I’m back in the U.S., now, and should be back home in Nashville this evening. Many, many thanks to my guest-bloggers, who did a fantastic job. They may (or may not) be putting up sign-off posts throughout the day.

By the way, if you plan to fly internationally anytime soon, you might avoid coming back through Atlanta. You’ll actually have to go through the full TSA theater after you’ve de-planed and gone through customs. That’s right. Nudie scanners, take off the shoes, pat-down, the whole routine, even though you aren’t boarding another plane.

Here are some morning links for you:

• Mother Jones criticizes Ron Paul for wanting to end the federal war on drugs, and for not voting to require ISPs to monitor users’ Internet activity.
• Another odious IP bill moving through the Senate.
• “Sister Wives vs. Police Women of Broward County“
• The company formerly known as Blackwater is building an army for the United Arab Emirates government.
• Cliche tourist photos.
• Jon Stewart at his best, slamming Fox News over the dumb Common controversy.
• Some public sector lifeguards in California are pulling in $200,000 per year.
• Honolulu city council also now considering a law that would make it illegal to use a cell phone while walking.
• The sacrifices a good socialist makes for a life in public service: A half-million dollar (tax free) salary, an open-ended expense account, first class travel, and, at least until this week, a “get out of jail free” card for rape. There’s been justifiable condemnation of Strauss-Kahn’s behavior toward women, but I doubt we’ll see the sort of outrage over his lavish, taxpayer-funded lifestyle that we saw over, say, Jack Welch’s lavish but privately-funded lifestyle, despite the fact that Welch actually created jobs and wealth, while Strauss-Kahn only redistributes money, and usually in ways that have made developing countries poorer. The reason is all about intentions. Jack Welch is a greedy capitalist. Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been staying in $3,000/night hotel suites, flying first class, and sexually assaulting women in service of the world’s poor. So hey, cut the guy some slack.

Are the two compatible?

I ask this question not because I think that libertarians are lacking a basic human emotion (I don’t believe you are), but because politically, I think it needs explanation if libertarian thought is going to be able to reach a larger audience.

Let me explain….when reading a recent interview that Brian Dougherty from Reason did with Ron Paul, Paul said:

The biggest challenge for conservatives and libertarians is to convince people who think being libertarian means you have no compassion, and in politics you better have compassion.

He’s right, in politics you better have compassion. That’s especially true when unemployment is high(at 9% or above 15% if you look at the U6 that includes the underemployed and discouraged). There’s no possible way you can argue that every person in this country who doesn’t have a job right now is in that position because they’re lazy and want to mooch off of the government, or aren’t serious about finding work. It’s a tough time, and companies (the largest of which by the way are raking in record profits) are not hiring.

So how do you convince voters that you have their best interest in mind, and have compassion, and understand their needs if you don’t believe in welfare, unemployment benefits, social security, medicare, medicaid, etc? Unemployment in particular.

I’m genuinely interested in what you agitators have to say…how do you convince Americans that libertarians have compassion, while believing that the government shouldn’t give them any? If not to the government, where else do they turn?

Mike Riggs and I mentioned this in an interview on my program the other night, when Ron Paul officially declared his 2012 candidacy, if you care to check it out.

[Alyona]

As my farewell-as-guest-blogger post, let me contribute to the Kentucky v. King debate. In a few words: It’s a dumb decision, but it’s not such a big deal. This decision simply reaffirms the status-quo.

As best, the Court’s decision can be described as yet another nail in the coffin of the 4th Amendment. But thanks to the War on Drugs (starting with Alcohol Prohibition) it’s not like this is even the first or fifth nail.

And the logic of court has been consistent. When it comes to policing and warrantless searches, here are the rules:

1) Anything police come across is fair game. In other words, if police are there legally, they never have to close their eyes to something illegal (even if it’s not what they first came to look for).

2) “Exigent circumstances” give police the right to skip the warrant requirement.

3) Police are allowed to make honest mistakes if they’re acting in good faith.

4) Police have the rights to look for weapons that could be used against them.

5) The Court has no desire to read the minds and intentions of police officers (or concern themselves with how hard police knock). It just wants police behavior to be legal.

Taken individually, it’s hard to see any of these rules as unreasonable. Taken collectively, it means arrests are almost never, as the Founding Fathers intended, conducted with a court-issued warrant. It’s strange to me, since the 4th Amendment–unlike, say, the 2nd Amendment–is pretty unambiguous.

The Court says: “The text of the Fourth Amendment does not specify when a search warrant must be obtained.” Actually, in omission, it does: All the time. But the Court has long discarded that principle and declared the “unreasonable” word in the 4th Amendment means that “reasonableness” is the key. [Doesn’t this go against the 9th Amendment? But what do I know?]

Kentucky v. King affirms what the rules of the street have long been: destruction of evidence is an exigent circumstance that gives police the right to bust down a door without a warrant. If the people in the apartment hadn’t made sounds like they were covering up evidence (which they were), police wouldn’t have had the right to break down the door.

But here the court gets a little saucy: “Citizens who are startled by an unexpected knock on the door… may appreciate the opportunity to make an informed decision about whether to answer the door to the police.” Well ain’t that precious? “When law enforcement officers who are not armed with a warrant knock on a door, they do no more than any private citizen might do.” Wow. Having knocked hard on a few doors myself, I find that hard to believe, especially when the Court follows it up with this: “Occupants who choose not to stand on their constitutional rights but instead elect to attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame for the warrantless exigent-circumstances search that may ensue.” Oh, snap!

Here are the specifics:

Police officers set up a controlled buy of crack cocaine outside an apartment complex. Undercover Officer … radioed uniformed officers … that the suspect was moving quickly toward the breezeway of an apartment building, and he urged them to “hurry up and get there” before the suspect entered an apartment.
…
Just as they entered the breezeway, [uniformed officers] heard a door shut and detected a very strong odor of burnt marijuana. At the end of the breezeway, the officers saw two apartments, one on the left and one on the right, and they did not know which apartment the suspect had entered. Gibbons had radioed that the suspect was running into the apartment on the right, but the officers did not hear this statement because they had already left their vehicles. Because they smelled marijuana smoke emanating from the apartment on the left, they approached the door of that apartment.
…
One of the uniformed officers … banged on the left apartment door “as loud as [they] could” and announced, … “Police, police, police.” … “[A]s soon as [the officers] started banging on the door,” they “could hear people inside moving,” and “[i]t sounded as [though] things were being moved inside the apartment.” These noises, Cobb testified, led the officers to believe that drug related evidence was about to be destroyed.
…
Cobb then kicked in the door, the officers entered the apartment, and they found three people in the front room: respondent Hollis King, respondent’s girlfriend, and a guest who was smoking marijuana. The officers performed a protective sweep [and] saw marijuana and powder cocaine in plain view. In a subsequent search, they also discovered crack cocaine, cash, and drug paraphernalia.

Police eventually entered the apartment on the right. Inside, they found the suspected drug dealer who was the initial target of their investigation.

Now it’s one thing to think, as I do, that the War on Drugs is futile and a very unproductive use of police resources, but in this case it all comes down to whether or not the officers “created their own exigency” by ordering the occupants to open the door. The Court somehow bases its decision on the hard to believe idea that the officers never said, “Open the door.” Now I wasn’t there, but I’d bet, “POLICE POLICE POLICE,” was quickly followed by “OPEN THE F*CKING DOOR OR WE’LL BUST IT DOWN!” The court, eight out of nine majestic justices, respectfully disagrees.

–Peter Moskos
______________

This is my last post here. I don’t have to go home, but I can’t stay here. But before I go, let me thank Radley Balko for inviting me to be a guest blogger. It’s a good man indeed who invites a former cop to have his say in what is an excellent but (in my humble opinion) fairly anti-cop blog. So kudos to you, Radley! And thanks to all of you for putting up with me. Personally, I’m looking forward to Radley’s return!

But if you’ve enjoyed my posts, feel free to keep reading me at Copinthehood.com. Even better, consider buying my new book: In Defense of Flogging (buying Cop in the Hood, my old book, is OK, too)! Both make great summer reading.

Good night. Drive safely. You’ve been a great audience. And don’t forget to tip your waitress.

[UPDATE: I see that Dave Krueger wrote about this same issue just moments before I hit "publish." Please enjoy a second helping of 4th Amendment absurdity.]

Much thanks to Radley for the opportunity to blog here at the Agitator over the past several days, and to the Agitator community for all the lively and thoughtful discussion in the comments section. I was apprehensive at first to start blogging here, since criminal justice is definitely not my beat, but I suppose Radley knew that when he asked me to guest-blog, and he must have had his reasons for wanting to expose his readers to my style of femmi-libertarian thought. I thank those of you who took time to reach out through my blog, twitter, or email to express support or encouragement. I had fun, I hope you all did too.

Now then, onto business: It seems that police do not need a warrant to kick in a door if they smell marijuana and suspect the occupants are destroying evidence. The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that as long as cops knock loudly, announce themselves, and then hear the sound of evidence being destroyed, it’s totes gravy for them to kick in the door and enter.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority, said police officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches by kicking down a door after the occupants of an apartment react to hearing that officers are there by seeming to destroy evidence.

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the majority had handed the police an important new tool.

“The court today arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement in drug cases,” Justice Ginsburg wrote. “In lieu of presenting their evidence to a neutral magistrate, police officers may now knock, listen, then break the door down, nevermind that they had ample time to obtain a warrant.”

Justice Alito asserted that this decision only concerns the suppression of evidence when the police themselves create exigent circumstances. According to the Times, Alito wrote that the police merely knocking on a door and announcing themselves would not create a circumstance that would pressure an occupant to destroy evidence. However, police knocking on the door and threatening to enter without a warrant (or in an otherwise unlawful manner) would. But then, doesn’t this decision essentially grant police the power to do exactly that? Knock, announce themselves, hear literally anything that could be construed as “destroying evidence,” and then enter without a warrant and search for evidence of illegal activity? I’m no legal scholar, so if there’s a logical explanation for such Kafkaesque legal reasoning, I’m all ears.

In any case, this decision leaves a lot of discretion up to police to judge which actions sound like “destroying evidence” and which do not. Does flushing the toilet count? What if the resident had actually had Chipotle for dinner? Isn’t just continuing to smoke or consume marijuana technically “destroying evidence?” Does this allow for cops to announce their presence, wait fifteen seconds, claim they can still smell marijuana, and then break down the door?

[Libby]

In an 8-1 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cops do not need a search warrant to enter a home if, after banging on the door, they hear sounds that suggest evidence is being destroyed.

Residents who “attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame” when police burst in, said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Here is my translation:  “Cops who wish enter a home without a warrant may now do so by claiming after the fact that they heard the sound of evidence being destroyed”.

Because, there is no such thing as the sound of evidence being destroyed.  It’s not like a gun shot or a scream or loud music.

In a lone dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she feared the ruling in a Kentucky case will give police an easy way to ignore the 4th Amendment. “Police officers may not knock, listen and then break the door down,” she said, without violating the 4th Amendment.

Is anyone still under the delusion that the government is there to protect your freedom?

RIP Fourth Amendment.

Thanks to Agitator reader Buddy Hinton for the link.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

So, while witnesses reported that a white man robbed a jewelry store, who did the cops arrest?  A black man.

Hamilton, Ontario police arrested Michael Dixon as he was getting off a Go Transit bus.  Yes, that would be the same bus he was riding on when the robbery occurred.  It only took the cops three days to figure out their mistake and release the guy.   The officers pleaded guilty to “misconduct” (similar to crime, except committed by police).

Not a U.S. story, but it reminds me of Brickbats, one of my favorite features in Reason Magazine.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

Why is it called crime when other people do it, but “misconduct” when a cop does it?

Anyway, I have been seeing story after story about this and the splash seems to be getting bigger by the day.

In San Diego, ten police officers are currently accused of serious misconduct in unrelated cases that include allegations of rape, stalking, drunk driving, domestic abuse, and sexual assault.

In response, the chief of police has made public apologies and set up a confidential hotline.   Of course, everyone is acting all surprised that these activities were taking place within police ranks.  How could  this have gone on undetected?  Well this little tidbit might provide a clue:

Shortly after Bill Lansdowne became police chief in 2003 he quietly disbanded an anticorruption unit assigned with proactively investigating the kind of criminal allegations that have recently stained the department’s public image.

And the chief has no plans to bring it back.  However,  among other remedies, he does plan to increase ethics training for offiers because, you know, how else are cops going to know that stalking, rape, and drunk driving are wrong?

If you’re wondering why cops might behave like this, I mean aside from the fact that their fellow officers routinely cover up for them when they break the law, the answer, according to the mayor and chief of police, is simple:

In a story published by the Union-Tribune on Friday, Mayor Jerry Sanders endorsed the plan and said he continues to fully support Lansdowne as the city’s police chief. He described the rash of incidents as an embarrassment and echoed Lansdowne’s assertion that it was correlated to stress among officers.

Reading any of the stories linked to in this post will probably make your blood boil, but only because you’re heard so much of it before.  On the other hand, John Q. Public, probably thinks the problem has been discovered and will be solved forthwith.  End of story.

At least some cops are actually being charged with crimes.  I guess there was just no way to avoid that (or you can be sure they would have).

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

I wasn’t at the best angle to fully capture the uplifted leg. But you get the idea.

Good dog.

…Cop?

The NY Daily News isn’t saying he is, but the cops aren’t denying it either.

Having blogged about sex issues at sexhysteria.com for over a year, I can tell you that Craigslist has been a very prominent villain in the current crusade against prostitution.   The mainstream press, many state attorneys general (not to mention Congress), and numerous prostitution “rescue” organizations joined that lynch mob until Craigslist finally closed it’s adult services section, after which the entire fiasco mostly dropped out of public attention.  Except for the Craigslist killer, of course.  The murders are now more commonly referred to as the Long Island killings.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

Just thought I’d let you know that National Police Week starts today.

I didn’t see anything about a National Victims of Police Misconduct Week, though.  Nothing about a Puppycide Week, either.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

They say the cops are harassing them and retaliating when they file complaints with the police department’s Ethics and Integrity Unit.

They marched from the police station to the government center and gave a letter of concern to the mayor who said, “I have the highest faith in our department and chief officer who are asked to do a very difficult job.”

Not exactly a big news item, but I think it’s worth mentioning when people actually get out on the street and embarrass the police department.  For the most part, they don’t have many other options, if the department decides to ignore their complaints.  I hope their next step, after the mayor blows them off (his statement seems to already have done that), is go to the FBI.

Th clip is from wtnh.com.  Alternate coverage is here.

On the other hand, if you’re in a big city on the other end if the country, the police chief might actually issue a public apology and set up a complaint hotline before continuing with the status quo.

From what I’ve seen in other cities (at least the big ones that get on national news), even if you do get a federal investigation, they will on fix the problem temporarily before the city degenerates right back to where it was.  Examples are New Orleans, Atlanta, New York, and Los Angeles.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

Here, the delightfully ambient city of Dubrovnik. A couple people have asked for higher-rez photos. I’ll post larger versions to Picasa once I get back to Nashville. A couple people also emailed asking more details on the logistics of the trip. I’ll post all that, too.

I’ll also write more about Dubrovnik later. There’s much for a libertarian to love about the place. For now, I need to pack for a long trek home.

Lexy is often employed for various photographic experiments, testing film, lenses, etc.  This was a bounce flash test.  When I was done he made me play with him for 45 minutes.  Huskies seem to be an infinite bundle of energy.

I printed and framed 16x20s of these and have them hanging on the walls.

Thankfully, he’s starting to add a bit more flesh over his bones.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

It was Disability Awareness Day at Fenway Park and an autistic man was singing the national anthem. Everything was going fine, until he suddenly started to struggle half-way through. It only took half a beat for the whole stadium to join in and help him through the rest. As one friend put it, “I’m convinced that if people were just bigger baseball fans there wouldn’t be nearly as much war, poverty or oppression.” I’m inclined to agree. Now if Boston could just win a game. . .

[Kate]

Maybe the title is wrong.   Given the lack of prosecutions, I guess police misconduct must not really be a crime.

This is from back in March, but I found it when I came across a May update.   A San Francisco public defender is releasing video of cops in civilian clothes caught raiding hotel rooms without the niceties of search warrants and they took property without logging it as evidence.  The articles go on to say that the video contradicts the police reports.   I’m stunned.

But the part I found interesting is a later article reporting that the police chief is pissed off at the public defender for fucking up his cases.

Police Chief Jeff Godown held a press conference Thursday [3/31/11] to “push back” against Public Defender Jeff Adachi over dozens of dropped drug cases where surveillance video is the onus for dismissal.

Godown said Adachi has painted the police department with a wide brush and despite wider use of video in apartments and by the general public, police will continue standard protocol.

Yeah, you tell ‘em, Chief! You’re not going to let no little stinkin’ rash of dismissals rain on your parade.

Good on the public defender for standing up to the cops on a pretty large scale.  To me that would be about the same as standing up to the Mafia, so I don’t take that kind of courage lightly (especially when it’s someone who doesn’t stand to gain much, beyond his usual paycheck, for doing it).

On a side note, further south in San Diego, there have been so many police misconduct cases lately that they’ve established a hotline.  As we all know, a hotline is a mechanism for blocking complaints from reaching the people they are directed to.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

So as I wrote a few days ago, the coastal road from Split to Dubrovnik in Croatia is incredible. For four hours, you’ll snake around mountains that host crumbling ruins, fortresses, and sculptures etched into their facades; pass through dozens of gorgeous coastal towns; zip past plummeting cliffsides, some of which you’ll pass over with just a few feet to spare; look down on quaint fishing villages; and pass by bucolic mandarin groves—all the while struggling not to die in a spectacular wreck because you were gazing off across a crystalline Adriatic Sea and missed a curve. (I bought some grappa from the roadside stand pictured below. It’s delicious. But Jesus, what a hangover.)

There’s a spot every quarter mile or so where you can pull over to take in the view, but it took me about an hour to work up the nerve to do it. It’s a wee bit terrifying to pull over at a spot nestled up to the edge of a 2,500 foot drop-off as other cars whiz past.

I’ve been on a few great drives, including several in Alaska, and several through the Patagonia (though I haven’t yet done the Pacific Coast Highway). I don’t remember a drive that topped this one.

Looks like I lost The Week‘s “columnist of the year” award to Peggy Noonan at the Wall Street Journal. But I also found out last night that I’m a finalist for the L.A. Press Club’s “Journalist of the Year” category (link goes to a PDF).

Opening to the movie, Inside Man – - -  (Chaiyya Chaiyya, by A.R. Rahman). Unfortunately, the aspect ratio is screwed up.

Or, if you prefer, the original dance masterpiece from the Bollywood movie, Dil Se (which is the one I like best).

This is probably the best song to come out of Bollywood ever. In fact, they will probably never beat it.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

You’ve got to admit, there’s just something hilarious about an “extensive stash of porn” being found in Bin Laden’s compound.

For some reason it just has me asking so many questions…..

• Was the porn Osama’s, or did it belong to his 3 wives that were couped up in the compound with him and probably bored as shit?
• Would it have been way more embarrassing if they had found something more specific to American culture, say a box set of Seinfeld, like Adam Serwer asked earlier today?
• He had no internet in the compound….so I’m assuming he got the porn through his courier. Does that mean it was old? 80′s softcore? in English? Arabic? Japanese???

Finally, if you feel like giggling at terrorist porn habits with me today….I’d love to hear some of your best titles for what Mr. Al Qaeda may have had in his stash.

“Debbie Does Abbottabad”?

“Taliban Titties”?

“Al Qaeda Your Cave”?

Can’t wait to hear what you come up with! And if you choose to refrain, I completely understand, but it’s been a long week, so don’t judge me.

[Alyona]

This ought to get everyone’s panties in a wad. In Indiana, If the cops want to come into your house, you’d better let them regardless of whether they’re doing it legally or not.

Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.

In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer’s entry.

And it pretty much deteriorates from there:

“We believe … a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,” David said. “We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest.”

Yeah, if there’s anything we can’t have, it’s the escalation of violence by people who mistakenly think they still have rights under the new modern interpretation of the Fourth Amendment.

Thanks to Agitator reader Laura Victoria for posting this link in another thread.

[Posted by Dave Krueger]

I know how everyone has been clamoring for more posts about women’s issues (that was a joke, although those posts have been quite popular),  so after reading a comment posted by maybelogics I’ve decided to post one more.

People can call themselves whatever they want, but the term “feminist” now seems to be nothing but a meaningless badge.  I know of very few women who call themselves feminists without a mile long list of qualifiers.  And yet, I know very few women who are willing to disassociate themselves from the term like Agitator fan maybelogics did in her comment.

Wikipedia lists three broad historical historical groups of feminists:  First Wave Feminists (probaby dead now), Second Wave Feminists (began in the 1960s), Third Wave Feminists (began in the 1990s), and Post Feminist Feminists (seriously!).

Then it names a few more precise divisions:   Liberal Feminism, Radical Feminism, Socialist Feminism, Marxist Feminism, Anti-Pornography Feminism, Sex-Positive Feminism, Anarcha-Feminism, Separatist Feminism, Libertarian Feminism, Individualist Feminism, Gender Feminism, Lesbian Feminism, Conservative Feminism (really!), Ecofeminism, Cultural Feminism, Christian Feminism, Islamic Feminism, Jewish Feminism, Wiccan Feminism, Black Feminism, Chicana Feminism, Postmodern Feminism, Post-Structural Feminism, Lipstick Feminism, and “other”.

If that weren’t enough, I’d be willing to bet most readers could add even more to the list. For example, I’ve heard the term “classical feminism” and I know Maggie McNeil uses the term neofeminism.

In a way, I can see how a woman might find it difficult to disengage from the feminist label given that there are so many flavors that it seems unlikely that any woman could claim that not a single one applies to her.   It’s a bit like expanding the meaning of the term mental illness to include everyone on the planet (and no, I am not trying to imply that feminism is a mental illness).

Despite all the different meanings, people still usually use the single word “feminist’ when they discuss the topic.   When I was blogging on sexhysteria.com, I actually disliked using the term feminist because it was too broad, and yet adding a qualifier made it too narrow.

I look forward with some anxiety to the comments, because when a man raises the topic of feminism, it can often be a lot like hitting himself in the nuts with a hammer.  His only thought afterwords is, why the fuck did I do that?

Anyway, here is the question:   Hasn’t the term “feminist” become so ambiguous as to be essentially useless?

The three-hour drive from Plitivce Lakes National Park to Split starts by weaving through some charming rural villages, where you’re as likely to find yourself driving behind a sputtering cow trailer as you are to find an impatient Mercedes riding your bumper. Roadside signs warn you not to wander off into some of the the surrounding meadows, due to land mines from the war that may still be active.

The terrain then morphs from green and garden-y to rocky, hot, and flat, and stays like that for a couple hours. Then you’ll start to see the early sprawl of Split. It’s ugly for a bit, then gets hilly as you start to climb the Dinaric Alps. Finally, you’ll emerge from a long tunnel onto a soaring ridge, giving you a tremendous view of Dalmatia’s largest city. There are actually two ridges, and together they cup the town in a deep bowl, making it look a bit like a giant stone hand spilling the city out to the sea.

Split is part industrial, part tourist. I only had lunch there, but you could probably kill an entire afternoon, and perhaps an evening—I’d imagine it has a pretty decent nightlife. The main attraction is the old town, which dates back a couple thousand years. This is where Diocletian retired after a distinguished 20 year reign that included slaughtering thousands of Christians, attempting (and failing) recorded civilization’s first government-imposed price controls, proclaiming himself to be the son of Jupiter, and generally sowing the seeds of the Roman empire’s eventual collapse. Nice work, Diocletian!

The skeleton of his palace frames half of Split’s old-town. Parts of it are still intact, and you can tour them. But parts have been converted into waterline cafes, restaurants, and businesses, which built around and into the ruins. Which is pretty cool. Your bank lobby or coffee shop might include an authentic Roman arch across its doorway, or  a randomly placed (and now strictly decorative) ruin support column.

Oh, and if the signs into town are to be believed, Split is also home to real-life bikini car wash. Sorry, I didn’t go, so no photos.

The aerial shots below are from the Split bell tower, which is definitely worth the $2 ticket.

There’s some good news from the marijuana policy front this week. First, Maryland has signed a bill protecting medical marijuana patients’ rights. 420 Times notes that the bill doesn’t establish a regulated dispensary system, but it does grant better protections for medical marijuana patients, making it the “15th and a half state” to pass such laws.

Maryland patients aren’t the only ones breathing sighs of relief this week. The Delaware Senate passed a medical marijuana bill that is expected to be signed by Gov. Jack Markell:

Under the new law, patients 18 and over with cancer, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s, PTSD, multiple sclerosis, or ALS would be permitted to use marijuana to treat their conditions with a recommendation from their doctor. While the law would not allow home cultivation, it does establish a regulated non-profit dispensary system to provide safe access for patients. There would initially be one dispensary in each of Delaware’s three counties.

The Delaware bill is an especially cool development, as they are setting up a dispensary system despite intimidation from the DEA, which has spent the last month trying to scare every state into reconsidering its marijuana laws. It’s great to see state lawmakers standing up to federal bullies!

[Libby]

UPDATE: Delaware Gov. Markell signed the bill into law.

A friend, Dara, politely disagreed with what I had to say on my Zombie Marie Curie post the other day. You can read her post here. Here’s an excerpt:

It never really makes sense to me when people say that the “hard battles” of feminism are the battles for legal equality, the ones that have already been won … By definition, if women have been fighting for equality for decades, and have achieved equality in some, mostly legal, regards, and have not achieved equality across the board, then the battles that haven’t been won yet are the hard battles.

We can argue over the “hard” battles being legal or cultural. I tend to think changing cultural norms just takes a lot of time, whereas changing the law, particularly when that legal system has historically enshrined and reinforced inequality, is definitionally going to be the harder fight. But I’m open to discussion on that point. Also, far from taking a “cheap shot” at social justice academics, I was directing my message towards today’s 20-year-olds who are interested in social justice. I’m saying: don’t graduate college and become just another freelance feminist writer, or a struggling, adjunct academic. Anyone can blog part-time. Become a biologist, or a nurse, or an educator, or a construction manager, whatever, and make feminism an avocation, a passion, a worldview. Don’t fall into the belief that, unless you have a fancy graduate degree, what you say and think and do won’t influence people. Embrace your ideals, be kind to others, live your life with passion, try to kick as much ass as possible in your career, (figuratively speaking!) and the people around you will take notice. (And if you happen to want to be a mathematician or a physicist, I support the HELL out of you, bad  post-doctoral job market notwithstanding).

[If you need a short break from reading, please enjoy this photo of otters holding hands.]

Now that that’s out of the way, the main point I want to make about this whole libertarian-feminism-fusion thing is this: I trust individuals to try to subvert, undermine, or beat an unjust system in their own  private ways. I trust this odd, endearing nature of humans – pursuing their self-interest, interacting when it’s mutually beneficial – to affect their neighbor’s hearts and minds much more than I trust the ability of an intellectual movement to somehow “win” a culture war. While organization is necessary to change a policy, merely changing a policy or a rule doesn’t change minds. Individuals doing their thing, normalizing taboos, that changes minds, albeit more slowly than I’d like.

That’s what I lean towards believing, anyway (I know the above was a little abstract, abstruse even). But obviously, it’s up for debate. I may just be an idealistic libertarian, here, too. Agitatortots, what say you? Do you think social change is best achieved through an organized movement, or through individuals going about their lives, privately subverting an “unjust” cultural norm? Are the two mutually exclusive? How much did Queer Studies help the gay rights movement over the last 30 years, versus gays just moving in next door and showing us that they were, in fact, pretty normal? Do libertarians have a chance at changing policy through the movement, or should we say screw it and become agorists?

[Libby]

The San Bernandino County Sheriff’s department said that the 43 year old, 350 pound Allen Kephart became \”combative and uncooperative\”, so they used a taser on him, he passed out, and now he’s dead.

The LA Times points out that his father, a 20-year member of the San Bernardino County sheriff’s Rangers volunteer unit, doesn’t think they treated his son like someone who just ran a stop sign, but committed murder.

He said witnesses told him that the deputy slammed his son to the ground. His son was Tasered about eight times by two deputies, said Jack Kephart, who dismissed assertions that his son was combative with the deputies.

“He’s never raised a hand in 43 years. He goes to church three times a week. He does the audio for the church in Crestline,” Jack Kephart said. “He works three jobs. He’s never had a drink. Never done drugs. Never smoked. Never done nothing.”

Not that taser happy cops shouldn’t be criticized for simply being taser happy….but the father also brings up a good point about his son’s medical condition…..a 350 pound man, is more likely than not going to have high blood pressure, or any heart condition, and probably more likely to die from being zapped with electricity than someone in good health.

The irresponsibility with which law enforcement officials  shoot off their taser guns does make them murderers.

Not to mention cowards when they go after 10 year old girls and 72 year old grandmothers, and now, obese citizens.

I also lived in Lake Arrowhead, CA for 10 years when growing up as a child, and Blue Jay is a part of that area. It is by no means a dangerous place where police should be expecting armed criminals to hop out of cars at routine traffic stops.

[Alyona]