and exploding flash grenades.

So why do you suppose they went so easy on him?

Jim Lauderdale at the Station Inn, Nashville.

The L.A. Times delves a bit more into Justice Antonin Scalia’s concurring opinion in last week’s Connick v. Thompson Supreme Court decision, and finds that Scalia cited as authority a case in which SCOTUS sent an innocent man back to prison.

Scalia wrote a separate opinion citing the Youngblood case, which came to the court in Scalia’s second year on the bench.

The case began when a young boy was abducted outside a church carnival and brutally raped. He said his assailant was a black man with a bad right eye. Youngblood was a black man from the Tucson area who had a bad left eye. The boy picked him from a photo lineup.

But in a crucial mistake, the police failed to refrigerate the boy’s clothing and several swabs. Though Youngblood protested his innocence, forensic testing in the early 1980s could not determine whether he was or was not the perpetrator.

After two trials, he was convicted, but a state appeals court ordered him freed because the police had “permitted the destruction of the evidence” he needed to prove he was not guilty.

But the Supreme Court ruled the police and prosecutors had no duty to “preserve potentially useful evidence” for a defendant. The vote was 6 to 3, with Scalia in the majority.

Youngblood was sent back to prison in 1993, served his full term until 1998, and was later arrested because he had failed to register as a sex offender.

In 2000, the Tucson Police Department agreed to conduct DNA tests that were more sophisticated than what had been available earlier. They pointed to the true perpetrator, Walter Cruise, a black man with a bad right eye who was then in a Texas prison serving time for two sex assaults against children. He pleaded guilty to the Arizona rape.

In last week’s opinion, Scalia cited the Youngblood case in arguing that prosecutors are not required to offer all the evidence that might free a defendant. “We have decided a case that appears to say just the opposite,” he wrote. “In Arizona v. Youngblood, we held that unless a criminal defendant can show bad faith on the part of the police,” the defendant does not have a right to obtain all “potentially useful evidence.”

There is no duty under the Constitution for prosecutors to turn over test results “which might have exonerated the defendant,” Scalia said, quoting the Youngblood decision.

Scalia is often credited for his consistency. But consistent or not, there’s something pretty unsavory about a judicial philosophy that cites a ruling that we now know sent an innocent man back to prison as an authority to deny compensation to another innocent man who was nearly executed because the government hid the evidence that would have and eventually did exonerate him.

Scalia has written in the past that there’s nothing in the Constitution to prevent the government from executing an innocent person. He also apparently believes there’s no duty for the government to preserve or turn over evidence that would prove a person’s innocence. Finally, from Connick we learn he also believes that prosecutors and municipalities shouldn’t be held liable to people who are wrongly convicted and imprisoned, either, even if prosecutors knowingly concealed the evidence that would have exonerated them.

Those two decisions are based, respectively, on Scalia’s interpretation of the Constitution, and his intepretation of federal civil rights law, and you could make a strong case that neither conflicts with Scalia’s originalist view of the Constitution or his judicial philosophy about how to interpret the text of federal statutes. But in his time on the bench Scalia has also largely upheld and in some cases expanded the concept of absolute prosecutorial immunity. As former Bush Solicitor General Paul Clement pointed out in oral arguments for a case in 2009 is a concept that appears nowhere in federal law, common law, or the Constitution.

The net result of these decisions is an extraordinary faith in government officials—in this case prosecutors—to do the right thing, even when there are strong incentives to commit misconduct to win convictions, and little to no sanction for those who caught doing so—even those caught committing rather egregious violations of the rules of criminal procedure or of a suspect’s constitutional rights. And keep in mind here that there’s no question that there were constitutional violations in these cases. The question in these cases is whether the people whose rights were violated are entitled to damages. Or even to see or test the evidence that could exonerate them.

There’s a lot going on in this video. But first and foremost it’s a lesson in public choice theory, or the misconception that appointed experts and regulators always act in the interest of the public, or in the interests of science. Self-interest is just as prevalent in the public sector as it is in the private sector.

• Never leave your kid in the car, even for 30 seconds. Not because it’s dangerous, but because someone may call the cops on you.
• I blame gay marriage.
• “Patrol officers in some police agencies and the state highway patrol were evaluated and given pay increases, in part, according to how many traffic violations they issued to motorists. That can no longer be a basis for performance evaluation under the new law.” Rather unfortunate that this needs to be codified into law in the first place.
• The “bite-mark experts” fight back.
• The column itself is just inane. The police responses to it in the comments section are horrifying.
• Sheriff’s deputy resigns after shooting, killing a vicious chihuahua.